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HUNTING CHARLES MANSON THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE IN THE DAYS OF HELTER SKELTER LIS WIEHL WITH CAITLIN ROTHER HuntingCharlesManson_1P.indd 3 1/25/18 12:11 PM © 2018 Lis Wiehl All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other— except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Nelson Books and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc. Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund- raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e- mail [email protected]. Any Internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by Thomas Nelson, nor does Thomas Nelson vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book. ISBN 978-0-7180-9211-5 (eBook) Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Wiehl, Lis W., author. Title: Hunting Charles Manson : the quest for justice in the days of Helter skelter / Lis Wiehl. Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Nelson Books, [2018] Identifiers: LCCN 2017059418 | ISBN 9780718092085 Subjects: LCSH: Manson, Charles, 1934-2017. | Murderers- - California- - Los Angeles- - Case studies. | Mass murder investigation- - California- - Los Angeles- - Case studies. | Murder- - California- - Los Angeles- - Case studies. Classification: LCC HV6248.M2797 W54 2018 | DDC 364.152/30979493-- dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059418 Printed in the United States of America 18 19 20 21 22 LSC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HuntingCharlesManson_1P.indd 4 1/25/18 12:11 PM To the victims of the Manson Family. May they rest in peace. HuntingCharlesManson_1P.indd 5 1/25/18 12:11 PM HuntingCharlesManson_1P.indd 6 1/25/18 12:11 PM CONTENTS Author’s Note . ix Prologue . xi CHAPTER 1 Charlie the Guru . 1 CHAPTER 2 Indoctrination at Spahn Ranch . 8 CHAPTER 3 The Gary Hinman Murder . .13 CHAPTER 4 Lotsapoppa: Drug Burn Gone Wrong . .22 CHAPTER 5 “Political Piggy” . 27 CHAPTER 6 “Do whatever Tex says.” . 33 CHAPTER 7 The Sole Survivor . 44 CHAPTER 8 The Bloody Aftermath. 50 CHAPTER 9 “How could anybody be so cruel?” . 58 CHAPTER 10 “Call the police!” . .69 CHAPTER 11 Drug Burn or Robbery Gone Wrong?. .75 CHAPTER 12 Raid at Spahn Ranch. 84 CHAPTER 13 “I felt I could conquer the world.” . .93 CHAPTER 14 Doing Hard Time . 100 CHAPTER 15 The First Family Members . 106 CHAPTER 16 “Dennis Wilson: I Live With 17 Girls” . 117 CHAPTER 17 Searching for a New Home . 125 CHAPTER 18 “Somebody dropped the ball.” . 131 CHAPTER 19 Looking for Terry Melcher . 138 CHAPTER 20 The Murder of Shorty Shea . 146 vii HuntingCharlesManson_1P.indd 7 1/25/18 12:11 PM CONTENTS CHAPTER 21 Hiding Out in Death Valley . .154 CHAPTER 22 Connecting the Dots. .163 CHAPTER 23 The Dominoes Begin to Fall . 171 CHAPTER 24 Forced to Cooperate . 177 CHAPTER 25 The First Death Sentence . 185 CHAPTER 26 “Mockery of justice” . 193 CHAPTER 27 The Trial of the Century. .201 CHAPTER 28 Ronald Hughes Disappears . 210 CHAPTER 29 Folie à deux. .218 CHAPTER 30 Death Penalty Overturned . 227 CHAPTER 31 Manson Comes up for Parole . 235 CHAPTER 32 Alternative Scenarios . 244 CHAPTER 33 The Fight Against Parole . 252 CHAPTER 34 Jason Freeman: “Charles Manson III” . 262 CHAPTER 35 Manson’s Legacy . .271 CHAPTER 36 “I’m dying.”. .279 Epilogue . 287 Acknowledgments . 291 Sources and Methodology . .293 Cast of Characters . .307 Index . .312 About the Author . 313 viii HuntingCharlesManson_1P.indd 8 1/25/18 12:11 PM AUTHOR’S NOTE n taking on the quest for justice in the tragedy that was the summer Iof 1969, I thought about what made Charlie Manson do what he did. Those killings changed American culture. People who didn't have home alarms quickly bought as fancy a system as they could afford. Mothers began walking their children to school. And parents and chil- dren alike had trouble falling asleep at night. Charlie Manson and his “children” robbed America of its innocence. Nearly fifty years later, Charles “Tex” Watson, the man who carried out Manson's murderous plans, was asked by a parole officer, “What made a God- fearing, churchgoing young man from Texas move to California and commit the worst killings this state has ever seen?” The officer's question was asked in a thunderous tone. He was met with silence from the prisoner and straight- on stares from famfily members of the victims. I could understand the silence. What answer could there be? As the only reporter allowed in that parole hearing in California, I brought into the room fifteen years of national television crime report- ing and, as a