Married to Murder: The Bizarre and True Accounts of People Who Married Murderers (5 page)

Watson certainly believed in the family values part. He also worked the system in other ways by having the California state healthcare system for the poor, or
Medi-Cal, pay for his pregnant wife’s healthcare. At the same time Watson and his wife were running a profitable business peddling his sermons and religious music. Medi-Cal investigators eventually raided Kristin Watson’s house looking for evidence that she and her husband were defrauding the program.

That’s right; a man who had once been sentenced to death for his part in a heinous murder was scamming the welfare system. He had also figured out how to cash in on the fame and fortune generated by one of the most gruesome crimes in American history. To add insult to injury, Watson was now claiming to be a born again Christian and a pastor.

Charles “Tex” Watson lived a bizarre life; as a young man he was seemingly the perfect son. Watson led the youth group at the Methodist Church in Copeville, Texas, where he grew up. He was also an honors student in high school and a track star.

Like many kids in the 1960s, Watson’s life went off track at college when he discovered
sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, and booze at the Pi Kappa fraternity house at North Texas State University. It was during this period that Watson’s dual personality surfaced, and he started stealing. Watson eventually moved to Los Angeles to attend Cal State, but his real goal was to drop out and become a hippie. He soon became a full time drug dealer and petty criminal.

Watson was eventually introduced to Charles Manson by Beach Boys member, Dennis Wilson. Watson reportedly met Manson at Wilson’s mansion in Pacific Palisades. It was Manson who eventually gave Wilson the nickname Tex when he moved in with the Manson family. Eventually he became Charles Manson’s right-hand man; Manson even gave him a girl, Leslie Van
Houten, a former homecoming queen to use as a sex toy.

Watson’s moment of fame came on August 8, 1969, when he followed Manson’s orders and organized and led the brutal killings of Sharon Tate and three house guests. When they arrived at the Tate residence, one of the victims,
Wojeciech Fryowksi, asked Watson why he was there. Watson responded, “I am the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business.” The death squad consisted of three women who were devoted to Manson.

The devil’s business included stabbing Tate to death and cutting the phone line so that the victims couldn’t call for help. Watson participated in at least one other Manson family atrocity: the murders of Le
no and Rosemary LaBianca. Watson, Van Houten, and another woman, Patricia Krenwinkel, killed the couple on Manson’s orders. Watson also participated in the killing of ranch hand Shorty Shea, whom the family believed was a police snitch.

Watson’s dual personality surfaced shortly after the murder spree. When Charles Manson and the family fled to a hideout in Death Valley, Watson went home to Texas. He cut his hair short, reduced his drug use, and tried to go straight. It didn’t work; police eventually tracked him down and arrested him after other members of the family ratted him out.

Back in California, Watson tried to escape the death penalty by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. That failed, and Watson was sentenced to death in 1971, but his stay on death row ended when California abolished the death penalty. Within five years the man who had once done the devil’s business was conducting Bible studies and operating “Abounding Love Ministries.”

Tex Watson and Kristin
Svege’s marriage lasted 24 years until 2003, when they finally divorced. Watson is still incarcerated at the Mule Creek State Prison. He is still running his Abounding Love Ministries and ministering to other prisoners. Whether Watson’s conversion is real or simply an effort to convince the parole board to release him is a matter for debate.

His
website peddles Tex’s books, including his autobiography:
Will You Die for Me?, Manson’s Right-Hand Man Speaks Out, Christianity Is for Fools,
and
Our Identity in God’s Family.
Also available is a videotape of
Forgiven: The Charles Watson Story.
The video contains footage of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca’s daughter, Sally Struthers, forgiving Watson in prison. 

Publicity about Watson’s activities was what probably led to the banning of conjugal visits for life sentence prisoners in California in 1996. This may have led to the end of Tex Watson’s marriage.

Now divorced from Tex Watson, Kristin Svege is reportedly married to another man whom she met at church in 2003. She seems to be one serial killer groupie who learned her lesson and married a normal man. Watson and Svege reportedly remain friends for the “sake of their children.”

Abounding Love Ministries. "Charles D. Watson." 27 January 2013.
aboundinglove.org.
Website created by Charles Tex Watson and his followers. 27 January 2013.

Middlecamp, David. "Charles "Tex" Watson Wedding, the Manson murders 40 years later." 2009.
sblogs.thetribunenews.com/slovault.
News Blog Entry. 27 January 2013.

Montaldo, Charles. "Charles "Tex" Watson - Charle Manson's Right-Hand Man." n.d.
crime.about.com.
About.com Article. 27 January 2013.

Wikipedia. "Charles "Tex" Watson." n.d.
en.wikipedia.org.
Online Encyclopedia Entry. 27 January 2013.

As we have seen, some women just seem to be attracted to monsters. Another one of these women is Shirlee Joyce Book, who married Kenneth Bianchi, one half of the duo called the Hillside Stranglers. The two were called the Hillside Stranglers because they dumped the bodies in the Hillside area of Los Angeles. On September 23, 1989, Bianchi and Book had a formal wedding ceremony in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Bianchi even wore a tuxedo, and Book wore a white dress complete with a veil.

Book had apparently been writing to Bianchi for at least three years before the wedding. She was also something of a serial killer groupie, who reportedly wrote to several notorious butchers in search of a mate. Another inmate she contacted was Ted Bundy, who was then awaiting electrocution on Florida’s death row.

It’s obvious that Shirlee Book’s taste in men isn’t that great. She wrote to two known serial killers/sexual predators and married one who is also a psychopathic liar.

