2nd Official Tate-LaBianca Murders Blog

"Sadie" & Susan If Charlie foresaw how much paper from how many trees in how many forests have been used to type up each parole hearing, on each TLB killer, his ATWA diatribe would take on a whole new meaning! I know, you're wondering why I've decided to ruminate about the testimony of one parole hearing, given by one killer over 31 years ago. Well, it's been my experience that if you want to get at the truth in anything, you have to peel back the layers of the past, as time has a way of blurring the lines between what was fact and what was fiction. And, of all the hearings, of all the Manson Family killers, this one sticks out as a clear reflection of a woman, whose actions and choices, and their after-affects, are still reverberating, even today. In reviewing the 1978 Parole hearing of Susan Atkins, one is reminded of the danger that was "Sadie" and of the risks that still lie within Susan, and that the crev...

As I sit here in my 21st Century den, listening to the 20 th Century Ghosts from my past...Tom Jones, Sinatra, Burt Bacharach , Dean Martin, Janis Joplin, The Beach Boys, it makes me wonder where the hell all those years went. Wasn't it just yesterday that it was actually sexy to wear pink polka dotted tops and silk scarves in your hair (I'm a girl, okay!) and slow-dance with your date on Saturday nights? Is this just my age and faltering memory colouring those times and I'm choosing to view it all through rose-coloured John Lennon glasses...probably. But as Tom sings sweetly in my ear about yet another love lost, I wonder if, in our hi-tech days, we aren't lacking the "esprit du corps" that we had back in the 60s. Times were still innocent enough and as kids or young teens, we thought we'd invented sex - well, at least free love - and knew it all. We thought we had become jaded with Oswald's bullets in Dealey Plaza and with...

Our jeep’s headlights flashed on to the stucco building where Tex’s girlfriend’s place was. It was dark by the time we pulled into the car park. The complex was dead quiet except for the singsong of the cicadas in the bushes. And the night air was still but the heat was heavy, as if the night had no power to drive it underground. We slowly stepped out of our seats, our backs tight and stiff from the trip. We stretched, the both of us, tired and dusty, and trudged back to the hold to get our gear and all those guns. Why the guns? I thought to myself but I was too tired to seek the answer that night. We both headed down the complex sidewalk and hit the first outside staircase we could find. Tex told us he was in #207; and within a few minutes and a few feet we found his front door. Knocking quietly and waiting for a reply, only moments slid by until the door slid open to reveal the bugged-out eyes of Tex staring back at us. “Boy, am I glad you guys are here...

Charlie in 2007 "A Way of Life" is a special message from Manson to all. October 2007. A WAY OF LIFE A way of life, and the people who fight for a way of life (and the order of, and in), that kills germs, bugs, birds, cows and pigs, and feeds on Life, is at war with Nature and has no ATWA in its' soul ; and is running as fast as it can to death, and is at war with its' own life. You can thank the North and South Wars, that divided this country and the world, for control over the Money-Gods of Rome and the Churches of Deceit. Signed……Straight Satan Charles Manson A Second Message to all from Charles Manson, October 2007 In all my life, and where I've lived, the ways that things have come before me have set a lot of what I am, what I do, where I go, where I don't go, where I come from all around, and what I'm about. The court of my days, in my time, has become a chamber of my court in my thoughts and mind. We ...

What is it that attracts people to Bobby? Was he the John Barrymore of the 60s? Yet this swash-buckling, charismatic soul carried a sheath knife and borrowed a gun from Spahn's... He's a Left Brain fighting with the Right Brain kind of juxtaposition, no? What lies beneath that controlled, chiseled - cheek exterior that would make a rising music talent throw everything away for a smarmy, dirty 5'2" tall quasi-guru ex-con? Of all the Family, Cupid's fate seems the saddest. Or is it that I'm 45, in a mid-life crisis and fantasizing about jumping his bones? No, it's more than that. There's something not right about a man-boy who can spew Manson rhetoric, saying "It was all good" in 1973 to "I was not then nor am I now a member of the Manson Family" and admitting "Yeah, I'm sure he's (Manson) fucked a few fat butt boys, yeah. so have I. In that respect, maybe I'm homosexual, you know?" in 1981...

