BlackBook Magazine

Forty years ago, Charles Manson and his followers checked in to the Spahn Movie Ranch, a B-list Western film set nestled in the Southern California canyons. And the rest is unforgettable history.

George Spahn, October, 1969.

Long after the free loving, the tabloid headlines, the blood, and the Beatles references have faded away, the saga of Charlie Manson maintains its grip on the American imagination.

The parole hearings of so-called “Manson Family” members still trigger outrage. Patricia Krenwinkel, devotee of the runty career criminal-turned-flopped musician-turned-love-cult guru, will have appeared before a parole board for the 13th time in January. And this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Manson Family’s descent upon the Spahn Movie Ranch.

Once nestled in the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains in Chatsworth, California, about 30 miles from Sunset Boulevard, the ranch was a ragtag scatter of buildings, all reached via a series of wood-and-nail sidewalks, that served as the backdrops to hundreds of Western-themed movies and television shows, dating back to the era of silent cowboy Tom Mix. Hollywood lore has it that Grace Kelly—the woman who would be Her Royal Highness—got Spahn dust on her feet during the filming of High Noon.

It was in the 1930s, when George Spahn was running a Pennsylvania dairy farm, that he first heard the call of his own Promised Land. In the spirit of opportunity, he bundled up his wife and his ten kids and moved them cross-country, toward greener pastures, so to speak, in the Golden State. He purchased the ranch at Santa Susana Pass in 1948, and with the lingering popularity of cowboy movies, his investment drew profits for a while. But by the time Manson and his loopy band of outlaws, runaways, and alienated suburbanites arrived, the bulk of Spahn’s income came from the horses he rented for rides through the property’s gulches and gullies. A-list feet, royal or otherwise, had not walked the premises for quite some time.

By then, he was divorced; his children were grown and gone. They rarely visited. George Spahn was a decrepit and lonesome 80-year-old wash-out who was almost completely blind. He favored Stetson hats and dark glasses, a Chihuahua trembling in his lap. The flies that swarmed every room of the now-dilapidated shacks underscored the picture of decay, mirroring George’s own.

Helter Shelter: A ranch interior, Chatsworth, Calif., 1969.

The ranch hands and wranglers who drifted in and out of Spahn’s employ found the scene upended by the Family’s arrival. The aroma of marijuana floated over the stench of horse manure. Manson spouted metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, programming the followers he had turned into empty vessels to declare, “I am Charlie. And Charlie is me.” He played guitar (poorly) and he sang in his now notoriously reedy voice. Manson’s girls, many of them underage, cavorted on the horse trails in the nude, and had “Charlie”-ordered sex with undiscriminating visitors.

That included Spahn, who was compensated for room and board with sexual favors. Manson assigned the old man his own concubine and minder, Lynette Fromme—Spahn found reason to nickname her “Squeaky”—who would become most infamous, and permanently incarcerated, for her botched attempt to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford. A regional outlaw biker gang called the Straight Satans soon rallied up to Chatsworth. They got drunk, rode doughnuts in the dust, and reveled in the free loving, if not the STDs.

The Spahn Ranch hit headlines but missed the national consciousness on August 16, 1969, when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office descended upon the grounds, arresting 26 people on suspicion of auto theft. Because the date on the warrant was incorrect, authorities were obliged to release Manson and the other suspects. What the L.A. Sheriff’s Office did not know was that they cut loose a mass-murderer and some of his accomplices.

A week prior, on August 9th, Sharon Tate—the Hollywood starlet and pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski—had been stabbed to death, along with four of her jet-setting friends, including Abigail Folger (the heiress to the coffee fortune) and hairstylist-to-the-stars Jay Sebring. They were visiting Polanski’s rented Laurel Canyon house in the ritzy enclave of Bel-Air. (The late novelist Jerzy Kosinski might also have been a victim had his arrival in Los Angeles from Paris not been delayed by a day due to lost luggage. On the other hand, Kosinski was a spectacular embellisher, and half of social Hollywood claimed that they were supposed to have been there that evening, as well).

The following night, a businessman named Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary were slain at their house in Los Feliz, California. The killer, or killers, used a victim’s blood to scrawl the word “PIG” on the front door of the Tate residence, and “DEATH TO PIGS” at the LaBianca home. Two curious words, also in blood, appeared on the couple’s refrigerator door. The first one was misspelled: “HEALTER SKELTER.” Ignoring the similarities, police at the time deemed the crimes unrelated.

Manson, January, 1970.

Susan Atkins knew differently. Incarcerated on other murder charges, Atkins boasted to a cellmate about her role in the Tate slayings. Manson himself had bragged to a Straight Satan member named Al Springer, “We knocked off five of them just the other night.” Later, Manson insisted to police that the guy they really needed to talk to was his biker buddy Danny DeCarlo, who had spent five months at the Spahn Ranch. Danny told the cops everything he knew.

Manson had already moved deeper into the canyons, hiding out at another spread known as the Barker Ranch. Law enforcement swooped down on the lot in a pair of raids on October 10 and 12, 1969. The second bust ensnared the miniscule Manson (he was 5-feet-2 inches tall), who was stowed away in a bathroom cabinet.

He has remained in custody ever since, having been convicted of first-degree murder on January 25, 1971, along with Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten (Charles “Tex” Watson was tried—and convicted—separately). Although the prosecution, led by Vincent Bugliosi, never proved that Manson had personally killed anyone, the jury concluded his control of the Family was so complete that his accomplices murdered seven innocents because “Charlie” ordered it done. It was ruled that the one-time pal of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson and music producer (and son of Doris Day) Terry Melcher should die in the gas chamber. His sentence having been commuted to life in prison, Manson, now 73, was most recently denied parole last year, and will not be eligible again until 2012—though it is widely believed that he will die before he sees the outside of Corcoran State Prison.

George Spahn left this world in 1974, and is buried under a modest headstone at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall, California. The buildings on the ranch that link his name to the annals of crime history were gutted by fire in 1970. Three years ago, a second blaze that swept through the Santa Susanna reduced whatever was left of the place to cinders. The property is now owned by the state of California.