Was Charlie at Cielo the night before?

Terry Melcher

A number of sources do suggest that very thing:

 Death to Pigs, by Hendrickson pg501    Bugliosi interview by Merrick.

Bugliosi: "I'm the one that put Manson inside the gates of the Tate residence. I put him in there, not on the night of the murders, but a couple of nights earlier."

Manson's Right Hand Man Speaks Out by Charles "Tex" Watson, c.2001  pg43

It's believed that Manson was at the house looking for Terry the night before the murders and was  offended by the new occupants.

 LINK     Grimtraveller said:      "Back in 2005 on Col Scott's site, someone called GLH said that he'd spoken with Tex the month before and this is what Tex had told him "Manson had been to Cielo the night BEFORE the murders". I debated that with him, saying I'd heard that Manson had been there in March '69. He stood firm on his claim that Manson was there on August 7th (in the evening). ...and Manson was agitated the next day"

 

LINK     Jay Sebring’s business partner Jim Markham:

"I believe Manson had gone up to the house” — Polanski was away shooting a movie — “and Manson wanted to sell cocaine and marijuana,” he says. “He showed Jay and Wojciech the product. They were going to buy some of it, but the two of them beat him up at the gate. The next night, Manson sent the Family up [to kill them].”

 

Beausoleil: "He(Charlie) had been over near his [Melcher's] house and, as he said, he checked out the wires, telephone wires and the electric gates and exits from that property."

 

Wait...  wasn't Charlie down in San Diego County on that date, bringing Stephanie Schram down to her sister's house in Jamul and having dinner there, and then sleeping on the lawn of the residence of one of Stephanie's friends?  Well, that is what Bugliosi claimed.  But what was that based on? 

Not Charlie.  He admitted going down to Jamul but didn't put a date on it.  

Not Schram.  She couldn't remember the date:

Helter Skelter, pg368 

"Stephanie was a bit vague when it came to dates. She "thought" the day they returned to Spahn Ranch was Friday, August 8, but she wasn't sure."

 

Not that traffic ticket Charlie got from the Highway Patrol near Oceanside on the way down.  It's never been made public.

Not Stephanie Schram's sister, identified only as "Mrs. Hartman," who allegedly claimed that Charlie told her that "people were going to be slaughtered, they'll be lying on their lawns dead."    Her interview was never released.

Not Stephanie's 'friends' in San Diego on whose lawn Manson and Schram allegedly slept on, the night of Aug 7 to the morning of Aug 8.   There's no evidence they were ever identified.

Though of course Schram never said anything about Charlie stopping by Cielo Dr. in the time she was with him, from her meeting him near Esalen to when they allegedly returned to Spahn, "arriving there about two in the afternoon" on Aug 8, in Bugliosi's version.  

But Schram claimed it was Aug 5 when she first came to Spahn with Charlie.  They had dinner there, and then in the evening drove off the ranch, but only for a couple of blocks before Charlie pulled over and they slept in the bakery truck that night.  The next day, which would have been Aug 6 if Schram is right, they drove down to San Diego, spent the night, returning to Los Angeles on what would have been Aug 7.  Note that during his trial Tex claimed he saw Charlie at Spahn the next morning, on Aug 8.  There are now enough gaps in the timeline to make a trip to Cielo the night before very possible.

So why didn't Bugliosi use evidence of this alleged visit by Charlie up to Cielo the night before, at the trial?  It would have been very incriminating to Charlie, whether the visit was to do a drug deal with Voytek, as per Markham, or to do a reconnaissance, as per Beausoleil.   The only realistic scenario is that Bugliosi could not have entered this evidence without revealing the source, which might refer to the house being under surveillance before the murders, as Doris Tate claimed.

 

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Bugliosi apparently based his Jamul timeline solely on the traffic ticket issued by the CHP near Oceanside. From Helter Skelter, pg367-8:

"Manson... drove to San Diego... to pick up Stephanie's clothes.
Enroute, about ten miles south of Oceanside on Interstate 5, they were stopped by California Highway Patrol officer Richard C. Willis. .... The date was Thursday, August 7, 1969; the time 6:15P.M. The ticket, which (LAPD Sgt.)Patchett and (LAPD Sgt.)Gutierrez found, proved Manson was in Southern California the day before the Tate murders."


Bugliosi is quite explicit on the time and date of the ticket. Yet he only implies--but does not explicitly state--that this was on the way to San Diego(in the southbound lanes of I-5), but what if it was while on their way back from San Diego(in the northbound lanes of I-5)? That would allow Charlie to make it to LA in time for an evening trip to Cielo Dr. the day before the murders.

 

 

 

 Is this why CHP officer Willis became unavailable to be interviewed?

 

 

Charlie: "...ask him why the District Attorney moved the Highway Patrolman to the east coast, along with the traffic ticket...."

