Bill Nelson Part One

Bill Nelson might be the most interesting of the Manson researchers who went crazy on the quest. He is tagged fifteen times in posts along the right column of this blog. While researching Tex Watson last week, I fell into Nelson's twenty-nine page pdf manuscript. A madcap binge of all things Nelson followed. I hoped to create a sort of Cliff's Notes for noobs and maybe a quick reference guide for everyone else. 

There's too much tomfoolery for a single post. 

A one-dimensional slash across Nelson's one-dimensional face - nasty as he became - isn't fair. Bill Nelson was a complicated man. I went searching for a starting point, failed, and asked secret agent Deb for help. Within an hour, I was falling down the rabbit hole. 

Nelson's cumulative stats senior year of high school. No GPA. I'm unsure how someone plays on the football team and marches with the Color Guard but maybe that's why the numbers are included. Just one year of track. No hurdles records. 

I hope the Nelson's weren't related. Thanksgiving Dinner might be rough. "Didya hear NASA made Joe a supervisor?" 

"Pish-posh. Bill sent Sadie Mae Glutz a nightie."

Nelson entered the Navy after high school and served during Vietnam. 

He married a pretty gal in a beautiful dress.

Nelson doxxed. I won't return serve but he's gotta pay something. You can't follow little kids around and expect compassion.

A friend sent me a Manson saga version of the Stages of Grief. Stage One is Jailbait Orgy Obsession. Did Nelson never move beyond Stage One? 

Hindsight is 20/20 but this interview with Snake Lake is heavy on the cringe regardless. Slime oozes from his words. Nelson asks about her sex nickname at age fifteen. You will find a baby GreenWhite comment below the post from back when I thought I could solve things. Shudder. 

You think you know people? 

Nelson knew people. He was in with the prosecution, the victims' families, the incarcerated, and the Family. He worked with Court TV filming parole hearing. And sold Manson stuff on his website. We will never see his like again. 

Going after Sandy was a mistake. Nelson grew comfortable terrorizing inmates and moved into the private sector. Before long, a little bird whispered into Stimson's ear and Nelson was finished. Sex charges involving minors. Oh, Bill. 

Do we separate the art from the artist? His research for the 25th anniversary update of Helter Skelter was solid. Nelson brought a lot to the study but will time remember him? Will his name come up when they're arguing race war in seventy-five years? 

Tracking back through Internet history, I struggled to find Nelson supporters. 

Nelson never attempted to cozy up with Family men. The ladies were his special concern. Jumping from new friend to new friend on his climb to the top, the researcher chewed them up and spit them out. When someone from the Family answered one of his syrupy letters, Nelson sold copies of the reply.  

He stole the show at LVH's parole hearing. Lulu ran back to her room while Nelson yucked it up in his goofy Hawaiian shirt. That video remains on Bret's YouTube page if you remember Bret. Last year, a decade after his death, Bret's page began sharing scammy, unrelated content. They get no links. 

Without question, Nelson craved dune buggy time machine sex with the Spahn's girls. How a square like him ever imagined he stood a chance is baffling. Listen to that convo with Lake. Yikes!

But Nelson's biggest boner was reserved for Mr. Watson. Maybe to play Bugs to Tex's Manson and rake in that cold cash. Brothers-in-arms selling paperbacks until the end of time. Except no Gentry on Team Nelson. Another mistake. Nelson wrote like a middle schooler.  

Or maybe he thought Tex was the star of the production? 

Jealousy over finding himself excluded from prison parking lot sex with Watson's wife in a wood-paneled trailer also crossed my mind. But maybe a few years before Kristin Joan Svege became Mrs. Tex Watson. Nellie liked them green. 

Kristin and her parents steamed into New York from Norway the last day of August 1961. She was two years old or almost two. Kristin and her mother are US citizens. 

The future Mrs. Tex attended Asbury Park High School. Below is her yearbook photo from 1974. The Boss was ten years older and attended Catholics schools. Miami Steve was born in Massachusetts but grew up in Middletown, New Jersey. Bruce came to see him play in '65 and the rest is history. 

Tex and Kristin's wedding announcement in the Sacramento Bee. The Secret Service agent behind Nixon looks like Watson. Baseball player Rod Carew poses with the former US President.

After a week spent reading, watching online, and bothering people about Bill Nelson's obsession with Tex Watson, I walked away shaking my head. Dude lost his mind trying to be chief Manson expert and former young love confidant. A sigh of relief went up from every Manson circle when Nelson exited this mortal coil in 2005.

