The Closing Argument...

"Yes, and this is when the Family would come out of the hole, and being that he would have completed the white man's karma, then he would no longer have this vicious want to kill."

"When you say 'he,' you mean Blackie?"

"Blackie then would come to Charlie and say, you know, 'I did my thing, I killed them all and, you know, I am tired of killing now. It is all over.' And Charlie would scratch his fuzzy head and kick him in the butt and tell him to go pick the cotton and go be a good nigger, and he would live happily ever after."

Watkins did not appear to be any dummy, but he testified that he actually and sincerely believed that Charles Manson was
Jesus Christ when he was a member of the Family. Of course he doesn't believe that anymore. He recognizes Manson for the complete and total fraud that he is. When he was a member of the Family he actually believed that Manson was Jesus Christ. Watkins recalled one experience with Manson in which Manson almost killed him. He said:

"We was sitting around on acid, and I was getting kind of-I was feeling really weird, getting really stoned, and I was reacting quite a bit. And Charlie was telling me to die. He was just saying 'Die,' just 'Die.' And I didn't just die. So he jumped up and started choking me. At first I sort of fought it. I mean, I was going to physically fight it. Then I knew there was something else going on, so I didn't. I just laid there. But I was emotionally fighting it. In other words, I was scared, and really, really afraid. He was laying on top of me, looking into my eyes, and he was actually overpowering me. My throat wasn't strong enough to overcome the strength in his hands, and I noticed that there was a relationship between my fear and how strong his hands were on my throat, because it puzzled me that he could overcome me like this. So then it was going on for quite a while, in other words I was really running out of air, and then he smiled and looked in my eyes and he says, 'I'm going to kill you now.'

"And at that point I thought I was dead anyway so I just says well, I couldn't talk, but I just sort of mentally said, 'Okay, I give up, go ahead.' And he jumped off and he sat back and smiled and said, 'Then if you are willing to die, then you don't have to die.' Then he said, 'Come on and make love with me.' "

Watkins testified, of course, to Manson's control, absolute and complete control over his Family. He said that one time Manson told him to hang on a cross near Spahn Ranch and be crucified, and Watkins agreed to do it. Watkins said he was willing to die for Charlie. He testified he never disobeyed Charles Manson.

Charlie once told Sadie to go to Rio de Janeiro to get a half a coconut-and Sadie headed out the door, at which time Charlie told her she didn't have to go, he wasn't that hungry for coconuts.

more on the closing argument