-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
child of Satan, child of God
Logos International �1977
Susan Atkins
W/ Bob Slosser
Logos International
Planview, NJ 07061
ISBN 0-88270-229-7
--[1]--
10
THE RANCH
I walked out of the supermarket and headed across the shopping center parking
lot. The walk from our Topanga Canyon house had not been bad, but two
shopping bags full of groceries made the return walk look difficult. I
reached the road and turned to see two fellows in an old car slowing down as
they approached. They were smiling.
"You're headed back down the canyon, aren't you?" the driver asked. "Hop in."
"Yeah, I sure am," I said, reaching for the door. I had seen them before, but
didn't know them.
As the opening conversation lulled, I asked, "Hey, you two guys don't know a
place where about twenty people can live, do you?"
The one on the passenger side said, "You're with Charlie Manson, aren't you?"
"Yeah," I replied, "and we need a place to live. We're being kicked out of
our house. It's gotten too small anyway."
"Well, there is a place," the passenger said. "I'm not sure you can get in
there, but it's perfect for you guys."
I was excited. "Where is it?"
"Well, it's the old Spahn Ranch, an old rundown place that was used for
cowboy movies. I think the old Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies were made
there. It has a complete western town movie set right there."
"But who's there now?" I asked.
"It's not used for much of anything now. Old man Spahn�George�lives there
with a few cowhands, and they keep some horses for people to rent and ride.
It's kind of a mess, but there's a lot of room, several houses and barns and
other buildings. I think a few of the people from Topanga Canyon may be
living in some of the buildings out back."
"Where is this place?" I asked'.
"It's not too far, up at Chatsworth, up by Santa Suzanna Pass."
When we got to the house, I took them in to meet Charlie. He was
extraordinarily friendly and asked them several more questions.
"Sounds great, you guys," he said. "Maybe something will work out for us.
We'll check it out."
The two agreed to take me up to Chatsworth, north of the canyon, to look at
the place. They were right. It was perfect. It had some wide open fields,
lots of trees, and all kinds of gulches and hills-some rough and craggy just
like the wild west movies, some gentle. It was perfect. It was real nature,
at last.
The buildings were for the most part run down, in fact dilapidated in some
cases. The main building, the owner's house, was right in front. Behind it
was another house and some outbuildings. To the left was the movie set�a
western street, a saloon, several stores. To the side and behind the street
were a big corral and two barns.
Farther back behind the buildings was a cliff, running down to a creek that
crossed the property. Even farther
back, a perfect setting for the little western town were rough terrain and
woods, then the mountains. It was rugged land.
To the right, some distance from the main buildings were a sizable house and
some shacks. Hippies had moved into them, apparently with Spahn's permission.
After my enthusiastic report, Charlie went to see Spahn and apparently did a
masterful job of conning and manipulating the old man, who was nearly blind,
into letting us live on the property. He convinced him that we would fix the
place up in return for his letting us stay. And never missing an opportunity
for enticement, Charlie told George about his young girls, about how nice it
would be to have such pretty young women looking after him and meeting his
every desire.
When we showed up, Charlie drove the bus way-out back behind the hippies'
house, out into the fields, virtually out of sight. We camped there for some
time as Charlie steadily ingratiated himself into Spahn's favor, convinced
him the hippies were giving the place a bad name, and finally drove them out.
It wasn't long until we�a group ranging from fifteen to twenty-had taken over
the entire ranch, with the exception of George's house. And even there,
several of the girls moved in to take care of the old man and keep him
convinced we had his best interest at heart.
Part of the movie set, including the big saloon, was turned into a main
hangout for us. We set up a kitchen and used the saloon for our meals,
parties, and other family events. We slept all over the place, in beds,
sleeping bags, and whatever else would suffice.
It was a perfect place for us. We got along well with the cowhands and
managed not to interfere with the horse-riding business. In fact, we used the
horses a lot ourselves.
All seemed to be going well until, after several weeks, Charlie, for reasons
that were never clear to me, decided we should split up. I never understood
Charlie's reasoning in this. I knew only that he had fallen into one of his
erratic, dark moods. He seemed to feel that the family concept would never
work, that we were getting on each other's nerves, or that we just needed a
change of scene. It could have been simply another of his calculated
maneuvers to keep us shaken up, confused, and utlimately[sic] subservient to
him.
At any rate, under his direction, Mary, Pat, Ella, Stephanie, and I headed
north in the old black schoolbus. We rented a house in the little town of
Philo and launched a female duplicate of life at Spahn's. It seemed that I
was in charge-although others may have disputed this-and it was astounding
even to me how I could control people just as Charlie had. I was able to
mimic him perfectly. I could walk like him, talk like him, to the amazement
of all who knew Charlie.
The spookiest thing about it, however, was that I seemed to have the same
sort of mind control over some of the girls that Charlie had over his
followers. I found that I could actually read people's thoughts, just as
Charlie could. I knew what the other girls were thinking and was able to
manipulate and control them. I seemed to draw from them the same sort of
loyalty that Charlie, as mean as he sometimes was, drew from us.
Even some of Charlie's musical talent rubbed off on me. Just as he frequently
did, I found myself composing and singing songs that were uncannily
applicable to whatever situation we were in. The words and music just flowed
into my mind.
We were using drugs just as much as we had been at Spahn's, perhaps even more
so, and my similarities to Charlie were powerfully revealed to me during one
acid trip. It was late at night. Everyone was tripping. As I sat watching the
other girls, I was aware of other persons within me. I had often sensed that
I was in other people, but at that moment I actually saw the dark, indistinct
shapes within me. They were alive, moving, talking, laughing. I immediately
recognized them as the same beings I had sensed in Charlie. My imitation of
Charlie was perfect because we had the same things inside us.
One day I drove into San Francisco to replenish our LSD supply. While I was
away, a gang of high school boys from Philo raided our house and with threats
and sheer strength forced the girls to have sex with them. It was rape.
