00:00:08
in January
00:00:10
1973 a young woman went missing in AC
00:00:13
quied Michigan farming
00:00:16
Community when Da magar was abducted it
00:00:20
was unnerving it was just chilling could
00:00:23
something like this happen in broad
00:00:25
daylight that's impossible in this
00:00:28
area 6 years years later a 16-year-old
00:00:32
high school student was murdered in
00:00:34
similar circumstances just 40 m away it
00:00:38
was strange the location where her body
00:00:41
was found you could almost superimpose
00:00:43
on top of dawn magar's scene where her
00:00:46
body was found Gerald Wingard followed a
00:00:49
pattern he would troll rural towns and
00:00:52
college campuses for young women to
00:00:54
abduct to rape sometimes to kill he
00:00:58
would get into his vehicle and he would
00:01:00
go cruising he was out looking for a
00:01:04
victim Winger got away with murder for
00:01:07
three decades but in the end his
00:01:10
horrific past caught up with
00:01:13
him this was one of the first cases in
00:01:16
the
00:01:17
world that DNA evidence played a factor
00:01:23
when Gerald Winger was at last brought
00:01:25
to Justice he was finally recognized as
00:01:28
one of the world's most most evil
00:01:32
[Music]
00:01:42
[Music]
00:01:52
[Music]
00:01:56
killers in 1973 Dawn and Don mag
00:02:00
were high school sweethearts married
00:02:02
with a one-year-old son when Dawn
00:02:05
vanished while out shopping the
00:02:07
close-knit community of aaso Michigan
00:02:10
was terrified where she was abducted
00:02:12
Groceries on the ground truck door open
00:02:15
foggy night and everything we knew
00:02:17
something really bad had happened it was
00:02:21
an unsolved case for so many years it
00:02:23
was just part of the local lore whoever
00:02:26
this is they're still out there and who
00:02:28
knows who else they've abducted and
00:02:31
killed evil had invaded this rural idial
00:02:36
Dawn's friends and family wouldn't see
00:02:38
peace or Justice for almost 30
00:02:43
years this killer Story begins on the
00:02:46
15th of January
00:02:48
1941 in a small town just 130 mi from
00:02:52
oaso with the birth of Gerald Leroy
00:02:57
Winger he was from Niles Michigan which
00:02:59
is which is almost to the Indiana border
00:03:02
Winger was one of five children in a
00:03:04
close ordinary middleclass family well
00:03:07
we know if win's background wouldn't
00:03:09
really suggest the things that were were
00:03:12
to happen later in his life you can hide
00:03:16
in a big family and perhaps you're
00:03:18
you're not under so much attention in
00:03:22
high school he was an athlete he was
00:03:24
considered fairly
00:03:26
intelligent uh well-liked he seemed like
00:03:30
the All-American boy actually had a
00:03:31
football
00:03:33
scholarship in June 1959 aged just 18
00:03:37
Wingard married his first wife an
00:03:40
18-year-old girl from his
00:03:42
hometown a few months later he enrolled
00:03:45
at University and the couple moved to
00:03:47
Anne
00:03:48
Arbor he went to the University of
00:03:50
Michigan he was to all intents and
00:03:52
purposes hard working late in
00:03:56
1960 this upright University student
00:04:00
is uh involved in a car accident with
00:04:03
his then partner which puts an end to
00:04:06
his athletic
00:04:07
career in the wake of the car accident
00:04:10
the couple have a baby a little boy but
00:04:14
the tragedy continues to strike them and
00:04:18
after 7 months the baby dies
00:04:25
unexpectedly 4 months later in July 1961
00:04:29
a fellow student at the University
00:04:32
suffered a hallowing attack uh young
00:04:35
woman and her boyfriend the young woman
00:04:37
was blind they were uh traveling in his
00:04:42
car uh they decided to stop on the side
00:04:45
of a rural road and spend a little time
00:04:48
together while they were sitting there
00:04:51
they noticed a car drive by them kind of
00:04:54
slow the next thing they know a man gets
00:04:57
out of the driver's side of the car
00:05:00
and they can see that he's got a rifle
00:05:01
in his hand he asked the girl to tie up
00:05:05
the boy but she couldn't because she was
00:05:06
blind so he ordered her back into the
00:05:08
car and he tied up the boy he then
00:05:11
proceeded to take her purse take his
00:05:14
wallet take his keys moved some stuff
00:05:18
from the vehicle that he was in into
00:05:20
their car and then he put the girl into
00:05:23
the car and drove off with her as a
00:05:25
19-year-old blind girl at that time
00:05:28
taken from her boyfriend taken to an
00:05:30
unknown location she had no idea where
00:05:32
she was at and then brutally
00:05:37
raped having brutalized the young woman
00:05:40
the attacker left her tied up in a ditch
00:05:43
next to a remote Country Road he told
00:05:46
her to walk away and she struggled in
00:05:50
this rural area to get away from him and
00:05:53
she hid and when she knew that he was
00:05:56
finally gone and likely not coming back
00:05:59
she wored worked her way somehow back
