Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Can you feel sympathy for the convicted killers ?

The following thread was written by "Grim Traveller". He will be writing threads for LSB3 periodically, as his schedule allows. I look forward to his contributions. Please join me, in welcoming Grim to our staff.


It comes naturally to feel sympathy and sorrow towards victims of crime and the families and friends of those that have been the victims, especially where the crime was violent. There are those that may even extend such sympathy to the families of perpetrators.


However, when it comes to the perpetrators of criminal acts, especially violent crimes, in particular rape and murder, how in the world it is possible to have any kind of sympathy or feel sorry for them ? They have, after all crossed that boundary of no return. They don’t deserve understanding. Sympathy. Solace. Mitigation. Peace. Resolution. All they deserve is death and if that won’t happen, jail until they die. Some rough treatment, hopefully at the hands of some vile, sadistic inmate and a few illnesses that bring excruciating pain wouldn’t go amiss either.


Yet when I look at the backgrounds of some of the members of ‘the family’ I do find myself having a certain amount of sympathy towards some of them.


I want to make it clear and stress that having sympathy doesn’t mean I think they got the wrong sentences or were not guilty or should necessarily be paroled. Some of them {Pat Krenwinkel, Bobby Beausoleil and Charles Watson in particular} were extremely fortunate that the death penalty in California was abolished after they’d been given it, while Steve Grogan was fortunate that the judge in his case overrode the jury’s death verdict.


Yet with all this in mind, I do have some sympathy with some of the convicted killers.


I feel in some ways for Charles Manson. Yes, it’s true that he could have gone down a different path in life, one that ensures we’d probably never have heard of him. All human beings are blessed with choices and the ability to choose. But human parents are also charged with the responsibility, whether by God, the State, the tribe, the family {no pun intended} or whoever else, to show children the right way. And not just by telling them verbally. The right way has to be observed and observed over a lengthy period. And even living it isn’t enough. Children need to be invested in right up to the point at which they become adults and a little beyond.


Who invested in Charlie Manson ?


His Dad wasn’t even known to him. His Mum didn’t want him. Numerous times she tried to get rid of him. Certainly in England, if a woman did half the things Kathleen Maddox did to her son as a child, she would be in jail were it nowadays. 

Manson says:
“She started a man without a Father.....the biggest disappointment in her life was getting pregnant when she was 14. When she got pregnant, she said ‘wow, man!’ And I came. And there wasn’t no abortion clinics, you dig. And I ruined her life. I destroyed her whole life. I was the biggest disappointment in her life.

And all her life, she queered everything I ever tried to do. She would tell me she was coming to get me and leave me standing there dressed in a little suit waiting to go home on Monday morning and she wouldn’t show. And then they’d take me back and then tell me ‘next week’ and then she wouldn’t show. And then she would just tear my heart out and throw it on the ground and stomp on it. She tortured me and tormented me and destroyed me a thousand times. She kept me locked up for over 22 years.....”


Having worked with 5~16 year olds for over three decades and seen first hand what a less than stellar beginning can bring in someone’s life, I can’t help but be sympathetic. Charlie goes on about how “the DA” created him but in truth, his parents were the first rung on that creation ladder. 

None of this excuses his future criminal pursuits. It’s hard however, to believe that had his parents loved him and invested in him, he would have gone down the same path. Of course, he might have. But the cards were seriously stacked against him from even before he was born. Although he says it taught him to rely on himself, it’s not hard to see that it truly hamstrung him too. 

“When you was going to high school and you was doing all the little things that you was doing ~ I was crying.......your Mother bought you shoes and sent you to school. My Mother gave me a handful of comic books and sold me for a pitcher of beer. She ran off and left me and went to the penitentiary, you dig ? And what do you think that did to my brain ?”


What indeed ?


Pat Krenwinkel astutely observed of him “so, obviously he didn't have a very high view of families.”


But it gets worse because his Mum’s attempts to get rid of him eventually succeeded. But where he ended up was arguably worse than where he was coming from. Again, a series of State run boys homes/training camps/correctional facilities should have provided something that was not a training academy for future criminals. Of course there were those that worked in such places who had the boys’ best interests as uppermost in their minds and practices.


There were also those that did not.


It’s those in that vein that help perpetuate {rather than create} monsters. People in positions of responsibility that have some kind of self appointed mandate to carry out some warped justice by “treating the scum like the scum that they are.” I wonder how many workers in those facilities looked back over the years at where some of their young charges eventually ended up in life and were honest enough to take a certain measure of responsibility for their part in the blooming of a lawless monster. Yet we get more than upset when the criminal refuses to take responsibility for their crimes.........


Charles Manson has alluded on a number of occasions to the brutality he encountered in various facilities before he was in jail. Although in “Goodbye Helter skelter” George Stimson says that the story of Manson being gang raped is untrue and that the author Nuel Emmons admitted to making it up, in Stimson’s own book, Manson states, among other things, “”when you’re in juvenile hall in boys school, children don’t have no mercy on each other. Children are very vicious. They’re born predators. The shit that I went through before I met you, [when I met you guys,] I knew that no one was no fucking good. They treated me bad because they could get away with it. They just look for someone they can get off on. They get off on anybody they can. They get you on four point restraint and no one’s looking, you dig ? Then they do all kinds of things that you ain’t ever even dreamed – you ain’t seen the bottom of this pit......” which I guess can be taken any number of ways to mean a whole slew of things but it doesn’t sound vastly different from the Emmons supposed claim of what Manson told him, especially when it’s part of Manson’s own record that he raped a fellow inmate and had other sexual assault incidents that played a part in him being moved from one facility. Where did that come from ? It could be that from young he really was the embodiment of evil but I don’t buy that ~ human life isn’t as simple as that. He would have to have been one of the most remarkable people ever to have lived if he hit the streets in ’67 with no ill will towards authority, the establishment and the society that gave it the space and consent in which to operate.


As stated earlier, none of this excuses his later activities in life but I think it is naive to simply dismiss the effect his early life had on him.

Can you feel sympathy for the convicted killers ?

Is there anything in the early lives of some of the convicted murderers that, when considered thoughtfully, could cause you to feel in any way sorry for any of them ?
Would you feel any sympathy if we weren’t talking about killers ?

Lest anyone take me for an apologist, I must stress that very rarely in life are there occurrences that actually force anyone to kill, much less commit murder, so excuses are out of the window from the kick off. However, by ignoring mitigating circumstances or factors that may have played a part, are we not shutting our eyes to something which often comes back to plague us again and again ?

I think one can see possible reasons that contributed to someone going down a particular road without saying that what they did was somehow justifiable.

When the Tate case was said to be ‘solved’ in December 1969, three particular things shook many in the Western world; one was the tender age of those indicted for such savage crimes. Another was that four of the indicted were not only young, but young women, that looked like hippies, not experienced, battle/street hardened ghetto types. The third thing was that they seemed to come from normal homes with what were then seen to be normal suburban middle class values from the most advanced and powerful nation in the world.
However, much of the 60s counterculture was precisely about the seeming redundancy of those “normal suburban middle class values from the most advanced and powerful nation in the world.” While on the surface, they looked wholesome, beneath was the emergence of a very different picture. Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten & Bruce Davis {not to mention Charles Watson, Bobby Beausoleil, Mary Brunner & Steve Grogan} came from such backgrounds and all emerged as damaged people that were only too ready to join up with those that questioned and sought to dispense with Western values.

None of this justifies murder but I can’t help feeling for Bruce Davis, frequently denigrated by his Dad and raped twice, at 12 & 13, in an era {the 50s} when almost no one spoke about such things.  A close relative of mine is almost 70 and he’s still hurting about his relationship with his Dad whom he feels wasn’t there for him and constantly put him down when he was there.  I’ve known a few people of the older age group in that situation. It doesn’t necessarily get dealt with or just go away. And in the last three years here in England, there have been a series of high profile cases brought by people that were raped and sexually abused when they were children by entertainment celebrities, politicians, priests, teachers {and others not at all well known} back in the 50s, 60s and 70s and one sees just how these victims have been affected throughout their adult lives in a variety of different and harrowing ways.

I can’t help feeling for a  woman that felt ugly and unlovable as Pat Krenwinkel says she did, which was then compounded by the divorce of her parents, which, had they not parted could have been one thing that just might have helped keep her head together. She actually stated in one parole hearing “my parents' separation was, you know, I felt it was definitely my problem, that I had created it” ~ a not uncommon response to a parental split, even though she acknowledged “my father was a workaholic and eventually broke, destroyed the marriage, and that's why they divorced.....you know, during the 50s, no one really talked about their problems or there was very little discussed” which led her to the point where she observed; “I wanted so badly to be acceptable, to be loved......
I became anything, I would do anything, because I wanted somehow to have someone say I was something special in their eyes.” That her half sister fell into drug problems and had kids she had problems caring for {with one being adopted out and the other having emotional problems} and eventually died of an overdose, found in a river, shows that Pat wasn’t the only one affected by goings on in the household.

I can’t help feeling for Susan Atkins, who, arguably was already on the negative drift when her Mum became ill and then died of cancer, resulting in her Dad just leaving the family home which meant that a teenage Susan and her little brother were shuffled here and there. Her younger brother observed “Then our mother passed on. We were all young. Susan was 15, I was nine and our older brother, Mike, was 18 and went right into the service....Our father ended up having to sell both houses and all of our furniture to pay for our mother's hospital bills. My mother's death was very hard on all of us. Our father turned to alcohol, which left my sister, Susan and I home alone a lot. We were very close and became dependent upon each other. One day our father left us. Susan was going to school and working full time to keep a roof over our head. The landlord would not accept our rent money from Susan as she was not of age to be my legal guardian, which led us to look for somewhere to live. Susan reached our brother, Mike, in the service and even though Mike had just recently married, Mike took me in. That left Susan alone to fend for herself.” But that ‘negative drift’ didn’t happen in a vacuum, she states both her parents were constantly drunk and rowing even before this, while she was sexually abused by friends of her Dad and worse, by her older brother and his friends. In 2005, she said she hadn’t seen that brother since before she was arrested.

And is it sheer coincidence that Leslie Van Houten’s descent into the darkness of teen pregnancy, abortion and drug experimentation has it’s genesis right there in the aftermath of her parent’s divorce ? While it’s often thought that mid teens can be pretty much left to their own devices, I would that it’s in this crucial, never to be repeated period of transition from child to adult that the strongest guidance, tolerance and understanding is needed. Things can go awry at any point in a person’s life with devastating consequences but schisms in the transition can leave a set of problems that may take almost a lifetime to overcome. That most get through it unscathed is scant consolation because many do not and it sometimes seems that those affected are held responsible for matters they aren’t equipped to negotiate their way through.

There is plenty of documentation to be found in books, parole hearing transcripts, trial transcripts, magazine articles & interviews, broadcast interviews and internet sites for those that are looking for ways to piece the puzzles together ~ almost a half centuries worth.

Even if none of the above mentioned had gone on to murder, I’d have a certain amount of sympathy. I’d feel for them if they were train drivers, nurses, company executives, sports stars, refuse collectors, school cooks or hobos. That sympathy doesn’t disappear because of what they went on to do. Neither does it lay the groundwork for arguing for their freedom.
But what say you ?

129 comments:

LynyrdSkynyrdBand said...

Thank You Grim Traveller.

MrPoirot said...

Sympathy is not the same as condoning nor is forgiving a form of condonement. Forgiveness is mostly understood and it usually isn't known that it isn't for the perpetrator at all. Forgiveness is to ease the bitterness felt by victims.

Charlie's mother was a real asshole for the ages. I have to wonder what her childhood was like. We don't know much about her outside of her connection to Charlie but she was a violent female in an era when that was rare. She denied any responsibility with Charlie's upbringing and laid all the blame elsewhere. I suspect she was a blatant sociopath because she repeatedly showed total disregard for Charlie as a kid. Her greatest sins may not have been what she did to Charlie but what she didn't do. Charlie certainly did not learn empathy from her because she never displayed empathy. She was probably etremeyly natcissistic. She would clobber you over the head with a weapon if you didn't give her what she demanded.

Venus said...

Excellent post, Grim Traveller. I've also thought about this. Sometimes you have to think "There, but for the grace of God...." This could've happened to any one of us. I have a rotten family history. My parents weren't in my life much at all. I'm my dad's 1st child but I'm the forgotten one. Many people don't even know of my existence. My mom doesn't see me very often and once told me she should've had an abortion. Nice, huh? My stepfather abused me (physically) and emotionally) and mom never stepped in. Finally, one night he threatened to break my jaw and I called a relative who said "Pack your bags." I left as soon as he came to get me. My mom never did call to see where I was. So, I was VERY lucky that I had some great relatives who did raise me with love and discipline. I was never abused but I knew how to behave. My father figure was one of those people who could just give you that "look" and you knew you'd better behave. I really don't think I ever could've been swept up in a group like the Manson family but I can easily see how it could happen to people. I do tend to have sympathy for Pat. If only someone in her life had told her she looked nice at one time in her life, it might've made a difference and changed her whole future.

Like Grim, just because I can have some sympathy for them doesn't mean I think they should be released. They made their own choices.

katie8753 said...

Thanks Grim! Excellent post and great thinking!

First of all, I'd like to say that Manson's mother didn't have it easy back in 1934, being an unwed mother. Back then, that was unspeakable, hidden away, socially not acceptable, and just plain verbotten. Girls in that era were usually whisked away in the dead of night to go to a "home" until after the birth of their child.

She could have given him up for adoption, but in 1934, we were just getting past the great depression, and I don't think there were a lot of people clamoring for children at that time. Everyone had enough mouths to feed.

I'm not defending her, just stating her actual choices in life.

I personally think that Manson had a chance at a better life, given that his grandparents wanted to raise him up but he kept running away, according to him, because he didn't like their religion. So he did have an option, he just didn't take it.

Manson says "when you’re in juvenile hall in boys school, children don’t have no mercy on each other. Children are very vicious." Well children are vicious everywhere. Not just juvy. There were a lot of vicious kids I went to school with. Kids are kids.

I think that Manson's mother tried to re-connect with him when he became an adult (which is kind of like shutting the gate after the horse got out), but I do think she tried. She denies the story about selling him for some beer.

If Manson's mother had mental issues, they're not documented, and back in the 30's if you went to a doctor about "mental problems", they would lock you up and throw away the key. They might even surgically cut parts of your brain out.

