title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: The Mexican Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) reported the arrest of Jesús Alfredo Salazar Ramírez, alias "El Muñeco" or "El Pelos", who was identified as the current lieutenant of the South Pacific Cartel in the state of Sonora. As stated by Sedena, "El Muñeco" worked as an administrator under Joaquín Guzmán Loera and is believed to be responsible for the death of the activist Nepomuceno Moreno. Jesús Alfredo Salazar Ramírez was arrested on 1 November 2012, in the municipality of Huixquilucan, by military personnel working with the Mexican Attorney General's office (PGR).


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: "El Muñeco" is considered to be one of the most important lieutenants of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, evident from his control of the planting, production, and trafficking of drugs in Sonora and in the mountains of Chihuahua, which were sent predominantly to the US. He is linked to various homicides, among them the lawyer Rubén Alejandro Cepeda Leos, who was assassinated on 20 December 2011, in the city of , Chihuahua. According to the Sedena he is the assumed assassin of activist Nepomuceno Moreno Núñez, which occurred 28 November 2011. Nepomuceno Moreno was an activist who sought justice for the disappearance of his son and joined the Mexican Indignados Movement, led by the poet Javier Sicilia.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: José Rodrigo Aréchiga Gamboa (alias "Chino Antrax") was a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel. He was a leader and founding member of Los Ántrax, an armed squadron formed to protect Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García, founding member of the Sinaloa Cartel. He was arrested on 30 December 2013, at the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the Netherlands, at the petition of the United States of America, and with the help of Interpol, on charges related to drug trafficking.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: The Sinaloa cartel's loss of partners in Mexico does not appear to have affected its ability to smuggle drugs from South America to the USA. On the contrary, based on seizure reports, the Sinaloa cartel appears to be the most active smuggler of cocaine. The reports also demonstrated the cartels possess the ability to establish operations in previously unknown areas, such as Central America and South America, even as far south as Peru, Paraguay and Argentina. It also appears to be most active in diversifying its export markets; rather than relying solely on U.S. drug consumption, it has made an effort to supply distributors of drugs in Latin American and European countries.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: On 19 December 2013, the Federal Police of Mexico killed Gonzalo "El Macho Prieto" Inzunza in a gun battle in Puerto Penasco, Sonora. Inzunza was believed to be one of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's chief cartel leaders.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: In December 2013, three suspected members of the cartel were arrested in Lipa in Batangas province in the Philippines with 84 kilograms of methamphetamine.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: In February 2014, "El Chapo" Guzmán was arrested. The capture of the Sinaloa Cartel's "El Chapo" Guzmán ignited a fight over the trial's location. Calls for his extradition to the United States started just hours after his arrest. Guzmán also faces federal indictment in several locations including San Diego, New York, and Texas, among other places.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: On 11 July 2015 "El Chapo" , which is his second successful jailbreak from a maximum security facility in 14 years.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: On 8 January 2016, Guzman was arrested again during a raid on a home in the city of Los Mochis, in Guzman's home state of Sinaloa.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: In the late 2000s and early 2010s, the Sinaloa Cartel and Gulf Cartel were traditionally considered allies but as of 2021, this alliance has reportedly fizzled out as the two groups now battle each other in the state of Zacatecas with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel now siding with the Gulf to fight against Sinaloa. The CDS is also battling La Linea teamed with the CJNG in Ciudad Juarez.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: The Sinaloa Federation has formed alliances with two powerful Chinese Triads, Sun Yee On and the 14K Triad, to acquire the precursor chemicals needed in creating highly-addictive synthetic drugs like methamphetamine, and now, likely fentanyl. Operatives like local gangs pick up the chemicals from dropoff points and ship them to hidden labs. The resulting products are shipped to the United States and many South American countries. The Sinaloa Cartel also reportedly has a major presence in Colombia and has partnered with various paramilitary drug cartels such as the Clan del Golfo.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: In 1989, the Sinaloa Cartel dug its first drug tunnel between a house in Agua Prieta, Sonora to a warehouse located in Douglas, Arizona. The tunnel was discovered in May 1990. Following the discovery by U.S. Customs and Mexican Federal Police, the Sinaloa Cartel began to focus their smuggling operations towards Tijuana and Otay Mesa, San Diego where it acquired a warehouse in 1992. After the assassination of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and six others at the Guadalajara airport on 24 May 1993, the gunmen boarded a commercial jet. When the jet landed at the Tijuana airport, both police and military units failed to cordon off the aircraft and the gunmen escaped. On 31 May 1993, Mexican federal agents searching for the gunmen found a partially completed tunnel adjacent to the Tijuana airport and crossing under the U.S.-Mexico border to a warehouse on Otay Mesa in San Diego. It was discovered as Mexican and San Diego officials were discussing the creation of a cross-border airport between Tijuana and Otay Mesa which would have undermined the drug tunneling operations in the area (see History of the Cross Border Xpress). The tunnel was described by the DEA in San Diego as the "Taj Mahal" of drug tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border and was linked to Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzmán. It was five times longer than the Agua Prieta-Douglas tunnel and became the first of a series of drug "super tunnels" in Otay Mesa originating in and around the Tijuana airport through the former Ejido Tampico. The "super tunnels" were equipped with power, ventilation and rail tracks to allow the efficient movement of large loads of narcotics across the U.S.-Mexico border. As seen on image 1 Drug tunnel corridors the close proximity of the former Ejido Tampico to the Tijuana airport and U.S.-Mexico border made it an ideal staging area for smuggling operations into the United States.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: The Mexican government's conflict with the former Ejido Tampico dated back to 1970, when they expropriated of the Ejido Tampico to build a new runway and passenger terminal at the Tijuana airport and agreed to pay the displaced ejidatarios (the communal farmers) $1.4 million pesos ($112,000 U.S. dollars in 1970). When the Mexican government failed to indemnify the ejidatarios for their lost farmland, they reoccupied a portion of the Tijuana airport and threatened armed conflict. As shown by image 2 Ejido Tampico, from 1970 to 2000, the occupied land at the Tijuana airport remained relatively undeveloped. In 1999, the Tijuana airport was privatized and became part of a 12 airport network known as Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico (Pacific Airport Group). In an attempt to resolve the dispute and remove the ejidatarios from the privatized Tijuana airport, the Mexican government established a value on the expropriated at $1.2 million pesos ($125,560 U.S. dollars in 1999) while the ejidatarios of the former Ejido Tampico taking into account the increase in property values from 1970 to 1999 and the privatization of the Tijuana airport established a commercial value on their lost land at $2.8 billion pesos ($294 million U.S. dollars). In 2002, Mexican President Vicente Fox, who had promised to resolve the issue, also failed. As shown image 2 Ejido Tampico comparison between 2000 and 2006, the ejidatarios then proceeded to commercially develop the area at the Tijuana airport by leasing buildings and parcels to trucking and storage companies. As shown by image 3 Drug Trafficking Tunnel, in 2006 the unpermitted development allowed the building of a drug "super tunnel" originating from the former Ejido Tampico and adjacent to the Tijuana airport's runway. As prior drug tunnels, it crossed under the U.S.-Mexico border into a warehouse on Otay Mesa in San Diego with the capacity to move multi-ton loads of narcotics.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: In May 2009, the U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) aired multiple reports alleging that the Mexican federal police and military were working in collusion with the Sinaloa Cartel. In particular, the report claimed the government was helping the Sinaloa Cartel to take control of the Juarez Valley area and destroy other cartels, especially the Juarez Cartel. NPR's reporters interviewed dozens of officials and ordinary people for the journalistic investigation. One report quotes a former Juarez police commander who claimed the entire department was working for the Sinaloa Cartel and helping it to fight other groups. He also claimed that the Sinaloa Cartel had bribed the military. Also quoted was a Mexican reporter who claimed hearing numerous times from the public that the military had been involved in murders. Another source in the story was the U.S. trial of Manuel Fierro-Mendez, an ex-Juarez police captain who admitted to working for the Sinaloa Cartel. He claimed that the Sinaloa Cartel influenced the Mexican government and military to gain control of the region. A DEA agent in the same trial alleged that Fierro-Mendez had contacts with a Mexican military officer. The report also alleged, with support from an anthropologist who studies drug trafficking, that data on the low arrest rate of Sinaloa Cartel members (compared to other groups) was evidence of favoritism on the part of the authorities. A Mexican official denied the allegation of favoritism, and a DEA agent and a political scientist also had alternate explanations for the arrest data. Another report detailed numerous indications of corruption and influence that the cartel has within the Mexican government.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: In 2012, Newsweek reported about allegations from an anonymous former Sinaloa member turned informant and former DEA agents that alleged that Joaquín Guzmán's legal adviser, Humberto Loya-Castro, had become a key informant for the DEA. Loya-Castro had become an official informant of the DEA in 2005 but was already providing vital information on rival cartels since the 1990s; such intel was instrumental to the takedown of the Tijuana Cartel, the Sinaloa cartel's main rival, as well as the death of Arturo Beltrán Leyva, who led a splinter group from the Sinaloa cartel. Such information ensured Loya-Castro was immune from prosecution while also keeping the DEA concentrated on Sinaloa's rivals and away from their leadership. Such allegations were confirmed by court documents obtained by El Universal during their investigation of collaboration with top officials from the Sinaloa cartel. According to court documents, the DEA had struck agreements with the cartel's leadership that would ensure that they would be immune from extradition and prosecution in the US and would avoid disrupting the cartel's drug operations in exchange for intelligence which could be used against other drug cartels.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: Statements from a Mexican diplomat, which were revealed from leaked emails from the Stratfor leak in 2012, appeared to imply the belief amongst Mexican officials that US officials were assisting the Sinaloa cartel's drug smuggling efforts into the US and were protecting the cartel while attacking its rivals in an attempt to lower violence between Mexican drug cartels; this was backed up by information provided by a Mexican foreign agent, codenamed MX1. The allegation that US officials were controlling the drug trade through Mexico was corroborated by the former spokesman of the State of Chihuahua, Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: In March 2015, BBC TV programme "This World" broadcast an episode entitled "Secrets of Mexico's Drug War" which reported on the US government's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Operation Fast and Furious which had allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal buyers acting on behalf of Mexican drug cartel leaders, in particular the Sinaloa Cartel. The BBC also reported on Vicente Zambada Niebla's claims of immunity from prosecution under a deal between the Mexican and US governments and his claims that the Sinaloa Cartel's leaders had provided US federal agents with information about rival Mexican drug gangs. In the same documentary it is shown that the US Justice Department invoked national security reasons to prevent Humberto Loya Castro, the lawyer of the Sinaloa Syndicate, from being summoned as a witness to the trial against Vicente Zambada Niebla.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: The Sinaloa Cartel has been waging a war against the Tijuana Cartel (Arellano-Félix Organization) over the Tijuana smuggling route to the border city of San Diego, California. The rivalry between the two cartels dates back to the Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo setup of Palma's family. Félix Gallardo, following his imprisonment, bestowed the Guadalajara Cartel to his nephews in the Tijuana Cartel. On 8 November 1992, Palma struck out against the Tijuana Cartel at a disco club in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, where eight Tijuana Cartel members were killed in the shootout, the Arellano-Félix brothers successfully escaping from the location with the assistance of David Barron Corona, a member of the Logan Heights Gang.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: In retaliation, the Tijuana Cartel attempted to set up Guzmán at Guadalajara airport on 24 May 1993. In the shootout that followed, six civilians were killed by the hired gunmen from Logan Heights. The dead included Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo. The church hierarchy originally believed Posadas was targeted as revenge for his strong stance against the drug trade. However, Mexican officials believe Posadas just happened to be caught in cross fire. The cardinal arrived at the airport in a white Mercury Grand Marquis town car, known to be popular amongst drug barons. Barron had received intelligence that Guzmán would be arriving in a white Mercury Grand Marquis town car. Evidence that runs counter to a mistake theory is that Posadas did not look anything like Guzmán, he was wearing a long black cassock and a large pectoral cross, and he was gunned down from only two feet away.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: Recently, it is believed that the Tijuana Cartel, or at least a sizable majority of it, has been either absorbed or forced to ally with the Sinaloa Federation, in part due to a former high-ranking Tijuana member called Eduardo Teodoro Garcia Simental, alias "El Teo" or "Tres Letras" allying with the Federation.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: Los Negros have been known to employ gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha to carry out murders and other illegal activities. The group is involved in fighting in the Nuevo Laredo region for control of the drug trafficking corridor. Following the 2003 arrest of Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, it is believed the Sinaloa Cartel moved 200 men into the region to battle the Gulf Cartel for control. The Nuevo Laredo region is an important drug trafficking corridor into Laredo, Texas, where as much as 40% of all Mexican exports pass through into the U.S.