 

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 --The evening of the 7th of August, 1969, the four occupants of the Cielo house--Sharon, Jay, Gibby, and Voytek--are over at Sebring's house, located at 9810 Easton Dr. in Beverly Hills, watching a movie on cable TV and having dinner when the wires going into the house are allegedly cut, messing with the lights and interrupting the cable signal. Leading to the conclusion that this was an aborted murder attempt on the house's occupants, presumably by the same cast of characters that would finish the job the next night at Cielo Dr.

Listening to the recorded interview with the butler, the only time mentioned is 11pm, when the group finishes their dinner. Thus they probably would have arrived at the Sebring house that night between 9-10pm. This timeline is roughly consistent with Manson's alleged trip up to Cielo Dr., with a subsequent angry or even violent encounter with Jay and Voy as per the account of Markham, at around 8:30 to 9:30pm on Aug 7.

Jay Sebring's Cut Wires    Video                 


In Helter Skelter, Bugliosi implied the immediate precipitater to TLB was Charlie's anger for being snubbed by the audience at Esalen several days before. But the idea of Charlie being slapped around or disrespected at Cielo, just hours before a first murder attempt at Sebring's house, is a far more realistic proposition, IMO.



So what did Charlie do? Did he race back to Spahn, quickly gather up a kill posse, and then race over to Easton Dr. to do the dirty deed, somehow knowing Jay's location and address, only to be stymied by some complicated wiring?

Or did Charlie hang around Cielo, following them in their vehicle as they left the Cielo house, all the way to Easton Dr. a mile to the north? Did he then launch a plan to mess with their minds by cutting some of the wiring on their house? This would explain why none of the other family members ever mentioned this foray to Jay's house the night before. They didn't know about it. And if Schram was told to stay in the bread truck while Charlie walked up to the Sebring house, all she would know is that Charlie parked on some dark residential street somewhere and that Charlie walked off and didn't return for about half an hour.

Bugliosi claimed that Manson slapped Schram after being snubbed by the Esalen audience. Schram claims Charlie slapped her for messing up the chance to get a free meal, even before they went to Esalen. I speculate that was just a cover for Charlie slapping Schram after he was dissed by the Cielo residents, and before the wires were cut. Manson was so angry he couldn't control himself. IMO only!

 

 

 

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 To reiterate, there was plenty of hard evidence to establish an accurate timeline in the week before the murder:


--The credit card slips used at the four gas stations where Charlie got gas on the way to and from Esalen.

Aaron Stovitz to Rolling Stone
DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY AARON STOVITZ: You see, Manson has an alibi right up until August 7th, 'cause he met this girl, and he, uh, drove with her from Big Sur all the way down to Oceanside. And they made gas purchases on these stolen credit cards all the way down the line.

Helter Skelter, pg366-8
Aug 3 - "...sometime between seven and eight(am)(Manson) purchased gas at a station in Canoga Park, using a stolen credit card.
"On August 4, Manson, still using a stolen credit card, purchased gas at Lucia. ... he did it again the next day."
"...Manson left Big Sur on August 6, making gas purchases the same day at San Luis Obispo and Chatsworth..."

[And presumably any credit card slips on any gas purchases made on the way to and from San Diego.]


--The front desk register at Esalen, and any witnesses to Charlie's presence there.

--The people who encountered Charlie and Stephanie in San Diego. Meaning Schram's sister and the people at the house where they spent the night

--The CHP ticket given to Charlie near Oceanside.


Plenty of evidence, but all of it has been kept from the public eye! So there was definitely a cover-up going on. The only reason for this has to be that none of it is in accord with Bugliosi's own timeline.

The Road To Heaven

 Back when I was researching something related to all this, I stole this image from Cielodrive. 

The photograph immediately intrigued me. The intrigue had nothing to do with that guy on the ladder reaching for the phone wires and wearing a short sleaved white business shirt like my father used to wear in the sixties. It also wasn’t because of the wall where Atkins, Krenwinkel and probably Kasabian hid while Watson murdered Steven Parent. It is behind the uniformed officer. It wasn’t the really nice striped pants on the guy pointing at the camera or even the question why one guy showed up in a tee shirt. It wasn’t the cat, either. It was the wagon in the junk pile. Why was there a wagon at Cielo Drive? 

A Bit About JF Watkins

 

We all know Michele Morgan (Simone Renée Roussel) built the house. Well, it is actually more accurate to say she had it built and then bought it but that’s a technicality. She bought the house from “M.M. Landon”. That would be Minnie M. Landon. Minnie had been married to Arthur Landon who was a contractor. He bought the lot several years before. He passed away sometime in the 1930s. They had a daughter named Opal who married a guy named John F. Watkins. He’s the guy who built the house.

 

Far from being a small-time operator, the J. F. Wadkins Company appears repeatedly in real estate advertisements in the LA Times in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. Several have him advertising multi-home subdivisions. In fact, in 1942 he got in trouble for violating the regulations that limited production at the start of World War II by starting a 36-home subdivision without authorization. 

