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- [00:00]
Hannah
Hi guys, it's Hannah from Giggly Squad. With summer around the corner, I wanted to tell you guys how I'm staying comfy and stylish. Lululemon is my secret weapon. There are plenty of copycats out there, but nothing compares to the Lululemon fabrics and fit. I've literally had my pair of Lululemon leggings since college and I'm out of college. I know I don't look it, but I am. The quality is next level. I especially love the Lululemon Align collection. It's made with this weightless buttery soft nulu fabric that feels thing. It's so soft. Whether you're in aligned pants, shorts, a bra, tank, skirt, a dress, you get non stop flexibility in every direction so you can stretch the summer limits align even wicks sweat and as a sweaty girl I love this. You know it's going to be my best friend when I play tennis this summer. Shop the Align collection online@lululemon.com or your nearest Lululemon store.
- [00:56]
BetterHelp/Thrive Market Ad
Better Help Online therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax. Worried about what ingredients are hiding in your groceries? Let us take the guesswork out. We're Thrive Market, the online grocery store with the highest quality standards in the industry. We restrict 1000 plus ingredients so you can trust that you'll only find the best high quality, organic and sustainable brands, all free of the junk. With savings up to 30% off and fast carbon neutral shipping, you get top trusted groceries at your door and you can stop worrying about what your kids get their hands on. Start shopping@thrivemarket.com podcast for 30% off your first order and a free gift.
- [02:10]
Don Wildman
Hi everyone, it's Don here. This episode contains details of mass murder that may be distressing to some listeners. Hello movie lovers. It's February 2020 and time for the 92nd Academy Awards. Here in Los Angeles, California. Once more, the glittering elite of Hollywood are gathered to honor the year's biggest movies and the nominees who made them. Yes, the paparazzi are hiving to the stars. There's the wonderful Tom Hanks waving warmly to his fans. Joaquin Phoenix steps up brooding darkly, the beautiful Natalie Portman dressed in velvet and Keanu Reeves being well, Keanu reeves and there's DiCaprio, Pitt and Margot Robbie. The glamorous entourage from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Nominated in 10 categories, it'll only win in two. But who's counting when you've already packaged an infamous slaughter into a box office bonanza featuring that wacky crew of cult killers, the Manson Family. On this celebrated evening, their names may not be mentioned, but their shadows are lurking, stalking the edges of a blood red carpet. This is American history hit, and I am Don Wildman. Glad you're listening. The 1960s in America were a whirlwind war abroad. Protests at home, civil rights advances, and then assassinations. And all the while, NASA racing to the moon. Old values were crumbling. Flower power energized a psychedelic generation searching for meaning, belonging and truth. Into this cultural chaos stepped Charles Manson, a drifter with a guitar, strange charisma, and a warped vision of the world. He created a small community drawing on the lost and disillusioned, offering peace, purpose and a place to belong. But this commune, rooted in music, drugs and counterculture, would spiral into cult violence and fear. The Manson family is where the promise of the 60s turned into one of its darkest nightmares. And we tell the story today with Jeff Molnick, historian and professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of Creepy Crawley, Charles Manson and the Many Lives of America's Most Infamous Family, which explores the Manson murders and how they've become embedded in American culture. Hello, Jeff. Nice to meet you.
- [04:46]
Jeff Molnick
Good to meet you as well. Don't, Jeff.
- [04:48]
Don Wildman
The details of this crime are infinite. There are so many different personalities, so many young women in this, in this family. Let's have a conversation that doesn't get too much into names. I just want to broad strokes here. Through this time, it becomes not only the investigation but also the prosecution of it. That's its own story entirely. Let's start with Charles Madsen himself has the sadly typical broken home childhood, becoming a boy to young man with a rap sheet so long it'd take an episode to describe it. Where is he born and how does he come to this life of crime?
- [05:21]
Jeff Molnick
The question of where a Manson's born has been debated for quite a while. The more interesting question is how quickly and at what a young age he entered the prison system. By the age of 12, he was already being charged with fairly major crimes. And one of the things I like to kind of frame when we talk about the Manson felony is that he is what we call these days an incarcerated personality. You know, his. He always said that the jailhouse was my father. And that was like a real rhetorical flourish. But I think it's actually useful for us to think about, rather than think about him in traditional sense of where did he grow up? Who was his mother? What was her occupation? And folks love to talk about that. Maybe she was a sex worker. Maybe he was the product of one of her work assignations. I mean, I think what we really need to focus on with Manson is that he's raised in jail. He comes of age in prison in the Midwest and then later on out on the West Coast. And that's where I really like to kind of press the gas. Gotcha, if that makes sense. To sort of say the details of his own early biography are sad and dark, but they don't really tell us that much about who he ended up being. That story begins when he's about 12 and his prison life begins.
- [06:27]
Don Wildman
So, Jeff, I have 1934 as his birthday. He's from the American Midwest, from Ohio. And the story of Manson will spread nationally. It's amazing. I mean, forget about the. Later on, he's all over the place with his prisons and reform schools all through the 50s, all through his youth, Right?
- [06:43]
Jeff Molnick
That's right. No, he's. I mean, there was some talk, and I don't know if this has ever been completely nailed down, that he was in Boys Town for a while, you know, kind of classic or, you know, orphan or quasi orphan scenario. So, yeah, he's in the Midwest and then makes his way, I think, after his. His Grand Theft Auto joyride out to California and ends up forging a treasury check and ending up in prison for quite a while in California. And that's where the Manson that we are familiar with really sort of like comes of age, comes into being. He's in fairly intense penitentiary scene in the 50s. And by his own account, and this has been well confirmed, that's where he starts meeting the real bad guys who shape him in a number of different ways, including quite crucially, this guy, Alvin Karpis. Creepy Karpis is his nickname. Who is in jail because he was a member of. It's almost. It moves with like, the cadence of mythology. He was a member of Mob Barker's gang, you know, and also a guitar player. He taught Manson to play guitar. And he also seemed to have taught him a bunch of other things as well, Right. About how to be a more successful criminal. I mean, Manson always says his other big influence in the 50s besides prison was Dale Carnegie's how to Win Friends and Influence People.
- [07:52]
Don Wildman
Right?
- [07:52]
Jeff Molnick
And that's where it all sort of seems to come together. You know, that like he's in jail and he, he learns how to be a player, he learns how to control people. He, he, he kind of develops his individual talent and charisma. You know, many years later, Ed Sanders would refer to him as the first performance murderer ever. You know, that like, he was always very aware of theatricality, you know, and putting on a good show. And he learns that, I think, in jail in the 50s.
- [08:18]
Don Wildman
This is the story of the opposite of rehabilitation, you know, where somebody finds themselves, you know. That's right. Literally at home in this system, which is a nightmare.
- [08:27]
Jeff Molnick
Exactly.
- [08:28]
Don Wildman
After that 1967 release, it's reported that he wanted to stay there. He asked to remain in prison. I mean, that's how dependent he was on this.
- [08:36]
Jeff Molnick
That's right.
- [08:37]
Don Wildman
Interestingly, he is a non violent criminal to that point. Right. There's not a lot of reports of him abusing people or I guess there's abuse is in there as well. Right. In the reform school.
- [08:48]
Jeff Molnick
Right. Absolutely. He's, I mean, it's like a little bit hard to talk about because it plays into some kind of like, almost like bullying language. But like he's a little guy.