00:06:01
out to the road and flagged down a
00:06:02
motorist that that brought her
00:06:06
care when police returned to the scene
00:06:09
they found the woman's boyfriend still
00:06:11
alive and an incriminating piece of
00:06:14
evidence they find that the car that the
00:06:17
suspect left there um appeared to be his
00:06:20
own car and it was Gerald wert's car he
00:06:24
told somebody about what he' done ended
00:06:27
up going to a lawyer and he was advised
00:06:28
to go to the police and hand himself in
00:06:30
which is what he did but he didn't hand
00:06:33
himself in out of any remorse or guilt
00:06:34
or shame or anything like that cuz he
00:06:36
basically said but I had a black hour I
00:06:38
can't remember anything that I did yeah
00:06:41
I'll accept it was me but I have no
00:06:44
memory of it he was charged with the
00:06:47
armed robbery and the sexual assault
00:06:50
tried before a judge Wingard pled
00:06:53
Insanity several experts argued he was
00:06:56
suffering from a skitso personality
00:06:58
disorder
00:07:00
this would certainly explain those
00:07:05
behaviors of violence and and the rapes
00:07:08
and would certainly have an impact on
00:07:11
the rest of his life and the way that he
00:07:13
was going to
00:07:14
behave in spite of Wing's protestations
00:07:17
of his innocence he was convicted of the
00:07:21
rape and robbery and sent to jail for
00:07:24
eight
00:07:25
years his wife divorced him shortly
00:07:29
after after his
00:07:33
incarceration freed in
00:07:36
1969 Wingard quickly remarried had a
00:07:39
daughter and forged a career in the
00:07:42
relatively new field of computer
00:07:44
programming the family settled in the
00:07:47
Lancing area of Michigan just a
00:07:49
30-minute drive from the small city of
00:07:52
aaso a place that was struck by tragedy
00:07:55
on the 27th of January
00:07:58
1973 with The Disappearance of
00:08:00
20-year-old Local woman Dawn magar she
00:08:04
was at home in chessine with her husband
00:08:06
and one-year-old child she left chestin
00:08:09
to come to aaso to do some shopping once
00:08:12
she got here she started having car
00:08:16
trouble so she called up her
00:08:19
father-in-law and made arrangements to
00:08:21
borrow his truck so she could finish her
00:08:24
errands so she went over to his house
00:08:27
got the truck and then from there she
00:08:29
made a couple of stops and then she went
00:08:33
to a plaza just north of aaso called the
00:08:36
Yankee
00:08:37
Plaza that was a pretty small shopping
00:08:40
center it only had like maybe three
00:08:43
stores or businesses in it author Billy
00:08:47
Bates was a child living in the aaso
00:08:50
area in
00:08:52
1973 we were in that shopping plaza all
00:08:56
the time and so when this happened when
00:08:59
Dawn magar was abducted I remember my
00:09:01
mom talking about it cuz she was a young
00:09:04
mom
00:09:05
herself she stopped in there to do some
00:09:07
shopping at the store when she didn't
00:09:10
make it back home her husband started
00:09:12
getting concerned and then he eventually
00:09:14
came into a was to file a missing
00:09:16
person's
00:09:17
report she was not the type of person
00:09:21
you would expect to go missing
00:09:24
immediately as soon as she was reported
00:09:26
really she was seen as a high-risk
00:09:28
victim this is is totally out of
00:09:31
character they found her father-in-law's
00:09:34
truck out in the strip mall parking lot
00:09:38
the door was open the items that she
00:09:40
bought were in the vehicle there was a
00:09:43
couple of keys from the keychain uh one
00:09:46
laying on the floor in the truck and one
00:09:48
laying on the ground outside the truck
00:09:50
early on they they felt that there was
00:09:52
some foul play involved and they they
00:09:55
started acting on that
00:09:58
accordingly La was known in the area as
00:10:01
a popular young woman from a close
00:10:04
family she grew up in corana and she had
00:10:07
two
00:10:08
brothers uh she lived at home with her
00:10:10
mother and father who were very loving
00:10:13
um she did well in high school she had a
00:10:15
lot of friends well-liked person just a
00:10:18
real downto Earth friendly Midwestern
00:10:21
girl you know journalist Tony hornus got
00:10:25
to know daor at High School in Corona
00:10:30
she was gorgeous strawberry blonde
00:10:33
little little freckly I would
00:10:36
say she was in the group with a with a
00:10:39
bunch of us you know parties after
00:10:41
football games and you know just that
00:10:43
kind of thing school
00:10:45
activities Dawn and her husband DA got
00:10:47
together in high school and eventually
00:10:49
married in 1971 and had a
00:10:51
child having just celebrated her son's
00:10:55
first birthday Dawn was now missing
00:10:58
Under Suspicion
00:11:00
circumstances so at the time that she
00:11:02
was abducted it was very foggy the fog
00:11:05
was thick and uh would have been very
00:11:08
easy for somebody to kidnap someone
00:11:11
