Tour 2017: Sacramento

The tour our group traveled from our home base in Guerneville to Sacramento. First on the agenda was the spot in Capitol Park where Squeaky pointed an unloaded gun at President Ford on September 5, 1975. The magnolia tree that Squeaky was detained under is believed to be this one according to the description in Jess Bravin's excellent book Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme. Read more about this spot here.

"I stood up and waved a gun (at Ford) for a reason", said Fromme. "I was so relieved not to have to shoot it, but, in truth, I came to get life. Not just my life but clean air, healthy water and respect for creatures and creation." Appropriately, there was a demonstration going on in the park touting among other things, environmental issues.

Next up was a barbecue at Patty and Stoner's house hosted by friend of the blog Dayna B. There were only six of us but there was enough delicious food for a small army. We took a good deal of it back to Guerneville to snack on. Thank you Dayna for your hospitality! And thank you Stoner for cleaning the bathroom!

Once we were good and full we ventured on down to P Street, where Sandra Good and Squeaky famously lived in 1975:


Lastly, we made a quick trip from 17th and P to 10th and Broadway to visit the Old Sacramento City Cemetery to see a headstone that Squeaky and Sandy posed in front of for a German magazine back in the day. Patty was easily able to locate the stone with the help of Farflung: you can see the original post here. Stoner was kind enough to recreate the scene for us and for you, dear reader:

Thank you for your attention. The tour was, in our humble opinions, a grand success.  We look forward eagerly to 2018. We hope you will decide to join us!

Tour 2017: Haight-Ashbury

The NorCal Tour obviously requires swing through the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco. First stop was 636 Cole St. where Manson lived with Mary Brunner, Lynette Fromme and other early members of the group.  During this period they moved around between here, Mendocino and other places. They were couch surfers, so you won't find Manson's name on any lease agreements.

The homes and neighborhoods have been gentrified in recent decades so nomadic young people could never afford to rent the house these days (there was an S-Class Mercedes in the garage that you see on the bottom right of the building).

To give perspective, below is the view down to the corner of Haight St. from the front of the house. It's right in the heart of everything.

Just a few blocks away is the apartment building at 955 Clayton St where Sandra Good live circa 1966 with several people including Joel Pugh before she met Manson.

One door off the corner of Haight & Ashbury is the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic. Abigail Folger volunteered her time here. It was founded by Dr. David E. Smith who along with researcher Alan Rose had extended contact with The Family. You can read more about that HERE.

The Haight evidently has not forgotten its Manson Family footprint. Very close to the famous corner is a bookstore called Booksmith. Just inside the front window on the left sidewall was this tack board:

The "Russian Embassy" house at Alamo Square where Bobby Beausoleil lived for a time with Kenneth Anger. I was pretty impressed. It's a really pretty building. It still seems to be inhabited by phreaks!

The "420 Clock" at the corner of Haight & Ashbury directly across from the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic:

The "Jimi Hendrix House" - 1524 Ashbury St.:

The "Grateful Dead House" - 710 Ashbury St.:

Haight inhabitant:

Tour 2017: NorCal Facts About The Victims

We began the tour in earnest on Thursday morning.  Our first stop was in the Marin County town of Sausalito where Jay Sebring had a houseboat that he rented with a friend.  Jay had opened a new hair cutting salon on Commercial Street in San Francisco in May of 1969.  He stayed at the houseboat while setting up his new shop and on visits to the shop after it was opened.

The houseboat was in what is now called Waldo Point Harbor, it is a large community of docked and seemingly permanently tied up boats often with whimsical additions or bizarre shapes.

We were told that one houseboat, which was for sale, was previously owned by Shel Silverstein, poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist and author who moved to the floating community in 1967.  The one bedroom, one bath houseboat built on a WWII balloon barge is yours for the ridiculously cheap price of $390,000.  Silverstein named his floating home Evil Eye.

Back in 1969 the community was just called Waldo Point and wasn't as organized and legal as today.  We spoke to the folks in the office who were not sure if the same houseboat that Jay had lived on was still there and possibly rebuilt.  However they were interested in making a copy of the following  article we took with us from the August 11, 1969 edition of the San Rafael Daily Independent Journal which tells about Jay and his houseboat.  They did know that Jay had lived there but not the particulars about the boat.

Colonel Paul Tate, Sharon's father, as the article says, often visited Jay on his houseboat because he lived and worked nearby.  Col. Tate was stationed at Fort Baker, a five minute drive from Waldo Point.  It was where Tate was when Doris Tate called him with the news about Sharon's murder.

Fort Baker today is a National Recreation Area  with an absolutely stunning view of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge.

Above are the buildings where Paul Tate would have worked.

We also made the trip to Colma and Holy Cross Cemetery where Abigail Folger is interred. 'Gibby' and her mother are next to each other in the mausoleum at the cemetery.  Going to visit the resting places of the victims is always a very humbling experience.

The San Francisco Bay Area has a surprising number of connections to the murders, we wanted to be sure to include the victims when doing our Northern California tour.

ADDED FOR LYNN:

Tour 2017 -- Mendocino

On Day Two of the 2017 MF Blog Tour our first stop was at the location six miles south of Ukiah where 24-year-old Clyda Dulaney and her 64-year-old mother Nancy Warren were beaten and garroted to death in their side-by-side house trailers on the rainy night of October 13, 1968. Because some friends of Charles Manson were in the area at the time (specifically Mary Brunner, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Ella Jo Baily -- the "Witches of Mendocino"), these two homicides have often been suggested as being possible  murders committed by "the Manson Family." They were not. (If you are unfamiliar with these murders you can get very caught up on the case here.)

