around the airport, i said okay, fine. after about the second time i said is this guy trying to bet you? what s going on. she said he d like to but it s not happening. there were whispers around the neighbor hood to, people notice things. i think we suspected it suspected watch? something was going on? that maybe something was going on. you saw the two of them together a lot? she and james. i didn t see them as a couple. outwardly has a couple, even though you would see them together. rachel and james had more than todd and don and the neighbors to worry about. you are married to somebody else? i was. what did you do about that? what did you think about that? how troublesome was that for you? i wanted to get out of that marriage history as possible. because i wanted to be with rachel. so you told your wife? no, my wife discovered us. and we separated. you will perhaps not be surprised to hear that james
about just a few days before rachel died. reporter: but there was something else, said todd s attorney, and it was reason number two, that rachel s death was not murder. and that was that his client had a psychotic breakdown when rachel attacked him. his ability to understand what he was doing was diminished. why should the jury believe that? well, as you ll remember, rachel herself described todd as unstable at times. and now the defense presented evidence of what they said was his history of psychotic episodes. the first one happened in asia, something like 20 years earlier when todd was married to cathy and was flying with the fighting samurai squadron. he was caught shoplifting from a base px. he claimed amnesia. so the air force sent him off for psychiatric tests. but then it got even more bizarre, and cathy called her friend tanya. she telephoned me saying, i m in hawaii. todd had a mental breakdown, and
she said that todd had taken credit cards and max them all out, bought a plane. put her in debt for $45,000. wow! wow! i said are you freaking out? she said yes, but he will take care of it. which sounded less like complaining then maybe boasting, tim after all could barely qualify for credit at all. eventually being on the outside looking in, it was just too hard. i said i can t take it no more. it s getting harder and harder. he asked her to stop calling him, he had to move on, start painting again, forget her. though, as he admitted to us, he wasn t very successful. i got, you know, for maybe later down the road i thought, we could get together again and share life again. wishful thinking, of course. tim simply fail to understand that rachel s life with hospital todd was getting more exciting by the day. when talks company sent him to
reporter: and? she won. and so, in september of 2014, when todd winker 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 against him. and the defense? dismissed the georgia case out of hand. irrelevant, said todd s attorney. cathy winkler s death was thoroughly investigated, he said. and it was not ruled a murder, because it was not a murder. there s no evidence of anything other than an accident. reporter: todd s attorney was able to explain away the things that had raised suspicion. cathy s family was wrong, said the defense. she loved camping. a ranger who saw them making their dinner way up in this remote spot, so far from any other living soul, said they seemed happy. and the insurance money, remember that? that wasn t motive, just business as usual for a pair of upper-middle class professionals. in addition to the insurance
reporter: all very sad, said the defense, but not murder. and what would prosecutor suder say about that? she said it was fakery. todd winkler may have had or feigned some disorder that got him out of the air force, but he killed rachel and it was murder committed by a man practiced at getting away with things. this is a case about a mastermind, 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. reporter: 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