Paul Watkins (Manson Family) - Vacillation

Vacillation

Within weeks of the murders, Manson and the Family members had come to Golar Wash, which they began fortifying for Helter Skelter, history’s grand finale. For a month, Manson, situated at Myers Ranch, vied with Crockett for psychological sway over the Family members who had come into the prospector’s orbit. Manson deployed his women as sexual lures, undertook intimidating visits in which he and others would fire shotguns on the Barker Ranch property, and jousted with Crockett in abstract discussions. A third male Family member came to Crockett’s side, while the female Family member he’d influenced had left the area with a friend of his, whom she promptly married.

Watkins continued to vacillate. He played music with the Family, had initially preserved a sexual relationship with one of the Family girls, and declined to dismiss Helter Skelter. But when, for instance, Manson asked him to join the efforts to find the entry to the underground hideaway in which the Family was supposedly to survive the cataclysm, he declined to do so. Even after Watkins helped two of the Family girls leave the area, the relationship with Manson survived, though the incident resulted in Manson’s threatening Watkins with a knife and a pistol.

A breaking-point arrived on a night when Manson sneaked on his hands and knees into the Barker Ranch bunkhouse; outside were Bruce Davis and Tex Watson, both of whom would ultimately be convicted of murders that, at that time, they had already committed under Manson’s direction. Although Manson was humiliated when Crockett, Watkins, and the two other defectors awoke before he could do anything, the four evidently concluded things were getting even more dangerous than they had been theretofore. The three others and Watkins soon left Barker Ranch. Before long, Watkins had joined two of them in the office of the local deputy sheriff.