How an Ex-Cult Member Wrote a Movie About Being in the Manson Family
Charlie Says tells the story from the perspective of three of the Manson Family — Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten — rather than Manson himself
IFC Films
Looking back on her childhood, Guinevere Turner recalls the usual mixed bag of good times and incidents she would rather forget. But unlike most people, she was born into a tightly knit commune of 100 adults and 60 children.
“So much of my childhood is full of really fond memories — I never thought that there were kids out there who had a better life,” Turner says. “I felt bad for everyone else because we were the chosen people who were going to be taken by UFOs to Venus.”
Turner grew up in the Lyman Family, a lesser-known group that — unlike the more notorious communes or cults — didn’t end with a mass suicide, or a series of murders, or a siege in a compound. In fact, according to Turner, the Family is “still alive and well” today and have never considered themselves a cult — always referring to themselves as a “family.” But that didn’t stop comparisons being made between the Lyman Family, which had originated in Boston, and a different group of young people living together on the west coast: the Manson Family. In fact, a 1971 Rolling Stone article referred to Lyman as the “East Coast Charles Manson.”
While the Lyman Family largely faded into obscurity, the Manson Family is currently ubiquitous as the 50th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders that brought an end to the group approaches. With it comes a deluge of Manson-related media, including several movies. But one of those films, Charlie Says, has a unique advantage because the screenwriter — Turner — was able to draw upon her real-life experiences growing up in a commune to breathe new life into a true crime narrative so well-known that it has become a sort of American folklore.
Charlie Says tells the story from the perspective of three of the Manson Family — Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten — rather than Manson himself. But the most memorable aspects of the movie are those that portray the least-memorable times in the Family, shedding light on the everyday moments that didn’t make headlines — when life was simple, and the focus was on community and music. Those parts in particular have Turner’s fingerprints all over them.
Though she seems like an obvious choice to write a Manson Family movie, Turner, who wrote the screenplay for American Psycho, says that the filmmakers initially didn’t know about her background. But, according to the film’s director, Mary Harron — who also directed American Psycho — Turner’s experience in the Lyman Family was invaluable. “She had an intuitive understanding of the dynamics of a cult that no one else could match, really,” she says. “I think she understands that viscerally — how a cult operates.”
For example, Harron says Turner has unique insight into the way cult leaders engage in abusive behavior patterns and are perceived as part father-figure, part religious leader. “She was a child when she was in a cult, but I think she understood how that for young women, [Manson] was like a romantic figure as well, while at the same time being a frightening figure or an intimidating figure,” Harron says. “So it’s such a complex mesh of love and worship and fear and abuse [and] denial of abuse.”
Unlike the women associated with Manson, Turner was born into the Family. Her mother was 19 and pregnant when she joined the group in 1968, and Turner spent the first 11 and a half years of her life moving with the Family between their various properties in Massachusetts, Kansas, New York and California.
Turner is, however, very cautious when using the word “cult” to describe the group, and specifies that she can only speak to her own time living with the group until 1979. It was during this time that she experienced what she considers to be some of the hallmarks of cults, including a charismatic and controlling leader — folk musician and writer Mel Lyman — as well as devaluing biological families, homeschooling and being taught a different set of beliefs. One of those beliefs was that the world was going to end, but the Lyman Family would be saved when aliens escorted them to their new home on Venus. Like Manson, Lyman saw himself as a messiah; he even titled his first book Autobiography of a World Savior.
In 1966, Lyman and his followers purchased several derelict buildings in the Fort Hill section of Boston, living there as they renovated the structures, including when David Felton visited the Family in 1971 for his Rolling Stone article. What Felton described was part urban commune, part heavily-patrolled (by their own members) coercive sect who had to answer to the “Karma Squad” for any rule infractions. Punishment for breaking one of Lyman’s directives could include solitary confinement in a windowless room known as “the vault” where a person could reflect on their behavior.
Unlike the Manson Family, the Lyman Family’s trouble with the law was relatively minor. In 1966 Boston police arrested several members on obscenity charges after they published four words — fuck, shit, piss and cunt — in their underground newspaper, Avatar. Then in 1973, three Family members robbed a federal bank in what they said was a protest of Richard Nixon’s involvement in Watergate, resulting in one being shot and killed by police. After this, the Lyman Family largely faded from the cultural landscape, with the exception of operating a successful construction company in California, with clients including Dustin Hoffman and Steven Spielberg.
All of these components of the Lyman Family’s early days — the transient and communal living, elements of behavioral control, the philosophizing folk musician leader and promises of salvation via aliens — was normal to someone growing up in that environment, where that was the only way of life they knew. This was something Turner incorporated throughout the Charlie Says screenplay. The most striking parts of the film aren’t the murder scenes or the women rehabilitating in prison: it’s how normal — even pleasant — everyday life in the Manson Family seems.
According to Harron, this was entirely by design, and owed to Turner’s expertise — from having her weigh in on what a communal kitchen might look like, to tweaking dialogue. “We were in agreement on that — that if you didn’t show what was appealing about the Family, then the girls just look stupid or delusional,” Harron says. “I think that’s the thing people have balked at, because people want scary horror movie Manson.”
