Editing Charles Manson (section)

=== Shea murder ===
35-year-old [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] [[stuntman]] '''[[Donald Shea|Donald Jerome "Shorty" Shea]]''' was murdered on August 26, 1969,<ref name=GroganBio>{{cite web|title=Steve Grogan biography|url=http://www.biography.com/people/steve-grogan-20902805|website=www.biography.com|publisher=Bio.|access-date=November 22, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151123043736/http://www.biography.com/people/steve-grogan-20902805|archive-date=November 23, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> more than two weeks after the [[Tate–LaBianca murders]], when Manson told Shea, Bruce Davis, [[Tex Watson]], and Steve Grogan to go on a ride to a nearby car parts yard on the Spahn Ranch. According to Davis, he sat in the back seat with Grogan, who then hit Shea with a pipe wrench and Watson stabbed him. They brought Shea down a hill behind the ranch and stabbed and brutally tortured him to death. Bruce Davis recalled at his parole hearings:

{{cquote|I was in the car when Steve Grogan hit Shorty with the pipe wrench. Charles Watson stabbed him. I was in the backseat with... with Grogan. They took Shorty out. They had to go down the hill to a place. I stayed in the car for quite a while but what... then I went down the hill later on and that's when I cut Shorty on the shoulder with the knife, after he was... well, I don't know... I... I don't know if he was dead or not. He didn't bleed when I cut him on the shoulder.

When I showed up, you know, he was... he was incapacitated. I don't know if... you asked if he was unconscious, I don't know. He may or may not have been. He didn't seem conscious. He wasn't moving or saying anything. And it started off Manson handed me a machete as if I was supposed to... I mean I know what he wanted. But you know I couldn't do that. And I... in fact, I did touch Shorty Shea with a machete on the back of his neck, didn't break the skin. I mean I just couldn't do it. And then I threw the knife... and he handed me a bayonet and it... I just reached over and... I don't know which side it was on but I cut him right about here on the shoulder just with the tip of the blade. Sort of like saying "Are you satisfied, Charlie?"

And I turned around and walked away. And I... I was sick for about two or three days. I mean I couldn't even think about what I... what I had done.<ref>{{cite web|title=SUBSEQUENT PAROLE CONSIDERATION HEARING STATE OF CALIFORNIA BOARD OF PAROLE HEARINGS In the matter of the Life Term Parole Consideration Hearing of: CHARLES WATSON CDC Number: B-37999|url=http://www.cielodrive.com/charles-tex-watson-parole-hearing-2011.php|access-date=22 November 2013}}</ref>}}

In December 1977, Shea's skeletal remains were discovered on a nondescript hillside near Santa Susana Road next to [[Spahn Ranch]] after Grogan, one of those convicted of the murder, agreed to aid authorities in the recovery of Shea's body by drawing a map to its location.<ref name=MailTribune>{{cite web|url=https://mailtribune.com/news/top-stories/family-secrets-book-sheds-light-on-murder-by-manson/|work=[[Mail Tribune]]|title=Family secrets: Book sheds light on murder by Manson|first=Vickie|last=Aldous|date=June 9, 2019|access-date=July 2, 2023|archive-date=August 1, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220801150425/https://www.mailtribune.com/news/top-stories/family-secrets-book-sheds-light-on-murder-by-manson/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.wpxi.com/news/deep-viral/manson-family-murders-two-nights-of-brutality-that-terrorized-1969-los-angeles/974205161 |title=Manson family murders: Two nights of brutality that terrorized 1969 Los Angeles |first=Crystal |last=Bonvillian |date=August 12, 2019 |access-date=August 20, 2019 |work=[[WPXI]] |publisher=[[Cox Media Group]]}}</ref> According to the autopsy report, his body suffered multiple stab and chopping wounds to the chest, and blunt force trauma to the head.<ref name=SheaAutopsy>Shea, Donald Jerome. Autopsy report case no. 77-15110, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner, County of Los Angeles (December 16, 1977).</ref>