Armageddon was imminent.
_____
A year later Vincent Bugliosi described Helter Skelter during his opening statement:
“The evidence will show that one of Manson’s principal
motives for these seven savage murders was to ignite Helter Skelter; in other
words, start the black-white revolution by making it look as though the black
man had murdered these seven Caucasian victims. In his twisted mind, he thought
this would cause the white community to turn against the black community,
ultimately leading to a civil war between blacks and whites, a war which Manson
told his followers would see bloodbaths in the streets of every American city,
a war which Manson predicted and foresaw the black man as winning.
Manson envisioned that black people, once they destroyed the
entire white race, would be unable to handle the reins of power because of inexperience,
and would therefore have to turn over the reins to those white people who had
escaped from Helter Skelter; i.e., Charles Manson and his Family. In Manson’s
mind, his Family, and particularly he, would be the ultimate beneficiaries of a
black-white civil war. We intend to offer the testimony of not just one witness
but many witnesses on Manson’s philosophy, because the evidence will show that
it is so strange and so bizarre that if you heard it only from the lips of one
person you probably would not believe it.”
_____
Ever since those words were spoken, nearly fifty years ago,
someone has accused Bugliosi of fabricating the Helter Skelter motive.
Did he?
At the outset, I frankly admit I’ve never followed how this fabrication
supposedly happened. Maybe it is because I'm a lawyer and realize how incredibly difficult it would be to pull this off in a courtroom. But I’m also not sure if the argument is Bugliosi invented Helter Skelter or whether the argument is that he took bits and pieces of things
Manson actually said and coerced, manipulated or maneuvered witnesses into
repeating and twisting the tale in such a way that it seemed like the motive. Either way it is a serious accusation.
[Aside: This post is not about whether the actual motive was Helter Skelter. That's another story.]
[Aside: This post is not about whether the actual motive was Helter Skelter. That's another story.]
The Importance of A Motive
By now everyone knows that motive was not a necessary element of Bugliosi’s case. That
statement, however, is somewhat misleading when it comes to convicting Manson.
As to Manson I believe it would be more accurate to say Bugliosi didn’t need to prove the Helter Skelter motive but he likely needed to prove some
motive to gain a conviction. And that is because the primary charge against Manson was conspiracy to
commit murder: Manson didn't kill anyone those two nights.
So even though the prosecution typically doesn't have to prove motive
it is frequently hotly debated at trial. Why? Because people have a strong need
to know 'why' especially when it comes to murder. And in our jury system, people are the ones deciding guilt. So
while motive is not a necessary element of proof in a criminal trial motive, in fact, has a significant impact on the jury.
“Research in social psychology, on the other hand, suggests
that blaming is often intuitive and automatic, driven by a natural impulsive
desire to express and defend social values and expectations. Blaming serves an integral social function. By
blaming a wrongdoer, we establish, enforce, and express the social boundaries
and rules of our community. To this end, people are often willing to make
sacrifices to punish cheaters, even when they themselves are not the ones who
have been cheated. Blaming in ordinary social life primarily serves as an
expressive social tool to sort the ‘bad’ members of society from the ‘good’
members of society and, thereby, to foster solidarity and cohesion among those who
are appropriately abiding social expectations. In ordinary social life, an
actor’s perceived character and reasons for acting, therefore, are of primary
importance to the process of administering blame for a harmful action.”
Janice Nadler, Moral
Character, Motive and the Psychology of Blame, Northwestern University
School of Law. 2011
This is why Bugliosi needed a motive. Manson did not kill anyone. His guilt is based upon an agreement and largely (although not exclusively) the actions of others. This is a hard sell to a jury, which is why conspiracy cases are difficult cases for the prosecution (as Bugliosi noted). Put simply, Bugliosi needed the jury to blame Manson for the murders and that was supplied by proving a motive.
In this case it doesn’t matter which motive he used (robbery, copycat, drug burn, Helter Skelter). Any motive
answers the question ‘why?’ and that allows the jury to blame Manson. So, it is better to say Bugliosi needed a motive not the Helter Skelter motive.
So why did Bugliosi choose Helter Skelter?
Because Manson talked incessantly about Helter Skelter.
A Few of the Eyewitnesses
Several witnesses testified about Manson’s race war. I chose these first two because they were not part of the Family and thus not part of the inner
circle but both had substantial contact with Manson. I chose the killers because they were the ones committing the murders. They also were also part of the of the Family and two of them almost from its inception.
Gregg Jakobson
Jakobson first met Manson in May 1968 and last spoke to him
in late August or early September 1969. According to Jakobson he spoke to
Manson multiple times about Helter Skelter.
Q: Approximately how many times did you talk to Mr. Manson
about his philosophy on life?
A: Well, innumerable times.
Q: When you say innumerable, will you give an approximate
figure.
A: Maybe 100.
*****
Q: Did Mr. Manson ever speak to you, Mr. Jakobson, about a
black-white conflict or physical confrontation?
*****
A: Often.
Q: Did he give this black-white war or conflict a name?
A: Yes.
Q: What name did he give it?
A: Helter Skelter.
Q: Did he mention Helter Skelter to you many times?
A: Yes.
Q: Did he say there was going to be a black-white war?
A: Oh, he believed that it was imminent.
*****
Q: Did Mr. Manson indicate to you how he envisioned this
black-white war would start?
A: It would begin by the ripping off of some white families
in their homes.
Q: By whom?
A: By the blacks.
*****
A: He said-- he used the words ripped off, and those stuck
in my mind, and then he went further to say that they would really be cut up
and dismembered and so on.
*****
A: He firmly believed that there was a pit, a bottomless pit
in the Death Valley area that could be lived in, and inhabited and quite
possibly was inhabited.
Q: Did he say he intended to inhabit the bottomless pit
during Helter Skelter?
A: Yes.
*****
Q: In other words, the black man would want to turn over the
Establishment to Mr. Manson, is that correct?
A: Right, yes.
*****
A: Helter Skelter, Charlie’s interpretation was, the
revolution was the rising up of the black man, the Armageddon, the last battle
in the streets to be fought.
Q: Did he actually mention the Armageddon? Did he actually
mention the word?
A: Yes.
*****
A: It was in preparation to go to the desert. Specifically,
a lot of money was needed to buy rope.
Q: A rope?
A: Yes, very expensive rope.
Q: For what purpose?
A: It was to go into the pit with.
Q: The bottomless pit?
A: Yes.
Q: Did he indicate to you how long this rope had to be?
A: Yes.
Q: What did he say?
A: Thousands of feet were needed, a truckload of rope.
*****
Q (Fitgerald): Did it appear to you that Mr. Manson was
sincere in his beliefs in regard to his philosophy? [Aside: Why on earth is
Fitzgerald asking these questions? Isn’t his goal to prove it is BS?]
A: Oh, sure. Yes.
Q: It appeared to you, then, that he believed what he said?
A: Absolutely.
*****
Q: One of the tenets of his philosophy was that people
should be required to tell the truth?
A: Yes.
Q: And did you find Mr. Manson truthful in your dealings
with him?
A: Yes.
_____
Juan Flynn
Flynn described his role at Spahn Ranch as follows:
Q: Did you work as a ranch hand?
A: Yes, manure shoveler.
Q: Manure shoveler?
A: Yes.
Here is what he said about Helter Skelter:
Q: Did Mr. Manson talk about a black-white war?
A: Yes. And he related it to Helter Skelter.
Mr. Kanarek: Your Honor, may that be stricken as
nonresponsive?
The Court: That portion is stricken.
*****
Q: Manson did speak about a Black-White war?
A: Yes.
Q: Did he ever mention Helter Skelter to you?
A: Yes.
Q: Did he say what Helter Skelter was?
*****
A: Yes
*****
Q: When did he say what Helter Skelter was?
A: When he first told me this was when the Beatles record
came out.
*****
Q: Do you know who was present when he spoke about Helter
Skelter for the first time to you?
A: Well, on a lot of occasions, you know, there was a lot of
people present.
*****
Q: What did he say to you?
*****
Q: About Helter Skelter.
A: Well, this was the change, the turn of the Karma, you
see, you know, and the Black people were to overcome the white people, you
know, and, you see, because the love has been licked too much, you know, on the
Black people, you know, and there was a revolution in order, you see, to
balance, you know, what the white man had done to the Black man.
Q: This is what Mr. Manson told you?
A: Yes.
_____
_____
[Aside: On September 28, 1970 while
Juan Flynn was testifying Bugliosi began to ask Flynn about an incident where
Flynn was in a car driving around Chatsworth with Manson, Davis, Watson and
Grogan. Fitzgerald and Kanarek asked for and received a side bar. During that
side bar they challenged the relevancy of the testimony and Bugliosi made the
following offer of proof.
_____
“Bugliosi: They stopped in front of this house, a rich
house, in June or July 1969 in the Chatsworth area, and he was in the car and
Clem Tufts was there, Bruce Davis, and he thinks Watson, he is not sure.
Again, this is only offered as to Manson, not the other
defendants.
Mr. Manson stopped in front of the house and told Juan to go
inside the house and tie the people up, and then open the door and let Manson and
the rest go in.
He said, “We’ll go in there and get those M.F. pigs, kill
them with acid, cut the kids up in pieces and then when the parents are
hysterical tear their guts out or words to that effect.”
_____
Being in a car with that crew, Flynn is lucky to get back alive.
We know Bugliosi planned to have Flynn testify to the
incident because he began to do just that before the interruption. Bugliosi
claimed Flynn would testify that the incident occurred in June or July 1969. Of course, this might be another ‘get me a
coconut' event but I doubt it. If this incident happened and if it happened
before the murder of Gary Hinman doesn’t it undermine the copycat motive fairly
severely? And if it happened at all doesn’t it also undermine a drug related motive
unless someone wants to argue the occupants of this seemingly random house were
also involved in the illicit drug trade (which someone probably would).
The court excluded the testimony because it found the prejudicial effect to the female defendants outweighed the probative value of the evidence. The girls were not present so the evidence did not tend to prove a conspiracy between the defendants.]
The court excluded the testimony because it found the prejudicial effect to the female defendants outweighed the probative value of the evidence. The girls were not present so the evidence did not tend to prove a conspiracy between the defendants.]
Under the fabrication theory the testimony of Jakobson and
Flynn, above (and others) was either invented by Bugliosi or spoon fed to them or
twisted from innocent comments into an elaborate and unbelievable motive. But
the killers also heard it from Manson and, I would argue, believed it.
Here is what the killers had to say on the subject.
Kasabian
Kasabian never actually says she believed Helter Skelter during her testimony. She does, however,
acknowledge it being discussed by Manson.
[Aside: This is Kanarek at his ‘best’.]
Q. Did Manson ever mention the term to you, Linda, Helter
Skelter?
A. Yes.
MR.KANAREK: I object, leading and suggestive, conclusion.
THE COURT: Overruled.
A. Yes.
MR.KANAREK: Ambiguous as to time, your Honor.
MR.BUGLIOSI: Mr. Kanarek knows I am going to go into time, your Honor, I would ask the Court to admonish Mr. Kanarek to wait and give me an opportunity to lay a foundation, one he knows that I am going to lay.
MR.KANAREK: I have no knowledge of what this man is going to do, your Honor.
MR.BUGLIOSI: If you would listen to my questions you would learn, Mr. Kanarek.
THE COURT: I don't want any colloquy, gentlemen, let's proceed.
Q. When did Mr. Manson mention the term Helter Skelter to you?
A. When?
Q. You said he mentioned the term Helter Skelter. Do you know approximately when? Was it within this one month period?
A. Yes, it was.
MR.KANAREK: Leading and suggestive, your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled.
Q. Did he tell you what the term Helter Skelter meant?
MR.KANAREK: Calling for a conclusion, hearsay, improper foundation, and ambiguous as to time.
MR.FITZGERALD: Can we have the spelling of the word Helter Skelter, your Honor?
THE COURT: By whom?
MR.FITZGERALD: Excuse me, if the Court please, I am not familiar with the term, by the party offering the term.
A. Yes.
MR.KANAREK: I object, leading and suggestive, conclusion.
THE COURT: Overruled.
A. Yes.
MR.KANAREK: Ambiguous as to time, your Honor.
MR.BUGLIOSI: Mr. Kanarek knows I am going to go into time, your Honor, I would ask the Court to admonish Mr. Kanarek to wait and give me an opportunity to lay a foundation, one he knows that I am going to lay.
MR.KANAREK: I have no knowledge of what this man is going to do, your Honor.
MR.BUGLIOSI: If you would listen to my questions you would learn, Mr. Kanarek.
THE COURT: I don't want any colloquy, gentlemen, let's proceed.
Q. When did Mr. Manson mention the term Helter Skelter to you?
A. When?
Q. You said he mentioned the term Helter Skelter. Do you know approximately when? Was it within this one month period?
A. Yes, it was.
MR.KANAREK: Leading and suggestive, your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled.
Q. Did he tell you what the term Helter Skelter meant?
MR.KANAREK: Calling for a conclusion, hearsay, improper foundation, and ambiguous as to time.
MR.FITZGERALD: Can we have the spelling of the word Helter Skelter, your Honor?
THE COURT: By whom?
MR.FITZGERALD: Excuse me, if the Court please, I am not familiar with the term, by the party offering the term.
[Aside: Of course he is. I think Fitzgerald hopes Ms. Kasabian misspells ‘Helter’.]
MR.STOVITZ: I will show counsel how to spell it, your Honor. [Aside: Stovitz to the rescue.]
MR.KANAREK: Has he a reference book for it, your Honor?
MR.BUGLIOSI: May I continue, your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes.
Q. What did Mr. Manson say Helter Skelter meant?
MR.KANAREK: I don't know if I objected, but I must on the grounds of hearsay, conclusion, no foundation, ambiguous as to time.
THE COURT: I think you'd better lay a foundation, Mr. Bugliosi.
Q. Do you know when he told you what Helter Skelter meant to him?
MR.KANAREK: Again, your Honor, that is the "When did you stop beating your wife," type of question.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR.KANAREK: Conclusion and hearsay, leading and suggestive.
A. Excuse me, I don't understand the question.
******
Q. What did Manson say about Helter Skelter?
MR.KANAREK: Object on the grounds it's a conclusion and hearsay.
THE COURT: Overruled.
A. It is a revolution where blacks and whites will get together and kill each other and all non-blacks and brown people and even black people who do not go on the black people's terms ---
MR.KANAREK: I make a motion that that last answer be stricken on the grounds of its prejudicial nature, on the grounds it states hearsay and conclusions.
THE COURT: Denied.
Q. Did he say who was going to start Helter Skelter?
MR.KANAREK: Object, assumes facts not in evidence, conclusionary, hearsay, and ambiguous as to time and place, no proper foundation.
THE COURT: Overruled.
A. Blackie.
MR.KANAREK: Object on the grounds it's a conclusion and hearsay.
THE COURT: Overruled.
A. It is a revolution where blacks and whites will get together and kill each other and all non-blacks and brown people and even black people who do not go on the black people's terms ---
MR.KANAREK: I make a motion that that last answer be stricken on the grounds of its prejudicial nature, on the grounds it states hearsay and conclusions.
THE COURT: Denied.
Q. Did he say who was going to start Helter Skelter?
MR.KANAREK: Object, assumes facts not in evidence, conclusionary, hearsay, and ambiguous as to time and place, no proper foundation.
THE COURT: Overruled.
A. Blackie.
*****
Q. During the day of August 8th, do you recall Mr. Manson
saying anything about Helter Skelter?
A. Yes, I do.
MR.KANAREK: I object on the grounds of conclusion, hearsay.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
A. I believe that was the day he came back from Big Sur or wherever he came back from.
Q. He came back from some place?
A. Yes.
MR.KANAREK: May that be stricken as not responsive, that had nothing to do with it, his coming back.
THE COURT: Overruled.
A. And he was telling us --- I remember I was sitting on the couch in front of --- they call it the gun room --- where Danny used to sleep.
Q. Danny DeCarlo?
A. Yes.
Q. About what time was this in the day?
A. It was in the middle of the afternoon.
Q. Okay.
A. And I remember the new girl that he brought back, Stephanie, I believe her name was Stephanie, now, and maybe a few other people were there, Clem, maybe, I cannot remember faces again.
Q. Clem Tufts?
A. Yes, and he was telling us about his trip up in Big Sur and that the people were really not together, they were just off on their little trips, and they just were not getting together. So he came out and said, "Now is the time for Helter Skelter."
A. Yes, I do.
MR.KANAREK: I object on the grounds of conclusion, hearsay.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
A. I believe that was the day he came back from Big Sur or wherever he came back from.
Q. He came back from some place?
A. Yes.
MR.KANAREK: May that be stricken as not responsive, that had nothing to do with it, his coming back.
THE COURT: Overruled.
A. And he was telling us --- I remember I was sitting on the couch in front of --- they call it the gun room --- where Danny used to sleep.
Q. Danny DeCarlo?
A. Yes.
Q. About what time was this in the day?
A. It was in the middle of the afternoon.
Q. Okay.
A. And I remember the new girl that he brought back, Stephanie, I believe her name was Stephanie, now, and maybe a few other people were there, Clem, maybe, I cannot remember faces again.
Q. Clem Tufts?
A. Yes, and he was telling us about his trip up in Big Sur and that the people were really not together, they were just off on their little trips, and they just were not getting together. So he came out and said, "Now is the time for Helter Skelter."
_____
According to one source, Kasabian seems to have
believed it enough to 'preach' it herself.
