Goodbye Helter Skelter author and publisher George Stimson was interviewed on The Paulcast yesterday. George also podcasts about his book here. If you're new to all of this and haven't been advised to turn and run and never look back yet, or simply ignored the warnings, that's George on the right towering a full foot or more above (a 5'2) Charles Manson regardless of what your eyes tell you.
(Forgive me while I adjust my snark levels down to the empathetic person setting. I put a few hours in at Manson High already this morning and lemme tell ya it's freakin exhausting sometimes always. Everybody has a name to drop and a time served number to share amirite? "Benny Banana Peels told me he was at Spahn's in '69 and watched daddy sex between Charlie and Sadie on a floating magical rattlesnakes cloud that continuously rained fresh Gerber speed atop a pile of freshly murdered headless corpses. Soon after, while everyone was writing their bloody nicknames in the BotD, Squeaky hipped BBP's to everything that happened since the day Charlie found her crying while clutching a dictionary.
Btw, I met BBP's while we worked together at the Winter Haven Publix in 1983 but I'd already been into Manson since Johnny Swartz's car had back seats. I worked in the produce department and BBP's unloaded the delivery trucks until an assistant manager caught him stealing a plastic crate containing four gallons of chocolate milk one Tuesday morning. Haven't heard from old BBP's since that day in fact. Anyhow, here's what really happened at Cielo and Waverly, my dear Green...")
Actually, keep reaching out. I have little else to do like all big Lotto winners. Mostly, I try not to mention the lottery thing since I want the money for Smokey & The Bandit jet skis I sometimes wreck and need repaired/replaced and also endless buckets of Swedish Fish but people are always like oh my car died and I know a guy selling a never washed and muffler-less 1996 Grand Am I will race around Ohio in without using my turn signals, please homie Green.
Shudder. Poor relatives are as exhausting as rich ones. Bootstraps thyselves already for crying out loud.
What is not ideal when you reach out to me (however) is the big-timing. The power surge that courses through me every time I click the publish button makes me feel like Thanos watching a world disappear. No crappy BBP's stories will ever outshine Infinity Crystals. Take it down a notch.
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The NeRVe OF THAT SAM SHEppard! Sometimes GOD is THE CHICKen head and SOMETIMES god is THE SNake head. I'm just a stupid hiLLbilly getting an ICE cream FROM the CANteen so I don't KNOW.
The rise of muslims.
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Truthfully, I'm honored to be in such deep thinking company but I also take the wife-murdering doctor's point. You further have my word I will neither make nor consume another drop of coffee before this post ends. Staying linear is clearly a problem for me right now.
Retro Interlude:
Scene report ended. Everyone is welcome. Let's get to the main event!
STIMSON ON THE PAULCAST...
Just so nice.
No downslope of life from the dark side of a mentally unwell mountain.
No screaming.
No yelling.
No addictions taking center stage.
No I hate women presented twelve different ways.
Instead, Paul and Dani ask questions a viewer expects not crazy people to ask at acceptable speaking levels, using inside voices, and George answers in kind. What's also insane is the hosts don't even talk over Stimson when he attempts to answer. Avant Guard for sure.
The third member of the Paulcast, Mr. Beckham, was not present for this interview. I envy his travel lifestyle and therefore shall never mention him again in any of my posts.
Just kidding. The three of them fit together like peanut butter and jelly (and other jelly I suppose) and the mix works for me. I hang out on YT a lot and they've become a go-to show. Especially on Sundays when I'm lounging in Snowman pajamas after typing up my love letters to you.
When I was young, Sunday was always the best night to go out. The amateurs all returned home because they had to be up at 6 am for work Monday. Evenings were rightfully returned to the misfits and outcasts. And oh how we loved to meet up after two nights sealed away in apartments and houses or somewhere unluckily working shit jobs during civilian party hours.
At some point, I stopped going out and my world became screens. I waited decades for something not pointless to show up Sunday evenings while I tried and tried on various urls. Maybe we bumped into one another somewhere along the way. Summer in Siam was my username and Pearse was my profile pic.
The 27% of me that is Irish wants me to shout Up the Ra when I remember that stuff. The other percents killed those dreamers in the name of the Crown. As a result, the six remain apart from the whole to this day.
OKAY THE WRAP UP...
This second interview between the PC crew and George Stimson imo is their best episode to date. I hoped more Stimson interviews were in the works.
I've always heard that Stimson and Good have a framed map hanging above their couch with a big red X marking the entrance to the desert hole but sadly I think they took it down for the podcast. That's my only complaint. The rest of the interview is great, a bit on the short side for me, and I'd be thrilled to see these folks get together again in the future. Next time, naturally, the questions should come from a more diverse group such as only me until my queries are answered to my complete satisfaction. After that, do the rest.
Personally, I lean more toward more Hickam's Dictum than Occam's Razor on all of this why business. I was reading comments last week and found a post where the Col. said something along the lines of the older I get, the more I think a bunch of drugged out and panicked kids took the train off the tracks and crazy things happened. If faced with death for not picking a theory, I'd draw a triangle with those two points (Stimson and the Col.), add Schreck as the third, and place myself firmly in the middle.
All the while saying O'Neill is the best typer with Fromme right behind him.
Read Stimson. I'll (zero judgement) buy you a copy with my MFB spending account if you can't swing it.
Watch Paulcast. They're live nearly every night.
And if you feel like talking, please share your thoughts on Stimson's Love of Brother theory in the comments below.
+ggw
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143 comments:
GreenWhite,
First I would like to say thank you for all the articles you have written.
Second I do at times have trouble trying to understand what point or statement you are trying to make. I consider this to be weakness of myself, not understanding what you’re trying to say, but maybe you could either start or finish your articles with a statement specifically stating what you are trying to say.
I am someone who does not have wired Internet access; I just have a small phone with limited minutes of data. I have not seen Stimson’s paulcasts.
While George is pro-Manson, and I am not, I have enjoyed his writings: his book and his articles he wrote for this site years ago. He definitely sees things through a different set of eyes. I consider his book to be essential reading and a companion to “Helter Skelter”.
In the PaulCast interview at 21:45, Dani asks Simpson about the cut wire at Sebring's house and Stimson responds by smiling and saying "no... no... ." To me this is ignoring the evidence. The cut wire at Sebring's was confirmed by the fact that investigators snipped a bit of the wire off, to compare it to the cut wires at Cielo, as per the Property Report.
ToF- My bad. You got it.
Star - That's a good point. I've read what the guy who installed the system at Jay's had to say several times the last few years and he comes off as very matter of fact. I've already read it once but I'm listening to the O'Neill book this time around trying to get some sense of why Beckham leans so strongly that way. The first hour is a repeat of Helter Skelter and every subsequent book like it. I'm not sure if he's summarizing HS before going into his findings or not however.
Doug - If you're out there. I started on some early SST research today. Joe Cole and I wrote a few letters back and forth in 90-91. Had no idea who he was outside of music. Gobsmacked is not an exaggeration.
No offense to this gentleman, but anything he says or writes should be seriously taken with a grain of salt. He can't exactly be unbiased because he is the boyfriend of Sandra Good who is still a rabid Mansonite. She even came out on some show the last few years and had not an ounce of sorrow or regret for what her and her friends said/behaved during and after the trial. It is 2021 and she is still justifying murder. I have a problem with her and anyone else who is a fan of these individuals.
FINALLY, thank you, Lemon! Amazed anyone gives him two seconds of their time. It'd be like expecting Melania to explain to us the truth of Donald's actions in the days leading up to, during, and after Jan. 6. Preposterous! And why do you think he smiled when asked about those Sebring wires? Busted! The only reason I've ever watched a George interview is on the chance Sandra pops her murderous head into the frame.
He's interviewed in the Sebring documentary too.
Free on Tubi
Watch Jay Sebring...Cutting to the Truth on Tubi: https://link.tubi.tv/CdYb4m44dlb
His murder was horrendous.
I am going to rwach out to Dukowski and Carducci in the next day or so. The last 10 days have been lousy and, busy.
Cheers
PS - I sent you my personal email via your rmail address at this blog
Eff the typos
I did watch the 2 part paulcast where Stimson is interviewed. One question I have is there was mention of a book in the works by Lyn and what I could not understand was is this a sequel or a revised edition of Reflexion? Does anyone know?
Doug - I will message you today thank you :)
ToF - I took that to mean her second book. Fromme's first imo answers several of the smaller questions, or at least replies to several of the things we endlessly repeat online, and gives us her take. So I'm definitely looking forward to her next one.
If Fromme's manuscript is not a closely guarded state secret over at Peasenhall Press, I am definitely available for a grammar edit/proofread. Otherwise, I will purchase a signed copy and wait with the rest of the peanut gallery.
What'd you think of the Paulcast crew, ToF?
The book is a slightly revised edition of Reflexion.
Imo, Fromme's book belongs with Stimson's in the canon. Charles Manson is the boogeyman of the Boomer generation, their parents, and a not small percentage of their children. As well as many commenters on this vaunted blog.
As time passes and the data deluge never lets up, people not connected to anyone who was alive in August '69 are going to crave alternate explanations to Bugliosi just like more erudite Manson scholars seek them now.
I talk to so many people who refuse to read more than one book, consider anyone else's opinions, etc etc, and I just feel like they're missing out on so much. There's so much more to all of it than the exact reason why that Friday night ride to Cielo in Johnny's nasty car happened.
Read them all. Know more. Buy a writer dinner for a day if you can...
Doug - I clearly should never use Outlook. I've made a mess of my account. Any chance you could send your info to matt@mansonblog.com so he can forward it to me? Sorry and thanks.
GreenWhite asked:
What'd you think of the Paulcast crew, ToF?
They were fine. They were prepared with questions and were not too stiff, not boring, not pushy, or not aggressive.
I actually unknowingly viewed two paulcasts earlier this year and l remember the same guy with the guitar’s on the wall.
An article on this site had links to :
1. a Patty Interview where she was drinking Willet bourbon and talking about Death Valley and pomegranates that she was given by Sandy
2. A Neil Sanders interview. I do have his book.
GreenWhite said:
Imo, Fromme's book belongs with Stimson's in the canon.
I believe Stimson’s book is essential reading. I think Lyn is a very good writer and her book is a nice companion (and follow up read) to Paul Watkins book.
I consider Watkins book to be an essential read, but I believe he exaggerates his importance.
A couple of the Sandy’s writings that were included in Lyn’s book helped me to understand her a little bit more.
ToF - Fromme and Good possibly give us our first alternate look at Gary in Reflexion. I really appreciated that part being in there. Someone else could've said it first of course. Regardless, I'll never forget their descriptions of Gary and his home.
I'm definitely interested in seeing what is revised etc in Fromme's upcoming edition. One thing I've noticed when I see a bad review of her book is the reviewer doesn't really know anything about them or the milieu.
Watkins I haven't read in awhile but he blew my mind when I found it on the Col's blog so long ago. A lady named Myra Elvira has it on her YouTube channel if you like audiobooks. I might give it a listen soon but I'm 20% into several books at once and may not get there for a bit.
Paul seems more like a dirty little young loves procurer to me. My dislike for him probably overrides any good qualities I've forgotten.
GreenWhite says:
Paul seems more like a dirty little young loves procurer to me. My dislike for him probably overrides any good qualities I've forgotten.
I like Watkins book but don’t trust or think much of him.
If he recruited girls, name one that stayed?
And what’s the big deal with young loves? Benjamin Franklin wrote:
“… The lower parts continuing to the last as plump as ever; so that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old one from a young one.”
I remember reading about the cut wires at Sebring’s in O’Neill’s book. Part of me thought is it a true account or another embellishment by yet another person seeking a bit part in the story of the murders. You do wonder why, given all the tumult and angst in the immediate aftermath of the murders, the electrician guy would have the presence of mind or desire to go check the wiring out when he’d gone to the house to pick up a dead mans suit! And not just any dead man either but a very close friend who had just been brutally murdered. WTF would the problem with the cable tv matter given what had gone on at Cielo a few days earlier. But then again what does he really gain by lying he exaggerating any of his account. Maybe he genuinely wanted to know whet had gone wrong and maybe he already had suspicion having heard about the cut wires at Cielo. The reverse circuit with the lights coming on when broken is certainly plausible and it would potentially spook any attempted break in. The next question has to be why didn’t the investigators pursue that line of enquiry and just as importantly why didn’t Sebrjng’s attorney insist that they did so given that his son was the witness to all of this. Most likely, as with other pieces of evidence that didn’t fit the preferred narrative, it potentially opened a whole can of worms for the investigation and for the reputations of the victims. So everyone was happy to bury it. I’d love to hear the thoughts of Grim and others who don’t buy into anything much that deviates from the HS motive.
