According to Deemer's list Mark Ross was born Feb. 27, 1945 and had addresses in New York and the now well known 28 Clubhouse Dr. Venice CA address where John "Zero" Haught died. According to the article below the way Ross, aka Y L Freeman, tells it, he was living at Spahn Ranch in 1968 in the house at the back ranch with John aka Crazy Jake. His story in Argosy is at odds with what Paul Watkins wrote in "My Life With Charles Manson" chapter 23, which says that when Paul came back to the Family after Manson was arrested in Inyo County that Ross was a newcomer to the Family. Some sources say that it was Ross who arranged for Laurence Merrick and Robert Hendrickson to film the Family for the movie "Manson". I'm not sure if that is true.
First of all Crazy Jake in the Argosy story is not really Crazy Jake but Irwin Kaufman Friedman aka Johnny Friedman and later Partee Friedman the masked man on Geraldo's Family reunion show. Friedman was originally from New York, he was an artist, travelled extensively, also married extensively and begat lots of children. He and his second wife, Patricia aka Holly, raised Ivan Pugh, Sandra Good's son with Beausoleil. Partee Irwin Friedman died in Sonoma County CA Sept. 30, 2008 after living for many years in the Guerneville area, the same area where James Willett was killed in 1972.
So, I think that what Mark Ross aka Y Lee Freeman is relating in the Argosy article is actually mostly Irwin/Johnny/ Partee Friedman's story and that Mark Ross was never at Spahn before Manson was jailed. I also think that Mark Ross was not his true name. I've never been able to find a Mark Ross born Feb. 27, 1947 but I was able to find a Mark Rosen born on that date in Los Angeles. Doing some checking I found that this Mark Rosen has an alias of Mark Ross and has lived in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. He no longer lives in California.
If it is true that Mark Ross is not really Mark Ross it raises other questions for me, like why? And does he have more of an involvement in Zero's death than what is currently known? What the hell else has he done to skew the Family history?