As far as Pat goes, yes Venus I agree, if only someone had shown Pat some interest I don't think she would have taken up with these people. And Susan too, she had a horrible upbringing, so I can see why both of these girls would take up with Manson. Although I don't get the penchant for murder, but maybe being in this cult month after month, and hearing all the nonsense, it might have somehow empowered them to be stronger, since they believed Charlie's nonsense. That's the only explanation I can come up with.

I don't get Leslie Van Houten though. She didn't have a hard life and has no excuse. I don't get Mary Brunner either. She had a college education and a good job. She was plain and unattractive though, and maybe Charlie used that line on her too.

BUT...I don't condone murder...and I don't think they should ever get out.

Venus, good to see you!!

MrPoirot said...

Charlie's mom did not try to "reconnect" with him in adulthood. He tried to find her in the NorthWest US after he got out since he knew her address and she was never found so she obviously was hiding from him. She wanted nothing to do with him.

The fact that Charlie could not locate his mother probably made it obvious to Charlie she had stood him up once again and may have led to his final mental breakdown. There is no way that his inability to find his mom had no affect on Charlie. A son would instinctively know if his mom didn't want to be found.

I doubt she kept contact with him in prison after 1970. She dumped him like she always did when she had the opportunity. Charlie's mom was a walking, talking knife in the back.

katie8753 said...

Mr. P, Charlie was driving his mama's car around until he got arrested and his wife and son lived with his mother until his wife left him, because he was a jailbird. Not because of his mama.

MrPoirot said...

Katie youre talking about in the 1950s before his last stint and his last wife prior to the murders. I'm talking about post 1967. He took the girls with him and searched for his mom in Washington after his 1967 release..

Dilligaf said...

I do not feel sympathy for any of them, rather, I feel limited compassion. I believe that if a person wants sympathy, they can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.

The problem I have with most of the scenarios of these killers is that, by and large, most of there stories growing up go unchecked, lacking true verification. The Wooly Hophead learned at an early age to manipulate anyone, and everyone that will listen, and has been doing it since. Most of his stories do not require taking it with a grain of salt, but rather, an entire salt lick.

Even if he did experience some rough times growing up, he still made choices. Society was filled with Depression Era kids that did not grow up to be convicted murderers. My own mother was orphaned at age seven in 1934, passed from relative to relative until what every money these people could get was gone. My mother, who ultimately attended 27 different school by the time she graduated high school, was finally raised by her grandparents in Blythe, CA, which if any of you know Blythe, it is the California desert. Not exactly the best place to grow up. The Wooly Hophead had grandparents who cared for him but he rebelled, not them.

As for the Davis, Krenwinkel, Fromme, et al, again we lack true verified confirmation that any of these things occurred as they describe them. It is too easy to blame others for even the mildest slight received growing up, and never place responsibility at one's own feet. Compassion is caring for their well-being while accepting their responsibility for what they did. Sympathy, in my opinion, is wasted on them...

katie8753 said...

Thanks Dill! I agree with you, you can't base your opinion on anything Charlie says happened to him when he was young. He's just a big liar. And the others are liars too.

sunset77 said...

Welcome Grim, good luck.

grimtraveller said...

@Lynyrd, Venus, Katie8753, Sunset77,
thanks !


Dilligaf said...

"The problem I have with most of the scenarios of these killers is that, by and large, most of there stories growing up go unchecked, lacking true verification"


The problem I have with that conclusion is that by implication, nothing that anyone ever says about their life or how they feel they were affected by certain events can be then taken on board unless there is someone on hand to verify it and how in the world do you do that about events 10, 25, 48 years ago ? Take Bruce Davis for example. He says he was raped twice, once by a friend of the family at 12 and once by an English teacher at 13. Now, we all know that it's hard to tell about it as a kid nowadays, especially for a male, let alone in the 1950s. So how can that be verified ? Davis has never pressed charges. No case has gone to trial. No conviction or acquittal has been recorded. The alleged rapists are hardly going to come forward just to verify his story if it's true !
I know 5 people very close to me that have been raped in the past and a couple not close to me that have. Only one of them brought charges and saw the whole matter through to the end. But am I to disbelieve the others because their stories can't be 'verified' ? Davis after many years reflection {as you do} thought about how he ended up in the situation he was in and like many people, not even criminals come to think of it, asked 'how did I get here ?' ¬> people ask it when they are a success, people ask it when they are a failure. True, it doesn't mean that every conclusion a person reaches is accurate. But neither do I dismiss their conclusion, just because they happen to have committed heinous crimes.
You know, thinking about it further, something I've pondered on for decades now is the reality that unless you're side by side someone every moment of their lives, there's actually very little that we can know about anyone in terms of the things they tell us pertaining to events they're telling us about.
Even seasoned liars have their moments of truthfulness.

grimtraveller said...

Dilligaf said...

"The Wooly Hophead learned at an early age to manipulate anyone, and everyone that will listen, and has been doing it since. Most of his stories do not require taking it with a grain of salt, but rather, an entire salt lick"


Well, I agree with that. I love autobiographies, biographies where the subject[s] actually talk to the biographer and interviews. I've read tons since the 70s. And quite often, I've found myself thinking "I just do not believe that !" For example, in the Beatles' anthology, Ringo tells a story that during the recording of the White album, he was feeling really excluded and left out by the other 3 and wanted to leave so he went to see George to explain and George tells him, "Hey, I thought it was you three that were so together; I've been feeling really excluded !" then he goes to see Paul and tells him that he feels really out of it and that the other three seem so together and Paul says "I've been feeling isolated from you guys, I thought it was you three that were so together !" then he goes to see John and tells him how left out and unhappy he's been and how the other 3 have been getting on so well and John says "Man, I've been feeling left out and feeling that it's you three that are really tight together !"
The amount of salt needed to take that story can't even be located in the Pacific ! I just don't believe him !!
But I do believe lots of other stuff he says.


Dilligaf said...

"Even if he did experience some rough times growing up, he still made choices. Society was filled with Depression Era kids that did not grow up to be convicted murderers"


Well, I can go with that too. He did make choices. Poor ones. I make that point. And it's true, most people that come out of rough upbringings and backgrounds don't go on to murder, or turn to crime, even. But a sufficient number do for me not to dismiss it. It's not an attempt to make a neat equation and bundle because life rarely works like that.

leary7 said...

does having such a erudite scholar such as GT slinging words here get us elevated out of the "drunken inbreds" category?

Was "Sympathy For The Devil" playing while the Grim one was writing his missive?

I've always enjoyed GT's musings but I did thing that the Saint's poignant question of "why would anyone want to be friends with Charlie?" was a bit more topical.
Of course we should have sympathy for any living creature that suffers, is abused or neglected. But when that creature is able to exercise free will and choses to maliciously harm others...well, all bets are off.
I've always felt intense sympathy for Family members because I was coming of age in that time period albeit on the other coast and droppin acid three times a week and had my head so twisted up my ass it scares the shit out of me everyday realizing how close I came to full immersion in the dark side.

From time to time I like to imagine what Charlie might have been under different circumstances. I could, for instance, see him as the court jester for Henry VIII, Or certainly as one of Quantrill's sidekicks.

Can you measure sympathy? Just curious, GT, if they held a memorial service for Manson when he kicks somewhere say in S.F., do you think many would attend?

leary7 said...

I bet if Star wanted to make some money should could auction of the pallbearer slots for Manson. That would be an interesting thing to have on your resume...Charles Manson pall bearer.
I do think RH should get an honorary slot.

Marliese said...

Grimtraveller, wonderful post. I do feel sympathy for the women. I feel none for Charlie and Tex. I wish Charlie had been tried separately, similar to Tex, and feel both Tex and Charlie deserved the death penalty, and wish it could've been carried out.

I believe the women deserve their life in prison sentences, and have come...through much resistance, having in the past always believed 'with the possibility of parole' was an inadequate substitute when their death sentences were tossed, but life without parole wasn't available then, that they deserve their right to apply for parole. On the other hand, I wish California sentencing law had been revised decades ago, requiring a longer time served for convicted murderers before eligibility to apply, along with the longer denial times the law allows for now. The one, two, and three year denials we saw for decades with these people, though lawful at the time, was a waste of time and money. I wish law had required 20 or 25 years before eligibility, instead of seven, for murder. Maybe the girls would have had a chance at 30 years? While they'll never overcome the brutality of the murders, depending on rehabilitation, psych evaluations, etc. etc maybe they'd have overcome some of the factors that have brought denial after denial time after time? I guess my point is that regardless of their achievements, seven, 10, 15 years, hardly seemed adequate...from the standpoint of punishment. Also, I see the women as victims...though NOT entirely, of Charlie Manson and Tex Watson, but there isn't enough time to outline the profound psychopathic influence Charlie had over the women...we all know that history.

If there is such a thing as a human individual being both a psychopath and a sociopath, I think Charlie and Tex would each qualify. They each reveal qualities of each disorder. One of the most obvious being that neither one have empathy for the women, or their murder victims. I think Tex's sorrow for Rosemary through her daughter is psychopathic manipulative bunk.

Thanks for the thoughtful post. Much more to add, but out of time. I do have sympathy for the women.

grimtraveller said...

leary7 said...

'Was "Sympathy For The Devil" playing while the Grim one was writing his missive?'


No, but I do love that track ! There's an ironic aspect of the song in that it's generally been pitched as the Stones' excursion into devil worship whereas the lyrics are as biblically themed as one can find in popular music.
Along with 'Bohemian rhapsody', it's in that song that the lead guitar first came into my consciousness.


leary7 said...

'I did think that the Saint's poignant question of "why would anyone want to be friends with Charlie?" was a bit more topical'


So do I. I think it's a good question. For the record however, this case throws up so many differing shades that lead to many thoughts to explore. Some will be fascinating, others not so. Who would have thought the thread on the Milky Way band would have been so well commented on ? That's one of the things I like about forums, they're pretty much driven by people and quite unpredictable at times. As for me, I'm no scholar ! TLB just happens to be an interest of mine. Having first come across "Helter skelter" in 1978, this is the first time I've ever come across people that actively want to discuss the various aspects of the case. Lots of great food for thought.


leary7 said...
"Can you measure sympathy? Just curious, GT, if they held a memorial service for Manson when he kicks somewhere say in S.F., do you think many would attend?"


I think loads of people would 'attend' in one way or another. And he will be kicking the bucket soon.


grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...

"First of all, I'd like to say that Manson's mother didn't have it easy back in 1934, being an unwed mother. Back then, that was unspeakable, hidden away, socially not acceptable, and just plain verbotten. Girls in that era were usually whisked away in the dead of night to go to a 'home' until after the birth of their child"


That's also a good point. But if she wasn't married when she had Charlie, she was married soon after, hence Charlie being provided with that surname. On the Backporch site, there's a copy of her marriage certificate that gives the wedding date as 21/8/34. It's not a very clear certificate but enlarged, the one thing that does read clear is "Date of marriage" and the actual date.
But I take your point. I think she made a series of poor criminal choices too and her circumstances are easier for us to comment on in the modern age where in some places, being a married Mum makes you the odd one out !


grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...

"I don't get Leslie Van Houten though. She didn't have a hard life and has no excuse"


I don't think any of them have an excuse. I was a child and teenage thief and I'm sure a sociologist could look into my childhood and make a case for why but the reality is that I liked chocolate and sweets and there's no excuses ! Reasons and/or indications don't = excuses. When I tell people about some of my younger days, some of them think it sounds so dramatic and I suppose it does but I never thought of it that way and I still don't.
You don't while you live it {besides, I think everyone's life can be seen in a dramatic light}.
So it really isn't about excuses. That said, with Leslie Van Houten, I'm struck by the sequence of events during her teenage, in particular her parents' divorce and her experimenting with drugs and Bobby Mackie, "the older youth." Perhaps not so much nowadays, although still relevant, I think the effect of divorce on children {especially early teens} has been way overlooked and minimized because so many kids find themselves in the situation of having divorced parents and on the surface so many just get on with life and do OK. I've spoken to hundreds of kids about this over many many years and parental break ups or one of the parents not being there can have a devastating effect, not least in the way some of those children go on to deal with relationships. With Leslie, I think it was the shattering of what she'd possibly seen as idyllic and right and at the age it happened there was always the chance it was going to lead somewhere that may not have been healthy. Hey, if your parents' marriage breaks up and you thought it was good and it made you secure {however unconsciously, because that was your normality}, maybe that's not the only thing you've been so wrong about. And let's face it, acid can turn an adult inside out {Dean Moorehouse ? Brian Jones ?} and send them to a place from which they never fully return, much less a young teen who is already in that place where their sense of self is constantly shifting. Add to that getting sexually involved, then pregnant, then having an abortion, then starting to hear and agree that maybe the wholesome values with which you were brought up with are questionable at best because your own experience bears this out, well.....

It doesn't make someone a murderer {does anything ?}. But I can see how in a relatively short space of time, someone young like Leslie could become more and more in line with aspects of the counterculture and when there's a nasty and, importantly to them, unnecessary war to protest about, getting into violent thinking isn't actually unusual. 1967 may be forever feted as the summer of love ~ 1968 certainly wasn't.
One of the psych doctors that examined Leslie in the run up to the trial came to the conclusion that there was something very wrong with her, that she was a psychologically loaded gun that went off as the result of a series of extraordinary and extreme factors. I think that doc had a point. And while nothing can excuse her participation in murder or get away from the choices she made, I don't think she was unique. Many young people in the Western world had a bumpy transition into adulthood and many were equally messed up.

katie8753 said...

Hi Marliese! You make some very good points! I think that ANYTHING that comes out of Tex's mouth is psychopathic manipulative bunk!

Grim, I have to disagree about Leslie. She was obviously very popular in HS and I can't imagine that made her an unhappy person, conversely, I would think she was a happy person. Her parents getting a divorce can be hard, but it's certainly not a reason to go join a cult and kill someone.

Leslie is only 3 years older than I am, my parents were divorced, so I know exactly how it felt to be a teenager in her situation in the 60's, including the Vietnam War. The only difference really between me and Leslie was our location.

MrPoirot said...

