Celeb Look-a-like: Bradley Cooper and Frederick Bailey Deeming

It's a very hunky edition this week with Bradley Cooper and less known Frederick Bailey Deeming. Deeming was a robber, con man and murderer who traveled across England and Australia. In his lifetime he murdered two wives and his four children and buried the bodies under the floor boards. He was executed in June of 1892.

Sorry to kill your very cool rockabilly vibe but...

Bettie Page was kind of a nuts person. 

After she was done giving you enough material for a million 

tumblr posts and novelty purses she revealed herself to be a 

schizophrenic with religious delusions. 

She eventually landed herself a nice stay in a mental institution 

for stabbing 3 people: a husband and wife and then her elderly roommate. 

She claimed that God "inspired her to do it"

If only Spencer's could put that on a purse. 

The Spawn of Spahn

On August 16th, 1969 (exactly one week after the first of a two night killing spree involving several members) Spahn's Movie Ranch was raided on suspicion of auto theft and several other less murder-y charges. Over 100 police officers arrived early in the morning and arrested many members of the "Manson Family" and removed several children to be placed in the care of the state of California. Between this day and the raid on Barker ranch, in which Manson and other members were taken into custody (once again for auto and dune buggy theft, they hadn't quite caught on to the big stuff yet) 10 children were removed from the family. A couple were eventually returned to their parents and many were adopted and given a second chance at life without the memories of the Family. These are only 7 of the many spawn of Spahn. 

Manson's Children

Charles Milles Manson: Born in 1956 to first wife Rosalie Jean Willis, committed suicide in 1993.

Charles Luther Manson: Born April 10, 1968 to second wife Leona Rae "Candy" Stevens, since disappeared.

Michael Brunner: Born "Valentine Michael Manson" and nicknamed Pooh-Bear and Sunstone Hawk, on April 15, 1968 to Mary Brunner (the first member of the Manson family).

Children born to other members of the family

Angel: Born in March of 1970. Son of Linda Kasabian, father unknown (3 possible fathers according to Kasabian were Manson, Charles "Tex" Watson, and her ex-husband whom she left to live on the ranch).

Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz: Born October 7, 1968 to Susan Atkins (AKA Sadie Mae Glutz), poor baby Glutz was adopted once Susan was incarcerated and renamed Paul. His fathers identity isn't certain but Atkins has stated that half his genes can be attributed to the one and only Bruce Hall (another family member).

Ivan: Born September 16, 1969 to Sandra Good. Good has said the father could be either Manson or a boyfriend by the name of Joel Pugh.

Phoenix: Born January 5, 1971 to Manson Family members Catherine "Gypsy" Share and Steven "Clem" Grogan.

CNN interviews the grandson of Charles Manson (son of Charles M. Manson Jr.) and Matthew Roberts, the man who thought he MIGHT be the son of Manson and concludes with a fun trip to the DNA testing office.. Enjoy! 

Celeb look-a-like: "Vampire Killer" Richard Chase and Matthew McConaughey

Richard Chase was given the nickname after it was revealed he drank the blood of his 6 victims and cannibalized their remains. Gross. 

Sadie and the Champ

This photo is not evidence of anything criminal, just kind of funny and coincidental. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the high school of none other than Susan Atkins, standing directly to the left of her (from our view) and they took a very cool and happy photo together.

Who is Bernard Crowe?

(and why did Manson think he was dead?)

   To get to that answer you first need to know that, like many other live-ins at Spahn, Tex came and went one or two times. November of 1968 was one of those times. He decided to move out and live with a friend, Luella, with whom he had made a decent amount of money selling weed. He liked Luella but she was pretty into the whole “free spirit” type of thing. He elaborates greatly on their relationship and their life in the Hollywood apartment in his book ‘Would you die for me?’ in a chapter called “Happy in Hollywood”. Their friendship got a little weird when she ended up getting pregnant and having an abortion in Mexico, as it typically does. By March of 69’ he was back with the Fam, commuting between there and Hollywood trying to get Luella to go with him. His attempts were sincere but she refused to go past the front gate.

