December 13, 2021 • 32 mins
Shortly after Jeanne’s death, Fred starts seeing Verna, one of Jeanne’s closest friends. It’s a whirlwind romance, and soon they’re merging families. The timeline of their relationship stokes Malibu gossip, and, later, piques the interest of detectives. Was it just a coincidence that Verna’s first husband had died unexpectedly, too?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin. When Verna's first husband, Bill Johnson, died, she inherited
their duplex on Broadbeach in Malibu. She and her kids,
Kim and Doug, lived in one half, and in early
nineteen seventy six she rented out the other half to
(00:35):
her friends Patty and John Lyttel and their two kids.
Patty soon met Jean Rayler. The three of them, Patty, Verna,
and Jean all had kids around the same age, so
they started spending a lot of time together. On October fifteenth,
the day Jean went into a coma, Patty had spent
the day at home babysitting Fred and Jean's younger daughter.
(00:59):
Patty didn't find out that Jeanne was in the hospital
until the next morning. Here she is telling the story
to an investigator while on break from her job at
the bank. Want to get my hair done that day,
and Vernon came running out of her side of the house,
you know, just hysterical and told me what had happened. Yeah.
After Jean's memorial service, Patty and Verna went to a
(01:20):
Mexican restaurant Inventura called the Red Onion. As they sat
there trying to process everything that had just happened, their vibrant,
confident friend dead at thirty four. Under such ambiguous and
bizarre circumstances, they allowed themselves to think the unthinkable. What
if Fred had murdered her? Verna had made such a
(01:43):
big deal, you know, after Jeane died, she'd speculated, we
both speculated whether he appealed her then, I remember, because
they were seeing it from the red Onion invented her
at the funeral and we had sat there getting drinks
redon numerous times, getting drunk because whither he janit or not.
(02:08):
But whatever Verna thought at the time of Jean's memorial,
she soon changed her mind because Verna had fallen for Fred.
I'm Dana Goodyear and this is Lost Hills Episode five.
(02:53):
Who would You Take? Verna Johnson worked at the preschool
where Fred and Jean sent their older daughter, Heidi. It
was part of Malibu Methodist Church. Fred remembers how his
first wife, Jean, befriended Verna, the woman who would become
his second wife. She had actually found Verna at the
nursery school, and Verna said that she would babysit the kids.
(03:19):
Jean was a little bit older than Verna, more worldly
and ambitious. She'd been to college where she studied music
and had a busy career as a flight attendant. Verna
went to beauty school and then was a housewife before
she started at the preschool where she sent her kids.
But they related, Jean and Verna just seemed to get
along well. They'd go to concerts together and share a
(03:42):
glass of wine when Jean would pick up Hidie and
Kirsten from Verna's house on Broadbeach. It was definitely more
the women's connection. Fred says he really only knew Verna
casually from the occasional drop off her pickup on the
way to and from his job up the coast at
Point Magoo. Jean and Verna were friends, and the kids
(04:03):
were all friends, but the husbands, Fred and Bill hadn't
spent much time together. Bill he had raced sports cars
for a while. He had built a little Porsche speech Jurgle,
and he had a helmet and gloves, and the kids
used to enjoy putting them on and running around the
house at his place. And I think at the time
(04:26):
I had tried hang gliding, and he actually thought that
that might be something that he was interested in. But
before they had a chance to get to know each other.
Bill fell from the building where he was working and died.
It was December first, nineteen seventy five. It was a
(04:46):
hell of a a surprise to everybody. We were all shocked
that Bill had died. No one knew that he had
taken his life. It just seemed like it was you know,
he had fallen from a high rise, and since he
was an electrician who built and wired high rises, no
(05:08):
one and I was suspected that it had been a suicide.
Of course, Jeane stopped taking the kids down there because
Verna was really quite upset after Bill's death. Jeane reached
out to Verna, asking her to come to dinner at
the house on Calpine. Fred said it was the first
(05:29):
time he'd spent more than fifteen minutes in Verna's company.
Jean said, I've invited Vernon and her mother and the
kids up for dinner, and I said, oh, that's terrific.
So it went very well. They came to our house
and that was the first time I had met Camelia,
Verna's mother, And of course we didn't talk about still
(05:50):
or the death or thing, just more about the kids
and school and things like that. The kids got along fine,
and the adults got into some wine and felt a
little better. Eventually. Fred says he'd learned more about Bell
later on after we married, well actually before we married.
(06:13):
She told me he had been dealing with bipolar or
in some very heavy issues. Either the medication wasn't enough,
or you know, something was going on. But I mean,
Verna was literally the perfect wife. She was sweet, she
was beautiful, she was all those things. Once Bill was
(06:36):
gone and Jean was gone, Verna would become his perfect
wife for a little while. Anyway. Several months after Bill died,
Verna had started dating a bit, and in the summer
of nineteen seventy six she was seeing a local swim instructor.
(06:58):
He was actually teaching her kids and the Railer kids
to swim in the pool at the Kalpine House. That
was the summer Fred was in Hawaii and he and
Jean were falling apart, but by fall Vernon was single again,
and when Jean died in late October, she was willing
to help out Fred newly widowed himself, so on October thirty, first,
(07:20):
ten days after Jean was taken off the respirator, Vernon
and Fred decided to go trick or treating together with
the kids. And then probably the first time we did
anything together was for Halloween. Patty Lightel and her two
children and Vernon and her two children came up and
(07:44):
the three of us decorated all the kids because Heidi
wanted to be an angel, and that was pretty heavy.
