The Rape That Never Was: Gary Dotson and Cathleen Crowell Webb

Cathleen Crowell Webb and Gary Dotson in 1985 (photo source)

The True Story Behind the First Person Exonerated by DNA

It was Saturday, July 9, 1977, shortly before 11 p.m.  A Homewood, Illinois police officer was making his normal patrol rounds when he happened upon a teenage girl standing beside a road located not far from a shopping mall.  The girl, sixteen-year-old Cathleen Crowell, flagged down the officer and tearfully told him that she had been raped.  According to Cathy, she had gotten off work at Long John Silver's, where she was employed as a cashier and a fry cook, and begun walking home around 8:45 p.m. when she approached by a car that was occupied by three men.  Two of the men jumped out, grabbed her and threw her into the back, with one of the men joining her in the backseat and the other sitting up front with the driver.  The car sped off and she was restrained by the front seat passenger, who hooked his arm around her knee, and the man in back, who sat on top of her.  The man in back tore at her clothing, ripping it, tried to kiss her, bit her breast, and then raped her while the others "laughed like it was a big joke."  After being raped, Cathy said her rapist took a broken beer bottle and attempted to write something with it on her stomach.   She was then pushed from the car nearly naked, with her clothing and handbag tossed out after her.  She had pulled her clothing back on and had begun walking when the officer happened to pass her.   "I tried to fight him off," she cried, "and I couldn't."  She was certain, though, that she had torn her rapist's shirt during the attack and scratched his chest.

Cathy was taken first to the police station and then to the hospital.  Dr. Andrew Labrador, the physician who performed the examination of Cathleen, noted that her clothing was dirt-stained and in disarray when she arrived.  He observed a swelling on her head, bruises on her arm, markings on her breast, which Cathy said was the result of her attacker biting her, and raised red scratches on her stomach that resembled letters.  A pelvic examination showed abrasions to her hymen and trauma to her vaginal area.   

(Photo source) 

Cathy's clothing was sent to the Illinois crime lab, where forensic scientist Timothy Dixon noted seminal material on her underpants, as well as a pubic hair.  Dixon stated that the seminal fluid came from secretor (a person who secretes their blood antigens into their other bodily fluids) with type B blood.  He also said the pubic hair did not come from Cathy Crowell.   It was also noted there was blood on both her blouse and her underwear.    

On July 12, Cathy's parents drove her back to the Homewood police station, where she worked with a sketch artist to compose a picture of her rapist, a man she described as a young white man with stringy, shoulder-length hair who was clean-shaven.  

Over the next several days, Cathy viewed several hundred photographs in various mug books.  It was on July 15, 1977, while looking through a mug book at the Country Club Hills Police Station, that she identified a photograph of a 20-year-old high school dropout by the name of Gary Dotson as her rapist.

(Photo source)

Gary's Nightmare Begins

On July 16, 1977, Gary Dotson was arrested at the Country Club Hills home he shared with his mother and sister.  He was placed in a police lineup at the Homewood Police Station and despite the fact that Gary had a mustache and certainly couldn't have grown it in less than five days, Cathy Crowell positively identified him.   She also mentioned to the officers that the fifth person in the lineup may have been the front seat passenger but she could not make a positive identification on him.

It took nearly two years before Gary Dotson was brought to trial in May of 1979 in the neighboring community of Markham.  Gary, now 22 years old, testified that on July 9, 1977 he had left his home around noon with his friend, Terry Julian.  The two men had then gone to a local bar before picking up Terry's girlfriend Pam.  The three then drove to Chicago to visit Terry's mom, where they watched television and drank beer until roughly 8:30 or 9 p.m., at which time they returned to Country Club Hills with the intention of going to some parties.  Gary and his friends went to several different house parties, the last one being in Province Town.  Gary said he had been tired by the point so he went to sleep in the backseat of the car while his friends went inside.  He remembered nothing else before waking up at home the next morning but denied raping Cathy Crowell.  

Gary's friends testified on  his behalf, corroborating his testimony.  Terry Julian and his girlfriend both testified that Gary was with them at Terry's mother's house until 9 p.m., making it impossible for him to have been in Homewood around 8:45, when Cathy claimed she had been abducted.   Terry and Pam, as well as other friends who had accompanied them to the parties that night, swore that Gary had been in their presence all evening, other than when he slept in the car, and had been taken home that night between midnight and 12:30 a.m.    

Gary's mother Barbara took the stand to testify that her son had last been clean-shaven at fifteen.  Ever since, he had had a mustache.  

Of the prosecution's witnesses, two were the most substantive:  Cathy Crowell herself and Timothy Dixon, the state police forensic scientist who had examined Cathy's clothing.  

In 1979, Cathy was a student at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, where she swam on the junior varsity swim team, studied Russian, and was considered a hardworking and high-achieving student.  She recounted the details of her abduction and rape, finishing by identifying him in the courtroom and adding, "There's no mistaking that face."  

Dixon testified that he had found type B blood antigens in the stain in Cathy's underwear, a stain that he deemed a seminal stain.  He told the jury that type B secretors made up only 10 percent of the white male population.  Gary Dotson was a type B secretor.  

Dixon then testified to loose hairs that were recovered from Cathy Crowell, stating that "several" were "microscopically similar" to Gary Dotson's. 

Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Raymond Garza, the lead prosecutor in the case, reiterated to the jury the horror that Cathy Crowell had been subjected to and added that she had been a virgin prior to the events of July 9, 1977.  He twisted Timothy Dixon's testimony in his closing argument, telling the jury that the hairs recovered from the rape "matched" Gary Dotson.  He also said that the jurors should disregard alibi testimony provided by Gary's friends, whom he called "liars," and said their testimony was just too pat to be believed.  Their lack of inconsistencies between their accounts of the night in question, according to Garza, made their testimony lack merit.  

Gary's attorney, Assistant Cook County Public Defender Paul Foxgrover objected to Garza's outlandish claim (in 1979, many years before DNA analysis, there was no way to say with absolute certainty that hairs matched and/or belonged to a certain individual) but did not challenge anything that Timothy Dixon testified to.  He also did not remind the jury of the very obvious and major inconsistencies in Cathy's description of the rapist - clean-shaven when Gary sported a full mustache - and her claims to have scratched the rapist's chest, when Gary bore no such scratches when he was examined on July 15, 1977.   He did not hammer home that the car Cathy described being thrown into did not match the vehicle of any of Gary's family members or known acquaintances.     

