Episode 153 - The Inside Story Of The Manson Murders

[MUSIC] As they drove home in the early morning hours of August 10, 1969, a Los Angeles couple named Leno and Rosemary LaBianca stopped off to get gas and to pick up a copy of the Los Angeles Herald examiner. The new stand owner, who knew the LaBianca's, later remembered that the couple was disturbed by one of the stories that they saw in the paper. In fact, that story had disturbed everyone in the city and from there the entire country. It was the story of the gruesome murder of 26-year-old actress Sharon Tate and four others at her benedict Canyon home right nearby, which had occurred only the night before. Even without knowing the gory details of the homicide, details which would be endlessly dissected in the years to come, the couple was deeply unsettled by the news as they read it there the news stand on their way home. Perhaps the most unsettling thing of all was that Sharon Tate had been eight and a half months pregnant when she was killed, making her unborn son the sixth victim of the previous night's grizzly massacre. No one knew it then, but Tate and her companions had been murdered on the orders of a man named Charles Manson. It carries Mattacol Leader who had grand, delusional plans to incite a race war through a series of shocking murders. His followers, known as the Manson family, had gone to Tate's home with the instructions to do something witchy and gruesome, though they'd obeyed. Even using Tate's blood to write pig on her front door, Manson was unsatisfied with their work. And so the night after the Tate murders, Manson said them out again. By the time the La Bianca's left the news stand somewhere between 1 and 2 am and resumed driving the short distance to their home in the Lasfieldas neighborhood, the Manson family was out too, looking for their next victim. After weighing several options, they ended up at the La Bianca's home, where they would commit their necks and even more gruesome murder, this time with Manson himself involved. But who was Charles Manson? How did he assemble his family? And what did they actually believe? Today, we'll discuss Manson's background. His spateful move to the hate Ashbroon neighborhood of San Francisco during the summer of love, and his plan to incite a race war, which he believed would lead to his ascension as a second Christ figure. Finally, we'll discuss what came after the Tate La Bianca murders, the trial of Manson and his followers, and the theory that it's emerged in the year sense that he was, in fact, a subject of the CIA's top secret MK Ultra project, which, in part, aimed to test the potential of the drug, LSD. You're listening to History Uncovered, brought to you by the digital publisher All This Interesting, where we explore the untried corners of the natural world and the world past, and all of this interesting staff writer, Clean of Froggo. And I'm All This Interesting Staff writer, Austin Harvey. Today, we're delving into the Manson murders and revealing why the full story isn't what it might seem. Something light for Thanksgiving. That's right. Quick aside, I saw Fringenstein as we have discussed, and it was cool having done our Fringenstein podcast because there was a scene that was very much drawn from what we talked about. That was cool. Yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed it because it's not a very scary horror movie or anything, but it is. I mean, it deals with some macabre stuff, obviously. There were a couple scenes I had to close my eyes. It was just because of violence, but it wasn't too scary. No, I enjoyed it. Would recommend now I'm reading the book. How's the book, Sefer? It's good. I mean, it's a bit different. Yeah, sure. But not that different so far. Just the beginning is a bit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like written as like a letter. Anyway, Charles Manson. Not related to Fringenstein. Not related. I'm not really sure how I could connect those two things monsters, but gruesome violence. Yeah. Charles Manson. So I think most people may know the basic story of the Manson murders, but we're going to kind of get into who he was. Yeah, how things developed and ideas about it sense. So to start with the man himself, Charles Manson was actually born Charles Miles Maddox in 1934 to an unwed teenage mother. He never knew his biological father, who seemed to have basically skipped out on the family. His mother was an alcoholic and as a result, he spent a lot of time in his early life bouncing between different relatives. He also pretty quickly turned to sort of acting out. I guess would be the kind of way of putting it. Sure. Come on, I believe you're, but he was still a child at the time. He says that he said his school on fire at the age of nine, he claimed in an interview once. Right. Sure. I'm sure that's not verifiable, but yeah, I he told I think Barbara Walters that I'm presumably like after he was already notoriously in yeah for crime. He was in jailhouse interview. Yeah. I mean, there were other crimes that were better documented because at some point he was sent to this very strict and punitive, a goby school for boys in Indiana or on the age of 12 or 13. And basically from that point on, he was in and out of different reform schools, different prisons. He committed crimes ranging from car thefts to armed robberies and basically spent the next 20 years of his life in some sort of, yeah, prison or reform school. By the time he was released in 1967, Manson at this point, he went by Charles Manson, he'd taken one of his stepfather's last names, said he didn't want to leave the prison. He said, oh no, I can't go outside there. I knew that I couldn't adjust to that world. Not after all my life had been sent locked up and where my mind was free. So starting his, I think he's in his early 30s or about to be out in his early 30s at this point, and he is most of his life sort of underlocking key. So yeah, I mean, it would be hard to adjust. Yeah. Not not I was going to say to be fair to him. It's like I don't want to be fair. That's not the right word, but to his point, yeah, hard to adjust. And like clearly, as we know the story goes, he didn't. He did not know. He did not at all. Yeah. He instead moved to Berkeley and then San Francisco's hate Ashbury District, which at the time was sort of the heart of the hippie movement. He was also there during the summer of love in 1967. So there were a lot of a lot of hippies, a lot of ideas about free love and things like that and drug use. Interestingly, and we'll touch on a bit later, there's a theory that he may have crossed paths while there with a psychiatrist named Jolly West, who was employed by the CIA and was running tests on the capabilities of this new drug LSD. There's no proof that they actually were ever in the same room, but West worked at the hate Ashbury Free Medical Clinic and Manson regularly went there. So it's not impossible. Which is interesting. Having recently learned a bit more about hate Ashbury and sort of like the weird hippie community that popped up there. Yeah. It's interesting that the CIA psychiatrist