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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:45
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who would like to know a little bit about you for
00:01:51
his files here is the captain or maybe I already know a lot about you it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks
00:01:57
for listening thanks for telling a friends [Music] this week we are very happy to be
00:02:07
drinking number two pencil by the beer Geniuses over at 18th Street Brewery Brewing great beer for all of us in
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Hammond Indiana number two pencil is a double dry hopped double India Pale Ale 7.5% ABV garage grade four and a quarter
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bottle caps out of five and here's a big cheers to a friend of the show Miss Dawn
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D in Monster Indiana and a big shout out to Jessica in atena Georgia next up Captain we have a shout to Rebecca in
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Port Towns in Washington a big we like your trip to Anastasia and Parts Unknown next up here's a shout to Victor and
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everyone we just mentioned well they went to our website true Crim garage.com and they contributed to this week's beer
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funding for that we thank you yeah BW r n beerun and while you're at the website
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go subscribe to off the Record it's our bonus show on ctit for premium and Colonel that is enough of the business
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all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music]
00:03:26
[Music] crime [Music] in August of 1995 the quiet safe Suburban town of Springfield Illinois was rocked by a
00:03:53
shocking and horrific crime it was a Tuesday afternoon when the following 91 11 one call was
00:04:05
made emergency me my God my wife breathing okay you need anything I need everything I need
00:04:14
everything please yes help me what's the problem I just shot this man in my house
00:04:21
he's inside your house he beat my wife is he in there right now yes she does he have a gun her
00:04:28
PLS are every here where's the man at he's laying on the floor is he dead I don't know he's
00:04:36
making weird sounds SL down I can't understand you slow down is the man still in your house
00:04:45
yes he's laying there on the floor with a bullet in his head did you shoot him yes I shot him he was killing my
00:04:51
wife please my baby's crying my baby's cry I got to go I call you right back oh Wier yes yes this is the police
00:05:01
department we've got officers and rout I need to know what's going on there my wife is dying on the floor okay is she
00:05:08
still alive I think so okay we've got ambulance in route and we've got police officers in route where is the gun IED
00:05:15
on the table it's on the table it's on the table please go please come here we got people on the way who who is this
00:05:22
man I don't I don't know who he is he's still inside the house yes he's laying on the
00:05:27
floor okay I got to hold my I got to get to my wife okay are you Mark Winger yes I am yes I am okay and
00:05:34
your wife is Donna yes she is when did the man come there I know a few minutes ago wa I got to get to my wife please
00:05:42
just let me get to my wife I will hang up okay okay is that offic around okay my door's open
00:05:50
okay as you heard the man on the phone is Mark Winger sadly his wife did not survive the attack now two people were
00:06:00
dead and each were killed by someone else Mark's wife Donna was brutally killed in her own home and her killer
00:06:10
was then gunned down and killed in self-defense this is true crime garage and this is the case of Mark and Donna
00:06:22
[Music] Winger on August 29th 1995 the Springfield Illinois police received a 911 call from
00:06:38
a distraught man at 2305 West View Drive in a nice family neighborhood Mark Winger was on the phone his wife had
00:06:49
been attacked in their home he shot the attacker he's requesting emergency medical technicians and the police to
00:06:58
come immediately to his home mark Winger hung up on the 911 operator because as you heard he says his baby was crying
00:07:07
the responding officers found the front door of the Winger's home unlocked this is a onlevel brick ranch home cautiously
00:07:16
they walked into a very bloody murder scene Mark Winger the man who had called police was crouching over a woman who
00:07:25
