In the late spring of 1968, in some reports of the events, Dennis Wilson, of the Beach Boys, picked up two hitchhiking Manson followers. They were Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey. Wilson brought them to his house in a rich neighborhood of Los Angeles for a few hours. After an all-night recording session, he came home in the early hours of the next morning. Wilson was greeted in his driveway by Manson, who came out of the house. Feeling afraid, Wilson asked the stranger if he was going to hurt him. Saying no, Manson then began to kiss Wilson's feet.
Inside his house, Wilson found 12 strangers (mostly women) who had moved in. Over the next few months, the number of members moving in continued to grow. The Family members who had made themselves part of Wilson's Sunset Boulevard household cost him about $100,000. This included a large doctor's bill for treatment of their gonorrhea and $21,000 for wrecking his uninsured car, which they had borrowed. Wilson spent a lot of time singing and talking with Manson, whose women were treated like domestic workers.
Wilson paid for recording studio time to work on songs written and performed by Manson. He also introduced Manson to friends of his in the entertainment business. One was Terry Melcher (the son of Doris Day), who was also a musician and record producer. Gregg Jakobson, another friend, also paid to record Manson material. He later wrote about this experience with Manson for "Rolling Stone" magazine. He used a fake name of "Lance Fairweather" for the article.
In his book "Manson in His Own Words", Manson says he first met Wilson at a friend's San Francisco house, where Manson had gone to buy cannabis. The drummer then gave Manson his Sunset Boulevard address and invited him to stop by when he would be in Los Angeles.
In August 1968, Manson established a base for the group at Spahn's Movie Ranch, not far from Topanga Canyon, after Wilson's manager told the Family to move out of Wilson's home. The entire Family then relocated to the ranch.
Family members did helpful work around the grounds. Also, Manson ordered the Family's women (including Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme) to have sex occasionally with the nearly blind, 80-year-old owner George Spahn. The women also acted as seeing-eye guides for Spahn. In exchange, Spahn allowed Manson and his group to live at the ranch for free.
In the first days of November 1968, Manson established the Family at alternative headquarters near Death Valley, where they occupied two unused or little-used ranches.
While back at Spahn Ranch, no later than December, Manson and Watson visited a Topanga Canyon acquaintance who played them the Beatles' "White Album", then recently released. Manson was obsessed with the group. At McNeil, he had told fellow inmates, including Alvin Karpis, that he could surpass the group in fame; to the Family, he spoke of the group as "the soul" and "part of 'the hole in the infinite'. "
For some time, he had been saying that racial tension between blacks and whites was growing and that blacks would soon rise up in rebellion in America's cities. He had emphasized Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, which had taken place on April 4, 1968. On a bitterly cold New Year's Eve at Myers Ranch, the Family members, gathered outside around a large fire, listened as Manson explained that the social turmoil he had been predicting had also been predicted by the Beatles. The "White Album" songs, he declared, told it all, though in code. In fact, he said the album was directed at the Family itself, an elect group that was being instructed to preserve the worthy from the impending disaster.
In early January 1969, the Family escaped the desert's cold and positioned itself to monitor Los Angeles' supposed racial tension by moving to a canary-yellow home in Canoga Park, not far from the Spahn Ranch. Because this would allow the group to remain "submerged beneath the awareness of the outside world", Manson called it the Yellow Submarine, another Beatles reference. There, Family members prepared for the impending apocalypse, which, around the campfire, Manson had termed "Helter Skelter," after the song of that name.
By February, Manson's vision was complete. The Family would create an album whose songs, as subtle as those of the Beatles, would trigger the predicted chaos. Ghastly murders of whites by blacks would be met with retaliation and a split between racist and non-racist whites would yield whites' self-annihilation. Blacks' triumph, as it were, would merely precede their being ruled by the Family, which would ride out the conflict in "the bottomless pit"—a secret city beneath Death Valley.
At the Canoga Park house, while Family members worked on vehicles and pored over maps to prepare for their desert escape, they also worked on songs for their world-changing album.
A total of eight people are known to have been killed by the Manson Family and two other killings are suspected.
On July 25, 1969, Manson sent Bobby Beausoleil, Mary Brunner, and Susan Atkins to the house of acquaintance Gary Hinman to persuade him to turn over money Manson thought Hinman had inherited. The three held the uncooperative Hinman hostage for two days, during which Manson showed up with a sword to slash his ear. After that, Beausoleil stabbed Hinman to death, probably on Manson's instruction. Before leaving the Topanga Canyon residence, one of them used Hinman's blood to write "Political piggy" on the wall and to draw a panther paw, a Black Panther symbol.
On the night of August 8, Manson directed Charles Watson to take Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to "that house where Melcher used to live" and "totally destroy everyone in [it], as gruesome as you can." He told the women to do as Watson would instruct them. Unknown to Manson, the tenants were now Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. Polanski was in Europe at the time and Tate was at home with three other people. They were all killed, as was a delivery boy who turned up at an inopportune moment.
This event was the murder of a supermarket owner and his wife. On this occasion, Manson himself took charge of the murders and six Family members accompanied him. As with the other killings, there was no particular reason for the crime and the victims were unknown to the Family other than Manson.
On January 1, 2017, Manson was taken from Cochran State Prison to Mercy Hospital in downtown Bakersfield. He was suffering from gastrointestinal bleeding. The "Los Angeles Times" reported that Manson was seriously ill. Some reports suggest Manson was too weak for surgery. He was returned to prison by January 6. There was no report about whether he received any treatment.
On November 15, 2017, it was confirmed that Manson had returned to a hospital in Bakersfield. Four days later, he died at the hospital of natural causes and cardiopulmonary arrest complicated by colorectal cancer at the age of 83. It is currently unknown what fate his body will have.
Herring
A herring is a small teleost fish of the genus "Cluptea". Best-known of this family is probably the Atlantic Herring. There are 15 different species of herring. When herrings migrate in the water they usually do this in large numbers; this is then called a "school" of herring. Like other fish, they do this for protection: see shoaling and schooling.
Herrings can be eaten. They are often smoked or pickled.
A red herring is used to describe a plot device in mystery fiction that leads the reader to a wrong solution.
Ray
The rays are a group of Batoid cartilaginous fish containing more than 500 described species in thirteen families. The batoids include four orders.
They are mostly flattened in shape, and usually demersal, living and eating at the bottom of the sea. The group first appears in the Triassic period, after 95% of marine species had been wiped out by the P/Tr extinction event.