Her mother had died ten days earlier. She wanted to
be an angel like her mom. And so we did
(08:06):
a trick or treating thing with all the kids, and
that's basically how things get started. That's the moment Fred
marks as the beginning of his life with Verna. To recap,
Bill dies on December first, nineteen seventy five, Verna, the
(08:26):
babysitter and friend of Jean, comes over for dinner at
the Coalpine House. Jean falls into a coma on October fifteenth,
nineteen seventy six, and dies on October twenty first. Just
days afterward, Patty recalls Verna speculates that Fred could have
killed Jean. But then on Halloween, Verna and Fred take
(08:47):
their kids trick or treating, and soon she's taking care
of his kids again. And then Fred and Verna are
the ones sharing a glass of wine together. The way
Fred tells it, it made all the sense in the world.
We did start doing more things. We were we were
waiting dinners, so I would fixed center for Vernon and
(09:11):
her children and obviously my two at my house, and
then a day or so later, Vernon would have us
down to her place for dinner, and we bounced that
back and forth. They were too recently bereaved adults with
four little kids between them. Well, the interesting thing is
(09:32):
the kids basically sort of sent something before I really did.
I was still sort of stunned, and the kids would
be all four of them would be together, and then
they actually said at one point, you know, why don't
YouTube get together, or something to that effect, and we
(09:54):
sort of laughed it off. But I think I think
Heidi and Kirsen and Kimberly still remember that. Actually they
don't remember I asked them. But this has always been
part of the crew creation myth of Fred and Verna,
that it was about the kids and what they wanted.
(10:15):
In Fred's telling, Verna was pushing him to define the relationship.
Verna said something to the effective you know, if you
ever change your mind, or if you're whenever you're ready,
you know, I'd like to see you and and I said, okay.
She said, you know, I don't want to. I don't
want to feew on the rebound. And then later on
(10:35):
you'll decide that, you know, this is not something that
you want. You know, you really ought to date other people.
And of course I said, oh, that's a terrible like
you like, I don't want to do other people. But
then I did d Gail. After that that resulted in
a little love triangle with Jeane's old friend Candy Henman
(10:56):
as a go between. And then when Verna found that out,
she was mad at me. And I said, well, he
told me to date other people. She said, yeah, but
I really, I really didn't mean that. And Gail had
already said that she didn't want to date anymore because
Candy had told her about Verna. And I didn't lie
(11:18):
about Verna. So that's basically when we were pretty pretty
sure we were going to stay together. Fred and Jean
had sent their kids to the nursery school at Malibu
Methodist but had never gone to church there. Verna, on
the other hand, was both a teacher there and a
devout member of the congregation. She and her husband Bill
(11:39):
had attended regularly. After Jean died, Fred started showing up
at Sunday services and made an effort to get to
know the minister. This is Verna's friend, Michelle Williams. She
was a fellow member of the congregation and also taught
with Verna at the church nursery school. She's being interviewed
by an investigator. How did you first find out that
(12:00):
Verna and Fred were starting to get more involved with
each other. I'm not sure. I think maybe it was
because as Fred started going to the church and they
started talking to the church. It seemed to me that
in a lot of ways people thought that it was obvious,
(12:22):
but it wasn't as obvious to me as it may
have been to others. And I don't know. I don't
think I was one of the first to suspect that
they were seeing each other really, because they were. It
was just one of those things that they had always
kind of known each other and dropped kids off back
and forth. And as I say, Vernon, when I talked
to her recently, she remembered that at least at Malibu Methodist,
(12:46):
there was a lot of support for the new couple.
We were so happy because Vernon had been widowed and Fred,
you know, lost Jeane and to see the two of
them together and to get married, that was just the
happiest experience that we had, and as friends and as
(13:06):
a church as well, everyone was just thrilled. Candy Henman
says this extended to the preschool community too. Fred, in
her view, got a hall pass for his treatment of Gene.
He played the role of rescuer to the hilt. I
think everybody at the nursery school thought he was just
a god because of how he swooped in and took
(13:29):
care of the children and then started taking here of
Verna and her children, just by being mister Wonderful at
the nursery school and taking care of the kids and
being the ideal father. And Verna was so respected by everybody,
and the fact that she then fell in love with
him and they were together. I think that whole thing
was just a cover up of how he is. Verna
(13:54):
was beloved in Malibu. That she loved Fred and believed him.
It kind of made everyone forget about Jean. After Jean's death,
(14:24):
Verna had some explaining to do. She had been a
very close friend of Jean's and part of a circle
of women to whom Jean had confessed her troubles. All
Jean's friends in Malibu knew what she'd been saying about Fred,
that he was violent, and that she was afraid. Verna
had listened, consoled, and apparently even stashed Fred's gun when
(14:45):
Jean started to panic that Fred might use it on her.
That time with Patty at the Red Onion after Jean's memorial,
Verna had gone so far as to speculate that Fred
might have killed Jean in the swimming pool. But then
she had a surprise for Patty about a week after
that conversation at the Red Onion. Then when they started
(15:08):
seeing each other week or so later, she came out
and she said, you know, they were standing each other.
And on top of that bombshell, Verna had to request
and she was adamant about it. Whatever you heard from Jeane,
whatever I said about it, just forget it. She didn't
want me to ever think any of the things that
(15:30):
we had talked about, which is really easy to save
you exactly. And all the problems that Jeanne had told
us about his sexual problems, they just didn't exist with them.
And I was to forget all of that, you know,
and if I was a good friend and I just
forget about that. Verna had done a one eighty on
all things Fred, starting with Jean's death. Kue, do you
(15:53):
think at the time that she believed that Jean's death
was actually I think that she did. She would have
almost in hand she I think she did. Fred had
managed to explain it all away. You'd have to know Burn.
I mean, I just loved her, dear little bitness. She
wasn't well smart, and if she wanted to believe something
bad enough, I think she Well, any of us can do,
(16:15):
Vince bisec anything, and I think that maybe that's what
the situation was it. You know, how can you get
into side side of these kids? All I can do.
Patti later told investigators that Fred quote fooled Verna completely.
(16:36):
When Verna told her sister Julianne that she was dating Fred,
Julianne was worried. Julienne told an investigator that she'd been
put off by the stories that Jean had told about Fred.
