Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders (81 page)

A.
“They have a natural hate but they would also like to use the Negro as a whole to begin some kind of militant thing…They are really good at picking out angry people.”

 

This was merely the opinion of one disaffiliated member, and may well not be the official position of The Process itself, but the similarities to Manson’s own philosophy are still chilling.

These are only some of the parallels I found. They are enough to convince me, at least, that even if Manson himself may never have been a member of The Process, he borrowed heavily from the satanic cult.
*

Nor are these the only connections between the Manson Family and satanists.

Bobby Beausoleil was for a time closely associated with filmmaker Kenneth Anger, who was himself deeply involved in both the motorcycle gang mystique and the occult. Beausoleil starred in Anger’s film
Lucifer Rising
, playing the part of Lucifer. This was before he ever met Manson.

In his psychiatric report on Susan Atkins, Dr. Joel Hochman wrote of a portion of her San Francisco period, apparently sometime in 1967 or 1968, before she too met Manson: “At this time she entered into what she now calls her Satanic period. She became involved with Anton LaVey, the Satanist.
*
She took a part in a commercial production of a witch’s sabbath, and recalls the opening night when she took LSD. She was supposed to lie down in a coffin during the act, and lay down in it while hallucinating. She stated that she didn’t want to come out, and consequently the curtain was 15 minutes late. She stated that she felt alive and everything else in the ugly world was dead. Subsequently, she stayed on her ‘Satanic trip’ [for] approximately eight months…”

During the Tate-LaBianca trial, Patricia Krenwinkel doodled. Her two favorite subjects, according to bailiff Bill Murray, were Devil’s heads and the Mendes Goat, both satanist symbols.

Before he killed him, Charles “Tex” Watson told Voytek Frykowski: “I am the Devil and I’m here to do the Devil’s business.”

A
n apparently important influence on Manson, in both precept and example, was a dead man: Adolf Hitler. Manson looked up to Hitler and spoke of him often. He told his followers that “Hitler had the best answer to everything” and that he was “a tuned-in guy who leveled the karma of the Jews.” Manson saw himself as no less a historical figure, a leader who would not only reverse the karma of the blacks but level all but his own Aryan race—his all-white, all-American Family.

There were both surface and substantive parallels between Hitler and Manson.

Both were vegetarians; both were little men; both suffered deep wounds in their youth, the psychological scars at least contributing to, if not causing, their deep hatred for society; both suffered the stigma of illegitimacy, in Manson’s case because he himself was a bastard, in Hitler’s because his father was.

Both were vagrant wanderers; both were frustrated, and rejected, artists; both liked animals more than people; both were deeply engrossed in the occult; both had others commit their murders for them.

Both were racists; yet there is some evidence that both also believed they carried the blood of the very people they despised. Many historians believe that Hitler was secretly obsessed with the fear that he had a Jewish ancestor. If Manson’s prison records are correct, he may have believed his father was black.

Both surrounded themselves with bootlicking slaves; both sought out the weaknesses of others, and used them; both programmed their followers through repetition, repeating the same phrases over and over; both realized and exploited the psychological impact of fear.

Both had a favorite epithet for those they hated: Hitler’s was “
Schweinehund,
” Manson’s was “pigs.”

Both had eyes which their followers described as “hypnotic”; beyond that, however, both had a presence, a charisma, and a tremendous amount of personal persuasive power. Generals went to Hitler intent on convincing him that his military plans were insane; they left true believers. Dean Moorehouse went to Spahn Ranch to kill Manson for stealing his daughter, Ruth Ann; he ended up on his knees worshiping him.

Both had an incredible ability to influence others.

Both Manson’s and Hitler’s followers were able to explain away the monstrous acts their leaders committed by retreating into philosophical abstractions.

Probably the single most important influence on Hitler was Nietzsche. Manson told Jakobson that he had read Nietzsche. Whether true or not—Manson read with difficulty and Nietzsche is not easy reading—both Manson and Hitler believed in the three basic tenets of Nietzsche’s philosophy: women are inferior to men; the white race is superior to all other races; it is not wrong to kill if the end is right.

