The Investigation—Phase Two 3 page

A very strict aunt, who thought all pleasures sinful but who gave him love. A promiscuous mother, who let him do anything he wanted, just so long as he didn’t bother her. The youth was caught in a tug-of-war between the two.

Paroled in 1942, Kathleen reclaimed Charles, then eight. The next several years were a blur of run-down hotel rooms and newly introduced “uncles,” most of whom, like his mother, drank heavily. In 1947 she tried to have him put in a foster home, but, none being available, the court sent him to the Gibault School for Boys, a caretaking institution in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was twelve years old.

According to school records, he made a “poor institutional adjustment” and “his attitude toward schooling was at best only fair.” Though “during the short lapses when Charles was pleasant and feeling happy he presented a likable boy,” he had “a tendency toward moodiness and a persecution complex…” He remained at Gibault ten months, then ran away, returning to his mother.

She didn’t want him, and he ran away again. Burglarizing a grocery store, he stole enough money to rent a room. He then broke into several other stores, stealing, among other things, a bicycle. Caught during a burglary, he was placed in the juvenile center in Indianapolis. He escaped the next day. When he was apprehended, the court—erroneously informed that he was Catholic—made arrangements through a local priest to have him accepted at Father Flanagan’s Boys Town.

He didn’t make its distinguished alumni list. Four days after his arrival, he and another boy, Blackie Nielson, stole a car and fled to the home of Blackie’s uncle in Peoria, Illinois. En route they committed two armed robberies—one a grocery store, the other a gambling casino. Among criminals, as in the law itself, a distinction is made between non-violent and violent crimes. Manson had “graduated,” committing his first armed robbery at age thirteen.

The uncle was glad to see them. Both boys were small enough to slip through skylights. A week after their arrival in Peoria, the pair broke into a grocery store and stole $1,500. For their efforts, the uncle gave them $150. Two weeks later they tried a repeat, but this time they were caught. Both talked, implicating the uncle. Still only thirteen, Charles Manson was sent to the Indiana School for Boys at Plainfield.

He remained there three years, running away a total of eighteen times. According to his teachers, “He professed no trust in anyone” and “did good work only for those from whom he figured he could obtain something.”

In February 1951, Charles Manson and two other sixteen-year-olds escaped and headed for California. For transportation they stole cars. For support they burglarized gas stations—Manson would later estimate they hit fifteen or twenty—before, just outside Beaver, Utah, a roadblock set up for a robbery suspect netted them instead.

In taking a stolen vehicle across a state line, the youths had broken a federal law, the Dyer Act. This was the beginning of a pattern for Charles Manson of committing federal crimes, which carry far stiffer sentences than local or state offenses.

On March 9, 1951, Manson was ordered confined to the National Training School for Boys, in Washington, D.C., until reaching his majority.

Detailed records were kept on Charles Manson during the time he was there.[32]On arrival, he was given a battery of aptitude and intelligence tests. Manson’s IQ was 109. Though he had completed four years of school, he remained illiterate. Intelligence, mechanical aptitude, manual dexterity: all average. Subject liked best: music. Observed his first case worker, with considerable understatement, “Charles is a sixteen-year-old boy who has had an unfavorable family life, if it can be called family life at all.” He was, the case worker concluded, aggressively antisocial.

One month after his arrival: “This boy tries to give the impression that he is trying hard to adjust although he actually is not putting forth any effort in this respect…I feel in time he will try to be a wheel in the cottage.”

After three months: “Manson has become somewhat of an ‘institution politician.’ He does just enough work to get by on…Restless and moody most of the time, the boy would rather spend his class time entertaining his friends.” The report concluded: “It appears that this boy is a very emotionally upset youth who is definitely in need of some psychiatric orientation.”

Manson was anxious to be transferred to Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution. Because of his run-away record, school officials felt the opposite—i.e., transfer to a reformatory-type institution—was in order, but they decided to withhold decision until after the boy had been examined by a psychiatrist.

