Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars (36 page)

As my wife and children began to feed on the increasing fear, I tried to calm them down. “If Barns has any brains, he wouldn’t risk hanging around Vacaville and getting caught. He’s free, and that’s more important than petty vengeance. If it were me, I’d be halfway to Mexico. As for Manson, he’s just in a bad mood. He probably hasn’t even given the order.

That eased everyone’s mind a bit. At eleven, we broke for our individual rooms to try to get some sleep. Just in case, I loaded a .22 caliber rifle and slipped it under my bed.

At 1:00
A.M.
, I woke with a start. Terror pumped through my veins as I heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. They stopped outside the bedroom door. I reached under the bed, grabbed the rifle, and slowly raised it. I pointed it toward the door as it swung open, my finger ready to squeeze the trigger. Suddenly, a voice startled me. “Dad? Dad, are you awake?” It was my son, David. I’d forgot that he’d been out on a date. I lowered the barrel, horrified at what I’d almost done. My body started to tremble.

“My God, I could have killed him!”

Beth put her arms around me. “It’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

It wasn’t all right. Beth didn’t know how close I had come to pulling that trigger. Had David said the wrong thing, or nothing at all, I would have fired. If I hadn’t immediately recognized his voice, I would have killed my own son. “Damn you, Charlie!” I muttered to myself. “This is on you. If you hadn’t gotten me all agitated today, this wouldn’t have happened. This is the second time you caused me to hurt, or nearly hurt, one of my children. Never again!”

As far as I know—unless my daughter’s number shuffle fooled him—Barns didn’t try to come after me that night. He was captured in Hayward, California, within the month and resumed his life sentence in Nevada. As for Manson, his followers didn’t come that night, or for years afterward. But they were destined to eventually pay me a visit.

Manson himself could have easily wandered into my yard a few weeks later had he chosen to. Working as the tier tender, he came across a set of top security “red keys,” scooped them off a foyer table, and dropped them into his pocket. The keys were Manson’s proverbial ticket out, enabling him to open every single door and gate that stood between him and the outside. Incredibly, instead of hiding the one-in-a-million find in his cell and taking off for the hills that evening, Manson walked over to the unit sergeant and handed the keys to him. “Here,” he said. “I’m not supposed to have these.”

The stunned sergeant took the keys, discovered which officer had left them on the table, and did some major ass chewing. Manson, in turn, scored big points with the guards. When I pestered him about why he didn’t make a break for it, he went into his Frankenstein rap, claiming it was more dangerous for him on the outside than in the prison. Actually, it was the second time Manson had gotten hold of a critical set of keys. The previous year, he picked a guard clean as the unwary officer passed by his cell. As with this incident, Charlie promptly called out to the guy and gave the keys back.

To kick Charlie and me out of our collective funk, I mended fences and asked if he wanted to set up another media interview. This time he chose to go voice only, selecting reporter Susan Kennedy of KGO radio in San Francisco. Without the cameras to play to, Manson was pretty mellow. The May 11, 1983, interview was mostly unremarkable, but did include a new admission. For the first time, he confessed to sending “the girls” to the Polanski residence under the instructions to do whatever Tex Watson told them to. That was as close as he got. Climbing back inside his unbreakable shell, he denied telling Tex or anyone else to murder the occupants. Interestingly enough, the distinction is more personal than legal. By acknowledging what he had, Manson indicted himself in a criminal conspiracy that led to multiple murders—which is basically what he was doing time for. Either way, it didn’t mean a hill of beans. He’d long ago had his day in court, and despite the best efforts of bumbling guards, was destined to spend the rest of his life in prison.

One of my duties at CMF—aside from baby-sitting Manson—was to handle prisoner complaints and appeals. This often took me to other wings. I’d usually hear the inmate out and make an on-the-spot ruling. If the guy was semisane and had a legitimate beef, I’d try to correct it. One of these routine appeals took me to S-wing, the dungeon where the most acutely psychotic inmates are housed in enclosed cells. (Manson had spent a lot of penalty time there.) Most of the S-wing interviews were carried out through the food slot. That required the staffer to bend over and talk in an awkward, backbreaking position. I’m tall, six three, so it was even more uncomfortable. Instead of suffering through that hassle, I borrowed the tier officer’s key and opened the door to the specific inmate’s cell a crack, bracing my foot against it to prevent the door from opening further. The inmate appeared rational and presented his concerns in great detail. He insisted that Manson was going to kill him and wanted to be moved to another cell.

