When I was a little kid my brother and I and our cousins used to walk about five blocks from my grandparent’s house to a little store on a main avenue in Detroit. We were not allowed to walk on the avenue, so we had to cut through a narrow alleyway to get there.
In the back of the store the owner had some toys. More importantly he had this bin of boxes containing individual toy soldiers. These guys.
The owner let us dig through the bin to our heart’s content as long as we bought something before, we left. If we didn’t find anything in the bin we would buy baseball cards. I always got crappy ones; you know, some unknown rookie or one of the Mets. But sometimes I found a pirate in the bin.
The anticipation I had walking to that store back then returns every time I receive a notification from Cielodrive of a new document post. Sometimes it’s one of the Mets but sometimes it is a pirate. Thank you, Cielodrive.
This one, I think, is a pirate. This is the file related to Grogan exposing himself to children.
The_Grogan_FilePDF Document · 10.3 MB
What does the official narrative say about this incident? Well, that narrative would be the book, Helter Skelter and here is what Vincent Bugliosi had to say.
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Grogan had been observed exposing himself to several children, ages four to five years. “The kids wanted me to,” he explained to arresting officers, who had caught him in the act. “I violated the law, the thing fell out of my pants and the parents got excited,” he later told a court-appointed psychiatrist. After interviewing Grogan, the psychiatrist ruled against committing him to Camarillo State Hospital, because “the minor is much too aggressive to remain in a setting which does not provide containment facilities.”
The court decided otherwise, sending him to Camarillo for a ninety-day observation period. He remained a grand total of two days, then walked away, aided, I would later learn, by one of the girls from the Family.
His escape had occurred on July 19, 1969. He was back at Spahn in time for the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca murders. He was arrested in the August 16 Spahn raid, but was released two days later, in time to behead Shorty Shea.
******
So we had virtually nothing on Clem.
In going through Grogan’s file, I noticed that one of his brothers had made application for the California Highway Patrol; I made note of this, thinking maybe his brother could influence Clem to cooperate with us. DeCarlo had described Grogan in two words: “He’s nuts.” In his police photograph—big, wide grin, chipped front tooth, moronic stare—he did look idiotic. I asked Fowles for copies of the recent psychiatric reports.
Asked, “Why do you hate your father?” Grogan replied, “I’m my father and I don’t hate myself.” He denied the use of drugs. “I have my own bennies, adrenalin. It’s called fear.” He claimed that “love is everything,” but, according to one psychiatrist, “he also revealed that he could not accept the philosophy of interracial brotherhood. Quotes supposedly from the Bible with sexual correlation were given in defense of his attitude.”
Other quotes from Clem: “I’m dying a little every day. My ego is dying and knows he’s dying and struggles hard. When you’re free of ego you’re free of everything…Whatever you say is right for yourself…Whoever you think I am, that’s who I am.”
The philosophy of Clem? Or Charles Manson? I’d heard the same thoughts, in several instances even identical words, from the girls. If the psychiatrists had examined one of Manson’s followers and, on the basis of such responses, found him insane, what of his leader?
Bugliosi, Vincent; Curt Gentry. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders (p. 173-175). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
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The records confirm Helter Skelter. Grogan’s brother was indeed trying to get into the California Highway Patrol. The psychiatrists even confirm DeCarlo’s comment. Grogan was considered to be mentally unstable, receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Grogan, as you know, was never charged with the LaBianca murders even though he was as guilty as Susan Atkins and the exact evidence that convicted Atkins of conspiracy to commit murder and thus murder would have also convicted Grogan. Certainly, this diagnosis could have influenced any DA to hesitate to charge Grogan on LaBianca. Grogan had a defense of insanity or diminished capacity confirmed by state psychiatrists and that just might influence the jury as to all of the defendants and especially Charles Manson, as Bugliosi noted.
There is also something missing in the records that also caught Bugliosi's eye. He noted it: "The philosophy of Clem? Or Charles Manson?". Where is the Charlie Says (to borrow a movie title)? No mention of Manson appears in these records or in Grogan's comments. That's not what Bugliosi wants, or needs.
But something else is missing. Its not that something is missing from he file. The file is complete. But there is definitely something missing from Bugliosi’s narrative.
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When I was in law school long ago, I had a first-year law professor who had been in the real world as a litigator for many years before some health issue forced his retirement. Even though his class had nothing to do with litigation (it was Contract Law), practically every class he would give us a tidbit about being a trial lawyer. He once pointed out that someday many of us would ‘troop into court’ with our witness outlines eager to begin our ‘scintillating cross examination’ of a witness. He then said “Stop! Listen first. What a witness does not say is more important than what they do say. Once you find that ask them ‘why’. Any jackass can answer who, what, when or where but ‘why’ is the tough one to answer and sometimes the answer reveals motivation.”
So, what is missing? Bugliosi knew precisely who the family member was who helped Grogan escape. We know that because he quotes the same documents we now have more than once. That family member was revealed, right here.
It was Linda Kasabian. She signed as Linda Drouin (her family name). She used Dennis Wilson’s address and listed herself as Grogan’s girlfriend when she visited him on July 19, 1969 about two weeks after she joined the Family.
This too may also have something to do with why Grogan wasn’t charged. In the hands of a competent defense attorney this page pokes a hole in one of Bugliosi’s main themes: that Kasabian only went along on two nights of murder because she had a valid driver’s license. You know, the innocent hippy chick theme.
This document suggests, instead, that Kasabian was much closer to the inner circle of the Family pretty quickly after she got to Spahn Ranch and was at least involved in planning and executing Grogan's escape. This made me rethink that courtroom comment "when are you going to tell your part" just a little.
Now, one could try to argue that the only reason she went to see Grogan is, again, because she was the only one who had a valid driver’s license. I hope Cielodrive will put this issue to rest for me but until he does, I don't think she had one.
This is from a New Hampshire newspaper from May 1969. I used it in a post a half dozen years ago. The cite is there. I don't have it anymore. She wasn’t charged with driving without a license: ‘Oh, I must have left it at home’. She was charged with driving without a valid license. She pled guilty. She didn’t say ‘wait, here it is” when she got to court. She paid the fine.
Now maybe she fixed that before she cut out to California a few weeks later. But I don't think she did.
Deb reminded me of this. Thanks Deb. Remember that detective named Deemers? Remember his list?
Deb: "Regarding Kasabian's driver's license, look at Deemer's list. While it is true that not a lot of Family members have driver's licenses there were members with licenses. Kitty Lutesinger, Dianne Lake, Tex, Nancy Pitman, Mark Ross, Claudia Smith aka Linda Baldwin, Leslie Van Houten to name a few of the inter-circle members.
Deemers listed her Missouri address and noted the Missouri driver's license.
And Kasabian:
Deemers got her New Hampshire address right but something else is missing. Where is the "DL#"?
Even in the unlikely event that her license was valid, that fact might explain her driving or riding along to visit Grogan, while Manson drove and a member of the inner circle like Brunner went inside to talk to Grogan but it does not explain why she was the messenger. Someone told her the escape plan or she already knew it and she was the one to pass it on to Grogan and probably even waited for him to make his break.
Her visit is the same day he skipped out: July 19th. The hospital noted their belief someone left Grogan a car. Tracing Linda Drouin would lead to Wilson's house and, of course she would not be there. But maybe they/she waited for him. How many cars did they have at the ranch?
