Sunday, October 14, 2018

Reflexion by Lynette Fromme; Part Five: pp. 366 - End

The final 111 pages...

On Manson controlling the group:
When we were out of money, bikers offered us stolen credit cards, but we didn't want them. Paul suggested that we could sell something. "Well, we don't sell anything..." Charlie maintained seriously. His eyebrows rose, and he popped a grin. "...but we could trade it for money." It was a joke. We really didn't have a thing worth selling. Bill knew a club where girls who were so inclined might dance topless, but I don't know if anybody did. Despite what was later said to the contrary, we were a democracy, jokingly called an "Orwecouldjust." ("We could..." "Or we could..." "Or we could just..."). It was a consensus style government, everyone adding to the pool of thought. Charlie was both credited and blamed for having the most input, but anyone with ideas was welcome to toss them into the circle. 
On Charlene Cafritz who - to refresh your memory -  was Carter Cafritz's (the son of Morris Cafritz who was a real estate developer, one of Washington’s leading commercial and residential builders from the early 1920's to the mid-60's) wealthy ex-wife who was reported to apparently be a heroin addict and died of an overdose in 1970:
When it came to getting money Charlie went for what he knew. Her name was Charlene, a boot and whip-style girl with a curvy body. I read later that she was some kind of heiress, but he never mentioned it. He had met her at a party in Beverly Hills and invited her to The Ranch. She didn't come. She had invited him to her ranch in Nevada, and instead of going alone, he asked Sandy, Brenda, Paul, and me to go with him.  
Charlene's Nevada ranch had an old-time hotel with a cowboy cafe at the front. Tired and hungry from the overnight drive, we went in for breakfast. Charlie sent one of the workers to let Charlene know that he had arrived. I almost missed seeing her. She was coming toward Charlie, but, after seeing the rest of us, she wheeled on her high heeled boots and let the screen door slam behind her. He went out to talk to her, and pretty soon an employee showed the rest of us to a bare rustic room with two beds, no telephone, and no TV. I don't know what gave me the impression that this ranch was more about women than horses, but I knew about Nevada's Mustang Ranch and I was beginning to think that Charlene might be running such an establishment. In any case, it was not an entertaining trip for us - we slept most of the time - and the next day Charlie returned to say we were leaving. As we drove away, he said that he had offered Charlene a place with us, but she didn't want it. I found out later that she had offered him a Cadillac, but he refused it. Apparently, this wasn't about stuff or money.
A letter from Sandy says that Gary Hinman was homosexual and had a thing for Bobby. Either I never heard this or I just forgot it. Either way it adds a new sland to that part of the story.

One night during the time they operated a "nightclub" in the saloon, Charlie got into a tangle with a biker over the biker's treatment of one of the girls. Once the fight started "Charlie ducked under his arm and behind him, reached between his legs, took a grip, and escorted that guy out the door by the collar of his shirt and his balls".

On corn chips:
Brenda read aloud to herself the list of ingredients in a small bag of corn chips, including the then commonly added chemical preservatives BHA and BHT. In typical understatement with just a touch of amazement, she said, "Wow, now they embalm you before you die."
This made me laugh because as teens my friends and I used to joke that there should be a warning label that said something like, "If you eat this and then you die, you won't rot!"


So far in this section she reminisces about different Family members. I won't ruin it. Buy the book. This bit about Clem I found interesting. It brought back to mind one of the first questions I asked Robert Hendrickson about him.:
Clem was actually classic as a country brother. He once gifted Sandy and me with a beautiful china teapot. Inside it was a beautiful live tarantula. The surprise was not left to chance. He stood by to supervise the discovery. Another time, he woke Ouisch and me, telling us tp "be still and just watch" the snake he was putting into bed with us. His mischief and adept handling of creatures were parts of his charm, but Clem was no hick. Like Bobby, he came from a smart suburban family, and in some ways was a typical teenager, rejecting the past to form a world of his own.
And this about Clem from a letter from Sandy.
Like Sadie and Brenda, Clem would turn a question back at the questioner, or give pat answers as a way of "reprogramming" himself. In reply to "How are you?" Clem would say "perfect." If asked when his birthday was, he'd say "today." I understood his meanings and reasons, but his refusal to give a straight answer could be exasperating. I sensed his rebelling at the conventionalities that hung on in my speech, but he was never sarcastic or mean-spirited.
Jakobson/Melcher:
Charlie had been urging Gregg Jakobson to arrange the meeting with Terry Melcher, not because he wanted a recording contract - he had walked away from contracts - because when we went to the desert, we wanted to leave behind a message.
The iconic crow photo:

"There exists a fuzzy photo of Charlie by the boardwalk with the raven on his forearm. I believe Pearl took it. He's wearing his embroidered vest, and his oddly cocked brown felt hat, and his upper lip is swollen, cut by a shard of wood that splintered off some project he was working on. The raven was a wonder to him and he spent a lot of time with it." 
From a letter from Manson: 
"That bird got into my head as if I was part of it. I didn't want it to be raised dependent on humans so I would take it far away and let it go. I'd drive miles back to the ranch and that bird would be sitting there. Part of me wanted to keep it but I wanted it to be free from humans because I wanted it to be free from them also. You got to be careful for the wildlife. If you make friends with them, they run to other humans who are not friends. The raven flew to land on a guy's shoulder and he thought Alfred Hitchcock's bird movie was after him. He almost knocked the bird's head off before I got between them."
On Bug's assertion that they were attempting to steal Spahn Ranch:
For a long time George had been trying to swallow a heart burning expression someone - he thought a city assessor - had used to describe The Ranch. They'd called it "an eyesore." Since he couldn't trust his own eyes or depend upon the hands, he felt helpless and enraged. He told me he felt "cornered" because if they were to leave him for even a day, the horses would go hungry, and the business would be lost. The humiliation of needing people he often despised was enough to make him wish to be done with it, to have the satisfaction of wielding the final stroke rather than succumbing to impotence. He could sell. I thought it would take years to get a buyer, and meanwhile something would work out.

