Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders (91 page)

* In American criminal jurisprudence, the term “Not Guilty” is not totally synonymous with innocence. “Not Guilty” is a legal finding by the jury that the prosecution hasn’t proven its case. A “Not Guilty” verdict based on the insufficiency of the evidence can result from either of two states of mind on the part of the jury: that they believe the defendant is innocent and did not commit the crime charged,
or
, although they tend to believe he did commit the crime, the prosecution’s case was not sufficiently strong to convince them of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty.

* Shinn’s remarks, in themselves incriminating, were later stricken from the record.

* These murders will be discussed in a later chapter.

* This is entirely separate from the opening statement, which is delivered at the start of the trial.

* Alva Dawson, the ex–deputy sheriff, and Herman Tubick, the mortician, had tied. A coin was tossed, and Tubick was made foreman. A deeply religious man, who began and ended each day of deliberations with silent prayer, Tubick had been a stabilizing influence during the long sequestration.

* Patricia Krenwinkel had also taken LSD before meeting Manson. Very obese in her early teens, she began using diet pills at fourteen or fifteen, then tried reds, mescaline, and LSD, provided by her half sister Charlene, now deceased, who was a heroin addict.

* Although harmful to Manson, this could only be helpful to Fitzgerald’s client, Patricia Krenwinkel. However, it was not Fitzgerald who brought this out but Keith, after Fitzgerald had concluded his examination.

* There was no meaningful dichotomy between Leslie Van Houten and Fitzgerald’s client, Patricia Krenwinkel. Both young girls had joined the Family, submitted to Manson’s domination, and ultimately murdered for him. In trying to establish that Manson was not responsible for causing Leslie to kill, Fitzgerald was at the same time establishing that Manson wasn’t responsible for Katie’s killing either. Hochman’s reply badly hurt not only Leslie but Katie and Sadie as well.

* From the Robert Hendrickson documentary film,
Manson
.

* From the Robert Hendrickson documentary film,
Manson
.

* From the Robert Hendrickson documentary film,
Manson
.

* One of Manson’s chief disciples, Bruce Davis, was very closely involved with Scientology for a time, working in its London headquarters from about November or December of 1968 to April of 1969. According to a Scientology spokesman, Davis was kicked out of the organization for his drug use. He returned to the Manson Family and Spahn Ranch in time to participate in the Hinman and Shea slayings.

* There is at least one precept Manson did not borrow from the group: unmarried adherents are expected to remain chaste.

* LaVey, founder of the San Francisco–based First Church of Satan, is known, by those knowledgeable in such matters, more as a spectacular showman than as a demonic satanist. He has stated numerous times that he condemns violence and ritual sacrifice.

* In June 1972 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in a 5–4 decision, that the death penalty, if imposed in an arbitrary fashion with the jury being given absolute discretion and no guidelines, constituted “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Although a number of states, including California, have since passed laws restoring the death penalty and making it mandatory for certain crimes, including mass murders, at the time this is written the United States Supreme Court has yet to rule on their constitutionality.
Even if the California law is let stand, it would not affect the Manson Family killers, since the new statute is not retroactive.

* This year, the British Broadcasting Company and ARD, German National Television, are airing twenty-fifth anniversary specials on the case.

* In a March 4, 1994, letter to me, Murphy writes:
There are 32 British rock bands that I know about playing both Manson’s own songs and songs in support of him, and a further 40 or so in Europe, particularly Germany. Only last week, one of the worst I’ve heard, ‘Charlie’s 69 Was A Good Year’, came out, recorded by a band called Indigo Prime; I’m sorry to say that it appears to be selling well. For some reason, the neo-Manson cult seems to centre in Manchester, where there are five stores selling ‘Free Charles Manson’ T-shirts (which are fantastically popular on Rave dance floors) and bootlegged records of his music; however, it’s far from exclusive to Manchester—there was an all-Manson concert in London in January, attended by 2,000 people. There is a full-fledged Manson Appreciation Society, ‘Helter Skelter UK’, based in Warrington, Cheshire. Posters supporting Manson are a common sight in the major cities, especially in the run-up to concerts by the Mansonite bands. The majority of the supporters of these bands are under 25. The truly frightening part is the fact that many of them, when asked, turn out to be Manson ‘buffs’ who have read all they can find about Manson, and strongly approve of Helter Skelter. There are very strong links to ultra-far-right political parties, particularly the British National Party.

* Although I view Manson as an aberration who could have occurred at any time, the late ’60s obviously provided a much more fertile soil for someone like Manson to emerge. It was a period when the sex and drug revolution, campus unrest and civil rights demonstrations, race riots, and all the seething discontent over Vietnam seemed to collide with each other in a stormy turbulence. And Manson, in his rhetoric, borrowed heavily from these fermentations.

