Unsolved Murders and the Tex Tape Situation

On August 8^th 2019 the Los Angeles Times published an article for the 50^th anniversary of the Tate LaBianca murders focused on the idea that members of the Family may have committed other murders. The article also talks about the Tex Tapes.

The article states that the LAPD has 12 unsolved cases that are believed to be linked to the Family. Bare in mind that the LAPD has jurisdiction only within the city limits of Los Angeles. There are many cities in Los Angeles County that have their own police departments and the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County are served by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. 

How Many More Did the Manson Family Kill?

It's an enduring murder mystery involving several slayings that fit the cult's pattern

By Richard Winton

The Manson murders mostly are remembered as two events that occurred 50 years ago this month; the killing of Sharon Tate and four others in Benedict Canyon and then the butchering of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca is Los Feliz.

But cold-case investigators and others have long believed that Charles Manson and his cult followers were responsible for many more deaths.

The Los Angeles Police Department officially has a dozen unsolved homicide cases linked to Manson. And there are additional slayings outside the jurisdiction that some believe to be the work of his “family.” Some of those ties seem more plausible than others, but all have been extensively examined and theorized — as are all things involving Manson.

The supposed suicide of one Manson follower’s boyfriend in England. The drowning of an attorney whom Manson declared during the middle of his trial he never wanted to see again. A young man killed during a game of Russian roulette with family members present. Two young women stabbed to death off Mulholland Drive and a couple of young Scientology followers who met a similar fate.

Manson “repeatedly” said many others were killed, said Cliff Shepard, a former LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division detective who worked some of those cold cases. “We may never know or identify all their victims.”

In all, Manson and his followers were convicted of nine murders — the Tate and LaBianca attacks plus the slayings of musician Gary Hinman and stuntman and ranch hand Donald “Shorty” Shea.

Dan Jenks, an LAPD Robbery-Homicide detective, said the unsolved cases still were under active investigation and that the department would not comment on specifics.

“There is no statute of limitations. We are always developing new techniques. The last 10 years, DNA has come a long way,” Jenks said. “We will stay on them and keep them as active as we can.”

The LAPD repeatedly has declined requests by the Los Angeles Times for information about those cases. But seven years ago, while seeking to obtain audiotapes of a Manson follower that detectives hoped would yield clues, the department formally declared that a dozen unsolved cases might be tied to the family.

The tapes involved conversations between convicted killer Charles “Tex” Watson and his attorney in 1969. The LAPD obtained the tapes after a legal battle, but they appeared to provide few clues. The department, however, refused a Times request to review them, citing ongoing investigations. A judge in 2017 ruled that attorneys for Manson follower Leslie Van Houten could not have the recordings as part of her efforts to gain parole.

“The thing we discovered after reviewing the tapes, there was no new information related to any of the unsolved cases,” Jenks said. The death of Manson in 2017, as well as those of other family members, has made efforts to pursue the cases harder.

Manson prosecutor Stephen Kay said he and his partner, the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, always suspected that the cult had killed others.

“I know that Manson one time told one of his cellmates that he was responsible for 35 murders,” said Kay, who has attended 60 or so parole hearings to keep those he convicted of the Manson slayings in prison. “Whether that is true or not or just jail bragging, I don’t know. We prosecuted him for nine murders, and those were all the murders we had evidence on.”

A suspicious death in London

Just months after the Tate and LaBianca murders, Joel Pugh — the 29-year-old boyfriend of Manson clan member Sandra Good — was found dead in the Talgarth Hotel in London. His wrists and throat had been cut. British authorities listed it as a suicide, saying Pugh had been depressed. No suicide note was left.

Kay and others said Manson hated Pugh. “He had no reason to commit suicide, and Manson was very unhappy that Sandy” was with Pugh, Kay said.

Manson follower Bruce M. Davis, who recently was cleared for parole after nearly 50 years in prison, was in London at the time Pugh died. Kay said that Davis, now 76, was the family member most able to kill. The prospect of his pending release — which still could be blocked by Gov. Gavin Newsom — has energized investigations during the last decade.

