Recently, there's been alot of buzz about football head injuries, especially with young boys, and the lasting effects. Then I was reading about TEX Watson and he really did play football. What IF he suffered a significant head injury in school - that may explain his absolute craziness at Cielo Drive, Waverly, and elsewhere. Just a thought that may deserve discussion.
YES, football players with past head injuries are violent and "killing" people. PBS did a whole show on the subject. IF TEX was actually affected, that could be huge news!!
40 comments:
Tex Watson suffered not so much from head injuries but from pressure from his mother and alcohol to stabilize his nerves.
His parents were petit-bourgeois who suffered from the 30s economic depression and wanted to climb the social ladder by him!
Then he went to university and quickly started with dealing drugs.
I see on his abounding love website Tex mentions that when he was arrested in April 1969 he was under the influence of Jimson Weed.
http://www.aboundinglove.org/outreach/or-027.php
"Once I ate the root of the jimson weed, a poisonous plant with large trumpet shape flowers, which almost killed me. This is where the wild man photo was taken of me under the influence of that plant, while in the Van Nuys County jail."
The possibility of a brain injury sustained playing HS football is thought provoking, IMO. You combine that with a small town boy being dropped into the Hollywood fast-paced lifestyle and add drugs, girls and Charlie?
I realize the "Post Concussion Syndrome" issue is so new most folks will have a hard time comprehending it. BUT the science is already here. AND our soldiers being blown-up in Humvies are also suffering from PCS. The NFL doesn't set aside hundreds of millions of dollars for an issue, because it is run by charitable businessmen. Even Pop-Warner football is now limiting physical contact in "practice" The PBS series is a must see. Rush Limbaugh says: Contact Football is eventually going to be limited. The legal issues are monumental.
YES, TEX was affected by drugs, so imagine your BRAIN banging around in a cage for awhile AND then, on top of that - YOU take your brain for swiming lessons in a pool of poison.
NOW that's a HIGH even the "Devil" could get off on.
PS: Candy: it's all about manufactured publicity.
Wow. Thanks, Robert.
Good post, Robert. In reading about murderers over the years I've come across a few who had suffered blows to the head before they began killing. I believe most of these blows were to the front of the head. The only one I can think of right now is Charles Starkweather. There were others.
Really? Now were searching for excuses for scumbag Tex and quoting Rush Limbaugh....... Ok I'm calling it, time of blog death, 12/30/13, 6pm cst. Elvis has left the building.
bye...
The serial killers Bobby Joe Long and Henry Lee Lucas both sustained head injuries. Oddly they were some kind of cousins.
a bit cavalier with your few remaining posters, ain't ya Matt?
I'm gonna stick up for nonbeliever here because I had the same exact thought - GRASPING AT STRAWS.
First there is no account or evidence whatsoever that Tex suffered any head injuries. And second, even if he had it wouldn't have made a fig of difference in the trial.
Isn't the definition of insanity something about making the same mistake over and over again and expecting a different outcome?
Why do people, 44 years later and still without one solid piece of supporting evidence, continue to try and rewrite TLB?
This is exactly what happens when you have no solid evidence to support your theories - you appear to be grasping at straws and the rest of the world views you as a fool.
Maybe you are not wanted here, nonbeliever - I know the feeling - but at least depart knowing that some, maybe even many, appreciate you speaking your mind. And the truth.
Leary, feel free to write a rebuttal. If it's good enough, Patty will post it here for you.
In the mean time, can she say that she thinks its kind of rude of you to take fault with Robert's post without offering constructive criticism. Because after all, this is supposed to be a team effort.
It's pointless Patty.
Leary is not content unless he is insulting someone or fighting with them, or both.
But, for the sake of diplomacy - and, yes, TEAMWORK - please do write a rebuttal Leary... I double dare you.
Is it possible that most folks never knew Mohamed Ali got his "brains knocked out" and that's why he acts like a head of lettuce. I only thought of TEX this way, because HE apparently was the only one who did the "killing" with some kind of crazy gusto. If you read the accounts very carefully, He was a one-man - mean - killing machine. The girls were not even needed and the fact that HE was the only man doing the "killing" at Cielo and Waverly, IF CM really did send HIM, he likely knew TEX was a "killing" machine.
Over a million persons a year get concussed in the US (really, 1.5M and that's a conservative estimate ). Many persons also play football at pee wee league, high school, college and even pro levels and also engage in sports where concussions happen. And many veterans suffer TBI. Therefore, we have respective patient pools to draw from: traffic accidents, fights, falls, sports injury, combat and many different sizes in each. But consider again that we have over a million people a year that get concussed, so we have lots of people to study if we want to determine whether there is a causative link between concussion and murder. So, we can test a hypothesis that TBI leads to mass murder as it seems to be being alleged here.
So, to test the hypothesis we might ask ourselves how many persons from these significant patient pools slaughter two households of people over a weekend or engage in less sensationalistic murder? Not just violence but actual and multiple murders.
