SEO

August 14, 2009

Web extra - Mind Conrol - Los Angeles magazine

MIND CONTROL

For all of Charles Manson’s violent acts, he stands out in the annals of crime because of his ability to get others to kill for him. Those Family members who murdered capitulated to Manson’s will. Those who did not murder found a way to maintain some vestige of individuality

By Steve Oney

June 22, 2009, LAmag.com

Related Articles

JUAN FLYNN, Spahn ranch hand. Sixty-five years old, he is retired after a career as a miner and heavy-equipment operator. The mind is the laziest organ in the body. The young people who killed for Charlie were not intelligent or strong enough to think for themselves. They did not want to take responsibility for their actions. They wanted someone else to make their decisions for them, and that’s what Charlie would do. Charlie offered to set them free.

MICHAEL McGANN, Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective. Seventy-three years old, he is retired. Manson had complete control of these people. The kids who committed these murders came from pretty good middle-class families, hard-working parents. They just got into the wrong sphere with Manson, and he converted them into monsters. It shows you what can happen. Manson is a powerful person. He can sway certain people. Then he gets them involved in dope and takes them over sexually. He could really control their lives. You have to be able to exert total control to have them commit crimes like these.

VINCENT BUGLIOSI, deputy district attorney. He is 74 and the author of several books, including Helter Skelter (cowritten with Curt Gentry), the definitive account of the case. Tex Watson was kind of bright but very weak emotionally. He comes from Texas, near the hometown of Second World War hero Audie Murphy. When they first found out back there that Tex was wanted for these murders, the general consensus was that this was a case of mistaken identity. It was inconceivable that he could have been involved in these murders. They knew him as the all-American boy. He had an A average in high school—football, basketball, and track star. For several years he held the Texas high school low hurdle track record. Clean-cut kid.

CATHERINE SHARE, member of the Family. Sixty-six years old, she is a writer. Charlie started taking the kids on what he called “creepy crawls.” You snuck into someone’s house and moved things around. He was actually getting them used to committing burglaries. There were lots of creepy crawls before the Tate murders. I never went. First of all, I was the oldest girl, and I had a weight problem. When I say I was overweight, it was maybe 20 pounds. But to them that was fat. Most of the girls were very anorexic or bulimic—or both. Charlie wanted little, agile girls. So he didn’t think I was capable. But even if I had been, I didn’t want to go—I was too fearful. Charlie tried to get me to stop being scared, but he couldn’t. He could never completely break my will. So he pushed me aside. I was always thinking too much, and Charlie didn’t want you to think. He wanted you to act.

BARBARA HOYT, member of the Family. Fifty-seven years old, she is a registered nurse. Toward the end they were cutting their hair in strange patterns. They cut it really short, leaving one strand or little loop of hair long, so it looked ridiculous. Everyone once had long hair. By cutting their hair it was another act of giving up your ego. It was a little ego death, the death of the individual. They were preparing to go into the wilderness because Helter Skelter was coming, and they were going on creepy crawls to heighten their awareness. I didn’t do them. I didn’t want to go. I remember Sadie [Susan Atkins] remarking to someone that I had done a lot of things for the Family, but I had not had sex with a girl, and I had not gone on a creepy crawl, and I should get my hair cut—that I needed my hair cut. Somebody said, “She doesn’t want her hair cut.” And Sadie said, “All the more reason to do it.” I remember thinking I didn’t want to get my hair cut, and I didn’t want to go on a creepy crawl. I was becoming more and more discontented.

Web extra - Mind Conrol - Los Angeles magazine
at

Revisiting the Manson Murders 40 Years Later

The Primer: Manson Murders

In the July issue of Los Angeles magazine, writer Steve Oney offers a chill­ing oral history of the Charles Manson murders, which terrified Los Angeles 40 years ago next month. Read the full story and learn more here from major figures in the drama

Los Angeles magazine, July 2009

MansonDouble

In Manson: An Oral History, those involved in the murders and their aftermath—Manson's followers, the cops, defense attorneys, and the prosecutor—reconstruct the crimes and speak to the terror they struck and the scars they left on the city

Read »

PLUS: In Their Words... Exclusive selections from Steve Oney’s interviews with Vincent Bugliosi, Michael McGann, Catherine Share, Barbara Hoyt, Steven V. Roberts, and more, only on LAmag.com

Read »

  • From the crime scene to the prison and from the time of the murders to today, the dates and places of interest in the Manson Murders

    Read »
     

  • Los Angeles magazine published this fearful story in October 1969, just two months after the Tate and LaBianca murders shocked L.A. 

    Read »

  • Nearly twenty years after the Manson Murders, a string of satanic killings brought fear of the Family back to L.A.

    Read »
Revisiting the Manson Murders 40 Years Later
at

'Squeaky' Fromme - Twitter Search

Realtime results for 'Squeaky' Fromme


'Squeaky' Fromme - Twitter Search
at

'Squeaky' Wheel Gets Released : NPR

Would-Be Ford Assassin 'Squeaky' Fromme Released

by The Associated Press

Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme
Enlarge Walt Zeboski/AP

Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme sits in a U.S. Marshal's car in Sacramento, Calif., Nov. 25, 1975, where she was on trial for the attempted assassination of then-president Gerald Ford. She was released from prison Friday after serving more than 30 years behind bars.

Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme
Walt Zeboski/AP

Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme sits in a U.S. Marshal's car in Sacramento, Calif., Nov. 25, 1975, where she was on trial for the attempted assassination of then-president Gerald Ford. She was released from prison Friday after serving more than 30 years behind bars.

text sizeAAA
August 14, 2009

The Charles Manson follower convicted of trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford has been released after more than three decades behind bars.

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was just 26 years old when she pointed a semiautomatic .45- caliber pistol at Ford in September 1975 in Sacramento, Calif. Secret Service agents grabbed her and Ford was unhurt.

Fromme, now 60, left the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth at about 8 a.m. Friday, spokeswoman Dr. Maria Douglas said in a statement.

Fromme, who got a life term, became the first person sentenced under a special federal law covering assaults on U.S. presidents, a statute enacted after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Ford was walking to the California State Capitol from his hotel when Fromme pushed through the crowd, drew the pistol from a holster on her thigh and pointed it at the president as he shook hands with well-wishers. She was restrained by Secret Service agents who wrested the gun away from her and led the president to safety.

Less than two weeks later, another would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, fired at Ford in San Francisco but missed.

It was unclear why Fromme was at Carswell, a facility that specializes in providing medical and mental health services to female offenders. A spokeswoman for the bureau of prisons did not immediately return a phone call Wednesday seeking comment.

"I knew some day she would be released," said John Virga, the Sacramento attorney who handled her trial.

Fromme served time in at least two other facilities before Carswell.

She escaped from a female prison in Alderson, W.Va., on Dec. 23, 1987, and was recaptured about two miles away on Christmas Day after a massive search. She was sentenced to an additional 15 months in prison for the escape.

Fromme had said she escaped from prison to be closer to Manson.

Manson is serving a life term in San Quentin in California for the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and eight others. Fromme, one of his "family" of followers, was not implicated in those attacks.

Would-Be Ford Assassin 'Squeaky' Fromme Released : NPR
at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)