May 2008
The purpose of the Monthly
View is to share the testimony of Jesus
Christ, but the web site hits have tripled
this month due to press coverage of the
possibilities of bodies being found at Barker
Ranch in Death Valley where members of the
Manson family were arrested in October 1969.
I feel it is my obligation to address the
questions about this possibility.
What Is The Agenda?
In the 1990’s and
early 2000s, the late Russell W. “Bill”
Nelson wrote tabloid-like stories about
former members of the Manson family. He
led a search party to Barker Ranch on rumors
of bodies made by a man named Larry Milton,
who claimed he had been a former Manson
family member. No bodies were found, but
he continued to stalk the families and children
of former Manson family members like myself.
His agenda was vengeance and to seek self-aggrandizement.
On March 16, 2008, in an
article entitled, “Oak Ridge scientist
help tests for bodies in Manson ranch”,
Associated Press writer Juliana Barbassa
stated: “Manson follower Susan Atkins
boasted to her cell mate on November 1,
1969, that there were ‘three people
out in the desert that they done in.’”
It seems that Susan’s agenda was to
boast in pride to her cell mate, but I agree
with Debra Tate: “If there are bodies
here,” she said at Barker ranch, “we
need to find them and send them home.”
I’d like to hear what Susan Atkins
has to say today, about what she said in
1969? [I hear only through the media concerning
former Manson family members.]
What is the agenda? Is
it to write books for personal gain? Is
it to hype the Manson murders in the press
before parole hearings? Or, is it so families
of possible victims can find closure? If
it is the later, let’s dig with much
skepticism. I know of no bodies.
My Definitive Statement
- I have no knowledge of any murders
committed by the Manson family, other
than those which have already been prosecuted
by the authorities.
- I have never personally heard any Manson
Family member speak of any bodies being
buried at Barker Ranch.
Where Was I?
In order to avoid more
murders, I fled to the desert a couple of
days after the Tate/LaBianca murders on
August 9 & 10, 1969 and before the raid
by the Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies
at Spahn Ranch on August 16, 1969. I was
not one of the twenty-six arrested at Spahn’s
Ranch. I wanted the killings to stop, so
I lied to Manson, who sent a few of us to
the desert. We roamed around Olanche and
the Owens Lake area for a couple of weeks,
until the rest of the family showed up at
Barker Ranch the first week in September
1969. As described in my 1978 book, “Will
You Die For Me?”, Chapter
15, last three paragraphs, I wrote the
following:
“I wondered what
would happen this next night and the night
after that. Although Susan Atkin’s
later claim that we had a death list of
famous Hollywood stars was untrue. Charlie
had made it clear that two nights would
not be the end of it, that we would do
more and more killings until either the
blacks or the whites took matters into
their own hands—and Helter Skelter
would begin.
I have no doubt that
things would have continued just as Charlie
planned—for another night, for three
more nights, ten, however long—if
later that Sunday afternoon my mother
hand not called Willis Carson in Los Angeles
and asked him to get in touch with me
because she hadn’t had a word from
her son in six months.
That call, and Willis’s
to the ranch that followed, set up my
lie about the F.B.I. having come to my
parents’ home in Copeville [Texas],
accusing me of murder. And that lie stopped
the killings and sent us all to the desert
where, nearly two months later, I refused
to murder again for Manson and headed
home to Copeville, with its peeling white
wood and railroad, home to the store and
the gas pumps and the kitchen—back
to the world I thought I’d blasted
out of my mind forever.”
“He’s A Runner”
As stated in the last paragraph
of Chapter
16, “I refused to murder again
for Manson”, when he asked me to kill
a couple of desert rangers the last week
in September. “I headed home to Copeville”
driving a ’46 Dodge Power Wagon [Monthly
View, June
2007] down Golar Wash, running from
Manson. I was fearful of not carrying out
Manson’s orders and the repercussions
of it. This was two weeks before October
10, 1969, when Stephanie Schram and Kathryn
Lutesinger turned themselves into the California
Highway Patrol, “afraid for their
lives” (as reported in Associated
Press on March 16, 2008).
You will just have to read
Chapter
16, “He’s A Runner”
to find out what I did in the month of October
1969, but I’ll share briefly. I hitched
from the desert to San Bernardino with a
truck driver. I wired my parents for money,
took a helicopter to LAX and caught a plane
to Dallas where my sister picked me up.
I didn’t stay long, flew to Mexico,
back to LAX, to Hawaii, back to LAX and
took a bus back to Trona, California.
The, I walked across 25
miles of desert trying to get back to Charlie,
only to turn around half way up Golar Wash,
still fearing Manson. I stopped at a trailer
where a man named “Tex” lived,
he told me the Manson family had been arrested,
and I should leave. He drove me to Ridgecrest
and I flew back to LAX and back home to
Texas where on November 30, 1969, I turned
myself in.
“Bodies Buried?”
This is what CNN
asked me when they requested an interview
on March 26, 2008. I turned down the phone
interview and a visit, but I responded to
their questions by mail. I do know that
no one had been buried by the Manson Family
at Barker Ranch when I fled Manson two weeks
before they were arrested on October 10,
1969. The only runaways I knew at Barker
Ranch were Stephanie and Kathryn, a.k.a.
“Kitty”. As reported above,
they were picked up by the California Highway
Patrol. There are only two faithful members
of the old Manson family left. It stands
to reason that if there were bodies buried
at Barker Ranch, at least one of the rest
would have come forward with reliable information
during the past forty years.
CNN also asked, “What
was it like in that remote location?”
This is where the title of my book was derived
when Manson asked me, “Will you die
for me?” My book begins with the answer
to this question and tells what life was
light living in fear. I said “yes”
with a knife to my throat, but in reality,
I was boasting too! In a couple of weeks,
I would be running from Manson in fear for
my life.
What was it like in the
desert? We had only the food that we brought
with us. I was hungry and questioning Manson’s
philosophy. I was tired, regretting my decision
and realizing I had made a tragic mistake
that I could never take back. The faces
of seven innocent lives haunted me. I couldn’t
shake what I had done, nor run away from
it. I was left with no where to run, so
I decided to face the consequences. I have
faced them daily ever since. But because
of God’s mercy, I live by faith in
the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, Who loved me and gave His life for
me. 1 I am forgiven
and cleansed from all unrighteousness. 2
I am accepted just as I am. 3
“For God has not given me the spirit
of fear, but of power, and of love, and
of sound mind.” 4
Jesus lives to make intercession for me.
5
A Prayer for You
Heavenly Father, I pray these comments
may minister righteousness to those who
read them. That those with wrong agendas
be convicted by the Holy Spirit for their
actions. That bodies or lost victims, if
there be any, be found and identified. I
pray that all victims of crime will find
salvation and closure. And that all former
members of the Manson family receive salvation,
even Charles Manson himself, in these last
days before Your Son’s soon return.
Come quickly Lord Jesus, in whose Name I
pray. Amen!
Scripture References:
1. Gal. 2:20
2. 1 John 1:9
3. Eph. 1:6
4. 2 Tim. 1:7
5. Heb. 7:25
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