September 19, 2024 • 29 mins
After the conviction of Charles Manson and a number of his followers, Lynette Fromme’s life centers around aiding Manson from outside prison. A young family comes into her orbit with deadly consequences.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views
and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host,
producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it vised.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wednesday, November eighth, nineteen seventy two, a man hiking in
a mountainous area just south of Gernonville, California, comes across
a man's left hand sticking up from out of the ground.
He's found a shallow grave. When the police examined the scene,
they uncover a male body missing its right hand and head.
(00:37):
There is no identification. They determined that animals have been
at the body and must have taken the head in hand.
The deceased is unidentified for the time being. A little
more than a week earlier, on October thirtieth, police had
arrested two men for robbing the Eden Square liquor store
in Stockton. They gave their names as William Goucher and
(01:01):
James Willett. The man calling himself Willlett was bailed out
for ten thousand dollars. His arraignment was scheduled for November three,
but he didn't show up. He skipped with the man,
now a fugitive, The police take a closer look and
determined that the missing man isn't James Willett, but is
(01:21):
in fact a twenty four year old named Michael Montfort.
Montford is wanted for escaping from a state prison camp.
He is also a suspect in at least three bank
robberies in the Los Angeles area. A confidential informant tells
us Stockton police that Montford is driving a nineteen sixty
five Ford station Wagon, white with wood paneling, and provides
(01:44):
an address seven twenty West Flora. The plates on the
car are registered to James Willett. In the meantime, police
have determined that the body found in the Gernville grave
is that of the real James Willett, the fake name
used by Montfort after the liquor store robbery. It doesn't
take much to connect the dots from there. The police
(02:08):
drive by seven to twenty West Flora, a small ranch
house on a narrow lot with a glassed in front
porch facing the street. The station wagon isn't in the driveway,
so they hold off, assuming that Montfort isn't home. They
circle back later, and this time the car is in
the driveway. It's a thirty at night. They move in
(02:31):
They knock on the front door, which opens into the porch.
Another door leads from the porch into the house. A
woman named Sandy Pittman sticks her head out of the store.
There is an ex marked and scar tissue on her forehead.
She tries to brush off the cops, who are apparently
in plane clothes, because one of them identifies himself as police,
(02:54):
and she reacts by shutting the door. The cops continue
knocking and state they have a warn to search the house.
No one replies. The officers kicking the door and enter
the house in force. They find two men, two women,
and a baby in the living room. The baby's name
(03:14):
is Heidi will Let. They let Sandy Pittman hold the
baby and secure the other three adults. The cops can
tell that the women were associated with Charles Manson because
of the exes on their foreheads. There is Sandy and
a woman named Priscilla Cooper. The men give their names
as Earl Blake and Gordon Foot. These are false names.
(03:38):
One of them is named James Craig. The other is
actually Michael Monfort, who the police are looking for, but
they don't know what he looks like, so they continue
to search the house, searching for a man they have
already found. In the back corner of a bedroom closet,
they find a false floor. Beneath the floor they find
(03:59):
James will Let discharge papers from the Marines. Still searching
for Montfort, they examine the basement. It is about twelve
feet by eighteen feet and has concrete walls about five
feet high. There is a gap between the top of
the concrete walls. In the house, dirt is laid under
the rest of the house about four feet below the stringers.
(04:22):
The cops see a brand new shovel with the handle
partly sawed off, as well as a pickaxe. Also what
seems to be a mound of freshly disturbed soil. Meanwhile, upstairs,
the phone rings. A cop answers it. A woman says,
the cop says.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Where are you at?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
The cops go to Bene Liquors. They pick up the woman,
whose name is Lynette from I'm Toby Ball and I'm
Mary Catherine Garrison. And this is rip current.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Everybody is afraid script and that's what's holding things up.
Nobody's contented right now. It's like the world is created,
but their minds are all locked by a fear of.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Their episode three, the Story of James and Lauren Lulette.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
When the Manton family was implicated in the Tate Loabianca murders,
it was not just the brutality of the acts or
the fame and glamour of the victims that made for
good copy. It was the Manson family itself. It's as
though all of Middle America's fears about youth culture were
made flesh in this one small, ragged commune, and even
(05:58):
more so in the person of Charles Manson. The press
understood this and featured it in their reporting.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
The involvement of a mystical hippie plan which despised the straight,
affluent society. Young girls, supposedly under the spell of a
bearded s Bengully, were allegedly masterminded the seven murders. One
of the girls was only sixteen years old.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Time Magazine characterized Manson follower Susan Atkins's description of the
Manson family in this way.
Speaker 7 (06:28):
She sketched out a weird story of a mystical, semi
religious hippie drug and murder cold led by a bearded
demonic Mahdi able to dispatch his zombie life. Followers, mostly girls,
wearing hunting knives to commit at least eight murders, and
police say possibly four others.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's a hell of a sentence with drugs, mysticism, Islam, murder,
and mind control. Time knew its audience. Susan Atkins's father, meanwhile,
seemed to speak for all Middle America parents who were
mystified and troubled by what had happened to their kids.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
I think they're all on dope.
Speaker 7 (07:07):
And if you get under an a dope, you can be.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
Involved in almost anything because the hypnotic trans you won't
do something that is basically against.
Speaker 8 (07:19):
Who but you know is right.
Speaker 6 (07:21):
But under dope you can do almost anything. When I
do plan to stand by her side, and what undalley
will be the trial, which is she faces, I don't
know how to stand by her side.
