**Robert Riggs**
How well do we truly know our friends? Can we tell if they are lying? Could a close friend actually be a stone-cold killer?
London-born Ivor Davis, a former foreign correspondent, and his wife Sally, a former BBC anchor, had the journalist’s advantage in spotting deception.
Yet, they still learned the brutal truth about a close friend.
Their book, The Devil In My Friend, unfolds in Malibu, California.
**Ivor Davis**
Malibu in the 70s was a hot spot. I mean, there was Larry Hagman, there was Steve McQueen, there was Ali McGraw, and all the famous star Jane Fonda. And then husband, Roger Vadim. They were our neighbors. And so, if you were an ordinary guy like me, and like my friend, Fred Roehler, you kind of felt not out of it, but certainly you lead your own life. So we're, we're normal people like us. And, and it was a it was an achievement. People showed off a lot. And what I liked about Fred Roehler was he was not a show off. It seemed to me, he drove around in a battered old car. He wore gloves, no socks, and he seemed to be so down to earth.
**Robert Riggs**
Fred Roehler's marriage to Verna Johnson on the beach in Malibu, California, on Christmas Eve, 1977, appeared to be a fairy tale ending to two tragic stories.
Verna had been widowed two years earlier, left to care for her two children, Kimberly, eight, and Douglas, five. Her husband had suffered from depression and jumped off the seventh story of a building in Los Angeles.
Fred, too, was a widower, having lost his first wife, Jeanne, a flight attendant, just over a year before. He was raising their two children, Heidi, seven, and Kirsten, three, on his own. Jeanne had drowned in their backyard pool, a tragedy that unfolded in October 1976, six years after they were married.
On that fateful night, neighbors rushed to Fred's late-night cry for help. They found him crouched beside the pool, desperately giving his lifeless wife mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Jeanne was declared brain-dead five days later, and Fred made the heart-wrenching decision to donate her vital organs to Stanford Medical Center. Her life support was then turned off.
The police concluded that Jeanne had likely fallen into the pool while drunk. However, some of Jeanne's friends, aware that she had been contemplating a divorce, harbored suspicions of foul play.
Fred staged an elaborate funeral ceremony on a chartered boat for fifty people, where he emptied her ashes from a small urn over the ship's bow. Guests drank to her memory, tossing their wine glasses and long-stem roses into the water.
Among the guests was Verna Johnson, the woman who would soon become his wife. Their relationship began two weeks after the funeral.
Davis and his wife had known Verna for ten years. She had been a teacher’s aide at their children’s school.
According to Davis, Verna was a sunny, all-American woman in her early 30s. She was tanned, athletic, cute, and sexy. She reminded him of a cross between Natalie Wood and Farrah Fawcett.
Fred Roehler was husky, barrel-chested, six feet two inches tall, with 190 pounds of muscle, curly black hair, a burly black beard, and piercing pale blue eyes.
He was a marine engineer and deep-sea diver. He worked as a civilian consultant for the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Test Center.
**Ivor Davis**
When Fred Roehler became that handsome hunk of a widower, all the women who were around Malibu fancied him. I mean, he was a good looking guy, was strapping guy, and a bright guy. I mean, he looked like a Hollywood hunk. And a lot of women went after him. After they knew that his wife had died. They didn't know the background, after after his first wife died. He was he was a he was a hot catch, and used to take the kids to the nursery school. And then women used to say, Oh, what a great guy is on a wonderful father. He is, you know, wish my husband was like that. So Fred Roehler was considered, you know, prime real estate, I mean, not not quite that but but was was a hunk in Malibu, and then when he married Verna, everybody said, Whoa, isn't this wonderful? Love, love true love at last.
**Robert Riggs**
The Malibu community affectionately nicknamed the blended family of six “The Brady Bunch.”
The Roehler family seemed picture-perfect to outsiders, reminiscent of the popular Brady Bunch TV series that had debuted in 1969.
