The Disappearance of Jami Hagel Sherer

 

Jami (photo source: imdb)

Jami

Jami Hagel was a pretty, outgoing 22-year old in 1986 when she first met Steven Sherer.  Unfailingly happy and never moody, the only daughter of a family with three sons, she had been a feisty tomboy in her childhood and teens who had loved horses, baseball and climbing trees and was fearless.  She delighted in her younger twin brothers and had a very close relationship with her mother, Judy, which never wavered, even into adolescence and adulthood.  

The energetic girl matured into a caring and compassionate young woman who retained the bubbly, outgoing, and friendly nature of her youth.  She had a serious high school boyfriend, one she began dating during her sophomore years and with for five or six years, remaining friendly with him thereafter.  Jami not only kept her bonds with her school friends but with her family as well.  Even after moving out of the family home and into, first, an apartment she shared with a roommate and then into her own apartment in Redmond, Washington, less than ten miles from the Hagels' home in Bellevue, she called Judy four or five times a week and spent most weekends with her parents and siblings.  She had a secure job with a computer company and her life was just beginning to blossom in front of her when Steven Sherer entered her world.

The first time that Jami's parents saw Steve Sherer, he rode up on a motorcycle with Jami.  He was proud of the motorcycle as he had bought it from his winnings at the racetrack, as Judy Hagel recalled.  The Hagels were less than impressed with Steve.  While Jami had previously brought home boyfriends that were polite and took every opportunity to be friendly, Steve Sherer was completely uninterested in Judy and Jerry Hagel and anxious to leave their home.  At that time, neither Jami's family nor friends were overly concerned, feeling that she couldn't seriously be interested in someone like him.

Steve (photo source: CrimeMysteryandMayhem)

Steve

Steve had been born in California to a 22-year-old father and 17-year-old mother.  Like Jami's parents, Steve's father David originally came from North Dakota.  David was a bricklayer but he possessed business savvy and wasn't afraid of hard work.  He moved his young family that included Steve's mother Sherri, Steve and Saundra to Washington (youngest daughter Laura would be born there) as the building boom was happening.  Thanks to fortuitous timing and drive, David David started a construction company and bought cheap acreage in what would end up being the Seattle suburb of Mill Creek.  Although Steve physically resembled his father, he possessed none of David Sherer's drive and ambition.  They did, however, share a love of alcohol which caused many problems in his marriage with Sherri.  In an attempt to wean himself off alcohol and get himself together, in November of 1983 he left their Washington home to head for their Palm Desert, California home (the Sherers also owned homes in Rancho Mirage, California and Scottsdale, Arizona).  David was reportedly distraught over the state of his marriage, a fact that was certainly not helped by being alone around the Thanksgiving holidays.  

He was apparently intoxicated when Sherri called him on  Thanksgiving evening and again, several hours later.  David reportedly told her he would be better off without him and stated he had a gun and was going to do something about it.  The comment apparently didn't worry Sherri enough to contact law enforcement; she later said she didn't believe him.  Despite that, she got on a plane to California, arriving around 11 p.m. on Friday, November 25.  Arriving at their Palm Desert house, she found David sitting on the sofa, a wound from the blast of a .32 caliber automatic gun in his right temple.  The gun was found on the carpet next to the sofa.  An empty shell casing was beside it.  Forty-four year old David was already in rigor mortis and his body showed signs of lividity, indicating he had been dead for some time.  Investigators from the Riverside County Coroner's Office discovered a bullet hole in the north wall of the den with blood spatter and what appeared to be bone fragments staining the nearby wall.  Other than that, the house was neat and clean.  David himself had been full dressed and had no defensive wounds on his hands.  Although he had left no suicide note, his blood alcohol level was .10 percent, legally intoxicated.  His death was classified a suicide and his body was sent back to Washington for burial.   Although there was no evidence that Steve accompanied his mother to California, rumors would remain that Steve had killed his father.         

When he met Jami, Steve was twenty-four, only two years older than Jami, but he seemed completely unlikely to be her type.  He stood only five-foot-seven, but still towered over the tiny Jami, who was five feet tall and not even a hundred pounds.  What he lacked in height, though, he made up for in personality, which could alternate between charming and abrasive.  On first meeting Jami, he turned on the charm, telling her that he was the son of a very wealthy family and his being flush with money seemed to support that.  Not that she cared about the money; she was attracted to Steve's strong personality.

Jami, surrounded by her family on her wedding day
(photo source: tvnow.de)

Jami and Steve

What Jami's family and friends didn't know was that Steve Sherer had a lengthy rap sheet, a nasty temper and an addiction to gambling, alcohol and drugs.  He had little respect for women, jumping from girl to girl, much as he jumped from job to job.  

Shortly after beginning to date her, he questioned Jami about men she had known before him.  He called Jami's high school boyfriend and threatened to kill him, only stopping once Jami got on the line to apologize for Steve's behavior.  Jami was so young that she believed Steve's controlling and possessing ways were a sign that he was in love with her.  His jealousy, at least then, made her feel secure.     

Steve's run-ins with law enforcement ranged from assault to resisting arrest to malicious mischief and always seemed to stem from alcohol and women.  He had a type - pretty, petite blondes with big breasts - and never seemed to be without them, although the relationships would burn out due to his emotional, verbal, and physical abuse, not to mention threats and stalking.  Many of the women were smart, educated and confident, like Jami - at least before they got involved with him.  He seemed to have a power over them, controlling them and keeping them close long after they should have left.  

Even after he started dating Jami Hagel, Steve continued to harass, threaten and physically assault his previous girlfriend, who had gotten a restraining order against him.  Unbelievably, both his ex-girlfriend and Jami lived in the same apartment building, something Steve had arranged to make everything more convenient for him.  Both women knew about the other and both thought the other was the true problem; neither seemed to realize that Steve Sherer was the real problem.  The other woman finally left the triangle after Steve threw a shot glass at her, causing a concussion and deep gash in her scalp, and threatened to kill her in front of law enforcement.  He was convicted of second-degree assault.  The other woman's freedom, however, meant that Steve transferred all of his attention to Jami Hagel.  

For her part, Jami was determined to marry Steve.  As he liked his women very thin, she gave up her favorite candy, M&Ms, to fit his ideal.  He liked blonde women and so she dyed her pretty brunette hair blonde to satisfy him.  Her personality also shifted, taking her from one a confident and zealous young woman to a nervous, submissive one.  A true abuser, Steve systematically distanced Jami from her friends and family, even going so far as to move them to California.  (The move also had to do with a residential burglary he had committed in which stereo equipment, jewelry and a handgun were stolen.)  Soon, Jami's entire world was Steve and about making him happy.   Judy Hagel had seen purpling bruises on Jami's arms and legs and she, along with Jami's other loved ones, hoped that the two would never marry.

Jami as a bride (photo source: Charley Project)

Marital Ties and Arrests

In November of 1986, however, the two were engaged, with Steve giving Jami a diamond engagement ring appraised at $13,500.  On his suggestion, the couple had the ring insured, along with their other possessions. That same month, Steve called the Riverside County Sheriff's Department to report that someone had broken into their mobile home and stolen a number of their possessions, including Jami's engagement ring, valued at over $32,000.  Despite their uneasiness over the timing of the policy and then alleged burglary, the insurance company paid the claim.  Steve had expensive tastes, however, and the money did not last long, sending the couple back to Washington.  While the Hagels were happy that Jami was back in Washington, they were distressed by her appearance -- very blonde and very, very thin.  Steve had also decided that Jami needed bigger breasts and so she agreed to get implants, a surgery that turned out to be very painful for her.  The implants left her very top-heavy and out of proportion for her petite size; Jami soon regretted the decision but Steve was thrilled with the results.  

