Were the cops intentionally trying to push Charlie over the edge?

It sure sounds like it!

https://www.cielodrive.com/archive/no-family-exists-media-created-it-manson-testifies/

Manson testimony on 2/27/1973, during the Hawthorne surplus store robbery trial.

"During his hour-long testimony, Manson stressed that the antisocial, violent attitude of the group around him was the outgrowth of many contacts with law enforcement.  Questioned by Miss Share’s attorney, Richard Hirsch, about problems with society in general and police in particular, Manson said, “We were pushed into a corner … we didn’t have any choice.”

Speaking about what he called an escalation of police interference with their existence, he testified:
“It started with a polite knock on the door and ‘May we come in?’ I’d opened the door because my door was always open to everyone. They would, at first, politely check IDs. That’s how it started. But two years later it became a 250 storm trooper raid. They were steadily pushing, pushing and pushing until there was nothing left…it was like a yo-yo game and we were their favorite game.” "

Box 57 pg150of491  Grand Jury testimony of Mary Brunner:

Q: And when you speak about raiding, had the police been there when--when I speak of the police I am also including the Sheriff's Department as well -- had the police or Sheriff's Department been to the ranch before this particular day? (July 28th)

A: They were there almost every day.

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

Squeaky:

Box 6 Vol176 Testimony in the Penalty Phase of the TLB trial  pg38of164   Lynette Fromme

Q: During the time that you were at the Spahn Ranch, did you have any contact with the police, either the Los Angeles Police Department or the Sheriff's office? ...  Did you have almost daily contact with them?
A(Fromme): Almost, yes. ..
Q: Were you also, the group of people that were at the Spahn Ranch, frequently arrested?
A: We were. I have been frequently arrested with everybody. They would keep us for three days and let us go, never take us to court.

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

Sandy:

Box 6  vol3076 pg17of302   Testimony in the Penalty Phase of the TLB trial     

   Sandra Goode: The police. They came--we almost--They became a part of our daily life actually after a while. We were friendly to them, and then they became--they began coming in greater numbers, the more of us there were the more of them, the more of us--and it grew.
Q: How often would they come to the ranch to harass you?
A: It became nightly. Always with, "We'll get you yet, Charlie," this type of thing.

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

Gypsy:

Box14  vol3076  pg265of302
Q: Would you tell us, please, Miss Share, the ...frequency that law enforcement came to the Spahn Ranch while you lived there with some other people?
A: At least every day. ..Sometimes more than once a day. ...I know that for months and months and months the police were always there, always there, always trying to arrest somebody for something, and taking some people to jail, and then letting them go two days later. ...I saw police often, often, for a long, long time.

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

Nancy Pitman:

LADA files Box 6 Vol176 Testimony in the Penalty Phase of the TLB trial  pg150of164
Q: Did the police come to the Spahn Ranch all the time?
A: Yeah, all the time, every night.

 

Had you let him put on a defense, he could have explained to you why 

his face was planted in the dirt.

=============================================

 

 

 In a related vein: 

Even before TLB, Manson and Family were the subjects of an active investigation by, or had previous contact with, an astounding array of local, state, and federal entities.

--The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)

--City of Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD)

--The Los Angeles Sheriffs Office (LASO)

--L.A. County Fire Department (LACoFD)

--The Inyo County Sheriffs Office

--The California Highway Patrol (CHP)

--The Las Vegas Police Department (LVPD) and/or the Clark County Sheriff's Department

--The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (Justice Dept)

--The Federal Parole Officers of the Justice Dept

--Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) (Treasury Dept)

--The US Secret Service (Treasury Dept)

--National Park Service (Interior Dept)

--Ventura County Sheriff's Office

--Kern County Sheriff's Office

--Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office

--Mendocino County Social Services Dept.
(... the Welfare Department files contain extensive information about Manson and the “family.” --Louise H. Renne, Deputy Attorney General, State of California)

--The Office of the State of California Attorney General (in Sept of '68)
(Renne memo)

--The Mendocino Probation Department and the Los Angeles Probation Department.

 

--And that doesn't count the inclusion of any covert operators of the police/intelligence agencies.  People like Reeve Whitson. 

--A mention should be made of Melba Kronkright, that "executive for a government social service," as Fromme said in her book,  Melba, who showed up one day in Topanga Canyon to hand out freebies for the Mansonoids, the beginning of a two-year relationship.

Charlie and the Family and a Cabin in the Redwoods

 Quite a few years ago I came into possession of a guest book the belonged to people who owned a vacation cabin in San Mateo County, northern California. The cabin was located in the redwoods, seven miles from the ocean, between  the towns of Pescadero and Half Moon Bay which are on the coast. The owners would rent or loan the cabin to friends and family. They had a guest book that people would sign when they stayed at the cabin.

I did not get an exact location for the cabin but I am somewhat familiar with the area. There is a road that goes inland between Half Moon Bay and Pescadero. It's Hwy 84 or locally known as La Honda Rd.  That road runs between Hwy 101 at Redwood City, through Woodside where the Folger's lived, and out to the coast ending at San Gregorio State Beach. 

Back in the day San Gregorio Beach was a nude beach. You could go there and get naked and not get hassled by anyone, including the sheriff's. I have a feeling that it may have been a destination for Manson and the Family and that the cabin was on or just off of La Honda Rd. It would have been a great place to troll for additions to the Family.

Apparently, Manson and some of Family members, I don't know which ones, made themselves at home at the cabin. Chas Manson even went as far as signing the guest book!

I also got a letter of authentication when I got the guest book.

Matthew Roberts RIP

 On August 28, 2024 Daze with Jordan the Lion posted a YouTube with Matthew Roberts announcing definitively that Charles Manson is NOT his birth father. Matthew hooked up with a woman named Kim who had her own experiences with using Ancestry DNA to find her birth father and offered to help Matthew. Once Matthew's DNA was processed Kim was quickly able to rule out Manson as Matthew's father. She was also able to narrow down who Matthew's father was and learned he was one of two brothers. 

But then...

On September 5, 2024, a week later, Jordan the Lion announced that Matthew Roberts had unexpectedly died. Jordan posted a heartfelt tribute to Matthew who he considered a friend although the two had never met in person.

I'm glad that Matthew was able to find the answers he was seeking before he passed. 

Guess Who Got Married

 

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*

*

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Brooks Poston and his bride Sylvee Crockett.

Thanks to Mike 1970 for the tip and the pic.

Unsolved Murders and the Tex Tape Situation

On August 8^th 2019 the Los Angeles Times published an article for the 50^th anniversary of the Tate LaBianca murders focused on the idea that members of the Family may have committed other murders. The article also talks about the Tex Tapes.

The article states that the LAPD has 12 unsolved cases that are believed to be linked to the Family. Bare in mind that the LAPD has jurisdiction only within the city limits of Los Angeles. There are many cities in Los Angeles County that have their own police departments and the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County are served by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. 

How Many More Did the Manson Family Kill?