was employed there. And then obviously we hinted at it, but like there's a lot of theories about like MK Ultron, the tests they were conducting at the time. Yeah. Right. Which we can get back to at the very end, but that's kind of like the seed of this theory is like maybe he crossed paths with this guy. During some stuff, the CIA was doing. So he is at this point 32. He begins to gain a following of much younger followers, mostly women. One follower was 14. Her name was Diane Lake. And she joined the family. And she recalled Manson had a growing group of women. We might have had a desire to have Charlie to ourselves. I know I did. But that was secondary. We were there to serve Charlie and we formed a sisterhood. So again, she's 14. He's 32. Yeah. And there's a gross power dynamic. There's a lot of drug use involved. Yeah. It's just I always just think it's it's fascinating with Manson in particular because what he talked about most of the time was not pleasant. Like it's not like he know that a lot of people at the time were talking about sort of the same things like anti-establishment, rhetoric. They would do drugs and enjoy the same music and free love was a big thing. And there was talks of like peace and anti-war sentiment. And all of that's very appealing and attractive. But Manson, Lumpton, like often very blatantly subjects that were just so counter to all of that. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think it was in a lot of ways. I mean, the flip side of the free love coin is that it was a really pretty dark time like the Vietnam War happening. The Kennedy assassination was just a few years earlier. So like that was nationally traumatic. Right. Yeah. So but like to your point, he sort of he talked about a lot of different things. His philosophy was a jumble of Scientology, hippie, anti-authoritism, Beatles lyrics, the book of Revelation and Hitler, so according to the New York Times. And they listened, but mostly he wanted to be famous. Like he wanted to be a famous musician. That was his goal. And he would send out his quote-unquote girls to meet famous musicians. He ultimately met a music teacher named Gary Hinman who will be a portant later, who introduced him to Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, and Wilson introduced Manson to Terry Melcher, who's a music producer, and the son of Doris Day, the actress, who showed some interest in Manson's music, but decided in the end not to work with him, perhaps very faithfully. Yeah. It makes you wonder one of the it's like one of those questions like, oh, what if Hitler got into art school would he have perceived politics and Matson had gotten a record deal with him. He probably would have, 'cause he was insane. - Who knows? - And more influence might have been bad for him, but yeah, again, it's one of those kind of famous what-if scenarios. - He might have had a different kind of cults. Like who knows? - Right. - Yeah. (dramatic music) - In any case, Matson and his followers eventually even moved in with Wilson of the Beatois, but in 1968, they had a falling out because the Matson family allegedly robbed and ransacked his home and totaled his Mercedes and he can you kick them out. - It sounds right. - Yeah. - Sounds on par for that. - Right. So they moved to Span Ranch, infamous site now, which at the time was a former Western movie filming site outside of Los Angeles. And there they were isolated from society. So I should imagine it would be even easier to kind of mold people or give people loyal to you as a whole leader. And he had about 10 to 15 family members there on Span Ranch. Life there was communal, outwardly idyllic. Members remember communal living, dumpster diving, caring for horses and chickens, getting together to sing songs. There were also a lot of orgies, a lot of drugs. - Sure, yeah. Lake, the 14 year old were called, LSD was given out like a sacrament or sacrament. We took turns taking each other's clothes off in a circle. Matson orchestrated all of it. He even arranged the partners. So he's someone who's controlling like everything of the drug use, even who people are hooking up with. - Right. Yeah. It's all just an ego thing. - Yeah. He did not tolerate people who stood up to him or disobeyed him. And if they did, he would beat them or, or isolate them even further by forbidding them from leaving the ranch. Despite this, people remained very loyal and they were made, they included people who will talk about more coming up. But some of the followers were Mary Bruner, Bobby Bosole, Susan Atkins, Charles D. Tex, Watson, Patricia Kernwinkle, Leslie Van Hootin, Linda Kazabian, Steve, Clem Grogon and Lynette Squeaky from who, infamously tried to kill President Ford. That's a point later. Yeah. - Lots of violence being purported. I always, it's just, there's something like bitterly humorous about the fact that like, like Charles Menns goes, and by the way, you're not allowed to leave this farm. And someone just goes, okay, I guess I'm not. Like I know it's just, it's the years of manipulation and the handing out love and then taking it away and the care and the stick. But it is like, you actually can, like, there's nothing that this guy has that is actually keeping you there, but it just goes to speak to the sort of like mental manipulation that he was able to do. - Right, and a lot of them were pretty young when they joined up with him. - Sure, and I'm sure a lot of them had similarly some altruist backgrounds that led them down a certain way. - Right. And I don't know how easy it was actually to go from span ranch to like LA. - Well, that's a good point. Yeah, I guess I don't know the geographical layout of those. - It might have been a bit challenging. In any case, they're all there, willing we are not. And then in November, 1968, the Beatles White album comes out, which of course is a classic of rock music, but Manson's also been a bit different than most of us on that album. He thought or he allegedly thought that it was sending him messages about a race war. He saw messages in songs like Blackbird, Piggy's, and Helter's Shelter. Maybe that's most famous when he saw messages in, which he believed for told a coming race war. According to Lake, Manson saw the Beatles as four profits in himself as the second coming of Christ. - Ah. - Not great. - Christ famously for race wars. - Yeah. Right. - He was very racist. He preached to his followers that there would be this race war that Black forces would triumph over white forces, but they would be unable to govern themselves. And the Manson family protected in the desert would survive. And then the Black winners, victories, I guess, would turn to them for leadership. So that was the idea of what this would go. - He said a lot of really nasty stuff about Black people, like to paint them as savage and rapists just lots of really gross rhetoric. - Sounds like he's describing himself. - Yeah, it's a projection. - Yeah. One of his followers said that it was up to them to incite the race war. And he reportedly sought to do this through a number of shocking murders, which they could then blame on groups