All the killers were brainwashed. The famous foto of Sadie, Pat and Leslie dressed up like space aliens with shaved heads walking to the courtroom screams of total mind control. Charlie owned their minds. There may not have been any "choices" made by the killers. Charlie made the choices for them.

And yea I can feel sympathy for any inmate who is rehabilitated but still in prison
45 years later.

I don't see Charlie as rehabilitated though.

maudes harold said...

Nice post Grimm!

I have compassion for all living things, always have and always will. I especially have compassion for the children that some of these people were-- victims, perps and various associated peeps. That’s my heart speaking.

My mind is also capable, while holding compassion in my heart, to understand that if people cause injury or harm to others and won’t stop, they need to be stopped. It is possible for me to have compassion and want these people held accountable. It is possible for me to have compassion for them and despise their acts. I’m doing it presently with my stepmother and my father’s healthcare. This can create a huge cognitive dissonance which is uncomfortable to hold in our heads and hearts, but possible for me.

Grimm said:
“Reasons and/or indications don't = excuses.”

Perfectly stated.

I have always been intensely interested in why people do what they do. Maybe it’s in trying to understand that I find compassion, idk. But it creates no cognitive dissonance for me, to have compassion AND want and expect accountability for these heinous crimes.

I struggle with my compassion for Sir Stabsalot, Bruce and Bobby, but it’s there. In the immortal words of Bob (cuz Murray was funnier than Dreyfus) “Baby steps, baby steps…”

We may not have actual proof that any bad things happened to them, but their actions/responses in the world speak differently, unless of course you believe they were just born stone-cold sociopaths.

I think Leslie’s pressured abortion from her outwardly religious mother had to have been the biggest mindfuck for a 15-16 yr old, starting to examine the reality of adult hypocrisy. A profound experience that could have been far more devastating on a long-term psychological level than even her parents’ divorce. I’ll never know for sure. Outwardly she had a better childhood on paper than many of them. Inwardly, I can only wonder.

I have no problem with Leslie and Patricia getting out IF it meant a younger more violent predator was replaced, but life rarely works like that. I am also ok with them staying put under the original sentence, and leaving in a pine box. That’s my mind speaking.

And just to re-iterate what Grimm said:

“Reasons and/or indications don't = excuses.”

Dilligaf said...

Mr. P,

I am curious, how do you rehabilitate a murderer who has been locked up for 45 years? Did they one day realize for the first time that killing is wrong, so they rehabilitated themselves? I am not getting down on you, but murder is something that 99% of people understand is wrong, yet those who commit it do it anyway. The remaining 1% exhibit typical sociopathic behavior that prevents them from doing so.

I have dealt with many murderers in my life, and those that have been paroled will tell me that they knew it was wrong, that prison did nothing to rehabilitate them, they just played the odds and lost.

katie8753 said...

Hi Maudes! Aren't excuses & reasons the same thing? Can we differentiate between the twain?

Was Leslie that eager to join a cult because her mother made her have an abortion? I think she joined a nunnery for a while, until she got tired of that too.

Sometimes, if people are popular in HS and they graduate, suddenly they're not so popular. They're kind of forgotten. I think that Leslie was just looking for the attention she missed in high school. I think in her case, it was as simple as that....

MrPoirot said...

Dilli

Life itself is the ability to pick yourself up after a fall and try again. The ability to reason out a mistake and admit a wrong while sitting in a cell year after year is something millions of human beings have had to do.
Humans do rehabilitate themselves and sitting in a prison locked up forces people to deal with severe mistakes in judgement.
Can a sociopath be rehabilitated? Yes, they can learn to avoid letting themselves get into situations that are self destructive such a substance abuse. We have more sociopaths than we have jail cells. We let them back out every day. Who do you think collects your garbage or mowes the grass where you work?


Ask Clem how he rehabilitated himself.

Dilligaf said...

Mr. P,

Changing sociopathic behavior is far different from rehabilitation. However, I would guess that the failure rate is much higher than the success rate. Falling down, or failing at something is something that everyone does, not just sociopaths. The difference is that most people care, at some level, where the sociopath does not.

As far as Clem, again, how do you prove that he is rehabilitated as opposed to he did not become involved in another murder? Did he know that murder was wrong? I would say yes. So, he has not rehabilitated himself on that level. Instead, he removed himself from the environments which led to his exposure to criminal element, which is a big difference. However, even his involvement was less than those Family members who are currently incarcerated. I am hard-pressed to say that you can rehabilitate a murderer any more than you can rehabilitate a child molester. These are things that are just known to be wrong. As such, changing the triggering element is not rehabilitating the person as much as it is just rehabilitating the environment in which the person exists.

BTW, my gardener's name is Miguel, he is legal and has no criminal background, and my garbage man underwent background checks when the city hired him, so I feel pretty good about that.

maudes harold said...

Hey Katie!

No, I don't think reasons and excuses are the same thing.

Reasons tell WHY you do something.

Excuses are to relieve yourself of the responsibility of your acts.

For example:

Let's say I stole a bike because I didn't have one. The reason I stole it was cuz I didn't have one. But that doesn't give me a pass on accountability for my crime.

What if I stole it cuz I needed to get to work to feed my family?
What if I stole it cuz I liked it or thought I could resell it?

Looking at the reasons may help you understand the crime better and handle accountability of the crime, as in appropriate charges and sentencing, but they don't relieve you of the need for a society to require justice/accountability. Here's where compassion comes in via charges and sentencing. Dill could speak to the legal theories behind that element better.

If I were a judge I would sentence the bike thief to feed his family differently from the bike thief for profit. But both still need to be held accountable for the criminal act.


For these crimes, it is hard for people to have compassion because they were senseless and brutal. There was no self-defense or defense of others issue involved. Nothing even close. There is no compassion to be had for the TLB crimes, some of the people maybe, and as we can tell by the posts it's a personal choice, but not the accountability of their crimes.

I am very comfortable with the sentences all these people got for their crimes. They and society deserved it.

As for Leslie, I was commenting more on her internal world and how that must have fucked her up big time. Imagine 'being forced/pressured' to kill your baby by your own mother, if said accounts are true? But it does not relieve her of her accountability in any way, shape or form. I am not one of those people who has a room in my basement with walls of Leslie pics shellacked up by my own jism. (I couldn't anyway, I'm a girl, but you get my vulgar drift) I hate to admit I have a little less compassion for criminal Leslie ONLY cuz she SEEMED to have a much better start in life.....

--

Mr. P,

"We have more sociopaths than we have jail cells. We let them back out every day. Who do you think collects your garbage or mowes the grass where you work?"

I am left agape at this comment. Are you actually proposing that all garbage collectors and gardeners are criminal sociopaths??? Or even most, or many, or a lot?

When speaking in absolutes there is a tendency to make ASSumptions which can leave a person with crap on their face. I know, I've been there, done that.

MrPoirot said...

MH yes that is exactly what I said. Garbage collectors and lawn workers are frequently on parole or probation. You must live a wonderfully sheltered life.

However, I must admit you are partially right. Not all garbage collectors are parolees. Many are scientists and engineers earning their way through post graduate school.

grimtraveller said...

Marliese said...

"I do feel sympathy for the women. I feel none for Charlie and Tex"


I don't feel sympathy for Charles Watson in terms of his background or life events. I feel a little sympathy for him in terms of him being probably the most despised being in the TLB blogosphere and beyond, but that's not directly about him, I guess. Not having access to the internet, he may not even be aware of how much he's detested.
I don't feel sorry for Bobby either in that sense of his home life and he's done himself no favours with his ever altering stories so it's hard to believe him in any event. But I do kind of feel for him for the mess he got himself into because I don't believe he was murderer material. I think he was trying to prove that he had smarts and could be a power broker but like many arrogant people completely underestimated his inability to control a situation that had the potential to spiral out of his control and ended up being a panic murderer. If you can tell anything from a person's face, his August 6th mugshot {http://www.cielodrive.com/photo-archive/bobby-beausoleil-mug-shot.php} says it all. And he's dug himself deeper and deeper into the mire over almost half a century and when I read his parole transcripts I cringe for him and if there was ever someone who unnecessarily wasted their life, it is him.

grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...

"I have to disagree about Leslie. She was obviously very popular in HS and I can't imagine that made her an unhappy person, conversely, I would think she was a happy person"


Up to a point, I think that's probably true. But people go through changes that can be sparked off by just about anything, be it major or minor {as we on the outside would see it}. And the internal world of a person is hard to fathom at times. Sometimes, one wonders how successful or seemingly happy people end up getting depression, especially when everything appears to be going so well. Jim Morrison said it well {even though I'm only quoting half the sentence in the lyric !}, "people are strange."
I've worked with a number of kids that were really popular and in private or as they got older were miserable as hell, even in the midst of their popularity.


katie8753 said...
"Her parents getting a divorce can be hard, but it's certainly not a reason to go join a cult and kill someone"


I agree. But the family wasn't really presented as a cult, the way we understand cults nowadays. And of the family only Linda found herself out on a murder spree with pretty much no real 'time served' in the group.
When I point out Leslie's parents' divorce, I don't look at it as the reason she ended up plunging a knife a number of times into Rosemary LaBianca. I see it as possibly being that first point of undoing, which, in combination with other happenings {sex, acid, abortion...} that tumbled her way over the next few years go a long way to explaining how she may have got where she did. To use Pink Floyd speak, the divorce may well have been the first brick in the wall.

katie8753 said...

"Leslie is only 3 years older than I am, my parents were divorced, so I know exactly how it felt to be a teenager in her situation in the 60's, including the Vietnam War"


Except that you aren't her. Even identical twins can react to and process things very differently. Perhaps your parents' split didn't shatter your world the way it can for some. I know mine didn't. When mine split up, I was kind of glad. I wished it had happened years before. I was most dubious when they got back together 11 years later.
I've known people on both sides of the fence and there have been a variety of effects and responses, ranging from joy and indifference to despair and bitterness.

MrPoirot said...

Grim, Leslie's parents adopted two Korean kids when Leslie was around Jr High which shocked her. Picture two new kids moving into your family home when you were 11. These weren't babies her mother had given birth to. Boom! Two kids from a different world showed up. Her parents then divorced. She was now in High School in what was basically an entirely different family than she could understand. Her Dad was gone from the home after the divorce. She quickly fell into drinking and drugs and had a boyfriend whom she was very serious about but then he left her for a weird religion.
The next thing she knew she was at Spahn Ranch being told to go kill a middle aged couple she'd never met.
Nobody who ended up at Spahn Ranch was a happy person. Spahn's was the end of the line for lost souls: a flop house with horses. There was a guy at Spahn Ranch who knew how to brainwash people. Dum-Dee-Dum-dum......the story you just heard is true.

katie8753 said...

Hey Maudes! I think reason and excuse are the same thing.

Example:

Reason: I robbed a convenience store because my family was hungry.

Excuse: I robbed a convenience store because my family was hungry.

Result: Same thing.

Leslie had a way about her. She was able to get men on her side, and she still does for some reason, even though she looks like one of the Graeae from Greek mythology, who shared one tooth and one eye.

I don't know if the "abortion" thing is true, because Leslie never did conceive even after having been "banged" a million times at the ranch. Either she wasn't a "wide receiver" or her partners were "shooting blanks".

katie8753 said...

Grim, I'm not Leslie, not by a long shot.

But I know her "type". Haven't you seen the way she "presented herself" even right after the murders? She enticed that guy to drive them back to the ranch. Even after killing complete strangers. She enticed him so much, that he came back the next day looking for her.

She's like "the song of the siren". And she's still enticing males today....

LynyrdSkynyrdBand said...

I've gotta be honest with ya Katie, I've never found Leslie attractive (or "enticing") in the least.

I've never understood all the "hoopla" surrounding her.

To me, she's just a "plain Jane" with an ugly pug nose and a huge mouth full o' teeth.

I've always been attracted to Susan, Lynn, and Snake Lake.

Sandra Good has always been an atractive woman (in a classic sense)... and Nancy wasn't half bad either. Heck, Nancy still looks pretty damn good for her age.

But hey, to each his own, I guess...

LynyrdSkynyrdBand said...

I DO think Leslie tries to entice men.

I can see your point.

I just can't understand how she achieves much success at it though.
That part is a mystery to me.

I mean heck, she's really not THAT good looking.

To me, she's average at best.

My two cents...

katie8753 said...

Lynyrd there are a lot of men who still try to champion her. There's even a guy who changed his name for her. I don't get it either...

LynyrdSkynyrdBand said...

She does have a certain charm about her, I'll give you that. But if I saw her walking down the street, I wouldn't give her a second look.

grimtraveller said...

LynyrdSkynyrdBand said...

"if I saw her walking down the street, I wouldn't give her a second look"


You might have had to if you lived around Griffiths park/Los Feliz in August of 1969 !

MrPoirot said...

"Leslie's parents adopted two Korean kids when Leslie was around Jr High which shocked her. Picture two new kids moving into your family home when you were 11. These weren't babies her mother had given birth to. Boom! Two kids from a different world showed up. Her parents then divorced"


I've often wondered about this. Apparently, she used to whack them about with her shoes. I went to school with girls like that. They were scary !!
I think all of these changes at the time they came contributed towards her demise. That's not putting the blame on anyone in particular. The fact that you may not handle something well doesn't minimize it's effect on you.

katie8753 said...

"I think reason and excuse are the same thing"


I don't. An excuse {in the colloquial way ordinary people use it} is a ploy to absolve oneself of responsibility and/or culpability. When I pull my kids up on why they haven't washed up or cleaned the bathroom or hoovered the house, they'll give excuses. Whereas if they were giving me reasons, they'd just come clean and say "to be honest Dad, I just couldn't be bothered. I didn't want to do it. I was watching telly {or whatever} and enjoying it !"
There can often be an overlap of a reason and an excuse but to my mind, they're not the same. When I used to get caught after stealing and spending the money, I didn't want to get a beating or stand the disgrace so I denied it. Later, to try and minimize my accuser's wrath and try and elicit sympathy, I'd give excuses. I don't ever recall giving the actual reason, which would have been "I wanted more chocolate, sweets and good times than my pocket money would buy and I didn't want to wait while saving up for 4 months to have this much money to splash when I could net it in one go."
That's not an excuse for stealing. That's a reason. Reasons aren't self serving. They don't present the guilty party in a good, misunderstood or sympathetic light.






grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...
"I don't know if the 'abortion' thing is true, because Leslie never did conceive even after having been 'banged' a million times at the ranch. Either she wasn't a 'wide receiver' or her partners were 'shooting blanks'"


That's a bit harsh. Not many of them {Mary, Susan and Sandy spring to mind} actually gave birth prior to the Barker arrests with a few {like Gypsy or Ouish} after.
There again, Leslie's not conceiving could have been partly as a result of the past abortion.


katie8753 said...