When I returned, the gang of seven or eight boys was still there. They were
threatening the girls further. But my roughness and confidence intimidated
them and I was able to entice them to stop by offering them acid. It was an
unwise move. They went wild, turning their energy and wrath on the house and
the bus. They literally tore up the bus, ripping out the insides, and
rendering it unusable. I was afraid they might kill us, but the rampage
attracted attention and before long the police arrived. They arrested the
girls and me on charges of drug possession and contributing to the
delinquency of minors. The boys were freed, but we were sentenced to three
months in the Mendocino County Jail, finally getting that reduced to time
already served while awaiting trial, plus probation.
Similar experiences for the other members of Charlie's group brought us all
back to Spahn's Ranch. None of us could make it for long out in the world. It
was a dangerous place.
Life at Spahn, although intentionally unorganized, developed patterns. There
were certain chores that had to be done, and most of the people accepted them
without grumbling. Not me. I was a constant complainer-just plain mean. The
assignments, of course, were ultimately dictated through subtle manipulation
by Charlie, but usually most individuals took certain kinds of work on
themselves without duress.
Some of the women cooked for the men, including George Spahn and the cowboys.
Some made beds, some washed dishes, others did laundry. All clothes were
washed in buckets and hung out to dry. Very seldom were they ironed.
Some were assigned the jobs of finding ways to get things we needed, usually
in the early days by panhandling, using a parent's credit card, and stealing.
We Manson girls were noted, for example, for our junkets to shopping centers
where we raided the garbage cans for discarded food that was still edible.
Most of us carry traces of acne and other problems resulting from eating
things that were less than wholesome.
Often the afternoons were quiet and slow, devoted to sleeping and lying
around. Of course, sex was a major preoccupation and love-making was apt to
occur at almost any time of the day or night. During more leisurely times,
games of every kind-checkers, chess, cards, and many varieties of word and
number games�might break out.
And, despite our professed corner on the world market of genuine love, much
time was consumed in arguments and squabbles and, frequently, petty gossiping
and back-stabbing. If they got out of hand, however, Charlie would always
move in and "suggest" solutions, which was tantamount to dictating them.
Dinner was an important time for us-the time when we overtly drew together as
a community or family. We all gathered in the movie set saloon, sitting on
the floor, the stage, chairs-some merely standing-and ate our evening meal
out of the same pot. Because of our numbers and the fact that so much
depended on our scrounging for food, our main meals usually took shape as
stews, rice dishes, bread, and coffee. Brown rice was such a main staple that
we bought it in bags of fifty or more pounds.
After dinner, we almost always smoked dope of some kind, getting high,
singing a lot, dancing, and making love, usually in couples, but frequently
in groups if Charlie could talk us into it.
During this period, my hair was returning to its natural dark-brown color
following the San Francisco bleached and frosted days, and it was growing
long. Standing nearly five-foot-five and weighing one hundred fifteen pounds,
I followed the fashion trend of mostly jeans and shirts, with an occasional
turn in a long granny dress or sometimes a short-short skirt with a tight
top. None of us wore shoes ninety-five per cent of the time, and no makeup,
but we were heavy into beads and jewelry.
We had reached the point of sharing everything, even underwear, although none
of us wore bras. Sometimes girls would stash things they particularly liked-
one girl was always trying to do this with underwear- but we would be
discovered after a few days.
Then, given a chance, I always preferred the sexier clothes. I wore pants as
tight as possible and, in other things, I strove for the clingy look.
We women made many of our clothes, following the lead of a new girl, Nancy,
who was an excellent seamstress. We could scrounge material and she could do
wonders with it. One thing we girls made that was special at that time was a
multicolored vest for Charlie. It was begun by Lynn, and then Nancy joined
in. One by one, all the girls made a contribution to it, except for me. I
felt totally inadequate in the embroidery department at that time, and
thought the whole thing was rather foolish besides. But I eventually felt
guilty about it and made a tiny patch, which someone later covered up anyhow.
The unspoken idea was that your contribution represented how much you loved
Charlie. As the last touch, we used our own hair and wove a hair lining and
hair tassels for it. It actually was beautiful.
Typical of the jealousy and rivalries among us, each of the guys decided he
wanted a vest like that, too, and picked out a girl to get it started. For
nonconformists, we conformed a lot.
We had just finished our evening meal, and joints were being passed around.
It was a relaxed time. Charlie was seated in a chair somewhere near the
middle of the saloon. I watched him for a minute as he began to warm up for
one of his "preaching" sessions. Then my eyes wandered over the group,
picking out the new faces. There was Tex, a quiet, rather clean-cut guy of
about twenty-one. His hair was getting long, but he still looked like the
college student he had been before he dropped out with just a year or so to
go. He was good-looking, and I immediately liked him.
And there was Bobby. It appeared that he had decided to throw in with us and
stop trying to go his separate way with his own family. He was still very
good-looking, although a bit scraggly right at that moment.
There was Leslie. At eighteen or nineteen, she had considerable mental and
emotional strength. She was smart, more than able at that early stage to hold
her own with anyone, except perhaps Charlie.
There were many more, Catherine, Clem, Linda, Old Bruce.
Charlie was talking. He was sold on the idea of reincarnation. "We are
ageless," he said. "We will never die. But nothing else is secure because
time is running out for the world. The end of the world is coming. Society is
killing the planet. Vietnam is just a part of it. And pollution, too. Society
is evil. Big business is evil. The establishment is evil. Time is running out
and we've got to get out into the country, into the desert, to live off the
land."
It seemed to make so much sense. There was hardly a head in the room that
didn't nod in concurrence, although later conversation convinced me that when
Charlie talked like that, we all heard different things. He spieled
generalities and we supplied the details individually.
"But despite this," he was saying, "we have to continue to live one day at a
time. You should have all thrown away your clocks and watches. That's a must.
There is no time. We're ageless. There is no time. Everthing[sic] is now."
Being stoned helped us to maintain this consciousness.
"Love is free," he went on. "Love just loves... Weareall one ... God is
everywhere and everyone is God ... Nothing makes sense ... There is no such
thing as no such thing. . . ."
The sentences all ran together, and my mind seemed torn and twisted as it
tried to wrestle with them, but to the twenty or more dropouts in that little
parcel of Southern California in the late summer of 1968, the year of the
assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., they sounded
like the greatest words of wisdom ever uttered.
