Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars

by Edward George

  Police were never able to establish who the “she” was.

  (Interestingly enough, another resident of the Lauren Willett murder house, Crystal Alonzo, would later be arrested in a plot to kidnap a consul general from one of eight countries—Estonia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, or Haiti—in order to extort a $250,000 ransom. Then U.S. assistant attorney general Robert Perry had this to say at the group’s arraignment: “They came perilously close to the commission of a kidnapping … which could have brought this country to its knees.”)

  For years, Manson has also been a rumored suspect in the questionable suicide of Jonathan Peck, the broadcast journalist son of famed Hollywood star Gregory Peck. The younger Peck, thirty-two at the time of his shocking death in 1976, had covered the Tate-LaBianca murders and was said to have infiltrated various communes in an attempt to get a bead on the murderers. Peck apparently shared what he learned with the police. That hands-on effort, considered “snitching” by the Manson clan, was said to have infuriated Manson. The odd circumstances of Peck’s supposed suicide—the gun was found too far from the body, and the industrious Peck had no reason to kill himself—made some suspect foul play. His father hired a team of private detectives to investigate, but no solid evidence was ever uncovered.

  This was all sick, scary, and mind-blowing. I dug further. The Willetts had come from Kentucky, like Manson, and like Manson’s father, Colonel Scott. On May 27, 1969, Darwin Orell Scott, Colonel Scott’s brother, was savagely hacked to death in his Ashland, Kentucky, apartment. Stabbed nineteen times, his body was left pinned to the floor with a butcher knife. At the same time, Ashland residents noted that a scraggly little dude known only as “Preacher” had recently drifted into town with a band of female hippies. Shortly before Darwin Scott was murdered, the locals chased away the motley crew for giving drugs to their children. Several residents later identified “Preacher” as Manson, but no charges were ever filed.

  A possible pattern of sporadic violence and intimidation was emerging here. Even after Charlie was locked away, the Manson Family members continued to commit violent crimes. Could anything stop it? Probably not But if I could convince even one of Charlie’s admirers or followers to let one person slide, to let one act of violence go undone, then all my hours with him would be worthwhile.

  5.

  NO SOONER HAD the Willett fiasco cooled than the trial of the San Quentin Six began. As mentioned before, the long-delayed day of reckoning for the six prisoners responsible for brutally murdering three prison guards, and carving up three more, had everyone on edge. A month into the proceedings, I was ordered to clear the entire first floor of the Adjustment Center because the jury was coming for a visit. They were scheduled to inspect both the north and south tiers. I watched as they solemnly entered cells, examined windows, checked gates, and scrutinized locking devices. They moved about in a hushed manner, seemingly showing reverence for those who had perished. As a whole, the jurors resembled a funeral procession, hesitant, unsure, and no doubt more than a little unnerved by the emotional impact of being inside the steel and concrete inferno that was San Quentin. The eerie silence was finally broken when an officer was asked to open and close grille gates leading from the foyer to the tiers, demonstrate cell-locking devices, and operate the door from the foyer to the outside of the building.

  The prisoners had been cleared out for the jury’s visit. If not, they would have heckled the citizens and sexually taunted the females. The tense jurors were no doubt happy about this courtesy—except that I sensed they were disappointed that they didn’t at least get a peek at Charles Manson. Everybody wanted to take a peek at Charlie.

  “They all love to see the horrible beast in his cage,” Charlie frequently bitched. “I’m like some circus freak. Step right up and see the monster.”

  In truth, Charlie was extremely secluded and rarely hassled by gawkers. Most people don’t even like driving by prisons, much less entering the gates and having door after iron door slam shut behind them. The public wasn’t exactly clamoring to get inside the cellblocks, which they couldn’t do anyway. The relatives of corrections officers could have snagged a private tour or two, but these folks weren’t itching to take a midnight stroll into the heart of darkness either. In addition, only a small percentage of San Quentin’s five thousand prisoners laid eyes on Charlie. My career-risking efforts notwithstanding, he was kept in maximum-security lockdown for virtually all of his stay. The prison administrators were paranoid that someone was out to get him, and rumors of such malice frequently abounded. This meant that we had to be especially careful during his exercise time, making sure he was taken out alone or with small groups.