Speaker 9 (07:32):
I lost her.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
I want society to stand by her side. I want
society to stand by the side of every young person
that can get involved in a situation like this.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
In her essay The White Album, Joan Didion described her
impression when people in her social circle heard about the
murders that Sharon Tate's rendered house on Cielo Drive. She wrote,
the tension broke that day, the paranoia was fulfilled, but
the tension had not broken. Among the people who remained
(08:08):
Manson followers.
Speaker 8 (08:11):
There was a hardcore that was extremely loyal to Charlie,
mainly women, but also some men, and once things became
very real with murder charges and horrible crimes, alleged a
lot of people who may not have been as close
to the center.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
They split Lynette from biographer Jess Braven.
Speaker 8 (08:33):
They were not there for murder and certainly not there
to go to prison, so they were gone. Other people
may have been sort of attracted by the notoriety and
come into the scene, So at this point it's a
self selecting group.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Lynette and a small group of women made a show
of supporting Manson, hanging out outside the courthouse, eventually carving
x's into their foreheads and shaving their heads and support.
They also were involved in more active ways, though their
plots were strange. Here's Lynette from her psychiatric interview before
(09:08):
her trial for attempting to assassinate Gerald Ford.
Speaker 9 (09:12):
The time you were charged was something in the trial
didn't come off.
Speaker 10 (09:15):
Who were charged with the.
Speaker 11 (09:18):
Dissuade the beginniness well was rang blade. It was not
dropped The original charge was attempted murder. This was a
case where a girl allegedly received a Hamberger with Ellis Dan.
She allegedly received the hamburger in Hawaii.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
And at that time I was.
Speaker 11 (09:42):
In the States.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Lynette is referring to a bizarre episode involving an eighteen
year old Manson follower named Barbara Holt. She was not
considered an important witness in the Manson trial, but Lynette
and Ruth Anne Moorehouse, who was known as Wish, decided
they needed to do something to prevent her from testifying.
(10:06):
This led Wish to take Barbara to Hawaii, where they
hold up at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel. After three days,
Wish told Barbara that she had to fly back to California,
but that Barbara would stay in Hawaii until she returned.
At the Honolulu airport, Wei Sh bought Barbara hamburger. Wish
(10:27):
commented to Barbara that would be a crazy trip if
the hamburger had been dosed with five thousand micrograms of LSD.
That's ten times a normal dose, And of course the
hamburger was dosed.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I left the airport and she said, go to the beach.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
And I was thinking, you know, okay, I'll go to
Waikiki Beach.
Speaker 8 (10:47):
And I got on a bus and I was starting
to come on to it, and I was thinking about
what she said about ten tabasass so just imagine there
was ten taubs as, and then I just kind of flashed,
there are ten thousands.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Barbara ended up in the er. Her father flew to
Hawaii to pick her up, and they returned to l A.
She eventually did testify against Manson. Here is Lynette again
from her psychiatric interview.
Speaker 11 (11:13):
Consequently, I accepted a disposition.
Speaker 8 (11:18):
Isn't that kill.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Guilty and do some time or something?
Speaker 11 (11:23):
No content, I wouldn't believe guilty, but I did believe
and received three months on the county jail.
Speaker 9 (11:31):
Okay, you feel while you were incarcerated it was that
a red.
Speaker 10 (11:36):
Man trip or along orion. Well, because of the place,
Los Angeles kind of jail is, I would say, a
very bad place to be incarcerable because of it, how
large it is.
Speaker 9 (11:53):
Being very impersonal, I try.
Speaker 5 (11:56):
But I've got on fine.
Speaker 11 (11:58):
Go along with the Innates life.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
From the time of his conviction for the Tate LaBianca
murders until October nineteen seventy two, Charles Manson was an
inmate on death row at San Quentin Penitentiary. He'd already
been incarcerated for much of his life and he knew
how to function in that environment. He was small, only
five foot three, and well known, so he was a target.
He needed to protect himself.
Speaker 8 (12:26):
You want to have friends, and he made friends with
the Aryan Brotherhood, white prison gang that was, yes, i
would say, dabbling in white supremacy, but more interested just
in hardcore criminal activity inside and outside of prison, and
essential arrangement seemed to be that they look out for
(12:50):
him and his people on the outside. Mainly women like
Lynette would help the AB guys when they got out
of prison, or write to them while they are in prison,
or or bring them things in prison. So it was
a kind of a marriage of convenience between Manson and
the Arian brother They each had something that the other
party needed and so AB members would contact or be
(13:15):
contacted by Lynette and other Manson women who were on
the outside, and when they got out of prison, those
women would be there to help them reintegrate, if you will,
to society generally criminal society, criminal or underworld activity.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
Once they got out.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
They had a big flop house near the prison where
some of the family members who were staying, and then
Manson his fellow prisoners when they were released, each set
them up with his family and his girls. I'm Darry Mantara,
author of the book Charles Manson Taming the Beast, Charles
Manson's Life in prison. So they had this flop house
(13:58):
near San Quentin where they they all were hanging out,
So they kind of merged and blended together. Post helter
skelter squeaky was dropping in and out.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
This was how Lynette got to know Michael Montfort, William Goucher,
and James Craig, three ex con members of the Arian Brotherhood.
The three sported prominent Aran Brotherhood tattoos on their torsos.
Speaker 8 (14:24):
Lynette ended up with a group of Rian Brotherhood members
and fellow travelers who were committing various crimes and robberies
in California. That group included a young couple, including an
ex marine named James Willette and their young baby.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
James Willette, whose body was found in his shallow grave
in Gernville, was from the family that owned the Willlette
Distillery in Kentucky. He'd done a tour of the Marines
in Vietnam, re enlisted, and been sent to Okinawa, Japan.
