Governor Brown has 30 days...

California governor weighs parole for Charles Manson follower
By Michael Martinez and Kyung Lah, CNN
updated 10:06 PM EST, Fri February 1, 2013 

(CNN) -- California Gov. Jerry Brown is considering whether to grant parole to a convicted murderer who followed notorious killer Charles Manson, a spokeswoman for the governor said.

Brown's office received a formal recommendation from the state board parole Friday to release Bruce Davis, 70, who would be the first Manson "family" member to secure freedom solely for good behavior.

Brown has 30 days -- or until March 3 -- to either modify, affirm or reverse the parole board's recommendation, a corrections spokeswoman said.

In 2010, Davis secured his first formal recommendation for parole by the state board, but then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reversed the board's decision.

Davis was sent to prison on April 21, 1972, for the 1969 first-degree murders of musician Gary Hinman and stuntman Donald "Shorty" Shea. Davis is serving a life sentence.

Michael Beckman, Davis' attorney, urged Brown to grant parole.

If the case were not connected to Charles Manson, Davis would have already been released by now, Beckman said. He called it "not fair."

"He earned it," Beckman said.

"I think the governor should respect the work by his parole board. That hearing took five or six hours. They took into account everything about Bruce. And they didn't grant him parole as a favor. They didn't grant him parole on a whim. They considered it very carefully," Beckman said.

In 2010, the parole board said that Davis had not been disciplined since 1980 and participated in all available education, vocation and self-help programs.

Davis is one of several imprisoned followers of Manson, 78, who is serving a life sentence for nine murders.

Manson led his "family" of followers in a deadly spree in 1969, whose victims included eight-months-pregnant actress Sharon Tate.

Last year, Manson was denied parole for the 12th time.

Manson, whose gruesome killings inspired the best-selling book "Helter Skelter," will be up for parole again 15 years from now, when he would be 92.

Search Dog Finds Potential Evidence in "Black Dahlia" Murder

Steve Hodel cannot let go.

And so he returned to a distinctive Hollywood mansion with another ex-cop, Paul Dostie, and Dostie's search dog, Buster. Hodel had a mission for them.

In his book "Black Dahlia Avenger," the retired LAPD detective and best-selling author convinced many skeptics that he had solved the gruesome 1947 murder that became LA's perhaps most notorious cold case.

The body of Elizabeth Short, 22, had been severed in two with surgical skill and technique, leading investigators to conclude early on that the killer likely had medical school training.

That killer, Steve Hodel ultimately concluded, was his late father, George Hodel, MD.

What's more, because there was no trace of blood in the empty Leimert Park lot where the remains were found, detectives realized she must have been killed elsewhere.

That elsewhere, Hodel concluded, was the landmark Hollywood mansion where Dr. Hodel made his home, the distinctive "Sowden House" designed on a Mayan theme by famed second-generation architect Lloyd Wright.

Steve Hodel lived there as a child. As he looked into the case, he was able to determine from records that he and his siblings were away with their mother at the time of the Black Dahlia murder.

Hodel marshaled considerable evidence, which was later corroborated after "Black Dahlia Avenger" was published, when the District Attorney Steve Cooley agreed to reopen decades-old case files.

Right at the top was a picture of Dr. Hodel; it turns out he had been the principal suspect. Investigators had even planted a bug in the house to listen for incriminating admissions. But before authorities brought charges, Dr. Hodel abruptly abandoned his family and relocated to Asia.

The likes of Steve Kay, then a head Deputy DA, concluded that Steve Hodel had made the case against his father.

But that wasn't good enough for Steve Hodel, who has continued seeking more evidence in hopes of convincing his former employer, the LAPD, to declare the case officially solved.

So when the opportunity arose to return to the Sowden house with Dostie and Buster, Hodel took it.

The arrangements with the current ownership had been made by producers of a segment for the "Ghost Hunters" program on the SyFy Channel.

Hodel knew that the sounds of blows and a woman's screams had been heard coming from the basement, according to the transcript of what police heard through the bug. The basement had never been finished and when Hodel, Dostie and the SyFy crew went there last November, the floor was still dirt.

With his keen sense of smell, Buster alerted in four locations, indicating he had picked up the scent of human decomposition, faint traces of which can remain for decades, Dostie said.

