They Blabbed

They blabbed about their crimes.  They blabbed, and blabbed, and blabbed.  And when they were done blabbing, they blabbed some more.  Sadie's famous blab to her jail mates Cory Hurst, Nancy Jordan, Ronnie Howard, and Virginia Graham wasn't the only time the Family suffered from loose lips when talking about the murders. Anybody watching the Family closely would probably have picked up on the many incriminating statements.
(confessions to the cops and lawyers not included)

Chaos, by Tom O'Neill

pg125
John Parks, Beach Boy tour manager:
One of Manson's girls, he explained, had already told him that the Family had murdered one of the caretakers at the Spahn Ranch--Donald "Shorty" Shea, whose body wasn't found until 1977.

pg174

A fire patrolman reported that Family members had told him they'd moved into the canyons because they'd "killed a member of the Black Panthers."

[Fireman Lynn Seeley, Spahn Ranch Raid docs, pg11of54]

pg206

...Leslie told Dianne(Lake) that she had stabbed someone who was already dead. ... Leslie also told Dianne that the murder had occurred some place near Griffith Park, near Los Feliz; that someone had written something in blood on the refrigerator door; and that she, Leslie, then wiped everything so there would be no prints...

pg243

When Guenther and Whitely finally found her(Lutesinger), she told them that Susan Atkins had boasted of torturing and finally killing Hinman with Beausoleil over two nights.

pg410
At the trial, a ranch hand told police that Manson had bragged about killing thirty-five people...

pg451
I located more than a half dozen documents in the Los Angeles District Attorney files and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office files indicating that Manson had discussed the Bernard Crowe shooting with Wilson within a week of the Tate murders...



Helter Skelter by Vince Bugliosi

pg102
....Kitty said she had heard that Manson had sent Beausoleil and a girl named Susan Atkins to Hinman's home to get money from him. A fight had ensued, and Hinman had been killed. Kitty couldn't recall who told her this, just that it was the talk of the ranch. She did recall, however, another conversation in which Susan Atkins told her and several other girls that she had been in a fight with a man who had pulled her hair, and that she had stabbed him three or four times in the legs.

pg105
witness Steve Zabriskie: ... a "Charlie" and a 'Clem' had committed both the Tate and LaBianca murders. He had heard this...from Ed Bailey and Vern Plumlee, two hippie types from California... Bailey had told him something else, Zabriskie said: that he had personally seen Charlie shoot a man in the head with a .45 caliber automatic. This had occurred in Death Valley.

pg119
...Springer said that on Aug 11 or 12... Charles Manson had bragged to him about killing people, adding, "We knocked off five of them just the other night." ... Charlie had told him about cutting some guy's ear off. ...(Crowe shooting) Charlie had told him about it. ... "..he told me something about writing something on the refrigerator. ...Charlie said they wrote something on the fucking refrigerator in blood."

pg124
Danny heard, from the girls, that Shorty "got to know too much and hear too much and got worried too much" and "so they just cut off his arms and his legs and his head off..."

pg137
DeCarlo's primary source was Beausoleil, who, on returning to Spahn after the (Hinman)murder, had bragged to DeCarlo about what he had done.

pg144

Bruce Davis had told him about Shorty's murder, DeCarlo said. Several of the girls had also mentioned it, as had both Clem and Manson.

pg475

...Sadie told Ouisch that Sharon Tate had been the last to die...

pg492
One night in early August 1969, Juan had been watching TV in the trailer when Sadie came in, dressed in black, "Where are you going?" Juan asked. "We're going to get some fucking pigs," Sadie replied. When she left, Jaun looked out the window and saw her get into Johnny Swartz' old yellow Ford. Charlie, Clem, Tex, Linda, and Leslie got in also.

pg500

Tex had told Leslie to stab Rosemary LaBianca, and, later, to wipe fingerprints off everything they had touched--since Katie had related these things to Dianne....

pg550
...Leslie told Dianne(Lake) that stabbing was fun, that, the more she stabbed, the more she enjoyed it....

pg604
Cathy (Gilles) had testified on direct examination that Katie had told her about the Tate-LaBianca murders.

https://www.cielodrive.com/archive/cult-girl-testifies-she-was-willing-to-kill-for-love/

“Katie didn’t say much…except that they had gone and murdered the Tates and LaBiancas,” Miss Gillies said of Miss Krenwinkel.

The Family, by Ed Sanders

pg209
The story of the shooting of the black man(Crowe) spread throughout the family...

pg249
That night the family got together for a songfest and tape-recorded a re-creation of the murder of Gary Hinman in musical form. Each person played a role.

pg250
July 27 Spahn Ranch raid
According to Sheriff's Deputy George Grap, Manson said, "We got into a hassle with a couple of those black motherfuckers and we put one of them in the hospital," after which Manson told him the blacks were going to wreak vengeance...

pg296
When DeCarlo walked up to Clem and asked, "What'd you do last night?" ... Clem then placed his hand on DeCarlo and said, according to DeCarlo, "We got five piggies."

pg339
(Ranch hand David)Hannon began to talk with Manson occasionally. Manson told him about the "Black Panther" he had shot.

pg351
(around Aug 18) Tex laughed and told Snake, according to Snake, that he killed Sharon Tate: "I killed her. Charlie asked me to. It was fun."

pg354

...the Shea murder was discussed from zombi to zombi. Charlie used to joke about it at campfires.

http://www.cielodrive.com/bruce-davis-parole-hearing-2007.php
....(Bruce Davis) knew fully well what was going to happen to Mr. Hinman, that Mr. Hinman was going to be killed, and in fact he bragged about it afterwards to other Family members.