More than any other character, Charlie Says tells the story of Van Houten — the former homecoming queen-turned-Manson Family member who participated in the murder of Rosemary LaBianca by holding her down, then stabbing her 16 times. Like Manson and the other two women imprisoned for the murders, Van Houten was initially sentenced to death, which was then commuted to life in prison in 1972 when the California Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional.
Given the focus of the film on the women in the Family, Van Houten was a natural choice for the protagonist since her infatuation was as much — if not more — with the other women than Manson himself. “Where Patricia Krenwinkel is so deeply, madly in love with Manson, Leslie was not romantically in love with Manson. She was a spiritual seeker,” Harron says. “The biggest emotional bond with her in the cult was her relationship with Pat, and the bonds between the women were extremely strong, and that was another thing — as much as Manson — keeping them there.”
Turner says that she initially struggled to come up with a fresh angle on this well-trodden territory, and came across Karlene Faith’s book, The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult. Faith — who is also a character in Charlie Says — was a college professor who taught the Manson women while they were in prison, gradually getting to know Van Houten and advocating for her release until her death in 2017. After spending time with Faith and understanding her friendship with Van Houten, Turner felt as though she “could paint her the most truthfully with the most complexity.” Faith’s biggest request was for Turner to ensure that the film didn’t in any way jeopardize their chances of parole.
After almost 50 years in prison, parole may actually be a possibility for Van Houten. Though having a major film out around the same time with a nuanced portrayal of Van Houten may galvanize support around her release, Turner says that this wasn’t her aim when she began work on Charlie Says in 2014. In fact, she and Faith agonized over whether making the film was worth making the victims’ families, as well as Van Houten and Krenwinkel, relive the horrific events of August 1969. “I’m so personally hyper-aware that I’m talking about real people — and real families of real victims — and you have to hold that heaviness in your heart,” she says.
Though Turner considered reaching out to Debra Tate — Sharon Tate’s sister and victims’ right advocate — once the movie was completed, she decided against it. “I thought about her so much when writing the movie. Of course if I were in her shoes I’d be like ‘Are you kidding me with this shit?’ And so I thought maybe we should talk to her and show her the movie and say ‘This is where we’re coming from,’” Turner explains. “But then I think about how Sharon is represented in the movie, and she’s represented well, but I don’t know that I need Debra Tate to see an image of her sister begging for her life.”
Ultimately, Turner decided that using her voice and personal experience to write a thoughtful, complex screenplay may help people understand what motivated these three young women to commit murder. “I feel like the one thing this movie can do is give a new perspective on their legacy,” she says. “Historically speaking, this is good for them because hopefully it will make people see them in a different light.” https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/movie-about-manson-family-cult-member-833496/
Manson: The women – Die frauen der manson family 50 jahren danach
Los Angeles, August 1969: Die „Manson Family“, eine Gruppe junger Männer und Frauen, zieht aus, um zu töten. Ihr Anführer Charles Manson, ein Meister der Manipulation. In dieser Dokumentation kommen seine weiblichen Anhänger zu Wort und berichten, wie Manson sie dazu brachte, ihm blind zu folgen und für ihn zu töten. (Text: Kabel Eins Doku) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDheYIRbvTI
Manson: The Women
50 years after the infamous Manson Family murders, we follow the trail of the women who blindly followed Charles Manson including new and exclusive interviews.Aired: 08/10/2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b11Jza7GERY
Zo verging het de leden van de Manson Family, die hun slachtoffers op de meest bloederige manier afslachtten
BUITENLANDCharles Manson (83), de Amerikaanse sekteleider en massamoordenaar die gisteren stierf in de cel, stookte zijn volgelingen op tot de meest afschuwelijke moorden. De ‘Manson Family’ pleegde er zeker negen en stond daarvoor ook terecht. Dit is hoe het hen bijna vijftig jaar later is vergaan.Koen Van De Sype 20-11-17, 18:11 Bron: Crime Feed, nbc News, Daily Mail
Charles ‘Tex’ Watson (71): in de cel
Watson omschreef zichzelf als de rechterhand van Manson en leidde op 9 augustus 1969 de meest notoire moordpartij van de Manson Family. Samen met drie vrouwelijk volgelingen trok hij naar de villa van regisseur Roman Polanski en de hoogzwangere actrice Sharon Tate in Beverly Hills en daar slachtten ze Tate en vier bezoekers op een beestachtige manier af. Hij was er ook bij toen de bende de volgende nacht Leno en Rosemary LaBianca vermoordde in hun huis in Los Angeles.
Lees ook
Watson kreeg de doodstraf, maar toen die in 1972 werd afgeschaft, werd ze omgezet in levenslang. Hij zit nog altijd in een gevangenis vlakbij Sacramento en zijn verzoeken om voorwaardelijke vrij te komen werden stelselmatig afgewezen. Hij schreef een boek waarin hij vertelde hoe de charismatische Manson zijn volgelingen Utopia aanbood en hen overtuigde om zijn ‘destructieve wereldvisie’ uit te voeren. Hij verontschuldigde zich voor de moorden en bekeerde zich tot het christendom. In 1981 werd hij zelfs prediker. Hij behaalde ook zijn diploma achter de tralies.
