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Selects: The Manson Family Murders Part 2 · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Chuck here back. I'm still in my spooky
0:03
Speaker 1: mood from two weeks ago because I'm introducing this episode
0:06
Speaker 1: from January thirty at twenty eighteen. It's a follow up
0:09
Speaker 1: to two weeks ago about the Manson Family. It's called
0:12
Speaker 1: The Manson Family Murders Part Two. What happens? Will Charlie
0:17
Speaker 1: get away with it?
0:19
Speaker 2: I doubt it.
0:26
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:36
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:37
Speaker 3: I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry
0:40
Speaker 3: Rowland over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know
0:43
Speaker 3: about the Manson Family Part two.
0:46
Speaker 1: That's right if you're listening to this one first and
0:50
Speaker 1: you're doing it wrong, so no need to recap. Just
0:54
Speaker 1: go listen to part one and we'll pick up with
0:57
Speaker 1: the Beatles Wide Album, which was a very big deal
1:01
Speaker 1: in how this figure's in great great album. Obviously as
1:05
Speaker 1: a Beatles fan, I know you're not super into them,
1:07
Speaker 1: but I love the White Album arguably their weirdest album,
1:13
Speaker 1: and it spoke to Charles Manson for sure, because he
1:19
Speaker 1: really became pretty obsessed with it and diving into deconstructing
1:23
Speaker 1: the album. It's a very dense long album anyway, and
1:27
Speaker 1: there's a lot to it. So it's no wonder that
1:31
Speaker 1: Charles Manson, with a head fallow acid, would think that
1:34
Speaker 1: the Beatles are speaking to him.
1:36
Speaker 2: Right, and he definitely did so.
1:38
Speaker 3: He apparently had a history already of deconstructing Beatles lyrics,
1:43
Speaker 3: but before he was deconstructing lyrics, so like Sergent Pepper's
1:48
Speaker 3: Lonely Hearts Club Band, which compared to the White Album,
1:51
Speaker 3: is decidedly upbeat and positive, right, So while he was
1:54
Speaker 3: in prison, he was super into the Beatles. When he
1:57
Speaker 3: gets out, the Beatles released the White Album, he's already
1:59
Speaker 3: obsessed with, but now he's on tons and tons of acid.
2:03
Speaker 3: The White Album is kind of a downer compared to
2:06
Speaker 3: Sergeant Pepper's and the fact that it's speaking to Charlis
2:10
Speaker 3: Manson like really made things turn dark, it seems like,
2:14
Speaker 3: as far as him and the people in his orbit
2:17
Speaker 3: are concerned.
2:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're hanging out, they're lighting bonfires, they're doing drugs,
2:24
Speaker 1: they're listening to Charles Manson stomp around with his tiny
2:28
Speaker 1: feet in his redneck voice talking about Helter Skelter, which
2:34
Speaker 1: is a great, great Beatles song and basically sort of
2:39
Speaker 1: sort of renamed his vision for this race war and
2:46
Speaker 1: impending apocalypse Helter Skelter. He kind of stole that from
2:50
Speaker 1: the Beatles, as Bono would later go on.
2:52
Speaker 3: To say, yeah, he stole from the Beatles, but he
2:54
Speaker 3: also took it again as like a message that the
2:58
Speaker 3: Beatles were sending him aside that he needed to prepare
3:02
Speaker 3: his family for this because they were the chosen ones
3:04
Speaker 3: basically who should weigh out the race riot in Death Valley.
3:10
Speaker 3: So there's this whole idea that the all of the
3:15
Speaker 3: Tate LaBianca murders took place to further this idea of
3:20
Speaker 3: Helter Skelter to strike strike the match that would set
3:24
Speaker 3: it off to get things going right. And this idea
3:28
Speaker 3: apparently is the creation of the prosecutor in the case,
3:33
Speaker 3: a guy named Vincent Bugliosi, who wrote a book called
3:36
Speaker 3: Helter Skelter, like a six hundred page book. Basically this
3:40
Speaker 3: the definitive true crime book on the Manson family and
3:45
Speaker 3: the Manson family murders. And so most of the most
3:48
Speaker 3: of what we said in Part one and most of
3:51
Speaker 3: what everybody knows about the Manson family murders are come
3:55
Speaker 3: through this lens that was established by Vincent Bugliosi, who
4:00
Speaker 3: is the lead prosecutor in the case, was privy to
4:02
Speaker 3: tons of information, to confessions, to interviews, under questioning, to
4:09
Speaker 3: all this stuff. But he's the one who pieced together
4:12
Speaker 3: the idea that the Manson family committed these murders to
4:16
Speaker 3: start helter skelter.
4:17
Speaker 2: That was his whole jam.
4:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean some of the Manson family corroborated, cooberated.
4:25
Speaker 1: It's in there somewhere corroborated. That's a dark time with
4:30
Speaker 1: that word corroborated, corroborated. I don't have to say it much, luckily,
4:33
Speaker 1: because I'm not in a life of crime. No, but
4:36
Speaker 1: some of them back that up and saying that, you know,
4:40
Speaker 1: at one point he wanted them to throw a wallet
4:44
Speaker 1: of a victim in a black neighborhood so that people
4:47
Speaker 1: would think it was, you know, black panthers that did this. Yeah,
4:51
Speaker 1: but it's some evidence that that was probably the case.
4:54
Speaker 3: If you talk though to Manson and you or if
4:57
Speaker 3: you've listened to some of the stuff he says. Some
4:59
Speaker 3: of these ext nations because over the years people have said,
5:01
Speaker 3: what about this part, what about this part? And have
5:04
Speaker 3: basically presented him with every aspect of the whole case
5:07
Speaker 3: against him. You know, a lot of the stuff he
5:09
Speaker 3: has no explanation for nothing good. But that wallet is
5:12
Speaker 3: a sterling example of where it becomes obvious that.
5:16
Speaker 2: Wait, we're basically hearing.