- [08:56]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [08:56]
Jeff Molnick
He's not physically prepossessing, you know, he, I think, figures out how to make it in jail through his wiles and through his personality and through his ability to kind of figure out he's a good reader. That's the main thing. Like, he learns how to read people. Like there's the. Some people argue that's the Scientology part too. He learned Scientology and in prison, and he kind of figures out how to read personalities and what people need and how to ingratiate himself.
- [09:19]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [09:20]
Jeff Molnick
So he's like, like, I want to, if it's okay, put him in the context, like great American tradition of con men, you know, confidence men. He knows how to run the game.
- [09:29]
Don Wildman
Right.
- [09:29]
Jeff Molnick
He might not be the biggest guy, the strongest guy, the best looking guy, but, like, he knows how to read people. He knows how to flatter them. Yeah.
- [09:37]
Don Wildman
He becomes a cultural figure because he's so intuitive about things, isn't he? He's not just able to read people, he also sees the times around him. He's a very wily character.
- [09:47]
Jeff Molnick
That's right. Wily is a great word. He really is like a trickster. Yeah.
- [09:50]
Don Wildman
And we often talk on this podcast about the power of media, you know, in American culture. And it really has come completely to the fore at this point in the 1960s, and people are getting rich off of it. You know, rock stars are being born and all that sort of thing. And he sees that, which is weird because he's been in a prison the whole time. How he. How he understands this, so, you know, on a gut level, is really interesting.
- [10:12]
Jeff Molnick
That's great. And that's like. That's like an amazing moment because he'll always say, I'm not a 60s guy. I'm a 50s guy. You know, like, he's like, I'm a. I'm a Bing Crosby guy. You know, like that. Like, that's like. That's who he grows up listening to, thinking about. And then he comes out of prison. It's the Summer of Love in San Francisco, you know, and it's. He sees this whole other thing going on.
- [10:33]
Don Wildman
Right? Exactly. I mean, there's going to be a pivot point in his personality, which is a really important factor in understanding him or not. You know, it might be apocryphal, but it seems like that happens to this guy for whatever terrible childhood he had, which is, you know, typical of these guys who are institutionalized. That was, you know, perhaps blamable on those parents that raised him, alcoholic mother, all the rest of that stuff. But then comes the emergence into becoming a man. And you see this sort of intelligence and this sort of intuitive quality to this guy, which gets applied to crime for whatever reason, maybe his background. But there will come a time in this conversation when it turns. When this guy turns into a really scary person. And that's what's interesting to me. So 1967, he's released from prison in California. Right.
- [11:22]
Jeff Molnick
He was. He was like, sort of inland in the state. Yeah.
- [11:25]
Don Wildman
Okay. But he's in the northern area, so he heads for San Francisco. I mean, and that's where it's happened in the Summer of Love. Haight, Ashbury, lsd and Charles Manson is a pig in the sty.
- [11:35]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah. But let's remind your listeners, and you said that you. You already mentioned his birth date. He's not hippie age. Right. He's like in his early mid-30s. Right. So he comes out and he's kind of scoping the scene, clearly as an outsider, just in terms of. We picture those, you know, all the documentaries we've seen of, you know, Summer of Love, like, these are young folks, and he comes out and he's a wolf. He gets the scene. He quickly ascertains that there's a lot of vulnerable young people, right, who have made their way. And this is something I'm particularly interested in that, like, not immediately, but he pretty quickly starts realizing that a lot of the young folks in the Bay Area, California in general, are runaways, either literally or quasi runaways. You know, left families that were uncomfortable for them at best or literally abusive at worst. As you know, when he meets Lynette Fromm a little bit later. But he begins this process, it's kind of an amazing moment. He gets to Bay Area and he's like. It's all opportunity for him, right? He's this charismatic, talented. It's hard to say this in respect about a guy who ended up responsible for these murders, but he's sensitive, he's a good listener. And he finds these young women who need a good listener. And he's an older guy, and he's got that appeal on that level. And so he starts meeting people. First he meets this Berkeley librarian, connects up with her. Then he meets a few other women. And before long, they're established in the Bay Area. They get studied by the Hayne Ashbery Pre Clinic, some doctors there who see them as a fascinating example of plural marriage, you know, essentially. And they publish an article.
- [13:07]
Don Wildman
Wow.
- [13:08]
Jeff Molnick
This is before any of the controversy or the notoriety. They just, like, see Manson as kind of one more iteration of new social arrangements.
- [13:17]
Don Wildman
It's interesting. Well, so much was going on, especially in the Bay Area. I'm sure, in the academic world. I mean, there was so much study being done of the effects of psychedelics. And not legally, but I mean, it was a great deal of interest in what LSD was doing. There was also rumors of the CIA being involved in this community in some way. I mean, there was a lot going on behind the scenes. And he was tapping into all of this zeitgeist, wasn't he?
- [13:42]
Jeff Molnick
Absolutely. And that's. I mean, again, it's. I. I always try to be careful about what language I use in talking about him because I don't want to, like, over credit him or sound like I'm sort of supporting, you know, or proving of what he did. But he sat. He's incredibly savvy. Like what you just said, Don, is so right. Like, he is part of this cultural moment of recognizing that there's this new youth culture. Some people are studying it, some people are trying to sell stuff, you know, to them. Some people are trying to prosecute them and crack down on them. But it's this, like, intense, like, who are these young people? What are they like, why are they wearing clothes like this? Why do they dance like that? Why is their music sound like this? What Are these drugs? They're, you know, and he steps in as like, what I want to call, like a cultural entrepreneur. He. He sees this and he sees this is just like a rich vein of opportunity, and he figures it out in a minute.
- [14:29]
Don Wildman
But he's straddling two things. I mean, he's still a young guy, he still likes young women. And that's an incredibly powerful position to be in for a guy like this who's going to tip off into the dark side of all of that pretty soon.
- [14:42]
Jeff Molnick
That's right.
- [14:42]
Don Wildman
But having these adoring young things around him. But that was the thing in those days. Communes were in group, group marriage. It was all kind of bred for a cult in those days. It was really dangerous. And. And he would also have an incredible radar for vulnerable youth who were troubled, you know, who ran away for the same reasons that he had trouble when he was a kid. So he could talk the talk. He really understood it. So he connects. But this is all about this part one of Charles Manson, in my mind. And part two comes pretty soon. But at what point does this now family and how many people are we talking about in. In San Francisco?
- [15:19]
Jeff Molnick
It's like a small handful at this point.
- [15:21]
Don Wildman
At some point, they. They decide to grab a bus, you know, not unlike Ken Kesey and all of them, and head on down south to la. Everybody's got their connections, there's family connections. People have people that they're going to go for money. You know how it is when you're young. So off they go, thinking they have a pretty good bead on a new life down in Los Angeles. Where does that take him?
- [15:42]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah, that's amazing. And that's where the story gets. I mean, obviously we wouldn't be talking about him if they didn't end up in LA and everything that ensues. And I mean, that's part of, you know, I called him before a cultural entrepreneur. Like, he begins to really fancy himself a musician.
