Who Drove to Gary's?

via law.justia.com

Ella Jo Bailey testified for the People that she had known Manson since 1967 and travelled extensively throughout the southwestern United States with him, Mary Brunner, Patricia Krenwinkel and Lynne Fromme, and that they moved to the Spahn Ranch in 1968 where she met Davis and Beausoleil. 

Several times during May and June 1969, Manson talked to Bailey and others about "going out" to get money to buy dune buggies to go to the desert to live. In July of 1969 Manson talked to several members of the family about the need to get money and names were discussed of various persons from whom they could get money. Hinman's name was discussed and the fact that he owned a house and stocks and bonds. 

On July 26, 1969, Manson told Bailey and Bill Vance that he wanted them to go to Hinman's house and persuade him to join the "family" or sign over all of his property and automobiles. Vance said he had better things to do and walked away. That night at about 6 p.m. Bailey saw Manson talking to Beausoleil and Davis. Beausoleil had a knife (People's exh. 18) and Davis had a nine millimeter Radom gun (People's exh. 30). Subsequent investigation by officers established that Davis had purchased the gun under an assumed name. Bailey saw Brunner and Atkins dressed in dark clothes. Bailey saw Brunner, Atkins, Beausoleil and a fourth unidentified person drive off in [71 Cal. App. 3d 14] a ranch hand's car which was driven by the fourth person. Davis was still in the parking lot.

Bobby Beausoleil Was Denied Parole Last Friday

 Bobby is seventy-four years old. He was granted parole in 2019 but Governor Newsome denied the recommendation. His goose is likely cooked. 

Randy Starr's Grand Jury Testimony

Randy Starr was a ranch hand and stuntman who worked and lived at Spahn Ranch.  For a little background George Stimson did a piece on the blog about Randy HERE .

Randy comes into play because he was said to have owned and given to Charles Manson the gun used at the Tate house during the murders.  Randy did not testify at the Tate LaBianca trial because he became ill with an ear infection which went untreated and he developed meningitis and died August 4 1970.

Vincent Buliosi writes in his book Helter Skelter (1994 page 376, in the chapter titled April 1970)-

Another find was Randy Starr, whom I interviewed the same day as Ruby.  A Sometime movie stunt man who specialized in fake hangings, Starr said the Tate Sebring rope was “identical” to a rope he’d once used to help Manson pull a vehicle out of the creek bed.  Starr told me, “Manson always kept the rope behind the seat in his dune buggy.”

Even more important was Randy Starr’s positive identification of the .22 Longhorn revolver, for Starr had once owned the gun and had given it to Manson.

There is a footnote at the bottom of the page which reads-

The gun, serial number 1902708, had been among a number of weapons taken from the Archery Headquarters in El Monte California, during a burglary on the night of March 12, 1969.  According to Starr, he obtained it in trade with a man only known as “Ron.”  Manson was always borrowing the gun for target practice, and Randy finally gave it to him in trade for a truck that belonged to Danny DeCarlo.

Randy Starr testified to a grand jury convened for the death of Gary Hinman.  Charles Manson, Susan Atkins and Bruce Davis were the defendants and it was held on April 9 and 12 1970 in Los Angeles.  This is the only known testimony given under oath by Starr.

14 page pdf

While Randy’s testimony does mention the gun, it is more focused on the knife used to stab Gary Hinman and found in Bobby Beausoleil’s possession when he was arrested August 6 1969.  

The testimony also focuses on a sword in Manson’s possession.  Starr says it was usually kept in holder in Manson’s dune buggy.

There is nothing in the testimony about the rope used at the Tate murders, nor should there have been because this was a grand jury for the Hinman murder.  Which makes me wonder why the gun was mentioned.  There was a gun used at Hinman’s, not to shoot Gary but during a scuffle it went off and struck the kitchen cabinets and wall.  The bullets that were dug out matched the 9mm Random automatic that Bruce Davis bought under a false name on July 14 1969.  Randy mentions a long barreled 9-shot revolver and a .45 but not a 9mm in his testimony.

All in all I went away a little confused by Randy’s testimony.  It seemed as if Randy was trying to take credit for having provided Manson with many of the weapons used in the Hinman and Tate murders.  I was unaware that the knife Bobby used had originally belonged to Starr.  

I have to wonder how Randy would have stood up under cross examination at a trial.

Gary Hinman Murder Scene

Recently the blog received images that were used as exhibits by the Los Angeles District Attorney's office in the four trials for the murder of Gary Hinman.  The photos do not include Gary's body but do show blood stains.  There are pictures of various rooms in the house, Gary's prayer beads and the sword Manson used to slice Gary's face.  These pictures are very sobering and underscore the Family's capacity to exert brutality in the course of their crimes.

All of the images have at least a portion of an LADA watermark on them but it is an opaque watermark so it doesn't obliterate a major portion of the image.  The home is still furnished in the photos so you get a very good idea of what happened and where.

A few years ago Matt posted a link to an Associated Press video of the interior of Gary's home, the link at his post still works so you might want to revisit that, too.  In this video the home has been cleared out of all of Gary's belongings so you get a different perspective.

We will start with a couple of the tamer pictures.

This is what looks to be an enclosed porch off of the kitchen.  You can see the refrigerator in the window.

The dinette set in the kitchen.

Another view of the dinette set.

The dinette set again, notice the musical instrument case in the foreground.

Not sure where this is in the house.  You can see circles drawn on the floor near the wood stove.  Presumably they circled blood splatters.

The living room where Gary died. You can see Gary's prayer beads in the lower middle of the photo.

Another angle of the living room.