title: Sinaloa Cartel

text: Following the 2004 assassination of journalist Roberto Javier Mora García from "El Mañana" newspaper, much of the local media has been cautious about their reporting of the fighting. The cartels have pressured reporters to send messages and wage a media war. The drug war has spread to various regions of Mexico, such as Guerrero, Mexico City, Michoacán and Tamaulipas.


title: Manson Family

text: The Manson Family (known among its members as the Family) was a commune, gang, and cult led by criminal Charles Manson that was active in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group consisted of approximately 100 followers, who lived an unconventional lifestyle with habitual use of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD. Most were young women from middle-class backgrounds, many of whom were attracted by hippie culture and communal living and then radicalized by Manson's teachings.


title: Manson Family

text: Manson was born in 1934 and had been institutionalized or incarcerated for more than half of his life by the time he was released from prison in 1967. He began attracting acolytes in the San Francisco area. They gradually moved to a run-down ranch, called the Spahn Ranch in Los Angeles County. The ranch burned down during a Southern California wildfire in September 1970.


title: Manson Family

text: According to group member Susan Atkins, the members of the Family became convinced that Manson was a manifestation of Jesus Christ and believed in his prophecies concerning an imminent, apocalyptic race war.


title: Manson Family

text: In 1969, Family members Susan Atkins, Tex Watson, and Patricia Krenwinkel entered the home of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and murdered her and four others. Linda Kasabian was also present, but did not take part. Members of the Manson Family also committed a number of other murders, assaults, petty crimes, and thefts.


title: Manson Family

text: Following his release from prison on March 22, 1967, Charles Manson moved to San Francisco, where, with the help of a prison acquaintance, he moved into an apartment in Berkeley. In prison, bank robber Alvin Karpis had taught Manson to play the steel guitar. Living mostly by begging, Manson soon became acquainted with Mary Brunner, a 23-year-old graduate of University of Wisconsin–Madison. Brunner was working as a library assistant at the University of California, Berkeley, and Manson moved in with her. According to a second-hand account, he overcame her resistance to his bringing other women in to live with them. Before long, they were sharing Brunner's residence with eighteen other women.


title: Manson Family

text: Manson established himself as a guru in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, which during 1967's "Summer of Love" was emerging as the signature hippie locale. Manson may have borrowed some of his philosophy from the Process Church of the Final Judgment. Its members believed Satan would become reconciled to Jesus and they would come together at the end of the world to judge humanity. Manson soon had the first of his groups of followers, most of them female. They were later dubbed as the "Manson Family" by Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and the media. Manson allegedly taught his followers that they were the reincarnation of the original Christians, and that the establishment could be characterized as the Romans. Sometime around 1967, he began using the alias "Charles Willis Manson.".


title: Manson Family

text: Before the end of summer, Manson and some of the women began traveling in an old school bus they had adapted, putting colored rugs and pillows in place of the many seats they had removed. They eventually settled in the Los Angeles areas of Topanga Canyon, Malibu, and Venice along the coast.


title: Manson Family

text: In 1967, Brunner became pregnant by Manson. On April 15, 1968, she gave birth to their son, whom she named Valentine Michael, in a condemned house where they were living in Topanga Canyon. She was assisted by several of the young women from the Family. Brunner (like most members of the group) acquired a number of aliases and nicknames, including: "Marioche", "Och", "Mother Mary", "Mary Manson", "Linda Dee Manson", and "Christine Marie Euchts".


title: Manson Family

text: Actor Al Lewis had Manson babysit his children on a couple of occasions and described him as "a nice guy when I knew him". Music producer Phil Kaufman introduced Manson to Universal Studios producer Gary Stromberg, then working on a film adaptation of the life of Jesus set in modern America. It featured a Black Jesus and southern "redneck Romans". Stromberg thought that Manson made interesting suggestions about what Jesus might do in a situation, seeming to be attuned to the role. He had one of his women kiss his feet and then kissed hers in return to demonstrate the place of women. At the beach one day, Stromberg watched while Manson preached against a materialistic outlook. One of his listeners questioned him about the well-furnished bus. Manson tossed the bus keys to the doubter, who promptly drove the bus away while Manson watched, apparently unconcerned. According to Stromberg, Manson had a dynamic personality; he was able to read a person's emotional weaknesses and manipulate them. For example, Manson tried to manipulate Danny DeCarlo, the treasurer of the Straight Satan's motorcycle club, by granting him “access” to Family women. He convinced DeCarlo that his large penis helped keep the women in the group.


title: Manson Family

text: Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys picked up Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey when they were hitchhiking in late spring 1968, while under the influence of alcohol and LSD. He took them to his Pacific Palisades house for a few hours. The following morning, when Wilson returned home from a night recording session, he was greeted by Manson in the driveway, who emerged from his house. Wilson asked the stranger whether he intended to hurt him. Manson assured him that he had no such intent and began kissing Wilson's feet. Inside the house, Wilson discovered 12 strangers, mostly women.


title: Manson Family

text: The account given in "Manson in His Own Words" is that Manson first met Wilson at a friend's San Francisco house where Manson had gone to obtain marijuana. Manson claimed that Wilson gave him his Sunset Boulevard address and invited him to stop by when he came to Los Angeles. Wilson said in a 1968 "Record Mirror" article that when he mentioned the Beach Boys' involvement with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to a group of strange women, "they told me they too had a guru, a guy named Charlie."


title: Manson Family

text: Over the next few months, the number of women doubled in Wilson's house. He covered their costs, which amounted to approximately $100,000. This total included a large medical bill for treatment of their gonorrhea, and $21,000 for the destruction of his uninsured car, which they borrowed. Wilson would sing and talk with Manson, and they both treated the women as servants. Wilson paid for studio time to record songs written and performed by Manson, and introduced him to entertainment business acquaintances, including Gregg Jakobson, Terry Melcher, and Rudi Altobelli. The latter man owned a house which he rented to actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski. Jakobson was impressed by "the whole Charlie Manson package" of artist, life-stylist, and philosopher, and he paid to record his material. Wilson moved out of his rented home when the lease expired, and his landlord evicted the Family.


title: Manson Family

text: Manson established a base for the Family at the Spahn Ranch in August 1968 after Wilson's landlord evicted them. It had been a television and movie set for Westerns, but the buildings had deteriorated by the late 1960s. The ranch then derived revenue primarily from selling horseback rides. Female Family members did chores around the ranch and, occasionally, had sex on Manson's orders with the nearly blind 80-year-old owner George Spahn. The women also acted as guides for him. In exchange, Spahn allowed Manson and his group to live at the ranch for free. Lynette Fromme acquired the nickname "Squeaky" because she often squeaked when Spahn pinched her thigh.


title: Manson Family

text: Charles Watson, a small-town Texan who had quit college and moved to California, soon joined the group at the ranch.


title: Manson Family

text: On March 23, 1969, Manson entered the grounds of 10050 Cielo Drive, which he had known as Melcher's residence. He was not invited.


