Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Hardcover (43 page)

Charlie couldn’t resist bragging. He told Springer that he liked to go out at night with his cutlass, the one that used to belong to the Straight Satans. He knocked on doors in the swankiest neighborhoods and cut up the people who answered. Charlie claimed he’d “knocked off five of them just the other night.” It sounded absurd to Springer, but DeCarlo said it was true, and that there was more—DeCarlo had heard from Tex and Clem about them murdering some guy named Henland and also “a nigger.” Charlie supposedly cut Henland’s ear off with his sword, and he shot the other man with a long-barreled .22.

Springer had no interest in leaving the Satans for the Family. He was very fastidious and he thought that the shacks on the ranch were filthy and the women were disease-ridden. But he hung around a little longer, listening to Charlie prattle. At some point somebody mentioned writing a word on a refrigerator, something about pigs or niggers, Springer didn’t quite catch what. But Charlie and the others were very clear that they set
up these things to call the blame down on the Black Panthers. He had no doubt about that. Springer didn’t exactly blow Charlie off. Hell, DeCarlo said he was scared that if he left, the Family would track him down and kill him. They didn’t like defectors. So Springer was noncommittal, and took word back to the other Satans that DeCarlo didn’t feel like Charlie would let him leave. That pissed them off something fierce; they began planning how they’d go out to Spahn and take their buddy back whether Charlie and his people wanted them to or not.

•  •  •

Linda Kasabian couldn’t stand it anymore. For two nights she’d been part of a murder spree, and now she believed that the others in the Family were “little robots” totally under Charlie’s evil control. When Charlie told her to go back to the county jail and try again to see Bobby Beausoleil, to get him the word that he still had to keep quiet, Linda made a show of agreeing. She borrowed a car and left Spahn, but instead of driving into L.A. she headed for New Mexico where her estranged husband, Bob, was still living. Besides the danger she faced herself from Charlie if he ever caught her, Linda took an additional risk by leaving her young daughter, Tanya, behind with the Family. She gambled that no matter how angry everyone there might be with her, they all seemed to love and care for children.

When Linda found Bob she told him everything, including all about the Tate murders. He wanted her to return to Spahn with him right away so that they could rescue Tanya, but Linda was convinced that Charlie would kill them if they tried. For the next few days they argued about it.

•  •  •

The L.A. media inundated viewers and readers with nonstop coverage of the Tate murders. Beyond a few short follow-up articles, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca disappeared. On August 13 readers of the
Los Angeles Times
learned about the substantial quantity of drugs found at the Cielo murder scene (this in direct contradiction to the
Times
’s original story on August 10, which stated “no narcotics were found”); on the 14th the
Times
described in detail the funeral service for Sharon Tate, listing the many stars in the overflow crowd who came to mourn her. On the 15th, the
Times
reported that federal officials now “admitted” they were focusing the Tate inquiries on drugs “and gambling debts,” apparently mixing in by accident a leak from the LaBianca investigation.

The great interest in the L.A. murders was interrupted for four days beginning on August 15. Four hundred thousand people, most of them young and long-haired, gathered on an upstate New York farm for the Woodstock music festival. The crowd and the festival were on a scale unlike any before. The festival celebrated the hippie sense of peace and love as much or more than the music. When Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman tried to interrupt The Who’s set with political rhetoric, the band unceremoniously threw him off the stage. There was a long downpour, and instead of fleeing for cover many of the young people played in the mud. There was some mockery of them by hardshell conservatives: See, these doped-up longhairs don’t have sense enough to get out of the rain. But for much of the country, Woodstock was a soothing reminder that amid the tragic news of murders in Los Angeles and the stalemate in Vietnam, it was still possible for young people to gather and have a good time instead of protesting or rioting. Maybe hippies really were sweet and harmless after all.

