Manson in His Own Words

by Nuel Emmons

  As for Katie, Leslie and Tex, they reported they had done the “number of numbers” at the LaBianca residence. Stab wounds were as plentiful as those administered the previous night. To add to the horror, a knife was left in the man’s throat and a carving fork in his stomach. As at the Hinman and the Tate scenes, they had used the victim’s blood to print out messages—”RISE,” on one wall, “DEATH TO PIGS” on another and “HEALTER SKELTER” on the refrigerator doors. Katie, doing the printing on the fridge, had misspelled it.

  In twenty-four hours, seven of the most brutal murders in Los Angeles’ history were committed. The media got on top of it, and before a week had passed there were many different versions of the reason for the slayings. Fear and paranoia had spread from Spahn’s to all of Los Angeles. Neighbors stopped trusting neighbors. Everyone in L.A. began double locking doors, looking over their shoulders, panicking at every sound and carrying guns. And the more the media sensationalized the crimes, the wider the grin got on my face. Yet for all the publicity, the similarity of the blood-written messages on the walls and the savagery of the slayings, the Tate-LaBianca murders were never compared to Hinman’s. Bobby was still the prime suspect in the Hinman case, and we had not taken any of the heat off him. For that, I felt some disappointment. I was also disappointed that my ploy for dropping the suspicion on the blacks didn’t work. The wallet wasn’t discovered for four months, and the district that I thought was predominantly black, I later found out, wasn’t black at all.

  At the ranch, a circle of people who had always been one now became two: those who knew and those who didn’t. Katie, Linda, Leslie and Sadie had their secrets, and they would whisper among themselves and stop talking when some of the other kids appeared. That started a little wave of, “What’s going on that I don’t know about? Why aren’t I included? Are they talking about me?” Some complexes started showing. I wasn’t fond of the situation, but how the hell can a guy blurt out to twenty-five or thirty kids, “Hey, don’t feel like you’re being left out of anything. All those girls are whispering about has nothing to do with you. It’s just that eight people are dead and the rest of you aren’t supposed to know about it.”

  For two or three days after the murders, I was constantly watching the roads. I couldn’t shake the feeling that, any minute now, a bunch of police cars were going to come racing to the ranch to gather us all up and book us for those slayings. The long-delayed move to the desert now became extremely urgent. I sent several kids and some vehicles with supplies out to Barker’s, where some of us had stayed, and, except for some time out for music and sex, we worked at getting ready for the final move.

  After a couple of days and no police, my vigil on the road eased off. There was a lot of organizing and stealing to be done before we pulled out of the ranch, and my attention was on getting those things done. About the time I totally had relaxed from the tension of having murders hanging over my head, they nailed us. And man, it was the raid of raids. Al Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd, Ma Barker or Creepy Karpis never got half the action or attention the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office showered on us.

  It happened early one morning about a week or ten days after the two nights of murder. The evening before the raid, there was a party that lasted until two or three o’clock in the morning. It seemed like I had just closed my eyes, when all of a sudden there was so goddamn much commotion a dead man would have come awake. Helicopter motors roared, doors were kicked in, and there were shouts of “Freeze! Hands up. Don’t move. All right, get out of there.” Instinct more than thought caused me to react. Without taking the time to say “come on” to Stephanie, I grabbed my clothes and split out the back door. Helicopter lights had the whole area lit up like a football stadium, so running across an open area was out. I dove under the porch and bellied my way as far out of sight as possible. Lying in the dirt, I worked my way into my clothes. From where I was, I couldn’t see anything but feet and shoes. Because of the ’copter noise I couldn’t hear what was said, only the shouts. “Stop. Stand still. Hey, George, grab those two. Freeze.” It seemed like every cop in L.A. was there. Feet were coming from every direction as the cops herded the kids out of the buildings. Those bastards even knew our hiding spots away from the buildings. Somebody had supplied them with information on all our habits. We’d been snitched on.

