The Goodbye Helter Skelter Podcast Episode #7

George Stimson posted a new video last week, The Murder of Donald "Shorty" Shea. Above is Donald Jerome Shea on the 1940 census with his family. First grade. Probably still smiled in school photos. The world hadn't had a ton of time to chew him up and spit him out yet. 

Good, bad, whatever. Every direction you turn in this milieu is filled with heartbreak. The bad guys are bad. The good guys are bad. Everyone is bad. 

Bruce Davis claims in a clip from a parole hearing that Tex Watson asked/told him to join in the killing of Shea. According to Davis, Bill Vance was present when Tex said this but decided not to take part in the murder. Instead, he stepped over to the canteen for the ice cream Charlie always talked about. 

You know the story. Shorty is driving. "Hey, pull over." Clem hits him with a wrench. BOOM! Tex and Clem drag dazed Shorty from the car. Charlie arrives in another car with a machete. 

Bruce "touched Shea's neck with the machete" but "couldn't do what he (Charlie) wanted me to do." Always willing to compromise, Bruce sliced Shea from his armpit to his collar bone. 

Charlie's version of events is Shorty was a big dude, a bully, and he was pushing Clem and someone else around. In a clip Stimson included from Manson's 1992 parole hearing, Stephen Kay (from his mother) has the board ask Charlie about his role in Shea's murder. Consistent in his refusal to to acknowledge California's conspiracy and aiding and abetting laws, in my opinion because of his mental illness, Charlie places himself at the scene and admits to rendering Shea immobile. 

"I'm gonna show you kids how to do this one time. And then don't invoke me to no violence anymore." 

"And uh I moved on Shorty and I put him in a situation where he couldn't move. And then I said, now can you understand what I'm saying to you? And he said yeah. And I stepped up on the highway and hitchhiked a ride and about three, four minutes later somebody stabbed him, and he was stabbed to death and he was killed." 

Inaudible from board. 

Charlie again. "Now, wait a minute. Anybody that knows anything about combat knows that when you go into a combat situation and you're on the line with something, that line can mean your life or your death. If you're on the line of life and death and you're gone and you're up on another line that other reality is a completely different reality -- it hasn't got anything to do with the other side of that line. I was on that side of the line and it was a violent situation and I did deal with it and I put it into where it was -- let me say this, there's only one way I can explain it...The Duke in the joint is a guy that can fight with his fists. The Cou..."

Board begins to interrupt. 

Manson stops them. "Wait a minute. Let me explain this. This will explain it. The Count is somebody who don't fight with his fists. He fights with his mind. He sets up on top of the count when the count is clear, he runs the radio. And the Duke does all the physical things like the first cop does his level, then the sergeant..."

"Mr. Manson..."

"I can't explain it to you, man. It don't have a yes or no."

"The question was did you kill Shorty Shea?"

"No no no. I didn't have anything..."

"You didn't personally kill Shorty Shea?"

"Not personally, no."

"Did you order him to be killed?" 

"No. It was a fight, man. It was uh..."

"Did you order him to be killed?"

"No."

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

I've been reviewing Charlie's medical reports the last several days. Did you know certain doctors were against moving Manson to a hospital facility for decades because they claimed Charlie was faking or exaggerating his schizophrenia? 

This was supposed to be Manson at his best and he acts bonkers. There's clearly a problem. His freedom was on the line but not really. Charlie, Kay, and the Board all knew this was a simple parading of a crazy man before a laughing public. 

Sometimes, I struggle to see how we've advanced as race beyond Hammurabi. At least we've stopped feeding delusional people to lions, tigers, and bears for sport. Our dark amusements come from mocking the insane via YouTube these days. 

Oh well. The gang did what they did and life comes with consequences even when you think you live in a different reality. Word to the wise. Don't kill someone when you're mentally ill. We'll poke sharpened sticks through the bars of your cell and delight in watching you yelp until the day you die. 

*Steps down from soapbox. 

Anyway. What'd ya think of the new Stimson? +ggw

Shorty Shea: Wrongful Death Lawsuit

March 18, 1971 a lawsuit by Phyllis Shea on behalf of herself and daughter Karen Shea was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.  The suit named Charles Manson, Bruce Davis, Steve Grogan, John Doe Grogan, Mary Doe Grogan and Doe’s 1 through 20, inclusive as the defendants.

 The suit asks for 1.5 million to be awarded to the plaintiffs for the wrongful death of Donald Jerome “Shorty” Shea, husband of Phyllis and father to Karen.  Phyllis claims in the suit that Shorty was the sole support for her and her daughter and that she and her daughter are his sole surviving heirs.

John Doe Grogan and Mary Doe Grogan are Steve Grogan’s parents.  The plaintiff’s attorneys were not privy to Steve’s parents first names at the time the suit was filed, nor were the names ever produced during the time the suit was still “live.”  Steve was under the age of 21 when Shorty’s murder was committed therefore his parents could held financially responsible for his actions.  As an aside, Leslie Van Houten is commonly referred to as being the youngest member of the Family to be convicted of murder when, in fact, Steve Grogan was the youngest member of the Family to be charged and convicted of murder.  He had turned 18 years old about three weeks prior to Shorty’s death.  Leslie turned 20 two weeks after the LaBianca murders.

Phyllis Shea was living in Sonoma California at the time the suit was filed and she retained two Napa California attorneys to handle the lawsuit.  Both of those attorneys have since passed.  It’s quite possible that Phyllis was still married to Shorty at the time of his death.  There are no records of a divorce.  Shorty would have committed bigamy with his subsequent two marriages after Phyllis.   Shorty and Phyllis did not live together for very long after their marriage.  They were separated before daughter Karen was born.

It’s doubtful that Shorty contributed financially to Phyllis or Karen for any length of time after their break-up.  Shorty never had much money and always had trouble keeping up with his bills.  Added to that, Phyllis met another man and had four children with him between 1963 and 1969.  She later married this man in 1982 and according to her 2016 obituary they were together for 54 years.

The 76 pages of the lawsuit are not complete, you can tell that there are missing pages but they are all that I received from my request to the Archives and Records Center at the Los Angeles courthouse.  The suit was eventually dismissed in 1978 due to no parties in the suit making an appearance in court at their last scheduled court date.

PDF file download (202mb file - takes time to download)

A Shrine for Shorty

I drove by the site of the Spahn Ranch today to give a tour to a female friend who had never been and wanted to see. Our last stop was at the turnoff where Shorty Shea was murdered. I was narrating his final moments and about to pull the car back onto the road when my friend  shouted "Look! Is that him?!"

She was pointing to a white piece of paper tacked to the "Manson Tree" and I immediately recognized, even from a distance, the well-known photo of Shorty on his wedding day. Someone had put it up as a bit of a shrine to this oft-neglected victim of the horrible murders during the summer of 1969, complete with what looked like a couple of Mardi Gras necklaces.

Dump location of Shorty's Car

This is where Shorty's 1962 Mercury Comet was found - 8864 Independence Ave. The top photo is the Canoga Park location  today, and below is the same spot in 1969 where Gypsy left it.

Donald Shea's 1962 Merc 

Thanks, Surf-Bat

Lance Victor RIP

Lance Victor was born Lee Arden Marlatt January 1, 1935 in Newcomerstown, Ohio to Arden and Ellen Marlatt.  Lance passed away April 28, 2020 in Rogue River, Oregon.

Lance's parents divorced when he was very young and along with his mother he moved to California.  They lived in various California towns before they settled down in Vallejo where Lance went to Vallejo High School and Vallejo Junior College.  Lance was not fond of his first name, Lee, because he was named after a paternal uncle that he just did not like.  He changed his first name to Lawrence and was known as Larry to his schoolmates.

