Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars (37 page)

It was like that everywhere we tried to settle the sick son of a bitch. Even at San Quentin, we had to isolate and baby-sit the guy twenty-four hours a day because the other prisoners despised him.

“See,” Charlie said when I took a break and paid him a visit. “It’s just like I’ve been telling you for the last two decades. I’m Frankenstein. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t even escape! If the town folks are trying so hard to hang that asshole, what do you think they’d do to me? They can’t even recognize him without a picture and a map. Everybody recognizes me!”

We finally had to do with Singleton what the prison system may one day have to do with Charlie—let him serve out his parole behind bars, then sneak him off somewhere secluded and desolate and order him to stay put and be quiet. Larry did—for a while anyway, until he carved up a Florida woman in early 1997. Charlie? Hard to imagine him staying quiet for more than a few hours.

Two days before Christmas, 1987, Squeaky began hearing rumors on the con pipeline that Manson was so unhappy at San Quentin that he was dying of some kind of misery-induced cancer. Driven by hysteria, she enacted a long-designed secret plan and escaped from Alderson Federal Prison, vanishing into the dense forests surrounding the isolated facility. She ran through the rugged, hostile hills of West Virginia for two days, surviving icy rain and temperatures that plunged into the teens during the night. Because of her fame, more than a hundred officers combed the area searching for Charlie’s Queen. An alert went out nationwide, and President Ronald Reagan’s security was tightened.

“She’s coming to get you!” Charlie raged to Dave Langerman, San Quentin’s information officer. “She’s going to kill you for the way you’ve been treating me!”

On Christmas Day, much to Langerman’s relief, Squeaky emerged on her own at 12:50
P.M.
near a remote West Virginia fishing camp. She was hungry, forlorn, and exhausted, and offered no resistance. She told the court that her access to Charlie had been limited for so long that she was overcome with feelings of despair. “If love means anything at all, it means stop feeling helpless and take action.… I’m guilty as charged, legally, but without moral remorse. So that’s that.”

Interviewed after her capture, she spoke of a magic transformation while running, assuming the attributes of both a two-toed sloth and a ballerina to help her escape detection, enabling her to slither through the woods unseen and elude the manhunt.

Frankly, I wasn’t impressed. A certified earth child like Squeaky should have been able to last longer than two days! Squeaky, like all Manson followers, filled the air with love for the land and trees. How ironic that once free in the exact “beautiful” environment she cherished, she found it unforgiving and unlivable, preferring instead to scurry back to her warm cage where her keepers provided three squares a day. Somewhere, conservative icon Rush Limbaugh must have been howling with laughter.

Charlie, healthy as an ox, stayed at San Quentin until 1989. After wearing out his welcome there, he was bounced to Corcoran State Prison, where he has been in lockup ever since.

On December 3, 1985, Sandra Good completed her ten-year sentence for sending threatening letters and was paroled to a halfway house on the condition that she stay away from Manson and California. She had refused an earlier release date, finding those conditions too strangling. This time, she accepted and spent the next four years in Camden, New Jersey, under limited supervision. After completing the parole, she was set free—no strings attached—at the end of 1989. She immediately ran to California and set up camp near Manson in Hanford. She’s remained there to this day, running an organization called ATWA (Air, Trees, Water, Animals), remaining loyal to Manson, and rebuilding his family. Through the use of computer technology, Sandra, who always was bright, has set up an elaborate computer page on the Internet that updates fans on Manson’s activities, helps publicize his albums (which were finally recorded by some small independent labels), and mainly spreads the interactive word to new generations. The Web site, “Access Manson” (
http://www.atwa.com
), has proven to be highly popular, racking up tens of thousands of “hits” per month. The beat goes on.

*   *   *

In August 1992, I was standing in the checkout line at the local supermarket idly perusing the tabloids when one of the headlines jumped out at me. The bold letters announced that Charlie’s on-again, off-again pal, Willie Spann, was dying of AIDS. The story inside quoted Willie extensively, and was accompanied by photographs showing the former president’s nephew looking gaunt and ghastly. Willie, according to his quotes, contracted the deadly disease through the sharing of heroin needles. At the time, I wanted to believe that it was nothing more than another attempt by Willie to gain some sympathy and attention. Willie was basically harmless to anyone but himself, and it pained me to see him going out that way.