"Example:

Reason: I robbed a convenience store because my family was hungry.

Excuse: I robbed a convenience store because my family was hungry.

Result: Same thing"


The result may well be the same but the intent contained within the person telling the story may not be. In your example, we know nothing of the circumstances of the robber.
For example, A may rob the store because that gang that lives upstairs has A's family hostage and has told him to go and rob the store and bring them back $500 so they can flee the state and have told A that any police activity will automatically result in A's family being immediately liquidated.
So, A robs the store and eventually gets caught and prosecuted. The story checks out as those guys in the gang that fled get caught and confess all.
Is A using a reason or an excuse for robbing the store ? You could argue 'both' but is A trying to make excuses or is A telling you the reason they did what they did ?




katie8753 said...
"Leslie had a way about her. She was able to get men on her side, and she still does for some reason"


Karlene Faith isn't a guy.
Nonetheless, by the sheer nature of things, somewhere along the line a female will be able to get a male on her side due to the fact that she's a female.
Whether that's a good or a bad thing I can't say without some awareness of every time it happens {and that ain't happening any time soon !} but it's not confined to Ms Leslie Van Houten.
Quick story; back in the early 90s when I was working with kids in the Ladbroke Grove area of inner London, one of the girls {she was about 11} was trying to get her own way and trying to get me to let her do something at the expense of the other kids getting a go and jokingly I said to her "don't you go flashing your eyelashes at me and looking out from under them like that" and she said to me "well, that's what my Mum does when she wants something from my Dad !"
We laughed heartily.
It's not only a pimp that takes advantage of the fact that a female can get a male on her side.


MrPoirot said...

Leslie's parents pulled a Mia Farrow on her by adopting two Korean kids. Dunno why Mia adopts kids from so many different worlds. I think she has one of every kind of kid except an Eskimo.
I try to adopt dogs of the same breed. For ex: two Beagles or two Corgis or two Cocker Spaniels etc.
Say you adopt one dog that chases Rabbits and another that chases Bears. That could cause a big problem if youre expecting to see a Rabbit and a 500lb Bear shows up.

Then there is the other problem Mia caused. She kept adopting kids until she found one Woody Allen wanted to marry. She should have stuck to Corgis or Beagles. Of course Woody may have shagged one of them too.

katie8753 said...

Grim, who is Karlene Faith? And I agree that females know how to get males to do things. But Leslie has had that distinct advantage for many years now. And is still able to get men to be on her side as to parole advantage, even though she's uglier than home-made mud now.

I won't name names but there are a lot of male bloggers who seem to be "in love" with her.

Grim said: That's a bit harsh. Not many of them {Mary, Susan and Sandy spring to mind} actually gave birth prior to the Barker arrests with a few {like Gypsy or Ouish} after.

There again, Leslie's not conceiving could have been partly as a result of the past abortion.


I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that there were a lot of stillbirths and miscarriages among these girls. Taking drugs 24/7 can't be good for fetal growth. And these women make me sick talking about how they loved the children, when all they did is abuse them physically and sexually. They make me SICK.

Mr. P, I don't have any idea why they adopted those Korean kids, then headed for divorce court. You'd think they would know their marriage wasn't solid enough to handle foreign kids in their home. That was lame. But no reason for Leslie to join a cult and kill strangers.

Personally, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think Leslie just wanted attention. That's why she did it.

grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...


"Personally, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think Leslie just wanted attention. That's why she did it"


I would have thought the last thing a murderer wants is attention, but if true, she certainly got it !


katie8753 said...

"who is Karlene Faith?"


She's a feminist writer who wrote a book back in 2001 called "The long prison journey of Leslie Van Houten - life beyond the cult."
She was a teacher in prison that ended up teaching Leslie, Pat and Susan and later, Gypsy and Mary when they were inside. I bought it ridiculously cheap {the postage was more than the book and the postage was pretty minimal} a few years back but I didn't get around to reading it until a year ago. One of the things that put me off reading it was that Karlene was a feminist that pretty much wore her heart on her sleeve. But it turned out to be an excellent book and her feminist perspective on Leslie, the other co~defendants, Charles Manson, the family, cults in general, female crime and criminals in the USA, Vincent Bugliosi and the American justice system were a refreshing eye opener for me. What she had to say might be old hat to many with a wider perspective on things than me but I'd not encountered many of the angles she presented.
For as long as I can remember, I feel like I've been that person that seems to enjoy the books that most others think are crap !

maudes harold said...

Mr. P,

"You must live a wonderfully sheltered life."

Is that another one of those pesky assumptions?? I spent 3/4 of my career working with the children of those gardeners and garbage collectors. My personal experience with them doesn't bear out your assumptions/judgements of them, maybe your personal experience with them does. Some were jailbirds and parolees for sure, but not ALL of them. Some were some of the hardest working people around and some were lazy grifters, and everything in between.

maudes harold said...

Hey Katie!

We can agree to disagree on that point of reasons/excuses or as I say....Opinions May Vary. lol

I feel weird writing this, but Leslie is one of the more boring people connected to this case for me. lol

I knew someone who went to high school with her. I asked him about her and he said she was very nice and friendly. He is black and I asked him if she gave off mad racist vibes or anything like that and he said not at all. He said while color lines were still around(socially not literally), they were much looser than say in a more conservative area. This convo was many years ago and I think he said they crossed paths because of a class or a sport or something like that an that she was always nice and friendly. She has always come across as kind of emotionally vacuous to me. Kinda Boring. Or maybe it's a whiny quality or something....

MrPoirot said...

MH what the fuck do you mean "in a more conservative area"? The entire liberal race BS is phony. Liberals like blacks because blacks are democrats. If blacks were republicans they'd be lynching blacks.

MrPoirot said...

Liberals murder 1 1/4 million babies every year in America.

maudes harold said...

Mr. P,

I should have been more specific. I meant racially conservative, or maybe conservative isn't the right word-tolerant maybe? It wasn't meant in a partisanship way. I grew up in the area and went to school with/had friends of all colors, at every school I ever attended/worked at. It's all I knew. Monrovia had a 'which side of the railroad tracks' literally dividing it, still does, but the guy I knew said his experience overall wasn't a racial fight, slight or insult around every corner.I think the racial social experiences/interactions in Monrovia among high schoolers then were less held hostage by old 'separate' ways than say parts of the South in the same time period. They were in the early 70's during my time in school in the area. The racism was more covert, not overt.

I am not surprised that Leslie gave off no racist vibes. I didn't think she was a racist. She may have spouted stuff with Manson, but in all my reading and watching her, I just didn't get she was a racist, rabid or otherwise. I may be wrong and Opinions May Vary.

maudes harold said...

Mr. P,

I don't do partisanship, except to point out the hypocrisies of both sides. It's killing our country. I'm not interested in going there.

maudes harold said...

*That should be hypocrisies and merits of both sides.

Marliese said...

Hi Katie, I agree with you about the adverse effects of drugs on conception and pregnancy. And not just with the women, drugs have profound side effects on male fertility as well, even if reversible after stopping use, the negative effects would have been in full force at the time the Manson crew were all together. Additionally, , Pat clearly had an endocrine disorder, Leslie had a history of an illegal abortion (she says...performed in a bedroom at her parents' house...so God only knows), and according to many sources, there was rampant venereal disease among all of them (in her book, Susan mentions that the ongoing severe damage from venereal disease required Medical treatment...surgery?....during her early years in prison), And then with their generally unhealthy lifestyle...poor diet etc etc etc. it's not hard to see why there weren't more pregnancies. A lot of times women have "miscarriages" in the early weeks...they don't even know they conceived, but it wasn't viable, didn't or couldn't implant, or didn't survive in the early weeks. Those dipshits wouldn't have even known...

katie8753 said...

That's true Marliese. And if someone had a miscarriage and they knew about it, they might have barbequed the fetal remains and eaten it or something disgusting like that. Who knows what those savages were capable of doing....

katie8753 said...

Hi Maudes. I wonder if Leno & Rosemary thought Leslie was "nice and friendly". LOL.

You know, someone saying she was nice and friendly in HS just lends me to believe what I said earlier. She was in her element in HS. When she graduated she went back to being nobody. I really think that she wanted to be included in the LaBianca murders just to get attention.

A lot of people like to say "well Leslie didn't really kill anybody so she should get parole". Well the problem I have with that, is the same problem I had with Susan getting out.

Susan and Leslie did the same thing. Even though neither of them actually killed anyone, they both participated in murder, did absolutely nothing to stop murder, weren't in the least bothered by murder and actually bragged about it later.

To me, they are both just as guilty as all the rest....

maudes harold said...

Hey Katie,

I think you’re right, she probably was in her element in high school. Maybe pretty-boy Booby Beausoleil made her feel ‘high school’ again??? He was poopular and charming, a cool minstrel, wandering the musical universe collecting his Muses...….barf! lol

I wonder if Leslie smiled ‘nice and friendly’ and Princess-waved to the La Biancas?? lol I remember when this guy who knew her was talking about her that I got this picture in my mind of a paper doll. I thought to myself did she practice the wave like so many girls around here did in preparation of trying out for the Rose Queen and her Court in the Rose Parade?? Not my thing, but my friends and I would joke around and ‘practice the wave’ in high school. Of course we also voted for Father Guido Sarducci as a write-in candidate for Homecoming Queen..... Long Live Old School SNL!!

This guy’s name was Derrick Harrison, and the only reason I would give that out is cuz a few years back I came across an interview of him in a newspaper article at Cats!!

I also found out a couple of years ago, that Leslie's sister-in-law taught at my high school, long after I was there. I don't know if she's still there.

--

Marliese- I often wondered how much the rampant vd was a factor in keeping the birth rate down among the girls too. Yuck!

katie8753 said...

Hey Maudes, what does Leslie's sister-in-law have to do with her stabbing techniques on Rosemary?

Sister-in-law? Was that the Korean one or the other one?

Not that there's anything wrong with it!

katie8753 said...

If you haven't figured it out by now, I hate Leslie Van Houten.

Just to make that clear if it wasn't already.

maudes harold said...


Well her stabbing techniques got me to thinking about her hands, which got me to thinking about her Princess-wave, which got me to thinking about high school, which reminded me her sister-in-law, married to her adopted Korean brother who changed his name to a Korean name, taught at my high school, which made me digress as I so often do. I think I was channeling Emily Latella…………Nevermind.


I figured it out. LOL

beauders said...

Another reason Van Houten went that night was Krenwinkel was her best friend (Odd pairing there, much like Watkins and Poston being best friends, opposites attract)and she just wanted do what Pat was doing---big mistake there.

katie8753 said...

No Sorry, Beauders, I don't buy that. Van Houten went because she wanted to fit in with Charlie.

katie8753 said...

If only Emily Latella was leading this bunch, nothing would have happened. Everyone would have lived and the family would have just laughed instead of Charlie getting mad at everyone.

Oh well....

beauders said...

Hey Katie since you hate Van Houten so much here are some random facts about her and Beausoleil I came across in research for the book,
According to Ward Damio author of "Urge To Kill" in his book about the Santa Cruz, Ca. murders in the early 70's (I grew up close to Santa Cruz during this time period and remember these murders quite well including body parts of Kemper's victims washing up on shore near where I went to school in the 4th grade)(If anyone is interested in the Santa Cruz murders get Damio's book it gives an overview of all three murderers)claims that Bobby Beausoleil belonged to a cult that practiced Satanism in the mountains of Santa Cruz. The only cult in the late 60's in the Santa Cruz Mts. that I know of was reportedly The Process and it's splinter cult the Four P. As far as I know Beausoliel has never been tied in with The Process but was in the right places to be with them, remember his all meat diet according to Sanders. Also I read somewhere that Van Houten also hung out in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I don't remember where but I know I read it. Also John Markham the attorney for the Process in the 70's is you know who's attorney of record, Leslie Van Houten. I don't know what it means but it means something, was Van Houten practicing some sort of Satanism before meeting the Family and Manson?

beauders said...

Also Katie I didn't mean that Van Houten wasn't enamored with Manson and went to the LaBianca house to do his bidding, I just meant an additional reason to go was to follow in her best friends footsteps. She wanted to fit in with Krenwinkel and the rest of the women.

katie8753 said...

Thanks Beauders. I seem to remember that Leslie got mixed up with some kind of satanic business before she joined the family. That doesn't surprise me. Also, I know she said she wanted to go along with the group the 2nd night because of her fondness for Pat, but I don't think that was the main reason. I really think she was trying to impress Manson. She mentioned a few times that when she first got there, Manson paid attention to her, but he quickly lost interest in her. Whether or not that had anything to do with Bobby I don't know. I don't think Bobby was that interested in Leslie, or at least, not interested in her in the way she was interested in him.

Marliese said...

Hi Maudes, , yeah, speaking of the vd, I just can't imagine...not to mention the stink and skank factor between all of them...yuck. In that photo from the raid, the men are all so filthy. Charlie looks like a rat.

grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...

"A lot of people like to say "well Leslie didn't really kill anybody so she should get parole". Well the problem I have with that, is the same problem I had with Susan getting out.

Susan and Leslie did the same thing. Even though neither of them actually killed anyone

To me, they are both just as guilty as all the rest...."


