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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder The most Shocking
Speaker 2: Killers in True crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week,
Speaker 2: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 2: journalist and author Dan Zupanski. Good evening.
Speaker 3: This is your host Dan Zepanski for the program True Murder,
Speaker 3: The most shocking Killers in true crime History and the
Speaker 3: authors that have written about them. In November nineteen seventy,
Speaker 3: Charles Manson was sentenced to death for the wholefing in
Speaker 3: cold blooded murders of seven people near Los Angeles. His
Speaker 3: sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment after California abolished
Speaker 3: its death penalty and Manson's triald. Lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi,
Speaker 3: spun the story of a demonic cult leader who hypnotized
Speaker 3: people to commit murder. He published his theory in Helter Skelter,
Speaker 3: the best selling true crime book of all time. When
Speaker 3: author Marlin Merrinick was eight years old. He discovered a
Speaker 3: beat up copy of Helter Skelter. The book's portrayal of
Speaker 3: Charles Manson was an icon of unbridled evil haunted as
Speaker 3: an icon of unbridled evil haunted Merinick for years, well
Speaker 3: into his career as a psychiatric nurse. So when a
Speaker 3: chance conversation with a man selling Manson memorabilia on the
Speaker 3: Internet facilitated a connection to Manson himself, Marinick went along
Speaker 3: for the ride. This Happenstance's journey introduced Merinick to Manson's
Speaker 3: closest confidants, eager to share Manson's story, his talent, his passion,
Speaker 3: and his philosophy. The adventure chriscended through Marynick's phoned conversations
Speaker 3: with Manson and ultimately culminated when the two met behind
Speaker 3: the tightly locked doors of California's Corkoran State Prison. Charles
Speaker 3: Manson Now is a critical dissection of what happened forty
Speaker 3: one years ago when the Manson family dominated and stormed
Speaker 3: the Polank Yesterday and murdered five people, among them one
Speaker 3: of America's most beautiful beloved actresses, Sharon Tate. This book
Speaker 3: is also a clause of Manson's own writing a poetic, ironic,
Speaker 3: and disturbing account of his universe, from his childhood to
Speaker 3: his time in the eight x twenty eight x twelve
Speaker 3: prison cell where he is contemned to stay for the
Speaker 3: rest of his life. With my special guest Marlin Marrinick
Speaker 3: with his book Charles Manson. Now, welcome to the program,
Speaker 3: and thank you to agreeing to this interview. Marlin Merrinick,
Speaker 3: thanks a lot, Dan, happy to be here. Thank you
Speaker 3: very much. Now, I guess what everybody might ask after
Speaker 3: they listened to this is how on earth did you
Speaker 3: come to getting correspondence with Marlin with Charles Manson? And why?
Speaker 4: It's one of those things that I think if anyone
Speaker 4: set out to do, and thousands of people have, you
Speaker 4: can't really get anywhere. So just by dumb luck, if
Speaker 4: you want to call it that, and a weird sequence
Speaker 4: of events and coincidence that everything's kind.
Speaker 5: Of fell together.
Speaker 4: So what the short version is, Basically, I knew I
Speaker 4: had a friend who had no one Manson since the sixties,
Speaker 4: before the crimes that happened. They kept in touch over
Speaker 4: the years, and you know, through out his time in
Speaker 4: prison and stuff, and through that relationship an inmate named
Speaker 4: Kenny Callahan got a hold of my address. A lot
Speaker 4: of people, because Charles Manson is such a famous inmate,
Speaker 4: a lot of other inmates will take his mail and
Speaker 4: they call it fishing. They'll try to get outside contacts
Speaker 4: and try to get stuff like stamps or money, you know,
Speaker 4: whatever kind of relationships they can form. And so through
Speaker 4: this Kenny Callahan guy, I started a relationship with him,
Speaker 4: and he told me that, you know, once Charlie got
Speaker 4: out of the hole, he would have Charlie phone me.
Speaker 4: And I didn't think this was real. Of course I saw, well,
Speaker 4: you know, whatever kind of thing. And at the time
Speaker 4: Charles Manson was in the hole, he had fashioned a
Speaker 4: knife out of an armbrace that that one of the
Speaker 4: other inmates had had. And you know, having a I
Speaker 4: guess it would be called a prison shank or whatever.
Speaker 4: So having a weapon like that is a very serious offense.
Speaker 4: And he was thrown in the hole for a year
Speaker 4: and when he got out he called.
Speaker 3: So that was how many months after you had had
Speaker 3: this conversation.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I'd been dealing with Kenny probably for three months
Speaker 4: before that happened, three or four months.
Speaker 3: So and and tell us about the first opportunity. Tell
Speaker 3: us just more about you had this opportunity finally got
Speaker 3: out of the whole tell us a little bit more,
Speaker 3: continue with what what what occurred that in this correspondence
Speaker 3: and tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 4: When when I started talking to Charlie is his whole
Speaker 4: focus has always been around the environments. And I remember
Speaker 4: talking about insects and birds and crows and you know
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff, the ocean, and and he's his
Speaker 4: whole focus is trying to save the air and and
Speaker 4: he called it at WAH, which is an acronym that
Speaker 4: stands for air, tree, water, and animals. And and so
Speaker 4: I kind of got adapt, you know, to his his
Speaker 4: philosophy and his way of thinking. And and because I
Speaker 4: was in Canada, he thought that maybe there was a
Speaker 4: way that I could bring in a camera crew and
Speaker 4: we could do this final address. He had this idea
Speaker 4: of doing a one final interview, and he wanted to
Speaker 4: make it a statement. So his vision of this was
Speaker 4: to dress up like a general and command all the
Speaker 4: armies in the world to stop fighting each other and
Speaker 4: start fighting pollution. And so that was kind of what,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of bonded us in a way and
Speaker 4: kind of helped form the relationship with his focus on
Speaker 4: trying to get this interview to happen.
Speaker 3: Now, I mean, obviously you weren't fascinated with him as
Speaker 3: an environmentalist when you were young or at some point
Speaker 3: when you had this correspondence, but take us back, take
Speaker 3: us even back. I thought it was very fascinating. You
Speaker 3: described the when you first saw the book Held Skeleton,
Speaker 3: and obviously that would be your first exposure to the
Speaker 3: story and what you got from it, what your impressions were,
Speaker 3: and give us that whole scenario where you where were you,
Speaker 3: Where were the circumstances that you came upon this classic
Speaker 3: true crime book and first encountered the personality of Charles
Speaker 3: mans and at least through this perspective.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when I was writing the book, I had to remember,
Speaker 4: I had to go back and try to figure out
Speaker 4: what was my earliest remembrance of Charles Manson, and that
Speaker 4: that was through Helter Skelter. And I'm sure it's like
Speaker 4: that through for most people. And so I was a kid,
Speaker 4: I found a copy of the book and I found
Speaker 4: in an abandoned house house. We used to play in
Speaker 4: those when I was a kid. We used to rummage
Speaker 4: around in those kind of places and stuff, and I
Speaker 4: remember the imagery and you know, the blood writing on
Speaker 4: the walls, and I remember his eyes and that intense look,
Speaker 4: and it was I would have been about like, you know,
Speaker 4: eight years old or so, and the whole thing was
Speaker 4: like very horrific. The guy gave me nightmares, So you know,
Speaker 4: he was a kind of a monster from my childhood.
Speaker 4: That that's kind of my releast remembrance of him.
Speaker 3: How important was that book? I mean, did you did
Speaker 3: you just see it that you were affected by by
Speaker 3: looking at it? But I mean, ten years old, some
Speaker 3: of these things might be hard to comprehend. Was it
Speaker 3: a book that was still important? Did you read it again?
Speaker 3: I mean, what did you get out of the book
Speaker 3: other than here was the portrayal of this monster? Did
Speaker 3: you get anything else from the book, either at that
Speaker 3: young age or a little bit earlier late later.
Speaker 4: On, Well, when I was exposed to that, I come
Speaker 4: from a dysfunctional family. My father was an alcoholic and
Speaker 4: my mother completed suicide, and so I think that kind
Speaker 4: of in a way opened up a whole world of
Speaker 4: weirdness for me. And I've always been attracted to kind
Speaker 4: of darker, odder stranger kind of things and subcultures, and
Speaker 4: I think that was kind of how I got interested
Speaker 4: in that as a child. It was something that was
Speaker 4: kind of forbidden and maybe taboo in a way. And
Speaker 4: I don't even like back then, I don't remember hearing
Speaker 4: the term like serial killers or having any you know,
Speaker 4: there was an know reference other than other than that book.
Speaker 4: And oddly enough, all of that kind of experience transpired
Speaker 4: into a career in psychiatry, and that's what I've been
Speaker 4: doing for the last fifteen years. And so to me,
Speaker 4: I was more interested in the psychological kind of aspect
Speaker 4: of Manson than anything else that was fascinating. And I
Speaker 4: think that was ingrained very early, you know, from my childhood.