_____
“She said, "Yeah, well they're killing people like that
out in L. A."
"Like what?" I asked.
"Pigs that try to act like freaks."
*****
[She said] Charlie had learned through meditation about the
existence at several places around the world of holes which went down to the
center of the earth. Down the Holes will go the Beautiful People to escape the
wrath of Black Man who will rise up and slaughter his hateful master, White
Man. Some time after While Man has been killed off Black Man will realize that
he has learned all he knows from White Man and that he cannot develop
civilization any more on his own. Then the Beautiful People will be invited out
of the holes to rule Black Man and further civilization. Only the Beautiful
People will love Black Man and will not mistreat him as White Man had.
Charlie and the people he lived with in L.A. were not the
only ones who knew about these holes. Donovan knew; in one of his songs he
sings, “Take me down through a hole in the ocean.” The Beatles knew, and they
knew Charlie knew. Charlie and his friends had listened to “Helter Skelter”
with headphones for months until they could hear, quite distinctly below the
sounds of the instruments and the singing, the Beatles in speaking voices
saying, “Charlie, can you hear us? Charlie, can you hear us? Call us in London.
Call us in London.” Charlie had called London and the Beatles had refused to
accept the call. Still, their faith was unbroken.”
The Road from Gallup
to Albuquerque, No writer attributed, The Harvard Crimson, December
18, 1969
_____
Atkins
Van Houten questioned whether Atkins actually believed
Helter Skelter. I think Atkins' words answer that question: yes, she did.
SUSAN ATKINS: We watched the newscast and it kind of, it
really helped me to know that the people were as important as they were – it
blew my mind and there were a few comments made, well, the soul really picked a
good one this time. Just happened to have been Sharon Tate, a movie actress,
and it happened to have made nationwide and worldwide news which we had no
knowledge that that’s what it would do. There was a comment made that what had
happened had served it’s purpose, that was to instill fear in man himself.
PAUL CARUSO: The establishment?
SUSAN ATKINS: The establishment. That’s what it was done
for. To instill fear – to cause a paranoia. To also show black man how to go
about taking over white man.
*****
Linda went into the gas station and left the wallet in the
gas station, the women’s restroom, hoping that a black woman would find it and
pick it up and use the credit cards, which would direct the police to black
people, instilling more fear into white people. Then we drove around, just kept
driving around, ended up at the ranch, but the idea was Charlie had wanted Clem
and Linda and me to go to another house and we would do two simultaneously, in
one night, to instill fear into white men.
Susan Atkins, Interview by Caballero and Caruso, December 1,
1969, Cielodrive.com
_____
I can see your side of this clearly. Nor am I mad at you. I
am hurt in a way I only understand. I blame nobody but myself for ever saying
anything to anybody about it. My attorney is going to go on insanity. Yes, I
wanted the world to know “M”. It sure looks like they do now. There was a so-called
motive behind all this. It was to install fear into the pigs and to bring on
judgment day which is here now for all.
Susan Atkins to Shelly Nadall 1969
_____
SERGEANT PATCHETT: Did she ever talk about murdering a negro
fella?
MS. HOWARD: No. But she doesn't think too much of colored
people. She thinks their- well, white people should stick together and colored
people should stick together. You know, because I told you why they were doing
some of this. She said she thought that it would make the colored people wake
up and take notice that this is what they should do to get what they want out
of the world, you know, some violence.
*****
SERGEANT McGANN: Did she say why they left to go up to the
north, in the desert?
MS. HOWARD: Oh, yeah because that is where the hole is, in
the desert. They call it devil's canyon or devil's hole or something. What is
what she said, the government put a big fence around it and it is supposed to
be owned by the bottomless pit and she said that, in other words, people are
all going to go back to the earth eventually anyway and they wanted to be one
of the first ones there to start it. In other words, so when people die like
ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Well, they’re just kind of speeding things up
a little bit.
*****
MS. HOWARD: Yeah, where she said they wrote
"Arise", and "Death to all pigs" and, I believe she said, I
think she even said they wrote "Helter Skelter" is supposed to be
like this new movement or whatever it is up there.
SERGEANT McGANN: She spoke of helter skelter in addition to
writing on the wall?
MS. HOWARD: Uh huh, yeah she said where is some song out,
helter skelter or something. It means, most everyone, I guess, in the group
knows what helter skelter means. It is supposed to be like their new movement,
you know.
Ronnie Howard Interview by LAPD, November 25, 1969,
Cielodrive.com
_____
MS. GRAHAM: This Charlie Manson, obviously had schooled all
these girls and boys, whatever, that there is a hole in the middle of Death
Valley and that there are people living down in underground and that they are
going to start a new society and that they are the chosen few, they are
elected, this group of people, to pick people at random and execute them.
*****
SERGEANT NIELSEN: The helter-skelter?
MS. GRAHAM: The
helter-skelter.
SERGEANT NIELSEN: That was her group?
MS. GRAHAM: Yes. Yes, this is the group of people that want
to go and assassinate or execute other people, the helter-skelter.
*****
SERGEANT NIELSEN: Now this helter-skelter group –
MS. GRAHAM: Yeah. She said, "You've heard of
helter-skelter?" And I said, "No. What's that?" And she said
that they belonged to this -- and I don't remember what word she used, I say
sect because this is how I identify it, but it's a group of people that are
(Unintelligible)...or whatever and their sole purpose on this earth is to go
around and do people in and they are all going to get together and they are
going to go to Death Valley and that there is a hole there and that Charlie
knows where it is because he's been there and they are going to go down and
live down under the earth and get away from society. I mean she really thinks
that she did the right thing by killing these people, really.
Virginia Graham, LAPD Interview, November 26, 1969 (Kindle
Locations 571-577). Kindle Edition. Cielodrive.com
_____
Q: Did you say anything else when you heard who those four
people were?
A: Something to the effect that it served its purpose?
Q: What had happened served its purpose?
A: Yes.
*****
Q: Did you say why this had been done?
A: To instill fear into the establishment.
****
Q: I am concerned about these two words, pigs and
helter-skelter.
A: I know of—in some of the songs he wrote helter-skelter
was in them and he’d talk about helter-skelter. We all talked about
helter-skelter.
*****
A: You must understand that all words had no meaning to us
and that helter-skelter was explained to me.
Q: By whom?
A: Charlie. I don’t even like to say Charlie, I’d like to
say the words came from his mouth that helter-skelter was to be the last war on
the face of the earth. It would be all the wars that have ever been fought
built one on top of the other, something that no man could conceive of in his
imagination. You can’t conceive of what it would be like to see every man judge
himself and then take it out on every other man all over the face of the earth.
And pig was a word used to describe the establishment.
Transcript of Susan Atkins’ Grand Jury Testimony, December
5, 1969. Cielodrive.com
_____
By the time she wrote her book in 1977 Atkins had changed
her tune. The motive was now a copycat motive to get Bobby Beausoleil out of
jail. The plan was apparently discussed by Manson in 'around the clock sessions' for several
days before the murders. That, of course is not possible given Manson wasn't there.
Krenwinkel
Krenwinkel left no contemporary account of the crimes. Van Houten, who idolized Krenwinkel at the time,
however, claimed she was a believer.
MR. PART: Now, you say that you all used to sit around
Gresham and the desert and talk about this philosophy of going down to the
center of the earth. Could you name some of the people that used to talk about
it?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: Gypsy and Brenda and myself and Katie and
Charles and Tex and Clem and Snake and Rachel.
There was — we’re the ones that usually talked about it the
most. Sadie did sometimes; but I don’t know if she actually believed it or not.
But all the rest of us, we really believed it.
Leslie Van Houten Interview with Marvin Part, December 29,
1969. Cielodrive.com
_____
I don't trust parole hearings but Krenwinkel at her hearings has given some indication of her state of mind at the time of the killings
and it seems to be consistent with the rest.
“Inmate Krenwinkel: It was a combination, because the acid
trips were directed and there was a (indiscernible) and he—when you take acid
and he would direct them. And we would do whatever he said. Mostly what he
wanted us to do was lie down and die because we were supposed to give up our
egos so that we would be able to spout back to him his philosophy, his
delusions, his craziness.”
Patricia Krenwinkel’s 2004 Parole Hearing. Cielodrive.com
“Attorney Wattley: There were all these ideas that seem to
be going around that he would talk about we’ll do this and start a race war.
We’ll do this to, you know, recreate a separate society. Did you embrace these
things at the time?
Inmate Krenwinkel: Yes, I did. If he [Manson] said those
things, I accepted that and I would repeat it back to him. I was willing to
take whatever he said as the gospel”.
Patricia Krenwinkel’s 2011 Parole Hearing. Cielodrive.com
[Aside: Notice Krenwinkel begins her answer with ‘if he said
those things’. This seems to be a recurring point by Krenwinkel, which becomes
more direct in her 2016 hearing: she has no recollection of Manson saying the
Family would start Helter Skelter. I think this has gotten her into trouble in these
hearings because it leads to the question ‘then why did you kill these people?”
and her only answer is ‘Tex told me to, so I did.’]
Presiding Commissioner Chappell: Okay. Okay. All right. So
getting back to the, to the meetings, when did it come out that you wanted
to—or Charlie Manson wanted to start this, divide the country and start this
race division? When did that come out?
Inmate Krenwinkel: I think he started doing that probably,
again. Probably started that philosophy probably somewhere along, maybe four to
six months.
Presiding Commissioner Chappell: Four to six months?
Inmate Krenwinkel: Yeah, prior to the crimes.
*****
Inmate Krenwinkel: Well, he started talking about there was
going to be a race war.
Presiding Commissioner Chappell: Okay.
Inmate Krenwinkel: And that—and, of course, he came up with
this crazy idea of, which at the time we were going to the desert and there was
going to be a, there was a hole in the desert that we were going to live in and
while the, while the war raged or whatever. But I—he—I never heard him, you
know, say he was going to try to start it. He just, it—that came out in, at
trial. But I mean, that wasn’t what he was saying. He was saying this is going
to happen and this is going to happen. And there was this whole feeling of –that
we were under attack. He started making it more that, you know, we were, we
were under, you know, that is, you can see they’re trying to attack us. That
we’re living together. We’re a group of people and we’re being under attack and
the, you know, there is going to be this. So we started getting where he was
making it really pulling, say the circle together. He wanted everybody really
tight together because we were under attack and this—did everything and, you
know, and America itself was going to go to war. So we needed to be really
close with one another, you know, we had to be on one philosophy, one thought,
one—we were one him. And we would be able to survive somehow.
*****
Deputy Commissioner Lam: ***** It almost suggests that at a
certain level you had an awareness that what he was saying didn’t make sense.
Or am I hearing it wrong?
Inmate Krenwinkel: No, at that time, I bought in lock, stock
and barrel to his philosophy.
Deputy Commissioner Lam: You believed everything?
Inmate Krenwinkel: I did, because it was, you know yeah, it
was the only philosophy going and we all kept passing it on, one to another. I
believed, I believed in him. I believed in it as much as I knew anything to be
real, which I can tell you was, nothing was real. But that’s—yes, I, you know,
I kept, I absorbed the stuff that he said. It was that or repercussions, you
know. I mean, I had learned along the line that this, this is the way it is.
And I consented.
*****
Deputy Commissioner Lam: Okay. During these meetings, did he
teach you about the race war?
Inmate Krenwinkel: Yes.
*****
Deputy Commissioner Lam: ***** But in terms of starting the
race war, how was that going to happen?
Inmate Krenwinkel: He never said that. He never said exactly
how, to me, that I was going to be part of that, or I was supposed to do
something. Ours was always how we were supposed to make it safe for he and
others to survive these, you know, with these holes in the grounds, and these
other crazy things…..
Patricia Krenwinkel’s 2016 parole hearing. Cielodrive.com
_____
Watson
And here is what Watson has to say.
“Ever since I'd known him, Charlie had occasionally
mentioned that eventually there would be a bloody conflict between whites and blacks. But a lot of
people were saying that — hadn't Watts been the beginning? He'd also made it
clear that he thought blacks were inferior to whites and only created to serve
them, but this kind of thing had never been a major part of his teaching. Now
“Helter Skelter is coming down fast” was the main theme of everything he said,
every song he wrote, and it didn't take long to figure out that the black-white
terrorism and Helter Skelter meant pretty much the same thing: violent
revolution. And now, Charlie was saying, it would be “blackie's turn to win,”
the karma would roll, and the blacks would end up on top as the establishment.”
*****
“The central doctrine of Charlie's new teaching was Helter
Skelter-Armageddon, the Last War on the Face of the Earth, the ultimate battle
between blacks and whites in which the entire white race would be annihilated.
As the Beatles sang, this was not some event in the distant future, it was
“coming down fast.” We were living in the last few months, weeks, perhaps days,
of the old order.”
*****
“There were three basic motives behind the murders that took
place sometime past midnight on August 9. The most obvious was the one Charlie
had articulated to us that afternoon: to do what blackie didn't have the energy
or the smarts to do — ignite Helter Skelter and bring in Charlie's kingdom.
There was also the need for more cash, first of all to finance our preparations
for Armageddon — the same thing that had motivated the drug burn and Bernard
Crowe's supposed murder, the killing of Gary Hinman, and all the proposed
abductions and murders in the Chatsworth area — and also to pay $600 bail for
Mary Brunner, who had been arrested earlier that day for using a stolen Sears'
credit card.”
*****
When he got back, he called us all together. It was the
afternoon of August 8, 1969, and his message was simple.
“Now is the time for Helter Skelter.”
Charles ‘Tex’ Watson, Will You Die For Me (1978)
______
I also don't trust books by killers. We likely will not know for sure what Watson actually
believed at the time the crimes were committed unless and until the ‘Tex Tapes’
come to light. But there is some
indication what might be on those tapes.
In 2015 Richard Pfeiffer, the attorney for Leslie Van Houten, filed
a motion with the court to have the tapes reviewed by a court ‘in camera’ (in
private) to see if anything on them would be of assistance to his client’s
efforts to obtain parole. The DA responded on December 21, 2015:
“The People do not
believe it necessary for the Court to arduously labor through the 326 pages of
rambling musings about LSD, secret worlds beneath Death Valley and bizarre
racial theories.”
Pleadings quoted in Charles
Manson’s Right-Hand Man Is Up for Parole. Here’s What to Watch For. Tom
O’Neill (2016)
The DA’s characterization sounds to me quite a bit like
Helter Skelter. If that is a fair description of what is on the tapes then I
think it is safe to include Watson in the ranks of the true believers.
Van Houten
If ever there was a poster child for the Helter Skelter true
believer club it was Leslie Van Houten in 1969.
MISS VAN HOUTEN:
*****
But we — after that, we started decide — seeing where we
were in this position, because we knew that we were part of this Revolutions —
of the Revelations in the Bible. We knew that we had a part in it.
And so we read, and it talked about a hole in the desert or
going to the Kingdom.
We found out — we started looking into the Death Valley,
what’s underneath Death Valley, and we found out there was the Armagosa River
and blind fish and all kinds of things that just made us believe that there was
a whole world underneath. And that some of the Montezuma’s people are already
under there waiting for us.
And that what would happen is that about a couple thousand
of the chosen people — white people — would go down into the center of the
earth and stay there for about fifty years. And then there would Athens or — I
can’t remember all the names, but something was going to happen. And then we
were going to come back up.
And this was when we — the earth would be all black.
*****
MR. PART: Now that you mentioned “the plan that we have no
control of,” tell me what you mean.
MISS VAN HOUTEN: Well, it seemed like after we knew what was
going to come down we tried talking to leaders, you know, black leaders, and we
saw that they were stalling.
And it was almost as though we had to make the first move
for it to continue to develop, to get bigger so that it would happen because
the black man loves us so much that he would be our slave and do everything we
said, let us beat him and mistreat him for so many years that he almost doesn’t
want to do what he has to do, but he sees that he has to do it.
And so it was up to us to start it.
*****
MR. PART: Well, how were you going to start the this
revolution?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: By killing.
MR. PART: Could you explain that?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: By doing a murder that had no sense behind
it, and by putting words that would make people scared.
Because the more fearful the people get, the more frantic it
will get, and the faster it will happen.
*****
MR. PART: Why in the world would you want to go out and kill
somebody?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: Because it had to be done. It had to be
done just in order for the whole thing to be completed, for the whole world’s
karma to be completed we had to do this.
*****
MISS VAN HOUTEN: Well, in order to create fear it had to be
— look like an obvious, just an obvious murder; that there was no robbery ,
nothing behind it; just flat out to do it, to start this paranoia going.
And so we had been told that this was the best time to use
our witchcraft.
*****
MR. PART: Now, what do those words mean to you, and what
were they written in, and where were they written?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: “Helter Skelter” was written on the
refrigerator. And that was used to let people know that the Beatles were the
prophets, and they were telling it like it was, and that it’s coming down fast,
and you just be ready, you know.
You know, get it on. Do whatever you have to do for this
whole thing to be over.
And “Pig” was the white — the white businessman who hated
his neighbor, couldn’t look at his neighbor with love, who was going to get it
in the end.
And then “Rise” was for the black man saying that it was his
turn to, you know, be leader after all that time.
*****
MR. PART: Well, if Charlie’s Jesus and you girls are angels
and you are doing God’s will and God’s will is that the revolution start so
that the colored people can take over the earth, why do you think that
everybody’s in jail?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: Oh, I don’t know. You know, it would almost
be for the publicity, as silly as that sounds. So that all —See, there’s no —
we were trying to find out ways of letting the youth know, because the people
that are going to go into the hole are going to be the young people.
