Charles Manson Music Myth Murder Mysticism Magick Magus Mayhem-A Look Back at The Untold Story of The Manson Family (Or, More Manson Than You'd Ever Want To Know)

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Charles Manson: Music Myth Murder

Mysticism Magick Magus Mayhem-A
Look Back at the Untold Story of the
Manson Family (or, More Manson than
You’d Ever Want to Know)
216-275 minutes
“I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole” -the Grateful Dead 1969
“We can go where we want to, places they will never find” – Men Without
Hats
Charles Manson passed away this week on November 20, 2017. For
most, this was a good thing-the pied piper of wayward children, the evil
mastermind of several horrific killings, the guy that killed the sixties-
well you pick your label. For others he remained a fascination
throughout his life-a twisted hero to the Weathermen and other edgy
counter culture figures,; misunderstood musician; a government patsy
to kill the sixties vibe; a forgotten icon famously promoted by Axl Rose in
1993 with his ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’ shirt worn on tour and the band’s
remake of one of Manson’s songs on the Spaghetti Incident album of
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strange cover versions. Charlie took the secret of the motive of the
slayings of the Summer of 1969 to the grave with him, as promised. “I
ain’t no snitch”. Wherever you fall on the Manson spectrum, what
remains true are the inordinate amount of unanswered questions and
anomalies plaguing the case against him and the Family, and that one
key question: ‘Why did this happen?’
For most out there, knowledge of Charles Manson comes from a single
source: Vince Bugliosi’s 1974 best seller Helter Skelter. This is the book
that wove the tale and the myth together for public consumption (and was
the source of the powerful 1976 television docudrama of the same name).
This sensationalized version of what happened leaves much of the
information surrounding the events off the table, yet it is usually the basis
for any media storyline about Charles Manson and the Family whenever
they pop up in the news, and is accepted as the bible of facts for those who
want to know the who’s and the why’s of the horrific killings-and seems to
be considered definitive by nearly 100% of the mainstream media. It goes
pretty much like this:
Manson is released in 1967 into San Francisco while Haight-Ashbury

was spasming in the throes of hippiedom. He’d been in prison most of his
life since a very young age. He played guitar in the park and parties and
gathered runaway girls. They bought a bus and traveled. He fed them
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drugs and performed wanton acts upon them. They performed wanton
acts upon him in return. They may have thought he was Jesus. He may
have insinuated same. They became a family. They take lots of LSD and
live a utopian sex filled and very stoned idyllic life on the road. They
moved to the outskirts of Los Angeles and lived on an old movie
set/cowboy ranch. They go dumpster diving in Hollywood restaurants
and grocery stores and live off garbage for family meals. They gathered
dune buggies to move further into the desert. Something called Helter
Skelter, which they got from the Beatles White Album was more than a
song, it was a rally cry. It was a philosophy of chaos-an imminent black
vs white race war preached by Manson. The Family would avoid Helter
Skelter by finding paradise in the desert while the cities burned. To
trigger the war, Manson orders his minions to pick random strangers to
kill-first actress Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Voytek Frykowski and Abigail
Folger the coffee heiress at their Cielo Drive house in Benedict Canyon.
They either chose a house of famous people to grab headlines or got
‘lucky’ in picking a random house that had occupants whose deaths got
the attention of everyone. Sharon’s unborn 8 1/2 month baby was also a
casualty. Teenage girls were the knife wielding killers. The next night
they picked other random people-Rosemary and Leno LaBianca. Charlie
tied them up, and sent his brainwashed drug crazed teen girl killers in to
finish them off. Both murder scenes had words written in the victim’s
blood on the walls. The Family gets arrested a few times for auto theft,
but are not suspects in the murder. Susan Atkins is picked up and put in
jail for something unspecified, and confesses the murders to two different
cell mates. This implicates Manson and the Family, who are promptly
arrested, and a huge trial takes up a year. Charlie puts an x into his
forehead. The girls who aren’t under arrest sit on the curb outside the
court full time. They carve x’s into their foreheads. Charlie shaves his
head. The girls shave their heads. The prosecution accuses Manson of
using Helter Skelter as the motive to kill the seven victims. Middle class
America is suddenly shit scared of both drugs and hippies. Charlie and
the three knife wielding girls-Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins and
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Leslie Van Houten are all convicted for murder and given life in prison.
Linda Kasabian, who turned state’s evidence, is set free. Tex Watson,
rarely mentioned in stories, is convicted in a separate trial of all of the
murders, he likely killed almost all of the victims. One of the girls may
not have stabbed anyone living but still got convicted. Charlie didn’t kill
anyone but is convicted for ‘ordering them to do it.’ He is the epitome of
evil, brainwashing teenage girls with drugs to go kill for him. They are in
prison forever, the end.
Honestly, that is probably more detail than the average man on the street
would have about the murders. But this covers the more common facts
generally known, and is the narrative that has fueled every newspaper
article, made for TV documentary, Geraldo interview, movie, magazine
article and television news report from 1970 until today, November 2017,
when Charles Manson passed away in prison. For a full 47 years this has
been the only tale. You have to admit that is a pretty weird script of history
above, but in reality things are exponentially far wider and far weirder in
scope. And there are more stories either unwritten, untold or barely hinted
at that indicate the so called ‘Manson Murders’ as told above are not really
quite that cut and dried, but only the tip of a reality bending iceberg, a
confluence of weirdness, pre-meditation, mysticism, people behind the
scenes with multiple of motives, cover ups, intentional muddying of the
waters-well shit isn’t even close to what it seems. Does anyone really know
what went down? Let’s take a closer look at some possibilities and try to
unravel the threads both known and ignored and see if there is an answer
in there anywhere:
The Music part one
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the album that didn’t crack the charts
Charlie had long ambitions to be a rock star. Few know that he came much
closer to realizing his dream than anyone would imagine. He had heard
the Beatles in prison, and practiced his act while in prison, loudly
proclaiming ‘I can do better’. Taught guitar by Alvin Karpis of Ma Barker’s
gang, Charlie put together a fairly unique act-able to riff rudimentarily on
guitar while improvising twisting lyrics that were clever commentaries on
society, people in front of him, current events, hippie mores, drug trips,
idiosyncrasies of social situations developing in the room right as he sang-
Charlie had a definite talent for capturing an audience and holding their
attention. Touring the neighborhood as ‘Chuck Summers’ he caught on in
some coffee houses, but his scruffy and indigent fans weren’t filling the
cash register enough. People did think he had talent, but unfortunately for
him, even his music business supporters thought he was much more
appropriate as a live act rather than someone who could put an album out.
His one album was cobbled together quickly by his jail buddy Phil
Kaufman in 1970 to raise some funds for his legal defense. (Kaufman was
famous for later being a Flying Burrito Brothers and Rolling Stones road
manager and then for stealing his friend Gram Parsons’ body and burning
it at the Joshua Tree memorial per their pre-death agreement). The album
is fascinatingly uneven in quality but is a must hear for anyone curious
about the supposed magic of Manson the musician (the studio sessions
recorded professionally at Brian Wilson’s studio have still yet to be
released, though Brian has let friends hear them). Most of this brush with
fame started with the Beach Boys. Or more specifically, one Beach Boy.
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Get ready to kiss these puppies goodbye!
Somehow Charlie managed to keep up a constantly evolving verbally

fueled mystical image while he was rubbing elbows with LA music elite for
a year. He partied with Frank Zappa at his log cabin trying to get recorded
(Gary Hinman murderer Bob Beausoleil is on the debut Zappa album
Freak Out, and he later unsuccessfully went to Zappa in 1969 to try to get
Frank to do some recordings of the Family). Manson was a guest at John
Phillips and Mama Cass parties in the Laurel Canyon area, working them
for a music connection. (more on that later) Finally, he had a willing target
in his sights: he moved in on Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, (two Manson
girls had been picked up by Dennis while they were hitchhiking, and
called up the ranch to have ‘everyone’ come over to Dennis’ house for a
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party-a months long party) Manson and the family lived with him in a 20
room house, and Charlie moved his harem in for Dennis and his friends
enjoyment. The party eventually ended as the Family ate Dennis out of
house and home, stole all of his clothes, crashed his expensive cars, stole
his presentation gold record awards, did all his drugs-the kind of things
that get you thrown out of even the most patient person’s house. But
Wilson thought Manson had something special:
“We’re writing together now,” he said of the man he called the Wizard.
“He’s dumb, in some ways, but I accept his approach and have learnt
from him.”
During this period, Wilson used one of Manson’s songs ‘Cease to Exist’ as
a B Side on a 1968 Beach Boys 45. It also appeared on the 20/20 album in
February 1969. Wilson had taken the unforgivable step of cleaning up the
lyrics to be less death-like and changed the title to a more Beach Boy
friendly ‘Never Learn Not to Love’. Manson freaked, nobody should
tamper with his genius. (Oddly, Mel Lyman, guru of the Fort Hill
Community, a Boston commune predating but with much overlap with
the Family, had an identical hysterical reaction when someone tampered
with his writing-more on him later). Manson grew disenchanted with
Wilson’s inability to get him signed, famously leaving a bullet in Wilson’s
house while he was out as a fairly easy to understand threat. (Charlie said
“I just had a pocket full bullets in my pocket so I gave him one”). Still,
Charlie felt that the brass ring was right around the corner with this little
taste of real record company and chart success. Wilson had had enough
though, figured Charlie owed him nearly $100,000 so far, so he kept the
publishing royalties from the Manson song on the album, gave himself
songwriting credit for it, and kicked Charlie to the curb, and started
sleeping with a gun under his pillow.
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Terry Melcher with Doris Day
Wilson passed Manson on to the next level up of music stardom, producer

Terry Melcher. He was the son of TV icon Doris Day, and a highly touted
up and coming producer at Columbia Records. He had a lot of clout in the
LA music scene, having produced the first Byrds records, gotten Paul
Revere and the Raiders on their horse, signed a band fronted by Taj
Mahal and Ry Cooder, and helped organize 1967’s Monterey Pop Festival.
Clearly this guy had clout, and Charlie was besotted. But auditions did not
go well. Sessions in the studio went poorly when Charlie couldn’t take
directions from the recording engineers. Another audition at Spahn ranch
with the girls carefully arranged around him singing harmonies was
‘weird’. Terry dropped some cash on Manson and promised to return. In
Charlie’s mind, this was a down payment on future stardom. Alas, ’twas
not to be. Melcher passed. Later investigations by Tom O’Neill eventually
showed that Melcher’s carefully crafted tale of removing himself from the
Family early in the tale weren’t exactly true, and that he had visited the
Family more than once after the murders-something carefully hidden
during testimony, and actual perjury subborned by Bugliosi at the time.
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Manson family recordings post Charlie
Terry Melcher passed the buck to an associate who thought the family was
perfect for a documentary movie, and that Charlie’s music could be the
soundtrack to the film. Somehow Manson didn’t vibe with this aspect,
since this plan required a bit of time to come to fruition. He didn’t want a
movie (one with the focus on everyone not just him, diluting the message),
he wanted an album and a promotion so his message could get out to the
world in the purest form. (dosing the producer with acid on his last visit to
the ranch definitely did not help things) The family began to develop an
unhealthy grudge-like attitude towards Melcher. He’d made promises, and
now they weren’t happening. (perhaps prison had kept Charlie from being
aware of the long trip it is to the top of the rock scene, unless you are
tapped by the magic king-maker wand. He likely felt the Beach Boys and
Melcher had such wand, and were refusing to use it for his benefit) .
Foreshadowing enters when one day Wilson had once dropped off
Melcher at the Cielo Drive address, his house with Candice Bergen and
other girlfriends, while Manson was in the car. Charlie had several other
visits to the future home of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski while
Melcher lived there, then when (this time period is very rarely spoken of)
the guest house was briefly rented to a former pastor then Manson
associate, guru Dean Moorehouse, father of underaged Manson girl Ruth
Ann (one of Melcher’s favorites), and then next when Sharon was living
there immediately after Moorehouse had moved out-even crossing her
path once on site. Charlie and Tex had been there multiple times in the
lead up to August 1969.(Sly Stone had said on record that he had seen
Manson at Melcher’s house more than once in the time Melcher was at
Cielo). But now the Cielo Drive house was now seen to be symbolic of the
duplicitous enemy-Melcher. Melcher had been warned by phone and letter
that he had failed to keep his promises to Manson, and that there would
be repercussions. Manson knew that Melcher had moved out of Cielo. But
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the commonly held myth that Manson and the Family had never been
there before isn’t true.
Not everyone thought Manson was of dubious musical quality. Manson

had moved the family into Iron Butterfly’s mansion for a few weeks while
they were on tour, utilizing the full pro musical set up there. Others
championed Manson’s musical talents, viewing him as a philosophical
guru with a guitar and a message. Buffalo Springfield were fans. Neil
Young gave him a motorcycle. Young pushed hard for Manson to get
signed, even begging record mogul Mo Austin to sign him. Young has been
the most forthcoming about what effect Manson had musically: “He was
great. He was unreal – really, really good. He had this kind of music that
nobody else was doing. I thought he really had something great. He was
like a living poet.”
Manson once grabbed one of Young’s guitars and started an impromptu

audition “His songs were off-the-cuff things he made up as he went
along,” Young wrote later, “and they were never the same twice in a row.
Kind of like Dylan, but different because it was hard to glimpse a true
message in them, but the songs were fascinating. He was quite good.”
“This guy, you know, he’s good, he’s just a little out of control.”
“I told Mo Ostin about him- Warner Brothers. This guy is so

unbelievable – he makes songs up as he goes along, and they are all
good. Never got any further than that. Never got a demo. Glad he didn’t
get around to me when he was punishing people for the fact he didn’t
make it in the music biz. That’s what that was all about. Didn’t get to be a
rock and roll star, so he started wiping people out. Dig that.”
Manson started to think he was getting the runaround by music people (he
was), and began to think he was being taken advantage of by the industry.
Perhaps he was correct. A little seen quote related to this from Charlie: I
wrote a song: “I know I know I know I know I know I know I know; I
know I know I know I know I know I know I know…” It’s a meditation
song. I send a tape to someone. They send the tape to the brother’s
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recording company, and then you hear the song, “Ain’t No Sunshine
(When She’s Gone).” Charlie is a serial prevaricator, but this blast from
‘unlikely-land’ is likely true, as it is documented in a 1969 article
mentioning the song’s lyrics at the time, and then the song itself was
released by Bill Withers as Ain’t No Sunshine in 1971. So this may not be
the only time this happened-Charlie threw out some cleverness and it got
stolen. There’s probably more stories like this lurking just under the rug.
But hell, people stole from each other all the time in the music world,
right? Honor among thieves and jail house codes are unknown in the
music biz.
The Music part two: Esalen Institute-Big Sur
Who did Charlie meet at the exclusive Esalen Institute in Big Sur a few
days before the murders? Esalen was an important gathering spot/spa
/think tank for the rock stars and also the political elite (read: CIA) of
California. Musicians and government officials rubbed elbows and other
appendages, and traded ideas. Sharon Tate and Abigail Folger were
frequent visitors to the institute. Little spoken of is that they were reported
to have called there on August 1, 1969, something they usually did before
heading up there. Manson left for Big Sur on August 3, 1969. There is a
good chance Folger and Tate were there at the institute when Manson
arrived, and with the way the institute operated, crossed paths with him.
Given what is known and what is even less discussed, the
secret that Manson, Sharon Tate and Abigail Folger were all at
Esalen together, then Tate and Folger were murdered at
Manson’s behest within the week would be fairly mind
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blowing to all involved, and raise questions about the trial

that would only multiply exponentially. If Sharon and Abigail were
seen as complicit in getting Charlie bounced off the grounds in Big Sur,
then everything is turned on its head. Esalen quietly issued death threats
to several reporters investigating the Manson angle, including author of
the definitive book on the Family, Ed Sanders. (the usually detail oriented
Sanders get uncharacteristically vague in his timeline regarding
Manson’s visit, likely due to the aforementioned snuff threat) Two things
are for sure, Manson wouldn’t talk about what happened, and he was
pissed. Nobody has ever come up with any clue as to what transpired
there. People got the impression that Manson had gotten the ‘big brush
off’-whether it was a badly failed audition in front of important industry
people or trawling the seas for financial support-people clammed up. If it
was an audition of sorts, then in the complicated psyche of the easily
offended and revenge oriented, it makes Patricia Krenwinkel’s comment at
a 2011 parole hearing about the Cielo Drive murders much more
interesting ““Because there was no doubt that I knew that what was ever
going to happen here was not going to be good. I did know that that was,
the plan was to murder two women inside the house. That was
given, that was a given.” It is odd that no one has asked her to explain
this very specific detail in light of the Esalen connection, but it makes one
ask: “when Charlie said ‘now is the time for Helter skelter’, was he simply
trying to get revenge on two of the women who had gotten him thrown out
once and for all from the royal ball? Woah.
Robert deGrimston, founder of the Process had lectured at Esalen at this

time, and given the ferocity of denial and legal troubles encountered by Ed
Sanders, this is an interesting nexus of two camps who engaged in active
suppression of any investigations in their involvement.
Paul Watkins, Charlieś chief procurer, was an employee at Esalen in the

1968 time frame-an innocent coincidence most likely but still an
interesting thread never investigated and never mentioned. It is possible
that this is the place where Paul first encountered Charlie, and not the
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chance encounter he put in his book. People do underestimate the

clampdown on information on any Manson/Esalen connection. One
other possibility never written about before is the possiblity of the
Institute’s connection with the MDA angle (see below, Drugs part 3) ,
something that would bring an even more draconian clampdown on
anyone talking.
An even darker possibility (see below) is that this is where Charlie hooked
up with his supposed ‘handlers’ and was given his marching orders. No
matter what the cause, Charlie seemed positive that NOW was the time.
One thing is certain though, people underestimate the music business

angle as being a huge part of the whole thing. If Charlie had gotten signed,
it is very likely the course of events would have taken a dramatically
different tack.
Philosopher King?
“Look down at me and you see a fool, Look up at me and you see a god,
Look
straight at me and you see yourself.”
Manson was considered a guru at the time, (Dean Moorehouse as well),

like hundreds of bearded dispensers of hodge-podge mysticism. Every
town had one in California. But what made Manson stand out? Where did
Charlie’s ideas come from? It takes a lot of digging into sources and
interviews, but after… decades or so of reading…..there are some very
clear sources for Charlie and the Family’s philosophy. Charlies insinuated
he was Christ reincarnated. He also taught that he was both Jesus and
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Satan simultaneously. He taught that awareness and being in ‘the NOW’

was a path to enlightenment. That there was no wrong if an act was done
with love. Fear brings awareness which then brings love. Possession
should be temporary. ‘Possessions were freely given and taken. Manson
once was listening to a studio owner express trepidation saying that
Manson and his followers wouldn’t be able to pay the studio session
recording fee. Manson then left everything there at the end of the session:
thousands of dollars in expensive electric guitars, acoustic guitars, amps,
sitars, miscellaneous instruments-“Have ’em”‘. Sports cars, motorcycles,
jewelry-Charlie was given many things and turned around and usually
gave them away pretty quickly (as an example: the Harley motorcycle he
was given as payment for ‘Cease to Exist’ was given away shortly after).
Other beliefs: people needed to be triggered to escape their prisons (of
their conditioning and mindset)-challenged in the beliefs-such as child
rearing. Children should be exposed to cold, hunger and privation to
make them stronger beings. And so on… Let’s see where he came up with
these ideas:
1. Scientology-Terminal Island Prison, Los Angeles
2. The Process Church of the Final Judgement/London, San

Francisco, Los Angeles
3. Georgina Brayton and the Solar Lodge of the O.T.O./Blythe,

California
4. Fountain of the World/Krishna Venta-Chatsworth,

California
5. Mel Lyman and the Family/Fort Hill Community-Boston
6. The Book of Revelations
7. and to a lesser extent, the Beatles White Album and Stranger

in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlen
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Scientology
Manson studied Scientology heavily in California prison, as Dianetics was

getting huge, and supposedly reached the level of ‘clear’. (Clear means
someone who no longer has his own reactive mind, the hidden source of
irrational behavior, unreasonable fears, upsets and insecurities-
something that figured heavily in Manson’s deprogramming of his new
recruits) Once released, he went to the Scientology center in San
Francisco, and said “I am clear”, but they set him to sweeping floors.
“Done that in prison already, no thanks” and he hit the bricks into the
scented San Francisco air. Meeting literally hundreds of young female
runaways in the midst of a sexual revolution-Charlie must have thought
he’d died and gone to heaven. (sure he was a homosexual by circumstance
while in prison, but platoons of unattended half naked teenage girls
willing to ‘try anything’ on the streets?) Once out, Charlie slowly tried the
tricks he had learned in prison-the pimp hustle rap, some basic
Scientology by using their auditing techniques on the prospective
members for his family for control over them. “tell me your deepest
secrets and hang ups to release yourself. Oh and by the way I will hold
this over you forever”. Charlie knew how to read people very well, and
reflect what the person (usually lost in life) in front of him needed the
most, and then tell them exactly that. He usually dealt out the idea that the
person was respected, and was perfect at they were, just misunderstood.
He gave them exactly what they wanted to hear. Like Charlie often said “I
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am a mirror, I reflect you, you will see in me what you see in yourself”.
Oblique but effective, and much of it cribbed from basic Scientology. Many
lost souls looking for something, any kind of validation in the sixties…fell
for this doe eyed guru and his burgeoning philosophical rap hook, line and
sinker. While in prison, Charlie said: “I was in prison when Dianetics
first started in 1950. A lot of the guys were interested in studying ways to
process the mind [in order] to clear it from past confusion – to resurrect
the soul and be reborn within yourself. That’s where Scientology started.
Then, they started selling it. Then it got to be The Process Church of the
Final Judgment [in England]. I couldn’t go myself, but I sent some people
there to do certain things – to [create] an effect. To cause an awakening
– an awareness in death… ” (seems like a Bruce Davis reference in that
end part-someone closely tied to Scientology and the Process who was in
London at the time. Charlie is able to send representatives overseas to
meet and influence Scientology and the Process leaders? Who helped with
that? More later)
According to Bugliosi, part of Manson’s charismatic appeal was “his ability

to utter basic truisms to the right person at the right time.” Bugliosi had
failed to see some of where exactly Charlie’s truisms originated.
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The Bible and the Book of Revelations and the Beatles.
One thing Manson was good at, it was knowing the story of Jesus like the
back of his hand. He had been hired as a ‘Jesus Christ consultant’ by
Universal Studios in 1968 for a movie under development where Jesus
returns, but is black. (it stalled in pre-production). Knowing the Book of
Revelations, that weird acid trip that closes out the New Testament
portion of the Bible made his rap darker than most Jesus freak gurus. But
Charlie knew his stuff-his deep knowledge of parables and his ability to
twist them into relevant metaphors about current life. Charlie was able to
rap about being up on the cross, would often strike a crucifixion pose,
would talk about the last time he was here and how society rejected him
then and killed him. Manson = Man’s son, dig? Family members
genuinely thought Charlie was Jesus, some of them anyway. But the
biggest part of his rap was the last chapter of the Bible, the Book of
Revelations, with a focus on Chapter 9. This was triggered by the White
Album by the Beatles. The family had been originally inspired by the good
time acid sing-alongs of Magical Mystery Tour bus adventures, but the
dark underside of the White Album soon spawned a dark underside to the
family. The White Album pointed to the Book of Revelations as something
far more important to the plan than perhaps Charlie had even noticed at
first, dovetailing with the nascent Helter Skelter philosophy. Some said
Charlie thought the Beatles were speaking directly to him. When Charlie
was asked, here’s what he had to offer:
Can you explain the meaning of Revelations, Chapter 9?
What do you think it means? It’s the battle of Armageddon. It’s the end of
the world. It was the Beatles’ “Revolution 9” that turned me on to it. (one
can see how the lyric in Revolution 9 “Take this brother, may it serve you
well” would have got Charlie’s attention very quickly). It predicts the
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overthrow of the Establishment. The pit will be opened, and that’s when it
will all come down. A third of all mankind will die. The only people who
escape will be those who have the seal of God on their foreheads. You
know that part, “They will seek death but they will not find it.”
From an interview with Leslie Van Houten in December of 1969:
MISS VAN HOUTEN: You’re going to really think I’m nuts, but, yeah, I
do. I think I’m an angel, so to speak. Not with wings, you know.
Naturally I know I don’t have wings.
But, I mean, in other words, I believe I’m one of the disciples. I’m one of
the people spoken about in the Bible. Maybe not mentioned, you know,
like names, but I know I’m —
Drugs Part One
The Devil’s Trumpet sounds off
The importance of drugs in this tale cannot be understated. Even the

police were firmly convinced the Cielo Drive murders were a drug burn
gone wrong. What kind of drugs? Pick your poison: marijuana, LSD,
mescaline, cocaine, MDA, methamphetamine…a rainbow of profitable
illegality. Only heroin seems to be not part of the equation. One thing
rarely discussed in all this is the misunderstood huge effect that telache or
belladonna (actually more likely Datura root-aka Jimson weed, a kissing
cousin of belladonna) had on this whole thing. It was the inadvertent key
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ingredient to the dissolution of reality into fantasy, in particular with key

