Charles Manson Estate Battle Paused

Yesterday, a new judge in the Charles Manson probate case asked attorneys to file court papers detailing their recommendations by March 18th for a final status conference June 1st. 

Highlights: 

- Jason Freeman is representing himself this time around 

- Michael Channels' lawyer, Timothy Lyons, wants a ruling on a 2002 Charles Manson will that named Channels executor of Manson's estate

- Manson's half-sister Nancy Claassen asserts she is the "sole heir-at-law" 

Tuesday Supplement - Fla$h and Honey Bear

Donald Lee Laisure and Susan Atkins by artist Kelly Hutchison. 

Someone please commission me a piece. My vision is Brenda McCann surfing in a bikini except the surf board is a dune buggy and the desert is the ocean. I'm also nothing but collaborative at my core if the same goes for you. No Willetts' baby, por favor.  

Brenda can say she loves me unless you think that's weird or too much. 

How's your week going? We're discussing Sadie Mae Glutz a lot recently and I wanted to sneak Donald Lee Laisure onto the blog for his second appearance before we move on. Click through to the page of origin and tell me if you think Susan's dress cost $6000 in 1981 money. I think Flash sewed it himself. 

Last Sunday, Laisure's claim he was married thirty-four times popped into my brain uninvited. You'll see the number of his marriages bump up to forty-five on the Maury tv show if you watch my homie Myra Elvira's 2021 update on his life and times. Thanks for aggregating that footage, Myra. 

A year before me, Myra also went looking for verification on the number of Laisure's marriages. I think we each found nine. Just like criminals, no bullshitter ever expected the Internet. Laisure was both. 

Character actors play an important role in successful productions. Donald Lee Flash Lai$ure was one of the best to cross our stage. He brilliantly promoted himself from the rank of Private to a 4 Star General in the US Marine Corps, and earned a Silver Star, Navy Cross, and Air Medal along the way. Laisure's phony career lasted from Vietnam through the Persian Gulf. 

Fifty-five people have reached the rank of 4 Star General in the US Marine Corps while alive. The number was in the low twenties when Laisure promoted himself to full general. When I searched for an official reaction, I found the Corps more amused than angry. Like everyone else, they thought Flash Laisure was a clown.  

Time is Irrelevant to Me - December 1969

Susan Atkins served a life sentence. I see how she arrived there but believe she died in the right place at sixty-one years old. She went too far too many times. 

But what about once the killers are locked away? Are they allowed to retain their humanity after taking part in despicable deeds? Is redemption ever possible? Does empathy remain forbidden after they're dead? We're arguing all of that lately on this blog.

Issues pop up before a debate can begin. How do we qualify "despicable?" I'm squeamish and won't touch certain cases on my dark travels. My despicable might arrive sooner than another reader's. Etc.

For a starting point today, let's assume we all consider using a knife to murder a terrified pregnant woman after she watches her friends die and pleads for her unborn child's life a despicable act. 

Calling out for her mother as she passes. Shame on you. 

When I read blog comments during the weeks we talk about the inmates, I notice two groups. First, people advocating across the board transparency and fairness in parole processes. Something that shows a human life is not the possession of some political overlord or overlords. I completely agree with this camp. Every California inmate should live under the same sentences and rules for release. 

The opposition here is like are you nuts? Look what they did. F-them. 

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a foot on either side of that line. 

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Our reference materials for this discussion are provided by cielodrive.com. Thank you, kindly.  

1 Dec 1969 Susan Atkins Paul Caruso Richard Caballero Interview.

5 Dec 1969 Susan Atkins Grand Jury Testimony.

Tex Watson is arrested November 30th in Texas. Police catch up with Patricia Krenwinkel in Mobile the following day. Back in Los Angeles, Paul Caruso and Richard Caballero are interviewing their new client, Susan Denise Atkins, when the net drops on Krenwinkel two thousand miles away. 

The last part is possibly not accurate but I see it that way when I'm at my storyboard. Starsky and Hutch music plays in the background. "Police! Freeze!" 

 - Here is a link to my blog colleague David's excellent write up on Paul Caruso with a comment from Caruso's son below the post. 

Other writers believe Caruso was a mafia lawyer sent to cement a narrative into place. I'm interested in every side of that argument. What are your thoughts? 

