The Final Word on Manson: Part 1

Summary

Crimes of the Times: The Final Word on Manson, Part 1
Published March 18, 2025 | Host: Christopher Goffard | Guest: Stephen Kay, former LA County Deputy District Attorney

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Episode Overview

In this gripping first installment of a two-part conversation, host Christopher Goffard sits down with Stephen Kay, one of the last living prosecutors of the infamous Charles Manson case. Together, they peel back the enduring mythos around the "Manson Murders," shedding new light on the personalities, events, and aftermath of one of America's most haunting crimes. The episode explores Manson's rise, his psychological mastery over his followers, misconceptions about the Manson Family, the prosecution's inside story—including interoffice politics and uncredited contributions—and the fates of key players like Bruce Davis and attorney Ronald Hughes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene: The Manson Murders

• Background Recap:

  • On August 9, 1969, Charles Manson sent followers to murder actress Sharon Tate and four others; the next night, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were killed.
  • The crimes sent shockwaves through Hollywood, intersecting with the era's counterculture and spawning numerous books and theories.
    (A, 00:00–03:15)

• Manson’s Mythos:

  • Manson’s charisma, appearance, and the bizarre context gave rise to media hysteria, culminating in Rolling Stone dubbing him "the most dangerous man alive."
  • The "Helter Skelter" theory, popularized by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's book, became the dominant explanation for the murders.

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Inside the Prosecution: Stephen Kay’s Story

How Kay Joined the Manson Case

• Thrown Into the Deep End:
  • Stephen Kay explains being promoted from obscurity right into the "crime of the century" at age 27 following a DA shakeup.
  • "Here at 27 years old, the crime of the century. 10,000 pages of transcript. But hey, you know, I gotta do it."
    (C, 07:12)

Prosecution Team Dynamics

• Unpopular but Prepared:

  • Kay describes Bugliosi as "very unusual" and not well-liked, but an obsessive, meticulous worker—often sleeping only 3 hours a night.
    (C, 08:01–08:45)
  • "He was not well liked, but I got along with him. ...He was very well prepared. He wrote out everything, he planned everything."
    (C, 08:02–08:14)

• Credit Where Due (or Not):

  • Bugliosi is critiqued for failing to give his colleagues credit or even spelling names correctly in his books, which Kay suspects was intentional.
  • "No, you wouldn't [know about others’ contributions] from reading his book... Yeah, he spelled my name wrong. Our main investigator, Phil Sartucci, he spelled his name wrong."
    (C, 10:01–10:11)

The Impact of Media Narratives

• Kay argues the Life magazine cover with Manson’s "wild and crazy" eyes did more to cement Manson’s legacy than the book Helter Skelter.
  • "That scared everybody. And that's a picture to this day that whoever's seen it will not forget it."
    (C, 11:28–12:06)

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Memorable Moments and Anecdotes

Defeating the "Manson Stare"

• Kay recounts a psychiatrist’s trick to "defeat" Manson’s hypnotic stare:
  • "If you stare at a person just above their nose, it'll look like you're staring in their eyes, and you will make them blink first."
  • "Manson gave me this stare, and I stared here, and I made him blink first. And he never forgot that. And I told him one time, I said, 'Charlie, you know I own your soul. Assuming you have one.'" (C, 12:24–13:17)

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Unpacking Manson’s Mind Control

Manson’s Charisma and Psychological Grip

• “True Believer” Personality:

  • Manson had absolute certainty in his twisted worldview and profound verbal skill, despite little formal education.
  • "He could quote the Bible almost verbatim in many parts, twisting it to mean what he wanted it to mean."
    (C, 16:38–17:51)

• Learned Manipulation:

  • Exposure to Scientology techniques and Dale Carnegie lessons in prison informed his approach to controlling minds.
    (C, 19:51–21:06)

• LSD’s Role:

  • Manson’s LSD-fueled “seances” increased followers’ suggestibility and bound them to his will.

