"You really have to love someone to kill them."-Sexy sadie
In 1967 I met Charles Manson he was playing guitar at the place I was living. Our house was raided by the police several weeks later and I was left homeless, Manson invited me to join his group, who were embarking on a summer road trip in a converted school bus painted completely black. I was nicknamed "Sadie Mae Glutz" by Manson who was creating a fake ID for me at the time. After the road trip I then moved onto their ranch, Spahn Ranch in San Fernando Valley in Southern California. At the ranch I had, had a son, Manson named him Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz, I only kept my son until he was one year old, after i was arrested he was put into a orphanage and I never again had any contact with him. By July 1969, I was a trusted member of Manson's inner circle, and he took me and two others with him to rob a man named Gary Hinman for money Manson had heard that he had just inherited a large sum of money. Manson wanted Hinman to join the commune and contributing his purported new inheritance. When Hinman wouldn't join or give us the money, Manson slashed his face with a sword and left, and later we all together beat and killed him. I also wrote "Political Piggy" in Hinman's blood on the wall. That was the first time I ever killed anyone.
"My lover Charlie is Jesus, and he is going to lead me to a hole in the earth in Death Valley, there is a civilization down there."Manson told us that during the war (the war between the races Manson believed was going to take place), we would hide in a hole in the desert and emerge when the war was over. He said the blacks would win the war, but would be unable to govern and would turn to him to be the leader of the new world.
We wanted to do a crime that would shock the world! so that the world would have to stand up and take notice. We selected the Tate house because it was isolated, and Manson had been there so knew the layout. We knew who the owner was but we didn't know or care as to who would be at the house that night. There were four of us, myself, Linda Kasabian, Tex Watson, and Patricia Krenwinkel, we had been given instructions by Charlie to kill everyone in the house and take all the money. When we got to the gate, Tex cut the telephone wires. Then we shot this teenager four times because he had seen us. Then i was instructed by Tex to go into the house and find out who was where. There was a man on the couch and a woman on the chair reading. I found Sharon sitting on the bed talking to Jay Sebring. Firstly we quickly put nooses over Sharon and Jay's heads so that if they moved they would choke. Frykowski ran for the door. He was full of blood, I stabbed him three or four times. He was bleeding and he ran to the front part of the house, and would you believe that he was there hollering 'Help, help, somebody please help me,' and nobody came? Then we finished him off. Sharon was the last to die, (laughs), she kept on begging me, " Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. I don't want to die. I want to live. I want to have my baby. I want to have my baby." I looked Sharon straight in the eye and said, "Look, bitch, I have no mercy for you. I don't care if you're going to have a baby. You had better be ready. You're going to die and I don't feel anything about it...and in a few minutes I killed her. I wanted to cut out her baby, and mutilate the victims fingers, but there wasn't enough time.
Arrested.
While in jail, Atkins befriended two middle-aged career criminals, Virginia Graham and Veronica "Ronnie" Howard, to whom she confessed her participation in the Tate/LaBianca murders, for example telling the women that she had stabbed Tate and tasted Tate's blood. They subsequently reported her statements to the authorities. This, combined with information from other sources, led to the arrests of Atkins and others involved in the Tate/LaBianca murders (Van Houten, Krenwinkel, Kasabian, and Watson).
While in jail, Atkins befriended two middle-aged career criminals, Virginia Graham and Veronica "Ronnie" Howard, to whom she confessed her participation in the Tate/LaBianca murders, for example telling the women that she had stabbed Tate and tasted Tate's blood. They subsequently reported her statements to the authorities. This, combined with information from other sources, led to the arrests of Atkins and others involved in the Tate/LaBianca murders (Van Houten, Krenwinkel, Kasabian, and Watson).
Before Manson. Susan Denise Atkins was born on May 7, 1948 in San Gabriel, California. When Atkins was 15, her mother died of cancer. Atkins and her alcoholic father quarreled continuously and beat her and Atkins decided to quit school and move to San Francisco. She became involved with two escaped convicts and the three committed armed robberies along the west coast. When caught, Atkins did three months in jail and then returned to San Francisco where she took up topless dancing
"Charles Manson is Jesus"
Charles Manson's Song
Movie Helter Skelter Confession of Tates' murder.
Documentary on the Manson family
“I’ve tried to wear everybody else’s personality. They just don’t fit. From now on, I’m just going to be me.”
Susan's Record 1971-1979
1971
6-15-71 Psychologist Dr. Fischmann states that Susan “does not tend to engage in verbal evasions, games and manipulations, and responds much more directly, frankly and sincerely [than her co-defendants].” He goes on to say that Susan has a psychological facet that “differs substantially from the features which characterize a “manson girl.” Susan achieved a good rapport, expressed sincere feelings, was ready for a cathartic confession. She showed no trace of personal hostility or personal passive aggressivity.”
6-17-71 In her Initial Interview on Death Row, the Correctional Counselor stated Susan was “very pleasant and friendly.” Correctional Officer stated “she is adjusting well and is no problem in the unit.”
6-23-71 Psychiatrist Dr. Coburn, in his Psychiatric Evaluation, states that Susan “was quite open regarding the instant offenses and was specifically warned of the public nature of her utterances in regard to any further prosecutions for the instant offenses. She described her involvement very openly...” She related that her codefendants react very coldly toward her, and the doctor states that her codefendants “in fact had previously admitted having less than positive feelings toward this defendant...” He ends by stating that “there is every likelihood that she will significantly change her outlook, her view of physical life and death, her relationship to society, etc. to the point where she would cease to be a danger.”
6-25-71 Psychiatrist Dr. Hensley states that “At the present time there is no clear suicidal thinking or homicidal urges...” “I suspect that if she does decompensate she will do so quietly, will become progressively more withdrawn and uncommunicative.”
6-30-71 Psychiatrist Dr. Roh states that Susan “remained pleasant, polite and cooperative throughout the interview. She was oriented in all three spheres and in good contact with reality.”
7-12-71 Requested a Bible on Death Row.
7-20-71 Chaplain Walcutt states that Susan "seems open to talking in depth and is interesting to talk with."
7-21-71 Susan's Custodial Evaluation describes Susan as "attentive to her appearance", "usually neat and clean", Cooperative towards staff, and though she has no job assignment, she voluntarily cleans the Security Area.
7-21-71 Deathrow WatchWoman Hunt reports that Susan “is accepting her situation here and going along with the rules.”
7-22-71 Probation Report states that when questioned, Susan “responded eagerly,” and that “she maintained a pleasant and poised manner, even when she had definite opinions regarding what she felt...”
8-30-71 Superintendent Carlson states that Susan “has not presented any problems...” “She appears more isolated and lonely than her two codefendants... She has more art work in her room than the other two women and has selected pictures which are both sensitive and sentimental. They are well chosen.”
1972
3-29-72 Correctional Counselor stated that Susan “was very emphatic and definite in her statements, and she tried to get the idea over that she will do whatever is asked of her while at the institution.”
3-22-72 Psychologist Dr. Boylan stated that “Miss Atkins is capable of growing as a worthwhile and responsible person. She is not dangerous to herself or to others nor is she likely to evoke aggressive responses from others.”
3-30-72 Correctional Counselor stated that the trauma that Susan endured during her childhood “all contributed to the present personality makeup...” His conclusion was that “Looking back, it is quite obvious that she was in need of therapeutic help and perhaps, if she was given some of this help in her earlier years, the sequence of events that later came about might have possibly been altered.”
3-31-72 Psychiatrist Dr. Roh stated that Susan’s “development potential was quite substantial.” “Her violence potential was average in this institution and if released to the campus it would probably remain unchanged.” “She showed positive changes in attitude...”
4-12-72 RGC Counseling Staff records that Susan is "more stable emotionally than when first evaluated and is cooperative." "No evidence of overt disorder of thought or affect... Positive changes in attitude. Development potential is substantial."
9-7-72 1972 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - none
10-30-72 Correctional Counselor stated that Susan “has been friendly and cooperative” and that staff have made no adverse reports about her.
12-13-72 Vacation of Death Penalty.
1973
3-7-73 Letter from Susan to Superintendent Ms. Carlson, disavowing any connection with the “Manson family in or out of the institution.” Staff notes a “great deal of anti-family sentiment.”
9-4-73 Psychiatrist Dr. Flanagan states that Susan’s occupational therapy “has proven beneficial, particularly through the positive nature of her interactions with others. She is a pleasant person with whom to work.” He also mentions that she showed insight when she stated “I’ve tried to wear everybody else’s personality. They just don’t fit. From now on, I’m just going to be me.”
9-7-73 1973 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - “Get down to ... what God had to say about Himself.”
9-7-73 The Women’s Board of Terms and Parole states that, “The Board noted that subject is “searching and that is good.” The Board said that maybe there is a glimmer of hope for subject. The Board offered for subject’s consideration to “get down to brass tacks and what God had to say about Himself.”
1974
7-25-74 Psychiatrist Dr. Roh states that Susan “showed general improvement since the last interview.”
9-4-74 1974 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - “Persue [sic] her spiritual interests.”
10-25-74 Dr. Black states, in a Chronological Therapy Session Report, that Susan's attitude was "that of a cooperative, friendly, verbal young woman." He also states that Susan appears to have learned to gain what she wants by directing her positive attitude.
12-16-74 Completed a History class through Chaffey College, receiving a “B”.
1975
3-21-75 Dr. Black stated that in his group therapy sessions Susan expressed legitimate concern about the emotional state of fellow prisoners.
4-9-75 Superintendent and Classification Committee acknowledges Susan’s deliberate break from “family.”
5-8-75 Supervisor of Education states that Susan has done “a tremendous amount of Bible study.”
5-16-75 Dr. Black records that Susan made an emphatic statement that she does not have anything to do with the “family,” and she wants to document her dissociation with the “family” and their conflicts. He also notes that Susan "continues to be more open and apparently emotionally honest with respect to her previous association and her personal experiences."
8-18-75 Psychiatrist Dr. Black states that Susan shows no “gross defect in her judgment...” And he concludes that “This woman has shown no tendencies to be a danger to others or to herself since her initial contact with me.”
9-75 Susan’s Case manager states that “Susan is a pleasant appearing young woman, who relates to her peers with warmth and friendliness.”
9-4-75 1975 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - none
1976
2-10-76 Susan is described as a “hard worker, dependable.”
2-13-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono for offering her time and effort to help Staff.
4-2-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for the assistance she displayed by helping staff carry another inmate over to the hospital.
4-20-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering to help without being asked.
4-21-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono for doing extra work on the Unit.
6-25-76 Work Supervisor stated that Susan takes pride in her work and “works without supervision.”
7-2-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering to clean up a health problem in the Psychiatric Treatment Unit.
7-6-76 Program Evaluation Committee states that in the last five years, Susan “has no disciplinaries... has a good attitude, tries to get along with peers... Is respectful of staff.”
7-27-76 Psychiatrist Dr. Flanagan, who had known Susan for 15 months, stated that Susan told him she was once antisocial in nature. “By contrast now for the first time in her life she feels patriotic to the point where she prays for her country and for those who have been elected to its administrative offices.” She states she is writing an autobiography, “By describing her own conflicts and the mistakes she has made in attempting to solve them, she hopes to provide a useful service for others. Proceeds from this book are to be donated to a nonprofit Christian organization, the New Life Foundation, which she is organizing...” He claims Susan was “expressing herself with some insight.” “She has searched for guidance and direction...” “She is substantially more consistent in her thinking and system of values and this is significant.” He concludes by stating that “A fair prognosis is offered with respect to this woman becoming a conforming member of the community.”
7-29-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering to clean when the staff lost their aid.
9-76 Susan’s Counselor states that “Susan is rated as a very good cottage citizen, quiet and considerate, with apparent excellent adherence to the cottage rules.” “... during the last 6 months, Susan’s programming has been heralded by significant improvement in her emotional growth.”
9-14-76 1976 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - none
9-14-76 Board states at Susan’s Board Hearing, that “Panel was impressed with Susan’s sincerity and in her endeavor to carry out her new life style, goals... Time will be the true test of her stability.” “Board explained... that they consider her making excellent progress...” “They were very impressed at her improvement.”
9-14-76 Staff document that Susan shows an interest in helping peers going through emotional problems.
9-14-76 Lieutenant stated that Susan is good at adhering to rules, has a good attitude towards staff, and is friendly with peers. In addition he comments that she “wants to help those peers who may be going through emotional problems.”
9-17-76 Work Supervisor states that Susan is a “good worker” and that she works “without supervision.”
9-17-76 Unit Progress Report states that Susan is enthusiastic and “takes interest in those around her.”
10-14-76 Susan was commended by the Women’s Board for her improvement since her last hearing.
10-14-76 Correctional Counselor stated Susan “has a pleasant attitude. She is involved with Religious work and tries to get along with everyone. ... She has no disciplinaries to date...”
10-27-76 Occupational Therapist states that Susan is good at adhering to rules, shows a good attitude towards staff and peers, is a good worker, shows consistency in her work, always completes what she begins, and “is regarded (non-verbally) by many of the residents as a good resource person...”
11-3-76 Staff stated that Susan was a “reliable, mature, organized young women” who presents no problems.
11-30-76 Correctional Counselor stated that Susan “has demonstrated above-average behavior in her living unit.” He also stated that Susan “is not considered to be a custody risk ...”
12-1-76 PEC Committee said that “Susan has demonstrated above-average behavior... does above-average work... and is not considered to be a custody risk.” They further commended her for being disciplinary free.
12-1-76 Lieutenant Gates states that Susan is good at adhering to rules, shows a good attitude towards staff and peers, and “has been patient in the confusion over her Green Pass and program.”
1977
2-1-77 Work Supervisor describes Susan as “dependable and quiet...”
3-24-77 PEC Committee states that Susan “has been disciplinary free, does well in her job assignment” and causes no problems on her unit.
3-31-77 Work Supervisor states that Susan has ignored peer pressure and that Susan has claimed that she “may become stronger from it.”
3-31-77 Staff documents that Susan ignores peer pressure.
4-6-77 Superintendent, Associate Superintendent, and Correctional Counselor commend Susan for getting good reports from staff.
4-8-77 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering to work in the kitchen during her free time to help when there was a shortage of workers. “Her cooperation and willingness to work was greatly appreciated by both staff and peers.”
6-16-77 Chief of the BPT, Howard Way, states that Susan will be a good parole risk someday.
7-28-77 Lieutenant states after 6 months in Susan’s housing unit, that Susan “has always conducted herself in a mature and responsible manner. She is always pleasant... and appears to be a very positive element within PTU.”
7-28-77 Acting PTU Administrator commends Susan for being disciplinary free, showing good behavior, never abusing her privileges, improving work output, as well as her efforts in school and her housing unit.
7-28-77 PEC Committee stated that Susan is “a source of stability on [her housing unit] for those less stable: [she] encourages women to do what is right and encourages them not to fight the system but to program and cooperate with staff and abide by the rules.”
7-28-77 House Supervisor for Susan’s housing unit stated that “Susan has been very pleasant at all times; has done her work and can always be counted on to help where needed.
7-28-77 Lieutenant at housing unit states that Susan is “thoughtful of others... She has not been a problem and has remained disciplinary free for quite a long period of time.”
8-3-77 Lieutenant in her housing unit stated that Susan was “No problem. Respectful. Concerned and a stabilizing influence.” He also stated that she was no problem in supervising.
8-9-77 Program Administrator states that Susan “is pleasant to all in her cottage, even when great stress is upon her. She is respectful towards staff and when she is wrong, will admit her error and make the necessary adjustment.” “Susan gets along well with her peers and is a stabilizing person in the cottage.” “Susan has involved herself in religious activities and appears to be sincere in her beliefs. I believe her faith has a very positive effect on her behavior. If Susan continues with this attitude and behavior demonstrated during the past year, she should be able to live a crime-free life once she is paroled and released to the community.” He also notes that Susan received no disciplinary write-ups in more than six years.
8-30-77 Correctional Counselor stated that Susan “demonstrated good behavior... continued to make good progress during the past several months, demonstrating a good work habit and a good attitude.”
9-77 1977 Board Hearing Postponed
10-77 Susan’s Counselor states that Susan has had no 115’s in more than six years. “She is pleasant to all in her cottage, even when great stress is upon her. She is respectful towards staff...” “Susan gets along well with her peers and is a stabilizer in her cottage.” “If Susan continues with this attitude and behavior demonstrated during the past year, she should be able to live a crime-free life once she is paroled and released to the community.”
10-19-77 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for helping keep the office running well.
11-1-77 Lieutenant Arnold states that Susan has an exceptional attitude in regards to staff and that as far as her peers go, she “gets along with everyone.” He also states that Susan never has to be reminded about her work and that she “responds well to direction.”
11-9-77 Superintendent, Associate Superintendent, and Correctional Counselor validate Susan’s reading and sharing scripture with other inmates.
11-19-77 Susan received a Commendation Chrono for doing extra work.
1978
1-19-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for “excellent work in the PTU clerks office.” Staff stated that “Susan shows a large degree of dependability and responsibility on her job.”
1-31-78 Susan is invited to speak at the Believer’s Fellowship of Lake Worth, FL., in response to her Book “Child of God.” The West Palm Beach Sheriff’s Department agreed to supply security for Susan.
2-1-78 Work Supervisor states that Susan is exceptional in her skill and knowledge, as well as being exceptional in her use and care of State equipment. She also states that Susan “shows the capability of being a fine clerk and typist. She a good worker and puts in a very productive day in the office.”
2-2-78 Lieutenant claims Susan has “above-average” adherence to rules. “Attitude toward staff: Exceptionally polite.” “Relates well with all, job performance continues to be excellent. Responds to authority and direction well. Requires little supervision...” “She also is influential in the unit in a religious vein and has been instrumental in beginning a religious group with staff supervision twice weekly. She can be a very positive stabilizer in the unit when weaker individuals need assistance.”
3-29-78 Superintendent, Associate Superintendent, and C&PR commend Susan for receiving “very good grades” and very good “comments from her school supervisor.”
4-78 Work Supervisor states that Susan “has grown in both her work assignment, accepting and handling responsibility ...” She goes on to commend Susan for “exceptional” skill and knowledge, as well as for “exceptional” quality of work and “exceptional use and care of State equipment.
4-4-78 Lieutenant claims Susan is Above-average in adherence to rules. “Attitude towards staff: exceptionally polite.” “Attitude towards peers: Friendly with all and a stabilizer on the unit.” Stated that Susan had “continued to demonstrate consistent politeness and respect towards staff.”
4-12-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for taking the initiative with another inmate to clean the entire clerks office when the work wasn’t done by the House Aide. “These women are the resident clerks and it is not their job to clean the office.”
4-20-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for all the extra hours she worked to assist staff and other inmates.
5-6-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from a Nurse for “her thoughtfulness and help to an other resident who was bleeding profusely. She helped me place pressure bandages on the wrist. She showed much concern and dedication to the life of an other. I think she handled the situation very well. It is good to have someone like Susan during any emergency.”
5-7-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering in the Psychiatric Unit’s kitchen, as well as staying up late in the clerks office typing reports, as well as for being efficient and responsible.
5-8-78 Psychiatrist Dr. Roh, who had known Susan for eight years, stated that Susan has “improved greatly through the eight years of incarceration in this institution as witness by the undersigned.” He also stated that she was functioning at her job “with responsibility and competence...”
5-9-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Lieutenant Magette for assisting in typing reports during a prison
disturbance.
5-13-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Lieutenant Arnold for doing work “always beyond expectations,” as well as for being “respectful, polite and courteous.”
7-78 Program Administrator states that he has known Susan for approximately seven years, and that “Susan has undergone dramatic changes since her arrival at CIW...” “Subject’s positive attitude and behavior are reflected by her participation program. She... continually demonstrates a cooperative and helpful attitude. ... Susan attends church services each Sunday and is currently enrolled in a bible study course on an independent study basis.” “It should be noted that subject has had no disciplinary documentation.”
7-20-78 1978 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - none
7-20-78 PEC as well as the Board [of Prison Terms] acknowledged the progress Susan has made. Correctional Counselor commended Susan for taking the Board decision with understanding, and for presenting herself well at both the Board Hearing as well as at the prison’s post-board hearing. The Board tells Susan not to be a “goody goody toe shoes” because that’s dangerous in prison. (101) They also said she should be in a relationship. (148)
7-26-78 Superintendent and Associate Superintendent acknowledge that Susan has no difficulties or problems related to green pass privileges.
10-10-78 Lieutenant states that Susan is reliable and that her work is of “exceptional” quality.
11-21-78 Correctional Counselor states that Susan’s work reports show she is “dependable, always willing to do extra work and in general, doing an outstanding job.” He also noted that when other inmates became confrontational, Susan did not respond to provocation. He also commended her for remaining disciplinary free.
1979
2-1-79 Lieutenant commends Susan for exceptional work quality.
3-12-79 Occupational Therapist stated that Susan has involved herself “extensively” with all occupational therapy offered. “She requires no supervision and frequently is called upon by others for instruction and aid. Susan generally attends both O.T. sessions... though she is on an elective O.T. Program.”
3-15-79 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from the Kitchen Supervisor for her continuous assistance.
4-24-79 PTU Program Administrator states that Susan did not abuse privileges, staff feedback on her behavior was all positive, and that she is “usually very friendly and cooperative with her dealings with other residents and staff.”
7-79 Susan’s Counselor, in his Report to the Community Release Board, states that he has known Susan for over a year and has had daily contact with her. He claims she “displays a friendly, cooperative attitude towards staff and peers alike.” “over all adjustment in PTU has been viewed as excellent.” “Prognosis... If Susan continues in her present attitude/behavior, she could function as a productive member of the community upon her release to parole.”
