Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars (45 page)

There are certain rights you are afforded, Mr. Manson. You were notified of the hearing. I saw where you were notified; however, you refused to sign the notification. Also, you had an opportunity to review your central file and I don’t know whether you did or not. Did you review your central file?

INMATE MANSON: I’ve been checking this thing out that I’m sent here.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Okay. All right, good. You also have a right to appeal the decision within ninety days of receiving that decision.

You have a right to an impartial panel, Mr. Manson. Do you have any problems with the three representatives from the Board of Prison Terms you see before you today?

INMATE MANSON: No, not at all.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Thank you. You’ll receive a tentative written decision today. The decision will be effective in approximately sixty days after the Board of Prison Terms’ review process has taken place.

You are not required, Mr. Manson, to discuss the matter with the panel if you do not wish to. But you must keep in mind that the Board of Prison Terms’ panel accepts as true the Court findings in the case, the fact that you are guilty of these murders. Are you going to talk to the panel today and answer questions?

INMATE MANSON: Yes. Yes, sir.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Would you raise your right hand as best as possible. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you give today will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

INMATE MANSON: Yes, sir.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Thank you. Okay, at this time I’m going to incorporate the instant offense from the decision held on December the 1st, 1982, pages two through six.

INMATE MANSON: I don’t have that.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Okay. I’m going to read it to you so you can—if you would listen to—and then I’ll give you opportunity to make corrections or additions to the instant offense.

INMATE MANSON: I’m a little nervous.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Okay. Just settle down because it’s very informal and we want you to relax as we go through this. Are you still—you’re nervous?

INMATE MANSON: Yes. Yes, yes, very. I’ve been a long time sitting in that cell—

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Well, we have a lot of people who—

INMATE MANSON: I’m not used to people that much.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Okay. Let me read the instant offense. If you’ll listen please—

DEPUTY BOARD COMMISSIONER BROWN: Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman?

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Yes.

DEPUTY BOARD COMMISSIONER BROWN: We need to make a correction. The date is the—April 21.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Excuse me, the date today is April the 21st, 1992. Thank you.

Shortly before midnight on August—I’m reading from the second—third page—second page of the Board report dated 12/01/82. Shortly before midnight on August 8, 1969, the prisoner informed his crime partners that now is the time for Helter Skelter. The crime partners were directed to accompany Charles Watson to carry out the orders given by the prisoner. The crime partners at the time were Linda Cabastian—

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Kasabian.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Kasabian, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel. As the crime partners were in the car getting ready to leave the area, the prisoner informed them, “You girls know what I mean,” something to which he instructed them to leave a sign. Crime partner Watson drove directly to 10050 Selio—Selio [phonetic spelling] Drive, where he stopped the car. Linda Kasabian held three knives and one gun during the trip. Watson then cut the overhead telephone wires at the scene and parked the vehicle.

INMATE MANSON: Excuse me. Where we getting this from?

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: This is from the Board report dated 12/01/82. Do you have a copy of that?

INMATE MANSON: No, I don’t. Who—whose signature’s on the end of that?

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: This is a Board report. This is the hearing that was held at that particular time—

INMATE MANSON: Uh-huh.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG:—and this was the reading of the instant offense at that particular time.

INMATE MANSON: That sounds like a book.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Well, if you’ll listen and then you can make corrections.

INMATE MANSON: Yes. Okay.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Okay?

INMATE MANSON: Yes.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: All right. Crime partner Atkins and Krenwinkel had been in the backseat with Linda Kasabian, the passenger in the right front seat. Watson then carried some [inaudible] over the hill and to the outer premises of 10050 Selio Drive.

The vehicle containing victim Stephen Parent [phonetic spelling] approached the gate opening into the street. Watson stopped him at gunpoint and Parent stated, “Please don’t hurt me, I won’t say anything.” Watson shot Parent five times and turned off the ignition of his car.

All of the crime partners then proceeded to the house, where Watson cut a window screen Linda Kasabian acted as a lookout while another female crime partner entered the residence through an open window and admitted the other crime partners.

Within the residence the prisoner’s crime partners, without provocation, logic, or reason murdered Abigail Anne Folger by inflicting a total of 28 multiple stab wounds on her body. Victim Wachezski—excuse me—victim-

MR. KAY: Voitek [phonetic spelling].

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Voitek, count two, was killed by multiple stab wounds. A gunshot wound to his left back and multiple forced trauma of blunt nature to the head. Victim Sharon Tate Polanski was killed with multiple stab wounds. Victim Jay Sebring was killed by multiple stab wounds.

On August the 10th, 1969, the prisoner drove his crime partners to a location near the residence of victims Leo and Rosemary LaBanca—LaBianca. The prisoner entered the LaBianca home alone at gunpoint and tied up the victims.

He impressed them with the statement that they would not be harmed and that a robbery was taking place. He then returned to the vehicle containing his crime partners and then directed them to enter that residence and kill the occupants. He informed them not to notify the victims that they would be killed.

Crime partners Charles Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten then entered the residence and the prisoner drove away horn the scene. The crime partners entered the residence and in a callous manner killed Leo LaBianca by inflicting multiple stab wounds to his neck and abdomen. Rosemary LaBianca was killed by multiple stab wounds which were inflicted to the neck and trunk.

The crime partners carved the wood
war
—the word
war
on Leo LaBianca’s stomach with the use of a carving fork. At both of the above murder scenes, the prisoner’s crime partners used blood of their victims to write the words.

