She was a homely Southern Belle who lived in Alabama most of her life. Mobile. Due to an hormonal imbalance she tended to have hair all over her body. In inappropriate places. Lots of it.
Her parents, such as we can see from news reports, seemed very old school, conservative, Southern. Mom looks like the spoiled princess she likely was. Dad looks to me like he should be branding cattle and smoking stogies. Actually come to think of it Dad looks a bit like George Spahn. Hmmm.
Mom and dad come from an era where children should be seen and not heard. If the young girl ever came to them with her problems, I can't imagine them being addressed. Am I being too harsh? Well her older sister overdoses and dies because of a bad drug habit. I have to think somebody was not a great parent or communicator.
The girl hits the road. Her parents don't even know where she is. They send money occasionally, but only just enough to get her off the phone. She of course has found her new Prince Charming. He tells her she is beautiful. He
introduces her to group sex. She gets oral sex from the leader, from his idiot sidekick, right there on the bar of the saloon. She thinks she is learning self esteem. Of course, she is just being mindfucked. But for the first time in her two decades, she fits in. She doesn't want this moment to end. And she'll do whatever the Prince tells her to do. And in so doing, spend the rest of her life alone, locked up, unloved.
[[Not posted in 12 days which is quite long for the Col. Wasn't because of work, travel or anything really. Just because I had nothing to say. But now I do. Stay tuned.]]
24 comments:
We missed ya, Colonel, good to have you back.
And NO, I'm so NOT just sucking up!
x;-)
Harsh words Col.We cant all be beautiful now can we:P.
There is a picture around of a five or so year old Patricia Krenwinkel and she had that sad, empty, my needs aren't being met look even then.
Later pictures of her bring an urge to want to just reach in and shake her...why, why, why.
Thank you for the as always thought provoking column, Col.
Continuing punishment -fine but still a danger to society-i dont think so.
Speak, Col! We await your words...
Yes, please, do tell.
Without sounding like I am making excuses for murder--what type of hormonal imbalance caused this hairyness problem? From a genetic angle, could this same imbalance have caused more aggresiveness in her, topped with her feelings of inadequacy etc? (hairyness being something I would associate more with men and testosterone)
I am not excusing her actions, nor am I making fun of her for being hairy. I am just trying to figure out motivation, and what makes people totally cross the line.
I think excess hair in the wrong places in women is usually a simple higher androgen to estrogen ratio hormone imbalance. The high androgen level, unopposed with enough estrogen for balance, results in fine hairs turning dark and coarse and in more of a male pattern on the body. I don't think excess androgen is associated with aggressiveness.
Other hormones have more to do with aggression I think. Seratonin levels and the "ine" hormones like epinephrine etc.
Have heard of rage in dogs. There is a thought that in dogs with rage, an underlying genetic tendency is encouraged by conditioning and inconsistent training. Aggressive behavior due to frustration etc.
In one of the parole board hearings, doesn't PK say she always wanted the love and understanding denied her, and so her own behavior of denying compassion to others was out of character and surprising to her...something like that?
Thanks for the info.
Also, if you think about the mindgame she was in, would she have done anything to keep the love of those who finally showed her 'love'. And I am not trying to be mean about Pat, but what value could she have had to the game? She wasn't really pretty enough to hold men, you don't hear of her being a thief or hot wiring cars. I think she watched the few kids there were though, didn't she?
So perhaps add the fact that she saw the 'value' the others brought into the situation and was so inclined to do whatever she could to keep fitting in? Or go back to "zero" by losing what little admiration she had from people, which would be a horrible thing to a anti-social narcissistic personality for it is almost like death to them.
Very interesting!
Do you suppose Pat's greatest value might simply have been her trust in Charlie? From what we read of her, she had implicit faith in him and wasn't inclined to ask questions...
Wondering what Katie has been up to since she has been "behind the walls", anyone know?
Gotta feel for her, no snitching, no betraying...
That could have been her value, yes. If you look at the fact that she was living with her sister Charlene (I believe her name was) who was a heavily drug addicted person, and then boom there's Charlie and she takes off (without even her paycheck)it is kind of saying that her life really must have truly sucked at that point. Or she thought it did-maybe looking back on it now, she thinks it was not that bad.
At the Ranch, it would seem she had at least one admirer, a boy named Rocky(whose Mom was big at the Fountain of the World, and who ended up wanted/searched for by the police along with Clem when Clem left the mental hospital). From what is said, he used to follow her around and enjoy conversations with him. I wonder if she remembers him now.
Thanks for the Rocky bit. Hadn't heard of him, or his fondness for Pat.
Grogan was a kid from the valley, out there by Spahn's Ranch, right? Didn't he hang around the ranch in times before Charlie and the gang? Trying to connect his time at the state hospital with Spahn's Ranch, and why he wasn't found, but maybe there wasn't much effort going on to find him.
Wonder where Rocky is now, and like you say...if PK wonders about him.
According to what I can find, Anne Todd, mother of Hugh Rocky Todd, waited two months to report him missing.(last seen at Spahn Ranch on October 5, 1969, reported missing on December 5, 1969). Anne Todd lived at the Fountain of the World. She went to go pick Rocky up, and was told he left. She checked with relatives in N.C. to see if they had heard from him but they hadn't.
Steve was at the ranch before the so called family, was committed to Camarillo Mental Hospital for exposng himself to children. His "official" story is that his wang fell out of his pants while he wrestled with kids because his crotch wore out of his pants cuz of all the horseback riding and stuff at the ranch. Yeah, okay.
Ed Sanders states in his mess of a book, that there was a Rocky who followed Pat around and liked to talk for hours to her.
Also from an article on a musician called Topper Price, the part about Pat:
One summer while living in Mobile, Topper had a brief fling of sorts with Charles Manson clan member Patricia Krenwinkel before he discovered that she was a fugitive (Krenwinkel participated in the Tate/LaBianca murders in 1969). Topper, who was then about 16 years old, was watching television with some friends when a news bulletin announced that Krenwinkel had been arrested in Mobile (Manson had sent her there to live with her aunt after the murders). Krenwinkel had been apprehended at a favorite Mobile hangout of Topper and his pals. "We've got to get out of this house!" said one guy, terrified that the police might raid the home, where Krenwinkel had been hanging around for a week or so. When Topper asked why everyone was so freaked out, one fellow said, "Hey Top. Remember Katie, that girl who's been giving you back rubs whenever she stops by? That's Krenwinkel."
But I do believe Pat was apprehended riding in a car and she pulled her hat down or something not in some hang out.
Catscradle, enjoyed reading your post. Thank you for all the good info...
Unlike the others,it's hard reconciling shy, quiet, unloved Pat Krenwinkel with an image of her chasing Abigail, upraised arm and knife in hand, slashing away.
Have also wondered about her behavior in the weeks she spent back home after the murders.
Yes, mess of a book! The Ed Sanders book is frustrating...no index, no order, no facts, just a mess. Not unlike that other mess, Shadow Over Santa Susana.
Thank you for your kind words.
I have the same problem with the meek image and the Abigail image.
I have a hard time with brutally killing someone and then going "home" and acting all "normal" (whatever that may be). We have Pat, and then Tex going about life like nothing really happened. How to reconcile those images is beyond me.
Our Ms. Krenwinkel is currently training leader dogs, to answer my own question. But you likely knew that.
And ain't it a cliche, the meek types are always the ones to snap? Then the neighbors always say, "But she was always such a NICE girl..."
I don't know, in my case, I never really busied myself in finding out what any of them are doing in prison, because the bottom line to me is that they are incarcerated. Pat, well, regardless of whether or not she does well, helps others or whatever (which is a grand thing to do, as was the case with Abigail and her working in Watts etc.), I do not believe that she will ever get out, for there is still the punitive angle of imprisonment, and what is the punishment for snuffing one life, let alone many? So, whatever they are doing in prison, I would imagine would be an action to their ultimate goal, which would be freedom. Pat's words of "What do I have to do to get out of here, die?" ring in my head. And the answer to that is, yes, probably.
And I believe that if she snapped, there wouldn't have been an effort to mask the crimes. Nor would there have been multiple crime partners. People who snap don't work in groups whereas people with personality disorders are known to form bonds with one another and commit crimes.
Though, to clarify, there are a few instances of people snapping and covering crimes. One that comes to mind, is an abused woman who killed her spouse and kept his body in the spare bedroom. Went on to remarry, raise a family etc for years in that house.
But the difference is, I believe, that keeping a dead body your bedroom is different from going "home", acting the normal teenager, etc., as Pat and Tex did.
Geesh, how did she explain the smell? "Honey, some meat must've gone over, for like the last fourteen years..."
But I digress. Both seem like major cases of denial to me. Meaning "Nothing happened" vs. "I did not do that".
LOL. I hear you there.
But on a deeper level, the motivations and actions leading to the denial are different, thusly making perhaps the denials different. Just like the kid stealing money from his parents wallet or a kid stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. Stealing is stealing and all that happiness, but I think the latter would be viewed in a different light, and the punishment not as severe.
The lady who killed her soon to be ex-husband, who kept his body (eww) out of lack of knowledge of disposal and fear of being caught. Fear for her children etc., and the abuse she suffered at the hands of the man was well documented. She killed at the point when he claimed he was going to do her in. In the case of the Manson killers, they invaded others homes and attacked complete strangers. (or we are lead to believe). They were in no mortal fear as the abused lady, unless it was the fear after invading someone elses home, which they should not have been in to begin with.
So, the abused woman, while hiding and denying anything to do with her soon to be ex husbands demise, did it out of fear and for her children, while though not an excuse for murder or her actions, is on a totally different level than invading a strangers home and killing because you could, and then denying it because of fear of getting caught.
To me those are two totally different motivational factors in play, while similiar on surface, different once compared.
where are you monk?missing your posts.
col this was a great read, you know how to tell a story. sounds pretty accurate, too.
hi deadwood!!!! thanks for missing me.
: )
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