Manson Family historian.
The purpose of this blog is for classifying every valuable facts about Helter Skelter for searches and further writing.
Only facts, hot or death cold but facts. No judgments.
Have a nice day.
manfromspahn@yahoo.ca
The purpose of this blog is for classifying every valuable facts about Helter Skelter for searches and further writing.
Only facts, hot or death cold but facts. No judgments.
Have a nice day.
manfromspahn@yahoo.ca
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Charles Manson Superstar (film)
Charles Manson Superstar is a documentary film about Charles Manson, directed by Nikolas Schreck in 1989. Most of the documentary (the entire interview) was filmed inside San Quentin Prison. Schreck and Zeena narrated the segments while images were shown, and music played in the background. There was brief footage of Spahn Ranch, and a short clip of James M. Mason being interviewed about the Universal Order, and Manson. Olivier Messiaen’s “Death and Resurrection,” Bobby Beausoleil’s “Lucifer Rising,” Krzysztof Penderecki’s “Apocalypsis,” and Anton LaVey’s “The Satanic Mass,” and Manson’s own songs “Clang Bang Clang” and “Mechanical Man” from the album…
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The Manson File: Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman
by Nikolas Schreck
Summing up 25 years of Nikolas Schreck’s research into the Charles Manson phenomenon, this Book of Revelations illuminates unknown dimensions of Manson as philosopher, musician, Gnostic mystic, Mafia fall guy, revolutionary, and friend, lover and drug dealer to 1960s Hollywood’s best-known rock stars and movie idols.
The first comprehensive study of Manson’s life, times, crimes, and thought, this is the ultimate guide to the Manson mysteries, portraying the human being behind the media-created monster’s many masks.
Drawing on police evidence suppressed during Manson’s trial, Schreck exposes the “Helter Skelter” legend as one of the twentieth century’s greatest cover-ups, unveils the hidden Mafia drug-dealing background of the “Manson murders” and traces the underworld connections linking the victims to their killers. The author’s recent conversations with Manson and others directly involved in the psychedelic era’s apocalypse allow the true story kept secret for decades to be told at last.
Jacket design artist/graphic designer and all chapter plates by Zeena Schreck. “Easter Monday Audience with the Underworld Pope: Charles Manson Interviewed and Decoded” is Zeena’s full transcript with introduction and annotations of the raw footage of Nikolas Schreck’s interview to his documentary, Charles Manson Superstar.
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Rumor : Charles Manson responsible for more murders than previously known
Decade-old audio tapes detail accusations of additional killings
UNCONFIRMED : Charles Manson is responsible for several additional murders
Infamous criminal Charles Manson was officially convicted of nine counts of murder. But are there other victims that met their demise at the hands of his “family”? According to audio tapes obtained by MyFoxLA, and reported by New York Daily News and the Huffington Post, the attorney for Manson co-defendant Charles “Tex” Watson, was told of several additional murders that Manson allegedly orchestrated.
‘A bunch of other people Manson had killed’
Attorney Bill Boyd represented Watson in the late 1960s, as he and other members of the “Manson Family” stood trial for a string of brutal murders that were intended by to incite a race war Manson referred to as “Helter Skelter.” Years later, Boyd, who died in 2009, recorded more than 20 hours of interviews with Watson and in one, Boyd says Watson “told me about a bunch of other people Manson had killed.”
Details on killings scarce
Who Manson killed, where and when it happened and whether he did it personally or had others carry out the supposed crimes are all left unsaid in the tapes released. Barbara Hoyt, a former Manson Family member who defected from the group and testified against them in court, tells the MyFoxLA “it would not surprise me if there were more murders.”
Final parole hearing approaching
News on the supposed additional murders comes as one Manson Family member is heading toward a chance at freedom. Bruce Davis, having served more than 40 years in prison for two murders committed after the group’s most infamous killings, is being recommended as suitable for parole by California’s Board of Parole Hearings. Gov. Jerry Brown will have 30 days to approve, deny, modify or decline to review Davis’ release.
Manson, meanwhile, was denied parole for the 12th time last year and won’t be considered again for parole until 2027, when he will be 92-years-old.
