April 8, 2025 • 42 mins
Aimee Carrero (The Menu, The Consultant) helps Arturo explore a dark chapter in Hollywood history, as they learn about one of Charles Manson's original family members, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme.
Read this episode's transcript on Mental Floss: https://www.mentalfloss.com/columns/greatest-escapes
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, guys, welcome to Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you
the wildest true escape stories of all time. Today's story
goes into a truly dark chapter of Hollywood history, only
this time we're talking about the crimes and the escapes.
They usually don't hear about A'marto Castro. And for this one,
I have to bring in the incredible actress and voiceover
(00:24):
artists and queen of Miami.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It's Amy Carrero. Amy Carrero.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Should I just use my normal Miami accent or why?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I just like, so, let's fucking do it, Like just
say the three or five is present, an accountant present.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
But you know what, we actually met way before the Menu.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That's true. Remember that we were doing phone banking, Yeah,
live on ABC or whatever.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Good Morning America, that's what it was. Yeah, And we
were sat next to each other.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
That's right. And I remember I was like, oh my god,
we saw John Lee. Guizamo was one of the main guys.
I'll see you in about ten years in a movie
called The Menu.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
John like Guizamo the Menu, right, right, So that was
my intro.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And look how far we've come. Now we're in a
podcast together. Wow, this is great.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Amy. What do you consider to be your greatest escape.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
It happened Christmas twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I was by myself and my husband Tim had gone
to Egypt with his family for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Are marriage Isakay.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I was doing a TV show at the time, and
it was like right after Christmas. We'd had these Egypt
tickets booked, and.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I was like, you should just go.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I couldn't go, like, you know, I had to work whatever.
So I stayed in secretly like ooh, this is nice
to get the house to myself. So I was walking
the dog and I know my neighborhood obviously really well.
I've lived here like almost ten years. And I turned
around and there was this all like blacks, like a
black sedan and the front mirror was blacked out, and
I remember thinking it was really strange.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I was like, yeah, you see that in Los Angeles, right.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Like the front mirror right.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
So I turned around. The car was there and it
must have pulled up and it wasn't like a hybrid,
but I didn't hear it. And so I was walking
the dog and it was just kind of.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
In a weird spot.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I live kind of like in an area where there's
not a lot of cars that stop. It's just like,
you know, it's strange to estrae of that to happen.
So I was like, you know what, I'm not going
to go back to my house because I don't want
this person to know where I lived, just in case.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So I like, I like went up the hill.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Because I live in the hills, nice little side, no there, Yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I was gone for like thirty minutes. I ran into
a neighbor.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
I started talking to the neighbor blah blah blah, and
I was like, Okay, the car's probably gone. So I'm
going back down this hill to turn to the street
where I live. But my house is like six houses
down right. So I'm like turning and there's this intersection.
So I'm here with my dog and that car is
like going like passing, and he sees me and stops
and pulls over. Whoa, And there was this other car
(03:15):
that was like I guess maybe like with that car.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
It was like this Lexus car and there was a.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Woman in it, like a Latin woman in it because
I know my fellow mommy's yeah, and she stopped behind him.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So this car pulls over. She pulls over behind him.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Luckily, there's like this mass of dudes that are like
riding bike.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's like literally it's.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Like Christmas Day and I got, say one on a
Christmas Day bike ride, and I was like, oh my god,
thank god. So I like scooch in where they are
and I run back home, locked the door. And I
ended up spending like four nights in a hotel after
that because I'm like, I'm gonna walk my dog if
so get this. This is like comes full circle. So
like two days later, I was watching the news and
I saw that there had been like a dog kidnapping
(03:56):
in West Hollywood what And they had video of it
and the owner was dracked because his like jacket got
caught onto the door, so he was dragged.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
And I saw it and what do I see?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
But this blacked out no like Nissan or Sedan whatever
it was right, Yeah, So I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I called the LAPD. I was like, I figured, oh
what artist.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I didn't get the license plate obviously, so it was
useless information that I gave him, But I.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Was like, you just wanted to feel hurt.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, I was like, I narrowly escaped with my.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Dog Wow, how scary. Well, thank you so much for
sharing that with us. Amy. Now, are you ready to
hear some fucking crazy escape?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I'm ready?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
What's rock and roll? So it's December twenty third, nineteen
eighty seven, and at Alderson Federal Prison in West Virginia,
a routine betcheck raised the alarm. Lynette from was missing
from Yes, she had just turned thirty nine, but thank
(05:00):
you for that. Ben Bub was missing from bromb. She
had just turned thirty nine, but she had spent twelve
of those years in prison for crimes that made national headlines.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Oh shit.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
People had been discussing Lynette's life choices since nineteen sixty
nine because she was also a diehard follower of Charles
Manson Give me the music again, Ben, she.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
I should have known as a Charles Manson follower because
she was like, I mean this is a child criminal,
I mean, you know criminal. She's only thirty nine, she's
been in jail.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah. Have you heard of her before, Lynette?
Speaker 4 (05:35):
No, I've heard of like the crank Winkle and texts
and like the other ones that were like a rest
for the murders, but I don't I'd never heard of her.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, Lynette had actually lived such a wild life before
she was locked up, and that's where we're going to
get into today. Okayat but two days before Christmas in
nineteen eighty seven, why wasn't Lynette in her cell? So
the guard scrambled to ask the other inmates when they
had last seeing Lynette, and they all said that it
was just before nine pm. That means that when guard
(06:04):
started looking, Lynette had been gone for less than an hour.
Her disappearance mystified the person officials. They had no idea
when she had slipped away or how she got out.
The prison itself was super remote. It was about twelve
miles to the nearest down in southeastern West Virginia. It
held almost a thousand women, including many under what they
called maximum guard.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I was going to ask, was this like a max prison?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Like, what's the situation maximum guard?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So basically, it should have been really hard for Lynette
to escape. The officers searched all the prison buildings but
couldn't find any sign of her. There are also no
holes in the prison fencing or any sign of how
she got past the barbier. Who the fuck knows. Then
federal agents were called in for the hunt, but they
really didn't have much to go on, you know, because
weirdly enough, prisoners at Alderson were not required to wear uniforms.
(06:54):
I mean, well then it's.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Not a maximum guard. What are we doing here? Were?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
They just like encouraged to like express themselves. They're like,
how are we feeling today? You guys?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I think I'm gonna wear a crocheted haulter? Yeah, what
the hell?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
The description given to local residents said that she had
been last wearing a green army jacket, khaki pants and
a pension for danger no and a red checkered bandana.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Right, that's like a very fashionable outfit.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Like what I know, she just like slapped it on.
That's like a good brunch outfit, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
She's like, I'm gonna go out, but in case I
have an impromptu brunch meeting, I'm just gonna wear this red.
And the main thing was that she had freckles and
blazing red hair, so they.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Had hair dye at the fucking prison, or maybe she
was a natural red.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
No, there it was a spot, right, I believe it's
just so this isn't fair to gingers though. I mean,
imagine you're just another local West Virginia, thirty nine year
old with red hair and a closet full of army jackets, Like,
how would you feel bad? You don't have redheads not
been through enough? And Caucasians in general, have they not
been through enough?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Just give white people a chance, give them a break.
Here's the thing with Gingers.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
They have to go through the life as Gingers, and
you know that's hard enough.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I mean, I bought the Prince Harry book. Like we're
reading it.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I'm just saying that, Like that's your defense for like
whenever you're like are you hating on Gingers, You're like, hey, guys,
I have the Prince Harry book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So
tips started flowing in. Apparently she had been spotted nearby many,
many times. But as teams of officers started to investigate
the sightings, they found that all of them were cases
(08:28):
of mistake and identity.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
How many redheads?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Was, yeah, what the fuck? Were like match the description.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And Appalachia like they were like.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
It was a massive exodus from Ireland.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Oh that's so weird.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Gingers were just being handed over to the police left
and right for questioning, which is truly truly hilarious. Being like,
excuse me, man, like I am literally the girl from Wendy's. Yeah,
like fucking leave me alone?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Right right?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Right? What did I do? What is my crime? Make
a ginger?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah that's right. So more than one hundred agents swept
the woods and hills around the prison, using dogs to
try to pick up Lynnett's trail, but two days later
they still hadn't come up with any trace. Ever, the
prison warden said, okay, get this, that the dogs were
hampered by the dampness and rocky soil, plus they were
(09:14):
feeling like really emotionally unavailable, you know, because like mercury
is in the third house or in.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
A mental health day.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, small time bullshit like this was definitely not going
to cut it, because actually it might not have been
all that hard for Lynette to get out, especially since
there had been fifteen escapes from Alderson in just three years. Right,
I'm telling you.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
They were like, dress what you wanted, do what you want.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, they would have excursions, so you guys come back
whenever you're ready. Though, if you were if you were
the warden though, and you're at the press conference, how
would you try to spin this? Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I would just quit?
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Yeah, I would just be like, I don't believe in
the prison system. Buy yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no spinning this.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I wonder how Miami Major would do this? So like
it li isten't everybody? Okay? People would escape? What do
you want me to do?
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Me?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
What happens? Okay? Look, I had a really bad day.
My stomach was hurting. I went to the bathroom and
she was gone, that's.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It, that's see. What do you want me to do
about it? Okay?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah, yeah, sorry how it is?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And then we're playing Okay, why don't you worry about
your life?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Let me ask you this. So did she commit one
of the murders or she was just like an accessory?
Like what was coming about? Do we know?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Okay, I'm gonna blow your mind with this? All right?
The officials hunting for Lynette weren't laughing, right, So word
went out to the agencies in all fifty states. The
US Marshalls started talking to everyone who had recently been
in touch with her, and the headlines just bam hit
the papers. Right, it was December twenty fifth, nineteen eighty seven.