members of the family. This mind bending plant made an LSD trip look
like a bowl of ice cream in comparison-you left the planet for days, and
reality became quite different. It grew wild behind Spahn ranch. Tex once
ate a piece, hitch hiked into Hollywood to get his motorcycle. He was
found hours later gibbering on all fours crawling up the sidewalk. He was
beaten up in jail for being ‘too weird and making weird animal sounds.’
His famous photo used every time he is in the news is his mug shot from
that day-yet nobody knows he is completely out of his mind on belladonna
in that pic. Check out that smile:
He had the shit beaten out of him by other prisoners in lock up right after
this photo for trying to talk to space people he kept seeing in their own
bleep bllllip language. Biker Danny DeCarlo also confirmed the power of
this stuff, saying it made you see strange creatures and hallucinate wildly
for days. Quotes from Paul Watkins and Tex also told of how this shit
fucked you up for days at a time are both enlightening and frightening. It
took a week until you recovered-and left you in a zombie-like state for
days, flicking in and out of a zoned out state of reality. Charlie had
suggested poisoning the water supply of LA with pounds of the root,
though this may be an apocryphal tale told by Watkins in his book. Tex
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and others had dabbled quite a bit with this sanity challenging root in the
summer of 1969-Paul owned up to about 20 trips just that summer. Tex
was coming off a belladonna trip he’d taken the day before the Cielo Drive
Sharon Tate house murder happened-coming to consciousness in the very
late afternoon of the murder evening. According to Tex’s trial testimony,
he was not only still tripping on jimson weed, but had been given a hit of
acid before leaving the ranch. Others say he and Sadie were also speeding
on meth to have ‘super energy’. Whatever the truth, Tex’s memory of the
evening comes to him in a haze during the trial, and he asserts he was half
awake and half in a dream, and not quite aware that these were people he
was chasing around and stabbing. The mind zapping qualities this root
has are never spoken of as something more closely related to the events
than they likely were.
On the other side of the coin, folks at Cielo Drive were doing a little more
than dabbling in recreational drugs, they were setting up as medium to
large scale dealers. Frykowski was being set up in business by Canadian
MDA dealers to be the main US distributor of the brand new drug, later
versions more famously known as Ecstasy. (Folger and Frykowski were on
MDA when killed). A large shipment had already been delivered and was
dispersing to the heads of LA. Family members had allegedly purchased
bad MDA from Frykowski at the Cielo Drive house in July 1969, according
to Linda Kasabian-perhaps a desperate story made up by the girls to
discredit her testimony against them. A second large shipment was due at
Cielo from Canada the day of the murders. Frykowski was slated to pick
the dealers up at the airport. Jay Sebring was heard grumbling about
being burned for $2,000 worth of coke a couple of days before the
murders-likely triggering the famous ‘buggering of Billy Doyle incident’.
Sebring was not only a heavy consumer, but was often spoken of as a
known coke dealer to the stars, with his traveling hairstyling house call
service as a perfect cover for deliveries to the stars who could afford his
services. These guys were what would be called today “players”, who may
not have been aware of the circles they were starting to move in-dangerous
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circles.
To be clear, this isn’t drugs for personal use level here, this would be
around…well $2k would be $13,000 in today’s money. There was some
little discussed but fairly high level drug trafficking going on in the
Polanski/Tate house in the summer of 1969. Worryingly, there was a
nexus of activity in the days leading up to the murders at Cielo. Parties
and gatherings were frequent as Frykowski invited one and all to party at
Sharon’s house that summer, with drugs as the focus. Neighbors said that
scruffy looking hippies often roamed the neighborhood looking for the
Polanski place-or more correctly, looking for the house they could score
from. Worlds of Manson type exiles from society and the glitterati of high
society rubbed elbows out of convenience. They bought and sold to each
other, a symbiotic liaison that would come to a dark denouement. But the
large shipment of an exotic drug due the evening of the murders was a
large waving flag that even the most oblivious investigator should have
picked up on.
As mentioned, the Polanski house (though some say it was Cass Elliot’s
house) was the scene of the buggery party (see above and below) in the
week before the murders. Ritualistic ceremony in black robes and black
hoods? ‘Oo-ee-oo’.
Drugs Part Two
Bernard Crowe, or Lotsapoppa
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The origins of much of the violence associated with the Manson murders
can be traced to Tex trying burn a high level weed dealer known as
Lotsapoppa or Bernard Crowe. This guy entering the tale is the catalyst for
all the shit that went down in the summer of 1969, that much is very clear.
The apparent murder (only a wounding) of a supposed Black Panther
nicknamed Lotsapoppa after an ill conceived drug ripoff by Tex went
wrong on August 1, 1969-this set off a chain of events that ended in so
much chaos a month later. Ripoffs and drug burns were commonplace in
1960’s LA circles. Tex planned a five thousand dollar burn on Crowe. A
couple of pounds were initially agreed upon. Crowe had the cash, Tex had
no weed, and ran with the money. Crowe unexpectedly kept Tex’s
girlfriend Rosina Kroner as a hostage and insurance against ripoffs while
Tex went off to get the non existent weed. Crowe had connections with
Dennis Wilson, so had had business with Manson’s folks before. One of
his heavies was a bodyguard for Dennis Wilson as well. Tex freaks out,
doesn’t know what to do, and asks Charlie for help. After waiting for a bit,
Crowe called the ranch and said if he didn’t get his money he would a. kill
the hostage b. come over there with a carload of heavily armed Negroes c.
rape all Charlie’s bitches and d. burn the motherfucking ranch down.
Charlie shows up to negotiate, and after one of his usual “here’s the gun,
kill me. ok, no? well then I will kill you” scenes that had been acted out
over and over at the ranch in recent weeks, he shoots Crowe in the gut,
thinking he killed him. (this is where Charlie acquired his famous
buckskin jacket off an accomplice) He is sure that Crowe is very connected
(he was) and was a Black Panther (he wasn’t). News the next day talks of
an anonymous Black Panther body being dumped on a lawn dead scares
the shit out of the Family, and Charlie is convinced it has to be Crowe, and
that the Panthers will come and wipe them out. (Curiously, there seems to
be no mention in any newspapers of the era of this ‘Panther dumping’)
The Family starts to arm themselves heavily and practice military style
living. Carloads of black visitors to the ranch also heighten tensions.
Helter Skelter seems to be coming true, and the Family is not ready yet.
Tex had triggered, perhaps inadvertently, Helter Skelter. Charlie was
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pissed.
Drugs also figure heavily throughout the oncoming darkness, and in the
tale of the murder of Gary Hinman in late July 1969 that started things off
in a really wrong direction. Once a friend of the Family, and roommate of
Bobby Beausoleil for a while, he was rumored to have sold bad mescaline
to Beausoleil, who sold it to a biker gang who claimed it bunk and wanted
their money back. Beausoleil was in a bind, and he was in danger of a
beating or worse, and needed to fix it. Hinman had been supposedly
manufacturing mescaline with a couple that lived in his downstairs
apartment, and using basic chemistry to extract the active ingredient in
readily available peyote, one can see how too much strychnine (which lives
in the protrusions of the cactus) could accidentally have gotten into the
final batch. This is the explanation for the bikers getting sick and wanting
their money back. Though this tale is often told, less heard is that the
supposed mescaline was MDA from Frykowski’s batch. Anyone expecting
mescaline would think MDA was shitty mescaline, and demand a refund-
especially if they were drinking a ton of beer and whiskey on top of it, as
MDA can be subtle. Scales found at Hinman’s house had an unidentified
white powder on them, which according to police tested negative for
narcotics. MDA would have been so new at the time, police would never
have even heard of it, never mind be able to test for it, so that part of the
tale remains difficult to dismiss. Testing for mescaline also would not be
on the police radar. Other versions told relate that Gary had inherited
$20,000 and Charlie wanted a piece. (Actually, Linda Kasabian’s husband
Bob’s traveling partner Charles Melton had inherited $20,000, so
someone either altered the facts of Hinman’s murder to keep the plot
intact for Helter Skelter-likely Bugliosi, or folks were so addled they
couldn’t keep their story straight). In the end, Hinman was murdered by
Beausoleil for ‘not making it right’. Words written in blood on the wall
show up for the first time, trying to shift blame on to the Panthers. For
some reason he returned days later to try to wash the pseudo Panther
message from the wall. No one ever asked why he did this.
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Other notable drug connections: Joel Rostau, a well connected high level
drug dealer was said to have gone to Cielo Drive the day of the murders to
bring mescaline and cocaine to Sebring and Frykowski, according to
Sebring’s secretary in her testimony to LAPD. Sebring’s secretary was
dating Rostau at the time, so…she would know. Tex bragged on more than
one occasion that his drug connection was a mob guy who used vending
machines as a front for his real business. In addition to Rostau as the main
drug dealer to Sebring and Frykowski-another character enters the tale:
Eugene Massaro, Rostau’s business and drug partner, known mob guy,
and someone who used a vending machine business to cover his drug
smuggling business, according to FBI files. Further investigations were
thwarted when Rostau ended up found in May 1970 in the trunk of a car
with his skull caved in right before testifying.
Rostau was dating Jay Sebring’s secretary, Charlene McCaffrey. Rostau

and McCaffrey had been robbed in April 1969 and relieved of unknown
amounts of cash and drugs by…some claim it was Tex Watson (Rostau
was shot in the foot during this encounter). Though masked, the unknown
robber fit a profile: Tex lived close by in the neighborhood, was swinging
large amounts of drugs, would have been aware of Rostau’s illegal source
of income, was called Charles by his accomplice, and Tex fit the physical
description of the robber. Not exact proof, but another thread tying the
players together may exist here (and one that points to Tex as far more
connected than he has been portrayed.) Other researchers have concluded
the masked man was Tex. And what of Tex’s mob drug connection and
Rostau’s partner, Eugene Massaro? Massaro had been arrested dressed
up as a policeman trying to rob dealers of tens of thousands of dollars
worth of coke. Massaro’s partner was killed in the attempt. Drug burn
once again. But Massaro and Rostau show up as a dealers connected to
both the Manson Family and Sebring and Frykowski. Hmm.
Drug dealers mentioned in most tales-Harris ‘Pic’ Dawson III, Thomas

Harrigan and Billy Doyle mingled with shadowy fringe figures rarely
mentioned-Charles Tacot and Daniel Stanland. (Doyle and Harrigan were
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close friends with Folger and Frykowski-drug buddies) According to the

Second Homicide Investigation Progress Report from 1969, Tacot shows
up a couple of times as someone mentioned as either involved or in the
know with the murders, and his claim of involvement in marijuana films
and association with federal treasury agents in San Diego and Mexico city,
yet his name disappearing from the tale could lead one to suspect
something about him was being witheld. Stanland, Tacot and Doyle rented
a house in Jamaica in the summer of 1969 from July to November 1st of
that year. However, they quickly modified their lease in the wake of the
August 9th discovery of the murders, and all three were in the wind and
gone from the house in nine days. Stanland was a Pan Am pilot and
buddies with Voytek Frykowski and was suspected by police of using his
status as a cover for flying drugs into LA. John Phillips of the Mamas and
the Papas (mentioned several times as a possible suspect in the murders)
heading down to Jamaica to investigate shadowy figures suspected in the
murders is interesting especially in light of Phillips’ shadowy military past,
molestation of his own daughters and generally debauched demeanor.
Was he heading down to help or cover up tracks that might lead back to
his cozy canyon? The lack of really any mention of Tacot and Stanland in
any literature as time went on hints at active suppression of their names,
for reasons unknown. Some suspect that individuals like this had jobs that
were a cover for something else. Pan Am tried to cover up and deter any
information on Stanland from being circulated, perhaps to avoid
unwanted attention for the company, or perhaps for other reasons.
Another name that rarely pops up is Harvey Dareff, an associate of
another early original suspect, Ed Durston. More about them later.
Image result for

stranger in a
strange land
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Stranger In a Strange Land
The similarity of the Manson Family to Valentine Michael Smith family in

the Robert Heinlen’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land is hard to ignore.
Despite strongly referenced evidence to the contrary (coming from a single
source ) repeatedly quoted on the internet to distance Heinlen from
Manson that Manson ‘hadn’t read it’– this denial of any connection is
false. J. Schulman’s printed references in 1991 asking Manson in an
interview if he had read the book and based the family on it was met with
a ‘no’ from Charlie. But one must remember that Manson did not suffer
fools, and an unschooled and distracted reporter champing at the bit for
any answers? They would usually get the opposite of the truth from
Charlie, so this one source certainly is not gospel. Let’s see: Charlie’s first
kid was named Valentine Michael Manson-same name as main character
(V. M. Smith instead of Manson), the protagonist was surrounded by
young promiscuous women who he used to recruit members, he was seen
as the second coming of Christ, set up shop in San Francisco and gathered
women, moved to LA, (disguised as Florida in the book) and then they all
lived away from society to have their own thing. They also had weird ideas
about death and killing. Discorporation as a euphemism for death is in the
book and was used by the Family. That’s plenty of consonance there. Sure,
let’s take Charlie’s word that he never heard of the book, and then ask
where the hell Valentine Michael Manson came from? Why did they refer
to Charlie’s parole officer as ‘Jubal’, the parole officer in the novel? Any
search of the internet will always throw up that Schulman interview as
solid evidence to claim no relation at all between Manson and the novel.
In the end, it is hard to see how this could be considered true, considering
the plethora of contradictory primary sourced information if one digs a
little bit.
Eyewitnesses and close associates think the connection is much closer

than suspected today. According to a 1970 LA Times article by Robert
Gillette, people close to the family at the time knew they were acting out
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themes from the novel. “In the opinion of a close acquaintance of

Manson’s, these and numerous other parallels between the book and
reality are not coincidental for it appears that Charles Manson has spent
the past two years acting the key elements of the plot.” Dr. David Smith
had been working with the Family in the early days of San Francisco, and
his associate lived with the Family in order to gather data for a paper for
the Psychedelic Journal on communal living. “The drug researcher who
knew Manson well says he read the book “over and over”and seemingly
integrated his life with that of the book’s main character—a young man
named Valentine Michael Smith whose description is strikingly
Mansonesque: Small, notable for his sexual prowess, a gleam in his eye,
and a hypnotic collector of women.” The drug researcher was Al Rose,
who had lived for weeks with the Family at Spahn Ranch to gather data.
These are clearly more reliable sources on the Heinlen angle than the 1991
Schulman article claiming an interview with Manson. Perhaps Manson is
correct in claiming he never read the book fully cover to cover, but the
Family certainly seemed to be acting out threads of this plot with Charlie
clearly aware of where this came from (as the family often play acted many
scenarios), and people were sure Charlie actually had read the book more
than once. (a copy of it was found in a back pack during a Spahn ranch
raid and booked into evidence in 1969). Finally, while in jail, Gypsy had
written a letter to Heinlen asking for help, pointing out they were being
persecuted for living out ideals in the novel. Heinlen actually wrote back,
saying there wasn’t much he could do. This essentially dispels the myth
promoted by Schulman, and proves that he is incorrect. In reality, far from
there being no connection, there is pretty strong evidence that the
connection of the Family to the book was very real and important to the
early mores of the group. In addition, Heinlen had laid out the first pop
ideas of what would be later called communes-
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Fort Hill Family-Mark and Daria
Communes Part One: Mel Lyman and the Fort Hill Community
“I tell you I am the greatest man in the world and it doesn’t trouble me in
the least.”-Mel Lyman
Communes were everywhere in the area of LA, and were a common way of
life in the 1968-1969 time period, taking the load off the faltering Haight-
Ashbury San Francisco community, and Manson’s family was not different
than many other better organized communes in the area. On the opposite
coast, the Manson Family had a Boston counter part. This group is
something that is little discussed as an influence on the Manson family —
the Fort Hill Community, a Roxbury area, overtly hippie, but in reality a
well off (and anti-black) internally borderline nearly fascist commune
organized around guru Mel Lyman, someone who, like Manson, led his
believers to believe he was Jesus Christ incarnated. And like Manson, he
didn’t hint at it, he told them point blank that he was. Lynette ‘Squeaky’
Fromme had reportedly stayed with Lyman at one of the Fort Hill houses
they owned in the Los Angeles area, while Manson and Lyman wrote to
each other exchanging ideas communicating their ideas-many of which
were derived from both leaders late 1950’s brushes with Scientology.
Much of this tale is understandably vehemently denied by the Fort Hill
family, yet according to Curt Rowlett in SteamShovelPress:
Members of the Lyman commune, like the Process Church before them,
did little at the time to quash the sordid speculation (of Manson Family
involvement): it was reported by several people that the group paid
homage to Charles Manson by keeping a poster of him hung on the wall
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under which they placed a vase full of fresh flowers daily. And according
to another source, Manson family member Lynnette “Squeaky” Fromme
used to visit and occasionally stay with Lyman in a home he owned in
Los Angeles and that Manson and Lyman corresponded with each other
for a brief period. Jim Kweskin (famous folk era musician), a member of
the Lyman family, who, upon learning that his group had been
compared to Manson’s, ominously and jokingly quipped that:
The Manson family preached peace and love and went around killing people. We don’t preach
peace and love.”
There are many similarities between these two camps, and people at the
time thought the Manson family was heavily influenced by their older East
Coast brethren (the Lyman family had started in 1966). Like Manson,
Lyman used regular LSD sessions to reprogram his followers. Unlike
Manson, he used some skull cracking heroic doses-in the range of well
over 1000 micrograms per dose to crack reality and break down a
member. (a 250 mic dose in the 60’s was considered ‘very strong’) Both
Manson and Mel’s family members believed:
using the music business and record companies to promote their message
reprogramming initiates to have new identities and leave their former

family
give all of their money and possessions to the family and guru
were encouraged to leave their children to be raised not by the mother,

but by the community
believed children should be exposed to cold and hunger to make them

stronger
used massive amounts of LSD to brainwash away former belief systems
used fear and violence to get people into the ‘NOW’
followers devoted their whole lives to their guru
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followers believed their guru to be Jesus reincarnated
guru stated specifically that they were Jesus reincarnated
Had gurus that would publicly freak out if anyone changed any tiny bits
of their writings
Followers intimidated and roughed up people who they disagreed with,

and definitely didn’t always espouse hippie ideals–especially while toting
guns.
were not allowed to leave the family willingly
These two groups knew each other. They had a very specific overlap. It is
interesting they used similar tactics in trying to attract famous figureheads
as the Process (Jagger, Marianne Faithful) and Scientology (insert
Scientologist film star here) in trying to get celebrities involved as a draw
for more membership. Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin, stars of the
counterculture film Zabriskie Point were inner circle members of the
community. Halprin managed to extract herself, but Frechette was caught
robbing a bank (strangely, not for the money, but for a violent thrill to
come into the ‘NOW’) and died a few years later in prison under
mysterious circumstance. The same author from Rolling Stone that did the
expansive Manson piece in June 1970, David Felton, did an expose on the
inner workings of Lyman and the Fort Hill community. A rarely read and
highly recommended piece detailing the Zabriskie Point actors and the
madness associated with Mel Lyman can be read here.
Interlude-The Source Family
Father Yod’s clan, no dumpster diving allowed
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Contemporaneous with the Manson Family in LA in 1969 was Father

Yod’s high profile Source Family. Numbering originally just Father Yod
and his 13 young (and sometimes underage) wives, this family swelled to
over 150 at its peak. Their highly profitable Source Restaurant was a
vegetarian gathering spot for the rich and famous on Sunset. Mark Ross, a
late arrival to the Manson Family joined up with the Source Family shortly
after, later to be known as actor Aesop Aquarian (who eerily played a
Manson-like cult leader in a Starsky and Hutch episode in 1977). Father
Yod’s first Family wife, Robin, had dated UK rock personality Graham
Bond while he was in LA (self proclaimed illegitmate son of Aleister
Crowley and heavily into magick) and she was friends with Sharon Tate.
Supposedly she was to hitchike to Sharon’s the night of the murders but
ended up spending the evening with Father Yod instead, which come the
next morning convinced her to join the Source Family.
The Source Family was a much more benign version of the Manson family,
but nevertheless the Manson murders caused this family no end of trouble
in LA, and eventually forced a break up in Hawaii when suddenly no one
trusted hippies, and all communes were supposedly offshoots of the
Manson family. An efficient pooching of the hippie dream was borne out.
More about this decidedly strange group here.
Communes Part Two: The Fountain of the World
The Fountain of the World, the true source of Manson’s philosophy. Yet it
is something rarely written about. They were crumbling in 1968 when
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Manson and his girls crashed their Box Canyon digs in their schoolbus.
Their guru had been wiped out in a horrific suicide bombing in 1958, and
Manson may even grokked enough to have intimated he was the same guy
returned-something the hardcore members were still waiting for. They
wanted their guru to reappear as he had promised he would do. Alas, very
quickly the remaining members realized this wasn’t true, Charlie wasn’t
Krishna Venta, and they decided that they had seen enough. The girls were
allowed on site and stayed in the commune dormitories, and Charlie was
relegated to the commune parking lot where the bus was parked. Who
were these guys and how did nobody on the prosecution team notice that
Helter Skelter as a philosophy came verbatim from this 1950’s Jesus freak
group?
According to the LA Weekly in 2016: “The W.K.F.L. Fountain of the World

was founded in 1948. Its leader was a man who called himself Krishna
Venta. Venta, who was called “the Master” by his 100-odd followers, was
a handsome charismatic. His long hair and beard, yellow robes and
dirty, bare-feet were used by his followers as proof that he was, as he
said, the reincarnation of Christ. On the surface, Venta was a proto-new-
age hippie who preached equality, service and tolerance. But in reality,
he was a far more nefarious figure, both in his doctrines and in his
actions.” Sound like Manson? In the imminent era of international gurus,
this guy was far ahead of the curve. His followers were likewise barefoot
and robed, calling each other brother and sister. They preached the eleven
commandments of Venta:
1. To forget the outside world.
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2. To become familiar with the inside workings of one’s self.