You can see a faint chalk outline of exactly where Gary was found.  His arm would have been where the right side of the first A in the watermark is located.  The prayer beads were probably in his right hand.

The prayer beads.

The knife found in the spare tire well of the Fiat when Bobby was arrested.

The sword that was used by Manson to slice Gary's face. It has been said that when George Knoll, president of the Straight Satan's found out that his sword had been used in a murder he became enraged and broke the sword in half.

In the interest of things not getting out of hand in the comments section regarding the letter addressed to Robert Beausoleil in Gary's home here are images of the letter, envelope and related documentation for its being entered as an exhibit in the first trial for Gary's murder.

Envelope

Exhibit Log

Exhibit noted on back

Letter page 1

Letter page 2

Gary Hinman Murder Location

What did mystery witness Jon Hayden Marsh know?

US Marine Jon Hayden Marsh shows up at the main TLB trial on Aug 14, 1970, to give a deposition/testimony away from the jury.  Apparently Irving Kanarek summoned him, to impeach the testimony of Linda Kadabian, who claimed to have only had only one psychedelic trip while at Spahns. Curiously, he is then arrested by MPs(military police) at the courthouse afterwards.

www.cielodrive.com/archive/marine-testifies-at-manson-trial-arrested-by-military-police/

August 16th, 1970

A young Marine brought into the Tate-LaBianca murder case by defense attorneys was arrested Friday on suspicion of being AWOL as he walked out of the courtroom.  ...Marsh had been brought into the court house by Irving A. Kanarek, Manson’s lawyer, in an apparent attempt to discredit testimony by star prosecution witness Linda Kasabian.   In a special hearing outside the presence of the trial jury, Marsh gave the court a deposition which the defense hopes to introduce into testimony at a later date.   ...Marsh, meanwhile, testified he had seen the 22-year-old Mrs. Kasabian take the hallucinogenic drug Psilocybin at West Topanga Beach in Mid-July('69) a year ago.   He also said he saw Mrs. Kasabian at a Topanga shopping center about a week later and she was “overly happy.” He testified that the second time he saw the young woman, whom he said had long blonde hair at the time, she was dancing.

     “I’m sure you know what a jumping jack is…That’s what it looked like to me,” said Marsh.
Kanarek introduced the testimony because Mrs. Kasabian, during her three weeks on the witness stand, said she only took drugs once in July and that was at the Spahn movie ranch...
And although Marsh identified her(Kasabian), she said she did not know the young Marine.
Marsh also identified Miss Atkins as “Sadie.” The dark-haired young woman stood and gave him a snappy salute.

     The young Marine said he had gone to the beach with a friend, whom he knew only as “Piccolo.” “Piccolo,” he said, gave the psilocybin to Mrs. Kasabian.  He admitted he had been AWOL from the Marine Corps from March 1969 until the following October('69) and it was during this time that he saw the young woman.  ...Marsh also said co-defendant Susan Atkins, 22, whom he knew only as “Sadie,” was with Mrs. Kasabian both times he saw her last summer.


www.cielodrive.com/archive/marine-says-linda-poured-drug/

August 15th, 1970

The 23-year-old Marsh, on emergency leave, claimed he was absent without leave from the Marine Corps and was working in the Topanga Canyon area when he became acquainted with Mrs. Kasabian and Susan Atkins...

On a list of people who testified at trial, Jon Hayden Marsh is described thusly:

app.box.com/s/b8e0nepbeer0f1rhzm7nsxu6hu2bqxbx
"March(sic), Jon Hyden(sic)
Lance Corp, Marine Corps and Friend of Atkins, Susan"



Various versions were given as to why he was dragged away in cuffs:

 Photo caption:
Military police arrest Jon Marsh outside Tate court hearing. He was a marine held for being AWOL
and having an improper identification card although this is probably the only connection he had
with the Tate/La Bianca murders.

 How did the MPs know he was going to be there?  Why is he wearing his uniform if he's AWOL? 

law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/3d/61/102.html    1977 appeal

Manson further complains that respondent interfered with the production of certain purported witnesses for the defense. Specifically, he claims the prosecuting attorneys were responsible for the failure of John Haden Marsh ... to appear as witnesses for appellants. With respect to Marsh, Manson's attorney advised the court that the witness was a United States Marine and that Los Angeles law enforcement agencies caused him to be harassed by the shore patrol. The insinuation of the charge is that this was done to deter him from testifying. We are not told the nature of Marsh's potential testimony.

Los Angeles Free Press  Manson gossip column by Ed Sanders   Aug 21, 1970

"You all recall the appearance in court last week of Lance Corporal Marsh, a marine on the way to Vietnam who came to testify that he had last seen Mrs. Kasabian scarf up some psilo-cyban at Topanga Beach last July('69). The issue was that Linda claimed to have taken only one dope voyage while living at the Spahn Ranch. This seemed to call into doubt her testimony on this point. After his testimony was taken, she resumed the witness stand and ridiculed the quality of the alleged psilo-cyban, saying that it was weak and ineffectual.*  (Marsh was arrested outside the courtroom after testifying by the Shore Patrol. Supposedly he was on emergency leave and his papers allowed him to be in San Francisco, but not Los Angeles.)"

*So did Kasabian admit to using the drug, thus impeaching her own testimony that she only took one 'trip?'


It gets weirder.  A 'John Hayden Marsh,' address at the 29 Palms Marine Corps base, is listed on Lt. Deemer's list with the comment "lived with HINMAN, Gary," though it doesn't say when(presumably that would have been in the summer of '69 when Marsh was AWOL).  Was Hinman the source of the Psilocybin given to Linda Kasabian as described above?  A 'piccolo' is a wind instrument that is similar to a flute.  We know Hinman was a musician.  Did he play or own a flute/piccolo?  From the Hinman Homicide Report:

http://www.cielodrive.com/gary-hinman-homicide-report-08-09-69.php

"Beneath the table was found the checkbook of V/Hinman and a brown wooden musical instrument, flut(e)-like in appearance..."