  I knew this was it: they had busted the murder cases and come out in full force to capture the killers. It was like seeing my world torn apart. I lay there for fifteen or twenty minutes. As the time went by, I began to hope I’d get away, but as soon as the hope was born, a booted, fatigue-clad bastard flashed a light under the building. “Okay, you, out of there,” he shouted. To back up his order, two guys with rifles dropped to the ground like soldiers in combat.

  When I was within reach, two of them grabbed my arms and pulled me the rest of the way, finally jerking me to my feet. “Here he is! Here’s Manson. He’s the guru of this bunch of hippies,” they crowed. Handcuffing my hands behind my back, they carried, shoved and kicked me into the group of captives. Some of the kids, the ones who didn’t know anything, were laughing and submitting to arrest without much concern. But I saw some pretty serious faces on those who had been part of the slayings. Tex was out in the desert at Barker’s and had escaped the bust.

  The cops were having a field day. With guns at the ready position, they posed with their trophies and captives. They ransacked all the dwellings, tearing everything up and scattering it around like they were part of a demolition crew. When the place was a complete shambles from their search and destruction, they took pictures of the mess and debris. Their hostility left marks on some of us. But while none of their swinging clubs or kicking boots was on film, the results were. Some of those pictures were published later, indicating that we always lived in this way and were responsible for all the litter. The cops confiscated everything of value, some of it as evidence and some for their own private use. I watched them, resenting every move they made but at the same time thinking, “What difference does it make, I won’t be around to use the place or enjoy the things. So come on, bastards—you’re making history, but let’s get through your moment of glory and get on with the charges.”

  When they finally got around to reading us our rights and telling us the charge—auto theft!—I almost laughed in their faces. I couldn’t believe it. Katie and I looked at each other with smiles of relief. We would have shared a few hugs and maybe done a little dance to express our happiness if the handcuffs hadn’t stopped us.

  Out from under the heavy load, all the other minor charges they started throwing against us didn’t mean a thing, and the whole scene became amusing as hell. Here were at least a hundred cops, all decked out like they were on a commando raid and geared to kill or die in their efforts to arrest twenty-five kids on auto-theft charges. Some of us laughed and sang all the way to the Malibu police station. If a guy can enjoy being arrested, I did, but the biggest joy came two days later, when all the charges had to be dropped because of an invalid search warrant. It was like I was some god who could do no wrong. More proof of my invincibility came a couple of days later.

  Stephanie and I were back in the old outlaw shacks. We’d been making love for a couple of hours and were now just lying there relaxing, when two cops came busting in with guns drawn. Our clothes were lying on the floor. Going through my pockets they came up with a half-smoked roach, so they charged me with possession and her with indecent exposure, because her tits weren’t covered. They drove us to the Malibu station and booked us.

  I was pissed; someone at the ranch had to be snitching. The cops hardly knew about the outlaw shacks, much less when I was going to be in one of them. And when Stephanie and I had gone in there, we weren’t smoking, and I damn sure didn’t have anything on me. When the police lab ran a check on the roach, it wasn’t even grass, so whoever had tried to set me up had blown it. We were cut loose. The charge against Stephanie was dropped because the cops couldn’t find a law prohibiting a bare top ins
ide a house. I left the police station feeling I was above ever getting nailed for anything and having it stick. I was chesty about that, but the snitch had to be found and got rid of.

  After the big raid I knew that whoever was going to the police knew nothing about the bad shit. And at no time did I think any of the kids in our circle would call the cops. It had to be one of the ranch hands. Juan Flynn was into all of our games. John Swartz enjoyed all the fringe benefits that came his way. My attention then focused on Shorty Shea. Shea was a frustrated movie actor waiting for his chance to become the next Hopalong Cassidy. He’d liked us well enough when we first moved in at Spahn’s, but in recent months he’d had a lot of differences with us. Since old George was thinking of selling the ranch, Shorty was kissing a lot of ass with the people who were thinking of buying. He and I had already had a confrontation about how much longer we would be there. He told me, “It’s all over for you, Charlie, when the new owners take over. They’ve already told me they don’t want you and that gang to be here.” I answered by saying, “Shorty, you know what? You got no call to be playing policeman with us. And if you keep on trying to be the fuzz, you’ll wish you had minded your own business instead of sticking your head someplace where it doesn’t belong.” Walking away from me, he said, “We’ll see about that, Charlie. You might tell some of those kids what to do, but not me. I know how to handle you.”