- [15:55]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [15:56]
Jeff Molnick
And he begins to imagine himself as a musician with real potential. And so LA is where it's happening. I mean, this is LA's moment. It's. I mean, when I started researching this stuff, I was like, earlier in my career did a. A book about when New York Jews first, musicians first, you know, Gershwin and that whole crew in the 1920s first moved out to Hollywood because that's where the action was going to be for musicians, you know, making, making music for movies. And from that moment on, like, LA slowly becomes the heart of the American music business. And it's off the hook in 67, 68. The kind of Sunset Strip action, the clubs, the Just kind of in the street hanging out, you know, on a. You know, informal rituals of hanging out. And then the record companies who are looking for, you know, constantly looking for new young talent. So it's this amazing moment.
- [16:42]
Don Wildman
It is Los angeles in the 60s and 70s, primarily the 60s is where company town meets counterculture. And it's this fascinating mix because it never loses the fact that everybody's there to make money.
- [16:55]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah.
- [16:55]
Don Wildman
All those guys who moved out from New York, the gangsters there, Everybody who's there is. Because big money can be made. And those people know how to. You know, they can smell that kind of thing. And it's the cheap apartments, it's the cheap, you know, Oceanside houses that are there. This amazing playground is there for these very smart men and women who are ready to cash out or cash in, and along come all these hangers on. And that's kind of the Manson family thing that's going on here. So he very famously crosses paths with the Beach Boys or at least one member of them. Dennis Wilson. Where in the chronology of this does this happen? Pretty early, isn't it?
- [17:32]
Jeff Molnick
It is. It is. I mean, it's sometime in 68, like. And people argue about exactly when it seems like a couple of the women of the family get picked up hitchhiking by Dennis Wilson. Like, it's this totally just phenomenal lucky accident. But it's like the way the story gets told. It's like they get picked up hitchhiking, and then next they're basically living in his house. The whole family, they're crashing at Dennis Wilson's Pacific Palisades house. And Dennis Wilson's got this whole crew of guys who begin noticing this. It's incredibly. I mean, I just want to make sure that we don't laugh it up too much because it's incredibly exploitive scenario. In the research I did, I really focused on this category that we've come to call groupies, which is, you know, it's a really complicated category. Right, right. It can mean just fan, but, like, baked into it in this moment in the late 60s is it's young women. It's vulnerable young women. It's young women who are being kind of sexually exploited by much older men who are being promised things that, you know, maybe they're going to get, maybe they're not going to get. But there are power differentials.
- [18:32]
Don Wildman
Right.
- [18:33]
Jeff Molnick
And the Manson women become something like that role for Dennis Wilson and for Terry Melcher. Who's this incredibly important music producer, produces first Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Byrds, like, he's right at the heart of it. He's Doris Day's son. He's literally the son of, like the image of white bread in American culture.
- [18:51]
Don Wildman
He is taking rock and roll into country rock and making this new western sound. He's one of those guys that sort of took the baton from Spill Spector.
- [19:01]
Jeff Molnick
He's huge. Exactly.
- [19:03]
Don Wildman
He's a big time guy. So is the Beach Boys. Let's not forget this is a major group. They are making a lot of money and the people around them are serious businessmen. Along come this, these nutty people. But that's what I've said before. This is the weird thing about la. It's this mixed bag of serious business, but also cultural weirdness. And in those days, it was all being embraced because that was, you know, ironically, these guys were like, tapping in. They knew that the money was to be made with this crowd.
- [19:30]
Jeff Molnick
Don, you're so right. And that's something that, like, they all. I mean, one of the fascinating things when I started doing the research for the book is like, how little any of those people wanted to talk about. You know, I reached out to a few of them, just, you know, want to do an interview. Some of the people connected to the Beach Boys and they were. Nobody wanted to touch it to the level that, like, even when I wanted to quote Neil Young's song that's, you know, loosely based on the Manson case, his people were just like, no, you can't. Like, usually this is like in the weeds a little bit. But, like, usually when you ask to quote lyrics, the company here that owns it says, sure, send us 5,000 bucks. Like that. It's a money making thing. Neil Young's people, all these years later were like, he does not want to be associated with this.
- [20:07]
Don Wildman
This was the line that got crossed with the Mansons.
- [20:10]
Jeff Molnick
Exactly.
- [20:10]
Don Wildman
Oh, my God.
- [20:11]
Jeff Molnick
And they were all. They were hanging out together, they were dancing together, you know, in the Sunset Strip clubs. And it's not just music people, it's film people too, right? Because this is the moment of the new Hollywood. So Dennis Hopper is tied up with these, you know, with these people, right? Like these names who are like crucial people in American culture are dancing with these marginal freaks. Yeah, yeah.
- [20:33]
Don Wildman
We left two little bio notes out of Terry Melcher. He's the son of Doris Day. I mean, Doris Day is as commercial a star as you get from old Hollywood. And he's the boyfriend at the Time of Candice Bergen. So who's also a big Hollywood icon as well.
- [20:47]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah.
- [20:47]
Don Wildman
So where does Charles Manson find any kind of grounding here? They basically kind of take over Dennis Wilson's life, don't they?
- [20:55]
Jeff Molnick
They do. And Dennis Wilson, I mean, he's in his own way, a vulnerable character. He's not the creative engine of the group. He's an important musician.
- [21:04]
Don Wildman
But if there was a real Beach Boy, it was Dennis Wilson.
- [21:07]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah, exactly. Like, he's the only one who surfs of the Beach Boys, you know, like, and he not only takes up with the Manson women, like, he gets kind of convinced by Charlie's rap and he, like, he very famously gives an interview to a British music magazine in 68, saying, like, oh, my, you know, we, you know, me and the, me and my brothers have a record company at. One of our first acts is going to be this guy, you know, Charlie Manson. He's a wizard. He's like a guru, you know, and like, he's talking this up in public, you know, like this very kind of dark, weird scenario he's presenting as like, this guy's great, he's a great musician. We're going to record him. And he, he gives Manson personally this sense of legitimacy that he like, belongs in this scene and that he's a part of it. And he never gets really that like what these guys want from him are women in drugs, you know, like, he's like a pimp in a few different ways, you know?
- [22:01]
Don Wildman
Exactly. Which he had spent time doing. So he's doing. Yes, he's predisposed in that direction. Most of these women are in their teens and twenties. Let's not forget these are very vulnerable girls. Yeah, white middle class girls that went to places like this. I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
- [22:23]
Hannah
Hi, guys, it's Hannah from Giggly Squad with some around the corner. I wanted to tell you guys how I'm staying comfy and stylish. Lululemon is my secret weapon. There are plenty of copycats out there, but nothing compares to the Lululemon fabrics and fit. I've literally had my pair of Lululemon leggings since college and I'm out of college. I know I don't look it, but I am. The quality is next level. I especially love the Lululemon Align collection. It's made with this weightless, buttery, soft nulou fabric that feels like next to nothing. It's so soft. Whether you're in Align pants, shorts, a bra, tank, skirt, a dress you get non stop flexibility in every direction so you can stretch the summer limits align. Even wick sweat and as a sweaty girl. I love this. You know it's going to be my best friend when I play tennis this summer. Shop the Aligned collection online@lululemon.com or your.
- [23:17]
BetterHelp/Thrive Market Ad
Nearest lululem betterhelp online therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care care. Imagine what you could do with more visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now just relax. Worried about what ingredients are hiding in your groceries? Let us take the guesswork out. We're Thrive Market, the online grocery store with the highest quality standards in the industry. We restrict 1000 plus ingredients so you can trust that you'll only find the best high quality, organic and sustainable brands all free of the junk. With savings up to 30% off and fast carbon neutral shipping, you get top trusted groceries at your door and you can stop worrying about what your kids get their hands on. Start shopping@thrivemarket.com podcast for 30% off your first order and a free gift.