7-6-79 1979 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - 1) Remain disciplinary free.
2) Continue involvement in current hobbies.
3) Remain on psychiatric referral
7-27-79 Correctional Counselor commended Susan for not allowing a personal disappointment to effect her behavior and attitude.
10-22-79 CSC Committee states that “the committee members agree that [Susan’s] behavior on [her housing unit] has been very satisfactory. She has not presented a management problem to staff, instead has been cooperative and friendly in her contacts with staff.”
11-5-79 Occupational Therapist stated that Susan “has voluntarily assisted other residents with their personal projects. She presents herself in a quiet, mature fashion.” “Overall Susan has done an excellent job in O.T.”
1971
6-15-71 Psychologist Dr. Fischmann states that Susan “does not tend to engage in verbal evasions, games and manipulations, and responds much more directly, frankly and sincerely [than her co-defendants].” He goes on to say that Susan has a psychological facet that “differs substantially from the features which characterize a “manson girl.” Susan achieved a good rapport, expressed sincere feelings, was ready for a cathartic confession. She showed no trace of personal hostility or personal passive aggressivity.”
6-17-71 In her Initial Interview on Death Row, the Correctional Counselor stated Susan was “very pleasant and friendly.” Correctional Officer stated “she is adjusting well and is no problem in the unit.”
6-23-71 Psychiatrist Dr. Coburn, in his Psychiatric Evaluation, states that Susan “was quite open regarding the instant offenses and was specifically warned of the public nature of her utterances in regard to any further prosecutions for the instant offenses. She described her involvement very openly...” She related that her codefendants react very coldly toward her, and the doctor states that her codefendants “in fact had previously admitted having less than positive feelings toward this defendant...” He ends by stating that “there is every likelihood that she will significantly change her outlook, her view of physical life and death, her relationship to society, etc. to the point where she would cease to be a danger.”
6-25-71 Psychiatrist Dr. Hensley states that “At the present time there is no clear suicidal thinking or homicidal urges...” “I suspect that if she does decompensate she will do so quietly, will become progressively more withdrawn and uncommunicative.”
6-30-71 Psychiatrist Dr. Roh states that Susan “remained pleasant, polite and cooperative throughout the interview. She was oriented in all three spheres and in good contact with reality.”
7-12-71 Requested a Bible on Death Row.
7-20-71 Chaplain Walcutt states that Susan "seems open to talking in depth and is interesting to talk with."
7-21-71 Susan's Custodial Evaluation describes Susan as "attentive to her appearance", "usually neat and clean", Cooperative towards staff, and though she has no job assignment, she voluntarily cleans the Security Area.
7-21-71 Deathrow WatchWoman Hunt reports that Susan “is accepting her situation here and going along with the rules.”
7-22-71 Probation Report states that when questioned, Susan “responded eagerly,” and that “she maintained a pleasant and poised manner, even when she had definite opinions regarding what she felt...”
8-30-71 Superintendent Carlson states that Susan “has not presented any problems...” “She appears more isolated and lonely than her two codefendants... She has more art work in her room than the other two women and has selected pictures which are both sensitive and sentimental. They are well chosen.”
1972
3-29-72 Correctional Counselor stated that Susan “was very emphatic and definite in her statements, and she tried to get the idea over that she will do whatever is asked of her while at the institution.”
3-22-72 Psychologist Dr. Boylan stated that “Miss Atkins is capable of growing as a worthwhile and responsible person. She is not dangerous to herself or to others nor is she likely to evoke aggressive responses from others.”
3-30-72 Correctional Counselor stated that the trauma that Susan endured during her childhood “all contributed to the present personality makeup...” His conclusion was that “Looking back, it is quite obvious that she was in need of therapeutic help and perhaps, if she was given some of this help in her earlier years, the sequence of events that later came about might have possibly been altered.”
3-31-72 Psychiatrist Dr. Roh stated that Susan’s “development potential was quite substantial.” “Her violence potential was average in this institution and if released to the campus it would probably remain unchanged.” “She showed positive changes in attitude...”
4-12-72 RGC Counseling Staff records that Susan is "more stable emotionally than when first evaluated and is cooperative." "No evidence of overt disorder of thought or affect... Positive changes in attitude. Development potential is substantial."
9-7-72 1972 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - none
10-30-72 Correctional Counselor stated that Susan “has been friendly and cooperative” and that staff have made no adverse reports about her.
12-13-72 Vacation of Death Penalty.
1973
3-7-73 Letter from Susan to Superintendent Ms. Carlson, disavowing any connection with the “Manson family in or out of the institution.” Staff notes a “great deal of anti-family sentiment.”
9-4-73 Psychiatrist Dr. Flanagan states that Susan’s occupational therapy “has proven beneficial, particularly through the positive nature of her interactions with others. She is a pleasant person with whom to work.” He also mentions that she showed insight when she stated “I’ve tried to wear everybody else’s personality. They just don’t fit. From now on, I’m just going to be me.”
9-7-73 1973 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - “Get down to ... what God had to say about Himself.”
9-7-73 The Women’s Board of Terms and Parole states that, “The Board noted that subject is “searching and that is good.” The Board said that maybe there is a glimmer of hope for subject. The Board offered for subject’s consideration to “get down to brass tacks and what God had to say about Himself.”
1974
7-25-74 Psychiatrist Dr. Roh states that Susan “showed general improvement since the last interview.”
9-4-74 1974 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - “Persue [sic] her spiritual interests.”
10-25-74 Dr. Black states, in a Chronological Therapy Session Report, that Susan's attitude was "that of a cooperative, friendly, verbal young woman." He also states that Susan appears to have learned to gain what she wants by directing her positive attitude.
12-16-74 Completed a History class through Chaffey College, receiving a “B”.
1975
3-21-75 Dr. Black stated that in his group therapy sessions Susan expressed legitimate concern about the emotional state of fellow prisoners.
4-9-75 Superintendent and Classification Committee acknowledges Susan’s deliberate break from “family.”
5-8-75 Supervisor of Education states that Susan has done “a tremendous amount of Bible study.”
5-16-75 Dr. Black records that Susan made an emphatic statement that she does not have anything to do with the “family,” and she wants to document her dissociation with the “family” and their conflicts. He also notes that Susan "continues to be more open and apparently emotionally honest with respect to her previous association and her personal experiences."
8-18-75 Psychiatrist Dr. Black states that Susan shows no “gross defect in her judgment...” And he concludes that “This woman has shown no tendencies to be a danger to others or to herself since her initial contact with me.”
9-75 Susan’s Case manager states that “Susan is a pleasant appearing young woman, who relates to her peers with warmth and friendliness.”
9-4-75 1975 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - none
1976
2-10-76 Susan is described as a “hard worker, dependable.”
2-13-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono for offering her time and effort to help Staff.
4-2-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for the assistance she displayed by helping staff carry another inmate over to the hospital.
4-20-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering to help without being asked.
4-21-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono for doing extra work on the Unit.
6-25-76 Work Supervisor stated that Susan takes pride in her work and “works without supervision.”
7-2-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering to clean up a health problem in the Psychiatric Treatment Unit.
7-6-76 Program Evaluation Committee states that in the last five years, Susan “has no disciplinaries... has a good attitude, tries to get along with peers... Is respectful of staff.”
7-27-76 Psychiatrist Dr. Flanagan, who had known Susan for 15 months, stated that Susan told him she was once antisocial in nature. “By contrast now for the first time in her life she feels patriotic to the point where she prays for her country and for those who have been elected to its administrative offices.” She states she is writing an autobiography, “By describing her own conflicts and the mistakes she has made in attempting to solve them, she hopes to provide a useful service for others. Proceeds from this book are to be donated to a nonprofit Christian organization, the New Life Foundation, which she is organizing...” He claims Susan was “expressing herself with some insight.” “She has searched for guidance and direction...” “She is substantially more consistent in her thinking and system of values and this is significant.” He concludes by stating that “A fair prognosis is offered with respect to this woman becoming a conforming member of the community.”
7-29-76 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering to clean when the staff lost their aid.
9-76 Susan’s Counselor states that “Susan is rated as a very good cottage citizen, quiet and considerate, with apparent excellent adherence to the cottage rules.” “... during the last 6 months, Susan’s programming has been heralded by significant improvement in her emotional growth.”
9-14-76 1976 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - none
9-14-76 Board states at Susan’s Board Hearing, that “Panel was impressed with Susan’s sincerity and in her endeavor to carry out her new life style, goals... Time will be the true test of her stability.” “Board explained... that they consider her making excellent progress...” “They were very impressed at her improvement.”
9-14-76 Staff document that Susan shows an interest in helping peers going through emotional problems.
9-14-76 Lieutenant stated that Susan is good at adhering to rules, has a good attitude towards staff, and is friendly with peers. In addition he comments that she “wants to help those peers who may be going through emotional problems.”
9-17-76 Work Supervisor states that Susan is a “good worker” and that she works “without supervision.”
9-17-76 Unit Progress Report states that Susan is enthusiastic and “takes interest in those around her.”
10-14-76 Susan was commended by the Women’s Board for her improvement since her last hearing.
10-14-76 Correctional Counselor stated Susan “has a pleasant attitude. She is involved with Religious work and tries to get along with everyone. ... She has no disciplinaries to date...”
10-27-76 Occupational Therapist states that Susan is good at adhering to rules, shows a good attitude towards staff and peers, is a good worker, shows consistency in her work, always completes what she begins, and “is regarded (non-verbally) by many of the residents as a good resource person...”
11-3-76 Staff stated that Susan was a “reliable, mature, organized young women” who presents no problems.
11-30-76 Correctional Counselor stated that Susan “has demonstrated above-average behavior in her living unit.” He also stated that Susan “is not considered to be a custody risk ...”
12-1-76 PEC Committee said that “Susan has demonstrated above-average behavior... does above-average work... and is not considered to be a custody risk.” They further commended her for being disciplinary free.
12-1-76 Lieutenant Gates states that Susan is good at adhering to rules, shows a good attitude towards staff and peers, and “has been patient in the confusion over her Green Pass and program.”
1977
2-1-77 Work Supervisor describes Susan as “dependable and quiet...”
3-24-77 PEC Committee states that Susan “has been disciplinary free, does well in her job assignment” and causes no problems on her unit.
3-31-77 Work Supervisor states that Susan has ignored peer pressure and that Susan has claimed that she “may become stronger from it.”
3-31-77 Staff documents that Susan ignores peer pressure.
4-6-77 Superintendent, Associate Superintendent, and Correctional Counselor commend Susan for getting good reports from staff.
4-8-77 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering to work in the kitchen during her free time to help when there was a shortage of workers. “Her cooperation and willingness to work was greatly appreciated by both staff and peers.”
6-16-77 Chief of the BPT, Howard Way, states that Susan will be a good parole risk someday.
7-28-77 Lieutenant states after 6 months in Susan’s housing unit, that Susan “has always conducted herself in a mature and responsible manner. She is always pleasant... and appears to be a very positive element within PTU.”
7-28-77 Acting PTU Administrator commends Susan for being disciplinary free, showing good behavior, never abusing her privileges, improving work output, as well as her efforts in school and her housing unit.
7-28-77 PEC Committee stated that Susan is “a source of stability on [her housing unit] for those less stable: [she] encourages women to do what is right and encourages them not to fight the system but to program and cooperate with staff and abide by the rules.”
7-28-77 House Supervisor for Susan’s housing unit stated that “Susan has been very pleasant at all times; has done her work and can always be counted on to help where needed.
7-28-77 Lieutenant at housing unit states that Susan is “thoughtful of others... She has not been a problem and has remained disciplinary free for quite a long period of time.”
8-3-77 Lieutenant in her housing unit stated that Susan was “No problem. Respectful. Concerned and a stabilizing influence.” He also stated that she was no problem in supervising.
8-9-77 Program Administrator states that Susan “is pleasant to all in her cottage, even when great stress is upon her. She is respectful towards staff and when she is wrong, will admit her error and make the necessary adjustment.” “Susan gets along well with her peers and is a stabilizing person in the cottage.” “Susan has involved herself in religious activities and appears to be sincere in her beliefs. I believe her faith has a very positive effect on her behavior. If Susan continues with this attitude and behavior demonstrated during the past year, she should be able to live a crime-free life once she is paroled and released to the community.” He also notes that Susan received no disciplinary write-ups in more than six years.
8-30-77 Correctional Counselor stated that Susan “demonstrated good behavior... continued to make good progress during the past several months, demonstrating a good work habit and a good attitude.”
9-77 1977 Board Hearing Postponed
10-77 Susan’s Counselor states that Susan has had no 115’s in more than six years. “She is pleasant to all in her cottage, even when great stress is upon her. She is respectful towards staff...” “Susan gets along well with her peers and is a stabilizer in her cottage.” “If Susan continues with this attitude and behavior demonstrated during the past year, she should be able to live a crime-free life once she is paroled and released to the community.”
10-19-77 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for helping keep the office running well.
11-1-77 Lieutenant Arnold states that Susan has an exceptional attitude in regards to staff and that as far as her peers go, she “gets along with everyone.” He also states that Susan never has to be reminded about her work and that she “responds well to direction.”
11-9-77 Superintendent, Associate Superintendent, and Correctional Counselor validate Susan’s reading and sharing scripture with other inmates.
11-19-77 Susan received a Commendation Chrono for doing extra work.
1978
1-19-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for “excellent work in the PTU clerks office.” Staff stated that “Susan shows a large degree of dependability and responsibility on her job.”
1-31-78 Susan is invited to speak at the Believer’s Fellowship of Lake Worth, FL., in response to her Book “Child of God.” The West Palm Beach Sheriff’s Department agreed to supply security for Susan.
2-1-78 Work Supervisor states that Susan is exceptional in her skill and knowledge, as well as being exceptional in her use and care of State equipment. She also states that Susan “shows the capability of being a fine clerk and typist. She a good worker and puts in a very productive day in the office.”
2-2-78 Lieutenant claims Susan has “above-average” adherence to rules. “Attitude toward staff: Exceptionally polite.” “Relates well with all, job performance continues to be excellent. Responds to authority and direction well. Requires little supervision...” “She also is influential in the unit in a religious vein and has been instrumental in beginning a religious group with staff supervision twice weekly. She can be a very positive stabilizer in the unit when weaker individuals need assistance.”
3-29-78 Superintendent, Associate Superintendent, and C&PR commend Susan for receiving “very good grades” and very good “comments from her school supervisor.”
4-78 Work Supervisor states that Susan “has grown in both her work assignment, accepting and handling responsibility ...” She goes on to commend Susan for “exceptional” skill and knowledge, as well as for “exceptional” quality of work and “exceptional use and care of State equipment.
4-4-78 Lieutenant claims Susan is Above-average in adherence to rules. “Attitude towards staff: exceptionally polite.” “Attitude towards peers: Friendly with all and a stabilizer on the unit.” Stated that Susan had “continued to demonstrate consistent politeness and respect towards staff.”
4-12-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for taking the initiative with another inmate to clean the entire clerks office when the work wasn’t done by the House Aide. “These women are the resident clerks and it is not their job to clean the office.”
4-20-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for all the extra hours she worked to assist staff and other inmates.
5-6-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from a Nurse for “her thoughtfulness and help to an other resident who was bleeding profusely. She helped me place pressure bandages on the wrist. She showed much concern and dedication to the life of an other. I think she handled the situation very well. It is good to have someone like Susan during any emergency.”
5-7-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Staff for volunteering in the Psychiatric Unit’s kitchen, as well as staying up late in the clerks office typing reports, as well as for being efficient and responsible.
5-8-78 Psychiatrist Dr. Roh, who had known Susan for eight years, stated that Susan has “improved greatly through the eight years of incarceration in this institution as witness by the undersigned.” He also stated that she was functioning at her job “with responsibility and competence...”
5-9-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Lieutenant Magette for assisting in typing reports during a prison
disturbance.
5-13-78 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from Lieutenant Arnold for doing work “always beyond expectations,” as well as for being “respectful, polite and courteous.”
7-78 Program Administrator states that he has known Susan for approximately seven years, and that “Susan has undergone dramatic changes since her arrival at CIW...” “Subject’s positive attitude and behavior are reflected by her participation program. She... continually demonstrates a cooperative and helpful attitude. ... Susan attends church services each Sunday and is currently enrolled in a bible study course on an independent study basis.” “It should be noted that subject has had no disciplinary documentation.”
7-20-78 1978 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - none
7-20-78 PEC as well as the Board [of Prison Terms] acknowledged the progress Susan has made. Correctional Counselor commended Susan for taking the Board decision with understanding, and for presenting herself well at both the Board Hearing as well as at the prison’s post-board hearing. The Board tells Susan not to be a “goody goody toe shoes” because that’s dangerous in prison. (101) They also said she should be in a relationship. (148)
7-26-78 Superintendent and Associate Superintendent acknowledge that Susan has no difficulties or problems related to green pass privileges.
10-10-78 Lieutenant states that Susan is reliable and that her work is of “exceptional” quality.
11-21-78 Correctional Counselor states that Susan’s work reports show she is “dependable, always willing to do extra work and in general, doing an outstanding job.” He also noted that when other inmates became confrontational, Susan did not respond to provocation. He also commended her for remaining disciplinary free.
1979
2-1-79 Lieutenant commends Susan for exceptional work quality.
3-12-79 Occupational Therapist stated that Susan has involved herself “extensively” with all occupational therapy offered. “She requires no supervision and frequently is called upon by others for instruction and aid. Susan generally attends both O.T. sessions... though she is on an elective O.T. Program.”
3-15-79 Susan received a Commendation Chrono from the Kitchen Supervisor for her continuous assistance.
4-24-79 PTU Program Administrator states that Susan did not abuse privileges, staff feedback on her behavior was all positive, and that she is “usually very friendly and cooperative with her dealings with other residents and staff.”
7-79 Susan’s Counselor, in his Report to the Community Release Board, states that he has known Susan for over a year and has had daily contact with her. He claims she “displays a friendly, cooperative attitude towards staff and peers alike.” “over all adjustment in PTU has been viewed as excellent.” “Prognosis... If Susan continues in her present attitude/behavior, she could function as a productive member of the community upon her release to parole.”
7-6-79 1979 Board Hearing
- Faulted for (Institutional behavior) - nothing
- Demands - 1) Remain disciplinary free.
2) Continue involvement in current hobbies.
3) Remain on psychiatric referral
7-27-79 Correctional Counselor commended Susan for not allowing a personal disappointment to effect her behavior and attitude.
10-22-79 CSC Committee states that “the committee members agree that [Susan’s] behavior on [her housing unit] has been very satisfactory. She has not presented a management problem to staff, instead has been cooperative and friendly in her contacts with staff.”
11-5-79 Occupational Therapist stated that Susan “has voluntarily assisted other residents with their personal projects. She presents herself in a quiet, mature fashion.” “Overall Susan has done an excellent job in O.T.”
This is part on of Susan Atkins 1976 interview. She talks about becoming a newborn christian; however, her eyes hold something "witchy."
Charles manson
Charles Milles Manson (born November 12, 1934) is an American criminal and musician who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s.[1][2]:163–4, 313[3] He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca carried out by members of the group at his instruction. He was convicted of the murders through the joint-responsibility rule, which makes each member of a conspiracy guilty of crimes his fellow conspirators commit in furtherance of the conspiracy's objective.[4][5]
Manson believed in what he called "Helter Skelter", a term he took from the song of the same name by the Beatles. Manson believed Helter Skelter to be an impending apocalyptic race war, which he described in his own version of the lyrics to the Beatles' song. He believed his murders would help precipitate that war. From the beginning of his notoriety, a pop culture arose around him in which he ultimately became an emblem of insanity, violence and the macabre. The term was later used by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi as the title of a book that he wrote about the Manson murders.
At the time the Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed former convict, who had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. Before the murders, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Dennis Wilson, a founding member and the drummer of the Beach Boys. After Manson was charged with the crimes of which he was later convicted, recordings of songs written and performed by him were released commercially. Various musicians, including Guns N' Roses, White Zombie and Marilyn Manson, havecovered some of his songs.Born to an unmarried 16-year-old named Kathleen Maddox (1918–1973),[7] in Cincinnati General Hospital, Ohio, Manson was first named "no name Maddox."[2]:136–7[8][9] Within weeks, he was Charles MillesMaddox.[2]:136–7[10][11] For a period after his birth, his mother was married to a laborer named William Manson (1910–?),[11] whose last name the boy was given. His biological father appears to have been Colonel Walker Scott (May 11, 1910– December 30, 1954)[12] against whom Kathleen Maddox filed a bastardy suit that resulted in an agreed judgment in 1937.[2]:136–7 Possibly, Charles Manson never really knew his biological father.[2]:136–7[9]
Several statements in Manson's 1951 case file from the seven months he would later spend at the National Training School for Boys in Washington, D.C., allude to the possibility that "Colonel Scott" was African American.[2]:555 These include the first two sentences of his family background section, which read: "Father: unknown. He is alleged to have been a colored cook by the name of Scott, with whom Charles's mother had been promiscuous at the time of pregnancy."[2]:556 When asked about these official records by attorney Vincent Bugliosi in 1971, Manson emphatically denied that his biological father had African American ancestry.[2]:588 In addition, the 1920 and 1930 census list Colonel Scott and his father as white.