title: Manson Family

text: As he approached the main house, Manson was met by Shahrokh Hatami, an Iranian photographer. He had befriended Polanski and Tate during the making of the documentary "Mia and Roman". He was there to photograph Tate before she departed for Rome the next day. Seeing Manson approach, Hatami had gone onto the front porch to ask him what he wanted. Manson said that he was looking for someone whose name Hatami did not recognize. Hatami told him the place was the Polanski residence. He advised Manson to try "the back alley," by which he meant the path to the guest house beyond the main house. Concerned about the stranger, he had gone down the front walk to confront Manson. Tate appeared behind Hatami in the house's front door and asked him who was calling. Hatami said that a man was looking for someone. He and Tate maintained their positions while Manson went back to the guest house without a word, returned to the front a minute or two later, and left.


title: Manson Family

text: That evening, Manson returned to the property and again went to the guest house. He entered the enclosed porch and spoke with Altobelli, the owner, who had just come out of the shower. Manson asked for Melcher, but Altobelli felt that Manson was looking for him. It was later discovered that Manson had apparently been to the property on earlier occasions after Melcher left.


title: Manson Family

text: Altobelli told Manson through the screen door that Melcher had moved to Malibu, and said that he did not know his new address (although he did). Altobelli said that he was in the entertainment business. He had met Manson the previous year at Wilson's home and was sure that Manson already knew that. At that meeting, he had given limited compliments to Manson on some of his musical recordings, which Wilson had been playing. Altobelli told Manson he was leaving the country the next day, and Manson said he would like to speak with him upon his return. Altobelli said that he would be gone for more than a year. Manson said that he had been directed to the guest house by the persons in the main house; Altobelli asked Manson not to disturb his tenants.


title: Manson Family

text: Altobelli and Tate flew together to Rome the next day. Tate asked him whether "that creepy-looking guy" had gone to see him at the guest house the day before.


title: Manson Family

text: Tex Watson became involved in drug dealing and robbed a drug dealer named Bernard "Lotsapoppa" Crowe. Crowe allegedly responded with a threat to kill everyone at Spahn Ranch. In response, Charles Manson shot Crowe on July 1, 1969, at Manson's Hollywood apartment.


title: Manson Family

text: Manson's belief that he had killed Crowe was seemingly confirmed by a news report of the discovery of the dumped body of a Black Panther in Los Angeles. Although Crowe was not a member of the Black Panthers, Manson concluded he had been and expected retaliation from the Panthers. He turned Spahn Ranch into a defensive camp, establishing night patrols by armed guards. Tex Watson would later write, "Blackie was trying to get at the chosen ones."


title: Manson Family

text: Manson brought in members of the Straight Satans Motorcycle Club to act as security. At this time Bobby Beausoleil became more involved with the Family.


title: Manson Family

text: Gary Allen Hinman was a music teacher and PhD student at UCLA. At some point in the late 1960s, he befriended members of the Manson Family, allowing some to occasionally stay at his home. According to some people, including Family member Susan Atkins, Manson believed Hinman was wealthy. He sent Family members Bobby Beausoleil, Mary Brunner and Atkins to Hinman's home on July 25, 1969 to convince him to join the Family and turn over the assets Manson thought Hinman had inherited. The three held Hinman hostage for two days, as he denied having any money. During this time, Manson arrived with a sword and slashed his face and ear. After that, Beausoleil stabbed Hinman to death, allegedly on Manson's instruction. Before leaving the Topanga Canyon residence, Beausoleil or one of the women used Hinman's blood to write "Political piggy" on the wall and to draw a panther paw, a Black Panther symbol.


title: Manson Family

text: According to Manson and Beausoleil in magazine interviews of 1981 and 1998–1999, Beausoleil said he went to Hinman's to recover money paid to Hinman for mescaline provided to the Straight Satans that had supposedly been bad. Beausoleil added that Brunner and Atkins, unaware of his intent, went along to visit Hinman. Atkins, in her 1977 autobiography, wrote that Manson directed Beausoleil, Brunner, and her to go to Hinman's and get the supposed inheritance of $21,000. She said that two days earlier Manson had told her privately that, if she wanted to "do something important", she could kill Hinman and get his money.


title: Manson Family

text: Beausoleil was arrested on August 6, 1969, after he was caught driving Hinman's car. Police found the murder weapon in the tire well.


title: Manson Family

text: On the night of August 8, 1969, Manson directed Tex Watson to take Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to Melcher's former home at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles. According to Watson, Manson told them to kill everyone there. The home had recently been rented to actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski. (Polanski was away in Europe working on "The Day of the Dolphin"). Manson told the three women to do as Watson told them.


title: Manson Family

text: The Family members proceeded to kill the five people they found: Sharon Tate (eight and a half months pregnant), who was living there at the time; Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojtek Frykowski, who were visiting her; and Steven Parent, who had been visiting the caretaker of the home. Atkins wrote "pig" with Tate's blood on the front door as they left. The murders created a nationwide sensation.


title: Manson Family

text: The night of August 9, 1969, seven Family members: Leslie Van Houten, Steve "Clem" Grogan, Charles Manson, and the four from the previous night, drove to the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Watson said that, having gone there alone, Manson returned to take him to the house with him. After Manson pointed through a window to a man sleeping in the living room. The two men entered the house through an unlocked back door. Watson bound the couple and covered their heads with pillowcases. Manson left, sending Krenwinkel and Van Houten into the house.


title: Manson Family

text: Watson sent the women to the bedroom where Rosemary had been bound. He began stabbing Leno with a bayonet in the living room. Going to the bedroom, Watson discovered Rosemary swinging a lamp at the Family women. He stabbed her with the bayonet, and returned to the living room to resume attacking Leno, whom he stabbed 12 times. Krenwinkel stabbed Rosemary. Watson told Van Houten to stab the woman, too, which she did. Krenwinkel used the LaBiancas' blood to write "Rise" and "Death to pigs" on the walls, and "Healter Skelter" on the refrigerator door.


title: Manson Family

text: Meanwhile, Manson directed Kasabian to drive to the home of an acquaintance of hers. Manson dropped off Kasabian, Grogan, and Atkins, and drove back to Spahn Ranch. Kasabian allegedly thwarted a murder by deliberately knocking on the wrong door.


title: Manson Family

text: In November 1968, the Family had established headquarters in Death Valley's environs, at the Myers and Barker ranches. The former was owned by the grandmother of Family member Catherine Gillies.


title: Manson Family

text: According to Charles Watson and Paul Watkins, Manson and Watson visited an acquaintance who played the Beatles' double album, "The Beatles". According to Watkins, Manson became obsessed with the group.


title: Manson Family

text: According to Watkins, Manson had been saying that racial tensions between Blacks and Whites were about to erupt, and predicted that Black Americans would rise up in rebellion. According to Watson, Manson said that The Beatles' songs foretold it all in code.


title: Manson Family

text: According to Watkins, by February, the Family would create an album whose songs would trigger the predicted chaos. Murders of Whites by Blacks would be met with retaliation. A split between racist and non-racist Whites would result in the Whites' self-annihilation.


title: Manson Family

text: Mike McGann, an LAPD investigator on the Tate–LaBianca murders, later claimed: "Everything in Vince Bugliosi's book ("Helter Skelter") is wrong. I was the lead investigator on the case. Bugliosi didn't solve it. Nobody trusted him."


title: Manson Family

text: According to Family members Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, Bobby Beausoleil, and others, the arrest of Beausoleil for the torture and murder of Gary Hinman was the catalyst for the Family's ensuing murder spree. They wanted to convince police that the killer(s) of Hinman were still at large. Truman Capote's interviews of Beausoleil, and that by Ann Louise Bardach in November 1981 affirmed this account.


title: Manson Family

text: Charlie Guenther, a police detective who investigated the murders, said of Beausoleil, "He called the [Spahn] Ranch after he was arrested. The sole motive for those murders was to get Bobby out of jail." Bugliosi's co-prosecutor Aaron Stovitz said he believed the motive for the Tate-LaBianca murders was as copycat murders after Hinman.


title: Manson Family

text: Other persons suggested the motive was related to the drug dealing by Jay Sebring and Voytek Frykowski, and their connection with Charles Watson and Manson, and a bad drug deal. For instance, Sebring's protégé Jim Markham believes the murders were in response to a bad drug deal the day before, in which Manson went to Tate's house to sell marijuana and cocaine to Sebring and Frykowski. Instead, the two men attacked and beat Manson. In an interview with police, Frykowski's friend Witold Kaczanowski said that Frykowski had been involved with many criminals and the drug trade. In his later interview with Truman Capote, Bobby Beausoleil said, "They burned people on dope deals. Sharon Tate and that gang."


title: Manson Family

text: Ed Sanders and Paul Krassner uncovered information that Joel Rostau, the boyfriend of Sebring's receptionist, had delivered mescaline and cocaine to Sebring and Frykowski at Tate's house a few hours before the murders. During the Manson trial, Rostau and other associates of Sebring were murdered.


title: Manson Family

text: The Tate murders became national news on August 9, 1969. The Polanskis' housekeeper, Winifred Chapman, had discovered the murder scene when she arrived for work that morning. On August 10, detectives of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which had jurisdiction in the Hinman case, informed Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detectives assigned to the Tate case of the bloody writing at the Hinman house. According to Vincent Bugliosi, because detectives believed the Tate murders were a consequence of a drug transaction, the Tate team initially ignored this and other evidence of similarities between the crimes. The Tate autopsies were under way before the LaBianca bodies were discovered.


title: Manson Family

text: During the Tate autopsies, detectives working on the Gary Hinman case noticed similarities in the weapons used, the stab wounds, and the writing in blood on the walls. They also thought the case had something to do with narcotics. They brought the information to detectives working on the Tate murders. According to Detective Charlie Guenther, "Vince [Bugliosi] didn't want anything to do with the Hinman case. Hinman was a nothing case. Vince didn't want to prosecute it."


title: Manson Family

text: Steven Parent, who was fatally shot in the Tate/Polanski driveway, was found to have been an acquaintance of William Garretson, the caretaker who lived in the guest house. Garretson has been hired by Rudi Altobelli to take care of the property while Altobelli was away. The killers encountered Parent when he was leaving after having visited Garretson.