Before their marriage in July of 1987, the two separated several times but always got back together.  Steve served a 60-day sentence in the county lock-up in May of 1987 for residential burglary but that didn't dissuade Jami.  Rather than realizing her freedom and regaining her spirit, she was miserable while he was gone and filled with anxiety and terror at the thought that he might break up with her. 

Jami had started a new job with Microsoft, something she thrived at and loved.  Steve too had found a new love:  cocaine.  Cocaine fueled many of their fights, particularly when Jami would hide some of his stash from him.  Steve would eventually draw Jami's brothers and Jami herself into addiction as well, although not nearly as deep as his own.  

Their wedding was a lovely one and although the Hagels were not happy with their daughter's choice, they determined to give her the best wedding they could.  Steve, only two months out of jail, wore a white tux and had bleached his hair very, very blonde.  Although traditional in her choice of china patterns, wedding showers, invitations and all other things bridal, Jami chose a low-cut dress that  showed off her enhanced breasts, much to Steve's approval.    

Within months of their marriage and while still in their honeymoon period, Steve was once again arrested, this time for drunk driving.  While under arrest and at the Bellevue police station, he leapt at an officer, attempting to choke him with both hands and threatening to kill him.  The officer later remembered Steve Sherer's eyes and the look in them, convincing him that he would have died had another officer not intervened.  

Despite being convicted of felonious assault, Steve served little time and walked away with community supervision.  He always seemed to have incredible luck in avoiding spending much time incarcerated or serving an appropriate sentence for his crimes.

When Steve wasn't sober, he was increasingly derisive and cruel to Jami.  She knew his faults but she loved him and shifted the blame to others.  When confronted by her mother over the insurance fraud they had committed in California, Jami claimed she had not known what was going on until it was too late.  She made excuses for Steve when he insisted on Jami accounting for every minute of her day and even called her repeatedly, sometimes as often as every 15 minutes, while she was visiting her parents in Bellevue.  

The only area that Jami stood firm on was her job.  Steve had cost her jobs before she was hired at Microsoft and joining that company, Jami worked her way up to the human resources department, where she was considered a valuable employee.  At work, unlike at home, Jami was confident, outgoing and friendly; none of her coworkers guessed how dire her home life was.   She had carefully compartmentalized her professional and private life.

It was around this time she found out she was pregnant.  Jami was thrilled at the prospect of being a mother.  While Steve was impressed with his own virility, he had little to no interest in putting family first; he was still most interested in gambling, drinking and doing cocaine.  When Jami went into false labor at work one day, Steve told her coworker that he was watching something on TV and would come to the hospital when it was over.  Although Jami wanted her mother in the delivery room with her when she gave birth, Steve wouldn't allow it.  He told Jami that if Judy Hagel were there, he wouldn't be.  He eventually relented when Jami was in hard labor and did allow Judy to be present for the birth of their son, Tyler.  

While Tyler instantly became the center of Jami's world, Steve proved to be as indifferent a father as he was a husband.  If Jami were at work and he had somewhere to go (as he rarely managed to hold down a job for long) and Jami's parents weren't available, he would simply take the child with him, even if it were to the racetrack.  He also threatened Jami's parents, telling them if they interfered with the marriage, he would take Jami and Tyler and move out of state.  His verbal and emotional outbursts became more frequent and physical, ending in him hitting and punching Jami and even pulling her around by the hair.   

On November 5, 1989, police were called to their Bothell, Washington home on a domestic dispute call.  The responding officer found Jami, hysterical and holding Tyler, with red blotches on her face and a bloody spot on her scalp where her hair had been pulled out.  A long lock of her hair, with the scalp attached, was lying on the kitchen table.  Although Jami called her parents to come and get her and Tyler, after several days of phone calls and flower deliveries, she once again returned to her husband.  Jami refused to testify against Steve, thinking she was saving their marriage and providing Tyler with both a mother and a father, and so the charges against him were dismissed.   

Like many couples on the brink of collapse, the Sherers thought that buying a house would fix their problems.  With stock Jami now had at Microsoft as collateral, Steve's mother agreed to loan the couple the money to purchase a split-level home with a yard in Redmond.  Although Jami had initially wanted the house, she told friends that she probably wouldn't stay with her husband after they moved into it.  She seemed to finally realize, in 1990, that neither her marriage nor Steve was going to change.  If not for herself, she wanted to change things for her son.  In May, they closed on the house; Jami still wasn't quite ready to leave.  

She had suspected that Steve had been unfaithful but there could have been no doubt when, after moving into their new home, he urged her to join him in "swinging."  Although impotent due to the quantities of drugs and alcohol he was consuming, he took ads out in swingers' magazines without telling Jami.  During one of his sporadic periods of work, he had little discretion in talking about his sex life with his wife, even claiming that they hosted orgies at their home.  

Even while working, he still managed to call Jami continuously while she was working and even went so far as to show up on the Microsoft campus and stand outside, watching her windows, as if he sensed that she was slowly inching away from him. 

Jami, around the time of her disappearance (photo source: Charley Project)

Missing

Ironically, it was Steve that put the catalyst into place.  Joe Graham*, like Steve, was a cocaine addict; in fact, he was one of Steve's sources to score the drug and had been for a number of years.  He was married but had separated from his wife and so spent many nights sleeping on the Sherers' sofa.  Steve suggested that Joe make up a sexual threesome with himself and Jami, something that embarrassed both Joe and Jami.  As Steve was often impotent due to his excessive drug and alcohol consumption, his suggested threesome because a twosome between Joe and Jami that Steve not only watched but filmed.  One thing he didn't consider was Joe forming a relationship with Jami that didn't include him.  Jami eventually confessed to Joe the abuse Steve subjected her to and Joe was disgusted.  

By September of 1990, Jami seemed to be optimistic over a new life with Joe and was finally ready to leave Steve.  Joe Graham was certainly no catch but he gave her the strength to face Steve and take her life back.

On Friday night, September 28, 1990, Jami visited her parents and left Tyler with her mother.  On Saturday, September 29, she spent the day with Joe.  She lied to her parents and to Steve about where she was, saying that she was going to a promotional event in nearby Tacoma with a girlfriend.  Steve spent part of that Saturday with Jami's twin brothers, Rich and Rob, who later remembered how angry Steve seemed and how he commented of what he would do to Jami if he ever caught her cheating on him.

Judy Hagel spoke to Jami around seven that night, when Jami called to say she would be a little late in picking Tyler up.  Around two a.m., Steve called Judy to ask if Jami was at the Hagel house.  Judy answered in the negative but was concerned.  It wasn't like Jami to stay out that late but Judy tried to rationalize that Jami must have stayed the night with the girlfriend she had spent the day with.