When Willlett encounter from Montfort and the rest he'd been
teaching under priv kids in Los Angeles. His father described
(15:02):
James as intelligent and public spirited that he'd wanted to
reform racial problems in the Marines. The father also said
that since the Marines, James seemed to be living a
hippie lifestyle. He was married to a young woman named
Lauren known as Rennie. She'd run away from home after
dispute with her parents about school. She was eighteen, he
was twenty six. They had an infant daughter named Heidi.
(15:26):
Their landlord in Los Angeles described James, who she for
some reason called Tom as a quote very gentle and
sensitive lad. She at one point asked him about his
experience in Vietnam and said he became very bitter and
said that if people in America knew about the atrocities
that he had seen, but that he didn't want to
talk about it. She befriended the Willettes and would bring
(15:48):
them baby clothes and toys. She and her husband went
away to Minnesota for the summer. They returned to stories
from their neighbors of hippies coming and going from the
apartment at all hours of the day and night, of
the baby crying instantly, and of a woman who had
not paid for her own electricity but was tapping into
the wallettes. The Wallettes left soon after. It's not clear
(16:10):
how Lynette met James Willette, but she introduced him to
the Aryan Brotherhood guys in San Francisco in September nineteen
seventy two. At the time, the three men, Montfort, Goucher,
and Craig were making frequent trips down to Los Angeles
to commit armed robberies. James had that nineteen sixty five
Ford station wagon white with wood paneling. It would be useful.
(16:32):
Lynette wanted the robberies to continue because some of the
takings would finance paying Manson's lawyers. The Wallette stayed with
the three men and two women, Montfort's girlfriend Nancy Pittman,
who would later receive the police in Stockton, and Goucher's
girlfriend Maria Alonso. They lived north of San Francisco in Gernville,
at a private campground on the Russian River called Parker's Resort.
(16:54):
From this point forward, the Wallette story becomes less certain.
There are two versions. The first is the story that
came out in the papers. In this story, James travels
with the Aryan Brotherhood men down to la to participate
in a series of robberies. At some point, James tells
Rennie that he wants to leave the group. Rennie, for
whatever reason, relays this information to Nancy and Maria. The
(17:17):
word gets to Montfort and Craig, and they kill James
in Gernville. Rennie stays with the group. The papers speculated
about Rennie that she might have actually agreed to James's
murder and witnessed it. The second version of this story
is told by Dariy Matara and Edward George in their
book Taming the Beast. In this story, James does not
(17:39):
participate in the robberies. Rennie is initially excited by the
fast living lifestyle of the group at Parker's resort. James
is more hesitant. He tries to reason with her, but
she doesn't hear it at first. James's father comes to
visit the couple in their baby, but is alarmed by
the people hanging around the house. He doesn't stay long.
His father tries to con events James to leave. James
(18:02):
is afraid of the group, but won't abandon Rennie. James
discovers that Montfort, Craig, and Goucher are supporting their lifestyles
through robberies. This is the last straw. He tells Rennie
that if she doesn't leave with him and go to Kentucky,
that he will turn the men in. Rennie doesn't want
to leave. She tells Nancy Pittman and Maria Alonso what
James has told her. She wants them to explain the
(18:24):
robberies away and get him to stay. She hasn't read
the situation. Then James is killed in Gernville, but Rennie
is told that he just picked up and left. She
doesn't know he is dead, and she and the baby
stay with the group. Goucher even says later that she
has a passing relationship with Craig. Where the stories reconverge
(18:47):
is in the freshly turned soil beneath the house at
seven twenty West Flora after the break.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
On November tenth, nineteen seventy two, two days after James
Willett's body was found in a shallow grave in Gernville, California,
and one day after news of this discovery was reported
in the newspapers, Stockton police obtained a search warrant to
investigate a mound of freshly disturbed dirt beneath the house
(19:25):
at seven twenty West Flora. They found the body of
Runnie Wilette. She'd been shot once in the head with
the thirty eight. The police already had six people in
custody for her husband's murder, three men who were involved
in the Aran Brotherhood, Michael Montfort, William Goucher, and James Craig,
(19:47):
and three women, Nancy Pittman, Priscilla Cooper and Lynette From.
All three women had exes carved in their foreheads. From
and Pittman had been members of the Manson family and
continued to support him. Cooper's only connection to Manson seemed
to be the ex The story they told was this,
(20:09):
Michael Monfort was showing the group the danger in handling guns.
He put the thirty eight to his own head and
pulled the trigger, but the gun didn't go off. He
then pointed it at Rennie's head, pulled the trigger and
shot her dead. A stupid accident, but an accident, the
cops were dubious. The obvious scenario was that Rennie did
(20:32):
not know that James had been killed, and once his
body was found, she had to be silenced the same
way that her husband was silenced. In June of nineteen
seventy three, William Goucher pled guilty to murder charges and
agreed to testify against Montford and Craig. His life was
(20:52):
threatened and he was kept in hiding. According to Goucher,
their group had known the Willettes for about a month.
Two of those weeks had been spent at Parker's resort
in Gernville. The men, including James Rolette, took trips down
to la and pulled four armed robberies. Soon after they returned,
(21:13):
James told Rennie about his plan to turn in the
other men. Rennie then told Nancy and Priscilla, who told
the men. They waited a week after Rennie told them
about James's plan. They told James to go somewhere in
the woods and dig a hole to bury some money.
