Monday, October 3, 2022

William Ray Cole and Dennis Willson Suspects

 

Goler Wash Road totalescape.com

On October 6, 1969 a report was made to the Redondo Beach Police Department that a gun was stolen from the vehicle of the reporting party while he and two friends were rock hunting in the Goler Wash area. The victim in the case, Ivan Bryant, told authorities while rock hunting he and his friends noticed some hippies walking near the area and assumed they were simply hiking. When he returned to his vehicle the gun that he had left on the front seat was missing. The car was not locked.

The three men immediately thought of the group of hippies that had passed by and took off after them. Once they caught up to the group the men questioned the hippies about the gun. The hippies feigned ignorance about the gun. The men however were able to get the names of the two adults in the group. They were William Ray Cole and Dennis Willson.

The men did not pursue the matter further with the hippies. Once Bryant returned home to Redondo Beach, he reported the stolen gun. Redondo Beach Police in turn handed the information over to Inyo County where the theft occurred.

In the report Cole is named as suspect #1, a physical description is given as well as a Canoga Park address. Suspect #2 is named Dennis Willson with a physical description: age 23, 5' 9", 170 pounds, black hair. The address given for Willson was 1400 Sunset Blvd. Pacific Palisades.

The age of Willson is about right but the real Dennis Wilson was six feet tall and had light brown hair. The address is a bit off and should have been given as 14400 Sunset Blvd. Also, Wilson is misspelled.

I think it was someone else, in the Family, that used Dennis's name, but who?

Here are the documents.




In addition to the documents there are also some of the detective's "scratch", informal notes they make when conducting an investigation. On the first one Cole and Willson are written down and there's a little note next to Willson that says "Doris Day's Son".  I'm not sure if the detective thought Dennis Wilson was Doris's son or if whoever he got the information from was trying to tell the detective that Terry Melcher was a friend of Wilson's.





The next bit of scratch says that Bill Vance robbed Jack Jones along with Zero and Vern






Bill Vance was arrested under the name David Lee Hamic during the Barker Ranch Raids. He was charged with 10851 which is a stolen vehicle charge, 496 PC receiving stolen property and 272 PC contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was not charged with stealing a firearm or burning the Michigan loader.




28 comments:

starviego said...

"Melba Kronkite could talk(?) to the court. Charlie told Clem to burn her house down."

That's our Charlie!

Gorodish said...

Most likely, Cole was Bill Vance and and "Dennis Willson" was Bruce Davis. I thought of Zero Haught first, but he weighed 130 at his death a month later. The 170 lbs. leads me to believe it was Bruce.

DebS said...

It's a given that Cole was Bill Vance. I also thought Zero or Vern Plumlee at first but both are much lighter than 170. Bruce is pretty short, only 5'6" but closer to 170. Looking through the options on Deemer's list David Hanum comes pretty close. I know he wasn't arrested in the Barker raids but he did have a home close by, in Olancha. Perhaps he was there and left Barker before the raids???

D. said...

H. Allegra Lansing just posted some sappy video about good ol' "Cowboy Bill". As if he were such a sweetheart.

Which is interesting the timing, because I've recently come to the rock solid conclusion that Vance murdered Zero and no, it had absolutely nothing to do with CM or anything other than some criminal activity they were involved in together. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind he did and Vance was so feared by people nobody every really implicated him in much.

Also of interest, is I believe now based on stuff I've learned that Bruce Davis was probably hooked up with Vance before he was introduced by Charlie by him.

Cooltide said...

I'm not in the Market for a UPVC Roof...��

Who is Melba Kronkite?

DebS said...

Cooltide, LSB3 has the most comprehensive mini bio on Melba.

https://www.lsb3.com/search/label/Melba%20Kronkright

starviego said...



TomO has Vance being arrested for this theft:

--"Vance, an associate of Manson from prison, was arrested for stealing a gun from a car in Death Valley on October 5, 1969...."
[Chaos, Tom O'Neill, pg420]

cielodrivecom said...

I gotta wonder about some of the height and weights recird in "Deemer's" list. The list has Tex at 5'10" and his CDCR mugshot has him close to 6'3"

Gorodish said...

DebS typed:

Looking through the options on Deemer's list David Hanum comes pretty close. I know he wasn't arrested in the Barker raids but he did have a home close by, in Olancha. Perhaps he was there and left Barker before the raids???

I could be wrong, but I don't think David Hannum was ever at Barker Ranch. I believe he scattered a few weeks after the Spahn Raid. On August 12th or 13th of 1969, he did help Tex and Juan Flynn bring a truckload of supplies to his mother's "ranch" in Olancha; Tex stayed behind. And he was around Spahn a few weeks later, long enough to get Linda Kasabian's letter about his car being ditched in Albuquerque. But I think he was gone from Spahn right after that. I'm still betting that "Dennis Willson" was Bruce. A lot of the newer elements of the Family didn't know that much about Dennis Wilson; not enough to use his name and former address as an alias. But Bruce certainly did.

DebS said...

Starviego wrote

TomO has Vance being arrested for this theft:

--"Vance, an associate of Manson from prison, was arrested for stealing a gun from a car in Death Valley on October 5, 1969...."
[Chaos, Tom O'Neill, pg420]
------

Did O'Neill provide a police report for that claim? I have updated the post and included Vance's arrest and property report for the Barker Ranch raid. He was not charged with stealing a gun in that report.

starviego said...

DebS said...
Did O'Neill provide a police report for that claim?

No, he cited no source for that claim.

DebS said...

Starviego, I read the cited page in O'Neill's book for the context. He uses the date to place Vance in the area of Crowley Point when Tenerelli's car was pulled out and towed. The big problem with O'Neill's assertion that Vance was arrested on October 5, 1969 for stealing a gun in Death Valley is that the gun was not reported stolen until the next day, October 6, 1969.

orwhut said...

It was probably in the, '80s when a car went plowing into my grandfather's yard. A man jumped out and made it to the woods just just ahead of law enforcement. One shoe came off during his flight
and the patrolman didn't catch him. The next day the man's wife reported the car stolen. My grandfather found the shoe and took it to the neighbor. As far as I know, that was the end of it.

Cooltide said...

@ DebS Thanks for the link , will check that out.

Cooltide said...

Chuck and the Troops certainly got around all the Social Classes.
Master of the Hunt ffs!

DebS said...

I was a little amused at the property Vance had on his person at the time of arrest.

He was wearing a belt and neck chain. In his pockets were a driver's license, pliers, can opener, wallet, fork and a screwdriver. That's a man who's not going to miss a meal even if he has to open the can himself! And, he can tinker a bit on the hot engines in the dune buggies while he's eating.

orwhut said...

Bill was always prepared. He might have once been in the Boy Scouts.

ColScott said...

The idea of anyone using O'Neill, a self hating homosexual who harassed and threatened old people in order to get "information" he felt he fucking deserved only to be unable to accurately process said information is sad and tragic. This is exactly why we cannot have nice things in America - Tom O'Neill and his ilk.

DebS said...

Col I know that and you know that but some people need to see the documents to see how far off O'Neill was in his book. Even then a percentage of those people will make excuses for him. I have an evidence list that says the Ruger in question was booked into evidence October 13, 1969 and ultimately Ruth Ann, Sandy Good and Dianne VonAhn were charged with its theft.

orwhut said...


Blogger DebS said...
Col I know that and you know that but some people need to see the documents to see how far off O'Neill was in his book.

Deb and Col,
My son and I are of differing opinions concerning O'Neill's book. If either of you, or anyone else could link or point me to the documents mentioned above, it would strengthen my argument and be greatly appreciated.

Whut

Matt said...

ColScott said...
he felt he fucking deserved only to be unable to accurately process said information is sad and tragic. This is exactly why we cannot have nice things in America


It was so bad I couldn't finish the book. Thank goodness it was only a pre-release PDF galley and no resources were expended, except for not being capable of being a functional human for a week after.




brownrice said...

What Col, Deb & Matt said.
I often wish blogger had a "like" button.

D. said...

I always gave Tom credit where it was due, but recently I've come to the conclusion that overall, it's nonsense. It's not the secret history of the 60s. The secret history of the 60s is basically the hippie movement was a sham largely created by the original manufactures of LSD and it all turned rotten quick with prohibition era-like violence.

The story of Manson IS the story basically of the 60s. It started in SF and was fun at first, then it got violent due the drug trafficking and addiction. The party moved to LA and all the trouble moved with it.

I HIGHLY suggest everyone watch OLOMPALI: A HIPPIE ODYSSEY. If you close your eyes and listen, you would swear it was the Spahn Ranch commune talking. It will show there was nothing different or original about them.

Manson is always painted up as a rabid racist with some paranoia and hang-up about the Black Panthers, but in my research of the 60s the Black Panthers are cited multiple times as a reason a lot of hippies started to get away from the cities. They were talking peace, love and ending a war while they were armed threatening to turn society into something worse than Vietnam. They were also like nearly every other group in the 60s, just a bunch of criminals and drug dealers hiding behind some front. So no, if there was even for a tiny split second a thought Crowe might be a Panther, it was reasonable because they were into dealing.





DebS said...

Whut, In my Gleason post I spelled out why I doubted there was a government embedded informant. The documents are there to read in a link.

https://www.mansonblog.com/2022/08/the-gleason-report-august-11-1969.html

Starviego's comment in this post mentioning that O'Neill stated Bill Vance was arrested Oct. 5, 1969 for stealing this gun when you can see by the document I posted that the gun was not reported stolen until Oct. 6, 1969. So that can't be true.

As for the other documents I mentioned, they haven't been posted... yet. I will get to them eventually. The one document that says Ruth Ann, Sandy and Dianne VohAhn were arrested for the theft of the Ruger is on a spreadsheet and I have to figure out how I'm going to post that. It's so wide that it's not going to post well. I will post the evidence sheets soon.

The big red flag that O'Neill has written a bunch of hooey is that the major players in his story are dead and accusations cannot not be fact checked with them. He can get away with naming these people because, basically, you cannot defame a dead person. Their families cannot sue the author for defamation.

Defamation is defined as an act or statement that tarnishes a person's reputation. A dead person cannot be defamed because he has no reputation to protect.

There's good reason why O'Neill waited more than 20 years to publish his book, he had to wait until most of the people died!

orwhut said...

Deb
Thank you for the link to your Gleason report. I remember the report but had forgotten where to locate it.

Right after your comment to Star, I told about the man escaping legal charges by running home through the woods and having his wife report his car stolen the next day to illustrate that a lie about when something was stolen worked once and has probably worked many more times. The police in that case apparently chose not to file charges. If it sounded like I was disputing what you said to star. that was not my intent.

Tony said...

Is there any need to swear? It's not nice and it shows a lack of vocabulary

DebS said...

Whut, no worries, I didn't think you were disputing me. Sometimes it's a real head scratcher when charges aren't filed against someone, you're sure committed a crime but I guess it all boils down to what can be proven in court.

orwhut said...

Deb,
I know better than to try to match wits with you. I'm out gunned.