Davis was convicted in the killings of Hinman and Shea in 1971 and sentenced to death. When California for a time abolished the death penalty, Davis and other members of the family were given life sentences.

At a parole hearing, Davis said he hadn’t known about the Tate killings until the morning after they happened but had committed the other murders because “I wanted to be Charlie’s favorite guy.”

Deadly game of Russian Roulette

Davis also was a witness to the November 1969 death of John “Zero” Haught in Venice, according to investigators. Authorities concluded that Haught had died accidentally while playing Russian roulette with a revolver, but that finding came under question.

The gun recovered didn’t have any fingerprints on it, The Times’ Jerry Cohen reported in 1969. A young man who held Haight’s head after the shooting told Cohen he entered the room to find a female Manson follower with the gun in her hand. Several Manson followers were inside the home that night, including Davis, The Times reported.

Davis could not be reached for comment, and his attorney did not return messages.

Jane Doe 59

In his book about the Manson family murders, “Helter Skelter,” Bugliosi said he believed that a woman known for years only as Jane Doe 59 was killed because she had witnessed Haught’s killing.

She was stabbed 150 times. A bird-watcher discovered her remains on Mulholland Drive, about six miles from the Benedict Canyon home where Tate and the others were killed.

Three years ago, the LAPD identified her as 19-year-old Reet Jurvetson from Montreal, using a DNA sample from her sister. She had come to Los Angeles from Canada to join a man she had first met in a Montreal coffee shop.

“She thought he looked like Jim Morrison,” Shepard, the former LAPD detective, said.

She sent a postcard to her mother about getting an apartment in L.A. 16 days before her death.

LAPD detectives asked Manson about Jurvetson before the killer’s death. He denied knowing her.

“It was like talking to a wall,” said LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division Capt. Billy Hayes.

That Manson wouldn’t say much doesn’t surprise his son.

Manson’s son Michael Brunner told The Times recently that “Charlie lived by a code. He was an outlaw. He was not a nice guy. But he lived by a code and he was not gonna be the one that was snitching. And there was a lot of snitching going on. And the people that were snitching, you know, they say snitches get stitches.”

Shepard said much of the speculation about Jurvetson stemmed from a photo of a woman resembling her who was dancing at the family’s Spahn Ranch hangout with Manson follower Steve Dennis “Clem” Grogan. He was paroled in 1985 after being convicted of murder for his role in Shea’s death.

Grogan told detectives a few years ago that the woman was another Manson follower, not the Jane Doe, Shepard said.

Still, the LAPD has not ruled out the Manson cult in her killing.

A violent time

Complicating the effort to solve Jurvetson’s murder is the fact that the period of the late 1960s and ’70s was marked by numerous serial killers roaming California.

Sandi Gibbons, a former City News Service reporter who later served as the spokeswoman for several L.A. County district attorneys, said the area off Mulholland was a popular place for dumping bodies at the time.

On New Year’s Day 1969, the body of 17-year-old Marina Habe — who was kidnapped outside her West Hollywood home — was found less than half a mile from Jurvetson’s remains in a ravine off Mulholland Drive. Habe, the daughter of a Hollywood screenwriter, also had multiple stab wounds to her neck.

Shepard said Manson also was asked about Habe and dismissed any suggestion she was one of his crowd.

LAPD homicide detectives also saw similarities between the vicious knife attack on Jurvetson and the November 1969 killings of James Sharp, 15, of Crestwood, Mo., and Doreen Gaul, 19, from Albany, N.Y. Stabbed and beaten, their bodies were dumped in a downtown Los Angeles alley a week before the discovery of Jurvetson’s remains.

At the time, LAPD Lt. Earl Deemer described the wounds on the pair as being inflicted by a “fanatic.” Each had been stabbed 50 to 60 times. In “Helter Skelter,” Bugliosi wrote that Gaul was rumored to be a former girlfriend of Davis — who, like the dead teenagers, once was a Scientologist.

