The Col Presents: THE LAST WORD on Tom O'Neill's CHAOS

In 1992 a hoax was published, THE DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER, in which the forever unknown killer was alleged to have been the husband of  a 1880s woman poisoner.  It was nonsense, attempting to link two separate but famous murders of the time, akin to alleging that Richard Speck was the Zodiac.

Longtime Manson Researchers no doubt have seen Maury Terry's THE ULTIMATE EVIL on the fifty cent rack during a library sale.  Written in 1987 it is one long series of conspiracies that essentially allege satanists all over the United States getting together and killing randos because reasons.  The Son of Sam?  Charles Manson?  CIA?  Mind Control?  Sure why not.

It is a supremely silly book.


In 2003 a sad, deranged individual named Steven Hodel published a book called BLACK DAHLIA AVENGER where he tries to work his Daddy issues out by blaming his deceased father (of course) for a string on unsolved woman murders in LA in the 1940s.  Since idiots listened to him he has published multiple subsequent books in which he alleges Daddy was The Lipstick Killer and The Zodiac and who knows who else, maybe he killed Hoffa too.

The above trend shows you that the True Crime arena is sloppy, lazy and filled with people alleging absolute bullshit without any proof- oh, as long as the people being talked about are dead.

On February 4, 2019 I reviewed on this illustrious blog the first section of CHAOS by Tom O'Neill.  In that review I noted my history with Mr. Tom and provided evidence that he was a dick  I also pointed out that the book was, as far as that section was concerned, filled with lies and incorrect statements.  I offered to help review the rest of the manuscript and took the liberty of offering the assistance of you all (blog readers) to try to get things right.  Tom of course refused.

The book came out, sold a few copies and has vanished.  No serious researcher will ever consult it.

Tom as a "journalist" (his jacket blurb lists only magazine writing credits for mags that have been shut for over a decade) is of the slimy type who works like this- "Answer my question".  "No comment." " Well if you don't answer my question (which you have every right not to do) I have to conclude you have something bad to hide"  He states several times that he tried to get a hold of celebrities and others who did not want to speak with him, then implies that they are guilty of some unexplained shit.

But once the finished volume came out the whole thing turned into the ramblings of a deranged fan.  In fact much of it reads as bad fan fiction, if you were a fan of shitty sixties spy novels.

A good portion of the book is all about how hard it was for Tom to write the book.  They advertised that it was 20 YEARS!! in the making as if that was a good thing.  It took 20 years because he waited for people to die so he could accuse them of things.

For example- BUG was a punk.  My hatred for BUG was public on the ONLY Official TLB Blog while Bug was alive.  I had clear reasons- he made up the motive that has confused this case for 50 years.  He lied under oath,.  He stalked his milkman.  He beat his mistress.  You do not usually get an actual crazy person in charge of a major prosecution but then we haven't had an actual crazy President before now.

But you have to remember Tom is an angry, credulous child.  He befriends BUG to get background for his book.  BUG wants to control the narrative (shocking!).  He and BUG fight.  He gets a hold of some documents (not reprinted in any format) and alleges BUG committed perjury.  BUG threatens him.  O'Neill is freaked out.

What the hell did he think was going to happen?

I focused on this section (the rest gets worse) because back when I liked the guy (pre his TV interviews about Charlie's Karate School Inc) I knew he had met with Terry Melcher and gotten some hot information from him.  It was a secret rendezvous on a rooftop.  This was over 15 years ago and conveniently Melcher is dead now.

The big reveal is that Melcher probably hung out at the Ranch again at least once after the murders. OO-EE-OO.  BUG hid that from the defense. If it had ever come out....what?  I mean Crazy Tom basically says that this BOMBSHELL would lead to the killers being released.  Uh huh.

So this is not useful, is not interesting and could only matter to Terry and BUG.  But you read the book and you conclude that this is better than DNA- to Tom O'Neill.

The second half of the book goes the full Conspiracy Tinfoil Gamut.  Manson's parole officer was CIA.  Another dead guy was the linchpin for a mind control operation.  Jet fuel cannot burn steel girders.  Kubrick shot the fake moon landing. HAIL Q!

Tom contacted me in June after the book was published to ask if I had any questions.  I held off on this review because it seemed pointless.  The book was not mattering because it was the life's work of an angry wannabe journalist who was going to publish the book no matter what, even if there was no story.

Tom hopes his readers will fall for shit people fall for on the internet all the time. Life is not a narrative.  It doesn't always make sense one hundred percent. There are things I cannot explain about Amanda Knox's behavior, but there is plenty of evidence that she killed her roommate.  I am uncertain if Charlie did go back to Cielo; I do not know whose glasses they were; I think Kasabian was more involved.  But Tex Watson and the girls still stabbed all those people.  Not being able to explain EVERYTHING does not make a case weak.

I am sad this book is out, because that means I cannot mock Tom about it any more.

I hope he found the journey worth it.  The end product was a waste.


UP NEXT: The Col Presents THE LAST WORD on ONCE UPON A TIME ...IN HOLLYWOOD

Tex Watson Locations

TJ Walleman interview from 1970

Missing 911

Anomalies in the 911 Police Response Time at the Tate Crime Scene



There is a huge oddity in this case that appears in the first few pages of Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, though I've never seen it commented on anywhere.  That is the curious, lengthy delay in the arrival of police first responders after getting the first 911 calls from the Asin residence at 10090 Cielo Drive (next door to the Kott residence, which was itself next door to 10050 Cielo) that reported a suspected homicide(or multiple homicides) on the morning of August 9nth.


Helter Skelter, pg5
Winifred Chapman sees two bodies--one on the lawn and another in the white Rambler.

pg6
Neighbor Jim Asin, 15, called 911. 

"While they were trying to calm the hysterical Mrs. Chapman, Jim dialed the police emergency number.  Trained by the scouts to be exact, he noted the time: 8:33am."

"Jim called the police a second time, and some minutes later, a third."

Was he, too, wondering at the delay in the police response?

 Jim Asin

pg6
"There is some confusion as to exactly what happened to the (911)calls.  The official police report only states, "At 9:14 hours, West Los Angeles Units 8L5(DeRosa) and 8L62(Whisenhunt) were given a radio call, 'Code 2, possible homicide, 10050 Cielo Drive.' " "

"The confusion extends to the arrival time of the units.  Officer DeRosa would later testify he arrived about 9:05am, which was before he supposedly received the Code 2.  Officer Whisenhunt, who came next, set the time of his arrival between 9:15am and 9:25am, while officer Burbridge, who arrived after both men, testified he was there at 8:40am."

You would think Asin's 911 calls would have been logged in somewhere with the times the calls were made, to help clear up this 'confusion.'  But that 911 information is missing.


So the official timeline says patrol units got their first radio alert at 9:14am.  If the first 911 call came in at 8:33am, and if you add a couple of minutes for the police to drive to the crime scene, then you've got about 45 minutes between the first 911 call and when the cops showed up.

45 minutes?  On a suspected multiple homicide call...  in Bel-Air...  on a quiet Saturday morning? 

 
What's wrong with this picture?  If you don't think that is unusual, ask yourself this:  'If I called 911 to report a suspected homicide(s), how long before police show up at my door?'  Where I live, the response time in minutes would probably be in the single digits.  And I don't live in Bel-Air.
So what is your theory on this bizarre and unexplained delay in the 911 response time? 


 *In comparison, at the LaBianca crime scene, it was at most 15 minutes from the 911 call to when the cops showed up.

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

Another curious delay:

pg11
"It was 9:40am.  DeRosa called in, reporting five deaths and a suspect in custody."

pg16
"It was 1:30pm before the first homicide detectives arrived."

Almost four hours between the report of five homicides in a rich part of town and the arrival of a single homicide detective?*  Normally you would expect the homicide detectives to respond as quickly as possible, as they know how a crime scene can become adulterated by officers and responders tromping all over the scene--which is what happened at Cielo Drive.

*In comparison, at the LaBianca crime scene, it took about two hours for the homicide detectives to show up.

NBC LA

Here are a few recently released videos of Manson related things from NBC Los Angeles.  The interview with Manson is with Tom Snyder and may have already been shown or it might be some stuff that wasn't in the original that aired in 1989.

The Susan Atkins vid has a short interview with Donald Laisure, Atkin's first husband.  Boy he was a beaut!


Manson Followers React to Verdict.

Raw Footage of Press conference Following Tate Murders

One on One Interview With Susan Atkins

One on One Interview With Charles Manson

Genuine Remorse?

It's been a long, long time folks, but wanted to post an old 60 Minutes Australia video clip I found of Susan Atkins (and her dragon lady fingernails) weeping, claiming remorse and putting on a damn good act. Personally, I don't buy it. Is my opinion popular on this blog? Nope, it never has been, but that's ok. Thoughts?

Eve Babitz's Bummer Bob

Blog reader Cristiane brought this book to my attention recently. Eve Babitz was once a fairly common name in Hollywood. This book is described as partially fictive, but this short chapter on Bobby B seems accurate. if you have any interest in reading the book it can either be read on-line or downloaded here.

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

BUMMER BOB

"Hi," I said. What was her name?

It was another one of those faces, a friend of Karen's, I pieced together, and someone else, too, that guy Bob.

She and Bob had been close and I always saw them at Cantor's together when LSD was the rage. Everyone would leave the Strip at 2 when the clubs closed and go to Cantor's en masse so blasted out of their heads that if you asked someone what time it was they backed away, wide-eyed, as though you'd presented them with a philosophical impossibility. Bob was adorable but so obnoxious that he wore his nickname on his lapel. He'd had it made into a button and it said, "I am Bummer Bob."