without being seen the police got a
00:11:14
search party going and there were
00:11:16
hundreds of people there you know I was
00:11:18
there and we did grid searches around
00:11:21
the
00:11:22
county we all knew we were looking for a
00:11:25
body after more than 5 weeks of daily
00:11:29
searches tirelessly scouring the rural
00:11:32
area on foot and on Horseback the fears
00:11:35
of volunteers like Tony were realized
00:11:39
news of a gruesome Discovery less than
00:11:41
10 miles from where the 20-year-old
00:11:43
mother had last been seen alive spelled
00:11:46
tragedy for Dawn magar's friends and
00:11:50
family on March 4th
00:11:53
1973 there were two boys up in the
00:11:56
Oakley
00:11:58
area uh their family had a maple syrup
00:12:01
operation so they had a lot of maple
00:12:03
trees and their job was to go out that
00:12:05
day and just check the trees and while
00:12:08
they were doing this they found what
00:12:11
looked like a human being to them on the
00:12:15
ground so the state police responded up
00:12:17
there and they were able to determine
00:12:20
that it was Don
00:12:21
magir it appeared that she had been
00:12:24
inducted and murdered and was also raped
00:12:27
prior to her death the violent homicide
00:12:30
of a young mother was a shockingly
00:12:33
unusual occurrence in shiai
00:12:36
County while investigators waited for
00:12:38
the results of Dawn's autopsy her murder
00:12:41
became the only thing local people were
00:12:44
talking
00:12:45
about it's a rural area very low crime
00:12:49
back in those days maybe somebody would
00:12:51
break into somebody's car maybe break
00:12:53
another house once in a while but murder
00:12:56
oh my gosh never well at this point it
00:12:59
obviously it turned into a homicide
00:13:01
investigation there were a couple of
00:13:03
pretty good suspects back when this
00:13:06
happened but they never had anything
00:13:09
conclusive to show that any one of those
00:13:12
people had committed the crime first
00:13:15
rule like that in the law enforcement he
00:13:16
are going to look at the people closest
00:13:19
to her you know the husband everything
00:13:22
Rock Solid Alibi no way could Don have
00:13:25
done this took
00:13:27
polygraphs no no no he was home with his
00:13:31
son as public fears mounted and with a
00:13:35
murderer on the loose detectives hoped
00:13:38
that Dawn's remains would give them the
00:13:40
answer to who had killed
00:13:46
her because of the cold weather there
00:13:48
was not a lot of
00:13:50
decomposition she was found faced down
00:13:52
on the ground her coat was buttoned up
00:13:56
in the front and her arms were inside
00:13:59
coat not the sleeves so that the coat
00:14:01
was kind of like a straight jacket and a
00:14:04
bullet hole in the back of the
00:14:07
jacket and um then of course
00:14:11
subsequently in the autopsy they
00:14:12
discovered there were two other bullets
00:14:14
the forensic evidence that was collected
00:14:16
at the time was exquisitly preserved
00:14:20
through some real fine police work uh
00:14:23
and and scene work so what the medical
00:14:26
examiner found was that she had been
00:14:27
shot once in the bag
00:14:29
and twice in the back of the head with
00:14:32
22 caliber bullets and they were able to
00:14:36
recover the bullets from her
00:14:39
body Dawn had also been raped and the
00:14:43
killer had left behind vital evidence so
00:14:46
during the autopsy uh they did a vaginal
00:14:49
swab and uh when it was tested later by
00:14:52
the lab there was a presence of
00:14:55
seen Physicians who did the autopsy had
00:14:58
collected the Sean samples from her and
00:15:02
literally put them in a like a sandwich
00:15:05
bag back then like it it's crazy to
00:15:09
think about
00:15:10
that and then they put it in storage
00:15:13
back then of course all you could do was
00:15:16
match blood types you couldn't there was
00:15:18
nothing else you could really
00:15:22
do the blood type detected from dawn
00:15:25
magar's attacker did not match either of
00:15:28
the police's main suspects but the
00:15:31
following summer 18 months after Dawn's
00:15:34
murder another significant clue emerged
00:15:38
in 1974 there was a couple of boys
00:15:41
swimming in the shiw wasi river right in
00:15:44
aaso just off on the north side of the
00:15:46
bridge on Main Street they stumbled
00:15:49
across something laying on the bottom of
00:15:52
the river they picked it up and it was a
00:15:54
gun would have been easy for anyone
00:15:57
driving by or to to exit a vehicle and
00:16:00
and throw items out from uh that
00:16:03
location the firearm was a 22 caliber
00:16:07
revolver because of the deterioration of
00:16:09
the firearm in in the river the rusting
00:16:12
and so forth they were unable to
00:16:13
ballistically prove that it was involved
00:16:16
because of the circumstances the
00:16:18
location that was found the ammunition
00:16:21
the right making model of the gun they
00:16:24
believed that this was the murder