At 7:30 on the morning of Sunday, September 30, Steve called Judy once again to say that Jami had come home and was on her way over to pick up Tyler.  Judy's relief turned to elation when Jami showed up and announced to her parents that she wanted to move home.  Jami confessed to her mother that she had spent the previous day with Joe, something that Judy did not approve of.  Then the phone calls from Steve started.  Jami took one of the calls and at last told Steve that the marriage was over, she no longer loved him and wanted a divorce.  Steve begged her to speak to him face to face and she eventually agreed, over Judy's protestations, and left for their arranged meeting.  She soon called to say that she was at her Redmond home as Steve had taken her purse from her and gone to their house; she had driven there to retrieve it and pack some clothes for herself and Tyler.  She was going to take a shower and then return to Bellevue.  Three hours later, at 11:45, Jami called once again to say she was on her way and would be stopping at Taco Time, her favorite fast food restaurant, to bring food.  It was the last time Judy Hagel ever spoke to Jami.

The calls from Steve began at 12:15.  Told Jami was not there, he called again at 12:30.  However, he broke with his usual pattern of calling every 15 minutes and went silent until 6:30 that evening.  Judy assumed that Jami must have been with Steve and might have gone back on her decision to leave him.  Steve showed up at the Hagel home, picked up Tyler and took him home.  By 9:30, though, he called Judy and asked if he and Tyler could return.  Arriving back, he told Judy that he hadn't heard from Jami all day.  

The following day, Monday, October 1, 1990, Judy began calling Jami's office at Microsoft at 7:30 in the morning.  Her concern became full-fledged terror when her daughter did not answer and never showed up for work.  She was so frightened that she called Joe Graham's wife in her search for Jami.  Joe's wife had Joe call Judy; Joe was as unnerved as Jami's mother.  He said he had begged her not to go back to the Redmond house.   Judy called the Redmond Police Department and reported Jami Hagel Sherer as a missing person.

Jami's friends launched searches of their own, with the Hagels' Bellevue home as grand zero.  Microsoft printed up thousands of flyers with pictures of a smiling Jami on them and gave many of their employees paid leave to join in the search for her.  Although Steve was staying at the Hagel home, he didn't join in the search for his wife or distribute the flyers.  He played the victim, speaking of how terrible things were for him and how Jami's disappearance could happen to him.   From the start, Steve was the prime suspect but he repeatedly denied any involvement in his wife's disappearance and unlike Joe Graham, was less than willing to speak to the police.   

Steve cashed out Jami's Microsoft stocks (stocks that would have made her a millionaire had she lived) and began going out to bars with her undergarments tied around his arm and her diamond necklace around his neck, claiming they made him feel closer to her.  His sister noticed a red spot on the carpet in the Redmond house and notified the police.  A friend of the Sherers said that he saw a shovel in Steve's truck on October 1, the day after Jami disappeared.  It stuck out in  his mind because he had never noticed a shovel in Steve's truck before.  

On October 5,  police found Jami's 1980 Mazda RX-7 in a church parking lot in Shoreline, a community just over 20 miles from her home in Redmond.  In the car was a suitcase containing some of her clothing but, interestingly, only sports clothes and no underwear.  The driver's seat of the car had been pushed far back, as if a tall person had last been driving.  The tiny Jami would not have been able to reach the pedals with the seat in that position.   Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, it was Steve's maternal uncle, a King County sheriff's deputy, who responded to a call about the abandoned car.  The deputy said that Steve had called him and asked him to search for Jami's car in his patrol area.   A rescue bloodhound, after picking up a scent from the headrest of the driver's seat, tracked it along the I-5 to a bus stop on the off-ramp and then lost it, suggesting the person whose scent the dog picked up got on a bus.  At the Sherer home, different bloodhounds were given scent from Jami's clothing; they were unable to track it.  However, when given a scent from Steve's pants, they tracked the exact same route the first bloodhound had tracked to the bus station.  

When Jami's car was processed, it was found the car alarm had not been set and keys to the car were found in the pocket of the ladies' leather coat found on the passenger seat.  In a small manila envelope secreted under the driver's side of the console were Jami's diamond wedding ring and a diamond-studded wristwatch.    There was no blood and no fingerprints that might give police any idea what might have happened to Jami and where she might be.    

On October 8, Steve allowed police to walk through his house, where they noted the red stain Steve's sister had been concerned about, as well as a stain near the downstairs door to the garage.  A day later, he had the carpets in the home professionally cleaned.  He told patrons at a bar later that afternoon that he was happy and "the bitch is gone," despite having told police the day before he missed Jami.

The Redmond house (photo source: FindAGrave)

On October 10, just before two p.m., a 911 operator received an emergency call from the Sherers' Redmond home.  Steve had apparently attempted to kill himself in the garage with carbon monoxide poisoning.  Found semiconscious, he had trouble speaking and moving and his condition was determined to be critical.  He was airlifted to a hospital in Seattle while detectives determined that Steve had placed a picture of Jami on their wedding day on the seat next to him and had used a cordless phone to call 911 himself.  He left a note apologizing for what he was supposedly planning to do and saying that he could not live without Jami.   Although he was placed on a respirator, Steve Sherer survived.  Detectives doubted he had any true intention of killing himself, as he had called 911 in plenty of time to be rescued.  

The following month, in November of 1990, Steve went on a date with a woman, informing her he was a recent widower who had lost his wife in a car accident.  Eventually he would tell others that Jami had fallen victim to the Green River Killer or she had been taken away by another man.   

Reinvestigation 

Time went on.  Jami did not contact her family, she did not use her credit cards or her bank account, nor did she apply for new ones.  The flyers throughout the city, tacked on telephone poles and taped to windows, began to fade.  Other cases took priority over hers.  In June of 1991, Steve got into a fight outside a bar with a man who pulled a pistol and shot him in the forearm.  In 1992, he was back in jail for using cocaine and failing to meet with his probation officer, violations of his probation.  That same year, he sold the Redmond house, which led to him being sued by his mother for return of the money she had loaned him and Jami toward the purchase.

The Hagels hired private detectives, none of whom could deliver on their promises of finding Jami.  They were awarded custody of Tyler and raised him in a loving environment, accepting that Jami was dead.   Steve saw his son infrequently and when he did, Tyler was hardly a priority.  

In May of 1997, Jami was declared legally dead.  A few months before that, a new investigation was begun into her disappearance.  Detectives followed leads that led them to California, Arizona, Hawaii, Wisconsin, North Carolina, British Columbia, Germany and even Colombia and spoke to hundreds of people.    

In the fall of 1998,  Steve, who had moved to Arizona, returned to Washington to surrender on his multitude of drunk-driving warrants and was sentenced to eight months in the King County Jail.  Detectives continued investigating him; many people, including his ex-girlfriends of more than a decade, who had been afraid to speak out against him when he was free became more willing when he was behind bars.  By October, prosecutors began presenting evidence and witnesses before an inquiry judge, including Joe Graham, who had moved to Idaho.  Steve Sherer was presented as a mean, sadistic individual who had been in run-ins with the law since he was 18 and routinely flouted not only the law but had regularly humiliated women, including his wife.   By the time he was released from jail in late May of 1999, Steve knew the clock was ticking on him.

He was arrested once more, in June of 1999 for threatening a police officer and a senior deputy prosecutor, for which he was bailed out, before the end finally came.  On January 8, 2000, eight months shy of a decade after Jami disappeared into oblivion, Steve Sherer was arrested on the charge of first-degree murder.  His bail was set a a million dollars. 

Guilty (photo source: seattlepi.com)

Trial and Conviction

His trial was scheduled to begin on April 17, 2000 but it would take until May 3 before a jury was chosen and seated.  

