In this video, you can't really hear what the interview is about in the beginning, but you can just see Charlie hanging around some other convicts, and then walking around with a mop in the chapel. I suppose this footage was taken when he was in charge of keeping the chapel clean. Interesting to look at, but frustrating if you want to hear what they are saying throughout the whole footage. A point to note: Manson says in this interview that he wishes he could be reborn, and start all over. That is the only "normal" thing I have ever heard come out of his mouth in interviews. Also to note: I wonder if he was drugged on psychiatric medications during his Vacaville stay, and in particular during this interview? Shall we view?
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Manson being interviewed in chapel at Vacaville
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Dennis Wilson: I Live with 17 Girls
Thank you, Ole JC!
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Windy discusses Spahn Ranch
Windy was kind enough to take a Life magazine picture of Spahn Ranch and label it showing what each part of the main building was used for and what the surrounding things were in the picture. She accompanied this with a narrative of how living and eating arrangements were before Charles Manson and the others arrived. Windy also included a little bit about after the Family's arrival.
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"OK, LOOK AT THE photo I have attached. This was it. No road covered with trees, no bungalows or whatever they were supposed to be. One of the guys, either Larry or Ben slept in the jail. It had a bunk, dresser, nite stand and a place to hang his clothes. It looked just like a cell in the old towns. It had a desk for the sheriff and places to hang guns, hats wanted posters, etc. during the day the jail was open to visitors but the cell was locked. It had electric lights etc. Now the general store was always locked but had posters of stuff you could have bought if it were a real town. The saloon was open for visitors but didn’t sell nothing. People could go in and sit and bring a picnic lunch if they wanted, we did sell soda. The café had an adjoining door and could also be used by visitors but we didn’t use it ourselves unless we were having a party with outsiders. We cooked and ate at the table in Georges house. YOU went up the steps and into the living room. To the right was Pearl's Room - always kept locked, and to the left was the area where the table set with the kitchen beyond that with a open divider and on the back wall was George's room. In the living room on the back wall was a beautiful marble mantle hand carved with colored marble animals. Near that sat George's chair. He sat there all the time with a little dog. At the far end of the living room (it wasn’t real large) was a couch and a couple overstuffed chairs. Under George's house (as you were facing it) to the right were steps going down (rather steep) turn left and there was the bathroom and next to it a shower. (the only one on the whole place except down at the lower ranch house. Both places (I believe) were connected to cisterns for water.
Now the reason the general store was locked: you could enter it from behind through the harness shop and it had been divided into several small private rooms each with a bed, dresser, chair and closet. The men decorated to suit themselves. There was also a storage room off the saloon and it too was a room for a man (or a woman) the same with the café, it was a pantry I guess. There were times when all the rooms were full. When we all lived there, we kept the mountains clean and had no near fires. It took a crew to run horses to graze each spring. We grazed the entire area off until there was no fire danger. Manson’s crew caused the fires because no one would stay there to work.
There were some trees leading down the road to the lower ranch house and the outlaw shacks. We had electricity there and running water. But there were no flowers to pick or hardly anywhere to run around like they showed. There was no water fall at Spahn’s ranch. They would have to cross over and go down into Devil’s Canyon. That was on the other side of the road.
Actually, never saw the older kids much, I believe they kept them out of site, as they didn’t go to school, doctors, etc. I usually just saw the babies laying on blankets out in front of Spahn's house., Cold or not they would be naked. Sometimes a half a dozen or more. I covered them up and Charlie would have a fit. He said they’d grow up strong and never feel the cold if started that way (he had on a jacket off course).. I said they’d probably die of pneumonia. I still believe some did.
There were a lot more people staying there than they show in any book, movie or magazine. A lot of them were probably runaways and stayed hidden. I would see half dressed pregnant girls down by the shacks and the lower house that I never saw up top.
The dancing and partying they showed could have been in the saloon or café although neither were very large. The room they showed didn’t exist. Neither did the rooms or the beds or the cleanliness of it all. There were no laundry facilities. The shower under Georges house was mainly cold because we couldn’t keep the hot water tank working. Sometimes it did and we’d all rush to take a warm shower. Lots of times it was just was in a bowl with heated water from the stove. They generally wore those long dresses that the hippies made popular, and it seemed they all had greasy hair. Or the girls ran around with no bras, tank tops shorts so short they might as well have been naked, boobs showing etc. Most of the men ended up looking the same. Hair a mess and stubble or beards, again half naked most of the time."
