Monday, September 26, 2016

Approaching 3301 Waverly Drive

Recently I was reading the First Homicide Investigation Progress Reports for both the Cielo and Waverly Drives homicides and I got interested in the layouts of the crime scenes and what those layouts can tell us. 

I would take any opportunity to visit a location associated with a crime I am interested in, and all the more so to the precise locations where the crimes actually happened. But except for the place where Donald “Shorty” Shea was killed near Spahn’s Ranch in late August of 1969 I’ve never been to any of the pinpoint murder locations associated with TLB. (Of course, I’ve been outside all of the places.)

I first went up to the gate at Cielo Drive in 1978. Back then it was the same gate setup as was there on the night of the murders. You could look onto the property and see the corner of the garage. Sometime in the mid-’80s that puny security arrangement was replaced with something more substantial. 

In the early ’90s I was there again with some friends. One of them decided to see if we could get in, so he rang the buzzer. After a minute or so the gate (the big, new one) slowly opened and an attractive younger woman asked what we wanted. When my friend explained that I was a crime writer and wanted to see the property she was polite and friendly but turned down our entry request. 

Of course now there’s nothing to see on that property, its fate being well known. 

Aerial view of 10051 Cielo Drive in 1969

Google Maps view of the current Cielo property (Note the house on the hill to the left in both pictures.)

(I think that somebody should build an exact full-scale replica of the 1969 Cielo Drive property with everything — house, guest house, garage, pool, wishing well, lights on the fence — everything — so that students of the crime can go there and study it. Maybe in a cornfield in Iowa? Build it and they will come.)

The former LaBianca residence, on the other hand, is a different matter. The LaBianca property on Waverly Drive has likewise had a lot of work done to it, but the house, garage, and driveway areas remain largely unchanged. 

The LaBianca residence the morning after the murders there. The LaBianca’s boat is still on the trailer behind their car parked on the street to the west of the property. 

Google Maps view of the LaBianca house today

But a glance at these two above images makes it clear that much work has been done to the front and east side yards of the lot. In front a carport and additional driveway and parking area have been added. And to the east a swimming pool fills the area that used to be the side yard between the house and the property next door that was at one time occupied by Harold True.

There is general agreement regarding what happened immediately after the car from Spahn’s Ranch arrived at Waverly Drive late in the night of August 9-10, 1969: Charles Manson got out of the car and went up the curved driveway to Harold True’s house before cutting over west to the LaBianca house.This scenario is courtesy of star prosecution witness Linda Kasabian and is corroborated by Charles Manson himself. 

At the murder trial Kasabian recalled that after their car parked in front of the LaBianca house she asked Manson, “Charlie, you’re not going into that house, are you?”

“He said, ‘No, I’m going next door.’ 

“He got out of the car. He disappeared up the walkway, the driveway, leading towards Harold’s house, and I couldn’t follow him any longer, he just disappeared.”  (From Linda Kasabian’s trial testimony as recounted in Witness to Evil by George Bishop, page 165)

Manson agreed to this version of events in a telephone call to me in 1998:

“And I went to see Harold [True]. Harold wasn’t there, and I looked over and I seen a light over on the other side, and I walked over there and there was a little dog there. So I patted the dog on the head and I opened the door and there was a dude sitting on the couch. 

“And when I walked in, I said, ‘Oh, hey. Hi.’

“He said, ‘Hi.’

“I said, ‘I didn’t know anybody lived here.’ 

“He said, ‘Oh yeah, we moved in here last week,’ or something like that. ‘Da da da….’

“Tex was — he come in behind me. And me and guy got into a conversation, ‘Wah-wah-wah, roo-roo-roo,’ and I said, ‘Well, you know, I gotta go.’ 

“And then Tex moved in and started talking to him. And I walked on out.

“It didn’t have a fucking thing to do with me.”

Further along in her testimony Kasabian indirectly corroborates Manson’s version of what he did at the two Waverly Drive properties (i.e., check out Harold True’s house and then briefly enter and exit the LaBianca house before coming back to the car) when she was asked, “How long after he left the car did he return to the car?”

Kasabian answered, “I remember we all lit up cigarettes, and we smoked about three-quarters of a Pall Mall cigarette, however long that takes.” (Witness To Evil, page 165.)

