Tom Neal: Killer Actor

 

A publicity photo of Tom Neal early in his career (photo source)

"Fate or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me for no reason at all." - Tom Neal as Al Roberts in Detour (1945).

From the moment of his birth in January of 1914, Tom Neal seemed destined for the fame he craved most of his life; his great uncle was the noted actor and theater manager John Drew.  Neal was brought up in a spacious Chicago home and eventually attended Northwestern University, where he majored in mathematics.  Blessed with an athletic physique and good looks, he traded on them to compete in amateur boxing matches and participate in the school's drama club.  He moved to New York City in 1933, following some summer stock performances and debuted on Broadway in 1935.  In 1938, he not only made his first film appearance (Out West With the Hardys, part of Mickey Rooney's successful Hardy Family film series) but earned a law degree at Harvard.  Over the next handful of years, he appeared in many B-movies, including Republic Pictures' serial Jungle Girl and the classic film noir Detour, with Ann Savage, with whom he would make six films in total.  

While Neal was clearly intelligent and talented, his downfall appeared to be his temperament, his ego, and women, none of which were helped by his friendships with notorious Hollywood hellraisers Errol Flynn and Mickey Rooney.  While he was in New York City, he took up with Inez Norton, an ex-Follies dancer twice his age and who had been the girlfriend of Arnold Rothstein, the mobster who rigged the 1919 World Series.  Following his murder in 1928, Inez was left $150,000 by Rothstein (over $2.6 million in 2023 dollars) and Tom Neal was more than happy to help her spend it.  Neal and Norton were briefly engaged before she was followed by relationships with such Hollywood notables as Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Ava Gardner, and Lorraine Cugat, the wife of Spanish bandleader Xavier Cugat.  He married actress Vicky Lane in 1944 and the marriage lasted five years before Lane filed for divorce, citing mental and physical cruelty.  And then Neal met Barbara Payton.

Barbara Payton and Tom Neal (photo source)

Barbara

Unlike Tom Neal,  Barbara Payton was not born into a wealthy, connected family but to two alcoholics who had no issue with their daughter trading her good looks for male attention and leaving school at sixteen to marry.  Starting as a print and catalog model, Barbara transitioned into the acting business solely based on her reputation as a party girl in the Hollywood club scene.  She received  good notices in 1949's film noir Trapped and seemed firmly on her way with the noir thriller Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) alongside James Cagney.  Then along came Tom Neal.   

By the time she met Neal in 1950, Barbara had just divorced her second husband, who also took custody of their young son.  Like Neal, she was fiercely ambitious and in him, she saw the virility and good looks she craved.  She later claimed in an interview that within four minutes of meeting, she and Neal decided to marry.  Unfortunately, Tom Neal did not have the reputation and recognition Barbara also wanted.  But Franchot Tone did. 

Barbara Payton and Franchot Tone, 1951 (photo source)

 

In the 1930s and 1940s, Franchot Tone was suave and sophisticated, a debonair leading man of the screen and stage, twice nominated for an Academy Award.  His first wife had been Joan Crawford, married from 1935 until 1939, while both were under contract to MGM (although Crawford's star greatly eclipsed his).  Despite their divorce, the two remained friendly over the years.  

The connections Tone had, as well as his wealth, were attractive to Barbara when she met him in 1950.  Although reportedly engaged to Neal at the time, she neglected to inform Tone of this fact.  Nor did she tell Neal that she was simultaneously dating Tone, although Neal later claimed that she had told him she was engaged to Tone but stepping out on him because he was "boring" compared to the more exciting Neal. 

The triangle came to a head on the front lawn of Barbara's home on September 15, 1951, when the 45-year-old Tone ended up semi-conscious on the ground, courtesy of a beating by the 37-year-old Neal.  Neal claimed that Barbara had kissed Tone in front of him and "the sight of a girl I love kissing another man made me see red."  Perhaps notably, Neal and Payton were reportedly going to marry in San Francisco that same day.

The public's sympathy was with Tone, who had been taken to the hospital with a concussion, broken nose, and smashed cheekbone.  Wherever Barbara's sympathies may or may not have been, she married Tone on September 28.  The marriage lasted less than 60 days before Tone filed for divorce, claiming that Barbara was being unfaithful with none other than Tom Neal.  For her part, Barbara admitted that she had been living with Neal but only because she was afraid of Tone.

(photo source)

The resulting publicity from the attack, as well as Barbara's alleged infidelity, put the careers of both Barbara Payton and Ton Neal on the skids (although both of them would milk their notoriety as long as possible).  Unlike the Elizabeth Taylor-Eddie Fisher-Richard Burton scandal that would break a decade later, Hollywood was much more sensitive to the public's opinion and deferred to those who basically wanted the couple blacklisted.  Neal and Barbara became re-engaged and said they would marry in Paris but eventually broke up once again, this time for good.

Neal met a woman named Patricia Fenton and married her in 1956.  They had one child together before Fenton died of cancer in 1958.  With his Hollywood career effectively over (his last on-screen appearance was a part in the television series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer), Neal sold everything he owned and left Los Angeles for Palm Springs, where he found work as a gardener.  He eventually built a solid and respectable business, saying that he had learned the trade from watching the Japanese gardeners who had tended to his two-acre Bel Air estate. 

In 1961, he married his third wife, a 25-year-old receptionist at the Palm Springs Tennis Club named Gail Kloke Bennett. 

Gail and Tom Neal (photo source)

 

April 1, 1965

Neal often frequented the Tyrol restaurant in Idyllwild, a mountain community about an hour from Palm Springs, so his appearance there on the evening of April 1, 1965 wasn't unusual.  What was, though, was the fact that he was alone and according to Robert Balzer, one of the owners and a friend of both Neal's and Gail's, that he seemed troubled.  Sitting down with Balzer and James Willet, the restaurant's other owner, Neal began talking about Gail, saying that she had become his entire life since his second wife had died, and that he couldn't live without her.  He then confessed that he had killed her.  Balzer and Willett thought Neal was kidding, as it was April Fool's Day, but Neal refuted that, saying he had shot Gail to death earlier that day while she was taking a nap.  

