by Jeff Guinn
But it was an army Gypsy had no intention of deserting. With the recent arrest of Clem and the defections of Watkins, Poston, Juanita, and now Walleman, the Family needed replenishing and Gypsy was Charlie’s recruiter. Within days of the Lotsapoppa shooting, she met an excellent prospective member.
In 1968, Bob and Linda Kasabian were living in a New Mexico commune when their marriage broke up. Linda took their infant daughter and went to stay with her mother in Milford, New Hampshire. Bob Kasabian drifted west to Southern California, where he met and soon shared a trailer in Topanga Canyon with hippie philanthropist Charlie Melton. Bob liked it there, and in mid-June 1969 he contacted Linda and suggested that they reconcile. She and baby Tanya could stay with him and Melton in the trailer. Linda thought it was worth a try. She and Tanya arrived in Topanga Canyon around July 1. Bob and Melton had a plan to go down to South America, buy a boat, and sail around the world. Linda wasn’t sure she wanted to do that.
Linda’s reconciliation with Bob wasn’t going well. Even after just a few days it didn’t seem as though things were any different between them than before. The more she considered it, spending months on a boat with him sailing around the world seemed unappealing. But she wasn’t eager to return to her mother in New Hampshire, either. She felt stuck.
Then a new option presented itself. A vivacious woman named Gypsy dropped by to visit with Charlie Melton. He’d visited the commune where Gypsy lived not long before, and she was just being friendly and keeping in touch. Gypsy and Linda started talking, and Gypsy told her all about the Family and especially Charlie Manson, a beautiful man whom everybody looked up to. At Spahn, everyone would love Linda and Tanya and take care of them. Gypsy invited Linda to come with her for a visit. She did, and almost immediately she hooked up with Tex Watson. They made love and talked late into the night. Linda told him that she wanted to be part of the Family. Tex knew Linda was staying with Charlie Melton, who had money. He told Linda that she should steal some and bring it with her when she and her daughter joined the Family. Linda felt funny about stealing from a friend, but she also thought it would impress the Family if she arrived with a lot of money to contribute. She took $5,000 in cash from Melton’s trailer and, along with her daughter, brought the money to Spahn. Only then did she meet Charlie Manson, who was repairing one of the ranch tractors. Charlie took the money, startled Linda by feeling her legs, and then quizzed her about her life. When he learned that Linda had a valid driver’s license, he told her that she could stay. Tanya was whisked off to be with the other Family kids, and Linda was brought into the main Family. Some of them thought she was unfriendly, even cold, and didn’t like her. But only Charlie’s opinion counted, and he wanted Linda there.
On July 19, Clem astonished the Family by showing up at Spahn Ranch. The court had sent him to Camarillo State Hospital for a battery of psychiatric tests to determine whether he was intellectually functional. But Camarillo had no secured premises, and Clem simply walked away to rejoin his leader Charlie.
The next day, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. The news was all over radio and television. But at Spahn Ranch, where there was widespread belief in the divinity of Charlie Manson, Helter Skelter, and the bottomless desert pit, the moon walk was viewed with skepticism. As the women sat in their daily sewing circle, one commented, “There’s somebody on the moon today,” and another replied, “They’re faking it.” Nothing was real unless Charlie said so, and Charlie had no interest in anyone walking on the moon. He was fixated on getting enough money to leave Spahn for Death Valley before the Black Panthers attacked.
Charlie’s sense of urgency was such that he was prepared to use force. So-called friends could prove their loyalty by giving him money, lots of it, without any excuse or delay. If they wouldn’t do it voluntarily, then Charlie would make them. Dennis Wilson was an obvious target. Charlie went looking for him, and when he didn’t find him, he left messages. A note left at one of Wilson’s temporary lodgings assured the Beach Boy, “You can’t get away from me.” Another time, Charlie left a bullet. He knew Wilson would understand.