It's a microscopic number in comparison to the number of persons in these pools.
And that's the problem with trying to link concussion or even repeat concussions (CTE) with Tex's acts. It's not enough to say killer X or mass murderer Y had a TBI earlier in life therefore TBI leads to mass murder. No. To truly examine whether there is a causal relationship one has to examine directionality in both dimensions (going forwards in populations not just retrospectively in single cases). In short, one has to ask why, if TBI leads to violence and multiple murders as it seems to be being alleged here, then why does it do so so infrequently and why does it not do so more often in the vast vast vast majority of persons who suffer a TBI?
The above is not to say that TBI cannot disinhibit a person or affect their thinking to where they may not be fully culpable for their actions but that sort of TBI is highly likely far more severe than your common concussion suffered on a football field and by over a million people a year. And even then, consider that there hundreds of thousands of severely traumatically brain injured person and that the base rate of murder is still microscopically low for this group.
A few out of the large pool of people with traumatic brain injuries die, a few become killers.I can't help but think there could be a link in both cases.
There is a press report that when his mother (Elizabeth) testified in his defense she claimed he had received at least three head injuries during his time playing football.
A link is not causation. Finding a causal relationship between two things requires a much higher level of evidence then simply saying some people who have TBI murder therefore TBI causes people to murder.
This is not to say TBI cannot diminish a person's self-control (likely this would be more severe TBI not concussion) but even then it does not cause a person to commit an act of murder and ultimately even if brain damage plays a role in legal proceedings it's to at best mitigate and lessen a sentence and very unlikely to dismiss guilt.
Getting offended just because someone mentions Rush? The man was just writing a post, and people start getting their buttholes all itchy. Calm down, man.
Leary, you have morphed from a nice man to the grouchiest old fart ever. Lighten up, RH was tossing out an idea for thought and discussion. For you over the last year or so discussion seems to mean shitting your pants publicly!
Rude, Patty??? I thought Matt's dismissal of non-believer was rude. I was just responding in kind.
As to rebutting RH, I gave that exercise up a long time ago. Pointless. Plus I thought I did so referencing the fact that THERE IS NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER of a Tex head injury. The azzhole wrote a whole book and his defense explored totally an insanity defense and yet the issue of a head injury was NEVER REFERENCED ONCE.
With all due respect, how can that not be "grasping at straws"????
Believe me, I would not have commented at all except that I felt strongly that Matt's "bye" was extremely snide. I don't like snide. Non-believer was the opposite of snide - he was blunt. Blunt I like.
Non believer made a snotty little comment and you just had to jump on the dog pile. Rude.
You weren't "sticking up" for anyone. You were being rude. We have plenty of readers and Patty works hard at keeping it that way. Yes, Patty is offended.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Is there any LEGAL proof that drugs cause "Brain Injury" ? If NOT why are certain drugs illegal ?
DOW CHEMICAL CORP
Yes Christopher, Tex's mother did testify to that effect.
Thank you, Robert. Obviously it's not a defense but can certainly be considered to be a piece that helps us understand the story a little bit better.
Richard Ramirez also had some sort of head trauma.
I may tend to agree with nonbeliever - to some extent. When someone "drinks" and then gets into a car and drives, he usually does NOT have any mental INTENT to kill someone else. BUT if he does kill someone - he sure is somekind of a "scumbag." That HE does NOT mentally comprehend the "causation effect" simply goes to the judical conclusion "he barely functions above the animal level." Thus, the real question should go to whether HE (barely human) should be allowed to drive a car at all. Then you have the question: Should someone - who purposely bangs his head against objects - be allowed to participate in public activities, where they might be a danger to human beings. Of course, there was a time when "drunk driving" was considered to be an "accident."
Oh, and YES, it can be discovered whether a person's brain is permanently injured (PCS), but we must wait until they die and the brain is examined under a microscope. Many retired football players are signing up now for this procedure to be performed after they die.
This is a real issue and Rush Limbaugh (being a football fan) realizes the legal ramafications are going to be great. Those functioning barely above the animal level (like TEX) will likely SEE this matter as being somekind of a conspiracy by wives to get their husbands away from the TV.
Ya know, this posting, for some reason, reminds me of the UT tower sniper, Charles Whitman. Of course, it was discovered that Whitman had brain damage from a tumor, not an injury. Tex Watson, I think, did a lot of damage to his brain from consuming Belladonna. I've read that Belladonna will make you bat-shit crazy with the most scariest, vivid hallucinations that can last a long time. Of course, I'm not making any kind of excuses. This is an interesting discussion. Too bad I can't stay in the discussion. There is more important things at hand, such as the Twilight Zone marathon on SyFy channel! Bye y'all! Have a great new years eve!!
