it all a game to her? What else could she get away with? She said she was at the Hinman killing, that she did it, that she stabbed Sharon Tate, then that she didn’t. Was this all a drug induced story, maybe a confused mind warped by the crazy messiah? Or had she gone out on a killing spree with friends and cooked up the idea of explaining it all as being under the control of the “ dumb country boy who never grew up” who is “that stupid, corn-picking country boy that I always have been. “
Kind of hard to tell what is true, isn’t it? And the more information you gather, the more “the truth” seems to evaporate, like a mist, like a thought, a big play act. Like ones search for truth in general. They had removed their being from our thought of how life is, so “truth” was something to laugh at.
As for the LaBianca murders, these make even less sense. But that might be part of the plan if you are trying to spread fear and Helter Skelter. There are stories this was a mob hit (as was suggested for the Tate murders, Frykowski screwing with the Mob who contracted Manson or Tex). The theory is that Leo LaBianca was not saint and was involved in some stock swindles, that Rosemary LaBianca was involved in selling LSD. They weren’t just nice grocery store owners. They owed money, wouldn’t pay, so they were killed. With this theory you have the “family” as a contract hit team, taking turns on who does the job.
IN THE THOUGHT
The Family members were all high and not thinking like the middle class might want them to think. They seem to think they have some “special power” to shield them, common thinking among LSD Acid Heads. I was one of these many many years ago and am well aware of the insulated mind set that seems so real and holds the rest of the world as if a dream that can be influenced and manipulated with one’s will. Most think this way when we do business, work, manipulate our friends. But on LSD one is so far within ones mind that dreams and delusions becomes fact to one’s perceptions, not an idea. This is the big lie of LSD - to appear to reveal all the secrets of the universe, to reveal all that is beyond our normal perception, when really it just reflects all that is normally with us but presents it as a great revelation. True, you see the world directly without words, the explanations, but the self absorption is so great that it blinds as much as it reveals, like a dream seeing itself and then being impressed.
In the LSD self absorption one can laugh at the establishment for you are protected - witchy. Unfortunately those dumb establishment types don’t get it and toss you in jail. And then there you are, superior, aware, enlightened, and in jail like one of Christ’s apostles. Pretty damn smart of you, aye? None of the murderers were committed on LSD, but you mix a bunch of minds bent on breaking the rules of being human with a drug that makes the world appear more real, and you have an interesting mind set. Add the concept of One Mind (we all have connection to an Uber Mind within us all), a fairly common teaching of almost any religion, and include the great flow of the universe, (one child is born, one dies, neither more important than the other - it all flows on with or without you) and you reach the idea that it really isn’t bad that someone died. They were going to die anyway. This is insightful and has a depth of awareness that mixed with LSD makes life seem a dream - there is no fear or problem with losing this life (again a fairly normal idea of a lot of religions). Mix this with “we are the ones who see and you are blind” (seeing the oneness of all things but staying in duality and worshiping your own self importance) and suddenly you have it is ok if we kill you, or you me, there is no big difference, we just need to do this to further the plan, or the environment, or the national agenda. We all do this, though by the state it is supposedly alright. With all this, you have the murderers sitting in trial, no remorse, because the “victims” were going to die anyway, no fear because the murderers accept their own deaths, claiming some of the PIGS have to die so the revolution that will make life better can come, and it is all done out of love, for humanity and the earth. It actually has sense to it.
Except - we don’t all go sneaking into someone’s house, stab them 40-50 times, and tell them we don’t give a crap about them or feel anything for them. The murderers were all known for their lack or remorse or concern for their own fate, laughing at the deaths and heckling the members of the surviving families, This, probably more than the murders, is what horrified the world. Not that we ourselves don’t heckle our “enemies” fate, but that we can’t allow it to be so naked. As much as I understand get the “Oneness” and it is wise and has depth, the sneaking in my house and slaughtering me part is a real turn off.
LSD - Protected - Witchy? Oddly enough, they were protected. Sentenced to death, the death penalty in California was declared unconstitutional for a few years and their conviction was changed to life with possibility of parole. It is odd how Atkins blabbed away without a care in the world, then recanted it all. Almost as if it was her power that was in control. Almost as if she was the one with the power, not Charlie. But one never knows. Whatever they thought their protection would or wouldn’t be, they were convicted.
As the Prosecutor said, four murderers went to the Tate’s house, and one human. Linda, who couldn’t and didn’t, and talked to the court despite her fears.