Speaker 4: And then every once in a while, you know, growing up,
Speaker 4: you see glimpses of them on TV doing different interviews.
Speaker 4: I remember seeing the Heraldo thing and the different Parole hearings,
Speaker 4: you know, where you see that where he's like acting
Speaker 4: out or whatever, that kind of stuff, And so it's
Speaker 4: always it's kind of progressed, and he's always kind of
Speaker 4: been in the background. It's always kind of been there.
Speaker 3: But you must have had some preconception or you must
Speaker 3: have had some conclusion. I mean, I'm going to ask
Speaker 3: you later what your conclusion was after a correspondence and
Speaker 3: a friendship or a relationship of sorts with with Charles Manson,
Speaker 3: But did you have any because on what I'm alluding
Speaker 3: to is you when I talked in the description of
Speaker 3: the book, used the word spun, the Bulagosi spun. So
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't have to be you know, I'm
Speaker 3: reading between the lines, but they're very very obvious. You know.
Speaker 3: What we're alluding to for those people that don't really know,
Speaker 3: is if you could explain what we're really alluding to,
Speaker 3: and if there is any controversy about Charles Manson's certainly
Speaker 3: not that he was, you know, powerful charismatic. He affected everything.
Speaker 3: From that point on, it became a true crime classic
Speaker 3: because it did attract people. The story was profound, Sharon Tate,
Speaker 3: Roman Polonski, Hollywood, hippies, drugs, sex, so it had all
Speaker 3: those elements, and it had distorted because they didn't get
Speaker 3: the facts right away. Of course, rumor and gossip and
Speaker 3: everything went intal. So tell us really in your minds
Speaker 3: before we get too far for our audience, what in
Speaker 3: your mind is controversial about Bulagosi, the author, but also
Speaker 3: the prosecutor of Charles Manson in terms of what Manson
Speaker 3: is believed to have done and what you think he Okay,
Speaker 3: just explained.
Speaker 4: Yes, I guess in the beginning, like before, I totally
Speaker 4: believe the helter skelter version of events. I mean I
Speaker 4: had no reason to question it. It was, you know, a
Speaker 4: huge book, and the way Manson was portrayed and the
Speaker 4: way he carried himself, it all seemed to fit. I
Speaker 4: always struggled with the whole concept of mind control though,
Speaker 4: and and being you know, interested into in psychology and
Speaker 4: those kind of things. It's something I've kind of deld
Speaker 4: in a little bit and that that really didn't make
Speaker 4: a whole lot of sense to me. And there's been
Speaker 4: similar kind of things that remember, like in the eighties
Speaker 4: when you know, bands like I remember Judas Priest had
Speaker 4: to go to trial because one of you know, one
Speaker 4: of their fans had completed suicide and it was you know,
Speaker 4: this music's doing that, and somehow if you played something
Speaker 4: backwards it said something. And I think Ozzy Osbourne went
Speaker 4: through a similar kind of a thing, and so it
Speaker 4: was this whole thing about secret messages and what things
Speaker 4: really mean and who's controlling what, and you know that
Speaker 4: that's kind of been a fascinating thing for me. And
Speaker 4: so that was, you know, when I kind of got
Speaker 4: immersed in this and decided to write a book, and
Speaker 4: when all that was kind of coming together and I
Speaker 4: did researcher around that, that was one of the issues
Speaker 4: I had to go into, was you know, could this,
Speaker 4: you know, really happen kind of thing?
Speaker 5: And so that was kind of the.
Speaker 4: First thing I kind of, I would say, broke down
Speaker 4: a little bit, because I mean, if you look at
Speaker 4: those events back in nineteen sixty nine, what was happening,
Speaker 4: Like everyone's on drugs, there's a lot of and every
Speaker 4: there's a lot of chaos and stuff. And if you
Speaker 4: go into Charlie's life and I haven't actually talked to
Speaker 4: him about any of this, but this is just what
Speaker 4: people tell me and what I remember and what's kind
Speaker 4: of in the helter skelter version of things. So you
Speaker 4: got a guy who has been in jail the majority
Speaker 4: of his life.
Speaker 5: He gets out right.
Speaker 4: In the heart of the hippie movement, and he's kind
Speaker 4: of like a transient hobo kind of a character, and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden he's welcomed and there's these communes,
Speaker 4: and there's these hippies, and there's free sex, and there's
Speaker 4: drugs and there's party, you know, and and and he
Speaker 4: build into that full on. You know, he was he
Speaker 4: was a huge part of all of that, and he
Speaker 4: was initially he wanted to be a musician, that's what he.
Speaker 4: Creepy Krpus taught him how to play guitar from the
Speaker 4: Maul Barker Gang, which I think is another Canadian connection,
Speaker 4: and so he you know, he really thought he had
Speaker 4: something and he could do this music thing, and so
Speaker 4: he got out and he ended up being associated with
Speaker 4: the Beach Boys and writing a couple of songs with them.
Speaker 4: He was friend with Neil Young. He told that Neil
Speaker 4: Young gave a motorcycle once Frank Zappa Jim Morris, and
Speaker 4: he said Jim was a good kid. He's trying to
Speaker 4: do his own thing, the Birds. It's like all of
Speaker 4: those people. He was, you know, one of those kind
Speaker 4: of musicians. And then all of a sudden things start
Speaker 4: falling apart, and you have a guy who's getting messages
Speaker 4: from the Beatles record you know, the Beatles. He's believes
Speaker 4: he's Jesus Christ. He thinks there's a race war uppending
Speaker 4: race war happening. He he's paranoid. He goes and hides
Speaker 4: out in the desert. You know, he starts digging all
Speaker 4: to the center of the earth or whatever like that.
Speaker 4: That sounds like some serious mental health problems. You know,
Speaker 4: it doesn't doesn't add up. And then you look at
Speaker 4: the like these people are all petty thieves. It's the
Speaker 4: family or whatever, right, and and so they're stealing these
Speaker 4: cars and stripping them down and making doing buggies and
Speaker 4: doing credit card fraud and breaking into houses and you know,
Speaker 4: all this kind of stuff, and they're just they're they're
Speaker 4: doing like Charlie told me, they they're when they're at
Speaker 4: the they were doing all these robberies, and they'd a
Speaker 4: lot of the he liked. He likes flying ars and
Speaker 4: paintings and stuff like this. So they have they'd be
Speaker 4: living in these shacks that should be condemned, and they'd
Speaker 4: have like, you know, two hundred thousand dollars worth of
Speaker 4: art hanging on the walls, or he'd he stole a
Speaker 4: bunch of I want to say, Angela Lansbury. But I
Speaker 4: might be wrong, but I think that's who it was.
Speaker 4: They broke into some Hollywood actress and stole a bunch
Speaker 4: of fur coats and glued him onto a dune buggy,
Speaker 4: so it looked like a living animal, you know, and
Speaker 4: he'd drive this thing around. And so he recalls those
Speaker 4: kind of days and events, you know, pretty clearly, because
Speaker 4: that you know, that was the last time he was out.
Speaker 4: But I think there's so much chaos and so much disorder,
Speaker 4: and everyone was so messed up. And I really, I
Speaker 4: honestly believe if you were to question every one of them,
Speaker 4: you get I don't think anybody really knows what happened,
Speaker 4: you know, I And I think that's part of the
Speaker 4: fascination of the whole story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you you you do a good job of at
Speaker 3: least stating that sort of argument and without going into
Speaker 3: it too much, because really you could spend four hundred
Speaker 3: pages on that. You know, you really are refuting what
Speaker 3: Bulagosi said. Of course he's got to take something to
Speaker 3: the jury, and we got to think it's nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: nine too, and just it's a hysteric time anyway, you know,
Speaker 3: full of hysteria. And they need to have some closure
Speaker 3: on this really quickly rather than later. And he becomes
Speaker 3: this again. He spent most of his life in prison,
Speaker 3: so he's a pretty good scapegoat, but you portray him
Speaker 3: as something.
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Speaker 3: Plus, buddy, that that you know again, just what you've described.
Speaker 3: He's not a mastermind. No, let's not. Let's put that aside.