   Living back in Hollywood had changed Tex, he was dressing nicer, he was getting his hair styled and started to go by “Charles” again. When he left mainstream society again, it seemed the need to prove himself to his old friends outweighed his need to not get arrested. So then this happened:

   This photo is referred to as the “Belladonna Mug Shot” for obvious reasons, which I am about to tell you. This photo was taken in April in Van Nuys, CA after Charles was arrested for taking an insane amount of Belladonna root and slithering on all fours yelling, “beep beep beep!”. He describes himself in the mug shot as looking like a “demented animal”. (Side note: This arrest is the reason why he was fingerprinted for the first time in his life, a print that was later collected from the front door at 10050 Cielo Dr.)

   Because of Mansons new driving force (the upcoming race war), money was their main focus. He had heard Tex talk about Luella and their life together and she was semi-loaded, he thought it necessary for her former roomie to ask her for money so they could buy dune buggies. She wasn’t really feelin’ that. So he decides to setup a fake drug transaction that ended up involving a man by the name of Bernard “Lotsapapa” Crowe (told ya I’d get to it).

And I’ll let the man himself explain how it was to be done:

   “I called Luella… on July 1 and said that the Family had $100 and wanted to buy a kilo of grass, but our Mafia vending-machine connection would only sell 25 kilos at a throw, for a cool $2,500…. She called back and told me that she knew somebody who was interested in buying the extra kilos, but she needed to make some money out of the deal as well.”

   They made an arrangement where they would pay the Family’s “connection” $2,500 for the 25 kilos, but charge Luella’s client $125 a piece that way they would get 3 kilo’s free and Luella would make a couple hundred bucks. The only stipulation was that Watson was the only one allowed to meet with the Family’s connection.

   “T.J. would drive me down to LA and drop me near Luella’s apartment to make it look like I’d hitchhiked. He’d then go on to the dealer’s place on the other side of town, parking in the back of the apartment house out of which the man worked. Luella would drive me back there with the money, and I’d go in the front door and out the back with the bread, leaving her to explain things to her friend.”

   Here is the problem, you guys. Luella had herself a friend and, you guessed it, it was Bernard “Big Crow” “Lotsapapa/Lotsapoppa/Lotsanicknames” Crowe. Crowe was her client who was prepared to spend $2750 on all of those fake kilos and he wasn’t really cozy with the idea of just handing it over to this shifty looking hippie with no security. “While he and one of his boys waited downstairs in their big black Caddy, another one of his men tried to talk Luella and me into letting them come with us. I tried everything I could think of, including walking out of the door, but finally we ended up riding out to the connection’s apartment in Crowe’s big black car, with his men on either side of us, just like something out of a movie.”

   They allowed Tex to go in alone and kept Luella in the car as collateral. “When Crowe threatened violence to her if I tried to cheat them, I gave him one of my Texas grins and drawled that they should know I’d be coming back when they had my girl.” I think we could all guess what happens next. “… it didn’t much matter to me what they did to Luella, as long as I got the money for Charlie. They gave me the cash and I went straight into the front of the apartment and straight out the back and T.J. and I were off to the ranch.” Such a peach.

   They got to the ranch and were mid-shoulder pat when the phone rang, how annoying. Guess who! It was now Charlie’s turn to do his part. He tried to explain to Crowe and Luella that Tex had left weeks ago and he had no idea where he had gone but they were not really buying it. According to Tex, Crowe then threatened to come down to Spahn ranch and kill everyone there. He sent Sadie and Tex to the hills with a sleeping bag and said he’d “deal with Crowe”.

   T.J. informed him the next day that Charlie had gone to the apartment where Crowe lived with Randy Starr’s .22 Bluntline Revolver (sound familiar?). T.J. was supposed to shoot him but he froze up and just hid behind Manson. After a brief back and forth, Charlie grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger…aaaand nothing. Twice. Just as the towering black man begins to taunt them, the gun goes off and Crowes got a hole in his chest/stomach. Before running out, Charlie points the gun at one of she victim’s friends and demands he give him his jacket. Why? Because it was buckskin and it had fringe, duh. (This is the jacket he would later be wearing when arrested for “grand theft auto” at Barker Ranch, his last moment of freedom) Ok but then they bailed.

Charlie was on a high and couldn’t stop talking about how he “plugged the blackie” back at home. They had all assumed he was dead by the next day when news had come out that the body of a Black Panther had been dumped near UCLA. Charlie’s delusions of Helter Skelter were heightened as was his paranoia when more black men were renting horses at the ranch than usual. He thought the Panthers were really zeroing in on him at this point so they should probably get moving soon.

Ready for the happy ending? Well, for one person.

