Manson: The Unholy Trail of Charlie and the Family

by John Gilmore;Ron Kenner

  The first week in December, friends of Linda's arranged for her to surrender to New Hampshire police. In custody, she said, "I won't talk. Not now, not ever," as though parroting Manson's law - "you never squeal, you never snitch ..."

  In Los Angeles, Charlie and five others were indicted on seven counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. A week later, he was brought into Central Jail in Parker Center, where he was to say, "I asked someone once about the way he is going, and I told him, no, he was going the wrong way. He answered and said, 'Are you going the right way?' And I told him, `Yes,' I was going the right way. And he said, `You mean the only way is your way?' and I said `Yes, that's right. I'm going the right way, and everybody else is going the wrong way."' Charlie laughed.

  He then proceeded en pro per with plans to represent himself - his way. An attorney told Manson that "relevant means the weight of the point to the distance from what is being brought out." But Charlie didn't feel that the judge knew really what was relevant.

  "What is relevant? When I go in that courtroom," he announced, "I've got twenty-one objections that are relevant. I don't believe the judge knows - it is his word, his reality which is not my reality. And my reality is not his." He was informed that "the rules and the tricks and the things the district attorney can do, will be much against you." But Charlie showed little fear. It was as if all he needed to solve his problems was his day in court.

  One attorney, Brian Reese, assisting Manson independent of the court, offered to buy him a shirt for his next appearance. "Yeah," Charlie said. "You can get me a red shirt like a Shakespeare-type long collar, full sleeves, and V-neck. I used to have one just like it. Make it devil red," he laughed. "Real devil red."

  Superior Judge George Dell, who had anticipated a three-minute hearing for Manson to enter a plea, abided Manson's discourses on law and philosophy for forty minutes, dealing patiently and politely with Charlie's motions, the like of which he admitted he had never heard or seen before. Among them, Manson sought to form a corporation with six other jail inmates, "The Family of Infinite Soul, Inc.," to handle his plea for freedom on a writ of habeas corpus. It explained that "the People of California has the defendant outnumbered in legal assistance," and asked that fellow prisoners be allowed to assist as co-counsel with Manson "in the interests of Just-Us."

  Fondling a half-dozen long yellow pencils, he offered the judge his impressions of his legal problems: his proposed witnesses were being photographed "and harassed" by the Sheriff's office due to lack of proper identification. "They don't drive," Charlie said. "They don't have licenses, or identification. They live at the side of the road. They don't have an address, like you. The Sheriff calls them `odd-looking people' but they're my brothers."

  Judge Dell asked him if he could read and write, and Charlie replied, "It depends on your level of understanding ..." He then requested a recording machine "of the kind you speak letters into" to dictate motions for a secretary to type, "because my grammar is poor and my spelling is atrocious."

  After hearing the numerous motions, the judge refused most but granted one - a two-week continuance before Manson entered a plea. Judge Dell advised him he was "making a very serious error in choosing to represent himself."

  Meanwhile, Susan was appearing in another court on the Hinman murder, and her case was postponed two months.

  Told that he, too, would face charges in Hinman's murder, Charlie said excitedly, "See, their finger is at me. They are afraid of me! But I'll tell you this - no matter how scared they get, they aren't going to turn me like those ten psychos upstairs ... they have this real dumb nigger, and he cleans out the garbage. He is a dummy. A boy. You tell him to clean out the garbage and he picks it up and cleans it out. And you just want to pat him on the head. He is a dummy, and you tell him `Boy, clean out that garbage.' He was with seven other black friends and the seven others turned state's evidence on him. They are outside and the dummy is in here ...

  "The Black Muslims - they know the way, they're ahead of us. Fifty years ahead. They are way ahead of the Black Panthers, dig. They know what's happening. And I turn them on because I'm the only white guy in here that knows about Mohammed. They got things going on in the sewers that you wouldn't believe!"

