Charles Manson

First day of excavation at Manson clan's Barker Ranch uncovers bullet casing
Sheriff's investigators and forensic experts will continue to search for human remains in Death Valley National Park.

By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer May 21, 2008

PANAMINT SPRINGS, CALIF. -- It didn't take long Tuesday for a posse of Inyo County sheriff's deputies and forensics experts to mark their first find while searching for buried human remains at a remote, sun-scorched ranch once used as a hangout by the notorious Charles Manson family.Just 2 inches beneath the surface of a 3-by-6-foot plot lay a .38-caliber bullet casing.

A forensic investigator stuck a little yellow flag with the word "evidence" on it, then photographed the corroded metal shell labeled "No. 1."Given that nearly every chunk of metal, wood and corrugated tin siding on the isolated property at the southwestern end of Death Valley National Park is riddled with bullet holes, old and new, the find seemed minor. But they continued to dig, in the forbidding heat and scouring gusts of wind."It may be good evidence, or it may not," said Arpad Vass, a scientist from a research facility at the University of Tennessee who specializes in the study of the decay of human remains. "But everything we find here must be considered evidence."Vass surveyed the work from beneath a portable shelter that was repeatedly uprooted by the wind. "I think there is something decomposed there," Vass said. "But I don't know if an animal died here, or a Native American or a dinosaur way back when."

Manson and his followers holed up at the ranch in 1969 after the massacre of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in the Los Angeles area. A member of the Manson family later suggested that there were bodies buried at Barker Ranch.The Manson gang roamed the barren Death Valley landscape in dune buggies and prepared for Helter Skelter, a race war Manson was trying to spark. The phrase was taken from a Beatles song, which Manson believed was encoded with predictions that the conflict would destroy modern civilization. Manson and his followers planned to survive by living in a tunnel, later emerging as leaders of some new world order.

Manson was arrested by law enforcement authorities who discovered him hiding beneath a sink in the ranch house.

On Tuesday, the 20-member team arrived at the Barker Ranch in a caravan of four-wheel-drive vehicles about 8:30 a.m. and quickly set to work with a goal of sifting out every piece of evidence they could from the sandy soil. They began with a grave-sized plot in one of five areas where a cadaver dog had apparently responded to the smell of decay. Sensitive high-tech devices also had detected chemical compounds of a kind emitted by decaying bone and tissue and an area of disturbed soil 18 to 27 inches underground.

As one group of investigators spilled the contents of their shovels onto a blue tarp, others poked and pushed at the growing mounds to try to tease out possible bits of bone, clothing or hair."If it's a Native American, I'll know right away," Vass said. "My biggest fear is that we'll find bone fragments, which will take quite a while to analyze."The search at the ranch, 90 miles southeast of Independence, the Inyo County seat, was expected to continue through Thursday.Among the team members was Mammoth Lakes Police Department Sgt. Paul Dostie and his cadaver dog Buster, who triggered the investigation when the animal apparently picked up the scent of a buried body in February.

Dostie, a 20-year veteran of the force who has enlisted scientists and their cutting-edge tools and skills to his cases, clung to hope that the team was on the verge of a breakthrough. Sitting on the stone steps of the Barker Ranch house with the big black Labrador at his side, Dostie said, "We're going to be working here until nightfall."But he expressed mixed feelings about Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze's decision to authorize what he described as a "limited exploratory excavation." "If this was a fill excavation it'd be a 10-foot by 10-foot site instead of 3 by 6 feet," he said. "But it's not up to me. It's up to the Inyo County sheriff's office."

In any case, everything about the effort was difficult. The team members were spending the night in pup tents staked beneath the willows surrounding the ranch house, and feasting on scrambled eggs and sandwiches prepared in a field kitchen.Then there were the natural challenges that could be confusing the readings of sensitive scientific equipment: magnetic rocks, root structures, ant hills and wind."You're living like a coyote out here is the best way to describe it," said Inyo County Sheriff's Sgt. Paul Bedell.

What is the matter with people?

I heard this last nite but it was not confirmed for me until just now. Tuesday nite, someone tried to set Madison's house on fire. Her little sister's bouncy seat was outside and it was set on fire, which led to the siding going. The mailbox is also melted, so that was a separate act (and right next to the farm mailbox) The newspaper says there was some evidence that one of the vehicles was also targeted.

Now what the hell? I know vandalism is common in the country, but isnt this going a little far? A neighbor saw the flames at 2 am and woke them up. Thank goodness someone saw it or it would have been a real tragedy.