5:18
Speaker 3: One point of view about this, and we've never that's
5:20
Speaker 3: all we've ever heard. Which if you're doing any kind
5:23
Speaker 3: of reporting, which you and I are not, but if
5:26
Speaker 3: you were inclined to do any kind of reporting, you
5:30
Speaker 3: never want to just stick to just one source. And
5:32
Speaker 3: with the Manson family case, it's basically one source, and
5:34
Speaker 3: it's Vinsive Bugliosi, the prosecutor. But Manson explains it as
5:38
Speaker 3: he told I think it was Linda Kasabian to just
5:42
Speaker 3: get rid of that wallet, that he wasn't in a
5:45
Speaker 3: predominantly black neighborhood, and that he told her to get
5:48
Speaker 3: rid of the wallet because it was hot, and she
5:50
Speaker 3: hid the wallet actually in the tank of a toilet
5:55
Speaker 3: in a women's bathroom in a gas station, which is
5:57
Speaker 3: hardly where you'd put it if you wanted a black
6:00
Speaker 3: person defined it to use the credit cards inside and
6:04
Speaker 3: to tip off the cops that a black person was
6:06
Speaker 3: behind the Tate La Bianca murders. So when you when
6:09
Speaker 3: you kind of dive into stuff like that, you see
6:11
Speaker 3: that there actually are two competing explanations in some aspects
6:17
Speaker 3: of this case.
6:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think Kasabian herself said that too, though,
6:20
Speaker 1: didn't she.
6:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.
6:22
Speaker 3: The thing is that if you are if you look
6:24
Speaker 3: at Charles Manson, right, I know that's.
6:27
Speaker 2: That's the thing is.
6:27
Speaker 3: It's a terrible realization when you're like, actually, I'm wait
6:30
Speaker 3: a minute, I understand what Charles Manson is saying.
6:33
Speaker 2: Here.
6:34
Speaker 3: The with with stuff like that when you look at
6:38
Speaker 3: the testimony, These were people who were on trial for
6:42
Speaker 3: murder who had every incentive to go along with the
6:47
Speaker 3: lead prosecutor's theory that it was all Charles Manson's fault.
6:52
Speaker 2: They could have maybe immunity.
6:55
Speaker 3: They could have they could have charges dropped against them
6:58
Speaker 3: that by saying yes, this is the case, or having
7:02
Speaker 3: their testimony jibe with what Vincent Bugliosi's case was, they
7:07
Speaker 3: had an incentive to do that.
7:09
Speaker 2: Whether Charles Manson is right or correct or lying.
7:12
Speaker 3: From an objective perspective, the people on Charlfer murder had
7:17
Speaker 3: an incentive to agree with Vincent Bugliosi all right.
7:24
Speaker 1: So the way they got caught was actually pretty interesting.
7:28
Speaker 1: Unrelated to these murders. Police raided Spawn Ranch because it
7:34
Speaker 1: was sort of became known that the people were living
7:37
Speaker 1: there that were out on these creepy crawls doing these crimes,
7:42
Speaker 1: and so that's why they were originally fingered, as they
7:46
Speaker 1: say in the biz. And they went there and they
7:50
Speaker 1: rated Spawn Ranch and a lot of the family were
7:52
Speaker 1: arrested at that time for like car theft and burglary
7:56
Speaker 1: and stuff. They were released on its technicality and then
7:59
Speaker 1: went to Death Valley to that weird ranch. If you
8:03
Speaker 1: ever been to Death Valley, it's not a place you
8:04
Speaker 1: want to hang out. No, it's not, especially in the summertime.
8:07
Speaker 2: Is that where Joshua Tree is? No, that's it Joshua Tree,
8:11
Speaker 2: But that's not in Death Valley.
8:14
Speaker 1: No, those are two different places.
8:15
Speaker 2: But is it close by? There is the same type
8:17
Speaker 2: of terrain kind of thing.
8:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I've been to both.
8:22
Speaker 2: Are they similar?
8:23
Speaker 1: Well, I mean Joshua Tree is the desert for sure,
8:27
Speaker 1: but it is very lovely. Like I don't remember much
8:29
Speaker 1: about Death Valley that was. I think it was not
8:33
Speaker 1: very hospitable for me.
8:35
Speaker 2: It's appropriately named.
8:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so okay, And of course now people
8:41
Speaker 1: are going to say Death Valley's the best, you know
8:44
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, heavy sweater, so they go to
8:49
Speaker 1: Death Valley. Then there were a bunch of raids at
8:52
Speaker 1: the Death Valley camp between October tenth and twelfth of
8:56
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, and eventually they ended up rounding up
9:02
Speaker 1: the people responsible for these murders without knowing that they
9:05
Speaker 1: were responsible for these murders, so they were in jail
9:09
Speaker 1: kind of luckily already in jail when they sort of
9:14
Speaker 1: decided they could pin, will not pin like legitimately pin
9:18
Speaker 1: these murders on these people.
9:20
Speaker 3: So this being the second time, there's something that I've
9:23
Speaker 3: ran across in research, Chuck that it never gets talked about,
9:26
Speaker 3: but is I think really significant. At both of those raids,
9:29
Speaker 3: the Spawn Ranch raid and the Death Valley rate, the
9:32
Speaker 3: state took children from this, Like there were kids, babies, toddlers,
9:39
Speaker 3: little kids running around growing up like at the Spawn
9:44
Speaker 3: Ranch end at the Barker Ranch, which is extraordinarily troubling,
9:48
Speaker 3: and some of them have been are thought to have
9:50
Speaker 3: possibly been Charles Manson's kids, like he may have had.