That would probably take about five minutes, tops, just enough time for Manson to do what he said he did, but certainly not enough time for him to have done all the things that Charles "Tex" Watson later said he did inside the LaBianca house (got the drop on Leno LaBianca, reassured him, had Watson tie him up, asked about other people in the house, disappeared “for a minute or two” before bringing Rosemary LaBianca into the living room, conversed with the couple, waited with the couple while Watson looked around the house for money, took Rosemary LaBianca back into the bedroom, returned to the living room to bind, gag, and pillowcase Leno LaBianca, went back into the bedroom and did the same to Rosemary, and then finally left the house — See Will You Die For Me?, pages 147-148).

So, by examining a crime scene, even after almost fifty years, one can still gain new insights into what might have happened there. In this case, combining the evident walking distances involved and the time frame established by Linda Kasabian’s Pall Mall, a fair and reasonable person might come to the conclusion that Charles Manson was telling the truth about what he did after he arrived at Waverly Drive on August 9-10, 1969.

The LaBianca house from Helter Skelter

Closeup of side yards of the LaBianca and True houses, showing the side entrance area of the latter directly across the side yard from the east side of the LaBianca residence.

View of the LaBianca house from the east (True house) side

Diagram of the LaBianca house (courtesy of Cielodrive.com

This present day Google Maps view of the LaBianca and True residences shows that a small building has been constructed in the area that was formerly the western entrance to the True house. 


The former Polanski residence on Cielo Drive is long gone, but the LaBianca house and grounds have survived mostly intact. An examination of this latter property would no doubt prove very enlightening to any student of TLB. The MF Blog tried to gain access to the house as part of their 2016 tour but they were unable to do so. Maybe one solution would be to buy the house. Unfortunately, however, it’s not currently on the market. And in any case, it would take almost two million dollars to close the deal. 

Zillow listing for Waverly Drive house (The address was changed in an effort 
to detract from the notoriety of the house.)


I wonder what would be a better deal — buying the house or building an exact replica in Iowa?







Saturday, September 24, 2016

Orrin Monfort Arrested Again

Orrin Monfort, Nancy Pitman and Michael Monfort's youngest son, was arrested yesterday for threatening to kill a 16 year old girl while trying to take her bicycle.  Orrin has a long criminal record dating back 10 years.  He is currently living in Albany Oregon.


You can read the latest article HERE

Nancy Pitman and Michael Monfort were married January 27, 1976.  It was a jailhouse wedding.  All three of their sons were conceived during conjugal visits in prison.  Orrin was born in Napa CA just days after Michael was released from prison, May 4, 1984, for the murders of James Willett in Guerneville CA and Lauren Willett in Stockton CA in late 1972.

Michael Monfort died in prison while serving an 800+ year sentence, July 3, 2005.

There are two previous articles, with video, about the incident involving Orrin Monfort at these links.

http://katu.com/news/local/police-looking-for-man-trying-to-take-girls-bike-outside-albany-store

http://katu.com/news/local/officials-arrest-man-accused-of-threatening-16-year-old-girls-life-in-bike-theft





Monday, September 19, 2016

Charlie, the Black Muslims, and ZEBRA

"Helter Skelter" is the name of the official motive for the Tate/LaBianca murders.  They were supposed to kick off a race war in which Charlie and his Family would eventually emerge on top.  Those who believe in the "Helter Skelter" theory of motive have questioned where he got this bizarre theory.  Researchers have pointed to the Book of Revelation, Scientology, the Process Church of the Final Judgement, and the Beatles' "White Album."






But another probable influence long overlooked is the ideology of the Black Muslims, aka "The Nation of Islam(NOI)." Their apocalyptic outlook was very similar to Manson's:

    ".... the, primary beliefs of the Black Muslims... were that the black man was morally and culturally superior, and was destined to rule the earth. The sect...  preached that the white race was conceived of devils whose time to reign was coming to an end. It encouraged the reclamation of fallen blacks... through the study of their true history, through striving for economic independence, and by preparation for the Battle of Armageddon which they believed would be the final struggle between good and evil, black and white."
   From Zebra: The True Account of 179 Days of Terror in San Francisco, by author Clark Howard


"the black man was.... destined, to rule the earth"
Charlie said the blacks would emerge victorious in the race war.


"..the white race ... time to reign was coming to an end."
Charlie said the karma was turning, and that blacks would rise up.


" ...preparation for the Battle of Armageddon, which they believed would be the final struggle between... black and white."
Exactly as Charlie prophesied, while the Family hid out in those underground caverns in the desert somewhere.

