by Jeff Guinn
United Press International
“Ex-Manson Disciple Set Free in LA.” November 6, 1975.
Utica Observer-Dispatch
“CBS Show Catches Up with Manson Follower ‘Squeaky’ Fromme in Rome.” September 14, 2010.
Magazines and Journals
Ali, Lorraine. “Helter Shelter.” Entertainment Weekly, March 18, 1994.
Anderson, Lessley. “Lucifer, Arisen.” San Francisco Weekly, November 17, 2004.
Bardach, Ann. “Jailhouse Interview: Bobby Beausoleil and the Manson Murders.” Oui, November 1981.
Benson, Etienne. “Intelligent Intelligence Testing: Psychologists Are Broadening the Concept of Intelligence and How to Test It.” Monitor on Psychology, February 2003.
“Charles Manson Breaks 20-Year Silence, Warns of Global Warming.” Huffington Post, April 14, 2011.
Felton, David, and David Dalton. “Year of the Fork, Night of the Hunter.” Rolling Stone, June 25, 1970.
Golden, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz. “The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women’s Career and Marriage Decisions.” The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 11, No. 4 (2002).
Hitchens, Christopher. “It Happened on Sunset.” Vanity Fair, April 1995.
“Manager Rudi Altobelli Dies.” Variety, May 25, 2001.
“The Manson Murders at 40: ‘Helter Skelter’ Author Vincent Bugliosi Looks Back.” Newsweek, August 1, 2009.
“The Memoirs of Squeaky Fromme.” Time, September 15, 1975.
Oney, Steve. “Manson: An Oral History.” Los Angeles Magazine, July 1, 2009.
Perry, Charles. “Owsley and Me.” Rolling Stone, November 25, 1982.
Pynchon, Thomas. “A Journey into the Mind of Watts.” New York Times Magazine, June 12, 1966.
Smith, David E., M.D., and Alan J. Rose. “The Group Marriage Commune: A Case Study.” The Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, Vol. 3, No. 1 (September 1970).
Weller, Sheila. “Suddenly That Summer.” Vanity Fair, July 2012.
“Which Patty to Believe?” Time, October 6, 1975.
Wilkerson, Francis. “Inside Her Head.” New York Times Magazine, December 28, 2008.
Wolfe, Tom. “I Drove Around Los Angeles and It’s Crazy Etc.” Los Angeles Times Magazine, December 1, 1968.
Public Tour
West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville, July 26, 2011.
Interviews
Lyle Adcock is a historian based in Columbus, Ohio, who has systematically discovered many key court documents and letters pertaining to the life of Charles Manson.
Fred and Virginia Brautigan are longtime residents in McMechen, West Virginia. Virginia was one of Charles Manson’s few friends when he was a reluctant teenage member of the town’s Nazarene Church.
Susan Bookheimer is Joaquin Fuster Professor of Cognitive Neurosciences at UCLA.
Vincent Bugliosi successfully prosecuted Charles Manson, Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten for murder. He is coauthor (with Curt Gentry) of Helter Skelter, the account of the Manson trial that has become the all-time best-selling true crime book, and has written several other best-selling studies of crime, politics, and religion.
Gus Carlton worked as a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff. In 1970–71 he was assigned as a bailiff to the Tate-LaBianca trial and spent much of the time escorting Charlie Manson to and from the courtroom. Carlton also stood guard over Manson during the many times Manson was removed from the courtroom for disruptive behavior and placed in a small adjacent room.
John Catlett is a native of Marshall County, West Virginia, who knew Charles Manson and became friends with Manson’s brother-in-law Buster Willis.
Gerald L. Chaleff is currently special assistant for constitutional policing for the Los Angeles Police Department. He previously served as a defense attorney who represented, among others, Angelo Buono Jr., one of two cousins collectively identified as the infamous Los Angeles Hillside Strangler.
Lorraine Chamberlain was intimately involved in the 1960s art and music scenes, including serving as a model for Andy Warhol and participating in an ongoing friendship and intermittent love affair with Frank Zappa in Los Angeles.
Jason Clark-Miller is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Texas Christian University. His areas of expertise include Juvenile Justice, Religion and Criminal Justice, and Prisoner Reentry.