In fact, many of the girls wept quietly as Charlie discussed the source of
his understanding. "This is not something I've wanted," he said. "It happened
one day in prison. The Infinite One just came into my cell and opened up my
head. He showed me the truth. But I didn't want it. I cried and yelled at
him, 'No. No. Not me.' But he showed me the truth."
It was an October evening, and I was more than seven months pregnant. Nearly
a dozen of us were gathered in the back house at Spahn's, getting ready for a
party with our supply of liquid acid. But Charlie and two of the girls were
giving me a hard time about taking acid since my pregnancy was so far along.
"Come on, Sadie," Charlie said. "Children are precious and you've got to take
care of yourself for your own sake as well as for the kid's."
But I wasn't convinced. I felt the warnings about drugs had for the most part
been lies
"Nothing's going to happen to me, you guys," I said, laughing it off. "You've
been giving me the best food for months and taking good care of me.
Everything's going to be all right."
Selfishness was in high gear within me. I wasn't going to miss out on some
fun just because I was pregnant. So I prevailed and joined in the acid party.
Little of a supernatural nature seemed to occur to me, but I did watch the
baby's form within my belly drop drastically. There was no particular
sensation, but the baby dropped.
Giving it little thought, I joined in the party, except for the love-making,
and we stayed up until dawn. I slept the whole day, waking in the evening
with considerable discomfort in my lower back. I got out of bed, but was
unable to stand for long. Finally I gave up and went back to bed after
refusing to eat the lunch one of the girls had brought me. I didn't feel like
eating. All night I tossed and moaned, waking early the next morning
exhausted and certain that my insides were coming apart.
I couldn't sit, and I couldn't stand. So I decided to walk, and for the whole
day I walked from the back ranch house up to the front of the ranch, back and
forth so many times I lost count. Some of the men saw me on the road and
offered me rides as they made their daily runs into town, but I couldn't bear
to sit. So I walked�and smoked marijuana almost constantly, trying to
alleviate the pain.
At one time, when I was near the front of the ranch, I asked one of the
girls, Sherry, to saddle an old mare for me, so I could sit on her. As crazy
as it seemed, I thought that straddling a horse might prove a way for me to
sit down. But the pain was intense. "Surely I can't go another two months
like this," I sobbed.
As evening came, I walked back to the ranch house and lay on the couch in the
big room, placing pillows under the small of my back. The women were
preparing dinner, and it smelled good for a while, but then I knew I wouldn't
be able to hold anything down. I was hungry and nauseous at the same time.
About seven o'clock, one of the men started a fire in the fireplace. It was
cheery, and everyone was in a good mood. Soon another party had evolved, but
I was really out of it, although I did manage to get a toke on every joint
that was passed around. I was desperate to overcome the pain, which by then
was coming from contractions, although I didn't know what was going on.
There were about twenty people in the room, the music was getting better but
louder, and the smell of marijuana blanketed everything. I couldn't take it
any longer and slipped almost unnoticed into an adjoining room. The wall was
paper thin, but I was away from the crowd. I soon was in deep labor and my
groans become louder.
Some minutes later, I was aware of someone beside the bed. It was T.J., one
of the guys. He was kneeling beside me. "The baby's coming, isn't it?" he
asked softly.
I began to cry. "Yes�and quick."
For at least twenty minutes he knelt beside me, holding my hands during the
contractions and then giving me a toke off his joint.
But Charlie interrupted this scene. He seemed angry as he entered, and told
T.J. to leave.
"What in the world are you doing?" he said, turning to face me. His voice was
sharp.
I looked at him, almost in panic. "I'm going to have the baby real soon."
He burst out laughing. "Aw come on, Sadie. You're not due for two or three
months."
"You're wrong, Charlie," I said in desperation. "It's coming now."
The anger returned to his face. "You're imagining things. Now knock it off,
and stop worrying about the baby. I need to shave. Will you boil me some
water?"
We didn't have a hot water tap in the back house, so I got out of bed, went
to the kitchen and began to boil some water. "He's never lied to me before,"
I thought. "Maybe he's light. Maybe I am foolish."
But as I stood in the kitchen for at least twenty minutes-our old stove
didn't put out much heat-the contractions came faster and faster. I managed
to pour the water into a wooden bowl, got a fresh towel, and set up a mirror
for him in the bathroom, and then, almost out of my mind, sat on the toilet.
As I relieved myself, I saw I had passed a lot of blood. I staggered to my
feet and into the bedroom.
"I don't care what you say, Charlie, the baby's coming now!"
I gasped for breath. "Charlie! T.J.! Mary!" I seemed to cave in.
Everything else came to a halt in the house. In my delirious state, it seemed
people were running in every direction. Someone yelled, "Play music for the
baby," and the guitars and singing started up again. I yelled for them to
stop, and there was silence, then a rising and falling hubbub.
The girls were all around me. Someone stroked my head with a damp cloth, two
held my hands during the contractions. They whispered softly to me from time
to time. At one point of great pain, I yelled for Mary.
"Thanks a lot," Charlie said sarcastically. Despite the agony, I heard him
clearly. He seemed to think he was the father and should be called first. He
was not the father.
At two o'clock in the morning, October 7, 1968, my baby was born-tiny, weak,
and transparent looking. His cry was a mere squeak. He was, in fact, the
smallest baby I'd seen, two months premature, but alive and well.
I heard one of the men�I'm not sure it was Charlie-tell one of the women to
bite the umbilical cord. "That's the way primeval man did it," he said.
"Besides, we don't have any clean razor blades."
The women took charge, however, and the cord was tied off with a violin
G-string, the only cat gut available.
Nancy took charge of cleaning up the child as others tended to me. I was
totally exhausted, but aware of a feeling I had never experienced. I felt I
had transferred all my life into the child's-and somehow it seemed a holy
glow engulfed me. I felt someone else present. It might have been the result
of the large quantities of drugs I had been taking for days, but my awareness
and perception were sharp, not drugged.
The baby and I were both treated to clean, fresh clothes and sheets. We had
all panhandled for money to buy the things that would be needed for this
special event. Tired, clean, and warm, my son and I went smoothly to sleep on
a bed placed near the fireplace just for us.
