the woman in question was peggy thomas, a whidbey island hairstylist who also dabbled in beauty pageantss pageant, winning the evening gown competition. lesley burkland got to know peggy thomas a few years earlier when she was just breaking into the beauty pageant circuit. berkland who was once on the reality tv show, "big, rich, texas." >> i still considered myself new to dallas. >> says peggy was working as an auto mechanic at the time. >> you couldn't not notice peggy because she was a whole lot of gorgeous woman. >> would you say she's a typical pageant contestant? >> no, not in 1998. hire is this beautiful, voluptuos woman and she was a mechanic and she had a guy-kind of job. it just added to her sex appeal. >> though jean says she knew nothing of her husband's budding affair at the time, she did notice that he had returned from his friend's funeral a changed man, secretive, sullen and withdrawn. >> i think jim's sister-in-law had mentioned peg thome and i didn't put two and two together. she had made a mention about the two of them being at the funeral together but it didn't click