i n t e r v i e w Dk the dichotomy of evil The Manson Girl Who Got Away

wi n mcCormack

She could have been a stone-cold killer

A house on Romero Canyon Road, in the that time of director Roman Pola ´nski and Montecito section of Santa Barbara, Cali- his wife, actress Sharon Tate. When the fornia, the evening of Saturday, August 9, police arrived that morning, they found, 1969. There were five of us present: four in the living room of the mansion, the of us—myself, Richard, Jan, and Ruth (my bodies of Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, girlfriend that summer)—were Junior Fel- an internationally known hair designer lows at the Center for the Study of Demo- who was Tate’s former lover and now a cratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, and friend to both her and Pola ´nski, and on there was Jan’s wife, Barbara. We were all the front lawn the bodies of Abigail Fol- in our early to mid-twenties. As dusk fell ger, a Folger-coffee heiress, and her lover, over the eucalyptus and lemon trees sur- Wojciech Frykowski, a playboy and friend rounding the house, we dropped acid. As it of Pola ´nski from his filmmaking days in turned out, this was not the right night for Poland. Two of these victims—Sebring this group of people to do that. and Frykowski—had been shot. All four All afternoon the news had been filled of them had been stabbed multiple times. with reports of a grisly and bizarre quin- Frykowski had also been struck on the tuple murder that had taken place after head with a blunt instrument. The police midnight in a mansion at 10050 Cielo found another victim as well, a young man Drive off Benedict Canyon in Bel-Air, an named Steven Parent, who had been vis- exclusive residential area of Los Angeles iting the grounds caretaker in his nearby about eighty-five miles southeast of Santa cottage, slumped over the wheel of a car Barbara. The mansion was the residence at near the gate to the property. He had been

191 Blood was everywhere—throughout the house, on the front porch, on the lawn. Witnesses described the scene as a “battlefield” and a “human slaughterhouse.” shot four times. Someone had climbed the the number of people in our house, five, telephone pole, with a pair of wire clip- was the exact number as had been mur- pers, and cut all four telephone wires to dered at the Pola ´nski residence. He went the house. On the front door the word on about all this at some length, until we PIG was written in blood that, after anal- finally told him to shut up. ysis, proved to be Sharon Tate’s. Blood Even had we not been stoned on LSD, was everywhere—throughout the house, this kind of talk, under the psychological on the front porch, on the lawn. Witnesses conditions prevailing in Southern Califor- described the sanguinary scene as a “bat- nia that night, would have induced para- tlefield” and a “human slaughterhouse.” noia in the rest of us. We stood up and Since it was the midst of summer, it went to the windows and looked out. Of did not get dark until fairly late that night course, if you look out the window of a of August 9. By the time darkness had brightly lit house into the darkness, you consumed the house on Romero Can- don’t see much of anything. Romero Can- yon Road, Richard, Jan, Barbara, Ruth, yon was an extremely quiet area, but there and I were fairly well stoned. Suddenly are always noises and, in the night, they Jan, a philosophy graduate of Reed Col- tend to be mysterious ones. We drew all lege with a strong penchant for getting the curtains on three sides of the living caught up in twisted and protracted flights room and in the dining room. We locked of fancy, started talking about the mur- the doors. Then we went around the house ders in Bel-Air. He alluded to some of and made sure all the windows were closed, the details of the murder scene and to the and pulled down all the window shades. names of some of the victims. Then he said We turned out as many lights as we could that even as we sat there, the murderers and still find our way around the house, could be in our vicinity; in fact, they could and then huddled around the dining room be right outside the house at that very table for a feeling of solidarity. Every once moment. He emphasized the fact that the in a while one of us got up and pulled aside murders the night before had taken place a curtain a fraction and peered out to check in a canyon, and we were in a canyon, and on things. I don’t think any of us got any the two canyons were not that far from sleep that night. each other; we could easily be reached by But besides the definite feeling of men- car, just as the victims the night before ace, there was a feeling of being menaced must have been. He also pointed out that specifically by evil, an almost palpable evil.