3. To become unified with one another spiritually, mentally and
physically.
4. To forget self.
5. To create a desire within one’s self toward higher spiritual equality.
6. To obtain wisdom.
7. To search for understanding in all things.
8. To face problems without thought of escape.
9. To become absorbed in love toward all things, seen and unseen, and so
fulfill the laws of God.
10. To let the spirit descend upon you.
11. To become a teacher, not in the world, but in the Fountain, that all men
who come out of the world shall find comfort in our midst.
Not all that creepy on the surface, but echoing strongly things either
eventually or simultaneously taught by many sources from Scientology to
the Process to the O.T.O.—finally ending up in Manson’s lap. But it gets
weirder for those who are acquainted with some of Manson’s deeper
preachings. The LA Weekly continues:
“But all was not as it appeared. When Venta was home, he spent
countless hours lecturing his disciples on the darker parts of his doctrine.
Venta, like many cult leaders, ardently believed that the end of days was
fast approaching, and that only his followers would be spared its
horrors.
Using the book of Revelations as a loose template, Venta preached that it

was his duty to gather 144,000 men, women and children before World
War III, which would be fought between communist Russia and
capitalistic America, engulfed the planet. He claimed that a race war
between blacks and whites would ignite America in 1965. At this point, he
and his followers would go to a secret location, perhaps in the desert, to
wait out the war.”
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Venta never got the chance to meet Manson. In 1958, two former
members of the cult-in what is one of the first modern suicide bombings in
history-strapped 20 sticks of dynamite on, walked into the main building
and detonated, vaporizing the building while killing Krishna Venta and
nine others. It’s not hard to picture Manson grooving on the weirdness of
this, and looking back…the Family did spectacularly but not literally
explode in a ball of flame.
Yet somehow nobody noticed this stuff is almost word for word what
Charlie preached. Venta was correct in predicting Black/White riots
happening in 1965 several years before the event-so he gets points for
being weirdly right there. In the aftermath of the bombing, The Fountain
of the World was low key and just up the road in Box Canyon near the
California desert. So to recap: in 1968, the remnants of the guru-less
organization was where Manson and his harem landed. Over the next
year, the Fountain of the World was viewed as a second home location by
many Manson-ites. Manson lived there for months until he was caught
giving drugs to the brethren and sisters of the Fountain-eventually
banished to sleep on the bus until his family found housing. Once they
relocated literally over the hill at Spahn some of the girls still lived at the
Fountain for extended periods of time-either needing a break from Charlie
or temporarily exiled by him. The interaction between these groups was
significant. The specificity of guru Venta’s belief system was
stolen lock stock and barrel in its entirety, and one can see how
some would even believe Charlie was Venta returned.
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But it is the brilliant twist Manson put on this…. ‘ok, here, we have the
tenets, but let’s exclude puritan sensibilities about sex, and rather than
banish folks for drugs, let’s celebrate them as a sacrament, like the
disciples that lived with Jesus in the desert.’ Hell let’s go to the desert,
because we are disciples ourselves, just like them. We came back. 2,000 or
so years later. Disciples, Message, Jesus. Let’s tweak it a little bit so it is
more late 60’s than late 50’s vibrations.’ Even today, you can see how
some would be unable to disagree with this philosophy. One thing is
certain, the Fountain of the World is the single most consistent
source of Manson philosophy in anything that people decided to call….
Helter Skelter
The motive of Helter Skelter was highly touted as the motive by Vincent
Bugliosi. (recent documents show that Bugliosi was already crafting his
book illegally before the trial had started, which calls much of the way the
trial was handled into question-Tex killing the folks who’d burned him
makes a far less good read than ‘hippie mastermind wants to ignite race
war’.) In a March 1978 issue of Headquarters Detective, an interview with
Tex was published which didn’t mention race war, but something much
larger:
Chet, I am going to tell you something no one else has ever heard before.
I’m going to tell you what Helter Skelter was all about. It was like this.
Charlie (Charles Manson) had a plan, a good plan, but even good plans
should be tested.
Helter Skelter was an over-all plan and it had to be tested in some way.
The Tate and LaBianca killings were that test!
The Tate murders were because Charlie and I more or less knew the
layout of the place. The LaBianca murders were just a matter of picking
out a home that represented wealth.
But neither one was anything but a test, a test for something bigger than
ripping off a few people.
That’s when he told me of the plan to choose three large cities on the West
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Coast and subject them to a massive plot, a plot to frighten and terrorize
their entire populations, to literally scare the people out of their wits.
What if on a single day in these three cities, he said, his eyes dulling with
the pleasure of recollection, commandos in groups of three and four were
to go into the homes of five of these cities leading citizens–a well known
police officer, a member of city government, a prominent corporate
executive, and two rookie cops?
And while the heads of these households were away, what if any and all
living things were destroyed? Just like Sharon Tate and the LaBiancas.
And, after the families were killed — children, animals, anything that
breathed — what if photos were taken of each victim and these were
distributed on the streets, in mail boxes, to schools and campuses?
It would be warning to the population to give in to the demands of the

terrorist group. And it wouldn’t take an army, just the right type of
individuals.
He said they shouldn’t have been caught for the murders they had
committed and that everything had gone as planned. It was a test to see
if total terror in a manner of unequalled horror could go undetected. If it
were successful, then the over-all plan, conceived by Manson, would have
been started.
Let’s say we could have shocked the nation in our test, he said. Then
certain measures were to be left to show we meant business. In
widespread areas, we were to kill infants, holding them by their ankles
and smashing them against fireplaces. Wives and loved ones were to be
hung from the rafters.
Dogs and cats and any living things were to be brutally and viciously
beaten to death. And the blood of the victims was to be used to inscribe
messages of sadistic humor on the walls.
When I asked Tex what he personally thought of such wholesale and

brutal slaughter, he replied, Man, I was so caught up in the whole thing.
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Manson had us completely. I was ready to do as was needed.
According to Tex, there was more. They were to use the cash and
valuables taken during the raid to buy weapons. Charlie was going to
select four of his most loyal followers and they would board planes.
Money that we had gotten together would be used to bribe a certain
person involved at a strategic point of entry. He would allow the four to
pass through the metal detectors unhasseled.
After the plane took off, they would take over. To insure that demands
were met, deaths would begin within an hour after take-off, deaths of
unsuspecting persons. The pilot was to be instructed to contact
authorities and to handle all negotiations.
To let the authorities know they were serious, an address was sent to
them minutes after a murder was committed on that location. Whoever
was sent there would be greeted by a scene of horror. And a warning
would be issued to expect more of the same. It would have worked too. It
would have happened!
To be fair, shit was going down, not only in LA, but all over America. Hell,
all over the world. Mexico, Czechoslovakia and France had almost fallen in
1968 to hippie forces, and chaos reigned in many countries. Black
Panthers, the Black vs White race war wasn’t just a fantasy of Charlie,
many mainstream people also ascribed to this. Little told stories from the
family always make mention of Black Muslims, a phrase carefully deleted
at the time and never mentioned since. The Watts riots of 1965 were world
news. Black vs. white was a theme for the two years before Charlie got out.
LA riots in 1969, murders of Black Panthers by police in 1969, well this
gave direct evidence this was no Manson past fantasy, but coming true
right in front of everyone’s eyes. People would have thought this wasn’t so
far fetched at all. “Charlie may be crazy, but he isn’t stupid” was a quote at
the time.
Interview with Charlie, 1970 Rolling Stone:
Q: What does Helter Skelter mean?
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A: What do you think it means? It’s the battle of Armageddon. It’s the end
of the world. It was the Beatles’ Revolution 9 that turned me on to it. It
predicts the overthrow of the establishment. The pit will be opened and
that’s when it will all come down. A third of all mankind will die.
Charles Manson–May 1970
or….
There was no such thing in my mind as helter skelter. Helter skelter was
a song and it was a nightclub – we opened up a little after-hours
nightclub to make some money and play some music and do some
dancing and singing and play some stuff to make some money for dune
buggies to go out in the desert. And we called the club Helter Skelter. It
was a helter skelter club because we would be there and when the cops
would come, we’d all melt into other dimensions because it wasn’t
licensed to be anything in particular. And that was kind of like a
speakeasy back in the moonshine days behind the movie set.” Charles
Manson- 1992 Parole Hearing
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This nightclub part of the story is true. And the famous door taken from
Spahn Ranch with the words Helter Skelter on it was used prominently in
the trial to support the whole Helter Skelter hypothesis. But anyone who
has been in illegal clubs before can attest to signage tending towards
oblique. What if this supposed smoking gun piece of evidence was only the
entrance to the illegal club with the name disguised graffiti style on it?
(this joint got George Spahn ‘a healthy fine’ for operating an illegal
nightclub-Manson covered the fine)
Murder for Hire and the Mob
Little discussed is the possibility that some of this mayhem were paid hits.
Charlie once offered a new family male member some cash for a hit on an
unnamed someone. In early June 1969 ‘Sunshine Pierce’ was another
hanger on who just wanted to hang for a month, but then became closer to
the inner circle. Eventually Manson took him under his wing and made
some offers and Sunshine thought he was being offered a share of the loot:
drugs, robberies, travelers checks etc–when Charlie said he needed help in
killing someone who had screwed them (Terry Melcher), and that the pay
would be good. From Sanders book, Sunshine related: “He said that he
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had one person in particular that he wanted me to help him kill, and he
said there might have to be some other people killed” Charlie said he could
scrape together around $5,000 for the job, and a motorcycle. Pierce said
“no thanks” and he quit the family that day and left for Texas. Was
Manson taking side contracts to do hits, not telling the family and making
up stories to cover it up? Was the LaBianca murder a contracted mafia
hit? Their neighbors thought so. Ask why the mob bookie up the street
from the LaBianca’s moved out the week after those murders? Was there a
$25,000 for a hit on Sharon Tate as told below? Some think Charlie was
taking contracts and not telling even his closest associates-far fetched but
with his ability to keep his actual dealings secret from everyone, not
impossible.
According to Paul Watkins, (one of Manson’s original right hand men and
recruiter) in his ghostwritten book, Watkins had two separate encounters
with the Mob during the trial that is rarely mentioned and also troubling:
Later that same week I was coming out of the court building when a
dapper little guy sporting a goatee and dressed in a double-breasted suit
approached me, saying he was a lawyer and wanted to ask me a few
questions. I walked with him to a chauffeured limousine and we drove up
to Hollywood. He introduced himself as Jake Friedberg, saying he just
wanted some information about the Family and that he’d make it worth
my while to provide it. He asked if I’d mind staying at the Continental
Hyatt House for a couple of days, and when I said no, he made a
reservation for me in the penthouse. I spent two days there telling him
what I knew; on the morning of the third day, as I was leaving the hotel,
I was paged to the phone. It was Crockett; I’d called him the day I
arrived and left my number.
His voice was hard and clear, like a pick against granite.
“Where the hell you been?”
“Nowhere.”
“I been tryin’ to get you. D.A.’s office called us up and said that guy
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Friedberg is a Mafia man… somethin’ about La Bianca’s connection with

the syndicate… he say anything about it?”
“Nope.”
There was a long pause. Then Crockett spoke. “Where you tryin’ to take
yourself anyway, oblivion?”
I didn’t answer.I didn’t know.
“When you comin’ out to the desert?”
“It won’t be long.”
I waited to Friedberg to come back, but he didn’t. And I never saw him
again.
Then a few days later at Spahn Ranch, there was a second Mob encounter:
A couple of days later, we moved out of the Chandler Street house and
back to Spahn’s. George had mellowed enough to allow us to move in
again on a permanent basis….The day we moved in, I was standing on
the boardwalk with Sandy when a car with two men in it pulled up
beside me and stopped.
“You Watkins?” the driver asked.
I nodded. Both men got out of the car. Both wore baggy sports jackets
and gray fedoras. One of them had on sunglasses. They asked if we could
talk, and I led them into the saloon, where Squeaky and Brenda were
sitting on the floor working on Charlie’s vest.
“We’ll make it fast,” the shorter of the two men said. “We hear Charlie
wants to be sprung.”
“Huh?” Brenda stood up.
“We don’t know nothin’ about that,” Squeaky said. “Where’d you hear
that?”
The man didn’t look at Squeaky. His eyes were on mine. “So what’s the
deal?”
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“I don’t know anything about it.” I didn’t.
The two looked at each other. Then the short one grinned. “Well, that’s
cool… just forget it ever happened.” They walked out, climbed in their
car, and drove away. To this day I have no idea what their visit was all
about.
From an interview with Charlie:
“Leno La Bianca was killed for a black phone book with all the numbers
in it – the phone numbers that control the music market” One should
read ‘Mob’ in front of ‘phone numbers’ here.
Hmmm. One thing this shows is there was a side to the family that Charlie
and Charlie alone was privy to. With Paul Watkins as the nominal head of
the Family with Charlie inside (or perhaps a well placed police plant), the
Mob was making sure that their side stayed out of the story. Clearly two
Mob incidents on record with LaBianca mentioned as tied to them point
towards the Waverly drive murders as being murder for hire. But nobody
ever bothered to ask any questions about Mob angles. It would conflict
with the Helter Skelter motive for certain.
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Robert DeGrimston-Beast-lite
Image result for the process church
The Process Church of the Final Judgement, the Church of

Satan, the Solar Lodge of the O.T.O. and Black Magick–High
Weirdness in Extremis
The Process Church of the Final Judgement was a splinter group of

Scientology that came to America in the 60’s to branch out their seemingly
neo-Satanic organization. One must remember that Satan was pretty hip
in the 60’s in California. Anton LaVey was sought out by the Hollywood
elite, Michael Aquino of the US Army Intelligence was a highly visible and
was oddly a frequent public media speaker for the Temple of Set, often on
network television talk shows (Sharon’s dad Colonel Paul Tate worked in
intelligence at the Presidio military base with Aquino at the time).
Rosemary’s Baby was huge (and directed by Roman Polanski-Sharon Tate
had been considered for the role of Rosemary originally). Jayne Mansfield
and Sammy Davis Jr. had been initiated into the Church of Satan by
LaVey personally. Sharon had been initiated by Alex Saunders, the
notorious king of the witches, while in England in 1967. Saunders later
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claimed that he befriended Tate on the set and initiated her into
witchcraft. He said he had photos showing her inside a consecrated
magic circle. Even the saintly Mary Tyler Moore twirled into a photo op
with the Process:
Image result for mary tyler moore the process
The coincidences start to spiral out of control on the occult end of things.
Here is where the play acting and real magick may have started to
intersect.(aside: no one seems to have noticed that the strange ‘W’ in the
word war carved into Leno LaBianca’s stomach bears an uncanny
resemblance to Aleister Crowley’s hexagonal symbol for chaos)
Polanski’s history of occult films with invocations, Satan, conjuring,
sacrifices, witchcraft, sadism, vampirism-with Sharon in the background
and foreground surrounded by real occult personages-well things could be
expected to not go perfectly. Other things (read: forces)-magickally
induced- may have either consciously or unconsciously blorted into some
form of half reality as a result of this activity in Hollywood-on camera and
behind the scenes, that could have dangled into the scene, a negative
paranormal influencing the background of events, real but unnoticed.
The Process had set up in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1968, and
began proselytizing. Their San Francisco headquarters on Cole Street was
just up the street from where Charles Manson was living in early 1968.
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Brother Ely of the Process was an early close Manson Family associate.
Under his real name, Victor Wild, he was a leather goods manufacturer
who made goods for the Family., and was a close and reliable ally for a
while. The Process had set up in LA, where they were helped by Papa John
Phillips in getting local rental property on his recommendation. It was
down the street from Cielo Drive where their large pack of Process
Alsatian dogs terrorized Roman Polanski, forcing him to hide in a garage.
The Process beliefs are oddly in consonance with what Manson later
preached. According to historian Adam Gorightly:
Some observers have described The Process as a society dedicated to

aiding and abetting the end of the world by stirring up murder, violence
and chaos. In The Process’ End Times scenario, they would survive the
wrath of the apocalypse as the chosen people, which was identical to the
Manson Family worldview. The Process philosophy was summed up in
Robert DeGrimston’s 1967 book As It Is:
Christ said: Love thine enemy. Christ’s enemy was Satan and Satan’s
Enemy was Christ. Through love, enmity is destroyed. Through love,
saint and sinner destroy the enmity between them. Through love, Christ
and Satan have destroyed their enmity and come together for the End.
Christ to judge, Satan to execute judgment.
It was this marriage of Heaven and Hell that Charles Manson grooved
with. Manson’s cosmology—though similar to The Process—projected a
more simplistic dualism, as he was known to his followers as both Satan
and Christ. Like The Process, Manson preached the Second Coming, and
that when Christ returned this time, it would be the Romans (i.e., the
Establishment) who went up on the cross in his place. Following is a list
of other similarities shared by the Manson Family and The Process:
Manson spoke frequently of the bottomless pit; The Process, of the

bottomless void.
Within its organization, The Process called itself “the family,” and
referred to its members as brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.
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Fear was a focal point for both The Process and Manson. A special issue
of Process magazine dealt exclusively with the topic. “Fear is beneficial,”
wrote the author of one article. “Fear is the catalyst of action. It is the
energizer, the weapon built into the game in the beginning, enabling a
being to create an effect upon himself, to spur himself on to new heights
and to brush aside the bitterness of failure.”
The Process Church symbol was that of an inverted swastika, the very
same symbol Manson later carved into his forehead.
Both The Process and Manson recruited biker groups. The two biker
gangs closest to the Manson Family and The Process were the Satan
Slaves and the Straight Satans.
The Process Church opened a chapter in Los Angeles in early 1968. They
stayed in public view until a few days after Robert Kennedy’s
assassination on June 5, 1968, after which they dropped mysteriously
from sight.
The Death Issue, with Manson penned article
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The Process went underground. This group caused no end of trouble

trying to distance themselves from Manson in the wake of the murders.
Yet they contradicted this stance by having Manson write an article from
jail for their 1971 Death issue. This wasn’t going to convince anyone they
weren’t simpatico brethren. Reports that a Process member had been
working with Sirhan Sirhan the night of RFKs murder didn’t help, and
neither did their bug out immediately after the RFK’s assassination.
Lawsuits flew, publishers lawyered up, and damage control units were
sent out to both explain and silence the inquisitive and the talkative.
From Gorightly:
In Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi recounted how Manson had been

bragging about a relationship with The Process, until one day he was
paid a visit in jail by two brethren of the church, “Father John” and
“Brother Matthew.” After their departure, Manson seems to have
clammed up for good about The Process, and since then has made no
further comments. Prior to the visit by these two mysterious Processean
MIB’s, Manson was asked by Bugliosi if he knew Robert DeGrimston,
and his reply was to the effect, “He and I are one and the same.” After
their visit with Manson, the two Process members met with Bugliosi and
assured him that Manson and DeGrimston had never met.
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Despite their denials, there is quite a bit of Process philosophy dancing

through the main tenets of Manson’s belief structures. When Manson
started preaching getting ‘the Fear’ to the Family in the summer of 1969, it
is perhaps not coincidental that the Process were actively researching and
preparing their ‘Fear’ issue, published in late summer 1969 after most of
the Process had left the States and returned to London. It is clear that
despite their denials, Manson had some considerable contact with them.
Bruce Davis had gone to England to stay at Process headquarters in
London. The Process sued Ed Sanders for a chapter in the first edition of
his book The Family and forced subsequent editions to remove all
mentions of them within it. One particularly troubling story in that edition
showed Manson to be part of the inner circle of the San Francisco chapter.
But it is clear that the ideas Manson espoused, such as being Jesus and
Satan at the same time is heavily derived from the Process and their ideas
of Lucifer, Jesus, Jehovah and Satan existing as four parts of a single unit.
Rumors at the time said that the Process offered $25,000 to take out
Sharon for what she had learned about the RFK assassination via the
Sirhan Sirhan connection. Supposedly, she had overheard some things
while at a dinner party and had started asking questions. Whether that is
true or not, it is an unsettling fact that Roman and Sharon had
dinner with RFK the night he was assassinated.
Combine the Manson family’s death squads with the Zodiac killer and Los
Angeles was a scary place to be indeed in 1969 (140 or so murders).
Sanders reported that at least five separate sources informed him that
Manson was involved with the Solar Temple Lodge of the O.T.O. (a society
founded by Aleister Crowley), both at the Lodge’s desert ranch, and at one
of their houses in L.A., located near the USC campus. Sander’s also
claimed that a house owned by Jean Brayton at 1251 West Thirtieth Street
in Los Angeles was supposedly frequented by Manson. Some say it was
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Tex Watson, not Charlie. (Much of this information is only contained in

the first edition of Ed Sander’s book on the Family, and is now deleted
from subsequent editions). Ed Sanders’ book has a large section on Jean
Brayton and the O.T.O, an Aleister Crowley organization. Her group was
considered ‘renegade’, but had most of the trappings of an O.T.O. lodge.
Brayton had many similar beliefs as Manson regarding imminent black vs
white race wars, and believed it was going to get real in LA in the summer
of 1969. She predicted chaos would break out and her followers should
leave the area before the summer started.
Bikers as the Army
Jean Brayton and the O.T.O. intersect with Manson on one big idea-bikers
will be the army of the future. The O.T.O. thought a huge black/white war
was coming to LA in the summer of 1969, much like Manson, and had
tried to get motorcycle gangs to be their muscle and advocated getting out
of LA before the summer of 1969 before it went down. Manson hung out
there with them, and according to insiders was a member of the O.T.O.
Member or not, Charlie absorbed much from them. The Process also
looked to biker gangs as essential muscle in spreading the fear so their
message could come to fruition.
Some of the ‘biker as an armed force’ ideas popped up even closer to

home, and more current to the tale. According to Nightflight: “in fact — in
yet another example of the parallels that existed between Southern
California’s biker and hippie countercultures — members of Manson’s
Family would occasionally drop by Paramount Ranch, located at 2813
Cornell Road, in Agoura, California, and visit the set while Laurence
Merrick and his cast and crew were filming scenes (on a biker film).
It’s interesting to note that this film’s concept of pitting white against
black in a race war, in the year 1969, is very similar in some respects to
Manson’s concept which he called “Helter Skelter,” an apocalyptic war
arising from racial tensions between blacks and white, which he believed
was foretold in Chapter 9 of the book of Revelations in the bible.” Oh,
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and Manson mystery man Mark Ross had a cameo in the film. Merrick
had co produced the famous Manson documentary in 1973 (see below). A
biker themed race war film being made just up the street from Spahn
ranch by future Manson film producer right when things heated up in
August is beyond weird-or a nearly unbelievable synchronicity, like it was
part of a larger script.
Magickal Traces and Synchronicities
So to recap: the Process moved into LA in 1968, and Manson has already
consorted with them in San Franscisco. They preached that Jesus and
Satan were the same thing, a thing central to Manson’s beliefs and
frequent topic of his sermons. With Manson mingling in these circles, the
knowledge of black magick rituals for power would not be unknown to
him. Manson was said to have ‘postulated’ things they needed-wishcraft of
a sort-and got results. The post Fountain of the World time is when the
Family really started to believe Charlie was Jesus, because he’d made
some unlikely things show up out of thin air after his ‘postulating’: large
cash donations, professional musical instrument donations, free studio
time in expensive LA recording studios, free use of a fully funded and huge
waterfront mansion, a variety of foreign sports cars and a full on
Hollywood lifestyle for a few months-even Manson probably believed he
had the magic touch.
But if he upped the ante and tried some spells he’d acquired in his travels,
then what the hell, you could see him saying: ‘I want to be more famous
than the Beatles. I want to be remembered forever” Tempting thoughts
when one is presented with a methodology to make them come true. Take
a look at the results: Charlie wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.
That happened. Charlie wanted a TV special on ABC to reach millions of
people at once with the message–that happened. But like many Black
Magick spells, they never come out quite like one would intend, especially
when launched by magickal novices. And the fact that these wishes did
come true, albeit not in the way he wanted, just as this kind of magick
often can backfire and seem to work simultaneously, is a bit creepy. (check
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out the creepiness of 90’s era Manson obsessed author and practicing
magician Nikolas Schrek randomly getting his ear cut off in a public
scuffle while he was researching Gary Hinman getting his ear cut off
(before/during his 1969 murder)? That’s the kind of beyond fucked up,
yet it happened-even for the most hardened reader, you have to admit
that is another quantum level of coincidence.)
And Further Down the Satanic Rabbit Hole…
Some have speculated that Roman Polanski was doing a little more than
dabbling in Satanic rituals. Manson obliquely referred to this in an
interview:
“How does your heart beat up on this altar when you see Sharon Tate’s
body laying there all naked and murdered dead. Do you think I had
something to do with that? That was the altar. It had nothing to do with
me. It was the turnaround of a whole world. It was the Aryan woman
that was being bought up from the head for Rosemary’s Baby. They were
the cult.”
At the very least, this shows that Charlie was not unaware of what was
going on at Cielo behind the curtain. Like Beausoleil, Charlie seems to
think that some really weird and cult-like things going on at Cielo were
closely related to the murders. The idea that the murders were an
intentional sacrifice of Sharon and her unborn baby at the behest of
Polanski in a power ritual vaguely mimicking the plot of Rosemary’s Baby
is, well, something nearly beyond comprehension. Yet Satanic trappings
and rituals had bled into Hollywood society.
Perhaps Sharon’s friend Joan Didion’s quote from the day after the
murders, like Gail Zappa’s similar reaction indicates some of this has more
truth in it than anyone was comfortable discussing:
“Black masses were imagined, and bad trips blamed. I remember all of
the day’s misinformation very clearly, and I also remember this, and
wish I did not: I remember that no one was surprised.”
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The Church of Satan
Anton LaVey and Jayne Mansfield
Michael Aquino, Sammy and LaVey
Satanic trappings had started to intersect the family early on in late 1967
at the famed Spiral Staircase house in Topanga canyon. A woman named
Gina held increasingly frequent and increasingly weird parties there, and
Manson and his small troupe of girls parked their ‘Holywood Productions’
black bus there and set up shop until the scene got uneasy. Manson
himself had said that dark magical practices started to be commonplace
there at a time when celebrities were starting to roll through the house,
and it got too weird, even for him. (this is where Bobby Beausoleil enters
the tale, and his association with Kenneth Anger and his starring role in
Lucifer’s Rising being filmed at the time is perhaps one of the ‘dark
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practices’ being referred to.) In the mid 1960’s people were getting
intrigued by the dark side of spirituality across California. The head of the
Church of Satan Anton LaVey had made Satanism fashionable in the
Hollywood scene. He was an adviser and played the Devil in Roman
Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby film. With Jayne Mansfield and Sammy Davis
Jr openly preaching Satanism, it was easy to see Hollywood folks getting
drawn deeper into weirdness they didn’t really understand. Oh, and Susan
Atkins worked with Anton LaVey in a sensationalist Satan showpiece
playing a topless blood drinking vampire before she met Manson. Pieces
of the puzzle were beginning to draw together in an eerie fashion, and with
occult themes as the glue binding them.
Susan Atkins at Anton LaVey Satan show-pre Manson
Secret Hollywood sex parties and Roman Polanski
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“They [at the Tate house] had fallen into sadism and masochism and
bestiality—and they recorded it all on videotape, too. The L.A. police told
me this. I know that three days before they were killed twenty-five people
were invited to that house for a mass-whipping of a dealer from Sunset
Strip who’d given them bad dope”–Dennis Hopper
“They were fucking pedophiles, they weren’t innocent.” -Manson about

Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski and Jay Sebring.
She was Sharon Tate’s best friend and Sharon had told her that Polanski was
in the habit of making home movies of himself having sex with young girls
and then showing them to Sharon Tate while they were making love. Jay
Sebring, she said, was into some very kinky stuff. It was that kind of scene.
In an interview with Truman Capote, Bobby Beausoleil said:
“Who says they were innocent? They burned people on dope deals.
Sharon Tate and that gang. They picked up kids on the Strip and took
them home and whipped them. Made movies of it. Ask the cops; they
found the movies. Not that they’d tell you the truth.”
Tate had been filmed in threesomes with famous Hollywood elite, and in a
certain sense, was passed around as a treat by Roman Polanski. Yul
Brynner, Peter Sellers and Warren Beatty famously offered a $25,000
reward for the solving of the murder. Those three also happened to be on
film with Cass Elliot in a porn film found at the Cielo Drive house, and
other recognizable Hollywood faces were have said to be among the ones
filmed having sex with Sharon. Investigator Hal Lipset discussed some of
the films confiscated and returned back to Cielo Drive, things hitting
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underground circles- things that those who knew spoke of quietly: Sharon
Tate with Dean Martin. There was Sharon with Steve McQueen. There
was Sharon with two black bisexual men. (Oddly, McQueen was on the
Manson Family’s alleged celebrity snuff list.) Charlie had said in one
interview that Susan Atkins had consorted with Yul Brynner, Peter Sellers
and dallied up Jay Sebring. It’s sometimes hard to tell if Charlie is blowing
smoke or dropping hints, but it is interesting to note he picked two of the
guys on the Cass video. Knowledge of this would be a nightmare, so things
were sent to the press referring only to ‘private films returned to the
Polanski home’. An aspiring starlet nervously asked LAPD for some
undeveloped film that had been taken into evidence, not wanting lurid
scenes to be splashed across tabloids. Brynner, Sellers and Beatty likely
had similar thoughts.
Said Manson in an interview with Ron Reagan Jr.:
“Did they tell you about all the film that they got with the dogs and
chauffeurs, that came out of the black and white, when Yul Brynner and
Peter Sellers paid $30,000 to get the videotapes back that they had done
with the pornography, where they were gobbling on each others knobs in
the closet with poor Sharon, beautiful Sharon?”
A bit of silence instantly descended on sex parties where Manson girls and
Charlie intermingled with the famous at some weird parties. Nuel
Emmons published this likely true tale in his book:
“We had long ago chucked our inhibitions about sex,” Mr. Manson
supposedly said. “But chains, whips, torture and other weirdness were
not part of our routine.” The book also recounts a supposed ménage à
trois with Mr. Manson, a male movie star and his television actress wife,
after which the man, one “Mr. B,” “slipped five one-hundred-dollar bills
in my pocket.”
That’d be three grand in today’s money.
Manson had corroborated tales of large scale sex parties at Dennis