So did Bugs get the LAPD to make sure this witness didn't testify? But Marsh had already testified when they grabbed him.  Possibly they didn't want Marsh talking to reporters and bringing up the Hinman connection. IF Marsh was interviewed by the Hinman Homicide detectives, he may have mentioned those grungy friends of Gary as possible suspects, which would have have put the LASO in the awkward position of having to explain why they didn't follow up on this investigative lead, and thus prevent TLB from happening.

A man claiming to have been a friend of Hinman posted this on his website:

buddhajim.com/2014/01/30/how-i-met-buddha-the-untold-story-of-the-manson-family-murders/

(from January 30, 2014)

Excerpt:
"Gary informed me... This (Manson)gang had been extorting things – food, cars, money – from his isolated neighborhood in the name of “peace and love”. These freeloading “flower children” were especially interested in his VW minibus, and had somehow concluded that he “owed” it to them. That’s what the heated discussion was all about. ....

"Gary waged a campaign in the neighborhood to end the commune’s constant panhandling, going through garbage cans, expecting handouts and outright gifts of things like cars and clothes, and otherwise demanding that the community accept their “everything belongs to everyone” attitude. According to Gary, they were quite criminal in their behavior, and he was trying to get people to stop supporting them with extorted guilty gifts. ...

"Gary and his neighbor were discussing the ongoing problem of the commune at the Spahn ranch, and the neighbor let me know that Charlie’s “family” had threatened to burn Gary’s house down and destroy him as part of their apocalyptic fantasy."

This of course completely overturns both the "bad mescaline" and the "inheritance" theories of Hinman's death.  Did Marsh tell the investigating officers much the same thing regarding the Family's relations with Hinman?

Other questions:

--Why didn't Kanarek try to enter Marsh's deposition to the jury?  We are told he was desperate to find hole's in Kasabian's testimony, but he didn't use this?

--How did Kanarek get the name of  'Marsh' to begin with?

--Why, out of all the other witness testimony, did this witness take the stand with the jury absent?

--As a friend of Atkins, and someone who lived with Gary Hinman, what else did Marsh know about Gary's history with the Family that caused him to become a target?

The Snitches of Spahn

".. somebody was watching every move he(Manson) made..."
      --Preston Guillory, ex-LASO Deputy who participated in the Spahn Ranch raid


In the wake of the Aug 16, 1969 Spahn Ranch Raid, Charlie and Family thought that someone had ratted them out to the cops.  At the top of their list was ranch hand Shorty Shea, who got murdered because of it.  Frank Retz, a neighbor who allegedly wanted the Mansons gone, is also mentioned in this regard.

But there is evidence that the Family may have had an abundance of snitches:

 www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6001083595175224919&postID=1928290903518938341
sbuch113 said...
"I know a man who was a Jr. Fireman at the fire station near the Spahn Ranch during the Manson era. Years ago he told me of some of the strange goings on at the ranch.  He went into quite a bit of detail about how the ranch was being watched by law enforcement....... Including an on site informant and from strategic hilltop locations. He also talked about the frequent contact fireman had with Manson and others."


Who was it?  Some names:

Ruby Pearl Molinaro

Her obituary said, “She ran the Spahn Ranch where the Manson Gang was caught. She noticed lots of guns and knives in Charles Manson’s dune buggy and called the sheriff. He was then taken into custody.”
www.mailtribune.com/news/20170918/medford-mans-memoir-has-charles-manson-connection
 [Credit to DebS]

Kitty Lutesinger

On page 9 of the Spahn Ranch Raid Report/PDF file we read :

"On the date of August 10, 1969, at approximately 12:15 p.m., your affiant, William G. Gleason, received information from Informant No. 1"
 https://www.scribd.com/document/63876301/Spahn-Ranch-Raid-Report

Author Ed Sanders makes clear that 'Informant No. 1' is Lutesinger::

"On August 10, Sunday, Sergeant William Gleason of the Los Angeles sheriff's office visited Kitty Lutesinger at her parents' ranch where she had fled following Manson's kill-threats. Sergeant Gleason was compiling a file of disturbing information about the Spahn Ranch preparing for a huge police raid to come the following week. He had become aware of Miss Lutesinger when she had run away from the Spahn Ranch on July 30 and Frank Retz had driven her to the police station."
www.mansonblog.com/2017/08/get-shorty-tragic-tale-of-don-shea.html
[Credit to poster 'Jax' and  mansonblog contributor 'Brian G']

Bill Vance.

 It's possible he got pinched in one of those Family burglaries or auto thefts and the cops made a deal with him:  "You be an informant on the goings on at Spahn or you go back to prison!"   Then after all the arrests he just drops from sight.  I have never come across any interview with him, either by media, police, or prosecutors.

Gary Hinman

https://youtu.be/w5FvQFgA2H8
Charles Manson BBC Interview Part 4 8:30 mark
(re Hinman) "He was an informant for the government. He was playing all kinds of treacherous games that he shouldn't have been playing. See when you're in the underworld you got to be truthful. If you lie and you're faking and you're snitching and it catches up with you, it bites you... "

Danny DeCarlo

Bikers are notorious for their hatred of snitches, and everybody knows they operate under a strict 'no snitching' rule.  Though there are apparently exceptions, as this article from 1973 shows:

www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/angels-in-court-the-strange-tale-of-baby-huey-19730215   Feb, 1973

...(Sonny)Barger(of the Hells Angels) testified that over the past few years, he has frequently dealt with the Oakland police to turn over weapons or the locations of weapons to them in return for the release of jailed Angels. It was simple as that; the Angels paid off the police in guns they themselves had peddled to radicals or revolutionaries and in return the police let the Angels operate.