192 Win Mccormack Of course, we were not the only ones in a the seat of Wasco County, with salmo- state of fear in Southern California that nella, and the attempted poisonings of night. And as it happened, that fear was two Wasco County commissioners, in a justified. Just after midnight, Rosemary plot to gain control of the Wasco County and Leno LaBianca were brutally slaugh- Commission so that the incorporation of tered in their home at 3301 Waverly Drive the city Rajneeshpuram, which Rajneesh in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, near megalomaniacally aspired to build, would Griffith Park. They too were killed with be approved. Examining the history and multiple knife wounds. The police found behavior of Rajneesh honed my sense that a fork protruding from Leno’s stomach evil and an evil path in life are, at least and a knife still piercing his throat. On a in key cases, deliberately and consciously wall of the La Biancas’ house was written, chosen. in their blood, DEATH TO PIGS and RISE Rajneesh mesmerized his followers with and HEALTER SKELTER (so misspelled). a stupefying amalgam of Eastern mysti- This was the news Ruth and I woke up to cal mumbo jumbo (Rajneesh, like Charles on Monday, after our LSD trip had wound Manson, talked frequently about the need down and we had caught up on our sleep. to “lose” or “give up” the ego) and the lan- guage and techniques of the then-preva- 8* lent humanistic psychology and human Years later, in the ’80s, when I was study- potential movements. Nathaniel Brandon, ing and writing about the Indian guru a humanistic psychologist of the era, after Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his aggres- reading some of Rajneesh’s literature in sive cult in central Oregon for Oregon Maga- 1978, noted that Rajneesh “explains and zine, I had another, more direct encounter justifies the slaughter of Jews throughout with the existence and palpability of real history,” and wrote that “almost from the evil. At his ashram in India, before he came beginning I have had the feeling that this to Oregon, Rajneesh had involved his fol- is a man who is deeply, deeply evil—evil lowers in prostitution throughout Asia, on a scale almost outside the limits of the international drug smuggling, and vio- human imagination.” Rajneesh adherent lent-encounter groups in which occurred Shannon Jo Ryan, whose father, Con- numerous rapes (in the name of sexual lib- gressman Leo Ryan, was gunned down at eration) as well as physical abuse resulting Jonestown, once stated: “I’ve heard other in at least one death. Rajneesh forced his people say that if [Rajneesh] asked them women followers into abortions and ster- to kill themselves, they would do it. If ilizations (he didn’t countenance child- [Rajneesh] asked them to kill someone bearing). In Oregon, Rajneesh followers else, they would do it . . . I don’t know were eventually implicated in the poison- if my trust in him is that total. I would ing of restaurant patrons in The Dalles, like it to be.” Rajneesh himself said the

The Dichotomy of Evil 193 following: “When you surrender, you have we wanted to.” This therapist added: “Hitler surrendered all possibility of saying no. did that, you know.” Whatsoever the situation, you will not say One of the revelations during the Cen- no.” ter’s breakup was that Richard Corriere My sense of evil as a consciously chosen had been lecturing his therapy group on path had originated, however, in my famil- the virtues of Adolph Hitler. Among other iarity with the Center for Feeling Therapy, statements Corriere had made was this: “If a purported “therapeutic community” that Hitler had won World War II, he would flourished in Los Angeles in the ’70s. Cen- have eventually done good for the world, ter “therapists,” led by head “therapist” because all human beings, deep down, want and leader Richard “Riggs” Corriere (who to do good.” Rajneesh had also alluded to did not countenance childbearing among Hitler (in the book The Mustard Seed, which his followers either), employed a combina- Brandon referenced), claiming, “Jews are tion of abreactive/regressive psychological always in search of their Adolph Hitlers, techniques, which they had learned from someone who can kill them—then they Primal Therapy guru Arthur Janov, and feel at ease.” And Charles Manson, the coercive social techniques of group therapy evil mind behind what came to be called to gain control of their patients’ psyches the “Tate-LaBianca killings,” according to and lives. (Some three hundred “patients” his prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, told his lived together near the therapists’ “com- followers that “Hitler had the best answer pound” in an area of West Hollywood.) to everything” and that he was “a tuned-in The Center for Feeling Therapy broke up guy who leveled the karma of the Jews.” in two days in late 1980 amid revelations The reason for such cult leaders’ fasci- about what had been going on behind the nation with Hitler seems clear enough. scenes there, including sexual and finan- In his turn, Charles Manson himself has cial exploitation of patients. Afterward, become something of a symbol and mag- while researching transcripts at the Esalen net for those drawn to the phenomeno- Institute in Big Sur, California, I discov- logical power of evil. He still receives a ered that three Center therapists, in 1972, huge volume of mail from admirers. One not long after the Center’s founding, had neo-Nazi wrote Manson that his discovery held something called the “Esalen Seminar of Manson “could only be compared” to his on Feeling Therapy.” During this “semi- earlier discovery of Adolph Hitler and the nar,” one of the therapists, describing the National Socialist Party. abreactive techniques they used to regress When I was a senior in high school, patients back to the helplessness of child- my history teacher assigned us to watch a hood, said that these techniques “were series of films about Hitler’s Nuremburg so powerful” that they could use them to rallies. Sitting there in a small darkened manipulate and control their patients, “if room with a few other students, watch-

