Friday, July 13, 2012

Jameses and Laurens


Farflung. Gotta love him (at least, Patty does. Don't tell Mr. Patty, okay?). He is into the minutiae, the "devil in the details." He wrote this to Patty recently, and it made her go, Hmmmmm.  What do you think?:

"From the ridiculously deep trivia files only Farf finds interesting, and maybe Patty.

I did a little searching for the mysterious James and Lauren which have been used as ‘Free-Spaces’ on the Manson Family connection bingo card.  It appears to have been a strong case of confirmation bias and I think I’m about to add to the mix. 
It begins in 1970 when James Forsher and Lauren Elder are mentioned in association with the missing attorney Ronald Hughes.  James and Lauren are both reported as 17 years old and from West Los Angeles.

Next in 1972 is the disjointed murders of James and Lauren (Willett) in Stockton with Squeaky and Brenda in attendance as Manson associates.  Even though nothing has tied James and Lauren to any Manson activities, this does not appear to impede the inferences.

Then arrives 1974 and the publication of ‘Helter Skelter’ with an oblique mention of James and Lauren who have somehow become Manson Family members and potential assassins of Ronald Hughes.

Subsequently James Forsher comes out of the woodwork and files a law suit against Bugliosi, which he (Forsher) loses in 1980, where the paper reports his age as 22.

Now for the Twilight Zone stuff.  The ‘other’ Lauren was Lauren Elder and there was only one I could find that lived in the LA area in the 70’s but she would have been 21 at that time rather than the 17 reported in the previous article.  So dead end and the ‘One Degree of Separation’ has been established.  Or was it?

Apparently this Lauren Elder was flying in a light aircraft in 1976 which had crashed in the high mountains resulting in the death of the pilot and other passenger.  This Lauren manages to stumble, fall and crawl from the crash site and arrive in Independence, CA and rescue.  But that rescue was delayed because people refused to help her, out of fears that she was part of the Manson Family (insert that weird, sci-fi Theremin sound).

I don’t know if the plane crash Lauren Elder is one in the same as the Ronald Hughes disappearance Lauren Elder, but was surprised how easy it would be to make the association with Manson and add to the confusion and lore.

Sincerely, Farf"

Farf, who the hell are you, anyway? Patty is thinking, ex-CIA. Is she close?





50 comments:

  1. Patty, he said, "Theremin" AND spelled it correctly. Draw your own conclusion :-\

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  2. Ok, this is the stuff I dig....sorry Lynyrd. The deeper the better...good stuff Farf..

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  3. Welcome, Kimchi. You make Patty think, much.

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  4. Thanks patty. I don't say much but I do appreciate good/new research...

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  5. I take it that, at least once, the Theremin was used to produce the oo-ee-oo sound. Since reading Mr. Sander's book I've occasionally had that sound in my head but can't link it to a specific film or TV show. Does anyone of one that used the sound?

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  6. Wikipedia says this:

    "It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device in 1928. The controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas which sense the position of the player's hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude (volume) with the other, so it can be played without being touched.

    While The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" features an instrument that sounds much like a Theremin, in fact the sound is made by an instrument called the Tannerin.[28] Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin used a variation of the theremin (minus the loop) during performances of "Whole Lotta Love".

    Apart from a few episodes where an electric organ or synthesizer was used, the theremin-like sound on the original Star Trek theme was actually provided by renowned studio soprano Loulie Jean Norman until her voice was removed in later seasons."

    "Over the Rainbow" performed on a theremin.

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  7. ok, so I am more confused than ever....

    The existence of the lawsuit establishes that James and Lauren from the Hughes thing are not the James and Lauren who were murdered, correct?

    Lauren Elder in the plane crash may or may not be the same person. Why would anyone suspect her as a Manson Family associate if it were 1976? And what difference would that have made in delaying the rescue?

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  8. This is very interesting stuff..

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  9. considering the timing of Hughes Death, and the fact that the family was pubic at that time.... and very much in the news...

    I would have assumed the cops ran them down at the time and thoroughly checked them out...

    But then again- the police seem to have not been much of a factor back then

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  10. Sunset77,
    Thank you for the information. The oo-ee-oo sound is very familiar to me from somewhere. I'm pretty sure it was used to signify a spooky situation and the things listed in the Wikipedia article don't seem to cover it. I'm thinking something like Abbott and Costello or Lost in Space. It's probably going to drive me nuts if I don't pin it down.