This was to be his grave. They drank that night.
(21:35):
Goucher had purchased a shotgun earlier and had sawed off
the barrel. He said he wanted to go and shoot.
They walked to roughly the spot where James had been digging,
but they couldn't find the hole. They grew tired and
sat down. They shone a large flashlight across the road.
Goucher loaded four rounds into a shotgun and shot at
(21:57):
a tree. He told James to check the tree formage.
As James walked over, Montfort began the shooting. Goucher couldn't
remember how many times he fired. Then Craig's shot will
Let twice with a twenty gage shotgun. Goucher shot him
once or twice with a twelve gage sowd off shotgun.
They rolled James's body down the hill and covered it
(22:19):
with leaves and some dirt. It lay there until it
was discovered by the hiker weeks later. There were no trials.
Montfort pled guilty to second degree murder in both cases,
and Craig to accessory after the fact. Goucher had already
cut a deal to plead a second degree murder in
James's death in exchange for his grand jury testimony. Priscilla
(22:43):
Cooper and Nancy Pittman pled to accessory after the fact.
In Rennie's murder, Lynette didn't face any charges in either case.
The story didn't quite end there though. For months after
the murders, James will Lett's parents receive threatening phone call
at all hours from women threatening them with bloody deaths
(23:04):
or saying they would leave James's head on their doorstep
somehow or another. Word later got around that James Craig
was an informant who was burned nearly to death in
his car. He was transported to a nearby hospital, whereas
last words were reportedly she's dangerous. It was not clear
(23:25):
who he was referring to.
Speaker 8 (23:29):
This is a period where what starts as at least
a sensibly a kind of hippie love cult has transmographied
into a violent prison gang criminal enterprise where they're going
around robbing places and killing people. There's no real philosophy
around it. It's just what they do because they're criminals.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
With Manson in prison indefinitely, Lynette shifted her attention to
helping him any way she could from outside. As we've seen,
this meant providing assistance to arian brothers who were released
from prison. Though her allegiance to Manson continued, her life
was no longer centered around communal living and following Charlie.
She was instead in a world of professional criminals.
Speaker 8 (24:15):
She's there because it's part of her loyalty demandsa not
because she is specifically interested in a criminal lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
In fact, during this time, she was working on her
memoir Reflection, which we read from last episode. Not surprisingly
given her unstable lifestyle. The manuscript was written on whatever
Lynette had available at any given time. Some pages were tight,
some handwritten in different colors of ink. She later used
a typewriter in the office of her lawyer, Doug Vaughan.
(24:45):
Vaughn also kept a photocopy of the manuscript in his
office in case the original was lost.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
There's this utopian vision that she experienced, and that, to
her is what the reality is. It obviously was a
very important work to her because she felt that her
mission was to explain and to help the world understand
what Manson's meaning or message actually was. And it is
quite removed from the reality of horror that he inflicted
(25:14):
on dozens of actual people and their families, and more
broadly than the damage he caused to American society.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Reflections is a product not just of Manson's beliefs and
From's experience with him, she also gives her interpretation of
these events and the people who surrounded Manson. Manson was
her leader, but she kept her own will.
Speaker 8 (25:37):
This is a follower who is not just carrying out
orders or instructions or what have you. This is a
follower who is really superimposing her own ideas and her
own vision and her own values onto the leader and
making that leader into the leader she wants him to be,
as opposed to the one that he really happens to be.
And it's a very striking difference. So there's a lot
(25:59):
of side about what is in it for a follower
other than just the comfort of being told what to do.
Because most of her time, Manson is not telling her
what to do. He can't he's in prison. You know,
She's deciding what to do based on that experience. This
is somebody who had the dice rolled slightly differently, could
(26:20):
have been a very different person.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Lynette's companion during much of this period was Sandra Good,
perhaps the one person whose devotion to Manson could rival
her own former Manson follower, Diane Lake.
Speaker 10 (26:35):
The two of them were pretty pretty close and very devoted.
They proclaimed as Innocence Forever.
Speaker 8 (26:43):
If you look at things. Sandra said to reporters on
camera and in writing, her vocabulary is much more violent,
much more threatening than Lynnette's.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Everybody is afraid. Yeah, that's a holding up nobody's content
right now, with the world they've created, that their minds
are all locked by a fear of death. Unless Manson
gets the court room and it's allowed to speak, country
will be bloodier than the Tate Lavianca house put together.
(27:17):
Your children will rise up and kill you. Your own children. Sah,
what you've done. They see what you're doing to your world.
They see that you lie.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
In Sacramento. Whnette and Sandra will continue to live on
society's margins, making their presence known through press releases, threats,
organic treats, and a national campaign of intimidation aimed at
America's corporate executives. Next Time on Rip Current.
Speaker 9 (28:10):
Rip Current was created and written by Toby Ball and
developed with Alexander Williams. Hosted by Toby Ball with Mary
Kathryne Garrison. Original music by Jeff Sanoff, Show art by Jeffney.
Speaker 7 (28:21):
As Goda and Charles Rudder.
Speaker 9 (28:23):
Producers Jesse Funk, Reema O'Kelly and Noms Griffin supervising producer
Trelie Young, executive producers Alexander Williams and Matt Frederick. Here
episodes of Rip Current early completely add free and receive
exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus
only on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
(28:46):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows, and visit our website, ripcurrentpod dot com.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
After I ate the hamburger, she said, just imagine if
there are tin tabs acid in it, and then I
just kind of flashed, there are ten tobes acid
Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views
and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host,
producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it vised.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wednesday, November eighth, nineteen seventy two, a man hiking in
a mountainous area just south of Gernonville, California, comes across
a man's left hand sticking up from out of the ground.
