Joel Dean Pugh
June 7th 1940-December 1st 1969
"I wonder in what fields today,
He chases butterflies in his way,
My little boy who ran away."
Over forty years have passed since the Manson Family series of murders gripped the world. While the tragic deaths of nine innocent individuals have been afforded enormous publicity, there were other less documented casualties of this macabre saga. Joel Pugh's slight connection with Manson's circle has been embellished over the years to assume the status of yet another "victim" of the Family's bloody rampage. The truth, however, is markedly different. The purpose of this site is to assert some semblance of reality to what happened to Joel and to re-examine his "relationship" with the Manson Family. Utilising original documents and photographs, I aim to present as close to a definitive view of events as I can. While I concede that there will always be interest in this story, certain key facts have clearly been ignored. My hope is that future researchers will be able to amend the catalogue of inconsistencies that have built up concerning Joel and present a more balanced picture of what actually occurred.
Sincerely,
Simon Wells: author of Charles Manson: Coming Down Fast.
London. June 2010
It appears that twenty-seven-year-old Joel Dean Pugh came
loosely into contact with the fringes of the Manson Family sometime during
March 1968. Joel was born on June 7th 1940 to Marjorie and David Pugh; his
father a radiographer at Minnesota ’s
Mayo Clinic. Joel was an original, if slightly off-beat character, who combined
his professional endeavours with a quirky sense of humour.
"Joel was a very funny guy," recalls his brother Daniel
today. "It was just nifty being with him at any time. I sort of admired him so
much. He always had this great imagination … When he was little, people would
ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Joel had two answers: one was 'to
be a pirate'. The other was, 'to be a little boy'".
Like many of his vintage, following his education, Joel was
conscripted into the army during the early 1960s. There, he proved to be a
popular and likeable individual. As evidenced by these photos in late 1964, he
enjoyed socialising and playing the guitar for his friends and colleagues.
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Following demob in 1965, Joel moved to northern California . He had taken
up a job as a lab technician at university in San Francisco , putting to good use a degree
in Zoology and his interest in natural sciences.
It was during his studies that Joel met Sandra Good, a student at San
Francisco State College. With the pair mingling in various collegiate circles,
they met through mutual friends and quickly hit it off. For a while, things
appeared promising. Their respective families shared in this happiness; Joel
spending time at the Good family house in Boulder Creek, and in later years at
the Pugh's home over in Minnesota.
Their happiness can be seen from a smiling photograph taken
over Christmas 1967 at the Pugh household; Joel evidently proud of his petite,
glamorous girlfriend. Despite being in his mid-twenties, it was Joel’s first
sexual relationship. His brother Daniel recalls the happy scene.
Daniel Pugh: "She seemed like a very nice girl when she was
staying with us… Joel had never gone with a girl before, and we were very happy
that things were looking up for him."
Joel’s closest confidante at this time was Jim Balfour. He
was privy to all of Joel’s movements around Sandy Good and yet he shared none
of his friend’s affection for her, as he recalls today.
Jim Balfour: "I was very disturbed by her most of the time. She
was probably charming when she needed to be. I thought she was a very loose
cannon.”
The couple’s joy was short lived though, and their
relationship would not last the distance. After a life-changing meeting with
Manson in March 1968, for Sandy, everything - including Joel - suddenly took second place. Depressing as it was
for Joel to lose his first real love, the fact she’d run off with Charlie’s
strange gang added a large measure of insult. For a while, it appears Joel kept
up contact with Sandy
and even tried to steer her away from her new chapel of friends, especially
Charlie.
Daniel Pugh: "When she started hanging around with Manson,
Joel was extremely embarrassed about it. He regarded Manson as a phoney, who
was very full of himself and a sort of embarrassing character. He didn’t want Sandy to have anything to
do with a guy like that; sort of uncool by association…. Manson was what Joel,
in his own words, would have called 'a Gnarl.”’
Evidently, Sandy ’s
complete immersion in Manson’s all-encompassing world placed an enormous strain
on her and Joel’s relationship and they broke up, putting paid to
any future plans. As former Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay
tells it, Manson couldn't have planned it better himself.
Stephen Kay: "Charlie wanted very much for Sandy Good not to
be married, because her father had been very wealthy. He left a trust fund that
paid her $2000 a month, which was the money the Manson Family lived off most of
the time; that was their biggest source of income… Joel was an irritant, and
Manson didn't want anyone getting in the way of him and the trust fund."
Ironically, it seems that even Sandy held on to the idea of marrying Joel.