On Friday night, August 15,
Spahn Ranch became the antithesis of Woodstock peace and love when eight or nine Straight Satans roared in on their motorcycles to rescue Danny DeCarlo and, while they were at it, kick Charlie Manson’s ass. The Satans jumped off their bikes and went looking for Charlie, who they expected would be cowering somewhere. Instead, he walked up to them cooler than hell and greeted them warmly. That threw the bikers off guard. When they threatened to tear the whole ranch apart, Charlie ignored the threat and offered them food and dope. The Family women appeared, acting friendly, and some of the Satans went off with them for fun and games. After a while the bikers gathered back together and remembered why they’d come. DeCarlo was on the ranch somewhere, and they demanded that he be brought to them. That was when Charlie, still sounding pleasant but also firm, mentioned that he had the men in the Family up on the roofs of the movie set. They had guns trained on the Satans and would shoot if Charlie gave the command. Al Springer checked out the rifle racks that Charlie had shown him
in one of the shacks. Sure enough, some of the guns were missing. So the Satans blustered awhile and then got on their bikes and rode off, outmaneuvered by the slick-talking little creep they had fully intended to pound into bloody pulp. As a face-saving gesture, they took back the sword that Charlie loved so much, and left behind one of their members; Robert Reinhard was supposed to find DeCarlo in the morning and get him off of Spahn, but he didn’t get the chance.

At daybreak on Saturday, everyone on the ranch was awakened by the din of hovering helicopters and bullhorns blaring orders to come out of the buildings with their hands up. The raid extended for hours—it took that long to locate the dozens of vehicles stashed in remote sections of the ranch. The Family members had constructed elaborate hiding places in brush and gullies. Finally all the cars were logged and impounded, including Johnny Swartz’s 1959 Ford, and all the Family members were in custody but one. The county cops still hadn’t bagged Charlie, who they believed was the ringleader. They kept searching until someone finally spotted him hiding under one of the movie set buildings. When they dragged him out, Charlie was informed that he and the others were under arrest for auto theft. His captors couldn’t understand why the scruffy little man looked so relieved. They hauled their prisoners, twenty-six in all, off to jail. It had been a good morning’s work.

At around the same time on Saturday, staff at the LAPD Firearms and Explosives Unit used the broken pieces of handle to identify the specific make of gun used in the Tate murders. It was a Hi Standard .22 Longhorn, nicknamed the Buntline Special. It was a significant step in the Tate investigation—now detectives could query gun shop owners to see who might have purchased that model, or if one of these guns had been pawned or sold or found somewhere in the aftermath of August 9.

Stumped for fresh information—beyond discovering the model of the gun used at Cielo, the LAPD had made very little progress—L.A. newspapers filled pages with speculation. On August 16 the
Times
revealed that an informant had tipped police to three possible suspects in the Tate murders. This was true; over the next several weeks investigators frantically followed up on the vaguest possible leads. None of these marginal suspects panned out. Having been cleared of any involvement himself,
Roman Polanski announced a $25,000 reward for anyone whose information led to the capture and conviction of the Tate murderers. Because of the impressive amount, and because it was so widely reported that the money had been put up by some of Hollywood’s best-known stars, news of the reward encouraged even more dead-end tips to the police.

On Sunday, August 17, the
Times
local news section led with a retrospective: “Anatomy of a Mass Murder in Hollywood.” Far less prominent was a one-column article, “LaBianca Couple, Victims of Slayer, Given Final Rites.” An even smaller story informed readers that “Police Raid Ranch, Arrest 26 Suspects in Auto Theft Ring.” Unwittingly, the
Times
had the seven victims and their killers together on the same page.

On Monday, all the charges against Charlie and his followers were dropped and they were set free. The date on the county warrant had never been changed from August 13 to August 16, making it illegal. Most of the cars recovered during the raid were stolen, but there was no way to prove which of the prisoners were guilty in which instances. The Family was allowed to return to Spahn with the exception of the children, including Linda’s daughter, Tanya. Because county welfare officials were concerned about living conditions at the ranch, the children remained in foster care.

Out in New Mexico, Linda Kasabian was frantic to get her toddler back, and just as desperate not to fall back into Charlie’s clutches. Bob wasn’t any help; no matter how much she explained to him about the Tate murders, he still thought they could just drive back to L.A. and retrieve Tanya from the Family as if she were at some baby-sitter’s. Linda got Joe Sage, a Zen monk in Taos, to call Charlie on her behalf. She told Joe everything and he was very calm about it. He phoned the ranch and asked Charlie if Linda’s story about murders was true, and Charlie told him that Linda was a flipped-out chick who got too weird and ran away. Linda was afraid to talk to Charlie, but she did get on the phone with Pat, who berated her for opening her big mouth. Then another of the Family women—Linda thought it was Squeaky—told her that the county had Tanya in foster care. Linda could go bother them now. Linda contacted the county and had to go through a lot of bureaucratic hoops before Tanya was restored to her. But Linda didn’t say anything to the authorities
about the Cielo or Waverly Drive slayings, because, if she did, at the very least she would be considered an accessory.

