Tex Watson | |
---|---|
Born | Charles Denton Watson December 2, 1945 |
Other names |
|
Criminal status | Incarcerated |
Spouse | Kristin Joan Svege (m. 1979;div. 2003) |
Children | 4 |
Allegiance | Manson Family |
Conviction(s) | First degree murder Conspiracy to commit murder |
Criminal penalty | Death; commuted to life imprisonment |
Details | |
Date | August 9–10, 1969 |
Date apprehended | November 30, 1969 |
Imprisoned at | Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility [2] |
Charles Denton "Tex" Watson (born December 2, 1945) is an American murderer who was a central member of the "Manson Family" led by Charles Manson. [3] On August 9, 1969, Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Susan Atkins murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Steven Parent at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles. The next night, Watson traveled to Los Feliz, Los Angeles, and participated in the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Watson was convicted of murder in 1971 and sentenced to death. As a result of a 1972 California Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality in the state of the death penalty, he avoided execution but has remained incarcerated ever since.
Watson was born in Dallas, Texas, on December 2, 1945, [4] and grew up in nearby Copeville. He was the youngest of three children. [5] Watson grew up attending church locally, and was an honor student, editor on the school paper, and captain of the football team, and set a record for the high hurdles at Farmersville High School. [5] [6] In September 1964, Watson moved to Denton, Texas, to attend the University of North Texas, where he became a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. [5]
In January 1967, Watson began working at Braniff International as a baggage handler. Using free airline tickets to travel, he visited a fraternity brother in Los Angeles; there he became interested in the psychedelic and music lifestyle of the late 1960s. While driving one day, Watson picked up a hitchhiker, Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys, and drove him to Wilson's house. There he was first introduced to the Manson Family who lived with Wilson.
Watson lived with the Manson Family at Spahn Ranch for nine months before the crimes, becoming close to Manson, and eventually choosing to believe Manson's lies and deception. [7] According to the late prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi, Manson employed “a variety of techniques" to accomplish this, [8] and was able to bring Watson and others to conspire in following Manson’s delusion to ignite a massive race war (which Manson called “Helter Skelter”, inspired by the Beatles song of the same name) intended to bring in Manson's kingdom following this war. [9]
In December 1968, Watson left the Manson Family. He moved in with a woman who sold small quantities of marijuana and LSD to his friends, [10] and became her lover. The two lived in Hollywood for a few months, improving their illegal activity, until Watson became restless and rejoined the Family. [10]
Following Manson's orders to "find money for Helter Skelter", Watson contrived to steal money from his lover's friend, Bernard Crowe. [5] Crowe called the ranch, spoke to Manson and told him he would come to the ranch and kill everyone if he did not get his money back. In response, Manson shot Crowe in the stomach [11] using the same pistol that Watson would use in the Tate murders. [10]
The two encountered one another in the California Men's Colony in the early '80s. Following a long conversation about the past and religion Crowe forgave Watson for his role in the theft and the shooting. [12]
On August 9, 1969, as a member of the Manson Family, Watson led Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to 10050 Cielo Drive, the home of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate. They murdered all four people inside the house, and also Steven Parent in the driveway. Watson and his crime partners inflicted 28 stab wounds to one victim, Abigail Folger, alone. [13]
The following night, Watson and six others went to the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Manson and Watson entered the home. According to Watson's book Will You Die For Me?, [10] Manson held the occupants at gunpoint while Watson tied them up, before the gang killed them.
On October 2, 1969, Watson fled the Spahn Ranch and headed back to his native state of Texas. On November 30, 1969, he was arrested in Texas for the Tate–LaBianca murders. He and his lawyers fought extradition to California for nine months. Upon arriving in California, he stopped talking and eating, losing 55 pounds, and began regressing to a catatonic state. He was admitted to Atascadero State Hospital for a 90‑day evaluation period to determine if he was fit to stand trial. He stayed there until February 1971, when he was deemed able to stand trial. [1] : 514–515
On October 12, 1971, Watson was convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. [14] One week later, the same jury took only two and a half hours to determine that he was sane. [15] On October 21, 1971, he was sentenced to death. He arrived on California's death row on November 17, 1971, but avoided execution when the California Supreme Court's People v. Anderson decision resulted in the invalidation of all death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972. [1] : 661–662 He was found guilty of the murders of seven people: Abigail Folger; Wojciech Frykowski; Steven Parent; Sharon Tate Polanski, who was eight months pregnant; Jay Sebring; Leno LaBianca; and Rosemary LaBianca.