In my mind, The Ranch would always be ours. In revolutionary times, it would be a safe place to rest and refuel before moving on. The Fountain of the World would be another. A prosecutor would allege that we were leveraging George for the deed, but who needs a deed in the midst of lawlessness.
Sandy, on parental neglect (Sandy is spot on here regarding abuse & illness, IMO):
My mother didn't have a maternal bone in her body. On my first day of kindergarten she dropped me off at the school and drove away. If she'd stayed long enough to see that I found the right classroom, she would have seen that the school wasn't even open. She had brought me on the wrong day. A policeman found me wandering around, totally disoriented and crying hysterically.

I think that I began to feel the tensions of my parents' relationship even before I was born, and later to show the extreme physical effects of a child who had formed no attachment with the mother. Mostly it played out in respiratory issues. In infancy I had two tracheotomies and in childhood countless painful exploratory procedures. Doctors back then did not know much about the correlation between parental neglect and abuse and childhood and adult illness. I was in and out of the hospital and oxygen tents. When I was ten a surgeon removed most of my right lung. I still wonder if that was really necessary.
The Bikers:
Outlaw bikers demonstrated both traditional patriotism and insolent rebellion. Some members of the Oakland chapter of the Hell's Angels once barged into a crowd of anti-war marchers to stomp heads, their president, a military veteran, offering the U.S. president their service as guerrilla fighters in Vietnam. Some of the same guys wore German helmets, swastikas, Iron Crosses, and death's heads because they were imbued with a warrior spirit, because they looked "cool," and because they obviously made conventional U.S. citizens feel uncomfortable. Charlie was not the only one to think these rebels could be a force in protection of life. The Merry Pranksters, Grateful Dead, and Rolling Stones, among others, strategized them as allies; the U.S. government did not. 
Charlie took bikers on some wild dune buggy rides. He composed a song with them in mind, and interact-ed as if he lived in them, but despite their outlaw leanings many of them were traditional in their thinking. Our ideas were new and strange to them, and if they saw a revolution coming, they didn't envision hiding in the desert. They seemed to be more about illicit ways to make money.
This sure did pique my interest:
Two weeks after the ranch raid, Frank Retz called police to arrest Charlie for trespassing. They found him asleep in the farmhouse, a marijuana roach and one of the girls nearby. I think it was Gypsy because she went to the station and claimed the roach. She was not charged, and Charlie was released. Frank said he thought the police raid had taken care of the job he wanted done, but now he would have to do it himself. He openly announced that he would hire and arm a man to watch over the property. Pearl suggested Shorty Shea, and he made no secret of his intention to take the job.
Cappy describes the burning of the Michigan Loader:
Headed for refreshment from a hot desert day - a day spent close to the ground motionless as lizards, motionless as the air that let the Sun's heat turn the earth's crumbled rock to blazing dust, the same dust we had all become - two dune buggies of nude night bodies flew over the hills along the ridges and down the banks into the beds of forgotten rivers. This night had no moon but freedom was a-rise. The dune buggy engines hummed into the vast darkness. We neared the opening to a canyon that gave birth to a hot spring. Our heavenly hot springs popped into view - but SOMETHING of huge and grotesque proportions loomed out of the darkness beside it. A ruthless monster had invaded our unblemished desert home, a thing that had leveled a nearby hill and had stopped just short of shoving it into the pool of steaming water. A U.S. Government monster. Ouish's loud exclamations rebounded off the mountain walls. Then sparks lit within our eyes. We all laughed and charged to the dune buggies, lugging out gasoline and all the match-es we had stashed. What a beautiful picture it would make exploding in huge tongues of flame to return to the earth it was trying to destroy! We doused the tires and the seat with gasoline. Lit matches found their places. POOF! POOF! POOF! THE FLAMES WERE TITANIC. THE WHOLE MACHINE WAS ON FIRE... until the gas evaporated. Just how much of a Michi-gan loader burns? More gasoline - everything saturated once more - more matches - ah! And finally the seat caught a-blaze.

We slid into our pool beside the fire. And after a long bath, dawn came creeping. Goosepimply and wet we stood in the chill air, viewing the remains of the monster. There it stood unscathed - only a few patches of blistered paint and a gorged seat on melted rubber feet. We left our mark and sped off laughing into the morning. 
Sandy on Sadie and Katie telling her in September about the murders:
... I asked them if others knew about this. They told me they didn't know. Their move was for Bobby and there was really no need to say anything to anyone. After the girls left the trailer, I thought about what they told me, I could not judge them.
Paul Watkins was only called Little Paul after the Family made the final move to Golar Wash. It was to distinguish him from Paul Crockett.

----------------------

The book ends with the Barker Ranch Raid. Very little is mentioned about the murders or the motives. What Fromme has presented us with is her experiences with Manson and the group. In my opinion she did an excellent job of helping me see things through her eyes.