lie on the floor he was crying hysterically the woman Donna Winger his wife is lying face down
00:07:33
there is blood all over her she has obvious and very violent visible head trauma a bloody claw hammer lay nearby
00:07:43
next to another body this is the body of a man with two visible gunshot wounds to
00:07:49
his head police find a 45 caliber pistol lying on the dining room table living in
00:07:56
the home we have a family of three mark his wife Donna and their newborn adopted daughter Bailey and it isn't
00:08:06
like law enforcement has to guess how one of the people died because Mark already told them on the phone I shot a
00:08:14
man Mark identifies the woman on the floor as his wife Donna she is still alive at this time now Ian's rushed her
00:08:24
to Memorial Medical Center where she herself worked as an operating room Tech doctors recognized her but could not
00:08:33
save her after 40 minutes of trying they called it and the time of death was 5:39 p.m. the Intruder the injured man
00:08:43
at the scene was somehow still alive as well but barely and he was dead before arriving at the hospital an officer at
00:08:51
the scene this is Officer Dave baringer managed to shoot three photos of the bloody crime scene with a Polaroid he
00:09:00
had in his car before the two people lying on the floor were taken away by the EMTs detectives Charlie Cox and Doug
00:09:09
Williamson also arrived at the Winger home before the EMTs removed the victims detective Cox removed the wallet from
00:09:18
the pocket of the maale victim and took a look at his ID he quickly surveyed the
00:09:24
scene but it was chaos the EMTs were working very hard trying to save both of these individuals and it's kind of a
00:09:32
messy home and there was blood everywhere this was an incredibly bloody crime scene and we have one of the
00:09:39
officers saying quote I've been in crime scene work a long time and there's been
00:09:44
very few that I've had that and there's very few that I have had that was as severe and as bloody as this one was end
00:09:54
quote that's from detective Cox that's from the Great work that they're doing over at the show
00:10:01
48 hours they needed to get to the bottom of what happened here obviously and Captain we have detective Cox and
00:10:09
detective Williamson they found Mark Winger the 911 caller he's in his bedroom at some point during this
00:10:17
process rocking back and forth he's holding a bloody T-shirt with blood on his neck and arms right police incident
00:10:25
reports describe him as distraught as we would expect him to be and constantly asking how his wife was doing once once
00:10:34
they could get him to talk he explained to them what had happened or at least what he had seen
00:10:41
and witnessed leading up to their arrival Mark said that he had been on the treadmill in his basement of their
00:10:47
home doing his usual run around 5:00 p.m. this is when he heard a noise coming from the upstairs he said it
00:10:55
sounded like a loud thud so he went upstairs to see what was going on and was concerned when he noticed that his
00:11:04
3month old daughter Bailey was lying on a bed alone and crying so then he hears Donna scream so Mark grabs his gun from
00:11:15
the bedside table drawer and ran down the hall toward the front door when he came to the dining room to his horror
00:11:25
Mark saw a Man attacking his wife Donna he told the officers that he didn't recognize this man didn't know who he
00:11:33
was but this man was hitting his wife on the head with a hammer she was kneeling
00:11:39
on the ground the man is kind of bent over her the man stood up when he saw Mark looked at him and then looked back
00:11:48
down at Donna frantically Mark aimed his gun at the man and fired it hitting him
00:11:53
in the head the man fell backwards Mark shot him again just seconds later this according to the Chicago Tribune that
00:12:03
did an expose on this case which I heavily relied on in researching this this episode Mark called the police then
00:12:13
he realized the guy was groaning so he whacked him in the chest with the hammer until he was
00:12:20
still he himself got all bloody during this process and this is because he was frantically holding his injured wife now
00:12:29
Mark told the cops that he had no idea who this man was who the man was that he had shot but the officers looking at the
00:12:38
attacker ID said his name was Roger Harrington the detectives told Mark that the dead guy was Roger Harrington and
00:12:47
immediately Mark reacted saying oh my God this guy has been harassing us all week but it seems pretty simple so far
00:12:56