On June 29, 1951, Charles Manson was examined by a Dr. Block. The psychiatrist noted “the marked degree of rejection, instability, and psychic trauma” in Manson’s background. His sense of inferiority in relation to his mother was so pronounced, Block said, that he constantly felt it necessary “to suppress any thoughts about her.” Because of his diminutive stature, his illegitimacy, and the lack of parental love, “he is constantly striving for status with the other boys.” To attain this, Manson had “developed certain facile techniques for dealing with people. These for the most part consist of a good sense of humor” and an “ability to ingratiate himself…This could add up to a fairly ‘slick’ institutionalized youth, but one is left with the feeling that behind all this lies an extremely sensitive boy who has not yet given up in terms of securing some kind of love and affection from the world.”

Though the doctor observed that Manson was “quite unable to accept any kind of authoritative direction,” he found that he “accepted with alacrity the offer of psychiatric interviews.”

If he found this suspicious, the doctor did not indicate it in his report. For the next three months he gave Manson individual psychotherapy. It may be presumed that Charles Manson also worked on the doctor, for in his October 1 report Dr. Block was convinced that what Manson most required were experiences which would build up his self-confidence. In short, he needed to be trusted. The doctor recommended the transfer.

It would appear that Charles Manson had conned his first psychiatrist. Though the school authorities considered him at best a “calculated risk,” they accepted the doctor’s recommendation, and on October 24, 1951, he was transferred to Natural Bridge Camp.

That November he turned seventeen. Shortly after his birthday he was visited by his aunt, who told the authorities that she would supply a home and employment for him if he was released. He was due for a parole hearing in February 1952, and, with her offer, his chances looked good. Instead, less than a month before the hearing, he took a razor blade and held it against another boy’s throat while he sodomized him.

As a result of the offense, he lost ninety-seven days good time and, on January 18, 1952, he was transferred to the Federal Reformatory at Petersburg, Virginia. He was considered “dangerous,” one official observing, “He shouldn’t be trusted across the street.” By August he had committed eight serious disciplinary offenses, three involving homosexual acts. His progress report, if it could be called that, stated, “Manson definitely has homosexual and assaultive tendencies.” He was classified “safe only under supervision.” For the protection of himself as well as others, the authorities decided to transfer him to a more secure institution, the Federal Reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio. He was sent there on September 22, 1952.

From the Chillicothe files: “Associates with trouble makers…seems to be the unpredictable type of inmate who will require supervision both at work and in quarters…In spite of his age, he is criminally sophisticated…regarded as grossly unsuited for retention in an open reformatory type institution such as Chillicothe…” This from a report written less than a month after his transfer there.

Then, suddenly, Manson changed. For the rest of the year there were no serious disciplinary offenses. Except for minor infractions of the rules, and a consistently “poor attitude toward authority,” his good conduct continued into 1953. A progress report that October noted: “Manson has shown a marked improvement in his general attitude and cooperation with officers and is also showing an active interest in the educational program…He is especially proud of the fact that he raised his [educational level from lower fourth to upper seventh grade] and that he can now read most material and use simple arithmetic.”

Because of his educational advancement and his good work habits in the transportation unit, where he repaired and maintained vehicles belonging to the institution, on January 1, 1954, he was given a Meritorious Service Award. Far more important to Charles Manson, on May 8, 1954, he was granted parole. He was nineteen.

O ne of the conditions of his parole was that he live with his aunt and uncle in McMechen. He did, for a time, then, when his mother moved to nearby Wheeling, he joined her. They seemed drawn together, yet unable to stand each other for any length of time.