Wadkins passed away in 1943 after a horseback riding accident. Ed Sanders might add an oo-ee-oo, here: horses…Wadkins…Spahn Ranch. I was not able to find the location where Wadkins was injured. It obviously was not at Spahn Ranch.

 

 

The Michele Morgan Ghost Story

I don’t think Michele Morgan actually sold the home because of the creepy factor as she claimed in her autobiography. That story can be found, here. 

 

https://www.mansonblog.com/2013/08/jeepers-original-cielo-owner-was-scared.html

 

Later in her autobiography, she seems to contradict her own claim. She says that she sold 10050 Cielo Drive because her new husband, William Marshall, refused to live in a home owned by his wife. Obviously, Mr. Marshall was a modern, open minded and progressive male. Ok, he wasn't. However, apparently, he wasn’t above using the money from the sale of his wife's home to buy a home in his name. A home he was awarded in their divorce.

 

Bill Marshall never lived at Cielo Drive. However, Michele Morgan’s good friend, Madeleine LeBeau, was her roommate at Cielo for a time before Michele married. You might recognize her. She had a small role in the film, Casablanca. 

 

Morgan was supposed to get the role of Ilsa Lund in Casablanca, but RKO, her studio, wouldn't release her for the amount of money Warner Bros. was offering and Ingrid Bergman was cast instead. That is a bit of a shame because Morgan’s flight from occupied France is straight out of the movie. She escaped occupied France (Normandy) and first crossed Vichy France to Spain. She crossed Spain and left Europe from Lisbon, Portugal. 

 

Rudolfh Altobelli bought the house in 1963. There are several deeds changing ownership in the 1950's. But the various deeds all involve a guy named Louis Clyde Griffith (“LC”). Griffith was a theater tycoon in Oklahoma in the 1930’s and 1940’s and from what I could tell he was a pioneer of drive-in movie theaters. Everyone on the deeds from 1949 to 1963 (and there are several) are either business associates of Griffith, his attorney, or his stepson. I believe the transfers are related to a debilitating stroke he suffered in 1946 which led to him relocating to LA in 1949. Eventually the house landed with LC and LC Griffith sold it to Altobelli. The deed is dated October 17, 1963.

 

Despite the various deeds LC Griffith lived in the home throughout the 1950s. The available Los Angeles city directories consistently show LC Griffith as the occupant of Cielo Drive during this time period. The 1950 census places him at Cielo Drive with a nurse. 

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The Tenants

Here, in order, is everyone I could confirm rented Cielo Drive or the guest house after Altobelli purchased the home until Terry Melcher and Mark Lindsay. 

 

Henry Fonda rented the guest house for a couple of months in 1964.

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"One of the houses I sublet and lived in with Shirlee for a couple of months was on Benedict Canyon in Bel Air," Fonda says. "Does that street name ring a bell? Remember the place where Sharon Tate and her friends were massacred? Remember the guest house? That's where we stayed during the summer of sixty-four. It was a pleasant place. I did a lot of painting there. I had to drive in and park in the area where those violent people parked that night. I'd walk down the same path below the main house to the guest house. That's where the young guy was murdered when he made an exit at the wrong time.”

"My God, timing is everything, even outside the theater."

 

My Life by Henry Fonda and Howard Teichmann, Book Club Assoc., page 295, 1982.

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For two years after Henry Fonda George Chakiris rented first the guest house and then the main house. 

 

"By now [1964]I was renting a charming guest house at the end of a pretty little tree-lined cul-de-sac off of Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills. The guest house and the main house, which I eventually moved into, were owned by a talent manager named Rudi Altobelli. One of his clients, Henry Fonda, had preceded me in the guest house. Henry Fonda was a talented artist, and a painting he’d been working on was still there on an easel.

******

 

I didn’t want to leave Paris. No one ever wants to leave Paris. But I had some packing and moving to take care of back in L.A. The lease was up on the Rudi Altobelli house I was renting off of Benedict Canyon. I’d lived in the two-thousand-square-foot guest house for a year, and then in the thirty-two-hundred-square-foot main house for another year. I’d loved it there. It was quiet and just secluded enough, very French Country, on three acres, with a pool, lots of pine and cherry trees, and a private driveway. I knew I’d miss it, but it was way more space than I needed, and I had too much traveling ahead to justify staying there anyway. Sadly, I’d see that house again, a few years later, on the news. So would the rest of the world.

******

 

Some time after the horror on Cielo Drive, I mustered up the courage to finally visit Rudi Altobelli, who’d cleaned up the house and the grounds and moved back in with a couple of guard dogs. It was eerie and uncomfortable. I didn’t stay long, and I never went back again. I’ve been told that Rudi finally sold the property, the structures there were demolished and replaced by a 12,000-square-foot mansion, and the street address has been changed to discourage the nonstop stream of trespassers, tour buses, and curiosity seekers. Some part of me likes knowing that nothing that was there in August of 1969 is there anymore, not even a single brick or stick of wood or blade of grass.

