Robert Kenneth "Bobby" Beausoleil (born November 6, 1947, in Santa Barbara, California) was an associate of the Charles Manson "Family" and was convicted of killing music teacher and Manson family associate Gary Hinman on July 27, 1969. He has been imprisoned since then.
Music career
Circa 1965, Beausoleil was a member of Arthur Lee's band The Grass Roots (not The Grass Roots of "Midnight Confessions" and "Live For Today" fame), which later changed its name to Love. Lee claimed to have bestowed the nickname "Bummer Bob" on Beausoleil due to a drug burn. Beausoleil claims that Lee named his band Love in reference to another of his many nicknames — "Cupid." Circa 1966, Beausoleil joined a band called The Orkustra; bandmate David LaFlamme went on to greater success with It's a Beautiful Day. Following his stint in The Orkustra, Beausoleil put together the band he called The Magick Powerhouse of Oz.
Film Roles
Beausoleil was to star in Kenneth Anger's Lucifer Rising, but little was shot before Beausoleil and Anger had a falling out and the project was abandoned. Some of the footage later appeared in "Invocation of My Demon Brother" (and again in the resurrected Lucifer Rising film). He also appeared in a soft porn film titled The Ramrodder (a.k.a. "Savage Passion"), which also featured his friend Catherine Share — who went on to become a full-fledged member of the Manson Family. This film was shot, in part, at the infamous Spahn Ranch.
July 27, 1969: The Hinman murder
The version, as described in the book Helter Skelter, is that Hinman was killed for money and property that Manson claimed Hinman owed the Family. Accompanying Beausoleil that night were Susan Atkins and Mary Brunner, both later involved in other murders. Beausoleil claims that Hinman supplied him with a batch of bad (or weak) mescaline that Beausoleil in turn sold to the Straight Satans motorcycle gang. When the bikers demanded their money back, Beausoleil went to Hinman, who refused to pay. While Beausoleil, Atkins, and Brunner held him captive in his own home in an attempt to convince him to refund the money, things went from bad to worse when Manson (whom Beausoleil had phoned) showed up and sliced Hinman's face and ear with a long knife or bayonet. It ended with Beausoleil stabbing Hinman to death the next day. Afterwards, he wrote "Political piggy" on a wall in Hinman's blood. On August 6, 1969, Beausoleil was arrested while sleeping in the back of one of Hinman's vehicles.
At Beausoleil's two trials for the murder, the defense mentioned nothing about the murder being the result of a drug burn. His first revelation of this came in 1981, 12 years after the murders, in an interview published in Oui magazine. [1] In that interview, he denied that Manson had come to the Hinman residence during the event that led to the murder, although he now states that this did happen. Also, conspirator Susan Atkins has stated that she never heard any mention by Beausoleil indicating that the reason they went to Hinman's residence had anything to do with a drug burn [2] See Helter Skelter (Manson scenario) for more details on the murders perpetrated by Charles Manson and members of his Family.
Imprisonment
On April 18, 1970, a Superior Court jury in Los Angeles found Beausoleil, aged 22, guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court ruled the then-prevailing death penalty statutes unconstitutional in 1972.
In the late 1970s, with the permission of the prison, he composed and recorded the soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's movie Lucifer Rising after Anger's first choice, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, couldn't manage to deliver enough music for the film after three years of waiting, according to Anger.citation needed The soundtrack was released on CD (along with archival material from The Orkustra and The Magick Powerhouse of Oz) in 2004. He's also recorded and released two albums of instrumental material (Orb and Mantra).
In 2005, a selection of his artwork exhibited in Clair Obscur Gallery, Los Angeles. Just prior to the exhibition, the gallery exhibited photos of Sharon Tate.[3] The parole board, in denying parole in 2005, stated that this display and marketing of Beausoleil's artwork was exploitative of the victims and showed a lapse of judgment by Beausoleil.[4]
He has consistently been denied parole.
References
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