He's found a shallow grave. When the police examined the scene,
they uncover a male body missing its right hand and head.
(00:37):
There is no identification. They determined that animals have been
at the body and must have taken the head in hand.
The deceased is unidentified for the time being. A little
more than a week earlier, on October thirtieth, police had
arrested two men for robbing the Eden Square liquor store
in Stockton. They gave their names as William Goucher and
(01:01):
James Willett. The man calling himself Willlett was bailed out
for ten thousand dollars. His arraignment was scheduled for November three,
but he didn't show up. He skipped with the man,
now a fugitive, The police take a closer look and
determined that the missing man isn't James Willett, but is
(01:21):
in fact a twenty four year old named Michael Montfort.
Montford is wanted for escaping from a state prison camp.
He is also a suspect in at least three bank
robberies in the Los Angeles area. A confidential informant tells
us Stockton police that Montford is driving a nineteen sixty
five Ford station Wagon, white with wood paneling, and provides
(01:44):
an address seven twenty West Flora. The plates on the
car are registered to James Willett. In the meantime, police
have determined that the body found in the Gernville grave
is that of the real James Willett, the fake name
used by Montfort after the liquor store robbery. It doesn't
take much to connect the dots from there. The police
(02:08):
drive by seven to twenty West Flora, a small ranch
house on a narrow lot with a glassed in front
porch facing the street. The station wagon isn't in the driveway,
so they hold off, assuming that Montfort isn't home. They
circle back later, and this time the car is in
the driveway. It's a thirty at night. They move in
(02:31):
They knock on the front door, which opens into the porch.
Another door leads from the porch into the house. A
woman named Sandy Pittman sticks her head out of the store.
There is an ex marked and scar tissue on her forehead.
She tries to brush off the cops, who are apparently
in plane clothes, because one of them identifies himself as police,
(02:54):
and she reacts by shutting the door. The cops continue
knocking and state they have a warn to search the house.
No one replies. The officers kicking the door and enter
the house in force. They find two men, two women,
and a baby in the living room. The baby's name
(03:14):
is Heidi will Let. They let Sandy Pittman hold the
baby and secure the other three adults. The cops can
tell that the women were associated with Charles Manson because
of the exes on their foreheads. There is Sandy and
a woman named Priscilla Cooper. The men give their names
as Earl Blake and Gordon Foot. These are false names.
(03:38):
One of them is named James Craig. The other is
actually Michael Monfort, who the police are looking for, but
they don't know what he looks like, so they continue
to search the house, searching for a man they have
already found. In the back corner of a bedroom closet,
they find a false floor. Beneath the floor they find
(03:59):
James will Let discharge papers from the Marines. Still searching
for Montfort, they examine the basement. It is about twelve
feet by eighteen feet and has concrete walls about five
feet high. There is a gap between the top of
the concrete walls. In the house, dirt is laid under
the rest of the house about four feet below the stringers.
(04:22):
The cops see a brand new shovel with the handle
partly sawed off, as well as a pickaxe. Also what
seems to be a mound of freshly disturbed soil. Meanwhile, upstairs,
the phone rings. A cop answers it. A woman says,
the cop says.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Where are you at?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
The cops go to Bene Liquors. They pick up the woman,
whose name is Lynette from I'm Toby Ball and I'm
Mary Catherine Garrison. And this is rip current.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Everybody is afraid script and that's what's holding things up.
Nobody's contented right now. It's like the world is created,
but their minds are all locked by a fear of.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Their episode three, the Story of James and Lauren Lulette.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
When the Manton family was implicated in the Tate Loabianca murders,
it was not just the brutality of the acts or
the fame and glamour of the victims that made for
good copy. It was the Manson family itself. It's as
though all of Middle America's fears about youth culture were
made flesh in this one small, ragged commune, and even
(05:58):
more so in the person of Charles Manson. The press
understood this and featured it in their reporting.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
The involvement of a mystical hippie plan which despised the straight,
affluent society. Young girls, supposedly under the spell of a
bearded s Bengully, were allegedly masterminded the seven murders. One
of the girls was only sixteen years old.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Time Magazine characterized Manson follower Susan Atkins's description of the
Manson family in this way.
Speaker 7 (06:28):
She sketched out a weird story of a mystical, semi
religious hippie drug and murder cold led by a bearded
demonic Mahdi able to dispatch his zombie life. Followers, mostly girls,
wearing hunting knives to commit at least eight murders, and
police say possibly four others.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's a hell of a sentence with drugs, mysticism, Islam, murder,
and mind control. Time knew its audience. Susan Atkins's father, meanwhile,
seemed to speak for all Middle America parents who were
mystified and troubled by what had happened to their kids.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
I think they're all on dope.
Speaker 7 (07:07):
And if you get under an a dope, you can be.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
Involved in almost anything because the hypnotic trans you won't
do something that is basically against.
Speaker 8 (07:19):
Who but you know is right.
Speaker 6 (07:21):
But under dope you can do almost anything. When I
do plan to stand by her side, and what undalley
will be the trial, which is she faces, I don't
know how to stand by her side.