Wilson’s house (ask Mike Love, he has spoken of these events) and the
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Family were getting known on the Hollywood scene as ‘people to invite’.
Angela Lansbury’s kid Didi was in the family, with a note from mom
approving this arrangement. A huge scandal almost ensued. She was 14.
Do you need a famous Hollywood daughter getting fucked up with the
Manson Family? Cops were now wary of the Family and noted the
underage membership. Deidre spent a while with them before being
recaptured and drying out. But wherever you turned, orgies including
underaged girls were a common lane where these two circles (Manson and
Polanski) had privately also run across each other. But publicly? Only
cryptically referred to.
Interlude 1: Weird Premonitions-Jean Harlow, Jay Sebring and

Visions of Slaughter
Jean Harlow, sex kitten of original Hollywood, had her husband Paul Bern
die under mysterious circumstances in their Benedict Canyon mansion in
the early 1930’s. This house was said in the intervening decades to be
decidedly creepy. Which made the following even weirder:
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Harlow’s Benedict Canyon mansion at Easton Drive had ended up three

decades later as home to Jay Sebring, the “hairstylist to stars”, the ex-
boyfriend of Sharon Tate’s and one of Cielo Drive’s 1969 fellow murder
victims. Tate was house-sitting at this very same residence one night while
Sebring was away for business. She was awakened by an intruder in the
bedroom.
In August 1968, Tate told columnist Dick Kleiner about a dream she had
in 1966: “I saw this creepy little man. He looked like all the descriptions I
have ever read of Paul Bern.” The ghost began to run around the room
haphazardly, clumsily bumping into furniture and cursing loudly, while
blood spurted from the hole in his head. Frightened, Tate hurried
downstairs only to be confronted by the horrifying apparition of
someone bound to the newel post, with his throat slashed. Tate later said
that she somehow knew that the mutilated figure was Sebring. Then, the
apparition vanished.
In view of what happened exactly one year after this interview, one has to
wonder about the details of this dream, and how they bear more than a
casual resemblance to what transpired in Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon,
up the street from the Sebring house. Did Sharon see the future?
Interlude 2: Weird Murders Abound
Image result for laurence

merrick manson
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Laurence Merrick worked with Sharon Tate before her death in his acting
school. He had non-US military connections. He became involved filming
a movie just up the road from Spahn Ranch that mimicked Charlie’s
Helter Skelter theme, and employed Manson family members. Later, with
Robert Hendrickson, he moved from the biker war film to Spahn Ranch
and began filming the Manson family for a documentary-one famously
banned in California in 1973. According to Bryan Thomas:
Makes you wonder what kinds of conversations they were

having at Paramount Ranch between members of the cast and
crew and some of Manson’s followers. There were also many
interesting cameo appearances, including a real member of
Charles Manson’s gang, Mark Ross (he plays “Singer”), who
later claimed to write a theme song for the film that was never
used […]”
How much of the philosophy was cribbed from this film alone? The timing
coincides with uptick in Helter Skelter talk. This story is already odd, but
Merrick’s 1977 murder in public by a failed musician who may have not
actually been responsible just adds to the weirdness factor in this one. Oh,
and Merrick was getting documented government subsidies to sponsor his
studio training and film making endeavors. Hmmm.
Interlude 3: Weird Vibrations: The Beatles took LSD in Sharon

Tate’s future house on Cielo Drive?
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Sexy Sadie’s alter ego, Mia Farrow, Beatles and etc.
.John Lennon spoke to Rolling Stone in 1974 in one of his most candid
interviews ever. When the tale of LSD comes up, he recounts their first
time in London. Then he continues:
“The second time we had it was in L.A. We were on tour in one of those
houses, Doris Day’s house or wherever it was we used to stay, and the
three of us took it, Ringo, George and I. Maybe Neil and a couple of the
Byrds – what’s his name, the one in the Stills and Nash thing, Crosby and
the other guy, who used to do the lead. McGuinn. I think they came, I’m
not sure, on a few trips. But there was a reporter, Don Short. We were in
the garden, it was only our second one and we still didn’t know anything
about doing it in a nice place and cool it. Then they saw the reporter and
thought “How do we act?” We were terrified waiting for him to go, and
he wondered why we couldn’t come over. Neil, who never had acid either,
had taken it and he would have to play road manager, and we said go
get rid of Don Short, and he didn’t know what to do.
Peter Fonda came, and that was another thing. He kept saying [in a
whisper] “I know what it’s like to be dead,” and we said “What?” and he
kept saying it. We were saying “For Christ’s sake, shut up, we don’t care,
we don’t want to know,” and he kept going on about it. That’s how I
wrote “She Said, She Said” – “I know what’s it’s like to be dead.” It was a
sad song, an acidy song I suppose.”
Though it isn’t exactly clear in Lennon’s mind where it happened, the

mention of Doris Day’s house could lead one to Terry Melcher’s property
at Cielo Drive, the future home of Roman Polanksi and Sharon Tate. It
was a well know short term rental property. The possible idea that
Manson and the Beatles had been in the same house (separated by less
than two years) and then the house door later bore words from Beatles
songs yet to be written painted in the murder victims blood? It is an
unclear tale in Lennon’s telling, but would be a temporal mind fuck
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beyond description.
Interlude 4: Weird Confluence-President Gerald Ford, Squeaky,

Tex and Bruce Davis
Squeaky immediately after trying to shoot President Ford
Bruce Davis, the forgotten assassin
Squeaky Fromme had tried to shoot President Gerald Ford in 1975,

famously proclaiming “Can you believe it? It didn’t go off!”. Why she did it
wasn’t really clear. Something far weirder is the tale of Bruce Davis while
he was in prison. In 1984, he met Beth Wilson through his born again
Christian work, and they became very taken with each other. So taken,
that Beth broke up with her fiance, Steven Ford, son of former President
Gerald Ford. She broke up with Ford, and married Davis in 1985. How
Gerald Ford shows up twice in a Manson Family tale is beyond me.
In one of the more ill advised prison decisions of the 70’s, Bruce Davis was
assigned to California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, where Tex
Watson was already incarcerated. As born again Christians, they worked
in the prison ministry together, and began preaching. Soon they had run
of the prison, their own offices and telephones and acted like they owned
the joint. Inmates complained that they together were preaching a rather
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weird version of Christianity-one that singled people out and sounded very
much like Charlie’s neo-hippie Jesus rants from 1969. Finally cooler heads
prevailed, Tex and Davis were bounced from the ministry, and the
weirdness dissipated. But seriously, who thought letting Tex and Davis
preach Mansonite Christianity together was a good idea? Back to the tale:
The Government Project
Some researchers see some behind the scenes manipulation of events-

government manipulation. There are ideas that Manson was used to help
pillory the nascent hippie movement. Far fetched? Yes and no. The
guardian angel that Charlie had somewhere kept him on the streets when
anyone else would have been back in the joint quickly. Leslie Van
Houten’s initial interview with police mentions meetings with black
leaders, and a man she was certain was government connected.
MISS VAN HOUTEN: Well, it seemed like after we knew what was going
to come down we tried talking to leaders, you know, black leaders, and
we saw that they were stalling.
And it was almost as though we had to make the first move for it to
continue to develop, to get bigger so that it would happen because the
black man loves us so much that he would be our slave and do everything
we said, let us beat him and mistreat him for so many years that he
almost doesn’t want to do what he has to do, but he sees that he has to do
it.
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And so it was up to us to start it.
MR. PART: Now, you say that you talked to some black leaders.
Who were these black leaders?
And you say it was up to us to start it.
Now, what do you mean by starting it?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: I don’t know. All I know is his name is John and he
— he’s pretty big in government.
And I don’t know. He may not be, you know. But we thought he was.
And starting — starting it was that — to just start killing people. Because
it’s going to be blood for blood.
Odd that nobody followed up on that tidbit. Who is this John? Why was
she so convinced he was in the government? Had Charlie told her that or
was it just evident? Van Houten also uses the term Black muslims
frequently, interchangeable with the term Black Panthers. Either way,
Black militants are expected to invade the ranch, and the family went from
from peace and love to military footing.
What is one to make of this 1994 interview, with something only spoken of
once:
CM: The [Oriental] came up to me and said, “You must be [the leader of
The Family].” I said, “Get away from me with that.”
Q: Who’s The Oriental? Do you remember his name?
CM: A blond-haired, blue-eyed Oriental came to me and [said] “This

music is mine, you little bitch. I’ll take your heart out of your chest,
tramp.” Terry Melcher (Doris Day’s son) had sent this clown over to me.
To Terry Melcher, Rev. Moon was “the man.” He’s not the man to me.
Q: So, it’s got something to do with Terry Melcher…
CM: The Oriental came there wanting to fight. I told him I didn’t want to
fight. I ducked him and ran out behind the barn. Somebody else fought
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him. I [ended up] putting [a canvas bag] over his head. I laid him down
and asked, “Do you want me to cut your head off? I [can] take your life
right now.” I got him right up to the point of taking his life then said,
“Look man, I don’t want to go to Death Row for you. I don’t want to go to
San Quentin for you.” He said, “Stay out of the music or cut my head off.”
I said, “Go back to your wife and get under her bed and beg her for
forgiveness. Because if I take your head, it won’t be where anybody will
know it.” And I said, “Now get.” I ran him off. But when I ran him off, the
war didn’t end.
……………………………..
People at that ranch were mad at Terry Melcher because he didn’t [sign
us to a music contract, and because] he sent somebody over there to
fight. He caused some trouble. He almost got some other people killed.
Some people put their life on the line because of Terry Melcher. Terry
Melcher didn’t even know about it. No one ever told him about it. This is
the first time I’ve ever even brought it up. A lot of that poison goes under
the bridge. I just forget it, and let it go. Because it doesn’t matter… To dig
it up only brings up more negativity. The time is done. The crimes are
over. It went through the changes.
Or this interview with Ronald Reagan Jr.:
“Sharon Tate and those people were killed because Terry Melcher broke a
contract and sent 3 Orientals with hatchets over to kill somebody else. He
didn’t directly do that. What he did was he sent his mother’s man over to
put the light out in another chamber.
In other words, you raise a man up in the music and everybody wants to
say ‘Hey well, mine is better than his.’ and ‘What are you doing up on my
stage?’ and ‘Who controls what on this set?’ and ‘Who is the man on this
set? Clark Gable?’ or ‘Where is your fear?”
I honestly do not know what he is referring to there, but the details seem
too specific for Charlie to be talking off the cuff about nothing. Who is this
‘Oriental’? Some of this sounds like Manson could be speaking
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allegorically, speaking of Melcher. Yet the mention of Melcher specifically

in the story seems to contradict this argument, and it honestly seems like
he is speaking about something that did happen. The fact that ‘the
Oriental’ is mentioned twice in separate interviews is strange, and Doris
Day being mentioned as hiring ‘heavies’ in rambling fashion makes this
whole story intriguing, and perhaps based more in fact than just Charlie
making up things on the spot. It remains something little discussed, like
many details of this tale. *note-read the comments to this article for a
reader that had the explanation to this tale
Legendary researcher Mae Brussell immediately suspected we were not

told the truth about the Manson story, and immediately started
investigating. Her unerring ability to ferret out government involvement
suspicious events led her down some interesting avenues. She knew deep
down that the expanding hippie movement was on someone’s radar, and
something would be happening soon. She asked some important initial
questions in an October 1971 radio interview:
“Who recognizes something good in this movement?
Who was putting it down?
What is their philosophy?
Hippies that were interviewed in magazines like Ramparts or

New York Times.
What are they saying about themselves?
What are people saying about them?
I realized that it was going to be stopped in some way, because it was

taking hold; It captured the basic good that is in people. Somebody was
going to have to get them”
What happened was that the police had to go to where the Manson
Family lived. And what did they find there? They found what the
newspaper described as a ritualistic killing done by self-confessed
hippies, in what they called a military-style commune.
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First, the news media should define the word hippie. Because the hippies
that I knew from ’67 to ’69 didn’t mean a military operation in any sense
of the word, nor in anybody else’s mind in the world. Nor did it to the
Rand Corporation, or the President of the United States, or John
Mitchell. Hippie did not mean military; it was anti-military; it was anti-
war; it was the let’s get it together generation.
So when they found the real killer and he has this beard and guitar, we
just can’t call him an ex-convict. They have to call it a military-style
commune. We must have military-style communes in Vietnam if a
commune is where people all live together and you are military; it’s a
military commune. It certainly isn’t a hippie commune, but they have to
make it a hippie thing.
Now what did they have in the commune? They had shacks with lookout
points; they had telescopes; they had walkie-talkies; they had military
field telephones; they had collections of knives and shotguns; they had
four-wheel drive [dune buggies]. The neighbors turned them in for
threatening them. They drove all night and made so much noise that the
neighbors said, “You know, you keep us awake.” And they said, “Oh, we’ll
kill you if you don’t shut up.” They threatened their lives.
Now we go to Charles Watson: This was a clean-cut boy who did these
murders. He came from Texas. And the questions are: Where was he
approached? How did he get into this case? Was it of his own volition?
Last week on the Monterey Peninsula there was an article in the paper
that a boy was picked up as a hitch-hiker in Santa Cruz. He was thrown
out of the car near the highlands, and we talked about that a littler bit on
this show. He was almost killed. And the subject of the conversation was
that one of the four men who just about killed him said, “I’m from the
Manson Family in Texas.” That caught my interest because something
very big in the planning stage of this particular massacre took place in
the state of Texas.
So I went to Community Hospital to discuss with this boy. This boy
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attended five years of College and the American system of education. He

was about to go into the Peace Corp and go to the Philippines the next
week. He was almost dead out at Community Hospital after just going
down our beautiful coast and being picked up and roughed up by
somebody who claimed to be from the Manson Family in Texas.
Let us pause to remember Sunshine Pierce had headed back to Texas, and
that the Family had taken the bus to Texas before. But seriously, a Manson
Family in Texas? Likely this would be street kid bravado to freak out
someone during a bit of ultra-violence, but with Charles Watson being so
Texas connected, it does leave it to interesting speculation as to who the
hell those people were. If it was something real, one can see how that had
to be NEVER repeated by anyone in the news media. Tex was noticeably
kept out of the murder tale, but Brussell had actually noticed that
considerable efforts were made to keep him away from Manson and his
image:
We don’t know much—because it’s never brought out at these trials

—about the background of Charles Watson, except that he did appear
with a beard and became part of the Manson Family. When Charles
Manson was arrested, a law firm sent two lawyers who went to Texas to
see this particular boy, Charles Watson. Judge David Brown said to the
lawyers from Beverly Hills, California, “You take the next plane back to
California. I will put you in jail for seventy-two hours or fine you if you
don’t get back to California.” And the lawyers said, “Well, wait a minute,
that’s our client. We want to see him.” The lawyer that wanted to see
Charles Watson was named Mr. DeLoach. He called a press conference
at a Dallas Hotel, and DeLoach said this at the press conference: “I came
to see my client.” Charles Watson had been in his office in Los Angeles,
California thirty or forty times prior to the killing of Sharon Tate and the
other six people in Los Angeles. DeLoach said his own background was
that he was a Republican candidate for the State Assembly in 1964, and
he was chairman for the Young Republicans. He belonged to a law firm
on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles. At the jail to keep Mr.
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DeLoach from seeing Charles Watson were twenty Texas highway

patrolmen and sheriff’s deputies guarding him. And they fought the
extradition for eight months.
When you’re talking about conspiracies, Watson’s defense has to go into

every avenue to develop his claim that Charlie Manson masterminded
him and programmed the group; that the hippie-youth-magic, Satan
kind of thing, controlled him to use his knife to kill these people. Prior to
meeting Manson, he was not involved in any kind of violence or
altercation.
I have seen no record, publicly, that Mr. Watson had a traffic violation or
any kind of problem (he had a single marijuana conviction in actuality).
This twenty year-old boy needed an attorney from the Young Republican
Committee forty times. I know what the expenses are to meet with any
attorney, even for one hour. People use attorneys or public defenders if
they have small altercations. But to go to a prominent law office of a
man named Mr. DeLoach thirty to forty times prior to the time that
you’re going to kill seven people is worth investigating. And it’s
particularly worth investigating because the boy isn’t even really
considered a criminal or a murderer. When the trial for Charlie Manson
took place this boy was in Texas, and they fought the extradition, and he
later wouldn’t be associated as part of that clan but as the robot or the
product of that society.
When you study this, it is intriguing how much Tex Watson shows up-not
in the headlines-but consistently in the background of too many tales. He
came and went freely, owned his own wig shop, and was well funded and
well connected as soon as he arrived in California. His final return in
spring 1969 seems to coincide with the sudden paramilitary training the
family went under. Prosecutors automatically assumed this was Manson
driven, but there’s evidence that Tex played a larger part in all events than
has ever been discussed. (such as his sudden departure before the
massive August 16 Spahn Ranch raid and his setting up in Hawaii with
unknown friends months later-even getting a job) In news reports, there
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was a careful divide, Watson was always referred to as a ‘man’, while any
references to Charles Manson were ‘hippie’. If one doesn’t always trust the
media, like Brussell, then this verbiage combined with the cascade of
national headlines were meant to defuse and discredit the hippie
movement, and the hallucinogenic aspect of it as collateral damage. Then
the thesis that this was intentionally done, and the plan would to be to kill
the hippie movement begins to make sense. Brussell collected headlines
at the time:
December 2nd: Nomadic hippies in the Tate murders.
December the 3rd: 3 Suspects in Tate Case Tied to Guru.
December the 4th: Accused Killers Live Nomad Life with Magnetic
Guru
December the 4th: Hypnotic Killers – Hippie Bands, They’re

Controlled by an Evil Genius
Father Became a Hippie, Looking for Sharon Tate Clues
A Move to Indict God
The D.A. Asks Hippie-cult Indictment
Inside the Desert-cult Hideout – Family Members Talk of Black

Magic, Sex, Murder
Hippie Family Member Describes the Murder
Cult Leader Plotted the War Between the Races
Hippie Satan Clan is Indicted.
Talk of Cult Leader Arraigned in Slayings
The Love and Terror Cult, The Dark Edge of Hippie Life
Check out the verbiage there. And these are headlines, mind you, not
pieces or quotes from articles. Middle America would be strongly
influenced by this, and hitchhiking hippies would no longer be flower
children, they would be potential knife wielding psychotics. In the bigger
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picture, yes these kids were dangerous, but not in any way that is
portrayed above. They had learned that the system they’d been taught was
a lie, a huge shuck. No need to save up to buy a house and keep the real
estate industry afloat. No need to buy a car and keep the automotive
industry afloat. No need to buy a washer and dryer to keep the aluminum
industry afloat. Hell, no need for money. We can live together in crappy
housing or even the desert, we can wash our clothes in streams. We can
hitchhike anywhere across the whole country for free. We can grow weed
and trade it for things.
This would be considered a very real social threat to the powers that be,
and would be the beginnings of not only the destruction of the economy,
but the whole monetary system itself. If you think that didn’t make people
sit up and take notice, you’d really have to be fooling yourself. Mae
Brussell was on top of it right away. Now whether Manson was set up to
mastermind this thing? Yes there is evidence this could be true.
COINTELPRO was a secret FBI program designed to infiltrate and
neutralize counter culture groups. Mae Brussell had smelled a rat, but it
wasn’t until 1975 that the Church Committee finally exposed this domestic
spying and countermeasures operation as illegal. Manson an operative?
Maybe, maybe not. But either way, random acts of violence and madness
or premeditated chaos with some government hand pulling strings-the
folks in the media at the behest of the powers that be knew how to take
advantage of the situation and got maximum mileage from the tragedy,
and essentially killed the flower power ideal of the utopian hippy
movement. The little discussed mutiny at the Presidio San Francisco
military base in October 1968 certainly got attention within the upper
circles of the government-soldiers turning hippie and refusing to obey
orders? This stuff needed to be stopped before the government was swept
out of power, like the waves of youth dissent flowing though Europe that
summer. There certainly were many reasons to actively discredit the
hippie movement. With Altamont right around the corner, that concert
and the Manson murders are always spoken of as ‘the death of the hippie’.
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Atkins prepares for takeoff at Spahn Ranch 1969
How Did They Get Caught?
Ironically, it was moving to the Barker Ranch deep in the desert trying to
avoid unwanted attention that got them caught. Burning a new and
expensive Michigan Loader on Federal land got some police attention
right away. (Charlie incorrectly thought it was there to dig trenches in the
ground as traps to get him to crash his dune buggy and demanded it be
zapped.) Roaring across the desert in dune buggies pretending to play a
Rommel/Rat Patrol desert wargame…swooping in on unsuspecting supply
depots, blowing things up, and swooping away-almost the perfect childlike
game but acted out with real sub-machine guns, knives and jacked up
dune buggies. The peace and love group had been overtaken by elements
that were coming in larger numbers: bikers, car thieves and gun runners.
With obvious car stripping workshops in the desert, there was law
enforcement attention, which should have been expected. Cops had finally
had enough with their unwanted and almost intentional hell raising going
on, and went out to get them. They bagged some Manson Family
members little mentioned: in the raid they got Charles Manson, Kenneth
Brown, David Hammock, Lawrence Bailey and Bruce Davis. Brown was
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Zero’s friend from Ohio, and is never mentioned in any story, and David
Hammock who shows up only this once in relation to the family and is
likewise never mentioned in the tales. Ten women were found with sheath
knives strapped to them: Beth Tracey, Diane Bluestein, Sherry Andrews,
Patty Sue Jardin, and Sue Martel. (or in real life: Collie Sinclair, Diane
Snake Lake, Claudia Smith and Cathy Gillies).
In reality, all of the evidence in the trial used by the prosecution originally
stemmed from a muddled confession by Susan Atkins, a confession that
was recorded without her knowledge by her lawyers Paul Caruso (an
expensive Hollywood lawyer to the stars ‘Better call Paul’) and Richard
Caballero (a close associate of prosecution), then quickly shared in detail
with prosecutor Bugliosi, and then sold for profit to be published as a
quicky paperback followed by headline grabbing huge articles across
newspapers of America-(it was only supposed to be published in Europe).
She sensed the underhanded way she had been treated by a legal team
assigned to defend her, and sued for $2 million for these legal
indiscretions in 1972 (but lost). Other things that didn’t sit right-
Caballero had replaced Atkin’s original court appointed lawyer, and was a
former deputy DA (read: high level prosecution lawyer now appointed for
defense). According to a little discussed expose written at the time in the
LA Free Press, this confession was colluded in for profit by Susan Atkins,
her two attorneys, someone from the district attorney’s office and a multi
careered man named Lawrence Schiller (one of whose previous works is a
book whitewashing the Warren Commission’s report on the murder of
President John F. Kennedy). In a television interview Schiller is alleged to
have acknowledged that the sum of $150.000 “had already been paid,
received and divided up”. Those who smelled a rat needed to look into this
one a little deeper. On a quick read, this could be interpreted as a case of a
defendant getting lied to and misdirected by someone assigned from the
prosecution team to suddenly be asked to defend them, a seeming conflict
as the whole case hinged on her statement. The large legal fees that high
power attorneys like Caruso would incur make one doubt that he and
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Caballero were doing pro bono work-the book deal money would seem to
have lined their pockets in the main. Her confession was splashed all over
the headlines before the trial, including the LA Times. Only Rolling Stone
magazine seemed to notice this powerful conflict of interest between
Atkins legal team and the $150,000 they received for spreading the story
before the trial began:
‘What possible justification could the Times editors have had in running
the confessions? Where were their heads? Can an individual’s right to a
fair trial, free of damaging pretrial publicity, be so relative? Can it be
compromised so easily by the fictitious right of the public to be
entertained? … If Miss Atkins’ confession does not constitute damaging
pretrial publicity, what does?
What does the phrase mean? Even if the Times could somehow prove that
its confession did Manson absolutely no harm, what right did they have
to take the risk? The moral decision must be made before, not after, the
fact if a man’s right to an impartial trial is to be taken seriously.’
Don’t forget Nixon had already said Manson was guilty, and with this kind
of information splashed across headlines in the form of such a detailed
and gor-ific account of unprecedented hippie horror–most of America
thought he was guilty as well. An impartial trial was going to be difficult.
The prosecution had lined up Linda Kasabian, a recent Family addition to
turn states evidence and Paul Watkins, someone who’d been out of the
Family for a while to tell the tale as inside Manson members privy to
supposed secrets. Another new Family member, Barbara Hoyt is someone
else who also was instrumental in turning states witness against the
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Family. She was a short term fringe member of the family, but was one of
the few willing to testify (especially after the Family had tried to ‘kill’ her
with an LSD laden burger in Hawaii), so she was also presented as an
insider. (This time coincides with Tex being in Hawaii, something never
mentioned anywhere.) Her stories mirror the tale of Helter Skelter as
presented by Bugliosi, and there are some marks of coaching in her
statements (as are the testimonies of Paul Watkins and Linda Kasabian).
Her testimony in the Shorty Shea murder was demonstrably incorrect, yet
was accepted at face value, and was one of the key components in the
conviction. She continues to speak against any consideration of parole at
all Manson family hearings to this day. (edit: she passed away less than
two weeks after Manson)
In view of what had been written across the country, the verdict was a
foregone conclusion even before it started. Not without some interesting
moments that Rolling Stone was witness to:
‘Manson in court today put on an act that you would not believe. Threw
the Constitution in the trash can. Said to the judge, “I was going to throw
it at you, but I didn’t want to hit you and I was afraid I’d miss and hit
you by accident. But you don’t know what the Constitution is. I wish I
could throw it at you like you’ve been throwing things at me.”
All he was asking for was a simple answer to whether or not he would
agree to the substitution of attorneys for Susan Atkins.’
“Don’t I get to put on a defense? Isn’t it unusual that you won’t let the
defendant even defend himself?” Manson to Judge
Despite the narrative of Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter being fairly burned into
society’s collective subconscious, it is a frightening thought that large parts
of the story were hidden from view, apparently deliberately, some parts
were closer to fabrication, leading one to wonder if the Helter Skelter story
is designed to obscure something else. One thing that clearly had to be
hidden was….
Who Knew Who?
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“If you were surprised by the murders, you weren’t connected