Speaker 3: And and he fell into things and and then that,
Speaker 3: And that's what I wanted to get from from this too,
Speaker 3: That you did speak to him about his philosophy. You
Speaker 3: even have a chapter called Polanski, so he you do
Speaker 3: give him the freedom to make some comments. But I
Speaker 3: think for people who are listening to this, it is
Speaker 3: sort of if I'm not correct, maybe it is sort
Speaker 3: of a version of Eastern philosophy in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: Lots of stuff that we're talking about. Now, how did
Speaker 3: you you you did eventually get around to visiting Charles Manson,
Speaker 3: So tell us a little bit how the circumstances that
Speaker 3: you had to go through to be able to do that.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well me, I again, like I didn't think that
Speaker 4: was going to happen. And the first time I attempted
Speaker 4: to get in. I was kind of stopped at the
Speaker 4: you know, the front desk, and they said, you know,
Speaker 4: my application was pending. They were I was waiting for
Speaker 4: my criminal check to go through. And this had been
Speaker 4: like after waiting for eight months already kind of thing,
Speaker 4: so it totally didn't look look like it was going
Speaker 4: to happen. And I was directed to contact the ord
Speaker 4: and in writing, and once I did that, all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, you know, everything kind of turned around, and
Speaker 4: then I was approved. And even going in to meet him,
Speaker 4: I was told that, you know, don't get your hopes
Speaker 4: up kind of thing. He often doesn't go to the
Speaker 4: visiting room. And I had known that he hadn't seen
Speaker 4: anybody in over a year at that point. He wasn't,
Speaker 4: you know, and.
Speaker 5: So I was a little skeptical if he would actually.
Speaker 4: Come out, you know kind of thing. But yeah, it all,
Speaker 4: it all kind of came together.
Speaker 3: So and and what was it like describe the actual visit.
Speaker 4: I'd been talking to him on the phone for a while,
Speaker 4: so it was kind of, you know, we knew each
Speaker 4: other kind of thing. So it wasn't you know, like
Speaker 4: just walking into an empty room and being confronted with
Speaker 4: Charles Manson. I was kind of prepared for it, but
Speaker 4: as soon as you see the guys, it's a little intense,
Speaker 4: Like even though he is seventy six years old, he
Speaker 4: still has that kind of energy and aura about him, right.
Speaker 4: And when I was directed into the visiting room, he
Speaker 4: was already there and he was setting up a table
Speaker 4: and he had a chess table set out, chess board,
Speaker 4: and I don't know how to play chess at.
Speaker 3: All, so.
Speaker 4: And I think I must have looked a little shocked
Speaker 4: or a little intense or whatever, because he tried to
Speaker 4: kind of put me at ease, and you know, he's
Speaker 4: just you know, speaking, you know, pleasantries and just being
Speaker 4: general like how was your trip and how you know,
Speaker 4: how you like in California kind of thing. And once
Speaker 4: we're kind of calmed down, and and you know, I
Speaker 4: was sitting, he stood up and he put the chair
Speaker 4: behind him, and then he started screaming as loud as
Speaker 4: he could, and he started he's doing this whole thing
Speaker 4: around a bank robbery. And she's like, I said, don't,
Speaker 4: I'll kill you, you know. And as soon as he started,
Speaker 4: there were there's two guards in the center of the
Speaker 4: room and it's like like a kiosk kind of thing,
Speaker 4: and they were like totally ready to come over. And
Speaker 4: so I'm watching these guards and kind of watching what
Speaker 4: he's doing, and I'm thinking, this is going to be
Speaker 4: the shortest visit ever. And he has a way of
Speaker 4: pushing things as far as he can, and he knows
Speaker 4: how to kind of back off when he needs to.
Speaker 4: And so once that whole scene plays out, he kind of,
Speaker 4: you know, gathers himself and catches his breath and sits
Speaker 4: down and he's kind of laughing to himself, and I'm like, like,
Speaker 4: what the hell was that, you know kind of thing.
Speaker 4: And so he told me that was level level seven
Speaker 4: And when asked, what, you know, what's that mean? You know,
Speaker 4: what does that mean? And he said, that's his experience
Speaker 4: of living in constant fear but overriding it. And so
Speaker 4: he described it like if you were about to be
Speaker 4: in a car accident or something like that, how everything
Speaker 4: slows down and everything kind of falls into place and
Speaker 4: everything happens in the right way, you know, And he said,
Speaker 4: you know, that's kind of how he lives. He's always
Speaker 4: on edge, he's always has to be alert. He you know,
Speaker 4: and so he's always tried to explain his experience to me,
Speaker 4: and I think that kind of comes from in the
Speaker 4: book too.
Speaker 3: This is people for people that I guess don't know
Speaker 3: it at least it's there's a good possibility that people
Speaker 3: would kill him just by virtue of it can raise
Speaker 3: their status in jail. I don't know if people have
Speaker 3: done that. But now the thing is you you meet
Speaker 3: a couple of confidants of Charles Manson, Gray Wolf and
Speaker 3: Star and tell us about your meetings with him. That's
Speaker 3: very interesting book as well as these meetings with these
Speaker 3: friends of Charles mann.
Speaker 4: Gray Wolf and Star are sort of I guess the
Speaker 4: main supporters are best friends kind of thing, and then
Speaker 4: they kind of watch out for him and they kind
Speaker 4: of deal with the outside stuff that's happening. And with
Speaker 4: a guy like Charlie, it's, you know, like last year
Speaker 4: was the fortieth anniversary of the murders and the prison
Speaker 4: got more than two thousand media requests and he gets
Speaker 4: at least fifty a week kind of thing. You know,
Speaker 4: there's he got thousands of letters and there's a lot
Speaker 4: of stuff that and a lot of people that you know,
Speaker 4: Charlie's lost touch with and people he wants. You know,
Speaker 4: there's all kinds of so they take care of that
Speaker 4: end of things, you know, just kind of trying to
Speaker 4: help out and correspond and try to get his word
Speaker 4: out kind of thing, you know, ram his environmental stance,
Speaker 4: and basically to meet with Charlie, you kind of got
Speaker 4: to go through Gray Wolf. And I don't want it
Speaker 4: to sound like it's a it's a process or anything,
Speaker 4: but but I mean they he kind of watches out
Speaker 4: for Charlie on that level too, right, to make sure sure,
Speaker 4: you know, because because like you mentioned early earlier, a
Speaker 4: lot of people who want to kill him to you know.
Speaker 5: Raise their status or whatever.
Speaker 4: And Charlie's been you know, he was telling me last
Speaker 4: night that there was he was in San Quentin, I believe,
Speaker 4: and he was having some problems with a guard or
Speaker 4: a warden out there, and they stripped him of his
Speaker 4: clothes and put him in a shower, handcuffed him completely nude,
Speaker 4: and and you know, put in four black guys, you know,
Speaker 4: and so like he's been stabbed, he's been set on fire,
Speaker 4: he's been you know, absolutely everything that can passably happen
Speaker 4: in a prison. He's gone through it, you know, and
Speaker 4: so that that's why he's in't a protective housing in
Speaker 4: it right now?
Speaker 3: You know, right now you're you You feature a lot
Speaker 3: of artwork from men's and that I guess contemporary to
Speaker 3: abstract art, and certainly a fair amount is philosophy. He's
Speaker 3: talk about his environmental philosophy. Yeah, okay, you know, but
Speaker 3: I mean there's a lot more about you know, like
Speaker 3: I say, maybe you can talk about the Polanski chapter
Speaker 3: and what he had to say about Polanski itself. Some
Speaker 3: people might be outraged at that, and I obviously, you know,
Speaker 3: everyone uses controversy a little bit to say, okay, here's
Speaker 3: here's a chapter about Polanski. What's he got to say?
Speaker 3: You know, Sharon Table's murder about what we got to say?
Speaker 3: So tell our audience what what is included in the
Speaker 3: Polanski chapter? And what does Charles Manson have to say
Speaker 3: about Polanski himself.
Speaker 4: My publisher is out of Montreal and they have a
Speaker 4: sister office in Paris, and Plansky's like a like a
Speaker 4: hero over there, he's a you know, So that that's
Speaker 4: kind of why the whole Polanski focus. And I actually
Speaker 4: had a whole bunch of information that I didn't think
Speaker 4: was credible like that, I didn't I couldn't really prove
Speaker 4: the source or whatever. And everybody had there's so many
Speaker 4: different conspiracies and different angles, and and and he Plansky
Speaker 4: from like, I don't think he had any involvement at all.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the guy, you know, he was
Speaker 4: away trying to work and he lost his wife, and
Speaker 4: the whole thing is completely horrific. And at the time,
Speaker 4: Sharon was like a totally rising star and she was
Speaker 4: eight months pregnant and you know, totally beautiful. And you know,
Speaker 4: Jay Sebring was kind of like leaves a hairdresser to
Speaker 4: the stars. His clientele was like absolutely everybody, you know.