During the August 17th 1969 auto-theft raid on the Manson Family base at
Spahn’s Ranch, Sandy
was booked in as "Sandra Collins Pugh". In later arrests, she would again refer to
herself as "Mrs Pugh". While it is well documented that the Manson girls used
a plethora of pseudonyms when arrested, her choice of name seems significant. A
rumour has gathered momentum over the years that Good became pregnant as a result
of her liaison with Joel. If there was any truth in the allegations, this would
have pointed to their relationship lasting until late 1968. During the Barker
Ranch arrest of October 10th 1969, Sandy
was quizzed on the paternity of her small baby. It has been since claimed that to
save her child from being put into care she used Joel’s surname as a stalling
device. However, despite the crowd of potential suitors and interminable
sex orgies within The Family, Sandy used Joel’s surname on the baby’s birth certificate. This clearly records
Ivan S. Pugh born to Sandra Good on 16th September 1969.
Whatever is the truth, it’s clear that Sandy was still actively seeking a connection
with Joel. At one point during mid-1969 when the fortunes of the Manson Family
were on the decline, Sandy returned to San Francisco to catch up
with her old circle of friends. In addition to informing all and sundry that “a
lot of shit was going to come down”, she made a proactive attempt to cajole
Joel into marrying her.
Jim Balfour: “She was visiting, and she was pregnant, and
she wanted Joel to either marry her or say they were married, because she was
going to use his name as the father, and that’s what she did… My understanding
of it is that she probably thought that with the things that Manson’s people
were being charged with, that it would look better if Manson weren't the father
of the child, and that she would use Joel as a respectable person… However,
Joel’s response to Sandy ’s
request was clear; 'no way.'”
Furthermore, it appears that despite his
embarrassment over Sandy 's
involvement with Manson, Joel never met Charlie or any other Family members.
Equally, he never visited any of the Family's various encampments around California ; Spahn Ranch
included. This has been confirmed by Joel's closest friend Jim Balfour and
other associates in Joel's circle.
By 1969, Joel’s mental health had started to take a slide.
Adding a strain on his fragile psyche, Joel had been dabbling with LSD. As
a result of one bad trip, he’d withdrawn inside himself, believing that he could
never be happy again. Joel’s wacky, off-beat persona was in itself an unwitting
foil to his inner turmoil and also prevented him from gaining any proper help. His
brother Daniel recalls this upsetting duality.
Daniel Pugh: "I totally missed the fact that he was losing
it… I didn't realise he was being as serious as he was about a lot of things.
He decided that he was schizophrenic as a result of reading stuff by R.D Laing,
and like Laing, he thought it was some sort of a spiritual gift or something…
The last time I saw Joel he remarked, very wistfully, that it would be nice if
there was 'something you could take that would let you be happy.'"
Joel had maintained contact with various friends he’d met in
high school who had also moved to California .
One of them was Tom Davis, someone who had been allied to the Pugh family by
dint of their fathers' working together in Minnesota 's Mayo Clinic. Others who moved to
California from Minnesota were a "Nancy" and a
"Joanne". They kept up a close alliance with him, and shared similar
interests in soul searching. Some of these friends were aware of his slide into
depression and rallied around as best they could. Being open to all the new
psychological slants on offer, they freely offered their own opinions on his
melancholy. In a tape-recorded message at the time, Joel’s father David
recalled their misguided attempts to pull him out of his despair.
David Pugh (Senior): "When Joel was in trouble out there,
his friends were all aware of it. And they were either having him read this
kind of crap or else they were quoting it to him. And they were trying to give
him psychotherapy with the stupid information they had obtained from this
way-out type of clinical psychiatry that these people read. Some of the others
in the group wanted him to get professional help, but others felt they could
talk him out of the problems."
As a result of his mental decline, Joel would stop working
in the laboratory and return to his parents home. There, he read a book on
rain forests and became obsessed with South America .
Pleased that his son finally seemed interested in something other than his own
psychological state, Joel’s father funded a trip for him and a girlfriend to
visit the region. Despite a considerable amount of time spent wandering around,
Joel never found the rain-forests of his dreams. Compounding his
disenchantment, he split up with his partner while away. In the end, Joel
returned home somewhat deflated.
Despite his disappointment, Joel’s wanderlust was unabated
and he decided that he wanted to go to Morocco . Landing in Marrakesh, his
hopes of authentic middle-eastern promise were swiftly dashed. On seeing the
legions of western travellers revelling in various hedonistic states, he turned
away disgusted and headed off towards Spain . There, he ran into some
fellow Americans who were also travelling through Europe
and together they continued their journey. It was during this period that Joel
convinced himself that he could predict the future from reading comic books; a
game he’d become increasingly obsessed with. One female on this travelling
party was a school teacher named Harriet Smith, who recalled Joel saying that
he’d deduced from the comic strips that ‘she would become his wife.’