to what was going on in the canyon”
The above oblique quote by Frank Zappa’s wife Gail sums it up quite
succinctly. In reality, nobody was really unknown to each other in this
case. This is usually little discussed. Hollywood film people knew Manson.
He’d been on the payroll for Universal Studios as a film consultant (Jesus
expert), and knew some movers and shakers there. Rock stars certainly
knew Manson, he rubbed elbows and partied frequently with many of
them. He lived near them. He was a regular at Mama Cass and John
Philips of the Mamas and the Papas parties. He had arranged and
supplied drugs to many of them. (Across the street from Mama Cass and a
scene for even more parties lived Abigail Folger and Voytek Frykowski,
frequent guests at Mama Cass parties) Manson had actually crossed
paths with four of the five victims who ended murdered at Cielo
Drive.
Other celebs had hushed up quickly, but were known to have hung out
with Manson. Dean Martin’s daughter Deanna was given a ring by
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Manson and was asked to join the family (she kept the ring but declined
the invitation). Buffalo Springfield’s Neil Young pushed hard for Manson
to get signed, even begging record mogul Mo Austin to sign him. Young
gave Manson a motorcycle as a gift. Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys
worked hard to get Manson signed, and used one of his songs on a Beach
Boys album. They partied at the Frank Zappa mansion, the Log Cabin.
GTO’s and Manson girls interacted. (Frank Zappa’s infamous Log Cabin
was just a stone’s throw from the Mama Cass house.) Manson and Tex
Watson had been to the Cielo Drive before multiple times. Roman
Polanski’s phone number was found in Tex’s little black book when he was
arrested. Manson follower Dean Moorehouse, Ruth Ann’s father, crashed
in the guest house by the pool on the property of Cielo Drive immediately
before Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski moved in. Dean had introduced
Tex Watson to the family, and Tex was a known visitor to Cielo Drive.
Manson had said that he had been to the Cielo Drive house at least five
times. Manson girls came over to party at the main house and use the pool
there right before Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski moved in, and after.
After Polanski moved in, Frykowksi was seen filming two naked women in
the pool, one of whom was Susan Atkins (later confirmed by Atkins and
others). Members of the family were very familiar with the guest house,
main house and layout of the whole property. Trial prosecutor Steven Kay
had dated Manson girl Sandy Good. Manson and most of the girls had
partied extensively at their friend Harold True’s house right next door to
Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Although it was unoccupied by the couple
at that point, it was owned by Leno’s parents, was fully furnished and was
broken into many times as a temporary crash location for couples from
next door looking to hook up away from prying eyes. The LaBiancas
occasionally came and went during this time, but didn’t live there.
(Eventually the True house was empty after all the party crew had
moved out, leaving an abandoned Manson-known party house next door
to Leno and Rosemary at the time of the murders.) It was difficult for the
prosecution to dance around the fact that the victims and the suspects
were more than well aware of each other.
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Two people who rarely get mentioned were the initial suspects in the Cielo
Drive murders. Pic Dawson (on and off boyfriend of Mama Cass) and
Billie Doyle (once engaged to Cass in 1969) were fairly high level drug
dealers (and partners dealing to both Cielo Drive and Manson Family)
who were forcibly ejected a week before the murders from a party at
Sharon Tate’s house in spring 1969. Billie Doyle was the dealer that was
subjected to the whipping and buggering at Cielo Drive only days before
the murders. ‘Pig’ written in blood on the door was originally interpreted
as ‘Pic’ and he was promptly arrested. His dad was an ‘agency associate’,
and he was suspected by several researchers of being a dealer with some
CIA connections. Mama Cass expired in London in 1974, and the supposed
‘ham sandwich’ story certainly isn’t true, and there are many unanswered
questions about her death. If anyone knew ‘where the bodies were buried’
in the drug trade, including suspected government connections, Mama
Cass would be one of them. The results of the autopsy were muddled and
contradictory-you can read up on her strange death here. Right before her
death, she told a friend that she had overheard that her new boyfriend had
been paid to be with her. This enigmatic and troubling comment has never
been explained, nor was the new boyfriend ever identified.
Michael Caine recalls attending a party in Hollywood with Jay Sebring

and Sharon Tate, where Mama Cass introduced him to a ‘scruffy little
man’. His name was Charles Manson. Oh, and Mama Cass had thrown
Manson girls out of her parties at her house before. Abigail Folger and
Voytek Frykowski were frequent guests at Mama Cass’. Abigail Folger’s
association with the Free Clinic in San Francisco put her in close contact
with the Manson Family from the early days of 1967-the two circles had
swirled together many times over the years. One final example would be
Mrs. Charlene Cafritz, frequent friend and lavish benefactor of Manson
and his brood–she was friends with Sharon Tate and Terry Melcher,
likewise filmmaker Laurence Merrick was close with both Manson and
Sharon Tate. Strangers these circles were not.
Interlude 5: Weird Connections at 1211 Horn Ave
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1211 Horn Ave, the Nexus of the Crisis and the Origin of Storms?
Things get weird when one investigates the confluence of players

associated with this one innocuous 16 unit apartment building off Sunset
Strip. Let’s see if we can quickly outline the people that were associated
with the murders that flowed though this building in a few short months.
Oddly, very few of the events associated with this location were looked at a
little closer by the authorities at the time.
Diane Linkletter-Harvey Dareff’s live in girlfriend, supposedly committed

suicide in the presence of Ed Durston by jumping out a sixth floor
window, October 5, 1969. Durston lived across the street from Linkletter’s
apartment, at 1211 Horn Ave. Despite prominent and widely circulated
claims from her Hollywood dad, Art Linkletter, that LSD was the cause of
her death, an autopsy disproved the theory. (Durston was an early LAPD
suspect in the Tate murders.) Linkletter’s number was in Abigail Folger’s
phone book and she knew Sharon Tate. Durston was a friend of
Frykowski. Dareff was at the Cielo Drive residence the afternoon of the
murders as part of a drug deal. (recall that a large MDA shipment was
due to be delivered to Cielo the evening of the murders). Quite a close
knit group directly connected to the victims. Many suspect she knew first
hand information about the murders. Oh, and Dareff and Durston’s friend
Bobby Jameson are very strongly believed to be two of the hippies in the
van who famously drove caretaker William Garretson home from Sunset
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the evening of the murders, even to the point of insisting loudly to William
that the cars parked in Cielo belonged to their friends and then getting out
and ‘messing with them’. Some investigators point to Jameson also living
at the time at 1211 Horn Ave. How nobody investigated this tangled web
of interactions is boggling. Whew.
Toni Kay Monti-supposedly committed suicide four days later on October

9, 1969 due to a drug overdose. The cause was listed as her being
despondent over Linkletter’s suicide. She lived directly across from
Linkletter’s apartment and her windows looked right at the window Diane
fell from. Her address? 1211 Horn Ave. She may have had a clear view of
the murder of Linkletter. Durston lived in her building. Oddly, Sherriff’s
office said there was no evidence she ever knew Diane.
Bernard Crowe, or Lotsapoppa, the guy who was shot by Manson in the
single event that seemed to trigger the madness to come, arrested for a
forgery and burglary ring in March 1970. His address listed in the
report-1211 Horn Ave.
Three months later, there was a major bust at 1211 Horn Ave for stolen
airplane tickets. In June 1970, 7 people were arrested for a large ring of
stolen airline tickets. Three of the arrested gave their address as 1211 Horn
Ave. Two others gave an address of 840 Larrabee, the home of Joel Rostau
in 1969. (Rostau, a noted bicoastal drug dealer with mob connections,
ended up murdered before testifying in the Manson trial the month
before this bust, May 1970)
Suzan Peterson-Jay Sebring’s ‘girlfriend of the day’ was driven around by

Frykowski and his artist friend Witlold K during the afternoon of the
murders, August 8, 1969. This was Frykowski’s last trip from Cielo before
being killed. They were tasked with taking Peterson home. Her home?
Horn Ave. Frykowski had called Witold K several times the evening of the
murders, up until midnight-minutes before the murders (!), trying to get
him to come over, but Witold refused. Suzan also insisted she was
supposed to go to Cielo the night of the murders to see Sebring, but awoke
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too late. Was Frykowski in the middle of a drug deal starting to sour and
needed some help? Witold’s adamant multiple refusals would lead one to
believe he had some idea what was going on at Cielo that evening.
Finally, near the end of Horn Ave lies the gas station that Tex stopped at
to fill up after leaving the murder scene at Cielo. Not enough investigators
have asked why they drove away from instead of towards their home at
Spahn Ranch, and headed in the complete opposite direction to Sunset
Strip. Perhaps they had intercepted a drug shipment that did arrive at
Cielo and they were headed somewhere like Horn Ave to ditch them. Who
knows, but it is odd they headed to this neighborhood in the immediate
aftermath. Cyrano’s, located only blocks from Horn Ave, at the time was a
restaurant front for the mob that dealt cocaine to Rostau, Sebring, Billy
Doyle and Thomas Harrigan, and could be a place to dump some high end
drugs. The latter two were involved with that MDA delivery the evening of
the murders. (Sebring’s house was also in this neighborhood). They were
looking for something or someone, but no one investigated this question
any further.
Multiple unexplained deaths in the immediate aftermath of the murders,

two people who were at Cielo Drive the DAY of the murders who just
happened to be drug dealers, a symbiotic forgery unit for all ID and
passport needs in one apartment with a stolen plane ticket country wide
ring in another (Santana, Linda Ronstadt and Eric Burdon were all
stopped in airports for using tickets from this source), stolen
securities….all these interconnections with the victims, and all with a locus
of a single apartment building is a little, um strange.
Who Killed Who?
Did Susan Atkins kill Sharon Tate as she originally said? She recanted that
part later. Did Beausoleil kill Hinman? Did Charlie? Bruce Davis certainly
left fingerprints on the gun that killed Zero, despite the ‘russian roulette’
suicide conclusion, but never was convicted. Who killed Shorty Shea?
(Shorty had beaten the living shit out of Manson in the Gresham street
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days, and his supposed snitching might not have been the only reason for
his murder). Did Tex kill everyone at the Polanksi house and LaBianca
house? (almost certainly yes. and no matter where you turn online, you
will read people that still think that Charles Manson killed Sharon Tate.)
Who Heard Anything?
Several neighbors testified they had heard unsettling things that night.
According to the Tate First Homicide Investigation Report, the closest
neighbors, the Kotts, only 100 yards away at 10170 Cielo heard four
gunshots in quick succession between 12:30 and 1 am. A counselor Tim
Ireland was monitoring a campout down the hill from Cielo that night and
testified that he had heard things between 1 and 1:30 am. He heard
screams and said he heard a male voice cry out “Oh, God, no. Stop. Stop.
Oh, God, no, don’t.” Ireland said that the scream persisted for
approximately 10 seconds. He drove around the neighborhood but could
not find anything amiss. He was considered a very reliable witness by
police investigators in both the timing and testimony.
Around the corner, neighbor Emmett Steele was awoken between 2 and 3
am by his dogs barking, and many neighborhood dogs barking. He stated
the only thing that usually triggered this level of barking was gunshots, but
stated he was asleep and only awoke at the sudden barking. Marcel
Mounton was a neighborhood watch patrolman and testified he had heard
three gunshots at roughly 3:30 am, and reported this to his supervisor.
Mr. Bullington, another person out early at 4:00 am reported three
gunshots to the same Bel Air supervisor (logged in at 4:11 am). Carlos Gill
was situated across Benedict Canyon from Cielo (400 yards away) and
reported loud arguing at 4:00 am from the direction of Cielo between 3-4
people that became very heated and loud and instantly went silent.
So we have witnesses to events between 12:30 and 1:30 that match the
prosecution’s event timeline. Then we have several witnesses that back up
another event at 3:30-4 am, the supposed time Manson and an accomplice
had returned. Discussion of this second likely visit to Cielo was buried
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quickly by the prosecution.
the forgotten victim
William Garretson and Steven Parent
Steve Parent was the first one killed at the Polanski house. He is often
never mentioned in stories about the massacres, which is consistently
odd. He had been visiting Garretson, the lone survivor, in the caretaker
house. (his car had been spotted around 5 am on the morning of August
6th outside the gate by the paper deliveryman to Cielo-indicating that he
had been to visit Garretson twice in three days) He was shot by Tex
Watson as he was leaving in his car and Watson, Atkins and Krenwinkel
were entering the property. He was unlucky by a matter of mere minutes
in timing his exit.
William Garretson is a tale all by himself. Another teenager like Parent, he

was the only survivor of the Cielo Drive massacre and was the first and
most obvious suspect. He had hitchhiked into town on the night of the
murders. He’d also been dropped off back at home by hippies in a van, and
though he said he wanted to be dropped off far away from Cielo, the
occupants insisted on taking him to the gate, then inside, showing that
these supposed strangers knew exactly where he lived, to the point of
them going up to Sebring’s Porsche and saying ‘there’s our friends car,
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let’s play a prank on him’. No one has ever tried to identify these people,
though there seems to be enough to figure out exactly who they were. They
knew more about the place than Garretson it seems.
As far as the murders went, Garretson initially claimed he had the stereo
on and heard nothing. When questioned a little deeper, he mentioned that
he saw the handle on the front door had been tried and the kitchen
window screen had been removed. His initial testimony was puzzling and
it seemed like he was on some kind of drug, but results were inconclusive.
His lie detector test was also inconclusive, especially on the point of what
he had heard and whether he had left the guest house at any point.
(although the lie detector did find that Sharon Tate had given him weed
before and perhaps even that day). Gunshots literally outside the door,
dogs freaking out, horrifying screams on the lawn outside his window?
(The house and the guest house were only 150 feet apart) Later, Bill
eventually admitted that despite his original testimony, he saw and heard
plenty. He admitted that he had looked out and had seen one of the
victims on the lawn getting stabbed, and allowed that he might have left
the guest house and hid in the bushes to avoid detection by the invaders.
And then some very weird stuff too-read his initial police interview here
and listen to his very strange 2016 interview here. (The interview is in four
parts, and are podcasts numbers 38-41 in the menu at the top of the page).
Re reading this, his general demeanor with the police when arrested at the
time, and the honestly fantastical events he relates in his last interview
make me wonder if belladonna was involved. Many of the things he said
and said he saw are not inconsistent with the drug. In one interview,
Garrettson mentions some girls who have come around before, including
someone using one of Patricia Krenwinkel’s known aliases. Did she know
Bill, and when she was sent out there to check his cottage-did they drug
Garrettson with this stuff, knowing from first hand experience that he
wouldn’t be able to testify to anything accurate? The girls had been known
to carry the potion around to dose people with. It does go a long way to
explaining the ‘mutant baby’ he says he saw among other things. On the
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other hand, why not just kill him?
Copycat
This is something that Bugliosi entertained as a motive, but pressed

forward with Helter Skelter instead. According to this, as soon as Bobby
Beausoleil called the ranch and said he was under arrest for the Hinman
murder, the girls formed a plan to commit copycat murders
(Tate.LaBianca) to prove Bobby wasn’t guilty since he was locked up while
the new murders happened. This is also what Charlie said happened in the
Nuel Emmons book-he’d arrived home from Esalen, Beausoleil was under
arrest and the girls had a plan. According to Manson, his only concern was
that these whacked out chicks were going to get him sent back to jail with
hare brained schemes like this. Some problems with this angle, Beausoleil
had returned to the Hinman house days after the murder to scrub
‘Political Piggy’ off the wall (cops agreed this happened) for some reason.
(an aside: Beausoleil had kept the murder knife on his belt sheath, every
day after, horrifying biker Danny DeCarlo, who was privy to the murder
details-and was ordered while fleeing north at a rest stop to remove the
knife by a local policeman, putting it in the trunk where it was found later.
Seriously?). Elements of copycat are definitely in later events, but
disregarding the Bugliosi narrative, once one looks at all of the weirdness
surrounding this tale, it is hard to see how Cielo Drive and the LaBiancas
weren’t both targeted intentionally.
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Dennis Wilson’s crashed Ferrari, courtesy of Tex and Clem
Follow the Money
On the surface, the Family was dirt poor, eating garbage. But they spent
money like it was going out of style. Dune buggies purchased. Radios
purchased. Rent on Gresham street. Drugs aren’t cheap. Where did the
funds come from? Acid just seemed to show up in bulk. (researchers
suspect the The Brotherhood of Eternal Love..a tale of their own..shows up
here). Hell, let’s roll back the clock to Manson getting out in 1967. Soon he
had a schoolbus and access to gasoline credit cards to travel thousands of
miles. One wonders whether there was some funding from unnamed
sources at the outset. Some members brought money in. Juanita brought a
large chunk of her inheritance in (it was used to pay off George Spahn’s
tax debts) Linda Kasabian contributed $5k she stole. Manson had given
thousands of dollars to George Spahn for various reasons, mostly
associated with keeping the Family safely living at the ranch. Manson had
a more than one rich patroness who donated mucho moola. One tale out
there is of a mountain plane crash near the desert ranch of Vegas
gambling junket-when found, the occupants were in the plane, but
someone had stripped Vegas plane of all cash and valuables. Was this
crash a large source? Fancy cars, fancy motorcycles are behind the media
screen of dumpster diving vagrants.
More than one rich benefactor-Charlene Cafritz in particular-unloaded a

ton of cash on the Family through Manson. Charlie was a beneficiary of
her ministrations, and she turned over close to $100,000 to various
friends, including much to Manson. When Charlie visited her in Reno
Nevada where she was setting up residence for a divorce for a couple of
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weeks, she took several motion pictures of Charlie and his girls, yet
another thing that was immediately hushed up and not discussed or seen
by anyone. One strong reason would be that Cafritz was a friend of Sharon
Tate, Terry Melcher and other main players on the Polanski side of the
tale, so there may be films of Polanski, Tate, Manson and the girls together
out there still. Oh and in December 1969, right after the Family was
busted, Cafritz was arrested for selling heroin to undercover police in
September 1969. Was this a set up, or was this 23 year old lady just falling
apart at the seams? The date of arrest is convenient in that she would be
essentially silenced in the upcoming trial. (we never found out, as she died
under mysterious circumstances in early September 1970). Going even
further back into 1967, several sources say Abigail Folger was kicking in
money towards the Family in the early days from contact with the Free
Clinic.
One thing you never see discussed is where did the Manson family get two
semis? Semi like tractor trailer 18 wheelers. One was used to haul
equipment, one was used as headquarters at Spahn as they prepared to
move into the desert permanently. Paul Watkins is very clear in his book
that they had two of these, yet they seem to appear out of nowhere. This
would not be an easy purchase, but no one seems to have mentioned them
or have asked where these came from?
Unsolved Murders
Here is a sampling of a few of the dozen or so murders alluded to by the

family that have not been solved. There are more if you dig:
John Phillip Haught, aka Zero, a Manson family member suspected of

‘loose lips’ killed in the presence of Manson family members Catherine
Gillies, Bruce Davis, Susan Bartell, and Little Patty. Despite the gun being
completely full, police accepted the Russian roulette story and ruled the
death a suicide. November 5, 1969. The location was Mark Ross’ house, a
Manson family associate who often let the family stay there. (suspected
informant Bill Vance lived there) Mark was later Aesop Aquarian with the
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Source family. Marina Habe and Reet Jurveson also show up as fringe
characters who were murdered less than two months later, with one being
mentioned as a possible girlfriend of Haught. Investigators strongly
suspect these two were done in by the family.
James and Lauren Willet- murdered living in a house with Squeaky,

Nancy Pittman and Priscilla Cooper. Pittman and Cooper got five years for
the murders. Lauren was buried under the house and had supposedly died
playing Russian roulette. Shades of Zero? November 8, 1972
James Sharp and Doreen Gaul, age 15 and 19 were young Scientology
students. Doreen was said to be girlfriend of Bruce Davis. Some said they
also ran with members of the Process. They were stabbed over 40 times,
November 7, 1969, and their murders were never solved. The much
traveled Bruce Davis had gone to London to investigate something, unload
a coin collection and stay with both Scientologists and the Process at their
London headquarters. Charlie supposedly had sent him on a mission
never spoken of. Davis was considered the heavy of the family and was
responsible for some of the more unsavory violence required. He may
have been sent there to infiltrate the Process for Manson…He also may
have gone to eliminate…
Sandy Good and Joel Pugh-three months before she ran away with
Manson
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Joel Pugh was a long time prospective fiancee of Manson girl Sandra
Good. Bruce Davis was in London in 1969 and so was Joel. His wrists and
throat were cut, and there were strange and cryptic writings in mirror
writing around him, but not well recorded in the police report. He died on
November 30, 1969, exactly one year before Ronald Hughes. If Pugh had
successfully married Sandy, the cash flow was over, and he could have
been murdered to keep Sandy Good’s trust fund intact and not absorbed
or abrogated by marriage. ‘I would not want what happened to Joel to
happen to me.’ was found in a letter in Sandra Good’s apartment, leading
one to quickly suspect Family related murder. LAPD strongly suspected
Davis of this murder, but to this day it remains a suicide on the UK books.
Four or more murders in three weeks in the immediate aftermath.

Manson family members present for three of them, and one where a
known Manson murderer was ‘on site’ in London. The timeline makes it
seem like there was a concerted effort at silencing anyone who knew
some of the truth, with the family as the prime movers and shakers in the
effort.
Diane Linkletter
Although officially listed as a suicide, the October 4, 1969 death of Diane

Linkletter, daughter of the famous television personality Art Linkletter, is
suspected by many to be a murder. She supposedly jumped out a sixth
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floor window on LSD, the origin of the much repeated tale of the girl who
died on acid thinking she could fly, a lie repeated over and over and
heavily pushed by Art in the media in a concerted government attempt to
demonize LSD use. There are a couple of troubling but convincing reasons
to be suspicious. First is the only witness to her alleged suicide was Ed
Durston (who was also the only witness to bombshell Carol Wayne’s
suspicious drowning,). He was an early suspect in the Cielo murders, and
he was an associate Harvey Dareff, Linkletter’s boyfriend and drug dealer.
Police had information that Dareff was at Cielo Drive the day of the
murders to either drop off or purchase drugs. The murder of his girlfriend
less than a month later would go a long way to silencing not only the
deceased, but anyone associated with her. (Ed would either be a ‘situation
sanitizer’ or a victim of the most unlucky coincidences in history.)
What are we to make of Steve Brandt? Hollywood gossip columnist and

connected to Jay Sebring through drug usage, he was inordinately upset
over Sharon’s death. He communicated with LAPD information he had
about his theories and tips. He began to become unglued in the fall of
1969, and headed to NYC to get out of LA. According to author Dave
McGowan, Papa John Phillips wrote that at the end of November 1969,
Brandt attended a Rolling Stones concert at Madison Square Garden. He
had tried to rush the stage to get to a microphone but was beaten back by
security. Hours later-he was dead. He died in his NYC hotel room that
night of a supposed overdose of barbiturates. Now….the peculiar part here
is: why did Brandt feel so unsafe in LA that he needed to hop to the
opposite coast?. Just to hang out with Andy Warhol superstars? Maybe. A
bigger question would be why would a Hollywood gossip columnist with
unlimited access to A-list celebrities attempt to bum rush the stage in the
middle of a Stones concert? That is a mighty big question, and mighty out
of character. He must have had some information that was so dangerous,
to himself and others, that this was the only way for it to get out–
announce it to the crowd and let it go viral from there. When the radio and
TV news reporters are deliberately ignoring you, when you are getting
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threatened, when police seem to purposely not follow leads you give them,
you’d have to turn to the alternative media. And what bigger audience of
freaks likely to believe a strange set of facts than the crowd of a NYC
Rolling Stones concert? Perhaps he felt this was the only way to get his
unknown message out? Whatever secret knowledge he had, it died with
him that night.
Manson attorney Ronald Hughes disappeared in November 1970, and

Sandra Good declared he was the first of the retaliation murders. Some
claim evidence is conclusive that he was actually caught in a flash flood,
but that is far from true. His decomposed body was found between
boulders four months later, only proving he died on scene. Autopsy results
would be inconclusive, and the cause of death to this day is undetermined,
with the only evidence being Good’s words. Add in Rostau, Brandt, Shorty,
Charlene Cafritz (all murdered, alleged OD or alleged suicide) and others
not covered-well there is a rather large amount of people with intimate
knowledge of the goings on that were either murdered, most with no
suspects held accountable, or died under mysterious circumstances. It is
hard to not see this flurry of deaths in such a short window so close to the
trial as something closely related to the events. (See the unusual deaths
surrounding the Linkletter clan below)
Finally, we will end with the tale of Manson’s uncle Darwin Scott of
Kentucky — he was murdered overkill style with multiple stab wounds in
May 1969. Manson’s whereabouts was unclear at the time, but he was out
of touch with his parole officer. He had asked to go to Texas with the
Beach Boys as an adviser. An acid dispensing hippie guru going by the
name of the Preacher with a carload of hippie girls had rolled into town
just before the murder. Sure, there were plenty of preacher type hippies
rolling through the backroads of America, but this one is a little weird.
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‘and they shall be recognized by the seal of god on their foreheads’

-Revelations
Tex and the Tale of the Tapes
The tapes of Tex Watson’s initial police interviews in Texas in 1969 are
still sealed today. Some claim attorney client privilege keep them sealed.
This is not true as that expired long ago. The only reason given is they are
evidence of unsolved murders under investigation. Yet LAPD admit that
no Manson associated crimes are under investigation still. Many suspect
that his version of the tale as told on tape explodes the Helter Skelter
myth, exonerates Manson and some of the girls and would result in a
mistrial of everyone involved, allowing their immediate release. The fight
to get these tapes released is ongoing to this day.
Susan Struthers (LaBerge) and Charles Watson and the

LaBiancas
This is a weird one. Suzan Struthers LaBerge, daughter of Leno and

Rosemary LaBianca and Tex Watson lived across from each other in an
apartment complex in 1968. Were they long time friends? Did she set up
her parents to get killed to get their inheritance? Why was she seen with a
moving truck cleaning out her parents house before police arrived? The
tale of her moving to California after befriending Tex in prison, then
moving into the exact town where Sharon Tate’s sister lived and enroll her
daughter in Patti Tate’s daughter’s school where the children became
friends until Patti uncovered the creepy connection….now that is another
really hard to fathom thread-Tex, the LaBiancas and Sharon Tate nexused
through Suzan? Was Suzan hoping to knock off Patti and keep attention
away from Tex’s upcoming parole hearing? Weirdness abounds on the
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little told LaBianca side of the murder tale. Was the whole LaBianca
murder a set up by Suzan and Tex so she could grab what she could and
inherit the rest? Also, Suzan’s boyfriend at the time was aspiring Straight
Satan Joe Dorgan-the same biker club that Beausoleil was in trouble with,
the same biker gang that had been courted by Manson to hang around the
ranch all the time-with Straight Satan Danny DeCarlo as a full time
Manson Family resident. It is not a large leap of logic to see the likeliness
that Struthers and Dorgan had crossed paths with some elements of the
family before, and the LaBiancas and the Manson crew through Struthers
were not the complete strangers portrayed in the media. Dorgan was on
the first list of suspects compiled by the police. Was she the person
Manson called to find out if they were home yet when he suddenly made a
beeline to Waverly Drive after driving aimlessly for a long while? She’d
know they were on vacation and would be able to quickly find out they
were home-she had been with them.
Manson girls on sidewalk of court trying not to look like a cult
Did the Family even exist? Or was it ‘family’? Or was it ‘cult’?

Charlie had a list in his head of real Family members-who was in and who
was not. People came and went. The inner circle of girls knew who was in.
Tex and Bobby Beausoleil are always written about as members, but were
absent from the family far more than they were there. Plenty of people
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came and went in the early days, but as the summer of 1969 wore on, the
family became reluctant to let people leave. Especially people who knew
some of the secrets.
But like many communes in the late 1960’s, they did function as a
surrogate family for each other. They looked out for each other, pitched in
to feed each other, and considered each other to be brothers and sisters.
Brothers and sisters who slept in connubial bliss that is.
Lets be real-there were hundreds of ‘Family’s’ in California. Communes by

definition were large extended families. From the more famous like the
Hog Farm (home to Family member Diane Lake until she was kicked out
at 14 for on site jailbait nookie to protect Wavy Gravy et al) to like minded
smaller ones located within a few miles of Charlie’s family.
Look at Mel Lyman’s family and the cross fertilization of ideas. Read up
on the Fort Hill Community, and despite their protestations, they sound
like a cult. Charlie’s group, although not a cult in name, do bear some of
the hallmarks.
Who were the Informants? The Hidden Power Brokers? Did the
government really know what was going on?
Yes, there were stand down orders from ‘someone above’ documented.
How did Manson get arrested and let go so many times when he was out
on bail unless he had a guardian angel somewhere fairly high up in the
system watching over him? Charlie had meetings in Terminal Island with
a lawyer before he got out. But for a career low level hoodlum, it was a
very odd choice for a lawyer that wanted to meet with him. George
Shibley. According to Mae Brassell– A prominent attorney by the name of
George Shibley who works with groups in the Middle East (and Sirhan
Sirhan)—in Beverly Hills he has powerful connections—met with
Charles Manson just before he got out of jail in (Terminal) Island.
No one will know what conversation transpired between Mr. Shibley
[and Manson], or why he was up there. If this is accurate, why would
Shibley have gone to see him? Did Manson have need for legal
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representation at that time? Was this a sign of some master plan for
Charlie once he was out? Charlie’s original probation officer Roger Smith
was connected to the Family early on and also to Abigail Folger through
the Free Clinic. Dr. Roger Smith, was a research criminologist who had
launched the drug treatment program at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic.
Dr. David Smith had founded the Free Clinic, and in 1969 clinic
administrator Al Rose spent months living/infiltrating the Manson Family
before things grew dark. He brought his data back and with Smith, and
together published a fairly famous paper on the Family: “The Group
Marriage Commune: A Case Study,”. Their probation officer and his wife
were somehow allowed to be foster parents to Manson family toddlers
whenever they were busted, often, then give the kids back. That seems a
bit ill advised for a hippie group with so many lingering negative
associations. Manson being his only client makes this something quite
anomalous.
Did Al Springer or Bill Vance refuse some of the reward money because
they had been directed/sent to infiltrate and be an informant? Who were
later little discussed male members who took over once Manson was in
jail-Dennis Rice being the best known? Who was the mysterious Manson
member around the same time, Mark Ross-the guy who showed up out of
nowhere and seemed to have as many big connections as he had aliases?
Even the Family wasn’t quite sure who he was or where he’d really come
from. He was in charge of the Family once Charlie was in jail. Why did
supposed government stooge Cinque, or Donald DeFreeze of the 1975 SLA
have in his record that he was assigned to monitor the Manson family’s
gun transactions in 1969? Why did Charlie twice say in interviews early
that he was in ‘Witness Protection’ upon release from Terminal Island in
1967? Has anyone asked questions around these topics? No one on
record, that’s for sure.
How did the LaBianca hit team really get home? Who was the black guy
that drove them to Griffith Park before they hitched their second ride
back? Did they really stop and buy their ride breakfast on the way home?
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Who was in the peach colored car that brought Leslie Van Houten back to
the ranch after she hitched a second ride from the LaBianca murder
house? (three people were in the car) Per Snake’s interview, this guy had
cut their field telephone lines from the ranch to the back house, and Leslie
was scared shitless of him when he came back looking for her hours later.
(side note: Van Houten had returned alone after dawn. Her hitchhike
driver supposedly showed up later in the afternoon). How did this guy
know they had telephone lines hung to the back of the ranch if he wasn’t
part of an official surveillance team? (Much of the tale of the LaBianca
murders does not really add up and is in conflict with the official story,
with the coroners time of deaths a staggering twelve hours off the police
timeline of the murder being the largest red flag in a field of red waving
banners).
For those who see coincidences prevalent and no indication of anyone

watching over the Family…Seriously, how did Charlie dodge all of this:
In 1967 Charlie was arrested in Ukiah for interfering with an officer
in 1968 in Ventura for having a false driver’s license.
In 1969 his Los Angeles arrests and citations included driving without a
license, possession of marijuana; assault with intent to commit bodily
harm, later changed to forcible rape; auto theft; burglary; cultivation and
possession of marijuana, and the final charges for which he is currently in
jail (murder); add in contributing to the delinquency of a minor, firearm
theft, receiving stolen property and a couple of counts of statutory rape.
How could a guy on probation get popped that many times, and for some
serious charges, and not get hauled back to jail? It was known that he was
surrounded at the ranch by not only weapons and stolen automobiles, but
underaged and runaway girls-both parole violations. Add in the multiple
members of the Family that somehow literally just walked out of jail and
were never looked for? (Clem had walked away from incarceration, yet
appeared in front of the LA courthouse on camera? It is interesting to
note that he is the only convicted Manson family murderer to be released
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from prison-1985) Was Charlie protected by someone higher up, some

legal/political heavy or agency who served as his handler and his guardian
angel? This has been posited before, and below is fairly thought provoking
corroboration of that idea, coming from one of the officers there, not some
armchair hypothesist.
From an interview with Paul Krassner, he mentioned he had spoken with

Preston Guillory, a police officer that participated in both the investigation
and raid on Spahn Ranch in October 1969. Here’s what Guillory had to
say:
We had been briefed for a few weeks prior to the actual raiding of Spahn Ranch. We had a
sheaf of memos on Manson, that they had automatic weapons at the ranch, that citizens had
complained about hearing machine-guns fired at night, that firemen from the local fire station
had been accosted by armed members of Manson’s band and told to get out of the area, all sorts
of complaints like this.
We had been advised to put anything relating to Manson on a memo submitted to the station,
because they were supposedly gathering information for the raid we were going to make.
Deputies at the station of course started asking, “Why aren’t we going to make the raid
sooner?” I mean, Manson’s a parole violator, machine-guns have been heard, we know there’s
narcotics and we know there’s booze. He’s living at the Spahn Ranch with a bunch of minor
girls in complete violation of his parole.
Deputies at the station quite frankly became very annoyed that no action was being taken about
Manson. My contention is this — the reason Manson was left on the street was because our
department thought that he was going to attack the Black Panthers. We were getting
intelligence briefings that Manson was anti-black and he had supposedly killed a Black
Panther, the body of which could not be found, and the department thought that he was going
to launch an attack on the Black Panthers.
Manson was a very ready tool, apparently, because he did have some racial hatred and he
wanted to vent it. But they hadn’t anticipated him attacking someone other than the Panthers,
which he did. Manson changed his score. Changed the program at the last moment and
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attacked the Tates and then went over to the LaBiancas and killed them. And here was the
Sheriff’s Department suddenly wondering, “Jesus Christ, what are we gonna do about this? We
can’t cover this up. Well, maybe we can.”
I bet those memos are no longer in existence. The memos about what Manson was doing.
Citizens’ complaints. All those things I’m sure have disappeared by now. It shows the police
were conscious of the fact that he had these weapons in violation of his parole. You’ve got at
least involvement here on the part of Manson’s parole officer, on the part of the Sheriff’s
Department, probably the sheriff himself, and whoever gave him his orders. Manson should
have been [imprisoned] long before the killings, because he was on parole, period. He was
living at the Spahn Ranch with an outlaw motorcycle gang. I feel that, to say the least, the
sheriff of Los Angeles County is an accessory to murder.
The raid was a week after the Sharon Tate thing, and the intelligence information was coming
in for about three weeks prior to the raid. They just didn’t want any arrests made. It was
obvious they wanted the intelligence information we were gathering for some other reason.
Three days after they were arrested, 72 hours later, they were all released — lack of evidence —
after this mammoth raid. This raid involved two helicopters, 102 deputies and about 25 radio
cars, and all the charges were dropped against everyone.
It appeared to me that the raid was more or less staged as an afterthought. It was like a
scenario that we were going through. There was some kind of a grand plan that we were
participating in, but I never had the feeling the raid was necessary or that it required so many
personnel. Now, if you were a police official and you were planning a raid on the Spahn Ranch,
utilizing 102 deputies and helicopters and all that, one would think that with all the
information coming out a month prior to the raid, wouldn’t you have them under fairly close
surveillance? If you did have them under fairly close surveillance, wouldn’t you see them leave
the Spahn Ranch to go over and kill seven people and then come back?
So the hypothesis I put forward is, either we didn’t have them under surveillance for grand-
theft-auto because it was a big farce, or else they were under surveillance by somebody much
higher than the Sheriff’s Department, and they did go through this scenario of killing at the
Tate house and then come back, and then we went through the motions to do our raid. Either
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they were under surveillance at the time, which means somebody must have seen them go to
the Tate house and commit the killings, or else they weren’t under surveillance.
You have to remember that Charlie was on federal parole all this time from ‘67 to ‘69. Do you
realize all the shit he was getting away with while he was on parole? Now here’s the kicker.
Before the Tate killings, he had been arrested at Malibu twice for statutory rape. Never got
[imprisoned for parole violation]. During the Tate killings and the Spahn Ranch raid, Manson’s
parole officer was on vacation, so he had no knowledge of Manson being incarcerated, so
naturally Manson was released, but why wasn’t a parole hold put on him?
It’s like Manson had God on his side when all these things are going down, or else somebody
was watching every move he made, somebody was controlling from behind the scenes.
Somebody saw that no parole hold was placed. Manson liked to ball young girls, so he just did
his thing and he was released and they didn’t put any hold on him. But somebody very high up
was controlling everything that was going on and was seeing to it that we didn’t bust Manson.
Prior to the Spahn Ranch raid, there was a memo — it was verbal, I would have loved to Xerox
some things but there wasn’t anything to Xerox — that we weren’t to arrest Manson or any of
his followers prior to the raid. It was intimated to us that we were going to make a raid on the
Spahn ranch, but the captain came out briefly and said, “No action is to be taken on anybody at
the Spahn ranch. I want memos submitted directly to me with a cover sheet so nobody else can
read them.”
So deputies were submitting memos on information about the Spahn Ranch that other
deputies weren’t even allowed to see. We were to submit intelligence information but not to
make any arrests. Manson was in a free fire zone, so to speak. He was living a divine existence.
We couldn’t touch him….
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Note the last dozen or so lines of this article
Ed Sanders had noticed some anomalies with this raid, and felt it had
been staged. His attention was specifically drawn to the admixture of
uniforms both official and unofficial, sometimes on the same officer-it
looked like costumes from a studio lot collection in some instances. Things
photographed on the site make it look like it was some training exercise.
Perhaps it was. The end result was that although 102 law officers with
helicopter and vehicle support managed to coordinate a perfect dawn raid,
the search warrant was already 3 days out of date. The people
commanding this operation would certainly have known that. Did they
think the judge would ‘get their back’ and issue some new paper? Or did
they know full well that none of the arrests would stick, it was only for
show, but it would put the Manson thing on the public radar–for some
time in the future. Manson was aware the raid was coming, who tipped
him off?
So it seems that someone was protecting Manson, and those in law

enforcement were aware of it. Who and why would be the question? Were
they trying to protect some story that was being woven?
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The housekeeper
The immediate disappearance of Winifred Chapman, Sharon and Roman’s

trusted housekeeper–the first one to find the murder scene is generally
unreported. Chapman is well known to most researchers, but few are
aware of her oddly timed disappearance. She was a long term employee of
the Polanskis, and privy to many of their secrets. So it is troubling that one
never reads that she was reported missing on October 13th of 1969 by her
landlord, and that she was last seen on October 10th. She left her purse
and wallet with her ID in her room. Two weeks later she was still missing.
The fact that she disappeared on the exact day the Manson family was
arrested for good at the Barker ranch should make any investigator
wonder if she was spirited away by officials or parties unknown for
reasons unknown. The Family were not yet suspects at this point, yet this
is an odd coincidence.
Interlude 6: Weird Connections in The Man Who Wasn’t There
Long time researcher Tom O’Neill pulled a name from the periphery of the
case, and looked at closer, it is a hell of a tale. Reeve Whitson, a man with
all the trappings of a CIA asset, apparently played an integral part of the
story, but never was mentioned-anywhere. His name shows up a few times
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in the testimony associated with Sharokh Hatami, Sharon Tate’s

photographer. Hatami had testified (under duress) that Manson had come
to the front door of Cielo looking for Terry Melcher, and he directed him
to Rudy Altobelli’s cottage on the property as he could likely answer.
Reading an interview with Hatami however makes the floor fall out of the
room. Hatami dropped the bombshell that Whitson had called him in the
morning of the murders, and said that he was at Cielo and everyone was
dead. The problem was-the bodies hadn’t been discovered yet, it would be
nearly two hours before housekeeper Winifred Chapman would make the
official discovery. Taken alone, this could be easily dismissed as faulty
memory. Bugliosi firmly denied knowing anyone with this name. O’Neill
tugged further in his continuing interviews with Bugliosi, and found that
Hatami had been questioned by Whitson and Bugliosi in a room without
tape recorder or stenographer (a break in protocol), and that Bugliosi was
more than familiar with Whitson. Further investigations found a dozen
people who corroborated much of the mystery surrounding Whitson,
including the consensus that he was definitely in the CIA-which would go
a long way to explain Bugliosi’s obvious feigned faulty memory. A FOIA
request received the answer from the CIA that they could ‘neither confirm
nor deny his employment’, a boilerplate response that is as close to
confirmation the agency ever offers.
Let’s lay it out quickly, as this could be a book in itself:
Whitson called Sharon’s photographer Sharokh Hatami and said that he’d
been at the scene of the murders 90 minutes before Winifred Chapman
discovered the bodies. He’d threatened Hatami with deportation if he did
not testify that he’d seen Manson before the murders at Cielo Drive.
Hatami steadfastly refused to say it was Manson at the door, just a scruffy
looking guy.
Whitson was a close friend of Roman, Sharon and Jay Sebring, and visited
them at their house. He’d also been an acquaintance of Manson. (Paul
Krassner also introduces the idea that Naval Intelligence was involved
with Manson through another undercover agent posing as a hippy-
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Charles Winans, in two articles at the time. Manson in one of his last
rambling interviews said the money behind most of the whole event was
Navy in origin-perplexing at best, troubling at worst) Whitson’s mother
Florence was friends with Sharon’s mother, Doris. It is nearly
unbelievable (but true) that Whitson was also friends with the notorious
Nazi SS war criminal Otto Skorzeny, the person who directed the rescue
of Mussolini in 1943 at Hitler’s behest, but had been whitewashed and
accepted into America as an intelligence asset. Whitson’s friendship with
retired General Curtis LeMay should also raise an eyebrow or two for
those who remember his ultra right agenda that led him to be George
Wallace’s running mate in 1968. These connections would seem to put
paid to claims that Whitson was a self delusional poseur.
Another story that makes one do a double take: Whitson told his parents
that he would be at Cielo Drive the evening of the murders. When he
didn’t return by the next morning, and news was full of the murders
including an unidentified body (eventually identified as Steven Parent),
they called the police. Family members said the police showed up, set up a
command post in their living room, and tried to get to the bottom of
things. When Reeve finally returned later that evening, he had an
extensive debriefing with the police. This would be decidedly strange
behavior for a single missing civilian. Sharon’s father, Paul Tate did know
him as an invaluable close friend who could make things happen, and
corroborated his powerful connections-even to the point of co-writing an
unpublished book on the murders with him, Five Down at Cielo Drive
along with with lead investigator Lt Robert Helder and FBI agent Roger
LeJeunnesse. (Whitson had his name removed from the project, wanted
no money, and appears in the manuscript under a pseudonym, Walter
Kern.)
When Lt. Helder went to interview Polanski and Witlold K (who was
particularly fearful and wouldn’t talk about who he was afraid of) at an
apartment in Paramount Studios where they were secretly holed up for
safety, Helder found Whitson already there.
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Then it gets weird….Whitson was close to Robert Linkletter, Diane’s older

brother. They worked together on a child proof bottle cap that was widely
implemented by many drug companies, a mind blowing connection. Then,
the the tale of the mysterious eyeglasses come into play.
Robert unbelievably was spoken of at the time as a suspect in the Zodiac

murders, seemingly implausible at first glance, but decidedly strange
when one digs into it. One example is the strange confluence of
personalities surrounding the mysterious eyeglasses found at the Cielo
murder scene, which the police could tie to no one. The senseless
massacre of the optometrist Victor Ohta and his family, someone who
people thought had made the glasses (he was optometrist for the
Linkletter family) caught some attention on October 19, 1970, three days
before the glasses were first mentioned in the Manson trial, and three
weeks after Robert being seen in public talking with Ohta and his wife.
Much of the information on this angle stems from a couple of letters
written to law enforcement/Frazier’s legal team at the time by someone
named Mrs. Marie Vigil indicating something unseen by law enforcement,
and the letter named the murderer arrested in the Ohta killings, John
Linley Frazier, and Robert as accomplices (who also closely resembled
each other) likewise caught some attention. Add in the suspicious
shooting death of John Zweyer, the husband of Robert’s older sister Dawn
Linkletter, in their backyard a mere three weeks before the Cielo murders
in mid July 1969, and his sister Diane’s untimely suspicious death three
weeks after the Cielo murders in October 1969 and you have a large
amount of unexplained deaths surrounding the LInkletter clan in a short
three month span. It leaves one wondering exactly how many other
people on the periphery of the Manson murders died in mysterious
circumstances, and why? And why the nexus around the LInkletter
family? One could begin to suspect rather than these events being a small
part of the Manson murders, that perhaps the Manson murders were part
of a far larger operation associated with COINTELPRO and CHAOS. But
this is definitely a tale tangential to the murders that exhibits some
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prominent high weirdness, and the Linkletter angle needs some closer
scrutiny.
OŃeill also uncovered another likely CIA employee inside LAPD, Lt.
William Herrmann. HIs resume reads more like an agent who served
many purposes for the agency than a long term police gumshoe.
Investigators uncovered multiple CIA connections deep within LAPD in
the wake of the 1968 RFK assassination. Many people point to the well
known prohibition of the CIA operating domestically, but a quick review
of declassified documents easily disproves this notion. But before we fall
deeper into the quicksand, let’s move on…
Some important lingering questions about the Manson Family
Who was the Candy Man, a mysterious guy that Charlie spent a few
undocumented weeks at the end of 1968 on the bus in Sacramento looking
for? He is rarely mentioned, and if Charlie shared who this guy was and
why they were looking for him, well no one is talking to this day. A few
weeks is a long time to be wandering around looking for something that
was clearly important. Who was Kim, the blonde guy who is only
mentioned in Paul Watkins book, but is evidently one of the important
male inner circle members along with Tex, TJ, Clem, Paul and Bruce? He
is integral to most of the Family stories until he freaks out at the legendary
‘nobody caught fire when we fell into the fireplace’ tale. He left the family
permanently in 1968 after this. Who were the full time members and full
time mechanics and members of Bill Vance’s crew: Karate Dave, the Turk
and others? (Dave walked away from jail untouched in summer 1969,
much like Clem did the same summer.) Some suspect Karate Dave to be a
paid informant, or undercover law enforcement.
This begs the question, how many of Manson’s crew were actually police
informants or monitors? Too many of these folks either disappear off the
map completely (like ‘Kevin’ who showed up briefly to become very close
and then out of nowhere to disappear without a trace.) Donald deFreeze
, or Cinque of the Symbionese Liberation Army of Patty Hearst fame
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supposedly monitoring Manson Family gun transactions would indicate

there were many eyes on the Family that they didn’t know about. Hell
even Charlie admitted he knew the big raid was coming on August 16th-
backing up the theory that the raid was only a training exercise and
Charlie had been tipped.
Beasoleil’s girlfriend Sweet Cindy, never mentioned and one of the few
immune to Manson’s raps who showed up at Barker, where’d she come
from, and what happened after Charlie made her walk 20 miles to the
highway? Which Family members did Tex stay with in Hawaii when he
went off long enough to get a job there after the murders? Who is ‘the
Oriental’ Charlie referred to in his interview? Who paid for Hendrickson’s
film work in documenting the Family? Film isn’t cheap, and they spent
hours in front of the camera. (Combine this with the detailed study done
on the Family in 1967 in the Psychedelic Journal of Medicine and you have
some quite specific documentation of a single rag tag bunch of hippies
while hundreds of other groups didn’t get a mention anywhere, and you
might get some people to think this was a group being monitored from the
get go). How did Mark Ross roll up in a brand new car and take over the
family (as is clear in the Rolling Stone 1970 article where he negotiates a
$50,000 network deal for the family with Gypsy-he is the point person on
this with Gypsy and the rest of the Family is out of the loop). This is the
same Mark Ross (as mentioned above in the Source Family) that
supposedly turned Hendrickson on to the Family for the documentary-one
might ask where this guy came from out of the blue? Why did Manson tell
the Family as he left for Esalen that he might be gone for months? If the
plan was to audition, one would assume he’d first come back to report he
was off to the studio if successful.
Some important questions: Inconsistencies in the LaBianca

