August 5th, 2009 marked 40 years after the Charles Manson murders. He is now 74 years old and will surely remain in prison for the rest of his days.
According to an NPR (National Public Radio) article that was released on the 5th, director John Waters actually attended the Manson trials. John Waters is known for his direction of Hair Spray and Pink Flamingos. He states that he noticed some similarities between himself and the Manson followers. While he too felt lost at times, he says he felt lucky enough to have film making as an outlet. "I wanted to figure out what happened and how these kids, who were very much like my friends from my neighborhoods ... ended up doing something [like this]," he said in an interview. "It always fascinated me how these people under the control of one real madman could do this."
At one point Waters contacted "family" member Leslie Van Houten and requested that he interview her for Rolling Stone magazine. She denied his request as she felt ashamed of her participation in the murders and did not want to publicize her story. Houten was 19 years of age at the time. Despite her rejection of the interview she and Waters have remained friends.
To date Houten has been denied parole 16 times. Waters is so moved by her strength that he has
devoted a chapter to her in his upcoming book, Role Models.
"I do believe in rehabilitation, Waters says, Leslie has taken responsibility, and she has followed the rules."
(npr.com)
Waters posted an exerpt of the chapter from his book on the Huffington Post. I am posting it here....
I have a really good friend who was convicted of killing two innocent people when she was nineteen years old on a horrible night of 1969 cult madness. Her name is Leslie Van Houten and I think you would like her as much as I do. She was one of those notorious "Manson girls" who shaved their heads, carved X's in their foreheads and laughed, joked, and sang their way through the courthouse straight to death row without the slightest trace of remorse forty years ago. Leslie is hardly a "Manson girl" today. Sixty years old, she looks back from prison on her involvement in the La Bianca murders (the night after the Tate massacre) in utter horror, shame, and guilt and takes full responsibility for her part in the crimes. I think it's time to parole her.
I am guilty, too. Guilty of using the Manson murders in a jokey, smart-ass way in my earlier films without the slightest feeling for the victims' families or the lives of the brainwashed Manson killer kids who were also victims in this sad and terrible case. I became obsessed by the Sharon Tate murders from the day I read about them on the front page of the New York Times in 1969 as I worked behind the counter of the Provincetown Book Shop. Later, when the cops finally caught the hippy killers and I actually saw their photos ("Arrest Weirdo in Tate Murders", screamed the New York Daily News headlines) I almost went into cardiac arrest. God! The Manson Family looked just like my friends at the time! Charles "Tex" Watson, a deranged but handsome preppy "head" who reminded me of Jimmy, the frat-boy-gone-bad pot-dealer I had the hots for in Catholic high school, the guy who sold me my first joint. There was Susan Atkins, a.k.a. Sadie Mae Glutz, devil go-go girl, with an LSD sense of humor just like Mink Stole's sister Mary (nickname: "Sick") whom I lived with at the time in Provincetown in a commune in a tree fort. And look at Patricia Krenwinkle, a.k.a. Katie, a flower-child earth-mother just like Flo-Ann who squatted with us that wonderful summer on Cape Cod. And, of course, my favorite, Leslie Van Houten, a.k.a. Lulu, "the pretty one". The homecoming princess from suburbia who gave up her title for acid. The all-American girl who went beyond insanity to unhinged criminal glamour just like Mona, my last girlfriend, who took LSD and shoplifted and starred in my underground movies all under my influence. Until, that is, the day she caught me in bed with a man (who looked kind of like Steve "Clem" Grogan, another Manson fanatic) and dumped the contents of an entire garbage can on us as we lay sleeping.
"The Manson Family" were the hippies all our parents were scared we'd turn into if we didn't stop taking drugs. The "slippies", as Manson later called his followers, the insane ones who didn't understand the humor in Yippie Abbie Hoffman's fiery speeches on his college lecture tours when he told the stoned, revolutionary-for-the-hell-of-it students to "kill their parents". Yes, Charlie's posse were the real anarchists who went beyond the radical SDS group's call to "Bring the War Home". Beyond blowing up their parents' townhouses, draft boards, even the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Sure, my friends went to riots every weekend in different cities in the '60s to get laid or get high, just like kids went to "raves" decades later. But, God, this was a cultural war, not a real one and the survivors of this time now realize we were in a "play" revolution, no matter what we spouted. But the Manson Family! Yikes! Here was the real thing -- "punk" a decade too early. Dare I say it? Yes, the filthiest people alive.
Even before the Manson Family had been caught, "The Dreamlanders", my gang of actors, took credit for the Tate/La Bianca crimes in a $5,000-budgeted movie entitled Multiple Maniacs which I wrote, directed and shot in Baltimore in the fall of 1969. Divine's character tortures David Lochary's with knowledge of the murders. "How about Sharon Tate?" she threatens, "How about THAT?!" "I told you never to mention that again!" David pleads but Divine won't let it go. "Had yourself a real ball that night, didn't you?!" she chortles. "Who's Sharon Tate?" Divine's dimwitted but studly teenage bodyguard character "Ricky" asks. "It doesn't matter, darling," Divine coos lecherously, dismissing his nosiness, "go fix yourself a sandwich."
Later, after Manson was arrested, I drove across the country for the first time in my life to Los Angeles for the California premiere of Multiple Maniacs and the next day began attending the insane LSD media-circus Manson trial which I've never really gotten over. After Manson and the three girls were convicted of the Tate/ La Bianca murders and sentenced to death, my rabid following of the subsequent but much lesser-known Manson-related trials never ceased. I needed to know more. How had these kids, from backgrounds so similar to mine, committed in real life the awful crimes against peace and love that we were acting out for comedy in our films?
In late 1971, still free, second-tiered Manson Family members robbed the Western Surplus Store in the suburbs of Los Angeles and stole 14 guns (supposedly to break Manson out of jail) and a shoot-out with the police occurred. All six robbers were arrested. At their trial, many members of Manson royalty, now awaiting the promised Helter Skelter end of the world from death row, were called as witnesses by the robber defendants so they could have a courtroom reunion of sorts. The nervous trial judge called the proceedings "the biggest collection of murderers in Los Angeles County at one time". There were only two court spectators the day I went to a pre-trial hearing; myself and a lower-echelon Manson groupie with a shaved head and a fresh X carved in her forehead who was furiously writing what looked like a thirty-page letter to one of her "brothers". When about fifteen of the Manson Family were brought into court, hand-cuffed and chained together, women on one side and men on the other, many with their heads shaved, the atmosphere was electric with twisted evil beauty. Not having seen each other in about a year, the cultists started chanting, jerkily gesturing, and speaking to one another in a nonsensical language that only the Family could understand. Sexy, scary, brain-dead, and dangerous, this gang of hippy lunatics gave new meaning to "folie à famille", group madness and insanity as long as the same people are together and united. It was an amazing thing to see in person. Heavily influenced, and actually jealous of their notoriety, I went back to Baltimore and made Pink Flamingos which I wrote, directed and dedicated to the "Manson girls", "Sadie, Katie and Les".
Then I went deeper into the Manson flame and started visiting Charles "Tex" Watson in prison. "What on earth were you thinking?" you may wonder and today it is a question I have to ask myself. In Los Angeles I had met his post-conviction girlfriend Lu, a German hippy girl with an obvious off-kilter sensibility who had come to America speaking little English and accidentally met some of the still-free "Manson girls" as the initial trial was taking place. "God, kids sure are wild in the United States," she told me she remembered thinking, not understanding how different these hippies were from the American love-children she had read about back in Munich and hoped to hook up with when she came to our shores. But Lu would only go so far. Refusing the demands to shave her skull, she broke away from the unincarcerated B-list Family members to the relative safety of a "jailhouse" love affair with "Tex", a convicted killer who was still clearly out of his mind and had almost no chance of ever being paroled.
Charles "Tex" Watson was perhaps Manson's best piece of work; a high-school football star who turned hippy and came to L.A. like millions of other kids to find '60s grooviness. Instead he met Manson and was turned into a killer zombie in just ten LSD, Belladonna-drenched months. "Tex" personally stabbed or shot all nine Tate/La Bianca victims. Lu and I would hitchhike to the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo from either L.A or San Francisco to visit him and I wrote about our times, rather inappropriately and with little insight, in my book Shock Value.
At that time, Charles Watson was no longer "Tex", but he was definitely still coming out of his Manson indoctrination. You could tell by the toy wooden helicopter he made me in jail, decorated with words like "Game is Blame", "Tweak", and "Fear". I used it in the credits of my next movie, Female Trouble, a fictitious biopic of a woman who is brainwashed into believing "crime is beauty". The film was also dedicated to Charles "Tex" Watson, and a few critics -- quite correctly, I guess -- were appalled by my flippant disregard for the terrible aftermath of these crimes. Maybe I had taken too much acid myself? How could these villainous murders seem so abstractly "transgressive" to me? Could a movie ever be as influential as these monstrous crimes?
Was Manson's dress rehearsal for homicide, known as "creepy crawling", some kind of humorous terrorism that might have been fun? Breaking silently into middle-class "pigs'" homes with your friends while you are tripping on LSD and gathering around the sleeping residents in their beds, not to harm them but to watch them sleep (the way Warhol did in that movie) and "experiencing the fear"? It does sound like it could have been a mind-bending adventure. When the Mansonites went further and moved the furniture around before they left, just to fuck with the waking homeowners' perception of reality, was this beautiful or evil? Could the Manson Family's actions also be some kind of freakish "art"?
When Charles Watson left behind his "Tex" persona for good, found Jesus Christ, and became saved, he and Lu broke up and I slowly drifted away from the visiting room. While I understand his need to find comfort and forgiveness I wasn't a born-again believer and I sometimes made insanely sacrilegious movies so we now had little in common. He then got married to a fellow-Christian on the outside, started a ministry, and through conjugal visits fathered three children (who have turned out fine), much to the horror of Sharon Tate's family and the citizens of California. Lu went back to Germany and had an un-Manson child of her own and we stayed in touch right up to her sad death from emphysema a few years ago. I remember once staying in some fancy hotel in Munich on a studio promotional tour for Cry-Baby where I invited Lu over for a visit, not having seen her in person for many years. The concierge called up to my room and said, "We're not sure if it's a man or a woman, but there's somebody here who claims you told them to come over and we're sure it's a mistake." "Is her name Lu?" I asked. "Well...yes," he stammered. "Send her up!" I bellowed. Lu had cut off most of her hair (not sure if for politics or fashion) and was now obsessed with Sarajevo refugees and I loved hearing her rant about jumping out of military helicopters (in her mind?) to spread the word for her new cause. Charles Watson is, to no one's surprise, still in prison and once or twice a year we correspond politely and he always sends kind words.
In 1985, ten years or so after Charles Watson and I had last seen one another, I was doing some journalistic pieces for Rolling Stone and they asked me to interview Manson. I had little curiosity about a man who had reminded me of someone you'd move away from in a bar in Baltimore, and was still much more interested in the followers who had come to their senses and were now definitely ex-followers. Leslie Van Houten always seemed the one that could have somehow ended up making movies with us instead of running with the killer dune-buggy crowd. She was pretty, out of her mind, rebellious, with fashion-daring, a good haircut, and a taste for LSD -- just like the girls in my movies. Instead of being a "good soldier" for Charlie and participating in the murders of Leno and Rosemary La Bianca, which she certainly believed was the right thing to do at the time, I wish she had been with us in Baltimore on location for Pink Flamingos the day Divine ate dog shit for real (our own cultural Tate/La Bianca). Maybe she would have enjoyed cinematic anti-social glee and movie anarchy just as much as a misguided race-war entitled Helter Skelter designed by a criminal megalomaniac who believed The Beatles were speaking directly to him. If Leslie had met me instead of Charlie, could she have gone to the Cannes Film Festival instead of the California Institute for Women? Actually, I think if Leslie hadn't met either of us she might have ended up as a studio executive in the movie business in Los Angeles. A good one, too.
So I pleaded with Jann Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone, to let me interview Leslie, "the only one who has a chance of ever getting out", the one I could tell from press reports had broken from Manson's control and was beginning to see that the apocalyptical scenario Manson had preached was complete bullshit. What a painful, horrible realization that must have been!
In 1972, Leslie's death sentence (and those of her co-defendants) had been abolished by the California State Supreme Court and like all death penalty prisoners at the time, her sentence had been changed to life in prison. Not life without parole. The two other female death-penalty cases at the time besides the three "Manson girls", also murderesses with very serious cases, were paroled eight or nine years later with little fanfare or outrage.
In 1976, Leslie's original conviction was thrown out due to "ineffectual counsel" (her original lawyer drowned in the middle of her trial and was replaced) and she was given a new trial in 1977. This time, she was all by herself as a defendant in the courtroom. Remorse had started to creep in soon after she was imprisoned away from Manson. Locked away forever, Leslie, Susan, and Patricia were of no further use to Charlie and he dropped them quickly. The outsider voices of reason from the prison social workers started to seep in and Leslie began to see the holes in Manson's brainwashing. "When I'd be questioned," she later told author Karlene Faith for her very insightful and intelligent but little known book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten, "I'd go blank and become frustrated like when a machine jams and just sits there making noise. In my head nothing was functioning. I was trying to understand, breaking down stiff little slogans that had been drilled into me." When two other "Manson girls", Mary Brunner and Catherine Shaw, a.k.a. "Gypsy", were sent to jail and placed with Leslie, Susan and Patricia, Leslie grew tired of listening to their Manson talk and confided to Patricia that "I've changed. I'm not into this." "It took three years to understand" and five or six years of therapy to "take responsibility" for the terrible crime she had helped commit.
Leslie finally had a good lawyer for her second trial. Taking the witness stand truthfully for the first time, she tried to explain her state of mind through the Manson madness and his control techniques. And the jury listened, too. After about twenty-five days of deliberation there was a hung jury; seven voted for guilty of first-degree murder, and five for manslaughter due to her cult domination and uncertain mental health at the time of the crime.
Refusing to offer a plea bargain, the prosecutor took her to trial for a third time in 1978 and added a felony robbery motive (clothes, a wallet and a few coins had been taken from the La Bianca home), a crime that now couldn't legally be excused by state of mind. But this time Leslie made bail and was released from prison. She found employment as a law clerk and lived in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. She was free for six months and lived quietly, unnoticed by the press. When a few of her new neighbors found out who she really was, after they already thought they knew her, all were "supportive" and "protective" of her anonymity.
When Leslie's third trial finally began, she came to court every day on her own. Long gone was the shaved head, and the X on her forehead was covered by bangs. No more trippy little riot-on-Sunset-Strip, satin miniskirt outfits either, like the ones she and her female co-defendants wore to the first trial. This time she was dressed tastefully and looked lovely, something that obviously didn't sit well with Stephen Kay, the prosecutor who had inherited all the Manson-related cases from Vincent Bugliosi. "All dolled up", Mr. Kay cracked to the press, giving Leslie one of her first, but definitely not last, opinionated fashion reviews. When she was finally convicted of first-degree murder at the end of the trial, life imprisonment suddenly became very real.
Rolling Stone gave me the go-ahead to pursue the Leslie Van Houten interview so, in 1985, seven years after her final conviction, I wrote to "The Friends of Leslie", a now-disbanded, loose-knit support group made up of Leslie's real family (Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters -- all glad to have her back from Manson even if it was in prison) and her jail-house teachers and counselors who had seen how this teenage girl had been completely dominated by one of the most notorious madmen of our time during the 1960s, a decade which may never be surpassed in misguided revolutionary lunacy. Susan Talbot, one of the organizers, who met Leslie through classes offered in prison through Antioch College wrote me back and told me that Leslie was not interested in being in Rolling Stone or any other magazine at the time, but recommended I write Leslie to see if there was any rapport. In other words, Susan (who did know who I was, whereas Leslie did not) was intrigued and slightly puzzled by my offer of support but mistrustful of my intentions. Who could blame her?
Excerpted from the book Role Models by John Waters, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2010. Role Models is a self- portrait told through intimate literary profiles of his favorite personalities; some famous, some unknown, some criminal, some alarmingly middle of the road
***
Susan Atkins' website can be found at http://Susanatkins.org
It is at this site that anyone can read information regarding her accomplishments in prison and view her artwork.
Susan studies the bible and has been leading various groups within prison in attempts to help others. On her website she has a posted a draft entitled "The Myth of Helter Skelter". The disclaimer states...
The following is a very rough draft of a project I tried to get Susan to finish which more clearly described what she saw happening, not just during the summer of 1968 to the fall of 1969, but during her trial as well. This was a particularly distasteful subject to Susan and she only consented in the hope that it would help to dispel the misconceptions about the case and make it less a subject of obsession to some misdirected young people.
Susan never got a chance to finish proof reading this copy, especially the early chapters. But she felt the later chapters, particularly the chapters describing the trial, were very accurate.
EDITOR’S NOTE
We started this project with the understanding that any intelligent, objective reader will (should) naturally weigh Susan’s uncorroborated account as suspect. It was also our hope that this book will be read by intelligent objective readers.
With this in mind it was our intent to document and reference absolutely everything that is covered in order to produce what we hope will be an account that is as objective as humanly possible.
We have also tried to limit ourselves to references and documentation that is as credible as possible. This means that our primary source for reference was the account written and published by the Prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, himself. This account was written and published only a couple years after the events, which increases the chance that it is not tainted by poor memory. It was also produced by the very person who argued that Susan should be executed. This in itself makes it the most credible source for facts which support Susan’s account.
We have also occasionally referenced the book written by Charles Watson, Will You Die For Me? This account was also produced about thirty years ago (about 1978), and so is less likely to contain unintentional memory errors. Like Susan’s own account one might understandably question the truthfulness of Charles Watson’s account, except to the extent to which he makes admissions against his own interest. (i.e. – it’s hard to believe that he would lie to make himself look worse.)
We have further referenced a book by Chaplain Ray, God’s Prison Gang, in which Chaplain Ray interviewed both Susan and Charles Watson about 1974. Once again, while objective readers might question the truthfulness of statements made to exonerate themselves, it is hard to question statements made against their own self interest. And so we feel that this is a credible reference.
We have referenced the work of Paul Watkins as well. This account was also written more than a quarter century ago, and may therefore be less likely to contain errors of memory. Since Susan did not associate directly with Watkins either before or after the crimes it is hard to determine why he would be untruthful about Susan’s part in them. To this extent his account appears credible enough to consider.