On those instances where Foxgrover objected to Garza's prejudicial arguments, the judge, Richard L. Samuels, overruled Foxgrover's objections.  

On May 14, 1979, the jury, predictably, found Gary Dotson guilty of aggravated kidnapping and rape.   On July 12, 1979,  one year and three days after Cathy Crowell claimed to have been raped, Judge Samuels sentenced Gary to 25 to 50 years for rape and another 25 to 50 years for aggravated kidnapping, with the sentences to be served concurrently.  

Gary immediately appealed his conviction through appellate attorney Jeffrey Schulman, claiming that he had not been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, his sentence was excessive, and that lead prosecutor Raymond Garza's improper conduct had denied him a fair trial.  The Illinois Appellate Court sided with the trial court and upheld Gary's conviction in 1981.

Cathy Recants

In 1982, Cathy Crowell married a high school classmate of hers, David Webb.  The couple moved to Jaffrey, New Hampshire, where they joined Pilgrim Baptist Church.  In early 1985, Cathy told her pastor, Reverend Carl Nannini, she was riddled with guilt because she had fabricated a rape allegation that had sent an innocent man to prison.  According to Cathy in 1985, she had invented the story out of fear that a sexual encounter with her then-boyfriend would lead to pregnancy.  Afraid of potentially having to explain a teenage pregnancy to her parents, she had invented the cover story of the rape.  She had inflicted the superficial cuts to her stomach and had torn her clothing to support her story.

With Cathy's permission, Pastor Nannini contacted attorney and devout Baptist John McLario, who agreed to represent her at once.  Believing it would be a simple and straightforward transaction, McLario contacted the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.  He was surprised to find the prosecutors not only unresponsive to him but believed that Cathy Crowell Webb was lying about making up the rape.  As they were unwilling to revisit the Crowell/Dotson case, or consider that they may have imprisoned an innocent man, McLario was put in touch with reporter Jim Gibbons.  It was Gibbons who broke Cathy Crowell Webb's recantation on March 22, 1985.  

On March 23, 1985, the Chicago area papers all ran with the news, although some made it front page while others gave it a small inside story.  The Chicago Tribune cited a source that claimed Cathy was "unstable," and from that point onward, the State's Attorney's Office set out to discredit Cathy Crowell Webb.  

Public sympathy was most definitely with Gary Dotson, however and Illinois residents were outraged that a seemingly innocent man was still sitting behind bars.   Gary's attorney, Warren Lupel, a commercial attorney who had taken the case as a favor to Gary's mother Barbara, filed a petition in which Gary asked that his conviction be set aside.  Inexplicably, Lupel filed the petition under the Illinois Civil Practice Act, which sent it back to the original trial judge, rather than the Illinois Post Conviction Act, which would have garnered Gary a new judge.   On April 4, 1985, Richard L. Samuels, the same judge that presided over Gary's trial and the same judge that sentenced him, surprisingly ordered Gary's release on a $100,000 bond pending a hearing the following week.  Samuels could have vacated Gary's conviction and ordered a new trial, virtually guaranteeing the end of the case, but the prosecution asked the judge to delay his ruling, which Samuels did.  

Attorney J. Scott Arthur, who had taken over the case from Raymond Garza, told Judge Samuels that the prosecution had located Cathy Crowell Webb's former boyfriend, a man by the name of David Bierne, and the state wished to conduct new forensic tests and compare them to her recantation.  

On April 10, 1985, one day before the scheduled hearing, the Chicago Tribune published a story stating that forensic results cast doubt on Cathy Crowell Webb's claim that the semen recovered from her underpants in 1977 was that of David Bierne's.  The ubiquitous "unnamed sources" claimed that "recent blood and saliva samples taken from Bierne do not match the evidence police found on Crowell in 1977."  

It turned out to be a false story because the prosecution's new forensic report not only corroborated Cathy Crowell Webb's recantation but found many glaring and inexcusable errors in Timothy Dixon's original analysis and report.  The original stain, called a seminal fluid stain by Dixon was not; it was a mixture of seminal fluid and vaginal fluid.  That meant the antigens Dixon detected and tested could have come from the unidentified male or from Cathy herself, who was also a type B secretor.  Dixon had known that fact in 1979, as was indicated in his notes, but chose not to share that with the jury or with Gary's attorneys.  

The new testing showed that the contributor of the semen stain could have type B blood . . . or type O.  That meant the ten percent of the white, male population Dixon cited was as the percentage of males that could have left the stain was false.  In fact, a full two-thirds of the white, male population could account for the stain.      

Dixon, as it turned out, had begun his testimony back in 1979 with a lie.  He claimed that he had done graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley.  It turned out that he had actually only attended a two-day seminar there.  

Dixon admitted in a 1985 telephone interview with a Washington Post reporter that "almost anyone could have been chemically linked to the stain" that Raymond Garza had linked to Gary Dotson and the stain "could have come from a nonsecretor" as well as other blood groups than the one he specifically testified to.  Why didn't he offer that information at trial?  "I guess it just wasn't asked."

At the April 11 hearing, Warren Lupel made a tactical error.  Attempting to reinforce Gary's alibi for the night of July 9, 1977, already a matter of record, he called a witness by the name of Bill Julian who had not previously testified.   Julian was Gary's best friend but unfortunately, his testimony contradicted that of the other witnesses on the question of who had been driving on the evening of July 9.  At the trial, the witnesses unanimously stated that one of the young women present had been driving but Julian now claimed that he had been the driver.

 Prosecutor J. Scott Arthur said in his closing argument at the hearing that "if you give a guilty man enough rope, he'll hang himself."  After having decreed the alibi as being unworthy due to consistency, now the prosecution claimed it was indeed unworthy because an inconsistency emerged.  

Ignoring the exculpatory new forensic evidence, as well as Cathy Crowell Webb's recanting of her original testimony, Judge Samuels stated that Cathy's trial testimony was more credible and believable than her recantation, and revoked Gary's bond, sending Gary back to prison.  

Warren Lupel was told after the hearing that Gary's friends back in 1979 had lied, or at least fibbed.  They knew that Bill Julian had been driving that night but he had been driving on a suspended license and they worried that disclosing the truth would get him in trouble.  It did not help Lupel, who had been blindsided by the testimony, and it certainly did not help Gary, who found himself back behind bars.