Murders
Who drops off and let’s a murder squad hitch hike home without a ride
from a messy murder scene? Why did Charlie drive around aimlessly
going there as if killing time, then stop where he was said to have made a
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call, then suddenly drive very deliberately to the LaBianca house. Was he
told that they were finally home from vacation? How well did Tex know
Susan LaBerge, the LaBianca’s daughter? What murder squad takes the
time in the house to take a shower, have a watermelon and chocolate milk
snack before departing? (the conflicting stories from Diane Lake, Leslie
Van Houten and others about: how they got home, who they rode with,
where they stopped on the way home, what time they got home-
combined with possible wrong times of death? Something is very wrong
with the official story. NOBODY would let a murder squad hitch hike
home. It is far more likely they hung around waiting for someone to
come by and give them a ride. Though this is never mentioned, it seems
more likely that the time of death would mean they stayed there far
longer than was admitted at trial, and unmentioned parties got them out
of there.) What time did the murders at the LaBianca house actually
happen? Why did the coroner place the LaBiancas death at 3:30 Sunday
afternoon, over 12 hours after their supposed deaths? Much evidence that
supported this was ignored. Why did neighbors witness people arguing on
the LaBiancas front lawn early in the morning after the supposed
midnight murder? Why did a security guard working next door hear
furniture being knocked over between 4:30 and 5:00 pm in the house the
next day? Why was Rosemary in a hastily put on dress as if she went out at
some point? Why were the keys still in the ignition of the LaBianca
vehicle? Who leaves the door of their car wide open with the keys in it
when they get home at 1 am from a long vacation? Or water skis leaning
against the bumper? Did the family take a ride to either Rosemary’s store
or Leno’s store to empty the safe of cash and or drugs? Why did a known
mafia bookie Ed Pierce (or the Phantom) living on the LaBianca’s street
have a rare coin collection in his possession (Leno was a rare coin collector
and known heavy gambler). Why did that bookie skip town that week and
never show up on the radar again? Why was Rosemary considered a
millionaire in the disposition of their affairs? She owned a modest dress
shop, Leno was paying back thousands of dollars to the grocery store that
he owned and had skimmed from and been caught, and was not
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overflowing with ready funds. Why did the LaBianca’s complain about
their house continually being broken into-things moved around, dogs let
out when they were in, furniture rearranged, but few things stolen, as if
someone was fucking with them. Who was coming in and out? Had they
been creepy-crawled ahead of time, or was Suzan LaBerge fucking with
them? They told their family they had little hope the police would ever
find out who was responsible. Why didn’t anyone look at Suzan LaBerge’s
boyfriend, a member of the Satan Slaves, a biker gang associated with
Manson? Author Maury Terry in his book Ultimate Evil wrote a rarely
discussed idea that Rosemary was dealing large quantities of LSD, the
source of her wealth. Despite what was presented at trial, it seems that this
house and the LaBianca’s were clearly the target. A paid hit? Mob
connections and everything around the edges indicate yes.
Some important questions part 2: Inconsistencies in the Cielo

Drive Murders
Why wasn’t the whipping of the dealer, Billy Doyle, who ripped off
Sebring which happened a few nights before the murders looked at more
closely? Black robes, black hoods straight out of Polanski’s Rosemary’s
Baby film, party goers in a circle on the lawn around the disgraced drug
dealer who was publicly whipped and then ceremonially buggered up the
ass with a large dildo by Frykowski and Sebring as punishment for selling
them bad drugs. Dennis Hopper was there as a witness and said there
were several other Hollywood luminaries there, including Sharon Tate.
When Frykowski was found, dead on the lawn, his pants were around his
ankles. Some saw this is an odd coincidence at the very least, and a strong
hint of revenge killing at the most. This is one of the freakier stories that
have been corroborated in the whole tale, and one of the weirdest tales in
the week of the murders. One can be forgiven for seeing some cause and
effect with this event and events later the same week.
Was the Family under the impression that Sharon wasn’t there? This has
been stated on the record before, and that has come from several sources
on both sides. Sharon was supposedly going to a dinner party at a friend’s
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house and canceled that night. Her car was in the shop, so any
observations either from close or afar would seem to point to her absence
from the house on the fateful evening. Was Garretson some kind of low
level information feed to someone? His sketchy behavior at arrest and
inconclusive statements lead many to suspect he was aware of much more
than he volunteered.
Why were there uncorrelated bloody footprints (boot heel) on the porch-
hell why was there so much of Sharon’s blood on the porch if she was only
in the living room? Did Manson return after the murders to see what had
happened, and if so did he try to hang butchered bodies on the porch?
Why was there a blood stain on another beam in the house from a rope
being hung over it – never mentioned later but caught in initial police
photos? Police said there was evidence of the bodies being moved after
death. Who left the eyeglasses in the entry way that didn’t belong to
anyone known to be associated to the house? Who were the unknown
people that left the over a dozen fingerprints that were from unidentified
people? (remember the police had nearly 200 print sets of known visitors,
workers, friends and family on record to use as matches). Why did Tex
and the rest drive in a direction away from Spahn Ranch when leaving
Cielo? They headed to near Sebring’s house, and were in the neighborhood
of known dealers. Were they trying to unload the large MDA shipment
that many suspect was delivered that day? Most of these questions went
unasked and unanswered.
Drugs part 3: Where did the MDA go?
Why this question has never been asked is a head scratcher. There is a
plethora of evidence dancing in the background that a huge MDA drug
deal was going down at Cielo the day of the murders that has been ignored
by most investigators. MDA is mentioned by the Family as a motive,
Frykowski and Folger were on MDA when murdered, the Canadian MDA
dealers ancillary to this angle were excised from the tale, Sebring peeling
out of Cielo in his sports car with unknown tandem vehicle at high speed
in the early evening of the murders, Linkletter’s drug dealing boyfriend
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Dareff at Cielo the late afternoon of the murders, a Frykowski friend

insisting he’d received a call from Viktor begging him to come over at
midnight when the official story has Frykowski asleep at midnight mere
minutes before the murders commenced shortly after midnight, reported
arguments and gunshots in the 3 am time frame, documented death
threats from Canadian dealers, Tex driving around Sunset Strip looking
for something/someone instead of heading home immediately after the
murders? The easy answer for naysayers would be: ‘there was never an
MDA deal, it didn’t happen’. Much of the tale above and below calls that
into question though. The large amount of scantly investigated evidence
points towards the drug being delivered, which begs the question: ‘where
did it go?’. And where that MDA ended up would be a large arrow pointing
at the real motives and real culprits never disclosed. Some of this is hard
to reconcile for those unwilling to consider this as a lead possibly being a
large undiscussed part of the story, and a large international high stakes
drug deal gone sour should have been looked at as more than a mere
possibility. A darker connection could be the previously mentioned
Esalen Institute in Big Sur. In view of the Human Potential Movement
research going on at Esalen, the institute would have been a logical
connection to this drug that 20 years later as MDMA was still looked at
as magical by the medical therapeutic field in unlocking certain
unrecognized potentials within the mind–until it was banned in the mid
to late 1980’s. This would be the strongest reason ever posited for Esalen
bringing down a death threat curtain over the whole Manson question. A
quick review of the known facts gives us:
What did Witold K (Kaczanowksi), a close friend of Frykowski know? He

was in fear for his life in the immediate aftermath, and rightly so. He had
been present for discussions on the MDA deal, and had said that things
had gone awry:
“Witold K. told police that Frykowski was offered an exclusive dealership

to sell the drug MDA, evidently in the Los Angeles area. Subsequent
friction developed, he claimed, and one of the suppliers threatened
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Frykowski’s life. Witold K. claimed not to know the names of the possible
killers but to know them by face only. And that they were Canadian”
More interesting is that Frykowski called Witold K at midnight, insisting

he come over to the Polanski house. According to police:
“At a time (estimated about midnight) Friday night, Frykowski called,

presumably from the Polanski residence, to Kaczanowski’s art gallery
and asked Kaczanowski why he was not up to the house. Frykowski in
the conversation admonished Kaczanowski that he was spending too
much time at the gallery, working too hard, etc. Kaczanowski declined
the second invitation and stayed on at the gallery. He returned to the
Woodstock house at approximately 0300 hours, 8-9-69.”
Either Frykowski called Witold K literally minutes before the Tex and the
girls entered the house, or the Manson family had already arrived as a part
of the MDA deal, either as participants or unwanted interlopers, and
Frykowski was calling for help in mediation of some sort. Regardless of
what happened, Witlold K was adamant that he would not visit Cielo that
day, even after two insistent invitations to be there. The midnight call
should have been looked at much closer by police.
One thing that many have used to dispute the ‘drug deal gone wrong’ angle
is that there were recreational amounts of cocaine, marijuana (over three
ounces), a half ounce of hash and a dozen or so MDA tablets in the house?
Chump change. If there was a major deal going down that got interrupted-
well they would have just taken what they came for and no one would be
the wiser. Same for the LaBiancas. If they found what they were looking
for? We’d never know, they took it and fled. So pointing to the small
amounts of drugs everywhere being evidence of there being no theft is like
pointing to small buds of weed on the floor of a warehouse and saying
‘nobody was here for drugs, they left all this…’ when in actuality two
thousand pounds had been stolen leaving just the crumbs. Absence of
evidence is not always evidence of absence so to speak. The absence of a
large amount of recently arrived pills would never be noticed, even though
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police did allow that some MDA pills were located at the scene.
And yet, Frykowski had told a close actor friend, Mark Fine, that he
couldn’t meet him on August 6th because he was picking up friends from
Canada at the airport instead. The next day, August 7th-the day before the
murders, housekeeper Winifred Chapman had seen Frykowski and
Thomas Harrigan drinking wine together discussing a situation involving
a large MDA delivery being imminent, indicating the Canadian friends
(Harrigan being one of them) had arrived. Abigail Folger was part of this
conversation as well. He was there for a couple of hours and departed
before dinner. The day of the murders, August 8th, Sebring was seen at 6
pm speeding away from Cielo Drive in his Porsche, followed closely by an
unfamiliar person driving a sports car also speeding closely behind. The
witness, Mrs. Terry Kay, said that Sebring didn’t acknowledge or wave to
her like he usually did and both cars tore off together. This short 3 day
timeline is illuminating. It is hard to not see a major drug angle flag
waving here, and police certainly suspected the Canadian dealers knew far
more about this than we were told. The tale of Polanski and Sharon Tate’s
house being a drug dealing den run by and occupied by movie producers,
an A-list hairdresser and a very rich heiress would not play well in
Hollywood and would be a tale that would have to be actively surpressed.
One might wonder if Stanland’s name starts to get excised from the tale at
this point. Pan Am certainly went to lengths to keep their employee (and
pilot) out of the tale.
The MDA deal would seem to be a rather larger part of the tale than
showed up in the trial or any literature afterwards.
Some Important Questions part 3: Inconsistencies with the

timeline
The coroner had set the deaths of the LaBiancas as well after the supposed
murder time of 1 am given in the trial. Multiple witnesses to events 12
hours later the next day support the event happening much later, and
Bugliosi had difficulty in presenting the evidence and coaxing the
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testimony to prevent this discussion. Evidence that things were going on

hours after the supposed murders combined with the coroner’s time of
death being the next day would raise plenty of questions and would make
for a sticky situation for the prosecution, so this was artfully obfuscated.
Frykowki’s call from Cielo to Witold K being nearly concurrent with the
timeline of the initial assault at Cielo is troubling. Supposedly Frykowksi
was asleep when Tex entered the house. How had he made a phone call,
then instantly fallen fast asleep? Something does not add up there.
Evidence of something happening at Cielo long past their supposed 1 am

departure raises plenty of questions. Multiple people near Cielo likewise
heard things that conflicted with the official timeline. Neighbors heard
yelling and gunshots that all landed in the 3:30-4 am window, evidence of
some activity. One person could be mistaken, but three all pinning the
same time? Something happened. But it is kind of weird. Why would
timelines be shifted unless some information needed to be actively left out
of the trial?
The Second LaBiance Homicide Progress Report-How Did They

Miss This?
The list of suspects in the LaBianca is extensive, and Leno’s Mob ties were
tangentially extensive: board of directors at a Hollywood Mob bank, horse
ownership, bookies, Vegas-his gambling debts were extensive and the list
of those who could have had an interest in getting him bumped off wasn’t
small. The police report chronicling September to October 15th covers a
multitude of embezzlement events and financial irregularities over
decades that nearly crippled the family company. The list of suspects that
were grilled (some cleared, some not found) was long and detailed. Yet at
the bottom, the final suspect was Charles Manson, with a rather large
amount of detail and some astonishing observations from the police:
MANSON, CHARLES
Investigators contacted Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau

requesting information on murders that were similar to the LaBianca
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murder. Deputy Guenther informed investigators that he and his

partner, Sgt. Whiteley, were presently investigating a homicide that
occurred at 964 N. Old Topanga Canyon Road, Topanga (Malibu area),
on 7-25/26-69. The victim, Gary Hinman, lived alone at the above
location. ln the case the words “Political Piggy” were written on the wall
of the victim’s residence in his own blood.
There are two suspects presently in the Sheriff’s custody for this murder.
The first, Robert Kenneth Beausoleil, male, caucasian, 21 years; and the
second suspect, Susan Denise Atkins, female, caucasian, 21 years, is
presently being held in Inyo County Jail on another charge. A hold has
been placed on her for murder by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department.
Katherine Lutesinger, female, caucasian, 17 years was arrested by Inyo

County Sheriff’s Department on a grand theft auto charge, and she was
also listed as a missing juvenile by Devonshire Division. Guenther had
information that Lutesinger had possible information regarding victim
Hinman’s missing vehicles and death. When she was interviewed, it was
learned that she had been living with a group of 30 to 40 hippies and
motorcycle riders (Satan Slaves) on the Spahn Ranch in Devonshire
Division. She informed investigators, and it was confirmed by other
members of her group, that the leader of the people living on the ranch
was Charles Manson. Manson was known as “Jesus Christ” and “God
and the Devil” by the people living on the ranch. Sheriff’s investigators
have been unable to confirm that he directed members of the group to
rob and steal for him. Lutesinger told sheriff’s investigators she heard a
story (source unknown) that Manson had directed Beausoleil and Atkins
to go to victim Hinman’s residence and take money from him. Lutesinger
related that a fight had ensued between the two suspects and the victim.
The victim was killed.
Sheriff’s investigation to date shows that the two suspects went to the
victim’s residence on 7-25 or 26 and attempted to get money from him.
They forced the victim to endorse the pink slips to his two vehicles
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transferring ownership to them. The suspects held the victim captive for
two days and then suspect Beausoleil murdered him. The victim received
two stab wounds in the chest. These wounds were in length 1 ½” length
anu ½ ” in width. The victim also sustained a third wound from the rear
of the left ear to midway along the cheekbone, approximately 5″ long
and ½” deep, severing the ear in half. The wounds, according to
Guenther, were similar to the wounds received by some of the victims in
the Tate murder. Guenther witnessed the Hinman and Tate murder
autopsies.
Guenther showed investigators the pictures from the Hinman murder

crime scene. One of the photographs of the scene show the words
“Political Piggy” written on the wall above the location where the victim
was found.
The Sheriff’s crime lab has established that the victim’s blood was used to
write the words. Investigators believe it is noteworthy that this
murder, which occurred on July 26, 1969 was followed by two
other murders, to wit Tate on August 9, 1969 and LaBianca on
August 10, 1969. All three murders have the unique
characteristic of the suspect using the victims’ blood to write
on the wall. This characteristic takes on a greater significance
in that in each instance the words make reference to “pig” in
one form or another. Other similarities between the Hinman and
LaBianca murders were the placing of a pillow over the victim’s face,
and the use of a knife as the death weapon. The motive for the LaBianca
murder is unknown. There is the possibility that it was a residential
robbery.
Investigators are presently working with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s

investigators to collect the names of everyone living on the ranch. Their
fingerprints and samples of their handwriting will be obtained and
checked. Manson and Lutesinger will be interviewed first and other
members of the group at a later date. Investigators are planning
interviews with Beausoleil and Atkins. Although Beausoleil was in
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custody at the time of the LaBianca murder, Atkins had not yet been
apprehended.
Read that bold section again, ‘noteworthy that Hinman, Tate and
LaBianca all shared a unique characteristic-writing in victims blood and
that the characteristic takes on a ‘greater significance’ that ‘pig’ was
written in each murder on the wall.
Seriously? They had this in front of them but took two more months to
crack the case, and at that it took Susan Atkins blabbing the story to a
couple of people to do it? Once again, with this level of evidence right in
front of them, one would have to suspect that Manson was being protected
from investigation by some higher level of law enforcement. The LaBianca
team had the right guy very early on, yet nothing came of it. Charlie was
once again charmed.
Straight From the Horse’s Mouth-Charlie in His Own Words
Charlie’s rap is super acid rap – symbols, parables, gestures, nothing

literal, everything enigmatic, resting nowhere, stopping briefly to
overturn an idea, stand it on its head, and then exploit the paradox.
-Rolling Stone June 25, 1970
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To really understand some of this, one needs to hear Charlie in his own
words. Sometimes, he isn’t quite as crazy as he is portrayed in the media,
sometimes he is really on beyond zebra. (Don’t forget his instructions to
his followers given presciently in summer 1969: ‘If I ever get taken in by
the cops, I will play the Crazy Charlie persona. I will act insane, but
remember it’s an act to keep from being questioned too closely.’) He’d
planned this out in advance.
Here is an excerpt from an interview by David Felton in June of 1970 for

Rolling Stone, when the trial occupied headlines across the world. (Oddly,
Felton also wrote a voluminous expose of the Mel Lyman and the Fort Hill
Community for Rolling Stone a year later)
What did you mean when you once said God and Satan are the same
person?
If God is One, what is bad? Satan is just God’s imagination. Everything I’ve
done for these nineteen hundred and seventy years is now in the open. I went
into the desert to confess to God about the crime, I, you, Man has committed
for 2,000 years. And that is why I’m here. As a witness.
I have been avoiding the cross for nineteen hundred and seventy years.
Nineteen hundred and seventy nails in the cross. I was meant to go up on the
cross willingly.
All the wars, all the deaths, all the hunger of these nineteen hundred and
seventy years of blasphemy against Jesus Christ, all the shame and guilt, all
the torture, they can’t hide it any longer. And unless you are willing to die for
your love, you cannot love. Jesus Christ died for your sins and for my sins,
and for nineteen hundred and seventy years I have been denying Him.
The white man must pay for the deaths of all the Indians that were
slaughtered in greed, and now it is time for him to die for them.
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Hope? You expect hope? [Charlie puts his hands together in prayer.] Ah,
yes, there must be a little hope left, yes? [He spits scornfully.] There’s no
hope! You make your own world. Hope is the last thing you hang onto.
Everyone expects to be saved, saved from their guilt. But they’re not going to
be saved. I am not going to take responsibility for society.
So I’m here for stolen dune buggies. If it hadn’t been that, it would have been
something else. They were out to get me, and it was only a matter of time
before they found something to pin on me. And they did. First they make the
picture and then they fill it in. They create things so they can hide their own
guilt.
I can only tell you the truth. All my life I’ve been locked up because nobody
wanted me. Jail is where they put people they don’t want. They’ve got
nowhere else to go, but no one else wanted them so they got buried alive.
They don’t want to be there, but everything has to be on its shelf. Everybody’s
got to be somewhere, and somewhere is where people who are nowhere go.
Do you think you are being persecuted as an individual?
I don’t think about myself as an individual. I just think about my love. Every
day I love my world a little more. Love makes you stronger. They can’t take
that away. If a man has given up everything, what can they take away?
Those Christian robes that the judge wears are stained with the blood of
millions and millions of lives. Christians have defiled the cross. They wore it
into battle. They took Christ into war with them and defiled His image. You
know, the cells in this jail are filled with blacks, chicanos, people like me.
People who never had anything.
Did you have a bike when you were a kid? I never did. I never had anything.
That’s what the system is, it’s self-recurring. It just goes in circles and circles.
Take away the criminal and what have you got? This society needs criminals,
they need someone to blame everything on.
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What do you feel about Judge Keene taking away your pro per privilege?
The judge is just the flip side of the preacher. He took away my pro per
privilege because they don’t want me to speak. They want to shut me up –
because they know if I get up on the stand, I am going to blow the whole thing
wide open. They don’t want to hear it. That’s why they assigned me this
attorney, Hollopeter.
He came to see me [Charlie mimics a fussy little man shuffling papers], sat
down and started fiddling with these papers in his brief case. See, he
wouldn’t look me in the eye. They sent me this guy who looks like a mouse.
He was hiding behind his briefcase and his important papers.
He was saying, “Well, Mr. Manson, in your case, etc., etc.” And I said to him,
“All right, but can you look me in the eye?” He couldn’t look me in the eye.
How can a mouse represent a lion? A man, if he’s a man, can only speak for
himself. I said to Judge Keene, “Do I speak for you?”
Between you and me, if that judge asks for my life, I’m going to give it to him
right there in the courtroom. But first of all he is going to have to deal with
my music, the music in my fingers and my body. [Charlie demonstrates. His
nails tap out an incredible riff on the table, the chair, the glass of the booth,
like the scurrying footsteps of some strung-out rodent.]
He is going to have to deal with that power. I’m probably one of the most
dangerous men in the world if I want to be. But I never wanted to be anything
but me. If the judge says death, I am dead. I’ve always been dead. Death is
life.
Anything you see in me is in you. If you want to see a vicious killer, that’s who
you’ll see, do you understand that? If you see me as your brother, that’s what
I’ll be. It all depends on how much love you have. I am you, and when you can
admit that, you will be free. I am just a mirror.
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Did you see what they did to that guy in the Chicago Seven trial? Hoffman
saw in those guys what he wanted to see. That’s why he found them guilty.
The white man is fading, everybody knows that. The black man will take over,
they can’t stop it. And they won’t be able to stop me either unless they gag
me.
Why do you think black people will gain power?
They were the first people to have power. The Pharoahs were black. The
Egyptians took one man and raised him up above the rest. They put him on
the throne and they fed all these lines of energy into him. [He folds his arms
across his chest like Tutankamen, holding his pencil between two fingers
like Pharoah’s rod.]
That means power. This represents the penis, the power. They built the
pyramids with this energy. They were all one in him. All that concentration
created a tremendous force. Love built the pyramids. Focusing all that love
on one man was like focusing it on themselves.
Masons have that power. It’s a secret that’s been handed down since the
Pharoahs. The secret wisdom. Jesus knew the symbols. The preacher and the
judge got ahold of the symbols and they kept them to themselves.
Judge Keene uses all those symbols. He’ll make a sign like “cut him off.” Or
like when I get up to speak, he’ll make a signal to one of the marshals, and all
of a sudden a whole bunch of people will be let in the court and there will be
all this confusion so they can’t hear what I’m saying. They use all these
Masonic signs to hold power over other people.
So I started using the symbols. Every time I go into court, or have my picture
taken, I use another Masonic sign. Like the three fingers, two fingers
outstretched. When the judge sees it, it really freaks him out because he can’t
say anything. When I see them making these signs in court I flash them back
at them.
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They know the symbols of power but they can’t understand it. Power
without love is aggression. There has been no true love since the Pharaohs.
Except for J.C. He knew what love meant.
Tempt me not. Do you remember the story about Jesus on the hill? You
know, the devil takes Him to the edge of this cliff [Charlie leans over the
table as if perched precariously on the edge of the void], and he says to Him,
“If you’re God, prove it by jumping off the edge.” And Jesus says, “There ain’t
nothing to prove, man.” When you doubt, your mind is in two parts. It’s
divided against itself. See, Christ is saying, “Past get behind me.” The devil is
in the past. The devil is the past. What He is saying is “Don’t think.” He who
thinks is lost, because if you have to think about something, to doubt it,
you’re lost already.
My philosophy is: Don’t think. I don’t believe in the mind that you think with
and scheme with. I don’t believe in words.
If you don’t believe in words, why do you use so many of them?
Words are symbols. All I’m doing is jumbling the symbols in your brain.
Everything is symbolic. Symbols are just connections in your brain. Even
your body is a symbol.
………………………………………………………………………
How can you love and threaten someone at the same time?
Who did I threaten?
You sent Dennis Wilson a bullet.
I had a pocket full of bullets, so I gave him one.
Then it wasn’t given as a threat?
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That’s his paranoia. His paranoia created the idea that it was a threat. If you
gave me a bullet, I’d wear it around my neck to let them see your love for me.
The only thing I’d want to do to Dennis is make love to him.
You know, I used to say to him, “Look at this flower, Dennis. Don’t you think
it’s beautiful?” And he would say, “Look, man, I got to go.” He was always
going somewhere to take care of some big deal. What it amounted to is that
he couldn’t accept my love. I love him as much as I love myself. I refuse
nothing and I ask nothing. It all flows through me.
How do you know that these things are coming about (the oncoming
Apocalypse)?
I’m just telling you what my awareness sees. I look into the future like an
Indian on a trail. I know what my senses tell me. I can just see it coming, and
when it comes I will just say, “Hi there!” [He says it like a used-car salesman
greeting the Apocalypse from a TV screen in some empty room.]
Why do you think that this revolution predicted in “Revolution 9” will be