“You’re going to be fine,” I assured him. “I talked to Charlie and he can’t even remember who you are. He has nothing against you and says he has no intention of causing you any harm. You have nothing to worry about.” It was an effective argument. The only trouble was, the guy I was giving it too was a paranoid schizophrenic. He remained stone-faced. “No, I don’t feel your situation warrants a move,” I ruled.

Without realizing it, my foot slipped and the door opened wider. Glancing away from the con, I spotted an officer and two trusties coming down the hall with trays of food. “Well, here comes your—” I never finished the sentence. Out of nowhere, a thundering blow crashed into my face, driving me back against the far wall and stunning me into a brief period of unconsciousness. As I began to slide down the wall to the floor, I caught myself and struggled, rubber-legged, to my feet. Blood gushed from my nose, covering my mouth and chin. When my head cleared, I noticed that the lunch-crew officer and trustees had subdued the attacker. I took a step forward, intent on kicking the shit out of the son of a bitch, but caught myself. The guy’s just sick, I thought, but he sure packs a wallop.

My nose was shattered and folded over my cheek. Three teeth were chipped. As I walked to the hospital, I realized that it had been my own stupid fault. I’d failed to check the inmate’s file before doing the cracked-door number. Had I taken that precaution, I would have realized that the guy had tried to stab a guard with a fork two weeks before. I was lucky to come away with nothing more than a busted snout and some painful dental work.

It was the first and only time in my quarter century of walking among the cons and crazies that I’d ever been injured. I’d sat face-to-face with Manson hundreds of times and never got a scratch, and here I’d gotten waylaid by a nameless schizo in the proverbial padded cell.

“Get out of your paper-bag world,” Manson chided when he saw my battered mug. “It’s going to get you killed!” He turned, then tossed me something through the bars. I instinctively caught it. It was a little voodoo doll that vaguely resembled me. There was a single pin in the center of its face.

“That was for Squeaky,” he announced.

14.

M
Y CAREER IN
corrections pretty much ended when I decided to testify in favor of an officer who sued to fight the abuses in the affirmative action program. Not wanting to appear like Manson, I’d tempered my views on the subject for years, enduring in silence as qualified candidates were passed over for far inferior minorities. Later, when it was discovered that officials were rigging test scores to give minority candidates the upper hand, my anger reawakened. The officer won his lawsuit in a ruling that helped even the playing field for everyone, but my career was shot. I was treated like a pariah by the central office staff. Whenever they came to the prison, I was either ignored, or subjected to cold, angry stares. I figured it would pass, but it didn’t. What did I expect? I told myself. Snitch out the bigwigs and how can you expect to survive?

Afterward, I fell into a “Manson’s right” depression. The corrections “system,” i.e., the bureaucracy, preyed on anyone with half a brain who tried to make things better. Innovative programs were tossed aside, their creators soon to follow. As affirmative action took hold, the quality of my underlings diminished to the point where they could hardly read or write. Then, when these poorly trained, poorly educated employees made tragic mistakes, I’d get the blame.

Of course, Manson wasn’t really right. He was on the other extreme. He would have eliminated the problem of unqualified minorities by eradicating the minorities themselves. The question was, is either extreme the answer? Do you lift the races up by giving them jobs they haven’t earned, or does that just foster the something-for-nothing attitude that keeps them from striving to better themselves to begin with? By fighting abuses in affirmative action, are you trying to save a system and keep it operating at peak efficiency, or are you a Manson-like racist? Those and similar questions haunt me to this day.

Whatever the deeper ramifications, the ostracism built up pressures inside me that were destined to explode. By 1983, I was so emotionally frustrated and exhausted by the bureaucracy, I blew my top during a fierce argument with a female associate warden and threatened to punch her lights out. I placed myself on medical leave and took six months off. Renewed, I decided to give it another go. That decision hit a snag when the Return to Work coordinator happened to be the husband of the woman I’d threatened. He refused to let me have me my old job back. There was no sense challenging it; the “system” Manson so often railed about had finally gotten me, just like he said it would. I transferred to the parole department and became a parole agent.

