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

Did Vincent Bugliosi Diss Stephen Kay In Helter Skelter?

The animosity between Manson prosecutors Vincent Bugliosi and Stephen Kay is well known. Kay resented Bugliosi taking the entire credit for convictions in a case in which he felt he was an active co-prosecutor, and later Bugliosi couldn’t stand Key’s embarrassing grandstanding at “Manson Family” parole hearings. But did this mutual animosity result in an immature diss on the part of Bugliosi? Did Bugliosi so resent sharing the “I got Manson!” scalp with anybody that he intentionally minimized the contributions of his fellow-prosecutors (as he did the numerous times when he pointed out that his investigative skills had single-handedly saved the case from the incompetent Keystone Cops of LAPD)? And did he even resort to childishness?

That Bugliosi was disdainful of Kay as a co-prosecutor is evident in his initial mention of his fellow Deputy DA in Helter Skelter when he introduces Kay as a replacement for Aaron Stovitz, who was removed from the case for making inappropriate comments to the media:

“Since I had prepared the case and examined most of the witnesses, Aaron’s removal did not affect this portion of the trial…. Although two young deputy DAs, Donald Musich and Steven Kay, had been assigned to replace Aaron, neither was familiar enough with the case to participate in the trial.” (Helter Skelter, 25th Anniversary edition paperback, page 453)

“Neither was familiar enough with the case to participate in the trial.”  That characterization must have grated on Kay.

Later in the book Bugliosi alludes to Kay’s ineptness as an attorney when he refers to Kay irresponsibly commenting to the press about a statement Charles Manson allegedly made during the penalty phase of the trial about there being bloodletting should he receive a death sentence:

“Both the court clerk and Steve Kay overheard the remark. Kay intemperately rushed out of the courtroom and repeated it to the press.” (Helter Skelter, page 585)

As a result of Kay intemperance, the jury had to be sequestered for the remainder of the penalty phase so as not to be exposed to headlines such as “Manson Death Threat — Warns of Terror if Doomed to Die.”

Clearly, Bugliosi’s characterizations of Kay during the trial are less than flattering. But did Bugliosi go even further? Did he engage in some juvenile dissing to cause even more discomfort to his former partner in criminal prosecution? In looking closer at Bugliosi’s references in Helter Skelter to Kay I noticed something that made me wonder, namely that Bugliosi misrepresents the spelling of Kay’s first name throughout the book.

As a person who has had his surname reworked into nearly countless incorrect variations I’m well aware of the sensitivity of some persons that their names be rendered correctly, both in print and audibly. And certainly Vincent Bugliosi was irked by years of having his last name mispronounced and otherwise mangled. (The childhood taunts of “Buggy! Buggy! Buggy!” must have been intolerable.) And knowing what we know about Bugliosi and his nominal sensitivity (“The ‘g’ is silent.”) we might wonder if he considered the mispronunciation or misspelling of a name to be just another weapon in his human interactional arsenal. Was “The Bug” so affected by the mispronunciation of his name over the years that he felt justified in giving offense in kind to those he didn’t like? Did Bugliosi refer to “Stephen Kay” as “Steven Kay” as a subtle dig against his former courtroom companion?

Looking more into this I noticed that throughout the text of Helter Skelter Bugliosi goes further, not even calling Kay “Steven” (much less “Stephen”), but rather just “Steve” in five out out seven mentions. This strikes me as odd too because often people don’t want to be called by derivatives of their names. For example I know several fellows named “David” but I would never call any of them “Dave.” (How about you, David? Does it bother you when someone calls you “Dave”?)

Was Stephen Kay sensitive about the spelling of his first name? We don’t know. But we do know that the correct spelling is “Stephen” with a “ph” and not “Steven” with a “v”. This is evident not only in court documents from the trial (which Bugliosi would have had to have seen many, many times), but also in the way Kay has spelled his first name at various parole hearings. So we know that his name was spelled differently than the way he preferred in Helter Skelter.  Thus, the questions boil down to: Was the misspelling of Stephen Kay’s first name in HS an honest error, a rare oversight by a person otherwise noted for his attention to detail? Or was it an intentional slight by Vincent Bugliosi against a co-prosecutor whom he resented sharing the “Trial of the Century” limelight with?

Vincent Bugliosi  

Stephen Kay

Stephen Kay’s misspelled first name in the index to Helter Skelter

Stephen Kay spells his name correctly at Patricia Krenwinkel’s 1978 parole hearing. (Thanks to Cielodrive.com for the transcript page rendering!)

Stephen Russell Kay’s name as it is correctly spelled on the first page of one of the scores of volumes of transcripts of the original murder trial 

KEEPING MANSON BEHIND BARS

This was sent to me by Robert Hendrickson before he passed away. It's from the Los Angeles Times Magazine, May 14, 1989.

This is what his note to me said:

MATT:

Here's some stuff:

Don't remember you doing any Stephen Kay thing. He deserves some PRESS - after HE did so much.

Robert