Chapter 57: Candles in the Rain - The Manson Family Saga Comes to an End
On the evening of August 9th, 1969, the day that the bodies of Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Richard Perry, Jay Sebring, and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau were discovered by the Police in Los Angeles, Governor Ronald Reagan interrupted a regularly scheduled broadcast of the popular television show
Gunsmoke to deliver an address to the people of California, America, Canada, and the world. In controlled, but clearly enraged language delivered through the eyes of a deeply hurt and concerned man, the Governor vowed to do everything in his power to “ensure that those responsible for this great, deplorable act of senseless violence are captured, tried, and brought to the fullest form of justice possible under the law.” Having been a target of the Manson Family himself only a year before, Reagan had no way of knowing at the time that the same people behind this grisly crime had also tried to murder him as well. Ordering a combined, cooperative effort between the Los Angeles Police, California State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Governor Reagan, FBI Director Hoover, President Romney, and Prime Minister Turner agreed that they would all work together with every possible effort to ensure that the crime was solved quickly, efficiently, and honestly.
The image of Reagan, Romney, and Turner together at Trudeau’s funeral in Ottawa on August 17th was a solemn, sad one, but also gave the people of North America hope, and echoed President Romney’s words that “this crime, deplorable as it is, will bring the people of America and Canada together in grief, loss, and unity, as we work together to continue to strengthen our eternal friendship and to bring justice to those who would do our people harm.” On the ground in LA, the investigation went into high gear right away and police began to collect evidence from the scene and put together a team to try and piece it all together.
Working against them were the Family themselves, whose leader reveled in the horror and panic he was inflicting upon the world. When it became clear that his ploy had worked, and the media was transfixed by the actions of his “children”, Charles Manson decided that the time had come to ramp up his efforts to trigger Helter Skelter, and so settled on another set of victims, hoping to create an image of a “reign of terror” descending upon the City of Angels. On August 11th, Manson, Tex Watson, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkel broke into the home of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, a dress shop co-owner and woke them from their sleep at gunpoint. Manson then ordered Watson to tie them up and watched as Watson and the two women stabbed the helpless couple to death as they had done to their other victims two nights prior. Hoping that his sick, twisted imagery would capture the popular imagination, Manson had Van Houten write “Helter Skelter” in Rosemary’s blood on the walls of the apartment and Watson carve the word “WAR” into Leno’s exposed abdomen with the bayonet he used to kill him. The Family then quickly fled the scene and returned to Spahn Ranch, where Manson congratulated them on another job well done and announced his plan to relocate the family out of the Los Angeles region: “This place has been home to us for a great long time now, my children,” he said to them as they dropped acid and prepared for an orgy that night. “But the time has come for the shepherd and his flock to find new ground in which to lay their roots. The Blue Meanie is gathering the forces of evil in the City of Angels to bring about our undoing, we must run faster than him if we are to survive. And so, with the rising of the Sun tomorrow, we leave our little nest and fly toward freedom in the dunes of the Mojave and from there, to the beating heart of this corrupt wasteland of a country.”
The Family members agreed and began to split off into pairs and trios to have sex in various buildings around the Ranch. Mary Brunner, who no longer dropped acid and usually spent these nights playing with Valentine away from the others was shocked when Charlie took her hand and smiled. “Mother Mary,” he said in a spaced out tone. “Tonight, you and I return to paradise together, I know it has been a long, long time since we’ve gone.” Despite Mary’s intentions and wishes, she felt herself aroused by Charlie once again. She hated him, she loathed him with every fiber of her being, for abandoning her and their son to sleep with all these other women, to murder in the name of his dopey religious mumbo jumbo, and for keeping her away from everyone and everything she cared about for years now. Yet, she couldn’t help but be flush with desire as they undressed, kissed, and she felt him inside of her again. He was a drug, this Charles Manson. And the longer she was away from him, the more that Mary longed for his return all the more. She didn’t care if Charlie was a monster, she realized. He was her monster, and this was the life she had chosen for herself. She couldn’t leave and go back to her family in Wisconsin now. How could she? She was a thief, a burglar, an accessory to murder, and in her mother’s eyes, she’d be a whore for bearing a child out of wedlock. At least with Charlie and the others she and Valentine had a place. Food, water, shelter, and the ability to run from all of the things she’d done wrong, all the mistakes she’d made. She thrilled at every moment of her lovemaking with Charlie, and when he was done and left her, she prayed that she could spend the rest of her life trying to make him want to stay.
…
The next several weeks, then months passed with agonizing slowness for the investigation into the Trudeau - LaBianca Murders. The LaBiancas were discovered by their children on August 12th as they returned from a camping trip and the police promised to quickly close that case as well,, since the killings seemed intrinsically linked by the references to “Helter Skelter”, “Piggies”, and “War”. A series of leads turned up cold however when State troopers moved in on Spahn Ranch after hearing about several stolen Volkswagen Beetles that had been converted to dune buggies situated there. The police found the vehicles, some weapons, and the corpse of George Spahn, who was found stabbed to death in his office, both of his blind eyes put out and the word “Piggy” carved into his chest, but no sign of the cult. Knowing now that the hippies who had been living on the Ranch were likely responsible for the murders around the city, the investigators searched desperately for any clue of where the group might be headed, including following up on the hitherto unsolved Hinman case. RCMP officers working the case managed to get into contact with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, who had captured Susan Atkins and taken her in as a suspect in the Hinman murder case. While staying at the LAPD jail, Atkins had blabbed to her cellmates about she and the family’s other “activities” including the murder of “that handsome Prime Minister fella”. With information from Atkins and the clues drawn up from the Spahn Ranch, the investigation was able to produce warrants for the arrest of Tex Watson, Susan Good, and Patricia Krenwinkel for their involvement in the Trudeau case and the LaBianca case. At this time, there wasn’t enough evidence to issue such a warrant for Manson, though he was also wanted for questioning.
The Police received another big break when Linda Kasabian, who had never taken part in any of the murders and was truly disturbed by them, defected from the Family and returned to Los Angeles to become an informant for the FBI. She let the police know of Manson’s intentions, to move the Family first to Nevada and from there somewhere back east, perhaps even Washington, D.C. to target the President and other government leaders. Appalled by this, the investigation moved swiftly to mobilize the long arm of the law and bring in more Federal and state law enforcement agencies across the country to hunt Manson and his followers down. US Marshals were called up to prevent the Family from traveling between state lines, and by the end of the year, the investigation was finally starting to see results. On December 1st, 1969, Tex Watson was arrested in McKinney, Texas, and on the 13th, Patricia Krenwinkel was nabbed in Mobile, Alabama. By that time, Manson had caught on to the authorities’ strategies of trying to apprehend them, and knew that his only chance of evading the law himself was to split off from the rest of his group. Selling his followers out one at a time, Manson reduced the size of his Family until it was down to just he and Mary Brunner, his original girl. Heading south with all possible speed, realizing the jig was up, Manson made plans to head to Arizona and from there to escape across the border into Mexico. Brunner however, would prove the foil to the cult leader’s diabolical plans.
Late on the night December 24th, Christmas Eve, as they neared Tijuana in a stolen American Motors Rambler, Brunner and Manson saw the flashing lights of U.S. Marshals and RCMP up ahead in the distance. They had been told that this route would be free of “pigs” and Manson began to howl out curses as he struggled to turn the tiny car around. Scared by the man’s loud noises, Valentine, who previously lay asleep in Mary’s lap, began to cry. Fearing the child would alert the cops down the highway, Manson quickly spun the vehicle back toward the north, drove for several miles, then pulled over and let out a sigh. He turned to his original follower and frowned. “Get out, Marioche. We have something we’ve gotta do.” Mary did as she was bid, though foreboding followed her every step.
The pair exited the vehicle and Mary clung to Valentine, trying to quiet him down. Every few seconds, she would swear she could hear sirens somewhere just beyond sight. She couldn’t be sure, however. Manson emerged from the car and pulled a .38 revolver from his waistband. Checking to see that the chambers were full, he yanked back the hammer and handed it to Mary as he pulled Valentine, kicking and screaming from her arms. “Charlie…” she moaned, horrified. “What are you doing?” Manson stared at the child,
his child directly in its eyes, then set it onto the sandy edge of the road.
“Not me, Mother Mary. You.” He gestured to the gun, and then to the baby. “You and I, we’re the only ones left to do the lord’s work now. The forces of darkness surround us on all sides, and this little monster is only their newest way of trying to get to us. If we don’t silence him, they’ll catch up to us, and persecute us for righteousness’ sake. They already have Tex, Patty, all the others… Do you really want them to get us too?”
Mary’s heart sank, her chest began to heave with heavy sobs. “Charlie… what are you asking me to do?”
Manson crouched down low, his face hovering just above that of Valentine. “Kill the monster, Mary. Set us free.”
She hesitated, how could she kill something, someone she loved more than anything else in the entire world? She had given up her future, her life for him, and now she had to say goodbye. But he wasn’t what he had been when she first saw him, Charlie was right, he was a monster now, and monsters needed to be purged from the world. She longed for the monster to be gone. She longed to be free. She held the pistol in both hands, closed her eyes. “Yes, Mary. Do it.” Manson grinned. “Do it now.” Mary squeezed the trigger. The loud rapport was followed by a deep thud, the acrid smell of the gunsmoke, and Valentine’s continued screams. She opened her eyes and saw the results of her handiwork. Charles Manson’s eyes lay wide as they looked, shocked, at the gaping wound in his chest. “Mary…” He wheezed, stunned. “How could you…” The gun went off again, then again, and again, and again, and a final time before its contents were exhausted. Shaking, Mary became violently ill before tossing the weapon aside and clutching Valentine to her chest, praying that her long nightmare would finally come to an end. As the clock struck midnight, and the world awaited the coming of its true savior, Mary was discovered by officers of the RCMP, who’d heard the gunfire and would take her into custody. She went without a struggle, though she begged them not to hurt her baby. With Charlie finally gone, her Pooh Bear was all she had left.
Manson’s death, and the arrests of Watson, Krenwinkel, Good, and Brunner seemed to bring some sense of closure to the terrified people of the United States and Canada, though they were only the beginning of the much longer and more complicated legal battles surrounding where the cultists would be tried, who held jurisdiction, and what their ultimate punishments would be. Due to overwhelming evidence against them and a rock solid case put together by all those involved in the investigation, the perpetrators’ guilt seemed virtually assured. What was more controversial however was what result a guilty verdict would bring. Governor Reagan demanded that Watson, at least, be given the death penalty should his guilt be proven, and sought it as well for Good and Krenwinkel, who had personally been involved in the Trudeau - LaBianca killings. The Canadian government was unlikely to agree to this however, as a moratorium had been placed on capital punishment in the Great White North in 1967 by Prime Minister Pearson. New Prime Minister John Turner demanded that Watson, Krenwinkel, and Good be extradited to Canada, and serve life sentences there instead. Arguments ensued, but the eventual agreement formed around Good and Krenwinkel serving life sentences in a maximum security prison in the wilderness of Saskatchewan and Watson being handed a death sentence, which would ultimately be carried out at San Quentin Penitentiary in California on September 17th, 1970. Governor Reagan would for the rest of his political career use the execution of Watson as a symbol of his toughness on crime, earning him the nickname “the Sheriff of Sacramento” from the press. Prime Minister Turner in Ottawa also received a boost in support in the aftermath of the convictions, as the Canadian People turned from memorializing Pierre Trudeau and toward their own issues at home. As for Mary Brunner, the young woman with whom the terror that was Charles Manson began and ended, she was issued a 25 year sentence for the murder of Manson, with the chance of parole in 15. Her baby boy Valentine, for whom she surrendered what remained of her youth, would be sent back to Wisconsin to be raised by Brunner’s parents. Mary prayed that he would be given a chance to grow up in the simple, midwestern life she’d left behind, free from the fear and terror that had been "Helter Skelter".
Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: A Political Realignment for the Ages
I could see him looking into a New York Congressional Race again as he did in 1960. If not there, then he could try to be the Democratic nominee for the Connecticut Senate Race as Thomas Dodd is being dropped from the ticket due to his censure and financial scandals.