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  11. ll cool j song...

    oooweeeooo ooooo
    oooweeeooo oooo

    "I'm that type of guy"

    Your the type of guy who cant control his girl- you try to buy her love with diamonds and pearls...

    I am the type of guy who comes when you leave...

    Im doing your girlfriend and thats something you cant believe...

    Cause Im that type of guy...

    Owweeeoooo
    oooooohhhhhh


    I am sure that's what you were thinking about :)

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  12. wasn't the theremin featured on an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" in which Dr. Sheldon Cooper is playing it to annoy his friends. He also plays it on thje stairs, and in Penny's apartment

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  13. Here is how the time line and players break down a little more precisely. I get the feeling I’m about to make things more confusing, but that’s really not the intent.

    Lauren Willett leaves home on 30 November 1970:

    Lauren Willett 30 Nov 1970

    Lauren Elder is questioned about Ronald Hughes who Lauren gave a ride to Sespe Springs the Friday after Thanksgiving 1970, which was 27 November 1970:

    Lauren Elder

    James Forsher is also named in the above article, and by inference named in Helter Skelter (page 624):

    Helter Skelter book

    Squeaky, Brenda and ‘Tuffy’ are arrested for the murder of Lauren Willett in Stockton:

    Second Willett Murder in Stockton

    Squeaky is released for lack of evidence while Pitman and Cooper eventually plead guilty and serve around four years (not sure).

    In parallel, Michael Monfort (Nancy Pitman’s boyfriend/ Later husband) is arrested for the murder of James Willett, who was killed the previous month (October 1972) in Guerneville, CA:

    James Willett murder

    James Forsher, who was with Lauren Elder on 26 November 1970, sues Vince Bugliosi for libel and loses:

    Forsher v. Bugliosi

    Finally (so far that is) in 1976 a light plane crashes in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. All survive the initial crash, but the pilot and his girlfriend eventually die from injuries after some hours. The sole survivor is a woman named Lauren Elder (same Lauren? I don’t know). She manages to walk into the tiny desert town of Independence, CA; shoeless, with torn and blood stained clothes, matted hair and I would imagine a little case of delirium to boot. She approaches a business (motel?) and asks for help and is turned away because she might be a Manson girl.

    Lauren Elder Plane Crash

    Now this may seem paranoid on the part of the town's populous since the Manson murders were many years earlier, but the stigma certainly was alive and well to include a little incident which had the nation’s attention a mere seven months earlier.

    Remember This?

    Again, I don’t know if the plane crash Lauren Elder is the same Lauren Elder as the one who gave Ronald Hughes a ride (I don’t think she is). I was more stunned at how a Manson connection could so easily be made with some events which appear to have nothing in common.

    See, I told you I would make things more confusing.

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  14. Ya know- I am sure this wont be a popular opinion...

    but why do these poeple come up so often for discussion???

    do they hold any keys to Cielo, or Waverly???

    Here is the relevant sentence to me in this whole thing...

    "Even though nothing has tied James and Lauren to any Manson activities"...


    that came from this post...

    so why the constant interest in these two?

    its interesting she might have been two poeple, and one of them might have killed shorty, the other survived a plane crash and then they got killed by people who hung out with sandy and squeaky... who were the very people whom they were supposed to belong to the same family with when they were turned away from help after surviving the plane crash....

    actually these people are more interesting than Charlie....

    I take it back

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  15. I think the discussions of James and Lauren is one that is multi-faceted.

    To me, they represent the morass, tar pit and eventually the flaming, sucking, churning, vortex that is the Manson Family which consumes and perverts everything in its path.

    James and Lauren, both sets of them, had nothing to do with murder or any crime, but have been branded potential members of the family in various news outlets and publications.

    The Willetts appear to have suffered from the same condition that Dennis Wilson and George Spahn experienced in that letting these people into your home, even briefly, was akin to an invitation to move in, and getting rid of them was extremely difficult. Did James and Lauren Willett leave LA to escape the family members they befriended? I simply don’t know, but they paid an extremely high price for their miscalculation. For Lauren Willet that occurred 20 days shy of her second year away from home at the age of 19.