like the Black Panthers. These murders then began in the summer of 1969. I think most people know about the murder of Sharon Tate and her friends, but-- - Sure, famously depicted in "Mots of Part of Time" in Hollywood a few years ago. - Right. It think started a bit earlier than that. On July 27th, 1969, he ordered his followers to kill Gary Hinman. The music teacher he'd met a few years earlier, according to Susan Atkins, they were sent to demand money. Bobby Bosele says, said later that he went to see Hinman, who knew the Manson family because Hinman had sold them bad drugs and Bosele wanted his money back. So he and Atkins and Mary Bruner drove to Hinman's house and they tortured him for three days. At one point, Manson joined and sliced Hinman across the face with a sword and told Bosele he'd done it to show Bosele how to be a man. Bosele then stabbed Hinman in the chest when he asked them to get him medical help that this killed him and he and the others wrote political piggy on the wall in Hinman's blood, as well as a Panther paw, apparently, you know, trying to direct this blame towards the Black Panthers. Sure. Now I don't know, but we're the Black Panthers known to spray paint Panther paws on things as like a. I don't know, but leaving it in blood seems like a pretty. Why would you do that? That would lead the police right to you. Well, sure. Yeah. And it's also just that this wasn't like a Black Panther M.O. They weren't doing this. Right. It just feels so obviously like a set up. Right. Like a man said, I guess, was counting on the fact that the Black Panthers were already like surveilled and disliked by authorities. And in any case, Lake said that this is when things started getting really dark. She said, "This is when things started getting really dire. I mean, really murderous." And Manson allegedly told his father where after Hinman's death, that now is a time for Helter Sculter. Right. Which was the name. That was what he called his race for. Yeah, that's the beautiful song. That's the "Helter Sculter." Which I never really thought too much about what it was about, but as I was reading stuff for this podcast, I guess it's about going up and down a slide. It's like pretty. It's really not. Yeah. Anything. Just Paul being. I don't know. In any case, a couple of weeks later on August 9, 1969, this is when the most infamous Manson murders occur. Manson sends his followers to 10050 Celio Drive. Which is an elegant home set high in the hills of Beverly Hills Benedict Canyon. The house had been occupied by Terry. Terry Melcher. Melcher. He was this music producer who had passed on Manson's. Right. careers musician. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like he was out for petty revenge or being slided. It's actually a bit unclear because people think he actually knew that Melcher had moved out at that point. Like, he had gone to the house. He had seen Sharon Tate. So, he probably knew that Melcher wasn't there anymore. And it might have been more he was striking out what the house sort of represented. Sure. Yeah. Is this speculation, but who knows what was happening? Like, in that guy's mind. Yeah. So, on the 9th of August 9th, Charles, Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Crenwinkel and Linda Cazavien drove to the house. Tate was there. She's 26 years old, eight months pregnant. And she's there with three friends. JC Bring, Abigail Folger, the coffee, Eris, and Voicech Frickowski. There was also an 18-year-old on the property named Stephen Parent. He had the bad luck of being there because he was visiting the home's caretaker. He was completely unrelated otherwise to the people in the house. Move. Yeah. Talk about bad timing. Manson said, according to Watson, that they were instructed to kill everybody in the house as gruesome as they could. The Watson also recalled that Manson had said something about movie stars living there. So this was supposed to be one of their like shocking murders. As Susan Atkins later testified, they broke into the house. They shot Parent. They found Frickowski asleep on the couch when he asked Watson what they were doing there. Watson intimately responded, "I am the devil and I'm here to do the devil's business." Yeah. Manson, well, I mean, I'll bring it up later too, but I said a very similar thing during his trial. Mm. Yeah. Manson was not there at this point. Like he apparently sent these people in, but yeah. So they gathered all their victims in the living room. They put a rope around sea-bring snake and tape-snack and stabbed sea-bring seven times and shot him once. Folger was stabbed 28 times and purportedly cried, while being stabbed. I'm already dead. Mm. Frickowski was shot twice, bludgeoned in the head 13 times and stabbed 51 times. So this was like a pretty brutal, like bloody murder. Yeah, visceral, geez. She's a sweet, reportedly bagged for her baby. baby's life. She asked to let them keep her as a hostage. The baby could be born, but the killer's stabbed her 16 times and they strung her and she bring up by the neck from the rafters. Tate was still alive at this point, but she probably died from bleeding out not from hanging and the baby died as well. Yes. Yeah, really grew some. Actkins later testified that she had killed Tate, stating, she said, please don't kill me and I told her to shut up and I threw her down on the couch. She said, please let me have my baby. Then text came in and he said, kill her and I killed her. I just stabbed her and she fell and I stabbed her again. I don't know how many times. I don't know why I stabbed her. So like, yeah, horrible, awful because they had been instructed to do something witchy. Actkins then wrote pig on the front door and Tate's blood. They also said later that they may be written pigs sort of take the blame away from Bosele who had been caught by this point and they'd also written something about pigs at Hinman's murder. Right. So the act of being the like, oh, there's this very similar murder over here. It's not the guy that we have in custody. Exactly. Lake said that the killer is later bragged about the murders and that Watson showed her a newspaper about them saying he said, she said that he said, I did this. Charlie told me to, but Charles Manson allegedly thought that the Tate murders have been slobally done. So he said, we're going to go out and like kill some more people. Cheese. Yeah. No appeasing this guy. No. And this is they call it the Tate La Bianca murders because there was, yeah, the second homicide that occurred the very next day on August 10th, early in the morning, this Los Angeles couple named Leno and Rosemary La Bianca made their way to their home in the Los Filos neighborhood of Los Angeles. After dropping off Leno's daughter, Rosemary goes to bed, Leno stayed up reading the sports section. I mentioned this in the intro, but sort of like the eerie thing about this is on their way home. They got a newspaper and they read about the Tate murders and they were both like really shaken by it. They had no idea that like this was going to happen to them. The same thing. Well, especially because like the Tate