Susan Atkins (61): stierf aan hersenkanker in 2009
Atkins was een van de vrouwen die aanwezig was bij de moord op Sharon Tate. Ze proefde het bloed van de actrice en schreef er het woord ‘varken’ mee op de muur. Ze bekende dat ze Tate doodgestoken had, terwijl die om haar leven smeekte en dat van haar ongeboren zoon. Ze beweerde wel dat ze op bevel van Manson handelde en dat ze onder invloed was van lsd.
Ook haar doodstraf werd omgezet in levenslang. Ze vroeg om vervroegd vrij te komen toen hersenkanker bij haar werd vastgesteld, maar dat werd geweigerd. Ze stierf in de cel in 2009, op 61-jarige leeftijd. Toen ze nog bij de sekte woonde, kreeg ze een kind van Manson: Zezozoze Zadfrack. Over hem en waar hij zich nu ophoudt, is niets bekend.
Patricia Krenwinkel (69): in de cel
Krenwinkel was een 19-jarige secretaresse toen ze Manson (toen 33) voor het eerst ontmoette op een feestje. Drie dagen later liet ze have en goed achter om hem te volgen, omdat ze dacht dat er iets tussen hen bloeide. Ze kwam al snel met de voeten op de grond toen Manson haar begon te mishandelen en ‘uitleende’ aan andere mannen, zo vertelde ze vorig jaar. Ze was meestal onder invloed.
Ze was aanwezig bij de moordpartij in het huis van Sharon Tate en achtervolgde Abigail Folger (26) door het huis voor ze haar herhaaldelijk neerstak. Een dag later hielp ze ook bij de moord op de LaBianca’s. Manson en Watson zeiden haar dat ze iets ‘heksachtigs’ moest doen en daarop stak ze Leno LaBianca met een vork in de maag. Daarna schreef ze met zijn bloed op de muren. Ze kreeg de doodstraf – die werd omgezet in levenslang – en is de vrouw die al het langst in de cel zit in de staat Californië. Ze vroeg al 13 keer om vervroegd vrij te komen, maar tevergeefs.
Linda Kasabian (68): vrij, woont in New Hampshire
Kasabian reed met de vluchtwagen toen de volgelingen van Manson uit moorden gingen. Ze was naar eigen zeggen compleet in shock toen ze zag wat er gebeurde en zou er twee dagen na de moorden vandoor gaan. Daarvoor had ze de moord op een Libanees acteur die ze kende, verijdeld door op de verkeerde deur te kloppen. Ze was de kroongetuige in het moordproces Tate/LaBianca en kreeg daarvoor immuniteit. Ze zou nu ergens in alle stilte leven in New Hampshire.
Leslie Van Houten (68): in de cel
Van Houten was het jongste lid van de sekte en pas 19 toen ze betrokken raakte bij de moord op de LaBianca’s. Ze hield Rosemary in bedwang met een kussensloop over haar hoofd, terwijl anderen haar tientallen keren staken met messen. Toen Watson haar opdroeg om ‘iets te doen’, nam ze een slagersmes en stak ze de vrouw bijna een dozijn keer.
Sinds ze meer dan 40 jaar geleden aan haar levenslange celstraf begon, was ze een modelgevangene. Ze heeft een masterdiploma van therapeut, kreeg een erkenning en helpt nu andere gevangenen. Vorig jaar oordeelde de raad voor vervroegde in vrijheidsstelling dat ze vrij kon komen, maar gouverneur Jerry Brown herriep dat omdat ze volgens hem nog altijd een “onredelijk gevaar voor de samenleving” was. In september kreeg ze weer groen licht van de raad en momenteel loopt een periode van 150 dagen waarin Brown opnieuw van zich kan laten horen.
Steve ‘Clem’ Grogan (66): vrij
Steve Grogan werd door Manson vaak ‘Scramblehead’ genoemd, omdat hij niet van de verstandigste was. Hij nam net als Van Houten alleen deel aan de moord op de LaBianca’s en kreeg de doodstraf. Een rechter zette die straf om in levenslang “omdat hij te dom en te zwaar onder de invloed van drugs was” om de slachtpartij mee georkestreerd te kunnen hebben. Hij kwam vrij in 1985 en is de enige effectieve moordenaar van de Manson Family die intussen op vrije voeten is.
Bruce Davis (75): in de cel
Davis zit een levenslange celstraf uit voor de moord op muzikant Gary Hinman en stuntman Donald ‘Shorty’ Shea in 1969. Hij viel die laatste aan met een mes en hield Hinman onder schot terwijl Manson zijn gezicht bewerkte met een zwaard. “Ik wilde zijn favoriet zijn”, verklaarde hij daarover in 2014. Hij hield lang vol dat hij alleen had toegekeken, maar erkende later zijn verantwoordelijkheid.
Een speciaal panel besliste al vijf keer dat hij vrij kon komen omdat hij niet langer als een gevaar wordt beschouwd. Het haalde zijn leeftijd en goed gedrag aan als reden. Bruce Davis haalde onder meer een doctoraatstitel in de cel en bekeerde zich tot het christendom. Maar de beslissing voor zijn vrijlating werd al elke keer tegengehouden door de gouverneur van Californië.