Honkeys like me from Honkeyville possibly needed several decades to realize Caballero isn't an Italian name, and that's okay. There's no judgement when you ride with me. We can be hillbillies together forever. 

Circling back to my original question, let's look at Susan Atkins. She was at Hinman, Cielo, and Waverley (kinda). No one but Charlie visited more murder scenes. 

Reading Sadie's comments and testimony about her time with Sharon before Sharon died made me emotional. The photo of Atkins as a young girl standing in front of her father's car also remains burned into my brain. Maybe that's what keeps me coming back here. So many whys. 

Several statements in the above transcripts are heartbreaking. Other times, I laughed. Stop Talking was an alternative title I considered for this piece. 

"Helter Skelter" is not discussed during the interview with the lawyers, but joins the story four days later in front of the GJ (Grand Jury). 

Susan is speaking the language of her peers at Spahn's while addressing the GJ. She even rhymes her words at one point. Head and dead. Not a lot of smart in that gal at times. Watch Hendrickson on Youtube or any of the courthouse footage for verification on the group speak.  

Let's pause on the creepy crawls for a second. What are your thoughts on their genesis? Who was the first person saying hey let's go creepy crawling? 

Me if fam members asked me to go creepy crawling with them late at night: Omg I just got back from the A&P dumpsters. I wanna watch Clem's fire ritual. 

That's December 5, 1969. Friday. Four days earlier prior to a dinner plus ice cream, Atkins said this:

 

Two somewhat different scenarios. Sustenance and fear games. I spent an afternoon making a list of contradictions I found in the documents but stopped when my friend said: 

"Could be discrepancies or coaching. You would have to have a think about why the latter makes Tex/Manson look more culpable or if that was just her being ditzy." 

Inarguable. Dude should write blog posts.

Let's hop in on some omg and wtf moments from the first week of December 1969. A third title for this episode could be How to Doom Yourself to the Fullest. 

 *Judges scribble deductions on their scorecards 

"The air talked. I was programmed by Charlie but then like I also wasn't programmed by him."

Ah, the Infinite. Please go on. 

I followed up with my secret sources inside the CIA. Within minutes, they verified Sadie missed Climbing Residential Fences (CRF) day at CIA Assassins School. By the time she returned from a nasty bout of stomach flu, the class had jumped forward to Residential Kitchen Infiltration (RKI). 

Not sure why anyone would come clean about the following impulse but she says it in both documents. 

Sadie's second death rattle in three weeks. 

More disembodied voices.

LaBianca instructions overheard from the seatless back seat of Johnny Swartz's car. 

A possible moment of Bugliosi speaking through Sadie's mouth or the infinite or whatever. 

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Bonus:

The famous Clem oopsie. 

Life at Spahn's as told to the GJ.

Richard Caballero courthouse interview. 

She should've stayed with Caruso and Caballero. Either way, Susan Atkins is gone. Have you forgiven her since she served her sentence, or is forgiveness something that will never happen? 

Helter Skelter Ranked #4 - Weekend Pop Culture

Earlier this week, movieweb.com placed Helter Skelter (1976) at #4 on a list of top made-for-tv movies. What they call a movie was a miniseries but whatever. Steve Railsback typically gets all the pub in this one but Nancy Wolfe as Sexy Sadie steals the show whenever she's onscreen. Wolfe is riffing on Lynette Fromme's lines from Hendrickson in the above screen capture. Squeaky did it better but Nancy is no slouch. 

Anyone not super jaded and full of angry know everything is invited to join my watch party group if you are interested in studying the Manson milieu in pop culture. Manson scene politics are prohibited there. So is guru-ing. 

FYI, my blog email is unreliable. Don't waste your time until I figure it out. Apologies if you emailed me and I never replied. Happy Friday. +ggw 

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Gift Basket:

Helter Skelter (1976) on Youtube. 

1976 version of Helter Skelter Wikipedia page.

IMDB page with full cast (1976). 

Sadie via the Almighty. 

Schreck's Group Removed from Facebook?

                        Joe Coleman artist. 

Facebook might've said farewell to Nik Schreck's group today. Five years of research and literature vanished into thin air. The group housed scanned documents that will be impossible for noobs to find, several pdfs of books no longer in print, and other easily accessed study aides.

