Speaker 1: Pushkin. After Verna and Doug drowned off Santa Cruz Island
Speaker 1: on January second, nineteen eighty one, their bodies were flown
Speaker 1: by helicopter back to Ventura County, where they were declared dead.
Speaker 1: The next day, January third, they were autopsied by the
Speaker 1: county's acting medical examiner. He concluded that they drowned by accident.
Speaker 1: But Santa Cruz Island is actually in the jurisdiction of
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara County, so that's why when Candy Henman wanted
Speaker 1: someone to investigate Fred, she called the Santa Barbara Sheriff's
Speaker 1: Department and they took her call. Candy's tip put the
Speaker 1: accidental drownings of Verna and Doug in a new, uncomfortable light.
Speaker 1: What if their deaths were not an accident. Verna and
Speaker 1: Doug were about to be cremated, so the Santa Barbara
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department put a hold on their cremations and brought
Speaker 1: their bodies back to Santa Barbara to be autopsied again
Speaker 1: in secret. The date is January nine, nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: The location is the Cottage Hospital, Morgue. This is the
Speaker 1: re autopsy examination of a white female adult identified as
Speaker 1: Verna Joe Roller R O E H L E R.
Speaker 1: The body has been previously autopsied on January three, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, by doctor Craig Duncan of the Ventura County
Speaker 1: Medical Examiner Corners Office, commencing section of bone. There were
Speaker 1: too many similarities to ignore. Two wives dead in the
Speaker 1: water for no clear reason, and Fred the only witness
Speaker 1: in both cases with a story that didn't really stand
Speaker 1: up to interrogation. But this time there was a second victim,
Speaker 1: a child. This will be the re autopsy examination of
Speaker 1: a white male child identified as Douglas Johnson. What if
Speaker 1: Fred had killed them all, Verna, Doug and Jean and
Speaker 1: was about to get away with it again. I'm Dana
Speaker 1: Goodyear and this is Lost Tells Episode six, Cold Prickles.
Speaker 1: Three months after Vernon and Dog died, Fred was arrested
Speaker 1: at home in Malibu. I was stunned. Here's Fred's recollection
Speaker 1: of what happened that day. I got the kids off
Speaker 1: the school, and I had taken a shower, and I
Speaker 1: was in The phone rang and so I said hello,
Speaker 1: and there was no answer. So then a little later
Speaker 1: the doorbell rang, so I walked downstairs and opened the
Speaker 1: door and there's three guys with guns aimed at beat
Speaker 1: and they said, we're here to arrest you. They handcuffed
Speaker 1: me and put me in the car and that was
Speaker 1: basically it. They drove him to the Malibu station and
Speaker 1: read him as rights. He was being held on two
Speaker 1: counts of homicide, one for Verna, one for Doug. I
Speaker 1: never thought it would get to that point, you know, because,
Speaker 1: like I say, I had answered all their questions. I
Speaker 1: had met with them three times. My family had talked
Speaker 1: to them. The people on the boat had talked to them.
Speaker 1: You know, I couldn't imagine anything that had been left unsaid.
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't have fights, there were you know,
Speaker 1: there was there was nothing going on. So when I
Speaker 1: got to the substation, they put me in a tank
Speaker 1: by myself. So then that night, Fairfield, my brother and
Speaker 1: sister in law all showed up at the place at
Speaker 1: the substation and were there when when I walked out,
Speaker 1: and they said are you okay? And I said how
Speaker 1: you know how the girls and Ron said, you know,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. We were taking care of that.
Speaker 1: So that was the last discussion I had with them
Speaker 1: that night. Then they drove me to Santa Barbara. That night,
Speaker 1: Fred was taken to the Santa Barbara County jail and
Speaker 1: he never saw Sea Level drive again. Throughout the spring
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty one, the Malibu rumor mill was cranking.
