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Award winning author and journalist Ivor Davis, author of Manson Exposed, a Reporter's fifty year journey into madness and Murder, discusses he and his wife Sally's investigation into their longtime friend and neighbor when he is arrested for the murder of his wife and stepson. Ivor and Sally Davis were horrified when their Malibu neighbors, Verner Rayler, and her son Doug
died in a terrible boating accident. The nightmare only continued when her husband, their friend Fred Rayler, was arrested and then convicted for their murder. As investigative writers, they set out hoping to find Railer innocent. Instead, they found a viper's nest of deceit and murder. The book they were featuring this evening is The Devil in My Friend, The Inside Story of a Malibu Murder with my special guests,
journalist and author Ivor Davis. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview, mister Ivor Davis. Thank you, Dan, thank you so much, and congratulations on this book, The Devil in My Friend. Let's talk about that.
You write in the preface that for all of you, and I include your wife, Sally, it all began on January third, nineteen eighty one, and you were sitting in your home and you read in the local paper about Verna Roller and her son Douglas, who had drowned the day before in the water in the ocean that you were familiar with. Tell us about what you read and how you were involved in this story.
Well, when I woke up and I remember this, this was a Sunday morning, my wife Sally screamed at me and I rushed downstairs and she had the morning paper in front of her and there on the front page with this story about the death of Verna Rayla and her young son Douglas, who I knew and Sally knew so well because we'd grown up with them in Malibu, which was a beautiful, beautiful community. By the beach in
southern California, the Idellic community. In this horror story happened and we were just and we were just paralyzed what happened.
And then we discovered that what happened, according to the story, was that Verner and her new husband Fred Raila and her son Douglas, were out on a pleasure trip at Santa Cruz Island, which is just literally you can look out the window of my house and you can see the islands just off the coast of Santa Barbara and Ventura and Malible and we just were paralyzed, and of
course we went to the funeral. Then you know the reason, the reason it was such a shock was number one, Fred and Werner had been married for a very very short period of time, and Douglas was their son. And I knew Fred the bereave father, because he had come to me when they got married and said to me, I want to get close to my young son, who was eight years of age at the time. You are the soccer coach of our team in Malibu, the Malibu Lions. Can I be your assistant coach? Well, I mean, what
kind of story? I mean, it was just a heartbreaker, I said, of course. And Fred was my assistant coach. My son was Gideon, was the same age as as Douglas, exactly, and Fred was a terrific assistant coach, although he knew nothing about soccer. So all of a sudden, the idyllic life that we had been leading was turned upside down.
And then I must say.
After the morning and the funeral and stuff like that, a few months later, Fred Railer was arrested for the murder of Douglas and the murder of Werner, and again it was like another arrow to the heart, and I said, something has got to be wrong here. It can't be true. This is a poor guy who loses his wife and stepson soon after they be married, and now he's arrested for murder. And what actually happened was, and I'll get to the quick, was that I didn't realize this at
the time. All I knew that Fred's first wife had died, but apparently she had died. His first wife had died also of drowning. And so somebody called the cops, the Santa Barbara Police Department because the island was in their jurisdiction, and said, losing one wife by drowning is a terrible tragedy. Losing two wives is more than a tragedy. You've got
to investigate. And they did and the bottom line was it they discovered that Fred Rayla had eight that eight hundred thousand dollars insurance on his young step son and his new wife.
Now let's go back to how everything is discovered, and in doing this, tell us about the book project that you discussed with Fred and what came a bit in how you proceeded.
Initially, Well, Sally and I have been writers all our lives, and so we were intrigued by this. Somebody who we'd been, who we felt was innocent, was wrongly accused of a terrible, terrible murder. And so we spoke to Fred and said, you know, I mean to be honest with you, We hadn't thought of a book right at the beginning. But then we ended up going to the murder trial, which took place in Santa Barbara, California, and we sat through the trial and we thought, well, Fred Rayler is going
to get acquitted. He's going to get acquitted. And we watched the evidence for about eight or nine months every day, and guess what happened they found him guilty. Well, we thought, our friend has been wrongly accused and wrongly convicted. We have got to do something, and so we embarked on an independent investigation into Fred's life and we were very friendly with Fred. Sally and I, my own son and daughter, visited Fred at the horrible falsehome prison where he was.