“Much later I learned that Bernard Crowe- who in fact never had anything to do with the Panthers- had not been killed, only wounded. His friends had taken him away and had lain low, fearful that if Charlie found out the Big Crow was still alive he might have come after him again.” Crowe lived his entire life with that bullet sitting in his stomach. During the trials of the Tate-LaBianca murders, the prosecution offered to have the bullet removed because it would prove the same gun was used in both shootings, Crowe refused because it’s a slightly risky operation. Charlie said he thought he saw a ghost the day that Bernard Crowe took the stand at his trial. That was the first time Manson had seen him since he left him bleeding on the floor of his apartment that day.

Mystery about the connection between Manson Family to the Satanic Church solved! There is none...

In the days and weeks following the Tate-LaBianca murders the term"ritualistic" and "satanic" were thrown around loosely and often. The LaVey family had a big problem with these rumors. Anton Lavey, mentioned in previous posts, was the founder of the Satanic Church and writer of the Satanic Bible (among other published works). The quote below is taken from an interview with Zeena LaVey, Anton's Daughter, the full interview can be found HERE

Zeena, Le Dossier Manson tries to put some truth in a story which is rather based on myths and fantasies than on what really happened. Can you clear up for us the myth about the relationships between the Manson family and the Church of Satan? Were they just at the same place at the same moment or were there much more intimate connections between the two?

Zeena : The story of how there came to be a perceived connection between Manson, Polanski, and The Church of Satan could be a book in itself. And although I’m centrally positioned with all the data to pen such a volume, I have no interest in that endeavor so this answer will have to suffice.

It's well known that my father hired Susan Atkins as a stripper for his Witch's Review night club act in San Francisco. Bobby Beausoleil's involvement with Kenneth Anger, who was very enmeshed in my family's lives at the same time, has also been well documented. But those two drifted into my family’s orbit independent of each other. And these brief connections were made before Atkins and Beausoleil even met Manson. Even when the news of Beausoleil’s murder of Hinman reached us, which came to us personally via Anger, we had no knowledge of the name "Manson". Only when the news broke about Susan Atkins’s involvement in the Hinman and Tate murders did we recognize Atkins and first heard media talk of her supposed "guru". But we just assumed she was the type of drifter there were so many of in the 60's that got "passed around" from one group to the next, looking for a leader.

After the media depicted Manson as a "satanic" cult leader, The Church of Satan, with its then very "law and order" and pro-Hollywood public image as counter-culture to the counter-culture stance needed to take a hard-line opposition to the murders and the so-called Manson Family. There was also the fear that someone might leak the fact that Susan Atkins had been directly associated with a Church of Satan event, which would’ve been a public relations disaster at the height of LaVey's popularity. So, LaVey granted numerous interviews in part to take the opportunity to do damage control to avoid guilt-by-association media accusations. Many of his early 70s interviews in my files underscore the difference between what he thought the Manson Family, and even the victims - who he also disliked for their "hippie aesthetic" - represented as opposed to the Church of Satan ideology. Even during Manson's trial, one of the Manson girls wrote a standard form letter asking The Church of Satan for help for his case. My mother filed it away, never to speak of it again until she met Nikolas many years later and gave him a photocopy of it. But to her it was just something to be filed away under "nut cases" - "do not respond", which certainly makes it clear there was no prior connection between the two groups.

Without a doubt, the media’s inaccurate portrayal of the Tate-LaBianca murders as ”ritual” and the Manson "Family" as a satanic cult directly led to satanism as we experienced it from being thought of as a "fun cocktail party", a devilish Playboy-After-Dark, to something dangerous that needed to be stamped out. By the early '70's, by the time Helter Skelter came out, there was a marked shift in the difficulties The Church of Satan had to deal with both publicly and privately in terms of daily harassment and vandalism to our home, death threats, letter bombs, telephone abuse, murderous stalking, kidnapping, murder and rape threats against my sister and me, and accusations of sacrifice, murder, and what later became the full-blown '80s "satanic panic".

So it went without saying that after 1969 The Church of Satan's party-line, for its own survival, was to distance itself from anything to do at all with Manson and his associates. This was a firm Edict passed down from the Black Pope himself. No, I'm not joking, it was deadly serious. In interviews, we were not to even suggest flirting with the very idea of an association with the Manson Family. My father’s cover-up of his having known Susan Atkins succeeded until she let the cat out of the bag in her autobiography, which led to a new wave of problems for The Church of Satan. You’ll notice that even in some of my own interviews as High Priestess of the Church of Satan prior to meeting Nikolas I dutifully maintain my father's party-line about that topic. That’s how firmly The Church of Satan was Anti-Manson.

