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Speaker 1: Pushkin.

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Speaker 2: Flying to Hawaii on United 747 can be a real adventure.

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Speaker 2: Whatever your pleasure, you'll find it on United 747, our

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Speaker 2: friendship to Hawaii.

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Speaker 3: It was 1969.

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Speaker 2: Fred was living on the houseboat, working at Point Magoo.

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Speaker 3: And he was going back and forth to Hawaii. Jean's route. Jean,

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Speaker 3: who would go on to become Fred's first wife.

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Speaker 4: That's how we actually met, is I was coming back

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Speaker 4: from Hawaii to California on a red-eye, and she was

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Speaker 4: one of the flight attendants, and I noticed her right

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Speaker 4: off because she was just a knockout, very beautiful woman.

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Speaker 3: She was tall and slender with dark hair. An Allie

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Speaker 3: McGraw type is how she sometimes described herself. She reminded

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Speaker 3: Fred of Mindy from Mork & Mindy.

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Speaker 4: And interestingly enough, halfway through, there was a guy who

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Speaker 4: fell down in the aisle and they thought there was

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Speaker 4: going to be an emergency. And I remembered him as

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Speaker 4: a drunk in a bar where we were getting ready

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Speaker 4: to fly. And I said, I'm pretty sure that guy's

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Speaker 4: just drunk. Let's check. And then Gina and I had

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Speaker 4: our first argument because she wanted to feed him black coffee.

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Speaker 4: And I said, look, do you want a sleepy, quiet guy,

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Speaker 4: or do you want a wide-awake drunk? You know, this

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Speaker 4: is a no-brainer. So anyhow, that was our first fuss.

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Speaker 4: When we got ready to get off the plane, I said,

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Speaker 4: you know, I know we didn't get off to a

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Speaker 4: really great start, but can I get your name and address?

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Speaker 4: And address, you know, and phone number. I'd like to

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Speaker 4: see you, you know, when we get back.

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Speaker 3: Jean had grown up Baptist on a working cattle ranch

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Speaker 3: in Evergreen, Colorado, the eldest of three sisters. Describing herself later,

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Speaker 3: she'd list her hobbies as piano, horseback riding, boating, and swimming.

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Speaker 3: She loved the mountains and the beach. After graduating from

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Speaker 3: Colorado State in 1964 with a degree in music education,

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Speaker 3: Jean decided to become a flight attendant. When Jean met Fred,

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Speaker 3: she was living in an apartment near LAX with her

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Speaker 3: friend and fellow flight attendant, Barbara Warner. Barbara said Fred

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Speaker 3: and Jean's relationship was bumpy from the start. Here she is,

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Speaker 3: talking to an investigator.

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Speaker 5: Oh, up and down, up and down. But the smoothest

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Speaker 5: real mess I've ever seen. But after weathering a pregnancy scare,

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Speaker 5: they decided to make it official.

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Speaker 1: She really thought he was a very nice person, and

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Speaker 1: he had never been married, and had good background, all

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Speaker 1: of those nice things.

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Speaker 4: They had potential.

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Speaker 5: And he wasn't dumb, and neither was Gene.

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Speaker 1: So they had compatible intellectual ties.

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Speaker 4: There, too.

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Speaker 3: Fred and Gene got married in 1970 at a Baptist

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Speaker 3: church in Denver and had the reception at her parents'

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Speaker 3: country club. They were an impressive young couple destined for

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Speaker 3: a glamorous, adventurous life. By 1974, they had two adorable

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Speaker 3: little girls and had settled in Malibu, which was already,

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Speaker 3: thanks to Malibu Barbie and the Chevy Malibu, becoming something

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Speaker 3: more than just a semi-rural beach town at the western

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Speaker 3: edge of L.A. It wasn't so much a place as

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Speaker 3: it was a mass projection, a collective dream. Anyone who'd

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Speaker 3: known them back in Evergreen or Centerville would have thought

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Speaker 3: they'd made it. They owned a Jaguar, then two. Life

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Speaker 3: was good. Or at least it looked good from the outside.

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Speaker 3: I'm Dana Goodyear, and this is Lost Hills.

