Charles 'Tex' Watson

Charles "Tex" Watson was the tactical ringleader of some of the most brutal murders in the annals of American history. Though ultimate culpability for the murders was shifted by Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and the media on Charles Manson, there is enough evidence to believe that Watson was equally responsible legally and morally for at least eight of the murders, all of which he served as one of the executioners. Bugliosi used his "Helter Skelter" theory to successfully convict Manson and several of his female compatriots of seven murders: the Tate-LaBianca killings that shocked America and the world (the victims included heavily-pregnant movie star Sharon Tate), two orgies of murder on consecutive nights in August 1969 in which Watson played the lead role in executing the killings, allegedly on the direct orders of Charles Manson. Watson was tried separately from Manson and his female followers, due to his lawyers fighting extradition from his native Texas, to where he fled after the murder spree. Watson and Manson subsequently were convicted of murdering Donald "Shorty" Shea, a movie stunt-man and hand at the Spahn Ranch where Manson, his cronies (including Tex) and his female groupies congregated. The prosecution successfully portrayed Manson as engineering the murder of the ranch hand as revenge on Shea, whom Manson allegedly believed had snitched on him to the police after the Tate-LaBianca murders. (Manson was convicted of a ninth murder, pre-dating the Tate-LaBianca and Shea killings, the killing of music teacher and small-time drug dealer Gary Hinman by Manson confederate Bobby Beausoleil.

While in prison, he renounced Charles Manson and became a born-again Christian in 1975. In 1983, he became an ordained minister. He and his wife operate a prison ministry, called Abounding Love Ministries.

Wrote and published an autobiography, "Will You Die For Me?", in 1978.

Is serving a life sentence for his role in the Tate/LaBianca/Shea murders, and is currently housed in Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, CA, which is located in Northern California. [October 2001]