It's an enduring murder mystery involving several slayings that fit the cult's pattern

By Richard Winton

The Manson murders mostly are remembered as two events that occurred 50 years ago this month; the killing of Sharon Tate and four others in Benedict Canyon and then the butchering of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca is Los Feliz.

But cold-case investigators and others have long believed that Charles Manson and his cult followers were responsible for many more deaths.

The Los Angeles Police Department officially has a dozen unsolved homicide cases linked to Manson. And there are additional slayings outside the jurisdiction that some believe to be the work of his “family.” Some of those ties seem more plausible than others, but all have been extensively examined and theorized — as are all things involving Manson.

The supposed suicide of one Manson follower’s boyfriend in England. The drowning of an attorney whom Manson declared during the middle of his trial he never wanted to see again. A young man killed during a game of Russian roulette with family members present. Two young women stabbed to death off Mulholland Drive and a couple of young Scientology followers who met a similar fate.

Manson “repeatedly” said many others were killed, said Cliff Shepard, a former LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division detective who worked some of those cold cases. “We may never know or identify all their victims.”

In all, Manson and his followers were convicted of nine murders — the Tate and LaBianca attacks plus the slayings of musician Gary Hinman and stuntman and ranch hand Donald “Shorty” Shea.

Dan Jenks, an LAPD Robbery-Homicide detective, said the unsolved cases still were under active investigation and that the department would not comment on specifics.

“There is no statute of limitations. We are always developing new techniques. The last 10 years, DNA has come a long way,” Jenks said. “We will stay on them and keep them as active as we can.”

The LAPD repeatedly has declined requests by the Los Angeles Times for information about those cases. But seven years ago, while seeking to obtain audiotapes of a Manson follower that detectives hoped would yield clues, the department formally declared that a dozen unsolved cases might be tied to the family.

The tapes involved conversations between convicted killer Charles “Tex” Watson and his attorney in 1969. The LAPD obtained the tapes after a legal battle, but they appeared to provide few clues. The department, however, refused a Times request to review them, citing ongoing investigations. A judge in 2017 ruled that attorneys for Manson follower Leslie Van Houten could not have the recordings as part of her efforts to gain parole.

“The thing we discovered after reviewing the tapes, there was no new information related to any of the unsolved cases,” Jenks said. The death of Manson in 2017, as well as those of other family members, has made efforts to pursue the cases harder.

Manson prosecutor Stephen Kay said he and his partner, the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, always suspected that the cult had killed others.

“I know that Manson one time told one of his cellmates that he was responsible for 35 murders,” said Kay, who has attended 60 or so parole hearings to keep those he convicted of the Manson slayings in prison. “Whether that is true or not or just jail bragging, I don’t know. We prosecuted him for nine murders, and those were all the murders we had evidence on.”

A suspicious death in London

Just months after the Tate and LaBianca murders, Joel Pugh — the 29-year-old boyfriend of Manson clan member Sandra Good — was found dead in the Talgarth Hotel in London. His wrists and throat had been cut. British authorities listed it as a suicide, saying Pugh had been depressed. No suicide note was left.

Kay and others said Manson hated Pugh. “He had no reason to commit suicide, and Manson was very unhappy that Sandy” was with Pugh, Kay said.

Manson follower Bruce M. Davis, who recently was cleared for parole after nearly 50 years in prison, was in London at the time Pugh died. Kay said that Davis, now 76, was the family member most able to kill. The prospect of his pending release — which still could be blocked by Gov. Gavin Newsom — has energized investigations during the last decade.

Davis was convicted in the killings of Hinman and Shea in 1971 and sentenced to death. When California for a time abolished the death penalty, Davis and other members of the family were given life sentences.

At a parole hearing, Davis said he hadn’t known about the Tate killings until the morning after they happened but had committed the other murders because “I wanted to be Charlie’s favorite guy.”

Deadly game of Russian Roulette

Davis also was a witness to the November 1969 death of John “Zero” Haught in Venice, according to investigators. Authorities concluded that Haught had died accidentally while playing Russian roulette with a revolver, but that finding came under question.

The gun recovered didn’t have any fingerprints on it, The Times’ Jerry Cohen reported in 1969. A young man who held Haight’s head after the shooting told Cohen he entered the room to find a female Manson follower with the gun in her hand. Several Manson followers were inside the home that night, including Davis, The Times reported.

Davis could not be reached for comment, and his attorney did not return messages.

Jane Doe 59

In his book about the Manson family murders, “Helter Skelter,” Bugliosi said he believed that a woman known for years only as Jane Doe 59 was killed because she had witnessed Haught’s killing.

She was stabbed 150 times. A bird-watcher discovered her remains on Mulholland Drive, about six miles from the Benedict Canyon home where Tate and the others were killed.

Three years ago, the LAPD identified her as 19-year-old Reet Jurvetson from Montreal, using a DNA sample from her sister. She had come to Los Angeles from Canada to join a man she had first met in a Montreal coffee shop.

“She thought he looked like Jim Morrison,” Shepard, the former LAPD detective, said.

She sent a postcard to her mother about getting an apartment in L.A. 16 days before her death.

LAPD detectives asked Manson about Jurvetson before the killer’s death. He denied knowing her.

“It was like talking to a wall,” said LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division Capt. Billy Hayes.

That Manson wouldn’t say much doesn’t surprise his son.

Manson’s son Michael Brunner told The Times recently that “Charlie lived by a code. He was an outlaw. He was not a nice guy. But he lived by a code and he was not gonna be the one that was snitching. And there was a lot of snitching going on. And the people that were snitching, you know, they say snitches get stitches.”

Shepard said much of the speculation about Jurvetson stemmed from a photo of a woman resembling her who was dancing at the family’s Spahn Ranch hangout with Manson follower Steve Dennis “Clem” Grogan. He was paroled in 1985 after being convicted of murder for his role in Shea’s death.

Grogan told detectives a few years ago that the woman was another Manson follower, not the Jane Doe, Shepard said.

Still, the LAPD has not ruled out the Manson cult in her killing.

A violent time

Complicating the effort to solve Jurvetson’s murder is the fact that the period of the late 1960s and ’70s was marked by numerous serial killers roaming California.

Sandi Gibbons, a former City News Service reporter who later served as the spokeswoman for several L.A. County district attorneys, said the area off Mulholland was a popular place for dumping bodies at the time.

On New Year’s Day 1969, the body of 17-year-old Marina Habe — who was kidnapped outside her West Hollywood home — was found less than half a mile from Jurvetson’s remains in a ravine off Mulholland Drive. Habe, the daughter of a Hollywood screenwriter, also had multiple stab wounds to her neck.

Shepard said Manson also was asked about Habe and dismissed any suggestion she was one of his crowd.

LAPD homicide detectives also saw similarities between the vicious knife attack on Jurvetson and the November 1969 killings of James Sharp, 15, of Crestwood, Mo., and Doreen Gaul, 19, from Albany, N.Y. Stabbed and beaten, their bodies were dumped in a downtown Los Angeles alley a week before the discovery of Jurvetson’s remains.