Facebook runs their own show and I get it, but I hope group admins were allowed to remove their files before the lights went out. 

The behind the scenes bs in this world is awful, and I don't necessarily agree with the Schrekians on everything Manson, but I know a ton of work went into that group. I feel for the people who busted their butts there for half a decade. May you rise from Zuckerberg's ashes. 

Leno LaBianca's Safe

 
This is hungry work.

Apologies to Hozier. A Super Bowl feast is cooking behind me while I type and I want all of it now. Thanks for letting me hang out with you today and also for my continuing education. 

- Let's also take a second to recognize the Col apologizing to Grim last week and Grim being all okay thanks we're cool. Tears flooded my eyes and I don't mean fake Sadie Mae Glutz ones. This bitter Manson world needs more of that. 

*Begins trashing others. 

Not really. I bring just a single question, a handful of photos, and several screen caps into the Colosseum today. Before we get started, let's give a quick shoutout to the almighty cielodrive.com for providing us with with both LaBianca Homicide Investigative Reports for our discussion.

#1

#2

Last week, I gleefully dove into a new rabbit hole hoping to land on a police document verifying the claim that an office safe at a Gateway Market store was wide open the morning after the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Neil Sanders adds the safe at Rosemary's dress shop to the list of opened safes. 

My gut feeling is all roads lead to Bill Nelson and the safes are nothing more than an often repeated opinion, but I'm wrong a lot and want to ask you blog readers. Do any of you have a police report that details open safes at LaBianca businesses the morning after their deaths? I failed in my quest to find one.

Being a rube scoot, I also learned Leno ran a second family company during the same search. This is from the 2nd report linked above. I broke the word salad into readable segments and fixed a couple of typos. 

Peter DeSantis, Leno's other brother-in-law, was interviewed and polygraphed at Parker Center. The polygraph exam indicated he had no guilty knowledge of the crime. 

DeSantis has been a lifelong friend of Leno and described him as "family." They worked together at the market for Leno's father in the '40's. Leno later ran the operation of State Wholesale Grocers, a second company owned by Leno's father. Smaldino, another brother-in-law, ran the Gateway Market chain. When Leno's father died the two companies were then managed by Leno, although they remained separate. 

DeSantis believed Smaldino resented Leno's being the boss as he, Smaldino, knew more about the business. Smaldino kept a constant check on Leno's activities in the business and Leno resented Smaldino's 'supervision.' 

Leno once commented to Norwood, when discussing how he was taking money from the company by writing checks, that he couldn't have done it when Smaldino was around because Smaldino checked him too closely. Leno's mother was the first to tell DeSantis about Leno taking money from the company. DeSantis claimed he was shocked, as the two had discussed ways to cut expenses to help the company. 

Leno told DeSantis in June 1969 that he was going to leave the company. DeSantis discussed Leno's future plans with him. Leno told DeSantis ha had no definite plans for employment. He mentioned going into an investment situation with three other men. Each man was to put up $25,000. The only man in the group that Leno mentioned was Bill O'Brien. 

After Leno's death, DeSantis learned he was planning to buy a ranch for $127,000 in Vista, California. DeSantis couldn't understand where Leno was to get the money to purchase the property, pay back the money he had borrowed from the company and go into the investment business. 

DeSantis is the regional head of a fraternal organization, The Sons of Italy. The region extends from Colorado to Hawaii. DeSantis refused the idea that the Mafia could have been responsible for the crime. He commented that if they had, he would probably have heard about it.

"Are you trying to get me killed?" - DeSantis

My brain wheezed into action. DeSantis is high up in the company. Is he the number two guy behind Leno? Why didn't DeSantis say anything about empty safes to investigators? If not him, who found the safe open and at which store? Which executive handled the matter with the police? 

And where is the police report? 

Off I went. The First Homicide Investigation Report misidentifies Rosemary's dress as a peignoir. 

That's a cropped photo of Rosemary. She's on her stomach and her dress and nightgown are pulled up over her head. Leslie destroyed her. The photo alone seems like it's enough to doom you forever if someone repeatedly shoves it into parole board folders prior to hearings. 

That's Manson in Emmons. Same source for the following. 

          Two quick takes from the above. Charlie hands Rosemary her dress for the sake of modesty, and Charlie declines Leno's offer of a trip to his store for more money. "All you want."