9:56
Speaker 3: There's just so much free love going on, and so
9:58
Speaker 3: many pregnancies that were the results was free love. It
10:01
Speaker 3: was difficult to say whose kid was whose, but it's
10:04
Speaker 3: they think that it's possible at least one or two
10:06
Speaker 3: of those kids was Charles Manson's kids, and they were
10:09
Speaker 3: taken by the state and later adopted by people. But
10:12
Speaker 3: it's like, you know, it's one thing to think of
10:14
Speaker 3: a bunch of hippies just out in the desert taking acid,
10:18
Speaker 3: just being idiots, you know, and then eventually turning dark
10:21
Speaker 3: and murderous. But the idea that there were kids around
10:23
Speaker 3: at any part of this is really I find it
10:26
Speaker 3: very troubling.
10:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I mean, all those cults
10:30
Speaker 1: had kids roaming around. They just weren't murderous cults, you know.
10:35
Speaker 2: Yep.
10:36
Speaker 1: So Susan Atkins, for her part, she agreed to testify
10:39
Speaker 1: initially against Charles Manson to avoid the death sentence, which
10:46
Speaker 1: for a few years more was still a thing in California.
10:50
Speaker 1: I think in nineteen seventy two they reversed that, but
10:53
Speaker 1: at the time the death sentence was a threat at
10:56
Speaker 1: the time of the crimes, so she had a grand
10:59
Speaker 1: jury testimony. It basically led to Manson being arranged for
11:03
Speaker 1: these murders. In December sixty nine, she recanted that testimony
11:08
Speaker 1: and the deal was revoked by the prosecutors. It was
11:10
Speaker 1: kind of too late at that point. Linda Kasabian, who
11:13
Speaker 1: you might remember was I thinks that getaway driver and
11:16
Speaker 1: then the one who would not knock on the right
11:20
Speaker 1: apartment door to kill the actor, so she'd actually didn't
11:24
Speaker 1: commit any murders at all, was not in any of
11:26
Speaker 1: the houses. She was granted immunity for testifying, and I
11:30
Speaker 1: think she was the only one granted immunity.
11:33
Speaker 3: Right, although I think, yeah, they just took the death
11:36
Speaker 3: penalty off, like you said, for Susan Atkins. And I
11:39
Speaker 3: don't know if you said this or not, but Susan
11:40
Speaker 3: Atkins is the reason the case broke open eventually, when
11:44
Speaker 3: they'd rounded up all of the Manson family and had
11:46
Speaker 3: him in jail for the death Valley raids for you know,
11:51
Speaker 3: burglary and theft and stuff like that. The way that
11:54
Speaker 3: they found out that the Manson family was responsible for
11:57
Speaker 3: the Tate LaBianca murders was Susan Atkins bragging about it
12:00
Speaker 3: and a couple of her cell mates going and telling
12:02
Speaker 3: the cops and that's originally how the case began against
12:05
Speaker 3: the Manson family. That's how the authorities originally found out
12:08
Speaker 3: big mouth.
12:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so.
12:11
Speaker 1: All right, so let's take a break and we'll come
12:12
Speaker 1: back and talk a little bit about one of the weirdest,
12:16
Speaker 1: most sensational trials in American history right after this.
12:44
Speaker 3: All right, Chuck, So, on December eleventh, nineteen sixty nine,
12:49
Speaker 3: Charles Manson, who the public had just been acquainted with,
12:53
Speaker 3: I think just in the last few months, was finally
12:56
Speaker 3: arraigned for the murders of the Tate Labiyonca murders. And
13:02
Speaker 3: I think that did they get him for his role
13:06
Speaker 3: in the Hyndman murder at.
13:07
Speaker 1: That point, I'm not actually sure about that.
13:11
Speaker 3: Definitely the Tate Labyonca murders, which was plenty enough.
13:16
Speaker 2: And he.
13:19
Speaker 3: It's it's it's kind of an understatement to say that
13:21
Speaker 3: he did not offer any public contrition.
13:25
Speaker 2: He actually went the opposite way.
13:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, he was well. The whole trial was chaos,
13:31
Speaker 1: and he he incited chaos at every turn to make
13:36
Speaker 1: it just a circus and was quite successful at doing so.
13:40
Speaker 1: Initially wanted to represent himself and did for a little
13:43
Speaker 1: while but the judge denied that, Judge William Keane and said,
13:48
Speaker 1: you have to work with a lawyer because of the
13:51
Speaker 1: fact that you're just making this into a circus. Basically,
13:54
Speaker 1: we need this to stay on track. And he actually
13:58
Speaker 1: was successful, though Manson was getting Judge Keene oustered as
14:03
Speaker 1: judge and Judge Charles Older eventually would oversee the trial.
14:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I read a twenty thirteen interview with Manson,
14:12
Speaker 3: and the thing that seemed to still get him the
14:15
Speaker 3: most was that he was denied the ability to represent
14:19
Speaker 3: himself in court, like he felt like he never got
14:21
Speaker 3: to have his saying court and that was that was
14:24
Speaker 3: the thing that got him more than anything else, not
14:26
Speaker 3: being locked up for his whole life or anything like that.
14:29
Speaker 3: It was that he didn't get to open his big
14:31
Speaker 3: mouth in court as much as he wanted to.
14:34
Speaker 1: So I guess we could go over some of these
14:37
Speaker 1: things that happened in court that led to this circus atmosphere.
14:42
Speaker 3: And by the way, if you want to see it yourself,
14:44
Speaker 3: there's a pretty good dramatic recreation in the movie Helter
14:48
Speaker 3: Skelter that was based on Mugliosi's book.
14:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, nothing better than dramatic recreations. Yeah, lots of yelly
14:58
Speaker 1: and screaming, lots of shouting and cursing, lots of disrespect
15:02
Speaker 1: to the judge and the American flag. They threw a
15:06
Speaker 1: copy of the Constitution in the garbage. At one point,
15:10
Speaker 1: very famously, Charles Manson carved an X into his forehead,
15:14
Speaker 1: which later became a swastika, saying that he was exed
15:17
Speaker 1: out of the world. And then his family members would
15:20
Speaker 1: do the same, and they would shave their heads and
15:24
Speaker 1: generally just try and disrupt things at every turn.
15:27
Speaker 3: Right, And they did. I mean, they were quite successful.