At the time, LAPD Lt. Earl Deemer described the wounds on the pair as being inflicted by a “fanatic.” Each had been stabbed 50 to 60 times. In “Helter Skelter,” Bugliosi wrote that Gaul was rumored to be a former girlfriend of Davis — who, like the dead teenagers, once was a Scientologist.

Davis had lived at the same housing complex as Gaul, but in a police interview in the 1970s he denied knowing her. Years later, another man confessed to killing the pair in a robbery but was never charged. He has since died.

Death of a lawyer

Then there was the death of Ronald Hughes.

The 35-year-old attorney strongly defended Leslie Van Houten during the family’s murder trial, seemingly at the expense of Manson.

“We recessed for the weekend, and Manson — who sat in the corner of the counsel table — pointed to Hughes and said to her attorney: ‘I don’t want to see you in this courtroom again.’ And we never saw him again,” Kay said.

In late November 1970, as the trial neared its end, Hughes disappeared. Four months later, his decomposed body turned up wedged in a rocky creek in Ventura County. Kay said Hughes was last seen swimming in the nearby hot springs right before a flash flood.

In “Helter Skelter” and in later interviews, Bugliosi suggested that Manson directed Hughes’ killing, calling it “the first of the retaliation murders.”

But Charlie Rudd, a retired Ventura County sheriff’s sergeant, told The Times in 2012 that Hughes’ death probably had nothing to do with Manson. Authorities recovered Hughes’ body near Sespe Hot Springs in the Los Padres National Forest, and Rudd said there was little evidence of foul play.

According to Rudd, the creek probably swelled dangerously and Hughes died either because he drowned or because he was battered to death by debris and rocks. “There was nothing else to indicate otherwise, and the medical examiner couldn’t come to a conclusion of anything other than that.”

Was Hughes murdered? Kay said he wasn’t so sure.

“I’m on the fence.”

(Times staff writers Maria L. La Ganga and Hector Becerra contributed to this report.)

The LA Times seems to have randomly chosen to write about deaths that have been discussed in the past as being related to the Family rather than trying to come up with a dozen deaths that would qualify as being in LAPD's jurisidiction. 

The first death that the article delves into is that of Joel Pugh. The death occurred in London England. Pugh's death is certainly not in LAPD's jurisdiction. Authorities in England determined that Pugh's death was by his own hand and not a murder. It cannot be proven that Bruce Davis was in England at the time of Pugh's death. The late Simon Wells wrote an excellent piece on the death of Joel Pugh, if you haven't read it you should. 

These are the letters exchanged between Inyo County, Interpol, and Scotland Yard.

John Philip "Zero" Haught's death is discussed next. This death, IMO, should never have been declared a suicide as quickly as it was. At a minimum it should have been reopened once Manson and the others were arrested for the TLB murders. LAPD wrote the police report.

Here is an excerpt from an article about the Gaul/Sharp murders that discusses Haught's death. It relates the incident written above about the young man holding Haught's head as he died. 

Oddly, the unnamed young man does not appear in the police report. Linda Baldwin, Bruce Davis, Susan Bartell, and Catherine Gillies are the only ones named in the initial report. Bill Vance has also been rumored to have been at the Clubhouse Drive home at the time of Haught's death but split before the police arrived. It's not likely that Bill Vance is the unnamed young man. Mark Ross claims not to have been home when Haught was shot and he was pictured with Family members during the trial so he is not likely the young man.

Haught Police Report

Reet Jurvetson/Jane Doe 59's body was discovered November 14, 1969 off Mulholland Drive. Bugliosi claimed she was killed by the Family because she witnessed the death of John Phillip Haught. LAPD detectives had a picture that they thought was of Reet dancing with Steve Grogan on the boardwalk at Spahn Ranch. The trouble with that is the picture was a still shot that was taken from Robert Hendrickson's movie Manson. That movie sequence was not filmed until after Reet had been murdered. 

The persons of interest sought by current investigators are two men named Jean who Reet followed down from Canada because she was seriously interested in one of the men. He may not have reciprocated her interest. The two men have never been located.

Marina Habe's abduction on December 30, 1968 and the subsequent finding of her body on New Year's Day is another death with a very slim connection to the Family. Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon in her book "Girl in a Band" tells us that her older brother Keller, once dated Marina Habe and that he knew Bobby Beausoleil who he met at a house at the bottom of Topanga Canyon.

Next up are the Doreen Gaul and James Sharp murders. As far as Manson Family involvement is concerned Bruce Davis was considered a suspect. It's rumored that Bruce Davis, for a short time, lived in the same Scientology rooming house as Doreen Gaul at 1032 Bonnie Brea in Los Angeles. There is no evidence that Bruce did live in a Scientology run rooming house/apartment after returning from the UK in April 1969. Bruce was asked to leave the Scientology quarters in the UK for drug use. I doubt that they would welcome him back on short notice. 

Bruce was released from the Inyo County jail, along with Christopher Jesus, "Zero", the week prior to November 4, 1969. "Zero's" death occurred November 5, 1969. The Gaul/Sharp murders were November 21, 1969.

In September 1975 two black men were investigated for the Gaul/Sharp murders. They were James Green and Arthur Davis. Green gave a statement to a Detective Lambert of the LAPD. It was quite a detailed statement but not everything that was revealed in the police report about the condition of the bodies and facts of the crime was related by Green. The detective sent the statement the LA DA's office to hopefully get a warrant to charge the two for the murders. Deputy District Attorney Charles F. Girot declined to press charges and numerated eleven different things that needed to be investigated or cleared up before charges could be filed in a letter sent to Detective Lambert December 12, 1975.

Green's statement and the DDA's letter

A previous post with a link to the Gaul/Sharp police report.

The murders of Marina Habe, Reet Jurvetson, Doreen Gaul, and James Sharp were all within LAPD's jurisdiction. They were also very similar in that the victims died by multiple stab wounds that one would describe as "overkill".

The tragic death of Ron Hughes occurred in Ventura County. Despite what Manson said in the courtroom about not wanting to see Hughes again after the extended Thanksgiving break from the trial Hughes death was likely due to bad decisions on Hughes part. Hughes should have gone home with the young couple he came to Sespe Hot Springs with when the downpour began. Barring that he should have stayed with the car he arrived in as it was found in good shape after the rain stopped. We can't know exactly how it came to be that Hughes drowned but we can look at previous events that happened at the hot springs.

In late January of 1969 there was a torrential rain storm at Sespe that caused the death of ten persons. Because of the terrain, that area received copious amounts of runoff that flooded the creek raising the swift running water 8-10 feet above its normal levels.

Here's an article that tells of conditions at Sespe during that storm.

We have identified five murders that happened in LAPD's jurisdiction. All have tenuous links to the Family, with the exception of John Haught's death. We still have no idea of who the other seven murder victims are that the LA DA's office believes the Family could have killed.

The murder of Mark Walts could fall in that category though I've never seen a police report so I am not sure if that could have been a sheriff's case.  