Now the reason the general store was locked: you could enter it from behind through the harness shop and it had been divided into several small private rooms each with a bed, dresser, chair and closet. The men decorated to suit themselves. There was also a storage room off the saloon and it too was a room for a man (or a woman) the same with the café, it was a pantry I guess. There were times when all the rooms were full. When we all lived there, we kept the mountains clean and had no near fires. It took a crew to run horses to graze each spring. We grazed the entire area off until there was no fire danger. Manson’s crew caused the fires because no one would stay there to work.
There were a lot more people staying there than they show in any book, movie or magazine. A lot of them were probably runaways and stayed hidden. I would see half dressed pregnant girls down by the shacks and the lower house that I never saw up top.
The dancing and partying they showed could have been in the saloon or café although neither were very large. The room they showed didn’t exist. Neither did the rooms or the beds or the cleanliness of it all. There were no laundry facilities. The shower under Georges house was mainly cold because we couldn’t keep the hot water tank working. Sometimes it did and we’d all rush to take a warm shower. Lots of times it was just was in a bowl with heated water from the stove. They generally wore those long dresses that the hippies made popular, and it seemed they all had greasy hair. Or the girls ran around with no bras, tank tops shorts so short they might as well have been naked, boobs showing etc. Most of the men ended up looking the same. Hair a mess and stubble or beards, again half naked most of the time."
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Q&A on James Craig
From our curious German friends-
Why do you think AB member Craig was murdered?
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A Psychologist Interviews and Speaks Out on Charles Manson
current.com
A Virginia based psychologist, Paul Mountjoy, landed an interview with Manson. His goal was to try to determine which psychological disorders fit Manson's personality.
In an upcoming article at the publication Mountjoy will share some insight on Tex, who he says revealed a secret.
"According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V- TR, (DSM-V- TR) the criteria used by mental health professionals, those with Anti-Social Personality Disorder (ASPD) are skilled at hiding their disorder and seem outwardly friendly and accommodating. They are skilled at verbal manipulation and can escape detection for years, even for life. They may appear normal and charming but they are devoid of compassion and sympathy and do not relate to pain, suffering and hurt experienced by others. They truly could not care less."
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Windy on Larry Bailey
During the day they would all go to their respective jobs. In the evening they would go back to Windy's for the night. I believe Juan and Larry were still working at Spahn and Johnny was working for man that sold hay. Johnny Schwartz liked western movies and TV shows and sat in front of the TV most of the time in the evening with the thing blaring. Juan was usually restless pacing around and doing different things. Windy would take care of her daughter, cook and the like.
Juan was the one to figure out that Larry was a Manson plant that turned out to be a snitch. He was telling the Family members that were sympathetic to Manson where Juan and Johnny were staying and what the routine was around Windy's . The Family hatched a plan to killed both Juan and Johnny before they could testify because they thought their testimony would hurt Manson. Naturally, they botched the thing entirely.
Ah, but no bad deed goes unpunished. Juan didn't let on to Larry that he knew that Larry was the snitch. One night Juan, Johnny and Windy took Larry out for the evening or so he thought. They took him to a spot near Spahn Ranch, stripped him naked and tied him to a tree and left him there. I'm betting that ranch hands can tie some pretty decent knots. Windy has no idea how long he was there or how he became untied but they didn't have trouble with him any more.
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Mountjoy writes about Tex Watson
en.wikipedia.org
As promised in his article about Charles Manson, psychologist Paul Mountjoy has written an article about Tex Watson. Unfortunately I didn't see any secrets being revealed, it pretty much read like the same old stuff we've been treated to ad nauseum over the years. You be the judge.http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/steps-authentic-happiness-positive-psychology/2013/mar/17/charles-manson-vs-charles-watson/
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Some New Clem Pics
Maybe one day we'll get him without a hat on. Lol.
Thanks, Ole JC!
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Q&A Misty Hay
Does anyone have any info on Misty Hay?