Since fourteen, Charles Manson’s only sexual contacts had been homosexual. Shortly after his release he met a seventeen-year-old McMechen girl, Rosalie Jean Willis, a waitress in the local hospital. They were married in January 1955. For support Manson worked as a busboy, service-station helper, parking-lot attendant. He also boosted cars. He would later admit to stealing six. He appeared to have learned nothing; he took at least two across state lines. One, stolen in Wheeling, West Virginia, he abandoned in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The second, a 1951 Mercury, he drove from Bridgeport, Ohio, to Los Angeles in July 1955, accompanied by his now pregnant wife. Manson had finally made it to the Golden State. He was arrested less than three months later, and admitted both Dyer Act violations. Taken to federal court, he pleaded guilty to the theft of the Mercury, and asked for psychiatric help, stating, “I was released from Chillicothe in 1954 and, having been confined for nine years, I was badly in need of psychiatric treatment. I was mentally confused and stole a car as a means of mental release from the confused state of mind that I was in.”

The judge requested a psychiatric report. Manson was examined on October 26, 1955, by Dr. Edwin McNiel. He gave the psychiatrist a much abbreviated version of his past, stating that he was first sent to an institution “for being mean to my mother.” Of his wife, Manson said, “She is the best wife a guy could want. I didn’t realize how good she was until I got in here. I beat her at times. She writes to me all the time. She is going to have a baby.”

He also told McNiel that “he spent so much time in institutions that he never really learned much of what ‘real life on the outside was all about.’ He said that now he has a wife and is about to become a father it has become important to him to try to be on the outside and be with his wife. He said she is the only one he has ever cared about in his life.”

Dr. McNiel observed: “It is evident that he has an unstable personality and that his environmental influences throughout most of his life have not been good…In my opinion this boy is a poor risk for probation; on the other hand, he has spent nine years in institutions with apparently little benefit except to take him out of circulation. With the incentive of a wife and probable fatherhood, it is possible that he might be able to straighten himself out. I would, therefore, respectfully recommend to the court that probation be considered in this case under careful supervision.” Accepting the suggestion, on November 7, 1955, the court gave Manson five years probation.

There remained the Florida charge. Though his chances of getting probation on it were excellent, before the hearing he skipped. A warrant was issued for his arrest. He was picked up in Indianapolis on March 14, 1956, and returned to Los Angeles. His probation was revoked, and he was sentenced to three years imprisonment at Terminal Island, San Pedro, California. By the time Charles Manson, Jr., was born, his father was back in jail.

“T his inmate will no doubt be in serious difficulty soon,” wrote the orientation officer. “He is young, small, baby-faced, and unable to control himself…”

Given another battery of tests, Manson received average marks in all the categories except “word meaning,” where he had a high score. His IQ was now 121. With some perception, when it came to his work assignment Manson requested “a small detail where he is not with too many men. He states he has a tendency to cut up and misbehave if he is around a gang…”

Rosalie moved in with his mother, now living in Los Angeles, and during his first year at Terminal Island she visited him every week, his mother somewhat less frequently. “Manson’s work habits and attitudes range from good to poor,” noted his March 1957 progress report. “However, as the time of his parole hearing approaches, his work performance report has jumped from good to excellent, showing that he is capable of a good adjustment if he wants to.”

His parole hearing was set for April 22. In March his wife’s visits ceased. Manson’s mother told him Rosalie was living with another man. In early April he was transferred to the Coast Guard unit, under minimal custody. On April 10 he was found in the Coast Guard parking lot, dressed in civilian clothes, wiring the ignition of a car. Subsequently indicted for attempted escape, he pleaded guilty, and an extra five years probation was tacked onto the end of his current sentence. On April 22 the parole request was denied.

Rosalie filed for divorce not long after this, the divorce becoming final in 1958. She retained custody of Charles, Jr., remarried, and had no further contact with Manson or his mother.

April 1958, annual review: His work performance was “sporadic,” his behavior continued to be “erratic and moody.” Almost without exception, he would let down anyone who went to bat for him, the report noted. “For example, he was selected to attend the current Dale Carnegie Course, being passed over a number of other applicants because it was felt that this course might be beneficial in his case and he urgently desired enrollment. After attending a few sessions and apparently making excellent progress, he quit in a mood of petulance and has since engaged in no educational activity.”

