Squeaky Part 21: Squeaky at 21 Years Old

More from Jeff Bravin’s astonishing biography of Squeaky:

“…Lyn was the Family’s heartbeat and its mother hen. Wherever she went, so went the center of the Family; other members came to her to recharge their faith when it ebbed, or to cool down when their tempers flared. Unlike some members of the group, whose seething disaffection or unpredictable quirks made them difficult to deal with, Lyn could move through both the straight world of police and lawyers, and the underground circles where the Family felt most at home. . .She also seemed quite a world apart from the violence with which so many members of the Family had been charged. Despite all that had happened, Lyn remained obsessed by the message of love, as if the murders were nothing but a contradictory footnote to a much grander story. She attributed them. . .”to some part of the emperor [Manson] she did not understand.” Though she sometimes tried to talk tough, she was to Fitzgerald [one of the Family’s defense lawyers] the “petal of a flower, floating around. . .a sexual little girl. A very loving little girl. . .a perpetually lost orphan,” but Fitzgerald depended on her [to help him with his defense] and since she was far from dependable, he would have to get after her. “Godammit, Squeaky, you gotta straighten out here!” he would say. . .she would just shrug her shoulders and roll her twinkling eyes. “Oh Paul, you know- that’s just me…”

I don’t think she ever really understood the violence, or took it seriously; it was as if she was in denial of the crimes and the threats. Maybe she wasn’t involved in any of the murders, not just because Charlie didn’t instruct her to be, but because she didn’t want to be a part of that ugliness. I believe she purposefully left a bullet out of the chamber of her Colt 45 when she went to threaten Ford. I believe, as she contended during her trial, that she wanted to scare him, not kill him.

As crazy as she may have been, I don’t think Squeaky was a killer…