other night”—was inadmissible because of
I interviewed Danny numerous times, one session lasting nine hours, obtaining considerable information that hadn’t come out in previous interviews. Each time I picked up a few more examples of Manson’s domination: Manson would tell the Family when it was time to eat; he wouldn’t permit anyone to be served until he was seated; during dinner he would lecture on his philosophy.
I asked Danny if anyone ever interrupted Manson while he was talking. He recalled that one time “a couple of broads” started talking.
Q. “What happened?”
A. “He threw a bowl of rice at them.”
Although DeCarlo was extremely reluctant to testify, Sergeant Gutierrez and I eventually persuaded him that it was in his own best interests to do so.
I had less success with Dennis Wilson, singer and drummer for the Beach Boys. Though Wilson initially claimed to know nothing of importance, he finally agreed to “level” with me, but he refused to testify.
It was obvious that Wilson was scared, and not without good reason. On December 4, 1969, three days after LAPD announced they had broken the case, Wilson had received an anonymous death threat. It was, I learned, not the only such threat, and the others were not anonymous.
Though denying any knowledge of the Family’s criminal activities, Wilson did supply some interesting background information. In the late spring of 1968, Wilson had twice picked up the same pair of female hitchhikers while driving through Malibu. The second time he took the girls home with him. For Dennis, home was 14400 Sunset Boulevard, a palatial residence formerly owned by humorist Will Rogers. The girls—Ella Jo Bailey and Patricia Krenwinkel—stayed a couple of hours, Dennis said, mostly talking about this guy named Charlie.
Wilson had a recording session that night and didn’t get home until 3 A.M. When he pulled into the driveway, a strange man stepped out of his back door. Wilson, frightened, asked, “Are you going to hurt me?” The man said, “Do I look like I’m going to hurt you, brother?” He then dropped to his knees and kissed Wilson’s feet—obviously one of Charlie’s favorite routines. When Manson ushered Wilson into his own home, he discovered he had about a dozen uninvited house guests, nearly all of them girls.
They stayed for several months, during which time the group more than doubled in number. (It was during Manson’s “Sunset Boulevard period” that Charles “Tex” Watson, Brooks Poston, and Paul Watkins became associated with the Family.) The experience, Dennis later estimated, cost him about $100,000. Besides Manson’s constantly hitting him for money, Clem demolished Wilson’s uninsured $21,000 Mercedes-Benz by plowing it into a mountain on the approach to Spahn Ranch; the Family appropriated Wilson’s wardrobe, and just about everything else in sight; and several times Wilson found it necessary to take the whole Family to his Beverly Hills doctor for penicillin shots. “It was probably the largest gonorrhea bill in history,” Dennis admitted. Wilson even gave Manson nine or ten of the Beach Boys’ gold records and paid to have Sadie’s teeth fixed.
The newly divorced Wilson obviously found something attractive about Manson’s life style. “Except for the expense,” Dennis told me, “I got along very well with Charlie and the girls.” He and Charlie would sing and talk, Dennis said, while the girls cleaned house, cooked, and catered to their needs. Wilson said he liked the “spontaneity” of Charlie’s music, but added that “Charlie never had a musical bone in his body.” Despite this, Dennis tried hard to “sell” Manson to others. He rented a recording studio in Santa Monica and had Manson recorded. (Though I was very interested in hearing the tapes, Wilson claimed that he had destroyed them, because “the vibrations connected with them don’t belong on this earth.”) Wilson also introduced Manson to a number of people in or on the fringes of the entertainment industry, including Melcher, Jakobson, and Altobelli. At one party, Charlie gave Dean Martin’s daughter, Deana, a ring and asked her to join the Family. Deana told me she kept the ring, which she later gave to her husband, but declined Manson’s invitation. As did the other Beach Boys, none of whom shared Dennis’ fondness for the “scruffy little guru,” as one described him.
Wilson denied having any conflicts with Manson during this period. However, in August 1968, three weeks before his lease was to expire, Dennis moved in with Gregg, leaving to his manager the task of evicting Charlie and the girls.
From Sunset Boulevard the Family moved to Spahn Ranch. Although Wilson apparently avoided the group for a time, he did see Manson occasionally. Dennis told me that he didn’t have any trouble with Charlie until August 1969—Dennis could not recall the exact date, but he did know it was after the Tate murders—when Manson visited him, demanding $1,500 so he could go to the desert. When Wilson refused, Charlie told him, “Don’t be surprised if you never see your kid again.” Dennis had a seven-year-old son, and obviously this was one reason for his reluctance to testify.
Manson also threatened Wilson himself, but Dennis did not learn of this until an interview I conducted with both Wilson and Jakobson. According to Jakobson, not long after Dennis refused Manson’s request, Charlie handed Gregg a .44 caliber bullet and told him, “Tell Dennis there are more where this came from.” Knowing how the other threat had upset Dennis, Gregg hadn’t mentioned it to him.
This incident had occurred in late August or early September of 1969. Jakobson was startled by the change in Manson. “The electricity was almost pouring out of him. His hair was on end. His eyes were wild. The only thing I can compare it to…is that he was just like an animal in a cage.”
It was possible there was still another threat, but this is strictly conjecture. In going through the Spahn Ranch phone bills, I found that on September 22, 1969, someone called Dennis Wilson’s private number from the pay phone at Spahn and that the following day Wilson had the phone disconnected.
Looking back on his involvement with the Family, Dennis told me: “I’m the luckiest guy in the world, because I got off only losing my money.”
From rock star to motorcycle rider to ex–call girl, the witnesses in this case all had one thing in common: they were afraid for their lives. They needed only to pick up a newspaper or turn on TV to see that many of the Family members were still roaming the streets; that Steve Grogan, aka Clem, was out on bail, while the Inyo County grand theft charges against Bruce Davis had been dismissed for lack of evidence. Neither Grogan, Davis, nor any of the others suspected of beheading Shorty Shea had been charged with that murder, there being as yet no physical proof that Shea was dead.
Perhaps in her cell at Sybil Brand, Susan Atkins recalled the lyrics of the Beatles’ song “Sexy Sadie”:
Or perhaps it was simply that the numerous messages Manson was sending, by other Family members, were getting to her.
Susan called in Caballero and told him that under no circumstances would she testify at the trial. And she demanded to see Charlie.
Caballero told Aaron and me that it looked as if we’d lost our star witness.
We contacted Gary Fleischman, Linda Kasabian’s attorney, and told him we were ready to talk.
From the start Fleischman, dedicated to the welfare of his client, had wanted nothing
