Danny DeCarlo's Rap Sheet

 

Danny DeCarlo 1959

The latest document drop from Cielodrive was a group of rap sheets. We have seen a few of them already but one we haven't seen is Danny DeCarlo's rap sheet.

According to Danny's father's naturalization records Danny was born June 20, 1944 in Toronto Canada. The family came to the United States March 18, 1952.

Almost all of the rap sheets we have seen were issued by the California Department of Justice in Sacramento (even Charles Manson's rap sheet) but Danny's was issued by the United States Department of Justice in Washington DC so the form looks a bit different.

At sixteen years old Danny was arrested for the possession of a snap blade in Los Angeles County. Today a snap blade knife is a utility knife with short blades that can be snapped off when becoming too dull to cut. 

Back in 1961 a snap blade knife differed from a switch blade knife, which was opened by pushing a button, lever or switch so that the blade could extend by either coming straight out of the handle or pivoting from the handle. A snap blade knife could be opened by simply snapping the wrist so that the blade would pivot out from the handle. 

July 5, 1961 Danny joined the United States Coast Guard at 17 years old. He appears to have served his four year committment before getting in trouble with the law again. His service number is provided if anyone wants to try to get his service records though it may be impossible because unless you are the person named in the records you will need to show that the person has died.

Nov. 6, 1965 Danny was arrested for possession of a weapon in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Four months later he was arrested by the US Marshal's for smuggling marijuana. He must have crossed state lines or possibly country borders for the US Marshal's to be involved. There are three entries for that arrest but other than the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office being involved there is no indication where the smuggling took place. My guess is that he was smuggling across the Mexican border. There wasn't much homegrown back in 1965 and most of the pot in California came from Mexico.

Danny had a couple of traffic violations in 1966 and 1967.

On Dec. 5, 1967 Danny was arrested for rape by force but those charges seem to have gone nowhere since in the disposition column it is noted "rel" which I take to mean released. I do not believe that Danny had hooked up with Manson at this point in time.

But by the next arrest on Mar. 29, 1969 Danny had hooked up with Manson. Both were arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. The victim was Miriam (Romo) DeCarlo, Danny's wife. About ten days later the LA DA declined to charge the two because Miriam told the DA she wanted the matter dropped.

Danny was arrested using the name Richard Allen Smith during the Aug. 16,1969 Spahn Ranch Raid. Richard Allen Smith was the same name he used to illegally purchase a gun on July 14, 1969 in Los Angeles County. It appears that the illegally purchased gun caught up with him Sept. 12, 1969 as there was a Title 78 USC (United States Code) charge filed by the US Marshal's on that date.

Then on Oct. 15, 1969 there was a grand theft charge filed against him by the LA PD.

What is not included on the rap sheet which is dated Oct. 24, 1969 is the drug, grand theft and receiving stolen property charges. The grand theft and receiving stolen property crimes apparently took place in May 1969 and involved a motorcycle and engine owned by Edward Lee Shearer. But it looks like there was no arrest until mid Oct. 1969.

 A drug charge, possession of marijuana, was filed against Danny and a woman named June Ann Safranek. The paperwork is confusing because the drug charges are from an incident that occurred Dec. 11, 1968 but one of the pages say the drug charges are from Dec. 11, 1969 which was after the charges were filed and the two appeared in court. The first page of the documents is practically unreadable but the rest of the pages are fine.

Grand Theft Drugs pdf

To me, it looks like the drug charge was simple possession. There's no hint of a large quantity or sales. 

I was unable to learn much about the young woman, June Ann Safranek, who was arrested with Danny. She was from Simi Valley and 17 years old at the time of the offense. She was reported as a runaway by her mother in Nov. of 1967. June married young, age 15, in Dec. 1966 and had a child in March of 1967. The couple filed for a divorce in Feb. 1968. 

Nancy Pitman aka COBRA?

 In 1978 a House of Representives Select Commitee on Assassinations was created to explore the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. The file that was obtained mainly deals with requests made by the Committee for interviews with certain FBI agents and  for documents held by the FBI pertaining to King's assassination.

Inexplicably there is a document on page 38 of the file that was sent to the FBI director in reference to a couple of organizations that the Los Angeles office of the FBI identified as possibly being pertainent to the Committee's requests. The two organizations are COBRA and FREE RIGHT. The document goes on to name Nancy Laura Pitman, saying that COBRA was an alias used by her.

First, Cobra is not an alias that has been documented anywhere that I know of for Nancy Pitman. The document does not give any indication of when that intel was obtained by Los Angeles.

Second, why would Pitman have been included in an FBI file in the first place? She did not commit any federal crimes unlike Manson or Susan Atkins who was charged with the Dyer Act for the stolen car across state lines in 1966. There are probably a lot more FBI files on the Manson Family and hopefully we will see them some day.

I can't help but think that this is the kind of stuff that spawns conspiracy theories.

The complete 106 page file

Bill Scanlan Murphy, Dennis Wilson and Charles Manson

 

Aisling and father, Bill Scanlan Murphy

The Beach Boys, Charles Manson and my dad: a Father’s Day story

by Aisling Murphy

Original Story

My parents make noise for a living.

Mom is a professional opera singer and voice teacher. My father, at various points in his life, has been a session musician, church organist and electronic music programmer (not to mention a journalist, teacher and naval historian). So, growing up, I was surrounded by music.

Just after my fifth birthday, my dad, Bill Scanlan Murphy, decided it was time to sit me, his only kid, down at the piano.

He shared the bench with me as my fingers babbled over the keys. Slowly, he began to build a melody under my simple, rambling descant. Before long, my dad was playing “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys, singing as he played, not minding the errant notes pealing from the right-hand side of the piano.

We played together like that often, him cycling through the Southern California band’s discography, and me experimenting with a soprano line, figuring out which notes sounded right. Before long, he was explaining basic music theory, showing me how I could play nearly any pop song using just four chords. When I took it upon myself to learn the theme from “Hannah Montana,” he taught me how to play a B-flat major chord on piano in a way that wouldn’t make my hands cramp up.

As I got a little older, I began to wonder just who these Beach Boys were and why they might be so important to my father. My dad’s always been eccentric; it didn’t occur to me at age eight to care much that he had performed with these rock stars, or that he’d had a close friendship with their drummer Dennis Wilson, or that his relationship with the band eventually led to him interview Charles Manson.

Now, at age 26, I care more, especially as another Father’s Day comes around. My dad just turned 70 — and the Beach Boys once again are in the headlines. I care quite a bit.

“I owed my mother some money,” he told me recently. “And she just wasn’t letting me off the hook. I was 18, and I needed to get some cash fast to pay the old lady off. So I went into the gig I didn’t want to do, which was playing jingles.”

It was 1972. My dad was living in Manchester, England, spending some time at home before going to study music at the University of Oxford. Though born in Glasgow, he’d moved to Manchester as a child.

“My jingle producer hated my guts,” he said, laughing. “He got a call during the session, and I only heard half of the conversation. But he got off the phone and asked if I knew ‘that Beach Boys s—t.’ And I said, well, of course I did. Who didn’t know the Beach Boys? As it turned out, they needed someone to play keyboards for them that night.”

He showed up to play the gig at King’s Hall. Whatever songs he didn’t already know, he was able to learn on the spot — and he got to meet the Beach Boys. He became particularly close with Wilson, who was known to be a drug-addled womanizer.

“He had a reputation of being dangerous,” my dad recalled. “He did a lot of drugs, and a lot of drinking, and he was actually a bit scary. But he was profoundly talented, and I got to know him really well. Over the next few years, he’d sometimes give me a call and have me come down to London and play.”

In June 1975, the Beach Boys had an opening slot at Elton John’s MidSummer Music bash, an all-day festival at London’s Wembley Stadium. Wilson called my dad to come play keys for a handful of songs.

“The place went crazy,” he said. “I had never seen a crowd react to a group like that before.” Today, that concert is regarded as one of the group’s great comeback performances.

My dad didn’t hang out with the other Beach Boys much — he was known by the band as “Dennis’ little buddy.” “I have never seen a gravitational pull like Dennis’,” he said. “He could talk to anyone. He was so self-destructive but so charismatic. I learned important things from Dennis and being around him.”

One day, Wilson told my dad about a songwriter he’d met a few years earlier. He was in awe of the guy, he said, adding that he also had decent guitar chops. He called him “The Wizard.”

But his name was Charles Manson.

My dad became fascinated by the connection between Manson and the Beach Boys, and in 1991 he created a documentary for BBC Radio One about “Smile,” the group’s legendary unreleased album. He continued to dig into Manson, finding himself at the centre of a story that became increasingly less about music and more about the convicted murderer’s criminal history. In the early ‘90s, my dad finally interviewed him in prison, and in 1994, he produced a radio show about the Beach Boys and Manson called “Cease to Exist.”

“Around the Beach Boys, there was always this unspoken rule,” my dad told me. “Don’t mention ‘Smile,’ and don’t mention Charlie. And of course, I did both. Making the ‘Smile’ documentary is something I’m really proud of — it’s the achievement I want on my tombstone. That’s the thing I hope people know about my relationship with the Beach Boys — not some tinkling on a keyboard for them at Wembley.”

After Wilson drowned in 1983, my dad kept chasing the Manson story. He’s even cited on page 666 of the paperback edition of “Helter Skelter,” the 1974 book by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry about Manson and his Family. He’s often called a conspiracy theorist on internet forums devoted to Manson. (In my early teens, I discovered an online movement dedicated to disproving my father’s theories on the Tate-LaBianca murders — not exactly something my friends at the time knew how to handle or even understand.)

These days, my dad’s life is a little quieter. He’s no longer hopping from party to party in Manchester or London; he and my mother left the U.K. in 1998 just a few months before I was born in Baltimore. My dad’s the organist and music director for the oldest Methodist church in the U.S.; he’s a professor with a dedicated following of electronic music students in Howard County, Md.; and he’s the proud owner of two geriatric bearded collies, both of whom share my family’s penchant for noisemaking.

“People used to think of me as the Manson guy, or the Beach Boys guy,” he said. “But around here these days, I’m the dog guy. And I’m happy with that. I’m perfectly happy to be the dog guy, and to be your dad. That’s good enough for me.”

Last year, I bought an electronic piano, one of my more expensive and less practical whims. Before that, I hadn’t lived with a piano since leaving my parents’ home for university in Canada in 2016. I wasn’t sure how easily the notes would come to my unpracticed fingers.

Without my thinking about it, the opening phrase to “God Only Knows” tumbled from my hands. It must be in my genes.

----------------------------------------------------------

YouTube wouldn't let me embed the video of the two hour interview so here's the link. The sound is terrible.

https://youtu.be/QBvfib_MVlk?si=GW6CA3duQ8RkhUoc

This is narrated by Bill Scanlan Murphy and has some interesting moments. 

Odds and Ends

 There's some more scratch in the linked file. There's a precursor to Deemer's list with a couple of names I don't recall being on the final list. And there are a couple of memos written by Millie McCormack, DA Frank Fowles secretary, about Susan Atkins and her child. I think we all knew that Susan kidnapped her son from the Sylmar Welfare Center but it's nice to see it in writing.

Scratch 3 File

Geraldo's Manson Family Reunion

It was a pathetic circus, but historical content nonetheless.

 

Clark Nagle and Robert Bomse

 

Clark Nagle and Robert Bomse were two young men that were arrested June 22,1968 along with Susan Atkins (Sadie Mae Glutz), Patricia Krenwinkel (Cathran Smith), Stephanie Rowe (Suzanne Scott), Ella Jo Bailey (Ella Beth Cinder), and Mary Brunner.

Bomse was considered an adult at 18 years old so he was named in the article. Clark Nagle was one of the 17 year olds and was not named. 

Cielo Drive obtained a number of files relating to the Manson Family from the Los Angeles County Districy Attorney's Office which he has been doling out for the past few months on his Patreon website. Files on Clark Nagle and Robert Bomse are two of those files.

Clark Nagle 1967

Clark Eugene Nagle, a juvenile at the time of the so called Witches of Mendocino arrests, was a troubled youth. He had a string of arrests and was a runaway from foster care in Mendocino County on June 22, 1968. His parents had washed their hands of him because of his uncontrollable behavior. Clark's file is probably typical of a youth who has lost his way and can see no other way to conduct their life except to drink, use drugs and be a general menace. 

The one thing that is interesting about his file is that Roger Smith was asked to enroll Clark in his Amphetamine Research Project. There are a few pages between pages 31 and 43 where Roger Smith is mentioned. There's even a letter signed by Roger Smith explaining a little about what he does. It appears that the project was to be run out of a group home in Bodega Bay (Sonoma County). The project was to be facilitated under the auspices of the University of California at San Francisco, Children's Hospital.

We have little or no documentation about Roger Smith and his project. Dr. David Smith from the Haight-Ashbury clinic does mention Roger Smith and his project in his book "Love Needs Care" but that doesn't equate to documentation. So, it's nice to see a little something and know who sponsored the project.