If we don't discuss Nelson's Tex book in the comments, I'll write about it next week. 

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Bonus Material:

What happened in your brain, Bill? 

I'm interested in learning more about Mr. Nelson if you're willing to share. +ggw

Gail Bugliosi Calls Hef Her Good Friend

A&E is kicking off a ten part documentary series, Secrets of Playboy, Monday at 9 pm EST. One of the big reveals is Hef was fascinated by Charles Manson. Someone claims Hef had Manson home videos and studied them. He also studied Helter Skelter. 

I hope Gentry got a night in the Grotto, gratis. Hook a writer up every once in awhile. 

Another person pretends they're shocked because Hef was great friends with Sharon Tate and blah blah blah Charlie. Anyway, I thought you might want to check it out. 

Oh, Mrs. Bugs says Hef, "Couldn't have been a better friend to all of the people he invited to his home."

If you say so, Mrs. Bugs. 

You Can Do The Devil's Business For $85 Million Bucks

A gaudy monstrosity complete with a couch for your American flag. "PIG" door not included. 

Will You Die Imprisoned? Tex Watson Parole Hearing - 10/15/2021

Sometimes a person makes a giant mistake and kills another person. They do their time and live with themselves and their consequences. When they die, maybe they meet their maker. 

But not every killer stabs a pregnant woman in her hands while she covers her unborn baby. Or carves WAR into a fellow the following evening. That stuff falls into another category. I don't have a name for the category but something like sickos-who-get-off-on-terrorizing-and-murdering works just fine. 

Thanks as always to almighty Cielo  for providing me with new ways to embarrass myself each week. Tex Watson went up for parole again just over ninety days ago. If you search "Inmate Watson" inside of the pdf things go faster. Tex conducts business like an executive on a Zoom meeting and says "uh" every third word.

Tex's excuses: 

Insecurity. 

Charlie turned my brains into noodles but at first I thought it was a game. 

Meth. 

Demonic Oppression. 

Possession. 

DUN DUN DUN! 

Lightning flashes and just like that, Old Mr. Scratch is back in town. Tex could not sound crazier if he tried. I know he doesn't expect the board to nod like sages and surprise him at the gate with a free Uber but come on. 

A white Prius pulls up. Tex dashes past Debra Tate and an angry mob. "Where we goin, pal?" 

"The knife store and I ain't got all day."

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Linda update. I was unsure if I'd seen this before. 

"Yeah, so like the craziest thing happened, Commissioner Gordon. Dennis Wilson was hitchhiking around Los Angeles one day. I stopped and he took me to meet Charlie Manson. What's crazy is Dennis met Charlie after picking up hitchhikers from Charlie's group! I mean what are the odds in a city that big? Oh, and also I was feeling less insecure because the Beach Boys were my friends." 

Remorse? Manipulation? I promise I have feeling(s) now? Please never let him out.

Ever become possessed but then find yourself unpossessed and remember you are out murdering people because a smaller dude said hey go kill for me? Me neither but life is slow here. 

"I'm scared of Karate even when I've got a gun."

I hoped the Commissioner would ask why Abigail's face was slashed but he did not. Maybe next time. The Parole Board sent Tex back to his room when they'd heard enough. Goodbye, we think you're a monster was written between the lines in the official minutes. +ggw 

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Bonus Material:

Tex in Witness to Evil. 

French comic book: 

The Freewheelin' Mark Ross

Our dude in a high school yearbook scene.

             

Let's do the Time Warp again...

Several posts covering the man known as Mark Ross during his Manson days can be found along the right side of this blog. Ross is now called Aesop Aquarian. Let's use his former name during this discussion to avoid confusion. 

I grabbed a bit of backstory if you're interested in a refresher or new to the study and unfamiliar with Ross. Here's a quick read by DebS you will find on different sites, often uncredited, that was posted here first. This piece by St. Circumstance discusses Ross's connection to filmmaker Robert Hendrickson. 

A comment popped up on the blog in 2020 (screen capped below) that sent me searching for proof on some of the claims. My brain typically shuts down after the eighth sentence in every giant rambling paragraph but I gave the school stuff a shot for us. 

No one ever mentions Ross's school by name online but I suppose we all cut-and-paste every now and then. You'll sometimes see The Desert Sun School sensationalized as a learning institution for delinquents although I was unable to verify that claim. Rich delinquents, maybe. Tuition at Desert Sun was $4000 each year while Ross, Diane Linkletter ('66), and Sinatra's kids attended the school. At USC, tuition bled parents for $960 in 1961. 