This page shows Kasabian as an active participant in the organization, planning and execution of Grogan’s escape (a crime by the way). I do not think Bugliosi wanted that to be part of the record, any record, including his own version when he did everything in his power to distance Kasabian from any such role including, specifically, disarming her at Cielo Drive.
I think Ms. Kasabian was a little more involved, a little closer to the throne so to speak, than we were led to believe by Mr. Bugliosi. I also think Bugliosi knew that and that is why he didn’t name the "one of the girls from the Family" who helped Grogan escape. “One of the girls from the Family” makes you think of someone other than Kasabian, doesn’t it?
I tried to find where Bugliosi eventually identified this ‘girl’ in Helter Skelter. I searched the terms Grogan, Clem, escape, Camarillo, hospital and even Kasabian and Drouin and found nothing. If it is there somewhere I couldn’t find it.
But even if I missed it and it is there, one could still ask ‘why didn’t you name her right there on page 173? I think the answer is obvious.
Pax vobiscum
Dreath
Wow. That's interesting. From everything that's known of her (other than the Bug's curated version), she was obviously a far more hardened "player" than many of the other females. Sandy, Squeaky, Brenda & Mary (nice middle class girls, one and all) where undoubtedly far more loyal but I doubt they had the basic seasoned criminality that Linda seems to have displayed. Probably only Sadie would've had a similar level of street savvy running... but that would've been unbalanced by her generalised madness and desire to be noticed. Linda would've effortlessly fit in to whatever scams the "inner circle" were running. It goes a long way to explaining why & how she wound up with a front row seat on the bus.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, David. Thanks for sharing... and I like your pirate analogy at the start.
Kasabian may have been even luckier than Clem. A few more months and Charlie probably promotes her from the bench to starter. She was being fast tracked. How much of that was against her will is debatable.
ReplyDeleteI don't think she was as ready to kill as Team Stabby, and may never have been, but she was no babe in the woods.
Yes, Bugliosi played fast and loose with a few details, but he got the job done. And I do think that most of her testimony and remorse was genuine. And if we can empathise with Billy's PTSD, surely we can with Kasabian's too, even if she on the other side of the mayhem.
But this whole immunity or reduced charges deal with multiple killers always bugs me when I read about cases. The 'least culpable' killer turning evidence. Like juries can't be trusted to return two or more guilty verdicts without an eye witness, so the prosecution almost needs to buy one safe conviction at the cost of another.
Linda didn't participate in the killings but getting complete immunity made her the second luckiest person there that night, after Garretson.
There is a funny coincidence between the title you chose for this article and the attached PDF file.
ReplyDeleteThe application used to create the PDF is more recent and not backwards compatible.
When I load the file on my (somewhat old) iPhone, all that is seen is “47 blank pages, except for the “Cielodrive Archives” watermark. Multiple readers (from different vendors) give the same result, however saving the file and reading it using an online reader works okay.
So the title, “Something Is Missing”, may be appropriate in more than one way for some viewers of “The Grogan File”.
Thanks for the article.
Another very interesting post!
ReplyDeleteThe sub-topic, Kasabian's driver's license, or lack of it, always pulls me up abruptly. It's not intuitively clear to me *why* Manson would place a high value on a valid DL as a qualifier to drive a car.
I've often come across references that Kasabian was selected as the driver for the Cielo murder *because* she was one of the few--or maybe only--member with a valid DL: that this was a compelling reason for her to be included in the plan, even though she was a relative newcomer to the group.
And yet I also recall various narratives that Watson drove at least a part of the time, thus obviating any perceived advantage of possessing a valid DL.
Nor does it logically follow that a group that believed in an apocalyptic race war, and had already murdered at least one person (Hinman) would be reluctant to allow a member to drive without a DL.
So exploration of this claim provides two divergent lines:
1) It was a bogus claim, manufactured after the fact, possibly by Bugliosi to explain his star witness as a reluctant witness to a violent crime, and not a premeditated participant; and/or
2) Manson *did* in fact see a good reason to assign driving duties to people with licenses as a matter of definitive policy, and that he had some practical and compelling reasons to do so, but not being a part of the criminal underground, I can't readily see these advantages. Maybe someone can supply these practical reasons.
For #2, it's not to say that of several people who were selected to do X, those who had a DL would be assigned to drive, simply because it provided a first line of avoidance of legal problems. E.g., lack of a DL could not be used as a pretext for further questioning. What I mean by #2 is to find out if Manson made his initial personnel selections for an outing (e.g., creepy crawls, dumpster raids) based on the possession of a DL first, or he made his selections based on his assessment of the person's willingness to do the task first, and if by coincidence that person also had a valid DL, he would assign them to drive because if stopped, they would not be as vulnerable to further questioning about a lack of DL.
My own default gut feeling is that Kasabian's possession of a DL--if indeed she even had one--was not the reason for her inclusion on both nights. These were risky operations, and Manson was certainly canny enough to select participants based on his perception of their ability and willingness to carry out his instructions. If true, it implies that Kasabian said or did, or otherwise demonstrated a remarkable capacity for following Manson's orders. Since she had been with the family only a short time, what might that have been? The ready theft of her husband's friend's money?
But I'm willing to be persuaded in either direction.
When Olmstead wrote his report concerning the 7-28-69 surprise visit of Spahn Ranch it said that:
ReplyDelete“suspect John H. Swartz was arrested for 4463 re: stolen plates on his vehicle”.
Supposedly Manson was cited for no valid drivers license on his possession on 8-7-69 and given a ticket. He wasn’t arrested.
The car used during the two nights was not registered, had plates from another car (that appeared to be expired), and the latest owner, Swartz, had no ownership paperwork. A scenario close to when Swartz was arrested other than he wasn’t near the car but others were.
Ticket versus arrest, which one would you be worried about?
One interesting side note is mentioned in Stephanie Schram’s 12/69 interview. Brunner and Good were arrested on the first of the two nights while driving the same truck that Manson was driving when he received his ticket. The truck was impounded after the Brunner arrest and Stephanie’s DL was in the truck. She said it was difficult for her to get her DL back and she thought part of the reason was because of questionable ownership of the truck. She did eventually get her license but it required her physically retrieving it.
ToF:
ReplyDeleteYour comment supports the idea that possession of a valid DL was not a major concern for the Manson Family, therefore it implies that possession of a valid DL, supposedly by Kasabian, would not in itself be a reason for choosing her to go out both nights.
Let's work from this assumption.
What would be the most likely rationales for selecting Kasabian as an accomplice?
TabOrFresca said: "There is a funny coincidence between the title you chose for this article and the attached PDF file."
ReplyDeleteEveryone up there with a Dotcom after their name can vouch for the fact that I am technologically challenged. I download the PDF from CIelodrive. I attach it to an e-mail to Matt. He sends me a link. I copy the link and paste it in the post. So.....can't help.
That is is a funny coincidence, though.
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Shoegazer said: "What would be the most likely rationales for selecting Kasabian as an accomplice?"
As Deb said to me I would bet rent Kasabian did not have a valid driver's license. In fact, until Cielodrive proves she did if he can, she didn't. So why did Bugliosi use that to explain her involvement? For the same reason he did not identify the "female family member" who helped Grogan. At trial and in his book he wanted Kasabian to be a perceived as a peripheral character, not a core member.