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THE FACTS REGARDING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CHARLES MANSON “FAMILY” AND JOEL PUGH (3)
Once in West Kensington, Joel began to ensconce himself in his room with his female companion. However, the joy was to be short lived. Joel’s partner would leave after three weeks after moving to London. The hotel’s manager, Joseph Falk, would later note Joel’s gradually diminishing state. ‘Mr. Pugh became more withdrawn and stopped eating. Eventually he was only drinking coffee.’
According to the Talgarth’s records, Joel moved in on October 27th 1969, a month before Manson follower Bruce Davis reportedly made his second trip to the UK. Sharing the room with Joel was the female he was having a relationship with. Joel took out weekly terms on a single room, and was allotted a ground floor flat overlooking the rear of the property. Manager Joseph Falk was impressed with his guest, noting Pugh as being a ‘very nice person…Very clean in his ways and quite a gentleman.’ From time to time, Joel’s travelling friends would pop over and try to encourage him to visit various sights around town with them. Depressed, he’d tell them that he was ‘unworthy of London’ and was content to stay in his room. At one point during his stay, he told fellow traveller Harriet Smith about the breakdown of his relationship with Sandy Good. Clearly, it was still on his mind. Smith, like other members of Pugh’s travelling group, was more concerned about Joel’s slide into depression, and tried to get him to seek professional advice. Joel refused, telling her that his quest was to ‘find out who I am.’
Despite his enforced isolation, Joel would always keep his door unlocked, and would wile away the hours playing guitar and reading. His most consistent visitor during those days was the seven-year old son of the manager, who’d occasionally pop by. The young boy evidently enjoyed Joel’s company, especially as Pugh shared his beloved comic book stories with him. He also showed the little boy backwards writing; a process that Joel himself found fascinating. Much to the child’s delight, Joel would reflect whatever was written in the mirror to make it legible, scribbling jokes and fragments of nursery rhymes. Meanwhile his fascination with comic books would start to overwhelm Joel, and alone for so many hours of the day, he felt that he was being sucked into their fantastical tales.
December 1st 1969 would prove pivotal in the fortunes of the Manson Family. In Los Angeles, relieved police finally announced they’d broken the Tate-Labianca case by finally connecting it to the Family’s nefarious activities. For Joel Pugh in London, the day would signify a much darker and finite conclusion to his personal troubles. The only known movement of Joel that day was that he popped down to reception to fix himself a coffee. There, he met the hotel manager and exchanged some small talk. Once his coffee was fixed, Joel swiftly retreated back to his room. That was the last time he was seen alive.
The following morning the hotel’s cleaner was performing her usual duties, and wasn’t unduly perturbed when she found Joel’s door locked. At around 6pm that evening, manager Joseph Falk knocked on Joel’s door to check he was okay. On getting no response, Falk attempted to gain entry using his passkey. However, on unlocking the door, Falk sensed a weight keeping the door shut, and could only partially open it. Putting his hand around the door, he felt ‘what seemed like an arm’ hanging limply on the inside.
Police were immediately called, and a few minutes later, PC Wright, a constable from the local Hammersmith police station, arrived at the premises. Forcing his way into the room, he saw Joel lying on his back, with a couple of razor blades lying about two feet away from him. He was naked, save for a sheet covering the lower part of his body. There was blood everywhere. On inspection, Joel’s throat had been slit twice, there were razor cuts to his wrists and a bruise on his forehead.
On searching the room further, a pipe with traces of cannabis resin was discovered. Police also found the comic books and the mirror writing that so captivated Joel’s young friend. Pugh’s body was taken away to await a coroners’ inquiry, although the job of notifying Joel’s family was passed to the American consulate.
With no immediate clues to Joel’s death, a thorough and comprehensive autopsy was ordered. Metropolitan Police pathologist, Richard Pearce, made the following observations: ‘The body is thin, there are bruises on the forehead and left shin. There are incised wounds in either side of the neck (three inches long) parallel to the sterno-mastoid muscles and extending deeply to the muscle; the external jugular veins are divided. Trial cuts are present. There are a number of slashes of both wrists in the long axis of the forearms, and a superficial cut across the front of the elbow.’ Adding to his belief that Joel had inflicted the wounds on himself, Pearce noted that Pugh had a nick in his left hand from holding a razor blade.
