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- Death in Los Angeles
On 27 July 1969. Gary Hinman. a 34 year-old music teacher,
became the first victim of the Manson Family. Three Family
members. Bobby Beausoleil. Mary Brunner and Sadie Mae
Glutz. had been sent round to his house to collect some
money that was owed.
They knew he had it - he ran a very profitable illegal
drugs operation and the rumour was that he had just inherited
$20.000 and had hidden it in his house on the Old Topanga
Canyon Road. Los Angeles.
The three visitors argued with Hinman for two hours. Finally.
Bobby Beausoleil lost patience, and pulled a gun a 9mm
Radom pistol. He handed it over to Sadie while he went
to search the house. At that moment.
Gary tried to escape and began struggling with Sadie.
The gun went off. and the bullet ricocheted through the
kitchen, embedding itself under the sink. Bobby ran back
into the room, grabbed the gun and hit Gary around the
head with it.
First victim
They telephoned Charles Manson who came to the house himself,
with Bruce Davis. Manson took a sword, which he used to
cut Hinman's ear. leaving a 5in wound. He told Beausoleil
to find out where the money was and then bring Hinman
out to the ranch. He instructed the two girls to clean
up his wounds.
Bobby. Mary and Sadie Mae tied Gary up and left him on
the hearth rug while they ransacked the house. Mary Brunner
then stitched up Hinmans cuts with dental floss, wrapped
his wounds in bandages and gave him something to drink.
All they got out of him were the pink slips signing his
two cars over to them.
At dawn. Gary Hinman ran for the window and began to scream
for help. Bobby Beausoleil panicked and seizing a knife,
stabbed Hinman twice through the chest, leaving him to
bleed to death. The three wiped away all their fingerprints
(except one) and bundled up incriminating bloodstained
clothes and bandages.
Somebody stuck a finger in Gary Hinman's blood and scrawled
the words 'Political Piggy on the wall above his head,
another daubed a crude version of a cat's paw. the sign
of the militant Black Panthers. They had locked all the
doors and were on their way out via the side window when
they decided to climb back in and smother Hinman.
Hot-wiring Hinman's VW minibus, they all drove home to
Spahn Ranch, stopping off on the way at the Topanga Kitchen
for coffee and cherry cake. Three weeks later, at around
midnight night, on 8 August, a white and yellow Ford moved
slowly down Cielo Drive. Hollywood, stopping opposite
number 10050. the home of actress Sharon Tate.
Tex Watson had been there before. While Linda Kasabian,
Katie (Patricia Krenwinkel) and Sadie Mae Glutz watched.
Tex shinned up a telegraph pole and cut the wires linking
10050 with the outside world.
Tex. Linda. Katie (Patricia Krenwinkel) and Sadie Mae
climbed over the security fence, clutching their bundles
of spare clothes and their double-edged knives. Tex carried
the Family gun. a .22 Buntline Special and 43ft of three-ply
white nylon rope, snaked round his shoulder. The house
lay wide open.
Car headlights
A white, two-seater Nash Ambassador came down the drive,
on the way out. Brandishing the gun. Tex leapt into the
headlight beams screaming for the driver to stop. He thrust
the gun into the car window and shot 18 year-old Steven
Parent four times in the chest and pushed the car into
the bushes.
Tex sent Linda. Katie and Sadie Mae to scout around the
house, but they found no way in. so he began cutting his
way through the screens of an empty room at the front.
Linda stayed outside keeping watch and never entered the
house. The three walked in and saw Voytek Frykowski. lying
stretched out on a large couch.
Devil's business
Frykowski woke to find the Buntline thrust in his face.
Tex. Katie and Sadie Mae surrounded him. When he asked
what they wanted. Tex replied. 'I'm the Devil. I'm here
to do the Devil's business. Give me your money. Sadie
Mae went and found a towel to tie up Frykowski's hands.
Then she wandered round the house, finding Abigail Folger
lying reading on her bed.
Sadie walked past, and stood in the doorway of another
bedroom, watching Sharori Tate, eight months pregnant,
talking to Jay Sebrmg. Sadie reported back to Tex. who
sent her back to get them. Jay Sebrmg. an ex-navy man.
demanded that Sharon be allowed to sit down and then he
made a lunge for the gun.
Tex shot Sebring through the armpit. When Tex demanded
money, his victims were eager to give it to him. While
Frykowski lay tied up on the couch. Tex yoked Abigail
Folger and Sharon Tate to the unconscious Jay Sebring.
pulled the nooses tight and threw the rope end over the
wooden beam that ran across the living room. Sadie Mae
hung on to it. Tex then told Sadie to kill Frykowski.
He went down fighting. As she raised her double-edged
knife, he finally wrenched his hands free, reached up,
pulled her by the hair and banged her head. She lashed
out with the knife, stabbing him in the legs four times,
then in the back twice. Somehow, in the struggle, she
lost the knife (it was stuck in one of the armchairs)
so she clung on to her victim's back and yelled.