- [24:30]
Jeff Molnick
Still listing your home address on business documents.
- [24:33]
Don Wildman
Stable gives you a permanent business address.
- [24:35]
Jeff Molnick
One you can use for the irs, banks, vendors, you name it. So you can keep things professional and and keep your personal address private. Stable also digitizes all the mail that.
- [24:45]
Don Wildman
Comes to that address accessible from our.
- [24:48]
Jeff Molnick
Secure online dashboard, which makes it easy.
- [24:50]
Don Wildman
To manage your mail from wherever you are.
- [24:52]
Jeff Molnick
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- [25:18]
Don Wildman
I don't want to digress, but I, I ended up in, in LA in the, in the 70s. I missed the wave, but I remember that kind of seedy quality of the place back then. It still had that whiff in the air of all that kind of. Yeah, strange thing that was going on at that point.
- [25:31]
Jeff Molnick
That's right.
- [25:32]
Don Wildman
If you got there in 1965, 66, you were into something very mysterious and very interesting.
- [25:37]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah.
- [25:37]
Don Wildman
And the house parties were amazing and the, the whole place was just taking off because it didn't cost any money to be there. They could just sort of overwhelm the place with this new New thing because the old guard was dead. You know, that whole studio system was gone. And the studio.
- [25:51]
Jeff Molnick
Right, that's right.
- [25:52]
Don Wildman
The structure of the place was completely wiggly at this point.
- [25:55]
Jeff Molnick
And it's so shady. I mean, this isn't just la. This is like the sites that matter are like Venice beach, real honky tonk, really marginal folks, you know, what we would now call, you know, street, you know, street people and. And just kind of folks who are not mainstream culture. And all of a sudden they find themselves in Dennis Wilson's mansion, you know, like up on the hill. And it's a wild moment of cultural mixing. Yeah, for sure.
- [26:17]
Don Wildman
At the same time. Or is it at the same time they end up at a ranch called Spahn Ranch. This is where they're sort of based, right?
- [26:23]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah. And Spahn Ranch just to like to try to draw a picture for listeners. Like, I'm always. Whenever I was out on research trips in L. A I was always like, I got to Spahn Ranch or where it was in Chatsworth. And for east coast people, this is shocking because it's like this is still la, like, because it just feels like this kind of hard scrabble deserty, you know. So, yeah, the Mansons basically take over Spahn Ranch, which had been from the 30s on an actual movie ranch.
- [26:49]
Don Wildman
Right. There's a bunch of them like that. There's a bunch of those weird ranches. Maverick. And all these places that you shoot commercials at nowadays.
- [26:56]
Jeff Molnick
Yes.
- [26:56]
Don Wildman
And they're all out there. And this guy was George Spahn, who was one of those guys who owned this land.
- [27:01]
Jeff Molnick
That's right.
- [27:02]
Don Wildman
How did he know them? How did they. How were they even able to approach him?
- [27:05]
Jeff Molnick
They just went out there to ride horses. Like that was at that point, the ranch was basically like a tourist site where you could get like they were still filming some like, TV commercials. And also I think Bobby Beausoleil, who ends up associated with the family, actually filmed a porn western out there. It was on its last commercial legs, but you could go out there and ride horses, right? And then they. They kind of ingratiate themselves with very elderly George Spahn, who likes the young women too. One in particular, Lynette, you know, Lynette Fromm becomes like his, like quite literally his handler. And they just move in there and they take it over.
- [27:38]
Don Wildman
And it's such the story of people just using each other all over the place. I mean, here's an 80 year old guy who's going to be blind and suddenly manna from heaven. These young women Sort of arrive and they're willing to give him massages or whatever, you know, like that's the story. And so yeah, the good with the bad. You get these creepy guys like Tex Watson and. And all these other, you know, dangerous fellows. But he's mainly there for the girls.
- [28:04]
Jeff Molnick
That's right. And they just set up shop there, they live there and they set up, you know. And this is. There's a really, a cool novel called the Girls by Emma Klein that's about the Manson family. And one of the things that she really gets about Spahn Ranch, I think absolutely right, is that the women, what they got more than anything was that there was like a real camaraderie for them among themselves. It was very gender segregated in a lot of ways. So they're in the kitchen, they're preparing meals, they're going out during the day to dumpsters, to, to try to come up with produce that's been thrown out. And so like there's this whole kind of girl slash women culture of Spahn Ranch that's obviously being run by Charlie for Charlie, but like has a lot of space in it for the women to kind of have their own lives.
- [28:46]
Don Wildman
How does he have his effect on them? Is it purely through drugs or is it some sort of. Does he have a protocol to this as far as training a group and making a cult?
- [28:56]
Jeff Molnick
Again, I want to put it in the language of sexual exploitation because so many of these women are vulnerable in a number of different ways. And he individually grooms, just to use that word that we use in that context, virtually each woman who comes to him, they find women when they're out partying, they find women who have just made their way to the ranch one way or another. And Charlie laser beam for a while will make that person his object of attention. He'll figure out what their biggest vulnerability is, what their relationship with their father is. And then he'll kind of provide this seemingly loving, gentle, paternal care for them which then obviously almost always turns it to sexual attention. And the LSD part is definitely in there. I think that gets a little overstated in our own kind of anti hallucinogen moment, you know, of the 80s and beyond. The kind of just say no stuff that we're still living with. But he like, he knows how to use drugs as part of this for sure. There's these kind of group, you know, trip experiences where he's the master of, you know, literally the master of ceremonies and he arranges people, he tells people who they should have sex with and they listen, you know, so he's arranging these kind of like, orgiastic trip scenarios, but it's really. It's that one on one thing that I think he masters. Like, he's got a great rap.
- [30:10]
Don Wildman
Right.
- [30:10]
Jeff Molnick
And he knows how to apply it differentially, so it'll be effective.
- [30:14]
Don Wildman
They speak of his eyes, that he had this mysterious gaze, and that goes on till even in prison. People talk about it later on. What do you think that really was?
- [30:23]
Jeff Molnick
I think the whole thing about Charlie's eyes is just that he paid attention. He would really lock in. Like, I think this is the Scientology training. You know, he had this, like, idea of, like, how you become, like your fullest person. And it was really about presence, about being there, you know?
- [30:39]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [30:39]
Jeff Molnick
And a lot of these young women, some of them were literally directly abused by their fathers, but some of them were just victims of or people who had experienced what we call neglect. Like, they just had very, very typically absent 1950s dads. Dad went out to work during the day, didn't really have much to do with the family. And to get this kind of attention from an older man, I think was really hypnotic for a lot of women. And so we talked about it in terms of his eyes, but I really think our focus should be on the kind of whole package is that he knew how to lock in.
- [31:07]
Don Wildman
Sure. We mentioned this before. This is a guy in his mid-30s, at this point, 1968, he's 34 years old. Things start to change. And I mentioned before a pivot point for this guy. Things start to change when you're in that period of time, no matter who you are. And I can't help but think this moment that I hinted about before happens because of the commercial aspect of the music industry and the fact that he was realizing in the midst of this hope and dream of, hey, I got the ticket here, I wrote a song. They even liked it. We didn't mention this. The Beach Boys actually record one of his songs. They do, which was called Cease to Exist. And they rename it into Learn not to Love.
- [31:47]
Jeff Molnick
Learn to Not, Never Learn not to Love.
- [31:50]
Don Wildman
That's a terrible title.
- [31:52]
Jeff Molnick
It's a terrible title.
- [31:54]
Don Wildman
Wonder it failed.
- [31:55]
Jeff Molnick
Hippie bullshit. Yeah.
- [31:57]
Don Wildman
But the disappointment that comes from this and the frustration of not getting his due, as he sees it, in the soul of a person who is basically a narcissist, Ego is a dangerous brew. And this is really what happens. This is what tips him over. Not to mention the lsd, I'm sure.
- [32:14]
Jeff Molnick
I think that's right. And I'm really glad you framed it as such, Don. Cause it's like we're all still, like, in the thrall of the prosecutor, you know, Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter and the Race War narrative, which I'm. I'm sure we'll take a minute to talk about. But, you know, Manson, his animus, his engine of his resentment is that he can't make it in the music business. Like, he. He has like, a solid year in LA where, like, he believes his own. Like he's high on his own supply. Like, he believes his own story. He thinks he's gonna be a star. He does not get that while he's playing Dennis Wilson and Terry Melcher, for certain things, they're playing him as well. So, you know, he has a formal audition and he blows it. You know, like he, by his own account, he's like. He freezes up. He can't sing into a microphone. He's not a professional musician. Like, he's just not. He's. He's cool around a campfire, you know, and we've all seen that, right? Like, we've all seen that guy who, you know, who, who takes over the campfire and sings some songs, and that's cool, but he's not. He's not at all a trained musician. He doesn't know how to. How to play in a, you know, in a studio. And Terry Melcher at that point, like, basically throws him to an associate of his who's like, got anthropological interests. He's a guy who had gone out, you know, you know, recording Native American, you know, tribes and so on. And he's like, you might like this guy. He's. He's kind of like, you know, it's kind of tribal, you know, And Manson cannot believe it. He cannot believe he's not getting a contract. And, you know, to his, to, to his. I don't want to say credit, but, like, folks who heard him play thought that he could have been brought along. Like Neil Young very famously said, if Manson had the right band, he could have been like mid-60s Dylan. Like, he could have been that kind of like wild elect, you know, electric sound. But he didn't. Like, he. He was too full of himself. He thought everyone wanted to hang on every word of every song he wrote, but he couldn't. And Terry Melcher basically cuts him. I mean, it's. Terry Melcher is the heart of this story.
- [34:04]
Don Wildman
In what way?
- [34:05]
Jeff Molnick
Well, Manson really believes. I mean, let's just put this out there because we haven't said it yet. The first set of murders will happen at 10050 Cielo Dr, which is where Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski live. But that's where Terry Melcher had lived previously. And so Manson knows the house. And he's got this resentment that just boils up about Melcher. Like Melcher for years barely appeared in public because he was so spooked by. I mean, I think he knew. I think he knew that Manson, if Manson wasn't literally targeting him, that Manson's anger, you know, the kind of murderous rage that ended up in these two nights of murder, I think was very much out of this disappointment that Melcher didn't give him a contract. Like he really believed that Melcher was going to be his meal ticket.
- [34:48]
Don Wildman
You're setting us up for the big part of the story, but I want to cover one other cultural aspect of this, which is the Beatles. I mean, the fact you've got on one hand the Beach Boys are the American Beatles. But when the Beatles hit with their edgier albums, not least of which is the white album in 1968, these guys take the world by storm. I mean, I'm really. It's. Maybe I'm off Mark, but I find this such an interesting story from this other angle, which is this commercial angle of the times, that this whole generation was realizing that they were into a global world and global music and global marketing. And suddenly out of England comes this song, Helter Skelter, and people in Southern California are being guided by it. It's a nutty thing when you think about it. When you pull back and wonder what happened to the world? Well, that's what happened to the world in many ways. We just suddenly got a global perspective on everything.
- [35:44]
Jeff Molnick
I mean, I think that's right, but I want to kind of. It's obviously out there while what Manson does with the Beatles music and how he reads it. But it's part of a larger wave of understanding rock and roll music and popular music more generally as having cultural weight, as having important political meaning. Right. Like this. Obviously, it's not just the Beatles. It's obviously Dylan Chu, and it's all manner of musicians. It's some really important jazz musicians who are reaching, you know, in terms of black power. You know, music begins to be understood in the mid-60s as a social force.
- [36:17]
Don Wildman
That which the beatniks were tapping into in the 50s is suddenly right smack in the middle of. On your FM dial.
- [36:23]
Jeff Molnick
Exactly. Commercial. It's top of the charts. And that's a rich Brew and Manson, I mean, he's not like you and me. Like, we. We have the wherewithal to hear music, understand that it's a kind of distinct artistic form, but it's not like. I mean, most of us who are dedicated music listeners have moments where we think, wow, they're talking right to me. Right. Like, they're like. Like, right. Like they know me. They understand, you know.
- [36:45]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [36:45]
Jeff Molnick
Manson had that in a path, you know, in a pathological way. Like, it tipped over into him thinking it was secret messages. He listened to other music, too, that he didn't take. Like, his second favorite band was the Moody Blues. And it's like he didn't get any secret messages, you know, from them. Like, they weren't telling him, you know, that he should dress his knights in white satin or whatever. You know, like, he. It was something about the Beatles that really reached him and a lot of people.
- [37:10]
Don Wildman
Yeah. And it was the apocalyptic aspect of it, that there was this end of world coming that Helter Skelter is really sort of about. And he certainly, at this point of his life, with his disappointments that he was struggling with or dealing with, suddenly sort of taps into the theme and he begins to pull those poor young girls into this thing. Having said poor young girls, we have to discuss the fact that they are responsible for their actions at some point, My Lord.
- [37:35]
Jeff Molnick
Absolutely. They have agency and that, you know, like, there's a one or two of them I want to sort of separate out because they were literally what we would now call underage and so not legally responsible, you know, for. Yeah, but, yes, these are women who have agency, and they are making decisions to join Manson in this delusional quest.
- [37:54]
Don Wildman
We have mentioned this. How much of a white supremacist racist was Charles Manson, and how much did that play into this, into his actions?
- [38:02]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah, I want to answer really carefully the question of how much of a white supremacist Manson was. Charles Manson was clearly a racist. Like, he was clearly someone who believed that black people were, you know, subhuman. And he articulated that again and again in his life. That, as we spoke about earlier, was very much a product of his prison training. Like, that was clearly part of the kind of segregated, antagonistic world. I'm not excusing this in any way. I'm just trying to understand it. Was he mostly motivated by this thing that Vincent Bugliosi framed at the trial as this grace? I mean, that was a fairly late breaking thing in the life of the family. Manson did begin talking about it with them. But it had nowhere near the weight that the music business stuff had for the family. The family was organized for months and months and months around getting Charlie a contract. It's not like they actually made a lot of plans for living in a hole in the desert and waiting out the race war and then taking, you know, I mean, that was when he was really starting to fall apart. And it was very much a symptom of his, you know, what psychologists will call decompensation. You know, like, he was. He was losing his shit. And he. And he. The direction it took, not surprisingly in American culture, given that we're a culture kind of rooted in systemic racism, is that he kind of grabbed that narrative and ran with it.
