Chaos : Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (9780316529211)
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66 living out of his car: Author interview with Fields; author interview with Kay.
67 Over the ten years previous to our meeting: Unless otherwise indicated, all the information about Kanarek came from interviews with him and with George Denny, an attorney and longtime friend. Kanarek also shared the story of his nervous breakdown and the loss of his law license with a Los Angeles Times reporter; see Dana Parsons, “Barred from World He Loved, Just Getting by Is a Trial,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 25, 1998.
68 they colluded, that is, to protect the convictions: After the judge ruled that Farr had immunity as a newsman and didn’t have to testify about who gave him the sealed documents, the state withdrew its charges.
4. The Holes in Helter Skelter
1 “After Terry Melcher”: Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter Skelter (New York: Norton, 1994), 496.
2 the ex-con was fresh out of federal prison: The information in this chapter about Dennis Moorehouse is from my interviews with him and from his parole file, which I received from the State of California after obtaining his consent. Details about the arrest of Manson in Leggett in July 1967 are from police reports and news articles.
3 prompting her mother to report her: G. Campbell, Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, Crime Report, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, File 25544, Suspect: Charles Willis [sic] Manson, July 28, 1967; “Deputies End Leggett Tryst,” Ukiah [Calif.] Daily Journal, July 31, 1967, 8.
4 The legend is that Manson persuaded: Author interview with Dean Moorehouse.
5 “They convicted me in December of ’68”: Moorehouse’s first trial had ended in a hung jury the previous August (see ibid. and “LSD Trial Ends in Hung Jury; New Trial Date Set,” Ukiah Daily Journal, Aug. 28, 1968).
6 for the long drive to Ukiah: Melcher testimony, California v. Charles Watson, 2 Crim 22241, 2208; Ed Sanders, The Family, 3rd ed. (New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2002), 83; Tex Watson and Chaplain Ray, Will You Die for Me? (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1978), 62; author interview with Moorehouse.
7 “he gave me his credit card”: Author interview with Moorehouse. See also Sanders, The Family, 83; Watson and Ray, Will You Die for Me?, 62. In August 1968, Watson was ticketed for speeding while driving Melcher’s car in San Luis Obispo County with Moorehouse. When Watson failed to pay the fine or appear for the court date, a warrant was issued for his arrest, identifying Melcher as the registered owner of the vehicle (case T-3504, citation F221471, California v. Charles Denton Watson, Order to Appear, County of San Luis Obispo Justice Court, Sept. 5, 1968—from the files of Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office).
8 entered the prison system on January 2, 1969: Moorehouse, Dean Allen, Cumulative Case History, State of California, Department of Corrections, case 4482-C, Jan. 3, 1969.
9 left her deeply skeptical of Bugliosi… for Terry Melcher: Author interview with Sandi Gibbons.
10 my visits weren’t exactly authorized: Since my last visit to the files in 2006, to the best of my knowledge all other requests from researchers wanting similar access have been denied.
11 the Straight Satans: DeCarlo helped found the bike club in 1966, according to testimony from his trial for drug smuggling. See United States v. DeCarlo et al., no. 37502-SD-Criminal, U.S. District Court, Southern District, March 28–June 30, 1967.
12 in the spring of ’69: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 146.
13 DeCarlo’s father was in the firearms business: Ibid., 144.
14 got access to drugs: Ibid., 132; Bill Nelson, audio interview with Vincent Bugliosi, 1999, Mansonmurders.com.
15 His testimony did a lot of heavy lifting for Bugliosi: The prosecutor wrote in Helter Skelter that he “succeed[ed] in getting a tremendous amount of evidence in through DeCarlo” (468).
16 he identified the weapons used in the murders: Ibid., 464–69.
17 In the crossed-out sections of Bugliosi’s notes: Vincent Bugliosi interview with Danny DeCarlo, Feb. 11, 1970, 2.
18 Melcher replied under oath: Grand Jury, A253156, The People of the State of California vs. Charles Manson, Charles Watson, aka Charles Montgomery; Susan Atkins, aka Sadie Mae Glutz; Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Sankston, Dec. 5, 1969, 128.
19 “After this second occasion”: Melcher testimony, California v. Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, case 22239, 15127.
20 “Yeah, just a few days after May 18”: Ibid., 15144–45.
