LOS ANGELES, CA (ANS) -- Jozy Pollock shouldn’t be alive today. She should have been at Sharon Tate's home on that warm summer night of August 8th, 1969, when a terrible murder took place. It was a migraine headache delayed her plans and she consequently escaped a horrible nightmare inflicted on the national psyche by Charles Manson and his followers.

Jozy in her Hula Hoop days

Jozy became the British “Hula-Hoop Queen” in her youth, then married American magician Channing Pollock and moved to the United States, where they performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. Then the two of them went on the road with the flamboyant pianist Liberace.

After divorcing her husband in 1968, she entered a fast-paced world of elite rock n'roll musicians and dated a number of famous men. She was engaged to Nigel Olson, the drummer for Elton John as John's career began to enter the stratosphere.

She even met up with May Pang and John Lennon during the 18 months that May Pang lived with the ex-Beatle, from the summer of 1973 to early 1975, when Lennon reconciled with his second wife, Yoko Ono.

In an interview Jozy recounted the incredible event that changed her life.

“I knew Sharon Tate when she was a teenager,” said Jozy. “I met her in Italy where my husband was making films and she was an extra in one of them. When she came to Los Angeles we used to hang out. I was in a club one night in August 1969 and I hadn’t seen her for a long time and she asked me, ‘When are you coming over to the house?’ I said. ‘Well, I’m working day and night but she continued to press me and said, ‘Well try and come this weekend because Roman [Polanski, her husband] is still in London.”

A recent picture of Jozy Pollock (Photo: Dan Wooding)

After all these years, Polanski is back in the headlines after he was arrested in Switzerland over the weekend, 31 years after he fled the United States following a guilty plea to having had sex with a 13-year old girl.

But back to the Sharon Tate story. Jozy said that this was on a Tuesday and she had to fly to Las Vegas two days later on business. “While I was there I developed a migraine. I finally got back to LA late afternoon-early evening on the Friday, I couldn’t find Sharon’s phone number and so I went out that night with Judy Carne, the ‘Laugh-In’ star, who called me saying she had an extra ticket to the theater.

“I had Sharon’s address so I thought I would drive over there to see her the next morning. Just before I left the house that morning, I suddenly heard on the news about some bodies being found at Sharon Tate’s house.”

As the news unfolded, it was discovered that Tate was murdered, along with four others, by followers of Charles Manson at her Benedict Canyon home. She was eight and a half months pregnant. It was an incredible shock for Jozy.

A mugshot of Charles Manson

“When I saw the film Helter Skelter, I realized that the maid had gone in on Saturday to Sharon’s home,” said Jozy. “Often maids don’t come in on a weekend in that area and if she hadn’t gone there, I could have been the one to find the bodies.”

In a previous interview with my ANS colleague, Mark Ellis, Jozy told more of her later conversion to Christ and the time she met one of the Manson gang. Here is what he wrote:

Some time later, after a failed relationship with a man, Pollock found through a psychic's predictions, she was at the end of her rope. She called a friend named Mike whose life had been transformed by Jesus Christ.

“I told him, ‘I've had enough torment,’” she recalls.

“He said, ‘Jozy, what do you really want?’

“I said, ‘All I want is peace.’

“He said, ‘With Jesus you can have peace, but you have to pray the sinner’s prayer.’

“I said, ‘Wait a minute, I'm not a sinner, I'm a good person. I'm always helping people.’

“He said, ‘No Jozy, you're a sinner.’

“So I prayed the sinner’s prayer through gritted teeth. For six months I rebelled against everything. I said, ‘Lord, don't turn me into a ‘Jesus Freak.’ I just want to do a little bit of this.’”

But after six months Pollock sensed she was missing something. She went to her Bible study leader and they prayed together.

“Suddenly I had a huge hunger and thirst for God,” she said. “It was hard giving up my will. But after I gave up my will, I had peace.”

After Pollock's water baptism, she says she had a “feeling of falling in love with Jesus.”

Nigel Olson, May Pang, John Lennon, Jozy and Neil Sedaka

Surprisingly, the life God spared her for involved prisons--she became the first Protestant female chaplain at the L.A. county jail.

“I never thought I would be in ministry,” Pollock says. “God gave me boldness to confront people in the jail.”

Pollock says that she ministered to convicted murderer Eric Menendez, who she describes as outwardly a very “charming guy.” She also has confronted and won over Satanists in the prison, who were initially hostile, and was able to move easily among thieves, rapists, and other violent offenders.

Jozy said that she prayed the sinner's prayer with Tommy Lee, then married to Pamela Anderson. “He was a very broken man at the time,” she says. “He was very open to it, and wanted a copy of the prayer.”

Jozy added, “I have also ministered to Robert Downey Jr. who wasn’t very open when I first met him, but later I ran into him at a Hollywood Bible study so I guess I sowed some seeds.”

Several years after the Manson gang killings, Pollock spoke at the California Institute of Women, where she saw Susan Atkins, one of the cultists who took part in the crime. “I had all this rage and emotion and I wanted to hit in her face, but the Holy Spirit prevented me,” she says. “I recognized I had to forgive.”

Atkins has since died from brain cancer after being California's longest-serving female inmate.

As an update to her extraordinary story, Jozy has just told me, “I am not ministering in any of the facilities at this time but I am mentoring women who are struggling with various life issues. I would like to have a big house where I could take them in when they need a place to stay and heal. I have had a few stay at my apartment but it is too small.”

For Jozy Pollock, her ‘Helter Skelter’ life continues, but now it is for Jesus Christ.

If you would like to contact Jozy Pollock you can write to her by e-mail at: Haleluiaholywood@aol.com

Note: I would like to acknowledge Mark Ellis’ invaluable contribution to this story and Robin Frost for transcribing the interview.

Dan Wooding, 68, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 46 years. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC., and now hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on KWVE in Southern California and which is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on UCB UK and Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Wooding is the author of some 43 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, “From Tabloid to Truth”, which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to . E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, also recently released “God’s Ambassadors in Japan” which is available at http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Ambassadors-Japan-Kenny-Joseph/dp/0982486901/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250907756&sr=8-22