Following his confession at Tyrol, Neal contacted his Beverly Hills attorney, who called the Palm Springs police to inform them that Gail was at their home on Cardillo Road and had "expired or was seriously injured."  Upon finding that Gail was indeed "expired," her husband was arrested and booked into the Riverside County Jail.

The murder house in Palm Springs (photo source)

Gail had been found on the couch of the couple's living room, partially covered with a lightweight blanket.  She was wearing a green sweater and green capris.  The capris were ripped below the zipper, which was unzipped, and pulled low on her hips, along with her underpants.  She had a gaping wound roughly one inch above her right temple, where she had been struck by a .45 caliber bullet.  The bullet then exited through her neck and tore through three pillows underneath her head before coming to a rest in the couch's upholstery.  

An autopsy indicated that Gail had died somewhere between 2:30 p.m. on April 1 and 2:30 a.m. on April 2.  

The Lodi News Sentinel, April 2, 1965 (photo source)

On April 16, the Riverside County Grand Jury indicted Tom Neal for murder.  Public defender James Kellam was assigned to defend Neal.  He later said that he felt that Neal "needed a better defense than a public defender could provide" and so chose not to visit with his client at all from April through August, believing that his inaction would cause Neal's friends to rally around him financially and thus provide for a criminal practice attorney.  On August 20, Neal petitioned the court for a continuance on the basis of needing a change of counsel. 

Surprisingly, Kellam's action worked and Neal's friends rallied around him.  A Cathedral City auto dealer took out an ad in the local paper, requesting donations for Neal's defense.  Friends in Palm Springs sent in check, soon followed by friends in Hollywood that included Mickey Rooney, Dorothy Manners, Blake Edwards, Harrison Carroll and even Franchot Tone, the man he had beaten back in 1951.  The money allowed Neal to hire Palm Springs attorney Leon Rosenberg.  Neal thanked the Cathedral City auto dealer with a handwritten two-page note in which he claimed that "friends" were responsible for shooting Gail.  

The Trial

The trial began on October 19, 1965 with Deputy D.A. Roland Wilson asking for a first-degree murder conviction.  Local real estate broker Frank Seyferlich testified that he had been at the Neals' home the night before the murder.  Between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. he had delivered letters of recommendation to Gail, who he said had been intending to divorce Neal and relocate to Los Angeles; she would have needed the letters as employment references.  According to Seyferlich, he was surprised to find Tom Neal at home as his understanding was the couple had been separated, with Neal living in Chicago since January of that year.  Gail had invited Seyferlich to stay for a drink but feeling uncomfortable, he left. 

Rosenberg managed to score points during his cross-examination of lab technician H. Carmon Bishop, when he got Bishop to admit that a man's wallet was found in the top drawer of the bureau in the master bedroom and a man's suitcoat was found in the master bedroom closet.  Wilson objected on the grounds of relevance, but the insinuation was that neither belonged to Tom Neal and that perhaps Gail had been seeing someone else.

The prosecution called only eight witnesses before resting their case on October 28.  Rosenberg began the defense's case on October 29.  Chief of Detectives Richard Harries testified that the wallet and suitcoat belonged to Steve Peck, a Palm Springs insurance man.  Peck rented a spare bedroom from Tom and Gail.  He had an alibi and witnesses who placed him in Phoenix at the time of Gail's murder.

Harries also admitted under oath that the murder weapon had never been located but a live .45 caliber bullet was found in Tom Neal's jacket pocket at the time he was arrested and that a similar box of ammunition was found in the Neal home.

Steve Peck took the stand the following day and recalled a domestic dispute between Tom and Gail that had occurred in November of 1964, only months before her murder.  According to Peck, Gail had pulled a .45 automatic on Neal screaming that she would kill him.  During cross-examination, however, Peck admitted that in his original statement to the police, it was Tom Neal that brandished the gun after slapping Gail several times. 

Tom Neal's Story

If the jury and the public had found Steve Peck interesting, they were absolutely riveted when Tom Neal took the stand.  According to Neal, Gail was lying on the couch and he was on one knee, caressing her.  She had questioned whether they "should be doing this," and Neal had accused her of "fooling around with all these guys" since he had left.  After he had accused her of having sexual relations with his friends, she had said she would kill him and had the .45 automatic in her hand.  Neal said he had pushed the gun away with both hands and it went off, striking Gail in the head.  He then prayed and claimed to recite aloud a tenant of Chrisian Science: "There is no life, truth, intelligence or substance in mind, all in infinity and its manifestation, for God is all in all.  Spirit is immortal truth, matter is mortal error.  Spirit is the real and eternal, matter is the unreal and temporal."  

Under cross-examination, Neal admitted that he and Gail had been estranged for some time, and that he had returned home from Chicago to attempt a reconciliation.  He said he did speak to his restaurant friends and told them that he "felt responsible for her death," but insisted that he never at any time said that he had fired the shot.  His friends had been the prosecution's first witnesses and had testified that he did say he had shot Gail.  Neal's cross ended with Wilson producing a copy of Gail's petition for divorce, lodged just before her death, in which she accused her husband of threatening her with a .45 revolver the previous November. 

On November 9, under rebuttal, Wilson called Dr. Armand Dollinger, who had performed the autopsy on Gail.  According to Dollinger, Neal's recounting of events was "unlikely;" the direction of the wound did not correspond with Neal's assertion that he had pushed the gun away. 

Rosenberg did his best to discredit Dollinger, asking whether the doctor had measured Gail's arm or had any idea of her muscle structure, to which Dollinger replied in the negative. 

Wilson then called three of Gail's coworkers from the Palm Springs Tennis Club.  All three testified that Gail had planned to leave town when she heard that Neal was returning from Chicago because she was afraid he would kill her once he learned she had filed for divorce. 

The Verdict

The jury of ten women and two men was out for ten hours.  Although the prosecution was seeking the death penalty, to the utter amazement of all present, on November 18, 1965, the jury found Tom Neal guilty of involuntary manslaughter, believing his story of the firearm accidentally discharging.  Wilson was stunned and Rosenberg elated, telling the press that with time served, Neal could be out by Christmas.  

