The Tate-LaBianca Homicide Research Blog

PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION

FOR CHARLES DENTON WATSON

Neurological and E.E.G. evaluation by R.D. Walter, M.D. dated April 14, 1971.

Doctor Walters found dilated pupils that reacted sluggishly to light, marked slowing in the performance of rapid motor tasks, slurred speech, difficulty in recent memory, and impaired ability to supply similarities in the abstract fashion... all signs of organic brain disease.

Watson reached total identity confusion, in that he and the group were "one", from Manson’s lectures and the drugs. He was an insecure and dependent individual with a great need to please and be accepted. He was not psychotic before California, but was after the drugs eluted ego strength and self-identity rendering him less in-touch with reality, less assertive and functional. 

He had become a puppet, dependent upon, and frightened of Manson. After his arrest he became catatonic-like. He currently shows residuals of his psychotic and robot-like state in that he is in limbo between ideologies with Manson and his preexisting ones. Wide spread central nervous system damage probably due to heavy drug use.

Watson is described as the ideal son raised by a domineering mother with an inadequate sense of self-identity – passive, dependent and identified somewhat to a passive, submissive father. He lead a life of letting others decide his role and behavior. In Manson he found a powerful father figure who kept him in a drug induced psychosis – a suggestible state of intoxication where he was desensitized to the act of murder by disassociating feelings from actions.

During the murders, he was in such a drug-induced psychotic state, he mechanically and without feeling for others, believed them to be imaginary people. Realization of his acts did not come until after he stopped taking drugs and returned to his parents home in Texas. This realization lead to a profound depression, mutism, and regression on return to LA County Jail. After being drug free for over a year he still showed evidence of  impaired intellectual functioning, poor coordination and psychotic thinking on tests and examinations. He improved considerably at Atascadero Hospital and should continue to improve with medical care. Watson has a large amount of suppressed hostility and anger and is considered to be a “walking time bomb”. He can be a dangerous individual under certain circumstances and his violence potential is above average.