21 might never have gotten his convictions: Bugliosi interview, “Charlie’s Friends,” The Fifth Estate (Canadian TV series), 1975.
22 to “instill fear” in Melcher: Richard Caballero and Paul Caruso interview with Susan Atkins, transcript, Dec. 1, 1969, 3.
23 Bugliosi had crossed out: Bugliosi interview with DeCarlo.
24 legendary in L.A. legal circles: Fitzgerald was the model for the title character of John Gregory Dunne’s crime novel Dutch Shea, Jr., about a scrappy, hard-drinking Los Angeles defense attorney.
25 a girlfriend of his: Author interview with Cupertina Vega.
26 Melcher had expressly denied: Melcher testimony, California v. Manson et al., 15124.
27 “He did not record Manson”: Bugliosi, closing argument, ibid., 21370. When Bugliosi executive-produced a remake of the TV movie of Helter Skelter in 2004, he included a scene depicting Melcher and Wilson recording Manson in a studio (John Gray, Helter Skelter script, page 9).
28 Donald “Shorty” Shea: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 661.
29 “After one of the girls told me that they killed the caretaker”: Parks probably believed, erroneously, that Shea was the “caretaker” of the ranch.
30 “Melcher was on acid”: Unsigned handwritten notes, Paul Watkins interview, LASO, Dec. 19, 1969, 7.
31 “Dennis and Greg had been there”: In police interviews and interviews with me, Jakobson described several visits he made with Wilson to the Family’s outpost in Death Valley. This suggested that Wilson wasn’t done with the Family after he allegedly threw them out of his home in August 1968. The Family didn’t start going to the desert until mid-November 1968, according to police reports, trial testimony, and Helter Skelter.
32 “And they said, probably not”: Melcher was less kind in his mother’s biography, writing: “The cops said that five or six of the Manson girls claimed that Manson had set me up with them and that I was the father of their babies. I finally got so fed up with the cops over these sex inquiries that I got out the pictures of the most recent ladies in my life, real beauties, all of them, and I said, ‘Listen, when I’ve got beauties like these to get in bed with, why would I want to screw any of Manson’s clap-ridden, unwashed dogs?’” (A. E. Hotchner, Doris Day [New York: Bantam, 1976], 247).
33 soon rubbing elbows with the sons: All the Jakobson information comes from my interviews with him, unless otherwise noted.
34 racking up a few arrests along the way: According to testimony at Tex Watson’s trial, Jakobson had been arrested on a drug charge in November 1968; Watson said that Manson sent him to Melcher’s house to get money to bail Jakobson out of jail. Melcher refused, and had his chauffeur drive Watson down to Sunset Boulevard so he could hitchhike back to the Spahn Ranch (Watson testimony, California v. Watson, 3251, 3310). The second arrest, according to Melcher’s first police interview (LAPD Interview, #231, by Patchett, Nov. 31 [sic], 1969), occurred on his and Jakobson’s third visit to the Spahn Ranch. LAPD detective Frank Patchett wrote, “It was on that visit that the three were stopped by LA County sheriffs and Jakobson was arrested for a ticket. Melcher bailed him out.” It seemed curious to me that there was actually a sheriff’s officer at the Spahn Ranch who arrested Jakobson during his and Melcher’s “final” visit to Manson in May 1969.
35 “He doesn’t anymore”: Jakobson testimony, California v. Manson et al., 14182.
36 “how much of that is legend and how much of it is true”: Though both Melcher and Jakobson’s testimony about the spyglass was bro
ught out by Bugliosi—and the prosecutor also included it in his summation—for some reason Bugliosi never mentions this vital bit of information in Helter Skelter. Melcher wrote about it in his mother’s biography: Manson had “stolen a telescope from the deck of the Malibu house, presumably to let me know he knew my whereabouts” (Hotchner, Doris Day, 249).
37 “Jakobson frequently smiled at Manson”: Associated Press, “Defendant in Tate Trial Well Liked,” Nov. 16, 1970.
38 “thank Mr. Melcher for his presence”: California v. Manson et al., 15152. Although Bugliosi omitted the cordial remarks from Kanarek to Melcher in Helter Skelter, he did note (without editorial comment) that Kanarek chose not to examine Melcher, “probably at Manson’s request” (495).
39 all sourced to Jakobson: Jeff Guinn, Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013), 157, 182, 198.