Until 1988 when Nikolas contacted LaVey to interview him for a book he was doing on satanism in general. When my father saw the treatment Nikolas gave a notorious reviled character like Manson in The Manson File and noticed the media attention it got, I watched LaVey's attitude about Manson change over night. Old LaVeyan satanism's ego stepped in and thought, "If he can do that for Manson, what could he do for ME???" LaVey promptly presented Nikolas with a bright red membership card to The Church of Satan and proclaimed him an "Agent" which basically meant, "I'm flattering you into wanting to write The LaVey File." I was living in Los Angeles at the time and heard from my father about this writer who came to interview him, who'd written a book on Manson. In the past year, I'd already begun to notice that Manson and I were always on the same T.V. shows together, and wondered if Manson wasn’t being as falsely portrayed by the media as I was. Gradually, I began to back off of our party-line about Manson and just leave it out of my interviews. But when my own father who was so rabidly hostile to Manson called me in Los Angeles and told me I've got to see this guy Nikolas on an upcoming TV interview promoting his The Manson File, I thought my father had gone senile. You can imagine after the previous years hearing this sudden turnaround in attitude about Manson and how shocked I was. This was totally against everything he stood for. But anything to get a similar book about himself which might rehabilitate his image too.

There was absolutely NO public connection between The Church of Satan and Manson until 1988 when I was invited to perform at the 8-8-88 rally as the High Priestess of the Church of Satan. By the way, there’ve been numerous reports that Anton LaVey either attended that rally or performed at that rally. Let's set that record straight once and for all. He wasn't there at all that night in any way whatsoever.

After Nikolas completed Charles Manson Superstar, LaVey's insistence on a similar documentary about himself, as with The Manson File, grew even more emphatic. I'll allow Nikolas to describe the details in another forum. Briefly, video footage was shot and the beginning of a Video Werewolf documentary like Charles Manson Superstar for LaVey was begun. But LaVey made the conditions so intolerable that Nikolas put an end to the production. In short, Manson was more professional and easier to work with than LaVey. Now, twenty years later, the historical background is long covered up. People would like to conveniently forget that I've got documentation. We find extremes on all ends claiming wildly differing versions of revisionist Manson/Church of Satan history. On one extreme we find the very squeamish Church of Latter-Day Saint LaVey who believe that "Manson = Nikolas Schreck" so there can be no mention of anything to do with Manson whatsoever. On the other extreme, you've got fantasists like my very own mentally challenged offspring, who ignorantly spout whatever pops into their heads to whomever holds a microphone in front of them, without a clue about what they're talking about. People like this, whose need for attention is so out of control will babble anything, no matter how ludicrous. My estranged son for example is quoted by credulous "authors" and "journalists" as saying that Manson actually co-founded The Church of Satan with LaVey, Susan Atkins, Bobby Beausoleil et al. And the pea-brain journalists never question if this fantastic cast of characters he describes makes any sense, but report it as fact. Nor do they do just a little extra fact checking. They might learn that Manson couldn't possibly have helped found The Church of Satan in 1966 while incarcerated at Terminal Island Prison! Nor could Susan Atkins since she wasn't yet employed by LaVey in 1966 but a little too busy with two boyfriends on a cross-country robbery spree. This sort of rewriting of history is at the other extreme of the squeamish but rather of anything goes, make it up as you will.

What do Anton LaVey, Mick Jagger and Bobby Beausoleil have in common?

Not a lot, you'd think. But thanks to one Kenneth Anger there is just one thing. In an 11 minute film called 'Invocation of my Demon Brother' Anton Lavey, the founder of the church of satan and the writer of the satanic bible, is listed in the cast list as 'His Satanic Majesty', Mick Jagger plays himself, and Bobby Beausoleil, member of the Manson family, plays Lucifer. Side note: This short was created in 1969, in April of 1970 Beausoleil was convicted of the murder of Gary Hinman. He also appeared in a softcore porn film called 'The Ramrodder' which was shot, in part at Spahn Ranch where the Manson family lived. Anyway, heres the movie...