On occasion we have also referenced things Manson himself told the writer of the book Manson, In His Own Words, which was published around 1980. This account is, at points, wildly fictionalized and self serving. In all
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fairness, the writer makes a point of stating Charles Manson appeared medicated to various degrees during the time he was being interviewed, and displayed varying moods – so perhaps the fantastic parts of his story were not intentionally erroneous. In addition, a lot of the story seems prompted, which is to say it appears Manson is responding to questions concerning either Susan or Charles Watson’s earlier published accounts, and not a direct account of his own memory. (It seems unlikely that, ten years after the fact, Charles Manson’s memory of the crimes would touch on the very same several moments that Susan or Charles Watson’s memory did.) While both of these facts make Charles Manson’s account somewhat suspect, once again to the extent Manson makes statements against his own best interest it may at least arguably be assumed to be correct. So to this extent we have occasionally included citations to this work.
Lastly, we have occasionally cited Susan’s own book, Child of Satan, Child of God. References to Susan’s own book are not made with the purpose of compelling the reader as to their truthfulness, but simply to show that this is the same account she gave almost 30 years ago. This is not “Susan’s new version of the crimes.”
This heavy footnoting may become ponderous at time, and we apologize for that. But this whole book is worthless if it is not a process toward a more thorough understanding of the events associated with this terrible tragedy, an undermining of the myth surrounding these events, and a means of producing an intelligent discussion of these events. Merely producing another unverifiable and wildly speculative account of these crimes serves no purpose at all other than to continue to hurt the families who have lost irreplaceable loved ones and to contribute to the engrandizement of the myth of Charles Manson.
Tragedies like this shouldn’t be discussed at all unless they are discussed with a legitimate goal. That goal should be to try to see that similar tragedies do not occur in the future.
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INTRODUCTION
In the fall of 1986 I received a letter from a group of young people living in a commune in
I wrote them back explaining that nothing that happened back when I was with Charles Manson was “cool.” Not the drug use, not the physical abuse, and certainly not the crimes. I suggested they find more enlightening role models and heroes.
Several weeks later I received their reply. It was an envelope with nothing inside but a photograph of them all holding up a huge banner with “fuck you” written across it.
Americans like their heroes to be Super Heroes and their villains to be Super Villains. It’s part of our culture – a bigger-than-life country filled with bigger-than-life characters.
But real heroes are simply ordinary, fallible people who stand up for what they believe in even when they’re scared, even when they’re unsure of themselves, and even when no one is watching – they aren’t made of steel. And criminals are simply fallible humans who make very bad decisions in their lives – they aren’t anything worth admiring.
Over thirty-five years ago a crime took place in
That is a tragedy.
This crime was not a devious, diabolical attempt to start Armageddon spawned by the mind of a Super Villain, nor was it a statement about environmental injustices. It was nothing more than an ugly, needless, senseless crime which destroyed families, hurt communities, and took irreplaceable loved ones out of the lives of those who needed them. It is neither amazing or interesting.
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Unfortunately the fictionalization, exaggeration and engrandizement of this crime and of the participants, though ripe for media exploitation, produces the very real risk of turning Charles Manson into a fictitious horror character, or a comic-book villain that nobody really believes in. And it produces the risk of making Charles Manson the hero of misguided young people who don’t actually know anything about him. As thirty-five years come and go, in some circles it is actually debated whether Charles Manson participated in the crimes at all.
With this in mind it seems it is a good time to lay the crimes out the way I saw them back in 1969, and how I understand them now.
People are intrigued by what they don’t understand and I think the “fantastic” nature of some of the reasons given for the crimes over the years have had the effect of making them a point of obsession. I believe if I can lay these crimes out so they are perfectly understandable, even boorishly so, maybe they will be seen as the horrific acts of brutality they were, and not as a tasteful point of interest or conversation among intelligent people.
With this in mind and as my impetus, I feel it is time to produce the book you are about to read with me.
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Chapter 1; The Slow, Easy Road To Disaster
At the age of thirteen my mother was diagnosed with inoperative cancer and I “inherited” a family of five. I would come home from junior high school and begin cooking, cleaning, and washing for my father, two brothers, myself and my bed-ridden mother. I was also the one who had to give my mother the morphine shots as she slowly passed away over the next twelve months. Upon her death my father increased his drinking until eventually, around my sixteenth birthday, he ran away from home leaving me and my younger brother to fend for ourselves.
By the age of nineteen I’d survived a series of nightmarish episodes to finally find a moment of stability among a group of people living in
That brief moment of stability ended when my friend Ella-Jo and I came home one day to find my place empty – my boyfriend had been arrested and once again I found myself completely broke and on my own. After three long years of fighting to survive and find some stability I was right back where I’d started. I didn’t even have a place to sleep.
But Ella-Jo said it was okay, I could stay with her. And that’s when I met a group of her friends who were all going down to
It sounded good. It was the summer of 1967. Young people were moving around and hitchhiking about the country. I’d been in
Hindsight is always perfect ¾ I should have stayed in
The “guy with the old school bus” was, of course, Charles Manson. The story of how I got from the empty house in
It is only my firm conviction that talking about this now will serve the community that I am undertaking this painful and distasteful subject.
I think it is also important to show that big disasters do not start with a decision to create a disaster, but with a series of small poor decisions. No one wakes up one morning and decides they are going to run-amuck. One poor decision leads to a situation where you are forced to choose between two bad alternatives, and that decision in turn leads you deeper and deeper into a hole.
C.S. Lewis once said that the surest path to hell is the slow, easy decent with no sign-posts, no quick turns, no indication that anything is wrong.
This is as important a lesson out of this story as anything.
And so Ella-Jo and I set out on a light-hearted summer trip to
Chapter 2; The Bus Ride
The bus ride from
Once we arrived in
This period of time was relatively unimportant in the context of what was to follow except in a few notable ways.
First, this was the period when I got to know most of the people who ended up associated with the crimes. Bobby Beasusoliel and his friends, including Leslie Van Houten and Catherine Share, joined the group. Patricia Krenwinkel was on the bus even before I arrived, as was Lenette Fromme. Sandra Good joined shortly afterwards.
And second, once we got to Spahn’s Ranch we were pretty well isolated from the rest of the world. Though it was just an hour’s drive north of downtown
This is also the time when I got a better idea of who Charles Manson really was. Unfortunately I did not understand him well enough. I did not understand him the way I do today.
Making a Super Villain out of Charles Manson is a mistake. Claiming he is a criminal mastermind would actually be amusing if it wasn’t at the price of so many lives.
Most of the attention the crimes have been given over the years has been generated by how “inexplicable” they were. Most people who show an interest do so merely because they seem so hard to understand – people tend to attribute depth and intelligence to anything they can’t understand.
In truth, the crimes were an incredible bungle – an incredible series of mistakes which, once tied together, started a chain reaction which sped on and on, faster and faster, unstoppably to a terrible conclusion.
If I do my job right by the end of this book you will understand both these crimes and Charles Manson perfectly. There will be nothing that happened that won’t make sense to you. You will understand Charles Manson and the crimes in a way the prosecuting attorney for the case, Vincent Bugliosi, never truly did. You will understand Charles Manson in a way that, unfortunately, few of the young people at Spahn Ranch in the fall of 1969 understood him. And you will understand him in a way that took me loosing my freedom and thirty-six years of my life to understand him.
The two and a half years I had the misfortune to live around Charles Manson was longer than almost any of the people who stayed with him. Unlike most of the young people moving about the country in the late 1960’s, I didn’t have a family to go back to.[1] Unlike the prodigal son, I couldn’t hitch hike across the country, sow my wild oats, express my youthful rebelliousness, and return home when I became tired and disillusioned. By the time I realized what was happening I was stuck.
But it means I was there to see the entire thing develop. I was there to see why it happened. So this story comes from someone who saw more of Charles Manson than most the people he associated with, someone who told the police Charles Manson was responsible for the crimes, and someone who has spent the last thirty-six years avoiding his disciples, ignoring his threats, and burning his hate-mail. In short, I found out more about Charles Manson than anyone would want to, and in the hardest way.
Maybe this book will allow some of you to avoid repeating my mistakes.
Perhaps the best place to start is with a better understanding of Charles Manson himself. This is what I came to understand about him.
There is a tendency to simply assume that people in prison for murder are murderers because there is something in them that isn’t like the rest of us. That’s a very reassuring notion – it sets a very clear line between us and the people we think of as “bad.” The problem is that you end up believing that people who kill do so because they’re murderers on the inside, and the proof that they are murderers on the inside is the fact that they killed someone. This doesn’t leave any real room for intelligent understanding of the factors that lead to crime.
The real question is what led to these crimes. What led to so many horrifically bad decisions? Why were these crimes orchestrated? What did anyone hope to gain from them?
Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi stated that there is no such thing as a motiveless crime – it is an animal that doesn’t exist.[2]
I believe this is true.
Psychologists sometimes speak of sociopaths. Sociopaths, if they really exist, are defined as people who don’t understand that other people are people. That is to say they don’t really understand on an emotional level that you and I have the same needs and wants that they do. They may understand that you and I are people on an intellectual level – in fact that is usually the source of a great deal of their ability to manipulate others – but this intellectual understanding doesn’t effect them. Most of us couldn’t steal candy from a baby. Most of us couldn’t call someone up and tell them their child had been harmed. We understand what an emotional trauma that would be and we associate with it so closely that it would cause us incredible emotional pain to put another through that. According to psychologists, a sociopath wouldn’t make that association. He would understand that people would get upset over their child, but he wouldn’t identify with the emotional pain at all. This means that a sociopath would be able to be incredibly manipulative because he wouldn’t feel any remorse about hurting people.
Charles Manson may be a sociopath. Or he may simply be someone who was so badly abused growing up that he had to learn to turn off that part of him. Perhaps his emotional responses were beaten out of him.
Psychologists still argue over how to separate true sociopaths – those who truly don’t have a concept of other people as anything other than objects – and those who simply no longer care about the needs and rights of others. There is a tendency to say that anyone who does a heinous crime is a sociopath because they obviously had no feelings for the hopes and dreams of their victims, but this is a mistake
Almost always you will find that these are people who were hardened and embittered to the point that they no longer cared about anything – not even their own life. But they still had a concept of other people as human beings.
Considerable media attention has been given to Charles Manson’s ability to “control the minds of his followers.” His ability to “brainwash” people. “Hypnotize.” “Zombyize.” But if you look at his methods of controlling people you will see no mystic clairvoyance, no unearthly super-power. What you will see is that he knows no more about “brainwashing” than any other pimp in
He took young people, primarily girls, who had poor family relations, low self-esteem, and who felt they didn’t belong. He took them away from all their familiar surroundings. He took them to an isolated place where he could control what they saw, heard, and learned.[3] He prevented them from making any attachments outside his group. He took away all their money under the pretext that the Family would provide for them – which not only prevented them from leaving but also made them dependent on him even for their clothes, food and shelter. He sowed dissension and bitterness toward outsiders. He encouraged them to become dependent on drugs – drugs which he alone would disperse.[4] And then, to polish it all off, he threw in a sizable portion of brutal physical abuse.[5], [6]
I think most people would be surprised to learn that Charles Manson’s “brainwashing” often took the form of beating a teenage girl to the point she was bloodied and screaming when she didn’t do what he wanted (Diane Lake was fourteen when thirty-five-year-old Manson broke a chair over her head for talking when she wasn’t supposed to. When Mary Brunner tried to take her son away from the Family she was beaten so badly she couldn’t get out of bed for three days.) [7]
Often, Charles Manson’s “mind control” took an even crueler turn. When Linda Kasabian wanted to leave Spahn Ranch after the Cielo and LaBianca murders, her daughter was moved away from the ranch to a place where she could be guarded by armed thugs.[8], [9] This is the same type of “persuasion” which helped contribute to my decision to recant my Grand Jury testimony and “confess” that Charles Manson had nothing to do with the murders – Charles Manson sent his followers to suggest that it might be better for me and my son if I decided not to testify against him.[10]
This type of cruelty has nothing to do with “mind control.” It takes no special powers to threaten and brutalize teenagers and young adults. This is not a very impressive achievement and Charles Manson deserves no awe or respect for it. Such brutality does, however, take a special type of person.[11]
And Charles Manson is a social person, he is not a loner or an isolationist. He has to have people around him.[12] Such a need is sometimes the sign of someone extremely insecure about themself. It can also be the sign of someone with extremely low self-esteem. Both are probably true for Charles Manson. His insecurity probably shows through in his belief that he had to mirror back at people what he thought they wanted to see.[13] His low self-esteem probably shows through in his need to degrade, brutalize, and control weaker people around him.
Charles Manson is also a con-man. He will constantly try to get you to underestimate him. He will try to make you feel sorry for him. He will tell you how bad life has been to him, and how rough his upbringing was. That his mother didn’t want him. That his teachers were mean to him. That society withdrew from him. He will tell you that fate itself and nothing else pushed him to the place he is now. But this is just a learned con – it is not true.
Charles Manson had everything. At one time he had almost thirty young girls taking care of him. He hob-nobbed with the Beach Boys and attended
Society gave Charles Manson so many opportunities to make good.
Everyone who ever tried to help Charles Manson was ultimately made a fool for their troubles. Dennis Wilson, who claimed to have spent as much as $100,000 on Manson, was threatened with the death of his son when he finally cut the money off![14] Terry Melcher, who had tried to sell Manson’s music to the industry, was targeted for murder when none of the offers came through.[15] Gary Hinman, who had donated food and clothing to feed and clothe Manson’s own baby son, was murdered when he wouldn’t give Manson more money. Sandra Good’s father helped support Charles Manson after his daughter joined the Family and was threatened when he wouldn’t give more.[16]
And perhaps cruelest of all (save only the murder of Gary Hinman), a whole group of young people who looked up to and trusted Manson as a leader and guide were ultimately mislead, used, and then either thrown away or left to die. I don’t speak so much for myself but for the younger kids at the ranch back in 1969. The young runaways who, thanks to Charles Manson, were fed a mouthful of bitterness toward the law and society, and then pulled into auto theft, drug dealing, stealing, burglarizing, and for some a life of crime and addictions they would never overcome.
So if Charles Manson had it tough it was his own doing. Life gave him everything and he spit it back in society’s face.
In hindsight I’ve come to believe the most prominent character trait Charles Manson displays is that of a Manipulator. Not a guru, not a metaphysic, not a philosopher, not an environmentalist, not a sociologist or social activist, and not even a murderer. His long-term behavior is one predominantly of a practiced Manipulator.[17]
But this analysis is all from an intellectual level, and it has taken me years and years to be able to see Charles Manson like this. On an emotional level I could have told you about Charles Manson thirty-six years ago – he is a liar, a con artist, a physical abuser of women and children, a psychological and emotional abuser of human beings, a thief, a dope pusher, a kidnaper, a child stealer, a pimp, a rapist, and a child molester. I can attest to all of these things with my own eyes. And he was all of these things before he was a murderer.[18]
Chapter 3; The Error
So how did the Prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, make the mistake of concluding that Helter Skelter ¾ a black/white race war that would bring on Armageddon ¾ was the motive for the murders of the LaBiancas and those at
The most obvious reason is that Mr. Bugliosi didn’t look at the events that led up to these murders in chronological order. If you don’t study what happened in the order it happened how can you ever understand why one occurrence followed another?
Did Charles Manson simply wake up one morning and say, ‘Today’s the day, somebody’s going to die’? Mr. Bugliosi gives that impression in his version of the crime. What Mr. Bugliosi doesn’t answer satisfactorily is why it happened. Mr. Bugliosi says the murders were planned to bring about Helter Skelter but Vincent Bugliosi also claimed that Charles Manson already believed Helter Skelter was imminent.[19] So, why would he risk his life to try to set it off himself?
Charles Manson went to a great deal of trouble to avoid responsibility for the murders. He tried to get others to do the killing for him, he tried to distance himself from the places where the murders took place, he ran to the desert, he set up alibis, he set up armed guards around himself and his camp.[20] He did not want to be caught. And it wasn’t that he didn’t understand the consequences of his actions. He knew very well what would happen if he was caught.
So, if Helter Skelter was already imminent, why did he take such terrible risks? It just doesn’t seem to make sense. And when things don’t seem to make sense it generally means that you haven’t got the story quite right.
If Charles Manson thought Helter Skelter was imminent, and he desperately didn’t want to get caught for the murders, why would he still go ahead and arrange for people to be murdered?
He wouldn’t.
Something else provoked this rash act. And as we go through the events that led to those two nights in August 1969, you will begin to see exactly how a long line of interrelated events ended at this point. And only then will you begin to understand the true tragedy of the horrible loss of life that ensued.
But for now it is worth pointing out, in Mr. Bugliosi’s defense, that the Tate-LaBianca trial was rushed from the start due to the incredible amount of public pressure the Los Angeles Police Department was under. The Grand Jury was held before the District Attorney’s Office had any real evidence on anyone, except for my testimony. As such, Mr. Bugliosi was forced into the case much quicker than he would have liked. He had to come up with a way to convict Charles Manson of crimes which Mr. Bugliosi knew he was responsible for but for which Charles Manson had been very careful to distance himself from.
This began what might be called the hunt for the Magic Motive.[21] That is to say ‘the hunt for anything that would convince a jury that Charles Manson, and Charles Manson alone, was the beneficiary of these murders.’
In his book Mr. Bugliosi points out that the motive is not the prosecuting attorney’s job to establish. But this case was different. If no motive was established there would be no way of convicting Charles Manson. And so Mr. Bugliosi jumped in as any young, ambitious attorney would have and began digging around. But he didn’t find out that the murder of Gary Hinman was connected to Bernard Crowe until well after the Grand Jury. How could he possibly uncover the real motive for the murders of those at the Cielo and LaBianca homes without understanding the real reason for Gary Hinman’s death?
He couldn’t.
It wasn’t until the trial started that Vincent Bugliosi finally found out about the suspected murder of Bernard Crowe.[22] This suspected murder would have an incredible effect on the actions of Charles Manson, but by the time Vincent Bugliosi discovered it he was already selling Helter Skelter to a jury. To have tried to change the purported motive at that point would have cost him his credibility in a case in which he was already stretching his credibility to the limit.
So Vincent Bugliosi went on with Helter Skelter. To his credit, and a testament to his hard work, he won convictions and death sentences. But this misrepresentation of the motive has had some disturbing side-effects. The most disturbing, as far as I am concerned, is the raising of Charles Manson to the status of a mystic, mind-controlling Super Villain. The attention he has received as a result of his conviction is not what is deserved.
The second disturbing side-effect of the Helter Skelter myth is that it allows several of those who were involved with Charles Manson at the time of the murders, and a whole new generation of misguided youth, to delude themselves as to what these murders were really about. They were not revolutionary or environmental symbolic killings. They were heinous, degraded, and depraved murders of completely innocent people ¾ people with loved ones, families, friends, dreams and hopes just like the rest of us - and all for the basest and most arrogant of causes; the serving of Charles Manson’s self-interest.
Chapter 4; First Appetite
By the fall of 1969, Charles Manson had as many as 40 people living with him at Spahn Ranch.