Other deaths that DA's office believes the Family may have had a hand in are the murder of Karl Stubbs in Inyo County, the murder of a Santa Barbara County Jane Doe, the murder of a Casatic Jane Doe, the death of Fillipo Tenerelli in Inyo County, the murders of Nancy Warren and Clyda Dulaney in Mendocino County, and the murder of Darwin Scott in Ashland KY.

The blog has done stories on the deaths of Karl Stubbs, Filippo Tenerrelli, Nancy Warren and Clyda Dulaney, and Darwin Scott. Look through the tags or do a site search to find those articles.

We haven't done much on either Jane Doe. The Doe's are difficult because without knowing who they are there is no way to learn who their families and friends were. They are the very people who would be able to shed light on the deceased normal activities and know if the person was having trouble with anyone in particular.

Santa Barbara County Jane Doe was discovered near Grefco Quarry five miles south of the town of Lompoc. There was ligitimate reason to investigate Family members regarding this murder. Bobby Beausoleil drove by the turn off for the quarry on his way to the San Francisco Bay Area after the murder of Gary Hinman. Other Family members were known to frequently travel Highway 101 between the Los Angeles area and Mendocino County and points in between, including Manson.

Articles on Santa Barbara County Jane Doe.

Castaic Jane Doe was discovered in the Angeles National Forest about nine miles north of the town of Castaic located on Highway 5. Highway 5 which now runs the length of the state was being built during that time. Portions of the highway were finished including the run from Los Angeles to Bakersfield. Castaic is in Los Angeles County. 

It's interesting to note that Detective Norman Lambert worked this case as well as the Marina Habe and Gaul/Sharp cases.

This is a scan of a 1970 road map showing Los Angeles at the bottom of the map. Castaic is due north of Burbank. There is a fork at San Fernando where the turn-off to Highway 14 is. Highway 14 is the route you would take to go to Barker Ranch. You can see the towns of Ridgecrest and Trona. So, Castaic is only about 15 miles out of the way if you're on your way to Barker. I'm not surprised law enforcement looked at the Family for this murder. Of course, it doesn't mean they committed it.

Articles about Castaic Jane Doe.

We have identified seven unsolved murders that were committed in Los Angeles County. What are the other five cases that LAPD believes were committed by the Family in the county? There is no shortage of murders in other jurisdictions but LAPD is the one holding onto the Tex Tapes claiming they can't release them because of the murder investigations that are still active. 

What would be the harm in naming the victims in the dozen cases that LAPD deems possibly committed by Family members? Why all the secrecy? Divulging the names of the suspected victims just might result in tips that can be acted on. It's not a given that all the victims named here are among the dozen that LAPD deems to be related to the Family. We could be spinning our wheels on one or more of the cases.

Quoting from the article: Manson “repeatedly” said many others were killed, said Cliff Shepard, a former LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division detective who worked some of those cold cases. “We may never know or identify all their victims.”

Manson also allowed Family members to spread the rumor that Donald "Shorty" Shea was dismembered in nine pieces and his head was cut off. But we know that isn't true because when Shorty's remains were eventually found his skeleton was intact save one hand that was missing and believed to be the result of animal depredation. It's just as likely that Manson bragged about more victims to bolster his prison credibility.

Given the number of people who were in the Family and the number of those people who were willing tell what they knew at the time of the Barker Raid and later when the facts about the TLB murders came to light, does it make sense that none of those people after 50 years would have told authorities about any other murders the Family may have committed?

Another quote, this one about the Tex Tapes: The tapes involved conversations between convicted killer Charles “Tex” Watson and his attorney in 1969. The LAPD obtained the tapes after a legal battle, but they appeared to provide few clues. The department, however, refused a Times request to review them, citing ongoing investigations. A judge in 2017 ruled that attorneys for Manson follower Leslie Van Houten could not have the recordings as part of her efforts to gain parole.

“The thing we discovered after reviewing the tapes, there was no new information related to any of the unsolved cases,” Jenks said. The death of Manson in 2017, as well as those of other family members, has made efforts to pursue the cases harder.

Well, if there was nothing on the tapes that gave any information about other possible murders why the heck is the LAPD still hanging on to them and not releasing the tapes to the media? The whole premise for LAPD to take possession of the tapes was to hopefully gain information about other murders. What is on those tapes that LAPD feels they must keep secret? Are they protecting someone? If so, I certainly hope it's not Tex Watson.

Do the tapes contain something that could result in grounds for one or more of the convicted to have a new trial?

Do the tapes contain more information on one or more of the cases, where there was a conviction, and should have been acted on by law enforcement or the DA's office, but wasn't? Manson, Davis and Grogan were convicted of Shorty Shea's murder. Tex was also involved but not tried for the murder. There have long been rumors that Larry Bailey and Bill Vance participated in that murder but they were never charged. 

Did Tex reveal something on the tapes that could put law enforcement and or the DA's office in a very bad light that could jeopardize the convictions they were able to obtain? 

The whole Tex Tape situation makes it seem as if LAPD is hiding something. It's also a situation that is ripe for spawning conspiracy theories.

It's been five years since the LA Times wrote this article and nothing has changed. We would like a progress report, please.

Linda Deutsch, AP Court Reporter Who Covered Charles Manson and OJ Simpson Trials, Dies at 80

For nearly 50 years, she covered the biggest trials, beginning with Robert F. Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan

Mike Roe - September 1, 2024 @ 8:10 PM

Longtime Associated Press court reporter Linda Deutsch has died at the age of 80 years old, according to the AP. She covered the trials of Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson and numerous others over her nearly 50 years with the news agency, beginning in the late 1960s before her retirement in 2015.

Deutsch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2022. While she was successfully treated at the time, her cancer returned this summer and she died at her Los Angeles home on Sunday.

She covered numerous other high-profile trials over the years, including those of the police charged with beating Rodney King, Patty Hearst, Phil Spector, the Menéndez Brothers, "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez, "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski and more.

Deutsch began her career covering courts at the AP in 1969, when she covered the trial of Robert F. Kennedy gunman Sirhan Sirhan.

In her X profile bio, Deutsch described herself by writing that she'd "covered every big trial except Socrates'." She remained active on social media, with her last Twitter post being a retweet of a June story criticizing Donald Trump. Among her more personal tweets was one earlier this year asking for followers to join a petition to abolish the death penalty.

"She was an incomparable friend to hundreds of people who will miss her wit, wisdom, charm and constant inquisitiveness," longtime friend Edith Lederer told the AP.

"You may not recognize the name but I am sure you have read her words," author and journalist Alan Duke wrote on X.

The AP's Eric Tucker wrote on X, "One of the most legendary AP journalists ever, an incredibly kind and gracious person, a gifted raconteur and a mentor to so many over the decades."

"My predecessor, whose work I can only hope to approximate," the AP's Andrew Dalton wrote on X. "A master, a legend and a friend."

"RIP Linda Deutsch," Politico's Josh Gerstein wrote on X, before adding, "An old-school pro at courtroom reporting, which just might be harder than it looks."