Speaker 1: The search warrant Affidavit was the hottest read in town,
Speaker 1: and it was juicy, full of details about Jean and
Speaker 1: her affair with Fred's sailing buddy Dick Fell, thawing about
Speaker 1: guns and hot tubs, and especially Fred's explosive temper. Neighbors
Speaker 1: were talking to each other and to the police. One
Speaker 1: Malibu woman had seen Verna at the market basket a
Speaker 1: month or two before she died, and Verna told her
Speaker 1: she was unhappy in her marriage. Someone else had seen
Speaker 1: Fred leaving Verna's house through the back door at eight am,
Speaker 1: just weeks after Jean's death. The neighbor who drove the
Speaker 1: kids home from school after Verna did said that when
Speaker 1: she dropped them off, she saw Fred lurking when she
Speaker 1: pulled up. This is Kathy Pullis, a Malibu mom whose son,
Speaker 1: a friend of Dougs, was also coached by Fred. She's
Speaker 1: being interviewed by a private detective hired by Fred's defense
Speaker 1: team since January. This is the tip of the terror.
Speaker 1: And immediately there was the division, No, who couldn't have
Speaker 1: done that? Yeah, and yes he probably did, Yeah he
Speaker 1: probably didn't. I mean I have those feelings. Some days
Speaker 1: I think he couldn't, couldn't possibly. In another days I think,
Speaker 1: but what if he did? You know? And everyone had
Speaker 1: an opinion or three about Fred Rayler? Did he kill
Speaker 1: Verna and Doug? What about Jean? Was it greed opportunism?
Speaker 1: Or was he a psychopath masquerading as a Malibu dad?
Speaker 1: And you have to understand Malibu is very very much
Speaker 1: a small town. We also think you'd be very sophisticated.
Speaker 1: But the fact is they were Nazi and this is
Speaker 1: the talk of the town. Or it has been. The
Speaker 1: allegation that Fred had murdered Verna and Doug, the investigator said,
Speaker 1: was largely based on circumstantial evidence. Fred's character was going
Speaker 1: to be a major topic. The arrest opened a rift
Speaker 1: in Malibu. You are either with Fred or against him.
Speaker 1: Fred's friend Mark Hatrick told me the divisions caused by
Speaker 1: the case drove him and his wife Beth to leave Malibu.
Speaker 1: All of the moms that are all you know of
Speaker 1: a certain level economic level and involved in that. You know,
Speaker 1: they all get together and they all talk, so there's
Speaker 1: there's sort of a gossipy group, and you know, right
Speaker 1: away they started all of these theories about well, you know,
Speaker 1: Jane's first wife died, and you know, that's pretty suspicious.
Speaker 1: And I think in a whole lot of ways, that's
Speaker 1: you know, a whole lot of ways. That's why we've
Speaker 1: you know, we've we left is because we just that
Speaker 1: was going to be an open wound with two sides
Speaker 1: that forever. That's just in that town. By the spring
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty one, the gossip was so intense that
Speaker 1: a group of Malibu people wrote a letter to the
Speaker 1: editor of the Malibu Times begging for fellow residents to
Speaker 1: withhold judgment until after Fred's trial. They signed it Neighbors
Speaker 1: for Fairness to Fred Rayler. Carol, Jean's sister, told detectives
Speaker 1: Fred could be quote a class a charmer, quote so
Speaker 1: unbelievably charming at times, but Carol and others said Fred
Speaker 1: also had a nasty side. His whole affect could change
Speaker 1: in an instant. This is a colleague of Fred's from
Speaker 1: the naval base at point magoo talking to an investigator
Speaker 1: can be a very likable, charming individual, especially if I
Speaker 1: think if he wants to be accusing to be charming
Speaker 1: thoughts right off, very charming person. I think you can
Speaker 1: also blank at you blank so he you know he
Speaker 1: did this or that he has a capacity. Dennis O'Gorman
Speaker 1: also worked with Fred. He told an investigator that went
Speaker 1: Fred lost his temper look out and he just flew
Speaker 1: off the handles, the nostrils flaring red in the face,
Speaker 1: called me all kinds of four letter words, and he
