Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Hardcover (66 page)

It was one of a handful of federal prisons:
Phil Kaufman interview.

he was still fascinated by pimps:
Sanders, p. 4; Stephen Kay interview.

His initial months at Terminal Island were brightened:
Bugliosi, p. 141.

Prison officials even restricted him:
Ibid.

Kathleen had to break the news to Charlie:
Sanders, p. 4.

Rosalie’s adult life got off to a rough start:
Lyle Adcock interview.

On April 10 he was caught:
Bugliosi, p. 141.

a nationwide penal system overhaul:
Volker Janssen and Jason Clark-Miller interviews.

It was as though Dale Carnegie not only read Charlie’s mind:
Phil Kaufman interview.

Charlie spent the rest of his time:
Sanders, p. 4.

Kathleen had some doubts:
Nancy interview.

In rapid order Charlie worked:
Sanders, p. 5.

Charlie’s career as a pimp:
Vincent Bugliosi interview; Bugliosi, p. 142; Sanders, p. 5.

Charlie was arrested for attempting to cash:
Bugliosi, pp. 142–43.

In December he tried to expand his territory:
Sanders, p. 6.

The Washington penitentiary sprawled:
“Doors Closing at McNeil Island Prison After 135 Years,”
Seattle Times
, February 28, 2011.

Hubbard taught how to change yourself:
L. Ron Hubbard,
What Is Scientology? Based on the Works of L. Ron Hubbard
(Bridge Publications, 1998), p. 673.

he still had his mother:
Nancy interview. The story about Charlie throwing a fit when Kathleen adopted a baby girl instead of buying him a new guitar is told in Nuel Emmons’s
Manson in His Own Words
, which supports my impression that Emmons wrote down exactly what Charlie told him, and that every once in a while Charlie told the truth.

Karpis was an accomplished steel guitar player:
Sanders, p. 9.

He didn’t read books, but he listened:
Charlie said that he read
Stranger in a Strange Land
while in prison at McNeil. But after his conviction for the Tate and LaBianca murders, he told fellow inmate Roger Dale Smith that he threw out all his prison mail because he couldn’t read it. I consulted several reading skills experts, and they generally agreed that if Charlie could read a printed book, he could read even scribbled handwritten letters by “decoding”—matching sounds to individual letters. The question then becomes: If Charlie was a very slow, limited reader, would he devote the months it would take to work his way through a novel? Based on what I learned in researching this book, I don’t think so. Charlie always tried to get others to do the work for him.

There was nothing special about the songs that resulted:
Phil Kaufman interview.

Now when Kathleen visited:
Nancy interview.

Senior McNeil staff noted:
Bugliosi, pp. 145–46.

Lewis had a parting shot for Kathleen:
Nancy interview.

Its barred doors had hardly slammed shut:
Phil Kaufman interview; Kaufman, p. 51.

Charlie got his last prison report:
Bugliosi, p. 146.

Phil Kaufman thought Charlie was a decent singer:
Phil Kaufman interview; Jess Bravin,
Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme
(Buzz Books/St. Martin’s, 1997), p. 52.

Charlie was being both personally insightful and honest:
Jason Clark-Miller interview.

He called one in Berkeley:
There’s some question about why Charlie went to Berkeley immediately upon release from Terminal Island. In the Emmons book he’s quoted as saying he knew an ex-inmate there, and that sounds likely.

Chapter Six: Berkeley and the Haight

Tom Hayden and Mark Rudd contributed valuable interviews to this chapter, Hayden in person at his Culver City, California, office and Rudd through e-mail. I wanted to interview Mary Brunner, but among all the former Manson Family members, she (along with Ruth Ann Moorehouse) has successfully hid in the general population. Leslie Van Houten offered insights into the Manson-Brunner relationship.

George Laughead, an expert on the Beats, generously arranged interviews for me with his old friends Glenn Todd and Lorraine Chamberlain.

To understand San Francisco and Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s I read two exceptional books,
The Haight-Ashbury: A History
by Charles Perry and
Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love
by David Talbot. Perry, whose credentials also include a long stint as a writer for
Rolling Stone
magazine back in the days when it was
the
publication of the counterculture, also granted me an extensive in-person interview.

Beginning in this chapter, certain key members of the Manson Family—Mary Brunner, Lynne “Squeaky” Fromme, Pat Krenwinkel, and a few others—are identified in the main text by first names. Last names are used for everyone else.

In 1960 a handful of student activists formed Students for a Democratic Society:
Tom Hayden interview.

SDS-orchestrated antiwar rallies:
Mark Rudd interview.

Free Speech Movement:
Though I do not cite specific passages, David Burner’s brilliant
Making Peace with the 60s
(Princeton University Press, 1996) informs everything included here about the Berkeley Free Speech movement and campus unrest in general. If you’re at all interested in this event, or in the revolutionary student spirit of the 1960s, I urge you to read his book.

Actor Ronald Reagan made Berkeley Free Speech:
Stephen E. Ambrose,
Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962–1972
(Simon & Schuster, 1989), pp. 119–20.

The Panthers set up free health clinics:
Mary F. Corey interview.

He’d been given $35:
Sanders, p. 12.

people who might have been marginal characters:
Tom Hayden interview.

Far from having to hide it:
Gregg Jakobson interview.

Twenty-three-year-old Mary Brunner:
Bugliosi, p. 163; Livsey, p. 107.

for years afterward she continued believing:
Leslie Van Houten interview.