Common arguments against Emmons include Charlie split with the author when Emmons revealed too much, or when Emmons was outright lying. If what Charlie told Emmons is correct, he never considered removing Rosemary from the home. 

Three decades later, Author Neil Sanders -- in a book many call a ripoff of Schreck -- concludes Rosemary left with her hit squad because of the dress and where the boat was found. 

[Note: When Schreck's book arrives, I'll be back to compare the two. But for now, all I have in my library is Neil Sanders.]

Anyone with a link or recording of Charlie saying they took the LaBiancas to their stores that night, please send it along. More from Neil Sanders:

 

Let's check the source on that. From Bugliosi: 

Rosemary LaBianca was lying face down on the bedroom floor, parallel to the bed and dresser, in a large pool of blood. She was wearing a short pink nightgown and, over it, an expensive dress, blue with white horizontal stripes, which Suzanne would later identify as one of her mother’s favorites. Both nightgown and dress were bunched up over her head, so her back, buttocks, and legs were bare. Cline didn’t even try to count the stab wounds, there were so many. Her hands were not tied but, like Leno, she had a pillowcase over her head and a lamp cord was wrapped around her neck. The cord was attached to one of a pair of bedroom lamps, both of which had overturned. The tautness of the cord, plus a second pool of blood about two feet from the body, indicated that perhaps she had tried to crawl, pulling the lamps over while doing so.

Okay, cool. Bugs is about to mention the ride to Gateway and the dress shop, right? Let's keep reading. 

A second pink DOA slip was filled out, for Mrs. Rosemary LaBianca. Joe Dorgan had to tell Suzanne and Frank.

There was writing, in what appeared to be blood, in three places in the residence. High up on the north wall in the living room, above several paintings, were printed the words DEATH TO PIGS. On the south wall, to the left of the front door, even higher up, was the single word RISE. There were two words on the refrigerator door in the kitchen, the first of which was misspelled. They read HEALTER SKELTER.

Nope. 

The guy with the biggest book in the study never mentions a trip to Gateway. Why would Sanders include that info in his argument? Bugs never mentions it. 

I'm not a Bugliosi fan in any way. In fact, I'm the opposite. But it's worth mentioning the safes were not a part of the main discussion back in the 70's like they are today. 

Without a police report, what other empirical evidence exists that Rosemary wearing a dress, and a boat in the street, equals the Manson gang took Rosemary to her and Leno's businesses and left the safes open? And how is the evidence verified? 

The safes are enduringly fascinating. Proving it either way might mean a change on the mountaintop if someone is hungry enough. In the background, the argument has raged for more than a decade across Internet sites and in true crime books. Here's our Matt arguing with Starship on LSB so long ago. 

Matt said...

Starship, it wasn't just an article, and I don't believe that it's "bullshit."

Leno, at the time he met Rosemary was relatively wealthy and stood to inherit a great deal when his mother passed away.

While married to Leno, Rosemary is still sleeping with Frank Struthers and Reba Gage. After the murders, Frank Sr. tells police that Frank Jr will be coming into a large inheritance from his mother. Later, Frank Sr. accuses Suzan LaBerge of ripping off Frank Jr in his inheritance.

It is alleged that at the time Suzan had emptied out the house and, before the police could get to it, a safe at Gateway Markets and then threatened any of Leno's family members that got in her way. Some members of her family believe that Suzan had a hand in the murders.

While married to Leno, Rosemary seems to try a lot of get rich quick routes. She gets her real estate license, her insurance license, opens a dress shop, and eventually begins getting into real estate, stocks, and securities.

People assume that Leno's financial troubles were due to gambling. Others believe that Rosemary bled him dry by spending lavishly, buying a house that was beyond their means (Working Way) and eventually having him invest in real estate, stocks, and securities and forming dummy corps to hide their funds and avoid taxes.

While Leno's getting poorer, Rosemary may be getting richer and hiding the money from Leno in secret accounts.

To avoid financial ruin, Leno sells the house on Working Way at a large profit and buys the family home on Waverly. With that money he continues to make bad real estate investments - Myca Corp and a Riverside Parcel investment scam. And begins skimming off money from Gateway.

Leno misappropriated $200,000 from Gateway. They had a combined debt of $30,000 "their properties were extensively mortgaged."

