by Johnny Satan
A: As far as I know; I can’t remember what they did, really, at that time.
Q: Where were you in the car when you changed clothes?
A: I was in the front seat.
Q: Alongside of Linda; is that correct?
A: Correct.
Q: And do you have any recollection of how long you might have been driving before you next stopped?
A: No. It didn’t seem like too long, though, too long a time.
Q: Then you came to a stop in the car, did you?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you all get out?
A: Yes, we did.
Q: Where did you go?
A: We were walking up the street and a water hose was coming out the driveway.
Q: Incidentally, when you drove on this street where you saw the water hose, did you park the car on that same side of the street?
A: The car was parked going back down the street.
Q: So the front was pointed down toward Beverly Glen; is that right?
A: It was pointed back towards the main street.
Q: I mean Benedict Canyon, not Beverly Glen, I’m sorry. Is that correct?
A: It was pointed down towards the main street.
Q: Then you walked toward the water house, did you?
A: Yes, that’s correct.
Q: The four of you?
A: Yes.
Q: Did somebody come out while you were there?
A: Yes.
Q: What happened when that person appeared?
A: He appeared and walked right up in front of me, right up to my face and said, “What you doing?” or something like that; and I said, “Getting a drink.’’
Q: What were you doing?
A: Getting a drink.
Q: Did you have the water hose and the water running?
A: I don’t recall that.
Q: What happened after he talked with you?
A: I know there was a lot of confusion came down then; somebody ran out the house and we started walking towards the car.
Q: Did this man say or do anything?
A: I can’t recall him saying anymore than what he said.
Q: Did he say, “What are you doing?” and you said you were getting a drink of water?
A: That’s correct.
Q: And there was this confusion that you spoke of?
A: Yeah, and we started walking toward the car.
Q: How far away was the car?
A: Not too far at all; it was just right — not too far.
Q: Did this man ever threaten you?
A: No.
Q: Did you threaten him?
A: No.
Q: You still had the knife and the gun, didn’t you?
A: Not on me.
Q: Well, was it in the car?
A: Yes, it was in the car.
Q: What happened when you got back to the car?
A: I jumped under the wheel this time and the girls got in and we drove away.
Q: Where did you go?
A: I started driving and then one of the girls in the back seat said we had to stop and throw out the clothes and knives, so that’s what we did; stopped and threw away everything that was in the car.
Q: Incidentally, Charles, I hate to take you back, but do you remember how many people you shot in the house?
A: One person.
Q: Oh, you shot one in the car, is that correct, outside of the house?
A: That’s correct.
Q: And one in the house?
A: That’s what I did.
Q: Do you have any recollection of shooting any other person in the house?
A: No, I have not, no.
Q: Did you know that the gun still had live bullets in it?
A: No, I did not.
Q: You thought you had discharged them all?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: All right. Now, back to leaving the house at the scene: Where did you drive after you left the house where you got the water?
A: Where did we what, now?
Q: Where did you drive after you left the house where you got the water?
A: Up the hill.
Q: To where, if you remember?
A: We went up and over and stopped at a filling station.
Q: Didn’t anything happen there that you remember?
A: No, I know I got out and went to the bathroom.
Q: And then after that, where did you go?
A: I came out of the bathroom and got into the back seat of the car and laid down and ended up at the ranch.
Q: Do you remember what time of day or night it was?
A: Just that it was dark and late.
Q: What did you do when you got to the ranch?
A: We all went into the room at the end of the ranch house.
Q: Was anybody up at that hour?
A: Charlie was running around without any clothes on, I remember that.
Q: Anybody else with him?
A: And Brenda was there, and that’s all I can recall.
A: Did you tell Charlie what happened, or was anything said about that night?
A: I didn’t say anything that night, but I know Charlie was kind of talking to some of the people in the ranch house there.
Q: What did you do after seeing Charlie back in the ranch house?
A: I went to sleep.
Q: Did you talk at all with Charlie that night?
A: No, I did not talk to Charlie that night.
Q: Did you see him the following day?
A: I didn’t see him until later that night.
Q: Do you have any recollection of being up at all that following day?
A: Not the following day, no.
Q: Did you sleep most of the day?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: What happened the following day when you saw Charlie?
