Culture
24 Oct 23

Metallica’s Robert Trujillo recounts Manson family shootout he experienced as a child

Robert Trujillo (Photo Credit: Oddbjørn Steffensen)

The bassist recalls hiding in his grandmother's shower around the corner from a Manson Family Shootout in 1971.

Metallica bass player, Robert Trujillo, grew up in the Los Angeles area in California. On August 21, 1971, when he was just 6 years old the bassist found himself in his grandmother's house in Hawthorne — just around the corner from a surplus store that was held up by the Manson Family.

In a recent interview on The Offspring’s Time to Relax podcast, the bassist recalled hiding in his grandma’s shower as 30 police officers engaged in a shootout with four of Charles Manson’s followers.

“I am in Hawthorne, California,” explained Trujillo. “I’m staying at my grandma’s house… The gun shop, the army surplus shop around the corner on Hawthorne Boulevard, was robbed. And basically, the Manson family had this grand scheme. You can check it out on the internet. They were gonna rob the gun store and get their ammo and everything, and they were gonna go to LAX (Los Angeles International Airport), and the plan was to hijack a 747 and demand that Charlie gets sent to them, and they’re gonna take this plane to God knows where.”

He continued, “Obviously, the plan didn’t work. Cops show up. There’s a shootout. We’re hearing gunshots, the whole deal. All of a sudden you get the ghetto birds [police helicopters], and they’re flying around. They’re talking through their kind of intercom, whatever they got going up there: ‘Everybody, take cover’ … And so my dad turns off all the lights. We’re hiding in the shower. And it was really eerie.”

The Manson family followers — Mary Brunner, Catherine (Gypsy) Share, Lawrence Bailey, and Kenneth Como — were found guilty of robbing the Western Surplus Store at 134th St. and Hawthorne Blvd.

Charles Manson himself faced trial in 1970, along with three of his followers, he was originally sentenced to death for his involvement in multiple murders. His sentence was altered to life in prison in 1972 after California abolished the death penalty. Manson eventually died in prison of natural causes in 2017 at the age of 83.