He'd been sentenced to life without possibility of parole, and that's instead of the death penalty in California. So we visited him, and then at that stage, Fred Rayler said, why don't you write a book? Because what have I got to lose? And so off we went on our journey of discovery and guess what. We discovered that Fred Rayler was not only guilty we felt of the murderer of Werner and Douglas, but he probably murdered his first wife, Jean, a beautiful airline stewardess, and got away with it. So
we were confronted by this. I went to see him in falsehom prison. I said, Fred, we went back to your hometown and we spoke to all the people you mentioned, and they weren't all flattering. And Fred said, I want you to give me every single transcript of your interview
and I will answer it. And I said, Fred, I can't do that because a lot of these people wouldn't speak to me in Richmond, Indiana, your hometown, because they thought that we were in the private investigators trying to get you out of prison, and so.
I can't do that. And from that moment on, I never.
Ever spoke to Fred Rayler again, and we pursued the book. We actually wrote the book many years ago. But I don't want to get too complex here, Dan, but basically what happened was Fred was able to block the book because he threatened to soothe them. And at that time there was another famous murder going on called Jeffrey McDonald, the Green Beret captain who was tied up with McGinnis
and I've forgotten what McGinnis's first name is. And McGinnis wrote a book called Fatal Vision about this, about this guy and the trial in which in which Jeffrey McDonald sued the author McGinnis was on. It lasted nine months, it cost eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a lot of money then, and it was undissolved. So my publisher chickened out. Fast forward forty years.
And my book is out.
Wow, it was a long.
Unwinding I'm sorry about but I'm sure if you go ahead, go ahead.
Down, Well, let's go back, because this is what you do in the book. You go back to his childhood, Fred Rayler's childhood in Centerville, Indiana. You say his hometown
was Richmond, but he was an inland boy. So anyway, you take us to Santa Barbara and January sixth, So soon after Fred is discovered with Verna and Douglas are dead, and a deputy Larry Gillespie, thirty six year old, he's a corner's assistant with the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department, and he gets a call from missus Candy Hinman of Malibu. Now what she has to say and what does Larry Gillespie do other than taking notes?
Well, you know, the.
Police always get odd calls here and there, and they pay attention to it because this is what they have to do. So Larry Gillespie gets his call from Candy Hinman, who is a mother and a friend of Verna Rayler and also a friend of Jean Railer, the first wife, and Candy offers a devastating two liner. She says this fred Rayler loses his first wife in a drowning accident is a terrible tragedy, but to lose a second wife and stepson in a drowning accident needs to be looked into.
It stinks, and the Gillespie, who the investigator, looks into it, and then the whole investigation begins and interviews with Fred Rayler and leading to Fred's arrest. When the police discover that Fred Rayler has benefited to the tune of eight hundred thousand dollars. An eight hundred thousand dollars in the eighties is worth probably three four million dollars today. There's
still a lot of money. And the cops are very suspicious because why would Fred Rayler take a sixty thousand dollars life insurance policy on an eight year old boy. The case begins to smell. The cops think they've got something going, and they do end up arresting.
Him, and the trout unfolds in Santa Barbara.
Now, what are some of the things that they employ to be able to as police do narrow a defendant to a story and then later requestioning them once he's in a certain position with that story. Tell us what fred puts himself in that corner. But also his behavior during the interrogation.
Well, first of all, Fred Rayler plays the innocent man. First of all, the cops visit him two or three times, and he's very sociable and to be honest with you, Fred Rayler is one of these guys, it turns out, who is I mean, a sociopath or the kind of guy who thinks he can sit down with you and I and he can explain anything away and if he talks about it, you and I will believe every single word. Of course, the cops don't believe every single word for
the reasons I've explained heavy insurance why is that? And they kind of get to know Fred Rayler. They come and see him two or three times. When they come and see him in Malibu, they are impressed by the fact that this is a bereaving husband who is looking after his two is young children, his daughters, and it takes him a bit of time to realize that that
this is more than it appears. And Fred Rayler of course thinks he can talk his way out of anything, but he doesn't talk his way out of this because, of course he arrested and he's charged and he's convicted, and I don't want to spoil the story, but he is convicted, as you as you know, and that's that's why it's such an interesting story, and that's why when we came into it, we thought we could turn the tables and get him unconvicted.
But it didn't happen.
As you write in this book, you embark on this investigation, so you look into his first wife, Jean's suspicious death, her drowning death, and what do you find.
We find that it is very, very suspicious. But the amazing thing is you've got to realize this Dan that we had attended every day in the in the courthouse, and the amazing thing was the jury that was listening to the case heard many days of testimony about the suspicious death of Fred's first wife, and then, believe it or not, the same jury were told by the judge the death of Fred Brayler's first wife has nothing whatsoever
to do with the death of his second wife. So you are to forget what you've heard, tear up your notes, and let's get on with the case of this murder of the second wife and the step son. So you know, psychologically, the jury have heard this testimony about he may have killed his first wife, but they are asked to forget it. Come on, and that you know, in retrospect, Dan, isn't that a hard thing to forget?