murder was so high profile too. I think there's definitely like that unsettling like, oh God. Right. That wasn't far from here. That's really scary, but we're not famous people like we're not anybody. So we're probably fine. Exactly. It is sort of unknown why they were chosen as victims on the night of their murder. Charles Manson was with his followers and they were kind of driving around looking for a place. Apparently he apparently talked about maybe killing a priest or a stranger who's car stopped next to their car. And he ultimately may have chosen the La Bianca house because it was near a house where Manson family said it ended a party once owned by a guy named Harold True whose name does not come up again. But maybe he just knew the neighborhood like unclear. Right. Yeah. That is a eerie. Yeah. I don't like the like maybe we'll just kill the guy if his car stops next to us like that is that's like a worst fear sort of like right. One and a million probably not going to happen, but it might just total. Yeah chaos randomness, which is what they wanted to do. Right. Yeah. So first Manson and Watson and Dr. The House, they tell the La Bianca's they were not there to hurt them that they only wanted to rob them. Then Manson left and he told the women waiting in the car outside Patricia, Crinwinkle and Leslie Van Hootin, did her the house and killed occupants. So then Crinwinkle and Van Hootin come into the house. They go to Rosemary who is in the bedroom and Watson is with Leno Watson stabs Leno the neck sort of kind of eerily similar to I'm Folger. Leno says don't stab me anymore. I'm dead. I'm dead. Yeah. Rosemary. Here's this commotion, you know, quickly realizes they're not just robbing them and tries to fight back. Van Hootin holds her down and Crinwinkle stabs her with a knife they found in the kitchen. And then I've been Watson brings them another one and ultimately Rosemary La Bianca stabbed 41 times to death. Wow. Another pretty horrible bloody crime scene which I think it's worse. I can't imagine stabbing somebody once. Right. Like let alone, I mean, that's a lot of that's a profound statement I just made. 41 times be stabbed is a lot of times. It's a lot. I remember reading with the Idaho college murders, like they were stabbed a lot. And it, like it's like, it takes like a lot of rage to do that. Yeah. So Leno, La Bianca stabbed 12 times still a lot of times. And the killer is carved war into his abdomen and left a carving fork sticking out of his stomach. The killer then used their blood to write rise and death to pigs as well as Helter Skelter, although they spelled it wrong on the walls. Amateur. Then Manson gave Rosemary La Bianca's wallet to one of his followers and told her to drop it in a black neighborhood. She instead left it in a gas station bathroom. She actually hid it in a gas station bathroom and it wasn't found for several months. So it's not really interesting. Was that she hide it thinking, oh, someone will find it here? Was that like a weird moment of sort of clarity where she is? Maybe kind of unclear. She did it ultimately testify against him. It's Linda Kazbian. So I don't know. But after this murder, they also killed one more person, a Hollywood stuntman named Donald Jerome Shea, who went by shorty several weeks later. And it's possible they killed a lot more, but like it, we don't know Vincent Boglioci is the prosecutor in the Manson trials later said they had plans to kill Sinatra, Liz Taylor, folks like that. They were going to travel around the country and murder families in American homes. It was their religion. They enjoyed killing. But this plan did not last very long because in the autumn Susan Atkins is jailed on an unrelated charge and she breaks to her cellmates about the murder, which turns on the authorities to mans it. Right. Yeah. It is interesting that this, we'll call it a cult formed around this guy's personality. And it was like he wants a new musician. And they're like, we just like doing drugs and kind of sleeping with around and living communally and somehow that just evolves into like, I mean, some of the most horrifying murders that have ever happened in this country. Right. Yeah. And in a pretty short amount of time too. It's pretty crazy what cult behavior does to people. Like it really is sort of like a brainwashing or brain resetting or something. Yeah. There's something psychologically funky happening there. But anyway, getting into the trial. So as you mentioned, Atkins starts bragging to her cellmate about this, which also just speaks to the psychology here. That then leads to text Watson being arrested on November 30th, 1969. And that that evolved into a month's long fight where he was trying not to be extra guided to California for about nine months initially in December in return for a promise of immunity atkins, then repeated hers, retelling of this story to a grand jury implicating man's and the others. She did eventually repudiate that testimony though. At which point they went to Linda Xabian offered her immunity and that probably ended up being better for them because she she wasn't really a part of the killings at least in like a direct sense of she didn't do any of the stabbing. And so having her as a witness might have actually played to their benefit because she's a more empathetic figure in the story. It only took 20 minutes of deliberations for the grand jury to return murder indictments against Manson Watson, currently, go atkins, cassadian and Vanhouton. The main trial of them again in June of 1970 to say it was chaotic as an understatement. It was in mid June. It started off problematic already. The judge was Charles Older who is at the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles. They had an incredibly hard time picking the jury. It took five weeks because the case was so notorious, like worldwide. I mean, everyone was talking about it. So it's hard to find an unbiased jury. I truly don't know how they managed to find it unbiased jury. Right. People don't follow the news, I guess. Yeah. It had to have been just people who were like totally like, whoa, what? Yeah. They ended up just combining the tape, lobbyon com murders, which is kind of why we talk about them the same breath because it was like within a day and was clearly the same people. Linda Cassadian served as the main witness for the prosecution. Prosecutor Vince Baville O. C's opening statement began on July 24th in which he basically just recounted all of the events about murders. He made it clear that Manson was the family's undisputed leader and the orchestrator of the murders. Then Manson's testimony also began that same day. And he immediately made a spectacle. He arrived in court with an ex scratched into his forehead. Mm hmm. Issued a statement that he was quote, considered inadequate and incompetent to speak or defend himself and had exed himself from the establishment's world. Basically just sort of rebelling and being very petty and angry about the fact that he was not allowed to serve as his own lawyer. I'm sure this did not help his case all that much with the judge or the public for