Conviction New religious movements Messianic / communal movement Topanga, Los Angeles County, California, USA · 1970

United States: the Gary Hinman murder — the killing of a man inside the Manson Family's own orbit

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Charles Manson, who arrived at the house with a sword and left members to finish, Bobby Beausoleil, a young member acting on that direction

Organization

the Manson Family

Spiritual nexus

The nexus points both ways here, and the record says so. Hinman was an associate inside the group's orbit rather than a stranger. Beausoleil was a twenty-one-year-old member who killed on his leader's direction after that leader had wounded the victim and walked out — simultaneously a convicted perpetrator and a person subject to the authority this cluster documents.

Prophecy or divine command
Institutional obedience or isolation

Scope decision

Gary Hinman is named as he is named throughout the public record. NOT ASSERTED: the theory that the later Tate-LaBianca killings were staged to mimic this scene so that the already-arrested Beausoleil would appear innocent was a prosecution trial theory, contested within the district attorney's own office, and is not a judicial finding. Beausoleil's parole was recommended in January 2019 and reversed by Governor Newsom that April, on findings about his own insight rather than about Manson's domination — an asymmetry with his co-defendants worth noting, since he has not advanced a coercion account at hearings. STAGING: the appellate opinion records 'Political Piggy' written in apparent blood on the living-room wall together with 'a drawing that appeared to be like a paw print of an animal'. The opinion does not state whose blood, nor characterise the writing's purpose.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

1970-04-18 · convictions across separate proceedings

Los Angeles Superior Court; California Court of Appeal (People v. Manson, 71 Cal.App.3d 1 (1977)). Gary Hinman, a musician who had let Family members stay at his house, was killed in July 1969. The appellate record establishes that Beausoleil, Mary Brunner and Susan Atkins went to the house; that Manson then arrived with Bruce Davis, struggled with Hinman and slashed his ear with a sword before leaving; and that Beausoleil stabbed Hinman to death two days later, with 'Political Piggy' written in blood on the living-room wall. Beausoleil's first trial hung eleven to one and he was convicted at retrial on 18 April 1970, receiving a death sentence commuted under People v. Anderson. Manson and Davis were convicted of Hinman's murder and conspiracy in a separate proceeding affirmed at 71 Cal.App.3d 1. Brunner testified under a grant of immunity.

Appellate history

1977 · undefined

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Documented coercion mechanisms

members dispatched to extract money from an acquaintance who had hosted them
the leader's arrival, sword assault and departure, leaving a follower to complete the killing
'Political Piggy' written in apparent blood on the living-room wall, beside a drawing resembling an animal's paw print

Primary record

Sources

official court judgment appellate judgment People v. Manson, 71 Cal.App.3d 1 (Cal. Ct. App. 1977).: The appellate opinion in the Hinman proceeding, source of the sequence and the 'Political Piggy' finding.
national newspaper court reporting verdict report Contemporaneous press archive: 'Jury convicts Beausoleil in Gary Hinman slaying'.: Contemporaneous trial coverage of the retrial conviction.

Related record

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