And almost certainly, Charlie would have had contact with the NOI in the prisons.

http://www.earcandymag.com/deathtopigsmansongang-0612.htm
The subject of the Black Muslim is brought up several times by Paul Watkins(Family member), Sandra Good(Family member) and Phil Phillips (Charlie's cell mate at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary).

In Chapter 10 of the Paul Watkins autobiography, My Life with Charles Manson, Manson is quoted as follows: "The heavy dudes, though, are the [Black] Muslims. ...they'll be the ones who bring the shit down. Yeah, it's gonna come down hard... a full-on war."

Curiously, neither of the two standard books about the Family--Vince Bugliosi's Helter Skelter and Ed Sanders' The Family--mentions the NOI link. An oversight, or did someone not want the obvious connections to be made?





And that might be the end of it; 'it' being no more than a passing resemblance to the apocalyptic beliefs of another cult that Charlie had some slight contact with--one influence among many.  Except for one curious fact.  That (depending on how you look at it)  Helter Skelter actually DID happen, in the form of a nation-wide black-on-white homicide spree known as the ZEBRA killings, in which the suspects or perpetrators were all Black Muslims.

Specifically, Zebra refers to a series of about 20 black-on-white attacks that occurred in San Francisco from October 1973 to April 1974, leaving 15 killed and 8 wounded. It turned out the killers were a cult--the "Death Angels"--operating within the Nation of Islam mosque in San Francisco, involving about eight men. Though only four would go to prison.  Their philosophy was bizarre: to get to heaven they had to kill a certain number of whites--women and children counting for more than men--before they could earn their 'wings.' They also seemed to have been led by charismatic leaders who came out from the main NOI headquarters mosque in Chicago.



What is not well known, however, is that the spree began much earlier, when police started noticing that there were many unsolved crimes with the same MO:  one or more well-dressed and groomed black men attacking whites without any apparent motive.  Exactly how many victims there were is still disputed.

From the book "Zebra: The True Account of 179 Days of Terror in San Francisco" by Clark Howard:

"...determined to calm the fear and put a stop to the killings, Joseph Alioto held a press conference to lay out what he believed he knew about Zebra. ... he laid out a huge collection of speculative intelligence, claiming that more than eighty killings across the state going back to 1971 could be linked to Zebra, and implying that those responsible for all the crimes might be tied to the Nation of Islam."

"This was October of 1973. The California attorney general’s office had already secretly compiled a list of forty-five of those killings which had taken place in the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Long Beach, Signal Hill, Santa Barbara, Palo Alto, Pacifica, San Diego, and Los Angeles; and in the counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Contra Costa, Ventura, and Alameda. All the victims were white. All the known suspects in the killings had been associated with the Black Muslim movement. The killings were even then continuing throughout the state."

http://openjurist.org/710/f2d/868/national-alliance-v-united-states-national-alliance
San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto's figure of 75 execution-style murders of White persons by Black killers in California since 1971 has been expanded to approximately 400 by adding figures for similar killings with an apparent racial motive in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Police officials who added the unsolved killings in the six Midwestern states to those in California went as far back as 1969.

There were enough clues that the spree had been planned for years:

http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5288&context=jclc
1965 report on 'Black Muslims and the Police,' pg2of9
The Muslims claim that they will overcome without violence or torture, but there will be complete annihilation of the white man. The tentative date set for this annihilation is 1970.


Some of the other killings thought to be Zebra killings:


EAST BAY

Oakland-Berkeley slashers

https://mindcontrolblackassassins.com/2011/01/19/from-the-gregory-files-black-manchurian-candidates-the-enigma-of-billy-mapp-the-zebra-murders-al-constran/
 Two black men had been randomly shooting and attacking whites with machetes in Oakland and Berkeley beginning September 14, 1970 and lasting a year.  14 separate attacks leave 15 victims dead or wounded.


LOS ANGELES

According to this website,

https://mindcontrolblackassassins.com/2011/01/19/from-the-gregory-files-black-manchurian-candidates-the-enigma-of-billy-mapp-the-zebra-murders-al-constran/

there were at least seven people wounded or killed in the LA area in attacks that fit the Zebra profile, commencing in June of '71 and lasting for one year.


CHICAGO

Eight blacks involved in two mass slayings of family members and others, from August to October of 1972, leaving at least nine victims dead..  They called themselves "De Mau Mau."
The killers were not themselves Muslim, but the group was founded by an ex-bodyguard to Malcolm X, Charles 37X Morris.