194 Win Mccormack ing images of Hitler flicker on the small of how to find and gain control of follow- screen, not being present in that immense ers, with diabolical purpose and intent. stadium with thousands of chanting peo- Adolph Hitler, Jim Jones, Rajneesh, Riggs ple, listening to the magnetic timbre of Corriere, David Koresh, Charles Manson. Hitler’s voice without understanding a What is the responsibility of the people word of the language other than Die Juden on the first side of the dichotomy for and Judenfrei, I still found Hitler a preter- the actions they have been manipulated naturally compelling figure, even at that and duped into? What is the responsibil- distance in time. It was spooky, and not a ity of the German people as a whole for little scary. What if you had actually been what happened in Germany in the ’30s there? What if you had actually been Ger- and during World War II, a question that man, and understood what he was say- has been probed and debated endlessly? ing? What if you felt resentment at the At the Esalen Institute, I once observed a treatment of Germany by the Allies after Gestalt therapy session in which a grown World War I? What if you didn’t know woman was, through a painstaking—and any Jews personally and were suspicious of painful—therapeutic process, reduced to a them? In any case, it might have been hard quivering, lost, lonely, sobbing child. The in the context of those rallies to emotion- therapist, if he had “wanted to,” if he had ally resist Hitler’s hysterical entreaties and possessed malign intent, could probably propaganda, especially juxtaposed with the have taken this woman over completely at hysterically passionate responses of the that moment and made her agree to almost crowds. And that, I think, is what our his- anything he desired. tory teacher sent us to learn about and “Juanita” (not her actual name) was on contemplate. Which brings me to my next, a road trip from San Jose, California, to and final, topic. Mexico via Phoenix, Arizona. In Mexico she was going to try to reunite with her fiancé, from whom she was estranged. By 8* her account, she had had a “harrowing I choose to call it “The Dichotomy of Evil” afternoon” the day before, because her van (as opposed to “The Banality of Evil”). On had been broken into and her very expen- the one side of my dichotomy are those, sive stereo system, which she had felt the like the subject of the interview below, immediate need to replace before the long who manifestly did not ever consciously trip ahead, stolen. Because of that and set out to follow the path of evil, but who because of the state of her romantic rela- were skillfully guided and manipulated tionship, she was, as are most people at the in that direction by those on the other point they are inducted into cult organiza- side of the dichotomy, those who com- tions, in an emotionally fragile and vulner- bine intense charisma with a keen sense able state. South of San Jose, she stopped