But is it corroboration? Dostie cannot say for sure. The decomposition of human tissue that Buster detected did not necessarily originate in the basement.

With the house on a slope, it is possible traces may have migrated downslope from the hillside lot above. Labwork may be able to pin down the possibilities. Hodel is waiting for the results.

Dostie and Buster have moved on to other searches, Buster hardly losing a step despite the fact that the black lab was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in a hind leg, which had to be amputated.

READ THE NBC-LA STORY HERE

Thank you Stacey for staying up late to get this!

---

DOWNLOAD A PDF FULLY DESCRIBING SGT DOSTIE
& BUSTERS WORK ON THE BLACK DAHLIA CASE

Linky Dink on a Brotherhood Article

Our German friends sent a great link to an article on The Brotherhood.  Thank you Deb for the translation to English.

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-41674129.html

DRUGS

Russian roulette

LSD propagandist Timothy Leary was public relations agent of a drug ring. Mendel with psychedelic drugs was controlled by established businessmen.

He has compared himself to Jesus, Gandhi, and Socrates and the "alchemist of mind" been counted. As "sacred group of people," he felt, however, the drug dealers: the noise because of his controversial experiments outcast from Harvard University psychology professor Timothy Leary, 53
Just three years ago, was as Leary escaped under mysterious circumstances from a California prison and sought asylum in Switzerland, intellectuals from many countries made strong in petitions for him. Everyone believed Leary had for its spread in articles, lectures, books, cult practices and records message only honorable unselfish motives.

A trial in San Francisco, hearing of an American Senate committee and research of the New York weekly newspaper "The Village Voice" now brought the truth about Drogenpropagandisten the day: The he led, religiously disguised "Brotherhood of Eternal Love", supposedly a non-profit organization, was one of the biggest has become known narcotics production and distribution equipment, Leary the PR agent for a gigantic business.

Always the underground Messiah had shown the supposedly mind-expanding drugs as a "medium of the boys" and their opponents as "forces of the authoritarian middle-class establishment". LSD, he wrote, would - in a way for friends of friends - "produced in homes and small laboratories." In fact, the illegal trade in psychedelic toxins for many years was in the hands of members of the financial oligarchy.

On behalf of business managers finer origin and best training smuggled the "brotherhood of eternal love" after police investigation for a while weekly hashish and marijuana valued at $ 4.3 million in the United States, stocks for nearly eight million dollars was secured two years ago.
When the U.S. Federal Police in January last year closed the largest laboratories probably the "brotherhood" in St. Louis, she found 50,000 completed pressed LSD tablets and powder for an additional 14 million shares.

Production was discontinued in part by the rockers gang "Hell's Angels", in all parts of the United States and approximately 20 non-American countries: in addition to about 100 other narcotics such as peyote and cocaine, especially high-quality LSD pills with the brand name "Orange Sunshine" the Timothy Leary praised.

With the high finance of LSD professor had already come into contact after him to Harvard University had dismissed the 1963rd For (often paid) nominal rent of $ 500 and Leary found his refuge in the church 55-room castle of the young millionaire William Mellon Hitchcock, then 23, on whose property weitläufigem Millbrook, New York.

Hitchcock was one with annual revenues of between five and seven million dollars to one of the richest families in America, which controls, among other large companies, the Gulf Oil Corporation. Businessmen of his stature, the U.S. journalist Mary Jo Warth had, in LSD "a dream product see: create quick and easy" with low cost, low investment and the possibility of huge profits. "
The financial magnitude of the business itself may Leary might not have been aware. By religious posturing as the foundation of a psychedelic religious community, controversial comments ("LSD is like Russian roulette"), conflicts with the narcotics authorities and sex orgies in Millbrook he considered the product but over years in the headlines.

Measured against this enormous publicity the advertising costs were insignificant. The "Brotherhood" paid in legal disputes Leary defenders and after his conviction to funded (at most) ten years imprisonment by the left-wing underground organization "Weathermen" puts into effect escape from the prison in San Luis Obispo - allegedly with $ 50 000.

Hitchcock that the unidentified "number one man of all hashish or LSD operations" (narcotics officer Lloyd Sinclair before the Washington Senate Committee) was as the "Village Voice" suggests, is not proven. The prosecutor's office in San Francisco has bought his willingness to testify in the LSD process with the assurance that they have no case against him.

