WEBVTT - S1 E2: Don’t Want Out and You’re Free 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:04.440 Rip current is the production of iHeart podcasts. 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.960 The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:08.840 of the host. 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:10.120 Producers or parent company. 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:11.840 Listener discretion is. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:22.960 It vis. 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:25.919 Nineteen seventy five. Context of tape recording is the interview 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.640 prior to forty two forty four findings of the defendant 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:38.800 Lynette from in the case of the United States versus 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:47.240 Lynette from criminal number S seven five four five one. 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:53.320 Place of interview the Sacramento County Jail. Persons present during 0:00:53.440 --> 0:01:01.600 interview Doctor Richmond, the defendant Lynette From Assistant Federal Defender 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:08.440 Robert Holly, Federal Defenders Investigator David Kraft. All parties are 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:12.800 now present. The time is three p forty one pm. 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.280 Competency right now to understand what's going on and to 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.000 be able to work with counsel. And so, if it's 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.440 all right with you, I like to receive the session examination. 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.200 I'll be giving a report to the judge and a 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.000 report to mister Walker of the Public Defender's Office, and 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.520 a copy to you. The crew order specifies it. Each 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.039 of you gets a copedy. So if it's okay, well 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:34.600 get started, go ahead. 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:36.200 Do you buy Lynette? 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:37.319 Yes? 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.400 Okay, what's your date of birth? 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:47.200 Lynette on twenty second, forty eight, what's your means? 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.720 Right now? 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:53.040 Who do you charge with? 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:59.000 Lynett attend to the assassination with the president of the Lasts. 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.760 In nineteen seventy five. Lynette from was widely known for 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.800 being a prominent member of Charles Manson's cult or quote 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:13.800 unquote family. Lynette, who was known by her Manson nickname Squeaky, 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.519 hadn't actually been present at either the murders at Sharon 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:21.240 Tate's home or at the LaBianca house, but she had 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:25.600 very openly supported Manson during his murder trial. That meant 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.840 that the public linked her to the homicidal rampage of 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:33.760 August nineteen sixty nine. The murders actually started on July 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.640 twenty seventh that year with the stabbing murder of Gary Hinman. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.200 Manson believed Hinman owed him money over a drug deal 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.840 gone wrong, so he had one of his followers, Bobby Bosley, 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:49.320 kill Hinman. Bossolet wrote political piggies on the wall in 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:53.520 Hindman's blood. He also drew a pop print. The idea 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.640 was to put suspicion on the Black Panthers, but it 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:02.040 didn't work. Twelve days later, on August eighth, newspapers reported 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.520 that Bosolet had been arrested for Hinman's murder. A cop 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.360 found him sleeping in Hindman's station wagon, which had been 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:12.239 reported stolen. In the rear of the vehicle, the cops 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:17.480 found a bloodstained knife. The night that Bossolet's arrests was reported, 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.519 members of the Manson family brutally murdered the pregnant actress 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.120 Sharon Tate and four others at a house on Los Angeles' 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:27.320 Clo Drive, in. 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.200 A scene described by one investigator as reminiscent of a 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:34.240 weird religious rite. Five persons, including actress Sharon Tate, were 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.600 found dead at the home of miss Tate and her husband, 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:38.400 screen director Roman Polanski. 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:43.360 The following night, they killed a businessman named Leno LaBianca 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:48.360 and his wife Rosemary in their home. History is written 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.520 by the victors, and in nineteen seventy five, the victor 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:56.480 was Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi. In the trial 0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:00.760 and in his mega best selling book Helter Skelter, Bugliosi 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.960 laid out his theory of the crime, Manson told his 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.920 followers that our race war was imminent, and that the 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.000 Beatles song Helter Skelter was about this war. 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:12.960 Manson told his followers that this would be a blood 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.000 bath in the streets of every American city. Manson foresaw 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.360 that the black man would win this war, but later 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:21.640 on he said, the black man, because of an experience, 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.679 would simply not be able to handle the reins of power. 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.359 So you'd have to look around at those white people 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.280 who had survived, who had escaped from Helter Skelter. In 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.839 other words, turn all the reigns of power to Charles 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:33.840 Manson and his family. 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.839 These were all things that Manson had in fact talked about, 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.720 and Bugliosi tied them to the murders, making Manton both 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.000 the architect of the crimes and also providing a motive 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:50.120 for what seemed to be absolutely senseless acts. But were 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.400 they the reason behind the Tate LaBianca murderers or the 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.520 main reason Manton was not at the scene of any 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:01.080 of the murders. This thinking goes, so Bugliosi had to 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.360 find a way to make him culpable. The Helter Skelter 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.800 theory did that, but the truth might be simpler. The 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.280 Tate and LaBianca murders were committed while Bobby Bousolet was 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.279 in custody. Were they an attempt to take the heat 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:19.520 off Bosolet to reinforce the clues left by Bassolet at 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.760 Gary Hinman's house that this was the work of the 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:25.600 Black Panthers. Author Jarret Kobek. 