Manson chose those who were core members. Brunner was in jail.
And finally, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you Catherine Gilles and Leslie Van Houten....she wanted to go.
You mean the 1969 World Champion NY METS??
ReplyDeleteIn other news, although Linda may not have been exactly who Bug says she was, it's a long way from getting a friend out of a mental hospital to brutally murdering people.
In the decades of her life after the Family and the sumner of '69, Linda Kasabian only participated in a couple of interviews, basically staying off the radar most of her life.
ReplyDeleteWith her passing, we may not ever get answers to some of these lingering questions about her. But perhaps her children know more?
Too, I think of William Garretson in this way. He also participated in only a couple of interviews since '69, but could he have provided additional factual information about the murders at Cielo? With his passing we may never know.
gina said: "it's a long way from getting a friend out of a mental hospital to brutally murdering people."
ReplyDeleteI agree 100%. Citing Gilles and Van Houten was not to suggest she knew they were going there to murder people. I don't believe anyone knew that was the plan except Watson when they left Spahn. I think she thought is was a creepy crawl or something else but wanted to be a part of it. My own pet theory about her that night actually requires her not to know.
Nor am I saying she lied when she testified. Too many factors including, as mentioned, PTSD, influence memory and Bugliosi's interview style is one of those.
David said...
ReplyDelete...I agree 100%. Citing Gilles and Van Houten was not to suggest she knew they were going there to murder people. I don't believe anyone knew that was the plan except Watson when they left Spahn. I think she thought is was a creepy crawl or something else but wanted to be a part of it. My own pet theory about her that night actually requires her not to know...
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Hi David,
Don't you think that taking knives and a change of clothes would be pretty strong clues to LK that something more than a creepy crawl was planned? I would bet my lefty that they never took changes of clothes to creepy crawlies.
By all accounts, Krenwinkel was the last to be told to get a knife and go along. Linda wasn't just told at the last second to get in the car and drive.
Tragical History Tour said: "Don't you think that taking knives and a change of clothes would be pretty strong clues to LK that something more than a creepy crawl was planned? I would bet my lefty that they never took changes of clothes to creepy crawlies."
ReplyDeleteThis why I said 'or something'.
Memory is mistakenly believed by most to be a video you replay. In fact, it is a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. Stress causes pieces to disappear.
Certainly, if Manson had said at dinner 'now is the time for Helter Skelter' and then she was invited to go her stress level would have risen. Being told get this stuff would have pushed that higher.
But I do not think anyone told her this is what we are going to do. It is typically not what Manson did. 'Go with Tex and do what he says' or 'be a man' to me is classically Manson.
But did she have an inkling? I would say 'yes' and at least the stress of that fact would have impacted her emotionally and her memory of actual events creating more missing pieces that, I believe, were filled in by other sources because that is how memory recall works.
Let's assume for a moment that she is the one who slashed at Parent (no proof offered. It very well could be her memory would eliminate that fact given the stress level of the events of that night. 'I couldn't do that' would kick in, even if she did.
That is why the eye witness accounts are, across the board, unreliable. Is there truth there? Yes. Are they 100% accurate? No. That does not make them liars. Could you admit you slashed Parent? Or would your memory be 'he was slashed'.
Using a personal anecdote. I was never in combat or served. I did have one very serious physical altercation in my youth where you could say, if a chain is life threatening, I was there. I was the attacked. A few years ago I met back up with those who were there with me and the moment in time came up among our stories. I described to a third party what happened and they both looked at me and said 'dude, that's not how it came down.' Their version was far more violent on my part than mine. Even as I write this I have no actual memory of what they described. That is how memory works. They have filled in the missing pieces.
David,
ReplyDeleteThanks for response.
I think your anecdote is relevant... to a point. You are genuinely trying to recall honestly what happened. There is maybe a subconscious suppression that explains the difference between your recollection and your friends'. But you have no conscious motivation to embellish or suppress. You are being honest to your memory.
Linda did have a motivation. Her freedom was literally on the line dependent upon her testimony. And she would have been coached. I'm sure we can agree that pretty much all witnesses are coached by attorneys. Whether she was slightly off in some details - where precisely she was standing at a given time, the exact wording of conversations etc didn't really affect the outcome as a whole. Bugliosi essentially got the story he wanted told.
Where I think she knowingly created a new memory was the degree of foreknowledge she had about what was to happen, and her willingness to go along, even if the events that transpired proved more harrowing than she imagined. To use your analogy, I don't think this was a piece of the jigsaw puzzle that disappeared. I think it was a piece she deliberately replaced. And because the events were so traumatic and consequential, she started to believe that she never wanted ANY part of it. A lot of time passes from the murders to the trial(s). By then, she's not part of the murder teams at all.
Nothing is odder than applying emotions to what were essential characters who spewed absolutely nothing but fiction, like the Linda Kasabian of Bugliosi's court room.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to do that realistically, it looks something like: Linda can feel guilt about the fact she incited Tex to do what he did to certain people in that house, but not Steve Parent or Sharon Tate. But at the same time, I really don't think she gave two much of a shit about them either. Linda Kasabian was being busted in raids on 1% clubs in Boston, who had dynamite and caches of weapons in 1967. No different to what DeCarlo dumped off on the ranch. She was in SF at the time that Charlie was, living with a dope dealer and getting high on speed till she got sent back to NH.
That didn't make it into the trial or Watson's trial. Watson's trial reveals a lot about the who those two were. The fact they were both nothing but drug dealers actually comes out in his trial, which is why he was purposely hid away and Kasabian got the honey deal. They were the link to the victims and the death blow to Bugliosi's entire future. Not just in the legitimate world of law and entertainment, but by solidifying the connections between the east and the west.
Diverging somewhat here, but staying on Kasabian's involvement, does anyone recall any narrative explaining why she was selected to go out the 2nd night?
ReplyDeleteThe more I examine certain facts, the less sense they make in terms of a logical process.
And no, I'm not inviting comments about Manson and his drugged out hippy cult--this of course affects applications of everyday logic. But I perceive that Manson was really a good judge of character, very much the streetwise little grifter.
We see Kasabian presented by Bugliosi, and by her own testimony, as a relatively disengaged outsider at the wrong place(s) at the wrong time(s). She was, after all, a relative newcomer, and unproven in any common use of the term.
But here Manson selected *her* to go out and start his race war, then, ostensibly after hearing about her shortcomings at Cielo, choosing her again for another murder spree the next night.
I really thought Manson had more smarts than that. If he did indeed possess smarts, then there is more to her involvement, I think.
However, always we must left a little "wiggle room" in our assessments of the cult's behavior: some of them were fairly confused and most were frequently drugged up.
Shoegazer said:
ReplyDelete“Let's work from this assumption.
What would be the most likely rationales for selecting Kasabian as an accomplice?”
This is a very complicated question. I’ll try to briefly answer.
Selecting females to be part of a potentially violent team (that doesn’t use guns) is not a good choice. I would choose a couple of fat boys over female athletes.
Two reasons for choosing females. First, lack of males. Second, the opposition includes females so you figure two females should have a good chance at overpowering one.