40 “all and any references”: I counted five changes between the original hardcover edition (1996) and the paperback reissue (1999). References to Melcher’s involvement with the Manson women were removed and the number of times he visited the Spahn Ranch was changed from “several” to “twice.” Any suggestions that he was aware of Manson’s propensity for murder were excised entirely. All the changes to Waiting for the Sun can be seen by comparing the following pages (the 1996 hardcover versus the 1999 paperback): 176/181, 176/181 (a second set of changes here), 179/183, 179/184, 179/184 (a second set of changes here), and 181/186.
5. Amnesia at the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office
1 A soft-spoken Buddhist: All the information about Hinman in this chapter comes from the Hinman murder trial transcripts (A-057452, The People of the State of California v. Robert Kenneth Beausoleil) or Helter Skelter, unless otherwise noted.
2 Atkins and Brunner took turns: Atkins and Brunner both admitted smothering Hinman with a pillow. But at Atkins’s 1978 parole hearing, she said it was Beausoleil who smothered Hinman (Atkins testimony, Subsequent Parole Consideration Hearing, State of California Board of Prison Terms, in the Matter of the Life Term Parole Consideration Hearing of Susan Atkins, CDC Inmate W-08340, July 20, 1978, 24–25).
3 They spent five days: Paul Whiteley testimony, California v. Robert Beausoleil (I), A-057452, 9; Ed Sanders, The Family, 3rd ed. (New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2002), 188.
4 a woman had been in his house: Bill Gleason (retired LASO), timeline of Hinman murder (provided by Gleason to author); author interview with Jay Hofstadter; Hofstadter testimony, California v. Charles Manson (for Hinman and Shea murders), A-267861, 4124; Richard Siegel testimony, ibid., 4345. Gleason’s timeline contains these entries:
7-26-69 and 7-27-69: Jay Hofstadter calls Hinman home, phone answered by Atkins; second call by Mary Brunner.
7-26-69 and 7-27-69: Richard Siegal calls Hinman, Atkins answers, speaks with English accent.
5 he had at least one accomplice: Gleason timeline; the applicable entry reads: 7-26-69: Dave Ewing knocks on front door of Gary Hinman’s home, Susan Atkins answers door carrying candle, said Hinman in Colorado. (He was being tortured at the time.)
In addition, according to documents in the LASO files, Ewing was a biker known as “preacher” who lived with Hinman in 1968 and knew the Family well. Ewing could have provided a physical identification of Atkins at the Hinman house during the period he was being tortured and murdered, but for reasons unknown he never testified in any of the Hinman murder trials. He refused to be interviewed for this book.
6 that led them to overlook Manson: Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter Skelter (New York: Norton, 1994), 113.
7 the two detectives did the right thing: Ibid., 62.
8 kept the Manson Family at large: Ibid.
9 arrest was for stolen vehicles: They were also charged with possession of stolen property, possession of illegal firearms (a sawed-off shotgun), and arson (they’d set fire to a federally owned earth-moving vehicle, a “Michigan Loader”). See “28 ‘Hips’ Nabbed in Death Valley, Goler Wash Raids,” Inyo [Calif.] Independent, Oct. 16, 1969, 1.
10 On August 16, 1969: Unless otherwise noted, all the information on the Spahn Ranch Raid is from the reports I obtained from the LASO files and from interviews with officers who participated in the raid, some of whom shared additional records from the raid, including its “operational plan.”
11 “It was the most flawlessly”: Author interview with John Kolman.
12 perhaps even sending undercover agents to investigate: Frank Salerno, a retired LASO narcotics detective, told me that LASO intelligence sent undercover agents wired with recording devices into the Spahn Ranch to purchase narcotics from Family members but were unsuccessful. Another retired detective, Gil Parra, who worked LASO intelligence and homicide, told me that when he started working intelligence in May 1969, the sheriffs already had “informants” planted at the ranch.
13 “on a misdated warrant”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 90.
14 Ellroy still hailed him: James Ellroy, My Dark Places (New York: Knopf, 1996), 217; the author also praised Guenther as the cop “who really broke the Charles Manson case” (ibid.).
15 “Same knife. Same wound”: In a phone conversation, Noguchi told me he “thinks” he remembers telling Guenther this but isn’t certain. He also said he was “surprised” when the LAPD announced two days after the LaBianca killings that the couple’s murders were committed by different perpetrators than the ones who killed the Tate victims.
