“The Coffee Heiress”
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| The Coffee Heiress 1961 |
Little has been written about her. Unlike Sharon Tate, there are no books about her life. Passages about her in anything that discusses the crime are brief and usually focus on the drug angle. To the best of my knowledge no member of her family has ever appeared at a parole hearing on her behalf even though her brother and half sister are both alive.
At times I think the victims fall through the cracks as we study the ‘motive’ or ‘look at the evidence’. And I feel, unfortunately, that only a small number of people outside this blog even know the name, Abigail Folger. Probably far more people know the name of her murderer, Patricia Krenwinkel. And next year, on the 50th anniversary of these crimes, Abigail will likely become “The Coffee Heiress” once again.
“Heiress”. In the media this is not particularly positive label. For me the arrogant first class passengers portrayed in a movie Titanic or Paris Hilton come to mind. "Heiress" is perhaps not as bad as "Princess" but it falls into the same category. I think the label is unfortunate because I have always had a special place in my heart for Abigail Folger. She fought back. She is, at the risk of offending someone, my favorite victim.
So here is what I have been able to piece together about Gibbie.
Let's start right there. It is 'Gibbie' not 'Gibby' no matter how many times it is written the wrong way.
Let's start right there. It is 'Gibbie' not 'Gibby' no matter how many times it is written the wrong way.
Her Childhood
She was born Abigail Anne Folger on August 11, 1943. She was known simply as ‘Gibbie’ by friends.
Her parents, Peter and Ines Folger, married on May 6, 1933.
Peter Folger, her father, was born in 1905. He was the paternal grandson of the founder of the Folger Coffee Company. He attended Yale University where he was a scholar athlete and later served in World War II. He was 38 when Gibbie was born and was on active duty at the time of her birth.
Her mother, Ines Mejia Folger (known as simply, ‘Pui’ to her friends) was born June 25, 1907 in Piedmont, California. She was the sixth and youngest child of Encarnacion and Gertrude Mejia, both of whom were born in El Salvador. Several sources list her mother as ‘Encarnacion’. They are wrong.
Ines’ father was a consul general for El Salvador. A ‘consul general’ serves as a representative who speaks on behalf of his or her country in the country where he or she is located, although the ultimate spokesperson is the ambassador. He was sort of a vice ambassador. His position gave him access to business dealings between US corporations and his homeland. These connections also made him quite wealthy. One of those connections could very well have been Folgers Coffee.
Ines attended high school at the Convent in Menlo Park but she never received a diploma. In the spring of her senior year she was caught helping a classmate elope.
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“Friends described Ms. Folger as the center of attention and the liveliest person in any room. A voracious reader, she was curious about a wide range of topics and had opinions on virtually any idea that was raised at a dinner table.”
*****
“The San Francisco native guided generations by example for decades, living life with enthusiasm, curiosity and a large measure of gusto while overcoming a very public and horrifying tragedy, friends said.”
*****
“"I just don't know how she got through it [Abigail’s murder],”said Joan Chatfield-Taylor, a friend of Ms. Folger's over five decades. "She was open about talking about it. And she never lost her sense of humor. It helps when you have one million friends," Chatfield-Taylor said.”
(“Ines Mejia Folger - Socialite Lived with Zest”, Jill Tucker, SF Gate, July 27, 2007)
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There seems to be a lot of Ines in Abigail. They shared an interest in learning, art, books (especially, books), music and each demonstrated a desire to help those less fortunate then themselves and a certain political activism. There was in those days a belief that the wealthy owed something to the country because of their wealth. It needn't be a liberal belief but it existed back then. FDR, JFK, Rockefeller and others didn't need to take the pay cut of elected office.
For example, Ines volunteered at the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in 1967 and 1968. She held fund raisers for the clinic and was instrumental in securing a grant that was critical to its operations. She later described her work there as giving her 'tremendous satisfaction'.
She wasn't the only one to volunteer at the clinic in those days.
"Kathy Grant Crosby came from her Hillsborough mansion to volunteer her nursing skills for three nights running. Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy came in after their stage show to volunteer in any way they could and when the night was over left a generous donation."