We all have our reasons why this little piece of history reels us in. My fascination with the whole story has always had less to do with the crimes and more to do with the communal/tribal aspects of The Family. I've been waiting decades for a core member to write a book like this one. I devoured it. I'll likely devour it again and again.

Some of her descriptions of leaving home and learning to commune with nature reminded me of the North Pond Hermit, Christopher Thomas Knight, who lived almost without human contact for 27 years in the woods in the North Pond area of Maine. I'll never forget something he later said:
"Solitude bestows an increase in something valuable, ...my perception. But...when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. There was no audience, no one to perform for...To put it romantically, I was completely free."
My reasons for reviewing in the fashion I did were (again) to bring to the fore things that either I did not know previous to reading this work, things that I found either uber-fascinating or just plain amusing. If she had gone through a major publishing house the book would have been much different. I'm appreciative of her choice.

If you haven's ordered Reflexion yet, you are missing out. It is a must read.




50 comments:

brownrice said...

Great review again, Matt.

Matt said:
My fascination with the whole story has always had less to do with the crimes and more to do with the communal/tribal aspects of The Family. I've been waiting decades for a core member to write a book like this one.

Yes, exactly. Watkins' book was as near as we had up until now but I always found him transparently self-serving. No doubt many would say the same thing about Reflexions but personally I find it a far more believable explanation of how things unravelled... and yes, undoubtedly most people would disagree. :-)

AstroCreep said...

Hey Matt- I appreciate you taking the time to post these summaries.

Question- do you feel like she’s accurate with her memory of life back then? Or do you feel she’s self serving/Charlie serving? I’m honestly curious because most of what I read in your posts and quotes from her book seem contradicting- Especially the part about the democracy they lived in- where as Diane Lake’s account of family life she described how she’d get a good ole Charlie prison beatdown for questioning him.

The two accounts of family life seem from very different worlds- and given she was a hardcore defender/militant - I would have a hard time believing much of what she says as compared to Diane Lake’s account.

Matt said...

AstroCreep, I think it's accurate in the sense that it's the way she remembers it. It's also worth pointing out that Lake was always in Manson's shithouse. Her experiences were much different than Fromme's. Lynette was favored, Dianne not so much.


AstroCreep said...

Thanks Matt for your perspective! It still seems like bizzaro world to me- Makes it seem like she’s trying to sell it like they were just a bunch of kooky hippie earth loving kids having a grand ole time-

Mario George Nitrini 111 said...

Let me first of all thank Deb's & ChrisPOA for your kind words in the comment section of this blog thread: http://www.mansonblog.com/2018/09/a-wrongful-death.html?m=1 Thanks to both of you.
In this part 5, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme discusses Bikers in her book. From what was told to me, there is A LOT more..... On my Twitter account here:https://mobile.twitter.com/nitrini1950/status/1051944920775241728 and here:https://mobile.twitter.com/nitrini1950/status/1051946015706628102 I ask George Christie if he is at liberty to comment. We'll see. Mario George Nitrini 111 _____________ The OJ Simpson Case & Saga

DebS said...

A link to Red's radio interview of Oct. 14th

https://youtu.be/Jo5eydVrMS0

ColScott said...

your personal savior Col Scott pointed out on the ONLY Official TLB Blog that Hinman was gay- there was significant evidence of this presented back in the day.

The idea that he lusted after Bobby fits everything ever written about Bobby- man or woman, you wanted to fuck him. Capote saw him on Death fucking row and wanted to. Now I never heard clearly Gary had the hots for Bobby. It adds a subtext to Bobby not being able to perform like a man until Charlie showed him how, to lump all the testimony together

grimtraveller said...

ColScott said...

your personal savior Col Scott

Let there be more light Col, let there be more light !

pointed out on the ONLY Official TLB Blog that Hinman was gay- there was significant evidence of this presented back in the day

In the light of recent debates that have been had about memory, less than a year ago old bean, thou didst sayeth:
"Also there are random things I want to ask about. She out of nowhere describes Gary as 'effeminate.' Is that a code word for gay? I don't believe he was but maybe.
One of your mates gave you quite a bit of evidence going back to 1969 that pointed in that direction, not least Virginia Graham, the first time she spoke with the cops and it coming up big time in Bobby's first trial.

brownrice said...

Watkins' book was as near as we had up until now but I always found him transparently self-serving. No doubt many would say the same thing about Reflexions but personally I find it a far more believable explanation of how things unravelled

Squeaky is interesting because she is as self serving as Watkins, Bugliosi, Charlie and Susan were and Dianne Lake, Tex, Gypsy, Leslie, Pat and Irving K are. Her self serving takes the form of being Charlie-absolving and in that regard, she is both consistent and bears out what, ironically, Paul Watkins was saying about everyone being Charlie, back in the days when Robert H was filming in various locations.
I don't have a problem with someone being self serving when they are telling a story that they are giving you from their own perspective. That's what human beings do. Someone giving their view on something they were involved in by necessity will be self serving. I might have quibbles about the actual information that someone gives in support of their self service, but not the self service itself.
I don't find that Squeaky really did explain how things unravelled. She said more or less that she wasn't part of all that and said how she was later surprised to hear how this or that happened or the nature of Charlie's relationships with particular people. In conjunction with that, I don't really see that what she said in the book was any great contradiction of Paul Watkins or for that matter, Tex or even Dianne Lake or, come to think of it, the numerous people that had negative things to say about Charlie. Every so often she would say something like "the prosecutor later said..." and try to take the steam out of what was claimed, but to be honest, it's not the prosecutor she was up against, although judging by the final sentence in the book, in her mind it was ever a fight of the good fight.

