Truth on Tate-LaBianca Blog Examining the Manson Murders

Restless Souls –Alisa Statman stops by

I would like to thank Alisa Stat­man for stop­ping by the Truth On Tate LaBi­anca forums and clear­ing up some of the ugly rumors that have been cir­cu­lat­ing for years on her and Bill Nelson’s dealings.

From Alisa:

A: I did not move to Los Ange­les until 1988, and I did not meet Mr. Nel­son until 1991–a year after mov­ing into the Cielo house–though he started send­ing me let­ters in 1990 to the Cielo address.
B: I had never even seen the crime scene pho­tos until long after I moved into the Cielo house when in 1992, Nel­son and I paid a visit to (ex) detec­tive Earl Deemer .
C: I would never sell crime scene or death pho­tos for “big bucks” or any bucks. The thought is truly nauseating.

As long as I’m on the sub­ject of pho­tos, Nel­son & Deemer, I’d like a chance to clear the air about the now infa­mous stolen pho­tos that I took from Deemer’s house…

The fact is, I did it and I’d do it again tomor­row for the Tate fam­ily or for Jane Doe’s fam­ily down the street because that’s where those pho­tos belonged–with the victim’s family…Why? Because when we lose some­one we love all we have are mem­o­ries and photographs.

When I walked into Deemer’s din­ing room, the table was piled high with “mem­o­ra­bilia” on Sharon’s case. In the midst of it all, I found the slides and neg­a­tives of Sharon, Jay, & Woytek at the Cielo house. Because he held both the neg­a­tives and the slides, I knew the victim’s fam­i­lies had never seen them. And I was mad as hell because Deemer had kept those pic­tures from the victim’s fam­i­lies for 23 years. Pic­tures that they deserved to enjoy, to look at, and to remem­ber their loved ones by. I stole them not for profit, but because the victim’s fam­i­lies been denied that joy and right by a man that wanted them for his per­sonal col­lec­tion or to sell them once his pen­sion was secure.

How dare he? was all that kept run­ning through my mind. … So, yes, when the two of them left the room, I stole as many as I could pocket, made enough copies for each of the fam­ily mem­bers (Sebring & Frykowski) and sent them to Patti, for no other rea­son than that is where they had belonged all along.

When Nel­son and I left Deemer’s house I told him about the stolen pho­tos and my plan to return them to the right­ful own­ers and he was extremely angry with me. Fol­low­ing that, Nel­son made many threats of what he’d do if I didn’t return the pic­tures. I told him to f@#k off– That is why Nel­son and I parted com­pany. Plain and sim­ple, we had two dif­fer­ent agen­das and I could not con­done his.

I’m sure many of you will still hold the opin­ion that a thief is a thief, and, of course, you’re enti­tled to feel that way about me. But there is noth­ing that any­one could say that would make me per­son­ally believe that what I did wasn’t the morally right thing to do.

And, for the record, my upcom­ing book will (I believe) be the only book deal­ing with this sub­ject mat­ter that doesn’t include a sin­gle photo of the crime/morgue scenes.

Thank you all for indulging me.
Sin­cerely,
Alisa Statman

Also, Alisa kindly gave us a full book review on the soon to be pub­lished Rest­less Souls:The Sharon Tate Family’s Account of Star­dom, Mur­der, and a Crusade

From Alisa :

I’d never use your forum as means to pimp my book but since you asked, it’s not just based on Col. Tate’s writ­ings, there’s so much more. Below is the book descrip­tion from the pub­lisher that explains it bet­ter than I could –(the one on Ama­zon is incor­rect, a trun­cated, half-hazard version).

Book Descrip­tion
Rest­less Souls:

The grue­some mur­ders of the beau­ti­ful and tal­ented actress Sharon Tate, her unborn child and four oth­ers that same night at the hands of the noto­ri­ous “Man­son fam­ily” rocked the nation. As one of the most hor­rific crimes in mod­ern his­tory, these atroc­i­ties, the trial and the sub­se­quent con­vic­tion of Charles Man­son and his fol­low­ers caused a media sen­sa­tion, spawn­ing movies, doc­u­men­taries and best­selling books, includ­ing the clas­sic Hel­ter Skel­ter. A defin­ing moment in an era oth­er­wise asso­ci­ated with rad­i­cal peace, love and under­stand­ing, this inci­dent is one that still res­onates with mil­lions today.
Yet while this crime left an indeli­ble mark on society’s con­scious­ness, it was, first and fore­most, a shat­ter­ing per­sonal tragedy for those clos­est to Sharon—the lov­ing fam­ily left to cope with the emo­tional dev­as­ta­tion of her loss. Now, after nearly forty years, their story is finally revealed.
Com­piled by close fam­ily friend Alisa Stat­man and Sharon’s niece Brie Tate, Rest­less Souls draws on a wealth of mate­r­ial includ­ing inter­views with the Tates, per­sonal let­ters, tape record­ings, home movies, pub­lic inter­views, pri­vate jour­nals, and offi­cial doc­u­ments to pro­vide a pow­er­ful, poignant, and affect­ing four-decade, three-generation mem­oir of crime and pun­ish­ment, anguish and hope, rage and love, that is both a chron­i­cle of death and a cel­e­bra­tion of life.
Extend­ing beyond all pre­vi­ous accounts, Rest­less Souls is the most reveal­ing, riv­et­ing, and emo­tion­ally raw account not just of these heinous mur­ders, the hunt and cap­ture of the killers and the behind-the-scenes drama of their tri­als, but of the tor­ment vic­tims fam­i­lies’ endure for years in the wake of such sense­less vio­lence.
Tate fam­ily mem­bers set the record straight, cor­rect­ing media mis­in­for­ma­tion and delv­ing well beyond the offi­cial sto­ry­line to pro­vide infor­ma­tion, much of it avail­able for the first time. Inti­mate, hon­est, and heart­felt, Rest­less Souls remark­able details, including :

* the dra­matic role Sharon’s father, P. J., a retired army intel­li­gence offi­cer, played in find­ing his daughter’s mur­der­ers
* the reac­tion P. J. had when he came face to face—alone—with Sharon’s con­victed killer in a hold­ing room dur­ing a parole hear­ing
* the threats and men­ace that extended beyond prison walls, haunt­ing the victim’s fam­ily for gen­er­a­tions later
* the fight Sharon’s mother, Doris, mounted to insure the rights of vic­tims’ loved ones, par­tic­u­larly the right to make an ‘impact state­ment’ at parole hearings—a legacy that has helped keep dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals behind bars
* the bat­tles Sharon’s sis­ter, Patti, waged with the enter­tain­ment indus­try as she tire­lessly worked to pre­vent artists from glo­ri­fy­ing her sister’s killers in music, art, and films

Told from the Tate’s extra­or­di­nary per­spec­tive Rest­less Souls offers a rare glimpse at the post-trauma sur­vival of a fam­ily and their jour­ney to find jus­tice and ulti­mately, peace—a glimpse that couldn’t be more timely as Charles Man­son comes up for parole again in 2012.

—–

So, thanks Alisa for clear­ing things up and we all look for­ward to your book. I believe it is a side of things that hasn’t been told and needs to be.

For dis­cus­sion on the Tate­LaBi­anca mur­ders and tri­als, please visit, Truth On Tate LaBi­anca, for this and more dis­cus­sion on the Man­son Fam­ily Today.