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.