Davis had lived at the same housing complex as Gaul, but in a police interview in the 1970s he denied knowing her. Years later, another man confessed to killing the pair in a robbery but was never charged. He has since died.

Death of a lawyer

Then there was the death of Ronald Hughes.

The 35-year-old attorney strongly defended Leslie Van Houten during the family’s murder trial, seemingly at the expense of Manson.

“We recessed for the weekend, and Manson — who sat in the corner of the counsel table — pointed to Hughes and said to her attorney: ‘I don’t want to see you in this courtroom again.’ And we never saw him again,” Kay said.

In late November 1970, as the trial neared its end, Hughes disappeared. Four months later, his decomposed body turned up wedged in a rocky creek in Ventura County. Kay said Hughes was last seen swimming in the nearby hot springs right before a flash flood.

In “Helter Skelter” and in later interviews, Bugliosi suggested that Manson directed Hughes’ killing, calling it “the first of the retaliation murders.”

But Charlie Rudd, a retired Ventura County sheriff’s sergeant, told The Times in 2012 that Hughes’ death probably had nothing to do with Manson. Authorities recovered Hughes’ body near Sespe Hot Springs in the Los Padres National Forest, and Rudd said there was little evidence of foul play.

According to Rudd, the creek probably swelled dangerously and Hughes died either because he drowned or because he was battered to death by debris and rocks. “There was nothing else to indicate otherwise, and the medical examiner couldn’t come to a conclusion of anything other than that.”

Was Hughes murdered? Kay said he wasn’t so sure.

“I’m on the fence.”

(Times staff writers Maria L. La Ganga and Hector Becerra contributed to this report.)

The LA Times seems to have randomly chosen to write about deaths that have been discussed in the past as being related to the Family rather than trying to come up with a dozen deaths that would qualify as being in LAPD's jurisidiction. 

The first death that the article delves into is that of Joel Pugh. The death occurred in London England. Pugh's death is certainly not in LAPD's jurisdiction. Authorities in England determined that Pugh's death was by his own hand and not a murder. It cannot be proven that Bruce Davis was in England at the time of Pugh's death. The late Simon Wells wrote an excellent piece on the death of Joel Pugh, if you haven't read it you should. 

These are the letters exchanged between Inyo County, Interpol, and Scotland Yard.

John Philip "Zero" Haught's death is discussed next. This death, IMO, should never have been declared a suicide as quickly as it was. At a minimum it should have been reopened once Manson and the others were arrested for the TLB murders. LAPD wrote the police report.

Here is an excerpt from an article about the Gaul/Sharp murders that discusses Haught's death. It relates the incident written above about the young man holding Haught's head as he died. 

Oddly, the unnamed young man does not appear in the police report. Linda Baldwin, Bruce Davis, Susan Bartell, and Catherine Gillies are the only ones named in the initial report. Bill Vance has also been rumored to have been at the Clubhouse Drive home at the time of Haught's death but split before the police arrived. It's not likely that Bill Vance is the unnamed young man. Mark Ross claims not to have been home when Haught was shot and he was pictured with Family members during the trial so he is not likely the young man.

Haught Police Report

Reet Jurvetson/Jane Doe 59's body was discovered November 14, 1969 off Mulholland Drive. Bugliosi claimed she was killed by the Family because she witnessed the death of John Phillip Haught. LAPD detectives had a picture that they thought was of Reet dancing with Steve Grogan on the boardwalk at Spahn Ranch. The trouble with that is the picture was a still shot that was taken from Robert Hendrickson's movie Manson. That movie sequence was not filmed until after Reet had been murdered. 

The persons of interest sought by current investigators are two men named Jean who Reet followed down from Canada because she was seriously interested in one of the men. He may not have reciprocated her interest. The two men have never been located.

Marina Habe's abduction on December 30, 1968 and the subsequent finding of her body on New Year's Day is another death with a very slim connection to the Family. Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon in her book "Girl in a Band" tells us that her older brother Keller, once dated Marina Habe and that he knew Bobby Beausoleil who he met at a house at the bottom of Topanga Canyon.

