Eyes Wide Open

In the summer of 1973, the paranoia seemed to intensify, fueled by a mixture of drugs and religion and repeated attempts by Paul Riorden and the police to get Houvnanian and his followers off the property. Several of the followers either left or were expelled. The locals around the ranch grew alarmed. People were saying there were LSD-addled orgies and blood rituals and threats against society taking place. Riorden pushed to close down the commune.

According to Greenway, Susan Pollack had spent a year at Swarthmore. Her dad was a managing director of Bache and Co., then a major Wall Street brokerage house. Another follower, Sarah Strasser, had a father who was a successful car dealership mogul from Seattle. Others, like Tel Richards of Beaumont, Texas, were simply drifters who’d had criminal records since their early teens.

In July of 1973, Houvnanian and two cronies drove down to Santa Barbara to appeal to Riorden and get him to back off his threats to pressure his ex-wife to shut down the ranch. They also went to see George Forniciari, whom one of his followers knew, to seek his help in purchasing the property. Both of them refused. Paul Riorden even called his ex-wife Sandy, Houvnanian’s sometime benefactor, a “misguided slut.”

Houvnanian drove back home that night in a rage, and a new sense of finality took over the ranch: The “final stage” had begun. There were three days of nonstop revelry on LSD, fueling everyone’s fears that their world of “peace and harmony” was at an end. The words of the Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!” were twisted into some kind of end-of-the-world prophecy: “A time to kill, a time to cast away stones.” Houvnanian painted Riorden and his wealthy class as devils. He got his most ardent followers to believe that only an act of “pious bloodletting” would protect them against what was to come. They began to look at their commune as a place of impending betrayal-aptly named Gethsemane, where Judas had betrayed Jesus-and Paul Riorden and his family as the “devils,” like the Romans, who would one day come for them. If Judas had not handed over Jesus, Houvnanian preached, “Jesus would have ruled the earth for two thousand years.”

There were various accounts of exactly how many people set out in the commune’s 1967 VW van to head back down to Santa Barbara on September 7, 1973, but in the end, the horrific acts were not in dispute: nine people brutally murdered. Five were convicted on nine counts of first-degree murder. Three more, including Susan Pollack, were convicted of being accomplices and abetting these acts.

Houvnanian was still serving out multiple life sentences at the California state super-max penitentiary at Pelican Bay.

Head spinning, I shut the computer. I called the restaurant and ordered a meal. I set a wake-up call for six A.M. I didn’t know where anyone-Zorn, Evan, Charlie, Susan Pollack-was fitting in.

My dinner came and I turned on the TV. I found a ball game on ESPN. I realized I’d now been out there for six days. I felt like my whole life had shifted on its axis and altered in just a few days.

I was a little tired, and part of me knew I should make it an early night. But my blood was pumping and I sat back down at the desk, where my computer was. This had become the only place I could feel at home.

I logged back on and did a search on “Houvnanian,” feeling like I was close to something, scrolling to the third and fourth pages for additional links. I came upon a summary of the trial proceedings posted by a reporter with the Santa Barbara Clarion.

The trials were pretty much a slam dunk for the state. All the defendants were tried separately. The killers were amateurs and careless and had barely even made an attempt to hide their tracks. Fingerprints were left at the scenes. In blood. Articles of clothing. Most even helped convict themselves with their own rambling testimonies.

Susan Pollack pled guilty to helping to hide the murder weapons back on the ranch and washing down the inside of the van.

I’d had enough. I sat back and put my hands on the sides of my head and rubbed my temples. The lids of my eyes were so heavy. I didn’t know what was in store for us tomorrow.

But someone had been with Evan just before his death.

And I was sure Susan Pollack was involved.

I was about to turn the computer off when I happened to scroll down farther ahead and noticed something. I pulled it closer to me, forcing my eyes open.

It was the transcript of a speech given by Houvnanian at the time of his sentencing. In a rambling jeremiad, he blamed the rich for their victims’ deaths, their pawns the police, the lawyers who argued against him, the nonbelievers out there who doubted who he was. He ranted that it served no purpose to put him away, “no matter for how long, even for life.” The social turmoil and upheaval he foretold in End of Days would come to pass.