sure. No. I mean, they did he wanted to be a representative of the zone attorney. They said, no, basically because he his behavior. I mean, he was such a unhinged psychopath. Yeah. But it almost is like maybe he could have I wouldn't have made a difference if he had served as a zone lawyer. He's not presenting himself well regardless. Right. But maybe there was some concern that because he had formed this cult that he had some magic way with words. Hmm. Interesting. He could be like, pervasive or. Yeah, speculative on my. and that maybe people, they were worried that he'd be like too charming or convincing, but clearly he's not going that route anyway. - Mm-hmm. - Throughout the course of that trial, which lasted from the summer of 1970, spring '91, it was just a complete circus. And it did nothing to paint the Manson family in good light. Not that they were painted in a good light prior to this anyway, given the gruesome nature of the murders, but it wasn't like then they appeared in court and people were like, "How could it have been those harmless hippies?" - Right. - It was like, "Oh my God, these people are certifiably insane." - Yeah. - "In solidarity with Manson, the other members would carve. X's in their foreheads, they shave their heads, blocked entrances to the court house. They disrupted proceedings by chanting and singing and kind of just treated the trial. Like it was to the amusement park. Like they didn't really seem to take it seriously." - Yeah, you can see even in photos of them, the women all dressed the same like looking the same with, I guess before they shaved their head, but long, dark hair and smiling. And yeah. - Yeah, it's just, yeah. And like outside the court house, the ones who weren't on trial, but were still a part of the following were like praying basically to Manson. And they really tried the, court officials tried their hardest to like prevent Manson from influencing the jury in any way, but they almost had to just basically call a retrial. On August 4th, he caused a scene by walking in with a copy of an LA Times front page with the big bullet headline, Manson guilty Nixon declares, which jurors initially contended they said it did not influence them. But for some reason, the next day, the female, oh, sorry, the next day, the female defendants all basically said in unison, there was no point in going on with the trial in like Nixon's remarks. So just again, trying to be like, sorry, they were swayed by something outside this courtroom. They were like Nixon said it, they saw that so we can't go on with the trial. It, yeah, it's just incident after incident with these. On October 5th, Manson attempted to question a prosecution witness who had not been cross-examined by his attorneys, which he was of course denied the ability to do because he was not representing himself. And he's, I mean, you're the defendant, you don't get to go, I want to ask questions. - Right, yeah. - Like that's your lawyer's job. He was mad at his lawyers. When the judge was like, hey, you can't do that. He leapt over the defense table and attempted to attack the judge. After that, he and his, he and the female defendants were removed from the courtroom. They all began chanting in Latin, novemberals around their defense attorney, their initial defense attorney, Ronald Hughes goes on a weekend camping trip during a 10-day recess. Disappears, just doesn't come back. - Was he ever found? - No, he was like, I'm done with this. - Yeah, no, no, he was, yeah, no, they found him. - Okay. - But yeah, I mean, at this point in time in November, 1970, no one really knows what happens. They brought in Maxwell Keith to represent Van Halton and Hughes absence. That delayed the trial another two weeks because he had to now familiarize himself with like these mountains of transcripts from court when the trial finally resumed. Prosecution prepared to make its closing argument. They were constantly interrupted by the defendants to the point where Manson and his followers had to just be banned from the courtroom for the remainder of the guilt phase. The judge was basically just like, it was so obvious they were trying to put on a performance. They were just trying to cause chaos. They were trying to get attention. It didn't, like they weren't here to defend themselves. January 15th, 1971, jury retired to deliberate after closing arguments and jury instructions. It for some reason took them nine days after which they returned guilty verdicts against all four defendants on each of the 27 separate counts against them. - Wow. And that's why it took so long because there were so many counts. - Yeah, that's probably what it was was just determining which ones are we gonna say. Yeah, that one they are guilty. They, I mean, kudos to them for being thorough. I suppose. - Yeah, I suppose. - I don't think it would take me that long. - Right. - Yeah, but yeah, in the end, they, yeah, they were like guilty on all counts. Under California law, a second trial for penalty phase before the same jury then began to determine the sentencing with Atkins, Van Halten and Crenemunkel at this point, they're trying to absolve man's and of any involvement. They're trying to be like, "Actually, no, he had nothing to do with it." Again, despite his incredibly erratic behavior throughout all of this. And then again, he didn't help himself in any regard here. Partway through this part of it, he shaved his head and then trimmed his beard to have like a fork shape and told the press, "I am the devil." And the devil always has a bald head. - Yikes. - Foof. - So, yeah, again, we're really just not, it's like, it's clear that he doesn't care that he's coming across incredibly guilty. Then in March, they find Hughes badly decomposed body right between two boulders in Ventura County. And it was never confirmed, but I mean, obviously rumors circulated that the family had him killed somehow, some way. - That was pretty weird to say. Like, I guess he just fell as the. - That's probably the, that's the, the we didn't do it, explanation is that he was hiking or climbing or whatever and he fell and couldn't get out. But the fact that Manson was obviously unhappy with the way Hughes being represented in court. - Right. - Yeah, obvious what happened. Later, that same month, on the 29th, the jury finally returned those verdicts. They returned verdicts of death. They were all for the death penalty. On all four defendants, on all counts. As the clerk read the verdict, Manson, he basically tried to do that like sovereign citizen thing where he was like, "You people have no authority over me." Patricia Crenlinkold declared to the jury and to the judge, "You have judged yourselves." Susan Atkins reportedly told them, "Better lock your doors and watch your kids." And then, Leslie went out and complained that the whole system is a game. - Wow, yeah, circus is right. - Yeah, just absolute chaos. April 19th, judge, odor, sentences, the Florida death, Tex Watson, he had entirely separate trial because he was just arrested in different circumstances. He had been admitted to a Tascadero State Hospital for a 90-day evaluation