“Here,” my new boss said, dumping a huge stack of files on my desk. “Enjoy.”

I sighed, then dug in. At least these were men who’d earned, or been handed, a second chance. Many desperately wanted to stay clean and eagerly sought my help. That was satisfying. Instead of spending my energy keeping men locked up, maybe I could help a few hundred stay out.

Since Manson wasn’t about to be paroled, I lost daily contact with him for nearly a decade. I did keep track of his activities and whereabouts, frequently going to CMF and other area prisons on official business. One event in particular I’m sorry I missed. On September 24, 1984, a Hare Krishna follower named Jan grew tired of Manson constantly belittling his religious beliefs and threatened to do something about it. That something would not prove to be pretty. Hidden beneath his placid Hindu chants stirred the demented mind of a homicidal maniac. He was in CMF for murdering his stepfather, a research physician he insisted was really the infamous “Angel of Death,” Nazi death camp doctor Josef Mengele. With such a history, the swastika carved into Charlie’s forehead must have acted like a blinking red light, feeding the whacked-out Krishna’s growing dementia. Charlie’s fusillade of fierce insults merely quickened the inevitable.

The Hare follower smuggled a container of paint thinner from the hobby shop, dumped it on Manson, and proceeded to set the cult leader ablaze. Some nearby cons and guards jumped to Charlie’s rescue and smothered the flames before they could do fatal damage. Charlie was toasted over 18 percent of his body, suffering second- and third-degree burns on his face, hands, arm, shoulder, and scalp. His long hair and full beard melted away. Jan argued that he’d acted in self-defense because Manson had been giving him “threatening looks”—a charge practically everybody at CMF could have made.

Charlie took it well, playing tough guy and suffering the intense pain in relative silence. What really ticked him off was that the incident helped end his cushy days at CMF. The staff finally decided that he’d caused enough trouble and decided to complete his “ninety-day evaluation,” a process that, in a sense, had lasted an astounding ten years! (Mostly due to my efforts to keep him around by designating him for “long-term care” after his initial evaluation.) In an irony that wasn’t lost on the “system”-hating, antiestablishment revolutionary, he was shipped out not because of anything he had done, but because of something that was done to him. To add insult to paint-thinner injury, he was sent back to San Quentin.

On the other hand, it’s safe to say that despite the decade spent in a treatment-oriented facility, Manson left CMF in no better mental shape than when he arrived.

His files were much cleaner though—as in cleaned out. When it came time to ready the papers for transfer, officers discovered Manson’s three telephone-book-sized file folders were gone. His entire prison history had been pilfered. Someone, possibly a souvenir-hunting officer or staffer, had smuggled out every page.

A squad of six armed officers driving three cars transported the paperless guru to his hated old home. When duty officers searched him prior to entering, they found a hacksaw blade in his shoe. Manson had stuffed it in there for the sole purpose of being caught, an action that would assure himself a safe haven in the AC lockup unit.

My parole activities took me to San Quentin not long after Manson’s arrival. Actually, I was there pretty routinely because, like the lightning rod I was, I’d inherited yet another infamous, and uniquely difficult, prisoner. Years before, a man named Larry Singleton had raped a young California lady, cut off both her arms, and thrown her off a bridge to die. She survived, becoming a ghastly symbol of man’s inhumanity to man. Singleton served his eight-year sentence and was set to be paroled. But just as Manson always feared for himself, Singleton had nowhere to go. Everywhere we tried to place him, the media announced it and the locals naturally went nuts. In Rodeo, California, I watched from a surveillance trailer as a crowd gathered outside the hotel where he’d been stashed. The mob grew large and riotous, and a rope materialized. One guy had an armless doll on a stick, rallying the citizens with a vivid visual reminder of Singleton’s savage crime. A tattooed group of bikers pulled in, grabbed the rope, and shouted, “Let’s lynch the bastard!” They were planning to do just that when we called for an army of sheriffs and highway patrolmen.