Lovette Achen:  

My graduation class was in 1959! I made a typo error and now can't change it. After high school I married, had one daughter and divorced. In 1968, I decided to go into Law Enforcement. I joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department as a Deputy Sheriff. After I graduated the Sheriff's Academy, I was assigned to work at Sybil Brand Womens Jail as a jailer. On my first day I was assigned to oversee two cellblocks and one dormitory. There were 48 cells with 3 women in each cell, and a dormitory with 90 mentally ill prisoners. You do the math. The difference between a cellblock and a dormitory is: a cellblock has locking cells, and I was free to walk around the outside of the cells to observe what the inmates were doing, and insure they were safe. A dormitory is a large open room, with 90 sleeping cots and bathrooms. I was the one locked in a small room surrounded with window glass, so that I could watch what all of the inmates were doing at all times. There was one minor flaw. All of the inmates in the dormitory were considered to be mentally disturbed. Of course, this was long before cell phones were ever invented. Well, that sounded sort of safe, because we were separated from each other. NOT! Every time an inmate had a visitor, or an attorney visit, or needed to see the nurse, I had to leave the safety of my area and open the cell door, or main dormitory door, and let them out and escort them to their destination. I think now would be a good time to mention that I was 5'2" tall and weighed 110 lbs. All of the women in the cellblocks were new arrestees, charged with theft to murder. I soon found out that every prisoner in there, including the mentally ill, were 100 times smarter than all of us deputies. WE were all "Babes in The Woods" so to speak. We knew nothing about how to make up a believable lie on the spot, to fool the jailers and the police. We were just average young women, raised in good homes, never even experiencing crime in any way. We were SO dumb! Then! In 1969, the MANSON GIRLS arrived. I got every ...Expand for more