On July 27, 1969, Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil stabbed Gary Hinman to death, and he remains behind bars in California to this day.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesA few weeks before the Tate-LaBianca murders, Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil murdered Gary Hinman on the orders of Charles Manson.
Charles Manson’s circle of associates and followers was populated with a rogue’s gallery of disturbing characters. But one of the most fascinating Manson Family members had to have been Bobby Beausoleil: musician, part-time movie star, Haigh-Ashbury hippie, and eventually a murderer at Manson’s behest.
Though he wasn’t involved in the murders of actress Sharon Tate and her houseguests as well as the wealthy LaBianca couple in August 1969, Bobby Beausoleil did indeed kill in Manson’s name. On July 27, 1969, Beausoleil stabbed a part-time drug dealer named Gary Hinman to death in an event that some believe helped spark the Tate-LaBianca murders in the first place.
Once a handsome punk with a juvenile record and some acting chops, the angelic-looking felon — whose very name loosely translates to “beautiful sun” — was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment even before the most famous Manson crimes were even committed. This is the chilling story of Bobby Beausoleil.
Public DomainSome say that Bobby Beausoleil’s murder of Gary Hinman set off a chain of events that prompted the Manson Family to commit the Tate-LaBianca murders in August 1969.
Bobby Beausoleil: Born To Be Wild
Robert Beausoleil’s childhood was fairly normal like most of the Manson Family members.
Born in 1947 to a working-class French Catholic family in California, Bobby Beausoleil’s father supported them as a milkman before working his way up the ladder. Despite his sunny name and angelic looks, Beausoleil’s youth was full of petty antics and infractions which eventually resulted in a year of reform school when he was 12.
rxstrBobby Beausoleil in Haight-Ashbury in the late 1960s.
He then drifted to the counterculture capital of the world in 1960s San Francisco, specifically the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. There he lived with alternative filmmaker Kenneth Anger, and Beausoleil consequently fell into the film industry.
His early forays into film, however, included adult-themed ones. Then Anger cast Bobby Beausoleil as Lucifer in his underground film Lucifer Rising, among other bit parts. The eeriest thing he starred in, however, was the documentary Mondo Hollywood. Today the subject matter seems a bit trite as the documentary follows the swell of the hippies and “freaks” of the counterculture and their “perversities” like drug use and homosexuality.
rxstrBobby Beausoleil before joining the Manson Family.
Alongside a young Beausoleil in this film was none other than Jay Sebring, a celebrity stylist, and future Manson Family murder victim.
Beausoleil’s Early Days With Charles Manson At Spahn Ranch
According to Bobby Beausoleil, he met Charles Manson in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s when the cult leader was freshly released from prison. With his piercing stare and shoulder-length mop, Manson looked a bit like a biblical prophet to a bohemian like Beausoleil.
Los Angeles Public LibraryCharles Manson after entering a plea of not guilty for the Gary Hinman murder. June 19, 1970.
According to Beausoleil himself, the “Manson Family” was a term established only after the fact. Before that, there were just “a bunch of girls, a few guys, a couple of ex-cons, a bunch of kids, some runaways with no support from home, and they were living in a garbage dump called the Spahn Ranch.”
Indeed, Bobby Beausoleil did spend a fair amount of time at Manson’s makeshift home at Spahn Ranch. The ranch was a well-situated cult hideaway as it was isolated with more than a dozen children running amok and was rife with orgies in its heyday. For whatever reason, Beausoleil found himself drawn into Manson’s “helter skelter” world, which included fellow followers Mary Brunner and Squeaky Fromme.
Bobby Beausoleil described their relationship as being exceptionally close. They would jam together with their shared love of music, fool around off-roading, and camp together. They’d also share sexual experiences from time to time with the same woman or women. Men were drawn to Manson because women were drawn to Manson — that was one way he maintained loyalty from members like Beausoleil.
Bobby Beausoleil Murders Gary Hinman
Public DomainGary Hinman was found dead in his Los Angeles home on July 31, 1969, after he was stabbed by Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil.