That's right.
You also cite that this became a battle of experts, as many of these high profile trials do. But the defense had employed two of the best and most noted pathologists in the world, if not especially in the US, and so that testimony was very compelling, at least in its cart, wasn't it.
It was very compelling testimony. But let me tell you, when you are in the jury, and you are you know, a common a typical juror, this testimony about, well, was their damage to Douglas's head from from a deliberate injury, And that we listened to days and days and days of technological evidence from so called experts. There was bruising to Douglas's head, There was bruising to Werner's head. No,
there wasn't. Yes, there was. And by the time you know, the third week of expert testimony came around, the jury were bamboozled. And I'm not surprised because I was bamboozled, and so was everybody else in the court, and yet I think, you know, without jumping the gun. Then I think part of the problem and why Fred Rayler was convicted was when he decided, as many defendants do, to testify.
In his own defense.
And that was not a good idea, but he did, and he got up there and he cried and he told the story. But the jury were not impressed with him. Later on, the jurors said he was cold, he was calculating, and he made a mistake. Because, as you may know, and I don't know what it's like in the rest of the world, a defendant does not have to testify
in his own defense. However, jurors sometimes feel, and I don't know what your experience has been, Dan, and you're widely experienced, duras feel that what this guy is trying to hide something? Why doesn't he tell us why he is innocent? And of course a defendant doesn't have to do that. But Fred decided he was going to get up He testified for many, many days. The district attorney Stanley Roden had the opportunity to Truss examine him, and that was a very hot event and they sort of
hated each other. But that made made the the the actual trial more like a kind of a play, a high drama. What was that great film with Gregory Pekin of the old days? Oh gosh, I've forgotten about some of the great trials. And that's part of the I want say, the fun as part of the entertainment. When when a good prosecutor goes up against an accused defendant and it's it's it's fisticuffs verbally.
All the way.
Let's Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now, what we haven't talked about for our audience is Fred's background. The the thing that makes the prosecutor part of his case is that he can't believe that this person with this incredible background could have this incredible misfortune and screw up and which resulted in the death of his wife,
Verna and his son or her son, Douglas. So tell us what his official story is when he's rescued by this boat and what he says in terms of how Verna and Douglas came to their deaths.
So what happens is this is an idyllic day. Fred in his new yacht is showing off the new yacht to his parents who've come from the Midwest, and his brother and his sister in law, and they're all out in the yacht when Fred says, I'm going to We're going to go out and take some pictures of an area of the island called bird Rock, which is basically
a beautiful rock covered in bird poop. So Fred goes out with Douglas and their new beagle puppy and Werner in a little rubber dingy dory to take some pictures. And while Fred is taking the pictures, according to him, the dog jumps at some seagulls, the dory overturns. Fred is trapped by his camera strap underneath the dory and when he finally loosens the camera strap and comes up, he discovers his wife and his stepson floating on their face in this little remote pocket of the island and
grabs them. I mean, this is an incredible scene. He grabs Werner in one hand, Douglas in the other hand. He puts the beagle puppy on his head, but he's unable to push them onto safety and he and when he is rescued, Fred Rayler has this the dog, the wife, the step son, and he's pulled aboard, and they try and the rescuers who see him screaming for help, give him mouth to mouth, and unfortunately, by the time the Coastguard gets there, they take they take Douglas and Verna
in and they're both dead. Fred has survived this terrible ordeal, and so has the dog. The dog has been pushed onto the island to say to safety. So it sounds like an awful tragedy, and it is. But they then you look at it and you say, well, Fred Rayler grew up in the ocean. Fred Rayler was a powerful swimmer. Fred Rayler laid under sea cables for the US Navy. Fred rayler Is second home is in the water. Why couldn't a guy like that save his wife and stepson.
But again it's a conflict, I mean, his story versus what really happened.
And so.
During the trial we hear all this, and we hear and we think, those of us who are in sympathy with Fred, say, wh my god, it's a terrible tragedy. Number one wife died in the swimming pool and number two wife dies in the ocean with her son. So
it adds up to a bizarre kind of scenario. But the bottom line is, and this is really important, when we go back to his hometown, we discover that when Fred Rayler and his family have terrible accidents their car burns, a boat, they have burnt, a guest house they have burned, and what happens each time they claim on the insurance
and they get the money. And then my investigation with Sally, as soon as I saw that, the hairs on my neck kind of stood up because fred Rayler family had claimed on all those A burnt car, a burnt a burnt guest house, a burnt something else, and they got insurance.
