(Ray Brandes considers the lasting effect of the ’60s’ dark coda.)
Forty years ago this weekend, the series of grisly crimes that ultimately became known as the Tate-LaBianca murders was committed in Los Angeles. The story of the case and its aftermath is well-documented, most notably in three books: District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter, Ed Sanders’ The Family and John Gilmore’s The Garbage People.
In the past four decades, the public has never lost its fascination with Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and Tex Watson. The recent announcement of the parole of Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme for the 1975 assassination attempt upon President Gerald Ford has righteous citizens nationwide in an uproar.
“Better lock your doors and watch your own kids,” Susan Atkins said upon hearing the verdict.
Read more: “Traumatic ’70s madness”
The occasion of this macabre anniversary has left us at the Che Underground musing about the effects this case had upon us as children growing up in Southern California. Was it part of the lore of your childhood campfires and slumber parties? Did you lay awake in fear of the Family? Did you view hippies suspiciously?
We’re also curious about another matter. Later this month there will be another parole hearing for Leslie Van Houten, who was convicted of murder and conspiracy for her role in the slayings of wealthy grocers Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and sentenced to death. She has already been denied parole 18 times. Should Van Houten be released? Has she paid her debt to society? Or does the nature of her crimes require her to remain behind bars forever?
— Ray Brandes
More posts by Ray Brandes:
John Waters’ account of his relationship with Van Houten is a fascinating read.
>Did you view hippies suspiciously?
My parents were long-haired love bead-wearing Joan Baez fans. Until this post, I never thought to associate Manson’s brutal psychopathy with hippies.
>Has she paid her debt to society?
No. She can’t. There’s nothing that provides compensation for cold-blooded murder.
When I was working in the California justice system and had occasion to talk with people like Manson’s psychologist (His therapy wasn’t going well), I spent a lot of time considering how the Van Houtens of the world end up following the Mansons, and at what point they have wandered so far they can never come home. Once someone appears to experience real regret, I don’t know how much the legal system’s response really matters any more. She can’t reverse what she did. There’s no real opportunity for justice, atonement, reparation. She can’t bring her victims back to life. She can never again have the peace that goes with not being a murderer.
We can take a hard look at how she got there and what might have led her somewhere other than Manson’s heels and apply those lessons accordingly.
>>My parents were long-haired love bead-wearing Joan Baez fans.
Robin: While I did associate the Manson stuff with the creepy side of the ’60s counterculture, yes … My imprinting said that guys with long hair and beards were the good guys, the folks my folks hung out with.
Kind of like a baby duck, huh? It took me a long time to shake the idea that hippie-looking people were all lovely and safe. Like, when I encountered pictures of Klansmen wearing long hair and beards — total cognitive dissonance!
These guys look like they could be at one of my dad’s readings … ‘Cept for the guns:
(My family’s first SD stay was in 1970, when we lived in Solana Beach for six months while my dad taught at SDSU. I remember walking home crying from the bus stop instead of going to first grade ’cause some kid had called my parents “hippies.” I didn’t know what it was, but it sounded BAD. History kind of repeated when we moved to Milwaukee in the middle of a contentious busing plan and a kid called me a “honky.” I called him a honky right back — which did shut him up immediately!)
i’m a bit of a death-penalty advocate myself>even though i doubt any government on earth is morally-clean enough to be the rightful-executor of such an ultimate act as the taking of a human life.
and yet we/they do it all the time whether it’s through capital-punishment or war……or on an even more insidious level, neglect through poverty and hunger.
nevertheless i am amazed at how often a murderer or abductor/torturer can be released after 7 years or so when we all-too- often see this person do something similar again and again.
there are patterns of behavior in certain personalities no matter how
evolved or converted they might suggest themselves to be….(or actually even believe themselves to be)….when confronted with a situation which calls for a similar response (opportunity) , will often do so.
life and freedom are highly coveted things, understandably.
we all deserve our fair share of that. but to allow/grant these for those who’ve shown an inability to understand and respect that for others
is a mistake, i believe, and one which lessens our capacity to demonstrate the consequences in a tactile way which goes beyond abstraction, rhetoric,
and the perpetual crying and grieving which often accompanies these.
>Kind of like a baby duck, huh? It took me a long time to shake the idea that hippie-looking people were all lovely and safe.