Later in his report, Pearce would note, ‘There was no wound not capable of being self-inflicted,’ and that there was no evidence of a struggle or violence.
Dr. Charles Lindsay, a psychiatrist from St. Bernard’s hospital in London, played down the comic books and backwards writing importance, saying that there was “no apparent significance” to their part in his death.
On paper, the coroner’s suspicions of suicide tied in with the circumstances Joel was found in: his emaciated state; the length of time he’d spent isolated in his room, and the residue of the cannabis resin found in his bedroom. Additionally, the fact that the door was locked from the inside added considerable weight to the decision of suicide. In summing up, Coroner Dr. John Burton, decreed that, “it was obvious that the man had killed himself” despite leaving “no suicide notes.” Recording a verdict that Joel had committed suicide, Burton made special note of the quantity of Cannabis that was in the room; “Whether that might have been contributory to his condition,” Coroner Burton mused, “we cannot say. But there is evidence that his mind was disturbed.” Dr. Burton would go on to have a long and distinguished career. He would later be employed by the British monarchy as “Royal Coroner,” and would be present during the post-mortem on Princess Diana in 1997.
The Coroner’s hearing regarding Joel was held a couple of weeks later at Hammersmith Coroner’s Court in West London. There was a smattering of press there to hear the verdict, although with no foul play recorded the story was not deemed worthy of any national interest. However, both the West London Gazette and the Fulham Chronicle made some mileage out of the reverse writing and the comic strips scattered around. The Fulham Chronicle’s headline, ‘Death Notes In Mirror’ would later fuel erroneous rumours that the backwards writing had been written on…
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THE FACTS REGARDING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CHARLES MANSON “FAMILY” AND JOEL PUGH (2)
It was in San Francisco that Joel met Sandra Good, a student at San Francisco State College. With the pair mingling in various collegiate circles, they met through mutual friends and quickly hit it off. For a while, things appeared promising. Their respective families shared in this happiness; Joel spending Christmas 1964 at the Good family house in Boulder Creek, and in later years at the Pugh’s home over in Minnesota.
Their happiness can be seen from a smiling photograph taken over Christmas 1967 at the Pugh household; Joel evidently proud of his petite, glamorous girlfriend. Despite being in his mid-twenties, it was Joel’s first sexual relationship. His brother Daniel recalls the happy scene.
Daniel Pugh ‘She seemed like a very nice girl when she was staying with us… Joel had never gone with a girl before, and we were very happy that things were looking up for him. […]
Joel’s closest confidante at this time was Jim Balfour. He was privy to all of Joel’s movements around Sandy Good, and yet he shared none of his friend’s affection for her, as he recalls today.
Jim Balfour: ‘I was very disturbed by her most of the time. She was probably charming when she needed to be. I thought she was a very loose cannon.“
The couple’s joy was short lived though, and their relationship would not last the distance. After a life-changing meeting with Manson in March 1968, for Sandy, everything, including Joel, suddenly took second place. Depressing as it was for Joel to lose his first real love, the fact she’d run off with Charlie’s strange gang added a large measure of insult. For a while, it appears Joel kept up contact with Sandy and even tried to steer her away from her new chapel of friends, especially Charlie.
Daniel Pugh: ‘When she started hanging around with Manson, Joel was extremely embarrassed about it. He regarded Manson as a phoney, who was very full of himself and a sort of embarrassing character. He didn’t want Sandy to have anything to do with a guy like that; sort of uncool by association…. Manson was what Joel, in his own words, would have called "a Gnarl."’
Evidently, Sandy’s complete immersion in Manson’s all encompassing world placed an enormous strain on her and Joel’s relationship, and they eventually broke up, putting paid to any future plans. As former Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay tells it, Manson couldn’t have planned it better himself.
Stephen Kay: ‘Charlie wanted very much for Sandy Good not to be married, because her father had been very wealthy. He left a trust fund that paid her $2000 a month, which was the money the Manson Family lived off most of the time; that was their biggest source of income… Joel was an irritant, and Manson didn’t want anyone getting in the way of him and the trust fund.’