Heavens Gate Initiation Video

The following videos were used as an initiation/recruitment tool for members of the Heavens Gate cult and Marshal Applewhite to spread the word of their beliefs and their eschatological theories. I do apologize that part 8 is missing, it sucked down some kool-aid and ascended to a level above YouTube.

Bruce Davis: The whiny baby of the Manson Family

Bruce Davis is in prison. He is in prison for murder and conspiracy to commit murder. It is because of this man and his friends hat two other men are not alive. However, he did not act alone. Davis was a member of the “Manson Family” but remains less known because, unlike Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and Steve Grogan, he was not present at the highly publicized Tate-LaBianca Murders. Unfortunately those were not the only murders committed by the Manson family.

             At the ripe old age of 71 there is a chance that Davis may not be in prison for much longer. On March 12, 2014 he was recommended for parole (he is serving a life sentence) for good behavior. The governor, Jerry Brown, has 30 days to review and either accept or reverse the decision. This is the third time Davis has been granted parole but the last two times he was shot down faster than you can say “Helter Skelter”, once by gov. Jerry Brown in 2012 and once by gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010. The reason I share his story is because, not unlike Lizzie Borden or the West Memphis Three, there are two opposing views on Davis’ involvement in these murders and whether or not he deserved the sentence he was given.

My understanding of the Hinman murder goes like this:

            July 25^th, 1969 Bobby Beausoleil, Susan Atkins (god, where ISNT she?) and Mary Brunner all take a stroll over to Gary Hinman’s house because he sold them some bad mescaline (because there is good mescaline?) and they just had to talk about it or something. After this long drawn out fight somehow they find out that he just inherited $20,000, AKA enough money for those bitches to bathe in patchouli oil and be “free spirits” for the next hundred years. So when Manson hears of this news, clearly something must be done. The plan was to convince him to join the family and in doing so he would be giving them his inheritance and whatever vehicles he had (all a part of losing your ego to contribute to becoming one with each other). Short story long, they get back over there and Hinman was just not into it. Within a day or so Charles Manson and Bruce Davis (finally, I know) show up at his house, the others still there. Charlie walks up to him with a SWORD and slices him in the face and ear nearly cutting it clean off. Hinman yells at them all to leave, so Charlie and Bruce leave because apparently their work is done. Charlie taking their car and Bruce stealing one of Garys. Mary and susan use DENTAL FLOSS to stitch his ear back together, no one has ever been able to explain why. The entire nightmare is put to an end on July 27^th when Bobby Beausoleil stabs him in the chest and he dies. His blood is used to paint the words “Political Piggy” on the wall along with a paw print, all done in an attempt to mislead police in thinking it was a crime committed by black panthers.

The gruesome murder of Gary Hinman is said by many to be the reason those 7 died august 9th and 10^th and Shorty Shea soon after. Bobby Beausoleil was arrested August 6^th, with murders matching Hinman’s (level of brutality, writing on the wall) Manson may have thought these would prove Beausoleil’s innocence and they would have to set him free. Well we all know how that worked out.

Next up, Donald (Shorty) Shea:

            August 16^th 1969, exactly one week after the Tate murders, there was a raid on Spahn ranch where the family lived due to suspicion of car theft. This raid left Manson so shook up he thought that someone at the ranch had to have said something. Days after the raid, he decided to blame it on the ranch hand/stuntman Donald “Shorty” Shea.  (Now, the reason we know that it was Charlies idea is because we are all supposed to take Bruce Davis’ word for it so keep that in mind because you’ll really get to see how that plays in in a few sentences.) So he tells Davis, Tex and Steve Grogan to ask Shorty for a ride into town and then just like wing it or whatever. So they’re in the pickup, Steve in the front, the other two in the back. Tex hits him over the head with a pipe, Steve starts stabbing him and Bruce sits there in the back like a good boy. Then they took him to a hill behind the ranch and stepped and tortured him to death (by they I mean Tex and Steve of course) while Brice remained in the car for a while until he came out and then, after Shorty was dead, cut him on the shoulder with a knife “but he didn’t bleed”. What a gentle soul.

Shea was not found until 1977. Bruce Davis retold his story at every parole hearing about how he was sick for days over what he had done and what they did to this human being, denying him the most basic right to live. But not allowing his family to bury him or have the comfort in knowing he has passed away and is not lost somewhere or hurt for 11 YEARS, that’s just fine.