Legally, so were Mary and Linda.
When Leslie says she stabbed someone that was already dead, I've often wondered how she could have known this. After all, when Charles Manson shot Lotsapoppa, he thought he was dead.......I suspect a large degree of what went on to happen that summer came as a result of Charlie & TJ thinking Crowe was dead.
Seven or eight months later, he found out just how wrong one could be about that.
In any case Leslie has said that Rosemary might have been alive when she stabbed her.
But even if Rosemary was dead, just being in that house and knowing a murder was going to take place makes anyone in there legally guilty of murder. In fact, according to the instructions the Judge gave the jury to assist them in their deliberations {it's a fascinating and hugely significant 78 point document and can be found in William Zamora's book "Trial by your peers"}, you don't even have to know a murder was going to take place to be guilty of it. "Malice is implied when the killing results from an act involving a high degree of probability that it will result in death, which act is done for a base anti social purpose and with a wanton disregard for human life or when the killing is a direct casual result of the perpetration or the attempt to perpetrate a felony inherently dangerous to human life." On that basis, legally, it's neither here nor there whether someone actually killed anyone.
It is probably the makings of a heated debate, whether someone present at a murder {or even not present, for that matter} as a co conspirator should receive the same punishment as the actual person[s] that do the killing but at that point in time, that's why Leslie and Susan were prosecuted and convicted, why Susan originally had immunity from the death sentence and why Mary & Linda had immunity from prosecution. The law on conspiracies and what constitutes guilt when it comes to murder is a lot more complex than I'd thought.

katie8753 said...

"She mentioned a few times that when she first got there, Manson paid attention to her, but he quickly lost interest in her"


According to the psychiatrist, Joel Simon Hochman, Leslie couldn't really get it on with Charlie sexually. She thought that physically, he wasn't 'beautiful, like Bobby.' She said she was always turned off by short men !

grimtraveller said...

Marliese said...

"In that photo from the raid, the men are all so filthy. Charlie looks like a rat"


They'd all just been woken up !

katie8753 said...

Thanks Grim. I know the law is a complicated thing, but the fact that Mary & Linda got away with murder really upsets me. I know they needed Linda to point the finger at the others and I get it, but I don't think she's as squeaky clean as she likes to project.

And Mary should be in prison right now for her part in the Hinman murder. She lucked out that she was made an offer to "rat Bobby out". Her being allowed to roam around free for years is sickening to me.

katie8753 said...

Speaking of Linda Kasabian, I think she was a rotten person, she did some terrible things like stealing $5000 from her husband's friend, but she wasn't a killer at heart.

The reason? She hadn't been under Charlie's regime that long when the murders happened. She hadn't been under his spell long enough to actually kill people.

Does that get her a "get out of jail free card"? No.

If you have to measure the people at Spahn's Ranch by wickedness, I guess she comes out better than others. But the fact that she was even there, and exposing her child to this crap, tells me that she wasn't exactly a model citizen.

Why Charlie picked her is beyond me. Because she had a DL? That's rich! Like they cared about that crap. She didn't even drive anyway. WTF?

Marliese said...

Having been asleep isn't relevant to being rotten dirty, living in filth, rummaging with rats in dumpsters for food. Spahn's Ranch was a dirty place, hot and dusty, brimming with horseshit and flies, poor to no sanitation. And Susan, in particular, so drenched in VD, she had pus oozing sores, and couldn't wear shoes because of the infected blisters on her feet.

Marliese said...

Hi Katie, yeah the driver's license. WTF is right. And her attitude the second night...didn't she say something to Charlie like "you're not gonna kill a priest, are ya" or something line that, when he stopped at a church? Like she cared. She's was hanging in the car, smoking a cigarette like no big deal as Charlie walked in Waverly, tied up Leno and Rosemary and sent in the killers. What nice little hippie girl...isn't that how Bugliosi referred to her...? And she left her baby.

katie8753 said...

I know Marliese. She took that sweet little girl to that hell hole to be molested, sunburned, starved and treated like an animal, just like the other kids. What kind of caring mother does that?

Then her excuse for splitting the ranch was to save her child? You've gotta be kidding me. She was trying to save her own worthless skin. If she cared that much about her child, she would never have set foot on that dilapidated, run down, fly infested, horse manure flopped junk yard with dilapidated buildings that were falling down and was littered with junk engines, flat tires, blown out carbs, transmission leaking junk. Not to even mention adult men and women exposing themselves to little kids. Pathetic!!!

Yeah, that's a great place to bring a child!

Yeah she was calmly smoking a Pall Mall when Charlie went in to tie up the LaBiancas for slaughter, and later claimed that she saved that actor. Give me a break!

She's just as worthless as the rest of them. Just because she didn't stab anybody doesn't make her any better. She was right there in that bed of pigs. And they were pigs. They looked, smelled and acted like stinky, filthy pigs.

MrPoirot said...

Blogger maudes harold said...
Mr. P,

I don't do partisanship, except to point out the hypocrisies of both sides. It's killing our country. I'm not interested in going there

.............................................................

Mr Poirot replies:

You most certainly did "go there". You really think blacks couldn't exist without the Liberal's magnificence and pomposity..

Liberals think they are free to spew ideological PC all day long and then simply deny that they do so. They are even more racist than Conservatives as evidenced by their pandering to any ethnicity they can find

Liberals are friendly to blacks as long as blacks agree with them..

grimtraveller said...

Marliese said...

"Having been asleep isn't relevant to being rotten dirty, living in filth, rummaging with rats in dumpsters for food. Spahn's Ranch was a dirty place, hot and dusty, brimming with horseshit and flies, poor to no sanitation. And Susan, in particular, so drenched in VD, she had pus oozing sores, and couldn't wear shoes because of the infected blisters on her feet"


Sometimes in the midst of heated and heavy debate and discussion, I try to bring a little light heartedness. When I saw your comment about the filthy guys during the raid, I laughed so hard because I thought it was a really funny comment. I guess I sometimes see humour where it probably isn't intended. It is so rare for me to find actual comedy funny but it's far more often the unintentional that I find hilarious. And your comment was just that !
But then, it struck me that they had just been awoken, the family probably knackered from drugs, sex and malnourishment, Danny DeCarlo drunk out of his head and hungry, craving a steak and Ouish and Robert Reinhard the biker somewhere in between. I think some of those Spahn photos are brilliant, but then, I love photography and I think photos can sometimes say more than words ever can in the way they can encapsulate a moment in time yet simultaneously tell a story of those times.
Many of my female friends {and even my wife used to} would excuse the way they looked on awaking if I happened to drop by after they'd been asleep and I just used to say I didn't care ~ doesn't everyone look that way ? It's only in the movies that people are immaculately turned out immediately after waking up !

maudes harold said...

Off Topic:

Beauders,

I do not have a good foundation of knowledge on the Process. I know the basic frame but not all the details, but have come across some interesting links recently. It started with Victor Floyd’s website

http://victorwild.com/

This led to this church in SF

http://mccsf.org/

Where “A” Victor Floyd gives sermons

http://mccsf.org/sermons/ sermon on 7/9/15

Their charter has a symbol that looks very Processian

http://mccsf.org/documents/mccsf-charter.pdf

Then there’s this:

http://mccsf.org/timeline/

“A prison ministry at Atascadero State Hospital and California Men’s Colony (near San Luis Obispo) was begun after we won our (Federal) law suit that allowed us to provide worship services in Federal and State prisons and hospitals.(72-73)”


Are some of these people in this church older Process members? Did they visit Family members up there in those places? Is the Victor Floyd giving sermons the same Victor Floyd of the Process? Maybe you’ve come across this and this is just the result of my channeling Miss Latella again…

--

Beausoleil’s art is still rife with occult symbols and he identified himself as such in his newest art exhibit in Tasmania this summer.

I remember vague mumblings of Leslie occult associations, but the netherworld that is my brain cannot remember anything…..Anyone?? Bueller??

If the info I found recently is correct Victor Wild went to Monrovia high school circa 1958 and Pasadena City College circa 1961.


And for something that blew my mind yesterday, a little girl was found dead from this place where she lived in Santa Cruz, what used to be an old tannery and is now an artist colony. Was Victor ever a part of this place back in the day?? Didn't he do leather work for the Family?

Check out their symbol:

http://tanneryartscenter.org/

What do you know about any of this Beauders?

beauders said...

I don't know anything about Victor Wild of today, I assumed he was an older Process member and had most likely dead. Did he have a son named after him? I would say that MCC isn't some place former Process members would end up, as MCC is radical left and one of the few Christian groups that accepts gays and lesbians. Their ministers have been marrying us for years. Now to the what happened to the Process.
Robert DeGrimston left religion, became a business consultant in N.Y. and probably has died. MaryAnne DeGrimston had a much more interesting future after the Process. She and several former Process members founded a few more Christian type cults then they did something very interesting, they started an animal sanctuary in Arizona. They found a better piece of land in Utah and moved the Sanctuary there. She married another former Process member by the name of DePeyer. They became the reining couple of the animal sanctuary. The sanctuary grew and grew. I started to donate to this group in the early 90's. I became interested in the Manson stuff in 1994/1995. Around the turn of the millennium someone read the paperwork on the sanctuary and realized who they were. This person bred pure blood dogs and the sanctuary did not approve of that.

beauders said...

So she wrote a scathing article on the sanctuary based primarily on Ed Sanders and Maury Terry's material. The sanctuary wasn't damaged by this and continues to grow. Today they are called Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, they are the biggest and most profitable animal sanctuary in the world. MaryAnne DeGrimston has died and is buried on the land in Utah. DePeyer is a still alive as is a few of the original Process members that helped found the sanctuary. The group doesn't advertise who they are but it's pretty well known now. There was a rumor that MaryAnne died from a dog pack attacking her and ripping her throat out, but truth is died from emphasema. The group never believed in hurting animals during it's Process days so it's fitting they ended up helping animals.

beauders said...

I saw the report on the murdered little girl in Santa Cruz, don't read anything into it, a fifteen year old boy murdered her. Santa Cruz is a great city in the Bay Area. It has two universities there and is liberal and hippie orientated. It's also known for surfing.

Surgio said...

I've always been attracted to Susan, Lynn, and Snake Lake.

I thought Susan was one of the more attractive girls of the bunch. Tex said of her that at times she was homely and at other times quite handsome. Her looks really came out after the prison system cleaned her up, got her off dope, fed her properly, and made her work and exercise.

Susan spoke with great admiration for Tex before the murders. He impressed her with his courtly manners and his abilities to do practical things. It might have been that in the dimness of her mind she realized what a man is supposed to be: the doer, problem solver, provider, protector, adventurer and the gentleman. Of course Tex was well off those rails by the time he got to Cali, yet Susan saw what he might have been under different circumstances. Only Tex among the group of losers and parasites showed the characteristics that Susan liked and she quickly responded to him. Perhaps she remembered her dad in his long ago better times. Susan was looking for a man to give her emotional stability, physical security and help her structure her life in a productive direction. Unfortunately for her murder victims she looked in the wrong places. The attraction Susan and Tex had for each other is explainable by simple biology that even their drug induced stupors and STDs couldn't suppress.

I too have wondered why there were not more babies born among the group. With all the screwing going on the young girls should have been pregnant constantly. Few were and those kids born to the girls were planted by outsiders. Susan's son was from a New Mexico kid, Sandra's was by her "husband", Brunner may or may not have had Charlie's kid. Supposedly, Nancy had a stillborn at Spahn's that's buried there somewhere. Kitty was pregnant with Beausoleil's kid,before Bobby hooked up with the Hair Head.

The sad conditions at the ranch may explain this lack of pregnancies. A woman will not readily conceive if her body perceives starvation and poor likelihood of her offspring surviving.

After the girls left the "family" many had numerous kids, Gillies, Pittman, Lake, and Lutesinger (Kitty by far was the cutest of the bunch, and probably the sanest).

Leslie destroyed Leslie's life. But her libtard mother had a hand in it too. Leslie was devastated by the divorce and the abortion which took place in her bedroom; her safe secure place away from the scary world. Her mother had the illegal hideous act done on Leslie,against Leslie's will, in a place where she felt the safest and in among her cherished and beloved childhood memories. What a crushing blow that must have been to Leslie. Her callous mother had her daughter abort her own flesh and blood, yet she willing raised two Koreans. This told Leslie loads about what her mother thought of her daughter. No excuse to go a killing but for me, a mitigating circumstance, if true.

The two Korean kids Leslie probably hated but packed that emotion back. I've always thought that the many stab wounds she delivered to Rosemary were really Leslie's hatred for her mother coming out. It was anger she could not express directly to her mom.

I thought Leslie was indeed a very attractive kid who could have charmed a lot of hairy legged boys into getting her what she wanted and take her out of the mess at Sphan's. Had they approached her,however, it's likely she'd have spit in their faces and laughed, although Tex said that Leslie was very passive. In any event, Leslie is long overdue for parole. Krenwinkel no, she killed the lovely Abigail and tried to kill Rosemary. She would have killed Bill had he not been outside hanging off the cliff when she searched the guest cottage at Cielo. Katie is still dangerous and hostile as a cornered rat. The board got that one right. They've been wrong on Leslie for twenty years.

grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...
"If you haven't figured it out by now, I hate Leslie Van Houten"


Naw !

Jokes aside though, it does come across very clearly !
I don't hate her. She, to me, is a sixty something who broke one of the ultimate, if not the laws in human life {I'd put rape and child molestation in there} when she was young and has spent the better part of 40 years regretting it. I believe wholeheartedly in love, mercy and forgiveness. That doesn't equate automatically with a belief that she should be paroled.


beauders said...

"Another reason Van Houten went that night was Krenwinkel was her best friend and she just wanted do what Pat was doing...
to follow in her best friends footsteps"


This is true. The interview that Leslie does with Marvin Part in December 1969 makes this clear ~ among tons of other things, in what is one of the most fascinating interviews connected with this case.


katie8753 said...

"I know they needed Linda to point the finger at the others and I get it, but I don't think she's as squeaky clean as she likes to project"


Other than showing that murder truly frightened her and shook her up and she wasn't going to do it and her feeling that those that had murdered had killed themselves when they shouted at her that she was killing them, I've never yet come across anywhere where Linda Kasabian projects herself as some kind of squeaky clean Madonna. Quite the opposite actually. She states facts about her life and actions and it's the listener / reader that is left to judge. People say Vince Bugliosi always parades her as some kind of angel of light. Not so. He referred to her & her testimony as "frank and repulsively, truthful."
If someone said that of me, I'd be arranging to meet them in a dark alley with no witnesses !


grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...

"She took that sweet little girl to that hell hole to be molested, sunburned, starved and treated like an animal, just like the other kids. What kind of caring mother does that?

If she cared that much about her child, she would never have set foot on that dilapidated, run down, fly infested, horse manure flopped junk yard with dilapidated buildings that were falling down and was littered with junk engines, flat tires, blown out carbs, transmission leaking junk. Not to even mention adult men and women exposing themselves to little kids. Pathetic!!!