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-24.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1lSaOh0WybfAF-4eUVZBHp3x21SzDmLCv8gZiGqzamRDO3cjCVLZPCpKs
Box 24 pg265of396
VH: "Sadie came in grinning saying, "We killed him(Hinman)."

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-57.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3k9X0l-Zp4U6SOwpUHZINqNu91Zbqy0hXWFfCA-vQaFNtoI_um8TG4d4A

Box 57 pg180of491 April 1969 Grand Jury testimony of Brunner:

"Sadie told me she killed him(Hinman)..."

http://www.cielodrive.com/gary-hinman-homicide-report-05-18-70.php
--A day or so later, late at night .. Mary and Susan ... both related how Gary had snatched the gun and they wrestled it away from him and of Charles Manson and Bruce coming to the house and Charles slashing Gary’s face and telling Hinman to cooperate. Further, how they wiped the house down for fingerprints, how Bobby killed V/Hinman and wrote on the wall “Political Piggy” and each held the pillow over Hinman’s face until he died.

--The following morning... Beausoleil told the same story of the Hinman killing adding that he stabbed Hinman and wrote with his blood on the wall.

--Later the same day, Miss Bailey talked with Bruce Davis who said when he went with Charles Manson to the Hinman house, he held the gun on Hinman while Charles hit him with the sword in the face. Then the girls laid Gary down and Charles said to Hinman, “You might as well cooperate, you’re gonna die anyway.”

--On the following day, while in the saloon at Spahn Ranch, Charles Manson stated, “I found it necessary to use the sword on Gary; I got $27 and his cars.”

The Killing of Sharon Tate, Lawrence Schiller, (and Susan Atkins) published in Jan 1970
pg110

But everybody on the ranch was pretty quiet(the day after the Cielo murders). Everybody on the ranch--and there might have been twenty-five or thirty of us, though people came and went--knew by then there had been a killing. But they didn't know who had done it. They had their suspects, because most of them knew that we had gone out the night before.

https://www.cielodrive.com/stephanie-schram-statement-12-04-69.php

STEPHANIE SCHRAM re Cielo murders:  "I knew that they did it, you know. I, nobody ever said anything, but just from the way they talked and the things they did and you know little snatches of things I'd hear, here and there I could read these articles and just put them together.  ....

....(at Barker)the girls were sitting around and there was one girl who was kind of new to the group and she said something like you mean you guys really killed, you know, somebody before. And Sadie said, sure, she said, and then I heard her talking about stabbing some great big guy in the leg wrestling with some big guy and stabbing him."

Juan Flynn testimony at TLB trial:
http://murdersofaugust69.freeforums.net/thread/479/people-manson-august-1976-appeal
"Q. There was just you and Mr. Manson there?

"A. Yes. I wasn't watching him. I was watching the food, you know. Then he grabbed me by the hair, you know, and put a knife on my throat, and he said, 'You son-of-a-bitch, don't you know I am the one who is doing all these killings?

LVH tape-recorded disclosure to her lawyer Marvin Part:

Miss Van Houten: *** And then the next morning Sadie was watching the news, I think. Somehow I found out that they had done it. Oh, no. I asked Katie, and she told me.
MR. PART: What did she say?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: She(Krenwinkle) said that — that they had murdered five people;

https://archive.org/stream/ladiesgentlemeno00lief#page/255/mode/1up/search/manson

Prosecution's closing argument. Bugliosi: Barbara(Hoyt) also testified that in Sept of '69, while at Myers Ranch, she heard Sadie tell Ruth Moorehouse that Sharon Tate came out and she said "What is going on here," or something like that, and Sadie said, "Shut up, woman." She said Sadie also told Ruth Moorehouse that Sharon Tate was the last to die because she had to see everybody else go first."

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-08-10/how-charles-manson-cast-his-spell

Lake: Van Houten and Atkins gushed about the killings, which disgusted her. She had never connected with either but always had seen Krenwinkel as a nurturing soul. Now she was hearing her close friend Patty tell how she repeatedly stabbed Abigail Folger at the Tate house on Aug. 9 and Rosemary LaBianca the next night.

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-30.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3X_Jd5u7Wyd1RIL6JfmGX0YkmzWJ6ERH2NhpQxLV767nS8aivttzhmZWU
Box 30 pg190of738
Miss Lake had a conversation with appellant Krenwinkle in the last part of August or early September 1969, outside the house at Willow Springs. Other people were present. Appellant Krenwinkle said that she had dragged Abigail Folger from the bedroom to the living room.