The “Helter Skelter” Delusion

• Beatles Obsession:

  • Manson was obsessed with the Beatles’ White Album, interpreting "Helter Skelter," "Piggies," and "Revolution 9" as prophecies—a belief he force-fed to his followers during interminable drug-fueled listening sessions.
    (C, 21:32–24:48)
  • "The Beatles aren’t really the Beatles. The Beatles are the locusts written about in Revelation 9 of the Bible. The locusts that are going to fly out of the bottomless pit and start Armageddon." (C, 23:12–23:24)

• Motive:

  • 'Helter Skelter' was Manson’s term for the coming race war; the murders were intended to spark it, after which the Family would emerge to rule. (B, 24:48–25:11)
  • Kay corrects the notion of the Family as "a band of hippies," emphasizing their deep-seated racism, violence, and hatred of the true counterculture.
    (C, 25:11–26:46)

Selection of Victims and the Role of Chance

• Manson targeted the Cielo Drive house partly out of revenge and envy—he wanted to send a message to record producer Terry Melcher, who once lived there and refused to promote him.
  • "He didn't necessarily know who lived at Cielo Drive... he just knew they were well off and that it would scare Terry Melcher." (B & C, 28:36–28:49)

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Focus on Bruce Davis and the Murder of Ronald Hughes

Bruce Davis: The Overlooked Lieutenant

• Though Tex Watson is commonly referenced as Manson's right hand, Kay asserts Bruce Davis played this role, acting as Manson’s delegate and even studying Scientology in London at Manson’s behest.
  (C, 35:03–35:54)

The Fate of Ronald Hughes: Attorney-Turned-Victim

• Ronald Hughes, originally an errand boy for Manson, later represented Leslie Van Houten and defied Manson by properly advocating for his client. Hughes’ fate grew ominous after Manson threatened him in court:
  • "Manson pointed across the council table at Hughes...and said, 'Attorney, I don't want to ever see you in this courtroom again.' And we never saw him again."
    (C, 40:44–41:00)

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Selected Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On Helter Skelter’s Endurance:

  • "I think people in the United States like horror movies. They like to be scared... Life magazine put Charles Manson on the COVID and this was like a real live monster. He looked wild and crazy...I think that Life magazine cover did more than the book Helter Skelter." (C, 11:19–12:06)

• On Prosecution Team Dynamics:

  • "[Bugliosi] was very unusual. He didn't have many friends in the DA's office. He was not well liked, but I got along with him... He was really taught me a lot about preparing a case." (C, 08:01–08:14)

• On Outmaneuvering Manson in the Courtroom:

  • "Manson gave me this stare, and I stared here, and I made him blink first. And he never forgot that. And I told him one time, I said, 'Charlie, you know I own your soul. Assuming you have one.'” (C, 13:12–13:17)

• On Bruce Davis:

  • "Bruce Davis was his right hand man. Whenever Manson would leave... he would leave Davis in charge. Davis had two years at the University of Tennessee, was very bright...." (C, 35:03–35:36)

• On Ronald Hughes’s Last Day:

  • "Manson pointed across the council table at Hughes and I'll never forget this... 'Attorney, I don't want to ever see you in this courtroom again.' And we never saw him again." (C, 40:44–41:00)

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Timeline & Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:00 – 03:15: Introduction, recap of murders, cultural impact
• 03:15 – 07:45: Stephen Kay’s entry into the case and duties
• 07:45 – 11:19: Kay’s relationship with Bugliosi, prosecution dynamics
• 11:19 – 13:17: The iconic Manson "stare" and personal encounters in court
• 15:45 – 17:51: Manson’s psychological control, background, and early life
• 18:09 – 21:06: Manson’s criminal history, influences from prison, and mind-control techniques
• 21:06 – 25:11: The Helter Skelter delusion, Beatles obsession, and the murders’ racial motive
• 25:11 – 28:36: Misconceptions about the Family; victim selection and Cielo Drive
• 32:38 – 36:18: Bruce Davis’s role, Gary Hinman’s murder, and Spahn Ranch dynamics
• 36:18 – 41:00: The Ronald Hughes saga—his transition from Manson ally to independent defense attorney and his foreboding disappearance

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Tone & Language

The episode balances the chilling gravity of its subject with direct, sometimes darkly anecdotal reminiscences from Stephen Kay. Goffard’s style is thoughtful, precise, and determined to probe beneath received wisdom—staying true to the investigative spirit of Crimes of the Times.