In the quasi-autobiography, Manson in His Own Words, Colonel Scott is said to have been "a young drugstore cowboy ... a transient laborer working on a nearby dam project." It is not clear what "nearby" means. The description is in a paragraph that indicates Kathleen Maddox gave birth to Manson "while living in Cincinnati," after she had run away from her own home, in Ashland, Kentucky.[13]
There is much about Manson's early life that is in dispute because of the variety of different stories he has offered to interviewers, many of which were untrue. Manson's mother was allegedly a heavy drinker.[2]:136–7 According to Manson, she once sold her son for a pitcher of beer to a childless waitress, from whom his uncle retrieved him some days later.[14] When Manson's mother and her brother were sentenced to five years' imprisonment for robbing a Charleston, West Virginia, service station in 1939, Manson was placed in the home of an aunt and uncle in McMechen, West Virginia. Upon her 1942parole, Kathleen retrieved her son and lived with him in run-down hotel rooms.[2]:136–7 Manson himself later characterized her physical embrace of him on the day she returned from prison as his sole happy childhood memory.[14]
In 1947, Kathleen Maddox tried to have her son placed in a foster home but failed because no such home was available.[2]:136–7 The court placed Manson in Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana. After 10 months, he fled from there to his mother, who rejected him.[2]:136–7
By burglarizing a grocery store, Manson obtained cash that enabled him to rent a room.[2]:136–7 He committed a string of burglaries of other stores, including one from which he stole a bicycle, but was eventually caught in the act and sent to an Indianapolis juvenile center. He escaped after one day, but was recaptured and placed in Boys Town. Four days after his arrival there, he escaped with another boy. The pair committed two armed robberies on their way to the home of the other boy's uncle.[2]:137–146
Caught during the second of two subsequent break-ins of grocery stores, Manson was sent, at age 13, to the Indiana Boys School, where, he would later claim, he was brutalized sexually and otherwise.[14]After many failed attempts, he escaped with two other boys in 1951.[2]:137–146
In Utah, the three were caught driving to California in cars they had stolen. They had burglarized several filling stations along the way. For the federal crime of taking a stolen car across a state line, Manson was sent to Washington, D.C.'s National Training School for Boys. Despite four years of schooling and an I.Q. of 109 (later tested at 121),[2]:137–146 he was illiterate. A caseworker deemed him aggressivelyantisocial.[2]:137–146
First imprisonment[edit]In October 1951, on a psychiatrist's recommendation, Manson was transferred to Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution. Less than a month before a scheduled February 1952 parolehearing, he "took a razor blade and held it against another boy's throat while Manson sodomized him."[2]:137–146[14] Manson was transferred to the Federal Reformatory, Petersburg, Virginia, where he was considered "dangerous."[2]:137–146 In September 1952, a number of other serious disciplinary offenses resulted in his transfer to the Federal Reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio, a more secure institution.[2]:137–146 About a month after the transfer, he became almost a model resident. Good work habits and a rise in his educational level from the lower fourth to the upper seventh grade won him a May 1954 parole.[2]:137–146
After temporarily honoring a parole condition that he live with his aunt and uncle in West Virginia, Manson moved in with his mother in that same state. In January 1955, he married a hospital waitress named Rosalie Jean Willis, with whom, by his own account, he found genuine, if short-lived, marital happiness.[14] He supported their marriage via small-time jobs and auto theft.[2]:137–146
Around October, about three months after he and his pregnant wife arrived in Los Angeles in a car he had stolen in Ohio, Manson was again charged with a federal crime for taking the vehicle across state lines. After a psychiatric evaluation, he was given five years' probation. His subsequent failure to appear at a Los Angeles hearing on an identical charge filed in Florida resulted in his March 1956 arrest inIndianapolis. His probation was revoked; he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment at Terminal Island, San Pedro, California.[2]:137–146
While Manson was in prison, Rosalie gave birth to their son, Charles Manson, Jr. During his first year at Terminal Island, Manson received visits from Rosalie and his mother, who were now living together in Los Angeles. In March 1957, when the visits from his wife ceased, his mother informed him Rosalie was living with another man. Less than two weeks before a scheduled parole hearing, Manson tried to escape by stealing a car. He was subsequently given five years probation, and his parole was denied.[2]:137–146
Second imprisonment[edit]Manson received five years' parole in September 1958, the same year in which Rosalie received a decree of divorce. By November, he was pimping a 16-year-old girl and was receiving additional support from a girl with wealthy parents. In September 1959, he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check. He received a 10-year suspended sentence and probation after a young woman with an arrest record for prostitution made a "tearful plea" before the court that she and Manson were "deeply in love ... and would marry if Charlie were freed."[2]:137–146 Before the year's end, the woman did marry Manson, possibly so testimony against him would not be required of her.[2]:137–146
The woman's name was Leona; as a prostitute, she had used the name Candy Stevens. After Manson took her and another woman from California to New Mexico for purposes of prostitution, he was held and questioned for violation of the Mann Act. Though he was released, he evidently suspected, rightly, that the investigation had not ended. When he disappeared, in violation of his probation, a bench warrant was issued; an April 1960 indictment for violation of the Mann Act followed.[2]:137–146 Arrested in Laredo, Texas, in June, when one of the women was arrested for prostitution, Manson was returned to Los Angeles. For violation of his probation on the check-cashing charge, he was ordered to serve his 10-year sentence.[2]:137–146
In July 1961, after a year spent unsuccessfully appealing the revocation of his probation, Manson was transferred from the Los Angeles County Jail to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island. There, he took guitar lessons from Barker-Karpis gang leader Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and obtained a contact name of someone at Universal Studios in Hollywood from another inmate, Phil Kaufman (who, after release, had befriended Gram Parsons and after Parsons's death, had hijacked the body and cremated it in the Joshua Tree desert).[15] According to Jeff Guinn's 2013 Manson biography, Charlie's mother Kathleen moved from California to Washington state to be closer to him during his McNeil Island incarceration, working nearby as a waitress.[16]
Although the Mann Act charge had been dropped, the attempt to cash the Treasury check was still a federal offense. His September 1961 annual review noted he had a "tremendous drive to call attention to himself", an observation echoed in September 1964.[2]:137–146 In 1963, Leona was granted a divorce, in the pursuit of which she alleged that she and Manson had had a son, Charles Luther.[2]:137–146
In June 1966, Manson was sent, for the second time in his life, to Terminal Island, in preparation for early release. By March 21, 1967, his release day, he had spent more than half of his 32 years in prisons and other institutions.[2]:137–146 Telling the authorities that prison had become his home, he requested permission to stay,[2]:137–146 a fact touched on in a 1981 television interview with Tom Snyder.[17]
Manson Family[edit]On his release day, Manson received permission to move to San Francisco, where, with the help of a prison acquaintance, he moved into an apartment in Berkeley. In prison, bank robber Alvin Karpis had taught him to play the steel guitar.[2]:137–146[14][18] Now, living mostly by panhandling, he soon got to know Mary Brunner, a 23-year-old graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Brunner was working as a library assistant at University of California, Berkeley, and Manson moved in with her. According to a secondhand account, he overcame her resistance to his bringing other women in to live with them. Before long, they were sharing Brunner's residence with 18 other women.[2]:163–174
Manson established himself as a guru in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, which, during 1967's "Summer of Love", was emerging as the signature hippie locale. Bugliosi noted in his book Helter Skelter that Manson appeared to have borrowed philosophically from the Process Church, whose members worshiped Satan. Expounding a philosophy that included some of the Scientology he had studied in prison,[2]:163–164 he soon had his first group of followers, most of them female.[2]:137–146 Upon a staff evaluation of Manson when he entered prison in July 1961 at the U.S. penitentiary in McNeil Island,Washington, Manson entered "Scientologist" as his religion.[2]:143–144
Before the summer ended, Manson and eight or nine of his enthusiasts piled into an old school bus they had re-wrought in hippie style, with colored rugs and pillows in place of the many seats they had removed. They roamed as far north as Washington state, then southward through Los Angeles, Mexico, and the southwest. Returning to the Los Angeles area, they lived in Topanga Canyon, Malibu, andVenice—western parts of the city and county.[2]:163–174
In 1967, Brunner became pregnant by Manson and on April 15, 1968 gave birth to a son she named Valentine Michael (nicknamed "Pooh Bear")[19] in a condemned house in Topanga Canyon and was assisted during the birth by several of the young women from the Family. Brunner (like most members of the group) acquired a number of aliases and nicknames, including: "Marioche", "Och", "Mother Mary", "Mary Manson", "Linda Dee Manson" and "Christine Marie Euchts".[20]
In an alternative account, Manson acquired Family members during some months of travels that were undertaken, in part, in a Volkswagen van. He was apparently accompanied by Brunner. It was November when the school bus set out from San Francisco with the enlarged group.[21]
Involvement with Wilson, Melcher, et al.[edit]The events that would culminate in the murders were set in motion in late spring 1968, when, by some accounts, Dennis Wilson, of The Beach Boys, picked up two hitchhiking Manson women, Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey [22] and brought them to his Pacific Palisades house for a few hours. Returning home in the early hours of the following morning from a night recording session, Wilson was greeted in the driveway of his own residence by Manson, who emerged from the house. Uncomfortable, Wilson asked the stranger whether he intended to hurt him. Assuring him he had no such intent, Manson began kissing Wilson's feet.[2]:250–253[23]
Inside the house, Wilson discovered 12 strangers, mostly women.[2]:250–253[23] Over the next few months, as their number doubled, the Family members who had made themselves part of Wilson's Sunset Boulevard household cost him approximately $100,000. This included a large medical bill for treatment of their gonorrhea and $21,000 for the accidental destruction of his uninsured car, which they borrowed.[24] Wilson would sing and talk with Manson, whose women were treated as servants to them both.[2]:250–253
Wilson paid for studio time to record songs written and performed by Manson, and he introduced Manson to acquaintances of his with roles in the entertainment business. These included Gregg Jakobson,Terry Melcher, and Rudi Altobelli (the last of whom owned a house he would soon rent to actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski).[2]:250–253 Jakobson, who was impressed by "the whole Charlie Manson package" of artist/lifestylist/philosopher, also paid to record Manson material.[2]:155–161, 185–188, 214–219[25]
The account given in Manson in His Own Words is that Manson first met Wilson at a friend's San Francisco house, where Manson had gone to obtain cannabis. The drummer supposedly gave Manson his Sunset Boulevard address and invited him to stop by when he would be in Los Angeles.[14]
Spahn Ranch[edit]Manson established a base for the group at Spahn's Movie Ranch, not far from Topanga Canyon Boulevard, in August 1968 after Wilson's manager told the Family to move out of Wilson's home.[26][27] The entire Family then relocated to the ranch.[2]:250–253
The ranch had been a television and movie set for Western productions. However, by the late 1960s, the buildings had deteriorated and the ranch was earning money primarily by selling horseback rides.
Family members did helpful work around the grounds. Also, Manson ordered the Family's women, including Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, to occasionally have sex with the nearly blind, 80-year-old owner,George Spahn. The women also acted as seeing-eye guides for Spahn. In exchange, Spahn allowed Manson and his group to live at the ranch for free.[2]:99–113[28] Squeaky acquired her nickname because she often squeaked when Spahn pinched her thigh.[2]:163–174[24]
Charles Watson soon joined the group at Spahn's ranch. Watson, a small-town Texan who had quit college and moved to California,[29] met Manson at Dennis Wilson's house. Watson gave Wilson a ride while Wilson was hitchhiking after his cars had been wrecked.[26]
Spahn nicknamed Watson "Tex" because of his pronounced Texan drawl.[27]
Helter Skelter[edit]Main article: Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)
In the first days of November 1968, Manson established the Family at alternative headquarters in Death Valley's environs, where they occupied two unused or little-used ranches, Myers and Barker.[25][30] The former, to which the group had initially headed, was owned by the grandmother of a new woman in the Family. The latter was owned by an elderly, local woman to whom Manson presented himself and a male Family member as musicians in need of a place congenial to their work. When the woman agreed to let them stay there if they'd fix up things, Manson honored her with one of the Beach Boys' gold records,[30] several of which he had been given by Dennis Wilson.[31]
While back at Spahn Ranch, no later than December, Manson and Watson visited a Topanga Canyon acquaintance who played them the Beatles' White Album, then recently released.[25][32][33] Manson became obsessed with the group.[34] At McNeil, he had told fellow inmates, including Alvin Karpis, that he could surpass the group in fame;[2]:200–202, 265[35] to the Family, he spoke of the group as "the soul" and "part of 'the hole in the infinite'. "[33]
For some time, Manson had been saying that racial tension between blacks and whites was growing and that blacks would soon rise up in rebellion in America's cities.[36][37] He had emphasized Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, which had taken place on April 4, 1968.[30] On a bitterly cold New Year's Eve at Myers Ranch, the Family members, gathered outside around a large fire, listened as Manson explained that the social turmoil he had been predicting had also been predicted by the Beatles.[33] The White Album songs, he declared, told it all, although in code. In fact, he maintained (or would soon maintain), the album was directed at the Family itself, an elect group that was being instructed to preserve the worthy from the impending disaster.[36][37]
In early January 1969, the Family escaped the desert's cold and positioned itself to monitor L.A.'s supposed tension by moving to a canary-yellow home in Canoga Park, not far from the Spahn Ranch.[2]:244–247[33][38] Because this locale would allow the group to remain "submerged beneath the awareness of the outside world",[2]:244–247[39] Manson called it the Yellow Submarine, another Beatles reference. There, Family members prepared for the impending apocalypse,[40][41] which, around the campfire, Manson had termed "Helter Skelter", after the song of that name.
By February, Manson's vision was complete. The Family would create an album whose songs, as subtle as those of the Beatles, would trigger the predicted chaos. Ghastly murders of whites by blacks would be met with retaliation, and a split between racist and non-racist whites would yield whites' self-annihilation. Blacks' triumph, as it were, would merely precede their being ruled by the Family, which would ride out the conflict in "the bottomless pit"—a secret city beneath Death Valley.[42] At the Canoga Park house, while Family members worked on vehicles and pored over maps to prepare for their desert escape, they also worked on songs for their world-changing album. When they were told Terry Melcher was to come to the house to hear the material, the women prepared a meal and cleaned the place; but Melcher never arrived.[36][40]
Encounter with Tate[edit]On March 23, 1969,[2]:228–233 Manson, uninvited, entered 10050 Cielo Drive, which he had known as Melcher's residence.[2]:155–161 This was Rudi Altobelli's property; Melcher was no longer the tenant. As of that February,[2]:28–38 the tenants were Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski.
Manson was met by Shahrokh Hatami, a photographer and Tate's friend. Hatami was there to photograph Tate in advance of her departure for Rome the next day. Having seen Manson through a window as Manson approached the main house, Hatami had gone onto the front porch to ask him what he wanted.[2]:228–233
When Manson told Hatami he was looking for someone whose name Hatami did not recognize, Hatami informed him the place was the Polanski residence. Hatami advised him to try "the back alley", by which he meant the path to the guest house, beyond the main house.[2]:228–233 Concerned about the stranger on the property, Hatami went down to the front walk, to confront Manson. Appearing behind Hatami, in the house's front door, Tate asked him who was calling. Hatami said a man was looking for someone. Hatami and Tate maintained their positions while Manson, without a word, went back to the guest house, returned a minute or two later, and left.[2]:228–233
That evening, Manson returned to the property and again went back to the guest house. Presuming to enter the enclosed porch, he spoke with Rudi Altobelli, who was just coming out of the shower. Although Manson asked for Melcher, Altobelli felt Manson had come looking for him.[2]:226 This is consistent with prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's later discovery that Manson had apparently been to the place on earlier occasions after Melcher's departure from it.[2]:228–233, 369–377
Speaking through the inner screen door, Altobelli told Manson that Melcher had moved to Malibu. He lied that he did not know Melcher's new address. In response to a question from Manson, Altobelli said he himself was in the entertainment business, although, having met Manson the previous year, at Dennis Wilson's home, he was sure Manson already knew that. At Wilson's, Altobelli had complimented Manson lukewarmly on some of his musical recordings that Wilson had been playing.[2]:228–233
When Altobelli informed Manson he was going out of the country the next day, Manson said he'd like to speak with him upon his return; Altobelli lied that he would be gone for more than a year. In response to a direct question from Altobelli, Manson explained that he had been directed to the guest house by the persons in the main house; Altobelli expressed the wish that Manson not disturb his tenants.[2]:228–233
Manson left. As Altobelli flew with Tate to Rome the next day, Tate asked him whether "that creepy-looking guy" had gone back to the guest house the day before.[2]:228–233
Family crimes[edit]Crowe shooting[edit]On May 18, 1969, Terry Melcher visited Spahn Ranch to hear Manson and the women sing. Melcher arranged a subsequent visit, not long thereafter, on which he brought a friend who possessed a mobile recording unit; but he himself did not record the group.[2]:156,185[43]
By June, Manson was telling the Family they might have to show blacks how to start "Helter Skelter".[2]:244–247[41][44] When Manson tasked Watson with obtaining money supposedly intended to help the Family prepare for the conflict, Watson defrauded a black drug dealer named Bernard "Lotsapoppa" Crowe. Crowe responded with a threat to wipe out everyone at Spahn Ranch. Manson countered on July 1, 1969, by shooting Crowe at his Hollywood apartment.[2]:99–113[2]:91–96[45][46]
Manson's mistaken belief that he had killed Crowe was seemingly confirmed by a news report of the discovery of the dumped body of a Black Panther in Los Angeles. Although Crowe was not a member of the Black Panthers, Manson, concluding he had been, expected retaliation from the group. He turned Spahn Ranch into a defensive camp, with night patrols of armed guards.[45][47] "If we'd needed any more proof that Helter Skelter was coming down very soon, this was it," Tex Watson would later write, "[B]lackie was trying to get at the chosen ones."[45]
Hinman murder[edit]On July 25, 1969, Manson sent sometime Family member Bobby Beausoleil along with Mary Brunner and Susan Atkins to the house of acquaintance Gary Hinman, to persuade him to turn over money Manson thought Hinman had inherited.[2]:75–77[45][48] The three held the uncooperative Hinman hostage for two days, during which Manson showed up with a sword to slash his ear. After that, Beausoleil stabbed Hinman to death, ostensibly on Manson's instruction. Before leaving the Topanga Canyon residence, Beausoleil, or one of the women, used Hinman's blood to write "Political piggy" on the wall and to draw a panther paw, a Black Panther symbol.[2]:33, 91–96, 99–113[49]
In magazine interviews of 1981 and 1998–99,[50][51] Beausoleil would say he went to Hinman's to recover money paid to Hinman for drugs that had supposedly been bad; he added that Brunner and Atkins, unaware of his intent, went along idly, merely to visit Hinman. On the other hand, Atkins, in her 1977 autobiography, wrote that Manson directly told Beausoleil, Brunner, and her to go to Hinman's and get the supposed inheritance—$21,000. She said Manson had told her privately, two days earlier, that, if she wanted to "do something important", she could kill Hinman and get his money.[48]
Tate murders[edit]Beausoleil was arrested on August 6, 1969, after he had been caught driving Hinman's car. Police found the murder weapon in the tyre well.[2]:28–38 Two days later, Manson told Family members at Spahn Ranch, "Now is the time for Helter Skelter."[2]:258–269[45][52]
On the night of August 8, Manson directed Watson to take Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to "that house where Melcher used to live" and "totally destroy everyone in [it], as gruesome as you can."[2]:463–468[53] He told the women to do as Watson would instruct them.[2]:176–184, 258–269 Krenwinkel was one of the early Family members, one of the hitchhikers who had allegedly been picked up by Dennis Wilson.[2]:250–253 The current occupants of the house, all of whom were strangers to the Manson followers, were movie actress Sharon Tate, wife of famed director Roman Polanski and eight and a half months pregnant; her friend and former lover Jay Sebring, a noted hairstylist; Polanski's friend and aspiring screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski; and Frykowski's lover Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune.[2]:28–38 Tate's husband, Polanski, was in London working on a film project; Tate had been visiting with him and had returned to the United States only three weeks earlier.[citation needed]
When the murder team arrived at the entrance to the Cielo Drive property, Watson, who had been to the house on at least one other occasion, climbed a telephone pole near the gate and cut the phone line.[25] It was now around midnight and into August 9, 1969. Backing their car down to the bottom of the hill that led up to the place, the group parked there and walked back up to the house. Thinking the gate might be electrified or rigged with an alarm,[2]:176–184 they climbed a brushy embankment at its right and dropped onto the grounds. Just then, headlights came their way from farther within the angled property. Watson ordered the women to lie in the bushes. He then stepped out and ordered the approaching driver, 18-year-old student and hi-fi enthusiast Steven Parent, to halt. As Watson leveled a 22-caliber revolver at Parent, the frightened youth begged Watson not to hurt him, claiming that he wouldn't say anything. Watson first slashed at Parent with a knife, giving him a defensive slash wound on the palm of his hand (severing tendons and tearing the boy's watch off his wrist), then shot him four times in the chest and abdomen. Watson then ordered the women to help push the car further up the driveway[2]:22–25[53] After traversing the front lawn and having Kasabian search for an open window of the main house, Watson cut the screen of a window. Watson told Kasabian to keep watch down by the gate; she walked over to Steven Parent's Rambler and waited.[2]:258–269[2]:176–184[53] He then removed the screen, entered through the window, and let Atkins and Krenwinkel in through the front door.[2]:176–184
As Watson whispered to Atkins, Frykowski awoke on the living-room couch; Watson kicked him in the head.[53] When Frykowski asked him who he was and what he was doing there, Watson replied, "I'm thedevil, and I'm here to do the devil's business."[2]:176–184[53]
On Watson's direction, Atkins found the house's three other occupants and, with Krenwinkel's help,[2]:176–184, 297–300 brought them to the living room. Watson began to tie Tate and Sebring together by their necks with rope he'd brought and slung up over a beam. Sebring's protest – his second – of rough treatment of the pregnant Tate prompted Watson to shoot him. Folger was taken momentarily back to her bedroom for her purse, out of which she gave the intruders $70. After that, Watson stabbed the groaning Sebring seven times.[2]:28–38[53]
Frykowski's hands had been bound with a towel. Freeing himself, Frykowski began struggling with Atkins, who stabbed at his legs with the knife with which she had been guarding him.[53] As he fought his way toward and out the front door, onto the porch, Watson joined in against him. Watson struck him over the head with the gun multiple times, stabbed him repeatedly, and shot him twice.[53] Watson broke the gun's right grip in the process.