former federal prosecutor, hundreds of federal prosecutions. I am proud to be a third- generation federal prosecutor, after my father and grandfather before me. That same grandfather was also a judge, and my father had also served as an FBI agent. I have had a lifetime of law enforcement exposure and experience, and yet I was as bewildered as the parole officer by the crimes. This mystery is part of the reason behind this reexamination of ix HuntingCharlesManson_1P.indd 9 1/25/18 12:11 PM AUTHOR’S NOTE arguably the most notorious crime in American history. How could it have happened? I also wanted to explore the process by which justice was done. The Christian tradition, of which I am a part, has justice at its center, a consequence of the belief that God will ultimately put all things right. We should take seriously the process by which our governments work to see justice accomplished, and this book— as well as subsequent books in this series— attempts to do just that. As a result of my legal experience, I knew when embarking on this quest what law enforcement agents on the scene in 1969 would have or should have been looking for, which made my discoveries of what they actually did all the more shocking. I knew what the lead prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, was attempting to do with his various motions and strategies, and how successful he was or was not. (Long after the Manson case, I got to know Bugliosi when he asked for assistance in writing a book about the Supreme Court.) And my television crime reporting expe- rience was invaluable as I researched, wrote, and analyzed the defense’s case and the various alternative theories about the crime. Investigative journalist and true crime author Caitlin Rother brought thirty years of research and storytelling experience, as well as a breadth of knowledge about the criminal justice system, addiction, and men- tal illness. We agreed to approach the “known” sources— including the criminal case files— with fresh eyes. But we also set out with the goal of uncovering new details that would enhance readers’ overall under- standing of the case. I believe the book does just that, offering new and illuminating material that will not only surprise but possibly even aston- ish the reader. In the end, I’m not sure we will ever be able to answer definitively the question of why. But I do believe these pages bring us closer than ever before. Read on. x HuntingCharlesManson_1P.indd 10 1/25/18 12:11 PM PROLOGUE “Today is a good day.” grizzled old man with a long, bushy beard and a swastika tattoo on A his forehead sat waiting in his prison blues for a special visitor one Saturday in late December 2013. Charles Milles Manson probably received more mail than any other inmate in California, so he turned down or ignored many persistent invi- tations to correspond or visit with him here at Corcoran State Prison. But this particular visitor won him over somehow. Afton Elaine Burton was just seventeen when she started to write him. On this Saturday morning seven years later, seventy- nine- year- old Manson was more than three times her age. Still, they’d formed a bond. He’d always been good at drawing in young women, and it seemed his charms had endured. Fenced in with curls of spear- tipped barbed wire, Corcoran had been Manson’s home for the last thirty years of his most recent forty- five- year term. Surrounded by vast dusty miles of nothingness and the occasional field of cotton, hay, tomatoes, or wheat, Corcoran is California’s largest correctional facility. A second one down the road treats inmates for sub- stance abuse. Other than the local inmates and corrections employees, however, few people want to live in the middle of nowhere, where the most touted downtown eateries include McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Subway, and two pizza parlors. xi HuntingCharlesManson_1P.indd 11 1/25/18 12:11 PM PROLOGUE But Burton didn’t seem to mind. She had left her strict Baptist family back in Illinois to move here and had visited Manson regularly ever since. In turn, as he’d done many times for the underage girls and troubled women drawn to him over the years, he gave Burton a name in his own image: Star Manson. When Star arrived for their five- hour visit at Corcoran’s small Protective Housing Unit (PHU) that Saturday in 2013, the lanky young woman wore a short spring dress with ballet flats. Her dark brown hair was still growing out after she’d shaved it to show her support for Manson, just as his female codefendants had done during his first murder trial in 1970.