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Summary Takeaways

• Stephen Kay provides first-hand, often overlooked insight into one of America’s most famous murder cases, challenging popular perceptions and media narratives.
• Charles Manson’s control over his followers is shown to be a blend of personality, psychological manipulation, exploitation of the times, and psychopharmacology.
• The motives for the murders were both apocalyptic and deeply personal.
• The episode teases further exploration of the fate of attorney Ronald Hughes—a figure whose story underscores both the reach of Manson’s influence and the chaos surrounding the trial.

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For more, the series continues in "The Final Word on Manson: Part 2," delving deeper into how the Manson case left a permanent mark on Los Angeles and the American psyche.

Transcript

[A]

This is an LA Times Studios podcast. Welcome to Crimes of the Times. I'm Christopher Gofford. Today on our show we're shifting to the conversation format which we expect to be doing now and then. This is the first of a two part conversation with Stephen Kay, the former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson and his killer Disciples. Kay is one of the last living links to a case that has generated a shelf load of books and mountains of think pieces. First, some basic background. On August 9, 1969, Charles Manson sent a team of his loyal disciples to the home of the actress Sharon Tate in the hills above Los Angeles. The Manson soldiers murdered Tate, who was 26 years old and eight months pregnant, and four others at her house on Cielo Drive. A newspaper headline called it a blood orgy and much of Hollywood suddenly felt terrifyingly vulnerable. Adding to the weirdness and a lot of crazed speculation, Sharon Tate's husband, Roman Polanski, was famous for directing Rosemary's Baby, a horror movie about a satanic cult and a woman pregnant with the devil's baby. The day after the Cielo Drive killings, the Manson clan broke into a Los Feliz home and murdered a couple who had not been Lino LaBianca, who owned a chain of grocery stores, and his wife Rosemary. Police found messages scrawled in blood around the house. Death to Pigs and Helter Skelter. These are the seven murders most commonly associated with Charles Manson, though there were others, possibly many others. Manson was a career criminal with uncommon charisma, a ragged outlaw messiah with an apocalyptic outlook who oversaw a small nomadic cult that came to be known as the Family, mostly young women whom he plied with endless doses of acid and used to lure men into his orbit. After his arrest, Manson's wide eyed, deranged looking glare was on magazine covers everywhere and Rolling Stone called him the most dangerous man alive. The most famous account of the killings is Helter Skelter, co written by Vincent Bugliosi, who became chief prosecutor against Manson and his co defendants Leslie Van Houten, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel. Bugliosi argued that in his acid crazed logic, Manson called for the Tate LaBianca killings because he was hoping to provoke a race war he called Helter Skelter. Stephen Kay worked alongside Bugliosi and later prosecuted another of Manson's killers, Tex Watson. Kay endorses the Helter Skelter motive and in our conversation he talks about the Beatles lyrics with which Manson became obsessed and that fueled his bizarre vision. Kay became second chair at the Manson trial in 1970 because the Los Angeles County DA decided to throw the original chief prosecutor, Aaron Stovitz, off the case. His crime had been talking to the media too much.

[B]

Steve, welcome. It's good to talk to you. We've talked before and I'd love to talk to you about your experience with the DA's office and on the Manson case. Tell us how you got involved with the trial. I understand it was going for a couple months before you got the call.

[C]

Yes, my wife and I were on vacation and we went up to Canada, drove back, and as we were driving home, I heard on the radio that Evelyn Younger, the District Attorney, had removed the chief prosecutor, Aaron Stovitz, from the case. And I thought, I've never heard of anything like that. Taking the chief chief prosecutor off of a big murder case. Two months into the trial, that was on a Friday. I went back to work on Monday when I got a call from J. Miller Levy's secretary. J. Miller Levy was head of the Trials division. His secretary Carolyn said, Mr. Levy wants to see you right away. And I was on the fifth floor and I walked up to his office and I thought, well, I haven't been back long enough to screw up so I wonder why he wants to see me. And I walked in his office and I could tell he was on the speakerphone. He turned around and saw me and he turned back to the speakerphone and said, vince, he's here. And I thought, oh, how old were.