I often hear it asked, why did people flock to this obviously abusive and oppressive deviant? Why did those who stayed feel drawn to his murder-cult? How could those involved with Charles Manson deliberately draw more people into his nightmarish web of fear and hatred?
These are the types of questions you hear posed by those who look back from a point in time after 1970. For them it seems impossible to believe that the commune wasn’t steeped in murder and revolution from the start, but it wasn’t. Without knowing the whole story of what led up to the murders in the fall of 1969, it’s very easy to doubt that an ordinary hippie commune, preaching love and music and drugs, could be transformed into what the Family became. It’s very easy, without knowing what happened, to insist that the Family must always have been a dark, bitter, twisted and homicidal group. But that’s not true.[23]
The Family started as something very different and then it changed. It was only over a relatively short period of time that it became what the media shows you today. But to understand this long road you must understand how it began.
In 1967, Charles Manson was released into
Charles Manson must have been in heaven once he was turned loose in
In 1967, Charles Manson could talk new-age religion. Charles Manson could talk old religion. Charles Manson knew eastern religious thought. Charles Manson had the vision and intensity necessary to hold the attention of young minds. He understood psychology. He understood nihilism. He gave the appearance of having forsaken his worldly possessions and dropped out of the rat-race (in truth, this appearance was just because he left prison with very little and even less to give up). He appeared to live what he preached.
And what did Charles Manson want? What was he after? Sex and drugs. But these were available everywhere in the hippie counter-culture – they were practically given away. So Charles Manson strung together a little pseudo-religious pseudo-intellectual mumbo-jumbo, along with his ability to play guitar, and he was in. The thirty-five year old con-man became a peace-loving hippie and began hanging around the parks and universities. And he used this new ‘con’ to get what he wanted.
So why did young people flock around him? Because in 1967, pseudo-spiritual sermons with a vaguely eastern feel to them were what people wanted to hear. And Charles Manson was an expert at telling people what they wanted to hear. Years of learning how to mimic and ingratiate himself to other inmates in prison had taught him how to draw out people’s opinions and attitudes and project these back at them.
Why weren’t these young people able to see through his ‘con?’ Because drugs and sex were things that were shared casually in the underground. Nobody but Charles Manson would have perceived these things as something you had to cheat people out of.
So, when people ask how members of the Family could ever have been attracted to Charles Manson the true answer often shocks and offends them – in 1967, there was no reason to fear Charles Manson. He wasn’t preaching murder, he was preaching love and peace (not out of any belief in these things necessarily, but only as a way of getting what he wanted). There was no reason to avoid Charles Manson in 1967.[24]
People often ask why members of the Family stayed with Charles Manson. Once again, the answer is often received with incredible disbelief – until the summer of 1969, there was no reason to run from Charles Manson. He could get what he wanted by playing the part of the pacifist hippie guru. No one suspected that this facade hid an all encompassing and violently dangerous self interest.
And, yes, if you had been searching for something in San Francisco or Los Angeles in the late 60’s, and you had run into Charles Manson, he would have told you whatever it was that you wanted to hear and you would have been taken in. You would have thought he was a great guy. You would have thought he shared your beliefs and your understanding of the world, and you’d have thought you could trust him.
If you were searching for something in San Francisco or Los Angeles (or anywhere up and down the West Coast), as many of us were in those times, and you did not end up with Charles Manson, it was only by God’s good graces and not by any better judgment of your own.
But it’s hard for people to believe this.
And I understand that. It’s very frightening to accept that if you had been there something like the Family could have grown up right around you without your having any forewarning. It is much more comforting to believe that something this horrible could not have been born without the knowledge and participation of those around. It is much more comforting to believe there must have been obvious signs from the beginning –there must have been some reason this did not begin just like every other commune experimenting with drugs and free sex at the time.
It is frightening to believe that, but for the love of God, you weren’t pulled into that nightmare as well. It is much more appealing to convince yourself that those who ended up there were somehow different from the rest of the young kids on the West Coast in the late 60’s. That somehow they must have been intrinsically evil to end up where they did. That they had a taste for Charles Manson’s bitter preachings. That you would have avoided Charles Manson. That you would have seen through his cons.
But you wouldn’t have.
In 1967, Charles Manson’s needs and interests were so nominal he didn’t seem any more manipulative or dangerous than the boy next door – all he wanted was a little sex and drugs. There were no ‘bitter preachings’ about hate and killing and ‘pigs.’ There was no need. Charles Manson could get all he wanted by copying and mirroring the love and peace rhetoric of the day. And he did it well. His years as a pimp and a con man had taught him to say what people around him wanted him to say, and to say it convincingly.
Very few people who met Charles Manson during this period weren’t attracted to him. Even his parole officer, who was familiar with ex-convicts and their manipulations, was taken in by Manson.[25] Most of those who heard Charles Manson speak stayed with him. Those who escaped the nightmare to come did so, not due to their better judgment, but because they were lucky enough to be left behind when the Family moved from place to place.
I, unfortunately, was not one of those who was left behind.
Chapter 5; The Hustle at Spahn Ranch
The movement of the Family to
This is also the point in the story when I personally become involved.
A pimp has to know how to control people. Especially women. Especially young women. Absolute control is essential if you want to make someone do something that is personally repugnant to them.
The first rule of pimping is to remove the people you want to manipulate from all familiar surroundings and support. This not only makes them dependent on the pimp for everything, it means that if they begin to have misgivings there is nowhere to turn. And there is no one around to reinforce their own inner feelings that things aren’t the way they should be.[26], [27]
Charles Manson knew this. Not only is this a basic manipulative tool, he’d had practice. He’d been a pimp at one time in his checkered past.
Once he settled at Spahn’s Ranch, in
The story of his ill-fated music career is not a unique one. Only one in a thousand make it in music – maybe less. But this was an incredible blow to a man who actually thought he was the only thing that mattered in the universe. The piquing of his pride can only be imagined.
But Manson’s brush with fame – the Beach Boys and the
But this was probably no different from any other commune based on a single leader. Some move closer to him and therefore benefit from increased acceptance, others find themselves on the outside and so work harder to get back in.
This might be a good point in the story to explain that I was never “on the inside.” I was always an outsider. Because of my abusive upbringing I had a natural aversion to authority, and ironically even though Charles Manson preached against societal authority, the more he took control of the Family the more he became the authority. We always had a personality clash. I didn’t like being told what to do and he demanded that people did what he told them.
At the time I thought that meant he was strong – I thought it meant he couldn’t be dissuaded from his beliefs. He said he liked me and I thought he did, but when I wanted something he never gave it to me. Other men I’d known always tried to give me whatever I wanted in relationships – Charles Manson didn’t. In hindsight I now understand it simply meant he didn’t care in the least for anyone else’s interests except his own. He told me he liked me simply because that was a way to control me, a way to get me to contribute to the Family. Two years later, during the trial, when he made me and my co-defendants get on the stand and say that we planned the murders in a bid to allow him to escape the death penalty, thereby assuring our own executions, I discovered just how much he really cared about me.
One would expect to find great clues to the turning of the Family during this period, as this is the year or so that directly preceded the crimes. But there were no obvious signs that things were changing from the peace and love sermons in
The influx of new Family members was one of these changes. It was nothing alarming of itself, but it did mean that a group mentality was forming. It also meant it was easier to pretend everything that happened among us was all right – there was reassurance in numbers. Also, the slow decline into crime would eventually be cushioned and anesthetized by the fact that everyone around you was participating, so it didn’t seem out of the ordinary.
The development of the hierarchy was another.
The hierarchy was a little more profound. It changed Charles Manson from simply a new-age spiritual leader to the person who influenced everything that was done around Spahn’s Ranch. From the clothes you wore to the way you wore your hair, the merest comment from Manson sent people scurrying to please him. In the end, it was his ability to simply do no more than “suggest” something be done to make it happen that lead to his erroneous belief that he couldn’t be held responsible for the crimes.
He was wrong.
But at the beginning the change was slow and the effect was not yet obvious in late 1968 and early 1969.
Another change was the beginning of revolutionary talk. This was the beginning of the talk of Helter Skelter. The notion of a black/white race war was, of course, something Charles Manson had picked up in prison.[28] That it began to come out more and more often was an indicator of the things being said by the young people who began joining the Family during this time. A consummate manipulator, Charles Manson simply parroted back at people what they most wanted to hear. With the
That Charles Manson’s Helter Skelter story was around will not be disputed. That he used it to manipulate the young people around him is abundantly obvious. But the contention that this had any relation to the true motive for the murders will slowly become ridiculous as the events are unfolded.
In his new quest for power, Charles Manson went out of his way to ensnare the lost and unwanted young. This is another indicator of his expertise in manipulation. They were the easiest to control. They had no one else to turn to. He, being an unwanted child himself, knew how to play on their inner bitterness and fear and longing to be accepted. But this might also be an over-simplification. Charles Manson tried to snag anyone he could. That he was more successful with the outcasts among society probably had little to do with his choice and more to do with the fact that outcasts had few other options open to them.
As an example, by the time of the crimes I had no family or friends left to turn to. My mother had passed away when I was fourteen, my father had abandoned my brother and me and gone off drinking when I was sixteen, my Aunt kicked me out of her house when I was eighteen because she caught my cousin drinking and was positive I was responsible, and my grandparents wouldn’t speak to me after I had a child out of wedlock. Any friends I had before moving to
By 1969, I had nowhere in the world to go outside of Spahn’s Ranch. If I had left in early 1969, I would have left with my son and no friends, no family, no money, no food, and literally only the clothes I was wearing. By late 1969, even this meager chance would be eliminated and those who left were lucky to leave with their lives.[29]
Probably the most important change in the Family that took place during the year or so before the murders is also the least mentioned. That is the increase in drug use.
Drug use tends to produce an ever increasing appetite. Once you start you slowly become conditioned to them and you need progressively more and more drugs to feel the high you did the first time you tried them. This is a very subtle thing and in 1968 it was not much cause for alarm, but Charles Manson was becoming hooked.
His initial interest in a career in music faded in part because of the spurn he felt he received from the music industry, but also because his wants were changing. The Family was growing daily in
By the summer of 1969, most expenses at Spahn’s Ranch were financed by drug deals and auto theft. All activity around Charles Manson and the men he trusted concerned procuring drugs or money for drugs. Drugs had been one of Charles Manson’s primary tools for manipulating people ever since blending into the
The extent to which this is true can be seen in accounts of life at Spahn Ranch during this time. Sandra Good has reported to have given Charles Manson over $6,000 upon joining the Family. Linda Kasabian confessed to stealing $5,000 and giving it to the Family.[31] Juanita donated over $10,000 and her van, turning it all over to Charles Manson.[32] And poor Dennis Wilson estimated he spent close to $100,000 on Charles Manson during the several months he provided for the Family.[33], [34] And where did this money go? The Family didn’t pay rent anywhere it lived. The Family ate the day-old food discarded from supermarkets. The Family borrowed, and later began to steal, cars when it needed them. Except for drugs, and later guns, there were no expenses at all for the Family.
I believe it was this reliance on drugs and the money drugs brought in that began the cycle that led several months later to the murders of at least nine people.
The main problem about dealing drugs is also the most obvious – they are illegal. Being illegal, if you decide to pursue this vocation there is no better-business-bureau to turn to if you feel you have been cheated. And you will run into many people who are less than honorable. Charles Manson and the men in the Family began buying and then carrying guns.[35] The accounts given of life at Spahn’s Ranch tend to bare out the statement that guns appeared, not with the invent of Helter Skelter, but with the increased dealings with drug pushers and dealers. The fact is Charles Manson spoke of a black-white race war as far back as
What you have building up is a recipe for disaster. An ever increasing appetite for an illegal substance that pushes Charles Manson further and further into illegal means of obtaining it. Robberies and swindles were performed, sometimes including very dangerous drug burns. And all to obtain more and more money for drugs. By the summer of 1969, Family members were being encouraged to steal from their friends and even burglarize their parents’ homes to help make up for this drug deficit.
And the best part about all this, as far as Charles Manson was concerned, was that they were giving him the money and he didn’t have to get near the crimes.[36] He thought he was faultless because he hadn’t actually gone out and stole the money himself. This was a pattern he would try to use again later.
Charles Manson had long ago adopted the communist idea of shared property among the members of the Family. But here, once again, you can see the true motive. He told new indoctrinates they had to give up all worldly wealth and possessions to be truly free ...but they had to give these worldly possessions and wealth up to Charles Manson. And all so he could dress in expensive leathers and maintain his psychotic drug state while the rest of us ate food out of dumpsters.
But how we faired didn’t matter to Charles Manson. In his accounts of those days Manson is fond of stating everything he did he did for “those kids.” The truth is he didn’t do anything for the young people around him except live off them, brutalize them, molest them, and introduce them to criminal life. The extent to which he cared for the young people around him can be seen in the fact that he led seven of us to
But by far, the most important change that happened during this period as far as I was concerned was the birth of my son in October of 1968. Though born two months premature and only weighing a pound and a half, he was absolutely wonderful. He was the only good thing that happened to me during that entire part of my life.
But the good could not outweigh the bad. The hustle was taking its toll. During the summer of 1969, you could see the house of cards beginning to shake. Everything at Spahn’s Ranch was by the skin of your teeth. Just barely getting enough food. Finding replacement clothes. Getting the money Charles Manson demanded. Just barely getting the drugs everyone had been waiting for. And to cover up this shadow of impending doom – an almost hysterical flippancy. A rebellious devil-may-care attitude. Almost a fatalism about it all.
If just one little thing went wrong...
Chapter 6; The House Fell
When a house of cards like that teeters, one can only hold one’s breath. And when the house finally collapses, it goes down fast.
From bad to worse. Already in a bind for money, and feeling the bite of the local police who’s attention he wasn’t able to avoid due to the ever increasing numbers of underage runaways that flocked to Spahn’s Ranch, Manson was under an increasing amount of pressure. In addition the local bikers, once friends, were beginning to resent Manson for pulling their members away and they had actually threatened him several times.[37]
It was in the middle of this already tense situation that Manson started pressuring everyone more and more for money. There are some indications Manson was already thinking of moving away in order to avoid the growing problems with police and bikers, and had sent people to scout out in the desert. But in order to move he needed more money, and everyone was pushed more and more to this end.
This is when the “Crowe incident” happened.
Bernard Crowe was a black drug dealer in the
But this isn’t what happened.
I should mention that Charles Watson had taken a drug concocted by boiling hallucinogenic seeds earlier in the week and he wasn’t himself during this whole episode. He’d disappear for long periods of time, or sit comatose for hours and have to be hand fed. I don’t know what he’d taken but I remember it really messed him up. This may have had a very strong effect on what ended up happening.
Another thing worth noting is that the girl wasn’t really his fiancé. He’d only just met her and apparently he decided to abandon her and run off with the drugs. Unfortunately the girl had heard Watson call some people earlier and she remembered the phone number. When Watson didn’t come back and Bernard Crowe began pressuring the girl, she called the number she’d seen Watson call and she asked for “Charles.” But Charles Watson was known as “
It’s worth looking at the incident that followed – the Crowe Incident – a little closer, because it is the true beginning of the terrible panicked spiral that led to the deaths of nine innocent people.
Though Charles Manson had never even heard of Bernard Crowe it was immediately obvious that (1) Bernard Crowe knew who he was (this was a mistake in identification, but Charles Manson never figured this out), (2) Bernard Crowe knew where Charles Manson lived, and (3) Bernard Crowe was mad.
To Charles Manson this was no small problem. There was no way he could run from the police, the bikers, and the Panthers... he was broke. So he had to deal with Bernard Crowe one way or another. If he couldn’t con Bernard Crowe, Charles Manson believed the only way to prevent the Panthers from getting his name and where-abouts was to eliminate the source – Bernard Crowe. If something happened to Crowe no one would be around to tell the Panthers anything. But either way, it had to be done quick.
And so Charles Manson told Bernard Crowe he would meet with him and straighten the whole thing up.
Manson got a gun and took one of the early members of the Family, a young man named T.J. Walleman, and he went down into the
This plan for killing Bernard Crowe gives a perfect insight into Charles Manson. He set up the meeting. He arraigned how it was to be carried out. And the arraignment was that if the dealer threatened him, he’d get an innocent person to take the fall for killing Crowe. T.J. was a member of the very Family that Manson professed a willingness to die for, one of our “brotherhood” as he used to put it – a friend. And yet Charles Manson tried to get T. J. Walleman to kill Bernard Crowe.
This is the same basic tact he would use later.
But this wasn’t the way it happened.
According to the Prosecutor, when Manson got to Bernard Crowe’s apartment there were several of his friends there. Manson tried to smooth-talk him, but when that didn’t work and an altercation became inevitable Manson signaled T.J. to pull the gun. But T.J.’s better sense prevailed and he refused to pull the gun out of the back of Manson’s pants. This left Manson standing all alone in the middle of Bernard Crowe’s living room, in a predominantly black neighborhood, facing several Black Panthers and one angry dope-dealer who’d just been ripped off.
Manson was forced to pull the gun himself. He shot Bernard Crowe right in the chest. Crowe fell to the ground and lay still. Manson and T. J. ran.
Later Bernard Crowe told police he’d played dead until Manson left and then got to a hospital. His friends had made sure Manson thought Crowe had been killed, probably to prevent Manson from coming back looking to complete the job. By the grace of God Bernard Crowe did not die, though he was on the critical list for over two weeks. When questioned by police at the time of the shooting, Crowe insisted he didn’t know who had shot him. One can only imagine what he had in mind for Charles Manson when he got well.
It may be amusing to look at the account that Manson himself gives of the events surrounding his attempted murder of Bernard Crowe. Charles Manson claims he went to Bernard Crowe's house, not to kill him, but to protect this mystery girl who, Charles Manson claims, Bernard Crowe was holding hostage until he got his money. According to Manson it was T.J. who decided to bring the gun with them. Once at the house, Bernard Crowe attacked Charles Manson and, in defense of his own life and the honor and virtue of this mystery girl (who Manson had never even seen before), Charles Manson shot Bernard Crowe down while Crowe had him by the neck.
This version of the story sounds nothing like the versions told by anyone else and is so ridiculous it really has to be read to be believed. At one point, Charles Manson claims to have gotten down on his knees in front of Bernard Crowe and begged for the life of the girl, actually saying at one point, ‘If you have to kill someone, then take me and let her go.’[39]
That Charles Manson, the accomplished Manipulator, ended up having to pull the gun and shoot Crowe himself is a testament to how foolish a position he’d put himself in. He had obviously thought he could get T. J. to take care of his dirty work for him.
