Please insert this after “…drugs in their bodies…”
"Druggies go to Tate’s house to rob. Find resistance from inhabitants. Druggies, their requests not being honored, become violent. "
I’m not saying that my scenario is authoritative, but, if you can’t see it as being viable, then I suggest that it is because your (as in you/me/most people’s) natural bias is with “the State”, and “society”, which Manson’s people had openly disregarded; this is an indirect attack on you (us, etc…) so, they must be evil as VB states. His acid-head witnesses back him up!(Could be wrong, tho.)
It’s been 45 years, thereabouts, since the murders. In that time, the other killers have sobered up, gone into counseling, and testified many times at parole hearings. And they have corroborated the Helter Skelter story, at a time when it is in their best interests (i.e. pleading for leniency) to tell the truth.
You might try to handwave this away, but if you watch the Van Houten video I linked to upthread, you’ll see that she takes great pains to emphasize that she is separating what she personally remembers of the crime with what she has since been told. And she talks about Manson’s control over the group.
The defendants openly rejected this “mind control” theory at the time of trial, and in so doing acted very much under Manson’s influence, completely against their own best interests, thereby demonstrating his cult-like control over them. It wasn’t just the carving of their foreheads.
That is why the defense attorneys didn’t put on a defense! Each of the girls was going to take full responsibility and claim that Manson had nothing to do with it…their own attorneys refused to go along with implicating their own clients, so they didn’t let them testify. They all tried at some point to fire their attorneys. Hell, Van Houten’s attorney wanted to bifurcate her trial (since she wasn’t involved with the Tate murders, and only participated in the second night of killing at the LaBianca house), and he ended up dead! Despite the possibility of securing a lesser sentence, they were more interested in protecting Charlie, their leader.
You’re position is that anybody who doesn’t give think that your theory is viable is because they have a “natural bias” with “the State” and “society”. I’m going to disagree and say that those who don’t give credence to your theory do so because it is devoid of any specific analysis of the facts. Rather, you just choose to disbelieve, even in the face of evidence - and that is a plain bias of your own.
Is there a known link on the web to the full trial transcript(s)? I’ve googled, and found portions, like some of Kasabian’s testimony, as well as others, but not the whole thing.
I’m sure in print form, it would probably run into hundreds of volumes, and use several gigabytes of data online, if not more, but I’m curious.
From hunting around a bit, I’ve only found portions, too. It appears that you can find some of the trial transcript here. The same website has Vince Bugliosi’s summation here. The testimony of Terry Melcher is here.
I could be wrong here (I trust someone will let me know), but I believe it’s cited in Tex’s book and in Helter Skelter that the drugs they took before the murders was speed.
Tex brought a gun to a knife fight. He’s also who told the girls to get Bowie knives or got them for them.
I believe Tex got to the Tate house, pumped up, as were the girls. Went inside, there was no sum of money lying around, he started to resent these “establishment” = rich types, and he started killing, with a knife, “over-stabbing” the way someone on speed might do, got the girls involved, tapping into Sadie’s sick fascination with the baby in Sharon Tate. Ended up with everyone dead, Tex’s gun coming out again for the valiantly fighting Voytex. Tex’s shooting of the Parent kid shows that Tex was on a mission–his mission–but not necessarily Charlie’s. Nothing points to Charlie leading Tex. And things in such a violent, out-of-control situation are never lockstep.
Reasonable points, but all you’ve done is establish that they were functioning individuals and not some kind of lobotomized Manson-bots. That Tex chose to shoot Parent and that they made this choice and that choice doesn’t invalidate the claim that Manson programmed their thinking and actions. The whole “Helter Skelter” plan was to incite the race riots with messy, scary, excessive murders and other acts. It was never “go neatly execute these five people.”
I don’t buy the Tex theory. Sorry. Not from this claim, anyway.
Steve Parent was one of David Gerrold’s best friends, by the way.
Why are you willingto believe Tex when he writes that he took drugs, but you refuse to believe him when he says that he was acting on Manson’s orders?
Where did Tex get the gun from?
You ran with your tail between your legs in the Great Debate thread on Manson, but you are doubling down here. Are you sure that you mean to use the word “nothing”?
To think about: there’s not much evidence that Charles Tex Watson was under the “spell,” “led in a cult” by Charles Manson. If we break the connection there, then really we’re just talking about Tex Watson, spree killer.