OKLAHOMA CITY

June 1973 to October 1974
Radical Black Muslims headquartered in Oklahoma City suspected in a series of black-on-white crimes, including at least six unsolved slayings, three shootings, two abductions and a dozen arson fires. One member arrested and convicted.


SACRAMENTO

April 1974 Sacramento shotgun murders

Four young Black Muslims kill two and wound two in separate attacks.

http://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-nation-of-islams-sacramento-murders.html
..both (perps)Lang and Pratt "eventually expressed deep remorse to parole commissioners, telling them the killings around the state were coordinated by Muslim elders."
Pratt told the parole board: "It definitely was a racial crime..... This was constantly taught at the time. We had books on it, little pamphlets. This is what I see now as part of the brainwashing effect."





It is probably not a coincidence that the end of the killing spree more or less coincided with the natural death of the leader of the NOI, Elijah Muhammad, in early 1975.  His son, who succeeded him, quickly told his congregation to cool the anti-white rhetoric.

Certainly what was written about the NOI back in 1932, in the beginning, could just as easily have been written about the Manson Clan in 1969:

Detroit Free Press, 11-24-32
Detectives Wednesday expressed themselves as convinced that the cult had been conceived by a... religious fakir for personal gain and nurtured by a group of zealots whose reason had become unbalanced.   ...  Police believe these men are mad leaders who deluded the cult's members into homicidal tendencies.

Detroit Free Press, 11-28-32
There is a feeling of pity on our part for those who have so grievously been misled.  We offer our co-operation to help them by freeing them of their unfortunate leadership and making impossible a repetition of so horrible a crime*.  ... Detectives and others assigned to the case said that they would continue their investigation until the cult is stamped out.
*referring to a sacrificial murder committed by one of the group.


There were other curious links and similarities with the Black Muslims:

W.C. Fard Muhammad (founder of the NOI in the early 1930s)



http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/mystery-man/Content?oid=2175649
...Fard emphasized contempt for the white race, whom he called “cavemen” or “white devils.”

So was it just coincidence that Charlie wanted his band to hide out in the caves until Helter Skelter was over?

---------

                                                   Elijah Muhammad


Note the parallels in belief and language:

http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5288&context=jclc
1965 report on 'Black Muslims and the Police,' pg3of9
--Elijah Muhammad: "We believe that intermarriage or race mixing should be prohibited."
--Malcolm X, on the black Muslim: "He's cleaning up the mess that white men have made."

--------

After the 1932 murder, Fard claimed to be a divine figure in police interviews:

https://2ndphilolog.wordpress.com/nation-of-islam/
Master Fard Muhammad, who is still considered to be “Allah” by modern-day Nation of Islam members, was described as “suffering from delusions that he is a divinity.”

Of course Charlie also liked to imply he was Christ.

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

Fard preached an end-of-the-world scenario, like Manson:

http://www.conspiracyschool.com/sites/default/files/master_fards_deceptions_and_doctrines.pdf
Only 144,000 people would survive, and all of those would be Muslims of color, the only “true” Muslims.

(Though the NOI probably got this from the Jehovah's Witnesses, whom they have acknowledged as an influence.)

-----------

Another commonality that has intrigued me is the use of the "X" symbol by both groups.

The members of the NOI often dropped their 'slave names' and substituted an X to stand for their original, forgotten African names, for example: Malcolm X, Louis X, Clarence 13X, Joseph X Polite, Charles 37X Morris, etc.

And of course we know that Charlie and his followers burned an X into their foreheads during the trial, to show that they were "Xing"(removing) themselves out of society.

 Charlie X?
murders


Sadie X?











----------

Interview with Paul Crockett on Oct 3, 1969

https://youtu.be/IEVv9nqtZXQ
Part 1, at the 21:00 mark:
"....So, all of these things he(Manson) .... says the black man is getting ready to blow the whole thing open, that he talks to them, that they know him, that they tell him these things...."

 Crockett












Crockett implies that the links between the Black Muslims and Manson was much closer than thought.  Is it evidence that Charlie, in fact, may have had contact with them after his release from prison in the spring of '67?  Or is Charlie just embellishing?

-----------

Here's Mommy, but where's Daddy's pic?

In his book, Vince Bugliosi asks Charlie at one point if he is part black, based on info from records relating to Manson's time at the National Training School for Boys, Washington, D.C. in 1951.