00:16:27
weapon Detectives now had the gun they
00:16:30
believed had been used to kill Dawn
00:16:32
magor but they still did not know who it
00:16:35
belonged
00:16:37
to the investigators were able to trace
00:16:40
that firearm back to a pawn shop in Yuma
00:16:43
Arizona and they were able to obtain a
00:16:46
name of Robert Shaw but when they went
00:16:48
to that address uh Mr Shaw had already
00:16:51
moved and uh they were unable to track
00:16:54
him any further 2 years later police
00:16:57
detectives made another Discovery in
00:17:00
1976 again there was a couple of kids
00:17:03
playing in the river this time south of
00:17:06
the bridge south of where the gun had
00:17:08
been found and they found a wallet
00:17:10
laying on the bank of the river uh not
00:17:13
too far from the water that wallet was
00:17:16
turned in to the police and it was found
00:17:18
to have the identification of Don magar
00:17:21
so this guy definitely came back through
00:17:24
aaso and pitched it off this
00:17:27
bridge and
00:17:29
the shasi river is one of the very few
00:17:32
rivers in the world that run from south
00:17:35
to
00:17:36
North and so when he threw it out it
00:17:40
kept drifting
00:17:42
Downstream it offered no other uh
00:17:45
information at that point no no evidence
00:17:47
or anything but it also helped um
00:17:51
confirm that this gun that was found two
00:17:54
years
00:17:55
before would be the gun that was used in
00:17:57
this crime
00:17:59
by the late 1970s with no new
00:18:02
information to help catch Dawn's killer
00:18:05
the trail had gone cold a body blow for
00:18:08
the community but especially for the
00:18:10
young woman's
00:18:12
family Dawn's father continued to search
00:18:17
for her killer after she was found and
00:18:20
spent most of his time doing that and
00:18:23
the family felt that eventually
00:18:25
contributed to his death was his
00:18:28
obsession was we're trying to find out
00:18:30
who who killed
00:18:34
her in April
00:18:37
1979 a teenage girl Laura May McVey
00:18:40
disappeared just a few miles away from
00:18:43
oaso and in shockingly similar
00:18:47
circumstances uh she was a
00:18:49
16-year-old uh high school student who I
00:18:53
I believe was on their high school track
00:18:56
team or cross country team she was
00:18:59
running jogging along a road as I recall
00:19:02
and then just turned up missing there
00:19:06
was a witness that seen her talking to
00:19:08
someone in a van and then after that she
00:19:12
was never seen again until her body was
00:19:15
later found in another County further
00:19:17
north her body had been outside for
00:19:19
quite a while so there was some
00:19:22
decomposition but they were able to
00:19:24
determine that she had been
00:19:26
strangled and that was how she died Di
00:19:29
and there was evidence that she was
00:19:30
sexually assaulted but there was no
00:19:32
seman this time the police quickly
00:19:35
identified a
00:19:38
suspect somebody had observed a strange
00:19:42
or suspicious van in the area uh wrote
00:19:45
that registration or license plate
00:19:47
number down after this individual who
00:19:50
had written this license plate number
00:19:51
down heard about the abduction and and
00:19:54
the death of Laura McVey uh and turn
00:19:57
that information over to the please the
00:19:59
van turned out to belong to 38-year-old
00:20:02
Gerald Winger who'd been in the
00:20:04
hubberston area at the time he was up
00:20:07
fishing with his brother and another
00:20:09
friend and he left the same night said I
00:20:12
got to go home I got to go do something
00:20:14
he just went cruising Winger's pattern
00:20:18
seems to be attacking and sexually
00:20:21
assaulting
00:20:23
vulnerable young
00:20:26
isolated women he would was out looking
00:20:30
for somebody who fitted that kind of
00:20:34
profile when police ran a background
00:20:37
check on their suspect they uncovered
00:20:39
his conviction 20 years earlier for rape
00:20:43
and when they searched his van they
00:20:45
found fibers they believed had come from
00:20:47
Laura mcvey's blue jogging
00:20:51
suit who was charged with with murder
00:20:55
but there were lots of arguments about
00:20:57
whether the evidence was a admissible
00:20:59
whether the police had collected it in
00:21:00
the right way whether it was a lawful
00:21:02
search because and he was
00:21:04
really really lucky there because some
00:21:07
of the key evidence just wasn't able to
00:21:10
be presented to the court the judge
00:21:12
dismissed it you know and he walks
00:21:16
away as the trial
00:21:19
collapsed for the murder of Laura
00:21:22
McVey wingett left the courthouse with a
00:21:26
smile on his face insisting to the press
00:21:30
and to the public that he was an
00:21:31
innocent man and he had done nothing
00:21:34
wrong
00:21:35
whatever it was a gigantic
00:21:38
fraud he may have proclaimed his
00:21:41
innocence but after his release officers
00:21:44
witness firsthand Gerald wingard's
00:21:47