Speaker 1: started screaming and ranting and raving and yellow man his
Speaker 1: like like a madman. He's going to completely office off
Speaker 1: his tree, just completely out of control. He was literally
Speaker 1: like a like a madman. Fred, he said, was so
Speaker 1: loathed at work that one guy had a picture of
Speaker 1: him blown up and turned into a dartboard. But he
Speaker 1: also said that somehow it was hard to stay mad
Speaker 1: at Fred. Even today, I can't dislike Fred. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if I really worked out all day long and
Speaker 1: I convinced myself of all the nancy things he did
Speaker 1: and stuck myself with kin to remember all the things
Speaker 1: he did to me, and I was just ready to
Speaker 1: kill him as as he walked in the door. I know,
Speaker 1: I know that when he walked from that door with
Speaker 1: a big silence face a couple of woody remarks that
Speaker 1: we could sit down in a beer together and and
Speaker 1: not be friends, but I just couldn't. It's strange. It's
Speaker 1: already having medium to understand what I'm saying, but he
Speaker 1: can't use a real charmer and putting back of my mind,
Speaker 1: I know I would never work with him again because
Speaker 1: he hasn't changed to bid. He has no respect for anyone.
Speaker 1: People are just pawned. They're just tools. So Fred was
Speaker 1: smart and calculating, and he used people like pawns and
Speaker 1: they didn't always even register the abuse. Among people in Malibu,
Speaker 1: Fred Rayler was known to run a tight ship. This
Speaker 1: is an interview Beth Hetrick gave an investigator. She taught
Speaker 1: with Erna and is married to Fred's friend Mark. You
Speaker 1: guys con siderally film of a guy in the journi
Speaker 1: of music school Christopher Clover plays because it was their strictness,
Speaker 1: but also that love and there's a lot of that
Speaker 1: was bred with the kids. Not everyone in Malibu got
Speaker 1: the Captain von Trapp thing. Sure they noticed how incredibly
Speaker 1: well behaved Fred and Verna's kids were, but maybe they
Speaker 1: were too well behaved. It was a little creepy. Fred
Speaker 1: came from a pretty tight, disciplined family. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: a Midwesterner really, and you know, we know what Midwesterners
Speaker 1: are like. You know, they're a little bit up tight.
Speaker 1: They have their own somewhat blinkered vision of life. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this in a derogatory fashion. I'm saying
Speaker 1: this in the fashion of the let it all hang
Speaker 1: out Malibu crowd viewed it. This is our chival tape
Speaker 1: of Ivor Davis, a British journalist who was friends with
Speaker 1: Fred and Malibu. They coaches kids soccer together and he
Speaker 1: was one of the neighbors. For fairness to Fred Rayler.
Speaker 1: It seemed to him that Fred was the victim of
Speaker 1: a cultural misunderstanding my evaluation if you like, which I mean,
Speaker 1: here is a man Fred who didn't quite fit in Malibu,
Speaker 1: in newly affluent community where you do your own thing, okay,
Speaker 1: And he disciplined his children and people, you know, people said,
Speaker 1: my god, discipline your children, that's you know, you don't
Speaker 1: do that. He alienated some people, I think from my observations,
Speaker 1: who had been friendly with Werner by kind of pushing
Speaker 1: them out when he married her, and and by edging
Speaker 1: these people out, they took an instant dislike to him,
Speaker 1: or they bluted dislike him. So something like this comes along,
Speaker 1: a terrible tragedy like this, and people say, well, Fred
Speaker 1: was kind of weird anyway, and this is what happened
Speaker 1: justifies our impression. He was not the run of the
Speaker 1: mill guy, and the fact that he did discipline his
Speaker 1: kids was believable or not something of a negative factor
Speaker 1: in that community. Fred's approach to parenting set him apart
Speaker 1: and made him vulnerable to criticism, and it was a
Speaker 1: bit extreme. When I visited Fred's daughters in Colorado over
Speaker 1: the summer, they were full of stories about Fred's unusual discipline.