So Merry Christmas for Lisa to you America.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Merry Christmas, Lynette.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's right, Lynette from is free and she might be
headed to a house near you. Also, what a Tim
Burton Night member before Christmas? Little song there been? I
was like I wanted to keep going with that. I
was like, cozying up.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I know, I really love that sound.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So in fact, when word went up the chain the
Lynette had escaped federal custody, the message reached all the
way to the White House and the Secret Service was
put on notice. Yeah, they even tightened up security around
the president for fuck's sake, because the reason Lynette was
in prison in the first place, it was a really
serious one.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
She had been locked up for a failed attempt to
assassinate Don Don Don, the precedent of the United States.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Oh what, okay, Yeah, that's a plot twist.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Did she get close like what? Or did she just
think about.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
It and then like I'm about to tell you Okay, Okay.
So you know how Lynette was a follower of Charles Manson, Right, Well,
we're gonna go all the way back to Manson's earliest
days as a cult leader, because Lynette was actually his
second recruit.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Okay, so she got in on the ground floor. She
was like I want in.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
She became like the cornerstone of the Manson family. So
do you know, do you know much about the Manson family?
I do.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
I'm obsessed.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
There's actually a tour in Los Angeles called the Dearly
Departed Tour and it's about like weird ducks.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Dude, I took this fucking tour alone, and you can go.
They take you up to the house. I know enough
about Itello Drive. Yeah, but now they changed the name.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
It's something else not but like but yeah, they'll take
you up there. But I know, I think I know,
maybe just like a skosh more than most people. But
I'd never heard of this one, so maybe maybe I'm
not as let me.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Give you some details on it. So Lynett's intro to
Charles Manson takes us back a couple of decades. In
nineteen sixty seven, Lynette was eighteen and she'd been recently
kicked out by her parents for promiscuity. She probably like
cooked up with two guys or something.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
You know what I mean, Like, how was she had
a wop okay and she had wopp okay.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
I worked with this woman. You could just tell in
the sixties she was fucking killing it.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And she was telling me the story that she moved
to Venice Beach and she was approached by the Manson family.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
No, yeah, dude, and that was like her great escape start.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
She never like went to like a very I think
she got weird vibes for immediately.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Can you imagine the kind of cute girls like the
living in Venice Beach didn't get approached by a Manson family.
They'd be like, so, what's it about me that you
didn't like? You know, there's super selcustable right right?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Was I not like blonde enough? But she you could
just touch she like even as an older woman. Now
you look at her and you're like, oh.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Oh, you would have fucking you destroyed hearts.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Yeah, I mean she's still killing it. But back then
it was like burr. So, I think Venice Beach was
like ground zero for recruitment. But she got weird vibes
from you know them well.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Anyway, Charles brought her back to the house where he
was living at the time with his first partner, and
together the three of them started growing the Manson family.
Now by most reports, Lynnette became the family's main recruiter.
Right She would find other young isolated women introduce them
to Charles and bring them into the fold.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
That's creepy.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Things started to change for the growing Manson family the
next year, Wow quick, yeah, yeah, they were picked up
by none other than Dennis Wilson, the drummer of the
Beach Boys. Yeah. As the story goes, the women told
Dennis about Charles Manson, their spirit leader and teacher, and
Dennis was curious and said he would like to meet
Manson sometime, right, But he was in for a surprise
(14:07):
because the next time Dennis came home, he opened his
door to find that Charles Manson was already in his house.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Okay, call the cops. What are we doing here? We
could have saved all these lives.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Bad vibration, bad vibration, getting the creep fiund this fucking guy.
So if this is you at this point, are you
writing the vibes or are you going to the cops?
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
No, man, well it depends. Look it was nineteen sixties.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Everybody was probably super high, so it's like, okay, this
is cool exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
You hit it on the head. Dennis and Charles just
smoked some weed together and who knows what Charles said,
but Dennis was super charmed. Right now, Oh, is that
a bong sound that you? Yeah? Sorry, I just I
needed to take a rip. I was like, is that
a sound in my house? It didn't take long for
(14:54):
Dennis to invite Charles, Lynnette and the rest of the
family to move into his house on Senset Boulevard.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Wait wait, wait wait, they moved in.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
They moved in with Dennis.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So for a little while least Lynnette found herself literally
living in the mansion of one of the Beach Boys.
And this is when listen, they were at the top
of their fucking game, right the sixties. I mean, if
this was today, whose house would you be moving into
if you had a choice, If you're in.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
A cult, for sure, I'd move into like Taylor Swift's
like penthouse in Tribecca, Like that's we want the tippy top.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I want to go to Madonna's house and just be like, Okay,
how do we live forever? Let's figure this fucking thing out.
Hang upside down? Yeah, I'm like, so who do we sacrifice?
That's it? Yeah? And I was like, do you believe
in life after love?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
I do believe in that facelift, tiny bun.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So Charles Manson had major ambitions to the music industry, right,
We obviously don't because we've just been talking about the
icons of the music industry. So we'll never make it
a music but fuck it. Yeah, it seemed like this
new connection to the Beach Voice was his big ticket.
But after getting in with Dennis, things didn't go that smoothly.
You know. The Beach Boys were kind of a family
band for the three Wilson brothers, and it seemed like
(16:06):
Dennis was the only one who really liked Charles. The
others thought he was pretty fucking creepy and try to
keep him at a distance. Smart And actually, when we
were getting ready for this episode, we discovered an old
recording that the Wilson brothers must have written about Charles Ben.
Can you play this whole tape? Yeah, let me put
it or you have a tape player.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, it's an old cassette press play here.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
A little creepy, A little creepy, dude. You know you
got a shot. You're a little bit like a mouse
pro This guy is weird. To get him out of
your house.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
He may seem chill because he smokes.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
A ton of good bud.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
He's got a bunch of weapons and flop. He's a
little creepy little craby. Oh god, oh my god. Yes,
it's my autobiography. Dude, that Ben created that song just
(17:10):
for this episode.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Let's whose voice is that?
Speaker 1 (17:14):
A man that's been to mine?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
All?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
That's the Beach Boys. I don't know you guys are
talking to Oh my god, man, that was fucking gold.
I want to keep that forever, fucking gold. I'm still
not over the fact that there was a lyric that
said in a murderous plot, yeah, in a Beach Boys background,
I will tear that forever good. So one day in
the recording studio, right, Manson pulled a knife on a
producer who suggested changing some of his lyrics. So that
(17:40):
was kind of the final straw for the rest of
the Wilson brothers. He finally convinced Dennis to kick Charles,
Lynnette and the rest of the Manson family out of
his house. Yeah. So that September, the Beach Boys did
record a revised version of a song by Charles.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Can you believe oh so he wrote the song or
what so?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, so they recorded a revised version of one of
his songs. So apparently Dennis had changed the song and
even gave it a new name. Manson had called the
song ceased to Exist, and Dennis Wilson called it never
learned not to love? That is what I fucking call Yeah.
Also none of these also like.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
So different, like he exist, I want to kill on
the other ones like Lass.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
But then after the whole night thing, do you even
dare to steal someone's work like that?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
I bet he was real pissed. Fuck no, I get
me out of here, and I'm calling the cops. I
don't even like the cops. I'm gonna call the cops.
They could have saved you know what I mean. Like
murders just just don't go from like smoking weed to
like murder. It's like there are there were signs along
the way.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Like what happened? Yeah? Yah, So two smooth things over
with Charles. Apparently, Dennis gave him some cash and a motorcycle.
(19:00):
After about a year of living with Manson, Lynette moved
with the whole family to a desert ranch outside of
la and by then the Manson family had grown to
five men and thirteen women. Now. The owner of the ranch,
George Spawn, had been a dairy farman in his younger days,
but by this point he was mostly blind and had
trouble doing the work of maintaining the buildings in the
land overlords. How did they meet this, George? Do we know?
(19:22):
There was a mechanic who lived on the ranch, and
Manson had gone there to see if he could fix
the Colt bus, But as soon as he arrived, he
realized what he really wanted was to move in to
George Spawn Spawn rancho. Of course, they had a fucking
busser right in the sixties, could even be called if
you didn't have a bus to drive around.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
He needed that bus.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
He needed the bus needed to be barefoot, and you
needed like lots of dirty things.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So Famously, the ranch had previously been
a movie set. It was fifty five acres dotted with
buildings that had been used to film episodes of The
Lone Ranger and Bonanza and a bunch of Bee Liss westerns. Right,
but by the nineteen fifties, George Spawn mostly made his
money renting out horses. His deal with the Manson family
was that they would move into the property and help
(20:08):
him out with the horses. And actually this wasn't that odd.
For him, because the ranch had already been home to
a bunch of out of work stuntmen and ranch hands
who lived there for free in exchange for taking care
of the animals. Does this seem like an extremely weird
or bad idea to you or is this like Hollywood normal?
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
No, this is a bad idea.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
But do you remember, I mean, it's hard to get
the image out of my head because in that Quentin
Tarantina movie Once upon a Time in Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Did you see that movie?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I saw it.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
They have a George Spawn character which is Bruce Dern
and he's like in that backhouse or whatever. So yeah,
it seems like real fucked up. But people were hitchhiking
back then, like it was just a different time.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah, yeah, it was a little more running got him. Yeah, yeah,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
I think that maybe people weren't as like, I don't know,
thinking people were horrible.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I guess, I don't know. But which changed with.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
The Manson family, I think a lot.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because you're like peace and love.