  This was fine with Charlie. He had little desire to mingle with other prisoners, especially with so many African Americans around. In fact, his crazy notion of a violent African American uprising was born from the mind of a man who had spent way too much time in prison, a place where African Americans are frequently in the majority. Charlie’s world was one where African American gangs ruled, so it was difficult for him to comprehend that it wasn’t the same on the outside. The black inmates, in turn, were well aware of Manson’s racist philosophies and challenged him at every opportunity.

  One day, Johnny Spain, a radical associate of George Jackson, stopped directly in front of Manson’s cell on his way back from the shower. Spain had his hand wrapped in a towel, pretending to hide a weapon.

  “Take your shower yet, Charlie?” Spain snarled. Startled and afraid, Charlie remained mute. “I asked the guard to open the door and let you out so I can escort you,” Spain taunted.

  Manson paled, frozen in place, waiting for the door to slide open and Spain to leap inside, his deadly shiv unsheathed. A few tense minutes passed. To Manson’s relief, the iron bars didn’t budge. Spain laughed and continued down the corridor.

  Not surprisingly, Charlie preferred to exercise by himself, or with another resident outcast, Roger “Pin Cushion” Smith, a rabble-rousing murderer whom virtually everyone wanted to kill (and many had tried, thus earning him his nickname). For some odd reason, Charlie and Pin Cushion got along, and Charlie trusted him.

  One afternoon, I asked Fred, the prison’s Aryan Brother leader, if his group had any designs on taking Manson out. Like the ABs, Manson was a noted racist, so I thought from that perspective alone, they’d back off.

  “If we wanted him,” the inmate laughed, “he’d have been dead a long time ago.”

  There were also rumors floating around that Sharon Tate’s husband, Rosemary’s Baby director Roman Polanski, had placed an open ten-thousand-dollar contract on Manson’s head. The sum appeared low for a big-time Hollywood type, but at San Quentin, that was like offering the moon. According to the rumor, all a prisoner had to do was stick a shank into Charlie’s back, then sit back and wait for the cash to fly into his cell. We increased our searches and surveillance for newly secured weapons, but regardless, I knew it was impossible to keep a prison free of deadly instruments. Prisoners universally have developed ingenious methods of fashioning weapons, hiding them, and communicating among themselves.

  After we researched the Polanski reward rumor, we concluded that it was ridiculous and unfounded. It did make our lives miserable during its thankfully short life span. The weapons created for such an opportunity would no doubt be squirreled away and used down the road, possibly on one of us. And I couldn’t rule out that somewhere, a crazy con desperate for funds to finance a legal appeal would believe the absurd story and try to collect.

  To gain an insight into how someone might get to Manson, and what would happen if he did, I had a sit-down with his friend Pin Cushion. If anyone was an expert on prison attacks, it was the Pinman. The spirited inmate had been stabbed more than any con in U.S. corrections history.

  “Why do inmates attack each other so ruthlessly and without provocation?” I opened, trying to get an overall insight into the problem. “It doesn’t make sense to me. Why do they do it?”


  “I wish I knew, boss,” he dodged.

  “Come on, Roger, you’ve got to know. Firsthand.”

  “With me, it was survival,” he said, opening up. “With a lot of these guys, it’s a status thing. They need to prove themselves. They get a reputation and the other inmates respect them and leave them alone. They’re a somebody, and nobody messes with them.”

  “Is it that simple?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been there.”

  “I guess you have.”

  “You want hear how the ABs tried to do me in? It might help you with Charlie.”

  “Sure,” I bit.

  “I remember the date like it was my birthday—April twenty-ninth, 1967. I was twenty years old. I was real fucked-up then [serving time for murder]. They locked me in O wing, Soledad prison’s max unit, just like AC here, only it had twenty-eight cells on a tier instead of seventeen [per side]. It was about eight-thirty A.M. I’d just finished a bowl of soggy oatmeal. They let me out on the tier to exercise with three other guys. I knew who they were, but I didn’t have anything to do with them. They were members of a new prison gang known as the Aryan Brotherhood. I was interested in joining, but decided not to mess with them. They had a reputation of ordering wanna-be members to make hits on someone before being allowed in the gang. That’s how they proved themselves to each other. Killing a guy was making his bones [a Mafia term for a prerecruitment murder]. After I passed on signing up, I didn’t think I had a problem with them so I didn’t worry about it.

