Monday, December 23, 2019

Missing 911


Anomalies in the 911 Police Response Time at the Tate Crime Scene



There is a huge oddity in this case that appears in the first few pages of Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, though I've never seen it commented on anywhere.  That is the curious, lengthy delay in the arrival of police first responders after getting the first 911 calls from the Asin residence at 10090 Cielo Drive (next door to the Kott residence, which was itself next door to 10050 Cielo) that reported a suspected homicide(or multiple homicides) on the morning of August 9nth.


Helter Skelter, pg5
Winifred Chapman sees two bodies--one on the lawn and another in the white Rambler.

pg6
Neighbor Jim Asin, 15, called 911. 

"While they were trying to calm the hysterical Mrs. Chapman, Jim dialed the police emergency number.  Trained by the scouts to be exact, he noted the time: 8:33am."

"Jim called the police a second time, and some minutes later, a third."

Was he, too, wondering at the delay in the police response?

 Jim Asin





















pg6
"There is some confusion as to exactly what happened to the (911)calls.  The official police report only states, "At 9:14 hours, West Los Angeles Units 8L5(DeRosa) and 8L62(Whisenhunt) were given a radio call, 'Code 2, possible homicide, 10050 Cielo Drive.' " "

"The confusion extends to the arrival time of the units.  Officer DeRosa would later testify he arrived about 9:05am, which was before he supposedly received the Code 2.  Officer Whisenhunt, who came next, set the time of his arrival between 9:15am and 9:25am, while officer Burbridge, who arrived after both men, testified he was there at 8:40am."

You would think Asin's 911 calls would have been logged in somewhere with the times the calls were made, to help clear up this 'confusion.'  But that 911 information is missing.


So the official timeline says patrol units got their first radio alert at 9:14am.  If the first 911 call came in at
8:33am, and if you add a couple of minutes for the police to drive to the crime scene, then you've got about 45 minutes between the first 911 call and when the cops showed up.

45 minutes?  On a suspected multiple homicide call...  in Bel-Air...  on a quiet Saturday morning? 


 
What's wrong with this picture?  If you don't think that is unusual, ask yourself this:  'If I called 911 to report a suspected homicide(s), how long before police show up at my door?'  Where I live, the response time in minutes would probably be in the single digits.  And I don't live in Bel-Air.

So what is your theory on this bizarre and unexplained delay in the 911 response time? 


 *In comparison, at the LaBianca crime scene, it was at most 15 minutes from the 911 call to when the cops showed up.

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

Another curious delay:

pg11
"It was 9:40am.  DeRosa called in, reporting five deaths and a suspect in custody."

pg16
"It was 1:30pm before the first homicide detectives arrived."

Almost four hours between the report of five homicides in a rich part of town and the arrival of a single homicide detective?*  Normally you would expect the homicide detectives to respond as quickly as possible, as they know how a crime scene can become adulterated by officers and responders tromping all over the scene--which is what happened at Cielo Drive.

*In comparison, at the LaBianca crime scene, it took about two hours for the homicide detectives to show up.


59 comments:

Fairlight said...

Hi! I am new. I am going to Death Valley, Goler Wash, Trona and Shoshone tomorrow. I am very excited!

Dan S said...

By the end of 1976, 9-1-1 was serving about 17% of the population of the United States. In 1979, approximately 26% of the population of the United States had 9-1-1 service, and nine states had enacted 9-1-1 legislation. At this time, 9-1-1 service was growing at the rate of 70 new systems per year. By 1987, those figures had grown to indicate that 50% of the US population had access to 9-1-1 emergency service numbers.

911 initially launched in California in 1972.

Dan S said...

I guess 911 is the current catch all for police emergency number so it's beside the point that he didn'tactually use the number 911

gina said...

While all of this is interesting, what point does it make?

Torque said...

Certainly this is but another of the many time discrepancies in this case. The different recorded times of the arriving officers has always baffled me. I have always thought that some of the officers simply made mistakes on their arrival time in their reports,and from there it entered the vernacular.

I have to believe that 8:33AM call from the Asin residence to be factual. We should factor in the arrival time of Mrs Chapman that morning to Cielo, to be approximately 8:30AM, and work the timeline from there.

Speaking of time, I'd like to bring up a comment made by Susan Atkins. I cannot presently site the source, but it is either in a parole hearing or interview. Namely, she said that when she was with Sharon in the living room at Cielo, Susan heard the chimes of a clock sound twelve times, indicating in this case the hour of midnight. That does not square, in my understanding, with the sequence of events that night. It could be, if it did chime, that it sounded on the half or quarter hour, or perhaps was not set to the correct time. Additionally, Patricia Krenwinkel at one point stated that from the time the killers entered near the gate, to the time they finally left, about only 20 minutes had passed.

starviego said...

gina said...
"While all of this is interesting, what point does it make?"

The point is is that there was something else going on here. Like someone was delaying the dispatch of the officers, possibly to make sure that others at the site were not caught by the first responders. People like CIA pogue Reeve Whitson, whose involvement is detailed in Tom O'Neill's new book CHAOS.

grimtraveller said...

gina said...

While all of this is interesting, what point does it make?

The point it makes is that just about anything that can be used to prop up any of Star's many conspiracy theories will be !

starviego said...

someone was delaying the dispatch of the officers, possibly to make sure that others at the site were not caught by the first responders. People like CIA pogue Reeve Whitson

Oh, isn't he the guy Mrs Chapman saw in the kitchen hiding behind the skillet with his trousers down ?

Reeve Whitson, whose involvement is detailed in Tom O'Neill's new book CHAOS

It's getting harder to keep up with all the people that were going to have been at Cielo on the night of the killings plus the people that claim to have been creepy crawled by the Family plus the people that were driving the white sports car on the night of the LaBianca killings in addition now, to the little party that was had at Cielo in the aftermath of the murders that thus far numbers Charlie, Bruce and/or some mystery companion, Reeve Whitson and/or some spooks that were keeping surveillance outside and Robert Linkletter as a participant in the murders who supposedly dropped his glasses, couldn't see without them but neglected to try to find them.
Now that's what you call a hard days night !

SixtiesRockRules! said...

According to information uncovered by nikolas shreck, cass elliot visited the tate murder scene sometime early that morning prior to chapman's arrival and discovered the bodies. Personally, I'm skeptical of O'Neill's and shreck's claims and, unless some really persuasive evidence comes tp light that backs up these claims, I will remain so.

Matt said...

Want to learn anything about TLB? Avoid Schreck and O'Neill.


Carlos said...

starviego said ....

The point is is that there was something else going on here. Like someone was delaying the dispatch of the officers, possibly to make sure that others at the site were not caught by the first responders.

In order for that to be credible and defendable, you would need to offer evidence that the circumstances in this case were markedly different from the norm. For example, I did some quick searching online and found some statistics from the National Institute of Justice on police response time from that general era. These numbers might surprise people today, especially people whose expectations are based on experiences like living in a really nice town with well funded cops or based even on TV shows. Differences in technology must be accounted for as well, recording technology in particular.

If that’s not enough to give pause, look at it this way. We know for sure that the killers, when off to the side in dark brush, didn’t hesitate to reveal themselves and kill some poor kid on his way out. If there was some larger conspiracy with people still on the premises the next morning, would there be reluctance to simply snuff out Mrs. Chapman when she showed up unexpectedly? FFS, if there were conspirators with the ability to control the LAPD, I would certainly expect them to have much more effective and predictable and UNDETECTABLE ways to control access to the scene, especially given your premise of there still being conspirators still there.

AstroCreep said...

Carlos, without even doing the online search, my mind instantly thinks a municipal phone number is called, before dispatch can even take place, two more calls are placed. Once jurisdiction is established, call to units in the vicinity is probably tracked and then the call to the unit goes out. From there, response time starts. Maybe they were grabbing coffee and went to the bathroom prior to responding? Lots of plausible explanations.

Star, thanks for taking the time to post!

Dan S said...

Keep digging, Star! You'll find the Lookout Mountain smoking gun eventually. I'm inclined to believe it was all a perfect storm of dumbassery taking Charlie's paranoia and "die for me/come to now" games too far, though.
For a long time i wanted to believe it was a Spook false flag to discredit the hippies and the Johnson administration was as evil as they come from the top down (even using murder to even get in office).

DebS said...

I think one of the reasons that conspiracy theories abound in this case is because though Charlie was arrested many times before the murders he was never charged with parole violations and jailed for any length of time to investigate the new charges. He was always released within 48 hours and sometimes fined a minimal amount.

Had Charlie been made to answer for his crimes after his release in 1967 he may have been taken off the streets for just enough time to afford some sort of cooling off period so that the murders never would have happened.

The reasons for this inaction by law enforcement is hard to reconcile and leads minds to wander in tinfoil hat territory.

Cooltide said...

On Cats site I added those who were there and supposed to have been going to Cielo ,"The List", I think it was about 47 and growing when Cats site shut down..��

grimtraveller said...

DebS said...

though Charlie was arrested many times before the murders he was never charged with parole violations and jailed for any length of time to investigate the new charges. He was always released within 48 hours and sometimes fined a minimal amount

Though Charlie was arrested....
That, right there is the key. Arrested. In a land where one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, a mere arrest is in no way commensurate with guilt, let alone sufficient to put someone away. And let's not forget a couple of things, firstly, that the police's previous heavy handedness was increasingly under question and scrutiny by the counterculture and also, that there was a more sympathetic ear towards Manson because of his previous length of incarceration, according to a point CieloDrive.com once made. Even Bugliosi made the point in somewhat amazed tones that if Manson had been convicted at state rather than federal level he would have served probably less than 5 years instead of over 17.

Had Charlie been made to answer for his crimes after his release in 1967 he may have been taken off the streets for just enough time to afford some sort of cooling off period so that the murders never would have happened

While true, it can't be emphasized enough that he was never found guilty of anything. The things he was arrested for were basically seen as minor beefs and he was seen as relatively harmless. It's interesting that in his trial, he laments over the fact that he spent 7 years inside for a $37 cheque. Though he was doing his usual minimizing and not seeing things as the law dictated, it's nevertheless instructive that he felt that the punishment was out of proportion to the crime. He doesn't appear to have been the only one with leanings towards this kind of view.

The reasons for this inaction by law enforcement is hard to reconcile and leads minds to wander in tinfoil hat territory

It may be hard to reconcile, but in truth, it's only hard to reconcile in the light of the murders. If, for the sake of argument, from August '69 he'd gotten a job and decided to make a concerted effort to go straight and never got into trouble again, who would, in all honesty, be saying "that guy should have been arrested, investigated and put away 50 years ago !" ? If he'd made it in the music biz, his '67~'69 activity would be a selling point.
But with all that said, by October 1st, Samuel Barrett had begun moves to have his probation revoked. This was before he was actually linked with the TLB murders.

SixtiesRockRules! said...

According to information uncovered by nikolas shreck

That statement alone says it all.
Shreck's 900+ page tome is actually a brilliant book. It's well written, it brings to the fore the spiritual side of Charles Manson in a way that no other artifact I've come across does and if you can find it, it's a must to read. But ultimately, it's a fairy tale par excellence, in my opinion. The strangest thing about it is that he has Charlie personally there and involved in the murders of Abigail and Wojiciech.

cass elliot visited the tate murder scene sometime early that morning prior to chapman's arrival and discovered the bodies

Did she come in through the bathroom window ?
Oh, hang on, Abbey Road hadn't been released yet.......

grimtraveller said...

Cooltide said...

On Cats site I added those who were there and supposed to have been going to Cielo ,"The List", I think it was about 47 and growing when Cats site shut down..

You were one of the major contributors there. Lots of good stuff came from you, some interesting food for thought.

DebS said...

Grimtraveller said......

Though Charlie was arrested....
That, right there is the key. Arrested. In a land where one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, a mere arrest is in no way commensurate with guilt, let alone sufficient to put someone away.

Grim, Charlie did not need to go through the whole charges, court and conviction deal if he violated his parole. When one violates their parole they are generally sent back to prison to serve the remainder of their sentence because they did not follow the rules of their parole. There is plenty of evidence that Charlie violated his parole.

Yes, Barrett did finally start drawing up the papers to revoke Charlie's parole but obviously it was too little, too late. Charlie had been arrested nine times before the murders and some of those arrests were not for piddly crimes. He was arrested for rape and assault. He was also arrested for drugs which, back then, was a big deal.

Why didn't the authorities keep him in jail after the Spahn Ranch Raid? While the charges were thrown out because of technicality with the warrant, he was a felon on parole. There were many firearms confiscated in the raid and felons are not suppose to be anywhere near firearms. Felons on parole are suppose to obey all laws and if they mess up they run the risk of being sent back to prison. He was like a cat with nine lives.

starviego said...

AstroCreep said...
"Maybe they were grabbing coffee and went to the bathroom prior to responding? Lots of plausible explanations."

45 minutes is still 45 minutes. I can't think of any plausible explanation for this.

Cooltide said...

@Fairlight, LOOK out for WONDERHUSSY, haha!

starviego said...


OFF TOPIC: Charlie just got a promotion!

https://www.prisonplanet.com/italian-exorcist-says-society-risks-collapse-due-to-aggressive-satanism.html
“There are many groups of satanism,” Dermine said, noting that internet exposure has also increased, and references to the demonic are increasingly prevalent in videogames and school games such as the “Charlie Charlie challenge,” in which players cross two pencils on a grid with sectors marking ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and ask a supernatural being, “Charlie,” to answer the questions they ask.

grimtraveller said...

DebS said...

Charlie did not need to go through the whole charges, court and conviction deal if he violated his parole

Granted, but does an arrest = parole/probation violation ? Arrest can be for things ranging from major to minor offences. What if the police got it wrong ?

some of those arrests were not for piddly crimes. He was arrested for rape and assault. He was also arrested for drugs which, back then, was a big deal

I didn't say he was arrested for piddly crimes, but rather, his arrests were seen by police as being that way. Rape wasn't treated back in '69 the way it's treated now. If a Black or Hispanic or even a hippie woman was raped back at that time, the police were hardly falling over themselves to catch the rapist.
He was arrested for drugs in the aftermath of the murders....only to have the charge thrown out, so yes, it was a big deal back then but again I have to stress, it was only an arrest. The Family didn't seem to treat arrests with any great trepidation.

if they mess up they run the risk of being sent back to prison

"Run the risk of..."
A criminal's whole existence is predicated on risk. Risk is part of the air that they breathe.

He was like a cat with nine lives

Which eventually ran out. It's interesting that Barrett started taking steps to revoke his parole/probation. In some ways, his approach perfectly mirrors that of the authorities at the time. And real life is like that. Some things take a long while to get moving. We only really question the {pre~murder} authorities in this case in the light of what went onto happen. And from that point of view, it doesn't surprise me that he wasn't slung back in jail during the first part of '69. For one thing, he couldn't even be found !
Starviego has a tendency to take ordinary everyday mundanities and incompetences and present them as evidence of much malice aforethought. Now, they could be, but as Carlos pointed out earlier, there needs to be evidence of this and I'm not talking about 50 years later in a case where it has been established for half a century that many have attached themselves to it for some bizarre 15 minutes of glory.

Dan S said...

Woah lots to read .... Merry xmas, y'all!

starviego said...


To get an idea of what readers are thinking, please respond to this survey if you have a minute. Pick a number:


1 -- There was no delay in the police response; 45 minutes may sound like a lot, but it was not unduly abnormal or unusual in comparison to other response times.

2 - The response was tardy, but there were innocent reasons for this (i.e. the nearest units were busy on another call, 2-for-1 sale at the donut shop, etc.)

3 - The response was delayed to make sure the covert operators(whether they were there to rearrange the bodies, plant the drugs, snatch the baby, film, etc.) were clear of the scene and not risk arrest by the patrolmen.



/

orwhut said...

2

Gorodish said...

#2

Carlos said...

2

Carlos said...

Something else caught my eye.

The post cites timeline references from HS, including this bit:

It was 1:30pm before the first homicide detectives arrived.

Fair enough, but HS also contains this bit as well:

In response to DeRosa’s call, four West Los Angeles detectives were dispatched to the scene. Lieutenant R. C. Madlock, Lieutenant J. J. Gregoire, Sergeant F. Gravante, and Sergeant T. L. Rogers would all arrive within the next hour.

DeRosa’s call was at 09:40, not too long after the accepted arrival time plus time enough for the initial investigation.

So, I while it’s true that it took a few hours for dedicated homicide detectives to arrive, the timeline of events in total do not, in my mind, support anything particularly unusual or conspiratorial regarding the detective aspect of the LAPD’s response. Detectives arrived quickly.

Officer Granado is officially on scene and at work gathering blood evidence by 10:00. No delay of any note there.

Dan S said...

The FBI picked up debris/evidence from the lawn at the 9/11 Pentagon missle attack site immediately after the strike. Do people see a conspiracy smoking gun?
Don't put anything past the people in power.
Oh and i wanna say 3 so badly, you know i do....

Gorodish said...

From a Gizmodo article dated 7/7/2014 :

Before the 1960s, the United States didn't have one universal phone number for Americans to call if they needed help from the police or fire department. Callers simply had to know the phone number for each department in the area they were currently in.

In the case of large cities, there were often multiple police and fire departments covering different areas. Los Angeles, for example, had fifty different police departments and just as many phone numbers. Telephone operators would usually be left to direct emergency calls if the caller wasn't sure which department or phone number they needed. Oftentimes there would be further delays upon getting the police or fire department on the line if the clerks who answered the phone were busy with another caller. Needless to say, this system wasn't optimized to get emergency help where it needed to go very quickly.


This could easily explain either #1 or #2 of starviego's choices above. Although 911 was rolled out in a few states in 1968-69, the first 911 system implemented in California was in the Merced County city of Gustine in March 1970.

Gorodish said...

Choice #3 is extremely far-fetched and unlikely. If "covert operators" were there to move bodies and plant evidence, they would have known that the "devil there to do the devil's business" and his trio of witches left around 1 AM and would have sprung into action shortly afterward and been out of there ASAP. They would have been long gone by sunrise, which would negate the reasons to delay an 8:30AM police call.

G. Greene-Whyte said...

I love my foil hat. It has led me to a ton of reading and also embarrassment over the years. But bad guys still being there at 830am is a bit of a stretch. Especially in summer. People would have been up for hours by then.

AstroCreep said...

There is no “domestic spy how to get others to kill people to make a whole movement look bad” program. Does CIA train and equip guerrilla forces to overthrow governments and political figures? Sure. The reason our govt uses covert operators to conduct these activities is to deny any US involvement. That’s it.

To say that the CIA staged a murder scene AFTER it’s recruited and trained a group to commit the act and after they’ve committed the act, is purely absurd. If that was the case, they’d have committed the murder itself. Makes absolutely zero sense.

Also, the police aren’t in a huge rush if a crime is not in progress. In this case there are multiple calls and just the time delay in finding the right jurisdiction and then dispatching units could eat up the majority of that 45 minutes- not to mention any other logical delay such as the responding officer not answering immediately etc. I don’t believe police in 1969 had hand held communications that would reach dispatch, that was likely in the car, attached to the car.

Dan S said...

Did the fbi have a dirty tricks program? Was cointelpro real? Yes.

Also, did we murder democratically elected leaders to put compliant dictators in charge? Yes

AstroCreep said...

Dan S: not pertinent to what I post or how what I post applies to this case or what the original post was implying.

gina said...

Absolutely 2.
Cass Elliot? Seriously? And she never told another living soul. Including David Crosby, her best friend who talks about EVERYTHING?
Occam's Razor. Helter Skelter.

Doug said...

2

Matt said...

2

grimtraveller said...


Starviego said...

What's wrong with this picture? If you don't think that is unusual, ask yourself this: 'If I called 911 to report a suspected homicide(s), how long before police show up at my door?'

Unusual, perhaps. Just not indicative of a major league conspiracy higher up the food chain. An interesting paragraph from Bugliosi & Gentry's Helter Skelter:

"In literature a murder scene is often likened to a picture puzzle. If one is patient and keeps trying, eventually all the pieces will fit into place.
Veteran policemen know otherwise. A much better analogy would be two picture puzzles or three, or more, no one of which is in itself complete. Even after a solution emerges ~ if one does ~ there will be leftover pieces, evidence that just doesn't fit. And some pieces will always be missing."

That could almost have been written to stave off all the conspiracy theorists that would one day gather and perfect the art of reading more or less into anything, something or nothing.

3 - The response was delayed to make sure the covert operators(whether they were there to rearrange the bodies, plant the drugs, snatch the baby, film, etc.) were clear of the scene and not risk arrest by the patrolmen.


What I find absurd about this is the notion that highly trained and by implication, ruthless and professional, operators would even be anywhere near Cielo Drive any time close to daybreak. Even a cynic trying to scotch the general timeline accepted still puts activity during the hours when it was dark. How long would it take to rearrange the bodies ? If Tex and co carried out the murders on behalf of these upper echelon forces and did what they did in half an hour, it's hardly going to take rigourous, experienced pros all day and all night.
Come on Star, the CIA were careful, ruthless and professional, not slapdash and "anyhow" as my friend Esther would say. That's why they were the CIA and not the Beatles trying to run Apple.

grimtraveller said...

Oh, and why didn't they dispose of Sadie's knife ?

orwhut said...

Grim,
They didn't dispose of Sadie's knife for the same reason they didn't dispose of Occam's Razor. They couldn't find it.

Dan S said...

I respectfully disagree

Dan S said...

Why would they want to get rid of sadie's knife? Lol about occam's razor. They should ve looked outside for that one cuz it's definitely out the window

AKA Zero said...

Likely equal parts one and two

grimtraveller-you are simply talking out your bum sir.

“Though Charlie was arrested....
That, right there is the key. Arrested. In a land where one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, a mere arrest is in no way commensurate with guilt, let alone sufficient to put someone away.”

In 1960s America (and definitely today’s America) a convict like Chuck Manson would not be afforded any sort of due process to violate. Basic conditions of parole and probation are much more stringent than the law-totally different set of rules. Simply associating with the likes of Bill Vance would have been enough to put Manson back prison. Yet this guy was arrested over and over and (to my knowledge) wasn’t even out on bail bond?! Yet another instance where the math doesn’t work in this case. Myself? I’m not ready to subscribe to a conspiracy theory that kept Manson free. He’s far from the first convict to slip through the cracks long enough to do something heinous and have the rest of us asking wtf? Will not be the last either. With so many inconsistencies in this case it’s not hard to understand why so many do feel like there were darker, more powerful forces at work beyond these clowns.

Carlos said...

AKA Zero said...

In 1960s America (and definitely today’s America) a convict like Chuck Manson would not be afforded any sort of due process to violate.

Barrett’s trial testimony indicates a much different situation. He is specifically asked about the marijuana arrest for example, and states that the dismissal of those charges was sufficient to end the matter from his perspective. He also testifies at some length about just how much due process federal parolees were afforded.

Patty is Dead said...

Matt said "Want to learn anything about TLB? Avoid Schreck and O'Neill.

Might be interesting to engage one or both in a debate. Schreck is a very open dude and always answers my questions in his fb group. He's not fond of mansonblog but it might be worth a shot and would be very interesting.

grimtraveller said...

AKA Zero said...

grimtraveller-you are simply talking out your bum sir

Well, it's evidently a language you understand well.

Carlos said...

Barrett’s trial testimony indicates a much different situation

It certainly does. And having read Barrett's testimony a few times now, I don't have to look for alternative conspiracies to explain why Manson's probation wasn't revoked sooner than it was. Bugliosi was of the opinion that Barrett was pretty shit at his job and wondered why Manson's mandatory release wasn't revoked sooner than it was. He may or may not have had a point but really, his observations underscore the reality of how felons on MR were being monitored. Unless there was evidence that they were actively involved in crimes or they weren't checking in with their officers or they couldn't be found, it seems that the prevailing attitude was "I'm not going deeply into this with all the chasing around and extra paperwork this is going to entail."
And that is ultimately what led Barrett to begin the steps to revoke. He became aware of what Manson was being suspected of, via LASO and added to the fact that he wasn't checking in and couldn't be found.......
He said a very significant thing during the penalty phase of the trial when Irving Kanarek asked him when it was that he had gone to Spahn and not found Charlie there: "Mr Kanarek, I can't remember every single day going back over a period of months on a specific case of mine. I may have 150 people under supervision and I can't carry in mind by memory over periods of months, every day that I have talked to them or seen them."

AKA Zero said...

grimtraveller-you are simply talking out your bum

Before there was Facebook, there was buttchat.
I'm an innovator of sorts ! And I have a well ordered and intelligent bum that knows how to sort out its solids and gases.


In 1960s America a convict like Manson would not be afforded any sort of due process to violate. Basic conditions of parole and probation are much more stringent than the law-totally different set of rules. Simply associating with the likes of Bill Vance would have been enough to put Manson back prison. Yet this guy was arrested over and over and (to my knowledge) wasn’t even out on bail bond?! Yet another instance where the math doesn’t work in this case

Well, this is from the horses mouth at the trial. This is Sam Barrett in reply to being asked whether being arrested on a marijuana charge was sufficient to have him incarecerated due to probation violation:
No, because the charges were dismissed and ∴ he was cleared of that; ∴ we had no substantial reason to accuse him of something that the law itself could not enforce."
As an aside, he reported to Barrett that he was living at Dennis Wilson's and after that....according to Barrett, at Gary Hinman's.



grimtraveller said...

More from Uncle Samuel. After Uncle Irving has asked him if, as an officer he has the power of immediate arrest and he has answered in the affirmative, he is then asked if he had the power of immediate arrest in the case of Charles Manson. His reply ? "No, not in his case."
KANAREK: Now, in his case, in order to have him arrested, you would have to issue some kind of process ?
BARRETT: Exactly.
Q: And you saw fit not to issue any such process until after 1st October 1969, right ?
A: Seeing fit in terms of time is a debatable matter. We do not issue such a process until we have developed sufficient evidence. So I might have looked or taken a dim view of something a year earlier but until I can establish beyond a reasonable doubt that he apparently is not performing according to the requirements of his parole, until I can do that with enough reason, then I cannot take any action.
Q: So you did not find enough reason to take any action until after Oct 1st '69, is that right ?
A: All right, yes.
Q: And is it a fact that the criterion is not beyond a reasonable doubt ? You don't have to prove that the way you have to prove it in a criminal case ?
A: Almost, because there have been appeal cases in this matter. It amounts to almost.

AKA Zero said...

Simply associating with the likes of Bill Vance would have been enough to put Manson back prison

According to Barrett, in his June '69 case notes, he had made note of what he called a "problem that apparently had arisen regarding Mr Manson's association with 3 other parolees with whom he had done time or had known while they were all confined at the Federal Correctional Institution at San Pedro."

So, yeah, there are inconsistencies in this case, as there are in many cases, actually, but there are also plausible and quite frankly mundane and ordinary answers to many of the questions that get raised. The question is whether or not one comes to the questions looking for oddities that must therefore shout out "conspiracy !" or determined to find discrepancies that must mean "dodgy dealings !" It's a bit like the song "Blue Jay way"; one can take the view that George Harrison is encouraging young people to drop out of society, hence singing "please don't belong" continually, especially in the runout. Or one can accept his explanation that he was writing a song to amuse himself as he waited for his friend Derek Taylor who was late and as Harrison was tired and jet lagged, he was hoping that he wouldn't take a long time, that he wouldn't be long.

Dan S said...

I'm so old, I hear new music I ask, "Is this the Beatles?"

"Who are The Beatles?" The kids ask back.

AKA Zero said...

grimtraveller.... “Well, it's evidently a language you understand well.”

Touché.

His parolee is on trial for mass murder and it was brutally obvious Manson hadn’t been supervised properly/at all. What would you expect him to say? He's not necessarily lying but he’s certainly full of shit.

I probably should have said “the same due process” rather than “any sort of due process” in my first comment. My point is there need not be a new conviction to violate. Didn’t Barrett finally get the ball rolling to send Manson back up without a new conviction? I don’t agree with Bugliosi on everything but he’s spot on regarding Mr. Barrett.


grimtraveller said...

AKA Zero said...

His parolee is on trial for mass murder and it was brutally obvious Manson hadn’t been supervised properly/at all. What would you expect him to say? He's not necessarily lying but he’s certainly full of shit

I don't disagree with that. In fact it's partly the point I was making. Rather than it pointing to a conspiracy higher up the food chain that shows Charlie was part of some covert activity and therefore "protected" {the Starviego line}, the answer is more mundane than that. Barrett in effect was saying that unless Manson was getting involved in things that could stick legally, then don't bother him. He was a supervision officer, not an investigator. But then again, if you look at the things Manson was being arrested for, Barrett had a point. The only reason an eyebrow was raised was in light of the fact that Barrett's man had been convicted of mass murder and conspiracy.
The way I look at Barrett is the way I look at cops in London today. 30 years ago, if one caught you with a spliff, you were for the high jump. Now, they just take it off you, maybe caution you, and you go about your business. No one even bats an eyelid. If, however, you go on to be accused of murder, then suddenly it becomes retrospective evidence of your latent evilness and any prosecution will make hay while the sun shines.

My point is there need not be a new conviction to violate. Didn’t Barrett finally get the ball rolling to send Manson back up without a new conviction?

Yes, but look closely at his reasons. They are things that can stick. Dubious sources of money. Not reporting in for supervision. Disappearing and not being able to be found. When those quantifiable things were added to the arrests, plus info Barrett was receiving from LASO about ongoing investigations, then he was able to act because at that point, a pattern was emerging and it was sufficient for Barrett to not be shackled by any "well, he's only been arrested, not convicted" line of argument.
As an aside, it says something for Manson's state of mind in September of '69 that he ran off to Barker with the risks that may have posed in relation to his status. Maybe he didn't take the probation services that seriously or maybe the pressure of Shorty's murder plus Gary's murder, plus TLB plus Linda's disappearance and the subsequent conversation with Joe Sage, plus the Spahn raid and the Aug 22 marijuana arrest combined to fuel his feeling that HS was indeed starting to come down.

grimtraveller said...

