The Watson-Kasabian Dynamic

I think that one of the most overlooked relationships amongst the people connected with the Tate-LaBianca murders was (and is) the one between Charles Watson and Linda Kasabian. Going further, I would also contend that the personal interaction between Watson and Kasabian had much more to do with the murders on Cielo and Waverly Drives than any sinister plan on the part of Charles Manson. 

Charles "Tex" Watson

Linda "Yana" Kasabian

Charles Watson and Linda Kasabian had one of the more identifiable relationships of all of the characters living at Spahn's Movie Ranch in July and August of 1969. That relationship was based on two things: sex and criminality.

That Watson and Kasabian were bonded by sex is well known, because by both of their accounts their lovemaking was profound.  In his book Will You Die For Me? Watson remembered Kasabian's arrival at Spahn's Ranch on July 4, 1969 and their subsequent night together: "Linda joined the Family that same day, without even meeting Charlie, and that night I introduced her to our truth. Linda later said that when we made love it was like being possessed. For me it was a more complete sensation of oneness than I'd ever known with a woman. It was as if our two bodies literally became one and it was no longer possible to feel where I ended and she began. Linda and I talked very late that night, just the two of us in a little room in the ranch house. I told her she should steal some money that the man she'd been staying with had inherited, and when she protested that she couldn't do that, since he was a good friend who trusted her, I quoted Charlie and told her that there was no wrong, no sin; everything anyone had was meant to be shared. Linda had already given the Family whatever she owned and the next day she went back to Topanga and returned a little while later with $5,000 she'd ripped off according to my instructions." (all emphasis added)

At his murder trial Watson elaborated on why he thought he was such an impressive lover of Kasabian: 

 Sam Bubrick (Watson's defense attorney): "The first time you saw Linda, wasn't it about three or four minutes later that you were making love to her?"

Charles Watson: "That is correct."

SB: "What was it about Linda that caused you to be so amorous?"

CW: "Well, I guess the fact that she was a new girl there and that all the other girls, they kind of looked down upon me because they were all with the family before I was and they saw how straight I was when I first got there, and that was always in my mind and their mind too, I believe."

Kasabian was equally impressed by her initial tryst with Watson. Talking to Vincent Bugliosi while preparing her testimony for the murder trial, Kasabian recalled that when she was having sex with Watson she felt as though she was "possessed," and during her testimony at the murder trial (transcript pages 5570-5571) she said:

LInda Kasabian: "Well, first I will have to explain to you the night of July the 4th."

Paul Fitzgerald (Attorney for Patricia Krenwinkel): "Okay."

LK: "I met Tex, and Tex took me into a dark shed, shack, whatever you want to call it, and he made love to me, which was an experience that I had never had before."

PF: "You had never had sexual intercourse before?"

LK: "No. I'm saying that the experience I had in making love with Tex was a total experience, it was different."

PF: "In what respect?"

LK: "That my hands were clenched when it was all over and I had absolutely no will power to open my own hands, and I was very much afraid, I didn't understand it.

"And I questioned Gypsy about it later and she told me it was my ego that was dying."

It's certainly true that a short or even singular sexual relationship can affect a person for the rest of their lives. That is what I think happened here. I think that Charles Watson and Linda Kasabian bonded through their sexual interaction and that a special relationship existed between them. And I also think that that relationship endured throughout the murder trials and indeed continues to this day. 

Watson and Kasabian were also bonded by their shared criminality. Watson's criminal inclinations are well known, from his days in Texas when he drunkenly broke into his old high school and stole some typewriters as part of a fraternity initiation, through his time in Hollywood when he supported himself by low level drug dealing, to his lying to the army to get a deferment, to his amateurish ripoff of Bernard Crowe on July 1, 1969 (just three days before Linda Kasabian arrived at Spahn's Ranch), and finally to his ending up as one of the most notorious mass murderers in American history. 

And Linda Kasabian was no stranger to the shady side of life either. She had been around quite a bit before she even arrived at Spahn's ranch. As her one-time panhandling partner Sandra Good later succinctly recalled, "She was experienced." After the murders at the Polanski and LaBianca residences Kasabian stole a car from a ranch hand at Spahn's to flee the Los Angeles area. Eventually arriving at her father's residence in Florida, he shortly thereafter evicted her because he suspected her of stealing items from his apartment and selling them to buy drugs. And before she was finally arrested at the beginning of December of 1969 she evasively never mentioned the crimes she was involved in to any member of law enforcement or "the Establishment" even though she had ample opportunities to do so.