Yeah, that's a great place to bring a child!"


All easy to say in retrospect. Even she realized that in retrospect. And didn't she say she used to go and give Tanya some love when Charlie wasn't around ? So despite thinking the kids being separated from their Mums initially was a good idea, she obviously was having misgivings about it and other things.
Some of it was the times and what many hippies were trying to do was create and live in an alternative society. On the stand, Terry Melcher said he really admired their unity and the way they actually lived by their own rules in this alternative society and Gregg Jacobson and Dennis Wilson were fascinated by it. I mention it only because for so many people, their reason to be was to live their own way and get away from the sort of "respectable conformity" that had turned out to be no great shakes for people like Leslie, Pat, Bruce, Bobby, Tex, Linda, Barbara, Ouish, Sandy, Squeaky etc, etc.
It obviously resonated with hundreds of thousands of people in that period because Linda had lived in quite a number of communes.They were all over the country.
Also Linda's state of mind at the time can be partly attributed to her break up with her second husband. She obviously didn't want him running off with this other woman that he was involved with. She felt rejected. But at Spahn, they were ready to accept her and it seemed that the kids were cared for. And in that "back to nature as God intended" thingy that they were into, nudity would have been par for the course. Remember one of the key elements within much of the counterculture was eliminating what they saw as hang ups that emotionally crippled. This was the free love era !
There are still a number of tribes in the world today where everyone goes about their business nude {how those guys can climb trees and hunt nude is beyond me with my creature comforts !} and more and more naturist camps and resorts have sprung up {no pun intended}in the Western world where adults and children freely mingle.
It says something for what Linda thought of the family attitude towards children that even though she wanted to flee with her because of the murders, she felt that as long as she didn't go to the police, Tanya would be safe if left behind. Vincent Bugliosi said that the way she did it caused real concern for the prosecution in regards to their case and it was a real gamble.
But in reality, Tanya wasn't harmed, Linda was able to get back to LA and get her back, she had told people about the murders, she turned herself in and helped put some very dangerous people away. There were some bumpy moments but all that needed to be achieved was. That she continued her life as a drug sodden wreck involved in petty crime {which she was on the way to long before she met Gypsy} is interesting. It is so ironic that she's made far less of her life than Pat, Leslie, Susan, Bruce, Tex, Clem or Bobby.
Life's funny.

grimtraveller said...

Surgio said...

"I thought Susan was one of the more attractive girls of the bunch"


The picture that Katie8753 uses as her avatar is the first picture I ever saw of Susan and she is quite attractive in it but having seen many of her in the family period, I don't think she photographed well in most of her shots. In her Spahn mugshot, I can see exactly why she told Virginia Graham that she was good at playing crazy. She could pass for Steve Peregrin Took's sister {the percussionist with Tyrannosaurus Rex in the 60s} in that shot. She became one of those women that aged well.

Surgio said...
"I too have wondered why there were not more babies born among the group. With all the screwing going on the young girls should have been pregnant constantly"


Not necessarily. At this point my sisters would slap my head and tell me that women aren't continually popping eggs through the month!
Charles Watson says that far more was made by the media about sex in the family than was actually there.

Surgio said...
"Sandra's was by her 'husband'"


Joel Pugh was neither her husband nor the father of any of her children.

Surgio said...

"The sad conditions at the ranch may explain this lack of pregnancies. A woman will not readily conceive if her body perceives starvation and poor likelihood of her offspring surviving"


A cursory glance at many poor regions in Africa, Asia and South America, heck, even in the West, will cast more than serious doubt on that. Mind boggling poverty and filth far too often goes hand in hand with high birth rates.


Surgio said...

"I've always thought that the many stab wounds she delivered to Rosemary were really Leslie's hatred for her mother coming out. It was anger she could not express directly to her mom"


Possibly her background and previous life rather than her Mum. Your comment here caught my eye because Tex said a very similar thing, that when he was stabbing, he was expressing his pent up rage at things he'd pretty much wanted to lash out at for a long time.
I'd argue he'd already done that by dropping out.

katie8753 said...

Grim I probably know less about the hippy lifestyle than anyone on the planet, but it would have only taken me about 3 minutes to figure out that place was a stinking hell hole.

Taking children from their mothers? That sounds like something the nazis would do. And grown men and women should never run around naked in front of children. Period. That's disgusting. If that's their idea of getting away from "respectable conformity" then they were all sickies.

Marliese said...

Factoring all the possible theories for there not being more to the actual pregnancies there were, or that we know about...Mary, Susan, Sandy, Kitty, Gypsy...though her pregnancy was 1970, and both Linda and Stephanie were already pregnant when they arrived, the pregnancy rate doesn't seem so low to me.

Surgio said...

Grimtraveler,

In comparison to the other girls at the ranch, yes Susan was attractive and more so than many who hung out there. You cannot look at some of Susan's photos in prison and say she was unattractive. Model quality? No. But none of the rest were either.

In Africa, South America and other third world subsistence areas women produce few kids during drought and low survival conditions. The starving people you see in third world were born in good food production cycles. During more prosperous times women had more kids because biology and experience tells them many will die during the cycle of hard times to come. Mexican women are having fewer kids now, probably because of the Cartel wars in that country and the uncertainty of steady food supply. If it wasn't for the loose US border, you'd see a mass die-off south of the border,not necessarily in Mexico, but in some of those countries farther south.

True women don't drop eggs each cycle, but given the sheer numbers of girls at Spahn's, the odds are that most were ovulating during their cycles. Those who didn't would catch up the next month. So, this begs the question as to why all the girls weren't walking around pregnant most of the time. This kind of proves my point: During starvation times, women, unknown to themselves, stop producing eggs until good times return. This is why the Manson Girls had a lot of kids after breaking away from the Hair Head gang. They were assured of some security and steady food supply without diving into dumpsters.

Supposedly Sandra put Pugh on the birth certificate as her husband. I haven't seen the document. The implication is that he's the father. Notice I put husband in quotations, we don't know if he was, but she claimed it, and denied it too. Bobby Beausoleit said that Ivan was his kid, but who knows, who can believe Bobby. The point is that the few kids that were born with the gang seem to come from from outside fathers, not the losers the girls screwed daily at the horseshit farm. Unconsciously, the girls didn't conceive because they didn't want to have kids with these dirt bags, so they didn't ovulate. When they got the chance to bang a worthy stranger, nature happened.

Possibly her (Leslie's) background and previous life rather than her Mum (contributed to Leslie's vicious stabs to Rosemary) Since Leslie was only eighteen when she joined the Hair Head Convict and Psychopath Beausoleit, her previous life was with her mom. Leslie never had the courage to confront her mother and she never had the courage to say NO to the gang at Spahn's and walk away. She paid the price with her life and so did the LaBianca's.

grimtraveller said...

Surgio said...

"You cannot look at some of Susan's photos in prison and say she was unattractive"


Well, I could and in some cases I do but overall I wouldn't.


Surgio said...

"In Africa, South America and other third world subsistence areas women produce few kids during drought and low survival conditions. The starving people you see in third world were born in good food production cycles. During more prosperous times women had more kids because biology and experience tells them many will die during the cycle of hard times to come"


My parents are African and I've been around African people all my life. The desire for children and the resulting conception, pregnancy and childbirth have little if anything to do with good food production cycles. Very few people refrain from having kids because of the fear that children may die in that period of hardship. Women get pregnant in scores of rough scenarios and don't conceive even when things are supposedly just right. It runs both ways.


Surgio said...

"During starvation times, women, unknown to themselves, stop producing eggs until good times return"


The young women and girls at Spahn may have been malnourished at various times but they were hardly living for months at a time in starvation conditions.

Surgio said...

"Supposedly Sandra put Pugh on the birth certificate as her husband. I haven't seen the document"


Have a read of this; http://joelpughcharlesmanson.blogspot.co.uk/
Interesting article. I first heard about Joel Pugh In "Helter skelter" and in the 37 years subsequently, I never read another thing about him. It's one of the "suppositions"/inaccuracies in Vincent Bugliosi's book, that she was married to him and that he was a former family member. This article tells you why he's on the birth certificate.
Within the family, as the children were separated from their Mums, I guess it really didn't matter who their Dads were either.


Surgio said...

"Unconsciously, the girls didn't conceive because they didn't want to have kids with these dirt bags, so they didn't ovulate. When they got the chance to bang a worthy stranger, nature happened"


I don't believe that for a moment. Paradoxically, one of the few statements I don't ever recall coming across where the women and young girls were concerned is one where anyone states they really wanted to have children within the family set up.


Surgio said...

"Since Leslie was only eighteen when she joined the Hair Head Convict and Psychopath Beausoleit, her previous life was with her mom"


True, but her Mum wasn't her life, just part of it.

grimtraveller said...



Surgio said...
"Leslie never had the courage to confront her mother and she never had the courage to say NO to the gang at Spahn's and walk away"


I think you're wrong on both counts. Quite often when teenagers "rebel" that is partly their way of confronting and questioning the standards, ways and actions of their parents. It's actually many parents that have a hard time clocking that.
But that aside, not confronting your parents about things when you are not an adult yourself or just barely one isn't necessarily a matter of courage or the lack of it.
As far as the gang at Spahn goes, why would she need courage to say no ? She bought in to the life with Charlie's troupe and all that it entailed. As was pointed out earlier, she wanted to go out and kill because she believed in the cause she thought they were following. Yes and no didn't come into it. It came into it for Linda, it came into it for TJ, it came into it for Paul Watkins. It wasn't even on the radar for Leslie. You can't say someone never had the courage to say no and walk away when they didn't want to say no or walk away.

katie8753 said...

"Taking children from their mothers? That sounds like something the nazis would do"


Yet the world is full of boarding schools that tons of respectable people happily send their kids to, where those kids spend far more time than they do with their parents/mothers with all the attendant packages and influences that come with this.
It's not a good comparison, I know, but in so many instances of life with the family, far from being originally unique, you'll find similarities with aspects of mainstream societies somewhere that demonstrate a well worn path. In some ways all governments do this when they make education compulsory and bring in a curriculum that will be implemented, regardless of whatever the parents may think, believe or want. Big topic, but not for now !


katie8753 said...

"And grown men and women should never run around naked in front of children. Period. That's disgusting"


But people have lived like that in certain places on this planet for centuries. I doubt the kids born into those societies even give it a thought any more than Western kids give make up or television a second thought. For them it just is.

Surgio said...

grimtraveller

"I think you're wrong on both counts. Quite often when teenagers "rebel" that is partly their way of confronting and questioning the standards, ways and actions of their parents. It's actually many parents that have a hard time clocking that."

And I think you're wrong. This is more than typical rebellion. What her mother forced onto Leslie in the privacy of her bedroom (if that story is correct) was illegal at the time in California. I think felonies were probably committed. This act by her mother ended all parental authority she had over Leslie. All lectures by mom about illegality of drugs, auto theft,promiscuity, moral codes, and even perhaps murder, from mother dear fell on Leslie's deaf ears. This and the divorce took the legs from under Leslie's world. She went on a sojourn in some religious order to find answers, because her parents and her religion sure as hell offered nothing but self serving hypocrisy. Leslie was ripe for Manson's hokum. She was in a moral vacuum and Manson's bullshit filled her need, justifying her hostility.

Who knows what Leslie's psychological makeup was before the murders, she hasn't talked much about that. Since she wanted her kid, she may have been grieving for the child and feeling guilty about not protecting him because she couldn't say NO.

At Spahn's she fell in with a group who, by and large, accepted her. She could commiserate in group misery, be lazy and idle and useless while she thought through her situation. She didn't walk away because of peer pressure, and perhaps even threats from Manson as Susan and Gypsy explained.

Of course she claimed brainwashing. That was her only out. On the tape over at Cielo she is pretty damned convening. But what was her other choice except to say: "Yeah I committed murder and stabbed Rosemary sixteen times in her butt because I HATE MY FUCKING MOTHER." Sure that would have worked right into the gas chamber. Like Watson, claiming diminished capacity was her only legal way out except going states evidence in which case the Manson girls might have killed her and her mother and father if she went that direction.

Surgio said...

grimtraveller,

To say that food production is not closely related to population size and childbearing is a non stater. A simple experiment, try to make love to your woman while her stomach is growling from hunger.

I'm not african and sure as hell wouldn't claim to be and sure as hell wouldn't want to be. I have done considerable work in South Africa over the years. Under the white governments in Rhodesia and in South Africa food production skyrocketed to export levels. The native tribes expanded because of available food and modern medicine. When Rhodesia fell food production dropped and tribes experienced famine. This put pressure on Apartheid SA due to starving refugees streaming in, which is still a problem today, and was as well a big factor in the collapse of apartheid, to the detriment of both races.

Of course the african run governments have done the most stupid thing possible, run off or kill the productive white farmers. Food aid from the west keeps many africans alive. Without that aid, birthrates would drop to levels sustainable in the bush, like two hundred years ago.

Good. You admitted the girls at Spahn's were under conditions of food deprecation. The girls knew that they could go into town and eat well, but their bodies could not determine that, so began to prepare for hard times which meant fewer childbirths.

Good. You admitted that some authority claimed that Sandy's husband was Pugh and that he is listed as "husband". Bugliosi was very close to the evidence, I'll believe him before I believe your contentions.

"You cannot look at some of Susan's photos in prison and say she was unattractive"
,Well, I could and in some cases I do but overall I wouldn't. ,

Are you trying to be a smartass here? I'm quite sure Susan wouldn't want to see your ugly mug either.

Perhaps you can educate yourself a little by reading the "Sperm Wars". It's in layman's language and explains in detail human female reproduction. One bit of research is that women will unconsciously restrict sexual contact with a partner she doesn't really like during her fertile time of the month. I suspect this happened a Spahn's.

leary7 said...

The Saint asked why anyone would want to be friends with Charlie, the question implying a sense of affection.
GT asks can we muster sympathy for people who were dealt harsh cards, as certainly Charlie and others were in their upbringing.

My question is more pointed...here in Minnesota it is legal to shoot anyone breaking into your home. As a matter of fact, if you look out the window in the middle of the night and see someone standing in your backyard you can blast away at them.
So if Charlie Manson was standing in my backyard at the midnight hour would I pull the trigger? The answer is no. For Tex I would in a millisecond. Bruce and Bobby too. But I would not shoot Manson. Why? Cause I would want to hear what the demented sociopath had to say. Charlie has kept me interested in what he had to say for 45 years - which is remarkable given that my doctors say I have a four minute attention span. No, I wouldn't shoot him, but I probably would turn the hose on him pronto.

grimtraveller said...