The next day, one of the girls called a doctor she had known, and he came to
check the baby and me. He said my son weighed only two pounds, yet every
organ was perfect. He instructed me to use a doll's baby bottle to feed the
child from my own milk.
Five days later, the women arranged for me to move with the baby to a nearby
religious mission and retreat house called the Fountain, where some of the
girls had stayed occasionally, hoping to obtain it someday for the use of the
people at Spahn's. I was granted permission to stay there as long as I would
help with the work.
So then the family had two children of its own-Mary's and mine. We eventually
named my son Ze Zo Ze Cee Zadfrack for no other reason than that at the torn
and twisted time it seemed like a good name. His name later became Paul.
11
HELTER SKELTER
When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide, Where I stop and
I turn and I go for a ride Till I get to the bottom and I see you again.
Do you, don't you want me to love you?
I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you.
Tell me, tell me, tell me, come on, tell me
the answer;
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.
Helter skelter helter skelter Helter skelter.
Will you, won't you want me to make you? I'm coming down fast but don't let
me break you; Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer; You may be a lover -but
you ain't no dancer.
Look out helter skelter helter skelter
helter skelter.
Look out, 'cause here she comes.
When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide,
And I stop and I turn and I go for a ride,
And I get to the bottom and I see you again.
Well do you, don't you want me to make you?
I'm coming down fast but don't let me break you;
Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer;
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.
Look out helter skelter helter skelter helter skelter;
Look out helter skelter;
She's coming down fast;
Yes she is,
Yes she is.
,,Helter Skelter"
Lennon/McCartney
The Beatles, 1968
Charlie obtained The Beatles' so-called White Album in late 1968. It had a
tremendous impact on our lives, especially Charlie's. One night when many of
us were playing records and listening to the album, Charlie said, "They're
speaking to me." He was convinced that he had some sort of apocalyptic
connection with The Beatles. I never fully understood it, but I knew Charlie,
our unchallenged leader, was deeply affected. And I and most of the others
believed that, in some way, "helter skelter"�the end of the world�was "coming
down fast."
But, as always, our pattern was inconsistent. We were running helter skelter
ourselves. For example, during this time we struck up a relationship with
Dennis Wilson of the famous Beach Boys. I was never sure how Charlie got to
know him. It undoubtedly had something to do with Charlie's own musical
aspirations, plus our constant need for money. But at any rate, we spent a
lot of time at Dennis' house on Sunset Boulevard. Large numbers of us lived
there for irregular, but sometimes lengthy, periods. At one time, nearly a
dozen of us stayed there, and at Dennis' expense, had thousands of dollars'
worth of dental work done. Because of heavy drug use and neglect, our teeth
were in constant disrepair.
I was never sure whether Dennis tolerated us because he liked us, or Charlie,
or because he feared us. But through him and others, we were often in contact
with well-known, respected people within the Los Angeles-Hollywood-Beverly
Hills community. We were great at crashing parties.
Charlie was preaching constantly about the end of the world and the need to
flee into the country, specifically into the desert. "We have to find a place
to live," he said. And he was convinced that the desert was the place. None
of us disagreed. We felt an intense pressure mounting on us, a pressure from
society, especially the police. We were a strange gang, and the police
watched us constantly. They knew Charlie was on parole, as were several
others. They also knew, but had trouble proving, that we were heavy into
dope, both using and, before long, dealing. They followed our bus frequently.
The least little safety violation�a burned-out light, for instance-brought
them down on us.
Large numbers of runaway kids were also showing up at Spahn's, looking for a
place to stay or hide out. They were from all over the country�New England,
the South, the Southwest, and up and down the West Coast. We felt an intense
pressure to help them lie low until the heat was off.
But most deeply, we felt that society was destroying itself but that we were
immune because we were in "the Thought." The early Christians had referred to
themselves as being in "the Way"; we were in "the Thought." We were tuned
into God�at least Charlie was, and the rest of us through him. But we
believed we had to fight to survive. "We have to survive above all things,"
Charlie said over and over.
We thus made many trips to the desert, taking the bus as far as it would go,
and walking even farther. We explored places all over Death Valley. I had not
known an area as desolate or impenetrable before. We had to have a way to
travel. Then we came upon the idea of dune buggies. They were to be our
solution.
We had a place in the desert to go finally. One of the girls, Cathy, was the
granddaughter of a woman who owned a place deep in the desert�Myers Ranch.
Not too far away, less than half a mile, was another place we believed we
could move into�Barker Ranch. But we needed transportation-dune buggies.
We launched an all-out program to get them. And this led us into serious
crime, which became like quicksand. We dealt dope actively to get money for
the buggies. Tex, during this time, became one of our main dealers. We agreed
on a plan to build buggies, using Volkswagen bodies but engines and parts
from other vehicles. This meant stealing cars, which we entered into on a
fairly modest scale. The parts we didn't use�a whole chassis, for
example�were buried out back at the ranch. We were very expert, and many of
the men who had either joined us or hung around a lot, were excellent
mechanics.
As our desperation mounted, we began using shifts and working around the
clock on the buggies. The rest of the world didn't understand, but we were
serious.
My loyalty to Charlie continued through all this, and probably heightened,
although there were moments when I wanted to leave. In fact, I did leave
several times, staying with some hippie friends in the canyon or others in
L.A., but I always returned. Several of the other people did the same thing,
but most of us, at least the core group, came back. We were hooked, even on
the hysteria.
Since the birth of my baby, Charlie had an additional grip on me to go along
with my addiction to his internal power, which I thought was from God. If I
got out of line, Charlie would subtly maneuver me to the children and go to
work on me about their security and future. He frequently became cruel,
manifest most horribly when he would take my baby by the feet and swing him
around and around high over his head and then down to within an inch of the
rocky ground. He was crazy at those moments. But a split-second later he
would seem to be full of love for the children, which he continued to think
of as gods or kings.
Despite his control over me, Charlie kept criticizing me for being too
independent and disobedient. He played me like a yo-yo, first hugging and
praising me, then demeaning me in some way.
One night in the desert, we were walking some distance away from the others.
He was dressed in a black cape and was rather subdued, moody. He abruptly
swung the cape around him and turned to me. "Sadie," he said softly, evilly,
"the trouble with you is you don't fear me enough."