predatory
00:21:49
habits the Michigan State Police uh did
00:21:52
surveil him for quite some time and what
00:21:55
they learned from that he would often
00:21:57
leave the L area where he resided and
00:22:01
would travel to uh strip clubs in the
00:22:05
Detroit area but instead of taking the
00:22:08
freeway system in Michigan that would
00:22:10
offer the fastest and most direct route
00:22:13
he would take the back roads and would
00:22:15
always cut through various college
00:22:18
campuses what the detectives believed at
00:22:21
that time is that he was trolling he was
00:22:23
out looking for a
00:22:26
victim someone that he could abduct
00:22:29
without being seen wingert was never
00:22:32
caught in the act and the surveillance
00:22:34
operation was eventually called
00:22:37
off he dropped off the radar at that
00:22:41
point the man that investigators was
00:22:44
certain was responsible for killing
00:22:46
Laura McVey was free to roam the streets
00:22:49
of aaso but Gerald Winger's luck was
00:22:52
about to change two decades after the
00:22:56
notorious unsolved murder of Dawn magar
00:22:59
in shiai County evidence from the crime
00:23:02
scene was still sitting on a shelf in a
00:23:05
Michigan crime lab including Seaman
00:23:08
samples found in Dawn's
00:23:16
body back in in the 70s they really
00:23:19
weren't that sophisticated with DNA but
00:23:21
they had recovered DNA from her and they
00:23:24
preserved it in
00:23:27
1994 Michigan and started um getting
00:23:30
involved with DNA evidence DNA
00:23:33
technology biological samples that had
00:23:36
previously only revealed a perpetrator's
00:23:38
blood type could now produce a DNA
00:23:41
profile that would match a single
00:23:44
individual this is exactly what the
00:23:46
State Crime Lab managed to do with the
00:23:48
dawn magar case in the mid
00:23:51
1990s they were able to uh build this
00:23:56
profile this DNA profile on our unknown
00:23:59
killer I became the detective at the
00:24:01
aaso post in November of 1998 and I
00:24:05
actually took an interest in the
00:24:07
unsolved homicide cases at the post the
00:24:10
magar case to me was the most promising
00:24:13
because there was DNA evidence detective
00:24:16
Mark pendra was determined to solve the
00:24:19
25-year-old Cold Case and catch a
00:24:22
predatory killer he now had the DNA of
00:24:25
the man who'd raped Dawn magar before
00:24:28
she was murdered but there was no match
00:24:30
on the police database you have a DNA
00:24:33
profile which is great but you have no
00:24:36
idea who it belongs to so you still
00:24:38
basically have a houd done it also
00:24:40
preserved in evidence was the handgun
00:24:43
found dumped in the shasi river in
00:24:46
1974 it was actually Mark's idea to
00:24:50
focus our efforts on a firearm that had
00:24:53
been found uh within a year of this
00:24:57
murder so we turned back towards the gun
00:25:00
to see if that could lead us to somebody
00:25:04
when Mark told me this case is solvable
00:25:07
you know we got the gun you know and
00:25:12
that's when I really believe too that it
00:25:15
could be it could be
00:25:17
solved in
00:25:19
1974 the gun had been registered to a
00:25:22
man named Robert Shaw but the police
00:25:24
hadn't been able to find him in 1999 the
00:25:28
they tried again in an unexpected
00:25:31
breakthrough they quickly discovered
00:25:33
that Robert Shaw was living in Lansing
00:25:36
Michigan now we're excited we got the
00:25:38
connection of that gun getting to
00:25:40
Michigan so we started investigating
00:25:43
Robert Shaw and then eventually uh we
00:25:46
contacted him for an interview he
00:25:48
specifically recalled buying a 22
00:25:51
caliber revolver from a pawn shop in
00:25:53
Yuma Arizona when he was stationed in
00:25:55
the Army down there and that he had
00:25:57
purchased it for plinking and shooting
00:25:59
jack rabbits and so forth he didn't know
00:26:02
what happened to the gun he knew he
00:26:03
didn't have it anymore he thought maybe
00:26:05
he had traded it to a friend but really
00:26:07
had no
00:26:08
idea so we interviewed him extensively
00:26:12
we did our background investigation on
00:26:14
him we actually ran a
00:26:16
polygraph and he came back in conclusive
00:26:20
so now we're wondering was he involved
00:26:22
in the crime detectives knew there was
00:26:25
one Sure Fire way to eliminate as a
00:26:29
suspect so when they did a DNA test on
00:26:32
him it was no match that was in her it
00:26:35
was another dead end until a few months
00:26:38
later when Robert Shaw contacted
00:26:40
detective Steve harburger out of the
00:26:43
blue he called me up one day and he said
00:26:47
Steve I I've got another name I want to
00:26:49
give you I was looking at a case of wine
00:26:53
this case of wine made me remember a guy
00:26:55
that my ex-wife began having an affair
00:26:58
with back in the early '70s
00:27:01
and it reminded him of the name of weert
00:27:05
and that's how he finally remember this