(Sturges, Clark S., Dr. Dave: A Profile of David E. Smith, M.D, Founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics (Kindle Locations 572-573). Devil Mountain Books. Kindle Edition.)
Ines passed away on July 15, 2007 at the age of 100. Her obituary requested that donations be made to the Abigail Folger Library Fund at the Santa Catalina School, a fund she and Peter established after the death of their daughter (perhaps with Gibbie's assets).
In 1952 Peter Folger and Ines were divorced. Ines claimed ‘mental cruelty’ in her divorce petition. Some sites emphasize this point suggesting her father may have been abusive. I can tell you that the allegation was the ‘no fault’ allegation when ‘fault’ divorce still existed in California. An argument or a raised voice could be deemed 'mental cruelty'. It was the equivalent, today, of ‘irreconcilable differences’.
In the divorce Ines was awarded $100,000 in cash and ‘other property’ and $200 per month child support for the two children.
From what I was able to determine Peter and Ines remained on relatively good terms following the divorce and shared joint custody of their two children: Abigail and Peter (born in 1945).
On June 30, 1960 Peter married his then, 24 year-old, secretary, Beverly Mater. Abigail, seven years younger than Ms. Mater, did not attend the wedding. Abigail’s half-sister, Elizabeth, was born seven months later on January 28, 1961.
In 1963 Peter traded the family stock in The Folger Coffee Company to Proctor and Gamble for stock in P&G. He continued to serve as CEO of Folgers, now a P&G subsidiary, until his death from prostate cancer in 1980.
Some sources claim that following Abigail’s murder Peter Folger conducted his own investigation. I was unable to confirm that claim.
The official narrative also claims that Peter Folger used his legal team to threaten anyone who dared write about the circumstances surrounding Abigail’s murder, especially if those articles contained salacious gossip. Again, I was unable to find any evidence of this. In fact, several articles that appeared at or near the time of the murders were less than flattering about Abigail, blaming her death on drug use, placing her in a crowd of ‘rich hippies’ and mentioning 'hippie underworld' drug connections.
As a child Abigail rode horses, read books (voraciously), travelled to Europe and El Salvador and learned to play the piano. When Abigail spent time with her father it would have been at The Folger Estate in Woodside, California (pictured below).
Her mother, at least by the time she graduated from high school, lived in an apartment at 1450 Taylor Street in San Francisco (the blue building, below).
Her mother, at least by the time she graduated from high school, lived in an apartment at 1450 Taylor Street in San Francisco (the blue building, below).
Abigail traveled to El Salvador in 1958 and 1960, Paris and London in 1961 (in Paris she commissioned her dress for her Debutante Cotillion), and London, again, in 1962.
The Santa Catalina School for Girls
Gibbie attended the Santa Catalina School in Monterey, California. The school is an ‘all girls’, Catholic, school (currently, the lower school is co-ed). According to the school’s website, some ‘lower school’ (grades 1-8) girls boarded at the school during the 1950’s. Gibbie either was one of the boarders or traveled an hour and a half one way to get to and from school every day. The girls in grades 9-12 boarded at the school.
Gibbie was an active and popular young woman. There is, surprisingly, no mention of her in her freshman year, yearbook, although she was there in 1957-8 but she appears in the next three.
Sophomore Year 1958-1959
Junior Year 1959-1960
In August 1960 there was a fire at the Folger estate that started due to a short in an electrical cord of a “hi-fi” record player in Abigail’s bedroom. Her father, stepmother and brother, then 15, controlled the fire with buckets of water and fire extinguishers until the arrival of the fire department. Abigail is not mentioned in the article as having been present. (San Mateo Times, August 1, 1960)
Senor Year 1960-1961
Abigail is still remembered at the Santa Catalina School. As recently as 2015 several individuals and one business made donations to the school in her memory. Radcliffe College
Following her graduation from high school in 1961 Gibbie attended Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For those who don’t know, Radcliffe College at the time was the ‘all girls’ neighbor college of Harvard College, which was an ‘all boys’ college. The two colleges have since merged and Radcliffe College no longer exists.
Abigail’s high school senior picture (above) appears in the 1965 Radcliffe Freshman Register.