He was wrong. I feared him deeply. But I was at the same time thoroughly
committed to him and desired probably more than anything in the world to
please him. My desire for his attention was an obsession. I was constantly
torn up with the thought that he didn't like me very much, which he kept
churning up within me by reminding me that I didn't like myself enough.
The ugliest turn in our course to that point came when Charlie thought he had
killed a black man. This sent a fresh wave of paranoia that gave us a vision
of all-out war between blacks and whites that was to usher in helter skelter,
the end.
Few of us knew any details, but we were told that Tex had been "burned" by a
black man in a dope deal. The black man-Bernard (Lotsapoppa) Crowe�was said
to have cheated Tex. I frankly assumed that Tex had ripped off the dope, but
regardless, Charlie ended up going to Crowe and ultimately shooting him,
leaving him for dead. In fact, Crowe was severely injured, with a bullet
lodged next to his spine, and was on the hospital critical list for eighteen
days.
Meantime, Charlie thought Crowe was a Black Panther and was dead. He was
terrified, figuring that the Panthers would come after us. To begin with,
Charlie hated blacks, and this only intensified his fear. He often said that
all the black men wanted was to get "the little white girls," while he,
Charlie, wanted to keep the race pure.
I believe most of the analysts of the Manson family and its crimes failed to
appreciate the impact the shooting of the black man had on future events.
Vincent Bughosi, the deputy district attorney who later prosecuted several of
us, in my view gave Charlie more credit for criminal intelligence than he
deserved. Bugliosi seemed convinced that Charlie was leading some grandiose
plot against the world, when from where I was, Charlie was merely reacting
for the most part to a situation that flew out of control. Initially, he was
reacting to the supposed killing of the black man. He already felt a
black-white "armageddon" was coming and then feared that the Crowe case might
trigger it. Charlie was not, in my opinion, trying to initiate the
black-white showdown, but was merely reacting to it.
To us, helter skelter was real. To the Beatles, their song was a takeoff on
the use of a slippery slide in a children's park, to which they added some
suggestive, primarily sexual, connotations. To us, it meant things were going
out of control in the world, and the end was coming. But we were reacting to
it; it was running parallel to our crazy circumstances. We were not starting
it. But we knew we had to survive it-out in the desert, for example, where
Charlie believed there was a "bottomless pit" in which we could escape the
apocalypse and perhaps return to show the way to a new world. This was all
very fuzzy, very tentative, very mixed up. But I am convinced that none of us
believed helter skelter was something we were going to direct.
I, for one, was somehow aware in my subconscious that things had slipped out
of control with us, but I did nothing about it. The feeling broke over me
when Charlie called us together one day. "You all know that they're after us.
The cops, the niggers, the establishment�they're all after us. And they'll be
cracking down harder and harder."
Everyone was grim-faced as we watched him. "I'm going to start carrying a
knife. Each of you might want to get one." That was always his way�a hint, a
suggestion, never a direct order to do something. "This Buck knife
here�that's a good one."
We watched him hold it aloft. "It's not too big, but it can do the job. You
might get yourself one and get it sharp. Keep it with you. We'll probably be
getting some guns, too, and we'll have to learn how to handle them."
"And another thing," he said, taking a few steps across the floor, "we ought
to establish a guard here. We need to put guards on top of our buildings
twenty-four hours a day. We can't afford to let them sneak in on us when
we're not expecting it."
I shook my head. "What is this?" I thought. "Twenty-four-hour-a-day guards;
twenty-four-hour-a-day shifts on the buggies; knives, guns?"
But that wasn't all. We needed more money. So we started stealing more. We
stole credit cards, especially gasoline company credit cards to meet our
soaring need for gasoline and mechanical parts for the dune buggies. I went
"creepy-crawling" with Linda into homes and garages-an expression that came
from me as we practiced and mastered silent entry into places, armed with our
knives, and moved about the occupied houses without being detected. Barefoot,
in old, dark clothes, deadly earnest, we became expert in burglarizing right
under the noses of the occupants.
The fear and thrill were exhilarating. I had always liked danger, although it
kept me close to hysteria and panic. Furthermore, I felt we were perfectly
justified in what we were doing. We were "in the Thought" . . . "in the now"
. . . "free from thought" "escaping from a doomed society. . . ."
Darting in and about the dark recesses of my mind was a thought that I had
trouble articulating, however. It flitted in between thoughts of knives,
creepy-crawling, stealing. It was a genuine awareness that something was
happening to the ingredient we had once talked about so much-love. "What's
happening to our love for one another and for other people?" I thought one
night in one of my more lucid moments, which were less and less frequent. I
felt a similar concern in a number of the other girls, but none of us put our
thoughts together.
Our thinking had turned to something like this: "We have real love-the kind
Charlie talks about. And we have to protect this precious love. We have to
protect it from the policemen. They are our arch enemies. Society is blind to
the fact that it is under the control of those same enemies. Society is in
fact one big prison yard, and the policemen are the guards. The policemen are
getting worse. We have to retaliate. We have to attack before we are
attacked. We need money to do this, but the money is ours. Everything in the
world is ours-the homes, the cars, the credit cards. People only think these
things are theirs. But nothing is real."
The Beatles' White Album-which, it must be understood, we were being immersed
in, along with consuming unimaginable quantities of drugs-had a song that
summed up much of our thinking. It was entitled "Piggies" and seemed to liken
the straight people of the world to pigs. It spoke of little piggies crawling
in the dirt, and bigger piggies in starched white shirts stirring up the
dirt. It criticized the unconcern of all the piggies about what was going on
around them and said they needed a "damn good whacking." And the final verse
told of the piggies and their piggy wives out for dinner, "clutching forks
and knives to eat their bacon."
We had a friend over in Topanga Canyon, on Old Topanga Canyon Road, who had
been kind to us in the last year. He had helped Mary with food and other
things for her baby. His name was Gary Hinman. He was in his early thirties,
big, husky, six-foot-two, with thinning, short-cropped hair, and a very
gentle spirit, a kind man, who practiced transcendental meditation. A music
teacher, he was a homosexual who was attracted to Charlie and Bobby.
