Friends Doubt Pair’s Death Was Murder-Suicide

One day after police termed the deaths of two San Diego school administrators a murder-suicide, friends and colleagues of the victims urged authorities not to “whitewash” the incident and demanded further investigation.

“We are not at all satisfied with the preliminary explanation provided by police. We think that conclusion is premature,” Herb Cawthorne, chief executive officer of the Black Federation, said Monday. “We don’t think the investigation should be hampered by someone’s immediate judgment. And we shouldn’t have a convenient whitewash of the situation.”

Cawthorne and others contend that San Diego police were too quick to label the deaths of George Frey and Elizabeth (Betty) Tomblin a murder-suicide. Cawthorne has called a press conference for today to discuss the case.

The bodies of Frey, a San Diego city schools assistant superintendent, and Tomblin, a district administrator, were found Sunday in Frey’s Oak Park home in the 2700 block of Blackton Drive. The pair had been shot to death.

A number of the pair’s colleagues and one high-ranking police official, all of whom asked for anonymity, said Frey and Tomblin had been romantically involved. Frey had been divorced three times and Tomblin was married.

“It’s a murder-suicide; all the evidence available to us indicates that very strongly,” police spokesman Dave Cohen said.

Asked about the purported romance, Cohen replied: “That’s not germane to our investigation.”

The high-ranking police official familiar with the investigation said Frey was “going with her for a couple of years” and that the two were breaking up.

“It looked like things were not going too well for them,” he said.

The official said he believes that Tomblin may have gone to Frey’s home to end the romance and that a fight erupted and he shot her. Frey then shot himself, the official speculated.

The bodies of Frey, 57, and Tomblin, 43, were found fully clothed at 12:20 a.m. along a short stairway leading to a sunken first-floor bedroom. Frey, shot in the head, was found fallen on top of Tomblin, who had also been shot in the head, according to the county coroner’s office.

A .22-caliber pistol was found by the bodies “where (Frey) would have dropped it,” the official said. There was no suicide note.

The house, well-kept and tidy, showed no signs of being burgled, police said, and the front door was ajar when they arrived.

Tomblin’s husband, Douglas, a Bonita veterinarian who lives in La Mesa, had notified police Friday night that his wife was missing, Cohen said. He filed another missing-person report with the Sheriff’s Department on Saturday morning.

A co-worker saw Tomblin’s car parked outside Frey’s house late Saturday, yelled into the house and then called the police, the police official said.

There were no signs that a third person had been in the house, the official said. He said he does not believe that Tomblin’s husband knew about the affair until after the killings and added that there are no suspects. Douglas Tomblin was unavailable for comment.

“As it stands right now, it’s a classic homicide-suicide,” the official said. “It would be a real shocker to me to find anything more than we already know.”

San Diego Unified School District Supt. Tom Payzant said he was unaware of the purported romance.

“What I am interested in is people’s ability to be competent in their jobs, and they have a right to their private lives,” he said.

Meanwhile, friends and colleagues say the police reached their conclusions too hastily.

“It just doesn’t fit,” said Walter Kudumu, a black community activist who first met Frey 20 years ago. “I know George as a person who runs every day. He fashioned his life style around longevity. The scenario police describe just doesn’t add up.”

Dorothy Smith, Frey’s longtime neighbor and a former school board president, agreed. Frey, an avid gardener, frequently brought gumbo and home-grown tomatoes over to her house, she said.

“I don’t believe that George Frey killed Betty Tomblin. And it would be impossible for him to commit suicide,” she said.

Frey is credited with propelling the integration of San Diego’s school system to national acclaim, Payzant and others said. Driven by what he saw as an imperative to improve the plight of minority students, he designed a number of programs, including an international baccalaureate honors program and a blueprint for rejuvenating Gompers Secondary School.

“He raised our integration program to a level we had not come close to before,” said Al Cook, another city school district assistant superintendent.

Frey, a skiing enthusiast who earned a salary of about $80,000 a year, was regarded as an outspoken man who enjoyed puttering around his home. Friends also say he was a “ladies’ man.” Last month, he took out a personal classified ad in The Times, saying his interests included: “Sand to snow, comedy to Shakespeare, San Diego to Paris.” In his ad, which ran four times, he said he was looking for a “prof’l self-sufficient female.”

Tomblin, who earned about $70,000 annually, was a reserved, poised woman who was meticulous about her work, colleagues say. She headed several research teams for the American Educational Research Foundation and participated with Frey at several educational conferences, speaking about tracking and evaluating youths.

“She was very polished, very mannered--just like a lady from another era,” school board President Kay Davis said.

“She developed a reputation for being very thorough,” Payzant said. “Betty was an excellent evaluator and a good leader.”