That it hadn’t worked and he’d had to dirty his hands infuriated Charles Manson. He was so angry and abusive to T.J. when they got back to Spahn’s Ranch that T.J., a long time member of the Family and a friend, left in the middle of the night out of fear for his life.[40]
The irony of the whole Crowe incident was the extent to which it blew up in Charles Manson’s face. He had thought that moving quickly to silence Crowe would keep his identity hidden from the Panthers. But Bernard Crowe had been with friends when Charles Manson arrived. As Charles Manson ran from the apartment a few moments later he believed that now, not only did the Panthers believe it was he who had ripped off Crowe, they would soon find it was he who had killed one of their brothers.
When Charles Manson returned to Spahn’s Ranch that night he still had to worry about where he was going to raise money for more drugs, and where he was going to make his connections, and whether the police were getting ready to move in on him over the auto thefts and under-age kids at the ranch. On top of all that he now had to worry about a murder charge and the prospect of being arrested.
Probably more disturbing to him that night was the prospect of retaliation by the Panthers for Crowe’s death. That would not be good.
Chapter 7; Running and Money
It must have been obvious to Charles Manson if he wanted to live he had to get away from Spahn’s Ranch. If Bernard Crowe had found him there then anyone could find him there, especially Crowe’s friends.
But moving takes money. And the whole reason the Family had ended up in the old, dilapidated, fly-ridden movie ranch was because money was scarce (except, of course, for drugs). Charles Manson needed still more money. And he needed it immediately. But that’s exactly how he had got into this mess in the first place.
Barker Ranch, out in
But Charles Manson was not going by himself, he needed gunmen, and women to do chores for him. But in order to move the entire Family he desperately needed money – and now!
Chapter 8; The Lie That Wouldn’t Die
Believing he had murdered Bernard Crowe, Charles Manson became frantic. He had, through his undying self-centeredness and an incredible underestimation of T.J.’s integrity, put himself in a position where he had dirtied his own hands. Immediately he had two huge additional problems. The first was that many of the people in and around Spahn’s Ranch knew he had gone to see Crowe. That meant there were possibly a dozen people who could corroborate any accusation against him. It was an incredible blunder for a boastful career criminal. Even among his loyal Family he must have felt as though a rope was coiling around his neck. And so he came up with a plan to protect himself from the very people he claimed he was willing to give his life for. We’ll get to that later.
The second problem was much more subtle. Charles Manson needed people around him. He needed the women for sex, to make him feel important, to do chores for him, and to draw men into the Family.[41] [42] He needed men to deal his drugs, make his connections, rob and steal to raise money... and now for protection. But he could hardly admit he had just killed a Black Panther and the entire brotherhood of Black Panthers was about to come screaming into Spahn’s Ranch to wipe them all out. Everyone would have left. The Panthers weren’t looking for any of the rest of us, just Charles Manson.[43]
So Charles Manson had to figure out how to turn Spahn’s Ranch into a fortress without letting anyone know what the real reason was.
And then it came to him. The answer was right before his eyes. It was right there in the apocalyptic sermons he had used to spell-bind the drug-enfeebled minds of the young men and women all the way back to the
Vaguely taken from the Bible, enhanced slowly over months and months to include eastern mysticism, current social and political events, and even popular music, Charles Manson’s prophecies about Armageddon now had a use other than to bemuse young, idealistic minds. This vague and varying prophecy had even found a name for itself among the revolutionary sounds of the Beatles’ White Album – Helter Skelter. The kids loved it. And after two years of modifying the tale, Charles Manson could tell it with dramatic effect. It was perfect.
The beautiful part about it was that any amount of arming and preparations could be covered by the explanation that they were preparing for Helter Skelter. And Charles Manson’s constant talk of a black/white race war provided excellent cover for telling his young idealistic followers to keep an eye out for blacks sneaking around Spahn’s Ranch. It all worked to perfection. His long, repetitive sermons every night began to be re-molded to reinforce the militant preparations.
This is the time period when more and more guns began to appear at the Ranch. This is also the time period when Manson had bowie knives purchased and all the women were told they were supposed to carry them at all times.[44] [45] [46]
An incredibly crafty bonus of Charles Manson’s Helter Skelter story was that it really drew the Family together. If facing an onslaught of Black Panthers the best defense would be to scatter. But if preparing for Armageddon there would be no use in running away. Safety would be in numbers and in friends.
To this day Mr. Bugliosi is still very adamant Helter Skelter was the motive for the crimes, but I am tempted to believe this is now more out of personal pride than out of reason. Vincent Bugliosi made his name on this case and to have to admit his motive might not have been correct, even after thirty-seven years, might make his victory look a little less impressive. None-the-less, there has been some evidence in the past years that even he is starting to accept that Helter Skelter was only a con to get people to do what Charles Manson wanted them to do.[47]
The truth is Charles Manson said whatever he had to to whomever he had to to get them to do what he wanted them to do. To some he insisted the motive was Helter Skelter. That was what they responded to. For the more militant members of the Family the motive became revolution![48] To some he made it sound like a religious trial – a bloodletting that had to be borne. The most ridiculous story to date is the one he told Sandra Good and Lynette Fromme, and which (incredibly) they still defend – that all the murders were committed as some sort of militant environmental protest![49] That’s what they needed to believe in order to get them to go along.[50]
Predictably enough, none of these odd stories is what he told the male followers who were close to him and who shared his confidence during the drug dealing.
I think the most decisive blow to the contention that Helter Skelter was the true motive for the killings was the fact Charles Manson told these men he had just killed a Panther and he needed money to split to the desert and he needed it now!
The reason I know this is because by the late summer of 1969, my son was over half a year old and I was becoming very attached to him. This was not allowed by Charles Manson. Mothers were kept away from their own children under the pretense that parents put too much guilt and structure on children and that they should be allowed to grow up free.[51] [52] In truth it was an iron-clad way of ensuring the mother would do whatever Charles Manson told her to do.
In my case, I became so persistent about seeing my son and trying to look after him that I was constantly being sent away from Spahn’s Ranch with the men when they went to take care of business. This not only meant that I overheard things the other women didn’t get a chance to, I was able to see how the explanations Charles Manson gave for what we were doing varied depending on who he was talking to. Specifically, I got to hear what he told the men – and he didn’t waste their time with stories of Helter Skelter.
One of the advantages of my being kept away from the main group at Spahn Ranch was that I was not subjected to the endless hours of Manson’s sermons about preparing for the war to end all wars. This, coupled with knowing what the men knew about Crowe, allowed me to see the militant arming of the Family during the end of 1969 in a little more disturbing light. And with the benefit of hindsight, this allows me to understand what went on in a way many of those who were in the Family at the time still don’t understand.
So, Charles Manson told the story of Helter Skelter to the women and young people, and he told the truth to his right-hand men. But the lie was born, and slowly it took on a life of its own, and within the next year and a half it would grow and then turn on its creator and wrap its tail around his neck and squeeze the breath out of him.
Chapter 9; Black Riders
Fate is sometimes extremely determined. And coincidence is sometimes suspiciously poignant. In Charles Manson’s case it seemed that the book had been written and sealed with that one bullet he’d put in Bernard Crowe. As if he wasn’t already scared for his very life, within the week a group of black people showed up at Spahn’s Ranch to rent horses. That’s what George Spahn did at his Ranch – he rented out horses. But to Charles Manson this appeared to be an advance scouting party for the Panthers. He was terrified.[53]
I though he was crazy. They were obviously just tourists up to rent horses – women and smiling children. But Charles Manson didn’t see it that way. Looking back it almost seems as though Fate was giving Charles Manson one last good kick in the pants to push him over the edge and on the way to his inevitable downfall.
That night he called a meeting of his top men – he wanted money and he wanted it now!
Chapter 10; The Targeting of a Friend
I, of course, was not asked to the meeting – none of the women were. But, once again, I had been forced away from my son and out to where the men met. Because of this I was within earshot when Charles Manson brought the subject up. He’d killed a Panther, he said. They were coming to get him. He wanted out and he wanted his protection, the entire Family, to come with him.
They mulled it over for a long time. No one had any money. If anyone they’d known had had any money they would have stole it long ago. Manson was desperate and getting angry. He was particularly angry with Charles Watson. Manson had done all this for them, he insisted. He had gone to Crowe’s place to protect them – to cover up for Watson’s mistake – now they had to do something to protect him.
In truth Manson hadn’t gone to Crowe’s place for anybody but himself. It was in the interest of keeping his identity hidden from the Panthers that Charles Manson shot Bernard Crowe. That he would try to make the other men feel guilty, and imply that only he had had the courage to do what had to be done, was not below him at all. But it was Charles Manson himself who had pressured Watson and the others into drug deals. This is what ultimately led him to the confrontation with Bernard Crowe. In the final analysis he can blame it on no one else.
It should also be mentioned that the reason why Charles Manson couldn’t find anyone in all of Los Angeles who was willing to loan or give him enough money to flee, or to put him up for awhile until the heat died down, was because by the summer of 1969, Charles Manson had abused the friendship of everyone who’d ever tried to help him. He’d robbed some of these people, stolen from others, threatened others when they didn’t give him what he wanted, and shamelessly lived off others until he’d abused his welcome everywhere. No one who had anything worth taking wanted him anywhere near them.
Finally the men at the meeting were reduced to grabbing at the faintest of straws. Bobby Beausoliel thought he remembered someone saying a friend of the Family’s, a music teacher named Gary Hinman, had inherited $20,000.[54] This didn’t seem very likely to me.
Charles Manson said that Hinman was practically part of the Family – or at least he could be convinced to join the Family. If he joined the Family he could be expected to turn his inheritance over.
Since this was all they could come up with they decided to try it.
Later it became quite obvious Manson didn’t really care if Hinman joined the Family, as long as Manson got his money.
Chapter 11; The Killing of a Friend
So it was decided that Bobby Beausoliel would ask
Bobby was probably picked as the one to approach
But there may be another reason Bobby was chosen. Bobby and Manson were both the tentative leaders of the Family. At the time Manson met Bobby, Bobby already had a small “family” of his own including Leslie Van Houten, Catherine Share and several other girls. Since Bobby Beausoliel was ultimately arrested prior to the Tate-LaBianca crimes it is often forgot he was also a leader of the Family, and there was something of a power struggle between him and Manson. This competitive relationship would have allowed Manson to insinuate to Bobby that he, Manson, had done his part by intercepting Crowe, and now Bobby had to show he was an active leader as well.
It was also a way of assuring Bobby dirtied his hands, making it less likely he’d be willing to testify against Manson about Crowe.
Manson chose to send Mary Brunner and me along as well. This is probably partly because Gary Hinman knew both Mary and me, and he would be comfortable with us. But I’m convinced it was also because Mary and I both had infant sons back at Spahn’s Ranch – sons who could be used to prevent us from going to the police if anything happened.[55] And I think Manson knew something was going to happen.
Forgetting I was in the back room while he had been talking to the men – or perhaps not aware I had heard him – Manson told Mary and me we were going with Bobby to pick up some money
I had grave misgivings about the trip. A day or two earlier Manson had approached me and challenged me to go down and kill
He’d started the conversation by suggesting that I wasn’t a leader or a doer, that I should just stay in the background. He knew this would get to me. An expert at manipulation, he knew that I strove for attention and validation. He knew that suggesting I learn to “stay in the background” would grate on me and make me want to prove him wrong. I could tell he was trying to goad me. That he suggested killing Gary Hinman, even with a joking smile, struck me with fear. Charles Manson often used these kinds of little games to test people.[56] If he was just testing me I would have to play up to him. But what if he wasn’t just testing me?
I told Manson I wouldn’t and he had laughed and walked away as though it was all just a mind game. But the episode left me very wary about the trip to
In the end my worst fears were realized.
Gary Hinman, a music teacher, a practicer of transcendental meditation, a pacifist with a truly gentle spirit who had gone out of his way to befriend and help Charles Manson and the Family, was stabbed to death by Bobby Beausoliel for refusing to give up money which, it turned out, he never had.
The senselessness, callous nature of this killing will never cease to grieve and dumbfound me. What made this so cruel was that Gary Hinman had befriended Charles Manson about a year ago while helping to provide food and clothing for Manson’s new-born son by Mary Brunner. Gary Hinman had even allowed Mary Brunner to use his address with the social services people instead of the dilapidated Ranch so they wouldn’t take Manson’s son away from her. The extent to which drugs can befuddle the mind and destroy one’s priorities is incredible.
In hindsight, the death of
After
Manson left, ordering Mary and me to stay behind and nurse
On the third day, Bobby ordered Mary and me into the back of the kitchen and he went out into the living room where
A lengthy description of
What continues to puzzle me is what Charles Manson and Bobby Beausoliel said on the phone that led Bobby to kill
I imagine Manson had suggested Bobby go to get the money from Gary because Charles Manson knew if push came to shove he could remind Beausoliel that he, Manson, had already killed someone in the name of the Family. That Bobby had been beat over the head all week long about how only Charles Manson had the guts to take care of Bernard Crowe can easily be imagined. After challenging and shaming Beausoliel for the better part of a week, Manson sent him off to
It may also have been possible that Manson insinuated Bobby didn’t have the guts to kill
It’s impossible to tell, but there are several reasons to think that Manson had intended for
For one thing, Manson’s attack on
The fact that Manson sent Mary Brunner and myself with Bobby is also interesting. On one side was the fact the Gary Hinman knew and liked all three of us. That Charles Manson picked friendly faces to try to talk
And finally, if Bobby killed
The crime was poorly thought out, but the manipulation was flawless.
There is one other thing worth noting at this point. Remember when I said Charles Manson had made a terrific mistake when shooting Bernard Crowe in part because so many people at Spahn’s Ranch knew he had gone to Crowe’s that day, and there were now almost a dozen people who could corroborate any accusations against him? And remember I said he had formulated a plan to protect himself? Well, I think this was the plan – if Charles Manson had his hands dirty then he was going to make sure everyone got their hands dirty.
This is a pattern that developed over the next couple months. When Manson heard that I wasn’t able to hold the gun on Gary Hinman during that murder, Charles Manson made sure that I was included in the Cielo murders. When he heard that Linda Kasabian had run from the Cielo murders, Charles Manson made sure she was included on the night of the LaBianca murders. He shamed Bobby Beausoliel into committing the Hinman murder by pointing out that he, Charles Manson, had already shot Bernard Crowe (ostensibly for the Family). Then he shamed or psyched Charles Watson into the Cielo-LaBianca killings by pointing to the “sacrifice” that he and Bobby Beausoliel had made for the Family with the Hinman murder (ostensibly to cover up Watson’s mistake with Crowe). He then psyched out Steve Grogan into the Shea murder by pointing to Bobby Beausoliel and Watson. One by one everyone was dirtied.
Until no one was left to finger Manson.
Chapter 12; The Tightening Trap
From Charles Manson’s point of view the genius of the plan to kill Hinman was that after he was killed the house would be arranged to look like black radicals had done the murder. The Black Panthers would be suspected and this would put heat on them. With the police coming down on them the Black Panthers wouldn’t have time to worry about Charles Manson. Once again – the consummate manipulator. And once again Charles Manson’s interests would be served.
But the Hinman murder was slip-shod. Manson wanted to distance himself from the crime, but this meant that he had to tell others what to do – others who, in the case of Mary and me, didn’t want to be there and who hadn’t been told Manson’s true motives and so couldn’t properly carry out his ideas. Manson had told so many lies to different members of the Family about why the killings were taking place that no one had the same idea about what he wanted done. This problem would blow up in Charles Manson’s face within the month.
At the Hinman crime though, Bobby Beausoliel knew exactly what Manson had planned. He knew all about the drug burn and the shooting of Bernard Crowe. He also understood that the killing of Gary Hinman was supposed to look like a Panther hit to throw pressure on them so they wouldn’t have time to come to the Ranch.
When
Since Charles Manson was desperate to get out of Spahn’s Ranch and head for the desert, Bobby Beausoliel was directed to make Gary Hinman sign over the registration slips for his two cars. That Bobby actually did this was very foolish – because it made him the prime suspect – but perhaps it shows even at that point Bobby Beausoliel didn’t actually think Manson was going to insist he kill
To show his “devotion” to the Family, Charlie packed up his things and left unceremoniously the day after
Two days later the police still hadn’t discovered
Back at Spahn’s Ranch Bobby Beausoliel must have been furious. He’d been pushed into this by Manson and now he felt caught. The possibility he’d been conned by Manson must have been in the back of his mind – no report of Bernard Crowe actually being found dead had been heard. No police had even come to ask questions about Crowe. And to top it all off Charlie had packed up and split. Beausoliel loaded up one of
Within a week he was arrested in
Back at Spahn’s Ranch Charles Manson looked white as a ghost when he heard. If the charges stuck Beausoliel might try to bargain with the DA. And what did Bobby Beausoliel have to bargain with? How about Bernard Crowe. Charles Manson must have felt as though his foot was caught in the door.
Chapter 13; Selling Your Soul to Save Your Skin
When Bobby Beausoliel was transferred to Los Angeles County Jail, Charles Manson sent people to go and talk to him. It can only be imagined that Bobby Beausoliel gave them an earful to report back to Manson. The gist of Bobby’s point was this – take care of this or I’m not going down alone.
That Manson was truly scared can be appreciated only by looking at his situation. He still had the police and the motorcycle gang breathing down his back. The Panthers were still as real and imminent a threat in his mind as ever. He still had his hands all over the Crowe shooting. But now Charles Manson couldn’t even run to the desert. As long as Beausoliel was in jail accused of the Hinman murder, Charles Manson was stuck. If Manson made a run for it Bobby would assume Manson was throwing him to the lions and he’d roll over on Manson in a minute.
To add insult to injury, the Hinman murder was not being associated with the Black Panthers at all. And it never was. The police hadn’t the slightest idea what the paw print was supposed to mean.
If Charles Manson had felt hunted before, now he was trapped and hunted. He couldn’t go back to jail now, the joint was filled with Black Panthers. Charles Manson wouldn’t last a week if they found out about Crowe.
Almost immediately after getting Bobby’s messages Manson drew the Family together. He was more agitated than ever before. “The Family has to get Bobby out,” he said. “He’s our brother! We’ll do anything to get our brother out of jail!” In hindsight it is obvious that it was Charles Manson who had to get Bobby out of jail. And not because he was our “brother,” either.
But almost immediately Manson ran into trouble. Most of the Family had no idea what Bobby had actually done. Those who did still had completely different ideas about why
But the stories no longer made any sense. Their references to the Bible and mythical stories were disjointed and didn’t follow. It was only by his own desperate intensity that he made the reasoning unquestionable. I saw the fear and desperate anxiousness in him – that spark that could turn so quickly into a violent rage. He sounded mad. But I wasn’t going to question him. I’d seen him cut Gary Hinman’s face open from brow to chin. And
And I knew I’d never been a friend.
I wasn’t going to say anything. But I started keeping my eyes open and looking for a way out.