  During a visiting session with Charlie, attorney Reese asked if he needed some cigarettes or toothpaste money, and Charlie answered, "Yeah," to leave three dollars. Manson's mood had changed, Reese observed. He'd shaved off the beard and seemed more "determined - anxious for something." His thoughts grew scattered at moments, only to jump intensely to more personal, "abstract monologues." In the midst of a discussion on material witnesses, Manson "jumped the track and went into a speech," Reese says, "about some doctor or head-shrinker that visited Spahn ranch."

  Charlie told the attorney, "This guy helped these little girls get out of jail, there were two or three that he helped. And after he got them out of jail he came up with them to the ranch. He wanted to stay up there and get something from them. He is a fat, sloppy guy who wanted to get some screwing in. And they put him down ... There are a lot of guys they see these young girls with a little runt like me, and it threatens their masculinity, and they want it back. You go around living with twelve or thirteen young girls and you get a lot of this. There is a buffer line between the love people and the speed freaks, dig. And I stood on the buffer line, inbetween. And I saw a lot of violence and I stopped it. These young girls, they come to me and I don't tell them to stay and I don't tell them to go. Their parents didn't want them, they left home. And I show them the hills, and I say the hills are there, dig!"

  Then, almost in the same breath, Charlie told Reese, "Suzy Atkins sent me a message. When the time comes she is going to change her story. I'll be getting out of here a lot sooner than most people think, the DA wants to get rid of this case, too much that went on, dig. 'Cause soon the people won't even know what's going on two blocks away. They print in the paper that somebody gets shot by a sawed-off shotgun. And then the police, they find somebody that has the gun, or a gun like it. He is arrested and the DA has the killer. Then a couple of weeks later somebody gets shot with the same kind of gun. Well, the DA doesn't let them print that and tell that to the people because they got this other guy in jail. Now, if this other guy is in jail, then there is no one on the outside that can do that kind of murder. And they don't want to scare the people or let them know what a bad job they are doing - because the people pay the salaries." Attorney Reese said nothing.

  "See," Charlie said, "taxes pay the salaries of the guys to keep me in here, dig. They have thirty or forty murders, unsolved that they say I did ... They are afraid of me. They say he is a psychopathic, a panaman- ic, a panaramanack - ahagathaic -" Charlie wrinkled his face and garbled the words - "a terrible terror and they can't let me out - I'm a monster and they are going to believe what they want to and they would be scared to death if I got out ..

  On another occasion, Charlie explained, "I told the attorney the best way to get to people is through fear. I know the difference. I was in a Rolls Royce driving, smoking a joint, and I got stopped by a bull. He asked for my license, I gave him Wilson's - Dennis Wilson's, and the cop would say, `Yes, Mr. Wilson, yes, Mr. Wilson, try to slow down a little.' But when you are hitchhiking and a bull stops you, they fear you and they beat on you. I know what it means where the good guys are and where the bad guys are. And the cops are putting fear into these kids, because the cops are the ones that have the fear. Some sixteen or seventeen year old kid is coming home and walking on the street, and the cops get him against the brick wall. `What are you doing?' and they beat on him, dig, push him and say, `you got grass, you got this, you got that,' and the kid is probably coming home just from some movie or a friend's house, and the bulls are scaring him. And just when he is most scared and most susceptible to an idea, they push him in the ribs hard and they say `You got a gun? You gonna kill someone. You got a knife? Who you gonna kill?'

  "And if you put a little child in a ro
om, and you tell the child, just don't go through that door, you know when you leave that child is going to go through the door. And that is what is going on with juveniles. You don't know. You don't live on the bottom. But I don't fear that, I know how to put on the face and they are the ones that fear us. It is like in here, they are scared, the bulls. There is a young kid near me and they say he is psychopathic, and they have this guy just strapped to his cot. His legs and arms are strapped down and he can't move. And the bulls open up my peekhole and they look in and ask `How are you?' And I'm sitting there smiling and turn around and growl. Grrrrrr! OK, a real mean one, okay. And the bull, he leaves, see, because he knows I'm not afraid of him, and he is the coward, he has the fear. Then he goes next door to the kid, and he doesn't know when I'm listening. And he opens his thing and he says to the kid, that is strapped down, in a rough voice, `What're you doing?' and the kid answers, `Nothing.' And the bull says, `What're you, a wise guy, putting me on?' And threatening to go in there and beat on the kid ...