Speaker 1: Heidi pulled out a brick wrapped in a piece of
Speaker 1: paper with a little monster face drawn on it and
Speaker 1: the words cold Prickly in Fred's handwriting. The brick was
Speaker 1: part of Fred's punishment system, how he kept those kids
Speaker 1: so perfectly in line. It was the flip side of
Speaker 1: the warm fuzzies, the rewards you got for good behavior.
Speaker 1: The sisters explained how it worked. So I told you
Speaker 1: there was an actual story, like a book about cold
Speaker 1: prickles and warm fuzzies and how you feel when you
Speaker 1: like punch your sister in podsicleed prickly or whatever. And
Speaker 1: so he took this brick like a house red brick
Speaker 1: and covered it in brown paper and drew a cold
Speaker 1: prickly on it. And then the punishment was he would
Speaker 1: dole out how much time you had to spend carrying
Speaker 1: this brick around. And I only have a memory of
Speaker 1: having it one time, and Heidi had to take it
Speaker 1: to like soccer practice. That was the punishment. You had
Speaker 1: to carry it and you couldn't set it down. It
Speaker 1: was just that it was a concrete reminder of what
Speaker 1: you did. I remember going to the bathroom with it
Speaker 1: on my lap, like I can't put it down. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get in trouble if I put it down. The
Speaker 1: other thing the kids had to do when they were
Speaker 1: bad was run. So those idyllic runs on the beach,
Speaker 1: some of those were done under duress. Like inside our
Speaker 1: kitchen cover there was our names and then there'd be
Speaker 1: tick marks, and for every tick mark, you had to run,
Speaker 1: and we ran as a family. But then if you
Speaker 1: had tick marks, you had to like run afterr tick marks.
Speaker 1: They'd run up and down. Let choose a beach, rain
Speaker 1: or shine. There is a story of me being out
Speaker 1: there by myself, running crying, and the neighbor called dad
Speaker 1: and was like, Fred, do you know Kirsten's out on
Speaker 1: the beach And she's like, yeah, she's working off her punishment.
Speaker 1: But he could see me from the porch or whatever.
Speaker 1: And also that was back in the seventies when parents
Speaker 1: weren't helicopter parents. Kim, the sisters agreed, was misperfect. Here's Kirsten.
Speaker 1: Kim never had the brick. Kirsten was the baby, so
Speaker 1: not in trouble as often Hidie and Doug they were
Speaker 1: the middle kids. And then Hide and Doug had the
Speaker 1: brick a lot, and let's just say the two of
Speaker 1: them became excellent runners. Doug especially was spirited, all boy.
Speaker 1: Fred once said, full of energy. Go go go tell
Speaker 1: about Doug's mischief a little bit. I mean, I can't
Speaker 1: I do remember one time it was funny. He was
Speaker 1: like decided to run away and he's like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: my dad said okay, and he packed some stuff. I
Speaker 1: don't even think he made it very far, but like
Speaker 1: they would just they just loved us. They're like, all
Speaker 1: right Sea, you know, because of course he didn't run away,
Speaker 1: like walking the beaches of Malibu, poor me, you know,
Speaker 1: and he did. I think it just went down to
Speaker 1: our friend's house and then you know, came back. But
Speaker 1: I don't know. It wasn't you know, we were just argumented.
Speaker 1: It was just kids stuff, Like there was no brawls
Speaker 1: or anything major. It was just silly stuff. So sass.
Speaker 1: Like I think there was a lot of sass, and
Speaker 1: there was a little bit of I mean, Dad's told
Speaker 1: stories about how I would even be sassy or braddy
Speaker 1: to Verna and it would and Doug would give Dad
Speaker 1: attitude and they would have this like, well your little
Speaker 1: you know, Angel did this, and well you're a little
Speaker 1: I just did this. But so there was a bit
Speaker 1: of sass. Go. It wasn't any that was a specific dynamic.
