Warhol's Prophecy

10030 CIELO DRIVE, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

There was blood everywhere.

Deep red pools of it. Bright splashes. Droplets here and there.

The room, the house, was filled with that vile, coppery odour.

The whole place smelled of death.

And she knew she was next.

These people, whoever or whatever they were, had come into her house with the express purpose of murdering them: herself and her guests.

They had entered the house with ease.

Four women, one man.

And within they had found two men and two women.

The three others were dead now.

She alone remained alive. But only until they decided otherwise.

The intruders had brought pain and death with them.

Knives . . . guns . . . ropes.

Death.

She was eight-and-a-half-months pregnant. She didn’t want to die. All she wanted to do was have her baby: her perfect, unborn child. She pleaded with them to let her live. Pleaded with the women in particular. Trying to appeal to some semblance of maternal feeling that might be hidden beneath their blood-drenched clothes and drug-blanked expressions.

But there would be no reprieve.

They had come with a purpose decreed by their leader, and that purpose was about to reach its conclusion.

‘You’re going to die . . .’

One of the woman had told her that already.

‘Look, bitch! I don’t care if you’re going to have a baby. You’d better be ready.’

Sweet Jesus, why did death have to come at all? But not this way.

NOT THIS WAY!

If there was a God, she prayed for him to intervene.

Prayed for him to save her and her unborn baby.

Her perfect child. Her legacy. Her love . . .

One of them held her arms tightly behind her back.

Another of the women held her legs.

She tried to struggle free as she saw the man approaching with the knife.

She screamed.

For herself.

For her child.

He struck, and the blade sheared through her left breast.

Please God, help me. Please . . .

He stabbed again.

And again.

And again.

She was beginning to lose consciousness.

Stabbing . . . sixteen times.

Death.

8 August 1969

Look down on me, you will see a fool. Look up at me, you will see your Lord. Look straight at me, you will see yourself.

Charles Manson

You’re coming home, there’s blood on the walls. When Charlie and the Family make house calls . . .

Ozzy Osbourne