Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars (11 page)

Typically, the Manson men were as stupid as they were brutal. A week before the body was found, Monfort and Goucher were arrested for the armed robbery of a liquor store. Monfort was carrying James Willett’s identification papers and made bail under Willett’s name. Two women accompanied Goucher’s mother, Sarah, to the bail bondsman’s office. One identified herself as “Elizabeth Willett,” James’s sister, who was in Kentucky at the time. The other said she was Lauren Willett, James’s wife. “Elizabeth” said they needed to spring “James” so he could take care of his baby daughter.

Once free, Monfort jumped bail. When James Willett’s body was found the Stockton, California, police realized what had happened and began a citywide manhunt. At the same time, the real Lauren Willett disappeared just as her husband had before her.

Three days later, the police stormed a house in Stockton after spotting the Willetts’ station wagon parked out front. They kicked in the door and apprehended Monfort without a struggle. An alert officer noticed a shiny new shovel standing up in a corner with fresh earth caked on the blade. In a Manson house, that’s never a good sign. A search ensued. Another alert officer opened a trapdoor leading underneath the house and flashed his light on a pile of recently plowed soil. Shortly thereafter, the body of Lauren Willett was uncovered, a single .38 caliber bullet hole in the center of her forehead.

Heidi Willett, the slain couple’s eight-month-old daughter, was blissfully playing on a blanket in the living room while her mother’s body was being removed from the premises. (Lauren’s parents eventually gained custody of the child.)

The four people found at the home—Monfort, Craig, Pitman, and Cooper—were immediately arrested. Squeaky telephoned while the police were there and requested a ride from the county jail, where she was visiting Goucher. The officers obliged, arresting her.

Lynette quickly squeaked out an alibi for Lauren’s murder. She was only in Stockton by coincidence and was dropping by to visit a friend. She admitted spending the previous Friday night at the Flora Street house where Lauren was killed—the day the medical examiners suspect the shooting took place—but pleaded ignorance and claimed that her permanent residence was a pad in San Francisco. As always, she fervently denied that Manson had ordered the Willetts’ murders.

After initially claiming that Lauren died accidentally while playing Russian roulette (a claim other Manson Family members had made in 1969 after the shooting death of John “Zero” Haught in Venice), surprisingly Monfort pleaded guilty to an amended charge of murder two. Pitman, Cooper, and Craig pleaded guilty to being accessories to murder two. No charges were brought against Fromme in connection with the murder. Goucher confessed to murdering James Willett and implicated Monfort and Craig as being present. He said Squeaky had nothing to do with James Willett’s murder.

The Willett family in Kentucky suffered more than just the loss of their son and daughter-in-law. For six months following the murder, a tag team of women began phoning at all hours, threatening them with bloody deaths, and promising to leave James’s severed head on their doorstep. The calls particularly terrified James’s fourteen-year-old sister, Alice, who was kept sheltered in her home for nearly a year as a precaution. She still recoils at the memory today.

James Craig, suspected to have snitched in the Willetts’ murders to cut himself a better deal, was later found burning to death in the trunk of a copper-colored Dodge parked near Discovery Park, a small community on the outskirts of Sacramento. The car had been doused with gasoline and was engulfed in flames when the police arrived. A second man, Edward Barabas, was also in the trunk. He had been bound and shot in the face, and was dead. Craig had also been bound and shot in the face and neck, but remained alive. Rushed to the Sacramento Medical Center, the severely burned Craig repeatedly mumbled the same two words, “She’s dangerous.”

Police were never able to establish who the “she” was.

(Interestingly enough, another resident of the Lauren Willett murder house, Crystal Alonzo, would later be arrested in a plot to kidnap a consul general from one of eight countries—Estonia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, or Haiti—in order to extort a $250,000 ransom. Then U.S. assistant attorney general Robert Perry had this to say at the group’s arraignment: “They came perilously close to the commission of a kidnapping … which could have brought this country to its knees.”)

