the csi team rushed over to todd and rachel s house and assistant d.a., lisette suder, joined them as they searched and documented the interior of a house that was strangely chaotic. what did it look like? the house is well-manicured. minus the fact that there s this yellow crime scene tape up. and then you walk through that and you walk into the doors and the house is in complete disarray. kitchen is completely undone. baseboards missing all over the place. the house is not put together at all. such an odd place. in the garage that doubled as a hangar, investigators found todd s mustang, rachel s suv, a boat, a bmw motorcycle and parts of a plane todd was refurbishing. back inside the house, in the master bedroom, in a night stand, they found something else, too. something quite unexpected. this blue box. inside? ashes. what? at the bottom of the box was a label that simply said, cremated remains of catherine lynn winkler. and now, suddenly, there were two mysteries to solve.
happened on this mountain path on a dark night more than a decade ago. we got all those police reports. out in california, 15 years later, prosecutor lisette suder was convinced. for the sake of her own case, she had to find out what really happened up here on this isolated mountain road in september, 1999. what is very important about the georgia case and our case is it goes to his intent in the rachel case. and before long she knew. this was going to be explosive. the georgia case could be her best evidence in the here and now in california to show that todd winkler was perfectly capable of spousal murder. because she soon believed he had done it before. the more we read, the more we realized that this was not an accident. todd s behavior up here on the mountain, said prosecutor
said, was fakery. todd winkler may have had, or feigned, some disorder that got him out of the air force, she said, but he killed rachel. and it was murder, deliberate and planned, she said, committed by a man practiced at getting away with things. good morning, ladies and gentlemen. this is the case about a master mind, a manipulator. a murderer. this is a case about todd winkler and how he brutally murdered rachel marie winkler, his wife, mother of his three small children. todd winkler did not have to fend off a scissor-wielding wife, said prosecutor suder, so it wasn t self-defense. and rachel s death could not be blamed on any mental condition either, any more than the death of another mrs. winkler in those dark woods so long ago. but as she began to tell that part of the story, watch what happened. she s found burned to death
children. and here began atoning for the sins of his youth by devoting his life to three little kids, eva, ariel and alex. that s the baby brother. it was after all that that they held the trial. prosecutor lisette suder intended to portray todd as a manipulative and devious man who murdered not one wife, but two. that is if she could persuade a california judge to allow an old georgia case to be dusted off and brought back to life. i felt confident that i had the law behind me on that. and i submitted my brief, and i submitted the legal arguments that supported that. and? she won. and so, in september of 2014, when todd winkler went on trial charged with first-degree murder of second wife rachel, lisette suder could use the georgia story about first wife cathy s death 15 years earlier
conversion disorder, which meant he could be violent if he felt he was under attack. and that awful morning? first he told the police she 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