******

 

I also became socially acquainted with the extraordinary film actress Michèle Morgan. She has too many acting credentials to even try to list them here, including a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, and she was utterly charming. One night Michèle told the story of how she moved to Hollywood during World War II. She designed a French Country-style home to be built there, fairly private and only a short distance away from the heart of Beverly Hills where most other movie stars were living. But in time she was frightened to live there because she kept hearing what she described as “sinister noises,” and she eventually sold the property. 

 

The house Michèle Morgan built, the house full of “sinister noises” that frightened her, was 10050 Cielo Drive, my former residence and, of course, the house where the murders occurred. What are the odds that I would just happen to become acquainted with her, through a chance encounter with a Greek singer at an Athens I?"

 

Chakiris, George. My West Side Story (p. 118, 133, 149 and 151). Lyons Press. Kindle Edition.

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I believe Samantha Eggar was next. That’s her on the cover of the April 2, 1966, edition of Hola magazine near the pool.  Here’s a couple more blurry images from that magazine. 

 

By the way, that’s Samantha Eggar in the top right photo, not Candice Bergen as most online sources claim. 

This is Candice Bergen and the source claims that it was taken at Cielo Drive.

 

I left out Cary Grant. I don’t think he ever lived at Cielo Drive. The source of the ‘Cary Grant had a bad acid trip while renting Cielo Drive’ story, as far as I can tell, originates from this gossip column I pulled from the Miami Herald (September 1, 1969). It cites Dyan Cannon as the source. 

I have five Cary Grant biographies. I am kind of a fan. Now you listen to me, I’m an advertising man, not a red herring. I’ve got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don’t intend to disappoint them all by getting myself “slightly” killed.

One of the biographies places Grant at Cielo Drive in 1940. That, of course, is not possible. The rest do not mention Cielo Drive. They mention the murders either in connection with Grant hiring a full time bodyguard for his daughter after the murders or to mention Grant being on Manson’s Hollywood Hit List.  

 

Dyan Cannon says this. Again, no mention of Cielo Drive.

"And so, Cary left for Tokyo, and I was left with the task of finding us a house to live in as fast as possible. I spent weeks looking at houses with Cary’s real estate agent. I airmailed photos to Tokyo for Cary to see. We wound up renting a home off Benedict Canyon recently vacated by the Beatles."

 

Cannon, Dyan. Dear Cary (pp. 225-226). It Books. Kindle Edition.

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The Beatles House is located at 2850 Benedict Canyon. When it is listed for sale the Beatles and Grant are usually mentioned. The Beatles rented the house in August 1965. George Chakiris was renting Cielo Drive during that time-frame. 

The Newlywed Murder-Suicide 

The Melcher-Lindsay period gives us the murder-suicide myth. I am sure everyone has read this. 

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"Rudy said that one of the first couples to occupy the house had been newlyweds, and on their wedding night the bride somehow learned that the groom had cheated on her in the recent past. Supposedly after the marriage was consummated and he was asleep, the new lady of the house took a large knife from the kitchen and stabbed him to death in bed. She then put a bullet in her brain using the small "lady's pistol" that he had given her for protection as one of her wedding gifts.

 

Rudy told us the whole affair had been hushed up and was never talked about because it would reflect negatively on the real estate value. He said that although the femme fatale's spirit still lingered, she probably wouldn't bother two guys -- although he warned that she didn't seem to tolerate beautiful women very well. "As long as you don't let your girlfriends stay over too long, you should be okay," he warned. And then he went back to his residence, leaving us to ponder."

 

https://www.mansonblog.com/2020/10/a-little-something-for-halloween.html

 

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It never happened. No newlyweds ever lived in the home and there were only three owners prior to Altobelli. All three lived in the house and/or the guesthouse the whole time they owned the home. 

The Wagon

I am sure most of you know most of the above information. This post is about that wagon but if I had not added the other stuff the post would be really short which would be out of keeping with my post history. 

And that brings us back to Doctor Hartley Dewey and his wife, Louise. Hartley was this guy’s cousin. 

 

The Deweys bought the house from Michele Morgan in June 1943. They had three sons all of whom served in World War II. One, a bomber pilot over Europe, was missing in action for several months. 

The Deweys came to LA from Yosemite National Park. 

"Doctor Hartley G. Dewey opened the new W. B. Lewis Memorial Hospital during Christmas week 1929. The services to Yosemite rendered in this fine hospital were much needed as the increase in visitors, as well as permanent and seasonal employees, had doubled during the past decade. Dr. Dewey needed additional help so another doctor and more nurses were added to the staff. A permanent Dentist Office was also established for full time work, with Doctor Raleigh Davies in charge.

Doctor Avery Sturm joined Doctor Dewey at the Lewis Memorial Hospital in 1935. This team practiced until 1942 when Doctor Sturm entered Military Service during World War 2. Doctor Dewey’s contract was up in April 1943, so he, too, left the Park."

https://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/guardians_of_the_yosemite/hospital.html

After they purchased Cielo Drive, the Deweys converted the barbeque pavilion into the guest house. They added a dressing room for the pool off the back of the house and redecorated the home. 