Charles Watson and Linda Kasabian were partners and soul mates -- both in love and in crime. 

*      *      *

Linda Kasabian came to Spahn's Ranch on July 4, 1969, brought there by Catherine "Gypsy" Share, who had met her at the home of mutual friend Charles Melton. (Kasabian had been briefly staying at Melton's while attempting a reconciliation with her husband Robert, but the reconciliation didn't work out.) Upon her arrival at the ranch one of the first persons she met was Charles Watson. On that first day the pair hung out together, made love, shared drugs, and at some point decided to steal $5,000 from Melton, a theft that Kasabian carried out the next day before she even ever met Charles Manson. (Kasabian says that Watson encouraged her to steal the money. Watson denied this while testifying at his own murder trial, but later, in his book, said that he suggested that she take Melton's money.)

That this $5,000 theft was a major indicator of Kasabian's criminal nature was recognized by Manson Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who succeeded in having any mention of the theft excluded from the Tate-LaBianca murder trial based on the legal principle that a witness's criminal history can only be mentioned if they have been convicted of a crime. In the case of the stolen $5,000 there was no legal process leading to a criminal conviction. But the technical fact that Kasabian never faced any legal consequences for the theft doesn't make the theft any less serious. (And to give the reader an idea of just how serious that theft was, consider that $5,000 in 1969 dollars would be worth a little over $33,000 today. In other words, Linda Kasabian stole a substantial amount of money.)

The primary driving motive for the Tate-LaBianca murders was to commit a series of copycat murders that would convince the police that Bobby Beausoleil didn't kill Gary Hinman. (You can say that it wasn't, but it was. There might have been other considerations in the minds of the people who killed on August 8 and 9, 1969, but the primary reason why they drove away from Spahn's Ranch on those two nights was to do something to help Bobby Beausoleil, who had been arrested for Hinman's murder only a few days previously.) Everybody at Spahn's Ranch wanted Bobby Beausoleil out of jail. But nobody did more so than Charles Manson, who knew that Beausoleil had killed Hinman to keep him from going to the police after Manson had cut his ear during an earlier violent underworld occurrence. When Manson wanted something done to free Beausoleil he summoned the people who owed him favors and told them to "do something."

All of the people at Spahn's Ranch owed Charles Manson generally for his shooting and presumed killing of Bernard Crowe to protect them from his threatened retaliation after being ripped off by Charles Watson. But some people owed Manson more than others. Charles Watson, of course, owed Manson because he was the one who put the drug burn in motion that led to Manson's shooting of Crowe in the first place. Susan Atkins owed Manson for times when he had resolved problems brought on by some of her careless social interactions, including her thievery involving hashish. Linda Kasabian owed him for when he smoothed over the problem of Robert Kasabian and Charles Meltion coming to the ranch and making a big stink about her stealing Melton's money and threatening to turn the theft into a huge law enforcement issue, or worse.

But the biggest debt by far was owed by Watson, who had forced Manson to (he thought) commit murder in order to straighten out the Crowe mess. Thus was Watson sternly assigned by Manson the task of "doing something" to get Beausoliel out of jail. Out of that command arose discussions around the ranch of what could be done. Out of those discussions arose the half-baked and stupid copycat motive. Was Linda Kasabian a part of those discussions? No one knows for sure, but it is not unreasonable to assume that she had some input into ways to deal with the demand that Manson put onto her lover and partner in crime.

At the murder trial Catherine Share testified that the "copycat motive" was Linda's idea. Certainly anything Share says should be taken with a Death Valley salt flat, but it is not too hard to imagine Kasabian being part of the discussion or planning that led to the ill-conceived copycat plan. She was, after all, criminally inclined, as her eager theft of Charles Melton's $5,000 demonstrated. Also, because of her intense and impressive sexual encounter with Charles Watson, she very possibly held him in a special regard, despite her denials during the trial that she loved Watson any more than she did any of the other men she made love with during her six weeks at Spahn's Ranch (including, not incidentally, Bobby Beausoleil). Thus she might have been especially interested in coming up a with a plan that would both free Beausoleil and get Watson off the hook with a furious Manson.

