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from:
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<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/Labyrinth13/Main/PROCESS.htm">Charles Manson,
Son of Sam and the Process Chur </A>
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Charles Manson, Son of Sam and the Process Church of the Final
Judgement: Exploring the Alleged Connections

By Curt Rowlett



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(All Rights Reserved; this article may not be reproduced in whole or in
part without the express permission of the author).



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Preface: A Pandora's Box

If you listened to some people, you would have to believe that America
and the rest of the world is in the grip of a Satanic plague of Biblical
proportions. Some see Satanists lurking behind every tree and behind
this alleged menace, a nefarious cabal of devil-worshiping murder
junkies, bent on world destruction and either led or inspired by the
shadowy, sinister, Satanist Process Church. And incredibly, this idea
has been given credence by the very people whom many of us have been
taught to trust all of our lives, including law enforcement officials,
politicians and religious leaders, some who have become self-styled
"experts" on Satanism and alleged "Occult" crimes. (fn1) So just where
did it all begin?

Flashback to 1980 when a Canadian psychiatrist named Lawrence Pazder
published a book entitled Michelle Remembers. This book created the
first tale of a "repressed memory" of Satanic ritual abuse that centered
around his client/wife Michelle Smith. In this book, Pazder alleged that
as a child, Michelle had been sexually abused by Satanists and because
the experience had been so traumatic, she had repressed all memory of it
until Pazder's "therapy" revived it. In September of 1990, a London
newspaper's investigation into Smith's background exposed the book as a
fraud. However, during the next ten years, Michelle Remembers was the
catalyst that inspired a flurry of copycat accusations aimed at
legitimate Satanists, non-Satanic occultists, and many other people who
had nothing at all to do with the occult. (In this book, Michelle
actually claimed to have a scar on her body that was caused by Satan
wrapping his barbed tail around her neck).

The next accusation to come along was one that was guaranteed to strike
fear in the heart of any healthy human being: that Satanists were
preying upon our children in day-care facilities. This tale was first
concocted by a woman named Judy Johnson who was later diagnosed as an
acute paranoid schizophrenic. Johnson alleged that "Satanic sex rituals"
had been practiced on her child at the McMartin Preschool in Los
Angeles, California. A modern-day witch-hunt soon got underway, led by
over-zealous prosecutors and self-styled "ritual abuse therapists" and
provided the inspiration for a flood of similar accusations across the
United States and abroad. Judy Johnson, all but forgotten in the ensuing
frenzy that followed, was discovered by police four months before the
 McMartin trial started in 1987, lying face-down and naked in her son's
bedroom, dead of liver disease that was the result of chronic
alcoholism. The cost to taxpayers for the resulting trial ran into the
millions of dollars, ruined the reputations and lives of innocent people
and needlessly traumatized children at the hands of quack therapists,
all because of the accusations of a drunken, delusional person.

Finally, there came the accounts of women being used as "breeders" of
children that were supposedly murdered for sacrifices to Satan. This
sordid narrative was popularized by Lauren Stratford in her 1988 book
Satan's Underground. (fn2) Stratford's book was exposed as fabrication
by the non-fundamentalist Christian magazine Cornerstone, but by then
the talk shows and other forms of the tabloid press were awash with the
stories of other self-proclaimed "breeders." (fn3)

And the Manson case has always been fertile ground for theories of a
Satanic nature to grow in. Manson and his followers were convicted for
the 1969 Tate-LaBianca slayings and were suspected (by prosecutor
Vincent Bugliosi) of possibly having committed up to 35 murderers. There
have been a number of books and articles written since the 1969 Manson
murders occurred that have attempted to create overly sinister, Satanic
connections between Charles Manson and the Process Church of the Final
Judgement and more recently, the "Son of Sam," David Berkowitz. With
very few exceptions, the majority of this material is based on highly
questionable speculation or biased information sources. There are some
individuals for whom the Process Church/Manson/Son of Sam "connection"
is the smoking gun that serves as the foundation for their evidence of a
Global Satanic Cult Conspiracy. For a few of these people, the old
adage, "Where there's smoke, there's fire", serves them well enough to
include the most tenuous links in order to add punch to a theory.
Perhaps these individuals would be better advised to remember the wise
words of author/researcher John Keel, who once wrote: "Where there's
smoke, there may be a smudge pot".

This article will try to set some of the record straight. It will also
show that the Process Church was not truly a Satanic religion, but
rather a group of well-meaning, but perhaps misguided, New Age
Christians who made use of Satanic trappings and imagery that were
sprinkled liberally into their philosophy. Ditto for Charles Manson and
David Berkowitz.

I come qualified to make that statement and to write an article that
discusses Satanism and other alleged occult connections within
conspiracy theories: I was an upper-level member of a certain
high-profile occult religion established here in America and abroad for
close to a decade and have been a serious occult scholar for over twenty
five years. As such, I have not only researched topics such as this
along with other interested and prominent occultists, but have had
access to almost every source that relates to the Occult via an
extensive and privately maintained data base. I will not try to suggest
that my opinions expressed here are the final words on this subject;
indeed, I hope this article will generate responses from other
interested researchers who have additional information that I may not be
aware of.

In The Beginning, There Was Haight

The decade of the 1960's marked one of the most influential periods in
the history of America. It became an era for the "waking up" of humanity
in the form of new social consciousness, human and civil rights, and the
exploration of altered states of reality and new lifestyles. And it was
in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, California that this
awareness was exemplified in a most vivid manner.

The Haight-Ashbury in the 60's was a mecca for the nation's disenchanted
young people and they came by the thousands to participate in a great
social experiment: a mass exercise in free will. Radical politics, free
love, new spiritual values, and an "anything goes" mentality were the
standards of the day and all seemed to be linked by a common thread: the
desire to break away from the mental programming of commonly accepted
belief systems of the preceding generations which seemed to be useless
and untrue. There appeared to be no middle ground regarding the hippie
movement and the Haight itself; it was either frightening, amusing, or
insane. Attitudes of Americans regarding the "hippies" ranged from
joyful support to intense hatred. Indeed, the Haight was fertile ground
for any new or slightly unusual religion to take root in and it was in
1967, during the so-called "Summer of Love", that the Process Church of
the Final Judgement and Charles Manson showed up on the scene.