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Speaker 1: Lost Hills.

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Speaker 3: And Doug Drown, family friend Candy Hinman, had called the

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Speaker 3: Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department. She told them they really needed

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Speaker 3: to look into what happened to Jean. She thought Fred's

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Speaker 3: first marriage might shed some light on the deaths of

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Speaker 3: Verna and Doug. There were tensions in Fred and Jean's

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Speaker 3: marriage right from the beginning. Jean was ebullient, extroverted, and fiery.

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Speaker 3: Fred was more withdrawn, controlled, exacting, a slow burn. This

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Speaker 3: is Patty Lytel, a friend from Malibu. She's being interviewed

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Speaker 3: by an investigator after the drownings. She's on break from

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Speaker 3: her job at a bank in Santa Monica.

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Speaker 6: I mean, a nice home.

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Speaker 7: They both had very good jobs, making good money.

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Speaker 3: They were very, very well off.

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Speaker 7: And they were both attractive people.

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Speaker 8: Fred is an attractive person.

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Speaker 3: And Gia was a.

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Speaker 4: Very good-looking person.

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Speaker 3: To me, you know, looking at them at that time,

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Speaker 3: you know, it seemed like they had everything going for them.

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Speaker 3: But something was wrong.

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Speaker 9: You're talking about Jean.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean, they had a nice home. Fred and Jean

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Speaker 3: had bought a house on a street called Calpine in

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Speaker 3: a quiet neighborhood across PCH from Point Doom.

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Speaker 4: It was so sweet that no one will ever believe me.

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Speaker 3: There was a pool.

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Speaker 4: And then later on, when we went to some friend's

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Speaker 4: place and they had a hot tub, and Gene and

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Speaker 4: I looked at each other after that evening and said,

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Speaker 4: we need a hot tub. So then some other friends were,

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Speaker 4: he was a shipbuilder. And so, long story short, he

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Speaker 4: and I started building hot tubs, and the one for

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Speaker 4: our house was the first one.

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Speaker 3: Fred loved it there. You could hear the distant sound

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Speaker 3: of the ocean, and the occasional owl.

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Speaker 4: When we first got there and Jean and I went

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Speaker 4: to bed the first night, we went, boy, this is

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Speaker 4: really dark. You know, because there's no streetlights or anything.

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Speaker 4: So when you turn out the lights in your house,

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Speaker 4: it's dark.

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Speaker 3: Fred remembers this as a relatively good period in the marriage.

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Speaker 4: And I think Jean was basically quite happy. She enjoyed

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Speaker 4: the house. She enjoyed the kids. I was probably second

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Speaker 4: or third. But, you know, basically we weren't that unhappy.

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Speaker 3: They were a two-career couple trying to figure out middle-class

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Speaker 3: domestic bliss when all the rules were changing. Women's lib

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Speaker 3: had happened and the sexual revolution. They were supposed to

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Speaker 3: be free, fulfilled, self-actualized. But they both traveled a lot

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Speaker 3: for work, and they had young kids. So did they fight? Yeah,

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Speaker 3: they fought.

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Speaker 4: The issues were....

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Speaker 3: He wanted more. She wanted more. Fred was an involved father,

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Speaker 3: incredibly so by the standards of the day. He worried

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Speaker 3: about the potty training, what the kids ate, getting them

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Speaker 3: to school on time. When Gene was flying, he'd pack

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Speaker 3: the girls' lunches and make them dinner. Maybe it's the

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Speaker 3: double standard, or maybe he was an extra amazing dad.

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Speaker 3: One of his friends even said later, quote, he was

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Speaker 3: a mother to those girls. In 1975, Fred was working

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Speaker 3: for the Navy on Midway Atoll, way out in the Pacific,

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Speaker 3: with a guy named Dennis O'Gorman. He spoke to investigators.

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Speaker 10: It was very evident that he and Jean weren't getting along.

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Speaker 3: O'Gorman recalled one particularly cold moment about a month into

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Speaker 3: the time on Midway. Jean had been writing to Fred

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Speaker 3: and not hearing back. One day she called, extremely upset.