That day they took the kids to the amusement park.
I didn't talk to my sister about it much after either,
until she started dating Fred Mark, and I was concerned
(16:59):
at that point, and she says, well, Fred and I
have talked about what Jean told me and talked to
me about and she said, he and I have really
done a lot of talking, because she says, I felt
it was only fair to Frail to let him know
what Jane was saying at that point? Did did Verna
ever tell you that she had heard all the rumors
(17:20):
of the suspicions that various people had about Jane's death?
Can you expound on that little bit? I said, are
you sure things you know are okay? And she said yes,
she said, Fred and I have talked at length about it.
He's gone over the accident with me, and Verna even
told me what someone you know that they had been
(17:41):
in the hot tip together and Jeane had kept saying
that the water was very warm, and Fred kept turning
the water down, and yeah, shed Fred to go check
on Kirston. Fred I supposed had gone into the house.
He had Jeane had told Brna that he had gone
into the house, and or Fred told burnus I'm sorry
and checked on Kirsten, changed her pants and brought Jeane
(18:04):
back a glass of wine and found her in the
cold water. And that's all right. And that's all we
elaborated on. But I'm just concerned from my sister because
I thought, you know, I don't want her to get
involved with something good, you know, with terrible from the
part Later, evidently, Verna was satisfied with Fred's version of events.
(18:29):
After all, she was pursuing a relationship with them, so
she must have had a new way to think about
all the terrible things she'd heard about him from Jean.
Here's Fred's friend, Mike Killeen. The indication to me is
that she saw who the unstable person wants. You know,
if there's a nut in this relationship, yeah, I think
to use the word not, but hey, if we're going
(18:49):
to carry it that far, if there was a person
who wasn't stable, boy, that person was Gene Raider. Verna
started to think she'd been taken in by Jean's version
of events, judging Fred unfairly. Her friend Anne Louden explained
this to investigators. I think that because Verna was really
Jeans friend, didn't really have any affiliation with Fred other
(19:12):
than he coming to pick the children up in her house,
she really didn't know Fred, and so she was basing
a lot of what happened on what Jean said, and
she was a little uncomfortable that she had indicated. And
she said that before they were getting married, that they
had sat down and they talked this whole thing through
(19:32):
very completely and thoroughly. She was finished talking to Fred
and Fred side of the story where she'd always heard
Jean side of the relationship. She was very comfortable and
felt secure with what she was doing. There was a
lot of chatter in Malibu at that time. Out of
loyalty to Verna, some of her friends started defending Fred.
(19:54):
Two people came up to me and had made comments
and I just, did you really out of ways sher
mouth episode? Because what you're saying is really decuated to
a lot of people. I don't want to hear it.
It was the beginning of the pattern. If you were
truly Verna's friend, you had to stand by Fred whenever
they actually started seeing each other. By the beginning of
(20:15):
nineteen seventy seven, Verna and Fred were officially an item.
She was still living on Broadbeach in the duplex she
shared with the Lttels, and Fred was across pch on Calpine.
It was getting complicated, but we knew that they were
spending the night together, and it was a matter of
getting the kids up to go to school and get
the amount of time. And she came to me and
(20:36):
she said, Anne, she said, you've got to tell me
how you feel about this. And I said what She said,
How do you feel about me and Fred living together?
Said Verna, why do you worry about it? You know,
I don't care, I said, I know. You guys are
getting married. If thus you the comfortableness, and you've got
these kids to do. I think it's perfectly here. I mean,
and the people who don't like you and are gonna talk,
gonna talk. Verna moved her kids out of the house
(20:59):
on Broadbeach, leaving Patty and her bad vibes behind. Now, Verna, Kim,
and Doug were living with Fred, Heidi, and Kirsten at
the house on Calpine, and the relationship well. Fred had
no complaints. He wrote that he and Verna quote had
very good communication and very good sex, helped by a
(21:19):
half hour in the hot tub before going to bed unquote.
(21:53):
Soon Fred and Verna were presented with an incredible real
estate opportunity. The house on Sea Level Drive, a gated
dead end street off Broad Beach Road. I don't know
whether we saw an ad in the paper or exactly
where he got the first lead, but when we found
out that there was a place down there, and we
(22:14):
took a look at us, and then we went into
the process of the purchase. They spent a little over
three hundred thousand dollars about one point four million in
today's money, which they cobbled together through creative refinancing on
their other properties. The house was quirky. Here's Fred's friend,
Mark Hatrick. Was this big, giant cement block house and
(22:38):
it was one of the ugliest houses ever in the world,
but it was in one of the most amazing spots
ever in the world. Fred and Verna had followed the
old real estate adage by the worst house on the
best block. And I don't know the story of how
Fred came to get that house. And even in Malibu,
that's an exclusive address. Right behind the house was Verna's
(23:01):
Broadbeach property, which she was renting out and out the
front door was glorious Lechuza Beach and it was essentially private.
It's a beautiful, beautiful beach and the you know, it
is the high rent district. I mean Eisner lived behind him,
and Spielberg lived a few doors away, and Ali McGraw
(23:24):
was right there. The last time Fred and Verna's former
property changed hands in twenty eighteen, it sold for eleven
point four million. Once they'd settled into the house on
Sea Level Drive, Fred and Verna got married on the
(23:44):
Choosa Beach. The minister from the Methodist Church performed the
ceremony and played Jean's baby grand piano, which Fred and
his groomsmen had carried down to the sand. Friends and
family and their new neighbors came out to wish them well.
It was Christmas time nineteen seventy seven. Bill had been
dead for two years, Jean for fourteen months. Fred and
(24:07):
Verna had rebounded, were thriving. Hottie was seven and she
has clear memories of that day. People would say, oh,
it is a Brady Bunch story. It was a family wedding,
and I remember shopping for dresses. Now I laugh at
the dresses. They were long white dresses with red polka
dots and red ruffles that we wore, and with brown boots.