    They claimed that Lauren committed suicide, just like Zero. They had a signed ‘Pink Slip’ to James’ car, just like with Hinman’s car. James was killed by multiple people engaging in the murder, just like Shorty’s. Nancy told police that James and Lauren traveled back east, just like Hinman and Shorty. James was buried in a remote location, just like Shorty. And the motive for their murders is just as transient and vacuous as are the ones for Shorty and Hinman. If there was a Manson Family playbook of murder and mayhem, then these events appear to follow the same rough path. But the application of justice appears (to me) to follow something completely different when compared to Cielo and Waverly.

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  16. Hey by the way...

    let me go and hang out with some known killers and biker trash....

    then maybe we can wind up dead...

    any idiot that even considered getting involved with any of these animals AFTER knowing who they really were...

    well- I cant go that far...

    but talk about playing with fire...

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  17. Farflung-

    James and lauren had the benefit of hindsight....


    like anyone who married in jail any of the killers...

    I consider them even worse pond scum for the same reason...

    they had the benefit of knowing better and still made the choice to associate...

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  18. many poeple who got involved with these savages paid a price....

    but the ones who did so after having no excuse for knowing what and who they were really getting involved with...

    may have dug their own graves so to speak....

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  19. it just seems we are asking over and over- who are these poeple...

    I am wondering who cares?

    Zero- Shorty- Gary- all people who ended up dead at the hands of these punks...

    there are probably a few more...

    finding them would be a story...

    but we know who killed these poeple- and we know they weren't really any major part of the family...

    so again...

    whats the big deal about these two?


    there isn't much mystery here we aren't generating ourselves :)

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  20. Dennis/ Spahn and Jacobson and Melcher...

    all of them-

    once they found out who the " family" really were and what they were really all about...

    they wouldn't even discuss them in public...

    these people brought themselves and their child into this madness willingly AFTER KNOWING WHAT THEY WERE CAPABLE OF...

    shame on them....

    I am sorry they were killed....

    but you cant compare them to others who still had no idea what these poeple were really capable of...


    had they not been killed...

    what type of people must these have been???

    who did they chose to live and associate with? would they have been much different than those they CHOSE to live and cohort with???

    I am sorry for his family Zero was killed... but how much did he help himself in life??? did he get himself into the trouble he wound up in???

    Same thing to me with these two

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  21. you go up to Manhattan and start sniffing around the mafia...

    then you think its an exciting life and you start associating with mobsters...

    one day you show up floating in the East river and your parents go to the cops and ask why you weren't protected???

    they dont really have much of a case do they?

    not so sure this is that different...

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  22. But hell anyone who survives a plane crash, kills shorty and then gets buried in a basement in Stockton...

    is worth a little conversation :)

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  23. LOL sorry guys its Friday and I am blasted already...

    here is your blog back

    :)

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  24. Yes thanks for the Squeaky reminder. She should be the patron saint of the militia movement in this country.

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  25. Good points ST. Circumstance, their choice to associate with whatever this crowd was,(don’t think they were bikers) is certainly true, I’m just not sure of the circumstances of the association. Yes, I genuinely believe that if you play with fire, you should not be surprised if you get burned.

    What murders were Pitman, Cooper, Monfort, Goucher and Craig notorious for? I agree, they probably had the social appeal of a sticky bathroom door knob, but am not sure how they would be known as killers in 1972. Look how well Grogan hid his accomplishments and how outraged some are that they were re-published. Plus where is the line one crosses from victim to asking for it? Not being a smart-ass, just trying to get a definition of due diligence, as I believe there is some responsibility associated with protecting one’s self. Although I also don’t see what’s wrong with walking down a dark alley alone, guess I have a love/hate relationship with duplicity.

    Were the Willets trying to escape with their move to Guerneville? Ditch the family members there? Or willingly and obliviously traveling together? I just don’t know the answer.

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  26. oooohhhhhh

    I am sure that's what you were thinking about :)


    Thanks, St.,

    That was a good try, but I've never heard it before
    What's it from?

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  27. I dont know the answers, and my point is - not sure I care or why I should care- what the answer are....

