STORIES
Charlies Angels of death
By David Cocksedge
In late July and August of 1969, eight of the most bizarre murders in US criminal history were perpetrated. The killings were committed with the savagery of wild animals, but animals do not kill with knives and guns, and nor do they scrawl out messages with the blood of their victims.
On 31 July 1969, officers from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office (LASO) were summoned to 946 Old Topanga Canyon Road. The policemen who entered the premises were assailed by swarming flies and the pungent stench of decaying human flesh. They found a male body, marked by multiple stab wounds that had been dead for several days. On the living room wall near the body the words 'POLITICAL PIGGY' were scrawled in the victim's blood. The victim was Gary Hinman (32) who had been attending UCLA in pursuit of a PhD in sociology, supporting himself by teaching music. Detectives later discovered that for additional income he manufactured and sold a synthetic form of mescaline, a powerful hallucinogenic drug.
On Saturday 9 August at 10050 Cielo Drive in the plush residential area of Bel Air near Hollywood, officers from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) arrived at a crime scene so gory that it might have come from a Hollywood horror movie. Sprawled through the house and grounds were five victims who had all been viciously slain. They were the heavily pregnant film star Sharon Tate Polanski, wife of director Roman Polanski (who was in Europe at the time) and four others: Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, hairdresser Jay Sebring and a teenager named Steven Parent. On one wall of the main house the word 'PIG' had been scrawled in Sharon Tate's blood. A rope tied around her neck was tied at the other end to the neck of Sebring's corpse.
William Garretson, a caretaker living in a bungalow on the premises, could count himself the luckiest man in LA that night. He had slept through the murders and would certainly have been killed himself if he had left his lights on. His friend, Steven Parent (18) had been visiting him and was driving away when he was killed in his car with four rounds from a .22 calibre weapon fired at close range.
The shocking massacre brought droves of reporters and photographers who surrounded the restricted area where forensic experts sought clues. Nothing was certain, yet when journalists filed their stories, speculation filled every newspaper. Some described the murders as 'ritual slayings', others felt the killings were all part of a wild 'sex and violence' party. Still others declared the five had died in retaliation for a drugs burn. The truth was that the LAPD was totally baffled regarding motives and officers were still searching for clues to the most vicious multiple murders ever committed in the Los Angeles area. But this was only the beginning.
On Sunday 10 August 1969 hardly more than 24 hours after the initial call summoning police to the Cielo address, LAPD officers hurried to another ghastly death scene: 3301 Waverley Drive in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Leno (44) was dead from 26 stab wounds, some administered with a carving fork. His body was found with the fork protruding from his stomach, and a knife was buried in his throat. Beside him lay the body of his 38-year-old wife Rosemary who had been stabbed no less than 41 times.
Again messages in blood had been left. The words 'DEATH TO PIGS' and 'RISE' were written on a wall, and the wrongly spelled words 'HEALTER SKELTER' had been scrawled on the door of the refrigerator door. LA District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi would ultimately theorize that 'Helter Skelter' (the title of a track from The Beatles 'White' album), explained a motive for the slayings, but for the present, everything about the eight brutally murdered victims was a total mystery.
The police had an unexpected and lucky breakthrough when a young girl named Susan ('Sadie') Atkins began talking to her cellmates at the Sybil Brand Institute. Susan was one of a large group of free spirits that lived at the 28-acre Spahn Ranch near Chatsworth, California. The group's cult leader, Charles Manson, paid a nominal rent to the owner George Spahn for his 'family' of 40 or so to live at the converted movie lot. Here they smoked marijuana, took hallucinogen drugs, danced nude under the stars, and ate leftover food taken from trash bins in Beverley Hills. Manson, who had a long history of petty crime and imprisonment, totally rejected most of the values of modern American society. His family funded themselves with auto theft and drug deals. Many of Manson's followers were extremely gullible women, who were happy to satisfy his every whim. Other bikers and social dropouts were attracted to the group because of the laid-back atmosphere, drugs and free sex.
Atkins was being detained in connection with the murder of Gary Hinman, who had sold mescaline to Manson's clan. But she was now talking freely and excitedly about the Tate-LaBianca slayings. She bragged about her role in the murders, sickening cellmates by her claims of drinking the blood she spilled from Sharon Tate after stabbing her to death. "I was there - we did it!" she boasted. When she revealed details that only the killers could have known, the LA Police began to take her claims seriously.
Manson played the guitar and fancied himself as a budding rock star. To this end he associated with Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys and record producer Terry Melcher (son of Doris Day) who both promised to help him in his career. Though he claimed to reject material wealth, Manson was very envious of Wilson's success as a musician and also his large mansion on Sunset Boulevard. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi says that when Melcher and Wilson were unimpressed with Charlie's initial trial recording session, and fobbed him off, an enraged Manson swore revenge, sending his disciples out to kill Melcher and his family. Manson denies this.
