Not long ago during a bout of manic obsession, I was looking for new stones to unturn and was going through the LAPD's "list of known associates" to the so-called Family, commonly referred to as "Deemer's List". One of the many obscure name on that list is Andrew C. Dapprich. The first version I looked at later turned out to be incomplete and had only “Texas/Hollywood” next to his name. Texas and Hollywood, huh? Interesting. Yet another Texan living in Los Angeles who associated with the group. What I found when looking into him made my eye pop out of my head and it proves that Charles “Tex” Watson’s professionally written life story as laid out in his book, "Will You Die For Me? omits a whole lot and isn't his full story at all.
The first thing I discovered, was that Dapprich was busted in January of 1968 attempting to claim trucks that contained 800 pounds of Peyote from Texas to California via Los Angeles International Airport valued at $60,000. That's $472, 657.77 in today's money. At that time, it was considered the largest Peyote bust in California history. Also busted with him, was a Phillip Oschin. I don’t know much about him other than that he was busted for drugs in 1966 as well, but it’s worth mention that at the time of the '68 bust, he was living at 3811 Beverly Ridge Drive. Roughly a ten minute drive from 10050 Cielo Drive and Jay Sebring’s home at 9810 Easton Drive and not far from where the killers discarded evidence was found.
The second jaw dropper was that Dapprich was from Denton, Texas and like Charles “Tex” Watson, attended the University of North Texas.
Rather interesting that the Peyote was smuggled via an airline. In his book, Tex mentions that his college roommate, who helped him get his job at Braniff Airlines, was a junior transfer and that he, Watson, “got in with a group older than I was”. Dapprich, was two years older than Watson. WAS Andrew Carl Dapprich that roommate and was Watson indeed dealing before he moved to California as strongly believed by many?
The last final discovery was his full address on the actual document of the list of associates. It was on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood. Basically, in the exact spot as the apartment Watson shared with Rosina Kroner and where Charles Manson would non-fatally wound Bernard Crowe over Watson's botched drug burn. It proves that people who had illicit dealings going on all lived in close proximity to each other. Dapprich and Watson looked to have lived about the same distance from each other that Tex and Joel Rostau once lived in. Also think Horn Avenue. As proven with the case of Kroner, Wilson, the Spahn Ranch gang and his drug dealing buddy from his Wig days, Watson liked to be in very close proximity with the people he dealt with. If he wasn't living with them, he was living near them.
So in summary Andrew Carl Dapprich is yet another Texan who moved to Hollywood and dealt drugs….and was CLEARLY a friend and associate of Watson. YET nowhere in Watson’s book is he mentioned.
UPDATE:
Shortly after I published this article, fellow researcher Dan Hale sent me this clipping he found where Dapprich is called "Drew".Being honored as "most handsome boy at Denton High School". Funny, because I think Watson was "Most" of a few good things too, but he fell in with a hippie cult leader, right?
and one time record holder for the biggest peyote bust in Los Angeles history and perhaps the real influencer of Charles "Tex" Watson.
UPDATE 5/24/2022
Fellow researcher Gary Stewart actually remembered Watson mentioning a Drew. He wasn't sure, but searched and sure enough, he found it. It was during his trial.
In 1971, Harold True and his wife were both busted for a multitude of drug offenses, including possession of heroin among other things. His admitted use of speed might explain yet another thing he and Linda Kasabian had in common and why she like to party at his pad.
Aside from the mention of his 1968 bust when he got caught transporting Marijuana in Charles "Tex" Watson's pick-up truck, another very interesting thing here is the mention of police finding nude photos of True (OK, calm down now ladies)and other "Manson Family", members. I would what became of those?
As seen above, buried in an article in the December 5, 1969 edition of the LA Times, the address, 2365 Glendale Blvd., was revealed by "Jay Scott", who is actually the brother of David Lynn Neale, Watson's friend from college and then future roommate/Marijuana dealing business partner. Jay, who used Scott as a stage name, also lived with at some point. Watson gives him the name "Willis" in his book and "Ben Brooks" as his stage name.
Nelson and another researcher, the late Judy Hanson who claimed he stole most of his research from, also believed that Watson might have lived at 2024 Dracena Drive, also in the Silverlake district of Los Angeles. This apartment, was 200' feet from the apartment of Rosemary LaBianca's daughter Suzan Struthers/Suzan LaBerge at 4616 Greenwood Place. As most people who have followed this Ouroboros that is this case, the born again Christian LaBerge, championed for Watson's parole. ONLY Watson's parole.