violent? Why will it be racial?
Have you heard of the Muslims? Have you heard of the Black Panthers?
Englishmen, do you remember cutting off the heads of praying Muslims with
the cross sewn onto your battledress? Can you imagine it?
Well, imagination is the same as memory. You and all Western Man killed
and mutilated them and now they are reincarnated and they are going to
repay you. The soul in the white man is lying down. They were praying,
kneeling in the temple. They did not want war. And the white man came in
the name of Christ and killed them all.
Denouement
The most dangerous man in the world? Some guy who proclaimed he was
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either Jesus or Satan-or both at the same time? Believe it or not, Manson
wasn’t the only one preaching this. (see above in Process, Mel Lyman, etc.)
One important thing people argued about at the time: was Charles
Manson a hippie? How could he be if he spent 22 out of 34 years in
prison–one would think that it would be extremely unlikely. Yes, he was
thrown into the middle of the summer of love in 1967, but that would only
put a veneer of hippie on the huckster. What likely got more concern from
authorities was something that not many have written about, and
authorities were loathe to talk about publicly-Manson was the bridge
between two highly insulated anti-establishment factions: Hippies and
biker gang hoodlums. The government was pretty happy that these folks
were diametrically opposed. Hog Farm and Leary’s crew or Hell’s Angels
and Satan’s Slaves? Ultra leftists and ultra right usually don’t see eye to
eye. But at Spahn Ranch, 1% outlaw biker gangs and free spirit flower
children were co-mingling freely. A union of these factions could pose
problems for the Nixon minded people in an atmosphere of bubbling
revolution. This is why it makes sense that this trial became so high
profile-this thing had to be nipped in the bud, and at any cost. But not
enough people asked the right questions at the time. What were the
Manson family aims? What were they after?
If you asked them questions, the Manson Family weren’t shy, they had
plenty of answers, many of them repetitive-cliff note versions of Charlie’s
syncretic counterculture philosophy. In some ways, Charlie was just
another guru like the Maharishi or Father Yod preaching a mystical
religious and communal way of life. But it is easy to see that the Family
spawned more questions than answers. Many in the counter-culture took
Manson as a cause célèbre, in particular the underground newspapers-the
voice of the people on the street. ‘Charlie is Innocent’ was going to be the
cover of the Rolling Stone issue featuring him. He was often portrayed as a
martyr to the hippie cause-a reason for the pigs to push back and take
control of the streets again from the burgeoning revolutionary dialectic
fueling a social insurrection. Rightly or wrongly, Manson was viewed as
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someone honestly fighting back against ‘the man’. The Weathermen

thought he was cool, but they were literally ‘underground’, holed up and
not able to walk the streets without fear of arrest. Underground
newspapers proclaimed Manson ‘Man of the Year’. The average hip person
on the street also thought much the same.
His followers saw a sometimes simpler reason. Bruce Davis met him early
trying to return a handsaw:
“He’s got all these pretty girls around him and all they do is get loaded all
day.” That attracted Davis’ attention and he went along. The owner of
the saw was none other than Charlie Manson. They arrived at this house
in Topanga Canyon, where Manson was staying with some of his girls.
Davis was introduced to them.
As soon as they arrived they were greeted by a guy, who then guided
them through the house and out into the back yard. Manson was in a
large bathtub, enjoying the sun and the girls who were giving him a
sponge bath. There were about 10 girls around the bathtub and
according to Davis, most of them were nude and giggling through a haze
of marijuana smoke. Davis claims he was absolutely blown away by the
scene. “It was real nice. It looked like Elysian Fields,” he would later say.”
Two Papa’s and One Mama
The victims and the Manson family were not strangers, they had crossed
paths many times. Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski ran in similar Laurel
Canyon circles as Manson and his girls. Many of the players crossed paths
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at parties-Mama Cass and John Philips had acknowledged that Manson

had been at their houses for parties more than once. (Papa John Phillips
shows up in the background of many stories from both sides of this tale-
Manson and Tate, but is rarely mentioned in any mainstream research-
perhaps due to his rarely spoken of cloak and dagger military
background which also included his parents and sister-insert Mamas
and Papas song here. Don’t forget he also was the one who got the
Process set up in their LA housing). Sharon, Roman, Gibby and Voytek
also frequented the same parties, and lived close by-Abigail and Voytek
across the street from Mama Cass actually. Hollywood elite have
acknowledged that they had crossed paths with Manson many times. LA
rock personalities were very familiar with Manson and his crew. Tex
Watson and his drug circle intersected with Jay Sebring and Voytek
Frykowski’s drug circle, with Joel Rostau as the nexus. Tex may have
known those two before he even met up with the Manson family. Tex had
been to parties at Cielo Drive. The idea that no one at the Polanski
residence knew their killers is one of the myths that was pushed heavily at
the trial, and leads one to wonder ‘why exactly did they push that angle?’.
This idea still frames most of the information presented to this day. What
were they trying to cover up?
One question you never see discussed that could be the powder keg that
the prosecution bent over backwards to avoid was: did Sharon Tate and
Abigail Folger attend Esalen Institute at Big Sur while Charlie was there
‘auditioning’ for important persons-persons unknown to this day? They
had called there right before, and that was usual drill-call up first and then
show up. Were those two women instrumental in getting Charlie heaved
out on his ass, killing his chances forever in becoming the rock star he
dreamed of becoming? Did Patricia Krenwinkel accidentally let slip a little
noticed clue when she told the parole board that they were sent to ‘get two
women’ at Terry’s old house? (there were only two women known to live
there-Abigail and Sharon) This could go a long way to explaining the iron
curtain of silence that immediately descended over the Esalen portion of
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the tale, the crucial week leading up to the massacres. A blinding rage
fueled madness unleashed to get ‘revenge on the beautiful people’ who
shunned him. Perhaps literally those people. This would be perhaps the
closest guarded secret underlying the case. And as collateral karmic
damage, Melcher certainly would have got the message-a massacre at
his former house isn’t exactly subtle, much like the bullet left for Dennis
Wilson.
Conclusions
So where does that leave us? Charlie never told. It is likely that some form
of a truth yet to be told is contained on the still unreleased 1969 Tex
Watson interview tapes, tapes that LAPD have fought diligently to keep
from seeing the light of day. Tex clearly played a far larger part in this tale
than has ever been acknowledged, and seems perhaps intentionally
suppressed to keep the focus on Charlie. The lack of any publicity for Tex
Watson, the guy who actually killed everybody in this tale, and a similar
lack of mention of Voytek Frykowski as a lighting rod for trouble coming
from different directions is definitely weird.
Incredibly, nobody seemed to notice Manson stole his whole philosophy

from the Fountain of the World, who lived literally next door. Helter
Skelter may have been a loose philosophy only a few believed (Bruce Davis
explicitly did not) or Helter Skelter may have been the convenient excuse
for a rage induced revenge on the two folks that had spiked Charlie’s
musical career. Hey, maybe it was only a night club. However, drugs, theft
and worryingly large amounts of cash float ominously in the background,
as do strange sex practices, underground Hollywood porn, Satanic
trappings. It is clear that the people living at Cielo Drive were engaging in
dangerous behavior and moving in circles with dangerous people that put
them in harm’s way. Leaving aside the flirtations with the dark side of the
occult on both the family side and the Cielo Drive side-threesomes filmed
by Polanski with random strangers brought home from the Strip for one
night sex romps combined with large amounts of drugs being bought and
sold can bring large amounts of trouble. It is likely that on some level they
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were aware that they were pushing the envelope of danger, but were
confident the elite cocoon of the glamorous life would provide some level
of safety. Worried? Maybe.
The LaBiancas were worried about something. Their house had been
broken into so many times and ransacked that they expected it every time
they came home. What were people looking for, and did Manson finally
decide that the couple had to be confronted in person to give up….what? A
black book of numbers? Or large amounts of LSD as some researchers
believe? Far fetched on the surface, yet Joel Rostau pops up in regards to
Rosemary in several tales told at the time (his involvement in security
fraud like some of Leno’s associates were gives another level of possible
confluence of interest). Conflicting evidence as to when they were killed
combined with fairly obvious evidence that they left the house at some
point during the event would seem to back some of this up. Her reported
estate value of over a million dollars would be consistent with a ‘cash only’
drug business. Leno LaBianca was likely involved with the mob through
horse ownership and gambling, and that is an organization that knows
how to keep things under wraps while getting what they want. He had
skimmed over $100,000 dollars from Gateway Markets, a chain where he
was an owning partner. What prompted this quote from Leno to his close
friend Peter DeSantis in July of 1969: “I’ve got to get out of this town and
can’t unless I can sell my shares. It’s a matter of life and death. I’m
asking for my life.” The disappearance of neighbor Eddie Pierce, or the
Phantom, a mob bookie living up the street from the LaBiancas eight days
after the murder should raise some eyebrows. Someone had been after the
LaBiancas, and no one was talking.
This article isn’t meant to be sympathetic to Manson or the Family. Nor is

it a condemnation of the victims or their lifestyles. No matter what the
victims were into, you can’t just sit up and say: “they had it coming”. I do
wonder sometimes though. Like some of the occult activity around Led
Zeppelin (chronicled here) a few years later, the involvement of the
Process and the renegade O.T.O. chapter makes one wonder if some
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wayward but real black magick is responsible for nudging things in certain
directions.
The plethora of motives covered here: Drug burn, murder for hire,
copycat, Helter Skelter, revenge for failed music career, government
operation–and everything else you can find once you go down the rabbit
hole–one thing is sure, the tale we were told at the time, all neatly
wrapped up nicely and officially in the Helter Skelter motive, something
that got Manson locked up while others committed the murders, is still
very much muddied to this day. The tale told in Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter
book remains the oft repeated and universally accepted tale in all stories
ever written about the murders. Yet the large mountain of things ignored:
drugs, mob, secret societies, magick, music and film industry, government
set up…well all of them have degrees of substantial primary sourced
information that should have made any investigator say “hey let’s look
into this a little deeper”. All of those angles had different people involved
that were either barely questioned or not questioned at all. The focus
stayed narrow, and that focus was on Helter Skelter as the primary
motive. Even Charlie had said that ‘they got the right people but for the
wrong reason’. But all of the above, the confluence of madness that
honestly isn’t in the background, but out in front demanding attention?
This got pushed to the wings. One could get the impression that Charlie
and the family were part of another larger plan and were merely
manipulated by more powerful figures as useful tools to achieve unknown
ends.
If the motive was drugs, well the police thought so too. They had tracked
down and gotten statements from Canadian drug dealers Billy Doyle and
Thomas Harrigan. These two had been set up in Los Angeles since early
1969 and established themselves as large scale suppliers in Hollywood,
and had close contact with Sharon, Sebring, Folger and Frykowski.
Frykowski was slated to pick up some Canadian dealers at the airport in
the days before the murders. The day before the murders, Harrigan was
documented as being seen with Frykowski and Sebring drinking a bottle of
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wine at Cielo, where they were heard discussing the impending MDA
arrival. The next day-the afternoon of the murders-neighbors saw Sebring
with an unfamiliar sports car following him speed out of the Cielo Drive
gate and blow past them-something out of the ordinary as they said Jay
usually waved and drove slowly down the narrow road. These events
would lead anyone to believe that a large scale deal was about to go down
that day. A Manson family visit happening the same evening that a large
scale deal with international drug dealers is scheduled to go down should
be a huge red flag waving wildly for any investigators. A drug rip off gone
horribly wrong is easy to envision as the motive for the first night of
murders. Abigails’s father Peter Folger throwing large amounts of hush
money around to keep things quiet doesn’t add to the clarity of this angle.
The involvement of many high profile Hollywood names complicit in the
drug scene, along with heavy mob associations would have made for some
uncomfortable decisions and put some heavy pressure on Bugliosi to look
elsewhere to pin the rap on Manson. Some of this stuff just could not be
even looked into for fear of the whole thing unraveling, and some stern
warnings needed to be given. (let’s not forget Diane Linkletter’s likely
murder at this point).
If the motive was to ignite a black versus white war as Bugliosi told us the
Helter Skelter motive was, well Charlie did a pretty shitty job of it. Leave
aside the hitchhiking as a getaway plan for a murder posse, one must ask
“why quit after only twenty four hours of murder?” That isn’t really what I
would call an effort in igniting a country wide social conflagration. The
Family owning a few guns also works against this idea. While portions of
Helter Skelter enter the tale as an influence, it still is a philosophy stolen
verbatim from the neighboring commune, the Fountain of the World. And
nobody said ‘boo’ about them, and they killed even more people than
Charlie was charged with. As the full motive, Helter Skelter has been
discarded by many researchers. There’s just too much weirdness in the
background. Some of his followers believed this motive to be true, but
even more clearly did not believe it. It would be simple for a prosecutor to
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hone in on the gullible followers who could parrot this story, and make
them prominent witnesses in the trial.
The Mob dances in the wings in both murders-the LaBiancas were mob
associated, deep in debt (likely to the mob–the reason for Leno skimming
over $100,000 from his own business). Leno had something people were
after, his little black book of information is often spoken of, the key to the
treasure and the map to where the bodies are buried so to speak, with the
appropriate names and numbers therein. Much effort went into
ransacking the house the night of the murders, and it had happened
several times before the murders as well. Rosemary’s name showing up in
relation to large scale drug dealing is intriguing, as her past is much more
colorful and checkered than the middle aged housewife portrayed in the
trial. Large level drug transactions would not go unnoticed by an
organization that controlled much of that traffic, so both the Cielo Drive
crowd and any large scale deals on the LaBianca end would be noticed.
The police thought drugs were at the root of the Tate murders, and
evidence shows there is much more to this idea than was presented at the
trial. Joel Rostau and Eugene Massaro were Mob associated drug dealers
integral to the tale. Although the Mob are never discussed in relation to
the case, the two encounters Paul Watkins had with the Mob do show that
underworld figures were directly involved in these events on some level,
somehow this angle was completely ignored by Bugliosi. (ironically
someone accused of Mob affiliations himself) It isn’t a stretch to interpret
these facts as evidence the Mob definitely had a hand in a plausibly
deniable lighting of a fire under the LaBiancas which ended in death.
There have been ideas floated that Charlie and the Family were part of a
much larger plan-a social experiment workshopped by some government
agency. Leary’s Millbrook LSD clan eventually were shown to have CIA
connections only known to some. The early days of the Mel Lyman group
likewise show some agency figures dancing in the background during the
early days. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility that Manson was part of
some larger plan-whether nefarious or benevolent: all three groups used
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LSD heavily as part of a plan to create new ways of thinking, and all three
involved self contained groups isolating themselves through psychedelics
from society, and all three were led by god-like gurus. The CIA had been
shown to be experimenting in different fields with different groups with
LSD (see: Brotherhood of Eternal Love), and much of this work is still
classified to this day. So in view of some of the people dancing in the
background, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that they were part of
some larger experimental plan. Esalen, a known incubator for early
drug/mind control/human potential experiments at the behest of the CIA
is of note as a common meeting ground of Manson, the Process, major
LSD players and Sharon Tate and Abigail Folger? Odd in the extreme to
the casual observer, highly suspicious to the wary. Add in John Phillips
(someone with an unspoken of clandestine military career) as the
meeting point for Sharon, Sebring, Folger, the Manson crew and Robert
DeGrimston/the Process? The threats and lawsuits shielding Esalen and
the Process should make many want to look there and at Phillips a little
closer.
The early documentation of the Family under the aegis of Roger Smith,
the use of the large and failed raid on Spahn as a training film example for
law enforcement usage, and the professional documentary filmed as the
family unraveled by Laurence Merrick and Robert Hendrickson combine
to make a eye raisingly large amount of professional documentation for a
single small hippie commune. It isn’t a stretch to say that this
documentation went a long way in the media to be instrumental in
demonising the hippie movement.
The appearance of high powered lawyer George Shibley meeting with

Manson just before his release, and Tex Watson’s nearly forty meetings
with another pair of high powered attorneys: David DeLoach (a prominent
Young Republican figure) and Perry Walshin over a single marijuana
charge seems incongruous and got Mae Brussell’s attention, as did the
appearance of Warren Commission senior counsel Joseph Ball advising
Manson and Atkins. (factor in Lawrence Schiller, someone who recorded
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a staged confession by Jack Ruby the day before he died-the same man
who got Susan Atkins’ to turn states evidence and implicate Manson for a
part of a $150,000 payout, and Ed Butler- a guy who wrote the first
piece on the murders who had been one of the first to write about Lee
Harvey Oswald before JFK’s assassination-and you can see how
someone might see fingerprints of something nefarious and government
related lurking in the background). High powered Hollywood lawyers
showing up to inefficiently defend Atkins also begs several questions. One
easy question no one has answered is: ‘who was paying these guys?’ It is
an odd confluence of pro bono work by all involved, something the jaded
might refer to as ‘stage managed’. In addition, law enforcement’s ‘hand’s
off’ policy towards Manson should also raise an eyebrow or two. Even
Bugliosi knew that not enough questions had been asked in certain areas,
but was obviously clued in enough to avoid areas of investigation that
were being actively buried.
Some folks out there know at least pieces of the truth. Dennis Wilson said
several times he knew the truth, but would wait to speak when the time
was right. That time never came, as he drowned before he could tell us.
Some insiders in Esalen likely know far more than has been shared.
Manson certainly knew, but he has left the planet. Bruce Davis and Tex
Watson probably have some higher version of the truth than us, but even
they might not be privy to the secrets of the inner circle. Hell, Charlie may
not even have known what was going down behind the scenes, just
watched it all unfold with eyes wide shut, only smiling at everything he
saw.
So we have come full circle, back to where it all began, the music.
Let’s leave the final word to Charlie with a story that sums it all up:
Charlies’ philosophy of songwriting paraphrased from the 1970 Rolling

Stone interview-“make a musical mistake on guitar, oops. Instead of fixing
it next time through, repeat the mistake within the song, then next time
through slowly abandon rest of the original song piece by piece, finally
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keeping only the mistake, and gradually create new music around the
mistake until the only part of the original song left is that mistake. Presto-
it’s a mistake no more. New song, the mistake is the inspiration, and it is
perfect. Now apply this to life. ”
“I was in prison for 25 years. I have almost no intelligence. Doesn’t it

make any sense to anybody that maybe I wasn’t the leader?” -Manson
1994
“No sense makes sense”
Suggestions for further reading:
Everyone should start with these two:
Helter Skelter-Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry 1974 Ghostwritten by

Curt Gentry, this is the inside view from the prosecutor’s point. It is
considered by the ‘straight media’ as the only accurate version of the
murders and is the sole source of information for mainstream media
reports on the case. Good for names/dates/places/timelines/police
investigations. Considered unreliable as to real motives and behind the
scenes activity. Love it or hate it, everyone should start with this one.
The Family: The Story of Charle’s Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack
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Battalion Ed Sanders 1971 1st edition hardcover. This is the other big
one. Sanders spent nearly a year living in around and among the the
Manson family. He interviewed hundreds of ancillary members of this
tale–on the Manson end of things, and on the Polanski Tate end of things.
Contains many details speculating on the real motives, and has very rich
details on the behind the scenes activity. Probably the best source out
there-contains much speculation, but was written in the immediate
aftermath, and contains primary source information from people who
were there. Criticized for too many ‘unnamed sources’. Make sure you get
the first edition, the one that has many stories that were excised after
Sanders was sued by the Process.
Manson in His Own Words: The Shocking Confessions of ‘The

Most Dangerous Man Alive’-Charles Manson and Nuel Emmons 1986.
Okay, this one causes a lot of controversy. How much of it is ghost
written and how much is actually Manson’s words is debated in Manson
circles. It backs up the version of the tale that takes Manson out of the
leader’s status, and portrays events as just spinning out of control as the
summer of 1969 wore on. While downplaying his own role, Charlie does
eventually own up to some responsibility in the events.
Will You Die For Me?-Tex Watson 1978 Generally dismissed as post
murder prison born again Christian ramblings. Nothing of note is in
here, and Tex puts it all on Charlie and downplays his own involvement.
Which ignores the fact he killed everyone, and Charlie didn’t kill anyone.
My Life With Charles Manson-Paul Watkins 1979 An interesting read

from someone on the inside. Watkins was once Manson’s recruiter, but
had started to get freaked out by the dark vibes and moved deeper into
the desert with Brooks Poston before things went down. Watkins was one
of the main witnesses against Manson, so it is not surprising that most of
this story mirrors Bugliosi’s version of the murders. Still, he was there
and there is a richness to some details of daily life at the Ranch.
Child of Satan Child of God – Susan Atkins 1977 Like Watson’s book,
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a fairly dry version of the events by one of the participants. Also like
Watson’s book, this is written from a born again Christian point of view.
Not much of note is in there.
If You Want to Go Down the Rabbit Hole:
The Manson File: Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman

-Nicholas Schreck 1988/2011. A fascinating collection of tidbits, trivia
and esoterica. This guy had access to Manson in prison and spoke with
him many times. Takes the stance that Manson might not be guilty. A bit
jumbled but it uncovers many things no one else has. Get the newer
version.
The Shadow Over Santa Susanna – Black Magic, Mind Control,

and the ‘Manson Family’ Mythos – Adam Gorightly 2001. Another
pretty good read that focuses on the occult angle, something ignored
completely by Bugliosi. Some weird stuff in this one.
Manson: Behind the Scenes – Bill Nelson This guy got a reputation,
much deserved, for being a Manson Family stalker. While that is true, he
managed to find out probably more information and untold stories
involving auxiliary members and unknown members of the Manson
Family than anyone to date.
And finally, if you really want to get freaked out, try this 86 page treatise
by Miles Mathis on how the Manson Murders were staged, Sharon Tate
is still alive, and more….Although there is some insanely far fetched shit
in here, it does contain some interesting ideas and connects some dots
and ways of seeing things that no one has thought of. Worth a read if
you’ve already fallen down the rabbit hole.
http://mileswmathis.com/tate.pdf
One final note: I bought the original library bound edition of

Rolling Stone magazine from summer 1970 which contained
not just the massive Manson article issue, but a dozen
subsequent issues. Now anyone familiar with Rolling Stone of
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that era knows that the letters section of the following issue is
chock full of comments about the previous issue. Hell, if the
news was big enough, letters sometimes were in the same issue
as the news broke in. So I scanned the next issue for any
mention in the letters of the Manson article. There were none.
Odd. I checked the following issue. Still nothing. I kept
searching the next five issues and not one single mention of the
Manson article. Clearly this was intentional, but the big
question is ‘why’? Obviously the magazine had been flooded
with letters, but not a single one was published. This had to be
an editorial decision by the publisher and editors at the
highest levels. Who ordered this: law enforcement? Not likely
they’d listen to that. Death threats from the Manson Family
still at large? Far more likely. No one has ever mentioned this
‘non-event’-obviously it was never intended to be ever
mentioned, and they must have just hoped nobody would
notice. Definitely one of the strangest little tidbits of hidden
information I’ve ever encountered in this case.
“Just because you’re convicted of something in a court room doesn’t mean

you’re guilty of something”
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Charles Manson Music Myth Murder Mysticism Magick Magus Mayhem-A Look Back at The Untold Story of The Manson Family (Or, More Manson Than You'd Ever Want To Know)

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Charles Manson: Music Myth Murder Mysticism Magick Magus Mayh... about:reader?url=https://carwreckdebangs.wordpress.com/2017/11/30/ch...

Charles Manson: Music Myth Murder

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Manson is released in 1967 into San Francisco while Haight-Ashbury

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The Music part one

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the album that didn’t crack the charts

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Get ready to kiss these puppies goodbye!

Somehow Charlie managed to keep up a constantly evolving verbally

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Terry Melcher with Doris Day

Wilson passed Manson on to the next level up of music stardom, producer

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Manson family recordings post Charlie

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Not everyone thought Manson was of dubious musical quality. Manson

Manson once grabbed one of Young’s guitars and started an impromptu

“I told Mo Ostin about him- Warner Brothers. This guy is so

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The Music part two: Esalen Institute-Big Sur

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blowing to all involved, and raise questions about the trial

Robert deGrimston, founder of the Process had lectured at Esalen at this

Paul Watkins, Charlieś chief procurer, was an employee at Esalen in the

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chance encounter he put in his book. People do underestimate the

One thing is certain though, people underestimate the music business

Manson was considered a guru at the time, (Dean Moorehouse as well),

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Satan simultaneously. He taught that awareness and being in ‘the NOW’

1. Scientology-Terminal Island Prison, Los Angeles

2. The Process Church of the Final Judgement/London, San

3. Georgina Brayton and the Solar Lodge of the O.T.O./Blythe,

4. Fountain of the World/Krishna Venta-Chatsworth,

5. Mel Lyman and the Family/Fort Hill Community-Boston

6. The Book of Revelations

7. and to a lesser extent, the Beatles White Album and Stranger

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Manson studied Scientology heavily in California prison, as Dianetics was

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According to Bugliosi, part of Manson’s charismatic appeal was “his ability

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The Bible and the Book of Revelations and the Beatles.

Can you explain the meaning of Revelations, Chapter 9?

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From an interview with Leslie Van Houten in December of 1969:

Drugs Part One

The Devil’s Trumpet sounds off

The importance of drugs in this tale cannot be understated. Even the

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ingredient to the dissolution of reality into fantasy, in particular with key

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Drugs Part Two

Bernard Crowe, or Lotsapoppa

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