And Fred Rayler came to California and guess what His car burned, his guesthouse burned, and there were other similarities and you couldn't And the moment moment I saw that, as I said, the hairs of my neck stood up, and I said to my wife Sally, this is bizarre. I mean a man, a man can be unlucky, but this guy is unlucky.
Well quab ruperly.
And then that's when I realized that this was a racket and the Fred rail had been making money as his family did by claiming insurance money and getting the money and the inanimate objects like guesthouses and cars and boats led to insurance claims on real human beings, and that was the moment I realized that he was guilty.
You talk about the charges that he was convicted for, and one of moe was with murder for profit. So you talk about when you investigate the character of Fred Railer and you speak to other people that were friends of Jean, and how she feared for her life and was trying was on the verge of getting a divorce. Tell us a little bit more about this divorce and what Thread supposedly agreed to and what Jean believed in her heart.
The investigation that we did, and we spoke to her family, We spoke to her friends in the who were airline, airline stewardesses and people like that. They said Jane was very, very unhappy in her marriage with Fred, and she was about to divorce him. But Fred Rayler and his family said, we have never had a divorce in our family, and we're not going to have a divorce in our family.
And so rather than face the ignomy of a divorce, Fred obviously and in course he wasn't accused of and he wasn't convicted of decided that he would maybe eradicate his first wife. Of course, again I say that, but he was never found guilty of killing his first wife, although there was so much suspicion. So Jean Rayler was hoping to get out of her marriage to Fred Rayler. She didn't because she died first and her romantic notions which were a little bit overblown from what I discovered.
You know, Fred brainer was not going to give his wife a divorce, and so she ended up dying in the backyard swimming pool.
In your investigation, you also found out about Berna as well, and her feelings and her background and how she came to be involved with Red and her past with her own husband, Bill Johnson.
Yes, again, it's like a jigsaw puzzle, you put it all together. We knew that Werner Rayla was a widow because her husband, Bill had died in a terrible accident in Los Angeles. He was in the building department and he was a builder, and he apparently fell off the roof of a high rise building. However, it turned out that her marriage to her first husband was also tinged with tragedy because Bill was a severe depressant. He had severe depression problems, and apparently he had jumped off the
roof of the building and killed himself. But of course Bernard didn't want to say it was suicide because the suicide would have reflected a rejection of their marriage, so she said it was an accident. But that then we
discovered that it wasn't an accident. So here you had this needy, beautiful young widow and Fred who was a very handsome young widower, and they came together in Malibu, and guess what, they get married, and what a beautiful wedding it is on the beach, and everybody in Malibu smiles and says, yes, there is a happy ever after story here. But of course it's just a new chapter
in the Fred Railer tragedy. So again we as a viewer, but we as a sort of person on the sidelines that when I say that, my wife and I see what's going on, and we think, isn't this wonderful?
Too?
Bereaved people get together, they have a perfect marriage, and then it ends in tragedy with the drowning. So there's a lot of little pieces to assemble this in this true life jigsaw puzzle. Of murder and conspiracy and horror and stuff like that.
You find out and you dig, and you find out that that Verna had a, I guess, an odd perspective on the marriage, and she had said that she was not in love and that he was not in love. Explain her rationale for marriage despite not being in love.
Well, don't forget both of them have lost their spouses. They live in a very small community of Malibu, where everybody knows what's going on. Verna we know about because she taught kindergarten our children, and when you see she lives in Malibu, she's very conscious about her social a place in society in Malibu. And we discover, of course later on, that Berner knows the problems that Fred was having with his first wife. In fact, Verne used to babysit Fred's children.
So it's a kind.
Of a bizarre web of I know what's going on. But Berna decides she also wants to look respectable, and so she goes along with marrying Fred, the man who she knows had a terrible relationship with his first wife. But Verna wants Erna is very much a young woman of show. She wants to show that even though she's had tragedy in her life, she can find true happiness.
And again, when you look at it, look at it the way I'm looking at it, and the way you and I are discussing it, you can understand the psychology of Werner Rayla, who is also a tragic woman in a way, who decides that Fred Rayler, despite his handicaps, is the way to true happiness. And of course it turns out to be a complete fast and it isn't
as we know. So you've got to understand that society Malibu, it's a show off society, movie stars and regular folk, and Fred Rayler and his family were regular folk, mingling with the likes of Ali McGraw and Steve McQueen and Larry Hagman and all the people that lived in Malibu. So front, whether its force or not, was very important to Werner, and she actually succumbed. She knew that she probably shouldn't have married Fred Rayler, but she did, and then it cost her her life.