I remember reading about the cut wires at Sebring’s in O’Neill’s book. Part of me thought is it a true account or another embellishment by yet another person seeking a bit part in the story of the murders. You do wonder why, given all the tumult and angst in the immediate aftermath of the murders, the electrician guy would have the presence of mind or desire to go check the wiring out when he’d gone to the house to pick up a dead mans suit! And not just any dead man either but a very close friend who had just been brutally murdered. WTF would the problem with the cable tv matter given what had gone on at Cielo a few days earlier. But then again what does he really gain by lying he exaggerating any of his account. Maybe he genuinely wanted to know whet had gone wrong and maybe he already had suspicion having heard about the cut wires at Cielo. The reverse circuit with the lights coming on when broken is certainly plausible and it would potentially spook any attempted break in. The next question has to be why didn’t the investigators pursue that line of enquiry and just as importantly why didn’t Sebrjng’s attorney insist that they did so given that his son was the witness to all of this. Most likely, as with other pieces of evidence that didn’t fit the preferred narrative, it potentially opened a whole can of worms for the investigation and for the reputations of the victims. So everyone was happy to bury it. I’d love to hear the thoughts of Grim and others who don’t buy into anything much that deviates from the HS motive.
I don't believe the cut wires story is in Tom's book
Done
The electrician who did Sebring's wiring is interviewed in the Jay Sebring documentary that can be viewed for free on Tubi
Right, but the story is not in the edition of Chaos I received.
Maybe I’m wrong about where I read/heard it. I’m sure I read it in CHAOS though. Albeit not any kind of interview with the guy but a reference to it from the Police file.
Maybe I’m wrong about where I read/heard it. I’m sure I read it in CHAOS though. Albeit not any kind of interview with the guy but a reference to it from the Police file.
Maybe I’m wrong about where I read/heard it. I’m sure I read it in CHAOS though. Albeit not any kind of interview with the guy but a reference to it from the Police file.
Maybe I’m wrong about where I read/heard it. I’m sure I read it in CHAOS though. Albeit not any kind of interview with the guy but a reference to it from the Police file.
Maybe I’m wrong about where I read/heard it. I’m sure I read it in CHAOS though. Albeit not any kind of interview with the guy but a reference to it from the Police file.
His film:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA3aMISpAZO/
Very interesting. Wouldn't the lights have still been on if the line was cut and they're on a reverse circuit?
Also, Fayez, and in a throw back to when trolls and pervs were allowed on this murder blog, if that's Sharon in the footage then i gotta say Sadie Mae is way hotter
Doug - Thanks and sorry about the hassle. And also prepare to be bombarded with every punk rock question that has ever cycled thru my cranium LOL.
Yes, I thought the same about the lights. But I guess there was a bit more to the circuit and he didn’t feel the need to explain the whole workings of it! Suffice to say that the main point of evidence being the wire had a clean and recent cut when he inspected it. Two wires in fact as I think he mentions the cable wire as being on a separate pole and cut too. Doesn’t he say that he reckoned they were cutting any wires that looked like phone wire. It certainly does make you wonder doesn’t it? And, if true, makes it more or less certain that the victims were specifically targeted.
Speculator, the wires at Jay's are certainly a matter of intetest. However, I wonder what would have stopped the killers from continuing on in to Jay's house, assuming they cut the wires. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that Jay's house had been entered.
Contrast that with Cielo, and obviously not only were the wires cut, but the killers very self confidently gained access to the property and the house, killing all inside. If the cut wires at Jay's are in any way a nefarious deed, which was done with the intent of immediate murder, I for one wonder what would have aborted the murder at that location.
Torque said...
If the cut wires at Jay's are in any way a nefarious deed, which was done with the intent of immediate murder, I for one wonder what would have aborted the murder at that location.
That would have been the 120 volts cursing through Tex's body as he cut through the power lines.
Torque - well aside from the hair raising shock that Watson (if it was indeed he) might’ve suffered(!) I guess the inference is that the would-be intruders were spooked by all the external lights switching on, assumed they’d triggered an alarm and/or alerted the occupants of the house to their presence. Don’t forget Watson and co would have wanted the element of surprise in order to quickly suppress their victims. And aside from any of the who/what/why of it, the mere fact that these wires appear to have been cut is thought provoking to say the least.
Starviego said:
That would have been the 120 volts cursing through Tex's body as he cut through the power lines.
You can cut live wires and connect other wires to live wires. It’s done frequently. As long as you are not grounded and you are insulated, such as insulated pliers and gloves and shoes. One wire at a time and don’t touch anything.
When an electrician connects your outside service, the thing with a meter and wires that connect to the pole, it’s done live. And when the power company joins in new lines, its done live.
One thing you don’t want to do is ground yourself or you will be shocked/electrocuted. I know a siding installer that was installing aluminum siding and he was grounded in his aluminum ladder and touched a live wire. He lived but was laid up for a while. Also do not pee on a live wire, such as an electric fence. Saw someone do it once. Like Mr. T said, “pain”.
Speculator said:
Don’t forget Watson and co would have wanted the element of surprise in order to quickly suppress their victims
On both nights, Watson in particular, showed that he really wasn't fazed by anything that would appear to catch him by surprise, which is partly why I don't think his speed excuse is anywhere near as big a player in events as he and Susan liked to have us believe. When it came to murder on those nights, he was a level head.
I’d love to hear the thoughts of Grim and others who don’t buy into anything much that deviates from the HS motive
GreenWhite said earlier, words to the effect that soon, those not really connected to the times or to people close to the times would start to look to alternate explanations other than Bugliosi.
That began at least as far back as 1971's "The Garbage People." It's not a new thing at all. Almost every Manson related blog I've come across more or less exists on that diet. Writers since Emmons and Shreck in the 80s have made that direction nothing unusual. Robert Hendrickson's 2 documentaries didn't pursue a HS path and "Death to pigs" most certainly doesn't. Going against "Bugliosi" pretty much is the norm.
He wasn't flawless and much has been uncovered that he didn't touch on, but I find time and time again, that while many of these minor discrepancies are fascinating/interesting and eminently discussable, they have never succeeded in denting, much less demolishing "Bugliosi." In a way, it's doing a disservice to this case to think of it as "Bugliosi". Yes, he did much of the heavy lifting, but there has always been more going on than the super prosecutor in the cool tailored cape beating the bad guy. It's almost ironic that he felt stronger about Charlie's lust for violent death and anti-establishment hitback, than he did HS.
TabOrFresca said:
George...I have enjoyed his writings: his book and his articles he wrote for this site years ago. He definitely sees things through a different set of eyes. I consider his book to be essential reading and a companion to “Helter Skelter”
I think his book is brilliant. And some of my fondest memories of blogging per se were in many of the posts he took part in.
I have long been left with the feeling though, that his book sinks Charlie like an anchor. Charlie supporters have this weird effect of doing him far more damage than Vincent Bugliosi ever did.
Also do not pee on a live wire, such as an electric fence
That's why one should never pee on a London underground train, even in desperation. I once had a go at a drunk for whipping out his hardware and weeing on a packed train. He thought I was doing it because I thought I was better than him; I explained to him that I didn't want to see him electrocuted when his piss hit the live rail ~ or risk being splashed and fizzed too !
Grim - you’ve kind of side-stepped my question a little there. Would you really call cut wires at Sebring’s house where four of the Cielo victims were gathered the night before a minor discrepancy?! If you believe the guy’s statement that the wires had a clean and fresh cut then don’t you find that a bizarre coincidence in the extreme, if not a very suspicious event worthy of further investigation at the time? And what of Stimson’s reaction to the question too?
I can see why Bugs didn't introduce the Sebring wire evidence(assuming he even knew of it). It means one or more of the victims were being deliberately targeted, instead of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which would basically bring an end to the HS motive.
Grim's a coward.
I sent Dukowski an enormous tome of correspondence via Messenger. I actually ran out of words in my message word count.
Questions for you
1. What city did you live in (in Ohio) when you started to get interested in the punk/indie scene?
2. What year, venue, city did you 1st see Black Flag? I'd have to think that Henry was singing because they really only did the one trek out east with Dez singing (1981) and, by the summer of 1981 Dez moved to his preferred place on 2nd guitar and, Rollins sang. Also, Dukowski left and, Kira entered the band in 1983.
4. Now that you have my email...send me a one sentence email with your name so I can save your info
Cheers
Vera - Your Caroline Bingley-ness I hate to admit pulls me toward you.
Vera Dreiser said:
Grim's a coward
It's true.
I won't go on any live TV quiz shows in case I bomb before the nation when I get asked simple questions like "Which school did Bernard Crowe's grandmother go to ?" 👠
Seriously though Grim. I know that you’re a proponent of the HS being the most likely motive school of thought. And that you’re pretty dismissive of what get described as alternative theories. What’s your take on the apparent wire cutting at Sebring’s?
Seriously though Grim. I know that you’re a proponent of the HS being the most likely motive school of thought. And that you’re pretty dismissive of what get described as alternative theories. What’s your take on the apparent wire cutting at Sebring’s?
Seriously though Grim. I know that you’re a proponent of the HS being the most likely motive school of thought. And that you’re pretty dismissive of what get described as alternative theories. What’s your take on the apparent wire cutting at Sebring’s?
Bernard Crowe namedrop on the mighty MFB? I LOVE IT. Sharpe forever.
Bernard Crowe's GRANDMOTHER even 🤘
Those Crowe Happy Bday wishes every year on Facebook a decade-ish ago were always day makers. I say Happy Birthday to everyone in my feed to this day because of it. Such a simple, kind gesture.
Speculator said:
Grim - you’ve kind of side-stepped my question a little there
Yeah, and my reward was to be sent public love notes from Vera Dreiser. I won’t be doing that again !
Would you really call cut wires at Sebring’s house where four of the Cielo victims were gathered the night before a minor discrepancy?!
In the light of what turned out to be what happened, yes.
I’m not desperate to show LE has elements of corruption in major western cities, especially the USA. As a black person {even an English one}, I’ve seen that only too readily.
I’m not desperate to try to demonstrate that career criminals don’t have acid assisted visions about the various races in their midst, and try to do something apocalyptic to bring about what they’ve seen in those visions.
I’m not desperate to hook Jay Sebring to some major drug dealing shindig. If the evidence had seriously pointed in that direction, then it really is of no consequence to me. It doesn’t mean I’d be disappointed. In point of fact, as I argued earlier this year with, I think, Andy Taylor, Hollywood celebs and high-level drug dealing resulting in a gruesome death in the 1960s would have made for a sensational book.
I try to follow the evidence, but I also acknowledge that some of that evidence comes from highly dodgy sources like the perps. Not every piece of evidence actually goes anywhere.
If you believe the guy’s statement
I neither believe it nor disbelieve it. I keep in mind, however, highly suspicious statements made 30, 40, 50 years after the event, particularly when there is a recent, but lengthy history of trying to fudge what went down in every way imaginable.
Speculator said:
that the wires had a clean and fresh cut then don’t you find that a bizarre coincidence in the extreme, if not a very suspicious event worthy of further investigation at the time?
According to Tom O’Neill in a 2019 interview, “I found pretty compelling evidence in the original police reports that the people who were killed the first night—Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Abigail Folger—there was an attempt on them the night before at Jay Sebring’s house. They had dinner at Sebring’s house—and this is part of the official narrative—and they were sitting down to watch a movie after dinner and all of a sudden there was a big surge of power and the floodlights went really powerfully on and off. He lost his TV, half the power in the house went off. I found a police interview with the guy who did the wiring for Jay’s house and put the cable TV in. He told me that at Jay’s house [later] he saw the cut wires and said, ‘These wires were deliberately cut.’”.
That tells me that the police did investigate that angle because it was in police reports that Tom claims he found it. So his later conclusion that “That would upend the whole Helter Skelter motive that says [the victims] were strangers to their killers, that it was the house, that they were trying to send a message to Melcher, who used to live there, and to Hollywood. If this is true, and all this adds up, it means they were stalking them. And even more interesting, Manson was away during those 24 hours the night before. He wasn’t at the ranch. So then it brings up the question of maybe this whole thing was organized by Watson for other reasons” does not follow as a foregone conclusion. It can, if you want it to.
That it may have been an amazing coincidence, if it really happened, is undeniable, but then, so is the fact that a James and a Lauren were the last people seen with Ron Hughes before he disappeared and a James and a Lauren were murdered by people that were shacking up with Family or ex-Family women. Or that right around the time Charlie’s Dad’s brother was murdered in May ‘69, a guru type with female followers arrived in the area, trying to entice local teens with acid and calling himself the preacher.
On the property report from the Cielo investigation is an entry that says “1-BLK Rubber, ELECTRIC WIRE CORD (SeBring Home)” that had been obtained from the Coroner’s office on August 13th. Which further indicates that this is not exactly the kind of thing that the police would just ignore. That we hear no more about it tells me that it’s in the same league as them looking into the Black Power angle during the investigation…..and ditching that too, before the killers were nabbed.