A: The first thing I remember is him giving me a knife and some acid.
Q: What time of the day or night was this?
A: I know it was just dark, a little after dark.
Q: Had you eaten supper yet?
A: I can’t recall about supper that night.
Q: You got the knife and acid and then what?
A: He told me to get in the car.
Q: It was the same —
A: The same car.
Q: The same Ford automobile?
A: Yes.
Q: Was anybody else in the car?
A: Linda and in the back seat, was full, it had Sadie, Katie, and Leslie and Steve Grogan.
Q: There were seven of you; is that correct?
A: Yes, that is correct.
Q: Who was driving?
A: Charlie was driving.
Q: Did he say where you were going or what you were going to do?
A: I can’t recall right now what he said.
Q: Incidentally, before you went out this evening of the 9th, had there been any discussion between you and Charlie about weapons? Anything said about weapons?
A: No.
Q: Did you ever tell Charlie that you ought to have better weapons than you had the night before?
A: No, I did not.
Q: Did you ever use the expression “I am the devil here to do the devil’s work”?
A: No, I did not.
Q: Did you ever say that at the Tate house?
A: No.
Q: Did you say that the following night, if you remember?
A: No.
Q: Did you ever tell Charlie in the bunk house that that is what you said?
A: No, I did not.
Q: Had there ever been any discussion about the devil as part of the Manson philosophy?
A: The devil was the people, society, in that they were — had so much thought that they were tearing up the world.
Q: That is who Manson considered the devil?
A: Yes; and also we, before we lost our thought, we were the devil.
Q: But you were no longer the devil now?
A: No, sir. We were considered as Christ, perfect.
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Q: Is that what Charlie told you?
A: Everything was perfect, no mistake.
The Court: I think this would be a good time to recess. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we will recess at this time until 9:30 tomorrow morning. Once more do not form or express any opinion in this case. Do not discuss it among yourselves or with anybody else. Please keep an open mind.
(September 1971)
FIRST JAIL INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES MANSON
Getting in to see Charles Manson is a little less difficult than getting in to see the Pope but not much. In response to a request relayed through friends that Manson wanted to talk to a lawyer about things raised in last week’s article in the L.A. Free Press, I went to the jail to visit him.
At the attorney room window, I filled out the usual forms and then had to give a lot of additional information. After inspecting my driver’s license and recording my home address, my business address, my signature and business card in a special file, a sheriff’s sergeant came out and took my photograph with a Polaroid and put that in the file also.
Then they went through a cautionary instruction. I was not to touch him, shake hands or give him anything to look at without first showing it to the deputy. They told me that although attorneys could usually give prisoners up to one dollar for cigarette money, no such was to be given to Manson.
After these preliminaries, I was let into the attorney interview room where I saw for the first time a rather slight man with shoulder length hair standing against the back wall. After all of the newspaper photographs I have seen of a glowering, wild-eyed scowler, I didn’t even recognize this man at first. The eyes, then and throughout the interview, had a gentle cast, even when he became quite emphatic as he did later on. His facial expressions varied from a kind of set attitude of resigned endurance to a very pleasant and gentle smile. I keep coming back to that word “gentle” because it is the major impression the man left on me.
After preliminary introductions, I got down to business by telling him that I had been informed he wanted to talk about some legal questions raised in the Free Press article. I told him that I was willing to answer his questions but that in return I wanted his permission to write a story about the interview for the Free Press, excluding of course anything about the conduct of his defense which we might talk about.
Manson smiled his rather wry smile and after observing that at least I was honest about it, began to talk.
“I want to retain my own voice. That is why I am defending myself. The stories that have been appearing in the newspapers are a lot of bunk. They keep quoting me as saying things I never said at all.” I had to stop him to remind him that I did not take shorthand and to ask him to slow down. The talk then shifted to the book I had brought to give him, a copy of Charles Garry’s Minimizing Racism In Jury Trials, a National Lawyers Guild publication devoted mainly to uncovering hidden prejudice in prospective jurors. All I could do was show him the book because they refused to let me give him anything without a court order. I wrote the title down and gave that to the deputy to give to Manson. I hope he got it.
For a while we discussed juries and the problems of appearing without a lawyer. I told Manson that Garry’s book related the voir dire questions used to pick the jury in the Huey Newton trial. Manson asked who Huey was.
