When the establishment stopped giving, the Family started stealing by entering homes in the dead of night, while the unsuspecting occupants slept through the “creepy-crawl” missions.
As time went on, the Family began to resent the success that others were willing to work hard at to achieve. They wanted the good life, but on their terms.
Like a contagious disease, money and fame is everywhere in Los Angeles, but it was just beyond Manson’s reach. He desperately wanted to be a rock-and-roll star; he wanted to be idolized. When the entertainment industry turned its back on him, he decided to turn against society as a whole and everyone, save the crew of killers, would suffer because of this rejection.
Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, Van Houten, and the others followed his lead. Not because of brainwashing or believing he was Christ, but because they felt his same emotions; it’s what united them as a group in the first place. Manson simply nourished the egos that already festered in each one of them.
In the end, the bitterness turned to violence. “I had anger in my heart,” Watson said, “and I released it during the crimes.”
I connected the dots from the trial transcripts to the parole hearings to recent interviews, and the picture turned out to be a conniving, self-serving man who would do and say anything to be released from his punishment. He lied throughout his trial in an attempt to avoid the death penalty. He came up with one excuse after another throughout his book as to why he murdered. To this day at his parole hearings, he won’t admit that he thought of his victims as human beings whose lives he stole. From Watson’s own confessions, there was no doubt that he understood not only that killing was wrong, but also, if he were caught, he would be punished.
Proof.
In a prison ministry interview, Watson related his thoughts after the murders when he left Manson to go back to Texas. “At last I’d be totally my own man, totally free, without anyone telling me what to do. That was what it boiled down to. I didn’t want anyone, ever again, to tell me what to do.”
Watson wants freedom; he wanted it in 1969, and he wants it now. What would he do if he ever received that pardon? I intended to make sure that question was never answered.
13
THE LOST SHEEP
Inmates at most prisons want to talk about how they’ve been victimized by the courts or the prison system or by society in general, almost as if their crimes never happened, their victims never existed. But if offenders here at Vacaville want to attend VORG then they have to leave their alibis and excuses out here on the prison yard because the one absolute requirement for getting in is that they own up to their crimes; no more denials, no more appeals.
—STONE PHILLIPS
Doris
On February 27, 1850, when murder was commonplace and there were more cattle than citizens, California legislature enacted the district attorney’s office.
The few thousand settlers of Los Angeles County—dubbed Los Diablo for its lawlessness—elected William Ferrell as the first prosecutor for the people.
Along with Judge Agustin Olvera, Ferrell reinstated the City of Angels by holding court at the Bella Union Hotel, just a few blocks from where the Criminal Courts Building was eventually constructed.
On the ninth floor of the halls of justice, I crossed, uncrossed, and recrossed my legs as I waited in the reception area of the District Attorney’s Office.
The current chief district attorney, Ira Reiner, and I were distantly at odds in 1971 during his short-term venture as Leslie Van Houten’s defense lawyer. As the clock ticked past the second hour that he’d kept me waiting, I suspected he was avoiding that trip down memory lane. Be that as it may, I was on a mission, so I waited.
At the end of 1989 I accepted the California Department of Correction’s invitation to serve as one of their advisory board members; in doing so, I became the liaison between the CDC and the victims. My job is to advise the CDC on how best to help victims through the judicial process—from the perpetrator’s trial, to incarceration, and ultimately, the perpetrator’s release.
The complaint most repeated by the victims is that they rarely knew the status of court proceedings against their assailants; therefore, they felt neglected by the prosecutors. Deputy District Attorney Cesar Sarmiento, from the Hardcore Gangs Division, solved this predicament by adding the victim or next-of-kin to the witness subpoena list, thus ensuring a victim’s incorporation at all levels.
Intent to have Sarmiento’s policy used throughout Los Angeles County, I sent Reiner my proposal and asked for his support.
I had reached a position where “no” was an unacceptable answer, and I’d grown accustomed to politicians from all over the state promptly returning my calls. Two weeks elapsed without a response from Reiner concerning the memo. On the fifteenth day, without an appointment, I stubbornly waited in his office until he took a meeting.
A handsome man with gray hair that didn’t match his youthful face approached. “Mrs. Tate, I’m Chief Deputy Gil Garcetti. How nice of you to visit our office.” He pulled a chair next to mine. “I’m sorry you’ve had to wait so long.”
I took both his hands, and though I wasn’t feeling the least bit hospitable, I turned on the southern charm. “Oh, honey, that’s all right. How long until Mr. Reiner will be free?”
“Well, he’s probably not going to get a chance to meet with you today, but he’s brought me up to speed on your proposal, and we’re going to try to get something together as soon as our schedule clears.”
Still smiling and holding his hands, I nodded toward my purse, which held only my wallet and car keys. “You’re not going to make me pull out all one hundred of these affidavits from victims who feel neglected by this office, are you? What I’ve proposed is such a simple solution; you could dictate it to your secretary in five minutes, and have it out to your deputies by next week.” Before he could reply, I pressured, “I do have your support on this, don’t I?”