As for Clark going forward after his Boonville arrest, it appears that Mendocino County kept him in their custody until a couple of weeks before his 18th birthday  and then cut him loose. He was no longer their problem. Clark, according to newspaper articles was arrested again for DUI and leaving the scene of an accident. His crimes weren't such that they warranted publication. He found the fortitude to get clean and eventually became a counselor at ABC Recovery Center in Indio CA. He was living in Palm Desert and working for ABC when he died Feb. 18, 1990, at age 39. 

CLARK EUGENE NAGLE FILE

Robert Michael Bomse was 18 years old when arrested. He was considered an adult. His file is confined to the the crimes he was arrested for on June 22, 1968. There is no real background other than saying he was from Brooklyn NY and his parents names.

Bomse pled guilty to possession of marijuana and was given a suspended sentence of 120  days in jail and two years probation. He was also ordered to the California State Hospital in Talmage (Mendocino County) for an evaluation.

Robert unlike Clark had a good relationship with his parents. His mother came out from New York soon after he was arrested. Presumably she helped him through the legal end of his arrest. It's what happened after his release that is notable.

Robert had such a good relationship with his parents that his father Dr. Emmanuel Bomse leased land in New Mexico for Robert and some of his New York friends to start the Kingdom of Heaven commune near Guadalupita NM. After a few months the locals took exception to the folks at the commune for applying for food stamps and other government handouts. They felt that the government assistance should go to the local people that really needed it as opposed to a bunch of college kids from out of state.

As a result six local men went to the Kingdom of Heaven commune and attacked. One of the men who came out from New York with Robert Bomse was killed. Bomse was hit in the head with a pistol and shoved in the trunk of a car with two other people. A woman was raped. In the end the locals got off pretty light.

The Hog Farm's New Mexico commune gets a mention in the Aug. 17, 1970 article.

BOMSE MURDER ARTICLES

There's not much of a trail on Bomse after the killing in New Mexico. There was a divorce announcement in the Hawaii Tribune Herald saying that Bonnie Bomse of Captain Cook, HI and Robert Bomse of London England had filed for divorce in Dec. 1972. 

Robert Bomse died in March 1984 at the age of 35.

ROBERT BOMSE FILE 

The Fountain of the World is For Sale

 

California property with dark ties to 2 cults, including the Manson Family, lists for $6.2M

 

A promotional video for this listed California property calls it Xanadu — the fabled city built by Kublai Khan — but it’s not what many may think.

 

The massive parcel of wild land in Box Canyon in Southern California’s Simi Valley, which asks $6.2 million for sale, has a dark history.

 

For starters, the Spahn Movie Ranch, a former cowboy movie set where many western films and TV favorites like “Bonanza” were shot, is a neighboring property. Spahn was infamously taken over by the Manson Family in the late 1960s.

 

It was from up there, about 25 miles northwest of Hollywood, that Charles Manson and his followers plotted two of the most brutal multiple slayings in American history. Collectively known as the Tate-LaBianca murders, the six victims included actress Sharon Tate and her unborn child, coffee heiress Abigail Folger and the LaBiancas, an elderly couple. Charles Manson and several Family members were eventually convicted of nine murders, including these, but they are suspected in at least 15 more.

 

That certainly put the dilapidated Spahn Movie Ranch, owned by George Spahn, in the headlines. But it wasn’t Manson’s first choice as a place to hang his hat. Before moving a few miles west over to Spahn, Manson initially wanted to live on this plot of land in Box Canyon.

 

Today, this property listed as 585 Box Canyon Road is a serene 17-acre spread within the hills around the well-to-do town of Chatsworth. The land has several rental homes built among shading old oak trees at its lower elevation.

 

“It is a very unique property — huge, probably the largest in the area,” listing representative Chris Johnson told The Post. Johnson and his partner Holly Hatch — of Holly & Chris Luxury Homes Group, Coldwell Banker Calabasas — are handling the sale.

 

“It’s beautiful and peaceful, unspoiled. It’s like the wild, wild west up there,” he added. “But you’re very close to Calabasas and you can be in LA in 45 minutes.”

 

Those are the comforts of today. Even before Manson came along, bizarre events were already happening in Box Canyon.

 

In 1948, a man calling himself Krishna Venta (real name Frank Pencovic) founded the Fountain of the World cult, aka the WKFL (Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith and Love), there. It’s not entirely clear who owned the land at that time or how Venta acquired it. But smoke and mirrors was Venta’s modus operandi as he spun his doctrine to blindly faithful followers — one that said he came to Earth half a billion years before on a spaceship (he was born in San Francisco), and that he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Venta also predicted that the human race would be all but obliterated after a black vs. white race war, also involving the Russians — it was the Cold War era, after all. The eventual survivors would, of course, be the Fountain members, who would then rise victorious in an inheriting the Earth-type scenario.