[B]

You at the time?

[C]

I was 27. Then I was told by Mr. Levy that Vince was going to take Aaron's place as the chief prosecutor, I would take Vince's place as the second chair. And Watson was fighting extradition and so was not part of the first trial. But that if he got back and if his trial started before the first case was over that I would split off and prosecute Watson.

[B]

So some people are coming to this case for the first time. Let's just step back a second and establish who is on trial. It's Charles Manson and three of his lieutenants. Right. Or three of the so called Manson girls.

[C]

Yes, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten were on trial. Watson was. Tex Watson was also charged in the same case but fought extradition and was in Texas at the time. I got on the trail. So I got on the trial started June 15, 1970 and I got on about the second week of September 1970 and so I finished out the last eight months of a ten month trial.

[B]

And this is in connection with the Tate LaBianca murders.

[C]

Manson, Adkins, Krenwinkel and Watson were all charged with the Tate and LaBianca murders and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. Leslie Van Houten was charged with just the LaBianca murders and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.

[B]

What are your duties as second chair and how do you plunge into this incredibly complicated, high profile case?

[C]

Well, my job was to prepare the witnesses for testimony, to spend a lot of time with them, and to help in court if need be. It was kind of hard to jump into a case. There were already like 10,000 pages of transcript. So I had to be in and out of court. I had to catch up on reading the transcripts and what Miller Levy had told me, that Evelyn Younger was close to taking Vince Bugliosi off the case because Bulloci was making too many statements to the press too. And he said that if Vince got taken off the case, that I would take over the case. So here at 27 years old, the crime of the century. 10,000 pages of transcript. But hey, you know, I gotta do it.

[B]

What was your relationship like with Bugliosi, whose name is most often associated with the case as the prosecutor? He wrote the book that sort of established the narrative of the Manson murders.

[C]

He was very unusual. He didn't have many friends in the DA's office. He was not well liked, but I got along with him. He didn't get along well with the investigators. He treated them like errand boys. I had at one point to kind of break up a pre fight in his office when he had belittled one of the investigators, told him to go get him a yellow pad and a pen. Anyway, Vince was, was very well prepared. He wrote out everything, he planned everything. He was really taught me a lot about preparing a case. He slept like only three hours a night. I don't know how he could do that, but he would, he would go home and, and sleep for about three hours and then get up and work the rest of the, the night.

[B]

We quoted you in, in the paper at one point as saying, another attorney told me this is just another big case in 5 years everyone will forget about it. But Vince understood the significance of the case.

[C]

Not only another attorney told me that. It was Aaron Stovitz that told me that.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[C]

Aaron Stovitz, the chief prosecutor, the original chief prosecutor before the case started. Well, Vince, on the other hand, he knew it was his meal ticket and he, I mean he, he made millions off of the case.

[B]

Yeah. And he's, he's never been particularly generous in terms of sharing credit with. With other prosecutors in the Manson case.

[C]

No, you wouldn't. From reading his book, you wouldn't know that Aaron Stovets was the chief prosecutor originally. And.

[B]

And you're S T E V E N. Steven.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah, he spelled my name wrong. Our main investigator, Phil Sartucci, he spelled his name wrong.

[B]

You think he did that stuff deliberately?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Just. Just to give you a little tweak. Tweak. There's just a little poke. And, you know, in the. In the Watson case, we split that case up 50. 50. I did half the witnesses. He did half the witnesses. I gave the opening argument, he gave the closing argument. So it's not like I would. I was sitting on my hands doing nothing. And, you know, I. I had the main witness in the case, Joel Ford Watson, put on a psychiatric defense, and Joel Fort was the main prosecution witness who basically won the case for us. And, I mean, I went up to San Francisco, met Joel Fort in the Oakland airport, spent hours with him, and. But you would never know that from reading his books.