Helter Skelter, Vince Bugliosi, pg555
"Father: unknown. He is alleged to have been a colored cook by the name of Scott, with whom the boy's mother had been promiscuous at the time of pregnancy."

Charlie denied it, but Bugliosi had asked the wrong question.  In the US back in the '30s, 'colored' could mean anybody who had a darker skin tone, including people from Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, etc.

IF Charlie was of mixed race, he may have played this up to win the confidence of the NOI in the prisons.  Certainly by their own rules Charlie might have qualified as a brother:

https://archive.org/stream/blackmuslimsinam030743mbp/blackmuslimsinam030743mbp_djvu.txt
The Muslims consider all non-whites to be Black Men, whatever their skin color.


There were a couple of behind-the-scenes events that occurred while Charlie was incarcerated at the McNeil Island Federal prison in Washington state from mid-1961 to mid-1966. They very well may have influenced his relationship with the Black Muslims.   The first was that the Bureau of Prisons(BOP) started adapting new tactics in their handling of hard-to-handle inmates.

McNeil Island


http://realcostofprisons.org/materials/Resisting_Living_Death_Gomez.pdf
...the 1961 gathering titled “The Power to Change Behavior: A Symposium Presented by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons” as a key moment in the politicization of institutionalized brainwashing, behavior modification, and torture within the prison regime. The result was a national directive to experiment with these techniques, originally used against American POWs in Korea, on the black Muslim prison population.  ... these techniques constituted a prison-based, Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO)– like set of tactics that included surveillance, infiltration, and disruption. ...
     At the same time(early 60s), there were two formidable forces from the Left struggling against the decrepit conditions and racial violence inside prisons. Black Muslims and writ writers, also known as jailhouse lawyers, helped propel this shift.

Well Charlie liked to associate with the troublemakers, according to his records.  And according to the BOP the two most troublesome groups were the Black Muslims and the jailhouse lawyers--who liked to file a lot of lawsuits against the prisons and helped others file lawsuits.  One of Charlie's close associates at McNeil was Lanier “Red” Ramer, who was transferred to the much tougher prison at Marion, Ill, in 1972 for his 'writ writing.'   The point is that Charlie very well could have been caught up in this covert struggle between the prison administrators and the inmate agitators.   It would have been natural for the guards to try to recruit Charlie as an informant on these groups.  And if they succeeded in getting Charlie to snitch on the NOI in prison, they might have wanted him to do the same outside of prison.*  Is that why the cops and his probation officer ignored Charlie's criminal activities?  I've always suspected that the cops had an informant who was close to the family.  Well maybe it was Charlie himself.

*Though real evidence of any contacts between Charlie and any black person is mostly non-existent after he was released from TI in '67.  But it must also be remembered that Charlie didn't spend all of his time with the family--he reportedly kept up contact with his non-family associates during periodic visits by himself to Hollywood.


The other development was revealed by ex-NOI Malcolm X in this 1965 speech:

https://youtu.be/TFr4GACTGX4
Malcolm X 1965 speech
"I mentioned the conspiracy between the Muslims and the right wing in this country. I know for a fact there is a conspiracy between the Muslim and the Lincoln Rockwell nazi and also the Ku Klux Klan. There is a conspiracy. ... The Ku Klux Klan made a deal, or were trying to make a deal, with Elijah Muhammad(leader of the NOI at that time)...." [Malcolm then explains that the NOI were thereafter free to operate in the south without hindrance from the Klan, and that the Klan was free to operate without interference by the Black Muslims.]

 Malcolm X
 









Charlie was known for his chameleon-like ability to ingratiate himself with any person or group.  Did this hidden peace treaty between the white and black segregationists filter down to the prison system, and did it pave the way for Charlie to get close to elements within the NOI? 


If ever there was a crime that warranted federal involvement, it would have been this interstate crime spree by the Black Muslims.  But in this instance, the FBI was nowhere to be found.  Though there is evidence that the feds knew what they were dealing with:

https://violenceagainstwhites.wordpress.com/zebra/
NOI also murdered whites in Oklahoma City and New York City, and an old San Francisco copper who worked the original Zebra detail told me that at the time he saw a secret FBI memo that reported that a parallel campaign was underway on the East Coast.

