Tex Watson

Charles "Tex" Watson
File:Texwatson.JPG Tex Watson during the Tate-La Bianca trial
Spouse	Kristin Watson (Divorced 2003)
Criminal penalty	Death, reduced by abolition of death penalty to life in prison

Charles Denton "Tex" Watson (born December 2, 1945) is an American murderer and former member of the Charles Manson "Family". He was convicted of the murders of Sharon Tate, Steven Parent, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski and Jay Sebring, which took place in the early hours of August 9, 1969, in the Tate residence at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, and also of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca at the LaBianca residence in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles the following night. Watson's accomplices in the murders were Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel.

Early life

Watson's family was strict and religious. His mother was a domineering presence in the home and in her son's life. He was a model child who did well in school, was a star football player and was popular among his peers.

Watson briefly attended college after graduating from high school. This was his first time away from home and the controls of his family. He began to use drugs and became disinterested in school. He briefly held a job as a baggage handler for Braniff International Airways, which afforded him travel opportunities. After visiting a friend in California, he decided to move there. He again briefly attended college and worked at a wig shop. He soon dropped out of college and opened his own wig business, which quickly failed. During this time, he also became more involved with drugs as a user and dealer. One night, he picked up Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, who was hitchhiking. Wilson invited him back to his home, where Watson met Charles Manson.

Conviction

Watson was tried separately from the others convicted in the murders. At the time of the Tate murders, he was reported to have responded to questioning from Voytek Frykowski with "I am the devil, and I'm here to do the devil's business." In trial testimony, Watson denied making the statement, but later acknowledged the statement in his autobiography.

He was convicted, and sentenced to death on October 21, 1971. Watson escaped execution when the California Supreme Court's People v. Anderson decision resulted in the invalidation of all death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972. Having been denied parole 13 times, Watson remains incarcerated in Mule Creek State Prison (MCSP) in Ione, California. His last hearing, which he did not attend, was in 2006. He received a maximum five-year denial. His next scheduled parole hearing is in December 2011. Susan LaBerge, daughter of the LaBiancas, pleaded for Watson's parole at a 1990 parole hearing.

Later years

Will You Die For Me?, Watson's autobiography, as told to "Chaplain Ray" (Ray Hoekstra), was published in 1978. In 1979, Watson married Kristen Joan Svege. Through conjugal visits they were able to have four children.

Largely through the lobbying of Doris Tate, mother of murder victim Sharon Tate, conjugal visits for imprisoned individuals convicted of murder were banned. Watson separated from and divorced his wife in 2003.

Watson wrote that he became a Born-again Christian in prison and operates Abounding Love Ministries while remaining incarcerated. He has written about his role in the murders, the sorrow he feels for his involvement, and has made an apology to the family members of his victims on his website, stating that he believes he is "forgiven by God."

Use of "speed"

In Chapter 12 of Will You Die for Me?, Watson states that, for part of the time he was in the Manson Family, he and Family members Bruce Davis and Susan Atkins used "speed". Because Manson, who thought speed "bad for [the] body," was "absolutely against" it, the three kept their use of it secret from him. Eventually, they cached their supply of it in a Gerber baby-food jar "under the porch of one of the buildings" at Spahn Ranch.

In Chapters 14 and 15 of the book, Watson says he used the speed on the nights of the Tate and LaBianca murders:

While Manson went back to the [Spahn Ranch] movie set to round up Sadie, Katie, and Linda [for the drive to the Tate house], I reeled over to the porch where Sadie and I kept our Gerbers’ jar of speed hidden. ... Despite all we’d been taught [by Manson], I was spinning inside, trembling. I took a couple of deep snorts of speed and went to get the clothes and rope and bolt cutters as Charlie had ordered.

...

There was a steep, brushy embankment coming down to the right side of the fence [at the entrance of the Tate property], so we tossed the extra clothes over the gate and climbed up the slope, dropping to the other side. On my first try, the speed I’d sniffed before we left threw my balance off and I ended up tumbling down to the pavement.

...

One of the many effects of speed is to make the intention or thought of an action and that action itself almost inseparable, as if you leap ahead in time and experience your next move before you actually make it. There in [the Tate] living room on the hill, with Charlie’s instructions ticking through my brain, it was as if time telescoped, until one act tripped over the next in sudden bursts of blinding color and motion.

[B]efore we left [from Spahn Ranch the next night, the night of the LaBianca murders], Charlie gave me a light tab of acid. While people were getting things together, Sadie and I took the opportunity to hit our speed bottle and I gave myself three good snorts in each nostril. I knew now I’d need it for what was to come.

In October 1969, before police were aware of any connection between the Manson Family and the Tate-LaBianca murders — before any breakthrough had been made in solving the crimes, and while the Los Angeles Police were not yet connecting the two sets of murders — Los Angeles magazine published an article entitled "The New Violence: An Age of 'Freaky' Crime?" Treating, among other things, the Tate murders, it included this:

[Lt. E. E. Kearney of the Los Angeles Police Department believes] the increasing use of amphetamines, "speed," by kids promises some charming new developments on the social landscape. In the words of Dr. Donald B. Louria of Cornell University (interviewed by Gail Sheehy in New York magazine), speed is a drug "taken solely for kicks by a subculture increasingly populated by thrill-seekers, psychopaths, angry sociopaths and young persons incapable of functioning in society." After a few months of use, observes reporter Sheehy, it leads to "depression, weight loss, sexual deviations and finally paranoid psychosis. Speed simply makes people behave as if they were crazy."

External links

• Abounding Love Ministries
• Manson defendants profiles
• [http://tatefamilylegacy.com/Tate Family Legacy
• Manson murders entry, crimelibrary.com
• The Manson Family Today - News & Info
• Tex Watson trial testimony excerpts