(24:31):
And my brother was in a little sailor like you
know suit thing. But it was always our wedding. We
felt very included and everything they did it was like
the whole family got married. Fred and Verna gave rings
to each other and to their new step kids. It
was a six ring ceremony. Fred got down on one
(24:51):
knee and asked Kim and Doug something to the effective
do you want to join our family here? Allowed me
to your dad do something like that. It was so emotional,
and it was funny because we bought we were teasing
you when Verna were teasing each other. We said, we
want them to say at least once that they wanted
(25:12):
to be a part of this slough. Officially, Verna's ring
had each of the children's burstones embedded in the band.
Fred's and the kid's rings were gold with a texture
like a golden nugget. Minds the nuggets sort of shot
nugget's been worn down and it's sort of smooth that
they serve an abstract design. If you look at it,
(25:35):
we all think we can see hearts in it, but
you know that's the eye of the beholder. Do you
still wear that ring? Oh? Yes, yeah, was Verna? Would
you say she was the love of your life? Yes?
(25:55):
Everything just really came together we were on the same
wave length on you know just about everything that you
can imagine. Let's call and you our telephone number will
be not at and recorded. Later, when he was in
jail awaiting trial for Verna and Dougs murders, Fred wrote
down some notes about this time, quote, we were living
(26:19):
a dream that can never be duplicated, merging of two
families in all the best ways possible, and to many
people around them, they did seem blissfully happy. A family
friend remembered Fred as quote sexy, wearing shoes with no socks,
whipping up orange Dakeries to drink with Verna as the
sun went down. This is their neighbor, Dottie Menville, in
(26:42):
an archival interview, and just waiting up at each other
and touched each other and made efforts to be attractive
and make time together, and she was always I mean,
I got the impression that they may love even in
(27:04):
the daytime, and they felt like Anna. Those kids were
all trained not to even knock if their doorish. This
is Fred's brother Ron. I think Vernon was the best
thing that ever happened to Fred. I saw him come
out of this depression state that I saw him go into,
which I solely attributed to Vernon. I was somewhat skeptical
(27:26):
at the beginning, and I thought it worked out just
extremely well. Fred started coaching the kids in sports, and
the neighbors often saw them running together on the beach.
This is Marnie Strucker. She played soccer with Heidi. I
want to call us the Sunshine team. We had yellow uniforms,
and you know, so we'd go to practices and he'd
(27:49):
practice out in front on the sand, and you know,
it was just a typical, active, you know, sports sort
of oriented family and they just seemed really happy. She
and Heidi were and are extremely close. We spent a
lot of time at their home. They would come to
(28:09):
our house and you know, having lunches or spending the
weekends together and you know, just playing, and you know,
that was that's my memory of them. Verna was just
a kind, incredible, you know, sweet woman. She took Kirsten
and Heidi in as her very own, and I'd say
(28:31):
the same for Fred, and they immediately recalling each other
sisters and brother and you know, it just it just
seemed like the perfect Matt in my mind, and to
this day, you know, Heidi calls Verna her mom, and
that's not something you see very often when you know
there's a combined family, you know, and she obviously lost
(28:53):
her mom, But Verna was a mom to them, you know,
and Fred was a father to them. Verna had ideas
about how to reinforce positive behavior, sharing with a sibling,
cooperating with a parent. Those behaviors would be rewarded with
a warm, fuzzy khaloo a cappuccino. This was something for
the kids. This is Heidi. So what my father did
(29:16):
is at his work he had made tokens with our
names on them, and I still have some of them.
And every night after dinner, we would sit down and
we would all take turns saying all the things we
did that were positive or helpful, warm fuzzy. So I
helped set the table and then we could get one
(29:38):
out of the jar and so we'd go through. But
then they would come back and go but you didn't
make your bed, so then it would go back in
the jar. Him just raked in the tokens. She's just
listening all the things, and I'm thinking, oh, tomorrow I
am going to set the tables. So I get a
token and they know. The kids had known each other
(30:00):
their whole lives, from preschool and play dates at Verna's
house on broad Beach and swim lessons at the house
on Calpine. Amazingly they not become rivals. Now maybe it
helped that their ages were staggered. It went Verna's Kim,
then Fred's Heidi, and Verna's Doug, then Fred's Kirsten. They
all just got along. Fred and Verna couldn't believe how
(30:24):
sweet life was, how lucky they were. Their first spouses
had died. Was it wrong to be so happy in
the wake of tragedy. Fred's friend Mike Keilleen told investigators
that this became the subject of Fred and Verna's Pinch
Me Pillow talk. He said, Vernon and I got to
(30:47):
the point in our relationship were at night, when we
lay in bed, we would ask them another question if
the other person would come back today. They both had
as somebody, who would you take, and we both agreed.
He said that we would take one another because that's
(31:08):
how life was just better than it had been with
Bill and Jean. This caught the attention of the Santa
Barbara detectives too, especially when they began to focus on
the timeline of Fred's romance with Verna. Later, Fred would
(31:33):
be called upon to account for his whereabouts on December first,
nineteen seventy five, the day Bill Johnson plunged to his death.
Because the more the detectives learned about Fred Rayler, the
more they were starting to think he was not a
victim of these terrible circumstances, but the architect coming up
(32:02):
on the next episode of Lost Hills, its neighbor against
neighbor and who knows what to think? Since January this
is the top of the terror and immediately they were
there was the division or who couldn't have done that? Yeah?
And yes, probably do Yeah, he probably didn't know. I
mean I have those feelings some days I think you
couldn't possibly have done this, This is just too harm.
(32:24):
Couldn't possibly In another days, I think, but what if
he did? That's next in episode six, Cold Prickles. Lost
Hills is written and reported by Me Dana Goodyear. It's
created by Me and Benader and produced by Western Sound
and Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can
(32:47):
hear the whole season add free and get early access
to the final two episodes. Find Pushkin Plus on the
Lost Hill Show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin
dot Fm.