Robert (Bobby) Beausoleil (70): in de cel
Beausoleil kreeg de doodstraf voor de moord op Gary Hinman, maar ook bij hem werd die omgezet in levenslang. Zijn recentste vraag om vervroegd vrij te komen dateert van oktober vorig jaar, maar ze werd geweigerd. Hij was muzikant en acteur toen hij bij de Manson Family terechtkwam en zat in de cel ten tijde van de moorden in het huis van Sharon Tate en de LaBianca’s. In 1994 werd hij overgebracht naar de staatsgevangenis van Oregon in Salem, nadat hij in de cel getrouwd was met een vrouw uit die staat en met haar vier kinderen kreeg.
Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme (69): voorwaardelijk vrij
Fromme was een kindsterretje uit Venice Beach toen ze Manson in 1967 leerde kennen op een feestje in Manhattan Beach. Daar was ook Krenwinkel aanwezig. Ze nam niet deel aan de moordpartijen, maar woonde wel het proces daarover bij. In 1975 werd ze opgepakt door de geheime dienst nadat ze een pistool had gericht op toenmalig president Gerald Ford. Ze werd tot levenslang veroordeeld voor poging tot moord. In de cel bleef ze corresponderen met Manson. Ondanks het feit dat ze kort kon ontsnappen, kwam ze in 2009 vervroegd vrij. Ze zou nu in Marcy in de staat New York wonen.
Mary Brunner (73): voorwaardelijk vrij
Zij was een van de eerste leden van de Manson Family en schonk Manson een zoon, Michael Valentine. Ze speelde geen rol in de moorden, maar werd opgepakt in 1971 nadat ze een wapenwinkel overvallen had als onderdeel van een plan om Manson uit de cel te bevrijden. Ze raakte daarbij gewond. Ze kwam vervroegd vrij in 1977. Het is onduidelijk wat ze daarna deed.
Susan Atkins (overleden), de opschepster
In september zal het tien jaar geleden zijn dat Susan Atkins in de gevangenis stierf aan een hersentumor, ze was toen 61. Atkins was nochtans een taaie. Nooit heeft ze spijt willen tonen over de Manson-moorden. Zij was het ook die het niet kon laten om overal op te scheppen over de bloeddorstigheid van de Family en die zo haar broeders en zusters aan de galg praatte. Atkins was nog een tiener toen ze gewapende overvallen pleegde en topless danste om aan de kost te komen. Tot ze helemaal in de ban raakte van Charles Manson, die haar haar nieuwe naam Sadie Mae Glutz gaf. Hij was “de enige complete man” die ze ooit ontmoette, en ze geloofde dat hij Jezus was. Er waren geen grenzen aan wat ze zou doen voor Manson, verklaarde ze zelf.
Dus deed ze het, toen hij haar in 1968 opdroeg om haar pasgeboren zoon de naam Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz te geven. En ze deed het, toen hij haar de opdracht gaf voor een gruwelmoord. Met enthousiasme zelfs. Het was Watson die die negende augustus 1969 een jongen van achttien doodschoot op de oprit van de villa. Het waren Watson en Krenwinkel die het bevriende koppel van de Polanski’s doodden. Maar het was Susan Atkins die de 8,5 maanden zwangere Sharon Tate neerstak, en bleef steken, terwijl de actrice smeekte voor het leven van haar baby. Ze wist zelf niet meer hoeveel keer, verklaarde ze, ze was “stoned op LSD”. Zij was het die in bloed “PIG” schreef op de witte voordeur, en ze was er ook de volgende dag bij voor de LaBianca-moorden. Vervolgens kraste Atkins een X op haar voorhoofd, uit solidariteit met de goeroe, en verstoorde ze op elke mogelijke manier het moordproces. Ze kreeg levenslang. https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20190808_04551249
Charles Manson
Charles Manson was born to a teenage mother in Ohio who, by all accounts, never wanted him. He was prone to stealing and had spent most of his life in jail by the time he met Mary Brunner, essentially the first member of his “family,” in Berkeley in 1967. He successfully recruited many people into his commune, though several of them were never directly involved in any of the murders and most would eventually move on or renounce him.
Jeff Guinn, who interviewed various relatives about Manson for his book Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson, wrote he was deceitful even as a child.
Little Charles Manson was a disagreeable child. Beyond his doting grandmother, who still recognized his many faults, few who knew him then or in his ensuing teenage years found much to admire about him beyond his looks. Charlie’s dimpled smile could light up rooms, and his eyes were dark and expressive. But even at such a young age, he lied about everything and, when he got in trouble for telling fibs of breaking things or any of the other innumerable misdeeds he committed on a daily basis, Charlie always blamed somebody else for his actions. This child was also obsessed with being the center of attention. If he couldn’t get noticed for doing something right, he was just as willing to attract attention for misbehaving. You couldn’t ever relax when Charlie was around. It was only a matter of time before he got up to something bad.
Manson was found guilty of seven counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1971. That sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972, as was the case with all inmates who had been sentenced to death in the state of California at that time, after the state’s Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional. Prior to his death in Nov. 19, 2017, Manson had been serving his life sentence at Corcoran State Prison, where he’d been incarcerated since 1989. He was denied parole repeatedly over the years.
Not long before his death, Manson’s grandson Jason Freeman, told the Times: “Old age is setting in. Nature is taking its course. There will be a day where [Manson] doesn’t wake up again,” Freeman said.
Freeman is the son of Jay White, who was born Charles Manson, Jr. White’s mother was Manson’s wife, Rosalie Willis, who Manson married in 1955, years before his cult leader days. White killed himself in 1993.