Although the Chicago Tribune continued with its very prosecution-friendly coverage (continuing to suggest that Cathy was unstable, calculating, evasive and manipulative), public sentiment remained with Gary.  Petitions were circulated demanding his release and the nation began to cotton on to the injustice happening in Illinois.  

On April 19, Warren Lupel petitioned Governor James R. Thompson for clemency.  

Enter the Governor . . .

Thompson, whose administration was under fire for the handling of a massive salmonella outbreak, chose to preside over the clemency hearing, although  no Illinois governor had ever done so before.  The Illinois Supreme Court reinstated Gary's bond on April 30 and the clemency hearing took place from May 10 until May 12.  For the first time since 1979, Gary Dotson and Cathy Crowell were in the same room.  Both gave testimony, which was broadcast live on several television stations.  

Thompson, though, stacked the deck in the favor of the prosecution.  He did not permit cross-examination and Edward Blake, who had conducted the new forensic tests disputing the results of Timothy Dixon, was not called.  Neither was Charles P. McDowell, who had conducted the most comprehensive study of false rape allegations, and who was prepared to tell the Prisoner Review Board that there was no doubt that Cathy Crowell had fabricated her rape allegation. 

The Prisoner Review Board voted unanimously to deny clemency and Thompson claimed that not only was the hearing fair but the evidence of his guilt was now stronger than ever.  Despite that, he made the decision to commute Gary's sentence to time served.  Although it meant that Gary would walk out of prison a free man, it also meant that he would be on parole and a convicted felon.  Any violation could and would be punished without benefit of a trial and could and would send him back to prison.

After being behind bars for more than six years, Gary Dotson did not immediately fall back into life as a free man.  His ordeal, combined with still being legally guilty, led him to soothe with alcohol.  He would later claim that during his clemency hearing, booze was virtually his only sustenance.  He would drink before the hearing, during the lunch break, and at night he would drink until he passed out.

He took the advice of well-meaning friends, who thought he would be set for life, and signed book and movie contracts, none of which came to fruition.  Cathy Crowell Webb, with whom he had appeared on national television in some post-release interviews, sent him $17,500, the total advance she received for Forgive Me, the book in which she chronicled her childhood, her mother's mental illness, her false rape allegation that led to Gary's conviction and incarceration, and her atonement.   In return, Gary agreed not to sue her over her false allegation.  He took the money and eloped to Las Vegas with a 21-year-old bartender named Camille.  The money quickly disappeared after the two purchased a pair of used cars, rented and furnished an apartment and drank.  They were broke two months after marrying and by March of 1986, they were evicted from their apartment, forcing the couple to move in with Gary's mother.  

On top of everything else, Gary found himself virtually unemployable.  Outside of his drinking habit, no one wanted to hire the very notorious convicted rapist.

Gary and Camille on their wedding day (photo source)

. . . and the Prisoner Review Board

By the summer of 1987, Gary and Camille had a baby daughter and Gary had a short-lived run at Alcoholics Anonymous.  On August 2, 1987, following a day out with friends, Gary and Camille got into an argument on the way home.  Camille attempted to get out of the car and Gary slapped her, before getting out of the car with the baby.  Camille ran after them when a police car drove by.  She stopped the squad car and told the officers that her husband was a convicted felon who had taken their baby. 

Gary was found with the baby down the street, sitting on a curb.  Camille had told the police that Gary had struck her and she wanted to press charges.  Based on her complaint, Gary was arrested, charged with domestic battery and ordered to appear in court on August 27.  Because the charge constituted a parole violation, he was held without bond.   

Gary's story got the attention of a journalist, who felt he was suffering an overreaction by the state to what amounted to a relatively minor incident.  She took it upon herself to find Gary a new attorney and managed to introduce Thomas M. Breen, a former Cook County State's Attorney, to the case.  Breen felt that "the schmuck probably did it" but was still fascinated by the case and accepted it.

Breen's first action as Gary's newest attorney was on August 27, 1987, when he successfully argued against a prosecution motion to delay the domestic battery hearing until September 4.  Given that Camille Dotson refused to cooperate with the prosecution there was no case and Judge William Ward agreed, denying the prosecution's motion.  The prosecution then dropped the charges.  

If Gary and Breen believed that Gary would then go free, they were sadly mistaken.  The Illinois Department of Corrections put a parole hold on Gary, which required him to remain in jail pending a hearing before the Prisoner Review Board on September 4.  In short, although the prosecution lost their motion, they accomplished their goal via the parole board to keep Gary locked up.  

At the September 4 hearing, Gary's parole officer testified that the parole violation had more to do with chronic alcoholism than criminal orientation or a serious threat to public safety.  Breen established that Camille Dotson had suffered no bodily harm as a result of the incident, despite the police claiming otherwise.

Following the hearing and the meeting of the parole board members behind closed doors, Breen was told by the members that they had not reached a verdict - although they had.  He learned from the media that the parole board had revoked Gary's parole, reinstating his original sentence.  In other words, for slapping his wife, Gary faced just over 16 years in prison.

DNA for Exonerations

In late October of 1987, Breen saw an article in Newsweek magazine that caught his attention.  Written by Sharon Begley, the article reported the discovery of a technique capable of linking criminal suspects to crimes through DNA, "the molecular equivalent of dusting for fingerprints."  Breen wondered if the technology could do the same in reverse:  could it exonerate an individual?  He inquired if it had ever been used for such purposes and although it had not, he filed a motion requesting that DNA testing be done in Gary's case.

On December 24, 1987, Governor Thompson ordered Gary's release for the parole violation.  On December 26, Gary went with friends to Calumet City, a town southeast of Chicago nearly on the Indiana line.  They went to a bar and began drinking.  When Gary received a meal not prepared as he had requested, he refused to pay and an argument ensued.  He allegedly struck a 67-year-old server an the cops were called.  He was arrested and charged with theft, battery, and disorderly conduct.  Gary's bond was set at $1,000 but the Department of Corrections intervened and put another parole hold on him, preventing his release pending yet another Prisoner Review Board hearing, set for February 18, 1988.

On December 29, 1987, Camille Dotson filed for divorce.  Several days later, the criminal charges against Gary were dropped by the prosecution after prospective witnesses cast doubts on the server's versions of what happened at the bar and the server herself had second thoughts about giving testimony under oath.  