[Aside: The year ‘1965’ refers to the ‘class of ‘65’. The register was actually published in August of 1961, before her freshman year.]
Radcliffe Student Directories from the time indicate that Abigail lived in Moors Hall her freshman year, Whitman Hall her sophomore year and then at 12 Walker Street in 1963-64 and 1964-65 her junior and senior years (#12 is the left half of the building pictured, below).
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| Moors Hall-Whitman Hall-Walker Street |
During her freshman year in college Abigail Folger had her ‘coming out’ party at the San Francisco Debutante Cotillion on December 27, 1961. The event was held at the Sheraton Palace Hotel. Two thousand guests attended the ball. Here, as the phrase went at the time among her peers, Abigail was ‘presented’ to society and literally curtsied to the adults present. More to the point, she was now 'officially' an eligible (and wealthy) young woman. Her escort that night was William Mackenzie. She wore white (not yellow as some sources claim). (Oakland Tribune, December 28, 1961 pp 21 and the San Mateo Times, December 28, 1961, pp 7).
[Aside: There is a continuing suggestion from several sources that yellow was Gibbie's favorite color. Some cite her 'yellow Camaro' as proof. I found nothing that suggested her favorite color was yellow and, of course, her car was a Firebird.]
[Aside: There is a continuing suggestion from several sources that yellow was Gibbie's favorite color. Some cite her 'yellow Camaro' as proof. I found nothing that suggested her favorite color was yellow and, of course, her car was a Firebird.]
During her stay at Radcliffe, Abigail was active in the Gilbert and Sullivan Players, a theater group. As a member of the Gilbert and Sullivan Players she appeared in ‘The Sorcerer’ on April, 19-20 and 24-27, 1963 (her sophomore year) and ‘The Gondoliers’ on December, 11-14, 1963 (her Junior year). In both performances she was in the chorus.
This image to the right has been floating around the internet for some time and purports to be Abigail in the Gilbert and Sullivan Players’ production of The Sorcerer. It is, indeed, an image from the 1963 Radcliffe yearbook and appears there on page 38.
Unfortunately, this is not Abigail Folger.
If you don’t know the operas, I can tell you that the ‘costume’ is wrong for a Gilbert and Sullivan production. This young woman is wearing a ‘flapper’ costume, consistent with a Cole Porter production also performed that year by a different theatrical group.
The image to the left is from an article reviewing ‘The Sorcerer’ performed by The Lamplighters in San Francisco in 2013. (Philip G Hodge, sanfranciscosplash.com, March 28, 2013.) Note the costumes.
To the right, however, is an image from the performance of The Gondoliers in December 1963 from the 1964 Radcliffe Yearbook (page 130). Again, note the costumes. The person I have enlarged could be Gibbie. If not, she should be in that picture, somewhere.
‘The Sorcerer’ received good marks from a critic at the Harvard Crimson, although, as a member of the chorus she is not specifically mentioned.
“The support of the central cast never waned. Lady Sangazure (Susan Bly), Sir Marmaduke (Lucian Russell), the Counsel (Philip Hartman), the Page (Jeffrey Cobb), and the chorus all added fine moments to the show.”
(Joel Cohen, The Sorcerer, The Harvard Crimson, April 19, 1963)
Mr. Cohen was not nearly as enthusiastic about ‘The Gondoliers’.
“Yet there were problems. Players and not only minor ones, watched the conductor far too much and far too obviously, instead of listening to the orchestra. They consistently fell behind the tempi, generally correct, set by conductor James Hughes.
The orchestra had its own problems. If it tuned at all, the effect was not observable; at times, intonation was painfully bad, though spirits were always high. Between numbers, it paused instead of maintaining the ridiculous pace that makes Gilbert and Sullivan exciting.”
(The Gondoliers, Joel E. Cohen, The Harvard Crimson, December 6, 1963)
Abigail’s senior thesis was entitled “Politics in the Plays of Christopher Marlow”. Not what I would call 'light' reading. If you go to Harvard you can read it in the archives of the Schlesinger Library. It is not available on line.
Abigail Folger graduated with honors and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1965.