The Dichotomy of Evil 195 to pick up a pregnant-looking hitchhiker dios.” Dennis Wilson was very much a who turned out to be accompanied by part of the “peripheral family.” I remem- two men. All three were from the Man- ber Sadie telling me very intently what a son Family. The woman was Susan Atkins, wonderful group it was and how neat, how later one of the Tate-LaBianca killers. The much it meant to her, and how it really essence of Juanita’s story is this: she got worked as her family. I talked to her about into the Manson cult by accident, and she Mexico and how I was engaged to a guy got out, nine months later, not long before living there. This was the end of Septem- the murders, by another stroke of fate, in ber 1968. I was going to be twenty-four that case probably a stroke of great luck as the next month. She talked to me about well. The interview was conducted circa how wonderful this place was where they 1984–85. At that time, Juanita was hap- lived near Los Angeles. She talked with pily married and a successfully practicing the fervor of somebody who’d been con- professional. verted. [editor’s note: Susan Atkins was involved in the Tate murders and the prior murder of Gary Hinman, a graduate Win McCormack: So, Susan Atkins was student who dealt drugs to the Family. As the first Manson Family member you met, recounted in Vincent Bugliosi’s book Hel- when you picked her and two male com- ter Skelter and in The Family by Ed Sanders, panions up hitchhiking in Northern Cali- during the Hinman killing, after Manson fornia. What was she like? follower Bobby Beausoleil stabbed Hin- man twice in the chest and he lay bleeding Juanita: I knew her as Sadie Mae Glutz. to death, Atkins put a pillow over his head Sadie was a kid, a twenty-something-year- to suffocate him. Regarding the killing of old kid. I have lots of real fond memo- Sharon Tate through multiple stab wounds ries of her. It destroys me when I think from several different knives, which Atkins about what happened to her, because she participated in, Atkins once recounted to tried real hard to do the right thing. Sort a cell mate how pregnant Sharon Tate had of screwed up all along the line in her begged for her life and the life of her baby, choices. Sadie was in the passenger’s seat, and how she had responded: “Look, bitch, and the guys were in the back. I remem- I don’t care about you. I don’t care if you’re ber her talking about their musical group. going to have a baby. You’d better be ready. That was their story. They were all mem- You’re going to die.” She went on to say bers of a band, and their band’s name was that the first time she stabbed Tate, “It felt the Family Jams. I remember TJ [Thomas so good.”] Walleman, or “TJ the Terrible”] saying, “Oh yes, we record with Dennis Wilson WM: Tell me about your first encounter and the Beach Boys and we use their stu- with Charles Manson.

196 Win Mccormack The wooing began almost immediately. Somebody came along and brought me breakfast, then Charlie came along and brought me coffee . . . I don’t think I ever spent another five minutes alone until several weeks later.

J: My intention had been to drop the three Charlie got a guitar out and everybody of them off and to drive on to Phoenix started singing. It was just wonderful fun, on the way to Mexico to hook up with but it was very clear that nobody had any my fiancé. I totally misjudged how long talent. I felt perfectly comfortable with it would take to drive the length of Cali- them. That night, Charlie asked if he could fornia, and so by the time we drove into spend the night with me in the camper and Spahn’s Movie Ranch near Los Ange- I told him no. He let me know that I was les, I was exhausted. They said, “Why being selfish and self-centered and that don’t you stay here?” There was a whole there was a deficit in my character. sort of facade of Western town build- ings and then off to the right was a trailer WM: You decided to stick around there with its lights on. Everybody said, “Let’s rather than driving on to Phoenix and go get Charlie, let’s wake up Charlie,” then Mexico to meet up with your fiancé and everyone went running in. Charlie as you had planned. Why? came out naked. He had been making love to a woman named Gypsy, and she J: The wooing began almost immediately. also came out naked. Nobody reacted to Somebody came along and brought me that. Nobody thought anything of this. breakfast, then Charlie came along and It seemed like the most noticeable thing brought me coffee. From dawn on I had to me. Everyone was hugging each other, somebody around to tell me how wonder- everybody was so happy to see everybody ful it was there and I don’t think I ever else. They said, “Oh, look what we found, spent another five minutes alone until look who we found,” and introduced me several weeks later. At the time, this was to Charlie. And he came over and put his a group of people who lived my philoso- arms around me and said how glad he was. phy—make love, not war—all of those Of course, this was the ’60s, when every- things. At least, to all appearances that’s body was hugging, but there really was a what they did! Life on the ranch then lot of love around that trailer. There was was just one great big make-believe time. real bonding. It’s that same kind of stuff, There was a real spring back in the woods. that same kind of open and unthinking You’d take a shower under a waterfall. You love that you see in the face of a Moonie. could run through the woods naked. There

The Dichotomy of Evil 197 were horses to ride. It was a magical kind J: What makes anyone a good lover? He of place. was very tender.