Ironically, it seems that even Sandy held on to the idea of marrying Joel. During the August 17th 1969 auto-theft raid on the Manson Family base at Spahn’s Ranch, Sandy was booked as ‘Sandra Collins Pugh’. In later arrests she would again refer to herself as 'Mrs. Pugh’. While it is well documented that the Manson girls used a plethora of pseudonyms when arrested, her choice of name seems significant. A rumour has gathered momentum over the years that Good became pregnant as result of her liaison with Joel. If there was any truth in the allegations, this would have pointed to their relationship lasting until late 1968. During the Barker Ranch arrest of October 10th 1969, Sandy was quizzed on the paternity of her small baby. She has since claimed that to save her child from being put in care she used Joel’s surname as a stalling device. However, despite the crowd of potential suitors, and the interminable sex orgies, Sandy also used Joel’s name on the baby’s birth certificate. This clearly records Ivan S. Pugh born to Sandra Good on 16th September 1969.
Whatever the truth, it’s clear that Sandy was still actively seeking a connection with Joel. At one point during mid-1969 when the fortunes of the Manson Family were on the decline, Sandy returned to San Francisco to catch up with her old circle of friends. In addition to informing all and sundry that "a lot of shit was going to come down”, she made a proactive attempt to cajole Joel into marrying her.
Jim Balfour: “She was visiting, and she was pregnant, and she wanted Joel to either marry her or say they were married, because she was going to use his name as the father, and that’s what she did… My understanding of it is that she probably thought that with the things that Manson’s people were being charged with, that it would look better if Manson weren’t the father of the child, and that she would use Joel as a respectable person… However, Joel’s response to Sandy’s request was clear; "no way.”
Furthermore, it is evidently clear that despite his embarrassment over Sandy’s involvement with Manson, Joel never met Charlie or any other Family members. Equally, he never visited any of the Family’s various encampments around California; Spahn Ranch included. This has been confirmed by Joel’s closest friend Jim Balfour, and other associates in Joel’s circle.
By 1969, Joel’s mental health had started to take a slide. Adding a strain on his fragile psyche, Joel had been dabbling with LSD, and as a result of one bad trip he’d withdrawn inside himself, believing that he could never be happy again. Joel’s wacky. off-beat persona was in itself an unwitting foil to his inner turmoil and also prevented him gaining any proper help. His brother Daniel recalls this upsetting duality.
Daniel Pugh: ‘I totally missed the fact that he was losing it… I didn’t realise he was being as serious as he was about a lot of things. He decided that he was schizophrenic as a result of reading stuff by R.D Laing, and like Laing, he thought it was some sort of a spiritual gift or something… The last time I saw Joel he remarked, very wistfully, that it would be nice if there was “something you could take that would let you be happy”.’
Joel had maintained contact with various friends he’d met in high school who had also moved to California. One of them was Tom Davis, someone who had been allied to the Pugh family by dint of their fathers’ working together in Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic. Others who moved to California from Minnesota were a “Nancy” and a “Joanne”. They kept up a close alliance with him, and shared similar interests in soul searching. Some of these friends were aware of his slide into depression and rallied around as best they could. Being open to all the new psychological slants on offer, they freely offered their own opinions on his melancholy. In a tape recorded message at the time, Joel’s father David recalled their misguided attempts to pull him out of his despair.
David Pugh (Senior): ‘When Joel was in trouble out there, his friends were all aware of it. And they were either having him read this kind of crap, or else they were quoting it to him. And they were trying to give him psychotherapy with the stupid information they had obtained from this way-out type of clinical psychiatry that these people read. Some of the others in the group wanted him to get professional help, but others felt they could talk him out of the problems.’
As a result of his mental decline, Joel would stop working in the laboratory and return to his parent’s home. There, he read a book on rainforests and became obsessed with South America. Pleased that his son finally seemed interested in something other than his own psychological state, Joel’s father funded a trip for him and a girlfriend to visit the region. Despite a considerable amount of time spent wandering around, Joel never found the rainforests of his dreams. Compounding his disenchantment, he split up with his partner while away. In the end Joel returned home, somewhat deflated.