15:30
Speaker 3: But the trial kept going on and on, right, I
15:32
Speaker 3: think it was. It went on for a couple of years,
15:34
Speaker 3: based on news articles I was reading about it. So
15:39
Speaker 3: it turns out, though that Richard Nixon supposedly had the
15:43
Speaker 3: most disruptive effect on the trial by saying while the
15:48
Speaker 3: trial was going on, quote, here's a man who was
15:51
Speaker 3: guilty directly or indirectly of eight murders without reason. He
15:56
Speaker 3: was the sitting US president commenting saying that this guy
16:00
Speaker 3: was guilty of a trial that was going on, which is,
16:04
Speaker 3: you just don't do that. It doesn't matter what the
16:06
Speaker 3: case is, not for any compassion for Charles Manson or
16:10
Speaker 3: anything like that. But just because even on the other side,
16:13
Speaker 3: you could have blown the case and and he legitimately
16:17
Speaker 3: could have created a mistrial there. Yeah, just because the
16:20
Speaker 3: President said something and everyone reported on it.
16:22
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that happening today.
16:25
Speaker 2: I totally can't.
16:26
Speaker 1: It was a very Trumpian move. So we talked. I
16:30
Speaker 1: think we covered the helter Skelter thing enough, don't you.
16:33
Speaker 2: We did.
16:33
Speaker 3: But I think there's a there's a big thing that
16:35
Speaker 3: all this hinges on. Is that there the prosecution said,
16:40
Speaker 3: and you said earlier you even had a quote from
16:42
Speaker 3: Tex Watson that Charles Manson told him to go and
16:44
Speaker 3: just destroy the people in that house, gruesome as you can.
16:48
Speaker 3: And the prosecution said that that Charles Manson was trying
16:51
Speaker 3: to spark the Helter Skelter race war that he believed
16:55
Speaker 3: was going to happen. Manson's whole thing was this here,
16:59
Speaker 3: This is Charles manson since explanation for what happened and
17:02
Speaker 3: why he's innocent. He said, Yeah, I believed in Helter Skelter. Yes,
17:06
Speaker 3: I believe there's a race war coming. I talked about
17:09
Speaker 3: it at night around bombfires with everybody on acid. I
17:12
Speaker 3: also talked about death of the ego and all sorts
17:15
Speaker 3: of other stuff. And if you ask me, what happened
17:20
Speaker 3: was my friends just took things and went it, took
17:24
Speaker 3: it too literally and went too far, and that it
17:27
Speaker 3: all hinged on this Bobby Bousselay thing, right, And even
17:32
Speaker 3: before that, there lots of Papa thing. So Tex Watson
17:35
Speaker 3: rips off Bernard, lots of Papa Crow and he's got
17:38
Speaker 3: a problem with lots of Papa who wants to kill
17:40
Speaker 3: him now, and Manson goes over there to help Tex
17:44
Speaker 3: Watson solve this problem by shooting, shooting lots of Papa.
17:48
Speaker 3: So now as far as Manson and Text are concerned,
17:51
Speaker 3: Tex owes Watson a debt, any kind of debt, well
17:55
Speaker 3: Manson's or Text owns Manson a debt. Now, Manson's friend
18:00
Speaker 3: Bobby Bousilla, who is one of his tightest family members,
18:04
Speaker 3: gets arrested for murder, the murder of Gary Hinman, and
18:09
Speaker 3: Manson says, well, you know, I mean you should do
18:12
Speaker 3: something to help my brother Bobby Bousola, And you know,
18:16
Speaker 3: Tex says, well what should I do? And apparently Manson
18:19
Speaker 3: flew off the handle and said, don't ask me what
18:22
Speaker 3: you should do, you know what you should do.
18:24
Speaker 2: And that was that.
18:25
Speaker 3: And the next thing, Manson knows Watson and cren Winkle
18:30
Speaker 3: and Atkins are over at the at the Tate residence,
18:35
Speaker 3: carving up Sharon Tate and the rest of the people
18:37
Speaker 3: in the house. He didn't say anything about going to
18:40
Speaker 3: kill anybody. He didn't direct him anywhere, he didn't say
18:43
Speaker 3: anything like that. He just said they took what all
18:47
Speaker 3: the other stuff that he'd said too far, and that
18:49
Speaker 3: really what they were doing was trying to cover up
18:52
Speaker 3: cover for Bobby Boussola to get him out of prison.
18:57
Speaker 3: That's Manson's explanation for the whole thing.
19:01
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and for the part well, I guess we
19:04
Speaker 1: should go ahead and say that that all of these
19:07
Speaker 1: people went to prison, and Susan Atkins, Patricia Crenwinkle, Leslie
19:12
Speaker 1: Van Houghton, they all were, you know, still so under
19:16
Speaker 1: his spell that they were fully ready and did take
19:19
Speaker 1: the blame for these killings. But when it comes to parole,
19:23
Speaker 1: it was in January nineteen seventy one that they were
19:25
Speaker 1: all convicted on all accounts murder conspiracy to commit murder.
19:32
Speaker 1: But years later, as parole hearings would come up for
19:35
Speaker 1: all these women and Tex Watson and Manson himself the
19:39
Speaker 1: reason why they were continually denied, even like Tex Watson
19:45
Speaker 1: became a born again Christian and you know, supposedly turned
19:49
Speaker 1: his life around, but they none of them would would
19:55
Speaker 1: take responsibility. All these years later, they would all still
19:58
Speaker 1: say that it was Manson was Manson. And from what
20:01
Speaker 1: I understand, a big part of getting your parole approved
20:06
Speaker 1: is to finally take full responsibility for what you had done,
20:10
Speaker 1: and none of them would do it, and they were
20:12
Speaker 1: all all denied over the years. Susan Atkins eventually died
20:17
Speaker 1: of brain cancer in two thousand and nine, and then
20:20
Speaker 1: just a few days ago, well, Leslie van Houghton in
20:25
Speaker 1: September of last year was actually recommended for parole in
20:28
Speaker 1: just a few days ago as of this recording, the
20:30
Speaker 1: Governor of California, Jerry Brown, denied that, oh really, and said,
20:35
Speaker 1: now she still isn't taking responsibility. And I think these
20:40
Speaker 1: cases are just so loaded still that it would be
20:43
Speaker 1: really tough even though parole was recommended for the governor
20:47
Speaker 1: to approve that, you know, So we'll see, they're gonna
20:52
Speaker 1: apparently they're going to keep pursuing that and I'm not
20:55
Speaker 1: sure what the next steps are, but they're going to
20:57
Speaker 1: fight that ruling by Jerry Brown and we'll see where
20:59
Speaker 1: that go.
