Audrey

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Ruth Ann Moorehouse was born on January 6, 1952, in Los Angeles, California, the fourth and youngest child to former Protestant minister Dean Allen Moorehouse and Audrey Lucille Sirpless. She had three siblings: sister Kathleen, brother Dean Thomas, and sister Sharon. The family is of English, Scottish, Irish, Scotch-Irish, German, and French descent. Moorehouse attended Westmont High School in Campbell, California, and Leggett Valley High School in Leggett, California, where she was a part of the student council. Her parents divorced in August 1967 after her mother, Audrey, had grown uncomfortable with her husband Dean's friendship with Charles Manson, and went to live with her sister. In 1967, Ruth's father Dean Moorehouse befriended Charles Manson after he had picked Manson up as a hitchhiker. Manson took interest in Ruth Ann, who was 14 years old at the time, and took her on a trip up the coast in his Volkswagen Microbus. This resulted in Dean and Audrey reporting Ruth Ann as a runaway, and the pair were apprehended by Sheriff's deputies on July 28, 1967. On May 20, 1968, Ruth Ann Moorehouse married twenty-three-year-old bus driver Edward Lewis Heuvelhorst in Santa Clara County, California in an effort to become emancipated from her father, which Manson had advised her to do. According to Moorehouse, the marriage only lasted one day, and she moved to the Los Angeles area where Manson and his followers had relocated months earlier.

In Their Own Story

While living at Spahn Ranch, Moorehouse was responsible for taking care of the children, dumpster diving, and panhandling. She acquired her nickname 'Ouisch' from George Spahn. In April 1969, George Spahn agreed to act as Moorehouse's foster parent after she was arrested and placed in juvenile hall. A week after the Tate–LaBianca murders, Moorehouse was arrested with the family in the August 16, 1969, Spahn Ranch raid as 'suspects in a major auto theft ring' that had been stealing Volkswagen Beetles and converting them into dune buggies. Weapons were seized, but, because the search warrant had the wrong date on it, the group was released a few days later. Months later at the Myers Ranch in Death Valley, Susan Atkins told Moorehouse about the murders of coffee heiress Abigail Folger and pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Moorehouse allegedly responded with laughter and told Atkins she couldn't wait to get her first 'pig'. Moorehouse later told Barbara Hoyt that she knew of ten more murders other than Tate. Moorehouse was again arrested with the family in the October 10, 1969 Barker Ranch raid. During the Tate-LaBianca murder trial, she became a regular fixture outside of the Los Angeles courthouse and carved an 'X' into her forehead alongside other family members. On September 9, 1970, in Hawaii, Moorehouse gave Barbara Hoyt a hamburger laced with ten tabs of acid. Hoyt made herself throw up and was taken to a hospital. On December 18, 1970, Moorehouse, Rice, Grogan, Fromme, and Catherine Share were charged with attempted murder of Hoyt. On February 26, 1971, a heavily pregnant Moorehouse appeared on the witness stand during the Tate-LaBianca murder trial. On March 23, 1971, Moorehouse, Share, Fromme, Grogan, and Rice were allowed to plead no contest to the lesser charge of conspiracy to dissuade a witness, and the murder counts were dropped. The following month, Share, Fromme, Grogan, and Rice were sentenced to 90 days in jail; Moorehouse did not appear at the sentencing hearing, and fled the state to go live with her sister in Carson City, Nevada. On April 10, 1971, Moorehouse gave birth to a daughter named LaDieh Fawn, and returned to her mother's home in Minnesota.

Reader's Guide

After the Manson Family, on October 6, 1972, she married construction worker Harold Irving Fowler in Reno, and the following year their daughter was born. In 1975, the FBI located Moorehouse living in Sacramento, where she had been residing since August 1974. They informed Sacramento authorities, who arrested her in October of that year on the 4-year-old warrant for attempting to murder Hoyt. Her bond was set at $1,000, and she was released later that day after a family member posted the bond. A week later, Moorehouse appeared in court with her lawyer Fitzgerald, who said, 'The family' — the source cuts off there, but the following month the county judge ruled that she would not receive a prison sentence as he was satisfied that she had disassociated herself from the Manson Family.

Did You Know?

• Ruth Ann Moorehouse was born in Los Angeles, California, not Canada.
• She married a bus driver at age 15 to become emancipated from her father, but the marriage only lasted one day.
• Her father Dean Moorehouse was a former Protestant minister who befriended Charles Manson after picking him up as a hitchhiker.
• Moorehouse acquired the nickname 'Ouisch' from George Spahn, possibly from the sound her pants made when she walked.
• She gave birth to a daughter named LaDieh Fawn on April 10, 1971, while a fugitive from the sentencing hearing.