December 22, 2021 • 31 mins
Fred hires a high-powered defense attorney and a team of private eyes, and starts pushing back on the detectives’ narrative. He’s got an explanation for everything: his real-estate holdings, his income, and all those insurance policies. But can the detectives explain why their witnesses are walking back statements?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin, a Malibu dad who killed his wife and her
young child out of greed. It sure looked that way
to stand Rodin, the Santa Barbara District attorney. This is
(00:38):
Dempsey Billy, a DA's investigator who worked on the case.
I think we had five or six or seven criminal investigators,
and then about probably about twelve deputy district attorneys, and
so the round table to see if the district attorneys
I should file that case. When the facts of Fred's
(01:01):
case were presented, there were crickets. Nobody really wanted the case.
They didn't think it wasn't think there's enough evidence there
to hues Fred Railer. And then Stan Rowdin so very
strongly about it and took it and ran with it.
Stan Rodin was the elected official, the boss, and he
(01:24):
wanted to argue the case himself. He was determined to
bring Fred Rayler to justice. He is the one, I'll
say it myself. He put the full weight of his
office behind the effort. Law enforcement was investigating five deaths
with possible connections to Fred. Verna Doug, the navy diver
(01:47):
who had drowned while using Fred's scuba equipment, and also
Verna's first husband, Bill and Fred's first wife, Jean. The
Santa Barbara detectives Fred Ray and Claude Tuller had turned
up a ton of dirt on Fred. For every person
in Malibu who admired him, it seemed another one thought
he was a creep. He was cold, he was harsh,
(02:10):
he was weird, he was kind, he was true. You
could trust him with your life. Fred hired a high
powered defense attorney and engaged a team of private eyes.
They started reinterviewing the detective sources, all those Malibu people
who had talked to Ray and Tuller and told the
tales the detectives wove into that scandalous fifty four page affidavit.
(02:33):
But when Fred's investigators fanned out over Malibu, they heard
a very different story. Kathy Pullis, a Malibu mom, had
talked to detectives back in March of nineteen eighty one
before Fred's arrest. In the affidavit, Detective Tuller wrote that
she quote described Fred as being strange, stormy, and rigid.
(02:55):
He also wrote, citing Kathy, the second marriage was not
as happy as Verno's first marriage with Bill. She described
Bill as being gentle and Fred as not gentle, and
he wrote again, supposedly based on the commentary, Doug was
afraid of Fred. But two months later, when one of
(03:15):
Fred's investigators went to talk to Kathy, she was appalled
the detectives had taken her words and twisted them. I mean,
I can tell right off about this is not quite
an accurate Okay, why don't you consider accurate? Well, let
me go back to the beginning, where it said Vernon
(03:39):
had problems with his second marriage. Second marriage was not
as happy as Vernon's first marriage was. Bill, I don't
know that, and I didn't say that. This kind of
elaborates on what I might have said, you know, when
I didn't hear the say more strongly than exactly. Um,
where it talked about described Fred as being strange, stormy
(04:00):
and rigid. Yes, I think his um his way of dealing.
Maybe the discipline was rigid, but a lot of that
is what I had heard. You know, I did not
witness him beating up his children. No, Um, let me
go on here described as Bill as being very gentle
(04:22):
and Fred as not gentle. I don't really know if
he's not gentle. So you did not say that, No,
that Kred was not gentle, I just exactly what I'm
here for. Just go on making comments like you are
as you're And I never said that Doug was afraid
of Fred, because I never witnessed that Fred had some
(04:42):
detractors in Malibu. She wasn't a fan, but had that
somehow been turned into a criminal complaint against the guy,
you know, And I don't know if some of these
people haven't asked to grind, you know, human nature. I mean, wow,
a great scandal, you know, go with it. By the
end of her conversation with the investigator, Kathy Pulis was angry,
(05:06):
and I've offended that, you know, Natona did all insinuating
here too make a case better or whatever. So no,
I would say that this no, always, you would not testify.
I would not testify Santa Barbara. Detective Fred Ray didn't
respond to my interview request, and Claude Teller has died.
But they left a very long paper trail to build
(05:28):
their case against Fred. They had to deal with an
inconvenient reality. There was just not a lot of physical evidence,
so they'd gotten creative and poked around the tight knit
community of Malibu for clues. That was a gold mine.
Everyone knew something or had heard it third hand from
someone else. So the detectives gathered a lot of juicy
(05:51):
stories that presented Fred's defense team with a challenge. This
is how one of the private detectives put it to
him back in the spring of nineteen eighty one. Somewhere
along the lines, It's been said that there are three
Fred Rays. One is the one you think of yourself as,
the other one is the one that people perceive you as,
and the third one the one that you really are.
(06:13):
So who was the real Fred Railer? I'm Dana Goodyear
and this is Lost Hills episode eight three. Fred's Fred
(06:56):
needed to prove that the Santa Barbara detectives had it
all wrong. They had him all wrong. He was a
good guy, and he set about trying to prove it
from his jail cell in Santa Barbara. Of mine for
Fred beating back the image of him created by detectives
Ray and Tuller in the affidavit. Here he is talking
(07:16):
to the private eye. When I received the company of
the affidavit fifty four page, I sat down and responded
to Yip page by page. After I did that, I
(07:38):
went back and I wrote, probably at least one to
two tablets, legal tablets. Just what we're going to be
talking about right again, They went through a list of
all the people Fred knew in Malibu, but not just that.