we have a husband that's covered in blood because he was holding his dying wife we had a intruder that comes in and
00:13:06
attacks the wife he stops the attack by shooting the man the guy is not dead when when police
00:13:14
arrive but like you said later on we'll die but it seems pretty simple and the evidence that's in front of us seems to
00:13:23
make his story make sense right well and of course when he tells the police police hey this guy's been harassing us
00:13:30
all week when he's told the name of the the individual of course they want to know what do you mean harassing you all
00:13:37
week so then Mark tells the detectives this very bizarre story he says that up until this day and when he walked into
00:13:46
the room mid murderous attack on his wife Donna he had never physically seen this guy Roger Harrington before but
00:13:55
that he and his wife had been having a major problem with with this guy and he tells the police that this started the
00:14:02
week before Donna's murder when Donna went on a weeklong trip to visit her parents in Florida so she takes their
00:14:11
New Daughter Bailey with her and she stays with her mom her mom's name is Sarah Jan and her stepdad which is Ira
00:14:19
dresser upon her return on August 23d she hires a car service and this is so that she could have a ride for her and
00:14:29
Bailey from the St Louis airport all the way to their home so she used a company
00:14:36
called Bart transportation and the drive would be a long one it was approximately a 100
00:14:43
miles from the St Louis airport to their home Roger Harrington the man that is found near death shot on their floor the
00:14:54
Intruder and the attacker here Roger Harrington was the dver driver of that trip mhm now after the long drive she's
00:15:02
dropped off of course at her home this is when Donna told Mark that this Roger Harrington guy the driver was super
00:15:09
weird and very inappropriate with her right he talked her ear off about disturbing things like his ability to
00:15:17
communicate with the dead and wild sex parties that he attended he talked about some violent fantasies that he has
00:15:26
saying that voices were telling him to kill people sometimes while he's at work yeah that's
00:15:30
great to hear while you're in the car this dude's at his work and you're in the car with your little baby yeah I I
00:15:37
just call that a typical Tuesday he said he had a live bomb at his house as well
00:15:43
and he said that he had this Alter Ego named Dom and that Dom was the one telling him to hurt people he also drove
00:15:53
erratically during this trip which is I mean even without the the the horrible conversation is going to be enough to
00:16:01
set you on edge right he's speeding up and slowing down he's zipping in and out of lanes Donna was beyond freaked out by
00:16:10
the time that she got home when you hear this story it sounds unbelievable but normally when a story is so detailed
00:16:17
with such strange things you tend to believe somebody even more yeah so she gets home she's Beyond freaked out and
00:16:25
she tells her husband Mark all about this and I mean a 100m trip to be hearing this guy kind of go on and on
00:16:33
about all this crazy stuff and a lot of it pretty violent stuff is terrifying that's a lot of voices in one's head so
00:16:41
the encounter with Roger Harrington didn't really end as one might expect when Donna got
00:16:48
out of his car Mark believed that Harrington became fixated on Donna and this Harrington Guy starts calling the
00:16:59
house anonymously and asking for Donna so Donna was shaken up by this enough that Mark told her to start writing
00:17:08
everything down so that they had some kind of record of it some reports are that the writing was actually a letter
00:17:16
of complaint that would be mailed to this Transportation or limo company and he himself Mark called Harrington's company
00:17:26
that Bart transportation to register an official Complaint right this resulting in Roger Harrington getting suspended
00:17:35
from the company byebye that very morning the morning of the the homicide Mark had called Roger
00:17:43
Harrington and told him to stay away from his family police found the handwritten memo penned by Donna on the
00:17:52
family refrigerator it contained all the details related to them by Mark and they verified the story with Donna's
00:18:01
mother as well Sarah Jane later Donna's mother told the media quote she said the
00:18:08
guy was really nuts talking about hearing voices and how he needed to do things to kill people end quote Donna
00:18:17
had been so perturbed by the driver that she called her mom from the car you know
00:18:24