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Speaker 10: She didn't know if he was alive or dead or

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Speaker 10: when he was coming home or a damn thing. The

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Speaker 10: next morning he's got this big grin on his face

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Speaker 10: and he's got this letter about this thick. And he says, God,

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Speaker 10: if that woman wants to hear from me, she'll hear

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Speaker 10: from me, all right. So he opened it up and

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Speaker 10: it's what they call sit-reps. And all they are is

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Speaker 10: their Navy messages. And it says, recommend send money, recommend

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Speaker 10: send food, recommend send, you know, whatever. So he just

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Speaker 10: packaged up all his copies that he had of these

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Speaker 10: things for the last 30 days and he wadded them up,

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Speaker 10: sent them off to her. And he thought that was

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Speaker 10: really funny. I thought it was kind of pathetic, you know.

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Speaker 10: So that, along with other little things he said, I

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Speaker 10: began to realize that he and his first wife were

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Speaker 10: not getting along very well, okay.

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Speaker 3: When Jean's sister Carol visited them, she found the atmosphere stifling.

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Speaker 3: She thought Fred was sullen and surly, even anti-social. shut down.

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Speaker 3: She hadn't seen him in eight months, and he didn't

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Speaker 3: even greet her with hello. And she was alarmed to

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Speaker 3: hear the way he belittled Jean, addressing her as wife.

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Speaker 3: Carol even asked Fred, had he forgotten her sister's name?

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Speaker 3: But things for Jean and Fred were about to go

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Speaker 3: from bad to worse, because there was a secret in

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Speaker 3: their marriage. And Jean had started spreading it all over town.

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Speaker 3: The End there might be at least a partial explanation

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Speaker 3: for Fred's incredibly awkward behavior. Deep embarrassment. Because Jean was

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Speaker 3: pretty uninhibited when it came to expressing her discontent. And

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Speaker 3: her problem with the sex wasn't his insatiable appetite.

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Speaker 8: I noticed that it was described in the report here

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Speaker 8: that Jean called Fred the men of men because he

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Speaker 8: couldn't last very long.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, she did.

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Speaker 3: This is Barbara Warner again, Jean's old roommate, speaking to

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Speaker 3: the investigator. Barbara also mentioned Fred and Jean's tussles over finances.

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Speaker 3: Jean was used to making her own money and spending

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Speaker 3: it how she pleased.

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Speaker 5: Fred was extremely tight with his money. She thought so

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Speaker 5: because she wanted something. She charged it and got it.

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Speaker 5: She paid for it later. She never laid on her

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Speaker 5: bills or anything, but she just went ahead and charged it.

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Speaker 4: Fred thought that was insane.

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Speaker 5: She ought to pay cash for everything.

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Speaker 3: At some point, Jean started to outright hate her husband, Fred.

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Speaker 3: Talking about him, she'd shudder and say, I can't stand him.

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Speaker 3: This is Candy Hinman.

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Speaker 7: There was this part of her that when she wasn't

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Speaker 7: around Fred and she wasn't thinking about Fred, that was

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Speaker 7: very vibrant and very energetic and positive. And then she

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Speaker 7: would revert into that other kind of personality.

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Speaker 3: If she was.

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Speaker 7: Around him or talking about him, then she would become intimidated.

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Speaker 3: Candy felt very strongly that Jean wasn't safe with Fred.

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Speaker 7: I kept telling her she needed to get out of

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Speaker 7: that marriage.

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Speaker 3: In 1970, California became the country's first no-fault divorce state.

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Speaker 3: And soon, everyone was doing it. Within a year, for

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Speaker 3: every 100 couples that got married in L.A. County, 79

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Speaker 3: were filing for divorce. In Malibu, there was also another

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Speaker 3: factor splitting up families.

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Speaker 9: Um, maybe some wife swapping.

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Speaker 3: This is Michelle Williams, a friend of the Railers. And

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Speaker 3: to be clear, she wanted me to know that she

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Speaker 3: was not part of the swinging scene.