Bummers were when the acid had something in it that didn't agree with you. It was anything else disagreeable and a drag as well, so you can't say he didn't tell you. Except that he looked like an archangel. Bright.

People said he was a narc and a thief, but I knew he wasn't sophisticated to be either of those when I let him stay at my house once for a week with his white dog. He needed someplace to stay, nobody would talk to him, and even though I didn't sleep with him, he was beautiful and couldn't help it that he was such a bummer. He never understood anything and always asked the wrong questions. He was so unable to understand anything and he shorted out so many trains of thought that people thought he was a narc. He never took anything from my house when he stayed there, he even tried to buy food.

He left L.A. and I had heard that he'd moved to the country.

After I came back from New York and was up in San Francisco, I ran into him one night in the Fillmore. He was playing guitar in a band, and the leader of the band, my friend, had complained of him and how disruptive he was.

"What else can you expect from someone called Bummer Bob?" I asked.

"I never heard that before," he said.

"That's what he's called," I said. We were upstairs at the Fillmore, and there was Bob, dressed dramatically in black with a top hat and a cape. A look of sudden surprised hospitality flooded his face when he saw me, completely the opposite of the black cape, and he said, like a kid, "Wowie, Evie!"

My friend, the leader, was amazed later, he'd never seen him look like that before. Shortly thereafter, Bob left the group in a lurch and quit rock and roll or said he was going to.

"It's just as well," I told my friend.

Now, I faced this girl in Ohrbach's and I couldn't remember her name. She'd just been, like me, a friend to him when no one would be. She'd been more than me because she'd loved him, I thought, and he had telephoned her from my house every day because he

cared about her. It was a time when no one cared about anyone, so I noticed.

"Have you heard from Bob after he went to San Francisco?" I asked her. It was 5 years later, but she still had this dewy kind of thing about her.

"He sent me a Christmas card," she said.

It was sweet, I thought, that no matter how much of a bummer he was, he held onto the amenities like Christmas cards and daily phone calls.

"How nice," I said. "Where is he?"

"Haven't you heard?" she asked. She looked struck with pain.

"What's he done?" I knew he must have done something terrible from her face. Something ... really terribIe.

"He's been ... in San Quentin. He's the one they call Cupid in the Manson family, the one Manson's supposed to have tried to free by the other murders ... "

Bobby Beausoleil had romped with his dog in my house. He'd worn a sign that said "I am Bummer Bob." I'd let him stay but hadn't slept with him because anyone who called themself that, I figured, must have the clap or some other expensive social disease. He didn't understand. He sent Christmas cards from Death Row.

"What'd he say?" I asked.

"Merry Christmas."

"Oh, God," I said, helplessly thrown back into the archaic idiom that even he had used to describe what he was. "What a bummer!"

She looked away quickly, she was crying in Ohrbach's. I still don't remember her name and I just touched her shoulder goodbye.

Gary Hinman Murder Location

CHARLES MANSON TRIED TO BREAK OUT OF PRISON USING A HOT-AIR BALLOON, GOT IN TROUBLE MORE THAN 100 TIMES BEHIND BARS

BY CHRISTAL HAYES ON 11/20/17 AT 11:08 AM EST

More than four decades behind bars did not curb Charles Manson's violence or bizarre behavior: He got in trouble more than 100 times for assaults, making threats and even trying to start a fire and flood the prison.

The cult leader and convicted killer, who ordered his followers to murder seven people in 1969, died Monday of natural causes. He was 83.

Manson remained a menace to all around him even after going to prison. While serving his life sentence, Manson attacked prison staff, got drugs and phones into his cell and even tried to escape using a hot-air balloon, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Manson's supposed plan to escape was foiled in 1982, when he was housed in a prison medical facility in Vacaville, California, southwest of Sacramento. Guards found a catalog for ordering hot-air balloons and nylon rope.

"Suffice it to say that he cannot be described as a model prisoner," Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told the Los Angeles Times.

Over the years, Manson tried smuggling in several weapons, including hacksaw blades. The same year of his failed escape, guards found one of the blades in his cell, along with marijuana and LSD.

He continued to either bust free or at least cause chaos on several occasions, such as when he attempted to start a flood in one prison, and when he set his mattress on fire.

He also successfully snuck three cell phones into his cell and was able to make calls and send text messages to people in Florida, New Jersey and California.

Manson got in trouble with guards on numerous occasions, usually leaving the worst of his verbal abuse for female guards. Among the citations were spitting in one guard's face and throwing hot coffee on another.

Prison officials said Monday that Manson died of natural causes. Several members of his cult, known as the Family, are still behind bars for their roles in the killing of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

The group wrote messages in their victim's blood after the murders, including "Helter Skelter," referencing the Beatles song that became synonymous with the cult thereafter.

Top 5 Death Valley Manson Family Hangouts