They talked about his family, Verna's family, Jean's family. According
(08:01):
to Fred, Verna's family and Jean's parents were totally supportive
of him. There's a good dialogue and good communication there
as close to me really as my parents came. It's
a unique situation that's, you know, that's going to be
a strength as far as you're you know, to put
(08:21):
it in a very pragmatic term, these people are going
to be your best characterizes. It was important the investigator
said that the persona Fred presented to the jury be credible.
If there was a bad Fred, he needed to know
about that too. See, we don't want to characterize you
as any kind of a saint. Okay, you're a human.
(08:44):
You've got your strengths, you've got your witnesses as you've
got the things that people know about you. And if
we can get some kind of a composite then we
can present you to a jury in a way that
the jury's gonna say, hey, you know, here, we are
one person who knew him well, and who Fred felt
sure would vouch for him was his psychiatrist, doctor Paul Remis.
(09:07):
Are he am I Even Tarzana law enforcement had run
into a contradiction in Fred's persona in the stories various
witnesses told about him, the man who lived for his
family versus the man who would brutally kill them. If
(09:32):
Fred was capable of the cold murders the DA suspected
him of, surely doctor Remus would have seen the signs.
He'd know if Fred was faking right. Fred's private investigator
(10:20):
went to interview doctor Remus, the psychiatrist Fred had consulted
after Jean died and again after Vernon died. The investigator
wanted to know how Fred had presented himself in therapy,
if his grief had seemed authentic. Here's doctor Remus. The
first time that I saw Fred, and he talked about
(10:40):
the fact that his first wife had died. It was
an accidental drowning. I think he brought me the anthology report,
talked about looking into how it happened, the cause of it.
He was concerned and upset about it, but he didn't cry.
(11:02):
Doctor Remus said he wasn't surprised by Fred's lack of
emotion to him. It didn't indicate that Fred had killed Jean,
just that he didn't really like her. This was totally
in keeping with his feeling about Jean, that they really
weren't getting along too well. And he is by nature
(11:24):
as a fellow who holds his feelings in, tries to
intellectualize a lot, uses words in him, part data and facts,
doesn't get into his feelings very easily at all, So
that the fact that he didn't cry but he looked
upset was acceptable to me. I mean, have any question
second time, but when Verna died, Fred's behavior was markedly
(11:47):
different this time. When I saw him with Verna, the
very first thing he said for sentences soon was my
wife is dandy, and he looked at me he broke
into tears, strangely to remiss. This was real sorrow, an unfathable,
(12:08):
authentic emotion. That was very significant to me because this
is a guy who tries to use intellectual defenses all
the time, and here I don't believe he could have
faked it. But I didn't have that feeling that there
was a manipulation of my feelings at all. The actions
(12:32):
spoke for themselves. He was moved to the point of reacting.
Nature of the relationship with Burnam was entirely different than
his relationship with a Gene that changed his life. And
I think that that's enormously significant. You see, here we
have a guy, Verna, doctor Rima said, pushed Fred in
(12:54):
a good way. She demanded that he experienced life, and
his connection to her was entirely different than his connection
to Gene. To get on with to you know, be
in love with Verna meant you had to get into yourself.
(13:14):
You had to do so. She meditated, she was on
nutrition therapy, she started jogging. She you know, she lived,
and she was his life. In fact, just showed him
the way that life could be. You know, I don't know.
You know this is not to say Nate comments as
well he would want to get rid of Gene. I'm
not saying that. I'm saying Verna meant to him something
(13:35):
that money couldn't buy. His phrasing is arresting. Verna meant
something money couldn't buy. Verna and he fit together, both
of them having lost a partner and both of them
having children, and she essentially knowing how to take children
a lot better than he did. It was a functional
(13:58):
thing for the boat, he thought. Verna had also helped
Fred process Jean's death. Things between Fred and Jean were
so acrimonious at the end. Gene death was especially hard
for Fred, we MIAs said, because deep down he kind
of wanted her to go away. You know, his worst fear,
which is to to have your thought played out in action.
(14:22):
You know, you can hate somebody because you find them. Dad,
it's your worst fear. You know, you wouldn't want that
to happen. And so he was blown away. That's where
Verne came in. She was a religious person, okay, and
he wasn't. She you know, grounded him. She really gave
him some kind of a basis for understanding, Yeah, an
(14:47):
emotional basis sense. He understands things very well intellectually. Oh,
I know, he's heard right, fell that's right her. But emotionally,
it's difficult for him to sometimes get into into his feelings.
He's not really had a lot of experience in communicating
(15:07):
feeling to other people about how he feels inside. Difficult
for him to express his emotions in the fields. I'd
go farther than that, I'd say that often people like
Fred can express themselves pretty well, but deep inside they
know they're holding out. They're not really wide open vulnerable.