Next up are the Doreen Gaul and James Sharp murders. As far as Manson Family involvement is concerned Bruce Davis was considered a suspect. It's rumored that Bruce Davis, for a short time, lived in the same Scientology rooming house as Doreen Gaul at 1032 Bonnie Brea in Los Angeles. There is no evidence that Bruce did live in a Scientology run rooming house/apartment after returning from the UK in April 1969. Bruce was asked to leave the Scientology quarters in the UK for drug use. I doubt that they would welcome him back on short notice. 

Bruce was released from the Inyo County jail, along with Christopher Jesus, "Zero", the week prior to November 4, 1969. "Zero's" death occurred November 5, 1969. The Gaul/Sharp murders were November 21, 1969.

In September 1975 two black men were investigated for the Gaul/Sharp murders. They were James Green and Arthur Davis. Green gave a statement to a Detective Lambert of the LAPD. It was quite a detailed statement but not everything that was revealed in the police report about the condition of the bodies and facts of the crime was related by Green. The detective sent the statement the LA DA's office to hopefully get a warrant to charge the two for the murders. Deputy District Attorney Charles F. Girot declined to press charges and numerated eleven different things that needed to be investigated or cleared up before charges could be filed in a letter sent to Detective Lambert December 12, 1975.

Green's statement and the DDA's letter

A previous post with a link to the Gaul/Sharp police report.

The murders of Marina Habe, Reet Jurvetson, Doreen Gaul, and James Sharp were all within LAPD's jurisdiction. They were also very similar in that the victims died by multiple stab wounds that one would describe as "overkill".

The tragic death of Ron Hughes occurred in Ventura County. Despite what Manson said in the courtroom about not wanting to see Hughes again after the extended Thanksgiving break from the trial Hughes death was likely due to bad decisions on Hughes part. Hughes should have gone home with the young couple he came to Sespe Hot Springs with when the downpour began. Barring that he should have stayed with the car he arrived in as it was found in good shape after the rain stopped. We can't know exactly how it came to be that Hughes drowned but we can look at previous events that happened at the hot springs.

In late January of 1969 there was a torrential rain storm at Sespe that caused the death of ten persons. Because of the terrain, that area received copious amounts of runoff that flooded the creek raising the swift running water 8-10 feet above its normal levels.

Here's an article that tells of conditions at Sespe during that storm.

We have identified five murders that happened in LAPD's jurisdiction. All have tenuous links to the Family, with the exception of John Haught's death. We still have no idea of who the other seven murder victims are that the LA DA's office believes the Family could have killed.

The murder of Mark Walts could fall in that category though I've never seen a police report so I am not sure if that could have been a sheriff's case.  

Other deaths that DA's office believes the Family may have had a hand in are the murder of Karl Stubbs in Inyo County, the murder of a Santa Barbara County Jane Doe, the murder of a Casatic Jane Doe, the death of Fillipo Tenerelli in Inyo County, the murders of Nancy Warren and Clyda Dulaney in Mendocino County, and the murder of Darwin Scott in Ashland KY.

The blog has done stories on the deaths of Karl Stubbs, Filippo Tenerrelli, Nancy Warren and Clyda Dulaney, and Darwin Scott. Look through the tags or do a site search to find those articles.

We haven't done much on either Jane Doe. The Doe's are difficult because without knowing who they are there is no way to learn who their families and friends were. They are the very people who would be able to shed light on the deceased normal activities and know if the person was having trouble with anyone in particular.

Santa Barbara County Jane Doe was discovered near Grefco Quarry five miles south of the town of Lompoc. There was ligitimate reason to investigate Family members regarding this murder. Bobby Beausoleil drove by the turn off for the quarry on his way to the San Francisco Bay Area after the murder of Gary Hinman. Other Family members were known to frequently travel Highway 101 between the Los Angeles area and Mendocino County and points in between, including Manson.