Pushkin. When Verna's first husband, Bill Johnson, died, she inherited
their duplex on Broadbeach in Malibu. She and her kids,
Kim and Doug, lived in one half, and in early
nineteen seventy six she rented out the other half to
(00:35):
her friends Patty and John Lyttel and their two kids.
Patty soon met Jean Rayler. The three of them, Patty, Verna,
and Jean all had kids around the same age, so
they started spending a lot of time together. On October fifteenth,
the day Jean went into a coma, Patty had spent
the day at home babysitting Fred and Jean's younger daughter.
(00:59):
Patty didn't find out that Jeanne was in the hospital
until the next morning. Here she is telling the story
to an investigator while on break from her job at
the bank. Want to get my hair done that day,
and Vernon came running out of her side of the house,
you know, just hysterical and told me what had happened. Yeah.
After Jean's memorial service, Patty and Verna went to a
(01:20):
Mexican restaurant Inventura called the Red Onion. As they sat
there trying to process everything that had just happened, their vibrant,
confident friend dead at thirty four. Under such ambiguous and
bizarre circumstances, they allowed themselves to think the unthinkable. What
if Fred had murdered her? Verna had made such a
(01:43):
big deal, you know, after Jeane died, she'd speculated, we
both speculated whether he appealed her then, I remember, because
they were seeing it from the red Onion invented her
at the funeral and we had sat there getting drinks
redon numerous times, getting drunk because whither he janit or not.
(02:08):
But whatever Verna thought at the time of Jean's memorial,
she soon changed her mind because Verna had fallen for Fred.
I'm Dana Goodyear and this is Lost Hills Episode five.
(02:53):
Who would You Take? Verna Johnson worked at the preschool
where Fred and Jean sent their older daughter, Heidi. It
was part of Malibu Methodist Church. Fred remembers how his
first wife, Jean, befriended Verna, the woman who would become
his second wife. She had actually found Verna at the
nursery school, and Verna said that she would babysit the kids.
(03:19):
Jean was a little bit older than Verna, more worldly
and ambitious. She'd been to college where she studied music
and had a busy career as a flight attendant. Verna
went to beauty school and then was a housewife before
she started at the preschool where she sent her kids.
But they related, Jean and Verna just seemed to get
along well. They'd go to concerts together and share a
(03:42):
glass of wine when Jean would pick up Hidie and
Kirsten from Verna's house on Broadbeach. It was definitely more
the women's connection. Fred says he really only knew Verna
casually from the occasional drop off her pickup on the
way to and from his job up the coast at
Point Magoo. Jean and Verna were friends, and the kids
(04:03):
were all friends, but the husbands, Fred and Bill hadn't
spent much time together. Bill he had raced sports cars
for a while. He had built a little Porsche speech Jurgle,
and he had a helmet and gloves, and the kids
used to enjoy putting them on and running around the
house at his place. And I think at the time
(04:26):
I had tried hang gliding, and he actually thought that
that might be something that he was interested in. But
before they had a chance to get to know each other.
Bill fell from the building where he was working and died.
It was December first, nineteen seventy five. It was a
(04:46):
hell of a a surprise to everybody. We were all shocked
that Bill had died. No one knew that he had
taken his life. It just seemed like it was you know,
he had fallen from a high rise, and since he
was an electrician who built and wired high rises, no
(05:08):
one and I was suspected that it had been a suicide.
Of course, Jeane stopped taking the kids down there because
Verna was really quite upset after Bill's death. Jeane reached
out to Verna, asking her to come to dinner at
the house on Calpine. Fred said it was the first
(05:29):
time he'd spent more than fifteen minutes in Verna's company.
Jean said, I've invited Vernon and her mother and the
kids up for dinner, and I said, oh, that's terrific.
So it went very well. They came to our house
and that was the first time I had met Camelia,
Verna's mother, And of course we didn't talk about still
(05:50):
or the death or thing, just more about the kids
and school and things like that. The kids got along fine,
and the adults got into some wine and felt a
little better. Eventually. Fred says he'd learned more about Bell
later on after we married, well actually before we married.
(06:13):
She told me he had been dealing with bipolar or
in some very heavy issues. Either the medication wasn't enough,
or you know, something was going on. But I mean,
Verna was literally the perfect wife. She was sweet, she
was beautiful, she was all those things. Once Bill was
(06:36):
gone and Jean was gone, Verna would become his perfect
wife for a little while. Anyway. Several months after Bill died,
Verna had started dating a bit, and in the summer
of nineteen seventy six she was seeing a local swim instructor.
(06:58):
He was actually teaching her kids and the Railer kids
to swim in the pool at the Kalpine House. That
was the summer Fred was in Hawaii and he and
Jean were falling apart, but by fall Vernon was single again,
and when Jean died in late October, she was willing
to help out Fred newly widowed himself, so on October thirty, first,
(07:20):
ten days after Jean was taken off the respirator, Vernon
and Fred decided to go trick or treating together with
the kids. And then probably the first time we did
anything together was for Halloween. Patty Lightel and her two
children and Vernon and her two children came up and
(07:44):
the three of us decorated all the kids because Heidi
wanted to be an angel, and that was pretty heavy.
Her mother had died ten days earlier. She wanted to
be an angel like her mom. And so we did
(08:06):
a trick or treating thing with all the kids, and
that's basically how things get started. That's the moment Fred
marks as the beginning of his life with Verna. To recap,
Bill dies on December first, nineteen seventy five, Verna, the
(08:26):
babysitter and friend of Jean, comes over for dinner at
the Coalpine House. Jean falls into a coma on October fifteenth,
nineteen seventy six, and dies on October twenty first. Just
days afterward, Patty recalls Verna speculates that Fred could have
killed Jean. But then on Halloween, Verna and Fred take
(08:47):
their kids trick or treating, and soon she's taking care
of his kids again. And then Fred and Verna are
the ones sharing a glass of wine together. The way
Fred tells it, it made all the sense in the world.