At the sentencing hearing on December 10, Judge Hilton McCabe listened to Rosenberg plead for probation for his client, citing Tom Neal's "clean record" and saying the shooting was an accident that culminated from a marital discord.  Wilson said the prosecution would not consider probation and that the jury's verdict was the only break Tom Neal deserved.  Judge McCabe agreed, sentencing Neal to up to 15 years in prison.

Neal showed no emotion during the sentencing other than biting his lip but told the press outside that his sentence was "a railroad job."  

Tom Neal in a scene from his most famous film, Detour (1945) (photo source)

Afterwards

Tom Neal served six years of his one-to-15-year sentence.  He was paroled on December 6, 1971.  He returned to Hollywood, the scene of both success and downfall.  Instead of appearing on the big or small screen, however, he went back to his landscaping and gardening business.  His son found Neal dead in his bed on August 7, 1972, felled by heart failure.  He was 58 years old.   His body was cremated, with the eventual disposition of his cremains unknown.  

Barbara Payton at the beginning of her career (photo source)

Barbara Payton had no easier of a road than Tom Neal following their aborted engagement.  Suffering with alcoholism and drug addiction, between 1955 and 1963, she had multiple run-ins with the law, including arrests for passing bad checks and prostitution.  Offered the option of being admitted to rehab, Barbara said she would rather drink and die.  She ended up living with her parents in San Diego, where the trio spent their days binging on alcohol.  By the time she was 34 years old, the former slim and sexy blonde weighted 200 pounds, was unkempt, and suffering with broken blood vessels in her face from her constant drinking.

In 1963, she was paid $1,000 (just over $9,600 in 2023 dollars) for her autobiography, called I Am Not Ashamed, in which she recounted sleeping on bus benches and being regularly beaten while she was prostituting herself.  The book led to her last acting role, 4 for Texas, a Western comedy film. 

Her final marriage, her fifth, was in 1962, to a man named Jess Rawley.  She as still married to Rawley but living with her parents in San Diego when she died on May 8, 1967 of liver and heart failure.  She was 39 years old. 

During Tom Neal's trial in Indio, Barbara attended daily.  It was reportedly the last time the two saw each other.  

Franchot Tone in the 1930s (photo source)

Franchot Tone, who had been beaten at Neal's hands in 1951, married once more following his brief marriage to Barbara - to actress Dolores Dorn.  The marriage lasted only three years and the couple divorced in 1959. 

During the 1950s, Tone relocated from Hollywood to New York, where he appeared on stage and television.  His career continued into the 1960s, both on television and in film, until lung cancer, caused by his chain smoking, forced him to retire.  His first wife, Joan Crawford, who had also relocated to New York, cared for him until his death on September 18, 1968 at the age of 63.    

Sources:

Crockett, Art.  Celebrity Murders.  Pinnacle Books, 1990.

Historian Alan Royle (March 24, 2016).  Tom Neal - Getting Away With Murder.

Murderpedia (2022).  Thomas Neal.

Palm Springs Life (2022).  Killer Career - Actor Tom Neal.

Wikipedia (2022).  Tom Neal.

Wikipedia (2022).  Barbara Payton.

Wikipedia (2022).  Franchot Tone.

Gail's final resting place at Inglewood Park Cemetery (photo source)

 

  

The Barbeque Murders of California

 Jim and Naomi Olive's Disappearance Leads to a Gruesome Discovery

Marlene Olive, 1975 (photo source)

No one stops
to step into my life
and those in it have long ago
fallen asleep.
I have been empty for so long.

- Marlene Olive's poetry

Early on the morning of Sunday, June 22, 1975, a firefighter found a smoldering flame in a barbeque pit at China Camp State Park in Marin County, California.   As it wasn't uncommon for hunters to roast deer in the pits, he thought nothing of the bone fragments in the ashes.   He would have had no idea that those bones were tied to a missing San Rafael couple by the name of Jim and Naomi Olive, who lived less than ten miles to the west with their teenaged daughter, Marlene.  

Marlene Olive had been born in Norfolk, Virginia in January of 1959 to an unmarried mother.  When she was a day old, she was adopted by Jim and Naomi Olive.  Jim and Naomi had married in 1944, when Jim was an Army recruit.  Once the war ended, he wanted to get in on the housing boom and so the couple moved to Panama.  They both wanted a family but as the years passed, it did not happen and so they adopted Marlene.  Naomi's vigilance as a parent was excessive from the start.  Worried about what the baby might be exposed to, she insisted that everyone around the baby, even herself and Jim, wear a surgical mask and repeatedly sterilized anything and everything that her daughter might come into contact with.  

In the summer of 1959, Jim lost their life savings in a failed business venture and found a new position with Tenneco oil company in Ecuador.  Jim loved Ecuador but Naomi hated it.  She had displayed symptoms of mental illness for a number of years but the move to Ecuador, taking place not long after she became a parent, turned her into a paranoid recluse.  She regularly accused Jim of a multitude of affairs and soothed herself with alcohol.  

In 1965, Jim's work took his family first to Colorado and then to New Mexico.  He was fired from Tenneco but found employment with the Gulf Oil Company, once again in Ecuador.  

The Olives lived a privileged lifestyle in Ecuador, complete with servants.  Marlene was treated like a princess by their household staff and by Jim, who adored his little girl.  She and Jim bonded and became very close, helped along by Naomi's illness and lack of a caring, loving relationship with Marlene.  

The little girl was ten years old when she found adoption papers in Jim's office.  Despite her father's assertions that she was just as loved as if she were his own biological child, and she was more special because she was chosen, the knowledge of her adoption left Marlene confused and hurt toward her adoptive parents and wondering why her biological mother didn't want her.

When she was in the sixth grade, she announced during class one day that she hated her mother.  She asked her teacher how she could find her biological mother, stating that while Jim had told her he would help her locate her mother when she was 21, she didn't want to wait.  

Marlene had never been close to Naomi, even before Naomi's schizophrenia took over but as Marlene entered adolescence, the friction between the two was exacerbated.  Their arguments led Marlene to bang her head against the wall and bite her own arms, leaving scars.  

Jim once again lost his job in 1973, forcing the Olives to leave Ecuador for the States in March.  He found employment in Marin County, California.  He and Naomi chose to settle in Terra Linda, a quiet community in the city of San Rafael, 14 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  They moved to Hibiscus Way, a street of homes that were built in the 1950s.  