title: Manson Family

text: Held briefly as a Tate suspect, Garretson told police he had neither seen nor heard anything on the murder night. He was released on August 11, 1969, after undergoing a polygraph examination that indicated he had not been involved in the crimes.


title: Manson Family

text: The LaBianca crime scene was discovered at about 10:30 p.m. on August 10, approximately 19 hours after the murders were committed. Fifteen-year-old Frank Struthers, Rosemary's son from a prior marriage and Leno's stepson, returned from a camping trip and was concerned to see all of the window shades of his home drawn and his stepfather's speedboat still attached to the family car, parked in the driveway. He called his older sister and her boyfriend. The boyfriend, Joe Dorgan, accompanied the younger Struthers into the house, where they discovered Leno's body. They called the police, who found Rosemary's body after officers arrived at the house.


title: Manson Family

text: On August 12, 1969, the LAPD told the press it had ruled out any connection between the Tate and LaBianca homicides. On August 16, the sheriff's office raided Spahn Ranch and arrested Manson and 25 others, as "suspects in a major auto theft ring" that had been stealing Volkswagen Beetles and converting them into dune buggies. Weapons were seized, but, because the search warrant had been misdated, the group was released a few days later.


title: Manson Family

text: In a report at the end of August, the LaBianca detectives noted a possible connection between the bloody writings at the LaBianca house and "the singing group the Beatles' most recent album."


title: Manson Family

text: Still working separately from the Tate team, the LaBianca team checked with the sheriff's office in mid-October about possible similar crimes. They learned of the Hinman case. They also learned that the Hinman detectives had spoken with Beausoleil's girlfriend, Kitty Lutesinger. She had been arrested a few days earlier with members of "the Manson Family".


title: Manson Family

text: The arrests, for car thefts, had taken place at the desert ranches to which the Family had moved. Unknown to authorities, its members had been searching Death Valley for a hole in the ground, what they believed was access to the Bottomless Pit. A joint force of National Park Service Rangers and officers from the California Highway Patrol and the Inyo County Sheriff's Office: federal, state, and county personnel, had raided both the Myers and Barker ranches after following evidence left when Family members had burned an earthmover owned by Death Valley National Monument. The raiders had found stolen dune buggies and other vehicles, and had arrested two dozen people, including Manson. A Highway Patrol officer found Manson hiding in a cabinet beneath Barker's bathroom sink. The officers had no idea that the people they were arresting were involved with the murders in Los Angeles.


title: Manson Family

text: Following up leads a month after they had spoken with Lutesinger, LaBianca detectives contacted members of a motorcycle gang Manson tried to recruit as bodyguards while the Family was at Spahn Ranch. While the gang members were providing information that suggested a link between Manson and the Tate/LaBianca murders, a dormitory mate of Susan Atkins informed LAPD of the Family's involvement in the crimes. Atkins was booked for the Hinman murder after she told sheriff's detectives that she had been involved in it. Transferred to Sybil Brand Institute, a detention center in Monterey Park, California, she had begun talking to bunkmates Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham, to whom she gave accounts of the events in which she had been involved.


title: Manson Family

text: On December 1, 1969, acting on the information from these sources, LAPD announced warrants for the arrest of Watson, Krenwinkel, and Kasabian in the Tate case; the suspects' involvement in the LaBianca murders was noted. Manson and Atkins, already in custody, were not mentioned; the connection between the LaBianca case and Van Houten, who was also among those arrested near Death Valley, had not yet been recognized.


title: Manson Family

text: Watson and Krenwinkel were already under arrest, with authorities in McKinney, Texas and Mobile, Alabama having picked them up on notice from LAPD. Informed that a warrant was out for her arrest, Kasabian voluntarily surrendered to authorities in Concord, New Hampshire on December 2.


title: Manson Family

text: Before long, physical evidence such as Krenwinkel's and Watson's fingerprints, which had been collected by LAPD at Cielo Drive, was augmented by evidence recovered by the public. On September 1, 1969, the distinctive .22-caliber Hi Standard "Buntline Special" revolver Watson used on Parent, Sebring, and Frykowski had been found and given to the police by Steven Weiss, a 10-year-old who lived near the Tate residence. In mid-December, when the "Los Angeles Times" published a crime account based on information Susan Atkins had given her attorney, Weiss's father made several phone calls which finally prompted LAPD to locate the gun in its evidence file and connect it with the murders via ballistics tests.


title: Manson Family

text: Acting on that same newspaper account, a local ABC television crew quickly located and recovered the bloody clothing discarded by the Tate killers. The knives discarded en route from the Tate residence were never recovered, despite a search by some of the same crewmen and, months later, by LAPD. A knife found behind the cushion of a chair in the Tate living room was apparently that of Susan Atkins, who lost her knife in the course of the attack.


title: Manson Family

text: The trial began June 15, 1970. The prosecution's main witness was Kasabian, who, along with Manson, Atkins, and Krenwinkel, had been charged with seven counts of murder and one of conspiracy. Since Kasabian, by all accounts, had not participated in the killings, she was granted immunity in exchange for testimony that detailed the nights of the crimes. Originally, a deal had been made with Atkins in which the prosecution agreed not to seek the death penalty against her in exchange for her grand jury testimony on which the indictments were secured; once Atkins repudiated that testimony, the deal was withdrawn. Because Van Houten had participated only in the LaBianca killings, she was charged with two counts of murder and one of conspiracy.


title: Manson Family

text: Originally, Judge William Keene had reluctantly granted Manson permission to act as his own attorney. Because of Manson's conduct, including violations of a gag order and submission of "outlandish" and "nonsensical" pretrial motions, the permission was withdrawn before the trial's start. Manson filed an affidavit of prejudice against Keene, who was replaced by Judge Charles Older. On Friday, July 24, the first day of testimony, Manson appeared in court with an X carved into his forehead. He issued a statement that he was "considered inadequate and incompetent to speak or defend [him]self"—and had "X'd [him]self from [the establishment's] world." Over the following weekend, the female defendants duplicated the mark on their own foreheads, as did most Family members within another day or so. (Years later, Manson carved the X into a swastika. See "Remaining in view", below.)


title: Manson Family

text: The prosecution argued the triggering of "Helter Skelter" was Manson's main motive. The crime scene's bloody White Album reference, "helter skelter", written by Susan Atkins, and the writing of "pigs" was correlated with testimony about Manson predictions that the murders Black people would commit at the outset of Helter Skelter would involve the writing of "pigs" on walls in victims' blood. The defendants testified that the writing in blood on the walls was to copy that of the Hinman murder scene, not an apocalyptic race war.


title: Manson Family

text: According to Bugliosi, Manson directed Kasabian to hide a wallet taken from the scene in the women's restroom of a service station near a Black neighborhood. However, as co-prosecutor Stephen Kay later pointed out the wallet was actually left about 20 miles away in a predominantly White neighborhood, Sylmar.


title: Manson Family

text: During the trial, Family members loitered near the entrances and corridors of the courthouse. To keep them out of the courtroom proper, the prosecution subpoenaed them as prospective witnesses, who would not be able to enter while others were testifying. When the group established itself in vigil on the sidewalk, some members wore sheathed hunting knives that, although in plain view, were carried legally. Each of them was also identifiable by the X on their forehead.


title: Manson Family

text: Some Family members attempted to dissuade witnesses from testifying. Prosecution witnesses Paul Watkins and Juan Flynn were both threatened; Watkins was badly burned in a suspicious fire in his van. Former Family member Barbara Hoyt, who had overheard Susan Atkins describing the Tate murders to Family member Ruth Ann Moorehouse, agreed to accompany the latter to Hawaii. There, Moorehouse allegedly gave her a hamburger spiked with several doses of LSD. Found sprawled on a Honolulu curb in a drugged semi-stupor, Hoyt was taken to the hospital, where she did her best to identify herself as a witness in the Tate–LaBianca murder trial. Before the incident, Hoyt had been a reluctant witness; after the attempt to silence her, her reticence disappeared.


title: Manson Family

text: On August 4, despite precautions taken by the court, Manson flashed the jury a "Los Angeles Times" front page whose headline was "Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares". This was a reference to a statement made the previous day when U.S. President Richard Nixon had decried what he saw as the media's glamorization of Manson. Voir dired by Judge Charles Older, the jurors contended that the headline had not influenced them. The next day, the female defendants stood up and said in unison that, in light of Nixon's remark, there was no point in going on with the trial.


title: Manson Family

text: On October 5, Manson was denied the court's permission to question a prosecution witness whom defense attorneys had declined to cross-examine. Leaping over the defense table, Manson attempted to attack the judge. Wrestled to the ground by bailiffs, he was removed from the courtroom with the female defendants, who had subsequently risen and begun chanting in Latin. Thereafter, Older allegedly began wearing a revolver under his robes.


title: Manson Family

text: On November 16, the prosecution rested its case. Three days later, after arguing standard dismissal motions, the defense stunned the court by resting as well, without calling a single witness. Shouting their disapproval, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten demanded their right to testify.


title: Manson Family

text: In chambers, the women's lawyers told the judge their clients wanted to testify that they had planned and committed the crimes and that Manson had not been involved. By resting their case, the defense lawyers had tried to stop this; Van Houten's attorney, Ronald Hughes, vehemently stated that he would not "push a client out the window". In the prosecutor's view, it was Manson who was advising the women to testify in this way as a means of saving himself. Speaking about the trial in a 1987 documentary, Krenwinkel said, "The entire proceedings were scripted—by Charlie."


title: Manson Family

text: The next day, Manson testified. The jury was removed from the courtroom. According to Vincent Bugliosi it was to make sure Manson's address did not violate the California Supreme Court's decision in "People v. Aranda" by making statements implicating his co-defendants. However, Bugliosi argued Manson would use his hypnotic powers to unfairly influence the jury. Speaking for more than an hour, Manson said, among other things, that "the music is telling the youth to rise up against the establishment." He said, "Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music." "To be honest with you," Manson also stated, "I don't recall ever saying 'Get a knife and a change of clothes and go do what Tex says.