Chapter 14; A Desperate Plan
The idea that the Cielo-LaBianca murders were in direct response to Charles Manson’s fear of Bobby Beausoliel rolling over on him – the copycat motive – is decisively supported by the fact that on the morning of Friday August 8, 1969, Charles Manson sent Mary Brunner and Sandra Goode out to buy escape supplies, including rope, for a breakout attempt at the Los Angeles County Jail.
By mid-afternoon news came back that Brunner and Goode had been arrested for trying to buy the supplies with a stolen credit card.
This can give the reader an indication of just how hard up for money Charles Manson was. He had counted on that money from Gary Hinman. The District Attorney’s investigation showed that it was during this time that Charles Manson even went back to beg the money from Dennis Wilson, the drummer for the Beach Boys – a long time supporter of Manson’s who, when he told Manson he didn’t have that kind of money laying around, was threatened with the death of his son![58]
It had been over a week and a half since Gary Hinman’s death and Charles Manson was at his wit’s end. He was staying up for days at a time on drugs watching for Panthers. Guards were now posted all around Spahn Ranch, on the roofs of the buildings, on 24-hour watch.[59] The women began to fear for their lives as paranoid, speed-frazzled gunmen combed the ranch pointing hand guns and rifles with shaking hands at anyone who made a loud noise. And now Mary and Sandra were in jail.
Bobby was not a fourteen-year-old girl who Manson could threaten or seduce into silence. And Bobby had promised that he would not go down alone. Manson, on the other hand, had promised himself that he was not going back to prison. He knew very well that going to prison for killing a Black Panther would be a death sentence.
There was only one other way for Manson to get Bobby off the hook for the Hinman murder and thereby save his skin. That evening he decided to put plan B into effect.
Chapter 15; Into the Maelstrom
Whether Charles Manson hesitated for a single moment before ordering the murders of the morning of
Manson was very careful who he sent that night. Once again he took care, first, to choose people who couldn’t say no. Charles Watson was young and quiet. He, like Bobby had been worked on for over a week about how Manson and Bobby had gone the distance for the Family. He was chemically dependent. He was beat over the head again and again with the fact that all this had started because of the drug burn that he, Watson, was in charge of and which had led the Black Panthers to Spahn Ranch. Watson owed him, Charles Manson insisted. He had saved Watson’s life by shooting that Black Panther. Watson owed him.
The second thing Manson was careful to do was to pick people who didn’t have their hands dirty yet. And that is why I was chosen. Linda Kasabian and Patricia Krenwinkel were pushed into the car for the same reason. Though Linda had only been in the Family for a month or two, she was picked for the same reason I had been sent to Gary Hinman’s – her four-year-old daughter was being kept by Charles Manson in a separate area of the ranch “for her safety.” Patricia Krenwinkel was chosen because she had nowhere to run to. She couldn’t have left the Family no matter what Manson did.[60]
These choices were all deliberate. Calculated. Cold. His manipulation was expert once again, but his criminal planning was as faulty as with the killing of Gary Hinman.
Once again, one of Manson’s main problems was that he was still trying to avoid admitting to anyone he had shot, and presumably killed, a Black Panther. And so the manipulations began again. The killings were done for revolution... no, they were done for the environment... no, they were done because we all just loved Bobby that much... no, they were done to start Helter Skelter... In reality, they were instigated by Charles Manson to save his own skin. And it very quickly became obvious how expendable the “love of the Family” was to him. We were to do his dirty work and then, if worse came to worse, be thrown to the fire like a human sacrifice to the Justice Department to pay for the sins of Charles Manson.
So the bumbling began. Charles Manson sent Watson to do a copycat killing just like the killing of Gary Hinman. But Watson had never been to Gary Hinman’s house. He didn’t know anything about the killing. All he knew was that it was horrible. Bobby hadn’t stuck around long enough to do much describing other than to say that it was a terrible mess and that Hinman had been stabbed to death. Charlie himself knew little about the actual scene, and so he simply told Watson to “make it as gruesome as possible.”[61] [62] Remembering that something had been written on the wall in Gary Hinman’s blood, Manson simply told the me and the other girls, “write something witchy.”
But we still didn’t know exactly what was going on. Pat, Linda and I knew nothing about threats by the Black Panthers. We didn’t know that these murders were supposed to throw suspicion back on the Panthers. All we knew was a vague story about Helter Skelter, or revolution, or that these people were establishment people that should be hated.
We weren’t even told what was going to happen, we were simply told to go with Charles Watson and do what he said.[63] [64]
Because I had been at the Hinman house I was told to copy whatever had been written on the wall there. But all I could remember was “Pig.” But it was not “Political Piggy,” which was what had been written at Gary Hinman’s house. A paw print was not left, but the reason here should be obvious – that’s what Bobby Beausoliel believed got him caught. In fact, nothing of a revolutionary nature was left this time. The killings were so “witchy” that no one had any idea what the motive was. In truth, the reason there was no obvious motive was because the people Charles Manson sent didn’t really know what they were supposed to be doing.
The outcome was that, just as with the Hinman killing, no one ever suspected the Black Panthers of the crime. What’s even more pathetic, and definitely worse for Charles Manson, was that the killings were so “gruesome” that, other than the fact that a knife had been used, they didn’t resemble the Hinman crime at all!
The next night the same thing. Once again Charles Manson hand picked the people he wanted to go out.[65] Charles Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel would take Leslie Van Houten out to dirty her hands. And, because of our poor showing the night before, Linda Kasabian (who had run away) and I (who had lost my knife at the house and then froze) where forced to go again, this time taking Steve Grogan to dirty his hands.
Leslie was specifically picked because she was originally one of Bobby Beausoliel’s girls. Charlie wanted to make sure that, just in case her loyalty turned back to Bobby and she decided to testify against Charles Manson at Bobby’s trial, Manson would have something on her.
Steve Grogan was picked because he was one of the men who had already heard about the Crowe shooting. He had also been on the boardwalk of Spahn’s Ranch the night before when the car had driven up with blood on the door handles and steering wheel. Grogan already knew too much and Manson wanted to make sure that, just in case Grogan ever thought about talking, he knew he had something to lose as well. Manson wanted him all the way in or all the way out.
But the killings the night before hadn’t been what Manson had wanted. They hadn’t been “done right.” The news reports didn’t even mention a connection to the Hinman crime. Though Manson still wanted to distance himself from the killings as much as possible, so he could slip away if the police ever caught up to the Family, he felt that he had to go along to show everyone what he had expected.[66] At the LaBianca residence he actually tied the couple up and robbed them, slipping out just before they were killed. That this action alone made him guilty of conspiracy as well as two counts of first degree murder shows his bungling – it also shows how unsophisticated her was about the law.
But Charles Manson still knew less about how the Hinman murder was carried out than Mary Brunner or myself. He insisted in directing us in copying a murder about which he himself knew almost no details. The only thing that Charles Manson knew for sure about the murder of Gary Hinman was that he’d had his ear cut off. But Manson didn’t remember to copy this!
Once again, the LaBianca killings were much more extreme than the killing of Gary Hinman. For one thing, Leslie Van Houten hadn’t participated during the killings, so she was told to go back after the crime and do more. This led to the problem (a problem as far as Charles Manson’s copycat plan was concerned) that this crime had ten times the number of wounds as the crime at Gary Hinman’s.
Once more, writing was left in blood. But this time no one who’d been at the Hinman residence was there to help make any similarities. Patricia Krenwinkel thought she remembered something about “pigs,” but she wasn’t sure what it was. “Death to pigs,” “rise,” and “healter skelter” were left instead. They sounded vaguely revolutionary. But Manson’s reluctance to let anyone really know what was going on backfired on him again – the reference to the Beatles’ song Helter Skelter not only completely eliminated the Black Panthers as suspects, it was Manson’s own calling card. The bungling goes on.
To further put suspicion on the Black Panthers and convince the police the LaBianca killings were related to the Hinman case, Manson had stolen Ms. LaBianca’s wallet and had Linda Kasabian hide it in a gas station bathroom in a predominantly black neighborhood.[67] Unfortunately she hid it so well it wasn’t found until long after we were all arrested.
Not only wasn’t this crime associated with the Black Panthers or the murder of Gary Hinman... it appeared to be so different that it wasn’t even associated with the Cielo crimes![68]
By the end of the weekend, seven more innocent people are dead. But more to Manson’s interest, he’d managed to suck another eight members of his own Family into the depravity of his own soul just to make sure they couldn’t turn him over about the shooting of Bernard Crowe.
Spahn’s Ranch was now in complete paranoia. Guns, knives, suspicion was everywhere. There was still no money. There were still Panthers out there. The bikers actually came up to the ranch looking to beat their money out of Manson and he only scared them away with riflemen up on the roofs.[69] The men practiced shooting out behind the ranch every day.[70] The women were instructed to wear their knives. Everyone was supposed to wear dark clothing. Strangers, even hippies, were no longer welcome.
Everything was coming apart so quickly. Charlie was walking around with his eyes wide open, double and triple checking his tracks to make sure he couldn’t be caught.[71] Did everyone wipe their fingerprints off? Did everyone get rid of their bloody clothing? Were the knives and gun discarded far from Spahn’s Ranch? Were the knives wiped clean of prints before being discarded?
Things were bad. Real bad. It was as though we were drowning – always a sick feeling inside.[72] And I think that’s how Manson must have felt – as though he just barely had his head above water. If there was even the slightest ripple, he knew he’d go under.
Chapter 16; The Sickening Sigh of Relief
Once again, the contention that Charles Manson’s motive was to save his own skin by getting Beausoliel off the Hinman charge so that he wouldn’t carry out his threat to implicate Manson is borne out by the fact that the very next day, Monday the 11th, he sent Linda Kasabian to go visit Bobby Beausoliel in jail. The message he told her to give is a simple one – “Say nothing; everything’s all right.”[73]
And Spahn’s Ranch breathes a sigh of relief. But the churning sickening feeling stays. For Charles Manson the killings represented no more than a calculated risk. To those in the Family who had been ordered to carry them out they were horrific, traumatic experiences that would not go away. And Spahn Ranch became a ghost town, with half-dead, shocked specters drifting between the buildings.
This is a fundamental difference between Charles Manson and all the other co-defendants related to these crimes. As far as I know, Charles Manson is the only one who has never shown any remorse. All the other co-defendants have, at some time over the last thirty years, gone through a complete emotional and psychological breakdown over what they witnessed and were a part of.[74] [75] [76] I don’t know if the true horror of those nights has ever struck him.
And so, convinced that he’d freed himself from the threat of Bobby throwing him to the wolfs, Charles Manson relaxed... a little. There was still the need to get away from the Ranch as soon as could be managed.
Vehicles were being stolen and converted for desert use as quickly as possible. Charles Manson had visions of making it to the desert within weeks. But that didn’t happen.
On August 16th, the police swarmed into Spahn Ranch with a warrant for evidence connecting us all to auto theft. And everyone ended up in jail. Manson must have had a heart-attack when he saw those police flashlights. Even once he was assured that the arrests were only for auto theft there must have been an eerie forewarning as he was locked up in
Chapter 16; A New Desperation
The auto theft arrests were eventually thrown out because the search warrant was old. That Charles Manson would have breathed a sigh of relief can only be imagined. If he did, it was a short one. Once back at the ranch he became possessed with getting out to the desert. The time in jail must have really shook him up.
To get a true understanding of Charles Manson it is worth pointing out that when arrested he was still holding Linda Kasabian's two-year-old daughter as a safety precaution against her going to the police. Linda had stolen one of the vehicles from the Ranch and escaped prior to the police raid only by abandoning her daughter.[77] When everyone was put in jail the child became a ward of the courts, as did my own. When Linda Kasabian found out about the arrests she figured it would be safe to sneak back to
This shows that Charles Manson knew exactly why he was holding on to those children. It was no coincidence that Linda Kasabian's child, as well as my own and that of Mary Brunner, were away from Spahn Ranch just at the time of the murders. It was not out of concern for the children that they were kept under guard night and day. It was a calculated, and brutal, form of manipulation. They were his security.[79]
Once out of jail, the first order of the day for Charles Manson was retribution. Donald “Shorty” Shea had been a ranch hand at Spahn's Ranch ever since the Family moved there the year before. He'd always been on cordial terms with Manson, but when Shea begun to suspect that stolen cars were being stripped in the back of the ranch his attitude changed. This had been right around the time Bernard Crowe had been shot. Now Manson’s frustration and anger were vented on Donald Shea.
Whether Donald Shea actually had anything to do with the police raid or not has never been proved. I suspect that if he had then Vincent Bugliosi would have found out about it and used it against Manson at the trial. But then, Shea’s actual involvement didn’t really matter, what’s important was that Manson thought Shea was responsible for the raid.[80] And the raid had sent Manson back almost to square one as far as getting out of Spahn’s Ranch. In fact it set him back even more, because now the police hung all over the Ranch just waiting for someone to step out of line.
Manson struck back. Shea was reportedly hacked to pieces out behind the Ranch and buried in several deep holes. His body wasn’t discovered until almost seventeen years later when Steve Grogan agreed to cooperate with authorities.[81]
Whether or not killing Shea took Charles Manson a moment of forethought is impossible to know. If all that made Charles Manson’s hand hesitate from killing was the fear of discovery, then Donald Shea’s murder was a cinch for him.
Once again, Manson arranges the killing for his own purposes. The main participant is Steve Grogan, who did not get his hands dirty on the night the LaBiancas were killed. That Grogan ends up dragged into murder is important to Manson because Grogan not only knows about Crowe, he now knows about the LaBianca killings and he watched Manson greet those coming back from the Cielo murders. The back-up cast, those who either lured Shea out behind the Ranch or helped clean up and bury him afterwards, included just about everyone not involved to this point; Catherine Share, Nancy Pitman, Sandra Good and Lynette Fromme.
Charles Manson’s safety net, his ability to blackmail anyone who knows about his shooting Bernard Crowe, is almost completely in place.
That this period is nothing like the love-filled days in
T.J. split immediately after the Crowe incident. Patricia Krenwinkel disappeared shortly after the Shea murder.[84] Charles Watson stood up one day and simply vanished. Bruce Davis went into hiding. Paul Watkins ran off from the Family’s desert ranch.
By the time the Family is arrested in the desert, a month or two in the future, there are only a dozen or so members still there out of a Family that at one time held almost forty.
Finally, ready or not, the Family is moved to the desert. Manson could have gone much sooner on his own, but he’s afraid to move without his bodyguard of followers. Supplies are sparse and conditions rough. More people try to leave. Some are hunted down in the desert and brought back, others are caught up to where ever they surface and warned to tell no one what they’ve seen or heard.
In Charles Manson’s mind the Panthers are now far behind. But the police are not. Caches of arms and gasoline are stored out in the desert sands in case it becomes necessary to escape through the deep desert. Once again, armed guards and sentries are posted everywhere. Manson claimed these were to protect us, but, as I’ve mentioned, the only time they went out in force is when a Family member tried to escape.[85] [86] [87]
At the trial, Vincent Bugliosi claims that all the guns and supplies were to allow the Family to survive Helter Skelter. But the true reason for the preparations was clearly the police, not Helter Skelter. While Charles Manson still talked a lot about revolution and Armageddon in order to cover his true motives, he also gave lectures on how to kill with a knife ... how to kill police officers that came around the ranch to be specific.[88] [89] He wasn’t preparing for a black/white race war at all.
And once again Charles Manson must have felt he had to cover up, not only the true motive for the quick move and the change in the Family philosophy of love and acceptance, but for the bungling that took place in his murders. They weren’t copy-cat murders now, they were supposed to throw fear into the establishment so that they would leave us alone, or they were supposed to make the establishment stand up and take notice, or they were to start Helter Skelter, or to scare Terry Melcher, or to save the earth (I’ve never understood that one).
But the desert was hard and ugly. Maybe it was just that everyone in the Family felt hard and ugly on the inside. As I’ve said, all those directly involved in the murders were in either a state of shock or in hysterical overcompensation.[90] [91] Charles Manson’s manipulations for drugs and power were falling apart. There were no drug connections in the desert. And his following was dwindling despite his armed guards. Those that were left were a tired and traumatized group who were ready to give up.
There was also no one to steal from in the desert. No one to con. Money was very limited, but Manson was afraid to go back to the city.
Luckily for everyone, our stay in the desert didn’t last very long.
Chapter 17; Last Daylight
When the police made their three day raid on Barker Ranch, where the Family stayed, they picked up the pathetic remains of Charles Manson’s Family. It was the last free day Charles Manson ever had. He and about a dozen others, myself included, were put in jail originally, once again, for Grand Theft Auto. Eventually, once again, most were released.
I was not.
Someone had told police that I knew something about a killing where someone’s ear had been cut off. When the police told me I was under suspicion I thought it was Beausoliel finally starting to deal his way out of jail. Instead it was apparently one of the young girls who’d escaped from the desert hideout. Instead of being released with the others I was transferred to
Chapter 18; Pretrial Jailtime
Most of what happened during this whole episode happened after I’d been arrested. In fact, after the bungling of the crimes – which covered a relatively short period of time – the wrangling and maneuvering and manipulation during the trial was where the real dramatics began. And that is where the myth of Helter Skelter began as well.
My own actions during this time have been misrepresented to such an extent that they have effectively buried me. Up until now there seemed little way of even attempting to lay out what really happened so that others could see it if they cared to.
First it is important to note that everyone in the Family except for Bobby Beausoliel, Manson and myself had been set free. Watson had disappeared a week or so after the crimes even before we headed out to the desert. Linda Kasabian had run off, abandoning her daughter in her escape. Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel, Bruce Davis, Catherine Share, Lynette Fromme and Sandra Good were all set free.
This left me basically on my own in
Manson had spent much of his youth in correctional facilities and during the growing paranoia after the crimes and into the desert he’d continually preached to us that when you’re in jail you have to act tough in order to avoid getting targeted. You have to tell stories. You have to exaggerate to make yourself seem tougher and nastier than you are. So I exaggerated the only story I knew. I told them I knew who was responsible for the Tate crimes and, in fact, I knew who killed Sharon Tate. It was me.
I am not twenty-one years old anymore. Nor am I naive. I am quite aware that claiming I was merely lying to avoid unwanted homosexual advances in
And I don’t want the reader to take my word for it. But then, I don’t want the reader to take anyone else’s word for it either.
Instead I merely offer the facts as told by others.
Manson has admitted he’d instructed everyone that if they were arrested they had to act tough and tell stories in jail in order to survive. [92]
When the prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, asked these women why, if I’d confessed to killing Sharon Tate, they hadn’t contacted the police immediately, they claimed they got the impression I had just been trying to act tough.[93] It should be pointed out that even the Prosecutor claimed these women weren’t naïve, they were career criminals not likely to be fooled by the lies of a twenty-one year old girl. Their assessment was that I’d been lying.