On January 7, 1988, DNA testing in the Crowell/Dotson case was ordered.   Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester would perform the testing.   

On February 17, 1988, the parole board found that Gary, in failing to contact his parole officer on December 24, 1987, had violated his parole.  Breen argued that Gary had called his parole officer on December 26 before leaving for Calumet City but the board would not be swayed and Gary was ordered back to prison for six months.

On April 7, 1988, Governor Thompson announced that Alec Jeffreys had been unable to obtain a result in the testing.  Jeffreys' process, restriction fragment length polymorphism, or RFLP, required DNA of a high molecular weight.  Any genetic material that had lost mass due to degradation simply could not be tested.  

Edward Blake, the forensic scientist who had tested the evidence in the case three years earlier, stepped forward once again.  He had used a type of DNA testing called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR.  PCR testing worked on degraded samples and unlike RFLP testing, could link a specific suspect to a semen sample to the absolute exclusion of all other men in the world.  

Although Governor Thompson had refused to consider Blake's results in 1985, he ordered the stained underpants and fresh blood samples from Gary Dotson and David Bierne, be sent to Blake.

On August 15, 1988, Blake concluded his testing and notified the governor, the prosecutors and Thomas Breen that the PCR testing had positively excluded Gary Dotson and positively included David Bierne as the source of the semen in the underpants.  

On August 16, 1988, Thomas Breen formally asked Governor Thompson to grant unconditional clemency to Gary based on actual innocence.   Breen had asked that Thompson act expeditiously but Thompson chose not to.  He wanted to be assured of the accuracy of the PCR test and therefore would not act on the clemency question until receiving a recommendation from the Prisoner Review Board.  Meantime, although Gary was due to be released on August 16 from his six month parole violation sentence, he was involuntarily committed to a residential treatment center for alcohol and substance abuse. 

Nine long months would pass in which the Prisoner Review Board failed to speak or act with regard to Gary's case.  On April 20, 1989, Alec Jeffreys, whose RFLP testing had been unable to provide results, wrote a letter to Thomas Breen.  In it, he criticized the inaction of the Thompson administration and wrote that he hoped that Breen would be able to go back to court on the matter and obtain Gary's release.  He ended by adding "It is clear that rejection of this evidence by the judiciary would constitute a gross miscarriage of justice."  

On May 3, 1989, Breen released the Jeffreys letter to the public and filed a new petition for post-conviction relief based on the PCR results.  Although the prosecution initially publicly vowed to oppose  Breen's petition, by August 14, the day of the hearing, they had joined in the motion.  Judge Thomas R. Fitzgerald, upon granting the motion, added "It's my belief that had this evidence been available at the original trial, the outcome would have been different."  

In granting the petition, Gary was assured of a new trial.  The State's Attorney's Office, however, announced that the charges against Gary would be dropped.

At long last, 14 years after it had began and 12 years after being convicted, Gary Dotson's legal nightmare seemed over.   He began working in construction and taking college courses, hoping to become a counselor.  He also underwent treatment for alcoholism.  

Free at last in 1989 (photo source) 

Following their divorce, Gary's former wife Camille had taken their daughter and moved to Las Vegas to be close to family, where she remarried.  By September of 1994, she and her husband had split and she was living with another man.  She was reportedly using crack and marijuana and was involved in prostitution.  She was last known to be in police custody at the Clark County Detention Center on September 26, 1994 before she vanished.  Camille has not been seen nor heard from since and is still considered a missing person.  

   

(Photo source)

 Following the publication of her book, Forgive Me, in the fall of 1985, in which she recounted her institutionalized mother and a father who abandoned her to a foster parent, actions which she claimed caused her to become emotionally disturbed and sexually active at the age of 12, Cathy Crowell Webb returned to her life in New Hampshire, shunning the spotlight.  She had claimed that she was coerced by the Homewood, Illinois police to pick Gary Dotson's photograph in 1977, an allegation the police denied.   During the time of her public recanting, she claimed that she had tried to put Gary out of her mind following the trial, even going so far as to forget his name entirely.  

Regarding the rape allegation, she told a psychologist that she didn't exactly create it from thin air.  Instead, she lifted it from a novel she had been reading, called Sweet Savage Love.  In that book, published in 1974, a woman is abducted by three men in a carriage, two of whom laughed along with the rapist.  After being stripped and pinned down by her rapist's weight, the character tears at her attacker's shirt and was then bitten on her breast.  She is tossed out of the carriage naked and onto the ground, following the rape.  

Cathy went on to teach at a Christian academy and have four children, with two of her sons graduating from West Point Academy.  She died of breast cancer on May 14, 2008, just a month before her 47th birthday.   

Gary Dotson was formally pardoned on January 9, 2003, nearly 24 years after his conviction.  On August 25, 2003, he was awarded $120,300 from the Illinois Court of Claims for his wrongful conviction.

At the time of Cathleen Crowell Webb's death, Gary was said to be in the south suburbs of Chicago, living a quiet life.  

(Photo source)

Sources:

The National Registry of Exonerations (2012). Gary Dotson - National Registry of Exonerations (umich.edu)

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.  First DNA Exoneration, Center on Wrongful Convictions: Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

People v. Dotson, 99 Ill. App. 3d117 (1981). 

People v. Dotson, 163 Ill. App. 3d 429 (1987).   

The Washington Post (April 21, 1985).  Witness Failed to Offer Evidence That Could Have Aided Dotson - The Washington Post

 

The Crimes of Patricia Columbo: The True Story of Illinois' Longest-Serving Female Inmate

 

(photo source)

A Family Is Annihilated 

It was Thursday, May 6, 1976 when the maroon 1972 Thunderbird was spotted parked at 140 South Whipple in west Chicago.  The officer responding to the suspicious vehicle report arrived around two o'clock and noted that the car had an Elk Grove Village sticker in the front window.  There were no hubcaps, the right front window had been smashed and covered by a piece of cardboard and the ignition had been pulled.  Seeing as how the car hadn't been stripped, though, the officer believed it had been stolen by amateurs.  A check, though, revealed that the car had not been reported stolen and was registered to a Frank Columbo of Elk Grove Village, a suburb 20 miles northwest from Chicago.  