Among the witnesses for the prosecution was a former girlfriend of Steve's, one who was only sixteen or seventeen when she dated him after Jami's disappearance.  She testified that he admitted to her that he had gotten in a physical altercation with Jami at the Redmond house and had given her a bloody nose.  He also told her about the insurance scam in California, where he had taken things from the house he shared with Jami and pretended they were stolen.  According to her, he used part of the insurance proceeds to pay for Jami's breast augmentation.  It did not go unnoticed by the jury, when shown photos of how she looked back in 1991, that she bore an eerie resemblance to Jami.  

Another witness testified that he had cleaned the carpet in the Redmond home after Jami's disappearance (and after the police had done a search).  He said that an area in the basement by the door to the garage had urine and fecal stains, where somebody or something had evacuated.  Steve had blamed it on the dog and eventually had that patch of carpet replaced and primer put down on the flooring underneath.  After multiple cleanings and treatments with Kilz, no criminologist could say exactly who or what had lost bodily fluids there.

Compared to the prosecution, the defense had much fewer witnesses to call - Steve had never had many true friends.  And so they attempted to besmirch Jami's image as a loving mother and daughter.  Their first motion was to enter into evidence a videotape of Jami having sex with both Steve and Joe Graham, filmed and directed by Steve.  With the threat of many court watchers vowing to leave the courtroom if the video was shown, the judge refused to allow it.  The defense still did their best to make Jami out to be a woman of little or no morals who had left her life of her own accord.  

Most court watchers were waiting to see if Steve would take the stand in his own defense - and were disappointed when the defense rested without the jury hearing from him.  Given that Steve was a loose cannon, given to furious outbursts, his attorneys couldn't afford to subject him to cross-examination. 

The case went to the jury on June 1, 2000.  The eight women and four men spent nearly seven full days deliberating and examining the evidence.  Even without her body, they were all in agreement that Jami was dead.  They needed to decide if Steve was responsible for her death.  Normally, the longer a jury stays out, the better for the defense.  Not so in this case.

On Thursday, June 8, the jury reached its verdict.  Steve Sherer was found guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and guilty of second-degree felony murder.  It was one of the only times in Washington's history that a conviction was won without a body.  He was shocked, as he had told several people he expected to be going home that day.  He told the jurors that when Jami came back, they could "rot in hell."   The jurors had already been excused when he made his next outburst, this time to Judy Hagel, to whom he yelled "Fuck you, Judy!" 

On July 22, 2000, Steve was sentenced to sixty years in prison.  The judge said he based his decision on the emotional scars Tyler Sherer, then 12 years old, would have throughout his life, thanks to his father killing his mother.  He also cited how much planning Steve likely had done to murder Jami and then prolong her family's suffering by continuing to insist she was alive and not letting them know where her body was.  His lack of remorse also did him no favors.  Always a classic abuser, when leaving the courtroom after sentencing, Steve faced Judy Hagel once again and this time, he blew her a kiss.  

Steve's mother told the gathered reporters that she did not believe her son was guilty and the "injustice" would be appealed, at which time "it will all come out then." 

Life Following Lockup

Like Mark Winger, Steve Sherer's story did not end with his incarceration.    He was sent to the Washington State Prison near Walla Walla to serve his sentence.  In May of 2001, he paid $80 for a "pen-pal" ad on prisonpals.com, submitting three studio portraits of himself from 1998.  He claimed "my main goal for doing this is to meet a companion or very close friend."  Adding he's "a sun and outdoor type of guy" who loves sports and his son, he was seeking "an attractive and honest woman who isn't very religious" and with "no sexual hang-ups."   If such a woman was "willing to take a chance and look past the charge I'm being held for, which I did not do," Steve was happy to have this woman write to him and see "where this goes."  

As his mother had promised, he filed an appeal, stating that the evidence presented against him was insufficient to warrant a claim of premeditated first-degree murder.  He also claimed that the jury should not have heard self-incriminating statements that were provided by witnesses, nor his history of violence against Jami; he had attempted to block those during the trial but the trial court had denied his motions.  He also felt the trial court had erred in allowing witnesses to testify they had seen him assault Jami.  The appeals court sided with the trial court in all matters and denied his appeal.

News broke in the spring of 2003 that in December of 2001, while he was preparing his appeal, Steve had approached a cellmate and asked him to set fire to a house in Bellevue - the home where Jami's mother and Steve's own son lived.   The cellmate would be paid for the arson with $17,000 in jewels that Steve said were buried beneath a Mill Creek house.  The motive seemed to be revenge for Judy Hagel's testimony during his trial.  Police had received a tip on the arson plot at the end of 2001 and found it credible enough to begin listening to Steve's prison phone calls and bugging his cell.  When the cellmate was released in February of 2002, police searched him and found a book with Judy Hagel's address and driving directions.  He admitted he had agreed to burn down the house in exchange for the jewelry and cooperated with police rather than be returned to prison.  He told law enforcement the entire arson plan, as well as Steve wanting him to show proof that he had burned down the house. 

Even more amazing was that arson wasn't the only thing on Steve's mind.  He had wanted the people in the house killed, although he never disclosed to his cellmate who the people were who lived in the house.  His former mother-in-law and his own son weren't the only people he wished to eliminate.  Steve also wanted his cellmate to kill Marilyn Brenneman, the attorney who had prosecuted him, and her four children.  He had offered the Brenneman hit to a former cellmate but that cellmate had wisely chosen not to accept.  

The Bellevue Fire Department, working with the police, staged a fire at the Hagel home, generating enough smoke to make it look like the house was burning.  A local newspaper, who also was lending a helping hand, reported that the house could have been targeted.  That article was then mailed to Steve, who responded by mailing his former cellmate directions to his mother's previous house in Mill Creek.  At that location, according to Steve, the cellmate would find jewelry buried in a crawl space. The property was searched but no jewelry (or cash) was found.

Steve was charged and convicted of solicitation to commit arson; that jury needed less than two hours to find him guilty.  As it was his third conviction under Washington's persistent offender law (the other two being his conviction for Jami's murder and a 1987 felony assault charge), Steve was automatically sentenced to life in prison.  

Inmates at Washington State Prison have reported that Steve Sherer repeatedly told them that he strangled Jami because she was going to leave him and he hid her body.   Judy Hagel believes that Steve did indeed strangle her daughter at the top of the stairs and Jami fell down them, leaving the stains on the carpet below.  

Steven Sherer is currently incarcerated at the Clallam Bay Corrections Center on the Olympic Peninsula in the western part of Washington, where he serves his sentences alongside nearly 900 other inmates.   

Jami and her father Jerry (photo source: Dignity Memorial)

Jami's father Jerry died in 2016 at the age of 75, following a battle with cancer.  A memorial to his daughter was added to his headstone, complete with Jami's picture, which reads:  "Deeply missed, forever loved."  

Tyler Sherer, who was two years old when his mother vanished, is today 33 years old, older than his mother was when she died.  She has been gone more years than she lived.  

Jami Hagel Sherer's body has never been found.

*pseudonym  

(photo source: FindAGrave)

The Assassination of Sara Tokars

 

Sara Tokars with her sons, Ricky and Mike (photo source: Atlanta Magazine)

The Murder

It was Thanksgiving weekend, 1992.  Sunday night, November 29, was a quiet one in the Marietta neighborhood of Kings Cove, which housed comfortable, upscale homes that ranged from twenty years old to new.  It was not long after 10 p.m. when one of the homeowners heard a knocking at his front door and opened it to two little boys, who were spattered with blood and holding hands.  The older of the two told him that "a bad man shot my mom," "a bad black man" with a "pirate gun."  He wanted the man to call his grandfather, who was a doctor.  The little boy, six-year-old Ricky Tokars, thought that since his grandfather was a doctor, he could make his mom better.  