One of the more murkier aspects of the Manson case is where they got all the guns they collected in the spring of '69 and kept up at Spahns, until they were all seized by the Sheriff after the Aug 16 raid.  I think the conventional wisdom says Danny DeCarlo supplied most of them, and DeCarlo, of course, was a member of a biker gang.

So it is entirely possible, then, that the Straight Satans were playing the same game and had the same deal with the law as the Hells Angels did up in the Bay Area.  Supply the guns to the 'radicals' and then snitch them out to the Fuzz.

One could even take it a step further and say that it was 'suggested' to DeCarlo that he hang out with the Family and keep an eye on them, in return for certain favors to be granted to him or his club mates by the court system--like charges to be dropped in other matters.  Certainly it is true that DeCarlo never faced any charges for his activities at the ranch.

Karate Dave Lipsett

Covered in a previous thread:
 https://www.mansonblog.com/2018/09/was-this-family-member-also-undercover.html



 And from the "OO-ee-OO" file, we have

Field Marshall Cinque DeFreeze of the Symbionese Liberation Army

aadl.org/node/200649

Who Ran The SLA? by Dick Russell
Ann Arbor Sun, January 22, 1976
(Donald) DeFreeze, as an informer for a special Public Disorder Intelligence Unit(of the LAPD), did not want for "useful" tasks. During the fall of 1969, police sources recall DeFreeze informing on the Charles Manson family concerning a planned arms burglary. He next surfaces in Cleveland on October 11...

Now the big question is, if they had an informant within the Family's ranks, why weren't they able to finger the Mansonoids for TLB long before they did?  Or prevent TLB by arresting Charlie and his minions for the murder of Gary Hinman or the attempted murder of Bernard Crowe?


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

Post-Barker arrests snitches:

One thing is certain-- during the trials, the information received from one or more informants was absolutely reliable:

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-family-activities-09-16-71.php

Captain A. R. Stoyanoff, Homicide Bureau, advises:

On 12-2-70, information was received that the Manson Family were attempting to purchase or obtain hand grenades.

On 12-9-70, the Intelligence Bureau advised that hand grenades had been stolen from Camp Pendleton and were in the possession of the Manson Family (not confirmed).

On 12-14-70, information was received from an informant that Charles Manson had pulled a string attached to a number of hacksaw blades up through the window from the outside of the Hall of Justice. Information was relayed to the jail and hacksaw blades were recovered on approximately 12-17-70.

On 7-9-71, information was received that Charles Manson had bragged of having the telephone numbers and addresses of investigators, District Attorneys and jail deputies. On that same date, Deputy Stevens, Hall of Justice Jail, received a phone call at his residence from a person he believes to be a female member of the Manson Family.

On 7-14-71, information was received that Kenneth Como, MC/31, a Folsom Prison inmate serving life for robbery, was to be returned to Los Angeles County as a witness for the defense in the Shea murder trial. Further, that Como had been visited by the Manson Family and was a high escape risk.

On 7-22-71, Kenneth Como escaped from the 8th floor of the Old Hall of Records.

[They were warned he could escape.  And then he escapes.  Twice.   Hmmmm...]

On 8-15-71, information was received that Kenneth Como and members of the Manson Family did obtain guns from an unknown location to help free Charles Manson.

On 8-21-71, Kenneth Como, along with members of the Manson Family, robbed the Western Surplus Store in Hawthorne of 67 guns and ammunition and were subsequently arrested in a shoot out.

On 8-24-71, information was received that Judge Raymond Choate, Department 106, would receive a package containing a watch without hands signifying his time was running out.

On 9-3-71, Judge Choate received the package containing the watch with missing hands.

Some names:

Kenneth Como

All you need to know about Kenny-boy Como is that he is transferred from Folsom prison into the LA jails to testify in Charlie's Hinman/Shea trial, despite the fact he had no knowledge of Charlie and Family, nor the victims,  nor the crimes committed.  This did not cause the prosecuting attorney nor judge nor various judicial and prison officials to object.  So the whole transfer was obviously arranged by those who wanted to use Como to act as informant and provocateur.

The acid test was that Como, doing 20 to life for armed robbery in Folsom before he was transferred, gets out in 1981, doing 10 years.  For the two jailbreaks, the armed robbery, the shootout with cops, and two more subsequent attempts to break out of state prison, he got no extra time.  From a convict's standpoint, it was a pretty sweet deal.

"Kevin"

This is the name of some guy who attaches himself to the Family during the TLB trial.  Some suspect he may have been an informant:

"beauders said...
   Hendrickson said that he believed "Kevin" was a police informant. "Kevin" started hanging with the Family due to the press coverage of Manson and the Family's commission of the murders and then up and disappears one day."
https://www.mansonblog.com/2018/09/was-this-family-member-also-undercover.html



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

"To whom shall I speak and give warning That they may hear? Behold, their ears are closed And they cannot listen."
    --  Jeremiah 6:10

Bobby Beausoleil in Santa Barbara

Robert Kenneth “Bobby” Beausoleil  was born in Santa Barbara, California on November 6, 1947. The oldest of five children, Bobby might well be the reason for the Beausoleil family to exist; he was born less than seven months after his parents wed in late April of that year.