In the meantime, Rosemary is moving out of her truck boutique and into a real store front - and possibly opened at least 2 others and co-owned (good friend) Lucy Larsen's Pet Shop.

These are not suppositions, Sunset. They are all in the police reports (the second one in particular).

Suzan LaBerge enters the narrative at some point as a safe robber if you're unaware. Not sure how she'd have the safe codes at Gateway but whatever. Outside of that, I don't have a ton for you. The safes have been talked to death. 

But I'm stubborn, and I'm trying to put a single fact into place here in the place where no sense makes sense. 

Might anyone have a police report? 

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Bonus. When John and Leslie first locked eyes. 

California Supreme Court Refuses Van Houten's Appeal

"Technicalities, smecknicalities. Go back to your room."

Bill Nelson Part Two - Sexy Sadie What Have You Done?

Susan Atkins with her parents and brothers mid-1950's

We will never see another Manson researcher like Bill Nelson. His run was the greatest of all and his destruction was magnificent. Scraps of Nelson's work remains online today via the Wayback Machine. Grab what you like before it's gone. Nelson is fading from Manson history. 

 

Now is the only time that's real.

If you are new or newish and think you'll find the key to fame and fortune hidden within the fetid mountains of malarkey hundreds of curious people have already dug through, wear gloves that reach the elbows, believe only what you can verify, and view Mr. Nelson as a cautionary tale. 

Horny, self-righteous, and connected to EVERYONE at one time or another, Nelson died in 2005. In the late 90's, Bill might've thought Sadie would hang on the line for a few years while he giggled and snickered his way through sex rumors of the past. 

No, sir. Sadie's husband stepped in and said, "I challenge you to a duel at dawn. Pistols." 

More like hey leave my wife alone. But a duel would be sweet. 

I wonder how Nelson's wife felt about the nightgown Bill sent Sadie? Was she "thrilled?" Mrs. Nelson did not know her husband craved iron bars and black and white photos of teenage slippies until it was too late. And plus she aged. Nelson liked chicken nuggets way more than hens.   

Sadie ghosted him and he published his breakup letter online. I'm back in good graces with my wife now and enriched from selling my rantings and lies to Aes-Nihil and the Colonel yakety yack. 

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Dear Susan Atkins,

I have left the case behind me, no longer interested in the Manson saga of murder, deceptions, deceit, and demonology. My web site was taken down on January 23, 2000. I sold off my vast library. After 11 years, I have reclaimed my life and my wife is thrilled. Sandra Good with her live-in loony St. George (named after the street that intersects at the LaBianca house?) pulled out all the stops to destroy me, defame me, and ruin my reputation.

You and I spent some nine plus hours together. We shared, laughed, and you cried. We called one another "Brother" and "Sister" in a bond of love and respect. I sent you several letters after your husband James decided that we should not see each other. They went unanswered. I understand.

I have sold several copies of your 12-28-00-parole hearing. It was such a disgrace! There were so many lies told by James regarding you. I was saddened to hear him even quote the deceased Patti Tate that you have progressed very well inside prison – but he neglected to add: "And right here is where she should spend the rest of her life!" He said none of the murders were done in an execution style. That is a lie. You should have heard the response of Dianne Lake (a really mature Christian in adult life) upon hearing that one. He bragged that you were never an alcoholic, but your records tell a different story. So did your book. He cited the "family" you had been living with as a proof of stability at the time of the crimes. Did you see the reaction of Stephen Kay at that one? Bragging that you had a stable family relationship i.e. the Manson Family? How insulting indeed. You killed because you were under such stress? Really now. Barbara Hoyt, who knew you well, says you were an evangelist for Manson in the same way that you are now for Jesus. It would take hours to cover all of the deception. You never missed much time from work assignments but then you were on medical disability for many months before the hearing. And…the most egregious action was your turning your back on Janet Parent when she identified herself. To think that James and you worked hard to keep her from voicing her opinion because you did not "actually kill Steven Parent" was quite unchristian. I could go on and on about that dreadful performance at your hearing by a tag team that would make the World Wide Wrestling Federation take lessons.

Remember your telling me the "new rendition" of the crimes? How Tex kicked you out of the Tate house in an argument and you were outside of the house when HE stabbed Sharon to death? Where was that rendition during your last hearing? It was not told because it simply was not true.