Manson was not a model prisoner, and was cited numerous times for contraband and other violations. In 1984, one of his fellow inmates lit him on fire after Manson allegedly threatened the inmate.
Not long before his death, Manson was engaged to a decades younger woman named Afton Burton, although the betrothal was, at one point, threatened by allegations that Burton only wanted him so that she could set up his corpse as a tourist attraction. Burton’s mother called these allegations “tabloid crap” and asserted that the engagement was still on in an interview with Rolling Stone in February of 2015.
Bruce Davis
Bruce Davis grew up in the South, eventually moving to the West Coast in 1962. Prior to his involvement with the Manson Family, he worked for the Church of Scientology.
Bruce Davis was not involved in the Tate or LaBianca murders, but was convicted for his role in the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald Shea.
He is currently in prison at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo where he acts as a minister in the prison chapel. He has also gotten married and fathered one child.
Like many other convicted Manson Family members, Davis has been recommended for parole multiple times only to have those recommendations reversed. In early 2016, Gov. Jerry Brown elected to block his release, saying, “As I’ve discussed twice before, Davis’ own actions demonstrate that he had fully bought into the depraved Manson Family beliefs. He not only watched as Manson cut Mr. Hinman’s face open with a sword, but held him at gunpoint while Manson was doing so.”
The state parole board again recommended Davis for release in June 2019 but reversed by Gov. Newsom that November. Davis had another parole hearing scheduled for December 2020, which was postponed until January. He was again recommended for parole.
Newsom reversed that decision on June 18 saying Davis “currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time.”
Davis turned 78 in April.
Leslie Van Houten
Leslie Van Houten grew up in a middle-class family in Altadena. Following the divorce of her parents at age 14, Van Houten began using drugs. According to her testimony in her 2004 parole hearing, her mother forced her to have an abortion at 17, which deeply affected her relationship with her family. Still, she was a popular prom queen in high school, and she briefly attended classes to become a secretary. However, Van Houten favored the hippie lifestyle over school and dropped out. In 1968, she met Manson at a commune in Northern California and, at 19, joined his following and began taking LSD.
On Aug. 9, 1969, Van Houten accompanied several other Manson members to the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Van Houten held Rosemary down as Watson stabbed her, then Van Houten took her turn. She has maintained that of the 47 stab wounds found on Rosemary’s body, she only inflicted ones that occurred after Rosemary’s death.
She was convicted of murder in 1971 and was sentenced to death, though her sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972. Van Houten currently resides in the California Institution for Women in Corona, where she is considered a model prisoner. She has achieved a bachelor’s and a master’s degree while incarcerated and leads self-help groups for her fellow inmates. She has long since renounced Manson.
Van Houten has been up for parole more than 20 times. Most recently, on Sept. 20, 2019, a court of appeals refused to overturn former Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision to block her release after the state parole board recommended her for parole in April 2016. Sharon Tate’s sister, Debra Tate, as well as L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey advocated for Van Houten to remain in prison.
Brown explained his decision in a statement, saying, “Both [Van Houten’s] role in these extraordinarily brutal crimes and her inability to explain her willing participation in such horrific violence cannot be overlooked and lead me to believe she remains an unreasonable risk to society if released.”
Van Houten has been recommended for release again, only to stay behind bars when Gov. Gavin Newsom overruled a new parole recommendation in June 2019. A court declined to reverse the governor’s decision.
On July 23, 2020, the Associated Press reported a panel had once again recommended Van Houten for parole, the fourth time in four years. The AP said a spokeswoman for Newsom released a statement saying: “As with any parole suitability recommendation, when the case reaches the Governor’s Office, it will be carefully reviewed on its merits.”
In November 2020, Gov. Newsom reversed that decision.
Van Houten is now 71.
Charles “Tex” Watson
Charles “Tex” Watson was arguably the most vicious member of the Manson Family. Manson may have orchestrated the killings, but Watson was more often than not the hand that carried them out. He participated in the Cielo Drive murders, personally shooting Steven Parent and Jay Sebring and assisted in the other slayings. He was also active in the LaBianca murders.
Watson grew up in Texas, hence his nickname. In the 1960s, he worked for Braniff Airlines as a baggage handler. This gave him access to free airline tickets, which he used to visit an old college friend in Los Angeles. He eventually decided to move to the L.A. area in 1967. According to his 2011 parole hearing, Watson was renting a house in Malibu with a friend. He one day picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be Beach Boys’ drummer Dennis Wilson. Wilson invited Watson to his home, where he met Charles Manson and ultimately joined Manson’s following.
Watson was sentenced to death in 1971, which was commuted to life in prison the following year. He is currently an inmate of Mule Creek State Prison in Ione. Since his incarceration, he has converted to Christianity, becoming an ordained minister in 1981. He also released an autobiography titled Will You Die For Me? (1978) and earned a B.S. in business management in 2009. In 1979, he married Kristin Joan Svege, with whom he fathered four children via conjugal visits. The state of California got rid of those visits for prisoners serving life sentences in the late ’90s. At the time, Sharon Tate’s mother, Doris Tate, was one of the biggest advocates for eliminating such visits for violent felons. She was enraged that Watson murdered her daughter and grandchild, yet was allowed to father children of his own. Svege amicably divorced Watson in 2003.
