In the above radio program, conspiracist extraordinaire James DiEugenio tries to discredit lawyer/author Vincent Bugliosi in a variety of ways. And as I listened to the first one-and-a-half hours of the program, which includes DiEugenio talking extensively about Bugliosi's prosecution of Charles Manson in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murder case, I kept wondering if Jim was going to suggest to the listening audience that Charlie Manson was actually innocent of ordering the seven Tate and LaBianca murders in August of 1969. (I thought Jim might suggest such a preposterous idea of Manson's total innocence in the crimes since Jimbo had already stated numerous times during the radio show that he was of the opinion that the rather bizarre "Helter Skelter" / "race war" motive was completely untrue and unfounded.)
But DiEugenio went even beyond my expectations. He didn't come right out and say he thought Manson was completely innocent of orchestrating and ordering the murders, but he did say something that is even more absurd when he made the following comment near the end of his March 6th radio appearance:
"In my opinion, there is no way somebody like Susan Atkins should have ever spent the rest of her life in jail. It's very debatable whether she ever killed anybody. I don't think she did." -- James DiEugenio; March 6, 2014
How about that for mangling the true facts of a murder case, folks? Of course, I'm accustomed to DiEugenio mangling all of the facts when it comes to the JFK assassination, but now he's extending his lunatic beliefs to include the Manson murder case too. Nice, huh?
For proof of just how ridiculous and truly nutty DiEugenio's theory is regarding Susan Atkins (aka: "Sadie Mae Glutz"), all a person has to do is read pages 428-430 of Vince Bugliosi's 1974 book "Helter Skelter".
On those pages of that book, you'll find the following direct quotes from Susan Atkins herself, in which she confesses to stabbing Sharon Tate to death with a knife. This confession was brought out by prosecutor Bugliosi in February 1971 during the "penalty phase" of the Tate-LaBianca trial, which took place shortly after the jury had voted to convict all four defendants in the case (Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten) of first-degree murder on January 25, 1971.
Quoting Susan Atkins....
"As a matter of fact, I believe I told Sharon Tate I didn't have any mercy for her."
[...]
[Bugliosi:] "And you murdered the five people at the Tate residence for your God, Manson, didn't you?"
Susan paused, then said: "I murdered them for my God Bobby Beausoleil."
[...]
[Bugliosi:] "So killing seven people is just business as usual, no big deal, is that right, Sadie?"
[Atkins:] "It wasn't at the time. It was just there to do."
I asked her how she felt about the victims. She responded, "They didn't even look like people...I didn't relate to Sharon Tate as being anything but a store mannequin."
[Bugliosi:] "You have never heard a store mannequin talk, have you, Sadie?"
[Atkins:] "No, sir. But she just sounded like an IBM machine...She kept begging and pleading and pleading and begging, and I got sick of listening to her, so I stabbed her."
[Bugliosi:] "And the more she screamed, the more you stabbed, Sadie?"
[Atkins:] "Yes. So?"
[Bugliosi:] "And you looked at her and you said, 'Look, bitch, I have no mercy for you.' Is that right, Sadie?"
[Atkins:] "That's right. That's what I said then."
[Bugliosi:] "No further questions."
[End Book Quotes.]
So, I guess Jim DiEugenio must think that Susan Atkins was lying to the jury when she said things like "I murdered them" and "I told Sharon Tate I didn't have any mercy for her" and "I stabbed her".
Some people, I suppose, for one reason or another, do believe that Susan Atkins' confession during the penalty phase of the Tate-LaBianca trial was all merely contrived by Atkins. But what about Atkins' additional confessions to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard (see "Helter Skelter", pages 82-83 and 94-96), which were confessions that occurred in November 1969? Does DiEugenio think Atkins was lying to both Graham and Howard too--months before the trial even began?
In the final analysis of the Manson case, regardless of what the motive for the murders might have been, it is crystal clear by taking just a cursory look at the trial transcripts and the trial excerpts that can be found in the book "Helter Skelter", that Vincent Bugliosi did, in fact, prosecute the real killers of the seven victims in the Tate-LaBianca case.
Another thing that has become crystal clear is that James DiEugenio has made a habit out of turning guilty murderers into innocent bystanders. He's attempted to perform that magical feat in the JFK case when he insists that a double-murderer named Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent of killing President Kennedy and was also innocent of murdering Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit, and now Jim D. seems to want to do it again with respect to a vicious and savage killer by the name of Susan Denise Atkins.
But, then too, given DiEugenio's track record of getting almost everything wrong when it comes to the John F. Kennedy murder case, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by any of the foolish things that come out of his mouth anymore.
David Von Pein
March 7, 2014
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