I am offended at your use of God while you continue to lie. How refreshing it would be to hear just one of you killers actually tell the truth. Not Bruce Davis, Charles Watson, Leslie, Pat, or you have ever told the full truth. You get three meals a day, medical treatment, dental, psyche, exercise, marriage, and you have done quite well by all of that. When you miss those warm and cuddly conjugal visits with James, think of Doris Tate and me. November 1, 1996 was the change in policy by the CDC. Thank God! It should never have been allowed for people who kill.

Your hearing was so uninteresting that Court TV did not even broadcast it. All of the money they invested, and they chose to take a pass. You see Susan, James was simply a boring, miserable failure. You want to know a little secret? That over weight Commissioner was the same person who voted to give Bruce M. Davis a release last year. That is right. Bruce got a yes vote, and the other two commissioners said that this year, they might agree. Manny left the BPT to become a police chief once again, so he will not be able to spring Bruce free. But! Bruce will walk very soon and he MAY start the killing again. He was involved in the Zodiac murders and I will take that evidence, my findings, and 11 years of research to my grave. When you admitted that you helped to cover up any blood evidence where Shorty was murdered, you gave us something that no one had put together before. You were personally involved with EVERY MURDER prosecuted. Gary Hinman, Tate/LaBianca and Shorty. Wow Susan! That is a really heavy thought. When you took Bugliosi to the back of the ranch by the stream, it was because that is where Shorty was killed. You know what Clem, Bruce, and Manson say? "We were driving down Santa Susanna Pass in the middle of the day when Shorty was hit over the head and they drug him from the car…" Barbara Hoyt submitted a letter refuting that alteration of the court record but the BPT buried her letter in the confidential section of the C-File for Davis. They did not even allow it read into evidence. So much for Perjury prosecutions in the Manson family, because the BPT does not care about TRUTH. These over paid, no nothing bureaucrats do not have a clue and none of you will tell them the truth, not even in the Name of Jesus.

Good bye my friend. I enjoyed our meetings. I never betrayed you following our visits, despite the lying tongue of Linda Mann and that other crazy lady who comes out to tape the hearings. I wish you Christian conviction – the conviction to finally speak up and tell the truth. And Susan, what was that about you being the only one to make restitution to any of the victim’s families financially? Please provide the proof for that one, because it just is not so. You gave nothing financially to Doris, I would be surprised if you gave any to Patti since she would have called it blood money and after all she turned down $50,000 from Guns and Roses. I know you gave nothing to the LaBianca family. It is for certain that you gave nothing to Janet Parent. Shorty has no relatives, and Gary Hinman’s mom and dad have passed away.

As I go - - - - Gypsy let me know in 1993 that she and you had been swimming at the Tate house before the murders, driving up there in the sports car of Dennis Wilson. Bugliosi asked Terry Melcher to confirm it or deny it….Terry told Mr. B. that it was true. I guess you forgot that interesting tidbit when we met for 9 plus hours and in subsequent letters.

Please do not continue to name Jesus as your redeemer when you refuse to tell the truth. You may be Born Again, it is not for me to judge, but you defame the name of Jesus by your misrepresentations. And no, I have no interest in hearing from little James. You traded in Manson for another control freak. The people who have seen the parole hearing tape have observed that. A little, condescending man like Charlie, hurtful, crude and so uninformed.

Sincerely,

Bill Nelson

04-24-01

be but my sworn love 

and I'll no longer be a Capulet Manson investigator.

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Imagine being a convicted sex offender, the charges involved minors, and making it your mission to remove conjugal visits for prisoners. Bill Nelson's mind was a dark place. +ggw

A Joyful Process - America Eats Its Young - PFunk

Blog friend and Vancouver legend, Dusty Doug, sent us that flyer this week. I was unaware there was a Parliament Funkadelic link to the Manson saga. Bernie Worrell is the connection if I had to guess but a guess is all I have to offer. Could be George, too. Definitely willing to learn. 

Ohio is iced-in today. Soup and music are my plans. Here's the studio track of A Joyful Process from the 1972 Funkadelic album, America Eats Its Young. 

Process Church of the Final Judgement Wikipedia. 

de Grimston and Maclean. Catch you on the flip. +ggw

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*Jokes about his nasty toes and Photoshopped cartoon penises. Everyone has my apologies. 