Chapter Seven 4 a.m. came ‘round pretty quick. I was jolted awake without ceremony by an already dressed Bob kickin’ at Paul and I with his boots. “Come on Sleeping Beauties, Rise and Shine. It’s 4 and we gotta get a start before the heat sets in. It’s gonna be a long one and I’d like to get to Tex’s place with enough time to score some tabs and some grass before we have to leave.” Said Bobby. “Yeah, yeah, we’re comin’” I mumbled. And out we crawled, threw on our clothes, packed some stuff in our gunnysacks and grabbed our shotguns off of the large brad nails hammered into the wall and headed for the door. The sun was already threatening to come over the Panamints and the sky was a groovy neon pink melting into a mild yellow, then a white until you knew that a brilliant blue and its heat was on the way. We loaded up the Jeep with water and a bit of jerky the Girls packed for us, grabbed two handguns from deCarlo in the outbuilding that he had made ready for us, we said...

Well, I finally pried the $6 out of my wallet and rented the HBO documentary, "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired". It took some doing on my part. I hummed and hawed and remembered all the posters on different Manson NGs saying how ridiculous this video was and how contrived the release date was and how one-sided the case was, against this evil pedophile wanted fugitive. I thought, do I need to watch his version? Will it taint me forever, being such a fan of his 60s European films, especially "Repulsion" with Catherine Deneuve? Did I want to know stuff about this guy that would transform him in my eyes from a genius film director and Manson victim, to a lewd and lascivious prowler of unsuspecting young girls? Well, my kitty curiosity got the better of me and I plunked the DVD into my Sony Surround System, sat back on my bed scattered with photos and files from those times, the court transcript of that rape hearing clutched tightly in my hands and...

Is this the face of a dictator of mass murder?  Does this old man even know the origins and meanings behind that swastika on his brow?  Are those tired eyes weeping for a wasted life which has gone on, and on, and on?  Or when he looks into the lens each year in the prison I.D. office, is he wishing he could just jump the photographer and stab him in the neck with the black Sharpie marker he carries in his breast pocket for those impromptu autograph sessions? Hard to tell, really. What's even more difficult to wrap your head around is the fact that it's been almost 40 years since that fateful August 9th and 10th and all of us bystanders had grown old too, from the kids we were, who really feared Charlie's crazy eyes in that LIFE magazine, to the adults we are now, looking into those same dark bottomless pools but now seeing only a worn and weary man, not at the end of his beginning, but at the beginning of his end. Would the A.P. and other m...

Here is Doober's Take previously published on Crimeshots Forum... Yeah, I don't imagine that Sadie woulda been too concerned about gettin' the writing implement back to it's proper place on the estate. I know it would have been the polite thing to do,....and had I been there, I would have made sure that the writing tool was placed in it's proper place,....because I have a certain amount of OCD,....which was dutifully pointed out by Ms. Burb in a previous post. The fact that a large terry-cloth towel could not have been the tool is demonstrated by the legibility of the letters found on the door. It is cogent to think that, if one were going up to kill someone to make a statement, that it would be imperative to make sure the message was clear, concise and to the point. I think we unanimously agree that the word came through quite smashingly. This could not have been due to a terry-cloth towel but with something of a thinner nature to ensure that t...

Dedicated to A.C. - You know who you are... Chapter One It was 140F in the shade but that didn’t slow my progress. My head and shoulders seemed like they were on fire and I wished I had brought a hat with me. No time to think after Charlie yelled at me to get going. He could be such a hard-ass sometimes. Once he got a thought in his brain and told you to do something, you had to do it NOW, or else. We had been preparing stashes all week, of 5 gallon cans of gas, cooking oil and barrels of dried jerky in all the caverns and caves Charlie could find. We were all tired and some of the girls had rashes on their legs and arms from digging out these desert hide-a-ways. It was my turn to feel the heat, not just from the desert floor, but from Charlie’s wrath; and I couldn’t tell which was hotter. Chapter Two Everything seemed to be on track since Charlie left the Enslen Institute on the 11 th . I was just glad he had come into his own with new...