Marlene had been terrified to leave her safe haven in Ecuador for what she believed was the drug-infested culture of California and the United States.  Ironically, after starting her last term of eighth grade, she fell in with a group of kids and began emulating their behavior.  She dressed in the glam rocker style, took drugs and had sex.  She said she was a witch and told her classmates she was a member of the Church of Satan in San Francisco and that she had appeared in a pornographic movie while in South America.  Her father, she said, was in charge of the drug trade in Ecuador.  

Whether it be her daily interactions with a mentally-ill Naomi, her drug use or typical adolescent moodiness - or all three - Marlene was often sullen.  At time, she would write morose, depressing poems and then write a thoughtful, loving poem about her parents.

When she was fourteen, Marlene began to shoplift and steal her parents' credit cards.  Her first arrest was while she was in the ninth grade.    

Predictably, Naomi disliked Marlene's friends and hated the way her daughter dressed and acted.  She would often berate and verbally abuse Marlene, telling her she was going to be a whore just like her birth mother.   During one episode, Naomi allegedly stripped naked and taunted Marlene, suggesting that the lewd gyrations she was making likely represented her birth mother.

Jim apparently spent more time at work than he had in Ecuador, which Marlene took personally.  When he was at home, according to her, he was more interested in being the "white knight protector to Naomi."  

In 1974, Marlene made a fateful and fatal acquaintance in Charles Riley.  She was on her first LSD trip, sitting on the lawn of Terra Linda High School, and it was a bad one.  Other students were laughing at her and it was Riley who ordered them to leave her alone.  

Charles, known as Chuck, was a 19-year-old high school dropout.  Since leaving school during his junior year, he had worked as a pizza deliveryman, bartender, and factory worker.   A happy and affectionate child, Chuck became obese while in school, enduring names like "Boulder" and "Fat Man" from his classmates and hearing jokes on how he must have a charge account at Jack in the Box, a local fast food restaurant.  By the time Chuck was 15 years old, he weighed 300 pounds.  A former student at Terra Linda High School, he was at the school that day in 1974 to deal drugs.  He did it not only for the money but also to help boost his popularity.  He was immediately smitten and obsessed by the 15-year-old Marlene.    

In an attempt to woo Marlene, who was initially put off by his size, Chuck love bombed her, gifting her with flowers, candy and affection.  Although she appreciated his "white knight protector" act, especially given that she believed she had lost that from her father,  it was only after Chuck agreed to provide her with drugs that Marlene agreed to have sex with him.  Chuck, who had never had a girlfriend before, became utterly devoted to Marlene, who would take him into stores and point out items she wanted, which he would then steal.  His association with Marlene would lead Chuck, wo had never before been in trouble with the law, to have a record.  

Surprisingly, Jim and Naomi Olive liked Chuck and approved of his relationship with Marlene - at least at first.  Naomi reportedly thought he was a nice young man before her daughter got to him.  As 1974 turned in 1975 and life with Marlene became a constant cycle of arrests, drug use and battles, however, Jim's opinion began to change.  In March of 1975, Marlene and Chuck were charged with grand larceny after they lifted $6,000 worth of women's clothing and accessories from a variety of stores in the area.  Jim bailed Marlene out of jail and hired an attorney to represent her in the matter due to move forward in May but also threatened to send her to a juvenile facility.  Chuck's parents, with whom he lived, bailed him out.  

In the winter of 1974-1975, Marlene became obsessive with her fantasies of murdering her mother.  Her friends apparently thought it was nothing more than typical teenage venting and wrote it off.  However, Marlene's relationship with Naomi continued to deteriorate and she decided to take action.  She crushed up prescription medication and put it into her mother's food, hoping that Naomi would ingest it and overdose.  The plan failed, though, when Naomi refused to eat the food, citing it was too bitter.  

By June of 1975, Jim Olive had had enough.  He told Marlene he planned to ground her throughout the summer and come fall, she would be sent to a boarding school.  He no longer wanted her to see Chuck Riley and Jim issued his own warning to Chuck:  stay away from Marlene or I'll kill you. 

On the first day of summer, Saturday, June 21, 1975, Marlene and Naomi had their last fight in which Naomi reportedly told Marlene she was going to get locked up in juvenile hall.  Marlene responded by calling Chuck and telling him to get his gun because "we've got to kill the bitch today."  Chuck claimed that he didn't want to kill anyone but Marlene said that if he loved her, he would do it.  When that wasn't incentive enough, according to Chuck, she said if he refused, she would no longer see him. 

With that in order, she arranged to go out shopping with Jim, leaving Naomi alone in the house.  Marlene left the door unlocked so that Chuck could easily gain entry to the home and murder Naomi.  

Chuck took some LSD before grabbing his .22 caliber revolver and a hammer and heading over the Olive residence, where Naomi was sleeping.   She was struck in the head with a claw hammer until the hammer lodged in her skull.  As that failed to kill her, Chuck ran to the kitchen where he obtained a steak knife that he used to stab her repeatedly in the chest.  He didn't use the gun on Naomi, he later said, because he worried the noise would alert neighbors.  

Although the plan allegedly had been only to kill Naomi,  Marlene and Jim returned from their shopping excursion while Chuck was still in the house.  Jim saw Chuck in the process of attempting to smother Naomi, grabbed the bloody steak knife from the nightstand and rushed at his daughter's boyfriend.  Chuck pulled his gun out and fired it four times, striking Jim in the chest and killing him.

Even if Jim had not been part of the murder plot, Marlene apparently did not mourn him or have no remorse over his murder.  She and Chuck wrapped his body and Naomi's in rugs, placed them in Chuck's car and drove to China Camp State Park.  The bodies were then dumped into a barbeque pit, doused with gasoline and set on fire.  The teenagers returned to Terra Linda, where they enlisted a friend for help in cleaning up the blood.  For the next four days, Marlene and Chuck lived in the house on Hibiscus Way, where, using Jim and Naomi's credit cards, checkbook, and cash, they partied, ate takeout food and went to concerts.  They also bragged about the murders to friends.  Reportedly, the couple's plan was to wait until Jim and Naomi were declared dead, then collect the insurance money and move to Ecuador. 

