i gonna do? you know, how am i gonna save my marriage? and i said, todd, have you just told him straight up to stay away from your wife until this thing is worked out? he said no. and i said, well, have you thought about that? he says, well, not til right now. sounds like a good idea. will you come with me? yeah, i ll go with ya. and so we drove over there. james daughter katelynn, 16 then, sounded the alarm as rachel s worried father and betrayed husband pulled up at the entrance to james s isolated mountain property. we just got done shooting. and i just hear this car roll up. i was like, wow, that sounds like rachel. and i see these two men walking up the driveway. and i was like, oh my god. what are they doing here? and i ran out. i m like, dad, todd s here. and so is don.
one of the neighbors reached rachel s father. and i get a phone call from a screaming, irrational voice on the other end. i said, is it rachel? yes, it s rachel. i said, i have a question for you. is there a yellow ribbon around the property? yes. is there a big white van in front of the house? yes. don was in the middle of moving. the movers tried to calm him down. and the guys says, we don t know that she s dead. i said, count on it, he killed her. and i got there and, you know, she was gone. he was right to be begin with. rachel was dead. the horrific news spread. i got a call from a friend and i said, it can t be. and the next thing i knew, i woke up on the floor. you fainted? i completely blacked out, hit the floor. so i called the sheriff s department and asked them if they knew what was going on. and they said just stay right where you re at. james daughter katelynn got a message at school. i walk outside, and i call a family friend, and h
and she was dancing. and i said, wow, i m gonna meet that girl. how old were you? i was 18 and i think she was 17. oh wow. love-drunk teens. they set up house together. that s tim during those giddy years, rarely serious. looking like a character from the movie dazed and confused . and there s rachel, unconsciously glamorous. like some movie star in her own romantic comedy, with a plot that was all too familiar. aspiring artists waiting for their break. could see making a life as a painter? 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
threatened to sic her well-armed boyfriend on him. and she said, no, you know, i m looking to have my boyfriend get rid of you. and then she was coming at me with a v of scissors. rachel s dad, don, and self-described soulmate, james, watched as the defense argued that todd had no choice but to kill the woman they so loved. his state of mind is what you really need to pay careful attention to here. he knows she ll kill him. he knows if he stops, doesn t end it right then, it could end him. all very sad, said the defense, but not murder. and what would prosecutor suder say about that? simple. all that psychiatric stuff, she said, was fakery. todd winkler may have had, or feigned, some disorder that got him out of the air force, she
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. murals doesn t pay all that well. no, it doesn t pay much at all. she was under-girding and supporting, loving, and directing tim. don hatfield thought his daughter would outgrow tim. after all, rachel, unlike tim, buckled down and went to college. you know, graduates at top of her class at sonoma state, recruited by deloitte and touche and they started her out at $80k. we want you not, i wanna do a little business of my own, you know? and she and tim would run around and do stuff. paint murals and so forth? yeah.