Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Manson murders: Are there more than we know?

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

Members of the Manson family are known for horrendous murders. At one home, pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others were butchered. The following day, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were also brutally killed. Leader Charles Manson was convicted of nine murders but confessed to 35 while in prison. Today, over half a century later, investigations are ongoing into at least 12 other murders that may be linked to the Manson family.Joining Nancy Grace today; Troy Slaten Criminal Defense Attorney  Joseph Scott Morgan Forensic Expert, Professor of Forensics, Author,"Blood Beneath My Feet" Steven Lampley Detective  Dr. Michelle Dupre Medical Examiner & Author of “Homicide Investigation Field Guide” Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm not a violent human being. Did you tell the women to do their witchy things? I said, if you're gonna do something, leave something witchy. Just like I would tell you, if you're gonna do something, do it well and leave something witchy. Leave a sign to let the world know that you were there. Have a good day. Did you tell them which words? No. Pig? No. Helter Skelter? No. Arise?

No. That's not my vocabulary. That's not my generation. I keep telling you that. Wow. There's nothing like hearing it from the horse's mouth. Charles Manson. May he rot in hell.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Does it never end with Charles Manson? Let's listen to the rest of that. Leslie said, in the car on the way to the LaBianca house, you said this time, make sure they're not scared like last night. Oh, no. It may have been something like this. Yeah, I remember something like that, but I don't remember exactly the right words. I don't remember exactly the right words, but that's remember exactly the right words. But that's a simple philosophy from China. That's a Chinese philosophy.

If you're going to go to war and you're fighting your enemy and you're killing when he's afraid, it's a bad omen. It's bad. It's bad. So you try to absorb the fear. I think the Hindus use that word karma to balance karma. What the H-E-L-L, does this serial killer know about Chinese tradition, the art of war and the Hindu religion? Not a D-A-M-N thing. What the hey is he talking about? Don't kill them while they're afraid. Sharon Tate was pregnant when his, quote, witchy followers under his direction slaughtered her. The LaBiancas begged for their lives.

Not afraid. My rear end. Right now, this cult leader's family, quote family, who goes on a murderous rampage, still demanding to be released. The so-called family slaughtered 10 people, including pregnant star Sharon Tate. She had just made a movie debut in The Wrecking Ball, The Wrecking Train, I think. She was awesome. The LaBiancas, a happy family, slaughtered because of Charles Manson. You were just hearing the devil himself speaking to Leslie Stahl. It goes on and on. With me right now, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together,

Troy Slayton, high-profile criminal defense attorney there in L.A., Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, Joseph Scott Morgan, University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, Joseph Scott Morgan. Detective and author of Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer, I don't know if I want to go there, Stephen Lampley. Renowned medical examiner out of South Carolina and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, Dr. Michelle Dupree. Joining me right now, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Levi Page. You know, Levi, thank you for being with us.

In preparation for today, I actually watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Now, I love Tarantino. I love his work. And I love this. Levi Page, what's happening with these evil killers now? Well, the L.A. Times has done an investigation into a series of suspicious deaths that they think that it's possible that the Manson family committed. And it started with 29-year-old Joe Pugh. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.

Levi, Levi, hold on just a moment. You mean Charles Manson and his so-called family are linked, potentially linked to more murders? And if so, how many more? How many are we talking about? What's the body count? We're talking about 12 that the L.A. Times has said that the LAPD thinks that he is connected to.

But there are several that stand out. 29-year-old Joe Pugh, he was the boyfriend of a Manson follower named Sandra Good. And Joe Pugh did not like Charles Manson. He was embarrassed that his girlfriend was following this cult. But Manson was infatuated with Sandra Good because she was a trust fund baby. When her father passed away, she started getting two grand a month. And this money she was giving to Manson and his cult. So he loves Sandra Good. And Pew was found dead in the Talgarth Hotel in London.

Hold on. I want to tell you something you just mentioned, and I want to go to our friend Troy Slayton on this. Troy, I'm not going to even ask you to defend that killer, Charles Manson, but I want you to look at his M.O. I really didn't think about this part of it before until I saw Tarantino's movie. Because, you know, I'm just concerned with the nuts and bolts, the facts, what I can prove in court, and that justice prevails. But it was very clear what Manson's M.O. was. You're hearing Levi Page describe this trust fund baby and that Manson was all into her. He had plenty of women to sleep with, but she had money.

And in this movie, Tarantino reminds me that Manson and his followers would go out like fishing for followers, you know, lost girls that were homeless, that were rebellious and didn't want to be with their family. And what could be better for Manson than a trust fund baby? That was his M.O. to how he developed his followers. Anyone connected with Manson who even took an ancillary step towards committing the murder or any of those murders up to 35 that Manson bragged to in jail that could have been committed under his direction. And he was only convicted for nine.

Anyone even remotely connected that took an affirmative step is also guilty of murder. Troy, I want you to take a listen to my friend Diane Lake that I spoke with about these girls that became his devotees. You, Diane Lake, you fell under his spell. He, as I said, was very charismatic, playful, seemingly intelligent. And the girls, the other girls had such a devotion for him. It was easy. And being not with my family and not feeling like I really belonged with the life that they had chosen just made me, and that his family, he and his family of girls made me feel so welcomed and part of them. That was the that was the magic.

Have they lost their minds? That was Diane Link, who actually was with Manson. Have the magic. The magic. What magic? I mean, Joseph Scott Morgan, you're the forensic expert. How many times have you and I seen murders where one person or more than one person

is totally enamored with the devil? That would be Charles Manson. They'll do whatever he says. Yeah, and one of the things that's always kind of come through with all of this is that we heard in the beginning, you know, that clip where he said, do something witchy. He had these people under a spell. And one of the things that's kind of floated to the top over the years is that he would actually, as a collective, have these young runaway girls plied with like hallucinogens. And he would fake actually taking them himself.

And then as they're under the influence of these things, he would begin to espouse his philosophies and preach to them. And in effect, kind of perform a brainwashing over these people and affect them as to what they're going to do. And you've got all of these vulnerable kids that are essentially just kind of lost kids that are on the street that he would take in. And they would go out and just slaughter people as we see in the Tate-LaBianca Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The Manson family is mostly remembered for two events, and that would be the murder of Sharon Tate, and for others there in Benedict Canyon, and butchering Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in Los Feliz.

But now, cold case investigators and others say that Charles Manson and his cult followers murdered many more people. LAPD officially has a dozen unsolved homicides that they are linking to Manson. There are other murders outside L.A. that many believe to be the work of the Manson family, and some of the connections are extremely, extremely believable. But he didn't just ply them with dope. Listen to Diane Lake for a 14-year-old girl essentially living in a sex relationship with a 34-year-old man, Charles Manson. enjoying and I did I did enjoy living at spawn ranch um beautiful hills and trees and rocks and little streams and I remember spending a lot of time out in nature you know I didn't have sex every day it was not it was not that um concentrated or that that wasn't the total focus.

You know, when you say we didn't have sex every day, well, you know, Diane, most 14-year-old girls don't have sex ever because it's actually statutory rape. So to hear you say that, I just think of you as a 14-year-old girl in that world. You are hearing me speaking with the youngest that we know of, Manson follower Diane Lake. And boy, my eyes were opened up when I talked to her. We learned that the LAPD is linking many, many more murders to the Manson family.

And this, after Bruce Davis, who was sentenced to death for murder, the murders of Shorty Shea and Gary Hinman, you know, he was sentenced to death. Then California got rid of the death penalty. His sentence was commuted to life. He was actually granted parole. Gavin Newsom overturns the decision. Straight back out to Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Now, the LAPD has absolutely linked multiple murders back to the Manson family. Why now? They're taking a second look at these cases, and a lot of the prosecutors in this case, Stephen Kaye and Vincent Bugliosi, have long thought that they were connected to a lot of these murders that the L.A. Times is publishing and writing about now. And what stands out to me is we were talking about Sandra Good, the young woman that Manson was infatuated with because she got two grand a month from a trust fund.

You know, back then that was a lot of money. And her boyfriend was embarrassed that she was a member of this cult and he was actually very depressed that she was cheating on him was a member of this cult and he was killed in a hotel in london his throat was slashed and investigators in london determined that the 29 year old killed himself from suicide. They say he was depressed. However, what's so bizarre is that the mirror in his hotel room actually had stuff written on it, but investigators are not releasing what it was, and they didn't take photographic evidence and save it. They just brushed it off as a suicide. His throat was slashed, and so were his his wrists it was a bloody scene that they just said was suicide but what links this to manson is that bruce davis who you just mentioned he was a

member of this cult he had killed people participated in several murders he was in London at the time that Joel Pugh killed himself, allegedly. He was a member of the Church of Scientology, and he was there in London at the time that this young man allegedly killed himself. And that's why a lot of people think that this was not suicide, that this was murder, and that Bruce Davis was involved in it. To Dr. Michelle Dupree, medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. As of right now, the LAPD is connecting Charles Manson and his groupies to even more murders. Well, I'm glad they're doing it. But in many people's books, it's a day late and a dollar short. short, Dr. Michelle Dupree, what, if anything, can be gained from the murder victim's bodies this long after the murders? Well, Nancy, a couple of things, really. We can look at the way that the person was murdered. A lot of times, suspects have a certain preferred weapon. They

also have a certain method of doing things. They have a signature. We can tie those together. Certainly, if there is any DNA, we can look at that. Even if we can't tie the DNA to a person, we can tie it to the same unknown suspect. And that helps us to provide linkages to these other crimes, as well as any perhaps trace evidence. I want you to hear what authorities have to say about Jane Doe 59, as she has been called, Jane Doe 59. This is freelance reporter Robert Dyke-Dock in Anatomy of a Murder. Just four months prior to the murder, members of the Manson family living at Spahn Ranch

committed the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders. Authorities thought it was possible that the young woman may have met her end at the hands of Manson and his followers due to the close proximity of her dump site to the Tate murder site. However, no strong leads came from this. Jane Doe number 59's image was reconstructed in hopes of gaining more exposure and recognition. However, her body remained unidentified, so she was cremated and buried in a mass grave. The box containing her case files, dental records, fingerprints, and a blood-soaked bra with her DNA was filed away in an evidence locker with the hope that someday someone would identify her. You are hearing a freelance reporter rob Dyke in Anatomy of a Murder. What I don't understand,

if a freelance reporter knows this, then how come police were not pursuing it? Take a listen to Dyke. When the LAPD formed its cold case squad in the early 2000s, Detective Cliff Shepherd discovered the bloody bra in her case file and hoped it could help family members identify Jane Doe. He submitted her DNA into databases across the country and released her post-mortem photo to the Doe Network and National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. However, another decade passed without any answers. It wasn't until 2015 that childhood friends of a missing woman from Montreal, Canada spotted the profile of Jane Doe number 59 in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. They contacted Ann Jurvetson, who immediately

recognized her sister in the photos taken at the morgue. In April of 2016, a DNA test confirmed Ann Jurvetson's worst fears. Jane Doe's real name was Rape Sylvia Jurvetson. Rape Sylvia Jurvetson, aka Jane Doe 59, believed to be yet another victim of the Manson family due to proximity at the time she was not identified. And they cremated her. Oh, dear Lord, does it never end. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Great Sylvia Jervison, a.k.a. Jane Doe 59, believed to be yet another victim of the Manson family. At the time, she was not identified, and they cremated her. Police kept a file, however.

It included her blood-soaked bra, dental records, and fingerprints, which could be probative, filed away in an evidence locker. To Stephen Lampley, detective and author of Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer, Stephen Lampley, I find it very difficult to believe that a young girl like Reet Jervison ends up dead so close to the Manson family farm. Murdered. She fits the profile of all his other followers. She was stabbed, clearly, just like the Tates and the LaBiancas, brutally stabbed. And it was never connected.

I mean, it's so obvious to me, Steve Lampley. What do you make of it? You're the expert inside the mind of a serial killer. Nancy, I agree with you. Now, why they didn't make the connection, I have no clue. I really don't know. But there were other murders, as these other 12 prove as well. And Manson himself said, you know, he killed 35. Of course, Manson is a known

liar. But there's no reason to believe that he didn't kill 35, or maybe he killed 50. There's no way of knowing. The problem we have, or they're going to have, is that in 1960 in California, Nancy, there were 616 murders. Now that increased to around 1400 in 1969. There was a 125% increase in homicides while there was only a 24% increase in population. So were any of these copycats? I don't know. Were they similar just by nature? I don't know. Were they similar just by nature? We don't know. Did Manson do them at this point? We're looking at that. So, yeah, but I agree with you. Why it didn't stand out? I really don't know why they didn't latch on to

that and go with it. To you, Levi Pace, joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. What can you tell me about a series of tapes that have just been unearthed yes these are tapes where some of the members are talking about a lot of the unsolved murders or suspicious deaths here that that we're discussing and i want to mention reit Jervison, Nancy. She was stabbed 150 times in the neck and she went to California, L.A. after meeting a Manson follower at a coffee shop in Montreal. What are the chances that she meets a Manson follower, moves to L.A. and then is killed by someone else other than a Manson follower. I mean, that seems extremely bizarre and strange that someone else outside of the Manson family cult would end up killing her. The tapes seem to be very indicative that there are other murders. The tapes include conversations between convicted killer Charles Tex Watson and his lawyers.

And the LAPD got the tapes after a legal battle. What do we know? We know that they seem to indicate other murders were perpetrated by the Manson family. Now, a judge ruled in 2017, Leslie Van Houten could not have the recordings as part of her efforts to gain parole. To Levi Page, ClimbOnline.com investigative reporter, Levi, how did the LA Times manage to get the tapes and what, if anything, are they doing with them? So they're reviewing these tapes to see the to hear and listen to these conversations between these cult members to see if they can garner any clues and connect them to these unsolved murders. And Stephen Kaye, one of the prosecutors in this case, and his partner,

Vincent Bugliosi, had always suspected that they were involved in more murders than what they were convicted of. And it's so interesting that these tapes are not made public. I think they should be made public so that the public, the people out there can decide for themselves of whether or not a thorough investigation was done, whether or not these killers, some of which have been granted parole, are responsible for more murders. You know, to Troy Slayton, a veteran criminal defense attorney joining me from that jurisdiction, did you know that Manson told cellmates he was responsible for 35 murders. What do you make of that?

You need other evidence, Nancy. Simply admitting to a murder is not enough to convict a person of murder. I could walk into the LAPD and say I committed 35 murders, arrest me, and I don't think they're going to unless there's other evidence. So these tapes that that that they fought to keep out of the hands of investigators may be may provide those clues. As far as police detectives are concerned, a case is never closed until there's a conviction for murder. Well, this is what we know about Jane Doe 59, also known as Reed Jervison. Now, I was very friendly with Bugliosi. He wrote Helter Skelter, as we all know. He was a proponent that she, Jane Doe 59, was killed because she witnessed one of the Manson family murders.

Listen to this. Joe Scott Morgan, forensic expert, author of Blood Beneath My Feet. Jane Doe 59, Reet, was stabbed 150 times. A bird watcher found her on Mulholland Drive, just six miles from Spawn Ranch, where Benedict Canyon is, where Tate and the others were killed. Just six miles from the Benedict Canyon home where Sharon Tate was killed. Now, she's been identified. She was just 19 years old at the time. She's been identified with DNA. And she came to L.A. from Canada.

And she joined a guy that she thought looked like Jim Morrison. I mean, obviously, it's Charles Manson, Joe Scott Morgan. What do I have to do, connect the dots and send the picture to the LAPD? No, I think that it's connectivity with all of these things. One of the most striking things that kind of floors you is what you mentioned. What was that number you gave me again relative to how many times she was stabbed? She was stabbed 150 times. I know.

And that sounds like a group killing. That sounds like people were joining in on the stabbing. It does. You know, like Murder on the Orient Express. Has anybody seen that? Agatha Christie novel. Everybody had a reason to kill this one person, and they all stabbed him. And there were multiple stab wounds.

It really threw Hercule Poirot into a fit, let me tell you. But 150 stab wounds, that's more than one person, Joe Scott. Help me out here. Yeah, yeah, it really is, unless you're dealing with a single person that is just so psychotic. But look back at what we're talking about relative to, just as an example, the Tate murders. Those are a signature of overkill. You've got this bloody orgy that is essentially taking place. And he cut these people loose like guard dogs on these poor victims

and just absolutely ripped them to shreds. And this is one of the things that we look for in these serialized events like this, this signature pattern that goes along. And unfortunately, this poor girl, and having worked at the ME's office in Atlanta and in New Orleans with the coroner's office, I've been to these mass graves where we have to bury bodies all at once. They've stopped cremating bodies nowadays. They just bury them in mass graves.

But in her case, she was actually cremated. The family has nothing to go back to. Fortunately, you know, they had this bra that gave them some indication of who she was and they followed that thread. But, you know, she's just one person. And how many other person, how many other persons were there that he was cut loose upon? Take a listen to Vince DiBugliosi, the famed prosecutor who brought down Manson, speaking to LA Times writer Richard Winton. Here in 1972, the California and U.S. Supreme Courts both ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional. He, I think, enjoys his notoriety, steeped in infamy as it is. You know, after my trial or after my trying him and convicted him, he told me, he says,

you know, Mr. Bogliosi, you haven't achieved anything at all. All you've done is send me back to where I came from. We used to have sarcastic conversations back and forth, and I said, yes, Charlie, but as far as I know, you've never been to the green room before. That's the Apple Green Room at San Quentin, the gas chamber. He just smiled. But the next year, I was listening to the radio, and I heard that the Supreme Court, the United States, had set aside the death penalty. And the first thought that came into my mind was what Manson had told me. He gets out of prison in 1967, 32 years of age.

Seventeen out of those 32 years have been spent in jails, reformatories, and prisons, so he doesn't mind prison life. He's totally institutionalized. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does one person brainwash so many people? Take a listen to Charles Manson in his own words, speaking to 60 Minutes Australia. Were you happy when you found out you weren't going to go to the gas chamber, Charles? I knew I wasn't going to go to the gas chamber because I hadn't done anything wrong. You scared to die?

Sometimes I feel I'm scared to live. Living is what scares me. Dying is easy. How long have I been in jail? 34 years? 34 years. So out of 47, you've been here 34. I've been in jail, prison, a long time, all my life.

I was raised up in here. So I understand jail. So I understand myself and I can deal with that. I set my cell and I do my number like a convict does his number. But there's different colors on different people's backs doing different things. It's a different world. I love the world I live in too, just like Regan loves the world he lives in. You love the world you live in, too, just like Regan loves the world he lives in. You love the world you live in, most assuredly. Troy Slayton, high-profile criminal defense attorney in L.A. Without naming names, have you ever had a client, a criminal defendant, that seemed to have mind control over co-defendants? I've had in my years as an attorney and several years in the DA's office in Los Angeles, I've seen many co-defendants who seem to seems like there are undue pressures that several co-defendants could place, much like Manson had control over all of the Manson family, as it's called. And so LAPD now is looking at these 12 unsolved murders and following every investigative lead that they can. And there are several others in other jurisdictions besides LAPD that are still looking at these cold cases to try and bring closure to their families. You know, it's hard to take in to Stephen Lampley, detective, author of Inside the Mind

of a Serial Killer, why anybody would be brainwashed by somebody like Charles Manson, or let's just say Jim Jones, or there was Sante and Kenneth Kimes. Kenneth Kimes was brainwashed by his mother. How you get people to go along with you, for instance, in the Sarah Stern murder, the teen girl. to go along with you. For instance, in the Sarah Stern murder, the teen girl, how in the world did Liam McIntasney get a friend from high school to help get rid of her body? I mean, how do they do it?

What kind of mind control do they work on the co-defendants? Well, Nancy, they're charismatic. They're outgoing. The people like them. And there's something that, there's a condition called also called hybristophilia, which is an attraction to dangerous people. That actually exists where people are attracted to the renegades, the rebels, the murderers, if you will. James Warren, James Jones was able to convince to convince 100, a triple hundred of folks.

I don't know the number. It's just people are looking. And that's the way that that's the way the gangs have succeeded. They're looking for people who want to be a part of something. They're looking for people who want to get away from where they are and be a part of something more, be a part of a group, be a part of a quote-unquote family, I guess, if you will. What about it, Joe Scott Morgan? You and I have investigated so many cases. I've never understood why people just fall in lockstep.

And by the way, lockstep is a referral back to Hitler and Nazi Germany and the way thousands of people would march in lockstep at Hitler's behest, an evil, maniacal devil. And people just followed along. And even to this day, there are nuts who insist that Hitler never murdered millions of Jews and others. It's incredible that people could think that. And at the time, everyone followed along with him. Joe Scott, we've seen it many, many times before. Yeah, we have, Nancy.

And let me kind of paint Charles Manson in a different light here. And I know that you've seen this. Charles Manson was nothing more than a psychotic pimp is what it comes down to that preyed on young girls. And you and I have both seen these pimps out in the world of crime that take these girls in, they use them for sex personally, and then they sell them to people on the streets. Manson had a long history of pimping and being involved in the flesh trade, if you will. And when it comes down to it, he, he targets the most vulnerable among us. And that's how he got, look, these people need a roof over their head, clothes on their back. They'd like a little cash in their pocket. They

want food and they're looking for somebody to parent them. And he is just this kind of weasel, you know, all of these big pronouncements that he used to make from jail. He's a tiny diminutive guy. He's nothing more than a pimp that's in a jail, has low self-esteem, and he's just trying to protect himself. He always dances around everything. You listen to every conversation he's ever been in. He will never directly admit to anything.

He always puts it off. Well, it's just the universe causing all of this stuff to happen. At the end of the day, he's a common petty pimp that manipulated people. We wait as justice unfolds. Are the murders connected to Charles Manson and his so-called family? Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend.