Bobby Beausoleil - Murder of Hinman

Murder of Hinman

As described in the book Helter Skelter, Hinman was killed over money and property that Manson claimed Hinman owed the Family. It also served as the first of a series of murders committed by The Family to start Helter Skelter, a "war" that Manson had preached to his Family that would happen in the summer of 1969.

Accompanying Beausoleil that night were Susan Atkins and Mary Brunner, both later involved in other murders and crimes. Beausoleil claims that Hinman supplied him with a batch of bad mescaline that Beausoleil in turn sold to the Straight Satans motorcycle gang. When the bikers demanded their money back, Manson ordered Beausoleil to Hinman's residence to get the money. Hinman is said to have refused to pay saying, "I don't have any money to give you". Beausoleil called Manson back at Spahn Ranch to tell him that no money was forthcoming. Beausoleil, Atkins, and Brunner then held him captive in his own home in an attempt to convince him to refund the money.

Manson arrived and proceeded to slice off a part of Hinman's ear with a sword; Atkins and Brunner stitched it up with dental floss afterwords. Manson then ordered Beausoleil to kill Hinman and told him to make it look as if the crime had been committed by black revolutionaries, as he had been predicting to his Family that a race war was imminent. Beausoleil stabbed Hinman to death as Hinman chanted a Buddhist chant. Afterwards, he wrote the words "Political piggy" on a wall in Hinman's blood in an attempt to lead police to believe the murder was done by a group of radicals. After he wrote the words, Beausoleil dipped his hand in Hinman's blood and left on the wall a paw print, which was the symbol of The Black Panthers, to indicate that the Panthers had murdered Hinman. On August 6, 1969, Beausoleil was arrested while stalled along side the highway in Hinman's Fiat.

At Beausoleil's two trials for the murder, the defense mentioned nothing about the murder being the result of a drug transaction gone wrong. His first revelation of this came in 1981, 12 years after the murders, in an interview published in Oui magazine. In that interview, he denied that Manson had come to the Hinman residence during the event that led to the murder, although he later reversed himself on this detail. This is the version that Beausoleil currently maintains as truth. Also, conspirator Susan Atkins had stated before her death that she never heard any mention by Beausoleil indicating that the reason they went to Hinman's residence had anything to do with a drug transaction. See Helter Skelter (Manson scenario) for more details on the murders perpetrated by Charles Manson and members of his Family.