Bobby Beausoleil wasn’t present for the most infamous of the Manson Family murders, a.k.a. the gruesome slaying of Sharon Tate and her friends Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Jay Sebring at 10050 Cielo Drive and the LaBiancas since he was already locked away for the murder of musician Gary Hinman.
Gary Hinman was something of a friend to the Manson Family while also being a UCLA philosophy Ph.D. candidate, musician, and alleged part-time drug dealer. By some accounts, he had a mescaline factory operating out of his basement. Beausoleil claimed in a 1981 interview that while he and Hinman had never been close, he had stayed at the musician’s house for a short while before his murder.
rxstrBobby Beausoleil talks with newsmen after the jury returned a verdict against him of first-degree murder in the torture slaying of musician Gary Hinman.
On July 25, 1969, Bobby Beausoleil took Mary Brunner and Susan Atkins to Hinman’s home. The girls had said that they wanted to hang out with Hinman while Beausoleil went over some business with him. According to Beausoleil, the trip was meant to confront Hinman about a $1,000 rip-off he committed against some bikers involving some bad mescaline.
Brunner’s later testimony claimed that it was to punish him for not joining the family, but Beausoleil insisted that nobody went to Hinman’s home that night with the intention of killing him.
Los Angeles Public LibrarySusan Atkins during the Gary Hinman murder trial. June 18, 1970.
Whatever the reason, Hinman was found dead six days later, his body stabbed multiple times in the heart, and the words “Political Piggy” were scrawled on the walls in his blood. At one point, Charles Manson had allegedly come by to show Bobby Beausoleil how to properly deal with Hinman and slashed him on the ear with a samurai sword.
Beausoleil would later say that the slash came from a scramble between Hinman and Atkins for a gun. Either way, he and the girls tried to stitch Hinman up with dental floss, but when Hinman had threatened to go to the cops once the Manson devotees left, Beausoleil reported that he felt he had no choice but to kill the man. He stabbed Hinman in the heart twice.
Los Angeles Public LibraryMary Brunner following her arraignment in the murder of Gary Hinman. June 17, 1970.
After the dark deed, Bobby Beausoleil was found on asleep in the backseat of Hinman’s stolen car en route to San Francisco. It was August 5, 1969, just three days before the Tate-LaBianca massacre.
Bobby Beausoleil’s Trial And What Happened To Him Afterward
Los Angeles Public LibraryGary Hinman returns to his cell after a day in court during his trial for the murder of Gary Hinman. April 3, 1970.
Bobby Beausoleil’s trial for the murder of Gary Hinman began in November 1969 and ended initially with a hung jury. His then-girlfriend, 17-year-old Kitty Lutesinger pregnant with their daughter, testified against him.
In 1970, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for first-degree murder and the prosecution asked for the death penalty. He narrowly avoided this when the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional in 1972. Bobby Beausoleil has been in prison in both Oregon and California since he was 22 years old.
Sue Terry/Los Angeles Public LibraryKitty Lutesinger sewing on Temple Street during Charles Manson’s trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Despite this, Beausoleil’s life has in some ways continued on. He married behind bars and fathered four children. Truman Capote even worked with him on a piece called “Then It All Came Down,” which Beausoleil later decried.
He has published erotica and recorded music professionally. In fact, the latter is a major reason he was denied parole in 2019. The profits of his music, sold without cooperation from his prison, counted against him at his hearings.
With the death of Charles Manson in 2017 and the release of Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten in 2023, Beausoleil, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Tex Watson are the ones that are still in prison.
California Department of Corrections and RehabilitationToday, Bobby Beausoleil remains in prison in Vacaville, California.
According to Debra Tate, sister to Sharon Tate and a victim’s rights advocate who asked: “If he can’t play by the rules in place within prison, how can he play in a free society?”
For now, it seems that Bobby Beausoleil won’t get the chance to anyway.
After this look at Bobby Beausoleil, learn more about Charles Manson’s little-known wife Leona Candy Stevens.