Concerning LK, there other reasons why she may have been at Cielo Drive. First, she may have been one of the planners of this crime and she was there because of that. Second, if through her contacts she had heard that there would be a significant sale of drugs that night, she may have been there because she knew or could recognize some of the players. Third, she was there to drive the car back to Spahn if things went totally bad, either just alone or with injured bodies. No license required. Fourth, she like the others were considered to be expendable.
I am someone who believes that it is highly probable that Manson was not behind Cielo Drive. If he wasn’t, then the two most likely suspects would be Watson and/or Kasabian. The “Grogan File”, provided by Cielodrive.com, does seem to imply that LK had a devious grifter side.
A blogger named “johnpatrick” recently proposed the idea that Melton’s money might not have been obtained from inheritance but possibly from drug sales. LK was acquainted with True. I don’t think she was naive. She may have put the idea in Watson’s head, to steal Melton’s money, fooling Watson into believing the theft was his idea.
I do believe that LK’s Cielo Drive story was a fabrication that used Atkins’ story as a baseline and was enhanced based upon input mainly from Fleischman and partially by Bugliosi. It would be nice for this theory to be debunked by listening to the Watson Tapes.
Tex Watson was her connection to Cielo Drive and the trouble was over a drug deal between her and Frykowski. I was told by a highly reliable source extremely close to the action that Andrew Dapprich described his friend Charles as, "a hair stylist" and that was in early 1969. He and Dapprich were the pot dealers to the Cast of Hair.
ReplyDeleteWho do people think Watson is talking about in his book, when he mentions he started to get his hair done while living in Hollywood?
The big issue here is that the cocaine specifically is what links those two and under that is, where the dust pans start to come out, because that isn't junk hippie "drugs", those were considered "Narcotics" and it was being brought in by future reps of "Bryanston Entertainment" ;) that Bugliosi was winking at with his case. Letting scummy ass Linda Kasabian lie and get off the hook to help drug dealers and killers worse than Watson move in Hollywood for red carpet porno.
Easy to do, especially when your other "star witness" was a piece of shit being given free reign to control the local black market with the muscle of the 1% by local racist cops to push others in the community they don't like to into violence to fuck with people they don't like (Hinman and Manson, including in the same list there).
A blogger named Johnpatrick said that? You mean what people like Schreck and myself said over 10 years ago? That Melton/Kasabian were just another local street level drug ring and their real reason for wanting to travel was most likely to smuggle something in. That in and of it's self was another burn on a rival street level drug ring. That's why the SS were involved in all of this, mainly the acid and junk drugs all those people in that AREA were dealing in.
ReplyDeleteKasabian like Tex, was nothing but a drug dealer. She said it as clear as day: She dealt drugs in Boston, NY, SF, Mimi and California. Interestingly enough, where a lot of the drugs were coming in from via the mafisos like Massaro. Miami and Boston.
Do I think there could be connections between her and even those people? I think so. There were some very interesting people in the Spahn Ranch auto ring. People with east coast mob connections and to the MC clubs.
shoegazer said...
ReplyDeleteDiverging somewhat here, but staying on Kasabian's involvement, does anyone recall any narrative explaining why she was selected to go out the 2nd night?
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I think it's because Manson is on the fence about her loyalty/obedience/commitment. It's a further test.
Yes, Charlie wasn't happy with the previous night, but that wasn't down to Linda. She got a pass mark for driving and keeping mostly a reasonable lookout. After all, they didn't get caught.
It was the others that let it get too messy and Sadie who lost her knife. If Manson got any feedback from them about Linda being squeamish and reluctant, maybe he wanted to toughen her up with another assignment and entrench her further into the family's hold.
They ALL knew what they were going to do, even before getting in the car. Why?
ReplyDelete--Tex would have risked a rebellion if he sprang it on them at the last minute.
--In her interview with Marvin Part, LVH said that Charlie carefully briefed her and Krenny before leaving for the LaBianca place. If they knew what they were going to do at Waverly, they knew what they were going to do at Cielo.
--The tip of a glove was found on the lawn. Which probably means the killers were wearing gloves just like at the Hinman house. Which of course means premeditation.
--They knew they were taking rope. Rope to tie people up with. Which means the victims are going to see you, so you have to wear a mask--or you have to kill the witnesses. And they didn't bring any masks.
--When you say "the plan was to get the two women" and "Sharon wasn't supposed to be there" that means you have advance intel on your targets. They'd need that for a murder, but not a creepy crawl.
--Tex testified at his parole hearings that the girls had been told by Charlie what words to write on the walls. As they didn't bring any magic markers, they must have known those words would have to be written in the blood of the dead victims.
The standout for me has always been taking the change of clothes. It is really under-emphasised as a premeditation/motive factor.
ReplyDeleteYou could take knives just to be threatening during a bloodless robbery I guess (although a single gun would just about do it), but when you take the clothes you know that you are using the knives on multiple victims and things are going to get bloody.
Some 'other event' can never account for the clothes. The only things that went wrong was that they ran out on the lawn and it got even bloodier than they imagined. And they first encountered Parent. The rope was brought to keep it more confined but Tex underestimated how hard they would fight.
Tying it back to Linda, she knew what they were leaving the ranch to do. But even though she was involved in some drug dealing, she wasn't the co-mastermind of two nights of killings. The killers, even though they hated her for snitching, ended up conceding that was a laughable claim.
There is a reason CM once said: "I might have told them to scare some people, but I never told them to kill Voytek Frykowski" and that plays (partly into) why a certain somebody's prop gun was taken.
ReplyDeleteIt's insulting to Manson to think that gun wouldn't have vanished from the planet earth after the Bernard Crowe shooting is he had any ownership right over it and it had nothing to do with him having any free reign, because anyone who thinks that after seeing how he got the major screw job for everyone else is laughable.
First of all only one of the killers ever said anything about Kasabian and the MDA and they left out Watson's involvement because: up till that time, not a word from Watson was being used to convict anyone. They were clearly showing Watson they were covering his connection to those people up, by not submitting any evidence that made it possible for them to get him released to CA.
ReplyDeleteThey would never sit in prison implicating people who were ring leaders and got off. The parole board would shut them down, victims' family members would degrade and call them liars and they might get hurt. In fact, I think they even have hidden stipulations.
Susan did admit later about the drugs in regards to at least Frykowski. It came up at a parole hearing in the 90s. Because they painted him as the fall guy loser among the victims from the start.
Linda Kasabian had both Bugliosi and Gary Fleischman looking after her, so there was no chance of additional details coming to light.
ReplyDeleteIts likely she was a very active participant with Family activities to secure a home for her and Tanya. She needed to fit in quickly and likely fell under Charlie's spell in that atmosphere. She certainly gave up Melton's money with little encouragement.
I'll bet Charlie felt she could pass as normal to the establishment so he used her to visit Clem, just as he sent her to visit Bobby later. He even broke his no-girl-leaves-alone rule and sent her unaccompanied. The rest of the girls were pretty ragged, drugged out and beaten down physically and psychologically. Linda had a fresh face, plus she had Tanya back at the ranch as collateral.
Also, she testified that Charlie had a rule that only people with a drivers license could drive that car. (I thought Squeaky confirmed that in Reflexion, but I can't find it now.)
Is that you Allegra?
ReplyDeletePeople still looking at CM through a straw are still under the spell of nonsense.
It's weird how people even contradict a lot of what they presented. He had a "no girl leaves alone" rule, but Kasabian and Sandy were out hitchhiking around Venice?
Kasabian fell right into the criminal element at Spahn Ranch. Not "the girls".
Linda didn't have a fresh face. Did you read above? She was busted in raid on a violent biker gang who's leader she was dating and this was after she was busted in SF and sent back to the East Coast with the stipulation she doesn't hang out with long haired men or people who used drugs, which she obviously broke instantly.
Tragical History Tour said: " I'm sure we can agree that pretty much all witnesses are coached by attorneys."
ReplyDeleteWell, not all of us.
I was and still am one. I practiced for 36 years. I have been in probably a dozen evidentiary hearings or trials a year. I never once coached a witness. In my state that is unethical.
33 years of being in courtrooms (I was carrying someone else's bags the first 3)I can assure you a coached witness sounds coached. Flip the order of the questions chronologically, if you will, on cross examination and work backwards and the script falls apart.
I was not at the trial but nothing I have read in a transcript or heard in an interview suggests to me Bugliosi coached witnesses. What he freely admits he did in his book is actually far worse but not unethical in the US.
Is there evidence the police coached witnesses? Yes. Rudy Weber for one.
One of the things I've noted here over the few years I've participated is to mistrust the credibility of anyone who claims to be sure about personal motivations, relationships, mind-sets.
ReplyDeleteThere really isn't a hell of a lot to be certain of even in the physical details of the actual crime scenes.
By nature, TLB is, and likely always will be, speculative.
However, not all speculation is created equal... ;^)
David said...
ReplyDeleteI was not at the trial but nothing I have read in a transcript or heard in an interview suggests to me Bugliosi coached witnesses...
-----------------------------------
Might be a difference of definition but I take coaching to be going through your questions with them beforehand and assisting them with what they are going to say and how they are going to say it. That doesn't necessarily result in robotic answers that a jury sees through. I know first hand that it does happen in even minor trials. And in a major trial, it would certainly happen with a star witness.
If you think that didn't happen between Kasabian and Bugliosi in the months and months leading up to the trial(s) then I don't know what to tell you. Have you been the lead attorney in a murder trial with multiple defendants and the death penalty on the line?
TabOrFresca said...
ReplyDelete...I am someone who believes that it is highly probable that Manson was not behind Cielo Drive...
------------------------------------------
Despite what all the participants, Manson himself, and all the evidence said? Yikes.
TragicalMysteryTour said: "Might be a difference of definition but I take coaching to be going through your questions with them beforehand and assisting them with what they are going to say and how they are going to say it."
ReplyDelete'Yes', that is coaching and 'no' I never did it.
But that is also not what Bugliosi did. He describes what he did and if you listen to the few interviews of witnesses that are out there you can hear what he did. He would say "We know A-B-C, tell me about B" that will influence a witness who doesn't remember B to accept B as their memory. He would interview witnesses over and over in this fashion and in Kasabian's case say 'well, if you remember anything about B after what I have told you we know, write it down and send it to me". You can see one of those messages in Ed Sander's book.
No I only did criminal law as a young lawyer and you don't do murder trials. I have tried cases that lasted five or even ten days and involved dozens of witnesses. I did not say 'robotic'. I said you, meaning a lawyer could tell when they were coached.
"...and now for something *completely* different!"
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I've been thinking about Kasabian's role and status within the family, and drifting toward "personality types". I recognized that after reading most of her testimony, and the testimony of varied character witnesses, and in some cases their informal communications, I gradually formed a distinct "gut feel" of her as a person. And it seems to me that her main motivations are short term gratification of one kind or another, and a curious mix of a desire for "belonging" to a group of some kind, and a very perceptive and objective evaluation that some might label "amoral" that allowed her to look after her own interests, first and foremost, in virtually any situation. She was at least moderately intelligent, and in combination with her solipsistic viewpoint made her a danger to those see was around.
And you you know what? This is very close to the same personality profile that I had formed up for Watson. She was just under better self-control.
Comments?
Verrrry interesting...but not shtupid!
ReplyDeleteAnd @Dreath - What side of Detroit and what decade? My family was on the east side from 1957 to 1990.
Loegria15 said: "What side of Detroit and what decade? My family was on the east side from 1957 to 1990."
ReplyDeleteMy family was in Detroit from about 1900 until 1970. I would fall at the end of that 1960-1970.
North Rosedale Park- west side
@David, so sorry about my addressing you incorrectly. It was gracious of you not to mention it.
ReplyDeleteWe were closer to Grosse Pointe Park, couple miles up.
shoegazer said...
ReplyDeleteAnd it seems to me that her main motivations are short term gratification of one kind or another, and a curious mix of a desire for "belonging" to a group of some kind, and a very perceptive and objective evaluation that some might label "amoral" that allowed her to look after her own interests, first and foremost, in virtually any situation...
Linda was a survivor. Seemingly ,she'd learnt to do whatever was needed to get by and yet everyone loves to be loved. There's lots of people like that at all levels of society. In the underground semi-legal world that Linda occupied, that kinda philosophy could present itself with a lot less subtlety than in more privileged circles. :-).
This is very close to the same personality profile that I had formed up for Watson. She was just under better self-control.
Comments?
Self control's no doubt a big part of it but there's also a basic ethical line in the sand that some people have whereby you don't snuff people (as T.J. the Terrible would say). Whether (in Linda's case) it was genuinely ethical or driven more by a "survivor's wisdom" that killing people just wasn't a good idea is hard to say. Probably, a bit of both (I.M.O.).
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOk, just spent some time reading about witness coaching (as opposed to witness 'preparation') in the US legal system.
ReplyDeleteAccording to lawyers, both practicing and retired, and legal scholars, it is very common. Rarely scrutinized, unrecorded, difficult to prove, and largely successful.
Probably why it's so common. Coach Bugliosi would not have missed an opportunity.
Shoegazer and Brown Rice- I think "hedonist" is a good fit for Linda and Watson, but it also applies to their generation at the time (a perfectly understandable reaction against their parents who wanted to feel safe and in control after WWII.)
ReplyDeleteI would also classify Linda as a survivor, able to shapeshift as needed. I see Watson as more of a chaos generator, not as adaptable, not in control of himself and therefore more likely to lash out or cut and run. He left a few times but came back. So did Sadie, who had a similar personality.
Linda drew a line at murder and planned her escape. So did Ella, who helped with drug running and armed robbery but blew once Hinman was murdered.
Great side thread! The psychology of the Family members is what draws me to this community.
MP:
ReplyDeleteThere was definitely an expansion of pleasure seeking, but it was really paltry as compared to a bit later--glam rock/cocaine era. I was almost 22 when the killings happened, moved to San Diego and went to college there, was anti-war, etc. I'm not sure I'd call the late 60s drug youth hedonistic so much as rebellious, contrarian.
Yes, Kasabian was a survivor. She was a "tactical" rather than a "strategic" survivor. It seems to me that she was very poor at foreseeing likely consequences, and had developed, over time and as a side benefit of life experience, a reliable knack for knowing when to bail out, when to cut-and-run. Really, that's fine and excusable if you are unable to keep yourself out of situations that had a high probability of going bad.
I don't see her drawing a line so much as waking up. The stuff happened, she went out a 2nd night, and she could see plain as day that she was getting into a situation where she's have no control over whether she became a major lawbreaker or just continued to float around the bargain basement bohemian world of bikers and druggies.