So much wild speculation about the Tate murders was sweeping the city that the LAPD felt compelled to issue a four-item “clarification”:

1. Narcotics were found on the [Cielo] premises.

2. None of the bodies had wounds involving the sex organs.

3. The word “PIG” written in blood was found on the premises. The letters were “P-I-G” not “P-I-C.” [“Pic” was rumored to be the name of the killer.]

4. At present, there is no evidence to connect these murders with any others.

The clarification had no effect on the rumors.

•  •  •

The combination of the Straight Satans’ invasion and the Los Angeles County raid made everyone at Spahn paranoid, Charlie most of all. He still expected the Black Panthers to attack at any moment, and the LAPD and FBI must be lurking, too. Charlie never found fault with himself—his plans were always perfect; his followers and the various Spahn hangers-on weren’t—so he looked around for scapegoats and selected two.
Danny DeCarlo was the first. Charlie had expected that using the Family women to win over DeCarlo would result in him recruiting the rest of the Straight Satans as a sort of Family cavalry unit. After what had happened Friday, that clearly wasn’t going to happen, and it must be because of DeCarlo. DeCarlo had been arrested in the county raid, but returned to Spahn with everybody else. At Charlie’s command he was no longer treated as a welcome guest and future member of the Family. Instead, the women rebuffed his advances, and when he tried to pal around with the men they walked away. DeCarlo had spent lots of time hanging around with Charlie; he’d seen him lose his temper and lash out violently. Beginning in late July after Gary Hinman he’d heard all the talk about murders. Now he did his best to stay out of Charlie’s way and, at least for a while, avoided his wrath.

Shorty Shea wasn’t as fortunate.

To some extent, Charlie understood why the Straight Satans had come to the ranch. They’d been stiffed on the July drug deal and they wanted Danny DeCarlo, their club treasurer, returned to their fold. But he brooded about the raid by the Los Angeles County cops. Spahn Ranch was on the periphery of their territory, and they’d already rousted the Family there as recently as April. There was no pressing reason for them to be back so soon unless someone had tipped them off about the stolen cars and dune buggies. When Charlie tried to figure out who might have squealed,
he soon settled on an obvious candidate. For months, ranch hand Shorty Shea had been urging George Spahn to evict the Family or even sell the land right out from under them to the developers. Squeaky had overheard Shorty offering to throw the Family out himself and reported it to Charlie. It made sense that Shorty squealed about the stolen vehicles to the county cops so they’d do his dirty work.

Charlie and his followers had walked away from the raid, but it was still a terrible blow to their plans for moving to Death Valley. Most of the dune buggies they’d prepared for use on Barker Ranch were gone, confiscated by the county. The cars they’d been allowed to retain were useless on desert terrain. Now they’d have to go about accumulating a whole new fleet, and that would take too much time—Charlie wanted to get out of L.A. fast before other arms of the law like the LAPD or FBI came for him. Shorty Shea had no right to cause problems for Charlie Manson. Over the last seven weeks, Charlie had already a hand in murderous attacks on nine people. Now it was time for a tenth.

On a night late in August, probably the 25th or 26th, Shorty Shea got into a car with Charlie, Clem, and Bruce Davis. They didn’t drive far, just out to some point on the Spahn property. Around 10
P.M
. Family member Barbara Hoyt, sleeping in a trailer on high ground past the movie set, was awakened by the sound of a scream.
At first she thought she must have imagined it, but then there were more screams that “kept happening and happening and happening.” Shorty Shea was never seen again. Bruce Davis allegedly told some Family members that he, Clem, and Charlie armed themselves with bayonets purchased from Army surplus, and when they had Shea far enough out on the ranch so that there would be no witnesses, they “carv[ed him] up like a Christmas turkey.” It took
awhile for Shea to die, and most of the Family believed that Charlie dismembered his corpse and buried the pieces around the ranch. Afterward Bruce Davis filled some trunks with Shea’s possessions, loaded them in the murdered ranch hand’s automobile, and then he and Gypsy drove the car to Canoga Park and abandoned it.