- [39:28]
Don Wildman
You mentioned the desert. I just want to keep track of where these people are and how large a group they've become, how many kids were in this cult. At this point, you know, it's almost.
- [39:37]
Jeff Molnick
Impossible to do a headcount on the cult because people are coming and going. There are people who are not all the time with them, like Bobby Beausoleil and, you know, folks who are, like, associates of the family. But there's a core of a couple dozen people who are always at the ranch.
- [39:51]
Don Wildman
Yeah, that's a surprising number. I don't think people think that way of it.
- [39:54]
Jeff Molnick
Oh, it's a big operation, and yet.
- [39:57]
Don Wildman
So few will really take part in the murders themselves.
- [40:00]
Jeff Molnick
Right.
- [40:00]
Don Wildman
So that's not like we're all sitting down for meetings about how we're going to do this whole thing.
- [40:06]
Jeff Molnick
There's clearly an inner circle, too, and those are the folks who end up being responsible for the two nights of mayhem, you know, in August of 69. And there's clearly, like, he has his lieutenants, you know, like, Tex Watson is clearly the second in command, you know, man. And Lynette Fromm and a few of the other women are clearly, like, the ones running the ranch, you know, the. The ones who are, like, in charge of the daily operations. But then there's all these other folks, you know, they. You. You. If you read deep enough in the literature, you. You come upon these names, and you're like, who's that again? You know, like. Like somebody else just showed up a month or so before the murders and lived there for a while. People come and go. Charlie didn't like to let people go. Like, they would chase people down if they tried to leave.
- [40:44]
Don Wildman
Right.
- [40:45]
Jeff Molnick
Because he needed that, like, intactness. Yeah.
- [40:47]
Don Wildman
So for whatever thematic reasons, race, war, et cetera, we really are talking about a guy, a vengeance murder. Here as far as his feelings about Terry Melcher. So let's talk about what happens August 8, 1969. They've been living this life in Los Angeles for about a year or more, I suppose, at that point, a little bit more.
- [41:06]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah.
- [41:07]
Don Wildman
And this small inner circle is engaged on his behalf to do mayhem. They scope this thing out. Right. They figure out where they're going to go first. And Charles probably had something to do with that. But on the night itself, take me through the events that lead to them inside this house and killing people.
- [41:27]
Jeff Molnick
First night, they head out to Benedict Canyon, which, again, I don't know how, you know, how familiar your listeners will be with geography of la, but Benedict Canyon is one of these beautiful areas a little bit north of where the cultural action is. You know, the Sunset Strip, you know, you can get. It's not a long drive, but it's a whole other world.
- [41:44]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [41:44]
Jeff Molnick
You know, again, if you're. If your listeners are not on the west coast, like, what LA geography looks like is always a mystery to those of us from the east coast or elsewhere. So it's this really remote feeling, part of la, Right.
- [41:57]
Don Wildman
When you drive up in those hills, you have no relation to LA geography. It's a totally different world up there.
- [42:02]
Jeff Molnick
Right. It's beautiful, it's remote. So they make it to this house, which is the house of the actor Sharon Tate and her husband, the film director Roman Polanski, who have a few house guests and the few members of the Manson family make their way in, are clearly intent on just wreaking havoc. It's not that they're just there to kill people. They are there clearly with some instructions. You know that the line that always gets quoted is, you know, that Charlie tells one of the women of the family to do something witchy, Right. Like. And so there's clearly this aspect to the first night of crime, especially that's about leaving evidence that will freak out observers, that will just undo people.
- [42:43]
Don Wildman
I want to be clear. This is the house that was previously occupied, and they aren't there right now by Terry Melcher and his girlfriend, Candice Bergen. They've gone to London, I think it is, and they're doing business somewhere else.
- [42:55]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah.
- [42:56]
Don Wildman
The house is occupied by the following people. Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski, who is not present on the night. Jay Sebring, who was a hairstylist and a big, you know, man about town in those days, coffee heiress Abigail Folger and Folger's boyfriend, Wojtek Frykowski. So this group of people are in this house. There's also a little house in the back, typical of these hill houses. Sharon Tate, eight months pregnant, young. What is she, 26 at this time? A huge rising star in Hollywood. Watch Valley of the Dolls. And she's about to become a mom. And that's how vicious this murder really is. What happens.
- [43:34]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah, so, you know, the, the members of the family come in, you know, and folks love to quote, you know, the, the lines that particularly Tex Watson said, which is always. I'm always a little suspicious of, because the only person. People who could have reported that are members of the family themselves because everyone else dies. And so this is clearly part of a mythology. They want to promote that. You know, they walk in, you know, Sharon Tate says, who are you? What are you doing here? And, you know, Texas, I'm the devil. I'm here to do the devil's work, you know, and it's like. It's like you didn't need to wait for Quentin Tarantino all those years later. It was, like, already a film script, you know, how much Charlie scripted it, we don't know. But, like, there's clearly this effort to make a performance, and it's this horrifying, tragic, terrible performance. Like, they kill this ready to deliver a baby woman, and then her. Her compatriots, the young guy lived back in the carriage house, had a friend who was coming to visit who they kill in the driveway.
- [44:28]
Don Wildman
They also hang them from the ceiling. I mean, it's like, really, rafters?
- [44:32]
Jeff Molnick
It's. No, it's hard. I mean, this is horror movie stuff. Like, it was, you know, I, I. One of the things I thought about a lot when I was doing the research is how much the murders actually influenced actual horror movies of the 1970s. Yeah, you know, home invasion movies and cutting out babies, you know, I mean, you know, it's. It's just they're writing a script, and it's a horrifying script, and they do this terrible thing. They kill all these people and head back to the ranch.
- [44:58]
Don Wildman
I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
- [45:04]
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- [46:00]
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- [46:50]
Don Wildman
Then the crime scene photos show that they've used the blood to draw words on the pig is on the wall. All of this suggestive of this race war that they're trying to initiate, right? I guess they hoped that the police would think that black people had done this and therefore whatever was going to happen. And that didn't stick at all.
- [47:09]
Jeff Molnick
I mean, the race war. It's wild that Bugliosi sold this idea of that this marginal hippie cult was going to start a race war, because two things. First of all, the United States is actively at war in Vietnam war against Asian people. You can call that a race war. And a few years earlier in la, there had been a major riot or rebellion, as some people want to call it, in Watts when police officers killed a black motorist who had not done anything wrong and there was a dispute. Right. So, like, if you want to talk about racial violence in the United States, in la, committed by the United States or in la, there's plenty of race war going on. It's not Charlie Manson doing it.
- [47:48]
Don Wildman
Sure. Right. Or even if it was, he's not going to affect that kind of change.
- [47:53]
Jeff Molnick
That's it. That's even better. Like he. Maybe he had that motivation. He's not going to do anything about it.
- [47:57]
Don Wildman
Sure, Jeff. The police work involved, never mind the lawyer work down the line, putting this kind of crazy crime together is a real mess at first, isn't it? I mean, they don't even know they've got the guys. They arrest them for a different reason and suddenly they start to piece it together.