  “After leaving my cell, I wandered down the tier to talk to a prisoner I knew from reform school named Frank.1 As I stood talking to him, I felt a fairly hard blow to my lower right back, then a burning sensation in my belly. I looked down and saw the point of a knife sticking out of my stomach! I had been stuck clean through! The next thing I remember was that it was a bright, clear April morning. ‘What a nice day to die,’ I thought.

  “I swung around to see who stabbed me. I was surrounded by three men with long, sharp, ice-picklike weapons, probably made out of bedsprings. As I turned, Jesus stabbed me in the chest. I felt the pick go deep, right through my ribs. I staggered back. ‘Why?’ I gasped.

  “They didn’t answer. They just kept stabbing. I twisted and turned to fend off the stabs, trying to deflect the blows. After a minute or so, I collapsed on the floor and tried to kick them off. Bulldog grabbed my legs and fell across my lower torso, putting all his weight on me. At the same time, Tummy began stabbing me in the neck and face. I closed my eyes, hoping he’d miss them. Jesus kept stabbing my lower intestines. All of a sudden, I felt the worst pain in my life. Bulldog had stabbed me in the balls! It felt like I was on fire from my scrotum to my upper thigh. The pain was so severe, I reared up enough to turn on my side and almost got to my feet. Tummy grabbed me and threw me back down. I tried to get up again, but couldn’t.

  “I screamed for the guards at the end of the hall. By now, they were aware of what was happening. My lungs collapsed and I couldn’t make another sound. The officers started yelling at my attackers to break it up and get back inside their cells. That’s all they did, yelled. The guards refused to open the grille gate and come out on the tier to help me. The officers weren’t armed and were afraid to enter the area until help arrived. I could hear the alarm blasting, but the guards just stood there like statues, watching me die.

  “The inmates ignored the officers and kept stabbing away. As strange as it seemed, they started singing ‘You Belong to Me’ while they hacked away. After what appeared like an eternity, Bulldog stopped stabbing. I found out later that he couldn’t get a grip on the knife because my blood was all over his hands. I managed to roll over and started crawling toward the grille gate where the officers were shouting. Bulldog and Tummy each grabbed one of my legs and dragged me back down the tier next to Frank’s cell. They lifted my body and pushed me up against his bars. Bulldog handed Frank a pick knife and said, ‘Here, brother, it’s your turn to make your bones.’

  “Frank, my old boyhood pal, started stabbing my back and neck through the bars of his cell. As he did, Jesus began asking different inmates if they wanted a piece of the action. I heard someone say, ‘No, man, you did a number on him already. The dude’s dead. You’re wasting your time.’

  “Frank stopped stabbing and gave the weapon back to Bulldog. Jesus then said, ‘Okay, fuck it, man, the dude’s dead.’ Bulldog and Jesus defiantly faced the guards and challenged, ‘Do any of you punks want some of what he got?’

  “Bulldog and Jesus marched to their cells, leaving Tummy alone to get in a few last licks. Tummy straddled my stomach and stabbed me in the chest and neck. For some reason, I began to think clearly at that point. The guards were still too cowardly to enter the tier, and Tummy wasn’t going to stop until I quit moving, so I had to think fast. I faked convulsing my body, went rigid, gasped, closed my eyes, fell back and laid there loose as I could. I played possum and prayed, ‘Please, God, let this guy think I’m dead.’

  “As I lay there, I counted the stab wounds. I lost count at sixteen. None hurt anymore. Strangely, I recalled the sound the pick knife made as it cut through my body and nicked the concrete floor beneath me. It struck me kind of funny that the noise the knife made when it hit the floor sounded like the chirp of a small bird.