WM: You became one of Charlie’s lov- WM: Charles Manson was tender? ers very quickly, I believe. How did that happen? J: Very. I never saw that man do anything that was hurtful. I really didn’t. There is a J: I didn’t know then how to say no to any- very incongruous aspect to all this for me. body. And then I was real needy too. And here were all these girls, women, falling WM: Tell me more about Charlie. all over him. And it was my door he was knocking on. J: He was not particularly big—probably We went off to Malibu in my camper five-two. Really wiry, real agile. Almost just a few days after I had gotten there. A leprechaunish in some ways, with a quick man called Chuck, and Sadie and Char- wit. There was a real playful quality about lie and I. My camper was one of those him, an endearing quality about him. He pop-up ones with a bunk at the top and could be very much the little boy, and he a bunk at the bottom. And we had gone showed a vulnerable side that really got over there and dropped some acid. We you engaged in taking care of him. spent the night there on the beach, and in the morning, when dawn was breaking, WM: How did he show his vulnerable as it were, Charlie and I started making side? love, and Charlie told Chuck and Sadie to come down into the same bunk we were in. J: I remember one time—this was at And I tolerated that, although we did not Spahn’s, and it was even very possibly that have group sex. I tolerated that, and that same night I gave him all my money. There seemed to be significant to Charlie. And I were kittens all over the place. The mother remember after that Chuck and I went for cat had stopped cleaning up after them. a walk on the beach, and I said, “What’s They had messed in the kitchen. And this guy all about?” And Chuck said he was Charlie got down on his hands and knees this really powerful, wonderful person. and cleaned the kitchen floor. He cleaned He was a good lover. Probably the most up after the kittens. He picked them up phenomenal lover I’ve ever had. But once and put them inside his shirt and went I was hooked, he didn’t have much to do and sat by the fire and warmed the kittens with me. and played mother cat. I remember him looking up and saying, “I now understand WM: What made Charlie such a good the pain of too much tenderness, because lover? it hurts not to hug them. But if I were

198 Win Mccormack “Your daddy would say I’m the devil, but of course I am, because if they told you that good was right, then obviously evil is right. So then I must be the devil, because I’m right.” to hug them I would hurt them.” It was WM: You say you gave him all your those kinds of things. He showed himself money? or acted like a very, very gentle man that would never hurt anything. J: It was amazing how quickly Charlie read me. He seemed to know all the right but- WM: Would he cry? tons to push. Within a month I’d signed over my camper and something like a six- J: I did see him cry one time. There was teen-thousand-dollar trust fund, which in one night, again at Spahn’s, where every- 1968 wasn’t small potatoes. body took megadoses of acid and probably some mescaline or something else mixed WM: How did he get you to do that? in with it. Things got really out of hand. I mean really royally. The hallucination J: That’s a question I’ve asked myself many that I had that night was one of being in times. Some of it was drug-induced, I’m a tent in Arabia where horses were jump- sure. I can remember the night that I told ing through the tents and all this wild him he could have the money. That day, pandemonium was going on. People were we started early dropping acid and doing hitting each other. The place was literally all those kinds of wonderful things. He destroyed. I remember Little Paul Wat- had been telling me that the thing that kins hit me that night. There was pan- stood between me and total peace of mind demonium. Everybody was on their own and heart was Daddy’s money—I was not trip. And Charlie came in to get a pair of going to be free of Daddy until I got free shoes and he said to me, “I can’t stay here, of Daddy’s money. Charlie started [say- because there’s no love here anymore.” He ing] that I was my father’s ego. And I said, “Tomorrow you have to tell them that remember thinking, That doesn’t make any they drove me away.” And the tears were sense to me. Then later I convinced myself just flowing down his face. I asked him to that it probably was [right], because Char- stay, and he said no, he couldn’t stay. He lie was always right. Charlie never openly said that the animal had come out in them said that he was the reincarnation of Jesus and that love had fled. Christ, but if he didn’t say it, he sure to hell implied it. He would say things about

