Kriti Mehrotra
It was on August 29, 1995, that Donnah Winger and Roger Harrington were found dead in the former’s Springfield, Illinois, home, with the initial assumption being he was the instigator. As per ABC’s ‘Bad Romance: Web of Lies,’ she had complained about his flirty, unprofessional behavior as her driver just days prior, so the belief was that he forced his way into her residence and fatally attacked her before her husband shot him in her defense. However, as time passed, it actually came to light that Mark Winger himself was responsible for both murders, a fact that left his second wife, Rebe cca Simic, baffled to the very core.
Rebecca Simic Built a Family With Mark Winger Not Long After His First Wife’s Demise
Although not much is publicly known about Rebecca Simic’s background or early years, we know she was a 23-year-old recent college graduate when she first met Mark Winger. She had applied to be a nanny to the 3-month-old little girl named Bailey, whom he and Donnah had just adopted simply because she wanted to help them out. She especially wanted to protect Bailey from “the chaos that had gone on around her.” She still remembers how jolly the young girl was despite having lost two mothers before she was old enough to walk or talk, let alone grasp what was going on, which pulled her in further.
Rebecca’s focus was initially just on the child, yet things changed within months as she and Mark ended up developing a romantic connection based on how much time they spent together. “When you live with someone and you’re taking care of a child together, it’s very easy to kind of play ‘house.’ You’re already put in those roles,” she once expressed in ABC’s ’20/20: The Perfect Lie.’ The fact he made her feel special before insisting that it wasn’t strange for him to move on so quickly because he wanted a perfect family, like he allegedly had with Donnah, had her falling, too.
Therefore, when Rebecca fell pregnant with their first child, the couple decided to elope and tie the knot in a cozy, intimate ceremony in Hawaii before settling down just outside Springfield. This is where they welcomed two more children together, all the while raising Bailey as their own, and Mark even changed his faith from Judaism so they could have a fully Christian household. But alas, their seemingly idyllic family shattered to pieces on August 23, 2001, when the patriarch was arrested on two counts of first-degree murder in connection to the 1995 deaths.
Rebecca Simic Had No Idea She Was Married to a Master Manipulator
Rebecca still vividly remembers that she was at McDonald’s Playland with her four children when she got a call about Mark having been arrested for Donnah Winger and Roger Harrington’s murder. At that point, she was in shock because she didn’t even know there had been an ongoing probe into the matter and that he was the lead suspect, partly due to an alleged affair he was having back in 1995. But then, all her emotions transformed into sheer panic as she realized that she and her kids could easily get caught in the crossfire simply because they were a part of his family.
Thus, Rebecca’s priority shifted to protecting her loved ones, all the while supporting her husband since she didn’t initially believe he could be such a cunning liar and double murderer. This was actually to such an extent that she had even convinced herself Mark would be acquitted and allowed to return home with her following his trial, yet that’s not at all what happened. In June 2002, he was convicted of the charges against him before being sentenced to life in prison without parole, which is when his wife began realizing that he was not the man she thought he was.
Rebecca Simic Has Since Managed to Rebuild Her Life
Shortly after the legal proceedings concerning this entire harrowing ordeal came to a close, Rebecca moved out of the home she once shared with Mark, initiated divorce, and filed for bankruptcy. After all, since she had been a stay-at-home mom of 4 for the past seven years, she had no real financial backing but had immense affection, care, kindness, and love to give her kids. Thankfully, though, her brothers stepped up and helped her start anew close to them in Louisville, Kentucky, where she also proceeded with changing her as well as all her kids’ last names to her maiden name — they went from Winger to Simic.
Rebecca had legally adopted Bailey early on in her union with Mark. Hence, she had full custody of the young girl after everything was said and done, but she still made sure to have her reconnect with Donnah’s loved ones so she could have all the family she needed. As for her biological kids — Anna, Maggie, and Ben — she has always done her best to support them in whatever they desire, so although all four of her children are now young adults, they still have a great, tight-knit relationship with her.
Coming to Rebecca’s personal standing, while it’s unclear precisely what she has been up to these days owing to her preference of leading her life well away from the limelight, we do know she is still based in Louisville, Kentucky, surrounded by loved ones. The past still hangs over her head like a dark cloud sometimes, but she knows she can not carry that burden since she was just an innocent bystander in it all, so she is now dedicating herself to others like her. According to reports, Rebecca and her kids now volunteer at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana, where they mentor other children with imprisoned parents to show them they are not alone or responsible for someone else’s actions.
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