Jim Olive's business partner became concerned when Jim missed multiple meetings at work and dropped by the Olive residence.  No one answered the door but the man noticed the overall disarray through the windows.  Believing that Jim had been the victim of a burglary or home invasion, he notified police.  The police also received no response to their door knocking and left a note for the home's residents to contact them as soon as they returned home.  Marlene did that, showing up at the police station with a variety of conflicting stories.  First, she claimed that her parents had gone to Lake Tahoe on vacation, then said that they had been kidnapped and killed by Hell's Angels.  She even suggested that one of her parents had killed the other and disappeared with the body.  She also provided several different alibis for herself and Chuck over the preceding days.

Police searched the messy, disorderly residence and while they found nothing of note, they did acknowledge that, unlike the rest of the house, the master bedroom was recently cleaned and spotless.

The friend who had been employed by Chuck and Marlene to help in cleaning up after the murders of Jim and Naomi went to law enforcement to make a statement not only about the blood that was present in the bedroom but about comments made by Chuck and Marlene about killing the Olives.  With this information, Marlene owned up to where her parents were and led the police to the China Camp State Park and the pit where the bodies of Jim and Naomi Olive had been set alight.  Human bone fragments were found in the ash.

Chuck Riley's mug shot (photo source)

On July 10, 1975, Chuck Riley and Marlene Olive were arrested and each charged with two counts of first-degree murder.  Chuck immediately confessed, saying he committed the killings because Marlene told him to, although he would later recant a portion of his confession.  As Marlene was a minor, a psychiatric evaluation was ordered for her.  She was considered troubled but competent to stand trial.  

In September, the attorney who had represented Marlene when she had been arrested for shoplifting at the local mall successfully argued on her behalf that she should be tried in juvenile court rather than as an adult in superior court.  He conceded that she and Chuck were both heavily involved in drugs, sex and fantasy but it was Chuck who carried out the murders.  Following a short hearing in the Marin County Juvenile Court, sixteen-year-old Marlene was ordered to spend three years at The Ventura School, the California Youth Authority's juvenile detention facility about an hour north of Los Angeles.

Chuck, as a legal adult, wasn't so lucky.  His trial began on October 30, 1975.  As he had confessed to both murders (although he had since claimed that he found Naomi Olive with the hammer already embedded in her head and he had stabbed her to put her out of her misery), his defense team attempted to show that a person like Chuck would be susceptible to someone like Marlene, even going so far as to kill for her.  Chuck allowed himself to be hypnotized but it didn't sway the jury.  Following the seven-week trial, he was found guilty of bludgeoning Naomi Olive to death and shooting Jim Olive to death at close range.  He was sentenced to death and in early 1976, was sent to San Quentin State Prison to await execution.

Marin County and Terra Linda settled back in to normal life but Marlene Olive couldn't seem to stay out of trouble.  

Upon arriving at The Ventura School, Marlene tracked down the attorney that handled her adoption back in 1959 and learned the name of her biological mother.  Despite what Naomi had told her for years, the woman was not a prostitute impregnated by a client but a 19-year-old teenager impregnated by a sailor on leave.

In late 1978, with only weeks to go before being paroled, Marlene escaped from a holding cell in Los Angeles and headed east to New York, where she resumed her heavy drug habit and became a high-priced prostitute.  She would remain free until she was picked up in July 1979 at a brothel.  Returned to California to finish her sentence, she was released in 1980 when she was 21.  

In 1981, accompanied by writer Richard M. Levine, who would go on to write 1982's Bad Blood: A Family Murder in Marin County, she saw Chuck for the first time in five years when she visited him in prison.  He correctly observed after the visit, "I'll never see her again."  

(Photo source)

Marlene went to L.A. and changed her name numerous times - possibly due to her multiple arrests (at least seven) for forgery and drug-related charges.  Her arrests led to two one-year jail sentences.  In 1986, she was busted, along with others, for her involvement in a large counterfeit and forgery ring for which she was suspected of being the ringleader.  Sentenced to five years, she was again convicted in 1992 for for making a false financial settlement and in 1995 for possession of a forged driver's license.  In between her forgeries, credit card fraud and cashing bad checks, she was admitted to UCLA through her The Ventura School community-college equivalency degree but she soon dropped out.  In 2003, she was arrested in Bakersfield, California on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs, possession of stolen property, drug paraphernalia and counterfeit checks and sentenced to seven years.   Authorities remarked that they had never before seen a street level forger as skilled or prolific as Marlene Olive, who could commit forgery and fraud from documents she obtained from the trash.

Marlene served her sentence at a Kern County's women prison for the Bakersfield charges and her present whereabouts are unknown.  

Drawing by Marlene McCarty (photo source)

In the 1990s, artist Marlene McCarty, inspired by Levine's book, created a series of drawings on the teenaged Marlene Olive which became a series called "Murder Girls."  One of those drawings is now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Chuck in 2013 (photo source)

Chuck Riley's life was spared when the death penalty was nullified in 1978 after being ruled unconstitutional; his death sentence was commuted to one of life with the possibility of parole.  Transferred from San Quentin to the Men's Correctional Facility in San Luis Obispo, Chuck slimmed down to 190 pounds and earned his GED and the equivalent of a college degree.   He became eligible for parole seven years into his commuted sentence; ultimately, he would be denied more than a dozen times.  In 2011,  following a denial, he appealed, citing that there was no evidence that he continued to be a danger to the community, that the parole board did not consider his age, and that his sentence was unconstitutionally excessive.  In May of 2014, the Court of Appeals in San Francisco agreed with Chuck and ordered a new parole hearing.  The subsequent parole hearing found him suitable for release.  On February 6, 2015, California's then-governor Jerry Brown reversed the parole board's decision.  He did acknowledge that Chuck had taken positive steps in prison, such as participating in the behavioral programs and earning his associate and bachelor degrees but felt that he continued to minimize his involvement in the crime.  Chuck appealed Brown's decision and on December 3, 2015, Brown's reversal was vacated and five days later, Chuck Riley was granted parole.  

Chuck Riley and Marlene Olive, by all accounts, have not seen each other since 1981.

Jim and Naomi's grave marker (photo source)

Sources:

20th Century Murder (2019). Teen Girls Who Murdered Their Parents (1970s)-Marlene Olive/The Barbecue Pit Murders — 20th Century Murder: A True Crime Blog and Podcast (home.blog)

Catt’s True Crime Corner, (2019). Catt’s True Crime Corner“We Had To Do It.”

Crime Library, (2014). Kill my parents: The story of Marlene Olive (archive.org)

Levine, Richard M. Bad Blood: A Family Murder in Marin County. Signet, 1983.

Marin Independent Journal, (2015) Governor reverses parole board decision to release Marin double-murderer — Marin Independent Journal (marinij.com)

Marin Magazine, (2008). A Local Murder — Marin Magazine

New York Daily News (2017), Adopted California teen convinces boyfriend to kill parents in 1975 ‘Barbecue Murders’ — New York Daily News (nydailynews.com)

Wikipedia, (2021). Barbecue murders — Wikipedia

 

The Short Life and Tragic Death of Steven Parent

(photo source: Find A Grave) 

Other than Sharon Tate's unborn child, Steven Parent was the youngest victim of the Manson Family's August 8-9, 1969 slaughter and undisputedly the least known.  Up until his connection with the notorious crimes, he had a very ordinary, middle class upbringing. 

Steven Earl Parent was born on February 12, 1951, the firstborn child of Wilfred and Juanita Parent.  The Parent family moved to the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte - known as "Friendly El Monte" and "The End of the Santa Fe Trail" - roughly thirty miles from Beverly Hills but a world away around 1958.  Their three bedroom, two bath rambler on East Bryant Street, built in 1956, was soon bursting as Steven was joined by a sister, Janet, and two brothers, Greg and Dale.  

Steven attended high school at Arroyo High, beginning in 1965.  It was in 1966, halfway through his freshman year, that he was arrested for petty theft.  It's generally accepted that he stole several radios  - he was known to be a hi-fi bug and enthusiast and reportedly took those items apart to see how they operated.  There is, however, a February 2, 1966 Los Angeles Times article that mentions a 14-year-old El Monte teen who was arrested for committing one to six burglaries at area schools.  As the offender was a juvenile, no name was given.  Whether the teen mentioned in the Times article was Steven or not, he spent the next two years in juvenile detention.  While there, he was reportedly tested at near-genius level for electronics.  

(photo source: charlesmanson.com)

By the time he graduated from Arroyo in June of 1969, Steven stood just a whisper over six feet tall, with red hair that earned him the nickname "Carrot Top."  According to Vincent Bugliosi, the author of Helter Skelter and prosecutor of Steven's killer(s), Steven had dated a few girls in school but no one in particular.   He enjoyed listening to folk music and playing the guitar but his main passion continued to be electronics.  Planning to attend Citrus Junior College in Azusa, to the north of El Monte, in September, he was holding down two jobs to save up money for his tuition.    During the day he worked as a delivery boy for Valley Cities Plumbing Company on Rush Street in South El Monte.  In the evenings, he was a salesman at Jonas Miller Stereo on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. 

In late July, Steven picked up a hitchhiker named William Garretson.  This seemingly innocuous act would set the wheels in motion to alter the course of his life.  Garretson, an Ohio native, was the summer caretaker for the property located at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon.  The home, owned by Rudi Altobelli, a manager and producer, was being rented out to director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate.  Altobelli normally resided in the guesthouse but had hired Garretson on during the months he was in Europe.   After dropping Garretson off at the property, the caretaker told Steven to feel free to drop by anytime he should be in the area.

On Friday, August 8, 1969, Steven left home around 7:50 in the morning to begin work at Valley City Plumbing.  He came home for lunch and asked his mother Juanita to iron and lay out clothing for him so when he returned home after finishing his day at Valley City, he could quickly change and be on the way to Jonas Miller Stereo.  The day progressed normally, with Steven working his shift at Valley City, followed by Jonas Miller.  After clocking out at the stereo store, he stopped by Dales (a service station) in El Monte around 11 p.m. to chat with the brother of a girl he dated.  He asked the boy if he wanted to go for a ride; the boy declined.  From there, he made an innocent decision that would result in tragic consequences for him - he headed to 10050 Cielo Drive.  

Steve had a Sony AM-FM Digimatic clock radio he wanted to try to sell to William Garretson.  He arrived on the property around 11:45 p.m., noticing Abigail Folger and Sharon Tate in the main house as he made his way to the guesthouse.  Upon arrival, he asked Garretson who the pretty ladies were in the house and then showed Garretson the radio.  Garretson passed on the purchase but offered his guest a can of beer, which Steven accepted.  Steven also used the guesthouse phone to call a UCLA student by the name of John Friedman - he was building Friedman a stereo.  It was roughly around 12:15 a.m. when Steven bid Garretson farewell and left the guesthouse, headed for his car, his father's white 1966 Nash Ambassador, in the driveway.

Just over eight hours later, his body was found behind the steering wheel, slumped over toward the front passenger side, the clock radio beside him.  

The official story was that as Steven was leaving the property and had rolled his window down to access the button to open the gate, he was accosted by Charles "Tex" Watson, who, with Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel, Susan "Sadie" Atkins, and Linda Kasabian, were entering the property to slaughter everyone present as part of Charles Manson's ludicrous Helter Skelter motive.  As Tex ordered the boy to stop, Steven pleaded with him, "Please don't hurt me.  I won't say anything."  Armed with a bayonet and a gun, Watson at first slashed at Steven, who instinctively held up his left hand to protect himself, causing a gash on his wrist that severed his wristband and caused it to fly into the backseat, where it was found later that morning by police.  Watson then took out his gun and fired three times, hitting Steven in the left cheek and twice in the chest, the latter two wounds of which were fatal.  Watson then pushed the car back up the drive, away from the gate.  This recounting has Steven Parent being the first victim of the Manson Family that night.