For years, Manson has also been a rumored suspect in the questionable suicide of Jonathan Peck, the broadcast journalist son of famed Hollywood star Gregory Peck. The younger Peck, thirty-two at the time of his shocking death in 1976, had covered the Tate-LaBianca murders and was said to have infiltrated various communes in an attempt to get a bead on the murderers. Peck apparently shared what he learned with the police. That hands-on effort, considered “snitching” by the Manson clan, was said to have infuriated Manson. The odd circumstances of Peck’s supposed suicide—the gun was found too far from the body, and the industrious Peck had no reason to kill himself—made some suspect foul play. His father hired a team of private detectives to investigate, but no solid evidence was ever uncovered.

This was all sick, scary, and mind-blowing. I dug further. The Willetts had come from Kentucky, like Manson, and like Manson’s father, Colonel Scott. On May 27, 1969, Darwin Orell Scott, Colonel Scott’s brother, was savagely hacked to death in his Ashland, Kentucky, apartment. Stabbed nineteen times, his body was left pinned to the floor with a butcher knife. At the same time, Ashland residents noted that a scraggly little dude known only as “Preacher” had recently drifted into town with a band of female hippies. Shortly before Darwin Scott was murdered, the locals chased away the motley crew for giving drugs to their children. Several residents later identified “Preacher” as Manson, but no charges were ever filed.

A possible pattern of sporadic violence and intimidation was emerging here. Even after Charlie was locked away, the Manson Family members continued to commit violent crimes. Could anything stop it? Probably not But if I could convince even one of Charlie’s admirers or followers to let one person slide, to let one act of violence go undone, then all my hours with him would be worthwhile.

5.

N
O SOONER HAD
the Willett fiasco cooled than the trial of the San Quentin Six began. As mentioned before, the long-delayed day of reckoning for the six prisoners responsible for brutally murdering three prison guards, and carving up three more, had everyone on edge. A month into the proceedings, I was ordered to clear the entire first floor of the Adjustment Center because the jury was coming for a visit. They were scheduled to inspect both the north and south tiers. I watched as they solemnly entered cells, examined windows, checked gates, and scrutinized locking devices. They moved about in a hushed manner, seemingly showing reverence for those who had perished. As a whole, the jurors resembled a funeral procession, hesitant, unsure, and no doubt more than a little unnerved by the emotional impact of being inside the steel and concrete inferno that was San Quentin. The eerie silence was finally broken when an officer was asked to open and close grille gates leading from the foyer to the tiers, demonstrate cell-locking devices, and operate the door from the foyer to the outside of the building.

The prisoners had been cleared out for the jury’s visit. If not, they would have heckled the citizens and sexually taunted the females. The tense jurors were no doubt happy about this courtesy—except that I sensed they were disappointed that they didn’t at least get a peek at Charles Manson. Everybody wanted to take a peek at Charlie.

“They all love to see the horrible beast in his cage,” Charlie frequently bitched. “I’m like some circus freak. Step right up and see the monster.”

In truth, Charlie was extremely secluded and rarely hassled by gawkers. Most people don’t even like driving by prisons, much less entering the gates and having door after iron door slam shut behind them. The public wasn’t exactly clamoring to get inside the cellblocks, which they couldn’t do anyway. The relatives of corrections officers could have snagged a private tour or two, but these folks weren’t itching to take a midnight stroll into the heart of darkness either. In addition, only a small percentage of San Quentin’s five thousand prisoners laid eyes on Charlie. My career-risking efforts notwithstanding, he was kept in maximum-security lockdown for virtually all of his stay. The prison administrators were paranoid that someone was out to get him, and rumors of such malice frequently abounded. This meant that we had to be especially careful during his exercise time, making sure he was taken out alone or with small groups.

This was fine with Charlie. He had little desire to mingle with other prisoners, especially with so many African Americans around. In fact, his crazy notion of a violent African American uprising was born from the mind of a man who had spent way too much time in prison, a place where African Americans are frequently in the majority. Charlie’s world was one where African American gangs ruled, so it was difficult for him to comprehend that it wasn’t the same on the outside. The black inmates, in turn, were well aware of Manson’s racist philosophies and challenged him at every opportunity.

One day, Johnny Spain, a radical associate of George Jackson, stopped directly in front of Manson’s cell on his way back from the shower. Spain had his hand wrapped in a towel, pretending to hide a weapon.