Speaker 9 (07:32):
I lost her.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
I want society to stand by her side. I want
society to stand by the side of every young person
that can get involved in a situation like this.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
In her essay The White Album, Joan Didion described her
impression when people in her social circle heard about the
murders that Sharon Tate's rendered house on Cielo Drive. She wrote,
the tension broke that day, the paranoia was fulfilled, but
the tension had not broken. Among the people who remained
(08:08):
Manson followers.
Speaker 8 (08:11):
There was a hardcore that was extremely loyal to Charlie,
mainly women, but also some men, and once things became
very real with murder charges and horrible crimes, alleged a
lot of people who may not have been as close
to the center.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
They split Lynette from biographer Jess Braven.
Speaker 8 (08:33):
They were not there for murder and certainly not there
to go to prison, so they were gone. Other people
may have been sort of attracted by the notoriety and
come into the scene, So at this point it's a
self selecting group.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Lynette and a small group of women made a show
of supporting Manson, hanging out outside the courthouse, eventually carving
x's into their foreheads and shaving their heads and support.
They also were involved in more active ways, though their
plots were strange. Here's Lynette from her psychiatric interview before
(09:08):
her trial for attempting to assassinate Gerald Ford.
Speaker 9 (09:12):
The time you were charged was something in the trial
didn't come off.
Speaker 10 (09:15):
Who were charged with the.
Speaker 11 (09:18):
Dissuade the beginniness well was rang blade. It was not
dropped The original charge was attempted murder. This was a
case where a girl allegedly received a Hamberger with Ellis Dan.
She allegedly received the hamburger in Hawaii.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
And at that time I was.
Speaker 11 (09:42):
In the States.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Lynette is referring to a bizarre episode involving an eighteen
year old Manson follower named Barbara Holt. She was not
considered an important witness in the Manson trial, but Lynette
and Ruth Anne Moorehouse, who was known as Wish, decided
they needed to do something to prevent her from testifying.
(10:06):
This led Wish to take Barbara to Hawaii, where they
hold up at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel. After three days,
Wish told Barbara that she had to fly back to California,
but that Barbara would stay in Hawaii until she returned.
At the Honolulu airport, Wei Sh bought Barbara hamburger. Wish
(10:27):
commented to Barbara that would be a crazy trip if
the hamburger had been dosed with five thousand micrograms of LSD.
That's ten times a normal dose, And of course the
hamburger was dosed.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I left the airport and she said, go to the beach.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
And I was thinking, you know, okay, I'll go to
Waikiki Beach.
Speaker 8 (10:47):
And I got on a bus and I was starting
to come on to it, and I was thinking about
what she said about ten tabasass so just imagine there
was ten taubs as, and then I just kind of flashed,
there are ten thousands.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Barbara ended up in the er. Her father flew to
Hawaii to pick her up, and they returned to l A.
She eventually did testify against Manson. Here is Lynette again
from her psychiatric interview.
Speaker 11 (11:13):
Consequently, I accepted a disposition.
Speaker 8 (11:18):
Isn't that kill.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Guilty and do some time or something?
Speaker 11 (11:23):
No content, I wouldn't believe guilty, but I did believe
and received three months on the county jail.
Speaker 9 (11:31):
Okay, you feel while you were incarcerated it was that
a red.
Speaker 10 (11:36):
Man trip or along orion. Well, because of the place,
Los Angeles kind of jail is, I would say, a
very bad place to be incarcerable because of it, how
large it is.
Speaker 9 (11:53):
Being very impersonal, I try.
Speaker 5 (11:56):
But I've got on fine.
Speaker 11 (11:58):
Go along with the Innates life.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
From the time of his conviction for the Tate LaBianca
murders until October nineteen seventy two, Charles Manson was an
inmate on death row at San Quentin Penitentiary. He'd already
been incarcerated for much of his life and he knew
how to function in that environment. He was small, only
five foot three, and well known, so he was a target.
He needed to protect himself.
Speaker 8 (12:26):
You want to have friends, and he made friends with
the Aryan Brotherhood, white prison gang that was, yes, i
would say, dabbling in white supremacy, but more interested just
in hardcore criminal activity inside and outside of prison, and
essential arrangement seemed to be that they look out for
(12:50):
him and his people on the outside. Mainly women like
Lynette would help the AB guys when they got out
of prison, or write to them while they are in prison,
or or bring them things in prison. So it was
a kind of a marriage of convenience between Manson and
the Arian brother They each had something that the other
party needed and so AB members would contact or be
(13:15):
contacted by Lynette and other Manson women who were on
the outside, and when they got out of prison, those
women would be there to help them reintegrate, if you will,
to society generally criminal society, criminal or underworld activity.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
Once they got out.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
They had a big flop house near the prison where
some of the family members who were staying, and then
Manson his fellow prisoners when they were released, each set
them up with his family and his girls. I'm Darry Mantara,
author of the book Charles Manson Taming the Beast, Charles
Manson's Life in prison. So they had this flop house
(13:58):
near San Quentin where they they all were hanging out,
So they kind of merged and blended together. Post helter
skelter squeaky was dropping in and out.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
This was how Lynette got to know Michael Montfort, William Goucher,
and James Craig, three ex con members of the Arian Brotherhood.
The three sported prominent Aran Brotherhood tattoos on their torsos.
Speaker 8 (14:24):
Lynette ended up with a group of Rian Brotherhood members
and fellow travelers who were committing various crimes and robberies
in California. That group included a young couple, including an
ex marine named James Willette and their young baby.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
James Willette, whose body was found in his shallow grave
in Gernville, was from the family that owned the Willlette
Distillery in Kentucky. He'd done a tour of the Marines
in Vietnam, re enlisted, and been sent to Okinawa, Japan.
When Willlett encounter from Montfort and the rest he'd been
teaching under priv kids in Los Angeles. His father described
(15:02):
James as intelligent and public spirited that he'd wanted to
reform racial problems in the Marines. The father also said
that since the Marines, James seemed to be living a
hippie lifestyle. He was married to a young woman named
Lauren known as Rennie. She'd run away from home after
dispute with her parents about school. She was eighteen, he
was twenty six. They had an infant daughter named Heidi.
(15:26):
Their landlord in Los Angeles described James, who she for
some reason called Tom as a quote very gentle and
sensitive lad. She at one point asked him about his
experience in Vietnam and said he became very bitter and
said that if people in America knew about the atrocities
that he had seen, but that he didn't want to
talk about it. She befriended the Willettes and would bring
(15:48):
them baby clothes and toys. She and her husband went
away to Minnesota for the summer. They returned to stories
from their neighbors of hippies coming and going from the
apartment at all hours of the day and night, of
the baby crying instantly, and of a woman who had
not paid for her own electricity but was tapping into
the wallettes. The Wallettes left soon after. It's not clear
(16:10):
how Lynette met James Willette, but she introduced him to
the Aryan Brotherhood guys in San Francisco in September nineteen
seventy two. At the time, the three men, Montfort, Goucher,
and Craig were making frequent trips down to Los Angeles
to commit armed robberies. James had that nineteen sixty five
Ford station wagon white with wood paneling. It would be useful.
(16:32):
Lynette wanted the robberies to continue because some of the
takings would finance paying Manson's lawyers. The Wallette stayed with
the three men and two women, Montfort's girlfriend Nancy Pittman,
who would later receive the police in Stockton, and Goucher's
girlfriend Maria Alonso. They lived north of San Francisco in Gernville,
at a private campground on the Russian River called Parker's Resort.
(16:54):
From this point forward, the Wallette story becomes less certain.
There are two versions. The first is the story that
came out in the papers. In this story, James travels
with the Aryan Brotherhood men down to la to participate
in a series of robberies. At some point, James tells
Rennie that he wants to leave the group. Rennie, for
whatever reason, relays this information to Nancy and Maria. The
(17:17):
word gets to Montfort and Craig, and they kill James
in Gernville. Rennie stays with the group. The papers speculated
about Rennie that she might have actually agreed to James's
murder and witnessed it. The second version of this story
is told by Dariy Matara and Edward George in their
book Taming the Beast. In this story, James does not
(17:39):
participate in the robberies. Rennie is initially excited by the
fast living lifestyle of the group at Parker's resort. James
is more hesitant. He tries to reason with her, but
she doesn't hear it at first. James's father comes to
visit the couple in their baby, but is alarmed by
the people hanging around the house. He doesn't stay long.
His father tries to con events James to leave. James
(18:02):
is afraid of the group, but won't abandon Rennie. James
discovers that Montfort, Craig, and Goucher are supporting their lifestyles
through robberies. This is the last straw. He tells Rennie
that if she doesn't leave with him and go to Kentucky,
that he will turn the men in. Rennie doesn't want
to leave. She tells Nancy Pittman and Maria Alonso what
James has told her. She wants them to explain the
(18:24):
robberies away and get him to stay. She hasn't read
the situation. Then James is killed in Gernville, but Rennie
is told that he just picked up and left. She
doesn't know he is dead, and she and the baby
stay with the group. Goucher even says later that she
has a passing relationship with Craig. Where the stories reconverge
(18:47):
is in the freshly turned soil beneath the house at
seven twenty West Flora after the break.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
On November tenth, nineteen seventy two, two days after James
Willett's body was found in a shallow grave in Gernville, California,
and one day after news of this discovery was reported
in the newspapers, Stockton police obtained a search warrant to
investigate a mound of freshly disturbed dirt beneath the house
(19:25):
at seven twenty West Flora. They found the body of
Runnie Wilette. She'd been shot once in the head with
the thirty eight. The police already had six people in
custody for her husband's murder, three men who were involved
in the Aran Brotherhood, Michael Montfort, William Goucher, and James Craig,
(19:47):
and three women, Nancy Pittman, Priscilla Cooper and Lynette From.
All three women had exes carved in their foreheads. From
and Pittman had been members of the Manson family and
continued to support him. Cooper's only connection to Manson seemed
to be the ex The story they told was this,
(20:09):
Michael Monfort was showing the group the danger in handling guns.
He put the thirty eight to his own head and
pulled the trigger, but the gun didn't go off. He
then pointed it at Rennie's head, pulled the trigger and
shot her dead. A stupid accident, but an accident, the
cops were dubious. The obvious scenario was that Rennie did
(20:32):
not know that James had been killed, and once his
body was found, she had to be silenced the same
way that her husband was silenced. In June of nineteen
seventy three, William Goucher pled guilty to murder charges and
agreed to testify against Montford and Craig. His life was
(20:52):
threatened and he was kept in hiding. According to Goucher,
their group had known the Willettes for about a month.
Two of those weeks had been spent at Parker's resort
in Gernville. The men, including James Rolette, took trips down
to la and pulled four armed robberies. Soon after they returned,
(21:13):
James told Rennie about his plan to turn in the
other men. Rennie then told Nancy and Priscilla, who told
the men. They waited a week after Rennie told them
about James's plan. They told James to go somewhere in
the woods and dig a hole to bury some money.
This was to be his grave. They drank that night.
(21:35):
Goucher had purchased a shotgun earlier and had sawed off
the barrel. He said he wanted to go and shoot.
They walked to roughly the spot where James had been digging,
but they couldn't find the hole. They grew tired and
sat down. They shone a large flashlight across the road.
Goucher loaded four rounds into a shotgun and shot at
(21:57):
a tree. He told James to check the tree formage.
As James walked over, Montfort began the shooting. Goucher couldn't
remember how many times he fired. Then Craig's shot will
Let twice with a twenty gage shotgun. Goucher shot him
once or twice with a twelve gage sowd off shotgun.
They rolled James's body down the hill and covered it
(22:19):
with leaves and some dirt. It lay there until it
was discovered by the hiker weeks later. There were no trials.
Montfort pled guilty to second degree murder in both cases,
and Craig to accessory after the fact. Goucher had already
cut a deal to plead a second degree murder in
James's death in exchange for his grand jury testimony. Priscilla
(22:43):
Cooper and Nancy Pittman pled to accessory after the fact.
In Rennie's murder, Lynette didn't face any charges in either case.
The story didn't quite end there though. For months after
the murders, James will Lett's parents receive threatening phone call
at all hours from women threatening them with bloody deaths
(23:04):
or saying they would leave James's head on their doorstep
somehow or another. Word later got around that James Craig
was an informant who was burned nearly to death in
his car. He was transported to a nearby hospital, whereas
last words were reportedly she's dangerous. It was not clear
(23:25):
who he was referring to.
Speaker 8 (23:29):
This is a period where what starts as at least
a sensibly a kind of hippie love cult has transmographied
into a violent prison gang criminal enterprise where they're going
around robbing places and killing people. There's no real philosophy
around it. It's just what they do because they're criminals.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
With Manson in prison indefinitely, Lynette shifted her attention to
helping him any way she could from outside. As we've seen,
this meant providing assistance to arian brothers who were released
from prison. Though her allegiance to Manson continued, her life
was no longer centered around communal living and following Charlie.
She was instead in a world of professional criminals.
Speaker 8 (24:15):
She's there because it's part of her loyalty demandsa not
because she is specifically interested in a criminal lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
In fact, during this time, she was working on her
memoir Reflection, which we read from last episode. Not surprisingly
given her unstable lifestyle. The manuscript was written on whatever
Lynette had available at any given time. Some pages were tight,
some handwritten in different colors of ink. She later used
a typewriter in the office of her lawyer, Doug Vaughan.
(24:45):
Vaughn also kept a photocopy of the manuscript in his
office in case the original was lost.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
There's this utopian vision that she experienced, and that, to
her is what the reality is. It obviously was a
very important work to her because she felt that her
mission was to explain and to help the world understand
what Manson's meaning or message actually was. And it is
quite removed from the reality of horror that he inflicted
(25:14):
on dozens of actual people and their families, and more
broadly than the damage he caused to American society.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Reflections is a product not just of Manson's beliefs and
From's experience with him, she also gives her interpretation of
these events and the people who surrounded Manson. Manson was
her leader, but she kept her own will.
Speaker 8 (25:37):
This is a follower who is not just carrying out
orders or instructions or what have you. This is a
follower who is really superimposing her own ideas and her
own vision and her own values onto the leader and
making that leader into the leader she wants him to be,
as opposed to the one that he really happens to be.
And it's a very striking difference. So there's a lot
(25:59):
of side about what is in it for a follower
other than just the comfort of being told what to do.
Because most of her time, Manson is not telling her
what to do. He can't he's in prison. You know,
She's deciding what to do based on that experience. This
is somebody who had the dice rolled slightly differently, could
(26:20):
have been a very different person.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Lynette's companion during much of this period was Sandra Good,
perhaps the one person whose devotion to Manson could rival
her own former Manson follower, Diane Lake.
Speaker 10 (26:35):
The two of them were pretty pretty close and very devoted.
They proclaimed as Innocence Forever.
Speaker 8 (26:43):
If you look at things. Sandra said to reporters on
camera and in writing, her vocabulary is much more violent,
much more threatening than Lynnette's.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Everybody is afraid. Yeah, that's a holding up nobody's content
right now, with the world they've created, that their minds
are all locked by a fear of death. Unless Manson
gets the court room and it's allowed to speak, country
will be bloodier than the Tate Lavianca house put together.
(27:17):
Your children will rise up and kill you. Your own children. Sah,
what you've done. They see what you're doing to your world.
They see that you lie.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
In Sacramento. Whnette and Sandra will continue to live on
society's margins, making their presence known through press releases, threats,
organic treats, and a national campaign of intimidation aimed at
America's corporate executives. Next Time on Rip Current.
Speaker 9 (28:10):
Rip Current was created and written by Toby Ball and
developed with Alexander Williams. Hosted by Toby Ball with Mary
Kathryne Garrison. Original music by Jeff Sanoff, Show art by Jeffney.
Speaker 7 (28:21):
As Goda and Charles Rudder.
Speaker 9 (28:23):
Producers Jesse Funk, Reema O'Kelly and Noms Griffin supervising producer
Trelie Young, executive producers Alexander Williams and Matt Frederick. Here
episodes of Rip Current early completely add free and receive
exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus
only on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
(28:46):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows, and visit our website, ripcurrentpod dot com.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
After I ate the hamburger, she said, just imagine if
there are tin tabs acid in it, and then I
just kind of flashed, there are ten tobes acid
Host
Toby Ball
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