And what of Stimson’s reaction to the question too?
Well, George’s reactions are George’s reactions. I don’t pretend to know what’s in his head when he engages in body language. As I’ve said before, I dig George’s book, contributions, articulacy and manner, even though I vehemently disagreed with him on many things. I’m not in the “just because George said this” camp or the “it must be right because Bugliosi said this” camp or the “Well, BUGS must be a charlatan because Stephen Kay thinks XY&Z” and unlike my bestest bud, Vera, I don’t worship at the altar of O’Neill.
Speculator said:
Grim - you’ve kind of side-stepped my question a little there
In all seriousness, I wasn’t side-stepping the question. It was just a demonstration that the whole 9 yards and kitchen sink has been thrown in over the last 51 or so years to deflect, from what appears that a sizeable segment of parties don’t want to accept ~ that by and large, the prosecution got it right. And so every single thing is, at some point, considered fair game to throw in and show that Bugliosi and co got things wrong. Added to that, the 15 minutes of fame👨🏼🎤 merchants {we can now add Quincey Jones 🤴🏿 to the growing list of those that “should have been at Cielo that night” !}, the spooks🕵🏼♂️ that notified the photographer of the bodies before Mrs Chapman arrived, COINTELPRO, MK Ultra, elephants 🦣killed on LSD, Jack Ruby, sodomy and whippings, films supposedly made that have never turned up, Charlie being beaten up at Cielo the night before {ironically, part corroborated by Charles Watson !!}, Steven Parent the drug dealer in the system, Rosemary LaBianca, the acid queen of Los Feliz, Charlie’s claim that he knew Sharon {according to Nicholas Shreck}, etc, etc, etc etc, well, pardon me for a little cynicism here and there.
The first question I ask myself when some new revelation comes up is not even “is this true ?” but “what does this change if it is true ?”
I know that you’re a proponent of the HS being the most likely motive school of thought
I think there were a number of motives. I pretty much always have. I don’t think of HS necessarily as being the foremost, but it is broken up into constituent parts and it’s helpful to examine it that way, rather than as one glob. As I once said, I harp on about it for its veracity, not its primacy.
Grim - I always looked forward to your comments when I was a lurker here. They've been a huge part of this blog.
Spec - Those wires stay stuck in my mind as well. I bet the guests from Thursday freaked out Saturday morning when the news broke.
Green, the guests from Thursday were all murdered Friday by people who cut wires before going into the house.
Grim, O’neill did provide the police document from August 1969 in his video but you say you don’t believe statements made 30 or 40 years after?! Watch it again. You call it “desperate” to take this new discovery seriously? Wow, okay, glad the researchers who exonerated Malcolm X’s killers last week with evidence they spent decades rooting out weren’t as ignorant as you. And your defense of the police and the official narrative is naive and embarrassing. Sure they must’ve “followed it up” and found it amounted to nothing, that’s why you never heard about it before O’neill revealed it. Because it was so inconsequential bug never mentioned it in his book that spends its first half recounting all the false leads.
“What does it change if it’s true”? EVERYTHING. Vera would suck oneil off if he wasn’t a homo.
Well, not quite I’m afraid - they were all dead by Saturday morning! THEY WERE the news that broke!! They unfortunately would have freaked out shortly after midnight on that Saturday morning though.
LOL! Ice cold.
Vera - I agree entirely. This isn’t a statement that was made decades after the event. The guy gave his original statement very shortly after the murders ie days after not years. I can’t think of any reason why he would concoct such a story. I think there was a separate blog entry on here about the cut wires a couple of years or so ago too. Your comparison with the Malcolm X case is very apt. Law enforcement very often get things wrong and/or ignore evidence because it doesn’t fit the narrative (path of least resistance in order to secure a conviction) or because of incompetence. Or, as maybe the case here, to protect the reputations of people who had powerful and wealthy families or connections. Who knows, the cut wires may have purely been a made up story and/or had no relevance whatsoever to what happened at Cielo. But I think anyone taking a dispassionate and balanced view would find the guy’s statement more likely than not to be factual and more likely than not to have some relevance to the murders the following night. I’m not an apologist for Manson - I think he was as guilty as the rest for the part he played. This isn’t about that at all. I think his HS preachings were a system of control to keep the rest of the gullible fools in check but I doubt very much that they were the reason for these murders. And pieces of information like the cut wires add fuel to that fire imho.
If the wires were cut at Sebring's house the night before Cielo by someone in the Manson group, wouldn't it be safe to say that it wasn't done by a group of five? Otherwise this part of the story would have likely been told by someone along the way.
[Begin baseless speculation]
If so it would have likely been Watson alone. Perhaps he saw it as too big a job for one person and procrastinated. My thought is that this was always a targeted hit directed by a third party, as absolution for the Crowe incident, which puts Watson front and center. Maybe he talks about it on the Tex tapes.
[End baseless speculation]
I have no idea what I just read.
"Avant Guard"? Seriously?
Stimson is a crank. Stimson is Blue who is a grown-assed woman who allowed herself to be color-coded by her suffering, imprisoned guru. In other words, these are not the most critical of thinkers among us. I will say that I found it most amusing that, by the time Chuckie hit upon the idea of classifying his followers in such a way, he was down to only two and couldn't even cover the primary colors on the wheel. Poor Chuckie.
Look, Stimson's whole schtick is nothing more than an (endless) repetition of the West Temple "Kasabian & Watson did it" gospel. As we will recall, as the original trial went south, Manson decided to cut bait and persuaded his giggle girls to testify to his innocence. The whole Kasabian finger-point went nowhere, of course, and justice was properly served.
But the now-aged Good, her proud forehead X now almost completely obscured by the wrinkled ravages of time, and her moth-to-flame late arrival Manson worshipping squeeze, never got the damned memo. Instead, they have wasted decades by continuing the party - er, family - line that Charlie pathetically attempted to cast to save his own ass. Books, talk shows, podcasts and time - loads of it - devoted to defending the same molehill of bullshit everyone laughingly stepped over back in 1970.
I suppose there is so little to be spoken of still regarding this dumpster fire of a historical moment, we might as well give Stimson a kind of snickering nod of attention. It would be nice if the posts on this mess were less "Avant Guard" in style, so that maybe there is actual "stuff" to be discussed & debated here. Or hell, perhaps that is exactly what is called for when it comes to Stimson and his bullshit - gibberish about gibberish.
Vera Dreiser said:
your defense of the police and the official narrative is naive and embarrassing
Aloe Vera !
Nice try, but unfortunately, I don't bend to those tactics. You should have tried them 40 years ago.
As David/Dreath would have told you, my take is that there are 3 or 4 narratives that get labelled "the official narrative." A cursory read of this or any other blog will show you that.
And I'll say it again, just for you. There is a desperation among some people to scotch what the prosecution came up with. Tom O'Neill openly admits that was his start point {"I don't know the truth, but I know what it isn't" or words to that effect}. George Stimson openly admits that was his start point. Nicholas Shreck openly admits that was his start point. Michael White openly admits that was his start point. Two decades before them, those in the Family that were still loyal to Charlie did precisely the same thing. While he was trying to be the big wheel, Bobby Beausoleil did the same thing.
You sometimes come across as actually no more balanced and adept at weighing up pieces of evidence than you accuse me of not being. Whereas, for the last 6½ years, I've actively engaged in numerous debates across a number of sites with many deep, keen and lively minds {including your own, dare I say it} on most sides of the equation, taking on board tons of thoughts, opinions, evidence etc and have continuously refined and modified my positions. Don't howl at me just because I haven't capitulated to what you would like me to bow to.
Speculator said:
This isn’t a statement that was made decades after the event
I never said it was. The fact that I state that the police investigated that angle and the fact that I quote from the 13th August property report should have told you that. When I say I neither believe nor disbelieve, it's in reference to the point about the fresh cut. Even to this day, I get told things by practitioners in their field that I know are not true because I've done what they said couldn't be done. Even right at this moment as I type this, I'm looking at something an electrician for the past 35 years, told me wasn't possible, yet I knew it was and I'm looking at the results of what I knew was possible because I went ahead and did it.
Law enforcement very often get things wrong and/or ignore evidence because it doesn’t fit the narrative
I couldn't agree more. And that is precisely what happened in this case on more than one occasion {eg, Jess Buckles, the Beatle lyrics in the messages at the LaBiancas etc}. LE thought one thing, it turned out to be another.
You don't believe HS was the reason for these murders. I believe it was one of the reasons for these murders. That means....we'll have interesting discussions.
Prefeteria - I’ve wondered the same thing. Watson alone or with a n other(s) excluding those in the Friday night crew. As you say, pure speculation though. The cut wires are hard physical evidence that potentially point towards something sinister though. I’ve often wondered why the crew set off to Cielo at the time they. It was hardly the dead of night. If you wanted to break-in and subdue the occupants of a house quickly and easily surely a couple of hours later when all asleep would’ve made more sense. Add to that the risk of running into other people on Cielo at that time of night ie the dinner party guests who had just left the house next door. Maybe they needed to catch Sebring there before he left. Who knows. It’s very intriguing though. And one thing I’d say you can guarantee is that the stories provided by the perps are way more self-serving than in any way serving the truth. And once you tell a lie you have to stick to it if you want any chance of parole - which they all clearly still do.
Grim a few days ago:
To other guy: "If you believe the guy’s statement"
Grim: "I neither believe it nor disbelieve it. I keep in mind, however, highly suspicious statements made 30, 40, 50 years after the event, particularly when there is a recent, but lengthy history of trying to fudge what went down in every way imaginable."
Grim dissembling today:
Other guy: "This isn’t a statement that was made decades after the event"
Grim: "I never said it was. The fact that I state that the police investigated that angle and the fact that I quote from the 13th August property report should have told you that. When I say I neither believe nor disbelieve, it's in reference to the point about the fresh cut. Even to this day, I get told things by practitioners....[blah, blah, blah, suck-my-wet-pussy]
And, you're STILL wrong anyway about the report.
From LAPD's 8/14/69 interview of Greenwald:
"Greenwald was of the opinion that the wire had been deliberately cut. Probably three days prior to his investigation."
So what 30, 40, 50 year delay are you fucking talking about?!
More:
Grim: "Tom O'Neill openly admits that was his start point {"I don't know the truth, but I know what it isn't" or words to that effect}".
Now we know you didn't read the book. His start point was an anniversary piece about the murders for a magazine. He was looking for a fresh take, but nothing like countering the official narrative. He even spent 6 hours with Bug in his first week of reporting and planned to make him the centerpiece -- in a heroic way. It was when Bug's story began unraveling that everything changed for him and he began to understand things happened very differently. Oh that you could be so brave, smart (and handsome) to have the balls to admit you're wrong and do something besides putter away on your computer like a lazy (but still hot) granny Vera.
Finally:
Grim: my take is that there are 3 or 4 narratives that get labelled "the official narrative."
Who gives a fuck what your take is. There is ONE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE. The one that got them CONVICTED in court: That the murders were committed to incite a race war called Helter Skelter. The others you cite by O'Neill, Shreck and Stimson are the unofficial narratives.
No wonder your name is what it is, I'd be grim too.
"Greenwald was of the opinion that the wire had been deliberately cut. Probably three days prior to his investigation."
Vera, thank you for this.
This is one of those conspiracy theory rabbit holes that people who have too much time or too little sense or perhaps both like to masturbate over. Without having wasted hours of my life reading up on this particular dead-end avenue of thought, the suggestion seems to be that Watson had it in for the four non-Parent Cielo victims (or at least one or two of them) and attempted an August 9th slaughter the night before, on August 8th.
How clever! My, what a wonderful theory that is - Einstein himself would be jealous!
Except that, aside from a single quote in an interview/questioning, there is absolutely nothing to merit even a passing thought on this suggestion. Are we actually suggesting that everyone currently rotting away in west coast prisons would remain silent on this multi-night murder attempt scenario just to save Tex's dumb ass? Kasabian, who had complete immunity on the table and more than a little personal reason (at the time) didn't even offer such a thought. Are we saying that perhaps the mastermind Tex thought he could pull off the offing of four people on his own that Thursday night and, finding himself somehow stymied, decided to enlist the help of a few gals the next night? Do some out there actually think that a Krenwinkel or a dying Atkins would not spill this truth in their decades-long quest for freedom? Or even Van Houten?
"No sense makes sense" . . . I think this must apply to a lot more of these "deep thinkers" on this matter than some of us ever thought possible.
O’Neill says the four Cielo victims were all at Jay’s the night before? According to the first Tate homicide report, on August 8 “Frykowski departed from the Polanski residence at approximately 1505 he drove directly to the Jay Sebring residence. At that location he picked up a Miss Suzan Peterson, who had been Jay Sebring's companion for the preceeding [sic] night.”
Did Ms. Peterson corroborate that the other three were also there? Did she witness any electrical malfunction? Or did she come over after everyone else had left? If so, did Jay mention the electric weirdness to her? And what about Amos, the butler?
