Penny Daniels' recollections, I remember it was a beautiful morning, not too hot but very, very sunny. My photographer Dale and I took some kind of a shuttle boat to get to San Quentin, which is on a peninsula near San Rafael, California. It was great being on the water, knowing I was about to go into a twilight zone of sorts. When we arrived, we had to go through a lot of security to get inside. San Quentin is quite an imposing structure, very historic, huge, and daunting. Built in the 1850’s, it is the oldest prison in California. Manson was only at San Quentin for a brief time. He was transferred out to another California prison later that year (1989.) I feel fortunate that I was able to interview him there because the boat ride, the history, the massive imposing structure all contributed to the mystique of that day for me. Once inside they put us in a small room with a large table and two chairs. I sat down at the table to wait. Two guards were stationed in there with us – both in front of the table, in the left and the right corners of the room. There was also a PR guy there, he stood in the left hand corner in back of me, and Dale was in back with the camera on the right. After awhile, Manson was brought in – in shackles – hands and feet, sunglasses on. They took off the handcuffs and leg cuffs immediately and he stood there at the door looking at me, saying "where is the French guy? Are you the French guy?" Very abrupt. I was scared but I said "do I look like a guy to you?" You can see that part of the tape, it's all over the Internet. I was young (early 30's) and good looking in those days if I do say so. It wasn't like I was naïve – I had been reporting for years by that time, and seen a lot, but I still looked young and too pretty to be taken seriously. So I had to act tough, which I did. After I said that Manson proceeded to tell us that he had been promised a tape of the interview by some French reporter – he wanted to send the tape to his "old lady" (who turned out to be Squeaky Fromme). I honestly cannot remember if we promised to do that or said we didn't know or said no…..in any case he decided to do the interview and sat down. Then the fun began. I know you have access to the complete interview so I won't bore you with the details, but there were several things that went through my mind: He was a mass of highly focused, wiry energy. I felt that he could jump across the table and strangle me if he wanted to and no one could stop him – not one of the 4 men in the room could match his strength – despite the fact that he was short and skinny – tiny, almost – he appeared to weigh about 100 pounds So small was he that I felt technically I could actually "take" him – I was pretty strong – but he seemed strong way out of proportion to his size. He was either very, very smart or very very crazy or very very wily or a great actor, or most likely, all of the above. He was hypnotic. You sort of went into a trance listening to him. I could see why impressionable young people would follow him. He was at times malevolent, at times sort of normal acting, other times laughing maniacally, other times serious and sincere. He was full of drama and performance – jumping up to dance, shouting and screaming unexpectedly (clearly designed to startle me). I did however believe that it was mostly an act that he had performed before. Afterwards we came out into the sun and it was 11AM – we'd been in there for 2 and a half hours. I was completely dazed. VISIT TLB RADIO https://www.youtube.com/c/tlbradio/videos LIVE PROGRAM EVERY SUNDAY NIGHT AT 7 P.M. C.S.T. WITH HOST BRIAN DAVIS. PLEASE LIKE, COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE! WELCOME! NEVER FORGET THE VICTIMS, GARY HINMAN STEVEN PARENT JAY SEBRING ABIGAIL FOLGER VOYTEK FRYKOWSKI SHARON TATE LENO LABIANCA ROSEMARY LABIANCA DONALD "SHORTY" SHEA

• published: 21 Oct 2021
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