rachel hatfield turned her life as if on a dime, left her past behind and embraced an existence that was everything it wasn t with old boyfriend tim. when she married todd winkler, the ex-fighter pilot turned corporate executive, she also married into a very different lifestyle. there were private airplanes, boats, and motorcycles. a big house in a development east of sacramento called an air-park. cessnas in garages, piper cubs on the curb. tim charrington versus todd winkler? no contest, said her dad, don hatfield. the guy s an air force academy graduate. he s successful in business. he s a family man. he s you know, from the midwest. he s gotta be great. reporter: good, solid upper-middle class guy? up yeah, no. reporter: and he s got a plane and he s got planes and boats and you know, all over the place. what tim, the starving artist
yeah, she could. rachel could picture it because she had seen it happen. her own father, don hatfield, made a big name for himself painting the romantic, bucolic beach scenes that for years have graced living rooms around the country. you may have seen his how to paint courses on youtube. this is called, for me. it s called, aiming your shot. rare is the artist who, like don, could comfortably raise four kids in the napa valley. but, though many are called, few are chosen. tim s artistic hopes were disappointed. it wasn t happening. it wasn t happening. so he and rachel lowered their sights and hustled up any work-like murals that might help cover the rent. we were, you know, doing murals, and that s all the income we had. reporter: murals doesn t pay all that well. no, it doesn t pay much at all. she was under-girding and supporting, loving, and
during the week james and rachel were together almost constantly. we tried to spend as much as time as possible we could together. reporter: what d it feel like when you did? it felt like we were family, felt like we were one one heartbeat. you know, our hearts were intertwined together like i can t describe. indescribable love, never loved someone so intensely in my life. reporter: their children were soon in on the secret. katelynn was beguiled by rachel. you could be talking to her, like we re talking, and she would make you feel like the most important human being on this earth. reporter: how did that make you feel? special. loved. i could open up to her. reporter: if todd suspected anything he didn t let on. but rachel s dad, don, began to get a queasy feeling during his visits to the airpark. tell me what you thought about him, at the time. he came across as this christian guy.
he was gonna stop the bullets, reporter: that s a little scary. yeah, it is scary. todd was holding ariel, and don was holding alex. and todd came up, he looks just a wreck. todd confronted me, he said, rachel and i aren t divorced yet, and i would appreciate it if you would stay away from her. reporter: and? no. reporter: you said, no ? i said, no. reporter: there was a pause. if something was going to happen, this would be the moment. and then he turns to me and he goes, hi katelynn. i was like, get off this property. reporter: and suddenly, it was over. todd and don and the kids got back into the land cruiser and drove off. what was the feeling like as this was going on? the feeling for me was, god, i hope that this clears the air.
i m dara brown. authorities in los angeles seized a semiautomatic rifle after he threatened to shoot other students and staff at a middle school. they say-the case is one of at least 30 school threats since the reeceants deadly shooting in santa clarita. and amazon is suing over a contract it gave to microsoft. stating bias on the part of the government. that s what s happening. now back to dateline. o datel. reporter: todd winkler, distressed by his wife s infidelity, found an unlikely ally as he prepared to confront her lover james white . but in this case, rachel s dad don hatfield was only too happy to help. he did not approve of his