title: Manson Family

text: As the body of the trial concluded and with the closing arguments impending, defense attorney Hughes disappeared during a weekend trip. When Maxwell Keith was appointed to represent Van Houten in Hughes' absence, a delay of more than two weeks was required to permit Keith to familiarize himself with the voluminous trial transcripts. No sooner had the trial resumed, just before Christmas, than disruptions of the prosecution's closing argument by the defendants led Older to ban the four defendants from the courtroom for the remainder of the guilt phase. This may have occurred because the defendants were acting in collusion with each other and were simply putting on a performance, which Older said was becoming obvious.


title: Manson Family

text: On January 25, 1971, the jury returned guilty verdicts against the four defendants on each of the 27 separate counts against them. Not far into the trial's penalty phase, the jurors saw, at last, the defense that Manson—in the prosecution's view—had planned to present. Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten testified the murders had been conceived as "copycat" versions of the Hinman murder, for which Atkins now took credit. The killings, they said, were intended to draw suspicion away from Bobby Beausoleil by resembling the crime for which he had been jailed. This plan had supposedly been the work of, and carried out under the guidance of, not Manson, but someone allegedly in love with Beausoleil—Linda Kasabian. Among the narrative's weak points was the inability of Atkins to explain why, as she was maintaining, she had written "political piggy" at the Hinman house in the first place.


title: Manson Family

text: Midway through the penalty phase, Manson shaved his head and trimmed his beard to a fork; he told the press, "I am the Devil, and the Devil always has a bald head." In what the prosecution regarded as belated recognition on their part that imitation of Manson only proved his domination, the female defendants refrained from shaving their heads until the jurors retired to weigh the state's request for the death penalty.


title: Manson Family

text: The effort to exonerate Manson via the "copy cat" scenario failed. On March 29, 1971, the jury returned verdicts of death against all four defendants on all counts. On April 19, 1971, Judge Older sentenced the four to death.


title: Manson Family

text: On the day the verdicts recommending the death penalty were returned, news came that the badly decomposed body of Ronald Hughes had been found wedged between two boulders in Ventura County. It was rumored, although never proven, that Hughes was murdered by the Family, possibly because he had stood up to Manson and refused to allow Van Houten to take the stand and absolve Manson of the crimes. Though he might have perished in flooding, Family member Sandra Good stated that Hughes was "the first of the retaliation murders".


title: Manson Family

text: Watson returned to McKinney, Texas after the Tate–LaBianca murders. He was arrested in Texas on November 30, 1969, after local police were notified by California investigators that his fingerprints were found to match a print found on the front door of the Tate home. Watson fought extradition to California long enough that he was not included among the three defendants tried with Manson. The trial commenced in August 1971; by October, he, too, had been found guilty on seven counts of murder and one of conspiracy. Unlike the others, Watson presented a psychiatric defense; prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi made short work of Watson's insanity claims. Like his co-conspirators, Watson was sentenced to death.


title: Manson Family

text: In February 1972, the death sentences of all five parties were automatically reduced to life in prison by "People v. Anderson", 493 P.2d 880, 6 Cal. 3d 628 (Cal. 1972), in which the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in that state. After his return to prison, Manson's rhetoric and hippie speeches held little sway. Though he found temporary acceptance from the Aryan Brotherhood, his role was submissive to a sexually aggressive member of the group at San Quentin.


title: Manson Family

text: Before the conclusion of Manson's Tate–LaBianca trial, a reporter for the "Los Angeles Times" tracked down Manson's mother, remarried and living in the Pacific Northwest. The former Kathleen Maddox claimed that, in childhood, her son had suffered no neglect; he had even been "pampered by all the women who surrounded him".


title: Manson Family

text: On November 8, 1972, the body of 26-year-old Vietnam Marine combat veteran James L.T. Willett was found by a hiker near Guerneville, California. Months earlier, he had been forced to dig his own grave, and then was shot and poorly buried; his body was found with one hand protruding from the grave and the head and other hand missing, most likely because of scavenging animals. His station wagon was found outside a house in Stockton where several Manson followers were living, including Priscilla Cooper, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, and Nancy Pitman. Police forced their way into the house and arrested several of the people there, along with Fromme, who had called the house after they had arrived. The body of James Willett's 19-year-old wife Lauren "Reni" Chavelle Olmstead Willett was found buried in the basement. She had been killed very recently by a gunshot to the head, in what the Family members initially claimed was an accident. It was later suggested that she was killed out of fear that she would reveal who killed her husband, as the discovery of his body had become prominent news. The Willetts' infant daughter was found alive in the house. Michael Monfort pleaded guilty to murdering Reni Willett. Relatedly, Priscilla Cooper, James Craig, and Nancy Pitman pleaded guilty as accessories after the fact. Monfort and William Goucher later pleaded guilty to the murder of James Willett, and James Craig pleaded guilty as an accessory after the fact. The group had been living in the house with the Willetts while committing various robberies. Shortly after killing Willett, Monfort had used Willett's identification papers to pose as Willett after being arrested for an armed robbery of a liquor store. News reports suggested that James Willett was not involved in the robberies and wanted to move away but was killed out of fear that he would talk to police. After leaving the Marines following two tours in Vietnam, Willett had been an ESL teacher for immigrant children.


title: Manson Family

text: In a 1971 trial that took place after his Tate–LaBianca convictions, Manson was found guilty of the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald "Shorty" Shea. He was given a life sentence. Shea was a Spahn Ranch stuntman and horse wrangler who had been killed approximately ten days after an August 16, 1969 sheriff's raid on the ranch. Manson, who suspected that Shea helped set up the raid, had apparently believed Shea was trying to get Spahn to run the Family off the ranch. Manson may have considered it a "sin" that the white Shea had married a black woman. Furthermore, there was the possibility that Shea knew about the Tate–LaBianca killings. In separate trials, Family members Bruce Davis and Steve "Clem" Grogan were also found guilty of Shea's murder.


title: Manson Family

text: In 1977, authorities learned the precise location of the remains of Shorty Shea and, contrary to Family claims, also learned that Shea had not been dismembered and buried in several places. Contacting the prosecutor in his case, Steve Grogan told him Shea's corpse had been buried in one piece. Grogan drew a map that pinpointed the location of the body, which was recovered. Of those convicted of Manson-ordered murders, Grogan would become, in 1985, the first one to be paroled.


title: Manson Family

text: On September 5, 1975, the Family returned to national attention when Squeaky Fromme attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford. The attempt took place in Sacramento, to which she and fellow Manson follower Sandra Good had moved so that they could be near Manson while he was incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. A subsequent search of the apartment shared by Fromme, Good, and another Family recruit turned up evidence that, coupled with later actions on the part of Good, resulted in Good's conviction for conspiring to send threatening communications through the United States mail service and for transmitting death threats by way of interstate commerce. The threats involved corporate executives and U.S. government officials vis-à-vis supposed environmental dereliction on their part. Fromme was sentenced to 15 years to life, becoming the first person sentenced under United States Code Title 18, chapter 84 (1965), which made it a Federal crime to attempt to assassinate the President of the United States.


title: Manson Family

text: In December 1987, Fromme, serving a life sentence for the assassination attempt, escaped briefly from Federal Prison Camp, Alderson in West Virginia. She was trying to reach Manson because she heard that he had testicular cancer; she was apprehended within days. She was released on parole from Federal Medical Center, Carswell on August 14, 2009.


title: Manson Family

text: In a 1994 conversation with Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Catherine Share, a one-time Manson-follower, stated that her testimony in the penalty phase of Manson's trial had been a fabrication intended to save Manson from the gas chamber and that it had been given under Manson's explicit direction. Share's testimony had introduced the copycat-motive story, which the testimony of the three female defendants echoed and according to which the Tate–LaBianca murders had been Linda Kasabian's idea. In a 1997 segment of the tabloid television program "Hard Copy", Share implied that her testimony had been given under a Manson threat of physical harm. In August 1971, after Manson's trial and sentencing, Share had participated in a violent California retail store robbery, the object of which was the acquisition of weapons to help free Manson.


title: Manson Family

text: In January 1996, a Manson website was established by latter-day Manson follower George Stimson, who was helped by Sandra Good. Good had been released from prison in 1985, after serving 10 years of her 15-year sentence for the death threats.


title: Manson Family

text: In a 1998–1999 interview in "Seconds" magazine, Bobby Beausoleil rejected the view that Manson ordered him to kill Gary Hinman. He stated that Manson did come to Hinman's house and slash Hinman with a sword, which he had previously denied in a 1981 interview with "Oui" magazine. Beausoleil stated that when he read about the Tate murders in the newspaper, "I wasn't even sure at that point—really, I had no idea who had done it until Manson's group were actually arrested for it. It had only crossed my mind and I had a premonition, perhaps. There was some little tickle in my mind that the killings might be connected with them ..." In the "Oui" magazine interview, he had stated, "When the Tate-LaBianca murders happened, I knew who had done it. I was fairly certain."


title: Manson Family

text: William Garretson, once the young caretaker at 10050 Cielo Drive, indicated in a program ("The Last Days of Sharon Tate") broadcast on July 25, 1999 on "E!", that he had, in fact, seen and heard a portion of the Tate murders from his location in the property's guest house. This corroborated the unofficial results of the polygraph examination that had been given to Garretson on August 10, 1969, and that had effectively eliminated him as a suspect. The LAPD officer who conducted the examination had concluded Garretson was "clean" on participation in the crimes but "muddy" as to his having heard anything.


title: Manson Family

text: It was announced in early 2008 that Susan Atkins was suffering from brain cancer. An application for compassionate release, based on her health status, was denied in July 2008, and she was denied parole for the 18th and final time on September 2, 2009. Atkins died of natural causes 22 days later, on September 24, 2009, at the Central California Women's facility in Chowchilla.