(15:28):
As the work difficult to be vulderble he was vulnerable
when he came into the office the second time. Medical
professionals who saw Fred right after the drownings told the
detectives about odd behavior they'd observed. Fred's vital signs were
normal and he had no obvious injuries, but he was
(15:49):
acting really out of it, seemingly drifting in and out
of consciousness and refusing to answer questions. They had suggested
to the detectives Fred might have been faking. The investigator
wanted to know if Fred knew enough about psychology about
what was expected of him to be able to act
shocked and horrified when Verna and dug died. The answer
(16:13):
is yes, but balance it against other things. Again, the
odds are point one percent that he you know, he's
you know, he psyched out the whole thing, figured out,
you know, how to react, and there's nothing in his
past that suggests that there's just that kind of psychopathology
that makes good TV story, you know, where the criminal
(16:35):
is so clever that he fools everybody. I believe you
to do that in real life, Remas said, Fred's love
for Verna was genuine, and so was his investment in
his children. He didn't think the family Man persona was
an act, and he definitely didn't think Fred was smart
enough to Jedi mind trick him. But mostly he approached
(16:58):
the problem practically. Besides loving Verna, Fred needed her, so
why would he kill her? Law enforcement was theorizing that
Fred needed money more than he needed Verna, that he
(17:19):
was driven to kill in order to collect insurance money.
Looking at his finances, it's hard to see a different
source of income. He needed a change of fortune if
he was going to keep living the dream in Malibu.
But law enforcement didn't necessarily understand the real estate market
in coastal southern California. Here's Fred talking to one of
(17:40):
the private investigators he hired, explaining how he got into
the housing game. He started with a place in a
Silver Strand neighborhood in Oxnard. We paid some enormous amount
of money, like eighteen thousand dollars for his house Silver
Strand in nine two. Yeah, and we still have with
this day. He's still on the household. Ye, it's worth
(18:05):
a little more praised at one hundred and five or
something as business. Fred's friend Mike Kelleen told that same
investigator that Fred's instincts for real estate were the key
to his financial solvency. Oh, I can tell you story.
It's really easy because you remember what happened between like
(18:25):
seventy and seventy six and seventy seven. Things were crazy.
It was a story that hinged on the massive inflation
of home values in the region. When Fred and Jean
moved back from Berkeley, they purchased a house on Califine.
My recollection is that they paid somewhere in the fifty
to sixty thousand dollars as for that house. I don't
(18:46):
know how creative he was in financing, but again, the
guy doesn't have to be wealthy to put that together,
and he put it together. He had income property in Oxnard,
he had income property Amalivie and Berna had some income
property am And with that going on, that's how I
(19:07):
suppose he would pay his mortgage. And as far as
I knew, he probably had some resources to draw from
a little bit of savings. Was Britain all consumed with
making the almighty dog. The man has the soul of
a part of a grating business learning check who thinks
that the dollar is the most important thing. But he's
not not a stupid man. He certainly realized the value
(19:28):
of his prudent investment. Certain No, Mike's point. Fred might
look over extended to the investigators, but all these properties
were working for him, making him money, and home values
were surging. For months, Fred sat in a jail cell
(20:01):
in Santa Barbara. He made a lot of notes, long
lists of things for his defense team to do in
passion for rebuttals of the witness statements against him, Lists
of reasons why the accusations were so bone headed in
the first place. Law enforcement was overreaching, out of control,
quote bad news, coaching investigation targets, and putting words in
(20:23):
their mouth a no, no, unquote. One list he made
was titled why not. At Santa Cruz Island, January second,
nineteen eighty one, there were thirty eight numbered reasons why not.
Number six could have waited till we were in Mexico
and had them done in by bandits. Number twelve would
(20:44):
have picked a boat that sank. Number fourteen would have
beat them up on rocks to mask anything. I would
have done Number fifteen could have cut them and had
sharks in ten minutes. Number sixteen could have had them
done in on a secluded part of Malibu Beach, could
have been jumped by dopers. Or number seventeen could have
(21:07):
had them kidnapped. Number eighteen, why would I want to
ruin a dream boat trip? Could have waited till everyone
wanted to go home or I was ready to go home.
Fred wasn't the only one strategizing. He had a robust
defense team led by a high powered defense attorney. A
few of his friends from Malibu and one of his
(21:27):
brothers were also helping, and so was Fred's friend Bill Fairfield,
the lawyer who was part of all those hot tub
parties back in the gene era, who'd advised him in
Verna on estate planning and set up the trust. Here
they are troubleshooting Fred's defense, addressing the things that made
him seem guilty, the awkward facts they were going to
(21:49):
have to work around, and our purpose in being congregated
here this morning is to discuss some ideas and hopefully
bring out some suggestions that may be of benefit to
Fred's defense in connection with the upcoming trial. Awkward fact
(22:14):
number one, Verna and Doug could swim. One of the
things that certainly has come to my mind and that
has certainly become a major issue, is the swimming ability
of both Doug and Verna. Have any of you experienced
(22:35):
or a visualized Doug in any type of panic situation
before he was a hyper kid. Wasn't he high stroke
which with spetual motion, which would indicate to me, whether
ties or not, I don't know, but it would indicate
to me that under a situation of panic, you would
tend to react. Now, but a lot of kids would.
(22:58):
I mean, my kid two days ago got turned over
by a wave and was in a terrible shape. You
know this was this was three feet from me and
was in a panic. You know so. But if your
kid is just the average kid in terms of energy,
perfectual emotion of dog, maybe Doug would react even yes,
crash about even a bit more, which again is why
(23:19):
I wonder about that. I mean, you can come up
with ten, twelve, twenty ways. Perhaps the dog could have
been hit in the hand, the oar, the camera action
Fred falling over as they're all falling out of the boat,
and Burnham grabbing something, and maybe that something was dug
and push Doug down into the boats. Awkward. Fact number two.
(23:42):
Fred could really swim, you know, to the mecca Vellian mind.
Here as a man who is more expert in the
water than nine of the population, so he knows exactly.
I mean, he is in his element when he's in
the water. So therefore he knows what to do to
(24:04):
I mean, if he wants interpret in calculating fashion, riot
to do that, he knows what to do. And this
could rebound badly against him as a possibility I can
be used in Romans show. That's why Freend survived. Here
was no water along damn time. Okay he was. He
swammed those people along ways, and that's I don't like
to him about it. You know, I think I'd have
(24:25):
bought it well long before he was in the water,
up to least an hour as far as we can
tell them, maybe an hour and a half. So I mean,
I think you know you can you can use it
to cut both words. Let's to consume. Let me let
me awkward Fact number three, Lady eat the dog. He
was able to save his dog, wasn't he The dog
was okay? Well, okay, but the rock wall is exactly that,
(24:48):
the sheer rock wall, and so well, you know, and
so the idea, I don't know, maybe you as I say, physically,
the idea of shouting somebody out, it's diffic lost one
of them, Okay, so no one could really explain how
lady got up there. M awkward fact number four. Fred
(25:13):
his whole manner, it was wooden. Fred comes over on
that tape to the officers, is very calculating and deliberately
with respect to the story and speech type well for
them most part, Like in the first first hour hour
and a half of the interrogation, he rarely breaks down
(25:33):
him at all. I said, when when he mentions Vernon's name,
where he mentioned aside his name, he does appear a
little bit choked up. It's fleeting. It's just there for
a moment, and then he's back to normal Fred. Fred's
are very reserved individual who's being very calculating by nature.
And he also knew with what those guys meant. In
pre trial hearings, they said Fred was coming off as
stiff aloof and wanting to smile a little more and
(25:57):
look a little bit more relaxed when he's sitting at
the bench and had a bail hearing where he was
denied release. Fred had shown no emotion. One of those
just put hand since they be saying, yeah, you know,
his expressions changing on at own. I wanted him to
be a little good destiny. Now, when you get a
jury up there and Fred gets on the stand to
(26:19):
testifying his own defense, indeed, if he comes across with
some of what you've just said, almost called calculating, call
us a cucumber, matter of fact, except for you know,
emotional chokes that you know, the jury could say, um, jeez,
you know this guy is so bloody calculating that that
it's conceivable for They were hesitant though, to give Fred
(26:43):
too much direction, especially if the prosecution was going to
put on a case thing he was a phony and
a fake. No, no, no, And then that's you know,
that's the worst thing you could do, it to say,
you know, give us a give us a movie of
the week performance. Well maybe he takes the volume for that.
But but the thing is you can react to you
can react without being contrived. This tape, he was stifling
(27:04):
and he was trying to push it down. So I
think Joe enhances communication with the absence. But I think he, hey,
we needs to be we needs to guns from girl's friend.
Allowed to well up, let it come out. You get
a little bit more emotions on when you feel you know,
let that come out display. Anytime you want him to
break down, he just marches three kids in the back
of the courtroom and he will be in tears. In essence,
(27:24):
what your comments are that you feel that Fred's state
of mind is so bad because of all the tragedies
that's happened in his life, that he's basically just kind
of prepared himself. That it's not a guy that said, well, jeez,
I hope I get away with us. It's a guy
that's saying, what what next? Awkward Fact number five The
(27:46):
elephant in the room Jean Fred's first wife, who also
drowned under murky circumstances. The gene gonna be admissions. We're
working on a no. Yes, I don't think it is well.
Would you say right now, Bill, that's what you're thinking
is too Yeah, but how can you keep it in
(28:06):
how well they The thing is that the indicial systems
not allow evidence of Chrier crimes to come in just
to show up as a final disposition on the half definis,
and it's more in clinic than the crimes than anyone else.
Sometimes you get an in the shoal common scheme, planet
design tender or knowledge. This will all depend upon upon
(28:27):
the rulings fly That's yes, That's what I was going
to be Internet. It's a discretion time drilling. The outcome
of the trial might turn on whether the judge allowed
the DA to talk about Gene. If the jury saw
a pattern and thought that Fred was killing his wives,
that would be tough for Fred to overcome. But but
there's no doubt that the prosecution has to has to
(28:53):
bring in the Gene death and some of the insurance
history to prove that case. I mean, I mean, if
they don't, the case is blown out of the war. Well,
it's severely impaired. Let's put it that way. You still
have Fred's story, whether or not inscredible or not. The
(29:14):
outcome of the trial would depend almost entirely on Fred
the only witness to the drownings of Verna and Doug,
and Fred was confident in his ability to explain the
strange circumstances of their deaths. After all, he had experience,
he'd done it before, he'd silenced the rumors stirring in
(29:34):
Malibu after Jean's death. He'd even manage to persuade one
of her best friends, Verna, to marry him. But this
time he'd be facing a jury, twelve strangers, and a
formidable adversary, Stan rodin the Santa Barbara Da Coming up
(30:02):
on the next episode of Lost Hills, Fred's trial draws
a crowd. People like it is about rich people and
rich people doing bad things. You know, this is mythology.
If somebody got life insurance and killed their wife in
a glamorous situation on a yacht, you know, on a
holiday weekend. Wow, that's a big deal. And look we've
(30:27):
got this highly technical evidence about it because it's you know,
we're such a hot shot prosecution that we can do this.
That's next in episode nine, Prejudicial Effect. Lost Tails is
(30:47):
written and reported by Me Dana Goodyear. It's created by
me and Ben Adair and produced by Western Sound and
Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can hear
the whole season add free and get early access to
the final two episodes. Find Pushkin Plus on the Lost
Tails show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm.