The “night before” get together never happened, and the people who think it did are chasing their tails. Hence my reaction, smiling and saying, “No, no.”
George
George watch the video before you comment then you won’t sound so ignorant.
Or ask Sandy. I’m sure she’d tell the truth
Why doesn't anybody around here have the balls to post using their real names?
Well of course I understand your question is rhetorical, George, but I have an additional thought or two. I used to employ my genealogy tools and a sinister network of the once bullied but now Internet digger bosses of the highest order to figure out who the trolls were and etc. The results 90% of the time if not closer to 100% typically made me feel bad for the person once I saw them and their ephemera. Even the occasional king/queen type looked like no one ever loved them in a way that helped.
Another group who are also trolls but don't think they are consist of know-it-alls who really don't want to talk Manson or consider new ideas because it makes them anxious and they display their anxiety disorder and or depression with anger. They want the same lists re-written the same way with the same three photos from Cielo so they can either say, "Gawd, we've rehashed this to death you are so stupid." Or, "No look right here someone said this in 1976 and that's that you are so stupid."
No one is allowed to be new. Nobody is allowed to learn. And in your case why listen to someone who's done a lifetime of research and has a unique perspective none of them have ever had or will ever have? Schreck is in the same boat with you here. Over on his page, I'm part of a rotten group of assholes I've never met and have barely spoken to about anything including the weather.
Finally, naturally, it's so they can act disingenuous if/when they meet you in public. That's the balls part.
Ours is an even unwell-er corner of an unwell culture but like I said rhetorical. Every one of the dudes talking shit online about those girls as older women has their naked photos on their last six hard drives and that's some real talk from Ohio.
My real name is Godot Sherman Grenwhyte. I hid the first part for so long because a crazy person from the broken minds side of Manson sent me a video in Messenger of someone being murdered with a machete.
*all typos are staying
Dodging, George?
Vera is at least funny and has comedic timing. The others should really take lessons.
Since the messages have already started...I wasn't calling anyone in NS's group any names. I meant it's how I'm personally viewed there for being here even know I've never spoken to most of the other writers.
No one needs anyone they don't even just pretend.
Green is an American.
Tobias - maybe you need to open your mind slightly and not be so dismissive. You ask why the girls wouldn’t come clean about anything that might’ve occurred the previous night and why save Watson’s ass. Who’s to say that any of them were even there if indeed there was a trip to Sebring’s house the previous night and/or that they knew anything about it if Watson went alone or with others. And even if they did, you ask why Kasabian didn’t spill the beans on it. Maybe because she was simply touting the story that Bugliosi spoon fed her and he found it a better fit to his HS narrative to leave out anything that might’ve occurred at Sebring’s. As for the others, once you’ve given your version you tend to stick to it if one day want parole. Who knows. In terms of this discussion it matters not. The thing that doesn’t seem to be in dispute is that wires were cut at Sebring’s and that in itself opens up a lot of questions wouldn’t you say? And no way am I salivating about other theories. I’m simply highlighting that if wires were cut at Sebring’s it does lead one to wonder why and what a helluva coincidence it was if that is indeed all it is.
George - even if, as you suggest, the night before get together never happened. It still leaves open the question as to why wires appear to have been cut outside the home of one of the victims at some stage shortly prior to the murders. It’s not jumping down rabbit holes to see that as very thought provoking and to question whether it was just a massively unlikely coincidence.
George - even if, as you suggest, the night before get together never happened. It still leaves open the question as to why wires appear to have been cut outside the home of one of the victims at some stage shortly prior to the murders. It’s not jumping down rabbit holes to see that as very thought provoking and to question whether it was just a massively unlikely coincidence.
Mr Stimson.
I comment on this blog using my real name.
So everyone is aware.
Please reference this tweet of mine
👇
https://mobile.twitter.com/nitrini1950/status/1462808550594416640
There is a Charles Manson Case
people-connection with a person pertaining to this tweet.
I'll see what develope's.
Also, please reference my latest tweet.
Keep an eye on the TV.
Mario George Nitrini 111
-----
The OJ Simpson Case
"It still leaves open the question as to why wires appear to have been cut outside the home of one of the victims at some stage shortly prior to the murders."
Why are we assuming that power had been cut at the Sebring home prior to midnight 9 August?
Are we suggesting that no one would have been inside Sebring's home for the day or two or whatever before the murders? Maybe the butler enjoyed living by candlelight and didn't notice?
If a wire was indeed cut by a human and discovered after the murders, who's to say that it did not happen on the 10th . . . or the 11th . . . or . . .
And why is Tom O'Neill the only one suggesting that the murdered four had dinner together at the Sebring house 24 hours before the big event? Sebring apparently had dinner on the evening of 7 August with Steve McQueen, after having cut his hair that afternoon.
This seems very random and more than a bit silly.
LAPD Interview
74. Russell, Amos by Warren, Gilmore – 8/14/69
Address: 725 No. Fairfax
DOB: 9-5-21
Mr. Russell is employed as a handyman for Jay. He states he lives at the house, 9810 Easton Drive and was there on 8/7/69 to 8/9/69. He states that on 8-7-69, Sebring was home and approx 7:00 PM Tate, Folger, Frykowski arrived for dinner. They then left about 10:30/11:00.
Sebring remained at home about 1 hour, then left about 11:30…Returned about 2:30/3:00 AM with female friend, 25, 5-5….w/ long white, blonde hair...
Ah yes, I remember Mr. Russell - and that interview.
Strange that he apparently made no mention of the power going out . . . ?
And watch the damn video Tobias. All your questions are answered. You guys really waste an old gal's precious time.
I think the electrician guy was the one suggesting it - he claims that he got a call from Sebring to say that the cable tv had cut out while he and the guests were watching a movie. It’s perfectly plausible that the wires were cut after the murders, or that someone accidentally cut them while mowing the grass! Or that they were never cut in the first place. But you have to wonder what the electrician guy had to gain by making the story up surely? And if you’ve no reason to disbelieve him you must surely accept that it’s a massive coincidence that they were cut at all? As for the butler living by candlelight, I think it was just the cable and outside lights that were affected going by what the guy said. But hey, there’s no way of knowing either way is there. All we can judge it by is the integrity of the guy giving the statement and the probability of the wires being cut in whatever way we believe they were. It seems odd that the investigators didn’t see fit to follow it up either. Particularly given that they appeared to have little much else to go on at that stage of the enquiry.
WATCH THE VIDEO Toby. The power SURGED MOMENTARILY, it didn't go out except on the cable in Jay's bedroom. Greenwald said Amos easily could've missed it.
And Jay didn't have dinner with McQueen the 7th, where you picking up this bullshit. (Where did my George go????)
As for the interview with Russell, was he interviewed before or after the electrician guy? Without checking the records I assume it was before looking at the date of his interview. So the suggestion of wires having been cut hadn’t yet arisen as far as the investigators were concerned. Therefore not covered in his interview note.
Well, you will note I said "apparently" on the McQueen dinner thing - it's been thrown out there by others for years (McQueen's biographer indicates that this happened in his tome, though my personal assumption is that the author was trying to set up a "McQueen was supposed to be at Cielo on the 9th" narrative).
I dunno, while it's true that I am naturally more than a little skeptical of things like this, this still seems a rather small and insignificant matter to dwell on for too long, especially as the investigators at the time saw no reason to pursue the matter. What does a power surge have to do with the murders that happened in another location 24 hours later? Tex didn't cut the power at Cielo, after all - he cut the telephone wires. In fact (if we are believing Tex), he wanted to be careful NOT to cut the power at Cielo because the whole idea was not to tip the occupants off that something was up.
The whole idea of trying to make a connection here just doesn't add up.
Tobias - the suggestion is that he didn’t intend to cut the power at Sebring’s wither but rather the phone line. He cuts the cable wire and the outside lights wire mistakenly thinking that they’re phone lines and triggers the surge whereby all of the outside lights come on. That’s what the electrician figured would’ve happened as he installed the wiring. I entirely accept that it’s a small detail but it’s on such small details that cases are often broken, it’s all conjecture of course but it’s a helluva coincidence to me.
Yes, it is a "suggestion" in a matter rife with such suggestions.
They did take samples of the cut phone lines at Cielo and they made test cuts with the bolt cutters once those were discovered, of course.
One imagines that, if there were reason for suspicion here, they'd have compared the cut or whatever it was at Sebring to that evidence. I mean, the LAPD was inept, but they weren't *that* inept.
If you think about modus operandi, where does that take you with this?!
Well they were inept enough with the blood mapping and the recovery of the clothing, the discarded gun and a whole lot of other much more important things!
Tobias - one other point. As you pointed out, Watson expressly stated that he was very careful at Cielo NOT to cut the power cable. Aside from trying not to fry himself (!) you do wonder with hindsight and having read the tale about Sebring’s house whether that had something to do with him being so careful. Learned from his mistake elsewhere perhaps??!
Agreed.
There just doesn't seem to be any "there" there. I mean, there is just no supporting evidence to suggest that these victims were actually being stalked and targeting for ... reasons? There is simply no known connection between the killers and those killed, other than the chance Manson/Tate encounter that spring and Folger possibly volunteering at the free clinic when a family member or two might have wandered in, years before.
And what of Hinman and the LaBiancas? Any cut wires at those homes?
With everyone directly involved and so many indirectly involved all telling the same macro-level story for more than 50 years now, wild, left-field theories like this seem rather ridiculous. And those offering (very) slightly different stories (Good, Fromme) each have very identifiable motives for doing so.
I agree with everything you say there. But in reality, what kind of links would you expect there to be. Particularly at this stage of the game. Manson was running what was essentially a criminal enterprise. And Watson was assisting whilst also running his own enterprise on the side. Who knows where and with who their tentacles stretched. Manson was a con man and manipulator through and through. HS was a wacky belief system to keep his flock in check, get them to do his bidding, give him free sex and keep his free loading enterprise going. He probably pinched the whole idea from the other sect up the road! He was ever the opportunist. Was it the reason for the murders? I’d say not and I’d go back to the core function of the group - criminality - as being the more likely cause. Hinman was a guy they knew so no need to cut his wires or gain surprise entry. The LaBiancas was Manson’s show. He likely felt threatened by what Watson had “achieved” at Cielo and needed to reassert himself. The showing them how it’s done line that he used. You could also argue that it suggests knowledge of how many victims were at each location. Two at the LaBiancas - easy to subdue so no need to cut the lines. More af Cielo so isolate the phone lines first in case anyone manages to run. Who knows. It’s all conjecture at this stage isn’t it? I do think that the little anomalies and contradictions of evidence do offer their own insight though and shouldn’t be outright dismissed simply because there is no smoking gun.
I know, I know. I am a complete spoil sport when it comes to this kinda stuff. Makes me wish sometimes that I was more of a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but not really;)
I would quibble with the idea that criminality is, in and of itself, a goal. Rather, the criminal acts were more a means to an end. Kill the people to get their money - or because they won't give you any of it. Or hell, kill the people to gain vengeance on an unaccepting society. Or hell - both. Burn the earthmover because it is being used to spoil the Rommel fun. Shoplift to get the shit we cannot afford, etc. etc.
In other words, I don't think Charlie & Co performed criminal acts so that they could be criminals. I think he did (and encouraged) these things because that's how he knew to get by in life. He wasn't gonna don a suit and play good boy, so fuck it - just take what you need.
The other thing that strikes me in so many of these posts and theories people share is that it seems like some folks place a whole lot more "gravitas" on the likes of Manson and Watson, etc. Let's face it, these were not very bright people. Watson was pretty much a self-admitted serial failure, except when it came to leaping over collapsible gating. He failed at petty typewriter thievery, college was a bust, wiggery was not his thing, and he definitely failed at pulling off drug burns. Manson was wily and street-smart, but his entire life story involves trying to pull off really fucking stupid criminal acts and, as his bio demonstrates, he continually failed at being a criminal. Or hell, I guess one could say he was really good at it, as he accomplished quite an impressive rap sheet, but he seemed to get caught on a very regular basis. And then he'd whine about it.
The point you do raise that remains fascinating (to me) is: did Manson really believe this whole Beatles-in-the-sky, end of the world bullshit? I do get that the young lost souls bought into this crappola, but did Manson really fall asleep at night dreaming of this massive race war that his pitiful little self was going to ignite? See, the sensible part of me laughs at this very notion, that the dude actually believed in such crockery. But then again, apparently thought Manson believed that Tate would be a good cover for Hinman, so what the fuck do I know?
Vera Dreiser said:
And, you're STILL wrong anyway about the report.
From LAPD's 8/14/69 interview of Greenwald:
"Greenwald was of the opinion that the wire had been deliberately cut. Probably three days prior to his investigation."
So what 30, 40, 50 year delay are you fucking talking about?!