00:27:06
name so he provided us with that name
00:27:09
she eventually left me for this guy and
00:27:13
I remember his first name was
00:27:15
Jerry he thinks that the gun became up
00:27:18
missing around that time and Joe might
00:27:20
have taken it investigators began to
00:27:23
gather everything they could about this
00:27:26
new suspect we found out that in
00:27:30
1961 he had been convicted of a robbery
00:27:33
and a rape in an arbor of a blind
00:27:37
woman and we also found that he had been
00:27:40
arrested in 1981 for 1979 homicide in
00:27:45
Ionia so this was the first time that we
00:27:48
had a suspect that had the background
00:27:50
and the propensity for doing this type
00:27:53
of crime and we both became extremely
00:27:56
excited at at the potential that this
00:27:59
was our killer um it was at that time
00:28:02
that he and I put all of our energy into
00:28:05
Mr wiard to either identify him properly
00:28:09
through DNA evidence or eliminate him
00:28:13
and keep moving on in
00:28:17
2000 we had surveillance done on him and
00:28:20
what we were looking to do was to get a
00:28:22
DNA
00:28:24
sample by the year 2000 59-year-old
00:28:28
Gerald Winger was living with his latest
00:28:30
wife just outside
00:28:34
Detroit Winger was married four times so
00:28:37
you know quite the ladies man I guess
00:28:40
but he you know he'd been dormant for a
00:28:45
lot of years you know living a quiet
00:28:48
life in Sterling Heights he was a
00:28:51
computer wiz and people liked him kept
00:28:54
to himself quiet he was uh very bright
00:28:57
from what I recall and um but he was a
00:29:01
charmer he's got a good job he's
00:29:04
blending in uh with his environment just
00:29:08
like everyone else
00:29:09
does but in in secret you know he's got
00:29:14
this other life that that he at least
00:29:17
had lived at one time and may have
00:29:21
continued aaso detectives started
00:29:24
following their suspects every move what
00:29:27
we had that the surveillance team
00:29:28
looking for was him to discard a
00:29:31
cigarette chewing gum a pot bottle
00:29:33
anything of those of that nature that
00:29:35
would contain his DNA and unfortunately
00:29:38
during the whole time they were
00:29:39
surveilling him he never discarded
00:29:41
anything like that while their team was
00:29:44
trying to prove a link between their
00:29:46
suspect and the DNA traces left on Dawn
00:29:49
magar's body Mark and Steve were finding
00:29:52
other links between Dawn's case and
00:29:55
wingard's other suspected or confirmed
00:29:57
attacks
00:29:58
starting with the rape of the blind
00:30:00
students over three decades
00:30:06
earlier we found that a girl was
00:30:10
abducted the weapon used was a 22
00:30:13
caliber the victim was abducted from a
00:30:16
rural
00:30:17
area uh transported to another rural
00:30:20
area where she was
00:30:21
raped but the other thing that we found
00:30:23
very interesting was the victim from
00:30:26
1961
00:30:28
her underwear were
00:30:30
missing da magar it was found that her
00:30:33
underwear were missing the other thing
00:30:36
that we found that was similar was that
00:30:39
he had tied the victim's hands behind
00:30:41
her back in
00:30:43
1961 in
00:30:45
1973 Dawn's arms were inside of her coat
00:30:48
not in the armsleeves but inside of her
00:30:50
coat and the coat was zipped up in
00:30:52
effect acting like a straight jacket the
00:30:55
officially unsolved murder of Laura
00:30:58
McVey in
00:30:59
1979 also carried intriguing
00:31:03
similarities we were able to get
00:31:05
photographs of the different scenes
00:31:08
associated with Laura
00:31:10
McVey that the location where her body
00:31:14
was found you could almost
00:31:16
superimpose on top of Da
00:31:19
magar's uh scene where her body was
00:31:21
found the position of the bodies and so
00:31:24
forth the type of rural area it was
00:31:27
strange they were they were almost
00:31:29
identical detectives were building a
00:31:32
case but it was purely
00:31:34
circumstantial they doubted it would be
00:31:36
enough to secure a
00:31:40
conviction we need to tie him in through
00:31:42
DNA we need to definitively show that he
00:31:46
was the one who left the seen deposits
00:31:50
uh in da magar's body that were
00:31:53
recovered so what they ended up doing
00:31:56
was doing a trash pull when we put our
00:31:58
trash out by the curb site all of a
00:32:00
sudden it becomes a public entity so uh
00:32:03
I just pulled up to the curb I jumped
00:32:05
out grabbed four bags of trash threw
00:32:07
them on my car and drove
00:32:09
off in November 2000 32 cigarette butts
00:32:14
from Gerald wingard's garbage bags were
00:32:17
sent to the State Crime Lab in Lansing
00:32:20
Michigan through the winter and early
00:32:22
spring the Cold Case detectives waited
00:32:25
to find out if they had finally cracked
00:32:28
the dawn magar murder case and could
00:32:30
take a dangerous man off the streets
00:32:34
when the call finally came it was