The Dichotomy of Evil 199 having flashbacks about having the nails J: Leslie was just a really sweet, personable driven in through his wrists. He said, “The girl. She had short dark hair and this bub- nails weren’t put in my palms, they were bly way about her. Her father had been or put into my wrists.” And, “They always lie still was a big muckety-muck architect or to us. Everything’s 180 degrees from the something in Los Angeles. And my parents way they told you it was. And there is no were very conservative and very pro-estab- difference between Jesus and the devil. So lishment, so she and I used to talk about your daddy would say I’m the devil, but of how no matter what we did, we couldn’t course I am, because if they told you that be good enough to please these outrageous good was right, then obviously evil is right. parents of ours. I remember the last time So then I must be the devil, because I’m I saw her we were all out in the desert and right.” we were sitting around the kitchen in the One of the things we did with my ranch, and Leslie was talking about how money, which I still feel real good about, we really were her family now, and how was [take care of] the sweet old man who she had never felt so close to any of her owned that ranch, George Spahn. All of blood relatives. I just remember how close us lived there for free and ran the place to her I felt. I really liked her. I think a for him, because George was blind and lot of us always were in awe of each other. eighty-six years old. We cooked for him, [editor’s note: Leslie Van Houten par- and we washed his clothes, and we gave ticipated in the killing of Rosemary LaBi- him back rubs and we told him how won- anca—albeit apparently somewhat reluc- derful he was. George was in danger of tantly, at first. As described in The Family: losing the ranch to back taxes. He hadn’t “Leslie was not participating. Tex [Wat- paid taxes and it was coming down to the son] wanted Leslie to stab. So did Katie wire—pay up or lose it. I signed over the [Patricia Krenwinkel]. Leslie was very hes- money to Charlie and we paid six years’ itant but they kept suggesting it. She made worth of taxes on it. [editor’s note: a stab to the buttocks. Then she kept stab- Bugliosi says in Helter Skelter that one of bing, sixteen times. Later the nineteen- the ways the Family kept Spahn happy was year-old girl from Cedar Falls, Iowa, would by having Squeaky Fromme—the family write poems about it.”] member who subsequently tried to assas- sinate President Ford—and other Manson WM: Did you know Tex Watson well? girls minister to him sexually “night after night.”] J: Tex was the mildest-mannered, most polite human being you’ve ever seen. He was WM: Did you get to know Leslie Van one of those people that called you “ma’am” Houten? all the time, called everybody ma’am. He was from Texas. Real handsome but sort

200 Win Mccormack Story title 201 of baby-faced handsome. He wanted to go J: I remember Charlie talk[ing] about back to school or do something, and Char- Hitler having been right—that the world lie kept telling him not to bother, that it needed a big purging every once in a while. was a waste of time. I remember talking And I remember saying to Charlie, “If about him wanting to go back to school. Hitler were here now I’d be dead.” And he I remember, when I heard that he was just laughed and said, “No, you missed the involved in the murders, being very sur- point. It’s got nothing to do with whether prised because he was just this really sweet or not you’ve got Jewish blood. It has to do guy. [editor’s note: By the accounts of with purging the world, and having only Sanders and Bugliosi, Tex Watson was not people who can survive—the only thing only the leader but also the most savage that was wrong with those people is that and bloodthirsty member of the Tate and they weren’t smart enough to figure out LaBianca death squads. At the Pola ´nski/ how to escape it.” Tate property he shot Steven Parent four times in the head; shot Jay Sebring in the WM: Manson also talked a lot about race armpit and then drop-kicked him in the wars, didn’t he? Wasn’t that the founda- nose before stabbing him four times; sliced tion for his “Helter Skelter” ideology and Abigail Folger’s neck, smashed her head ultimately what led the Family to murder? with the butt of his pistol, and stabbed her in various parts of her chest and abdomen; J: What was going to happen in this back- shot Wojciech Frykowski below the left ward world to make it right was that the axilla and then finished him off by stab- black man, who had been oppressed for bing him in the left side of his body; and years, was going to become the superior was one of those involved in stabbing Sha- race, and the blacks would rule the world. ron Tate sixteen times. He personally killed “Helter Skelter” was Charlie’s plan for and Leno LaBianca by slashing him four times name for their uprising and also, it turned in the throat. When he had first come upon out, apparently, for the murders which Frykowski and Frykowski asked him who he hoped would provoke that. [editor’s he was, he replied, “I am the devil and I am note: Manson hoped that the murders here to do the devil’s work.”] would be thought to have been committed by blacks, bringing even further oppression WM: Getting back to Charlie, in addition down on them, in turn provoking them to to his expressing kinship or identification rise up.] The reason we had to find a place with the devil, did he ever talk about Hit- in the desert was we had to have a place to ler? A number of leaders of destructive run and hide, because as whites we were cults over the years have expressed admi- going to be killed or enslaved unless we ration for Hitler, and particularly of his were smart enough to find a place to live treatment of Jews. until—until it all balanced out. Eventually,