Despite his bizarre predictions, Joel was taken under the
wings of his travelling buddies and tagged along with them to London West
Kensington , an area which despite the swanky name, had long been a
cheap base for peripatetic travellers. The room he rented was at the Talgarth
Hotel, situated on the busy Talgarth
Road London
with the west of England
Talgarth Hotel. 7 Talgarth Road. London
Once in West Kensington ,
Joel began to ensconce himself in his room with his female companion. However,
the joy was to be short-lived. Joel’s partner would leave after three weeks
after moving to London .
The hotel’s manager, Joseph Falk, would later note Joel’s gradually diminishing
state. "Mr Pugh became more withdrawn and stopped eating. Eventually, he was
only drinking coffee."
According to the Talgarth’s records, Joel moved in on
October 27th 1969, a month before Manson follower Bruce Davis reportedly made
his second trip to the UK .
Sharing the room with Joel was the female he was having a relationship with.
Joel took out weekly terms on a single room and was allotted a ground floor
flat overlooking the rear of the property with a rail-line running alongside. Manager Joseph Falk was impressed
with his guest, noting Pugh as being a "very nice person…Very clean in his ways
and quite a gentleman." From time to time, Joel’s travelling friends would pop
over and try to encourage him to visit various sights around town with them.
Depressed, he’d tell them that he was "unworthy of London" and was content to stay in his room.
At one point during his stay, he told fellow traveller Harriet Smith about the
breakdown of his relationship with Sandy Good. Clearly, it was still on his
mind. Smith, like other members of Pugh’s travelling group, was more concerned
about Joel’s slide into depression and tried to get him to seek professional
advice. Joel refused, telling her that he was on a quest to "find out who I am."
In spite of his enforced isolation, Joel would always keep his
door unlocked and would wile away the hours playing guitar and reading. His
most consistent visitor during those days was the seven-year-old son of the
manager, who’d occasionally pop by. The young boy evidently enjoyed Joel’s
company, especially as Joel shared his beloved comic book stories with him. He
also showed the little boy backwards writing; a process that Joel himself found
fascinating. Much to the child’s delight, Joel would reflect whatever was
written in the mirror to make it legible, scribbling jokes and fragments of
nursery rhymes. Meanwhile, his fascination with comic books would start to
overwhelm Joel, and alone for so many hours of the day, he felt that he was
being sucked into their fantastical tales.
December 1st 1969 would prove pivotal in the fortunes of the
Manson Family. In Los Angeles ,
relieved police finally announced they’d broken the Tate-Labianca case by
finally connecting it to the Family’s nefarious activities. For Joel Pugh in London , the day would
signify a much darker and finite conclusion to his personal troubles. The only
known movement of Joel that day was that he popped down to reception to make himself a coffee. There, he met the hotel manager and exchanged some small
talk. Once his coffee was fixed, Joel swiftly retreated back to his room. That
was the last time he was seen alive.
The following morning the hotel’s cleaner was performing her
usual duties and wasn't unduly perturbed when she found Joel’s door locked. At
around 6 pm that evening, manager Joseph Falk knocked on Joel’s door to check he
was okay. On getting no response, Falk attempted to gain entry using his
passkey. However, on unlocking the door, Falk sensed a weight keeping the door
shut, and could only partially open it. Putting his hand around the door, he
felt "what seemed like an arm’ hanging limply on the inside."
The Police were immediately called and PC
Wright, a constable from the local Hammersmith police station, arrived at the
premises. Forcing his way into the room, he saw Joel lying on his back, with a
couple of razor blades lying about two feet away from him. He was naked, save
for a sheet covering the lower part of his body. There was blood everywhere. On
inspection, Joel’s throat had been slit twice, there were razor cuts to his
wrists and a bruise on his forehead.
On searching the room further, a pipe with traces of
cannabis resin was discovered. Police also found the comic books and the mirror
writing that so captivated Joel’s young friend. Pugh’s body was taken away to
await a coroners’ inquiry, although the job of notifying Joel’s family was
passed to the American consulate.
With no immediate clues to Joel’s death, a thorough and
comprehensive autopsy was ordered. Metropolitan Police pathologist, Richard
Pearce, made the following observations: "The body is thin, there are bruises
on the forehead and left shin. There are incised wounds in either side of the
neck (three inches long) parallel to the sterno-mastoid muscles and extending
deeply to the muscle; the external jugular veins are divided. Trial cuts are
present. There are a number of slashes of both wrists in the long axis of the
forearms, and a superficial cut across the front of the elbow." Adding to his
belief that Joel had inflicted the wounds on himself, Pearce noted that Pugh
had a nick in his left hand from holding a razor blade.