Bobby Beausoleil Was Denied Parole Last Friday

 Bobby is seventy-four years old. He was granted parole in 2019 but Governor Newsome denied the recommendation. His goose is likely cooked. 

The Goodbye Helter Skelter Podcast Episode #7

George Stimson posted a new video last week, The Murder of Donald "Shorty" Shea. Above is Donald Jerome Shea on the 1940 census with his family. First grade. Probably still smiled in school photos. The world hadn't had a ton of time to chew him up and spit him out yet. 

Good, bad, whatever. Every direction you turn in this milieu is filled with heartbreak. The bad guys are bad. The good guys are bad. Everyone is bad. 

Bruce Davis claims in a clip from a parole hearing that Tex Watson asked/told him to join in the killing of Shea. According to Davis, Bill Vance was present when Tex said this but decided not to take part in the murder. Instead, he stepped over to the canteen for the ice cream Charlie always talked about. 

You know the story. Shorty is driving. "Hey, pull over." Clem hits him with a wrench. BOOM! Tex and Clem drag dazed Shorty from the car. Charlie arrives in another car with a machete. 

Bruce "touched Shea's neck with the machete" but "couldn't do what he (Charlie) wanted me to do." Always willing to compromise, Bruce sliced Shea from his armpit to his collar bone. 

Charlie's version of events is Shorty was a big dude, a bully, and he was pushing Clem and someone else around. In a clip Stimson included from Manson's 1992 parole hearing, Stephen Kay (from his mother) has the board ask Charlie about his role in Shea's murder. Consistent in his refusal to to acknowledge California's conspiracy and aiding and abetting laws, in my opinion because of his mental illness, Charlie places himself at the scene and admits to rendering Shea immobile. 

"I'm gonna show you kids how to do this one time. And then don't invoke me to no violence anymore." 

"And uh I moved on Shorty and I put him in a situation where he couldn't move. And then I said, now can you understand what I'm saying to you? And he said yeah. And I stepped up on the highway and hitchhiked a ride and about three, four minutes later somebody stabbed him, and he was stabbed to death and he was killed." 

Inaudible from board. 

Charlie again. "Now, wait a minute. Anybody that knows anything about combat knows that when you go into a combat situation and you're on the line with something, that line can mean your life or your death. If you're on the line of life and death and you're gone and you're up on another line that other reality is a completely different reality -- it hasn't got anything to do with the other side of that line. I was on that side of the line and it was a violent situation and I did deal with it and I put it into where it was -- let me say this, there's only one way I can explain it...The Duke in the joint is a guy that can fight with his fists. The Cou..."

Board begins to interrupt. 

Manson stops them. "Wait a minute. Let me explain this. This will explain it. The Count is somebody who don't fight with his fists. He fights with his mind. He sets up on top of the count when the count is clear, he runs the radio. And the Duke does all the physical things like the first cop does his level, then the sergeant..."

"Mr. Manson..."

"I can't explain it to you, man. It don't have a yes or no."

"The question was did you kill Shorty Shea?"

"No no no. I didn't have anything..."

"You didn't personally kill Shorty Shea?"

"Not personally, no."

"Did you order him to be killed?" 

"No. It was a fight, man. It was uh..."

"Did you order him to be killed?"

"No."

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I've been reviewing Charlie's medical reports the last several days. Did you know certain doctors were against moving Manson to a hospital facility for decades because they claimed Charlie was faking or exaggerating his schizophrenia? 

This was supposed to be Manson at his best and he acts bonkers. There's clearly a problem. His freedom was on the line but not really. Charlie, Kay, and the Board all knew this was a simple parading of a crazy man before a laughing public. 

Sometimes, I struggle to see how we've advanced as race beyond Hammurabi. At least we've stopped feeding delusional people to lions, tigers, and bears for sport. Our dark amusements come from mocking the insane via YouTube these days. 

Oh well. The gang did what they did and life comes with consequences even when you think you live in a different reality. Word to the wise. Don't kill someone when you're mentally ill. We'll poke sharpened sticks through the bars of your cell and delight in watching you yelp until the day you die. 

*Steps down from soapbox. 

Anyway. What'd ya think of the new Stimson? +ggw