He knows also from his wife Jean about Vernon and her promiscuity, and despite that, it seems that Brad really likes the image of having children.
It is the image that you're absolutely right down the image which I didn't realize. I thought Fred was a down to earth guy and his clogs and his beat up old car. But he knew what image was. Don't forget. Mallible was a small community, movie stars and regular folk.
You know.
Verna was so I mean to marry a handsome guy who tragically lost his wife. Was really a feather in her cap. She didn't realize what kind of fatal feather it was, but it was. And looking back, you can see it clearly. But you couldn't see it clearly then because things were unfolding on a day to day, month to month, week to week basis, and people deluded themselves.
And this is the way people are, I'm sure in your experience of meeting people, you know, people know something is awry, something is wrong, but they'll cover the blemishes for the sake of a peaceful life.
Yes, what we haven't spoken about is this very very very interesting break for the police when they need more evidence Larry Gillespie at first, but detectives Fred Ray and his partner Toller, they need more evidence, according to the prosecutor, and so they go back and do a second autopsy.
Tell us about this incredible turn of events.
Well, the incredible turn of events is that once Vernon and dug had died, their bodies were being held in the Los Angeles Westwood Mortuary. They were about to be cremated, and the cops say, well, we are this stinks. Let's get hold of the bodies, and they get they get a police order, they get the legal order that they enable them to get the bodies. However, they call out the mortuary and they say, do you still have the bodies of Douglas Johnson and Verna Railer And the mortari says,
let's see, uh yeah, let's see. We were due to cremate them four days ago, but we've been overloaded and we still have the bodies. And the cops say, don't go away, we'll be over there in an hour. And they go over and they pick up the bodies, which are then autopsied by their own autopsy people. And according to their own autopsy people, they find bruises on the head of Douglas and even Werner. And if the bodies had been cremated, probably you and I would not be talking about this case today.
What a what a stroke of luck for them and you write that.
Meanwhile, Fred Railer thinks that the bodies have been cremated a week before he does.
He does.
He believes that because, you know, because that's what that's what he thinks happens. He doesn't realize that they have a backlog at the mortuary. And this is the biggest break. The prosecution has to retrieve two bodies that should have been cremated days earlier, and it gives them the groundwork, if you like, for the medical tests.
The autopsy is done.
Again and again and and and it is you know, one of those of life that you can't actually predict, but it happens and so unpredictable. But fortunately for the prosecution it works for them.
That's incredible.
You a very vivid scene where you have that they have a deadline. They do the second autopsy doesn't seem to be enough, but they've recorded it, they've filmed it all, and then when it's reviewed by another expert, he says, I can conclude that these were pre mortem.
So yeah, well, I mean that's the interesting thing Dan that once the trial unfolded, and I may have mentioned
this now, I don't think I did. We sat there for weeks and weeks of autopsy details that actually finally almost put the jury to sleep, because you know, you can talk about bruises on the head for a day, two days, two weeks, three weeks, and the jury actually almost had to, you know, ask for Nodo's pills because it's too much for the layman and the lay woman to understand all these three mortem, post mortem, middle mortem injuries.
And we got all that laid out in graphic detail during the long trial.
Let's get back to his downfall in the end, was wanting to be the star witness.
As people may know, this is not a.
Good idea in almost any case, but if somebody wants to, and this narcissistic sociopath would want to. But before we talk about a little more about just how we behaved on that stand, you say that once the prosecutor prosecution rested their case, that Fred Railer gave you a call about that book.
Yeah, once the prosecution rested the case called us and said, I know you were planning to write a book about this, but forget about it because I'm going to be acquitted and and I don't want to disrupt the family again, and we'll all get on with our lives, and of course Fred Rayler was convicted, and as soon as he was convicted, had we got another call from prison in which he says, why don't you go ahead with the with the book, because I've got nothing to lose, because
he was now a convicted killer. He was now convicted, and he'd been given parole, sorry, he had been given life without possibility of parole. I and Iro about a dozen other friends and people that knew him testified to the jury to ask them to beg them not to give Fred Rayler the gas chamber, and of course even the daughters testified for their father to the plead to the jury not to give them the death penalty. So Fred Brayler realized, now he'd been convicted, that he had
nothing to lose. And as I said at the beginning of our conversation, Dan, we believed he was innocent. We believed he'd been not railroaded, but we believed there was not enough evidence to convict. And so off we went on our journey that I mentioned to you earlier in our conversation, in the belief we could find that he was an innocent man wrongly convicted. And Fred Railer, of course had nothing to lose because he was already convicted.