Don and Becky Clutter are lifelong residents of Marshall County, West Virginia. Becky Clutter often contributes columns and articles about local history to area newspapers.
William W. Collier served as a federal postal inspector in Los Angeles. Since his office was located directly across from the Hall of Justice where Manson’s trial took place, he observed the Manson women’s sidewalk vigil on a daily basis.
Mary F. Corey is a professor of American History at UCLA and one of the nation’s leading experts on the Black Panthers and communes in the 1960s.
Lon Dagley is computer services librarian for MidAmerica Nazarene University.
Jeff Decker is a California-based sculptor and historian.
Michele Deitch is senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Her special area of expertise is juvenile justice, and she holds a master’s in psychology with an emphasis on criminology. She teaches graduate courses in criminal justice policy, juvenile justice policy, and the school-to-prison pipeline.
Sara Dolan is an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
Joe Domanick is the author of the Edgar Award–winning To Protect and to Serve, a history of the Los Angeles Police Department. A frequent commentator on national television and radio news programs, he also serves as associate director of the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City of New York University (CUNY) and as a senior fellow in criminal justice at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism.
David Dotson is a retired assistant chief of the Los Angeles Police Department whose career spanned an era including the tenure of Chief of Police Bill Parker and the crimes of Charles Manson and the members of his Family.
Betty Feir, a member of the American Psychological Association and the Texas Psychological Association, is a licensed specialist in school psychology.
Bob George is a retired high school teacher in Dodge City, Kansas. He has corresponded with Charles Manson, Manson’s fellow prison inmates, and some former members of the Manson Family since 1997.
Gerry Griffin attended high school in Farmersville, Texas, with Charles “Tex” Watson.
Anthony Guarino is a seismologist at the Caltech Seismology Laboratory.
Richard Hawkey is a retired college professor who grew up in and still resides in McMechen, West Virginia. His mother was principal of the town elementary school attended by Charles Manson.
Tom Hayden was a founding member of Students for a Democratic Society, served in the California state legislature for eighteen years, and is the author and/or editor of nineteen books about American history, politics, and culture.
Gregg Jakobson was a close friend of Dennis Wilson (with whom he co-wrote several songs) and Terry Melcher, and spent considerable time with Charles Manson and many members of the Manson Family.
Volker Janssen is associate professor of California State History at California State University, Fullerton. His book Convict Labor, Civic Welfare: Rehabilitation in California’s Prisons, 1941–1971 will be published by Oxford Press.
David Javersak is a retired professor of history at West Liberty University in West Virginia and a native of the Wheeling area.
Jo Ann is Charles Manson’s first cousin, the daughter of Manson’s Aunt Glenna.
Music road manager Phil Kaufman (the Rolling Stones, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris) was a fellow inmate of Charles Manson at Terminal Island prison. He later lived with the Manson Family in Topanga and
produced Manson’s LIE album.
Stephen Kay was part of the prosecution team in the original Tate-LaBianca murder trial, and subsequently prosecuted Leslie Van Houten in her two retrials. For several decades he attended every parole hearing for Charles Manson and his four convicted followers, always pleading with the parole boards to keep them incarcerated.
Jim Kettel is genealogy supervisor at the Boyd County, Kentucky, Public Library.
Ryan Kittell and David Sweet are meteorologists in the Los Angeles/Oxnard Weather Forecast Office.
Patricia Krenwinkel is currently serving a life sentence at the California Institution for Women in Corona for the murders of Steven Earl Parent, Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Jay Sebring, Sharon Tate, Leno LaBianca, and Rosemary LaBianca.
A. J. “Jack” Langguth is a historian (Patriots is his best-known book) and journalist who lived and worked in Los Angeles at the time of the Tate-LaBianca murders. He reported on Manson for the New York Times.
David Lewis works for the Special Collections Research Department of the Vigo County Public Library in Indiana.
John P. Maranto is curator at the Hays T. Watkins Research Library of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
Steven M. Martin grew up in Los Angeles. His Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey won the Documentary Filmmaker’s Trophy at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. He is currently working on a film about Bobby Beausoleil.