And kill they both did. Both believed that mass murder was all right, even desirable, if it furthered the attainment of some grand plan. Each had such a plan; each had his own grandiose obsession: Hitler’s was the Third Reich, Manson’s was Helter Skelter.

At some point parallels become more than coincidence. How much of this was conscious borrowing on Manson’s part, how much unconscious emulation, is unknown. I do believe that if Manson had had the opportunity, he would have become another Hitler. I can’t conceive of his stopping short of murdering huge masses of people.

S
ome mysteries remain. One is the exact number of murders committed by members of the Manson Family.

Manson bragged to Juan Flynn that he had committed thirty-five murders. When Juan first told me this, I was inclined to doubt that it was anything more than sick boasting on Charlie’s part. There is now evidence, however, that even if this wasn’t true
then
, the total to date may be very close to, and may even exceed, Manson’s estimate.

In November 1969, Susan Atkins told Ronnie Howard, “There are eleven murders that they will never solve.” Leslie Van Houten used the same number in her interrogation by Mike McGann, while Ouisch told Barbara Hoyt that she knew of ten people the Family had killed “besides Sharon.”

Susan told Virginia Graham that, in addition to the eight Hinman-Tate-LaBianca slayings, “there’s more—and more before.” One was undoubtedly Shea. Another was probably the “Black Panther” (Bernard Crowe), whom Susan, like Manson himself, erroneously believed dead.

Susan may have been referring to Crowe when, in the tape she made with Caballero, she said that the .22 caliber Longhorn revolver used in the Tate homicides had been used in “other killings,” though on the tape this was clearly plural, not singular.

Susan also told Virginia, “There’s also three people out in the desert that they done in.” According to Virginia, Susan “just said it very nonchalant like, mentioning no names.” When Steve Zabriske tried unsuccessfully to convince Portland police that a Charlie and a Clem were involved in both the Tate and the LaBianca murders, he also said that Ed Bailey had told him that he had seen this Charlie shoot a man in the head. The murder had occurred in Death Valley, according to Bailey, and the gun was a .45 caliber automatic. When interrogated by LAPD in May 1970, Bailey, t/n Edward Arthur Bailey, denied this. However, another source, who was for a time close to the Family, claims he heard “there are supposed to be two boys and a girl buried about eight feet deep behind Barker Ranch.”

No bodies have ever been found. But then the body of Donald “Shorty” Shea has never been found either.

On October 13, 1968, two women, Clida Delaney and Nancy Warren, were beaten, then strangled to death with leather thongs a few miles south of Ukiah, California. Several members of the Manson Family were in the area at the time. Two days later Manson suddenly moved the whole Family from Spahn to Barker Ranch. The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office believed there might be a link. But a belief is not evidence.

At about 3:30 A.M. on December 30, 1968, seventeen-year-old Marina Habe, daughter of writer Hans Habe, was abducted outside the West Hollywood home of her mother as she was returning home from a date. Her body was found on New Year’s Day, off Mulholland near Bowmont Drive. Cause of death: multiple stab wounds in the neck and chest.

It has been rumored, but never confirmed, that the victim was acquainted with one or more members of the Family. Though most of his followers were at Barker Ranch, Manson was apparently in Los Angeles on December 30, returning to Barker the following day. Though several persons, including KNXT newscaster Carl George, believed there was a connection, nothing definite has been established, and the murder remains unsolved.

On the night of May 27, 1969, Darwin Orell Scott was hacked to death in his Ashland, Kentucky, apartment. The killing was so savage that the victim, who was stabbed nineteen times, was pinned to the floor with a butcher knife.

Sixty-four-year-old Darwin Scott was the brother of Colonel Scott, the man alleged to be Charles Manson’s father.