Around this time, Kasabian was drawn up from the driveway by "horrifying sounds". She arrived outside the door. In a vain effort to halt the massacre, she told Atkins falsely that someone was coming.[2]:258–269[53]
Inside the house, Folger had escaped from Krenwinkel and fled out a bedroom door to the pool area.[2]:341–344, 356–361 Folger was pursued to the front lawn by Krenwinkel, who stabbed – and finally, tackled – her. She was dispatched by Watson; her two assailants had stabbed her 28 times.[2]:28–38[53] As Frykowski struggled across the lawn, Watson murdered him with a final flurry of stabbing. Frykowski was stabbed a total of 51 times.[2]:28–38, 258–269[53]
Back in the house, Tate pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to have her baby, and even offered herself as a hostage in an attempt to save the life of her unborn child; her killers would have none of it, as either Atkins, Watson, or both killed Tate, who was stabbed 16 times.[2]:28–38 Watson later wrote that Tate cried, "Mother ... mother ..." as she was being killed.[53]
Earlier, as the four Family members had headed out from Spahn Ranch, Manson had told the women to "leave a sign ... something witchy".[53] Using the towel that had bound Frykowski's hands, Atkins wrote "pig" on the house's front door, in Tate's blood. En route home, the killers changed out of bloody clothes, which were ditched in the hills, along with their weapons.[2]:84–90, 176–184[53]
In initial confessions to cellmates of hers at Sybil Brand Institute, Atkins would say she killed Tate.[2]:84–90 In later statements to her attorney, to prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, and before a grand jury, Atkins indicated Tate had been stabbed by Tex Watson.[2]:163–174, 176–184 In his 1978 autobiography, Watson said that he stabbed Tate and that Atkins never touched her.[53] Since he was aware that the prosecutor, Bugliosi, and the jury that had tried the other Tate-LaBianca defendants were convinced Atkins had stabbed Tate, he falsely testified that he did not stab her.[54]
LaBianca murders[edit]The next night, six Family members--Leslie Van Houten, Steve "Clem" Grogan, and the four from the previous night—rode out at Manson's instruction. Displeased by the panic of the victims at Cielo Drive, Manson accompanied the six, "to show [them] how to do it."[2]:176–184, 258–269[55] After a few hours' ride, in which he considered a number of murders and even attempted one of them,[2]:258–269[55] Manson gave Kasabian directions that brought the group to 3301 Waverly Drive. This was the home of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, a dress shop co-owner.[2]:22–25, 42–48 Located in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, it was next door to a house at which Manson and Family members had attended a party the previous year.[2]:176–184, 204–210
LaBianca House 3301 Waverly Drive 34.113914°N 118.273076°WAccording to Atkins and Kasabian, Manson disappeared up the driveway and returned to say he had tied up the house's occupants; then he sent Watson up with Krenwinkel and Van Houten.[2]:176–184, 258–269 In his autobiography, on the other hand, Watson stated that, having gone up alone, Manson returned to take him up to the house with him. After Manson pointed out a sleeping man through a window, the two of them entered through the unlocked back door.[55] Watson added that, at trial, he "went along with" the women's account, which he figured made him "look that much less responsible."[54]
As Watson tells it, Manson roused the sleeping Leno LaBianca from the couch at gunpoint and had Watson bind his hands with a leather thong. After Rosemary was brought briefly into the living room from the bedroom, Watson followed Manson's instructions to cover the couple's heads with pillowcases. He bound these in place with lamp cords. Manson left, sending Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten into the house with instructions that the couple be killed.[2]:176–184, 258–269[55]
Before leaving Spahn Ranch, Watson had complained to Manson of the inadequacy of the previous night's weapons.[2]:258–269 Now, sending the women from the kitchen to the bedroom, to which Rosemary LaBianca had been returned, he went to the living room and began stabbing Leno LaBianca with a chrome-plated bayonet. The first thrust went into the man's throat.[55]
Sounds of a scuffle in the bedroom drew Watson there to discover Mrs. LaBianca keeping the women at bay by swinging the lamp tied to her neck. After subduing her with several stabs of the bayonet, he returned to the living room and resumed attacking Leno, whom he stabbed a total of 12 times with the bayonet. When he had finished, Watson carved "WAR" on the man's exposed abdomen. He stated this in his autobiography.[55] In an unclear portion of her eventual grand jury testimony, Atkins, who did not enter the LaBianca house, possibly said she believed Krenwinkel had carved the word.[2]:176–184[56] In aghost-written newspaper account based on a statement she had made earlier to her attorney,[2]:160,193 she said Watson carved it.[57]
Returning to the bedroom, Watson found Krenwinkel stabbing Rosemary LaBianca with a knife from the LaBianca kitchen. Heeding Manson's instruction to make sure each of the women played a part, Watson told Van Houten to stab Mrs. LaBianca too.[55] She did, stabbing her approximately 16 times in the back and the exposed buttocks.[2]:204–210, 297–300, 341–344 At trial, Van Houten would claim, uncertainly,[2]:433 that Rosemary LaBianca was dead when she stabbed her. Evidence showed that many of Mrs. LaBianca's 41 stab wounds had, in fact, been inflicted post-mortem.[2]:44, 206, 297, 341–42, 380, 404, 406–07, 433
While Watson cleaned off the bayonet and showered, Krenwinkel wrote "Rise" and "Death to pigs" on the walls and "Healter [sic] Skelter" on the refrigerator door, all in LaBianca blood. She gave Leno LaBianca 14 puncture wounds with an ivory-handled, two-tined carving fork, which she left jutting out of his stomach. She also planted a steak knife in his throat.[2]:176–184, 258–269[55]
Hoping for a double crime, Manson had gone on to direct Kasabian to drive to the Venice home of an actor acquaintance of hers, another "piggy". Depositing the second trio of Family members at the man's apartment building, he drove back to Spahn Ranch, leaving them and the LaBianca killers to hitchhike home.[2]:176–184, 258–269 Kasabian thwarted this murder by deliberately knocking on the wrong apartment door and waking a stranger. As the group abandoned the murder plan and left, Susan Atkins defecated in the stairwell.[2]:270–273
Justice system[edit]Investigation[edit]The Tate murders had become news on August 9, 1969. The Polanski's housekeeper, Winifred Chapman, had arrived for work that morning and discovered the murder scene.[2]:5–6, 11–15 On August 10, detectives of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which had jurisdiction in the Hinman case, informed Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detectives assigned to the Tate case of the bloody writing at the Hinman house. Thinking the Tate murders were a consequence of a drug transaction, the Tate team ignored this and the crimes' other similarities.[2]:28–38[58] The Tate autopsies were under way and the LaBianca bodies were yet to be discovered.
Steven Parent, the shooting victim in the Tate driveway, was determined to have been an acquaintance of William Garretson, who lived in the guest house. Garretson was a young man hired by Rudi Altobelli to take care of the property while Altobelli himself was away.[2]:28–38 As the killers arrived, Parent had been leaving Cielo Drive, after a visit to Garretson.[2]:28–38
Held briefly as a Tate suspect, Garretson told police he had neither seen nor heard anything on the murder night. He was released on August 11, 1969, after undergoing a polygraph examination that indicated he had not been involved in the crimes.[2]:28–38, 42–48 Interviewed decades later, he stated he had, in fact, witnessed a portion of the murders, as the examination suggested. (See "Later events", below.)[59]
The LaBianca crime scene was discovered at about 10:30 pm on August 10, approximately 19 hours after the murders were committed. Fifteen-year-old Frank Struthers—Rosemary's son from a prior marriage and Leno's stepson—returned from a camping trip and was disturbed by seeing all of the window shades of his home drawn, and by the fact that his stepfather's speedboat was still attached to the family car, which was parked in the driveway. He called his older sister and her boyfriend. The boyfriend, Joe Dorgan, accompanied the younger Struthers into the home and discovered Leno's body. Rosemary's body was found by investigating police officers.[2]:38
On August 12, 1969, the LAPD told the press it had ruled out any connection between the Tate and LaBianca homicides.[2]:42–48 On August 16, the sheriff's office raided Spahn Ranch and arrested Manson and 25 others, as "suspects in a major auto theft ring" that had been stealing Volkswagens and converting them into dune buggies. Weapons were seized, but because the warrant had been misdated the group was released a few days later.[2]:56
The LaBianca detectives were generally younger than the Tate team. In a report at the end of August, when virtually all leads had gone nowhere, they noted a possible connection between the bloody writings at the LaBianca house and "the singing group the Beatles' most recent album."[2]:65
Breakthrough[edit]Still working separately from the Tate team, the LaBianca team checked with the sheriff's office in mid-October about possible similar crimes. They learned of the Hinman case. They also learned that the Hinman detectives had spoken with Beausoleil's girlfriend, Kitty Lutesinger. She had been arrested a few days earlier with members of "the Manson Family".[2]:75–77
The arrests had taken place at the desert ranches, to which the Family had moved and whence, unknown to authorities, its members had been searching Death Valley for a hole in the ground—access to the Bottomless Pit.[2]:228–233[60][61] A joint force of National Park rangers and officers from the California Highway Patrol and the Inyo County Sheriff's Office—federal, state, and county personnel—had raided both the Myers Ranch and Barker Ranch after following clues unwittingly left when Family members burned an earthmover owned by Death Valley National Monument.[2]:125–127[62][63] The raiders had found stolen dune buggies and other vehicles and had arrested two dozen people, including Manson. A Highway Patrol officer found Manson hiding in a cabinet beneath Barker's bathroom sink.[2]:75–77, 125–127
A month after they, too, had spoken with Lutesinger, the LaBianca detectives made contact with members of a motorcycle gang she'd told them Manson had tried to enlist as his bodyguards while the Family was at Spahn Ranch.[2]:75–77 While the gang members were providing information that suggested a link between Manson and the murders,[2]:84–90, 99–113 a dormitory mate of Susan Atkins succeeded in informing LAPD of the Family's involvement in the crimes.[2]:99–113 As one of those arrested at Barker, Atkins had been booked for the Hinman murder after she'd confirmed to the sheriff's detectives that she'd been involved in it, as Lutesinger had said.[2]:75–77[64] Transferred to Sybil Brand Institute, a detention center in Los Angeles, she had begun talking to bunkmates Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham, to whom she gave accounts of the events in which she had been involved.[2]:91–96
Apprehension[edit]On December 1, 1969, acting on the information from these sources, LAPD announced warrants for the arrest of Watson, Krenwinkel, and Kasabian in the Tate case; the suspects' involvement in the LaBianca murders was noted. Manson and Atkins, already in custody, were not mentioned; the connection between the LaBianca case and Van Houten, who was also among those arrested near Death Valley, had not yet been recognized.[2]:125–127, 155–161, 176–184
Watson and Krenwinkel, too, were already under arrest, authorities in McKinney, Texas, and Mobile, Alabama, having picked them up on notice from LAPD.[2]:155–161 Informed that there was a warrant out for her arrest, Kasabian voluntarily surrendered to authorities in Concord, New Hampshire, on December 2.[2]:155–161
Before long, physical evidence such as Krenwinkel's and Watson's fingerprints, which had been collected by LAPD at Cielo Drive,[2]:15, 156, 273, and photographs between 340–41 was augmented by evidence recovered by the public. On September 1, 1969, the distinctive .22-caliber Hi Standard "Buntline Special" revolver Watson used on Parent, Sebring, and Frykowski had been found and given to the police by Steven Weiss, a 10-year-old who lived near the Tate residence.[2]:66 In mid-December, when the Los Angeles Times published a crime account based on information Susan Atkins had given her attorney,[2]:160,193 Weiss' father made several phone calls which finally prompted LAPD to locate the gun in its evidence file and connect it with the murders via ballistics tests.[2]:198–199 Acting on that same newspaper account, a local ABC television crew quickly located and recovered the bloody clothing discarded by the Tate killers.[2]:197–198 The knives discarded en route from the Tate residence were never recovered, despite a search by some of the same crewmen and, months later still, by LAPD.[2]:198, 273 A knife found behind the cushion of a chair in the Tate living room was apparently that of Susan Atkins, who lost her knife in the course of the attack.[2]:17, 180, 262[65]
Trial[edit]The trial began June 15, 1970.[2]:297–300 The prosecution's main witness was Kasabian, who, along with Manson, Atkins, and Krenwinkel, had been charged with seven counts of murder and one ofconspiracy.[2]:185–188 Since Kasabian, by all accounts, had not participated in the killings, she was granted immunity in exchange for testimony that detailed the nights of the crimes.[2]:214–219, 250–253, 330–332 Originally, a deal had been made with Atkins in which the prosecution agreed not to seek the death penalty against her in exchange for her grand jury testimony on which the indictments were secured; once Atkins repudiated that testimony, the deal was withdrawn.[2]:169, 173–184, 188, 292 Because Van Houten had only participated in the LaBianca killings, she was charged with two counts of murder and one of conspiracy.
Originally, Judge William Keene had reluctantly granted Manson permission to act as his own attorney. Because of Manson's conduct, including violations of a gag order and submission of "outlandish" and "nonsensical" pretrial motions, the permission was withdrawn before the trial's start.[2]:200–202, 265 Manson filed an affidavit of prejudice against Keene, who was replaced by Judge Charles H. Older.[2]:290 On Friday, July 24, the first day of testimony, Manson appeared in court with an X carved into his forehead. He issued a statement that he was "considered inadequate and incompetent to speak or defend [him]self" – and had "X'd [him]self from [the establishment's] world."[2]:310[66] Over the following weekend, the female defendants duplicated the mark on their own foreheads, as did most Family members within another day or so.[2]:316 (Manson's X was eventually replaced by a swastika. See "Remaining in view", below.)
The prosecution placed the triggering of "Helter Skelter" as the main motive.[67] The crime scene's bloody White Album references--pig, rise, helter skelter—were correlated with testimony about Manson predictions that the murders blacks would commit at the outset of Helter Skelter would involve the writing of "pigs" on walls in victims' blood.[2]:244–247, 450–457 Testimony that Manson had said "now is the time for Helter Skelter" was supplemented with Kasabian's testimony that, on the night of the LaBianca murders, Manson considered discarding Rosemary LaBianca's wallet on the street of a black neighborhood.[2]:258–269 Having obtained the wallet in the LaBianca house, he "wanted a black person to pick it up and use the credit cards so that the people, the establishment, would think it was some sort of an organized group that killed these people."[68] On his direction, Kasabian had hidden it in the women's restroom of a service station near a black area.[2]:176–184, 190–191, 258–269, 369–377 "I want to show blackie how to do it," Manson had said as the Family members had driven along after the departure from the LaBianca house.[68]
Ongoing disruptions[edit]During the trial, Family members loitered near the entrances and corridors of the courthouse. To keep them out of the courtroom itself, the prosecution subpoenaed them as prospective witnesses, who would not be able to enter while others were testifying.[2]:309 When the group established itself in vigil on the sidewalk, some members wore a sheathed hunting knife[citation needed] that, although in plain view, was carried legally. Each of them was also identifiable by the X on his or her forehead.[2]:339
Some Family members attempted to dissuade witnesses from testifying. Prosecution witnesses Paul Watkins and Juan Flynn were both threatened;[2]:280, 332–335 Watkins was badly burned in a suspicious fire in his van.[2]:280 Former Family member Barbara Hoyt, who had overheard Susan Atkins describing the Tate murders to Family member Ruth Ann Moorehouse, agreed to accompany the latter to Hawaii. There, Moorehouse allegedly gave her a hamburger spiked with several doses of LSD. Found sprawled on a Honolulu curb in a drugged semi-stupor, Hoyt was taken to the hospital, where she did her best to identify herself as a witness in the Tate-LaBianca murder trial. Before the incident, Hoyt had been a reluctant witness; after the attempt to silence her, her reticence disappeared.[2]:348–350, 361
On August 4, despite precautions taken by the court, Manson flashed the jury a Los Angeles Times front page whose headline was "Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares". This was a reference to a statement made the previous day when U.S. President Richard Nixon had decried what he saw as the media's glamorization of Manson. Voir dired by Judge Older, the jurors contended that the headline had not influenced them. The next day, the female defendants stood up and said in unison that, in light of Nixon's remark, there was no point in going on with the trial.[2]:323–238
On October 5, Manson was denied the court's permission to question a prosecution witness whom the defense attorneys had declined to cross-examine. Leaping over the defense table, Manson attempted to attack the judge. Wrestled to the ground by bailiffs, he was removed from the courtroom with the female defendants, who had subsequently risen and begun chanting in Latin.[2]:369–377 Thereafter, Older allegedly began wearing a revolver under his robes.[2]:369–377
Defense rests[edit]On November 16, the prosecution rested its case. Three days later, after arguing standard dismissal motions, the defense stunned the court by resting as well, without calling a single witness. Shouting their disapproval, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten demanded their right to testify.[2]:382–388
In chambers, the women's lawyers told the judge their clients wanted to testify that they had planned and committed the crimes and that Manson had not been involved.[2]:382–388 By resting their case, the defense lawyers had tried to stop this; Van Houten's attorney, Ronald Hughes, vehemently stated that he would not "push a client out the window". In the prosecutor's view, it was Manson who was advising the women to testify in this way as a means of saving himself.[2]:382–388 Speaking about the trial in a 1987 documentary, Krenwinkel said, "The entire proceedings were scripted – by Charlie."[69]
The next day, Manson testified. Lest Manson's address violate the California Supreme Court's decision in People v. Aranda by making statements implicating his co-defendants, the jury was removed from the courtroom.[2]:134 Speaking for more than an hour, Manson said, among other things, that "the music is telling the youth to rise up against the establishment." He said, "Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music." "To be honest with you," Manson also stated, "I don't recall ever saying 'Get a knife and a change of clothes and go do what Tex says.' "[2]:388–392
As the body of the trial concluded and with the closing arguments impending, attorney Ronald Hughes disappeared during a weekend trip.[2]:393–398 When Maxwell Keith was appointed to represent Van Houten in Hughes' absence, a delay of more than two weeks was required to permit Keith to familiarize himself with the voluminous trial transcripts.[2]:393–398 No sooner had the trial resumed, just before Christmas, than disruptions of the prosecution's closing argument by the defendants led Older to ban the four defendants from the courtroom for the remainder of the guilt phase. This may be because the defendants were acting in collusion with each other and were simply putting on a performance, which Older said was becoming obvious.[2]:399–407
Conviction and penalty phase[edit]On January 25, 1971, guilty verdicts were returned against the four defendants on each of the 27 separate counts against them.[2]:411–419 Not far into the trial's penalty phase, the jurors saw, at last, the defense that Manson—in the prosecution's view—had planned to present.[2]:455 Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten testified the murders had been conceived as "copycat" versions of the Hinman murder, for which Atkins now took credit. The killings, they said, were intended to draw suspicion away from Bobby Beausoleil, by resembling the crime for which he had been jailed. This plan had supposedly been the work of, and carried out under the guidance of, not Manson, but someone allegedly in love with Beausoleil--Linda Kasabian.[2]:424–433 Among the narrative's weak points was the inability of Atkins to explain why, as she was maintaining, she had written "political piggy" at the Hinman house in the first place.[2]:424–433, 450–457
Midway through the penalty phase, Manson shaved his head and trimmed his beard to a fork; he told the press, "I am the Devil, and the Devil always has a bald head."[2]:439 In what the prosecution regarded as belated recognition on their part that imitation of Manson only proved his domination, the female defendants refrained from shaving their heads until the jurors retired to weigh the state's request for the death penalty.[2]:439, 455
The effort to exonerate Manson via the "copycat" scenario failed. On March 29, 1971, the jury returned verdicts of death against all four defendants on all counts.[2]:450–457 On April 19, 1971, Judge Older sentenced the four to death.[2]:458–459
Aftermath[edit]On the day the verdicts recommending the death penalty were returned, news came that the badly decomposed body of Ronald Hughes had been found wedged between two boulders in Ventura County.[2]:457It was rumored, although never proven, that Hughes was murdered by the Family, possibly because he had stood up to Manson and refused to allow Van Houten to take the stand and absolve Manson of the crimes.[2]:387, 394, 481 Though he might have perished in flooding,[2]:393–394, 481[70] Family member Sandra Good stated that Hughes was "the first of the retaliation murders".[2]:481–482, 625
On November 8, 1972, the body of 26-year-old Vietnam Marine combat veteran James L. T. Willett was found by a hiker near Guerneville, California.[71] Months earlier, he had been forced to dig his own grave, and then was shot and poorly buried; his body was found with the one hand protruding from the grave and the head and other hand missing (likely because of scavenging animals). His station wagon was found outside a house in Stockton where several Manson followers were living, including Priscilla Cooper, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, and Nancy Pitman. Police forced their way into the house and arrested several of the people there, along with Fromme who called the house after they had arrived. The body of James Willett's 19-year-old wife Lauren "Reni" Chavelle[72] Olmstead Willett was found buried in the basement.[71] She had been killed very recently by a gunshot to the head, in what the Family members initially claimed was an accident. It was later suggested that she was killed out of fear that she would reveal who killed her husband, as the discovery of his body had become prominent news. The Willetts' infant daughter was found alive in the house. Michael Monfort pled guilty to murdering Reni Willett, and Priscilla Cooper, James Craig, and Nancy Pitman pled guilty as accessories after the fact. Monfort and William Goucher later pled guilty to the murder of James Willett, and James Craig pled guilty as an accessory after the fact. The group had been living in the house with the Willetts while committing various robberies. Shortly after killing Willett, Monfort had used Willett's identification papers to pose as Willett after being arrested in an armed robbery of a liquor store.[72] News reports suggested that James Willett was not involved in the robberies[73] and wanted to move away, and was killed out of fear that he would talk to police. After leaving the Marines following two tours in Vietnam, Willett had been an ESL teacher for immigrant children.
