Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

Catherine Gillies is divorced and living on welfare with her four children near Death Valley. She is very proud of the fact that her twin teenage daughters are both honor students. No one seems to know what became of Stephanie Schram. Nancy Pitman married Michael Monfort, a former member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a group Manson allegedly had a loose, arms-length relationship with in the mid-’70s. She served one year for her accessory-after-the-fact conviction in the murder of Lauren Willett, a homicide Monfort pled guilty to. Pitman divorced Monfort in 1990. She is now single, employed, and living with her four children in the Pacific Northwest. Her main concern these days, she says, “is to protect my children” from any harm brought about by her having once belonged to the Manson Family.

Little Paul Watkins, the intelligent and articulate youth who provided me with the missing link for Manson’s motive of Helter Skelter, died in 1990 from leukemia. Paul and his second wife, Martha, had two girls and lived in Tecopa, a small desert town at the southernmost edge of Death Valley. Paul was the founder and first president of the Death Valley Chamber of Commerce and the unofficial mayor of Tecopa. He and his wife mined rocks in the area and sold them in their Tecopa jewelry store. Paul also lectured extensively on the psychology of cults and the pernicious effects of substance abuse. His book, My Life with Charles Manson, was published in 1979.

For years, Paul (who composed, sang, and played the saxophone and flute) and his close friend Brooks Poston (composition, guitar) had a rock band called the “Desert Sun” that played at night spots in the Death Valley area. Brooks, the self-described hayseed from Texas, is now reportedly a member of a non-violent cult in New Orleans, but I have been unable to confirm this.

Dennis Rice served five years for the Hawthorne robbery and an additional two for violating a condition of his parole that he stop associating with members of the Manson Family. Today, he is an ordained minister and president of “Free Indeed” Ministries, Inc. He lives with his second wife in a Southwest state and speaks, he says, “in high schools, jails, and prisons all over America on the power of Jesus Christ to change lives.” He has six children, all of whom, he notes proudly, are “Christians serving God.”

Ruth Moorehouse is living with her husband and three children in a midwestern state. The Panamanian cowboy, Juan Flynn, returned to Panama, where he works on a ranch. In early 1994, Juan returned to the Death Valley area to visit old friends. In the late ’70s I received a call from Canadian law enforcement looking for Danny DeCarlo, who was born in Canada. I have been unable to find out from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa what became of this matter because the Privacy Act in Canada prohibits the release of this information. I have no idea where DeCarlo is today.

I am frequently asked what happened to the “Manson children.” There were eight of them, four belonging to Dennis Rice by his first wife—three boys and a girl. Two of Rice’s boys are now pastors in churches located in a Southwest state. The other boy and the girl also live in the Southwest and are very involved in the activities of their local Christian church.

Little is known of Sandra Good’s son, Sunstone Hawk, except that he went to college on a football scholarship and was a lineman on the team.

Linda Kasabian’s daughter, Tanya, grew up with Linda in New Hampshire.

She now lives in the Pacific Northwest, is married, and recently made Linda a grandmother with her first child.

All I was able to learn about Susan Atkins’ son, Zezozose Zadfrack, was that he was adopted, reportedly by a physician. The court records have been sealed and Atkins herself does not know where her son is.

Valentine Michael (“Pooh Bear”), the son of Manson and Mary Brunner, was raised by Mary’s parents in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Until the third grade he did not know who his father was and believed his mother to be his older sister. In 1993, Michael told a reporter who tracked him down that he had never visited Manson “nor do I have any desire to see him. He’s just some evil person I have nothing to do with.” According to Manson Family researcher Bill Nelson, Michael, now twenty-six, lives with his girlfriend and their three-year-old son in a Rocky Mountain state where he is a salesman for a plumbing supply firm. He recently got his real estate license. Michael is deeply appreciative of the fact that his grandparents raised him, and to this day remains closer to them than to his mother.