In the spring of 1969 a motorcycle-riding guru from California who called himself “Preacher” appeared in the Ashland area with several female followers. Dispensing free LSD to local teen-agers, he attempted to set up a commune in an abandoned farmhouse near Huntington. He remained in the area until April, at which time vigilantes burned down the house and drove off the group, because, quoting the Ashland paper, “they didn’t like hippies and didn’t want any more around.” At least four local residents later told reporters that Manson and Preacher were one and the same person. Despite their positive IDs, Manson’s presence in California during at least part of this period is fairly well documented, and it would appear that he was in California on the day of Scott’s murder.

On May 22, 1969, Manson telephoned his parole officer, Samuel Barrett, requesting permission to travel to Texas with the Beach Boys. Permission was withheld pending verification of Manson’s employment with the group. In a letter dated May 27, the same day as Scott’s murder, Manson said that the group had left without him and that he had moved from Death Valley back to Spahn Ranch. To categorize Barrett’s control over Manson as minimal would be an exaggeration. Barrett did not again talk to Manson until June 18.

Barrett did not note the postmark on the letter. He did note that he didn’t receive it until June 3, seven days after it was supposedly written. It is possible that Manson was using the letter as an alibi; it is also possible that he sent one of his killers to murder Scott. But both possibilities are strictly conjecture. The murder of Darwin Scott also remains unsolved.

Early on the morning of July 17, 1969, sixteen-year-old Mark Walts left his parents’ home in Chatsworth and hitchhiked to the Santa Monica Pier to go fishing. His pole was later found on the pier. His body was found about 4 A.M. on July 18, off Topanga Canyon Boulevard a short distance from Mulholland. Young Walts’ face and head were badly bruised and he had been shot three times in the chest by a .22 caliber weapon.

Though neither a ranch hand nor a Family member, Walts occasionally hung around Spahn Ranch. Although LASO sent investigators to Spahn, they were unable to uncover any evidence linking the killing to anyone there.

Walts’ brother, however, called the ranch and told Manson, “I know you done my brother in, and I’m going to kill you.” Though he didn’t carry through, he obviously felt Manson was responsible.

When Danny DeCarlo had his marathon session with LAPD, he was asked: “What do you know about a sixteen-year-old boy that was shot?”

DeCarlo replied: “That had nothing to do with anybody up there. I’ll tell you why, because they were just as shocked about it [as I was]. If they had done it they would have told me.”

DeCarlo informed the officers about the brother’s call. One asked: “Why do you think he suspected Charlie?” DeCarlo replied: “Because there aren’t too many maniacs on the street that would just pull a gun on someone and blow their head off for no reason at all.”

LAPD didn’t pursue it further, since this was LASO’s case. The murder remains unsolved.

I
n a period of one month—between July 27 and August 26, 1969—Charles Manson and his murderous Family slaughtered nine people: Gary Hinman, Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Sharon Tate, Leno LaBianca, Rosemary LaBianca, and Donald Shea.

Though it is known that a number of female Family members were involved in the “cleanup” operation that followed Shea’s murder, none has ever been tried as an accessory after the fact. Some are still on the streets today.

M
anson’s arrest on October 12, 1969, did not stop the murders.

As already mentioned, on November 5, 1969, John Philip Haught, aka Christopher Jesus, aka Zero, was shot to death in a beach house in Venice. The four Family members still present when the police arrived claimed he had killed himself while playing Russian roulette. Linda Baldwin, aka Little Patty, t/n Madaline Joan Cottage, said she had been lying on the bed next to him when it happened. The others—Bruce Davis; Susan Bartell, aka Country Sue; and Cathy Gillies—all told the officers they hadn’t witnessed the act but had heard the shot.

At least one, and possibly all, lied.

During the penalty phase of the Tate-LaBianca trial, I asked Cathy: “You said that Zero shot himself. Who told you that? Certainly not Zero.”

A.
“Nobody had to tell me. I saw it happen.”

 

Q.
“Oh, you were present?”

 

A.
“Yes.”