Restless Souls

by Alisa Statman

  Inside the boardroom, they reviewed clerical errors. Outside, I shifted the medal on the rosary one bead over and said a prayer. Instead of a communion with God, the blinds of my eyelids ignited a phantom’s view of Sharon suspended. Hands bound at her back, she thrashes against the snare, her mouth gapes open to scream, yet she can’t. This is not a new vision. I’ve seen it—and worse—a thousand times over. My grip tightened around the beads as I shook the scene away; even so, a shiver held tight. John looped his arm through mine. “You want to take a walk until they finish with this part?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to take this one minute at a time and see if I can keep from cracking,” I smiled weakly.

  “Mr. Watson,” Carter asked, “would you concur with those modifications?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “In what areas would you disagree?”

  “Well, I’d disagree with the fact that Sharon Tate was hung while I was present.”

  “Do you deny hanging her at that time?”

  “Yes, I do. I haven’t denied too much, in fact I’ve confessed to all of it, but I don’t remember her being hung. And I have often thought about this, and I don’t know how that happened, but I have no comment on that. I just don’t remember that particular fact.”

  “Are there any other comments in this area?” Carter looked around the quiet table. “Okay. We’re going to move on to the criminal’s history, which is very short. Two arrests: one while in college for the burglary of some office equipment, and one prior arrest in California for being under the influence of drugs.

  “Prisoner had what could be described as a sterling social history with a stable family life, lots of community and school involvement, and ample opportunity to turn out to be the average John Q. Public. Mr. Watson, do you have any insight on how you turned out to be something so grossly different?”

  “Well, 1969 was a very revolutionary atmosphere. I was very rebellious to society. And I was seeking something that I had not found for satisfaction, for happiness, for contentment. So, in my search, I began to take drugs and hallucinogens. And more or less dropped out of society into the love generation, although it turned out to be very much hate.

  “I was searching for acceptance and the answer in life. And I thought I’d found it through LSD and Manson, along with the Family living at the ranch and all the love that I felt there. And by taking the drugs for over a year, I lost all sense of care and direction in life. I had completely forgotten about my background, my past, my upbringing. My parents no longer existed in my thinking. I became very susceptible to the Family and the teachings of Mr. Manson. And gave myself completely to him, to what the Family was doing. To a point of where I would do anything without care for myself, my own personal safety, my own life. I had very little feelings for anybody.

  “There was no right or wrong with Manson, there was no time and space. The people that I killed didn’t even seem real to me. At the time, I saw them as blobs. And I thought that in killing them, I was only killing myself. Right after the crimes, I thought the end of the world was coming because of a black and white race war.”

  Carter shook his head in disagreement. “I think it’s a common phase of life for kids to want to break away from their parents, but the extreme turn that you made is the difference between you and hundreds of thousands of other people. All right, let’s move into the area of postconviction factors. Mr. Tong?”

  “Let’s see,” Tong scanned a sheet, “you have recently taken and completed a psychology course at Cal Poly?”

  “Yes, with an A grade.”

  “Okay. For two and a half years, you held an assignment as a clerk in the psychiatric intervention unit and then as a student chaplain. On April 21 of 1981, you became an ordained minister with the Word of Faith Church in Bakersfield. What were the requirements to become a minister through that church?”

  “It’s a ministry training program that you begin as a congregational member, and then you have the availability of going into the ministry under the guidance of Reverend Stanley Maguire.”

  Tong pried a page from Watson’s file. “This is a letter from Reverend Maguire that comments on your involvement with the church here. He writes, ‘Mr. Watson is my associate pastor in charge of our worship department, student chaplain program, yokefellow group therapy, and works with the administration.’”

  Watson nodded enthusiastically with each of the notations. “Yes, I believe that’s an accurate interpretation.”

  “My final note for this section concerns the legally incorporated ministry you have, called the Abounding Love Ministries, Incorporated. At your last hearing, you had approximately fourteen hundred people that you were in contact with. Has that number grown?”

  “At this present time, we’re in contact with thirteen hundred prison chaplains throughout the United States and Canada. We also have twenty-five hundred to three thousand people on our general mailing list that we minister to.”

  “Any other comments for this part?” Tong asked.

  “Well, I learned something this morning that concerns me a great deal,” Steve Kay responded. “I don’t know what’s happening in the prison chapel here, but I was informed today that Mr. Watson and Bruce Davis are working hand in hand in the chapel. Now, Tex Watson and Bruce Davis were the two main leaders of the Family when Charles Manson wasn’t there.

  “You’ve got to remember that the Manson Family was a quasi-religious group to start with, so the fact that Mr. Watson and Mr. Davis are suddenly born-again Christians is not surprising. And now, to allow them to be together as leaders of this chapel, well, it’s a situation I’m very much opposed to.”

  Watson’s southern charm faded with the blink of his stony eyes. “Personally, I don’t think this hearing has anything to do with Mr. Davis and my association, or our Christian experience. I think that Dr. Stanley Maguire is highly capable of making decisions that shouldn’t concern Mr. Kay.