According to his prisoner outreach website, Watson converted to Christianity in 1975. [16] Will You Die for Me?, Watson's autobiography, as told to Raymond "Chaplain Ray" Hoekstra, was published in 1978. [17] In 1979, he married Kristin Joan Svege, and together they founded Abounding Love Ministries, Inc. in 1980. [18] Through conjugal visits they were able to have four children (three boys, one girl), but those visits for life prisoners were banned in October 1996. After 24 years of marriage, Svege divorced Watson after meeting another man in 2003. Svege and Watson remain friends. He had become an ordained minister in 1981 and received a B.S. in Business Management in 2009 from California Coast University, a distance-learning college. [19] [20]
In August 1982, a Southern California‑based group, Citizens for Truth, submitted some 80,000 petition signatures and several thousand letters opposing Watson's parole. The group received support from Doris Tate, the mother of victim Sharon Tate. In later years the group, with Doris Tate and her daughters Patricia and Debra, submitted petitions with more than two million signatures. [21] [22]
In May 2023, Watson started the Abounding Love Podcast, consisting of sermons given from 1977 to 1984 in the chapel of the California Men's Colony, San Luis Obispo, California. [23]
In 2012, Watson disputed a request to release recordings made in 1969 with his defense attorney Bill Boyd. The recordings became part of a bankruptcy proceeding involving the deceased attorney's law firm. Members of the Los Angeles Police Department said they believed the recordings might contain clues about unsolved murder cases involving the Manson Family. Watson asked the presiding judge to allow police to listen to the tapes but not take possession of them. [24] [25] Judge Richard A. Schell ruled Watson had waived attorney-client privilege for the tapes after he allowed the co-author of his 1978 memoir to hear the recordings. The LAPD acquired the tapes, which allegedly contained Watson confessing to other murders, but reportedly no new information. [26] In September 2014, Richard Pfeiffer, an attorney for Leslie Van Houten, said that he was considering subpoenaing the tapes to look for information that might help Van Houten in her next parole hearing. [27]
Watson's own minimum eligible parole date was November 26, 1976; he has been denied parole 18 times since then, including two stipulations. He was most recently given a five-year denial of parole at a board hearing in October 2021. [28] He remains incarcerated at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, California. [29]
Charles Milles Manson was an American criminal, cult leader, and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some cult members committed a series of at least nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969. In 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, including the film actress Sharon Tate. The prosecution contended that, while Manson never directly ordered the murders, his ideology constituted an overt act of conspiracy.
Vincent T. Bugliosi Jr. was an American prosecutor and author who served as Deputy District Attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office between 1964 and 1972. He became best known for successfully prosecuting Charles Manson and other defendants accused of the Tate–LaBianca murders that took place between August 9 and August 10, 1969.
Patricia Dianne Krenwinkel is an American convicted murderer and former member of the Manson Family. During her time with Manson's group, she was known by various aliases such as Big Patty, Yellow, Marnie Reeves and Mary Ann Scott, but to The Family, she was most commonly known as Katie.
Susan Denise Atkins was an American convicted murderer who was a member of Charles Manson's "Family". Manson's followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in California over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969. Known within the Manson family as Sadie, Sadie Glutz, Sadie Mae Glutz or Sexy Sadie, Atkins was convicted for her participation in eight of these killings, including the most notorious, the Tate murders in 1969. She was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court invalidated all death sentences issued prior to 1972. Atkins was incarcerated until her death in 2009. At the time of her death, she was California's longest-serving female inmate, long since surpassed by fellow Manson family members Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel.
Leslie Louise Van Houten is an American convicted murderer and former member of the Manson Family. During her time with Manson's group, she was known by aliases such as Louella Alexandria, Leslie Marie Sankston, Linda Sue Owens and Lulu.