Ricky pointed to a white Toyota 4-Runner, parked in a field across the street only half a mile from the Tokars residence.  The homeowner took a friend to investigate and found a terrible sight.  When they opened the driver's-side door, the body of thirty-nine year old Sara Tokars fell out.  She had suffered a horrifying shotgun wound to the back of her head.  

The Cobb County police notified Sara's family in Bradenton, Florida and her husband, Fred Tokars, who was at a Montgomery, Alabama hotel.  Sara's father, John Ambrusko, later recalled that Fred was hysterical the first time they talked by phone following the notifications.  Detectives found Fred to be a sobbing mess, which was understandable, but they also smelled beer on his breath, which Fred claimed to be an attempt from his attorney -- one of his first calls--  to calm him.  Less understandable was Fred's refusal to cooperate and his resistance to walk through the family home with the investigators.  He provided sketchy details on how the house was secured, couldn't say whether or not Sara's jewelry had been disturbed, or why the safe was open.  He was certain, though, that his guitar had been moved.     

The Investigation

Fred Tokars (photo source: Oxygen)

As Fred was a well-known attorney and former prosecutor, the murder became an immediate big news story.  

The detectives had little physical evidence to go on.  No fingerprints, no gun casings and nothing apparently left behind by Sara's killer.  All they had was the massive amount of her blood and fragments of her skull and brain.

From Ricky Tokars, the police learned that after he, his mother and little brother had returned home on Sunday evening from a family visit in Florida.  By the time the SUV had pulled into the garage, four-year-old Mike was asleep.  Sara had left him in his car seat while she and Ricky and Ricky's spaniel, Jake, got out of the vehicle.  As she had opened the door to the house, a black man wearing a dark cap had appeared, holding a gun.  Jake began barking and the man kicked him, before forcing Sara and Ricky back into the car.  The man had climbed into the backseat beside the still-sleeping Mike and directly behind Sara and ordered her to drive.  By the time Sara had pulled the car into the cul-de-sac half a mile from her home, on the gunman's orders, Mike Tokars had awakened.  The gunman then shot Sara in the back of the head.  The car, motor still running, had coasted across the road and into a nearby field, where it came to rest.  Ricky, covered in his mother's blood, reached over and turned the ignition off before pulling his crying younger brother from the backseat and going for help. 

Police began investigating Sara and Fred Tokars in an attempt to find out who had wanted to kill her.  

Sara had first seen Fred on the evening news eight years earlier, when he was a junior prosecutor assisting in a high-profile murder case involving the slaying of an attorney by his lover.  The slim, attractive and outgoing Sara felt attracted to the tall and lean Fred, who sported a look of seriousness with his tortoiseshell glasses and hair he combed back behind his ears.   Then 31 years old, Sara was working at the trendy Elan nightclub by Perimeter Mall as a promoter and sharing a Dunwoody condo with her sister Krissy.  She had been an elementary school teacher in Florida before moving to Atlanta with her first husband, a health club owner she had met at the beach.  Sara became a fitness instructor at her husband's gym but the marriage did not last and ended in divorce.  

Fred had worked as an accountant before earning his law degree in night school.  Even while working as a junior prosecutor for the DA, he quickly began the aggressive self-promotion he would become known for.   Although he had no experience prosecuting cases involving white-collar crime or computer fraud, he deemed himself an expert and began teaching at local colleges and night law school, as well as tax and accountant seminars and law enforcement seminars.  He also gained a reputation for his eagerness to work on projects he found interesting -- as well as the Atlanta nightlife and women.  Soon enough, he was known as "Fast Fred" around the office.

On impulse following that television appearance, Sara called Fred at his Fulton County District Attorney's office.  A friendly chat led to a date and that date led to being married in Judge John Langford's chambers the following year.  For Sara, she felt she had finally found what she had been searching for:  a good man who was promising her a suburban home and children.  Sara, the middle child of seven daughters in a Catholic family, dearly wanted to recreate her own comfortable upbringing.  Fred, who nursed political aspirations and spoke of wanting to be a tax attorney with wealthy clientele, found Sara to be an asset; she was gorgeous, have a vibrant personality, and had the social contacts Fred desired.   

Within months of the wedding, Sara was pregnant with Ricky and the couple purchased their King's Cove home.  Cracks, however, were already beginning to form in the Tokars' marriage.  If Sara was disheartened by Fred's inattentiveness and long work hours, she was discouraged when her desire to quit working was met by resistance.   She continued working throughout her pregnancy and after Ricky's birth until the decline of the nightclub business led her to being laid off.   While Sara became a stay-at-home mom, Fred left the DA's office to start his own practice.  Where he had once worked to prosecute crimes, now he worked to defend the accused.  Starting first with criminal defense, he soon expanded his practice to include divorce and tax fraud in hopes of making as much money as quickly as possible.  

Sara was less than happy with her husband's new clientele.  As some of them paid Fred in cash, she worried that they were mixed up in the drug business.  Financial problems -- repairs needed on the house, the loss of Sara's salary, and the addition of baby Mike -- were compounded by Fred putting Sara on a budget.  He refused to allow her credit cards or her own bank accounts and insisted they pay for everything with cash.  Fred later claimed that he put his wife on a budget because she had a lot of debt when they married.  

(photo source: People)

Sara tried to start her own small promotions company but Fred refused her budget proposals and only gave her a small portion of the funds she requested.  She told her sister Krissy that Fred would now allow her access to the basement of their home, where he kept a safe and a bunch of files locked up.  He also began objecting whenever Sara wanted to visit her family, refusing to provide her with money for gas or a hotel room.  If she insisted on going, she would drive the nine hours with the children while Fred would fly down.  

Sara alleged to an attorney and private investigator she eventually hired that shortly after Ricky's birth Fred began physically abusing her, an allegation he later denied.  She wrote a new will after Mike's birth, naming her sister as her executor and leaving everything to her sons.  For his part, Fred took out three life insurance policies worth $1.75 million on Sara.  

By 1989, Sara was convinced that Fred's late nights had more to do with other women than work.  She sought out advice from a Buckhead divorce attorney but was clearly intimidated by Fred, who had threatened to take the children from her if she ever tried to leave.  By that time, she believed he had the political connections to do it.   He served as campaign treasurer for a superior court judge's winning race and was appointed by Mayor Andrew Young as a part-time city judge.  

Sara's private investigator confirmed her suspicions that Fred was engaging in extramarital affairs, leading her to gather information on Fred that she could use against him in any divorce action.  She broke Fred's house rules, got the combination to his basement safe and opened it, finding documents, bags and vials of what appeared to be prescription medication.  She asked her PI to turn his files on Fred over to the police should anything happen to her.

Fred was becoming better known to law enforcement and not for his seminars.  He was not only representing drug dealers but apparently going into business with the people who fronted them.  It didn't help that some of the clients he was representing faced allegations of drug trafficking and money laundering.  Sara was uneasy with Fred's clientele and, due to the fact that she and the children were alone so often at night, begged her husband to install an alarm system on the home, which he had done, and to fix the broken lock on the sliding door, which he did not do.  She seemed terrified of leaving Fred and taking any steps forward for herself, but she did volunteer as a teacher's aide several times a week at the Catholic school Ricky and Mike attended.  