Record of the marriage of Charles Beausoleil and Arlene Mattox on April 29, 1947. Six and a half months after the nuptials, Robert Kenneth Beausoleil was born. (From the California, County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1830-1980. California Department of Public Health)

During Beausoleil’s first year of life, in 1948, his family lived in a bungalow at 1426 Garden Street. The Santa Barbara city directory for that year listed father Charles as a salesman for the local Petan Dairy Farms. (Here “salesman” means that he drove a milk truck.)         

                                                  1426 Garden Street today                                                    

The next year the family moved a block east to a double-occupancy house at 1429 Laguna Street. The Beausoleils resided there for two years before moving again, this time to another double-occupancy house at 419 1/2 North Soledad Street. Charles was still supporting the family as a salesman for Petan Dairy. (Built in 1934, the house on Soledad had two bedrooms and two bathrooms divided amongst the people living there. Although a lower middle-class residence when the Beausoleils lived there — and even so today — the current Zillow value estimate for the property is $1,119.096, typical of real estate values in Santa Barbara.             

                                                                1429 Laguna Street

                            The former Beausoleil residence at 419 1/2 North Soledad Street                                                                                                                

Still on the move (and with Charles still winning the bread as a milk delivery person for Petan Dairy) the family moved up and spent 1953 and 1954 living in a single-family residence at 1028 Castillo Street. (The home there was torn down and replaced with a small subdivision for seniors in 1987. )

Then, in 1955 and on into the 1980s the Beausoleils lived at 1382 Santa Rita Circle. By now Charles had worked his way up to being a route supervisor for another dairy company, Arden Farms. And he supplemented his income from that job by working part-time as a clerk in a nearby liquor store.

Bobby began attending the Santa Barbara High School. He would have been a member of the class of ’65 but he didn’t make it that far. His picture appears in the 1963 school yearbook as a sophomore, but although he is listed as a student during the next two years he did not graduate and there are no photos of him in the ’64 and ’65 books.

  Bobby Beausoleil as a sophomore in the 1963 

Santa Barbara High School Olive & Gold yearbook

                                                   The Santa Barbara High School today

In a 1998 interview for Seconds Magazine Beausoleil recalled his time growing up in the city that calls itself “the American Riviera.”

“I was born in Santa Barbara, California in 1947, to a couple who were and still are—at least the one of them who is still living—Catholic. I was the first born son, the first of five children. I have two brothers and two sisters. Not a well-to-do family, but we always got by. My dad worked two jobs sometimes to make that happen with such a large family. For most of the years when I was growing up he worked for Arden Farms Dairy—he was milkman, basically, and he became a manager for the company later on. It was a working class family. On the GI Bill my dad bought a tract home in 1955, and that's where I spent most of my years growing up. We had lived in a couple of other houses before that.”

The 1969 Santa Barbara City Directory for Bobby Beausoleil's parents. It shows Bobby's father Charles as a route foreman for the Arden Farms Dairy Company.

Above and below, current views of the home that the Beausoleil family resided in in 1969. 

The house is just a few blocks from Santa Barbara’s Shoreline Park and the Pacific ocean. 

(The second story was added after their residency. )

The Mesa Liquor Store where Charles Beausoleil supplemented the 

family income by working part-time as a clerk in 1959

Beausoleil was always into music. He recalled,

“I’ve always had a fascination for music. The earliest Christmas present that I remember getting was a drum—one of those little toy drums with paper heads and a pair of drumsticks. I was four or five, but I remember that gift, whereas I don't really remember any of the others. And I remember that I beat it to death, there was nothing left of the skins on either side—which was kind of a shame because then it wouldn't work as a drum anymore! After that as I was growing up I remember building these strange instruments, out of wooden crates, sort of jug band type instruments….  and I would play them and just banged the hell out of them. So maybe had I been born one universe over from this one I would have been a drummer. But as it happened I found a guitar in the attic of my grandmother's house when I was about eleven years old….

“My mother could play a couple of songs on the piano, I guess she'd had a few lessons. But other than that there was no real music tradition in my family. My uncle at one point must have played guitar a little bit, since he played me a song that one time. On my father's side, both my grandparents were deaf. Other than singing in the shower, which he did with considerable passion, my father didn't bring any musical ability to my early years, or at least not any musical influence. Most of it was just my listening to the radio…. 

“We had one table radio, but eventually my mom got a hi-fi stereo, one of those console things on which she would play Harry Belafonte and Johnny Mathis records. When she got the stereo I was given the family radio, but up until that point I had a crystal radio that I had built and it had a little earphone, and underneath the blankets I would listen to KISS radio all night. Every third or fourth song they played was a rock song, you had to listen through all these other songs…. 

“Santa Barbara wasn't really a place that was on the cutting edge…. At the time I heard one person characterize it as "a town for the newlywed or nearly dead." When I was first growing up there it was a pretty small town, only a couple of stop lights where the highway went through. Very quaint . . . the wealthy people were up in the hills, the less wealthy were on the flats, down at sea-level. There was Haley Street area, which was the black ghetto, and there were the barrio areas and then the upper crust in the Montecito and Hope Ranch areas, and various strata in between. It was a pretty nice town, and the beach was always great. I loved the ocean, and the mountains weren't too far away. 

“I never really got into [surfing]. I did a lot of body-surfing and swimming. I think probably my life might have gone differently if I had been able to afford a surfboard, but they were kind of spendy back in those days and I never got into it. I wound up in more of a greaser mode—the hair falling down the center of the forehead and the ducktails…. [I was] twelve or thirteen.”

A summer spent with his grandmother in El Monte, California was characteristic of Beausoleil's penchants for music, rebelliousness, and associating with people he found interesting.