Speaker 4: And so when that that whole thing happened, it affected
Speaker 4: Hollywood on such a heavy level, you know. And I
Speaker 4: guess some of the things that I found out and
Speaker 4: that I talked about was that there's there's been these
Speaker 4: rumors and a lot of talks about these secret films
Speaker 4: and porn films that Polanski was involved with, and they
Speaker 4: involved like different celebrities and acts like you know, like
Speaker 4: basically almost child pornography and besteality and all this kind
Speaker 4: of stuff. Really weird, kind of kind of things. The
Speaker 4: weirdest thing about the whole environment was that all of
Speaker 4: these people knew each other. And Charlie told me that
Speaker 4: he was friends with Sharon, tateknew you know, he knew Jayson,
Speaker 4: he knew everybody said that was his neighborhood. He knew
Speaker 4: all of those people. And to try and put everything together,
Speaker 4: I met a guy named John ace Neil who is
Speaker 4: kind of the authority on Charles Manson. He owns every
Speaker 4: you know piece of video footage, every you know photo.
Speaker 4: He's got these completely insane archives and he's been following
Speaker 4: this story since like nineteen sixty nine. And so the
Speaker 4: basically Tex Watson was a hairdresser up that he did.
Speaker 4: That's what Jay se Bring did. Tex used to have
Speaker 4: like a whig store, and so they were they were acquaintances,
Speaker 4: they knew each other, they were friends.
Speaker 5: They used to go to the Tate house.
Speaker 4: And you know, use the swimming pool, you hang out, party,
Speaker 4: that kind of thing. So there's all these hippies, I
Speaker 4: guess convolutions that were John used with all these Hollywood
Speaker 4: you know people, or the Hollywoy people would be slumming
Speaker 4: with the hippies or whatever. They'd be having sex, they'd
Speaker 4: be sharing drugs and just happened everywhere, just kind of
Speaker 4: the way life was back then. And so basically what
Speaker 4: I'm told again, I wasn't there, but this kind of
Speaker 4: adds up and this kind of makes sense. Is a
Speaker 4: different theory, or at least something that to kind of
Speaker 4: look into. Was j se Bring was and voy Tech
Speaker 4: were basically trying to corner this whole MDA market. It
Speaker 4: was a new drug at the time, and nobody really
Speaker 4: had control over it, and so they're involved in some
Speaker 4: really big deal. And Tex Watson was a drug dealer.
Speaker 4: He has a history actually of ripping off a lot
Speaker 4: of people, a lot of bad deals. No one really
Speaker 4: trusted him. He's like basically a junkie. No one wanted
Speaker 4: him around. So apparently he shows up at the Tatehouse
Speaker 4: and he says, you know, you know, I went in
Speaker 4: on this. You know, just sounds like a good thing
Speaker 4: kind of thing, and they don't know how to deal
Speaker 4: with them. So boy Tech says, you know, we'll come
Speaker 4: back in an hour and we'll you know, we'll figure
Speaker 4: this out kind of thing. So Tex drives around for
Speaker 4: an hour. He comes back and he's like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 4: back kind of thing, and they decided that they can't
Speaker 4: have anything to do with them, like boy Tech and
Speaker 4: Sebring said, you know, this guy's trouble, and so they
Speaker 4: tell him to get the hell out of here. You know,
Speaker 4: we don't want them to do with you, man, We'll
Speaker 4: call the police. And so Tex is offended by this.
Speaker 4: He drives out to the ranch. Apparently he waits for
Speaker 4: Charlie and because he's not around, and so Charlie shows
Speaker 4: up and and Tex says, you know what they you know,
Speaker 4: they're ripping me off here. I'm supposed to be on
Speaker 4: this deal. You know what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 4: And you know, Charlie may have said something like do
Speaker 4: what you need to do or shut up or move on,
Speaker 4: you know what. I don't know what what advice was given,
Speaker 4: but that's apparently where this command and this control, you know,
Speaker 4: all all of it. That that's kind of the event
Speaker 4: where you know, it's it's up to opinion almost what
Speaker 4: happens after that, right, But but it sounds like more
Speaker 4: like a home invasion kind of thing, you know, like that.
Speaker 4: I guess that's a big call. It today is a
Speaker 4: bought drug deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see I see what you mean. And there's
Speaker 3: some credibility. There's some credence to what you're saying there
Speaker 3: because of especially text Watson doing the you know, principally
Speaker 3: doing the murders. And and the thing is is that certainly,
Speaker 3: you know, home invasion, but certainly things could have the
Speaker 3: way the scenario you have is less home invasion but
Speaker 3: more of a drug deal and gone bad and then
Speaker 3: and then go from there.
Speaker 4: But it's certainly that and you know, I would yeah, oh,
Speaker 4: I was just going to add that, like and and really,
Speaker 4: if Charlie knew that any anything like this is going
Speaker 4: to happen, that people are going to be killed, and
Speaker 4: he did nothing to prevent it, then absolutely he's as
Speaker 4: guilty as everybody else, right, I mean right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: So but I've talked I yeah, I just haven't had
Speaker 4: that sit down thing like what really happened kind of thing. So,
Speaker 4: and anything that he said that that he talked about
Speaker 4: the murders or whatever, I've I've put into the book.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's interesting too because when you look when
Speaker 3: we look back now from nineteen sixty nine, there was
Speaker 3: all those rumors of you know, Satanism and ripping out
Speaker 3: the baby from the womb, which never happened, and so
Speaker 3: there was this big time for Satanism. But at the
Speaker 3: same time you would think, okay, well that's the media.
Speaker 3: But Bullegosi still weaved a certain tale of, like you say,
Speaker 3: mind control and Satanism and this. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's tenuous, but it certainly is an interesting motive
Speaker 3: because he wanted to create a race war. It sounds
Speaker 3: like like how you described in the beginning, at least
Speaker 3: that there's a certain amount of question of well, no
Speaker 3: matter what he wanted to do, how mentally.
Speaker 2: Ill was he.
Speaker 3: But in the US it's a little bit different. In Canada,
Speaker 3: as you may know, being involved in the psychiatric industry,
Speaker 3: there's almost no one, even if they're bald faced insane,
Speaker 3: gets off on insanity plea. In the US, so they
Speaker 3: seem to not really care regardless, and this is very
Speaker 3: politically motivated, and especially at that time, so they're not
Speaker 3: going to give the benefit of doubt to a long
Speaker 3: term offender like Charles Manson. So but at least it's
Speaker 3: an interesting concept, you know. For again, like you said,
Speaker 3: one of the you know fifty you know, The attention
Speaker 3: that he gets in prison to this day is incredible,
Speaker 3: and that's why the book is so popular. That's why
Speaker 3: Charles Matt's mansion is such an enigmatic personality. So yeah,
Speaker 3: now the thing is, uh, how how did your friendship evolve?
Speaker 3: And to the point where would you you've got his
Speaker 3: blessing from this book? I I would trust. How did
Speaker 3: it when you didn't originally intend to write a book?
Speaker 3: So when the idea came that you would like to
Speaker 3: write a book, how did you broach that subject with him?
Speaker 3: How did that conversation go down? What did he have
Speaker 3: to say any to give you his blessing?
Speaker 5: Well, this it goes.
Speaker 4: All of this is tied together with this final interview thing,
Speaker 4: right that the state of California won't let happen.
Speaker 5: There's a law that.
Speaker 4: It's specific that says you cannot interview certain inmates, well
Speaker 4: any specific inmate in the state of California. There's no
Speaker 4: way that you know, he's ever going to be able
Speaker 4: to do this interview thing. And so part I think
Speaker 4: part of him agreeing to me with me was that
Speaker 4: we needed to have, you know, like a photo together
Speaker 4: kind of thing, just so we can go ahead and
Speaker 4: maybe you know that that would help get this interview
Speaker 4: to happen or whatever. But when I met with him,
Speaker 4: I told him, like, I don't think this is ever
Speaker 4: going to happen. Like this is kind of what we're
Speaker 4: up against. There's this law, you know, even though I'm
Speaker 4: from Canada, and he's insistent that they can't keep the
Speaker 4: world press out, you know kind of thing. But and
Speaker 4: so when I started talking to him about doing a book,
Speaker 4: initially his response was, you know, you know, that's no
Speaker 4: you know, that's total bullshit. I want nothing to do
Speaker 4: with that kind of thing. And then it turned around
Speaker 4: to if you write about yourself and your journey, you know,
Speaker 4: write about it from you, then I'm okay with that.
Speaker 4: And then he said if I was using his words,
Speaker 4: he just said, don't, you know, don't that's with them
Speaker 4: at all, Just you know, keep them the way they
Speaker 4: are and don't interpret them, don't try to figure them out.
Speaker 4: Just put it, you know, put out the way it
Speaker 4: is kind of thing. And so I tried to stay
Speaker 4: true to that, and because of that, he's trying to
Speaker 4: read through the book right now. Actually he just got
Speaker 4: a copye a couple of weeks ago, and it takes
Speaker 4: them a long time to read. And he just said,
Speaker 4: he said he knows that what I had to work with,
Speaker 4: and he's basically that I did the best I can
Speaker 4: and he's totally cool with everything.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well, I think you know anybody that got
Speaker 3: to present their own perspective on almost anything. Obviously, like
Speaker 3: you say, you're not censoring anything, so and you're not
Speaker 3: commenting on it, you're not attacking him. I wanted to
Speaker 3: ask you because a lot of true crime authors, and
Speaker 3: it's even surprising which ones might have this attention, but
Speaker 3: some of them do. They get criticized for contacting, communicating,
Speaker 3: and often people say, well, who's going to profit from this?
