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Previous wife s car crash was staged. the prosecutor believed rachel s case was about more than one murder. before making the argument to a jury, she had to convince the judge. here again is keith morrisson. reporter: once, a long time ago, this part of california was the epicenter of the gold rush. back then, as legend has it, at least, there was no wait for justice. you committed a crime, the punishment was meted out then and there. but not now. for more than two years after the bloody confrontation in the winkler s nursery, todd waited in jail to be tried for her murder. and i just started just pacing around the house just saying, god, i just killed their mother. reporter: for those two years, todd maintained, as he had from the very beginning, that he killed rachel only to save his own life, to save himself and his children. ....
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. 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. 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 ....
Professionals. in addition to the insurance policy of about $1.1 million that cathy had at the time of her death on her own life, he had $1.2 million on his own life. reporter: no, cathy and todd were a young upwardly mobile couple. life insurance was cheap, easy to get. they both had it. anyway, todd loved cathy. why else would he keep her ashes all these years. cathy s death, said the defense, had nothing whatever to do with the event for which todd was on trial, the death of rachel winkler, and he wasn t guilty in this case either. this is not a murder case, ladies and gentlemen. it s a self-defense case, or at most it s a voluntary manslaughter case. reporter: there were two good reasons to believe that, said the defense. reason one, self defense. as todd told the police that very first day it was probably a kill or be killed kind of situation. reporter: he was a good guy in a bad situation, said his ....
if i remember correctly, special agent roberts says, did you? and then at that point he became very emotional, you know? oh, i can t believe and his body language and his demeanor was just so over the top. reporter: but though they may have had their suspicions back in 1999, suspicion alone didn t make the death of cathy winkler anything but what it was called at the time, an accident. insurance companies investigated and paid out, because they felt that it was a real accident, and the authorities there couldn t show that it wasn t a real accident. so why was it worth you looking at it again? well, we knew a lot more about todd winkler at this point. we knew a lot more about how he goes about getting what he wants. reporter: the more she learned about cathy winker s death the more it seemed to her that todd must have planned it all. ....
You bet there were, said the prosecutor. the deaths of cathy and rachel were both cold-blooded, calculated killings. he s had, now, two wives where he has been the one who has been the only witness to a crime. reporter: but, she said, based on what investigators found, the events at 3:00 in the morning in the california airpark were not so hard to determine. and she prepared the jury. what happened that night was horrific. one, todd opened rachel s laptop and found the divorce documents she d been working on with her boyfriend, james. that laptop has disappeared from its ususal place in winkler home. two, he grabbed the scissors from a craft box, which was kept ....