Dan S said...

GH owed BB for what? S E X. CW denies homo goings on . Methinks the "ladies" doth protest too much. No evidence from my end either. It just makes the most sense. Nothing makes less logical sense than sex. Nothing is more sensual. Nothing is more taboo than man on man.

Bobby didn't want to tell his folks he was a murderer. How about telling them you're Charlie Manson's gay male prostitute....
Interesting that squeaky denies any of the girls lezzing out. No surprise as all their personality types are rejects looking for a father figure. SA would be an exception as she's just pure freak.
Thanks for the reviews btw.

kraut_iznota_knotsy said...

Apologies ... slightly off-topic, but

Since you guys have forgotten more than I'll ever likely know about Manson, Tex, etc

I thought I'd pose a question about Watson's "integrity"

I've done full searches of Tex's book, where he explicitly describes his role in TLB killings,

but NOWHERE in the book is there any mention of Shorty Shea.

It's my understanding that Clem clocked Shorty from behind with a pipe,
and Tex finished Shorty off (with a little help from his friends) with a knife.

Wouldn't this undermine any alleged "credibility" Watson's "confession" might have received? Did he conveniently leave out any reference to Shorty's murder simply to avoid prosecution? (Clem did time for it).
That imo would make Tex a manipulative murdering hypocrite, and a religious fraud.

I would love to hear some opinions from folks like the Col, Patty, Deb, Matt, or anyone else here what you think, if I've missed something, etc etc.

Thanks in advance. I enjoy reading many of the posts & comments in this group. Keep it up.
☮☮☮

ColScott said...

Grim you ignorant slut,

Yeah thanks for that trip down memory lane. I clearly have become rusty as in the unmade script I cowrote in 2000 there was a scene with Gary giving private piano lessons to a guy and getting a bit too close. So my 2017 post was in error. You do know I stopped the Official Blog in 2014 right? I used to live and breathe this shit, Grim. For a long ass time. But you see, this TLB thing has a lot of assholes and darkness and dummies (my goodness you hit the Trifecta!) and I only ever wanted to know one thing- WHY did this happen! For 18 years Tom O'Neill has been promising us the answer!!! Bug's death offered "A New Hope".... and then no results.Patty's souvenir collection filled up the storage bin- but no answers. I admit it man- I gave the fuck up because I don't think there IS an answer. There is a unique subset of events that even TWO HOURS difference would have meant no murders. Micky Knox stresses in my own fucking movie FATE and that seems to be the best we are going to get. FATE. There are a dozen as interesting and as grisly murders from 67-69 and yet none of those have blogs and researchers- ONLY TLB and that is because BUG lied to us and changed reality. This is fucked up and makes me crazy...arrrgh....aarggh....

ColScott said...

Krautzenheimer

Don't Forget Hoyt heard Shorty's scream 12 hours before they occurred.

It should not surprise you that no one actually involved want to revisit this shit (unless you pay Gypsy that is).

Sometime ago I got threatened by some play lawyer for exposing that Clem was now ADAM GABRIEL and does perform for CHILDREN. I asked the lawyer if she wanted to revisit the La Bianca murders since he was never charged.

The lawyer stopped...

starviego said...

Fromme: "Brenda read aloud to herself the list of ingredients in a small bag of corn chips.... I used to joke that there should be a warning label that said something like, "If you eat this and then you die, you won't rot!" "

Actually, there is some truth to this, as medical examiners are saying that due to the levels of preservatives in our foods our bodies DO take longer to decompose. But I doubt that was making the rounds in '69. I suspect Lynette lifted it from recent accounts and added it to the book to push her ATWA stuff.

Like that account of Charlie grabbing the balls of some biker and throwing him out. That doesn't sound realistic either. Maybe Lynette is just remembering the past like she wants to remember it.

Which doesn't do much for the credibility of anything else she says.

kraut_iznota_knotsy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kraut_iznota_knotsy said...

Thanks for the reply Col -

Has Tex EVER acknowledged he "helped" slaughter Shorty Shea? I haven't as yet found him doing so. So much for "Abounding Love."

Clem / Scramblehead / Gabriel / Nakagawa / whoever said something amusing when, after being ambushed by some filmmakers after a gig, he said (paraphrasing) "that kid died years ago." So did some other people, dude... not to mention possibly others we'll never know about. Saladin Nader can only count himself lucky he wasn't one of them.

Gotta' give it to "Adam Gabriel" though - he CAN play guitar.

It seems Leslie Van Houten is guilty of accessory to murder and abusing a corpse (if she's telling the truth). There's a lot of people walking free who have done a lot worse.

Starviego - haven't bought Lynette's book yet (waiting for a kindle, which Amazon said might be coming) .... Did Lynette mention Shorty Shea's demise anywhere in her book?
I agree with you after listening to her interview that she "is just remembering the past like she wants to remember it." Maybe we all do to some degree.

Anyway, thanks to any & all that reply.

krauty

grimtraveller said...

ColScott said...

Grim you ignorant slut

My brand of slüttîsçhé requires no knowledge or awareness.
Incidentally, did you know 'slut' in Swedish means 'end' ? I rather like that.
Thanks, Col.

I clearly have become rusty

That's pretty open of you. If you care to open a Merriam~Webster dictionary, one of their definitions of 'rusty' contains as part of the meaning "inept and slow."

You do know I stopped the Official Blog in 2014 right?

