Does anyone know?

Did Linda know about Gary Hinman's murder?  I think she came to the Ranch before that but I am not sure.  But the people at the Ranch had to know that Bobby was arrested for it before the Polanski LaBianca murders.  Also I think Charlie shot Lottsapoppa before Linda came to the Ranch, but how many people actually knew this had happened?

And for my piece d'resistance... jump in you defence lawyers... could any of the defence team asked Linda about this murder and attempted murder while she was on the stand or would that not be allowed as no one had been convicted of those crimes yet at the time of the trial?

I was wondering about the same thing. When the first murder happened, before or after Linda had come to live with them?  If she somehow overheard or found out about it, whichever way, could be why she would later become involved. Because she was one of the few who had become aware of Hinman. To keep her mouth shut, she was taken to Polanskies and implicated. A weak argument I suppose but one for the record.

Thanks for the reply, Simon.  It is as good an answer as any that I could come up with.

Good question! Let's have a look at it, then! 

So: Linda Kasabian made her Spahn Ranch debut on July 4th, 1969, having been brought there by Gypsy.

The Beausoleil-Atkins-Brunner team seems to have arrived at the home of Gary Hinman on July 25, 1969. By all accounts, he was stabbed to death on July 27th. So Linda was at Spahn for approximately twenty-three days by the time that Gary was murdered, then...

Given the extremely gabby nature of most of the Mansonites whereas murder is concerned, I have always tended to believe that Linda had almost certainly gotten a strong whiff of decomposing corpses in the air by the time she was dispatched to 10050 Cielo. In fact, it seems almost inevitable-- especially when one considers what-all those folks used to talk and think about on a perpetual basis...

Here I am not saying that Linda necessarily knew that she was on a fer shure murder run when she went off with Tex and the others-- just that she more than likely already heard about Hinman. I do strongly believe that the girl knew they were about to do some sort of burglary, however. At the least she was very likely to have known that she was off for a round of creepy-crawling. In a recent documentary, she says that she was expecting to do some sort of home invasion with the gang, and indicated that she was only fully certain that murder was indeed the name of the game on the second night, when she sallied forth to visit the LaBianca residence. And that might just be the truth, too.

Still: it's not for nothing that Debra Tate has gone on record to say that she never thought that Linda deserved to be given total immunity in exchange for her testimony, and there's a reason why she shuddered that time Barbara Hoyt touched her arm at a parole board hearing...

And unless I have missed something-- and admittedly, I may have-- the only time that the Bugmeister ever talked about Linda in conjunction with the Himan episode (in HS) was to say that he put her on the stand during the penalty phase of the Tate-Labianca so as to refute the idea that freeing Bobby was the motive behind the TLB massacres.

And so, it seems that everybody on Spahn Ranch knew what was going on the whole time. Even "peripheral" players such as Juan Flynn heard an awful lot of stuff. And Danny DeCarlo seems to have gotten a load of everything the slippies and their lord had been up to, all along.

For instance, immediately after the Hinman killing, Bobby showed up at Spahn briefly and while there actually told Danny about the murder himself. Assuming that the mescaline burn that supposedly predicated the Hinman hit was a reality, one can see that Bobby would have wanted the bikers who were burned to learn of Gary's demise via DeCarlo, perhaps-- a thing which might, in the criminal world, serve to settle all scores-- but then again, murder-talk seems to have served as casual chat among Family members and associates. It's what they were into, after all.

Even if one doesn't wish to believe the drug burn angle in the Hinman case (and there are some who do not) it's certainly not as if Danny DeCarlo was out of the loop, Family-wise. For instance, Bruce Davis had no problem telling Danny about the murder of Shorty Shea... and that's even though Danny was quite friendly with Shorty-- a fact that wouldn't have been missed by the rest of the tribe.

No, those idiots actually spoke openly about the murders they committed... and to top it off, they seem to have done so not only with the tacit approval of, but even at the suggestion of Charlie!

In fact, there are times when we see Charlie tipping the hand himself... the famous episode wherein Charlie stuck a blade against Juan Flynn's throat to tell him "...I am the one who is doing all these killings" is an excellent case in point.

And I gotta tell y'all: there have been many, many times when I figured that towards the end, Charlie actually wanted to be caught.