Article from Ole JC.
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Martha Marcy May Marlene.....Manson?
Yes, the movie I am referring to has been out for quite a while (2011), but.....I saw it again last night, and was struck about how many similarities there were in the "family" portrayed in this movie, and the real "Family" headed by one Charles Manson. Little details in the movie were very similar, indeed. Of course, I am quite sure the producers of Martha Marcy May Marlene were not interested in making another Manson-movie at all, but it was clever how they implanted little details in the storyline. What I wonder is this: did a lot of the Manson girls behave in similar fashion to the main character in this movie? Were they as damaged? Traumatized, perhaps? Yeah, yeah, I know this movie is old news, but it is interesting to me. This movie, in my opinion was well done, and opens up the door to discussion on the similarities.....Shall we discuss, or do I really need to get a life?
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Voytek
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Manson Lookalike - Amy Sedaris
That is f-ing hilarious
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An Interview With Karl Stubbs' Neighbor
On Sunday, March 17, I spoke with Kathleen Costello (not her real name), who was a friend and neighbor of Karl Stubbs in Olancha, CA.
Starting at the beginning: The assault on Mr. Stubbs happened on November 12, 1968. He died on Nov. 15. Our impression at Eviliz was that Karl Stubbs was blind, but according to Kathleen, Mr. Stubbs was a strapping 6’+ man (even at age 82) who got around just fine on his own. He was not blind. After the attack, his eyes were swollen shut and his head was swollen, which is what contributed to the myth that he was blind. He was also completely lucid the day after the attack.
According to police reports, there was a white car containing 2 young men and 2 young women with Indiana license plates seen in Ridgecrest 1 hour after the report of the attack. Karl Stubbs described his attackers as being 2 young men and 2 young women.
According to Kathleen, Karl made his living during his prime as a railroad worker and now lived on a pension. He walked to the nearby store and paid for his groceries, etc. with cash that he kept in his bib overalls. The assumption may have been that these 4 young people may have seen him in the store and thought he had a lot of money and made him a robbery target. But, according to Kathleen he had very little money, and survived by selling small amounts of his acreage over the years -some of which Kathleen and her husband purchased.
According to Kathleen, Karl made his living during his prime as a railroad worker and now lived on a pension. He walked to the nearby store and paid for his groceries, etc. with cash that he kept in his bib overalls. The assumption may have been that these 4 young people may have seen him in the store and thought he had a lot of money and made him a robbery target. But, according to Kathleen he had very little money, and survived by selling small amounts of his acreage over the years -some of which Kathleen and her husband purchased.
On the morning of the attack, on her way to work, Kathleen drove past Mr. Stubbs’ driveway and saw a white car there. She took notice of this, as Mr. Stubbs did not drive or often receive visitors. Another woman, Clara Castner, who with her husband owned the service station, used to bring Mr. Stubbs’ mail to him daily. On this day, there were people in his house: 2 young men and 2 young women. Stubbs said they were there to get water or something. Helping people was normal for him, and she didn’t think he was under duress at the time, so she felt comfortable leaving.
After he was attacked and beaten, Mr. Stubbs crawled to Kathleen’s house. Her husband Jim (Jim died in 1990) and Clara Caster (also a neighbor) found him in the driveway. They called 911, then sat with Karl until the ambulance arrived. He told all parties present that when the men kicked him, the girls laughed. They thought he had money hidden somewhere, but he didn’t..
Over one year later as the TLB trial became national news, Clara recognized Tex as being one of the ones in the house. That’s when it clicked for her. A lot of people thought that Clara Castner was nuts. “But she wasn’t crazy. Her religion was odd and she talked about things that people didn’t understand. But she was not crazy. She was a school teacher for a long time. She just had religious beliefs that were different than ours”.
As far as Hannum Ranch is concerned, Kathleen does not remember it as ever being a working ranch but more as just a property spread. She remembers David Hannum (who worked at Spahn, hence the connection with the Manson Family) very outgoing and verbal. Not crazy. He was just a nice young man. Joy and Roy Hunter who owned and lived for a time at Hannum Ranch were his aunt and uncle. She says David, their nephew could not have possibly been involved in the nefarious activities surrounding the Family. She also firmly believes that David had the authority to allow them to park the tractor trailer(s) there to use it as a staging area to run supplies to Barker Ranch. He was also the person that was able to allow Tex & Snake the ability to stay there after the TLB murders although he had no knowledge of those crimes. Although Kathleen said might be able to find David through Joy (his aunt), the Eviliz staff has found evidence that he died back in June of 1998.