Tex shot Frykowski twice, but he continued to fight back.
Panic gripped Tex and he began beating Frykowski round
the face with the gun butt so hard that the walnut handle
grip shattered. The sight of Frykowski's last stand galvanized
the other victims, who began to struggle for their lives.
Abigail Folger as yet unharmed, broke free and ran for
the door, Katie followed her. Tex moved in on the wounded
and struggling Sebring, stabbing him four times. Then
he joined Katie. Tex had now given way to an uncontrolled
bloodlust. Thrusting Katie out of the way, he fell upon
Abigail, cutting her neck and stabbing her several times.
Meanwhile, the seemingly indestructible Frykowski had
staggered out of the front door, screaming for help. Outraged,
Tex rushed after him. stabbing him again and again. Voytek
Frykowski was found to have 51 stab wounds after his death.
Abigail Folger somehow got to her feet and blundered towards
the French doors to the pool. Katie chased after her leaving
a print of her little finger on the blood smeared door
frame. Abigail got out and staggered across the grass,
falling just before she reached the fence.
Final gesture
Inside the house. Sharon Tate. unguarded, unharmed as
yet, but tied to a dead man, tried to make her escape.
Katie came back in and caught her. She pleaded for her
life and for the life of her unborn baby. Sadie Mae's
response was brutal. Sadie Mae and Katie held her down
while Tex stabbed her to death. Then, they all stabbed
her.
Tex ordered the girls out while he went on a final rampage,
stabbing and kicking at the lifeless bodies, and linking
up Jay Sebring and Sharon Tate with twin nooses. Then
Sadie dipped the towel used to tie Frykowski in Sharon
Tate's blood and inscribed the word "pig" on
the front hall wall. She left, leaving the front door
wide open, and two bloody footprints on the porch.
Tex. Linda. Sadie and Katie returned to Spahn Ranch, hurling
their blood-stained clothes and knives away at random
on the way. Later that night. Charles Manson and another
Family member came to clean up and look for Sadie's knife.
They wiped Steven Parent's car clean and then got rid
of fingerprints with the towel that had tied up Frykowski.
They left it over Jay Sebring's face.
By dawn, everyone was tucked up in somebody's sleeping
bag back at the ranch. Tex. Linda. Sadie and Katie slept
all day. The next night, at an hour after midnight, the
yellow and white Ford pulled up outside 3301 Waverly Drive
in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles. Inside were
Charles Manson. Tex Watson. Linda Kasabian. Sadie Mae
Glutz. Katie and two new faces Leslie Van Houten and Clem
Grogan.
Manson took his sword and gun and got out of the car with
Tex following. They walked up the drive to the long low
white house and found a way in. In the living room they
found Leno LaBianca in his pyjamas. "Be calm, sit
down and be quiet, ordered Manson.
Tex stood over Leno LaBianca while Manson took the gun
into Rosemary LaBianca's bedroom and brought her back,
tying them up using the two leather thongs Manson wore
round his neck. Manson wanted money and the couple gave
him their wallets.
Leno LaBianca. a supermarket millionaire offered to take
Manson to his store for more. The offer was turned down
and Manson walked out of the front door. The LaBiancas
breathed again, but not for long. Clutching their bundles
of spare clothes and bayonets. Katie and Leslie entered
the house.
They went straight to the kitchen, pulled down the kitchen
blinds and took out a carving fork and a serrated wooden
handled knife. Then they forced Rosemary LaBianca to lay
face down on her bed covered her head in a pillowcase
and loosely noosed her with the flex of her bedside lamp.
With equal efficiency.
Tex pulled up Leno LaBianca's pyjama top and stabbed him
four times in the throat with the kitchen knife, leaving
it in the last wound. Then using his own knife, he stabbed
him eight times in the stomach. Leno LaBianca bled to
death, helped on his way by a pillow Tex put over his
face.
Reluctant accomplice
Leslie held Rosemary LaBianca while Katie stabbed her.
She tried to crawl away pulling the lamp with her. Hearing
the noise. Tex rushed in. He helped Katie stab Rosemary
LaBianca 41 times. Tex and Katie wanted Leslie to have
a turn but she was reluctant. When she finally did begin,
it was too late.
Mrs LaBianca was already dead but she still stabbed her
16 times in the buttocks. With a knife. Tex carved the
word WAR on Leno LaBianca's abdomen. Katie perforated
the bodies with a carving fork, finally leaving it buried
in Mr LaBianca's stomach. They tied lamp flex round his
neck and put a pillowcase over his head.
Using Mrs LaBianca's blood, somebody used their fingers
to scrawl DEATH TO PIGS on the wall. With a rolled up
sheet of paper dipped in the same blood, somebody printed
RISE over a painting in the living room. And finally Katie
wrote HEALTER SKELTER on the refrigerator. |
| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
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