21:00
Speaker 3: So so I think then Patricia Creenwinkle is still in prison.
21:07
Speaker 3: And I think now that Susan Atkins died, she is
21:10
Speaker 3: the longest serving female inmate in California prison system.
21:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, and we should say too that Squeaky From
21:17
Speaker 1: tried to kill Nixon. That's where she gained later fame.
21:20
Speaker 2: That was Ford.
21:22
Speaker 1: Oh what I say, Nixon? Yeah, yeah, Gerald Ford. And
21:25
Speaker 1: she's she's out of prison. She she lives in upstate
21:29
Speaker 1: New York and I think the last I've seen of
21:31
Speaker 1: her was someone took her picture in a Walmart parking
21:33
Speaker 1: lot and she like smacked the camera down.
21:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:36
Speaker 3: So she she's an interesting case. Squeaky From was out.
21:40
Speaker 3: She wasn't indicted for any of the murders or any
21:44
Speaker 3: role in the murders, but she was a number She
21:46
Speaker 3: was the number two person to join the Manson family. Remember, Yeah,
21:51
Speaker 3: and she still to this day refuses to denounce Manson.
21:56
Speaker 3: It's still very much all about Charles Manson, and just
22:00
Speaker 3: as much as she was before. And she went to
22:05
Speaker 3: I guess I'm not sure what she was doing with
22:08
Speaker 3: a gun and Gerald Ford, but she aimed a gun
22:11
Speaker 3: at Jerald Ford. It was the gun wasn't loaded, but
22:14
Speaker 3: it still had the effect of sending her to prison
22:17
Speaker 3: for decades for an assassination attempt on the president.
22:20
Speaker 2: Right.
22:20
Speaker 1: I'm surprised she ever got out.
22:22
Speaker 3: I am too, but she was paroled eventually, but she
22:26
Speaker 3: still she's still never denounced Charles Manson. All of the
22:29
Speaker 3: other ones denounced Manson. She's the only one who has it.
22:33
Speaker 3: And supposedly one time she escaped in the eighties because
22:35
Speaker 3: she heard that Charles Manson was sick, so she broke
22:39
Speaker 3: her way out of prison to try to get to him.
22:41
Speaker 2: I guess.
22:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was a Manson family member who tried to
22:44
Speaker 1: kill the president and escaped from prison and they she
22:48
Speaker 1: earned parole.
22:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, hard to believe, but I think it's like you said,
22:52
Speaker 3: I think those the case that Tate la Bianca murders
22:55
Speaker 3: were so politically charged and so loaded that the like
23:00
Speaker 3: it's just didn't they just weren't going to get out
23:03
Speaker 3: the people who actually committed the murders.
23:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Manson had an interesting time in prison too.
23:11
Speaker 1: He had a guy trying and kill him by lighting
23:13
Speaker 1: him on fire at one point in like I think
23:17
Speaker 1: like twenty percent of his body was badly burned. And
23:21
Speaker 1: he had a string of relationships with people from penpals,
23:27
Speaker 1: which will kind of cover at the end to a
23:30
Speaker 1: woman that he did he actually marry that woman.
23:33
Speaker 2: I don't know.
23:34
Speaker 3: She was in that twenty thirteen article that I was reading,
23:38
Speaker 3: and I don't know if they got married.
23:40
Speaker 1: Man, we should do I don't know what we would
23:43
Speaker 1: call it, but an episode on generally women who who
23:49
Speaker 1: marry serial killers.
23:51
Speaker 3: We totally should in prison, Let's do that, But first,
23:55
Speaker 3: let's take a break.
23:56
Speaker 2: How about that.
23:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it.
23:57
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, Chuck, we're back. We're talking about So Manson's
24:26
Speaker 3: in prison for a while there. This is just mind
24:28
Speaker 3: blowing to me. For a good decade. He enjoyed, Actually,
24:33
Speaker 3: more than that, he enjoyed the limelight. He could get
24:38
Speaker 3: interviewed by huge names like you said, Diane Sawyer, Charlie Rose,
24:42
Speaker 3: Heeraldo Rivera very famously did an interview with Charles Manson
24:46
Speaker 3: where apparently Manson you were saying how much poise Diane
24:49
Speaker 3: Sawyer showed during her interview.
24:52
Speaker 2: Supposedly Manson just owned Heraldo during that interview.
24:56
Speaker 3: I just totally took control of the whole thing. But
24:59
Speaker 3: the these were things that were televised like on national
25:04
Speaker 3: National news, and these these people were giving these networks
25:09
Speaker 3: were giving Charles Manson a platform to talk about himself,
25:13
Speaker 3: to talk about his philosophy, to show the world how
25:15
Speaker 3: crazy he was. Oh yes, to keep him in the public,
25:19
Speaker 3: in the public eye and the public mind. Until finally
25:22
Speaker 3: after the Diane Sawyer interview there, they not only pulled
25:25
Speaker 3: the plug on his interviews, they said for there, you
25:28
Speaker 3: couldn't televise interviews with any inmates from in California because
25:33
Speaker 3: of Charles Manson basically. So it's just really strange to me,
25:37
Speaker 3: especially these days looking back, that he had a platform
25:41
Speaker 3: for so long to stay that boogeyman. You know that
25:45
Speaker 3: that just scared the be Jesus out of America.
25:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think those last like whatever, like twenty three,
25:51
Speaker 1: twenty five years in prison with no limelight was that
25:56
Speaker 1: had to have been like the darkest time of his
25:58
Speaker 1: life because you know, he wanted he clearly wanted to
26:02
Speaker 1: be a singing star, and in a weird way, he
26:06
Speaker 1: ended up kind of getting what he wanted because some
26:09
Speaker 1: of his music ended up being recorded by you know,
26:12
Speaker 1: the Guns and Roses and the Lemonheads, and he became
26:17
Speaker 1: this kind of weird u cult figure and not as
26:21
Speaker 1: in Jim James cult oh like movie My Morning Jacket
26:29
Speaker 1: Jim Jones, but like, yeah, like a cult figure and
26:33
Speaker 1: revered by some people weirdly. It just is so strange
26:36
Speaker 1: that people would look at him that way, you know.
26:39
Speaker 3: So one person who revered him later on in life
26:42
Speaker 3: was a woman I believe he named Star, And she
26:47
Speaker 3: moved from her parents' house in Mississippi out to California
26:53
Speaker 3: to be just down the street from where Manson was held.
26:56
Speaker 3: And this is she was the woman who was posed
27:00
Speaker 3: to marry him, and she.
27:04
Speaker 2: Was a follower of his.
27:05
Speaker 3: She said she didn't care anything about nineteen sixty nine.
27:09
Speaker 3: He so Manson later in life became really interested in
27:14
Speaker 3: preserving the environment. He came up with a thing called
27:19
Speaker 3: Atwa air trees water.
27:22
Speaker 2: I can't remember the last air.
27:25
Speaker 3: Yeah air again, that would be awaa right.
27:31
Speaker 2: So she became very interested in him.
27:34
Speaker 3: For his ecological stance, right, And she moved out to
27:37
Speaker 3: be close to him and would visit him on weekends
27:39
Speaker 3: and they became very close, and I guess to kind
27:43
Speaker 3: of demonstrate to the world that he still had it.
27:46
Speaker 2: I still got it world, he.
27:49
Speaker 3: Asked her to carve an X in her forehead and
27:51
Speaker 3: she did so. She was also big time into collecting
27:58
Speaker 3: and selling Manson memorabilia, and Ed points out in this article.
28:01
Speaker 3: I think he's referring to her that the whole marriage
28:04
Speaker 3: thing may have been a ploy to get at Manson memorabilia,
28:08
Speaker 3: but I don't believe that's the case at all. So
28:11
Speaker 3: she actually ran a website and still does called mansondirect
28:14
Speaker 3: dot com, and it's like up to date, So I
28:18
Speaker 3: think she had not abandoned him after some big, big
28:24
Speaker 3: score with memorabilia like she seems to have been the
28:27
Speaker 3: real deal follower, like an early Manson family girl reincarnated.
28:33
Speaker 1: Huh. Weird. So there were a bunch of other I
28:40
Speaker 1: saw an article whether at least ten other weird deaths
28:42
Speaker 1: related to the Manson family that some people say could
28:46
Speaker 1: have been them or maybe not looked into a few
28:50
Speaker 1: of them. That was his original or at least this
28:53
Speaker 1: guy was originally going to represent Manson is an attorney
28:56
Speaker 1: named Ron Hughes. He ended up representing Think Leslie van Houghton. Yeah,
29:02
Speaker 1: but she he disappeared while on a There was a
29:05
Speaker 1: ten day recess in the trial. So he goes camping
29:09
Speaker 1: with another couple and the couple left and he's like,
29:11
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay on here in the woods. He was
29:13
Speaker 1: never seen again, so that was a little weird. They
29:15
Speaker 1: never found a body or anything.
29:17
Speaker 3: I don't think it wasn't they even though he was
29:19
Speaker 3: one of their defense attorneys. They had a huge grudge
29:21
Speaker 3: against him because, like you said earlier, Van Houghton, Krenwinkle,
29:26
Speaker 3: and Atkins were all or not Atkins, I can't remember
29:30
Speaker 3: who the third one was. We're all going to incriminate themselves.
29:34
Speaker 3: So as Leslie Van Houghton's defense attorney, he said, I'm
29:37
Speaker 3: not he rested after the prosecution wrested. He never presented
29:41
Speaker 3: a defense, Yeah, because he knew that they were going
29:43
Speaker 3: to incriminate themselves and he refused to take part in it.
29:47
Speaker 3: So they had a grudge against him.
29:49
Speaker 2: So it's possible.
29:50
Speaker 1: Possibly there was a spawn ranch worker that disappeared and
29:55
Speaker 1: he they were actually convicted. Some other family members of
29:58
Speaker 1: his murdered. His name was Shorty Shae Donald. Shorty say,
30:02
Speaker 1: there was this one dude Joel Pew who was married
30:07
Speaker 1: to Sandra Good who was a member, and he he
30:11
Speaker 1: was found dead in his London hotel. He had It
30:14
Speaker 1: was ruled a suicide, but his wrist had been slashed
30:18
Speaker 1: and his throat was slashed twice and there was something
30:22
Speaker 1: written in blood on the mirror that was erased. You know,
30:27
Speaker 1: it was one of these shoddy jobs I think by
30:28
Speaker 1: the London cops. But some say it said Jack and Jill.
30:32
Speaker 1: Other people say they don't remember what it said. But
30:34
Speaker 1: that was definitely one of those that was like, hmm,
30:38
Speaker 1: could he have been killed?
30:39
Speaker 2: Right?
30:40
Speaker 1: And Manson family member, Yeah, well the list goes on.
30:42
Speaker 3: One of those Manson family members who was convicted of
30:46
Speaker 3: killing Shorty Shay had made a couple of trips to
30:49
Speaker 3: the UK while Joel Pugh was there. So there's even
30:53
Speaker 3: there's even more. There's it's definitely weird that he died
30:58
Speaker 3: like that. Yeah, you know, having your throat slashed in
31:01
Speaker 3: a London hotel, it's weird no matter what.