Watson apparently reads his own Wikipedia page and seems to have submitted requests to have it edited. In those requests, he named Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s book Helter Skelter as his preferred source for Manson-related research. He was most recently eligible for parole in October 2016. He was denied for the seventeenth time in 47 years.
“These were some of the most horrific crimes in California history, and we believe [Watson] continues to exhibit a lack of remorse and remains a public safety risk,” L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement. Sharon Tate’s sister Debra Tate also spoke out, calling him a sociopath who is “incapable of having insight or empathy for anything.”
Watson is currently 75. His next parole hearing is scheduled for October 2021.
Patricia Krenwinkel
Patricia Krenwinkel grew up in Los Angeles as the quiet daughter of an insurance salesman and a stay-at-home mom. While living with her sister in Manhattan Beach in 1967, she met Manson and became enamored with him. She soon joined his commune and traveled with him for several months. In 1969, at age 21, she was a devoted follower who agreed to participate in Manson’s plans for Helter Skelter.
Krenwinkel was present for the murders on Cielo Drive. In particular, she testified that she was the one to murder Abigail Folger. She first stabbed her in the living room of the house, then chased her outside and stabbed her several more times. According to Women Criminals: An Encyclopedia of People and Issues, Krenwinkel said she felt nothing when she killed her. “Nothing, I mean, what is there to describe? It was just there, and it was right.” She also participated in the LaBianca murders the following night, assisting Van Houten and Watson in the murder of Rosemary. Krenwinkel has admitted to stabbing Leno with a fork and writing “DEATH TO PIGS” on the wall of their home with the LaBiancas’ blood.
She was sentenced to death in 1971, though her sentence was also commuted to life in prison in 1972. She is currently held at the California Institution for Women in Chino, where she apparently goes by “Krenny.” She has earned a bachelor’s in human services, and is involved with various prison programs. She, too, has renounced Manson.
She has been denied parole over a dozen times, although her most recent attempt in 2016 was delayed by her lawyers’ assertion that she was suffering from “intimate partner battery” at the time of her crimes, a legal defense that has in the past been used to free those who suffered abuse at the hands of romantic partners or family members. In 2017, parole board commissioners once again denied Krenwinkel parole.
She is now 73. Her next parole hearing is scheduled for June 2022.
Susan Atkins
Susan Atkins was born in San Gabriel and grew up in San Jose. Her mother died of cancer when Atkins was 15, and her father fell into alcoholism following his wife’s death. By 1967, Atkins had been abandoned by her father and was living in Los Banos, working as a waitress and attending high school while attempting to care for her little brother. She dropped out of her junior year of high school and relocated to San Francisco. There, she encountered Manson while he was playing guitar and soon accepted his invitation to join his commune. Manson prosecutor and Helter Skelter author Vincent Bugliosi once said that excluding Manson himself, it was Atkins who had the “most unfortunate background.”
On July 25, 1969, Atkins went with several followers, including Bobby Beausoleil and Mary Brunner, to the home of musician Gary Hinman, who Manson believed had money he could give them. Hinman was attacked and Manson himself sliced Hinman’s ear with a sword. When the others left, Atkins and Brunner remained with Hinman and treated his wounds. Two days later, Beausoleil returned and murdered Hinman, while Atkins and Brunner were present. They wrote “political piggy” on Hinman’s living room wall in his blood.
Atkins was also present on the night of the Cielo Drive murders and used Tate’s blood to write “PIG” on the front door of the home. She was present the night of the LaBianca murders as well, but stayed in the car.
While in jail on unrelated charges in October 1969, she boasted to two other inmates about how she had murdered actress Sharon Tate. These inmates informed authorities of her story, which significantly aided the detectives working the case. Atkins later agreed to testify against the others, admitting in court that she held Tate down as Watson stabbed her. She said that she told Tate that she had no mercy for her, as Tate begged for her and her baby’s lives.
Atkins was sentenced to death in 1971, which was, like the others’ sentences, commuted to life in 1972. She renounced Manson and became a born-again Christian. She also married twice while incarcerated. She married Donald Laisure, who had been married at least two dozen times before, in 1981. They divorced, and she remarried attorney James W. Whitehouse in 1987. It was Whitehouse who would go on to defend Atkins at her parole hearings in 2000 and 2005, and he remained married to her until the day she died.
In 2008, Atkins was diagnosed with brain cancer. She died in September 2009 at 61, after spending 38 years at the California Institution for Women in Chino. At the time of her death, she was the longest-serving female inmate in the state of California. With her death, that dubious honor became Krenwinkel’s.
Atkins was survived by one son, who was born prior to the 1969 murders. She named the boy Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz, though her parental rights were terminated after she was imprisoned. Because her family members declined to care for him, he was adopted and renamed, and Atkins would never see him again. His whereabouts are currently unknown. It is believed that a brief Manson commune member named Bruce White (not Manson) was the boy’s father.
Bobby Beausoleil
Bobby Beausoleil grew up in Santa Barbara. He was involved with several bands and appeared in various films, including Kenneth Anger’s short film Lucifer Rising and Mondo Hollywood. He also appeared in a soft porn/Western film with Manson follower Catherine Share that was shot at the Spahn Ranch and titled Ramrodder. Beausoleil once lived with musician Gary Hinman, who the Manson Family would murder in July 1969.
