Was Charlie at Cielo the night before?

Terry Melcher

A number of sources do suggest that very thing:

 Death to Pigs, by Hendrickson pg501    Bugliosi interview by Merrick.

Bugliosi: "I'm the one that put Manson inside the gates of the Tate residence. I put him in there, not on the night of the murders, but a couple of nights earlier."

Manson's Right Hand Man Speaks Out by Charles "Tex" Watson, c.2001  pg43

It's believed that Manson was at the house looking for Terry the night before the murders and was  offended by the new occupants.

 LINK     Grimtraveller said:      "Back in 2005 on Col Scott's site, someone called GLH said that he'd spoken with Tex the month before and this is what Tex had told him "Manson had been to Cielo the night BEFORE the murders". I debated that with him, saying I'd heard that Manson had been there in March '69. He stood firm on his claim that Manson was there on August 7th (in the evening). ...and Manson was agitated the next day"

 

LINK     Jay Sebring’s business partner Jim Markham:

"I believe Manson had gone up to the house” — Polanski was away shooting a movie — “and Manson wanted to sell cocaine and marijuana,” he says. “He showed Jay and Wojciech the product. They were going to buy some of it, but the two of them beat him up at the gate. The next night, Manson sent the Family up [to kill them].”

 

Beausoleil: "He(Charlie) had been over near his [Melcher's] house and, as he said, he checked out the wires, telephone wires and the electric gates and exits from that property."

 

Wait...  wasn't Charlie down in San Diego County on that date, bringing Stephanie Schram down to her sister's house in Jamul and having dinner there, and then sleeping on the lawn of the residence of one of Stephanie's friends?  Well, that is what Bugliosi claimed.  But what was that based on? 

Not Charlie.  He admitted going down to Jamul but didn't put a date on it.  

Not Schram.  She couldn't remember the date:

Helter Skelter, pg368 

"Stephanie was a bit vague when it came to dates. She "thought" the day they returned to Spahn Ranch was Friday, August 8, but she wasn't sure."

 

Not that traffic ticket Charlie got from the Highway Patrol near Oceanside on the way down.  It's never been made public.

Not Stephanie Schram's sister, identified only as "Mrs. Hartman," who allegedly claimed that Charlie told her that "people were going to be slaughtered, they'll be lying on their lawns dead."    Her interview was never released.

Not Stephanie's 'friends' in San Diego on whose lawn Manson and Schram allegedly slept on, the night of Aug 7 to the morning of Aug 8.   There's no evidence they were ever identified.

Though of course Schram never said anything about Charlie stopping by Cielo Dr. in the time she was with him, from her meeting him near Esalen to when they allegedly returned to Spahn, "arriving there about two in the afternoon" on Aug 8, in Bugliosi's version.  

But Schram claimed it was Aug 5 when she first came to Spahn with Charlie.  They had dinner there, and then in the evening drove off the ranch, but only for a couple of blocks before Charlie pulled over and they slept in the bakery truck that night.  The next day, which would have been Aug 6 if Schram is right, they drove down to San Diego, spent the night, returning to Los Angeles on what would have been Aug 7.  Note that during his trial Tex claimed he saw Charlie at Spahn the next morning, on Aug 8.  There are now enough gaps in the timeline to make a trip to Cielo the night before very possible.

So why didn't Bugliosi use evidence of this alleged visit by Charlie up to Cielo the night before, at the trial?  It would have been very incriminating to Charlie, whether the visit was to do a drug deal with Voytek, as per Markham, or to do a reconnaissance, as per Beausoleil.   The only realistic scenario is that Bugliosi could not have entered this evidence without revealing the source, which might refer to the house being under surveillance before the murders, as Doris Tate claimed.

 

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Bugliosi apparently based his Jamul timeline solely on the traffic ticket issued by the CHP near Oceanside. From Helter Skelter, pg367-8:

"Manson... drove to San Diego... to pick up Stephanie's clothes.
Enroute, about ten miles south of Oceanside on Interstate 5, they were stopped by California Highway Patrol officer Richard C. Willis. .... The date was Thursday, August 7, 1969; the time 6:15P.M. The ticket, which (LAPD Sgt.)Patchett and (LAPD Sgt.)Gutierrez found, proved Manson was in Southern California the day before the Tate murders."