It would be more correct to say it stopped you.

I gave the fuck up because I don't think there IS an answer

The answer is that the earth is spherical as it orbits the sun, angled as it spins on its axis, wet when you swim in its waters and flat when you drive downhill but not when you climb mountains.

There is a unique subset of events that even TWO HOURS difference would have meant no murders

That's actually one of the more fascinating aspects of both nights, but only in relation to the two addresses the murders took place in.

Happy new shirt !

David said...

krauty,

I hope you are not a Nazi. I'll try to answer you and I am sure someone here will correct my errors.

Yes, Watson is guilty of the murder of Shorty Shea.

As I understand it from the various parole hearings it goes something like this. Watson, Davis and Grogan convince Shea to drive them up the road a bit to retrieve some auto parts (PS: you couldn't possible hear screams from there at Spahn Ranch). When they get there Watson and Davis get out of the car and there is some prearranged signal. When that comes down Grogan whacks Shea in the head with a wrench. Shea bails from the car. I believe at one, point Grogan said he had to climb over the seat to prevent the car from going into the ravine (which is right there).

If you believe Davis the only person available to begin stabbing Shea is Watson, although there is some evidence Manson inflicted the coup de grace. Davis claims he simply struck Shea in the shoulder after he was dead or dying after Manson told him to cut off his head.

I haven’t read this book but at least we now know one thing from this post: they knew Retz had, or was going to, hire Shea to police the ranch. That, then, is the motive: getting rid of a snitch...hmmmmm.

Although why Shea would get in a car with those guys is a mystery to me. The trials actually suggested/hinted they grabbed him and forced him into the car- read Ruby Pearl's testimony- and that he was afraid- same.

Why doesn’t Watson confess? Because ‘finding God’ stops at the door to the gas chamber. Murder has no statute of limitations. They all have to be very careful, or think they do.

As the Col. notes, Grogan was part of the Tate-LaBianca conspiracy. A while ago Cielodrive posted some dialogue in chambers about why he wasn’t charged. The jJudge asks the question. Bugliosi says “it’s complicated” and “do you want to know?” or words to that effect and the Judge says “no”. I have also heard Bugliosi was afraid Grogan could make a ‘real’ insanity defense and thus impact convictions. But I don’t buy that as all you have to do is listen to VanHouten’s interview with Marvin Part (versus read it). As Part said “she is insane in an almost science fiction sort of way”.

That is also why you will not read what Ms. Fomme knew and when. Nor will she acknowledge being Manson’s eyes and ears with George Spahn. You see, IF she was told ‘find out what Retz is up to’ and IF she did and reported back and IF she knew what they were going to do. That could be very bad, if anyone cared. Notice I said "IF". Having recently seen Shorty’s grave (versus Sharon Tate’s) I would imagine part of why Watson ‘walked’ was that no one cared, as sad as that is.

Yes, he is a lying hypocrite. But if you are a Christian tale solace in the fact there might be someone waiting to ask your very question.

David said...

"take" not "tale"

grimtraveller said...

kraut_iza_knotsy said...

I've done full searches of Tex's book, where he explicitly describes his role in TLB killings,
but NOWHERE in the book is there any mention of Shorty Shea


I noticed this for the first time a few weeks ago. I was trying to remember what, if anything, Tex said about Shorty, even if it was to mention his death in passing in showing messed up things had become at Spahn and I couldn't recall him ever even mentioning his name as someone that was around. Going through his 2 books, unless I've missed something {easily done with the plethora of information to hand}, he never talks about him. He mentions Gary Hinman whom he didn't even know, he mentions Lotsapoppa whom he only met once for an hour and almost caused his death. In his trial when mention of Shorty came up, his lawyer shut it down fast and I've noticed that happen in a recent parole hearing. His name was associated with Shorty's death right from the start, Danny Decarlo, Mary Brunner and Kitty Lutesinger all placing him there in one way or another.

It's my understanding that Clem clocked Shorty from behind with a pipe, and Tex finished Shorty off (with a little help from his friends) with a knife

Well.....
If one is to believe Bruce & Clem, Tex started things off rather than finishing things off. However, both Bruce and Clem totally contradict each other about who was in the car {Bruce says he, Clem, Tex and Shorty, Clem says Bruce wasn't there} and that really messes up any truth where Tex is concerned because it makes both their stories unreliable and leaves the possibility that even though various parole boards have named Tex as a crime partner, he may actually not have been involved. The DA's office didn't bother to prosecute because they were waiting to see what happened in his trial and when he got 7 death sentences, they felt it wasn't worth it. Besides which, there was not a shred of evidence that he'd even been there and he didn't tell anyone, unless he mentioned it to Mary, whereas there was physical and verbal evidence against Charlie, Bruce and Clem.
Interestingly, Squeaky says nothing about the death of Shorty either. Of course, after what Charlie had said to George Stimson in "Goodbye Helter Skelter" about his involvement in Shorty's death, she could hardly come out and defend him by making him conspicuous by his absence. That one can only work so many times before one has to call out the emperor and tell him he's got no clothes on.


ColScott said...

I used to live and breathe this shit, Grim. For a long ass time. But you see, this TLB thing has a lot of assholes and darkness and dummies (my goodness you hit the Trifecta!) and I only ever wanted to know one thing- WHY did this happen! For 18 years Tom O'Neill has been promising us the answer!!! Bug's death offered "A New Hope"....