- [48:13]
Jeff Molnick
That's right. It's this very arcane reality that existed in Southern California at the time is that there's the lapd, but then there's the county sheriff. And they're doing kind of parallel investigations, but not talking to each other. And at some point, somebody kind of realizes that they're, they're looking at the same guy and they realize that he's also connected to the Tate LaBianca murders. There's a wallet that got left in a gas station toilet. The details are all really arcane. And somebody finally rides in and puts it together. And so by December, they have this idea that Charlie's the one who's responsible for the whole deal.
- [48:46]
Don Wildman
And they must do a kind of roll up on him where they started. You know, they've got a lot of sources of information here. They got all those girls, so they start hearing the story being told from different angles.
- [48:55]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
- [48:56]
Don Wildman
I always wonder, do you happen to know this, why Manson wasn't at this murder if it was so important to him that I would think he would have. Want to go kill Terry Meltzer?
- [49:05]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. You know, and it kind of bedevils the prosecution because it's like, what do you even charge him with? You know, like, remote control murder is not like a crime. So it's like conspiracy stuff that he, you know, he ultimately gets jacked up on. And it's, I mean, it's a great question. He's not a murderer. I mean, it's, I mean, Charlie, there's like, there's plenty of evidence that he was physically abusive to women in the family, but he's not, he's not a shoot em up. You know, there's an earlier murder of Gary Hinman a few weeks before the Tate murders that we jumped over. Who's this grad student drug dealer who the family was involved with. And like, Charlie showed up at that house and seemed to have done some of the actual violence. But Charlie's a director. I mean, Charlie's a, you know, he's, he's not a get his hands messy kind of guy. Right, right. He's, he's a, you know, write the script and tell people what their roles are in the script. And that's very much what happened.
- [50:00]
Don Wildman
He's a manipulator. That's what.
- [50:01]
Jeff Molnick
He's a manipulator. Yeah.
- [50:02]
Don Wildman
Makes him so creepy. He's also a small guy. He's not a big person. You know, this is Not a powerful, you know, physical presence.
- [50:08]
Jeff Molnick
So unlike Tex Watson, his. His first lieutenant, who's like a high school football. Literally a high school football hero, big guy, you know? Yeah.
- [50:16]
Don Wildman
So Charlie thinks these murders have been done in a messy way is the word, which is a weird word for it. But they weren't done according to scripted. Right. They needed to be done better. And so he dispatches another group to do another bunch of murders the next night.
- [50:32]
Jeff Molnick
That's right. And this one is even harder to get a beat on because it's not. It doesn't fit exactly in the narrative of Charlie's resentment about the music business or about kind of street culture versus pre culture. Like, they end up at the house of Rosemary and Lino LaBianca, who are just these middle class, you know, I mean, they're pretty well off, but it's still, to my mind, and. And if you. If. If you've got a different take, I'd love to hear it. Like, it's still not exactly clear how.
- [50:57]
Don Wildman
They ended up there randomly, as far as I know. Right.
- [51:01]
Jeff Molnick
It seems pretty randomly. Maybe they thought somebody else lived. There's all kinds of conflicting testimony about this. But. But be that as it may, they end up, you know, in this home, in a much different kind of neighborhood. Also. A nice, nice neighborhood, but not that kind of hill fancy. These are like, solidly up the middle.
- [51:20]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [51:20]
Jeff Molnick
Angelenos. Yeah.
- [51:21]
Don Wildman
You know, I think of the Menendez people. I think of this. I don't know why, but it seems like that same class that we're talking about, I have a note that actually the Mansons knew about these people because members of their family had been to a party in that neighborhood. So I guess they had sort of an awareness of the neighborhood and they would have been chosen at random for that lifestyle, let alone. But whatever it is, there's. It's not clear why the LaBiancas were part of this thing, but that's even gnarlier what happens here. They carve the name War into the stomach of one of the victims. Death to pigs and rise on the wall. Helter Skelter is drawn on the fridge. It's all in human blood. It's all just gross, you know, it's a really creepy horror movie version of this murder. And it does seem to have. I'm telling you what you've already told me, but I just want to underscore it. It seems to have all been scripted. That's what you walk away from. You feel like this is all a picture of what he saw. In the world and how this needed to be enacted. Let's talk about how they get caught. We mentioned that there was another place out in the desert that they were going to called the Barker Ranch. Weirdly, for a TV job, I went to the Barker Ranch. It's way, way out there in the world. Have you been there, Jeff?
- [52:37]
Jeff Molnick
I have not.
- [52:38]
Don Wildman
Oh, my God. Let me explain it to you. It's a really fascinating thing. I couldn't believe I got this chance to do this. And this is like a little weird onion skin of the TV business. So my job was on Cities of the Underworld, to go underneath places in the world that people couldn't get to. Quite literally, I crawled in tunnels. So we decided to go out and find these tunnels and these underworlds of Charles Manson and that, you know, where were these caves that he was going to go into and find, you know, when. When the race war went on or whatever was the fabled thing. And so we went out there to the place. It turns out, at least in those days, you could drive down this road and there's two structures. They're pretty close to each other. But the second one, I believe, is the actual structure of the Barker Ranch, and it's nowhere near anything. And so you can basically get out of your car, walk into this place. It's not occupied in those days. Anyway. There was a guest book of all things sitting on the front desk there, which had sort of scribbled names and people. It wasn't very formal. And then it's like Tumbleweed City in the place. You know, it's just dusty and gross and open and you can walk around. And so I literally found the cabinet that they found Charles Manson hiding in.
- [53:48]
Jeff Molnick
Oh, amazing.
- [53:48]
Don Wildman
Or at least a bathroom cabinet in this bathroom. And so one can assume that must have been it. It was such a weird close proximity to the story. And that's interesting to me in this conversation because when you go to Los Angeles, you will feel that vibe still today. Not the Manson vibe, but this kind of odd quality to that community, which is this sort of desert, arid community, and then this massive commercial enterprise in the middle of it all. It's sort of the juxtaposition of these two is everything about the Manson story, in a way, you know, a million other stories, too.
- [54:21]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah.
- [54:22]
Don Wildman
But when you're out there in the. In the desert, you see how far flung this family really was and how they could get away if they wanted to. And that's what happens. A number of them are arrested at Barker Ranch on charges of arson and theft. Right? 24 of them.
- [54:35]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah. That's great, Don. I love the way you set that up, because it's like, these are marginal people.
- [54:39]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [54:40]
Jeff Molnick
These are not like. I mean, we're so used to, like, heist movies and like George Clooney in a nice suit. We have all these kind of mythologized image of the bad guys, you know, whether it's outlaws from old western movies or, you know, gangsters from our more recent stuff. But the Manson family, like, they're weirdos and losers and, you know, I mean, they're in death like it's. It's not a nice place to be.
- [55:02]
Don Wildman
Right.
- [55:03]
Jeff Molnick
And they're busted out there and they're. They're like fishing a bat. Like. Like, they're not hard to find. They're. Nobody else is living at it.
- [55:09]
Don Wildman
They're not sophisticated criminals, is basically.
- [55:11]
Jeff Molnick
They're not sophisticated criminals. Yeah, that's it. That's it. And they're easy to bust and they're easy to prosecute because they're, you know, messed up on drugs, among other things. But they're not career criminals. They're not, you know, and. And they're easily found and. And they're easily brought to trial and they're easily convicted. Yeah.