Despite his disappointment, Joel’s wanderlust was unabated and he decided that he wanted to go to Morocco. Landing in Marrakech, his hopes of authentic middle-eastern promise were swiftly dashed. On seeing the legions of western travellers revelling in various hedonistic states, he turned away disgusted and headed off towards Spain. There, he ran into some fellow Americans who were also travelling through Europe and together they continued their journey. It was during this period that Joel convinced himself that he could predict the future from reading comic books; a game he’d become increasingly obsessed with. One female on this travelling party was a school teacher named Harriet Smith, who recalled Joel saying that he’d deduced from the comic strips that ‘she would become his wife.’
Despite his bizarre predictions, Joel was taken under the wings of his travelling buddies and tagged along with them to London. By all accounts, Joel became romantically involved with one of his fellow travellers (not Harriet Smith). Once there, Joel and his lover found lodgings in West Kensington, an area which despite the swanky name, had long been a cheap base for peripatetic travellers. The room he rented was at the Talgarth Hotel, situated on the busy Talgarth Road, a main artery that links London with the west of England. The title ‘Hotel’ was a somewhat grandiose one, as the property was nothing more than a…
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THE FACTS REGARDING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CHARLES MANSON “FAMILY” AND JOEL PUGH (1)
Joel Dean Pugh
June 7th 1940-December 1st 1969
“I wonder in what fields today,
He chases butterflies in his way,
My little boy who ran away.”
Over forty years have passed since the Manson Family series of murders gripped the world. While the tragic deaths of nine innocent individuals have been afforded enormous publicity, there were other less documented casualties of this macabre saga. Joel Pugh’s slight connection with Manson’s circle has been embellished over the years to assume the status of yet another “victim” of the Family’s bloody rampage. The truth however, is markedly different. The purpose of this site is to assert some semblance of reality to what happened to Joel, and to re-examine his “relationship” with the Manson Family. Utilising original documents and photographs, I aim to present as close as definitive view of events as I can. While I concede that there will always be interest in this story, certain key facts have clearly been ignored. My hope is that future researchers will be able to amend the catalogue of inconsistencies that have built up concerning Joel, and present a more balanced picture of what actually occurred.
Sincerely,
Simon Wells: author of Charles Manson: Coming Down Fast.
London. June 2010
It appears that twenty-seven year-old Joel Dean Pugh came loosely into contact with the fringes of the Manson Family sometime during March 1968. Joel was born on June 7th, 1940, to Marjorie and David Pugh; his father a radiographer at Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic. After serving time in the US Army, Joel moved to northern California in the mid 1960s. He had taken up a job as a lab technician in a university in San Francisco, putting to good use his degree in Zoology and his interest in natural sciences. Joel was an original, if slightly off-beat character, who combined quirky passions with a great sense of humour.
‘Joel was a very funny guy,’ recalls his brother Daniel today. ‘It was just nifty being with him at any time. I sort of admired him so much. He always had this great imagination … When he was little, people would ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Joel had two answers: one was…
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Two men relate to same haunting specter : Charles Manson
Cincinnati (CNN) – Charles Manson casts a long shadow. No one knows that better than his grandson, Jason Freeman, who is speaking out for the first time about growing up under, what he calls, a “family curse” started by Manson and his so-called “Manson family.”
“I’m personally, I’m coming out,” says the 6-foot-2 kickboxer and cage fighter. Freeman, whose father killed himself in 1993, is “coming out,” he says, because he wants the real Manson family to stop hiding from a name that still has the power to evoke fear.
Today, Freeman wants to understand his roots and himself a bit better, two things denied him as a child. He knew from a young age that Charles Manson was his grandfather, but it never registered till one day in eighth-grade history class, said Freeman. Our teacher “ … was talking about Charles Manson and I’m looking around like, are there people staring at me?”
Man: I may be Charles Manson’s son
Forbidden from talking about Charles Manson to his school friends lest they tease and taunt him, Freeman always felt different from the other kids. Even behind closed doors and with his own family, talk about Charles Manson was discouraged. He was not permitted to ask his grandmother, Rosalie, about Charles Manson, the man she married in 1955. It was a ghostly elephant roaming through his life.
More than anything, Freeman wants to connect with the father he knew only through an occasional letter or gift. He believes his father, who changed his name to Jay White, purposely stayed away from him, not wanting to tarnish his childhood in the same way his had been. “He just couldn’t let it go,” reckons Freeman. “He couldn’t live it down. He couldn’t live down who his father was.”