while she's in this vehicle with this dude she's called her mom saying hey this guy's freaking me out well again
00:18:32
more evidence that this story that she is telling is true also Donna's friends backed up the part about the phone calls
00:18:40
you know telling police yes she told us she's receiving these phone calls apparently her friends were quite
00:18:46
concerned concerned enough to notify the Springfield Police Department who actually put an officer on patrol to be
00:18:56
on the lookout for any suspicious activity in the neighborhood now clearly this Roger Harrington guy was
00:19:03
unhinged a background check told police that they were on the right track Roger Harrington didn't have much of a
00:19:12
criminal history but he did have a history of psychiatric problems and delusions and he had even spent time in
00:19:19
a mental health facility furthermore he was a high school dropout and he had a hard time holding down a job he had
00:19:27
mental illness is but you have to applaud one for trying to seek out and get help right I don't know I I don't
00:19:35
know if he sought out the help or if he was forced to I it's it's difficult to say unless you found something that I
00:19:41
didn't but well either way I mean sometimes the person that has a mental illness is incapable of seeking out help
00:19:49
but what I'm saying is because of the family and everybody surrounding him at least he was trying to get treatment
00:19:55
correct and I think that some of that stemmed from some violent Outburst that he had had so he had some history of
00:20:03
violent outbursts but I don't think he had anything on his record no he did have a criminal record he had a criminal
00:20:10
history just not a lengthy one right now at the time he was living in a rented room within a trailer home owned by
00:20:17
somebody else so Harrington kind of Falls firmly in this undesirable element of society category unlike the Wingers
00:20:26
who were hard working upstanding citizens police theorized that the mentally unstable man blamed the Wingers
00:20:35
for the loss of his job since Mark had complained about him to his company and had maybe had gone out off of the deep
00:20:44
end after losing this job but that wasn't all detective Cox had a history with Roger Harrington one of the
00:20:51
officers he happened to own a trailer park in town where Harrington had lived with his ex-wife he said that he had to
00:20:59
get involved in some domestic disputes between the two and Harrington was volatile and had a bad temper once Cox
00:21:08
had to pull Harrington off of his wife this guy you know was bad news as far as detective Cox was concerned and
00:21:17
detective Cox had no problem believing that he could have gone over to the Wingers to try to get his job back or
00:21:24
appeal to Donna and Mark and in the course of doing so maybe he lost his temper and picks up a hammer and then
00:21:32
kills Donna with it in a full-on rage attack of course a death is going to have a big impact on your family but
00:21:39
this is not just a death this is a murder yes this is the murder of a young wife and mother the neighbors the
00:21:46
Winger's extended family and everyone in the Winger Circle were all flabbergasted
00:21:51
and horrified by Donna's death it was of course incredibly shocking that to everyone that she was attacked in her
00:22:00
own home by this deranged man who was stalking her it was especially tragic because everyone knew Mark and Donna
00:22:09
adored each other and had a model marriage and they finally had a family a little girl Bailey they fulfilled this
00:22:18
dream of theirs adopting a baby Mark and Donna welcomed baby Bailey into their family just three months before Donna's
00:22:27
murder now she was motherless it says quote we felt terrible for him look what he's lost
00:22:35
he's lost his wife also and then he had to turn around and shoot a man this was from Ira dresser Donna's stepfather he
00:22:45
and his wife Sarah Jan unequivocally supported Mark throughout the whole ordeal and for years afterwards 6 weeks
00:22:55
after Donna's death mark wrote a letter to a Springfield newspaper thanking the community for their support of him and
00:23:05
his family throughout these tragic events he wrote glowingly about how Donna was filled with compassion for
00:23:12
others and exemplified Humanity through her good deeds yeah very difficult to take an individual's life but probably
00:23:22
also it weigh on you more that you didn't get to your wife's defense sooner let's take
00:23:29
a look at who the uh Wingers are and their family and and what we can learn about them because the detectives were