To his close relationship with the drug ring, however there is no doubt. His confidants were next to a Swiss private banker and a temporary chief of the time of Bernie Cornfeld's controlled release "Fiduciary Trust Company" in the Bahamas, the top dealer of the "Brotherhood". Your estimated at $ 200 million profit was partly spent on land and partly in legitimate businesses "washed" (mob parlance) and partly transferred to Swiss bank accounts.

With Timothy Leary's demise, his escape by North African guerrilla quarters, the Swiss Underground and hashish into paradise Afghanistan (where he was arrested in January 1973) also ended the happiness of LSD Syndicate.

After "Brotherhood" messenger in Lebanon and on the Los Angeles airport with 800 pounds of hashish and 100 000 in Switzerland raised "hot" blew up dollars and in Idaho one of LSD manufacturing specific device had been confiscated, the police arrested more than 100 suspects. Part of it was sentenced to prison up to 20 years.

Hitchcock ("It was fun to hear out the establishment in the face") came first in a New York court for tax evasion with a suspended prison sentence for probation · them for five years and $ 20 000. "But you just do not believe," said narcotics officers Sinclair in Washington, "that our investigations have already been completed."

Timothy Leary, the incarcerated for 15 years in the notorious Folsom Prison. According to "The Village Voice" have announced further statements about his connections to the political background and drug ring in mitigation of punishment if he acquires. Recently he stated that after his release he "never again advertise for LSD or other drugs" wants.

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-41674129.html

Animal House! Charles Manson In High School???

...Anyway, the point is that Harold and Doug wrote a script that was basically "Charles Manson in high school." I did read that one and it did have some brilliant stuff in it but it was too outrageous. It could probably get made now. But it had one of my favorite openings of a movie ever. The exterior of that prison and the camera moves into this fortress prison and through the thick walls and down the hallways and it's this brutal fortress to keep people in and you go deeper and deeper into this fortress prison until you get to this heavily barred and gated doors and into a padded doorway into a padded cell and in the corner is this man in a straight jacket and you move deeper and deeper in until you see that it's Charles Manson with the hair and the swastika carved into his forehead. And he looks at the camera and says, "Is it hot in here or am I crazy?" It went on from there.

When Doug and Harold turned in that script, Matty went, "Holy Shit!" So he said, "You can't have all this gangrape stuff. Put it in college!" [laughs] And at that point they brought in Chris Miller, because Chris Miller wrote a whole series of pieces for National Lampoon about his fraternity experiences at Dartmouth. So they were all at Ivy League schools in 1962 and they wrote "Animal House."...

Read the article HERE

The Pros & Cons of releasing Bruce Davis



So, what are the pros & cons of releasing Bruce Davis into society after 40 years? Let us make a quick list to weigh in the key issues, shall we?

PROS

1. He is 70 years old (low changes of recidivism)
2. Became a born-again Christian in prison, and preaches to other inmates (doesn't mean shit)
3. Has earned a master's degree AND docorate while incarcerated (an educated murderer)
4. Claims that he works to help other people to make good choices, and to have spiritual connections (rolling my eyes)
5. Has attended numerous self-help classes over the years (yawn)
6. I can't think of anything else (this is what comments are for)


CONS

1. Was involved in two brutal, and violent crimes
2. Has been present when others died (Zero, possibly others)
3. Continued being in denial for many years after the murders
4. Continued a "friendship" with good ol "Tex" behind bars
5. Very good chance that he is responsible for other deaths
6. Lied for years about his actual involvement
7. Is really creepy-looking (just an opinion)

Now, what will Governor Brown do? Do you think he might use my list to decide? More importantly, what do our readers think? I know I am missing a lot more stuff. I just can't think clearly right now. Just getting ove the flu. Comments? I know one individual who will defintely find time out of his busy schedule to give his opinions on the issue.



Nancy Pitman and Michael Monfort After Their Release From Prison For the Willetts Murders

Google Maps

Nancy's parents purchased a home in Napa CA for the couple to live in after Nancy was released from prison.  I spoke to a retired Napa police officer who told me that Duncan and Joanne lived in the home for a while with Nancy's oldest child.  After Nancy's release from serving time for Lauren Willetts murder she eventually established residence there.  

The police officer also told me that he lived on the same street and informally was asked to keep an eye on the Monforts during the time they lived there.  He said that they did not live there under the name of Monfort but were allowed to stay there under an assumed name.  The officer could not remember, or did not want to tell me, the assumed name.

Once Monfort's parole was finished they were out of there and the house was sold. 

Natural Born Killers: Whose ratings were higher?

WAYNE
I have a television show. It's very popular. Every week we do a profile on a different serial killer. You don't mind if I call you a serial killer, do you?

Mickey shakes his head no.

WAYNE
The episode we did on Mickey and Mallory was one of our most popular ones.

MICKEY
Did you ever do one on John Wayne Gacy?

WAYNE
Yes.

MICKEY
Whose ratings were higher?

WAYNE
Yours.

MICKEY
How 'bout Ted Bundy? Ever do one on him?

WAYNE
Yes.

MICKEY
Whose ratings were higher?

WAYNE
Yours.

MICKEY
Good... yuppie piece of shit.

WAYNE
What I'd like to do --

MICKEY
How 'bout Manson?

WAYNE
Manson beat you.

MICKEY
Yeah, it's pretty hard to beat the king.

Mary Brunner

Thank You, Racestarr, for the pic...

Spanking: art, or pornography, or both?

Patty had the opportunity to check out a cool retrospective on artist Norman Rockwell this past week. She could not help but notice after all the recent hullabaloo about Bobby and his pervy wife that Rockwell has several paintings depicting children being spanked or with their pants down:

So, this is not pornography because of the intent of the artist? Surely there are those out there who get their rocks off on innocent stuff like this. But we accept this as art nonetheless.  Interesting, no?

TEX WATSON IS A PAIN IN THE ASS

 There is a lot you don’t know about Eviliz personally.  For example, Eviliz rarely talks in the third person like Panamint Patty does.  And-Eviliz digs Kathie Lee Gifford (and Panamint Patty I guess too).  Go ahead and laugh about it but keep in mind you are about to benefit from Kathie’s book titled ~

“Just When I Thought I Dropped My Last Egg.” 

From the chapter titled One Degree of Separation Anxiety.

It’s become a joke in the hair and makeup room at the Today Show  that I have about one degree of separation from pretty much anything on the planet.  

  Something will come up on the t.v monitor, and I’ll say, “Well back in ’62 I was….” and inevitably there’s some weird linkage.  We’ll, I’ll take weird linkage any day over weird leakage, but that’s another essay.

  Anyway it’s well established among my colleagues that I have lived along time, met a lot of awful interesting people, and found myself in way too many strange situations.

  The other day we were all getting ready for the show when suddenly someone being interview mentioned the possibility that there were yet more victims of the Charles Manson family, long buried somewhere at his ranch in the desert.  Everyone looked at me and waited.  At first I pretended I hadn’t heard the t.v. 

“Well?”  Hoda goaded.  I hesitated. 

“Finally!”  Somebody laughed.  “No degree of separation.”

I cleared my throat.  “Actually….”

“NO!”  They all screamed.  They couldn’t believe I could somehow have a connection to Charles Manson. 

I can’t believe it myself but I do.

Let me take you back in time….

  I’m not exactly sure what year it was, but it was definitely sometime in the late seventies. 

  Michie (her sister) and I did a lot of gospel singing back then.  One day I got a call from a wonderful man, Chaplin Ray, who had a very successful prison ministry.  He told me that he and Pat Boone were going to tape a television special at the Men’s Penal Colony in San Luis Obispo, California.    He asked if Michie and I would want to join them and perform a few songs.

  I checked with Mich, we checked our calendars, and I called Chaplin Ray and accepted his invitation.

  Michie got there first.  I was scheduled to fly in the next day.

So I was anxious to hear how it was going.  She took a long time calling to give me an update, and I began to worry.

Finally the phone rang.  It was Michie.

“Okay, there’s good news and bad news,” she said.

“What’s the good news?”  I asked.

“I went through the worst thunder storms you can possibly imagine.  The plane almost crashed and I almost died.”

“Wow.”  I said.  “What’s the bad news?”

Michie hesitated.