[B]

Do you think the case would have endured the way it has if not for the narrative that he puts forth in Helter Skelter?

[C]

I think people in the United States like horror movies. They like to be scared. And Life magazine put Charles Manson on the COVID and this was like a real live monster. He looked wild and crazy on the COVID and he scared people. And so I think that that Life magazine cover did more than the book. Helder. Skelter. I mean, that scared everybody. And that's a picture to this day that whoever's seen it will not forget it.

[B]

Is it this picture of him with the crazy eyes? Is it this one? Because that's.

[C]

That's even crazier.

[B]

Okay, yeah, we can find that. And, yeah, he had. He had. He practiced the stare. But you have a story about this? Oh, yes, I'd love to hear that story.

[C]

Oh, yes, I have a story about. About the scare. So one of my psychiatrist friends told me how to defeat Manson and his stare, because Manson thought that if he stared at you and stared into your eyes and made you blink, and if you blink first, that he would own your soul. So the psychiatrist told me that if you stare at. At a person just above their nose, it'll look like you're staring in their eyes, and you will make them blink first. So Manson gave me this stare, and I stared here, and I made him blink first. And he never forgot that. And I told him one time, I said, charlie, you know I own your soul. Assuming you have one.

[B]

How did he like that?

[C]

He didn't like it. He threatened to kill me three times and. But he's not here anymore. And I'm still here. So.

[D]

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[E]

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[A]

In a famous essay, Joan Didion would write that many of the people she knew in Los Angeles felt the murders at the Sharon Tate house marked the exact moment that the 60s ended abruptly. The case seemed to embody the darker undercurrents of the counterculture. It was the flip side of Woodstock and the flower power generation with a cast of drug Addled runaways who did not just reject mainstream America, but were ready to invade your home and murder for their cult leader. I'm talking to former Manson prosecutor Stephen Kay.

[B]

So part of the puzzle of the case for a lot of people is how he was able to exercise the kind of mental domination over people that he did to the point that he inspired them to kill. How is he able to do that?

[C]

Well, there are different methods that he used. I think that there are like three major things. One, Manson's personality. Manson had a very powerful personality. He had what the psychiatrists have told me is a true believer personality. In other words, when he would say something, even though it might sound a little wacko to somebody, you couldn't talk him out of it. I mean it was his way or the highway. And I mean he only had a fourth grade education, but he was very verbal. He could quote the Bible almost verbatim in many parts, twisting it to mean what he wanted it to mean. So his personality was important. The times was, were very important. When he got out of prison, he found his way first up to Berkeley and then to San Francisco and he met lots of misfits.

[B]

Can we do, can we do just a brief sketch of Charles Banson's life leading up to prison? I mean, sure, give us just a quick biography of the guy before he gets out of Terminal island and heads to San Francisco. For people who aren't familiar with the.

[C]

Story, Manson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 11, 1934. His mother was a 16 year old prostitute and his father was one of her clients. And he was raised by his mother until age 4 when she was sentenced to state prison for armed robbery. He was then raised by an aunt until his mother got out of prison. After his mother got out of prison, his mother turned him over to the juvenile authorities as an incorrigible. And he spent most of the rest of his life either in reformed schools, boys camps, juvenile camps, county jails, federal prisons. He never had any violence in his background until the Tate and LaBianca murders. He was a car thief and he also had violations of the Mann Act. M A N N. And that's taking women across state lines for immoral purposes. Manson was a pimp and that served him well with the so called Manson girls because he knew how to control a certain type of woman and he was very, very controlling, very good at that.

[B]

So he gets out of Terminal island and he's been given instruction in the Dale Carnegie school of how to win friends and influence people. Right.