“I was visiting my grandmother during the summer in El Monte, in the Los Angeles County area, and made friends with some, I guess, Rockabilly-oriented people. This was a Mexican barrio and a white ghetto, El Monte, with a lot of people from Arkansas and other places who had migrated to California looking for the economic "Grail," and found themselves in this low-rent district, pretty much a shanty town type of environment. I wound up hanging out at this gas station which a friend of mine helped his parents operate. It was a little run-down 76 station. He was about my age, thirteen or fourteen. His parents would spend most of the day in the bar, and he would for the most part run the gas station and we helped him, me and a couple of other guys. We all played guitar, so we spent much of our time sitting on old car seats behind the gas station playing "What I Say" or some stuff that one of the guys brought from Arkansas like "Under the Double Eagle" or "Wildwood Flower," all those kinds of things. I got into where I was picking notes instead of just strumming and I expanded my repertoire in a sense, or my techniques anyway. I had a blast doing that. Then I refused to return to Santa Barbara when it was time to go back to school—I wanted to stay there with my grandmother and hang out with my friends. That lasted for several months past the time I was supposed to have gone back to school . . . and then I got busted. It was just after Christmas and my friends and I went out in one of our homemade jalopies. 

“We were building these cars and we usually took them down to this dry riverbed to race them—none of us were old enough to drive. One night we went out and got crazy and just kind of terrorized the neighborhood. One of the things we did was vandalize a lawn of Christmas decorations. We took all the cardboard reindeer and A hammered them up on the side of a truck van that was out behind the gas station, and turned it into a circus van with reindeer flying across the sides. About two hours later the Sheriff's Dept. pulled into the gas station and there the evidence was, in plain view, and we all got busted. I was sent to L.A. Juvenile Hall and then back to Santa Barbara. To make a long story short, I wound up in a kind of a reform school, a fire camp called Los Prietos, up in the mountains above Santa Barbara. My parents basically said that they couldn't control me any longer.”

Beausoleil later recalled that his out-of-control behavior included "walking my dog without a leash, stolen Christmas tree ornaments, bomb scares, [and] hitchhiking on the freeway.”

Although his rebellious behavior caused some friction with his parents, Beausoleil never rejected them:

“I got along with them okay. I had loving parents, and I had a good family—still do, my dad's dead now but my mom has hung in there with me through all of these years. It wasn't so much a problem with them as with me. I was just a freedom-bound person from when I was very young. I was very independent and the circumstances enhanced that proclivity—I moved out into the garage when I was nine, which was something I wanted to do, rather than share a bedroom with two other brothers, both considerably younger than me. So I built a little room out in the garage, and that gave me a situation where I could pretty much come and go as I pleased. I used to go down to the beach late at night…. I wasn't doing anything criminal, but in the middle of the night I liked to take my dog and go down to the cliff overlooking the ocean, which was just a couple of blocks from where we lived. I'd spend hours down there. Sometimes I would just walk the neighborhood streets at night, and that kind of oriented me to being very independent.” 

Despite his independence in Santa Barbara, Beausoleil was still bored and dissatisfied, and his restlessness got him into enough trouble that he was eventually sent to “reform school,” specifically the Los Prietos Boys Camp located about ten miles north of the city in the Los Padres National Forest.

According to its website, “The Los Prietos Boys Camp program is located on 17 acres in the Los Padres National Forest.  The facility provides a local commitment option for delinquent males between the ages of 13 and 18.  Los Prietos offers a 120 or a 180 day program.  Wards earn their way out of the program based on their participation and behavior.

“The goal of Los Prietos is to return wards to the community as responsible and productive members of society.  Discipline, respect and responsibility are the motto of the facility.  Both programs embrace a zero-gang tolerance philosophy and strive to provide pro-social training, opportunities and life experiences that help to broaden a boy's world view, as well as his attitude toward all community.  The program provides work and vocational training, counseling, drug and alcohol programming, religious and spiritual expression, and promotes volunteer and community work service.”

Above and below, the entry sign at Los Prietos Boys Camp (Is that a black panther 

at the top of the sign?) and a typical barrack.

“My grandmother had cancer, and so when I was visiting her I didn't want to leave her alone—she'd been pretty much discarded by the family—and at least that was part of my rationalization, that I wanted to stay there with her . . .and to be with my friends and learn more about playing guitar, and take the old jalopies down to the riverbed, all those kinds of things. I was having more fun in that little shantytown called El Monte than I was in Santa Barbara, where I really didn't fit because I couldn't afford a surfboard. My parents had four other kids to deal with, and I'd made my own bed so to speak, so my parents let me lay in it and they signed the papers to let me spend some time in Los Prietos Boys School. It actually did a number of things for me. One, I got physically strong—I grew up a lot there. It was a good transition from boyhood to manhood, and it was pretty grueling at times…. 

“[The main issues there were] work, and dealing with a bunch of hard-headed kids. They definitely put a guy through his paces. They had a kind of boot camp training, and they really put you through it. One of the things that you did was to go up on the shale hill and break up the shale and then load it onto a flatbed truck, which would go over a tiny bridge and dump it on the other side of the creek. You asked what you were doing this for, and they would tell you, "We're moving this hill over there, to the other side of the creek." This was something you did, and you spent a lot of hours doing it in the heat. It was not that they were trying to kill us. They were trying to make men out of us. And it did serve that purpose for me…. 

“There was a part of me that resented it—I didn't like being there and I wanted to go home—but at the same time I was getting tougher, and that was good. And I'll tell you the truth though, I didn't really notice it until I got out. I didn't realize how different I had become from other people. It was something that had taken place over a period of ten months or so. There were some changes that took place. I hated having my hair cut short like we had there, and I promptly started growing my hair as soon as I got out. This was pre-Beatles, pre-hippy, it wasn't a fashionable decision at that point….