Speaker 1: Kirston as sassing Verna and Doug assassing Fred, and it
Speaker 1: came out of another dynamic that Kirston was Fred's favorite
Speaker 1: and Doug was Verna's. Doddie Menville, one of the family's
Speaker 1: neighbors in Malibu said that Kirston's privileged position with Fred
Speaker 1: and Dougs with Verna was a thing in the marriage.
Speaker 1: She talked about it with an investigator. Yeah, they they
Speaker 1: had so two initial thing prime kid or pek or
Speaker 1: something like that. She may have shared that was somebody else.
Speaker 1: It was some initial that an ears while I guess
Speaker 1: even when kids are a moment might go PK or
Speaker 1: something like that if they felt the other one was
Speaker 1: being joy to their own favorite child. Fred even complained
Speaker 1: about Verna's relationship with Doug when he was at work.
Speaker 1: This is Dennis O'Gorman in an archival interview. From time
Speaker 1: to time he'd make mention, I say, of the boy,
Speaker 1: you know, but the boy didn't want to eat that
Speaker 1: or whatever, And then she'd make a special meal for him,
Speaker 1: or he always got some sort of special treatment, or
Speaker 1: sometimes he would get on the boy's case because the
Speaker 1: boy was spoiled so damned Lott and she'd be if
Speaker 1: she stood up for any of the kids. She would
Speaker 1: stand up for the boy before she was snapping the
Speaker 1: rest of them. The caeral thing. All these stories, they
Speaker 1: were starting to paint a picture of Fred, one that
Speaker 1: would be presented to the jury. Carol Jean's sister even
Speaker 1: got in on this. She felt moved to write a
Speaker 1: letter to the Santa Barbara Detectives. In it, she said
Speaker 1: that Fred often humiliated Doug. Once Doug disobeyed him by
Speaker 1: jumping out of their inflatable before it was all the
Speaker 1: way to shore. When Fred got hold of Doug, he
Speaker 1: kicked him. Doug, Jean's sister wrote to the detectives was
Speaker 1: quote a tortured little boy. This fall, I met up
Speaker 1: with a childhood friend of Dougs in Malibu. We met
Speaker 1: at the parking lot of the Trncus Market, an upscale
Speaker 1: mini mall on pH Okay, my name's John Lytell. I
Speaker 1: grew up with Dougie Johnson and there are all the
Speaker 1: families out here in Malibu until about nineteen Fan of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nineteen eighty one, and then John is Patty's son,
Speaker 1: so he literally grew up with Doug sharing Vernas Duplex
Speaker 1: on Broadbeach Road. He's a surfer and a sailor and
Speaker 1: now and La County Sheriff's deputy. I've been a sheriff
Speaker 1: for twenty over twenty one years, since June twenty one
Speaker 1: years and with the county for La for twenty two years.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen eighty one, he was eight years old
Speaker 1: and Doug's best friend. I'd asked him to take me
Speaker 1: around his old neighborhood. He got into my car, which
Speaker 1: is a Volvo Total Mom car. This fun a little
Speaker 1: and it's like one of the best cars ever to
Speaker 1: smuggle in smuggle drugs because this farrior. So there's my
Speaker 1: finger there, yeah, and that my foot. My other hand
Speaker 1: is about foot below it. It's like all foam in there,
Speaker 1: and they'd scrape it out and load it with happy
Speaker 1: stuff happy. We pulled onto pH and stopped at the
Speaker 1: intersection with Broadbeach Road. So is this like your turn
Speaker 1: into your childhood? Yeah, Broadreach and then there's one at
Speaker 1: the north end too. The Starbucks is in here, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. And trinkets didn't look that nice to market.
Speaker 1: It's kind of junky old store. There's no surf shop.
Speaker 1: There's no of these boutique shops there. We found a
Speaker 1: parking spot on the side of Broadbeach Road, just past
Speaker 1: where a private security guard was posted up. Down the
Speaker 1: road on the left was Verna's old house, where John
Speaker 1: had lived as a kid through the slats of the fence.