Jay White, who was cursed with the name Charles Manson Jr., killed himself on June 29, 1993, on a desolate section of highway in Burlington, Colorado, just west of the Kansas state line.
The death certificate offers few clues as to why there and what finally pushed him over the edge. The document indicates it was about 10:15 a.m. when he died from a “self inflicted gunshot wound to the head” at “exit 438 on interstate 70.”
Charles Manson’s grandson, Jason Freeman, provides a DNA sample to determine if another man is also related to Manson.
Freeman, who wrestles, fights and suffers the pain of tattoos in his off-time, makes a living working on oil rigs in western Pennsylvania. He is a classically tough guy. But when it comes to the father he never met and when he thinks of what he went through as a child, he tears up.
When asked what he’d like his father to know, Freeman gets emotional and, fighting back tears, he whispers, “I want him to know … he missed out on a lot.”
Specifically, he wishes his father were there to enjoy his grandchildren and see the life he has built for himself.
“I see my kids, you know, and that’s kinda where I get shook up,” he says the tears rolling. “I would hate to see them grow up without a father. That’s important. Very important.”
Freeman wishes he could reverse time and tell his father on the stretch of Interstate 70 back in June of 1993 that whatever he was feeling at the moment would pass and a better life lay ahead.
Another Manson offspring, another search
The desire to know one’s father and to understand oneself is the same force, the same primal instinct, driving Matthew Roberts, a 44-year-old Los Angeles musician. Roberts, who was adopted as an infant, sought out his birth parents in 1998.
Through an adoption agency, he found his birth mother; according to Roberts, she was a reclusive and psychologically troubled woman named Terri living in Wisconsin. As they got to know each other, Terri eventually dropped a small bomb on Roberts that set him on a 14-year search for his father.
Terri told him that Charles Manson was his father and that she had met Manson in San Francisco in 1967 at an orgy. He was one of four men there, and she was certain Manson had impregnated her.
Roberts didn’t believe her except that he looked shockingly similar to Manson.
He then wrote to Manson in prison, explaining the situation. To Robert’s surprise, prisoner B33920 wrote back. Manson, in his frantic style and chicken scratch penmanship, confirmed to Roberts that he was at the 1967 orgy and remembered his mother, Roberts said. He related stories that his mother had told him that only she, or his father, would know. What seemed like fantasy was fast becoming reality.
Roberts twice tried to get a DNA match with genetic material from Charles Manson, but the samples were contaminated.
But says Dr. Michael Baird, chief science officer at DNA Diagnostics Center in Fairfield, Ohio, there is another way to establish the family link. If Matthew Roberts and Jason Freeman are related, they will have an exact copy of Charles Manson’s Y chromosome. “The male line is easier to compare,” said Baird, “because the Y chromosome stands out so strong. We can get a very good correlation if the two are related.
So curious were both men to once and for all solve the mystery, CNN took the extraordinary step to have both men’s DNA taken and the results compared.
A match seemed likely.
Same members of notorious family?
The men seem predisposed to being related. Their lives run along parallel tracks.
Both are drawn to fame and fortune. Roberts is lead singer of a band called New Rising Son. Freeman is a fighter who goes by the name Freebird.
But both men have also had to settle for doing more conventional jobs to pay the bills. Freeman has his oil rig job; Roberts is a DJ at the Blue Zebra Cabaret in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.
Both men have self-published their own books. Freeman’s "Knocking out the Devil” and Roberts’ “The First Rays of the New Rising Sun.”
But the question remained: Is Charles Manson the common denominator in the lives of these two men?
It took DNA Diagnostic Center 48 hours to resolve a mystery that Roberts chased for 14 years. With both men in the same room, Baird told the men what they found.
“We did a battery of DNA tests. We studied your DNA along several points, and we have concluded you do not share a common biological ancestry.”
The news dropped on the room like a fact etched in lead. Jason Freeman exclaimed “holy cow.” Freeman hoped to gain an uncle and perhaps a bit more insight into his family and his father’s life.
Matthew Roberts was visibly shaken as though he had just been robbed. Roberts was upset.
“Now there’s no chance of knowing who my father is,” said Roberts. “That’s the only lead I had, so now I have no chance of meeting or knowing my biological father.”