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Speaker 9: But there was a group who, like me, had never

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Speaker 9: slept with anybody else before we got married. It was just,

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Speaker 9: you just didn't do it. And so there was a

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Speaker 9: little bit of a freedom there for some people to,

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Speaker 9: you know, get intimate with other people. It was open marriage,

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Speaker 9: and it ended in a couple of divorces.

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Speaker 3: There was this one book everyone was reading about experimenting

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Speaker 3: outside marriage and how fulfilling it could be.

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Speaker 9: Carl Rogers, noted psychologist, came out with a book called

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Speaker 9: Becoming Partners, where he described what open marriage would look like.

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Speaker 9: And everybody was reading that book.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 9: No, that was a pretty popular book.

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Speaker 3: Jean, unhappy and frustrated, had also begun to look outside

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Speaker 3: her marriage for fulfillment. She told friends about a relationship

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Speaker 3: she had at work with an in-flight supervisor on her

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Speaker 3: Honolulu route. And then, without meaning to, she fell in

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Speaker 3: love with Fred's sailing buddy, Dick Filthoen.

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Speaker 4: Dick.

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Speaker 1: Dick.

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Speaker 3: The same person who a few years later would help

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Speaker 3: return Lady the Beagle to the family after her adventure

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Speaker 3: on Bird Rock. That same Dick. Gene and Fred spent

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Speaker 3: a lot of time with Dick and his wife Linda,

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Speaker 3: as well as with another couple, Bill and Donna Fairfield.

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Speaker 3: It was always the six of them, sailing together and

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Speaker 3: getting naked in the hot tub. Somehow, along the way,

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Speaker 3: Gene and Dick started to confide in each other. Here's

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Speaker 3: Jean's friend Barbara Warner again.

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Speaker 5: What would they meet at when they met? Mostly motels.

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Speaker 3: Jean would check in under her own name to take

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Speaker 3: advantage of her United Airlines discount. And that was not

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Speaker 3: the only example of her indiscretion. This is Mike Killeen,

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Speaker 3: a friend of Fred's, talking to an investigator.

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Speaker 6: Jean let everybody know that Fred had premature ejaculations.

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Speaker 1: Isn't that embarrassing?

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Speaker 6: Jean let everybody know that she was having affairs. My God,

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Speaker 6: I knew that she was having an affair with this

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Speaker 6: dick guy.

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Speaker 4: I knew that.

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Speaker 3: Unlike her fling at work, Jean's relationship with Dick was

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Speaker 3: a serious affair. It went on for several years, and

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Speaker 3: as she grew more consumed with it, she told more

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Speaker 3: and more people. The more she hated Fred, the more

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Speaker 3: she wanted to be with Dick. And the deeper she

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Speaker 3: fell in love with Dick, the more she wanted to

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Speaker 3: extricate herself from Fred. To this day, though, Fred denies

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Speaker 3: that he knew about their relationship.

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Speaker 4: I'll never know about Jean. You know, there was no

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Speaker 4: outward signs. There was no discussions. There was no anything

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Speaker 4: that would lead me to believe that.

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Speaker 3: And he insists he didn't cheat either.

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Speaker 4: And I know for myself that I didn't. I was

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Speaker 4: quite happy and wanted to settle down with one person.

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Speaker 3: But one person who almost certainly did know about Gene's

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Speaker 3: affair with Dick was Verna Johnson. Before she was Fred's

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Speaker 3: second wife, Verna was one of Jean's best friends. She

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Speaker 3: taught at the preschool at the Methodist church where Jean

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Speaker 3: and Fred sent Heidi, and she often looked after the

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Speaker 3: girls when Jean was flying. Jean and Verna were extremely tight,

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Speaker 3: sharing secrets, gossip, fears. Verna knew all Jean's dirt. Verna's sister, Julianne,

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Speaker 3: recalled spending a day at the amusement park, Magic Mountain,

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Speaker 3: with Verna and Jean and all the kids. Julianne told

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Speaker 3: an investigator that Jean ignored the children. She was just

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Speaker 3: totally preoccupied with dishing about Fred.

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Speaker 9: She didn't say very.

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Speaker 3: Many nice things about him. And she talked like a

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Speaker 3: gossip type of talking. She would say one thing and

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Speaker 3: then turn around and say, well, I told so-and-so this part.