The problem is, Nelson and Hanson's evidence for this was flimsy. Apparently this address was found on a truck that was supposedly found in Watson's pad at 8584 Wonderland Avenue that he lived at in 1968. That's right, Watson was wheelin' and dealin' dope on Wonderland long before the four on the floor.
It has never been proven that Watson ever lived at the Dracena address. In fact, throughout my research of the case, it simply doesn't fit anywhere in his timeline. Watson never lived at that address and this falsehood was believed by many, myself included for a time. BUT.....
His 1967 apartment on Glendale Blvd. was just a few doors down from a condo Leno LaBianca owned at 2279 Glendale Blvd.
"What the heck is life?" he demanded. "Doing what mommy and daddy say to do? People talk about drop-outs. Well, I'm a drop-out and I'll tell my kids to drop-out, because schools are big nothings." - Dennis Wilson
Sound like somebody?
and last but not least, this gem:
"There you go again, talking about material things" said Dennis. I'm rich, sure, but I sleep under the trees in the hills. The best food I ever tasted, some flat-broke kids made for me out of garbage cans! And, honest, it was delicious."
In his book, "Will You Die for Me?", Charles "Tex" Watson writes of a drug dealer who supplied Marijuana to the so-called "Family", as well as him and his girlfriend/drug dealing partner Rosina Kroner, during the short period of living and dealing together in Hollywood. As Watson put it, this dealer, "fronted the dope with a vending-machine
company and people said he was with the Mafia". Fast forward many years later to when a determined researcher into the many mysteries of the Tate-LaBianca murders obtains the FBI file of one Joel J. Rostau. For those who don't know, Rostau was a shadowy crime figure and then boyfriend of Charlene McCaffrey, a receptionist at the Los Angeles hair salon of Jay Sebring. As stated in the Second Tate Homicide Investigation Progress Report, McCaffrey told detectives that:
"that he had delivered cocaine and mescaline to the house but that Frykowski and Sebring wanted some additional narcotics and that he had gone back down the hill but was unable to locate the other narcotics they requested and therefore he did not return to the Tate residence."
Less than one year later, Rostau was found dead in the truck of a car at Kennedy International Airport in New York City.
In his FBI file, the name of an associate/crime partner named Eugene Massaro turns up multiple times. Massaro's own FBI file revealed something major in regards to the Tate-LaBianca murders and what Watson wrote in his book. In it, it is reveled that he was employed by and later named Vice President of a company called Chicago based firm called Disc-O-Mat at 7809 Sunset Blvd. in the heart of Hollywood. Disc-O-Mat was a vending machine company and believed to be a front for something criminal.Massaro had his hands in a little bit of everything illegal, including narcotics.This created a clear cut link between Charles "Tex" Watson and the victims of the Cielo Drive murders via the criminal underworld of the illicit drug trade.
Since then, not much has been known about Disc-O-Mat....until now.
Disc-O-Mat National Inc.
appears to have started in Chicago in 1967 as Disk-A-Mat Distributors, Inc.
Salvatore Michael Caruana of New England was President of the company and
distributor in the New England area. The company began with the introduction of
the Disk-A-Mat vender. A 10-selection machine with a 200-record capacity. It
was developed by Jack Moore and Newport Sales Company. The head of Newport
Sales Company was David Gorwitz. Newport, as in Newport, Rhode Island.
Photo from October 12th issue of Cashbox magazine
By 1969, the company rebranded as Disc-O-Mat National, Inc. in Los Angeles when Gorwitz’s teamed up with Don Orsatti, who was named president of the company. There isn’t much out there about Don Orsatti. The earliest mention I could find of him was in a 1962 Billboard magazine article about a firm he acted as president of called TeleRecord, that had “disk-by-wire plan”, whatever that was. The new Disco-O-Mat machine, developed by Gorwitz’s Newport Manufacturing Inc. company (previously Newport Sales Co.) had a 240 record capacity. Eugene Massaro was named as Vice President of Operations and Michael Caruana (Salvatore Michael Caruana) as representative in the New England market.
According to the 2021 book, The Language of Vinyl: Record Industry Terms and Phrases of the Golden Era, Disc-O-Mat:
“Attempted to sell the top hits
in unlikely places. In early 1969, the Dot, Capitol and Columbia labels
expressed interest in the new Disc-O-Mat vending machine, developed by Entrepreneurs
Don Orsattis and David T. Gorwitz of Los Angeles. They sought to sell the top
100 hits as the discs were being promoted to record distributors, rack-jobbers,
and radio stations. Plans called for the 100,000 machines to be placed in
supermarkets, teen retail stores, schools, fast-food restaurants, and
recreation sites. to help boost interest, the Disc-O-Mat owners planned to give
away copies of Go magazine at each machine. Unfortunately, after a promising
start, the Disc-O-Mat just didn’t go."