Too, unlike Atkins, there was nothing in it (murder, race wars) for her, no rush, such as Atkins described in jail.
I think that the main shared trait for Watson and Kasabian was that neither had anything resembling a life plan, not even enough to decide to stay with the Family. They were two emerging adults fully adrift, unmoored. By then my goal was to stay out of Vietnam,and this meant I had to not flunk out of college, and still had to work to pay rent and tuition, etc. THis provided focus and direction. After that, I wanted independence to live my life in what now seems a pretty conventional way, e.g., live with my current girl friend, go out, go places, have fun.
Closer to the Beach Boys than to The Doors. :^)
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ReplyDeleteThis seems like much ado about nothing. Sure, Vince tried to paint Linda in a better (or more "innocent" if you prefer) light than the four Manson trial defendants. That was part of his job. But she was certainly not painted to be a carefree and innocent flower child. Far from it.
ReplyDeleteKasabian spent weeks on the stand during that trial and most of that time she was being cross-examined. This includes a full seven days of cross led by Kanarek himself. He and the other defense attorneys went into great detail exploring her promiscuity, drug use, commune life, criminal history, the theft from her ex-husband, her high school dropout status - even her smoking in court when the jury was not present. During the latter stage of that endless trial, many of the family members even took the stand to try and paint Kasabian as the architect of these bloody crimes.
Do you know what topic was never called into question, not even once during all of that time? The status of Linda Kasabian's driver license.
During her initial testimony, Linda related that Manson instructed her to collect dark clothes, a knife and her license and to meet him out front. She describes not being able to locate her license, so she joined the others at the car without it. It was Nancy Pitman, who had been helping the girls gather their needed items, who found the license and delivered it to the gathered crew, just in time to hear Manson instructing the girls to "do whatever Tex says."
IF Kasabian did not in fact have a valid license at the time, this information would have been enormous in the effort to discredit her on the stand. And yet the defense didn't even bother to bring it up - even knowing of her May 1969 charge over operating a motor vehicle without a valid license. Nancy Pitman was never called to the stand to testify "License? No, I didn't deliver any driver license to the group at the car that night!" Nothing.
The obvious conclusion? Kasabian rectified the driver license situation some time between May and August of 1969. If she hadn't, this would have been brought up in court.
As for Linda's being selected to go along to Cielo because of her driver license status, this was not presented to the jury. Bugliosi does introduce the notion in his book, however, though he labels this as nothing more than a personal theory:
"Linda, I later learned, was the only family member with a valid license, excepting Mary Brunner, who had been arrested that afternoon. This was, I concluded, probably one of the reasons that Manson had picked Linda to accompany the others . . . " [p.339, Kindle edition].
This piece presents the observation "What a witness does not say is more important than what they do say." I believe that the same might apply to the defense in this case: what defense council does not question is more important than what they do.
Linda Kasabian's sex life? Discussed to death.
Linda Kasabian's driver license status?
Never questioned.
There is no "there" here.
tobiasragg said: "As for Linda's being selected to go along to Cielo because of her driver license status, this was not presented to the jury."
ReplyDeleteGotta disagree with your police work.
"MR. BUGLIOSI: No. 2, ladies and gentlemen, and I admit that this is just speculation on my part because I have no way of knowing this, but there is a distinct possibility that the only reason Charles Manson asked Linda Kasabian to go along on these two nights of murder was that she had a driver’s license, and I will tell you why.
You recall, Linda Kasabian testified that one of Manson’s orders at Spahn Ranch is that whenever the Family went into town he only wanted those members of the Family to drive who had a driver’s license. And Linda Kasabian testified that only she and Mary Brunner had driver’s licenses. If you recall, on the afternoon of August the 8th, 1969, Mary Brunner was arrested with Sandra Good. That is the afternoon of the Tate murders. So, apparently Linda Kasabian was the only other member of the Family, as far as we know, with a driver’s license upon whom Charles Manson could call.
And you will recall, ladies and gentlemen, that on both nights Charles Manson told Linda Kasabian: Go get your driver’s license. He didn’t tell Tex, as far as we know, or Katie or Sadie or Leslie. And we know that on the first night, ladies and gentlemen, when Tex Watson wasn’t driving, Linda Kasabian was driving the car, not Katie or Sadie.
And on the second night, when there were seven people in that car, when Charles Manson wasn’t driving, only Linda Kasabian was driving. Again, speculation on my part, why Charles Manson would ask Linda Kasabian to accompany him on these two nights of murder, but I think it is certainly a reasonable inference based on the evidence."
Stewart, Mike. The People of the State of California vs. Charles Manson Vol IV (pp. 4308-4309). Kindle Edition.
David:
ReplyDeleteIt's still hard for me to believe that Manson would give much of a damn one way or the other about the possession of a DL.
If it's important, Watson would never have driven, nor Manson.
Something makes no sense here. If the source for this is Bugliosi, I'd at this point default to seeing the whole DL issue as a Bugliosi side-show, for whatever reason he had for bring this up.
I can be convinced one way or the other by persuasive evidence.
tobiasragg said: "This piece presents the observation "What a witness does not say is more important than what they do say." I believe that the same might apply to the defense in this case: what defense council does not question is more important than what they do."
ReplyDeleteNot sure I can agree with the second sentence of your quote other than to say 'yes, if the defense doesn't ask an important question that could be very important'.
Here is what she said.
Q. Did you have a driver’s license in July?
A. Yes.
Q. Under what name?
A. My own name, Linda Kasabian.
Stewart, Mike. The People of the State of California vs. Charles Manson Vol II (p. 813). Kindle Edition.
There is a word she didn't say.
Said this too:
Linda. A. Charlie specified later on that only the people with driver’s license should drive the car.
Q. Who were those people?
A. I had a driver’s license.
MR. KANAREK: Calling for a conclusion and hearsay, and I would like to inquire on voir dire as to whether or not this witness has seen any driver’s licenses.
THE COURT: Overruled.
THE WITNESS: Yes, I had a driver’s license and Mary Brunner had a driver’s license.
Q. BY MR. BUGLIOSI: To your knowledge did anyone else have a driver’s license?
A. No.
Stewart, Mike. The People of the State of California vs. Charles Manson Vol II (p. 446). Kindle Edition.
Wonder how she knew that about Brunner? The statements a whole is wrong as we know but still.
shoegazer said: "It's still hard for me to believe that Manson would give much of a damn one way or the other about the possession of a DL."
ReplyDeleteAgree 100%. Manson didn't.
David:
ReplyDeleteRe the testimony, isn't all of it hearsay? There was nothing more than Kasabian *saying* all this?
It's hard to buy this as a solid source of info, isn't it?
The Mr. Bugliosi: 2..... is Fromm his closing argument.
ReplyDeleteShoegazer, is it hearsay? Not as asked.
Kanarek, however, asked the wrong 'question in aid of an objection' (what he calls void dire, which probably what it was back then). It is not what she has seen it is 'how she knows this', especially since a few lines earlier she said licenses were taken away.
Then if LK says 'X told me' that is then 'objection, hearsay'.
David:
ReplyDeleteI was using the term "hearsay" informally. What I was trying to convey is that we have no way of knowing if any of what she said was accurate if all we consider is the testimony.