“I did have an opportunity to play a little guitar when I was there, but it wasn't something that was normally allowed. The way that worked out was that I got into the glee club—there was this guy who was one of the camp counselors, and he wanted to start a glee club. I joined the glee club and after trying to sing a cappella with these guys for awhile, I convinced him that some musical accompaniment would be needed. He had an old guitar in the cabin where he lived and he brought it out, so I got the opportunity to play a few chords along with the glee club songs. The action was so high on this guitar that it was excruciating to play, especially when I'd already lost my calluses. But at least once a week I could grip the neck of a guitar and do a little bit with it….

[Later], I lost my guitar in El Monte—it stayed down there after I got busted, and there was no way to retrieve it. So I didn't have a guitar when I got out. But when I'd been in Los Prietos during the summer months there were fires, and this was a fire camp. We didn't actually go out on the fire lines, but we would follow the path of the fire to put out the smoldering stumps, or during the fire we would sometimes load the liquid fire retardant that the fire planes dropped. We would fill the same planes with grass seed after the fire, for re-seeding. They paid us by the hour and I made quite a bit of money—I had almost $300 by the time I got out. So when I got out I had almost enough money to buy a guitar and pay cash for it. I got a little help from my mom…. 

“The [guitar] I wanted was [costly], although by today's standards it was extremely inexpensive considering what it was: a Les Paul signature SG Gibson, cream white, 3 gold pickups—just a gorgeous guitar, with a nice hard shell case. I paid $269 for it, plus the case, and today that guitar would be worth probably ten grand! So I had this really cool electric guitar and I started going back to Bonnie Langley's [Music Store on State Street] just to have somebody to play with, and because I didn't have my own amplifier yet. I got to play a little bit there, but she wasn't allowing that as openly as she had been before. Also I had evolved and the people I had grown up with had not, I don't know how to describe it any differently than that. I had gone through all this stuff and I didn't fit in…. 

“[And] I would not have stayed [in Santa Barbara] as long as I did were it not that I was afraid of getting busted again. So I tried to mind my P's and Q's and hang in there as long as I could, but I just kept getting more and more distant from myself and the kids in town. By the time I was not even sixteen I was pretty much living with a girl in an apartment, she was about four or five years older than I was…. 

“She was the sister of a friend of mine. We just hit it off. Like I said, I was beyond my years, at least in my attitudes and thinking and how I carried myself. Part of the reason why I left Santa Barbara was that she became too dependent on me, too obsessed with me. So eventually I left and went to stay with my cousin for a little while in Sunland, down on the outskirts of L.A. County. I was headed down a shady path I guess, although not in a criminal sense. My favorite cousin who I had gone to stay with turned out to be kind of a dip. He really didn't take care of his family very well. It's a little embarrassing, but at the same time it's part of the story here—I wound up sleeping with his wife. He left, and I ended up living with her. I got a job at the Travel-Eze Trailer Company, building trailers, supporting his wife and kid, and sleeping in his bed with his wife. And again, she was quite a few years older than I was. I was only sixteen….

“She was working too, we both were. I had no experience doing that, but I grew up in a family where my dad worked two jobs. So as far as understanding a work ethic and supporting a family, I had no problem with that. I just did what came naturally. I've always had the ability to work, to do real work. I kept my job easily enough. Actually I had not quite turned sixteen yet. I had a learner's driving permit, which you're allowed to get at fifteen and I'd doctored it so that I appeared to be sixteen—that had allowed me to get a job at the trailer company, and it also allowed me to drive. I bought a car, a '50 Ford with an Olds engine in it, and a hydromatic transmission. I loved that car! So I was beginning to do adult things. Then my grandmother died, the whole family was notified. Of course I had been very close to my grandmother. I went to the funeral, and it turned into a very ugly situation. My cousin went to my family and told them I was sleeping with his wife. It got really weird. My father was trying to lay down the law all of a sudden and take me home, to make me tow the line. And he'd got one of my uncles backing him up….

“I basically told them all to get fucked, and I took off. I went to Hollywood. “

Thus, Beausoleil was already long gone from the area by the late summer of 1967 when Charles Manson, Mary Brunner, and Lyn Fromme took up temporary residence in a house at 705 Bath Street  in the city.

705 Bath Street. Charles Manson, Mary Brunner, and Lyn Fromme lived here briefly in 1967.

There are some interesting notes of commonality between Bobby Beausoleil and Charles Manson, the significance of which can only be imagined. For one thing, Bobby’s father was named Charles. The maiden names of Manson’s and Beausoleil’s mothers were strikingly similar, Maddox for Manson and Mattox for Beausoleil. Both men had been institutionalized (albeit Manson much more so than Beausoleil). They had a shared residency/experiences in Santa Barbara. And, of course, they both had a keen interest in music.

Driving north out of Los Angeles on Highway 101 on August 5, 1969 after the murder of Gary Hinman would have taken Beausoleil through Santa Barbara and just over a mile away from where his parents then resided. Did he have any thought of seeing them as he passed by? Did he know anybody else in town he could have stayed with? Or was all of that too far in the past? We will never know. We just know that Beausoleil in fact drove straight on up 101 until either he or the car (the deceased Gary Hinman's Fiat) conked out at the top of the long, steep grade going up to the Cuesta Pass three miles north of San Luis Obispo. There he pulled over and went to sleep in the front seat. The next morning California Highway Patrol officer Forrest Humphrey stopped to check the car, and the rest is true-crime history.