While Harvard’s official website and other Harvard-related sites spend a considerable amount of time noting that women were first admitted to Harvard’s College of Education in the 1920’s, Harvard did not admit women, generally, until 1977 when Radcliffe was finally merged into Harvard. This was long after Abigail. Even Yale didn't admit women until 1969. Harvard’s official position during the 14 years it took to merge the two schools- Harvard and Radcliffe- was that ‘the women of Radcliffe’ wanted to be in a separate college. Images from protests in the 1970’s suggest this explanation was somewhat less than accurate.
I believe the information about an advanced degree from Harvard may be the result of some confusion. First, if you look at the image above regarding her thesis it indicates her college as Harvard and also identifies her degree as being from Harvard. This is because by the time her thesis was catalogued for the internet, Radcliffe no longer existed as a separate college.
Second, her degree is typically described by writers as a ‘bachelor of art history’. There were only two undergraduate degrees at Harvard or Radcliffe at the time: bachelor of arts (AB) and bachelor of sciences (SB). Her major was English, which is a bachelor of arts degree but could be mistaken for a a bachelor of art ‘history’ degree.
Abigail's Search Begins
Articles written about Abigail following her murder, on opposite sides of the country, quoted those who knew her saying that she was searching for something at the time of her death. (Heiress’s Search for Life Led to Death, UPI, Independent Press telegram, August 17, 1969) (She Had Everything to Live For, Michael Hanrahan, The New York Daily News, August 15, 1969)
Gibbie does appear to have embarked upon a search for meaning in her life after she graduated from Radcliffe; vacillating between the 'fast lane' of Hollywood and the music world and more intellectual pursuits. Maybe, like many others, she gained a new perspective on life or a certain rebelliousness while she was a student at Radcliffe. Maybe after 8+ years of all girls’ schools and debutante balls she wanted something different. At the same time it does appear to me that Abigail was a rather conflicted young woman. Perhaps she was torn between what she was 'supposed' to do (given her family) and what she 'wanted' to do. Maybe she longed to do what other's her age were doing. In the image above she would be 24 and yet, to me, she appears much older.
After graduation Abigail continued to appear on the ‘society pages’. In 1966 she was a bride’s maid in the wedding of Shella McBean and Philip Howard along with Mrs. Randolf Hearst II. Ms. McBean was in the same 1961 Debutante Cotillion as Gibbie in December 1961 and was likely a friend. (Salt Lake Tribune, December 30, 1966, pp 10). She also makes an appearance on the ‘society pages’ on August 5, 1966 in the San Mateo Times attending a symposium for women on Cervantes and Don Quixote with a who’s who of women from, San Francisco, society.
Her last appearance in the society pages occurs in January 1968. She attended the wedding of her brother, Peter, in New York City where she was, again, a brides’ maid to Peter’s bride, Barbara Briggs Waterman. Ms. Briggs Waterman was a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants. For you CIA-Manson conspiracy buffs the article also indicates that Peter Jr., a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the time, was stationed at Quantico, Virginia. (“Peter M. Folger Claims Bride in New York City”, San Mateo Times, January 23, 1968, pp. 6).
Gibbie returned to San Francisco after her graduation from Radcliffe in 1965. She obtained employment at the University of California Berkeley, Art Museum doing what we. today, would call public relations. She was employed there, at least through the spring of 1967.
[Aside: The University of California Berkeley Art Museum is about a ten, minute walk from the library where Mary Brunner was employed at about the same time and about an 11 minute walk from Sather Gate where Brunner first met Charles Manson in 1967. As you can see, the art museum is west of the other two locations and likely not on any route Abigail may have taken to get to or from work. However, this is the first of several coincidences that place Gibbie near locations or with people associated with the Manson storyline. One other, of course, is the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic.]In the summer of 1967, seemingly out of the blue, Abigail made a fairly radical shift from the bookish, graduate of all girls schools, writing a thesis about the plays of Christopher Marlow and performing in Gilbert and Sullivan operas, to the girlfriend of an outlaw, rock and roll, photographer.
