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Speaker 3: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 3: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 3: written about them Gaesy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 3: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 3: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 3: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: Good Evening. For the past forty years, Charles Manson has
Speaker 5: languished in prison for his participation in the Manson Family
Speaker 5: murders of nineteen sixty nine. He's America's icon of evil,
Speaker 5: the one who brought down the curtain on the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 5: He has never been a quiet inmate, however, from his
Speaker 5: unbridled outburst of rage to his tender acts of generosity,
Speaker 5: he makes his presence felt to everyone around him. He
Speaker 5: inspires awe in other inmates, he cozies up the prison
Speaker 5: guards who are eager to do him favors, and he
Speaker 5: is responsible for countless staff transfers within and outside of
Speaker 5: the institution. This book details the dramatic journey of Willy Mendez,
Speaker 5: a troubled inmate housed next to the serial killer for
Speaker 5: more than a year. Willy became institutionalized after repeated violations
Speaker 5: of the law, including attempted murder and armed robbery. He
Speaker 5: is serving a sixty eight year prison sentence. From his
Speaker 5: initial feelings of contempt toward the aging killer, Willie, nicknamed
Speaker 5: Boxcar by Manson, traveled to a place of openness and
Speaker 5: acceptance of the old man's ideas. Over time, he began
Speaker 5: to defer more and more to Manson without reservation. This
Speaker 5: is a tale of growth and maturity that contains intimate
Speaker 5: details and shocking jail house sekstz. Willie shares an insider's
Speaker 5: view of Charles Manson, his crazy behavior, his whispered confessions,
Speaker 5: and is sometimes profound wisdom. Charlie speaks openly about his sexuality,
Speaker 5: share some details of the tait In LaBianca murders, and
Speaker 5: relates his childhood experience of being forced to wear a
Speaker 5: dressed to school. The book that we're featuring thisce evning
Speaker 5: is Charles Manson Behind Bars, the crazy antics and amazing
Speaker 5: revelations of America's icon of Evil, with my special guest
Speaker 5: journalists and author Mark Hewitt. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 5: thank you very much. To agreeing to this interview.
Speaker 2: Mark Hewitt, Thank you, Dan, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. Thank you for coming on and
Speaker 5: talking about a subject that is important to people, especially
Speaker 5: true crime readers and listeners for many, many years. Again,
Speaker 5: just a statistic that some people talk about true crime books,
Speaker 5: and it seems that the lesser educated people talk about
Speaker 5: in Cold Blood but really helter skelter, even just for
Speaker 5: the beginning of the number of great books about Charles
Speaker 5: Manson sold seven million copies to date. So it is
Speaker 5: a subject that many, many people are interested in. So
Speaker 5: thank you for coming on talking about this book, Charles
Speaker 5: Manson Behind Bars. Now, one of the questions I normally
Speaker 5: asked him, without giving too much away, what brought you
Speaker 5: to this project, Charles Manson Behind Bars? Before we get
Speaker 5: into all the details, how this came about, this faithful
Speaker 5: turn of events, tell us how you came, why you
Speaker 5: were compelled, and why did you want to write Charles
Speaker 5: Manson Behind Bars.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a fascinating story.
Speaker 5: Dan.
Speaker 2: The first book that I published back in two thousand
Speaker 2: and four was actually a self help book. It's entitled
Speaker 2: Yes I Can't Change, and in the process of brainstorming
Speaker 2: about ways in which I could promote them book. The
Speaker 2: idea came to me, who could benefit more from a
Speaker 2: self help book than somebody who was behind bars, especially
Speaker 2: a high profile criminal. And so from that idea, I
Speaker 2: began to write a number of high profile criminals throughout
Speaker 2: the United States, and I put a lot of thought
Speaker 2: into how I would get letters back from them, because
Speaker 2: I'm sure they get a lot of letters from media,
Speaker 2: from fans or from whatever. And I wrote and suggested
Speaker 2: that they read my book, or offered to have them
Speaker 2: read my book. And in part of my brainstorming, I thought,
Speaker 2: in writing Manson, how could I get him to write back?
Speaker 2: And so I began a letter, dear mister Manson, I
Speaker 2: need your help, and a few weeks later he wrote
Speaker 2: back to me, and then from that we began to
Speaker 2: correspond a little bit. I told him of some of
Speaker 2: my ideas about change and asked him some ideas of
Speaker 2: what his thoughts were unchange. In the process of interacting
Speaker 2: with him, he introduced me to a man who was
Speaker 2: selled next to him, who he became quite intimate with.
Speaker 2: They would regularly spend four to six hours in an
Speaker 2: evening or at nighttime talking with one another between cells.
Speaker 2: And this is Willy Mendez, my co author. I began
Speaker 2: to correspond with Mendez, and in the course of our interactions,
Speaker 2: I began to realize that Willie had an awful lot
Speaker 2: of interesting stories about Manson, and that began our collaborative
Speaker 2: effort of putting this book together.
Speaker 5: Now, how many years did you did you write Charles
Speaker 5: Manson before you met this Willy Mendez.
Speaker 2: I actually met Willy after Manson stopped writing to me.
Speaker 2: Willie wrote me after he had been transferred out of Corkoran.
Speaker 2: He was in Pleasant Valley State Prison at the time
Speaker 2: that he started to correspond with me. But he said,
Speaker 2: you know I got I got your address from Manson
Speaker 2: and he said you were an interesting person. In fact,
Speaker 2: in some of our correspondents with my correspondence with Manson,
Speaker 2: Manson said that my outlook on life, my positive nature,
Speaker 2: reminded him of box Car. Box Car is the nickname
Speaker 2: that Manson gave to Willie because it made him think
Speaker 2: of Willie Nelson or Willie box Car Nelson. So he
Speaker 2: just started calling Willie box Car. That was his nickname.
Speaker 2: And so I had I had corresponded with Manson maybe
Speaker 2: ten years and then uh, and then I began to
Speaker 2: get letters from Willie.
Speaker 5: Now, the obviously the letters that the revelations will say
Speaker 5: that that Charles Manson imparts to Willie are were different
Speaker 5: than what he would correspond uh say, correspondence in the
Speaker 5: mail with you over that ten year period. What was
Speaker 5: the content? I know you talked about ways of change,
Speaker 5: but in terms of I won't say the difference because
Speaker 5: we can go into a long thing about that. But
Speaker 5: what what was your correspondence limited to? We'll say before
Speaker 5: we get into what this other these other revelations all include.
Speaker 2: My correspondence with Charlie was very very limited. Manson is
Speaker 2: on his own wavelength, and you ask him a direct question,
Speaker 2: he doesn't give you a direct answer. You try to
Speaker 2: engage him on something and he he's on he's on
Speaker 2: his own Uh, he has his own message. And frequently
Speaker 2: the letters that I would get from him would be
Speaker 2: a series of scraps of paper, and it wasn't always
Speaker 2: clear which scrap was first and which scrap was second.
Speaker 2: Then it wasn't clear that there was any theme running
Speaker 2: through anything that he was saying. So even to try
Speaker 2: to quote Manson or to try to make sense of
Speaker 2: a lot of what he said to me is probably
Speaker 2: a very difficult, difficult task. It wasn't until I began
Speaker 2: corresponding with Willie that I began to get what I
Speaker 2: would say would be clear, concise stories with a coherent theme.
Speaker 5: I guess, did you find it? It was well worth
Speaker 5: that ten year correspondence to sort of warm you up
Speaker 5: to the character of Charles Manson? And did that really
Speaker 5: help you in terms of the kinds of information that
Speaker 5: you wanted to get from Willy Mendez and you were
Speaker 5: able to Were you able to comprehend Charles Manson any
Speaker 5: better with his previous ten years of correspondence yourself?