**Ivor Davis**
And he came to me one day, and I knew what had happened. I knew that he was a widower, and his wife, Verna was a widow. And he had a new stepson because, you know, the gossip was, you know, he'd lost they both lost their spouses. And he said, either, you are the coach of the Malibu Lions kids soccer team. I want to get close to my new son, my stepson, Douglas. And can I be your assistant coach? Well, I mean, of course, of course, I said, I welcomed him warmly. He was terrific. He was wonderful as an assistant coach. He came up to every game even though he knew nothing about soccer. He was terrific. So I got to know him very well. His son was the same age as son, age eight was the same age as my son, Gideon. And we went to birthday parties, and we knew it was a small community, Malibu, and everybody sort of knew everybody else's business. So that was it. And then, I just jumped forward. And then one day, like, I would say, this was in the 70s. It New Year's Day 1981. I pick up the paper, and I see that Fred Roehler had been out in the Channel Islands of Santa Cruz Island with his new wife, Verner, and his stepson Douglas. And they're dead in a terrible boating accident. Fred survives, he's rescued. He's taken to hospital. And it's terrible. I mean that the whole, the whole Malibu, the whole Malibu is in tears.
**Robert Riggs**
Fred Roehler had purchased a 150,000 dollar, 50-foot yacht named the Perseverance with plans to take his children out of school for a six-month sailing trip around the world.
On January 2, 1981, Fred set sail with his wife, their four children, his parents, his youngest brother and wife, and a new Beagle puppy named Lady. The kids had just received the pup for Christmas. They embarked on a three-hour sailing excursion to Santa Cruz Island.
The seas around the Channel Islands were cold, deep, and unpredictable at this time of year. However, Fred Roehler was well-acquainted with these waters. He had dived for lobster here and extensively trained with the U.S. Navy around the chain of islands.
Once anchored, Roehler, his wife Verna, his stepson Douglas, and the Beagle pup climbed into an inflatable rubber dinghy and headed to Bird Rock.
**Ivor Davis**
Fred said, They went out to Santa Cruz Island to take pictures of a place called Bird Rock, and it's called Bird Rock because it's covered in white shit from birds. And it's a real, I mean, it's not a tourist attraction, but it's there. And Fred went out to see them to see it and went to with a new beagle puppy, Lady, and he took the Lady. He took Verna. He took Douglas in his little rubber dinghy called a Dory. And he said what happened was, the young Puppy jumped at a seagull, and Fred tried to grab the dog. And when he grabbed the dog, the dinghy overturned and he was trapped by his camera strap under the dinghy. When he came up to the surface, he saw Douglas and Verna struggling on their face. Now they weren’t breathing he said. He grabbed one in one hand. He grabbed Douglas in the other hand. He managed to swim to Bird Rock with the dog on his head, okay, on his head on his head. And he managed to push the dog up onto the rocks to safety. And last, Verna and Douglas died, the dog survived. And it sounds like a heroic father trying to do what's best.
**Robert Riggs**
The crew of a passing yacht named the Sound of Music heard Roehler’s cries for help.
They spotted a human figure bobbing in the water.
Roehler grasped his wife and stepson in his arms.
The Sound of Music crew threw a lifeline and pulled the trio aboard.
Eight-year-old Douglas wore a securely fastened orange life vest that showed no signs of damage or waterlogging. However, he was ghostly pale with a bluish hue, like the appearance of his mother, Verna.
The crew administered CPR. Verna and Douglas expelled water from their lungs but did not regain consciousness.
The Coast Guard responded to a May Day distress call. Rescuers airlifted the trio to shore. But Verna and Douglas had flatlined.
Fred Roehler emerged from the ordeal physically unscathed but appeared to be in a zombie-like state, unable to speak.
The following morning, Roehler, now twice a widower in five years, summoned his three daughters to his hospital room and broke the devastating news. He told them that all he could remember was the Beagle pup, Lady, jumping out of the dinghy.
Roehler assured his daughters that no one was at fault, saying, “God must have been ready for Mother and Doug.”
**Robert Riggs**
Four days later, Candy Hinman called the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department.
She told an official that she was the neighbor in Malibu of Fred Roehler, whose wife and stepson had drowned off the coast of Santa Barbara County.
And that she had been a close friend of Roehler's first wife, Jeanne, who had drowned in their backyard swimming pool.
Hinman gave a calm, methodical description of the events. She declared, “This guy murdered his first wife. Are you going to let him get away with this one too?”