The Manson Family was a commune, gang, and cult led by criminal Charles Manson that was active in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group at its peak consisted of approximately 100 followers, who lived an unconventional lifestyle, frequently using psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine and hallucinogens such as LSD. Most were young women from middle-class backgrounds, many of whom were attracted by hippie counterculture and communal living, and then radicalized by Manson's teachings. The group murdered at least 9 people, though they may have killed as many as 24.
Helter Skelter: The True Story of The Manson Murders is a 1974 book by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. Bugliosi had served as the prosecutor in the 1970 trial of Charles Manson. The book presents his firsthand account of the cases of Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and other members of the self-described Manson Family. It is the best-selling true crime book in history.
Helter Skelter is a 1976 American true crime drama thriller television film based on the 1974 book by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. In the United States, it aired over two nights. In some countries it was shown in cinemas, with additional footage including nudity, foul language, and more violence.
Linda Darlene Kasabian was an American woman known for being a member of the Manson Family, a cult led by Charles Manson in late-1960s–early-1970s California. She was present at both the Tate–LaBianca murders committed by the cult members in 1969, but received legal immunity for her testimony as a key witness in District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi's prosecution of Manson and his followers.
Ronald W. Hughes was an American attorney who represented Leslie Van Houten, a member of the Manson Family. Hughes disappeared while on a camping trip during a ten-day recess from the Tate-LaBianca murder trial in November 1970. His body was found in March 1971, but his cause of death could not be determined. At least one Manson Family member has claimed that Hughes was murdered by the family in an act of retaliation. No one has been charged in connection with his death.
Robert Kenneth Beausoleil is an American murderer and associate of Charles Manson and members of his communal Manson Family. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the July 27, 1969, fatal stabbing of Gary Hinman, who had befriended him and other Manson associates. Beausoleil was later granted commutation to a lesser sentence of life imprisonment, after the Supreme Court of California issued a ruling that invalidated all death sentences issued in California prior to 1972.
The Helter Skelter scenario is an apocalyptic vision that was supposedly embraced by Charles Manson and members of his so-called Family. At the trial of Manson and three others for the Tate–LaBianca murders, the prosecution presented it as motivating the crimes and as an aspect of the case for conspiracy. Via interviews and autobiographies, former Family members related what they had witnessed and experienced of it.
Mary Theresa Brunner is an American criminal and former member of the "Manson Family" who was present during the 1969 murder of Gary Hinman, a California musician and Ph.D. candidate. She was arrested for numerous offenses, including credit card theft and armed robbery, and she served a prison sentence at the California Institution for Women.
Paul Alan Watkins was an American man who was a member of Charles Manson's "Family". In the period leading up to Manson's trial for the Tate–LaBianca murders, Watkins provided the prosecution with information that clarified the "Helter Skelter" motive.
George Christian Spahn was an American rancher who once owned the Spahn Ranch near Chatsworth, Los Angeles. Spahn rented the ranch to the movie industry to film Westerns, and later allowed Charles Manson and his "Family" of followers to live at the site.
Steven Dennis "Clem" Grogan is an American convicted murderer and former member of the Manson Family. He was released from prison in 1985.
Donald Jerome Shea, also known as "Shorty", was a Hollywood stuntman, actor and murder victim. The location of his body was discovered in 1977, eight years after his death. Manson Family leader Charles Manson and members "Clem" Grogan and Bruce M. Davis were eventually convicted of murdering Shea. Tex Watson was a possible participant in the murder, but was never charged.
Helter Skelter is a 2004 television film written and directed by John Gray, based on the 1974 non-fiction book by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry about the murders of the Manson Family. The film is the second film to be based on the Charles Manson murders, following the 1976 two-part TV movie of the same name. Unlike the 1976 version, which focused mainly on the police investigation and the murder trial, this version focused mainly on Linda Kasabian's involvement with the Manson Family and their development.
The Tate–LaBianca murders were a series of murders perpetrated by members of the Manson Family during August 9–10, 1969, in Los Angeles, California, United States, under the direction of Tex Watson and Charles Manson. The perpetrators killed five people on the night of August 8–9: pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her companions Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski, along with Steven Parent. The following evening, the Family also murdered supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, at their home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.
Bruce McGregor Davis is an American criminal and former member of the Manson Family who has been described as Charles Manson's "right-hand man".