  “Tummy finally got off me and lumbered over to his cell. Once he was inside, an officer threw the locking device, securing all the cells. Still, there was no rush to come rescue me. I slowly turned my head and peered down the tier to make sure they had really locked everyone down. They had. Relieved, I wondered if anyone cared enough to get me to the hospital in time. Obviously, nobody was breaking his ass to save my life.

  “I tried again to get to my feet, but fell on my face. A few inmates started shouting, Hey, man, look! The dude’s gettin’ up.’ I could hear them placing bets on whether I’d make it to my feet. Finally, as if to reward those who bet on me, I climbed up and began staggering like a zombie down the tier. Some of the inmates clapped and cheered, enjoying the show. I fell twice, but calling upon my last ounce of strength, I reached the grille gate where the guards waited. It was still locked. I wanted to yell, ‘Open the fucking gate you cowards,’ but my lungs were shot. I clung to the grille, pleading with my eyes. Blood was pouring from my wounds. Finally, an officer casually opened the gate. I stumbled into the foyer and collapsed on an old mattress laying on the floor. It was covered with semen stains and reeked of urine, but it was better than the cellblock floor.

  “After another insufferable wait, the guards hoisted the mattress and began carrying me at a leisurely pace to the prison hospital.

  ‘We should get a move on it,’ one guard said.

  ‘Why bother?’ his partner cracked. ‘He’ll never make it anyway.’

  “At the hospital, the shock began to wear off, signaling a return of the intense pain. I remember a doctor examining me and shaking his head. ‘There’s nothing we can do for him,’ he announced. ‘You better call the prison chaplain.’

  “A few minutes later, a priest arrived and began reading my last rites. ‘I’m too young to die,’ I kept thinking. I wanted to scream, ‘Do something! For God’s sake, help me,’ but I couldn’t utter a sound. A lieutenant appeared and started grilling me about naming my attackers so they could use my death statements as evidence. The lieutenant did this even though a number of guards watched the whole thing.

  “‘I won’t lie to you, Smitty, you’re going to die,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Before you do, I want you to shake your head yes or no when I ask who stabbed you? Did Bulldog stab you? Did Jesus stab you? Did Frank stab you?’ I kept shaking my head no. I wasn’t going to snitch, not even on the men who had just mutilated me. I simply wanted someone to try and save my life!

  “The prison doctors couldn’t do much. Miraculously, two heart and lung specialists were called in from the nearby town of Salinas. They immediately chased the lieutenant out and took charge of the prison medical staff. One of them looked
me in the face and said, ‘We’ll do what we can, kid.’ With that, I closed my eyes. My last conscious though was, ‘Am I ever going to wake up?’”

  I sat there stunned, overwhelmed by the agony Manson’s friend Pin Cushion had endured. I was also amazed by the vivid detail of the account. It was almost as if Pin Cushion relished telling it, like it was a badge of honor with him. What chilled me the most, however, was the reality of knowing how close everyone inside a prison is to suffering a similarly gruesome fate. This goes for both the prisoners and the correctional officers.

  “Yeah, boss,” Pin said, putting the finishing touches on his story, “that’s how they’ll come at Charlie. It won’t be a one-shot deal. It’ll be a group, and they’ll let everybody on the tier get in on it so all the guys can tell their grandchildren they helped kill Charles Manson. Guys who actually like Charlie won’t hesitate to carve off a piece of his ass for posterity. When they finish with him, there won’t be anything left to scrape off the floor.”

  Knowing Pin was prone to exaggeration, I double-checked his story with the files. Sure enough, he’d been stabbed more than forty times that day and had come within a hairsbreadth of dying. Both his lungs had collapsed, and his entire upper body had required extensive surgical repair.

  As I lay in bed that night, I couldn’t shake Pin’s story from my thoughts. Can people really be that cruel? Aside from the outside doctors, there were no heroes to be found in Pin’s experience. The corrections officers and prison medical staff appeared just as inhuman and heartless as the ruthless felons. I knew the reason. You work in a violent environment like San Quentin, day after day taking abuse from lifers with nothing to lose, and little by little a sense of numbness takes over. You can’t care about everyone, so you end up caring about no one. I whispered a prayer that I’d never harden to that extent—not even about Charlie.