The prosecution has always claimed that the only reason ranch newcomer Kasabian went along on the murder nights was because she was the only person at Spahn's Ranch with a valid driver's license. But this contention is laughable and is in no way a credible reason for her being in the car. I mean, if you were sending people out to commit an atrocious crime would you really want to send with them a newcomer that you don't really know simply for the legal advantage of  her having a valid driver's license? And if you were on your way to commit mass murder in a borrowed car bearing the wrong license plates, with a rope, bolt cutters, several knives, and a gun, would there really be any reason to have someone along with a valid driver's license? (In fact, having a real driver's license along on such an endeavor would be the exact opposite of what you would want to do if you thought there was a likelihood that you would encounter the police.) And what, really, is the likelihood that Kasabian even really was the only person with a valid driver's license amongst the fifteen or so "Manson Family members" who were present at Spahn's Ranch on those nights? 

Kasabian's activities at Cielo Drive are also inconsistent with the behavior of an innocent bystander. There, Watson sent her around the house to reconnoiter the layout and accessibility of the premises. Later, he had her stand lookout by Steven Parent's car while he and Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel entered the house. Neither of these tasks are  assignments that would be given to a group's weakest link. After the murders, Watson chewed Kasabian out for abandoning her lookout post and returning to the car at the bottom of the Cielo Drive cul-de-sac after her nightmarish encounter with a bludgeoned and bloody Voytek Frykowski at the front porch of the Polanski house. And as the killers were fleeing the scene, Watson assigned her the task of ditching the murder weapons and had her hold the steering wheel while he changed out of his bloody clothing. 

(Much of all of this, incidentally, is at variance with the testimony that Watson gave at his own murder trial in 1971. While completely uninformative as to why the group went out to commit murder on the first night, he says that Kasabian was driving the car while he rode in the back seat. He also says that Kasabian provided him with the bolt cutters that he used to cut the wires leading into the Polanski property on Cielo Drive and that she drove the car when the killers left the murder scene.)

Lending further credence to the possibility of a special Watson-Kasabian dynamic are the details of the killers' recollections of the second night of murder, when the carload of people from Spahn's Ranch went on a supposed city-wide search for potential murder victims. At his own trial for murder Watson testified that he didn't remember much of the ride that night before the group arrived at Waverly Drive. But by the time he wrote Will You Die For Me? seven years later his recollection accurately mirrored that of Linda Kasabian. Did Watson actually later remember the exact same chain of events that Kasabian did? Or was he merely parroting the story put forth by his former lover in order to provide her version of events with false corroboration?

And yet another bond between the Watson-Kasabian pair is an apparent affection that the two have demonstrated for the type of drug generally referred to as "speed." 

Charles Watson's affinity for the drug is well known. He has recalled his extensive use of speed many times in his book and elsewhere. At his 2001 parole hearing he remembered, "There was a friend of mine across the street, that had the ranch across the street. He had obtained an ounce of it and had given me a jar of it. And Susan Atkins and myself and one other was sniffing the methamphetamine." Was the "one other" Charles Watson referred to at this parole hearing Linda Kasabian? And was Watson still being protective of her by not naming here over thirty years after the murders because he still had special feelings for her?

On Linda Kasabian's part there is not much contemporary evidence of her favoring speed in 1969, but the substance was Watson's drug of choice at that time and it is therefore highly likely that she indulged in it with him while they were together, perhaps even from the first night that they met. Also, Kasabian is known to have had experiences with speed later in her life, some of which experiences led her to have negative encounters with law enforcement. 

In the 2009 History Channel "drama-documentary" Manson, Kasabian made her first extensive public statements about the murders in almost forty years. In the program she practically beamed when talking about her early idyllic days at Spahn's Ranch. She described Charles Watson as gruff and creepy but with beautiful eyes and a beautiful smile. She was attracted to him. Regarding their love-making she said, "He made me feel like I'd never felt before." Although Kasabian's theft of Charles Melton's money was recounted in the show there was no mention whatsoever of the Bernard Crowe burn and the resulting threatened and real violence. Thus, the "Family's" sudden transformation from a peace and love commune into a paranoid and armed camp was left unexplained. Kasabian did say that the killers in the car the first night had taken speed (white pills supplied by Charles Manson) and also that she took Steven Parent's wallet from his corpse after he was shot to death and scouted out the rear area of the Polanski house. In recalling the actual murders she affected weeping but there were no tears. At the conclusion of the program she said, "I could never accept the fact that I was not punished for my involvement in this tragedy. I feel then what I feel now, always, and forever, that it was a waste. It was a waste of life that had no reason. No rhyme. It was wrong. And it hurt a lot of people. Still now, today, and always forever."