Tex Watson is in jail. Tex walked away from the “family” and Charlie twice, but came back. He says because in the “family” there was no fake friendships, people would do anything for you (though they sort of told the police about each other when times got bad). At Tate’s house he announced "I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business." He is now a born again Christian. He writes a moving tale of his finely awakening to the real Christ, not the stories of his childhood, not Manson, but awakening to seeing that the horror he lived in, the horror he committed, is among all the other horror that is the day to day life that is really here, the horror we blame on the “family” yet don’t see all around us. And within that he found Christ, who forgave him, Christ who stands in the middle of the horror we live in with dead awareness, and forgives those willing to listen.
Yet he has little chance of Parole. He was high as a kite on Speed during the murders, running from body to body, taking care of business like a good speed head, except this involved death. But the immense number of stabs he inflicted, and the number of people he killed makes it unlikely he will be out of prison. Why so many stabs? Savagery? Was it the drugs? Was it the frustration of being an amateur killer? A professional killer might have needed one or two stabs. He stabbed people and they kept getting up and trying to get away and not knowing what to do he just stabbed and stabbed until the people finally stayed down Was it hatred for PIGS or not knowing what to do?
As he has said, no one deserves the death penalty more than he does, but he hopes to be a beacon of Christ in his change.
Conflicting stories explain it, but having killed more than Manson (at least that has been proven in court), Charlie has more of a chance to get out than Tex does.
Patricia Krenwinkel - Evil Patty - always wanted to be loved, but only Charlie said he did. From what she say’s she didn’t understand what was going to happen until she was in the situation and acted to support her clan, though she apparently didn’t really know why it was happening. Reputed to have hissed at Tex to “kill her” before he stabbed Sharon, reported to have said “die die” in a slightly sing song way as she stabbed Rosemary LaBianca, though she says she didn’t. She was as much in the center of it all as Tex was. The most straight forward of accepting of her prison sentence, stating she wakes up everyday knowing that she is a destroyer of life because that is what she deserves, to wake up everyday and know that.
Yet if someone would have loved her, would she have been there?
Susan Atkins - somewhere between the brains behind the entire mess and a robot under Charlie's control, who spoke with love about the One Mind and the flow of the One, that her love allowed Sharon to be released from this Veil of Tears, this mortal Coil to join eternity, yet hissed she didn’t feel or care about Sharon’s condition. Said killing was better than sex, and coming from someone who had smashed all the sexual taboos’s she could find, that is saying something. Now a born again Christian, she sometimes wanted to vie with Charlie over control of the “family”, a control other’s claim he never had. Susan seems to have wanted to be in control, and some say she wants to be the center of her service to Christ. Yet she has matured and now works with people to change. But given her testimony and retraction, her appearance as a indifferent zombie and also an instigator, it is hard to tell what is going on, or if what her relationship with Christ is. Christ does forgive, to those who are true after all. And now she has a Brain Tumor and is paralyzed on one side of her body. I think she has been forgiven and is no threat laying paralyzed in a hospital bed.
Leslie Van Houton - reported to have said she pondered if she could kill someone for a few days, then decided she could. For the Revolution that was coming. Recall, this was the 60’s, revolution and change was in the air, the old ways needed to be swept away. Many a fervent youth wanted to stop the establishment, the PIGS, to make the world a beautiful place, to stop the war. But Charlie’s group was more of a survival group, who would roam the desert away from the cities while the revolution burned. So yeah, Leslie had concluded she could kill. For that. She couldn’t understand why Patricia was upset about the first night. And when she got into the car the second night she had heard the stories from earlier, that some PIGS had been killed, that the family was finally doing something for the revolution. She wanted to prove she was a good soldier. She knew that a death would happen. And when she did stab Rosemary LaBianca she found she liked it. But if you can get soldiers to talk honestly, most of them wondered if they could kill and when honest say they actually enjoy killing, or at least the rush it brings. After you shoot a few people and broken through the internal revulsion, killing is like mowing down wheat. My father who is a retired professional soldier talks of how he wants to go kill some “rag heads” (Islamic types opposed to the USA) even though he hasn’t been in the military in years. He has the desire to kill within him, though it is tempered and held in stasis by the training he received and that the government has not sanctioned him to do so. It is not his deep abiding love of the sanctity of life that keeps him from doing it.
Leslie thought about killing, could she do it, and decided yes, she could, and when asked to participate wanted to prove herself willing and able. But ---- but ---- when stepping from fancying herself ready in her mind to being in the reality of it - she completely checked out and tried to leave. She went into the hallway as Rosemary was being killed, and stared into a room, not hearing or seeing anything. To me this is heartening. None of the others reported thinking about murder, or what they would do, they just went and did it, for whatever reason. Leslie was thinking but when confronted not with a theoretical possibility but with an actual physical fact, she turned from it. Later when Tex found she had not stabbed he handed her a knife and told her to “do something”, to be part of it. We are all in this together. Some say Charlie wanted blood on everyone’s hands, either to bind them in a conspiracy of mutual guilt or to prepare them for Helter Skelter. Or maybe Tex wanted to make sure she was involved after she had been present to his savagery.