Manson was called “an almost classic text book case of the correctional institutional inmate…His is a very difficult case and it is impossible to predict his future adjustment with any degree of accuracy.”

He was released September 30, 1958, on five years parole.

By November, Manson had found a new occupation: pimping. His teacher was +Frank Peters, a Malibu bartender and known procurer, with whom he was living.

Unknown to Manson, he was under surveillance by the FBI, and had been since his release from prison. The federal agents, who were looking for a fugitive who had once lived with Peters, told Manson’s parole officer that his “first string” consisted of a sixteen-year-old girl named Judy, whom he had personally “turned out”; as additional support, he was getting money from “Fat Flo,” an unattractive Pasadena girl who had wealthy parents.

His parole officer called him in for a talk. Manson denied he was pimping; said he was no longer living with Peters; promised never to see Judy again; but stated that he wished to continue his relationship with Flo, “for money and sex.” After all, he said, he had “been in a long time.” After the interview the parole officer wrote: “This certainly is a very shaky probationer and it seems just a matter of time before he gets in further trouble.”

On May 1, 1959, Manson was arrested attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check for $37.50 in Ralph’s, a Los Angeles supermarket. According to the arresting officers, Manson told them he had stolen the check from a mailbox. Two more federal offenses.

LAPD turned Manson over to Secret Service agents for questioning. What then happened was somewhat embarrassing. “Unfortunately for them,” read a report of the incident, “the check itself has disappeared; they feel certain subject took it off table and swallowed it when they momentarily turned their backs.” The charges remained, however.

I n mid-June an attractive nineteen-year-old girl named Leona called on Manson’s parole officer and told him she was pregnant by Charlie. The parole officer was skeptical and wanted to see a medical report. He also began checking her background.

With the aid of an attorney, Manson obtained a deal: if he would plead guilty to forging the check, the mail theft charge would be dropped. The judge ordered a psychiatric examination, and Dr. McNiel examined Manson a second time.

When Manson appeared in court on September 28, 1959, Dr. McNiel, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the probation department all recommended against probation. Leona also appeared and made a tearful plea in Manson’s behalf. They were deeply in love, she told the judge, and would marry if Charlie were freed. Though it was proved that Leona had lied about being pregnant, and that she had an arrest record as a prostitute under the name Candy Stevens, the judge, evidently moved by Leona’s plea and Manson’s promise to make good, gave the defendant a ten-year sentence, then suspended it and placed him on probation.

Manson returned to pimping and breaking federal laws.

B y December he had been arrested by LAPD twice: for grand theft auto and the use of stolen credit cards. Both charges were dismissed for lack of evidence. That month he also took Leona-aka-Candy and a girl named Elizabeth from Needles, California, to Lordsburg, New Mexico, for purposes of prostitution, violating the Mann Act, still another federal beef.

Held briefly, questioned, then released, he was given the impression that he had “beat the rap.” He must have suspected that the investigation was continuing, however. Possibly to prevent Leona from testifying against him, he did marry her, though he didn’t inform his probation officer of this. He remained free throughout January 1960, while the FBI prepared its case.

Late in February, Manson’s probation officer was visited by an irate parent, +Ralph Samuels, from Detroit. Samuels’ daughter +Jo Anne, nineteen, had come to California in response to an ad for an airline stewardess school, only to learn, after paying her tuition, that the school was a fraud. She had $700 in savings, however, and together with another disillusioned student, +Beth Beldon, had rented an apartment in Hollywood. About November 1959, Jo Anne had the misfortune to meet Charles Manson, who introduced himself, complete with printed card, as “President, 3-Star-Enterprises, Nite Club, Radio and TV Productions.” Manson conned her into investing her savings in his nonexistent company; drugged and raped her roommate; and got Jo Anne pregnant. It was an ectopic pregnancy, the fetus growing in one of the Fallopian tubes, and she nearly died.