Bill Miller’s family ran a McMechen grocery store and briefly employed Charles Manson there.
Nancy is Charles Manson’s sister.
Irene Oliveto is a lifelong resident of Marshall County, West Virginia, and a mainstay in the County Historical Society.
Greg Park is associate director of environmental education and park naturalist for the Oglebay Institute of Wheeling, West Virginia.
Charles Perry is a historian and author who served on the San Francisco staff of Rolling Stone magazine. Among other assignments, he helped edit the journalism of Hunter S. Thompson. He also survived an unpleasant encounter with Charles Manson in Mendocino.
Jim Powers is a historian and author based in Ashland, Kentucky.
Michaela Ritter is a speech and language pathologist for the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
Mark Rudd was a leading figure in Students for a Democratic Society and the Weathermen. He is now a teacher in New Mexico.
Bob Schieffer’s career in journalism and television spans the JFK assassination to the present.
Dorothy Sedosky is a Marshall County, West Virginia, resident and historian.
George Sidiropolis is a Marshall County native and former West Virginia state official who lives in Wheeling. As a boy, he knew Charles Manson.
Oden “Scoop” Skupen is a retired Los Angeles County deputy sheriff who served as a bailiff in the Tate-LaBianca murder trial.
David E. Smith, M.D. is the founder of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, a San Francisco acquaintance of Charles Manson, and co-author of the first study paper on the dynamics of the Manson Family. Manson and his followers were regular clients at Smith’s Free Clinic.
Robert Smith is professor of scripture and preaching, School of Theology and Christian Ministry, at Point Loma Nazarene University, in California.
Matthew Stanford is a professor of psychology, neuroscience, and biomedical studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
Carlton Stowers is a journalist and author who has won two Edgar Awards for Best Fact Crime writing.
Tom Stiles is facility manager of the West Virginia Penitentiary Tours in Moundsville, West Virginia. He is a native of the McMechen area.
Glenn Todd is a survivor of the 1950s–1960s Beat movement in San Francisco and a longtime historian and publisher.
Leslie Van Houten is currently serving a life sentence at the California Institution for Women in Corona for the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
George Wolfford is a historian in Ashland, Kentucky.
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS
1, 2, 3, 6: Jo Ann Collection
4: © Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images
5: Private collection
7, 10–14, 16–27: Courtesy of the Photo Collection at the Los Angeles Public Library
8, 15: AP Images
9: From the Collection of Gregg Jakobson
28: Courtesy of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
29: Reproduced by permission of Charles Manson
INDEX
Page numbers beginning with 407 refer to notes.
Abounding Love Ministries, 396
African Americans, 74, 113
alleged future uprising of, 194, 195, 196, 199, 201, 203, 204–5, 208–9, 212, 214, 216, 219, 220, 223, 224, 225, 228, 229, 233, 236, 241, 274, 285, 288–89, 290, 296, 329, 343, 344, 346, 349, 354, 355, 357, 358, 359, 365, 366, 370, 371, 430
see also race riots
Air Trees Water Animals (ATWA), 397–98
Akers, J. E., 21
Alcatraz, 69
Alcoholics Anonymous, 35
Aldrin, Buzz, 229
Altamont Speedway, 329, 334
Altobelli, Rudi, 121, 158, 160, 200, 201–3, 214, 215–16, 217, 255, 271, 345, 371
American Bandstand, 119
anarchists, 93, 127
Anger, Kenneth, 105, 404
Animals, 3
Annie Get Your Gun, 97