The investigation by the San Francisco PD was hindered, it is said, because they had no black undercovers that could have infiltrated the mosque of the NOI in that city.  But this is somewhat disingenuous, as the Black Muslims had been an intensive target of FBI surveillance for many years.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/COINTELPRO-FBI.docs.html
From official FBI COINTELPRO documents: A March 4, 1968 communique
sent out by J. Edgar Hoover ... specifically identified Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam as primary targets of COINTELPRO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
Amidst the urban unrest of July–August 1967, the FBI began "COINTELPRO–BLACK HATE", which focused on King and the SCLC as well as .... the Nation of Islam.

                                                        The Director, J. Edgar Hoover



https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/82420.pdf
--pg37of313
On May 3, 1974 Alioto flew off to Washington to share his information on the Death Angels with (U.S.)Attorney General Saxbe ...Saxbe was very cool to Alioto. He treated the mayor as he would any other large city mayor but with little interest in the supposed nation-wide murder plot Alioto had discovered.

SF Mayor Alioto:

What can explain the lack of interest by the Feds?  Fear of being politically incorrect in that racially charged era?  Or did they want to see the violence continue to demonize black political movements?

The  Attorney General of the United States and head of the Justice Department, William B. "Bill" Saxbe


 "When people talk about Zebra, it's usually as a serial killing. That may be technically true, but the most accurate description of what Zebra was is terrorism, plain and simple."
   --Co-author Earl Sanders in "The Zebra Murders"


https://mindcontrolblackassassins.com/2011/01/19/from-the-gregory-files-black-manchurian-candidates-the-enigma-of-billy-mapp-the-zebra-murders-al-constran/
The machete attacks as well as the Zebra Murders were operational (FBI-COINTELPRO-CIA-Project CHAOS) criminal counterintelligence actions... to destroy, disrupt and discredit Black Nationalism and polarize the races...

But if the Zebra killings, with their obvious similarities to Helter Skelter, were part of Operation Chaos, what does that mean for our understanding of Charles Manson's murders?





Monday, September 12, 2016

A Documentary That Keeps on Giving

The New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles decided to program MANSON the award winning documentary by Robert Hendrickson on August 9, 2016, the Anniversary of these terrible murders that we all desperately study for answers. While seemingly an obvious idea, this was the first time anyone had done this and it was quite the event. The Col and his supermodel wife decided to attend and support Robert and his amazing wife Tobyann, having not seen their lovely faces in all that time. Max Frost, that astounding scholar of Mansonalia, also joined in the evening's events.

The Theatre owner, superstar director Quentin Tarantino had done the programming and it was kind of ingenious. Thanks to the, ahem, foibles of Robert, this film is almost never revived and is only available on homemade DVDS direct from the Hendrickson Estate. It was Tarantino's idea to book on that date. He intended to double feature it with a piece of shit film known as THE HELTER SKELTER MURDERS (bootlegs always available from Jon Aes-Nihil Enterprises for $24.99) but Robert was smart enough to hold out and say hell to the no. This let to MANSON being shown twice that evening- and selling out BOTH times. The primarily young and hipster audience lined up around the block for both showings and it was joyful to watch them embrace Robert as the talented filmmaker he is.

Tarantino sent a car for the Hendricksons to bring them to LA and we met them at El Coyote, where legend has it the Tate victims had their last meal (unlikely), where Matt and crew met Hendrickson lo these many years ago and where the food is meh and the margaritas too small. Col, Supermodel Wife and Max Frost were so happy to see Tobyann and Robert and it was nice to catch up and exchange war stories from the last few years. Several ideas were bandied about that IF They lead somewhere could be amazing.

Tobyann and Col's Wife. Robert holds court


Then it was over to the Theatre. The Marquee was a lovely touch

We arrived with 12 minutes left on the film. The Family was singing "Always is Always Forever" and walking down the dirt road at Spahn. Amazing to watch with a sold out crowd riveted at the screen. Even more impressive, since the 35 mm print (Tarantino is obsessed with "film") was faded and pink. Seriously, the DVD Robert sells is 100 times better quality. Then the man of the hour took the stage.


Robert is a great chat in person, a bit scattered on the blog but he was a fucking ROCK STAR in front of the crowd. He did a great job with about 30 minutes of questions. Some of the questions were even interesting. Tarantino asked a very smart question about Manson's culpability for the main 7 murders. Robert talked about Black Muslims and Merrick and there were a LOT more questions that went unaddressed. Leave them wanting more indeed.