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.640 What seems to be the hardening consensus about the real 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:34.360 motivation of the subsequent murders was this idea of doing 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:39.159 copycat murders that then would make it seem like black 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.919 radicals had done Bousolet's murder. 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.919 But that's not what people were thinking in nineteen seventy five, 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.560 and maybe the specifics of why these killings were committed 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.599 don't matter much. After Manson and the others were arrested, 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.800 many of his followers slipped away. They hadn't signed up 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:03.960 for Murdernet, though remained loyal despite the death toll. That's 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:09.400 what people knew about her in nineteen seventy five. In retrospect, 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.200 the Tate Loabianca murders became one of the symbols of 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:17.120 the mythic end of the sixties, but the cultural, political, 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.280 and social movements of the nineteen sixties did not end 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.560 in nineteen sixty nine. As we saw last episode, they 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:29.720 continued well into the seventies. In fact, two assassination attempts 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:34.000 by radicalized women in September nineteen seventy five might be 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:40.720 a more apt symbolic end. Two failed attempts on Gerald Ford, 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.280 a man so representative of the Middle American establishment that 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.600 he was chosen to unite and lead the wounded country 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:53.159 in the wake of Watergate. I'm Toby Ball. 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.960 And I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this is rip current. 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:03.080 It just escalated. 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:04.359 It was in and it was crazy. 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.120 And then he heard about the Bottomless Pit, and so 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:09.960 we're looking through the bottomless pit because he thinks this 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.040 war's gonna happen if we need a place the high. 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:22.360 Episode two. Don't want out and You're Free. The Tate 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.240 LaBianca murders will always define the Manson family, and rightfully so. 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.960 But for Lynette, from those events brought an end to 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.280 a period in which she'd experience a radical alternative to 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:37.720 her troubled but traditional upbringing. She koremed from classic Middle 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.440 America to a tiny traveling commune led by an ex 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.240 conguru who came to define the furthest extreme of all 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.800 that Middle America felt was wrong with the radical young. 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.360 The meeting that changed the trajectory of Lynette's life occurred, 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.360 in her telling, on a night in nineteen sixty seven, 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.200 beneath a gazebo on Venice Beach, California. She was, in 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:03.160 her words, alone and at a standstill. She just dropped 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.000 out of college, was alienated from her father, and her 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:10.800 future seemed uncertain. Seemingly out of nowhere, Charles Manson appeared. 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.800 Over the course of several years, Lynette wrote a memoir 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.200 of her time with Manson from nineteen sixty seven to 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:22.480 nineteen sixty nine, titled Reflection spelled with an X. In 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.400 the book, she presents a utopian view of Manson and 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:30.120 his followers. She is a very unreliable narrator. Still when 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.960 it comes to understanding her actions in nineteen seventy five, 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.679 her perceptions of the experience are probably more important than 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:40.360 what actually happened during her time with Manson. About that 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:45.200 meeting at the gazebo, she writes names Charlie, he said, 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.640 looking directly in my eyes. In San Francisco, they called 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:52.960 me the gardener. He appeared both big and small. I 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:57.720 was enchanted yet flustered and mentally hiding. And then he 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.400 wasn't there at all until I sought him back in 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.880 earnest and he was seated on the wall. I gathered 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:08.080 the pieces of my mind. Manson seemed to know that 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:09.760 her father had kicked her out of the house, and 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.080 Lynette responded by telling him about her life that she 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.080 wanted something different. He told her the way out of 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:21.040 that room is not through the door. She was confused, 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.040 and when he explained further, Lynette noticed his West Virginia twang. 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.800 Don't want out and you're free. The want ties you up, 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:36.320 be where you are. You've got to start someplace. This 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.920 advice reminded her of a poem that she'd written during 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:42.240 a period of deep depression. She'd been staring at her 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.400 red and gray checked pajamas and imagined herself trapped on 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:51.360 a gray square again from her memoir, around and around 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.840 its edges. I'd paced like a caged animal, collapsing in 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.720 one corner to gnaw the bare bones of despair. But 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.719 when I'd looked up within this fantasy, my square had 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:07.960 become a diamond. Changing my perspective had changed my world. 