1967
Abigail Folger appeared in the May 1967 issue of Vogue Magazine. Most of us have seen the photos of her from that photo shoot (right, below). I was more intrigued by the cover which featured Candice Bergen. Ms. Bergen, of course, would occupy Cielo Drive with Terry Melcher before Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. 
On June 15, 1967 Gibbie drove down to Monterey, California. She was going to the Monterey Pop Festival with her boyfriend, Jim Marshall. Also in her car were Elaine Mayes, John Luce, Paul Ryan and Suki Teipel-Hill. Four of the five were photographers and Luce, a journalist at the time, was researching a piece for Look magazine about Ravi Shankar.
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| Jim Marshall 1967 |
On the Facebook tribute page to Abigail I found this:
“Jim Marshall died in 2010 before I could get the chance to speak to him. However, I did learn from a personal life-long friend of his, that his feelings towards Gibbie remained warm, often finding it hard to discuss the nature of her death. He harbored feelings of anger about it, saying if Charles Manson was ever released from prison, he'd be waiting for him at the gates with a shotgun.” (https://www.facebook.com/Abigail-Folger-Tribute-Page-188117394542445/)
Given what I read about Marshall while writing this post (ie: pulling his gun on an ad exec and threatening to shoot him), I think he would have blown Manson away if the opportunity presented itself. If he said those words, and I have no reason to doubt the source, I think it also gives us an indication what kind of impact Abigail had on those who knew her.
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| Elaine Mayes 1967 |
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| Suki Teipel-Hill at Monterey. Photo by Elaine Mayes |
Suki Teipel Hill. Her photographic talent is also well known and included some of the biggest names in rock 'n' roll. You can Google her, too.
Paul Ryan (Not the congressman, the cinematographer). You can check his credits out on IMB. They include The Horse Whisperer.
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| John Luce at Monterey. Photo by Elaine Mayes |
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| The sign at the door of the clinic |
Dr. Luce graduated from Stanford in 1963 with a degree in English. He became a doctor in 1974. According to "It Happened In Monterey" at least in 2002 Dr. Luce was teaching Clinical Medicine and Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.
Dr. Luce:
“Although the music obviously stands out in my mind, and although I was in Monterey to focus on Ravi Shankar, my memories of the event are dominated by two people I knew a long time before. One was David Crosby [who attended the same high school as Luce].
*****
"The other person I remember most from Monterey is Gibby. She had lived a rather mild life in the Bay area as a member of a pioneer California family that owned a coffee company. I had always thought of her as a quiet and intellectual woman. Jim Marshall by contrast was in those days a fast driving and dirty talking man whose photography was as well served by his aggressiveness as it was by his artistic sensibilities. Seeing Jim and Gibby together made me wonder how rock music, and perhaps the drugs which were part of rock, produced bedfellows I could not have anticipated." (Elaine Mayes, It Happened In Monterey, Britannia Press, 2002 pp.121)
Elaine Mayes:
“For most of us the Fastival was a spectacular tribal weekend, a pinnacle celebration of a vision for a way of life. But I also sensed that Monterey Pop meant an end of an era. Maybe this inkling was because my sleeping bag was stolen from Gibby Folger’s car in the parking lot of our hotel on the last day of the festival.” (Elaine Mayes, It Happened In Monterey, Britannia Press, 2002 pp. 5)
Marshall, Mayes, Teipel-Hill and Ryan between them took hundreds of photographs at Monterey. They photographed the performers, of course, but also the crowd and each took a number of 'back stage' photos or shots outside the gates of the festival in the fairgrounds. These photographs provide candid images of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Michelle Phillips, Cass Elliott, Brian Jones, Peter Tork, Nico and a host of others who attended the festival. I spent a considerable amount of time perusing these photos with the hope Gibbie might have been in the background of one or two of their shots; all to no avail.
However, adding another ‘oo-ee-oo’ moment to Gibbie’s life, I did discover several photographs of Candice Bergen back stage at the festival.
One source claims Abigail makes a brief appearance in D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary of Monterey Pop. I watched the film. About 6:45 in, right after the scene with Michelle and John Phillips on the phone, a woman wearing a yellow coat and hat, eating something, strolls through the crowd. You can't see her face. Abigail? It didn't look like her to me. The hair seemed wrong, far too 'loose' or 'unkept'.