So off we went on our investigation that I've told you about a few minutes ago, and discovered that not only did he kill his first wife, but he was never charged with Obviously, the death of Werner and Douglas was not an accident.
That Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. As I mentioned, the very vivid part of this book is Fred Railer taking the stand in all confidence and then you writing that yourself and Sally and friends, and we hadn't mentioned the lawyer that almost takes the blame for all of the life insurance and the estate planning, his good friend and attorney, Bill Fairfield, even though everyone got to see his testimony on the stand. You say that,
regardless of that, you still believed. And more importantly, Fred believed that he was going to succeed over a prosecutor Rodent, didn't he.
Yes, You've got to realize this that Fred Railer is a very arrogant man. Fred Rayler decided, much to the chagrin of his defense to that he would get up in front of the jury and tell them what happened, and guess what they would believe every single word he said. It didn't happen that way because when Fred Rayler got on the stand again, a much much against the advice of his defense team, he decided to tell his story.
There was tears, there was coldness, there was there was a combativeness with the district attorney, of course, and I think the jury saw the real Fred Rayler. Fred Rayler decided he would tell his story and of course the jury would believe him. They never did, And when we spoke to some of the jurors afterwards, they said he was a bit cold, he was a bit calculated. He turned on the tears when it suited him. He made a terrible witness for himself. And he probably should never
have testified because the evidence was always somewhat flimsy. The bruises were there, bruises where they're not bruises. But Fred decided, as he does it did in all his life, if he gave them the version of what happened, they would believe him. And of course the jury did not believe him because he was too cold, and he was too you know, just just this whole demeanor. And I think if he'd not testified in his own defense. He probably would be a free man today. But who knows.
The strength of this man's charm and to be able to fool people, even the judge or more. For some of the trial you right believed that Fred was innocent, but also the prosecutor Rodin, And maybe you could tell us about yourself. Going to the scene of where Fred described these events and Saverna and Douglas dying.
The event happened in this idyllic spot about ten miles off the coast of Malibu of Santa Barbara called Santa Cruz Island. It's a beautiful spot. It's an uninhabited island. It's a beautiful retreat for animals that people don't live.
On the island.
And Fred's story was, as I mentioned it a little earlier. He had said that he couldn't push the kids the bodies of Werner and Douglas onto the rocks. So I decided to go out in a boat to see how bad it was. Now I'm not a strong swimmer, Fred Rayler was a powerful swimmer. I got into the water and I discovered you could actually get up onto the rocks, and I thought, well, why didn't Fred take the bodies? You know, surviving bodies of his wife and his step
son onto the rocks, but Fred said he couldn't. He said the rocks were too jagged. So when I went back and told him that I'd gone out to the island, he kind of pooh poohed my experiment and said, well, you know, you left to go to the islands from the wrong place. You should have left from Ventura instead of Santa Barbara. And he came up with some cocker
maimie reason why my personal research was beloney. Maybe he was right, but I don't think so, because since then I've been out to the island two or three times to try and see if what he said could be true. And he could have pushed the bodies or he could have clambered onto the island. He got the dog onto
the island. The dog survived, Bernard and Douglas didn't. So Fred was very upset when I told him I'd done that, because it indicated that I was questioning his veracity, which I was, And I thought his explanation of what of my experiment, saying you know you left from the wrong harbor.
It would have been different if you left from Venture instead of Santa bar blah blah blah blah was full of boloney, and so Fred could kind of explain works in his story the way I've just described, which was somewhat ridiculous in my mind.
You're right too that in the investigation by the detectives, they do some experiments themselves about this notion or the idea that the boat overturned, and then through the prosecution and the detectives worked, the prosecution at trial says that he could have, basically if the boat overturned, draped the two bodies over the boat and been able to survive and be able to get the attention of boats that were in the area.
Yes, you're absolutely right on that. But Fred's story, as I might have mentioned a few minutes ago, was that when the boat this little rubber dinghy overturned, he and Werner and Douglas were trapped under the boat, and by the time he untangled his camera trap and came up, Werner and Douglas were floating lifelessly in the water. So who knows. You know that the prosecution tried to recreate it, and then the judge ruled it out and said you can't.
You can't recreate a set of circumstances, but it was the whole scenario stank badly, mainly because Fred Rayler was a deep sea diver. Fred Rayler knew the water there perfectly. He'd laid cables in that area. He knew it like the back of his hand. And the story sounded feeble.
