One of the trailers on Spahn Ranch. Not sure of where the trailer sat at the ranch.  Possibly it may have sat at the back ranch. 

42 years ago today: It Begins

The story of Bernard "Lotsapoppa" Crowe

July 1st 1969-Charlie needed some money and ordered Tex to find some. Tex called his ex girlfriend Louella for money. She had none to give. Charlie again told Tex to get some money. Tex came up with a scam to burn someone. He called Louella with a really good deal on some weed. She hooked him up with a drug dealer Bernard Crowe.

Crowe and his crew drove Tex to the apartment where he would buy the weed. Slick Tex went into the building by the front door with Crowe's $2,500 and kept going right out the back door where T.J was waiting with the getaway car. Back to the ranch. After some time Crowe knew he was burned. He called the ranch demanding his money back or he was coming to the ranch to kill everybody.

On July 1, 1969 Charlie went to meet Crowe at his apartment to "smooth things over". He ended up shooting Crowe. After Crowe hit the floor Charlie demanded the buckskin jacket one of Crowe's henchmen was wearing. He quickly turned the jacket over to Charlie (see arrest photos below in which he is wearing said jacket).  After that T.J.split the whole scene and reappeared after the arrests.

The next day on the radio was a broadcast about someone dumping a dead Black Panther near U.C.L.A the night before. Charlie assumed it was Crowe.

The paranoia begins. All of a sudden there were alot of black people visiting the ranch riding the horses. Charlie was convinced all the black people were spies for the Black Panthers. That was when Charlie started posting armed guards at night and ordering the Family to sleep scattered in the back hills. This was the beginning of the end: the seed of the killings to come.

Oh Boy! Photoshop

By using Photoshop, we are able to create a panoramic view of the entire area called the Snake Pit and Topanga beach. This is a complete view of the area during the time that the family would have been frequenting it in late 68' or early 69'.  The points of interest are numbered and listed accordingly to the attached key. Both images are relevant  to the key. Typically, the points of interest in this area are posted individually. This makes it difficult to get a mental picture of what the area actually looked like and what was where. Now you can, thanks to Photoshop. If there is anything missing, let us know and we'll add it to the image appropriately. Hope you like it!

Books on E-Bay

 I was over at E-bay today and there is a book called "Surfin' With Satan."  Apparently it is about Dennis and Charlie.   It costs $153.23 marked down from $199.99.  At the bottom of the description it says Sold Out.  Soooooo  do they have it or not?  Either way $153.23 is insane for a book.  You can view a few of the pages as well.
I didn't see anything new or, any new pictures either.  On the front page it says it will be for sale for 11 days.  But if you click on it, it says sale ends in 6 hours.
Did someone say "sketchy ass rip off?"
Oh yeah, Little Paul's book is there too for $75.00.  
"Taming the Beast" for $ 7 dollars and eighty eight cents, cheap as hell. (i have no number eight key) and another "Taming" for $19.99.
"Manson In His Own Words" for $20.00.


 http://cgi.ebay.com/Surfin-Satan-Charles-Manson-Limited-Sold-Out-OOP-/190544302735?pt=Antiquarian_Collectible&hash=item2c5d53528f#ht_945wt_698

Surfin' with Satan

THE STRANGE CASE OF
CHARLIE MANSON AND THE BEACH BOYS

Creation Books 2010

Documents of Culture X-Series, Volume 1

Behind the 60s media images of bronzed surfers and nude hippies frolicking in the California sun, lay a far grimmer reality: Hell’s Angels dealing in drugs, prostitution and violence; occultism; race hate; venereal disease; rape; and a strange, homicidal “family” gathering like scorpions in the desert.



It was against this convergent backdrop of increasingly dark forces that two men – one, a wealthy rock star from The Beach Boys, and the other, an unknown but messianic career criminal – crossed paths in the summer of 1968.
 music and hedonism, Manson’s rock-star aspirations and formative murder manifesto Helter Skelter – and the way in which they briefly and fatefully intertwined. With over 50 telling photographs.SURFIN’ WITH SATAN is an in-depth, illustrated analysis of the relationship between Charles Manson and Dennis Wilson, with background details on both men’s ongoing preoccupations – Wilson’s 

Large format chapbook (8.5 X 11 inches), 40 pages, coated art paper, saddle-stitched, 52 photographic images.

A LIMITED COLLECTOR'S EDITION
(69 COPIES ONLY)

SOLD OUT

Fillipo Tennerelli

Another possible Manson slaying in the Eastern Sierra, was a man named Fillipo Tennerelli. Tennerelli was found dead in a hotel in Bishop in October of 1969 of a shotgun blast to the head. The death was ruled a suicide at the time, but some highway patrol officers became suspicious of the official cause of death when weeks after the death of Tennerelli, they found his car over the edge of Father Crowley Point, in the Panamint Valley and on the way to Barker Ranch. CHP reports from 1969 say that officers found “quite a bit of blood inside the vehicle.” More blood was found on the outside of the Volkswagon, leading investigating officers to suspect foul play.