**Ivor Davis**
And then, believe it or not, three months later, I pick up the paper and see that Fred Roehler has been arrested for their murder. And the reason he was arrested for their murder was he collected $750,000 life insurance on Douglas, the boy, and his late wife. And the cops arrested him.
I must say that, that I believed he was innocent. I believed he was a man whose tragedy struck twice. And that's life. So that that was Malibu then.
**Robert Riggs**
After a three-month murder investigation, Fred Roehler stood trial for two counts of murder. If convicted, he faced the possibility of execution in the gas chamber. —--------------------------
**Ivor Davis**
And, and I thought here is a good guy. This, you know, this is a terrible injustice. And then, as I said, we went to the trial which took place in Santa Barbara, California, because Santa Cruz Island is off the coast of Malibu is off the coast of Ventura is off the coast of Santa Barbara. But police jurisdiction and you know all about that is Santa Barbara sheriff's. And the Santa Barbara sheriff's arrested Fred, and came up with this. This murder for insurance is sort of Double Indemnity if I remember that movie.
**Robert Riggs**
Davis and his wife Sally were so confident that their friend was innocent that they advised Roehler’s lawyers on how to defend him.
They attended the trial. Testified on his behalf.
They let Roehler’s family stay in their home during the trial.
They regularly communicated with Roehler in jail.
It was a high profile murder for profit trial prosecuted by Stanley Roden, the hard-nosed, aggressive Santa Barbara District Attorney.
The eleven-month trial became a slugfest between forensic and medical experts as each side tried to discredit circumstantial evidence and poke holes in stories.
Prosecution witnesses argued that bruises on the victim's heads were caused by Roehler knocking them out with a wooden oar from the dinghy.
Defense experts countered that it was caused by bumping the side of the yacht that had rescued them.
The damning evidence that moved the jury was life insurance payouts.
Roehler received more than eight hundred thousand dollars in life insurance payments for the deaths of his wife and stepson.
He had made the final payment on that life insurance policy just four days before the mother and son drowned at Bird Rock.
Against the advice of his lawyers, Roehler took the stand in his own defense.
**Ivor Davis**
I think when Fred Roehler insisted that he, first of all, he wants you to do his own opening statement that shows you about him. And the lawyer said Fred, we will do the opening statement; that's what we're here to do. And then at the end of it, they all said, Fred, do not testify. Fred said, I am testifying. And he went up against Stanley Roden, the brilliantly dogged Santa Barbara district attorney who was prosecuting, and, and it was a it was a bit of a shitshow.
**Robert Riggs**
The murder case went to the jury on May 3rd,1982, on the one-hundredth day of the trial.
The jury had heard from seventy witnesses and seen 392 exhibits.
The trial proceedings were recorded in 7,495 pages of testimony, at total cost to the prosecution and defense of almost two million dollars.
The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated for seven days.
They convicted Roehler for multiple murders and murder for profit of his wife, Verna.
**Ivor Davis**
And when he was found guilty, I was in shock. And my late wife, Sally were in shock. And we said, we are going to find out the truth. And when we do we will discover that I'm sure that Fred is an innocent man.
**Robert Riggs**
In the punishment phase of the trial, Roehler faced execution in the gas chamber.
64 character witnesses, including Davis, told the jury that Fred Roehler was the perfect husband, a great father, and an upstanding member of the community.
Roehler insisted on showing the 18-minute film of his beach wedding to Verna in Malibu.
The minister who performed the ceremony narrated the film.
But it was not a fairytale marriage. Roehler had persuaded his wife not to officially register their marriage so she could continue to receive her late husband’s pension.
His three young daughters, with pink bows in their hair, sobbed as they begged the jury to spare their father’s life.
**Ivor Davis**
And he showed wedding photos and wedding movies. And he even got his young daughters to come on the stand and testify in his defense. I mean, and I want to tell you, we were all in tears. When the girls got out there were kids. And they were saying don't send my dad, the gas chamber, blah, blah, blah.
**Robert Riggs**
At the end of the ten-day punishment hearing, the jury sentenced Roehler to life without the possibility of parole.
Davis thought his friend had been wrongfully convicted.
His family started visiting Roehler at Folsom Prison, which was made famous by Johnny Cash’s iconic song, “Folsom Prison Blues.”
