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penalty – if she would become a witness for the prosecution and tell all before a grand jury and she agreed. Suddenly, however, the strange grip that Manson held over people reinstated itself and she gave up this opportunity. By now, Linda Kasabian, pregnant with her second child, had voluntarily handed herself over to the authorities in New Hampshire and had been extradited back to California. They offered her immunity in exchange for turning state’s evidence. Although it was reported that she would have helped even without a deal, ‘to get it out of my head’, she had said, she agreed, under instruction from her attorney.
    Her deal did not happen, however, without a great deal of controversy. On one side, it was argued that she had not prevented the murders and had not gone to the police until she really had no other option. On the other side, she had not actually entered the houses where the killings had occurred, it was argued, and had not physically taken part. It helped that she had been shocked by what happened and had seemed reluctant to be a part of it all. ‘I’m not you, Charlie, I can’t kill anyone,’ she had reportedly screamed at Manson. She was also the only member of the Family to express remorse and suffered a serious emotional breakdown when they took her back to 10050 Cielo Drive to retrace the events of that night.
    On 25 January 1971, Manson, Krenwinkel and Atkins were found guilty of all seven charges of murder and Leslie Van Houten was found guilty of two counts of murder. Watson was found guilty on all seven counts at a separate trial later in the year. They were all sentenced to death, but their sentences were commuted to life after the US Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972.
    But, at least they had been stopped before their mayhem was able to spread further. Susan Atkins told her cellmates that other celebrities on their list included Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen and Tom Jones.
    Linda Kasabian returned to New Hampshire with her husband and two children, escaping the glare of the media that now followed her around. She lived in a commune and worked as a cook. She testified at ‘Tex’ Watson’s trial, as well as at the two re-trials of Leslie Van Houten in 1977. She divorced Robert Kasabian and married for a third time.
    Her life, however, has continued to be troubled. She committed numerous traffic violations and was then partially disabled in a car crash. She was charged after interfering with firefighters trying to extinguish a bonfire. Then, following former Manson Family member, Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme’s attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford in 1975, she experienced constant monitoring harassment by the Secret Service. She moved to the state of Washington and, there, got into further trouble for possessing drugs.

Shi Pei-Pu
     
     
     
     
    It would be almost impossible to make up a story such as the one involving Bertrand Boursicot and the Chinese opera singer, Shi Pei-Pu. It is a story of both tragedy and farce, spy story and love story. Above all, it is utterly unbelieveable!
    Bertrand Boursicot travelled to China in 1964, to work in the French Embassy in Beijing as a clerk. But that was irrelevant to the good-looking and well-built young Frenchman. To him China was a land of secrecy and intrigue and he was looking for adventure. He was also looking for love and, perhaps, if he could find it, sex. He had never been with a woman, never even been in love. At boarding school, there had been the usual schoolboy sex, but he had resolved to stop sleeping with boys when he turned eighteen.
    It was not easy, however, and he was unable to even find a girl who would go on a date with him. He did not have a great deal to offer – much as he liked to put on the airs and graces of a diplomat, there was no escaping the fact that he was merely a clerk with a not very good education, who had been hired on a