The End Of Summit Trail

Not two weeks after the arrest of Manson et al. on Deer Creek Road in Ventura County the group again found itself under assault from law enforcement. It was May 2, 1968, and this time the incident occurred and the end of Summit Trail, an isolated location high up at the end of a series of narrow, twisting roads running off of Topanga Canyon Road. The group began staying at this property, which at the time included a vacant house, after their time at the so-called “Spiral Staircase House” behind the Topanga Shopping Center at the intersection of Topanga Canyon Road and the Pacific Coast Highway (California Highway 1). 

According to the Sheriff’s report of the incident: 

“Acting of information from above informant that above house is being used as a crash pad by narcotics addicts and runaways, writer, Sgt. Salerno, Deps. Rodriguez and Redddy with the assistance of car 103…. proceeded to above location.

“Upon arrival writer observed suspect Manson standing in front of the house.

“Writer identified himself by displaying his badge and stated Sheriff narcotic officers were conducting a narcotic investigation. Suspect Manson replied OK, come in the house, I’ll show you around. Upon entering suspect # 2 was observed lying on a bed, suspects #3, #4, and #5 observed milling about. Approximately five (5) minutes later suspects # 6 and #7 entered with Sgt. Salerno who stated they were in a bus adjacent to the house.

“After exiting the house with all the suspects in our presence, writer observed and heard suspect Manson lean over to suspect Hall and in a low voice said, “Go sit in the chair,” writer observed suspect Hall walk to a chair and sit down. Writer requested suspect suspect [sic] Hall to stand up, to which he complied. A check of the chair revealed evidence held items #1, #2, #3 and #4 on the ground under the chair.

“Writer then displayed the evidence to all suspects and stated, “Do you know what this is and does it belong to any of you”, all suspects remained silent. Suspects were then placed under arrest for possession of marijuana and advised of their rights per SH-AD-477. Each suspect stated he understood his rights.

“Suspect Manson stated that the marijuana could belong to anyone, as a lot of people stay here. Suspects were transported to Malibu Sheriff’s Station by car 103…. and booked on above charge.

“During booking procedure item # 5 was found in left front shirt pocket of suspect Hall. During booking procedures Matron Shirle Smith found item # 6 on suspect Good’s person. Suspect Manson was again shown the evidence, item # 1, #2, #3 and #4 and asked if it was his, suspect stated, no it could belong to anyone of many people. When asked if he smoked marijuana, suspect stated yes. When asked why he told suspect Hall to sit in the chair, evidence recovered, suspect stated I was trying to keep the guys out of your way, so you could do your job.

“Suspect Hall was again shown the evidence #1, #2, #3 and #4, and asked if it was his, suspect stated, No. When asked if he had seen the evidence before suspect stated, I might have, but I can’t say for sure. When asked if he smoked marijuana, suspect stated, yes, but I haven’t for approximately five (5) days. When shown the driver license, evidence held item # 2, and asked if it was his, suspect stated no. When advised that the picture on the license looked like him, suspect stated OK it’s mine, it’s a false name and license.

“When asked how it got into evidence held item #2, suspect stated I don’t know. When again asked about the evidence, suspect stated I don’t know a thing about the marijuana.

“Suspect Good was again shown evidence held item # 1, #2, #3 and #4 and asked if it was hers, suspect stated, no, never saw it before. When asked if she smoked marijuana suspect stated, yes, but I don’t like it. When asked where she got the capsules [item # 6], suspect stated from Gary Hinman in Topanga. 

“Suspect #4, #5, #6 and #7, refused to make any statements.

“Evidence transported to L.A. Sheriff’s crime lab for analysis.

“The facts of this cased will be presented to Santa Monica branch of the Los Angeles District Attorney Office for their consideration towards a complaint.”

Evidence seized during this raid included a quart of marijuana seeds in a glass bottle (item # 1), a little over two ounces of pot (items # 2, 3, and 4), three pills (item # 6), and some driver's licenses of questionable authenticity. 

Taken into custody and detained at the Malibu station of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Office were Charles Manson (suspect # 1), Sandra Good (suspect # 2), Bruce Vann Hall (suspect # 3), Robert Earl Murray (suspect # 4), Louis Covell (suspect # 5), Bruce Davis (suspect # 6), and Diane Bluestein (Diane Lake, suspect # 7)). 

Below, the Sheriff's report of the incident at the end of Summit Trail:

Charles Manson was charged with violation of Section 11530 of the Health and Safety Code, possession of marijuana. On his booking record his address was listed as "transient 'bus'" and his occupation was listed as "musician -- unemployed."

Manson's booking record for possession of marijuana

*      *      *

Summit Trail Today

The location of the bust on Summit Trail was another of the destinations for the 2016 MF Blog Tour. The end of the trail is still remote and rustic today; it was easy to get lost in the tight maze of "trails" and we made a couple of wrong turns before we finally arrived at the correct spot. When we got there an older gentleman was leaning on the fence in front of the house at the end of the trail, almost as if he was expecting us. After we identified ourselves and our purpose for being there, the man, Rick (who has owned the house since 1974 and been a denizen of Topanga Canyon for several years longer), gladly visited with us and told us stories of indeterminate veracity that he had heard of "the Family's" presence in the area. He was an interesting living link with the past!

Google Maps view of Summit Trail

A wider view shows the relationship of the end 

of Summit Trail (arrow) to Gary Hinman's

residence at 964 Old Topanga Canyon Road.

The end of Summit Trail

MF bloggers talk with Rick, the owner of the house 

at the end of Summit Trail since 1974.

According to Rick, "the Family's" black bus was 

parked on this slight rise adjacent to the house, 

about where the orange car is.

The house at the end of Summit Trail