By James Kilmer
The original spark behind the book was the fact that it was going to be forty years since the so-called “Manson murders” occurred. As a working journalist with an interest in the 1960's, it appeared about time that something new on the subject was published. This was duly agreed upon by Hodder who readily commissioned it. They gave me pretty much carte blanch on what to write, although it was generally agreed that the story should be brought up to date; most, if not all of the other books stalled at the end of the trial. Obviously, as I went along, heaps of new information started falling into my lap, especially the London connection which had never been properly explored before.
It so happened that investigators in California were convinced that a former Family member had been killed by one of Manson's henchmen in a Hammersmith (London) hotel. Obviously, based in the UK, this appeared strange to me as I'd felt the Manson story was pretty much exclusive to California. However, certain Police were convinced that a loose associate of the Manson Family called Joel Pugh was murdered by Family member Bruce Davies whilst staying near to London. I am absolutely convinced that his death was included in the Manson death toll to add gravitas to the story. I personally believe that police clearly twisted the facts around to make it look like a Manson murder, especially as they were keen to go with anything that appeared freaky. With Davis in the UK, they made a connection, but it really was nothing more than speculaton. Nonetheless, Joel's story is a fascinating one, and it illustrates that anyone connected to the Manson Family, however peripheral, was fair game for anyone forging a career out of their convictions.
Well, that has always struck me as a weird label for someone who not a serial killer or mass murderer. While Charlie was definitely an accessory to both murders, he wasn't present when the murders took place. He clearly played a major role in the planning of the killings, but I think the establishment were so terrified of his enormous charisma and influence, they did everything to throw him in jail. In a sense, the celebrity nature of the killing was always going to elevate Manson way beyond his petty criminal status, but it was evident that so many people were frightened of his extraordinary influence over people, there was no way he was going to be let off. But in answer to your question: despite being charged with nine counts of murder, Manson was only involved directly with one murder: that of stuntman Donald “Shorty” Shea, and even that was with three or four other participants. So “Mass Murderer?”, “Serial Killer?” the answer is no. But he was a murderer, albeit only one person.
Manson was more of an extraordinary musician than talented. He had a half-decent voice, and played guitar like a busker. His music when heard live, especially with his woman watching him reverently, was by all accounts amazing. However, take the scenery away and then transfer it to tape and it lost a lot in the translation. I have heard most of Manson's recording pre-incarceration, and they are not bad, and certainly not dissimilar to the likes of some of the troubadours coming out of California at the time. To me, the lyrics hold a greater fascination than his music, and they are mostly imbued with the sort of psycho-babble that he'd filleted from the mind control literature that he was reading at the time.
I strongly believe Manson's green-lighting of the killing spree over the weekend of August 8th and 9th 1969, was down to his disappointment of being rejected by the Los Angeles music fraternity. In particular, producer Terry Melcher's and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's rejection of his music were the final straws. There were plenty of other reasons that had brought Manson to this point, and they are fully explored in the book, but at the top of this pile of shit was the fact that Charlie had been rejected for his music, and that to me is the most pertinent factor that ignited the madness.
No I can't. My reasons are primarily that the parole board that would ultimately grant this, is politically appointed. I cannot imagine, given the strength of public opposition to them ever seeing daylight, that anyone would be brave enough to let any one of them out. Susan Atkins applied for a compassionate release when she was on her deathbed and was rejected. Bruce Davis recently got very close to be considered, but Governor Schwarzenegger threw it back, citing the “Heinous nature of the crime(s)”. My opinion is that you can never re-write or sanitised what happened back then, especially as it was so ghastly. Additionally, as the case receives more and more celebrity as the years go on, the case is still very clear in many people's minds. In a sense, the killers received a break in 1972 when their execution notices were overturned. That in a sense, is a break that their victims never got. So unless the Supreme Court overrides the parole board's decisions, I can't see any of them being released.
I'm not that convinced of a Manson/Zodiac connection, although there is a school of thought that it might possibly be Bruce Davis, one of Manson's right-hand men. Davis was indeed a very shadowy personality, and what made him all the more scarier was that he was the most mobile of the Manson Family; certainly not restricted to Spahn's Ranch. There was a raft of killings in Los Angeles in the latter part of 1969, and many of them were similar to the Tate/LaBianca murders. Police in L.A actually interviewed Davis over several deaths that later were claimed to have some Zodiac involvement. so I guess that's where the connection first started. I have seen some of the photo-fits of this so-called Zodiac, and someone has drawn similarities with Bruce Davis. I am not sure, and to be honest, there was a lot of spooky characters wandering around California at that point, so it possibly just a bit too easy to lay them at the Manson Family door.
Editor's note: this interview was conducted for Serial Killer Magazine by James Kilmer with Simon Wells, the author of Charles Manson: Coming Down Fast, published by Hodder in 2009. It is reproduced as filed, with the interviewer's questions set as headings and the spelling of the answers left alone. The final answer originally ended with a link to a site on the Davis and Zodiac claims, which is not reproduced because this archive does not know whether it still resolves. Two of Wells's answers are argument rather than record, and both concern men who were convicted. Manson was convicted in 1971 of seven counts of first degree murder and of conspiracy, on a joint responsibility theory, for killings he was not physically present at, and separately in connection with the deaths of Gary Hinman and Donald Shea. His death sentence became life in 1972. So when Wells says Manson was directly involved in one murder only, that is his reading of the evidence and not what the jury found, and this archive files Manson as convicted of seven. Wells is right, though, that serial killer is the wrong label, and the roster agrees with him: it records Manson as convicted of ordering, which is a different thing from either serial or mass murder. Bruce Davis is alive. He was convicted in 1972 of the first degree murders of Gary Hinman and Donald Shea, and has been found suitable for parole seven times since 2010, every grant reversed by a governor. He has never been charged in connection with Joel Pugh's death, which a London inquest treated as suicide, and he has never been charged with anything relating to the Zodiac killings, which remain unsolved and unattributed. Wells says himself that he is not convinced by either claim and that the police connection was speculation. Read the whole of that answer, not half of it. Susan Atkins's request for compassionate release was refused in 2008 and she died in custody in 2009. Bruce Davis's parole grant was reversed by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2010, which dates this interview. Wells also supplied a companion essay on Joel Pugh, written for his own website rather than for the magazine. It is not published here.