You say that to this day that his daughters, Kirsten and Kimberly and I've forgotten the other girl's name, they continue to support the idea and in fact have done a lot of work to petition governors to let their set their father free.
How many Yes, yes, there's no doubt. I mean, the girls are true believers. But but psychologically, I mean, if you talk to anybody who who is a psychologist, they would explain that they had tied their anchor to their father's story, and after all these years, if they were to admit that their father was a liar or that
they didn't believe him, it would destroy their lives. And I have great, so much sympathy for them because you know, they've gone along with this story for so long, and to turn their own lives up side down and admit that maybe Fred Rayla is a cold blooded murderer, you know you can't live with that.
So you've got to understand.
Human nature, and I know you do because you deal with a lot of people in these circumstances. That can you imagine if they woke up one day, several decades later, as it is, and said, you know, my dad did it, their whole life lives would be a lie.
And you know you can't live with that.
After so many decades of believing one version. And so it is a tragedy, a terrible tragedy that they've gone along with this for so long and there's no way out for them.
You point out it's very interesting and somewhat compelling to note that Camilla Zeitner and John stun School where both the daughters were killed by Fred, and yet to the end stand behind Fred and history.
Well, yes, exactly. That's another brilliant observation then, because yes,
that was the case. I mean, I think I think Jean Rayla, the first wife's sisters, believe Fred was guilty, but their parents, who are who were true believers and had a great religious conviction about them, felt that if they I mean, if they had contemplated that their son in law was a cold budded killer, it would have been a dagger in their hearts, and they probably went to their grave realizing that maybe Fred was guilty, but they couldn't mention it to their grandchildren. It's a dilemma
that none of us can imagine experiencing. Just ask anyone and then if you know, you lay this scenario out, and it's such an awful contemplation of saying, well, I'm here's the truth, and we have all been believing this man and he's a liar, and he murdered my daughter. And cam was an older lady who had very little in life and was very much beholden to the good
graces of her new son in law. So again, a gyp saw puzzle of human emotion passion, and you can understand why people behaved in the way they did at the time. And with the advantage of hindsight, we can do what we're doing Dan, which is analyze it and see what the real pieces of the puzzle were and put them together again. As I say, getting back to what I mentioned a few minutes ago, it's so hard for the offspring of Fred, Rayla and Erna and to contemplate what the truth is.
Yes, let's use this as an opportunity to hear these messages in this investigation that you undertake for this book. I thought of you doing this and how you discover the true character.
Of someone you thought you knew their character.
Well, you think you think you know people, you think you're a judge of people, but really, do you really know what goes on in the once the bedroom door closes, if.
You like, And we don't.
I always say that it was my arrogance and Sally's arrogance that we thought we could evaluate the personality of this guy. We were one hundred and one percent wrong. Course, And I think it's an interesting point of debate. I'm sure there are people in your listening audience who have
found themselves in a similar boat. Oh sorry about boat, but who find themselves in a similar situation believing somebody told them the truth and then discovering that it was not the truth, it was a mythical fiction to suit their personalities. And I think this was the case. And you know, I've evalue I've tried to evaluate my own mind.
I mean, that's not important my own mind, but it does put me in the minds of the thousands of people that may be listening to you right now, who have had a similar set of circumstances, fortunately not to believe somebody who is their friend is a murderer, but certainly to discover that the person they thought they knew they never knew.
Really, speaking of people not understanding or not believing the person that they really were, we talk about Bill Fairfield, who described himself as the best friend of Fred Rayler, who stuck with him right through to the trial, but then was a character witness, so he let other more experienced attorneys and he did have a good defense team
to defend Fred Rayler. This person invested the money that Fred got despite this conviction, that over eight hundred thousand dollars was invested in things you write like cattle ranches, and that money grew and then interestingly again another example of his psychopathy was that he had sued his friend.
Can you tell us about that?
I mean, this is the I mean, this is talk about betrayal. Bill Fairfield was a good friend, a boating friend of a pal. Bill and his wife Donna were friends of Jean and they would go on boating trips and they would hang out together. And Bill was an expert civil lawyer, not a criminal lawyer. And Bill testified that it was he who told Fred Rayla to get
all this insurance. They were going on a trip, and Bill said, he said they were going on a trip to unknown Mexican waters, and he suggested that Fred get this life insurance. And he testified thus, and then is stuck by Fred. When Fred was convicted, he turned Freend's insurance money into a small fortune. And then what happens. Fred turns around and sues his longtime ally, his friend, his confidante, for mismanagement of funds, and the cases thrown out.
So Bill Fairfield did his best for his friend and then got kicked in the groin for doing it. And that kind of does indicate the personality of Frederick Rayler, who probably owes his life to Bill.
