Charles Manson follower ends her silence 40 years after night of slaughter

Source: Malasian Insider

LONDON, Aug 2 — They were the murders that ended the 1960s, the decade of love, in a bloodbath that shocked the world. Now, on the 40th anniversary of the killing of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and her friends by Charles Manson's "Family", the gang member whose testimony convicted the killers has revealed for the first time her full involvement in the crimes.

On the night of Aug 9, 1969, Linda Kasabian was sent by Manson with three other members of his Family — Tex Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel — to break into Tate's home. There they tied up the actress and her friends and stabbed them to death. Kasabian acted as look-out.

Tate was married to the film director Roman Polanski and was eight months' pregnant. In the interview with Kasabian, to be screened in the docu-drama “Manson” on Channel Five next week, she tells how Tate pleaded in vain for the life of her unborn child. She was stabbed 16 times. Her killers wrote the word "pig" in her blood on the wall of her house.

"I saw a woman in a white dress and she had blood all over her and she was screaming and she was calling for her mom. I saw Katie stabbing her," says Kasabian, who is now 60. "I thought about going to a house where there were lights down the road and then I said, 'No, don't do that, because they'll find me and kill all those people'. So I went down the hill and I got into the car and I just stayed there and waited."

The killings horrified America and the rest of the world and the subject has continued to fascinate ever since. It is not hard to see why. Manson's strange, hypnotic hold over his followers turned a group of peaceful hippies living in a commune into a group of merciless killers. In addition, the case involved a range of celebrity names including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and record producer Terry Melcher, the son of Doris Day.

In the end, Manson was convicted of the murders of nine people, thanks to Kasabian who was the prosecution's star witness at his trial in 1970 — although he and his followers claimed they had, in fact, "offed" a total of 35 people whose bodies had been buried in the desert. It is a claim "that may be high, but could still be true", according to Vincent Bugliosi, the lawyer who prosecuted them.

"The Manson murders sounded the death knell for hippies and all they symbolically represented," Bugliosi told the Observer last week. "They closed an era. The ‘60s, the decade of love, ended on that night, on Aug 9, 1969."

Kasabian had been living in hiding, under an assumed name, since the trial. The documentary is her first full public interview since her appearance 20 years ago on an American cable chat show. "I could never accept the fact that I was not punished for my involvement," says Kasabian. "I felt then what I feel now, always and forever, that it was a waste of life that had no reason, no rhyme."

Kasabian was a 20-year-old hippy with a 16-month daughter in July 1969 when she met members of Manson's Family and was asked to join their commune at a dilapidated ranch known as Spahn's. There she met Manson, a 32-year-old racist who had already spent more than half his life in jail. About 20 people were living on the ranch, maintained by a life of petty crime and selling drugs.

"Manson — who was uneducated but highly intelligent — had this phenomenal ability to gain control over other people and get them to do terrible things," said Bugliosi. "Eventually he convinced them that he was the second coming: Christ and the Devil all wrapped up in the same person."

Armageddon was coming, Manson claimed as part of his racist, anti-establishment gospel that predicted a black uprising against the state. Once that was over, he and his followers would take over America. Manson named this insurrection Helter Skelter because he believed details of it were revealed in the song of the same name on the Beatles' “White Album”. "A typical day would be Charlie playing guitar, telling stories, dancing around just being free," Kasabian states in the documentary. In fact, Manson was a talented musician who had met Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. The pair had recorded a few tracks, including one jointly written song "Never Learn Not to Love" that was subsequently recorded by the Beach Boys.

Manson also tried to set up a record contract with the producer Terry Melcher, but the deal had fallen through, a development that was to lead directly to the murders of Tate and her friends. Manson was angry with Melcher for not pursuing the deal and arrived at the latter's house at 10050 Cielo Drive to confront him. However, Melcher had moved on and the house was now occupied by Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate. Manson was told to leave.

"This residence — 10050 Cielo Drive — where Tate and Polanski now lived, came to symbolise the establishment to Charles Manson, particularly the establishment's rejection of him," said Bugliosi. By now, Manson's control over his Family was virtually total, and on July 25 he ordered three of them to go to the house of a drug-dealing acquaintance, Gary Hinman, to demand money. Hinman refused, so they stabbed him to death, using his blood to paint the words "political piggy" on the wall — a grim rehearsal for what would occur at Tate's house.

(article continues here.)

Wikipedia entry on Linda Kasabian

Well, she should be imprisoned for her involvement, but I've said for years, that if Charles Manson had slightly different upbringing, and different life experiences, he could have been the president of the US. He was an out of this world charasmatic guy who had a twisted childhood, and such is what he became. I believe he is a once in a lifetime guy put on this planet, but by virtue of what he experienced early on, never amounted to anything more than a total piece of shit.

a cat is fine too

Yeah he was just a product of his environment

He looks batshit crazy to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uhmtAmwnDQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Uq44qeB_8&feature=related

The Tom Snyder interview is pretty interesting, in that Mason is kind of coherent. But he still rambles, and notice the repetitive gestures he makes in both of the links above.  Unpredictable flashes of rage. He hit the jackpot to the extent that his brand of crazy was superficially similar to hippy-dippy deep thoughts of the age. The hippies mistook the rambling free association for like-wow-man depth.

Genetics or Environment?

I think there's a dollar bet there somewhere....

It isn't too late to string the crazy bitch up.

+

What about the upbringing of all the followers? What's their excuse?

