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.
