and don was a guy who d been carrying his guilt like a cross for years. i tried to lead all of my children to the love of jesus christ. there was only one major obstacle to that ever occurring in a way that that i would be happy with. and that was my hypocrisy. what do you mean? huh? your hypocrisy? my hypocrisy chasing women uh-huh. blowing my marriage. reporter: as don tells it, women found his role as an ascendant artist quite appealing. never mind he was a married father of four. and that kind of thing destroyed this - literally, destroyed my family. reporter: by the time rachel was in middle school, don s string of affairs led to a home-shattering divorce. i think that the the obliteration of the nuclear family had a profound effect on rachel. reporter: now, he feared, the
todd and rachel winkler s marital issues did not noticeably ruffle the surface of normal suburban life. a neighbor bumped into todd that afternoon. he stopped and talked to us for, you know, a couple a minutes and, you know, wished us well and kept going. he was pushing the two strollers with all three kids and he didn t look particularly cheerful. reporter: todd had no way of knowing that sunday afternoon that rachel was back at james mountain house, double-checking her divorce application. she finished the paperwork and i m going to file it the next morning. reporter: you re continuing the relationship. she is filling out divorce papers. he s trying to block her. she s determined to do it. uh-huh. she turned to me that day, she say, you know what, james? whether you re in the picture or not, i m divorcing todd. i want out. reporter: whether you re in the picture or not? but was there some doubt about that? no. she said the reason why she wants to be with me is becaus
reporter: she was coming at me with a vee of scissors. uh-huh. and i got a hold of them. and we had a struggle on the bed and rolled off onto the bed. uh-huh. and got into this struggle over the scissors. i took some cuts just on my hands trying to get them away from her. reporter: they wrestled on the bedroom floor, he said. just a couple of feet from the crib where 7-month old alex was sleeping. and, overweight and out-of-shape, said todd, he was fighting for his life with his much fitter wife. it was a long, long, long protracted struggle. uh-huh. i don t know how long, but it was a long time. she s a very strong girl. uh-huh. she s an extremely strong girl. and she had me on the bottom. and she was on top of me. like, back and forth between bottom and top in this struggle over the scissors reporter: then, he said, he finally overpowered her, got control of those scissors. i was able to get them turned around onto her.