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-11.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3DyuZZwQfA5wACZTjQHxo_MmstEU3ByrGL89hqSem2lwmlnXvNj8tkpKM
Manson Case Files Box 11 pg412of446
Atkins interview with Paul Caruso
"...I called Clem in (to see the report of the Tate killings on the TV), because Clem knew about it. ..
Q: Was the killing discussed in front of Clem?
A: Yes."

https://themansonfamily-mtts.medium.com/helter-skelter-began-tonight-c259b18712ba

Sandra gave birth in October 1969 to a little boy. While at the hospital recovering from childbirth, she was visited by Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel, another one of the Tate/LaBianca killers.  Sadie started dropping hints about the name Tate, Katie threw her an angry look and Sandy demanded to know what was going on. They told her about Cielo Drive. They told her that Sharon was pregnant when she was stabbed to death.

http://www.aboundinglove.org/main/images/bookPDFs/Will_You_Die_For_Mesmall.pdf
Tex Watson, Will You Die For Me?  pg65of120

Re Crowe:   ...At the ranch the next day, Charlie couldn't stop talking about how he “plugged blackie.”

(Oddly, he says this happened around July 15)

www.mansonblog.com/2017/01/when-did-dennis-wilson-finally-sever.html    From the progress report

... While at the Wilson residence, there was a conversation between Manson and Wilson regarding a man who died from a gunshot wound to the stomach. ...   During the conversation, Manson indicated that he had been the one that had killed the unknown person.

Knox document release
https://wvw.mansonblog.com/First-Spahn-Raid.pdf
(Charlie to Fire Dept personnel at Spahn) Further explained they had an armed camp and that they were having trouble with the Panthers and that there had been a guy who gave them trouble and his body was dumped on the UCLA campus.

https://www.cielodrive.com/updates/brooks-postons-october-3rd-1969-interview-with-james-pursell-in-inyo-county/

October 3rd, 1969  Brooks Poston interview by Inyo County Sheriff Don Ward.

And he’s(Manson) talked about killing a negro, militant leader in Los Angeles. And he’s talked about killing, a guy named Shorty there too. Or having his people do it – cutting his head off and having the girls bury the body somewhere.

http://murdersofaugust69.freeforums.net/thread/635/barker-ranch-raid-report-1969

Barker Ranch Raid Report

Regarding the rumor that a person known as "Shorty" had been killed, Watkins said Manson told him that Tufts(Grogan) had killed "Shorty". Watkins also stated that Tufts told him that he had killed "Shorty."

LADA files Box 56-2 Bruce Davis' Hinman/Shea trial Dec '71 to Feb '72

Springer: "And that (Bruce)Davis had said(at Mark Ross' house in late Nov '69) that they had taken care of the guy at the ranch... they were afraid he was going to inform on the police... and they had cut him up and buried him--and Clem had buried him at the ranch...
That Mark Ross then said--then asked, "Do you mean Shorty?' And Davis said, Yeah."

http://murdersofaugust69.freeforums.net/thread/1044/life-charles-manson-chapter-22

My Life With Charles Manson, by Paul Watkins, Chapter 22

Bruce(Davis) did a lot of talking on that trip. ... he told me Helter-Skelter would stun the world. He also told me something I’d heard before; how hard it had been to kill Shorty Shea.

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-23.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1CQ93nsaYFf3kB42SjqcFwZqMqh4wlkZfeQhbxUXGaZ3NLl1HKL__dBVE
Manson Case Files Box 23 pg401of416
Sgt McGann interview with Van Houton 11-26-69
McGann re the Tate killings: "They talked freely about it when they got back that night, the next day, and for days following."

LADA files Box 22 vol9028  pg19of144 transcript of LVH interview with Part on Dec 29, 1969
Mr. Part: Now, when you left with Charlie in the car, was there anybody else who saw you leaving?
Miss Van Houten: Only Cathy(Gilles). And she knew. 'Cause she wanted to go." ...
"We were all present. We all knew what we were going to go out to do. Nobody didn't know."
Mr. Part: Well, how did you know?
Miss Van Houten: We all talked about it.

Kasabian trial testimonly, JULY 30, 1970
"So I hitchhiked up there the next day and I found him(her husband) and I just told him what I have told you the last couple of days, not in great detail, but just basically that I witnessed these murders and I would not go into it again, I told him — "

A: I told him I knew about the Sharon Tate murders and the people that had Tanya were these people that killed Sharon Tate, and that is basically what I told him. ..
Q BY MR. BUGLIOSI: When you told Joe Sage this, was any other person present?
A: Yes, there was. ... A boy named Jeffrey.

The Family blabbed so often that even if Susan Atkins hadn't told her jail-mates what happened, and even if Lutesinger never told cops about Charlie's involvement in the Hinman slaying, the cops eventually would have heard the tales emanating from the Family and would have picked up the thread that way.  TLB was not a crime that would have remained unsolved.