Five years later, on February 2, 1997, Willie collapsed and died in front of a Good Samaritan’s home in Oakland. The woman who owned the house had discovered him sick and destitute on the streets. In an extraordinary display of kindness, she brought him to her residence to care for him. Shortly thereafter, he tumbled from a hammock and stopped breathing. A newspaper story repeated the reports that he had contracted AIDS, and added that he had been suffering from dementia. Willie was fifty when he passed away. It was a sad end to a sad life.

*   *   *

In April 1995, Charlie was busted for dealing drugs and partaking in other “illegal business dealings” at Corcoran. The illegal businesses involved the marketing of his autograph, photos, and better yet, autographed photos. Charlie was dragged in for an administrative hearing.

“Not guilty. No evidence,” he pleaded. “There’s nothing there. The snitch game’s being played down there in that rat unit. The administration of this prison must not have anything better to do.”

The hearing officers found him guilty and snatched away 150 credit days, a meaningless punishment to a man serving multiple life sentences.

Charlie, suffice it to say, was unfazed.

On June 6, 1995, I arranged a tour of Corcoran to check things out on my own. My old sergeant from CMF was the program administrator there, and invited me down to reminisce. “There’s someone here I’m sure you’d like to say hello to,” he teased.

The sprawling prison is located a mile south of the small town of Corcoran, perched on a flat, dry, desolate piece of land the state must have bought cheap. The facility is ringed with high Cyclone fences laced with coils of razor wire. The buildings are elephant gray rectangular blocks surrounded by a perimeter of gun towers. We strapped on bulletproof vests and ventured into the heart of darkness. Far from the laid-back Cuckoo’s Nest days at CMF, Charlie’s current home is the proverbial pit of doom.

I appeared without warning in front of his cell. He looked at me quizzically, then smiled and ambled over to the bars. He was sixty-one, a full-fledged senior citizen with a mane of steel gray hair and a Santa Claus beard. That, however, proved to be misleading. Underneath, he remained coiled like a snake and just as lean and mean.

“What the fuck do you want?” he said in a joking manner, repeating his opening greeting mantra. We talked for a while and immediately fell back into our old pattern. The years hadn’t mellowed Charlie at all. He had the same expressions and odd mannerisms, grinning like the devil and twisting his beard with his forefinger and thumb. “Hey, can you get me a guitar?” he asked, ever the hustler.

“What happened? You destroy another one—or ten?” Charlie laughed and pestered me again to pull some strings and let him have his music. “I’m retired, remember? I don’t have the juice anymore.”

“You’ll always have the juice. Here’s your juice,” he said, grabbing his balls.

Oh yes, I thought. How I missed the image of Charlie clutching his nuts, using con psychology to get me to do his bidding. Shifting subjects, I mentioned that I was writing a book and that he was going to be a big part of it. That caught his attention, but he said little about it at the time. We both promised to keep in touch.

Charlie kept his word and began peppering my mailbox with letters. Most of them centered around the book. He wanted to know what I was going to write about him. I explained that I was planning to tell it all, the good and the bad. “You have a decent side, and you have an evil side. I’ll write it all down and let the publisher sort it out,” I explained. He warned me in subsequent letters that the things I wrote could cause problems for me.

“You are creating the crime. It’s your end,” he accused. Gradually, his letters took on an even more threatening tone. “You will all die for what you’ve done to me,” he scribbled, putting me back on his long list of those who’d done him wrong.

Two months after our reunion, on July 29, 1995, I opened my door at 7:00
A.M.
to retrieve the morning paper and was assaulted by a horrible smell. Looking down, I was repulsed to find what looked like some kind of witches’-brew stew gurgling across my porch, oozing down the stairs, and spilling onto the walkway. Holding my nose and inspecting it further, I determined that it was composed of rancid chopped pork, fruit, vegetables, and a host of unrecognizable condiments. My initial thought was that someone had thrown up, but it would have taken King Kong to produce that much bile. The smell, though sufficiently foul, didn’t have the acid aroma of vomit. This was no accident.