    I am not trying to be argumentative and thanks for putting up with me in my most wasted of states right now( off to the beach for happy hour in a few minutes lol)

    I hear you- it is a fine line between your right to do your own thing versus knowing when to take two steps backwards...

    but if there was ever a case to do so...

    wouldn't it be when you have a baby and your living with people who are involved with the most evil man on earth, and associated with the most heinous vicious crime on Earth??

    That is why I felt the mafia was fair comparison...

    THEY HAD NO QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT THEY WERE GETTING INVOLVED WITH

    the dark alley could still seem or look empty... yeah its a chance- but not the same as if you saw 4 hooded guys with guns trying to hide in the corner- and walked down it anyway...

    enough from me

    before someone else has to tell me

    Im audi

    good luck with all of this...

    Im going to rescue a few more from Scientology...

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  28. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZlxvn_jWgM

    L.L. Cool J

    " Im that type of guy"


    Ciao

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  29. No need to apologise, ST. Patty knows that your interest in the case centers more around learning what really happened. Patty is interested in that too, but is also fascinated by the mythology of the whole thing.

    These people are becoming mythologised, they are an infant Dracula or Marquis de Sade in the making. What is real and what isn't? How and why do humans do this to themselves?
    Things that make you go, hmmmmm.

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  30. Also, does the internet and we the bloggers speed up, or slow down this process? We can share our thoughts on a moment's notice so things can spiral out of control more quickly. But, we also have the benefit of associating with like minded people who are all well read on the subject, learn from them, draw more informed conclusions. Which is it? Patty knows not.

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  31. Patty..

    as always

    graced by your presence and class...

    its a great subject and very interesting...

    I just dont know anything about it

    and am unusually bombed out of my mind

    so my attempts to be funny were unusually bombing as well...

    I wouldn't post so much - if the subject matter didn't move me so....

    and now I really gotta go lol

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  32. I very much appreciate Farf's contribution to the blog and love him for it as well!

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  33. The connection and interest for me is, I do not know the REAL reason of why they were killed, just like the other victims, just ideas and speculation on motives.
    The other poster hit the nail on the head, Maybe they didnt know who they were befriending, by the time they did, it might not have been that easy to get away. Not everyone and their brother would have known about the Manson Family back during that time. Just like nowadays, Numerous people have no idea who Dean Corll or Henry Lee Lucas are. But say the na,e Jefferey Dahmer and they know, Why? they were all sick tortures and murderers

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  34. Patty,

    My experience with the internet began in the 80’s working in R&D. There was a company named ‘Dialog’ that was a coarse search engine for technical data. You were billed by the….. fraction of a second (that’s right, less than 1/60th of a minute), and it was many dollars for the search. You can believe that I wasn’t going to do a search on ‘Cats that look like Hitler’ when I may have to throw down twenty clams. No ma’am.

    I think the internet is an absolute marvel of communications, data exchange and bare, naked progress. But it remains in its infancy the way automobiles were in the 1920’s. We are going from a horse drawn flow if information (ref: US Postal Service financial troubles) to one of speed of light with drivers of various and nefarious skill levels making lane changes and sometimes, going the wrong direction. But what it lacks in sanity, it makes up for in excitement. I bought the ticket, so I’m taking the ride. To nowhere perhaps.

    Sneeze and someone may say ‘god bless you’ as a remnant to medieval beliefs that sickness was caused by demons, and sneezing typically proceeded illness, so have a blessing and chase away those evil spirits. Those dragons and monsters on antique maps were the result of royalty blaming map makers for lost ships and beheading the cowardly cartographers. As a remedy, they would illustrate how monsters would eat a ship should they venture in that area and therefore transferring blame to the crew. Some things never change. In the absence of fact and reason, myth and lore will occupy that space.

    Now that I’m an enlightened and therefore intelligent user of information, I can seek and find the very things which will advance the human race to levels never before experienced:

    The Answer

    In conclusion, bloggers make things better.

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  35. St.
    Thanks for the link. It's not set up for mobile so, I'll have to wait until I can use another computer to play it.

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  36. This was the sort of Theremin segue that I had imagined when I read about Lauren Elder (press play sample):

    ooo weee ooo

    But if I may suggest; this is a nice intro or bumper to the various sections on the Eviliz blog:

    Eviliz’z Theme

    What better way to celebrate Friday the 13th than with some bouncy tune, masterfully played on a Theremin? There simply is none.

