I Picked Up "Tex" Watson Hitchhiking AFTER the Manson Murders

On this episode of Our American Stories, following the Charles Manson murders, Manson's lead henchman, Tex Watson, stayed in Los Angeles for almost two months before fleeing to Texas where he was arrested. But it’s those two months following the Manson murders, where this story from our listener (Patty Kingsbaker) picks up.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is Leigh Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites.
And this next story comes to us well, Greg Hangler
brings it to us, and actually the person providing this

(00:34):
story is a listener in Colorado. Charles tex Watson was
just a young guy from Texas in nineteen sixty nine
when he came under the spell of drugs and Charles
Manson and helped kill seven people. Watson attended cal State
Los Angeles but dropped out less than half a semester.
Later got a job selling wigs and began living it

(00:56):
up in the party scene of Los Angeles. One fateful evening,
he was driving home and picked up a hitchhiker. In
Watson's words, hitchhikers were pretty common on Sunset Boulevard, and
I pulled over to pick one up. When he told
me his name was Dennis Wilson, it didn't mean anything
to me, but when he said he was one of

(01:17):
the Beach Boys, I was impressed. Wilson, the Beach Boys
drummer then directed Watson to his home on Sunset Boulevard
in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. Watson was
shocked when he pulled up. In the living room, Watson
found a man sitting on the floor with his guitar,
surrounded by six young women. He looked up, Watson later recalled,

(01:41):
and the first thing I felt was a sort of gentleness,
an embracing kind of acceptance and love. Another man at
the house introduced them, This is Charlie Charlie Manson. On
August ninth, nineteen sixty nine, under the direction of Charles Manson,

(02:02):
Watson and three other Manson girls murdered pregnant actress Sharon
Tate and four other people on Benedict Canyon. The following night,
Manson accompanied the previous night's killers and supervised the murder
of two more victims and Los Felis. These murders are
considered some of the most gruesome and shocking in American history. Texas.

(02:26):
Watson stayed in Los Angeles for almost two months before
fleeing to Texas, where he was arrested. But it's those
two months following the Manson murders where the story from
our listener in Colorado picks up. Here's Patty Kingsbaker. This
story happened in nineteen sixty nine. I had graduated from

(02:50):
high school in Miami and moved out to California to
live with my brother, who was living in Los Angeles.
At the time. It was the sixties. My brother was
ten years older than me, so we kind of, you know,
it felt like we had really grown up in different generations,
I mean, our ideals, and he was a little worried

(03:12):
about me being hippie and maybe going down the wrong
path with him at this time of my life. So
I had been in Los Angeles for a year, had
gotten to know a few people, and you know, I
was doing the things that kids in the sixties. Did
you know. One of the days, I was with a
friend of mine and I'm not sure why I was

(03:36):
hitchhiking either. I didn't have a car yet. It was
kind of probably right after I got there, but we
had hitchhiked from the valley Sam Fernando Valley over to
the beach, and when my brother heard about it, he
lost his mind and he was like, no, no, you
were not hit anyway. So I eventually got a car

(03:57):
and you know, it was a time when things were
just more opened and a lot of people were hitchhiking,
and you know, we picked people up. You know, it
was just what happened. But this one night, I had
been over in Malibu with some friends and I was
coming back into the valley and I was coming through

(04:17):
to peg A Canyon and when I made the turn
off Pacific Coast Highway, there was this guy. It was raining,
it was like torrential raining, and there was this guy
on the side of the road and so I pulled over. Ay,
he was out there in the middle of this rainstorm,
and b that's just what we did back then. So

(04:37):
I pulled over. But as soon as he opened the
door and got in my car, I just got this
sick feeling. It was I don't know what evil is.
I don't know what it is, but I felt it.

(04:57):
I was scared. I was absolutely scared, and I was like,
I knew right then I hadn't made a mistake letting
this guy in my car, but there was nothing I
could do. He's there. So we're driving through Topanga Canyon now,
I mean, in his crrential rain and there are mudslides
on the road, I'm scared. I'm having to go much

(05:21):
slower than I would have gone through the canyon. I'm
just thinking, God, get me to the other side of
this canyon. And he was going to reside. I remember that,
and I lived in Woodland Hills, which is another part
of the San Fernando Valley. But I just wanted him
out of my car, and he was trying to engage

(05:43):
me in conversation, and I was just like, I finally
just said, you know, I really can't talk. I can't talk.
I really just need to concentrate on the road and
my driving. I just can't talk. I was I've never
felt any anything like that before. So when we got
to the other end of Panga Canyon, I just pulled

(06:05):
over and I said, I'm really sorry, but I'm going
a different direction and I need to leave you here.
And he was like okay, and he got out and
there was no incident. I mean, there's nothing, nothing bad happened.
But it was just that feeling just stuck with me,
and I was just like, I didn't get it. It

(06:28):
was a few months later that I picked up the
paper one day and on the front of the paper
were the pictures of the Manson family, and the guy
who was in my car that night was Tex Watson.
Needless to say, I've never picked up another hitchhiker ever.

(06:50):
That was enough that night, Just that feeling taught me
not to do that. And there's been times I've passed
people that I think, oh that I just have never
been able to bring myself to do it. Well, that's
a heck of a hitchhiker's story, picking up Tex Watson,
one of the worst killers and murders of all time,
and she could feel evil. Patty Kingsbaker's story, a great

(07:13):
listener's story, a really awful hitchhiker's story. Here on our
American Stories. Here at our American Stories, we bring you
inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith, and love. Stories

(07:37):
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(07:57):
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