Their friend, Walt Disney, hand rendered images of Mickey Mouse on the walls of the bar. I don’t know if the drawings were still there in 1969. I couldn't find anything about them after the Deweys. I find that sort of surreal if they were there in August 1969.

 

The Deweys make multiple appearances on the society pages of the LA Times in the 1940s. I believe Louise was good friends with Lucille Lambert who wrote the column Confidentially. Here is an example. 

 

Ms. Lambert even wrote an article about the remodel for the Times. 

 

Lillian Gish rented the main house from the Deweys in 1945. 

She later sued the Deweys for over $11,000 for violating the wartime rent restrictions. She won. 

 

The Deweys moved to Carmel in 1949 and sold the house to Henry Griffing. Griffing worked for LC Griffith at the time. Later he attempted to launch what we would now call cable (pay) TV. In theory you could drop coins in a box on the TV and watch movies that had recently been in the theater. It didn’t catch on. Griffing died in a plane crash in 1960. 

I periodically stop at antique malls looking to replace the vinyl I sold to fund one of my obsessions when I was in college. I later married her, but I digress. 

On one such trip I wandered into a stall filled, in part, with sixties memorabilia. They wanted too much money for the 1964 GI Joe and they didn’t have any Moby Grape albums. 

 

They had a whole section of magazines dating back to the 1920s including the Manson Life magazine. I already have that one. They had several Look and Life magazines from the sixties including the walk on the moon, the assassination of Robert Kennedy and even the Mets 1969 World Series win. 

My eye, however, was drawn to another magazine less prominently displayed and sort of tossed aside with some other obscure pre-sixties titles. 

 

Here was the August 1945 edition of American Home. There on the cover, in full color, stood Louise Dewey. She was standing in front of the garage at 10050 Cielo Drive and there in the background of that photo.... was the wagon. 

 

August 1945. Ed Sanders might add an oo-ee-oo here too. Here is the whole American Home article. The text on the last page is not about Cielo Drive. In fact, aside from the image captions, there is no text.  Louise took the photographs. I also included the LA Times article about the remodel which mentions the Disney characters and, oddly, a garage 'at the foot of the hill'.  

 

https://wvw.mansonblog.com/pdf/American_Home.pdf

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One more thing. 

I think most people have seen this image. It originally appeared in the November 15, 1969, edition of Paris Match magazine. 

 

The photograph was likely taken in October 1969. The photographer was standing off the north end of the porch, to the right of the walk, just about in front of the window Watson entered that night. Kasabian would have been standing about five feet to his left that night according to the trial exhibit. This is as close as we will ever get to seeing what she saw that night. How many still think she saw the pool from here? 

______

 

Pax Vobiscum

 

Dreath

 

 

 

A Little Something for Halloween

This is a post from Mark Lindsay's (Paul Revere and the Raiders) fan page. I am not the Deb in the first part of the story!  All the pictures were taken at Cielo.  Happy Halloween

THE HOUSE ON CIELO DRIVE – A GHOST STORY

Do I believe in ghosts? Well, if you're talking about spiritual manifestations in the physical world that remain after the body is dead and buried, the answer is yes.

In the 1990s, we were living in Maui but the bi-weekly commute to the east coast to do gigs was time-consuming and expensive, so my wife Deb and I decided on a second residence. We found a grand old (circa 1830) Federal in upstate New York.

The house had a great deal of character, and we soon found out that at least one of the earlier householders was still in residence, so to speak. On many occasions when we were in the dining room or kitchen, we would hear what sounded like footsteps coming from above us on the second story. I'd fling open the door to the second story servants' quarters and dash up the steep, winding staircase, but as soon as I got to the top landing, the sounds would cease.

Several times I saw the legs – just the legs – of a woman dressed in heavy skirts moving swiftly ahead of me up the stairs. This was quite a shock the first time I observed her, and Deb and I soon came to the realization that our new old house might be haunted, but the spirit or whatever was benign and seemed to pose no threat. And after we assured a electrician working on our renovation who had also seen her that she was friendly, we all peacefully co-existed with our “guest” until we sold the place several years later. 

This experience was in stark contrast to the first haunted house where I lived for two years, in 1966 and 1967, at 10050 Cielo Drive. Yes, the place that would soon be known as the infamous "Manson Murder House."

Terry Melcher was a staff producer at CBS Records in Hollywood. His mother, Doris Day, had been a staple at CBS for years, but the new era of rock and roll was exploding and Paul Revere and the Raiders was signed to the label as its first rock act. It seemed natural that Terry, as the youngest producer and the same age as me, should be assigned to produce my group.

Terry and I soon became friends, and he told me he had just leased a house in Benedict Canyon. When he asked if I wanted to move in, share the rent, and write songs together, I jumped at the chance.

The house had a million dollar view, a pool, and peaceful, well-sculpted grounds with a rose garden. The interior at first seemed ideal. There was plenty of room with a master and guest bedroom, as well as a spacious living room with a grand piano and a loft. Across a small entry hall was the kitchen, dining room, and a maid's quarters.

But a couple of weeks after I moved in, I began to sense two areas in this idyllic setting that seemed, well, not quite right. The two bedrooms were in the back of the house and although there was a door from the master to the pool, I always took the long way to the pool, out the front door and around to the back.

The master bedroom just felt "wrong" to me somehow. Although it was much larger than my room, it always seemed cold and a little creepy. I know Terry had a hard time feeling comfortable in his room, and took sleeping pills nightly.

The other area in the house that felt weird to me was the entry hall. It always seemed several degrees colder than the main part of the house, even in the summer's heat, and no one ever lingered there.

A month or so after moving in, I learned that there was perhaps a reason for my odd feelings. Rudy Altobelli owned the property and lived in the guest house that was slightly down the hill. He dropped by one afternoon to visit with Terry and me.

After we'd had a glass or two of wine, Rudy asked if we were superstitious, and we both responded, "No." And then he proceeded to tell us the history of the house. It seemed that several Hollywood luminaries had lived there over the years, but the story of some of the early residents really got our attention.

Rudy said that one of the first couples to occupy the house had been newlyweds, and on their wedding night the bride somehow learned that the groom had cheated on her in the recent past. Supposedly after the marriage was consummated and he was asleep, the new lady of the house took a large knife from the kitchen and stabbed him to death in bed. She then put a bullet in her brain using the small "lady's pistol" that he had given her for protection as one of her wedding gifts.

Rudy told us the whole affair had been hushed up and was never talked about because it would reflect negatively on the real estate value. He said that although the femme fatale's spirit still lingered, she probably wouldn't bother two guys -- although he warned that she didn't seem to tolerate beautiful women very well. "As long as you don't let your girlfriends stay over too long, you should be okay," he warned. And then he went back to his residence, leaving us to ponder.

Over the next few months, I began to believe that Rudy was telling the truth, and that the bride was not only still with us, but quite angry, because strange things began to happen.

Except for the odd feeling in Terry's bedroom and the unexplained temperature drop in the front entry, the house seemed fairly neutral most of the time. However, unless we were writing at the piano or listening to music (which we played at ear-splitting levels), Terry and I felt most comfortable hanging out in the rose garden, which was on the opposite side of the house from the master bedroom.

More and more often, I noticed that Terry was taking downers, Valium and Tuinals, during the day and not just to sleep. The 44 magnum I usually kept in a suitcase in my closet, I now slept with under my pillow. I couldn't put my finger on it, but in the back of my mind I felt like I might need protection.

When I had moved into the house, I brought my studio sound system, including Mcintosh amps and JBL monitor speakers, which I installed in the loft. I also brought my telescope, mounted on a tripod, which we placed in the front entryway. The idea was that if we opened one of the front Dutch doors, we could then use the telescope to check out the view of Beverly Hills and the Pacific Ocean in the distance. I think we did this once, and then the scope just became a fixture in the entrance.

One day, about a month after I'd moved in, Terry and I were both seated on the piano bench, working on a tune. We were kicking some lyrics around when, all of a sudden, there was a loud crash from the vicinity of the front door. We both jumped up and found that the telescope had been knocked over.

The tripod was still open and locked in place, no one else was in the house, we had no pets at the time, and the door was shut tight. We talked about it and agreed there was no way it could have fallen over by itself, but somehow it had!

A few weeks later, when I was sound asleep, the stereo system came on at full volume in the middle of the night. I jumped out of bed and ran into the living room to tell Terry to turn it down, but no one was in the room. I shut it off and went to bed.

The next morning, Terry was upset. It seemed he had picked up one of the go-go girls at The Whiskey, and was at a "critical point in the relationship" when the stereo suddenly started blasting at full volume. I told him I thought he had turned it on, but he vehemently denied it, so we were left with another mystery.

This "stereo in the night thing" happened at least two other times that I remember, and since I was on tour about half the time, I might have missed more of the unwelcome events.

One hot summer day at the end of a series of tour dates, I returned to the house when there was a meeting going on in the living room. Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys was there, and he, Terry, and a prominent attorney were discussing some kind of deal. 

So as not to interrupt, I went into the kitchen to get a cold drink. There was a guy I didn't recognize squatting on the slate floor, leaning against the refrigerator. He was dressed in a blue work shirt and jeans and did not seem too happy.

I tried to open the refrigerator door but the guy wouldn't budge. "Excuse me," I said, but he totally ignored me. I tried again. “Sorry, man, but I'm trying to get in the frig!” He didn't move or even look at me. I walked into the living room and asked, "What's with the weird guy in the kitchen?" 

Dennis said, "Oh, that's just Charlie...he's okay." But he didn't seem very "okay" to me at the time.

This of course turned out to be Charlie Manson, and he was at the house on at least one other occasion. When I was driving up to the house a couple of weeks later, he was just getting into a limo, which then left. Charlie didn't look like the kind of guy who could or would hire a limousine, so I figured Terry or Dennis must have sent one for him.

When I walked into the house, the vibes were not good, so I figured that particular meeting must not have one well. Supposedly, Manson was at least at one other meeting at Cielo, but these are the only two times I saw him there. As I came and went from my trips, I would never know who I might encounter when I returned. I met Hendrix there, Mama Cass, John and Michelle, and a lot of "folkies" and blues musicians.

On one return trip, I walked into the house to discover Terry and Candice Bergen making out on the couch like a couple of teenagers. As time went on, I would find Candy there more and more often. It became obvious that this was becoming somewhat serious and I began to feel like the odd man out in my own house.

The lease was up for renewal in a couple of months, so I told Terry that I would feel more comfortable renting my own place, leaving Candy free to move in. In retrospect, this might not have been such a great idea for their relationship. As soon as I moved out and Miss Bergen moved in, she and Terry began having more and more disagreements and fights, which ultimately culminated in Candy moving out.

This left Terry alone in the house, which I don't think he liked very much. Shortly thereafter he sublet the property to Roman Polanski, and moved to his mom's beach house in Malibu.

Did the spirit who Rudy had said didn't like pretty women stir up the tension to evict Candy?

And did that same spirit inspire Susan Atkins or Tex Watson to take a large knife from the kitchen and brutally stab Sharon Tate?

I guess we'll never know for sure, but I can testify to the fact that strange, unexplained events occurred when I was living there. And at it times, I did sense an undeniable foreboding and a feeling of pervasive darkness emanating from the house at 10050 Cielo Drive.

Randy Starr and The Creeping Terror

The saga of the Tate-LaBianca murders is more massive and complex than any novel by James Michener. The story spans years, locations, and events, and the cast of characters is perfect for the tale. They are varied, individual, interesting, and often quirky (to say the least). Even their names are perfect.  And certainly one person fitting into this murder-tinged mosaic would have been Randy Starr, the black-clad, one-armed cowboy/stunt man who worked at Spahn’s Movie Ranch when Charles Manson and his associates lived there in 1968 and 1969

Randy Starr was born as Joseph Vance Randall on December 13, 1931 in Illinois, USA. Not much is known about his early life, but upon reaching maturity he entered the United States Marine Corps and served as a Private First Class during the conflict in Korea from 1952 to 1954. Upon leaving the service he returned to the midwest. It was there, in Iowa, that Starr was involved in a farming accident wherein his left arm was run over by a tractor. The arm was rendered fairly useless as a result, and it dangled mangled at his side for the rest of his life.

Book from the Randy Starr series of boys adventure books published in the 1930s. It is not known if Joseph Randall was exposed to these books as a child and subsequently adopted the protagonist’s name as his movie alias. 

Although hindered by the loss of one arm Randall didn’t shy away from physical activity, and he eventually made his way to Los Angeles, changed his name to Randy Starr, and pursued a career in the movie and television industries as a bit actor and stunt man. When not  involved with some entertainment project Starr supported himself by working as a ranch hand at Spahn’s Movie Ranch. Starr was living in a trailer at the ranch when Charles Manson and his friends first appeared in the summer of 1968, and he would be present during their entire residency there, including when the murders of the summer of 1969 occurred.

Randy Starr

Randy Starr with George Spahn

Randy Starr publicity propaganda. An associate later wrote, “Randy's stunt gimmick was being dragged or dropped somewhere from a rope around his neck. Being dragged on the ground by a galloping horse was his signature stunt.”

Like everyone else at Spahn’s Ranch, Randy Starr was questioned by law enforcement officers investigating the Tate-LaBianca murders. And Starr made significant contributions to the case against Charles Manson. First, he said that the rope found at the Cielo Drive murder scene was “identical” to rope he had seen in the back of Manson’s dune buggy. More importantly, he identified the .22 caliber Buntline revolver used in the Tate murders as a gun he had once owned before giving it to Manson in exchange for a truck.

Starr testified at the Grand Jury that he saw Manson with a sword in late July of 1969, shortly after the Gary Hinman ear-slashing murder, and that Manson told him, “I cut a guy’s ear off with this.”

Starr also figured in the case during the famous visit to Spahn’s Ranch by Terry Melcher on May 18, 1969 when Melcher came to listen to Manson and his friends play music and sing with the possibility of arranging something professionally. Manson and the others played by the stream in the area behind and below the main ranch set. According to a later newspaper account, “When the group returned from the stream, [Melcher] said there was a strange encounter with a Hollywood stunt man who live at the ranch Randy Starr. He had a six-gun strapped to his waist.

“‘It was a little scary,’ [Melcher said]. ‘It looked like, you know, Dodge City and Marshall Dillon. Randy was going to draw on somebody and Charlie intervened. I think he hit Randy in the stomach and grabbed the gun. I’m glad he did.’”