**Ivor Davis**
When we would go up to Folsom to visit him when I took my kids to see him because they knew him. And we sat in this awful exercise yard, on horrible benches. The kids were there. Why I took them, I don't know. I took them because I thought he would be nice to see them.
**Robert Riggs**
During the trial, Ivor and his wife Sally decided to write a book about the case, believing it to be a gross miscarriage of justice.
**Ivor Davis**
We said to Fred, we want to do a book, we think you're innocent. And then after he was convicted, he called us up and said, go ahead and do your book. And so because he had nothing to lose, so I said, we're going to do the book. Now Sally and I are going to do the book. Now. We need some people who you should talk to.
**Robert Riggs**
Davis and his wife traveled to Centerville, Indiana, Roehler's hometown, convinced that his character and background would disprove any notion that he was capable of murder.
**Ivor Davis**
But then I dug deeper, as you as an investigative reporter know, and when you dig deeper, you find facts that really change your mind. And I must tell you, there was an aha moment in this whole thing. And I call it that because what happened was, I went back to his hometown in Indiana, and spoke to the people that he said, would tell me the truth about the family. When I got back there. I went to see his parents. And then I went to school friends and girlfriends and other friends. And they all said the same thing. They said, if there was a dollar in it, Fred Roehler did it. And in fact, they wouldn't speak to me at first, because they thought that I was a private investigator trying to get Fred out of jail. But when I promised that I would not quote them by name, they opened up to me, and they told me, Fred Roehler and insurance and Fred Roehler’s family Insurance. It was like a common denominator. In Indiana, a boat burned in Indiana, as did a house. Guest house burned in Indiana, Something else burned, and they and the dad collected insurance. And guess what, Robert? In Malibu, a houseboat burned, a guest house burned, a car suddenly caught fire mysteriously. And on each occasion, Fred Roehler collected money. And so I guess the jump from inanimate objects insurance claims to real-life people was an easy one for him. And also he bought himself a large yacht, and he didn't earn much money as an engineer. So all those little elements, you know, as an investigative reporter, you pull them all together, and you go, Oh, my God, and the back of, the hairs on the back of my neck go crazy. I think with Sally, I say, Fred did it. He did it. But the idea and you will understand, you deal with so many criminals and police who deal with criminals, the idea of jumping from a burnt boat to a burnt car to a human being, a boy, the same age as my own son. Seems intolerable. Unbelievable, but that's what happened.
**Robert Riggs**
But it was all an insurance scam for life insurance.
**Ivor Davis**
I mean, it was an insurance scam. So I mean, what goes on? You know, I'm gonna throw the question back to you, if I may. Robert, you tell me you've dealt with these criminals in your career, you know, sociopaths, maybe not the moment you see them and talk to them. What what is it in their brain that makes them different to you and I?
**Robert Riggs**
I know this, they can be very, very charming. And they're, but they're predators. They know really how to assess how to manipulate you, what interests you what your weaknesses are. And they have no compassion or no remorse, about manipulation or killing you. Yes.
**Ivor Davis**
Well, can I just interrupt, it's funny, you should say that you've just hit the nail on the head. I have got letters that he wrote to me, I've got letters that he wrote to six to eight different people. And there is a different person writing a letter to each of these people. I mean, if you're into water polo, or if you're into baseball, he would write you about water polo and baseball. But this was not. I mean, this is a guy with six to 10 to 12, different personalities. And my letters were all about things that that I liked, he knew, and you just write a letter based on that. And so now that we're talking, some of it is coming clear, because, you know, he was, I mean, what's your split personality? Are these are these killers that you know about? And so well? Are they split personalities? All the things you mentioned a few minutes ago, are truthful. But what do you think?
Oh, I don't think they're split personalities. I think that they, they know what they're doing. And I've dealt with many of them.
**Robert Riggs**
Oh, I don't think they're split personalities. I think that they, they know what they're doing. And I've dealt with many of them.
**Robert Riggs**
Roehler did not like what Davis had learned about his background. He demanded transcripts of all of the interviews.
Davis refused and Roehler terminated any future contact.