At first equivocal, Garcetti followed through with an election-winning grin. “Of course you do, Mrs. Tate.”
“Now that wasn’t so painful was it? Three minutes and I’m out the door.” I patted his hand. “Next time, let’s not make this such a formal thing. Okay?”
In the hall, I pressed the elevator button. I looked at my watch; three hours for three minutes and my whole day is shot. Why’d they have to make this so damn hard? I stepped into the elevator car that moved as slow as the judicial process. It reminded me that no matter how fast I tried to run, it was still going to happen one step at a time.
Since my appointment to the advisory board, Jim Rowland, the director of the CDC, had approached me on numerous occasions to become involved in a program called VORG, Victim Offender Reconciliation Group.
California launched VORG on July 6, 1988, at the California Medical Facility in direct response to the recommendations made by the Governor’s Task Force on Victims’ Rights. VORG’s goal was to reduce crime by increasing awareness on the part of the offenders. In theory, a face-to-face introduction to a victim would challenge the criminal’s sensitivity to the enormity of negative and enduring damage they breed with their actions.
The CDC didn’t offer any added incentives for the volunteering inmates. Their only requirement for membership was their absolute willingness to break the “denial syndrome” and accept full responsibility for the actions that brought them to prison.
At the time of Rowland’s initial invitation, I couldn’t distinguish the difference between the serial/mass murderer and those who committed centralized crimes of passion, or the first time offenders that the CDC firmly believed could be rehabilitated. In essence, I discerned VORG’s objective as doing the unthinkable; lobbying to free killers like Watson and Atkins. So far, I doubted anything would change that ingrained perspective.
Patti 1990
The billowing clouds hung low enough to graze the midcrests of the Santa Ynez Mountains while Mom and I strolled the grounds of the Santa Barbara Mission; just a ten-minut
e drive from my home.
The only way to get Mom’s undivided attention was to get her out of her home, which was often busier than the national convention headquarters. And today I needed her attention.
I’d never been big on planning the future—who knew if it would really come?—but having three kids forced a change of perspective, a change that unfortunately came a hair too late.
My husband’s career in professional sports ended by default when he reached a certain age, and so did the absurdly high income he, like most athletes, was paid. A series of subsequent failed business ventures ate away at our savings until even the crumbs had been licked up. We owed everyone, including the IRS, who threatened to take our last asset, our beach house.
The plan my husband and I came up with wasn’t much of a plan, but we were out of options. I hated transferring my burdens to Mom and though she’d never admit it, if I moved home with three kids, we’d cramp her lifestyle. It had been a long time since she’d had teenagers living with her, let alone a three-, six-, and nine-year-old.
“You’ve been quiet as a mouse all morning. What’s knocking around in there?” Mom asked, while patting my head.
“We’re going to have to rent out the house over the summer to make ends meet,” I started.
“Good! You’ll stay with us,” she said as if she’d known the question before I revealed it. “And before you start up with nonsense about being a burden on me, I’ve hardly gotten to spend any time with the kids because of all your traveling. Now, let’s stop this useless worrying and enjoy our day together.”
She took my hand and tugged me forward, just as she had done my entire life.
On the flip side of the Santa Barbara Mission’s tour tickets, the still functioning parish noted their ambition: “Actively seeking justice for all people, and to foster a local and global spirit of reconciliation and peace.”
Under the shade of the sprawling sycamores lay the mission’s cemetery, filled with tombs of Chumash Indians, elaborate mausoleums, a haunted majordomo house, a towering crucifix, and a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi.
We made our way along the adobe wall to the church entrance at the foot of the burial grounds. Atop the arched doorframe, a set of three skull and crossbones seemed to sentinel those who passed from the funerary gardens. “What do you suppose those mean?” I asked.
Mom laughed, “I don’t know, but it makes you kind of hesitant to go through, doesn’t it?”
Without so much as an umbra’s notice, a priest startled us. “I rather like to think of them as a warning of the brevity of life,” he said. “Sorry for intruding. I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. I’m Father Tim.”
“I’m Doris, and this is my daughter Patti.”
The priest, dressed in a brown woolen robe, spoke with the eloquence of a man with twice his years. He looked at Mom curiously. “Pardon my stare. Aren’t you Doris Tate?”
“That I am.”
With a touch to his cross, he presumably expressed a swift internal prayer. “Such a tragedy that was. I lived in Los Angeles at the time. I don’t think anyone who lived there will forget that summer.”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Mom said. “But many have forgotten, and that’s why I have to do what I do.”
“Yes. I’ve seen your newspaper interviews. May I be so bold as to offer you some guidance?”
“Oh, darlin’, I can always use a bit of advice from above.”
“In order to release your soul from the burdens I know you must have, you must find forgiveness in humanity.”
Mom shook her head no. “You’re asking me to betray Sharon by absolving them.”