Yeah. We lived next door to the Wild-Eyed-Radical Movement in Madison. They messed up my romantic flower child expectations about counter-culture by stock-piling weapons and shooting a cop a few feet from my bedroom window. I’ll probably never be able to sit through “I Shot the Sheriff.”
>>i’m a bit of a death-penalty advocate myself>even though i doubt any government on earth is morally-clean enough to be the rightful-executor of such an ultimate act as the taking of a human life
Clay: Or omniscient. If for no other reason, I couldn’t support the death penalty because we know for a fact that people have been executed for crimes they didn’t commit.
That’s really a pretty easy answer for me that precludes other, more worrisome considerations. After all, it doesn’t plunge into the murkier depths of criminal psychology, the pain of victims and their families, or issues of punishment vs. rehabilitation. But it does happen to be a showstopper for me.
you’re absolutely right matt…..i was thinking this exactly after i posted and ran off to the store.
given the possibility for honest-error…..lopped onto the tendency for politically-motivated tamperings, lynchings, and crucifixion…..
i guess it’s best to simply stow the guy away from society for the next 60 years and hope we can respect his dignity…or someone’s dignity….
in the process.
i think they should give prisoners a choice however.
i’m almost certain a few would go for a nice injection.
it would save the taxpayer a few gazillion centavos at least.
money money money…..
>But it does happen to be a showstopper for me.
Ditto. Lotta other considerations and angles. But that’s the one that determines my vote.
My dad was a reformed greaser turned hippie redneck (if that’s possible?) Kinda like Gandhi meets Willie Nelson (again- if that’s possible?)
We had a lot of riff-raff come around our place over the years, old friends of my dad’s who looked like hippies but actually did illegal stuff for a living, and weren’t the nicest people to have mad at you. One of them- a guy named Jerry- laughingly told people he was in “experimental chiropractics”. I believe he did collections for the nasty people who you don’t want to owe money to. Another one retired to Canada owning a lot of apartment buildings after years of working in the south to North American import-export business. When I was a wee kid he bounced at the Belly Up and Dicks at the Beach, I believe.
And my step-uncle was tied in with either the Mongols or the Angels- I don’t think anyone ever asked him which- and he also looked like a hippy until you looked into his eyes. He stayed with us for a summer when there were cops looking for him after some bad thing happened, and he always kind of creeped me out.
I never met the peace-love hippies- only the scary ones that make me think of Altamont and dark stuff like Jefferson Airplane and the Doors.
problem with letting them live is the entire cultural-infrastructure they are able to achieve….quite easily from within prison-walls.
sometimes even more so because everyone around you is already in and speaking the same language and very unlikely to turn snitch when so easily accessible.
i’ve actually envisioned a trial-by-elders system established on some tribal models which go way back. those selected have to demonstrate a life of virtue and incorruptability. these esteemed elders selected to be judge and jury are never those who seek election and there are no possible rewards except to establish and maintain the well-being of the tribe. the execution is performed by either the youngest of the lot or by straw. anyone who wants to serve as a witness at a trial can.
anyone who wants to denounce a witness can try. we are talking about a man’s life…this could go on for days and weeks..and possibly months. there are no lawyers. when everyone has had their say…..the jury processes the information. since they are a very part of the community from which the tried originated, they should also be well-aware of the reputations and consistencies of their fellow-tribesmen doing the witnessing. jury and judge discuss any
irrgularities or concerns until consensus or near-consensus is achieved…the verdict is passed…..and a sentence is arrived at.
what i do know is that we need to stop the breeding of the criminal mind which is all prisons are….basically.
no one really comes out fixed. a few may come out acceptably-functional but prisons are destroyers of the human spirit.
we need to start from within ourselves and find better ways of protecting ourselves as a society as individuals as families and as masters of our own universe.
>Did you lay awake in fear of the Family?
I was scared of G. Gordon Liddy.
horrified.
Ms. Fromme is out. I think this is a case of someone being in prison a loooooooooong time for being weird and hanging with creepy people.
The gun wasn’t loaded … Her explanation for pointing a gun seems as convoluted as most quotes from Manson’s true believers … I wouldn’t want her around me, but wow — Thirty-four years.
Terminally ill Lockerbie bomber released
I have no idea why compassion would dictate releasing this man after eight years, regardless of his medical condition.
Discuss?