Speaker 2: To a limited degree? Charles is kind of stuck in
Speaker 2: the nineteen six because he's in nineteen seventies. His idea
Speaker 2: is his vocabulary, his turns of phrases are all from
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies, And according to Willie, that's what happens
Speaker 2: to people who are in prison for a long time.
Speaker 2: They get stuck in the generation that they went into prison.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I got a whole lot of
Speaker 2: profound insights into Manson in corresponding with him, but I
Speaker 2: did get kind of a sense of who he is
Speaker 2: and what he stands for, and a lot of it
Speaker 2: is not clear, not a direct statement. He meanders so
Speaker 2: much in his writing and his talking that it's hard
Speaker 2: to really understand his philosophy. I guess I would describe
Speaker 2: his philosophy as being very eclectic. He'll take a bit
Speaker 2: from Christianity, He'll take a little bit from scientology. He's
Speaker 2: studied hypnotism, and he's been involved in the Church of Satan,
Speaker 2: and so he collects a few ideas and phrases from
Speaker 2: each of these and kind of melds them together. It's
Speaker 2: more of a philosophy of I would describe as being
Speaker 2: a utilitarian. Whatever is useful, he'll throw out a quote,
Speaker 2: or he'll say something.
Speaker 5: Yeah. This is certainly a mixed bag of a little
Speaker 5: bit of Eastern philosophy. But sometimes it almost seems confused
Speaker 5: because it's such a mix of sometimes even almost contradictory
Speaker 5: of philosophy. So now let's talk about Willie Mendez. Guermo E. Mendez,
Speaker 5: your co author, tell us first before we like, I
Speaker 5: like to talk a little bit about of his actual
Speaker 5: participation in this. Obviously he gathers this information. But before
Speaker 5: you were you decided to do this project, you must
Speaker 5: have wanted to get a very articulate prisoner, not a
Speaker 5: inarticulate prisoner. Tell us about that decision making process. Of course,
Speaker 5: you're getting. What you're saying too, is you're getting information
Speaker 5: that you couldn't get yourself in no shape or form.
Speaker 5: But at the same time, was he vetted for any
Speaker 5: particular that you were anything that you were particularly looking for,
Speaker 5: like being particularly articulate.
Speaker 2: That's a very important question you ask, because I would
Speaker 2: first say that I wasn't looking to write this book
Speaker 2: until I got to know WILLI. Corresponding with Manson, never
Speaker 2: gave me the inpook. It never gave me the idea
Speaker 2: that any book could come out of it. And it
Speaker 2: wasn't until discussing with Willy and hearing some of these
Speaker 2: stories that the idea came about to put together a book.
Speaker 2: I think one of the strengths of the book is
Speaker 2: that it's the first book that actually comes from behind bars.
Speaker 2: It was largely written by Willy. It's Willy's story. I
Speaker 2: am the one who kind of edited it. WILLI wrote
Speaker 2: to me pages and pages and pages of stuff in
Speaker 2: really tiny print, sometimes that it was difficult for me
Speaker 2: to actually to read and comprehend what he was getting at.
Speaker 2: But I put a lot of time into rewriting it
Speaker 2: and reorganizing it. Willy doesn't have a lot of education,
Speaker 2: so he just kind of jumped from topic to topic,
Speaker 2: and it was up to me to sort it all
Speaker 2: through and write a comprehensive story. That's the strength of
Speaker 2: the book. The weakness of the book is that because
Speaker 2: it's from behind bars, because it's from prison, there's a
Speaker 2: question about the truthfulness of anything that Willy has said
Speaker 2: to me. He could have made up some of the stories,
Speaker 2: he could have exaggerated, so you kind of have to
Speaker 2: take it with a grain of salt. This is one
Speaker 2: prisoner writing about another prisoner well, and compounded with that
Speaker 2: is the fact that anything that Charles Manson told him
Speaker 2: may have been true or not true, And so you
Speaker 2: get a bit of a Chinese Chinese chain of communication
Speaker 2: of trying to pass this information along. But in all things,
Speaker 2: I attempted to be as truthful and honest as possible,
Speaker 2: even going back to Willie and saying here's the story
Speaker 2: that I'm writing, and showing him rough drafts and saying, now,
Speaker 2: is this accurate? Can you testify? Can you verify that
Speaker 2: what you have told me is true or not? And
Speaker 2: so we would discuss a lot of things that way.
Speaker 2: So there always is that question of how true is it.
Speaker 2: I have found Willie very honest in dealing with me.
Speaker 2: I think as far as him being in prison and
Speaker 2: being a prisoner, what he probably deals with is a
Speaker 2: certain amount of impulsiveness. He is a guy who does
Speaker 2: something first and then thinks about it later, if at all,
Speaker 2: And so he tries to be honest. He tries to
Speaker 2: be a good person, and I would describe him as
Speaker 2: somebody who is attempting to be good. He may be
Speaker 2: dealing with fetal alcohol syndrome. I'm not sure if that's
Speaker 2: a that's operative in his life, but it's it's his
Speaker 2: impulsiveness that I think got him into trouble.
Speaker 5: He is.
Speaker 2: He has been charged with over a dozen felonies, including
Speaker 2: armed robbery and attempted murder. He is likely a lifer.
Speaker 2: He there's a good chance that if he ever does
Speaker 2: get out, he will be a very old man, if
Speaker 2: at all. So that's kind of a little bit about
Speaker 2: who he is. And you know, I just I did
Speaker 2: the best I could and with with what I had
Speaker 2: to work with, and that's the book, is what came
Speaker 2: out of it.
Speaker 5: Now, in terms of credibility, I understand the thing is
Speaker 5: that people could say, you know, an inmate could lie,
Speaker 5: you know, and Magine has been notorious for changing stories
Speaker 5: and probably lying as well. At least that's the impression
Speaker 5: that most people have that he can certainly lie with
Speaker 5: the best of them. But the thing is is that
Speaker 5: the real evidence that's compelling to most people is that
Speaker 5: how much of a well a driving force was Willy
Speaker 5: in terms of this. Was he one of these kinds
Speaker 5: of people that goes into you know, he didn't. He
Speaker 5: got transferred because of this murder of his cellmate, who
Speaker 5: was a pedophile, almost murder of his cellmate, So he
Speaker 5: gets transferred to where the bad guys are and that's
Speaker 5: Charles Manson. But was there any indication, Was there any
Speaker 5: evidence that he was the kind of guy looking for publicity,
Speaker 5: looking for a book deal, had aspirations to write a book,
Speaker 5: had connections like that, somebody had planning the idea. Is
Speaker 5: there any evidence of that? And that's the kind of
Speaker 5: credibility that I think would be in question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I saw none of that. He did tell
Speaker 2: me in our correspondence that being next to Manson, Manson
Speaker 2: would say thing to him like, well, you're going to
Speaker 2: be famous now because you're friends with me, and you're
Speaker 2: part of history, and you're a really important person, probably
Speaker 2: some of the same stuff that he did to build
Speaker 2: up the members of his family back in sixty nine,
Speaker 2: who went so far as to carry out murders for him.
Speaker 2: But Willie and talking with me, didn't reach out to
Speaker 2: me and say, hey, let's write a book, let's do this,
Speaker 2: let's do that. It was I was the one who
Speaker 2: made the suggestion after hearing some of his stories. In fact,
Speaker 2: I don't think he's ever asked me for anything as
Speaker 2: far as sending him things, giving him cash or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's never been a relationship like that. So I didn't
Speaker 2: get the sense that he's a gold digger and that
Speaker 2: he was looking for fame or looking to write a book.