At one time home to farmers and German immigrants, Elk Grove Village eventually developed into a residential community.  Its easy commute to O'Hare International Airport helped the population to double in the 1960s and the village itself to continue expanding with new housing, roads, schools and businesses.  The growth would continue throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s and eventually Elk Grove Village would house the largest consolidated business park in North America.   In 1976, Elk Grove Village was considered a safe haven from the crime that plagued cities like Chicago. 

Frank Columbo was a successful auto parts salesman who had no business being in the neighborhood and so the officer attempted to phone the Columbo residence multiple times over the next hour or so, getting only the insistent beeping of a busy signal.  He then transmitted the information to the Elk Grove Village Police Department.  

On Friday, May 7, at roughly 4:45 p.m., an officer was dispatched to the Columbo home at 55 Brantwood to inform the occupants that their car had been found in Chicago.  Upon arriving, the officer was immediately on alert seeing three days' worth of newspapers gathered around the front porch and while the storm door was closed, it was unlocked and the front door was ajar.   The officer received no response to his knocks, other than the sound of a dog barking from inside.   He called for backup and while waiting, walked the perimeter of the house's exterior, noting not only piled up newspapers and mail but the fact that there were no cars in the driveway or garage.  All the windows and doors appeared intact and secure, other than the front door.  When the backup officer arrived, both men then entered the Columbo residence. 

Frank and Mary in a joyful moment (photo source)

 

They found 43-year-old Frank first, in the family's living room.   He was lying on his back, dressed in a t-shirt, plaid pants and socks, surrounded by broken glass and with a torn and bloody lampshade nearby.  He had clearly been dead for several days.  

Forty-year-old Mary was found lying on her back on the landing outside the bathroom that featured gold filigree tiles she had painstakingly hand painted.  She had a bullet wound on the bridge of her rose, literally right between her eyes, and a one-inch slash across her throat.  Part of an artificial fern plant and a bloodied magazine were lying next to her body.  Broken glass and beads were scattered by her head.     

The officers immediately called for an investigative unit and evidence technicians.

At roughly 5 p.m., Investigator Raymond Rose of the Elk Grove Village Police Department became the first investigator to arrive on the scene.  He viewed the bodies of Frank and Mary Columbo and also made note that Mary was still wearing a large diamond ring on her left hand.  Her handbag was found in the bathroom, its contents on the floor, as well as a cigarette case and an ashtray.  

Rose observed four human teeth lying between the top of the stairs and the wall, as he continued his examination of the crime scene.      

Michael (photo source)

In his bedroom was 13-year-old Michael.  He was lying on his back on the floor, clad in a white t-shirt and blue sweatpants.  His head was bloodied and he appeared to have a bullet wound to the left side as well as one to the back.   He also had a multitude of stab wounds to his neck and chest.  A pair of gold-plated scissors with crossed blades was found on his desk and a marble-based bowling trophy was lying next to his body.  Both items were bloody.  

Walking through the rest of the house, Rose found a bloodied crumpled magazine, loose coins, beads and portions of artificial ferns on the floor of the foyer.  In the kitchen, the garbage had been dumped on the floor, which was bloody.  One of the cabinets was open, the telephone was off the hook and a personal telephone directory was open to a page that had the name and number of the Columbos' eldest child written on it.   In the master bedroom upstairs, the covers were pulled back, as if someone was readying for bed, but the sheets were smooth, indicating no one had slept there.  Everything appeared orderly, with no ransacking, and the bedside alarm clock, which had been set for 9 a.m. was buzzing.  

Outside the house, a nine-inch knife was lying next to the front stoop and a steak knife was found lying a rock garden.   

The scissors used to stab Michael  (photo source) 

Rose was immediately aware that valuable items in the home - portable color television sets, a CB radio, an eight-track recorder, stereo equipment, cameras, projectors, a .40 caliber shotgun, and two air rifles, not to mention the diamond ring that Mary Columbo wore - were all easily visible and had been left untouched.  There was also a wall safe that contained nearly $5,000 in cash.  No one had opened the safe or attempted to pry it open.  

In Rose's opinion, the valuable items being left behind, the fact that all the windows were intact, the back door was locked, the front door showed no pry marks or forced entry and the phone lines were not cut discounted robbery as a motive.     

Also noticeably absent, at least in the detectives' minds, was 19-year-old Patricia Columbo.  While the arrival of police cars, detectives and crime scene tape had aroused natural interest throughout the neighborhood, the lone survivor of the Columbo family massacre never appeared.  Detectives summoned Patty, as she was known, to come to the station and provide them with information.

While all detectives and law enforcement personnel know that people respond to tragedies and grieve in glaringly different, and even unusual, ways, Patty Columbo, rather than being distraught or in tears, showed up at the precinct with what she considered a lead:  her father Frank's ties with the mob.  According to Patty, Frank ran a mob chop shop for stolen cars behind the auto parts store and that probably led to the murders.  Detectives dutifully made note of her story, as well as the fact that she openly flirted with the male officers and was dressed rather seductively.  

On Saturday, May 8, the chief medical examiner of Cook County performed the autopsies on the Columbos.  The body of Frank Columbo contained irregular lacerations from a blunt object, probably a heavy crystal lamp and/or the bowling trophy found by Michael's body.  Frank had suffered four gunshot wounds:  one to the right side of his face, one to the left side of his face, one to his left lower lip, and one to the left side of his head behind his ear.  He had also sustained cuts from a sharp instrument and had four teeth missing from his jaw.  

Mary Columbo had died from the gunshot wound she sustained between her eyes.  She was likely dead by the time her body hit the floor and her heart had certainly stopped beating when her throat was slashed.  

Michael Columbo had died after being shot at close range in the head.  After being shot, he was bludgeoned with a heavy instrument before his neck and chest were stabbed or punctured more than 90 times.  The medical examiner felt the stab/puncture wounds were shallow enough that they could possibly indicate a female administered them.   A single foreign hair was recovered from the front of Michael's t-shirt at the time of his autopsy.   That hair would later be determined to be microscopically indistinguishable from the hair of his sister, Patty.  

Based on the stomach contents of the family, and the lack of rigor mortis, the medical examiner estimated the Columbos had died between 11 p.m. on May 4, 1976 and 1 a.m. on May 5, 1976.

