This is an interview I've never seen. It's not the best quality visually but the sound is good all the way through. The interview is raw, unedited footage. While there no date on the interview there is mention that it had been 20 years since the TLB murders.
Bill Nelson conducts roughly the first hour, then Doris Tate takes over for about 15 minutes, the last couple of minutes are of Nelson preening before the camera.
Ed Sanders seems a little exasperated with Nelson at times. Nelson's questions mainly revolve around other murders the Family may have committed. Of course Nelson wanted to slip in questions about whether or not Sanders had entertained the idea that anyone in the Family could have been the Zodiac Killer. Sanders largely dismissed any such notions.
Sanders did offer up one murder where the Family was investigated that also had a Zodiac Killer component. When the murder was first brought up Sanders couldn't remember the victim's name though much later in the interview he did finally come up with a name. He qualified the accusation by saying that another man, Stanley Dean Baker, was believed to have committed the murder.
The victim was Robert Salem who was found dead April 19, 1970 in San Francisco. It was a very brutal murder. Salem had been stabbed, he had a missing ear, and his heart cut out. On the wall of his apartment the words Satan Saves and Zodiac had been written in the victim's blood along with what was possibly supposed to be an Ankh symbol. It was the writing in blood on the wall that drew the attention of Los Angeles detectives that had investigated the TLB murders.
In all likelihood it was Stanley Dean Baker who committed the murder though he was never charged.
Here are some articles about the murder that Baker was convicted of committing. The first is an anniversary article which has all of the basic information about the murder of James Schlosser in Montana and how it came to be that Baker was arrested in California for that murder. The second is an article written at the time of the trial for Baker's accomplice in the Schlosser murder. It includes questions asked of Baker, while he was in the witness stand, about the Robert Salem murder.
The other murder that Sanders said was investigated as a possible Manson murder was that of a black drug dealer named Super Spade, true name William Edward Thomas. Super Spade's body was found in a sleeping bag that had been tossed down a cliff near the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse in Marin County on August 6, 1967. He had been shot and relieved of a hefty amount of cash. I feel like it was far too soon after Manson was released from prison in March 1967 to have been committed by him. The crazy had not begun to set in, yet. The murder is still unsolved.
The remainder of the possible murders that Sanders spoke about have all been discussed at one time or another here at the blog.
13 comments:
Great Job as usual Deb. Holy cow that murder is pretty f-ed up. It is impossible to describe to anyone who wasn't in the TLB community back then just how skeevy Nelson was- just yucky in person and smug about it too. He knew how to get dressed up well and talked the talk. He tricked Doris pretty good for maybe a year then she woke up and distanced herself from the assclown. Later he was especially vicious and homophobic about Patti when she was smart enough to avoid him. I met Sanders in person like in 1997 and if you read his book he was extremely gullible. But hey, even the BUG was conned by Nellie, sitting down for interviews and endorsing one of his self printed shitty books.
In fact for a hot minute there the Nellie test was a crazy thing for me- "Oh, Sandy just blew up his world maybe she isn't as messed up as she seems...oh damn Hoyt is now his real bestie maybe take a look at her lies again."
To this day my pal and friend of the blog Max Frost astounds me- he PAID Nellie for a one week tour of the Zodiac sites and has all the good gossip.
For those keeping score at home the two Nellie books, Behind the Scenes and Tex Watson the madness are written as if by a 12 year old retarded boy, no spelling check whatsoever no editing whatsoever - and yet (used to be online) they are more interesting and factual that the CHAOS book- you will learn more from them that is real than from Tom O'Neill/Vera Dreiser.
I've seen references to Doris interviewing Sanders for decades now and have never seen it before... thanks for sharing, Deb. And you're absolutely right, Col... Nelson was SUCH a dick... truly loathsome :-)
His books were nearly unreadable. A high school level editor would have improved them dramatically.
Off topic but Deb I'm about halfway through your book about Shorty and it's riveting stuff I really feel like I'm getting to know the man. Anyone who hasn't read it needs to stop what they are doing and order it. So much great information
I'm pretty sure that I saw the name Super Spade in "We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against". Everyone in the Haight was paranoid at that point, and this killing just added to it.
Color me surprised to hear Ed Saunders and Doris Tate talk about how Krenwinkel may get released and that she seems the most repentant.
I've always wondered if Super Spade and Lotsapappa were regional underlings/operations guys for larger drug dealing operations....
Is the Ed Sanders book "The Family" a good start to learn about the Tate /Labianca - Charles Manson story or are there any better books that anyone would recommend for a novice?
Tony, "The Family" is not a bad start, neither is Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter". You will not find any book that is 100% correct. Cielodrive.com is a great and accurate website as is their Patreon website. Lot's of documents and images. We also offer lots of documents throughout the various posts, look in the tags for a specific subject or person.
Thank you Deb, I've only recently seen those awful crime scene photos, they gave me nightmares but I've become a bit obsessed with the case now
I've been going through CieloDrive. com it's a great site was on there for hours yesterday just looking at the photo galleries, I found them fascinating.. Nos dda from darkest Wales 👌
Fascinating and some of them scary
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