Beausoleil was convicted of Hinman’s murder and sentenced to death in 1970, a sentence that was commuted, just like the rest, in 1972. He is currently being held at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville and was denied parole most recently in April 2019 and is not scheduled to have another hearing until July 2023. He is 73.
Beausoleil has continued to make music in jail, providing the soundtrack to Lucifer Rising, as well as releasing two instrumental albums. Beausoleil was not Anger’s first choice for composer; the score was to be composed by Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, but Anger and Page had a falling out. (Another Manson follower, Lynette Fromme, would also have an encounter with Page, sort of. She once tried desperately to contact him about a premonition she had regarding some future disaster she foresaw for him.)
Anger writes about how he made the occult film here.
Steve “Clem” Grogan
Steve Grogan was a high school dropout who eventually found himself doing various odd jobs at Spahn Ranch, where he befriended ranch hand and movie stuntman Donald Shea. So, Grogan was already at Spahn Ranch by the time Manson and company arrived. They called him “Scramblehead,” supposedly because he was not considered to be as intelligent as other members of the group.
Grogan did not participate in either the Tate nor the LaBianca murders. On the night of the LaBianca murders, Grogan set out with several Family members, but was sent by Manson to kill an actor fellow Family member Linda Kasabian had recently met. Kasabian intentionally led the group to the wrong house, and they did not kill anyone that night.
Grogan did, however, participate in the murder of Donald Shea in late August 1969. Shea’s body was not recovered until Grogan agreed to help authorities find it in 1977. In 1985, Grogan became one of the few Manson followers to be released from prison.
Grogan is, in some reports, the one who allegedly crashed Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s Ferrari.
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was born in Santa Monica. Her dad was an aeronautical engineer, and her mom stayed home. As a child, she was a member of a popular dance troupe. When Fromme was in high school, her family moved to Redondo Beach, where Fromme began experimenting with drugs. She graduated high school and briefly enrolled in college. She dropped out about two months in and, after a falling out with her family, became homeless. In 1967, a directionless Fromme met Manson in Venice, soon joining Manson, Brunner and Atkins at the Spahn Ranch. The ranch’s owner, George Spahn, began calling her “Squeaky” due to the noises she supposedly made when touched.
Fromme did not participate in any of the Manson murders, but she remained devoted to the Family after their arrest. She lingered outside the courthouse and carved an “x” in her forehead, just as her accused companions did.
After the trials, Fromme moved to Sacramento, where she avoided yet another murder conviction. She and four others were arrested for the murders of James and Lauren Willett. The other four, including Aryan Brotherhood members Michael Monfort and James Craig, confessed and Fromme was the only one of them to avoid charges.
Fromme finally found herself behind bars in the mid-’70s. On Sept. 5, 1975, when she was 26, she pulled a gun and aimed it at President Gerald R. Ford. She was quickly disarmed by Secret Service agent Larry Buendorf and arrested. Though the gun did not have a round in the chamber and her lawyers argued that she had no intention of killing Ford, she was convicted of the attempted assassination of the president and sentenced to life in prison.
She was, unlike her more murderous family members, was not a model prisoner. She attacked another inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California with a hammer, and briefly escaped Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia in an attempt to reunite with Manson. She also remained devoted to him, even after the others had renounced him.
In 2009, at 60, Fromme was paroled and relocated to a small town in Oneida County, New York.
Linda Kasabian
Linda Kasabian grew up in New England, dropped out of high school and drifted around the country. She married twice and had a baby girl, Tanya, with her second husband, Robert Kasabian. It was Robert who would lead Linda to Los Angeles, inviting her to come live with him following a brief split during which she had gone to live with her mother in New Hampshire. Together, she and Robert lived in the hippie communes of Topanga Canyon. After Robert left Linda behind to go on a trip to South America, Linda found friendship in Catherine Share, who invited her to join a commune on Spahn Ranch.
Kasabian quickly became a part of the group and often accompanied the Manson family members on what Manson called “creepy crawls,” in which they would break into homes and loot them while their owners slept, blissfully unaware.
Because Kasabian was the only family member with a driver’s license, that became her role in the killings. She overheard the slaughter going on in the house on Cielo Drive, and said that she got out of the car and began running towards the house, hoping she could stop them. She testified seeing Wojciech Frykowski exiting the house. (Note: Susan Atkins went by Sadie.)
There was a man just coming out of the door and he had blood all over his face and he was standing by a post, and we looked into each other’s eyes for a minute, and I said, ‘Oh, God, I am so sorry. Please make it stop.’ And then he just fell to the ground into the bushes. And then [Atkins] came running out of the house, and I said, ‘Sadie, please make it stop.’ And then I said, ‘I hear people coming.’ And she said, ‘It is too late.’ And then she told me that she left her knife and she couldn’t find it, and I believe she started to run back into the house. While this was going on the man had gotten up, and I saw Tex on top of him, hitting him on the head and stabbing him, and the man was struggling, and then I saw [Krenwinkel] in the background with [Abigail Folger], chasing after her with an upraised knife, and I just turned and ran to the car down at the bottom of the hill.