The crime scene (photo source)

At the time the autopsies were being performed, the evidence technician for the Elk Grove Village Police Department pried open the trunk of Frank Columbo's Thunderbird at the PD garage.  He noted there were dark maroon or red smudges on the trunk, visible from five feet away and that the smudges could have been from either grease or blood.  Unfortunately, the smudges were contaminated and were unable to be compared.  Handprints were found on the fender and trunk of the car.  These prints came from the left hand of a person who was either missing a left index finger or wherein the left index finger did not make an impression.  Glass was recovered from the floor of the car's interior, as well as take-out bags from a fast food restaurant, a white box from back seat and a bloodied artificial plant stalk similar to that found by Mary's body.   When the glass fragments were analyzed using a refraction method, it was determined that they could have originated from the broken lamp base found on the Columbos' living room floor.    

Later on that same Saturday, less than five miles from Elk Grove Village, a Wood Dale police officer, responding to the teletype on Mary Columbo's missing car, located the 1972 Oldsmobile '98 in the parking lot of a condominium complex.  There was no damage or theft to the vehicle and nothing appeared to be out of place.  A resident at the condominium complex would later state that when he left for work around 5:30 a.m. on May 5, there had been no car parked in the space next to his but when he returned home around 5:30 p.m., the Oldsmobile was there. 

When the Oldsmobile was examined by evidence technicians, five fingerprints were recovered, as well as two different types of cigarette butts from the ashtray and a blue blanket in the backseat.  Part of the roof liner had red stains on it and was removed.    

Patty as a child with her mother, Mary (photo source)

All About Patty

On Monday, May 10, 1976, funerals were held for Frank, Mary and Michael Columbo.   As is standard operating procedure in a homicide investigation, detectives planned to attend with one minor change:  noticing how flirtatious Patty Columbo was with the male officers previously, they sent a young, handsome officer along.  Although Patty had brought her boyfriend, a man by the name of Frank DeLuca, to the service, DeLuca reportedly sat alone off to the side while Patty openly flirted with the cop.  So brazen was she with the cop that relatives, who had heard of DeLuca but had not met him, assumed the cop was her boyfriend.   Frank's older brother, who had lived only a block from the Columbo residence, recalled that he and Patty had verbally argued over Patty's desire to have her family cremated (it went against the Catholic Columbos' beliefs) and that at the wake, Patty did not cry or show any visible signs of emotion. 

Outside of Patty's flirtation with the officer, her behavior sent up red flags to the seasoned detectives.  She laughed and joked over cigarettes outside the church and then once inside, threw herself, wailing, on the slate gray coffins that held the earthly remains of her father, mother and brother, coffins that were closed due to the damage inflicted on them in their last moments of life. 

Detectives checked into Patty's suggestion that Frank Columbo had mob ties and came up empty. They found nothing to tie him in with the mob or any illegal activity.  Instead, they focused their attention on Patty.   

Patricia Columbo was the first child of Frank and Mary and the apple of Frank's eye, calling her "Princess" and treating her just as that.  Patty had been the center of her parents' world until she was six years old, when her younger brother Michael was born.  Although some family and friends would later say that Patty had always been very caring and maternal toward her younger brother, others would claim she was jealous and resentful over the attention Frank gave to his only son.  

By the time she reached adolescence, Patty was a very pretty girl who easily turned the heads of boys . . . and men.   She was known to be wild and uninhibited.  She was also headstrong, as demonstrated by her decision to drop out of school when she was sixteen.  She stole the credit card and the wallet of two fellow employees at Walgreens, where she was working the cosmetics counter, and racked up thousand of dollars in charges.  Although her father made restitution and paid off the amount, in July of 1974, she was convicted of deceptive practices and sentenced to two years' probation -- probation she was still on at the time of the murders.  

A young Patty with her father, Frank (photo source)

It was around this time that she met Frank DeLuca.  DeLuca was a Purdue University graduate with a pharmacy degree who had been working at Walgreens since 1961 or 1962.  He had been promoted to manager by the time he met Patty in 1972.  At that time, he was 36 years old, married and the father of five children but he had a reputation as being a swinger around town.  Sixteen-year-old Patty was not the first Walgreens' employee he had an affair with, although she may have been the youngest.  Patty was up for swinging with Frank, having sex with other women and allowing Frank to photograph her and make videos.  Neither Frank nor Mary Columbo were aware of the illicit relationship between their daughter and her boss and so when Patty decided to move out of the home on Brantwood in 1974 and into the DeLuca family home, it was apparently with the blessing of Frank and Mary.  At the DeLuca home, unbelievably, DeLuca and Patty continued their affair, engaging in sexual acts while Marilyn DeLuca and the DeLuca children were in another room or in the yard.  At some point, the Columbos found out that Patty was involved not only with a man nearly twice her age who was married and had children but had a reputation as a swinger.  Needless to say, Frank Columbo was understandably upset and disapproving.

Patty lived with the DeLucas for about a year before she came running back home in the summer of 1975 to tell her father that she was done with DeLuca and she wanted her own place.  Frank was likely thrilled that the affair was over, although Patty was lying.  She didn't tell her parents that not only was she still very much involved with DeLuca but that DeLuca and his wife had separated.   Frank helped Patty to find an apartment in Lombard, a small village known for their annual Lilac Festival about 15 miles south of Elk Grove Village.  He also agreed to foot her monthly rent.  

Needless to say, he was less than happy when he found out that not only was Patty still seeing DeLuca but the Lombard apartment he was paying for was essentially the couple's love nest - DeLuca had immediately moved in with Patty.   

In August of 1975, a month before Marilyn DeLuca filed for divorce, Frank approached Patty and DeLuca in the parking lot of the Walgreens where DeLuca worked, ordering DeLuca to leave Patty alone.  A violent confrontation ensued when, according to DeLuca, Frank pointed a rifle at DeLuca's head and said, "I'm going to blow your head off!"  When DeLuca crouched down, Frank hit him across the mouth with the butt of a rifle, knocking DeLuca completely to the ground.  When DeLuca began to get up, Frank hit him again with the rifle butt, this time in the stomach.  DeLuca claimed that Frank then said, "You're dead, you motherf*cker!"  

Patty filed a complaint and had her father charged with assault.  Frank was arrested and tossed in jail but Patty soon withdrew the complaint.  Reportedly, once he was out, Frank made plans to disown Patty.   

The Columbos apparently had little or no contact with Patty until the late winter or early spring of 1976, when they appeared to mend fences over Patty and DeLuca planning to marry.  As DeLuca's divorce would be finalized at the end of May, the couple said they were going to marry in June.  According to DeLuca, the Columbos had accepted the relationship and were even going to gift them with a new washer and dryer as a wedding gift.  

Police outside the Columbo home on May 7, 1976 (photo source)

The Plot Thickens

On May 12, 1976, fingerprints were taken of Patty Columbo and Frank DeLuca.  It was noticed and noted at the time that DeLuca was missing the index finger and the tip of his middle finger on his left hand.  No nicks or scabs were noticed on either his hands or Patty's.  

Two days later, on May 14, detectives spoke with 25-year-old Lanyon "Lannie" Mitchell who had plenty of information on Patty Columbo and Frank DeLuca.  Mitchell, a car salesman, had first met Patty in September of 1975 through a friend of hers.  Mitchell said that he had offered Patty money to go out with a friend of his, 34-year-old Roman Sobczynski.  Patty told Mitchell that she was living with her boyfriend but she needed the money.  She also mentioned that her father had struck her boyfriend in the head with a rifle butt.   In October, Mitchell and Sobczynski met up with Patty at the Where Else Lounge, where they drank and danced.  Under the impression that Mitchell was a "heavy" who did favors for his friends (helped by the gun he toted), Patty discussed the animosity between DeLuca and her parents and expressed a desire to have them killed.  Mitchell told her he would do it for $10,000 a person, or $20,000.  He quickly assured detectives that he never had any intention of killing anyone but was trying to impress Patty, so that he could have sex with her.

According to Mitchell, Patty called him multiple times throughout October of 1975, wanting to know when he was going to kill her parents.  Mitchell stalled her by asking for a rundown of her parents' activities and schedules.  In return, Patty provided him with floorplan drawings of the Columbo house and informing him about the wall safe, the televisions, the CB radio, furs and diamonds.  

By November, Patty was again demanding to know when the killings would take place.  According to Mitchell, she wanted them done around Christmas as some sort of demented gift to herself.   Sobczynski, who had been informed about the "contract" through a telephone call from Mitchell, demanded money up front to continue.  Patty told him that the money for payment would come after the killings from an insurance policy.  In the interim, however, she offered sex in exchange and both men accepted.   After their sexual encounters, Patty gave Mitchell photographs of her family and what amounted to a dossier on their activities.  

In early December, Mitchell accompanied Patty to the Columbo residence as Patty wanted him to case the house.  Mary answered the door and Mitchell panicked, leaving the property and driving down the street.  When Patty rejoined him, she told him that she and Mary had an argument about DeLuca and Patty wanted her parents killed that night.  She said she left a patio door unlocked so that he could enter the home.  

Another month went by and in January of 1976, Mitchell said that Patty told him and Sobczynski that her little brother was going to have to go too because he might figure out things later.  Later that month, Patty informed Mitchell that she had once again left the patio doors unlocked and that she and DeLuca were both getting anxious.

In mid-March, Mitchell called Patty and asked about the up-front money.  Patty told him neither she nor DeLuca had any money and again questioned when the hits would go down.

Mitchell reiterated to the cops that he was not a hit man, nor had he ever had any intention of killing Frank, Mary and Michael Columbo.  He had simply been stringing Patty Columbo along for sex and money.

Detectives picked up Roman Sobczynski, a recruiting officer for the Cook County Department of Personnel.  He was married and the father of three children.  Despite being held at the Elk Grove Village Police Department until five or six the following morning, he refused to talk.  He would also refuse to speak before the grand jury.  

Detectives corroborated at least part of Mitchell's statement after speaking to Carolyn Tygrett, Mary Columbo's sister.  Carolyn recalled visiting her sister in late 1975 or early 1976 and Patty had shown up saying she was there to pick up something.  She left soon thereafter, without picking up whatever it was she claimed to have been there for.  Mary, however, discovered that the sliding glass patio doors, locked before Patty's visit, were unlocked and she secured them.    

Patty at her arraignment (photo source)

Arrests

On May 15, 1976, just before seven in the morning, seven officers from the Cook County Sheriff's Department went to the apartment of Patty and DeLuca in Lombard with a search warrant.  Patty and DeLuca were then both arrested and charged with conspiracy, solicitation and the murders of Frank, Mary, and Michael.   

    .  

Although DeLuca was released on May 17, Patty was not.    The day she was brought in, she gave a written and oral statement admitting her guilt to soliciting two men to murder her family but claimed she knew nothing about the murders themselves.   She denied knowing Lannie Mitchell  until she was shown him at the station, where he was currently in another examination room.  She said she didn't think he had killed her family.   When asked about the dossier she had provided to Mitchell, Patty claimed that she had been forced at gunpoint to do so (later discounted by a handwriting expert) and then also forced to have sex with him.  She claimed she didn't go to the police because she thought the police would eventually uncover all this evidence themselves.  She also repeatedly stated that she was in fear for her life.  Detectives later stated that Patty became irate when questioned about her apartment rent being overdue.  

On May 26, Roman Sobczynski was offered immunity from the state in return for testifying against Patty (and eventually, DeLuca).   After accepting the deal, he spoke to detectives about Patty and DeLuca.  He corroborated everything that Lannie Mitchell stated, adding that he had spoken with DeLuca in a phone call in which DeLuca claimed that Frank Columbo had taken a contract out on him and that Michael Columbo would also have to be killed.  

(photo source)

On July 17, 1976, Frank DeLuca was arrested once more and tossed into a Cook County jail to await trial.  An inmate by the name of Clifford Childs became his cellmate for the next six months.   According to Childs, DeLuca had bragged that he had been the one to come up with the perfect plan to kill the Columbo family and he had personally shot each family member himself.  The plan was apparently for there to be a reconciliation between Patty and her parents, which would then pave the way for a meeting to be arranged on the evening of May 4.  DeLuca said the meeting had been scheduled for 8 p.m. but he purposely delayed his arrival until 10 p.m. in order to establish an alibi at Walgreens.  It had been Frank Columbo who answered the doorbell and he had turned and started to walk up the stairs when DeLuca had shot him in the back of the head with a .32 caliber revolver.  He then shot Mary and he and Patty had gone to Michael's room, where the boy had been sleeping.   They woke him up, forced him to stand and then DeLuca shot him in the head.  To make it appear as if a robbery had taken place, the house was messed up and DeLuca took $150 in cash, some jewelry and a few small household appliances that he put in Frank Columbo's Thunderbird, which was driven to a westside neighborhood in Chicago and left.  DeLuca and Patty had expected that the car would be broken into, the contents stolen and then traced back to the Columbos, solidifying the robbery motive.  DeLuca told Childs he had been in the Columbo residence  for no more than 25 minutes and that he had worn gloves, even going so far as to stuff the index finger of the left glove. 

