Boston’s Hippies, the South End, and a Tate-LaBianca Murder Connection

By the late 1960s, the hippie movement was in full swing across the United States and had spread to many parts of the world. Like other major cities, Boston had its own “colorful, eccentric” hippie population. According to a Boston Globe article written in 1967, the average hippie “smokes marijuana regularly, hates the Establishment, and hopes for an anarchistic ideal world where all will love and understand.” Hippies, made up of students, runaways, “speed freaks, drug dealers, musicians, artists…and assorted drop outs,” made up Boston’s “Visible Underground.” They strove for “self-understanding…rejection of conformity, [and] adoption of the unselfish life.” Some used drugs like marijuana and LSD to achieve personal revelations,” searching for people to talk to with honesty.”[1]

Many of you have probably heard of Mel Lyman’s Fort Hill hippie community. But these “hippie colonies” also existed in the South End, Beacon Hill and Cambridge.  Many flocked to Boston without money or possessions, relying on hippie friends or hippie strangers for food and shelter. Some were runaways, desperate to leave home in search of self and identity. 

Drug abuse, mental illness, and venereal disease impacted many. A few charitable organizations, like the South End’s Project Place, then at 31½ Dwight Street, catered to hippie transients. Project Place helped hippies find shelter and medical assistance and helped many runaways reconnect with their families.    

By the early 1970s, the number of hippies and runaways in Boston had decreased.  The message of love and peace had been overtaken by one of desperation and drugs. In 1971, Margie White, a 20 year old runaway who had been on the streets for three years, said:

“When I ran away the kids were into love and peace…now it’s a much more desperate thing…most of the kids are doing junk, just looking for a total escape…nobody trusts anybody anymore.”[2]

In 1965, a 16 year old girl named Linda Drouin ran away from her New Hampshire home. She dropped out of high school and married, divorcing a few months later.  After staying in a hippie pad in New Hampshire, she moved to one in Boston. In 1967, she was arrested in a narcotics raid and her mother Joyce drove from New Hampshire to Boston to bring Linda home. Joyce later reflected that she went with her daughter to her South End hippie pad to collect her things. Later, she said that she had “seen…the South End hippie pad and the way of life of the flower people.”[3] 

While hundreds, if not thousands, of young female hippies stayed in Boston’s South End, Linda set herself apart from the rest, leaving an indelible mark on the public’s perception of hippie culture. She married Bob Kasabian, a hippie she met in Boston, and moved with him to California. After they separated, she joined a commune led by Charles Manson. On the night of August 8, 1969, two years after her time in Boston, she drove with members of the Manson Family to a house on Cielo Drive and kept watch outside the home as the others murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her friends. The following evening, Manson Family members murdered the LaBiancas in their home.

In December 1969, a warrant was issued for the arrest of those involved and Linda surrendered to authorities. Since Linda did not participate in the murders, she was granted immunity in return for testifying against the Family. After the trial she returned home to New Hampshire to raise her two children.

Don’t know who Linda Kasabian is? Read Helter Skelter. I stumbled across her South End connection while researching some Thanksgiving history. Her story embodies much of what many hippies sought: loneliness, search for self, peace, love, and understanding. Her quest led her down a much darker path than most. 

[1] “Hate for Conformity Unites Love Generation,” Boston Globe, December 10, 1967. 

[2] “Street People Dwindling,” Boston Globe, October 24, 1971. 

[3] “A Lot of What Happened to Linda Is My Fault,” Boston Globe, August 23, 1970.