For the fourteenth time, Charles "Tex" Watson is trying to get out on parole. For those who don't remember, Watson was the "handsome cowboy" of the Manson family. He is the earliest example I can think of when it comes to a mass murderer having mass female fans. For those too young to really know the story of Charles Manson, Tex was their Michael Kelso.
Every time this comes around, family members come to remind us that their loved ones are gone, taken in a way that was horrifying and painful, at the whim of a group of killers. I still wouldn't buy it, but some criminals have gotten free by using the peer pressure method, and that is what they are trying to claim here. He was tricked, some would say. He was a young guy and now he's an old man, this is all because he listened to a tricky psycho decades ago and was suckered in.
You know who isn't old? Sharon Tate. Or Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. If you watch later documentaries, there could be as many as a dozen "family members" who decided to leave and were killed instead. They were rumored to be buried around the desert, sometimes as a warning and sometimes to prevent them from speaking with outsiders. Old Tex wasn't tricked into killing just once, but multiple times, and in grisly ways that required dedication. This wasn't a panic shot or overly enthusiastic purse snatching. This is brutal murder. A pregnant woman begged for her baby's life that night. Another woman fought so hard that even with a cord tied around her neck she held off the intruders until blood loss from a bayonet made her too weak to stand. These people fought hard and met merciless death. And this man was part of that from beginning to end.
Watson's attorney, Cheryl Montgomery, did not return repeated telephone messages.
Watson married and divorced in prison and has four children from conjugal visits, but his family did not respond to a request for comment that was left through the website that promotes Watson's prison ministry, http://www.aboundinglove.org.
You know who doesn't get conjugal visits? The LaBiancas, who died knowing their spouse was also doomed. Sharon Tate died protecting her baby, she doesn't get to see them grow up. She was eight months pregnant when they killed her. They took special steps to kill her child, and made sure she knew it before they took her life.
He doesn't deserve prison, but it'll have to do. I don't believe he has a chance in hell, but I'm still grossed out and slightly worried because when you toss the dice you run the risk of the wrong outcome.
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