Speaker 1: You could see a big grassy yard edged with flowers
Speaker 1: and trees, and the ocean sparkling in the near distance.
Speaker 1: Sea Level Drive plunges off Broadbeach Road toward the ocean.
Speaker 1: It's blocked from car traffic by an electric fence, but
Speaker 1: there's a pedestrian gate. I think see that tree right there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just the top of it. That's when we climbed
Speaker 1: all the time, and my dad had to come get
Speaker 1: us out of the tree. So that story gets told
Speaker 1: so many times at my at any of our family gatherings,
Speaker 1: because whenever we talk about Deuggie, my sister always brings
Speaker 1: it up. How my dad had We had like a
Speaker 1: stuck up in the tree, and Dougie is like telling
Speaker 1: us to our helper. We were saying help because we
Speaker 1: could climb up, but we couldn't climb down it. We
Speaker 1: followed Sea Level down as it turned parallel to the shore.
Speaker 1: The waves crashed against the wild beach where Fred and
Speaker 1: Verna's children used to do their runs. We're looking for
Speaker 1: three one, six, eight five. John was having a moment.
Speaker 1: It was almost like he was dreaming, like I don't
Speaker 1: remember the house as being this big. And that's funny
Speaker 1: because do you think as a little kid everything would
Speaker 1: be bigger now? But now it's it's everything just looks
Speaker 1: gigantic to me. This is weird. I haven't been down
Speaker 1: here since though I've never I've been down to this street,
Speaker 1: even on duty or anything like that. We stopped in
Speaker 1: front of a large contemporary house with an agave garden
Speaker 1: and board formed concrete retaining walls. So I remember this
Speaker 1: yard though. This yard was here and there was like
Speaker 1: a there's like a kid play structure. And then this
Speaker 1: John said Doug's death traumatized him and altered the course
Speaker 1: of his life. When his dad told him the news,
Speaker 1: he didn't understand at first. I don't think I talked
Speaker 1: for three days. It was weird. I don't think I
Speaker 1: ate for a bunch too. It's just weird because it
Speaker 1: was like Kevin, like part of your soul ripped out.
Speaker 1: They lived here and then they lived in that house
Speaker 1: with us up at l unit, so it was almost
Speaker 1: like you was a little brother, or like a brother,
Speaker 1: not even a little brother. Yeah, do you feel like
Speaker 1: you think about him or talk about him now? I've
Speaker 1: had a couple of days where like if I hear
Speaker 1: a song, I'll end up crying. It would be like
Speaker 1: a John Denver song, maybe Country Road or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's just something that hits your heartstrings. When he was
Speaker 1: a child, John said Fred had made him uncomfortable. I
Speaker 1: was a little bit afraid of my dad. But when
Speaker 1: I went over to other people's houses, I didn't think
Speaker 1: I'd have to be afraid their dads, but I was.
Speaker 1: You try to forget the stuff that makes you the
Speaker 1: most scared when you're a kid. So I don't like,
Speaker 1: I remember his face one hundred percent. That'll never go
Speaker 1: out of my brain. The feeling in the railer home,
Speaker 1: he said, was oppressive, no levity, no laughter. I believe
Speaker 1: there are evil characters at play, and I believe they're
Speaker 1: good people. So and I've known that since I was
Speaker 1: a little kid. So when you walk into a place
Speaker 1: and you feel evil, you just know it's there. It's
Speaker 1: not like you're seeing ghosts or anything like that. You
Speaker 1: just feel like you can feel energy. And I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to be like new age or metaphysical. You could
Speaker 1: just feel it. I was going to ask if Fred
Speaker 1: was your introduction to evil. Is that what you're saying
Speaker 1: I don't understand his thinking at the time, and when
Speaker 1: I look back at it now, I'm like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was that's pretty evil. Doug's death, he said, had shaped
Speaker 1: him right down to the decision to become a cop.