"Rest in power to a great one," NPR journalist Ameera Butt wrote on X. "What sad news about Linda. Sending so much love to her family and friends."

Nurse Narek Petrosian of Olympia Hospice Care said that she died surrounded by family and friends.

Was Charlie at Cielo the night before?

Terry Melcher

A number of sources do suggest that very thing:

 Death to Pigs, by Hendrickson pg501    Bugliosi interview by Merrick.

Bugliosi: "I'm the one that put Manson inside the gates of the Tate residence. I put him in there, not on the night of the murders, but a couple of nights earlier."

Manson's Right Hand Man Speaks Out by Charles "Tex" Watson, c.2001  pg43

It's believed that Manson was at the house looking for Terry the night before the murders and was  offended by the new occupants.

 LINK     Grimtraveller said:      "Back in 2005 on Col Scott's site, someone called GLH said that he'd spoken with Tex the month before and this is what Tex had told him "Manson had been to Cielo the night BEFORE the murders". I debated that with him, saying I'd heard that Manson had been there in March '69. He stood firm on his claim that Manson was there on August 7th (in the evening). ...and Manson was agitated the next day"

 

LINK     Jay Sebring’s business partner Jim Markham:

"I believe Manson had gone up to the house” — Polanski was away shooting a movie — “and Manson wanted to sell cocaine and marijuana,” he says. “He showed Jay and Wojciech the product. They were going to buy some of it, but the two of them beat him up at the gate. The next night, Manson sent the Family up [to kill them].”

 

Beausoleil: "He(Charlie) had been over near his [Melcher's] house and, as he said, he checked out the wires, telephone wires and the electric gates and exits from that property."

 

Wait...  wasn't Charlie down in San Diego County on that date, bringing Stephanie Schram down to her sister's house in Jamul and having dinner there, and then sleeping on the lawn of the residence of one of Stephanie's friends?  Well, that is what Bugliosi claimed.  But what was that based on? 

Not Charlie.  He admitted going down to Jamul but didn't put a date on it.  

Not Schram.  She couldn't remember the date:

Helter Skelter, pg368 

"Stephanie was a bit vague when it came to dates. She "thought" the day they returned to Spahn Ranch was Friday, August 8, but she wasn't sure."

 

Not that traffic ticket Charlie got from the Highway Patrol near Oceanside on the way down.  It's never been made public.

Not Stephanie Schram's sister, identified only as "Mrs. Hartman," who allegedly claimed that Charlie told her that "people were going to be slaughtered, they'll be lying on their lawns dead."    Her interview was never released.

Not Stephanie's 'friends' in San Diego on whose lawn Manson and Schram allegedly slept on, the night of Aug 7 to the morning of Aug 8.   There's no evidence they were ever identified.

Though of course Schram never said anything about Charlie stopping by Cielo Dr. in the time she was with him, from her meeting him near Esalen to when they allegedly returned to Spahn, "arriving there about two in the afternoon" on Aug 8, in Bugliosi's version.  

But Schram claimed it was Aug 5 when she first came to Spahn with Charlie.  They had dinner there, and then in the evening drove off the ranch, but only for a couple of blocks before Charlie pulled over and they slept in the bakery truck that night.  The next day, which would have been Aug 6 if Schram is right, they drove down to San Diego, spent the night, returning to Los Angeles on what would have been Aug 7.  Note that during his trial Tex claimed he saw Charlie at Spahn the next morning, on Aug 8.  There are now enough gaps in the timeline to make a trip to Cielo the night before very possible.

So why didn't Bugliosi use evidence of this alleged visit by Charlie up to Cielo the night before, at the trial?  It would have been very incriminating to Charlie, whether the visit was to do a drug deal with Voytek, as per Markham, or to do a reconnaissance, as per Beausoleil.   The only realistic scenario is that Bugliosi could not have entered this evidence without revealing the source, which might refer to the house being under surveillance before the murders, as Doris Tate claimed.

 

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

 

Bugliosi apparently based his Jamul timeline solely on the traffic ticket issued by the CHP near Oceanside. From Helter Skelter, pg367-8:

"Manson... drove to San Diego... to pick up Stephanie's clothes.
Enroute, about ten miles south of Oceanside on Interstate 5, they were stopped by California Highway Patrol officer Richard C. Willis. .... The date was Thursday, August 7, 1969; the time 6:15P.M. The ticket, which (LAPD Sgt.)Patchett and (LAPD Sgt.)Gutierrez found, proved Manson was in Southern California the day before the Tate murders."


Bugliosi is quite explicit on the time and date of the ticket. Yet he only implies--but does not explicitly state--that this was on the way to San Diego(in the southbound lanes of I-5), but what if it was while on their way back from San Diego(in the northbound lanes of I-5)? That would allow Charlie to make it to LA in time for an evening trip to Cielo Dr. the day before the murders.

 

 

 

 Is this why CHP officer Willis became unavailable to be interviewed?

 

 

Charlie: "...ask him why the District Attorney moved the Highway Patrolman to the east coast, along with the traffic ticket...."

 

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

 

 

 --The evening of the 7th of August, 1969, the four occupants of the Cielo house--Sharon, Jay, Gibby, and Voytek--are over at Sebring's house, located at 9810 Easton Dr. in Beverly Hills, watching a movie on cable TV and having dinner when the wires going into the house are allegedly cut, messing with the lights and interrupting the cable signal. Leading to the conclusion that this was an aborted murder attempt on the house's occupants, presumably by the same cast of characters that would finish the job the next night at Cielo Dr.

Listening to the recorded interview with the butler, the only time mentioned is 11pm, when the group finishes their dinner. Thus they probably would have arrived at the Sebring house that night between 9-10pm. This timeline is roughly consistent with Manson's alleged trip up to Cielo Dr., with a subsequent angry or even violent encounter with Jay and Voy as per the account of Markham, at around 8:30 to 9:30pm on Aug 7.

Jay Sebring's Cut Wires    Video                 


In Helter Skelter, Bugliosi implied the immediate precipitater to TLB was Charlie's anger for being snubbed by the audience at Esalen several days before. But the idea of Charlie being slapped around or disrespected at Cielo, just hours before a first murder attempt at Sebring's house, is a far more realistic proposition, IMO.



So what did Charlie do? Did he race back to Spahn, quickly gather up a kill posse, and then race over to Easton Dr. to do the dirty deed, somehow knowing Jay's location and address, only to be stymied by some complicated wiring?

Or did Charlie hang around Cielo, following them in their vehicle as they left the Cielo house, all the way to Easton Dr. a mile to the north? Did he then launch a plan to mess with their minds by cutting some of the wiring on their house? This would explain why none of the other family members ever mentioned this foray to Jay's house the night before. They didn't know about it. And if Schram was told to stay in the bread truck while Charlie walked up to the Sebring house, all she would know is that Charlie parked on some dark residential street somewhere and that Charlie walked off and didn't return for about half an hour.