Protracted proceedings to extradite Watson from his native Texas,[2]:204–210, 356–361[74] where he had resettled a month before his arrest,[75] resulted in his being tried separately. The trial commenced in August 1971; by October, he, too, had been found guilty on seven counts of murder and one of conspiracy. Unlike the others, Watson had presented a psychiatric defense; prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi made short work of Watson's insanity claims. Like his co-conspirators, Watson was sentenced to death.[2]:463–468
In February 1972, the death sentences of all five parties were automatically reduced to life in prison by California v. Anderson, 493 P.2d 880, 6 Cal. 3d 628 (Cal. 1972), in which the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in that state.[2]:488–491 After his return to prison, Manson's rhetoric and hippie speeches were not accepted.[who?] Though he eventually found temporary acceptance from the Aryan Brotherhood, his role was submissive to a sexually aggressive member of the group, at San Quentin.[76]
In a 1971 trial that took place after his Tate/LaBianca convictions, Manson was found guilty of the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald "Shorty" Shea and was given a life sentence. Shea was a Spahn Ranch stuntman and horse wrangler who had been killed approximately 10 days after the August 16, 1969, sheriff's raid on the ranch. Manson, who suspected that Shea helped set up the raid, had apparently believed Shea was trying to get Spahn to run the Family off the ranch. Manson may have considered it a "sin" that the white Shea had married a black woman; and there was the possibility that Shea knew about the Tate/LaBianca killings.[2]:99–113[77] In separate trials, Family members Bruce Davis and Steve "Clem" Grogan were also found guilty of Shea's murder.[2]:99–113, 463–468[78]
Before the conclusion of Manson's Tate/LaBianca trial, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times tracked down Manson's mother, remarried and living in the Pacific Northwest. The former Kathleen Maddox claimed that, in childhood, her son had suffered no neglect; he had even been "pampered by all the women who surrounded him."[9]
Remaining in view[edit]
The Folsom State Prison, one of the facilities where Manson has been held
On September 5, 1975, the Family rocketed back to national attention when Squeaky Fromme attempted to assassinate US President Gerald Ford.[2]:502–511 The attempt took place in Sacramento, to which she and Manson follower Sandra Good had moved to be near Manson while he was incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. A subsequent search of the apartment shared by Fromme, Good, and a Family recruit turned up evidence that, coupled with later actions on the part of Good, resulted in Good's conviction for conspiring to send threatening communications through the United States mail and transmitting death threats by way of interstate commerce. (The threats that were involved were against corporate executives and US government officials and had to do with supposed environmental dereliction on their part.)[2]:502–511 Fromme was sentenced to 15 years to life, becoming the first person sentenced under United States Code Title 18, chapter 84 (1965),[79] which made it a Federal crime to attempt to assassinate the President of the United States.
In 1977, authorities learned the precise location of the remains of Shorty Shea and that, contrary to Family claims, Shea had not been dismembered and buried in several places. Contacting the prosecutor in his case, Steve Grogan told him Shea's corpse had been buried in one piece; he drew a map that pinpointed the location of the body, which was recovered. Of those convicted of Manson-ordered murders, Grogan would become, in 1985, the first—and, as of 2013, the only—to be paroled.[2]:509
In the 1980s, Manson gave four notable interviews. The first, recorded at California Medical Facility and aired June 13, 1981, was by Tom Snyder for NBC's The Tomorrow Show. The second, recorded at San Quentin Prison and aired March 7, 1986, was by Charlie Rose for CBS News Nightwatch; it won the national news Emmy Award for "Best Interview" in 1987.[80] The last, with Geraldo Rivera in 1988, was part of that journalist's prime-time special on Satanism.[81] At least as early as the Snyder interview, Manson's forehead bore a swastika, in the spot where the X carved during his trial had been.[82]
In 1989, Nikolas Schreck conducted an interview of Manson, cutting the interview up for material in his documentary Charles Manson Superstar. This was the first, and is considered one of the most authoritative and comprehensive, documentaries on the subject. Schreck concluded that the story behind the murders was probably false, and that an admitted plan, by several of the women at the ranch interviewed after the trial was concluded, involved killing the people at the Tate home in order to free Bobby Beausoleil as per an attempt to copycat the murder of Gary Hinman. According to this, the use of writings of blood on the walls at the Tate and Labianca residences was merely a ploy to make it seem that the murderer of Hinman was still free, and that Beausoleil was not guilty. Key in his refutation of the hypothesis was the fact that, while the prosecution attempted to show Manson ordered the killings because he was upset over Terry Melcher (and believed Melcher to still be at that address), this could certainly not have been the case, as Manson attempted on several occasions to contact Melcher at his new address, showing he knew very well Melcher no longer lived at the Tate home. Schreck also concluded that Manson was not insane, but merely acting that way out of frustration.[83][84]
On September 25, 1984, while imprisoned at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, Manson was severely burned by a fellow inmate who poured paint thinner on him and set him alight. The other prisoner, Jan Holmstrom, explained that Manson had objected to his Hare Krishna chants and had verbally threatened him. Despite suffering second- and third-degree burns over 20 percent of his body, Manson recovered from his injuries.[2]:497
In December 1987, Fromme, serving a life sentence for the assassination attempt, escaped briefly from Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. She was trying to reach Manson, who she had heard had testicular cancer; she was apprehended within days.[2]:502–511 She was released on parole from Federal Medical Center, Carswell on August 14, 2009.[85]
Later events[edit]In a 1994 conversation with Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Catherine Share, a one-time Manson-follower, stated that her testimony in the penalty phase of Manson's trial had been a fabrication intended to save Manson from the gas chamber and had been given on Manson's explicit direction.[2]:502–511 Share's testimony had introduced the copycat-motive story, which the testimony of the three female defendants echoed and according to which the Tate-LaBianca murders had been Linda Kasabian's idea.[2]:424–433 In a 1997 segment of the tabloid television program Hard Copy, Share implied that her testimony had been given under a Manson threat of physical harm.[86] In August 1971, after Manson's trial and sentencing, Share had participated in a violent California retail store robbery, the object of which was the acquisition of weapons to help free Manson.[2]:463–468
In January 1996, a Manson website was established by latter-day Manson follower George Stimson, who was helped by Sandra Good. Good had been released from prison in 1985, after serving 10 years of her 15-year sentence for the death threats.[2]:502–511[87] The Manson website, ATWA.com, was discontinued in 2001, but as of 2011, it was running again, but currently the domain is up for sale and the website is discontinued.[88]
In June 1997, Manson was found to have been trafficking in drugs by a prison disciplinary committee.[89] That August, he was moved from Corcoran State Prison to Pelican Bay State Prison.[89]
In a 1998–99 interview in Seconds magazine, Bobby Beausoleil rejected the view that Manson ordered him to kill Gary Hinman.[51] He stated Manson did come to Hinman's house and slash Hinman with a sword. In a 1981 interview with Oui magazine, he denied this. Beausoleil stated that when he read about the Tate murders in the newspaper, "I wasn't even sure at that point – really, I had no idea who had done it until Manson's group were actually arrested for it. It had only crossed my mind and I had a premonition, perhaps. There was some little tickle in my mind that the killings might be connected with them ..." In the Oui magazine interview, he had stated, "When [the Tate-LaBianca murders] happened, I knew who had done it. I was fairly certain."[50]
William Garretson, once the young caretaker at Cielo Drive, indicated in a program broadcast in July 1999 on E!, that he had, in fact, seen and heard a portion of the Tate murders from his location in the property's guest house. This comported with the unofficial results of the polygraph examination that had been given to Garretson on August 10, 1969, and that had effectively eliminated him as a suspect.[90]The LAPD officer who conducted the examination had concluded Garretson was "clean" on participation in the crimes but "muddy" as to his having heard anything.[2]:28–38 Garretson did not explain why he had withheld his knowledge of the events.[59]
It was announced in early 2008 that Susan Atkins was suffering from brain cancer.[91] An application for compassionate release, based on her health status, was denied in July 2008,[91] and she was denied parole for the 18th and final time on September 2, 2009.[92] Atkins died of natural causes 22 days later, on September 24, 2009, at the Central California Women's facility in Chowchilla.[93][94]
Later developments[edit]
Manson at age 74 (March 2009)
On September 5, 2007, MSNBC aired The Mind of Manson, a complete version of a 1987 interview at California's San Quentin State Prison. The footage of the "unshackled, unapologetic, and unruly" Manson had been considered "so unbelievable" that only seven minutes of it had originally been broadcast on The Today Show, for which it had been recorded.[95]
In a January 2008 segment of the Discovery Channel's Most Evil, Barbara Hoyt said that the impression that she had accompanied Ruth Ann Moorehouse to Hawaii just to avoid testifying at Manson's trial was erroneous. Hoyt said she had cooperated with the Family because she was "trying to keep them from killing my family." She stated that, at the time of the trial, she was "constantly being threatened: 'Your family's gonna die. [The murders] could be repeated at your house.'"[96]
On March 15, 2008, the Associated Press reported that forensic investigators had conducted a search for human remains at Barker Ranch the previous month. Following up on longstanding rumors that the Family had killed hitchhikers and runaways who had come into its orbit during its time at Barker, the investigators identified "two likely clandestine grave sites ... and one additional site that merits further investigation."[97] Though they recommended digging, CNN reported on March 28 that the Inyo Countysheriff, who questioned the methods they employed with search dogs, had ordered additional tests before any excavation.[98] On May 9, after a delay caused by damage to test equipment,[99] the sheriff announced that test results had been inconclusive and that "exploratory excavation" would begin on May 20.[100] In the meantime, Tex Watson had commented publicly that "no one was killed" at the desert camp during the month-and-a-half he was there, after the Tate-LaBianca murders.[101][102] On May 21, after two days of work, the sheriff brought the search to an end; four potential gravesites had been dug up and had been found to hold no human remains.[103][104] In March 2009, a photograph taken of a 74-year old Manson, showing a receding hairline, grizzled gray beard and hair and the swastika tattoo still prominent on his forehead, was released to the public by California corrections officials.[105]
In September 2009, The History Channel broadcast a docudrama covering the Family's activities and the murders as part of its coverage on the 40th anniversary of the killings.[106] The program included an in-depth interview with Linda Kasabian, who spoke publicly for the first time since a 1989 appearance on A Current Affair, an American television news magazine.[106] Also included in the History Channel program were interviews with Vincent Bugliosi, Catherine Share, and Debra Tate, sister of Sharon.[107]
As the 40th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders approached, in July 2009, Los Angeles magazine published an "oral history", in which former Family members, law-enforcement officers, and others involved with Manson, the arrests, and the trials offered their recollections of—and observations on—the events that made Manson notorious. In the article, Juan Flynn, a Spahn Ranch worker who had become associated with Manson and the Family, said, "Charles Manson got away with everything. People will say, 'He's in jail.' But Charlie is exactly where he wants to be."[108]
In November 2009, a Los Angeles DJ and songwriter named Matthew Roberts released correspondence and other evidence indicating he had been biologically fathered by Manson. Roberts' biological mother claims to have been a member of the Manson Family who left in the summer of 1967 after being raped by Manson; the mother returned to her parents' home to complete the pregnancy, gave birth on March 22, 1968, and subsequently gave up Roberts for adoption. Manson himself has stated that he "could" be the father, acknowledging the biological mother and a sexual relationship with her during 1967; this was nearly two years before the Family began its murderous phase.[109][110]
In 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported that Manson was caught with a cell phone in 2009, and had contacted people in California, New Jersey, Florida and British Columbia. A spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections stated that it was not known if Manson had used the phone for criminal purposes.[111]
On October 4, 2012, Bruce Davis, who had been convicted of the murder of Shorty Shea and the attempted robbery by Manson Family members of a Hawthorne gun shop in 1971, was recommended for parole by the California Department of Corrections at his 27th parole hearing. In 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had reversed the board's previous finding in favor of Davis, denying him parole for two more years.[112] On March 1, 2013, Governor Jerry Brown also denied parole for Davis.[113]
Parole hearings[edit]
Manson at age 76 in June 2011
A footnote to the conclusion of California v. Anderson, the 1972 decision that neutralized California's then-current death sentences, stated, "[A]ny prisoner now under a sentence of death ... may file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the superior court inviting that court to modify its judgment to provide for the appropriate alternative punishment of life imprisonment or life imprisonment without possibility of parole specified by statute for the crime for which he was sentenced to death."[114] This made Manson eligible to apply for parole after seven years' incarceration.[2]:488 His first parole hearing took place on November 16, 1978, at the California Medical Facilty in Vacaville.[2]:498[115]
Manson was denied parole for the 12th time on April 11, 2012. Manson did not attend the hearing where prison officials argued that Manson had a history of controlling behavior and mental health issues including schizophrenia and paranoid delusional disorder[116] and was too great a danger to be released.[117] It was determined that Manson would not be reconsidered for parole for another 15 years,[118] at which time he would be 92 years old.
His California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation inmate number at Corcoran State Prison is B33920.[119][120]
Manson and culture[edit]Recordings[edit]Main article: Charles Manson discography
On March 6, 1970, the day the court vacated Manson's status as his own attorney,[2]:258–269 LIE, an album of Manson music, was released.[121][122][123] This included "Cease to Exist," a Manson composition the Beach Boys had recorded with modified lyrics and the title "Never Learn Not to Love".[124][125] Over the next couple of months, only about 300 of the album's 2,000 copies sold.[126]
Since that time, there have been several releases of Manson recordings—both musical and spoken.[127] The Family Jams includes two compact discs of Manson's songs recorded by the Family in 1970, after Manson and the others had been arrested. Guitar and lead vocals are supplied by Steve Grogan;[2]:125–127 additional vocals are supplied by Lynette Fromme, Sandra Good, Catherine Share, and others.[127][128] One Mind, an album of music, poetry, and spoken word, new at the time of its release, in April 2005,[127] was put out under a Creative Commons license.[129][130]
American rock band Guns N' Roses recorded Manson's "Look at Your Game, Girl", included as an unlisted 13th track on their 1993 album "The Spaghetti Incident?"[2]:488–491[131][132] "My Monkey," which appears on Portrait of an American Family by Marilyn Manson (no relation, as is explained below), includes the lyrics "I had a little monkey / I sent him to the country and I fed him on gingerbread / Along came a choo-choo / Knocked my monkey cuckoo / And now my monkey's dead."[133] These lyrics are from Manson's "Mechanical Man,"[134] which is heard on LIE. Crispin Glover covered "Never Say 'Never' To Always" on his album The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be released in 1989.
Several of Manson's songs, including "I'm Scratching Peace Symbols on Your Tombstone" (a.k.a. "First They Made Me Sleep in the Closet"), "Garbage Dump", and "I Can't Remember When", are featured in the soundtrack of the 1976 TV-movie Helter Skelter, where they are performed by Steve Railsback, who portrays Manson.[135]
According to a popular urban legend, Manson unsuccessfully auditioned for the Monkees in late 1965; this is refuted by the fact that Manson was still incarcerated at McNeil Island at that time.[136]
Cultural reverberation[edit]Within months of the Tate-LaBianca arrests, Manson was embraced by underground newspapers of the 1960s counterculture from which the Family had emerged.[2]:221–222[126] When a Rolling Stone writer visited the Los Angeles District Attorney's office for a June 1970 cover story,[137] he was shocked by a photograph of the bloody "Healter [sic] Skelter" that would bind Manson to popular culture.[138]
Manson has been a presence in fashion,[139][140] graphics,[141][142] music,[143] and movies, as well as on television and the stage. In an afterword composed for the 1994 edition of the non-fiction Helter Skelter, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi quoted a BBC employee's assertion that a "neo-Manson cult" existing then in Europe was represented by, among other things, approximately 70 rock bands playing songs by Manson and "songs in support of him."[2]:488–491
Just one specimen of popular music with Manson references is Alkaline Trio's "Sadie," whose lyrics include the phrases "Sadie G," "Ms. Susan A," and "Charlie's broken .22."[144] "Sadie Mae Glutz" was the name by which Susan Atkins was known within the Family;[2]:75–77[48] and as noted earlier, the revolver grip that shattered when Tex Watson used it to bludgeon Wojciech Frykowski was a twenty-twocaliber.[53] "Sadie's" lyrics are followed by a spoken passage derived from Atkins's testimony in the penalty phase of the trial of Manson and the women.[2]:428–429[145]
Manson has even influenced the names of musical performers such as Spahn Ranch, Kasabian, and Marilyn Manson, the last a stage name assembled from "Charles Manson" and "Marilyn Monroe".[146] The story of the Family's activities inspired John Moran's opera The Manson Family and Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins, the latter of which has Lynette Fromme as a character.[147][148] The tale has been the subject of several movies, including two television dramatizations of Helter Skelter.[149][150] In the South Park episode Merry Christmas Charlie Manson, Manson is a comic character whose inmate number is 06660, an apparent reference to 666, the Biblical "number of the beast."[151][152]
The 2002 novel The Dead Circus by John Kaye includes the activities of the Manson Family as a major plot point.[153]
Murder!Quiet and secluded is just what the young movie star wanted. The canyons above Beverly Hills were far enough away from the noisy glitz of Hollywood to afford some privacy and space. Sharon Tate loved this place on Cielo Drive. To her it meant romance — romance with the man of her dreams and the father of her child, director Roman Polanski.
Charles Manson
It was cooler up there too, which was especially refreshing on that hot muggy Saturday night, the 9th of August 1969. The beautiful young woman kept herself company with her attractive and sophisticated friends: Abigail Folger, the coffee heiress and her boyfriend Voytek Frykowski, and an internationally known hair stylist Jay Sebring.
Sharon was eight months pregnant and very lonely for her husband who was away in Europe working on a film. Impromptu gatherings like this one on a weekend night were not at all unusual.
The house was deliberately secluded but not completely insecure. Approximately 100 feet from the house was a locked gate and on the property was a guesthouse inhabited by an able-bodied young caretaker.
That night the Kotts, Sharon's nearest neighbors who lived about 100 yards away, thought they heard a few gunshots coming from the direction of Sharon's property sometime between 12:30 and 1 A.M. But since they heard nothing else, they went to bed.
Around the same time, a man supervising a camp-out less than a mile away heard a chilling scream: "Oh, God, no, please don't! Oh, God, no, don't, don't..."
He drove around the area, but found nothing unusual.
Nearby a neighbor's dogs went into a barking frenzy somewhere between 2 and 3 A.M. He got out of bed and looked around, but found nothing amiss and went back to bed.
A private security guard hired by some of the wealthy property owners thought he heard several gunshots a little after 4 A.M. and called his headquarters. Headquarters, in turn, called Los Angeles Police Department to report the disturbance. The LAPD officer said: "I hope we don't have a murder; we just had a woman-screaming call in that area."
The Tate/Polanski House on Cielo Drive
Winifred Chapman, Sharon Tate's housekeeper, got to the main gate of the house a little after 8 A.M. She noticed what looked like a fallen telephone wire hanging over the gate. She pushed the gate control mechanism and it swung open. As she walked up to the house, she saw an unfamiliar white Rambler parked in the driveway.
When she got to the house, she took the housekey from its hiding place and unlocked the back door. Once inside the kitchen, she picked up the telephone and confirmed that it was a telephone wire that had fallen, completely knocking out all phone service. As she made her way toward the living room, she noticed that the front door was open and that there were splashes of red everywhere. Looking out the front door, she saw a couple of pools of blood and what appeared to be a body on the lawn.
She shrieked and ran back through the house and down the driveway, passing close enough to the Rambler to see that there was yet another body inside the car. She ran over to the Kotts and banged on the door, but they were not home, so she ran to the next house and did the same thing, screaming hysterically.
Manson believed in what he called "Helter Skelter", a term he took from the song of the same name by the Beatles. Manson believed Helter Skelter to be an impending apocalyptic race war, which he described in his own version of the lyrics to the Beatles' song. He believed his murders would help precipitate that war. From the beginning of his notoriety, a pop culture arose around him in which he ultimately became an emblem of insanity, violence and the macabre. The term was later used by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi as the title of a book that he wrote about the Manson murders.