Mark might've been class of '61 and not '62 at Desert Sun. Here he is with Frank Sinatra Jr. two years before Junior's famous kidnapping. 

The dear old campus lodge.

Beefcake Days Revisited! Hubba Hubba! 

None of these slick f*ckers anticipated the Internet. That's a bearded, longhaired Ross doing his best Lee Marvin while pudgy in paisley and displaying his oral fixation. Ross used a nom de plume and trashed his pretend homies in Argosy Magazine forty-five days before jury selection began for Charlie and the girls' trial in 1970. A friend indeed. 

And then a quick shower and drive down to the courthouse to hang with the peeps he's helping bury. Not that they needed assistance. 

Here is the full episode of Ross playing Charlie during the second season ('75) of the American television detective show, Starsky and Hutch. The title of the episode is Bloodbath. David Soul wants to kill Ross and I don't blame him. In maybe Soul's best scenes in the series, his fake Charlie overacts until viewers (me) are nauseous. Ross's character is named Simon Marcus, which might be a play on the evil magician from the Book of Acts, Simon Magus, and Ross's first name, but I'm guessing. 

After reading everything I could find on Ross, methinks the Family greatly underestimated him like they underestimated his cronies Hendrickson, Huntington, and Merrick. While the latter three have passed, Ross remains above ground at this writing. His net worth is listed online at $1.5 million (US dollars). 

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Bonus Stuff:

Linkedin provides a background in psychology and acting for our once handsome saboteur. Interesting combination. For the craft, I'm sure. 

Ross played the 3rd Lead of Theseus in a Banff production of the Bard's Midsummer Night's Dream. Some of his lines accompanied him to old George's movie ranch where he updated them for his dupes. Pretty pretty gurlll...

And...

Let's wrap up today with a list of Desert Sun School Rules published in 1964. Makes me wonder what kind of shenanigans were taking place on and off campus. Clearly, the English teacher was not consulted before the mimeograph machine went into action. +ggw

Joan Huntington - Writer - Oscar Nominated 1973 Robert Hendrickson Manson Documentary

I went chasing rabbits instead of Omicron over New Year's weekend. My constant and faithful companion was chocolate in obscene amounts. Self-loathing accompanied the binges and was drowned in endless eggnog coffees. My beloved Buckeyes won the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, against a bunch of state school Mormons from Utah. Indoor bike races everyone claimed to win happened here and Monopoly games I escaped took place in the evenings. 

I hope your weekend was smashing. 

The road to Joan Huntington was a big circle. Inside the Manson Gang (2007) was the first stop. Manson from 1973 came next, out of order like Matthew and Mark, after I found myself unable to stop asking why the girls would say some of the things they said. Both films could be alt titled: How To Ensure You & Your Friends Remain Proper F*cked Forever.

There's a moment early on in Inside where one of the girls says something like I've been thinking about letting someone believe they're making one movie but it's actually another movie. Outside of that single line as a possible motivator, I was baffled. Knives? Davey Crockett rifles? The Neverland outfits?  

Dudes. Ya gotta know they're playing you. And Nancy stop digging in your ear. 

The girls did not realize what they were up against. Too much naive faith in their mojo maybe and steep prices were paid for sure. Just an all-around terrible idea. Their parents must've thought they lost their minds. 

A double shot of Hendrickson drove home how important the filmmaker is to the foundation of this study. I'd prefer a comedy voiceover on the 2007 edit but then I'm cynical. Either way, his footage and interviews remain huge in this community five years after Hendrickson's death. 

Some in our community agree with Hendrickson's take on the Family and others are offended. The offended folks always mention the film had a script and the girls read from them. Again, why? And who wrote the script? 

Hendrickson says in the 2007 film that financier Laurence Merrick and his people joined when the project was half completed. Merrick was older and from Israel. That might be him doing the weird Charlie voiceover sounding like an Israeli who watches Cheech and Chong movies. Hendrickson was twenty-seven or twenty-eight and the Spahn's Ranch kids confused him even though Mary and Gypsy were contemporaries, and he does not have a writing credit anyway. 

Enter Joan Huntington. Only her and Merrick are listed as writers on Manson. 

Huntington passed last June. She was nine years older than Sharon Tate but did the same beautiful women spots in Los Angeles sitcoms and tv shows. Beverly Hillbillies and so on. 

Huntington's husband, Laurence Merrick was mortally wounded in the parking lot of his business by a crazy man who believed Merrick and others performed a black magic ritual on him during a class held inside the building. Because Merrick ran an acting school, everyone assumed he was acting when he crashed through the door announcing he was shot. 

Some of Huntington's one liners in Hendrickson are as good as any top action film. She was a smart lady who might've helped the victims get a bit of long-term revenge. Please enjoy this screen cap of Huntington's tail right after she changed from a cat to a human on Season 3 Episode 7 of tv's Bewitched. I thought the tail would disappear with the rest of her cat parts but it did not and no explanation was offered. 

Nosy Gladys Kravitz across the street sees the cat change into Huntington's character, Eva, and calls in two city council members to investigate. Links to the full version and a shortened version are below. Here is thirty-two year old Huntington at the feet of Paul Lynde (OHIO!), Dick York, and Elizabeth Montgomery. 

The Say Hey Kid Willie Mays is in this episode too. Turns out he's a warlock or whatever male witches are called in the tv show. Mays zaps himself away from a Halloween Party at just before midnight to "the ballpark." Elizabeth Montgomery tells Dick York that's the reason Mays hits so many home runs. The scene is edited out of the shorter version below. 

 Honorable Dick York resisting the advances of Huntington. What a guy. 

Big problem. Just like Cinderella, Huntington turns back into a cat at midnight, and Elizabeth Montgomery keeps her marriage. 

This episode aired the week of Halloween, 1966. America remains number one although internal discontent bubbles and burps. The draft lottery is three years in the future but almost half a million Americans are in Vietnam and offshore. Six thousand Americans will die in Vietnam in 1966, and the US government will claim sixty-one thousand Vietcong deaths. 

Charlie strums his guitar at Terminal Island. Mary shelves books while Squeaky avoids her father while Dennis avoids his father. Bewitched finishes in a three way tie for seventh highest rated tv show of the year along with two other programs Huntington guest stars on, Daktari and Beverly Hillbillies. 

Bigger picture, Huntington is half a decade away from a writing credit on an Oscar nominated documentary that will help shape American history. Wild. 

+ggw

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Bewitched S3E7 edited but better player on IMDBtv. 

Bewitched S3E7 full episode but small player on Youtube.

Episode fan page with continuity errors. Did you notice Boris was inside the party before arriving at the party? 

Episode page on Rotten Tomatoes.

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The Manson Family Blog is now in its twelfth year. Thanks to all the readers, writers, and commenters who got us here. 

Ivor Davis

Davis/Harrison 1964. Express Newspapers photo credit. 

Last week, I read Manson Exposed: A Reporter's 50 Year Journey into Madness and Murder by Ivor Davis. Nearly five hundred pages in length with sources, author notes, and etc, the Kindle version of Davis' book set me back five bucks. Davis also accompanied the Beatles on their first American tour and wrote about their adventures together. His links are at the bottom of this page.  

I'm feeling Joan Didion's passing a bit more than I would've imagined. I love Didion's version of the Sixties and search for her thoughts on this or that often while digging through the times. Slouching Toward Bethlehem should be on every Manson syllabus. Didion is cheap on Amazon if you're interested and likely free online if you spend a moment searching. Kindle readers are in luck. Didion's collected essays are available for the price of a small latte. 

Born after the 1960's, I rely on others to fill in the blanks for me on this stuff. Bo Emerson. Youtube. The Internet in general. I always say the comments sections here and elsewhere taught me as much as the posts. And I'm usually down to check out any Youtube discussion on the subject. This interview from Christmas week was an easy watch and the foundation of my post today. The quotes at the bottom of the post are from the interview and not the book. 

Ivor Davis first entered our study with Five to Die in 1970. The following is from Davis' Amazon page. 

At the time, I was the West Coast correspondent for one of Britain's largest circulating newspapers and my editors immediately assigned me to find out everything I could about this senseless massacre that was instant front page news around the world. What happened that balmy Summer's night became one of the most infamous chapters in the history of brutal murder in America. 

Eventually Charles Manson and his band of pitiful souls were arrested not only for the Tate murders but also for those of Los Angeles businessman Leno LaBianca, 44, and his 38-year-old wife Rosemary, whose bodies were found one day after the Beverly Hills killings in a house in Silver Lake some 13 miles from the first murder scene. 

A colleague, Jerry LeBlanc, and I wrote a fast book about the Manson murders called Five to Die. We had an early start on the case. As soon as the story broke that Manson, who had been taken into custody at the remote Barker Ranch in Death Valley on October 12, l969 more than two months after the murders, was a key suspect in the case, we began to dig into his background and that of his "family." Remarkably, as we progressed, we seemed to be several steps ahead of police investigators. 