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Speaker 3: And she would talk about a lot of other people.

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Speaker 4: Meaning that.

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Speaker 3: Meaning if she was saying something to burn him, She says, well,

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Speaker 3: I told so-and-so the same thing about Fred.

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Speaker 6: Warner was a confidant of Jean's to listen to her

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Speaker 6: pry the blues about what a rat Fred was.

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Speaker 3: Candy Hinman and a lot of Jean's friends knew Fred

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Speaker 3: kept a handgun in the house. I asked him about that.

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Speaker 3: It was a. 357 Smith & Wesson his parents had

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Speaker 3: given him for Christmas when he was at Purdue. He

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Speaker 3: kept it loaded in the drawer of his nightstand. He

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Speaker 3: told me the gun was there for Jean's protection, as

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Speaker 3: much as anything else. But the number one person Jean

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Speaker 3: wanted protection from was Fred. Patty Lytel remembered something even

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Speaker 3: more unsettling. She told detectives that Jean had confided in

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Speaker 3: her and Verna that Fred was threatening her, saying if

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Speaker 3: he ever caught her cheating... He'd kill her. There was

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Speaker 3: one particularly bad night in the hot tub at Calpine

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Speaker 3: that everyone remembers. It was the sextet. The Railers, the Fairfields,

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Speaker 3: the Valthoans. Naked, of course. Jean, according to others who

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Speaker 3: were there... was a little drunk or a little high,

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Speaker 3: and she was getting a little loud. It was obnoxious.

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Speaker 3: This was an ongoing thing. Jean would get carried away.

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Speaker 4: We would have wine with dinner, and when we went

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Speaker 4: to parties and things, I think that's when she would

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Speaker 4: get caught up in the party atmosphere and sometimes overdo it.

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Speaker 3: She was kind of a lightweight when it came to

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Speaker 3: alcohol and pot.

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Speaker 4: I was bigger. I had a better way of hanging

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Speaker 4: on to it and still, you know, be able to

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Speaker 4: do long divisions. So that was sort of the difference.

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Speaker 3: On the night in question, Gene dove headfirst into the

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Speaker 3: hot tub where everyone else... including Dick, was already hanging out.

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Speaker 3: Fred was furious. He later wrote, quote, unquote. When Fred's friend,

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Speaker 3: Mike Killeen, who wasn't there, heard about the incident, he

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Speaker 3: thought it sounded overblown. his sympathies lay entirely with Fred.

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Speaker 6: It must have been a situation where Gene was probably

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Speaker 6: mouthing off about one thing and another and embarrassing everybody,

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Speaker 6: and maybe Fred did something that we all do occasionally.

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Speaker 8: He overreacted.

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Speaker 3: According to Bill Fairfield's statement to detectives, everyone in the

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Speaker 3: hot tub laughed about the absurdity of Fred yanking Gene

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Speaker 3: out of the water. But this laughter probably did not

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Speaker 3: include Gene. It became another story she confided... miserably to

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Speaker 3: her friends. Years later, after Verna's death, investigators interviewed Dick

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Speaker 3: Felthoen about Fred and Jean. And Dick also took Fred's side,

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Speaker 3: his sailing buddy, over his old lover. He mentioned that

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Speaker 3: Fred and Jean fought openly, in public, and that it

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Speaker 3: seemed to him Jean was the instigator. One day, according

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Speaker 3: to a flight attendant friend of Jean's, she showed up

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Speaker 3: at work in a state of distress. She had the

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Speaker 3: scarf from her uniform tied around her neck and asked

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Speaker 3: for permission to keep wearing it throughout the flight.

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Speaker 4: Okay.

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Speaker 5: And did he?

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: Fred says this never happened, that he was never physical

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Speaker 3: or violent with Jean. But Jean told friends she was

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Speaker 3: scared of him, so scared she was going to move

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Speaker 3: Fred's pistol over to Verna's house.

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Speaker 8: Also, I guess things start going downhill to a point

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Speaker 8: where you mentioned that Gene had told you several times

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Speaker 8: that Fred had threatened to kill her if he ever

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Speaker 8: caught her fooling around.