At the time the Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed former convict, who had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. Before the murders, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Dennis Wilson, a founding member and the drummer of the Beach Boys. After Manson was charged with the crimes of which he was later convicted, recordings of songs written and performed by him were released commercially. Various musicians, including Guns N' Roses, White Zombie and Marilyn Manson, havecovered some of his songs.Born to an unmarried 16-year-old named Kathleen Maddox (1918–1973),[7] in Cincinnati General Hospital, Ohio, Manson was first named "no name Maddox."[2]:136–7[8][9] Within weeks, he was Charles MillesMaddox.[2]:136–7[10][11] For a period after his birth, his mother was married to a laborer named William Manson (1910–?),[11] whose last name the boy was given. His biological father appears to have been Colonel Walker Scott (May 11, 1910– December 30, 1954)[12] against whom Kathleen Maddox filed a bastardy suit that resulted in an agreed judgment in 1937.[2]:136–7 Possibly, Charles Manson never really knew his biological father.[2]:136–7[9]
Several statements in Manson's 1951 case file from the seven months he would later spend at the National Training School for Boys in Washington, D.C., allude to the possibility that "Colonel Scott" was African American.[2]:555 These include the first two sentences of his family background section, which read: "Father: unknown. He is alleged to have been a colored cook by the name of Scott, with whom Charles's mother had been promiscuous at the time of pregnancy."[2]:556 When asked about these official records by attorney Vincent Bugliosi in 1971, Manson emphatically denied that his biological father had African American ancestry.[2]:588 In addition, the 1920 and 1930 census list Colonel Scott and his father as white.
In the quasi-autobiography, Manson in His Own Words, Colonel Scott is said to have been "a young drugstore cowboy ... a transient laborer working on a nearby dam project." It is not clear what "nearby" means. The description is in a paragraph that indicates Kathleen Maddox gave birth to Manson "while living in Cincinnati," after she had run away from her own home, in Ashland, Kentucky.[13]
There is much about Manson's early life that is in dispute because of the variety of different stories he has offered to interviewers, many of which were untrue. Manson's mother was allegedly a heavy drinker.[2]:136–7 According to Manson, she once sold her son for a pitcher of beer to a childless waitress, from whom his uncle retrieved him some days later.[14] When Manson's mother and her brother were sentenced to five years' imprisonment for robbing a Charleston, West Virginia, service station in 1939, Manson was placed in the home of an aunt and uncle in McMechen, West Virginia. Upon her 1942parole, Kathleen retrieved her son and lived with him in run-down hotel rooms.[2]:136–7 Manson himself later characterized her physical embrace of him on the day she returned from prison as his sole happy childhood memory.[14]
In 1947, Kathleen Maddox tried to have her son placed in a foster home but failed because no such home was available.[2]:136–7 The court placed Manson in Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana. After 10 months, he fled from there to his mother, who rejected him.[2]:136–7
By burglarizing a grocery store, Manson obtained cash that enabled him to rent a room.[2]:136–7 He committed a string of burglaries of other stores, including one from which he stole a bicycle, but was eventually caught in the act and sent to an Indianapolis juvenile center. He escaped after one day, but was recaptured and placed in Boys Town. Four days after his arrival there, he escaped with another boy. The pair committed two armed robberies on their way to the home of the other boy's uncle.[2]:137–146
Caught during the second of two subsequent break-ins of grocery stores, Manson was sent, at age 13, to the Indiana Boys School, where, he would later claim, he was brutalized sexually and otherwise.[14]After many failed attempts, he escaped with two other boys in 1951.[2]:137–146
In Utah, the three were caught driving to California in cars they had stolen. They had burglarized several filling stations along the way. For the federal crime of taking a stolen car across a state line, Manson was sent to Washington, D.C.'s National Training School for Boys. Despite four years of schooling and an I.Q. of 109 (later tested at 121),[2]:137–146 he was illiterate. A caseworker deemed him aggressivelyantisocial.[2]:137–146
First imprisonment[edit]In October 1951, on a psychiatrist's recommendation, Manson was transferred to Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution. Less than a month before a scheduled February 1952 parolehearing, he "took a razor blade and held it against another boy's throat while Manson sodomized him."[2]:137–146[14] Manson was transferred to the Federal Reformatory, Petersburg, Virginia, where he was considered "dangerous."[2]:137–146 In September 1952, a number of other serious disciplinary offenses resulted in his transfer to the Federal Reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio, a more secure institution.[2]:137–146 About a month after the transfer, he became almost a model resident. Good work habits and a rise in his educational level from the lower fourth to the upper seventh grade won him a May 1954 parole.[2]:137–146
After temporarily honoring a parole condition that he live with his aunt and uncle in West Virginia, Manson moved in with his mother in that same state. In January 1955, he married a hospital waitress named Rosalie Jean Willis, with whom, by his own account, he found genuine, if short-lived, marital happiness.[14] He supported their marriage via small-time jobs and auto theft.[2]:137–146
Around October, about three months after he and his pregnant wife arrived in Los Angeles in a car he had stolen in Ohio, Manson was again charged with a federal crime for taking the vehicle across state lines. After a psychiatric evaluation, he was given five years' probation. His subsequent failure to appear at a Los Angeles hearing on an identical charge filed in Florida resulted in his March 1956 arrest inIndianapolis. His probation was revoked; he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment at Terminal Island, San Pedro, California.[2]:137–146
While Manson was in prison, Rosalie gave birth to their son, Charles Manson, Jr. During his first year at Terminal Island, Manson received visits from Rosalie and his mother, who were now living together in Los Angeles. In March 1957, when the visits from his wife ceased, his mother informed him Rosalie was living with another man. Less than two weeks before a scheduled parole hearing, Manson tried to escape by stealing a car. He was subsequently given five years probation, and his parole was denied.[2]:137–146
Second imprisonment[edit]Manson received five years' parole in September 1958, the same year in which Rosalie received a decree of divorce. By November, he was pimping a 16-year-old girl and was receiving additional support from a girl with wealthy parents. In September 1959, he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check. He received a 10-year suspended sentence and probation after a young woman with an arrest record for prostitution made a "tearful plea" before the court that she and Manson were "deeply in love ... and would marry if Charlie were freed."[2]:137–146 Before the year's end, the woman did marry Manson, possibly so testimony against him would not be required of her.[2]:137–146
The woman's name was Leona; as a prostitute, she had used the name Candy Stevens. After Manson took her and another woman from California to New Mexico for purposes of prostitution, he was held and questioned for violation of the Mann Act. Though he was released, he evidently suspected, rightly, that the investigation had not ended. When he disappeared, in violation of his probation, a bench warrant was issued; an April 1960 indictment for violation of the Mann Act followed.[2]:137–146 Arrested in Laredo, Texas, in June, when one of the women was arrested for prostitution, Manson was returned to Los Angeles. For violation of his probation on the check-cashing charge, he was ordered to serve his 10-year sentence.[2]:137–146
In July 1961, after a year spent unsuccessfully appealing the revocation of his probation, Manson was transferred from the Los Angeles County Jail to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island. There, he took guitar lessons from Barker-Karpis gang leader Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and obtained a contact name of someone at Universal Studios in Hollywood from another inmate, Phil Kaufman (who, after release, had befriended Gram Parsons and after Parsons's death, had hijacked the body and cremated it in the Joshua Tree desert).[15] According to Jeff Guinn's 2013 Manson biography, Charlie's mother Kathleen moved from California to Washington state to be closer to him during his McNeil Island incarceration, working nearby as a waitress.[16]
Although the Mann Act charge had been dropped, the attempt to cash the Treasury check was still a federal offense. His September 1961 annual review noted he had a "tremendous drive to call attention to himself", an observation echoed in September 1964.[2]:137–146 In 1963, Leona was granted a divorce, in the pursuit of which she alleged that she and Manson had had a son, Charles Luther.[2]:137–146
In June 1966, Manson was sent, for the second time in his life, to Terminal Island, in preparation for early release. By March 21, 1967, his release day, he had spent more than half of his 32 years in prisons and other institutions.[2]:137–146 Telling the authorities that prison had become his home, he requested permission to stay,[2]:137–146 a fact touched on in a 1981 television interview with Tom Snyder.[17]
Manson Family[edit]On his release day, Manson received permission to move to San Francisco, where, with the help of a prison acquaintance, he moved into an apartment in Berkeley. In prison, bank robber Alvin Karpis had taught him to play the steel guitar.[2]:137–146[14][18] Now, living mostly by panhandling, he soon got to know Mary Brunner, a 23-year-old graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Brunner was working as a library assistant at University of California, Berkeley, and Manson moved in with her. According to a secondhand account, he overcame her resistance to his bringing other women in to live with them. Before long, they were sharing Brunner's residence with 18 other women.[2]:163–174
Manson established himself as a guru in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, which, during 1967's "Summer of Love", was emerging as the signature hippie locale. Bugliosi noted in his book Helter Skelter that Manson appeared to have borrowed philosophically from the Process Church, whose members worshiped Satan. Expounding a philosophy that included some of the Scientology he had studied in prison,[2]:163–164 he soon had his first group of followers, most of them female.[2]:137–146 Upon a staff evaluation of Manson when he entered prison in July 1961 at the U.S. penitentiary in McNeil Island,Washington, Manson entered "Scientologist" as his religion.[2]:143–144
Before the summer ended, Manson and eight or nine of his enthusiasts piled into an old school bus they had re-wrought in hippie style, with colored rugs and pillows in place of the many seats they had removed. They roamed as far north as Washington state, then southward through Los Angeles, Mexico, and the southwest. Returning to the Los Angeles area, they lived in Topanga Canyon, Malibu, andVenice—western parts of the city and county.[2]:163–174
In 1967, Brunner became pregnant by Manson and on April 15, 1968 gave birth to a son she named Valentine Michael (nicknamed "Pooh Bear")[19] in a condemned house in Topanga Canyon and was assisted during the birth by several of the young women from the Family. Brunner (like most members of the group) acquired a number of aliases and nicknames, including: "Marioche", "Och", "Mother Mary", "Mary Manson", "Linda Dee Manson" and "Christine Marie Euchts".[20]
In an alternative account, Manson acquired Family members during some months of travels that were undertaken, in part, in a Volkswagen van. He was apparently accompanied by Brunner. It was November when the school bus set out from San Francisco with the enlarged group.[21]
Involvement with Wilson, Melcher, et al.[edit]The events that would culminate in the murders were set in motion in late spring 1968, when, by some accounts, Dennis Wilson, of The Beach Boys, picked up two hitchhiking Manson women, Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey [22] and brought them to his Pacific Palisades house for a few hours. Returning home in the early hours of the following morning from a night recording session, Wilson was greeted in the driveway of his own residence by Manson, who emerged from the house. Uncomfortable, Wilson asked the stranger whether he intended to hurt him. Assuring him he had no such intent, Manson began kissing Wilson's feet.[2]:250–253[23]
Inside the house, Wilson discovered 12 strangers, mostly women.[2]:250–253[23] Over the next few months, as their number doubled, the Family members who had made themselves part of Wilson's Sunset Boulevard household cost him approximately $100,000. This included a large medical bill for treatment of their gonorrhea and $21,000 for the accidental destruction of his uninsured car, which they borrowed.[24] Wilson would sing and talk with Manson, whose women were treated as servants to them both.[2]:250–253
Wilson paid for studio time to record songs written and performed by Manson, and he introduced Manson to acquaintances of his with roles in the entertainment business. These included Gregg Jakobson,Terry Melcher, and Rudi Altobelli (the last of whom owned a house he would soon rent to actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski).[2]:250–253 Jakobson, who was impressed by "the whole Charlie Manson package" of artist/lifestylist/philosopher, also paid to record Manson material.[2]:155–161, 185–188, 214–219[25]
The account given in Manson in His Own Words is that Manson first met Wilson at a friend's San Francisco house, where Manson had gone to obtain cannabis. The drummer supposedly gave Manson his Sunset Boulevard address and invited him to stop by when he would be in Los Angeles.[14]
Spahn Ranch[edit]Manson established a base for the group at Spahn's Movie Ranch, not far from Topanga Canyon Boulevard, in August 1968 after Wilson's manager told the Family to move out of Wilson's home.[26][27] The entire Family then relocated to the ranch.[2]:250–253
The ranch had been a television and movie set for Western productions. However, by the late 1960s, the buildings had deteriorated and the ranch was earning money primarily by selling horseback rides.
Family members did helpful work around the grounds. Also, Manson ordered the Family's women, including Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, to occasionally have sex with the nearly blind, 80-year-old owner,George Spahn. The women also acted as seeing-eye guides for Spahn. In exchange, Spahn allowed Manson and his group to live at the ranch for free.[2]:99–113[28] Squeaky acquired her nickname because she often squeaked when Spahn pinched her thigh.[2]:163–174[24]
Charles Watson soon joined the group at Spahn's ranch. Watson, a small-town Texan who had quit college and moved to California,[29] met Manson at Dennis Wilson's house. Watson gave Wilson a ride while Wilson was hitchhiking after his cars had been wrecked.[26]
Spahn nicknamed Watson "Tex" because of his pronounced Texan drawl.[27]
Helter Skelter[edit]Main article: Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)
In the first days of November 1968, Manson established the Family at alternative headquarters in Death Valley's environs, where they occupied two unused or little-used ranches, Myers and Barker.[25][30] The former, to which the group had initially headed, was owned by the grandmother of a new woman in the Family. The latter was owned by an elderly, local woman to whom Manson presented himself and a male Family member as musicians in need of a place congenial to their work. When the woman agreed to let them stay there if they'd fix up things, Manson honored her with one of the Beach Boys' gold records,[30] several of which he had been given by Dennis Wilson.[31]
While back at Spahn Ranch, no later than December, Manson and Watson visited a Topanga Canyon acquaintance who played them the Beatles' White Album, then recently released.[25][32][33] Manson became obsessed with the group.[34] At McNeil, he had told fellow inmates, including Alvin Karpis, that he could surpass the group in fame;[2]:200–202, 265[35] to the Family, he spoke of the group as "the soul" and "part of 'the hole in the infinite'. "[33]
For some time, Manson had been saying that racial tension between blacks and whites was growing and that blacks would soon rise up in rebellion in America's cities.[36][37] He had emphasized Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, which had taken place on April 4, 1968.[30] On a bitterly cold New Year's Eve at Myers Ranch, the Family members, gathered outside around a large fire, listened as Manson explained that the social turmoil he had been predicting had also been predicted by the Beatles.[33] The White Album songs, he declared, told it all, although in code. In fact, he maintained (or would soon maintain), the album was directed at the Family itself, an elect group that was being instructed to preserve the worthy from the impending disaster.[36][37]
In early January 1969, the Family escaped the desert's cold and positioned itself to monitor L.A.'s supposed tension by moving to a canary-yellow home in Canoga Park, not far from the Spahn Ranch.[2]:244–247[33][38] Because this locale would allow the group to remain "submerged beneath the awareness of the outside world",[2]:244–247[39] Manson called it the Yellow Submarine, another Beatles reference. There, Family members prepared for the impending apocalypse,[40][41] which, around the campfire, Manson had termed "Helter Skelter", after the song of that name.
By February, Manson's vision was complete. The Family would create an album whose songs, as subtle as those of the Beatles, would trigger the predicted chaos. Ghastly murders of whites by blacks would be met with retaliation, and a split between racist and non-racist whites would yield whites' self-annihilation. Blacks' triumph, as it were, would merely precede their being ruled by the Family, which would ride out the conflict in "the bottomless pit"—a secret city beneath Death Valley.[42] At the Canoga Park house, while Family members worked on vehicles and pored over maps to prepare for their desert escape, they also worked on songs for their world-changing album. When they were told Terry Melcher was to come to the house to hear the material, the women prepared a meal and cleaned the place; but Melcher never arrived.[36][40]
Encounter with Tate[edit]On March 23, 1969,[2]:228–233 Manson, uninvited, entered 10050 Cielo Drive, which he had known as Melcher's residence.[2]:155–161 This was Rudi Altobelli's property; Melcher was no longer the tenant. As of that February,[2]:28–38 the tenants were Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski.
Manson was met by Shahrokh Hatami, a photographer and Tate's friend. Hatami was there to photograph Tate in advance of her departure for Rome the next day. Having seen Manson through a window as Manson approached the main house, Hatami had gone onto the front porch to ask him what he wanted.[2]:228–233
When Manson told Hatami he was looking for someone whose name Hatami did not recognize, Hatami informed him the place was the Polanski residence. Hatami advised him to try "the back alley", by which he meant the path to the guest house, beyond the main house.[2]:228–233 Concerned about the stranger on the property, Hatami went down to the front walk, to confront Manson. Appearing behind Hatami, in the house's front door, Tate asked him who was calling. Hatami said a man was looking for someone. Hatami and Tate maintained their positions while Manson, without a word, went back to the guest house, returned a minute or two later, and left.[2]:228–233
That evening, Manson returned to the property and again went back to the guest house. Presuming to enter the enclosed porch, he spoke with Rudi Altobelli, who was just coming out of the shower. Although Manson asked for Melcher, Altobelli felt Manson had come looking for him.[2]:226 This is consistent with prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's later discovery that Manson had apparently been to the place on earlier occasions after Melcher's departure from it.[2]:228–233, 369–377
Speaking through the inner screen door, Altobelli told Manson that Melcher had moved to Malibu. He lied that he did not know Melcher's new address. In response to a question from Manson, Altobelli said he himself was in the entertainment business, although, having met Manson the previous year, at Dennis Wilson's home, he was sure Manson already knew that. At Wilson's, Altobelli had complimented Manson lukewarmly on some of his musical recordings that Wilson had been playing.[2]:228–233
When Altobelli informed Manson he was going out of the country the next day, Manson said he'd like to speak with him upon his return; Altobelli lied that he would be gone for more than a year. In response to a direct question from Altobelli, Manson explained that he had been directed to the guest house by the persons in the main house; Altobelli expressed the wish that Manson not disturb his tenants.[2]:228–233
Manson left. As Altobelli flew with Tate to Rome the next day, Tate asked him whether "that creepy-looking guy" had gone back to the guest house the day before.[2]:228–233
Family crimes[edit]Crowe shooting[edit]On May 18, 1969, Terry Melcher visited Spahn Ranch to hear Manson and the women sing. Melcher arranged a subsequent visit, not long thereafter, on which he brought a friend who possessed a mobile recording unit; but he himself did not record the group.[2]:156,185[43]
By June, Manson was telling the Family they might have to show blacks how to start "Helter Skelter".[2]:244–247[41][44] When Manson tasked Watson with obtaining money supposedly intended to help the Family prepare for the conflict, Watson defrauded a black drug dealer named Bernard "Lotsapoppa" Crowe. Crowe responded with a threat to wipe out everyone at Spahn Ranch. Manson countered on July 1, 1969, by shooting Crowe at his Hollywood apartment.[2]:99–113[2]:91–96[45][46]
Manson's mistaken belief that he had killed Crowe was seemingly confirmed by a news report of the discovery of the dumped body of a Black Panther in Los Angeles. Although Crowe was not a member of the Black Panthers, Manson, concluding he had been, expected retaliation from the group. He turned Spahn Ranch into a defensive camp, with night patrols of armed guards.[45][47] "If we'd needed any more proof that Helter Skelter was coming down very soon, this was it," Tex Watson would later write, "[B]lackie was trying to get at the chosen ones."[45]
Hinman murder[edit]On July 25, 1969, Manson sent sometime Family member Bobby Beausoleil along with Mary Brunner and Susan Atkins to the house of acquaintance Gary Hinman, to persuade him to turn over money Manson thought Hinman had inherited.[2]:75–77[45][48] The three held the uncooperative Hinman hostage for two days, during which Manson showed up with a sword to slash his ear. After that, Beausoleil stabbed Hinman to death, ostensibly on Manson's instruction. Before leaving the Topanga Canyon residence, Beausoleil, or one of the women, used Hinman's blood to write "Political piggy" on the wall and to draw a panther paw, a Black Panther symbol.[2]:33, 91–96, 99–113[49]
In magazine interviews of 1981 and 1998–99,[50][51] Beausoleil would say he went to Hinman's to recover money paid to Hinman for drugs that had supposedly been bad; he added that Brunner and Atkins, unaware of his intent, went along idly, merely to visit Hinman. On the other hand, Atkins, in her 1977 autobiography, wrote that Manson directly told Beausoleil, Brunner, and her to go to Hinman's and get the supposed inheritance—$21,000. She said Manson had told her privately, two days earlier, that, if she wanted to "do something important", she could kill Hinman and get his money.[48]
Tate murders[edit]Beausoleil was arrested on August 6, 1969, after he had been caught driving Hinman's car. Police found the murder weapon in the tyre well.[2]:28–38 Two days later, Manson told Family members at Spahn Ranch, "Now is the time for Helter Skelter."[2]:258–269[45][52]
On the night of August 8, Manson directed Watson to take Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to "that house where Melcher used to live" and "totally destroy everyone in [it], as gruesome as you can."[2]:463–468[53] He told the women to do as Watson would instruct them.[2]:176–184, 258–269 Krenwinkel was one of the early Family members, one of the hitchhikers who had allegedly been picked up by Dennis Wilson.[2]:250–253 The current occupants of the house, all of whom were strangers to the Manson followers, were movie actress Sharon Tate, wife of famed director Roman Polanski and eight and a half months pregnant; her friend and former lover Jay Sebring, a noted hairstylist; Polanski's friend and aspiring screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski; and Frykowski's lover Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune.[2]:28–38 Tate's husband, Polanski, was in London working on a film project; Tate had been visiting with him and had returned to the United States only three weeks earlier.[citation needed]
When the murder team arrived at the entrance to the Cielo Drive property, Watson, who had been to the house on at least one other occasion, climbed a telephone pole near the gate and cut the phone line.[25] It was now around midnight and into August 9, 1969. Backing their car down to the bottom of the hill that led up to the place, the group parked there and walked back up to the house. Thinking the gate might be electrified or rigged with an alarm,[2]:176–184 they climbed a brushy embankment at its right and dropped onto the grounds. Just then, headlights came their way from farther within the angled property. Watson ordered the women to lie in the bushes. He then stepped out and ordered the approaching driver, 18-year-old student and hi-fi enthusiast Steven Parent, to halt. As Watson leveled a 22-caliber revolver at Parent, the frightened youth begged Watson not to hurt him, claiming that he wouldn't say anything. Watson first slashed at Parent with a knife, giving him a defensive slash wound on the palm of his hand (severing tendons and tearing the boy's watch off his wrist), then shot him four times in the chest and abdomen. Watson then ordered the women to help push the car further up the driveway[2]:22–25[53] After traversing the front lawn and having Kasabian search for an open window of the main house, Watson cut the screen of a window. Watson told Kasabian to keep watch down by the gate; she walked over to Steven Parent's Rambler and waited.[2]:258–269[2]:176–184[53] He then removed the screen, entered through the window, and let Atkins and Krenwinkel in through the front door.[2]:176–184
As Watson whispered to Atkins, Frykowski awoke on the living-room couch; Watson kicked him in the head.[53] When Frykowski asked him who he was and what he was doing there, Watson replied, "I'm thedevil, and I'm here to do the devil's business."[2]:176–184[53]
On Watson's direction, Atkins found the house's three other occupants and, with Krenwinkel's help,[2]:176–184, 297–300 brought them to the living room. Watson began to tie Tate and Sebring together by their necks with rope he'd brought and slung up over a beam. Sebring's protest – his second – of rough treatment of the pregnant Tate prompted Watson to shoot him. Folger was taken momentarily back to her bedroom for her purse, out of which she gave the intruders $70. After that, Watson stabbed the groaning Sebring seven times.[2]:28–38[53]
Frykowski's hands had been bound with a towel. Freeing himself, Frykowski began struggling with Atkins, who stabbed at his legs with the knife with which she had been guarding him.[53] As he fought his way toward and out the front door, onto the porch, Watson joined in against him. Watson struck him over the head with the gun multiple times, stabbed him repeatedly, and shot him twice.[53] Watson broke the gun's right grip in the process.