00:23:36
inclined to write up their incident reports reflecting the events as Mark Winger had related them to them but of
00:23:44
course they had to do their due diligence right they took some time to look into Mark and Donna Winger Mark was
00:23:51
a first cousin of the actress Deborah Winger Deborah has been in a bunch of stuff but notably she played [ __ ] Davis
00:24:00
in one of my favorite old movies Urban Cowboy now Mark Winger himself was a real success story Mark graduated from
00:24:09
Virginia Military Institute with a degree in physics and then served in active duty in Korea after his service
00:24:17
was up he remained in the Army Reserves even while working as an engineer for the state of Illinois he was making
00:24:25
$62,000 a year Mark and Donna met in Florida in 1987 they were married in 1989 and moved
00:24:34
to Springfield from South Florida in 90 or 91 they had tons of friends and their
00:24:42
friends and family all told detectives the same thing Mark and Donna loved each other and had a special bond quote it
00:24:50
was very apparent that he and his wife were very much in love and that this should never have happened this was even
00:24:58
stated in the report this is a directly from the report written by detective Cox
00:25:04
so as you can see there a bit of a power couple here Captain uh both both successful individuals they have a yes
00:25:13
they have a great marriage and now finally they have their baby so as said these Wingers are thrilled that they
00:25:21
finally brought home Bailey baby or sorry the Wingers are thrilled that they finally brought home baby Bailey because
00:25:30
they tried for 3 years to have a baby of their own the adoption was still technically officially pending at the
00:25:40
time of Donna's murder but as far as the Wingers were concerned Bailey was their
00:25:46
child Donna was on maternity leave from work and spent her time caring for the newborn on the murder sorry
00:25:58
on the morning that she died she actually brought Bailey to Mark's office to introduce the baby to all of his
00:26:08
co-workers so this was supposed to be a happy day a normal busy working Tuesday in additional testamentary to the
00:26:17
Winger's wholesomeness detectives quickly learned that they were very active in the local Jewish community and
00:26:26
within their Temple this is Temple Barth this is Temple Barth Shalom while detectives were questioning
00:26:35
Mark in fact his his and Donna's Rabbi Mark dats was present offering consolation and comfort to the very
00:26:46
distraught husband it seems like everybody's testimony points the idea that this is a loving couple they were
00:26:53
starting their family together they were both successful and then tragedy [Music]
00:27:05
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offered by T-Mobile and Verizon May [Music] 2023 all right we're back that's a little nod to uh Stabbing Westward oh
00:29:31
yeah yeah I missed the Stabbing Westward that was a good band do you hear it a little bit of course I hear yeah cheers
00:29:37
everyone now as for the crime scene here Captain really it looks like there was only a couple things that were called
00:29:46
into question uh one thing that gave detectives pause was that the hammer used by Roger Harrington to strike Donna
00:29:54
came from within the Winger's home it belongs to the Wingers so this seemed to be one of maybe just two mysteries in
00:30:03
the case and what should be a pretty open and shut case but of course we're going to wonder why Roger Harrington
00:30:11
didn't bring his own hammer or his own choice of weapon to the scene of the murder but then again it also seems
00:30:21
likely that Roger Harrington did not come to the home with the intention of bludgeoning Donna to death or even
00:30:28
attacking anyone because it was thought that he had confronted her or wanted to confront her with his
00:30:35
feelings and then at some point maybe she rejected him or they get into an argument and then he grabs the hammer
00:30:43
right but of course police want to know well why is the hammer there lying around to be grabbed by an as salent in
00:30:49
the first place well that is easily answered so Donna had taken the hammer out of the toolbox and left it out on
00:30:56
the D dining room table this as a reminder to mark that he was to hang a hat rack that Donna recently purchased
00:31:05
right the detectives understood this often having received gentle reminders from their own wives to get things done
00:31:12
around their own homes now as for the gun of course it made sense that Mark would set it down on the table before
00:31:19