Listen: being an old-school convict, Charles M. Manson most certainly knew that (despite extreme sanctions against them) jailhouse snitches abound. Likewise, I am sure he had already personally seen that an inmate looking at a million years down might get off instantly for ratting somebody else out for an unsolved murder. Yes, it can get you killed-- but it can also get you OUT. So yes: there are jailhouse snitches galore...

Right. And so, knowing this very well, Charlie then lets his little group of fledgling assassins go ahead and blab about murder to Anybody and Everybody, and purportedly even encouraged them to do so in order to establish the right sort of hard-core image in jail?

It don't sound to me like the boy was trying all that hard to evade detection. Instead, seems mo' like he was ready to make his claim to fame or somethin'.

Seriously. For the life of me, I cannot imagine a man with what? More than half his thirty-two years spent behind bars in institutions that were often federal slammers, he had never heard of a jail house snitch and didn't think to train his people to keep their big-ass mouths SHUT?

I simply don't get it... a man who didn't know these things would have been killed long before his third year down... fer shure. Why was Charlie letting everybody play it so loose and fast with their big bazoos?

Whatever.

At any rate: it is certain that those women of his were quite the same as he-- especially Sadie-- when it came to talking like this. Flash onto Ms. Glutz telling Ronnie Howard and Virgina Graham (total strangers) all kinds of stuff about Tate-LaBianca in Sybil Brand.

Total Strangers! Does anybody really think that Linda never heard anything about Hinman by August 9th?

Hell, Linda's probably got a million other stories we'd all be interested in that she's never gonna talk about. Lord knows what else the girl was into besides burglary, grand theft, felonious dope, crazy-fun sex, witchcraft, and such else as she has already herself claimed...

So yeah: I figure that ALL of them knew what was going on-- knew it in real time, too-- and yes, I am including Hoyt, Lake, Schram, Postin, and all the other supposed "peripheral" and "undecided" daffodils of the Family... and never mind what any of them said or did immediately after everyone else started gettin' popped.

Rest Ye Sure that Ms. Glutz was more or less guaranteed to tell the other Spahn chicks all about the groovy Hinman-hacking she had just been involved in-- probably (typically) even exaggerating her own role in the murder for extra bones. And so the story went around from there.

Meanwhile, Linda was very close to Leslie-- and Leslie was originally a member of the Beausoleil harem before ending up at Spahn (along with Gail and Kitty). I can easily imagine a little pillow talk between Linda and Leslie having taken place-- especially after Bobby got busted on the 6th of August.

I wouldn't put much past any of those folks. In fact, I would be totally shocked only were I to somehow learn fer shure that Linda Kasabian had no clue whatosever about that pesky Hinman affair while on the road to TLB.

However, I am not at all shocked that Vincent Bugliosi has always stuffed a mute into that particular trumpet. Had to keep Linda lookin' good for the squares on the jury, don't you know?

Dunno about this. The counter argument - for which there is some support - is that only some people knew about the murders.

For example, supposedly Kitty was deliberately kept in the dark for a long time post-Hinman about where Bobby was and what he had done. It is also said that the focus on death and destruction began in earnest with the move to Barker, when 'everything changed'.

In terms of cult management, the leader bonds the inner circle close to him by sharing secrets which also serve to exclude the outer layers. This to me is a more persuasive argument than a simple 'everyone knew all about it'. After all, Spahn was a maelstrom of teen and pre-teen runaways coming and going all the time, and the 'more permanent' population was constantly changing.

And Charlie had been in the slammer, and knew about protecting himself - he even famously proclaimed that Susan and Tex had done for him.

So, I'll keep an open mind on this one, but thanks for the thoughtful post.

Jem

Thanks for the input, jempud!

I can easily agree with some of the points you raised, as much of your statement was plausible to me. Amending the relative blanket nature of the statement I provided earlier, I would now be willing to speculate that there were indeed (a very few) Family members who were not so well-informed as were some of the others. This, I think, would especially be the case with somebody like Stephanie Schram, who only had a few days in which to get used to the Family scene. However, the idea that there also several other unnamed, very temporary members who had no clue at all as to what was going on is certainly a most likely possibility and one that I can work it into my model with ease.

However, outside of Stephanie, I don't think one can name a person who ran with Charlie for any length of time who didn't seem to have a pretty good idea of what was going on-- most certainly not Kitty Lutesinger!

