Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

As for the Manson trial participants today, Irving Kanarek, Manson’s lawyer, was ordered to be inactive by the California State Bar on January 29, 1990. He resigned from the bar on October 26, 1990, “with charges pending.” I do not know the basis for the charges (being a privileged matter) nor Kanarek’s present whereabouts.

Paul Fitzgerald, Patricia Krenwinkel’s lawyer, practices law in Beverly Hills and is a prominent member of the criminal defense bar in the Los Angeles area. Fitzgerald, a fine trial lawyer who continues to win more than his share of cases, manages to do so without sacrificing grace and civility in the courtroom, a place inherently inhospitable to both qualities.

Daye Shinn, Susan Atkins’ lawyer, was disbarred by the California State Bar on October 16, 1992, for misappropriating a client’s money.

Maxwell Keith, the urbane lawyer who replaced Ronald Hughes as Leslie Van Houten’s lawyer, is still in the private practice of law in Los Angeles, and this year was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Criminal Courts Bar Association.

The cause of Ronald Hughes’ death in the Sespe Hot Springs area of Ventura County remains a mystery to this day. In 1976, a former member of Manson’s Family, understandably wanting to remain anonymous, called me. Without furnishing any additional or supporting information, he stated categorically that Hughes had been murdered by the Manson Family. Lieutenant Greg Husband of the Ventura County Sheriff’s office reports that since it was never determined whether Hughes’ death was the result of an accident, homicide, or suicide, the Hughes case file is still open, though no investigators are presently assigned to the case. It should be remembered that there is no statute of limitations for the crime of murder.

I write almost full-time, trying cases on a very selective basis. My two most recent non-fiction books, both published in 1991, are And the Sea Will Tell and Drugs in America: The Case for Victory. I’m presently writing a book on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. My read on the case? Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy and acted alone.

Curt Gentry, the co-author of this book, went on to write J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. Published in 1991, it is the definitive biography of Hoover, and in my opinion and that of many others, a literary tour de force.

My co-prosecutor, Aaron Stovitz, has always wanted (and, I feel, is still eminently qualified) to be a judge. In October of 1991, Aaron, who was retired from the DA’s office, became a part-time Los Angeles Municipal Court commissioner in San Fernando, a city in the northeast section of Los Angeles County. His sense of humor intact, Aaron says he is “the Judge Wapner of the San Fernando Valley,” and orders anyone who comes to his Small Claims court unprepared “to watch two reruns of People’s Court.”

Judge Charles Older is in retirement, having left the bench in 1987.

In a three-volume work by Jay Robert Nash called Bloodletters and Badmen, a who’s who of virtually every well-known criminal in American history, Jesse James is on the cover of Volume I, Al Capone on Volume II, and Manson on Volume III. In the elite pantheon of heinous criminals, Manson has made his mark, and he appears to relish this fame, as steeped in infamy as it is.

In the twenty-five years that have elapsed since the atrocities which Charles Manson ordered and masterminded occurred, mass murder, as never before, has almost become a staple in our society. Disgruntled or demented killers flip out, go into a former place of employment, fast-food establishment, law firm, etc., and murder five to ten people or more. Such carnage no longer shocks a desensitized public when reported on the evening news. But fortunately, as of this date, the singularity of Manson’s evil and the particular brand of demonic murders he authored have not again been inflicted upon our nation. We can only hope that the ensuing years will be the same.

V.B.

June 1994

Books by Curt Gentry

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. Co-author, Vincent Bugliosi

Second in Command. Co-author, Edward R. Murphy, Jr., executive officer U.S.S. Pueblo

Operation Overflight. Co-author, U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers

The Last Days of the Late Great State of California

The Killer Mountains: A Search for the Legendary Lost Dutchman Mine

A Kind of Loving. Co-author, Toni Lee Scott

Frame-Up: The Incredible Case of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings

The Vulnerable Americans