Did I say that Greenwald made his statement 30, 40, 50 years later ?
Try to keep up, Dora.
Many, many takes and statements have been made decades after the event {Uncle Tom even makes the point that many that he spoke to didn’t speak to the police at the time} and so many of them are highly suspicious at best. This didn’t begin in the 80s, right from the start, statements were made that needed looking at robustly. So if I hear of any statement now, I keep in mind what the last 5 decades have brought up, even if the statement came from 1969 or 70.
His start point was an anniversary piece about the murders for a magazine
I’m aware of that. He states this blurb at the start of his book. When I talk about his start point, I wasn’t talking about the day he got the assignment !
He was looking for a fresh take, but nothing like countering the official narrative
He states that the angle that his editor had given him wasn’t enough for him and that he had an eye on other possible motives. Not only that, that when he started talking with Hollywood people and the police, that none of them bought HS, that it was wearing thin for him and this all turns up in the book before he speaks to Bugliosi. OK, perhaps it was a bit strong to say that it was his start point, but he wasn’t going into it to uphold what you call the official narrative because he was looking at possible alternatives. It is very early on that he goes in what he calls wildly different directions and decides that the idea of starting “a massive race war and making it look like the Black Panthers were behind the murders didn’t land, either.”
When a journalist searching for a fresh take starts to question an accepted narrative and asks themselves “was there another reason for the murders that had nothing to do with race wars” after reading the book that more or less establishes what they regard as the official narrative, and before they speak to the author of that book, then realistically, you have a scenario where that journalist is not going to tread the usual line. They are in an already slanted position. The following 20 years of Tom’s investigation follow on from what was in his mind before speaking to Bugliosi, by the way he describes the chronology in his book.
He even spent 6 hours with Bug in his first week of reporting and planned to make him the centerpiece -- in a heroic way
I don’t know whether it was the first week {he doesn’t specify} but your reading of things is very different to mine. Bugliosi the centrepiece in a heroic way ? Pages 52-3 don’t present him in that light, even if one chooses to see that as Tom’s intention. Telling someone the case that made their name has holes {when you already don’t believe the given “narrative”} is not exactly casting that person in an heroic light !
Okay, I watched the Jay documentary and Tom’s Instagram post. If, as according to Russell, the four Cielo victims were at Jay’s on August 7, it doesn’t demonstrate anything other than the quartet was seemingly inseparable.
Well, now they’re together forever.
As for the electrician, until someone can tell me which cable TV company was providing programming and had a cable strung to obscure Easton Drive in August of 1969 I can’t take anything he says seriously.
George Stimson said:
Why doesn't anybody around here have the balls to post using their real names?
We’ve e-mailed before. You have my real name, even if it’s easy to forget.
Vera Dreiser said:
Who gives a fuck what your take is
You might need to, if you’re actually going to understand the nuance within what I’m saying and have sensible conversation. You don’t appear to do ‘nuance’ well.
There is ONE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE. The one that got them CONVICTED in court: That the murders were committed to incite a race war called Helter Skelter
Watson, Krenwinkle, Atkins and Van Houten were not convicted because of HS. And there were at least 3 motives presented. If one includes the women, make that 4.
No wonder your name is what it is, I'd be grim too
That would be a good jab, Dora, had I not chosen the name myself !
For someone who once said to me, ”Where'd ya learn that, Grim? ONeal's lousy, undocumented conspiracy book?”, I can see that your former resolve has wilted and you now operate with the puritanism of the reformed smoker. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and I get it. I’m not one of those people that sees a change of mind on a subject as some kind of pitiful weakness. In point of fact, it should make for useful debate and discussion. Except that you don’t discuss and debate. You fly out 🧙🏼♀️ with capital letters and slurs at anyone that disagrees with you. Still, like SAG, the Col and others who choose that style in both the recent and distant past, you do have interesting things to say.
Sometimes.
ONeill did EVERYTHING he could NOT to speculate or offer opinions or easy conclusions, only presenting the facts-even when they conflicted with each other, undermining his arguments
Which they do throughout the book.
You call me naive because of what I said about the police in the instance of checking out the electrician’s story ~ but you really show naïveté in believing that he is not doing those things. In his interview with Joe Rogan, Tom makes the point that he won’t speculate as to what was behind the murders, but says that he lays out his facts circumstantially and hopes that the reader will put things together and basically arrive at a conclusion that this was some kind of CIA initiative. It’s called concluding by the back door. Almost doing a Charlie Manson and not saying things out straight, but leaving that to the loyal followers…
WATCH THE VIDEO Toby. The power SURGED MOMENTARILY, it didn't go out except on the cable in Jay's bedroom
After the big build up and the capitalized howling and screeching, the momentary power surge is something of a cup of flat beer, let alone proof of an attempt on Sebring or any of his party, let alone conclusive evidence of Watson’s nefarious Thursday night shenanigans.
Greenwald said Amos easily could've missed it
He indeed could have. But as the man Friday of the household, would he not have been made aware of it ? Would its effects have been totally unnoticed for all that time ? You yourself provide evidence that Amos was there from the 7th to the 9th.
But just because Amos doesn’t mention it in his interview, I don’t go running to conclude it couldn’t have or didn’t happen ~ even though it would support where I stand for that to be the case.
Vera Dreiser said:
Now we know you didn't read the book
Oh, but Dora, I have read the book. Started it on June 13th of last year, finished it on the 22nd. One of my favourite bath reads, just after the school I work in went back after the first Corona lockdown in the UK. Only about 7 of the 120 kids came back at that time, so I had plenty of free headspace to digest what I was reading.
The irony is that I read it because of you. In September 2019, I didn’t want to read the book. In response to something SAG said at LSB, I remarked that it sounded like Shreck but without the 900+ pages. The same conversation where you actively trashed the book, actually. Then here, you were accusing me of “making the mistake of constantly criticizing it based on what you've read others say about it.” I’ve been through every post over the period where I said I didn’t want to read it to the linked one and I never criticize the book. I don’t even mention it, either here, LSB or CieloDrive. I may respond to people who make points based on some of the findings in the book, but I don’t speak about it, much less criticize it, let alone constantly. The further irony is that in a few threads here, I criticize the Col for doing the very thing he spent a year or more saying Tom O’Neill was doing. The speed with which you pounced on me for doing something I hadn’t told me that you had done a pretty serious volte-face, and I was curious as to why. You challenged me to read the book, so I did. And since June of last year, I’ve said quite a bit about it.
You’re so sensitive about what’s in the book and what comes from O’Neill, that you’re utterly blind to anything that doesn’t bend to Tom’s will and I have to say, I do find that kind of funny. It’s funnier than your humour, which I have to say, has always been pretty funky since I first encountered it in 2015.
Speculator said:
Tobias - maybe you need to open your mind slightly and not be so dismissive
It rarely ceases to fascinate me how, just because a person is firm in what they believe 🧑🏾🏫 and they don’t collapse like a deck of cards in a desert sandstorm to something that appears to be {at least, at first, or on the surface} difficult, 👩🏾🔬 they get accused of being closed-minded.
One could say the same about your thoughts on Leslie and parole.
But I wouldn’t. I’d just seek to understand why you happen to feel that way.
Sometimes, people arrive at their conclusions through a number of years of hard mental and philosophical graft and when those hard, opposing moments come, they have the arguments to counter them, 💃🏾 🕺🏾 sometimes almost immediately.
George - why do you think the guy would make the story up about the cables being cut? What would he have to gain from doing that?
Grim - I’m disappointed that you’ve not pulled my comments to bits - apart from the dismissive bit! Maybe you see at least a bit of logic in them!
Grim - I’m disappointed that you’ve not pulled my comments to bits - apart from the dismissive bit! Maybe you see at least a bit of logic in them!
Grim - I’m disappointed that you’ve not pulled my comments to bits - apart from the dismissive bit! Maybe you see at least a bit of logic in them!
Grim - I’m disappointed that you’ve not pulled my comments to bits - apart from the dismissive bit! Maybe you see at least a bit of logic in them!
Exactly! You typed exactly what I was thinking, but too lazy to actually take the time to post! This is the same ol bag of horseshit that pop up on here every other week from readers: poor little misunderstood Manson was innocent, Bugliosi made HS up (even though Sandra Good pretty much sums up HS in her prologue on the Manson documentary and a lot of other Family members talked about HS in interviews, including three of the f*cking killers), and so on & so forth......
The whole thing is stupid!
Speculator said:
Grim - I’m disappointed that you’ve not pulled my comments to bits - apart from the dismissive bit! Maybe you see at least a bit of logic in them!
I do.
Everything you said is logical. Everything you said is plausible. I just don't believe it's actual.
That's the thing with all of this; most of the alternatives floated are plausible. Within them, there's also a great deal of logic. It's the actuality of each that carries the weight, and what evidence there is to show any actuality.
Speculator said:
why do you think the guy would make the story up about the cables being cut? What would he have to gain from doing that?
One could ask exactly the same question of Seymour Kott, next door neighbour to 10050 Cielo Drive, who on the actual weekend of the murders, was interviewed by an NBC reporter and asked if he heard any sounds after midnight on the 8th, going into the 9th, to which he replied definitively, "None, whatsoever." Then a couple of weeks later, the LA Times reports an interview with him in which he says he heard gunshots and screams, didn't report it to the police and the clincher, says it was no earlier than "2~2.30am" !
Almost literally from the first day, people played fast and loose with this case, with contradictory statements or things that makes one's brow wrinkle. And as we know, Seymour Kott was not the last to engage in this sport, which has gone on for 52 years. Now, I'm not for a moment suggesting the electrician falls into this bracket, but it's just to demonstrate that within hours of the murders, people were falling into it, for reasons known only to them ~ which is in direct answer to your question.
Grim - you’re right about the various stories that have been uttered over the years. I guess you have to understand, or try to understand, the psychology behind the lie. Kott was maybe in shock at what had gone on next door and see no evil/hear no evil allowed him to keep a distance from any involvement in it. Then upon reflection with the LA TImes he saw his few minutes of fame. Who knows. I guess only he knew what was the truth about anything he saw/heard. With the electrician, he gave his statement, it presumably got buried in the police file and he wasn’t heard from again for how ever many years. No real motive or purpose for him to invent any story. It’s not like he followed it up through any other avenues. And I hasten to add, wires being cut at Sebring’s likely as not could have absolutely nothing to do with the murders. But it is intriguing isn’t it?
It is.
It could have been bored neighbourhood kids or some of the troublesome "Hippies" that Rudolf Weber mentioned. His road and Jay's were virtually next to each other.
In a way, it reminds me of the sounds that were heard around the area and the canyons that night ~ sounds that, if we do take on board what the perps, Tim Ireland and Rudolf Weber eventually settled on as to what they heard or saw, couldn't have had anything to do with the murders because of the time. But they take on a significance, only because of what happened at Cielo.
They are in the initial "Tate" police report, and Bugliosi & Gentry start their book with them. But sheer logic tells me that not only could they have had nothing to do with the murders, their occurrence can therefore be seen as routine sounds that hardly anyone would have had an issue with had there not been murders that the police were looking into.
Maybe the cut wire was along those lines {no pun intended}.
I don't dispute their happening. I dispute the interpretation given of their happening.
GreenWhite said:
Fromme's book belongs with Stimson's in the canon
I like the book, but it's something of a contradiction, in the same way Susan Atkins' two books are.
For me, it's a simple equation. Either what she said to Robert Hendrickson in the "Manson" documentary and throughout "Death to pigs" was all lies and bravado and she's prepared to admit it and "Reflexion" is the truth, or the stuff she said to Robert was true and an accurate representation of how she felt, which leaves "Reflexion" as......
I'm all about nuance and paradox, but both cannot be true.
Actually not a bad point. I've been watching a lot of Backporch Tapes this weekend and the stories do evolve a bit over the years.
Squeaky was a flake. Still is.
Just as Stimson and Good are flakey.
That sounds insulting and in a way, it is, but these are not logical, clear-headed thinkers. They do not connect things in the same cause-and-effect way that most people do. While that quality can be fascinating and in some cases even profound, in these cases it simply makes no sense.
"Oh I took the gun with me and displayed it because I wanted him (Ford) to stop and talk to me, I was never going to shoot him!"
Sure, Squeak. That's always the best way to capture the attention of a U.S. President.
"Why did these murders happen? Why don't you ask Johnson and Nixon why all of those deaths in Vietnam happened!!!"
Er, sure Sandy, but that doesn't quite answer the question . . .
No sense continues to make sense to some of these people and it manages to be sad and laughable - and quite entertaining - all at the same time.
Still waiting for Stimson's "problematic" Part 6 of the podcast, where he attempts to establish how Manson personally leading the charge on the LaBianca night, to the point of restraining them and setting the stage for their less-messy murders, squares with the notion that he remained unattached and only indirectly involved with it all. I suppose I could read the same bullshit in his book, but that would require time and money I am not willing to grant to this nonsense.
