Saturday, May 12, 2007

Can't Stop the Leslie




INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Manson had told Watson to make sure that everyone did something. And when Tex handed me the knife, I knew he wanted me to do something. And at that moment, I lost all sense of my humanity. I couldn't stop. And then I was able to get a hold of myself and I stopped. And that's when I began to wipe off fingerprints..

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ANGELE: Okay. You also dressed in the victim's clothing when you left. Correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ANGELE: And disposed of the clothing you had been wearing because it was blood soaked.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ANGELE: No? INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ANGELE: They were burned?
INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Watson needed a change of clothes and I gave him mine. And he threw the clothes we had been wearing in the trashcan.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ANGELE: I understand. But the

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And then I burned the others when we got back to the ranch.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ANGELE: Including Mrs. LaBianca's clothes.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Those are the ones that I burned.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ANGELE: This happened quite a long time ago. And I guess the question that really needs to be answered is how do you reconcile the fact that for no reason that I could gather, you entered a residence just because it was there and slaughtered the two people inside?
Is there really any other question that needs to
be asked?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

INMATE VANHOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING MEMBER CASTRO: And you took items from the house. You?

INMATE VANHOUTEN: A pair of shorts. I had--Charlie had ordered that we all change clothes, and I didn't have a change of clothes, and I told Tex that I didn't think it was necessary.

And he said, "We are to change clothes." And so I wore shorts.

PRESIDING MEMBER CASTRO: Did you take money?

INMATE VANHOUTEN: I don't remember taking any money.

PRESIDING MEMBER CASTRO: I read somewhere where you told a friend how much money you too at--back at the Ranch.

INMATE VANHOUTEN: Yes, change was taken, but I don't --I can't remember if--

PRESIDING MEMBER CASTRO: If you took it.

INMATE VANHOUTEN: --I took it, or if my co-defendants took it.

PRESIDING MEMBER CASTRO: And it says your burned your clothes.

INMATE VANHOUTEN: Yes.

P[RESIDING MEMBER CASTRO: Was that to destroy evidence?

INMATE VANHOUTEN: Yes. That was part of the seeing through of everything.

PRESIDING MEMBER CASTRO: (inaudible)

Did you have a lot of blood splattered on you?

INMATE VANHOUTEN: No.


>>>Okay, in this one she says she didnt have clothes, so she took the shorts..and burned them.

All I can say is "Liar, Liar, shorts on fire".

jempud said...

OK, let’s get some perspective here. According to FBI stats, in 1969 there were 14,760 murders in the USA. Some 1,386 of these were in the state of California. Other than the TLB murders and those convicted, how many of the murdered/murderers can you name?

I thought so. High profile cases become high profile because the media sense there is a bigger story. Sharon Tate was glamorous, young, connected, bankable and pregnant. Manson was weird. He was connected (by the media) to a troupe of young, predominantly female, hippies who lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle of sex and drugs. What not to sell the story?

The media made the case, and it’s largely because of the media that we have all this interest today, including this blog. How many other blogs are there for 1969 murder cases?

And so we sit and recycle the same worn out arguments about how all these terrible people have to rot in hell for the rest of their lives because of the terrible things they did. We see prison as punishment, not a chance at rehabilitation. Redemption seems not to be an option at all. We too are victims of the media.

Far worse atrocities happen, and happen regularly. Let me share one incident from my life, about which obviously no one here knows. And no, I am not a duck and my name is not Jemima. I am an Argentinian citizen, although I no longer live there. I left Argentina on a false passport in August 1976, in fear of my life. Two of my best friends were taken up in a helicopter by the Argentine Air Force and flown over the River Plate. One of them, Rafael, had his feet tied with piano wire and along with several others was thrown into the water. His body has never been found. My other friend, Quique, a brilliant musician, was the last to be thrown in, but he wasn’t. They untied his feet, flew him back to the city and let him go – ‘to warn his friends’. Not a good idea as he was barely capable of speech. You can imagine his mental state. I held his sobbing, throbbing body for days on end. Three weeks later he was picked up again by the police and his body was discovered in a ditch, badly mutilated, three weeks after that. The hand he played the guitar with was missing – it was posted through the letter box of his parents’ house a week later with a note saying this is what we do to the ERP and the Montoneros (go look on wikipedia).

The butchery at Cielo Drive is not unique. Weird, yes, but the weirdness comes from the media hype and the behaviour of the defendants as much as the murders themselves. In terms of blood and guts there are plenty of other grisly murders among the 14,760 that took place in the US in 1969, or the 1,386 that took place in California. The ones we can’t even name. I’ll not burden you with the death statistics in Argentina, Chile, Columbia, etc. No one cares too much about Latinos.

So, some perspective, please. I honestly don’t give a toss about whether LVH is paroled or not, but I do wonder about this hatred towards people most of us have never met and probably never will. I don’t think it’s very healthy. I can not hate (or like) LVH – I don’t know her, and can only respond to the cold facts as I am persuaded to accept them. But of one thing I am sure. If the press had not taken up the Tate-La Bianca cases and built the Manson Family into the giant myth it is today, and politicised the case to the extent that it would be political suicide to even consider paroling her, then I am sure she would have been paroled by now.

I’m not expecting anyone here to agree with me, and why should they? But we’re all adults here, and, I hope, big enough to listen to (and respect) an opposing point of view.

Pax vobiscum

Jem

Anonymous said...

Hatred, no truth seeking yes.

I can relate. My best friend and her child were murdered by her husband. Then he turned the gun on himself. I found them. So I understand.

Murders there are many and I really dont deem it necessary to list them on a blog for Tate-LaBianca. But the ones that come to mind out of the thousands, Mona Jean Gallegos, Robin Graham, Deborah Furlong, and I could go on.

I respect your opinion, but just do not agree.

Heaven said...

jempud said...
OK, let’s get some perspective here. According to FBI stats, in 1969 there were 14,760 murders in the USA. Some 1,386 of these were in the state of California. Other than the TLB murders and those convicted, how many of the murdered/murderers can you name?



Gary Hinman
Marina Habe
Donald Shea
Cecelia Shepard
Ambers Shewmaker
Darlene Ferrin
Paul Stine


To name a few.....

=)

Anonymous said...

And from my recollection part of the condition for parole is owning up to what one did, and being honest.

What these last blogs are showing is the change in story, which is not owning up to anything, thus one of the conditions for being parolable is not met. This putting aside the heinousness and callouosness of the murder itself.

Just my opinion.

zoomjaw said...

I don't advocate anything but the same law for everyone.Parole or no parole I just get tied of reading in the paper, or seeing on t.v. the uneven rules that these decisions are based.I don't buy the arguement of heinousness of the crime.There has NEVER been a "kind and gentile" murder.
I know there has to be a balance between justice and economic reality.Victims survivors will always want blood and that is understood.But we as a society do not look favorably on paying to build new prisons,staff them,maintain them and so on.
So how we pull the politics and media hogwash out of the system to find a stable and constant policy seems to be the key.Just looking back to see if the victim was famous enough,rich enough to merit a high level of "justice" is not working for anyone.