Hippies are peace and love.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, and peace and love was still the reputation when
the family moved to the ranch. Now, Charles Manson was
ahead of the family, but it's pretty clear that Lynnette
was the one behind the scenes keeping the family organized.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
She did whatever paperwork the family needed, and you know,
helped them paperwork. Yeah, paperwork. Guess So, how many sexual
favors are we handing out today? Okay? And how much
marijuana help? That fucking that excel chard must have looked
fucking weird.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, I'd blowdrop for a dime back.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Oh my god, so weird for sure. Speaking of which,
she helped them actually get to the doctor when the
SDI spread through the group, which was obviously pretty frequent. Yeah,
they were right smack in the middle of the sexual
revolution thanks to the invention of the pill. But groups
like Manson could obviously weren't protecting themselves. So for George,
she cleaned up the house, got it painted, kicked out
(21:49):
the cowboys, and started helping with meals and other daily
routines as he got to know each other. Oh god,
this is so fucked up. George gave nicknames to the
women in the Manson family, right. He called Lynnettes Squeaky
for the way that she would react when he pinched
her like what a gross old man way to give
somebody a nickname.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Okay, well, now here we go.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Even though he was almost blind, you know, I think
he probably wanted to have young women around him, and
clearly he was pinching their asses and shit.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So he was a dog.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So the most relacious stories say that the Manson family
women offered George sexual favors to stay on the ranch,
and they called Squeaky his de facto wife.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Listen, they committed murder, for sure.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
There were some you know, hey, somebody's got a pay rent.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
You pay another way, ask cash or guess no one
read I see.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So Squeaky has said that she didn't have a sexual
relationship with Spawn, but Manson was preaching a kind of
free love approach to sex. So honestly, at this point,
it's hard to fucking know whether she did or she didn't.
And you know, let's not get romantic about what Charles
Manson was teaching, for example, his helter skelter message. If
you know much about this story, which I know you do,
you probably know that by this point he was teaching
(23:01):
that there was going to be a race war coming
that would pit white and black Americans against each other.
Manson said that the white Americans would lose, but then
he and his family would be able to hiden the desert,
and once the rest of the whites were slaughtered, he
would emerge and rule over the non white population. Oh,
for fuck's sake, this is both super racist and extremely narcissistic.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Dude, nobody talks about the races.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
He couldn't even get a record off the ground, asshole.
But how does his rank in the most illusionable cult
stories you've heard? It's pretty up there.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Well, I mean that I think you have to be delusion.
That's like requirement number one is to be.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Delusional sense of grandeur.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
He was probably had some fucking hitler fantasies and shit.
But it's funny because nobody ever brings up the racial
aspect of the Charles Manson thing.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
No, and also at the time they used it so
much as like I guess square Americans used it as
proof of look, fucking hippies are fucking and their murderers
motherfuckers say really, yeah, yeah, kicked off a dark period
for trust of free spirited people.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I guess, right, right, right right.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Manson's fantasies of world power were obviously fucking bananas, but
when things would get in his way, he would absolutely
lose his shit. Like when a couple of drug deals
to the family went bad, Charles started using the members
of the family as an attack squad, and that's when
they started killing people. Now, at first it was a
couple of isolated murders that the cops couldn't solve. But
in the spring of nineteen sixty nine, a music producer
(24:23):
refused to sign Manson to record contract.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Was this the music producer that then rented the house
to Roman Pelanski.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
And Share you go, There you Go? So what comes next?
Were the infamous murders on back to back nights, right, So,
first were the killings of Sharon Tates house. Right, she
had moved into the house where the record producer used
to live exactly, they killed her along with another four
people in her house. And then the next night, Manson
said he was going to show his killers how to
(24:50):
do it right, they randomly picked the house in a
familiar neighborhood and killed the couple living there.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
An older couple.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
But you know what I think too, this was crazy
And I don't know if this is like action really
true or it was just in the movie I read somewhere,
but I thought that Charles Manson actually went to that
house where Sharon Tate was staying and was like, I
want to talk to Roger of whatever the name of
the of the music producer was, and like Jay Sebring,
who was like was Sharentate's friend that was staying with her,
(25:16):
was like, oh, no, he doesn't live here anymore. So
they knew that they didn't live there anymore, and they
still killed the people in that house.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Right. I do know that he knew that the producer
lived there. I don't know if he had that interaction
with Jay, but they definitely.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
I don't know if he had the conversation, but I
know that they found him in the back house one day,
like he was lurking, he was creeping, and they were
like the fuck.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Out of here.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So the story has been told a lot of times, right,
So we won't go into detail about the Sharon Tate murders.
But for Squeaky, the important part was what happened when
they were finally linked to the Manson family. They took
a little time, but the Manson family was already in
trouble with the law. Yeah, so the cous that arrived
at the ranch a week after the murders, but they
were looking for stolen vehicles, so they smashed up the
(26:01):
ranch and arrested the entire Manson family for grand theft auto,
but they had to drop the charges for a few months.
It seemed like the family had actually gone away with
all their crimes. And we can't even be completely sure
that Squeaky knew about the murders. But could you fucking
believe that she didn't know anything at this point? Like,
of course she did. She was like number two. So
(26:21):
two months later, the cops came back and arrested everyone again,
and this time the cops were actually able to make
the car robbery charge a stick to a few of
the family members. But while they were locked up, one
of the women, named Susan Atkins started bragging to the
other prisoners that she and the family had committed the
mysterious murders. Okay, so murderers are always bragging, right, Like.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
If this was why we Don't get me.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Wrong, I'm happy that they got caught, but why are
they always going to other people in jail?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Be Like, you know, she named her ass squeaky. She
she's a loose cannon.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I mean she's a squeaky wheeler that you need to do.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah right, Loose lips sink ships, and that's what happened there.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So it was so by December Susan di Tattletale had
to deal with the police. Plus her lawyer had in
fact actually gotten her a book contract. Her testimony before
the grand jury about the murders splashed into the newspaper.
It even became the cover of Life magazine. Now, the
five members of the Manson family who committed the murders
were convicted and sentenced to death. The rest of the
(27:20):
cult didn't really have a plan, so they scattered across California.
Now squeak he moved into a motel with another member
and they tried to figure out how to support Manson
through his trials. Yep, she even answered the letters that
were sent to him, saying that he was innocent and
that he was being crucified by the authorities who didn't
want him to remake the world. Personally, I'm not team
(27:41):
let Charles Manson rule the world. Like what, I don't
know how you feel about this.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
It's a bad idea, It's fucking terrible. No thanks.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
And then there were people that were like fans of his, like,
you know, some bitch married him in jail.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Here's some sick people out there. Also that he tried
to spin it as in like there's this ideological race war,
where all it really was was he was sending his
followers to like revenge kill somebody that thought they didn't
give him a fucking contract.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Listen, I'm not not to boil it down to something
like so reductive, but like I think part of the reason,
like Hitler had a fucking like whatever he fucked up
shit he had in his mind because he was like
a failed artist, you know what I mean, And then
he got really angry and then just and it became
this whole other thing.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Some small, fragile men tend to once give him power,
they tend to fucking take it out of the world.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
They get rejected and then they're just like, well, now
I'm just going to be a mass murderer. And I
think that that's uh, you know, with Charles Manson, it
was like he was, you know, rejected, the.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Feeling of inadequacy just like yeah, he was like he
had a power in his little bubble and he abused it.
And I hope your rots in fucking hell for the
rest of his eternity.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh, he's in there. He's in half for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
So in the fall of nineteen seventy a wildfire burned
through the Spawn ranch and anyone who still had dreams
of reviving the Manson family would have to find somewhere
else to do it. Oh, are we in a spy novel?
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Is this? Yes? This is the James Bond seventies part
of it sounds like it.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Charles Manson was sent to death row at Saint Quentin Prison.
Now outside Squeaky started working on a book telling the
story of the Manson family. Lynnette felt that the whole
trial had been stage managed by the authorities to give
the wrong impression about Manson, and she still wanted to
recruit new members to their way of life.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Now.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Meanwhile, in prison, Charles Manson was kind of undermining her
at every turn because he was currently joining the Aryan Brotherhood,
which is a white supremacist prison gang, which was a
shock to absolutely fucking no one.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
No one.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, kind of hard to get the wrong impression about that, right,
Like they say, you're advicetander in the nineteen seventies. Is
there anything in the world Lynette could do that would
change her mind.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
I mean, it happens now too. It's like people tell
you who they are. They show you who they are
over and over and over. You could literally have a picture,
you know, with like a Grand Wizard of the KKKA and.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
People were like, well that was just I don't know,
like is he reads not? We don't know if he's racing.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
It's like people are just making up stories.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
It's incredible what people are able to fucking deny, Like
the denial that people can go into.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Oh yeah, rationalize the way.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
You know.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
It's funny because it's like she drank the kool aid,
but she also made the kool aid too, so.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
She was in too deep. She was never getting out.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah. The deal that Manson struck with the Aran Brotherhood
was a trade. They would protect him inside the prison
and then on the outside, the Manson family would look
after the gang members. Okay, So members of the Manson
family even helped an Arian Brotherhood member escape from prison
in August nineteen seventy one, and Squeaky's roommate was the
fucking ghetaway driver. What okay? So this shit is dark, right?
(30:45):
So one night when Squeaky was away, Arian Brotherhood members
murdered one of our friends inside the house where they lived.
The police later found the body buried in the basement.
So you know what, this proves more than anything that
none of these girls had a Latina mother.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Mita.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
If I went to my mom and I'd be like, yo, yeah,
so I'm going to join a college. Is that okay? Yeah?
And you and what army?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Okay a, Mita, You're never living the house again?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Okay? Cool? I hope you. I hope you enjoy being
here until you're thirty five. So for both the prison
escape and the murder, Lynette was arrested as a member
of the conspiracy and held for as long as possible
both times of the police they had to release her
right because they never had direct evidence that she was
involved in the plants. All they did have was her
(31:31):
constant stream of letters to Charles Manson in prison as
he waited execution. What's the craziest thing you've ever done
for love? Amy Canado?