While in junior college he joined the drama department and enjoyed acting in a number of plays during his first year.

Vallejo Junior College 1955 "Believe It Or Not"

Vallejo Junior College 1955 "Best Years"

Vallejo Jr, College 1955 "Mr. Roberts"

Around that time he and a buddy from school took a vacation down to Hollywood and Lance was hooked.  He wanted to finish up his classes and go back to Hollywood to see if he could make his way into the movies.

Lance appeared in about 30 different movies and television shows, mostly westerns, as a stuntman and an extra.  He, like Shorty Shea, never really made it to speaking roles and the big time but he had a great time trying to achieve his goal.

Lance met Shorty when both were working at Corriganville for the shows put on for the tourists that flocked to see some real live shoot 'em up action that was popular at the time.  He and Shorty were pals who not only worked together but played together, too.  They went drinking together, pulled pranks on each other and traded leads on upcoming film opportunities.  They were friends until the end of Shorty's life.

When Lance wasn't working on films he kept busy doing various jobs.  He was a driver for Loomis armored trucks mostly working nights to keep his options open during the day.  Another job  was with Johny Carpenter at Carpenter's Heaven on Earth Ranch.   Carpenter opened up a ranch near Griffith Park in the 40's and before long he found himself teaching blind and disabled persons how to ride horses, it became Carpenter's lasting legacy and it was a job that Lance found very satisfying.

Lance had some stories to tell, too, one is that he dated Barbara Lugosi, Bela Lugosi's daughter, for a few years.  He recalled the time when they first started dating, he went to pick her up at the home where she lived with her father, as he arrived she asked him to put his jacket in the hall closet.  When he opened the closet door, Bela was in the closet in a full Dracula costume and greeted Lance with "Gooood Evening!" in his best Dracula voice.  Lance said, "He scared the shit out of me!"

Barbara Lugosi, Lance, Crash's mom and Crash Corrigan on the Silvertown set at Corriganville

Lance had a son, his only child, born in 1960.  He and the mother apparently were not married.  When she gave birth she told Lance that the child died during or shortly after childbirth.  Naturally Lance was devastated.  What he didn't know was the his son did not die.  He found out about his son in 2007 when a friend showed Lance an obituary for the son that named him as the father.  His son had died after "a very long illness".  Again, Lance was devastated to learn this news.

Lance also had a half-sister, his father remarried and his sister was quite a bit younger than him.  They did not have a close relationship but did keep in touch over the years.

Lance was on the advisory board for the Hollywood Stuntman's Hall of Fame.

While I never personally met Lance I became acquainted with him through Edwin Colin who I helped research for the book "Charles Manson and the Killing of Shorty Shea."  Ed had written a book before the "Shorty" book about his time growing up at Corriganville where he first met Shorty.  A friend of Ed's told him of a guy he knew, who lived locally, that was a stuntman back in the same era as Shorty and he thought the guy knew Shorty.  An introduction was made and it turned out that guy was Lance.  The meeting couldn't have happened at a better time as we were just starting on the book.

Ed and Lance became fast friends, visiting often.  Lance was very generous with his stories about Shorty and made our book that much more interesting.  Without that introduction we probably would never known how to contact Lance because his true name has never been known.

Here are a few pictures of Lance in action on various film sets.  One of his later en devours was appearing on a couple of episodes of Star Trek!

If Lance had any regrets it would be that he never realized he lived a scant 15 minute drive from Ruby Pearl for about 10 years until her death in 2010.  While Lance never officially worked at Spahn Ranch he spent time there visiting with Ruby, George Spahn, Shorty and other ranch hands.


Lance leaves his long time companion Lynn as well as many friends and admirers.  He was a friend to all.  He was 85 years old, sharp in mind but his body just gave out, he had been ill for a few months before his passing.

Lance and Lynn

The Manson/Shea Lawsuit

Did you know that there was a lawsuit filed by Shorty's first wife, Phyllis Shea, on behalf of herself and daughter Karen?

The lawsuit called for a $1.5 M payoff.

There was a small article published in various California newspapers in March of 1971 before the trial charging Manson, Davis and Grogan with Shorty's murder had been scheduled.  As it was explained to me by David, our resident attorney, a wrongful death suit needs to be filed within one year of the death.  In this case Shorty was considered missing until a grand jury in December 1970 issued an indictment against Manson, Davis and Grogan for the murder of Shorty.  So, the clock starts at the indictment.

Also, included were Steve Grogan's parents, named as John Doe Grogan and Mary Doe Grogan in the lawsuit, because Steve was a minor at the time of Shorty's disappearance/death.  Steve turned 18 years old on July 13th 1969 and was considered a minor at that time because he was under the age of 21.  Many articles about the Manson Family say that Leslie Van Houten was the youngest member of the Family to have been convicted of murder but actually Steve was the youngest.

Phyllis Shea's lawsuit claimed that Shorty had been the sole support for her and their daughter.  In fact, Phyllis and Shorty separated five months after their marriage May 15, 1959.  Their daughter was born November 10, 1959, a month after the separation.  There is no record of a divorce for Phyllis and Shorty.  There is also no evidence that Shorty ever paid Phyllis any alimony or child support although Shorty may have given Phyllis money from time to time but considering Shorty's record of earning and borrowing money even that is doubtful.

Phyllis did hook-up with a man not long after she and Shorty split up and had four children with that man before Shorty was killed.  I think it's safe to say that Phyllis did not depend on Shorty for an income.  But, no one can fault her for trying to get a little something for the daughter she had with Shorty.

The lawsuit went on for years but eventually petered out due to unknown reasons.

Here's the lawsuit-

It Was Not the Wrench

While on the 2018 Manson Blog Tour we encountered part of a rusty old wrench that was discovered with some partial human remains at the site where Steve 'Clem' Grogan buried Shorty Shea. The question: could this have been the actual wrench used by Grogan that initiated the murder of Shorty Shea? 

We were able to identify the following inscriptions on the wrench: 

Drop forged

10” Heavy Duty
Taiwan

The last of the three inscriptions turned out to be the key to solving the mystery. 

_____

“Also in the 1970s, trade with mainland China began to resume. There had been extensive trade with China from colonial times. Early chinese imports are unmarked or marked with chinese characters. From 1891 until 1949 their production was marked "made in China." but, because of domestic instability in China (the Boxer Rebellion, the Republican Revolution, regional Warlords, Civil War, Japanese aggression, etc.), there was relatively little trade with that country during that period. From 1949 to the mid 1970s there were no trade relations with mainland China. The island of Taiwan, however, became a major source for gee-gaws during the 1960s until it also moved on to pricier electronic items. Taiwanese production from this era is marked "made in Republic of China" or "made in China (R.O.C.)" to distinguish from "Red" China. In the mid 70s, trade gradually resumed with the mainland and their production is marked "Made in the People's Republic of China." In 1978, the United States fully normalized relations with mainland China and their production again became "made in China" while R.O.C. production came to be labeled "made in Taiwan."”

(Country of Origin as a Dating Tool. Coxsackie Antique Center. www.coxsackie.com. 2002.) 

_____

 Shorty Shea was murdered in August of 1969. If the wrench had been imported before 1978 it would bear one of these inscriptions: "made in Republic of China" or "made in China (R.O.C.)".

It did not, instead the inscription said "Taiwan". Based upon the website above that means it was imported no earlier than 1978.  

Pax vobiscum

Dreath

MansonBlog Tour 2018: Paying Respects

Day one: MansonBlog visited a few of the memorials that we have missed in our previous visits. First would be TLB's first victim, Steven Earl Parent. Parent dies first at Cielo Drive on August 9, 1969. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Parent is interred at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Rowland Heights, CA. It is a blue collar but well maintained memorial park.