Under case number A-267861, the prisoner was received into the institution on December 13, 1971, for violation of first-degree murder concurrent with prior term. The pistol, knives, and swords were used in the following crimes which the prisoner committed with crime partners Bira Alstea—how do you pronounce that?

MR. KAY: Beausoleil.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Beausoleil, and Atkins and Grogan and Davis. The prisoner directed the crime partners to go to the home of victim Gary Allen Highman—

MR. KAY: Hinman.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG:—and have him sign over his property. The crime partners followed the prisoner’s directions and on July 26, 1969, they contacted the prisoner from the Hinman residence. Prisoner and Davis then went to the Hinman home and the prisoner struck Hinman with a sword severing a part of the right ear and causing a laceration to the left side of his face from his ear to his mouth. The prisoner and Davis then drove away from the crime scene in Hinman’s automobile.

On July 27, 1969, after suffering three days of torturous treatment, Hinman was killed by a stab wound through the heart which was inflicted by Beausoleil.

When Hinman was found in the Topanga Canyon home on July 31, 1969, he had been stabbed through the heart in addition to suffering a stab wound in the chest, a gash on the top of his head, a gash behind the right ear, and a laceration on the left side of his face which cut his ear and cheek.

This concludes the reading of the instant offense. Do you have any additions or corrections, Mr. Manson, to the—

INMATE MANSON: I’d like to know who signed that, who put their name on it.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Nobody put their name on it. This was a hearing conducted in 1982. Your hearing was conducted at that particular time and that’s the reading of the instant offense as taken from the probation officers report at the time of the trial that you had. Do you have any corrections or additions to that?

INMATE MANSON: No. We could correct the whole thing because it’s basically hearsay.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Okay. Do you remember what I said at the beginning of the hearing?

INMATE MANSON: Yes.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: I said that we accept as true the court findings in the case. The fact that you were found guilty and you are guilty of those particular murders. If there’s any change or anything you wanted to say about—

INMATE MANSON: So all that is reality to you?

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Yes. Yes, we accept it as true—

INMATE MANSON: And that—and either—even if it never happened it’s still reality to you?

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Yes, because you were found guilty by a court of law.

INMATE MANSON: And—okay—and all the things that in that courtroom that went through that courtroom is reality to you?

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Yes. Okay. We accept as true—

INMATE MANSON: Now let me—let me just say one thing.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Okay.

INMATE MANSON: Nine black Muslims and three Mexicans signed a writ that said I was Jesus Christ. Is that reality to you as well?

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: I didn’t read that in the Board report.

INMATE MANSON: Oh, well it’s in the record. I mean, you know.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Well, we’ve read—we have your C-file and all the reports were made available to us.

INMATE MANSON: Okay.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: And I think we know most about, but that’s the reason for the hearing, Mr. Manson—

INMATE MANSON: Okay, okay.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG:—that you can bring these things out if you wish.

INMATE MANSON: I think if you’ll look in your own minds for every point, there’s a counterpoint. For every red, there’s a black. For every black, there’s a red.

In other words, what you’re making me into in your reports so that you can write your books and do your Rambo trips and make your movies for public entertainment, is not really what happened and what happened could have been explained but if you will allow me to call a witness?

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: No. We do not allow witnesses in here—

INMATE MANSON: I mean, it’s within the panel. I’d like to question that man in front of the panel.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: No. We do not allow that, Mr. Manson. We have a procedure that we follow.

INMATE MANSON: Okay. All right.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Now, if you want to tell about the crime—

INMATE MANSON: Okay.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG:—then go ahead and tell about the crime. Otherwise [inaudible].

INMATE MANSON: Then I will say it and then if it isn’t true, he can interrupt it through you, and then we can talk through you. Is that legal?

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: You may—you may—[inaudible].

INMATE MANSON: It says here that I can call witnesses on this paper here.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: No.

INMATE MANSON: This says I got these rights to do that.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: No, you do not. If you would please respond to me there—any additions or corrections to the instant offense that I just read?

INMATE MANSON: Yes. I didn’t tie anybody up.

PRESIDING BOARD COMMISSIONER KOENIG: Okay.

INMATE MANSON: I was never on the scene where anyone was killed. I think the law says you can only keep me 17 years or 18 years if I was never on the scene when anyone was killed. I was never on the crime scene of anything.

The closest I came to the crime scene is I cut Hinman’s ear off in a fight over some money because the Frenchman—he wouldn’t pay the Frenchman and I told him, why don’t he be a man about himself and pay his debts? And we had a fight.

So to—in order to hook me up to that they say well, they tortured the dude three days. I was gone from that scene of that crime for three days. I was never on the scene of any crime. I never told anyone directly to do—to go anywhere and do anything.

I always said—and mostly it come from the witness stand—I said like, you know what to do, you have a brain of your own, don’t ask me what to do, I’ve just got out of prison, I don’t know what’s going on out here. I hadn’t been out of jail long enough to really get a perspective of what was happening.

I just was released from McNeil Island and I was in Mexico City prison before that and I was in Terminal Island before that. So I really wasn’t up on the sixties as much as you all make me out to be. I had just got out of prison.

Most of those people, I—like Kasabian, I knew her two weeks. I had seen her two or three times around the ranch. I had never even been with the broad, man, that much, you know. People came around me because I played a lot of music and I was fairly free and open because I really didn’t know, honestly.

Everyone says that I was the leader of those people, but I was actually the follower of the children because, like I never grew up. I’ve been in jail most of this time, so I stayed in the minds of the children. And I’m pretty much a street person so violence is no new thing to me. And people getting hurt around me is no new thing.