Three weeks before Sara's death, federal agents were investigating claims of tax evasion and money laundering against Fred's client, Anthony Brown, who was also suspected of managing a cocaine distribution ring.  As Fred had been Brown's attorney, he was viewed not only as a witness but a target of their probe.  As such, had she not been murdered, it was possible that Sara might have been subpoenaed in the investigation.

On Tuesday, November 24, 1992, five days before Sara was killed, she and the children left to visit her family in Bradenton, Florida.  They stopped at the Tampa airport to pick up Fred, who had flown down from Atlanta.  On Saturday, shortly after 1:30 in the morning, the fire alarm in their Marietta home went off.  Six hours later, a second alarm sounded.  The alarm company, who phoned the Tokarses in Florida, was instructed to disconnect the alarm.  Fred would later insist that it was Sara's decision to disconnect it.  

Fred left Florida to return to Atlanta later that day, with Sara and the boys set to follow the next day after lunch.

Fred Tokars under arrest (photo source: Oxygen)

The Break

Through their investigation detectives learned about a 28-year-old man named Eddie Lawrence.  Lawrence was a classic slumlord who had amassed a small fortune using drug money to purchase ramshackle properties, fix them up and rent them out.  He would then default on his mortgage payments, while continuing to collect rent from his beleaguered tenants.   He had found Fred Tokars after getting into legal jams.  Fred not only represented Lawrence but chose to go into business with him.  Eventually their relationship began to crumble, with Lawrence owing Fred $70,000.  Fred had an affair with a stripper, who was an employee of Lawrence's.  She told investigators that during one of their rendezvous he had told her he was sick of Sara and he was going to get her out of the way.    

Lawrence had criminal charges pending against him for writing bad checks when the police picked him up but worse for him, informants told police that he had been shopping for a hit man before Sara's murder.  Lawrence denied killing Sara Tokars or participating in her murder but he was arrested anyhow. 

Curtis Rower (photo source: Ga. Dept. of Corrections)

Less than a week after Eddie Lawrence was arrested, the Cobb County Police were given the name of 22-year-old Curtis Rower.  Rower was a crack addict known as "Cornbread" who had gone on a binge following Sara Tokars' murder and blabbed to several people that he had been the one to kill her.  The informant who provided Rower's name said that Lawrence had initially offered to pay him (the informant) $5,000 for a hit.  When he turned the job down, Rower accepted it.   On December 23, 1992, Rower was discovered hiding under his cousin's bed and arrested.  He almost immediately confessed to Sara Tokars' murder but said he had not meant to kill her.  

Fred Tokars, upon hearing of the arrests of Eddie Lawrence and Curtis Rower, dropped Ricky and Mike off with Sara's family in Bradenton to go to a local hotel.  Locking the door and putting a "do not disturb" sign on the door, he then took pain pills with alcohol.  His attempt at suicide failed and he survived.  He recovered enough to speak in Atlanta on December 31 at a news conference, where he asked the media to leave him alone and to claim that Sara's murder had cost him everything.  

Ricky and Mike Tokars with their aunt Krissy (photo source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)

Only a few days later, Fred closed his law office and put the Marietta home on the market.  He moved to West Palm Beach with his mother, leaving Ricky and Mike in the care of Sara's parents and sisters.  Investigators in Atlanta, though, continued their probe into Sara's murder and in August of 1993, he was indicated by a federal grand jury.  

Justice is Served

Eddie Lawrence (photo source: Ga. Dept. of Corrections)

It would take until 1997 for Fred Tokars to be brought to trial.  In the meantime, Curtis Rowe was convicted of life in prison after two trials (the first ending in a mistrial) and Eddie Lawrence managed a plea deal in exchange for testifying against Tokars and Rowe.    The trial outlined what actually happened on the terrible night of November 29, 1992.

The prosecutors believed that Sara had confronted Fred with his secret bank accounts and illicit business dealings in an effort to get a speedy divorce.  He went to Eddie Lawrence, who owed him $70,000, and offered to clear the debt if Lawrence would get rid of Sara.  It served two purposes for Fred:  not only would Sara be gone but if Fred went down, so would Lawrence, ensuring his silence.   Fred made the deal even more enticing for Lawrence by offering him half of the proceeds from Sara's $1.75 million insurance policies as investments for his businesses.  Lawrence testified that he had tried to talk Fred out of the plan.  As one of Fred's clients, he had been to the Tokars home and had met Sara.  In fact the last time he visited the home Fred had insisted that Lawrence play his guitar; the same guitar that he told investigators in 1992 had been moved.  Lawrence had no problem being a conman and a slumlord but he apparently wanted nothing to do with actually pulling the trigger on Sara.  Fred insisted,  offering him $25,000 up front.  Lawrence agreed but decided he would contract the job out.

He went to the most desperate person he knew, Curtis Rower, and offered him $5,000 to commit the murder.  He accompanied Rower on two drive-bys in which the Tokars residence was scoped out before Curtis Rower agreed.  Shortly before Thanksgiving of 1992,  the two men entered the Tokars home in the early hours of the morning.   They knew the sliding glass door would be unlocked, the house alarm would be off and that Sara and the boys would be sleeping together in the children's bedroom.  What they didn't account for was Ricky's Springer Spaniel, Jake, who began barking.  When a light came on, Lawrence and Rower fled.   

On Sunday, November 29, Lawrence received two calls from Fred Tokars, who had just returned to Atlanta from Florida.  Tokars said that he was on the way to Montgomery, Alabama where he had an appointment with a federal prison inmate.  

By 9 p.m. Curtis Rower was in the Tokars home, which was left unlocked, awaiting Sara and the boys.  He waited for more than an hour, possibly taking the phone off the hook (or possibly Fred did that before leaving for Montgomery).  He confronted Sara with a .410 sawed-off shotgun and forced her and Ricky back into the car, kicking Ricky's barking dog on the way.  He climbed in behind Sara and next to Mike, who would indeed wake up en route to their final destination.  Rower had specific orders not to touch the children.

Rower forced Sara to drive to the location where Eddie Lawrence was parked and waiting.  When she saw Lawrence, she knew who he was and surely knew what was going to happen and who arranged it.   She begged for Rower to take the car, take her handbag but to leave her and the children alone.    Although Rower claimed he had had no intention on killing Sara, he pointed the shotgun at the back of her head and pulled the trigger.  Ricky and Mike saw their mother being killed.  

Rower and Lawrence then fled the scene, leaving the blood-spattered children to run for help.

Sara (photo source: Find a Grave)

Sara's family had hoped that Fred Tokars would receive the death penalty for orchestrating Sara's murder but the jury voted 10-2, with two jurors objecting.  Instead, he received life without possibility of parole.  He was also convicted in federal court of racketeering and money laundering and sentenced in federal prison to life without parole.   While in prison, he testified against other suspects in federal criminal trials, leading to six murders being solved.  According to his attorney, he was beaten for cooperating with the government.  He had been suffering with several diseases, including a form of MS, and had been unable to walk for a decade when he died in a Pennsylvania prison in May of 2020 at the age of 67.  

Curtis Rower remains incarcerated at Macon State Prison in Oglethorpe, Georgia.  

Eddie Lawrence remains incarcerated at the Coffee Correctional Facility in Nicholls, Georgia. 