We immediately noticed that flowers are not allowed to be placed on Thursday prior to 3:00 PM. The reason being that the park is mowed on Thursdays. We arrived at noon. We paid our respects regardless.

Parent left home at early in the morning for his job at a plumbing supply shop: Valley City Supply. He returned home in the late afternoon to change his shirt and drive to LA to his second job at Jonas Miller Stereo not far from Jay Sebring's hair salon where he worked until about 9:00 p.m.. From there he drove back to El Monte to visit a friend who worked either at Dale's Gas Station or the nearby grocery store named Fry's and asked his friend who worked their if he wanted to go for a drive. His friend asked if he could come back when he got off work at about 11:30 p.m. Steven declined and proceeded to Cielo Drive.

We then travelled the 26 miles to Angeles Abbey Memorial Park in Compton. To set the scene, this is adjacent to Watts and Crenshaw. All are poor neighborhoods. The cemetery is what can best be described as a potters field. The lawns are non existent. Burned and parched at best. As we searched for the grave of Donald Jerome Shea, we saw memorials that were covered in sand from moles and other ground-born critters. Graves of young children long since forgotten. Some of which we brushed off debris with our hands as we paid our respects.

We surmised that these plots, which in Parent's well maintained memorial park differed from Angeles Abbey in that one plot equals six. In the same plot that at Queen of Heaven contains one soul, here contains the remains of six people. The city of Compton, in an effort to bury the indigent has interred six people into a single grave. Six cremated people are buried at the same time in one place. If your family could not afford the plate bolted to the grave marker then you are only recorded in the sexton's office - an entry in a book.

As we understand it, Scott Michaels of Dearly Departed Tours paid to have Shorty Shea's name and dates attached to the marker. Thank you, Scott. A noble gesture to a victim of a horrible crime. There are six people interred here, only two are acknowledged.

Last on our stops was Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of the TLB killers. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale CA. It is an immaculately maintained, scenic resting place in what can best be described as a gated community for the dead. The lawns are green, manicured and attractive.

Bugliosi's plot is on a protected, celebrity list - meaning that the sexton's office will not tell you where it is. But, MansonBlog was able to locate it. Here is the marker:

Hi, Col!

In A Summer Swelter

Simon Davis' new book In A Summer Swelter: The Charles Manson Murders is out.

Because I knew that in Swelter Simon goes into some discussion of my own book, Goodbye Helter Skelter (he was courteous enough to contact me before his book was published to ask some clarifying questions about some of the positions I took in my book before he critiqued them), I was eager to see his finished product and see what he thought about GHS.

But unfortunately, even though I thought I had responded thoroughly to Davis' questions, he has still managed to seriously mangle many of the points I was trying to make. So herewith I will offer a rebuttal to his misinterpretations and (thus) misrepresentations of my viewpoint. (And although I disagree with very much else I can see that's in his book -- which, in all honesty, I have not had time to read through cover to cover -- I'm only going to take the time here to respond to the things he wrote about me and my book.) 

I first appear on page 59 of Swelter where Davis says that I support the drug burn theory of Gary Hinman's murder. But the drug burn argument as described by Davis in no way matches any drug burn argument that I have ever put forth. Davis has Manson ordering Bobby Beausoleil to kill Gary Hinman because Hinman wouldn't give him money. I argue that Beausoleil killed Hinman to keep him from going to the police over his Manson-slashed ear after he had given Manson his word that he would not. It's  a different set of circumstances leading to a totally different set of dynamics. Davis misrepresents my point of view and then goes on to criticize it. But I don't have to defend a position that I do not hold.  (I could go on and address most other aspects of Davis' interpretation of the drug burn theory as he understands it, but my fundamental criticism is that he doesn't understand it the way I understand it, and he should not assign positions to me that aren't mine.)

On page 97 Davis  brings up Voytek Frykowski's  51 stabs wounds and concludes that they were not indicative of a speed-induced "preservation"-style mechanical assault, as I assert in my book. Davis says that the attack on Frykowski was "static," and that his attempting to flee his killers rendered him too much of a moving target to fit the profile of a preservation attack wherein a stationary person would be stabbed multiple times in a mechanical fashion. 

Davis implies that I compared the stabbing of Frykowski to stabbing the arm of a chair, but that is not true. I simply encouraged the reader to "stab" the arm of their chair 51 times to get an idea of just how many times that was (because readers often don't really think about the numbers they read). In any case, Davis says that the stabbing of Voytek Frykowski doesn't fit the circumstances usually associated with preservation because the fatal attack on him did not all occur in one location. Well, as much as I don't like to get into clinical descriptions of how people are murdered (so as not to be considered as peddling gratuitous violence) I would say that it seems that Frykowski was initially attacked by stabbing by Susan Atkins in the living room of the Cielo Drive house. Apparently the accepted number of stab wounds inflicted by Atkins is eight. After those wounds were inflicted Frykowski made a break for the front door, at which point Watson (according to his book) caught up with him and stabbed him several more times and then beat him over the head with the butt of the .22 caliber Buntline revolver thirteen times (another repetitive mechanical motion). Frykowski was still going out the door, so Watson shot him twice in the back. Upon being shot Frykowski collapsed again and then crawled a few feet further onto the front lawn where Watson caught up with him again and stabbed him an additional (allowing for subtracting eight wounds from Atkins and maybe five wounds from himself) 38 times. So maybe the first part of the overall attack on Frykowski was somewhat static, but by the time he had collapsed on the lawn he was a pretty stationary and unresisting target. He was very likely nearly as inanimate as a chair arm when Watson delivered the final 38 blows. And I could say the same for Abigail Folger, who lay a few feet away. Chased out of the house by Patricia Krenwinkel, the coffee heiress was brought to the ground and into a supine and surrendered position ("I'm already dead!") before Watson took over from Krenwinkel and finished her off. How many of Folger's  28 stab wounds did Charles Watson inflict? We don't know. but the evidence indicates that she was likely submissive and relatively still when he did it. 

Pages 192 and 194 -- Here Davis tries to poke holes in the copycat motive by claiming that if the killers wanted the crimes linked they would have used the exact same writing at all three crime scenes. He writes, "Even allowing for possibly being stoned and usually pretty vacant, one would expect them to get the copying part of the copycat exercise right."  

I really love it when grounded, smart, educated people look at the actions of people from a druggie netherworld and try to apply their own carefully considered and linear thought processes to people who aren't just "possibly being stoned and usually pretty vacant"  but rather have been snorting amphetamines for a couple of weeks and are beyond not thinking clearly. I can't imagine that writers like Davis have ever done any quantity of amphetamines (or whatever you want to call the speed spectrum of drugs) or even spent any amount of time around (i.e., lived with) people who have. I mean, how can you wonder why they're not acting rationally? You can't even compare your minds. It's like wondering why a lion and a deer don't act alike. These were young people whose minds were affected by drug use and intentionally alternative thinking and who had little real criminal experience (at least with nothing approaching mass murder). In many ways they had no idea what they were doing. The Tate-LaBianca murders were not well thought out crimes by any means. Tex Watson was not Professor Moriarity, and it's not reasonable to expect him to be or wonder why he wasn't. 