title: Manson Family

text: In a January 2008 segment of the Discovery Channel's "Most Evil", Barbara Hoyt said that the impression that she had accompanied Ruth Ann Moorehouse to Hawaii just to avoid testifying at Manson's trial was erroneous. Hoyt said she had cooperated with the Family because she was "trying to keep them from killing my family". She stated that, at the time of the trial, she was "constantly being threatened: 'Your family's gonna die. [The murders] could be repeated at your house.


title: Manson Family

text: On March 15, 2008, the Associated Press reported that forensic investigators had conducted a search for human remains at Barker Ranch the previous month. Following up on longstanding rumors that the Family had killed hitchhikers and runaways who had come into its orbit during its time at Barker, the investigators identified "two likely clandestine grave sites ... and one additional site that merits further investigation." Though they recommended digging, CNN reported on March 28 that the Inyo County sheriff, who questioned the methods they employed with search dogs, had ordered additional tests before any excavation. On May 9, after a delay caused by damage to test equipment, the sheriff announced that test results had been inconclusive and that "exploratory excavation" would begin on May 20. In the meantime, Charles "Tex" Watson had commented publicly that "no one was killed" at the desert camp during the month and a half he was there, after the Tate–LaBianca murders. On May 21, after two days of work, the sheriff brought the search to an end; four potential gravesites had been dug up and had been found to hold no human remains.


title: Manson Family

text: In September 2009, The History Channel broadcast a docudrama covering the Family's activities and the murders as part of its coverage on the 40th anniversary of the killings. The program included an in-depth interview with Linda Kasabian, who spoke publicly for the first time since a 1989 appearance on "A Current Affair", an American television news magazine. Also included in the History Channel program were interviews with Vincent Bugliosi, Catherine Share, and Debra Tate, sister of Sharon.


title: Manson Family

text: As the 40th anniversary of the Tate–LaBianca murders approached, in July 2009, "Los Angeles" magazine published an "oral history" in which former Family members, law enforcement officers, and others involved with Manson, the arrests, and the trials offered their recollections of — and observations on — the events that made Manson notorious. In the article, Juan Flynn, a Spahn Ranch worker who had become associated with Manson and the Family, said, "Charles Manson got away with everything. People will say, 'He's in jail.' But Charlie is exactly where he wants to be."


title: Manson Family

text: Charles Manson died of a heart attack and complications from colon cancer on November 19, 2017. He was 83 years old.


title: Spain national football team

text: The Spain national football team () has represented Spain in international men's football competitions since 1920. It is governed by the Royal Spanish Football Federation, the governing body for football in Spain.


title: Spain national football team

text: Spain is one of eight national teams to have been crowned world champions, having participated in a total of 16 of 22 FIFA World Cups and qualifying consistently since 1978. Spain also won three continental titles, having appeared at 11 of 16 UEFA European Championships. Spain currently competes in League A of the UEFA Nations League alongside the other top teams of Europe. Their best result was in the 2020–21 season where they reached the final, losing to France.


title: Spain national football team

text: Spain is the only national team to win three consecutive major titles, including two back-to-back European Championships in 2008 and 2012, while becoming the first European team to win a FIFA World Cup held outside of Europe in 2010. From 2008 to 2013, Spain won the FIFA Team of the Year, the second-most of any nation, behind only Brazil. From the start of 2007 to the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, Spain achieved 35 consecutive undefeated matches, a feat which they shared with Brazil, and a sport record at the time. Their achievements have led many experts and commentators to consider the 2008–2012 Spain squads one of the best ever sides in the history of world football.


title: Spain national football team

text: Spain has been a member of FIFA since FIFA's founding in 1904, even though the Spanish Football Federation was first established in 1909. The first Spain national football team was constituted in 1920, with the main objective of finding a team that would represent Spain at the 1920 Summer Olympics held in Belgium in that same year. Spain made their debut at the tournament on 28 August 1920 against Denmark, silver medalists at the last two Olympic tournaments. Spain managed to win that match by a scoreline of 1–0, eventually finishing with the silver medal. Spain qualified for their first FIFA World Cup in 1934, defeating Brazil in their first game and losing in a replay to the hosts and eventual champions Italy in the quarter-finals. The Spanish Civil War and World War II prevented Spain from playing any competitive matches between the 1934 World Cup and the 1950 edition's qualifiers. At the 1950 finals in Brazil, they topped their group to progress to the finals round, then finished in fourth place. Until 2010, this had been Spain's highest finish in a FIFA World Cup finals, which had given them the name of the "underachievers".


title: Spain national football team

text: Spain won its first major international title when hosting the 1964 European Nations' Cup held in Spain, defeating the Soviet Union 2–1 in the finals at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. The victory would stand as Spain's lone major title for 44 years. Spain was selected as host of the 1982 FIFA World Cup, reaching the second round and four years later they reached the quarter-finals before a penalty shootout defeat to Belgium. Also at UEFA Euro 1984 they lost the final against France. Spain reached the quarter-finals of the 1994 World Cup. The match became controversial when Italian defender Mauro Tassotti struck Luis Enrique with his elbow inside Spain's penalty area, causing Luis Enrique to bleed profusely from his nose and mouth, but the foul was not noticed nor sanctioned by referee Sándor Puhl. Had the official acknowledged the foul, Spain would have merited a penalty kick. In the 2002 World Cup, Spain won its three group play matches, then defeated the Republic of Ireland on penalties in the second round. They faced co-hosts South Korea in the quarter-finals, losing in a shootout after having two goals controversially called back for alleged infractions during regular and extra time.


title: Spain national football team

text: At UEFA Euro 2008, Spain won all their games in Group D. Italy were the opponents in the quarter-finals match, which Spain won 4–2 on penalties. They then met Russia again in the semi-finals, beating them 3–0. In the final, Spain defeated Germany 1–0, with Fernando Torres scoring the only goal of the game. This was Spain's first major title since the 1964 European Championship. Xavi was awarded the player of the tournament. The following year the side finished third at the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup breaking their 35-match unbeaten streak that began in November 2006 after a loss to the United States. In the 2010 World Cup, Spain advanced to the final for the first time ever by defeating Germany 1–0. In the decisive match against the Netherlands, Andrés Iniesta scored the match's only goal, coming in extra time. Spain became the third team to win a World Cup outside their own continent, and the first European team to do so. Goalkeeper Iker Casillas won the golden glove for only conceding two goals during the tournament, while David Villa won the bronze ball and silver boot, tied for top scorer of the tournament. Spain qualified top of Group I in qualification for UEFA Euro 2012 with a perfect 100% record. They became the first team to retain the European Championship, winning the final 4–0 against Italy, while Fernando Torres won the Golden Boot for top scorer of the tournament.


title: Spain national football team

text: Spain advanced to the final of the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, losing to hosts Brazil, and the following year they were eliminated from the group stage of the 2014 World Cup. At Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup, the side reached the last 16. In the UEFA Euro 2020, held in 2021 after COVID-19 pandemic caused delays, Spain made a breakthrough, reaching the last four of a major tournament for the first time since 2012, before losing to eventual champions Italy on penalties. The team finished the tournament with two wins and four draws (including two penalty shootouts). The same year they managed to reach the 2021 UEFA Nations League Final, losing against France. In the 2022 World Cup, Spain finished second in their group, then in the round of 16, they lost to Morocco 3–0 on penalties after a 0–0 draw, to be the third consecutive elimination from a major tournament in penalty shootouts.


title: Spain national football team

text: Spain's team is commonly known by fans as ""La Furia Roja"", meaning "the Red Fury" in Spanish. recalling the "Sack of Antwerp" - an episode in the military history of Spain. However, there are another unofficial nicknames to refer to the national team of Spain.


title: Spain national football team

text: The other most common nickname, known by fans, is ""Los Toros"" ("Fighting Bulls"), since Spanish Fighting Bull is one of Spain's famous national treasures and often used to define Spanish culture, and also often depicted by Spanish supporters alike. The Spain football team is sometimes referred as the Bulls due to this cultural heritage.


title: Spain national football team

text: The Spanish team also received other nicknames, mostly ""Toreros"" or ""Matador"" ("Bullfighters" in Spanish), to describe its passionate and romantic style of football playing.


title: Spain national football team

text: Between 2008 and 2012, the team played a style of football dubbed 'tiki-taka', a systems approach to football founded upon the ideal of team unity and a comprehensive understanding in the geometry of space on a football field.


title: Spain national football team

text: Tiki-taka has been variously described as "a style of play based on making your way to the back of the net through short passing and movement", a "short passing style in which the ball is worked carefully through various channels", and a "nonsensical phrase that has come to mean short passing, patience and possession above all else". The style involves roaming movement and positional interchange amongst midfielders, moving the ball in intricate patterns, and sharp, one or two-touch passing. Tiki-taka is "both defensive and offensive in equal measure" – the team is always in possession, so doesn't need to switch between defending and attacking. Commentators have contrasted tiki-taka with "Route One physicality" and with the higher-tempo passing of Barcelona and Arsène Wenger's 2007–08 Arsenal side, which employed Cesc Fàbregas as the only channel between defence and attack. Tiki-taka is associated with flair, creativity, and touch, but can also be taken to a "slow, directionless extreme" that sacrifices effectiveness for aesthetics.


title: Spain national football team

text: Tiki-taka was successfully employed by Spain to win Euro 2008, the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012. The 2008–12 teams are regarded as being among the greatest of international teams in football history.


title: Spain national football team

text: Sid Lowe identifies Luis Aragonés' tempering of tiki-taka with pragmatism as a key factor in Spain's success in Euro 2008. Aragonés used tiki-taka to "protect a defense that appeared suspect [...], maintain possession and dominate games" without taking the style to "evangelical extremes". None of Spain's first six goals in the tournament came from tiki-taka: five came from direct breaks and one from a set play. For Lowe, Spain's success in the 2010 World Cup was evidence of the meeting of two traditions in Spanish football: the "powerful, aggressive, direct" style that earned the silver medal-winning 1920 Antwerp Olympic team the nickname "La Furia Roja" ("The Red Fury") and the tiki-taka style of the contemporary Spain's team, which focused on a collective, short-passing, technical and possession-based game.