Pushkin, a Malibu dad who killed his wife and her
young child out of greed. It sure looked that way
to stand Rodin, the Santa Barbara District attorney. This is
(00:38):
Dempsey Billy, a DA's investigator who worked on the case.
I think we had five or six or seven criminal investigators,
and then about probably about twelve deputy district attorneys, and
so the round table to see if the district attorneys
I should file that case. When the facts of Fred's
(01:01):
case were presented, there were crickets. Nobody really wanted the case.
They didn't think it wasn't think there's enough evidence there
to hues Fred Railer. And then Stan Rowdin so very
strongly about it and took it and ran with it.
Stan Rodin was the elected official, the boss, and he
(01:24):
wanted to argue the case himself. He was determined to
bring Fred Rayler to justice. He is the one, I'll
say it myself. He put the full weight of his
office behind the effort. Law enforcement was investigating five deaths
with possible connections to Fred. Verna Doug, the navy diver
(01:47):
who had drowned while using Fred's scuba equipment, and also
Verna's first husband, Bill and Fred's first wife, Jean. The
Santa Barbara detectives Fred Ray and Claude Tuller had turned
up a ton of dirt on Fred. For every person
in Malibu who admired him, it seemed another one thought
he was a creep. He was cold, he was harsh,
(02:10):
he was weird, he was kind, he was true. You
could trust him with your life. Fred hired a high
powered defense attorney and engaged a team of private eyes.
They started reinterviewing the detective sources, all those Malibu people
who had talked to Ray and Tuller and told the
tales the detectives wove into that scandalous fifty four page affidavit.
(02:33):
But when Fred's investigators fanned out over Malibu, they heard
a very different story. Kathy Pullis, a Malibu mom, had
talked to detectives back in March of nineteen eighty one
before Fred's arrest. In the affidavit, Detective Tuller wrote that
she quote described Fred as being strange, stormy, and rigid.
(02:55):
He also wrote, citing Kathy, the second marriage was not
as happy as Verno's first marriage with Bill. She described
Bill as being gentle and Fred as not gentle, and
he wrote again, supposedly based on the commentary, Doug was
afraid of Fred. But two months later, when one of
(03:15):
Fred's investigators went to talk to Kathy, she was appalled
the detectives had taken her words and twisted them. I mean,
I can tell right off about this is not quite
an accurate Okay, why don't you consider accurate? Well, let
me go back to the beginning, where it said Vernon
(03:39):
had problems with his second marriage. Second marriage was not
as happy as Vernon's first marriage was. Bill, I don't
know that, and I didn't say that. This kind of
elaborates on what I might have said, you know, when
I didn't hear the say more strongly than exactly. Um,
where it talked about described Fred as being strange, stormy
(04:00):
and rigid. Yes, I think his um his way of dealing.
Maybe the discipline was rigid, but a lot of that
is what I had heard. You know, I did not
witness him beating up his children. No, Um, let me
go on here described as Bill as being very gentle
(04:22):
and Fred as not gentle. I don't really know if
he's not gentle. So you did not say that, No,
that Kred was not gentle, I just exactly what I'm
here for. Just go on making comments like you are
as you're And I never said that Doug was afraid
of Fred, because I never witnessed that Fred had some
(04:42):
detractors in Malibu. She wasn't a fan, but had that
somehow been turned into a criminal complaint against the guy,
you know, And I don't know if some of these
people haven't asked to grind, you know, human nature. I mean, wow,
a great scandal, you know, go with it. By the
end of her conversation with the investigator, Kathy Pulis was angry,
(05:06):
and I've offended that, you know, Natona did all insinuating
here too make a case better or whatever. So no,
I would say that this no, always, you would not testify.
I would not testify Santa Barbara. Detective Fred Ray didn't
respond to my interview request, and Claude Teller has died.
But they left a very long paper trail to build
(05:28):
their case against Fred. They had to deal with an
inconvenient reality. There was just not a lot of physical evidence,
so they'd gotten creative and poked around the tight knit
community of Malibu for clues. That was a gold mine.
Everyone knew something or had heard it third hand from
someone else. So the detectives gathered a lot of juicy
(05:51):
stories that presented Fred's defense team with a challenge. This
is how one of the private detectives put it to
him back in the spring of nineteen eighty one. Somewhere
along the lines, It's been said that there are three
Fred Rays. One is the one you think of yourself as,
the other one is the one that people perceive you as,
and the third one the one that you really are.
(06:13):
So who was the real Fred Railer? I'm Dana Goodyear
and this is Lost Hills episode eight three. Fred's Fred
(06:56):
needed to prove that the Santa Barbara detectives had it
all wrong. They had him all wrong. He was a
good guy, and he set about trying to prove it
from his jail cell in Santa Barbara. Of mine for
Fred beating back the image of him created by detectives
Ray and Tuller in the affidavit. Here he is talking
(07:16):
to the private eye. When I received the company of
the affidavit fifty four page, I sat down and responded
to Yip page by page. After I did that, I
(07:38):
went back and I wrote, probably at least one to
two tablets, legal tablets. Just what we're going to be
talking about right again, They went through a list of
all the people Fred knew in Malibu, but not just that.
They talked about his family, Verna's family, Jean's family. According
(08:01):
to Fred, Verna's family and Jean's parents were totally supportive
of him. There's a good dialogue and good communication there
as close to me really as my parents came. It's
a unique situation that's, you know, that's going to be
a strength as far as you're you know, to put
(08:21):
it in a very pragmatic term, these people are going
to be your best characterizes. It was important the investigator
said that the persona Fred presented to the jury be credible.
If there was a bad Fred, he needed to know
about that too. See, we don't want to characterize you
as any kind of a saint. Okay, you're a human.
(08:44):
You've got your strengths, you've got your witnesses as you've
got the things that people know about you. And if
we can get some kind of a composite then we
can present you to a jury in a way that
the jury's gonna say, hey, you know, here, we are
one person who knew him well, and who Fred felt
sure would vouch for him was his psychiatrist, doctor Paul Remis.
(09:07):
Are he am I Even Tarzana law enforcement had run
into a contradiction in Fred's persona in the stories various
witnesses told about him, the man who lived for his
family versus the man who would brutally kill them. If
(09:32):
Fred was capable of the cold murders the DA suspected
him of, surely doctor Remus would have seen the signs.
He'd know if Fred was faking right. Fred's private investigator
(10:20):
went to interview doctor Remus, the psychiatrist Fred had consulted
after Jean died and again after Vernon died. The investigator
wanted to know how Fred had presented himself in therapy,
if his grief had seemed authentic. Here's doctor Remus. The
first time that I saw Fred, and he talked about
(10:40):
the fact that his first wife had died. It was
an accidental drowning. I think he brought me the anthology report,
talked about looking into how it happened, the cause of it.
He was concerned and upset about it, but he didn't cry.
(11:02):
Doctor Remus said he wasn't surprised by Fred's lack of
emotion to him. It didn't indicate that Fred had killed Jean,
just that he didn't really like her. This was totally
in keeping with his feeling about Jean, that they really
weren't getting along too well. And he is by nature
(11:24):
as a fellow who holds his feelings in, tries to
intellectualize a lot, uses words in him, part data and facts,
doesn't get into his feelings very easily at all, So
that the fact that he didn't cry but he looked
upset was acceptable to me. I mean, have any question
second time, but when Verna died, Fred's behavior was markedly
(11:47):
different this time. When I saw him with Verna, the
very first thing he said for sentences soon was my
wife is dandy, and he looked at me he broke
into tears, strangely to remiss. This was real sorrow, an unfathable,
(12:08):
authentic emotion. That was very significant to me because this
is a guy who tries to use intellectual defenses all
the time, and here I don't believe he could have
faked it. But I didn't have that feeling that there
was a manipulation of my feelings at all. The actions
(12:32):
spoke for themselves. He was moved to the point of reacting.
Nature of the relationship with Burnam was entirely different than
his relationship with a Gene that changed his life. And
I think that that's enormously significant. You see, here we
have a guy, Verna, doctor Rima said, pushed Fred in
(12:54):
a good way. She demanded that he experienced life, and
his connection to her was entirely different than his connection
to Gene. To get on with to you know, be
in love with Verna meant you had to get into yourself.
(13:14):
You had to do so. She meditated, she was on
nutrition therapy, she started jogging. She you know, she lived,
and she was his life. In fact, just showed him
the way that life could be. You know, I don't know.
You know this is not to say Nate comments as
well he would want to get rid of Gene. I'm
not saying that. I'm saying Verna meant to him something
(13:35):
that money couldn't buy. His phrasing is arresting. Verna meant
something money couldn't buy. Verna and he fit together, both
of them having lost a partner and both of them
having children, and she essentially knowing how to take children
a lot better than he did. It was a functional
(13:58):
thing for the boat, he thought. Verna had also helped
Fred process Jean's death. Things between Fred and Jean were
so acrimonious at the end. Gene death was especially hard
for Fred, we MIAs said, because deep down he kind
of wanted her to go away. You know, his worst fear,
which is to to have your thought played out in action.
(14:22):
You know, you can hate somebody because you find them. Dad,
it's your worst fear. You know, you wouldn't want that
to happen. And so he was blown away. That's where
Verne came in. She was a religious person, okay, and
he wasn't. She you know, grounded him. She really gave
him some kind of a basis for understanding, Yeah, an
(14:47):
emotional basis sense. He understands things very well intellectually. Oh,
I know, he's heard right, fell that's right her. But emotionally,
it's difficult for him to sometimes get into into his feelings.
He's not really had a lot of experience in communicating
(15:07):
feeling to other people about how he feels inside. Difficult
for him to express his emotions in the fields. I'd
go farther than that, I'd say that often people like
Fred can express themselves pretty well, but deep inside they
know they're holding out. They're not really wide open vulnerable.
(15:28):
As the work difficult to be vulderble he was vulnerable
when he came into the office the second time. Medical
professionals who saw Fred right after the drownings told the
detectives about odd behavior they'd observed. Fred's vital signs were
normal and he had no obvious injuries, but he was
(15:49):
acting really out of it, seemingly drifting in and out
of consciousness and refusing to answer questions. They had suggested
to the detectives Fred might have been faking. The investigator
wanted to know if Fred knew enough about psychology about
what was expected of him to be able to act
shocked and horrified when Verna and dug died. The answer
(16:13):
is yes, but balance it against other things. Again, the
odds are point one percent that he you know, he's
you know, he psyched out the whole thing, figured out,
you know, how to react, and there's nothing in his
past that suggests that there's just that kind of psychopathology
that makes good TV story, you know, where the criminal
(16:35):
is so clever that he fools everybody. I believe you
to do that in real life, Remas said, Fred's love
for Verna was genuine, and so was his investment in
his children. He didn't think the family Man persona was
an act, and he definitely didn't think Fred was smart
enough to Jedi mind trick him. But mostly he approached
(16:58):
the problem practically. Besides loving Verna, Fred needed her, so
why would he kill her? Law enforcement was theorizing that
Fred needed money more than he needed Verna, that he
(17:19):
was driven to kill in order to collect insurance money.
Looking at his finances, it's hard to see a different
source of income. He needed a change of fortune if
he was going to keep living the dream in Malibu.
But law enforcement didn't necessarily understand the real estate market
in coastal southern California. Here's Fred talking to one of
(17:40):
the private investigators he hired, explaining how he got into
the housing game. He started with a place in a
Silver Strand neighborhood in Oxnard. We paid some enormous amount
of money, like eighteen thousand dollars for his house Silver
Strand in nine two. Yeah, and we still have with
this day. He's still on the household. Ye, it's worth
(18:05):
a little more praised at one hundred and five or
something as business. Fred's friend Mike Kelleen told that same
investigator that Fred's instincts for real estate were the key
to his financial solvency. Oh, I can tell you story.
It's really easy because you remember what happened between like
(18:25):
seventy and seventy six and seventy seven. Things were crazy.
It was a story that hinged on the massive inflation
of home values in the region. When Fred and Jean
moved back from Berkeley, they purchased a house on Califine.
My recollection is that they paid somewhere in the fifty
to sixty thousand dollars as for that house. I don't
(18:46):
know how creative he was in financing, but again, the
guy doesn't have to be wealthy to put that together,
and he put it together. He had income property in Oxnard,
he had income property Amalivie and Berna had some income
property am And with that going on, that's how I
(19:07):
suppose he would pay his mortgage. And as far as
I knew, he probably had some resources to draw from
a little bit of savings. Was Britain all consumed with
making the almighty dog. The man has the soul of
a part of a grating business learning check who thinks
that the dollar is the most important thing. But he's
not not a stupid man. He certainly realized the value
(19:28):
of his prudent investment. Certain No, Mike's point. Fred might
look over extended to the investigators, but all these properties
were working for him, making him money, and home values
were surging. For months, Fred sat in a jail cell
(20:01):
in Santa Barbara. He made a lot of notes, long
lists of things for his defense team to do in
passion for rebuttals of the witness statements against him, Lists
of reasons why the accusations were so bone headed in
the first place. Law enforcement was overreaching, out of control,
quote bad news, coaching investigation targets, and putting words in
(20:23):
their mouth a no, no, unquote. One list he made
was titled why not. At Santa Cruz Island, January second,
nineteen eighty one, there were thirty eight numbered reasons why not.
Number six could have waited till we were in Mexico
and had them done in by bandits. Number twelve would
(20:44):
have picked a boat that sank. Number fourteen would have
beat them up on rocks to mask anything. I would
have done Number fifteen could have cut them and had
sharks in ten minutes. Number sixteen could have had them
done in on a secluded part of Malibu Beach, could
have been jumped by dopers. Or number seventeen could have
(21:07):
had them kidnapped. Number eighteen, why would I want to
ruin a dream boat trip? Could have waited till everyone
wanted to go home or I was ready to go home.
Fred wasn't the only one strategizing. He had a robust
defense team led by a high powered defense attorney. A
few of his friends from Malibu and one of his
(21:27):
brothers were also helping, and so was Fred's friend Bill Fairfield,
the lawyer who was part of all those hot tub
parties back in the gene era, who'd advised him in
Verna on estate planning and set up the trust. Here
they are troubleshooting Fred's defense, addressing the things that made
him seem guilty, the awkward facts they were going to
(21:49):
have to work around, and our purpose in being congregated
here this morning is to discuss some ideas and hopefully
bring out some suggestions that may be of benefit to
Fred's defense in connection with the upcoming trial. Awkward fact
(22:14):
number one, Verna and Doug could swim. One of the
things that certainly has come to my mind and that
has certainly become a major issue, is the swimming ability
of both Doug and Verna. Have any of you experienced
(22:35):
or a visualized Doug in any type of panic situation
before he was a hyper kid. Wasn't he high stroke
which with spetual motion, which would indicate to me, whether
ties or not, I don't know, but it would indicate
to me that under a situation of panic, you would
tend to react. Now, but a lot of kids would.
(22:58):
I mean, my kid two days ago got turned over
by a wave and was in a terrible shape. You
know this was this was three feet from me and
was in a panic. You know so. But if your
kid is just the average kid in terms of energy,
perfectual emotion of dog, maybe Doug would react even yes,
crash about even a bit more, which again is why
(23:19):
I wonder about that. I mean, you can come up
with ten, twelve, twenty ways. Perhaps the dog could have
been hit in the hand, the oar, the camera action
Fred falling over as they're all falling out of the boat,
and Burnham grabbing something, and maybe that something was dug
and push Doug down into the boats. Awkward. Fact number two.
(23:42):
Fred could really swim, you know, to the mecca Vellian mind.
Here as a man who is more expert in the
water than nine of the population, so he knows exactly.