We did start doing more things. We were we were
waiting dinners, so I would fixed center for Vernon and
(09:11):
her children and obviously my two at my house, and
then a day or so later, Vernon would have us
down to her place for dinner, and we bounced that
back and forth. They were too recently bereaved adults with
four little kids between them. Well, the interesting thing is
(09:32):
the kids basically sort of sent something before I really did.
I was still sort of stunned, and the kids would
be all four of them would be together, and then
they actually said at one point, you know, why don't
YouTube get together, or something to that effect, and we
(09:54):
sort of laughed it off. But I think I think
Heidi and Kirsen and Kimberly still remember that. Actually they
don't remember I asked them. But this has always been
part of the crew creation myth of Fred and Verna,
that it was about the kids and what they wanted.
(10:15):
In Fred's telling, Verna was pushing him to define the relationship.
Verna said something to the effective you know, if you
ever change your mind, or if you're whenever you're ready,
you know, I'd like to see you and and I said, okay.
She said, you know, I don't want to. I don't
want to feew on the rebound. And then later on
(10:35):
you'll decide that, you know, this is not something that
you want. You know, you really ought to date other people.
And of course I said, oh, that's a terrible like
you like, I don't want to do other people. But
then I did d Gail. After that that resulted in
a little love triangle with Jeane's old friend Candy Henman
(10:56):
as a go between. And then when Verna found that out,
she was mad at me. And I said, well, he
told me to date other people. She said, yeah, but
I really, I really didn't mean that. And Gail had
already said that she didn't want to date anymore because
Candy had told her about Verna. And I didn't lie
(11:18):
about Verna. So that's basically when we were pretty pretty
sure we were going to stay together. Fred and Jean
had sent their kids to the nursery school at Malibu
Methodist but had never gone to church there. Verna, on
the other hand, was both a teacher there and a
devout member of the congregation. She and her husband Bill
(11:39):
had attended regularly. After Jean died, Fred started showing up
at Sunday services and made an effort to get to
know the minister. This is Verna's friend, Michelle Williams. She
was a fellow member of the congregation and also taught
with Verna at the church nursery school. She's being interviewed
by an investigator. How did you first find out that
(12:00):
Verna and Fred were starting to get more involved with
each other. I'm not sure. I think maybe it was
because as Fred started going to the church and they
started talking to the church. It seemed to me that
in a lot of ways people thought that it was obvious,
(12:22):
but it wasn't as obvious to me as it may
have been to others. And I don't know. I don't
think I was one of the first to suspect that
they were seeing each other really, because they were. It
was just one of those things that they had always
kind of known each other and dropped kids off back
and forth. And as I say, Vernon, when I talked
to her recently, she remembered that at least at Malibu Methodist,
(12:46):
there was a lot of support for the new couple.
We were so happy because Vernon had been widowed and Fred,
you know, lost Jeane and to see the two of
them together and to get married, that was just the
happiest experience that we had, and as friends and as
(13:06):
a church as well, everyone was just thrilled. Candy Henman
says this extended to the preschool community too. Fred, in
her view, got a hall pass for his treatment of Gene.
He played the role of rescuer to the hilt. I
think everybody at the nursery school thought he was just
a god because of how he swooped in and took
(13:29):
care of the children and then started taking here of
Verna and her children, just by being mister Wonderful at
the nursery school and taking care of the kids and
being the ideal father. And Verna was so respected by everybody,
and the fact that she then fell in love with
him and they were together. I think that whole thing
was just a cover up of how he is. Verna
(13:54):
was beloved in Malibu. That she loved Fred and believed him.
It kind of made everyone forget about Jean. After Jean's death,
(14:24):
Verna had some explaining to do. She had been a
very close friend of Jean's and part of a circle
of women to whom Jean had confessed her troubles. All
Jean's friends in Malibu knew what she'd been saying about Fred,
that he was violent, and that she was afraid. Verna
had listened, consoled, and apparently even stashed Fred's gun when
(14:45):
Jean started to panic that Fred might use it on her.
That time with Patty at the Red Onion after Jean's memorial,
Verna had gone so far as to speculate that Fred
might have killed Jean in the swimming pool. But then
she had a surprise for Patty about a week after
that conversation at the Red Onion. Then when they started
(15:08):
seeing each other week or so later, she came out
and she said, you know, they were standing each other.
And on top of that bombshell, Verna had to request
and she was adamant about it. Whatever you heard from Jeane,
whatever I said about it, just forget it. She didn't
want me to ever think any of the things that
(15:30):
we had talked about, which is really easy to save
you exactly. And all the problems that Jeanne had told
us about his sexual problems, they just didn't exist with them.
And I was to forget all of that, you know,
and if I was a good friend and I just
forget about that. Verna had done a one eighty on
all things Fred, starting with Jean's death. Kue, do you
(15:53):
think at the time that she believed that Jean's death
was actually I think that she did. She would have
almost in hand she I think she did. Fred had
managed to explain it all away. You'd have to know Burn.
I mean, I just loved her, dear little bitness. She
wasn't well smart, and if she wanted to believe something
bad enough, I think she Well, any of us can do,
(16:15):
Vince bisec anything, and I think that maybe that's what
the situation was it. You know, how can you get
into side side of these kids? All I can do.
Patti later told investigators that Fred quote fooled Verna completely.
(16:36):
When Verna told her sister Julianne that she was dating Fred,
Julianne was worried. Julienne told an investigator that she'd been
put off by the stories that Jean had told about Fred.
That day they took the kids to the amusement park.