Speaker 4 (31:38):
I would probably say I gave up my very nice
apartment that I loved to move in with my husband.
That's it, and that's all you get in love. Is
not supposed to be a suffering situation.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
No, no, no, okay. This is at the way street
with the waste point to me. Okay, okay. Before manson
sentence was carried out, though California's death penalty was ruled
on institutional Manson and the other murderers were not going
to be executed for their crimes. Charles was moved out
of Saint Quentin to another prison further Inland, so Lynette
(32:09):
decided to follow. She moved into a small apartment in Sacramento.
Now she wasn't allowed to actually see Charles, but she
still went to the prison regularly just to ask how
he was doing. God. And then came September nineteen seventy five.
That's when Lynette decided to kill the President of the
United States.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
The President, the president man? What was her gripe with
the President? What's happening?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
So Charles Manson hated authority, and his whole persona at
this point was about the United States being overthrown. But
he had taken a particular dislike to Richard Nixon after
Nixon had made fun of him during the murder. Charles,
because he's a fucking small man with a very fragile ere.
You see what I'm talking about. He's like, this is
the particular gribe he embarrassed him, and that's yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
He embarrassed it. It's not never mind like the Vietnam shit.
It was like, no, you made fun of me, there
for you bust it.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah. So the president was Gerald Ford now, but that
didn't make a whole lot of difference, right. The Manson
family hated whoever. The president was very discerning people. These people.
So when President Ford was visiting Sacramento in nineteen seventy five,
Squeaky had her chance. He was giving a speech downtown,
right in her new stomping grounds. Between appointments, Ford decided
(33:24):
to walk through the park and say hello to the
good people with Sacramento. A path was cleared for him,
and as he went along, shaking hands until he reached
a small woman in a red coat, Lynnette Squeaky. From
from under that red coat, Squeaky pulled out cold for
five ooh good. She raised the gun and pulled the trigger,
but it didn't go off.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Fuck that was lucky, but lucky for Forde.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, so the gun clicked, but no shot was fired,
despite being loaded with four bullets. The gun simply didn't
go off. The Secret Service officers around Squeaky dove forward,
they crashed into her, and they threw her to the ground.
Witnesses remember that she yelled it didn't go off as
she went down. It's like, thank you for the info.
We were there, we know. So when the police searched
(34:11):
Lynette's apartment after the arrest, they found letters from the
International People's Court of Retribution. The fuck is that they
are full of threats against other government officials and the
leaders of big companies. Apparently President Ford had just been
the first target on the list. Now, the International People's
Court was completely made up by Squeaky and her roommate.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I was going to say, I was like, never heard
of it.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love the word shopping of the title.
Be like, okay, so the vengeful people know it's too hard, much.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Too harsh. Let's make it sound more official international.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yep, that's good, that's right, yeah, because we're everywhere. So
this time the case was very simple. At the Federal
Chriald Squeaky didn't even try to fight the charges. She
just pled guilty to her assassination attempt. It made her
the first woman in the US to be convicted for
the crime. Wow, so Lynette was giving a life sentence
(35:07):
and things didn't go exactly smoothly in prison. Right In
March nineteen seventy nine, Sweeky attacked a fellow inmate with
the claw end of a hammer. She said that the
other woman was, get this, a white, middle class, rich
bitch who doesn't deserve to live. I'm like, is this
the battle of the Karens or what I mean?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Battle of the Karens?
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Listen, she's she's just a white middle class rich bitch
that doesn't even give me sense.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, it's like, we can't middle class.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yes, she's a white poor, middle class rich yeah, and
communist bitch and it's like I don't. Yeah, there's a
lot going on in the international people score.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Oh so who the fuck is giving inmates hammers?
Speaker 3 (35:44):
That's another good question, Artiro? What is prison? Was it
like a fucking kindergarten?
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Like, geez, it was fantastic for the inmates. Yeah, so
she was still trying to helter skelter, apparently, even long
after that. In December nineteen eighty seven, she wrote to
a friend that she only felt alive when she was
thinking about Charles Manson and so a few years later,
when Squeaky got a phone call telling her that Charles
Manson was dying of testicular cancer, she was desperate to
see him again. Ninety minutes after the call, she disappeared
(36:11):
from her prison in West Virginia. Okay, so, now we've
gone through her story up to that point, do you
feel any differently about the fact that she was able
to just fucking disappear from custody.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
No, man, it shouldn't have happened. Shouldn't have happened. You
know who cares why she did it?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah? Fuck the reasons. Sucker motive. Sucker motive. That's right.
She's clawing people, she's hammering people. Man. So Squeaky apparently
escaped without leaving any traces as to how she got out.
She didn't even leave a trio out of the prison, right,
she had just up and vanished.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
She had help, for sure. I'm just going for it.
I'm gonna say she had help.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Okay, Yeah, throw it out there. So, prison officials didn't
know how she had done it, and they had no
idea what would happen next. If you remember that fifteen
people had escaped from the prison just in two years.
Is it really about the talent of the escapee or
is it more about the person? They're like, we don't
know how the fucks she did it.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
We have no idea how sha did it.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
They were just iming the eight foot fence and heading
into the woods, that's all they were doing. So when
Lynette escaped, the president wasn't the only one who went
on alert. One of the prosecutors who had handled their
case started carrying a gun during her trial and he
was worried that she would come after him. Another prosecutor
under Charles Manson case worried that Lynette was on her
way to break Manson out of jail, So we started
(37:20):
spinning up some fucking crazy story to the press, telling
them that Lynette might even take some hostages somewhere and
demand Manson's release. Absolutely, no one was safe, Like, what
are you doing, man.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Just spreading public panic.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah, she's gonna drop from the air, you see, she's
got flying people, you see.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Yeah, she's gonna take your hostage.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
They all like regrets to nineteen fifteen. Yeah, despite the
fear jumped up in the headlines, Lynette wasn't raiding homes
across the Midwest to take prisoners. In fact, he didn't
even get very far. That afternoon, two prison officers driving
on a nearby road saw a woman walking on the
shoulder of it. She was wearing a green army jacket
and khaki pants and she was sold threw from the ring.
(38:02):
That's right. They just didn't go with the red hair.
They pulled the car over, opened the door, and Squeaky
just climbed inside. After all that, she just fucking gave up.
I mean, if you wear that diehard, what would you
think it would break.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
In frough the wine like that?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
She's like, you know what, it's cold, I'm wet. Fuck it, really,
I want to go home. So in the battle of
nature versus Squeaky, nature came out on top. When she
went to trial for the escape attempt, she put in
a plea of no contest, and it added fifteen years
their sentence. She was sent back into custody and eventually
transferred to her prison and Lexington, Kentucky, where they actually
had uniforms. What do you know? What do you know?
(38:38):
So Lynett's fight was over. She didn't escape prison again,
but even in nineteen n eighty four, the Deputy da
who prosecuted Manson, said that he believed Squeaky was still
keeping the flame alive from Manson. His book about the murders,
Helter Skelter, became one of the best selling true crime
accounts in history. In two thousand and nine, Lynette was paroled.
She was sixty years old. She self published a memoir
(38:58):
on the Manson family in twenty eighteen, and she writes
about her time with Manson in such happy, glowing terms
that it basically seems like he still believes that the
things that they were doing were good. You know.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Oh yeah, no, she's gone her.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
The final sentence assists that she never meant to kill
the president. It says there was no bullet in the
chamber of that gun. Yeah, yeah, they were there, Okay,
just didn't go off. Yeah it didn't go off. Okay,
you got lucky. He got lucky. Charles Manson finally died
in custody in twenty seventeen. Any possibility of him ruling
the world was finally over. And one final note on
the elders in prison today they require the inmates to
(39:34):
wear khaki uniforms. Did she's just set a trend? She's
a trendsetter, at least that she'd save the local army
jacket fans some hassle.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Right, Wow, that bitch just climbed the fence. That's all
she did, and that's it.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
That's our story. What do you think any major takeaways
from squeaky story?
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (39:55):
You know what, I think Squeaky could have had a
much better situation, in a much better life if she
had just learned not to dye her hair red.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
That was her biggest That was like her biggest way.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
We find out in her memoir she was actually blonde
the whole time.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
She's a blonde.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Also, after everybody else goes to prison, like she had
a chance to start a new life, so.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Like she couldn't plate it worse.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
She's done if she didn't actually commit the murders, Like
that was her chance to turn her fucking life around
and be like, you.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Know what, I've seen the light.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
This is a new star now.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And and that guy from that drummer from the Beast
Voice who was actually kind of cute. I'm gonna go
see what the fuck he's.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Up to, you know, Yeah, I'm gonna make amends. I'm
going to join a swell set program. She really could
have had a good life, but she listened. Squeaky's got
a squeak.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Listen. Thank you so much for doing this. Can I
ask you for our listeners where they can check you out?
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah, I mean listen. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
First of all, you can find me on Instagram at
Amy Carrero.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
A I M E E C A R R E
R O and the twitters. But mostly I just talk
about politics and dungeons and dragons. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
This is fun, of course. Thank you so much, Amy.
We'll see you next time. Bye Yah. Greatest Escapes is
a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation Entertainment in association
with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers from me or Turo
castro A, Lissa Martino and Milan Papelka from Film Nation Entertainment,
(41:37):
Andrew Chug and Witning Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan
Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced and edited by
Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively, our
research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is Tory Smith,
who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our technical director.
Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson Special thanks to Alison Cohen,
(41:57):
Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicky Stein, Olivia Kenny
and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much for listening,
(42:20):
and if you're enjoying the show, please drop a rating
or review. My mom will call you each personally and
thank you, and we'll see you all next week
Hey, guys, welcome to Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you
the wildest true escape stories of all time. Today's story
goes into a truly dark chapter of Hollywood history, only
this time we're talking about the crimes and the escapes.
They usually don't hear about A'marto Castro. And for this one,
I have to bring in the incredible actress and voiceover
(00:24):
artists and queen of Miami.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It's Amy Carrero. Amy Carrero.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Should I just use my normal Miami accent or why?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I just like, so, let's fucking do it, Like just
say the three or five is present, an accountant present.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
But you know what, we actually met way before the Menu.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That's true. Remember that we were doing phone banking, Yeah,
live on ABC or whatever.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Good Morning America, that's what it was. Yeah, And we
were sat next to each other.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
That's right. And I remember I was like, oh my god,
we saw John Lee. Guizamo was one of the main guys.
I'll see you in about ten years in a movie
called The Menu.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
John like Guizamo the Menu, right, right, So that was
my intro.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And look how far we've come. Now we're in a
podcast together. Wow, this is great.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Amy. What do you consider to be your greatest escape.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
It happened Christmas twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I was by myself and my husband Tim had gone
to Egypt with his family for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Are marriage Isakay.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I was doing a TV show at the time, and
it was like right after Christmas. We'd had these Egypt
tickets booked, and.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I was like, you should just go.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I couldn't go, like, you know, I had to work whatever.
So I stayed in secretly like ooh, this is nice
to get the house to myself. So I was walking
the dog and I know my neighborhood obviously really well.
I've lived here like almost ten years. And I turned
around and there was this all like blacks, like a
black sedan and the front mirror was blacked out, and
I remember thinking it was really strange.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I was like, yeah, you see that in Los Angeles, right.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Like the front mirror right.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
So I turned around. The car was there and it
must have pulled up and it wasn't like a hybrid,
but I didn't hear it. And so I was walking
the dog and it was just kind of.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
In a weird spot.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I live kind of like in an area where there's
not a lot of cars that stop. It's just like,
you know, it's strange to estrae of that to happen.
So I was like, you know what, I'm not going
to go back to my house because I don't want
this person to know where I lived, just in case.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So I like, I like went up the hill.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Because I live in the hills, nice little side, no there, Yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I was gone for like thirty minutes. I ran into
a neighbor.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
I started talking to the neighbor blah blah blah, and
I was like, Okay, the car's probably gone. So I'm
going back down this hill to turn to the street
where I live. But my house is like six houses
down right. So I'm like turning and there's this intersection.
So I'm here with my dog and that car is
like going like passing, and he sees me and stops
and pulls over. Whoa, And there was this other car
(03:15):
that was like I guess maybe like with that car.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
It was like this Lexus car and there was a.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Woman in it, like a Latin woman in it because
I know my fellow mommy's yeah, and she stopped behind him.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So this car pulls over. She pulls over behind him.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Luckily, there's like this mass of dudes that are like
riding bike.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's like literally it's.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Like Christmas Day and I got, say one on a
Christmas Day bike ride, and I was like, oh my god,
thank god. So I like scooch in where they are
and I run back home, locked the door. And I
ended up spending like four nights in a hotel after
that because I'm like, I'm gonna walk my dog if
so get this. This is like comes full circle. So
like two days later, I was watching the news and
I saw that there had been like a dog kidnapping
(03:56):
in West Hollywood what And they had video of it
and the owner was dracked because his like jacket got
caught onto the door, so he was dragged.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
And I saw it and what do I see?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
But this blacked out no like Nissan or Sedan whatever
it was right, Yeah, So I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I called the LAPD. I was like, I figured, oh
what artist.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I didn't get the license plate obviously, so it was
useless information that I gave him, But I.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Was like, you just wanted to feel hurt.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, I was like, I narrowly escaped with my.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Dog Wow, how scary. Well, thank you so much for
sharing that with us. Amy. Now, are you ready to
hear some fucking crazy escape?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I'm ready?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
What's rock and roll? So it's December twenty third, nineteen
eighty seven, and at Alderson Federal Prison in West Virginia,
a routine betcheck raised the alarm. Lynette from was missing
from Yes, she had just turned thirty nine, but thank
(05:00):
you for that. Ben Bub was missing from bromb. She
had just turned thirty nine, but she had spent twelve
of those years in prison for crimes that made national headlines.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Oh shit.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
People had been discussing Lynette's life choices since nineteen sixty
nine because she was also a diehard follower of Charles
Manson Give me the music again, Ben, she.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
I should have known as a Charles Manson follower because
she was like, I mean this is a child criminal,
I mean, you know criminal. She's only thirty nine, she's
been in jail.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah. Have you heard of her before, Lynette?
Speaker 4 (05:35):
No, I've heard of like the crank Winkle and texts
and like the other ones that were like a rest
for the murders, but I don't I'd never heard of her.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, Lynette had actually lived such a wild life before
she was locked up, and that's where we're going to
get into today. Okayat but two days before Christmas in
nineteen eighty seven, why wasn't Lynette in her cell? So
the guard scrambled to ask the other inmates when they
had last seeing Lynette, and they all said that it
was just before nine pm. That means that when guard
(06:04):
started looking, Lynette had been gone for less than an hour.
Her disappearance mystified the person officials. They had no idea
when she had slipped away or how she got out.
The prison itself was super remote. It was about twelve
miles to the nearest down in southeastern West Virginia. It
held almost a thousand women, including many under what they
called maximum guard.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I was going to ask, was this like a max prison?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Like, what's the situation maximum guard?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So basically, it should have been really hard for Lynette
to escape. The officers searched all the prison buildings but
couldn't find any sign of her. There are also no
holes in the prison fencing or any sign of how
she got past the barbier. Who the fuck knows. Then
federal agents were called in for the hunt, but they
really didn't have much to go on, you know, because
weirdly enough, prisoners at Alderson were not required to wear uniforms.
(06:54):
I mean, well then it's.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Not a maximum guard. What are we doing here? Were?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
They just like encouraged to like express themselves. They're like,
how are we feeling today? You guys?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I think I'm gonna wear a crocheted haulter? Yeah, what
the hell?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
The description given to local residents said that she had
been last wearing a green army jacket, khaki pants and
a pension for danger no and a red checkered bandana.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Right, that's like a very fashionable outfit.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Like what I know, she just like slapped it on.
That's like a good brunch outfit, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
She's like, I'm gonna go out, but in case I
have an impromptu brunch meeting, I'm just gonna wear this red.
And the main thing was that she had freckles and
blazing red hair, so they.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Had hair dye at the fucking prison, or maybe she
was a natural red.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
No, there it was a spot, right, I believe it's
just so this isn't fair to gingers though. I mean,
imagine you're just another local West Virginia, thirty nine year
old with red hair and a closet full of army jackets, Like,
how would you feel bad? You don't have redheads not
been through enough? And Caucasians in general, have they not
been through enough?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Just give white people a chance, give them a break.
Here's the thing with Gingers.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
They have to go through the life as Gingers, and
you know that's hard enough.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I mean, I bought the Prince Harry book. Like we're
reading it.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I'm just saying that, Like that's your defense for like
whenever you're like are you hating on Gingers, You're like, hey, guys,
I have the Prince Harry book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So
tips started flowing in. Apparently she had been spotted nearby many,
many times. But as teams of officers started to investigate
the sightings, they found that all of them were cases
(08:28):
of mistake and identity.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
How many redheads?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Was, yeah, what the fuck? Were like match the description.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And Appalachia like they were like.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
It was a massive exodus from Ireland.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Oh that's so weird.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Gingers were just being handed over to the police left
and right for questioning, which is truly truly hilarious. Being like,
excuse me, man, like I am literally the girl from Wendy's. Yeah,
like fucking leave me alone?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Right right?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Right? What did I do? What is my crime? Make
a ginger?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah that's right. So more than one hundred agents swept
the woods and hills around the prison, using dogs to
try to pick up Lynnett's trail, but two days later
they still hadn't come up with any trace. Ever, the
prison warden said, okay, get this, that the dogs were
hampered by the dampness and rocky soil, plus they were
(09:14):
feeling like really emotionally unavailable, you know, because like mercury
is in the third house or in.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
A mental health day.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, small time bullshit like this was definitely not going
to cut it, because actually it might not have been
all that hard for Lynette to get out, especially since
there had been fifteen escapes from Alderson in just three years. Right,
I'm telling you.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
They were like, dress what you wanted, do what you want.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, they would have excursions, so you guys come back
whenever you're ready. Though, if you were if you were
the warden though, and you're at the press conference, how
would you try to spin this? Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I would just quit?
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Yeah, I would just be like, I don't believe in
the prison system. Buy yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no spinning this.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I wonder how Miami Major would do this? So like
it li isten't everybody? Okay? People would escape? What do
you want me to do?
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Me?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
What happens? Okay? Look, I had a really bad day.
My stomach was hurting. I went to the bathroom and
she was gone, that's.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It, that's see. What do you want me to do
about it? Okay?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah, yeah, sorry how it is?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And then we're playing Okay, why don't you worry about
your life?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Let me ask you this. So did she commit one
of the murders or she was just like an accessory?
Like what was coming about? Do we know?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Okay, I'm gonna blow your mind with this? All right?
The officials hunting for Lynette weren't laughing, right, So word
went out to the agencies in all fifty states. The
US Marshalls started talking to everyone who had recently been
in touch with her, and the headlines just bam hit
the papers. Right, it was December twenty fifth, nineteen eighty seven.
