Paul Watkins (Manson Family) - Indecision

Indecision

Manson's remark disturbed Watkins, who had no trouble recognizing it as an indication the Family would be undertaking murders. When Manson instructed him to transport supplies to the desert camps, Watkins embraced the opportunity to get away. At the same time, he was unsure whether to sever himself from the commune. "y insides were tied to Charlie and the Family in ways I hadn’t begun to sort out."

At Barker Ranch, Watkins came under the influence of Paul Crockett, a middle-aged prospector who, with metaphysical musings of his own, had begun to influence a male Family member and female Family member who had been left to watch the desert camp. Returning briefly to Spahn Ranch, Watkins changed his relationship with Manson by using a suggestion by Crockett. He asked that Manson " agreements."

Within a few days, Watkins had settled in at Barker, with Crockett and the others. About a month later, on August 9, 1969, the group saw a television broadcast while they were in Kingman, Arizona, with plans to do some mining there. The news was of the Tate murders, which had taken place in Los Angeles overnight. "Wouldn’t it be somethin’ if old Charlie did that," said Crockett, whom Watkins and the others had made aware of Helter Skelter. Though chilled by the remark, Watkins dismissed it as a bad joke.

The next day, in a Las Vegas newspaper report of the LaBianca murders, which, again, had taken place overnight, Watkins saw that police were dismissing a connection between the two sets of murders and that a suspect in the Tate murders was already in custody. (The suspect was William Garretson, a youth who was employed as caretaker of the property where the Tate murders took place and who happened to have been the only person found alive on the premises the morning after the killings. By August 11, having been effectively dismissed as a suspect, he was released from custody.) The story did not indicate that the words "Healter Skelter" had been written in LaBianca blood at the crime site, that information not having leaked to the press.