One thing that doesn’t seem to have discussed much - was she afraid at the point Tex was standing before her? Manson had declared her to be Tex’s girl/ property. She was supposedly under his domination, though she was known to argue back. But Tex was an athlete, broad enough shoulders, large jaw. And quite obviously willing to kill. Leslie, having been shocked awake to the savagery of murder, shocked to the point of blocking it out, was now in a house with two dead people and the two people who had gone on killing sprees twice in 48 hours. One of them, her “owner’, is handing her a knife and telling her to stab - and it is not entirely clear that she will make it out of the house unless she does so. She has never discussed this, and perhaps she never thought it, but I would have.
She is said to have been afraid of Charlie, so how much she really has murder in her heart and how much she was going along so as to not get killed is unknown except by her. Still she was also the first of the murderers to totally reject Charlie.
Leslie, like this entire group, was no saint. Well as defined by the Catholic Church. She chose the life of drugs, sex, being in the family, and could have left - many did. Leslie seems to be the most of a joiner, though hardly a submissive female type. Yet she had to think about could she, would she? Her choice was yes, though influenced by the knowledge of if she said no, there might be a problem. Leaving didn’t seem an option, she wanted in the “family” where ever it was going. She wasn’t “Crazy Sadie” with a life and image of doing anything extreme, or “Evil Patty” with her issues. She seems to have been the most at choice about it, until death stood in front of her and she turned from it. If Tex hadn’t placed a knife in her hands with instructions to stab, she probably wouldn’t have stabbed anyone. To my mind turning to look into the empty room was her real choice.
Not that I am saying she is blameless or shouldn’t have been sentenced. She showed no remorse or concern for herself at the trial either. But she also seems to have been the least committed of the group also. Next to Linda Kasabian who stabbed no one and begged for it to stop, who on the second night miss directed members to prevent another murder, Leslie doesn’t seem to have loved the face of madness. Compared to the others she did seem to have a conscious still functioning, though faced with her choice she did stab. If anyone of them should be allowed a parole I think it is her. Granted she was in the crime, and the message to those who would commit such a crime that no matter what, you have to be held responsible. The rules of society make sure we all keep our internal killer corralled. The wiser of us have seen we all have anger and the desire to inflict pain on others, so we need to all be limited.
But there is another message that I see that society might need to consider. For the people faced with the choice to go along with the crime, or to hold back. If you hold back but are going to face the same punishment as those that are into the crime totally, why hold back? Especially if the others might turn on you? If you know that by not being a heavy participant you might not be treated as harshly, that to me is something to be encouraged. I know society says hold them down and make them suffer for their crime, but there is another message. If you are an outsider to ones culture and feeling no mercy from it, being treated as harsh as possible simply proves the mercilessness of the culture to you. But if it is seen that while Tex is left in prison because, well he was the most violent and out of control, while Leslie is allowed parole because she wasn’t that committed to the killing, I think that is an important message to those who might be faced with being a criminal or not in their lives.
So I personally, from what I know, support Leslie Van Houton being paroled. She was given the death penalty but has served 40 years in prison, and has changed a great deal. She has counseled many a woman in prison and helped to change a lot of lives. I just think she could serve society better counseling people before they become criminals and create more victims. And she can do that best out here.
It is argued by the prosecutors that she and the family were trying to start an horrific race war, as impossible as that sounds, and for that she needs to be in jail. However it is open for discussion how much any of them really believed this, or was it all a bunch of stupid drug deals gone bad. Even if she was at the time committed to this, she isn’t now.
As for parole - people ask why should she be allowed to go free? The point is she will be on parole, not set free. And given who she is and the wariness of the public I am certain her parole officer will keep a short and tight leash on her. It might even be harder for her on the outside as many will not agree with her being paroled. But from what I can see she would be of far more service preventing victims and criminals by talking to people before they got into a situation that sends them to prison. This is the ultimate victim’s right - to not be one.
So, there you have it, what I learned while sick. What was the real reason for the murders? We will probably never know. I personally doubt that the prosecutors explanation of Helter Skelter is the total truth- even they say each of the participants were probably there for personal and disparate reasons. However, even with my doubts and comments, they did get the right people who deserve the penalty. If anything to keep social order. Not good to have people on the street deciding today is a good day for you to die. Makes going to work kind of like, well the middle east. Though I agree on Van Houton being paroled, I have no doubt the trial was right.
As for Helter Skelter - if the Beatles wanted to send Charlie a message, wouldn’t a phone call have been more efficient then pressing all those records? And those poor stupid blacks, who weren’t baited into following a nutty plan that probably would have had them all killed, they aren’t all that stupid after all are they? Not that anyone