Charles Watson also claimed I’d been lying when I said I killed Sharon Tate. He stated this in 1976,[94] and again in his own book, published in 1978.[95] Since Charles Watson was the only other person there at the time, and since this is actually a statement made against his own best interests, it is hard to see what he would gain by lying about it.
The District Attorney admitted that others in the family had told investigators I had not killed Sharon Tate.[96]
And finally, though I realize it doesn’t hold any weight if you don’t believe me anyway, I claimed this was a lie in 1976, and again in my own book, published in 1977. This is also the story I told the Parole Board even earlier in the 1970’s. I offer this merely to show you this isn’t “Susan Atkins’ New Version” of the crimes. If this is merely a self serving story of mine it is the same one I’ve been telling for over thirty years.[97] Even if you don’t believe me, at least give me credit for having the intelligence to not change my story every three years.
That I was lying is further indicated by the fact that most of the other things I told the two women have been proven to be lies.[98] [99]
The irony of the lie is that it had its desired effect. Both women avoided me from that point on. The down-side was that several weeks later I was “invited” to talk to the police about it.
The opportunity was a God-send. It had been impossible to sit in Jail with all that in my heart. I was going crazy. And the chance to get it out of me was a salvation in itself.[100]
In hindsight it is interesting to point out that most people don’t remember it was over two months after the crimes and both the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department had absolutely no leads. It is perhaps impossible now to look back and realize how odd, and frightening, it was for the entire community to have such a widely publicized crime with absolutely no leads.
It is with this backdrop that I suddenly told the LA District Attorney’s office I knew exactly who was responsible for the crimes, that the Tate and LaBianca crimes were connected (something they still didn’t realize), and that a suspect they’d questioned and already dismissed was actually the author of those crimes.
This revelation was such a bomb blast that Vincent Bugliosi states in his account that without my testimony they had no case at all. Without my testimony they never would have been able to even indict Manson, let alone bring him to trial and convict him.[101] [102] [103] [104] [105]
At the time I was given a very conscientious court-appointed Attorney named Richard Cabalero. He told me to keep quiet and he’d make a deal with the Prosecutor. But I didn’t care by that time. The nightmare was still in my heart and I had to let it out. In the end, despite my fears, I agreed to testify before the Grand Jury in order to indict Manson and the others responsible for the crimes. In exchange all I asked was that I not face the Death Penalty. I didn’t even ask to escape being held accountable.[106]
It is also worth pointing out that the public was putting an incredible amount of pressure on the Police and the District Attorney’s office about this case. It was this public pressure that forced the District Attorney’s Office to rush the case to the Grand Jury, and it’s one of the reasons the myth of Helter Skelter was embraced before most of the facts of the case were uncovered.[107]
Mr. Caballero set up a meeting with the Prosecutor. They explained to me they’d made a deal. I would testify at the Grand Jury but I wouldn’t have to testify against Manson in open court. I would still have to be tried for the crimes but I wouldn’t face the Death Penalty. In addition I would be isolated and protected from my co-defendants. The only stipulation was that I had to tell them the truth. If I didn’t tell them the truth they could invalidate the whole deal, use my testimony against me and my co-defendants, and I’d also face the Death Penalty.
So I sat down and told Mr. Bugliosi the truth. The interview was conducted in Mr. Caballero’s office and lasted only two hours.[108]
But here’s the problem. I had been implicated in the crimes because I’d told two women in Jail I had killed Sharon Tate. That had been so shocking to them they had eventually contacted the police. Now I was told I had to tell the police the truth or I’d be tried and executed. But the two were not the same.
So I told Mr. Bugliosi the truth. I hadn’t killed Sharon Tate.
Years later, when he wrote his book about the crimes, Mr. Bugliosi stated he got the impression I was lying to him about this – that I had, in fact, killed Sharon Tate.[109]
I have to admit that during the time of the trials I did not like Mr. Bugliosi. It’s hard to like someone who’s part of a system that took your son away from you. And it’s hard to like someone who knew how much pressure you’d been under and yet still told people you were a blood-drinking vampire, and who told you he’d have you executed if you didn’t say and do what he wanted you to.
Mr. Bugliosi was wrong about a lot of things. And he was wrong about me killing Sharon Tate. But with the grace of God, and thirty-seven years of hindsight, I’ve come to respect the fact that as far as I know Mr. Bugliosi has always been careful to make it clear this is just his belief. This is what he believes. He doesn’t claim to be God and he doesn’t claim to know what happened that night.
Though this might sound like an odd point for me to stress, I assure you if you are ever unlucky enough to find yourself on trial there is a huge difference between a prosecutor who tells the jury he believes you did something you didn’t and a prosecutor who tells the jury he knows you did something you didn’t. It’s a question of integrity.
Even though he’s wrong about a lot of things, I’ve never caught Mr. Bugliosi deliberately lying about anything.
And so after the interview I was rushed to the Grand Jury. I told them what happened at the Tate and LaBianca crimes. I told them the truth. Charles Manson was indicted and charged with the crimes. So were Linda Kasabian, Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Charles Watson.
It took awhile for the police to find them all. Manson was still in Jail but the others had scattered across the country. Some of them I did not even know by their real names.
Charles Watson was found in Texas. Patricia Krenwinkle in Alabama. Linda Kasabian had traveled to Salt lake City and then onward to New York. She turned herself in when she heard on TV that she’d been indicted.
And so I had it all out of my heart for the first time in months. I could breath again. And I thought that was the end of it. We’d be tried and found guilty and that would be the end of it.
I was wrong.
Chapter 19; The Pressure Inside.
It is interesting to note that even at this late stage in the game Manson still believed he had a couple cards up his sleeve. As you will see, his manipulating and self interest didn’t stop or falter for a moment. In the end I think you will see that ironically it was his own meddling in his case that cost him his freedom.
You must remember, Manson has prepared for this eventuality from the start. Every step of the way he has taken care to put distance between himself and the crimes he was organizing. Except for the Crowe blunder and his inability to keep from “showing how it’s done” on the night of the LaBianca Murders, he’s done pretty good at keeping himself covered. He’s also gone to great lengths to see that everyone who could possibly turn on him has their hands dirty as well.
Right away Charles Manson began to organize a network with which to run the Family from jail. Over the next couple years this network will be the means by which Charles Manson threatens witnesses, orders people to give and recant testimony, directs lawyers, orders jail-breaks, directs robberies, and even attempted murders.[110] Through members of the Family not charged with the crimes, namely Lynette Fromme and Sandra Good, Charles Manson begins fabricating his defense.[111] [112]
And his defense primarily involves sacrificing everyone else to the flames.
His first defense is, of course, to deny any knowledge of the crimes. When I go to the Grand Jury and implicate him, his response is fast and brutal. My attorney, Richard Caballero receives death threats.[113] I receive visits from “friends” who suggest it might be in my own best interest for me to recant my testimony.[114] [115] I receive endless harassing letters. Threats to my life were posted around the jail.[116] And, though I was supposed to be held incommunicado, Catherine Share gets herself arrested and put on my floor of the jail to scream and yell at me for a day and a half – I was a snitch, I was dead, Charlie wanted to see me, if I came back everything would be forgiven.[117]
And finally, I was reminded they could still find my son.
If one reads Mr. Bugliosi’s account of the crimes there is something odd that doesn’t pop out unless one is paying close attention. It is something that obviously didn’t occur to Mr. Bugliosi.
My son had been taken by Social Services after I was arrested during the police raid at Spahn’s Ranch. So had Mary Brunner’s son and Linda Kasabian’s daughter. As I already mentioned, Linda Kasabian heard about the arrests and returned to Los Angeles to retrieve her daughter. She was horrified to hear from the Social Worker that a young woman claiming to be Linda had showed up and tried to collect the child but had been turned away because she hadn’t had any identification.[118]
Mary Brunner had been able to get her son back from Social Services when the Grand Theft Auto charges were dropped once she was released from Jail. This is because Mary still had a driver’s license.
I didn’t have a driver’s license.
Mr. Bugliosi knows this. This is one of the reasons Linda was forced to drive to the Tate house – she was the only one who had a valid driver’s license. (Mary Brunner was in jail at the time for using a stolen credit card.)
But when I was arrested again in the desert my son was taken into custody again. Somehow my son had been returned to me despite the fact I didn’t have any identification.[119]
This never occurred to the Prosecutor.
But this is important.
The way it happened is that Manson sent me to social services to find out where my son was and then he sent four men to escourt me to the house and ask to see my son. When the couple who were looking after him left the room the men ushered me and my son back into the car, drove me back to Manson, my son was taken out of my hands and returned to where the other children were being kept “for his safety.”
This isn’t a breath-taking story, except that years later I’m still taunted by District Attorneys and Parole Board Commissioners who imply I’m lying when I say I was threatened with the life of my son while I was in Jail. They claim this is ridiculous because my son was safely in the care of the Social Services – no one could harm him. But I knew better. If Manson had been able to find where my son was once he could find him again, and he could send people to get to him.
In the end, Manson’s insistence that I recant my Grand Jury testimony shows a very naive understanding of the legal system. He believed that since my Grand Jury testimony was the only real evidence against him, if I recanted my testimony the charges would have to be dropped and he would have to be released.[120]
I put up with this pressure for months. Through his minions, and then later in person, Charles Manson told me it would be “better for everyone,” including myself and my son if I recanted my Grand Jury testimony.[121] He said the DA had no real evidence against any of us and once I recanted my testimony we’d all be set free.[122]
Charles Manson’s reasoning was clear – the only implication the District Attorney had on him was me. As for the claim that “we would all be set free,” in truth, the only one who had any real evidence against them was me. Due to my talking to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard, if I recanted my testimony and lost my immunity I would become the focal point of the DA’s whole case. But this didn’t matter to Charles Manson. For a man who insisted he loved his Family and would give his life for any of its members, he didn’t seem to have any qualms about using my son to force me to let go of my one chance at life. And all just so he could beat a rap and not take responsibility for a crime I had already resigned myself to.
In the end I succumbed. But I have to point out the position I was in was not a very nice one. I was being promised by Manson that if I didn’t do what he told me to I wouldn’t live a year in prison and possibly my son would be harmed as well. On the other side I was being promised by the Prosecutor that if I didn’t do what he told me to I would be executed.
In the end it became very clear. I’d seen what Charles Manson was capable of doing even to friends like Gary Hinman, and I knew he’d never considered me a “friend.” I also knew Mr. Bugliosi still had to prove his case. [123] In the spring of 1970, there really was a chance he might not be able to do this.[124] [125]
I recanted my testimony.
In the thirty-six years that have followed this moment in my life I have been regularly lambasted for my decision. The fact that I was the one who got Charles Manson indicted, and the fact that I was the one who told the Los Angeles Police Department he was even connected to the crimes, is regularly dismissed due to my recanting. At my parole Hearings the District Attorney regularly asserts it shows my willing and deliberate commitment to Charles Manson. When I claim my recanting was the product of coercion and fear they usually scoff.
The truth is, Mr. Bugliosi himself claims to have been given up to three bodyguards during the trial,[126] and his family was moved into a “safe house” in response to threats against his life.[127] [128] He also claims our judge was given three bodyguards, had a 24-hour guard on his home,[129] and carried a loaded gun under his judicial robes.[130] Both my Attorneys had their lives threatened.[131][132] Patricia Krenwinkel’s Attorney had his life threatened.[133] Leslie Van Houten’s Attorney may actually have been killed.[134] [135] And all of this while Manson was locked away in jail.
Most of the Family members were still free at that time. This included Lynette Fromme and Sandra Goode, whom the Prosecutor claimed followed him around with a knife,[136] [137] as well as Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan both of whom would eventually be convicted and recommended for death by their juries.[138]
There were very real reasons to fear Charles Manson even while he was incarcerated. And the District Attorney’s Office knew this.[139] [140] [141]
Chapter 20; Being Thrown Away By Both Sides.
I recanted my testimony and immediately heard that despite Manson’s assurances we’d all be freed, instead the District Attorney merely made a new deal with Linda Kasabian.[142] Now she was going to be their “evidence.” I was still going to face trial, but now I was going to face the Death Penalty too.
But suddenly it became very clear. I’d been promised not merely immunity from the Death Penalty, I’d been promised protection and isolation from my co-defendants. The District Attorney knew I was receiving visits from known Family members while supposedly being held incommunicado.[143] And he knew Catherine Share had been placed on my floor and on my hall of the Los Angeles County Jail (which had four floors of jail cells) and that she was allowed to yell threats down at me for the better part of two days. They knew threatening signs were being found hung on the walls of the jail, indicating I was a snitch, and they knew this was pushing me closer and closer to recanting.[144]
In hindsight I’ve come to believe this is exactly what the prosecution wanted.[145] And there are several good reasons for this belief.
In California you can’t use the testimony of one defendant against their co-defendants unless there is some corroborating evidence. That means you have to have at least one other piece of evidence to indicate the testimony of the defendant is truthful. In my case, though I was the one responsible for Charles Manson being indicted and charged, and though I was the one who told the District Attorney’s Office what happened and who was involved, my testimony could only go so far at trial.
My testimony could be used against Charles Watson and Patricia Krenwinkle because the police had found a fingerprint from both of them at the crime scene. And Leslie Van Houten had spoken to another girl at the Ranch about the LaBianca crime. Charles Manson himself had made several vaguely incriminating remarks to various people indicating his connection to the crimes. This provided the corroborating evidence that would allow my testimony to be used against them.
But there was no corroborating evidence against Linda Kasabian. This meant they wouldn’t be able to use my testimony against her and they didn’t have anything else.[146]
In the end it was obvious the District Attorney would rather have made a deal with Linda from the start – they knew they weren’t going to be able to prosecute her anyway - the problem was she hadn’t come forward until she’d already been indicted.
I, on the other hand, was different. If I could be induced to recant my testimony, and therefore invalidate my deal, what I’d said to the women in County Jail could be used as corroborating evidence for anything Linda said against me. [147] [148]
Vincent Bugliosi admitted to being angered when he found the DA’s office had offered me immunity.[149] Why? Because he was horrified by my participation in the crimes? No. Because from the DA’s point of view I was the only one he felt he had a good chance of prosecuting thanks to my statements to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard. He would much rather have chosen Linda, against whom he had no corroborating evidence, as the one he’d have offered immunity to.
From a prosecutorial point of view it just made sense to try to get rid of me.
When I finally did recant my testimony, Manson’s first question to me was “have you gotten to Linda?” His foremost interest was still himself.
But unlike me, Linda Kasabian couldn’t be threatened. The District Attorney’s Office offered her complete immunity (meaning she wouldn’t even be tried for the crimes) as well as protection and isolation from her co-defendants.
An indication of how the District Attorney’s Office could have prevented me from suffering the pressures I did when they left me in the Jail is seen in how differently they handled Linda Kasabian – the Prosecutor himself went straight over to the Jail the very day he made the deal with Linda and talked to the Sheriff in charge and had her put in isolation. [150] [151] [152] True isolation. On a separate floor from all the other people in jail. And he kept her there for the entire trial.[153]
This makes the fact they left me in the main jail population even though they knew I was being threatened and pressured a good indicator they knew what they were doing. They knew I was being pushed closer and closer to recanting.
Another indicator the District Attorney’s Office wasn’t being entirely honest with me is the fact that they only interviewed me once for two hours.[154] They later claimed my deal would have been invalidated even if I hadn’t recanted simply because I had not been “entirely truthful” with them. They claimed I hadn’t told them Manson had taken Linda Kasabian, Steve Grogan and me out to Venice Beach after the LaBianca’s and ordered us to kill a friend of Linda’s.
The truth is, I hadn’t told the prosecutor about that event because the interview never touched on it, it never came up, I didn’t think it was relevant, we hadn’t done it, and the Prosecutor only talked to me for two hours - it never came up.
The Prosecutor’s claim that I had deliberately omitted this is highly suspect, and I think he knows that.[155]
Mr. Bugliosi himself confesses he rarely interviews witnesses just once because they often overlook things they remember later.[156] [157] [158] [159] This indicates he knew perfectly well if he only interviewed me once there was a very good chance he could find something we hadn’t covered and which he could claim invalidated my deal.
In contrast, as soon as he made a deal with Linda he started interviewing her regularly. He claims to have spent as many as fifty hours interviewing her, some of these interviews lasting up to nine hours. In addition he gave her a pad of paper and told her to write down anything she’d overlooked when they’d talked. He claims some of the letters she wrote him were ten or more pages long. [160] In fact even minor witnesses were interviewed for hours and hours. [161] [162]
He interviewed me once, for two hours, and then claimed I hadn’t told him “everything.”
It’s also interesting that in the end I was the only person who agreed to testify against Manson without demanding complete immunity. Everyone else who had anything over them demanded complete immunity. From Linda Kasabian[163] to Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham. From Danny DeCarlo[164] to Mary Brunner.[165] I was the only one who accepted my part in the crimes and testified about them while still accepting responsibility for them.[166]
But this is not an indictment of Linda. Linda did what she should have done.[167] But she had a lot of advantages that I did not. Her daughter was now in the hands of her family on the east coast. She was being held incommunicado... true incommunicado. No one was allowed to see her. No one was allowed to talk to her... for nine long months.
Charles Manson had made another incredible blunder. If he had left me as the DA’s main witness he would have been able to continue to threaten me with my son and undermine the prosecution’s attack. Now there was no way for him to touch the DA’s main witness.
But his goal was obvious. With my testimony recanted, he immediately called for a dismissal of the charges against him. That I was still implicated by my talking to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard, and therefore now faced eight counts of first-degree murder with the loss of my immunity, didn’t bother him at all. I was disposable.
And suddenly I realized I’d been thrown away by the DA’s Office at the point when I was no longer useful to them, and I was being thrown away by Manson now that I was no longer needed by him.
Neither side had ever wanted me.
Chapter 21; The Selling of Bobby Beausoliel
Bobby Beausoliel’s first trial had ended in a hung jury. But the investigation into the Cielo-LaBianca murders was still turning up more evidence and more people who knew about the death of Gary. Mary Brunner was identified and charged as a co-defendant for the murder of Gary Hinman. Manson must have realized what Beausoliel was probably thinking. Manson decided to throw Bobby to the wolves.
Mary Brunner was told to make a deal with the DA’s office. At Bobby Beausoliel’s second trial Mary insisted that Bobby had acted on his own, that no one had prompted his killing of Gary Hinman.[168] Bobby must have realized what was happening. His “brother” Charles Manson was stabbing him in the back. In response, Bobby took the stand himself and declared that Manson was responsible for the murder. This is exactly what Manson had feared Beausoliel would do from the beginning, and it was exactly what he didn’t need right now. But it was too late for Beausoliel. He was convicted of first-degree murder.