Does this mean that I'm not going to get to play the part of Muchpuffa the raven in your latest space blockbuster, "Episode iv: My Unicorn Farm and the Bug that Devoured it" ?

starviego said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
starviego said...

grimtraveller said...
"...there was physical and verbal evidence against Charlie, Bruce and Clem."

What physical evidence? If you're talking about the fingerprints on the trunks or the pawn tickets for Shorty's guns, that is not direct evidence that they actually did the killing.

I got the impression they were convicted mostly on what they confessed to other Family member. Tex didn't talk about it, and that's why he skated on that charge.

Doug said...

Tex is that gun-toting, inadequate, castrated and afraid hunter/predator who wields his perceived masculinity flagrantly...all cocksure and full of himself - the one Clem talks about in Hendrickson's film - who's "awareness level would be about this high."
But his "mamma has cut [his] nuts off...so [he] fuck with the gun/[knife]...experience all that, you know, vicariously."

He's a complete chicken shit.

Taking whatever he can to build himself up in HIS mind (double meaning FULLY intended.

As vile a human being as Atkins was - Tex is exponentially more vile and, concurrently, pathetic.

Whiterabbit69 said...

Hey speaking of Tex, he told Ray Hoekstra (guy was amazing honestly) that Charlie wanted him to kill a couple of rangers and he said that's when he snapped inside "well, it ain't gonna happen." I don't know if that's in his book , I just have the audio file.

Patty is Dead said...

It's so nice around here without SAG. Now if we could only get rid of that other guy that makes unfounded personal attacks...

grimtraveller said...

Whiterabbit69 said...

Hey speaking of Tex, he told Ray Hoekstra (guy was amazing honestly) that Charlie wanted him to kill a couple of rangers and he said that's when he snapped inside "well, it ain't gonna happen." I don't know if that's in his book , I just have the audio file

It's in his second book, "Right Hand Man Speaks Out." He says "Two park rangers had started asking questions, so Charlie ordered them killed. He felt they'd show up at an old run-down cabin the next day, so he left me there with a shotgun overnight to wait for them. I knew I wasn't going to kill them, so the next morning I took off in an old pickup and ran from Charlie. I drove the truck as far as it would go. I hitchhiked to the city, called my parents for money and flew to Texas.". In his first book he says:
"Since our midnight bonfire with the skip loader, attention from the authorities had increased and on September 29 Ranger Dick Powell and California Highway Patrolman James Pursell surprised some of the girls and me in one of the gullies behind Barker. I ran off naked before they could talk to me.....All the next day, from our lookout posts in the hills, we watched the National Park rangers driving back and forth like ants over the desert roads, looking for us. After it got dark, Charlie and I drove all night by the light of the moon, surveying his desert kingdom. He was very quiet, wound up like a spring. When we got back to Myers Ranch early the next morning, he handed me a double-barreled shotgun that had been stolen from one of the girls' parents before we left Los Angeles.
'Go up into the attic there,' he said to me, pointing to a place where the attic extended out over the porch of the ranch house with gaping holes between the boards. 'Go up there with this and wait. When those two rangers come-kill them.' He drove off and I climbed into the hot, dusty attic to wait. When I woke up in the attic at Myers Ranch the next morning, a shotgun was cradled in my arms. I knew why. I was waiting to kill two National Park rangers when they came looking for the arsonists who had burned their earthmover. Charlie had told me to kill them, just as he had told me to kill before. I looked down at the gun and knew, just as certainly as I knew what he had told me, that I was not going to use it. I was not going to kill again for Charles Manson. I'll never be sure exactly why I was able to say no then, when for the past eight months it had always been yes for Charlie. I think it had something to do with being without drugs for two or three weeks. Suddenly I didn't believe we were ever going to find the secret hole into the pit; suddenly I knew the world was not going to end; suddenly I was tired and hungry; suddenly I didn't care what Charlie had told me to do - all I knew was that I would not kill anyone. Not again."
He gives the date as 2nd October ~ so it was after Shorty !
Charlie's version of Tex's exit is that while hidden away in a recess at Barkers, spying on cops, he got scared of the mice and rats that were crawling all over him and ran back to his mummy.
But it's not his book being reviewed !!

grimtraveller said...

Doug Smith said...

Tex is that gun-toting, inadequate, castrated and afraid hunter/predator who wields his perceived masculinity flagrantly...all cocksure and full of himself. He's a complete chicken shit

Something he said in his first book was kind of amusing:
Sometimes he'd [Charlie] lunge at me and scream that because of the murders, I had the same thing coming to me. I'd taken on the karma of those deaths, the violence, and it would come back to me like a boomerang.
"Do you feel guilty for what you did ?" he'd scream three or four times.
"No," I'd say. "I don't feel guilty; I don't feel anything."
"Well, I want you to feel guilty about it. Feel guilty! Feel guilty ! Feel guilty !"
"I will if that's what you want, Charlie."
But I didn't. I couldn't.


Panamint Patty said...

It's so nice around here without SAG

I notice the odd post of his pops in for a little while before disappearing again.
He's our Scarlet Pimpernel ! They seek him here, they seek him there.....

starviego said...

What physical evidence? If you're talking about the fingerprints on the trunks or the pawn tickets for Shorty's guns, that is not direct evidence that they actually did the killing

Well, Tex's and Pat's prints at Cielo weren't direct evidence that they'd done anything, just that they were there. But circumstantially and in addition to other pieces of evidence and testimony, it becomes an important piece in a jigsaw puzzle that a prosecution can put together and that's partly how Bruce was nabbed.