On page 194 Davis points out that I don't mention the cross-examination of the copycat witnesses during the penalty phase of the trial where copycat was "exposed as a lie."  The main reason I didn't include mention of the cross examinations in my book was not because of any intention to mislead by omission as Davis implies (or to omit because of my not understanding the significance of cross-examination, as Davis also implies) but because most of Goodbye Helter Skelter was written in 1998 and 1999 before the Internet existed as we know it today and before TLB trial transcripts were as available as they are today. But since reading Swelter I obtained the transcripts of the penalty phase cross-examinations and read them. Sandra Good testified regarding copycat, but she was not cross-examined. Nancy Pitman also testified in favor of copycat, but in her cross-examination she was only asked about previous inconsistent statements that had nothing to do with it. Susan Atkins and Leslie Van Houten also testified in favor of copycat, but Bugliosi's cross didn't exactly expose them or tear their testimony to shreds. Rather, he merely confronted them with prior inconsistent statements and the insistence that they were telling the truth before but not now. (Atkins prior statements were from her December 1969 Grand Jury testimony and in letters to former jail mates Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard. Atkins claimed that most of the information she testified to before the Grand Jury had in fact been planted in her mind by D.A. Bugliosi the previous day during a conference Atkins had with Bugliosi and her lawyer Richard Cabellero. She also said that the letters to Graham and Howard were simply exaggerations intended to impress them. Van Houten was confronted with her infamous interview with her lawyer Marvin Part. She said she got all of the information for that interview from Susan's Grand Jury testimony and had made the tapes in cooperation with Part, who wanted tapes of crazy testimony in order to submit an insanity plea.)

Page 223 -- Davis says that Manson claims through me that when he told the girls to "get a knife and a change of clothing and go with Tex and do whatever he says to do," he thought that they would be going on a garbage run. 

Davis counters by writing, "Knowing what we know about life and conditions at the Ranch, it seems like a joke that anyone thought that they needed "nice" clothes for the supermarket or that sanitation was such a pressing issue." This gratuitous insulting of is born of the myth that "the Manson Family" was a bunch of dirty hippies, a myth promulgated by law enforcement officers who would arrest Manson and the people around him during pre-dawn raids, round them up in the dirt, destroy all of the property in the buildings they were living in, and then take pictures of arrestees and the premises and say, "Look! They were dirty, and this is how they lived!" It's a mindset worthy of George Wallace in 1968 and a malfeasance clearly worthy of LAPD in 1969.

The thought that mostly middle-class (or even upper middle-class) young women would descend into living in filth defies common sense. And anyone who sees pictures of any "Family members" that are not sourced from the police can see that they have an obvious tendency towards cleanliness and style. Davis' use of this idea as a counter to Manson's claim is only evidence of a sneering condescension towards certain people who live, whether by choice or because of circumstances, a lifestyle other than his own. 

Manson passing out the glasses is a close call, but it should be noted that it's only a call at all because he said he did it. It fits, however, with the notion of sowing confusion at the scene of any crime that the car's occupants might have ended up committing that night in their efforts to get their brother out of jail (efforts that could have included robbery or burglary or any of a number of other illegal actions designed to do something to free Bobby Beausoleil). But even though the glasses ended up at Cielo Drive they are not evidence of any intent on the part of Manson that murders be committed there. 

Page 224 -- Davis here has totally misunderstood my point about "means, motive, and opportunity" as being investigative indicators as to whether a suspect could possibly be guilty of a crime. And the key word here is possibly. Where Davis ever got the idea that I would think a person who had the means, motive, and opportunity commit a crime would have to be guilty of that crime is beyond me. Really, this is such a fundamental investigative tool that I can't believe I would  actually have to explain to everybody about Billy being the only person in the room when the cookie went missing and how that makes it look like Billy very likely took the cookie since he loves cookies, he has hands and a mouth, and he was the only person in the room. But wait! It turns out that Sally was also in the room! And the dog! So, any one of them could have done it -- not did it; could have done it. We still don't know which one of them did it. We only know that they all could have done it. Is that clear? This is a fundamental evaluation that law enforcement officials make to either clear or set up for further investigation people who are suspected of committing a crime -- not crime on the legal end; crime on the police end. It has nothing to do with the court or any kind of legal requirement, and for Davis to imply that I think it does is really kind of insulting.

Page 225 -- Davis criticizes me for saying that the manner of the murders was not unusual, citing the numerous stab wounds of Voytek Frykowski and writing "It was small by the  standards of  international war atrocities like Katyn or My Lai, But for civilian killing in the suburbs is was incredible."  But I didn't have to go far to easily find information to back my claim, for just in Helter Skelter itself are mentioned the so-called "Scientology murders" of James Sharp and Doreen Gaul (both of whom received over 50 stab wounds on or about November 21, 1969),  Marina Habe (whose body was found on Mulholland Drive on New Years Day 1969 with over 150 stab wounds), and Jane Doe # 59 (who was found near the Habe dump site on Mulholland Drive on November 16, 1969 with 157 stab wounds). And those were just murders that occurred in the L.A. area at about the same time as the Tate-LaBianca murders. Extrapolate beyond those dates and locations and I'm sure you will find many more. So while I'm not trying to minimize the vicious violence perpetrated on the victims in all of these crimes I will stand by my assertion that unfortunately the massive violence committed against the Cielo and Waverly Drive victims was not that unusual. 

In the next paragraph Davis goes in just a few sentences from saying"most" of the participants in the crimes supported Helter Skelter as the motive to  that "all" of the participants supported Helter Skelter as the motive in an interesting sleight of hand that most readers probably won't catch. But Davis fails to mention that all of the participants in the crime have gone back and forth on motive and any person can pick any version that suits their preferred scenario, so perhaps it is time to call it a draw on that point altogether. 

As for all the evidence at the trial about Helter Skelter, I think I addressed most of those in my replies to David's post here. (If you don't have time to read them, the witnesses testified to the existence of Helter Skelter, which no one, not Manson, any of his co-defendants, and certainly not me, has ever denied was a reality in the minds of the people at Spahn's Ranch. But only a few of them said they heard Manson saying he would personally jumpstart the war by committing mass murder.) Here my "astounding" failure to acknowledge these supposedly "incontrovertible matters" forces Davis to step outside the bounds of temperate language, "unable, in the interests of fairness and justice to all parties, to shirk from making harsh calls on these types of statements." 

He chastises me for presenting my book as a "realistic examination of the murders," but Davis' "incontrovertible matters" are not so incontrovertible that participants on the MF Blog don't spend pages and pages of text disputing them. Davis is a TLB flat-earther, unable to see beyond the horizon of his own experience and beliefs. My book is a realistic examination of the murders. Simon's two books, on the other hand, are dogmatic rehashes of the worst kind of prosecutorial propaganda, lies and distortions, and condescending legal snobbery in such excess that it would be impossible for me to address them all here or probably anywhere. And yet "in the interest of fairness and justice to all parties" Davis has to call me out?  Please. Yes, I was cooperative with Davis when he told me he would be critiquing Goodbye Helter Skelter in his book. I only wish he had cooperated back and checked with me to make sure we were clear on everything before he completely misrepresented my points of view in his finished work. 

Page 226 -- Here again is a fundamental misunderstanding based on Davis ass-uming to know what I think. So let me explain the premise of my informal investigation into Manson's innocence or guilt. Yes, I assumed that Manson was innocent because I believe in the fundamental American (United States) concept that a person is innocent until proven guilty and I don't automatically believe everything I hear about people (even people who might not share my experience or values) from the police, the D.A.'s office, the "news" media, or in books. Then I looked for evidence of a plausible version of the circumstances surrounding the various crimes that Manson was accused or convicted of and wondered if amongst all of the different versions of those crimes there were scenarios that didn't point to Manson's guilt. Yes I was looking for them, and yes I found them. If "this is terrifically convenient for Manson, because such an analysis can only have one result -- innocence" then I guess I must have proved my point that alternative scenarios surrounding the various crimes could mean that Manson was innocent. That's the only point I was trying to make with my amateur legal analysis -- that there is a possibility that Manson was not guilty. (It's a possibility that I accept, by the way.)

