Because she soon believed he had done it before. the more we read, the more we realized that this was not an accident. reporter: todd s behavior up here on the mountain, said prosecutor suder, was deeply suspect. for one thing, his stories just kept changing with each telling, like the one about where he was sitting in the truck as it headed down the mountain trail, in the passenger seat, holding cathy s hand, as he told the police, or back in the bed of the truck, as the campers insisted he told them. and when the truck went off the road? did he describe being thrown out of the vehicle? not to us, but there was another interview that was done earlier, where i think he described to someone as a twisting and turning motion. but in our interview, what i recall him sayin is that when he came to himself, he was layin on the ground, outside the vehicle. there was a huge fire. and he didn t know where his wife was. so from reporter: so that he didn t remember the accident at all, in your interview? right, right.
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. 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. he was a good guy in a bad situation, said his attorney. he worked hard and long hours to support rachel. he wanted to make her happy, and he was a good dad. and for that she cheated on him, threatened him and then attacked with those scissors.
The cliff, the fire, but i m still hopeful, okay? i got to do something. yeah. but there was no getting near the truck and no sign of a survivor. and then the firefighters came and the emts and, of course, the cops. they too heard the husband s bizarre tale. and they also learned his name was todd winkler. in their report they wrote that when they encountered todd, he was calling out for his wife cathy over and over. cathy, cathy, as if he was hoping she d come walking out of that burning forest. the patrol deputies called in the investigators, which is how gerald johnson, a brand new detective at the time, found himself deep in the georgia woods early that autumn morning. what happened up there on the hill was well, you you can describe to me as best you understood at the time what had happened. sometime during the night, he had gotten up, according to his statement, to go outside to use the restroom.
Suder, was deeply suspect. for one thing, his stories just kept changing with each telling, like the one about where he was sitting in the truck as it headed down the mountain trail, in the passenger seat, holding cathy s hand, as he told the police, or back in the bed of the truck, as the campers insisted he told them. and when the truck went off the road? did he describe being thrown out of the vehicle? not to us, but there was another interview that was done earlier, where i think he described to someone as a twisting and turning motion. but in our interview, what i recall him sayin is that when he came to himself, he was layin on the ground, outside the vehicle. there was a huge fire. and he didn t know where his wife was. so from so that he didn t remember the accident at all, in your interview? right, right. but apparently he did in some other interview. and that s correct. there were differing stories about what sort of bug supposedly bit him. supposedly causing an allergic reaction so bad he had to ask
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 so he s in a psychiatric facility. she had said to me that he escaped and was in the wooded area in hawaii.
And as he came back to the tent, he realized that he had been bitten by something or was having some type of reaction, that his throat was closing up and a sort of anaphylactic shock type reaction? well, that that s what i described it as. and she takes him out to this toyota pickup, if i remember correctly. he s crawling on his hands and knees at this point and having all these symptoms of some type of allergic reaction. johnson mostly just observed, he said, as the georgia bureau of investigation looked into what happened. but took no action. and eventually, the coroner ruled cathy s death an accident. and then, the life insurance company did the same. and as the more than half million dollar policy on cathy s life was a double indemnity, it paid double in the case of an accident. todd got close to $1.2 million. and the case was closed. but for the heartbreak, it was julie-lynn who told tanya what happened.
Why did it look like the fire had been burning for a long time? it was the whole side of the mountain. it was a big mountain. it had to have been burnin an hour or two. yeah, probably. i would think. closer to two. curiosities. why would he bring her up here to the very top of the mountain to go camping it s an hour s drive over a rutted track to the other campers farther down the hill. according to cathy s family she didn t like camping at all. so why would he bring her to the most remote possible place? no one camps up there. unless you want to be really secluded. and that, said cathy s brother, was not something she would have wanted. did she like to go camping? no. she d rather be in a hotel any day over a tent, knowin my sister. puzzled cathy s friends too. i was like, camping? cathy was not a camper. and there was this i recall him at some point, mr. winkler
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. 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 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. no, cathy and todd were a young upwardly mobile couple. life insurance was cheap, easy to get.
Numerous times. and after about a month of calling it repeatedly, the phone number was disconnected. she didn t get anywhere. no. but sometimes, maybe, with a little help from curious prosecutor, you get a do-over. so, as the years went by, you thought about it? oh, yes, sir. it bothered you? yes. so, that must have made that call that you got from california all the more remarkable. when when i realized what they were asking me about, yes, sir. i thought, oh, my goodness, what in the world is going on with this case? coming up. so many questions about that long-ago case, starting with why was cathy even camping? i said camping? cathy was not a camper. the more we read, the more rerealized this was not an accident. it was some horrible acting going on. it wasn t believable. i recall him at some point mr. winkler saying, do you
and she said, tanya, cathy s dead. she s not alive anymore. she died. i remember falling to the ground and i said, what do you mean she s dead? cathy s friend julie-lynn felt not just for herself but for todd, too. and i wanted to console him and just let him know that we were there for him, supporting him, anything we could do for him. and he never returned any of my calls. tanya tanya tried to call him, too. for a different reason. it just didn t add up. my phone call was strictly to figure out and to pick his brain and ask questions. because, by then, tanya was a cop herself, who knew a little something about suspicious behavior. did i think he was going to answer that phone? no, and let me tell you, i tried that phone number