I got the impression they were convicted mostly on what they confessed to other Family member. Tex didn't talk about it, and that's why he skated on that charge

You're right. When Al Springer said that he kept his mouth shut real tight, he wasn't kidding. Most people that have spoken about Tex from those days say he was pretty quiet and a gent, to boot.
The Family just happened to filled with young people that loved to chat and that undid them in the end in a number of ways. If Jess Bravin's biography of Squeaky is anything to go by {and also gauging Squeaky when she testified at the TLB trial}, Squeaky exemplified that penchant for chatting. Her book is in many ways her opportunity to say exactly what she wants without a judge telling her to confine herself to the question she's been asked and stop pontificating her philosophy.
In that regard, she rocked it.

ColScott said...

Patty

Bricks are just things. People matter more than bricks

Whiterabbit69 said...

@ Grim

Wow thanks so much for the in-depth reply!! Much appreciated. I can never find time to read through these books in their entirety but I will make it a goal.

beauders said...

Watson’s wife divorced him because he was getting blow jobs from other prisoners.

Terrapin said...

ColScott.. i appreciate your work over the years, there's a lot of good stuff on the (ONLY) old blog..

but i'm just wondering; you're always claiming to just want the "truth". Yet every time someone gives their version of the truth you viciously attack it claiming it to be wrong.

It feels like you've decided that the motive is Tex/drugs related and now you're just waiting for someone 'credible' to come out and 'confirm' it so you can do the old I Told You So dance to everybody





Patty is Dead said...

Brick? I'm lost...

grimtraveller said...

beauders said...

Watson’s wife divorced him because he was getting blow jobs from other prisoners

Has she actually said that and is it on the record and verifiable ? If so, where can we find this statement ?

grimtraveller said...

Panamint Patty said...

Brick? I'm lost...

Someone threw one at his head. He's a little miffed about it !

Whiterabbit69 said...

That's a farce. She divorced him because she fell in love with someone else and I'm guessing it wouldn't be too fulfilling to have visits cut to a few hours on weekends once CA passed that law axing conjugal visits for certain prisoners. It's kind of annoying that people just flippantly say things like that (the gay thing) while knowing it's bull. Hate the guy as much as you want but believe it or not his family isn't bad and the former wife isn't a lunatic.

Matt said...

grimtraveller said...

Someone threw one at his head. He's a little miffed about it !


Pretty sure it was a direct hit.


CATSCRADLE77 said...

I seem to remember that during the trial for Ford, Lynn was in contact with
Lanier Rayner, the guy who was in prison with Manson and that introduced him to Scientology.

I am thinking that it probably wasn't mentioned in her book, but is there a way to ask her about this?

Peter said...

"It's kind of annoying that people just flippantly say things like that (the gay thing) while knowing it's bull."


Gary Hinman was unavailable for comment.

beauders said...

I heard it from Kregg Sanders, a pretty well known autograph salesman, who heard it from Mrs. Watson herself. As a lesbian myself I don't find it insulting to say someone is having gay sex.

Whiterabbit69 said...

It's not true, though. Kristin never said that. I've talked to Watson before and he said that the murderbilia business (and the like) is rampant and obviously people are going to say anything and sell a facade for money and attention. Kristin didn't divorce him because of supposed lewd homosexual acts. She met her now husband Ben and it was a lot easier being with someone on the outside. She is still supportive of Watson. I'm pretty sure if a woman's husband was shacking up with other men then she'd be the last to advocate for him. She is still in his life. Don't believe everything you're fed. Whether he's a murderer or not - a lie is a lie. Call it what it is , Kregg Sanders is a crime fanboy.

beauders said...

Whiterabbit69 are you the white rabbit of the Manson Family or is it just a name you use? I don't know why Sanders would lie about this I was not buying anything from him and information he had given me about Kristen Watson before proved true. Such as he contacted Kristen Watson when it was found out that Bill Nelson was a convicted pedophile and she told him that they did not rejoice in others failings, which sounds to me like something a real Christian would say. I have nothing but respect for her but she really lives her faith. In Watson's "Will You Die For Me?" he was quite comfortable talking about the murders he committed but he talked about the homosexual sex going on in prison as sinful, so the fact that he doesn't own up to you about what he's doing sexually in prison does not surprise me. I'm not saying he's gay anyway, he just has no other outlet and that happens in prisons all over the world. Besides as I said before I don't believe gay/lesbian sex is a bad thing as I'm a lesbian myself. If you read the back comments on this blog you will see I know a bit about these people and the Tate/LaBianca murders.

Whiterabbit69 said...

I'm not THAT White Rabbit lol I'm just a fan of Jefferson Airplane. We can agree to disagree on this matter. I'm in the minority as far as believing that Watson is sincere in his faith and rehabilitation. I'm not condemning gay people at all. I'm merely doubting the validity and credibility of these claims from Sanders. I do not believe that Watson has those desires nor would he jeopardize his progress and growth. His letter to me recently was about the 40 plus years of his salvation and it's amazing to me how the rest of the contents mirror the exact thread we're in. Timely to say the least. I won't go off on a further tangent other than to say that it's of no value when these scenarios are presented. It just deviates from the initial topic at hand and at the end of the day - people like Sanders make money off of tragedy. I know he's into the macabre trinket business and that seems to be his sole level of expertise. Charles has a lot more on his mind than getting his rocks off with fellow inmates. I know it's good fodder for blogs and such but if one can harness the ability to be objective upon reading what he really has to say through his platform then they will see that his life revolves around his kids and grandkids + evangelism.