It also kind of scares me about being alone at the farm late at night, which is one of my favorite places to be all the time

A judge that tells it like it is

"Stupidity is not a defense" and

"Stupidity is not a defense and not much of a mitiginating factor here either"

I just read this in a case I am reading. As much as I am sure the defendant did not want to hear it (and I am not saying it is appropriate in this case either), it is kind of nice to have a judge call it like he sees it instead of dressing up his thoughts in legal jargon. If we could all do that, a lot more would get accomplished around here, I suspect.

In other fun stuff in this case, the judge called a co-defendant a "tool". Whether he meant it in the pop culture sense, I do not know, but it is still funny. Then he said this--I swear, he really did- to the defendant "You can't handle the truth."

I don't care who you are, that is a funny judge.

WTF

is wrong with OJ Simpson? Besides the obvious, I mean. Honest to God, he is his own worst enemy. My interest in him is purely historical--at our post- rehearsal dinner party on June 17, 1994, we were repeatedly interrupted by news coverage of the chase in the white Bronco, so all of his stupid stunts get my attention. Then, when the verdict was handed down, all the local news stations came to the law school to get our reactions, and I ended up on the TV looking like that kid from Home Alone.

Police: No bail for O.J. Simpson in Las Vegas robbery arrest

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- Former football star O.J. Simpson will be held without bail after his arrest on robbery and assault charges, police announced late Sunday.

Police released this mug shot of O.J. Simpson after his arrest.

Simpson is accused of having directed several other men in an alleged armed robbery of sports memorabilia in a room at a Las Vegas hotel room.
Las Vegas authorities said they have no information leading them to believe Simpson was carrying a firearm during the alleged incident at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino.
Police said Simpson and other men burst into the room and walked out with the memorabilia, including some that was unrelated to Simpson, police said.
"We don't believe that anyone was roughed up, but there were firearms involved," Lt. Clint Nichols told reporters.
Nichols said the firearms were pointed at the victims.
A reporter asked Nichols: Was "O.J. was the boss in that room?"
Nichols responded, "That is what we believe, yes."

The alleged victims were identified as Bruce Fromong, a sports memorabilia collector who described the incident as "a home invasion-type robbery," and Alfred Beardsley, who has been quoted by celebrity Web site TMZ.com as saying that Simpson later apologized to him and told him he regretted the incident.

Acting on a tip, police met over the weekend at McCarran International Airport with 46-year-old Walter Alexander, of Mesa, Arizona, who told them about the alleged robbery and validated the tipster's information, Capt. James Dillon told reporters.
Alexander was arrested Saturday night on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary with a deadly weapon.
He was released on his own recognizance and returned to Mesa either Saturday night or early Sunday morning, Dillon said.
In addition, investigators are seeking four other men they believe accompanied Simpson into the hotel room, Nichols said.
Nichols said, "There is a social relationship between the individuals that we identified and O.J. Simpson".
Though Simpson is not accused of having brandished a gun himself, two firearms that police said were used were recovered early Sunday in one of three searches. Investigators would would not divulge where the weapons were found.
Nichols dismissed an initial report that the men may have been off-duty police.
"There is no truth to that whatsoever," he said. "That came as a result of some language that was used when the individuals burst into the room that led our victims to believe that they may have been police."
Simpson, 60, has acknowledged taking some items that belonged to him, but he has denied that any weapons were involved.
"Whether the property belonged to Mr. Simpson or not is still in debate," Nichols said. "We are still in the process of sorting that out."
Nichols also said that some of the property taken had Simpson's signature. But "there was some other property taken as well," he said. "I believe there were some Joe Montana cleats and some signed baseballs and other stuff."
The latest charges against Simpson mean he faces the prospect of another prosecution, more than a decade after the June 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman.
Simpson was acquitted of murder the following year. The trial riveted much of the United States.
But in 1997, a jury found him liable for the deaths in a civil case brought by the Goldman family. Simpson was ordered to pay the families a total of $33.5 million for the deaths
Goldman had gone to Nicole Simpson's Los Angeles home to return a pair of glasses the day of the slayings.
Goldman's sister, Kim Goldman, said she wasn't surprised by the robbery allegations, since Simpson "thinks he can do no wrong."
"He's capable of stabbing people to death, so I think robbery is nothing surprising," she said. "Normal, logical, civil-minded, law-abiding people don't storm a room with guns demanding stuff back."
Fromong had testified on Simpson's behalf in the civil case, telling the court that prices for Simpson memorabilia had dropped substantially since the 1995 verdict. His testimony was part of the defense's contention that Simpson could not afford to pay the Goldmans.
Simpson recently wrote a book originally titled "If I Did It" and had planned to publish it himself, but a public outcry led to the cancellation of his book deal.
A bankruptcy judge subsequently awarded the Goldmans the rights to the book in light of their inability to collect the wrongful death award. The Goldmans retitled the book, "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer." That book just hit bookstores.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/16/oj.simpson/index.html