“You’re betraying your own spirit by not forgiving. Trust me, your daughter would want you released from this albatross. It is the only way you will find peace.”
“You don’t understand, and until you’ve experienced what I have, you couldn’t,” Mom explained.
Father Tim pondered the quandary. “Did you happen to pass our statue of Saint Francis of Assisi?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Personally, I enjoy his prayers immensely. Would you honor me by going home this evening and taking a few minutes to study him? He’s much more convincing than I could ever hope to be.” A distant bell rang. “I must go. Saint Francis’s supplications will be the first post in mending your fences—you have my word.”
Alone again, Mom rolled her eyes. “Why is everyone trying to heal me?” She waved playfully at the skulls. “You all best save me a ticket to hell, ’cause I’m incurable,” she laughed.
Doris
Saint Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals and nature, and the spiritual figure of peace, love, and religious diversity.
Bullheaded as I might be, I never turned down God’s assistance. I went home and studied the works of the young Francis Bernardone, who graced Italy eight hundred years ago. His prayers spoke volumes, and I’m sure that one in particular was Father Tim’s reference point: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness, joy. Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
I durably endeavored to be a good Christian; therefore, I knew something had to give in the absolution department. I wrestled with it for weeks before yielding to the certitude that it’s beyond my ability. Pardoning is God’s domain. As an alternative compromise, I forgave Sharon’s killers through His grace. But, within the laws of man, this forgiveness didn’t lessen the killer’s culpability or diminish my ambition to keep them in prison.
The day following that settlement, and an hour before I was due at a two-day conference at Corcoran Prison, I took a tour of the facility. Over the years, I’d explored nearly every prison in California, and by 1990, I mundanely viewed them as an accustomed workplace.
There were strict rules to my vocation that I needed to adhere to in order to gain access through the razor-edged confines. The guidelines prohibited me from carrying a purse, wearing denim, hats, wigs, dresses with hemlines above the knees, or a bra with an underwire—which, thankfully to date, no one had checked. I had to leave medications, aspirin, food, and gum behind. Security did allow one handkerchief, a clear change purse containing less than three dollars, and a car key. Inside the transparent bag, the prison required me to keep two forms of identification.
Prior to admission, I passed through three metal detectors. As a young mother, looking to the future, I would have never imagined myself at sixty-six years being searched by prison guards in order to work among hardened criminals. By preference, I’d expected to be living on a ranch somewhere back in Texas with grandchildren at my feet while I flipped their favored meal of pancakes.
The grandchildren had come, but while I’m here, they seemed a lifetime away. I wondered why fate chose me to be different from the millions of other normal grandmothers? What precious moment am I missing today while I’m isolated from my family? I would never know, because for now, I passed through corridors that celled inmate after inmate like zoo exhibits.
I shadowed my guardian escort, whose fatigue outfit included handcuffs, pepper spray, and a baton. His blond hair was shorn to the scalp, save the flat top above his freckled face. Though his delivery was authoritative and knowledgeable, it didn’t entirely hide his Kentucky gentility as he opened the door for me. “We provide a variety of special housing programs here,” Tom explained, “from the general population levels to the security-housing unit where we are now. SHU accommodates inmates who pose a threat to others, and those who require protection, such as Mr. Manson. They tried mainstreaming Charlie at Vacaville until some Hare Krishna tried to make a bonfire out of him b
ack in ’84. He’s been segregated ever since. For his protection as well as yours, Mrs. Tate, we’ll skip his housing unit.”
“When was Manson transferred here?” I asked.
“Let’s see, Charlie was brought here about a year and a half ago, in March of 1989.”
I traced the officer’s steps through a locked gate and into another wing. “Has Manson gotten into much trouble?”
“Ah, he’s mostly all bark, but he’s been known to throw his feces at the guards—which they don’t take kindly to.”
We entered an area of enclosed, roomlike cells. Halfway down, one of the inmates caught my attention by tapping on the glass of his window, motioning me over to his door. As I got closer and looked through, I saw that the stubble-faced man was naked. His cell was void except for a mattress on the floor and a combination urinal/sink; there were no pictures, books, or personal items that make each of us individuals. I thought of the wasted life in that cell. How can a human being withstand such despair?
When I got close enough to the glass to be able to hear him, he said, “It must be horrible living out there.”
Here’s a man who lived in an environment that held no evidence of his existence in this world except for his body, yet we were at odds, asking the same question of how the other could endure the life before them. I didn’t know how to answer his question.
Sadness encroached as I thought of the universal reason that had brought us together. I tried to imagine a place without violence; a place where I could be at home right now enjoying my family and this man didn’t need to be caged. As I stared into his contemplative eyes, I wondered if he could be helped.
“Come on, Mrs. Tate. You don’t want to get too close to the men,” Tom cautioned. “The area we’re about to go into is where we do a majority of the inmates’ psychological programming; some are one-on-one sessions, some are group sessions. . . .”
Restless Souls Page 24