Kenneth Bianchi was one of the most repugnant serial killers in American history. In addition to being a sadistic strangler, Bianchi was also a small time conman who set up a fake psychology practice complete with a phony degree. If that weren’t bad enough, he told his girlfriend that he was dying of cancer to get out of supporting the child he had fathered with her.

Bianchi and his cousin, Angelo Buono, became famous for killing 15 women—both prostitutes and middle class women—around Los Angeles in 1977 and 1978. They pretended to be police officers in order to lure women to their deaths. Among other things, the two injected their victims with household chemicals and raped them.

When police started closing in on the so-called Hillside Strangler, Bianchi fled to Washington State. He was soon arrested for murdering two college roommates from Bellingham, Wash., Diane Wilder and Karen
Mandic. During his trial, Bianchi tried to get off by falsely claiming to have a multiple personality disorder. If that weren’t bad enough, Bianchi also tried to use another serial killer groupie in a strange scheme to beat the rap and frame his own cousin.

During his cousin’s trial in Los Angeles, Bianchi produced as a witness a woman named Veronica Lynn Compton, who claimed that she was his partner in the Hillside Strangler murder spree. Some accounts suggest that Bianchi convinced Compton to stage more Hillside Strangler crimes in order to convince the jury that somebody else was responsible. Compton
even lured a woman to a motel room and tried to strangle her. Instead of freeing Bianchi, Compton ended up in prison herself for attempted murder.

Compton was a playwright and actress who was supposedly writing a play about the Hillside Stranglers. On the stand at
Buono and Bianchi’s trial, Compton admitted that she and Douglas Clark, one of the Sunset Strip Killers (another pair of notorious LA serial killers), were involved. She said that she and Clark wanted to buy a mortuary so that they could have sex with corpses.

It is doubtful that
Shirlee Book and Kenneth Bianchi will live happily ever after. Bianchi is serving life sentences for seven murders: two in Washington State and five in California; most of the crimes were committed in Los Angeles.

Interestingly enough, some press reports indicate that Book believes that Bianchi will one day walk free and be with her. That seems doubtful because of the number and nature of his crimes. Most likely the two will be apart for the rest of their lives, which is probably best.

Given Bianchi’s history, he would probably either kill Book or use her in some other crime if he ever got out. Bianchi is a psychopathic predator who uses and disposes of people when they are no longer of use to him. His only concern is for himself and his own gratification.

The reason women like Book are attracted to murderers like Bianchi is hard to fathom. One possibility is that they deliberately target men whom they know they will never have to live with or deal with in their daily lives. Another probability is that they like the fame and notoriety associated with serial killers.

Shirlee Book apparently lives in Louisiana while Bianchi remains interred in Washington State. Even though they will never get to live together, Kenneth Bianchi and Shirlee got a sort of honeymoon. They were allowed to use the conjugal visit trailer at the Washington State penitentiary after the wedding. Interestingly enough, Book met Bianchi in person for the first time on their wedding day. Before that the two had only talked on the phone and written to each other.

biography.com . "Kenneth Bianchi Biography." 2013.
biography.com.
Online Encyclopedia Entry. 22 January 2013.

Ramsland, Katherine. "Serial Killer Groupies: Anything for Love." n.d.
trutv.com/library/crime .
Online Encyclopedia Entry . 22 January 2013.

The Los Angeles Times. "'Hillside Stranger' Bianchi Gets Married ." 23 September 1989.
articles.latimes.com/1989-09-23.
Newspaper Article . 22 January 2013.

Wikipedia. "Doug Clark (Serial Killer)." n.d.
en.wikpedia.org.
Online Encyclopedia Entry. 22 January 2013.

Brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez have a lot in common. They once committed burglaries together, they murdered their parents with a shotgun, they are both serving life in prison, and they both married women who wrote to them in prison.

Lyle married Anna Eriksson on July 2, 1996, shortly after his second murder trial had ended. Erik, who served as best man, couldn’t attend the ceremony because he was serving his sentence in another prison. Instead, the brothers’ high-priced attorney, Leslie Abramson, stood in as Erik’s proxy and slipped the ring on Anna’s finger.

Anna Eriksson was born in Chicago and started modeling by posing for a Lord & Taylor catalog when she was just 14. After graduating high school, Eriksson had a successful modeling career working in London, Paris, and even Sweden.

She was also beautiful enough to pose for a special newsstand edition of Playboy in 1993. Despite her beauty, Eriksson’s modeling career eventually ended, and she had to support herself by working as a receptionist in a salon. Her employer called her intelligent, energetic, and compassionate.

Eriksson reportedly fell in love with the handsome Lyle Menendez when she saw him on TV in 1993. She wrote to him at his then residence, the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles, and he started writing back. She described Lyle as being concerned about her and determined to start a family. She even told
People
magazine that Lyle loved telling knock-knock jokes.

It is easy to see why some women would be attracted to Lyle Menendez; he is handsome and charming. Lyle is also rich, and he has a partial Ivy League education—he once attended Princeton. Yet Lyle has another side to him that’s not so charming. In addition to murdering his parents, Lyle Menendez is also a burglar and a liar.

Lyle Menendez’s behavior matches that of a classic serial killer: a psychopath who lies, manipulates, and commits crimes for his own gratification. Lyle’s history before the murder matches that of other well-known serial killers. He stole from his roommates while staying in a dormitory at Princeton and lied about it. Lyle blamed his thieving on another student who eventually left the university.