  Leaving the Malibu station for the second time, I had no doubt about Shorty being the snitch. I shared my conclusion with several of the kids. They didn’t need convincing, for while I was locked up, Shorty had been bad-mouthing me, telling the kids, “Charlie’s bad news. If you stick with him, you’re going to end up in jail for long terms. Get away from him.”

  Much later, Bruce Davis, Steve Grogan and I were convicted for the slaying of Shea. At the time of our conviction, no body had been discovered. Since that time Clem has confessed, and he directed the police to the spot where the body was supposedly buried. The report I got on the first effort to locate the body was that they didn’t find anything. A later report came to me that a second attempt did unearth Shea’s body. Not to deny that dead is dead any way you look at it, I have to say we were convicted on circumstantial evidence at the time of the trial. That evidence came from several people who said the body was totally dismembered. Head, arms, legs and body were said to have been chopped into bits and pieces. When Shea’s body was found, it was intact. Testimony also indicated that numerous members of our group participated in the slaying, but somehow the prosecuting attorney saw fit to ignore that part of the evidence. Inasmuch as he ignored it, I can’t clear up anything on Shea without being a snitch. But I will say that the DA, caught up in his theory of “Helter Skelter” and obsessed with making the world believe I was a satanic pied piper, overlooked many participants, accessories, and conspirators. Someplace out there in that society he protects so well, he has left several killers to prowl the streets.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE MESS the cops had left at the Spahn Ranch and the loss of our worldly possessions put a crimp in the joy we had been feeling after the charges had to be dropped.

  Besides all the stolen stuff, they had confiscated four legal dune buggies, televisions, radios, musical instruments, camping gear, knives, guns, food supplies and even some clothing. We were left with little more than the clothes on our backs. We tried reclaiming our legitimate belongings, but the cops weren’t about to give us anything unless we had positive proof of legal purchase. The way we lived, we didn’t have a receipt for a damn thing.

  It didn’t make any difference to us that most of the stuff was stolen to begin with. What mattered was that the pricks had included even our legitimate possessions. Our natural contempt for the police turned into a unanimous, “Fuck you, you bastards, we’ll get it all back and then some.” And we did! And everything we stole went immediately to the desert.

  Thanks to all the hassles, even those kids who weren’t previously keen on moving to the desert were now so resentful of the police and the restrictions of the city that the desert looked good to them.

  Considering I had been trying to put together a permanent move to the desert for the last year, I should have been in some kind of seventh heaven. And I did drive out of L.A. thinking, “At last! We’re on our way, everyone is happy. We are headed toward a world of our own. Plenty of space to live by our own rules.” But I wasn’t as content on the inside as I tried to project on the outside. The police, in coming down on us so heavy, were cheating me. The circumstances now left me with a feeling of being pushed out. It wasn’t the same, and maybe because of it, I became more of a tyrant. The old understanding Charlie, who once held the right answers and offered the alternatives the kids sought when leaving their homes to travel with me, was disappearing.

  In 1967,1 had been like a baby, eager to join the easy and irresponsible lifestyle the kids enjoyed. I now found myself at the head of the pack, with everyone looking to me for all the decisions. Our fun and games and all the drugs had put us in more serious trouble than those kids believed was possible. Because they didn’t know what to do next, they put their trust in me. Well, the truth was that I didn’t know what the next move should be either. Out in the desert, I tried to live up to their expectations by doing what I thought best, but some of the kids started looking at me with hard eyes.