While Randy star will likely be most remembered for the bit part he played in TLB, he also had a (very) minor show business career on his cosmic resume. A search of his name in the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb) results in a list of three cinematic projects that Starr worked on, one of which, The Creeping Terror, was supposedly partially filmed at Spahn’s Movie Ranch. From IMBd: “The Creeping Terror (1964), on which [Starr] was assistant director, was shot in part at the Spahn Ranch outside of Los Angeles, which was home to the notorious Manson Family, headed by the infamous Charles Manson. Starr later joined the "family", and after the Tate-LaBianca murders it was shown that Starr provided Manson with the gun used in the killings.”

Credit from The Creeping Terror listing Randy Starr as an Assistant Director

Given the inaccuracy of the blurb’s description of Starr’s relationship to “the notorious Manson Family” I wondered if the film was indeed shot at Spahn’s or whether this was just another Mansonian mirage. To find out, I took a look at the film myself. (You can too; it’s here. You can also read some detail about this ill-fated cinematic project in its Wikipedia entry here.)

The Creeping Terror is generally regarded as one of the worst movies ever made, and after viewing the film I would have to concur. Some movies are “good” bad, but this one is just bad bad. Pick any aspect of the production — writing, acting, directing, music, special effects — it’s all bad. (In fact, it’s bad enough that the folks at Mystery Science Theater 3000 had a go at it.) One particularly odd feature is that since the original soundtrack was apparently lost or destroyed a narrator explains much of the dialogue that is clearly going on but cannot be heard. The film’s only redeeming quality is that it is just over an hour long.

Al Lewis (the same name as the actor who played Grandpa on The Munsters television program) is listed in the credits. I didn’t see him when I viewed the film, but I will not watch it again to see if he’s there. Perhaps one of our readers can confirm Grandpa’s presence and add that factoid to the endless encyclopedia of TLB trivia. (Terror is not listed among Lewis' IMDb credits.)

Al Lewis as Grandpa Munster

(Since Manson was incarcerated at the McNeil Island federal penitentiary in 1964 when Terror was filmed it would have been impossible for him and Lewis to have connected at that time. But Lewis eventually did meet Manson, as he recalled in this 2010 article: "In California in [the late sixties] the estimate was that there were at least half a million runaways from the age of eight on, drifting to California. Every Friday I used to have about fifty [to] sixty kids who would wait for me on Sunset Boulevard and I'd take them all to dinner. All runaways. That's how I met Charlie Manson. He wanted to be in the music business. He babysat my three kids ... I met him in front of the Whiskey-A-Go-Go on Sunset Boulevard. He sat for four or five hours, he amused the kids, he brought the guitar and he played, no big deal, no sweat.”)

One interesting feature of Terror is a perhaps prescient “Hootenanny” scene of a young man with a guitar playing for a group of pretty young girls in a meadow. (Like their real-life 1968-69 counterparts, they are all devoured by a monster.)

Many scenes occur at a location described as “Lovers Lane,” which was the actual name of the road leading from the main western set to the back ranch house when Manson and his friends lived there. Is this a case of life imitating art?

Although there is no sign of the western set, many of the outdoor scenes in Terror look like they could have been filmed at Spahn’s, especially near the end. But then, just when you’re thinking, “Yeah, that looks like it could be the ranch,” at the 108.50 mark the characters unmistakably drive past the Outlaw Shacks. No question; case closed.

Above and below, the Outlaw Shacks in The Creeping Terror and Will You Die For Me?

Randy Starr had two more films to his credit after The Creeping Terror. Both were released posthumously. The first was Machismo: 40 Graves for 40 Guns, released in 1971. Starr appears in this film as a bit player described in credits as a “roper.”

Movie poster for Machismo: 40 Graves for 40 Guns

Starr’s last cinematic moment was in Hard On The Trail, which was released in 1972 and is described in IMBd as “a hardcore pornographic film.” I was not able to find this film, so I can't say whether it is actually “hardcore” or is more of a Ramrodder type of soft-core breast fest.

Above and below, movie poster for Hard On The Trail and Randy Starr’s billing

Randy Starr died unexpectedly on August 4, 1970, shortly after the trial of Charles Manson and his co-defendants began. Starr had been anticipated as an important witness for the prosecution because his testimony could have placed the murder weapon (gun) used at the Polanski residence in Manson’s hands. Although the sudden death appeared mysterious and suspicious initially, it was soon revealed that Starr died of “acute purulent meningitis due to or as a consequence of left otitis media and mastoiditis, acute.”  (In other words, he died of an ear infection that spread to his brain.)

Randy Starr’s obituary in the Los Angeles Times

From the Van Nuys Valley News

Upon his death Randy Starr reverted to his original identity and was buried at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Lemay, Missouri (2900 Sheridan Street, St. Louis, MO)  Section 1, Site 2262.

Randy Starr’s military grave

(Thanks to Deb S. for the clarifying info on the arm!)