Listen  to the Q&A session:



I checked out the audience and it was mostly young hipsters like I said. When we left the 10:30 show was the same type of audience. Quentin and the Col were probably the oldest people there after the Hendricksons. The usual crowd of experts like Adam Parfrey, counter culture groupies like Brian Butler and authors writing books for 17 years like Tom O'Neill were no where to be seen. (To be fair, O'Neill is in the middle of setting up a nationwide chain of Karate schools with Karate Dave using the teachings of Manson and Bruce Lee combined)



All in all an amazing evening a great event. All Hail ROBERT HENDRICKSON!!1


(apologies to all for the delay in this report, been busy blowing shit up)






Friday, September 9, 2016

L.A. Cops Search for Two in 1969 Unsolved Murder of Reet Jurvetson, Say No Charles Manson Connection

Police are searching for two men named Jean in connection with the murder of Reet Jurvetson
Los Angeles Police Department
By Christine Pelisek @chrispelisek

09/08/2016 AT 02:45 PM EDT

In the fall of 1969, 19-year-old Montreal native Reet Jurvetson flew to L.A. to visit a man named Jean she had met before in a coffee shop in Canada.

"She was enamored," retired LAPD cold case detective Cliff Shepard tells PEOPLE. "She thought he looked like Jim Morrison of the Doors."

The brunette beauty sent her family a postcard.

It read:"Dear Mother and Father, the weather is nice and the people are kind. I have a nice little apartment. I go frequently to the beach. Please write to me, Hugs, Reet"

The postcard was dated October 31. Sixteen days later, Jurvetson's body was found tangled in dense brush off of Los Angeles' scenic Mulholland Drive. She had been stabbed in the neck 150 times in what detectives believe was a "rage" killing.

But, because detectives found no identification on her, the identity of Jurvetson, she became known as Jane Doe #59, remained a mystery for 46 years until last April, when DNA from her bloody bra matched her sister.

Since then, Los Angeles Police Department detectives have been trying to solve her murder.

In July, LAPD detectives Lou Rivera and Veronica Conrado flew to Montreal to interview a witness who met Jean and Jurvetson at the Caf̩ Image all those years ago. The man was able to provide detectives with a sketch of Jean. Detectives also learned that Jean was known to hang around with another male Рalso named Jean Рwho was shorter than his friend and wore a bowl haircut in the style of the Beatles.

"They might have been sharing an apartment in Los Angeles," says Shepard. "They or he might have been the last ones to see her."

Reet Jurvetson LAPD

Recently, a friend of Jervetson’s told CBC News' investigative program, The Fifth Estate that she came across Jean's friend in Montreal in the spring of 1970.

"And I went right up to him and started talking to him, and I was asking him about Reet," the friend, Gilda Green, said. "And he said, 'Oh yeah, she was with us for a couple of weeks and then she left on her own and everything's fine, she was happy.'"

Green told The Fifth Estate that Jean's friend had no idea what happened to Jurvetson after her Los Angeles trip.

Green said Jean's friend was around five-foot-six-inches, with black hair, blue eyes and a French accent.

Jean, the man Jurvetson met in the coffee shop and flew to Los Angeles to visit, was described as more than five-feet-nine inches in height, with brown eyes and long feathered hair.

On August 20, Jurvetson's sister Anne gave detectives a possible clue. The postcard from Jurvetson to her parents, dated October 31, 1969, had a return address. But detectives soon discovered that the apartment complex, once called the Paramount Hotel, on Melrose Avenue was demolished in 1989.

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LAPD Says No Connection to Manson Family

Jane Doe 59's murder – just three months after actress Sharon Tate and several others had been viciously stabbed to death by the Manson Family a few miles away – fueled speculation that she could be connected to Charles Manson and his followers.

At the time, Ruby Pearl, a caretaker at Spahn Ranch, the notorious Manson Family hangout, told police that Jurvetson resembled a hippie named Sherry from Simi Valley who hung out at the ranch.

Later, in his 1974 book Helter Skelter Vincent Bugliosi suggested that Jane Doe #59 may have been present at the death of suspected Manson family victim John "Zero" Haught and "killed so she wouldn't talk." (Haught, whose death was reportedly declared a suicide, died of a gunshot wound to the head on November 5, 1969. Manson family members were reportedly present when the shooting occurred.)

However, the CBC reports that the LAPD said there is no evidence supporting a possible link to the Manson Family.