  Beginning with the murders, I allowed things to happen that I could have prevented. And I did, in fact, initiate the scene on Waverly Drive. The kids had their own purposes and motives for going to the Tate-Polanski house, but, once done, the responsibility of it fell on my shoulders, like everything else. I don’t mean just what the police eventually dumped on me. I mean the burden of carrying the weight of murder charges around in my head. The kids seemed to push it out of their minds easily enough, but I couldn’t shake the constant pressure. I’m not saying I was feeling sorry or suffering from remorse, but I knew sooner or later the cops and the whole establishment were going to come down on us for those murders. Because of that knowledge, I pushed at being combat-ready. I pushed for vigilance, secrecy, mobility and contempt for anyone outside.

  In the middle of gearing for combat and building awareness by promoting hate and distrust, it was hard to continue practicing love and playing music as we once did. Even our sex became more of an angered lust than the natural free-flowing pleasure of love and togetherness. Now it was all digging bunkers and establishing storage places for reserve gas and supplies. It was hate the pigs and learn to protect yourself.

  On our return to Barker Ranch, there were heavy clouds hanging over us. Our music had not made it past a recording studio. Love had given way to mistrust. Our own violence threatened our freedom. After just a few days back in the desert no one had to be a genius to realize being there was a mistake. For that matter, even remaining together wasn’t wise. But a number of us leaned on each other so strong that we could never consider a permanent separation. That wasn’t true of everyone, and several of the kids did head for other places. I had mixed emotions about those who left. On the one side it was, “Good for them, they’re out of it.” On the other side, “You chicken-shit bastards, where’s your loyalty?” And what plagued me most about those who left was my fear of them running to the police.

  As the weeks passed, I think we all grew wilder. Our instincts became more animal than human. We hid by day and did our moving around by night. It wasn’t long before some of the local people and police began to notice and resent us. One day in October, a bunch of cops surrounded Barker’s and arrested twelve or thirteen of the kids. I had gone into L.A. for supplies and to hustle some money. One of the kids phoned from jail and caught me at Spahn’s. When he first mentioned he was phoning from jail, I had that sinking sensation—but after being told that the charges were auto theft, possession of firearms and other petty charges, I wasn’t alarmed, just irritated at the police for continually fucking with us.

  I stuck around L.A. for another day gathering supplies and looki
ng for money, then headed back to the Barker place wondering what it was going to take to get the kids out of jail. From the “phone conversation, we weren’t suspected of anything other than the charges mentioned. The murders had happened over two months ago, and even with Bobby in jail for Hinman’s death, the cops hadn’t questioned any of us about that. I wasn’t worried about showing up at the station to try to get all those I could out of jail. I was even thinking that perhaps in my paranoia I had been a little too heavy on everyone in the last few weeks. Maybe I had gone overboard on stressing the need to be ready to defend ourselves. “Okay,” I thought, “I’ll get the kids out and we’ll ease off on all the get-ready-for-war shit and get back to the things we once enjoyed.” Besides, to desert any of them now would have been to deny the togetherness I had been struggling to hold on to.

  I got back to the ranch in the late afternoon. Several kids who had escaped the bust were still in the area. When they saw me, they all came out of hiding and joined me in the house. By the time the sun had gone down, about eight or ten of us had been in the house for a couple of hours, and we had lit a candle for light. They were busy telling me what had happened, and I was deep in thought about the best way to approach the police about getting the rest of us out of jail. All of a sudden, up jumped the devil. “Freeze! Hands up! All right, now one at a time, back out the door,” shouted the officer who had thrown the door open. I dropped to the floor as soon as I heard the first word and bellied it into the bathroom. Figuring the place was surrounded, I didn’t see any way out. The only refuge possible was a small cabinet beneath the wash basin. Somehow, I managed to squeeze inside that cabinet and get the door shut. I was so cramped it was almost a relief when about ten minutes later the door was opened and a voice said, “All right you, out of there.” It seems that when I had closed the door some strands of my hair were visible. Had it not been for that hair sticking out, the officer later stated that he would never have looked in that cabinet because it seemed too small to hide in.