Eviliz Tour 2012 - Day 3

DAY 3

TRONA

First stop on the way to Ballarat was the former home of TJ Walleman in Trona.

(photo taken at Marc's request. lol.)

BALLARAT

Next stop, Ballarat.

This is the Ballarat General Store

This is Rocky the caretaker and Grump

We gave Liz some private time with Bobby's Power Wagon

Patty, Matt & Liz in front of the Power Wagon

Close by is a cemetery for old miners.

Seen here is Seldom Seen Slim.

Shortly after after our arrival we were met by Sgt. Paul Dostie

Sgt. Dostie and Buster

At the Ballarat cemetery Sgt Dostie demonstrated for us how Buster finds graves. 

Buster chose the two spots that had the highest composition of "Volatile Organic Compounds" (VOC's) which are produced by human bone decomposition. 

ON TO GOLER WASH

The mouth of Goler Wash

The only really difficult spot to pass is a spot called "the waterfall". It was mostly dry on this morning but it's no easy task to get even a four wheel drive over it. We had three!

We helped get some dune buggies over the waterfall by moving around some rocks, etc. They then in turn helped us get the first of our three vehicles across. Funny story: Later on in the day these folks in the buggies arrived at Barker's and listened to the stories with great interest. Long story made short, we have some enthusiastic new readers!

The Newman Cabin. Located about half way up Goler. 

It was frequently used by the Family.

BARKER RANCH

A few shots of our inspection of the main house:

THE SUSPECTED GRAVE SITES

Sgt Dostie, Buster and others have identified five possible VOC "alert sites" around Barker Ranch. They are referred to as: Buster 1, Buster 3, Buster 4 and Ness 1.

Four of them are believed to be grave sites, the other (Buster 2) is believed to be a "scent pool" since it is located just downhill from Buster 3.

Sgt Dostie with Mr. Patty at VOC site "Buster 1"

Sgt Dostie with Mr. Patty at VOC site "Buster 3"

Sgt Dostie with Mr. Patty at VOC site "Ness 1"

Sgt Dostie explains VOC site "Buster 4". It is located close to the front porch of the ranch. This one is particularly strong. It is speculated that it contains two young men killed with swords by two male family members. This may be why Robert Hendrickson said he could smell death while at the front door!

A bit of explanation is in order. Excavations on Barker's Ranch have come up "empty" by the authorities. The problem is this:

Desert flash floods are caused by rainfall having nowhere to go after being deposited. Most people think of the desert as being sandy and very absorbent; which it largely is. However, when water is deposited in desert elevation, it wants to take the path of least resistance to a low point and often that path is not soil percolation. The surface water accumulates in low volume streams that act as tributaries to larger creeks which act as tributaries to washes which funnel all of the water. This water evacuates from the higher elevation at a great volume and velocity and picks up sand, rocks, boulders, vehicles, houses, busses, helter skelter trucks, trees, brush, old wash deposits in its path; as much as the water volume can sustain. This water is ejected out of the wash and the deposits fall out of the water as the water velocity slows; depositing the heavier objects, first. Washes can be large enough to build homes in or small enough to walk across in a few footsteps. As the water continues its journey, the deposits left behind create alluvial fans. These fans shift and move with each incident of water evacuation and the subsequent debris left behind.

The point is, that the 3- 3 1/2 feet that was excavated only reached down to where the topsoil was in 1969! Charlie learned early on in prison that cops will only dig 6 feet. He has admitted in recorded telephone conversations that the Family buried these people at least 8 feet to avoid detection by police digs. With the alluvial deposits described above, law enforcement would have needed to dig 11 feet to find these remains. They stopped at less than 4 feet!

The "Helter Skelter Truck" located in a gully behind Barker Ranch.

It is also a Dodge Power Wagon.

The group with the Helter Skelter Truck

Curiously, somebody moved the Helter Skelter Truck. It used to be in a mostly buried state here, where you see the tire.  Someone (fairly recently) dragged it down to where you see it farther down the hill.

MYERS RANCH

Myers ranch is is nicely maintained. The pool looks usable and irrigation hoses feed young trees and shrubs around the house that will eventually become great shade.

The main house

The Myers Ranch pool

The Myers Ranch pool and a side building

Eviliz Tour 2012 - Day 2

DAY 2

Today we headed out to Death Valley. Since we are in Nevada the first stop for the Eviliz crew will be the Devil's Hole. It is located surprisingly close to Pahrump. The final five miles or so are dirt roads, but not too bad as far as dirt roads go.