One afternoon, Charlie came up to me as I was perched on a huge rock on the
street near the movie set saloon. No one else was within earshot.
"Sadie," he said, "you're not a front-line person. You're a behind-the-scenes
person. Why are you always trying to get in the living room? You belong in
the kitchen."
He paused. "If you want to do something important, why don't you kill Gary
and get his money?"
His eyes stared hard into my face. The tension between us was palpable. But
within me, I could hear the words, "I'll show him. I'll show him I can be
just as tough as he can."
The discussion ended abruptly for the moment. But two nights later Charlie
told three or four of us that the need for money was great. I wasn't sure
exactly what the money was needed for, except for dune buggies. But Charlie
told us that Gary had inherited $21,000.
"I want you guys to go get it from him." He spoke directly to Bobby, Mary,
and me. "He'll give it to you, I'm sure, but I want you to get it."
His earlier words drove into my chest. "Why don't you kill Gary. . . ." My
body was frozen. I knew I wasn't rational. "I'll show him," I had said. I was
out of control. I was a seared young woman. But somehow I sensed Charlie was
just a scared little man.
Sexy Sadie, what have you done? You made a fool of everyone; You made a fool
of everyone. Sexy Sadie, oh what have you done?
Sexy Sadie, you broke the rules. You laid it down for all to see;
You laid it down for all to see. Sexy Sadie, oh you broke the rules.
One sunny day the world was waiting for a lover. She came along to turn on
everyone; Sexy Sadie, the greatest of them all.
Sexy Sadie, how did you know The world was waiting just for you? The world
was waiting just for you; Sexy Sadie, oh how did you know?
Sexy Sadie, you'll get yours yet. However big you think you are; However big
you think you are. Sexy Sadie, oh you'll get yours yet.
We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table; Just a smile would
lighten everything. Sexy Sadie, she's the latest and the greatest of them all.
She made a fool of everyone, Sexy Sadie.
However big you think you are,
Sexy Sadie.
"Sexy Sadie"
Lennon/McCartney
The Beatles, 1968
=====
12
MURDER
Old Bruce let Bobby, Mary, and me out of the car and drove away. I looked up
at Gary's place. It was a two-story wooden house on the side of a hill, set
back off Old Topanga Canyon Road. Because of the hillside the first-floor
living quarters seemed to be on the second story, with a long row of stairs
leading up to it.
The three of us began to climb the stairs. I was scared. The summer sky
seemed very blue, and the hills were magnificent as my eyes swept across the
landscape. Sadness mingled with my fear. I was heavy and sad that late July
day in 1969.
Bobby seemed nervous but his natural arrogance compensated for it, and he was
as cocky and confident as ever. I thought of his competitiveness, especially
with Charlie. He was gripped with the need to prove that he could do anything
Charlie could do. He seemed to need to prove it to himself, to Charlie, and
to all of us. I knew he would kill to prove it.
Mary was quiet and brooding. I can only surmise that she felt much as I
did-afraid and sad. Gary had helped her retain her baby when authorities had
threatened to take him.
Bobby knocked on the door. After several seconds, Gary opened it and grinned
broadly at the three of us. I knew he felt more than friendship for Bobby,
but he had been a genuine friend to all of us.
We said, "Hi!" almost in concert. "Can we come in?" Bobby asked.
"Sure," Gary said. "Please do." He led us directly into the kitchen. "Sit
down," he said, motioning to the chairs around a kitchen table pushed close
to the wall in a little alcove, with just room enough for a chair on each
side. Bobby took the place next to the wall. Mary and I were on one side, and
Gary sat opposite us, cater-corner to Bobby.
Small talk continued for a minute or two, and then Bobby looked into Gary's
face. "We need money, Gary. Would you give us the money you have in the
bank-and your cars?" Gary owned a van and a car.
Gary's face clouded, but the smile remained. "I don't have any money in the
bank, or anywhere else," he said. "I'll give you all that I have, but it's
only ten or fifteen dollars."
Bobby's face was starkly emotionless, without a hint of a smile. "We know you
have a lot of money, Gary," he said huskily and barely audibly.
Gary stared back into Bobby's eyes for several seconds and moved as though to
rise from the table, but remained seated. "I think you'd better leave now."
Bobby reached quickly under his shirt and pulled out a gun�a .22-caliber
revolver. "You don't understand. We want your money!"
Gary stood up and in a flash Bobby reached across the table and hit him flush
on the mouth with his fist, knocking him to the floor. Gary spit out a piece
of tooth and rose slowly to his feet. Bobby scrambled from behind the table
and they began to fight. Bobby fired the gun once, and the slug splintered
the wooden cabinets on the opposite wall. He then handed the gun to me and
said to Gary, "I'm going to teach you a lesson."
They battled furiously, slugging and wrestling and kicking, all over the
kitchen, down onto the floor and then up again. Without thinking, I put the
gun on the table, and Gary immediately lunged for it, getting it ahead of
Bobby as they struggled. Gary broke clear and held the gun on Bobby and on
Mary and me. We stood absolutely motionless. The only sound was the gasping,
desperate breathing of Bobby and Gary.
Bobby began cursing me. "You dumb bitch!" he screamed. "Why did you let him
get the gun?" He blistered me, and I wilted close to tears, but held them
back, determined not to let my weakness show.
We stood there for several minutes. Gary obviously didn't know what to do.
There he was, threatened right within his own home. He had no place else to
go. His gentleness and sensitivity began to show on his face. He was a
pacifist in the truest sense, and clearly had no stomach for the madness of
that moment.
With tears in his eyes, he handed the gun back to Bobby. "I just don't
believe in violence," he said. "Here. You take the gun. I don't want it. Why
don't you just go? Just leave me alone."
Bobby took the gun and with it motioned Gary up one step into the living
room. Turning to Mary and me, he said, "You clean the room up and then fix
some coffee. We'll be in here."
I could hear Bobby trying to persuade Gary to give him the money. His voice
was low and gentle, then sharp and harsh. Gary insisted over and over that he
had no money.
Finally he said, "I'm tired, and I want to go to sleep." He lay on a couch in
the living room.