Recently, however, there have been theories that Steven was not the first victim and may have been the last, or nearly so.  In these theories, Steven was walking back to his car from the guesthouse and came upon the horrific slaughter going down at the main house.  Panicked, he literally ran for his life, with a hopped up Tex Watson in pursuit, reaching his car and attempting to tear out of the property.  In his desperation, Steve backed into the split rail fence and Watson caught up to him.  It was then that Steven pleaded for his life and that Watson went after him with the knife.  Finding that it was difficult to achieve his goal with the knife while his victim was seated behind the wheel, Tex unloaded his gun three times into the boy.  

Whichever version is the correct one, the split rail fence was broken with chips of paint from the Parent car found on the fence and pieces of the wood found under the back bumper of the car.  It was agreed by the Manson Family members present that Steven did plead for his life with those exact words, leading anyone to wonder what he meant when he said "I won't say anything" if he didn't see anything, as he wouldn't if he had been the first victim. 

For Wilfred and Juanita Parent, that Friday night was long and unnerving for them.  Steven had never stayed out all night and not come home.  The police, upon finding Steven on Saturday morning, did not locate his wallet or driver's license and so he was dubbed John Doe.  A reporter on the scene managed to make out the license plate of the car and had it run, finding out it belonged to a Wilfred Parent in Elm Monte.  That reporter managed to track down the Parents' parish priest and notify him that the dead John Doe might be Steven Parent.  While the priest was headed to the morgue on Saturday evening to possibly make an identification that would spare Wilfred and Juanita, the Parent family headed out to dinner, hoping that Steven would be home when they returned.  Instead, an El Monte police officer appeared and handed Wilfred a business card with a phone number on it and instructed him to call.  Wilfred called the unidentified number and was stunned when he was connected to the L.A. County Morgue.  He was told the morgue had a body they believed was Wilfred's son.  The physical characters and clothing matched; the priest was also able to positively identify the Parents' oldest son.  That night, the Parent family, minus Steven, crawled into one bed and cried until the early hours.

Steven's funeral (photo source: RXSTR) 

Steven Parent was buried at the Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Rowland Heights on Wednesday, August 13.  

Arroyo High School dedicated its 1970 yearbook to four students and a teacher, with Steven being one of the students.  Part of the memorial stated: "Life goes on with all its joy, sorrow, love, pain, and laughter . . . yet death continues."  

His family eventually left California, finding the memories and publicity of the notorious killings too painful.  They relocated in Texas, where Juanita had lived during her later childhood and before her marriage to Wilfred.  

In 1972, the UCLA student Steven had spoken to before leaving the Cielo guesthouse published a sci-fi book under the name David Gerrold.  He dedicated the book to Steven.    

In 2009, Linda Kasabian participated in a documentary where she admitted for the first time that, on Tex Watson's orders, she crawled over Steven's dead body, searching for a wallet and/or money.  This explains why no wallet or identification was found on him (and also further supports a burglary angle or motive.)  

In the decades since his untimely and terrifying death, people who once knew Steven leave memorials for him on the Find a Grave website.  They mention summers past, of swimming together, of playing in fields behind homes, and pretending to be radio announcers and that Steven was always thrilled to share a birthday with Abraham Lincoln.  The girl named Tina - now a woman in her sixties - who had Steven as her prom date only months before he was killed still muses on whether they would have eventually married, had children and grandchildren together.  It can never be known.  

 

Steven's final resting place (photo source: Find a Grave) 

    

 

Remembering Jay Sebring

 

A smiling Jay (source: Tumblr)

Fifty-one years ago tonight, Jay Sebring became one of six people (if you include an unborn baby) who lost their lives in one of the most violent, gruesome, and senseless murders in U.S. history. But Jay was so much more than just a victim.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama as the fourth and final child of an accountant and housewife, he was raised in a very average middle-class existence in Southfield, Michigan. Following graduation from Detroit Catholic Central High School, he enlisted for what would turn out to be a four-year stint in the Navy. That enlistment changed the course of his life, as he found a passion for cutting hair — which he did for the enlisted men during the Korean War.

Finding his calling, he journeyed to Los Angeles, where he changed his name from Thomas John Kummer to the more stylish and sexy Jay Sebring. Following barber school, he spent three years in tutelage at women’s beauty parlors before striking out on his own. His Sebring salon, one of the first salons for men in the United States, became as trendy as its location — the corner of Fairfax and Melrose in West Hollywood. Sleek and modern, with masculine wood paneling in the main salon, Sebring catered to his celebrity clientele, which began flooding the salon, by having a private entrance for them, as well as a VIP room. At a time when barbers charged $1.50 for a haircut, he could command $25 and up, thanks to his revolutionary Sebring Method, which involved using scissors rather than clippers and cutting the hair to the style of the head and in the direction of the hair growth. Sebring also encouraged daily washing of the hair before styling and using hair spray rather than Brylcreem or pomade, which was the standard (along with infrequent washings.)

A kind, deep-thinking and stylishly sophisticated man, Jay became the first male celebrity stylist to such stars as Warren Beatty, Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda, Paul Newman, and many others. He designed Jim Morrison’s famous shaggy ‘do and flew to Las Vegas every three weeks to tend to the locks of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. Wealthy oilman Saul West paid him $500 (plus expenses) to fly to Dallas to cut his hair.

His success and popularity led him to going directly to the set of 1960’s Spartacus to personally tend to star Kirk Douglas’ hair and to be the lead hair stylist for The Thomas Crown Affair in 1968 and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969.

Jay was instrumental in the film career of Bruce Lee, who he met in 1964 in Long Beach at the International Karate Championships. Jay introduced Lee to Bill Dozier, a television producer who cast Lee in The Green Hornet.

Although he had no acting aspirations himself, Jay appeared in a December 1966 episode of Batman (also produced by Dozier) playing a character called Mr. Oceanbring, a clever take on his own name. He also played a frontier barber in a 1967 episode of The Virginian.

In 1967, he founded Sebring International, as a means to franchise his salons internationally, teach his hair cutting method, and sell his haircare products. In addition to his flagship salon in Los Angeles, he opened salons in New York, London, and San Francisco. His San Francisco salon opened less than three months before his death; he was due to be in San Francisco the day after his death.