Spoiled, stupid kids brought up in the Do-Your-Own-Thing ethic that dominated in the 1960s.

WAITAMINUTE! Isn't that going on...now?

he crazy man




in the first vid , did he pocket a mike of the table ?

You must know the history behind Hitler and Stalin

They were only following orders?



 

Justice should not care about upbring/enviroment.

You know, I was going to post this same thing, almost word for word.



 

Hippies gone bad while changing the world, one murder at a time.

I've been working on my geneaology for a while.

Imagine how thrilled I was to find out Manson is a cousin of mine (fourth or so)

I had a conversation with a guy who who was in a cell on one side of Manson and listened while one night he had a long conversation with the guy on the other side. I don't remember the gory details but a lot of it had to do with manson's mother and her screwed up relationship with him that obviously had a big impact on him.

I'm going with environment.

Reminds me of this guy––-starting at :38––-. . . . . LOL!

Milgram experiment benefactors. No personal responsibility (or so they may have reasoned).

Man talk like that may get you put on a list nowadays (generically speaking). Attacking social justice and all...

Even worse, the spoiled, stupid kids from the 1960's 'grew up' and raised a generation of more spoiled, stupider kids.  

Thus, a generation of young people who believe it's 'hip' to vote for a shit-bird like Obama.

He had a screwed up childhood, but this untrained poster suspects he's also some variant of schizophrenic. His speech and thoughts are disassociated, bouncing around all over the place. The body language and gestures match that of some street people. The stories he got his followers believing in––that there was a hole in Death Valley with a secret city under it––have the hallmarks of insanity of the schizophrenic variety. He was smart enough to pick up on some of the raps floating around in the hippie world and effectively passed off his insanity as guru-dom; he found he could sort of function and pass for normal in drug-addled hippie circles.

He's apparently missing the auditory and visual hallucinations, though. Also, he was a criminal way before schizophrenia usually manifests itself. That usually pops up in late teens/early 20's, and he was in juvie for violent crimes way before that.

So I'll go with both.

(Interesting fact: he learned to play guitar from Alvin Karpis, the depression-era bank robber, while in the joint.)

Double tap.

  Manson as President. The football by his side at all times.

  The prosecution rests.

Manson is a product of both.  "Nature and Nurture" is the phrase.

I find it interesting and a little depressing that the murders that shocked the world back then would barely rate coverage in the local paper today.

I never bothered to waste much time on this guy, but I'll just pass on the observation I've heard from those who were in a position to know; he is very different on and off camera. As far as the stories, I'd be more inclined to believe he's a very smart socio- and psychopath. I'd think a schizophrenic would be into the world in his own head. This guy fed off of other people and the influence he was able to have on them.

Peter Gabriel's "We Do What We're Told" off of "So" (1986) is based upon the Milgram experiment.

 

Disagree...I think they are also made from very early childhood observations of self-serving behavior by themselves (nothing so selfish as an infant) or others being rewarded and selflessness being punished.

That is just about the most dumbassed thing I have ever read on this site....and thats saying a lot.

That piece of human detritus was never ever capable of being more than he turned out to be.......a filthy, psycho piece of maggot shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2oZWpqtNi4&feature=related

I went to school with her neace.



Why Manson is still alive baffels me.

Charlie don't surf


And it wasn't upbringing for all the followers

Death penality in California got overturn in 1972.  Everyone on Death Row commutted to life, with Parole hearings.

I think that was tha California Supreme Court, but it may have been the SCOTUS, don't remember that detail

She was kind of cute for a psychotic killer.  

That's an odd perspective.

If he wasn't capable of being anything other than what he was then where does the personal responsibility for his actions come in?

There are genetic factors that will predispose people to criminal behavior but in the end it all comes down to choices, and a persons environment has a strong influence on their ability and willingness to make decent ones.

Kind of like Obama

The Christian-Newsom murders and Wichita Massacre didn't rate national coverage, despite being even more horrific. But that's because they're not politically correct these days.

IIRC Tex Watson has changed his life ( his admission, not mine) and is allowed conjugal visits with his wife in prison.............he, Manson and all of those who did the killing should have been taken out somewhere and executed...........

I think it was the drugs. If you take so much LSD and mushrooms and weed and whatever it makes you "break with reality". You start to think that the beatles are personally talking to you through record lyrics. Add on top of that a psychotic 10 time loser drilling your head with all sorts of wacky shit about how hes the Devil and Jesus and mind control games and orgies. (ok, the orgy part is cool but other then THAT....) and when you're only a 20 YO stupid fuck who doesn't know shit. You add all that up and to me its really no different than say some guy getting in a uniform and then gassing jews.

The Supreme court.  He was given the death penalty.  Before he was executed, the Supreme court struck down the death penalty.  Later, the Supreme court reversed itself.



 

Nailed it.





 

Had he been born 20 years or so later and half black he would likely be our VP today.

Ok, then.

But I challenge you to set this up and prove it on the Box O' Truth.

Of course you're right. I will only plead my case by saying my intent was to opine that it wasn't genes and that the influences in his life were a factor. He of course made the choice to become what he did.

I should make it clear I was never near him, only talked briefly to a couple of people who had been around him at one point or another. I'm no expert on the matter and this was all around 15-20 years ago.

extremely charismatic ...

sociopath ...

narcistic ...

could have been president under certain circumstances ...

WHO are we discussing?

I have personally seen far too many previously innocnet young children turned into monsters themselves by the monsters who preyed upon them.

Only if he had been born in a third world shithole though