Despite her claim to have been an outsider, which was duly parroted by Bugliosi (who moved mountains to sanitize his chosen witnesses as part of his trial preparations), I noticed that once Kitty was "rescued" by the sheriff's department during the Barker raid, she rolled over to the cops with what-all she knew... and that was quite a bit concerning the Hinman case. According to Bugliosi, she was able to implicate Manson in the Hinman murder as well. She doesn't sound all that ill-informed to me, then... and this was an "outsider"?

As an aside: who besides Bugliosi ever said that Clem was definitely after Kitty and Stephanie with a shotgun? Perhaps Mr. Tufts was actually supposed to be pulling guard duty and (incompetently) fell asleep on the perimeter just in time to be busted in the raid? This seems plausible to me, but I haven't yet found out just how far from the Barker-Myers "compound" Clem was when snagged. Maybe he was after Lutesinger and Schram... and I would appreciate any input that might help me sort this question out.

But let's go back to Kitty:

It is recounted that even Whitely and Guenther thought that Kitty was only telling them things that she figured they already knew, substantial though some of her statements surely were. Essentially, she handed them a blow-by-blow of what happened at 964 Old Topanga Canyon road. But, with Bobby already busted for that one, I can see how it perhaps may have been that a young, scared, and naive Lutesinger overestimated the police ability to sort things out and didn't want to be snagged for misprision of a felony.

Here, I would mention that Kitty did seem to have a bit of the activity at Tate garbled in there along with the Hinman tale, though. That is, Kitty was talking about Sadie having stabbed a man in the legs-- a thing that didn't happen to Hinman, but instead to Frykowski. This, I think, would tend to support the contention that Kitty didn't get the story completely straight, and maybe because nobody gave her a full, explicit appraisal at that point. But to think she was a total know-nothing is obviously quite the false belief... and really, I think she just stuck that in there for being confused about what happened where-- things that she already knew about, that is.

At that, she may have had the explicit version of TLB in her noggin, but goofed while telling the police about Hinman. That's possible, too.

And as implied above: I have also long had doubts about the idea that Kitty was actually rescued by law enforcement. True, I do think that she and Stephanie had endured a bit too much of Manson's more jacked-up violence and were heading out of there; it's also possible that she figured they were all going to be busted and didn't want to be there when it happened. However, I think that it was also possible that she and Steph, while on the run from Crazy Charlie, popped out of the bushes for seeing so much heat and realizing that a raid was in the works anyway... and that their capture (as opposed to a rescue) was a virtual fait accompli.

So the actions of Lutesinger and Schram might have actually been a cleverly expedient ruse designed to distance themselves from the possibility of being further detained and charged with anything-- and this, even if they were actually running away from the Family right then.

I noticed that somewhere in there, Kitty made mention of the death of Shorty Shea-- another thing that she, as an "outsider" to the Clan of Spahn should not have known, but somehow knew anyway. And this, I would submit, is further evidence as to the the tell-all nature of the Manson group (especially the girls) while they were at Spahn...

After her ordeal in Death Valley, we see that Kitty returned to civilization just long enough to have her baby-- and then immediately bolted back to the Family (leaving the kid behind). Schram stayed away after that, but Kitty Went Home and was strongly suspected as being a participant in the jail break of Kenneth Como. Nobody was able to prove this, but that's what the police theory was at that time... or so sayeth Mr. Bugliosi.

Finally, Kitty ended up at the corner of Temple and Broadway with the rest of Charlie's cheerleaders, and she shaved her head bald as a monk along with the rest of the slippies when the time came to make that particular fashion statement.

There's no way anybody can say that by that time she knew nothing of the TLB massacres, and as we have already seen, she knew about Hinman the day they first picked her up.

Does she still seem like an "outsider" to me? No. Not at all.

Hello Kitty!  ;D

She was right in there with the rest of them, but like Kasabian, might have balked at the idea of actually killing anybody herself, had she been called upon to do so. I might give her that much, anyway. Other than that, I fully doubt that Kitty had a strong traditional moral schema going, and continue to suspect that the deeds of Manson and Co. were not quite so heinous to her as they should seem to most.

Same as Kasabian, in other words.

Also: Kitty also testified for the defense during the penalty phase...

*****

Moving on: it still doesn't seem to me that rumor control was so well in hand at Spahn as the more traditional cult model would have it being.

For that matter, I never saw the Family as a "cult", and this despite their original packaging as such by a fumbling mass media (as it scrambled to somehow define them).

Many observers-- and even indisputable insiders such as Krenwinkle and Van Houten-- have said that the Manson operation was really more of a glorified pimp scene than anything else. Yes, he isolated his members, fed them instructions to follow him, relied on peer group pressure and fear to enforce his will, and so forth.

But, despite this-- and despite some of the borrowed cultic trappings (things such as the Jesus/Lucifer/Satan cosmology of the Process, some of the terms squirreled away from the Scientologists, and various Crowley-style leanings from the Book of the Law along with the Crowlean sex magick practices and apocalyptic beliefs of the renegade OTO lodge of Pasadena)-- Manson didn't seem to form an organization that operates so closely in accordance with the tenets of cult management as might have otherwise been.

Instead of the rigid hierarchy one might find in, say, the Temple of Set or the Process Church, Manson's "cult" seemed to be a far more loosely arranged, free form organization-- not even as well organized as the average motorcycle club at that time. In essence, Charlie's group was more of a cult of personality, centered exclusively on himself and not so adherent or dependent on any doctrine beyond the very simple "Helter Skelter" formula, with its borrowed trappings.

In this, Manson was more like Jones and Koresh who followed him than like any of the cults that preceded him. I even suspect that the Branch Davidians were more well organized than the Manson Family (but that's just a guess). Still, within the Manson Family the social strata doesn't seem to be defined anywhere nearly as well as most of the more traditional cults named a couple of paragraphs above.

And I have to wonder: who of the "outsiders" did Bugliosi ever interview that didn't seem to have some piece of the puzzle to offer? It seems that only a couple of the more slick and hard-core members of the Family (Ouisch sticks out in my thoughts right now) ever claimed to know absolutely nothing. And that was after some of the others had talked far too much... so yes, I continue to think that things were way more open among the slippies than has been otherwise suggested.

I would also politely beg to differ on the idea that everything changed immediately upon arrival at Barker. I would agree that things probably did get worse, though, as by this time Manson seemed to be suffering from some sort of melt-down-- and he probably beat the girls more than ever at Barker. I also see that the Family was beginning to disintegrate at that time, a thing that surely had Charlie hopping mad.

But to say that the focus on death and destruction originated or even peaked in Death Valley would be a wrong conclusion in light of the fact fact that there were already nine confirmed kills by the Family before they ever completely abandoned Spahn... and more before that, if you want to consider Pugh, Gaul and Sharp, and some of the others to be genuine Family hits.

But yes: I would agree that Manson seemed to be slipping a few criminal cogs out there-- and his hasty trust of both Kasabian and Schram give one many things to wonder about, even though it was really Atkins who initially took the lid off their capers.

The biggest champion of the teaching that Charlie got worse out there in the desert would probably be Barbara Hoyt. In fact, here's some footage of that poor, innocent girl saying just that during an brief interview with the news media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83P5y2cP_gY

As an aside: am I the only person who thinks that Barbara seems inordinately gleeful during the beginning of the interview? Of course, she might simply be pleased at all the attention she's getting-- a personal characteristic that she seems to feature to this very day.

And Barbara is the one who talks about hearing Shorty's pathetic screams and such, although some of what she said simply doesn't jibe with the known facts of the murder. So it is that when it comes to Hoyt, I tend to take her with a liberal grain of salt-- same as I do any time Kitty Lutesinger pops up as a subject. But do I think that Hoyt was an outsider who only knew things for having eavesdropped or whatever? Nah.

Her fellow slippies sure didn't seem to think that Barbara was a know-nothing type or harmless to them. Why would they have tried to whack her with acid if she didn't have a clue to offer? Seems more like Babs fell from grace than anything else-- kind of like what might have happened to Zero.

Finally, I would mention that it seems to have been Spahn ranch hands-- not even Family members-- who pointed LAPD in the direction of Mobile, Alabama, when they started rooting around for Katie. Here, I would suggest, is further proof that the lips weren't so tightly buttoned as would have been in a more well-controlled sort of murderous organization.

I mean, really: the ranch hands knew where to find Katie? The mind boggles. This had to be the dumbest criminal organization ever. Can anyone imagine this happening with the mafia or the Hell's Angels, or even the Outlaws M/C?

For that matter, even the Straight Satans were smoother than the Family. And they were dorks when it came to their level of criminal sophistication!

*****

In closing, I thank you again for the input, especially since I think that your words helped me to come a little closer to the truth we seek in this thread. I would agree, then, that there were indeed some who didn't know anything about the slayings-- but would suggest that these persons are none of those whose names are known to us and were instead very temporary fixtures in the Family scene... people who very quickly came and went.

But when it comes to Lutesinger, Hoyt, Flynn, et. al., I would suggest that they all surely did know a lot more than they claimed to be aware of... even those who testified for the prosecution. Most of them did a lot of balking on the witness stand, too.

Not that it mattered, though. Mr. Bugliosi was after the head of the snake, and not the tail. Charlie was, justifiably, the main target of all Vincent's doings... and VB surely did let a lot of charges he could have gone after slide off... and rightfully so. There's only so much time, and almost no money, in California. Even at that, Manson was the most expensive trial in Cali history at that time. You gotta get whatever goodies you can, before the comptrollers start screaming at you. Everyone is on a budget!

Thus, I continue to think that Manson didn't have the sort of control over the ranch gossip as would have been appropriate, given the nature of his operations in late summer, 1969. He wasn't very wise in his selection of killers, either. The whole thing came off as surprisingly amateurish.

And one last time I ask: who among the supposed "outsiders" was interviewed that did NOT have a chunk (at least) of the true story?

Loose Lips Sink Ships... and families too, I guess.

Carlos Marcello-- who was one of the old-school mafia bosses of New Orleans-- used to quote an old Sicilian proverb, to wit:

Three Can Keep a Secret if Two are Dead

Later on, the Hell's Angels jacked this slogan and it is now frequently attributed to them. But no, that's an old mob saying, originally... and it's true.

And who, I ask, has gotten away with more murders than the mafia? It sure as heck wasn't the Manson Family!

If I can add some of my amateurish thoughts, the chronology points to things having been hastened on the 6th of August when Bobby was arrested. It took Manson two days to organize the crew; possibly he was on a tight deadline, which would influence his choices. Blue wasnt there as she had been arrested. She would have been on the victims like shit on Velcro with her fancy dagger.

As they were leaving for Cielo, Sadie apparently was asked by a ranch hand where they were going. She answered him through the open window; they were off to waste some motherfucking pigs (in her low soprano voice) Linda who was in the car should have heard and of course the ranch hand got it too.

The following night to LB, LVH was selected more or less spontaneously. She is telling that Manson first asked her whether she would do anything for him then hastened her to the car. She probably knew what Manson wanted and to prove her loyalty she went along. Hoyt otoh was asked by Atkins, prior to their leaving to Tate, to find them three sets of black clothes. But when she came back, Manson told Hoyt that the crew had already left.

All above shows lack of coordination, shows also that for some reason Manson had to step on it. Whether the following crimes specifically had been invented to get the heat off Bobby I have no clue and nothing to speculate on. It seems to be the general assumption.

I was thinking recently about a tight circle of faithful soldiers chatting late events, zooming on Bobbies bad luck, in acid enhanced mode, trying to figure out what next. I would imagine the all four, including Linda, to be present during such meetings, and coming with the plan, no Manson around. He often blabbers how innocent he is and that he didnt order anything, so I thought there might be something to it.  But as I have actualized my knowledge, seeing that the events around that time were so shifty and that at least van LVH involvement was by most accounts rather accessory I disemployed the idea. Looking at it from new perspective, it shows that Manson kept them on a loose leash but suddenly, when needed, he would pull it tight. He would drop them no pennies for their thoughts. Less time they had to chew on it, the better. Surprise can be a powerful weapon when properly exercised.

Manson through his prison jabber appears smarter than he is nuts. To me, he was capable of maintaining some form of oligarchy and capable of controlling how gossip was spread. His game was confusion.  Some had caught more than others, no records were stored though, and what was being talked of had loose ends. They may have known about Hinnman, maybe all of them, those coming and those leaving, likewise peripheral characters such as ranch hands. But so what, it was all gossip. Manson may have wanted to keep it like that. There was that hole in the desert and a racial war and pigs and the drug burn with Manson offing some dude and what not. Hinnman too was there, somewhere in the woods, one story of many, turned legend next morning.  They may have known but little more than we know today. If you can confuse entire world and keep it like that for 40 years, you will have no problems confusing a bundle of stoned hippies. No wonder Manson is so full of himself.

