‘Threesomes, LSD freak outs and arrests’ – Charles Manson follower Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme breaks silence about life with the notorious killer
Lynette, who was convicted of pulling a gun on President Gerald Ford, told Sun Online that there were many 'misconceptions' about Manson and his followers
DEVOTED Charles Manson follower Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme has broken her silence about her life with the notorious killer.
Lynette, who was jailed for attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford, praised convicted murderer Manson telling Sun Online he “saw pleasure and purpose in every day,” was “spontaneous” and made her “laugh”.
The now 70-year-old, who was released from jail in 2009, has penned a book revealing how she and other young women - known as "The Family"- lived and travelled with Manson in the 60s, taking LSD, having threesomes with him and “joyously experiencing life”.
The book - which includes contributions from other "Family" members - documents their lives before and after the horrific murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others.
Lynette had no part in the 1969 murders but publicly supported her friends following their arrests and was later jailed for pulling an unloaded gun at President Ford as part of a protest about the environment.
She reveals how the group lived in makeshift campsites in the mountains, beaches and deserts of California, and how several of the women fell pregnant and gave birth to babies fathered by Manson or other male friends who stayed with them.
The group, who eventually settled in an old movie ranch in the Santa Susana Mountains on the edge of Los Angeles, were regularly arrested and jailed for theft and drug possession but would quickly be released.
She said there were dozens of misconceptions about Manson and his followers - which she believes were created by prosecutors and “their need to build a case against Manson” and spoke of the love and devotion she and her friends had for him.
Although Lynette gives no details of the gruesome murders - she does recall how Manson once shot a drug dealer named Bernard Crowe, then stopped to admire a bystander's leather shirt - before walking out wearing it.
She recalls a conversation with Manson in which he told her: "You have to be with yourselves. I'm just an animal raised up in a cage. I'm mean and I'm a killer when the need comes up."
Fellow follower Sandra “Sandy” Good, who also writes in the book, chillingly recalls asking one of the murderers Patricia “Katie” Krenwinkel what it was like to be killing people.
“Katie said that each stab was herself coming closer to death till she felt nothing but total peace when it was done,” Sandy says in the book.
“She said she could not have taken lives unless she was totally willing to face her own death.”
Lynette told Sun Online: “I started this book in 1970, just prior to the Tate-LaBianca trials in Los Angeles. Nearly all the contributions from others came during the 1970s.
“For years, life requested postponements, but I took down notes and sometimes entire anecdotes, until there were so many I could not fit them all into the final copy.
“I’d say that the biggest and most chronically repeated misconception was that Manson wanted to be a famous musician. When I met him in 1967, he had already been entertaining people for years.
“Upon his release from prison he had an open invitation to visit a record producer at Universal Studios in Hollywood.
“I describe in the book that after about six months of freedom he accepted that invitation, but politely declined commitments of any kind.
“He was joyously experiencing life in a world radically different from the one he left before going to prison.
“He saw pleasure and purpose in every day. He was spontaneous, and naturally funny. He made us laugh.
“Another created conception was that Manson recruited a group of followers he named ‘The Family.’ In the 1960s people of like-minds lived together in what were called ‘communes’ or ‘families’. There were hundreds of ‘families’.
“Many of the dozens of misconceptions about us are based in the prosecutor’s need to build a case against Manson while also writing a book about him.”
Lynette, who met Manson in Venice Beach, California in 1967, as a teenager after running away from home, describes how she and various other young women fell in love with "robustly handsome" and "fascinating" Manson and would cook and embroider clothing for him.
She also reveals how the followers - who he called his "witches" - would end up in tears out of jealousy as Manson freely slept with all of them and encouraged threesomes and group sex.
"Charlie would make love to each of us and to both of us," Lynette recalls.
"He once asked us each to sit in a chair and watch him make love to the other.
"Beyond initial discomfort I saw moving artwork and dance, tenderness and surrender"
They would gather around him at night as he played music and talked like he was a "shaman", she revealed.
The group would regularly smoke marijuana and take LSD - and she recalls one night nicknamed "The Freak Out" where they shut Manson out and "tore the house apart" with one follower becoming so crazed she threw a kitten into a fire.
However, she claims Manson never controlled or tried to tell anyone what to do - even though he was eventually charged with murder for ordering his followers to kill eight-month pregnant Sharon Tate, husband and wife Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and four others.
“Charlie didn’t dictate by ordering or making rules… He ruled by example," she says in the book.
“In the circle at night we treated him as a kind of shaman, giving him sound space in exchange for his insights.”
Lynette recalls several of the women giving birth to babies at Spahn Ranch, Los Angeles, and another campsite they kept in the Mojave desert.
One time, she claims, Manson performed an episiotomy - a surgery which involves cutting the vagina - on follower Mary Brunner as she struggled to birth her baby after a difficult labour and delivered a healthy child.
The ranch was regularly raided and the followers were often arrested for drug and theft crimes by cops who disapproved of their hippie lifestyle - "police were a constant in her lives," Lynette said.
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Barely mentioning the murders, Lynette says the book is about how the group were: “preparing to survive either a revolution, or the static institutions that were systematically trading all our vital necessities for money.”
She added: “Reflexion was finally published in 2018 by a small company that did not require woeful tales of victimization.
“It’s about like-minded people finding purpose in each other, and an overriding respect for the air, trees, water and animals that allow humanity to experience life.”