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Origins of the Buntline Special?
Ned Buntline is supposed to have commissioned this weapon in 1876, but the Colt company has no record of receiving the order nor making any such weapon. Lake conceived the idea of a revolver that would be more precise and could be easily modified to work similarly to a rifle. Lake's creative biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, published in 1931, and later Hollywood portrayals, exaggerated Wyatt's profile as a western lawman. The book later inspired a number of stories, movies and television programs about outlaws and lawmen in Dodge City and Tombstone, including the 1955 television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.
Perhaps more than any single writer, Ned Buntline was responsible for creating a highly romanticized and somewhat misleading image of the American West as the setting for great adventure and excitement. Born Edward Zane Carroll Judson, in 1845 he founded a sensationalistic magazine, called Ned Buntline's Own, in Nashville, Tennessee-Ned Buntline became the best known of several pseudonyms he used during his career.
Buntline's goal in life was straightforward: he wanted to make as much money as possible writing stories that the public would pay to read. He filled the pages of Ned Buntline's Own with all manner of outrageous stories, having a particular affinity for nautical adventures. An incorrigible womanizer (he married seven times), in 1846 he killed a jealous husband who suspected him of seducing his wife. Although Buntline had acted in self-defense, townspeople sympathetic to the dead man hanged Buntline from an awning post in the public square. Luckily, Buntline's friends cut the rope before he strangled and he was spirited out of town.
Buntline relocated to New York, where he resumed publishing his magazine. Though he had once dreamed of becoming a serious writer, he was desperate to make a living so he began to write more for a mass audience. Buntline's popular adventures were wildly successful, and he churned out dozens of melodramatic "shocking" stories over the course of only a few years. By the time he was in his late 20s, Buntline had earned the title "King of the Dime Novels" and was making an excellent living.
After traveling to San Francisco in 1869, Buntline realized he could easily adapt his stock adventure plots to a setting in the American West. At about the same time he met a handsome young scout and buffalo hunter named William Frederick Cody. Buntline claimed to have given Cody the nickname "Buffalo Bill," though Cody said he earned the name years before as a hunter for the railroads.
Buntline's decision to write a dime novel starring Buffalo Bill Cody made the relatively unknown scout into a national media star. Buntline's book The Scout of the Plains grossly exaggerated Cody's western adventures, but the public loved the thrilling tale. Always the promoter, Buntline turned the novel into a play that he staged in Chicago. In 1872, Buntline convinced Cody to travel to the city and play himself in the production. Cody was a poor actor, but his participation brought in people and money.
Cody broke with Buntline after a year, but the national fame he gained because of Buntline's work eventually allowed "Buffalo Bill" to create his famous Wild West show. Buntline churned out other western dime novels, and he eventually became the nation's top literary money earner, surpassing the income of writers like Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. Buntline prized his wealth, but he remained scornful of his own work. "I found that to make a living I must write 'trash' for the masses, for he who endeavors to write for the critical few, and do his genius justice, will go hungry if he has no other means of support."
Buntline died at his home in Stamford, New York, in 1886. He was 63 years old and had written more than 400 novels and countless other short stories and articles.
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BREAKING NEWS: Texas judge says Manson disciple Charles 'Tex' Watson can't keep decades-old tapes from LAPD
Judge Richard A. Schell ruled Sunday that Charles "Tex" Watson waived his right to attorney-client privilege when he allowed the lawyer to sell the tapes to an author.
A bankruptcy court ruled last year that the LAPD should get the tapes, but Watson appealed.
The LAPD has sought the tapes on the basis that they could provide clues to unsolved murders.
A message left for an LAPD spokesman was not immediately returned Tuesday.
Watson is serving a life sentence in California for his role in the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others.
His attorney, Kelly Puls, declined immediate comment.
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San Quentin Vigil?
I personally do not recognize any family members. All of these kids look clean and all of them are wearing shoes, a few of them nice shoes.