00:32:36
incredible
00:32:38
[Music]
00:32:41
news I eventually heard back from the
00:32:43
lab and they said we found a DNA match
00:32:46
on a merit brand cigarette
00:32:48
Bud total excitement it was it was
00:32:51
unbelievable that we were able to
00:32:54
finally put a name with the DNA profile
00:32:56
that we had from from a case in
00:32:59
1973 to somebody that was likely
00:33:01
involved in at least one other homicide
00:33:04
of a of girl that got he got away with
00:33:06
it and now it was looking like we were
00:33:09
going to be able to put a case together
00:33:11
on
00:33:12
him question by the police on the 7th of
00:33:15
March 2001 Gerald Winger denied visiting
00:33:20
aaso or ever meeting Dawn Maga I reached
00:33:24
down into my bag and I said let me show
00:33:26
you a picture of her and he says I don't
00:33:29
know her I've never seen her before and
00:33:32
at this point he became extremely
00:33:34
agitated began slamming his fist on the
00:33:37
table look I've told you once I'm not
00:33:39
going to tell you again I don't know her
00:33:42
I've never met her I've never had sex
00:33:44
with her I I don't know this woman when
00:33:47
the police interrogated Winger for the
00:33:49
first time they found him out in a
00:33:51
series of Lies he certainly had been in
00:33:53
the ooso area at the time of Dawn's
00:33:56
disappearance he certainly newer the DNA
00:34:00
proved
00:34:01
that and gradually it became abundantly
00:34:04
clear that there was a case to be
00:34:06
answered and winget had to answer it he
00:34:09
said well guess what you're under arrest
00:34:13
for the murder of Don magar we informed
00:34:17
him that we did have a search warrant
00:34:19
for um DNA and other biological evidence
00:34:22
and that we were going to be collecting
00:34:24
that uh from him and
00:34:28
it was very hard to read his emotions he
00:34:31
was angry but he also seemed
00:34:34
scared and I think he knew at that point
00:34:37
it was done that that we had
00:34:41
him so then right after that we knew we
00:34:44
needed to go tell Don magar's mother
00:34:47
that we had gotten her man she was quite
00:34:49
elderly at the time so we broke the news
00:34:52
to her kind of easily that we had found
00:34:55
the man that was responsible for her
00:34:56
daughter's murder and he was locked up
00:34:58
in jail she was obviously very grateful
00:35:01
after all this time that we had gotten a
00:35:03
man that had killed her
00:35:08
daughter in November 2001 Gerald Winger
00:35:12
stood trial for the murder of dawn magar
00:35:16
for the first time the people of shasi
00:35:18
County got a look at the bogey man who'd
00:35:21
cast a shadow over the area for 28 long
00:35:26
years it was a very arrogant defiant
00:35:29
type of demeanor that he was portraying
00:35:33
throughout this proceeding this trial he
00:35:36
was cocky he always turned around
00:35:39
laughing at his daughter kind of had
00:35:41
this look to his face like he didn't
00:35:43
care about other people that that was
00:35:44
the kind of look that he had on his
00:35:47
face investigators desperately hope that
00:35:50
a case years in the making would be
00:35:53
enough to convict him first off and
00:35:56
foremost we had had Sean which had DNA
00:35:59
secondly we had the gun and the gun was
00:36:02
very important because without that gun
00:36:05
we never get to jural
00:36:07
Winger attorney Vince green represented
00:36:10
Winger he admitted that they had sex but
00:36:13
he said it was consensual
00:36:16
sex his defense was that he had
00:36:21
met the
00:36:23
victim who was a stranger they had just
00:36:25
met they had consensual sex and then
00:36:28
they parted ways and when they did she
00:36:31
was still alive to Dawn's family
00:36:33
wingard's claims were a further
00:36:35
violation and an insult to his victim's
00:36:39
memory oh I think they were all offended
00:36:41
and and angry that he would
00:36:44
insinuate that number one she would
00:36:47
cheat on her husband and number two that
00:36:50
she would be the type of girl that would
00:36:52
just meet somebody and have sex with
00:36:53
them the DNA evidence that linked Winger
00:36:57
to the crime also revealed a time frame
00:37:00
the sexual intercourse had to have taken
00:37:03
place around the time of the murder the
00:37:06
spermatozoa still had tails attached
00:37:09
there's a short time window or time
00:37:12
period where those Tails began breaking
00:37:15
off and in her case those Tails were
00:37:19
still attached her body had been
00:37:21
preserved in the middle of winter in
00:37:23
Michigan
00:37:25
outdoors and so our forensic experts
00:37:29
were able to testify to the fact that
00:37:32
whoever left this seminal evidence in
00:37:37
Dawn was likely the
00:37:39
killer it was powerful testimony but it
00:37:43
relied on a jury comprehending the
00:37:46
strength of the DNA evidence still a
00:37:49
relatively new field at the time but
00:37:52
prosecutors were also able to prove that