[C]

Well, not Only was he given instruction on Dale Carnegie to win friends and influence people. But while he was in Terminal island, he came under the influence of two members of an offshoot of Scientology called the Process. And they taught him the mind control methods of Scientology. Not only how to control his own mind, but how to control others. So you've got this guy with a very strong personality, very controlling. He's got. Learned some mind control methods. And then the third thing was lsd. LSD is a very kind of mind controlling drug. It opens people to suggestibility. And Manson would, would have these seance kind of things where the people would take LSD and he would preach to them. The combination of Manson's personality, the times with the misfits and lsd, I think is how Manson was able to control people.

[B]

How did he come upon the Helter Skelter obsession?

[C]

How did this develop for him, the Helter Skelter obsession? And it was an obsession with him. It came to be because of the Beatles White Album. And I don't know, that's where, that's.

[B]

Where we first heard the name. And that song, Helter Skelter, right?

[C]

Yes. There is a song Helter Skelter in there and Manson, it's about a.

[B]

It's about a slide in a. In a theme park in England. Right? You get to the bottom and you go to the top of the slide.

[C]

Yes, it was Helder Skelter. The song talked about people who were at the bottom of the slide of society would get back to the top and Manson would play the White Album and his followers would sit around and they would be on LSD and they would listen to the White Album and Manson would say, the Beatles aren't really the Beatles. The Beatles are the locusts written about in Revelation 9 of the Bible. The locusts that are going to fly out of the bottomless pit and start Armageddon. Manson was so obsessed with the White Album that he wouldn't let people leave. They had to stay there and listen. Recently one of his followers, Diane Lake, in an interview said that she even peed herself because they wouldn't let her get up to leave the room to go to the bathroom. And so they would play this album over and again. And there were some key songs in the album. There was another song in the album called Piggies. Piggies out with their piggy wives clutching their forks and knives to eat their bacon. What they need is a damn good whacking. Well, whacking is a gangster term meaning to kill somebody. And to Manson and his Followers, pigs were not cops. They were white upper middle class people and upper class people with Lino LaBianca. When his body was found, he had a pillowcase over his head. And when the pillowcase was removed, he had a knife with the handle protruding out of one side of the neck, the blade traversing his neck and severing a carotid artery and part of the blade sticking out of the other neck. And. And then in his abdomen, Krenwinkel had carved the initials WAR and plunged the carving fork into his abdomen seven times. So piggies out with their piggies, wives clutching their forks and knives to eat their bacon. What they need is a damn good whacking. And there was a song in the White Album and I put quotation marks around the word song. And it was called Revolution 9. Revolution 9, Revelation 9. And what you hear in this song is one of the Beatles saying, number nine, number nine. And in the background you hear people crying and screaming. You hear machine gun fire. Well, this was going to be Armageddon. This was going to be the revolution. There was another song. Happiness is a worm gun. Well, Tex Watson had a worm gun on the night of the Tate murders.

[B]

So the motive for the murders, as you understand it, is Manson wanted to provoke a race war. The killings will be blamed on black people. The Manson family will flee to Death Valley and descend into a bottomless hole, wait out the revolution and then come out and take control, right? Yes, that's basically the idea.

[C]

And you have to understand the type of people that were around him. And I really get upset when the historians refer to these people as a band of hippies. They hated hippies. Hippies were peace loving people. They were flower children. They believed in make love, not war. A lot of hippies came into contact with Manson. They heard what he was saying and they hightailed it away from him as fast as they possibly could. Manson would tell his followers how Adolf Hitler was his hero for what Hitler did to Jews in World War II. And Manson was a real racist and he wouldn't let any minorities in the family. And he would tell different people who could get together and have babies because he wanted to have the babies a certain, have a certain look. So you had a combination of all these things, the mind control, drugs, misfits. You know, the first people that he started collecting, Susan Atkins was an escort and a topless go go dancer at Big Al's in San Francisco. Mary Bruner, he met her first. She was a librarian at UC Berkeley. Ella Joe Bailey was a runaway and Then he started collecting these girls. And then he decided that the more girls he collected, then he could bring men in.

[B]

Why did he pick Cielo Drive?

[C]

Well, that's a very interesting thing. He had been to Cielo Drive before. He and Watson had both been there at a party given by Terry Melcher.

[B]

Son of Doris Day, the son of.

[C]

Doris Day and who was living with Candace Bergen, famous actress. Terry Melcher was a record producer and Manson wanted to be a rock star. And Melcher met Manson at Dennis Wilson's house. And he thought Manson was fairly talented, playing the guitar and kind of as a folk musician, coming up with oddball lyrics. And Melcher even went out to the Spahn Ranch to addition Manson and the family as kind of a folk rock group. And, and he wasn't impressed. But Manson thought that he was going to get him a contract and that Manson was going to be making the big bucks. When Melcher didn't give him a contract, Manson was irate. And he picked the Cielo Drive residence. He knew that, that Melcher didn't live there anymore. He knew that Melcher and Candice Bergen had moved to Malibu and he knew that because he stole a telescope from their balcony deck in Malibu. But Manson knew that probably somebody famous lived there.

[B]

So he didn't necessarily know who lived at Cielo Drive when he sent his people there. He just knew that they were well off and maybe that it would scare Terry Melcher because he used to live there. And yes, he would get a message.

[C]

Yes. And Melcher took that message and went underground for about a year, only contacting his close friends and associates. He was scared to death. He didn't know that Manson was the one who did the murders, but he moved out in January of 69, and Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski, her husband, moved in in February. And so Melcher thought, there but for the grace of God go I. And he was scared to death.

[A]

When we come back, we'll talk about Bruce Davis, who was one of Manson's most loyal disciples, and his possible connection to the disappearance of a defense attorney who decided to defy Manson.

[F]

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[A]

I'm talking to Stephen Kay, a former Los Angeles prosecutor who helped put away Charles Manson and some of his homicidal disciples. In this segment, we talk about Bruce Davis, who was not there for the Tate LaBianca murders, but was convicted of killing two men who had run afoul of Manson for various reasons. These were Gary Hinman, a musician, and Donald Shorty Shea, a ranch hand at the Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth where Manson and his followers were living. During a parole hearing, Davis would say, quote, I wanted to be Charlie's favorite guy.

[B]

What period are we talking about now? Mid 69 or.

[C]

Well, the. Hinman was murdered between July 25th and 27th, before the Tate LaBianca murders.

[B]

By the way, is that the first of the Manson murders that we know about?

[C]

Yes, for sure. Yes.

[B]

Gary Hinman. Okay.

[C]

Starts with him, the first one. And I prosecuted Bruce Davis, Manson's chief lieutenant, for the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald Shorty Shay. Shorty Shave was the ranch handed at Spahn Ranch. That was the last of the. The murders.

[B]

And they were afraid that he was a snitch, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

That's why they killed him.

[C]

Yes, they. Well, I know now that there were several reasons why they killed him at the time of the trial. I didn't. But I've since learned that Manson attacked one of the female ranch hands at Spahn Ranch and broke her arm. She was actually a cousin of Shorty Shea. And Shorty was not short. He was 6 4. He was a huge guy. And he beat Manson to a pulp. I mean, just to a pulp. And Manson was 5:2. Now, I think that was probably the main reason. Another reason is Shorty was collaborating with Frank Reitz, the neighbor rancher, to try and get Manson and the family thrown off the Spahn Ranch because they knew that he was up to no good.

[B]

Let's talk about Bruce Davis for a minute, Ken. Because Tex Watson is the figure most widely seen, I guess, as Manson's right hand man. But it's really Bruce Davis.

[C]

Yeah. Bruce Davis was his right hand man. Whenever Manson would leave Spahn Ranch or any other place where the family was located, he would leave Davis in charge. Davis had two years at the University of Tennessee was very bright. Manson relied on him so much that Manson sent him to London to study at the Scientology headquarters because Manson wanted to learn more about Scientology. Manson felt that he was on the level of clear in Scientology, but he wanted to learn more about it. So Davis went to the Scientology headquarters. Now, Scientology didn't have anything to do with these murders. It was just something that Manson glommed onto, like Manson glommed onto the Bible.

[B]

Now, I wanted to ask about Bruce Davis because he was at large when Ronald Hughes went missing and wound up dead. And I'm very interested in the Ronald Hughes story. So Ronald Hughes is kind of a friend of Manson. He's hanging out at Spahn Ranch. He's a UCLA law student. He's into the counterculture. Kind of a big, disheveled, ungainly guy, right?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Tell me about Ronald Hughes, because his fate is one of the more interesting stories.

[C]

Well, when Ronald Hughes was a UCLA law student, on occasion, Ronald would go out to Spahn Ranch and drop acid with Manson and the family. And. And when Manson got arrested, he didn't know any. Any attorney. So by this time, Ronald Hughes was an attorney. And so Manson used him as kind of his errand boy, a runner to visit him in the jail and to. To, you know, do. Do errands for him and. And to keep track of the. Of the girls, what they were up to. And Ira Reiner, who later became District Attorney of Los Angeles, was Leslie Van Houten's attorney. And Manson did not like Ira Reiner because Ira Reiner wanted to represent Leslie Van Houten. And remember, Leslie Van Houten was charged with the LaBianca murders, not the Tate and LaBianca murders. Manson was very angry at Reiner, and so he got Van Houten to fire Ira Reiner. And then Manson appointed Ronald Hughes as Leslie Van Houten's attorney. You know, like Judge Manson appointed, hoping.

[B]

He'D be a pawn.

[C]

Yes. And Hughes was a very interesting character. I sat next to him in court. He would come into court, he had, like, two suits, and he had two ties. One was a Mickey Mouse tie that he would wear in court, and the other had a painted nude on the tie. And if you can imagine the crime of the century, so to speak, wearing this outfit to court day after day. I remember one of his suits was green, and he had this full beard, wild hair.

[B]

Yeah, the hippie. The hippie lawyer, they called him.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So he starts out kind of under Manson's thumb, but then he decides, I'M going to be a real lawyer. I'm going to represent my client. I'm going to break her off from the others.

[C]

And Manson hated that because Manson wanted all of the attorneys to represent him. He didn't care about what happened with the girls, just cared about Charles Manson.

[B]

So Hughes decides my client has a better chance if I present a different defense from the others, if I separate.

[C]

Her from the others, that she was only involved in the LaBianca murders and she was a young woman brainwashed by Helder, Skelter Charles Manson. And so he started representing Van Houten and doing a fairly good job of it. The only other thing that he had done, notably in the case, was cross examining Linda Kasabian. Hughes was into drugs and he knew the drug culture and he knew how to push Linda Kasabian, our star witnesses buttons. And he was the only defense attorney that really did a good job cross examining her. But I remember it was the last Friday in November 1970 and we had just broken for the weekend, recessed to come back on Monday. And Manson sat at the end of the council table. Vince was at the other end, not facing Manson, but facing the judge. And I was next to Vince and then Hughes was next to me. And Manson pointed across the council table at Hughes and I'll never forget this, he pointed his finger at him and said, attorney, I don't want to ever see you in this courtroom again. And we never saw him again.

[A]

On the next episode, we'll talk about the fate of Ronald Hughes and how his disappearance affected the case. Thanks for listening to Crimes of the Times from LA Times Studios. This is Crimes of the Times. To read more about these cases, check out Crimes of the [e-mail] we also have a link to our video episodes in the show Notes. This episode was written and reported by me, your host, Christopher Goffard. Our senior producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shifflett. Executive editor is Deborah Anderleu. Associate producer is Jordan Patterson. Video editing by Cooper Kenworth. Production services provided by JTB Studios. Our camera technicians and operators are Jeff Amlott, Julia McCabe and Jason Newbert, with additional production support from Andrew Gombert, Patrick Stewart and Ann Marie Hauser. Denise Callahan is our studio manager. Ben Church is our production manager. Special thanks to LA Times Studios president, Anna Magzanian. President and chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argenteri and executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Crimes of the Times is executive produced and co created by Darius, Derek Shond and me Christopher Goffard.