Hinman had been murdered by Bobby Beausoleil, one of Manson's clan. Hinman had angered a dangerous group of bikers by selling them poisoned mescaline, and thus brought heat down on Manson, who had brokered the drugs deal. With Beausoleil in custody, part of the motive for the later killings was to throw police off the scent. By killing others and also leaving messages written in blood at the crime scenes, Manson hoped to convince the authorities that they were holding the wrong man; that Hinman's killer was still on the loose and Beausoleil was innocent.
His secondary motive was to spark off a race war that he felt was inevitable. Manson was convinced that the black population in the state was primed to rise up and overthrow the whites, and these horrific murders would be the spark. Wealthy and influential Californians would blame local blacks for the killings and demand a crackdown. This in turn would lead to race riots (Helter Skelter). Manson planned to move his family onto the Barker Ranch near Death Valley until the race war blew over. Then he would return to take a leadership role in the new society that he was sure would rise up from the ashes. Manson is not by any means a stupid man, but his belief in this apocalyptic vision does suggest that he was not entirely in touch with reality. He really believed that the Beatles were sending him messages.
Charles Milles Manson was born illegitimately to the teenage prostitute Kathleen Maddox in Cincinnati, Ohio on 11 November 1934. He never knew his father or any stable father figure; instead spending his childhood at one foster home after another. He was rebellious and inattentive at school, and afterwards made his way through life by means of petty crime. At one correctional facility, he was viciously gang-raped which mentally scarred him for life. Though he stood only 1.60 metres (5'4") tall, Charlie was a smooth talker with an amazing ability to charm young women. During his time as a pimp, petty crook and con man, he was twice married and fathered a son. Both wives deserted him as Manson gathered a throng of admiring young females around him. In the mid-1960's he spent a lot of time in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, playing his music and revelling in the relaxed atmosphere of the hippie communes based there.
By March 1968, he had 16 disciples touring around with him in a large bus when they drove onto George Spahn's ramshackle ranch. Spahn accepted Manson's group especially as one of the girls, Lynnette ('Squeaky') Fromme was willing to supplement the rent by performing sexual favours for the 80-year-old ranch owner. (On 5 September 1975, Fromme attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford and is currently serving a life term for this offence).
Manson put his plan of attack into motion shortly before dawn on 9 August. He sent Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, Susan Krenwinkel and Charles ('Tex') Watson out on a mission to kill. After driving around the Hollywood and Bel Air area, they choose the mansion in Cielo Drive at random. After they had cut the telephone line and disabled the alarm system, they were disturbed by the headlights of Steven Parent's 1966 Nash Ambassador as he drove to the main gate. Watson calmly walked to the car, pulled a .22 revolver from his waistband and shot Parent dead from the driver's open side window. Then the killers ran to the main building and awoke the inhabitants.
First they tied them up, and then Watson, Krenwinkel, Kasabian and Atkins started stabbing. When Sharon Tate pleaded for herself and the life of her unborn child, they laughed at her. Atkins later said, "It felt so good the first time I stabbed her. When she screamed, it did something to me, sent a rush through me, and I kept on stabbing. It was like a sexual release, seeing all that blood. It was better than a climax!" As they drove away the killers threw all their weapons out of the car, and later Manson visited the murder scene to check their handiwork. It was not until hours later, when they saw the news on television, that the killers realised they had murdered the famous Sharon Tate and her friends.
The next day Manson drove six others as they set out to kill again and this time, again at random, they picked the LaBianca family at Waverley Drive. They walked in by the unlocked back door. Manson tied up the middle-aged couple and then left his disciples to carry out the double murder. He sat in the car outside as Atkins, Watson and Leslie Van Houten hacked them to death. It was the latter who wrongly spelled 'Healter Skelter' in blood on the door of the refrigerator. Manson then drove on with three others, looking for more victims, but they gave up at dawn.
What on earth can turn people into such vicious killers of complete strangers? Manson contends that he and his followers were all high on acid, but this really does not explain just why they were able to inflict mind-numbing horror on their victims with such merciless brutality.
When a large police force turned up at the Barker Ranch on 12 October, Manson knew that the game was up. Atkins' boasting had led to an arrest warrant. As armed cops swarmed all over the building, he hid in a bathroom cabinet, but an astute policeman saw part of his long hair sticking out.
The Manson family was also 'grassed' by Donald 'Shorty' Shea, a ranch hand at Spahn. Shea saw the stolen vehicles there and turned informant. Soon after the Spahn Ranch was raided on suspicion of auto-theft on 16 August, Shea disappeared. In 1972 Manson, Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan were charged with Shea's murder, only to have the case dropped for lack of evidence: a body was not found. Finally in 1977 a repentant Grogan led police to Shea's body buried in Death Valley.
Whilst in custody, Manson still had plenty of supporters, including Lynette Fromme, Ruth Ann Moorehouse and Sandra Good. These three mounted a vociferous sit-in outside the LA courthouse when the Manson killers went on trial for murder.
The trial lasted nine months, often disrupted by Manson's outbursts. His supporters chanted and raved from the public gallery before court officials removed them. Manson's rambling testimony gave him a world stage on which to spout his deranged views. He chillingly told the jury, "These children who come at you with knives, they are your children. I did not teach them. You did. I just tried to help them stand up. You eat meat and you kill things that are better than you are, and then you say what evil killers your children are. I am only what lives inside each and every one of you."
In his book, 'Helter Skelter', prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi praised the efficiency of the LA Sheriff's Office whilst declaring himself less impressed with the work of the LAPD in the murder investigation. For example, the gun used to kill Steven Parent was a Colt Buntline .22 revolver with a 12-inch long barrel; a very distinctive weapon. It was found two days after the murders at Cielo Drive and turned in to a desk sergeant in downtown LA. The officer logged it and then locked it away in a cabinet. The Buntline lay there for almost 9 months before homicide detectives finally connected it to the Tate murders. Ballistics experts then proved that it was the gun used to kill Steven Parent on 9 August 1969.
The man who shot Parent was Charles Watson (born 2 December 1945), formerly a star athlete and handsome all-American boy in his home state of Texas. After dropping out of university, however, Watson became a petty criminal with an expensive drug habit. And when he fell in with Manson's crowd, he also became a twisted merchant of death.
On 29 March 1971 the jury returned guilty verdicts against Manson, Susan Atkins, Susan Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten. Meantime, 'Tex' Watson had escaped the mass arrest at the Barker Ranch, but was caught in Texas and returned to California. He was tried separately in October 1971 and also sentenced to death. Linda Kasabian was granted immunity when she gave evidence for the state. In sentencing, Judge Charles Older said, "It is my considered judgement that not only is the death penalty appropriate, but it is almost compelled by the circumstances of these horrific crimes."
The death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in 1972 when California's death penalty was set aside by the courts as being 'cruel and unusual punishment.' Manson is currently incarcerated in the maximum-security wing at Concoran Prison, and is unlikely to experience freedom again. Prison psychiatrists have diagnosed him as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and he has been refused parole ten times.
Charles Manson preached the innocent hippie ethos of worldwide peace and love, and then somehow turned it into a code of irrational rage and madness. He rarely soiled his hands with blood himself, but ordered his followers to kill and defile, and then gloated over what they had done. During the trial, Manson and many of his followers proudly displayed swastikas etched on their foreheads. The symbolism was appropriate.
Research, 'Helter Skelter' by Vincent Bugliosi 1994; 'Without Conscience; Charles Manson in his own words' by Nuel Emmons 1986
IF YOU need a check on my True Crime series of stories, published in the Hua Hin Observer, here is a complete list to date:
April 2002 -The Green Bicycle case, 1921. May 2002 - The Craig/Bentley Case, 1952. June 2002 - The A6 Murder Case, 1961. July 2002 - Murder of the Earl of Errol, 1941. August 2002 - The O J Simpson murder trial, 1995. September 2002 - The Aileen Wuornos case, 1989. October 2002 - The Ronald Opus case, 1993. November 2002 - Madame X, 1929. December 2002 - The Spree Killer, 1984. January 2003 - Shootout at Smiths' Club, 1966. February 2003 - The Christine Dryland case, 1991. March 2003 - Poisoned Pie in Essex, 1982. April 2003 - The Heydrich assassination, 1943. May 2003 - The Diana Davidson Murder case, 1969. June 2003 - The death of Alkibiades, 404 BC. July 2003 - The headsman of Colmar, 1780. August 2003 - The Ruth Ellis case, 1955. September 2003 - The Mel Jones Murder case, 1975. October 2003 - The Bluebeard of the bath, 1915. November 2003 - Murder in a combat zone, 1966. December 2003 - The Barn Restaurant murder case, 1972. January 2004 - The assassination of JFK, 1963. February 2004 - Judge Falcone and the Mafia, 1992. March 2004 - Gilles de Rais/Bluebeard, 1404-1440. April 2004 - The hand in the sand case, 1885. May 2004 - The body in the bag, 1979
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