31:06
Speaker 1: And so like we said, you know, you said at
31:07
Speaker 1: the beginning, it was definitely the end of the peace
31:10
Speaker 1: love movement and sort of put a pin on the
31:17
Speaker 1: what people thought about what a lot of people thought
31:19
Speaker 1: about the counterculture, and like this is these are the hippies.
31:23
Speaker 1: They're not peace and love. They can murder people on drugs,
31:27
Speaker 1: and this is what acid can do to you. So
31:29
Speaker 1: that was mainstream media. You had other alternative media or
31:33
Speaker 1: places like Rolling Stone that was still a pretty young
31:36
Speaker 1: magazine that would would not say things like that, would
31:40
Speaker 1: not kind of buy into the mainstream media portrayal, but
31:43
Speaker 1: it captured and still captures a lot of people's imagination.
31:49
Speaker 1: You know, it was a part of the zeitgeist, but
31:51
Speaker 1: it just endured for decades after, you know for sure.
31:56
Speaker 3: And Rolling Stone actually did a tremendous amount of reporting
31:59
Speaker 3: on Charles Manson that was really good at the time.
32:03
Speaker 3: That twenty thirteen article I read was really good. That
32:06
Speaker 3: was from Rolling Stone. You can get into a Manson
32:09
Speaker 3: rabbit hole just going onto Rolling Stone's website.
32:12
Speaker 2: And that.
32:15
Speaker 3: The twenty thirteen article I read chuck that the author,
32:21
Speaker 3: I think he kind of summed up Charles Manson better
32:25
Speaker 3: than I've seen it anywhere else. But he said this,
32:28
Speaker 3: he said, sometimes he can be so transparent, which makes
32:31
Speaker 3: him look like nothing more than a goofy klutzy small
32:34
Speaker 3: timer who made some bad decisions that led to more
32:37
Speaker 3: bad decisions that led to murder, and who then got
32:40
Speaker 3: caught up in an ambitious DA's dream about a mastermind
32:43
Speaker 3: saying golly with demonic visions of world domination. Some crook,
32:48
Speaker 3: some outlaw, some gangster, some desperado, probably the worst ever, but.
32:53
Speaker 1: In the end a tiny redneck.
32:55
Speaker 2: I mean that definitely falls in there too.
32:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. So as far as these kids go, it's kind
33:02
Speaker 1: of hard to get good information because I read a
33:04
Speaker 1: bunch of different things. But from what I can tell,
33:08
Speaker 1: he had three sons, for sure. Yeah, one with Candy
33:14
Speaker 1: Stevens named Charles Luther Manson, one with Mary Brunner named
33:20
Speaker 1: Valentine or Valentine Michael Manson. Those two guys are impossible
33:27
Speaker 1: to find anything on. I'm sure they have probably changed
33:30
Speaker 1: their names. There was a Charles Manson Junior who killed
33:34
Speaker 1: himself in the I think early nineties.
33:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, ninety three.
33:39
Speaker 1: And then there's this dude. Did you see this Matthew
33:41
Speaker 1: Roberts guy.
33:43
Speaker 2: I ran across his name, but I don't know anything
33:45
Speaker 2: about him.
33:46
Speaker 1: Well, he claims too that his mother said, you know what,
33:52
Speaker 1: Charles Manson was your dad? We had sex in an
33:56
Speaker 1: orgy in samon Go in the late sixties, and I
34:02
Speaker 1: believe that he is probably your father, although given that
34:05
Speaker 1: it's an orgy, you know, those things go.
34:08
Speaker 3: So that is the last does the last thing you
34:11
Speaker 3: ever want to hear your mom tell you that whole story. Yeah,
34:15
Speaker 3: the whole story from beginning to end. It's just bad
34:17
Speaker 3: news for you, the kid.
34:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, so just look this guy up. And if he
34:23
Speaker 1: doesn't look like Charles Manson incarnate, then I don't know
34:27
Speaker 1: what to say. But the dude looks exactly like him.
34:31
Speaker 1: Here's the deal though, As he ended up, he tried
34:35
Speaker 1: to get DNA from the prison, tried to smuggle it out,
34:38
Speaker 1: but it got contaminated, the test didn't work. He ended
34:42
Speaker 1: up taking a DNA test to match with who we
34:46
Speaker 1: know was Charles manson junior son, a dude named Jason Freeman,
34:50
Speaker 1: who was you know, the grandson of Charles Manson, and
34:53
Speaker 1: there was no match there. But Matthew Roberts says, well,
34:57
Speaker 1: that doesn't prove anything, because we ever see in the
35:00
Speaker 1: DNA match from Freeman and Manson. See he's still claiming
35:05
Speaker 1: to be his son, and I mean, the guy looks
35:08
Speaker 1: so much like him. It's a little creepy, So it's
35:12
Speaker 1: hard to not say, you know, why would his mom
35:14
Speaker 1: make up the story? The guy happens to look just
35:16
Speaker 1: like him, but who knows. And in the end, his
35:20
Speaker 1: will and supposedly his estate is worth money. I don't
35:25
Speaker 1: know how much, but they say, you know, there could
35:26
Speaker 1: be a lot of dough there. And right now there's
35:29
Speaker 1: a legal battle going on between Jason Freeman, who is
35:32
Speaker 1: the grandson, and then this pen pal that Manson had
35:36
Speaker 1: for like decades named Michael Channels, who he scribbled out
35:41
Speaker 1: a will to this guy. And he's saying, hey, look,
35:44
Speaker 1: he wrote this will. He wants me to have this money.
35:47
Speaker 1: Jason Freeman saying it's mine. For their part, they're both
35:50
Speaker 1: saying what they want to do. His body's on ice
35:52
Speaker 1: still is they want to they both want to scatter
35:55
Speaker 1: his ashes just where no one knows. So there it
35:58
Speaker 1: doesn't become like some weird trying. Yeah, but uh, the
36:01
Speaker 1: ongoing legal battle for his will, we'll see what happens there.