In March of 1967, Manson had just been released from a long stretch in
prison and quickly immersed himself in the hippie scene of the Haight.
It was during this time period and later that Manson crossed paths with
a large variety of people; political types, movie stars, freaks, bikers,
occultists, and members of many "alternative" religions. People who
lived in Haight-Ashbury during this time period and who later wrote
about the experience, remember that The Process Church was only one of
many "beyond the norm" groups that had taken up residence there. That
the two (Manson and The Process) crossed paths seems almost inevitable.
Manson's history during this period is well documented in a number of
other books and a full account is not necessary here. The evolution of
The Process Church of the Final Judgement requires some background.

As It Was: A History of the Process Church

The Process Church was formed in 1962 in the Mayfair district of London,
England. Robert DeGrimston Moore and Mary Anne MacLean, the leaders of
the Process, were at that time mid-level members in the London
Scientology movement, founded by science-fiction writer and occultist L.
Ron Hubbard. (Hubbard, a former disciple of Aleister Crowley, and who
also had ties to the American chapter of the Ordo Templi Orientis,
Crowley's famous Occult order, and to the O.T.O's American head, the
enigmatic Jack Parsons, is worthy of a whole book).

Scientology in 1963 was little more than a pseudo-psychoanalysis
technique and it was during one of the so-called "E-Meter" sessions that
Robert de Grimston and Mary Anne MacLean first met. (MacLean was
allegedly embroiled in the infamous Christine Keeler-Profumo affair that
rocked the English Parliament in the 1960's). A relationship between the
couple soon led to marriage and the two left Scientology to form their
own group, calling it "Compulsions Analysis". Their technique, or
"process," differed little from that of Scientology but for one
admirable exception: The Moores had left Hubbard's group because they
felt that he (Hubbard) was basing much of his philosophy on wild
speculation that had no basis in fact. The Moores desired a more
objective approach in their techniques and the ability to really achieve
something with the system they were exploring. They soon attracted close
to thirty adherents and the name "Compulsions Analysis" was changed to
what they had been calling their technique all along: The Process.

It was early 1966 that DeGrimston (he had dropped the last name Moore)
began composing a semi-religious scripture called The Logics, which
dealt mostly with aspects of the human personality and provided
theoretical background for the process sessions. Also, the concept of
gods and a higher power began to emerge into their philosophy and were
blended into the growing analysis techniques.

The Process, which started out as a therapy group, was now evolving into
a religion and would later become legally incorporated as a church, both
in England and in America. They later identified four gods of the
universe, Jehovah, Lucifer, Satan, and Christ, each representing
different elements and capabilities and as symbols of human archetypes.
Each of these gods was thought to contain a necessary part of the
process in and of themselves. They believed an individual should try to
identify that aspect of each god in his/herself and attempt to unify the
opposing forces into one composite power, thereby creating a unified
self who was at peace with his/her inner being, in harmony with the
Universe and ready for the coming "Day of Judgement".

This idea was reflected in many of the Process symbols, one of which
shows four P's coming together to form an iron cross/swastika-like
image. (Former members of the Process who had left the group, later
formed the "Four P Movement," a Process splinter group that itself later
became subjected to much unfounded speculation by Ed Sanders and Maury
Terry, who offered absolutely no proof that this group ever committed
any crimes).

The Process, led by DeGrimston and Mary Anne, pooled their funds and
moved en masse to Nassau, Bahamas, and then, to an abandoned coconut
plantation, located on a remote stretch of beach on the Yucatan
peninsula in Xtul, Mexico. It was during the Xtul period that DeGrimston
began to further formulate his philosophy in a series of "channeled"
writings which later became known as The Xtul Dialogues, essays that
only top-ranking members would be allowed to read in later years. The
Xtul Dialogues were composed in the form of eight lectures between a
student and a teacher. By "channeling", I refer to the technique where
one acts as a medium through which a higher power expresses itself. The
only god specifically identified by name in The Xtul Dialogues is
Jehovah, "god of strength, wrath, and nature". The complete pantheon of
Process gods were not specified until a full year later, disputing a
later claim by author Ed Sanders (who wrote The Family), that the
process began to worship Satan while at Xtul and to practice human
sacrifices. (1)

The Process lived at Xtul for close to a year and it became equivalent
in meaning to them as did Christ's forty days in the desert. It was at
Xtul that DeGrimston came to believe that he was the reincarnation of
Christ. At this time they were involved in intensive studies of group
telepathy and also delved heavily into the Old Testament of the
Christian Bible, a book that was to influence the Process greatly in
later years, such as the renaming of members with titles like Father
Moses and Brother Abraham. The communal living at Xtul was soon brought
to an end by the destructive power of Hurricane Inez in 1966. 200 mile
per hour winds battered the Mexican coast, destroying the plantation but
sparing the Processians. The majority of the group, including the DeGri
mstons, moved back to London. They had come to Xtul as members of a
psychotherapy sect and left as members of a cohesive community and
founders of the newly religious Process Church of the Final Judgement.

After the return to England, they began publishing a Process magazine
and developing rituals to add to the therapy sessions. Robert DeGrimston
wrote another book called The Tide of the End which is described as
being "emotional and poetic", "an apocalyptic condemnation of the
world", and "a prophecy of the coming millennium". (2) The book is
actually a collection of thirteen short books delivered in seven
"phases". One of the books, titled As It Is, was considered by the
Process to be the most meaningful of the series and at the core of
Process philosophy.

The book is essentially a warning to the reader to avoid "living a lie"
and to "abandon ignorance and suppression and embrace true reality-As It
Is". This led to the use of the Crowley-like motto of "As it is-so be
it" as a greeting or farewell among Process members. Soon after the book
was written, the DeGrimstons embarked on a tour of Europe and Canada,
eventually arriving in America at New Orleans, Louisiana, where the
first American chapter of the Process Church was established. It was
also in New Orleans that they formally adopted the name Process Church
of the Final Judgement, becoming a legally recognized religion.

Upon the return to England from Xtul, the Process had also identified
other gods beside Jehovah and were now including Satan, Lucifer, and
Christ in their rituals and publications. They must have been quite a
startling sight in 1967 New Orleans as they paraded about with long hair
and beards (a practice that had been adopted at Xtul and having Old
Testament significance to them) wearing their black shirts and slacks,
purple capes with a red Mendes Goat emblazoned on the back and a silver
crucifix worn around the neck, handing out literature proclaiming that
the end of the world was near.