Our book was rushed out in paperback in January 1970, seven months before the trial began. It was the very first book to catalogue the bizarre story of life with Charlie Manson. Several years later, long after I had covered the trials which resulted in first degree murder convictions for Manson and four of his acolytes, Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, I met former Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Aaron Stovitz. He had been head of the DA's trial division and the lead prosecutor in the case before he was removed by the District Attorney for contravening the Judge's gag order. 

Much to my astonishment Stovitz dropped a bombshell. "Your book was the blueprint for our prosecution," he said. "It was all there for us to follow." Five to Die had not been a best seller and it received scant attention at the time it was swiftly overtaken by new developments as the sensational trial unfolded.

You can pay a lot for Five to Die online. It's also out there gratis. Either way, Stovitz's bombshell got Davis moving on Manson Exposed...

To this crowd, Davis' book will resemble a long magazine piece. Some of that has to do with your inquisitive nature and lifetime spent peeking behind curtains. The remainder comes from the author's lack of desire to stray far from center these days as far as I can tell. Davis says he thought Helter Skelter was laughable but also recognized others like Lynette Fromme believed Manson was innocent and should be released. 

Davis also claims in his book that Fromme threatened him outside the courthouse and asked if knew how a sharp knife shoved down a throat felt or something along those lines. 

Yikes but also what are you doing tonight after court? 

Apologies. I made quick decisions on women for an embarrassing number of years and some of that is still inside me even though I'm old. Let's get back to it. 

Charlie was in court over dune buggy shenanigans in Independence, California, on December 3, 1969. Davis and Steve Dunleavy were there. This was Manson's first court date after Barker. Even though the charge was Receiving Stolen Property, guards brought him in with an extra security chain around his waist. I could not find any evidence Manson acted out in jail during his seven-ish week incarceration before the court date and even found contradictory evidence.

From cielodrive.com:  

"Manson is most definitely still the leader of the three other guys,” an officer said. “He gives them orders and they obey him. 

“We find Manson a model prisoner. He should be. He’s been in and out of jail since he was 15 years old. He seems to be very intelligent and well-read with a good vocabulary.”

The deputy continued, “Manson is cooperative and talkative to a point, but careful not to implicate himself in anything.”

This is the beginning of the jail stint where Charlie complains they won't let him shave or visit a jailhouse barber. Newspaper, tv, and radio hopped right on Manson's shaggy appearance and chains. According to Davis, the LA dicks took Manson to Los Angeles following his plea of Not Guilty.  

Remembering the trials in Los Angeles, Ivor goes in on Ronald Hughes' then recent UCLA Law School graduation, Hughes' garage office, and Daye Shinn's specialty in helping people apply for green cards. "Inept lawyers."  

On Manson: "He was quite eloquent. He made sense." Davis was present while Charlie testified for an hour with the jury removed. According to Davis, when asked by the bench if he'd repeat everything he'd just said but with the jury present, Manson refused to testify. The girls jumped to their feet and said the same about themselves. 

Expressing shock over the defense strategy, Davis said, "The lawyers all got up and said we have no evidence to present." The author/journalist believes Helter Skelter worked because the jury saw the girls following Charlie's orders in court. 

On Watkins: "Paul looked like a young Clark Gable. Smooth demeanor. Knew how to talk to people." 

On Charlie's ability to conquer female minds: "He had the gift of the gab. Within an hour, these girls had become a disciple." 

Will the book change your life? No. Did I have fun word searching and date hopping for $4.99 even if I forgot for a year and a half that I own the book? Yes. 

If you have thoughts on Ivor Davis and his role in the Manson study, please let me know below. 

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In fairness and because I've read his post several times over the past few years, my blog colleague George Stimson had this to say about Davis and Five to Die. 

If I took a Stimsonesque or Schreckian position, or even without taking one, I notice the Ventura photo of Charlie has been filtered, redrawn, whatever'd, and Manson looks apelike on the front cover of the newest Davis book. 

But like an evil, hypnotizing ape amirite? Genius and idiot all rolled into one. +ggw

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Stimson books.

Ivor Davis bio at The Authors Guild.

Ivor Davis books on Amazon.

Ivor Davis home. 

A bit on Ivor and The Beatles for Fab Four aficionados and fans. 

Merry Christmas!

 

You Don't Really Care 4 Music Do Ya?

 

Merry Christmas ya filthy animals!!!! 

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Alt versions:

Wainwright and Choir! 

Morgan James