Myra Elvira's Morbid Curiosities: Who Was Marina Habe, and What Happened To Her?

Who Was Marina Habe?

Marina Elizabeth Habe was born on February 23^rd, 1951. She was the daughter of author Hans Habe, and actress Eloise Hardt. She had a half sibling from her father’s side named Antal Miklos Post De Bekessy. Not much is known about Habe’s early life, other than that at some point, her parents divorced. She was the only child from her mother. In 1966, Marina converted to Catholicism. Marina was known as a quiet girl who didn’t drink or smoke, was a student for the University of Hawaii, that planned to have a career as an artist.

Habe had missing for two days before her body was found.

According to the January 2, 1969, Los Angeles Times newspaper article, Marina was found on New Years’ Day by a couple from Playa del Rey that were walking to Mulholland. Her body was 30 feet down a slop in the 8800 block of Mulhulland, near Bowmont Drive. They found her purse on a ‘fire road’ at approximately 2 pm. She was listed as wearing a white turtle neck sweater, brown coat with fur tip ciffs, and brown capris. When the police arrived, the male owner with the dog claimed that he wanted to make sure his name got in the paper, a peculiar detail for someone to say.

Sheriff Lt. Norman Hamilton said they could not determine immediately if she had been thrown the roadway or carried down the slope and hidden.

Later on, Marina’s purse was shown to her mother, who confirmed that it was her daughter’s. The purse still had some money in it.

The last time Marina was seen alive was on December 29th/30th, when she went on a date with some friends. These people include John Hornburg 22 (who was her beau and a long time family friend), Dennie Bosses, 25, Wendy Lkeiner, 18, Norman Elder, 22, and Laurie Kramer, 18. They all went to the Troubador where a comedian Larry Hankin was playing.

At 11:30 pm, Marina and the others left the venue, with her and John driving to his house on 13326 Sunset blvd, Brentwood, where she had parked her car. She changed out of her date clothes into what became her final outfit. Her and John hung out together before she finally made her way back home at 3:15 am.

Allegedly, Marina’s mother Eloise, had heard a loud engine and woke up. Eloise looked out the window and saw a black sedan in her driveway next to Marina’s car. She saw a man that she did not recognize, and couldn’t see very well, standing next to Marina. Allegedly, Eloise heard Marina’s car pull into the driveway, when the much louder car came up also. The car left, but Marina didn’t come in, and her keys were still in the car. It is unsure if the keys were in the ignition or not. There seems to be different versions of the story, where the car that took Marina was a sports car, or an old old car, which is listed in the autopsy report.

The continuation sheet of the report brings out interesting points that don’t seem to have been brought up anywhere. First, is that Marina was kidnapped by ‘an old car with loud pipes’. The car was heard driving off, and it wasn’t until the car left, that Eloise had checked Marina’s car and found the keys inside. Which makes it seem like she heard the loud car, allegedly looked out the window to see a man next her daughter, and then did nothing? It wasn’t until the car was gone that she decided to go outside. Personally, this is a bit odd.

Anyway, on December 30^th, Eloise had filed a missing person’s report on Marina.

The report also gives a name to the person that had found Marina’s body. A Mrs. Klute of ‘7534 Trask (?) Ave from Playa Del Rey’ had went to the Venice Division Station of LAPD with Marina’s purse. Mrs. Klute stated that she had been looking at the view of the city when she saw the purse. The LA Times articles seems to corroborate this.

Marina’s body was found down the side of a hill, about 20 feet from the auxiliary road, in a supine position (essentially plank or straight). Marina was fully clothes with the exception of 1 show being off. Her throat had been cut and she’d been stabbed numerous times in the chest. What is most interesting to me, is that a motorcycle frame had been found by her feet, and was, or was to be, impounded by the sheriff’s department lab.

This version of the story the LA Times article seems to corroborate, which is helpful. It is a shame that there isn’t any way to read the rest of the article, as there had been a continuation later in the paper. I wonder what the rest of the article said.

It is important to me to point out this part of the autopsy, because there had been some misconceptions about Habe and the way she was found. For example, in Ed Sanders’ book, The Family, he states that Marina was burned, raped, had slashes to her throat, heart, and naked except for a shoe. Of course, this is not true, as the autopsy report itself stated that she was fully clothed, no evidence of rape, and stab wounds that are not in the areas as Sanders had described. What is most interesting, is that in Sanders’ book, an unnamed member of Charles Manson’s family had stated that the family knew Marina. It should also be noted though, that Sanders’ writing had gotten him into some trouble in the past, which resulted in a lawsuit.

Sanders and other pieces of media have gotten the details wrong about Marina in the past, though there may have been reason why they weren’t too far off. Almost a year later, Reet Jurvetson’s body was found in the same area as Marina’s, with 157 stab wounds. Reet was a Jane Doe for almost 50 years when she was miraculously identified by a family friend in 2015. Even still, if Sanders or the other people in the media were mistaking Reet for Marina, it doesn’t explain the idea that Marina’s body was burned in the book he wrote.

In an article from 1988, Marina’s step brother, Michael Bendrix took a look at her case. Bendrix grew up with Marina off and on, and eventually her mother married his father. Bendrix stated that it seemed unlikely Marina would have ever associated with the Manson family, especially since she was a devout Catholic. His article also stated that a detective who had been on the case stated that they thought she was kidnapped by a ‘dope-dealing biker’ named Spanky, who even at the time of 1988 article, was long gone dead. Interestingly, in another article I found, the case for Marina never had any formal details confirmed. It was considered an on-going investigation, though I do not have any time frame when the last time this detail was uttered, let alone what the current status of it is.