  “Mr. Davis is a legitimate born-again Christian, and we have a very good relationship. Matter of fact, we live together on the honor unit. I don’t have a lot of recollection to what degree religion was used in our fam—the Family, we never discuss it. So, what that has to do with this board hearing today, or Mr. Kay, I don’t fully understand and, well, I wanted to make that point clear.”

  Watson’s outburst gave pause to the three panel members, while Steve Kay sat back, seemingly satisfied that he’d pushed the right button. Carter spoke first. “That certainly does clear things up a bit. Would you like to go into future planning, Mr. Lopez?”

  “Sure. But first, I’d like to ask Mr. Watson what his thoughts are on his progress toward a future outside this penitentiary.”

  “Right after I was convicted of that crime, Mr. Bugliosi said that the only thing that could help me was a new heart. Until I gave my life to Christ and began to go down the road of Christianity, and began to mature my Christian walk, I never felt any remorse for that crime. In 1975, when I gave my life to the Lord, I felt remorse for the first time—I received that new heart. Since then, I’ve begun to mature in my thinking and my psychological makeup. I know, without a doubt, that my life has gone through radical changes since I’ve given my life to Christ.”

  “Okay. Next I have a report from August,” Lopez said, “that indicates you were married in September of 1979, and that marriage is still intact. That you have one child . . . who I believe is four weeks. . . .”

  I clutched John’s leg. “Dear God. Did I hear that man correctly?”

  Mancino numbly shook his head.

  “Impossible. I mean, he is in prison, right?”

  “Must have happened during one of his conjugal visits.”

  “What in the hell is that?”

  “California prisoners are allowed to have unsupervised, forty-eight-hour visits with their spouses—trailer sex.”

  A reporter edged toward us. “Mrs. Tate? Any comment about Watson being a parent?”

  I stood to leave. “No.”
Then to Mancino, “Get me out of here before I vomit in front of all these nice people.”

  And at the van, that’s exactly what happened. I sat back in the passenger seat. “Okay. I think I’m finished.”

  “Should I get you a Coke or something?”

  “No, just drive. I want to get as far away from this place as possible. How dare Watson enjoy the very pleasure he stole from Sharon? It’s a good thing I wasn’t in that boardroom. I’ll tell you, when I heard about that child, I would have broken every bone in his body. You know, I knew that Watson living in a cold, dark dungeon was pure fantasy, but I never imagined all this; no, sir, not in my wildest dreams.”

  At seventy miles per hour down the freeway, the citrus groves streamed across the window with hypnotic hues of orange, yellow, and green while I combated the analogy of revenge versus justice. When I finally had my finger on it, I patted John on the shoulder. “Get ready, because this is war—not revenge, mind you. My definition of revenge would be taking away something Watson loved. Nope, this is justice. And by that, I mean he’s going to go through another radical life change, because I’m going to fight him with everything I’ve got. And I don’t care how long it takes, but he’s going to start living like a convicted murderer.” I rested my head against the seat. “Conjugal visits my ass,” I muttered.

  Photos

  These photos from our family album reflect the way we like to remember Sharon, Doris, P.J., and Patti.

  Sharon’s early years

  Sharon when she was just a few days old (P.J. went AWOL from the navy to be there) . . .

  Posing for her first portrait . . .

  Horsing around . . .

  And giving P.J. a big smile.

  Sharon at home in Texas . . .

  And in her grade-school classroom.

  While P.J. was away at war, Sharon and Doris did everything together. They were very close to each other . . .

  And they were close to Nannie Tate, too.

  Throughout her life, Sharon held family dear.

  Sharon all grown up

  Sharon in her high school portrait . . .

  As Miss Autorama in 1959 . . .

  As Miss Richland that same year. (If P.J. hadn’t transferred to Italy, she would have entered the Miss America pageant.)

  Here she is with Jack Palance as an extra on the set of Barabbas . . .

  With Pat Boone in Italy on the set of his 1961 ABC-TV special . . .

  And in the spotlight with David Niven while shooting the movie 13.

  Sharon’s first love was animals.

  Meet Guinness, the first of many Yorkies Sharon and Doris would share. Doris later bred Guinness and gave a puppy from the litter to Sharon and Roman whom they named Dr. Sapirstein, a character from Rosemary’s Baby.

  Sharon’s second love was the beach.

  Her other loves were well known. Here she is with Jay in Rome . . .

  And later, with Roman in Santa Monica, California.

  Patti throughout the years

  Patti really loved playing Barbies with Sharon . . .

  Mimicking her big sister, as she is playfully doing here on their return trip from Italy . . .

  Hanging out with Jay, who was like a big brother to her, on his houseboat in San Francisco . . .

  And visiting Sharon on set. Here she is with Tony Curtis during the filming of Don’t Make Waves.

  These are some favorite pictures of Patti and P.J. (Patti was expecting Brie at the time) . . .