(Note: GO Magazine in one news piece was named as an "affiliate" of Disc-O-Mat. GO Magazine was created in 1967 by Robin Leach. Yes, THAT Robin Leach)
By now, a lot of people would think that Disco-O-Mat was a pretty legit and upstanding opperation. Maybe Massaro was just conducting illegal business unbeknownst to the company? Think again.
According to the 1989 book Inside
Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans by Stephen Pizzo, David Gorwitz was:
“A fellow with a long criminal
record and established mafia ties”, who in 1975, “had made San Francisco headlines when he was caught up in the high profile prosecution of California
senator Richard Dolwig. Dolwig had lent his name and influence to an
advance-fee loan scam run by Gorwitz and David Kaplan, another minor hood”.
In court, Gorwitz was described
as “a muscleman for the mob” and financial advisor to Salvatore M. Caruana
(described by federal officials as a highly placed organized crime figure with
links to the Patriarca family). Gorwitz was convicted and sentenced to four
years.
When out he headed back to
Massachusetts. His old crime partner Caruana invested $80,0000 in Bay State
Gold Exchange in Plymouth, Massachusetts. His “trusted aide” Dave Gorwitz was
to keep an eye on his investment and owner of the business. Authorities belived
the business was a vehicle to launder money from his drug operations. Needless to say, this was probally a repeat of what Disc-O-Mat was.
In The FBI file for Massaro, it is mentioned:
"that he had recently gone into the vending machine business and was obtaining his
machines from Boston, Massachusetts. These machines, according
to source, were similar to a Juke box and played the top 40
songs. MASSARO was developing routes in various locations
where teenagers congregated .adjacent to schools. Source
stated that he believed these machines were coming from
representatives of RAYMOND PATRIARCA, New England La Cosa
Nostra boss."
That "representative" was the "New England Representative" of Disc-O-Mat, Salvatore Michael Caruana (aka "Mike Carvana")
1979 article, describing Caruana as an organized crime figure who "answers directly" to Raymond Patriarca
Interestingly enough, the
HQ for the Patriarca Crime Family was called Coin-O-Matic in Providence, Rhode Island.
A tobacco vending business that operated as a money-laundering front for human
trafficking, gambling, prostitution and so on. Here is a rather interesting article, appropriately called "Vending machines and organized crime" https://rhodetour.org/items/show/151
It's pretty damn clear by now, that Disc-O-Mat was an operation of the New England Crime Family, namely the Patriarca Crime Family or at least one with being conducted with blessings of Raymond Patriarca. In the above article it mentions Caruana not having to share in the profits, since it had the blessings of Patriarca. Both Massaro and Rostau were from New England.
In the late 80s Caruana was
busted for his smuggling of Marijuana ( millions and millions of dollars worth). He and David
T. Gorwitz. who was (surprise) helping him hide his money from the IRS, were indicted.
Bail was set at $500,000 which was paid and Caruana was released. A Prime Minister of the Bahamas was involved as well, also accused of helping to hide Caruana's profits Before
his trial, he vanished and is still missing. He was the subject of an episode
of Unsolved Mysteries.
Another link, not that we need one at this point is Jerry Zullo. Zullo, is named as an associate of Massaro in Massaro's FBI File:
"Information received from local authorities reflects that JERRY ZULLO, 09 Mt. Murenci, East Boston, Massachusetts, FBI No. 447743B, date of birth 12/2/31, is believed to be an associate of MASSARO. ZULLO allegedly operates a North Boston group involved in bookmaking. ZULLO's name and address were found on MASSARO on an occasion of his local arrest."
Jerry Zullo, was in fact an associate and crime partner of Salvatore Michael Caruana and was involved in his late 1970's/1980's Marijuana operation:
Another article that mentions not only Jerry Zullo and Salvatore Michael Caruana, but also Raymond Patriarca. The article is about the murder of Zullo's brother, who was also involved in Caruana's Marijuana operation.
So there you have. Disco-Mat
was run by New England Mobsters Salvatore Michael Caruana and David T. Gorwitz
and yes, was 100% a front for a drug operation.
Drug dealer Charles "Tex" Watson, Eugene Massaro, Joel Rostau and Hollywood "Candy man" Jay Sebring were always in a close vicinity. I sure would like to know where Gorwitz was living.
See even more on the Manson Mythos Map with over 100 locations bookmarked
Newspaper article from 1966 showing a rare picture of Eugene Massaro
Article about Disc-O-Mat by Linda Deutsch! Deutsch covered the Tate-LaBianca trial extensively and still appears on television specials about the case. Could it be a mere coincidence?
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