Speaker 3: And you're you're revictimizing the victims, and so I'm sure
Speaker 3: you've got some criticism, but tell us if any criticism
Speaker 3: came your way because you decided to write this book
Speaker 3: and correspond with Charles Medison.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wanted to tell a story, and I think
Speaker 4: it's fascinating and even from you know, my own perspective,
Speaker 4: I really can't believe that everything that happened happened, and
Speaker 4: it came together the way it did, and the people
Speaker 4: I met shared so much and there's kind of like
Speaker 4: four or five books that could have came out of
Speaker 4: this and things that have went in so many different directions.
Speaker 4: And again, I think I was attracted to a different thing.
Speaker 4: I'm not really into true crime. I don't, you know,
Speaker 4: like violence, I don't, you know, I don't I don't
Speaker 4: really subscribe to any of that. And so to me,
Speaker 4: our relationship is almost it's almost like a like a
Speaker 4: therapist client kind of relationship or something. It's it's and
Speaker 4: it's on his terms, right he can you know, phone,
Speaker 4: or he can fall you know, or he won't or whatever.
Speaker 4: So it's, you know, he could you know, last night
Speaker 4: could have been the last time I ever heard from him.
Speaker 4: You know, you never know what this guy like. He's
Speaker 4: kind of things kind of go in completely the opposite direction.
Speaker 4: Like with money, he's allowed four packages a year, and
Speaker 4: I think the value is like five hundred dollars on
Speaker 4: a package, and so that would be stuff like vitamins
Speaker 4: and coffee and you know, just whatever, maybe a couple
Speaker 4: of CDs, that kind of stuff. And you're only allowed
Speaker 4: to have a certain amount of money in your bank account,
Speaker 4: so he doesn't really care about you know, money like
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff, and so it from his end,
Speaker 4: there's no financial gain, and from me giving him nothing,
Speaker 4: there's no you know, none of that's happening. And I
Speaker 4: have to sell like a lot of a lot of
Speaker 4: money to break are a lot of books to break even,
Speaker 4: you know what I put into this project. So it
Speaker 4: wasn't it wasn't about that, And I actually this might
Speaker 4: be naive, maybe, but I wanted to have a platform
Speaker 4: to speak about mental health and those concerns and about
Speaker 4: prisons and you know that that environment that people live
Speaker 4: in and and to me, I wouldn't say it's abusive,
Speaker 4: and a lot of people will probably you know, think
Speaker 4: Charlie's where he is and he agrees to get what
Speaker 4: he gets. And I'm sure if these crimes never happened,
Speaker 4: I shouldn't say I'm sure, But you know, you're dealing
Speaker 4: with a guy who's basically been out of jail four
Speaker 4: times in his life, and he keeps going back for
Speaker 4: various crimes. Right, I mean, he probably would have landed
Speaker 4: himself in there some way, But I mean those conditions
Speaker 4: are pretty harsh, and there's so much mental illness and
Speaker 4: in prisons, and I've worked in jails too, so I
Speaker 4: thought that that was kind of why why I did
Speaker 4: the book is because I was caught up in something
Speaker 4: that was kind of overwhelming and there's a crazy story
Speaker 4: and it just kind of it kind of wrote itself.
Speaker 4: It was yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: The thing is that you do explain as well that
Speaker 3: at one point Charles Manson was was set to be
Speaker 3: released from prison and he said, you can't let me out.
Speaker 3: I'm not ready. He can't handle it, you know, just
Speaker 3: to illustrate how dysfunctional he was and how institutionalized he
Speaker 3: was and how fragile he was, which lends credence to
Speaker 3: your argument that he got out and he had a
Speaker 3: little bit of philosophy here and a little bit of
Speaker 3: scientology there, but he've been institutionalized and then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden he encountered this wonderful, you know, time where
Speaker 3: he could philosophize and people would follow him and listen
Speaker 3: to him. And meanwhile he was just trying to get
Speaker 3: a record deal and get by, you know, and so
Speaker 3: certainly not what he was portrayed as. So he's you know,
Speaker 3: so when he talks, he also talks about how the
Speaker 3: prison raised him, you know, and now he didn't know
Speaker 3: any different, and he didn't know any other environment. And
Speaker 3: also psychologically, it's pretty evident it's lots of the stuff
Speaker 3: he says is somewhat scattered and tangential, but at the
Speaker 3: same time there's these glimmers of it's more than lucid.
Speaker 3: Obviously a profoundness, I guess from somebody that's sitting in
Speaker 3: this place for his whole life and talking about that perspective,
Speaker 3: how he deals with it, and how he gets by
Speaker 3: and how he has to look at things to survive,
Speaker 3: you know. So it's I think you've done a good
Speaker 3: job in pointing that out. I don't know, again, like
Speaker 3: you say, there's a couple more books in sort of
Speaker 3: analyzing everything you've learned from it. For sure.
Speaker 4: Well, he's been in He's told me, he's been in
Speaker 4: prison for sixty six years, you know, the majority of
Speaker 4: his life, and most of that time was in solitary confinement.
Speaker 4: And I think we live in an age where if
Speaker 4: you lose your internet for a day, or you lose
Speaker 4: your health home, you go mad, you know, And I
Speaker 4: cannot imagine or believe how like, how the hell you
Speaker 4: and you know, And that's the kind of stuff I'm
Speaker 4: interested in it's like like if you're and you're throwing
Speaker 4: in a cell, complete solitary, you know, like what do
Speaker 4: you do? And he showed me like during a during
Speaker 4: a visit, he's like he taps all the time. He's
Speaker 4: kind of restless and fidgety, and and he's got an
Speaker 4: incredible sense of rhythm and percussion, right, and and so
Speaker 4: I asked him, like, how the hell do you learn that?
Speaker 4: He said, when he was in the hole in San Quentin.
Speaker 4: All he had was a sink in a he had
Speaker 4: a combination sink toilet thing and he would play them
Speaker 4: like bongos, you know. And he's showing me how he
Speaker 4: would do this, and then he would pick up different
Speaker 4: rhythms and he kind of go into a trance and
Speaker 4: almost like a meditation, and he would do this, you know.
Speaker 4: And he was telling me like, when you're living like that,
Speaker 4: if an ant crawls across the floor, that's a whole
Speaker 4: other world because now you have something to relate to.
Speaker 4: And so you you watch this ant and you can
Speaker 4: see how it could, you know what it can do,
Speaker 4: and so it's a it's a whole. The guy's a whole,
Speaker 4: you know. So there's that that whole side of things,
Speaker 4: and then you have a side where he can be
Speaker 4: extremely perverse and vile, and you know, just like holy shit,
Speaker 4: this kid, you know, like completely out of control and ranting.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of the phone calls, you know,
Speaker 4: are a lot of it, the way he events and
Speaker 4: deals with you know, that environment kind of thing. So
Speaker 4: and he doesn't understand the whole theme thing right, like
Speaker 4: like he just wants to be left alone. That's kind
Speaker 4: of what he tells me. But I mean he lets
Speaker 4: me in his world and I write a book, you know.
Speaker 4: So it's like there's so much of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: It's it's got to be I think it's overwhelming.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: And one observation like that was important for me to
Speaker 4: to try and figure out was that environment and you know,
Speaker 4: what his cell was like, and what the people were like,
Speaker 4: and what that daily routine and that structure kind of thing.
Speaker 4: And so when you're living like that, like he is
Speaker 4: kind of protected and it is a different world and
Speaker 4: things work and really completely differently in there. And then
Speaker 4: when I was just recently, I was watching some video
Speaker 4: stuff on YouTube or something, and I can't remember. There's
Speaker 4: one interview and I could tell that. You know, it
Speaker 4: was just the start, and you know, he was kind
Speaker 4: of dancing around and you know, doing all of this stuff,
Speaker 4: and it was like, man, like, you pull him out
Speaker 4: of solitary confinement or whatever environment he's in he's and
Speaker 4: that those at that time, he was in full out restraints,
Speaker 4: you know, to you know, to do interviews or anything
Speaker 4: to have any contact. It was between blast kind of thing.
Speaker 4: And so all of a sudden, you have a production
Speaker 4: crew in there, you have you know, all these extra
Speaker 4: guards and people who want to see this interview happen,
Speaker 4: and like, that's got to be overwhelming for anybody, you know,
Speaker 4: like to to be thrown into that. And so it's
Speaker 4: almost like falling into character or something or whatever role
Speaker 4: and to it's a different I can see a shift
Speaker 4: there where he has to, you know, try and deal
Speaker 4: with that, and that's kind of the image that everyone sees.
Speaker 4: And to me, I say, Guy's completely uncomfortable with what
Speaker 4: he's trying to do. You know, That's that's my take
Speaker 4: on that.
Speaker 3: So you think that basically now he is a much
Speaker 3: different character, and at the time he performed filled the
Speaker 3: character that they wanted him to be for whatever reason.
Speaker 3: Frustration or or just like you say, mental illness still,
Speaker 3: but certainly he's been straight for many, many years now
Speaker 3: forty years, so it's a different time and he has
Speaker 3: a different perspective as well. Like you say, for all
Speaker 3: those years, it's it's every single relationship he had to
Speaker 3: wonder whether it was people were using him, We're going
Speaker 3: to write a book, or what perspective they were going to.
Speaker 3: But people wanted a piece of them, and that was it.
Speaker 3: You know, people follow them, people want a piece of them.
Speaker 3: But so you're saying that he basically you understand that
Speaker 3: he performed at that time and he certainly really doesn't
Speaker 3: want to do that now for the for the cameras
Speaker 3: and for the media.
Speaker 4: Well, it just seems it seems like a performance, you know.
Speaker 4: And I think if you once things kind of once
Speaker 4: he kind of I get suggested to whatever that environment is,
Speaker 4: he does fine, you know, and you.
Speaker 5: Can see other.
Speaker 4: I think that's kind of how they highlight most of
Speaker 4: the interviews is kind of the crazy stuff, right, And
Speaker 4: so that that for a long time, in a lot
Speaker 4: of years, was my imagery of Charlie. There he is
Speaker 4: a crazy guy, and that's complete madness and that's that's
Speaker 4: as crazy as it gets. And then you go past that,
Speaker 4: you go you go into that and we've had these
Speaker 4: talks about madness and and that kind of stuff. And
Speaker 4: when you get into like his the way he deals
Speaker 4: with things, and and to me, I, I, you know,
Speaker 4: I do see him as a survivor, and he does
Speaker 4: try to express and explain himself. It's a whole other thing.
Speaker 4: You know. It's a totally different person, you know. And
Speaker 4: and I could even see that shift like in early
Speaker 4: phone calls, until when I got to know him. It's
Speaker 4: there's kind of there's kind of a point where he
Speaker 4: kind of opens up and he's more honest and truthful
Speaker 4: about you know, about things. So I don't think he's
Speaker 4: like that more candid. I guess that would be the.
Speaker 3: Word, right right. You know. As I've found really fascinating
Speaker 3: too is the photo that you provide in your book
Speaker 3: of while they said potentially through your research and everyone
Speaker 3: and this person's research, he could have been the son
Speaker 3: of Charles Manson. And when you see the photo, it's
Speaker 3: very very very convincing. Yeah, just a look, I mean
Speaker 3: it's the features are there, that's all. It's not as
Speaker 3: it's not just a slight photo thing and talk yourself
Speaker 3: into it. So we'll tell us a little bit about
Speaker 3: that discovery.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Matthew Robert is a guy who just kind of
Speaker 4: came you know, I ended up meeting through another character
Speaker 4: in the book, Stanton Levey. And Matthew is a musician
Speaker 4: in la and his story is pretty unbelievable, and he's
Speaker 4: adopted and when he searched out his birth mother, he
Speaker 4: got information that said she was a part of, you know,
Speaker 4: the Manson family or a part of those happenings, orgies
Speaker 4: and whatever kind of madness was going on at the time,
Speaker 4: and she believed that Charles Manson was, you know, Matthew's father.
Speaker 4: And there is a striking the resemblance. There's a whole
Speaker 4: lot of stuff that there's some mannerisms and stuff that
Speaker 4: Matthew has that are really really weird. And when I
Speaker 4: first met him, I didn't think I kind of seen
Speaker 4: a little bit of a resemblance, but you know, it was,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of okay, I can see it. But
Speaker 4: when I met Charlie then I really saw how Matthew
Speaker 4: remembered him, like resembled him kind of thing. And so
Speaker 4: what happened with Matthew was he was trying to figure
Speaker 4: out if Charlie was his dad, and he was proceeding,
Speaker 4: you know, trying to go through all the channels to
Speaker 4: do the DNA thing, and he's trying to you know,
Speaker 4: have this relationship with with Charles Manson, and he found
Speaker 4: the whole thing frustrating and he was in a bar
Speaker 4: in LA and a little drunk and he ended up
Speaker 4: talking to somebody and giving an interview, and that interview
Speaker 4: ended up getting picked up by the Globe, I believe,
Speaker 4: and it got like two hundred million hits over Thanksgiving
Speaker 4: weekend a couple of years ago. So once he went
Speaker 4: public basically, which is what happened, and you know, things
Speaker 4: have been pretty strained with him and Charlie.
Speaker 2: Oh really.
Speaker 3: Because he went public you're saying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean basically people think that he's trying to
Speaker 4: cash in and promote his band and trying to meet
Speaker 4: famous or whatever. BUTO, you know, I talked to Matthew
Speaker 4: all the time, and he's very sincere about everything. He's
Speaker 4: a you know, a really good guy, and you know
Speaker 4: he's got the best intentions and stuff, and it's extremely stressful,
Speaker 4: you know, can you imagine, if you know just what
Speaker 4: he's dealing with, you put yourself in his issues.
Speaker 3: So so so do you ever get in in between
Speaker 3: in the conversation trying to broke or some kind of
Speaker 3: situation between the two I can meet you're intimate with
Speaker 3: both of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've tried that, I you know, But basically it's
Speaker 4: it's kind of up to Matthew and Charge, Like I mean,
Speaker 4: they're aware of each other, and they're going to correspond
Speaker 4: the way they do, and it's kind of kind of
Speaker 4: up to Charlie to see how he wants to follow
Speaker 4: through with everything. I see, how long and I think, which, sorry,
Speaker 4: how long has.
Speaker 3: It been since they tried to correspond? And just as
Speaker 3: I think almost for years now? Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Since that, since that article that story broke. And then
Speaker 4: then when something like that happens, like Details Magazine did
Speaker 4: a piece and Matthew thought, you know whatever, I've already
Speaker 4: done his story and and and and so he did it.
Speaker 4: He did this interview. They send out a like alloy,
Speaker 4: like a bunch of legal papers saying, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: we need your DNA and we're trying to prove that
Speaker 4: you know, all this kind of stuff, and Matthew had
Speaker 4: no knowledge of any of that, you know, so that
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff happens all the time. And then
Speaker 4: you get all these there's a there's it's amazing, Like
Speaker 4: from even from my perspective, I get a lot of
Speaker 4: people who want me to try and get them in
Speaker 4: to meet with Charlie or try to forward a message,
Speaker 4: or a lot of authors. I'll get messages from saying,
Speaker 4: can you find out who whatever reformed school? Who is
Speaker 4: the you know, the dean over there? You know, who
Speaker 4: is the whatever? Who's the grade three teacher? What is
Speaker 4: the significance of this song? You know, it's just like
Speaker 4: bizarre what people are interesting?
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 3: I mean because obviously we talked a little bit about
Speaker 3: how Vilagosi kind of put this not Satanism thing. But
Speaker 3: the media took caught up in that the you know,
Speaker 3: the projection of Manson was this cult leader, satanic cult leader,
Speaker 3: and there was all his rumors and the media played
Speaker 3: up on that as well, and people's public perception of
Speaker 3: you know, children being ripped out of the womb. The
Speaker 3: but you did have a real encounter with Satanists and
Speaker 3: that was Levey, So tell us about that and why
Speaker 3: that was important. And again for you know, I think
Speaker 3: some people, I don't think they'll buy your book and
Speaker 3: be critical, but I think people that wouldn't bother to
Speaker 3: read your book might be critical. When you have these
Speaker 3: you're contacting people that are selling mensin memorabilia. That would
Speaker 3: outrage certain people. To explain that, but again that comes
Speaker 3: from the book. You can explain yourself. Well, but tell
Speaker 3: us a little bit about this. The satanism connection in this.
Speaker 4: And that I'd gotten actually more emails about than anything else.
Speaker 4: Like in a negative sense, it's like, why did you
Speaker 4: focus so much on that? And it wasn't a focus.
Speaker 4: I mean everybody just seemed to be a Satanist. Like yeah,
Speaker 4: with Stanton Levey had I have a band and we
Speaker 4: were working on our second record, and he happened to
Speaker 4: be married to this fetish model nameds Andorra and at
Speaker 4: the time she was like, you know, one of the
Speaker 4: top models in the world. He had such an amazing
Speaker 4: look and she was perfect for her band, and we
Speaker 4: contacted her to see if she could do her album
Speaker 4: cover and and she was gonna do it, and everything
Speaker 4: was really cool, and we got invited to their wedding,
Speaker 4: and they got married on June sixth, sixth, and it
Speaker 4: was like a big event. They had like like Alkaline
Speaker 4: Trio played, I believe Hank three played Danzig. There were
Speaker 4: a couple of bigger metal bands, and uh, it was
Speaker 4: like a you know, a pretty big thing. And and
Speaker 4: Stanton used to be roommates with Marilyn Manson. He had
Speaker 4: a store in Hollywood, so he's kind of a scenester her.
Speaker 4: He knows all of those people. That's kind of kind
Speaker 4: of where he's from kind of thing.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: They eventually got divorced and and and all all kinds
Speaker 4: of stuff happened with Stanton. But I remembered I had
Speaker 4: met him a few years ago before I knew anything
Speaker 4: about Charlie, and then he this is kind of going.
Speaker 4: And he had talked a lot about how Charles Manson
Speaker 4: was a huge influence on his life and how he had,
Speaker 4: you know, been exposed to that at you know, at
Speaker 4: the age of like six or something, since early childhood.
Speaker 4: And and he believed that Charlie was the light bearer
Speaker 4: in the Luciferian order. It's he has a huge part
Speaker 4: in Satanism and his kind of a key central figure
Speaker 4: and bringing about the end of the world, like and
Speaker 4: he totally believes this, like this is completely his truth.
Speaker 4: And the way he laid out his story. I wanted
Speaker 4: to use the exact transcripts from beginning to end, but
Speaker 4: you kind of got to, you know, make it a book.
Speaker 4: Otherwise it's just transcripts, I guess.
Speaker 5: But it was.
Speaker 4: Very trilling and probably very controversial what he's what he's
Speaker 4: talking about, but that that's kind of where he's coming from.
Speaker 4: I mean, his grandfather founded the Church of Satan, wrote
Speaker 4: the Satanic Bible. You know, he was born into that.
Speaker 4: That's kind of kind of.
Speaker 1: What he is.
Speaker 3: It's interesting too because Polanski, for those people that don't know,
Speaker 3: has worked on was the Ninth Gate and all I
Speaker 3: mean in vampire movies, and so for those people who
Speaker 3: are looking for connections, I mean, it was very coincidental,
Speaker 3: very odd the kinds of movies that he has worked on.
Speaker 3: And then, like you say, the recent rape charges that
Speaker 3: surfaced again and in his extradition extradition hearings and and
Speaker 3: like you say, the French sort of protecting him and
Speaker 3: saying no, no, no, and the Americans wanting him and want
Speaker 3: him to go to trial for this basically assaulting you know,
Speaker 3: a minor basically in the US. So it's interesting how
Speaker 3: all these things get mixed up. The legitimate Hollywood, but
Speaker 3: there's Satanism there and then you're you're in contact with
Speaker 3: people and then everybody's an environmentalist. So it's it's very fascinating,
Speaker 3: that's for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's it's a completely bizarre cast of characters
Speaker 4: and they're all intertwined, and there are so many connections
Speaker 4: between everybody and the way Stanton speaks, I could almost
Speaker 4: find direct quotes from Charlie, you know, the saying the
Speaker 4: exact same thing, saying the exact same thing. In the
Speaker 4: way Matthew talks. You know, there's a lot of parallels,
Speaker 4: and there's a lot of a lot of connections, and
Speaker 4: even you know, while while doing all of this is
Speaker 4: kind of kind of overwhelming that all of that kind.
Speaker 5: Of stuff, and I what I tried to do is
Speaker 5: is put together like all of these people are influenced
Speaker 5: like directly by Charlie for one way or another, whether
Speaker 5: it be through the environmental his environmental stance, or his
Speaker 5: fame or his beliefs, whatever it is, and to try
Speaker 5: and make to tie all that together, to try and
Speaker 5: get a kind of an image of who he really is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you've done a good job. It's a
Speaker 3: totally different side, and it is obviously a much much
Speaker 3: more personal side than you're going to get from anything
Speaker 3: I've read. But then again, the only thing I've ever
Speaker 3: read is is is Helter Skelter, and so I mean
Speaker 3: there are have I'm sure there have been some books,
Speaker 3: but you know, I think you're onto something because I
Speaker 3: haven't seen too many, and I think that this is
Speaker 3: a totally different for perspective. Now, you had spoken earlier
Speaker 3: about how you use a different term too, that your
Speaker 3: mother completed suicide when you were young, and you didn't
Speaker 3: have a couple friends that succumbed to cancer as well,
Speaker 3: so you had your fair share of trauma. You did
Speaker 3: gravitate towards the psychiatric industry because your interest and also
Speaker 3: obviously your compassion, because you that's what you do, and
Speaker 3: you have to be compassionate and understanding these kind of people.
Speaker 3: How did this, How did this, if at all, how
Speaker 3: did this help you speak reaching out to Charles Manson
Speaker 3: and going through this whole journey, How on earth could
Speaker 3: this have helped you.
Speaker 4: You know, like five years ago, if someone told me
Speaker 4: I'd be doing this or I'd let a guy like
Speaker 4: Charles Manson have my phone number, I think they were
Speaker 4: right now, you know, never in a million years. And
Speaker 4: I just went through a period of time where, you know,
Speaker 4: I like two of my best friends died. I got
Speaker 4: dumped up from a four year relationship. Happy Valentine's Day
Speaker 4: by I. I went to Europe. You know, you go
Speaker 4: to Europe to find yourself, a lot of people say,
Speaker 4: and I ended up hanging out with all these data teachers,
Speaker 4: which is like, it's not really a belief system. It'd
Speaker 4: be like an ultimate for loss if he kind of
Speaker 4: like presence or oneness or you know, you know, the
Speaker 4: whole now thing. You know that that kind of approach
Speaker 4: to life, and these guys are intense.
Speaker 5: And so I did that for.
Speaker 4: Like three weeks and then I come back and like,
Speaker 4: you know, literally a week after being back from Europe,
Speaker 4: I get a call from Charles Manson, and I think
Speaker 4: the message I got was like, Okay, you know, here
Speaker 4: I am feeling sorry for myself and look at this
Speaker 4: guy kind of thing. You know, I couldn't compare to that,
Speaker 4: and you know, he would never I don't think teacher
Speaker 4: is the right word, but it's kind of humbling, and
Speaker 4: I think this whole experience, like, okay, And when I
Speaker 4: met with Charlie, one of the first questions I had
Speaker 4: to ask him was like, you know, he caught me
Speaker 4: staring at the swastika on his head and it's like, okay,
Speaker 4: you know, what's that about kind of thing, and he
Speaker 4: said that, you know, he picked that up because it
Speaker 4: was the most hated symbol in the world, and at
Speaker 4: the time, he's the most hated guy and he was
Speaker 4: looking at death role when he's getting spit on every
Speaker 4: day and people wanted to fight him, and you know,
Speaker 4: he just wanted to give up on life kind of thing.
Speaker 4: And so he I identified with with the swastika. And
Speaker 4: then once he started learning with that symbol, mant you
Speaker 4: know it's it's you know, and I know in Cree
Speaker 4: it's the spinning wheel and Japan, I believe it's number
Speaker 4: five hundred or whatever. And like every culture has esoterically
Speaker 4: used that symbol for something, but what Germany did with
Speaker 4: it is, you know, made it what it's remembered for
Speaker 4: kind of thing. And so sure, you know, I've always
Speaker 4: had this idea of doing this book, and I wanted
Speaker 4: to do it around depression, and I wanted to do it,
Speaker 4: you know, to I was journaling my experience and everything,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, I put my name on
Speaker 4: the same cover as Charles Manson, like probably career suicide,
Speaker 4: you know. And then then when you do you do
Speaker 4: something like this, writing's kind of a solitary thing. And
Speaker 4: so that wasn't really that big of a thing, you know.
Speaker 4: And when the book was getting ready to come out,
Speaker 4: like a lot of my colleagues and co workers, they
Speaker 4: you know, very few of them knew about my association
Speaker 4: with Charles Manson. All none of them knew about my
Speaker 4: childhood and you know, my upbringing. You know, I come
Speaker 4: out of a dysfunctional home or whatever. And so throwing
Speaker 4: all of that out and I had to talk to
Speaker 4: family members, and you know, I had to let my
Speaker 4: you know, my employer know that, Okay, this is what
Speaker 4: I'm doing. You know, I got this book coming out.
Speaker 4: It's going to get a lot of attention, you know,
Speaker 4: and and and I'm kind of extremely, uh, I guess,
Speaker 4: grateful that people understand the message. And it's really hard
Speaker 4: to talk about when people don't read the book, because
Speaker 4: basically they try to make you they say, oh, you're
Speaker 4: you know, you're friends with Charles Manson, and they try
Speaker 4: to make you into this you know, monster and and
Speaker 4: direct anger and hostility awards that. But that was never
Speaker 4: my intent was to to do anything hurtful to anybody
Speaker 4: or anything. I don't know, it's rambling here, but that
Speaker 4: that's kind of no kind of how it all came about.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 4: It was really bizarre, and I'm questioning with that ethic
Speaker 4: all the time, and even like just talking with you,
Speaker 4: like the you know, things come up, like you know,
Speaker 4: I'm just even though the books thought, I'm still not
Speaker 4: sure it was the right thing to do, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I still well, you know, the thing is I
Speaker 3: got to say that, you know, from a person that
Speaker 3: like me, that you know, I've written a book, and
Speaker 3: I and and I understand being criticized for various you know,
Speaker 3: for for various certain aspects of it. You know, you write,
Speaker 3: if it's a controversial crime, then somehow your association and
Speaker 3: not everybody articulates it. But you know, there's a certain
Speaker 3: refusal for some people to take you seriously with the book.
Speaker 3: It's just uncertain what it is. But I think that
Speaker 3: you've had some people that the message and I think
Speaker 3: that's they took the time.
Speaker 2: To do that.
Speaker 3: But I think when people here it's Charles mans and
Speaker 3: then you are writing a book about Charles mans you're
Speaker 3: going to include his artwork. If you just did a
Speaker 3: cursory look at your book, you might think it's an endorsement.
Speaker 3: And I think you might think it's an endorsement if
Speaker 3: you just don't read it. If you read it, then
Speaker 3: you understand that everybody has. You know, when you talk
Speaker 3: to the memorabilia guy and you say, well, how on
Speaker 3: earth could you do this? Well, you know what, he
Speaker 3: defends himself admirably, you know, I mean, and if you thought,
Speaker 3: well can a guy defend himself, I'd be the first guy,
Speaker 3: even though I'm open minded to say well I like
Speaker 3: to hear this one. Well, yeah, but your book you
Speaker 3: do a good job of doing that, and I'm not
Speaker 3: going to say that. And you don't say either, hey,
Speaker 3: Charles Manson is a hero or he's wrongfully convicted. But
Speaker 3: you know, let's just look at the person. And I
Speaker 3: think you've done a great dissection. Up here's the guy.
Speaker 3: Here's how he lives. Here's some of his philosophies. Here's
Speaker 3: how survives. Here's what I got out of it. And
Speaker 3: you really don't indict anybody else's perspective on this, but
Speaker 3: you just again do a great, incredible job of articulating
Speaker 3: what might have happened amid all the hysteria now that
Speaker 3: we look at it forty years later, you know. So
Speaker 3: you've done a great job, you know, And so I
Speaker 3: think in terms of you had the right instincts. That's
Speaker 3: why you've got a great product. Nobody gets basically published
Speaker 3: unless people believe in what you're doing, So you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, there's always going to be people that criticize,
Speaker 3: but obviously those are the people that don't even bother
Speaker 3: to read the book. So you can't pay too much
Speaker 3: attention to those people, can you. No.
Speaker 4: And I've been getting a lot of mail from like
Speaker 4: people who want to become psych nurses and are interested
Speaker 4: in psychiatry, and then that's really cool. A lot of
Speaker 4: musicians and stuff, and a lot of people who you know,
Speaker 4: find my story I still weird talking about myself, but
Speaker 4: they find it courageous and inspiring. Though there are a
Speaker 4: couple of the words I've heard, and it's given them
Speaker 4: a you know, a platform to speak from or to
Speaker 4: deal with family problems or to bring stuff out. And
Speaker 4: that that is way more than I ever expected. And
Speaker 4: to me, like, I know, I know how the world
Speaker 4: sees Charles Manson, but he's to me, he's like a
Speaker 4: guy I would meet at Salvation Army or a transient
Speaker 4: guy you know, i'd meet at a shelter or downtown
Speaker 4: or in jail or whatever. Like I I kind of
Speaker 4: relate to him on that level, you know, But I
Speaker 4: do know, Yeah, how I guess famous is the word
Speaker 4: you could use. And I do know how big his
Speaker 4: influence is. And I do know how people interpret everything
Speaker 4: the guy does. And it's that that's more fascinating than
Speaker 4: the character than Charles Manson, you know, it's what happens
Speaker 4: around him. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing when you see the dis portrayal of
Speaker 3: evil and regardless I mean, I you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: because I like I say, I wrote a book and
Speaker 3: this person, you know, maybe was evil, But you know what,
Speaker 3: that's part of this whole thing. When you sit and
Speaker 3: talk with these people, no matter how even if they
Speaker 3: did do hainus things or were complicit or there or
Speaker 3: should have known or whatever it is. It's amazing how
Speaker 3: you can get sucked into their vulnerability and their humanity.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm not saying that you bring them
Speaker 3: home or anything, but in terms of the humanity of everybody,
Speaker 3: and and Jail does a great job of putting people
Speaker 3: in a completely different light when you talk to him.
Speaker 3: It's I think that you may have even found it
Speaker 3: incredible that, like you say that this guy was even
Speaker 3: accused of this stuff.
Speaker 4: Really well, this guy he's you know, I think he
Speaker 4: used the word institutionalized. But he can read people better
Speaker 4: than anyone I've ever met, you know, you know, he
Speaker 4: knows exactly. And so then you start thinking, well, what
Speaker 4: did he read on me? And maybe you know, part
Speaker 4: of him wanted this book to happen the way it happened,
Speaker 4: but he you know, like how much. So you get
Speaker 4: into all that kind of you know, psychology kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: But I mean, and to survive the way he has,
Speaker 4: he can't be stupid. I mean, there's no way there
Speaker 4: has to be. There's a definite total will to I
Speaker 4: don't know anybody who's got a you know more of
Speaker 4: a will to survive than that guy and to do it,
Speaker 4: you know, in those conditions and stuff that it's pretty amazing,
Speaker 4: pretty remarkable.
Speaker 3: It was interesting too. I saw a program a few
Speaker 3: years ago. I'd always heard that there was this musical
Speaker 3: aspect to this story where he, you know, had auditioned
Speaker 3: for record company guys or agents or something. And then
Speaker 3: I heard actually the music that he had done, and
Speaker 3: I went, you know, I thought that this would be
Speaker 3: he'd be a bum musically, but.
Speaker 2: He really wasn't.
Speaker 3: He was you know, I don't know if you could say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: this was the next big thing, but he definitely was competitive,
Speaker 3: He definitely had He was a great He was a
Speaker 3: good singer, you know, I mean in terms of he was.
Speaker 3: There was some legitimacy to that. So it's very interesting too.
Speaker 3: And I think as a musician myself too, it that's
Speaker 3: interesting to me as well, that that really was lost
Speaker 3: and in the stories originally was Yeah, I was downplayed incredibly.
Speaker 3: You heard about Wilson as Wilson, I think it was,
Speaker 3: but not much. You know, it's interesting to hear how
Speaker 3: complex this story really is, and you go into some
Speaker 3: other aspects of of other unsolved murders as well too
Speaker 3: that were on the Spawn Ranch, and so I'll let
Speaker 3: people read that for themselves. It's a fascinating I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just his legacy lives on. It's incredible, you know,
Speaker 3: incredible data. Anyway, I wanted to also put a little
Speaker 3: plug in for your band as well. I know that
Speaker 3: you're a serious musician, So what is the what is
Speaker 3: the name of your band?
Speaker 4: Well, see, that was when things went to ship a
Speaker 4: couple of years ago. We we totally fell apart during
Speaker 4: the recording of our second record. I got like vocals
Speaker 4: down for eight songs and four more to go and
Speaker 4: lost my voice. And we're actually I'm getting together with
Speaker 4: the drummer next week for the first time in like
Speaker 4: three or four years, and we're going to start playing again.
Speaker 4: So our band's called Plastic Bastard.
Speaker 5: So I think we.
Speaker 4: Have a we have a MySpace page, so there's some
Speaker 4: stuff up on there. But that that that's been a Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's the best sanity in the world, the best therapy.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: The music.
Speaker 4: Music's amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Well, you know, our time is up. But
Speaker 3: I wanted to really thank you very much for the
Speaker 3: book itself. It was a fantastic read, and thank you
Speaker 3: for coming on and being so articulate about your book,
Speaker 3: Charles Manson. Now I want to thank you very much
Speaker 3: for appearing on the program and the best I'll like
Speaker 3: you this book by the way, Marlin. Okay, so I
Speaker 3: want to thank you very much, thank you for appearing
Speaker 3: on the program, and have yourself a good Valentine's.
Speaker 4: Thank you man, thank.
Speaker 3: You, okay, thank you very much. E've been listening to
Speaker 3: the program True Murder, the most shocking Killers in true
Speaker 3: prime History with my special guest Marlon Merinich with his
Speaker 3: book Charles Manson. Now see you next time. Good evening,