Later in his report, Pearce would note, "There was no wound
not capable of being self-inflicted," and that there was no evidence of a
struggle or violence. Dr. Charles Lindsay, a psychiatrist from St. Bernard’s
hospital in London ,
played down the comic books and backwards writing importance, saying that there
was “no apparent significance” to their part in Joel's death.
On paper, the Coroner’s suspicions of suicide tied in with
the circumstances Joel was found in: his emaciated state; the length of time
he’d spent isolated in his room, and the residue of the cannabis resin found in
his bedroom. Additionally, the fact that the door was locked from the inside
added considerable weight to the decision of suicide. In summing up, Coroner
Dr John Burton declared that, “It was obvious that the man had killed himself”
despite not leaving any suicide notes. Recording a verdict that Joel had committed
suicide, Burton
made special note of the quantity of Cannabis that was in the room: “Whether
that might have been contributory to his condition,” Coroner Burton mused, “we
cannot say. But there is evidence that his mind was disturbed.” Dr Burton
would go on to have a long and distinguished career. He would later be employed
by the British monarchy as “Royal Coroner” and would be present during the
post-mortem on Princess Diana in 1997.
The Coroner's hearing regarding Joel was held a couple of
weeks later at Hammersmith Coroner's Court in West London .
There was a smattering of press there to hear the verdict, although with no
foul play recorded the story was not deemed worthy of any national interest.
However, both the West London Gazette and the Fulham Chronicle made some
mileage out of the reverse writing and the comic strips scattered around. The
Fulham Chronicle’s headline "Death Notes In Mirror", would later fuel erroneous
rumours that the backwards writing had been written on the mirror in blood.
Fulham Chronicle: December 12th 1969
Hammersmith Gazette and Post: December 11th 1969
Following the hearing, police immediately suspended any
further investigations into Joel’s death, and their paperwork was duly filed
away and later destroyed. At that time Scotland Yard wasn't in the slightest
bit aware of the dead man’s connection with Manson, Sandra Good or with Bruce
Davis, one of Charles Manson’s closest associates, who it was alleged, happened
to be in the London
area at the time Joel died.
When Joel’s parents were informed of their son’s death, they
allowed his body to be cremated in England and waited for his remains
to be sent back to the family home. Whilst the tragedy hit the Pugh family
hard, Joel’s father (himself a sufferer of depression) was familiar with the
landscape of mental illness. Having charted his son’s slow slide into
melancholy, he had no cause for suspicion over his death. A couple of years
later, Joel’s father and brother Daniel travelled over to the UK to retrace
Joel’s last footsteps. In London, they visited the Talgarth Hotel and talked with the
owner about Joel’s unhappy end. At that time they had no idea that police
investigators back in the States were starting to question how, why and by whose hand
Joel died.
On the surface, Joel’s death appeared nothing more than the
tragic demise of an intelligent and likeable young man with everything to live
for. For some in Manson's Family, their eyes sharply tuned to signals from
anyone who’d crossed their path, news of Joel’s death came quickly, and in a
manner that would intrigue a legion of investigators to this very day.
Following the arrest of Manson and his cohorts at Inyo
County during October 1969, Joel’s ex, Sandy Good, and Squeaky were holed up
inside a motel on the fringes of Death Valley; their brief to keep close
contact with Manson and act as his communication line between the disparate
strands of the Family. With news of Charlie and his clan now out in the public
domain, police were keeping tabs on anyone connected to the Family. As Manson’s
prime emissaries, Sandy and Squeaky’s movements were kept under close
surveillance. Aware of this, and equally aware of their rising accommodation
costs, the pair decided to flee their motel room in early in January 1970. As
expected, police jumped swiftly in and filleted the room for clues. Among the
detritus left behind, was a letter Sandy
had recently received from an associate called Jo Anne.
Over the years, the contents of this letter have assumed
legendary status. In late 2008, after long being presumed lost, the letter was
recovered. The full contents of Jo Anne’s note have never been publicly revealed
before, and offer a fascinating perspective on Joel’s untimely death.
Although the letter was written without any forwarding
address, much of what is said appears to follow previous conversations. Reading
between the lines of the text, it is abundantly clear that Joanne was very
close to Joel. Pugh’s close friend Jim Balfour, confirms today that Joanne was
indeed a lover of Joel’s before he travelled to Europe .
The letter’s first references to Joel’s recent death occur early in the letter.
All the references to Joel are reproduced here verbatim; no words or phrases
have been changed.