The Devil's Hole is not in Death Valley National Park. In Fact, it's quite a distance from it. In looking at the maps we all came to the same conclusion: Charlie really covered some ground!

The actual Devil's Hole spot itself is a scientific place of importance because of the small population of prehistoric pup fish that live there. It is in fact the only place on Earth where they exist. For this reason it is fenced-off but you can still stand almost directly over it.

To go down in 1969 would have taken robust young people. It's quite a climb and quite a drop to the bottom if you were to fall. On this day the bottomless pit did not open.

The drive into Death Valley was beautiful. It is however, long. Our second destination for the day was to get to Father Crowley Point. In order to get there we would pass through places like Furnace Creek and Panamint Springs. Both places are very isolated, but each has a nice restaurant or two which we took full advantage of. Crossing the mountain ranges took us to elevations over 5000 ft where we needed jackets. But Furnace Creek is some 500 ft below sea level and it was HOT. We couldn't imagine how hot it gets in August. Oh, and gas was a little pricey in Furnace Springs, but luckily for Mr. Patty and I, the ale was cold.

We finally got to Father Crowley Point. When we first arrived the wind was really kicking. Grump and I both thought we heard a train coming. On the second hearing we realized it was the acoustics created by the winds churning between the mountains around us!

Of course you all know that this is the spot where Fillipo Tennerelli's car was pushed over the edge after his murder in Bishop, CA. It is one of those incidents that fits the Manson pattern but was never proven. FCP is like being at the top of the world. The view of the Panamint Mountains and Death Valley below are spectacular. It gives a vantage point to see the route that Charles Manson sought to find to bring the Family to its desert hideout undetected by not traveling on public roads. The expanse of this area kept ringing home the same thought: Charlie and the Family really covered some ground!

We decided to bunk in Ridgecrest, way to the south but a town that has modern amenities and is relatively close to tomorrow's destinations - Ballarat, Barker's & Meyer's Ranches! Upon examining our map we concluded that we had time to hit Olancha - the site of the Family's staging area, Hannum Ranch and of course the spot of yet another Family related but never proven murder - Karl Stubbs in 1968. Olancha is quite close to the mountains beside it. The Spring runoff makes it plush and green compared to what we had seen all day.

The Karl Stubbs house

TOMORROW, BARKER'S RANCH!!!

Eviliz Tour 2012 - Day 1

DAY 1

Ok, so we're in Vegas for like 1 minute and Liz nearly kicks someone's ass under the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas " sign. I kid you not. Some entrepreneurial young lady was accepting tips to take pictures of people at the sign with their own cameras. Well, she and Liz don't see things eye to eye and we're already trying to decide if we can work bail money into our budgets. This whole thing is off to a typical Eviliz start!

Liz and Grump at the Titanic Exhibit 

at the Luxor - Las Vegas, NV.

Matt chose to avoid cheezy photos at the exhibit.

Mrs Matt was having none of it - she hit the Luxor Casino

The Grump and Apollo Grump

After the Patty's arrived we had dinner 

at Sheri's Bordello, Pahrump, NV

L-R (The Pattys, The Matts, Liz & Grump)

The rest is classified information, sorry.

TOMORROW, THE DEVIL'S HOLE!!!!

Some More Mary

Not exactly a close-up, but hell, it's Mother Mary...

This one looks like the original found by SCR's Paulina
without the cropping and expanding.

Linda Kasabian

Another find from Racestarr

Geographic analysis of Guerneville concerning James Willett

Being driven by minutia and trivia I thought some geographic analysis of Guerneville was in order.  After all, California has experienced a blossoming population growth since the end of WWII and many things have changed in a few years.  I gave up trying to convince some younger types that Disneyland was once surrounded by orange groves and Knott's Berry Farm had free admission.  Suggesting what travel was like when Nevada had no speed limits and the Interstate system was just oddly scattered fragments of road, places me in the category of liar or overdue to be processed into some sort of gasoline.  But I'm comfortable with it.

Thanks to the miracle of the internet a person can make a virtual time machine and see into the past.  Well at least on a map.  The USGS has a site that one can download historical maps from various years.  These maps are extremely detailed and include roads, trails and building footprints to name a few features.  So what did Guerneville look like 40 years ago you ask?  Astonishingly similar to today's representation by comparing the same area side by side in the attached file.

This area is over one and a half square miles of terrain south of Guerneville.  This 'should' enclose the murder site of James Willett, if the news articles were remotely accurate.  Virtually every feature on the 1971 map is identical to the modern version today.  One can see the same road network, structures and infrastructure which 'should' limit errors and extra assumptions.

The articles variously called the gravesite an 'old road' and 'trail' about half a mile south of town.  The only road which could meet such a description is Mays Canyon Road which is outlined in blue on the 1971 chart.  Circled in red is the location of Parker's Resort which is on the northwest corner of a square mile section outlined in red to give a sense of distance and scale.

The magenta lines represent un-improved roads which could be characterized as 'old roads' perhaps.  The black squares represent structures which could be storage sheds, garages or occupied dwellings.  This is a resort area and the Willetts and 'friends' were there in the beginning of the off season when the overall population was likely at a low, along with the prices for accommodations.

The only other thing I could imagine being described as an old road or trail could be the easement cut for the power lines which is marked in yellow.  These are the sort of things that easily pass through our visual filters since they are so commonplace, even in the middle of wilderness areas.  This is pure guessing on my part and has been associated with zero reports or articles.

Adding to the possibilities is the road Panamint and Beef Patty researched which appears to lie between the power line and the second unpaved road on Mays Canyon Rd.  Considering the number of structures associated with the other roads would make them less likely, but the actions of Monfort have rarely aligned with intelligence or thought.

The bright yellow 'pipe gate' has a BLM and Forest Service look to it along with the oddly placed 'Jersey barriers' indicate this is the hand of your government hard at work where Patty took her photo.  The fact that trails and water tanks are mapped religiously by the USGS and this road being missed is quite the find and a reflection of the attention to detail which Panamint and company have given this subject.  I for one am impressed and believe the area identified on the blog is an extremely good fit to the description.  At least I can't find many other options.

Contributed by Farflung

Happy Earth Day

Thou shalt honor thy mother. Now, get out there people, and plant something/clean something/admire something green. :)

The Joy of Hooking by Virginia Graham

Recently while compiling a list of currently active sites about The Family and their victims (see http://www.eviliz.com/2012/04/blogs-and-sites.html), Patty was compelled to purchase a copy of Virginia Graham's literary masterpiece after seeing it on Cielodrive.com.

Patty was disappointed in some ways because there's not a lot of information about The Family in it aside from what has been written about before: Virginia almost rented the house on Cielo Drive, Virginia knew Frank Sinatra and remembers Sadie talking about killing him in a gruseome way. Nevertheless, Patty was enthralled with the kitschy 70's soft porn (Bow chicka-bow bow!) and the character Virginia presents herself to be. Furthermore, there were little hidden gems like the dedication on page 5:

"The world has talkers and doers. This is for the doers and, like Dr. Vera Dreiser and Iris Knapp, the superdoers, whom I sincerely admire and respect. I dedicate this book to you."

Now y'all know where the Vera Dreiser we've seen around got his or her nom de plume. Interesting, no? On page 244, Dr. Dreiser is described as follows:

"I put in a request to be transferred to a unit run by Dr. Vera Dresier, a niece of Theodore Dreiser"

 (Patty's note: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dreiser) . She was about 5'7" and weighed almost 250 pounds, a real big momma but a sharp dresser and a great woman. She was the only staff psychologist for the 900 women at Corona."

Another fun fact: Virginia's husband Carl Moreno became Ronnie Howard's significant other after he divorced Virginia. Carl was a bit-part actor who appeared in films starring Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn, according to Virginia on page 28. He was a friend of Marlon Brando's and was also present when Ronnie gave her interview to Robert Hendrickson, the transcript of which can be found in his book, "Death to Pigs." In that interview, Ronnie claims that she alone is entitled to the $25,000 reward that Virginia also talks about in this book as being rightly hers. Apparently, both women felt individually that she alone "broke the case."

When the book was published in 1974, Virginia was 42, had jumped town and was in hiding. By 2008, she was back in the spotlight when she testified against Susan Atkins' petition for compassionate medical release from prison in 2008. She will be 80 in December of this year if she is still among us, and Patty has not heard otherwise.

And another Mary pic: courtesy of LadyNoel

Friend of the Blog LadyNoel from The Helter Skelter Forum (see http://www.helterskelterforum.com) has forwarded this additional new Mary pic for consideration by you, The Evilist. Thank you Lady, you da bomb.