36:04
Speaker 3: So and that Star lady weighed in saying if anybody
36:07
Speaker 3: who says he has a will is lying, that he
36:09
Speaker 3: purposefully said that he was not going to leave a will, right,
36:13
Speaker 3: But it would just it would be just like Charles
36:15
Speaker 3: Manson to scribble off a will, deny that he ever
36:18
Speaker 3: did it, and just leave a big mess behind afterwards,
36:21
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, just one more mess for everybody to
36:23
Speaker 3: sort out.
36:24
Speaker 2: So strange, so strange, and said absolutely.
36:29
Speaker 1: In the sixties there was some I know he talked
36:32
Speaker 1: about the uh god, who is that one cult that
36:35
Speaker 1: saw the documentary with Father Zod or whatever? Hm m
36:40
Speaker 1: I man, that was a crazy documentary. I mean, just
36:42
Speaker 1: that whole time was so so strange.
36:46
Speaker 2: It really was.
36:46
Speaker 3: Is people looking for something to belong to or something
36:50
Speaker 3: some meaning that wasn't their parents meaning, you know, yeah, yeah,
36:57
Speaker 3: well all right, Chuck, they found it. By the way
37:00
Speaker 3: they found it. They all became stockbrokers in the eighties.
37:04
Speaker 3: If you want to know more about the Manson family, well,
37:07
Speaker 3: like I said, there's rabbit holes all over the internet.
37:12
Speaker 3: And in the meantime, you can also read this great
37:15
Speaker 3: article by EDG. Grabanowski by typing the words Manson family
37:20
Speaker 3: and the search bar at house Stuff Works. And like
37:22
Speaker 3: I said, it'll bring up this great Grabster article. And
37:25
Speaker 3: while I said that it's time for listening now, I'm.
37:30
Speaker 1: Gonna call this Confederate monuments, well not Confederate monuments, but
37:36
Speaker 1: removal of monuments follow up.
37:38
Speaker 2: Nice.
37:39
Speaker 1: So we got a lot of great email about that podcast.
37:43
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of those you read, but
37:46
Speaker 1: you know, people roundly said we did a good, fair
37:48
Speaker 1: take on this tricky subject.
37:50
Speaker 2: Yeah I saw that too, which always.
37:52
Speaker 1: Makes me feel good and a shout out. This is
37:54
Speaker 1: not from her, but one of the people who wrote
37:56
Speaker 1: in was an artist named Kara Kara Walker who just
38:01
Speaker 1: look up her work. She is amazing. She's I think
38:04
Speaker 1: the second youngest person ever received a MacArthur Genius Grant
38:09
Speaker 1: and she does He's great. She does a lot of
38:11
Speaker 1: stuff and a lot of mediums. But what she's known
38:13
Speaker 1: for I think of these room sized silhouette like black
38:17
Speaker 1: cutout silhouettes depicting statements on race and gender and civil rights.
38:24
Speaker 1: And she's just like a rock star in the New
38:27
Speaker 1: York arts scene. And she went to my high school.
38:30
Speaker 2: Yeah I saw that.
38:31
Speaker 1: Did not know that. She introduced herself. She graduated two
38:33
Speaker 1: years ahead of me at Ridan, So I wrote back
38:36
Speaker 1: to her and just told her how proud I was
38:38
Speaker 1: to be an alum.
38:39
Speaker 2: Nice.
38:39
Speaker 1: So, anyway, go check out Carl Walker's work. That's a mouthful,
38:45
Speaker 1: it is, but this is from someone else. Hey, guys,
38:48
Speaker 1: thanks so much for the podcast. I'm a big fan,
38:50
Speaker 1: especially enjoyed the Public Monument episode. I'm writing to clarify
38:54
Speaker 1: small point about the Georgia state flag that Chuck discussed
38:58
Speaker 1: in that episode. I got this thing wrong, by the way.
39:01
Speaker 1: You pointed out that Georgia, like some other former Confederate states,
39:04
Speaker 1: included the familiar Confederate battle flag with the ex pattern
39:08
Speaker 1: in its state flag from fifty six to two thousand
39:11
Speaker 1: and one. However, that flag is not the Stars and Bars.
39:15
Speaker 1: The Stars and Bars was the official national flag of
39:18
Speaker 1: the Confederacy and is the flag after which the current
39:21
Speaker 1: Georgia flag is patterned. It turns out that the flag
39:24
Speaker 1: Georgia use till nineteen fifty six was modeled after the
39:28
Speaker 1: national Confederate flag, and the state switched to the Confederate
39:32
Speaker 1: battle flag in fifty six. In other words, while the
39:34
Speaker 1: most familiar Confederate flag was removed in two thousand and one,
39:38
Speaker 1: it was replaced with another one.
39:41
Speaker 2: That's so Georgia.
39:42
Speaker 1: I thought we did the right thing. No, so I
39:46
Speaker 1: thought you guys wuld be interested. By the way, Mississippi
39:47
Speaker 1: is the only state that still uses the Confederate battle
39:50
Speaker 1: flag and its official state flag. Keep up the great work.
39:53
Speaker 1: And I don't have a name on this one.
39:54
Speaker 3: Well, thanks a lot, I don't have a name on
39:57
Speaker 3: this one. That was some good info. We appreciate that.
39:59
Speaker 3: And Chuck, that was big of you to say, Hey,
40:02
Speaker 3: I got it wrong, I got it wrong.
40:04
Speaker 2: That's all right, man, that's all right.
40:06
Speaker 3: If you want to write in to tell us we
40:08
Speaker 3: got something wrong, lay it on us.
40:09
Speaker 2: That's fine. You can send us all including Jerry an.
40:12
Speaker 3: Email to Stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com and has
40:16
Speaker 3: always joined us at our home on the web. Stuff
40:18
Speaker 3: Youshould Know dot com.
40:22
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40:25
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