grabbing Donna in his arms as said the police found the gun on the table he says you can hear him say on 911
00:31:28
that the gun is on the table of course the the 911 operator wants to figure that out in advance if she can pass that
00:31:35
along to the officers the responding officers hey that there's nobody holding a gun uh when you walk into this home
00:31:43
right another thing that was strange was that there was no sign of forced entry into the house so how Roger got into the
00:31:53
house we don't really know we don't know exactly why he was there and this is something that was stated by the
00:32:01
Springfield police well yeah because if you have these harassing calls and then this gentleman shows up to your house
00:32:08
you would assume that you wouldn't let him in right so Mark tells the detectives that hey you know he reminds
00:32:16
them this is it's daytime and you know this is a a family friendly safe neighborhood he and Donna
00:32:25
he said were not in the habit of locking their doors while they were home awake and moving around the house you know
00:32:32
they would kind of check the doors before going to bed let's let me just give everybody a nice little piece of
00:32:39
advice here lock your doors yeah so using the information gathered from a Mark B Donna's notee C supporting
00:32:52
information from her family and all the testimonials about the Wingers marriage and upstanding moral character and
00:33:00
finally D what they learned about Roger Harrington and his alter ego Dom telling
00:33:06
him to hurt people and the strange heavy breathing phone calls being made to the
00:33:10
Winger home detectives quickly concluded the following on the day of the deaths Harrington drove over to the
00:33:19
Winger home he parked outside and somehow got Donna to answer the door either let him in or maybe he forced his
00:33:28
way in maybe she opens the door tells him to leave and then he forces his way in right at some point he grabs the
00:33:35
hammer off of the table in a rage and he hit Donna in the back of the head as she
00:33:40
tried to flee from him the autopsy reflected that Donna had seven blows to the back of her head all caused by a
00:33:50
hammer when Donna fell to the floor it caused the thud that Mark her from in the basement while he's on the
00:33:59
treadmill he runs up the stairs discovers what's going on and he shoots Roger Harrington to death trying to
00:34:08
protect his wife or or or stop the attack on his wife but as you point out and as we know Captain unfortunately it
00:34:15
was just too late one of the things that I've always thought was strange about how they try to piece together how
00:34:22
Harrington got into the house was they found a coffee cup or a coffee mug and his
00:34:29
cigarettes at the dining room table right you'd think that would be weird way to like force yourself into the
00:34:37
house you you never see in a movie hey let me in and by the way I got some coffee I don't want to Spill and I'm
00:34:44
also holding my cigarettes well and I think that's why they question if possibly Donna had let him in for some
00:34:51
reason or maybe he discovers the the door unlocked right but now she is deceased so she can't tell us and Mark
00:35:00
was downstairs so we just don't know yeah and I think to me that kind of backs up the idea that maybe he wasn't
00:35:07
there with the intention to harm or kill when he first gets there as you pointed
00:35:12
out bringing the coffee mug and cigarettes to the home with him and setting them down inside but I think
00:35:20
what we have here though too Captain when you're looking at this is that it seems like it's it's a case of deadly AB
00:35:26
Obsession that at some point yeah Roger Harrington who seems to be already a loose cannon anyway or at least a little
00:35:37
derailed this based off of the conversation that he's having with Donna in the vehicle while he's driving her
00:35:45
and the harassing phone calls that maybe he did become somewhat obsessed with her
00:35:50
or obsessed with getting revenge or some form and now we have what looks to be Mark who is Justified in The Taking of
00:36:00
the life of the man who killed his loving wife and life partner so this is just tragedy all
00:36:06
around yeah but in this Safe Community they're going to start looking at Mark as a as a hero one of the first
00:36:14
newspaper articles covering the deaths this is from September 6th in the Florida Sun Sentinel read quote in a
00:36:23
stunning act of violence that has scarred community in Illinois and Florida Winger age 31 was hammered to
00:36:32
death last week by a limousine driver who 6 days earlier had shuttled her from St Louis airport to her Springfield
00:36:41
Illinois home on the very day after the deaths an attorney the state's attorney Patrick Kelly announced that the state
00:36:50
considered the slaying of Roger Harrington to be a case of justifiable homicide right and so a Coroner's jury
00:36:59
found the same Mark Winger would not be charged with anything the forms were stamped the evidence was boxed up and
00:37:08
the case was closed Springfield police had investigated for a total of three days you know checking all the boxes
00:37:16
doing their due diligence Mark Winger was sent home to take care of his new baby girl his wife Donna was buried
00:37:23
after a Jewish ceremony Detective Cox went so far as to call Mark Winger a hero like you said Captain and the
00:37:32
public and the media agreed but they did do autopsies on on both individuals correct it's required by law so this is
00:37:43
the the aftermath part the the sad part right Captain so after all of this poor Mark is left alone he's left to raise a
00:37:53
baby on his own mourn the loss of his wife and maintain his job as an engineer seems like quite a bit seems
00:38:02
like too much right he sought Financial Relief by filing a claim under the Crime
00:38:08
Victims compensation act and was awarded $25,000 because he was ex-military the USAA Insurance paid out a
00:38:21
$150,000 policy on Donna Winger Mark used the funds to hire a full-time nanny for Bailey he also put the house he and
00:38:32
Donna had lived in on the market saying that it was just too painful to stay there yeah I mean it's a crime scene
00:38:40
yeah I it's it's it's going to be a constant reminder of the tragedy of the loss yeah but also what he had to do I
00:38:50
mean it's it's not like yes everybody wants to defend their loved ones but it's it's not like there's not
00:38:57
repercussions for doing So eventually he got a promotion at work um rising to the
00:39:03
title of Chief supervisor of the Illinois Department of nuclear safety Mark he's trying to move on he's
00:39:12
he's trying to rebuild his life pick up the pieces and rebuild his life and continue on for his daughter going
00:39:20
forward now Mark told the same story each time anytime he was asked about this by police or anyone else he's telling
00:39:29
the same story every time he says he ran down the hall from the bedroom and as he
00:39:35
approached the dining room this is when he says he saw Roger Harrington hitting Donna with the hammer he said he fired
00:39:44
his gun his handgun at Harrington twice the first shot was from several feet down the hall and it hit Roger
00:39:52
Harrington in the head as Harrington standing up Roger Harrington Falls backwards away from Donna the second
00:39:59
shot he fired right into Harrington's forehead as he tried to Rise Up from the floor so a shot in the back of the head
00:40:06
and then when he turns around a shot in the front of the head yes and you asked about the autopsies and there is a
00:40:15
slight problem with Mark's story so this problem is that the autopsy shows that Roger Harrington was first shot in the
00:40:23
upper back of his head so it it's it's not exactly spoton with Mark's story here now the
00:40:33
detectives they pretty much chock this up to or I'm kind of guessing for them here Captain maybe they likely check
00:40:41
chocked this up to Mark just misremembering I mean this all this stuff's happen happening very fast right
00:40:49
it's jarring he sees an attack on his wife this is not anything that you expect to run into you never expect to
00:40:55
run into into a situation like this so if you don't get everything 100% correct I think that it's easily understandable
00:41:04
you've been through the the the big the biggest tragedy of your life and now you're asked to give us a detailed
00:41:11
statement of how the whole thing went down I put more weight to him not being able to remember because he shoots the
00:41:18
man trying to protect his wife and then there's all these events that happen before he's able to tell please what
00:41:26
happened so he's calling 911 he's checking on his wife he's checking on the guy he's trying to figure you know
00:41:33
put the pieces together in his head what the hell just happened it's a flurry of
00:41:37
activity and Mark likely just misremembering the details in the blur of the event perhaps Roger Harrington
00:41:45
was bending over Donna and that's how Mark first shot him in in the back of the head but that was hardly the only
00:41:55
inconsist Y and detective Williamson began to feel uneasy very uneasy about this whole
00:42:03
situation there was this nagging feeling at him that there was something missing