Certainly I would not believe her without definitive proof from the CA DMV.
This sure doesn't make her evil, it's just that people need to understand who they're dealing with, and what is normal behavior within her circle. Lies of convenience or to achieve personal benefit are routine.
Shoegazer,
ReplyDeleteSorry, lawyer training. Agreed.
David:
ReplyDeleteIt's great to have access to trained perspective.
Thanks!
"and I admit that this is just speculation on my part because I have no way of knowing this, but there is a distinct possibility that the only reason Charles Manson asked Linda Kasabian to go along on these two nights of murder was that she had a driver’s license"
ReplyDeleteAh, thank you, David. I tried to scan the transcripts for mention if this but came up with nothing. Then again,I was relying on the cielodrive posts, which are not searchable. How did you manage to get these on Kindle? Sure would make keyword searches a heck of a lot easier!
This said, the testimony you share supports the point I was trying to make, which was that Kasabian had a license and the defense made no attempt to refute this. Kinda negates the entire point if the post we're responding to, I think. It doesn't really matter who did the actual driving, as Linda could have slipped behind the wheel in the event they were pulled over that night. Perhaps that is why she was seated up front, who knows?
Tobias:
ReplyDelete"... which was that Kasabian had a license ..."
What I get from the testimony is that Kasabian *says* she has a license. If she did indeed have one, was it valid? What state was it from?
All of this is unknown, according to what I've read.
tobiasragg,
ReplyDeleteThe entire transcript is there on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=manson+trial+transcript&i=digital-text&crid=1938CEREBV2QJ&sprefix=manson+trial+transcript%2Cdigital-text%2C162&ref=nb_sb_noss
She doesn't say 'valid' does she? Its what they don't say. And nowhere does Bugliosi ask 'valid license'. Like I said, once Cielodrive provides the proof I will acknowledge it. Until then, nope.
"She doesn't say 'valid' does she? Its what they don't say."
ReplyDeleteThank you for that link. Should make life a whole lot easier!
Here's the thing, though ... you're basing your entire disbelief on the abscense of a single word? You're welcome to that POV, but do you actually not think that this wouldn't have occurred to Irving, even? The defense went to ENORMOUS lengths to discredit Kasabian, to the point of tracking down and flying in a grouchy old former neighbor from Florida to sit on the stand and say bad things about the young woman. Hughes, sure - it is easy to imagine him overlooking such a point, but the rest of that defense team had years of practice under their belts.
Sorry, but logic dictates that this small point wasn't challenged because there was nothing to challenge there.
P.S. plz forgive the typos ... posting from my phone with man thumbs:D
ReplyDeleteTobias:
ReplyDeleteAs near as I can tell, you're basing the idea that she had a valid CA DL on the *reputations* of the defense team. Is this correct?
I think a possible reason that the validity of her DL was not challenged was because the whole idea of murderers being careful about DLs was absurd to the point of triviality. No one cared, really, except Bugliosi, who was attempting to guild the lily that he had created: he was trying to buff up Kasabian's image in any way he could and he went so far as to think that a valid CA DL would be meaningful.
ReplyDeleteHe simply overdid it, is all.
Tobias:
ReplyDeleteI don't want to sound like a dick but telling me the defense lawyers didn't ask X is a big 'yes, so?' They didn't ask anything they should have. Like about this record.
They were utterly unprepared, every day. They were hopelessly ignorant of the evidence, I assume by lack of review. They were in trial, incompetent (until Maxwell Keith showed up- and look- he set up the court and later, on appeal, won, be it temporarily).
And, 'no' I don't care what VB says about them. And 'no' the outcome would not have been any different but our knowledge might be.
Remember, it is Fitzgerald who brings out the hanging of Sharon Tate, not VB. His effort was successfully objected to.
"I don't want to sound like a dick but telling me the defense lawyers didn't ask X is a big 'yes, so?"
ReplyDeleteNah, it's all good. I'm not trying to be a dick, either, we're just debating minutiae here, 50+ years after the fact.
I would posture that the notion of "valid" is implied in the question "did you have a dl?" You can argue that point and I wouldn't go to the mat on that one, but this is a reasonable point of view in my mind.
I am not a lawyer, but like anyone I suppose, I try to apply common sense to the information I am considering, and the idea that Kasabian was lying on this small matter just doesn't pass the sniff test for me. There were, what? Six or seven lawyers involved in this case and none of them thought to double check this point of fact - even knowing that the woman had been cited for driving without a license just three months prior??
Ultimately, this doesn't matter a whit of course, as most all involved are dead or clammed up these days. But Kasabian not lying about this and the point not being challenged makes abundant sense when stacked up against "well she didn't say the word valid, therefore I think she was lying."
P.S. are the property reports associated with those arrested/incarcerated (Kasabian in this point) available online? That might solve this minor question, ultimately.
Tobias,
ReplyDelete"you're basing your entire disbelief on the abscense of a single word?"
No, I am basing it on what the post cited:
1. On May 2, 1969 (I looked it up in the old post) she pled guilty to driving without a valid driver's license. Did not possess one. Could not produce one in court.
2. On Deemer's list she is not listed with a valid license while Kitty Lutesinger is listed as having one, from Missouri. A list prepared we believe, so far, in November-early December 1969.
Prove she had one without using her testimony and I am 'all in'. If you can't, let's wait and see what comes to light. Is this earth shattering? Geez, of course not but we will see what's out there, I hope.
The post was to point out the, for me, new evidence she was far more involved in plotting and hatching plans than what we have been led to believe by the official narrative. That the narrative is misleading.
And, of course, it is. Your own comment, based upon that narrative, led you to believe VB didn't argue the license issue to the jury. You couldn't cite to it because you couldn't 'search' it. Do you believe VB didn't know you couldn't do that in 1974?
Gotta get away from this stuff for a bit.
Medium Patty said...
ReplyDeleteI would also classify Linda as a survivor, able to shapeshift as needed. I see Watson as more of a chaos generator, not as adaptable, not in control of himself and therefore more likely to lash out or cut and run. He left a few times but came back. So did Sadie, who had a similar personality.
Yeah, they were both classic crash & burners really and repeatedly screwed up. We've probably all known people like that before but thankfully none quite as extreme as Tex & Sadie.
shoegazer said...
I don't see her drawing a line so much as waking up. The stuff happened, she went out a 2nd night, and she could see plain as day that she was getting into a situation where she's have no control over whether she became a major lawbreaker or just continued to float around the bargain basement bohemian world of bikers and druggies.
Yes. Good point about the second night..
Mary Brunner was among those arrested. I wonder if her DL# is listed on Deemer's list?
ReplyDeleteThat list was not compiled by Earl Deemer
ReplyDeleteCielodrive,
ReplyDeleteThat may be classically TLB.
______
From Not Deemer's List but some other guy's list: Brunner, Mary, Theresa: DL# S 420 794
So if we assume that the entire issue of the DL as it relates to TLB was brought up by Bugliosi at trial, one wonders *why* he brought it up, since there was some risk involved that cross exam might discover that Kasabian was lying when she testified to having a DL.
ReplyDeleteAnd it seems to me that the answer is pretty clear: there would be the implied question regarding Kasabian, in her role as a reliable, normally motivated POV that the jury could sympathize with, if you're not a bad person, like the others on trial, *why* were you there those two nights?