And in the next paragraph we confront yet more examples of Davis' apparent  inability to comprehend a point I am trying to get across. He says "as I understand it" that I think if a jury is offered a more rational motive than the one offered by the prosecution they have to accept it and therefore acquit. Well, Davis doesn't "understand it" and  that is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that a jury has to accept a more reasonable version of an event or concept (including motive) than an unreasonable version. And if by accepting the reasonable version of motive the jury rejects the unreasonable version presented by the prosecution that is the only evidence of the necessary-for-conviction criminal intent then the evidence of criminal intent vanishes and the jury must acquit.

Further on he says, "The ultimate inference of guilt depends on proof of the essential elements of intent and killing. If there are rational alternatives to the prosecutions versions of intent and killing, then the jury must acquit the defendant. Motive is different. Presentation of a more rational motive does not mandate an acquittal." (underlines in original)

And here we get to the crux of my legal argument regarding Charles Manson. In order to obtain a murder conviction the state has the obligation to prove intent -- not motive, but intent. But in the case of Charles Manson, the offered motive, Helter Skelter, is the only evidence of that required intent. For if Helter Skelter is not the motive, why would Manson desire that these specific murders be carried out? If not for want of the personal gain of becoming ruler of a post-apocalyptic world (don't wince -- it's not my fantasy) why would he order those killings? There is a more rational and less sensationalistic explanation than Helter Skelter for the crimes of the summer of 1969. That's the explanation I give in my book. Copycat is a more rational motive than Helter Skelter. But copycat isn't a motive (indication of intent) for Charles Manson. And that is why it is unacceptable to the "Manson is guilty" crowd. If there was any evidence that Manson had ordered the Tate-LaBianca murders as copycat crimes to free Bobby Beausoleil I'm sure the prosecution would have been happy to run with it as a motive. But there wasn't, so they had to go with the fantasy concoction of Helter Skelter instead.

On 227 -- Davis expresses  "concern" about my apparent lack of legal bona fides. That is certainly a legitimate thing to wonder about, and frankly it's about time that somebody asked.  In the original manuscript for my book I included several paragraphs outlining my self-alleged legal experience but I deleted them from the final draft. What I said, however, was that while it's true that I do not have a law degree I do come from a family full of lawyers. My grandfather was a lawyer, my mother was a lawyer (in 1943!), my uncle was a lawyer, my brother is a lawyer, and I can think of at least three cousins who are or were lawyers. So certainly I'm not lacking in lawyerly genes. (I did briefly consider trying to get a pre-law degree in college but when they took us into the auditorium and informed us that pre-law students were in for some serious school work I begged off.) My family lawyers (both sides) were all very intelligent, educated, and bright, but they were also mere mortals. So I'm not one of these people who is impressed with someone simply because they are an attorney (or even a -- gasp! -- prosecuting attorney!), and I don't automatically give their opinion or mind any more validity than I do to my own. Sorry. 

During Sandy's three-year pro per visitation lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections I attended paralegal courses at the nearby community college (College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California). Not only did I graduate first in my class, but the professor told me that I was wasting my time there and should be in law school instead. Now I realize that that still doesn't make me a lawyer, but it doesn't make me an idiot either. Plus, one needn't be genius to know how to read a statute or even understand a court case ruling. Statutes are mostly written clearly enough that a couple of read throughs should enable any person of reasonable intelligence to conclude whether they fit their circumstances or not. It's usually not too complicated. In fact, lay people are expected to be able to understand the law. (Remember, ignorance of the law is no excuse!)

Plenty of books have been written about trials by non-lawyers who question the outcomes of those trials, and my book is nothing unusual. Is Davis saying that one has to be a lawyer in order to have an opinion on whether something is legal? What about anything else? Can a person who has not experienced a certain period of history write about it? Can a person who has not been in a war have opinions and write about it? Can non-athletes write about sports?

Am I claiming I could function as an attorney in a courtroom in a criminal trial? No. I'd get creamed for sure. But I do know my way around a law library and I think I can draw reasonable amateur conclusions based on what I read in law books. So until someone punctures my "no motive/no intent" theory I'll continue with whatever fantasist legal theorizing that suits my pleasure or purpose.

As for Manson severing his trial from that of his co-defendants, I thought made it clear that that was only my own opinion and nothing that Manson ever brought up on his own. I'm saying what he hypothetically could have done. In my opinion. 

Pages 228 - 229 -- Davis lays out  his whole premise of Manson as a diabolical dirtbag who was willing to engineer the executions of his co-defendants in order to save his own skin. He writes, "Stimson's claim of Manson sticking by his friends is incorrect. There is no doubt that the girls were 100% loyal to Manson, but it was a one-way street. Charlie was the epitome of disloyalty to the extent of positively engineering the plan for the girls to falsely testify to his innocence, so they would face execution and he would survive….

"Ultimately there were no debts owed to Charlie, nor were an favours granted by Charlie. The crimes cannot be explained by codes of brotherhood or loyalty within the Manson Family. Charlie's "IOU's" were fictions created by Charlie and propagated by Stimson, in attempt to mitigate the crimes which were in fact calculated and cold-blooded executions, almost all based upon the Helter Skelter prophecy. The code of honour was, and still is, a deception perpetrated by Manson. He used it to get his acolytes to be willing to kill or be killed (will you die for me?"). But there was no way he was ever going to kill, or be killed, for them."

But everything that Davis says isn't there is actually all there. Because Davis is overlooking the fact that on July 1, 1969 Charles Manson shot Bernard Crowe, fatally he thought, to keep Crowe from coming up to Spahn's Ranch seeking revenge for Charles Watson's marijuana burn. In other words, it's not a question of whether Manson would have killed for his friends -- in their minds he already had. And that level of love that he showed them, they showed him right back. And they all -- Manson included -- believed in that love enough that they were willing to go to the gas chamber together. 

Page 237 -- I'm really glad that Davis picked up on the ultimate non-conclusion in my Shea chapter! That was the hardest one for me to write, because I have never had or expressed any doubt that Shea was murdered or that at least Charles Manson, Bruce Davis, and Steve Grogan were involved with his death. So I really didn't know what to think about it. That's why I didn't come to any conclusions there. I felt it was best just to let Manson give his version of the murder ("mumbo jumbo" as Davis put it, but actually perfectly clear) and let the readers decide for themselves what they think.

Regarding whether there was some doubt that Shea had been murdered, I didn't make up that idea out of thin air. In The Family (1989 updated edition, pages 458-459) Ed Sanders wrote, "In addition to the thrill of having a case finally closed, the officers were very glad to find Mr. Shea for a very practical reason: There had always been the faint dread of Shorty Shea showing up. Attorney Paul Fitzgerald: 'They really did want to find this body. And they were subject to to a lot of kidding and a lot of some good natured and not so good natured ribbing about the fact that they railroaded these Manson people to jail, that this was all fictitious, it was all bullshit; that this Shorty Shea, the flake, would turn up one of these days to the embarrassment of all concerned.'"

Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan's confessions to the crime were made years later at parole hearings after they had been convicted,  Barbara Hoyt is a totally unreliable and discredited witness, and Ruby Pearl's nighttime observations regarding Shea and "the Manson boys" are only important in that they set up the fantasy testimony of Barbara Hoyt. and are evidence only of a possible encounter that was likely nine or ten hours before Shea was actually killed (albeit by those same individuals!).

It is also telling that the jurors in the Shea trials were not sure enough of the certainty of Shea's murder that they applied the death penalty to any of the defendants, especially in a supposed decapitation-dismemberment murder wherein one of the defendants (Manson) had already been convicted and sentenced to death for seven of the most atrocious homicides in U.S. criminal history. 