title: Spain national football team

text: Analyzing Spain's semi-final victory over Germany at the 2010 World Cup, Honigstein described Spain's tiki-taka style as "the most difficult version of football possible: an uncompromising passing game, coupled with intense, high pressing". For Honigstein, tiki-taka is "a significant upgrade" of the Netherlands' Total Football because it relies on ball movement rather than players switching position. Tiki-taka allowed Spain to "control both the ball and the opponent".


title: Spain national football team

text: Spain's kit is traditionally a red jersey with yellow trim, dark blue shorts and black socks, whilst their current away kit is all predominantly white. The colour of the socks altered throughout the 1990s from black to the same blue colour as the shorts, matching either the blue of the shorts or the red of the shirt until the mid-2010s when they returned to their traditional black. Spain's kits have been produced by manufacturers including Adidas (from 1981 until 1983), Le Coq Sportif (from 1983 until 1991) and Adidas once again (since 1991). Rather than displaying the logo of the Spanish football federation, Spain's jersey traditionally features the country's coat of arms over the left side. After winning the 2010 World Cup, the World Cup winners badge was added to the right side of the jersey and a golden star at the top of Spain's coat of arms.


title: Spain national football team

text: Spain does not have a designated national stadium. The capital city of Madrid (Bernabéu and Metropolitano), Seville (Pizjuán, La Cartuja and Villamarín), Valencia (Mestalla and Orriols) and Barcelona (Camp Nou and Montjuïc), are the four Spanish cities that have hosted more than 15 national team matches, while also being home to the largest stadiums in the country.


title: Spain national football team

text: Other friendly matches, as well as qualifying fixtures against smaller opponents, are played in provincial stadia. The 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign included matches at the Reino de León in León, Los Cármenes in Granada, El Molinón in Gijón, and the Rico Pérez in Alicante.


title: Spain national football team

text: Spain's UEFA European Qualifiers and UEFA Nations League matches, and all friendly games from 2018 until 2022, will be televised nationwide by La 1, flagship television channel of the public broadcaster TVE.


title: Spain national football team

text: The following matches were played or are scheduled to be played by the national team in the current or upcoming seasons.


title: Spain national football team

text: Sergio Ramos holds the record for most appearances for the Spain's team with 180 since his debut in 2005. In second place is Iker Casillas with 167, followed by Sergio Busquets with 142.


title: Spain national football team

text: David Villa holds the title of Spain's highest goalscorer, scoring 59 goals from 2005 to 2017, during which time he played for Spain on 98 occasions. Raúl González is the second highest goalscorer, scoring 44 goals in 102 appearances between 1996 and 2006.


title: Spain national football team

text: Between November 2006 and June 2009, Spain went undefeated for a record-equaling 35 consecutive matches before their loss to the United States in the Confederations Cup, a record shared with Brazil and Italy, and included a record 15-game winning streak. In the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Spain became the inaugural European national team to lift the World Cup trophy outside Europe; along with Brazil, Germany and Argentina, Spain is one of the four national team to have won the FIFA World Cup outside its home continent.


title: Caribbean

text: The Caribbean (, ) (; ; ; ) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean) and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America.


title: Caribbean

text: Situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region has more than 700 islands, islets, reefs and cays (see the list of Caribbean islands). Island arcs delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea: The Greater Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago on the north and the Lesser Antilles and the on the south and east (which includes the Leeward Antilles). They form the West Indies with the nearby Lucayan Archipelago (the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands), which are considered to be part of the Caribbean despite not bordering the Caribbean Sea. On the mainland, Belize, Cozumel, the Yucatán Peninsula, Margarita Island, and the Guianas (Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Guayana Region, and Amapá in Brazil) are often included due to their political and cultural ties with the region.


title: Caribbean

text: Geopolitically, the islands of the Caribbean (the West Indies) are often regarded as a region of North America, though sometimes they are included in Central America or left as a region of their own and are organized into 30 territories including sovereign states, overseas departments, and dependencies. From December 15, 1954, to October 10, 2010, there was a country known as the Netherlands Antilles composed of five states, all of which were Dutch dependencies. From January 3, 1958, to May 31, 1962, there was also a short-lived political union called the West Indies Federation composed of ten English-speaking Caribbean territories, all of which were then British dependencies. The West Indies cricket team continues to represent many of those nations.


title: Caribbean

text: The region takes its name from that of the Caribs, an ethnic group present in the Lesser Antilles and parts of adjacent South America at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Americas.


title: Caribbean

text: The two most prevalent pronunciations of "Caribbean" outside the Caribbean are (), with the primary stress on the third syllable, and (), with the stress on the second. Most authorities of the last century preferred the stress on the third syllable. This is the older of the two pronunciations, but the stressed-second-syllable variant has been established for over 75 years. It has been suggested that speakers of British English prefer () while North American speakers more typically use (), but major American dictionaries and other sources list the stress on the third syllable as more common in American English too. According to the American version of Oxford Online Dictionaries, the stress on the second syllable is becoming more common in UK English and is increasingly considered "by some" to be more up to date and more "correct".


title: Caribbean

text: The Oxford Online Dictionaries claim that the stress on the second syllable is the most common pronunciation in the Caribbean itself, but according to the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, the most common pronunciation in Caribbean English stresses the first syllable instead, ().


title: Caribbean

text: The word "Caribbean" has multiple uses. Its principal ones are geographical and political. The Caribbean can also be expanded to include territories with strong cultural and historical connections to Africa, slavery, European colonisation and the plantation system.


title: Caribbean

text: The oldest evidence of humans in the Caribbean is in southern Trinidad at Banwari Trace, where remains have been found from seven thousand years ago. These pre-ceramic sites, which belong to the Archaic (pre-ceramic) age, have been termed Ortoiroid. The earliest archaeological evidence of human settlement in Hispaniola dates to about 3600 BC, but the reliability of these finds is questioned. Consistent dates of 3100 BC appear in Cuba. The earliest dates in the Lesser Antilles are from 2000 BC in Antigua. A lack of pre-ceramic sites in the Windward Islands and differences in technology suggest that these Archaic settlers may have Central American origins. Whether an Ortoiroid colonization of the islands took place is uncertain, but there is little evidence of one.


title: Caribbean

text: DNA studies changed some of the traditional beliefs about pre-Columbian indigenous history. According to National Geographic, "studies confirm that a wave of pottery-making farmers—known as Ceramic Age people—set out in canoes from the northeastern coast of South America starting some 2,500 years ago and island-hopped across the Caribbean. They were not, however, the first colonizers. On many islands they encountered a foraging people who arrived some 6,000 or 7,000 years ago...The ceramicists, who are related to today's Arawak-speaking peoples, supplanted the earlier foraging inhabitants—presumably through disease or violence—as they settled new islands."


title: Caribbean

text: Between 400 BC and 200 BC the first ceramic-using agriculturalists, the Saladoid culture, entered Trinidad from South America. They expanded up the Orinoco River to Trinidad, and then spread rapidly up the islands of the Caribbean. Some time after 250 AD another group, the Barancoid, entered Trinidad. The Barancoid society collapsed along the Orinoco around 650 AD and another group, the Arauquinoid, expanded into these areas and up the Caribbean chain. Around 1300 AD a new group, the Mayoid, entered Trinidad and remained the dominant culture until Spanish settlement.


title: Caribbean

text: At the time of the European discovery of most of the islands of the Caribbean, three major Amerindian indigenous peoples lived on the islands: the Taíno in the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas and the Leeward Islands, the Island Caribs and Galibi in the Windward Islands, and the Ciboney in western Cuba. The Taínos are subdivided into Classic Taínos, who occupied Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, Western Taínos, who occupied Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahamian archipelago, and the Eastern Taínos, who occupied the Leeward Islands. Trinidad was inhabited by both Carib speaking and Arawak-speaking groups.


title: Caribbean

text: Soon after Christopher Columbus came to the Caribbean, both Portuguese and Spanish explorers began claiming territories in Central and South America. These early colonies brought gold to Europe; most specifically England, the Netherlands, and France. These nations hoped to establish profitable colonies in the Caribbean. Colonial rivalries made the Caribbean a cockpit for European wars for centuries.


title: Caribbean

text: Columbus, and the early colonists of Hispaniola, treated the indigenous peoples brutally, even enslaving children. In 1512, after pressure from Dominican friars, the Laws of Burgos were introduced by the Spanish Crown to better protect the rights of the New World natives. The Spanish used a form of slavery called the "Encomienda", where slaves would be awarded to the conquistadors, who were charged with protecting and converting their slaves. This had a devastating impact on the population, so starting in 1503, slaves from Africa were imported to the colony.


title: Caribbean

text: While early slave traders were Portuguese and Spanish, known as the First Atlantic System, by the 17th century the trade became dominated by British, French, and Dutch merchants. This was known as the Second Atlantic System. 5 million African slaves would be taken to the Caribbean, and around half would be traded to the British Caribbean islands. Slavery was abolished first in the Dutch Empire in 1814. Spain abolished slavery in its empire in 1811, with the exceptions of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo. Slavery was not abolished in Cuba until 1886. Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, and slavery proper in 1833. France abolished slavery in its colonies in 1848.


title: Caribbean

text: The Caribbean was known for pirates, especially between 1640 and 1680. The term "buccaneer" is often used to describe a pirate operating in this region. The Caribbean region was war-torn throughout much of its colonial history, but the wars were often based in Europe, with only minor battles fought in the Caribbean. Some wars, however, were born of political turmoil in the Caribbean itself.


title: Caribbean

text: In 1791, a slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue led to the establishment in 1804 of Haiti, the first republic in the Caribbean. Cuba became independent in 1898 following American intervention in the War of Independence during the Spanish-American war. Following the war, Spain's last colony in the Americas, Puerto Rico, became an unincorporated territory of the United States.