Speaker 2: As I say, it was my idea.
Speaker 5: Now we'll set the environment here, the background of how
Speaker 5: all this all occurred and under what kinds of conditions
Speaker 5: in terms of living arrangements, and you vividly portray that
Speaker 5: in the book, and it's again very very vivid portrayal
Speaker 5: talk about Corcoran for State prison in California, and there's
Speaker 5: fifteen other high profile inmates in this protective housing unit.
Speaker 5: Tell us about life in this protective housing unit for
Speaker 5: Charles Manson and what first Guillermo Willy basically observes upon
Speaker 5: meeting Charles Manson in this environment.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that you're pointing out that it was
Speaker 2: a very vivid picture that we paint in the book
Speaker 2: of Prison Life, because that's one of the things that
Speaker 2: I regularly asked Willy to do, is to say what
Speaker 2: he saw, what he felt, what colors, what pictures can
Speaker 2: he paint with words of exactly what he felt, what
Speaker 2: he experienced. And I think we did a pretty good
Speaker 2: job of getting that putting that in the book. Building
Speaker 2: four is a notorious building in Corkoran, corkorans and Central California,
Speaker 2: about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco in the
Speaker 2: California Central Valley. It's a building four is designated for
Speaker 2: high profile criminals. You need to do an awful lot
Speaker 2: to get housed in Building four. The occupants of Building
Speaker 2: four were watching the Michael Jackson trial very closely way
Speaker 2: back in when was that five or six something like that.
Speaker 2: The reason being is because if Michael Jackson had been convicted,
Speaker 2: it's quite likely that he would have ended up in
Speaker 2: Building four. Building four has a higher ratio of guards
Speaker 2: to prisoners. Each prison cell is solitary confinement. There's only
Speaker 2: one prison or per room or per cell. Each cell
Speaker 2: has additional precautions against breaking in from other prisoners. Each
Speaker 2: cell has a padlock on it that needs to be
Speaker 2: manually opened with a key, in addition to the mass
Speaker 2: electronics door openings that's controlled from a distance. The building
Speaker 2: is patrolled by officers who have rifles and shotguns and
Speaker 2: the whole host of other weapons with them because they
Speaker 2: know that at a moment's notice, something could break out
Speaker 2: to get to building. For you either have to be
Speaker 2: a high profile criminal and you know as Charles Manson
Speaker 2: is there, but also Sir Hand, Sir Han the the
Speaker 2: person who was convicted of assassinating Robert Kennedy, and there
Speaker 2: are other members who other people who are there who
Speaker 2: have left prison gangs or left gangs. The reason is
Speaker 2: because they are marked individuals and they are other other
Speaker 2: gang members are attempting to kill them for having left
Speaker 2: their gang, and that was Willie's situation as well. He
Speaker 2: left his gang as well as being involved in these
Speaker 2: very many felonies, so as a as a marked man,
Speaker 2: that's why he ended up in Building four.
Speaker 5: And why is Charles Manson marked man? Because the heinous,
Speaker 5: heineousness of his crimes, the eight eight month pregnant Sharon Tate.
Speaker 5: Or is it because he's a celebrity and somebody can
Speaker 5: gain notoriety by just by killing him.
Speaker 2: That's that's the latter of what you said. Anybody who
Speaker 2: kills Charles Manson will have their name go down in
Speaker 2: history as as the killer of Charles Manson. The same
Speaker 2: way we never would have heard of Sir Hans Sir
Speaker 2: Han if he hadn't killed Robert Kennedy. We never would
Speaker 2: have heard of Mark Chapman. We never would have heard
Speaker 2: of you know, these other individuals who have killed high
Speaker 2: profile and high profile people. So there are regularly death
Speaker 2: threats on Charlie. There are a lot of lifetime criminals
Speaker 2: who would love to make a name for themselves just
Speaker 2: by killing him, and there have been numerous attacks on
Speaker 2: his life over the past forty years in prison. He
Speaker 2: has been poisoned, he has had acids, thrown at him.
Speaker 2: He has had people run at him and swing with
Speaker 2: their fifths. So he lives a very precarious existence.
Speaker 5: And Charles Manson's eighty years old. I believe this year.
Speaker 2: In November he will be eighty up. Correct.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Now, tell us about what Willie Mendez observed about
Speaker 5: Charles Manson being this person that has had all these
Speaker 5: death threats, that is frightened of being poisoned, frightened of
Speaker 5: people stealing stuff from a momentos from his cell. So
Speaker 5: what does this, you know, manifest itself in terms of
Speaker 5: behavior for Charles Manson and.
Speaker 2: Willy noticed a lot of paranoid behavior on the part
Speaker 2: of Manson. He was afraid of people coming into his cell,
Speaker 2: he was afraid of going out of his cell. In fact,
Speaker 2: he could go for months at a time without coming out.
Speaker 2: He would just wash up in his sink in the
Speaker 2: cell and stay inside. It would only be every couple
Speaker 2: months that he would get out to go for a
Speaker 2: shour or go for a walk around the out in
Speaker 2: the yard. In fact, he bragged a Willie one time
Speaker 2: that he could go for a year without leaving his cell,
Speaker 2: and when he did leave the cell, when he got
Speaker 2: back he was always paranoid that somebody had gone in
Speaker 2: and the guard had gone in, or a guard had
Speaker 2: let somebody go in, and so he was He asked
Speaker 2: all kinds of questions, like, you know, has my stuff
Speaker 2: been messed with? Has anybody been in here? So there's
Speaker 2: a certain amount of paranoia that Willy observed. But Willy
Speaker 2: All was also quite surprised that Manson was so old
Speaker 2: and so frail. His memories of Manson or video clips
Speaker 2: on television of Manson during his heyday during his trial,
Speaker 2: how he was a young, vibrant person in his thirties. Well,
Speaker 2: now that he's seventy nine, Willi's, you know, quite shocked
Speaker 2: at what he looks like. I just got a letter
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago from Willie. He has been
Speaker 2: transferred back to Building four in Corkoran, so he still
Speaker 2: has contact with Manson. He is not selled beside him
Speaker 2: and doesn't have a close relationship with him as he
Speaker 2: once did, but he's still able to let me know
Speaker 2: what's going on. And he said that Manson is confined
Speaker 2: to a wheelchair almost totally.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: He can get out of his wheelchair and walk few steps,
Speaker 2: but then he gets winded. And so he gets back
Speaker 2: into his wheelchair and he generally gets pushed around the
Speaker 2: yard when he does go out to the yard for
Speaker 2: some exercise or for some fresh air.