"No body" homicides are always difficult to prosecute because there is no corpse to prove that the alleged decedent is actually dead. Doubt is always a factor in such cases. But it's not accurate for Davis to say that I'm a doubter when it comes to whether Shea was murdered or that Charles Manson didn't have some involvement with that murder, because I never doubted that. How could I? Manson and I talked about it. 

That's about it. I don't have a problem with anything on page 242.

So, to sum up, I have always held that students of any murder case should get their hands on all of the case material they can, even including books. When it comes to Tate-LaBianca, In A Summer Swelter is no exception. You should definitely get it. It is a classic of its kind, a collection of stereotyped and hackneyed caricatures woven together in a fantasy fairy tale of misrepresentations and lies that only a complete naif could believe. Nevertheless it contains much food for thought, and I think everybody should read it. But just remember that although some of the food for thought you consume helps you to grow, a lot of it just ends up as shit.

Ruby Pearl, Barbara Hoyt, and the Murder of Shorty Shea (Again)

Don't worry about this turning into the Donald Shea Blog. Yes, we have recently published this story and this one about the doomed would-be stuntman, but since we have just passed the 48th anniversary of Shea’s demise it would be appropriate to post just one more.

Two of the main witnesses against the defendants in the trials for the murder of Donald Jerome “Shorty” Shea (People v. Manson, People v. David, and People v. Grogan) were women, Ruby Pearl and Barbara Hoyt. Both women’s testimonies were of great assistance to the prosecution’s efforts to obtain murder convictions in a daunting case where no body of the victim had been found. Ruby Pearl’s testimony was important in buttressing the argument that Shea's unexpected and prolonged absence from Spahn's Ranch indicated that he had likely fallen victim to sinister circumstances. She also gave details about an ominous conversation she’d had with Shea on the night before he disappeared. Barbara Hoyt's testimony was also important, but it was much more precise: she claimed to have heard the actual death screams of Shea while he was being murdered.

The testimony that Ruby Pearl gave painted a vivid picture of some of the events of the night before Shea vanished. But much of Pearl’s background testimony was equally valuable in that it is a great help in gaining a more realistic perspective of life at Span's Movie Ranch in the summer of 1969.

Barbara Hoyt’s testimony was also very vivid. Her unequivocal recollections of having heard Shea being slain were quite impressive to the jury and were a considerable factor in convincing them that the absent Shea had indeed been murdered.

Ruby Pearl —

In1969 Ruby Pearl had worked for George Spahn for almost twenty years. As Spahn's "right hand woman" she was his immediate subordinate and oversaw all of the practical aspects of running the ranch, including renting out horses, arranging jobs with other business concerns, hiring and firing workers, taking care of the horses and other livestock, and maintaining whatever supplies and equipment were necessary for the successful running of a movie set and horseback riding business. By the summer of 1969 Pearl was working at the ranch every day, seven days a week, from about nine in the morning until ten or twelve in the evening. As such she was well positioned to give accurate accountings as to what went on there. And those accountings are not only accurate, but they are also very interesting.

Ruby Pearl

Of general interest is that Pearl deflated one of the many myths of the Manson saga with the revelation that the famous ”there were no calendars or clocks at Spahn's Ranch" scenario was not an insidious plan on the part of Charles Manson to keep his "followers" disoriented as to dates and time but was rather the way the situation always existed at the ranch, even before Manson and his friends got there. Repeatedly in her testimony Pearl recalled that the life at the ranch was one of timeless routine where the only chronological landmark she had that summer was the massive police raid that was carried out on August 16, 1969; she could only remember events as having occurred before or after that remarkable and highly memorable event.

At Bruce Davis’ trial for Shea’s murder L.A. Deputy District Attorney Anthony Manzella asked Pearl, “Miss Pearl, you said that you didn’t have anything to base your dates on. What did you mean by that?”

Pearl responded, “Until we got it in our heads about the time of the raid, we didn’t have anything to base our time on.”

Manzella: “To you — at the ranch, you worked almost every day at the ranch, didn’t you? Seven days a week?”

Pearl: “Yes.” ….

Manzella: “Did you pay much attention to particular dates?”

Pearl: “Not unless something particularly happened.”

Later, she said, “Well, time, a day or two, isn’t important in our memories. We never kept track of the days, of time. Every day was a working day.”

And yet again, "Well, we didn't center dates around any particular thing, until the raid. That determined a lot of conversation and dates. Before that time, we didn't [know]."

Despite this lack of any accurate time measuring system Pearl could, however, recall sequences of events as far as they related to each other. Thus, she remembered the time after which she didn't see Shea anymore, and she remembered the events that immediately preceded that time.

Although she couldn’t recall the exact date, Pearl clearly remembered the last time she saw Donald Shea. It was on a moonlit night near the end of August. Shea had recently been hired by Frank Retz to work as a sort of night watchman, with the added duty of keeping Charles Manson and his associates away from the “back ranch” area, which Retz claimed was on his property.

It was late at night, probably around midnight. Pearl was in her black Rambler pulling out of the parking lot at Spahn’s after a typical long day of work when she was approached by Donald Shea. Shea was fearful, and he was drunk. As Pearl later recalled in her testimony, Shea asked her, “Pearl, can I stay over at your house tonight? It’s kind of weird here.”

Pearl said, “I haven’t got any place but the shed,” referring to a small structure with a bed in it behind her house.

Shea said, “Well, it’s kind of cold in there.”

Pearl suggested, “Why don’t you go over the the Fountain of the World?"  The Fountain was a religious retreat located in Box Canyon a few miles west of Spahn’s Ranch that took in people who had no place to stay. Shea said that he didn't want to go there either and decided to spend the night in his car at the ranch.

Prosecutor Anthony Manzella asked Pearl about Shea’s demeanor during this conversation. She answered, “He was very serious and he kept looking around, and he said, ‘It gives me the creeps to stay here.’”

Manzella: “Had you ever seen him like that before?”

Pearl: “No.”

Pearl allowed that an additional reason for discouraging Shea from staying at her house was because he had been drinking that night.

Bruce Davis defense attorney George Denny asked Pearl,  “All right. Then, you had this conversation with Shorty? And Shorty had been drinking somewhat; is that right?”

Pearl:  “Yes, he had.”

“And in fact, that’s one of the reasons that you were not too keen to have him come to your house that night; is that right?”

“For that reason; and it was late.”

After this encounter with Shea, Pearl recalled:

“Well, he turned and walked away towards the boardwalk. And I started slowly to pull off. And I saw a car come in real fast, into the driveway and park over there by the side of the road, towards the Simi Valley Road…. just on the edge. And all of these boys got out real quick and started over towards the boardwalk.”

Asked to identify “these boys” Pearl replied, “The Manson boys.”

How many boys were there?

“Four…. Charles Manson, Bruce Davis, Steve Grogan, and Tex Watson.”

Question (by Mr. Manzella): "Now, when they pulled in, did they pull in near you?"

Pearl: “Yes, they had to go almost in front of me. [After they got out of the car], they rushed towards the boardwalk…. where Shorty had just went…. The last I could see them, they was just fanning out…. just spreading out around…. around the spot where Shorty went…. I was slowly pulling out anyway, so I just kept going.”

That was the last time Pearl saw Donald Shea.

How soon after that event did Manson and “the Family” leave the ranch?

“Within a day or so.”

Did they ever return to the ranch to live?

“No.”

Donald Shea, crouching, at left. The actor holding the gun on Shea is Bob Bickston. 

Shea was scheduled to do some movie work with Bickston at Spahn's Ranch 

starting on September 1, 1969, but by that date he had vanished.