antiwar protesters, 200–201, 303, 312, 334
Arizona, 128
Armco, 10
Armstrong, Neil, 229
Arnaz, Desi, Jr., 119
Aryan Brotherhood, 386, 389–90
Ashland, 13, 14, 17, 18
Astor, Mary, 121
Atkins, Susan, 175, 206, 211, 287, 340, 347, 365, 435
arrest of, 298, 302–3
attorney granted to, 321
background of, 107–8
boasting about murders by, 257
book contributions by, 330–31, 337, 391, 420–21, 433, 438
as born-again Christian, 391
Bugliosi harassed by, 376–77
in California Institute for Women, 385–86
chosen for Cielo murders, 244
at Cielo murders, 245–53, 257, 305, 308, 309–11, 318, 321, 327, 338, 370, 397, 436–37
in deal with prosecutors, 318, 324, 327–28, 338, 342, 346
death of, 396
dental problems of, 162
on drive with investigators around Los Angeles, 337
drug arrest of, 164
drugs used by, 209, 242, 245, 261
false ID arrest of, 144
grand jury testimony of, 328–29, 330–31, 335–36, 338, 346, 348
Hinman as friend of, 127
at Hinman murder, 231, 232, 302, 309, 315, 433
indicted for Cielo and LaBianca murders, 329
indicted for Hinman slaying, 351, 385
at LaBianca murder, 259–68, 321, 327, 370, 438
Manson’s power feared by, 328
as moody, 107, 134, 137
new identity of, 135
pregnancy of, 128, 163
prison confession of, 308, 309–11, 313, 316, 318, 320, 322, 327
recruitment of, 107
reduced sentence of, 389
in search for permanent home for Manson Family, 163
sex offered to bailiffs by, 358
son born to, 180
suicide attempt of, 107
at Sybil Brand, 306–7, 308, 309–11, 313, 316, 319, 327, 331, 336, 346
testimony of, 380, 381
trial of, see Tate-LaBianca trial
as unkempt, 169
Van Houten’s rift with, 391
Avalon Ballroom, 94
Ayers, Bill, 81, 167
Bambu, 404
Bancroft Strip, 81
Barker, Alan, 188
Barker, Arlene, 188
Barker Gang, 69
Barker Ranch, 188–91, 193, 195, 199, 204, 210, 270, 282, 293
, 294, 306, 354, 440
raid on, 294, 296, 297–301, 321, 330, 359
barter, 135
Beach Boys, 2, 3, 4, 115, 137, 140, 148–49, 169, 170, 403
“Cease to Exist” and, 182, 186, 190–91, 196
declining popularity of, 130–31, 145
Maharishi as opening act for, 145, 162–63
Manson’s arrest and, 322–23
“Never Learn Not to Love” recorded by, 186, 190–91, 197–98
studio musicians used by, 112
Bear Research Group, 87
Beatles, 92, 100, 119, 128, 130, 140, 145, 222, 283, 351
“Helter Skelter” recorded by, 185–86
India pilgrimage of, 136–37
Maharishi followed by, 131, 136–37, 162
as Manson’s heroes, 70, 75, 79, 83, 95, 97, 178, 236, 241, 274, 291, 332, 334, 343–44, 346, 371, 430, 431
White Album released by, 193
Beatles, The, see White Album
Beats, 84–85, 88, 93, 95, 417
Beausoleil, Bobby, 90, 105, 126–27, 176, 216, 230, 235, 311, 404
arrest of, 235–36, 237, 239, 297
and drug arrest of Manson Family members, 164
as good-looking, 126, 145–46
Hinman stabbed by, 232–33, 235–37, 239, 242, 244, 245, 252, 253, 258, 269, 274, 276, 281, 290, 298, 301–3, 304, 313–14, 315, 321, 350–51, 352, 399, 433
Kasabian’s visit to, 275
Manson Family’s plans to free, 237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245, 252, 260, 380, 381, 382, 383, 435
Manson’s songs pitched by, 224
record contract sought by, 219
trials of, 290, 302, 313–14, 316–17, 320, 336, 350–51, 352
Van Houten met by, 165
“Be-In,” 90–92, 94
Benedict Canyon, 246
Bergen, Candice, 121, 156, 157, 199, 213, 271, 323
Bergen, Edgar, 121
Berkeley Free Speech movement, 417
Bernstein, Leonard, 123
Bible, 9, 11–12, 17, 36, 49, 69, 72, 74, 95, 124–25, 178, 181, 192, 224, 241, 274, 291, 334, 344, 346, 371, 398, 408, 430, 431
Big Brother and the Holding Company, 88, 101, 112
“Big Wednesday,” 151
biker gangs, 183, 186, 197, 208, 222, 228
see also Hells Angels; Straight Satans
birth control, 82, 109