Member of the Family: Manson, Murder and Me
Following the recent death of Charles Manson – the leader of the sinister 60s cult – Dianne Lake reveals the true story of life with Manson and his ‘family’, who became notorious for a series of shocking murders during the summer of 1969.In this poignant and disturbing memoir of lost innocence, coercion, survival, and healing, Dianne Lake chronicles her years with Charles Manson, revealing for the first time how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the twentieth century’s most notorious criminals and life as one of his “girls.”At age fourteen, Dianne Lake—with little more than a note in her pocket from her hippie parents granting her permission to leave them—became one of “Charlie’s girls,” a devoted acolyte of cult leader Charles Manson. Over the course of two years, the impressionable teenager endured manipulation, psychological control, and physical abuse as the harsh realities and looming darkness of Charles Manson’s true nature revealed itself. From Spahn ranch and the group acid trips, to the Beatles’ White Album and Manson’s dangerous messiah-complex, Dianne tells the riveting story of the group’s descent into madness as she lived it.Though she never participated in any of the group’s gruesome crimes and was purposely insulated from them, Dianne was arrested with the rest of the Manson Family, and eventually learned enough to join the prosecution’s case against them. With the help of good Samaritans, including the cop who first arrested her and later adopted her, the courageous young woman eventually found redemption and grew up to lead an ordinary life.While much has been written about Charles Manson, this riveting account from an actual Family member is a chilling portrait that recreates in vivid detail one of the most horrifying and fascinating chapters in modern American history.
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First published in the US by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
This UK edition HarperElement 2018
FIRST EDITION
Text © Dianne Lake 2017
All photos courtesy of the author
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photographs © Vladimir Serov/Getty Images (model); Bettmann/Getty Images (Charles Manson)
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Dianne Lake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780008274764
Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008261481
Version 2018-03-09
To the victims and their families; those who needlessly
lost their lives and those who continue to suffer because of
the madness of this dark time in our shared history. May
God’s grace prevail and heal the pain that remains.
CONTENTS
It is time for me to exorcise my own demons and to face the truth as much as I can remember it. In this book, I have shared what I can re-create through straining my memory muscle, research, corroboration from people who knew me, and my own words from trial and interrogation transcripts. They tell only my piece of the story from personal experience and perception. I was with the Manson Family from the age of fourteen until my arrest at Barker Ranch at the age of sixteen. My memories by necessity reflect the mind of a teenager. Everything in this book is true. Some of the names and identifying details have been changed to protect people’s privacy. Some conversations are re-created to the best of my ability, as no memory is perfect. This is my perspective. This is my story and this is my confessional.
2008
It began, as these stories often do, with a phone call, one that I had been dreading for decades.
“Are you Dianne Lake?” the voice asked.
The question stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t heard that name for years. This could be about only one thing.
“Uh-huh,” I said hesitantly. “What do you want?”
Immediately after the words left my mouth, I regretted saying them. I’d done nothing wrong, committed no crimes, but I had a reason to hide. So many people out there had looked for me over the years—reporters writing about the crimes, journalists seeking sources for books about the Family—and of course the worst were the crazies obsessed with Charles Manson. For the most part, I’d been able to evade them all—flying under the radar all these years, hiding in plain sight with my husband’s last name. I immediately wished I had hung up the phone right at that moment, but it happened too fast, my answer a reflex. Even after all these years, I still wasn’t prepared.
I had buried my history so well I’d almost forgotten that once I was someone else: a young girl named Dianne Lake who was only fourteen when Charles Manson had inducted her into his Family of followers. A girl who had spent almost two years being manipulated by him before a moment of clarity broke the spell, and who then went on to testify against him on November 3, 1970, helping to put him in prison forever. Over the course of the eight years that followed, I’d been in and out of the courtroom through the Manson trial and two retrials of fellow Family member Leslie Van Houten, coming of age on the witness stand and telling my story to the juries and the judges, as well as to the gawkers who obsessed over the gruesome acts that were committed by Charles Manson and members of his Family on two nights in August 1969. I’d told stories of life with the Family, of the things we’d done and the drugs we’d taken, of how I’d joined with the blessing of my parents, hippies themselves, thinking that I was in control of my life, only to discover a reality darker than I ever could have imagined.