Ruby Pearl's dramatic testimony was important because it set the stage for the prosecution's scenario of the crime, namely that Shea was murdered sometime later that night after Pearl saw "the Manson boys" surrounding him on the boardwalk. And to absolutely cement the certainty that Shea was murdered that night, the prosecution called Barbara Hoyt, a sometime inhabiter of Spahn's Ranch in the spring and summer of 1969. Hoyt's testimony was direct and damning: she claimed to have heard the death screams of Donald Shea as he was being murdered.

Barbara Hoyt --

Barbara Hoyt is often described as a "member of the Manson Family." ("Manson Family," I will say here, is a media-created term, a nebulous designation with no actual formal or legal criteria. No law enforcement agency has ever officially recognized any group as "The Manson Family" in the way that they have identified such criminally inclined groups as organized crime families or street gangs.) But is that true? What was Barbara Hoyt's real relationship to Charles Manson and the people around him?

According to various courtroom testimonies (Specific cites available on request!), Barbara Hoyt first became acquainted with Manson and some of his associates on April 1, 1969, when she met them at the house they were then staying in at 21019 Gresham Street in the Canoga Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The 17-year-old Hoyt had just run away from her parents' nearby home. Hoyt quickly became the girlfriend of another frequenter of the Gresham Street house, a fellow named David Baker, who sometimes surfaces in the TLB literature as "Karate Dave." Shortly after this meeting on April Fools Day, Hoyt says that the group went to stay at a house in the “Malibu mountains”  for a few days before going to Spahn's Ranch. She left the ranch in early May after being arrested for shoplifting a carton of cigarettes. As a result of this brush with the law she returned to her parents' house for a while before going back to the ranch in the last week in May. After the end of May she left California on a cross-country hitchhiking trip (she was chasing Karate Dave) and didn't return to the ranch until the middle of July (although she did call the ranch perhaps a half dozen times during this period, asking if anyone knew where the elusive Dave was). In mid-July, reunited with Dave at the ranch, she left with him (and with $100 given to the couple by Charles Manson) and drove in a bread truck to the ocean front at Belmont in Long Beach for, as Hoyt later recalled, "I guess it would be about a week and a half, two weeks." While the couple was on a pier in Long Beach they heard about the U.S. moon landing. After returning to Spahn's Ranch at the end of July or beginning of August, Dave Baker finally got away for good. Hoyt remained at Spahn's Ranch and stayed there through August and then went to the desert at the beginning of September when the rest of the people went there.

Between April and August Hoyt characterized her time with "the Family" as "not that much." Even when she was in their proximity she often did not eat dinner with them. And unlike Manson and his associates, Hoyt ate meat. Sometime Hoyt wasn't even sure who "the Family" were. "There were people there [Spahn's Ranch] who were living in the saloon, but I am not sure that that was them ["the Family"], you know," she testified. "I can't say for sure, because I didn't know who they were then." (Emphasis added. Author's questions: When did she find out? And did anybody help her?)

Question (by Steve Grogan defense attorney Charles Weedman): "Well, you saw a group there, then that were, perhaps, similar in appearance, generally, to the Manson Family, but you can't say if they were the Manson Family? Is that correct?"

"Yes."

Hoyt's conception of  what it meant to be in "the Family" is also somewhat tenuous. Although she says she "joined the Family" on the first day she met them, April 1, 1969, she recalled no initiation into the group and when asked how she became a member she replied, "I just felt I was in. And I felt accepted, I guess." Later, Hoyt was unable to accurately gauge the depth of her rapport with "the Family" because, "I was not with them."

"Well, then, it's your state of mind that makes you a member or not of the Manson Family; is that right?" asked Bruce Davis defense attorney George Denny.

"Partly," answered Hoyt.

Hoyt said she ceased being a member of "the Family" when she fled Goler Wash in mid-September 1969.

During her scattered presence at this frenzied time she recalled staying at many dispersed places around Spahn's ("I slept in the saloon, in the trailer, in the parachute room, in the wickiup, in the bath house, in the outlaw shacks, in the ca -- you know, where there's a camp; all over the place.") and even took an excursion of several days duration after the raid of August 16 to the desert town of Olancha about 180 miles north of Chatsworth. After a few days in Olancha (where she stayed at the Hannum Ranch with Charles Watson, Nancy Pittman, Ruth Moorehouse, Sherry Cooper, and Diane Lake) she returned yet again to the ranch and remained with the group until after they went to Goler Wash, where she became fearful and disturbed and left to return to her parents’ house in Los Angeles. (Ed Sanders puts the time of her desert departure as September 14 or 15.)

By her own admission on the witness stand, then, Barbara Hoyt was a peripheral character (she never got a "Family" nickname) who only spent several weeks with the Spahn's Ranch people during the late spring and mid-summer of 1969. For most of that time, from April first until the beginning of August, she was apparently focused on her relationship with Dave Baker. After Baker left, Hoyt hung on with the Spahn's Ranch crowd not because of any commonality with them, but because she had nowhere else to go. Her time at the ranch, however, was long and convenient enough for her to be a crucial prosecution witness in the trials against Donald Shea's alleged killers.

Vincent Bugliosi with Barbara Hoyt. Assistant prosecutor Stephen Kay is behind Hoyt. 

Like Ruby Pearl, Barbara Hoyt testified in numerous trials against the three defendants in the Shea murder cases. Her most important testimony described what she claimed she heard on a night at the end of August as she was settling down to sleep behind the main ranch buildings in a little travel trailer known as "the parachute room."

"I had just gotten into bed, and I heard a scream, and I sat up. And for a minute, there wasn't any sound, and so I thought, well, maybe I imagined it. And I laid back down again. And then the screaming started again, and it kept going and going and going for a long time."

"And did you know who it was that was screaming?" asked prosecutor Stephen Kay.

"It was Shorty…. [The screams] sounded pretty far away."

"All right. Did you have any idea of which direction they were coming from?"

"Down the creek, toward the outlaw shacks. Just in that direction…. [The screaming] seemed like a really long time, so I couldn't accurately tell you [how long]. It probably wasn't a real long time, though, but it seemed like it…. [The screams] were loud. And they were painful, and they were the same kind that -- you know, those horror movies when the lady is screaming, that kind of scream? Well, it was like that…."

"Now, is there any doubt at all in your mind that it was Shorty Shea that you heard screaming?"

"No."

Hoyt's testimony regarding hearing the death cries of Donald Shea was compelling, unshakable, and certain. In all of her days and days of testimony, it is the one thing in her mind that she did not budge on. She heard those screams, and they were Donald Shea's screams. Period. But there is something amiss with Hoyt's definitive memories: they are completely at odds with the known facts of Shea's murder.

One problem is the time. Hoyt was absolutely certain that she heard the screams late at night. But in fact, Shea was killed in the morning. This different time is confirmed by two of the convicted killers, Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan, both of whom recall participating in Shea's murder in the morning. At Davis' 1993 hearing he recalled, "And we were at the ranch early in the morning. And Manson came down [and] said, 'We're going to kill Shorty.'

"I said, 'What for?'

"'Well, he's a snitch….'

"And so, we got in the car. Steve [sic] drove; we got in the back…. We started down the hill of the ranch, down towards the [San Fernando] valley, and, somebody -- probably, probably Watson -- tells Shorty to pull over. And Shorty said, 'What for?' At this point, Watson stabbed Shorty Shea in his eye."

Steve Grogan, at his 1981 parole hearing provided more detail, including a very detailed account of the physicality of the crime:

"Well, that morning I was awakened by Charles Manson and still, you know, half asleep, [and he] told me to get to the car and handed me like a pipe wrench. Told me to hit Shorty in the head as soon as Tex gave me the go ahead or gave me the signal.