The next night, she accompanied group members to the LaBianca home, but did not go inside. Manson then asked Kasabian to take the rest of them to the home of Saladin Nader, an actor Kasabian and Manson member Sandra Good had recently met. Kasabian was supposed to knock on the door of Nader’s house and, when he answered, Atkins and Grogan were to be poised to kill him. However, Kasabian instead chose the wrong apartment. They did not kill the occupant of that apartment.
Two days later, Kasabian and her daughter left the Manson family and returned to New Hampshire. Kasabian would later turn herself in for the crimes and agreed to testify against the others in exchange for immunity, becoming the prosecution’s key witness.
Bugliosi believed that Kasabian would have testified even without immunity.
“She never asked for immunity from prosecution, but we gave it,” he said. “She stood in the witness box for 17 or 18 days and never broke down, despite the incredible pressure she was under. I doubt we would have convicted Manson without her.”
Kasabian has since tried to live a quiet life with her children. When she has appeared in her rare interviews, she has used a disguise. She turns 72 next week.
Mary Brunner
Mary Brunner was an early Manson devotee, and the mother of one of his sons. She grew up in Wisconsin, but met Manson in Berkeley, where she worked as a library assistant at the University of California. It was a chance encounter that occurred while taking her dog for a walk. The pair hit if off, and Manson moved into her apartment. He would later convince her to allow other women to move in, a portent for the “family” he intended to build. The couple had a son, Valentine Michael, in 1968. Brunner ended up settling with Manson and the rest of his followers at Spahn Ranch.
Brunner accompanied Beausoleil and Atkins to the home of Hinman, but was not convicted of his murder. Rather, she received immunity for testifying against the others. On Aug. 8, hours before the Cielo Drive murders, Brunner and follower Sandra Good were arrested for using stolen credit cards.
Brunner was arrested in 1971 after participating in the heist of the Hawthorne surplus store with several other followers, including Catherine Share. She was released in 1977, changed her name and has since gone on to live a quiet, reclusive life, reportedly in the Midwest.
Brunner and Manson’s son was raised by his maternal grandparents. According to Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter:
Valentine Michael (“Pooh Bear”), the son of Manson and Mary Brunner, was raised by Mary’s parents in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Until the third grade he did not know who his father was and believed his mother to be his older sister. In 1993, Michael told a reporter who tracked him down that he had never visited Manson “nor do I have any desire to see him. He’s just some evil person I have nothing to do with.”
Sandra Good
San Diego native Sandra Good linked up with Manson in 1968 and lived with the family on Spahn Ranch. She did not participate in the Tate/LaBianca murders, as she and Brunner had been arrested on Aug. 8 for using stolen credit cards.
She remained loyal to Manson for many years. In 1975, she and follower Susan Murphy were arrested for sending nearly 200 hostile letters to various corporate executives. According to Helter Skelter, the letters “threatened named corporate executives and U.S. government officials with death if they did not forthwith stop polluting the air and water and destroying the environment.” Good represented herself in court and was sentenced to 15 years, though she would only serve 10.
Even after she was released in 1985, she continued her infatuation with Manson. Because she was not allowed to return to California as a condition of her parole, she instead moved to Vermont where she took an assumed name. When her parole ended, she uprooted her life and move to Hanford, California to be closer to Manson, despite not being granted visiting privileges.
At least until 2006, Good was still a loyal supporter, calling into talk shows to claim Manson’s innocence.
It is not clear where Good lives now. She is 77.
Paul Watkins
Paul Watkins was a drifter who met Charles Manson at a house in Topanga Canyon in the spring of 1968. Watkins would testify that on New Year’s Eve of that same year, Manson gathered the family together to tell them about Helter Skelter. Watkins did not maintain his devotion to Manson as much as the others and did not participate in any of the murders. He was out in Death Valley, when the Tate/LaBianca murders were committed. Watkins was, however, key in testifying as to what the impetus for the Manson Family’s crimes might have been, as he was able to tell investigators about Helter Skelter. (You can read his testimony here.)
Watkins continued to renounce Manson after the trial. He went on to settle in Tecopa near Death Valley. He founded the Death Valley Chamber of Commerce, married twice and had two children. One of his daughters, author Claire Vaye Watkins, has written about the impact her father’s legacy had on her life. Watkins died in 1990 of leukemia, when Claire was a child.
I was 10 years old when I read that my father was “a good-looking youth with a way with women, had been Manson’s chief procurer of young girls”. My sister came home from school crying because some kid had been teasing her. His taunt was that our father was a murderer for Charles Manson. We didn’t know about Charlie yet, but for me the words “Charles Manson” had somehow already been imbued with evil. When our mother came home from work, we asked her about it and she said, “Yes, he was in the Manson Family. And no, he didn’t kill anyone.” She pointed us to Helter Skelter, which had been on a bookshelf in our family room all along. My sister found him in the index:
Watkins, Paul, 311, 313, 316-32, 335, 343, 366, 373-74, 384, 388, 391, 440, 465, 479, 481, 485, 498, 502, 512, 513, 551, 590, 599, 603, 610, 630, 642, 664-65
Lise skimmed his entries and, satisfied that our father had not killed anyone, we went on with our lives. It wasn’t traumatic. It wasn’t a moment of revelation. Our father was still dead and we were still left with a scrim of memories so thin we sometimes had no memories at all.
https://laist.com/news/manson-family-guide-where-they-are-now