Articles on Santa Barbara County Jane Doe.

Castaic Jane Doe was discovered in the Angeles National Forest about nine miles north of the town of Castaic located on Highway 5. Highway 5 which now runs the length of the state was being built during that time. Portions of the highway were finished including the run from Los Angeles to Bakersfield. Castaic is in Los Angeles County. 

It's interesting to note that Detective Norman Lambert worked this case as well as the Marina Habe and Gaul/Sharp cases.

This is a scan of a 1970 road map showing Los Angeles at the bottom of the map. Castaic is due north of Burbank. There is a fork at San Fernando where the turn-off to Highway 14 is. Highway 14 is the route you would take to go to Barker Ranch. You can see the towns of Ridgecrest and Trona. So, Castaic is only about 15 miles out of the way if you're on your way to Barker. I'm not surprised law enforcement looked at the Family for this murder. Of course, it doesn't mean they committed it.

Articles about Castaic Jane Doe.

We have identified seven unsolved murders that were committed in Los Angeles County. What are the other five cases that LAPD believes were committed by the Family in the county? There is no shortage of murders in other jurisdictions but LAPD is the one holding onto the Tex Tapes claiming they can't release them because of the murder investigations that are still active. 

What would be the harm in naming the victims in the dozen cases that LAPD deems possibly committed by Family members? Why all the secrecy? Divulging the names of the suspected victims just might result in tips that can be acted on. It's not a given that all the victims named here are among the dozen that LAPD deems to be related to the Family. We could be spinning our wheels on one or more of the cases.

Quoting from the article: Manson “repeatedly” said many others were killed, said Cliff Shepard, a former LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division detective who worked some of those cold cases. “We may never know or identify all their victims.”

Manson also allowed Family members to spread the rumor that Donald "Shorty" Shea was dismembered in nine pieces and his head was cut off. But we know that isn't true because when Shorty's remains were eventually found his skeleton was intact save one hand that was missing and believed to be the result of animal depredation. It's just as likely that Manson bragged about more victims to bolster his prison credibility.

Given the number of people who were in the Family and the number of those people who were willing tell what they knew at the time of the Barker Raid and later when the facts about the TLB murders came to light, does it make sense that none of those people after 50 years would have told authorities about any other murders the Family may have committed?

Another quote, this one about the Tex Tapes: The tapes involved conversations between convicted killer Charles “Tex” Watson and his attorney in 1969. The LAPD obtained the tapes after a legal battle, but they appeared to provide few clues. The department, however, refused a Times request to review them, citing ongoing investigations. A judge in 2017 ruled that attorneys for Manson follower Leslie Van Houten could not have the recordings as part of her efforts to gain parole.

“The thing we discovered after reviewing the tapes, there was no new information related to any of the unsolved cases,” Jenks said. The death of Manson in 2017, as well as those of other family members, has made efforts to pursue the cases harder.

Well, if there was nothing on the tapes that gave any information about other possible murders why the heck is the LAPD still hanging on to them and not releasing the tapes to the media? The whole premise for LAPD to take possession of the tapes was to hopefully gain information about other murders. What is on those tapes that LAPD feels they must keep secret? Are they protecting someone? If so, I certainly hope it's not Tex Watson.

Do the tapes contain something that could result in grounds for one or more of the convicted to have a new trial?

Do the tapes contain more information on one or more of the cases, where there was a conviction, and should have been acted on by law enforcement or the DA's office, but wasn't? Manson, Davis and Grogan were convicted of Shorty Shea's murder. Tex was also involved but not tried for the murder. There have long been rumors that Larry Bailey and Bill Vance participated in that murder but they were never charged. 

Did Tex reveal something on the tapes that could put law enforcement and or the DA's office in a very bad light that could jeopardize the convictions they were able to obtain? 

The whole Tex Tape situation makes it seem as if LAPD is hiding something. It's also a situation that is ripe for spawning conspiracy theories.

It's been five years since the LA Times wrote this article and nothing has changed. We would like a progress report, please.