Linda Kasabian -- was she really just a poor innocent hippie girl who accidentally fell in with a group of ruthless murderers? Or was she a tough, amoral, and criminally inclined individual who willingly participated in (or maybe even instigated) some of America's most infamous murders? And are she and Charles "Tex" Watson still engaged in a life-long special relationship based on their shared experiences at Spahn's Ranch? Are they like the characters in German folklore known as Doppelgänger (literally "double goers"), biologically unrelated persons who nearly or completely resemble one another? In the folklore when someone meets their Doppelgänger it is an omen of impending death. Perhaps Watson and Kasabian are life-long soul mates, and perhaps they are not. But whatever the true nature of the relationship between Charles Watson and Linda Kasabian was or is, no one can deny that death followed in the wake of their fateful introduction to each other on July 4, 1969.

Tex Watson's Beard

"At the same time I interviewed Linda's husband, Robert Kasabian, I also talked to Charles Melton, the hippie philanthropist from whom Linda had stolen the $5,000. Melton said that in early April 1969 (before Linda ever met the Family) he had gone to Spahn Ranch to see Paul Watkins. While there, Melton had met Tex, who, admiring Melton's beard, commented, "Maybe Charlie will let me grow a beard someday."

"It would be difficult to find a better example of Manson's domination of Watson."

 --  Vincent Bugliosi in Helter Skelter,  page 392

That this is the best example Bugliosi could find of Charles Manson's domination of Charles Watson shows how negligible that supposed domination really was, for the only two photographs taken of Watson during the period he lived at Spahn's Ranch with Manson show him to be bearded.

Charles Watson after his arrest for being under the influence of 

Belladonna (Jimson Weed?) on April 23, 1969

Charles "Tex" Watson at the Spahn Movie Ranch in 1969

Oh, Charlie did tell him to shave, but there was really a more mundane reason for Manson's "demand" that Watson (and, indeed, all the males at Spahn Ranch) remain clean shaven beyond his alleged desire to take control over every aspect of their lives. While it might be hard to believe in a day and age where Grandma is tattooed and pierced and the guy checking your groceries has dinner plates in his ear lobes, in the late 1960s men wearing beards (not to mention long hair!) could actually be considered radical. George Spahn (the owner of Spahn Ranch) was running a business -- horse riding rentals -- that depended to some degree on drop-in customer traffic. Therefore, he wanted his ranch to be as welcoming and friendly -- and normal -- as possible to prospective riders. On top of this, Spahn was also somewhat "old school," and he equated "beards" with "bums." For these two reasons he didn't want a bunch of bearded bums lounging around when Mrs. San Fernando Valley came in to investigate the ranch as a possible place for Sally and her friends to go horseback riding. 

It was George Spahn who instituted the "no beards" rule at Spahn's Ranch, not Charles Manson. Manson's directive to Watson regarding his whiskers was merely a pass down of the orders of George Spahn; it was not part of any mind/ body/soul-control agenda of his own.

Based on my forty-plus years of beard wearing I would categorize Watson's efforts as pretty scraggly. Nevertheless, he looks more bearded than he does clean-shaven, and it's apparent that at some point Manson noticed Watson's facial hair and mentioned it to him. But Watson  was no more "dominated" by having to shave than are the hundreds of thousands of other males who have toned down their preferred appearances for the sake of dress code policies relative to employment opportunities. I did the same thing in 1980 when I cut my hair and shaved off my beard as a condition for working with the Fred Harvey concessionaire at Furnace Creek in Death Valley. (And as much as I enjoyed working there I would not have considered committing mass  murder on the company's behalf.)

Thus, Vincent Bugliosi's "no better example" of Charles Manson's supposed domination of Charles Watson turns out to be just like so much more of the District Attorney's case against the former: It turns out to be nothing. 

"Hey, Charlie… Black Beard Charlie!"