Bugliosi is quite explicit on the time and date of the ticket. Yet he only implies--but does not explicitly state--that this was on the way to San Diego(in the southbound lanes of I-5), but what if it was while on their way back from San Diego(in the northbound lanes of I-5)? That would allow Charlie to make it to LA in time for an evening trip to Cielo Dr. the day before the murders.

 

 

 

 Is this why CHP officer Willis became unavailable to be interviewed?

 

 

Charlie: "...ask him why the District Attorney moved the Highway Patrolman to the east coast, along with the traffic ticket...."

 

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 --The evening of the 7th of August, 1969, the four occupants of the Cielo house--Sharon, Jay, Gibby, and Voytek--are over at Sebring's house, located at 9810 Easton Dr. in Beverly Hills, watching a movie on cable TV and having dinner when the wires going into the house are allegedly cut, messing with the lights and interrupting the cable signal. Leading to the conclusion that this was an aborted murder attempt on the house's occupants, presumably by the same cast of characters that would finish the job the next night at Cielo Dr.

Listening to the recorded interview with the butler, the only time mentioned is 11pm, when the group finishes their dinner. Thus they probably would have arrived at the Sebring house that night between 9-10pm. This timeline is roughly consistent with Manson's alleged trip up to Cielo Dr., with a subsequent angry or even violent encounter with Jay and Voy as per the account of Markham, at around 8:30 to 9:30pm on Aug 7.

Jay Sebring's Cut Wires    Video                 


In Helter Skelter, Bugliosi implied the immediate precipitater to TLB was Charlie's anger for being snubbed by the audience at Esalen several days before. But the idea of Charlie being slapped around or disrespected at Cielo, just hours before a first murder attempt at Sebring's house, is a far more realistic proposition, IMO.



So what did Charlie do? Did he race back to Spahn, quickly gather up a kill posse, and then race over to Easton Dr. to do the dirty deed, somehow knowing Jay's location and address, only to be stymied by some complicated wiring?

Or did Charlie hang around Cielo, following them in their vehicle as they left the Cielo house, all the way to Easton Dr. a mile to the north? Did he then launch a plan to mess with their minds by cutting some of the wiring on their house? This would explain why none of the other family members ever mentioned this foray to Jay's house the night before. They didn't know about it. And if Schram was told to stay in the bread truck while Charlie walked up to the Sebring house, all she would know is that Charlie parked on some dark residential street somewhere and that Charlie walked off and didn't return for about half an hour.

Bugliosi claimed that Manson slapped Schram after being snubbed by the Esalen audience. Schram claims Charlie slapped her for messing up the chance to get a free meal, even before they went to Esalen. I speculate that was just a cover for Charlie slapping Schram after he was dissed by the Cielo residents, and before the wires were cut. Manson was so angry he couldn't control himself. IMO only!

 

 

 

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 To reiterate, there was plenty of hard evidence to establish an accurate timeline in the week before the murder:


--The credit card slips used at the four gas stations where Charlie got gas on the way to and from Esalen.

Aaron Stovitz to Rolling Stone
DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY AARON STOVITZ: You see, Manson has an alibi right up until August 7th, 'cause he met this girl, and he, uh, drove with her from Big Sur all the way down to Oceanside. And they made gas purchases on these stolen credit cards all the way down the line.

Helter Skelter, pg366-8
Aug 3 - "...sometime between seven and eight(am)(Manson) purchased gas at a station in Canoga Park, using a stolen credit card.
"On August 4, Manson, still using a stolen credit card, purchased gas at Lucia. ... he did it again the next day."
"...Manson left Big Sur on August 6, making gas purchases the same day at San Luis Obispo and Chatsworth..."

[And presumably any credit card slips on any gas purchases made on the way to and from San Diego.]


--The front desk register at Esalen, and any witnesses to Charlie's presence there.

--The people who encountered Charlie and Stephanie in San Diego. Meaning Schram's sister and the people at the house where they spent the night

--The CHP ticket given to Charlie near Oceanside.


Plenty of evidence, but all of it has been kept from the public eye! So there was definitely a cover-up going on. The only reason for this has to be that none of it is in accord with Bugliosi's own timeline.