But in late July Charlie couldn’t pin Wilson down, and he turned his attention elsewhere. Music teacher and occasional drug dealer Gary Hinman had a couple of cars and enough of a bankroll to be planning a trip to Japan. It was time for him to demonstrate his loyalty to the Family by either joining—in which case all his possessions, including his bank account, would become Charlie’s—or else by handing over whatever money he had. Bobby Beausoleil provided the perfect excuse to shake down Hinman. Beausoleil had just paid him $1,000 for a thousand tabs of mescaline; he’d gotten the money from the Straight Satans, who planned to have a party with the drugs. But after sampling the goods, the Satans claimed that the batch was tainted. They were furious and demanded that Beausoleil give them back their money, and he prepared to confront Hinman. Charlie thought that Beausoleil’s demand ought to include not only the Satans’ $1,000, but additional money to help fund the Family’s Helter Skelter desert flight. If nothing else, Hinman owned those two cars. Their pink slips would be worth something.
Bobby Beausoleil was never a member of the Family. He and Charlie were friends whose interests sometimes coincided. Neither one wanted the Straight Satans upset, Beausoleil because they’d take it out on him if they didn’t get their drug money refund, and Charlie because, so long as they were content to stick around Spahn, the bikers were his main line of defense in the event of a Black Panthers attack. Beausoleil had no intention of joining Charlie and the Family on their flight to Death Valley—Helter Skelter was Charlie’s thing, not his. But he didn’t mind helping his pal finance the plan by squeezing Hinman for more money.
On Friday, July 25, longtime Family member Bruce Davis drove Beausoleil, Mary Brunner, and Susan Atkins over to Hinman’s place. Beausoleil was armed with a handgun and a knife. After Hinman invited them in, Beausoleil demanded his $1,000. Hinman refused, insisting that there was some mistake and the drugs he’d sold to Beausoleil for the Straight Satans were fine. Beausoleil told Susan to hold Hinman at gunpoint while he looked around the house to pick out items worth $1,000—if Hinman wouldn’t hand over the money, maybe the Satans would take something in trade. Hinman tried to grab the gun from Susan, Beausoleil jumped in to help her subdue him, and the gun went off. The bullet didn’t hit anyone; it lodged under the kitchen sink. Beausoleil, who was much stronger than Hinman, got him under control. Then Beausoleil beat him for a while, demanding all the money that he had. Hinman denied that he had any. He reluctantly agreed to sign over the pink slips to both of his cars, a Volkswagen bus and a Fiat station wagon. Their combined value was more than $1,000. Beausoleil was satisfied on his own behalf, but there were still Charlie’s financial needs to consider. He called Charlie at the ranch, explaining that, even after being thoroughly beaten, Hinman denied having money. Charlie was certain that Hinman did, and he wanted it. Just before midnight, Bruce Davis drove Charlie to Hinman’s house. Charlie brought his sword, and when Hinman protested to him that he didn’t understand what was happening, that he’d always been a friend to the Family, Charlie slashed the blade along the left side of Hinman’s head, splitting his ear almost in half. Charlie snarled that he expected Hinman to give Beausoleil everything he had, and then he and Bruce returned to Spahn.
For the rest of that night, all of Saturday, and well into Sunday, Beausoleil doled out beatings to Hinman, and Susan and Mary pleaded with him to hand over his money and end his suffering. Hinman still insisted that he had no money to give them. Beausoleil intermittently called Charlie at Spahn with reports of no progress. At one point Hinman threatened to call the police whenever Beausoleil and the two women finally left. That was something Charlie couldn’t allow. If Hinman told the police about his drug deals with the Family and Charlie got arrested, any investigation might reveal his murder of Lotsapoppa. As a multi-time loser on probation, Charlie could expect a maximum sentence. During a final Sunday phone call, B
eausoleil told Charlie that “he’s got his ear hacked off and he’ll go to the police.” Charlie said, “You know what to do.” Hinman had to die, and, since he did, his murder might as well advance Charlie’s prophecy of Helter Skelter. The Black Panthers were much on Charlie’s mind since his confrontation with Lotsapoppa, and he decided to implicate them by telling Beausoleil to leave apparent evidence that the Panthers slaughtered Hinman. The symbol of the Panthers was a paw print. Beausoleil stabbed Hinman several times, and as he lay dying Beausoleil dipped his hand in Hinman’s blood and pressed a crude paw print onto the wall. Then, using the finger of a glove dipped in the pool of gore, Beausoleil wrote “POLITICAL PIGGY” on the wall near the paw print.