The probation officer could offer little more than a sympathetic ear, however, for Charles Manson had disappeared. A bench warrant was issued, and on April 28 a federal grand jury indicted him on the Mann Act violation. He was arrested June 1 in Laredo, Texas, after police picked up one of his girls on a prostitution charge, and brought back to Los Angeles, where, on June 23, 1960, the court ruled he had violated his probation and ordered him returned to prison to serve out his ten-year sentence. The judge observed: “If there ever was a man who demonstrated himself completely unfit for probation, he is it.” This was the same judge who had granted him probation the previous September.

The Mann Act charge was later dropped. For a full year Manson remained in the Los Angeles County Jail, while appealing the revocation. The appeal was denied, and in July 1961 he was sent to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington. He was twenty-six.

According to staff evaluation, Manson had become something of an actor: “He hides his loneliness, resentment, and hostility behind a façade of superficial ingratiation…An energetic, young-appearing person whose verbalization flows quite easily, he gestures profusely and can dramatize situations to hold the listener’s attention.” Then a statement which, in one form or another, was to reappear often in his prison records, and, much later, in post-prison interviews: “He has commented that institutions have become his way of life and that he receives security in institutions which is not available to him in the outside world.”

Manson gave as his claimed religion “Scientologist,” stating that he “has never settled upon a religious formula for his beliefs and is presently seeking an answer to his question in the new mental health cult known as Scientology.”

Scientology, an outgrowth of science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, was just coming into vogue at this time. Manson’s teacher, i.e., “auditor,” was another convict, Lanier Rayner. Manson would later claim that while in prison he achieved Scientology’s highest level, “theta clear.”[33]

Although Manson remained interested in Scientology much longer than he did in any other subject except music, it appears that, like the Dale Carnegie course, he stuck with it only as long as his enthusiasm lasted, then dropped it, extracting and retaining a number of terms and phrases (“auditing,” “cease to exist,” “coming to Now”) and some concepts (karma, reincarnation, etc.) which, perhaps fittingly, Scientology had borrowed in the first place.

He was still interested in Scientology when his annual progress report was written that September. Furthermore, according to the report, that interest “has led him to make a semi-professional evaluation of his personality which strangely enough is quite consistent with the evaluations made by previous social studies. He appears to have developed a certain amount of insight into his problems through his study of this discipline. Manson is making progress for the first time in his life.”

The report also noted that Manson “is active in softball, basketball, and croquet” and “is a member of the Drama Club and the Self Improvement Group.” He had become “somewhat of a fanatic at practicing the guitar.”[34]

He held one fairly responsible job eleven months, the longest he held any prison assignment, before being caught with contraband in his cell and reassigned to janitorial work.

The annual report that September took a close, hard look at the twenty-eight-year-old convict:

“Charles Manson has a tremendous drive to call attention to himself. Generally he is unable to succeed in positive acts, therefore he often resorts to negative behavior to satisfy this drive. In his effort to ‘find’ himself, Manson peruses different religious philosophies, e.g., Scientology and Buddhism; however, he never remains long enough with any given teachings to reap meaningful benefits. Even these attempts and his cries for help represent a desire for attention, with only superficial meaning. Manson has had more than the usual amount of staff attention, yet there is little indication of change in his demeanor. In view of his deep-seated personality problems…continuation of institutional treatment is recommended.”

On October 1, 1963, prison officials were informed, “according to court papers received in this institution, that Manson was married to a Leona Manson in 1959 in the State of California, and that the marriage was terminated by divorce on April 10, 1963, in Denver, Colorado, on grounds of mental cruelty and conviction of a felony. One child, Charles Luther Manson, is alleged to have been of this union.”

This is the only reference, in any of Manson’s records, to his second marriage and second child.

Manson’s annual review of September 1964 revealed a clear conduct record, but little else encouraging. “His past pattern of employment instability continues…seems to have an intense need to call attention to himself…remains emotionally insecure and tends to involve himself in various fanatical interests.”