He was raped in prison, perhaps multiple times, maltreated, knocked about. When he got out he wanted to square it off with the system, with the world, he had become a wolf, as he calls himself. He accomplished what he had planned dragging a whole bunch of dispensable hippies into the game. Killed Sharon for a reason, to make sure he gets the message across. Without Sharon, the crime would have been quickly forgotten. Then he waited for the cops, mission accomplished, he got his revenge. If so, it was pretty impressive. Wonder what would have become of him if Melcher had been there to help him. With so much influence he would have gotten, and money to spend and hate in his guts, destructive thinking and genius.

On the 6th of August, when Bobby was jailed, he realized that he had no time to spare. He could have been arrested any day, with plenty of evidence against him. He wasnt going to wait long because there might have been no next time to square his life off with the system, whatever it means. Perhaps thats the whole story, though I wouldnt bet on it. There has to be a motive. As of yet none has been established

nice post, Simon

Jem

As an aside: who besides Bugliosi ever said that Clem was definitely after Kitty and Stephanie with a shotgun? Perhaps Mr. Tufts was actually supposed to be pulling guard duty and (incompetently) fell asleep on the perimeter just in time to be busted in the raid? This seems plausible to me, but I haven't yet found out just how far from the Barker-Myers "compound" Clem was when snagged. Maybe he was after Lutesinger and Schram... and I would appreciate any input that might help me sort this question out.

Cats, am I wrong or did Paul Watkins have this mentioned in his book?  or am I sniffing glue again

Finally, I would mention that it seems to have been Spahn ranch hands-- not even Family members-- who pointed LAPD in the direction of Mobile, Alabama, when they started rooting around for Katie. Here, I would suggest, is further proof that the lips weren't so tightly buttoned as would have been in a more well-controlled sort of murderous organization.

I mean, really: the ranch hands knew where to find Katie? The mind boggles. This had to be the dumbest criminal organization ever. Can anyone imagine this happening with the mafia or the Hell's Angels, or even the Outlaws M/C?

Sorry Roberteaux, I missed this part before... and some really interesting points in your commentary...

Katie was visiting her mother in Mobile, Alabama when the warrants went out so I don't think it was to much of a stress for the LAPD to find that out.  I am pretty sure, but I have no conclusive evidence, that the ranch hands at Spahn would not have known where her mother lived as she ceased to have contact with her parents when she joined the family -- but that is mere speculation on my part..

Interesting observations Roberteaux, Simon and Mike. 

IIRC wasn't Charlie gone in San Diego with Stephanie from the 6th to the 8th of August?  He only found out about BB getting arrested upon his return  Thus when he retuns to the Ranch I can imagine Sadie, Leslie and maybe others running up to him with the news desperate for him to "make it all right" like he did for Tex with Crowe.

Wondering..If Stephanie Schram were to write a book..would any of you be interested? Would any of you wonder how she is doing today? What became of her? There seems to be so much speculation about her involvement in this whole thing.

[quote author=ssdau link=topic=4417.msg39537#msg39537 date=1253292967]
Wondering..If Stephanie Schram were to write a book..would any of you be interested? Would any of you wonder how she is doing today? What became of her? There seems to be so much speculation about her involvement in this whole thing.
[/quote]

Looking at your username, I'd say go for it .. many indeed would be interested, this duck included.

Welcome to the board, ssdau

Jem

Thank You!!! Well, she is working on one  And I can guarantee these people in this forum that she did not know what was going on. She didn't even know how important of a witness she was until the DA told her. She made a break for it in the middle of the night...barefoot and pregnant, I believe. I don't know their names..but the two guys that got caught chasing them..were very much so chasing them..Anyway, about the book. She just spoke with Vince B the other day and they are meeting up soon to discuss some things. I think this will be a very good book..not just because I am biased. She really has lived an AMAZING life.

There are many things that she doesn't talk about..until you ask her. I don't think it took very long for her to realize things were a bit off...It's hard to hear about him beating her..but I think as soon as she realized they were so violent she wanted out. As you all know, it wasn't just like she could walk away though.. hence the midnight escape.

How pregnant was Stephanie?  I can't imagine any of it ... how frightening!