I didn't talk to my sister about it much after either,
until she started dating Fred Mark, and I was concerned
(16:59):
at that point, and she says, well, Fred and I
have talked about what Jean told me and talked to
me about and she said, he and I have really
done a lot of talking, because she says, I felt
it was only fair to Frail to let him know
what Jane was saying at that point? Did did Verna
ever tell you that she had heard all the rumors
(17:20):
of the suspicions that various people had about Jane's death?
Can you expound on that little bit? I said, are
you sure things you know are okay? And she said yes,
she said, Fred and I have talked at length about it.
He's gone over the accident with me, and Verna even
told me what someone you know that they had been
(17:41):
in the hot tip together and Jeane had kept saying
that the water was very warm, and Fred kept turning
the water down, and yeah, shed Fred to go check
on Kirston. Fred I supposed had gone into the house.
He had Jeane had told Brna that he had gone
into the house, and or Fred told burnus I'm sorry
and checked on Kirsten, changed her pants and brought Jeane
(18:04):
back a glass of wine and found her in the
cold water. And that's all right. And that's all we
elaborated on. But I'm just concerned from my sister because
I thought, you know, I don't want her to get
involved with something good, you know, with terrible from the
part Later, evidently, Verna was satisfied with Fred's version of events.
(18:29):
After all, she was pursuing a relationship with them, so
she must have had a new way to think about
all the terrible things she'd heard about him from Jean.
Here's Fred's friend, Mike Killeen. The indication to me is
that she saw who the unstable person wants. You know,
if there's a nut in this relationship, yeah, I think
to use the word not, but hey, if we're going
(18:49):
to carry it that far, if there was a person
who wasn't stable, boy, that person was Gene Raider. Verna
started to think she'd been taken in by Jean's version
of events, judging Fred unfairly. Her friend Anne Louden explained
this to investigators. I think that because Verna was really
Jeans friend, didn't really have any affiliation with Fred other
(19:12):
than he coming to pick the children up in her house,
she really didn't know Fred, and so she was basing
a lot of what happened on what Jean said, and
she was a little uncomfortable that she had indicated. And
she said that before they were getting married, that they
had sat down and they talked this whole thing through
(19:32):
very completely and thoroughly. She was finished talking to Fred
and Fred side of the story where she'd always heard
Jean side of the relationship. She was very comfortable and
felt secure with what she was doing. There was a
lot of chatter in Malibu at that time. Out of
loyalty to Verna, some of her friends started defending Fred.
(19:54):
Two people came up to me and had made comments
and I just, did you really out of ways sher
mouth episode? Because what you're saying is really decuated to
a lot of people. I don't want to hear it.
It was the beginning of the pattern. If you were
truly Verna's friend, you had to stand by Fred whenever
they actually started seeing each other. By the beginning of
(20:15):
nineteen seventy seven, Verna and Fred were officially an item.
She was still living on Broadbeach in the duplex she
shared with the Lttels, and Fred was across pch on Calpine.
It was getting complicated, but we knew that they were
spending the night together, and it was a matter of
getting the kids up to go to school and get
the amount of time. And she came to me and
(20:36):
she said, Anne, she said, you've got to tell me
how you feel about this. And I said what She said,
How do you feel about me and Fred living together?
Said Verna, why do you worry about it? You know,
I don't care, I said, I know. You guys are
getting married. If thus you the comfortableness, and you've got
these kids to do. I think it's perfectly here. I mean,
and the people who don't like you and are gonna talk,
gonna talk. Verna moved her kids out of the house
(20:59):
on Broadbeach, leaving Patty and her bad vibes behind. Now, Verna, Kim,
and Doug were living with Fred, Heidi, and Kirsten at
the house on Calpine, and the relationship well. Fred had
no complaints. He wrote that he and Verna quote had
very good communication and very good sex, helped by a
(21:19):
half hour in the hot tub before going to bed unquote.
(21:53):
Soon Fred and Verna were presented with an incredible real
estate opportunity. The house on Sea Level Drive, a gated
dead end street off Broad Beach Road. I don't know
whether we saw an ad in the paper or exactly
where he got the first lead, but when we found
out that there was a place down there, and we
(22:14):
took a look at us, and then we went into
the process of the purchase. They spent a little over
three hundred thousand dollars about one point four million in
today's money, which they cobbled together through creative refinancing on
their other properties. The house was quirky. Here's Fred's friend,
Mark Hatrick. Was this big, giant cement block house and
(22:38):
it was one of the ugliest houses ever in the world,
but it was in one of the most amazing spots
ever in the world. Fred and Verna had followed the
old real estate adage by the worst house on the
best block. And I don't know the story of how
Fred came to get that house. And even in Malibu,
that's an exclusive address. Right behind the house was Verna's
(23:01):
Broadbeach property, which she was renting out and out the
front door was glorious Lechuza Beach and it was essentially private.
It's a beautiful, beautiful beach and the you know, it
is the high rent district. I mean Eisner lived behind him,
and Spielberg lived a few doors away, and Ali McGraw
(23:24):
was right there. The last time Fred and Verna's former
property changed hands in twenty eighteen, it sold for eleven
point four million. Once they'd settled into the house on
Sea Level Drive, Fred and Verna got married on the
(23:44):
Choosa Beach. The minister from the Methodist Church performed the
ceremony and played Jean's baby grand piano, which Fred and
his groomsmen had carried down to the sand. Friends and
family and their new neighbors came out to wish them well.
It was Christmas time nineteen seventy seven. Bill had been
dead for two years, Jean for fourteen months. Fred and
(24:07):
Verna had rebounded, were thriving. Hottie was seven and she
has clear memories of that day. People would say, oh,
it is a Brady Bunch story. It was a family wedding,
and I remember shopping for dresses. Now I laugh at
the dresses. They were long white dresses with red polka
dots and red ruffles that we wore, and with brown boots.