Around this time, Kasabian was drawn up from the driveway by "horrifying sounds". She arrived outside the door. In a vain effort to halt the massacre, she told Atkins falsely that someone was coming.[2]:258–269[53]
Inside the house, Folger had escaped from Krenwinkel and fled out a bedroom door to the pool area.[2]:341–344, 356–361 Folger was pursued to the front lawn by Krenwinkel, who stabbed – and finally, tackled – her. She was dispatched by Watson; her two assailants had stabbed her 28 times.[2]:28–38[53] As Frykowski struggled across the lawn, Watson murdered him with a final flurry of stabbing. Frykowski was stabbed a total of 51 times.[2]:28–38, 258–269[53]
Back in the house, Tate pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to have her baby, and even offered herself as a hostage in an attempt to save the life of her unborn child; her killers would have none of it, as either Atkins, Watson, or both killed Tate, who was stabbed 16 times.[2]:28–38 Watson later wrote that Tate cried, "Mother ... mother ..." as she was being killed.[53]
Earlier, as the four Family members had headed out from Spahn Ranch, Manson had told the women to "leave a sign ... something witchy".[53] Using the towel that had bound Frykowski's hands, Atkins wrote "pig" on the house's front door, in Tate's blood. En route home, the killers changed out of bloody clothes, which were ditched in the hills, along with their weapons.[2]:84–90, 176–184[53]
In initial confessions to cellmates of hers at Sybil Brand Institute, Atkins would say she killed Tate.[2]:84–90 In later statements to her attorney, to prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, and before a grand jury, Atkins indicated Tate had been stabbed by Tex Watson.[2]:163–174, 176–184 In his 1978 autobiography, Watson said that he stabbed Tate and that Atkins never touched her.[53] Since he was aware that the prosecutor, Bugliosi, and the jury that had tried the other Tate-LaBianca defendants were convinced Atkins had stabbed Tate, he falsely testified that he did not stab her.[54]
LaBianca murders[edit]The next night, six Family members--Leslie Van Houten, Steve "Clem" Grogan, and the four from the previous night—rode out at Manson's instruction. Displeased by the panic of the victims at Cielo Drive, Manson accompanied the six, "to show [them] how to do it."[2]:176–184, 258–269[55] After a few hours' ride, in which he considered a number of murders and even attempted one of them,[2]:258–269[55] Manson gave Kasabian directions that brought the group to 3301 Waverly Drive. This was the home of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, a dress shop co-owner.[2]:22–25, 42–48 Located in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, it was next door to a house at which Manson and Family members had attended a party the previous year.[2]:176–184, 204–210
LaBianca House 3301 Waverly Drive 34.113914°N 118.273076°WAccording to Atkins and Kasabian, Manson disappeared up the driveway and returned to say he had tied up the house's occupants; then he sent Watson up with Krenwinkel and Van Houten.[2]:176–184, 258–269 In his autobiography, on the other hand, Watson stated that, having gone up alone, Manson returned to take him up to the house with him. After Manson pointed out a sleeping man through a window, the two of them entered through the unlocked back door.[55] Watson added that, at trial, he "went along with" the women's account, which he figured made him "look that much less responsible."[54]
As Watson tells it, Manson roused the sleeping Leno LaBianca from the couch at gunpoint and had Watson bind his hands with a leather thong. After Rosemary was brought briefly into the living room from the bedroom, Watson followed Manson's instructions to cover the couple's heads with pillowcases. He bound these in place with lamp cords. Manson left, sending Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten into the house with instructions that the couple be killed.[2]:176–184, 258–269[55]
Before leaving Spahn Ranch, Watson had complained to Manson of the inadequacy of the previous night's weapons.[2]:258–269 Now, sending the women from the kitchen to the bedroom, to which Rosemary LaBianca had been returned, he went to the living room and began stabbing Leno LaBianca with a chrome-plated bayonet. The first thrust went into the man's throat.[55]
Sounds of a scuffle in the bedroom drew Watson there to discover Mrs. LaBianca keeping the women at bay by swinging the lamp tied to her neck. After subduing her with several stabs of the bayonet, he returned to the living room and resumed attacking Leno, whom he stabbed a total of 12 times with the bayonet. When he had finished, Watson carved "WAR" on the man's exposed abdomen. He stated this in his autobiography.[55] In an unclear portion of her eventual grand jury testimony, Atkins, who did not enter the LaBianca house, possibly said she believed Krenwinkel had carved the word.[2]:176–184[56] In aghost-written newspaper account based on a statement she had made earlier to her attorney,[2]:160,193 she said Watson carved it.[57]
Returning to the bedroom, Watson found Krenwinkel stabbing Rosemary LaBianca with a knife from the LaBianca kitchen. Heeding Manson's instruction to make sure each of the women played a part, Watson told Van Houten to stab Mrs. LaBianca too.[55] She did, stabbing her approximately 16 times in the back and the exposed buttocks.[2]:204–210, 297–300, 341–344 At trial, Van Houten would claim, uncertainly,[2]:433 that Rosemary LaBianca was dead when she stabbed her. Evidence showed that many of Mrs. LaBianca's 41 stab wounds had, in fact, been inflicted post-mortem.[2]:44, 206, 297, 341–42, 380, 404, 406–07, 433
While Watson cleaned off the bayonet and showered, Krenwinkel wrote "Rise" and "Death to pigs" on the walls and "Healter [sic] Skelter" on the refrigerator door, all in LaBianca blood. She gave Leno LaBianca 14 puncture wounds with an ivory-handled, two-tined carving fork, which she left jutting out of his stomach. She also planted a steak knife in his throat.[2]:176–184, 258–269[55]
Hoping for a double crime, Manson had gone on to direct Kasabian to drive to the Venice home of an actor acquaintance of hers, another "piggy". Depositing the second trio of Family members at the man's apartment building, he drove back to Spahn Ranch, leaving them and the LaBianca killers to hitchhike home.[2]:176–184, 258–269 Kasabian thwarted this murder by deliberately knocking on the wrong apartment door and waking a stranger. As the group abandoned the murder plan and left, Susan Atkins defecated in the stairwell.[2]:270–273
Justice system[edit]Investigation[edit]The Tate murders had become news on August 9, 1969. The Polanski's housekeeper, Winifred Chapman, had arrived for work that morning and discovered the murder scene.[2]:5–6, 11–15 On August 10, detectives of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which had jurisdiction in the Hinman case, informed Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detectives assigned to the Tate case of the bloody writing at the Hinman house. Thinking the Tate murders were a consequence of a drug transaction, the Tate team ignored this and the crimes' other similarities.[2]:28–38[58] The Tate autopsies were under way and the LaBianca bodies were yet to be discovered.
Steven Parent, the shooting victim in the Tate driveway, was determined to have been an acquaintance of William Garretson, who lived in the guest house. Garretson was a young man hired by Rudi Altobelli to take care of the property while Altobelli himself was away.[2]:28–38 As the killers arrived, Parent had been leaving Cielo Drive, after a visit to Garretson.[2]:28–38
Held briefly as a Tate suspect, Garretson told police he had neither seen nor heard anything on the murder night. He was released on August 11, 1969, after undergoing a polygraph examination that indicated he had not been involved in the crimes.[2]:28–38, 42–48 Interviewed decades later, he stated he had, in fact, witnessed a portion of the murders, as the examination suggested. (See "Later events", below.)[59]
The LaBianca crime scene was discovered at about 10:30 pm on August 10, approximately 19 hours after the murders were committed. Fifteen-year-old Frank Struthers—Rosemary's son from a prior marriage and Leno's stepson—returned from a camping trip and was disturbed by seeing all of the window shades of his home drawn, and by the fact that his stepfather's speedboat was still attached to the family car, which was parked in the driveway. He called his older sister and her boyfriend. The boyfriend, Joe Dorgan, accompanied the younger Struthers into the home and discovered Leno's body. Rosemary's body was found by investigating police officers.[2]:38
On August 12, 1969, the LAPD told the press it had ruled out any connection between the Tate and LaBianca homicides.[2]:42–48 On August 16, the sheriff's office raided Spahn Ranch and arrested Manson and 25 others, as "suspects in a major auto theft ring" that had been stealing Volkswagens and converting them into dune buggies. Weapons were seized, but because the warrant had been misdated the group was released a few days later.[2]:56
The LaBianca detectives were generally younger than the Tate team. In a report at the end of August, when virtually all leads had gone nowhere, they noted a possible connection between the bloody writings at the LaBianca house and "the singing group the Beatles' most recent album."[2]:65
Breakthrough[edit]Still working separately from the Tate team, the LaBianca team checked with the sheriff's office in mid-October about possible similar crimes. They learned of the Hinman case. They also learned that the Hinman detectives had spoken with Beausoleil's girlfriend, Kitty Lutesinger. She had been arrested a few days earlier with members of "the Manson Family".[2]:75–77
The arrests had taken place at the desert ranches, to which the Family had moved and whence, unknown to authorities, its members had been searching Death Valley for a hole in the ground—access to the Bottomless Pit.[2]:228–233[60][61] A joint force of National Park rangers and officers from the California Highway Patrol and the Inyo County Sheriff's Office—federal, state, and county personnel—had raided both the Myers Ranch and Barker Ranch after following clues unwittingly left when Family members burned an earthmover owned by Death Valley National Monument.[2]:125–127[62][63] The raiders had found stolen dune buggies and other vehicles and had arrested two dozen people, including Manson. A Highway Patrol officer found Manson hiding in a cabinet beneath Barker's bathroom sink.[2]:75–77, 125–127
A month after they, too, had spoken with Lutesinger, the LaBianca detectives made contact with members of a motorcycle gang she'd told them Manson had tried to enlist as his bodyguards while the Family was at Spahn Ranch.[2]:75–77 While the gang members were providing information that suggested a link between Manson and the murders,[2]:84–90, 99–113 a dormitory mate of Susan Atkins succeeded in informing LAPD of the Family's involvement in the crimes.[2]:99–113 As one of those arrested at Barker, Atkins had been booked for the Hinman murder after she'd confirmed to the sheriff's detectives that she'd been involved in it, as Lutesinger had said.[2]:75–77[64] Transferred to Sybil Brand Institute, a detention center in Los Angeles, she had begun talking to bunkmates Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham, to whom she gave accounts of the events in which she had been involved.[2]:91–96
Apprehension[edit]On December 1, 1969, acting on the information from these sources, LAPD announced warrants for the arrest of Watson, Krenwinkel, and Kasabian in the Tate case; the suspects' involvement in the LaBianca murders was noted. Manson and Atkins, already in custody, were not mentioned; the connection between the LaBianca case and Van Houten, who was also among those arrested near Death Valley, had not yet been recognized.[2]:125–127, 155–161, 176–184
Watson and Krenwinkel, too, were already under arrest, authorities in McKinney, Texas, and Mobile, Alabama, having picked them up on notice from LAPD.[2]:155–161 Informed that there was a warrant out for her arrest, Kasabian voluntarily surrendered to authorities in Concord, New Hampshire, on December 2.[2]:155–161
Before long, physical evidence such as Krenwinkel's and Watson's fingerprints, which had been collected by LAPD at Cielo Drive,[2]:15, 156, 273, and photographs between 340–41 was augmented by evidence recovered by the public. On September 1, 1969, the distinctive .22-caliber Hi Standard "Buntline Special" revolver Watson used on Parent, Sebring, and Frykowski had been found and given to the police by Steven Weiss, a 10-year-old who lived near the Tate residence.[2]:66 In mid-December, when the Los Angeles Times published a crime account based on information Susan Atkins had given her attorney,[2]:160,193 Weiss' father made several phone calls which finally prompted LAPD to locate the gun in its evidence file and connect it with the murders via ballistics tests.[2]:198–199 Acting on that same newspaper account, a local ABC television crew quickly located and recovered the bloody clothing discarded by the Tate killers.[2]:197–198 The knives discarded en route from the Tate residence were never recovered, despite a search by some of the same crewmen and, months later still, by LAPD.[2]:198, 273 A knife found behind the cushion of a chair in the Tate living room was apparently that of Susan Atkins, who lost her knife in the course of the attack.[2]:17, 180, 262[65]
Trial[edit]The trial began June 15, 1970.[2]:297–300 The prosecution's main witness was Kasabian, who, along with Manson, Atkins, and Krenwinkel, had been charged with seven counts of murder and one ofconspiracy.[2]:185–188 Since Kasabian, by all accounts, had not participated in the killings, she was granted immunity in exchange for testimony that detailed the nights of the crimes.[2]:214–219, 250–253, 330–332 Originally, a deal had been made with Atkins in which the prosecution agreed not to seek the death penalty against her in exchange for her grand jury testimony on which the indictments were secured; once Atkins repudiated that testimony, the deal was withdrawn.[2]:169, 173–184, 188, 292 Because Van Houten had only participated in the LaBianca killings, she was charged with two counts of murder and one of conspiracy.
Originally, Judge William Keene had reluctantly granted Manson permission to act as his own attorney. Because of Manson's conduct, including violations of a gag order and submission of "outlandish" and "nonsensical" pretrial motions, the permission was withdrawn before the trial's start.[2]:200–202, 265 Manson filed an affidavit of prejudice against Keene, who was replaced by Judge Charles H. Older.[2]:290 On Friday, July 24, the first day of testimony, Manson appeared in court with an X carved into his forehead. He issued a statement that he was "considered inadequate and incompetent to speak or defend [him]self" – and had "X'd [him]self from [the establishment's] world."[2]:310[66] Over the following weekend, the female defendants duplicated the mark on their own foreheads, as did most Family members within another day or so.[2]:316 (Manson's X was eventually replaced by a swastika. See "Remaining in view", below.)
The prosecution placed the triggering of "Helter Skelter" as the main motive.[67] The crime scene's bloody White Album references--pig, rise, helter skelter—were correlated with testimony about Manson predictions that the murders blacks would commit at the outset of Helter Skelter would involve the writing of "pigs" on walls in victims' blood.[2]:244–247, 450–457 Testimony that Manson had said "now is the time for Helter Skelter" was supplemented with Kasabian's testimony that, on the night of the LaBianca murders, Manson considered discarding Rosemary LaBianca's wallet on the street of a black neighborhood.[2]:258–269 Having obtained the wallet in the LaBianca house, he "wanted a black person to pick it up and use the credit cards so that the people, the establishment, would think it was some sort of an organized group that killed these people."[68] On his direction, Kasabian had hidden it in the women's restroom of a service station near a black area.[2]:176–184, 190–191, 258–269, 369–377 "I want to show blackie how to do it," Manson had said as the Family members had driven along after the departure from the LaBianca house.[68]
Ongoing disruptions[edit]During the trial, Family members loitered near the entrances and corridors of the courthouse. To keep them out of the courtroom itself, the prosecution subpoenaed them as prospective witnesses, who would not be able to enter while others were testifying.[2]:309 When the group established itself in vigil on the sidewalk, some members wore a sheathed hunting knife[citation needed] that, although in plain view, was carried legally. Each of them was also identifiable by the X on his or her forehead.[2]:339
Some Family members attempted to dissuade witnesses from testifying. Prosecution witnesses Paul Watkins and Juan Flynn were both threatened;[2]:280, 332–335 Watkins was badly burned in a suspicious fire in his van.[2]:280 Former Family member Barbara Hoyt, who had overheard Susan Atkins describing the Tate murders to Family member Ruth Ann Moorehouse, agreed to accompany the latter to Hawaii. There, Moorehouse allegedly gave her a hamburger spiked with several doses of LSD. Found sprawled on a Honolulu curb in a drugged semi-stupor, Hoyt was taken to the hospital, where she did her best to identify herself as a witness in the Tate-LaBianca murder trial. Before the incident, Hoyt had been a reluctant witness; after the attempt to silence her, her reticence disappeared.[2]:348–350, 361
On August 4, despite precautions taken by the court, Manson flashed the jury a Los Angeles Times front page whose headline was "Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares". This was a reference to a statement made the previous day when U.S. President Richard Nixon had decried what he saw as the media's glamorization of Manson. Voir dired by Judge Older, the jurors contended that the headline had not influenced them. The next day, the female defendants stood up and said in unison that, in light of Nixon's remark, there was no point in going on with the trial.[2]:323–238
On October 5, Manson was denied the court's permission to question a prosecution witness whom the defense attorneys had declined to cross-examine. Leaping over the defense table, Manson attempted to attack the judge. Wrestled to the ground by bailiffs, he was removed from the courtroom with the female defendants, who had subsequently risen and begun chanting in Latin.[2]:369–377 Thereafter, Older allegedly began wearing a revolver under his robes.[2]:369–377
Defense rests[edit]On November 16, the prosecution rested its case. Three days later, after arguing standard dismissal motions, the defense stunned the court by resting as well, without calling a single witness. Shouting their disapproval, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten demanded their right to testify.[2]:382–388
In chambers, the women's lawyers told the judge their clients wanted to testify that they had planned and committed the crimes and that Manson had not been involved.[2]:382–388 By resting their case, the defense lawyers had tried to stop this; Van Houten's attorney, Ronald Hughes, vehemently stated that he would not "push a client out the window". In the prosecutor's view, it was Manson who was advising the women to testify in this way as a means of saving himself.[2]:382–388 Speaking about the trial in a 1987 documentary, Krenwinkel said, "The entire proceedings were scripted – by Charlie."[69]
The next day, Manson testified. Lest Manson's address violate the California Supreme Court's decision in People v. Aranda by making statements implicating his co-defendants, the jury was removed from the courtroom.[2]:134 Speaking for more than an hour, Manson said, among other things, that "the music is telling the youth to rise up against the establishment." He said, "Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music." "To be honest with you," Manson also stated, "I don't recall ever saying 'Get a knife and a change of clothes and go do what Tex says.' "[2]:388–392
As the body of the trial concluded and with the closing arguments impending, attorney Ronald Hughes disappeared during a weekend trip.[2]:393–398 When Maxwell Keith was appointed to represent Van Houten in Hughes' absence, a delay of more than two weeks was required to permit Keith to familiarize himself with the voluminous trial transcripts.[2]:393–398 No sooner had the trial resumed, just before Christmas, than disruptions of the prosecution's closing argument by the defendants led Older to ban the four defendants from the courtroom for the remainder of the guilt phase. This may be because the defendants were acting in collusion with each other and were simply putting on a performance, which Older said was becoming obvious.[2]:399–407
Conviction and penalty phase[edit]On January 25, 1971, guilty verdicts were returned against the four defendants on each of the 27 separate counts against them.[2]:411–419 Not far into the trial's penalty phase, the jurors saw, at last, the defense that Manson—in the prosecution's view—had planned to present.[2]:455 Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten testified the murders had been conceived as "copycat" versions of the Hinman murder, for which Atkins now took credit. The killings, they said, were intended to draw suspicion away from Bobby Beausoleil, by resembling the crime for which he had been jailed. This plan had supposedly been the work of, and carried out under the guidance of, not Manson, but someone allegedly in love with Beausoleil--Linda Kasabian.[2]:424–433 Among the narrative's weak points was the inability of Atkins to explain why, as she was maintaining, she had written "political piggy" at the Hinman house in the first place.[2]:424–433, 450–457
Midway through the penalty phase, Manson shaved his head and trimmed his beard to a fork; he told the press, "I am the Devil, and the Devil always has a bald head."[2]:439 In what the prosecution regarded as belated recognition on their part that imitation of Manson only proved his domination, the female defendants refrained from shaving their heads until the jurors retired to weigh the state's request for the death penalty.[2]:439, 455
The effort to exonerate Manson via the "copycat" scenario failed. On March 29, 1971, the jury returned verdicts of death against all four defendants on all counts.[2]:450–457 On April 19, 1971, Judge Older sentenced the four to death.[2]:458–459
Aftermath[edit]On the day the verdicts recommending the death penalty were returned, news came that the badly decomposed body of Ronald Hughes had been found wedged between two boulders in Ventura County.[2]:457It was rumored, although never proven, that Hughes was murdered by the Family, possibly because he had stood up to Manson and refused to allow Van Houten to take the stand and absolve Manson of the crimes.[2]:387, 394, 481 Though he might have perished in flooding,[2]:393–394, 481[70] Family member Sandra Good stated that Hughes was "the first of the retaliation murders".[2]:481–482, 625
On November 8, 1972, the body of 26-year-old Vietnam Marine combat veteran James L. T. Willett was found by a hiker near Guerneville, California.[71] Months earlier, he had been forced to dig his own grave, and then was shot and poorly buried; his body was found with the one hand protruding from the grave and the head and other hand missing (likely because of scavenging animals). His station wagon was found outside a house in Stockton where several Manson followers were living, including Priscilla Cooper, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, and Nancy Pitman. Police forced their way into the house and arrested several of the people there, along with Fromme who called the house after they had arrived. The body of James Willett's 19-year-old wife Lauren "Reni" Chavelle[72] Olmstead Willett was found buried in the basement.[71] She had been killed very recently by a gunshot to the head, in what the Family members initially claimed was an accident. It was later suggested that she was killed out of fear that she would reveal who killed her husband, as the discovery of his body had become prominent news. The Willetts' infant daughter was found alive in the house. Michael Monfort pled guilty to murdering Reni Willett, and Priscilla Cooper, James Craig, and Nancy Pitman pled guilty as accessories after the fact. Monfort and William Goucher later pled guilty to the murder of James Willett, and James Craig pled guilty as an accessory after the fact. The group had been living in the house with the Willetts while committing various robberies. Shortly after killing Willett, Monfort had used Willett's identification papers to pose as Willett after being arrested in an armed robbery of a liquor store.[72] News reports suggested that James Willett was not involved in the robberies[73] and wanted to move away, and was killed out of fear that he would talk to police. After leaving the Marines following two tours in Vietnam, Willett had been an ESL teacher for immigrant children.
