The last time we discussed Bruce it was because his January 2024 hearing was continued to August due to a
podcast he participated in that the board wanted investigate further.
Our discussion pretty much determined that the "Lighter Side of Serial Killers" podcasts were not a wise move on Bruce's part. The August hearing was mainly a discussion of the podcasts as other required topics for the hearings had already been covered in the January hearing.
There were a larger number
of victim survivors and representatives at this hearing than other hearings.
Kay Hinman Martley, Gary's cousin, was there as well a niece of Gary, Sheryl
Pickford. Debra Tate and Anthony De Maria were there as Family Representatives.
A surprise observer was also at the hearing, Sophia Arguelles, who is the
daughter of Daniel Arguelles. Sophia was there as a media representative for Smuggler
Entertainment.
If you recall Daniel
Arguelles jumped into the Manson Estate controversary late in the game. He did
a DNA test and it showed that he was a half-brother to Michael Brunner and that
he is most likely another son of Charles Manson. We wrote about that here.
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| Sophia Arguelles |
There have been rumors floating around about Sophia Arguelles and what she is doing with Smugglers Entertainment. Apparently, she is putting together a documentary about the TLB murders but her twist is that she is basically victimizing the victims by presenting them all as drug dealers. I was also told that she initially teamed up with Michael Brunner for this documentary but he bowed out of the project because he did not like the direction that the film was taking. Sophia's father Daniel is said to be opposed to what she is trying to do with the documentary. Such is the Helter Skelter telegraph where there is generally a kernel of truth among the exaggerations.
There was a little blurb
about Sophia Arguelles in last week's Hollywood Reporter. It's the second story in the link.
Manson’s Granddaughter Gets Her Day in Court
Charles Manson died in
prison in 2017, but his offspring continue to stir up helter-skelter in
California’s courts. Rambling Reporter has learned that a virtual parole
hearing in August for Manson’s onetime right-hand man, 82-year-old Bruce Davis,
was interrupted when a woman named Sophia Arguelles turned up onscreen
(post-pandemic, many California parole hearings are held via video
conferencing), claiming to be a journalist researching a documentary on the
1969 slayings. “There haven’t been reporters at the hearings for years, and
they used to be vetted months in advance, but this woman was let in,” recalls
Debra Tate, sister of Manson victim Sharon Tate, who has been attending Manson
Family proceedings as a victims’ advocate for decades. Shortly after the
hearing, Tate discovered that Arguelles was actually the daughter of L.A.
Realtor Daniel Arguelles, who has for years been claiming to be Manson’s
biological son. “A grandchild is not responsible for a grandfather’s actions,
but it’s a blood relative in the victims’ faces,” Tate says. “It’s disturbing.”
Arguelles couldn’t be reached for comment, and there isn’t much info available
about the doc she’s supposedly working on. But Davis — incarcerated for his
part in the Manson murders of Gary Hinman and Donald Shea — was denied parole.
If all of this is true about Sophia's documentary intentions it is
surprising that she was allowed as an observer at Bruce's hearing. The parole
hearing board's vetting needs to be improved and I agree with Debra Tate on
this issue.
Donald "Shorty" Shea was not represented by anyone during this hearing.
Bruce Davis had a different attorney for the two 2024 hearings. For years
he has had Michael Beckman as his attorney and Beckman won Bruce seven grants
of parole between 2010 and 2021. All were rescinded by the whichever California
Governor in office during those years. The 2022 parole hearing resulted in a three-year
denial.
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| Ananda Joy Hart |
Bruce's new attorney is Ananda Joy Hart. She has been an attorney since
2003 and works in San Francisco. She has her own office and is not affiliated
with any other attorneys. She doesn't even have a website! Hart's LinkedIn page
has this to say about her qualifications.
Having worked for 15 years as a criminal defense attorney, representing
mainly indigent defendants, I have turned my attention to Restorative Justice
and Criminal Justice Reform. Serving now as an adjudicator on the San Francisco
Neighborhood Courts and working as a mediator with Community Boards, I am
inspired and motivated to effect reform in the Criminal Justice system. I am
also joining the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center as an instructor in a
conflict transformation series for inmates within the San Mateo County Jail.
Kay Martley's statement is very compelling. Besides the podcast issues, she
mentions an Alta magazine article that she found offensive. We ran a post on the article back in December 2023. Kay may have found the article by looking at
our blog. Alta magazine has a niche audience as it's geared towards California
and has few, if any, articles about things outside of the state.
As for the hearing itself and Bruce's explanation of his participation in the podcasts, his arguments are weak and I found it very hard to believe that out of 31 phone calls with Rovere, host of The Lighter Side of Serial Killers, he thought only two of the calls were recorded. Bruce also said that he did not know the name of the podcast. Huh? Why would he not ask the name? Read the transcript, if the subsequent hearings go the way of this one, Bruce is never getting out of prison.
Bruce Davis August 2024 Parole Hearing
A huge thank you to CieloDrive for obtaining the parole hearing transcripts and making them available!
©Deb Silva 2024