  Reese says, "When Charlie stood up he looked very small and very beat, like in ill-health. While simultaneously, during all the talking, he was animated, really alive in his conversation, expression, and his eyes, which have a brilliant twinkle. After spending some time with him he becomes very likable, and an interesting and unusual person to talk to. He can sustain a conversation terribly well, and keep you most interested. I guess he has had practice of the concentrated kind of talking, without the phone ringing while you are talking, or the jumping up and down of someone to do something else. Visiting hours in jail are precious, and sitting face to face with someone, without anything else, trains you for this kind of ability that Charlie has, to talk and be a forceful storyteller."

  But Manson refused to enter a plea and said the judge's entering a plea of innocence for him "leaves a foundation that is very messy. If the public knew how messy, it would have you over here instead of me." He went on to say he'd been so "mired" in legal matters he'd not had sufficient time to prepare for the arraignment. "I can't be expected to plead to those ridiculous charges," he declared.

  "While he was acting en pro per," Reese says, "Charlie was so busy visiting with friends and some of the girls from the Family - who took up most of the time - that he admitted to me he hadn't had time to get any work done on the case. As it was, he hadn't even read through the transcripts of the grand jury. He'd joke about it. Actually," Reese says, "his enthusiasm or belief that he'll be released in a short time is so convincing that he even has me wondering a few times."

  The motions Manson did prepare and file, in between visits with Family members, were drafted in a legalese almost beyond deciphering. Generally, they attacked various phrases of the proceedings against him. He also informed the judge, "I got a message from Sadie, saying that the district attorney made her say what she said." Manson wanted permission to question Susan, and Judge Dell granted the request, if both she and her attorney agreed.

  Two days later, Charlie told Reese that he would be "getting out maybe in thirty days," so he hadn't bothered completing a case. Charlie was grinning. Since he felt he'd be getting out right away, he wanted to know if Reese, also an amateur photographer, would "like to take some movies in the desert," because, Charlie said, there were all kinds of "exciting things" he had done. In the desert they used to build a fire and race the dune buggies around it, and then dance and sing.

  "I'm like a child," he told Reese, "playing games ... I can get from Spahn ranch to Death Valley without using the highway. I have the dune buggies set with a hoist in the front, and hoist one up a ridge, then tie it to a tree, and hoist the others after it. One time the men were after me, and I used a block and hoisted the dune buggie up a tree, and I watched them looking for me - they couldn't find me!" Charlie laughed. He designed dune buggies on the outside, he said. "I had four seats across, and slats that you could put out for sleeping, with the back covered over so you couldn't see the wheels, it was camouflaged."

  Reese says, "Charlie was sitting and staring into space for several minutes, and then he said `I'm mired with all this . . .' Charlie figured it was a conspiracy for both political and financial advantages, and he's planning to file a civil suit for defamation. Charlie says all the others, Katie, Linda, and others are all going to hang together. He said, `Sadie will be certified insane, so she won't have to testify again. Nobody's going to break. We're all going to stand together."'

  A few days later Susan was in court for the first time since December, and her attorney, Richard Caballero, was granted a trial delay. The lawyer was arranging a meeting between Susan and Manson. He still expected her to testify as the prosecution's key witness, and said the meeting would give him an idea as to how she would react to Manson's crossexamination at the trial. There had been reports that Susan would change attorneys at Manson's request, after their meeting. Caballero said he had heard rumors that Charlie was seeking counsel for all of his co-defendants, but said, "As of now I am her attorney, and I'm busy working in her behalf."

  During a hearing, Charlie informed the court he was ready to "be tried immediately."

  It was announced the following week that Manson was working on a "legal ploy to unite the accused," with the aid of a Denver attorney ready to enter the case. That lawyer said he was certain Susan would not repeat her testimony at the trial, which meant the grand jury testimony could not be used as trial evidence.

  Reese says, "Charlie told me, `Suzy sent word to me that if I get her a good lawyer, she'll shut up."'

