Her pad is not large, not well-lit and inexpensively furnished, with a bedroom too messy for her to let me into. A guitar and a violin case are in a corner. No television. On one wall is the great, evocative black-and-white photograph of Charlie at Spahn Ranch, wearing a beat-up side-tilted fedora with a crow on his arm, the rugged Dust Bowl guy who could tame birds. (“We became road dogs and ran together,” he says. “I didn’t give it a name. It was just a crow.” Others have said its name was Devil.) On a nearby table is the computer where Star spends much of her time trying to rehabilitate Charlie’s image in the public eye. She is especially rankled by the long-standing belief that Charlie is only five feet two – she says he is at least three inches taller – and thinks Bugliosi intentionally published that lie in Helter Skelter to further diminish Manson’s stature. He’s short, just not that short.
Of the original Family girls, only two of the main ones are thought to still believe in Charlie – Sandra Good, now 69, and Squeaky Fromme, 65. Sandy’s current whereabouts are unknown, though she was recently photographed smiling and riding a mule in the Grand Canyon. In 1975, Squeaky was convicted of attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford and wasn’t released until 2009. She has long been Manson’s favorite. “That little girl right there, Lynette,” he says, “I’ve never met a girl as truthful as her. She’s never turncoated. She did 34 years in prison and never broke her vow. A man can’t even do that.” But Star is on the scene now, leading some of those on the Internet Manson beat to wonder if she’s replaced Squeaky in Charlie’s affections.
Lynn deserves to be number one,” wrote LynyrdSkynyrdBand on the Tate-LaBianca Homicide Research Blog, after a picture of Star and Gray Wolf with Charlie made the rounds. “She’s been loyal for decades.” Marliese: “I’m guessing the beautiful girl with Charlie hasn’t experienced any strip and suck demands from him, or felt his fist smash across her face.” A number of them commented on how unsettling it is that Star looks so much like Susan Atkins “when she was all waxed and pretty.”
Star, however, pays little attention to these things. She’d rather spend her online time ordering items for Charlie’s quarterly-allowed gift box stuffed with, most recently, roasted peanuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, protein bars, vegetable-soup mix, vitamins, crackers, cough drops, teas, tank-top T-shirts, socks, shorts, an electric shaver and guitar strings.