Monday, September 19, 2022

Bread Truck Arrest Report April 19 1969

Courtesy of LAPL Photo Collection

We have all heard about the Bread Truck Bust but have you ever read the arrest report? It is not a major event in the Mansonsphere except possibly for the sheer number of people involved. Fourteen adults and two 13-year-old juveniles were taken into custody.

As was typical of the Family, only half of them used their true names.  Some of those arrested as adults were actually juveniles.  Law enforcement suspected it but were stymied as to how to figure who was really who until much later.

For those who don’t have a cheat sheet to know who was using what alias here is a list suspects including those who used alternative names, numbered according to how they are listed in the reports:

1. Heuvelhurst is Ruthann Moorehouse

2. Cottage is Patricia Baldwin

3. Bluestein is Dianne Lake

4. McCann is Nancy Pitman

5. Sankston is Leslie Van Houten

6. Bo Rosenberg

7. Barbara Jean Lipsett is Barbara Hoyt

8. Lynette Fromme

9. Wright is Catharine Share

10. Stephanie Rowe

11. Sandy Good

12. Paul Watkins

13. William Feeney

14. David Lipsett (Karate Dave) was David Ralph Baker, confirmed by his rap sheet

The two 13-year-olds are named in the report but I won’t name them here. One of the 13-year-olds was a first cousin of Herbert Townsend. You might remember a post discussing The Fountain of the World where it was revealed in the comments that Herbert Townsend’s brother, Danny Wayne Townsend a resident at the Fountain, along with accomplices, murdered two teenaged girls. Those Townsend boys were a tough lot and seemed to be drawn to communal settings.

The Bread Truck arrestees were pulled over by the CHP in Lancaster CA at 8:00 AM because the truck didn’t have a current registration sticker. You drive through Lancaster on your way to Death Valley. David Lipsett was driving. The charges were Grand Theft Auto and Contributing the Delinquency of a Minor, all but Lipsett were eventually released without any charges sticking. The Bread Truck wasn’t exactly stolen because the CHP couldn’t figure out who it belonged to as it was not in the system. The license plates belonged to another vehicle entirely.


Thanks to my behind-the-scenes posse who helped fill in some of the blanks!