  "Like when they certify Sadie insane," Manson said, and related what he'd learned from his grapevine: "Linda is going to step forward, dig, her attorney's fallen in love with her and he's going to get her off and they'll sail away together in a sailboat. So in order to get her started on their thing, he's already setting it up with Stovitz to get her a deal, giving evidence to the DA. What's going to happen now, they'll make a deal with Linda. But I'm not afraid of it because the truth will come out at the trial."

  Reese told him that the truth in courtroom procedure doesn't necessarily come out - one doesn't lead to the other.

  "I know that," Charlie said, "But Linda will break down in the trial."

  Later, while a meeting was arranged between Manson and Susan, Charlie submitted a petition which he described as "revolutionary" and unorthodox, seeking restoration of certain jail rights. He asked that a commission be appointed to study and recommend procedures to modernize the state's judicial system. Charlie suggested that if the state was not responsive to changes it would become as extinct as "any other cumbersome dinosaur." Judge Keene, who had been assigned the case by judge Dell, said he would study the brief.

  The meeting between Charlie and Susan lasted one hour. They sat face to face, and afterwards, Caballero said Susan was "mulling over" what her future role would be in the prosecution of the case. The attorney said Manson did not request her to withdraw her testimony, but "instead asked her to do what she thought was right." He added: "If Mr. Manson and I can't reconcile those differences and she goes along with him, then I will have no choice but to remove myself as her attorney."

  "When you find yourselves," Charlie was to say, "you find that everybody is out for themselves." Yet as the motions continued, Charlie sought to have the group "stand together." If Manson could provide a common legal shelter for himself and co-defendants, one attorney speculated, he might get out from under the murder conspiracy charges against him. Despite contrary legal advice to some of the defendants, it seemed Charlie still ruled the Family. Susan "mulled over" withdrawing the testimony she had offered the grand jury.

  At Charlie's bidding, Leslie Van Houten replaced her courtappointed attorney. She also wrote to Tex, then fighting extradition from Texas, asking him to disregard his attorney's advice and come join the Family in Los Angeles.

  "Say, Tex," she wrote, "in spite of what anyone may tell you, the family still is. No matter how many miles, institution bars, and confusion may try to separate us,
we become closer. One cannot be divided.

  "You know the strength of unity. Myself, as well as others, would like very much for you to be with all of us throughout this trial."

  As Katie's lawyers also fought extradition from Alabama, Manson wrote to Katie, asking that she join the others in the trial.

  The aunt Katie had been staying with at the time of her arrest insisted that the girl "just liked people too much to do anything like this." Katie was "very interested in the Bible. She often talked about it and studied it." Katie's lawyer described her as "a very nervous, frightened and confused young woman." But finally Katie sent a determined note to the district attorney in Mobile, stating she wished to sign extradition papers and return to California immediately.

  In court with a wry smile, Charlie told Judge Keene, "I'm going to have to do something about you." He then confided in Reese that he was planning to have Keene removed from the case. "It'll happen," he said.

  At 1:46 on the afternoon of March 9, at the County Medical Center, Linda gave birth to a baby boy, under guard. The infant was to be made a temporary ward of the juvenile court. While she recuperated in the hospital, Attorney Daye Shinn met in Judge Keene's chambers with Caballero and the prosecutors. Following the meeting, Shinn announced he had replaced Caballero as Susan's attorney, and said, "She definitely will not testify. There is no chance she will take the stand against Manson and the others."

  Meanwhile, Judge Keene had ruled on Charlie's "outlandish" motion, the one Manson considered "revolutionary," and said it proved Manson was incompetent to represent himself. Charlie was visibly shaken in the courtroom. "Fury just poured out of him," one attorney said.

  Charlie shouted: "You can't do that! I'm a man! I have a voice! I have a voice!"

  His behavior became blatant and odd, and a few days later during a hearing on Susan's substitution of attorneys, Charlie refused to answer Keene's questions on whether he would object to Shinn replacing Caballero. Manson looked about and replied, "Do you dislike me? I think we're all going to need as much help as we can get ... But there isn't anyone here I don't like."