Bugliosi claimed that Manson slapped Schram after being snubbed by the Esalen audience. Schram claims Charlie slapped her for messing up the chance to get a free meal, even before they went to Esalen. I speculate that was just a cover for Charlie slapping Schram after he was dissed by the Cielo residents, and before the wires were cut. Manson was so angry he couldn't control himself. IMO only!

 

 

 

 =====================

 

 

 To reiterate, there was plenty of hard evidence to establish an accurate timeline in the week before the murder:


--The credit card slips used at the four gas stations where Charlie got gas on the way to and from Esalen.

Aaron Stovitz to Rolling Stone
DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY AARON STOVITZ: You see, Manson has an alibi right up until August 7th, 'cause he met this girl, and he, uh, drove with her from Big Sur all the way down to Oceanside. And they made gas purchases on these stolen credit cards all the way down the line.

Helter Skelter, pg366-8
Aug 3 - "...sometime between seven and eight(am)(Manson) purchased gas at a station in Canoga Park, using a stolen credit card.
"On August 4, Manson, still using a stolen credit card, purchased gas at Lucia. ... he did it again the next day."
"...Manson left Big Sur on August 6, making gas purchases the same day at San Luis Obispo and Chatsworth..."

[And presumably any credit card slips on any gas purchases made on the way to and from San Diego.]


--The front desk register at Esalen, and any witnesses to Charlie's presence there.

--The people who encountered Charlie and Stephanie in San Diego. Meaning Schram's sister and the people at the house where they spent the night

--The CHP ticket given to Charlie near Oceanside.


Plenty of evidence, but all of it has been kept from the public eye! So there was definitely a cover-up going on. The only reason for this has to be that none of it is in accord with Bugliosi's own timeline.

Ruth Ann Moorehouse and Edward "Ted" Heuvelhorst

 

We were aware that in 1968 Ruth Ann Moorehouse married Edward Heuvelhorst so she could be an emancipated minor and not need to answer to her parents and she would no longer be a minor in the eyes of the law. Ruth Ann was 16 years old and Edward was 23 years old.

The story of their marriage as I understood it was that Ruth Ann married Edward and left him at the altar. It was a marriage of convenience for Ruth Ann but not necessarily for Edward. The two were married May 20th 1968 in Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz County, California. It has been said that she hitchhiked back down to Los Angeles and to the Family the same day she married, leaving Edward behind.

Who was Edward Heuvelhorst?

Searching through records I was surprised at the couple of things I found about Edward. Edward Lewis Heuvelhorst, Jr. went by the nickname of Ted, nobody called him Edward. He was born in Michigan and grew up in Holland Michigan according to his obituary. Holland Michigan is where Ella Jo Bailey was from, she was about a year and a half younger than Ted. However, I was not able to find Ted in any high school yearbooks for schools in Holland.

Ted’s mother, Mary Heuvelhorst, taught school in Holland MI beginning in the 1950’s but his father lived in Grand Rapids MI. I surmise that Ted’s parents were separated or divorced. BTW Ted’s mother’s maiden name was Good but I didn’t find a connection to Sandy Good.

Edward Lewis “Ted” Heuvelhorst Jr., is a distinctive and unusual name. The only other person with that name in the US according to Ancestry .com was his father with Sr. as a suffix. I found Ted in the 1962 and 1963 Ottawa Hills High School, Grand Rapids Michigan, yearbooks for his sophomore and junior years. Then I found Ted in a 1964 Menlo-Atherton High School yearbook. That high school is located in Atherton CA and today it is one of the wealthiest zip codes in the US. It was a very ritzy area back in the 1960’s too.

I was not able to learn why Ted came to California for his senior year of high school. Ted did stay in California after graduating from high school. I found a city directory listing for him living in Palo Alto and working for a construction company.

The next thing I found on Ted was a mention of his name in an April 26, 1968 article from the Ukiah Daily Journal in Mendocino County. The article was about some hippies putting on festival at the fairgrounds in Ukiah, naming it the 1^st Annual Calvin Coolidge Day Fair. I have no idea why that name, I couldn’t find that the April 27^th date had any connection to Coolidge. Ted was mentioned because he was shoved by someone standing in the fairgrounds office and he went to the police department to report it.

Hmmm, Mendocino County, Brooks Poston was mentioned in an ad taken out by one of the followers of Jim Jones extolling the reverend’s virtues that was published May 5, 1968. Rev. Jones made a deal with Brooks that if Brooks would get his hair cut, Jones would attend a non-violent peace march with Brooks.

 

Deane Moorehouse was in Mendocino during that time frame, too. And towards the end of May 1968 or early June 1968 five of the Manson Family girls rented a house in Philo, up the road from Boonville, just over the hill from Ukiah. It’s possible that Ruth Ann met Ted in Mendocino County.

It does not appear that Ted ever remarried or had any children.

Charlie and the Yogi

 In a Manson interview at Vacaville in 1985 with KALX-FM, affiliated with the University of California system,  Charlie said he was a student of yoga master Paramahansa Yogananda in the '40s and '50s

"I went to all the retreats. I've seen the light."

 

 

 

Some quotes from the yogi indicate his teachings may have been the source of some of Charlie's own beliefs:

"Remember that your children are not your own..."

"You are originally unlimited and perfect."

"The secret ... is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future... but to live in the present moment..."

"The delusion of egoism must be destroyed..."

"Death is really beautiful.."

If Manson was attending the retreats in Southern California, when could this have been? It would have been when Charlie was running free in SoCal, from about August of '55 to February of '56 (7 months), and again from Oct of '58 to about Dec of '59 (14 months).  The fact that Manson 'went to all the retreats' indicates he was an enthusiastic disciple--at least for a time.  In the same way he was an enthusiastic student of Scientology and an enthusiastic student of the guitar.

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

LVH was also a student of the yogi. From Helter Skelter, pg545: 

"[Leslie's boyfriend Bobby] Mackey, in the meantime, had become a novitiate priest in the Self Realization Fellowship[the Yogi's church]. In an attempt to continue their relationship, Leslie became a novitiate nun, giving up both drugs and sex. She lasted about eight months before breaking with both Mackey and the yoga group."

Did Leslie's previous studies at the ashram make her more vulnerable to Charlie's own programming?

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

But if Charlie was an adherent of the Yogi, why did none of the Family speak of it? Why didn't Charlie show up at any of the 3-4 retreats/dwellings/ashrams where the faithful gathered in SoCal, trying to secure housing for his brood in '68-'69?  The way he did at Hinman's house, the basement house, the hog farm, Dennis Wilson's house, the FOTW, Spahns, and Barker.

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

What is it about Southern California, cults, and young loves?

When they call  California "the land of the fruits and the nuts," they are not always referring to the state's bounteous agricultural output.  Certain themes appear over and over.

Maharishi and Me

That every official in L.A. was not dazzled by the swami seems apparent from a series of articles that appeared in the Times in 1928. “Cult To Be Subject of New Inquiry,” announced one. It stated that although the district attorney’s office some months before had looked into the practices at the Mt. Washington center and had found “nothing criminal,” another investigation was being launched “to establish if any juvenile laws are being violated....” A few days later, a longer article alluded to “accusations that a love-cult is being conducted under the cloak of the Vedantic religion of India” and elaborated, “The interest of the District Attorney’s office in the asserted love-cult activity is said to be centered on whether young girls were included in the various classes in which love and sex theories are declared to be unfolded.”

Benedict Canyon - Walking up Cielo Drive August 8, 2024

 

Bobby Beausoleil Interview

Blog reader Andrew sent me a recent interview with Bobby Beausoleil. The interview was originally recorded back in January 2024 and aired on the Hamilton Morris Podcast Patreon website. It since has been distributed to the usual podcast outlets and to YouTube.

Hamilton Morris is known as a journalist and scientific researcher. He was the creator and director of Hamilton's Pharmapoceia where he explored various mind altering drugs. The programs were distributed by Vice TV. Morris is well educated.

In this interview Beausoleil discusses his part in the murder of Gary Hinman, his opinion of Charles Manson and he offers a motive for the TLB murders.

There is an overview at the beginning of the podcast that's interspursed with a number of commercials. The interview starts in earnest at the 14:28 mark.

Thanks Andrew! 

Cleaning up some missing pages from the Spahn Ranch raid reports

photo from Cielodrive.com

There is not a lot that is inspiring happening in the Manson-sphere these days. So, it might be a good time to post some pages that were missing from previous posts about the Spahn Ranch Raid and have been found. 

There was  post on a report from Sgt. Gleason dated August 4, 1969, though it's being sneaky and the original post can't be found. It was a three page report with the second page missing. The missing page has been located so, the report makes more sense now. 

There was also an August 11, 1969 report written to Chief John Knox with the first three of fifteen pages missing. That original post can be found here.

A new 54 page pdf with documents related to the raid has been created with the missing pages put in the appropriate places. Included in the pdf is the warrant. 

Spahn Ranch Raid and Warrant file.

Linda Kasabian July 1971 Interview

The July 24, 1971 edition of The Montreal Star, (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) carried an interview with Linda Kasabian. The reporter went through a lot of trouble to find Linda as noted by the editor of the Weekend Magazine, a once a week feature of the newspaper.

Vincent Bugliosi tended to keep a tight rein on Linda, Gypsy Share and Barbara Hoyt by controlling the narrative that they could discuss with reporters. The reporter, Bill Trent, somehow slipped by Bugliosi and Linda's efforts to ward off the press and their questions. To Linda's credit, at least in Bugliosi's eyes, she revealed very little of her time with the Family. She talks briefly about Manson. There is only one incidence of her vaguely alluding to her feelings about the Family. 

The "Old Man" now plots the course of her life

By Bill Trent Weekend Magazine

 "There is internal revolution ahead. Chaos in the world. Then final rebellion..."

Linda Kasabian, speed-freak turned Jesus-freak, is speaking and her words sound harsh in this old, low-beamed 19th century room that once was a chicken house.

But, she claims, Jesus is within her and The Old Man is up there somewhere, plotting the course of her life like an ethereal navigator.

The Old Man is God. Why Old Man? Because He's the oldest being in the universe. She doesn't use the term in a derogatory sense.

"Children will rise against their parents and parents will kill their children..."

It is a warm, sunny day and the windows are open, letting in the sound the birds and the smell of New Hampshire lilacs. She pauses to absorb the sounds and scents.

A "wonderful" woman who lives in the adjoining house has given her the refurbished apartment in the old chicken house. It's a place in the woods off a secondary highway, far, she hopes, from the glare of publicity.

It doesn't bother the woman that her tenant was once charged in connection with one of the most bizarre series of murders in the history of the United States.

On Aug. 9, 1969, movie actress Sharon Tate and Steven Parent, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring and Voicyk Frokowski were murdered in a weird ritual in the star's Hollywood home. The following night, Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife were murdered in the same way. In all cases, the victims were stabbed repeatedly and in both homes the word "PIG" was written on the walls in blood.

Six people were charged with the murders- and Linda was one of them. The others were a bearded wild-eyed cult leader named Charles Manson, and Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie van Houten.

Of the six, Linda was the lucky one. She gave state's evidence and her murder charge was finally dropped. Manson and the three other girls were tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. They are now on death row at San Quentin. Watson, first declared insane, awaits trial in Los Angeles.

"There is so much pain and sorrow in the world," Linda says. "How can anybody be happy seeing other people suffer?"

It's hard to believe the words coming from this very pretty girl with the long sandy hair. She sits curled up in an antique chair with the sun on her face. It accents the paleness of the face.

"This kingdom must be destroyed and peace must come..."

Linda is 22 but in her blue jeans and barefooted, she looks almost child-like. And when she talks of Jesus, there is kind of a childish excitement in her voice. Jesus, she says, has come to her and lives inside of her.

She once thought that Charles Manson was the Messiah. She and the other girls charged in the Sharon Tate and LaBianca murders lived with him as members of his commune family on an abandoned movie ranch in California's Death Valley.

Some of the things that Manson said out on the desert seemed to Linda to be "pure truth". He generated love and she returned his love. To Linda, it was the second coming of Christ.

She no longer considers Manson to be the Messiah. Christ, she says, will come to the world one day but he won't be a California cult leader. He will be someone beautiful.

"Maybe he will come in a great white cloud. He will be seen by all the people in the world. Then evil will be eliminated from the earth."

Her husband, Bob Kasabian, enters the room. He has black silky hair down to his shoulders. He wears overalls that don't cover the top of his underwear. He wears no shoes. He sits on a chair and strums gently on his guitar.

"Christ will come soon." Linda says. "Perhaps in my lifetime. Certainly in my children's."

She has two children, a three-year old girl names Tonya and a one-year old son, Nathan, whom according to her own evidence in court, may have been fathered by any one of five men, including Charles Manson. She later said she thought Nathan was actually Kasabian's boy. "I saw my husband in my child's face when he was born," she related at the time.

"The Old Man has been watching me all along," she says. "He charted my course. He put me on the drug route and let me make my own decisions about things. But it was all part of a divine plan."

She speaks with disturbing matter-of-factness. What happened and what is ahead is all a matter of pre-ordainment.

"Drugs, free love, the whole hippie bit... You see I had to make the entire hippie trip."

A condition of our interview is that I won't ask her to discuss her past, particularly where it concerns the trial.

But in the quiet of the room, she reminisces without any prodding from me.

"We lived in an old slum apartment in Biddeford, Maine. Our first house was on a hill near a grocery store. There was a Catholic parochial school there and I used to go through their garbage cans and pick out roses they had thrown out..."

Linda's father at the time was a construction worker named Rosaire Drouin, whose parents had gone to Maine from Quebec.

"My mother and father fought a lot. My first recollection of childhood was sitting on a couch crying... My father finally left the house for good after we had moved to New Hampshire. My mother insisted he buy me some shoes before he left and he refused. But as he went out he slipped some pennies into my hand..."