Charlie (Black Beard) Melton
Photo credit:  Jim Otterstrom

  Melton and his doggies 2013

Most readers here will be familiar with the name "Charles Melton" aka "Black Beard Charlie", and where he fits into the TLB story (nightmare). But here's a recap anyway: He was a friend of Paul Watkins prior to either of them meeting the "Manson Family" et al. He is referred to as "Black Beard Charlie" in Paul Watkin's book, "My Life With Charles Manson". The book, a rare and usually expensive find in print form, is available online in its entirety courtesy of ColScott, at the Colonel's site:
www.tatelabianca.blogspot.com  (The Chapters begin in June 2006. Chapter 1 as well as Chapters 24 and 25 are relevant here.).

Though the following excerpt details Watkin's return to Topanga Canyon after a stay in Northern California; he and Melton had travelled to Northern California together, with stays in Big Sur and the Haight, among other stops. Melton was with Watkins when Watkins was arrested in Half Moon Bay, CA (for possession).

From Little Paul's book:

Black Beard [Charlie Melton] was another "runaway" from L.A. who had shined-on suburbia to take to the hills. He was nineteen, a full-on Kerouac “dharma bum” who could assume the full lotus at the drop of a hat and fall immediately into trancelike meditation. He was tall and slender with a gaunt, El Grecolike face which seemed compatible with his vagrant life-style. Brown, wide-set eyes highlighted his dark complexion. His hair hung to well below his shoulders and was tied at the base of his skull with a strip of rawhide. Black Beard was a student of Eastern religions and he taught me a lot about survival in the wilderness with a pack on my back. We had made camp at Hot Springs canyon, near Esalen, and were committed to the gypsy life, wandering through the forests and along the California coastline.

Melton, originally from Reseda, is listed as also residing during his lifetime in Agoura Hills, Malibu (Topanga), Big Sur, and Ukiah,CA.

Melton was living in the infamous area of Lower Topanga known as the "Snake Pit" when he first met Manson, etc. In "Helter Skelter", Bugliosi writes of Melton's self-professed first visit to Spahn Ranch as being in March of '69. Melton told the story of Tex admiring his beard, and allegedly saying: "Maybe one day Charlie will let me grow a beard.".

From "The Family" by Ed Sanders, 2002 Ed., Thunder's Mouth Press. Available on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Family-Ed-Sanders/dp/1560253967

..."On July 4th, Gypsy, aka Yippie aka Cathy Share and aka Manon Minette, saw fit to take herself to Topanga Lane near the beach in Topanga Canyon to visit Charlie Melton, a bearded friend who lived in a canvas-covered stake truck notable in that it had an automobile seat perched atop its cab.

... Linda Kasabian, her husband Bob, Blackbeard Charles and Jim and Juli Otterstrom - all were living in the stake truck, preparing for that trip to South America. Charles Melton had inherited around $23,000. and some of that was going to pay for the trip. The rest he had been giving away, much to the delight of various Topanga residents.

Inside Melton's trailer, Gypsy picked up his guitar and began to sing "Cease to Exist. "Gypsy began to tell Linda about the Spahn Ranch and particularly about Charles Manson... The others in the trailer were shining Gypsy on, but Gypsy said that their ego wouldn't let them listen to the Truth. Mrs. Kasabian, though reconciled with him for only seven days, was having trouble with him. It seems that already he and Charles Melton had cut her out of the trip to South America. Gypsy invited her to come to the Spahn Ranch. Linda had been planning that day to go to the July 4th Love-In on Topanga beach but she went to the Spahn Ranch instead, taking her 16-month old (daughter) Tanya with her."

Once at Spahn, Linda hooked up with Tex Watson and told him about Melton's inheritance. He "convinced her" to go back and steal the money from Melton.

... "July 5th was a day of happiness for the Family. In the morning, Tanya, Linda, Gypsy, and Mary Brunner went to Topanga Canyon to go to the beach. They ran into Charles Melton and Bob Kasabian behind the Topanga Shopping Center by the creek. They smoked some hellweed and Bob and Charles went off to downtown L.A. to get their passports for their trip. Linda and the girls drove to Melton's canvas truck-house to get her possessions. She dug up a buried Bull Durham pouch full of thirty pink acid tabs. She packed up her gear... Then she went into Melton's duffle bag and removed a Velvet tobacco pouch containing fifty $100-dollar bills that she took to Chatsworth to give to the Wizard: $5,000.

... He (Charlie) was told about the probability that Charles Melton and friends would be coming to the ranch to get back the money. Manson then decided to send Linda to the cave down the creek behind the ranch, to hide from the wrath of her husband.