Speaker 5: Now, tell us about before there's there's so much information
Speaker 5: in this book that it's somewhat surprising, But you dedicate
Speaker 5: a whole chapter to mail for Charles Manson. Tell us
Speaker 5: about the situation of fan mail. And again, if people
Speaker 5: have been listening lately, there's news. You know, Charles is
Speaker 5: always in the news. But tell us about mail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I came to learn that no prisoner in the
Speaker 2: United States receives more mail than Charles Manson. He practically
Speaker 2: needs his own postmaster general to take care of all
Speaker 2: the mail that he receives. In fact, now I understand
Speaker 2: as of the last year or so, he's got a
Speaker 2: number of his fans who live in the area on
Speaker 2: the outside who received the mail for him and sort
Speaker 2: it for him and correspond with people that they feel
Speaker 2: that they need to do so because there is just
Speaker 2: so much mail that he gets. But when Willie was
Speaker 2: with him, he was still receiving his own mail, which
Speaker 2: would be several packs of mail a day, and he
Speaker 2: would sort through it to I guess. He'd been receiving
Speaker 2: so much mail for so long that he was able
Speaker 2: to put it into categories, and a lot of it
Speaker 2: was just junk mail. He got letters from music groups,
Speaker 2: rock and roll groups from around the globe who wanted
Speaker 2: some tune from him, or some lyrics from him to
Speaker 2: write a song. He would get a lot of mail
Speaker 2: from people involved in religious organizations, whether they be Christian
Speaker 2: organizations or Buddhist organizations or whatever, some of them asking
Speaker 2: for donations, some of them asking for his endorsement, some
Speaker 2: of them asking for ideas. He was just astounded sometimes
Speaker 2: at all the mail he got, because he never went
Speaker 2: out and solet mail. It was simply because of his
Speaker 2: high profile nature that people would be contacting him. Reporters
Speaker 2: would contact him from around the globe. Authors would contact him.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of people who want to write
Speaker 2: books on Charles Manson. In fact, over one hundred books
Speaker 2: now have been published on him, and so he was
Speaker 2: just amazed at how much mail he got. Some of
Speaker 2: it was personal mail. He would correspond with various individuals.
Speaker 2: If a letter interested him, he would write back to somebody.
Speaker 2: But even back then, in his younger years, he couldn't
Speaker 2: correspond with everybody who he wanted to, just because there
Speaker 2: was simply so many letters coming to him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, incredible, incredible fan mail.
Speaker 2: And what was really interesting is he would use the
Speaker 2: materials that were sent to him. If it was a magazine,
Speaker 2: he would use the paper for some of his artwork
Speaker 2: behind bars, he would save cardboard, or he would blank
Speaker 2: pieces of paper he would use in sending letters. Some
Speaker 2: of the letters I received were like a page from
Speaker 2: a magazine and a little bit written on, or somebody
Speaker 2: would have sent him a note and so he would
Speaker 2: scratch off what that person had written him and then
Speaker 2: write something to me on that slip of paper. So
Speaker 2: he was he was very aware of the material use
Speaker 2: of all of the stuff that he received.
Speaker 5: Now, how exactly did it when you first talk about
Speaker 5: the first sort of intimate conversation that Charles Manson has
Speaker 5: with Willie Mendez set the stage for that because are
Speaker 5: they really are they seeing eye to eye or are
Speaker 5: they talking around a corner? Tell us about how this
Speaker 5: conversation goes down. Really, what is conveyed in that initial
Speaker 5: intimate conversation that seems to start the ball rolling in
Speaker 5: term of a relationship, a rapport between.
Speaker 2: Them, the two of them, their relationship. Yes, well, the
Speaker 2: first time will he saw Manson was when he was
Speaker 2: led to the cell in the first place. He walked
Speaker 2: by and he saw a variety of people, and he
Speaker 2: noticed that the man in the cell next to him
Speaker 2: was kind of a slight, short man who was very
Speaker 2: pale and a little grandpa is I think the way
Speaker 2: he described him, and didn't think much of him. And
Speaker 2: then once he got into his cell, they began to
Speaker 2: talk back and forth. They couldn't see one another from
Speaker 2: cell to cell. There was a large wall between the
Speaker 2: two of them, but by talking out of one side
Speaker 2: of the cell, they could talk to each other. Willie
Speaker 2: described as Manson as being very hard of hearing, and
Speaker 2: so that there were times that he had to raise
Speaker 2: his voice quite a bit just to be heard, even
Speaker 2: though they were only you know, a foot or two
Speaker 2: apart from each other. When they were trying to talk
Speaker 2: in in deference to other prisoners, they tried to keep
Speaker 2: their voice down as much as possible so they wouldn't
Speaker 2: interfere with anybody else and nobody would overhear their conversation.
Speaker 2: But still Manson regularly asked him to speak up because
Speaker 2: he couldn't couldn't hear him? When Willie first met Manson
Speaker 2: and was told that he was selled beside Charles Manson,
Speaker 2: he was kind of shocked, and he was a little
Speaker 2: bit suspicious too. He didn't know whether this inmate beside
Speaker 2: him really was Manson or not. For all he knew
Speaker 2: that it was. It was a joke for all new prisoners.
Speaker 2: I'm Charles Manson. Yeah, so am I. So he waited
Speaker 2: till his first shower time, and when he went to
Speaker 2: his first shower time, he peered in that cell again
Speaker 2: to see the person that was talking to him, and
Speaker 2: sure enough he could. He noticed that it was Charles Manson,
Speaker 2: and that he had the scar on his between his
Speaker 2: eyes of the swastika.
Speaker 5: Right, and how was what was the first conversation? What
Speaker 5: was that first exchange between the two that seemed to
Speaker 5: beyond just a small talk of prison, but that they
Speaker 5: seemed to then again, like I say, established sort of
Speaker 5: a rapport, and that Willy knew that Charles at least
Speaker 5: trusted him or liked him enough to impart what he did.
Speaker 2: Well. When he first got there, he was impressed that
Speaker 2: Manson reached out to him. It was Manson who knocked
Speaker 2: on the wall and started talking to Willy and kind
Speaker 2: of welcoming into the building and being very friendly to him.
Speaker 2: Manson was very generous with a lot of the things
Speaker 2: that he had because of his high profile nature and
Speaker 2: things that people send him. He has got quite a
Speaker 2: large bank account in prison, and he's able to get
Speaker 2: as much goodies from the canteen as he wants, and
Speaker 2: so he's very generous in giving soups and packets of
Speaker 2: food and chips and whatnot other inmates. And so even
Speaker 2: before he had actually met Willie, he was sending him
Speaker 2: some stuff between the cells. I'm not exactly sure what
Speaker 2: the first shipment of goods was, but he's provided him
Speaker 2: with a lot of a lot of good stuff. And
Speaker 2: Willy was quite impressed with this and began to like
Speaker 2: Manson right off, just from his generosity, as far as
Speaker 2: willis ahead, go ahead, go ahead, just from the the
Speaker 2: the original I'm not sure which story that he shared
Speaker 2: with Willy that gave him the indication that he was
Speaker 2: being honest or that he was he was being real,
Speaker 2: but at all times Manson demanded that other people be
Speaker 2: real with him and tell him the truth, and Willie
Speaker 2: got the sense that, at least at first, that Manson
Speaker 2: was being very honest with him and telling him things
Speaker 2: like that were and so he came to trust Manson
Speaker 2: an awful lot at the beginning. And he was suspicious
Speaker 2: at first. He you know, he being in prison for
Speaker 2: so long. Willi is not a very trusting person of
Speaker 2: others because he knows inmates abuse and use one another.
Speaker 2: So he was a little bit wary. But he did
Speaker 2: come to trust Manson, and in fact, it caused problems
Speaker 2: for him because he began to trust him just a
Speaker 2: little bit too much and just assume that everything that
Speaker 2: he was saying was was true. And it wasn't until
Speaker 2: much later that Willie was able to look back and
Speaker 2: realize that, you know, maybe he placed a little bit
Speaker 2: too much faith in Manson and maybe he was being manipulated,
Speaker 2: much like his followers, the members of the Manson family
Speaker 2: were back in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 5: Sure, now, did he ask any specific questions or was
Speaker 5: it Manson again dictating? And so it was just maybe
Speaker 5: questions in response, but was it Manson felt like talking?
Speaker 5: And then all of these subjects came to pass, And
Speaker 5: what was the first One of the first subjects that
Speaker 5: Manson touched on.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know if what the first subjects were.
