Watson to Marry Friday at CMC
Tuesday, September 4th, 1979
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Sept. 4 – Charles “Tex” Watson, convicted of murdering actress Sharon Tate and six others during the brutal Manson family Tate-LaBianca slayings in Los Angeles, will be married Friday at the California Men’s Colony.
Watson, 33, who was described during the highly publicized Manson trials as a high ranking member of Charles Manson’s clan, plans to marry Kristin Joan Svege, 20.
It is the first marriage for both.
Svege, who moved to San Luis Obispo last year from New Jersey, said prison chaplain Stanley McGuire will perform the ceremony.
She acknowledged that the wedding is to occur Friday, but would not discuss any other details of the marriage.
“We decided we don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “We both decided it’s best.”
Svege listed her occupation on the marriage license as an employee of Casa de Vida, a home for the handicapped, but a receptionist there said she recently left her job.
Watson is eligible for parole, but the Community Release Board turned him down last year because of the “unusually vicious” nature of the 1969 murders. He listed his occupation on the marriage license as minister in the prison chapel.
He is an associate pastor at the chapel and has been preaching there weekly since December 1976. He also teaches a prison Bible class.
Svege describes herself as a born-again Christian.
Friends say she corresponded with Watson before she moved to San Luis Obispo at his request. Several said they had tried to talk her out of marrying Watson.
Watson will get another parole hearing in October before a panel of the Community Release Board. His bid for minimum security status was rejected earlier this year; he is classified as a medium security prisoner.
Eligible medium security prisoners are allowed to have two-day conjugal visits when one of the prison’s nine visitation trailers is available, according to acting Associate Superintendent Charles “Bud” Moye.
He said prisoners have to wait their turn for a trailer so each prisoner can arrange a visit only every “few” months. That applies even for prisoners who are newly married.
Moye said inmate weddings are normally conducted in the visiting room because the chapel is too small. He said only 10 wedding guests are allowed.
There will be no party after the wedding because “we’re just not equipped to have any party,” Moye said.
A former CMC inmate, who served time in the same quad as Watson, said the former Manson lieutenant keeps to himself.
He said Watson conducts Christian discussion groups in the prison yard in the evenings and “knows the Bible like a lawyer knows a law book.”
The former inmate said Watson appears sincere about his religious beliefs, but many prisoners think he holds them to impress the parole board.
The former inmate said Watson is not willing to discuss his crimes, other than to say he was so “messed up” on drugs at the time of the slayings and did not know what he was doing.
He said Watson’s Christian friends call him “Charles,” but other inmates call him “Tex.”
Watson was an honor student and a star athlete in high school.
The parents of both the bride and groom will attend the wedding, according to friends.
By ALISON HARVEY
How wonderful for Tex! While his seven plus slaughtered victims lay in their graves. What a sick travesty! And what a joke about not knowing what he was doing because he was high on drugs. He was high on Charlie and he knew exactly what he was doing! A liar and a conman to the end. And I would agree that he was conveniently “born again” in order to impress the parole board.
Can’t say I think too much of that dingbat broad who married him either! Hard to conceive of considering the bloody atrocities committed by his hand and the wake of utter devastation his crimes created. Literally hundreds of lives either destroyed or unalterably changed forever. And he gets to experience holy matrimony and effing his brains out in some disgusting trailer on the prison grounds? Adds a new dimension to the term “trailer trash” for sure!
And what of his offspring? The four children he produced in these vile circumstances? What a repugnant legacy to be saddled with. How did they answer the question “what does your daddy do”? Undoubtedly they know the truth about the monster who sired them. I wonder if they’ve put in the research? Looked at the photos of his victim’s remains? Luckily they weren’t in utero the night Sharon was butchered, when his bayonet mercilessly ended her life and that of her unborn son.
God bless Doris Tate in her dogged resolve to keep this murderer behind bars. She also understood the inequalities in a penal system that rewards savagery. He should never have been allowed to enjoy the joys of fatherhood when he so brutally deprived her daughter of that right.
Charles ‘Tex’ Watson will never see the light of day outside prison; you can be sure of that.
My problem is in accepting the official narrative of what happened and why?
Tom O’Neill debunked Helter Skelter but even he is complicit in hiding the truth..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkkQzeqMq9E
Wrong on every level..he is beyond rehabilitation or redemption! I don’t care what his “religion” says. The arrogance of him feeling he’s entitled to normalicies of life i.e. marriage and children is infuriating.