title: Caribbean

text: Between the 1960s and 80s, most of the British holdings in the Caribbean achieved independence, starting with Jamaica in 1962, then Trinidad and Tobago (1962), Barbados (1966), Bahamas (1973), Grenada (1974), Dominica (1978), St. Lucia (1979), St. Vincent (1979), Antigua and Barbuda (1981), St. Kitts and Nevis (1983). Presently, the United States, Britain, France and the Netherlands still have some Caribbean possessions.


title: Caribbean

text: The decline of the export industries meant a need to diversify the economies of the Caribbean territories. The tourism industry started developing in the early 20th century, rapidly developing in the 1960s when regular international flights made vacations affordable and is now a $50 billion industry. Another industry that developed in the early 20th century was offshore banking and financial services, particularly in The Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, as the proximity of the Caribbean islands to the United States made them an attractive location for branches of foreign banks seeking to avoid taxes.


title: Caribbean

text: Since the Monroe Doctrine, the United States gained a major influence on most Caribbean nations. In the early part of the 20th century this influence was extended by participation in the Banana Wars. Victory in the Spanish–American War and the signing of the Platt Amendment in 1901 ensured that the United States would have the right to interfere in Cuban political and economic affairs, militarily if necessary. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, relations deteriorated rapidly leading to the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and successive US attempts to destabilize the island, based upon Cold War fears of the Soviet threat. The US invaded and occupied Hispaniola for 19 years (1915–34), subsequently dominating the Haitian economy through aid and loan repayments. The US invaded Haiti again in 1994 and in 2004 were accused by CARICOM of arranging a coup d'état to remove elected Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In 1965, 23,000 US troops were sent to the Dominican Republic to quash a local uprising against military rule (see Dominican Civil War). President Lyndon Johnson had ordered the invasion to stem what he deemed to be a "Communist threat." However, the mission appeared ambiguous and was roundly condemned throughout the hemisphere as a return to gunboat diplomacy. In 1983, the US invaded Grenada to remove populist left-wing leader Maurice Bishop. The US maintains a naval military base in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay. The base is one of five unified commands whose "area of responsibility" is Latin America and the Caribbean. The command is headquartered in Miami, Florida.


title: Caribbean

text: The geography and climate in the Caribbean region varies: Some islands in the region have relatively flat terrain of non-volcanic origin. These islands include Aruba (possessing only minor volcanic features), Curaçao, Barbados, Bonaire, the Cayman Islands, Saint Croix, the Bahamas, and Antigua. Others possess rugged towering mountain-ranges like the islands of Saint Martin, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Dominica, Montserrat, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Saint Kitts, Saint Lucia, Saint Thomas, Saint John, Tortola, Grenada, Saint Vincent, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Trinidad and Tobago.


title: Caribbean

text: Definitions of the terms Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles often vary. The Virgin Islands as part of the Puerto Rican bank are sometimes included with the Greater Antilles. The term Lesser Antilles is often used to define an island arc that includes Grenada but excludes Trinidad and Tobago and the Leeward Antilles.


title: Caribbean

text: The waters of the Caribbean Sea host large, migratory schools of fish, turtles, and coral reef formations. The Puerto Rico Trench, located on the fringe of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea just to the north of the island of Puerto Rico, is the deepest point in all of the Atlantic Ocean.


title: Caribbean

text: The region sits in the line of several major shipping routes with the Panama Canal connecting the western Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean.


title: Caribbean

text: The climate of the area is tropical, varying from tropical rainforest in some areas to tropical monsoon and tropical savanna in others. There are also some locations that are arid climates with considerable drought in some years, and the peaks of mountains tend to have cooler temperate climates.


title: Caribbean

text: Rainfall varies with elevation, size and water currents, such as the cool upwellings that keep the ABC islands arid. Warm, moist trade winds blow consistently from the east, creating both rain forest and semi arid climates across the region. The tropical rainforest climates include lowland areas near the Caribbean Sea from Costa Rica north to Belize, as well as the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, while the more seasonal dry tropical savanna climates are found in Cuba, northern Colombia and Venezuela, and southern Yucatán, Mexico. Arid climates are found along the extreme northern coast of Venezuela out to the islands including Aruba and Curacao, as well as the northwestern tip of Yucatán.


title: Caribbean

text: While the region generally is sunny much of the year, the wet season from May through November sees more frequent cloud cover (both broken and overcast), while the dry season from December through April is more often clear to mostly sunny. Seasonal rainfall is divided into 'dry' and 'wet' seasons, with the latter six months of the year being wetter than the first half. The air temperature is hot much of the year, varying from 25 to 33 C (77 F to 90 F) between the wet and dry seasons. Seasonally, monthly mean temperatures vary from only about 5 C (7 F) in the northern most regions, to less than 3 C in the southernmost areas of the Caribbean.


title: Caribbean

text: Hurricane season is from June to November, but they occur more frequently in August and September and more common in the northern islands of the Caribbean. Hurricanes that sometimes batter the region usually strike northwards of Grenada and to the west of Barbados. The principal hurricane belt arcs to northwest of the island of Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean. A great example being recent events of Hurricane Irma devastating the island of Saint Martin during the 2017 hurricane season.


title: Caribbean

text: Sea surface temperatures change little annually, normally running from 30 °C (87 °F) in the warmest months to 26 °C (76 °F) in the coolest months. The air temperature is warm year round, in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and only varies from winter to summer about 2–5 degrees on the southern islands and about a 10–20 degrees difference on the northern islands of the Caribbean. The northern islands, like the Bahamas, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, may be influenced by continental masses during winter months, such as cold fronts.


title: Caribbean

text: All islands at some point were, and a few still are, colonies of European nations; a few are overseas or dependent territories:


title: Caribbean

text: The British West Indies were united by the United Kingdom into a West Indies Federation between 1958 and 1962. The independent countries formerly part of the B.W.I. still have a joint cricket team that competes in Test matches, One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals. The West Indian cricket team includes the South American nation of Guyana, the only former British colony on the mainland of that continent.


title: Caribbean

text: In addition, these countries share the University of the West Indies as a regional entity. The university consists of three main campuses in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, a smaller campus in the Bahamas and Resident Tutors in other contributing territories such as Trinidad.


title: Caribbean

text: The Caribbean islands have one of the most diverse eco systems in the world. The animals, fungi and plants, and have been classified as one of Conservation International's biodiversity hotspots because of their exceptionally diverse terrestrial and marine ecosystems, ranging from montane cloud forests, to tropical rainforest, to cactus scrublands. The region also contains about 8% (by surface area) of the world's coral reefs along with extensive seagrass meadows, both of which are frequently found in the shallow marine waters bordering the island and continental coasts of the region.


title: Caribbean

text: For the fungi, there is a modern checklist based on nearly 90,000 records derived from specimens in reference collections, published accounts and field observations. That checklist includes more than 11,250 species of fungi recorded from the region. As its authors note, the work is far from exhaustive, and it is likely that the true total number of fungal species already known from the Caribbean is higher. The true total number of fungal species occurring in the Caribbean, including species not yet recorded, is likely far higher given the generally accepted estimate that only about 7% of all fungi worldwide have been discovered. Though the amount of available information is still small, a first effort has been made to estimate the number of fungal species endemic to some Caribbean islands. For Cuba, 2200 species of fungi have been tentatively identified as possible endemics of the island; for Puerto Rico, the number is 789 species; for the Dominican Republic, the number is 699 species; for Trinidad and Tobago, the number is 407 species.


title: Caribbean

text: Many of the ecosystems of the Caribbean islands have been devastated by deforestation, pollution, and human encroachment. The arrival of the first humans is correlated with extinction of giant owls and dwarf ground sloths. The hotspot contains dozens of highly threatened animals (ranging from birds, to mammals and reptiles), fungi and plants. Examples of threatened animals include the Puerto Rican amazon, two species of solenodon (giant shrews) in Cuba and the Hispaniola island, and the Cuban crocodile.


title: Caribbean

text: The region's coral reefs, which contain about 70 species of hard corals and from 500 to 700 species of reef-associated fishes have undergone rapid decline in ecosystem integrity in recent years, and are considered particularly vulnerable to global warming and ocean acidification. According to a UNEP report, the Caribbean coral reefs might get extinct in next 20 years due to population explosion along the coast lines, overfishing, the pollution of coastal areas and global warming.


title: Caribbean

text: Some Caribbean islands have terrain that Europeans found suitable for cultivation for agriculture. Tobacco was an important early crop during the colonial era, but was eventually overtaken by sugarcane production as the region's staple crop. Sugar was produced from sugarcane for export to Europe. Cuba and Barbados were historically the largest producers of sugar. The tropical plantation system thus came to dominate Caribbean settlement. Other islands were found to have terrain unsuited for agriculture, for example Dominica, which remains heavily forested. The islands in the southern Lesser Antilles, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, are extremely arid, making them unsuitable for agriculture. However, they have salt pans that were exploited by the Dutch. Sea water was pumped into shallow ponds, producing coarse salt when the water evaporated.


title: Caribbean

text: The natural environmental diversity of the Caribbean islands has led to recent growth in eco-tourism. This type of tourism is growing on islands lacking sandy beaches and dense human populations.


title: Caribbean

text: At the time of European contact, the dominant ethnic groups in the Caribbean included the Taíno of the Greater Antilles and northern Lesser Antilles, the Island Caribs of the southern Lesser Antilles, and smaller distinct groups such as the Guanajatabey of western Cuba and the Ciguayo of eastern Hispaniola. The population of the Caribbean is estimated to have been around 750,000 immediately before European contact, although lower and higher figures are given. After contact, social disruption and epidemic diseases such as smallpox and measles (to which they had no natural immunity) led to a decline in the Amerindian population. such as the Kongo, Igbo, Akan, Fon and Yoruba as well as military prisoners from Ireland, who were deported during the Cromwellian reign in England. Immigrants from Britain, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark also arrived, although the mortality rate was high for both groups.


title: Caribbean

text: The population is estimated to have reached 2.2 million by 1800. Immigrants from India, China, Indonesia, and other countries arrived in the mid-19th century as indentured servants. After the ending of the Atlantic slave trade, the population increased naturally. The total regional population was estimated at 37.5 million by 2000.