period when he first arrived in California because he entered a catatonic state. He was there until February 1971, at which one he was then deemed fit to stand trial. On October 21st, 1971, he was convicted on eight counts of first degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. A week later, the jury was much quicker. They took only two and a half hours to determine that he was sane and he was sentenced to death on October 21st, 1971. December 13th, a separate trial takes place after the date La Bionca convictions for Manson, in which he was then convicted of first degree murder for the deaths of Gary Hinman and Donald Shea. In 1972, though, there was a wrinkle thrown into all of this because the California Supreme Court declared that the state's death penalty was unconstitutional. So all four convictions were then commuted to life in prison. And I just have a little like, where are they now, situation? So 1976, Van Halton was granted a new trial in light of the mid trial disappearance of her initial attorney, but she was just convicted again in 1978. To this day, Tex Watson is still serving his life sentence. He's been denied parole 18 times and he'll be eligible again for it next year. But even if he's granted parole, Gavin Newsom is gonna have to approve that and he's repeatedly not approved them. - Yeah, he must be like at least 70 years old at this point, 70 or 80. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were all around like, yeah, 75 to 80 years old. Patricia Crener-Winkle was granted parole at a hearing just this year, May 30th, 2025. She had spent 55 years in prison. That recommendation was reviewed by Gavin Newsom and denied just last month. - Wow. Bobby Bussalay was also recommended for parole back in January. Newsom also reversed that recommendation at the beginning of May. Bruce Davis received a three year parole denial on August 8th of last year, 2024. Leslie Van Halden was actually released from prison, up settingly on July 11th, 2023, which is my birthday. - Oh. - And I did not ask for that. - Yeah, excuse me. - She had spent 53 years in custody. Steve Grogon received parole in 1985 after he told authorities location of Shays remains. The net from was granted parole in 2009 after serving 34 years, not for any of this, but as you mentioned, for trying to kill Gerald Ford. - Yeah, I think two people tried to kill Gerald Ford. They're both women. - I think so. - Yeah. - Charles Manson died in prison November 18th, 2017. And Susan Atkins also died. But hers was from brain cancer in 2009. She had also been denied parole more than a dozen times. - I wonder why Van Halden was released. Maybe because she was less of a, how do remember did she actively kill someone or she just at the scene? - That is a good question. Or sorry, Leslie Van Halden. Well, a couple, it seems like the parole boards have frequently been like, yeah, this person's eligible and nuisance shut it down more recently, but hers, he didn't for some reason. - Hmm. - So I'm not yeah. - I guess, I mean, I guess there's an argument of like, the people were in their 20s. They were brainwashed maybe on drugs. Like, I guess you could make an argument. but it seems, I don't know, it's so hard, like they've such a horrible brutal set of homicides. - Brutal. Yeah. I mean, like, we were, yeah, stabbing more than 1000 times and up to 41, up to a pregnant woman and stringing her up. But like, these are not just like, I don't know, he told me to stab him, so I stabbed him once and then I freaked out. - Right. - And I spent my entire life regretting that. I mean, I'm sure, maybe they do regret it. Presumably they do if they were granted parole. But yeah, it is curious why hers was not overturned but the other ones were. - Maybe she showed more remorse. - Related article John Waters was saying they should be free. Disagree John. - Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. It just seems like they represent something that should be probably punished. - Yeah. - Yeah. I think the interesting thing about this whole case is the question of Charles Manson's guilt because he was not actually never, he sliced Gary Hemens face with a sword, other than that, he was not at any of these scenes. - Right. - So the others say, and there's some theories about this. Basically that as we sort of mentioned, Hinnman's murder was related to drugs and that the Tate Lobbianca murder is words to draw suspicion away from Bosedale. So maybe it wasn't like planned, I guess, is the point of that of like, it was like one thing that did with another and. - Yeah, yeah. And Atkins didn't initially mention Manson as part of this, but it was like kind of in the conversation, they were like, "Hmm, kinda sounds like the orders were coming from." - Yeah, Charles Manson. - There's only a several conversation. She said she guessed he had ordered the killings, which then led them to Manson, but she was highly motivated at this point to blame someone else because her interrogators were talking about the gas chamber and offering her immunity. - Right. - And she also said that ultimately, Manson had told her to follow Watson's instructions, which is not, that's a little bit different. - But also it seems like maybe he relayed the instructions just to Watson. - Right, well then it's like, well, what, where was Watson and all this? And Watson said he was like just so high on LSD, he was like a robot. The drugs made his victim. He was on a lot of different drugs, but the drugs made his victims seem like imaginary people. He said as we drove along, I could hear Charlie's voice in my head, computing what he had said, every movement, go up to the house, kill them, cut them up, hang them on the mirrors. I mean, I guess there's an argument there of like, this was Watson, he was having delusions that Manson told him something. - Yeah, I mean, it's just so hard to make that argument than when Manson shows up in court and is the way he is. And you're like, well. - Right. - You're not really portraying yourself as an innocent man in this situation and you don't seem to care. - Yeah. - Then you might spend life in prison. I think he probably didn't, 'cause I think he was like, I'm famous. Everyone was my name. We're doing the podcast about him. - It seems like he could have been like, okay guys, everyone say that I'm innocent and if they were so brainwashed, they would have just do that. - And he, I mean, I wouldn't argue he doesn't have blood on his hands because even if he didn't do the stabbing, he created the environment that led to it and manipulated people. - But there is an argument maybe in his distorted vision of reality where he goes, my hands are clean. - Right. - Like I didn't actually kill these people. Yeah, I made it happen, but like I didn't do it and everybody knows who I am. So I win. - Right. It depends on just who you believe because then there are people saying, well, he had this plan of like these murders would lead to this race war and that he was preaching about what that would mean for them. But yeah, I think one of the most interesting, maybe controversial theories about all this is that it was somehow connected to the CIA. I learned to this project chaos, which was searching basically looking for links between anti-war and civil rights activists and for entities that somehow they were involved with Manson that they wanted Americans to fear the block panther. So like maybe Manson was science somehow to spread the sphere. - Apache, who was like influenced through the MK Ultra Mind Control Program to whether or not he had been racist before that or not, I mean, they were monitoring the black panthers so intensely. - Right. - That like maybe in this criminal, this guy who had 30 something years of criminal history, violent criminal history as well, to be like he doesn't have a family, he isn't anyone who is gonna know if we mess with his mind, let's break him, let's try and get him to instigate these violent attacks to ultimately bring about what he wanted, which was the Helter Skelter race war. - Yeah. - That it would have been more use him as the scapegoat to have an excuse to take down the black panthers. That's the theory. - Right, he was some tool. And the idea that MK Ultra that he was trained by the CIA to give his followers LSD so they would kill on command. Like this was like the Mind Control part of a project, I guess. Yeah, the book I guess that comes up often is by Tom O'Neill called Chaos Charles Manson, the CIA and Secret History of the 60s, which I have not read. - I believe there was also a Netflix series, maybe early this year, that does as well. Yeah, I think it's an interesting angle and I'm not one to like trust the government. So, but I also don't wanna feed that theory too much one because it's relatively unsubstantiated. And again, I didn't read the book. So maybe I don't know all of the potential evidence there. I did write an article about it. I looked into it a good bit. There's nothing substantial enough there. It's a lot of like circumstantial things like the doctor happened to be at the free clinic in Manson's bed all over. But Manson wasn't the only hippie going to the Hadesbury free clinic. I mean, everyone was going there. - Yeah, but he was the only one who became this cold leader. - But maybe that's less, maybe that's evidence in favor of the non-conspiratory argument. There were so many people going there and only Manson turned out that crazy. - Right. - And like, yeah, MK Ultra was like a real program that was actually happening and it was, I mean, they were hoping to do like full on mind control and also maybe like unlock telepathic powers. Obviously the latter of those things did not work, but they did ultimately conclude that, yeah, somebody uttered the influence of an extreme psychedelic is able to be influenced very easily. - Oh, the jump to like violent, like I think about like Ken Keese and the Mary Prankster who were like on probably more LSD than the Manson family. And they were just like driving around a bus like they weren't hurting anyone. - Right, or you can read all this Huxley's account of taking, I don't think it was LSD, but it was something very, very close. A psychedelic chemical in Heaven and Hell. And the door's a perception. That's what, in the door's a perception, he writes about his experience. He's kind of like live journaling his experience on psychedelics. And there's nothing about it inherently that was like violent. So, but the Manson had a history of violence. - Uh-huh. - It was clearly charismatic enough to at least attract these young followers who listened to his word like it was gospel when he preached and he was a violent racist. - Right. - I mean, he associated himself with swastika imagery. He talked about Hitler favorably, and it was only 20 years since World War II came to an end. - Right, yeah. - So, to take that and have a bunch of young people who were on these drugs, where they're in a state to be highly influenced. And it sounds like they were on the drugs when they were doing the killing as well. - Mm-hmm. - And it's really not hard to imagine that they were like, well, I don't know Charlie, talk me into it. It's a little bit more of a leap to be like, and that was all a CIA plan. - Plus, I feel like if the CIA, I guess, I mean, I don't know if it's like giving the CIA like too much credit for them to be like, well, we're gonna do this very complicated. We're gonna change minds about the Black Panthers through like, I don't know, brainwashing. We're gonna do the psychological trick. Like, I feel like if they wanted something done, they would do, they might do something else. - Yeah, man's also put in a huge liability. - Right, yeah. - 'Cause like, yeah, you're like, maybe he, maybe he doesn't cite the eye or towards the Black Panthers that you want it, but like, I mean, the guy was on hand, just and he committed some very violent crimes. I feel like if, this is where like the conspiracy brain kicks in, if the CIA had been involved, I feel like they would have picked targets for him as well. - Hmm. - And like, the first two people that were killed by his followers are people that he had petty grievances with in the past. Whether henmans was over drugs or not, that's a very petty thing to brutally kill a person over. - Right. - And then, well, Nelture was the previous tenant of this home. And he had petty grievances with Nelture as well. Now whether he knew that Nelture wasn't there anymore, I mean, we don't know, that's a debate. - Mm-hmm. - But those two being some of the targets and then them being like, I don't know, maybe we'll pick some random people like a priest. If you're the CIA, you're like, maybe we have like, specific people. And if I'm the kind of person who thinks the CIA had JF, K killed or Malcolm X, they were picked for a reason. Why would the CIA be like, I don't know, just killed whoever you want. - Right. And it hadn't been taped. If it had been like, Melture and henman and maybe the lobbyonka is like, that would have been horrifying. But it wouldn't probably have been like, the spectacle that it was because she was this young, beautiful actress, she was pregnant, like it was a mass murder. Right. But it's not like the black panthers had any beef with Sharon Tate. Right. Yeah. Well, like it's like the system you could argue is like they're going up against the. Right. But I'm just saying like the black panthers, there were people they actively spoke out against. So again, I'm just saying if I'm the CIA guy who's trying to get Charles Manson to kill people, I'm going to be like maybe pick one of the people the black panthers hate. So the week and then say look how violent they are. They've talked about this guy before, not random Hollywood actress who is unaffiliated with any of their stuff. I guess the idea is like you would be just the chaos of it is supposed to be frightening. Frightening enough that people are going to fight back against it because they don't know who's next. And right. Yeah. Which I think was Manson's idea. Yeah. Like that was his plan for sure. As a CIA operation, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It seems pretty messy. Plus it doesn't like I don't know, but it doesn't really seem like leaving this paw print made anyone really think it was the black panthers. No. That's what I mean. I was like I was like an assemble that would have been associated with it. Was that connection clear enough to people? Right. And then yeah, I don't know. I just make there were a lot of holes in this in that plan. Like okay, even they thought it was the black panthers like okay, like what how I don't know right what comes next. There's a lot of holes in a plan that feels more like it was somebody on a lot of drugs coming up with it rather than like some operative who presumably had training and like past intelligence exams and. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have to think it was a combination of their the killers like their youth and the drugs and everything that made them so vicious. But yeah. Like what Tex Boston said about people seemed imaginary sort of I that's sort of fits with how brutal the crimes were if you. Yeah. Don't see your victims as actual people. Right. I mean, it's the argument that people like to try and make about video game violence. Right. That they think that like oh, because you can kill people in video games and they're not real and someone can become desensitized to that and view people in real life as unreal and to be fair, there are people who have that mentality who've gone on to do horrific crimes. But it's also not like I play I play video games my entire life. I'd never committed a violent crime. Right. So that like the connection doesn't work. What like really happens is someone's psychologically broken in some way, whether that's through significant abuse and drugs that are melting your mind and you're like, I don't know, I stabbed her 60 times. They kind of felt like I was just punched in a pillow or something. Yeah. That all tracks for me much more. Yeah. That's a weird story. Yeah. I can't even imagine like living through it. I know that there's a famous Joan Diddy in quote where she's like, this was the end of the 60s. Basically, these murders. I mean, kind of yeah, the summer of love was 67 and then after that, the whole counterculture movement kind of was like, hey, like hate Ashbury was overcrowded. The Manson murders definitely painted that movement in a bad light. And I think people were disillusioned and then we're you know, Vietnam. And then you go from Vietnam to the water gate scanning. It's a bad time in American history. Definitely. Yeah. And like drugs like, you know, LSD, like our changing sort of like culture. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of curious to read the book, the cast book, but it's not too high on my list, to be honest. Yeah. Charles Manson. There's just like so much in this story. Obviously, we'd been talking forever. But yeah. Yeah. Well, we did we did warn that this was going to be a bit of a doozy of an episode. And we could I mean, this could even be longer. Like there's so much more we could talk about these followers and where they came from and oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could have been an entire series. I just be mentally taxing. Yeah. Even this, but sort of, I mean, I would when I was writing part of the outline earlier this week, it's kind of like, whoof, like this is just such upsetting content. I know. And normally I like, I make jokes throughout the episode. So I was like, I don't know where I've where one fits in here. No, it's a lot just pretty horrible. Yeah. I mean, the the chaos series and book and like that probably could have been could be its own thing as well. If if anyone's more interested in hearing more about that, because I do think maybe even just broader MK Ultra as a thing. Yeah. These interesting to talk about. I've mentioned it before I've talked about a lot of conspiracy theorists and fast and sometimes they're kooky and sometimes they're dangerous. But I think, yeah, I think this is one of those instances where maybe I think maybe it's a little bit silly in light of how dark the actual story is. I think the only thing that stood out to me about the conspiracy theory was just like as we've mentioned this clinic where they both were. Like that is like, you're kind of like, hmm, it's interesting, but everything else is very speculative. Yeah. I think our next episode is much lighter. It will be. Yeah. We were like, well thanksgiving will put out this really dark one. Yeah. To listen to while you cook. Yeah. Yeah. He drives your parents house. Yeah. But for Christmas, we're just going to do the one in December because it's a busy time of year and then we're off work. And but yeah, we'll be talking about the history of the Christmas tree, which is actually far more interesting than it. Maybe it initially sounds like it would be there's a lot of like pagan traditions. And a fun like sort of way of like Christian propaganda creeping into old world traditions and how that has led to modern tradition. I think it's a very interesting topic. I hope everyone else does too. That's what we're talking about next time. So if that sounds interesting, stay tuned. Subscribe if you haven't subscribed. Be sure to rate the show. If you enjoy it, follow us on social media. Check out all about, I mean, we have a million articles about the Manson. We do. The Manson family. The Manson murders about Sharon Tate about Charles Manson himself about many of his followers about the conspiracy theory. So if you want to read more into any of this stuff, go to allvitsinteresting.com. Yeah, there's a bounty, a treasure trove of things there. Yeah. And if you have thoughts about the episode, if you have thoughts about ideas about future episodes, you can reach out to us directly. You can either leave us a voicemail at 929-526-3029 or email us at [email protected]. Or as I think this came from Leapid comment on Spotify. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, next up is history of the Christmas tree. And then starting in January when we come back from our little hiatus, someone asked us to talk about Slender Man. And I was like, sweet. Let's do it. But we're not really the kind of, we don't really cover like internet lore. So I think we're going to kind of maybe shift the focus to that. The Slender Man stabbing that happened like a little over a decade ago. Yeah, it was a while ago now. Yeah. And there was there was a really phenomenal HBO documentary that I refused to rewatch because I watched it with my college roommate and we just both cried. Oh, wow. About the stabbing. Yeah, it was really, really sad. Oh, wow. The girl survived though. She she has a live girl who was stabbed. So we're lining to that story. Yeah. Yeah. That's one that I think is a I think is a lot of a lot of interesting stuff behind that as well. So I sort of relate sort of to like the man's and murders in a very like then just it by being very young and influenced by something something bigger than yourself in a negative way. Yeah. But that's coming coming up as well. Cool. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening. Have a nice Thanksgiving. If you're in America, if you're listening from outside America, have a good rest of your week.