And we tried with our music, and nobody would put out our
music. And, you know, we tried lots of different ways, and nothing worked.
But now everyone is finding out. Like our music is finally
coming out. And Charles will be able to speak for himself at the court and — to
show —I guess it just happened to let people know that that this is the way it
was happening. ’cause some people will believe.
Leslie Van Houten, Interview with Marvin Part, December 29,
1969. Cielodrive.com
_____
Charles Manson
On June 19, 1970 Mary Neiswender, who had been
reporting on the murders since August 1969 wrote an article about her recent interview with Manson. The article
appears below. While never directly mentioning ‘Helter Skelter', Manson
made a couple interesting comments. Ms. Neiswender failed to follow up.
“I see a black robe; the same one Pilate wore. It’s got
blood on it from 1900 years of Christian rule.
If I were my own attorney I could explain. You’ve heard of
the Battle of Armageddon (the Bible’s prophecy of the last, decisive battle
between good and evil before the Day of Judgment). I see it coming, and all I
want to do is get out of the way, but they’re trying to stick an antichrist
label on me.”
*****
If he were turned loose, he says wistfully, “I’d go to the
desert and no one would ever see me again.”
_____
In two quotes Manson mentions two ‘themes' of Helter Skelter
(1.) imminent Armageddon (a word frequently attributed to him by other
witnesses when explaining the concept of Helter Skelter) and (2.) going to the
desert and disappearing (the move he and the Family were to make to escape the war).
_____
On or about June 25, 1970 Manson was interviewed by David
Felton and David Dalton for Rolling Stone Magazine. A few quotes by Manson:
“The white man is fading, everybody knows that. The black
man will take over, they can't stop it.
*****
Can you explain the meaning of Revelations, Chapter 9?
What do you think it means? It's the battle of Armageddon.
It's the end of the world. It was the Beatles' "Revolution 9" that
turned me on to it. It predicts the overthrow of the Establishment. The pit
will be opened, and that's when it will all come down. A third of all mankind
will die. The only people who escape will be those who have the seal of God on
their foreheads. You know that part, "They will seek death but they will
not find it."
*****
"Revolution 9" will be violent? Why will it be
racial?
Have you heard of the Muslims? Have you heard of the Black
Panthers? Englishmen, do you remember cutting off the heads of praying Muslims
with the cross sewn onto your battledress? Can you imagine it?
Well, imagination is the same as memory. You and all Western
Man killed and mutilated them and now they are reincarnated and they are going
to repay you. The soul in the white man is lying down. They were praying,
kneeling in the temple. They did not want war. And the white man came in the
name of Christ and killed them all.
*****
Do you really think the Beatles intended to mean that?
I think it's a subconscious thing. I don't know whether they
did or not. But it's there. It's an association in the subconscious. This music
is bringing on the revolution, the unorganized overthrow of the Establishment.
The Beatles know in the sense that the subconscious knows.
*****
Why do you think Susan Atkins gave that confession?
Susan is a very aware girl. I think her soul did it. I think
her soul worked on her to the point that she did it. Personally I think she did
it to put me in the position I'm in so that people could see where I'm at."
_____
Manson was also interviewed by the Los Angeles Free Press. The Free Press also ran articles about the Family. They
even gave Manson a sort of column for a while and published his poems and letters to the
editor. Here are a couple quotes by Manson:
“I was in Death valley trying to get away from your world. I
can’t judge it. The Black Man is going to do that.
*****
Everyone is going to get back what they put out, and God
knows no time. It has piled up for years and it is turning. Your world is in
big trouble. Justice is coming.”
_____
Is this proof Manson believed his own shtick? Hardly, but the quotes are consistent with the theme. Of course these were all made after his arrest when he would likely be more guarded.
_____
Anybody Else?
 |
| One website claims this is the Spiral Staircase. |
Manson seems to have spoken about Helter Skelter to anyone who would listen. On December 7, 1969 an article appeared in the LA Times (below, right) written by Eric Malnic. Malnic got wind of Manson's haunts and took a road trip up to Topanga Canyon. This is likely lower Topanga Canyon based upon the reference to the bus- the location of the Spiral Staircase. There he interviewed several local ‘hippies’ and heard this:
“He [Manson] said he’d take his army of dune buggies and kill every
white mother- every white pig- between here and the desert.
Then he was going to make an exodus- take his people to a
big hole in Death Valley and hide there. From there he could just sit back and
watch the revolution.”
A ‘thirty-year old author’ was quoted as saying:
“He picked up the revolution thing about eight months ago.
He hoped to cause some all-out confrontation between the police and blacks.
Blacks and whites.”
Malnic continued:
“Manson never discussed his entire plan for fomenting a
black-white war with any one person at the restaurant. Each has heard part of
the plan, and together they pieced it together.”
“I think his talk about the machine guns and dune buggies
and starting a revolution was dead serious,’ said one young man. ‘If what they
say he did was true, maybe that was all part of it.”
Only one person is identified by name in the article: 24
year old, Michael Crow. Michael does not make any further appearances in the
tale that I have found and is not on Deemer’s list of Family associates.
The article is dated December 7th. This was the
Sunday between the two days of the Grand Jury.
Atkins’ story wasn’t common
knowledge, yet. In fact, for all we know Malnic's trip to Toping may have been Friday the 6th while Sadie was on the witness stand.
It defies logic that some hippies who knew Manson in a restaurant in Topanga Canyon all heard the tale from Bugliosi. In fact, the idea is patently absurd.
It defies logic that some hippies who knew Manson in a restaurant in Topanga Canyon all heard the tale from Bugliosi. In fact, the idea is patently absurd.
This small article tells us that Manson was very vocal about
Helter Skelter even to those outside the Family. Perhaps it was a recruiting tool.
He tried it on Stephanie Schram’s sister. And more importantly it tells us
these unidentified ‘hippies’ all heard that Manson was going to
start the race war. To me these comments are more damning then ‘Now is the time
for Helter Skelter’ or ‘Someone is going to have to show blackie how to do it.’
The 'friends' interviewed on December 7, 1969 came to believe, by putting their conversations with Manson together, that Manson's goal was to start a race war, a revolution and then go hide in the desert.
_____
Manson was not the target of
a motive fabricated or fostered by Bugliosi. He was the author. Manson handed the Helter Skelter motive to Bugliosi on a silver platter. He created a dozen witnesses
for the prosecution. All Bugliosi had to do was pick up the ball and run with
it. And that, my friends, is damned fine lawyering because it placed the blame for the murders squarely at Manson's feet.
Pax Vobiscum
Dreath
I'm sure this has been asked before. Does anyone think TLB would have happened had Charles Manson never set foot in California?
ReplyDelete" MR. PART: Now, you say that you all used to sit around Gresham and the desert and talk about this philosophy of going down to the center of the earth. Could you name some of the people that used to talk about it?
ReplyDeleteMISS VAN HOUTEN: Gypsy and Brenda and myself and Katie and Charles and Tex and Clem and Snake and Rachel."
Who's Rachel?
Rachel was one of Ouish's nicknames
DeleteI thought the judge kept Flynn's testimony out because the incident was too remote in time to the alleged conspiracy.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with you 100%. Charlie served up Helter Skelter on a plate with watercress around it.
Rachel is Ruth Ann
ReplyDeleteIt is also telling that Charlie even tried to recruit the cops into the Helter Skelter race war scenario.
ReplyDeleteAt the July 27, 1969 LASO raid at Spahn "Manson approached him(Deputy Garp) about joining up forces to wipe out the "Panthers." "You know, you cops ought to get smart and join up with us; those guys are out to kill you just like they are out to kill us." (Sanders, The Family)
At the October 12, 1969 raid at Barker "Manson told the officers that the blacks were going to take over the country and that the blacks would wipe out the police."
(Sanders, The Family)
----------------------
"Does anyone think TLB would have happened had Charles Manson never set foot in California?"
No Charlie, no TLB, so obviously it would not have happened.
Nowhere else can you go to hear Shakespeare quoted in a Helter Skelter post. Well done, David...
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of a different instance, where Flynn later testified to a similar occurrence where only he and Manson were present.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to the first instance where Clem is with them in the car, the court does hold that “the prejudicial effect far outweighs the probative value.” 11,882.
They return to the issue a number of times over the next few days both during testimony and during the morning motions, but it is finally resolved on October 2, where the court allows the prosecution to offer points and authorities on the issue beginning at 12,533.
The prosecution cites several cases. People v. Peete, 28 Cal. 2d, 306 (1946) (“[E]xcept when it shows merely criminal disposition, evidence that is relevant is not excluded because it reveals the commission of an offense other than that charged.”). People v. Lopez, 60 Cal.2d 223 (1963) (“whether the crime be similar in kind or not.”). People v. Baker, 25 Cal. 2d 1 (1938) (“It is not essential that such similar transactions shall have resulted in the commission of a crime. It is sufficient if they tend to prove a scheme of the defendant which included the acts charged.”).
The key exchange between the prosecution and the Court begins at page 12,540:
BUGLIOSI: … I think the main thing showing identity is that it is just unheard of, and I would ask the defense if they can come up with any other case. It is unheard of to drive up in front of a home where you have no animosity toward the persons, no contact, you don’t want to rob them or rape them, you just want to go in there and murder them by stabbing. The uniqueness is MO. It is so unique. I can’t think of any other case where that happened before … You just don’t go to strangers’ homes and say let’s tie them up and go in there and cut them up. The absence of a pedestrian, garden variety, type motive, the absence of that motive in itself shows identity and MO … There is such a remarkable similarity, that I think this is what they are talking about, that the cases say the fact that it may tend to prejudice the defendants in the minds of the jury is no ground for its exclusion.”
THE COURT: That is not the basis.
MUSICH: Your Honor, similar conduct, too. It doesn’t have to be a crime. I’d like to point out the case of People v. Sykes, 44 Cal. 2d 166. Here the majority of the Supreme Court, at that time, held that the evidence of that fact that the defendant was attempting to solicit this minor for prostitution and pimping purposes was admissible as to a charge of furnishing a minor with a marijuana cigarette. This was part of his plan and conduct to influence this minor to become a part of his operation. The court held that that far-out evidence in that case was admissible. It was a very unique case.
COURT: I can see all that and I am familiar with most, if not all, those cases, but I think here we have something different. Here we have a bare statement, which is not, in my opinion, a clear invitation to commit murder, phrased in a the form of what I consider to be, perhaps a stupid of a vicious – or you can characterize it in many ways – statement, not implemented by any additional conduct. There is no evidence that there was a gun, a rope, a knife, or anything else present. No one took any steps to do anything. It also occurred, as I recall, two months before the alleged murders. I think it is too remote. Now, I can conceive that depending on what defense, if any, defendants put on, it might come in on rebuttal. I don’t know. But at this stage, I think that prejudicial effect would outweigh any possible value.
…
COURT: I am going to admonish the jury, strike the conversation and admonish the jury not to consider it for any purpose. I want to do it in such a way that I will call their attention to it without unnecessarily rehashing it.
So, I think you are right. The Court ultimately decided that, even if limited to Manson, the testimony would unfairly prejudice the codefendants who were not parties to the conversation.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent Straw Man argument! Set up a claim that no one ever made and knock it down. Bravo.
ReplyDeleteMe I am just a loser disbarred attorney in my late 80s, what do I know?
No one said that Charlie didn't babble bullshit all the time. So does your President. How much of it means anything? Both the right and the left put together a narrative of your President based on his bullshit. Keith Olbermann says he is being impeached daily. So do clowns like Louise Mensch and Claude Taylor. Other people think he is staying till 2024.
Follow the bouncing ball of FACTS
1- BUG already HAD the killers dead to rights
2- Every other sane attorney on the case knew they had NOTHING on Manson- I have met with them over the years you have not
3- Killer hippies is interesting not the crime of the Century
4- Hippie Leader sending killers out to randomly kill scares the straights (which BUG was)IS The Crime of the Century
5- If Charlie is the Big Bad Dragon then BUG becomes the hero who slays the Dragon
6- But no evidence ties Charlie to the narrative
7- No Motive required but seriously if you want to convict a guy for 6 murders (TLB) he was not present at you gotta reasonably have a motive
8- HS is pure brilliance. It is Charlie's bullshit shoved down his throat and fed to him like a goose. It scares the straights. It gets the Dragon
9- it is also NOT the motive
10- and yes BUG made it up. Just because he made it up out of Charlie's bullshit rap does not make it any more true than your President having the biggest Inauguration crown in history.
You have a mentally ill Perjuring lawyer who would do anything to get the Dragon. And he did.
Col Scott,
ReplyDeleteI'm not clear whether you are agreeing with me:
"7- No Motive required but seriously if you want to convict a guy for 6 murders (TLB) he was not present at you gotta reasonably have a motive
8- HS is pure brilliance. It is Charlie's bullshit shoved down his throat and fed to him like a goose. It scares the straights. It gets the Dragon"
Or disagreeing with me.
So I'm not sure how to respond. So: I agree.
PS: "7" murders
Thanks for doing this. I had been thinking of doing a similar post with the same material and I appreciate you gathering up all of the bits for me.
ReplyDeleteI'll stipulate that a concept of Helter Skelter did exist in the minds of the people at Spahn's Ranch -- including Manson -- complete with all of the accompanying bells and whistles and Beatles and bottomless pits. So if you’re looking for someone to say that it’s a complete fabrication, that someone won’t be me.
Regarding the Tate-Labiana murders, yes, the prosecution does not have to prove motive in a murder case. But they do have to prove that the defendant had the intent (malice aforethought) to commit the crime. In the case of TLB there was no evidence that Manson had any intent that the murders occur. So in his case, motive (unnecessary for a conviction) was use to prove Manson's alleged intent (necessary for a conviction).
This is how Bugliosi laid it out in Helter Skelter --
"The prosecution does not have the legal burden of proving motive. But motive is extremely important evidence. A jury wants to know why….
"If we could prove to the jury that Manson, and Manson alone, had a motive for these murders, then this would be very powerful circumstantial evidence that he also ordered them.” (emphasis added, Helter Skelter, Bantam paperback edition, 1975, page 291)
"The jury would never accept Helter Skelter, as is. We were missing far too many bits and pieces, and one all-important link.
"Presuming that Manson actually believed that he could start a race war with these acts, what would he, Charles Manson, personally gain by it? “(emphasis added, HS, page 293)
"And, according to the gospel of Charlie -- as he related it to his disciple Paul Watkins -- he, Charles Willis Manson, the fifth angel, JC, would then rule the world…. In his sick, twisted, distorted mind, Charles Manson believed that he would be the ultimate beneficiary of the black-white race war and the murders that triggered it." (first emphasis added, second emphasis in original, HS page 333)
In other words, according to Bugliosi, Manson thought that Helter Skelter would work and that he (Manson) would benefit by becoming ruler of the world. And this is a necessary element of the prosecution’s case, because what gain would there be for Manson if blacks and whites fought a race war that blacks would win and he did not personally benefit from it? Why would he want to instigate it if he did not believe it would be to his advantage? (He wouldn’t.)
It’s not enough to show that the philosophy of Helter Skelter existed. There’s no denying that. But you have to go beyond that and show that it was the motive for the murders, i.e., that Manson wanted to jumpstart the race war, the ultimate outcome of which would leave him ruler of the world. So let’s look at your examples and see if they prove that case.
2 of 5
ReplyDeleteGregg Jakobson -- This is impressive testimony regarding Helter Skelte as a theory, but nowhere does Manson tell Jacobson that he (Manson) wants to jumpstart HS by committing the opening murders himself. Thus there is no evidence here of the prosecution’s version of Manson’s supposed motive.
Juan Flynn -- Again, this is fine testimony of the existence of Helter Skelter, but there’s nothing about Manson saying he wanted to start it. There’s no evidence here of Manson’s alleged motive. (As for the conversation recalled during the aside at the bench, this alleged conversation could easily be filed with Flynn’s other fantastic and false claims such as that Manson told him that “the Family” had committed 35 murders or that Donald Shea was dismembered. Flynn doesn’t even claim to be repeating the conversation verbatim, only as “words to that effect.” And even if the conversation did occur, it seems to be just about a random home invasion murder. Helter Skelter isn't mentioned as a part of it at all. My opinion? The conversation likely never happened, or if it did it could be because Manson was trying to get a reaction out of Flynn. In any case, such a conversation or exclamation is not against any law and even if true couldn’t be introduced as anything other than that Manson was in a bad mood that day.
Linda Kasabian – You say right here that Kasabian didn’t believe in Helter Skelter. If not, why did she think she was going out on August 8? During the murder trial she said she thought the group was going to commit a burglary. Therefore, Helter Skelter was not a motive in Linda Kasabian’s mind.
At Watson’s trial –
Q (by defense attorney Sam Bubrick): “You knew that [Helter Skelter] involved the killing of people, didn't you?”
A (by Kasabian): “But I didn't know that that was our part in it.”
Q: “What did you think your part was going to be?”
A: “Well, that when Helter Skelter came to the city, when the blacks and whites were getting it in the city, and the city was burning, we were supposed to go in the dune buggies, with the children and bring them back to the home in the desert.”
This is the prosecution’s star witness, mind you.
The issue of Manson’s “Now is the time for Helter Skelter” statement, uttered probably five or six hours before the murderers left the ranch, is hardly evidence that he intended his friends to start Helter Skelter themselves that night. Instead, it seems to be just another example of the non-stop Helter Skelter prophesizing Manson was apparently known for.
