At Manson’s commune on Spahn Ranch—an old movie-set ranch near Los Angeles that had fallen into disrepair—Lake recalls that 10 to 15 Manson family members settled into the routines of commune living: rummaging through dumpsters for food; caring for horses, and occasionally renting them out...
And Manson had a grudge against the LaBiancas, or at least whoever was in their house, Beausoleil explained, because he and some other Family members had been living in their bus parked outside Harold True's house, when the neighbors called the cops and they were forced...
During a break in the Manson Family trial, Manson defense attorney Ronald Hughes, left, goes on a camping trip -- and never returns. His body is found months later. In "Helter Skelter," Bugliosi espouses the theory that Hughes was killed by members of the Manson Family: "the first of t...
Still, it struck them as odd that anyone would confess to several murders to someone that they barely knew. It took another member of the Straight Satans, Danny DeCarlo, to move the focus of the investigation decisively to Charles Manson. DeCarlo told police he heard a Manson Family member ...
Talent scoutGregg Jakobsonhad met Manson in 1968 at Dennis Wilson's house (Dennis died in an accidental drowning in 1983 when he was 39), and in turn—impressed by the "whole Charlie Manson package" as an artist, as he told the cops—introduced Manson to Melcher, who was living at ...
“It was really just a handful of us and Charlie that lived there,” she says, noting that unlike some accounts, the entire Family didn’t move in with Wilson; half went to Mendocino, another hippie enclave in northern. Lake enjoyed the dynamic of living with a smaller group of people...
Dianne Lake:As the youngest member of the Manson Family, Dianne Lake recounts a harrowing moment under Charles Manson's spell. When two of her friends discover her living at Spahn Ranch, Manson intervenes, interrupting what was meant to be a joyous reunion. ...
(whom he went on to marry in 2020). He was no longer living above the liquor store, but he still kept the thermostat at a chilly 65 degrees; a wall sported a painting by murderer and rapist John Wayne Gacy, and he displayed an unused canister of Zyklon B, the gas Nazis used to ...
Barbara Hoyt:A follower of Charles Manson and eventual witness for the prosecution, Hoyt began living with the Family at Spahn Ranch in 1969. She became suspicious when she saw some of the Family members watching the news about the Tate murders, and later overheard Susan Atkins tell Ruth Ann...
During a break in the Manson Family trial, Manson defense attorney Ronald Hughes, left, goes on a camping trip -- and never returns. His body is found months later. In "Helter Skelter," Bugliosi espouses the theory that Hughes was killed by members of the Manson Family: "the first of t...