Agreed Tobias - there’s no excusing Manson from this. Whilst I’ve always thought there was likely more to the Cielo murders than HS it’s never been my thinking that an alternative motive gets Manson off the hook. And the LaBianca’s was all his play irrespective of what motive(s) drove Cielo. He was desperate to assert/reassert his authority and show the kids how to do things properly.
Agreed Tobias - there’s no excusing Manson from this. Whilst I’ve always thought there was likely more to the Cielo murders than HS it’s never been my thinking that an alternative motive gets Manson off the hook. And the LaBianca’s was all his play irrespective of what motive(s) drove Cielo. He was desperate to assert/reassert his authority and show the kids how to do things properly.
Agreed Tobias - there’s no excusing Manson from this. Whilst I’ve always thought there was likely more to the Cielo murders than HS it’s never been my thinking that an alternative motive gets Manson off the hook. And the LaBianca’s was all his play irrespective of what motive(s) drove Cielo. He was desperate to assert/reassert his authority and show the kids how to do things properly.
Vera Dreiser said:
You call it “desperate” to take this new discovery seriously?
It's certainly paradoxical. And part of the paradox is "yes."
Firstly, it is not a new discovery. Forgotten, maybe.
I stand by my assertion that there is, and has been for almost half a century, a desperation to do away with the prosecution case and that which made it up.
Now, the reality is that researchers and interested parties to the case are always re~running the case. The TLB/Manson blogging movement has more or less built its popularity and raison d'être on this. And that would not be the case if everything that made up the case was simply accepted as is. And there is a huge difference between a recognition that the prosecution wasn't 100% on all matters but by and large got it right and saying they were dodgy and incorrect. The very proliferation of all the alternatives should tell us something profound. People go after LE, they go after the victims, they go after the USA security services, they go after individual officers like Bugliosi....they draw in sources from almost every possible angle in order to show that the wool has been pulled over the eyes of anyone that thinks that what was said of Charlie and his troupe was actually true.
I can understand why and I enjoy the theories and debates and arguments....but it does show a measure of desperation.
That said, by pointing all of this out, I'm not in the slightest saying that any and everything shouldn't be gone into and looked at. By all means, have at it.
Wow, okay, glad the researchers who exonerated Malcolm X’s killers last week with evidence they spent decades rooting out weren’t as ignorant as you
That was below the belt, even for you.
The two cases are not remotely similar. The third shooter, who wasn't exonerated, said back in the mid 60s that the two guys that were, weren't part of what happened.
Not only that, aside from the rampant racism that was the norm within so much LE in mid 60s USA, the Manson case has an unusually high amount of folk who simply couldn't keep their gobs shut. Including all the killers. So many people over a 52-year period from literally every angle have said so much, which gives the ordinary punter the chance to review and cross-check and see lies, errors, discrepancies etc and reach certain conclusions.
Their own conclusions.
LE all over the world have been found to have partaken in some devious muckin' abaaaahhht over the years. It happens. It even involves some nice guys. I don't believe that the events prior to the moment the perps set off for Cielo were orchestrated outside the mind of Charlie Manson.
Grim - I’d say that the events leading to Cielo were equally or at least in some part orchestrated in the mind of Watson too. But I think we’ll forever go around in circles with that one. Evidence and anecdotes show that Watson was much more the independent thinker and doer than the programmes zombie he portrayed after he was caught. Anyway, regardless of what we disagree on, you must surely agree that this case has more anomalies, weird coincidences and bizarre facts attached to it than most any other! The Sharon Tate premonition for instance. I’d always assumed that to be a made up story after the event until I actuallly saw the media cutting that recited the tale which was from a couple of years BEFORE the murders. Doesn’t that make you stop and think this whole thing was just so downright spooky?!
Speculator said:
Evidence and anecdotes show that Watson was much more the independent thinker and doer than the programmes zombie he portrayed after he was caught
I do think he was an independent thinker ~ when he wasn't in Charlie's orbit. Yet despite it, he was drawn back to the Family, even though he had left because he thought he was losing his mind.
I also think that while he was influenced and dominated by Charlie, he played the programmed zombie to the hilt when he was caught. So much so, that it's scarcely believable and I don't believe it.
I actually think he encapsulated something Charlie said during his trial, when he said that a person could take so much acid that they reach a place of no thought, nothing. And that makes it easy to see why he could believe in HS, even to the point of setting it off, yet, be completely in command of his faculties during the murders themselves. I used to speculate that Charlie, like many criminals, had wondered what it would be like to kill or have someone killed. I think that of Watson too. While not every acid head would think along those lines, for some, it might be more than just curiosity.
you must surely agree that this case has more anomalies, weird coincidences and bizarre facts attached to it than most any other!
Without a doubt. But in a sense, that's part of the point I was making to dearest Vera. It is actually pretty rare for a murder case to have so much coming in from so many people. Not so much in court, I'm talking about the attendant package, the 52 years of comment, interviews, analysis and more from so many of the involved parties that came out through media of one kind and another. That's why we can reach some of the conclusions we do. 52 years is a long time for people to be contributing to an historic happening.
Doesn’t that make you stop and think this whole thing was just so downright spooky?!
Not really. Marc Bolan used to say he wouldn't make it to 30. He died at 29. Probably the most famous line Pete Townshend ever wrote was "Hope I die before I get old." Keith Moon, his bandmate, did. Would the vicious murder of Darwin Scott even have rated a mystery mention if he wasn't the brother of Charlie's Dad ? Or would it be accepted as just another routine suicide on a cold London December day had Joel Pugh not known Sandra Good ? I hate to say it, but even people that have premonitions {or that are wives of filmmakers known for violent and/or macabre movies}, can die violently.
Tex was and is a pretty simple person. I haven't thought about this enough to compose a beautifully entwined series of thoughts, but I think the biggest danger with this dude is to overestimate him. Again, Watson was and is a simpleton, and a few key traits stand out to me:
He has a history of diving face-first into whatever he's decided to pursue without much thought devoted to consequence. Whether it be sports, frat life, Manson or Jesus Christ himself, Tex has never held back. The instruction he received before his departure to LA to face trial was: "talk to no one, say absolutely nothing." And that's exactly what he did - for months. This trait is even seen in the crimes themselves. Everyone commented on the extreme over-kill nature of those murders and that was 100% Tex. Stabbing until the people stopped making sounds and then continuing to beat & stab, even after. One shot would have killed Steve Parent, instead he got four. Hilariously, Watson submitted additions & corrections to the editors of his own Wiki. Etc.
There is also a fairly outsized ego at play with this dude. He used to strut around declaring himself Manson's second in command during his early prison years, saying "yeah, I was pretty much running things out there." He used his early ministry to form a little power base around himself, where he could wield authority over other inmates. He once declared to a fellow felon who had offended him in some way "I will call down the power of 20,000 angels on your head" or words to that effect. Who the fuck even thinks something like this. He's also made it a practice to proudly announce himself "FORGIVEN" - even to parole boards over the years.
For me, these kinds of factors are key reasons why this guy should never again breath free air, along with the crimes themselves. He has seemingly never learned to apply the brakes on himself at any point in his life, down to his very parole hearings, where he actually strides in as an "equal" and thinks he is going to get somewhere by disagreeing with and attempting to negotiate with parole boards.
That guy will simply never "get it".
tobiasragg said:
He has a history of diving face-first into whatever he's decided to pursue without much thought devoted to consequence. Whether it be sports, frat life, Manson or Jesus Christ himself, Tex has never held back
I'm not sure I'd agree with that in its entirety. He spent a long time running from Jesus, although ironically, it was as a consequence of finding that the consequences of that led to the gas chamber, then jail for life, that he succumbed to Jesus. And let's face it, with the Family, it was quite a while before he was accepted and most guys, seeing the naked, willing and subservient women and the weed in abundance dove in face first ! At least at first.
the extreme over-kill nature of those murders and that was 100% Tex. Stabbing until the people stopped making sounds and then continuing to beat & stab, even after. One shot would have killed Steve Parent, instead he got four
Every one of the murders {including Gary & Shorty} had an element of overkill. And didn't Susan state how she wanted to cut out Sharon's baby ? Didn't Charlie instruct on the mutilation that was to take place ? Didn't Leslie go at Rosemary continuously, even though she thought she was dead ?
Hilariously, Watson submitted additions & corrections to the editors of his own Wiki
To be honest, I would have done that if I was in his shoes. If I'm a reviled killer and you write about me, at least get the details right ! Don't say my Mum was an "adult entertainer" when she was actually a film extra !
He used to strut around declaring himself Manson's second in command during his early prison years, saying "yeah, I was pretty much running things out there."
Do we actually know this for sure, or is this one of those urban myths that passed into legend and then was repeated so many times that it became "fact" ?
tobiasragg said:
He once declared to a fellow felon who had offended him in some way "I will call down the power of 20,000 angels on your head" or words to that effect. Who the fuck even thinks something like this
An immature Christian. Honestly, I've heard people say similar things. And then maybe 10 years later, they look back on certain points in their life and recognize how ridiculous they sounded.
Unfortunately, not everyone does recognize it !
He's also made it a practice to proudly announce himself "FORGIVEN" - even to parole boards over the years
Hey, Tobias, that's what Christians do.
For many years, so many people on a variety of sites rag on him for stating this. But one thing I have noticed keenly, is that there are very few people that actually try to contextualize his pronouncements of forgiveness.
Being forgiven by God is a huge deal to a Christian. It's what enables a person to actually get together with God in the first place.
down to his very parole hearings, where he actually strides in as an "equal" and thinks he is going to get somewhere by disagreeing with and attempting to negotiate with parole boards
I've pointed this out for a few years now, and it is still a huge irony ~ the very Jesus that has kept him sane and helped him actually move away from being "Tex of the Manson Family" all these years is the major contributor in preventing him from being paroled. When some people chime in about how fake he is in his religion and go on about how he's just at it as a con to get out of jail, I find myself having to point out that 52 years after walking into the local jail in McKinney or wherever it was, he's never left. And because he refuses secular counselling as God is enough for him, it counts against him big time, when it comes to parole. He would have had to have gone through gargantuan programs in any event, to demonstrate, à la Leslie, his changes, but no parole board can risk letting him out on what he shows them and tells them. It's a matter of something other than faith in God, when it comes to parole having been convicted of 7 murders. But he continues down his path. There's no other way he can go, and I think he's genuine in his faith {notwithstanding his faults, which all Christians have}; I, for one, would be amazed if he is ever paroled, even if every board member and the Guv'nor were genuine Christians.
Grim - you ask whether Watson promoting himself as Manson’s 2nd in command was a myth - didn’t he publish his book on his website under the banner of “Manson’s right hand man speaks out” or words to that effect? I think it was defiantly fact rather than myth.
Grim - you ask whether Watson promoting himself as Manson’s 2nd in command was a myth - didn’t he publish his book on his website under the banner of “Manson’s right hand man speaks out” or words to that effect? I think it was defiantly fact rather than myth.
Speculator said...
you ask whether Watson promoting himself as Manson’s 2nd in command was a myth - didn’t he publish his book on his website under the banner of “Manson’s right hand man speaks out” or words to that effect? I think it was defiantly fact rather than myth
It's a little more nuanced than that.
His website is a website of a distinctly Christian flavour, its sole aim to show the love and power of God in being able to get through to, and go about changing even the worst of people. When it came to the TLB murders, he was Charlie's right-hand man. No doubt about that.
There'd be little point in presenting himself as "the guy that fixed Manson's Dune buggies", if he's trying to demonstrate to people that go to his site, what he's demonstrating. Whereas, a murderer or someone higher up the food chain......
And back to '69, when he left the Family and went back to Texas, he presented himself to one of the women he was hanging with, as one of the guys that was running things up there. I vaguely seem to recall reading that on Cat's old site ~ I may be mistaken, but it seems she had some trial transcripts that aren't on Cielo's site from the Watson trial. Anyway, prior to his arrest, he presented himself as something of a bigwig there. But since his conviction, all those kind of statements have gone into the realm of the unverifiable, which is why I ask Tobias if we know this with some surety or if it's some Bill Nelson-esque statement that came from some ex or present con, which has assumed the status of solid truth.
So he doesn't really show himself as a bigwig at Spahn in the book, "Right-hand man speaks out." If anything, I would think any charges of minimization regarding the book, would have some justification. It's one of the enduring ironies that the parole board don't focus on that aspect of it, they major on the title, which, quite frankly, is clickbait, rather than an affirmation of reality.
GW, forgive me, but I think you may be failing to see the larger psychological picture, given the above. At least somewhat.
Obviously, my response is reflecting my own personal POV, so take this with as many grains of salt as you care to. But I think we need to widen the lens a bit and ask ourselves: why the book? Why the second book? Why the third and the fourth and however many more there are. Why the website? The monthly messages?
Sure, part of the motivation might be to spread that all-important gospel, and I think in Watson's own mind that's pretty much all there is to it. But I think that might be as secondary a motivation as the "Right Hand Man" subtitle.
I could be very wrong here, but I think the macro-motivation is a kind of perverted, Willy Lomanesque need to be IMPORTANT. To be REMEMBERED for something.
Most everything we know of this dude seems to confirm this, I think. The careful tracking of his high school hurdle records (or whatever the hell they were) and the notice he paid to one being broken recently. The anal-retentive, careful correction of his Wiki page. The eager correspondence with people out there, the proud proclamations of having been FORGIVEN and the tens of thousands of angels he is now able to command. The boasts (if true) that he was "pretty much running things up there" - the purposeful separation from Manson & the girls when it came time to face the music in a courtroom. The books, the site, the constant affirmation from certain segments of the religious community. We can safely throw the self-enriching racket of an early ministry fiasco onto this heap of Watson hubris. The stories of his lording power over the "lesser" inmates during that time are many and they are revealing, I think.
(continued below . . . )
(. . . continued, from above)
You are as aware as I am of Watson's posture in parole hearings over the years. He removes himself from that reality, he is well above it all. He will dabble with the little secular psychological exams demanded of him, but he gives those no due. He is above all of that, he is different. He is special.
Hell, he is FORGIVEN.
Watson recently shared a very revealing little story. He says that someone out there had dug up an old picture of himself standing in a group of other kids. At first I thought he was speaking of a school-aged photo, but no - he was speaking of a photo from the Manson period - the kids being fellow family members. Watson went on to describe all of "the kids" pictured looking tattered and dirty, their eyes cast downward, their faces grim. In contrast, he relates, he himself was standing there proudly, staring straight at the camera and grinning quite broadly. Tex said that viewing this pic made him feel happy and proud, as it was a reminder that he wasn't really like all of "those other people" - he was special and different and not ashamed. It was a pretty astounding little story.
I think that you are right, the books and the site are attempts to minimize his real involvement with that portion of his past (as IF, lol) but it is telling, I think, to consider just how often he calls upon that notoriety in his public-facing communications.
If I run across the source of the "running things" quote again, I will share this with you. When it comes to these people and this case, I think one must always take everything with a few ounces of suspicion, but I do give that story credence simply because of how well it fits with the overall profile of one Charles Watson.
P.S. I have a photo I'd love to share with you, if I can dig it up again. But I wonder if you have ever seen this . . . the pic is of a late-70s Leslie sitting atop a bed alongside her (former) gal-pal Krenny. They are sporting late-70s big hair and clad in skin-tight candy-striped PJs, which are complete with built-in footies. They are grinning broadly at the camera and kind of snuggled up next to each other, as if the camera caught them in the middle of a really fun sleepover for murderous lifers. Sound familiar? If not, lemme know and I will go searching for this, it's - bizarre. And maybe the source of some posting fun for you, I dunno.
"He says that someone out there had dug up an old picture of himself standing in a group of other kids"
Love to see this photo...
Also, I agree with you 100% about Tex's need to feel superior/important (just like his speedfreak pal Susan)!
Original SNL skit - Sandra and Squeaky
https://images.app.goo.gl/dAC3S32LV2ft7w4y9
Shaved heads too!
https://images.app.goo.gl/Avwnmna8KxTvEvcU8
Re: Tex's hurdle record. I'd totally check to see if mine was still there. I'm shallow like that. Farmersville HS is 4A school in Texas. All the future stars come out of 6A usually. Essentially, 6A school are the largest all the way down to 1A. Below that, Wikipedia says high schools with less than 104.5 students are eligible to play 6 man football if they wish.
Hurdles ain't joke as anyone with a T&F background will tell you. It's three/four steps at full speed and a big jump over and over for the entire length of the race. Twitch, concentration, speed, strength, and coordination are your defenses against a gruesome injury. And he was a halfback on the football team. That's a good runner with big hands who can withstand collisions at full speed.
In fact looking at Tex's football photos and etc it's hard for me to understand why he was afraid of Charlie or felt he had to do what Charlie said. However, I've never seen blobs instead of people either so who knows. Beep Boop you are now my servant.
As a former Christian and current student of Christianity and other Near East religions, I'd offer that in my opinion Tex is the worst kind of Christian in his behavior. Check out a Dale Allison video on YouTube to compare how others talk and act and use their body language to convey their feelings.
Internally, I struggle a lot over why I can develop empathy for Mary (for example even though there are others) but not Tex or Bruce. They just seem so freakin phony to me. Tex's 20k angels and likely the armor of God threat, while I agree with Grim that Tex sounds like the recently converted in his fervor there, reminds me of the story of Pompey being warned he'd perish on the spot if he entered the Temple, and then the Holiest of Holies, but when he strides into the Temple he finds it somewhat bereft and shoddy and rolls back out intact a couple minutes later.
If Tex was paraphrasing Matthew 26:53 like I think, the twelve legions Christ has on call up in Heaven would equal seventy-two thousand angels since a Roman Legion was six thousand men. The topic is discussed to death from all sides online if anyone is interested. The twelve legions threat is made by Christ himself interestingly. Maybe Tex has got it like that who am I to say?
Also totally willing to discuss Matthew and or the rest of the Bible since angels are mentioned something like 275 times in the Bible and I might be mistaken here.
GreenWhite said...
In fact looking at Tex's football photos and etc it's hard for me to understand why he was afraid of Charlie or felt he had to do what Charlie said
I think if one combines the psychology of the counterculture {in which the things that were generally deified, like strength, education and a certain standing of a certain class of people were pretty much reduced in favour of the 'everyman', so to speak}, acid {in which most, if not all, 'normal' boundaries could be dissolved ~ but unpredictably} and just a general wariness of encountering someone that had been incarcerated in 'bad boy' institutions and prison for most of their life {I went to school with a number of small people who were bloody tough and you didn't mess with them. Even if you could deal with the individual, there were their pals.....}, it's not hard to see why a guy like Charlie could dominate a fella like Charles. There is even a certain significance in the fact that Charlie was called 'Charlie' and Charles was called, before George Spahn nicknamed him 'Tex', 'Charles'. And it was clear that small Charlie had the run of Dennis Wilson, the famous pop star's home, ran lots of young women and had young rich kids trying to get close to him and deny their parents' wealth and privilege. And let's not forget the influence of Dean Moorehouse. It wasn't lost on Watson that Dean's own daughter was part of Charlie's ménage à trente. In those early days, Dean was actually the huge influence on Watson {it was under his auspices that he had his first few trips that blitzed him} and therefore, if Dean deferred to, and was bossed by, Charlie........
However, there is one overriding arbiter here, that knocks aside our thoughts of how Watson should or shouldn't have reacted to Manson ¬> eventually, he believed him to be Jesus Christ. With that in mind, it doesn't matter how tall and strong, who was or wasn't.
As a former Christian and current student of Christianity.... Also totally willing to discuss Matthew and or the rest of the Bible
Did you get the e-mails I sent you on the 9th and 12th November ?
in my opinion Tex is the worst kind of Christian in his behavior
There's not much I can say about that. From the little we know of him since his 1975 conversion, I have noted evidence of both positive changes and genuine faith as well as lingering darkness and things that no one should be proud of.
But I would say the same about myself and pretty much every Christian I know. It's a lifetime journey and ebbs and flows.
Internally, I struggle a lot over why I can develop empathy for Mary (for example even though there are others) but not Tex or Bruce
If we ever get to converse privately, I'll tell you why I think that may be.
But in passing, I'll just note that finding anyone on any blog that can actually say they like Watson, Bruce or Linda, is akin to finding the Loch Ness monster.
They just seem so freakin phony to me
When it comes to Christianity, there are tons of Brits that feel that way about Americans in general. There are many reasons for it, but few that are prepared to delve, much less with the thought in mind that they could be mistaken.
Tex's 20k angels and likely the armor of God threat..sounds like the recently converted in his fervor there
I didn't say a recently converted Christian, I specified an immature one. Most recently converted Christians that I know or have known over the last 36 years would never dream of making a statement like that. But many immature ones might. I know people that have been in Christ for 20, 30, 40+ years and remain immature.
Grim - I apologize. I set up my email account here via Outlook. It worked just fine and then no longer. I passed my email along to Matt just now. Thank you for following up. Looking forward to chatting.
tobiasragg said:
GW, forgive me, but I think you may be failing to see the larger psychological picture, given the above. At least somewhat
I couldn't recall or find any statement that GW made that was remotely supportive of Watson so I presume that this was in reply to what I had said.
I don't disagree with parts of it, but I'm not overlooking the larger picture, as you put it. Whenever I speak about Charles Watson, it's most definitely with the larger picture in mind, which is partly why some things can be taken as support and some things can be pretty devastating.
For example, I absolutely do not believe him when he says in his book that the copycat and raising bail for Mary and Sandy formed part of the motive for the Cielo murders. And with that in mind, it casts more than mere doubt on whether he went to Cielo with the aim of starting HS. I've stated that before.
I've also discussed at length, particularly here and Cielo's site, my belief that he was involved in Shorty's murder {though the evidence is non-existent, and that which there is, is highly dodgy} and that if true, that he has been playing a very dangerous game with God. I have noted the times he has lied in his parole hearings ~ and been called out by those opposed to him, who have clearly been reading his books. I've frequently dismissed the influence of speed on his person when it came to the murders, and shown why I take that line. And more besides.
But I'm also a Christian that was once atheist, for whom this is a reality and not just some cute set of thoughts I had bunged into me from birth. And I grapple with paradoxes and many other difficult themes and aspects. Does Watson have a need for attention ? Sure. Who, in one way or another, doesn't ? What I try to do is to evoke the reality of his situation, the ins and outs, the difficulties he may be navigating, because apart from Mr Humphrat, Matt and a tiny number of others over the years, nothing but doubt and scorn is cast on his claims or yes, his pronouncement of being forgiven by God.
For his sake, I hope he truly has been forgiven by God. I believe he has been, because God loves people and wants to forgive, and we're all in need of this at whatever level.
But I'm well aware that Christians don't become perfect overnight, whether in jail for murder or Joe and Josephine Public, out there living as honestly as they can. And many of the faults one may initially come to Christ with, can linger for days or decades.
But that is not the complete picture, and I'm intensely reluctant to project on someone else's relationship with God, particularly not personally being involved with the person.
GreenWhite said:
If Tex was paraphrasing Matthew 26:53 like I think
If indeed he said that, then he was. Which is partly why I cite immaturity. It's analogous with the statement James & John made about calling down fire from Heaven against some town that pissed them off. Jesus jokingly dubs them 'the sons of thunder' as a reminder of their folly.
The twelve legions threat is made by Christ himself interestingly
It wasn't actually a threat. If what Matthew relates is true, then it was a reality. But Jesus was doing the opposite of threatening. He was putting the importance of his mission front and centre. The statement was made to one of his own disciples that had done a "Charlie on Gary Hinman" and cut off a guy's ear.
John 18:36 opens it up a little more.
My intent was not to diss hurdles, but rather the hurdler Watson. Apologies if I muddied the waters on that one.
I will also say that I avoid judging anyone else's religiosity. That's a private matter and who am I to judge another? I do think that a few known examples of Watson's *USE* of religion are a bit revealing in terms of character, but that hasn't to do with what his truths might be.
Grim is correct, I think, in pointing out that fear and dominance have little to do with relative size and strength. Those factors can be contributors, of course, but I think Manson's age, life experience and social wiliness had much more to do with the sway he held over Tex and the others.
As for empathy, I feel enormous amounts of it for all of these people (save Manson, largely). How many times have you thought back to a dumb-assed action or decision or comment you made early in your life and thought "WHAT was I thinking?" Happens to me all of the time. That is the position I think most of these people are in right now, even the ones who were not imprisoned. The likes of Brunner and Kasabian have not experienced the most enjoyable of lives, after all, and I think most all of them (with two notable exceptions) would go back and change everything, if they could. This said, we're talking about multiple murders and scads of other crime in these cases, so the enormous amounts of empathy I feel are healthily balanced by scorn and disgust. And that's as true of Brunner as it is for Watson for me.
Above Grim offers a thought that reminded me of a thread of events I've been thinking about recently. I imagine most are aware of the one apparently real hint or confession he offered on his state of mind on the evening of 8 August: the whole confluence of challenging events, his moments alone standing by a tree, and the decision to fuck them all and strike out against society. Brings to mind the "you'll get yours yet" line in Sexy Sadie, but let me see if I can share the bones of this without getting lengthy. As Grim states, the elusive world of celebrity and money and fame was opened just a bit to Manson, then all of the doors slammed shut in his face, and in very short order. Dennis Wilson hit the road and had them ousted from the mansion. The Melcher lead died on the vine and Manson himself was rudely dismissed from the grounds of the luxurious Cielo home he once had access to. Etc. Here he was, stuck on this shit ranch with a bunch of mouths to feed and most all of the money leads had died on the vine - Lotsapoppa, Hinman, etc.
It is far from a new thought to suggest that Cielo was chosen because the place was representative of the successful segments of society that had now rejected him, but the quick succession of "slammed doors" must have really rattled that inner Manson cage. Charlie wanted to be The Beatles and for a while there it seemed like he was almost there, then - nothing.
"My intent was not to diss hurdles, but rather the hurdler Watson. Apologies if I muddied the waters on that one."
LOL!!!
tobiasragg said:
why the book? Why the second book? Why the third and the fourth and however many more there are. Why the website? The monthly messages?
My opinion of both Susan's "Child of Satan..." and Watson's first book is that they should never have been written at the time in which they were because they were both immature Christians that had not, for themselves, processed their lives up to that point in a way that would make any real sense to someone that was not a Christian ~ which is who the books were aimed at. Both books were primarily written by others {Bob Slosser and Ray Hoekstra} and they went hand in hand with that philosophy that did the rounds on the worldwide church circuit at the time of "if any famous or infamous person comes to Jesus and commits, get them out there in front of the rest of the world to tell all about him." There were numerous people that fell into that ~ I mean, there's not many instances that would unite Bob Dylan, the son of Sam, Arlo Guthrie, Eric Clapton, Maria Muldaur, Glen Hoddle, Kerry Livgren, the Paul from Peter, Paul & Mary, Susan Atkins, James Fox, Glen Campbell, Rich Furay and others. Some have remained, some have abandoned their commitment, but it was more important for certain parties to get 'celebs' out in the glare of the spotlight, than it was for them to help them reach a certain spiritual maturity. And naturally, if it's put to someone that they are helping to do the Lord's bidding, there's a likelihood they'll agree and say 'yeah'. Later they may think otherwise !
So one can understand Tex's first book ~ a book ironically, in which he barely mentions Jesus, much less how he actually felt about him.
I'd say the second one from around 2005 reflects a more mature outlook. It's not perfect, but by then, he'd found that being part of a prison ministry wasn't a path to privilege and money and had been called out in his attempts to possibly steer it that way. So "Right-hand man speaks out" is a freebie with more of an aim to try to show people what Christ is about. Also, despite what Dan frequently says, he's not stupid. He knows, as do/did many of the ex~Family members, that there are still people out there that have an interest in the crimes and the folk behind them. Therefore, for what he wants to share, there's a somewhat captive audience.
And let's face it, every Joe or Josephine can reach many others with a website or some form of social media. Are we somehow deficient because we come on a public forum to talk about things ? Yes, there are a combination of reasons why he might do all those things you mention, but at its base level, it's about demand...and supply. He may need to feel important, but I think the need to feel useful and actually do something worthwhile in his life, trumps that.
grimtraveller said:
He may need to feel important, but I think the need to feel useful and actually do something worthwhile in his life, trumps that
I do acknowledge that the two could actually be one and the same !
tobiasragg said:
the enormous amounts of empathy I feel are healthily balanced by scorn and disgust
That's pretty much where I stand. I've long felt a sympathy and empathy for many of the players in this case, on all sides, Family, LE, victims, their families, the jurors, the families of the killers and those in the Family {I was a runaway myself, at 9 and as a teenager and once, my youngest son disappeared ~ luckily not for long ~, so I kind of get both sides}. I feel a tremendous sympathy for Charles Manson. I might not have, in the same way, had I not spent most of my life working with kids in various capacities. But like you, I look at some of the people involved and there's scorn and disgust. I'm disgusted and even angry at many of the things Charlie did, especially with young, impressionable teenagers.
There were some nasty things done by quite a few people on many sides. Granted, much of it had nothing to do with the murders and doesn't act as any kind of justification, but if one hears something and it's verified, well, one has heard it. For example, I think some of the victims' families were out of order to speak of Watson as Shorty's murderer in his latest parole hearing. And the board for allowing it. I think Debbie Tate has sunk to a poor level in misstating facts about the murders in an attempt to make the murderers look worse than they were. I think some of the happenings with the jurors left much to be desired. People like Vera imagine I'd be crying in my pants {now there's an image !} because of what Tom O'Neill dug up and revealed in his book. But I'm under no illusions about human nature. Left to our base selves and own devices, we can be bloody awful. His findings were, in terms of what they factually showed, pretty normal for one that sees human nature in the way that I do. And so it primarily strengthened what was already known and gave a better balance to events, without altering the overall picture.
"I think some of the victims' families were out of order to speak of Watson as Shorty's murderer in his latest parole hearing. And the board for allowing it."
Call me weird, and you'd be at least partially right in doing so, but I have taken to reading parole hearing transcripts before slipping off to sleep each night for the past several weeks. I can't quite explain why I am doing this, especially as I am in the midst of absorbing no less than three different books on wildly different topics at the moment, but for some reason I find these to be comforting beddie-bye (spelly? I dunno) reading.
I generally have Nazi & WWII-related documentaries running on the bedroom TV as I read these things. These continue to run as I sleep. Beware of Darkness, indeed.
I can tell you that all of this recent bedtime reading has led to fantastically weird dreams. Recent dreams have involved shopping malls (ugh), game shows and even work matters, but a Manson person or vibe always manages to squirm its way in there, somehow. You should try this, it's really freaky.
But what it also is, is a fantastic "tripping-through-the-decades" view into these people, their various and often-changing versions of the crimes, and fantastic little details concerning these events sprinkled all over the place. The Cielo site is the obvious source of these. I've read many of them before, but never so regularly and never in sequence, like this. Random observations:
-I began with Van Houten & am awaiting release of the latest, though hers do start to become quite repetitive over time. I mean, there are only so many ways one can say "and then I stabbed her 16 times" ya know?
-Last night I just began with Bruce Davis, whose hearings are newer to me. I have watched what little video is available of his hearings, but I've gotta say, his first hearing at least is fuck-me-dead hilarious. His lawyer kicks things off by detailing a series of Constitutional objections to this entire prison/punishment/parole hearing itself: Davis is being denied a whole laundry list of Constitutional rights Davis is being denied by even sitting in prison to begin with, much less having to endure the hassle of a parole hearing. It is not detailed in the transcript, but one can almost "read" the pregnant pause that follows this strident monologue, a pause finally broken with the Parole Commissioner saying "Well. We are gathered here today to . . . "
Once the scripted opening statement is completed, Brucie speaks up to ask: "May I make an objection too?"
Commissioner's answer?
"No."
This would have been a spit-take for me, had I been enjoying a beverage in bed last night.
As the opening ceremonies continue (they are always the same, required statements and questions, and I always look forward to reading them, even though I could pretty much recite them word-for-word by now), Davis and his attorney announce that he will be answering no questions about the life crimes themselves, because "I wasn't there, I didn't do any of this, and I should have to answer questions about some bullshit I didn't even do in the first place." Obviously, this is a paraphrase and not an actual quote, but it is a clumsy foreshadowing of the expected "sorry - you get to rot for another five years" ending to the affair.
(con't)
-Tex. And this is the reason I even bothered to begin finger-vomiting out this lengthy reply - this latest hearing was not the first time the Shorty Shea affair has been raised at a Tex Watson pointless parole hearing. In fact, this has been spoken of at almost every parole hearing Watson has sat for. During one of the hearings, it was the D.A. representative who spoke of Shorty - and at great length. Watson's attorney lodged his objection, but the Commissioner patted him on the head and allowed the state to continue.
So this was the brief point I began this response to share, but as usual I chewed up far too many words to fucking get to it.
Also, this:
"He (Tex) may need to feel important, but I think the need to feel useful and actually do something worthwhile in his life, trumps that."
Thank you for this. As empathic as I like to imagine myself to be, it can sometimes be difficult to see things from a different point of view, and you've just done it for me. Your suggestion makes a ton of sense, and good on you for having offered it here.
Thanks for reading all of this nonsense, I'm off to "Bruce Davis, Shopping Mall Clerk" dreamland . . .
P.S. Oh yeah - I forgot to add that you MUST (re)visit Krenwinkel's last hearing transcript, if you care to. Big Patty (she WAS the big one, wasn't she?) has changed her tune so many times over the years, one wonders what on earth she is thinking.
Over the past decade or maybe 15 years, Krenny has suggested that she had zero idea why she was in this car with Tex and the gals and headed toward Cielo. She was just obeying Charlie's "do what Tex tells you to do" directive as she went over the fence, crouched in the brush, and listened to Watkins fire four shots at a kid. Walking up to the house, she says, she still had no idea that she was going to be called on to end other people's lives, though she does admit that she was beginning to realize that what they were about to do was "maybe not so good."
The reason this is so laughable, of course, is that Krenwinkel, Watson & others have already shared for years that the reason for the group's errand was shared by Watson after a long silent drive, discussed, debated and fought over in that car as it approached the neighborhood. Manson had cautioned Tex that the victim(s) would plead for their lives, but that this begging should be ignored - an instruction Watson repeated to the murderesses, according to him.
It helps to realize that these parole boards sit for hearings on multiple family members in the due course of their jobs, and they have past transcripts in their case files to refer to before and during the hearings. So Big Patty's latest version of the story stood out immediately to them. In the course of denying her in this latest hearing from 2016 or so, the Commissioner points to these errors-of-omission; he calls them out and says "I was trying to get you there, I was trying to prompt you to tell the truth via my questioning, but you chose not to be fully honest with us." He then suggests that she use the next five years to do a careful reconsideration of her level of honesty in these hearings and he wishes her well.
Provided Krenny is not currently expiring, Sadie-style, of cancer as recently rumoured, I will be quite interested in what she has to say at her next hearing, which I believe is due to happen fairly soon . . .
tobiasragg said:
this latest hearing was not the first time the Shorty Shea affair has been raised at a Tex Watson pointless parole hearing. In fact, this has been spoken of at almost every parole hearing Watson has sat for. During one of the hearings, it was the D.A. representative who spoke of Shorty - and at great length. Watson's attorney lodged his objection, but the Commissioner patted him on the head and allowed the state to continue
No, it is not the first time Shorty has reared his head {no pun intended} where Charles Watson is concerned. Going all the way back to October '69 when Paul Whiteley and Charles Guenther spoke with Kitty Lutesinger, Watson has figured in the matter; even in his trial, the matter of his involvement came up.
But it often has been robustly shut down by whichever lawyer was representing him. I don't know which particular hearing you're referring to in your post ¬> I've only seen the transcripts from '78, '90 {in part}, 2006, '11, '16 & '21. Shea doesn't come up in the first 2 but in 2006, when Patrick Sequeira mentions him as one of Shorty's killers, it's in a hearing where Watson wasn't even there and declined having a lawyer there to represent him and in 2011 he elects not to speak about the murders:
DDA SEQUEIRA: I'm having a little difficulty with this format where the defense attorney is essentially speaking on behalf of the client.
PRESIDING COMMISSIONER PRIZMICH: Well, he chooses not to answer, and this is the format we're going to follow.
SEQUEIRA: It's very strange to me that the inmate can't answer some simple questions that really don't even pertain to the crime.
PRIZMICH: That is his right.
SEQUEIRA: I have a number of questions to ask regarding the commitment offense, the inmate's involvement and position within The Family, his connections with the family prior to the commitment offense, during and after the commitment offense....but I don't want to take up the Hearing Panel's time in listing all the questions I would ask this inmate to which he is not going to answer.
And when Sequeira brings it up, his lawyer doesn't even object ! She gets pretty fiery about the DDA saying that Watson's Christian change wasn't really a big one, but not a word about Shea. However, in both instances, Watson doesn't speak so the DDA's words largely hang in the air. But in this latest hearing, the relatives openly speak of Shorty as though it were a conviction. Anthony DiMaria sneaks in shorty's name in 2016 when listing the TLB victims, but it's easy to miss that. He never speaks about it. In 2021 he's out and bold {"when he murdered his victim, Donald Shea"} as was Debbie Tate with her "I'm going to address his shock when Anthony DiMaria mentioned Shorty Shea's name. Even though Shorty Shea was not part of his charges, other crime partners testified in their hearings that he was there and personally responsible for the murder of Shorty Shea. I'm not gonna deliberate or go into why the LA DA's office did not include all of these other murders at the time, perhaps they figured they had enough, but indeed Tex Watson was present, Tex Watson had an active hand...I don't have the crystal ball to say who dealt the death blow, but it's very concerning for me that he doesn't even have this in his recollection. He's had 40 years to go over the events, stoned or high or not."
Waaah !
That's a change. And the head of the board not only let it go, he dressed down the lawyer trying to object.
One can hate Watson all one likes. I understand that and to a large extent, he deserves it from some quarters. But the direction some aspects of that hearing took, should disturb everyone.
It probably doesn't, though !!
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