Records Released on Murder-Suicide

San Diego school administrator George Frey left detailed instructions for his daughter on how to handle his personal affairs after his death, including leaving her several packets with photographs to mail to the husband of his longtime lover and colleague, Elizabeth (Betty) Tomblin, according to police records released Thursday.

Tomblin, 43, and Frey, 57, were found shot to death in Frey’s home in March in a murder-suicide that rocked the school and the black community. After a preliminary investigation, police surmised that Frey, an assistant superintendent, shot Tomblin twice, then turned the gun on himself.

A manual for the .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol that was used, along with several boxes of bullets, was on the night table of the bedroom of the Oak Park home.

Police records released Thursday depict Frey as a moody, private man, who frequently dated women but was obsessed with Tomblin. Frey’s friends told police they believed he had been involved with Tomblin since 1984--the same year she separated for six months from her husband, Dr. Douglas Tomblin, a Bonita veterinarian who lives in Chula Vista.

Tomblin and Frey had “a very heavy-duty relationship,” said George H. Russell, a colleague and friend quoted in police records.

Because of their work, Tomblin, who directed the San Diego Unified School District’s program evaluations department, and Frey met frequently and traveled together. Of the 12 overnight trips Tomblin took from 1985 to 1989, Frey accompanied her on seven, according to school records obtained by The Times.

On six of those trips, Tomblin and Frey charged the district for one hotel room. The expense records for three trips--to Bellevue, Wash.; Jackson, Miss., and Washington, D.C.--were approved by Frey, who was not Tomblin’s immediate boss but was a higher-ranking school official in charge of the district’s community relations and integration programs.

“I cannot imagine our folks would question that. Sometimes expenses are limited or sometimes people stay with a friend, but we are only going to pay what is appropriate,” said Howard Davis, the district’s budget management director. “We are not going to question a missing expense. They didn’t look out of the ordinary.”

Frey’s friends say he was frustrated at not being able to be more open about his relationship with Tomblin. Over the years, the two had taken several ski trips together, including a 10-day vacation to Innsbruck, Austria. They made the trip along with 25 members of a ski club organized by the school district. However, Tomblin and Frey stayed in a separate village from the group and skied different slopes.

Many co-workers who knew the pair say they did not realize the two were romantically involved. Barbara Montoya, who had worked as Tomblin’s secretary for almost five years, told police she did not know about the romance because Tomblin--like Frey--treasured her privacy.

“Betty was an extremely private person,” Montoya told police, according to records.

Douglas Tomblin also was unaware of the relationship, according to records. As police drove him to headquarters after his wife’s body had been found by officers, he was distraught and crying, the records say.

He told police he was totally unaware of any relationship between his wife and Frey, whom he had never met. He also told police that, during his six-month separation from his wife, the two had agreed not to see anyone else.

But, during that six-month period, he said, he had gotten “an anonymous letter from someone that said that they had seen my wife in a parking lot with a black man, and it didn’t look friendly,” according to records. When he asked his wife about the incident, she said she had gone to a play with a friend.

After they were reunited, the Tomblins frequently traveled together, and many of their friends thought they were happy, records say. Montoya told police that Douglas Tomblin usually called his wife twice a day to chat.

Frey left instructions for his daughter in a safe in his home regarding his personal effects after his death, including contacting Douglas Tomblin, records show.

The safe contained one envelope and one shoebox-size package addressed to Douglas Tomblin, and Frey had attached a note to his daughter on each envelope. One said: “Please do not open this. Mail it for me. Dad. I’m sorry.”

On a sheet of 8-by-11-inch notebook paper, he instructed his daughter: “Make sure to collect my pay and vacation time at work. Money at the credit union is in your name. Insurance should pay for my cremation. Please do not have any service for me. Do not invite other family members or friends. Have my ashes dumped or spread at sea.”

Police, concerned about the contents of the envelopes addressed to Douglas Tomblin, called in bomb-detection experts. The parcels addressed to him contained photographs and writings but no explosives. Police have not further described the contents of the parcels, or whether they were give to Tomblin.

The violence that took place in March apparently was not the first indication of Frey’s ill temper when he had been frustrated in a relationship.

Police records say that Frey, who was married three times, had also become violent in his relationship with his third wife, Linda.

Linda Frey “was just not happy. George was not any easy man to live with. She was afraid. . . . The last few months they were married, she was really afraid,” said Theo Snell, a neighbor who had known the family for almost 20 years, according to the records.

“She did confide in me that he tried to strangle her. . . . She said the relationship had reached a point where she was very afraid,” Snell told police.

Linda Frey had also told a friend, Dolly Young, that she sought a divorce because “I just can’t take it anymore.” Young, a friend of the Freys for more than 10 years, told police: “I thought she was referring to him having extramarital affairs. I’ve heard rumors that he was a womanizer.”

In a police interview, Linda Frey said she had found a list of women with whom Frey had had sex. The list was in his file cabinet.

Others spoke of Frey’s apparent dark side, including occasions when he hit Linda.

“He hit her a couple of times and cheated on her while she was pregnant,” a longtime friend, Carolyn Rodefer, told police.

Stanley Rodefer agreed. He, along with his wife, had known Frey more than 10 years.

“Women were his problem,” Rodefer said.

But others saw none of this, the records show. Instead, they saw him as a man who loved fishing, gumbo and had dedicated his life to improving the plight of underprivileged children.

The evening before his death, friend Eva Williams told police that she had spoken with Frey and scheduled a fishing trip.

“He said he wasn’t sure whether or not he could make the trip,” Williams said, “but told me to hold the spot on the boat as long as I could.”