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:12.839 Manson told her that he had just spent seven and 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.559 a half years in prison, and that he had experienced 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:19.560 hurt and anger until he found peace with himself. He 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:23.400 was now traveling to see his mother. Lynette could come 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:28.200 if she wanted. This is from the psychiatric interview conducted 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.040 with Lynette to determine her competency to defend herself in 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:34.280 the trial for her failed attempt on Ford. Here she 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:36.560 talks about her relationship with her parents as she was 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:37.120 growing up. 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.840 And if you were growing up, how would you generally 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:50.080 categorize your relationship with them? Smooth? Locky times. Oh, let's 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.760 say up until your teen years. In your preteen years, 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.160 we had a good relationship with both mommy and dad. 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:05.240 Were you closer to one late the other? No. 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:10.400 The mixture of the unusual and the conventional that was 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:12.880 a theme of Lynette's upbringing can be seen in her 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:18.200 participation in a dance troupe called the Westchester Lariats. Lynette wrote, 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:20.640 I was ten when I took the first of four 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.199 cross country tours with a troop and a chartered bus 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.600 and without my parents. Nearly every night in a different city, 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:29.080 we performed a two hour song and dance show in 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:34.920 theaters and auditoriums, military bases, and outdoor arenas. Her mother 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.920 accompanied her on the first tour after that, though, starting 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.520 when Lynette was eleven, her parents stayed behind. But while 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.800 this seems unusual, the content of the tour was actually 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:45.840 extremely square. 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:48.880 This evening, we bring you a musical Tiller to Spring. 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.400 Led by a professor from the University of Southern California, 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:58.360 the group performed all kinds of dances, square dancing, polka, rumba, samba, Viennese, waltz, 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:00.880 can can, Charleston, and so on, with. 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.080 Songs like Spring Is Here, April Love, and Springtime in 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:05.720 the Rockies. 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.559 The Lariats even appeared on The Lawrence Welk Show, which 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:11.040 is about as square as it gets. 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:17.319 Now here's your host, Lawrence, Well war'd your girls. 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.199 Here's Lynette again talking about her parents during her psychological interview. 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:30.360 Could you just very briefly characteria his business, warm, cold, friendly, distant, wild, quiet, passy. 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:32.560 You know how about Dad? 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:35.400 I would describe them those passes. 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:41.280 Mom and Dad both relatively quiet people. 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.280 That's right, Well, they're very afraid. 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:48.439 Do you know what he was afraid of? 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:55.000 People have difference to it. Some some people were afraid 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.760 of water. Some people were afraid of other people. They're 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.960 afraid their own image, getting in class the sun. He 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.040 had various fears on. 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:08.040 Good. 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.200 Lynette's characterization of her father as harboring various fears probably 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.640 stems from the complete dissolution of their relationship in her teens. 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.000 Typical for the times, he was a dominant member of 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:24.160 the family, his feelings and decisions determined the family's actions. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.720 Lynette traced the origin of their estrangement to her decision 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:29.920 at age thirteen to go to the beach with an 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:34.000 older cousin instead of her family. Apparently, this offended her 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.920 father's notion of Lynette's obligations to the family, and his 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:42.080 reaction was harsh. In reflection, she writes, from that day 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.240 he forbade my presence in any room of the house 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.640 he occupied, and instructed my mother to refuse me an 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.000 allowance or travel money. He permitted her to set a 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.040 plate for me in the kitchen, but thenceforth ignored any 0:13:55.040 --> 0:14:00.480 other arrangements, effectively blocking me out of his life. Reads 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.439 as a wild overreaction to what seemed like a relatively 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.840 minor transgression, and it must have been traumatic for Lynette, 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.360 who was in her teens, her grades fell, she dropped 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:13.720 out of the Lariettes and began to drink. But despite 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.720 their failed relationship, Lynette is clear that her father stopped 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:18.280 short of any kind of violence. 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.600 I never said that she was physically abused by her father. 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.680 I laid out the possibility that could have happened. I mean, 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.520 I said people thought that, but she was very insistent 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.120 that that never happened. There was no physical abuse. There 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:37.880 was emotional abuse, but nothing physical, she said. I'm Jess 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.480 Braven and I wrote a book called Squeaky, The Life 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.600 and Times of Lynette Alice Frommy or from as it's 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:44.720 more commonly pronounced. 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.080 Even with the rocky home life, Lynette managed to make 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:50.960 a positive impression in her high school. 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.320 She was considered very talented in high school. She certainly 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:57.760 was not isolated. She had many connections. She was in 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.520 a play with Phil Hartman, who went on to be 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.120 on Saturday Night Live. They were friends. He gave me 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.280 an interview about her and had very fond memories of 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:09.080 her being very talented and funny. Her English teachers and 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.880 everyone they imagined really great things for her. 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:15.400 When you were in high school, what kind of grades 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:16.080 did you get. 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.600 During the former parer. Heart schooling years did great. The 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:24.640 latter part of high school I became dis interesting. 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:29.160 Didn't you have any particular run ins with teacher's principles? 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:29.800 No? 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:33.960 How did you get along with the other kids? 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.200 Fine? 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.600 In nineteen sixty six, the from family moved from Redondo 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.760 Beach Inland to Torrance, California. Lynette had been living at 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.760 different people's houses, escaping from the damage relationship with her 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.400 father and the dysfunction in her home and Torrance, though 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.160 she returned to live with her family before finally leaving 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.720 for good. She took classes at Alchemino College, but was 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:02.120 disappointed in the experience. From her psychiatric interview. 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.200 I was also just outside the schools. I wasn't roning 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.200 into the person has to be wilpen to learn. 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:13.680 Ye that it was a time for you to do that. 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:20.840 The paper or newsweek or somebody haven't. I don't remember 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.840 where it was. You've been written about in many different publications. 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.200 They said something about your having a handsome kind of 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.320 a major clash when you were sixteen or something and 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:31.440 getting fooded. 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:31.680 Out of the hole. 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:33.800 I know they like them times like that. 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.640 Yeah, what did happen? What were the circumstances of your 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:37.240 leaving home. 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:38.000 How adore you? 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:42.400 And when I left, I was at Okay and you 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.240 were leaving because somebody said get out, we don't want 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:46.520 you around, or something like that. 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:52.320 Oh, my father and I had a discussion and we 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:53.040 didn't agree. 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:57.520 It was about something, probably very minor. I don't even 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:58.440 remember the super. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.920 In Reflections, Lynette says that she and her father clash 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.800 over something minor, in her words, a word or definition. Then, 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:11.320 she writes, suddenly enraged, he pointed to the door and yelled, 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:13.800 you get out of this house and never come back. 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.560 I cried, stuffing a big purse full of books and 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.399 makeup and miscellaneous junk. I called my college boyfriend to 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:22.960 pick me up, but he said he was too drunk 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.679 to drive and suggested I hitchhike. She walked to the 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.679 nearest freeway on ramp and thumb a ride on the 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:44.840 other end of that ride. Charles Manson After the break, like. 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:49.280 Most young people during the late sixties, we did a 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:50.600 lot of traveling around. 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.320 We did a lot of meeting people. We will not 0:17:53.480 --> 0:18:02.760 she evenistic or solely autumn to be out only for pleasure. 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.960 We were concerned about what was going on what people 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:09.520 were thinking. 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:12.760 I don't know how people were being treated. 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.080 After meeting Charles Manson at gazebo in Venice Beach, Lynette 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:21.239 joined him in a small group of followers as they 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.960 drove around California and the Southwest. These were the early 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.000 days of the family, before they settled at two ranches 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:32.600 near Los Angeles, and before Manson's philosophy grew stranger and stranger. 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:38.280 And we found dozens of young people out in the streets. 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.399 Some of them were taking care of themselves blind, others 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:48.320 of them were being abused by Henny. Number of people 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.959 being found out that they could just swoop into San 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:58.880 Francisco and picked people up. And it was my feeling, too. 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.280 Off of these people are place to stay. 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.800 Manson proved to be very adept at recruiting followers among 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:08.560 this population. 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.760 At its very basic level, it was a form of trafficking. 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.360 And I didn't realize it then, of course, but I'm 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:20.080 sure he saw me that I was a valuable commodity. 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:26.280 I'm Deborah Herman, author and indie publisher, and I was 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:32.080 fortunate enough to collaborate with Diane Lake, formerly known as Snake, 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.280 who was the youngest member of the Manson family cult. 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:43.000 I'm Diane Lake, former member of the family, and I'm 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.000 now going to be seventy. 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.920 Which I can't believe. When we first connected with one 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.720 another to do this book, Diane had kept her secret 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:58.439 for how many years forty seven? Pretty much nobody, her 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.280 children didn't even know. Manson did things so much on 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:06.600 instinct of how to survive, based on a lifetime of 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.159 being in penalage. 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:10.119 Today and this was a whole new I mean, he 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:14.159 came out of jail. He'd had lessons on how to 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:16.720 be a pimp, a successful pimp, because he'd been out 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.520 before and tried it and failed. He'd gotten more lessons. 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.959 But he came out in the middle of the lommer 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.080 e the summer of love, you know, where it's like 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:31.439 free love and free secks and free drives. Yeah, you know, 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:33.600 I'm sure that he was just like. 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:39.200 Wow, think about this. Manson started his second prison stent 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:42.919 in nineteen sixty Dwight D. Eisenhower was still president, the 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.880 civil rights movement had not yet begun. In earnest there 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:50.320 was only Middle America. He was released in May of 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.440 nineteen sixty seven, straight into the strangeness of the psychedelic sixties. 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:58.240 The number one song was the Beatles Penny Lane. Timothy 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:00.840 Leary had just participated in a public debate with a 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:05.040 professor from MIT about the use of LSD. Manson traveled 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.600 up to San Francisco at the peak of hate Ashbury. 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:10.879 The radical Young hadn't existed when he'd entered prison in 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:14.800 nineteen sixty. Now he was in their midst. It might 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:16.200 as well have been a different planet. 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.880 Imagine the hate Ashbury District as a lion peering through 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.280 a tambourine with intense, dark golden eyes. 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.920 This is from a KPIX television documentary on the Hate 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:30.920 which aired on January first, nineteen sixty seven. 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:35.240 With a cross hanging down from the tambourine and mushrooms 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.400 and roses growing below it, and the lion peering through 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:44.480 the tambourine with intense dark golden eyes. And think of 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:51.000 it as being an image disappearing, peering, coming back, retracting itself, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:56.640 manifesting itself, being beautiful, and it is all perfect. This 0:21:56.680 --> 0:22:00.960 is really it, and it is all perfect. This is 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:03.639 really it, and it. 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:04.680 Is all perfect. 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.920 Manson was known as the Gardener in San Francisco because 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:09.920 the skills that he had used as a pimp proved 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:13.520 effective with the vulnerable population of young people, mostly women 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.359 in the hate, who he could bring under his influence. 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.240 He considered this tending to the Flower children. 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.480 Young people would come to our house and say can 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:24.200 I stay here? 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:29.000 And would say you could stay here, but you know, 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:31.360 you're going to have to be quiet. 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:34.600 You're going to have to respect the place and you 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:37.959 and if you just want attention from your parents, and 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:40.679 if you're going to take drugs and you can't be 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:42.399 here as we don't do that. 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:46.800 This is clearly Lynette twisting the truth to the court 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:50.359 appointed psychiatrist, trying to make herself look as law abiding 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:54.720 as possible. The Manson family definitely took drugs. Manson used 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:59.480 LSD in particular to control his followers. In nineteen sixty eight, 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:02.080 the Manson family more or less settled in the undeveloped 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:03.560 areas outside Los Angeles. 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:08.920 We came back, lived different places in Tipanga Canyon. Then 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:11.719 we found the Spawn Ranch and it was like an 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:15.560 old movie set up in the hills of Los Angeles 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.960 in the San Fernando Valley. George was the blind owner 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:24.439 and he loved the place. But George didn't really know 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:28.760 everything that was going on, and Squeaky was in charge 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:32.600 of kind of taking care of George and making him happy. 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:37.399 George Spawn, the owner of Spawn Ranch, gave Lynette the 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:40.840 nickname Squeaky because of the pitch of her voice. As 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:43.639 Diane said, Lynette had the job of keeping Spawn content. 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:49.000 This reportedly included keeping him sexually satisfied. This utilitarian relationship 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:51.280 with a much older man would be echoed years later 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:59.360 in Sacramento. In her psychiatric interview and in reflections, Lynette 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:02.480 made her best case for the Manson family lifestyle. And 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:04.520 there must have been attractions in order for people to 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:06.480 join and then stay. 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:10.640 Yes, bad things happened there, but I don't The overriding 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:13.600 thing was the beauty of the whole area. 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:17.040 The arrangement in a general sense was not unusual for 0:24:17.119 --> 0:24:17.480 the time. 0:24:18.200 --> 0:24:23.200 That's funny, how. 0:24:23.200 --> 0:24:26.400 She where did you come back? 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:26.640 Then? 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:31.800 There were lots of communes, there were lots of guru varieties, 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:34.760 you know, and he kind of pawned himself off as 0:24:34.840 --> 0:24:40.320 this wise philosopher, you know, through his music, rather than 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:41.560 your city. 0:24:45.119 --> 0:24:49.000 Here's Lynette again from her psychiatric interview. Remember that she 0:24:49.119 --> 0:24:51.560 is trying to put herself in the best possible light. 0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:53.359 She may not be completely candid. 0:24:53.440 --> 0:25:00.200