00:37:55
Gerald Wingard had a history of violent
00:37:58
sexual attacks on women the Clincher was
00:38:01
when the woman he raped in 1961 came
00:38:06
walked into the courtroom with her
00:38:07
Leader dog and that was heart-wrenching
00:38:11
you know
00:38:13
testimony when she testified to all this
00:38:16
and went through all the graphic detail
00:38:19
that was involved in this in this rape
00:38:21
and sexual
00:38:23
assault the jury kept looking at her and
00:38:25
then they look at him and they look at
00:38:27
her and theyd look every time the new
00:38:29
detail would come out from her they'd
00:38:31
look right at him and then he would just
00:38:34
kind of show that defeat the girls that
00:38:38
um were associated with him as victims
00:38:41
had a similar build they were petite
00:38:44
they had um blonde or strawberry blonde
00:38:47
hair he seemed to have a thing for that
00:38:49
type of
00:38:50
woman there was a juror who fit this
00:38:55
profile of the type of woman he liked
00:38:58
and we all noticed during the trial he
00:39:00
spent a lot of time staring at this
00:39:02
juror it was a little
00:39:05
spooky on November the 26 2001 the jury
00:39:10
retired to consider whether Gerald Leroy
00:39:13
wingert was guilty of first-degree
00:39:18
murder when the jury went out for
00:39:21
deliberations he said something to the
00:39:23
deputy was keeping an eye on him he says
00:39:26
get my bill ready to jail cuz I'm going
00:39:28
to be checking out he was confident he
00:39:30
was going to be found not guilty I
00:39:32
thought that we had put together a lot
00:39:35
of circumstantial evidence a lot of
00:39:37
similar a evidence we had our DNA and we
00:39:41
had a gun so I felt really confident how
00:39:44
do you find Reasonable Doubt when there
00:39:46
isn't any when you have DNA evidence
00:39:50
that is so
00:39:51
clearly indicating that whoever killed
00:39:54
this person did it probably right before
00:39:57
right after they had sex with this
00:39:59
person after 2 days of deliberation the
00:40:03
jury found Wingard guilty of
00:40:06
premeditated first-degree
00:40:08
murder I was elated this guy who was not
00:40:13
only responsible for Dawn's death most
00:40:17
likely responsible for Laura mcvey's
00:40:19
death was certainly responsible for the
00:40:22
rape and robbery involving this other
00:40:24
lady back in ' 61 and quite frankly
00:40:27
maybe others was now going to pay the
00:40:30
price he was caught and now he was going
00:40:32
to pay for what he
00:40:35
did the sentencing for this type of
00:40:38
conviction first degree murder and
00:40:39
felony murder there's only one sentence
00:40:42
he can get and that's life in prison
00:40:43
with no
00:40:44
parole Gerald wingert was finally facing
00:40:48
the music for the murder of dawn magar
00:40:51
something he never expected to have to
00:40:55
do his jaw dropped and he was just
00:40:57
looking at disbelief when they said
00:41:00
guilty he was so like I said he was so
00:41:03
confident he was going to be going home
00:41:05
right after this that he just couldn't
00:41:07
believe that he was found guilty Winger
00:41:10
did not want to get caught he he didn't
00:41:12
like being held to account for some
00:41:15
serial offenders they don't care it it's
00:41:18
part of the game Winger didn't like it
00:41:20
it actually quite frightened him I
00:41:23
think Gerald Leroy Winger died in prison
00:41:27
in August
00:41:31
2022 he never officially admitted to any
00:41:34
further murders though investigators had
00:41:37
their suspicions about the man who
00:41:40
habitually cruised rural back Lanes on
00:41:43
the lookout for lone females he did a
00:41:47
lot of traveling he'd been to a lot of
00:41:49
states and plus did a lot of traveling a
00:41:51
Michigan so the potential for murder was
00:41:54
certainly there it was definitely on his
00:41:56
mind they're quite compulsive and
00:41:59
obsessive serial killers it's very very
00:42:03
difficult I think to get rid of a
00:42:05
compulsion or an
00:42:07
obsession and whereas they might be able
00:42:11
maybe to
00:42:13
control things I don't think the
00:42:16
compulsion ever goes
00:42:18
away I do believe that the Gerald wiart
00:42:21
was involved in many more
00:42:24
homicides there was uh one former
00:42:26
soulmate of his that we had talked to
00:42:30
and that soulmate said that wingert had
00:42:33
told him that there were nine
00:42:43
bodies Gerald wingard's crimes against
00:42:46
young women started young at just 20
00:42:49
years old for those who knew him his
00:42:52
violent sexual offending came out of
00:42:54
nowhere but once he'd embarked on a path
00:42:57
of predatory behavior he didn't know how
00:43:00
to
00:43:01
stop Winger took the Peace of Mind the
00:43:04
security and in some cases the lives of
00:43:07
the young women unlucky enough to cross
00:43:10
his path but in 2001 he finally paid the
00:43:14
price for being one of the world's most
00:43:17
evil killers
00:43:21
[Music]