I observed that for a person without legal training to defend himself was rather like getting into the ring with Joe Louis. “Worse,” Manson replied and started to tell me why he doesn’t trust lawyers.
“You wouldn’t believe the things that go down behind this case,” Manson said. “The first lawyer who came in here offered me $130,000.00 to write my ‘story’. We talked a little and he went away and wrote a story where he put all kinds of words in my mouth I never said.
“The second lawyer came in here and he wanted to incorporate me. I haven’t got a nickel to buy a pack of cigarettes, and he wants to incorporate me.
“Then the third lawyer comes in and wants to handle my defense fund. That is all they ever talk about-money. They all think there is money here, and they all want to get their fingers into it.”
“What about the music?” I asked him. “Isn’t there money coming out of that? I thought there was some kind of Sammy Glick character putting out an album.”
“Who is Sammy Glick?” Manson wanted to know, so I explained he was a character out of a Budd Schulberg novel and restated the question without the distraction.
“Let me tell you about the music.” Manson suddenly seemed to grow more intense. “The people involved with the music are all trying to keep it from coming out. They are afraid of it, because it tells the truth.”
“People keep coming in here with brief cases and want to do things about money. I just smile and say ‘yea’ and ‘okay’ and ‘yes’ and ‘okay,’ and they go out again, and different ones come in with brief cases, and I say ‘yes’ and ‘okay’ to them too.” Manson smiled that wry smile at me again and said, “The attorneys too. Most of the attorneys just want the publicity of the trial.
They don’t care about the man at all. If there was some kind of writ that could get me out of here tomorrow, they wouldn’t bring it, because they all want to go through the whole trial and wring every last drop of publicity out of the whole thing.”
“You are going to write about this for the Free Press?” he asked once again, looking at me quizzically. “Okay, I’ll test you. I’ll give you a story, and if you tell it straight, I’ll give you more.” Then we talked for a while about the advisability of my quoting him directly about the case and the danger that through my paraphrasing and the District Attorney’s malice his words might get twisted out of context and so misinterpreted, be used against him.
Because of that problem, I have omitted details that I believe might relate to his defense. With the additional warning that this is merely my memory of what Charley Manson told me in the Central Jail two hours ago, this is what he said:
“Ever since a week after the Tate murders, they have been desperately looking for someone to pin it on. Two hundred deputies and three helicopters descended on the ranch where we were staying in Malibu and arrested us. Two uniformed deputy sheriffs, one six-three and the other about six-six worked me over. One kneed me in the chest breaking three ribs. If they would let an independent civilian doctor look at me they could tell by the condition of my ribs that is true. They kept me three days and released me. They rearrested me again the next day and again released me after three days. That time I decided to go to the mountains and get away from the harassment.” (At this point it is interesting to remember that former Deputy Sheriff Preston Gillory was hounded off the Sheriff’s Department because of his refusal to keep silent about the events of that raid on the Manson family at Malibu by deputies from that substation. Gillory worked at Malibu just before his termination.)
“I decided to go to the mountains to talk to God, to apologize for nineteen hundred years of this mess. That’s when they got me and brought me here.
“You want to know about my philosophy? You want to know where my philosophy comes from. I’ll tell you. I’m not from your society. I have spent most of my life in a world of bars and solitary confinement. My philosophy comes from underneath the boots and sticks and clubs they beat people with who come from the wrong side of the tracks. People like me are society’s scapegoats. They keep getting away with it because no one will say anything.
“I have been in jail twenty two years,” Manson continued. “My body has been locked up but my mind is free. When I get outside on the street, I see all kinds of people whose bodies are free, but their minds are all locked up.”
During this speech, Manson seemed to grow more intense again, and I could see how an unfriendly cameraman could catch him at an angle where his features might have that wild cast they get in the newspaper photos. Face to face, however, they never lost the almost pleading look of someone straining to be understood, to communicate the feelings inside of him.
About then we were interrupted by the sheriff’s deputy, who wanted more information about my background. I felt like telling to get it out of the LAPD’s political dossier but didn’t. I must have answered him a little testily because Manson said, “I don’t hate them. I really don’t. I pity them. I really don’t hate anybody.”