16 Bugliosi had discredited it: Bugliosi, in his words, “demolished” the false scenario by exposing its many holes. Among those he listed: If Tate and LaBianca were to be a “carbon copy” of Hinman, why weren’t the words “Political Piggy” written at the Tate house, rather than just “Pig,” and why were there no paw prints like the ones left at Hinman’s? How did the words “Helter Skelter” on the LaBiancas’ refrigerator mimic the Tate or Hinman murder scene? (Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 586–87; author interview with Vincent Bugliosi).
17 No one in law enforcement: More than two dozen investigators, from both LASO and the LAPD, didn’t believe the Helter Skelter motive. Many of Bugliosi’s own colleagues at the DA’s office didn’t, either. Among those who said this on the record were: Aaron Stovitz, Bugliosi’s original coprosecutor, who told me he never believed the murders were committed for any other reason than to free Bobby Beausoleil; Burton Katz, who prosecuted two Family members (Beausoleil in his retrial for Hinman, and Grogan for the Shea murder), was certain it was a copycat, too, saying Bugliosi used Helter Skelter because he wanted “something sexy”; and Jeff Jonas, who appeared for the state against Beausoleil and Bruce Davis at parole hearings.
18 allegedly Linda Kasabian: In my interview with him, Beausoleil denied making any such phone call; Kasabian, through her family, turned down repeated requests for an interview.
19 “Pig” in blood: Atkins Testimony, Grand Jury, A253156, The People of the State of California v. Charles Manson, Charles Watson, aka Charles Montgomery; Susan Atkins, aka Sadie Mae Glutz; Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Sankston, Dec. 5, 1969.
20 on the wall at Hinman’s: Both Atkins and Beausoleil have taken credit for writing “Political Piggy” in Hinman’s blood at his house. It’s difficult to know which one actually did it (author interview with Bobby Beausoleil; Atkins testimony, Grand Jury, 69).
21 other journalists had sniffed around: Both Guenther and his partner Whiteley worked closely with Ed Sanders on his book The Family (their names appear in the acknowledgments). However, when I asked Sanders whether they’d ever told him about the tape and, if so, why he hadn’t written about it, Sanders said he’d heard only about the phone call, not that there had been a recording of it.
22 made sure that someone else did: It’s difficult to determine whether it was illegal in 1969 to tape an inmate’s call in the Los Angeles County jail without his or her knowledge. Some experts told me it was legal as long as the inmates were informed of the possibility, either verbally or by
posted notice. Others told me calls could be recorded only by court order.
23 magazine in June 1970: David Felton and David Dalton, “Charles Manson: The Incredible Story of the Most Dangerous Man Alive,” Rolling Stone, June 25, 1970, 28.
24 Tate–LaBianca murders were copycat crimes: Author interview with Aaron Stovitz.
25 “I heard it, yes,”: Author interview with Paul Whiteley.
26 they never even drove out there: Author interview with Guenther.
27 Reading through the transcript: Mae Brussell interview with Preston Guillory, “Assassination Dialogue,” KLRB News, tape 21, side 2, Nov. 17, 1971.
28 cache of firearms: Preston Guillory testimony, California v. Manson (Hinman/Shea), 9557; author interview with Guillory.
29 Manson’s lawlessness: Guillory testimony, California v. Manson (Hinman/Shea), 9585–86, 9598–99; author interview with Guillory.
30 Family toting machine guns: Paul Krassner, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counter-Culture (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 203; author interview with Guillory.
31 “Make no arrests”: Brussell interview with Guillory, side 1.
32 statutory rape: George Smith, County of Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Complaint 469-0084-1071-724, S: Charles Milles Manson, April 2, 1969; William C. Gleason, Affidavit in Support of and Petition for Search Warrant, State of California, County of Los Angeles, no. 2029, Aug. 13, 1969, 4.
33 running surveillance on the Spahn Ranch: Guillory testimony, California v. Manson (Hinman/Shea), 9584; Brussell interview with Guillory; author interview with Guillory.
34 cover sheets to protect: Ibid. (all).
35 “was just a local thing”: Brussell interview with Guillory.
36 cover its tracks after the murders: Ibid.
37 thinking the press: Ibid.; author interview with Guillory.