00:42:08
from the story or there was some puzzle piece that wasn't fitting in with the overall crime scene and the overall
00:42:17
activities of this situation another thing that didn't really add up was the timing between the two
00:42:23
gunshots on the 911 call Mark can be heard saying that the guy on the floor has a bullet in his head right
00:42:32
remember Mark told the police that he shot Roger Harrington twice in quick succession boom boom Forensic Files
00:42:42
reports that a neighbor heard two gunshots so this backs up Mark story right but not exactly because the
00:42:49
neighbor says I heard two gunshots and they were roughly about 5 minutes apart so not boom boom boom four and a half
00:42:59
five minutes go by and then boom again well it's more like boom you know go make a coup of coffee have a
00:43:05
cigarette and then and then come back and shoot him again so the problem with that is pretty obvious if that all is
00:43:14
true then it calls into question Mark's facts of how things went down and how and when did the second
00:43:24
bullet get fired into Roger Harrington I mean that's a big one where I'm just going to put a yeah you know just put a
00:43:31
little flag up and go okay again but this eyewitness maybe she maybe she's misremembering the shell casings found
00:43:39
at the scene were also problematic Mark told detectives that he had shot at Roger Harrington while Mark while he
00:43:47
Mark was in the hallway outside the dining room these shell casings from Mark's gun ejected
00:43:57
backward yet the two casings were found in the dining room on the carpeted floor
00:44:04
so this you know you factor in physics and all that good stuff and this is really just an impossibility if Mark's
00:44:13
story were true these shell casings should not have been found in that dining room yeah but
00:44:20
what we know from Mark is he is moving around he tells the 911 operator that he's checking in on his kid he's
00:44:27
checking in on his wife he holds his wife once he goes and touches his wife he already contaminated the crime scene
00:44:37
so it's not unreasonable to think that he didn't maybe kick the shell casings I I mean I guess but uh that
00:44:47
that's whether I he must have done it unknowingly I I don't know I'm just calling into question what the
00:44:53
detectives are seeing at the scene and what they're call put a little pin in it saying hey this is a little suspicious
00:45:00
the detective spoke to other folks who lived in the trailer where 27-year-old Roger Harrington was renting a room and
00:45:10
they told the police that they were fairly certain that Roger Harrington had gotten a phone call that morning and it
00:45:16
was from Mark Winger now you'll recall that Mark told police that yeah he had called Roger Harrington and warned him
00:45:24
saying hey stay away from my family quit calling us quit harassing us stay away from my family and we know that he
00:45:33
called Roger Harrington's boss and asked for Harrington's phone number so he could call him directly and tell him to
00:45:40
leave his wife alone so that doesn't seem to be such a big deal but the roommates said no that was not what
00:45:48
Roger Harrington told them about the phone call Trisha Ray whose mom owned the trailer told police that she was
00:45:56
certain that Roger Harrington told her that Mark called him and invited him over to his home to discuss the
00:46:04
complaint that Mark made to Harrington's employer Harrington wanted to make peace
00:46:10
with Mark so he could keep his job and Trisha said he was eager to go to that [Music]
00:46:24
meeting [Music] I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage and everybody that
00:46:39
joined us at Brew doog last week and we had an amazing time if you'd like to hear about that we talked about it on
00:46:47
this week's off the record you can find that at True Crime garage.com we also talked about some of the comments that
00:46:55
Doug car made about the deli murder so if you're not subscribed to off the Record then you ain't nasty and you need
00:47:03
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00:47:11
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00:47:17
you have to you'll have to re sign up I had to delete about 2,000 invalid emails
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so you want to check that out so much more to get to in this case tomorrow Colonel we got so much more to get to in
00:47:32
this case until then be good be kind and don't [Music] litter [Music] you can live out your Master Chef dreams
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