* However, the Manson T-shirts and Guns N’ Roses’ album show that the attempted apotheosis and romanticizing of Manson is under way. Two screen projects in the works (the British television documentary
Manson: The Man, the Media, the Music,
and the American full-length feature
Manson in the Desert
), whose themes divert the viewer’s attention from the murders, unfortunately coalesce with this effort.

* The cross symbol (+) indicates a pseudonym.

* Also, upon his arrival back at San Quentin from Vacaville in 1985, a four-inch piece of a hacksaw blade was found in his shoe.
How does one reconcile Manson’s apparent interest in escaping with his desire at Terminal Island in 1967 to stay behind bars? Prison had become his home, he told the authorities back then, and he didn’t think he could adjust to the world outside. Even today, I suspect that Manson isn’t miserable or even unhappy behind bars. Having spent forty-two of his fifty-nine years in jails, reformatories, and prisons, he obviously has become totally institutionalized, and therefore most likely isn’t uncomfortable in an incarcerated setting per se. However, after he got out in 1967 he undoubtedly learned to like having a harem of girls (“Up in the Haight, I’m called the gardener. I tend to all the flower children,” he had told Squeaky when they first met) and riding dune buggies up and down the desert more. Further, like never before, Manson now has to look over his shoulder. He knows that any con who wants to make a name for himself can kill him and then
he
becomes famous.

* Manson also receives ten cents for every Manson T-shirt sold. In California, the profits of convicted criminals can only be seized if the money-making venture is
directly
related to the crime. The T-shirts and Manson’s song in the Guns N’ Roses album do not qualify for seizure. (Senate Bill 1330, which is presently before the California legislature, would expand the scope of seizure to include the sale of anything “the value of which is enhanced by the notoriety gained from the commission of the crime.”) However, in 1971, the son of Wojiciech (Voytek) Frykowski, one of the five Tate victims, got a $500,000 judgment against Manson and his four co-defendants. As a result of a writ of execution on the judgment (with interest worth $1,200,000 in 1994), in late February of 1994 the son, who lives in Germany, received his first royalty check for $72,000 from the Manson song in the Guns N’ Roses album.

* Though Squeaky and Sandra were not allowed to visit or even correspond with Manson, a prison spokesman at the time said that the two of them would come to the prison about once a month “to inquire about how Manson was doing.” A friend of Squeaky and Sandra told
Time
magazine that the girls believed Manson’s imprisonment was part of a grand design, “that he would rise again some day, like Christ. They spend all their time preparing themselves for the day he rises.”

† The Manson Family’s hatred of former President Nixon stems, of course, from Nixon’s headline-capturing declaration during the trial that he believed Manson to be guilty. In author Ed Sander’s best-selling book,
The Family
, he quotes a Manson therapist at Vacaville as saying Manson believed his own personal hex on Nixon had caused him to fall.

* Manson’s personal medical records being confidential, the California Department of Corrections said they cannot confirm whether Manson in fact had, or presently has, the cancer.

* Guns N’ Roses wasn’t the first rock group to record a Manson song. With minor changes in the lyrics (e.g., “exist” was changed to “resist,” “brother” to “lover”), Manson’s composition “Cease to Exist” was recorded by the Beach Boys and released on the B side of
Bluebirds over the Mountain
on December 8, 1968, under the new title “Never Learn Not to Love.” The single never got past number 61 on the charts, but both sides of the 45 rpm were included in
20/20,
the Beach Boys’ last album with Capitol Records the following year. Although the Beach Boys never credited Manson as being the composer, Paul Watkins, Brooks Poston, and Gregg Jakobson each confirmed to me it was Manson’s song, and in the 1986 biography of the Beach Boys,
Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys
, author Steven Gaines acknowledges this.
Mike Rubin, a New York City writer who has been tracking the rock music scene in America for years, says that in addition to Guns N’ Roses, he knows of at least five other rock groups who have either recorded a song of Manson’s or a Manson tribute song within the past decade.
In early January of 1994, the industrial hard rock group Nine Inch Nails recorded their most recent album,
Downward Spiral
, at the former Tate residence. Trent Reznor, lead singer and songwriter for the band, says that although he called the jerry-built studio constructed for the recording of the album “Le Pig,” and although there are songs on the album like “Piggy” and “March of the Pigs” with confrontational lyrics (the word “pig” was printed in blood by the killers on the front door of the Tate residence and the words “death to pigs” on the living room wall of the LaBianca residence), this was all a coincidence—that the realtor through whom he leased the home failed to tell him it had been the scene of the Tate murders. The “Le Pig” studio was also used by a hard rock group called Marilyn Manson in which lead singer Mr. Manson recorded the vocals for its soon-to-be-released album
Portrait of an American Family
.