Surgio said...

[grimtraveller said...

"I think you're wrong "]

'And I think you're wrong'


I guess two wrongs make neither of us right !
Actually, except for a couple of details here and there, we're pretty much on the same page for a lot of the stuff we've said here.


leary7 said...

"The Saint asked why anyone would want to be friends with Charlie, the question implying a sense of affection"


I can see why some people would want to be his mate. Fact is, he's charismatic, fascinating, quite deep, astute and funny when he's talking sense and not all that minky manky stuff that no one can fathom and I suspect people want to know if he'll spill any world shattering secrets to them regarding the murders that no one else has been told.
In England, there have been prison visiting and prisoner friendship schemes for years, organised by church groups, charities and social or community groups. Befriending prisoners doesn't come across as unusual to me. I remember being part of a group that did some performances at Wormwood Scrubs and Holloway women's prison {I was the bassist in the musical section. It was strange seeing all the babies and toddlers that lived there at the women's prison}. We talked with the prisoners and could have taken it further. Prison authorities are looking for anything that helps with prisoners. I've got a mate that regularly goes into prisons to try and encourage young Black guys to get smart and straighten out. The government have looked at funding her. Now, for anyone interested in crime, some of the criminals that have caught their interest will be as good as any to befriend. It's no more illogical to want to befriend a well known murderer than it is a major sports, music or acting star.
That Charlie or his cohorts in crime did terrible things in the past doesn't mean that they are any less human beings. Lesser perhaps, but not less. If my little brother did a Tex, I wouldn't abandon him. I don't think I could. I wouldn't want to. I might be sickened to the max but he'd still be my brother. I went to see friends and kids I worked with in jail and still kept up the relationships. Actually, it really helped to give me some insight in the matter.


katie8753 said...

Grim said: Yet the world is full of boarding schools that tons of respectable people happily send their kids to, where those kids spend far more time than they do with their parents/mothers with all the attendant packages and influences that come with this.

Yes that's true but that's a decision those parents make for whatever reason they choose. Those parents aren't ordered to separate from their children by a short, evil hippy cult leader.

But people have lived like that in certain places on this planet for centuries. I doubt the kids born into those societies even give it a thought any more than Western kids give make up or television a second thought. For them it just is.

Well here in the USA, it's illegal for an adult to expose himself/herself to young children or the public in general, in a public setting. And Spahn's Ranch was open to the public. So in other words, not only were the children born to these monsters exposed to public nudity, so were other children who were there just to ride the horses.

MrPoirot said...

Leary if you blast somebody in your yard at night you're going to jail and you know that. Why make PC statements like that? Even a cop can't do that.

Who is feeding you this hysteria?

beauders said...

Bobby Beausoleil is the biological father of Ivan Pugh, someone did a paternity test for Pugh, I also think Beausoleil is the father of Linda Kasabian's son Angel.

katie8753 said...

Beauders, wasn't Linda already pregnant when she joined the family? How could Bobby be the father?

beauders said...

Nope she got pregnant in the month she was with the Family.

beauders said...

Ok I looked it up and Angel was born during the trial March 7, 1970 and Beausoleil claims the child is his. Kasabian knows she got pregnant at Spahn.

katie8753 said...

Boy, Bobby better hope he never gets out. He would owe $1000's for back child support. LOL.

Marliese said...

I believe the baby is Beausoleil's, but I wonder if she got pregnant by Bobby during her days in Topanga, where she met Gypsy...and she could have met Bobby from Gypsy knowing him, just prior to Gypsy leading her to Spahn's. Without paternity testing, I don't know that she'd know who the father was from her time at the ranch since she was with Charlie and Tex and God knows who else in her first days, if not hours, at Spahn's Ranch. Bobby likes to say he wasn't at the Ranch all that much. The dates for an early March delivery of a 40 week pregnancy add up for her son to have been conceived a little earlier than her July arrival at Spahn's, unless he was premature. I think Linda knows a lot more than what she's ever said

beauders said...

Linda has said she slept with all the guys (yuck) at Spahn that month. Maybe Bobby was the only fertile male at that time, he claims he has four children including Linda's.

Marliese said...

Hi Beauders, yeah I've read similar stuff about her, claimed by others about her etc. Tex, in particular, writes in his book about the awesome sex he had with Linda, and that he loved her. Yuck is right.

katie8753 said...

Linda must have known how to do the "clockwise swirl", instead of the "pinch". And maybe there was a "knuckle" involved. HA HA.

strix aluco said...

Sorry, Totally off topic but only way I could send this message. To Grimtraveller You are the only person I can think of who knows who Tooky was.I had conections to him going back to Ladbroke Grove. Any way you and I could converse?

MrPoirot said...

Katie what has throwing a baseball pitch got to do with getting pregnant?

LynyrdSkynyrdBand said...

"If not hours"... Lol!

katie8753 said...

Mr. P, have you ever heard of "stopping short and making a grab"? That's my move. HA HA.

MrPoirot said...

What about the Bill Cosby/Roman Polanski move? A Qualude and two shots of Tequila. That always works.

katie8753 said...

Mr. P, that's almost as bad as drugging a girl with turkey and wine, just to play with her toys!

MrPoirot said...

The Turkey and wine move won't work on Bulemic chicks

grimtraveller said...

Surgio said...

"grimtraveller.....Are you trying to be a smartass here? I'm quite sure Susan wouldn't want to see your ugly mug either"


Well, hello, good evening and welcome Surgio. It didn't take you long to shed your skin and try to dust my pyramids !

To reiterate, personally, I think Susan Atkins has her moments in the looks stakes and especially as she got older. Looking at many pictures of her, both before and after incarceration, I don't think she photographed particularly well. Charles Manson does. It's nothing to do with either as a person, it's purely a photographic thing. There's no need to invade Ukraine because of my opinion not being identical to yours.
As for Susan not wanting to view my ugly mug, as she's a sister in Christ, if what we both believe is true, she's going to have no choice in the matter, one day !

Surgio said...
"A simple experiment, try to make love to your woman while her stomach is growling from hunger"


Don't tell me how to read "War & peace" !

Surgio said...

"When Rhodesia fell food production dropped and tribes experienced famine. This put pressure on Apartheid SA due to starving refugees streaming in, which is still a problem today, and was as well a big factor in the collapse of apartheid, to the detriment of both races"


Interesting that you refer to Zimbabwe as Rhodesia. But I accept that you may well be referring to what it was called when it did fall. I don't want to make a comment on your bit here until I'm clear on a couple of things as that section is worded slightly ambiguously. Are you saying that the collapse of Apartheid in South Africa was to the detriment of both races ?

Surgio said...
"Good. You admitted that some authority claimed that Sandy's husband was Pugh and that he is listed as "husband". Bugliosi was very close to the evidence, I'll believe him before I believe your contentions"


Did you read that piece that I gave you a link to ? It's nothing to do with my contentions. Sandy Good herself told George Stimson {and he relays it in his book "Goodbye Helter Skelter"} that they were never married.
At the time news of Joel Pugh's death came to light it was beginning to emerge as to the scale of the family's activities and so any link to them, in even the smallest way would be thought of as worth looking into, especially one resulting in a death and then it turning out that one of the group had been in the same country as the man found dead.
Pugh's family were surprised in 1974 when Joel's death was even linked to the Manson saga.
Hey, but don't take my word for it. I'm just your ugly mugged smartass in need of education regarding how a female reproduces.......{I kind of wondered how my kids got here !}.

grimtraveller said...

Surgio said...
"One bit of research is that women will unconsciously restrict sexual contact with a partner she doesn't really like during her fertile time of the month. I suspect this happened a Spahn's"


Problem with that theory in relation to the family is that by all accounts, the women had no say in the matter of whom they had sex with and when. They were there to serve the men's needs and weren't in a position to restrict sexual contact with anyone, male or female.
Thinking about it, it was in the family that virtually every female that had sex with another female was introduced to lesbian sex. They all reacted in different ways according to things they've said. But that could also account for why there weren't more children around Spahn.
During the penalty phase of the trial, Irving Kanarek asked Gypsy if it was true that there were 11 kids on the ranch and if she could name them to which she replied that there were 7 or 8 and she named 4 of them. Ironically, she herself was pregnant at the time.

beauders said...

"Nope she got pregnant in the month she was with the Family.....

Ok I looked it up and Angel was born during the trial March 7, 1970 and Beausoleil claims the child is his. Kasabian knows she got pregnant at Spahn"


Linda stated that she thought that she got pregnant the last time she was with her husband which was before she joined the family. She testified that she joined the family on or about July 4th and right around the time the LaBiancas were being murdered, she told Charlie that she was pregnant. She had only found out herself a few days before and I think that hearing Sharon Tate was pregnant shook her to her core and there the seed was planted that eventually germinated in her testifying against the family that had accepted her & taken her in when her husband rejected her.
If Angel was born on March 7th 1970, presuming that he wasn't premature, he would have to have been conceived in June of 1969 ~ long before Linda met Gypsy and came to Spahn and slept with all the men "except Larry."
{You may want to check with Surgio that I've got that right as I apparently know nothing on the subject}. The only way that child could be Bobby's is if he had known {both socially and in the biblical sense} Linda before she ever came to Spahn.

grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...

"that's a decision those parents make for whatever reason they choose. Those parents aren't ordered to separate from their children by a short, evil hippy cult leader"


I agree. I was just illustrating that the end practice and result is little different. Someone else other than the parent raises the child and therefore has access to that child at times and in ways that parents will find hard to counter after a while.
The more I think about it, the more I think that LSD brought to the surface piles of shitty stuff that lay somewhere within Charles Manson in the most twisted way. I'm thinking of the juxtaposition between the kids at Spahn not being brought up by their parents and his words regarding his Mum ¬>"She started a man without a Father..." It's almost as though he was determined to put those that came his way through what he went through but with the same kind of bizarre psychedelic thought and sheen with which the Beatles presented their Northern Englishness in "Magical Mystery Tour." The young ladies began picking up on this kind of thought; during the trial Sandy stated "What difference does it make who the fathers are ? The baby is the father of themselves."
I also think he was externalizing his internal anger at his Mum, his wives, his Auntie that had him for a while and his strict religious Grandma in the way he treated the females in the family. I don't believe it began that way but it sure entered the picture somewhere along the line.

grimtraveller said...

"Irving Kanarek asked Gypsy if it was true that there were 11 kids on the ranch...."


My apologies, it was Sandy that said this, not Gypsy.


katie8753 said...

"Well here in the USA, it's illegal for an adult to expose himself/herself to young children or the public in general, in a public setting. And Spahn's Ranch was open to the public. So in other words, not only were the children born to these monsters exposed to public nudity, so were other children who were there just to ride the horses"


During Danny DeCarlo's testimony he was asked about this;
Q: Now you have previously testified to
some of the girls, not all of them,
at the Spahn ranch during the period
of time you were there, going nude, is
that right ?
A: Yeah
Q: Did you ever go nude ?
A: Yeah
Q: Portions of that ranch are exposed to
the public, are they not, the public
view from Santa Susanna pass Road ?
A: Yeah
Q: Were you ever nude in the portions
exposed to the public view
A: No

I read somewhere else recently {I can't quite recall where ~ it might be some other trial testimony} that they wouldn't be nude where there was public access, partly because that would net them the kind of attention that they really weren't looking for, given their increasing 'extra curricular activities.'

grimtraveller said...

MrPoirot said...

"Sympathy is not the same as condoning nor is forgiving a form of condonement....Forgiveness is mostly [mis]understood and it usually isn't known that it isn't for the perpetrator at all. Forgiveness is to ease the bitterness felt by victims"



In fact, forgiveness requires the opposite of condoning, it requires a recognition of the wrong done and it's power is that despite the wrong, it will no longer personally be held against the person/organization/tribe/family/nation etc.
It certainly is for the benefit of the aggrieved; much of the time, the one[s] being forgiven isn't even aware of it and a lot of the time won't care one way or the other.


MrPoirot said...

"Charlie's mother......denied any responsibility with Charlie's upbringing"


It's fascinating that denying responsibility has so often been his default position in regards to situations he's found himself in.
Leslie's Mum during the trial was asked if she blamed herself for what happened with Leslie. Though she said that she still didn't believe it, she answered "any thinking person must consider that possibility.....you go over a hundred things you wish were different....for myself, I never would have believed it."

katie8753 said...

Thanks Grim. I was thinking that I had read that Linda's was pregnant with her husband's baby, but I was too lazy to research it. LOL. If the baby was full term, then she would have had to get pregnant around early June of 1969.

On the subject of children being separated from their parents, basically I was just speaking for myself. I don't know how anyone else on Earth feels about that, but I know that if anyone had tried to take either of my kids from me for any reason, they'd have drawn back a nub!

katie8753 said...

Frankly, I don't know how any of those guys can be sure they're the father of anything out there without a DNA test.

And who would name a boy Angel? He probably got beat up a lot at school.

MrPoirot said...

Grim Said:
In fact, forgiveness requires the opposite of condoning, it requires a recognition of the wrong done and it's power is that despite the wrong, it will no longer personally be held against the person/organization/tribe/family/nation etc.
It certainly is for the benefit of the aggrieved; much of the time, the one[s] being forgiven isn't even aware of it and a lot of the time won't care one way or the other.[End Quote]
.........................................

Poirot replies:
Interesting point. The attacker in most catastrophic attacks likely has sociopathy. Forgiveness would have no reality in their world. Forgiving them would be like your boss paying you in Rubles. I have studied Forgiveness for years and have found it to be infinitely complicated. I can understand forgiving Joe if he backed into my car and dented it but I doubt I could foregive Joe if he murdered my parents and left a fork in their throats. I'm not sure how one forgives an act where the consequences will never end. I am not sure if Forgiveness really exists. Perhaps it is like the Holy Grail, Excaliber's sword or King Arthur. It may just be a lofty dream we all have.

Anonymous said...