So Merry Christmas for Lisa to you America.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Merry Christmas, Lynette.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's right, Lynette from is free and she might be
headed to a house near you. Also, what a Tim
Burton Night member before Christmas? Little song there been? I
was like I wanted to keep going with that. I
was like, cozying up.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I know, I really love that sound.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So in fact, when word went up the chain the
Lynette had escaped federal custody, the message reached all the
way to the White House and the Secret Service was
put on notice. Yeah, they even tightened up security around
the president for fuck's sake, because the reason Lynette was
in prison in the first place, it was a really
serious one.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
She had been locked up for a failed attempt to
assassinate Don Don Don, the precedent of the United States.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Oh what, okay, Yeah, that's a plot twist.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Did she get close like what? Or did she just
think about.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
It and then like I'm about to tell you Okay, Okay.
So you know how Lynette was a follower of Charles Manson, Right, Well,
we're gonna go all the way back to Manson's earliest
days as a cult leader, because Lynette was actually his
second recruit.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Okay, so she got in on the ground floor. She
was like I want in.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
She became like the cornerstone of the Manson family. So
do you know, do you know much about the Manson family?
I do.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
I'm obsessed.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
There's actually a tour in Los Angeles called the Dearly
Departed Tour and it's about like weird ducks.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Dude, I took this fucking tour alone, and you can go.
They take you up to the house. I know enough
about Itello Drive. Yeah, but now they changed the name.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
It's something else not but like but yeah, they'll take
you up there. But I know, I think I know,
maybe just like a skosh more than most people. But
I'd never heard of this one, so maybe maybe I'm
not as let me.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Give you some details on it. So Lynett's intro to
Charles Manson takes us back a couple of decades. In
nineteen sixty seven, Lynette was eighteen and she'd been recently
kicked out by her parents for promiscuity. She probably like
cooked up with two guys or something.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
You know what I mean, Like, how was she had
a wop okay and she had wopp okay.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
I worked with this woman. You could just tell in
the sixties she was fucking killing it.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And she was telling me the story that she moved
to Venice Beach and she was approached by the Manson family.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
No, yeah, dude, and that was like her great escape start.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
She never like went to like a very I think
she got weird vibes for immediately.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Can you imagine the kind of cute girls like the
living in Venice Beach didn't get approached by a Manson family.
They'd be like, so, what's it about me that you
didn't like? You know, there's super selcustable right right?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Was I not like blonde enough? But she you could
just touch she like even as an older woman. Now
you look at her and you're like, oh.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Oh, you would have fucking you destroyed hearts.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Yeah, I mean she's still killing it. But back then
it was like burr. So, I think Venice Beach was
like ground zero for recruitment. But she got weird vibes
from you know them well.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Anyway, Charles brought her back to the house where he
was living at the time with his first partner, and
together the three of them started growing the Manson family.
Now by most reports, Lynnette became the family's main recruiter.
Right She would find other young isolated women introduce them
to Charles and bring them into the fold.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
That's creepy.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Things started to change for the growing Manson family the
next year, Wow quick, yeah, yeah, they were picked up
by none other than Dennis Wilson, the drummer of the
Beach Boys. Yeah. As the story goes, the women told
Dennis about Charles Manson, their spirit leader and teacher, and
Dennis was curious and said he would like to meet
Manson sometime, right, But he was in for a surprise
(14:07):
because the next time Dennis came home, he opened his
door to find that Charles Manson was already in his house.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Okay, call the cops. What are we doing here? We
could have saved all these lives.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Bad vibration, bad vibration, getting the creep fiund this fucking guy.
So if this is you at this point, are you
writing the vibes or are you going to the cops?
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
No, man, well it depends. Look it was nineteen sixties.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Everybody was probably super high, so it's like, okay, this
is cool exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
You hit it on the head. Dennis and Charles just
smoked some weed together and who knows what Charles said,
but Dennis was super charmed. Right now, Oh, is that
a bong sound that you? Yeah? Sorry, I just I
needed to take a rip. I was like, is that
a sound in my house? It didn't take long for
(14:54):
Dennis to invite Charles, Lynnette and the rest of the
family to move into his house on Senset Boulevard.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Wait wait, wait wait, they moved in.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
They moved in with Dennis.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So for a little while least Lynnette found herself literally
living in the mansion of one of the Beach Boys.
And this is when listen, they were at the top
of their fucking game, right the sixties. I mean, if
this was today, whose house would you be moving into
if you had a choice, If you're in.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
A cult, for sure, I'd move into like Taylor Swift's
like penthouse in Tribecca, Like that's we want the tippy top.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I want to go to Madonna's house and just be like, Okay,
how do we live forever? Let's figure this fucking thing out.
Hang upside down? Yeah, I'm like, so who do we sacrifice?
That's it? Yeah? And I was like, do you believe
in life after love?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
I do believe in that facelift, tiny bun.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So Charles Manson had major ambitions to the music industry, right,
We obviously don't because we've just been talking about the
icons of the music industry. So we'll never make it
a music but fuck it. Yeah, it seemed like this
new connection to the Beach Voice was his big ticket.
But after getting in with Dennis, things didn't go that smoothly.
You know. The Beach Boys were kind of a family
band for the three Wilson brothers, and it seemed like
(16:06):
Dennis was the only one who really liked Charles. The
others thought he was pretty fucking creepy and try to
keep him at a distance. Smart And actually, when we
were getting ready for this episode, we discovered an old
recording that the Wilson brothers must have written about Charles Ben.
Can you play this whole tape? Yeah, let me put
it or you have a tape player.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, it's an old cassette press play here.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
A little creepy, A little creepy, dude. You know you
got a shot. You're a little bit like a mouse
pro This guy is weird. To get him out of
your house.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
He may seem chill because he smokes.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
A ton of good bud.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
He's got a bunch of weapons and flop. He's a
little creepy little craby. Oh god, oh my god. Yes,
it's my autobiography. Dude, that Ben created that song just
(17:10):
for this episode.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Let's whose voice is that?
Speaker 1 (17:14):
A man that's been to mine?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
All?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
That's the Beach Boys. I don't know you guys are
talking to Oh my god, man, that was fucking gold.
I want to keep that forever, fucking gold. I'm still
not over the fact that there was a lyric that
said in a murderous plot, yeah, in a Beach Boys background,
I will tear that forever good. So one day in
the recording studio, right, Manson pulled a knife on a
producer who suggested changing some of his lyrics. So that
(17:40):
was kind of the final straw for the rest of
the Wilson brothers. He finally convinced Dennis to kick Charles,
Lynnette and the rest of the Manson family out of
his house. Yeah. So that September, the Beach Boys did
record a revised version of a song by Charles.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Can you believe oh so he wrote the song or
what so?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, so they recorded a revised version of one of
his songs. So apparently Dennis had changed the song and
even gave it a new name. Manson had called the
song ceased to Exist, and Dennis Wilson called it never
learned not to love? That is what I fucking call Yeah.
Also none of these also like.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
So different, like he exist, I want to kill on
the other ones like Lass.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
But then after the whole night thing, do you even
dare to steal someone's work like that?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
I bet he was real pissed. Fuck no, I get
me out of here, and I'm calling the cops. I
don't even like the cops. I'm gonna call the cops.
They could have saved you know what I mean. Like
murders just just don't go from like smoking weed to
like murder. It's like there are there were signs along
the way.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Like what happened? Yeah? Yah, So two smooth things over
with Charles. Apparently, Dennis gave him some cash and a motorcycle.
(19:00):
After about a year of living with Manson, Lynette moved
with the whole family to a desert ranch outside of
la and by then the Manson family had grown to
five men and thirteen women. Now. The owner of the ranch,
George Spawn, had been a dairy farman in his younger days,
but by this point he was mostly blind and had
trouble doing the work of maintaining the buildings in the
land overlords. How did they meet this, George? Do we know?
(19:22):
There was a mechanic who lived on the ranch, and
Manson had gone there to see if he could fix
the Colt bus, But as soon as he arrived, he
realized what he really wanted was to move in to
George Spawn Spawn rancho. Of course, they had a fucking
busser right in the sixties, could even be called if
you didn't have a bus to drive around.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
He needed that bus.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
He needed the bus needed to be barefoot, and you
needed like lots of dirty things.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So Famously, the ranch had previously been
a movie set. It was fifty five acres dotted with
buildings that had been used to film episodes of The
Lone Ranger and Bonanza and a bunch of Bee Liss westerns. Right,
but by the nineteen fifties, George Spawn mostly made his
money renting out horses. His deal with the Manson family
was that they would move into the property and help
(20:08):
him out with the horses. And actually this wasn't that odd.
For him, because the ranch had already been home to
a bunch of out of work stuntmen and ranch hands
who lived there for free in exchange for taking care
of the animals. Does this seem like an extremely weird
or bad idea to you or is this like Hollywood normal?
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
No, this is a bad idea.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
But do you remember, I mean, it's hard to get
the image out of my head because in that Quentin
Tarantina movie Once upon a Time in Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Did you see that movie?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I saw it.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
They have a George Spawn character which is Bruce Dern
and he's like in that backhouse or whatever. So yeah,
it seems like real fucked up. But people were hitchhiking
back then, like it was just a different time.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah, yeah, it was a little more running got him. Yeah, yeah,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
I think that maybe people weren't as like, I don't know,
thinking people were horrible.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I guess, I don't know. But which changed with.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
The Manson family, I think a lot.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because you're like peace and love.
Hippies are peace and love.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, and peace and love was still the reputation when
the family moved to the ranch. Now, Charles Manson was
ahead of the family, but it's pretty clear that Lynnette
was the one behind the scenes keeping the family organized.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
She did whatever paperwork the family needed, and you know,
helped them paperwork. Yeah, paperwork. Guess So, how many sexual
favors are we handing out today? Okay? And how much
marijuana help? That fucking that excel chard must have looked
fucking weird.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, I'd blowdrop for a dime back.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Oh my god, so weird for sure. Speaking of which,
she helped them actually get to the doctor when the
SDI spread through the group, which was obviously pretty frequent. Yeah,
they were right smack in the middle of the sexual
revolution thanks to the invention of the pill. But groups
like Manson could obviously weren't protecting themselves. So for George,
she cleaned up the house, got it painted, kicked out
(21:49):
the cowboys, and started helping with meals and other daily
routines as he got to know each other. Oh god,
this is so fucked up. George gave nicknames to the
women in the Manson family, right. He called Lynnettes Squeaky
for the way that she would react when he pinched
her like what a gross old man way to give
somebody a nickname.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Okay, well, now here we go.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Even though he was almost blind, you know, I think
he probably wanted to have young women around him, and
clearly he was pinching their asses and shit.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So he was a dog.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So the most relacious stories say that the Manson family
women offered George sexual favors to stay on the ranch,
and they called Squeaky his de facto wife.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Listen, they committed murder, for sure.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
There were some you know, hey, somebody's got a pay rent.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
You pay another way, ask cash or guess no one
read I see.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So Squeaky has said that she didn't have a sexual
relationship with Spawn, but Manson was preaching a kind of
free love approach to sex. So honestly, at this point,
it's hard to fucking know whether she did or she didn't.
And you know, let's not get romantic about what Charles
Manson was teaching, for example, his helter skelter message. If
you know much about this story, which I know you do,
you probably know that by this point he was teaching
(23:01):
that there was going to be a race war coming
that would pit white and black Americans against each other.
Manson said that the white Americans would lose, but then
he and his family would be able to hiden the desert,
and once the rest of the whites were slaughtered, he
would emerge and rule over the non white population. Oh,
for fuck's sake, this is both super racist and extremely narcissistic.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Dude, nobody talks about the races.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
He couldn't even get a record off the ground, asshole.
But how does his rank in the most illusionable cult
stories you've heard? It's pretty up there.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Well, I mean that I think you have to be delusion.
That's like requirement number one is to be.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Delusional sense of grandeur.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
He was probably had some fucking hitler fantasies and shit.
But it's funny because nobody ever brings up the racial
aspect of the Charles Manson thing.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
No, and also at the time they used it so
much as like I guess square Americans used it as
proof of look, fucking hippies are fucking and their murderers
motherfuckers say really, yeah, yeah, kicked off a dark period
for trust of free spirited people.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I guess, right, right, right right.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Manson's fantasies of world power were obviously fucking bananas, but
when things would get in his way, he would absolutely
lose his shit. Like when a couple of drug deals
to the family went bad, Charles started using the members
of the family as an attack squad, and that's when
they started killing people. Now, at first it was a
couple of isolated murders that the cops couldn't solve. But
in the spring of nineteen sixty nine, a music producer
(24:23):
refused to sign Manson to record contract.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Was this the music producer that then rented the house
to Roman Pelanski.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
And Share you go, There you Go? So what comes next?
Were the infamous murders on back to back nights, right, So,
first were the killings of Sharon Tates house. Right, she
had moved into the house where the record producer used
to live exactly, they killed her along with another four
people in her house. And then the next night, Manson
said he was going to show his killers how to
(24:50):
do it right, they randomly picked the house in a
familiar neighborhood and killed the couple living there.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
An older couple.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
But you know what I think too, this was crazy
And I don't know if this is like action really
true or it was just in the movie I read somewhere,
but I thought that Charles Manson actually went to that
house where Sharon Tate was staying and was like, I
want to talk to Roger of whatever the name of
the of the music producer was, and like Jay Sebring,
who was like was Sharentate's friend that was staying with her,
(25:16):
was like, oh, no, he doesn't live here anymore. So
they knew that they didn't live there anymore, and they
still killed the people in that house.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Right. I do know that he knew that the producer
lived there. I don't know if he had that interaction
with Jay, but they definitely.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
I don't know if he had the conversation, but I
know that they found him in the back house one day,
like he was lurking, he was creeping, and they were
like the fuck.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Out of here.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So the story has been told a lot of times, right,
So we won't go into detail about the Sharon Tate murders.
But for Squeaky, the important part was what happened when
they were finally linked to the Manson family. They took
a little time, but the Manson family was already in
trouble with the law. Yeah, so the cous that arrived
at the ranch a week after the murders, but they
were looking for stolen vehicles, so they smashed up the
(26:01):
ranch and arrested the entire Manson family for grand theft auto,
but they had to drop the charges for a few months.
It seemed like the family had actually gone away with
all their crimes. And we can't even be completely sure
that Squeaky knew about the murders. But could you fucking
believe that she didn't know anything at this point? Like,
of course she did. She was like number two. So
(26:21):
two months later, the cops came back and arrested everyone again,
and this time the cops were actually able to make
the car robbery charge a stick to a few of
the family members. But while they were locked up, one
of the women, named Susan Atkins started bragging to the
other prisoners that she and the family had committed the
mysterious murders. Okay, so murderers are always bragging, right, Like.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
If this was why we Don't get me.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Wrong, I'm happy that they got caught, but why are
they always going to other people in jail?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Be Like, you know, she named her ass squeaky. She
she's a loose cannon.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I mean she's a squeaky wheeler that you need to do.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah right, Loose lips sink ships, and that's what happened there.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So it was so by December Susan di Tattletale had
to deal with the police. Plus her lawyer had in
fact actually gotten her a book contract. Her testimony before
the grand jury about the murders splashed into the newspaper.
It even became the cover of Life magazine. Now, the
five members of the Manson family who committed the murders
were convicted and sentenced to death. The rest of the
(27:20):
cult didn't really have a plan, so they scattered across California.
Now squeak he moved into a motel with another member
and they tried to figure out how to support Manson
through his trials. Yep, she even answered the letters that
were sent to him, saying that he was innocent and
that he was being crucified by the authorities who didn't
want him to remake the world. Personally, I'm not team
(27:41):
let Charles Manson rule the world. Like what, I don't
know how you feel about this.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
It's a bad idea, It's fucking terrible. No thanks.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
And then there were people that were like fans of his, like,
you know, some bitch married him in jail.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Here's some sick people out there. Also that he tried
to spin it as in like there's this ideological race war,
where all it really was was he was sending his
followers to like revenge kill somebody that thought they didn't
give him a fucking contract.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Listen, I'm not not to boil it down to something
like so reductive, but like I think part of the reason,
like Hitler had a fucking like whatever he fucked up
shit he had in his mind because he was like
a failed artist, you know what I mean, And then
he got really angry and then just and it became
this whole other thing.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Some small, fragile men tend to once give him power,
they tend to fucking take it out of the world.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
They get rejected and then they're just like, well, now
I'm just going to be a mass murderer. And I
think that that's uh, you know, with Charles Manson, it
was like he was, you know, rejected, the.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Feeling of inadequacy just like yeah, he was like he
had a power in his little bubble and he abused it.
And I hope your rots in fucking hell for the
rest of his eternity.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh, he's in there. He's in half for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
So in the fall of nineteen seventy a wildfire burned
through the Spawn ranch and anyone who still had dreams
of reviving the Manson family would have to find somewhere
else to do it. Oh, are we in a spy novel?
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Is this? Yes? This is the James Bond seventies part
of it sounds like it.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Charles Manson was sent to death row at Saint Quentin Prison.
Now outside Squeaky started working on a book telling the
story of the Manson family. Lynnette felt that the whole
trial had been stage managed by the authorities to give
the wrong impression about Manson, and she still wanted to
recruit new members to their way of life.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Now.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Meanwhile, in prison, Charles Manson was kind of undermining her
at every turn because he was currently joining the Aryan Brotherhood,
which is a white supremacist prison gang, which was a
shock to absolutely fucking no one.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
No one.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, kind of hard to get the wrong impression about that, right,
Like they say, you're advicetander in the nineteen seventies. Is
there anything in the world Lynette could do that would
change her mind.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
I mean, it happens now too. It's like people tell
you who they are. They show you who they are
over and over and over. You could literally have a picture,
you know, with like a Grand Wizard of the KKKA and.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
People were like, well that was just I don't know,
like is he reads not? We don't know if he's racing.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
It's like people are just making up stories.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
It's incredible what people are able to fucking deny, Like
the denial that people can go into.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Oh yeah, rationalize the way.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
You know.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
It's funny because it's like she drank the kool aid,
but she also made the kool aid too, so.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
She was in too deep. She was never getting out.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah. The deal that Manson struck with the Aran Brotherhood
was a trade. They would protect him inside the prison
and then on the outside, the Manson family would look
after the gang members. Okay, So members of the Manson
family even helped an Arian Brotherhood member escape from prison
in August nineteen seventy one, and Squeaky's roommate was the
fucking ghetaway driver. What okay? So this shit is dark, right?
(30:45):
So one night when Squeaky was away, Arian Brotherhood members
murdered one of our friends inside the house where they lived.
The police later found the body buried in the basement.
So you know what, this proves more than anything that
none of these girls had a Latina mother.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Mita.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
If I went to my mom and I'd be like, yo, yeah,
so I'm going to join a college. Is that okay? Yeah?
And you and what army?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Okay a, Mita, You're never living the house again?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Okay? Cool? I hope you. I hope you enjoy being
here until you're thirty five. So for both the prison
escape and the murder, Lynette was arrested as a member
of the conspiracy and held for as long as possible
both times of the police they had to release her
right because they never had direct evidence that she was
involved in the plants. All they did have was her
(31:31):
constant stream of letters to Charles Manson in prison as
he waited execution. What's the craziest thing you've ever done
for love? Amy Canado?