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  37. Yes, Eviliz needs some theme music and the instrument of choice should be a Theremin!

    For the other person who was wondering about where he might've heard one, most cheesy 50's science fiction films incorporated the Theremin in the soundtrack. The only film title that I can recall at the moment is, "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

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  38. Hi I'm new here, almost finished reading Helter Skelter and am totally intrigued. Which book would be the next one to read, any suggestions?

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  39. Hi Al, what you should read next greatly depends on your particular interests. What floats yer boat?

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  40. Right now basically the whole lot of it, anything out there detailing the life at Spahn Ranch?

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  41. Patty hopes others will have good suggestions for you. And, while some dislike Ed Sander's The Family, Patty really enjoyed it. Just take it with a grain of salt.

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  42. rfoster1 said...

    For the other person who was wondering about where he might've heard one, most cheesy 50's science fiction films incorporated the Theremin in the soundtrack.


    You're probably right but, can't think of one specific movie with the sound and it's driving me even nuttier than I already am. I'm thinking I might have heard it on the Halloween issue of a sit-com or maybe even a comical western.

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  43. Great post and response Farflung. And you did make things more confusing, sortof. lol

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  44. Chance and coincidence. Like in the JFK saga, there are hundreds of theories based on what just might be coincidence - like Lee Harvey's uncle being in the New Orleans Mafia. You can base a whole theory on that fact even though it most probably is just coincidence.
    Liz or Matt should award a "poster of the month" award and I certainly would nominate Farflung. His stuff is always interesting.
    And of course any thread where the delicious Patty weighs in is a treat.

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  45. I wanted to share this with you guys. This is off topic, but I posted it over on the other site and I think it is a great quote worth pondering in relation to TLB.

    This quote comes from the young wife of Jon Roberts, nee Riccobonno, who was born into the Mafia, trained as an assassin in Vietnam and then rose to be one of the two top Americans in the Medillin Cartel. It is from a great book called "American Desperado".

    "I adore Jon. But the day I met him he touched me and my body went numb, because his energy is black. Jon is not human. I love him, but I live as a prisoner. I cannot leave him because his evil is magnetic."

    That is a great fucking quote. It says so much. And as we often ponder how Manson got so many under his spell, it is worthwhile to try and understand the 'magneticness of evil".
    Sorry, off topic, but worth contemplating.

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  46. Ah. My Favorite blogger Patty left me with a huge smile again giving thumbs up to Ed Sanders the Family whether it's part fiction or not my opinion it's a page Turner that had me sleeping with the ole 44 even closer then my nightstand for awhile. Also try finding original edition before the chapter on the Process was removed spooky shit.

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  47. After reading this, I bought the book - "And I alone survived"...quite dramatic, some relative things such as she attended UCLA and graduated in 1969, her "companion's" name was Jim F, but not Forshner..she drove a Karmen Ghia, which we used to consider an expensive Volkswagon...her father was a war pilot and worked for Northrup and they lived in the Palisades, but she was much older, 27 when this happened in the early 70's so that threw me off.

    Have never seen the police report on this, only what's said in HS stating both her and Forshner were 17 at the time of Hughes death. Can we verify this?

    I remember the made for TV movie about this... haven't seen it in over 30 years and only the trailer is on Youtube. Might be her, but nothing noted in the book regarding the Sespe Canyon incident nor her time spent in LA.

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  48. Kimchi, care to do a book review of "And I alone survived"?

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  49. The reason Lauren Elder (from the plane crash) had trouble getting medical assistance when she stumbled out of the mountains into Independence, CA was due to a recent court trial of Charles Manson. He must have been answering to charges filed from Barker Ranch raid perhaps, in Inyo County? Anyway, there were some Manson girls hanging around in the area and the residents were wary of "rough" looking girls at the time and you can imagine how she looked after her ordeal.

    I do find the conclusion that Lauren is an uncommon name. If this Lauren Elder is indeed different from the one who accompanied Ron Hughes to the hot springs, that makes at least three different Lauren Elders in the state of California because there is also another artist named Lauren Elder born in 1990 with a Wiki page too.

    Mind boggling.

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