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Speaker 3: That's the investigator questioning Barbara Warner.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, he did.

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Speaker 5: Well, I never heard him say that. I only heard

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Speaker 5: it through Gene. You know, when Gene would say something

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Speaker 5: like that to me, I would think, oh, he's kidding.

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Speaker 5: But I think generally... I remember her saying, you know,

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Speaker 5: I think he's capable of it.

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Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I don't know. The only

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Speaker 1: thing I can do is, just knowing Fred and knowing

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Speaker 1: his great pride, is that his pride was hurt by

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Speaker 1: possibly his employment. And her, I think toward the end.

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Speaker 5: She was getting so fed up with it. Knowing Gene,

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Speaker 5: she probably would say, I can't stand it another minute.

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Speaker 5: Get me out of here. And it probably got to

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Speaker 5: him after a while.

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Speaker 1: And he was a, outwardly, he was a very virile

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Speaker 1: type macho man.

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Speaker 5: And I don't think he really was. And I think

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Speaker 5: he probably threw this up to him. And it was

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Speaker 5: tough on him, to put it mildly.

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Speaker 3: By early summer, 1976, Jean was growing desperate.

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Speaker 5: I know she tried to get the two of them

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Speaker 5: into counseling. And he had refused to go. And then finally,

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Speaker 5: after she had threatened separation and divorce, he said, well, okay,

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Speaker 5: let's try it.

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Speaker 3: Jean found a therapist, and they went a couple of times.

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Speaker 3: It was a failure. The best part about it, Fred says,

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Speaker 3: is that he and Jean would get a Baskin-Robbins afterward.

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Speaker 5: And I guess it got so bad to a point

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Speaker 5: that she said, I don't, no counseling in the world

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Speaker 5: is going to help us. It's beyond hope.

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Speaker 3: Fred was desperate, too. The Navy was sending him back

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Speaker 3: to Kauai that summer for an extended stay at the

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Speaker 3: Pacific Missile Test Facility. He didn't want the marriage to end.

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Speaker 3: He thought they could salvage it. But Jean seemed past caring.

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Speaker 3: Jean called a lawyer to initiate the process of divorce.

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Speaker 5: She was going to tell him that he was going

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Speaker 5: to be kicked out of the house when she got home.

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Speaker 1: She was so sure of it by that point, by

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Speaker 1: being away and thinking and trying to get her head straight.

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Speaker 1: She was waiting for him to get back. They had talked,

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Speaker 1: and both of them knew that they had a definite problem.

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Speaker 1: She was going to put her foot down and say,

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Speaker 1: I've had it. Let us try a separation. Uh-huh.

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Speaker 8: Now, is she the kind of person that once he

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Speaker 8: sat down.

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Speaker 3: When he got back from Hawaii in October, Jean would

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Speaker 3: finally end the marriage. Barbara has speculated many times about

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Speaker 3: what went on between Jean and Fred in that fragile

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Speaker 3: moment when he returned.

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Speaker 1: Jean never did divorce Fred, because shortly after he got home,

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Speaker 1: unexpectedly and inexplicably.

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Speaker 3: She died. Coming up on the next episode of Lost Tales,

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Speaker 3: Jean's funeral gets people talking.

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Speaker 7: Everything around him seemed black, dark. And his face, his look,

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Speaker 7: his everything was just darkness. And I knew without a

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Speaker 7: doubt that he had done it.

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Speaker 3: He just looked wicked and evil.

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Speaker 7: This dark face in my face, and coming over and

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Speaker 7: being friendly and chatty, and I was thinking, you're a murderer.

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Speaker 3: Why are you even talking to me? That's next in

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Speaker 3: Episode 4, The Shallow End, Part 2. Lost Hills is

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Speaker 3: written and reported by me, Dana Goodyear. It's created by

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Speaker 3: me and Ben Adair and produced by Western Sound and

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Speaker 3: Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can hear

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Speaker 3: the whole season ad-free and get early access to the

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Speaker 3: final two episodes. Find Pushkin Plus on the Lost Hills

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Speaker 3: show page in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm.