Towards the end of his life Dennis Wilson finally spoke about Charlie and said that he has a lot to say about why and how things happened, and that he would reveal this to the world.



Charlie himself has said that there are some things that nobody has talked about and he seemed hesitant to speak further about this, but I think there was something big that no one has revealed, for reasons which I'm not sure of.


Do you all think there was something really big that we don't know about?
For example, did some very "influential" people make some type of deal with Charlie to go through with the crimes in exchange for "something"?
After all he did know some very "important" people, and those people had ties to even bigger characters.

Please discuss.

i dunno. probably not. don't get me wrong, i LOVE a good conspiracy theory but i've always found Charlie related theories to be pretty ridiculous (as some of you may remember from when Casey Chaos used to post here, lol.)

When Manson shot Lotsapoppa, there were a couple of guys with the victim. At least one of those was a friend of Dennis Wilson who told Dennis what happened. That incident was over a drug burn (Tex doing the burning). Perhaps Dennis knew a lot about what sort of deals were going on.

The thing for me is that after the original trials that spanned two years, Leslie's 77-8 trial(s), the 60+ parole hearings, countless interviews, and not least, the conversion of the majority of Manson's closest acolytes, no one has even hinted at any MAJOR deviation to what came out in court originally.

Although, I'm sure there was some other elements at play, surely defence lawyers would have leapt to their feet to call for a mistrial, especially if it meant their clients would have received a lesser sentence? In the scheme of things, a botched drug deal-revenge killing is far less spectacular than starting a race war, armageddon, etc.

Furthermore, given the passage of time, if there was any other angle, wouldn't at least one of those incarcerated would have at least, hinted at it?

Si x

i think perhaps dennis wilson knew more than he let on through out the trial and stuff. when you read 'helter skelter' its all about the race war but when you read charlie's book 'without conscience' maybe it was all just to rescue a friend from prison. i guess only charlie and the family will ever know the truth.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to any parole chances of the Family inside, is the 'race war" element to the killings.

The Beausoleil angle seems much more plausible a reason. Whilst I doubt much of what is in Nuel Edmonds book, it would appear these reasons, plus Manson's gradual slide into psychosis make the most tangible sense.

Didn't Charlie make a rare display of unambiguous honesty when talking to Diane Sawyer; somewhere along the lines of, "am I to pay for the rest of my life for one psychotic episode?"

Maybe someone will correct me on the quote.

Si

I suppose it is stretching it a bit to say that it was all a big conspiracy, however, I just find it hard to believe that they would kill those people in an atttempt to pin it on blacks in order to start as race war.
Why did they not use racial slurs or other clear attempts to pin it on the blacks?

They were using HEAVY and powerful drugs, you could say they were living on them, so it was not a well thought out plan at all.

The Beausoleil interview I believe is the most accurate account of why things went down the way they did.

According to him, they were at the end of their rope, so to speak; the ranch was being raided by the police regularly, they falsely beleived that the black panthers were after them, the bikers who were burned by Hinman were after them, the food they were gathering from the dumpsters was bieng poisoned with rat poison(if I'm not mistaken) - in other words, they were being forced out of society and perhaps this was a way to get back at society.

Its all very murky, I'm just trying t make some sense out of it all ...

Bugliosi's Helter Skelter bests describes why the HS theory is most likely correct. Charlie said to several people that piggies needed kiling weeks before the Hinman murder. The girls during the trial used many methods of obfuscation and lies. Almost daily the girls tried new alibis and stories.
Look in the last 75 pages of HS if you want to read about the proof of HS before the Hinman murder. HS is a 600 pg book.

seems to me...that S. Kay picked them up after Labianca

As for the girls changing their statements, I believe that they were following the advice of their lawyers (public "defenders") who could not care less about defending their clients, they wanted to make sure that this case was going to be a slam dunk for the prosecution. [end quote]

Mach2 replies:

This is wrong. The girls and Manson ignored all advice they were given by their attys. You needn't take Bugliosi's word for what went on. Leslie was very vocal against her atty Hughes and Hughes was probably murdered by Bruce Davis.

Sadie's atty had arranged a deal that guaranteed Sadie wouldnt get the chair and Sadie backed out of it and was sentenced to death.

All three girls were going to testify that Manson had NOTHING to do with the murders(except the fourth, Linda Kasabian). All three attys for the girls bitterly tried to stop them from doing this.

Manson's atty Kanaris fought tooth and nail to keep Manson out the Chair. Family attys Hughes, Shinn and Kanaris spent fron 1 to three nights in jail for contempt because they so bitterly fought the court.

One of the 1st court appointed attys quit rather than participate in aiding the 3 female defendents take the blame for Charlie's deeds.

All of what I said can be corroborated by witness testimony. You neednt take Bugliosi's word. All you have to do is read what they said.