Bobby stuck his head into the kitchen and told me to go watch Gary. "I'm
going to call Charlie," he said.
It seemed less than an hour before Charlie arrived, accompanied by Old Bruce.
Gary was awake. He began yelling at Charlie, "I thought you were my friend!"
Charlie had a twenty-inch, razor-sharp sword buckled to his waist. I had seen
it before at the ranch. He pulled it from its metal scabbard and, without
warning, slashed the whole right side of Gary's face, from ear to chin. It
was a ghastly cut and blood spurted all over the room. Gary screamed and fell
back onto the couch, grabbing his slashed right ear. He was in terrible pain.
Mary ran to get a towel for him to hold over his face. The blood was
spattering everywhere.
Mary and I went back into the kitchen and Charlie followed us. I was shaking
all over and was terrified. "Take care of his wounds," Charlie said to both
of us. "Make him comfortable."
Then Charlie and Old Bruce abruptly left. I had no idea what was going to
happen. I'm sure none of us did.
Gary fell onto the floor and went to sleep, holding the towel against his
face. He frequently moaned, and occasionally deep sobs came from his throat.
Throughout that night, Bobby, Mary, and I took speed. One of us always kept
close to Gary, while the other two talked and dozed and listened to the radio.
Late in the morning the next day, I walked to the Topanga Canyon shopping
center to get supplies. I was in a stupor and hardly remembered going and
coming. I ran into some friends from the canyon, I remember, and they all
said I looked terrible. Fortunately, they couldn't see inside me.
I bought food, bandages, hydrogen peroxide, and dental floss. We had decided
to try to sew up Gary's face and ear with dental floss, although this never
materialized.
Back at the house, Mary tended to Gary's wounds, trying to clean them, but
infection had already set in. I prepared chicken and rice soup for him and
spoon fed it to him on the floor.
"Don't talk now," I said. "Just eat this so you'll get better." I continued
feeding him. He was unable to smile, but his eyes were filled with tenderness
and affection.
"Please give us the money, Gary," I said softly. "Then everything will be all
right."
He didn't say anything, continuing to accept the soup from my hand. He looked
directly into my eyes. "Sadie, you're an angel."
I couldn't take it any more. I finished giving him the soup and left the
room. I was on the verge of vomiting.
Several jumbled hours of indecision followed. I don't believe anybody knew
what was going to happen next. Bobby, Mary, and I tried to persuade Gary to
give us the ownership-registration papers for his cars. He wouldn't tell us
where they were.
Then we asked him again for the money. He persisted with his denials that he
had any. Then came more hours of indecision and waiting.
Late in the day-the second day-Bobby fell asleep and Gary made an attempt to
escape. But Bobby awoke as he neared the door and beat him horribly.
The second night was long. The three of us slept in shifts, and the confusion
and desperation deepened. Everything was unreal, surrealistic, in slow motion.
By early morning of the third day, we were convinced that Gary had no large
sum of money. We figured it was impossible to hold out as long as he had in
his condition if he was lying. But we continued to badger him for the car
papers. Finally, he told us where they were and, under Bobby's threats,
signed them over to him.
It was late in the afternoon of the third day. Mary and I were in the
kitchen. Bobby walked in and said quietly, "You two stay in here. I'm going
to have to kill him."
I stood facing away from the living room. I knew Mary was in the kitchen, but
I felt alone-alone and cold. I shivered.
>From the living room, I heard Gary's voice, "No, Bobby! My God!"
I couldn't stop myself. I ran into the room. Gary was standing, holding his
stomach, and Bobby clutched a knife. Gary lurched toward the bathroom off the
living room. He stayed only a few seconds and came back into the room. I
couldn't believe what I was seeing. Gary was obviously mortally wounded, but
we were all standing or moving around. Reality had vanished. A dark brown
color had settled over everything. We all seemed transparent.
Gary eased himself down onto the floor and lay on his side with his legs
pulled up, still holding his stomach, moaning and sobbing. Bobby went to him
and stabbed him again.
Turning to us abruptly, with absolute blankness in his eyes, he swept his arm
across the room. "Get a sponge and go through and wipe everything clean," he
said. "Don't miss anything."
I looked out of the corner of my eye at Gary. He was dying.
Mary and I did as we had been told and then began packing everything we had
brought-food, first-aid supplies-into a big brown paper bag. Suddenly we were
moving quickly, scrambling. The slow motion had turned to double time, like
an old Charlie Chaplin movie.
We decided on a plan to throw confusion into any police investigation by
making the murder look like the work of revolutionaries. Bobby used a glove
to write "political piggy" in Gary's blood on a wall of the living room. Then
we checked everything over one last time and went out the door, locking it
from the inside. As we turned to start down the steps, we heard a noise from
inside. It was Gary. He was still clinging to life.
"We can't leave him like that," Bobby said. The panic in his voice clutched
at my throat. He then went to a side window that had been left unlocked and
went back into the house. He was inside several minutes, and the hysteria
grew. Mary appeared to be near to collapsing. I feared I might begin
screaming.
Bobby stepped back onto the small porch. "I had to smother him with a pillow."
We took one of Gary's cars and drove away in silence. Bobby said he'd return
for the other one. It struck me that that didn't make sense. We should have
taken both cars, or left both of them. But they were in Bobby's name then.
Chaos overpowered any rational thinking and we sped away.
In Chatsworth we stopped at a small restaurant where we removed all clothing
that showed bloodstains and dumped it in a large outside trash receptacle,
along with the supplies we had taken.
Then, fighting desperately to control ourselves, we went into the restaurant
and ordered coffee and pie. Bobby's eyes were steel blue once again as he
turned to me midway through the pie and said flatly, "I should have killed
you too, Sadie, for letting him get the gun."
It was nighttime when we arrived back at Spahn's Ranch
I went immediately to the back ranch house where everyone seemed to be
asleep. I crawled in alongside Ella and Sandra, whispering to Ella as I lay
my head on the pillow, "Gary is dead."
The next morning, Ella and her man, Bill, disappeared, taking a truck and
some camping equipment. Things had apparently got too far out of hand for
them. They were not the only ones to leave during those crazy days. We had
grown to about twenty-five steady people, with a core or inner group of
fifteen, and many were not prepared for the sort of violence that was
unfolding. Even a handful from the core group decided to leave.
Through all this uncertainty, Charlie continued to use "his girls" to attract
male followers. He made extra efforts, some successful, to attract motorcycle
gang members. They were free and tough, and Charlie both admired and feared
them. But not many wanted any part in what we seemed to be driven to.
We took Gary's van way out back at the ranch so it wouldn't be seen. But
Bobby felt it was not good for him to hang around Spahn's, so taking Gary's
other car he left to let things cool down.
I was scared to death at this time. Mary and I decided we should stay in
hiding during the daytime and only move around and mix with the others during
the night. I was beset with the fear that I would tell everything if I was
caught by the police. All of us were thoroughly programmed not to talk if
caught, but I had an overwhelming tendency to blurt things out under pressure.
Even then, I knew the cause of this weakness. Part of it was fear and part
was pride�the desire to prove myself to be something special, a bigshot.
Throughout all those days, I was consumed more than ever with the desire to
"belong." I was becoming more and more possessed with the fear that I was not
accepted. In fact, however, it seemed that the others saw me as strong and
tough. When the others were practicing with the guns we were acquiring, for
instance, Charlie said I didn't need to practice. "You're strong enough to
take care of yourself," he said.
Despite my huge fears and weaknesses, I was being perceived as strong because
of a power within me that was not mine. Charlie recognized this power and,
even though I was sure he didn't really like me, he admired this strength
because it was just like his. Over and over, he told me, "You have power,
Sadie. You're strong, tough. You're a leader. You know what to do." But he
only told me this when we were alone. In front of others, he degraded me. I
know now that his motive was to lift the other girls up by putting me, a
strong one, down. He played yo-yo with all of us.
During this period of chaos and confusion, especially after Gary's death, we
underwent hours and hours, nights and nights, of lecturing and indoctrination
by Charlie. He was more intense than I had ever seen him.
"Helter skelter is coming down faster and faster.
The veins stood out on his neck as he declared this time after time. "We must
survive. We have to kill or be killed . . ."
And he spoke repeatedly about the need to escape to the desert.
"Those people out there in the world-they are so busy running for the
almighty dollar, they don't have time to just sit and be with themselves to
get in tune with the One. They are like robots programmed to work those eight
hours a day, all caught up in their little worlds, like living in little
boxes, waiting to die, every one of them racing along those freeways to their
doom. Even if they could stop and take a look at themselves, they wouldn't be
able to accept what they see because of the guilt they carry around. They eat
cows and animals and tear down trees and all the things this planet gives us,
and don't put nothing back into it-selfish and greedy robots.
"With their bombs they think they're going to blow it up one day. Not as long
as I'm around, they'll never blow it up; they'll never blow it up. . . ."
He stopped and then broke into one of his songs, and we picked up the chant
with him, "Garbage dump, my garbage dump, the world is my garbage dump, the
world is my garbage dump. Garbage dump, oh garbage dump, that sums it up in
one big lump. You could feed the world with my garbage dump, you could feed
the world with my garbage dump, that sums it up in one big lump."
We all laughed and passed joints around. That seemed to be the only way we
would get a handle on what Charlie was telling us. But, before our attention
wandered, he took the floor once again and pressed on with his monologue.
"Guilt. Look at guilt. What is guilt anyway? It is just something mommy and
daddy put in you to control you to do what they wanted you to do. If you
didn't do what they said, you felt guilty about it. Well, listen, I've told
you this over and over, right from the beginning, there is no such thing as
guilt. You don't got to do what mommy and daddy say to do any more. You are
your own person, and you just do what you want to do. Do what you do, and
don't think about it. There is no guilt!" He shouted it. "Guilt is all in
your head. It is an illusion. It isn't real. Everything you see is an
illusion, a figment of your imagination. You create the world you live in.
You are what you see. Get outside yourself and look back at yourself, and you
will see that even you are an illusion. There is only One, and we are all
part of that One."
I watched Charlie carefully. We all did, hanging on his every word. "But does
it make sense?" I asked myself, taking a toke on a joint. "Sometimes it
doesn't seem to make sense." But then I laughed. Charlie had the answer for
that, too. He was forever saying, "No sense makes sense."
On August 6, a couple of days after Bobby had left, we received word that he
had been arrested and was in the Los Angeles County Jail. His knife had been
found in the trunk of Gary's car that he was driving.
Instantly the atmosphere at Spahn's tightened even more. We figured it would
be only hours before the police came down on us. But, additionally, we all
were affected by Charlie's obsession with getting Bobby out of jail. Bobby
had been driven by a need to prove himself as tough as Charlie, and now
Charlie was possessed with the need to prove his loyalty to his "brother," to
die for him if necessary.
"He's our brother," Charlie almost shouted to a small gathering of the core
group. "Our enemy has him in its territory and we have to get him out!"
I had never seen him more determined. His eyes seemed to burn. I, meanwhile,
sensed doom. I felt a great cloud�a huge, gray blanket�beginning to fall over
me. But Charlie's loyalty touched a similar spark in me, and I forced myself
to join in the round-the-clock sessions to find a way to free Bobby.
Out of all the confusion and the mass of words, the constant use of drugs,
came a vague sort of scheme to try to convince the police that Bobby could
not have done the Hinman killing. It was a plan for "copycat murders" that
would make the police believe they had the wrong man in jail since similar
"revolutionary" killings were still taking place while Bobby was behind bars.
In our crazed condition, we convinced ourselves that the police would be
forced to release our brother and we would all meet in the desert to begin
new lives free from the world and its problems.
Vincent Bughosi, the prosecutor, later totally rejected this theory and
remained convinced that the Manson Family had had a wild and massive plot to
bring about Armageddon and flee to the bottomless pit in the desert, from
where Charles Mans on-sometimes thought of as Jesus Christ�would one day be
summoned to lead the world. It is entirely possible that some in our
group-perhaps including Charlie himself-had in our satanic state slipped into
such ideas. But to the best of my understanding,' the copycat plan was the
primary motive behind the most horrible rampage of killing and human
destruction in California history�the Tate-LaBianca murders.
pps. 97-134
--[cont]--
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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