Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Hardcover (64 page)

ALSO BY JEFF GUINN

The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral—And How It Changed the American West

Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde

Prologue: Charlie at the Whisky

Descriptions of events are based on interviews with Gregg Jakobson, Lorraine Chamberlain, Phil Kaufman, Mary F. Corey, and Charles Perry. I found Domenic Priore’s
Riot on Sunset Strip
to be an exceptional history of this famous street in the mid- to late 1960s.

three cars eased down Sunset Boulevard:
Gregg Jakobson interview.

the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco still clung:
Charles Perry interview.

As civil disorder swept the rest of America:
Barney Hoskyns,
Waiting for the Sun: A Rock ’n’ Roll History of Los Angeles
(Backbeat Books, 2009), pp. 132–43; Domenic Priore,
Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ’n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood
(Outline Press, 2007), p. 25; Mary F. Corey interview.

were expected to mingle with the public:
Lorraine Chamberlain interview.

Together they were part:
Gregg Jakobson interview.

their philosophy was:
Ibid.

the most famous club in town:
Priore, pp. 41–42.

rock gods Mick Jagger and Keith Richards:
Phil Kaufman interview.

Anyone in Los Angeles who had pretensions:
Ibid.; David Crosby and Carl Gottlieb,
Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby
(Doubleday, 1988), p. 90.

Melcher handed over the keys:
Gregg Jakobson interview.

Manson assumed that he was always welcome:
Ibid.

Wilson’s house guests ran up an $800 tab:
Ibid.

In recent weeks Wilson had also begun:
Steven Gaines,
Heroes & Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys
(Da Capo, 1995), p. 212.

The club wasn’t particularly big:
Priore, pp. 41–42.

they were startled by a commotion:
Gregg Jakobson interview.

Chapter One: Nancy and Kathleen

It is always worrisome when writers of nonfiction claim to know what long-deceased people were thinking. But in the cases of Nancy and Kathleen, for the portions of their lives described in this chapter, we know their thoughts as they revealed them to Manson’s cousin Jo Ann and his sister, Nancy, both of whom I interviewed. Jo Ann’s grandmother shared many confidences with her, including her frustrations with her youngest daughter and her reactions when Kathleen married William Manson and when Kathleen and Luther were sentenced to prison for the “Ketchup Bottle Holdup.” Jo Ann also provided insights into her mother and stepfather’s courtship and subsequent marriage (they frequently took her along on their dates). Kathleen told Nancy how she rebelled against her mother’s Bible-inspired rules, and how she met and became intimate with Colonel Scott.

Others interviewed for this chapter include Lyle Adcock, Vincent Bugliosi, Jim Powers, George Wolfford, John P. Maranto, Virginia Brautigan, Robert Smith, Lon Dagley, and Jim Kettel. I offer special thanks to Virginia Brautigan for lending me Nancy Maddox’s personal copy of
The Self-Interpreting Bible, Volume III
, which contains the underlined passages described here.

Charlie Manson’s sister, Nancy, provided family snapshots of Nancy Maddox holding her infant grandson Charlie.

Court documents and copies of confession statements made by Luther Maddox, Nancy Maddox, and Julia Vickers made possible the detailed description of the August 1939 robbery that resulted in Manson’s mother and uncle being sent to prison.

People didn’t consider Nancy a fanatic:
Virginia Brautigan interview.

Charlie Milles Maddox, also from Kentucky:
State of Kentucky Bureau of Vital Statistics;
Ashland Daily Independent
, October 27, 1931.

they became comfortably middle-class:
Lyle Adcock interview.

Ashland was a business port:
James Powers and Terry Baldridge,
Ashland
(Arcadia Publishing, 2008), pp. 7–8.

Charlie and Nancy were able to buy a house:
Boyd County Recorder’s Office.

Nancy bowed her head and gave thanks daily:
Jo Ann interview.

she moaned that she felt:
Ibid.

Charlie left his widow a railroad pension:
John P. Maranto interview.

Nancy often kept her granddaughter:
Jo Ann interview.

In case the rest of the family didn’t fully grasp:
Virginia Brautigan interview.

Bill Thomas proved to be:
Jo Ann interview.

Nancy was raised as a Protestant:
Lyle Adcock interview.

the Nazarene Church, which had conservative rules:
Robert Smith and Lon Dagley interviews.

“the Big Five”:
Robert Smith interview.

There was an empty space between the stove:
Nancy interview.

She considered Nancy to be a hard person:
Ibid.

The problem was that in Ashland:
George Wolfford interview.

Upstanding citizens in Ashland:
Ibid.

Scott’s two sons soon gained local reputations:
Ibid.

He let her think that he really was:
Nancy interview.

When she told Colonel Scott:
Ibid.

Somehow, she’d show him:
Jo Ann interview.

She wanted a man like Charlie Maddox:
Nancy interview.

Very little is known about William Manson:
Lyle Adcock interview.

Nancy wasn’t informed in advance about the wedding:
Jo Ann interview.

Nancy and Glenna were concerned:
Ibid.

Nancy, frantic and expecting the worst:
Virginia Brautigan interview.

Kathleen went to court in Kentucky:
Vincent Bugliosi and Lyle Adcock interviews; Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry,
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders
(W. W. Norton, 1994, 25th Anniversary Edition), p. 137. A Kentucky law passed in 1980 to provide confidentiality of juvenile records has sealed this file. But in 1970 Bugliosi obtained a copy of the file for use in the trial of Charles Manson.

On the afternoon of August 1, 1939:
The description of the “Ketchup Bottle Holdup” comes from the State of West Virginia Department of Public Safety Report of Investigation A1633, which includes the report of the investigating officer and the post-arrest statements of Luther Maddox, Kathleen Maddox, and Julia Vickers.

their haul totaled $27:
Subsequent newspaper articles put the amount at $30 and $35, but the initial police reports stated that $27 was taken from Martin’s wallet; the wallet itself was valued at $1 by investigators.

There was no real challenge:
If Kathleen and Luther had really pulled a series
of previous stickups in Chicago as their mother Nancy believed, they would surely have been better at it than they proved to be in Charleston. If not, they would have been nabbed by police on some if not all of these supposed earlier attempts. But there are no police records of Kathleen and Luther being arrested in Chicago. This is why I believe the bungled Charleston robbery was their first try at strongarm robbery.