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Manson Family

http://www.tatefamilylegacy.com/unsolved.html

>>On Wednesday November 5th, 1969 Venice police responded to a call at 28 Clubhouse Avenue. There they found a young man called “Zero” (His true name was John Philip Haught, but that was unknown at the time) who was dead. He was lying on a mattress in the bedroom of the home. He had an entrance wound to the right temple. There was a leather gun case and a revolver lying beside the body. Alive in the home were Bruce Davis, Madaline Joan Cottage, Sue Bartell and Catherine Gillies. They told the police that Haught had shot himself playing Russian roulette.

>>Cottage said that she had been lying in bed next to Haught when he noticed the gun in the leather case on a stand next to the bed. She said he remarked “Oh, here’s a gun.” picked it up and removed the gun from the case and said it only has “one bullet in it.” Holding the gun in his right hand Cottage said that Haught had spun the cylinder and placed the gun muzzle to his right temple and fired. The others said they heard the gun fire and raced into the bedroom whereupon Cottage exclaimed that “Zero” had shot himself, “just like in the movies.” They indicated they then called the police, and indeed the body was warm to the touch when the police officers arrived. Davis told the officers that he had picked up the gun. When the gun was dusted later for prints neither Haught or Davis’ prints were found. The leather case was also devoid of prints. (Later a Manson case researcher would state that he was told that Davis’ prints were found on the gun. I have seen no proof of that statement to date.)

>>The gun was found to have been fully loaded. The officers were not aware that Davis and the girls were members of the Manson family. They questioned Davis, Cottage, Bartell and Gillies separately and they all told basically the same story. The police department then ruled the death a suicide.