her father, the prominent artist. her husband, the ex-fighter pilot and pharmaceutical executive. her lover, the handyman, ex-marine and firearms expert. and her first boyfriend, the would-be impressionist painter. his name is tim cherrington. and she the woman at the center of all that happened, was rachel. rachel hatfield. reporter: so rachel. tell me about her. what what kind of person oh, [beep]. i m sorry. we re starting, huh? reporter: well. just whatever. hmm start again. reporter: what d that do to you when i said that? my heart just went, boom. the subject of rachel, as you can plainly see, is painful for tim cherrington. a pain that might lessen if he d only learn to forget. but all he can do is remember. like the night they first met. it was a july night, a party. and she was dancing. and i said, wow, i m gonna meet that girl. reporter: how old were you?
and do stuff. reporter: paint murals and so forth? yeah. reporter: were they any good? not really. but she loved him nonetheless. fourteen years this went on. rachel wanted to get married and have kids. and i haven t asked her to marry me yet. and reporter: did you wanna have kids? i did. i did. i did, but i just wasn t there yet, you know what i m saying? well. it s an old story, isn t it? tim was blindsided by what happened next. rachel met another man, someone who was everything tim was not. todd winkler. focused, disciplined. a former f-16 fighter pilot, who was on track to be a corporate leader. tim scrambled. and i went and bought a ring real quick to propose to her. and i did. it was too late by then, of course. rachel turned him down, and announced her engagement to todd.
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 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
it was really hard, you know, because the love of my life was leaving me for some guy that had a good job and a house and a boat and a nice car. tim, to me, was rachel s soul mate. he was nothing but loving and kind to her. we were both twenty-once. hard to watch, said rachel s closest friend, shannon thurman. she called me when she broke up with him and said, you know we re done. i wanna have a family, he s not ready to have a family. and so, you know, we re done. and then literally like two months later, she called me and said, you know, you need to be here in two days, i m getting married. and i was like, oh, great. you guys made made up. and she s like, no, we didn t make up. we you know, it s it s this other guy, his name is todd, and you need to be here in two days. tim didn t go to the wedding, couldn t handle it, went to a bar to escape it. he had no idea the wedding party would swoop into his bar for a round of toasts. it was hard, man, watching
who loved four admiring men. her father, the prominent artist. her husband, the ex-fighter pilot and pharmaceutical executive. her lover, the handyman, ex-marine and firearms expert. and her first boyfriend, the would-be impressionist painter. his name is tim cherrington. and she the woman at the center of all that happened, was rachel. rachel hatfield. reporter: so rachel. tell me about her. oh, [beep]. i m sorry. we re starting, huh? reporter: well. just whatever. hmm start again. reporter: what d that do to you when i said that? my heart just went, boom. the subject of rachel, as you can plainly see, is painful for tim cherrington. a pain that might lessen if he d only learn to forget. but all he can do is remember. like the night they first met. it was a july night, a party.