Speaker 2: The picture I've gotten from Willie is an ongoing relationship
Speaker 2: where they would just sit and chew the fat as
Speaker 2: they were talking between cells, and as they spent more
Speaker 2: and more hours, they just talked about this, that and everything.
Speaker 2: And Willie wasn't the type of person. He's not the
Speaker 2: type of person to try to pry into other people's
Speaker 2: lives and to find out this bit of information or
Speaker 2: that bit of information. It was more just getting to
Speaker 2: know each other and their lives and what's going on
Speaker 2: and how prison works. And the sense I get is
Speaker 2: that it was just a very gradual relationship that grew,
Speaker 2: but they became over time very intimate and shared with
Speaker 2: one another at a quite deep level.
Speaker 5: Now, some of the information that that that I found
Speaker 5: completely new and actually kind of surprising, was some of
Speaker 5: this stuff you've on earthed about his childhood. So tell us,
Speaker 5: according to what Willie has said that Charles has told
Speaker 5: him about his childhood, tell us about some of the
Speaker 5: information that you have discovered in this book about Charles
Speaker 5: Manson's childhood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a lot of different stories about Manson's childhood.
Speaker 2: And it depends on which book you read, because Manson
Speaker 2: has changed his story so many times, and other relatives
Speaker 2: of Manson have told tales very different from him. But
Speaker 2: to Willie, Manson said that he had a very difficult childhood.
Speaker 2: He was very he was abused by his mother. He
Speaker 2: was born to a sixteen years old a young woman
Speaker 2: who had just turned sixteen, and she not only being young,
Speaker 2: but she acted young. She was very much into partying
Speaker 2: and being very irresponsible. So she during his childhood years
Speaker 2: would often be left with a neighbor, left with a relative,
Speaker 2: left with a friend. His mother would say, can you
Speaker 2: take care of Charlie just for a couple hours. I'll
Speaker 2: be back in a couple hours. Well, then his mother
Speaker 2: wouldn't come back for a couple of days or a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks, and apparently this happened on a regular basis.
Speaker 2: At the same time, I understand that Manson's mother was
Speaker 2: interviewed before her death a number of decades ago, and
Speaker 2: she said that Manson was a very, very privileged child
Speaker 2: and he was kind of spoiled, and that maybe some
Speaker 2: of his attitudes happened because he was spoiled and given
Speaker 2: everything he wants wanted, and was kind of pampered. So
Speaker 2: it's hard to say what exactly is true. But a
Speaker 2: couple stories that Willie passed on to me and that
Speaker 2: I have read in other places as well, is that
Speaker 2: his mother sold him for a picture of beer. I
Speaker 2: guess she had an alcohol problem, according to Charlie, and
Speaker 2: was more interested in drinking than in being a mother,
Speaker 2: and so at one point she said, you know, if
Speaker 2: you give me a picture of beer, I'll let you
Speaker 2: have my son and raise him. I don't know exactly
Speaker 2: the circumstances, but I understand family members followed up and
Speaker 2: went and ran and got Manson and got Charlie and
Speaker 2: brought him back and said, you know, that's not the
Speaker 2: way you behave as a mother. There's another story where
Speaker 2: this is what Manson told Willie, is that Charlie was
Speaker 2: raised by an uncle at one point, left with an
Speaker 2: uncle for at least several months. I'm not exactly sure
Speaker 2: the time frame was exactly how it went, but on
Speaker 2: a day of school, I think the first day that
Speaker 2: he went to school at this new location, while he
Speaker 2: was being taken care of by an aunt and uncle,
Speaker 2: I believe it was if I have the facts correct,
Speaker 2: that Manson was picked on at school and he was
Speaker 2: teased or bullied in some sense, and that Manson ran
Speaker 2: all the way home and was crying. Well, his uncle
Speaker 2: found him and noticed that he was crying and said,
Speaker 2: you know, boys don't cry. This isn't how you behave
Speaker 2: and told him, this is what you need to do.
Speaker 2: I'm going to put a red dress on you and
Speaker 2: tomorrow you're going to go to school. Excuse me, You're
Speaker 2: going to go to school wearing this red dress. You're
Speaker 2: going to find that kid who picked on you. You're
Speaker 2: going to go up to him and you're going to
Speaker 2: punch him in the face and you were going to
Speaker 2: beat him until he submits or until you get beaten up.
Speaker 2: But either way, this is what you need to do.
Speaker 2: And according to Manson, he wore he was forced to
Speaker 2: wear this red dress to school, and of course the
Speaker 2: next day when he shows up at school with a
Speaker 2: red dress, he got tea eased. But at some point
Speaker 2: during that day he went up to the kid who
Speaker 2: bullied him the day before and punched him in the
Speaker 2: face and totally dominated him. So how how true that
Speaker 2: story is is is open to speculation. But Willie was
Speaker 2: not the only person who told me that story I have.
Speaker 2: I have also read it in other books, and I
Speaker 2: don't have a reference at the moment.
Speaker 5: Right right now. Some of the philosophy of Charles Madsen
Speaker 5: he's espoused before, but tell us what, Willy, some of
Speaker 5: the things that Charles Madsen has said to Willie and
Speaker 5: the kinds of kind of language he uses to express himself.
Speaker 2: He he uses a lot of Eastern philosophy, so he
Speaker 2: he's interested in the ideas that contradict a lot of
Speaker 2: his philosophy is you know what will work, what will
Speaker 2: help him get by in prison? And what was interesting.
Speaker 2: One thing that he shared with Willie is the fact
Speaker 2: that he's not as crazy as he makes himself out
Speaker 2: to be. He is listed as a mental illness case
Speaker 2: behind bars, and that he has mental issues, and that
Speaker 2: he is supposed to be taking medicine for it, whether
Speaker 2: that's paranoia or schizophrenia or whatever it is that he's
Speaker 2: he's dealing with. He openly admitted to Willy that often
Speaker 2: he acts crazy to benefit from it. If he acts crazy,
Speaker 2: then other inmates won't pick on him, They'll think, oh,
Speaker 2: he's just insane. Let's just ignore him. And it's probably
Speaker 2: a trick that he learned even when he was a child,
Speaker 2: because he spent a lot of time in reform schools,
Speaker 2: in juvenile halls and in various lock up units, and
Speaker 2: so that being being such a small person he's only
Speaker 2: about five three or five four, that even as a
Speaker 2: child he had to learn to maneuver and negotiate and
Speaker 2: figure out a situation when there were a lot of
Speaker 2: people around him who were a lot bigger than him.
Speaker 2: So one of the tricks that he learned was to
Speaker 2: act crazy. Well, today, if you talk to people about
Speaker 2: Charles Manson, they'll say, oh, yeah, he's crazy, he's insane,
Speaker 2: he's just completely whacked out. Well, I think he does
Speaker 2: deal with a lot of psychiatric issues, but I think
Speaker 2: he is also playing a part, and he's he's very
Speaker 2: open about the part that he plays when he is
Speaker 2: interviewed on TV. For instance, he told Willie that he
Speaker 2: often dramatizes what he's doing and he plays to the camera.
Speaker 2: He knows more about producing TV programs than the producers
Speaker 2: of the TV program themselves know, and he tries to
Speaker 2: set things up so that he's a star, so that
Speaker 2: he's a person who craves attention and knows how to
Speaker 2: get attention and knows how to be an entertainer. And
Speaker 2: I think that that draws a lot of people too him,
Speaker 2: So that when you see him interviewed on TV or
Speaker 2: you see video clips of him, it's important to take
Speaker 2: it with a grain of sault because a lot of
Speaker 2: it may not be as honest as it appears.
Speaker 5: Now, he does get around to talking, and we won't
Speaker 5: get into all of that, will leave it for the
Speaker 5: readers to discover themselves. But he does mention the family obviously.
Speaker 5: He talks about things like that they had gay men
Speaker 5: in their group, using it as gay hookers bringing in money.
Speaker 5: He talks about Bobby Buissel, He talks about Lennya Kazabian,
Speaker 5: he talks about the murder of Gary Hinman. A lot
Speaker 5: of people that who are big fans of Manson sort
Speaker 5: of know the way. You know, how forthright again is
Speaker 5: he about his involvement, But tell us what some of
Speaker 5: the things that he he has said about the family
Speaker 5: itself and talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Well, if there's one thing that Charlie is good at,
Speaker 2: it's not taking responsibility. He to this day denies any
Speaker 2: involvement in the murders of nineteen the nineteen sixties and
Speaker 2: blames it on the members of his family. He doesn't
Speaker 2: point out or doesn't acknowledge, for instance, that he was
Speaker 2: very manipulative in the way he gathered members of his
Speaker 2: family and the way he treated them and worked on them. Willy,
Speaker 2: in thinking about Manson, came to the conclusion that Charlie
Speaker 2: was part crime boss and part cult leader. And if
Speaker 2: you understand the role of a crime boss and you
Speaker 2: understand the role of a cult leader, how the two
Speaker 2: of those could work together, that kind of gives you
Speaker 2: an insight into how Charlie worked with the members of
Speaker 2: his family. He looked to gather people around him, and
Speaker 2: so he would sixties. He was not the only person
Speaker 2: doing that. There were many people to who are trying
Speaker 2: to portray themselves as gurus and appear very wise and
Speaker 2: appear as leaders to try to get people to follow them.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: He was sometimes successful and very oftentimes he was not.
Speaker 2: But he would go to public locations and would get
Speaker 2: up and start to speak, and people thought, wow, he's
Speaker 2: really cool. He would bring his guitar along and he'd
Speaker 2: play a song and different people who were looking for
Speaker 2: a guru to follow. Some of them would consider him
Speaker 2: and listen to what he had to say, and some
Speaker 2: ended up following him. But once he had people following them,
Speaker 2: he used a lot of classic cultic techniques to control them.
Speaker 2: He used sleep deprivation, he used food deprivation, he would
Speaker 2: use sex to control people. He would he'd do whatever
Speaker 2: he had to to control these other people that became
Speaker 2: members of the Manson family. He was very good at
Speaker 2: sizing up somebody else. He's extremely skilled in human relationships
Speaker 2: because he can look at somebody and get to know
Speaker 2: what it is they need, what it is they what
Speaker 2: their fears are, what their lifelong desires are. And he
Speaker 2: would actually change himself and kind of become whatever he
Speaker 2: needed to become or do whatever he needed to do
Speaker 2: to gain control over other people. And so a lot
Speaker 2: of people who initially went to follow him and hang
Speaker 2: out with him were quite unprepared for what would happen next.
Speaker 2: But a lot of his actions appear like some of
Speaker 2: the things that David Koresh did as with his followers,
Speaker 2: or Jimmy Jones did with his followers in Guyana, in
Speaker 2: gaining control over them and manipulating them. But at the
Speaker 2: same time he was very skilled at using other people
Speaker 2: to make money and threatening other people and demanding that
Speaker 2: he'd be the top dog. And so you kind of
Speaker 2: understand his activities as a crime boss. He was involved
Speaker 2: in stealing cars, in fencing, stolen property, and prostitution, in
Speaker 2: working with other people who were involved in other crimes,
Speaker 2: so he was completely attached to the underworld as far
Speaker 2: as illegal activities.
Speaker 5: Now, he talks about what likely happened in the two
Speaker 5: separate incidents, the Sharon Tate and then the La Bianca
Speaker 5: murders two separate days, But he talks about that they were,
Speaker 5: you know, the family itself was really just looking for
Speaker 5: cash and stuff and not or any kind of no
Speaker 5: violent mission was intended by him, was instructed by him,
Speaker 5: had been spoken about him, whatsoever. And he talks about
Speaker 5: them just being you know, these crazy girls, and again
Speaker 5: avoids suspiciously talking about tex Watson, but tell us how
Speaker 5: he justifies or rationalize how this could have possibly happened,
Speaker 5: that these people are butchered.
Speaker 2: Well, he kind of puts up his hands in the
Speaker 2: air and say, gee, I don't really know how this happened.
Speaker 2: These were just people that I hung out with, and
Speaker 2: they just happened to go and do this. But the
Speaker 2: truth that Willy kind of got kind of uncovered was that,
Speaker 2: you know, he knew exactly what he was doing, and
Speaker 2: he was wise enough to keep his hands clean of
Speaker 2: the of the evidence that he would have other people
Speaker 2: do things for him so that he wouldn't be accused
Speaker 2: of doing it. And this is something that he probably
Speaker 2: learned early from stealing cars and selling stolen cars and
Speaker 2: sensing stolen property, is that if you get other people
Speaker 2: to do it and they get caught, you don't you
Speaker 2: don't go down for the crime, so that you know
Speaker 2: the State of California has said that he is guilty
Speaker 2: of conspiracy to murder and guilty of murder by association,
Speaker 2: and so he has been given the death penalty, even
Speaker 2: though it was commuted to life. I think that's probably
Speaker 2: an appropriate sentence for the man who has done these
Speaker 2: things and is responsible for them, even though to this
Speaker 2: day he does not take responsibility. He says that, you know,
Speaker 2: these people did what they wanted to do and it
Speaker 2: was their choice. But I think if you look very
Speaker 2: closely at the stories, you realize that he was very
Speaker 2: involved in these activities as well.
Speaker 5: The interesting part of after the initial stories about Charles
Speaker 5: Manson that over the years as I followed this to
Speaker 5: a certain degree and you can never keep up with
Speaker 5: all the incredible information, But there was talk of him
Speaker 5: being a musician and his connection with the Beach Boys,
Speaker 5: and then later with that actual Rose took a song
Speaker 5: that Manson had fooled around with. In terms of at
Speaker 5: least lyrics and maybe a bit of structure, let's talk
Speaker 5: about how at least your theory just for a second,
Speaker 5: on how this all could have happened. He's a musician,
Speaker 5: he thinks maybe he's going to have stardom. People are
Speaker 5: listening to him. He has again, he's learnt things in
Speaker 5: his extended stay in prison and in the school of
Speaker 5: hard knocks how to manipulate people. He needs things, he
Speaker 5: needs people to do things. He's a small, small man
Speaker 5: and needs to get a bye. But what do you
Speaker 5: think really happened in terms of you know, this musician
Speaker 5: that fails and can't get a contract and then people
Speaker 5: are butchered. Tell us how on earth what could have happened?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know that. I have a bitter theory
Speaker 2: than anybody else. I understand that when he murdered the
Speaker 2: Sharon Tate and her house guests, that location was where
Speaker 2: Terry Melcher had been living a month or so prior
Speaker 2: to that. And Melcher was a person who had expressed
Speaker 2: some interest in Charles Manson, and according to Manson, Melcher
Speaker 2: had agreed to give him a recording contract and record
Speaker 2: his music and make him a star. But Melcher later.
Speaker 6: Denied that and and said that, yeah, he went and
Speaker 6: checked out the Manson family one time and listened to
Speaker 6: them sing and wasn't really impressed, and so he didn't
Speaker 6: he didn't follow.
Speaker 2: Up on it. So exactly what Manson heard or what
Speaker 2: Melcher said, maybe something like Melcher had said to him,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, that sounds interesting. I'll give you a
Speaker 2: call if if I'm interested in recording further or you know,
Speaker 2: or I'll call you, don't call me, type of thing.
Speaker 2: But Meltzer was living at the address that Sharon Tate
Speaker 2: was living at the time. She was married to Roman Polanski,
Speaker 2: and Polanski was in Europe filming Rosemary's Baby, and Sharon
Speaker 2: Tate was about eight and a half months pregnant, and
Speaker 2: she had a number of friends staying with her at
Speaker 2: the house that day, and it was to that location
Speaker 2: that Charles Manson apparently sent text Watson and the three
Speaker 2: girls to go there and do something exact revenge or
Speaker 2: what exactly Manson was hoping to accomplish by that it
Speaker 2: would be pure speculation, But at the same time, Manson
Speaker 2: was telling a lot of his followers about coming race wars,
Speaker 2: and part of his role as a cult leaders, he
Speaker 2: was making these apocalyptic prophecies about what was going to
Speaker 2: happen in the United States and in the world. Was
Speaker 2: painting this doomsday scenario for everybody. Part of playing into
Speaker 2: all of this is that he was making all of
Speaker 2: these prophecies but not a whole lot was happening, and
Speaker 2: he had to kind of save face in front of
Speaker 2: his followers to show them that yes, bad things are happening,
Speaker 2: and so that the murders may have been related to that.
Speaker 2: What he did share with Willie was that one of
Speaker 2: his followers was charged with murder and was sitting in
Speaker 2: prison at the time, and he told Willie that he
Speaker 2: just speculated that maybe the girls had this idea that
Speaker 2: they were going to spring this member of the Manson
Speaker 2: family out of prison. When another murder was took place
Speaker 2: that also had writing on the wall, and so that
Speaker 2: it was set up to look like a copycat murderer.
Speaker 2: And then you know, the Manson family member would be
Speaker 2: sprung from prison. But you know, Manson just kind of
Speaker 2: speculated that that was the reasoning behind it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and this guy that's had something to do at
Speaker 5: least with access reafter the fact. At the very very least,
Speaker 5: he knew the next day about the Sharon Tate murders.
Speaker 5: He knew about these things happening. So and you know,
Speaker 5: in the in the eyes of the law, that's very culpable. Anyway,
Speaker 5: they theorized that he he was a mastermind, and people
Speaker 5: have you know, argued that fact for years that you know,
Speaker 5: maybe he wasn't, but certainly everybody believes that he's in
Speaker 5: the right place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and at very least he knew about it afterwards
Speaker 2: and didn't come forward. And according to Tex Watson, he
Speaker 2: went the next night. He went along and said, I'm
Speaker 2: going to show you how it's done. And so with
Speaker 2: the labyankas he was actually present at the scene. He
Speaker 2: went inside and and tied up the labiancas and then
Speaker 2: left the house and then left it to his family
Speaker 2: members to go back inside and to do whatever. So
Speaker 2: at very least he knew exactly what was going to
Speaker 2: happen to them because of what had happened the night before,
Speaker 2: and indeed they were murdered that next night.
Speaker 5: What did Willie? Because Willie has this experience again too trusting,
Speaker 5: maybe too impressed by the guy's celebrity and you know,
Speaker 5: this patchwork of ideas that he's been reading about for
Speaker 5: years and years and again people learned. He describes him
Speaker 5: as having sort of a presence even though he's this
Speaker 5: diminutive little man. He carries himself a certain way. So
Speaker 5: there's a certain admiration obviously that's been built during this relationship,
Speaker 5: and he's he's very flattered that Charles Manson is is
Speaker 5: imparting all this intimate information to him. There are other
Speaker 5: things that are almost laughable in terms of him being
Speaker 5: an environmental you know crusader and his ideas on you know,
Speaker 5: peace and brotherhood. But tell us about some of those
Speaker 5: just for the heck of it, some of those things,
Speaker 5: Charles Manson's ideas and philosophies about some of those things
Speaker 5: that Willy had learned about.
Speaker 2: Well, to answer the first part, of your question. First,
Speaker 2: Willie was quite impressed at how important he became just
Speaker 2: by his association with Manson. Manson is a very charismatic person,
Speaker 2: and because of his celebrity and because of his charisma,
Speaker 2: people are attracted to him and notice him and know
Speaker 2: what he's doing and know where he is. When word
Speaker 2: got out that Willy was spending a lot of time
Speaker 2: with Manson and Manson was becoming very close to Willie,
Speaker 2: Willy began to notice that other inmates started to treat
Speaker 2: him differently. And for a person who has never received
Speaker 2: a whole lot of attention in his life, it was
Speaker 2: quite something for him to behold. Willy noticed that prison
Speaker 2: guards would come up to him and ask him questions
Speaker 2: about Manson or try to strike up a conversation to
Speaker 2: learn more about what Manson had been telling him, and
Speaker 2: other inmates had started to defer to Willy and treat
Speaker 2: Willy like he was an important person. And I think
Speaker 2: this quite took Willy by surprise when all of this happened.
Speaker 2: As far as philosophy, yeah, environmentalism is a big thing
Speaker 2: with Manson, and I noticed that too. In my correspondence
Speaker 2: with him, I would ask him about protecting the environment,
Speaker 2: and he would talk about how important old redwood trees
Speaker 2: are and how his philosophy of life he describes as
Speaker 2: atwa at w a, which is air, trees, water, animals,
Speaker 2: and how human beings have to uphold these and protect them,
Speaker 2: and that Manson loves animals, loves nature, loves wildlife, but
Speaker 2: he hates people. That's kind of what it really came
Speaker 2: to the conclusion of, because people chop down trees, pollute
Speaker 2: the air, pollute the water, and kill animals. I tried
Speaker 2: to engage Manson a little bit on these these activities
Speaker 2: and kind of get a sense for more profound thinking
Speaker 2: on those points, but I didn't get very far. I
Speaker 2: made the observation that, you know, maybe if people planted
Speaker 2: two trees for every one tree that they cut down,
Speaker 2: we could make this world better than it is right now.
Speaker 2: While he was not interested in hearing anything like that
Speaker 2: at all. He didn't want a single tree to be
Speaker 2: chopped down.
Speaker 5: Ever, Right was there anything You wrote them for two
Speaker 5: years and you say the correspondence was limited in its
Speaker 5: scope in terms of what you talked about, Willie. He
Speaker 5: talked about all kinds of intimate things, whether they were
Speaker 5: all completely true, but he did. He did say a
Speaker 5: lot of things that would you know, he didn't really
Speaker 5: have much.
Speaker 2: Of a filter.
Speaker 5: If he's talking about the Gary Hinman murder, he's talking
Speaker 5: about you know, his family, the girls themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was there.
Speaker 5: Anything that you found out of this entire project, and
Speaker 5: you've been living with us for quite a while, is
Speaker 5: there anything surprising or let's say, surprising profound that Manson
Speaker 5: has had to say with all this time in jail
Speaker 5: and all his experiences, is anything profound that Manson has
Speaker 5: to say?
Speaker 2: Well, I think almost every sentence that Manson utters has
Speaker 2: a certain level of profundity to it that if you
Speaker 2: sat and thought about it and think, wow, that's really
Speaker 2: that's really cool, or in the term in the words
Speaker 2: of the nineteen sixties, that's really groovy. Where he talks
Speaker 2: about the importance of clean air, clean water, protecting trees,
Speaker 2: pretty much anything that he says, you can say, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's some wisdom to that, But there is so much
Speaker 2: contradiction and so much hypocrisy, and a lot of what
Speaker 2: he says that, at the same time as has profound,
Speaker 2: a lot of what he says comes across as being
Speaker 2: quite foolish. You know, he talks about the importance of
Speaker 2: protecting the environment and doing all of these things, but
Speaker 2: you can say to him that in all of the
Speaker 2: time that he was out of prison and living a
Speaker 2: free life, what exactly did he do to clean the
Speaker 2: air and protect the environment. And it becomes quite obvious
Speaker 2: that what he was involved in was breaking laws and
Speaker 2: controlling other people, and that's what seemed really important to him,
Speaker 2: to the point where you begin to realize that his
Speaker 2: philosophy of life is an opportunity for him to criticize
Speaker 2: other peop people and maybe even gain control of them
Speaker 2: by playing on their guilt. He will say something like, well,
Speaker 2: you're accusing me of doing all of these things, but
Speaker 2: what are you doing? What is the human race doing?
Speaker 2: We're involved in wars, we're involved in pollution, we're involved
Speaker 2: in killing people. Why is what I've done so bad?
Speaker 2: Or even if I have done those how bad could
Speaker 2: it be? Because I'm on the good side, I'm doing
Speaker 2: these things for a reason. And you start to realize
Speaker 2: that that there's kind of a lack of profound thinking
Speaker 2: on his part. It's more of a defensive excuse making
Speaker 2: and not taking responsibility for his own actions. So as
Speaker 2: far as his philosophy of life, and I've spent some
Speaker 2: time trying to untangle it and get a clear sense
Speaker 2: of what it is that he stands for and what
Speaker 2: it is that he believes. But there are so many contradictions,
Speaker 2: and his conversations and his dialogues jump around from scientology
Speaker 2: to Buddhism, to Christianity, to environmentalism or to whatever is
Speaker 2: that it's hard to say that there's a cohesive whole,
Speaker 2: that there is a well thought through philosophy of life
Speaker 2: that he upholds. What does Charles Manson more profound than
Speaker 2: what you were you were hoping?
Speaker 5: No, No, I've never really read anything that really jumped
Speaker 5: off the page that hasn't been written probably better by
Speaker 5: someone else. I mean, obviously he has ideas that I
Speaker 5: would agree with, except it's just ironic and almost laughable
Speaker 5: because he will not ever be seen as an environmental crusader. Somehow,
Speaker 5: it just won't won't fit. What does Charles Manson's believe
Speaker 5: or or what does Charles Manson think about his friend
Speaker 5: Willie and Mendez being a co author of a book.
Speaker 5: What does he what's the reaction so far, as far
Speaker 5: as you can tell.
Speaker 2: I wish I had my publisher send Manson a copy
Speaker 2: of the book, and I have not heard back since then.
Speaker 2: I heard from a writer of the Rolling Stone magazine
Speaker 2: that Manson is terrified of other people writing books about him,
Speaker 2: so he will not cooperate with other people as soon
Speaker 2: as he finds out that they're writing a book. And
Speaker 2: when he talks to media, people's first question he asks
Speaker 2: him is are you trying to write a book on me?
Speaker 2: Because I don't want any more books written about me.
Speaker 2: He doesn't, I guess, doesn't appreciate a lot of the
Speaker 2: books that have been written already. I repeatedly asked Mendez
Speaker 2: Willie if it was okay for him to write a
Speaker 2: book on Manson because he had been so close to him,
Speaker 2: And I repeatedly asked him if he was going to
Speaker 2: get into trouble for saying any of the things that
Speaker 2: he was saying, because I was worried about his safety
Speaker 2: because Manson has a lot of friends, and if he
Speaker 2: at one time was very intimate with man and then
Speaker 2: was seen as betraying him, he could be in a
Speaker 2: lot of trouble. But Willie said that he was confident
Speaker 2: that what he was doing was okay, and that Manson
Speaker 2: would be okay with it. Now, whether whether he has
Speaker 2: heard that from him directly himself, I don't.
Speaker 5: Know right And in terms of what is presently, where
Speaker 5: is Willy Mendez? Oh, you say he's right back in
Speaker 5: units war again. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've joked around with him saying that he's making a
Speaker 2: tour of the prison system in California because he goes
Speaker 2: to one jail and is there for a couple of
Speaker 2: years and then requests the transfer to somewhere else, and
Speaker 2: then he doesn't like it there and that's the worst
Speaker 2: institution he's ever been in, so he requests a transfer
Speaker 2: to somewhere else. So he does skip around a lot.
Speaker 2: But he is back in corkorand right now and has
Speaker 2: very limited contact with Manson, But I continue to write him,
Speaker 2: and Willie is very excited about writing a follow up book.
Speaker 2: He's more excited than I am. But he wants to
Speaker 2: write a book on a lot of the high profile
Speaker 2: inmates and guards that he has met during his travels
Speaker 2: through the California prison system. And he's listed for me
Speaker 2: some thirty high profile individuals, including rock musicians and former
Speaker 2: NFL players and notorious inmates that he has come across.
Speaker 2: Whether that becomes a book or not, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: My schedule is a little bit heavy right now, so
Speaker 2: I am not I'm not in the market for working
Speaker 2: on another book at this time with him, but we'll
Speaker 2: see what happens.
Speaker 5: Yeah, very interesting. Yeah, it's very interesting too with all
Speaker 5: the programs now The Killer Speaks and all these programs
Speaker 5: where you're getting guys from prison cells talking, so it's
Speaker 5: very talked to an author and someone involved with the
Speaker 5: program and they said, oh, yeah, there's a lineup of
Speaker 5: people that want to talk. So everybody wants to be famous.
Speaker 5: It's a phenomena that just really sort of really helps
Speaker 5: I guess, you know, when people want to talk.
Speaker 2: As far as as far as a journalist. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: great to have people coming forward.
Speaker 5: So I want to thank you for coming on and
Speaker 5: talking about this. For those who are interested in contacting you,
Speaker 5: you do the Facebook thing. Do you have a website
Speaker 5: for people with more information and you'll operate a blog
Speaker 5: or anything like that. Give us your contact information where
Speaker 5: people can contact you, so inclined.
Speaker 2: The easiest way is through Facebook. I have a page
Speaker 2: set up entitled Charles Manson behind Bars I've posted a
Speaker 2: number of recent pictures of Manson. There's a picture Willy
Speaker 2: there and if anybody wants to contact me, they can
Speaker 2: contact me through that page. I'm also the editor of
Speaker 2: Radians and Inches, which is a quarterly journal designed dedicated
Speaker 2: to the search for the Zodiac serial killer. I'm working
Speaker 2: on a book on the Zodiac which may actually become
Speaker 2: a trilogy. I have about three books worth of information
Speaker 2: so that I'm working on that currently, and there's also
Speaker 2: a page on Facebook dedicated to that Radians and Inches
Speaker 2: or else. You can check my website Radiansaninches dot com.
Speaker 5: Yeah, very interesting. You'll have to get a hold of
Speaker 5: us and let us know about that when that book
Speaker 5: is going to come out, and we'll have you on
Speaker 5: and talk about that, because again that's one of the
Speaker 5: killers that have fascinated American and international audiences for years.
Speaker 5: So I wish you the best of luck with that
Speaker 5: and be interesting to hearing about that when it does happen.
Speaker 2: That would be great. I would love to do that,
Speaker 2: and thank you so much for having me today.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you very much. Mark. People have been listening
Speaker 5: to Charles Manson behind Bars with my special guest Mark
Speaker 5: Hewitt thank you very much, Mark, have a great night.
Speaker 2: You're welcome and bye now, good good night.