In the past couple of weeks angry nutjobs have been showing up at presidential town hall meetings strapped with weapons. One idiot was carrying a fully loaded assault rifle, claiming it was his constitutional right because it wasn’t concealed. I’d much rather take my chances in a crowd with a sixty year old Squeaky.
Here’s an interesting story about Squeaky from wikipedia:
“In March 1975, Fromme confronted Danny Goldberg, the publicist for English rock band Led Zeppelin, which was performing concerts in the United States as part of its North American concert tour. She said she had to see Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page because she had foreseen something evil in his future and thought it might happen that night during the band’s concert at the Long Beach Arena. She swore that the last time this had happened, she had seen someone shot to death before her very eyes. Goldberg persuaded her to write a long note to Page, after which she left. The note was burned, unread.”
Perhaps the “evil” she saw in his future was the “In Through the Out Door Album.”
>>One idiot was carrying a fully loaded assault rifle, claiming it was his constitutional right because it wasn’t concealed. I’d much rather take my chances in a crowd with a sixty year old Squeaky.
Ray: Seconded.
fully-loaded, visible, and pointed at you.
Fromme’s bullets weren’t chambered when she approached the best-protected person in the country. Yes, yes … She was nuts and potentially dangerous. There are a lot of crazy, potentially dangerous people out there — I’d think Mr. Assault Rifle belongs in the club, too.
Full disclosure: It does take some effort for me to get too exercised about Squeaky-as-victim, since she fits my definition of creepy and pointed a gun at somebody. But I think it’s worth some perspective.
i say kill em all…starting with you…and you and you BANG BANG BANG and you mister, where do you think you’re going?!?!?!? BANG BANG BANG!
oh quit crying….BAAAANG!
oh …sorry>
i just think it’s important for society to send out as confused a message as possible when it comes to guns and their use…in violation of the law or
for those who simply want to flaunt their right to skirt the edge like a maniac.
yes i agree….we should let them all out.
one by one of course after much discussion AND such……and watch them quietly wander into your neighborhood….(hopefully not mine!!!!)
>>yes i agree….we should let them all out.
one by one of course after much discussion AND such……and watch them quietly wander into your neighborhood….(hopefully not mine!!!!)
MCC: Of course, keeping everybody locked up isn’t exactly feasible, either.
I haven’t heard anyone say much about rehabilitation here. I happen to think that should be the goal. Anyone else?
In the present American system, rehabilitation is rare and becoming increasingly more so. Now that we have begun to privatize prisons, profit becomes the primary motive and the number of people incarcerated has skyrocketed.
How much of California’s leaky economy pours through the prison apparatus each day?
god bless his soul….my brother was a 4-time felon.
i saw how well the prison-system was able to rehabilitate those that sifted through it’s cages.
Leaving aside violent crime for a moment: House rules will keep my comments general: Considering how many people have been imprisoned for drug offenses since the ’80s, it’s — ahem! — sobering to think how many of our circle risked early incarceration.
Would it have helped anybody if that had happened? Would it have made those people more or less likely to return? I’m skeptical …
i think the only thing prison changes is one’s desire to get caught.
you get caught a couple times…it becomes less exciting.
you carry on with business as usual but usually more discreetly.
being released becomes like a vacation but you know you’ll most likely be going in again at some point.
it’s just easier in ways than taking responsibility for making one’s way in the outside world……the black marks don’t help much either.
i’ve heard mass guys say “i’m gonna change. i’m never going in again.”
and they believe it at that time.
no doubt they want to believe it.
but then their very truest and deepest nature starts to get comfortable again…….
it’s just how some humans are designed.
and no matter how hard we try to change that we are simply creatures of habit…..
not all of them good.
Innocent but Dead
Score another one for Texas’ super-duper execution machine!
is this surprising that the state of texas which gave us 9/11 and it’s holy-war for oil…..could not possibly believe it was anything other than an inside-job?
my question is why are these forensic-experts called in only twelve years later? a lot of help THAT is.
We failed to note Susan Atkins’ passing.
if you have time….which i obviously did today…..
a most current sociological look at america’s unrivalled talent for murder.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/11/09/091109crat_atlarge_lepore
Oh, hooray! John Allen Muhammed was executed in Virginia. I feel much safer now.
… Except I don’t. Every time we empower the state to kill someone, I actually feel less safe. Kind of a rip in the shorts, huh?