"We proceeded down Santa Susana Pass toward San Fernando Valley. And about a quarter mile down from the ranch there was like a turnoff where cars, you know, like a rest area. And Tex mentioned that he had some [auto] parts over there that he had to get….

"Then we pulled off the road.  Tex got out….

"I was supposed to hit this guy in the back of the head. And like I never, you know, hit anybody or hurt anybody like that before, and it was hard, you know. I kept on hesitating in my mind, you know, looking at the cars on the highway hoping maybe because of the traffic I wouldn't have to hit him because it was just ten feet off the lane."

There was also a contemporary bit of evidence that corroborated these later parole hearing recollections of Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan, specifically the trial testimony of Frank Retz, the German entrepreneur who was in the process of buying Spahn's Ranch when Shea disappeared and who had arranged for the stuntman to act as a night watchman and keep Manson and his people away from the back ranch house. Retz recalled setting up a meeting with Shea one morning to discuss the responsibilities of the job.

Testifying about a telephone conversation that he had with Shea, which he said had occurred on Tuesday or Wednesday of the last week of August, Retz said, "I was waiting for Shorty, and he said he is going to be in, in half an hour, to my place…. He was supposed to be right out…. in the morning; half an hour after the telephone conversation…. he said 'I just going to be leaving now and be in a half hour down."

Question (by Grogan defense attorney Charles Weedman): "You are certain that Shorty did call you on the telephone in the morning, is that so?"

"Yes."

"And that on the telephone he agreed to see you within the next half hour or so?"

"Correct."

"Did Mr. Shea show up?"

"No, sir."

"Was that the last time you ever heard Mr. Shea?"

"Last time."

So Barbara Hoyt's adamant claims that she heard the murder of Donald Shea occurring at about midnight conflicts with the testimony of Retz and the uncontested parole hearing statements of two of Shea's convicted killers that the murder occurred in the morning.

So far, though, you could say that it was just a case of she said/he, he, and he said.

But there is another big problem with Hoyt's testimony, and that is the place.  Hoyt is not only positive -- and unshakably so -- that Shea was murdered at night, she is equally unequivocal that the screams came from the direction of the "outlaw shacks" which were west of the main buildings at Spahn's Ranch. The problem with this claim is that the outlaw shacks were located in the totally opposite direction from the place where Shea was actually murdered eight or so hours later.

Above and below: Two views of the Shea murder scene today

Shea's murder scene is the only death site related to the case that can easily be visited by students of the crimes, and it is certain that his murder occurred there because his body was located in virtually the same spot. The scene is located at a pull-off on the Santa Susana Pass Road (now directly opposite Red Mesa Drive) about a third of a mile east of Spahn's Ranch. The "back house" direction insisted on by Hoyt during her testimony is located to the west, 180 degrees off of the actual direction of the murder. Further, not only is the murder site so far away from the ranch that it would be extremely unlikely (if not impossible) that screams there could be heard in the parachute room behind the western set buildings, but there is also an arm of the mountain behind the ranch that would have considerably blocked any sound coming from that direction.

Above The red arrow on the left indicates the location of the parachute room. The right red arrow shows the spot where Shea was killed. The pale blue arrow in the center points to the hill that would block sounds coming from the murder scene towards the ranch.

Below: United States Geological Survey map (Oat Mountain, 1962) of the ranch area with the same features highlighted.  

The "parachute room" at Spahn's Ranch was situated behind the western end of the ranch buildings under some trees and between two other trailers occupied by ranch cowboys Larry Craven and Randy Starr. It was also fairly close to George Spahn's house and to another trailer on the other side of Spahn's house that was used by ranch hand John Schwartz. None of these other individuals in Hoyt's immediate vicinity (Craven, Starr, Spahn, or Schwartz) heard the screams that Hoyt claimed to have heard. And this is a safe ass-umption, since prosecutors wanting to corroborate Hoyt's testimony would certainly have called these individuals as witnesses if they had heard screams. But since none of them were called it can be fairly safely ass-umed that none of them heard the same screams that Hoyt claims to have heard, despite being in practically the same location at the same time. (Randy Starr died before any of the Shea-related murder trials took place.)

Hoyt's surety that she heard the death screams of Donald Shea is puzzling. In page after page of "I don't remember"s and "I don't know"s she is positively steadfast that the person she heard screaming was Shea. In her mind there is no doubt whatsoever. It happened the way she described it. Full stop.

Also puzzling is that Hoyt was unshakable in her claim that the screams she heard were absolutely coming from Donald Shea, and Donald Shea alone, even though she also testified that she barely ever spoke to Shea and couldn't remember any distinctive characteristic about his voice. (The Massachusetts born and raised Shea had a noticeable Boston accent.)

"I heard him -- most -- I think most of the times I heard his voice was when he would be talking to somebody else."

"I see. What did Shorty sound like when he was talking to somebody else?" asked George Denny.

"I don't remember."

"Well, can you help this jury just a little bit and tell them, as best you can, describe Shorty's voice? That voice that -- that you heard. Describe it to the jury, would you?"

"At which time? When he was screaming, or when he was talking?"

"When he -- his talking voice."

"I don't really remember…. I remember what it sounded like when he was screaming, but -- "

"Well, how about just when he was talking?"

"No, I can't -- no I cannot….  [But] they were Shorty's screams. There's no doubt in my mind. I knew it then and I know it now."

Of course, none of this is to suggest that Donald Shea was not murdered at Spahn's Ranch during the last days of August, 1969 or that the persons eventually convicted of his murder were not involved with his death. Rather, it goes to the overall credibility of Barbara Hoyt in recalling her time with "the Family" in the spring and summer of 1969. If Hoyt can be so adamant -- and so adamantly wrong -- about hearing the death screams of Donald Shea, what does it say about the rest of her recollections?

After Shea was killed his body was rolled down the hill alongside the pull-out. Later on in the evening after the murder Steve Grogan came back and buried the body by putting it into a depression in the hillside and caving in the dirt over it. The body would famously not be found until Grogan told authorities where is was as part of his successful strategy for being released on parole. Grogan revealed the location of the grave in 1977 and was paroled in 1985.

A recovery crew unearths Donald Shea's body in 1977.

Looking down at the overgrown location of Donald Shea's grave today

Ruby Pearl is long gone, but Barbara Hoyt is still around, and you can expect to see quite a bit of her in the next couple of years until August, 2019. She is, after all, just what the murder media wants, a "Manson Family member" who can graphically testify to the evil that was around her. But Barbara Hoyt wasn't really a "Manson Family member." She was a peripheral character who happened to be at Spahn's Ranch for a few weeks when important things happened. And her perception of some of those things is unquestionably incorrect.

So, as you see her in any upcoming TLB specials or other media appearances you might do well to remember the words of two of the defense attorneys during the Shea trials. "Barbara Hoyt will testify to anything," said Bruce Davis defense attorney George Denny. "I frankly don't believe 99 percent of her testimony," concurred Grogan defense attorney Charles Weedman.

Defense attorney hyperbole? Perhaps. But a closer look at Hoyt's claims in the past should be enough to call any claims she makes in the present into serious question. In fact, it should put her entire credibility into question.

Barbara Hoyt (seated) and Debra Tate

As for Donald Jerome "Shorty" Shea, after his body was exhumed and examined by authorities it lay unclaimed in the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. Despite being sent notices to collect the remains none of Shea's family members retrieved his skeletal corpse. It was finally cremated, and the ashes were buried in a community grave plot in the Angeles Abbey Memorial Park in Compton, California.

Unanswered L.A. Coroner's letter to Donald Shea's wife requesting that she claim her husband's  body (Thank you, Manson's Backporch Tapes!)

Donald Shea's grave marker