27. "Witness to Evil" by George Bishop (1971)

On page 356 of Witness to Evil: The Inside Story of the Tate/LaBianca Murder Trial, author George Bishop writes:

Watkins testified on direct examination that Charlie...asked [Watkins] if he would consent to be crucified on a cross at the Fountain of the World, a minor religious sect with headquarters not far from the Spahn Ranch. Watkins allowed as how he was quite willing to be crucified if Charlie wanted it that way...[Assistant District Attorney Paul] Fitzgerald asked him how he planned to go about being crucified. "Well," Watkins replied cheerfully, "I didn't know how I was going to get up on that there cross...I just figured Charlie would take care of it."

The only problem with this testimony is that, as is the case with Ed Sanders' The Family and Paul Watkins' My Life with Charles Manson, not one single remaining Fountain member recalls the cross to which Sanders or Watkins were referring.

Again, there was the cross constructed as a publicity vehicle for Krishna Venta in the 1950s, but no one from the Fountain can recall what had become of it by the latter 1960s. On this note, some have suggested to this author that the cross appearing in the book 5 to Die (see http://www.charliemanson.com/places/fountain.htm) was actually erected after Manson's conviction and not even on the Fountain property line.