Just to add fuel to the fire:
In an interview with documentary filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan for his film RFK Must Die, Sirhan's brother Munir describes Sirhan as being an incredibly gentle soul, the sort who would literally lead a fly out the door of the house rather than kill it. His career goal was to be a United Nations translator until, inexplicably, he suddenly found an interest in horses around 1965 and decided he wanted to be a jockey. That dream ended in September of 1966 when Sirhan fell, causing an injury to his head and the loss of nerve around horses that is required of a jockey.
Following his fall from the horse, Sirhan's personality seemed to change. The once sociable Sirhan became something of a recluse. In 1967, Sirhan mysteriously disappeared for three months without telling his family where he had gone. When he returned, he had developed a strong interest in the occult.
Here's the entire article:
http://www.sott.net/article/159511-The-Assassination-of-Robert-Kennedy-Part-5-Sirhan-Sirhan
To Gumba:
Thank you for sharing the Sirhan story. Back in the day Tobyann and I spent many hours with Mary Sirhan discussing her son Sirhan Sirhan. She was very confused as to why her son would do such a thing as the killing of Bobby Kennedy, except that she told the story of his troubled upbringing in Palistine. The Brain Damage effect is usually responsible for a "safety" valve malfunctioning. In other words, instead of "rationalization" controlling a dangerous situation, RAGE takes over immediately. Soldiers experience this more frequently than civilians.
A very kind and generous soldier I knew in the Army, beat a man to death in a bar. It was a "shitkicker" bar in Texas where us soldiers would go, but the cowboys always liked to start trouble. I wasn't there that night, but others described the scene as like a wild elephant on a rampage. Later HE couldn't understand why the Army was discharging him and threatened to beat the Captin the same for having him discharged.
Happy New Year to All
from Robert and TobyAnn
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/blog/2013/08/01/letters-from-prison-my-correspondence-with-manson-familys-charles-tex-watson/index.html
Thank you Chris, very appropriate article. I liked this part:
Watson conceded that his brain may have been abnormal at the time of the murders. Since he had been taking several different mind-altering drugs, he believes it possible they adversely affected his brain. He mentioned corresponding with a man who postulated that Watson suffered a temporary “chemical insanity” when he committed the crimes.
Given what Cybot pointed out about his parents, I thought this was quite telling as well:
He also writes that while his parents were caring, Watson “felt their love was conditioned upon my performance.” As a result, he had a “fear of failure” that he tried to medicate with alcohol and drugs.
LOVE conditioned on PERFORMANCE and the FEAR of FAILURE !!!!!!
Now YOU discovered the trademark of an entire generation.
Then ADD the ingredient of FEAR of DYING in a far-away rice paddy for NO good reason and YOU got "No FEAR of KILLING and nothing to lose" SEE my soldier friend in bar story above.
PS: Isn't it amazing what can be realized when "commenters" put their heads together instead of butting heads.
Exactly right Mr. Hendrickson. Thank you for an interesting talking point, despite what a couple of old grumpy guys with something to prove think.
At Watson's trial (some of) the psychiatrists who testified:
Dr Rolf G Scherman, testified he found no evidence of brain damage. he found "entirely normal brain waves when he tested Watson at the state institution earlier in 1971" Another UCLA neurologist did find brain damage, he said results differed because of different interpretation, ie. Watson's drowsiness from medication.
Dr Edward Eklund, Tex's attending physician at Atascadero, found no evidence of mental illness, his behaviour at all times was normal.
Dr vernon Bohr, court-appointed psychiatrist, testified Tex was incapable of forming intent or harbouring malice and his ability to pre-mediate was severly impaired at time of TLB. He seemed to be suffering from both organic brain damage and schizophrenic psychosis. He was a latent psychotic before he ever took drugs.
Dr John M Suarez: director of legal psychiatry at UCLA, testified Tex lost his identity, was a robot, a puppet, victim of a mental disorder long before he joined cult, and was in a delusional state during TLB. insecure, passive, dependent individual who had a disturbed relationship with his parents and a great need to please.
Diagnosing brain injury has come light years from where it was in the 1970s. Back then, for example, there were really no serious well-researched methods of examining whether a person was exaggerating or outright faking cognitive impairment and now there is. Point is is that if Tex was brain damaged in the 70's then he should be today and he and his lawyers ought to try to establish it and use this as a mitigating factor in reducing his sentence.
Thank you all for showing such an interest in my Brain Injury post. This is an issue that's only just beginning to touch the public. And probably only because it relates to FOOTBALL - the great American sport. Decades ago, lobotomies were performed and over a thousand year ago BRAIN surgury was performed. Most human beings understand that anything and everything a human does originates via a thought that comes from the brain. YOU can NOT even SEE an object - unless the thought of that object is in your brain. Why this issue is NOT talked about more and especially with regards to the MANSON case is simple: IF it does NOT make SENSE to you, it's about MONEY. Please keep the comments coming. There are alot of folks interested in the future.
It's brain damage to frontal part of head from playing football
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