202 Win Mccormack the black man would ask Charlie and the We were there alone when Paul Crockett Family to take over, because he wouldn’t be and [his partner] showed up. They came able to rule on his own. on March 10 or 11. They had pulled up We didn’t call it “Helter Skelter” until to the farmhouse and it was difficult for the Beatles record came down, and then us to either invite them in or send them it was, “Aha, look at that—our prophets.” away. We couldn’t do either. And Paul said It’s only in the last two years that I’ve even that was his first clue [that we were under been able to tolerate listening to The White the influence of mind control]. We didn’t Album. know how to think for ourselves or make decisions for ourselves at all. We came out WM: Was that really going on, what Hel- and told them that the place was taken. ter Skelter describes as the mental prepara- But Paul just said, Well, it’s night, code tion and buildup for the murders—play- of the desert, and all that sort of stuff. He ing the songs “Helter Skelter,” “Piggies,” and [his partner] had food, and we had “Revolution 9,” and “Blackbird” from that very little. [editor’s note: Juanita later album over and over? The line in “Black- married Paul Crockett’s partner, whose bird” that goes, “All your life, you have only name is being withheld here for purposes waited for this moment to arise,” which of anonymity.] supposedly referred to the rising up of the blacks? WM: What were they doing up in the desert? J: All of that was going on. J: Prospecting for gold. Paul Crockett had WM: When did you first go to the desert, studied with one of the early, early people or, more specifically, to the Barker Ranch who were of Ron Hubbard’s ilk—one of in Death Valley? the first five people that L. Ron Hubbard, later the founder of Scientology, had stud- J: Sometime in October. Halloween week- ied with himself. This man had known end of 1968, I think, was when we first Ron Hubbard when he used to say things went to the desert. Then, in February of like, “Well, you know how to really make it ’69, everyone went back to Spahn Ranch in this world is to start your own religion. except for me and Brooks Poston, who had Nobody can touch you, and you can really been one of the stable-hands at Spahn’s, do it. Maybe I ought to take this stuff and who always wanted to join the Family, but can it.” And that man had told Paul the Charlie had never truly accepted him. reason he wasn’t a Scientologist was that So Brooks and I stayed at Barker. They he didn’t like the amount of control that were supposed to get us in ten days, but was happening in that organization. nobody had ever come back from Spahn’s.

The Dichotomy of Evil 203 WM: In other words, Paul Crockett knew a J: Well, one day Paul Watkins showed up thing or two about cults and brainwashing. from Spahn with a woman named Bar- And also deprogramming? bara. They were very interested in Brooks and me and what had happened to us, J: Paul essentially deprogrammed Brooks because it was very clear to them that we and me, and later Paul Watkins, Charlie’s were alive again. It was also very clear to sometime right-hand man. One of the us that they weren’t alive. Barbara—Bo— things that he talked about was the way was somebody that always fought Char- Charlie got control over everybody by get- lie. She just wouldn’t give up, she just ting people to agree that he was something wouldn’t give in. And he worked on her spectacular, and agree to his other self- and worked on her and worked on her. serving ideas. He said that agreements are One time she was stoned and we were much more powerful than people realize all sitting with the fire going and sort they are, and that implied agreements are of chanting and I remember her really more powerful than overt agreements. It freaking out and saying, “You’re all evil, was those implied agreements that were this is hell,” and Charlie saying, “Well, of making it very difficult for us to break course it’s hell. Remember everything that away from him. Paul and Brooks and I Mommy ever taught you is wrong. Where used to stay up until one, two, three o’clock you want to be is hell. And we’re all dev- in the morning just talking. Doing what ils.” I remember Barbara standing there were early Scientology experiments. I and screaming at him, “I’m not going to don’t know whether they’re still done. I do it. I’m not going to give myself away to don’t know anything about Scientology you.” Yet she stayed. now at all, other than the fact that Paul has The word was that they had been sent warned me not to get involved with them, up to get us and to bring us home, to because they are as hard to get away from bring us back down. And we told them we as Charlie was. [editor’s note: Accord- weren’t going. And they stayed for several ing to Bugliosi, Manson went through Sci- days, ostensibly to talk us into going. But it entology training while in prison in the was very, very clear that they really wanted late ’50s and early ’60s, and claimed to to find out what had happened. And Bo in have achieved Scientology’s highest level, particular just kept saying, “You’re really “Theta Clear.” Bugliosi also claims that staying here, and you’re happy?” And I Manson often used the phrase “cease to kept saying, “Yeah, I am.” Paul Crocket exist,” a Scientology exhortation.] gave them just enough to make them interested in breaking away and getting WM: So how did you finally extricate your- some sense of individuality again. But Paul self from the Family? Watkins said, “No, I’ve got to go back and see Charlie. We’re not looking forward to