[Aside: If, like me, you have an interest in the Monterey Pop Festival there is a very good discussion here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/50th-anniversary-1967-monterey-international-pop-festival-performance-by-performance.674517/]
[Aside: If, like me, you have an interest in the Monterey Pop Festival there is a very good discussion here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/50th-anniversary-1967-monterey-international-pop-festival-performance-by-performance.674517/]
Off to New York
In September 1967 Gibbie did what feels like a complete 180. She pulled up stakes and drove to New York City with Andreas (Andy) Brown. Brown had just purchased a book store known as the Gotham Book Mart from its long time proprietor Frances (Fanny) Steloff. Brown had been working as a rare book appraiser in San Francisco prior to the move. Perhaps they met through the Art Museum or Abigail's love of books. Brown, upon arrival, set about to modernize the shop and add an art gallery on the second floor, perhaps that is where Abigail fit into the picture. 
The Gotham Book Mart, where she worked, has been called the most famous book store in America. Starting in the 1920’s it also was a sort of ‘the social club for American authors and poets’. It was a hub for avant garde literature, banned books and a physical location where authors and poets congregated for 87 years.
According to Brown, he dated Gibbie frequently while she was in New York. He said this about her shortly after her murder.
“The best description of her was sophisticated. She was interested in the arts and had a craving for
knowledge of the fashion industries.” (She Had Everything to Live For, Michael Hanrahan, The New York Daily News, August 15, 1969)
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| Andreas (Andy) Brown and Frances Steloff 1975 |
At a Christmas party at the bookstore in 1967 Gibbie met Jerzy Kosinski, a writer, best known, as the author of ‘Being There’ a few years later.
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| Jerzy Kosinski 1969 |
Following the Tate/La Bianca murders, Jerzy also added his name to the list of those who were supposed to be at Cielo Drive the night of the murders. He claimed the only reason he wasn’t present was because he and his wife had lost their luggage flying back from Europe, in route to LA. Roman Polanski, in his autobiography, disputed his claim. At least one journalist sided with Kosinski. (John Taylor, The Haunted Bird: The Death and Life of Jerzy Kosinski, New York Magazine, June 15, 1991.)]
Kosinski introduced Abigail to his friend and fellow countryman, Wojciech Frykowski. A romance developed. In fact, she is described by co-workers in the article, above, as falling madly in love with Frykowski. This seems to have faded in the next two years. The two eventually shared Abigail's apartment for a few months. Then, in August of 1968 Abigail and Wojciech relocated back to Los Angeles.
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Abigail now had come full circle. She moved away from books, art museums and literary figures and back into the world of music, sex, drugs and Hollywood. Unfortunately, this time her search would cost her, her life. This happened because she stayed too long. Like the "Caretaker's Friend", the "Coffee Heiress" would find herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. An odd number of coincidences place her at Cielo Drive on August 8, 1969. She was not only not supposed to be there that night. She didn't want to be there and only was there, to help a friend.
_____
I always hesitate to write these posts.
They add nothing to the discussion of motive and reveal nothing about the crimes.
Someone usually chimes in with a 'ho hum'. I don't take offense at that. When I was writing this I even stopped at one point. Then I was organizing the images into folders in my personal data base and clicked on this one. It was staged for the camera, yes. She is about 16.
I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the victims were real people, not heiresses, movie stars and iconic hair stylists. Abigail stood, there, on the edge of Monterey Harbor in 1959 or 1960 with her entire future in front of her. Se never, for an instant, could have imagined what would happen nine years later. Her whole life was in front fo her.She had a life to live, love to experience, children to raise (maybe), ups and downs to get through.
Today, that young woman in the photograph would be 75 years old and reflecting back on her life, perhaps surrounded by her children and grandchildren.
She might be telling them tales about Captain Hook and the Santa Catalina School for girls. Maybe last June when a piece came on the television about Monterey Pop she would have said, 'I was there'. How many of us can say: "I saw Jimi Hendrix light his guitar on fire."
Maybe she would pass on to say she was at parties at the Gotham Book Mart where JD Salinger showed up and explained that f**king book.