AKA Zero said...


Yet this guy was arrested over and over and (to my knowledge) wasn’t even out on bail bond?! Yet another instance where the math doesn’t work in this case

As an interesting side bar, there were actually times when Manson was arrested and convicted of things after he came out of jail. According to Bugliosi and Gentry in "Helter Skelter," in the summer of '67 he was arrested and charged with interfering in the questioning of a minor {Ruth Moorehouse} and was given a further 3 years probation. As I thought before, the object of the exercise, it seems, was to try and keep cons out of prison if they were on parole or probation unless there was a seriously good reason for putting them back there.
As you observe, there have long been cons that went on to commit terrible crimes that were out on parole or probation and it is those crimes that led people to look back and say "eh ?" It could be argued that the line between a serious crime and any crime for a con out on licence is negligible, but real life isn't like that. It costs money to incarcerate and I suspect the authorities have often regarded crimes in a hierarchical sense, beginning with those that can actually stick in a law of court. Then they'd look at just how actually dangerous the crime or violation was. Is/was going for a drink and to watch a ball game with a known felon really sufficient to have someone put back in jail even though technically, it violates their conditions ?

shoegazer said...

As regards the proposition that the police purposely delayed their arrival so as to give time for any of those involved to clear out, before even considering how anyone would know if someone was still there at ~8:30AM on Saturday (right: how would *anyone* know?), or how/why, exactly, an emergency line dispatcher would call someone with enough authority to order the hypothetical delay to go out to a specific location, the very first thing is to explain WHO was so important that their need for anonymity eclipsed a crime against well-known, well-heeled Bel Air residents?

Then to explain how/why all this happened in a plausible scenario.

grimtraveller said...

AKA Zero said...

His parolee is on trial for mass murder and it was brutally obvious Manson hadn’t been supervised properly/at all. What would you expect him to say? .......My point is there need not be a new conviction to violate

Interestingly, in the 1992 Arrow publishing version of "Helter Skelter," when commenting on Clem pleading guilty to grand theft auto in 1970 and the moves to get him jailed rather than given probation, Bugliosi makes the comment that in California, the probation services tended to be permissive and then goes on to lament that Clem was given straight probation. Prior to this, he'd enumerated some of the reasons given why LE felt that probation was out of the question.

starviego said...


By the time of the Watson trial, the time gap seems to have narrowed:

LADA files Box 20 vol7008 pg60of281 Watson trial
Asin:
Q: Approximately how long after you called the police did the police arrive?
A: About 10 minutes

grimtraveller said...

Which shows that time estimates, even the day after an event don't mean much.

Unknown said...

the one time line that always got my attention was the phone call Parent made from the guest house.....he arrives at Cielo at approx 11:45 and leaves at approx 12:15. Parent is killed at the gate 5 minutes after leaving the guest house....Tex Watson, 10 minutes before killing Parent, was climbing the pole to cut the phone line...Parent had just made a successful call from the house. Seems that Parents call must have been a mere minutes before Tex cut the wires....fascinating.

Unknown said...

Yes odd but not too odd when dealing with the LAPD. They are sloppy so many cases to look back on and see the incompetents. Look at the 22. Gun situation on this case alone! So i guess I take that back, it isn't odd at all. L.A keystone cops.

starviego said...

The poster Carl Ahcapella has raised an interesting question regarding the phone company techie already at the Tate house repairing the downed telephone wires between 10am and 11am on Aug 9, 1969(according to HS): "how did the repair guy (Raymond Kilgrow, a telephone company representative) know to go out to the Cielo house to fix the phone lines?" The phone company rep thus beat out the arrival of homicide detectives to the scene by several hours. And wouldn't the reconnection have risked destroying possible fingerprint evidence on those wires?

TomO:
"Beginning 8/11, calls were made by LAPD Det's to HQ in LA from the house."

So if the cops wanted the telephone wires reconnected ASAP, why did they wait two days before using the house phones? Weird.

starviego said...


Compare to the response time at the Hinman house:

LADA files Box 56A Bruce Davis' Hinman/Shea trial Dec '71 to Feb '72 pg2664
LASO Dep Piet gets radio call for Hinman residence at 8:05pm, gets there "at 8:10, 8:15" pm.