(24:31):
And my brother was in a little sailor like you
know suit thing. But it was always our wedding. We
felt very included and everything they did it was like
the whole family got married. Fred and Verna gave rings
to each other and to their new step kids. It
was a six ring ceremony. Fred got down on one
(24:51):
knee and asked Kim and Doug something to the effective
do you want to join our family here? Allowed me
to your dad do something like that. It was so emotional,
and it was funny because we bought we were teasing
you when Verna were teasing each other. We said, we
want them to say at least once that they wanted
(25:12):
to be a part of this slough. Officially, Verna's ring
had each of the children's burstones embedded in the band.
Fred's and the kid's rings were gold with a texture
like a golden nugget. Minds the nuggets sort of shot
nugget's been worn down and it's sort of smooth that
they serve an abstract design. If you look at it,
(25:35):
we all think we can see hearts in it, but
you know that's the eye of the beholder. Do you
still wear that ring? Oh? Yes, yeah, was Verna? Would
you say she was the love of your life? Yes?
(25:55):
Everything just really came together we were on the same
wave length on you know just about everything that you
can imagine. Let's call and you our telephone number will
be not at and recorded. Later, when he was in
jail awaiting trial for Verna and Dougs murders, Fred wrote
down some notes about this time, quote, we were living
(26:19):
a dream that can never be duplicated, merging of two
families in all the best ways possible, and to many
people around them, they did seem blissfully happy. A family
friend remembered Fred as quote sexy, wearing shoes with no socks,
whipping up orange Dakeries to drink with Verna as the
sun went down. This is their neighbor, Dottie Menville, in
(26:42):
an archival interview, and just waiting up at each other
and touched each other and made efforts to be attractive
and make time together, and she was always I mean,
I got the impression that they may love even in
(27:04):
the daytime, and they felt like Anna. Those kids were
all trained not to even knock if their doorish. This
is Fred's brother Ron. I think Vernon was the best
thing that ever happened to Fred. I saw him come
out of this depression state that I saw him go into,
which I solely attributed to Vernon. I was somewhat skeptical
(27:26):
at the beginning, and I thought it worked out just
extremely well. Fred started coaching the kids in sports, and
the neighbors often saw them running together on the beach.
This is Marnie Strucker. She played soccer with Heidi. I
want to call us the Sunshine team. We had yellow uniforms,
and you know, so we'd go to practices and he'd
(27:49):
practice out in front on the sand, and you know,
it was just a typical, active, you know, sports sort
of oriented family and they just seemed really happy. She
and Heidi were and are extremely close. We spent a
lot of time at their home. They would come to
(28:09):
our house and you know, having lunches or spending the
weekends together and you know, just playing, and you know,
that was that's my memory of them. Verna was just
a kind, incredible, you know, sweet woman. She took Kirsten
and Heidi in as her very own, and I'd say
(28:31):
the same for Fred, and they immediately recalling each other
sisters and brother and you know, it just it just
seemed like the perfect Matt in my mind, and to
this day, you know, Heidi calls Verna her mom, and
that's not something you see very often when you know
there's a combined family, you know, and she obviously lost
(28:53):
her mom, But Verna was a mom to them, you know,
and Fred was a father to them. Verna had ideas
about how to reinforce positive behavior, sharing with a sibling,
cooperating with a parent. Those behaviors would be rewarded with
a warm, fuzzy khaloo a cappuccino. This was something for
the kids. This is Heidi. So what my father did
(29:16):
is at his work he had made tokens with our
names on them, and I still have some of them.
And every night after dinner, we would sit down and
we would all take turns saying all the things we
did that were positive or helpful, warm fuzzy. So I
helped set the table and then we could get one
(29:38):
out of the jar and so we'd go through. But
then they would come back and go but you didn't
make your bed, so then it would go back in
the jar. Him just raked in the tokens. She's just
listening all the things, and I'm thinking, oh, tomorrow I
am going to set the tables. So I get a
token and they know. The kids had known each other
(30:00):
their whole lives, from preschool and play dates at Verna's
house on broad Beach and swim lessons at the house
on Calpine. Amazingly they not become rivals. Now maybe it
helped that their ages were staggered. It went Verna's Kim,
then Fred's Heidi, and Verna's Doug, then Fred's Kirsten. They
all just got along. Fred and Verna couldn't believe how
(30:24):
sweet life was, how lucky they were. Their first spouses
had died. Was it wrong to be so happy in
the wake of tragedy. Fred's friend Mike Keilleen told investigators
that this became the subject of Fred and Verna's Pinch
Me Pillow talk. He said, Vernon and I got to
(30:47):
the point in our relationship were at night, when we
lay in bed, we would ask them another question if
the other person would come back today. They both had
as somebody, who would you take, and we both agreed.
He said that we would take one another because that's
(31:08):
how life was just better than it had been with
Bill and Jean. This caught the attention of the Santa
Barbara detectives too, especially when they began to focus on
the timeline of Fred's romance with Verna. Later, Fred would
(31:33):
be called upon to account for his whereabouts on December first,
nineteen seventy five, the day Bill Johnson plunged to his death.
Because the more the detectives learned about Fred Rayler, the
more they were starting to think he was not a
victim of these terrible circumstances, but the architect coming up
(32:02):
on the next episode of Lost Hills, its neighbor against
neighbor and who knows what to think? Since January this
is the top of the terror and immediately they were
there was the division or who couldn't have done that? Yeah?
And yes, probably do Yeah, he probably didn't know. I
mean I have those feelings some days I think you
couldn't possibly have done this, This is just too harm.
(32:24):
Couldn't possibly In another days, I think, but what if
he did? That's next in episode six, Cold Prickles. Lost
Hills is written and reported by Me Dana Goodyear. It's
created by Me and Benader and produced by Western Sound
and Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can
(32:47):
hear the whole season add free and get early access
to the final two episodes. Find Pushkin Plus on the
Lost Hill Show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin
dot Fm.
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