Back then, police also investigated if Jane Doe 59's murder was linked to the November 23, 1969 killings of James Sharp, 15, and 19-year-old Doreen Gaul. The young Scientologists were found brutally stabbed and beaten in a downtown Los Angeles alley, one week after Jurvetson was discovered.

The wounds on Gaul, Sharpe and Jurvetson, looked like the work of a "fanatic," LAPD Det. Lt. Earl A. Deemer told the Los Angeles Times at the time.

Detectives also looked into whether Jurvetson's murder was linked to the slaying of 17-year-old Marina Habe, who was abducted outside her West Hollywood home January 1, 1969.

Habe's body was found at the bottom of a ravine off Mulholland Drive, less than a half mile from where Jurvetson was discovered. Habe, like Jurvetson, reportedly had multiple stab wounds to the neck.

Today, detectives believe their best lead is Jean.

"He is the best lead we have," LAPD lead investigator Lou Rivera told PEOPLE in an earlier interview. "No one deserves what happened to her. Someone might be out there who is responsible and it is our job to find out who it is and bring them to justice if we can."

Anyone with information about the murder of Jurvetson is urged to contact LAPD's cold case unit at 213-486-6810.





Monday, September 5, 2016

Bruce Davis answers to being the Zodiac Killer

Was Stephen Kay the Zodiac Killer?  Was Carl Wilson the Zodiac Killer?  Bruce Davis says he's NOT the Zodiac Killer! This is part of a letter that someone sent Bruce with a page summing up the accusations that were made about him by Bill Nelson and Howard Davis.  Bruce has underlined portions (a la Bill Nelson) and made notes in the margins and then sent the page back to the sender.

So much for Nelson and Howard Davis's claim that Bruce would not address the issue. This letter was written 10 years ago.








Thursday, September 1, 2016

Beach Boy Mike Love alleges bandmate watched Charles Manson carry out murder

By Nicole Bitette - New York Daily News

 The Beach Boys in 1964. From left, Dennis Wilson, Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine and Carl Wilson. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

One of the Beach Boys claimed to have witnessed Charles Manson commit a murder.

The group's co-founder Mike Love, 75, revealed in his new memoir "Good Vibrations" that bandmate Dennis Wilson claimed to have witnessed Charles Manson commit a murder in 1969, People reported.

The singer recounted the shocking friendship between convicted killer Manson and Wilson, who allegedly watched the murderer shoot a man right before his eyes, according to a chapter from the book obtained by People.

"I just saw Charlie take his M16 and blow this black cat [man] in half and stuff him down the well," Wilson allegedly told Love.

Charles Manson is escorted to and from Los Angeles Court Dec. 11, 1969 for arraignment on conspiracy murder charges in connection with the slayings of actress Sharon Tate and seven others. (FILE/AP)
The gruesome tale surfaced after Wilson spent some time at Spahn Ranch in the summer of 1969, the property where the Manson and his followers lived. Wilson had shown up to his brother Brian's studio that August appearing "visibly shaken," according to Love.

Manson was a singer-songwriter who knew the Beach Boy's drummer because they ran in a close circle in the L.A. music industry.

A retired Los Angeles County prosecutor who worked on the case denounced the book's claims, noting the Beach Boy's recollection of events don't add up.

"I've prosecuted four Tate-LaBianca murder trials and attended sixty parole hearings [of Manson family members] and I've never heard that story before," Stephen Kay told People. "If it was true, I would have heard it before."

Only one body was ever discovered on the property. Skeletal remains of a ranch hand named Donald "Shorty" Shea was found in 1977.

"I don't remember there actually being a well on the property," Kay told the mag. "And if there was one, I doubt they would have thrown a body down there. They would have buried him like they did Shorty."



The events left Dennis — who notably abused alcohol and drugs over the years — crippled in fear, according to Love.

"Dennis was too frightened to go to the police," Wilson writes. "I think he was just hoping that Manson and his family would disappear."

 Wilson died in 1983 when he was just 39 years old. He was discovered in the waters off Marina del Rey after drunkenly diving in the frigid surf. Love believed his bandmate was never able to rid of his guilt for being so close to the horrific crimes.

"Dennis carried that guilt with him for the last 14 years of his life," Love said.

Manson was convicted of conspiring to commit seven murders in 1971, including that of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. The 81-year-old is serving nine consecutive life sentences at Corcoran State Prison in Corcoran, Ca.


Thanks to Joe Col for the tip!