And Bill is unfortunately no longer with us.
And you know, it's another horrible piece of irony. And the other interesting thing is, can you believe that before the verdict came in, Bill Fairfield went to the insurance company and said, you have to pay my client is eight hundred on eight hundred thousand dollars life insurance. Otherwise when he is acquitted, we will sue the living daylights out of you, and the insurance company paid up before
the verdict came in. Wow, And that was all thanks to Bill Fairfield's arduous efforts to get them to pay off. And then then with that money they bought all the ranch property. So it's it is little quirks. And I think Bill Fairfield, until the last days of his life, believed to some extent that his friend was innocent. But then what became somewhat disenchanted when Fred Rayler decided to sue his pal. So there you go, it's another quirk in this bizarre story.
One last question about this. After all of this, what do you believe was the motive for the murder? Given all his property gains, what was the motive for murder in your mind?
Well, I think fred Rayler, it appears, was living above his means. After all, he bought a spiffing expensive yacht called the Perseverance, and that cost a lot of money and Fred Rayler was not earning a lot of money as an engineer working at Point Magoo Naval Base. And Fred Rayler decided he needed some extra income to finance his lifestyle. And although it sounds bizarre, this was his method modus operandi to get extra money to get life insurance.
I mean, you've got to delve into the mind of Fred Rayler, which we try and do a little bit, but to find out what makes him tick. And he's still ticking. And he's ticking in jail right now, where he's been for the last forty years, and his I say, long suffering children are trying still to get him out
on parole for medical reasons and stuff like that. And one little extra kicker I discovered in the last year the Fred Rayler is suing the warden of the jail in California where he lives, and he's suing them because apparently he was in a wheelchair and was being wheeled back to his prison cell and the wheelchair fell in a hole or something like that, and Fred Rayler was
tipped on his side and injured. And so Fred Rayler is suing the prison warden and the other residents employees of the jail for I'm not sure what, but he's suing them. So the beat goes on.
You're right that he was interviewed on a podcast called Lost Hills or some podcast. What did he state on that podcast.
Well, he did a terrific. There was a terrific podcast for Lost Hills, which and which. Again Fred Rayler wanted to try and prove that he was innocent after all these years and hope that maybe the podcast would get him out on parole. But I think I seem to recall, and it was a few years ago the podcaster concluded that Fred was not innocent. It came his efforts came
to nothing. But Fred Rayler is is persistent, and probably to this very day, as he sits in the law library at the jail in California, he's trying to come up with some way to get out on parole with a little help from his from his daughter. So the beat goes on. It's not over yet, and Fred Rayler is still around and doing what he seems to do quite well, if you call being in jail for life doing quite well.
Yes, success.
I want to thank you so much for coming on and talking about your extraordinary book, The Inside Story of a Malible Murder, The Devil in My Friend. For those people that might want to find out further about this, can you tell us about your website and let's talk about your previous books, especially the new edition of the Beatles and Me on Tour.
Well, this is a very different book, The Beatles and Me on Tour. You can get my books by going on to ivordavisbooks dot com. But the best way to get the book about Malibu, which is my latest, for our latest, it is the way probably to go on Amazon and order it that way. It seems like that it's the speediest way to do it.
You know.
My Beatle Book, which also came out in the year twenty twenty four, is my rehash if you like, a relook at my travelers with the Beatles, which was really fantastic experience. And then of course my books about Charles Manson worked about my personal experiences with Manson, the Manson family during the notorious murder, after the notorious murder spree that took the life of Sharon Tate, the beautiful actress who was the wife of Rome and Polanski, the famous director,
and a lot of other innocent people. So unfortunately or fortunately, my life has been enmeshed in murder, mayhem, and music, which is.
Not a bad combo.
I must prefer the music element to the murder and the mayhem. But and my Beatle Book, by the way, is a fun book. It's me recapturing an era sixty years ago today, nineteen sixty four, when I traveled with the Beatles and was George Harrison's ghostwriter, and never knew that today, sixty years later, the Beatles would be bigger than ever. So it's a real mishmash of stuff. As I said, music, murder, medicine and me. You know, I'm continuing to enjoy life and continuing to enjoy talking about
some of my work. I wish I didn't enjoy talking about the Mallible murders, but that's life, and we can't correct what's happened.
I don't think.
Yes, I want to thank you so much, mister Ivor Davis for coming on and talking about the inside story of a Mallible murder, the devil in my friend. Thank you so much for this interview, and you have a great evening and good night. Thank you, Dan, thank you