Speaker 1: So I think we had Douggie and I had both
Speaker 1: wanted to be on that path of being a good guy,
Speaker 1: not not being an opportunist, of being the hero. I guess.
Speaker 1: So when that happened, Um, I don't know, it just
Speaker 1: it follows you your whole life. Psychologically, for me, it
Speaker 1: was like a challenge, and I think based back on
Speaker 1: what happened here and wanting to make sure the good
Speaker 1: guys protect the little ones or protect the innocent. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe maybe Dougie had an effect on that, because,
Speaker 1: like I said, I won't if Dougie's dead. I gotta
Speaker 1: be the other half of them. Honestly, I gotta live.
Speaker 1: John stepped away for a second to collect himself. His
Speaker 1: life's over. I gotta live. I gotta live two eyes.
Speaker 1: So it's hard. It's like I have to just bring
Speaker 1: him with me everywhere. He's right here, and he's always here.
Speaker 1: He's always here. Every every decision I make, and stuff
Speaker 1: like that I know he's I mean, it might not
Speaker 1: be like something that I put my head and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you think, Dougie. It sound like an imaginary friend.
Speaker 1: It's just he's there. He doesn't know the details of
Speaker 1: what happened to Doug They still elude him. What he
Speaker 1: believes is a jumble of what he overheard the grown
Speaker 1: ups whispering about when he was eight and things he's
Speaker 1: read online. And that's a big part of why I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to him, because he has an emotional
Speaker 1: investment in the case and knows the players, and he
Speaker 1: has a detective's ability to help make sense of all
Speaker 1: the contradictions. First, I had to get him up to
Speaker 1: speed on what the first autopsy showed. He didn't even
Speaker 1: know about them, and when I told him about the
Speaker 1: accidental drowning determination, it really threw him. I know you're
Speaker 1: about the messgy, but from a law enfortion of perspective,
Speaker 1: I would love to know more because there had to
Speaker 1: be something more for them to come to that conclusion.
Speaker 1: It was noisy on the streets, so we went back
Speaker 1: to the car and sat there for a minute. I
Speaker 1: could feel him bracing himself, so how do they die drowning,
Speaker 1: just straight drowning. They're not gonna just drown That's what
Speaker 1: I mean. They're not gonna just like, oh, we're done swimming,
Speaker 1: We're gonna just die. That just doesn't Both of them
Speaker 1: could swim, so unless they were knocked unconscious, unless they
Speaker 1: were or what I think. Okay, the story to me
Speaker 1: is total bs. First off, there's a rip or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, a rip or undertow whatever could pull them.
Speaker 1: Nothing's pulling them down. It's if anything, it's shooting at
Speaker 1: him away from wherever they are, like there's an eddy
Speaker 1: or something like that, where they're not actually stuck in
Speaker 1: that area. So for them to say float, it's not
Speaker 1: hard unless they're knocked out. But if they were knocked out,
Speaker 1: there's trauma. John pulled out his phone and zoomed in
Speaker 1: on a map of Santa Cruz Island. Even to think
Speaker 1: about it makes me kind of sick. It makes me ill. So,
Speaker 1: but I know what people do, and I know what
Speaker 1: people will go to to get stuff done. Nobody saw
Speaker 1: him kill him, Nobody saw the boat flip over, right,
Speaker 1: So it's like for the innocent side of it and
Speaker 1: the guilty side of it, nothing's seen. How did that happen?
Speaker 1: How is that possible for happen? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I would have to go out there and take a
Speaker 1: look at it. But look, we don't have to wait
Speaker 1: for you to be able to Captain Doug has no
Speaker 1: grave sights, and John had never seen where his best
Speaker 1: friend died. Right there, sitting in the car with me,
Speaker 1: he decided that he needed to go to Bird Rock.