Anybody recognize a face or two?
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Gray Wolf was arrested with Family members as far back as 1970
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¿Dónde está Juan?
This is a simple question: What the hell happened to Juan Flynn? He wasn't technically a "Manson Family" member, yet he lived with them, partied with them, screwed them, ate with them, smelled them, helped them with errands, etc., and was a pretty familiar face. Funny, but I haven't seen any recent photos of him surface on the net (which is good for him, but bad for us). Listen, I don't blame the guy for not wanting to be exposed. There are probably bucket-loads of freaks out there that would start harassing him, just because! I do hope he is doing well, and will close with a clip of him answering a few questions. Adios amigos!!!
Video credit to itnsource.com
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Manson's Home on the Range by Gay Talese Part 1
One of the perks of being Eviliz iz people shower me with love, praise and misc Manson paraphernalia. Don't get the wrong idea, I always have room for more. ; )~
Quite some time ago I received a book titled True Crime An American Anthology - 350 Years of Brilliant Crime About Dark Deeds- Editor Harold Schechter.
I worked like a slave in the Blizzard of 2013 typing this up for you all. Now show your appreciation and buy an Eviliz t-shirt. Or else.
Public fascination with Manson and his "Family" was reflected in an outpouring of writing about every facet of the case, including this 1970 Esquire magazine piece Charles Manson's Home on the Range by Gay Talese.
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Charles Manson's Home on the Range
The horse wrangler, tall and ruggedly handsome, placed his hands on the hips of a pretty girl wearing white bell-bottomed trousers and casually lifted her onto a hitching post near the stable; then, voluntarily, almost automatically, she spread her legs and he stood between her, moving slowly from side to side and up and down, stroking her long blonde hair while her arms and fingers caressed his back, not quick or eagerly but quite passively, indolently a mood harmonious with his own. They continued their slow erotic slumber for several moments under the mid-morning sun, swaying silently and looking without expression into one another's eyes, seeming totally unaware of their own lack of privacy and the smell of horse manure near their feet (gag) and the thousands of flies buzzing around them and the automobile that had just come down the dusty road and is now parked, motor idling, with a man inside calling through an open window to where the wrangler stood between the girl. He slowly turned his head toward the car but did not withdraw from the girl. He was about six feet four and wore a bone like ornament around his neck, and he had a long angular face with sandy beard and pale sharply focused blue eyes. He did not seem perturbed by the stranger in the automobile; he assumed he was probably a reporter or detective, both having come in great numbers recently to this ranch in Southern California to speak with the proprietor, an old man named George Spahn, about a group of violent hippies that had lived on the ranch for a year but were not believed to have all moved away. Spahn was not reluctant to talk about them, the wrangler knew, even though Spahn had never seen them, the old man being blind; so when the man in the car asked for George Spahn, a little smile formed on the wranglers face, knowing but enigmatic, and he pointed toward a shack at the end of a row of dilapidated empty wooden buildings. Then, as the car pulled away, he again began his slow movements with the girl delicately balanced on the hitching post.
Spahn's ranch is lost in desert brush and rocky hills, but it is not so much a ranch as it is the old Western movie set it once was. The row of empty buildings extending along the dirt road toward Spahn's shack – decaying structures with faded signs marking them as a saloon, a barber shop, a café, a jail, and a carriage house- all were constructed many years ago as Hollywood settings for cowboy brawls and Indian ambushes, and among the many actors who performed in them, or in front of them, were Tom Mix and Johnny Mack Brown, Hoot Gibson, Wallace Beery, and The Cisco Kid. In the carriage house is a coach that supposedly was used by Grace Kelly in High Noon, and scattered here and there, and slept in by the stray dogs and cats that run wild on this land, are old wagons and other props used in scenes in Duel in The Sun, The Lone Ranger television series and Bonanza. Around the street set, on the edge of the clearing near the trees, are smaller broken-down shacks lived in by wranglers or itinerants who drift to this place periodically and work briefly at some odd job and then disappear. There is an atmosphere of impermanence and neglect about the place, unwashed windows, the rotting wood, the hauling truck parts on inclines because there batteries are low and need the momentum of a downhill start; and yet there is much that is natural and appealing about the place, not the ranch area itself, but the land in back of where the old man lives, being thick with trees and berry bushes and dipping toward a small creek and rising again toward the rocky foothills of the Santa Susanna Mountains. There are a few caves in the mountains that have been used from time to time as shelters by shy vagrants, and in the last few years hippies have sometimes been seen along the rocky ridges strumming guitars and singing songs. Now the whole area is quiet and still, though it is only twenty miles North West of Beverly Hills, it is possible from certain heights to look for miles in any direction without seeing any sign of modern life.
Spahn came to this region in the Nineteen-Thirties (when men were men and sheep were nervous) in the first great migration of the automobile age, a time when it was said to be a dream of every Midwestern Model T salesman to move to sunny Southern California and live in a bungalow with a banana plant in the front yard. Except George Spahn had no such dream, nor was he a Midwestern Model T salesman. He was a fairly successful dairy farmer from Pennsylvania with a passion for horses, preferring them to cars and to most of the people he knew. The fact that his father had been kicked to death by a horse, an accident that occurred in 1891 when the elder Spahn was delivering slaughter livestock in a horse drawn wagon near Philadelphia, did not install in the son any fear of that animal; in fact, Spahn quit school after the third grade to work behind a horse on a milk wagon, and his close association with horses was to continue through the rest of his life, bring interrupted by choice only once. That was during his sixteenth year when, temporarily tired of rising at 3 a.m. for his daily milk route, he accepted a job as a carpenter's apprentice, living in the carpenter's home and becoming in time seduced by the carpenter's lusty nineteen-year-old daughter. She would entice him into the woods beyond the house on afternoons when her father was away, or into her bedroom at night after her father had gone to sleep; and even, one day, observing through her window two dogs copulating in the yard, she was suddenly overcome with desire and pulled Spahn to the floor on top of her-all this happening when he was sixteen, in 1906, a first sexual relationship that he can remember vividly and wistfully, even now at the age of eighty-one.
Though never handsome, Spahn was a strong solidly built man in his youth with a plain yet personable manner. He had a hot temper at times, but he was never lazy. When he was in his middle twenties his milk business in Willow Grove Pennsylvania, was large enough for him to operate five wagons and seven horses; and one of the men who he employed, more out of kindness than anything else, was his stepfather Tom Reah, who he had once despised. Spahn could never understand what his strict German-Irish mother had even seen in Reah, a rawboned man with a large belly, who, when drunk, could be vicious. When in this condition Reah would sometimes assault young Spahn, beating him badly; although later Spahn fought back, once swearing at Reah: "You son of a bitch, I'm gonna kill you some day!” On another occasion he threw an ice ax at Reah's head, (damnnn, all I had to do was dodge a spatula every now and then) missing by inches.
Before Spahn was thirty he had obtained an eighty-six-acre farm near Lansdale Pennsylvania, on which he kept thirty-five cows, several horses and a lady housekeeper he had hired after placing an advertisement in a local newspaper. She had previously been married to a racing-car driver, who had been killed leaving her with one child. Spahn found her congenial and able, if not reminiscent of the carpenter's daughter; and at some later date that Spahn cannot remember. They were married. While it would not be an entirely happy or lasting marriage, they would remain together long enough to have ten children, nearly all of whom would be named after Spahn's horses. He named his first daughter, Alice, after a yellow-white pinto he had once owned; and his second daughter, Georgiana, was named in honor of a gelding called George. His third daughter Mary was named after a big bay mare; and when Spahn had a son, he named him George after himself and the aforementioned gelding. Next came Dolly, after a big sorrel mare; and Paul, after a freckled pinto; and so on down the line.
During the early Thirties, in the Depression, Spahn contemplated moving west. Animal feed was scare in Pennsylvania, the milk was frequently spoiled by the inadequate refrigeration system on his farm, and he was becoming disenchanted with life in general. In an advertisement circulated by the Union Pacific Railroad, he had read about the virtues of Southern California, its predictable mild climate, its lack of rain in the summertime, its abundant feed for animals, and he was tempted. He first came along by train to see Southern California for himself; then, satisfied, he returned home. He sold his farm and packed his family, his furniture, his horse collars in a Packard sedan and a truck, and he shipped his best horses separately by rail. He began the long voyage across the continent. He would not regret his decision.
Quite some time ago I received a book titled True Crime An American Anthology - 350 Years of Brilliant Crime About Dark Deeds- Editor Harold Schechter.
I worked like a slave in the Blizzard of 2013 typing this up for you all. Now show your appreciation and buy an Eviliz t-shirt. Or else.
Public fascination with Manson and his "Family" was reflected in an outpouring of writing about every facet of the case, including this 1970 Esquire magazine piece Charles Manson's Home on the Range by Gay Talese.
The horse wrangler, tall and ruggedly handsome, placed his hands on the hips of a pretty girl wearing white bell-bottomed trousers and casually lifted her onto a hitching post near the stable; then, voluntarily, almost automatically, she spread her legs and he stood between her, moving slowly from side to side and up and down, stroking her long blonde hair while her arms and fingers caressed his back, not quick or eagerly but quite passively, indolently a mood harmonious with his own. They continued their slow erotic slumber for several moments under the mid-morning sun, swaying silently and looking without expression into one another's eyes, seeming totally unaware of their own lack of privacy and the smell of horse manure near their feet (gag) and the thousands of flies buzzing around them and the automobile that had just come down the dusty road and is now parked, motor idling, with a man inside calling through an open window to where the wrangler stood between the girl. He slowly turned his head toward the car but did not withdraw from the girl. He was about six feet four and wore a bone like ornament around his neck, and he had a long angular face with sandy beard and pale sharply focused blue eyes. He did not seem perturbed by the stranger in the automobile; he assumed he was probably a reporter or detective, both having come in great numbers recently to this ranch in Southern California to speak with the proprietor, an old man named George Spahn, about a group of violent hippies that had lived on the ranch for a year but were not believed to have all moved away. Spahn was not reluctant to talk about them, the wrangler knew, even though Spahn had never seen them, the old man being blind; so when the man in the car asked for George Spahn, a little smile formed on the wranglers face, knowing but enigmatic, and he pointed toward a shack at the end of a row of dilapidated empty wooden buildings. Then, as the car pulled away, he again began his slow movements with the girl delicately balanced on the hitching post.
Spahn's ranch is lost in desert brush and rocky hills, but it is not so much a ranch as it is the old Western movie set it once was. The row of empty buildings extending along the dirt road toward Spahn's shack – decaying structures with faded signs marking them as a saloon, a barber shop, a café, a jail, and a carriage house- all were constructed many years ago as Hollywood settings for cowboy brawls and Indian ambushes, and among the many actors who performed in them, or in front of them, were Tom Mix and Johnny Mack Brown, Hoot Gibson, Wallace Beery, and The Cisco Kid. In the carriage house is a coach that supposedly was used by Grace Kelly in High Noon, and scattered here and there, and slept in by the stray dogs and cats that run wild on this land, are old wagons and other props used in scenes in Duel in The Sun, The Lone Ranger television series and Bonanza. Around the street set, on the edge of the clearing near the trees, are smaller broken-down shacks lived in by wranglers or itinerants who drift to this place periodically and work briefly at some odd job and then disappear. There is an atmosphere of impermanence and neglect about the place, unwashed windows, the rotting wood, the hauling truck parts on inclines because there batteries are low and need the momentum of a downhill start; and yet there is much that is natural and appealing about the place, not the ranch area itself, but the land in back of where the old man lives, being thick with trees and berry bushes and dipping toward a small creek and rising again toward the rocky foothills of the Santa Susanna Mountains. There are a few caves in the mountains that have been used from time to time as shelters by shy vagrants, and in the last few years hippies have sometimes been seen along the rocky ridges strumming guitars and singing songs. Now the whole area is quiet and still, though it is only twenty miles North West of Beverly Hills, it is possible from certain heights to look for miles in any direction without seeing any sign of modern life.
Spahn came to this region in the Nineteen-Thirties (when men were men and sheep were nervous) in the first great migration of the automobile age, a time when it was said to be a dream of every Midwestern Model T salesman to move to sunny Southern California and live in a bungalow with a banana plant in the front yard. Except George Spahn had no such dream, nor was he a Midwestern Model T salesman. He was a fairly successful dairy farmer from Pennsylvania with a passion for horses, preferring them to cars and to most of the people he knew. The fact that his father had been kicked to death by a horse, an accident that occurred in 1891 when the elder Spahn was delivering slaughter livestock in a horse drawn wagon near Philadelphia, did not install in the son any fear of that animal; in fact, Spahn quit school after the third grade to work behind a horse on a milk wagon, and his close association with horses was to continue through the rest of his life, bring interrupted by choice only once. That was during his sixteenth year when, temporarily tired of rising at 3 a.m. for his daily milk route, he accepted a job as a carpenter's apprentice, living in the carpenter's home and becoming in time seduced by the carpenter's lusty nineteen-year-old daughter. She would entice him into the woods beyond the house on afternoons when her father was away, or into her bedroom at night after her father had gone to sleep; and even, one day, observing through her window two dogs copulating in the yard, she was suddenly overcome with desire and pulled Spahn to the floor on top of her-all this happening when he was sixteen, in 1906, a first sexual relationship that he can remember vividly and wistfully, even now at the age of eighty-one.
Though never handsome, Spahn was a strong solidly built man in his youth with a plain yet personable manner. He had a hot temper at times, but he was never lazy. When he was in his middle twenties his milk business in Willow Grove Pennsylvania, was large enough for him to operate five wagons and seven horses; and one of the men who he employed, more out of kindness than anything else, was his stepfather Tom Reah, who he had once despised. Spahn could never understand what his strict German-Irish mother had even seen in Reah, a rawboned man with a large belly, who, when drunk, could be vicious. When in this condition Reah would sometimes assault young Spahn, beating him badly; although later Spahn fought back, once swearing at Reah: "You son of a bitch, I'm gonna kill you some day!” On another occasion he threw an ice ax at Reah's head, (damnnn, all I had to do was dodge a spatula every now and then) missing by inches.
Before Spahn was thirty he had obtained an eighty-six-acre farm near Lansdale Pennsylvania, on which he kept thirty-five cows, several horses and a lady housekeeper he had hired after placing an advertisement in a local newspaper. She had previously been married to a racing-car driver, who had been killed leaving her with one child. Spahn found her congenial and able, if not reminiscent of the carpenter's daughter; and at some later date that Spahn cannot remember. They were married. While it would not be an entirely happy or lasting marriage, they would remain together long enough to have ten children, nearly all of whom would be named after Spahn's horses. He named his first daughter, Alice, after a yellow-white pinto he had once owned; and his second daughter, Georgiana, was named in honor of a gelding called George. His third daughter Mary was named after a big bay mare; and when Spahn had a son, he named him George after himself and the aforementioned gelding. Next came Dolly, after a big sorrel mare; and Paul, after a freckled pinto; and so on down the line.
During the early Thirties, in the Depression, Spahn contemplated moving west. Animal feed was scare in Pennsylvania, the milk was frequently spoiled by the inadequate refrigeration system on his farm, and he was becoming disenchanted with life in general. In an advertisement circulated by the Union Pacific Railroad, he had read about the virtues of Southern California, its predictable mild climate, its lack of rain in the summertime, its abundant feed for animals, and he was tempted. He first came along by train to see Southern California for himself; then, satisfied, he returned home. He sold his farm and packed his family, his furniture, his horse collars in a Packard sedan and a truck, and he shipped his best horses separately by rail. He began the long voyage across the continent. He would not regret his decision.
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Manson "Attorney" Jailed as a Fraud
Remember Giovanni di Stefano the attorney who was going to get Charles Manson cleared of all charges in the World Court? Well, it seems that di Stefano himself was a conman too, just like Charlie, and not an attorney at all. He has been convicted of fraud and money laundering in the UK and received a 14 year sentence. Many thanks to a loyal Eviliz lurker for this story!
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Read the story here- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21969624
Eviliz's previous post on di Stefano
http://www.eviliz.com/2011/05/giovanni-di-stefano-asks-governor-jerry.html
Read the story here- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21969624
Eviliz's previous post on di Stefano
http://www.eviliz.com/2011/05/giovanni-di-stefano-asks-governor-jerry.html
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