Most of what people go off of, just like me, seems to be the autopsy reports and newspaper articles.

The autopsy was performed by the famous Thomas Noguchi, who would later work on the Tate case autopsies also.

In some random blog that I found online (I won’t lie to you), the author stated that they had read a comment where a person very obviously alludes to the Habe case. The author of the comment, The Past, said:

“I cite a kidnapping of a young woman in the late 60′s by an outlaw biker group from the Sunset Strip. She was home from the University of Hawaii for Christmas break and was abducted &’found dead off of Mulholland some days later. Evidence & investigation revealed that she was tethered, held for several days, gang raped,an ultimately killed by a well known outlaw biker group. The grotesqueness of her death will never be forgotten by me. I made a promise from that incident that I would not give any outlaw biker the slightest break.”

The blog post that this comes from is here: https://witnessla.com/report-criticizes-fbi-delay-in-revealing-flawed-forensics-us-magistrate-calls-for-drug-case-dismissal-citing-misconduct-das-office-charges-lapd-officer-with-assault-and-more/

This would sound like an internet breakthrough if it weren’t for the fact that her autopsy proved that she had never been raped to begin with. Before her death, she is alluded to having consensual intercourse. Even still, I do not count out the possibility of a biker gang member potentially kidnapping her. With further reading about the Manson Family they had slight connections with the Straight Satans, though they weren’t in cahoots with each other. What I would like to know is what is the gang that potentially kidnapped her? Various articles state that Marina may have been kidnapped by Spanky, yet, not a single source seems to give credit as to who he affiliated with.

There was random article from the LA Times that mentioned Spanky. It had a small blurb about him having been caught passing through metal detectors with Buck knives in his rectum. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-nov-30-me-pam30-story.html

Even still, this reveals very little about Marina Habe’s case. Marina’s father, Hans, passed away in 1977 at the age of 66. Eloise, Marina’s mother, lived to be practically 100 years old, dying 3 months before her birthday, at the (technical) age of 99. Even though she was able to over come her grief, she never found the answer to her daughter’s death.

What is interesting to me is how after all this time, there really haven’t been any breakthroughs in the case. The details we have today are essentially the same as 30 years ago. In various articles and blogs I read, Marina’s mother would not talk about her daughter’s death or the case. While I respect that, I feel like in some ways that may have hindered anyone from trying to solve it. I am not a detective, but there are many people out there like me who at least dig deep into cases like this. It kind of reminds me of the Jim Sullivan case, where even though he was missing for over 40 years, no-one in the family ever bothered to report him missing. I think in some ways, it’s because of generational differences. Back in the day, there were somethings you just didn’t talk about.

I’m of the opinion that Marina’s mother knew more about the story, but the rest of the details are only things that the LA police know.

To this day, when you look up Marina Habe, she is linked to possibly having been a Manson murder. In Bugliosi and Jeff Guinn’s books about Manson, they both wrote that Manson and other family members boasted about having killed more people than they were caught for. There were even rumors that there were bodies buried in the desert, when they lived in Barker Ranch. In 2008, there was a dig/search for any bodies, but no evidence ever turned up. In an interview with Danny DeCarlo (ex Straight Satans member) and Sherry (ex Family member), they even seem to allude to more murders out there.

While many people discredit the Manson murder theory, there are other who believe it may have been them, and I can understand their reasoning why. Marina’s body was found on Mulholland, which is only 35 minutes from Gary Hinman’s house (Hinman was the first in the Manson murders). Eloise Hardt’s house is listed as having been 8962 Cynthia Avenue (of which there seems to be multiple ones), which the closest one was only 20 minutes or so from where Marina was found. Even further, 10050 Cielo Drive is very close to what was Eloise’s house, only a ten minute drive. On a map, the old Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth may seem too far away, but at the same time too, they would drive from the ranch to Hinman’s house in 1969. According to the cielo drive website, the Manson Family would move to Spahn Ranch in spring of 1968; though late in the year, the Family’s bus would be seen parked on Loyal Trail, which is in proximity of the general area of Mulholland and Eloise’s house.

Loyal Trail, image credit to Cielo Drive website.

My next contention is that, if someone from the Manson Family murdered Marina, then who? Marina was murdered in December of 1968. At this point in time, Tex Watson had left the family briefly to live with a woman named Luella. Watson did not return to the family until March of 1969. Bruce Davis lived in London, England from 1968 to April 1969. Various other members of the Family seem to not really have any tabs on where they went during this time period.

If Marina were a Manson Family victim, it opens up more questions than answers, the first being, ‘How would she have been affiliated with them, and why did they choose her?’. I do think that it’s interesting that she was University of Hawaii student, and then a couple years later, the family tried to poison Barbara Hoyt in Hawaii. But I suppose that is neither here or there.

Other people have stated that there is a possibility that Marina was victim of another murderer, Rodney Alcala. I haven’t read enough about him to create an opinion or theory though. But in my opinion, I think that whoever killed Marina Habe, also killed Reet Jurvetson too.

In my next post, I will go over Reet’s case.

Marina Habe was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, in Los Angeles, California. She was 17.