I have a certain amount of sympathy for the killers...well a couple of them anyway. However I still think they are where they deserve to be for the most part. Yes, it's been a very long time and (most?) of them are certainly not the same young people they were way back in 1969. But if you slaughter innocent people and laugh about it in court and in front of their grieving family members when or how does one decide when justice has been served? If it was one of my beloved family members the answer would be that they would never get out. But as a outsider with no emotional ties to what they did I might be more likely to say that after 45 years some might deserve a second chance...but that's the problem. How do you really define what justice is for such horrific murders? Is it about justice for the victims and their family members or is it more about punishment for those who committed the crimes?
As far as forgiveness goes I know exactly how I feel about that. I'm in the minority but I've never believed that one has to " forgive" a person who murdered a loved one. If you feel they are truly remorseful for what they did then that's different and by all means I think forgiving might help bring some peace. ( I don't believe there is ever closure when a loved one is murdered) but if someone murdered one of my family members and didn't seem remorseful or willing to take responsibility for it there is no way in hell I would feel the need to forgive them.
Mark Klaas ( sp?)...the father of child murder victim Polly Klaas spoke about this once. He said forgiveness is way overrated in this country. If someone killed my child I wouldn't feel like I HAD to forgive them to move on...(especially if they weren't sorry like his daughters killer wasn't) You need to accept what has happened and learn somehow to deal with it in cases like that. That's what he did- and he turned his sorrow into action by becoming a victim rights advocate. He doesn't forgive what has happened but he accepts it.
As a human being with compassion for others I hate to think of anyone spending their life locked up in a cell but when they commit horrific murders I don't know what the solution is.
By the way, Grim Traveller, you're an awesome writer and I love what you have to say. What a great addition you are to this group.

MrPoirot said...

But if you slaughter innocent people and laugh about it in court and in front of their grieving family members.............[end quote}
.................................................

Poirot reples:

Their antics in court may very well be what will keep them in prison till death.
They know that and I'm sure they cringe at their old antics they pulled off in court. The antics linger longer than the dozens of stab wounds. The courtroom is the wrong place to show your ass.

maudes harold said...

Thanks Beauders. I didn’t know that about Marianne’s possible death. Yikes!
Santa Cruz is a gorgeous area but has long been steeped in some human weirdness.

--

Bobby and Ivan look so much alike that I wouldn’t need a dna test, lol. When I saw the pics of an adult Ivan a few years back, there was no mistaking it. I also came across a pic of another killers’ kid that is a striking match. Some of the other kids not so much. Pooh Bear-Michael looks just like Mary.

--

I think forgiveness is a lot like faith-deeply personal, and while we can give words to describe it, it’s actual practice or at least describing the experiential process, is a lot more elusive. I think forgiving someone is almost an intellectual thing for me—I can do it in my head and even my heart for them. The bigger issue would be my need to deal with the anger I would feel. Even personal exact retribution would not relieve me of the anger I would feel over the brutal murdering of a loved one, especially when I think of my nieces or nephews. I could live with the pain of loss, but the anger would consume my soul. I have had to be forgiven and I have had to forgive, but never on a level like these utterly senseless murders. The forgiving part on my end would be working on letting the anger go.

--

Those fools put the nail in the 'parole-eligible-but-ain't-gonna-happen' coffin with their courtroom behavior! That's a lot harder to have sympathy for.

MrPoirot said...

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.

Amen.
............................................................................

Poirot Replies:

The Bible is packed with writing about forgiveness. Nearly every book in the Bible discusses forgiveness. The oldest written materiel I've seen is in the Bible so forgiveness is nothing new. It is an old and mysterious concept yet it is important to mankind though I myself do not know why. Generally I do not argue with the Bible.

grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...

"Frankly, I don't know how any of those guys can be sure they're the father of anything out there without a DNA test"


From when I read Susan Atkins' first book, I wondered the opposite. She was so sure of the Father of her son but I found myself wondering "how can she be ?"

MrPoirot said...

"I have studied Forgiveness for years and have found it to be infinitely complicated. I can understand forgiving Joe if he backed into my car and dented it but I doubt I could foregive Joe if he murdered my parents and left a fork in their throats. I'm not sure how one forgives an act where the consequences will never end"


For many years now, I've had a saying "closure is overrated." I stopped looking for closure in matters in the early 90s because I found that while it may come in certain things, there are also many things where one may never get it or one may be waiting for such a long time that it brings no real satisfaction when it does come.
I couldn't do it outside faith in Christ though. It's hard enough to live that way with that faith and trust ! Besides which, what would I have to gain from letting go ? Nothing at all. From a Christian perspective, forgiveness is a truly difficult thing that rarely happens 'just like that' ¬> it is a process that one can leave at any moment and personally, I only carry it through because I believe that's what God has communicated is what needs to be done. No way would I bother otherwise.
I don't know where Rosemary LaBianca's daughter is at now or even if she's still alive, but there was a time when she forgave Charles Watson and actually used to visit and communicate with him. She came in for a lot of criticism for that. My take on it was that if she really had been impacted by God in a real, everyday living way, then bit by bit over the years, every aspect of her being would have undergone changes. She would have found some easier than others, some she would have {and may well still have} some almighty struggles with. Some changes literally take years and there would be much doubt and some slippage along the way. That's kind of why I think closure is overrated, because having your parents murdered in the way her Mum & Stepdad were may well be the sort of thing that never goes away. Forgiveness helps to deal with that. But it is complicated, rarely simple and actually requires a lot of resolve to see through because it isn't over in a moment ~ it's sustained for life.



grimtraveller said...

MrPoirot said...

"I am not sure if Forgiveness really exists. Perhaps it is like the Holy Grail, Excaliber's sword or King Arthur. It may just be a lofty dream we all have"


It exists. I know that because I've had to do it numerous times. It's when one's natural inclination is to abso~flaming~lutely not forgive that one discovers how difficult it can be.
I have to say though, it's also kind of unpredictable too. Sometimes, we surprise ourselves.

Krissy Deen said...

"As far as forgiveness goes...I've never believed that one has to 'forgive' a person who murdered a loved one"


I'd go with that. If it does ever happen, it's a choice that the person makes and I don't think a person should be made to feel they are a lesser being because they haven't forgiven. They're not. They're human.
For a follower of Christ, forgiveness is inextricably bound up in the notion that one can hang with God because one has been forgiven by God which makes it a requirement to go and do likewise. For a Christian not to forgive {and I say that realizing the difficulty in many situations} is kind of like refusing to give a hungry homeless person something to eat when you can, having once been homeless yourself and having been fed and helped.
Besides which, it's part and parcel of the belief. And the belief isn't a head belief. It's a 'putting things into practice' belief.

maudes harold said...

"The bigger issue would be my need to deal with the anger I would feel.....Even personal exact retribution would not relieve me of the anger I would feel.....I could live with the pain of loss, but the anger would consume my soul......The forgiving part on my end would be working on letting the anger go"


This really resonates with me, it's so astute. Anger has been the major obstacle that I've had to deal with in forgiveness. I'm not an angry person generally at all, but one doesn't always know exactly what will get one angry and for how long. And when I focus on things that have been done and what I wish I'd said or done, well.....! The anger that I have to deal with could fuel a probe to Pluto !



MrPoirot said...

Grin Said:
I don't know where Rosemary LaBianca's daughter is at now or even if she's still alive, but there was a time when she forgave Charles Watson and actually used to visit and communicate with him. She came in for a lot of criticism for that. My take on it was that if she really had been impacted by God in a real, everyday living way, then bit by bit over the years, every aspect of her being would have undergone changes[end quote]
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Poirot Replies:
I think Rosemary's daughter Susan misunderstood what forgiveness was. It is not something you give to somebody. Forgiveness is for your benefit so you can go on with your life. She was trying to give something to Tex. Wrong.

grimtraveller said...

Forgiveness carries with it a major benefit for the giver but it does also involve something towards the one being forgiven. Even if they don't understand or care or are even aware.

MrPoirot said...

Grim forgiveness is for the victim. Many times the victim must forgive somebody whom is deceased.

maudes harold said...

Grimm,
“For many years now, I've had a saying "closure is overrated." I stopped looking for closure in matters in the early 90s because I found that while it may come in certain things, there are also many things where one may never get it or one may be waiting for such a long time that it brings no real satisfaction when it does come.”

Agreed. I dislike that word, it makes me think of what happens right before a commercial!!
My mom died almost 25 yrs ago to cancer and while the pain has immensely subsided over the years, it is still there. The ‘closure’ came with her death. There’s no ‘closure’ on closure, just life after it.

“, forgiveness is a truly difficult thing that rarely happens 'just like that' ¬> it is a process that one can leave at any moment”
“then bit by bit over the years, every aspect of her being would have undergone changes. She would have found some easier than others, some she would have {and may well still have} some almighty struggles with. Some changes literally take years and there would be much doubt and some slippage along the way”
“Forgiveness helps to deal with that. But it is complicated, rarely simple and actually requires a lot of resolve to see through because it isn't over in a moment ~ it's sustained for life.”

This perfectly fleshes out my thoughts on what I was relating would be my personal experiential process of forgiveness and anger. I agree that it is a life-long process.
Forgiveness is something you do or don’t, but even if you do, it isn’t immediate. It doesn’t bring relief from grief instantaneously. I think it’s something you consciously practice and becomes easier to achieve over time. And you slip and fall and you rant over your loss, then you pick yourself back up and go back to practicing letting go the anger/pain.

I also believe there is a benefit to the one being forgiven, whether they are aware or not. I can’t explain it other than to say the energy released in your forgiveness has an effect on the forgiven. I just believe that, without being able to explain it. I’m comfortable with that being unknowable to me.

MrPoirot said...

For a person like Susan Leberge forgiveness may be a confusing process that made things worse because she did what she believed she should do to forgive and Christmas came again but the pain of her Mother's loss was still there as well.

I think Susan had a lousy pastor at her church who had no business counseling her on forgiveness. It is as if he told her forgivenes is a Macy's gift card and she needed to give Tex one.

Forgiveness may just be an ongoing thing. After each Christmas Susan has to forgive all over again. Sorta like Holy Communion at church. We take Communion every Sunday. I guess last Sunday's Communion wore off because we gotta do it again next week too.

grimtraveller said...

MrPoirot said...

"For a person like Susan Leberge forgiveness may be a confusing process that made things worse because she did what she believed she should do to forgive and Christmas came again but the pain of her Mother's loss was still there as well"

I wish I knew more about her from her own mouth. As I don't, I can't really say much of any worth regarding her. But it's for the best that she doesn't get involved with the media.
As a side note, forgiveness doesn't necessarily take the pain of loss {or any other} away. But it is freedom enabling. Or at least, it should be.

MrPoirot said...

"I think Susan had a lousy pastor at her church who had no business counseling her on forgiveness. It is as if he told her forgivenes is a Macy's gift card and she needed to give Tex one"

On the other hand, forgiving someone that murdered your Mum {or someone close & loved} could be the ultimate hurdle in life to scale {providing you loved and had good feelings towards her or whoever it may be}. It's really difficult communicating "how it works" because the process is different for everyone and isn't an exact science or theory.
I think it was effective where Charles Watson was concerned because by that point, both he and Susan shared the same faith. I think it would have had a positive effect on Pat & Leslie by some point too, because they became remorseful.
Even supposing Susan was given lousy advice, by forgiving, what has she really lost ?

MrPoirot said...

"Forgiveness may just be an ongoing thing. After each Christmas Susan has to forgive all over again. Sorta like Holy Communion at church. We take Communion every Sunday. I guess last Sunday's Communion wore off because we gotta do it again next week too"


I think Holy communion is something the church has gotten wrong for centuries. In the new testament {indeed, in the old too} the word 'bread' is sometimes used synonymously with the word 'food' or 'meal' so the bread & wine that later on in history became called 'Holy communion' was originally just a close knit meal between brothers & sisters, fellow believers. And because their love went on, so did their togetherness so the communion never wore off, as such.
With forgiveness, it's not so much that one has to forgive all over again {unless one finds that one has abandoned the forgiveness given}, more that it's a state of being that is precipitated by a specific decision to let things go with a person/tribe/State/Nation/organization and no longer hold against them that what is your right to do so. That's one of the interesting things about God's expectation where forgiveness is concerned; it's never put across that unforgiveness is unnatural or unusual. If you've been hurt or done wrong by, it's perfectly natural and understandable to hold it against the perpetrator. God's forgiveness is an eye opener because it comes when the one to be forgiven has no leg to stand on; the mercy shown is entirely at God's behest. God would not be unreasonable at all if forgiveness wasn't given in each instance.
That's partly why Susan LaBerge's action towards Charles Watson is impressive to me and I just hope she sustains it.

grimtraveller said...

katie8753 said...

"you can't base your opinion on anything Charlie says happened to him when he was young. He's just a big liar. And the others are liars too"


True, Charlie Manson lies. He also, by his own admission, plays with words and concepts and any way one looks at it it's hard not to see quite a bit of deception in his make up. But he also said and says many things that are or were true. I don't and won't base my opinion of him on any one thing, be it George Stimson or Nicholas Schrek or Michael White or Nuel Emmons or Susan Atkins or Paul Watkins or Sandy Good or Vincent Bugliosi or trial transcripts or his Mum's few words or Dennis Wilson or Charles Watson or Irving Kanarek.....
In a way, the more viewpoints and stories one has of a person or event, the more rounded the picture one will end up with.
But I do take on board the things he's relayed about his early life. I'd say it was pretty near impossible to have any kind of understanding of him and the others unless one does {I appreciate that many aren't interested in understanding him or the others !} and so for me the various blogs with their variety of opinion and references to interviews, films, books, documentaries, trial transcripts, police reports etc, are most useful.
The thing I keep in mind when dealing with the convicted killers and even those that never killed but were part of the family is that to a greater or lesser extent, they've evolved. It's rare that any human being follows a straight line from A to Z in the course of their life and they're no exception. So much of our coming to conclusions about this crowd involves such a lot of sifting, sifting of truth from half truth from lie from contradiction.......

MrPoirot said...

Susan leberge is lucky Doris Tate didn't beat the crap out of her for giving Tex a metaphorical Macy's gift card.

grimtraveller said...

It would have nothing to do with Doris Tate.

grimtraveller said...

Surgio said...

What her mother forced onto Leslie in the privacy of her bedroom (if that story is correct) was illegal at the time in California

According to Leslie in her 2013 parole hearing, the story is certainly true.