As for the article recounting Kasabian’s alleged “preaching” of Helter Skelter, nobody (here at least) is denying that the idea was real to the people at Spahn’s Ranch. Still, it’s hard to evaluate claims made by an unknown writer in a university newspaper. Maybe if this source could be identified the veracity of the article could be properly evaluated.
3 of 5
ReplyDeleteSusan Atkins -- Susan Atkins' credibility is infamous, and a person can select any of her versions of events that fits their preferred scenario of the crime. All of these things she said to Caballero, Caruso, Nadall, Graham, etc. (“to instill fear in man himself [and] to also show black man how to go about taking over white man.”; “It was to instill fear into the pigs and to bring on judgment day which is here now for all.”) sound very bad, I’ll grant you that. But Atkins turned away from these explanations as she moved on with her life. Why would she do that if what she initially said was true? It would have been in her better interest to stick with her original story (especially if it were true) because that’s what the prosecution has always wanted to hear. But she didn’t. She disavowed her earlier statements and claimed that there was another motive for the murders.
Regarding that alternative motive, Atkins claims in her book that the real motive for the slayings was to commit copycat murders in order to get Bobby Beausoleil out of jail. David says that this motive was derived during round-the-clock planning sessions that included Manson. David writes, "That [Manson participated in this planning], of course is not possible given Manson was not there." Yes, it is of course not possible. Therefore, it’s not possible for Manson to have been part of the discussion of the “copycat” motive for the murders. But ask yourself this: Is it just coincidence that the Tate murders happened just 48 hours after the people at Spahn's Ranch learned that Bobby Beausoleil had been arrested for Gary Hinman's murder? What do you think was foremost on their minds during those two days (days when Charles Manson was absent) -- that a good friend (dare I say "brother"?) was arrested and what should they do about it, or that, "Hey, maybe we'd better finally get this race war thing moving"?
Partricia Krenwinkel – David, you said it yourself: She has no direct recollection of Manson saying that “the Family” would start Helter Skelter…. “If he said those things [about starting the war],” “I never heard him, you know, say he was going to try to start it. He just, it, -- that came out in, at trial," “He never said that [anything about starting a race war]. He never said exactly how, to me, that I was going to be part of that, or that I was supposed to do something.” (emphasis added)
4 of 5
ReplyDeleteCharles Watson – Once again, Watson discusses the Helter Skelter concept, which nobody says didn't happen. (Watson also said at his trial that Helter Skelter was “the main theme of…. every song [Manson] wrote”? Has anybody ever heard or heard of one of these songs?) But even if Watson was a believer in Helter Skelter, it doesn't mean he thought that Manson wanted to start it.
Did he think it was a motive for the murders? By the 1978 publication of his book he certainly had enough time to know about the “party line” and incorporate it into his book. Before that, at his trial he gave no reason or motive for the murders he committed. (Nor did he have to; his own admissions proved his intent.) Like many others, testified to the reality of Helter Skelter as a worldview. But he said nothing about Manson causing it. In fact, at his 1990 parole hearing he said quite the opposite “I had come to the conclusion at the time [August, 1969] that the end of the world was coming and everyone was going to die.” But Watson clarified that this end of the world would “not [be] based on my crime.”
(David, I’m ass-uming that you unintentionally left this out of Watson’s smorgasbord of murder motives: “Beyond getting money and bringing down Helter Skelter, there was a third, less important purpose: to clear Bobby Beausoleil of the Hinman slaying by committing a similar crime while he was in jail.” WYDFM?, page 67 of the online pdf version)
Leslie Van Houten -- This is yet another good recounting of the Helter Skelter scenario, and she even mentions that "we" would have to do something, but there is nothing to indicate that Charles Manson was the specific motivating force. (Also, it has been suggested that in this conveniently tape-recorded back and forth with her attorney Van Houten was really trying to lay the groundwork for an insanity defense. As her lawyer Marvin Part said in court, “That girl is insane in a way that is almost science fiction.” HS, page 298)
I think Van Houten has good reason to deflect the motive for the murders towards Helter Skelter: I think that she was a more active planner of the copycat killings designed to get Bobby Beausoleil out of jail than she would like the authorities to think. She had, after all, at one time been the “girlfriend” of Beausoleil. (He brought her to Spahn’s Ranch in the first place.) She indicated that she “wanted to go” on the second murder night. Was she really just the brainwashed slave of the megalomaniacal Manson? Or was she an active participant in the planning and executing of a plan to free her former man?
Charles Manson – He is acknowledging the race war concept with all the frills, but he is not saying that he wanted it to come or that he would make it come.
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ReplyDeleteNews article -- News of the arrests broke December 1, 1969. It was huge news and certainly many people who knew Manson et al. when they were regulars in the Topanga Canyon area remembered them. And just as certainly many of them were eager to talk to the press. But as to the veracity of what they allegedly told the Times writer, if you don't think that this case doesn't attract every type of attention-hungry phony imaginable -- or that a reporter would incorporate information from one source (like, say, the grand jury testimony, leaked by one of the attorneys present during it) into the information from another (the interview at the diner) in order to make a more sensational/salable article -- then you don’t know much about the “news” media. In any case, the key quote here is, "Manson never discussed his entire plan for fomenting a black-white race war with any [of the story's sources]. But each [source] had heard part of the plan, and together they pieced it together." (emphasis added) In other words, even if the witnesses heard what they say they heard, they admit that their conclusions are merely ass-umptions. And really – anonymous sources in an unidentified diner? What these people were claiming was really damaging to Manson’s case. I wonder why the prosecution never located them so they could testify at the trial?
There is one big problem with Helter Skelter as a motive for Manson: If you believe it, you have to believe all of it -- the prophecies from the Bible and Beatles, the city under the desert in the bottomless pit, the re-emergence of Manson and "the Family" as rulers of the world -- all of it. If you don't believe all of it, you can't believe part of it.
You have to believe that Manson thought he would gain personally (world domination) for the murders. He had to believe that.
And so, I'll quote Vincent Bugliosi again from his 1976 Penthouse magazine interview: "I cannot conceive of his believing some of the things he preached about, such as the bottomless pit, the Family growing to 144,000 people, and himself becoming leader of the world. Oh, he was a megalomaniac and would have loved to become leader of the world, but I find it difficult to think he believed that those mass murders would actually start a worldwide race war between blacks and whites. My guess is that he used Helter Skelter a a vehicle to work his followers into such a lather that they were willing to kill for him. Whether he believed it, I would have to guess no." (emphasis added)
Here is the prosecutor in the Tate-LaBianca trial admitting that he didn't believe what he convinced a jury was true. And if Bugliosi didn't believe Manson believed Helter Skelter would result in him ruling the world, then his claims otherwise to a trail jury (and anyone else who ever listened to him since) must be, to put it charitably, disingenuous.
An attorney might consider that to be damned good lawyering. But a layman might likelier consider it to be lying.
It's awfully hard to dismiss HS as a motive when it's written on the refrigerator in the victims' blood though.
ReplyDelete"It is Charlie's bullshit shoved down his throat and fed to him like a goose."
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly it. And if I were Bugliosi I would be looking at Charlie every day during trial and saying to myself "bon appetite, you dumb mother##ker."
Manson was clearly the head of what was nothing more than a two-bit criminal gang. By their own admission, they stole money, stole credit cards, stole cars, broke into people's houses, dealt drugs, and essentially pimped out underage runaways. He was a thirty-time loser, who fled from justice, made a circus of the trial, insulted the judge and the prosecutors, threatened witnesses, disrupted the proceedings constantly over nine months, and basically screwed over his co-defendants with his selfish behavior.
And for every piece of evidence that Bugliosi might have presented in a disingenuous light, there were a dozen pieces of evidence just as damning that he didn't get in.
As far as I'm concerned, in Charlie's case, the system worked.
George Stimson said...
ReplyDelete2 of 5
The issue of Manson’s “Now is the time for Helter Skelter” statement, uttered probably five or six hours before the murderers left the ranch, is hardly evidence that he intended his friends to start Helter Skelter themselves that night. Instead, it seems to be just another example of the non-stop Helter Skelter prophesizing Manson was apparently known for.
And hours later, Charlie gave explicit instructions to Tex on what to do at the crime scene. And he told the girls exactly what to write on the wall--in blood. Come on, TLB was ALL Charlie's idea. No one else had thought of their own in their head.
Peter
ReplyDeleteIf the system works, wrongly then there is a slippery slope until you are the next one down. Such a dumbass ends justifies the means statement.
David
TLB is seven murder- I typoed it too fast (twice)
I am not sure what you don't understand. HS is not a real theory it was mumbo jumbo Charlie spouted to con people. It is not the motive. BUG was a psycho piece of shit. If you agree with that then we agree
A few comments:
ReplyDeleteGeorge, I would have been shocked if you said HS was a complete fabrication.
George said: "I’m ass-uming that you unintentionally left this out of Watson’s smorgasbord of murder motives...."
Actually, I thought this part was in the post and had to go back and look when you wrote this. I think what I did was saw the 'three motives" mention in the quote I used and just grabbed it assuming I had the whole thing.
George said: "You say right here that Kasabian didn’t believe in Helter Skelter."
Actually, I don't think I said quite that. I think I said she never testified that she believed it. I think she did. I also can't imagine why Bugliosi would ask that question- it makes her look nuts- and equally can't understand why the defense didn't jump on the issue.
I also don't believe for an instant the people in that car didn't know what was going to happen when they left Spahn night #1. I think Sanders sums it up for me: "Linda Kasabian later testified that she was merely going on a second story caper in Beverly Hills. A second story caper with forty-three feet of rope and a gun, change of clothing and three sharp knives."
The Marvin Part interview with LVH should be mandatory listening. The written words don't do it justice.
George said: "And really – anonymous sources in an unidentified diner? What these people were claiming was really damaging to Manson’s case. I wonder why the prosecution never located them so they could testify at the trial?"
The first sentence is where we part company on this one. One source is identified. It is also not about when the arrests came out it is when the Heater Skelter motive 'came out'. If it didn't 'come out' until after December 7th there is no source from which to draw upon to make this up. Maybe what you are seeing here is the same problem Manson experienced with the jury: people heard what Manson said and reached a conclusion.
What an attorney says to the jury is called argument. It's his opinion of what the evidence shows. The jury is not required to buy it. In fact, its the job of the other side to prove it's BS. Nothing save the incompetence of counsel prevented Manson from putting on a 'HS is bullshit' defense. It may be telling that he didn't. Maybe they couldn't.
George Stimson said...
ReplyDeletePatricia Krenwinkel – David, you said it yourself: She has no direct recollection of Manson saying that “the Family” would start Helter Skelter… “If he said those things [about starting the war] I never heard him, you know, say he was going to try to start it. He just, it-that came out in, at trial,He never said that [anything about starting a race war]. He never said exactly how, to me, that I was going to be part of that, or that I was supposed to do something”
Pat says more or less the same thing about the copycat motive ¬> INMATE KRENWINKEL: "I did not know that night where I was going. We had never discussed in that family killing anyone really, as far as like anyone going out to kill someone. I had known there had been a murder of a Gary Hinman, but it was kept very quiet and I had no idea that what..Mr. Kay makes sounds like there was these big times when people sat around and talked about killing. I was never there. So if they happened, I wasn’t there."
You are of the opinion the copycat is the motive, yet one of the actual killers here says that was not the case as far as she was aware. So if the fact she never heard Charlie outline Cielo being about kicking off the race war aspect of HS means there must be doubt that it was indeed the case, then surely the same must apply to the copycat.
But she did know what HS was and she obviously connected this with the murders that took place because at Waverley that was one of the signs she chose to leave. She could have left any other two of thousands of words but "Healter skelter" is what she chose. If she had no specific instruction as to what the murders were about, it is telling that she would connect this to HS in her own mind.
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DeleteMaybe if Manson didn't come across exactly like one would expect someone who believed in Helter Skelter to come across during his trial that might have helped his cause.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it was not Charlie's motive for the murder. And I agree, and have said before, that in my opinion he used Helter Skelter solely as a tool for controlling the Family. He didn't give a shit about any revolutions, he only cared about controlling his immediate circle. Charlie's ambitions didn't go beyond making sure Charlie got fed, got laid, and didn't have to work.
That is the irony. The system didn't work wrongly.
Peter said...
ReplyDeleteAnd for every piece of evidence that Bugliosi might have presented in a disingenuous light
'Disingenuous' is basically a politely cute word for 'dishonest,' at least colloquially.
As far as I'm concerned, in Charlie's case, the system worked
The way you've put that kind of implies that the end justified the means and that the means had knowingly dodgy elements to them.
George Stimson said...
David, I’m assuming that you unintentionally left this out of Watson’s smorgasbord of murder motives: “Beyond getting money and bringing down Helter Skelter, there was a third, less important purpose: to clear Bobby Beausoleil of the Hinman slaying by committing a similar crime while he was in jail.”
Earlier, you stated that if one was going to take on board HS, that one would have to believe all of it, that you couldn't have bits of it. But you point there to Tex's support of the Copycat. I'd say the same applies, that if you are going to bring that statement of Tex's into matters, then you have to take it as a whole. Getting some money from Cielo has never been in doubt ~ Pat & Susan thought it was going to be a robbery. Which leaves the other 2 motives and the copycat is pegged in as very minor in the grand scheme of things.
Given that the initial 4 had already been convicted and that Tex was pleading guilty on an insanity defence, what had he to lose by mentioning the copycat back in 1971 ? It's just as daft and harebrained a plan as HS igniting.
Disingenuous in the sense that Bugliosi doesn't have to believe that Helter Skelter is Charlie's motive; that Charlie believed his own bullshit.
ReplyDeleteI don't have to believe it, you don't have to believe it, Bugliosi doesn't have to believe it, even Charlie doesn't have to believe it. People tell lies to get others to act on those lies all the time, even to commit murder. If it was easier for Bugliosi to get the conviction by presenting it as something he believed or that Charlie believed, Charlie gave him everything he needed to do that.
George Stimson said...
ReplyDeleteLeslie Van Houten-This is yet another good recounting of the Helter Skelter scenario, and she even mentions that "we" would have to do something, but there is nothing to indicate that Charles Manson was the specific motivating force
MISS VAN HOUTEN:I know that Charlie came in to Katie and I –we were sitting in taking care of the babies — and this was that night; and he said something about, “Do you see why I believe that we have to kill?”
And we both said, “Yes,” you know, “we see.”
He said, “Do you want to do it?”
And we said, we said, “No, but we know that it has to be done; so,yes.”
You know, in other words, we didn’t want to go out and actually like do somebody in, but it had, it had to be done; and we were the only ones that saw that it had to be done.
So I went on to sleep, and Katie did, too.
And then Charlie came in and woke her up, and I didn’t know why, but I sort of had an idea it was to go do some, you know, knock somebody off.
And then the next morning Sadie was watching the news, I think. Somehow I found out that they had done it.
Oh, no. I asked Katie, and she told me.
Then on night 2:
MISS VAN HOUTEN: Well, we were all sitting in the kitchen, and Charlie pulled me out to the side, and he said, “Are you crazy?”
And I said, “Well, yeah.”
MR. PART: He said, “Are you crazy?” and you said, “Yeah. Now, what does “crazy” mean to you?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: In other words, it meant, “Are you almost, to the regular person’s thinking mind, are you crazy enough to believe the way I believe, to see the way I see, that we are, you know — that we had been sent down to start this in motion?”
And I said, “Yes.” Because I — I do. I’m crazy enough to believe it.
And he said, “Are you crazy enough to be able to go out and kill someone for this?”
And I said, “Yeah,” that I was.
So he said, “Okay. Go get two changes of clothes and get in the car.
However one looks at it, I think it's clear from LVH's words that Charlie was exactly the specific motivating force.
it has been suggested that in this conveniently tape recorded back and forth with her attorney Van Houten was really trying to lay the groundwork for an insanity defense
Suggested by Van Houten.
As you point out, Marvin Part thought she was insane. To believe all the stuff she comes out with in the interview, many people would think she was insane. He did everything he could to get her severed from a joint trial and having her certified as not mentally fit to testify was the start. He simply asked her the questions that he knew would elicit those answers. He thought she was insane because she believed what she was telling him. They had obviously talked before because Part makes mention of things she's told him prior to this taping.
I think Van Houten has good reason to deflect the motive for the murders towards Helter Skelter: I think that she was a more active planner of the copycat killings designed to get Bobby Beausoleil out of jail than she would like the authorities to think
But the Part tape was never going to be made public. Leslie does more than implicate herself, she confesses to murder and describes in flowing detail how it all came down. She confesses to a cold blooded murder, not self defence or accidental homicide, murder. She says she wanted to go. She wanted to try it. She already implicated Charlie, Pat, Tex and Susan in murder so she had absolutely nothing to lose by telling her lawyer in private conversation that the murder she was involved in was a copycat to free Bobby. She'd already landed enough people in it. By the time of that interview, they all faced multiple counts of murder and one each of conspiracy. Point being, it didn't matter what she said the reasons were. Therefore, she had nothing to lose saying "it was a copycat killing." She was pleading 'not guilty' anyway.
grimtraveller said...
ReplyDelete... at Waverley that was one of the signs she chose to leave. She could have left any other two of thousands of words but "Healter skelter" is what she chose. If she had no specific instruction as to what the murders were about, it is telling that she would connect this to HS in her own mind.
Krenny didn't decide anything. Charlie told her what to write:
cielodrive.com/charles-tex-watson-parole-hearing-1978.php
Watson 1978 Parole Hearing
But I was told what to do, and I was told in the order to do it and the steps to do it.... And he(Charlie) had already told the girls what to do, which is writing on the wall and things like that, and that I didn't have to worry about that.
cielodrive.com/charles-tex-watson-parole-hearing-2016.php
Watson 2016 Parole Hearing
INMATE WATSON: So he told me that he had already instructed the girls what to do.
INMATE WATSON: ... he said I've already told the girls what to do and that when he put his head in the car he said remember to do something witchy, you know. I guess he had told them to write on the walls and things like that.
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Deletestarviego- what was your reading comp score? Because no one claims in your quote to say "write Helter Skelter on the walls" Just saying
ReplyDeleteSo if the master plan was to trick people into thinking black people committed the murders and the name of the master plan was Helter Skelter, why would they write it on the fridge?
ReplyDeleteWith it on the fridge, anyone who had contact with Charlie and his family would be able to make the connection and then the plan of framing black people is exposed.
In the end nothing says black people killed these guys better than a reference to four white dudes from Liverpool. Would it have been that hard to leave an afro pick instead?
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DeleteThat's only mildly racist. Why not suggest watermelon seeds? More subtle.
ReplyDeleteSomething that always puzzled me. Did Bobby really go back to Hinman's and try to erase the writing and the panther paw print (it's pretty obviously still there in the photographs) and if he did why? And if he didn't why do they say that he did?
ReplyDeletestarviego said...
ReplyDeleteKrenny didn't decide anything. Charlie told her what to write
If you take the "something witchy" that Charlie admits to Diane Sawyer he told the girls, never anywhere is any specific slogan given. The way it's always reported, how it actually came out would have been up to whoever was writing. The actual instructions of what to write that Tex claimed in '78, weren't done.
George Stimson said...
Regarding that alternative motive, Atkins claims in her book that the real motive for the slayings was to commit copycat murders in order to get Bobby Beausoleil out of jail
We all utilize anything from Susan to our detriment....just as an example, in the same book you mention, she states that she was told Lotsapoppa had actually cheated Tex ~ completely different to what you say in your book and it's significant because part of your explanation for the violence that summer hinges on the events surrounding the shooting and Charlie's explanation involves sending Tex & Susan away together {in her last book, even that scenario changes}. As an aside, both her books state the Hinman murder came about because they went to get a sizeable inheritance from him {$21,000 & $20,000}, but the main thing to state about the copycat is that if you choose to use Susan Atkins' myriad of versions, just because they embrace the copycat and denounce HS, bear in mind that you do so with the knowledge that in both of her books, this is at the expense of showing Charlie as being the one that ordered the nights of murder ~ which you refute. For example in "Child of Satan..." she describes Charlie being angry with Tex on their return from Cielo for not going to other houses with the words "I told you to go to every house on that street..." The following night she has Charlie being the one telling her that they were going out to kill again. With her second book stating things like "they were instigated by Charles Manson to save his own skin," and "Charles Manson sent Watson to do a copycat killing" sure, she says HS isn't the motive, but unlike the early days, she spends her last 32 years blatantly saying Charlie ordered the killings.
So it ends up as being a case of take your pick but either way, Susan Atkins sinks us all and Charlie especially.
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DeleteStarviego,
ReplyDeleteMinus the insult, I have to agree with the Col. on this one. This.....
"I guess he had told them to write on the walls and things like that."
Is not something I'd want to take to court.
The interesting thing about this case is that there is a wealth of source materials: books by most of the actors, parole transcripts, trial testimony, grand jury minutes, jail house confessions, recorded police interviews. But you can't be sure you can believe any of it. No one is entirely reliable and everyone has some incentive to lie.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Stimson said...
ReplyDeleteHere is the prosecutor in the TLB trial admitting that he didn't believe what he convinced a jury was true. And if Bugliosi didn't believe Manson believed Helter Skelter would result in him ruling the world, then his claims otherwise to a trial jury (and anyone else who ever listened to him since) must be, to put it charitably, disingenuous.
An attorney might consider that to be damned good lawyering. But a layman might likelier consider it to be lying
That was said in 1976. In 1994 apparently {I riskily quote a quote given in Susan's "The Myth Of HS"} he said "I want to give you one footnote to the Helter Skelter thing. This is the philosophy that he instilled into the killers to work them up into an emotional lather so they're willing to kill for him. And they bought it... hook, line and sinker. Manson may not have believed in it~ Manson may not have believed it wholly himself. There were two other motivations that Manson had. One is passion and lust for murder. That was his religion, that was his credo. The second reason, he has an enormous amount of hostility towards society, against the establishment. And on these two nights of murder he was viciously striking out at the establishment and using his minions to vent his spleen on society"
HS isn't the only motive that was offered at the trial. He did offer up 2 others and he did state that HS was circumstantial.
I've heard him make statements that appear to be closer to his thoughts on HS that appear in his book. In the above quote, 18 years after the one you give from Penthouse, he says Charlie may not have wholly believed. In the one you give, he says he can't conceive of him believing all of it. In his book, he says he didn't bring stuff to the jury because it was just too absurd. Subtle degrees of differences.
Yet the ironic thing is that Charlie really did believe in the bottomless pit. He actually spoke of it in his trial. And Bugliosi was there. He actually heard him talk about the bottomless pit. He read the June 1970 Rolling Stone article in which Charlie is quoted talking about the Beatles putting messages in their songs, Revelation and Armageddon. If he found it difficult to believe Manson actually did believe it by '76, maybe he hadn't found it so when he was hearing all this stuff in 1970 although as the HS book reference shows, even then he had to hold stuff back from the jury because it was just too way out.
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DeletePeter said...
ReplyDeleteDid Bobby really go back to Hinman's and try to erase the writing and the panther paw print (it's pretty obviously still there in the photographs) and if he did why?
I think he did. The reason I think that is because of the evidence the Police found ~ Gary's face was partly eaten away by maggots. Both Mary Brunner and Danny Decarlo mention Bobby as saying something about hearing the maggots eating away on Gary.
I guess he went back because he had second thoughts about leaving his hand print on the wall. Leaving "Political piggy" wasn't such a problem, but the hand may not have been such a good idea. Murder is a great leveller I'm guessing, and what may seem like a good idea initially may not feel like one the next day.
Chanel said...
ReplyDeleteSo if the master plan was to trick people into thinking black people committed the murders and the name of the master plan was Helter Skelter, why would they write it on the fridge?
In the end nothing says black people killed these guys better than a reference to four white dudes from Liverpool
I doubt any Black murderer in the Western world would have written "HEALTER SKELTER" at the scene of a murder in 1969. I think it showed tremendous ignorance on their part but in fairness, it doesn't really matter what was written at the scene because that's not really the part that was supposed to denote "Black killer alert !" It was Rosemary LaBianca's wallet that was really meant to do that by placing it in a place where they'd seen a number of Black people around.
That was a thought that occurred to me and I'm loath to mention it because Susan Atkins mentions it in both her books ! If it's any consolation, she told it to Caballero & Caruso on tape and to the Grand Jury so it's one of the few things that has never actually changed from her.
Does that count ? 😀
Would it have been that hard to leave an afro pick instead?
It would have been as stupid as leaving behind a pair of glasses. I can see a murderer leaving behind a knife. But glasses ? That's not barely credible. And if both victims are bound, how daft would one have to be to leave behind an afro pick ?
That's as much mileage as I'm giving that one !
Grim said: "We all utilize anything from Susan to our detriment...."
ReplyDeleteThat may be the understatement of the decade. Then again......
Peter said: "No one is entirely reliable and everyone has some incentive to lie."
Here, here!
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DeleteGrim said: "But glasses ?"
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Grim, those glasses look a lot like those worn by Malcolm X.
I like Kanarek s argument that Linda didn't so much as plant the wallet as she hid the wallet. Planning to return and pick it up with the credit cards in it to use in her getaway two days later.
ReplyDeleteDuring cross examination. To me, it fits better than the official story. Why would you place the wallet in the toilet if you wanted someone to find it. Who opens a toilet in gas station restroom? Nobody ever, that's who. And that kind of shady self preservation thinking is exactly how Linda would act. She went along with the program when it was to her advantage, but Linda watched out for one person, Linda.
DeleteMaybe she had second thoughts about retrieving the wallet when she actually left. She apparently had two passengers with money in the car she stole and so probably felt using Rosemary's credit cards was no longer worth the risk. But I think when she put it there balanced on the toilet float she was thinking "okay, this shit show has gone far enough. I have to GTFOOH and I have no money. I'll just put this here and call it plan a".
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DeleteNo. She hid Rosemary's wallet that Charlie gave her when he came out of LaBiancas house. She put it inside the tank of a gas station toilet. The official narrative is that she planted it there so a black person would find it.
DeleteThen she leaves the ranch two days later. But in the day in between she picks up two hitchhiker college kids with money while she is driving back to the ranch after visiting Bobby in the jail. She makes plans to pick them up and drive them to Taos with her the next day. So she would no longer need the cards.
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DeletePeter said: "Then she leaves the ranch two days later. But in the day in between she picks up two hitchhiker college kids with money while she is driving back to the ranch after visiting Bobby in the jail."
ReplyDeleteGood catch. The distance is off but a very interesting concept. I think she picked them up leaving LA and not near/or on the way to the gas station but still, the idea she was supposed to leave the wallet where it could be found and then hid it for later is very consistent with LK.
When she hid the wallet, she had not yet met the hitchhikers. Once she met them, she didn't need the wallet anymore because apparently they had money. So just because the gas station was not along the route she actually took does not alter the conclusion. Importantly, it shows that she was not "in shock" from the time Parent was shot until the time she got back to Spahn as she claimed. Kanarek understood this and spent a considerable amount of time on trying to figure out when she was "in shock" and when she wasn't. But he did it with the belief that she was with the killers inside the house. I think she actually knew/had seen less than what she testified to and claiming to be in shock was just away to cover for any lack of detail or inconsistencies in her story. Because Manson was Kanarek's client he may have taken this approach because he had to discredit her completely. But one of the attorneys for the codefendamts could have painted a scenario where Kasabian was sent to the car and actually saw nothing. This would help their client as no one could testify to actually seeing them in the act. And I imagine Kasabian would jump at the chance to go along with that story. But because the prosecution had not formally given her immunity and she was still a defendant her life was only worth her ability to convict the others.
DeleteSAG:
ReplyDeleteParole =
1. Acknowledge responsibility for your offense.
2. Apologize to the victims
3. Behave during your incarceration
4. Offer a plan for your release.
Then maybe you get out.
Unless the Governor vetoes your parole.
Its not about challenging conventions or politically correctness. It is because you see nothing wrong with smashing an African American's head on the sidewalk because he was in town after dark. So I am exercising my freedom of speech and choosing not to read your posts (as you suggested). And will continue to do so.
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DeleteChanel said...
ReplyDeleteIn the end nothing says black people killed these guys better than a reference to four white dudes from Liverpool. Would it have been that hard to leave an afro pick instead?
Or is shows that they were much more concerned with killing people and less concerned with covering their tracks. This gives weight to the "get a brother out of jail" motive since it was hatched by young people who are less inclined to wait and think things through.
Just got my internet back. Great post. Really excellent read. I'm too exhausted to argue motive and I can see all the usual
ReplyDeleteFavorites are already handling it. So I'll just leave my contribution to...
Really Great post!! Will read again for sure after a long nap.
ColScott said...
ReplyDeletestarviego- what was your reading comp score? Because no one claims in your quote to say "write Helter Skelter on the walls" Just saying
If Charlie planned the crime scene to the extent he told the girls to write on the walls in blood, he most likely would have told them what to write too.
An awful lot of blah-balh on this one trying to stretch possibilities out to the extreme including the usual off-on-tangents like the hide-the-wallet game. I think even a stoned chimp could see none of this would spring Beausoleil -- he got caught with the goods. To the Fuzz he either did it or for that moment was the biggest fool in the history of human existence and I suspect it was both.
ReplyDeleteI still lean strongly for the HS plausibility and suspect the murders and subsequent moves to the desert were in part influenced by Manson's recognition that he was gradually beginning to lose control and influence over the group or at least some members. When you're a leader of anything you are more often than not looking ahead and existence at Spahn was limited and in the desert, untenable.
Anyway, good write-up David/Dreath.
Chanel said...
ReplyDeleteSo if the master plan was to trick people into thinking black people committed the murders and the name of the master plan was Helter Skelter, why would they write it on the fridge?
With it on the fridge, anyone who had contact with Charlie and his family would be able to make the connection and then the plan of framing black people is exposed.
In the end nothing says black people killed these guys better than a reference to four white dudes from Liverpool.
The written messages weren't for white people. They were supposed to be a signal to the militant blacks to 'Rise' up to kill "Piggie" to kick off the race "War" called "Healter Skelter"
Glad you resurfaced and are ok, St. C.
ReplyDeleteMatt said: "This gives weight to the "get a brother out of jail" motive...."
ReplyDeleteThis is part of the problem with this case. You're right, it could, but the words at Cielo and Waverly are from the 'liturgy' and 'political piggy' is not. So it points that way too.
Glad you are safe, Saint.
Thanks!
DeleteThanks!! I used to write posts trying to point out HS is not just made up, but nothing like a lawyer to drive home the points so eloquently. Col has been much more specific than usual explaining what he personally means by made up and I am starting to get that too lol mostly by reading posts from Dave/ Dreath....
ReplyDeleteI think end of day that it was a real factor that many of them bought into albeit maybe not an actual reason for these specific crimes.
But I tell you over the years the more I learn the more I realize the less I know.
I'm glad much brighter people are taking up the fight for truth because I would have always just assumed Bugs word was gospel.
It is obviously not.
Peter said...
ReplyDeleteSomething that always puzzled me. Did Bobby really go back to Hinman's and try to erase the writing and the panther paw print (it's pretty obviously still there in the photographs) and if he did why?
Bobby acknowledges trying to blame the black militants Hinman associated with at UCLA by the paw print and words "Political Piggy."
cielodrive.com/bobby-beausoleil-parole-hearing-2008.php
2008 BB Parole Hearing
...I tried to make it look ... like it was something political.
Officially he went back there to remove any fingerprint evidence possibly left behind, but IMO it was Charlie that told him to go back there. Something had changed in the interim.
www.cielodrive.com/updates/coming-january-13th-14th-audio-archives-danny-decarlo-interviewed-by-the-los-angeles-county-sheriffs-department/
Danny DeCarlo interview conducted at the Hall of Justice on November 19, 1969
"So as he was dead, the plan was, take his blood and smear piggy on the wall, and put a Black Panther paw, in his own blood, on there. Alright, he did that... After he had told me what he had done, they went back to the house. To wipe all that stuff off of the wall. Cus they decided, for some strange reason, I don’t know why, they didn’t want it to be charged to a Black Panther. I, I don’t know the trip behind it."
So what happened? I suspect that the clues were too obvious--that the writing plus some burned up 'radical' newspapers found in the kitchen sink pointed straight back to a political motive, not some loony-tune inheritance money story.
Interestingly I just recently read that Blackbird WAS written with black people in mind by Paul McCartney. I figured it was a more face value lyric.
ReplyDeleteGreat post again David. I haven't quite finished it. I appreciate the use of the earliest possible sources on each person for insight.
Also, a thorough and interesting debate from George and responses to him.
I was also interested in the interpretation about why Linda planted the wallet that I hadn't considered before!
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ReplyDeleteOn my Twitter account, I have sent 4 tweets to George Christie (@georgeFPC), who is a former president of a "GROUP."
ReplyDeleteI have asked Mr. Christie a question regarding Spahn Ranch & The Charles Manson Family. Will George Christie respond to me? HE JUST DID.....
Manson Mythos:
Sir, in a comment you made regarding the Tex Watson tapes, you're definitely on the right track.
PanamintPatty:
You're REALLY on the right track in a sentence by you.
In my encounter with Charles Manson, Manson, as he called it, wrote me a contract. Please read the comments on this blog-post concerning a letter this person has/had from Charles Manson, Spahn Ranch, and more....page 2 and page 4
http://www.jockeyjournal.com/forum/#/topics/148953?page=1
In my opinion, there's going to be a legal head-on collision in a situation related to The OJ Simpson Case & Saga between OJ Simpson, Simpson's parole attorney Malcolm Lavergne, and against Fred & Kim Goldman, the Goldman's PR firm GarsonWrightPR, and a Goldman attorney by the name of Adam Cook, and I'm in the middle of it, with OJ Simpson Case limousine driver Rocky Bateman, AGAIN, being the wild card. You can read about it and the people I am corresponding with on my Twitter account.
On one of my blog-posts here:
http://nitrini1950.blogspot.com/2017/09/more-pertaining-to-oj-simpson-case-saga.html?m=1
I have a paragraph about Rocky Bateman, Charles Manson, and Spahn Ranch. Please read.
The OJ Simpson Case & Saga
And
The Charles Manson Case & Saga are intertwined. This is just some of it.
Mario George Nitrini 111
-------
The OJ Simpson Case
PS
And David (The Lawyer)
As usual, an Excellent and Outstanding
blog-post
starviego- using words like "most likely to" is why we cannot have nice things
ReplyDeleteLOL. Did you just wake up?
ReplyDeleteSaint/Sinner- I too am glad you are okay. All my blog posts on the only official TLB Blog have been this clear.