Although married in 1960 to a model, most of Jay’s acquaintances agreed that the love of his life was Sharon Tate, whom he met in 1964, after he and his wife separated and their divorce was pending. He and Sharon dated for three years, the relationship only floundering when she met director Roman Polanski on a film set and fell in love with him. Despite this, Jay and Sharon remained the best of friends. Sharon’s last home, the one on Cielo Drive that she shared with Roman, was only a mile from Jay’s Easton Drive residence.

That night of Friday, August 8, 1969, Jay drove his black Porsche up the hill to Cielo Drive where he, Sharon, and the Polanskis' two houseguests, Voytek Frykowski and Abigail Folger, went to dinner at El Coyote restaurant.  Returning home around 10:30, he and Sharon went to the master bedroom, where she could rest and he could sit and talk to her. Frykowski took a nap on the sofa in the living room and Folger changed into a nightgown and read “Madame Bovary” in her bedroom. They had less than two hours to live.

Jay, who had trained in karate with Bruce Lee, was no match against the knife and gun-wielding Tex Watson, who was high on speed and stood a good half-foot taller than the stylist. He was reportedly defending Sharon when he was shot, stabbed seven times, and kicked repeatedly in the face by the boot-wearing and blood lusting Watson. When he was found the next day, only feet away from the body of Sharon, Jay was still wearing her high school graduation ring, which she had given him during their courtship, on a chain around his neck.

In the half-century since his death, Jay has been remembered primarily as a murder victim; a famous one, thanks to the grisly nature of the crimes and the celebrity connection. But he was so much more than that. He was a revolutionary genius in his industry, a person that changed it so much his hair cutting method is still used today and is considered an industry standard. Sebring International survives today, although had Jay lived it’s hard to know how many salons and products he would have today.

Jay is remembered by those who knew him as a kind, thoughtful man who was unfailingly loyal. His last actions in life were those of being thoughtful and loyal to Sharon Tate, whom he defended until the very last.

Jay Sebring, October 10, 1933 — August 9, 1969 

(source: Hollywood Reporter)

Leslie Van Houten: Appeal Denied

Photo:  ABC News

In better late than never news, and I do mean that, Leslie Van Houten, once known as Lulu when she lived and conspired with the notorious Manson Family, once again lost her chance at parole.  (And when I say "lived and conspired with," I also mean "killed with.")

As you may know, Van Houten was recommended for parole by the California Parole Board last September, a recommendation that was shut down by Governor Jerry Brown in January.  Van Houten and her attorneys then filed a writ of habeas corpus with the Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking an appeal on Brown's refusal.  That petition was responded to last week with a 16 page ruling that stated, among other things, Van Houten "may someday be suitable for parole, when her commitment offense is no longer predictive of current dangerousness, it is not yet that day."  The legal document also called the crimes she participated in "among the most abominable committed in California in the second half of the 20th century" and Judge William C. Ryan noted "Petitioner's crimes terrified a generation and remain imprinted on the public."  Judge Ryan also pointed out that "if any crimes could be considered heinous enough to support a denial of parole based on their circumstances alone years after occurrence, they must certainly be the crimes perpetrated by the Manson Family."

Debra Tate, younger sister of victim Sharon Tate and now the only surviving child of Paul and Doris Tate, was quoted after the ruling as being "very pleased."  Ms. Tate says she believes that Van Houten is "as self-consumed today as she ever was, and that is the premiere marker of a sociopath."

Van Houten was 19 in 1969, when she joined Manson and several of his other Family members on their second night of murderous glee at the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in Los Feliz.  By her own account, she knew that people would die that night and she put a pillowcase over Rosemary LaBianca's head and stabbed the woman some 16 times.  After the couple was slaughtered, she joined Charles "Tex" Watson and Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel in playing with the LaBiancas' dogs, eating their food, drinking some chocolate milk and helping themselves to Rosemary's clothing.

Over the years, due to being the youngest convicted Manson killer and the argument that she "only" participated in the killing of two people, Van Houten has had more support for her release than other Manson Family members.  However, like Watson and Krenwinkel, Van Houten too has also laid the majority of the blame at the feet of the now-dead Charles Manson.  Last summer during a hearing to present mitigating evidence in Van Houten's favor, former Family member Catherine "Gypsy" Share testified that prior to the murders Van Houten was "extremely docile" and it was her belief that Van Houten would have done anything Manson asked her to.

If you've read my previous posts on Leslie Van Houten and the Manson Family in general, you'll probably guess that I'm okay with this denial.  I will never forget that Vincent Bugliosi, the District Attorney who prosecuted the Manson Family, stated that he believed that Van Houten was the least devoted of Manson's followers.  That's a frightening thought - - the least devoted of all and yet she would still kill for him.  (Unless of course that "kill for him" is utter rubbish and she simply wanted to kill.)  I also can't get out of my mind how Van Houten acted during the trial in 1970.  She giggled and laughed, even while the terrifying and painful last moments of the victims were being detailed, and when asked by her own attorney if she ever thought about Rosemary LaBianca, she said, "Only when I'm in the courtroom."  That coldness is what I believe Rosemary LaBianca saw, not the "extremely docile" person Catherine Share attempted to describe.

I've said this many, many times.  Leslie Van Houten, and all the convicted Manson Family members, were granted far more mercy than they ever showed their victims when the death penalty was declared unconstitutional in California and their death sentences were commuted.  Getting life sentences with the possibility of parole was yet another gift.

Were Leslie Van Houten not linked to Charles Manson and the infamous killings, do I think she'd get parole?  Probably.  But she is linked with Manson.  That will never change.  And the murders were horrifying, brutal and senseless.  Rosemary LaBianca was only 39 years old.  The last thing she heard before being stabbed to death was her husband, screaming in pain and begging for his life, while Tex Watson killed him in the other room.  An hour or so before she was killed, she was crying about the Tate murders the night before -- crying because she couldn't understand how anyone could be so cruel.  I have no sympathy for Leslie Van Houten; I reserve my sympathy for the LaBiancas who did nothing other than be home that night.

Van Houten's attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, refiled the writ with the appellate court.

Van Houten remains incarcerated at the California Institute for Women in Corona.

Rosemary LaBianca

December 15, 1929 - August 10, 1969

She is the victim, not Leslie Van Houten