Most people would be overjoyed to discover that Charles Manson wasn’t related to them, but Roberts now feels his 14-year search for a father has ended in a cul de sac, without definition and not sure where to go next.
Such is the power of wanting to know where we come from and trying to make sense of our present lives by knowing our past. For both men, the search continues.
CNN’s Michael Cary contributed to this report.
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The Story Behind
The Charles Manson Myth
American’s are programmed to think of Charles Manson as a sinister cult leader. When pictured in magazines or television programs, we see a man with wild hair, dark penetrating eyes, and a swastika etched in blood on his forehead. This image usually pops up on our television screens when the narrator of the story wishes to portray an evil stereotype such as serial killers, doomsday cult leaders or fanatics in general.
It’s been over 30 years since Manson’s so-called “family” forced their way into the home of famed Hollywood film maker Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate.
People old enough to remember the story know that four young women and one man who lived with Manson on an abandoned movie set in Death Valley, entered Polanski’s Los Angeles home on Aug. 8, 1969 and committed five gruesome murders.
Polanski was in Europe for a film shoot and survived the assault. Tate, who was eight-months pregnant, died of multiple stab wounds to the chest and back. The other guests were found shot, stabbed and clubbed multiple times. It was a bloody crime scene and the story shocked the nation. Tait and one of her guests were found hanging by ropes around their neck. A forensic report said they did not die from the hanging.
A few days after the Tate murders, the killers struck again, this time at the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. The couple was also found stabbed to death multiple times. A knife and fork were left protruding from Leno LaBianca’s stomach.
Manson and five of his “followers,” Charles “Tex” Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian and Leslie Van Houten were convicted by a jury in 1970 on multiple counts of murder.
What is extraordinary about the case is that Manson was not present during any of the murders. The district attorney, 35-year-old Vincent T. Bugliosi, argued that Manson had created a religious cult and was controlling the minds of the family members around him. Bugliosi charged that Manson ordered the killings because he wanted to start a race war. It was a wild story and totally based on circumstantial evidence. There never has been any proof that Manson’s little hippie colony in the desert was involved in any kind religious practice. They were merely a group of social misfits and dropouts. Because of his dynamic personality, Manson played the role of the leader, but no one has ever proven the others worshipped him.
Before the trial began, the Manson case became a political issue. President Richard M. Nixon condemned Manson on public television, calling him a dangerous cult leader.
The case by this time was drawing national attention and there was the usual media frenzy. By the time the trial started, nearly everyone in the country knew the story and heard Nixon’s public allegations. The chances of a fair trial were almost nil.
The trial was a circus. Manson decided to defend himself. He was assisted by attorney Irving Kanarek, an older lawyer, and Ronald Hughes, a “hippie lawyer” who was officially representing Van Houten. Manson showed up on the opening day with a bloody cross slashed across his forehead. During the trial he got into an argument with Superior Court Judge Charles Older and said “somebody should cut your head off.” Paul Fitzgerald, lawyer for Krenwinkel, spent more time defending Manson than his own client. And Manson’s lawyer, Irving Kanarek, rambled on for days in a final statement. It ended when Manson to asked him to sit down.
When the prosecution rested and it was time for the defense to present its case, the lawyers stunned the court when they announced that the defense also rested. At that moment three of the women stood up and shouted that they wanted to testify. They said they committed the murders on their own and that Manson had nothing to do with it. One writer described their testimony as a “thin Manson ploy.”
Hughes, Van Houten’s lawyer, objected to the testimony. A few days later, Hughes disappeared and another lawyer had to be appointed to take his place. After the trial was over, Hughes’ body was found wedged among some rocks in a remote rural area. It was rumored that the Manson family murdered him.
Even though he maintained his innocence, a jury found Manson guilty of ordering the Tait-LaBianca killings.
Manson and the others were sentenced to death. The sentence later was commuted to life when California laws were changed. At a later date, Manson and four other men, Robert Beausoleil, Charles Watson, Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan, were tried and convicted for the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald Shea. These two men were killed at separate times and in separate places. Again, Manson denies involvement in these murders.
Manson, now in his sixties, still remains behind bars. He lives in maximum security at California State Prison, Corcoran, California.
Because of the publicity surrounding the case, and the public sentiment that still prevails, nobody expects Manson to ever be released.