ReplyDeleteFor you to understand- a motive is not considered evidence. It is not proof that you did something. Proving Scott Peterson was fucking around with Laci and wanted out of the marriage is motive but that does not show he killed anyone. Prosecutors offer motive as reasoning. The fact that BUG was loosey goosey late in life with whether HS was the motive is telling.
The right people are in jail. I want to know WHY nine poor bastards were murdered. It was NOT HS. It may in fact be no fucking reason. That is contrary to my life view but very possible.
Thanks very much Col. I'm starting to get it. I really am lol. It seems I am a lot more naive then I realized. I grew up in a cop family in a small town. I just always assumed you trust authority....
ReplyDeleteIn ways the TLB story and this community have intuduced me to people and facts I had not encountered before.
But I have always respected you know a lot more about all of this than I do.
I'm trying harder and harder lately to talk less and listen more. It's hard though lol
I love to talk :)
I miss your blog.
David said...
ReplyDeletea very interesting concept...the idea she was supposed to leave the wallet where it could be found and then hid it for later is very consistent with LK
I thought it was a pretty fascinating theory and plausible except for something that on reflection makes it flawed ¬> Linda knew that the point of planting the wallet was for someone to find and use the cards thus being identified as the killer. Linda tended to look out for no.1 so I doubt she'd try to use those cards.
starviego said...
The written messages weren't for white people. They were supposed to be a signal to the militant blacks to 'Rise' up to kill "Piggie" to kick off the race "War" called "Healter Skelter"
They were for White people. The idea was that they figure Blacks had done the crime, get riled up and start vengeance killings on Blacks which then leads to a White on White civil war and when the conservatives & liberals have sufficiently weakened each other, then the Blacks that were really going to carry out the revolution would then come out and mash up Whitey.
Mr. Humphrat said...
Interestingly I just recently read that Blackbird WAS written with black people in mind by Paul McCartney. I figured it was a more face value lyric
This is one of the reasons that when people scoff at the idea of instructions coming from Beatle songs, I point out that it's not as ridiculous as it seems on first hearing. McCartney, Lennon & Harrison were very good at putting messages in their songs and were happy to cop to it ~ until things went wrong and their critics started saying they carried some responsibility for the outcome. George Harrison's outlook in "Piggies" is not vastly different from the Family's. It may be satirical but it's satire that has a hugely contemptuous underbelly. John Lennon's horror sound collage, "Revolution 9" was, according to him, the sound of revolution and Paul in "Blackbird" was encouraging Black Americans to rise up ~ very easy to do from a big house in St John's Wood in NW8.
Charlie was, whatever else one wants to ascribe to him, very perceptive. He cottoned onto what McCartney was saying when few others did. True, he put spins on things and went awry with them, but he caught quite a bit of the Beatles thought. But that in itself happened with a lot of people in the 60s. The 60s was the first of the decades where people really began to take the lyrics of popular artists as instructions for life and it's basically never stopped since !
Grim.
ReplyDeleteIf her primary concern was to get away from Spahn, I think she would risk using the cards. Back then, the chance that a card would be traced back to the murders or even reported missing in so short a time would be pretty small.
Peter said...
ReplyDeleteIf her primary concern was to get away from Spahn, I think she would risk using the cards
Which assumes of course that she had it all worked out in her mind while the LaBiancas were being killed and before the Ocean Walk incident. I just find that unlikely.
David said...
Grim said: "But glasses ?"
I don't know, Grim, those glasses look a lot like those worn by Malcolm X
Possibly, but his corpse ? 😀
@David
ReplyDeleteHey, I just got your meaning on the glasses. True....and cute !
Charlie had his subtleties....
Linda knew she was going to split after the fist gunshot.
ReplyDeleteIf you were her after the first night and Charlie said, "Come on Grim, suit up, we need you to drive again tonight." Would you say "Yeah, about that, I really don't feel up to it tonight." Or more like "You bet, Charlie."
But she was looking for opportunities and taking them when they presented themselves (just like when she stole her husbands $5000).
She has the wallet in her hand, she's in the bathroom alone, who's going to know if she were to hide it rather than plant it? Nobody. She knows she is going to split, but she just doesn't know how yet. The wallet is just a little breadcrumb she leaves herself. Maybe she'll come up with a better pan, but then again, maybe she wont.
Back then, they took your credit cards and used a carbon copy impression to make a receipt and that was it. They didn't have instant access to the account information the way they do today. She would have multiple pieces of ID to back up the card. The Family had used credit cards for weeks before they would finally come up as stolen.
And when the police finally traced the cards, if they ever did, Linda would be long gone. She's not thinking about what might happen months from now, she's thinking in terms of hours.
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DeletePeter said...
ReplyDeleteAnd when the police finally traced the cards, if they ever did
If they ever did, with 'Rosemary LaBianca' embossed on them ? A toilet attendant clocked it as soon as he saw it and looked to see whose it was.
Linda would be long gone
With the possibility of a very good description of her all over the country, rather like how Pat got slamdunked in Mobile.
She's not thinking about what might happen months from now, she's thinking in terms of hours
I agree. Which is partly why I think your thesis is flawed, though original and nicely thought provoking. The idea that some woman would find the cards and use them wasn't envisaged to be something that could happen months from when left in the toliets, but rather, soon~ish.
Wasn't the wallet only found weeks after the crime? Of course the attendant would know to make the connection then.
ReplyDeleteBut would a service station attendant in East Melonsquashville, New Mexico make the connection three days after the murders?
If it was intended to be soon-ish why did she put the wallet INSIDE the toilet? Again, who ever opens the back of a gas station toilet. Except maybe the guy that maintains the bathroom, who has a job and so doesn't need to go stealing credit cards. And in fact didn't.
In the end, she decided not to go back for it because she weighed the same factors we are and reached the same conclusion and because she found a better alternative. All I'm saying is that - at that moment in time when she stood in the bathroom - that was her best option and she took advantage of it and hid the wallet.
Certainly the placement of the wallet is weird. It was, as we know, not just near the toilet it was inside the tank on the 'bulb'. In point of fact no one would have found it until someone serviced the toilet if it broke or something. So why did she choose there? I don't recall any testimony on 'why'. That's not going to lead to a 'soonish' discovery.
ReplyDeletePeter could be right. Or maybe sweat little Linda didn't want a black person to find it and use the cards (Nah). Or maybe she was as dumb as the rest? (Could be) Or maybe every time LK went to the can she always checked the tank for wallets and thought everyone else did too.
The cards wouldn't 'show up' on radar unless someone knew what cards Rosemary had and called them in. Who would know that, who was alive? First, someone would have to know, say Arco. Then they would have to call Arco and either get the number or report the loss. Then, oh about a week later, they would show up in stores on the paper warning list. Maybe the cops could shorten this with a telex- no fax, no internet.
Back then stolen cards came out on a list to stores, usually about once a week if I recall correctly. Good and Brunner's arrest, for example, only happened because the clerk, Mrs. Ramirez, got suspicious when Good kept looking over her shoulder and checked the list while the two, stupidly, went over to another part of the store to buy something else with the same card.
Anyone know what they were buying? That could be interesting.
The timing has also intrigued me. They were booked into Sybil Brand at 10:21 p.m. on the 8th per Sanders. The arraignment had to be after that. If it wasn't 'night court' that happened the next day. How would anyone back at Spahn know the bail amount? If it was 'night court' what time did they call Spahn? Maybe on that charge or back then they told you the bail amount when you were booked but I have always understood that happens at arraignment- it always has when I was involved but its not my area of practice. The timing of this and Manson saying 'get $600 to bail out Mary and Sandy' is pretty close to get to Cielo by midnight-ish.
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DeleteDavid said...
ReplyDeleteCertainly the placement of the wallet is weird
Can't argue with that. It's really odd unless she was just trying to get rid of it any which way. Actually, even under the stress of the previous 26 or so hours it was odd. To us.
Anyone know what they were buying? That could be interesting
Don't rely on Susan Atkins 2nd book on this {!!}. She says escape supplies including rope ~ she also says it was at Charlie's behest that morning ~ even though he wasn't around. It's little things like that {making exactly the same error Tex made during his trial testimony about Charlie being at the ranch that morning or Brenda's lies to Robert H about him being quarter of a mile away} that cause me to think she didn't write much of the book.
The timing has also intrigued me. They were booked into Sybil Brand at 10:21 p.m. on the 8th per Sanders. The arraignment had to be after that......The timing of this and Manson saying 'get $600 to bail out Mary and Sandy' is pretty close to get to Cielo by midnight-ish
I think the timing is particularly tight and just leads to more problems with what Tex says the motives were.
In saying all this though, we are talking of a psychedelic situation and sometimes, applying our logic and critical thinking doesn't go anywhere unless we're prepared to seriously consider whatever turns up. Reasons people have for killing {or doing anything else, for that matter} can be completely normal to them while throwing the rest of the world a curve ball par excellence.
George Stimson said...
Gregg Jakobson-This is impressive testimony regarding HS as a theory, but nowhere does Manson tell Jacobson that he wants to jumpstart HS by committing the opening murders himself
I can't see the importance of that. That came late in the day. The interesting thing is that Charlie had no intention of being caught up in and on the receiving end of the revolutionary violence.
it’s not possible for Manson to have been part of the discussion of the “copycat” motive for the murders
Yet in your book you state Charlie issued a general command to "do something" to get Bobby out of jail and did so to at least 3 people {Susan, Tex & Linda} that "owed" him something. But if something had already been discussed and decided {even though Pat says it wasn't}....
The issue of Manson’s “Now is the time for Helter Skelter” statement, uttered probably five or six hours before the murderers left the ranch, is hardly evidence that he intended his friends to start Helter Skelter themselves that night
I can actually see this, certainly if taken on its own. If it was a big Family announcement like Tex makes it out to be, then wouldn't the women would have known what was on the agenda that night ?
I can see it could be a statement closer to "from my experience at Esalen, White people really are not together at all. Things are getting worse, now is the time for HS."
Nevertheless, twas an unfortunate day to be waxing lyrical with that statement, a bit like Pat the following night with "HEALTER SKELTER" and unfortunately, it doesn't fall on its own as a sole statement unrelated to anything else.
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DeleteGrim said: "Nevertheless, twas an unfortunate day to be waxing lyrical with that statement, a bit like Pat the following night with "HEALTER SKELTER" and unfortunately, it doesn't fall on its own as a sole statement unrelated to anything else."
ReplyDeleteAnd, thus, hoisted by his own petard.
If you assume Manson is innocent of all this (I don't), but if you do, that statement, which IMO clearly could be another proselytizing statement, does him in on at least night #1.
ReplyDeleteHe likely said it. Yet there are stories about family coming back to the ranch from trips down to LA saying 'its coming down'. He may likely have meant 'its going to happen now'. It was the anniversary of the Watts Riots- not a coincidence in my opinion and given what had happened on subsequent anniversaries, if on a muted scale.
Manson built it up. He made it real for a bunch of acid soaked dingbats.
"Mumbo Jumbo"? Sure.
A key to his conviction? Absolutely.
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Delete"subsequent" should be "previous"
ReplyDeleteGrim said: "In saying all this though, we are talking of a psychedelic situation and sometimes, applying our logic and critical thinking doesn't go anywhere unless we're prepared to seriously consider whatever turns up."
ReplyDeleteDoesn't this mean they got together at 10:45 p.m. on the 8th and said 'Oh, we need to go copycat the Hinman murder and get BB out of jail (because it can't be that long before then, maybe 12 hours +/-). Oh, and we need $600 bucks to get Mary and Sandy out of jail!" and then all agreed and left (which no one says they did)?
What is it the Col. says now and again: apply your common sense?
Lurch still lives...
ReplyDeleteAnother witness who had a lot to say about Helter Skelter that you haven't included here was Brooks. The only person to not get laid at Spahn Ramch, Brooks stuck around because he actually believed in Charlie's rap. Brooks's recorded conversation with Inyo County Sherrifs in October 1969 is probably the first instance of someone speaking about Helter Skelter on record.
ReplyDeletePeter said...
ReplyDeleteAnother witness who had a lot to say about Helter Skelter that you haven't included here was Brooks. The only person to not get laid at Spahn Ramch
----------------------
How can we have any faith in the only guy who couldn't get laid at Spahn? LOLOLOLOL
He would have at the very least been extremely focused.
DeleteBrooks played dead for Charlie and lay still for three quarters of a day lol. He went on camera and said Charlie was Christ...
ReplyDeleteHe was a strange kid but seemed harmless to me. I sort of feel bad for a guy like him. From Charlie to Crockett to Watkins - a perpetual follower. No spine or backbone. But a nice enough guy who wouldn't hurt a fly. Also I think he had some musical talent. I like the music they did for Mr. H documentary.
I think he was a confused person with some good qualities.
And don't forget Dean Morehouse and later didn't he turn up with Jim Jones and the people's temple.
ReplyDeleteBrooks sure could pick them. You wonder weather there is something to Brooks that enables him to recognize whatever quality sets the true madmen apart from your garden variety nut job.
I'm just saying his statement would be untainted by anything that was published or discussed by other Family members after.
I didn't know about Jim Jones. I had once read - no idea if it's true- that Brooks was last seen living in the bushes homeless in San Diego.
ReplyDeleteCertainly. Guys like Brooks made it easy for Bugs to show the public Charlie was able to command them in order.
But I think Brooks was an exception. He seems to me to have been super submisdive. Many of the other family members were runaways which is an act that to me is reckless but the exact opposite of submissive.
But again. I am no more a doctor than I am a lawyer
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ReplyDeleteI was just listening to his interview again. Brooks is like a little kid. You don't ever think they are listening or paying attention, but then you learn that they remember everything you say. I also find him very reliable because there are dozens of seemingly minor details in his statement that were later corroborated by others in the Family. The only problem with Brooks is that he has no "Bullshit Filter," so you can't be sure whether the conversations he recalls were serious, or whether people were just pulling Brook's leg because he was so gullible.
But in listening to his interview one thing stands out.
Brooks remembers Charlie referencing Armageddon by name as early as their time at Dennis Wilson's house:
And when we were at Dennis’, Dean talked to him, and got us to stay there. And Dean and I took care of the yard as gardeners. And uh, all this time Charlie, began to work on me, and tell me, uh that, everything was alright. There was no crime, no sin. And at one point I saw a man kneel and kiss his feet. And Charlie asked him if he was ready to die at that instant. And the guy said yes. And Charlie said, then you can live forever. And that, that was the first time that I had any indication, he was, I guess playing the part of Jesus Christ. And, later he told me that I had to be me before I can be him. Cause he was a reflection of me. And he was only what I saw in myself. And that the battle of Armageddon, or whatever it’s supposed to be, is at hand. And uh, Dennis’ manager made Charlie leave. Because Charlie only wanted Dennis’ money and his clothes, and to play with Dennis’ cars and motorcycles.
And he remembers Charlie talking about the Beatles and the Book of Revelations at a time well in advance of August 1969. (He places chronologically around the "time, several people had come along, and he had persuaded them, in the same manner that he was Jesus.")
[T]here’s no crime, there’s no sin, that everything’s alright. That it’s all just a game. Just like, games of a little kid, only it’s grown up games. And that, god’s, getting ready, to, pull down the curtain on this game. And start it over again, with his chosen people. And Charlie considers himself to be Jesus, the second coming of Christ. And that, he is to lead 144,000 people out onto the desert. From reading things into the Bible, from revelations. And he feels that the Beatles, are the four headed locusts that’s mentioned in there. That are here to plague man with their mouths. And uh, he listens to all their records, while under the effects of LSD, or any other drug he can get a hold of. And he, puts into there, the meanings he wants in it.
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ReplyDeleteBut. And it's a big but.
Brooks doesn't mention Charlie’s use of Helter Skelter or any racial motive until the Family returns to the ranch for the second time in September 1969 AFTER the murders.
Approximately a month ago, Charles Manson and several of his group came back up. He came up with eight people. And uh, they were all sporting knives then. And saying how bad it was getting in the city. And that Helter Skelter – that’s what he calls the negro revolt. He says the negros are going revolt and kill all the white men, except the ones that are hiding in the desert. And he said it was getting worse and worse, and that he wanted to hide in the desert … And that, when Helter Skelter comes down, that, the cities are gonna be mass hysteria and the cops won’t know what to do – the piggies he calls them. And that, the beast will fall, and the black man will take over.
At trial Brooks would testify that Manson told the family in February 1969 at the Gresham Street House that "Helter Skelter was going to start when a group of black people would come out of the Ghettoes and commit atrocities butcher' white families, cut them up, write pig on the Wall in blood ..." [Bugliosi's suammry of Brooks's testimony]
ReplyDeleteBut this is after Brooks would possibly be tainted by the official narrative.
ReplyDeletestarviego said...
The written messages weren't for white people. They were supposed to be a signal to the militant blacks to 'Rise' up to kill "Piggie" to kick off the race "War" called "Healter Skelter."
grimtraveller said...
They were for White people. The idea was that they figure Blacks had done the crime, get riled up and start vengeance killings on Blacks...
Which of these two variants of the Helter Skelter theory does everybody else believe in? Just curious....
David said...
ReplyDeleteHe likely said it
According to George, Charlie doesn't deny saying "now is the time for HS" and goes as far as to say he may well have said it.
apply your common sense?
Ouch ! 😀
I meant in an overall sense. After all, these were a bunch for whom "no sense makes sense" made sense !
Peter said...
I also find him very reliable because there are dozens of seemingly minor details in his statement that were later corroborated by others in the Family
I agree with that. His October 3rd statement is startling, considering at that point the Family were still roaming free around Barker.
The only problem with Brooks is that he has no "Bullshit Filter," so you can't be sure whether the conversations he recalls were serious, or whether people were just pulling Brook's leg because he was so gullible
One could make that argument about the entire Family. Charlie in subsequent years would sometimes say that statements others appeared to take with deathly seriousness, he wasn't serious about at all. In his trial he gives an interesting example about cutting up the Sheriff of Shoshone and somewhere else he does a similar thing about the white sports car incident incident on LaBianca night, saying he was joking around with Clem.
Poston's statement about everything being based on sex, in and out, according to Charlie, sounds wildly gullible baiting until one recalls Susan Atkins saying something very similar to one of her cellmates in jail. And the story Brooks tells about Charlie pulling Sandy's hair in making her do something is corroborated in a newspaper article by Sandy herself, months later.
Brooks remembers Charlie referencing Armageddon by name as early as their time at Dennis Wilson's house
Charlie was saying a similar thing to Gregg Jacobson about the Black/White conflict when they first met around the same time.
Brooks doesn't mention Charlie’s use of Helter Skelter or any racial motive until the Family returns to the ranch for the second time in September 1969 AFTER the murders
It's something of a rambling interview with very little direction by Don Ward in terms of questions but one thing comes over with the benefit of hindsight and that's that Poston is neither chronological nor particularly ordered. He just jumps from bit to bit but almost everything he says is expanded upon in time to come, to the extent that we're still talking about it now ! He maps out much of the Family schtick in microcosm.
But by the time of that Don Ward interview, Brooks seemed to have it in for Charlie. There's a sense underlying his words of having been poorly treated and conned and a slowly building anger concluding in him saying that he was ready and willing to testify about anything he'd spoken of...
Grim,
ReplyDeleteWasn't directing that at you per se. Just a general observation: "Does common sense support throwing the copycat and bail raising mission together in less than an hour?"
David said...
ReplyDeleteWasn't directing that at you per se. Just a general observation: "Does common sense support throwing the copycat and bail raising mission together in less than an hour?"
I was hoist by my own petard of using contributor's comments as a jumping off point ! 😀
Starviego wondered whether we thought "Healter Skelter" and "piggies" etc. written at the crime scenes was intended for a black or white audience and I'm not sure that would have been clearly thought out in the perps' minds.
ReplyDeleteStarviego said: "Which of these two variants of the Helter Skelter theory does everybody else believe in?"
ReplyDeleteI am of the school that they believed many people would know what Healter Skelter, Rise etc. meant..... through the Beatles.
My answer is 'both' or anyone who was 'hep to what was going on'. And I think they believed that was a lot of people.
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ReplyDeleteget money and get out of Dodge.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
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DeleteI'm going to show a little ignorance here lol but I can't get that phrase out of my head lol
ReplyDeleteHoisted by his own pitard lol
I have heard that before but wasn't really sure exactly what it meant. So I looked it up.
Of course it fits. Charlie and Hamlet. Who woulda thunk it....
hoisted by his own pitard. I'm sure I'll drive people crazy with this at work all day.
Saint,
ReplyDeleteThe first image probably makes more sense now. But be careful, Grim will try to correct you with "hoist" instead of "hoisted". But then again he, probably, adds random "U's" to words too.
Lol :)
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ReplyDeleteWho looks rediculous?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteApparently some people are determined to be....
ReplyDeleteHoisted by their own petard.
Court denied release of Tex Tapes.
ReplyDeleteTwo interesting points:
ReplyDelete“In the first 77 pages, there are eight references to a “Leslie,” all made in passing as to who was present at certain events.”
Almost sounds like he didn't read the rest.
"Ryan’s ruling also disputed arguments made by the District Attorney’s office, that releasing the tapes would compromise ongoing investigations."
If I recall this was the basis of FOIA denials. Perhaps one would work, now.
Have at it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nfoic.org/california-sample-foia-request
I had to look it up today too St C. I was picturing Wiley Coyote pulling himself up by a leotard LOL
ReplyDeletelol :)
ReplyDeleteBefore patty looked it up she thought it was a weiner joke
ReplyDeleteLol Patty. I thought it meant your butt
DeletePeter,
ReplyDeleteDone, although I used my form.
Look at you with your own forms.
ReplyDeleteDavid said...
ReplyDeleteGrim will try to correct you with "hoist" instead of "hoisted"
Funny you should say that.....!
Actually, it's been one of my pet phrases since the 80s. Neither "hoist" nor "hoisted" are words that one hears much anymore {they would generally conjour up nautical images and we be landlubbers in these here parts} but having been forced to "appreciate" old Shakey at school, I do love not only a number of Shakespeare's phrases {"What ? You egg ! Young fry of treachery !!"}, but many very English sayings too. I find them pregnant with meaning and damn funny and they work brilliantly with kids that have never come across them, like certain album titles or lines from songs {when some kids get really angry with me I'd put my hands up and say something like "don't shoot ! I'm only the piano player..."}.
Come to think of it, I used the "hoist" phrase here once, either last year or the one before. I think it was also in reference to Charlie.
For some reason, I always thought it meant to be hung by one's own rope. I never knew until recently that a petard was actually a bomb.
Saint said: "I thought it meant your butt"
ReplyDeleteYou are close- the French word of origin is derived from a Latin word that means 'to break wind' or 'fart'.
Now my history geekness will show....
A petard was typically a cone shaped metal device/funnel filled with gunpowder and placed with the open end against a wall or gate circa 1500. It had to be placed several feet off the ground, typically, to break the lock/bar on the gate, using a sort of crane. If used on a wall it might be placed in a tunnel dug below the wall. A crude fuse was attached- or in the case of the tunnel, if available, oiled pigs were sent in.
Fuses being what they were an 'engineer' had to light the fuse by hand but make sure it 'caught' and that the cone stayed against the gate while it caught. Timing was everything....too fast a fuse, too far from the wall, hang around too long, go back and check why nothing happened....Boom!
Of course, William S added the 'hoist' which relates to the following lines about the 'mine' (as in landmine/petard) blowing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern "at the moon".
I know, TMI
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ReplyDeleteDavid said...
ReplyDeleteJust a general observation: "Does common sense support throwing the copycat and bail raising mission together in less than an hour?"
No. Which is another reason why I think Tex's first book account has elements cobbled together from what he's already read. In his second book, he says that reading "Helter Skelter" was in effect, his fork in the road and it's noticeable that from there, his real deep seated changes began.
CarolMR said...
Does anyone think TLB would have happened had Charles Manson never set foot in California?
He'd been there in great slices since the 50s.
Of interest to me is whether being involved in murder had aspects of natural escalation, inevitability, experiment or accident.
Mr. Humphrat said...
I was picturing Wiley Coyote
As a kid I loved "Roadrunner" although I always hated the actual bird. Even back in '71 {SAG reference !} I thought Wile E. Coyote was the most stupid villain of the piece but I loved him to bits. Even to this day, I laugh when I think of ACME.
Matt said...
Or it shows that they were much more concerned with killing people and less concerned with covering their tracks. This gives weight to the "get a brother out of jail" motive since it was hatched by young people who are less inclined to wait and think things through
I'd say it actually shuts the door on "get a brother out of jail." If the object was to get a brother out of jail by committing a copycat killing, then you have to ask why the one free member that had been at Hinman and knew how it had gone down and what was written wasn't there even though she'd been along in the car with the killers. How concerned can one be for a brother in jail if the very thing you are doing to attract attention is in fact doing the very opposite ?
On the other hand, if it was part of a grand plan to ignite HS, then it made more sense {even where it makes no sense !}, particularly taking into account Van Houten's words later that year, Watson's words later that year and Krenwinkel's words that night.
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DeleteThe earliest mention of Helter Skelter on record that I know of, is the taped interview with Paul Crockett and Brooks Poston.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I wonder most about is if this tape found it's way into the hands of Susan's attorneys before Bugliosi got a hold of it (or, if Bugliosi obtained it at an earlier date than he said in Helter Skelter).
I would imagine her attorneys DID get it and from that the cover story of Helter Skelter to conceal the real motives was used.
As for WHY there was so much HS talk. If the younger kids on the ranch were into that "trip", then Charlie was just appealing to their interests as a means to keep them from knowing about the real criminal activity. Had they knew that things like Crowe and Hinman were all because of dope and money, they might have split. It was most likely used as a form of making it appear as if the lock down on the ranch out of fear of an impending Panthers attack was just fantasy role play.
If you read How to Win Friends and Influence people, it says there are always two motived for everything. The REAL one and the one that sounds good, noble and appeals to the interests of the people. Your politicans do it all the time. They tell you the MD is wae torn because they are fighting tyrants like Assad, but we know that is bunk.
Manson Mythos said...
ReplyDeleteI would imagine her attorneys DID get it and from that the cover story of Helter Skelter to conceal the real motives was used
Yes, you would imagine that.
That however wouldn't explain Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham. Or Al Springer, Danny DeCarlo and Pat's writing at Waverley.
ColScott said...
Follow the bouncing ball of FACTS
1- BUG already HAD the killers dead to rights
This in itself has something of a whiff of the straw man about it. The case had to be proved against those he did have good evidence against.
2- Every other sane attorney on the case knew they had NOTHING on Manson- I have met with them over the years you have not
And this proves what ? That lots of lawyers didn't think there was a case on Manson ? It so happens they turned out to be, um, wrong. Opinions will always differ, particularly within the same profession where the very nature of discourse is adversarial.
That you've met some of them means nothing whatsoever other than....you've met them.
By the way, did you meet with Charles Hollopeter who told Charlie he could have him out in 18 months on a diminished capacity ticket ? If you did, what did he say and did he explain his reasoning ?
Manson Mythos said...
ReplyDeleteIf you read How to Win Friends and Influence people, it says there are always two motives for everything
So that settles it.
As a researcher we have an obligation to the truth. The truth requires an investigation into why people say things. No matter how much Matt lets Grim post here, his knowledge/writing/profile pic makes him easy to dismiss as worthless.
ReplyDeleteLittle Paul provided a lot of testimony to BUG. He then tried to TAKE OVER the Family so anything he says is suspect and should be disregarded without corroboration.
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DeleteEverything on these topics needs corroboration, from the lowest to the high, from the toilette to the Divine !!! But it would sure maybe help to hear those Tex tapes ....
ReplyDeleteRobert
ReplyDeleteNo it wouldn't. He was spinning like crazy
ColScott said...
ReplyDeleteThe truth requires an investigation into why people say things
I heartily agree.
Col Scott said: "As a researcher we have an obligation to the truth. The truth requires an investigation into why people say things. ..... anything he says is suspect and should be disregarded without corroboration."
ReplyDeleteBoth points are absolutely correct- the second with a slight modification: Anything any witness says should be considered suspect until it is corroborated. There is a tendency amongst all of us, and I have been one, to rely on what this or that witness says because it supports our 'thesis'. True research, as the Col. correctly points out, should be a search for the truth, not a search for confirmation and even then it must be submitted for 'peer review'. I hope that is the point of this blog...I, for one, assume it is.
As much as I think the Tex Tapes would be great reading. I agree that they probably won't provide the true motive. In my opinion there are only two people that know the real reason for TLB. One is Manson - and he either isn't telling or has started to believe his own bullshit.
ReplyDeleteThe other is Bruce Davis.
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DeleteDennis the issue with your theory is that Atkins recorded confession as well as her grand jury testimony had little to do with Helter Skelter
ReplyDeleteSusanatkinsgonorhhea said...
ReplyDeleteAsk yourself WHY the people who went both nights went, especially Linda, they werent selected at random, and dont give me this "only one with a valid drivers license" nonsense, no one in the "family" ever cared about driving without a licence before Aug 8
Manson was done for not having a valid licence just the day before this.
Linda, as well as actually having a licence with no Mary about had also shown that she'd do as she was told. In a month she'd nicked $5000 and been party to filching credit cards, creepy calling, sex with all the guys, first time sex with one of the women, handing over her daughter, panhandling, accepting HS etc. She didn't look like a candidate that might balk at murder.
he knew Tex and Susan had been using speed and had moved them to another part of the ranch because of it
From George's "Goodbye Helter Skelter":
Another person who disputes the possible impact of speed on the murders is Charles Manson. On several occasions I brought up this speed theory with him and he always discounted it, saying that while Susan Atkins might have been involved with the "diet pills" level of speed there was no use by her or Watson of anything like crystal meth. He further told me that it would have been impossible for Watson & Atkins to have had a stash of speed hidden at the ranch without him knowing about it. "Tex said that they had speed on the ranch and all that," he recalled. "That's bullshit. They didn't have nothing like that when I was there. Because I would have known it." But then he immediately contradicted himself in the same conversation, admitting, "Well, he could have been [on speed during the murders]. Maybe he was. But it wasn't on my ranch. It might have been on Tex's ranch, but not on my ranch ~ there was none of that junk."
Make of that what you choose.
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DeletePeter said: "As much as I think the Tex Tapes would be great reading. I agree that they probably won't provide the true motive."
ReplyDeleteI am curious why you say that. Let's assume he says it is copycat or drugs. Would that change your opinion?
And if the tapes sound like Van Houten's Part interview does that just mean the motive is still in doubt?
In other words because HS is so fantastic does it mean if Watson endorses HS that still leaves the motive in an 'unknown' category but if he says, say, copycat, is that suddenly a revelation?
Isn't it likely that whatever he says it is probably an accurate expression of what he believed at the time?
We have a hint from the DAs legal briefing that HS is on those tapes.
Let me ask this-what if he says Manson wasn't in the car night #2. Would we then simply dismiss the tapes?
grimtraveller said...
ReplyDeleteThe actual instructions of what to write that Tex claimed in '78, weren't done.
So says Tex:
Tex Watson, Will You Die For Me?
--pg71of120 we were to... write messages on the walls in their blood. When he started listing what he wanted written — things like HELTER SKELTER and RISE — I told him I couldn't remember all that. But he said it was okay; the girls would know what to write.
ps
Does anybody know why Tex's site--www.aboundinglove.org/--is now offline?
ColScott said...
ReplyDeleteLittle Paul provided a lot of testimony to BUG. He then tried to TAKE OVER the Family so anything he says is suspect and should be disregarded without corroboration
So if it is corroborated, it shouldn't be disregarded.
Grim said: "Linda, as well as actually having a licence ...."
ReplyDeleteThe license issue is crap- likely created by Bugliosi (like the hippy chick or the always wanted to tell the truth crap) to give her a reason for being chosen- "Linda, the jury will want to know why you went." it is probably on a note written after the interviews.
starviego said...
ReplyDeletegrimtraveller said...
The actual instructions of what to write that Tex claimed in '78, weren't done.
So says Tex:
Tex Watson, Will You Die For Me?
--pg71of120 we were to... write messages on the walls in their blood. When he started listing what he wanted written — things like HELTER SKELTER and RISE — I told him I couldn't remember all that. But he said it was okay; the girls would know what to write
I was talking about Cielo. That's the only part of the narrative where Charlie is supposed to have specifically said something instructive about writing. He later confirmed to Diane Sawyer that this was true and he explained his rationale behind it.
In any case, Tex did no writing at Cielo, the point being that the one time Charlie did say specifically what to write, it wasn't done.
David said...
Peter said: "As much as I think the Tex Tapes would be great reading. I agree that they probably won't provide the true motive."
I am curious why you say that. Let's assume he says it is copycat or drugs. Would that change your opinion?
I suspect that if the Tex tapes were released and tended to support HS as a motive for murder those that don't accept it now still wouldn't.
David said...
ReplyDeleteThe license issue is crap- likely created by Bugliosi
It was 'created' by him. He actually says it was his conclusion, no one else's.
But that doesn't invalidate the possibility that it was one of the reasons. As I explained to Sue, there could be others too.
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DeleteBy November Tex would have had over 3 months to prepare his story.
ReplyDeleteI think Hinman was a crime with a practical motive either drugs or theft. Does it really matter? Shea also had a practical motive, revenge. Bruce was involved in both because they were to take care of business.
TLB is something different. There appears to be no practical purpose, so why risk the heat? If it's intended as a blood pact among Family members, why send easentiallly the same people both nights. And if there was no practical purpose, why did Charlie go with them?
If it was a copy cat, why go to a mansion and kill 5 people when Gary was a beatnicjk living in a shack.
Whose idea was it to write on the walls in blood at Gary's house? Bobby's? Hadn't he been away from the family for months surely he didn't buy that Helter Skelter trip.
The mind plays tricks on you. You play tricks back! It's like you're unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting.
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Deletegrimtraveller said...
ReplyDelete... the one time Charlie did say specifically what to write, it wasn't done.
What did Charlie want written?
Col. Scott, excellent points, well said, you obviously have a better code of ethics than (liars/lawyers) like David & bugs. Being a good liar/lawyer doesn't necessarily equate with justice. Col. Scott, thank you for being one of the good ones.
ReplyDeleteJoseph,
ReplyDeleteHe's not a lawyer.
Excellent point George! Good liars/lawyers are not necessarily out for truth. Only convictions.
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Delete@David, that's all well and good. I don't like them anyway.
ReplyDeleteIn Ronnie Howard's interview with the LAPS she recalls discussions with Atkins about Helter Skelter, but not in the context of a race war.
ReplyDeleteIn the Hendrickson documentary, its obvious that the "love of brother" motive; copy cat killings to free Bobby is a lie that they made up after the fact to try and ansolve Charlie.
That's too bad Joseph I have no reason to dislike you but then again I don't know you.
ReplyDeletePuter said, "In the Hendrickson documentary, its obvious that the "love of brother" motive; copy cat killings to free Bobby is a lie that they made up after the fact to try and ansolve Charlie."
ReplyDeleteWhy do you say that?
You can see it in the way they fumble through the story. Particularly Sandy telling it. It's like "uh ...uh....uh"
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DeleteColScott said...
ReplyDeleteAs a researcher
I don't ever recall claiming to be a researcher. My reason for contributing is that I find the case interesting and having met only one other person that had even a remote interest in it in the first 37 years I was acquainted with it, it's been a groove to come across loads of people that are also interested in it and happily discuss it, with all the differences of thought, personality and opinion that brings.
If I have ever referred to myself as a researcher, let me know where and most importantly, what the context was in which I would have said such a thing.
As a researcher we have an obligation to the truth
When referring to Clem during the penalty phase in "HS", Bugliosi said "The youth who beheaded Shorty Shea appeared to be a complete idiot." Published in '74, there was at that time no proof that Shea was dead or beheaded. By the end of 1977 that ceased to be the case as his body was found intact. From the '94 editions of "HS" there was an afterword included which carried a little section on the matter:
"Subsequently, Sergeant Gleason and his partner found Shea's remains in one piece at the spot designated by Grogan..."
In June 2012, 18 years after Bugliosi would correct his earlier statement and 35 after it became common knowledge that Shorty was found intact, ColScott, on your very own blog you wrote "Clem cut off a man's head and buried him in a shallow grave." If that wasn't bad enough, on this very blog back in April, you wrote "Steve Grogan/ Adam Gabriel helped to BEHEAD Shorty Shea and bury the body." The boy wonder responded in the very next post with "I thought Sheas body was intact?" and David said in the one after that, "Shorty beheaded"?, to which you replied to neither and haven't addressed since.
That a major researcher as yourself should knowingly trot out such an untruth 35 years after the truth was known to even amateurs like Grim is bad enough, but to carry on with it 5 years after that and then lecture about truth is richer than Belgian chocolate.
At least Bugliosi had the balls to correct his earlier error ~ and he had good reason, understandable even to his most ardent detractor, for trotting it out in the first place.
Whodathunk Col would languish in Bugliosi's shadow when it came to the honesty stakes, eh ?
The truth requires an investigation into why people say things
Over to you, Col.
joseph esposito said...
Col. Scott, excellent points, well said, you obviously have a better code of ethics than (liars/lawyers) like David & bugs
Cough...choke...
Being a good liar...doesn't necessarily equate with justice. Col. Scott, thank you for being one of the good ones
I love award ceremonies ! ☺
susanatkinsSTDetc said...
ReplyDeleteI agree 100 percent on Grim
Everything you post gets routinely deleted. When anyone looks through these posts, you don't even exist. You don't even rate as a memory that future readers can put a name to. It is only people like Grim that quote your posts and think you might have something of any use to say that enable you to be one degree higher than a puff of smoke on this blog so being in agreement with the worthlessness of Grim ends up being a wonderful lesson for high school kids in the application of irony, does it not ?
starviego said...
grimtraveller said...
... the one time Charlie did say specifically what to write, it wasn't done
What did Charlie want written?
The things you quoted from Tex's book. Stuff that, incidentally, ended up on the LaBianca walls, not Cielo.
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Delete"What did Charlie want written?"
ReplyDelete"The things you quoted from Tex's book. Stuff that, incidentally, ended up on the LaBianca walls, not Cielo."
Charlie wanted 'Rise' and 'Helter Skelter' written at Cielo? That's news to me. Specifically, what is your source? Give us the exact quote.
Manson Mythos said...
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I wonder most about is if this tape found it's way into the hands of Susan's attorneys before Bugliosi got a hold of it
That would mean that Richard Caballero and/or Paul Caruso got hold of the tape, listened to it a sufficient number of times to have worked out from it that there was something that could be made into something "significant" called HS and that a guy called Charlie Manson could have everything pinned on him, fed it to Susan Atkins and got her to understand it sufficiently well to be able to tell Virginia Graham that now that the murders had happened, she felt at peace for now "I knew this was just the beginning of HS" ¬> and this before Bugliosi was ever on the case.
You state that it's one of the things that you wonder most about. Well, when Caballero was asked in court about the stuff written in blood, after first saying that he had told Kanarek not to ask him that, he replied, re: Atkins, "She told me that Charles Manson had wanted to bring on HS and it wasn't happening fast enough and the use of the word 'pig' was for the purpose of making them think that Negroes were committing these crimes because the Panthers & people like that are the ones that used the name 'pig' to mean the establishment and that was the whole purpose of it, that HS wasn't happening fast enough and Charlie was going to bring on the ruination of the world and this is why all the murders were committed. I asked you not to ask me these questions, Mr Kanarek."
or, if Bugliosi obtained it at an earlier date than he said in Helter Skelter
Because he just has to be a dishonest crook who can't be trusted in any way, shape or form, right ?
I would imagine her attorneys DID get it and from that the cover story of Helter Skelter to conceal the real motives was used
If you were going to make something up that was even remotely plausible to a human being, would you come up with HS ? Who knows, you might.
On the other hand, if it was genuinely believed, chances are it would come up a lot pretty much wherever you went and roll off the tongue in its various elements and you might just find that it was coming from a variety of different sources. They may not all call it the same thing but chances are the dots would all join together to form a coherent picture when looked at.
starviego said...
ReplyDeleteCharlie wanted 'Rise' and 'Helter Skelter' written at Cielo? That's news to me. Specifically, what is your source? Give us the exact quote
Star, what's happening mate ? You said to George"Charlie gave explicit instructions to Tex on what to do at the crime scene. And he told the girls exactly what to write on the wall~in blood"
You then said to me "Krenny didn't decide anything. Charlie told her what to write" when I pointed out she could have written any 2 words and she chose HS. You quoted Tex from his '78 & 2016 parole.
I then replied "If you take the "something witchy" that Charlie admits to Diane Sawyer he told the girls, never anywhere is any specific slogan given. The way it's always reported, how it actually came out would have been up to whoever was writing. The actual instructions of what to write that Tex claimed in '78, weren't done."
You then quoted some of my blurb {The actual instructions of what to write that Tex claimed in '78, weren't done} and then quoted Tex's book
So says Tex:
Tex Watson, Will You Die For Me?~pg71 we were to...write messages on the walls in their blood. When he started listing what he wanted written — things like HELTER SKELTER and RISE — I told him I couldn't remember all that. But he said it was okay; the girls would know what to write
So how can it be news to you what Charlie, according to Tex, wanted written at Cielo when you've given me both the specific quote and the source that shows this ? It pertains to Cielo as it was instructions supposedly from Charlie that first night.
George Stimson said...
ReplyDeleteRegarding that alternative motive, Atkins claims in her book that the real motive for the slayings was to commit copycat murders in order to get Bobby Beausoleil out of jail. David says that this motive was derived during round the clock planning sessions that included Manson. David writes, "That [Manson participated in this planning], of course is not possible given Manson was not there." Yes, it is of course not possible. Therefore, it’s not possible for Manson to have been part of the discussion of the “copycat” motive for the murders
Can you not see the inherent danger of making an argument for the copycat motive by pointing out Susan Atkins' turn away from HS to embrace it, even asking why she would do this if it wasn't true, then in the very next paragraph conceding that because her claims about Charlie couldn't possibly be true as to his involvement {because he wasn't there}, he therefore had nothing to do with it ~ yet the person you are using to uphold that motive is so obviously lying about it that she can't even get the timing sequence and persons involved right ? It's a clear case of it being her bullshit that gets Charlie off the hook......yet for Charlie to get off the hook totally unreliable, actively impossible claims must be employed, yet those claims involve embracing the motive that get Charlie off the hook. It's a better catch 22 than Catch 22.
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Delete" It pertains to Cielo as it was instructions supposedly from Charlie that first night."
ReplyDeleteReading the source page again, I see you are right. I thought Tex was talking about the second night.
It's coming down FAST!!!! YESSSS it is ...
ReplyDeleteIs the idea that Paul Watkins tried to "take over the Family" based solely on his account in his book, or are there other sources? I tend to find him likeable and credible based on his book and interviews.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree that nobody should be taken on their word alone, except maybe Grim 8)
ReplyDeleteExcellent work by David again.
The most damning statements here, imho, are Charlie's Helter Skelterish ones, to reporters before the trial began.
The 30 year old "author" in the LA Times story may have been Jakobson - 30 years old (born in 1939) at the time the story was written. Whoever it was, it was obviously someone who knew Manson well, an intimate for many years.
And "The Anvil into Tartaros" chapter title, from Ed Sanders "The Family", was likely Wylie Coyote inspired as well. ;-)
Regarding the phrase “Helter Skealter” being painted on the refrigerator: it’s also completely possible that it was spur of the moment nonsense without much time or contemplation given to its writing. Nothing about the Cielo Drive crimes suggest that they were well-planned and tactically prepared. A person was killed in a vehicle about to leave the property, another on the grounds outside of the dwelling while fleeing, the confusing haphazard staging of some victims, and complete failure of realization that another person was currently occupying the guest cottage, all together. The HS on the fridge, complete with its misspelling, seem rather ‘spur of the moment.’ A very ‘think of something - on the spot’ gesture that had just been recalled in an overwhelmed moment; to mirror the Hinman scene. If instead it was supposed to be a vital trigger, to ferociously spark racial combat - it was a rather uninspired and lame attempt wasn’t it? Something that surely would have been given much more thought and attention; given the actions and deeds which had to be done, in order to allow it to be written?
ReplyDeleteAt a time in US history where every social institution, standard, belief, law and right was being challenged - a common phrase meaning ‘upside down, confusing, disorder’ with a good rhyme - would be pretty much commonplace in the prevalent counter culture, especially when used by the most celebrated pop icons of the time. I strongly question just how unique the phrase “helter-skelter” was to Charles Manson, and those who committed the crimes.
While those whom I have personally conversed with, who were with the group of brothers and sisters at Spahn and Barkers ranch, have mentioned inclinations that there was significant turbulence between racial factions in society inevitably leading to conflict; I have never once heard any of them use the phrase HS or express any sort of fear and trepidation about the situation. Believing that racial tensions were going to escalate to mass violence and resistance at that time was as “outlandish” as believing anytime a conservative minded group assembles today, there will be incidents from opposition… it was commonplace. I have heard nothing to suggest any anxiety or urgency to “act upon” the social unrest. In fact, the sentiment expressed in regards to the human discourse was that of “wanting nothing to do with it” and to be “left the fuck alone.” If “Helter Skelter” were a real thought or “belief” - you would have heard it said on the corner outside the hall of justice….
Mr. Humphrat said...
ReplyDeleteIs the idea that Paul Watkins tried to "take over the Family" based solely on his account in his book, or are there other sources? I tend to find him likeable and credible based on his book and interviews.
But I agree that nobody should be taken on their word alone, except maybe Grim 8)
I too would like to know why Watkins is not to be believed by some of the folks on this board. His recollection of his time with the family as recounted in his book is sharp, and it seems to me that most of the stories he recounts match up pretty well against what is known. Surely his testimony is at least as credible as that of any of the killers?
George Stimson said...
ReplyDeletePatricia Krenwinkel – David, you said it yourself: She has no direct recollection of Manson saying that “the Family” would start Helter Skelter…
grimtraveller replied:
Pat says more or less the same thing about the copycat motive ¬>
INMATE KRENWINKEL: "We had never discussed in that family killing anyone really, as far as like anyone going out to kill someone. Mr. Kay makes sounds like there was these big times when people sat around and talked about killing. I was never there. So if they happened, I wasn’t there."
Something struck me as quite interesting about earmarking Pat as having never heard about the murders being enacted to kick off HS, particularly as the same applies to the copycat motive. In his book, George points to what he sees as solid reasons for Tex, Susan, Linda & Leslie being involved in the murders: the former 3 because they owed Charlie and were therefore responding to his telling them to "do something" {in itself an amazing assertion considering the thrust of "Goodbye Helter Skelter"} to get Bobby out of jail and Leslie because of her past relationship to Bobby. But the one person that he could find that was in no debt to Charlie was Pat ~ the one who said that they didn't sit around discussing the copycat. In that now rather significant parole hearing from '78, Pat comes clean and says there are a load of things in the 1971 transcript that, if she was able to go through them, would show where it was obvious she had been lying. Her penalty phase admission of the copycat plan concocted by herself, Susan, Leslie and Linda was one of them.
Peter said...
ReplyDeleteMaybe if Manson didn't come across exactly like one would expect someone who believed in Helter Skelter to come across during his trial that might have helped his cause
On the other hand, two of the heavyweight witnesses, Paul Watkins and Brooks Poston, both admitted that they had believed in it and certainly in the Watson trial Linda showed she believed in it.
Meanwhile, Manson simply said of "Helter Skelter" that it was a nightclub and that the phrase meant 'confusion.'
Did Charlie really come across during the trial as someone that believed in HS ? I'd say that was hugely debatable and the women, in the penalty phase even less so.
it was not Charlie's motive for the murder. And I agree, and have said before, that in my opinion he used Helter Skelter solely as a tool for controlling the Family
Given that he'd had control from mid '67 right up to the end of '68 when he first heard the White album {his little harem was initially known as "Charlie's girls"} and given that the likes of Bill Vance, Bobby Beausoleil, Karate Dave, Zero and Bruce weren't spouting HS all over the place, I can't see how HS alone makes that connection.
He didn't give a shit about any revolutions, he only cared about controlling his immediate circle. Charlie's ambitions didn't go beyond making sure Charlie got fed, got laid, and didn't have to work
Gregg Jacobson said that Charlie was talking about the Black/White revolution when he first met him in '68. As Brownrice has pointed out, the talk of revolution was very much in the air among those that had an affinity with the counterculture. If Charlie was able to use something like like HS to control his immediate circle, then it kind of demonstrates that........he was able to control his immediate circle. And let's face it, there was always the tension between those that were hardcore stayers and those like Ella Jo, TJ, Karate Dave, Little Paul, Juanita, Brooks, Barbara, Simi Valley Sherry, Stephanie and even Kitty, who got the hell out.
Trying to utilize HS as the means of control overlooks 20 months prior and is not even too simplistic ~ it makes no sense. Because the facts are that he ate {almost freely, at Spahn}, got laid regularly {according to Dr David Smith, several times a day} and had some of the others working, long before the White album was even released.
HS didn't alter any of that.
Peter said...
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing about this case is that there is a wealth of source materials: books by most of the actors, parole transcripts, trial testimony, grand jury minutes, jail house confessions, recorded police interviews. But you can't be sure you can believe any of it. No one is entirely reliable
It's a feature of being around Charles Manson. Bobby noted last year that he tended to spin different yarns to different people that were around him at the same time. I've noted that our George, Nicholas Shreck and AC Fisher Aldag all spent a considerable amount of time with him, and yet have all come out with very different stories of what he told them regarding the murders. Exactly the same thing happened with Tex, Leslie, Susan & Pat. Differing tales.
That said, within all the books by most of the actors, parole transcripts, trial testimony, grand jury minutes, jail house confessions and recorded police interviews, there's much that actually can be harmonized. That's partly why the main protagonists are still in jail.
Red Wolf said...
ReplyDeleteRegarding the phrase “Helter Skealter” being painted on the refrigerator: it’s also completely possible that it was spur of the moment nonsense without much time or contemplation given to its writing
It's possible.
But when people are in the midst of a traumatic event like a murder and they haven't thought specifically about what message they are going to leave behind, is it not likely that what they do write will be reflective of what's going on in their heads, drawn from their everyday being ?
But leave it to Leslie, who was there, to explain it as she did back in '69:
MISS VAN HOUTEN: “Helter Skelter” was written on the refrigerator. And that was used to let people know that the Beatles were the prophets, and they were telling it like it was, and that it’s coming down fast, and you just be ready, you know.
Nothing about the Cielo Drive crimes suggest that they were well-planned and tactically prepared
Nothing about the Cielo or Waverley crimes suggest that they were well planned and tactically prepared to point to the existence of the killer of Gary Hinman still being at large.
The HS on the fridge, complete with its misspelling, seem rather ‘spur of the moment.’ A very ‘think of something - on the spot’ gesture that had just been recalled in an overwhelmed moment; to mirror the Hinman scene
If the mirroring of the Hinman scene had been the goal, why not pump Susan who was there {and who would later say that having been involved in something similar inspired her to write 'pig'} for info on what was actually written ? The answer to that is really simple ¬> it had sweet FA to do with mirroring Hinman.
As for the misspelling, it's more grist for the HS mill. It had been spoken of so much that it was in the mind as a phrase one says, not one that one writes down. In similar fashion, there are words that I've seen written for half a century but never heard said so I have my own pronunciation which are probably wrong. Had I not heard someone actually pronounce Albuquerque, I'd still be pronouncing it "Alber~Q~Q" ! That's how I imagined it was pronounced from the mid 70s when I'd read cowboy comics.
If instead it was supposed to be a vital trigger, to ferociously spark racial combat - it was a rather uninspired and lame attempt wasn’t it?
Yes. Ditto a Hinman copycat. Even George, the foremost defender of the copycat motive whose book is dedicated to upholding its veracity has pointed that out.
Whatever the "signs" were supposed to point to, that would be true.
But not to the people that left those signs.