Protracted proceedings to extradite Watson from his native Texas,[2]:204–210, 356–361[74] where he had resettled a month before his arrest,[75] resulted in his being tried separately. The trial commenced in August 1971; by October, he, too, had been found guilty on seven counts of murder and one of conspiracy. Unlike the others, Watson had presented a psychiatric defense; prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi made short work of Watson's insanity claims. Like his co-conspirators, Watson was sentenced to death.[2]:463–468
In February 1972, the death sentences of all five parties were automatically reduced to life in prison by California v. Anderson, 493 P.2d 880, 6 Cal. 3d 628 (Cal. 1972), in which the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in that state.[2]:488–491 After his return to prison, Manson's rhetoric and hippie speeches were not accepted.[who?] Though he eventually found temporary acceptance from the Aryan Brotherhood, his role was submissive to a sexually aggressive member of the group, at San Quentin.[76]
In a 1971 trial that took place after his Tate/LaBianca convictions, Manson was found guilty of the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald "Shorty" Shea and was given a life sentence. Shea was a Spahn Ranch stuntman and horse wrangler who had been killed approximately 10 days after the August 16, 1969, sheriff's raid on the ranch. Manson, who suspected that Shea helped set up the raid, had apparently believed Shea was trying to get Spahn to run the Family off the ranch. Manson may have considered it a "sin" that the white Shea had married a black woman; and there was the possibility that Shea knew about the Tate/LaBianca killings.[2]:99–113[77] In separate trials, Family members Bruce Davis and Steve "Clem" Grogan were also found guilty of Shea's murder.[2]:99–113, 463–468[78]
Before the conclusion of Manson's Tate/LaBianca trial, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times tracked down Manson's mother, remarried and living in the Pacific Northwest. The former Kathleen Maddox claimed that, in childhood, her son had suffered no neglect; he had even been "pampered by all the women who surrounded him."[9]
Remaining in view[edit]
The Folsom State Prison, one of the facilities where Manson has been held
On September 5, 1975, the Family rocketed back to national attention when Squeaky Fromme attempted to assassinate US President Gerald Ford.[2]:502–511 The attempt took place in Sacramento, to which she and Manson follower Sandra Good had moved to be near Manson while he was incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. A subsequent search of the apartment shared by Fromme, Good, and a Family recruit turned up evidence that, coupled with later actions on the part of Good, resulted in Good's conviction for conspiring to send threatening communications through the United States mail and transmitting death threats by way of interstate commerce. (The threats that were involved were against corporate executives and US government officials and had to do with supposed environmental dereliction on their part.)[2]:502–511 Fromme was sentenced to 15 years to life, becoming the first person sentenced under United States Code Title 18, chapter 84 (1965),[79] which made it a Federal crime to attempt to assassinate the President of the United States.
In 1977, authorities learned the precise location of the remains of Shorty Shea and that, contrary to Family claims, Shea had not been dismembered and buried in several places. Contacting the prosecutor in his case, Steve Grogan told him Shea's corpse had been buried in one piece; he drew a map that pinpointed the location of the body, which was recovered. Of those convicted of Manson-ordered murders, Grogan would become, in 1985, the first—and, as of 2013, the only—to be paroled.[2]:509
In the 1980s, Manson gave four notable interviews. The first, recorded at California Medical Facility and aired June 13, 1981, was by Tom Snyder for NBC's The Tomorrow Show. The second, recorded at San Quentin Prison and aired March 7, 1986, was by Charlie Rose for CBS News Nightwatch; it won the national news Emmy Award for "Best Interview" in 1987.[80] The last, with Geraldo Rivera in 1988, was part of that journalist's prime-time special on Satanism.[81] At least as early as the Snyder interview, Manson's forehead bore a swastika, in the spot where the X carved during his trial had been.[82]
In 1989, Nikolas Schreck conducted an interview of Manson, cutting the interview up for material in his documentary Charles Manson Superstar. This was the first, and is considered one of the most authoritative and comprehensive, documentaries on the subject. Schreck concluded that the story behind the murders was probably false, and that an admitted plan, by several of the women at the ranch interviewed after the trial was concluded, involved killing the people at the Tate home in order to free Bobby Beausoleil as per an attempt to copycat the murder of Gary Hinman. According to this, the use of writings of blood on the walls at the Tate and Labianca residences was merely a ploy to make it seem that the murderer of Hinman was still free, and that Beausoleil was not guilty. Key in his refutation of the hypothesis was the fact that, while the prosecution attempted to show Manson ordered the killings because he was upset over Terry Melcher (and believed Melcher to still be at that address), this could certainly not have been the case, as Manson attempted on several occasions to contact Melcher at his new address, showing he knew very well Melcher no longer lived at the Tate home. Schreck also concluded that Manson was not insane, but merely acting that way out of frustration.[83][84]
On September 25, 1984, while imprisoned at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, Manson was severely burned by a fellow inmate who poured paint thinner on him and set him alight. The other prisoner, Jan Holmstrom, explained that Manson had objected to his Hare Krishna chants and had verbally threatened him. Despite suffering second- and third-degree burns over 20 percent of his body, Manson recovered from his injuries.[2]:497
In December 1987, Fromme, serving a life sentence for the assassination attempt, escaped briefly from Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. She was trying to reach Manson, who she had heard had testicular cancer; she was apprehended within days.[2]:502–511 She was released on parole from Federal Medical Center, Carswell on August 14, 2009.[85]
Later events[edit]In a 1994 conversation with Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Catherine Share, a one-time Manson-follower, stated that her testimony in the penalty phase of Manson's trial had been a fabrication intended to save Manson from the gas chamber and had been given on Manson's explicit direction.[2]:502–511 Share's testimony had introduced the copycat-motive story, which the testimony of the three female defendants echoed and according to which the Tate-LaBianca murders had been Linda Kasabian's idea.[2]:424–433 In a 1997 segment of the tabloid television program Hard Copy, Share implied that her testimony had been given under a Manson threat of physical harm.[86] In August 1971, after Manson's trial and sentencing, Share had participated in a violent California retail store robbery, the object of which was the acquisition of weapons to help free Manson.[2]:463–468
In January 1996, a Manson website was established by latter-day Manson follower George Stimson, who was helped by Sandra Good. Good had been released from prison in 1985, after serving 10 years of her 15-year sentence for the death threats.[2]:502–511[87] The Manson website, ATWA.com, was discontinued in 2001, but as of 2011, it was running again, but currently the domain is up for sale and the website is discontinued.[88]
In June 1997, Manson was found to have been trafficking in drugs by a prison disciplinary committee.[89] That August, he was moved from Corcoran State Prison to Pelican Bay State Prison.[89]
In a 1998–99 interview in Seconds magazine, Bobby Beausoleil rejected the view that Manson ordered him to kill Gary Hinman.[51] He stated Manson did come to Hinman's house and slash Hinman with a sword. In a 1981 interview with Oui magazine, he denied this. Beausoleil stated that when he read about the Tate murders in the newspaper, "I wasn't even sure at that point – really, I had no idea who had done it until Manson's group were actually arrested for it. It had only crossed my mind and I had a premonition, perhaps. There was some little tickle in my mind that the killings might be connected with them ..." In the Oui magazine interview, he had stated, "When [the Tate-LaBianca murders] happened, I knew who had done it. I was fairly certain."[50]
William Garretson, once the young caretaker at Cielo Drive, indicated in a program broadcast in July 1999 on E!, that he had, in fact, seen and heard a portion of the Tate murders from his location in the property's guest house. This comported with the unofficial results of the polygraph examination that had been given to Garretson on August 10, 1969, and that had effectively eliminated him as a suspect.[90]The LAPD officer who conducted the examination had concluded Garretson was "clean" on participation in the crimes but "muddy" as to his having heard anything.[2]:28–38 Garretson did not explain why he had withheld his knowledge of the events.[59]
It was announced in early 2008 that Susan Atkins was suffering from brain cancer.[91] An application for compassionate release, based on her health status, was denied in July 2008,[91] and she was denied parole for the 18th and final time on September 2, 2009.[92] Atkins died of natural causes 22 days later, on September 24, 2009, at the Central California Women's facility in Chowchilla.[93][94]
Later developments[edit]
Manson at age 74 (March 2009)
On September 5, 2007, MSNBC aired The Mind of Manson, a complete version of a 1987 interview at California's San Quentin State Prison. The footage of the "unshackled, unapologetic, and unruly" Manson had been considered "so unbelievable" that only seven minutes of it had originally been broadcast on The Today Show, for which it had been recorded.[95]
In a January 2008 segment of the Discovery Channel's Most Evil, Barbara Hoyt said that the impression that she had accompanied Ruth Ann Moorehouse to Hawaii just to avoid testifying at Manson's trial was erroneous. Hoyt said she had cooperated with the Family because she was "trying to keep them from killing my family." She stated that, at the time of the trial, she was "constantly being threatened: 'Your family's gonna die. [The murders] could be repeated at your house.'"[96]
On March 15, 2008, the Associated Press reported that forensic investigators had conducted a search for human remains at Barker Ranch the previous month. Following up on longstanding rumors that the Family had killed hitchhikers and runaways who had come into its orbit during its time at Barker, the investigators identified "two likely clandestine grave sites ... and one additional site that merits further investigation."[97] Though they recommended digging, CNN reported on March 28 that the Inyo Countysheriff, who questioned the methods they employed with search dogs, had ordered additional tests before any excavation.[98] On May 9, after a delay caused by damage to test equipment,[99] the sheriff announced that test results had been inconclusive and that "exploratory excavation" would begin on May 20.[100] In the meantime, Tex Watson had commented publicly that "no one was killed" at the desert camp during the month-and-a-half he was there, after the Tate-LaBianca murders.[101][102] On May 21, after two days of work, the sheriff brought the search to an end; four potential gravesites had been dug up and had been found to hold no human remains.[103][104] In March 2009, a photograph taken of a 74-year old Manson, showing a receding hairline, grizzled gray beard and hair and the swastika tattoo still prominent on his forehead, was released to the public by California corrections officials.[105]
In September 2009, The History Channel broadcast a docudrama covering the Family's activities and the murders as part of its coverage on the 40th anniversary of the killings.[106] The program included an in-depth interview with Linda Kasabian, who spoke publicly for the first time since a 1989 appearance on A Current Affair, an American television news magazine.[106] Also included in the History Channel program were interviews with Vincent Bugliosi, Catherine Share, and Debra Tate, sister of Sharon.[107]
As the 40th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders approached, in July 2009, Los Angeles magazine published an "oral history", in which former Family members, law-enforcement officers, and others involved with Manson, the arrests, and the trials offered their recollections of—and observations on—the events that made Manson notorious. In the article, Juan Flynn, a Spahn Ranch worker who had become associated with Manson and the Family, said, "Charles Manson got away with everything. People will say, 'He's in jail.' But Charlie is exactly where he wants to be."[108]
In November 2009, a Los Angeles DJ and songwriter named Matthew Roberts released correspondence and other evidence indicating he had been biologically fathered by Manson. Roberts' biological mother claims to have been a member of the Manson Family who left in the summer of 1967 after being raped by Manson; the mother returned to her parents' home to complete the pregnancy, gave birth on March 22, 1968, and subsequently gave up Roberts for adoption. Manson himself has stated that he "could" be the father, acknowledging the biological mother and a sexual relationship with her during 1967; this was nearly two years before the Family began its murderous phase.[109][110]
In 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported that Manson was caught with a cell phone in 2009, and had contacted people in California, New Jersey, Florida and British Columbia. A spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections stated that it was not known if Manson had used the phone for criminal purposes.[111]
On October 4, 2012, Bruce Davis, who had been convicted of the murder of Shorty Shea and the attempted robbery by Manson Family members of a Hawthorne gun shop in 1971, was recommended for parole by the California Department of Corrections at his 27th parole hearing. In 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had reversed the board's previous finding in favor of Davis, denying him parole for two more years.[112] On March 1, 2013, Governor Jerry Brown also denied parole for Davis.[113]
Parole hearings[edit]
Manson at age 76 in June 2011
A footnote to the conclusion of California v. Anderson, the 1972 decision that neutralized California's then-current death sentences, stated, "[A]ny prisoner now under a sentence of death ... may file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the superior court inviting that court to modify its judgment to provide for the appropriate alternative punishment of life imprisonment or life imprisonment without possibility of parole specified by statute for the crime for which he was sentenced to death."[114] This made Manson eligible to apply for parole after seven years' incarceration.[2]:488 His first parole hearing took place on November 16, 1978, at the California Medical Facilty in Vacaville.[2]:498[115]
Manson was denied parole for the 12th time on April 11, 2012. Manson did not attend the hearing where prison officials argued that Manson had a history of controlling behavior and mental health issues including schizophrenia and paranoid delusional disorder[116] and was too great a danger to be released.[117] It was determined that Manson would not be reconsidered for parole for another 15 years,[118] at which time he would be 92 years old.
His California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation inmate number at Corcoran State Prison is B33920.[119][120]
Manson and culture[edit]Recordings[edit]Main article: Charles Manson discography
On March 6, 1970, the day the court vacated Manson's status as his own attorney,[2]:258–269 LIE, an album of Manson music, was released.[121][122][123] This included "Cease to Exist," a Manson composition the Beach Boys had recorded with modified lyrics and the title "Never Learn Not to Love".[124][125] Over the next couple of months, only about 300 of the album's 2,000 copies sold.[126]
Since that time, there have been several releases of Manson recordings—both musical and spoken.[127] The Family Jams includes two compact discs of Manson's songs recorded by the Family in 1970, after Manson and the others had been arrested. Guitar and lead vocals are supplied by Steve Grogan;[2]:125–127 additional vocals are supplied by Lynette Fromme, Sandra Good, Catherine Share, and others.[127][128] One Mind, an album of music, poetry, and spoken word, new at the time of its release, in April 2005,[127] was put out under a Creative Commons license.[129][130]
American rock band Guns N' Roses recorded Manson's "Look at Your Game, Girl", included as an unlisted 13th track on their 1993 album "The Spaghetti Incident?"[2]:488–491[131][132] "My Monkey," which appears on Portrait of an American Family by Marilyn Manson (no relation, as is explained below), includes the lyrics "I had a little monkey / I sent him to the country and I fed him on gingerbread / Along came a choo-choo / Knocked my monkey cuckoo / And now my monkey's dead."[133] These lyrics are from Manson's "Mechanical Man,"[134] which is heard on LIE. Crispin Glover covered "Never Say 'Never' To Always" on his album The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be released in 1989.
Several of Manson's songs, including "I'm Scratching Peace Symbols on Your Tombstone" (a.k.a. "First They Made Me Sleep in the Closet"), "Garbage Dump", and "I Can't Remember When", are featured in the soundtrack of the 1976 TV-movie Helter Skelter, where they are performed by Steve Railsback, who portrays Manson.[135]
According to a popular urban legend, Manson unsuccessfully auditioned for the Monkees in late 1965; this is refuted by the fact that Manson was still incarcerated at McNeil Island at that time.[136]
Cultural reverberation[edit]Within months of the Tate-LaBianca arrests, Manson was embraced by underground newspapers of the 1960s counterculture from which the Family had emerged.[2]:221–222[126] When a Rolling Stone writer visited the Los Angeles District Attorney's office for a June 1970 cover story,[137] he was shocked by a photograph of the bloody "Healter [sic] Skelter" that would bind Manson to popular culture.[138]
Manson has been a presence in fashion,[139][140] graphics,[141][142] music,[143] and movies, as well as on television and the stage. In an afterword composed for the 1994 edition of the non-fiction Helter Skelter, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi quoted a BBC employee's assertion that a "neo-Manson cult" existing then in Europe was represented by, among other things, approximately 70 rock bands playing songs by Manson and "songs in support of him."[2]:488–491
Just one specimen of popular music with Manson references is Alkaline Trio's "Sadie," whose lyrics include the phrases "Sadie G," "Ms. Susan A," and "Charlie's broken .22."[144] "Sadie Mae Glutz" was the name by which Susan Atkins was known within the Family;[2]:75–77[48] and as noted earlier, the revolver grip that shattered when Tex Watson used it to bludgeon Wojciech Frykowski was a twenty-twocaliber.[53] "Sadie's" lyrics are followed by a spoken passage derived from Atkins's testimony in the penalty phase of the trial of Manson and the women.[2]:428–429[145]
Manson has even influenced the names of musical performers such as Spahn Ranch, Kasabian, and Marilyn Manson, the last a stage name assembled from "Charles Manson" and "Marilyn Monroe".[146] The story of the Family's activities inspired John Moran's opera The Manson Family and Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins, the latter of which has Lynette Fromme as a character.[147][148] The tale has been the subject of several movies, including two television dramatizations of Helter Skelter.[149][150] In the South Park episode Merry Christmas Charlie Manson, Manson is a comic character whose inmate number is 06660, an apparent reference to 666, the Biblical "number of the beast."[151][152]
The 2002 novel The Dead Circus by John Kaye includes the activities of the Manson Family as a major plot point.[153]
Murder!Quiet and secluded is just what the young movie star wanted. The canyons above Beverly Hills were far enough away from the noisy glitz of Hollywood to afford some privacy and space. Sharon Tate loved this place on Cielo Drive. To her it meant romance — romance with the man of her dreams and the father of her child, director Roman Polanski.
Charles Manson
It was cooler up there too, which was especially refreshing on that hot muggy Saturday night, the 9th of August 1969. The beautiful young woman kept herself company with her attractive and sophisticated friends: Abigail Folger, the coffee heiress and her boyfriend Voytek Frykowski, and an internationally known hair stylist Jay Sebring.
Sharon was eight months pregnant and very lonely for her husband who was away in Europe working on a film. Impromptu gatherings like this one on a weekend night were not at all unusual.
The house was deliberately secluded but not completely insecure. Approximately 100 feet from the house was a locked gate and on the property was a guesthouse inhabited by an able-bodied young caretaker.
That night the Kotts, Sharon's nearest neighbors who lived about 100 yards away, thought they heard a few gunshots coming from the direction of Sharon's property sometime between 12:30 and 1 A.M. But since they heard nothing else, they went to bed.
Around the same time, a man supervising a camp-out less than a mile away heard a chilling scream: "Oh, God, no, please don't! Oh, God, no, don't, don't..."
He drove around the area, but found nothing unusual.
Nearby a neighbor's dogs went into a barking frenzy somewhere between 2 and 3 A.M. He got out of bed and looked around, but found nothing amiss and went back to bed.
A private security guard hired by some of the wealthy property owners thought he heard several gunshots a little after 4 A.M. and called his headquarters. Headquarters, in turn, called Los Angeles Police Department to report the disturbance. The LAPD officer said: "I hope we don't have a murder; we just had a woman-screaming call in that area."
The Tate/Polanski House on Cielo Drive
Winifred Chapman, Sharon Tate's housekeeper, got to the main gate of the house a little after 8 A.M. She noticed what looked like a fallen telephone wire hanging over the gate. She pushed the gate control mechanism and it swung open. As she walked up to the house, she saw an unfamiliar white Rambler parked in the driveway.
When she got to the house, she took the housekey from its hiding place and unlocked the back door. Once inside the kitchen, she picked up the telephone and confirmed that it was a telephone wire that had fallen, completely knocking out all phone service. As she made her way toward the living room, she noticed that the front door was open and that there were splashes of red everywhere. Looking out the front door, she saw a couple of pools of blood and what appeared to be a body on the lawn.
She shrieked and ran back through the house and down the driveway, passing close enough to the Rambler to see that there was yet another body inside the car. She ran over to the Kotts and banged on the door, but they were not home, so she ran to the next house and did the same thing, screaming hysterically.