Almost fifty years after these brutal killings there is nothing at the scene to remind one of the fatal violence that was visited upon Nancy Warren and Clyda Dulaney there. The area where the two victims' house trailers sat has been cleared and is now the location of a strawberry sales stand. I was surprised how close the location was to busy Highway 101.

The Crime scene today. Note the cars on Highway 101 at left. 

And the berries were very good. 

The researchers here at MF Blog have put considerable time into investigating this notorious unsolved double-homicide. In their view the likely perpetrator of this crime is not the person whom law enforcement and others have long suspected of being the killer. It is also their view that these murders can and should be solved. 

From the site of the Dulaney/Warren murders we proceeded north on Highway 101 to the city of Ukiah, which is the county seat of Mendocino County. There is located the courthouse and county jail where Mary Brunner, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Ella Jo Bailey were incarcerated and processed during their time in the county as the "Witches of Mendocino," a nickname given to them because of their magical behavior in the area. That behavior included giving, on June 21, 1968, a tab of LSD to a 17-year-old boy whose trip was upsetting enough that local law enforcement was called. They in turn arrested Brunner, et al. on various drug-related charges. Surprisingly, the charge for possession of marijuana seeds was considered a felony and was at least as serious as the charge for giving LSD to a minor. (Marijuana is now legal for recreational use in the state of California.)

The Courtroom Entrance

The Courtroom entrance and, on the fourth floor, holding cells for inmates involved in court proceedings.

I wasn't allowed to take my camera into the courthouse. Most of the courtrooms were busy, and the place was active enough that surreptitious cellphone photography was out of the question for me. But it wasn't for Matt.

One of at least seven courtrooms in the Mendocino County Courthouse

A few blocks away from the courthouse is the Mendocino County jail where the women would have stayed between courtroom appearances. 

 From Ukiah we proceeded west on twisty California Route 253 to Boonville, where we hooked up with Deb for lunch. She then took us west on Highway 128 to the place on Gschwend Road where the carelessly dispensed LSD triggered the whole Witches scenario. Formerly called the Alice Ostrum Price house (named after the residence's 1968 owners) the property now features a new house built on the same footprint as the house where the acid incident occurred. It was remotely located on a dirt section of Gschwend Road quite a ways off of HIghway 128. In fact, it was remote enough that it didn't seem like a good idea to linger too long outside of the property snapping photos of the house. We didn't stay there too long.

At the property on Gschwend Road

After leaving Gschwend we continued west on Highway 128 until it intersected with Highway 1 on the coast. Right there, on a beach just south of where the Navarro River empties into the Pacific Ocean, is where Charles Manson, Mary Brunner, and Lyn Fromme camped and stayed in a small trailer during their wandering times between the Mendocino and San Francisco areas in 1967.

The camping area at the beach

The beach, looking south

The view north

The location was beautiful. And in fact, some people on the tour remarked that Manson and his friends seemed to have a talent for picking beautiful places to live.

The beach at Navarro was the last official tour stop of the day. The next several hours were spent winding down Highway 1 towards Jenner and seeing some of the finest coastal scenery that California has to offer. It was a fitting end for a full day.

Tour 2017: The James Willet Murder Area

Today Stoner & I ventured into the area in Guerneville where James Willett was murdered and his headless remains were found in 1972. Willet and his young wife Lauren became acquainted with Manson Girls Nancy Pitman, Maria Alonzo & Priscilla Cooper and lived in Guerneville with Michael Monfort, James "Spider" Craig and Billy Goucher. That trio of ex-cons made their living by travelling to LA and committing armed robberies.

To make things worse, Lauren was having an affair with Spider Craig.

James Willett decided that enough was enough and wanted to leave the group with Lauren and their baby Heidi.

Monfort, Craig and Goucher decided that the risk of Willett snitching about the armed robberies was too great, so they lured him into this wooded area and tricked him into digging what would shortly become his own shallow grave. To make sure all hands were dirty, all three pumped ammo into him.

It is unclear if Lauren approved. She did though follow the group to Stockton where she herself was in turn murdered.

You might remember this map from THIS POST. It's worth the re-read to gain perspective:

Manson Blog Featured in Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller

FLASHBACK: Mexico Deported Charles Manson As An ‘Undesirable Alien’ In 1960

 Mexico deported Charles Manson, the gruesome cult killer, in 1960 after Mexican officials identified Manson an “undesirable alien.”

The deportation occurred on June 1, 1960, according to a newspaper clipping from the Laredo Morning Times unearthed by Deborah Silva of The Manson Family Blog.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/29/flashback-mexico-deported-charles-manson-as-an-undesirable-alien-in-1960/

Tour 2017: Slipping in the Mix with Steve Grogan

On our first day we dropped in on Steve Grogan. He was performing in Oakland at a terrific vegan restaurant with a band headed by the very talented and gregarious Melvin Leonard. The band began with some soothing, smooth jazz numbers. They also covered tunes by artists as diverse as Santana, War and Ernie K-doe. They also played some tunes from their CD. They were terrific!

Below are a couple of videos. Please pardon my shaky hand. Well worth the trouble to watch. Please enjoy.