... All the next day, high up the hill by the cave, the young ladies scanned the dirt driveway of the Spahn Ranch below with binoculars. And, just as predicted, Mr. Melton, Bob Kasabian, and Jim Otterstrom pulled into the drive in their stake-bed truck. Charles Melton asked someone by the boardwalk to locate Gypsy and Linda. The person left and returned with Manson, who rewarded Melton with a kill me/ kill you routine. According to Melton, Charlie said: "Who are Linda and Gypsy? I can't even remember their names."

Melton replied: "They took $5,000 from me."

Manson said: "What's money? Nothing is yours. "Then Charlie took out his knife and handed it to Melton, urging him to kill Charlie with Charlie's own knife. Mr. Melton refused the proffered knife. Manson said: "Then maybe I should kill you to show you that there's no such thing as death."

At this point, Melton and company were quick to drive away into the wind."

Otterstrom worked, during this time frame, as a cook and dishwasher at the Topanga Kitchen, a restaurant located at the Topanga Shopping Center (at the junction of Topanga Cyn Blvd and Old (Topanga) Cyn Rd. The Market that Sadie walked to to get supplies and soup during the Hinman killing is still there. The Canyon Kitchen, long gone, was owned by Susan Acevedo, Neil Young's first wife. "Manson Family" members frequented the Kitchen often.

Melton and Bob Kasabian, alleged by some to have been lovers, remained close friends and were photographed attending the TLB trial together in 1970.

Also early in 1970, during the fire/attempt on Paul Watkin's life, Paul was in a camper (microbus?) belonging to Mark Ross, parked outside of Melton's place.

Charlie Melton and Robert Kasabian at Tate-LaBianca trial (Melton opening door)

Bugliosi wanted to use Melton on the witness stand to testify as to Tex's alleged remark about growing a beard, but says by that time Melton was unreachable, having gone off with Bob Kasabian to Hawaii to "meditate in a cave".

Melton and Jim Otterstrom remained lifelong friends, according to Jim Otterstrom. They are those rare people who lived their "hippie ideal" (beautifully idealistic and participatory) beliefs throughout their lives. I really admire that. Jim Otterstrom wrote in his blog that he and Melton both attended the same school in Reseda albeit several years apart, became friends, and through the years continued to get together a couple of times a year.

 The late Jim Otterstrom and Melton

at a party celebrating Otterstrom's retirement from the Postal Service (1971-2001)

Photo credit:  Jim Otterstrom

I'm sad to say Jim Otterstrom has passed away. His blog tells of his love for the earth, animals, and nature, and his family and friends.You can read it at:
homeearthgarden.blogspot.com

Here is an obituary that really captures his essence and legacy:
http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/obituaries/article_83e005d6-1dcf-5bdc-9c51-98590bb80016.html

Another thing I really dislike about Manson:  I don't believe, and yes, to state the obvious, it's just
my opinion, that he has ever had an original thought in his head. We can ask the philosophical question: "Does anyone really ever have an 'original' thought, or is there truly 'nothing new on heaven or earth...'"? But while Manson and his "band of merry humpers", as Phil Kaufman referred to them, were polluting the gorgeous wilderness around Spahn with oil pans, tires, and hulks of stolen Volkswagons that remain there to this day while he milks the whole ATWA schtick; Melton and Otterstrom and others like them were living to make the world a better place. Idealistic, maybe. But nevertheless wonderful. And man, it sure would be a great time to sit down and hang out with Blackbeard Charlie, who now goes by the nickname: "Tower Charlie". Smoke some hellweed, and see where the conversation takes us...

“Hey, Charlie… Black Beard Charlie!”

"One morning (the day after I’d been told that Charlie had warned the girls to “Watch Paul!”), I returned from Spahn’s following an all-night hike. Though totally thrashed, I borrowed Mark Ross’s camper and drove it out to Topanga Canyon. I felt the need to see the ocean. Near the base of the canyon, just before it enters the coast highway, I stopped to buy a cup of coffee. As I pulled into the parking place, I saw I guy get out of his van and trot across the street toward the gas station. He looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure. I rolled down my window and shouted."

“Hey, Charlie… Black Beard Charlie!”

This is the gas station that Paul Watkins was parked at when he spotted Charles Melton, as desribed in his book "My life with Charles Manson". For what it's worth (which is little), it was a Gulf gas station at the time.