She might be telling tales about Jim Marshall, Jerzy Kosinski, Elaine Mayes and Andy Brown.
How many of us can tell those stories?
And all that was taken away for, whichever motive you choose, an utterly senseless reason.
_____
Abigail now had come full circle. She moved away from books, art museums and literary figures and back into the world of music, sex, drugs and Hollywood. Unfortunately, this time her search would cost her, her life. This happened because she stayed too long. Like the "Caretaker's Friend", the "Coffee Heiress" would find herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. An odd number of coincidences place her at Cielo Drive on August 8, 1969. She was not only not supposed to be there that night. She didn't want to be there and only was there, to help a friend.
_____
I always hesitate to write these posts.
They add nothing to the discussion of motive and reveal nothing about the crimes.
Someone usually chimes in with a 'ho hum'. I don't take offense at that. When I was writing this I even stopped at one point. Then I was organizing the images into folders in my personal data base and clicked on this one. It was staged for the camera, yes. She is about 16.
I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the victims were real people, not heiresses, movie stars and iconic hair stylists. Abigail stood, there, on the edge of Monterey Harbor in 1959 or 1960 with her entire future in front of her. Se never, for an instant, could have imagined what would happen nine years later. Her whole life was in front fo her.She had a life to live, love to experience, children to raise (maybe), ups and downs to get through.
Today, that young woman in the photograph would be 75 years old and reflecting back on her life, perhaps surrounded by her children and grandchildren.
She might be telling them tales about Captain Hook and the Santa Catalina School for girls. Maybe last June when a piece came on the television about Monterey Pop she would have said, 'I was there'. How many of us can say: "I saw Jimi Hendrix light his guitar on fire."
Maybe she would pass on to say she was at parties at the Gotham Book Mart where JD Salinger showed up and explained that f**king book.
She might be telling tales about Jim Marshall, Jerzy Kosinski, Elaine Mayes and Andy Brown.
How many of us can tell those stories?
And all that was taken away for, whichever motive you choose, an utterly senseless reason.
Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of these horrible crimes. I don’t know how much media attention that will generate. I suspect it will be less than it would have been if Manson was still alive. Then again, Quentin Tarrentino says he’s going to release a movie about the crimes on the 50th anniversary. Another film, directed by Mary Harron, “Charlie Says”, is in post-production and likely will also be released in the next year.
“Charlie Says” will focus on the deprogramming of Atkins, Kreninkel and Van Houten after the trial. They will likely be portrayed with some level of empathy for their lives. The movie might generate a discussion about possible parole. Some will suggest we should all have empathy for the two remaining female killers. This has been suggested here, on another post.
I offer this, lest we forget.....
I offer this, lest we forget.....
_____
Van Houten
Q (Bugliosi): Are you sorry that you murdered Rosemary La Bianca?
A (Van Houten): Sorry never meant anything. It’s just a five letter word
people use.
Q: Have you ever shed one tiny tear that you murdered Rosemary LaBianca?
A: I have shed a lot of tears.
Q: Have you ever shed any tears that you murdered her?
A: Not that I can remember.
****
Q: Do you feel bad about it?
A: It happened. I don’t feel bad about anything that happened.
Krenwinkel
A (Krenwinkel): “And I had a knife in my hands, and she took off running, and she ran—she ran out through the back door, one I never even touched, I mean, nobody got fingerprints because I never touched that door…and I stabbed her and I kept stabbing her.”
Q. “What did you feel after you stabbed her?”
A. “Nothing—I mean, like what is there to describe? It was just there, and it’s like it was right.”
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I was reminded by their testimony of a passage from the Bible that has always struck me as sounding oddly, karmic (karma being a favorite justification used by the Family):
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
I, for one, believe they have reaped what they sowed 50 years ago and will not be joining the chorus of the empathic.
_____
I would, however, offer an alternative because I like to think that one should not be just negative. Maybe, as the 50th anniversary approaches we could do one small thing to remember Abigail Anne Folger. I think she would like it.
Let's spell her nickname correctly.
Let's spell her nickname correctly.
It’s 'Gibbie' not 'Gibby".
Pax Vobiscum
Dreath
