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