They had also begun to lead German Shepard attack dogs around on chains,
perhaps in emulation of the DeGrimstons, who owned several of the
animals themselves. Maury Terry, author of The Ultimate Evil, would
later try to make much of the fact that the Process owned German
Shepards and that the group used these dogs for ritual sacrifice and
blood-drinking rites. (3) William Bainbridge, who wrote one of the more
objective and rational histories of the Process in a book called Satan's
Power, tells a different story: that the Process considered animals to
be perfect life forms to be held in the highest regard. In fact, Robert
DeGrimston once wrote a searing anti-vivisection pamphlet, ironically
entitled, The Ultimate Sin. (4)

The New Orleans Process chapter attracted about a dozen new members.
Interestingly enough, the Process claimed that they were not seeking to
convert the masses, but were interested in locating only those people
whom they considered to be "natural" Processians. Robert DeGrimston had
refined his theories about the end of the world and found much to base
his philosophy on in the Book of Revelations of the Christian Bible,
including the number of the chosen people that would escape the coming
holocaust: 144,000. He believed that this was the number of Processians
who would live through Armageddon, "The Final Judgement". To the extent
that the group felt they had a mission to the world, they believed that
it was to present themselves publicly so that those people who were
already Processians without realizing it, could come forward and join.

It was in New Orleans that the group developed their initiatory grade
system. New members were called Messengers. They were also described as
"Outside Processians", or "O.P.'s" because it was assumed at first that
they would never be able to join the inner core of the group because
they had not shared in the Xtul experience. However, several of the new
Messengers rose to positions of higher rank and later the term O.P. was
used to refer to members not yet admitted to the heart of Process
society. Members who had been to Xtul and others later admitted to the
inner circle were called "Inner Processians" or "I.P.'s". The Initiatory
grades consisted of the Omega, the highest title within the Process, and
at the time, held only by Robert and Mary Anne DeGrimston. The Omega's
lieutenants were called Masters and were in charge of day to day
decision making. Next came the Priests, below them the Prophets, and
finally the Messengers.

The Process also began the practice of taking sacred names. As mentioned
earlier, they adopted the practice of taking Biblical names while at
Xtul and this became the standard practice and policy for all new
members. Masters and Priests had names such as "Father Cain" or "Mother
Isis", while Prophets and Messengers used the title "Brother" or
"Sister". This new custom was much in tune with the collective
family-like relations within the Process; in fact, "The Family" was one
of their affectionate names used to describe the entire congregation.
The 144,000 Processians were supposed to be marked with the "Seal of
God" on their foreheads and as such, were thought to be instantly
recognizable to the Mothers and Fathers.

Another bit of evidence that suggests that the Process was not the
bloodthirsty devil worshiping cult of Ed Sanders' and Maury Terry's
imaginations is the fact that many potential members were turned away in
New Orleans and elsewhere because the Process officers considered them
to be merely "thrill seekers" and "dead beats". (It must be remembered
that the original core membership of the Process came from London's
upper class of society and the group continued throughout it's existence
to cull members of "high quality").

In December of 1967, one Father Cain and Father Moses journeyed to San
Francisco because of a vision that was experienced by the group during a
ritual in New Orleans. They began setting up a Process chapter house in
the Haight that was in the form of a coffee house with "Sabbath
Assemblies" gathered in an "alpha ritual room" and "telepathy developing
circles" as they had developed in Xtul. They unsuccessfully tried to
form a union with Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, who dismissed them as
"kooks".

Another effort was made to recruit members of California biker gangs,
(as Charles Manson would later attempt to do) perhaps for the security
that these groups could provide. The New Orleans chapter closed in
February of 1968 and moved to San Francisco for about three months,
later headed to Los Angeles, and then to Greenwich Village in New York
City. (This move was prompted in part due to a rivalry between the
Process and a Scientology group that was threatening to report the
Process to local authorities for having expired visas). The Process
eventually moved back to Europe with the original core membership plus
several American converts, leaving behind some 200 new Process members
in the United States.

This core group roamed about Europe for a while, even attempting to set
up a world headquarters in Aleister Crowley's old Abbey of Thelema in
Cefalu, Sicily. The American chapters in New York and Massachusetts
remained active as late as 1976 before the Process splintered and
eventually faded away.

Exploring the Manson/Process/Son of Sam "Connection"

My background of the Process stops here, now let's take a closer look at
the alleged ties between the Process, Manson, Son of Sam and the
mythical Global Satanic Cult Conspiracy.

Basically, the core philosophy of the Process involved the unification
of opposites. One of the key doctrines of the Process Church was a
reconciliation between Christ and Satan. The logic was simple and took
Christ's teachings one step beyond good and evil. The following is
reprinted from a Process publication:

Christ said, "Love thine enemies". Christ's enemy was Satan and Satan's
enemy was Christ. Through love enmity is destroyed. Through love Saint
and Sinner destroy the enmity between them. Through love, Christ and
Satan have destroyed their enmity and come together for the End. Christ
to Judge, Satan to execute Judgement.

Manson's rap to his followers was virtually the same in that he believed
that the act of killing someone was an act of love. According to Manson,
each person judges himself and then takes that judgement out on the rest
of the world. Manson saw love as understanding, so in his logic, a
decision to kill was an acting out of that judgement or
understanding/love.

The Process Church wrote a lot of elegant, cryptic, and sometimes
frightening essays to explain their philosophies, but any references to
killing or death were actually meant only in symbolic or spiritual
terms, such as the "killing" of a negative aspect of one's personality
through Process therapy. For example, Robert DeGrimston wrote a series
of statements from Jehovah, Lucifer, and Satan in the 1968 "War" issue
of the Process magazine, entitled, The Gods on War. In these essays,
each god gives a statement independently of the others, but it is
obvious that the reader is expected to follow the Process technique of
merging all three statements together in order to get the intended
message.

Manson, on the other hand, apparently took many of the Process writings
and scriptures literally and it is quite possible that the Tate-LaBianca
and other murders are a result of his sociopathic interpretation of
them. In fact, Father Adam, head of the Boston, Massachusetts chapter of
the Process told a reporter that, "Manson has obviously got hold of some
of our ideas from somewhere and distorted them in a particular way. It
is unfortunate. If we had had the opportunity to speak with him, we
could have avoided that series of very brutal killings." (5)

There is a body of strong circumstantial evidence that Manson was
heavily influenced by the Process, but to blame the Process Church for
the behavior of a person like Charles Manson would be like blaming the
Pope for the People's Temple massacre in Jonestown. William Bainbridge
says, "No real (Processians) that I knew ever made the mistake of
thinking these words (the Process scriptures) were commandments that
required physical action". (6) Father Ely told a reporter, "Very Satanic
members find it difficult to fit into the Church. They cannot function
as Inside Processians". (7)

In August of 1969, Manson and his followers committed the Tate-LaBianca
murders. Soon after their capture and arrest, rumors began to spread
that the Manson Family was a Process splinter group. The DeGrimstons
originally feared that Manson may have been a renegade former member,
but after seeing Manson's picture, neither they or anyone else in their
group could recall ever having seen or met him. Just to be sure, they
finally sent two leading members, Father John and Brother Matthew to
interview Manson and to be interviewed by Vincent Bugliosi, the chief
prosecutor in Manson's trial. Bugliosi, by virtue of a good prosecutor's
nature, was not entirely convinced by their claim of innocence of any
involvement with the Tate-LaBianca case, and lacking any evidence, never
brought any Process members into court during Manson's trial.

Bugliosi, while interviewing Manson, asked him if he knew Robert Moore
or Robert DeGrimston. Manson denied knowing anyone named DeGrimston, but
said that he knew Robert Moore. According to Bugliosi, Manson said,
"You're looking at him, Moore and I are one in the same". Bugliosi later
wrote that he took Manson's statement to mean that Manson felt that he
and Moore thought alike. It's possible that Manson had indeed met Moore
during a brief visit that Moore/DeGrimston made to a house that was a
sometime Manson Family hangout, known as the "Spiral Staircase" in
Topanga Canyon in 1967. It's more likely that Manson knew of Moore, as
Manson at one time lived only two blocks away from Process member
Brother Ely on Cole Street in Haight-Ashbury. (8)

The Death issue of the Process magazine in 1971 did contain a brief
article written by Manson, entitled "Pseudo-profundity in Death," in
which he describes death as "total awareness...Coming to Now...and Peace
from this world's madness and paradise in my own self". (It's important
to note that the writings of such "underground" notables as Marianne
Faithful and Salvador Dali appeared there, too).

But to feature a story by Manson after having tried to publically
disavow him earlier at least makes the Process guilty of a bad public
relations move. And by this time, public relations for the Process were
extremely low. Many other rumors were circulating that linked the
Process to nefarious and baffling phenomenon appearing in other parts of
the country. During the mid-1970's, weird animal mutilations began to
occur in parts of the Midwest and rumors started to spread that a
sinister Satanic cult called the "Xtul Group" was responsible. This
rumor of course, had no real basis in fact, and was even challenged by
animal pathologists who determined that most of the animals died of
natural causes. (The myth of the Satanists-as-animal-mutilators persists
to this day). This charge against the Process was particularly absurd in
light of the known anti-vivisectionist stance that they held.

Enter the Smoke Pumpers: Ed Sanders

But perhaps the most fearsome assault on the Process was delivered by Ed
Sanders, a poet and musician with the former rock group The Fugs and
author of The Family, one of the first books to emerge about the Manson
murders. Sanders was the first member of the "underground press" to
investigate the Manson case and his book is written in a hipster prose
that is more common of today's authors.

In this book's first edition, Sanders devoted an entire chapter to the
Process and the alleged Manson connections, calling the Process "hooded
snuffoids" and the "black-caped, black- garbed, death-worshiping Process
Church". (9) Sanders didn't mince words and claimed outright that the
Process was involved in human sacrifice, blood drinking, sex orgies and
drugs. As a result, The Process filed a $1.5 million dollar libel suit
against Sanders, and won, with the publishers settling with the Process
out of court. Accordingly, there was a temporary hold on the publishing
of the book, but it is back on the market now, minus the chapter on the
Process. Most recently, a third edition has been released, but any
references to the Process are made as "an English Satanic Society in the
1960's". (The First Edition of Sanders' book is a rare find these days).


It has been noted in subsequent investigations that during his research
and investigation into the Manson murders, Sanders was apparently
willing to listen to anyone who had a horror story to tell and reported
everything as solid fact with virtually no attention paid to verifying
details.

Enter the Smoke Pumpers II: Maury Terry

But the Process myth is one that refuses to die quietly. The next attack
on the group came from Maury Terry in his 1987 book The Ultimate Evil.
Terry listened to unsubstantiated hearsay, invented some stuff of his
own, interviewed Ed Sanders and decided that not only were the Process
and Manson linked, but so was the Son of Sam and the benign Ordo Templi
Orientis! In this sensationalistic tome, Terry shows his complete lack
of knowledge and understanding of the occult. (One huge indicator of
Terry's lack of credibility and objectivity: he later supplied an
introduction for a book by Pat Pulling, the founder of Bothered About
Dungeons and Dragons (BADD). Pulling founded BADD after her son
committed suicide, blaming his death on the role- playing game "Dungeons
and Dragons." Pulling has appeared on talk shows (where she can't seem
to keep her story straight) and has "advised" police departments on the
satanic dangers for teenagers who play fantasy role-playing games,
claiming that these teens are "headed for an involvement with
Satanism").

In The Ultimate Evil, Terry attempts to paint a picture (with a very,
very broad brush) of a super-secret, underground Satanic network of
serial killers, rapists, drug dealers and child pornographers running
amok on the American landscape, including an "Occult Superstar" he calls
Manson II. Most of Terry's claims that the Process splintered and went
underground to form a bloodthirsty group of gore gangsters, are simply
too absurd to be believable and he offers almost no credible
substantiation for his claims. His "evidence" was seemingly interpreted,
molded and influenced by his desire to make a case at any cost in order
to sell his book. For example, he unearths the old animal mutilation
rumor again simply because some dead German Shepards were found in
Untermyer Park in Yonkers that had Heavy Metal-stoner-type graffiti
(such as pentagrams and inverted crosses) spray-painted on walls.

For Terry, as in the preceding example, the most mundane things became
overtly Satanic, such as people wearing black leather bondage gear, the
fact that in one of the Son of Sam letters sent to the police, the word
"honor" was spelled "honour", the way the British spell it. Get it?
British spelling, English Satanic Society, Bingo! Such unprofessional
and conspiratorial leaps in logic by Terry are numerous and almost the
standard throughout his book.

Regarding Terry's claims linking the O.T.O. to the Manson/Sam/Process
"conspiracy", he apparently derived that theory from rather flimsy
evidence that Manson was at one time involved with the Solar Lodge of
the O.T.O., which during the 1960's was headed by a woman named Jean
Brayton of California and her husband. Terry either didn't know, or
didn't care that this particular lodge was considered to be a renegade
group and not officially sanctioned by any legitimate branch of the real
Ordo Templi Orientis. Like the Process and Ed Sanders, a California
branch of the O.T.O. filed a legal suit against Terry for defamation,
which Terry lost. Appealing all the way to the Supreme Court, the case
was subsequently settled out of court in the O.T.O's favor with a cash
settlement for an undisclosed amount and an agreement to strike all
references of the O.T.O. from future editions of The Ultimate Evil. The
New York Law Journal for June 24, 1988, reports:
"Defendants, publisher and author of a book expounding the theory that a
nationwide Satanic "cult" is responsible for numerous notorious murders
in recent times, were sued for defamation by an organization the author
alleged was part of the Satanic network. The court refused to dismiss
the action, finding that the allegations in the book, reiterated by the
author in two television interviews, gave rise to a cause of action if
plaintiff could substantiate the facts averred in its complaint. The
case was settled out of court with an undisclosed sum of money paid to
the O.T.O., as well as an agreement to strike all references to the
O.T.O. in future editions of the work." (Emphasis supplied).

But perhaps most laughable of all is Terry's portrayal of Robert
DeGrimston as some sort of shadowy, occult thug who all but unleashed a
Satanic poison upon the earth. In an essay called The Process: A
Personal Reminiscence by R.N. Taylor, the editor notes that Robert
DeGrimston now lives near a large American city and can be located in
the white pages of the telephone book and was easily reached for an
interview by simply picking up the telephone and calling him. (In this
interview, DeGrimston denounced the sensationalism that has grown up
around the Process and characterized the portrayals of the Process as
"unbearable" and "a pack of lies"). (10) One has to wonder how any
conscientious investigator seeking the truth (as Terry leads us to
believe he is) could have dropped the ball so badly on this one.

Another persistent rumor that Terry has helped along it's way and/or may
have created from whole cloth is that some of the Son of Sam murders may
have been filmed, in particular, the murder of Son of Sam's last known
victim, Stacy Moskowitz.

It is Terry's contention that the alleged snuff film was shot by drug
dealer/pornographer/photographer Ronald Sisman, who supposedly filmed
the murder from a VW van parked near the victims, allegedly for movie
financier and porn collector Roy Radin. However, there has never been
any evidence presented to back up this claim beyond Maury Terry's own
assertions that this is so. (A "snuff film" is, of course, a
choreographed movie in which someone is intentionally murdered for the
benefit of the camera).

In "The Myth of the Snuff Film," by John Martin, the author writes:
According to LAPD Vice Squad Sergeant Don Smith, snuff films got their
name during the 1969 investigation of the Tate-LaBianca murders in Los
Angeles. "The media was mistakenly informed that the Manson people had
taken home movies of the murders,' says Smith. "The press coined the
term ‘snuff films,' and it stuck." Smith notes that the definition has
evolved and that initially ‘snuff'‘ meant simply the murder of a human
being on film. "The present- day connotation, the idea of filming an
unsuspecting actress's murder with the intent to distribute the film
commercially, that was added later." Also known as "white heat" films
and "the real thing," the snuff film myth lives on like Bigfoot, despite
the fact that no law enforcement agency in America has publicly admitted
to ever locating one. Alan Sears, former executive director of the
Attorney General's commission on pornography during 1985-86, agrees with
the more than two dozen law enforcement agencies I interviewed. "Our
experience was that we could not find any such thing as a commercially
produced snuff film," says Sears. "Our commission was all-inclusive and
exhaustive. If snuff films were available, we'd have found them." This
sentiment is echoed by Ken Lanning, a cult expert at the FBI training
academy at Quantico, Virginia. "I've not found one single documented
case of a snuff film anywhere in the world. I've been searching for 20
years, talked to hundreds of people. There's plenty of once-removed
sightings, but I've never found a credible personality who personally
saw one." Yet the rumor of snuff persists. The scenarios are invariably
the same - a remote jungle village in South America, a deserted beach in
Thailand, the landscaped garden of a German industrialist, a lonely
Everglades swamp. The victims are usually women, often performing a
sexual act, their deaths sensational and unexpected. One of the most
resilient snuff rumors concerns convicted "Son of Sam" killer David
Berkowitz, who allegedly filmed the murders of some of his victims.
Maury Terry, author of "The Ultimate Evil," a book about Berkowitz and
cult killings across America, tells me, "Its believed Berkowitz filmed
his murders to circulate within the Church of Satan. On the night of the
Stacy Moskowitz killing, there was a VW van parked across the street
from the murder site under a bright sodium street lamp. "Witnesses have
confirmed this, although the van never appeared in the police report.
Berkowitz or an accomplice filmed Moskowitz's murder, using the street
lamp to light the subject as she sat in her car across the street. Terry
says the film was apparently made for Roy Radin, the Long Island
impresario and "wannabe Cotton Club financier." "Radin was known for his
huge porno collection and wanted to add a snuff film to it. I've heard
there are ten copies of this film floating around, although I've never
seen it." (11)

But to give Maury Terry a break, he does offer some rather compelling
evidence in his book that Berkowitz may have had accomplices during that
particular New York murder spree, believable enough for authorities to
reopen the case in 1996. (The murder of Stacy Moskowitz, a twenty year
old Son of Sam victim who was shot and killed in 1977 and in which the
shooter also partially blinded her date, Robert Violante, has provided
many excellent witnesses and some of the most convincing evidence for
multiple perpetrators in the Son of Sam case. One of the best and most
thorough investigations into this claim was an Unsolved Mysteries
 segment about Son of Sam that closely examines the Moskowitz shooting
with detailed maps and a time line provided by witnesses).

Specifically, Terry offers up interesting evidence that the Carr
brothers, Michael and John, may have also been Son of Sam shooters along
with Berkowitz. Anyone who has studied the numerous police composite
drawings of the Son of Sam suspects will agree that both John and
Michael Carr do resemble many of the Son of Sam shooters as described by
witnesses (in fact, the Carr brothers resemble most of the composites,
while Berkowitz only resembles two of them; witness descriptions of the
shooters varied widely, as did descriptions of the vehicles used by the
gunmen). And there is also a possibility that John Carr may have written
several of the Son of Sam letters, in particular, the infamous
"Borrelli" and "Breslin" letters, which allegedly matches the known
writing style and penmanship abilities of John Carr. The Breslin letter
(May 30,1977 Son of Sam letter sent to New York Daily News columnist
Jimmy Breslin) made reference to a known John Carr nickname, "Wheaties,"
with the inclusion of the line "John 'Wheaties," Rapist and Suffocater
of Young Girls." Within the Borrelli letter (April 17,1977 Son of Sam
letter to Queens Detective Captain Joseph Borrelli) there are intimate
details about Sam Carr (the Carr brothers' father), his health, and
habits and it appears that whoever wrote it knew Sam Carr very well. And
Sam Carr (who was the same Berkowitz neighbor that owned the infamous
barking dog) was the most logical inspiration for the name "Son of Sam,"
if we accept the Carr brothers- as-shooters hypothesis, who were quite
literally, the "Sons of Sam." (The Unsolved Mysteries investigation
cited above and other evidence suggests that the shooter in the
Moskowitz murder may have been John Carr).

Former Queens district attorney John Santucci was quoted two years ago,
saying, "I believe David Berkowitz did not act alone, that in fact
others did cooperate, aid and abet him in the commission of these
crimes." (Carr had allegedly been in Houston, Texas, on June 12, 1976,
the day Berkowitz is known to have purchased his .44 revolver there. Six
months after Berkowitz was captured, Carr committed suicide by shooting
himself in the head with a rifle in Minot, North Dakota under such
mysterious circumstances that police have looked into his death as a
possible murder. Michael Carr died in New York City on October 4, 1979,
after crashing his car into a street lamp at 75 miles per hour. An
autopsy found that Carr had a high blood-alcohol level, in spite of an
alleged religious aversion to alcohol. Following his death, the Son of
Sam case was officially reopened).

However, notwithstanding the preceding concessions, three shooters does
not a Global Conspiracy make and Terry's attempts at showing that these
crimes were part of a large criminal network of Satanic Terrorists is
not backed up by one shred of credible evidence beyond personal beliefs,
rumors and hearsay.

But wait! Maury Terry is back again with the same old song and dance,
claiming in his recent Gear Magazine article that there were three
factors that influenced a rush to judgement to convict Berkowitz as the
sole killer: a) political pressure from mayor Ed Beame who was trailing
in the polls and who badly wanted reelection; b) an "abominable cult
that controlled Berkowitz and maintained connections in high places";
and c) a police force so bent on protecting the city's image that they
ignored evidence that pointed to the involvement of others via a
cover-up.

Terry has maintained contact with Berkowitz and it is quite apparent
that he is still convinced that the Global Satanic Cult Conspiracy
exists. He writes:
"His claims (Berkowitz's) are backed by a considerable volume of
evidence and a new analysis by the Special Investigations Division of
the Yonkers Police Department, which quietly opened an inquiry of the
case two years ago. It's aims: to determine if Berkowitz was immersed in
a plot hatched in that city's jurisdiction, to learn if any other
related killings occurred, and to discover if the alleged group was
still active locally."

But once again, we are not given one shred of real evidence beyond
Terry's and Berkowitz's own assertions that such evidence exists, either
because it is supposedly being withheld from the public by police
investigators and/or coming from the mouths of prison convicts,
including Berkowitz, a most biased and dubious source at best.

According to Terry, he has learned from "official sources" (unnamed)
that "the inquiry identified members of a ‘British- originated satanic
cult,' the Process Church of the Final Judgement " (here we go again) as
top suspects in the Son of Sam cult conspiracy and that the Yonkers
Police have recommended that the Westchester County DA's office
investigate with an eye towards convening a grand jury. Terry also
states that at least five individuals "realizing that the net is closing
in," have retained lawyers and begun seeking immunity and that a wealthy
business man named "Moloch," now deceased, was the leader of the group
responsible for the Son of Sam killings.

He goes on further to tell how The Process moved from it's New York
headquarters at the end of the Son of Sam murders and relocated to
Atlanta, suggesting a link to the Atlanta child murders! (12) (I feel
compelled here to ask the obvious: how, in an age where we are beset by
a media that can uncover even the smallest details of the private lives
of our most prominent citizens and publish this information on an almost
daily basis, could a vast conspiracy to commit murder as alleged by
Terry, last for so long without more of the alleged "cult members" being
caught, identified and sent to prison?).

Unfortunately, and perhaps not so surprisingly, David Berkowitz has now
adopted Maury Terry's Global Satanic Cult Theory as his own and now
claims that he didn't take part in most of the shootings attributed to
him, which as I noted above, may in fact be true, but only on a somewhat
limited basis.

A recent A&E program, Investigative Reports: Son of Sam Speaks: The
Untold Story features Berkowitz speaking about his crimes and in which
he (and the show's producers) gives an almost verbatim rehash of Terry's
Global Satanic Cult story. Berkowitz, while being interviewed on camera,
speaks of the activities of a cult, and how it is "focused on the
upcoming millennium, when they believe violence and chaos will trigger
the end of the world."

Berkowitz also talks about how two gunmen were brought to New York
specifically for the Son of Sam rampage, but never reveals specific
details of their activities and/or tangible evidence to back up his
story, most likely because close scrutiny of these facts by law
enforcement would certainly dispel the Satanic Cult Theory which
Berkowitz is so desperately clinging to in hopes of perhaps bettering
any future chances with a parole board. Again, as noted above, I
personally believe that this may be a possibility that deserves to be
investigated further, but I also tend to believe that the two additional
gunmen, who may have been John and Michael Carr were already in New
York.

It is becomes obvious to the objective viewer that Berkowitz is being
evasive regarding specific questions put to him and is basically winging
it through some of the tougher parts of the A&E interview. He never
names any names when he has the chance to and after twenty years behind
bars, his religious conversion and the real possibility that he will
never again be a free man, why should he have any qualms about doing so?


In this author's letter correspondence with Berkowitz, I have found that
it is now almost impossible to get anything even remotely close to the
truth about his possible accomplices that does not include the Satanic
Cult angle. (Berkowitz was/is extremely hard to work with as he insisted
on discussing things with me only through a nearly impenetrable and
exasperating veneer that includes the Terry angle, his
ultra-fundamentalist Christian beliefs, his new persona as "The Son of
Hope" and seemingly as if I and everyone else is a potential member of
his future parole board).

Conclusions Anyone?

By far, the most rational and objective study of the Process is Satan's
Power by William Sims Bainbridge. Dr. Bainbridge was an assistant
professor of sociology at the University of Washington who studied and
lived with the Process for three years before, during and after the
Manson murders. He admits that the Process enjoyed projecting a wild and
even sinister image, but denies that the group was ever involved in any
organized violence or excessive anti-social behavior. Critics of Dr.
Bainbridge have argued that he purposely whitewashed the groups image in
his book because he was one of them!

Paranoia indeed strikes deep.

So what are my conclusions at this point? I personally believe that
Charles Manson did borrow heavily from the Process in forming his own
philosophy. His residence in Haight-Ashbury during the Process's stay
there was in very close proximity to the group. In my opinion, Manson's
curiosity could have drawn him to some of their meetings, which were
always open to the public and at the very least, he would have had ample
access to Process literature.

And as Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has noted, there are a number
of interesting parallels between Manson's and the Process Church's
philosophy. Here is his list, with a few additions of my own:

1. Both believed that a violent Armageddon was imminent and that it
would destroy all but 144,000 of the "chosen people", The Process called
it "The Final Judgement"; Manson called it "Judgement Day" or "Helter
Skelter".

2. Both found their basis for this belief in the Christian Bible's Book
of Revelations.

3. Both envisioned that motorcycle gangs would be the shock troops in
the world's last days and both sought to recruit them into their folds.

4. Both Manson and the Process referred to their groups as "The Family".


5. Both acquired the roots of their philosophies from Scientology; The
Process, as discussed earlier, was basically a splinter group from the
Scientology movemen in London; Manson studied Scientology and other
occult systems extensively while in prison. Much of the jargon and catch
phrases used by both groups came from Scientology.

6. Both Manson and DeGrimston believed themselves to be reincarnations
of Jesus Christ. Both Manson and DeGrimston's followers believed this,
as well.

7. Both held animals in high, almost worshipful, regard.

8. Both believed that they could recognize the "Seal of God" in the
foreheads of their followers; in Manson's case, he and his followers
carved X's into their foreheads, which were later altered into
swastikas.

9. Both sought communal living in isolated parts of the world; The
Process at Xtul, the Manson Family in Death Valley, California.

10. Both preached of the unity of Christ and Satan.

11. Both used a swastika-like symbol.

12. Both changed the names of their followers.

13. Manson often ended many of his lectures, both written and verbal,
with "As It Is", a Process term.

What all of this shows is that there is good circumstantial evidence in
part to back up claims of a Manson/Process connection, but that this
connection exists primarily in the philosophies of the two, and does not
prove a world-wide Satanic Conspiracy that includes the Son of Sam and
bent on murder and every kind of horror imaginable.

My reason for wanting to debunk many of these claims does not come from
any great admiration on my part for the Process Church; I personally
found their philosophies to be lacking in sophistication, sometimes
ridiculous, and at best, oddly curious. Rather I wanted to take away
part of the ammunition and one major propaganda tool from some of the
self-styled "occult experts" and conspiracy researchers who drag out the
Process in support of their Global Satanic Cult Conspiracy theories.

There is a tendency among people who have virtually no training or
expertise in the occult sciences to lump all slightly unusual religions
and practices together from a liberal use of the term "Satanism." In a
1989 report he prepared for the F.B.I., Special Agent Kenneth Lanning
writes:
"The words satanic, occult, and ritualistic are often used
interchangeably. It is difficult to precisely define Satanism (with a
capital S) and no attempt will be made to do so here. How ever, it is
important to realize how the word satanism (with a small s) is used by
many people. Simply put, for some people, satanism is any religious
belief system other than their own, The Ayatollah Khomeini referred to
the United States as the "Great Satan." In the British Parliament, a
Protestant leader called the Pope the anti-Christ. In a book titled
"Prepare For War", the author Rebecca Brown, M.D., has a chapter
entitled "Is Roman Catholicism Witchcraft?" Dr. Brown also lists among
the "doorways" to satanic power and/or demon infestation the following:
fortune tellers, horoscopes, fraternity oaths, vegetarianism, yoga,
self-hypnosis, relaxation tapes, acupuncture, biofeedback, fantasy
role-playing games, adultery, homosexuality, pornography, judo, karate,
and rock music. Dr. Brown states that rock music "was a carefully m
asterminded plan by none other than Satan himself." The ideas expressed
in this book may seem extreme and even humorous. This book, however, has
been recommended as a serious reference in law enforcement training
material on this topic." (13)

I welcome any new information regarding the Manson/Sam/Process saga,
and/or opposing points of view.



------------------------------------------------------------------------

(All Rights Reserved; this article may not be reproduced in whole or in
part without the express permission of the author).



------------------------------------------------------------------------

Links to the "Son of Sam" Letters:

Letter 1Letter 2Letter 3Letter 4Letter 5


REFERENCES (Cited in Main Article)

(1) The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack
Battalion by Ed Sanders, First edition, 1971, E.P. Dutton and Co.

(2) Satans Power by William Sims Bainbridge, 1978, by University of
California Press, Chapters 1-4. (See also The Process by Stephen Sennitt
(1989). NOX Press, 15 Oxford Street, Mexborough, S. Yorkshire S64 9RL,
England).

(3) The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation of America's Most Dangerous
Satanic Cult, With New Evidence Linking Charles Manson and Son of Sam,
Doubleday Books, 1987, Chapter Nine, "The Process"

(4) Satan's Power, pages 119-124.

(5) Satan's Power, pages 119-124.

(6) Satan's Power, pages 119-124.

(7) Satan's Power, pages 119-124.

(8) Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent
Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Bantam Books, First edition, 1974, pages
635-639.

(9) The Family by Ed Sanders, First edition, 1971, E.P. Dutton and Co.

(10) Apocalypse Culture by Adam Parfrey, The Process: A Personal
Reminiscence by R.N. Taylor, pages 159-171.

(11) The Myth of the Snuff Film from The Seduction of the Gullible by
John Martin, Procrustes Press, Box 134 West PDO, Nottingham, NG7 7BW,
England (ISBN 0 9522 510 1 9)

(12) Gear Magazine (Nov/Dec Issue, Volume I, Issue II); The Ghost of 77,
by Maury Terry.

(13) Satanic, Occult, Ritualistic Crime: a Law Enforcement Perspective
 by Kenneth V. Lanning M.S., Supervisory Special Agent, National Center
for the Analysis of Violent Crime, FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia,
October 1989.

Footnotes

(fn1) See "Giving the Devil More than His Due," by David Alexander from
The Humanist, magazine, March/April 1990. Mr. Alexander shows how many
of the self-styled "occult experts" have "created a lucrative
"information industry" selling what they claim are documented facts
through books, seminars, lectures, and tapes. In reality, what they
offer is little more than fundamentalist Christian dogma, the
aberrations of mentally ill individuals, the misdirected grief of
bereaved parents, and the fantasies of self-seeking opportunists
disguised and promoted as scholarship and criminology. "Satan-mongering"
is a growth industry promoting "information" on what is, by every
independent investigation, a nonexistent problem." "These are some of
the conclusions that were reached after an extensive investigation into
satanism and those who profit from it. Entitled "Satanism in America,"
the two-hundred-plus-page report is the result of a three-year study by
its principle author and investigator, Berkeley physicist Shawn Carlson,
who led a team of researchers under the auspices of the Committee for
the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER), chaired by Dr. Gerald
Larue, emeritus professor of biblical history and archaeology at the
University of Southern California and the American Humanist
Association's 1989 Humanist of the Year. It is the most exhaustive study
of its kind ever undertaken."

(fn2) Satan's Underground: The Extraordinary Story of One Woman's Escape
by Lauren Stratford (1988) was eventually withdrawn by the publisher
after serious doubts surfaced about the author's truthfulness and
credibility.

(fn3) Geraldo Rivera, was formally one of the most visible and vocal
spokespersons for the Global Satanic Cult Conspiracy theory, but
recanted and apologized on a December 12, 1995 edition of his show,
saying, "I want to announce publicly that as a firm believer of the
‘Believe The Children' movement of the 1980's, that started with the
McMartin trials in California, but now I am convinced that I was
terribly wrong... and many innocent people were convicted and went to
prison as a result....and I am equally positive (that the) ‘Repressed
Memory Therapy Movement' is also a bunch of crap..."

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

(Footnote Sources and Recommended Reading)

1. "America's Magic Cult of Ignorance", David O'Reilly, San Jose Mercury
News, 1993-AUG-8, Page 1L.

2. "Satanic Panic", Jeffrey Victor, Open Court, Chicago, 1993.

3. "Rivera's 'Devil Worship' was TV at its Worst", Tom Shales, San Jose
Mercury News, 1988-OCT-31, Page 11B.

4. "Inside The 'Satan Scare' Industry - The Devil Makes Them Do it", by:
Debbie Nathan, from "In These Times," a weekly newspaper based in
Chicago, at 2040 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60647.

5. "The Satanism Scare", University of Pennsylvania, by Gerry
O'Sullivan, Postmodern Culture, v.1 n.2 (January, 1991).

6. "Satanism: Skeptics Abound," by John Johnson and Steve Padilla "Los
Angeles Times" April 23, 1991, Page A-1.

7. "Giving the Devil More than His Due," by David Alexander from The
Humanist, magazine, March/April 1990.
=====
from:
http://members.aol.com/Labyrinth13/Main/Wheat.htm
My Correspondence With Wheat Carr

By Curt Rowlett



------------------------------------------------------------------------

(All Rights Reserved; this article may not be reproduced in whole or in
part without the express permission of the author).



------------------------------------------------------------------------

Writing any story that involves speculation can be tricky work. It is
always possible that one's data base is either incomplete, unverifiable
or in the worst case, simply inaccurate. Just prior to completion of my
article, "Charles Manson, Son of Sam and the Process Church of the Final
Judgement: Exploring the Alleged Connections," I posted a request for
information on several message boards on the Internet requesting
information in regard to the possible involvement of John and Michael
Carr in the Son of Sam murders, as has been suggested by Maury Terry and
others. Unfortunately, the article had already been completed and
published when I was contacted by Wheat Carr, sister of John and
Michael.

After reading my story, Wheat voiced her concerns that my position
regarding the allegations about John and Michael as having been involved
in the Son of Sam murders were nothing more than a repeat of Maury
Terry's inaccurate investigation. I acknowledged to her that I had
indeed relied on Terry's theories in conjunction with my own in that
particular aspect of the case, as there was/is not very much in the way
of reliable information. When I asked her if she would be willing to be
interviewed, she replied that she would answer any questions I put to
her "as honestly as she could." With the idea in mind that it was fair
and proper that she indeed be given the time and space to tell her
version of events, I suggested that I could submit to her a series of
questions to which she agreed. However, she asked that she be given some
time to think over the questions that I submitted to her and finally,
without giving any reasons why, Wheat declined to be interviewed.

However, in our exchange of e-mail, she provided me with some very
interesting information, which I have included here, although edited to
insure the privacy of her family members.

Wheat wrote to me in our e-mail exchange that no one had ever published
the fact that Berkowitz wrote to her family for months after his arrest,
detailing in his letters how:
"...he (said he would) get even by seeming to be born again and needing
to confess about the others involved. He even said that as wild as the
story would be, there would be people who believed it. He was right, all
he had to do is find the right guy. Nor, did Maury (Terry) bother to
follow up with the investigating officers who caused me more than a few
minutes loss of sleep when they were following the leads we provided
prior to the arrest that an individual who fit the description of more
than two of the sketches was apparently both stalking me and asking a
lot of questions in the neighborhood, a neighborhood where my parents
lived for more than 40 years at the time of the arrest and where we were
all well known."

I found her statement alleging that Berkowitz had preplanned to create
the false story of others involved in the Son of Sam murders to be
highly significant. That scenario would most closely fit the original
picture of Berkowitz as simply being a highly deranged, lone killer, (as
first reported in the papers at the time) who was so obsessed with
murder and causing the Carr family harm (it has been documented that he
did harass the Carr family and others) that he would even continue to
try and do so from his prison cell. (Such activity and acts of vengeance
from psychopathic persons and/or serial killers is not an uncommon
thing).

While I originally found the multiple shooters hypothesis to be an
interesting and perhaps even real possibility, the chance that Berkowitz
was simply a lone psychopathic serial killer is much closer to the known
"standards" regarding the behavior of such murderers and certainly a
more likely and tenable scenario than anything else that has been
hypothesized. And as such it would appear that Berkowitz, in a desire to
further cause grief and harm and to play the public and the media for
fools once again, simply latched on to Terry's ideas (or perhaps even
fed the original idea to Terry), embellished them along the way for his
own twisted enjoyment and the rest is history. One could envision the
perverse pleasure that a serial killer like Berkowitz would feel at
having had one last laugh over on the families and the public. Remember
what the killer wrote on the back of the envelope of the "Breslin"
letter: Blood and Family, Darkness and Death, Absolute Depravity, .44. I
believe this sums things up only too well; it would seem that it was
then and continues to be a case of "Absolute Depravity" on Berkowitz's
part.

In the last of our e-mail exchanges, Wheat's words in closing were: "I
am left to wonder what is it in our society that will not realize that
David Berkowitz is what he has always been: a very sick person bent on
gaining the spotlight and even if destroying others is the only path
there."

And that, I believe, are the truest words written yet on the subject
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris

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