Pugh! Sandy ,
I’m changing and changed so much since. I’m pulled, twisted-my body and my mind
have gone through so many changes in the last two weeks, feeling one part of me
pulling towards Joel- so strongly I took (A)* to attempt to reach him, and even
thought of killing my own self- all these- or some sort of experience and
things replaced by a high of feeling his presence- his nearness- a new strength
because I have a friend, a lover, who knows- and he told me the day before he
left that he’d either come back or send for me if he were in a good place. I’ve
got to find out what to do, and yet I can’t let happen to me what happened to Joel- or should I ?…I’m not sure if its help I need or a lover, or a purpose
or new friends. I’m not so sure anything will help, but I’m ready to try
anything- first off a move- a move- far away- maybe Europe-
anonymity- God, sounds like Joel. Jesus what can I say.
(*Simon Wells: I take (A) to be LSD)
The original 2-page letter from "Jo Anne" to Sandra Good
Police in Inyo
County Los Angeles . Inyo County District Attorney,
Frank Fowles, whose department had let Bruce Davis slip through the net in the
wake of the Barker Ranch raid, was quick to act.
Recently discovered papers reveal that Fowles’
investigations went to the highest level of authority on both sides of the Atlantic . Initially, Fowles went to Interpol to confirm
whether Davis was in the UK Davis ’
movements in the UK Davis
had made a return trip to England
Despite being consumed with the caseload of the
Tate-Labianca case, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi was alarmed by the details of
Pugh’s death, and would later add it to the list of deaths that he felt could
be attributed to the Manson Family. District attorney Stephen Kay, privy to all
the data flying around in Manson Family case files at that time, recalled an
atmosphere of deep suspicion once news of Joel’s death made its way back to Los
Angeles. With Pugh’s past association with Sandra Good; the likelihood of Bruce
Davis being in the UK
at the time, and, not least, the circumstances of his death, Kay, was wholly
sceptical of the suicide verdict. He still is.
Stephen Kay: "When people over here ask me; 'Do you think
that the Manson Family committed any more murders than they were prosecuted
for?' I say, 'Well, the one we always thought was the most suspicious was Joel
Pugh being murdered in London .”’
Despite the considerable interest in Joel’s death from
police in California ,
no attempt was made to contact the Pugh family to ask pertinent questions
regarding Joel’s history of mental illness. Likewise, the full text of Joanne’s
letter was never revealed to anyone outside the police. In fact, it was not until the publication of Vincent
Bugliosi’s book Helter Skelter in 1974 that Joel’s family became aware that
their son was being talked about as another possible victim of the Manson
Family.
Sandra Good sternly refused to comment on the fate of her
former partner Joel for the best part of thirty years. In reaction to a feature
written by Stephen Kay regarding her continued support for Manson, a statement
was posted on the website she hosted during the late 1990s. Within the text
was a brief passage concerning Joel Pugh.
“Pugh is usually described as the husband of Sandra Good. In
fact, they were never married. Although Pugh is also described as a "former
Manson Family member" in (Bugliosi’s) Helter Skelter, he never met Manson
or any of the other so-called Family members. Following Joel Pugh's death, his
parents journeyed to London
to satisfy themselves with the official verdict of suicide. After checking all
the medical records and the files at Scotland Yard they were satisfied that the
death was, indeed, a suicide.”
Following Joel’s passing, the Pugh family attempted to move
on. Joel’s father David had taken the news badly, and as a fellow sufferer of
depression, the spectre of his son’s demise weighed heavily on him. As had
become customary in the Pugh household, Joel’s father would keep in contact
with his two sons by means of tape-recorded messages. When Joel died, he put
his thoughts regarding his death onto a cassette, which he then sent over to
his sons David and Daniel. The tape survives to this day and reveals his sense
of great sadness at the loss of his son. “It hurt all of us terribly (that)
Joel destroyed himself,” Joel's dad would reflect. “I think that worse things
could have happened to him. We loved him dearly. I don’t know if Joel realised
how much we loved him. But I think he did recognise the deep affection that we
had, and I think he had great affection for us.”
In the years after his death, Joel started to appear in his
father’s dreams on a regular basis. Upon waking, he’d have to face the sad
truth that his son was dead. To distract himself, Joel’s father would often
stay up late translating texts from Japan ; a country whose culture and
language fascinated him. While poring over an anthology of Haiku one night, he
came across a piece that moved him deeply and seemed to resonate with the loss
of his son. It is a bittersweet reminder of the human cost of all this
soul-searching gone awry.
‘I wonder in what
fields today,
He chases butterflies
in his way,
My little boy who ran
away.’
(c) Simon Wells 2010