Speaker 4 (31:38):
I would probably say I gave up my very nice
apartment that I loved to move in with my husband.
That's it, and that's all you get in love. Is
not supposed to be a suffering situation.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
No, no, no, okay. This is at the way street
with the waste point to me. Okay, okay. Before manson
sentence was carried out, though California's death penalty was ruled
on institutional Manson and the other murderers were not going
to be executed for their crimes. Charles was moved out
of Saint Quentin to another prison further Inland, so Lynette
(32:09):
decided to follow. She moved into a small apartment in Sacramento.
Now she wasn't allowed to actually see Charles, but she
still went to the prison regularly just to ask how
he was doing. God. And then came September nineteen seventy five.
That's when Lynette decided to kill the President of the
United States.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
The President, the president man? What was her gripe with
the President? What's happening?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
So Charles Manson hated authority, and his whole persona at
this point was about the United States being overthrown. But
he had taken a particular dislike to Richard Nixon after
Nixon had made fun of him during the murder. Charles,
because he's a fucking small man with a very fragile ere.
You see what I'm talking about. He's like, this is
the particular gribe he embarrassed him, and that's yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
He embarrassed it. It's not never mind like the Vietnam shit.
It was like, no, you made fun of me, there
for you bust it.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah. So the president was Gerald Ford now, but that
didn't make a whole lot of difference, right. The Manson
family hated whoever. The president was very discerning people. These people.
So when President Ford was visiting Sacramento in nineteen seventy five,
Squeaky had her chance. He was giving a speech downtown,
right in her new stomping grounds. Between appointments, Ford decided
(33:24):
to walk through the park and say hello to the
good people with Sacramento. A path was cleared for him,
and as he went along, shaking hands until he reached
a small woman in a red coat, Lynnette Squeaky. From
from under that red coat, Squeaky pulled out cold for
five ooh good. She raised the gun and pulled the trigger,
but it didn't go off.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Fuck that was lucky, but lucky for Forde.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, so the gun clicked, but no shot was fired,
despite being loaded with four bullets. The gun simply didn't
go off. The Secret Service officers around Squeaky dove forward,
they crashed into her, and they threw her to the ground.
Witnesses remember that she yelled it didn't go off as
she went down. It's like, thank you for the info.
We were there, we know. So when the police searched
(34:11):
Lynette's apartment after the arrest, they found letters from the
International People's Court of Retribution. The fuck is that they
are full of threats against other government officials and the
leaders of big companies. Apparently President Ford had just been
the first target on the list. Now, the International People's
Court was completely made up by Squeaky and her roommate.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I was going to say, I was like, never heard
of it.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love the word shopping of the title.
Be like, okay, so the vengeful people know it's too hard, much.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Too harsh. Let's make it sound more official international.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yep, that's good, that's right, yeah, because we're everywhere. So
this time the case was very simple. At the Federal
Chriald Squeaky didn't even try to fight the charges. She
just pled guilty to her assassination attempt. It made her
the first woman in the US to be convicted for
the crime. Wow, so Lynette was giving a life sentence
(35:07):
and things didn't go exactly smoothly in prison. Right In
March nineteen seventy nine, Sweeky attacked a fellow inmate with
the claw end of a hammer. She said that the
other woman was, get this, a white, middle class, rich
bitch who doesn't deserve to live. I'm like, is this
the battle of the Karens or what I mean?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Battle of the Karens?
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Listen, she's she's just a white middle class rich bitch
that doesn't even give me sense.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, it's like, we can't middle class.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yes, she's a white poor, middle class rich yeah, and
communist bitch and it's like I don't. Yeah, there's a
lot going on in the international people score.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Oh so who the fuck is giving inmates hammers?
Speaker 3 (35:44):
That's another good question, Artiro? What is prison? Was it
like a fucking kindergarten?
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Like, geez, it was fantastic for the inmates. Yeah, so
she was still trying to helter skelter, apparently, even long
after that. In December nineteen eighty seven, she wrote to
a friend that she only felt alive when she was
thinking about Charles Manson and so a few years later,
when Squeaky got a phone call telling her that Charles
Manson was dying of testicular cancer, she was desperate to
see him again. Ninety minutes after the call, she disappeared
(36:11):
from her prison in West Virginia. Okay, so, now we've
gone through her story up to that point, do you
feel any differently about the fact that she was able
to just fucking disappear from custody.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
No, man, it shouldn't have happened. Shouldn't have happened. You
know who cares why she did it?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah? Fuck the reasons. Sucker motive. Sucker motive. That's right.
She's clawing people, she's hammering people. Man. So Squeaky apparently
escaped without leaving any traces as to how she got out.
She didn't even leave a trio out of the prison, right,
she had just up and vanished.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
She had help, for sure. I'm just going for it.
I'm gonna say she had help.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Okay, Yeah, throw it out there. So, prison officials didn't
know how she had done it, and they had no
idea what would happen next. If you remember that fifteen
people had escaped from the prison just in two years.
Is it really about the talent of the escapee or
is it more about the person? They're like, we don't
know how the fucks she did it.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
We have no idea how sha did it.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
They were just iming the eight foot fence and heading
into the woods, that's all they were doing. So when
Lynette escaped, the president wasn't the only one who went
on alert. One of the prosecutors who had handled their
case started carrying a gun during her trial and he
was worried that she would come after him. Another prosecutor
under Charles Manson case worried that Lynette was on her
way to break Manson out of jail, So we started
(37:20):
spinning up some fucking crazy story to the press, telling
them that Lynette might even take some hostages somewhere and
demand Manson's release. Absolutely, no one was safe, Like, what
are you doing, man.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Just spreading public panic.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah, she's gonna drop from the air, you see, she's
got flying people, you see.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Yeah, she's gonna take your hostage.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
They all like regrets to nineteen fifteen. Yeah, despite the
fear jumped up in the headlines, Lynette wasn't raiding homes
across the Midwest to take prisoners. In fact, he didn't
even get very far. That afternoon, two prison officers driving
on a nearby road saw a woman walking on the
shoulder of it. She was wearing a green army jacket
and khaki pants and she was sold threw from the ring.
(38:02):
That's right. They just didn't go with the red hair.
They pulled the car over, opened the door, and Squeaky
just climbed inside. After all that, she just fucking gave up.
I mean, if you wear that diehard, what would you
think it would break.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
In frough the wine like that?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
She's like, you know what, it's cold, I'm wet. Fuck it, really,
I want to go home. So in the battle of
nature versus Squeaky, nature came out on top. When she
went to trial for the escape attempt, she put in
a plea of no contest, and it added fifteen years
their sentence. She was sent back into custody and eventually
transferred to her prison and Lexington, Kentucky, where they actually
had uniforms. What do you know? What do you know?
(38:38):
So Lynett's fight was over. She didn't escape prison again,
but even in nineteen n eighty four, the Deputy da
who prosecuted Manson, said that he believed Squeaky was still
keeping the flame alive from Manson. His book about the murders,
Helter Skelter, became one of the best selling true crime
accounts in history. In two thousand and nine, Lynette was paroled.
She was sixty years old. She self published a memoir
(38:58):
on the Manson family in twenty eighteen, and she writes
about her time with Manson in such happy, glowing terms
that it basically seems like he still believes that the
things that they were doing were good. You know.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Oh yeah, no, she's gone her.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
The final sentence assists that she never meant to kill
the president. It says there was no bullet in the
chamber of that gun. Yeah, yeah, they were there, Okay,
just didn't go off. Yeah it didn't go off. Okay,
you got lucky. He got lucky. Charles Manson finally died
in custody in twenty seventeen. Any possibility of him ruling
the world was finally over. And one final note on
the elders in prison today they require the inmates to
(39:34):
wear khaki uniforms. Did she's just set a trend? She's
a trendsetter, at least that she'd save the local army
jacket fans some hassle.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Right, Wow, that bitch just climbed the fence. That's all
she did, and that's it.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
That's our story. What do you think any major takeaways
from squeaky story?
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (39:55):
You know what, I think Squeaky could have had a
much better situation, in a much better life if she
had just learned not to dye her hair red.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
That was her biggest That was like her biggest way.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
We find out in her memoir she was actually blonde
the whole time.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
She's a blonde.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Also, after everybody else goes to prison, like she had
a chance to start a new life, so.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Like she couldn't plate it worse.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
She's done if she didn't actually commit the murders, Like
that was her chance to turn her fucking life around
and be like, you.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Know what, I've seen the light.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
This is a new star now.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And and that guy from that drummer from the Beast
Voice who was actually kind of cute. I'm gonna go
see what the fuck he's.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Up to, you know, Yeah, I'm gonna make amends. I'm
going to join a swell set program. She really could
have had a good life, but she listened. Squeaky's got
a squeak.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Listen. Thank you so much for doing this. Can I
ask you for our listeners where they can check you out?
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah, I mean listen. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
First of all, you can find me on Instagram at
Amy Carrero.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
A I M E E C A R R E
R O and the twitters. But mostly I just talk
about politics and dungeons and dragons. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
This is fun, of course. Thank you so much, Amy.
We'll see you next time. Bye Yah. Greatest Escapes is
a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation Entertainment in association
with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers from me or Turo
castro A, Lissa Martino and Milan Papelka from Film Nation Entertainment,
(41:37):
Andrew Chug and Witning Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan
Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced and edited by
Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively, our
research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is Tory Smith,
who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our technical director.
Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson Special thanks to Alison Cohen,
(41:57):
Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicky Stein, Olivia Kenny
and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much for listening,
(42:20):
and if you're enjoying the show, please drop a rating
or review. My mom will call you each personally and
thank you, and we'll see you all next week
Host
Arturo Castro
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