Whiterabbit69 said...

We all kind of live in a 1969 time warp here. It doesn't cross our minds much that these people have been in prison longer than some of us have even been alive. A lot is going to be said about this one or that one. Some things may hold weight , others simply do not. Loathe whomever as we may - They weren't executed and their lives (whatever remains) have gone on and have to continue to go on for the appointed time. They're not the same young people who had drugs and orgies like we have breakfast . I take things with a grain of salt.

beauders said...

That's cool whiterabbit do you have a horror story about Sanders? I have nothing but contempt for the man as he ripped me off so I am certainly not defending his honor. We spent hundreds of hours speaking of Tate/LaBianca and he never lied as far as I can tell on this subject. He did take credit for the outing of Bill Nelson, as a pedophile, which was a lie as Sandra Good and George Simpson were the ones to out him.

grimtraveller said...

beauders said...

As a lesbian myself I don't find it insulting to say someone is having gay sex

If you had said "his wife divorced him because he had gone back to eating meat" or "she divorced him because he had an affair with a female tutor" or "she divorced him because she didn't agree with his involvement with Suzan LaBerge" I would have asked you the same question ¬> did the wife actually say that and is it verifiable ?

Terrapin said...

I would bet if Watson was released he'd drop the christian stuff pretty quickly. Either that or he'd find a way to make money off his 'faith' (televangelist style). Psychopathy can't be cured kids

Whiterabbit69 said...

Nah. Nobody can fake being a Christian for over 40 years. I've talked to the woman of the family he would live with in the event he ever got released. His plan would be to work with Teen Challenge which was started by the late David Wilkerson (famously portrayed by Pat Boone in the Cross And The Switchblade) actually I met a 23 year old young man from the organization recently and it's a great movement. I'm sure he's never getting out but it's a decent aspiration.

kraut_iznota_knotsy said...

David
Thanks for the reply.

"‘finding God’ stops at the door to the gas chamber. Murder has no statute of limitations."

Well put. And might just sum up how "Christian" Tex actually is, though that's not for me to determine, and not to mention I couldn't care less.

Gorodish said...

Been away for a week or so......forgive me for arriving late to this post.......

kraut_iza/iznota_knotsy stated :

I've done full searches of Tex's book, where he explicitly describes his role in TLB killings,
but NOWHERE in the book is there any mention of Shorty Shea


grimtraveller stated :

I was trying to remember what, if anything, Tex said about Shorty, even if it was to mention his death in passing in showing messed up things had become at Spahn and I couldn't recall him ever even mentioning his name as someone that was around. Going through his 2 books, unless I've missed something {easily done with the plethora of information to hand}, he never talks about him.

To my knowledge Tex has never uttered a peep about Shorty Shea. I have a feeling he DID mention him to his original Texas lawyer, Bill Boyd. Boyd probably told him "you aren't charged with his murder, and there's really no proof anyways, so if I were you I would never bring it up again". Whether this dialogue made it to the "Tex Tapes" is the million dollar question, and if it did, it's the real reason Tex fought like hell to keep these tapes from LAPD and the district attorney. It would blow Tex's "Will You Die For Me" Christian conversion out the water like dead fish after an M-80 tossed into a koi pond. Which is the reason I would love to hear the Tex Tapes......not because of "more murders they don't know about".....but the mention of Shorty. Tex really has nothing to fear anyways. No D.A. would touch that with a ten foot pole. A half century old murder...key "witnesses" deceased (Ruby Pearl, Babs Hoyt, Juan Flynn). The co-conspirators : one dead (Manson), one most likely dead (Vance), one close to parole (Davis), and one wishing the whole thing would just go away (Clem) - their testimony would be useless anyways. The potential "Kasabian" of this case, Larry Jones/Bailey/Giddings, would rather it all stayed in the past too. Nope, Tex has nothing to worry about from the law anymore as far as Shorty goes. And that's a damned shame, as he was probably the main killer of Shorty, just like his role in the TLB murders. I can see it like this : Clem, Tex, and Shorty pull over to look for Tex's imaginary auto parts.....Tex gets out, looks at Steve "c,mon, hit him"..WHAM, Clem smashes Shorty on the back of his head with pipe wrench....stunned Shorty bails out of car....Tex pounces and starts stabbing the shit out of him while Clem steadies car.....Tex drags Shorty down the embankment under tree and stabs more, Clem joins him.....another car pulls up with Manson, Bruce, Vance, and Larry......they all head down the embankment to join in the action....by this point maniacal Tex has already put 40-50 stab wounds in him.....Manson's twisted face glaring evilly into Shorty's dying eyes "you know why motherfucker!".....Manson making sure the others get their chops in, after all we all need to die in our minds anyways..... then turns around to see Larry staring, shocked..."oh forget it he's just the drippings from a white man's dick anyways, he won't say nuthin".....Shorty mercifully "comes to now"......"OK he's dead drag him down the hill by the train tracks"......Clem and God knows who else comes back to bury him after dark. Abounding love indeed !

beauders said...

Grim like I said before I got that information from criminal/celebrity autograph dealer named Kregg Sanders who spoke to Kristen Watson on a regular bases. He never lied to me about anything dealing with the case.

grimtraveller said...

How would Kristen even know if he was getting blow jobs from other inmates, let alone be able to verify it ? The only person she'd be talking to in the jail would be Tex and if he was getting his whistle blown, he's hardly going to tell his wife that ! That would go down a storm at his next parole hearing.