Charles Manson had orchestrated the killing of Gary Hinman perfectly. By the time Beausoliel realized he was being thrown to the wolves his credibility was destroyed and he couldn’t even finger Manson convincingly.
But Manson was still afraid of being fingered for Crowe, the only murder he didn’t think he could worm his way out of. And so he immediately sent Mary Brunner back to recant her testimony in order to pacify Bobby. Then Bobby Beausoliel moved for a mistrial and release, claiming Mary’s testimony was the only evidence against him.[169] He was denied. And Manson was left to worry about whether Beausoliel would turn to the DA’s office about the Crowe incident.
So far in the investigation for the Cielo-LaBianca murders, the DA Vincent Bugliosi was digging as deep as he could for a motive and finding nothing but talk of revolution, environmentalism, and Helter Skelter.
Charles Manson must have smiled.
There was nothing about Bernard Crowe. All that nonsense that he had been spewing for months had paid off. All the stupid people who had trusted him to lead them were so confused as to what the murders were actually about that Bugliosi was getting nothing but nonsense. Charles Manson knew he couldn’t possibly be convicted on that. No one would believe that. No one would believe he had tried to instigate a race war to gain control of the world. And once a jury scoffed at that, Manson would simply show there was no proof he was at Gary Hinman’s house or the Cielo residence, and he’d left the LaBianca’s residence before anyone was hurt. He was in the clear.
To this end he continued to actively uphold the Helter Skelter motive himself. In interviews with the press Manson spoke of revolution, society’s ills, and the need to call the attention of the whole world. He instructed Lynette Fromme and Sandra Good and the members of the Family still free to stir the media up with claims that the murders were symbolic acts of revenge for the destruction of the planet. The girls who held vigil outside the courthouse were instructed to fill the newspapers with threats of impending doom and retaliation if he, Manson, was convicted. In the end, Manson believed, he would insist it was the girls’ ridiculous ideas that had prompted the killings and he had nothing to do with any of it, and he would slip away and leave us to die.
Manson must have smiled.
But he was missing something. His lust for media attention and his iron-clad control of his codefendants’ legal representation was beginning to show through. He didn’t realize, but the jury was beginning to see the extent of his control and manipulation of the Family. And the bizarre courtroom antics he arranged to make my codefendants and me look crazy and wild were beginning to back-fire as the jury and the press slowly became convinced the Family was just crazy enough to actually believe in Helter Skelter. Perhaps the murders were committed solely upon the deranged delusions of a madman.
It must be mentioned that in the fall of 1969, at the time of his arraignment for the Cielo-LaBainca murders, Charles Manson was almost universally believed by the professional and legal communities to be either completely innocent of the crimes or in a position that he could never be successfully prosecuted for them. And this was probably true. There was no physical evidence or sound motive connecting Charles Manson to the crimes. What eventually put Charles Manson on death row was his own foolish interruption of his legal defense.
If, from the start, he had just let his State-appointed lawyers do their jobs he probably would not have ended up in prison... that is, until he got caught for something else. But his involvement with his own legal representation not only confounded and undermined his lawyers, it made his controlling and manipulating nature more and more obvious.
Toward the end of the guilt phase of the trial it began to look as though the jury, and certainly the press, might actually be taking the Helter Skelter motive seriously. But Charles Manson was so wound up in the media blitz and being the center of attention, he didn’t even notice his twilight was coming.
Chapter 22; And the Heavens Cried
Sometime toward the end of the guilt phase of the trial something occurred which only merited a minor note from prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi. That Vincent Bugliosi didn’t realize the true significance of this occurrence shows his lack of understanding of the crimes.
While being escorted between jail and court, Charles Manson was led down one of the halls of the justice building when he met another prisoner being led in the other direction. It was Bernard Crowe.
Vincent Bugliosi says that the sheriffs escorting Manson said he turned to Crowe and said “sorry I had to do it, but you know how it is.”[170] (This alone tends to throw doubt on Manson’s claim that the shooting was in self defense - no apology would have been necessary.)
The true irony of this moment can only be appreciated if one understands the real reason all the killings began – to get money so that Manson could run away from the police and the Black Panthers, who he was sure were coming after him for killing Bernard Crowe.
At this one moment it must have all became obvious to Charles Manson. Bernard Crowe wasn’t dead. Manson hadn’t killed anyone that day. What’s worse was that it was also obvious that Bernard Crowe must have never mentioned the shooting to the police. And none of Crowe’s friends had either. And no Panthers had ever come up to wipe out Spahn Ranch. Bernard Crowe must not even know any Panthers!
That was the moment when the true horror and tragedy of all those murders should have come to Manson. That was the moment when it was obvious that when Charles Manson had ordered the murder of Gary Hinman, no one, not the police or the Panthers, was pursuing him. There had been no need for desperation. There had been no need for money to flee. And there had been no need for Gary Hinman to die.
So, Charles Manson’s fears about Crowe led to the completely unnecessary murder of Gary Hinman. Bobby Beausoliel’s arrest for the murder of Gary led to the horrific murders at the Cielo residence and the LaBianca residence. The murders at the Cielo and LaBianca residences led, ultimately, to the murder of Shorty Shea. And all of it was for nothing!
Seeing Bernard Crowe alive and in police custody should have sent a sickening chill through Charles Manson. The horror of nine innocent people dead should have filled him.
But I don’t know if it did. What I really think troubled him was the thought that Crowe might press charges or put a hit out on him.
On a personal note, I have often wished that I could have been there when this exchange took place. To see the look on Charles Manson’s face at the moment when he realized nine people had died and eight more were on their way to death row for nothing. All for nothing.
I would have liked to have seen if even a flicker of recognition of that horror showed on his face for even a second - some sign that for one moment in his life he actually cared about those people, both for those victims he hadn’t even known and for those young people who had trusted him.
And the heavens must have cried.
Chapter 23; The Lies That Bind
Toward the end of the guilt phase of the trial Manson should have realized that things weren’t going well. He’d tied his lawyers’ hands and insisted on controlling everything they did in court, even though he knew nothing about the law or legal proceedings, and he’d foiled their every attempt to help him.[171] And this was despite the fact that, nine months ago, ninety percent of the legal community believed there would be no way to convict Manson.[172] But those people had underestimated Charles Manson’s need to control everyone around him even when he didn’t know what he was doing.
At the end of the guilt phase of the trial Charles Manson got the shock of his life when he found out that he’d actually been convicted for the murders of the seven people at the Cielo and LaBianca residences. And he’d thought he’d been so careful to distance himself from the murders. The immaturity of his knowledge about the law can be seen in his lack of understanding that just his knowledge that the murders were going to take place and his knowledge afterwards that they did take place, even without the fact that he’d orchestrated them, made him an accessory to the murders and therefore legally culpable. The fact that he’d helped tie up the LaBiancas made his part in the murders active and premeditated. So he shouldn’t have been surprised.
But to someone who thought he was the only one who mattered in the world this blow must have been tremendous. And he’d been convicted with that ridiculous nonsense about Helter Skelter at that!
Chapter 24; The Penalty Plan.
Having been convicted, Manson changed his strategy going into the penalty phase of the trial.
In California a guilty verdict during the guilt phase of the trial is followed by a penalty phase, where the jury determines the penalty imposed. In the case of First Degree Murder in 1969, the choice was between seven-years-to-life in prison or the Death Penalty.
During the trial Manson had been careful to tie the hands of his co-defendants. He had forced each of us to fire our court-appointed attorneys and to hire attorneys who had solicited Manson. Mr. Bugliosi stated the result was that Manson had four attorneys and my co-defendants and I had none.[173]
This meant that during the trial he had prevented any of us from putting forth a defense. The reason is obvious. What could our attorneys have said other than, “These young women were forced into the crimes by the machete-wielding maniac Charles Manson”? Charles Manson’s hopes of being found not guilty rested squarely on me and my co-defendants taking the full weight of the responsibility for the crimes. He didn’t want us to have a defense. We were expendable. We were slated to die.[174]
But having been found guilty, Manson had to totally overhaul his strategy. He was now already implicated in the Hinman murder, so hiding the copy cat motive was no longer necessary. He also now knew he hadn’t killed Bernard Crowe, and so he didn’t have to worry about the police finding out about that. He now believed his best bet lay in throwing doubt upon the Helter Skelter motive he’d originally been so happy to see the prosecution latch onto. He’d also take every opportunity to try to slander the prosecution’s main witness, Linda Kasabian.
This is one of the reasons why my case is so strange. It was handled completely backwards. Our defense lawyers put forth no defense during the trial and then the entire defense was laid out during the penalty phase. This is one of the reason why, thirty-seven years later, no matter what I say skeptics can claim “nothing like this was ever brought out at the trial.” And they’re entirely correct – because no defense was brought out at the trial.
So this was the new plan Manson unfolded for the penalty phase of the trial. It was based on one of the most elementary manipulative tricks of them all - mix your lies with a lot of truth.
The copy cat motive would be uncovered and admitted, but with a few novel changes that would suit Charles Manson. First and foremost, the defense would claim Manson didn’t have anything to do with the planning of the murders. The man who told people in the Family what to wear, how to cut their hair, and broke chairs over people’s heads if they talked when he didn’t want them to, was now to be portrayed as an innocent bystander to the most all-encompassing decision ever made by the Family. A completely ridiculous charge to anyone who’d ever been in the Family or even seen the Family, but would the jury buy it?
The second most important change was that Linda Kasabian would be portrayed as the main ring-leader in the murders. This would help discredit her as a witness against Manson and give the illusion she was fingering Manson just to remove herself from the picture as much as possible. Once again, to anyone who knew the Family or Linda Kasabian, the charge was ridiculous.
It should be pointed out that Linda Kasabian was not the angel Vincent Bugliosi claimed she was (she was the only one besides Charles Manson himself to drive the Family to the crime scenes, and she was the only one to hide the weapons after the Cielo crimes), but she was certainly not responsible or culpable in any way for the murders. She was just as frightened and unwilling as the rest of us (during the Cielo murders she actually ran away, and the next night she deliberately steered Charles Manson away from potential victims in order to avoid any bloodshed).
But the true absurdity of Charles Manson’s claim that Linda was the ring-leader for the murders could be seen in the fact that she’d only been with the Family for about two months. Certainly no one who knew anything about the Family would have thought for a second she would have been able to usurp power over the Family from Manson. But the jury didn’t know the Family. Would they believe it?
The rest of the copy cat motive would be left as close to the truth as possible so there would be sufficient corroborating evidence.
The final (fictional) version would run something like this; Linda Kasabian was madly in love with Bobby Beausoliel. When Beausoliel was arrested she became frantic to find a way to free him. She then came up with the idea of performing copy cat murders so the police would see the murders were continuing and conclude they must have arrested the wrong man. Beausoliel would be freed and the Family would be back together and she would be with Beausoliel again. She had convinced the other girls in the Family and together they had lured the men in to help them. And all without breathing a word to Manson.
Immediately Manson began dictating this version of the story to the members of the Family who weren’t arrested, namely Lynette Fromme, Sandra Goode, and Catherine Share. He would then have his lawyers call these people as witnesses during the penalty phase of the trial to try to sell the story to the jury.
And this is what he did. The problem was that most of these girls weren’t closely related to the group that had gone out on the nights of August 8th and 9th. That whole group was now in jail. So it was easy for the prosecution to shed doubt not only on their testimony, but on their motives and credibility as well. To make things worse, many of the girls called to testify didn’t have the story down straight and others over-acted. This just gave the jury the impression that Charles Manson was orchestrating a cover-up – which is exactly what he was doing.[175]
Worse still for Charles Manson it showed the jury, once again, the depth of his manipulation and control over the people in his Family. It became more than obvious he did have the power to order people murdered and no one in the Family would have done anything he hadn’t told them to do. No one would have taken control away from him, not Watson and certainly not a twenty-one year old Linda Kasabian.
The odd thing about all of this is that the prosecution knew this version of the copy-cat motive wasn’t true. But by now they also knew about the connection between Gary Hinman’s death and the Cielo/LaBianca killings, and they even knew about the incident with Bernard Crowe. So they knew the Helter Skelter motive was at least somewhat, if not highly, suspect.
But they’d gone to the moon and back to sell the Helter Skelter theory, and the jury had believed it. The prosecution couldn’t possibly admit it was entertaining the idea that perhaps Helter Skelter wasn’t the motive. They would have lost all credibility.
And this could all be traced back to the public pressure the District Attorney’s Office had been under which forced them to rush the case to the Grand Jury before they fully understood everything that had happened. This book, of course, is meant to address this mistake. But in the case of the prosecution it meant they were locked into the Helter Skelter theory from that moment on.
They were stuck with Helter Skelter.
Chapter 25: Suicide on Command.
When it became obvious the poorly rehearsed and disjointed testimony of these girls wasn’t going to be enough to get Charles Manson off the hook, he did something that showed his character much more clearly than anything other than the murder of Gary Hinman, the man who’d helped feed his son.
When Lynette Fromme, Sandra Goode and Catherine Share perjured themselves on the stand for Charles Manson during the penalty phase of the trial they did so with little or nothing to lose. But when he came to Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and myself and told us that we were going to have to get on the stand and claim we had deliberately and remorselessly, and with no direction from him at all, committed all the murders ourselves, he was basically asking us to commit suicide.[176]
That this request came so easy for him was probably the nastiest point in my life. That he was brutal and cruel at times I already knew. That he was capable of murder, even the murder of a friend, I had known since watching him take a swing at Gary Hinman’s head with a machete. That it appeared I was being set up for the murders ever since recanting my Grand Jury testimony was a thought I had tried to keep from my mind. But I had always assured myself, though cruelty and brutality seemed to surface at times, it was only because of the dire straits we had been in at Spahn’s Ranch. I had assured myself all those words Manson had said about one big Family where everyone cared about everyone else and was willing to make sacrifices for one another were true.
That day I had to stop pretending and come to face the fact that all those sentiments were nothing but words to Charles Manson. The two and a half years I had spent with his Family overcoming adversity, struggling to get along, struggling to make ends meet, partying, hoping for the future, enjoying his dreams of being a musician, and scrimping though the hard times meant absolutely nothing to Charles Manson. I meant nothing to Charles Manson. None of the young people who’d come to follow and look up to Charles Manson meant anything to him, they were all expendable.[177] That was the day that I really began to understand Charles Manson the way I do today - the way I’m showing him in this book.
By this time in the trial I no longer even had my conscientious attorney Richard Caballero to turn to. I had had him replaced, at Manson’s order, with one of Charles Manson’s attorneys - Daye Shinn. Both of my codefendants had replaced their lawyers with one of Charles Manson’s lawyers as well (Krenwinkel’s attorney had simply been converted).[178] [179] [180] At this point in the trial, and faced with Manson’s request, there was nowhere at all to turn.
The whole trial I had been hoping that he and the lawyers had some idea of what they were doing. Charles Manson always said everything was going to work out all right. I didn’t realize what he had meant was everything was going to work out all right for him because, if worse came to worse, he had a back-up plan. That his plan was simply to sacrifice my codefendants and me was an idea I had refused to accept up to that point.[181] [182] [183]
We should have refused.
But Charles Manson was an expert manipulator. He’d waited to the end to tell us this was his back-up plan on purpose. By this time in the trial, he said, there was only one hope for all of us and that was to discredit the prosecution’s case. We couldn’t defend ourselves from all his charges, Manson said, but we could throw dirt on Linda Kasabian and completely undermine the Helter Skelter motive. If we could convince the jury the prosecution was completely wrong about the motive for the murders, there was a chance they could be persuaded they hadn’t been given the whole story, there might have been mitigating circumstances the prosecution had hidden.
This tactic didn’t work. All four of us ended up on death row. But Manson should have known it wouldn’t work. He made the same mistake he had with the testimony from the other girls in the Family - our stories were thrown together and poorly rehearsed, they were obviously concocted for the sole purpose of slandering Linda Kasabian and removing Charles Manson from the crimes, and they were only more proof to the jury that Charles Manson was in complete control of the Family, even unto death.[184] [185] Charles Manson had been beat - or rather, he’d beat himself.
Once again, it illustrates the self-interested purpose of Charles Manson to point out that during the penalty phase of the Cielo-LaBianca trial, he not only instructed us to confess to those murders but he made us confess to the murder of Gary Hinman. This was a completely uncorroborated story and it was ridiculous for many reasons, the most obvious being that neither Patricia Krenwinkel or Leslie Van Houten had even been to Gary Hinman’s home.[186]
What’s more, Mary Brunner had already testified it was Bobby Beausoliel who had killed Gary Hinman. And Bobby Beausoliel, in an attempt to extricate himself, had claimed Manson had killed Gary. Both accounts made it very unlikely my co-defendants or I could have done it After all, if Beausoliel was trying to save his skin it would have been a lot easier to claim I had killed Gary than to have claimed anyone else had, and it would have been the first thing on his mind if I actually had killed Gary.
But what makes this maneuver interesting is that Manson was already trying to expedite himself from the murder charge for Gary Hinman even before he was tried for Gary’s death. He was already trying to set up an alibi.
His first plan had been simply to distance himself physically from the murders. Now it was obvious the ridiculous Helter Skelter motive could be used to convict him even though he wasn’t at the crime scene when the murders took place. But that had been his whole master plan. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to distance himself physically from the murders and now it wouldn’t help him at all.
So now my codefendants and I had to swear we killed Gary Hinman without Manson’s encouragement. In fact, now the death of Gary Hinman was changed to look more like self defense. But the whole story was now so ridiculous that nobody believed it.
Even subtler is the fact that Charles Manson was trying to get us to admit to the murder of Gary without Bobby being involved. The reason for this can be understood only if one tries to think what Manson would gain by this. He now knew he would be tried for Gary Hinman’s death, and he knew he could be convicted if it could be shown that he had instigated the killing.
He knew his three codefendants could be forced to confess he had had no part in the killing, but what about Bobby Beausoliel? Beausoliel had already let Manson know if he was convicted he’d implicate Manson, and now he was convicted. Bobby Beausoliel had also already testified, unconvincingly, at his second trial that Manson had done the killing. It was obvious Charles Manson was trying to throw Bobby Beausoliel a bone. If Charles Manson could force us to take the heat for Bobby Beausoliel, he might be able to convince Bobby not to testify against him. Manson might still be able to worm his way out of that charge.
Once again this ploy didn’t work. And once again this was due mostly to poor story telling by myself and my codefendants. But what is of interest is the depth of Manson’s manipulations.
Another example of Charles Manson’s cold calculations was his attempt, in the later stages of the trial, to force Catherine Share to tell everyone she was carrying his child.[187] Her child was not Manson’s son, and he knew it. He was simply trying to play on the hearts of the public and the jury members right before they were to decide whether to sentence him to death.
