DID YOU KNOW? CHARLES MANSON & US PROBATION

PART THREE

THIS IS THE END

by Brian J. Kelly - Supervisory Cyber Analyst

Our three-part series analyzing Charles Manson and his relationship with the federal community supervision system concludes this month as we explore the relationship between Manson and his U.S. Probation & Parole Officer, Roger Smith.

The following information is directly from an August 20, 2022 article entitled “Where is Charles Manson’s Parole Officer Roger Smith Now?” authored by Viswa Vanapalli for TheCinemoholic https://thecinemaholic.com/where-is-charles-mansons-parole-officer-roger-smith-now/
  
“Charles was released sometime in 1967, with Roger Smith as his parole officer. At the time, Roger was part of an experimental program for parole officers that hoped to study how they were affected by varying caseloads. Roger started with 40 cases, but in the end, he was left only with Charles. Tom O’Neill, who researched Charles and his life, said of Roger, “By 1967, Smith was regarded as an expert on gangs, collective behavior, violence, and drugs. Manson, his one and only parole supervisee, would go on to control the collective behavior of a gang through violence and drugs.” Over time, Charles’ followers grew in number, eventually leading to the nine murders at four different locations in July and August 1969. Regarding Charles, Roger said, “Charlie was the most hostile parolee I’ve ever come across. He was totally upfront about it. He told me right off there was no way he could keep the terms of his parole. He was headed back to the joint [prison], and there was no way out of it.” He added, “In a sense, I think Charlie was really sort of shaken by it all – by the fact that people were friendly, open, and willing to do things with him. The first night he was in the Haight, the chicks were willing to go to bed with him. They didn’t care whether he had just gotten out of the joint. That was a real shocker for him.

In the 1960s, Roger was also a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, with interests in criminology and the etiology of crime. For over 16 years, he served as the Research director, probation officer, and social worker for various public and private agencies in Illinois and San Francisco Bay Area. Over the years, he has worked in several corrections departments specializing in treating sex offenders. Roger was the Director of the Correctional Treatment Program at the Oregon Department of Mental Health for nine years till 1987. For two years, Roger served as the Program Specialist for the National Academy of Corrections and the US Department of Justice in Boulder, Colorado. From 1990 to 2002, he held the position of the Director of Sex Offender Programs of the Department of Public Safety in Honolulu, Hawaii. Furthermore, Roger was the Director of the Bureau of Forensic Mental Health Services in Michigan for a decade. Since 2002, the Retired Criminologist has worked as a Consultant in matters of forensic and correctional mental health. Roger has worked in different states and currently lives in Redmond, Oregon.”

Tom O’Neill https://tom-oneill.org/, author of “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties”, journeys deep into the relationship between Smith and Manson in Chaos, and offers a very different perspective as to the possible motivations of Roger Smith. O’Neill notes that Manson’s full federal parole file has never been released. He was able to obtain sixty-nine documents through various FOIA requests and appeals, but suggested that this was only a sliver of the total file. O’Neill does state that within the documents he was able to obtain, it shows Manson was seemingly granted total immunity from prosecution during the first fourteen months following his release from custody on March 21, 1967. A few weeks after Manson’s release, the US Probation Office in San Francisco, CA submitted a transfer of supervision letter to the Los Angeles office, where Manson was originally designated to reside. He is assigned to the supervision of Roger Smith, who claims this is the first time he comes in contact with Manson. But according to O’Neill’s interview with Roger Smith’s research assistant (at the time), Gail Sadalla, Smith actually met Manson years earlier within the federal prison system in Illinois, claiming to previously being his probation officer. O’Neill admits the timelines do not seem to match with Manson's incarceration history, but Sadalla stated this was always her understanding of their connection.  

O’Neill suggests, according to his research, that Manson was repeatedly arrested and committed other violations while under Smith’s supervision without repercussion. On July 31, 1967, Smith submitted a status report on Manson to the Parole Commission stating Manson was making “excellent progress”, and was in “better shape personally than he has been in a long time”. Meanwhile, Manson had been in a jail cell in Ukiah, CA a few days earlier for interfering with the arrest of Ruth Ann Moorehouse, a Manson family member. No violation was initiated and according to O’Neill’s interview with Smith, he claims to have been unaware of the incident.

By May 1968, Smith had left the federal system and Manson was being supervised out of Los Angeles by Samuel Barrett, his final parole officer. During his interview with O’Neill, Smith states he never intended to be a career parole officer. He only needed money while writing his dissertation. In Chaos, O’Neill focuses on this period as Manson’s relationship with Smith did not appear to end. At some point in 1968, Manson sent “his girls” (Susan Atkins, Ella Jo Bailey, Patricia Krenwinkel, Stephanie Rowe, Mary Brunner) to Ukiah, CA in Mendocino County to recruit more members for the “family”. In June 1968, the girls “snare” three young boys, including the seventeen year old son of a Mendocino County deputy sheriff. All the women are arrested and charged with felony drug possession and contributing to delinquency of a minor. Who do they call for assistance? Roger Smith. Smith and wife drove to Mendocino County to “check up on them” and are appointed temporary foster parents of Mary Brunner’s infant son, the alleged father being Charles Manson. Ultimately, charges against three of the girls are dropped. Atkins and Brunner plead guilty to possession of narcotics and are granted probation. Notably, Brunner was already on probation out of Los Angeles. Roger Smith wrote both Atkins and Brunner petitions for leniency, but did not mention his prior relationship with Manson despite identifying himself as “former federal parole officer”. Smith’s wife, whom he divorced from in 1981, denies any involvement and claims Smith used her name without her knowledge. 

Was Roger Smith just another individual on a long list that came into Charles Manson’s orbit? Or was he something deeper, connected to and potentially guided by clandestine government operations? You decide. But before you do, read “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties” by Tom O’Neill. This series was only possible due to his decades of research and exhaustive search for the truth.

IPPC Technologies continues to strive towards predictive and proactive solutions so officers can intervene early, address areas of concern and change behavior. Spotlight is a data analysis service provided by IPPC Technologies that uses human verification augmented with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to validate content captured and flagged by IPPC’s monitoring and analysis solutions. Spotlight’s mission is to provide agencies and officers with streamlined and verified leads, for possible intervention opportunities related to concerning behaviors.  For more information on Spotlight, please call IPPC at (888)-WEB-IPPC or contact me directly at bkelly@ippctech.net or by calling (516)341-4201.