It is an odd twist to this story that Charles Manson seems to be where he wants to be. He has rarely known any other life style than the strictly disciplined and confining world of a prisoner. He has been quoted over and over again as saying he has no interest in being set free. That seems to be because Manson doesn’t know how to live in the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog society that exists outside of the prison walls.
The political tragedy of the Manson story was that he was turned into a national symbol of the hippie environmental movement. That amazing campaign among young America to save the environment was stopped cold in its tracks, largely because of the Manson case. The story was used by the slick national propaganda machine representing big business interests and magnified into much more than it was. Because the murders were committed by hippie types and involved famous Hollywood personalities, the story was skillfully used to generate public sentiment against the hippies and the environmental movement before it cost big industry a lot of money.
Thus when Charles Manson fell, he brought the entire hippie movement down with him. That date, Aug. 8, 1969, was a black milestone in world history. Since then, we have been obsessed with a new chemical industrial revolution, the world has been rushing wildly into overpopulation, and the destruction of the planet’s ecology has been devastating.
Anyone who doubts my words only needs to look at the dying life in our oceans, the destruction of our forests, the strange shifts in world weather patterns, and the ugly brown chemical haze that hangs over our landscape.
Because the last-ditch effort to save the planet was stopped, the world now stands condemned. Our planet is now dead and a record six billion people are struggling to stay alive on its corpse. We are already fighting over what is left of our natural resources. The excessive heat and violent storms looming this summer will only be the beginning of the planet’s judgment against the human race. The air and water are polluted. Soon food will be in critically short supply. We will be very lucky if any of us are still around in another 10 years.
Richard Nixon’s public condemnation of Manson was an evil act. When the final chapter is written, I believe the world will understand that no national leader, even Hitler, has done anything more despicable. By saying what he said, he helped turn the nation against not only Manson, but against the critically important ecology movement. He denied a man the right to a fair trial before an impartial jury. He denied the human race the chance to get itself under control and turn the world green again.
Yet to this day, Charles Manson is portrayed as the most dangerous person alive. Nothing could be farther from the truth. He’s not a saint, but Charles Manson has not been shown to be a killer either.
Manson once explained his perspective of the world. In a lengthy public statement to the court, on the day of his sentencing, he said:
“I never went to school, so I never growed up in the respect to learn to read and write so good. So I have stayed in jail and I have stayed stupid. I have stayed a child while I have watched your world grow up. And then I look at the things that you do and I don’t understand.
"I don’t understand the courts, and I don’t understand a lot of things that are brought against me. You invent stories, and everybody thinks what they do, and then they project it from the witness stand on the defendant as if that is what he did…
"I don’t think like you people… I know that the only person I can judge is me. I judge what I have done and I judge what I do and I live with myself every day. I am content with myself.
"If you put me in the penitentiary, that means nothing because you kicked me out of the last one. I didn’t ask to get released. I liked it in there because I like myself. I like being with myself. In your world it’s hard because your understanding and your values are different.”
Indeed.
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Abraxas Devil
“The word is found in Gnostic texts such as the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, and also appears in the Greek Magical Papyri. It was engraved on certain antique gemstones, called on that account Abraxas stones, which were used as amulets or charms. As the initial spelling on stones was ‘Abrasax’ (?ß?asa?), the spelling of 'Abraxas’ seen today probably originates in the confusion made between the Greek letters Sigma and Xi in the Latin transliteration. The word may be related to Abracadabra, although other explanations exist.”
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To Marilyn Manson
It’s taken me a long time to get there from where I could touch M. Manson. Now I got a card to play – you may look into my non-profit, ATWA, and give Manson what you think he’s got coming for Air, Trees, Water, and you. Or I will pay Manson what you think Manson got coming – the music has make Manson into Abraxas Devil, and I’m SURE you would want some of what I got from what I got. It’s a far out balance. Beyond good and bad, right, wrong. What you don’t do is what I will do – what you did a sing-along, and let it roll and said how you saved me a lot of steps – I don’t need, it’s not a need or a want. Couped – coup. Ghost dancers slay together and you’re just in my grave Sunstroker Corona-coronas-coronae – you seen me from under with it all standing on me. That’s 2 dump trucks – doing the same as CMF 000007
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