Sara was originally buried at Arlington Memorial Park in Sandy Springs, Georgia on December 3, 1992.  Following her husband's conviction in 1997, her remains were disinterred and reburied at Mount Olivet Cemetery in her birthplace of New York.  Her mother was interred by her in 1998 and her father in 2002.

Sarah's final resting place (photo source: Find a Grave)

A Final Tragedy

Following Fred Tokars' arrest and incarceration, Ricky and Mike Tokars never spoke to him or saw him again.  Their father attempted communication by sending letters written from prison, but they rebuffed him.  The boys grew up in Florida, raised by Sara's parents and sisters.  Ricky went to college in San Diego, where he became an avid surfer and traveler before becoming an emergency medical technician.  Mike stayed in Florida for college and then toured the south by van and played guitar in bands before moving to New York, where he was inspired to become a reporter and writer.  He eventually graduated from Columbia's Master of Journalism program but despite his successes, he never got over his mother's murder.  He died suddenly and unexpectedly on April 3, 2020, a month before his father, of a pulmonary embolism in Newport Beach, California.  His obituary mentioned that he was "beloved by family and friends" and that Mike had been "cherished for his tenacious curiosity, compassionate heart, infectious sense of humor, kindred spirit and remarkable zest for life."  Mike Tokars was 31 years old.  He was interred by his mother at Mount Olivet Cemetery in New York.

(photo source: Contently)

Mark Winger: From Hero Husband To Murder Suspect

Donnah and Mark (photo source: CBS News)

The End of the Dream 

When Donnah Brown married Mark Winger in 1989, it seemed the beginning of a fairy tale.  Mark was a nuclear engineer for the state of Illinois making $72,000 a year (over $150,000 in 2020 coin) and Donnah worked as an operating room technician.  The only thing that appeared to be missing was a fam
ily.  When Donnah discovered she could not have children, the couple adopted a baby girl named Bailey in June of 1995.  

Donnah took their new daughter to visit her mother and stepfather in Florida in August and upon returning to the St. Louis airport she took a shuttle to the Wingers' home in Springfield, which was an hour and a half away.  The shuttle was driven by a young man named Roger Harrington.  

Roger
(photo source: True Crime XL) 

Twenty-seven year old Roger had been working for the company for only six months.  During the ride with Donnah, she reported that he was speeding and related having an out of body experience while he was driving.  He made Donnah nervous and she immediately informed Mark of what had transpired during the drive.  Mark called the company and made a complaint to Roger's boss while Donnah, at Mark's insistence, wrote a letter detailing the incident.  The company responded by suspending Roger. 

On August 29, police and paramedics were called to the Wingers' home on Westview Drive.  Donna, 31 years old, lay on the dining room floor on her stomach.  A pool of blood spread out beneath her and blood spatter marks colored the furniture, a nearby wall and the ceiling about her.  She had been beaten about the back of her head.  

A few feet away from Donnah lay Roger Harrington, bleeding profusely from bullet wounds to the head.  

The Wingers' kitchen table
(photo source: True Crime XL)

Mark told police that he had been in the basement, working out on exercise equipment, when he heard strange noises and a thump coming from upstairs.  He grabbed his gun, a 45-caliber pistol, as he went to investigate and found Donnah on her knees and a man standing over her and striking her with a hammer.  It was then the man looked toward him and Mark shot him in the head to prevent him from striking Donnah again.  According to Mark, the man fell away from Donnah after being shot.  

The hammer, according to Mark, was his; Donnah had left it out to remind him to hang a hat rack.  He asked the police officers the identity of the man that had attacked his wife and was told it was Roger Harrington.  Mark seemed surprised and informed the officers that Harrington was the man that had driven Donnah and the baby back from the St. Louis airport, had acted unusual and had since been making harassing phone calls to the Winger residence.

The hammer
(photo source: True Crime XL)

Ambulances arrived to transport both Donnah and Roger to the hospital.  Roger died soon after arriving and Donnah died only minutes later.  

Although Mark said he expected to be taken into custody, as he had killed a man, the police declined to do so, feeling he was a victim rather than a killer.   Springfield Police Detective Charlie Cox was familiar with Roger, as he owned the trailer park where Roger and his then-wife had lived.  Cox had broken up a physical fight between the two.  

Detectives were also aware of Roger's history of psychiatric care and delusions. 

Mark Winger quickly became a hero not only with the Springfield police but within the Springfield community.  The Sangamon County District Attorney agreed, saying he would not file charges against Mark as he acted in self-defense.  

Donnah's family, although grief-stricken on losing her, rallied behind Mark and supported him.  They believed her chance encounter with Roger Harrington led to her tragic death.  Roger's family, however, disputed that he was a murderer and asked the police to look at the case closer, to no avail.

With the death of his wife, Mark hired a nanny by the name of Rebecca Simic to care for three-month old Bailey.  He collected a $150,000 life insurance policy on Donnah, as well as $25,000 from a crime victims' fund. The Chicago Tribune wrote an article on the crime; Mark wrote a letter to the paper thanking them for their support during his ordeal.  

Several months after hiring Simic, Mark began dating her.  Fifteen months after Donnah's murder, he married her.  He left his Jewish roots behind to convert to Christianity and be baptized.  He and his new wife became active in their church, with Mark doing construction work as a volunteer.  Their family eventually expanded from Bailey, whom Simic adopted, to three more children:  two girls and a boy.  Throughout, Donnah's mother and stepfather, Sara Jane and Ira Drescher, continued to be involved in Bailey's life and the lives of Mark and Rebecca Simic.  

Greed

Mark, however, made sporadic visits to the Springfield police to look into the case, which had been considered closed.  His visits caused lead detective Doug Williamson to become suspicious of him.  He decided to sue Bootheel Area Rapid Transportation, the former employer of Roger Harrington, for millions of dollars over Donnah's death.  The shuttle company, refusing to easily pay out Mark Winger, began its own investigation.  Worse for Mark, the Springfield Police reopened the case in 1999.

As part of their reinvestigation, police spoke to a woman named DeAnn Schultz.  DeAnn had been Donnah's best friend.  She also had been having an affair with Mark at the time of Donnah's death.  She said the affair started in July of 1995, only a month before Donnah was killed, and it had continued for several months after the murder.  She said that Mark had confided to her that he wanted out of the marriage and he wished to marry her so that he and DeAnn could raise Bailey together.  Further, he wanted Donnah out of the picture permanently and mentioned killing her, with DeAnn participating in the murder.  He also spoke to DeAnn about Roger Harrington.  

Mark himself admitted the affair with DeAnn but denied the rest of the story.  

The police began examining the physical evidence, especially the photographs of the crime scene that had been taken before Donnah and Roger were taken by ambulance to the hospital - some of which had not been seen by investigators originally.  They noted that Roger was lying in the opposite direction from which Mark Winger said he had fallen after being shot in the head.  

They also noted that when Roger came in the Winger home, he brought with him a can of soda and a pack of cigarettes, which were found on the kitchen table.  It seemed odd that someone who was planning a murder would bring such items with him into the house, but not a murder weapon.  It was also unusual that Roger chose to park his car in front of the Wingers' home, with no efforts to conceal it.  On the front seat, a single piece of paper had Mark Winger's name written on it, along with the Wingers' address and a notation of 4:30.  

Donnah had been frightened of Roger, so it made no sense that she would open the door to him.  And yet there was no sign of a break-in.  Additionally, she had been upstairs with Bailey and apparently left the baby girl alone in her bed to go downstairs and admit Roger.  