 

Venta wielded absolute power with his charismatic sermons from his pulpit in the Box Canyon compound’s church. He would make grand declarations, then sometimes miraculously disappear from the pulpit.

 

“There’s a tunnel on the property, which leads from the pulpit,” said Johnson with a laugh. “Apparently, he’d disappear and pop up and surprise people and say, ‘See, it’s a miracle! I really am Jesus,’” he added. “There are so many stories about this place it’s hard to keep up.”

 

One of them is especially tragic. Venta had a feud with a couple of men in the cult, who accused him of sexual interactions with their wives. Those men loaded up with explosives and blew up Venta in a suicide bombing, which also killed nine Fountain members — including children.

 

Apparently, according to UCLA records, Venta’s right hand man, Bishop Asiaiah, became the cult’s new leader. Around 1968, the already much-troubled Manson and his followers moved in, and Manson tried to take over the cult.

 

The already-mentally unstable Manson is thought to have admired Venta and is said to have wanted to emulate the way he had absolute control over his followers. Also, Venta’s doctrine is eerily similar to Manson’s rantings about a race war destroying the US, and it is widely thought that the cult leader’s influence steered him onto his megalomaniacal path.

 

“Manson seems to have viewed Krisna Venta as a role model,” Hatch agreed. “The new leader tried to push Manson out of the way. That’s how Manson and his followers ended up at nearby Spahn Movie Ranch.”

 

Apparently, Bishop Asiaiah may have thought Manson a bit of a loser, and mocked him, saying Manson didn’t hold absolute power over his followers like he and Venta did. According to local lore, to show Bishop Asiaiah who was boss, Manson challenged one of his own followers to prove his loyalty by tying himself to a pole on a nearby rock formation, telling him to stay there for two weeks.

 

That cave-like rock, shaped like a wolf’s skull, is called Skull Rock.

 

“Yes, Skull Rock is right there on the Box Canyon property,” said Johnson, who had heard the story. “The land has so many caves. I grew up in the area and would hike the hills with my father. The locals called the caves up there the Manson Caves, because the Manson Family members would use them.

 

“After the murders,” he added, “the Manson girls are said to have fled to the caves to hide out. They would certainly have known about them, so that story is quite likely.”

 

Hatch agreed: “They knew where to hide up there because they had been there on the property so much.”

 

The property includes 11 parcels with several buildings, which date to the Fountain’s occupation, including the original main lodge.

 

“Nobody has done much with the buildings since then. They are lived in, but they need modernization,” said Hatch.

 

“The land has three artisan wells, and there are waterfalls and seasonal creeks,” added Johnson. “It’s really beautiful.”

 

Spahn Movie Ranch burned to the ground in 1970. A couple years after, the Fountain began petering out with members dispersing to found or join other cults — two members even died in Jim Jones’ Jonestown mass suicide in 1978 in Guyana.

 

Only one member of the Manson Family murderers has been freed from prison; Manson himself died in prison in California in 2017 at age 83.

 

After the Fountain folks moved on, the current family acquired the land and buildings, and it’s been happily inhabited ever since by many tenants.

 

Hatch and Johnson are wary of oddballs being attracted to this listing, but neither thinks the controversy surrounding Box Canyon will harm the property’s sale.

 

“There’s so much more to this intricate property than that controversial side,” Hatch said. “Most people know it for its incredible landscape. It’s magical; it’s very different. Nobody says anything negative about it. This would be perfect as a resort or wellness center with a focus on healing.”

 

“I don’t think it’s a big deal, the property speaks for itself,” agreed Johnson. “It’s very creative and … flowing. It would make a great resort or artist colony. It’s similar to Topanga Canyon, but Topanga has become so oversubscribed. Box Canyon is still undiscovered. It’s quiet, untouched and mountainous. It’s the last frontier of LA.”

Original Article

A detective magazine story on the bombing.

Manson Trial TV Footage - AP - Remaster

 

Maury Povich's Linda Kasabian Interview 1988

 

Randy Starr and Sherry Cooper

 This picture was found in the Simi Valley Star and published May 17, 1968. Was it Randy Starr that clued Sherry Cooper in about Spahn Ranch?

 A magnification of Randy and Sherry.