**Ivor Davis**
1912
I and my wife Sally were stupid, really, we should have seen it. It's always easy to say, after the fact, that you are because the things that I liked about him and I testified in his penalty phase, what a great guy he was. I mean, I was a witness. So when I went back and found out he wasn't such a great guy that his family were, were believed to be con people for the reasons I've explained insurance. And then we realized that he learned all he knew about insurance claims, and Double Indemnity and all that kind of stuff from his father, who, who also collected so we came back with a totally different attitude. And then we dug a bit more deeply. And we went through the court records and discovered so much more than we ever knew. For example, his first wife's death. We thought it was an accident, but it was not. And there was so much we discovered on that trip that didn't add up to our belief that he was an innocent man. And that's what happened. And we and he knew it. He knew it. So as soon as you know it, he cut us off.
**Robert Riggs**
You were a reporter. And so you see detectives open this case doggedly on him. What was going on in your mind at the time that like, what, did you ever say yourself? What am I missing here? What are they seeing that I'm not seeing?
**Ivor Davis**
You know, I mean, the detectives were dogged. The detectives were thorough. The detectives went back three or four times, three times, at least, to see him and talk to him again. And then. And then Fred kind of treated them well. He offered them drinks and a tea and coffee. And if you listen to the transcripts, Fred also cries at the right time, listens. I wasn't in on the interior of interrogation, of course. And then you can see that these cops know something more than I do. Because I only saw, I realized the skin of the game. And once you dig into the skin, you find that things are rotten in the state of Malibu for Fred Roehler. So, you know, the cops, and they had no emotional attachment and I did. You know kids, we had that same kids, we were friends, birthday parties, we thought we knew him. We were wrong.
**Robert Riggs**
Davis returned to the scene of the drowning at Bird Rock on Santa Cruz Island.
The prosecution argued that Roehler had struck his wife and stepson with the dinghy’s wooden oars, rendering them unconscious.
However, Davis holds a different theory about what transpired that day.
**Ivor Davis**
Fred Roehler was a deep sea diver who made his career setting cables undersea. He knew the waters out there. He knew the territory like the back of his hand. He had, he was an incredible diver. So I don't think he hit them with oars. I think what he did was, and I went out there myself and swam twice to see how serious, how bad it was. I think he just, and it sounds awful. He just grabbed them both. And he took them under the water. And his breathing capacity, he is a very powerful man. And when he realized they were unconscious, he came up. And he basically then waited to be rescued.
**Robert Riggs**
Davis also discovered that life inside the Roehler household was far from perfect.
He says Roeher had a nasty personality and a bad temper behind closed doors.
Roehler had a troubled relationship with his eight-year-old stepson Doug, who he was convicted of drowning.
**Ivor Davis**
A woman when my book came out, one of Verna’s best friends, called me and said, I knew he was a killer from the moment I saw him. He was a dictator in the family. He terrorized his first wife. And he would not divorce his first wife. And this was a woman who was a babysitter for both families. So she knew him well. So she told me she knew that he was guilty. But there were a lot of people who didn't. A lot of people who is who were staunch defenders, and even today, I think still his daughters believe he’s innocent and they've tried to get him out on parole many times for health reasons. So he has he does have a small, a small coterie of people who believe he was innocent. But I think most people now believe it was as guilty as hell.
**Robert Riggs**
In December 2015, Roehler’s two biological daughters started a petition on Change dot org urging then-California Governor Jerry Brown to free their father.
Brown did not grant clemency. 1,234 people signed in support of the petition before it was closed.
Fred Roehler as of 2024 is 81 years old and incarcerated at the California State Prison in Los Angeles County.
He is not eligible for parole.
**Robert Riggs**
Roehler sued the prison system in February 2024 for one million dollars in damages for injuries suffered in a wheelchair accident.
After receiving kidney surgery, his wheelchair hit a bump as guards escorted Roehler back to his cell.
Roehler alleged that the accident left him with four hernias that required surgery.
The case continues.
**Ivor Davis**
And every time I think about it, I think poor Douglas, great kid, beautiful boy. He's no longer with us because his life was snuffed out so early, and Verna was a lovely lady. She was a kindergarten she taught our kids in kindergarten, Verna, his wife, Jean, I didn't know but Verna his wife was charming. And that's why the fairy tale story of a woman who whose husband had died. And and man whose wife had died getting together. They're unified families seems like a Hollywood happy ending. Well, it wasn't.