Beausoleil, Susan, and Mary went through the house, trying to wipe away all their fingerprints, but they missed a few. After filching a set of bagpipes that Hinman often played, they drove his Fiat and Volkswagen bus back to Spahn and waited for news stories to break about how the Black Panthers had viciously murdered an innocent young white man in his home. After two days when no stories were broadcast, Beausoleil returned to Hinman’s house to see if the murder had at least been discovered. It hadn’t. He remarked later back at Spahn about the odd sound of maggots “eating away on” Hinman’s dead body. He was concerned that the bloody paw print might somehow be traced back to him and he tried to clean it off the wall, but it had dried solid. Beausoleil also made a second attempt to wipe surfaces for any stray fingerprints, but he once again did a sloppy job. He was careless with the murder weapon, too. Instead of disposing of the bloody knife, he stashed it in the tire well of Hinman’s Fiat. He kept the Fiat for his own use. Charlie disposed of the Volkswagen bus, perhaps to the Straight Satans to cover the $1,000.
Charlie wanted the details of Gary’s murder kept secret from the rest of the Family, but that proved impossible. Beausoleil wanted to boast; even though they were friends there was also a strong sense of competition between him and Charlie, and Charlie had gotten a lot of bragging privileges from shooting Lotsapoppa. Now Beausoleil had proof that he was a tough guy, too. He told Straight Satan Danny DeCarlo about it, and DeCarlo passed along the details to Tex. Susan also couldn’t resist bragging. When she told the other women that she and Beausoleil killed Gary, one asked what it was like. Susan replied, “It was real weird and he made funny noises.” Yeller was sickened by Susan’s comments; she and a male Family member called Bill had secretly become a couple in violation of Charlie’s everyone-belongs-to-everyone edict. Now they decided to sneak away past the lookouts keeping watch for Black Panthers. Just before they left, they took Pat Krenwinkel aside and asked her to come with them. Pat, who remembered how easily Charlie had tracked her the last time she left him, said she would stay. But Charlie lost two more followers.
Kitty Lutesinger, Bobby’s pregnant girlfriend, was also upset by what she heard from Susan and begged Bobby to take her away from Spahn and the Family. He refused.
On Thursday, July 31, some of Gary Hinman’s friends dropped by his house for a visit. There was no response to their knock on the front door, and they noticed clouds of flies buzzing through an open window. Worried, they contacted the police. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had jurisdiction for Topanga Canyon. Officers Paul Whiteley and Charles Guenther investigated, found Hinman’s body, and spent the next several days gathering evidence. The bloody paw print and words on the wall were ghastly, but what interested the lawmen more was at least one clean fingerprint lifted from the crime scene. Hinman’s friends said that both of his cars were missing. Whiteley and Guenther put out an All Points Bulletin for the Fiat and Volkswagen.
Charlie considered Linda Kasabian sufficiently indoctrinated to join very pregnant Sandy Good on a panhandling day in Topanga. Wandering about, they were picked up by Saladin Nader, who drove a battered Jaguar and told them that he was an actor who’d appeared in a Lebanese film. Nader took Linda and Sandy to his apartment in Santa Monica. Sandy was worn out and wanted to nap. While she did, Nader and Linda had sex. Afterward he dropped them off at a shopping center in the San Fernando Valley. The women enjoyed meeting Nader; he seemed like an especially nice guy. When they got back to Spahn they told Charlie about him.
It was a tense time for Charlie. He’d promised that Helter Skelter would begin that summer, and summer was waning. His efforts to raise sufficient money to finance a long-term Family relocation to Barker Ranch were unsuccessful. The Black Panthers might attack any minute. Two murders, Lotsapoppa and Gary Hinman, might yet be traced back to Charlie and Bobby Beausoleil at Spahn. Spahn might not even be available as a Family base much longer—Squeaky reported that developers were pushing George Spahn to sell to them, and ranch hand Shorty Shea kept offering to run Charlie and the Family off if Spahn just gave the word. Charlie had to think of something. And to do that, he needed some time away from everybody else, a road trip where he wouldn’t have to endure constant badgering about day-to-day trifles.
Charlie announced that he would drive north for a few days to find new Family recruits. While he was gone, everyone should remain alert for a Black Panther attack, and otherwise keep preparing for Death Valley. On August 3 Charlie left, driving a cream-colored 1952 Ford delivery van the Family had recently acquired. It wasn’t the flashiest ride, but it was dependable. Charlie took with him one of the Family’s stolen gas credit cards, and used it every time he needed a fill up. He first stopped for gas in nearby Canoga Park, then drove on to Big Sur. Stopping again for gas along the way, he met teenager Stephanie Schram, who was hitchhiking from San Francisco to San Diego, where she lived with her older sister. She told Charlie that she’d been to San Francisco with a boyfriend, but he ordered her around too much. Schram was cute, and a diversion for Charlie at a moment when he badly needed one. Charlie turned on the charm, using the nothing-is-wrong, you-are-perfect spiel that had served him so well since his days in Haight-Ashbury. Schram fell for it. After Charlie promised to eventually drive her to her sister’s place in San Diego, she gladly joined him in the clanking old delivery van. They took LSD and had sex. On August 6 they drove back to Spahn and had dinner with the Family. Schram was initially put off by Charlie’s followers, especially the women. Like Patricia Krenwinkel two years earlier, she had thought that Charlie was going to be her exclusive boyfriend, but now she learned she’d have to share him. Charlie soothed her with the promise that he’d at least be her monogamous partner for a few weeks, and the next morning he and Schram drove down to San Diego to collect her clothes and other personal belongings from her sister’s house. The overnight at Spahn allowed Schram to meet everyone but Beausoleil, who’d left for San Francisco a day earlier in the Fiat.
At Cielo Drive things were hectic. Roman Polanski was in England working on a film, but Sharon Tate expected him to return shortly. Eight months into her pregnancy, she suffered from the L.A. summer heat but mustered the energy to begin decorating a room for the baby. Tate had friends over for lunches, and one night that week, Tuesday or Wednesday, she hosted a small party for French director Roger Vadim. But Tate spent fewer evenings entertaining now because she tired so easily.
Voytek Frykowski was excited because he had friends flying in from Canada. They wouldn’t stay at Cielo where Frykowski and Abigail Folger occupied the guest room, but they would surely be invited to dinner by Tate. Jay Sebring was expected to drop in for an evening or two. He made a point of keeping Tate company whenever Polanski was away, so much so that some people thought he might be trying to win her back. Rudi Altobelli was out of town, too, so William Garretson stayed in the guest cottage to keep an eye on things. The kid spent some of the week partying hard and late with friends, so he didn’t feel particularly well. As soon as Altobelli returned, he was ready to go home to Ohio.
Beausoleil didn’t take Kitty Lutesinger with him to San Francisco. In a sense Beausoleil was on the run and knew he could move around faster without being saddled with a pregnant girlfriend. Using Hinman’s Fiat as his getaway car was poor planning.
Its murdered owner hadn’t paid attention to maintenance. Beausoleil didn’t get far before the Fiat broke down near San Luis Obispo. Two highway patrolmen pulled up and ran a routine records check on the vehicle. They were notified that an APB had been issued on it connected to a murder in Topanga Canyon. Beausoleil was arrested, and the bloody knife he used to stab Hinman was discovered in the tire well. L.A. County detectives Paul Whiteley and Charles Guenther came out to question him. Beausoleil first tried telling them that he’d just bought the car from a black guy; he hoped that the alibi might work if the county cops had bought into Hinman being murdered by the Black Panthers. But they hadn’t, and they also matched Beausoleil’s thumbprint to a bloody fingerprint that he’d missed cleaning up at Hinman’s house. Beausoleil changed his story; now he claimed that he and two female friends he wouldn’t name arrived at Hinman’s, found him badly hurt, and tried to treat his wounds. In gratitude, Hinman signed over the Fiat to them. Beausoleil guessed that he must have died after they left. Whiteley and Guenther didn’t believe a word of it. Beausoleil was transferred to the L.A. County jail and booked for homicide.
