Ivor Davis and His Devilish Friend

“How does it feel to be/ One of the beautiful people?” John Lennon asked after his third visit to the chic, well-heeled Los Angeles suburbs. Having visited in “the land of the lovely” in 1964, 1965, and 1966 – meeting Peter Fonda, the Byrds, Jayne Mansfield, Peggy Lipton, and oh yes, Elvis (who was there in ’65 to make the film Paradise Hawaiian Style) – Lennon had experienced the lavish lifestyle of Bel Air, Malibu, and Hollywood. He had met the megastars. He had also made friends with a London transplant, a savvy, interesting foreign correspondent for the London Daily Express, Ivor Davis.

Ivor had traveled with The Beatles on their 1964 North American Tour and then, in 1965, Davis had joined them for the San Diego/Los Angeles legs of their second North American Tour. Affable and smart, Davis was selected to be one of only two reporters to go with The Beatles to meet Elvis Presley. Davis and Lennon both loved California – the lush land of celebrities, bougainvillea, sparkling pools, and champagne. But eventually, they both discovered that snakes lurk in the manicured shrubbery. Indeed, in the late 1970s, Davis encountered one of the most dangerous.

In his new book The Devil in My Friend: A Malibu Murder, Davis recounts the true story of his neighbor Fred Roehler, a clever Navy diver who, Davis reports, allegedly spent years defrauding insurance companies and convincing the Navy that he required worker’s compensation for a serious back injury even as he was constructing a massive rock retaining wall for his neighborhood.

Some years before, Roehler’s first wife, Jeanne, had drowned in her backyard pool under suspicious circumstances. And then on January 2, 1981, his second wife Verna and young stepson Douglas – both recently and heavily insured – drowned in a boating accident off Santa Cruz Island, off the coast of Santa Barbara, with Roehler. This story, if fiction, would be too gruesome to read. But because every word is thoroughly documented by Ivor Davis and his wife, the late Sally Ogle Davis, The Devil in My Friend is a gripping read.

Ivor Davis’s journalistic career spans 60 years. He interviewed (and was close friends) with Muhammed Ali, Steve McQueen, and Elizabeth Taylor. He traveled with Robert Kennedy and was only feet away from Kennedy in the kitchen when he was shot. Davis was one of Reagan’s “Boys on the Bus.” And his book Five to Die, covering the Charles Manson murders, was so accurate that it was accepted into court evidence during the Manson trial. His reputation for painstaking investigation and thorough coverage of a story is almost unparalleled. But to my way of thinking, in The Devil in My Friend, Davis is at his best.

He sets the stage by taking you into the hip beach community that Ali McGraw (and Ivor and Sally Davis) called home – where wearing the right clothes, traveling in the right set, and owning the right boat made all the difference. He introduces you to Fred Roehler’s family of origin, his closest friends, and his work associates. Ivor – whom Roehler assisted in coaching Ivor’s son’s soccer league – gives a very human glimpses of Roehler interacting with “the beautiful people” of the Malibu jet set. You meet Roehler’s mother-in-law, Camelia or “Cam,” who adores Fred. You get to know Roehler’s lawyer and best friend, William Fairfield. And like Ivor Davis, you find the affable, athletic diver to be one heck of a guy.

But when the dory that Roehler, his wife, and his stepson were in capsizes on 2 January, and the strong and accomplished swimmer can’t save them…when questions begin to arise about the sizeable insurance payoffs on the lives of Roehler’s wife and stepson…and when Roehler is arrested on suspicion of murder, you begin to wonder if there might be more to the story.

Trust me, there is.

Both Ivor and his wife Sally knew Roehler well prior to the deaths of Verna and Douglas, and they firmly believed in his innocence. They attended every day of Roehler’s trial as part of “Team Fred” and were shocked at the outcome. However, in the months following Fred’s conviction, things began to change. As the Davises offered to help Fred put things right, they were given “all of Fred’s personal records…dating back to college, photographs, interview tapes, and transcripts.” The couple began to routinely travel the 800 miles (round-trip) to Folsom State Prison to speak with Fred and gather evidence on his behalf. But the more the Davises delved into the details of the double murders, the more bewildered they became. “The more time we spent with [Fred],” Davis reports, “the harder it became to ignore the growing list of contradictions in Fred’s story.”

Still determined to help their friend, Sally and Ivor began interviewing Roehler’s work associates. They canvassed his friends. They investigated the death of Fred’s first wife Jeanne. They even flew to Roehler’s hometown of Centreville, Indiana to interview his childhood teachers, neighbors, and long-time acquaintances. And in almost every interview they conducted, the opinion of one Centreville neighbor was repeated over and over: “‘If there was money in it,’ the neighbor said flatly, ‘he did it.’” Bit by bit, a gruesome picture of guilt was beginning to emerge…one that had been very artfully concealed. And that is the intriguing story of this book.

I did not sleep for four nights after beginning The Devil in My Friend. It’s the sort of book that makes you bargain with yourself, “Five more pages and then I’ll go to sleep…Okay, one more chapter, and that’s it!” You literally cannot put it down.

I have read all of Davis’s books including his updated version of Manson Exposed, filling the reader in on what has transpired in the last 50 years. In my role as a John Lennon biographer, I’ve read Davis’s phenomenal The Beatles and Me On Tour and his recent 60^th Anniversary Edition, which has a considerable amount of new information. But without a doubt, The Devil in My Friend: The Inside Story of a Malibu Murder is his best book to date. It is magnificently researched, very well-written, and compelling. It is also a vivid reminder that “the beautiful people” can be mere sham and show.

-Jude Kessler

Photo: A beach in Malibu, CA  (Ryan Hallock via Wikimedia Commons)

You can meet Ivor Davis Aug. 9-11 at the Fest for Beatles Fans in Chicago. Or connect here.

Follow him on social media: https://www.facebook.com/ivor.davis.395

On X: @idavisbeatles.com