She remembers her father driving around to the house to see her later. He aways had another woman in the car and Linda instinctively hated her.

"My mother and I grew close... She'd fix my banana curls and dress me in a pinafore and take me around showing me off to everybody...

"My father used to beat her on the behind as she stooped over the washing machine... But my stepfather was worse. Hiis name was Byrd and he had children of his own and he was always telling my mother how much better his kids were...

"I screamed at my stepfather one day, I said, "You hate me don't you?' He said, "Yeah, I hate you all right.' And I flipped. I just flipped..."

Linda remembers getting shipped off, during family arguments, to grandparents who lived in the country and kept horses.

"I always loved animals but I grew to like them more than people. I still do. Animals accept you as you are. They don't care what you've done before... They take you at face value, as you are right now...

"I talked to my grandparents' horses and I still talk to horses... It's not really talking. Do you know what I mean? It's communicating. You can communicate a lot without using words...

"I had this thing about all animals. I wanted to free all the dogs I saw chained up. I wanted to open up the cages at the zoo...

I kiss dogs. Did you know that dogs have the cleanest, most antiseptic mouths of any animals?

"In a sense, I suppose, I made love to animals..."

Linda recalls her school days with mixed feelings. She completed her elementary education and took a year of high school in Milford, the quiet little New Hampshire town in which she grew up. She was cheer leader in sixth grade and became her school's best athlete.

"We used to go down to the river and strip. There were boys and girls and we'd all roll around in the sand and feed the ducks and have a ball...

"But there was this kid, Larry, with the big bug eyes... He liked me and I guessed I like him, too. But we wouldn't let him come down to the river with us and this made him mad and one day he went to our teacher and then there was trouble...

"Then one day a girl I knew called me a dirty little river girl... But the boys liked me. Maybe because they thought of me as a river girl... None of those boys ever made it with me, though, and that damaged their egos..."

She remembers her disenchantment with the church:

"They told me God was a king. They told me about hellfire and damnation. The nuns told me after communion the non-Catholics went to hell. And I rebelled..."

At 16, she left her Milford home and went to Miami where she took her first drug.

"I was with this boy and we ran out of cigarettes and he gave me some marijuana... I didn't know what it was. But I liked the sensation. It was like walking on air. I wanted more..."

Linda travelled a lot after that- Boston, New York, California, Arizona, New Mexico. And she tried most of the drugs.

"I took acid one night in Boston. It wasn't a good trip...But one day in New York I got some fantastic acid. It wasn't the ordinary stuff you get. This was some pure pharmaceutical stuff...

"We were in this small apartment. The Rolling Stones were blaring away on the turntable. All of a sudden everyone was quiet. No one talked. And there was this marvelous silent kind of communication. I could feel it there in the room. It was like when I talked to horses. It's hard to describe unless you've had the experience..."

In 1967, Linda married Bob Kasabian and went west looking for a farm. They didn't find the farm but they came across a guru who moved in with them. It was the beginning of an experience.

"Bob thinks he's the first hippie to come out of his home town, Lawrence, Massachusetts. I think I was the first person who turned on in Milford... Anyway, the guru taught us how to sit and meditate. I started to get into myself. I began thinking of God. It was the opening of the door to the kingdom for me..."

Then things went wrong between Linda and Bob and they separated. Later he suggested a reunion and a trip to South America. Linda met him in California only to find he had changed his mind. There was another argument and another split. Then Linda ran into a girl with a tremendous idea. She knew a ranch in the desert where people could really communicate. It was run by a man named Manson.

There are no reminders of California in the Kasabians’ New Hampshire house. She never wants to see California again. But on the wall, there is a picture of a woman with some sheep. She is a Navajo. Linda clipped the picture out of the National Geographic magazine when she was in jail and pinned it to the wall of her cell.

“I’m still up-tight,” she says. “I blow up sometimes…”

She has blown up a number of times with newspaper reporters. She dislikes the press because she thinks it gave her a bad time during the trial.

But I have asked her if she has a message for young people on drugs, or contemplating going on thm, and she thinks the request is a valid one.

“Drug are a death trip… Mentally, physically and spiritually, they are destructive. I know. I’ve done the trip.”

Bob interrupts. “Don’t take the drug route,” he says, “Be A Jesus-freak.”

Linda suddenly remembers something:

“There was this beautiful little filly named Amber. She used to come across that meadow and sit in my lap and that was better than any acid trip I ever took…”

“We talk a lot about freedom,” Bob says. “Well, if freedom means being able to smoke hash in front of a cop, it’s not worth too much.”

“Freedom is a union with that man,” Linda says. She points to a picture of Jesus above the mattress that serves as their bed.

“She was a speed-freak,” Bob says.

“If I had taken it much longer, I would have been destroyed,” Linda cuts in.

She quit speed (amphetamines) when she first became pregnant. She takes no drugs at all now, she says, and would like to quit ordinary cigarettes, too.

“She won’t take a contraceptive either,” Bob says.

“The Pill is a form of murder,” she says. She pauses. “Abortion is murder, too. We follow the rhythm system- but do you know why? We don’t use it to avoid procreating. We use it to have children…”

Linda’s dog, half-shepherd, half-husky, runs in and licks everyone. Her name is Hopi, after the Arizona Indians with whom the Kasabians once lived.

“You can’t fool a dog or a child,” she says. “They can always spot a phony.”

Hopi brings a new turn to the conversation.

“There has been so much hypocrisy,” Linda says. “You see, the kids listened to people like John Lennon and their followers. The kids believed so much, you see…”

Bob plays softly on the guitar. Linda doesn’t talk now about Lennon. She speaks of anonymous people behind the scenes, the promoters she calls them.

They talk of peace and love and flowers and it was hypocrisy… They spoke of love- and prepared for violence…”

Bob interrupts: “They wanted to revolt against the system. But they wanted to set up another political system that was as bad.”

Later we go down the dark stairs of the one-time chicken house and into the big garden. Linda motions for quiet. In the distance there is the sound of running water. There is a dam nearby. Suddenly, I realize how remote you can be in New Hampshire.

“They chased us out of Marlborough,” Bob says. “Not exactly chased. But they found our shack in the woods and condemned the place.”

“They may chase us out of here,” Linda says. “But we’re set for that if the time comes.”

She shows me the pickup truck she and her husband bought. He does handyman jobs in the area. That truck got Linda back in the news briefly. She failed to have the vehicle inspected and was hauled into court and fined $15. The newspapers, of course, picked up the item.

Linda collects lilacs in the garden and Bob gets water from the spring. He pours some into paper cups and it is ice cold.

“What we really want is a log cabin way off somewhere, away from everything,” she says as I prepare to leave. “One that we made ourselves. And we want a big meadow where the animals can run free. We’d have sheep and shear the wool. And chickens for eggs. And I’d have a spinning wheel and loom som I could make my own clothes…

“And someday, when the Old Man thinks I’m ready, He’ll call. And I’ll know a oneness with Him and the universe.”