- [55:28]
Don Wildman
This is a story for another time that of the trial and all of the whole circus of it all really was what it was. It went too crazy. So just know that they were sentenced, they were found guilty, and many of them went away for prison. But I will say this about this Manson family that I don't know that these rather tacky, rather, as you say, marginalized, the nice word for them low life people would have been the story they would have been if not for Charles Manson and his manipulative ways. Of course.
- [55:59]
Jeff Molnick
Absolutely.
- [56:00]
Don Wildman
But even Charles Manson would have. Wouldn't have been the star if not for the times he lived in and absolutely. The wiliness with which he operated and decided to land himself in the midst of a very successful industry and then failed at it. All of that setup is really why we have this creepy story with us today. And we give these people a lot more credit than they're due in terms of cultural figures, in my opinion. But when we look at them so closely, we're really looking at the times in America and this transition that was happening in media.
- [56:31]
Jeff Molnick
That's great, Don. And one of the reasons I, you know, I called my book creepy crawling, and we haven't talked about this yet, is that the crime that they committed most often was what they called creepy Crawling. You know, the family would go into a house of somebody that they could get at near Chatsworth, and they'd literally go into. While the family was sleeping, they'd go in the house and rearrange the furniture. And this is just like psychological warfare. Like, the family would wake up and know someone had been in the house, but not be able to figure out why or what they wanted. Right. And that, to me, became like the guiding metaphor for what the Manson family has done to us. Like, we can't get them. Like, they're in our heads. We. Like, they're rearranging our furniture. Like, we can't. Like, wow, she looks like just a normal teenage girl. She did what?
- [57:12]
Don Wildman
You know, like, oh, interesting.
- [57:13]
Jeff Molnick
And that's the metaphor for me that we're still. We can't get done with. Like, we're. We're still trying to figure out, like, how this happened and what happened to families that. That our daughters were so vulnerable to this. You know, that's what they were so good at, at just getting in our.
- [57:29]
Don Wildman
Houses, getting in our minds, infiltrating lives.
- [57:32]
Jeff Molnick
Absolutely.
- [57:33]
Don Wildman
So, ironically, we end up still serving him. The irony is that he's infiltrated our culture, hasn't he, Jeff? Yeah.
- [57:38]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah, absolutely. And that. That was really what got me started in, during the research was this realization that, like, every. It felt like every couple months there would be. I'd hear a song, or I'd see a. A new documentary, or there'd be a new bit of visual culture. There was this great series of photographs of Barker Ranch that. That some European photographer did a real art project. And I was like, how come we can't leave this guy alone already? Even after he died, you know, And I started thinking there was this great Rolling Stone cover in the 70s about Jim Morrison, another, you know, shamanic, Louisiana figure. And it was years after, you know, Morrison had passed. And the headline, if I'm. If I'm remembering right in Rolling Stone, said, he's hot, he's sexy, he's dead. And I thought about that with Manson, because I was like, no matter how long he was in prison, and then after he died, we're still trying to figure out what he did. Like, like, the murders we know, the true crime piece we're done with. But the cultural part, I mean, he ended up feeding so many different strains of popular culture, like LA. You can't have LA punk in the late 70s and early 80s without Manson. He's all over the. The musical and visual culture of that moment, Hip hop culture, beginning in the late 80s into the 90s, his name gets, gets. He just becomes like the emblem of uncontrollable horror. I mentioned before, and I'll say again, the horror movies of the 1970s, all these home invasion movies, like that becomes a subgenre in horror that I think is very much inspired by the Manson, the two knights of Manson murder of like, you can be home, you think you're safe, and then all of a sudden you got hours of horror ending and death in front of you. So like again and again it was like no surprise to me when it was the opposite of a surprise when Quentin Tarantino, who is just kind of, if nothing else, just like he keeps wanting to make movies about movies, right?
- [59:30]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [59:30]
Jeff Molnick
And he took this most film worthy crime and turned it. I mean, I hated the movie, but. But he turned it into this, you know, even more sensationalistic. You know, I don't want to spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen it, but like he blew it up even more than it already was.
- [59:44]
Don Wildman
Sure.
- [59:44]
Jeff Molnick
And so that was one of the things my research, I couldn't do justice. At some point I was like, I need to have like a online searchable index, you know, like I need somebody with those skills to index every moment that he's mentioned in popular music, in film culture, in other visual culture, sculpture, paintings, just endless productions.
- [60:04]
Don Wildman
He took it past the pale. I mean, we were way past any moment that, I mean it was going to happen sooner or later that murder and mayhem had taken to this point. But really what he is, the important thing is it happens at the time that it does.
- [60:17]
Jeff Molnick
That's right.
- [60:18]
Don Wildman
And so you end up with the exploitive nature of media, taking advantage of it and making hay with it and all that stress.
- [60:25]
Jeff Molnick
That's right.
- [60:25]
Don Wildman
And, and this time in Hollywood, I want to, I want to emphasize that this was the transition in Hollywood from what was a kind of an innocent time in many people's estimation into this much bigger international blockbuster economy and the paranoia it causes.
- [60:41]
Jeff Molnick
And you know, it's like really hard not to see this as the moment that, that Hollywood switches from kind of like expansive open ended drug culture, you know, weed and hashish and LSD to the cocaine intensity of the 70s. Like, leave me alone, I'm alone doing it.
- [60:58]
Don Wildman
You know, those people that were his contemporaries were all getting older, they were having their families, they were building their big houses, they wanted their money.
- [61:03]
Jeff Molnick
That's right.
- [61:04]
Don Wildman
You know, all that they want the.
- [61:05]
Jeff Molnick
Gates keep the freaks out.
- [61:06]
Don Wildman
Exactly. So all that little niche of time was, was Where. Where the Manson murders live. You know, it just so happened.
- [61:14]
Jeff Molnick
Absolutely. If I could say one more thing on that. I've always really resisted. It gets quoted again and again. Joan Didion wrote this essay where she says, you know, we knew the 60s ended that night. And I'm like, well, it was August of 69. It was going to end. The 60s were going to end anyway. Three months. Yeah, right. Like. And then Manson gets arrested in December. So it's this very neat. I think you've been hinting at this, and I just want to underline it. It's like a punctuation that, like those experiments, the fun, the. The kind of various communities integrating with each other. Like, this is the punctuation that says, yeah, that. That stuff's over. Right. Right now. Now we're. We're going to reorganize in a much more hierarchical kind of way.
- [61:52]
Don Wildman
Exactly. It's no coincidence that, you know, a few years later, you have the Godfather, you have the big blockbuster start to come. You know, it's. It's that time frame and Hollywood gets serious, and that's what happens, is that all the innocence is gone. But the innocence also led to Charles Manson. So no. Thanks for that.
- [62:09]
Jeff Molnick
Yeah, that's right. There you go.
- [62:10]
Don Wildman
Jeffrey Paul Melnick is the name of the author that I've been interviewing. Jeff Melnick, thank you very much. Cultural historian and professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is author of the book we've been talking all about called Creepy Crawley, Charles Manson and the Many Lives of America's Most Infamous Family. I encourage you to read it if you're interested in the cultural aspect of this thing. Really fascinating. Thank you so much, Jeff. We'll meet again.
- [62:33]
Jeff Molnick
Thanks, Don. That was fantastic.
- [62:37]
Don Wildman
Hey, thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History hit with me. Don Wildman. So grateful for your support.
- [63:12]
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