“The bad news is I lived and now Tex Watson is my bodyguard.”

‘WHAT!”  I SCREAMED.  “Tex Watson, the Texas kid who is actually the one who butchered every single victim in the Manson murders.”

I couldn’t believe it.

“Yep.”

I still couldn’t believe it.

“Oh my God, Mich- are you all right?”

“Oh yeah,”  she answered.  “He’s really nice.”

“NICE?”  I am getting on the next plane out and I am coming to get you right now.”

  I hung up the phone and busted my butt getting to the airport, praying the whole way.

  How could this have happened?  I mean, Chaplain Ray had mentioned Pat Boone, whom some people find scary, but he had somehow neglected to mention that one of the worst mass murders in the history of the world was going to be our bodyguard?

  I mean, Tex Watson is no Kevin Costner.  That’s who I think of when the word “bodyguard” comes to mind.

  Now I was losing my mind.  But the worst was yet to come.    When my plane touched down in San Luis Obispo, it was 114 degrees Fahrenheit.  Michie and I had been asked to wear clothes that were in no way provocative- heaven forbid we look enticing to any of the twenty four hundred maximum security inmates.

  I met Mich at the hotel.  She seemed okay and informed me that Tex Watson had been raised in a deeply devout home in Texas, but had gotten into all kinds of crazy drugs when he’d come to California to “find himself.”  Instead, he’d found Charles Manson and had found himself serving multiple life sentences for seven horrendous murders.

  Apparently in prison he’d also found God.  As Mich and I entered the security gate, I was praying that this part was at least partially true.  We were searched and were asked to leave everything we’d brought (purse, etc.) at the entrance.  No lip gloss allowed.

I cannot describe the suffocating heat, made worse by the polygamy-cult style dresses Mich and I were wearing.

  It turns out that meeting Tex Watson was the easiest part of the day.  The worst came a few hours later when Chaplain Ray, Pat Boone, Tex Watson, and Michie and I were standing on stage for the finale. 

  The warden and his wife were sitting in the front row, and twenty four hundred of the unhappiest men you can imagine were screaming (Eviliz almost peed her pretty pink panties after reading this-).

‘SING HELTER SKELTER’! in the bleachers.  (AHHHHHHH---LMAO)

By now it had been close to 120 degrees inside the prison.

Most of the inmates had taken of much of their clothing and were either fanning themselves or masturbating in front of us.  (Wtf?)  I guess those dresses turned them on.  Who knew?

  Anyway, it was almost over, when suddenly the unthinkable happened : (How could it possibly get any worse?)

THE POWER WENT OFF!

  We were completely in the dark, and the only thing I wasn’t afraid of was Tex Watson.

  You sort of go into a weird Twilight Zone mode when something like this happens.  I looked at the warden and suddenly realized how truly precarious the situation was.  He was terrified.  His wife was apoplectic.  I actually squeezed Tex’s hand for support!  I looked at Michie, and she looked at me.  We were both thinking the same thing.  “I don’t want to die in this dress.”

  Now for one hour that was a distinct possibility.

  So you ask, what did we do?  Well, I’ll tell you what we did.  We all stood there on the stage, hand in hand, soaked in fear and sweat, (No miss fired semen?  I am surprised.) and sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

That’s exactly what we did.

  It had never been my favorite hymn before, but it became my favorite hymn that very day, I promise.

  Suddenly as quick as the power went out, the power came back on. 

  The warden and his wife were rushed out of the auditorium, and so, somehow, were we.  I can’t remember what happened next, nor do I want to.

  But I do recall Tex wrote me several times afterward, asking me to speak for him when he came up for parole.  He deserved to stay in prison for the rest of his life for the terrible suffering he’d cause.

  He finally stopped asking, got married, had conjugal visits with his wife, and ended up fathering several children.  He still works in the Chaplain ministry and by all accounts has been a model prisoner. 

  Pat Boone went out to enjoy a long and illustrious career.

  Chaplain Ray continued his magical mystery tour through America’s prisons.

  Michie moved out of California.

And me?

I got out of gospel music.

It’s just too dangerous.

P.S. They should change the name of the prison to the Men’s Penile Colony.

And Eviliz?  Well she still can’t stop laughing after picturing/reading the whole ordeal.