I mean, he is in his element when he's in
the water. So therefore he knows what to do to
(24:04):
I mean, if he wants interpret in calculating fashion, riot
to do that, he knows what to do. And this
could rebound badly against him as a possibility I can
be used in Romans show. That's why Freend survived. Here
was no water along damn time. Okay he was. He
swammed those people along ways, and that's I don't like
to him about it. You know, I think I'd have
(24:25):
bought it well long before he was in the water,
up to least an hour as far as we can
tell them, maybe an hour and a half. So I mean,
I think you know you can you can use it
to cut both words. Let's to consume. Let me let
me awkward Fact number three, Lady eat the dog. He
was able to save his dog, wasn't he The dog
was okay? Well, okay, but the rock wall is exactly that,
(24:48):
the sheer rock wall, and so well, you know, and
so the idea, I don't know, maybe you as I say, physically,
the idea of shouting somebody out, it's diffic lost one
of them, Okay, so no one could really explain how
lady got up there. M awkward fact number four. Fred
(25:13):
his whole manner, it was wooden. Fred comes over on
that tape to the officers, is very calculating and deliberately
with respect to the story and speech type well for
them most part, Like in the first first hour hour
and a half of the interrogation, he rarely breaks down
(25:33):
him at all. I said, when when he mentions Vernon's name,
where he mentioned aside his name, he does appear a
little bit choked up. It's fleeting. It's just there for
a moment, and then he's back to normal Fred. Fred's
are very reserved individual who's being very calculating by nature.
And he also knew with what those guys meant. In
pre trial hearings, they said Fred was coming off as
stiff aloof and wanting to smile a little more and
(25:57):
look a little bit more relaxed when he's sitting at
the bench and had a bail hearing where he was
denied release. Fred had shown no emotion. One of those
just put hand since they be saying, yeah, you know,
his expressions changing on at own. I wanted him to
be a little good destiny. Now, when you get a
jury up there and Fred gets on the stand to
(26:19):
testifying his own defense, indeed, if he comes across with
some of what you've just said, almost called calculating, call
us a cucumber, matter of fact, except for you know,
emotional chokes that you know, the jury could say, um, jeez,
you know this guy is so bloody calculating that that
it's conceivable for They were hesitant though, to give Fred
(26:43):
too much direction, especially if the prosecution was going to
put on a case thing he was a phony and
a fake. No, no, no, And then that's you know,
that's the worst thing you could do, it to say,
you know, give us a give us a movie of
the week performance. Well maybe he takes the volume for that.
But but the thing is you can react to you
can react without being contrived. This tape, he was stifling
(27:04):
and he was trying to push it down. So I
think Joe enhances communication with the absence. But I think he, hey,
we needs to be we needs to guns from girl's friend.
Allowed to well up, let it come out. You get
a little bit more emotions on when you feel you know,
let that come out display. Anytime you want him to
break down, he just marches three kids in the back
of the courtroom and he will be in tears. In essence,
(27:24):
what your comments are that you feel that Fred's state
of mind is so bad because of all the tragedies
that's happened in his life, that he's basically just kind
of prepared himself. That it's not a guy that said, well, jeez,
I hope I get away with us. It's a guy
that's saying, what what next? Awkward Fact number five The
(27:46):
elephant in the room Jean Fred's first wife, who also
drowned under murky circumstances. The gene gonna be admissions. We're
working on a no. Yes, I don't think it is well.
Would you say right now, Bill, that's what you're thinking
is too Yeah, but how can you keep it in
(28:06):
how well they The thing is that the indicial systems
not allow evidence of Chrier crimes to come in just
to show up as a final disposition on the half definis,
and it's more in clinic than the crimes than anyone else.
Sometimes you get an in the shoal common scheme, planet
design tender or knowledge. This will all depend upon upon
(28:27):
the rulings fly That's yes, That's what I was going
to be Internet. It's a discretion time drilling. The outcome
of the trial might turn on whether the judge allowed
the DA to talk about Gene. If the jury saw
a pattern and thought that Fred was killing his wives,
that would be tough for Fred to overcome. But but
there's no doubt that the prosecution has to has to
(28:53):
bring in the Gene death and some of the insurance
history to prove that case. I mean, I mean, if
they don't, the case is blown out of the war. Well,
it's severely impaired. Let's put it that way. You still
have Fred's story, whether or not inscredible or not. The
(29:14):
outcome of the trial would depend almost entirely on Fred
the only witness to the drownings of Verna and Doug,
and Fred was confident in his ability to explain the
strange circumstances of their deaths. After all, he had experience,
he'd done it before, he'd silenced the rumors stirring in
(29:34):
Malibu after Jean's death. He'd even manage to persuade one
of her best friends, Verna, to marry him. But this
time he'd be facing a jury, twelve strangers, and a
formidable adversary, Stan rodin the Santa Barbara Da Coming up
(30:02):
on the next episode of Lost Hills, Fred's trial draws
a crowd. People like it is about rich people and
rich people doing bad things. You know, this is mythology.
If somebody got life insurance and killed their wife in
a glamorous situation on a yacht, you know, on a
holiday weekend. Wow, that's a big deal. And look we've
(30:27):
got this highly technical evidence about it because it's you know,
we're such a hot shot prosecution that we can do this.
That's next in episode nine, Prejudicial Effect. Lost Tails is
(30:47):
written and reported by Me Dana Goodyear. It's created by
me and Ben Adair and produced by Western Sound and
Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can hear
the whole season add free and get early access to
the final two episodes. Find Pushkin Plus on the Lost
Tails show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm.
Host
Dana Goodyear
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