  P.J., Nannie Tate, and Patti.

  Brie, Doris, and Patti–three generations of strong-willed Tate women . . .

  And Doris and Patti on a mission!

  Doris and P.J. through the years

  P.J. and Doris in their youth . . .

  And in their later years together.

  Even after forty years of marriage, P.J. still liked to dance hand-in-hand with Doris.

  After Doris died, P.J. would seek solace in his love of fishing.

  He also found peace in the company of his grandchildren. Having been outnumbered by women for so long, his grandson Bryce was always a welcome presence.

  Here’s Bryce with Brie . . .

  And several more pictures of Brie and P.J. over the years.

  Doris, of course, championed the rights of victims’ families on every level she could, whether it was through filing petitions …

  or impacting legislation (here she is with Governor Pete Wilson at the 1991 Victims’ Rights March at the California state capital) . . .

  and while she worked tirelessly to help victims, her ultimate goal was to make the world a safer place for her family, especially her grandchildren (here with Brie).

  Shortly before she passed, Doris was honored by President Bush for all she accomplished . . .

  But no matter how tough a person she appeared to be in public, this is the Doris her family knew and loved most.

  11

  THAT OLD BITCH

  When I hear people speak about the death penalty, asking isn’t it cruel and unusual? I have to say, absolutely not. You want to see cruel and unusual? Let me show you what they did to my sister and all the other victims. What they did was cruel. We think so much more about the killers than they ever, ever gave a thought about their victims.

  —PATTI TATE

  Doris

  There was a young girl named Amy Sue Seitz whose story, though unrelated to my own, has tremendous bearing on mine just the same. I came upon news of it in 1978.

  By the time little Amy Sue left this world, the police explained to her mother, it was a blessing.

  Mrs. Seitz’s ordeal began six days earlier and fifty miles north of Los Angeles, where the populace dropped to seventy-five thousand in Ventura County.

  Without fail, the spring months in California set free the orange blossom scent of heaven to reward its residents. March 14, 1978, was just such a morning when a few minutes past eleven o’clock, Amy Sue toddled out the front door of her aunt’s home and disappeared without a trace.

  Almost one hundred officers combed the streets in search of the missing two-year-old. So many helicopter pilots volunteered for the search that it looked like wartime as the fleet of aircraft hovered over the small suburb of Camarillo and its surrounding areas. Neighbors and their hunting dogs joined the canine units to search the weed-stricken fields that would have towered over the thirty-two-inch child.

  It was a valiant search; nevertheless, fruitless. Before the first helicopter launched from the airport, Amy had left Ventura County.

  On the vinyl backseat of the car, Amy didn’t have the strength to wriggle free from the bounds around her hands and legs. Her underwear, wedged into her mouth, muzzled her cries. Wide eyes, no doubt moist with replenishing tears and fear about what was to come, she watched the operator of the vehicle propel them southbound on the Ventura Freeway.

  An hour later, just off the Topanga Canyon exit, Theodore Francis Frank discarded his latest toy into a ravine. It was Amy’s body.

  The coroner had a difficult time comparing the remains to a portrait Amy’s mother gave him for identification. In fact, it couldn’t be done. The blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl who posed for the picture in no way represented what lay on his autopsy table. Black holes filled the space where her eyes once shined, and she’d been beaten so severely about the head that the surrounding skin only loosely bound her skull. Closer review proved that her attacker sodomized and raped her.

  In the course of his career, the dead never sickened the examiner, but when he removed the torn, blood-drenched clothing, he felt a wave of nausea. Whoever molested the infant had peeled the skin away from her buttocks and hips. Both of her tiny crushed nipples, imprinted by vise-grip pliers, dangled from her chest. The missing teeth that the doctor had earlier noted, he later found in her stomach, along with the equivalent of three beers.

  Tragically, the preceding notations weren’t the cause of death. Amy survived it all, until Frank strangled her.

  Befo
re Amy encountered him, Theodore Frank had been arrested six times and spent fourteen years locked up over the course of his twenty-two-year vocation in child torture.

  Due to his criminal history, his defense attorney managed to have his last conviction reduced to an MDSO—Mentally Disordered Sex Offender.

  Defendants like Frank who fell into the MDSO program were immune to prison sentences. Instead, they went to a state mental hospital for eighteen to twenty-two months, after which the doctors deem them rehabilitated and sign their release papers.

  California sent Frank to Atascadero State Hospital for a two-year evaluation.

  Every minute a parent waves good-bye to their child telling them to be careful and don’t talk to strangers. “Okay,” the innocent yell over their shoulder as they run off. Yet few are considering the warning. The ones that do envision a wild-eyed, drooling monster, not gaily dressed clowns like child murderer John Wayne Gacy. Nor are they expecting middle-aged men like Theodore Frank, with peppery hair, beard, and mustache. Dressed immaculately in suits that he accented with thick-rimmed glasses, Frank appeared more the scholarly Dr. Jekyll than his alter ego of Mr. Hyde.