204 Win Mccormack telling him that Brooks and Juanita aren’t sational murders took place that August. coming back.” When did you hear about them and what was your reaction? WM: How did you leave it with Charlie? J: My future husband and I went off to J: Brooks and I asked Paul [Watkins] to do some place out near Baker, California, to something very specific. We asked him to look for turquoise, and then to Kingman, wait until the whole Family was together Arizona, where his brother lived, to stay at night, when everybody was there, and for a while and work. And that’s where we to say that we wanted Charlie to release were the August weekend that the murders us from any agreements we had made with happened. I’m watching the TV and the him, and that we in turn would release him news broadcaster is saying how bizarre the from any agreements he had made with us. murders were, and that there was a place We asked him to do it in front of every- on this door where the word pig had been body because Charlie couldn’t turn down written. And I looked at that and said, “It requests in front of everybody, because he doesn’t say ‘pig,’ it says ‘die.’” [editor’s was the servant and not the leader, accord- note: It did in fact say “pig.” The word ing to his teaching. He said, “Of course. was written in Sharon Tate’s blood.] I just They’re released. Nobody has any agree- somehow knew it was them. It had been at ments to us, to me.” He said, “I don’t have least since February since I had seen any of any holds on anybody.” And so Watkins them, other than Paul and Barbara, or had said, “Well, then, do you release me from any contact with any of them, except for any agreements with you?” And Charlie one phone call. It was intuitive, because it said, “Of course.” And Barbara said, “And didn’t make sense. It was totally incongru- me?” And Charlie said, “Yeah.” And Paul ous to what they said and how they lived looked around the room at the rest of when I was there. But at the same time, the Family members—this is the way he I looked at that. I was sure it didn’t say told the story—and said, “And what about “pig,” that it said “die.” And that was a big them?” And Charlie said, “Enough of this part of it—there was this whole thing of shit about agreements,” and wouldn’t you had to die and be reborn. Until you release anybody else. could let your old ego die and be reborn, Paul came back up in June, escaped, and you couldn’t be free. There was this whole never went back to Manson. I never saw or thing of dropping acid and experienc- heard of Bo again. It was at Barker Ranch, ing death. And I remember these people by the way, that Charlie was arrested. writhing on the floor, and Charlie saying, “Die, let yourself go. Die.” Standing there WM: You and your future husband left and looking at them: “Die, die.” Barker Ranch in June of 1969 and the sen- I remember that experience. I’m a very

The Dichotomy of Evil 205 quick study. That’s how he got my money so J: I saw him during the trial, on televi- fast. But I remember being back at Spahn’s sion. And it was real scary for me. He was Ranch, way back, the first couple of weeks angry and intense. Very different than I I was there—when Charlie was telling me had seen him. If anybody had said to me in to die. And he said, “All you have to do is July of that year that these murders would just go with me and I’ll take you, because happen, I would have told them that they I’ve already died. I’m not afraid.” He just were full of it. I would have told them that stared at me. And I just stared at him. The it was impossible. intensity of that man’s eyes. I had literally given myself away to him by then. WM: What if you’d been there? What if you hadn’t been deprogrammed? Do you WM: You never saw a sadistic or brutal or think that you would have been involved psychopathic side to Manson? in the murders?

J: No. It’s one of the things that’s scariest J: My fear is that if I were there I’d be in of all. The person that I saw was, for all jail now too. Because I pretty well did outward appearances, everything he said whatever he told me to do. I mean, for me he was. He’d give you the shirt off his back, to walk forty miles, as I did one time—I literally. He got down on his hands and had blisters on the soles of my feet that knees and cleaned up cat shit. I never saw were two and a half inches in diameter . . . this other side of him. because Charlie wanted me to go some- where and I didn’t have a car, so I walked. WM: The whole thing must be haunting The basic programming was that you had for you. to die to be freed anyway, so death was not something to be afraid of. That we were all J: Have you ever read anything about members of one greater consciousness. the Vietnam vet survivor-guilt business? But the other thing was that if Charlie I have survivor guilt. Real survivor guilt. said, “Jump,” my only question would be: Leslie and Sadie are in prison and I’m liv- “How high?” ing a relatively nice lifestyle. I mean, why me? How did I get out? Why did I get out? Why did they get caught? I don’t know that either.

WM: Did you ever see Charlie again, on television?

206 Win Mccormack