In the end my testimony and the testimony of my co-defendants was a joke. Our lawyers, learning that we intended to implicate ourselves, refused to question us. When we finally were allowed to give statements none of the stories worked together. They contradicted each other. They didn’t make sense.
But by this time I really didn’t care. I was testifying simply to protect myself and to get Manson off my back. I didn’t care if the stories didn’t make sense. I didn’t care if they weren’t convincing. And I honestly didn’t care if the jury believed them. I was already convicted and looking at the death penalty – why should Manson walk away free?[188]
It was also during this testimony I was asked, once again, to say I had killed Sharon Tate. It hardly seemed important now - I was numb after months and months of pressure both from the District Attorneys and Manson’s minions. While my two co-defendants at least had each other to confide in, I had no one. Though we stood together in the pictures for the newspapers, no one would even talk to me. They blamed me for getting everyone indicted.
This was another reason I went along with Manson’s plan and “confessed” to killing Sharon Tate. Besides the constant threats and pressure from Manson, I realized I’d already been convicted. Whatever the outcome, either life in prison or the death penalty, I was going to prison and I was going to be locked up with these two women and many more Manson followers. My best hope was to mend that rift and try to get “back in the fold.”
My testimony during the Penalty Phase of the trial was so ridiculous the Prosecutor claimed the holes in my story were a mile wide.[189] In fact he used my Grand Jury testimony as proof I was lying.[190]
Unfortunately for me if you lie under oath, or if you tell two different stories under oath, the prosecution can use your inconsistencies to discredit the parts of your story they don’t want to accept, while the parts of your story they want to use they can call a “confession.”[191]
Though the Prosecutor admits that almost everything I said during my Penalty Phase testimony was a lie, he can still claim I confessed under oath I killed Sharon Tate. And there’s nothing I can do about it.[192]
Unfortunately in our Legal System, if you choose to commit suicide on the stand there’s nothing anyone can do to stop you.
Chapter 26: The Difference Between Vampires and Angels.
There are a lot of reasons to believe I did not kill Sharon Tate.
I won’t waste your time asking you to take my word for it. This book is absolutely worthless unless the reader is skeptical. I’ll simply lay down what other people have said and you can weigh it as you see fit.
I’ve already shown my exaggeration of my part in the crime when I was talking to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard in County Jail was in line with Manson’s own admission that this is exactly what he’d told us to do if we were ever arrested. As well as being in line with Graham and Howard’s own assessments that I was simply exaggerating in order to look tough and hide the fact I was scared.
And I’ve shown that even the Prosecutor admits my testimony on the witness stand during the penalty phase of the trial was almost complete nonsense directed by Manson with the sole purpose of shifting the responsibility for the crimes off Manson and onto myself and my co-defendants.
And I’ve shown if my present claim that I didn’t kill Sharon Tate is a lie, then it’s one I made up over thirty years ago and have stuck to ever since.
I can also point to the fact that I said I hadn’t killed Sharon Tate during my Grand Jury testimony in 1969. This was the testimony I was told by the Prosecutor had to be true or I could be executed. That’s a strong incentive to tell the truth.
Mr. Bugliosi, of course, believes I lied about that part of the crime in my Grand Jury testimony. I am happy to point out that even Mr. Bugliosi admits my rendition of the crimes as told to the Grand Jury was corroborated in every instance by the version Linda Kasabian gave.[193] [194] [195] And what makes this all the more impressive is that Linda never heard my Grand Jury testimony, nor could she in any way be induced to conform her story to mine - there was no reason to, she’d already been given complete immunity.
Though Linda was not present in the Cielo House when Sharon Tate was killed, and therefore can not confirm or deny that part of my story, it carries a certain weight that in every instance where our stories can be compared they do not contradict one another.
While none of this is proof in itself, it does indicate there is a real possibility what I say is true. But even beyond this there are numerous objective indications my story is true.
I’ve already mentioned Charles Watson has stated I didn’t kill Sharon Tate.[196] [197] Since this is a statement against his personal interest it is hard to see what he would have to gain by lying about it.
In addition, the Prosecutor has since admitted the knife I was carrying the night Sharon Tate was killed was actually found at the crime scene. It was tested for blood and it was found to be clean.[198]
It had never struck anyone.
This evidence is strange for several reasons. The primary reason is because I didn’t know about this until sometime around 1990 when I worked with several lawyers who, at their own expense and on their own time, actually went back and checked the prosecutor’s account of the crime. I honestly don’t remember anything about this at the trial.
There is no dispute it was my knife, as Linda Kasabian was the one who handed out the knives and she identified it. And there is no dispute there was no blood on it.[199] The Prosecutor has apparently insisted the fact my knife wasn’t used doesn’t prove I didn’t kill Sharon Tate at all - claiming I could have borrowed Charles Watson’s knife.[200]
The only problem with this explanation is if I’d had to ask Charles Watson for his knife he would have discovered I’d lost my knife while we were still in the house. But Linda Kasabian testified Watson didn’t discover this until after the crimes when Linda was collecting the weapons and I had to admit I’d lost my knife in the house. According to Linda Kasabian, Watson became very upset and yelled at me.[201] We then discussed whether we should go back to the house to look for it.[202] In the end we all decided we didn’t want to.
Whether you find this compelling or not, it is the prosecution itself that put forward the proof Watson didn’t discover I’d lost my knife until after the crime. It’s hard to insist Watson could have loaned me his knife without noticing my hands were already empty.
Linda Kasabian, who was standing guard at the end of the front walkway, also testified that when the crimes began she at first ran to the front door to find me and implore me to make the others stop. It was her testimony that I held out my hands and said I couldn’t.[203]
What Linda didn’t realize is that I wasn’t saying “I don’t want to stop what’s happening,” I was holding out my hands to show her, “I can’t do anything, I’ve even lost my own knife.”
Either way, whether you believe me or not is only an intellectual point - conspiracy to commit a crime makes you morally and legally culpable whether you struck the actual blow or not. I was convicted for those deaths and whether I physically partook of the crime or not doesn’t matter legally.
The reason it becomes interesting at all is because it has a very strong bearing on the difference between a Vampire and an Angel.
During his final summation, right before the jury was sent out to determine my sentence, the Prosecutor told them I was a blood-drinking vampire.[204] He meanwhile claimed that Linda Kasabian was an Angel - a “true flower child.” [205]
I believe the truth is Mr. Bugliosi realizes there are a lot of reasons to believe I did not actually kill Sharon Tate, but I also believe it will be almost impossible for him to ever admit that. The reason is because if he admits I probably didn’t kill Sharon Tate he has to deal with the fact that he nearly had me executed. This should bother him because if I didn’t kill Sharon Tate then there is absolutely no level upon which Linda Kasabian was less culpable than I was.
Linda had been with the Family for less than two months when she participated in the deaths of seven human beings.[206] [207] Manson had had over two years to threaten and pressure me.
Linda had two parents, separated, and an ex-husband she could have escaped to (and eventually did). I had no one in the world to turn to.[208]
Linda claimed she participated because of fears for her four-year-old daughter. I had a ten-month-old, two-month premature son to fear for.
Linda had sharpened the knives at Spahn’s Ranch, I hadn’t.[209]
Linda had carried a knife that night, just as I had.[210]
Linda had driven the car on both crime nights. I had not.
Linda stood watch outside the Cielo House. I had not.
Linda ran away from the crime scene at the Cielo House. I had frozen and had not been able to participate.
Linda collected the weapons and clothing after the Cielo crime. I had not.
Linda discarded the weapons and clothing after the Cielo crime. I had not.[211]
After the Cielo crime, when Manson asked all of us if we had any remorse Linda claimed she didn’t – just as I had.[212]
Linda had gone out the next night fearing what would happen, just as I had.[213]
Linda had driven Manson to the LaBiancas’ home, I hadn’t.[214]
Linda stayed in the car at the LaBianca crime scene, just as I had.[215]
Linda accepted Ms. LaBianca’s stolen wallet from Manson. I hadn’t.[216]
Linda had deposited Ms. LaBianca’s wallet at a gas station to mislead police. I hadn’t.[217]
Linda stopped the car so Manson could attempt to kill another motorist. I hadn’t.[218]
Linda told Manson where another victim might be found the night of the LaBianca crime. I had not.[219]
Linda showed Manson where the other potential victim lived. I had not.[220]
Linda didn’t go to the police even after she’d escaped from Spahn’s Ranch while I agreed to help the police even when I was in jail and was being threatened for being a “snitch.”
Linda didn’t go to the police even after she got her daughter back. I agreed to testify even though I never got my son back.[221]
Linda didn’t go to the police even when she and her daughter moved all the way to New York.
Linda only offered to make a deal with the District Attorney’s Office after she’d been indicted. I had agreed to work with the police as soon as they asked me.
Linda agreed to testified against Manson on condition she be given absolute immunity. I had agreed to testify against Manson and still go to trial for my part in the crime.[222]
Linda hadn’t been the one to break the case to the police. I was.
Linda hadn’t been the one who got Charles Manson indicted. I was.
Linda didn’t go out with the police to try to find evidence. I did.[223]
Mr. Bugliosi claims Linda told him she still loved Manson even after watching him orchestrate the murder of seven people, even during the trial. I never claimed that.
The only point upon which my part in the crimes appears greater than Linda’s is if one insists I killed Sharon Tate.
Once that assertion is questioned it becomes very hard to determine why I was the Vampire and Linda was the Angel... other than the fact the prosecutor had to explain to the public why he was letting Linda go scott free at the same time he was asking the jury to put me to death.[224]
It may be cynical but it has to be pointed out Mr. Bugliosi’s book about the crime was published just before he ran for Attorney General of California. It wouldn’t have looked good to have to admit Linda was allowed to go free simply because that was the deal they had to make. It was much better to insist she was given complete immunity because she wasn’t culpable – she was an innocent “Angel.” In fact, Mr. Bugliosi went so far as to claim he thought people would understandable how she could still love Charles Manson even after watching him orchestrate seven murders.[225]
I can’t.
But he also had to explain why, if I was so bad, the District Attorney’s Office had agreed to make a deal with me. Mr. Bugliosi’s account of the crime and trial is very detailed about his own insistence he’d always been against giving me any consideration.[226] [227] [228] Whether or not it was true it was a smart thing to say right before one runs for Attorney General.
But all this isn’t an indictment of Linda. I know exactly the pressure she was under. And I know exactly what Linda was doing. She was doing whatever it took to stay alive and keep her daughter alive until she could figure out how to escape.[229] She was putting on an act so Manson - the man who’d killed his friend Gary Hinman when he insisted he didn’t have any money and who’d had Donald Shea killed because he thought Shea had called the police on him - wouldn’t even suspect she was simply waiting for a moment to run.
I know this. I know it even better than the prosecuting attorney. I know it because I was there. My son was being held by armed guards right along with Linda’s daughter.[230] I stood right beside her after the crimes as she told Manson she had no regrets and I did the same.
And I understand why she ran to New York and hid and didn’t tell the police even after she retrieved her daughter from Manson’s grasp. She was afraid. I understand this because I was afraid of him too.
Linda did what she had to do to survive. And when the time came she did what she should have and she testified against Manson. I’ve never held that against her, even though by doing so she testified against me as well.
But I had been faced with quite a different situation. I could have either testified against Manson and then spent my life in prison trying to avoid getting killed by his minions and hoping they never found my son (remember, my deal was simply that I wouldn’t get the Death Penalty, I was still going to prison). Or I could have recanted my testimony and taken a chance we wouldn’t be found guilty and I would have known no matter what the outcome of the trial my son would be safe.
Linda was faced with the choice of either testifying against Manson and walking away completely free, or refusing to testify and facing the Death Penalty.
Linda made the right choice and it’s a choice I wish I’d had the opportunity to make, but I had been faced with a much different situation than she was.[231]
[Editor’s Note: In the subsequent Wrongful Death Lawsuit, filed after the criminal trial, Linda Kasabian was tried along with Manson, Watson, Krenwinkel, and Susan, and determined to have been equally responsible for the deaths of the five people at Cielo Drive, including Sharon Tate, and held joint and severally liable for over $10 million dollars in damages.]
Chapter 27; Life and Death Concurrently.
In the end we were all sentenced to death for the seven murders that occurred at the Cielo and LaBianca residences. Then we began the trial for Gary Hinman’s death.
By this time I was exhausted emotionally and mentally by the trial and the continuing isolation my co-defendants were putting me under. As soon as the trial for Gary’s death began I agreed to plead guilty. I did it to get out of that courtroom and away from Manson.
But when the Judge asked me if I understood I was pleading guilty to going to Gary’s house intending to kill him, I told him the truth. I didn’t know Gary was going to die.
The judge asked me if I went there in order to rob him and I told him the truth. I didn’t know anyone intended to rob him.
At this point the Judge delicately pointed out to me that in order to plead guilty I had to actually confess to doing something wrong. Since I was being tried for first degree murder I had to admit to some form of premeditation or he couldn’t accept my guilty plea. So I told him I killed Gary by suffocating him.
It was an odd thing to say. It wasn’t true. But I just honestly didn’t see any reason for sitting in that courtroom next to Manson for one more minute when I already had the death penalty.
The District Attorney got up and told the judge their evidence showed Gary had not been suffocated and they had never believed I’d killed him, but that they would accept my guilty plea because they believed I had known he was going to be robbed or killed and had gone there for that reason.
The judge accepted my plea and sentenced me to life. I asked him whether I was supposed to serve that before or after my death penalty. I was told I would be serving them concurrently.
As for Manson, he was tried and convicted for the murder of Gary Hinman and received an additional death sentence.
Bruce Davis was also convicted for Gary’s death, though as far as I remember he merely showed up with Manson the afternoon Manson attacked Gary. He joined Bobby Beausoliel on Death Row.
A later trial for the death of Donald Shea was conducted, but since I had nothing to do with that I don’t know the details. Manson was convicted again, as was Steve Grogan. The jury recommended the death penalty but the Judge gave Grogan life instead, claiming he had diminished capacity I believe.
Steve Grogan was paroled around 1985 after agreeing to lead authorities to the body of Donald Shea.[232] To their surprise, contrary to Steve’s boasting in 1969, Donald’s body hadn’t been cut into pieces. That had apparently all been a story to try to scare the younger Family members from talking to police.[233]
Charles Watson was later tried for the Cielo and LaBianca crimes and was convicted as well. Though I don’t know the details of that trial, I think because he was not under the threat of Manson he was able to put forward a much more realistic defense, at least acknowledging the incredible pressure everyone in the Family was under from Manson.
Late in the year 1971, Manson ordered Catherine Share and Mary Brunner to break another man out of jail. After the jailbreak, the three of them, along with other members of the Family, instigated the robbery of a Hawthorne sporting goods store. Their goal was money and guns with which to break Charles Manson out of jail. They failed and another long line of people headed to prison, misguided by Charles Manson’s talk of “brotherly love” and “self-sacrifice” - two concepts of which Charles Manson himself had no understanding of or use for at all.
Chapter 28; Life after Death
While I was on Death Row my son was legally taken from me because no one in my family was willing to raise him. His name and identity have been changed and sealed, so I have no idea where he is or how he is doing. I have since been told his name was changed to Paul, and whether or not that is true I like it. In the 1970’s I watched a talk-show which featured a woman who handled difficult child cases and who claimed to have handled the adoption of one of the “Manson family children.” Since my son was the only child who was taken away, it would have had to have been him.
My continuing separation from my son, even after all these years, remains an incredibly poignant and enduring loss.
Obviously I wasn’t executed.
Due to the convictions of a bare majority of the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the death penalty in America as it was imposed up until 1972 was determined to be unconstitutionally arbitrary. The California Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty in California even before the U.S. Supreme Court could, determining that it violated the California Constitutional’s prohibition against unusual punishments.
My sentence was commuted to the harshest constitutional sentence California had at the time – seven-years-to-life with the possibility of parole.
Of the five women on death row in California at the time the Supreme Court invalidated the Death Penalty, only me and my two co-defendants are still in prison. One of the women was paroled after about eight years, the other was paroled in the early 1980’s after serving about 13 years.
As for my co-defendants, I’ve never interacted with them much. A lot of that probably was residual resentment for my getting them indicted. I know they both have exemplary post-conviction records and both are regularly denied parole for little or no reason other than the crime.
Twenty or twenty-five years after my conviction I was in a State-mandated child development class and my codefendant Leslie happened to be in the class as well. I’d been interacting in class and talking about how I’d been kept away from my son during his early development and how much I resented that. During the break Leslie came up to me and apologized. She told me for over twenty years she’d disliked me because way back when we were all living at Spahn’s Ranch, Manson had told her my son was being kept with the other children because I didn’t want him. Since Leslie and I didn’t interact back then she had no way of knowing it wasn’t true. Just another indication of the subtle ways in which Manson was able to instigate resentment and ill-feelings between people simply in order to make them easier to control.
In the end, as decades and decades go by, I’ve been able to see the work both of my codefendants have done in this institution, contributing to various community services and victim’s services. And so now, even though I still do not interact with them, I can appreciate how much they’ve made of their lives in this constricting environment.
In the 1990’s Patricia Krenwinkle gave the only interview I believe she’s ever given. I was surprised to hear the one thing she felt she needed to stress over and over again was that there was nothing cool about what happened during our crime. Apparently she, like me, has received letters from people interested with the crime and convinced it was something other than a horrible, senseless tragedy.
My hope for this book has from the start been that it will lay the crimes out in a way that makes them look like what they really were. There is nothing mystic about them. Nothing impressive. Nothing worthy of admiration.
It is also my hope something good will come out of this. Every year I receive dozens of letters from people asking me for advice in reaching their sons or daughters or their younger relatives concerning either drugs or the pitfalls of cults and gang-mentality. Sometimes I get letters from police officers or correctional officers working with youth asking how to reach children and young adults when they get to the point where they’re so alienated they no longer listen or trust anyone. And that’s a tough question.
One of the most important things to take from this whole story is that actions lead to consequences. Freedom involves responsibilities. Freedom is a gift and a treasure. That’s what I’d like to think young people will take from this story.
This is the past I have to live with, and I have to live with it every day. Unlike the reader, or the people who seem to think Charles Manson was cool, I can’t think about it for an hour or so and then go on with my life. Just like the families and friends of the victims, this is with me every day. I have to wake up every day with this and no matter what I do for the rest of my life and no matter how much I give back to the community I will never be able to replace what my crime took away. And that’s not “neat,” and that’s not “cool.”
***
So, here's my question. Should a woman who has been in prison for 40 years and appears to be rehabilitated be set free? Are the crimes she committed too severe for her to be let go despite her major change? Or does rehabilitation grant freedom? I think she should be set free.
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