Speaker 1: There was just too much that didn't make sense. John
Speaker 1: Lighttell is confused today, just like everyone in Malibu was
Speaker 1: confused back then because the evidence was confusing, contradictory. And
Speaker 1: then doctor Craig Duncan, who did the first autopsies, had
Speaker 1: observed no signs of trauma. The second secret autopsies, they
Speaker 1: told a drastically different story. Doctor DeWitt Hunter, the medical
Speaker 1: examiner in Santa Barbara, agreed that the condition of Verna
Speaker 1: and Doug's lungs was consistent with drowning, but he also
Speaker 1: saw evidence of trauma. The Santa Barbara detectives were in
Speaker 1: the room and the whole procedure was filmed. On Verna,
Speaker 1: doctor Hunter observed head trauma, not sufficient to kill her,
Speaker 1: but bruising, which was curious. After re examining Verna, doctor
Speaker 1: Hunter turned to Doug and his findings were extremely disturbing.
Speaker 1: According to doctor Hunter, there was significant bruising on the
Speaker 1: back of Doug's head. Obviously, the scalp has been shaved
Speaker 1: of all the hare. Now doctor Hunter can reflect the
Speaker 1: scalp back and show underlying areas of echymosis on both
Speaker 1: the inferior aspect of the scalp, as well as the
Speaker 1: ox of put and the base of the skull now
Speaker 1: being pointed out by the tip of a scalpel. Once again,
Speaker 1: the echymosis or bruising, doctor Hunter said, was quote consistent
Speaker 1: with trauma immediately prior to death, as if by magic.
Speaker 1: The Santa Barbara autopsies revealed powerful physical evidence in a
Speaker 1: case where there had been almost none. The new findings
Speaker 1: led the detectives to believe that Fred Raylor had rendered
Speaker 1: his victims unconscious then held them underwater. This would line
Speaker 1: up with the stories they'd hear about Fred, that he
Speaker 1: was tricked, harsh and quick to anger, that he resented Doug,
Speaker 1: and that he'd been violent with Jean, his first wife.
Speaker 1: A lot of people in Malibu had deep seated suspicions
Speaker 1: about Jean's death, they thought Fred had killed her and
Speaker 1: covered his tracks so cleverly that the coroner had ruled
Speaker 1: her death an accident. Now the detectives were looking into
Speaker 1: the so called suicide of Verna's first husband, Bill Johnson
Speaker 1: to see if Fred could have what pushed him off
Speaker 1: the roof of the building in Westwood. They were even
Speaker 1: digging into an old story from Point Magoo about a
Speaker 1: diver who drowned while using Fred's equipment. Could the diver
Speaker 1: be a possible fifth victim? Was Fred Railer a serial killer?
Speaker 1: But the question of motive for the deaths of Verna
Speaker 1: and Doug that lay inside the house at sea level
Speaker 1: drive in papers tucked away in desk drawers and secreted
Speaker 1: in a silver case under the desk in the living room.
Speaker 1: Papers the Day believed that showed Fred was living in
Speaker 1: a beachfront house of cards and that he needed money
Speaker 1: fast coming up on the next episode of Lost Hells,
Speaker 1: there's something here that's just not adding up well. When
Speaker 1: they were saying that, oh, you're you know I was broke,
Speaker 1: I said, well, the thing you didn't search when you
Speaker 1: tore up my house was you didn't go into the
Speaker 1: deep freeze I had a faith in there with thirty
Speaker 1: grand cash in about five thousand and travelers checks in it,
Speaker 1: and they were sort of stunned. And then they asked
Speaker 1: the detective easy and looked in the deep freeze, and
Speaker 1: he said, of course he hadn't. That's next in episode seven.
Speaker 1: Love or Money. Lost Tales is written and reported by
Speaker 1: Me Dana Goodyear. It's created by me and Ben Adair
Speaker 1: and produced by Western Sound and Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus and you can hear the whole season add
Speaker 1: free and get early access to the final two episodes.
Speaker 1: Find Pushkin Plus on the Lost Hills Show page in
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm.