Broken-Down Bus In Desert Led To Tate Murder Arrests
Members Of Nomadic 'Family'
December 2, 1969
By Charles Powers
Times Staff Writer
Independence, Calif. - The trip began in a bus. It ended in the bus. On the
way eight people - and possibly 11 - were murdered.
In the Death Valley sands 125 miles southeast of here, a green-and-white
former school bus marks were the nomadic hippie clan led by Charles Manson
finally ended its journey.
From there, 26 members of the Manson "family" were brought under arrest to
Independence, a small town in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada.
Sheriff's officers here thought the hippie band was guilty of car theft. And,
noting that even the women among them wore sheath knives, possibly worse, they
put out the names of the 26 on intercity teletypes.
When detectives from Los Angeles arrived to question members of the family,
and took nine of them away, local officers found out why they were wanted.
The officers heard the name "Tate." They saw the penal code section for which
they were wanted: 187. Murder.
Manson, 34, who has a five-page criminal record, including assault with a
deadly weapon, theft, arson and car theft, is in the Inyo County jail here. No
charges have been filed against him in the Tate case.
But authorities say he was the ringleader of the band of wanderers whose
members include at least a half-dozen who specialized in the senseless murder of
people they hated because they were wealthy. Investigators said followers
sometimes spoke of him as "Jesus."
In a dimly lit Independence motel room, where paint peeled off the ceiling
over the bed where and infant sucked a pacifier, two other young women who
deserted comfortable, middle class homes to follow Manson, described him Monday
night: "He was magnetic," said Sandra Good Pugh, 26, "his motions were like
magic, it seemed like. The first time I saw him he was petting a cat. I don't
know why that struck me, but he seems so kind."
"He gave off a lot of magic," said Lynn Fromme, 21. "Everyone was always so
happy around him. But he was a sort of changeling. He seemed to change every
time I saw him. He seemed ageless..."
Manson is a short man, with brown hair and eyes, who is a musician, the woman
said.
"The first time I heard him singing," said Mrs. Pugh, "it was like an angel.
He wrote songs. Made them up as he went along. Some were beautiful, happy songs.
Others would be sad and moving."
The Manson family started from the Haught-Ashbury District in San Francisco
on April 12, 1968 in an old school bus converted into living quarters for
fourteen young men and women.
Mrs. Pugh and Miss Fromme weren't with him, then. The family's membership
shifted slightly almost daily, as some left, others joined. On the way south
from San Francisco the newest member arrived: a baby born in the bus "somewhere
along the line."
In a weed patch South of Oxnard, Ventura County sheriff's officers found the
bus stalled in a ditch, with the passengers, several of them nude, sprawled
nearby. The bus was listed on sheriff's records stolen, so they arrested Manson.
The young mother was charged with endangering the life of a child, the others
with disorderly conduct. Among the passengers were Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan
Denise Atkins, also known as Sadie Glutz, and Diana Bluestein.
But it turned out that the bus had been recovered and resold and Manson was
cleared. The young mother, Mary Brunner, 23, was given two years probation - and
her baby was returned to her. Everyone else was released after one-day jail
sentences and an admonition to keep on moving out of Ventura County.
At the time, they were financing the trip by a credit card brought with her
by Miss Krenwinkel when she defected from the middle class one day in September
1967. She had apparently met Manson and left town with him immediately.
It was at Chatsworth, where the hippies had established a commune last
August, and that Mrs. Pugh and Mrs. Fromme joined the family at an abandoned
movie ranch. There, police say, they converted stolen Volkswagens into dune
buggies.
"It was all very peaceful at the ranch," said Mrs. Pugh, who was pregnant
when she arrived. "Everyone in San Francisco - where I've been - had been having
abortions. At the ranch they loved children.
"I had a shack of my own. We took care of each other. We sunbathed, cooked,
and kept the place clean."
After the arrests those who weren’t charged returned to the Chatsworth ranch.
Mrs. Pugh’s child, Ivan, was born 2 1/2 months ago in a Canoga Park Hospital.
Then Manson moved again. It was a different bus, but a similar exodus;
everyone climbed aboard. They moved quickly.
This time it was to Death Valley.
Investigators said the men again opened a Volkswagen theft ring. It was for
this-and chasing miners off with knives-that the National Park Service Rangers,
California Highway Patrolmen and sheriff's officers arrested the 26 members of
the family.
The two young women said they noticed the men leaving on "four-day hikes to
the desert." But, they say, they knew of no car thievery or murder. The women
said they sun bathed nude, awaiting the men's return.
After the mass arrests, they were taken into custody by Los Angeles
detectives, questioned and released. Mrs. Pugh was charged by authorities here
with possession of a stolen pistol, and the girls are waiting at Independence
for her court date there December 15. Mrs. Pugh collects welfare. The baby is
with her.
The two women say they will stay in Independence awhile. The bus is idle now.
Miss Fromme said:
"So many places. We've been so many places..."
