How Doris Day May Have Saved Her Son From Charles Manson and His Followers

Melcher was Day's only child.

Day welcomed Melcher with her first husband, Al Jorden, in 1942. Melcher was later adopted by Day's third husband, Martin Melcher, and took his last name.

Melcher was a musician and producer, who worked with the Byrds and the Beach Boys, amongst other musical acts. He died in 2004 at age 62, while Day outlived her son, passing away in 2019 at 97.

Melcher knew Manson.

According to Express, Melcher met Manson through his relationship with the Beach Boys, because Manson wanted to become a musician. The publication reports that their meetup, unsurprisingly, went poorly, with Manson beating someone up during it and a friend of Melcher's being drugged with LSD. But, after this, Manson was convinced that Melcher was going to produce his music. Melcher did not feel the same.

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Manson supposedly wanted Melcher dead.

Express reports that when Manson realized Melcher would not actually be supporting his musical aspirations, he wanted him to die. The producer had previously lived at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles. If this address sounds familiar, that's because it ended up being the home of actor Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski, where Tate and several others were killed by Manson Family members in August 1969.

According to Express, the murders were sent to kill the residents at that address. It's unclear if Manson thought Melcher was there, wanted to scare him, or something else entirely.

Day reportedly told Melcher to move.

Day fits into the story, because, according to one Beach Boys member, she was the one who suggested that Melcher—and his then-girlfriend actor Candice Bergen—move out of the rental house. They left it behind in January 1969, several months before the murders.

“The move was no accident," Beach Boys member Mike Love wrote in his book Good Vibrations (via People). "Terry, Doris’ only child, was extremely close to his mom. He had told her about Manson—and about some of his scary antics, his brandishing of knives, his zombie followers—and that Manson had been to the house on Cielo and she insisted he move out ...  A mother’s intuition, perhaps, and it may have saved his life."

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People close to Melcher have contradicted that story, however.

In 2013, musician Mark Lindsay, who had also lived in the home with Melcher and Bergen, said that Manson knew Melcher had moved out prior to the murders.

"Everybody speculated that Manson sent his minions up there to get rid of Terry because he was angry about not getting a record deal," Lindsay told the Midland Reporter-Telegram. "But Terry and I talked about it later and Terry said Manson knew, because Manson or someone from his organization left a note on Terry's porch in Malibu."

Furthermore, Bergen said on the podcast Awards Chatter in 2021 that Manson knew about Melcher's Malibu residence. The Murphy Brown star, who never met Manson herself, recalled, "We then went to Terry’s mother's house in Malibu, and one morning the telescope was missing from the front terrace, and a message came to Terry saying, ‘By the way I came by and took your telescope so I know where you live.'" She also confirmed that they moved "to run away from Manson."

Another account controversially claims that Melcher and Manson were still in touch.

In another version of events presented in Tom O'Neill's 2019 book, CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, there was evidence that Melcher was in contact with Manson following the murders, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. This account is seemingly in conflict with Melcher's appearance at the Manson trial, during which he had to be medicated because he was so afraid of the cult leader.