“Take your shower yet, Charlie?” Spain snarled. Startled and afraid, Charlie remained mute. “I asked the guard to open the door and let you out so I can escort you,” Spain taunted.

Manson paled, frozen in place, waiting for the door to slide open and Spain to leap inside, his deadly shiv unsheathed. A few tense minutes passed. To Manson’s relief, the iron bars didn’t budge. Spain laughed and continued down the corridor.

Not surprisingly, Charlie preferred to exercise by himself, or with another resident outcast, Roger “Pin Cushion” Smith, a rabble-rousing murderer whom virtually everyone wanted to kill (and many had tried, thus earning him his nickname). For some odd reason, Charlie and Pin Cushion got along, and Charlie trusted him.

One afternoon, I asked Fred, the prison’s Aryan Brother leader, if his group had any designs on taking Manson out. Like the ABs, Manson was a noted racist, so I thought from that perspective alone, they’d back off.

“If we wanted him,” the inmate laughed, “he’d have been dead a long time ago.”

There were also rumors floating around that Sharon Tate’s husband,
Rosemary’s Baby
director Roman Polanski, had placed an open ten-thousand-dollar contract on Manson’s head. The sum appeared low for a big-time Hollywood type, but at San Quentin, that was like offering the moon. According to the rumor, all a prisoner had to do was stick a shank into Charlie’s back, then sit back and wait for the cash to fly into his cell. We increased our searches and surveillance for newly secured weapons, but regardless, I knew it was impossible to keep a prison free of deadly instruments. Prisoners universally have developed ingenious methods of fashioning weapons, hiding them, and communicating among themselves.

After we researched the Polanski reward rumor, we concluded that it was ridiculous and unfounded. It did make our lives miserable during its thankfully short life span. The weapons created for such an opportunity would no doubt be squirreled away and used down the road, possibly on one of us. And I couldn’t rule out that somewhere, a crazy con desperate for funds to finance a legal appeal would believe the absurd story and try to collect.

To gain an insight into how someone might get to Manson, and what would happen if he did, I had a sit-down with his friend Pin Cushion. If anyone was an expert on prison attacks, it was the Pinman. The spirited inmate had been stabbed more than any con in U.S. corrections history.

“Why do inmates attack each other so ruthlessly and without provocation?” I opened, trying to get an overall insight into the problem. “It doesn’t make sense to me. Why do they do it?”

“I wish I knew, boss,” he dodged.

“Come on, Roger, you’ve got to know. Firsthand.”

“With me, it was survival,” he said, opening up. “With a lot of these guys, it’s a status thing. They need to prove themselves. They get a reputation and the other inmates respect them and leave them alone. They’re a somebody, and nobody messes with them.”

“Is it that simple?”

“Yeah, I’ve been there.”

“I guess you have.”

“You want hear how the ABs tried to do me in? It might help you with Charlie.”

“Sure,” I bit.

“I remember the date like it was my birthday—April twenty-ninth, 1967. I was twenty years old. I was real fucked-up then [serving time for murder]. They locked me in O wing, Soledad prison’s max unit, just like AC here, only it had twenty-eight cells on a tier instead of seventeen [per side]. It was about eight-thirty
A.M.
I’d just finished a bowl of soggy oatmeal. They let me out on the tier to exercise with three other guys. I knew who they were, but I didn’t have anything to do with them. They were members of a new prison gang known as the Aryan Brotherhood. I was interested in joining, but decided not to mess with them. They had a reputation of ordering wanna-be members to make hits on someone before being allowed in the gang. That’s how they proved themselves to each other. Killing a guy was making his bones [a Mafia term for a prerecruitment murder]. After I passed on signing up, I didn’t think I had a problem with them so I didn’t worry about it.

“After leaving my cell, I wandered down the tier to talk to a prisoner I knew from reform school named Frank.
1
As I stood talking to him, I felt a fairly hard blow to my lower right back, then a burning sensation in my belly. I looked down and saw the point of a knife sticking out of my stomach! I had been stuck clean through! The next thing I remember was that it was a bright, clear April morning. ‘What a nice day to die,’ I thought.