Those “fanatical interests” weren’t identified in the prison reports, but at least several are known. In addition to Scientology and his guitar, there was now a third. In January 1964 “I Want to Hold Your Hand” became the No. 1 song on U.S. record charts. With the New York arrival of the “four Liverpool lads” the following month, the United States experienced, later than Great Britain but with no less intensity, the phenomenon known as Beatlemania. According to former inmates at McNeil, Manson’s interest in the Beatles was almost an obsession. It didn’t necessarily follow that he was a fan. There was more than a little jealousy in his reaction. He told numerous people that, given the chance, he could be much bigger than the Beatles. One person he told this to was Alvin Karpis, lone survivor of the Ma Barker gang. Manson had struck up a friendship with the aging gangster after learning he could play the steel guitar. Karpis taught Manson how. Again an observable pattern. Manson managed to get something from almost everyone with whom he associated.

May 1966: “Manson continues to maintain a clear conduct record…Recently he has been spending most of his free time writing songs, accumulating about 80 or 90 of them during the past year, which he ultimately hopes to sell following release…He also plays the guitar and drums, and is hopeful that he can secure employment as a guitar player or as a drummer or singer…

“He shall need a great deal of help in the transition from institution to the free world.”

In June 1966, Charles Manson was returned to Terminal Island for release purposes.

August 1966: “Manson is about to complete his ten-year term. He has a pattern of criminal behavior and confinement that dates to his teen years. This pattern is one of instability whether in free society or a structured institutional community. Little can be expected in the way of change in his attitude, behavior, or mode of conduct…” This last report noted that Manson had no further interest in academic or vocational training; that he was no longer an advocate of Scientology; that “he has come to worship his guitar and music”; and, finally, “He has no plans for release as he says he has nowhere to go.”

The morning Charles Manson was to be freed, he begged the authorities to let him remain in prison. Prison had become his home, he told them. He didn’t think he could adjust to the world outside.

His request was denied. He was released at 8:15 A.M. on March 21, 1967, and given transportation to Los Angeles. That same day he requested and received permission to go to San Francisco. It was there, in the Haight-Ashbury section, that spring, that the Family was born.

Charles Manson was thirty-two years old. Over seventeen of those years—more than half his life—had been spent in institutions. In those seventeen years, Manson had only been examined by a psychiatrist three times, and then very superficially.

I was surprised, in studying Manson’s record, to find no sustained history of violence—armed robbery age thirteen, homosexual rape age seventeen, wife beating age twenty, that was it. I was more than surprised, I was amazed at the number of federal offenses. Probably ninety-nine out of one hundred criminals never see the inside of a federal court. Yet here was Manson, described as “criminally sophisticated,” violating the Dyer Act, the Mann Act, stealing from the mails, forging a government check, and so on. Had Manson been convicted of comparable offenses in state courts, he probably would have served less than five years instead of over seventeen.

Why? I could only guess. Perhaps, as he said before his reluctant release from Terminal Island, prison was the only home he had. It was also possible that, consciously or unconsciously, he sought out those offenses that carried the most severe punishments. A third speculation—and I wasn’t overlooking the possibility that it could be a combination of all three—was a need, amounting almost to a compulsion, to challenge the strongest authority.

I was a long way from understanding Charles Manson. Though I could see patterns in his conduct, which might be clues to his future actions, a great deal was missing.

Burglar, car thief, forger, pimp—was this the portrait of a mass murderer?

I had far more questions than answers. And, as yet, not even a clue as to the motive.

NOVEMBER 24–26, 1969

Although Lieutenants Helder and LePage remained in charge of the Tate and LaBianca cases, the assignments were more jurisdictional than operational, since each was in charge of numerous other homicide investigations. Nineteen detectives had originally been assigned to the two cases. That number had now been cut to six. Moreover, for some odd reason, though there were only two victims in the LaBianca slayings, four detectives remained assigned to that case: Sergeants Philip Sartuchi, Mike Nielsen, Manuel “Chick” Gutierrez, and Frank Patchett. But on Tate, where there were five victims, there were only two detectives: Sergeants Robert Calkins and Mike McGann.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 989