Investigators spoke to Roger's former roommates and all three of them claimed that Roger had received a call from Mark Winger, after which Roger told them he was going to the Winger home.  

Investigators spoke to the Wingers' next door neighbor, who recalled hearing the gunshots on that August afternoon Donnah and Roger died.  Despite Mark saying that he had shot Roger twice in succession, the neighbor recalled hearing the gunshots a few minutes apart.  Listening to Mark's 911 call, detectives overheard the sound of someone moaning in pain before Mark disconnected the call, telling the 911 operator that his baby daughter was crying and he needed to attend to her.  Taking this into account, along with the neighbor's recollection, detectives determined that it was Roger Harrington moaning in pain.  The first shot had not killed him and Mark, worried that he might possibly survive, had hung up the phone and shot Roger again.  

It started to become apparent that Mark had called Roger to lure him to the Winger home to kill him and frame him for Donnah's murder.

Arrest and Trial

Winger in custody
(photo source: True Crime XL)

Police arrested Mark Winger in 2001 on two counts of murder and held him on a $10 million bond.  Mark contacted a friend by the name of Jeffrey Gelman, a successful Florida real estate developer, to put up his bond but Gelman refused.  

During the trial, the owner of Bootheel Area Rapid Transportation, Raymond Duffy, testified that Mark had called to complain about Roger Harrington and he asked to talk directly to Roger.  Duffy checked with Roger first, who gave him the okay to providing Mark with Harrington's phone number.  

Prosecutors alleged that Mark called Roger around 9 a.m. on the morning of the murders from his office at the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety.  During the call, the two men agreed to meet at the Winger home later that day to discuss the incident with Donnah and baby Bailey.  Roger left his home in rural Mechanicsburg around 3:30, an hour before his prearranged meeting with Winger.  

DeAnn Schultz, Donnah's best friend and the woman with whom Mark was having an affair with at the time of the murders, was given immunity in exchange for her testimony.  She testified about the affair and Mark's assertions that he wanted Donnah gone so that he and DeAnn could marry and raise baby Bailey.  The defense argued that DeAnn was an unreliable witness due to having undergone electroshock therapy following suicide attempts in the years since Donnah's murder.  

The defense also called a blood spatter expert who testified that the blood pattern at the crime scene supported Mark's story.

The jury deliberated 13 hours before finding Mark Winger guilty of murder.  The jurors found Roger's drink and cigarettes on the kitchen table telling, as well as the note left behind in his car and the fact that he did not bring a weapon with him.  

During sentencing, Mark continued to protest his innocence, even giving a lengthy speech to the judge where he asserted that Roger Harrington had killed Donnah.  

Mark Winger was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and sent to the Pontiac Correctional Center in Pontiac, Illinois.

Rebecca Simic, who had stood by her husband and supported him throughout the trial, filed for divorce after his sentencing.  She left the area and changed her children's last names in an attempt to protect them.

The Story Continues

Terry Hubbell
(photo source: Forensic Files)

Mark Winger's story wasn't over though.  Shortly after arriving in Pontiac in August of 2002, he struck up a friendship with a fellow inmate named Terry Hubbell.  Like Winger, Hubbell was imprisoned for beating a woman to death.  Winger apparently thought he was the perfect partner in a murder-for-hire plot to eliminate a witness in his case - DeAnn Schultz, the woman he had promised to marry once Donnah was out of the picture.   Hubbell didn't think much of Winger's solicitation, since "everybody that is in prison pretty well says they would like to get rid of a witness in their case."  Winger was not to be deterred and eventually provided Hubbell with a 19-page handwritten note outlining his plans, which now included kidnapping Jeff Gelman, the man who had declined to bail out Winger in 2001.   Winger's plan was to extort huge sums of money in exchange for not hurting Gelman's family.  (A promise that would not be kept as Winger's plan was to not only kill Gelman but his family as well.) The money received from Gelman would then pay a hitman to kidnap DeAnn Schultz, who would then be forced to record and write statements that she had committed perjury during the trial and that Mark Winger was innocent.  Once that had been completed, Schultz would be killed but her death should be made to look like a suicide.  In true engineer style, Winger ordered that fingerprints to be found on Schultz' suicide note and the cassette tape in which she would state she had committed perjury be hers and her DNA was to be found on both the envelope and stamp that would contain the so-called suicide note.  

Should any money be left over after these schemes, Winger wanted an additional hit - that of his former father-in-law, Ira Drescher because "he's a song-of-a-gun father-in-law that I dislike."  For all his planning, however, Winger apparently didn't consider that he would be the common link in the deaths of the Gelman family, DeAnn Schultz and Ira Drescher.  

In 2006, Winger, then 48 years old, was indicted for solicitation.  He claimed that his murder plot were pure fantasy spurned on by his anger over his conviction, which he believed was politically motivated.   He also blamed his revenge fantasies on the "dehumanizing" conditions at maximum security prisons, which Winger described as "warehouses of men but . . . also insane asylums."  Hubbell, the man he had solicited, he said was "a sly fox" that was scamming him and he claimed to fear Hubbell.  

The jury didn't believe him and after only three hours of deliberation, he was convicted in June of 2007 and was gifted with two 35-year sentences that were tacked on to his life without parole sentence.  

The Winger case was fictionalized in an episode of CSI: NY and featured on 48 Hours.  

The Last Chapter 

Sara Jane and Ira Drescher
(photo source: Forensic Files)

Following Donnah's murder, Sara Jane and Ira Drescher raised over $40,000 to build Donnah's Playroom in Joe DiMaggio's Children's Hospital in Hollywood, Florida in 1998.  After their former son-in-law was exposed as Donnah's killer, they established Donnah's Fund in Broward County, Florida's Women in Distress Shelter.  The fund helped domestic violence victims to pay security deposits, furnishings and childcare after they exited the shelter and began new lives.    The Dreschers continue to speak on the subject of domestic violence and reside in Florida.

Rebecca Simic and her children; Bailey is at top left
(photo source: Forensic Files)

Although Rebecca Simic said her marriage to Mark Winger was a happy one, surrounded by their children and church family, she took the children and moved to Louisville, Kentucky following the 2002 trial.  Winger responded by threatening her life.  The two were divorced and Simic has remained private.  In a rare 2016 interview, she said she wanted to provide support to other single mothers and that family members of convicted murderers were living victims.  She also claimed that the entire experience with Winger only strengthened her religious faith.  

Roger Harrington's parents, Ralph and Helen, lived to see their son's name cleared and Mark Winger convicted of the murders of Donnah and Roger.  Ralph died in 2010 at the age of 73.  

Donnah (photo source: imdb)

Roger (photo source: CBS)

Mark Winger remains incarcerated at Menard Correctional Center in Illinois.  The formerly slender engineer has now reportedly beefed up to 215 pounds and added an eagle tattoo to his leg.  Very litigious, he mounted numerous lawsuits beginning in 2006 concerning where he can exercise.  He claimed he suffered from depression, panic attacks and physical illness caused by his exclusion from the prison's exercise yard.  As the exclusion forced him to remain within his cell, he argued that constituted cruel and unusual punishment and a violation of his Eighth Amendment rights.  Winger's arguments would drag on until 2013, when the Court of Appeals reaffirmed a lower court's ruling and effectively closed that chapter.  

Mark Winger, convicted killer 
(photo source: Forensic Files)