Weak as it was, the rationale, which was apparently accepted by the jury, was that she "had" to be there because Manson needed someone with a DL.
The longer this goes, the more I doubt she had a valid CA DL at the time of the killings.
"The longer this goes, the more I doubt she had a valid CA DL at the time of the killings."
ReplyDeleteI still find myself having little doubt, though I am not much of a conspiracy theorist so things like this usually need to be tied to some tangible logic or rationale for me to consider them possible or likely.
I guess I still find myself asking the same questions I had when I first read this piece. Why lie about such a trifling matter when admitting to much more serious stuff? If there really was no license, why did no one speak up or question this in court? Manson certainly had no shyness when it came to speaking out in court, heck at one point in her testimony he verbally (if vaguely) accused Kasabian of lying during direct. If she's up there stating that Charlie told her to fetch her DL and there was no DL to fetch, wouldn't he have called her out on this - or at least told his lawyers to do so on cross? And why would Bugliosi float the theory that he did on the reason for Linda's inclusion in the murder group in front of a jury if the point might have been so easily refuted?
I am not insisting that I am "correct" on this minor matter, it just doesn't make much sense to me. Now, if we're looking to pick Kasabian's testimony apart, there is the entire question of her stated Cielo experience not squaring with what the others have shared over the years, but that's another topic.
People refer to this list as the Deemer’s list simply because it was amongst the files Bill Nelson got from Deemer. Although I don’t know for sure who compiled it, I seriously doubt it would be Deemer. Deemer had a minor role in the beginning of the Tate investigation. He conducted a few - granted somewhat high-profile - interviews and polygraphs. He also eventually stole some of the evidence. Beyond that, I’ve found no record of him being involved with the investigation when LAPD shifted their focus to the Manson family. He certainly wasn’t one of the principal investigators assigned to these cases.
ReplyDeleteIt is my own speculation that the list was compiled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office. Each entry contains a note about the person. Notes like, “Member of Family per LAPD”, “Arrested in Inyo Co. with Family.” But the notes never mention LASO specifically. And it’s my belief that’s because the list is being written by LASO. Additionally, it has notes on people who are corresponding with or visiting the family in the county jail. LASO handles the prisoners in the county jail including keeping track of their associations. Lastly, out of all the investigating agencies, LASO had the most intel on the family at this time because of their many interactions with them out at Spahn.
I don't think this has anything to do with discrediting Kasabian's testimony so as to look for competing conspiracy theories: I'm one of those who thinks that the official narrative is accurate in its general sequence of events, and major actors.
ReplyDeleteIt's more of a puzzle, as you say, but I'm seeing it from the other side that you are. I'm seeing first and foremost that Bugilosi, once he had a deal with Kasabian, realizing that to win over the jury, he's got to find a way to separate Kasabian from the *killers*. First choice would be that she was physically and demonstrably forced to go, but there was nothing to work with in that direction: no allegations, and plenty of potential contrary witnesses.
But what if Manson TOLD her she had to go? He did that to all of the them, the other women, and they fairly readily went. We've got to separate Kasabian somehow. How about if she was pivotally needed to perform a non-violent part of the crime: like a robbery lookout or driver?
So she was a supposed driver, and by chance (due to possible squeamishness) she was assigned a lookout role at the crime scene.
Ahah! I (Bugliosi) can SAY that Manson needed her to go--he'd have sent someone else, but he required the driver of the murder car to have...ta-da!...a DL! And no one dared tell Manson no.
I think that as details came out during preparation--that Brunner had one, but was unavailable that day--and he certainly needed a license driver...
AHEM!
...Bugliosi welded any positive pieces of the evidence together to strengthen his prime witness's claim to compoarative innocence.
Personally, I think Mason chose her because in his assessment, she'd be fit for the dirty work. He was only partly right.
It's not pivotally important, but it's a) an insight to how Bugliosi may have structured his prosecution; and b) a sort of litmus test of what various readers on this forum require as proof. The thresholds are all different.
As regards Kasabian's DL,it's possible that she had a valid or invalid out of state DL.
ReplyDeleteIf she had only recently come to CA, and was going around with her husband and Melton in a van, with one small child, to get a CA DL she would have had to go to a DMV, waited in line, taken a written test, possibly taken a driving test (this would probably depend if she was in possession of a valid out-of-state DL; if yes, no driving test; if not, probably), if she passed she'd get a temporary, and the permanent one would have been mailed to the address she gave the DMV.
Where would that address have been, where she could have gotten it out of the mail?
Alternatively, if she had a valid out-of-state DL, CA would give a certain "grace period" to newcomers and/or visitors. Their valid DL would be considered OK, up to a point.
Does anyone have any information relating to the date of her arrive and possible addresses she may have used? I'm thinking that if she had a valid out-of-state given her situation she'd not bother with a CA DL.
Not really concerned about Linda's Driving License status. What I find more surprising is that she was one to visit Grogan and that she used the address of the house Dennis Wilson left nearly one year before. Why was Linda chosen above other 'Family' members, in my view this could be because Linda had long term connections with 'Family' associates long before visiting Spahn on the 4th of July 1969. For one she had known Charles Melton since late '67 and went on to live in a commune with him between May - July '68. Melton had visited Spahn multiple times and had independent connections with Paul Watkins, Gypsy, Bobby and Hinman. Linda also met Harold True, an important contact for Manson as a go between with Phil Kaufman while he was still in prison. True met up with Linda in late June '69 just days before she ripped off Melton to the tune of $40k in today’s money, I'll come back to that one.
ReplyDeleteOthers place Linda in the company of Manson prior to July '69, Neil Young claims he met her in Wilson's Pacific Palisades house during the summer of '68. Most people believe this is just a mistake and Young was just using names he learned from newspapers or tv news, but in his claim the only other Manson girl mentioned is Squeaky, as this period coincides with the witches of Mendocino debacle Squeaky is one of only 4 Manson girls available so it is either a lucky guess or the truth. Interesting that Linda used the address of the house Neil Young reported to have seen her at.
Tom Oneill includes documents on his FB page showing notes of an interview Bugliosi did with Terry Melcher’s valet, George Healy. Apparently Linda visited Watson and Jakobsen at Cielo in the Autumn of ’68.
About that Melton rip off…who get’s an inheritance in cash, who stores the cash in the back of a truck rather than say like a bank, who doesn’t report the theft to the police even when they know the perpetrator, who leaves the state to avoid testifying in court about all this… only a drug dealer who can’t answer questions about where the money really came from, drug sales. Would it be possible that Melton and Kasabian through their connections to the family via Harold True were actually working together with Watson prior to July ’69 and it was a fall out between these players that lead to a dispute over the split of proceeds. Or is it more believable that Linda meets Watson on July 4th and after knowing him a couple of hours is convinced to steal a sizeable amount of cash from a guy (Melton) she’s known for years.
It’s also very odd to me that both the Melton rip off and the Bernard Crowe rip off happen with a few days of one another and both involve a similar amount of money. Was Watson really instigating two separate drug related thefts in the same week, or where these operations one and the same?
John Patrick,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interesting post. A lot to digest.
Wait, I might see your point so I'll change my quote: Once Manson drives the car you cannot exonerate him.
ReplyDeleteAlthough for me that was given with the original quote.