Mary was extremely knowledgeable:
Ed George with Dary Matera,
Taming the Beast: Charles Manson’s Life Behind Bars
(St. Martin’s, 1998), p. 37.

the Haight was just as famous:
Charles Perry interview.

it was ingrained in Charlie:
Michele Deitch interview.

The Beats adopted the city’s North Beach:
Glenn Todd interview.

its declining two- and three-story Victorian houses:
Charles Perry interview.

many of these featured all sorts of inexpensive, ruffly garb:
Ibid.

One of these was Ken Kesey:
Charles Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury: A History
(Wenner Books, 2005), pp. 13–15.

Drugs were hard to come by:
Charles Perry interview.

By the time Augustus Owsley Stanley III appeared on the scene:
Charles Perry, “Owsley and Me,”
Rolling Stone
, November 25, 1982.

There was usually enough not only to share:
Perry,
The Haight-Asbury
, p. 246; Charles Perry interview.

These goofy little dupes were something less:
Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, p. 5.

A thriving new music scene exploded:
David Talbot,
Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love
(Free Press, 2012), p. 93.

but if they weren’t different:
David E. Smith interview.

The Diggers, who originally came to the Haight:
Talbot, pp. 36–40; Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, p. 79, pp. 249–51.

The Haight Diggers harvested their crops:
Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, pp. 94–95; Talbot, p. 40.

Musical entertainment was provided by the Chamber Orkustra:
Tommy Udo,
Charles Manson: Music, Mayhem, Murder
(Sanctuary Publishing, 2002), pp. 91–92; Lorraine Chamberlain interview; Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, p. 112.

Flyers for the 1–5
P.M
. event:
Ellis Amburn,
Pearl: The Obsessions and Passions of Janis Joplin
(Warner, 1992), p. 112.

January 14 dawned clear and bright:
Glenn Todd, Lorraine Chamberlain, and Charles Perry interviews; Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, pp. 120–23; Talbot, pp. 22–23; Joel Selvin,
Summer of Love: The Inside Story of LSD, Rock & Roll, Free Love and High Times in the Wild West
(Cooper Square, 1999), pp. 106–7.

subsequent broadcasts and articles and photographs:
Glenn Todd, David A. Smith, and Charles Perry interviews; Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, pp. 126, 261.

Now there were more than three hundred a day:
Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, p. 204.

It didn’t take long for neighborhood leaders:
Talbot, pp. 31–35.

A neighborhood research team did its best:
Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, p. 282.

Paul McCartney popped into the neighborhood:
Peter Brown and Steven Gaines,
The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles
(McGraw-Hill, 1983), pp. 240–41.

But these new pushers offered hard drugs:
Charles Perry, David E. Smith, and Glenn Todd interviews; Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, p. 219; Joan Didion,
Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968), p. 108.

An April 16 street leaflet described:
Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury
, p. 174.

One estimate had 75,000 more descending:
Ibid., p. 229. In March 1967, when the influx began to strain the Haight at its seams, there were an estimated seven thousand hippies living there, according to Perry.

Chapter Seven: Charlie in the Summer of Love

Dr. David E. Smith was a generous guide to Haight history and his personal experiences with Charles Manson. Patricia Krenwinkel had valuable insights into the early days of what would become known as the Family.

The Diggers fascinated Charlie:
Sanders, p. 14.

Virtually everywhere Charlie looked in the Haight:
David E. Smith and Glenn Todd interviews.

Charlie drifted from one street guru to the next:
Gregg Jakobson, Mary F. Corey, and David A. Smith interviews. Gregg Jakobson had many conversations with Manson about how Charlie developed his personal philosophies.

Charlie began to believe that he had a lot in common with Jesus:
It wasn’t unique for LSD users to come down from trips believing that they were reincarnations of Christ. John Lennon famously did, telling his fellow Beatles and their business advisors that he was Jesus. They congratulated him, got on with life, and a few days later Lennon forgot all about it. Charlie has periodically proclaimed himself to be Jesus or some form of divine being right up to the present day.

On one of the benches a small redheaded girl sat and sobbed:
Bravin, pp. 46–48; Livsey, pp. 194–97.

On one of Charlie’s first hitchhiking trips:
Sanders, pp. 14–15; Emmons, pp. 99–101. In many books, Dean’s last name is written as “Morehouse,” but Social Security records list him as “Moorehouse.”

She was a cuddly tomboy:
Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel interviews. There is considerable discrepancy about the age of Ruth Ann Moore-house. Some believe she was as young as fourteen when she was first seduced by Charlie. But the California Marriage Index estimates her birth date as “abt. 1952,” which means she was at least fifteen and possibly sixteen when she first met Manson.

Charlie was in his Jesus mode:
Bugliosi, p. 235.

All over America it was a traumatic summer:
Ambrose,
Nixon
, p. 103; Theodore White,
The Making of the President 1968
, p. 253; Patterson,
Grand Expectations
, p. 663.

An even greater danger to its overflowing community:
David E. Smith interview.

More than 250 hippies lined up:
David E. Smith interview; Talbot, pp. 55–56.

Green introduced Charlie to nineteen-year-old Pat Krenwinkel:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.

She’d abandoned him when he was young:
Ibid.

She wasn’t pleased to see him:
Nancy interview.

They thought the women in Charlie’s group:
Charles Perry interview.

the weird group had a nickname for itself:
Ibid.

Charlie always seemed to have knives:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.

One prominent dealer, well known for keeping a briefcase:
Charles Perry interview.

“Haight Street smelled like piss”:
Jan Reid,
Texas Tornado: The Times and Music of Doug Sahm
(University of Texas Press, 2010), p. 73.