I spent most of the morning trying to clean up the mess, scooping the wretched solids off with a shovel and hosing away the rest. No matter what I did, an ominous black stain and harsh odor remained. I tried every detergent known to man, including muriatic acid, but the black outline wouldn’t dissipate.

Waving my fist at the permanent scar, I suspected at once how it had gotten there and what it meant. I wondered if this was Manson’s calling card, his way of saying he knew where I lived and that bad things would happen if he didn’t like the book. The idea that a pack of his crazies might be crawling around the neighborhood, skulking up to my house in the middle of the night, and unloading their poison alternately angered and terrified me.

Five days later, on August 2, 1995, it happened again. The mixture was the same, but this time, there was no meat. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t figure out the meaning of that.

My twenty-four-year-old daughter, our only child who remained at home, said that her dog, a boxer, had woken up and begun growling and prowling the room at 4:00
A.M.
, too agitated to sleep. The same thing had happened on July 29. Amazingly, the dog had sensed an evil presence in the area.

The nearest enclave of neo-Manson followers was in Hanford, a city three hours away. That meant that if any of them had been involved, they would have had to drive six hours round-trip, starting at 1:00
A.M.
, do the nasty deed, and then arrive back home after 7:00
A.M.
It was a long way to go to send a stupid message, but no amount of suffering would be too much to prove their devotion to their chosen master—a man many of them had probably never seen.

Without proof or a more overt threat, there was nothing I could do. The only real option, confronting Charlie, would certainly prove fruitless as he was the master of denial. Instead, I chose to wait. Without an acknowledgment, if Manson had been involved, he might be wondering whether the dumps had occurred, or whether his demented minions had hit the right house. If I stayed silent, he might tip his hand. Manson avoided all mention of it. He continued to make threats regarding the book, and implied that some fearsome event was soon coming my way.

Threatening journalists and authors was nothing new with Charlie. He or his followers harassed virtually everyone who ever wrote or said anything bad about him. Manson would often jump on me after an interview he had carefully approved went bad, accusing me of setting him up. Authors Nuel Emmons (
Manson in His Own Words
) and Dr. Clara Livsey (
The Manson Women: A Family Portrait
) were among those given the treatment. Chris Weinstein, the young reporter who experienced the chilling hair-pulling demonstration, was harassed so much after her article ran that she told me she wished she’d never written it—and she hadn’t said anything bad about Charlie!

Viewed in this light, the foul mess on my porch appeared to be par for the course. If it did involve the Manson Family, no one was even waiting to read the book.

While Manson played coy, Sandra spewed the overt poison. A recent letter referred to me as “one of the most twisted and distorted men” she has ever known. Considering the men she has known, that was some insult!

It was obvious that Sandra was heating up because Manson was spoon-feeding her the “Ed tortured me all these years” pabulum. I knew the rap. I was evil, not to be trusted. I hurt him, tried to destroy his cause, ruined his life, held him down, suffocated and oppressed him. I was the embodiment of the system that bruised, beat, and raped him all his life. Charlie knew he could use this line to work Sandra into a frenzy of rage.

On October 4, 1995, I received an envelope from Sandra enclosing a letter from Manson and a brilliant, multicolored graphic, a collage of diverse shapes and forms. Also enclosed was a similarly colored map depicting blocks and buildings surrounded by witchy, psychedelic symbols of every sort. Both drawings, interestingly enough, contained copyright symbols giving the year 1995, and naming “Good” as the artist. Apparently, the Family was getting wise to merchandising. Studying the intricate designs, I discovered that one building was encased in a circular bombsight with crosshairs. A missile was exploding in front of the building. A message written in the margin said, “Coming soon to your neighborhood 2.” On the back were the words “Neighborhood revisited.” I shook the envelope and out came a clipped magazine photograph of “Big Boy,” the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima. The implications were clear. Charlie and Sandra were telling me that the building under the crosshairs was my house. “Neighborhood revisited” may have referred to the Tate residence. “Big Boy” was overkill—typical Manson humor.