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/6094/evidencemountsformanson.jpg

 

 

Read Something

http://www.chrishuston.com/dinner-with-charlie/

Police removed several cameras from Cielo.  
Below are the photos from the film found in 
Sharon's camera. These pictures were promptly 
returned to the Tate family. 
They were from Sharon and Romans last vacation.  
Thanks to a friend of the blog for the pics and info.




Anyone know who the blonde is?

 

No clue who he is.  He is in a few more shots.
Anybody?

 Lookin' Sexy.  Anyone?

Is Roman giving him a shot of dilaudid in the ass?

Caviar anyone?

eww

“Hey, Charlie… Black Beard Charlie!”

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

“Hey, Charlie… Black Beard Charlie!”

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

Book Report: Love Sex Fear Death (The Inside Story of The Process Church of the Final Judgment)

Feral House, c 2009

The Process has gone through many incarnations since its inception in the early 1960’s: in chron order the group has been known as Compulsions Analysis, The Process, The Process Church of the Final Judgment, The Foundation Church of the Millenium, The Foundation Faith of the Millenium and ultimately Best Friends. Founders Robert and Mary Ann De Grimston were named “suppressive persons” by Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard for using the E-meter and other Scientology-based techniques. Those familiar with the Manson case will remember a lawsuit that The Process won against Ed Sanders, who was ordered to remove all mention of the Process in later editions of his book, The Family.

Author Timothy Wyllie was an original member who left the group in the mid 70’s. Wyllie was a highly privileged “Inner Processean” (as opposed to a lower ranking Outer Processean or acolyte) who took the name “Father Micah.” He recently wrote and edited a book of memoirs entitled Love Sex Fear Death which is named after some of the early zines which The Process printed and sold as a way to chat up new membership on the streets. Today, Wyllie is mostly interested in what he describes as “non human intelligence.” Initially however, the Process philosophy had to do with rejecting scapegoating and blame in favor of personal responsibility and control over one’s own mind. This is what first attracted Wyllie to the group. Later, The Process became quagmired in an elaborate theology that included Christ, Satan and Lucifer among others (Processean dogs which were mostly German Shepherds were named after these gods), which might change at a moment’s notice upon the whim of Robert “the Messiah” and Mary Ann “the Oracle,” who later became extremely reclusive and known collectively as “the Omega.”

Wyllie does briefly mention some of the purported connections with the Manson Family outlined in Ed Sander’s original book. Specifically, he mentions a Process coffeehouse that existed briefly in Haight Ashbury in 1967, the same year that Charlie met Susan Atkins and Ella Jo Bailey there while living on Cole Street among other places. He also relates how The Process were considered Satanists by the general public and hence lumped in with Anton LaVey’s people with whom Sadie was, of course, very well acquainted. Wyllie is very dismissive of any and all connections as an artifact of the fashionable faux Satanism craze of the late sixties and early seventies. He claims to never have met Charlie or any of the girls to the best of his recollection.

The Process’ social structure and beliefs resembled The Family’s in many ways. Both groups were millenarian and taught that the end of the world was coming very soon. Both stressed the importance of getting back to nature and love for the animals, and both endorsed communal living and communal care of their children. Furthermore, donations from new recruits in a Ponzi-esque scheme also kept both The Process and The Family afloat. Ways that the Process differed from the Family include their prohibition of recreational drugs, tight control over sex and “spiritual” marriage, and an absence of illicit crime like theft, prostitution, rape and/or murder. Also, the tendency of The Process’ leadership was to be extremely reclusive rather than publicity seeking like Charlie. Nevertheless, rank and file Processeans were encouraged to try and recruit celebrity membership and as such encountered numerous celebrities including Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, Miles Davis, Marianne Faithfull, George Clinton, Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Rubin and our friend Paul Krassner.

The remaining members of The Process formed Best Friends Animal Sanctuary which was featured in the National Geographic reality television series Dogtown. Mary Ann Mac Lean nee De Grimston nee De Peyer died on November 14, 2005 in seclusion on the property in Kanab, Utah. She had reportedly been in a comatose state for two years in a home which had been built to resemble an Egyptian Temple (note: Patty wonders if it is still there six years later?). Most of the staff there are no longer Processeans but a few of the old timers can be located by perusing the Best Friends’ online staff directory. Also on their website is a brand new logo: a sweet looking puppy dog face which if examined closely still eerily resembles two “P”s. Compare this with the original Process logo which is purportedly comprised of four "P”s: one pointing in each direction of the compass. (Patty is just dying to say it: oo-EE-oo!)
before>

after>


see http://www.bestfriends.org/ for more info on what is left of The Process and an interesting if not biased mini-history that serves as counterpoint to Wyllie's book.

They will never tell