Childs would later provide testimony for the prosecution that in September of 1976, DeLuca told him that he wanted two witnesses, both employees at Walgreens who were going to testify against him, to be killed and wanted to know if Childs could arrange for it to be done.  Childs said he would do it if DeLuca paid the money for his bail and it would cost $10,000 per hit.  DeLuca provided Childs with the physical descriptions of the witnesses, one of whom was a married woman that had had an affair with DeLuca before he met Patty, as well as detailed directions on how to get to their homes and dossiers on their activities.  DeLuca's ex-wife Marilyn was to bail Childs out and Childs would abduct both witnesses, kill them and then bury their bodies in lime somewhere in Indiana.  On November 25, 1976, Marilyn DeLuca sent two money orders totaling just over $3,400 to Childs and then another $830, as the two money orders were not sufficient.  On February 24, 1977, Marilyn DeLuca picked up Childs and drove him to her home, where she gave him another $1,300 in cash, plus the use of what had been DeLuca's car.  

Like Lannie Mitchell and Roman Sobczynski, Clifford Childs denied ever planning to kill anyone but said that he was playing DeLuca for financial benefit.  

Convictions

Patty and DeLuca went to trial just over a year after the murders and chose a trial by jury.  The physical and forensic evidence, combined with the testimonies of Lannie Mitchell, Roman Sobczynski, Clifford Childs and two of DeLuca's former coworkers who recounted statements and/or confessions he made about the Columbo family murders, guaranteed their convictions.  The jury returned after only a few hours' deliberation, to find them both guilty on all counts.  Judge Eugene Pincham sentenced both Patty and DeLuca to 200 to 300 years on each of the three murder counts.  Additionally, on the solicitation to commit murder, Patty was sentenced to 20 to 50 years, to run concurrently with her other sentence, and DeLuca was sentenced to 10 to 50 years, also to run concurrently.    The court ruled that the conspiracy charged merged in law with the murder charge and so no sentences were imposed on that count.

DeLuca moved for a new trial on July 25, 1977, a month after he was convicted.  On August 8, 1977, Patty filed a motion for a new trial.   The court denied both motions.  

Both defendants filed appeals and both were denied in 1983.  

Inmate C73216 (photo source)

Frank DeLuca was sent to the Dixon Correctional Center in October of 1977 to serve out his sentence.  After 1986, he had no disciplinary infractions or tickets.  Under Illinois law, he, like Patty, became eligible for parole after serving 12 years.   

In a parole hearing in May of 2014, DeLuca told the Illinois Prisoner Review Board hat he had no expectation of being paroled and that what he and Patty did was "horrendous" and they should never leave prison.  At that time, the parole board noted that he was in poor health, had hip and prostate problems and walked with a cane.  When parole was denied then, the parole board wrote that parole could not be supported due to the "heinous nature of the crime" and that parole for DeLuca would "depreciate the seriousness of the offense and promote disrespect for the law."  

DeLuca will be 83 years old in June.  Outside of being paroled, his earliest possible release date is 2116.

In 2020, his former wife Marilyn died at her home in Illinois, leaving behind their five children and sixteen grandchildren.

  

Inmate C77200 (photo source)

Patty was sent to the Dwight Correctional Center in October of 1977 to serve her sentence.  Two years into her stretch, in 1979, she was implicated in a prison prostitution scheme in which she organized sexual acts between the female inmates and the correctional officers.  

She also racked up approximately 20 infractions, or tickets, with the last noted being in 2004 for contraband/unauthorized property and in 2006 for unauthorized movement. 

She earned a Secretarial Science Degree, an Applied Science Degree in Computer Programming and an Associates Degree in Art from Joliet Junior College in 1981.  In 1991, she earned a bachelor's degree from Illinois State University.  

Patty received additional certificates for training in Literacy and HIV/AIDS peer education and volunteered as a reading and math tutor for the Literacy Volunteers of America from 1990 until 2006.  She was also a trainer for new tutors from 1995 until 2006.  

While incarcerated, she worked as a clerk and programmer for Leisure Time Services and Family Services Program, as a secretary in the placement office and helped to develop the prison media center.  

Throughout the years, Patty (who preferred to be called Tricia after incarceration) maintained a group of supporters, who would submit letters speaking on her behalf and of her good works at each of her parole hearings.  In 2011, in anticipation of a parole hearing, she was accepted at Leslie's Place, a transitional house on the west side of Chicago that houses and helps former female inmates navigate their way back into society.  Perhaps ironically, had Patty been paroled out to Leslie's Place, she would have been living only two-and-a-half miles from where her father's car was left by her or Frank DeLuca way back in 1976.  

In 2013 or 2014, with the Dwight Correctional Center closing, Patty was moved first to the Lincoln Correctional Center and then to the Logan Correctional Center.  In 2014, she asked for a continuance of her parole hearing as she did not want to leave the special needs inmates she worked with.  The continuance was denied and parole was denied, with the same notation as DeLuca received:  to grant parole would depreciate the seriousness of the offense and promote disrespect for the law.  

Patty remains incarcerated at the Logan Correctional Center and will be 65 years old in June.  Without parole, her earliest possible release date is 2116.  She continues to insist that she's changed.  

Patty Columbo and Frank DeLuca have not seen nor spoken with each other since 1977.

Investigator Raymond Rose, who was 29 years old when he set foot on the Columbo property back in May of 1976, continues to speak against the release of either Frank DeLuca or Patty Columbo.   He believes that DeLuca shot all three victims and Patty stabbed/cut them.  The motive, in his opinion, was money.    

The final resting place of Frank, Mary and Michael (photo source)

Sources:

Illinois Prisoner Review Board Meeting Minutes, 2014.

The New York Daily News, (2009).  Twisted Sister - New York Daily News (nydailynews.com)

The People of the State of Illinois vs. Patricia Columbo, 455 N.E. 2d 733 (Ill. App. Ct. 1983)

        

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)