Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

NOVEMBER 18, 1969

By now the reader knows a great deal more about the Tate-LaBianca murders than I did on the day I was assigned that case. In fact, since large portions of the foregoing story have not been made public before this, the reader is an insider in a sense highly unusual in a murder case. And, in a way, I’m a newcomer, an intruder. The sudden switch from an unseen background narrator to a very personal account is bound to be a surprise. The best way to soften it, I suspect, would be to introduce myself; then, when we’ve got that out of the way, we’ll resume the narrative together. This digression, though unfortunately necessary, will be as brief as possible.

A conventional biographical sketch before the Manson trial would probably have read more or less as follows: Vincent T. Bugliosi, age thirty-five, Deputy District Attorney, Los Angeles, California. Born Hibbing, Minnesota. Graduate Hollywood High School. Attended the University of Miami on a tennis scholarship, B.A. and B.B.A. degrees. Deciding on the practice of law, attended UCLA, LL.B. degree, president graduating class 1964. Joined the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office same year. Has tried a number of highly publicized murder cases—Floyd-Milton, Perveler-Cromwell, etc.—obtaining convictions in all. Has tried 104 felony jury trials, losing only one. In addition to his duties as deputy DA, Bugliosi is a professor of criminal law at Beverly School of Law, Los Angeles. Served as technical consultant and edited the scripts of two pilot films for Jack Webb’s TV series “The D.A.” Series star Robert Conrad patterned his part after the young prosecutor. Married. Two children.

That’s probably about how it would read, yet it tells nothing about how I feel toward my profession, which is even more important.

Those words are from the old Canon of Ethics of the American Bar Association. I’d thought of them often during the five years I’d been a deputy DA. In a very real sense they had become my personal credo. If, in a given case, a conviction is justice, so be it. But if it is not, I want no part of it.

For far too many years the stereotyped image of the prosecutor has been either that of a right-wing, law-and-order type intent on winning convictions at any cost, or a stumbling, bumbling Hamilton Burger, forever trying innocent people, who, fortunately, are saved at the last possible minute by the foxy maneuverings of a Perry Mason.

I’ve never felt the defense attorney has a monopoly on concern for innocence, fairness, and justice. After joining the DA’s office, I tried close to a thousand cases. In a great many I sought and obtained convictions, because I believed the evidence warranted them. In a great many others, in which I felt the evidence was insufficient, I stood up in court and asked for a dismissal of the charges, or requested a reduction in either the charges or the sentence.

The latter cases rarely make headlines. Only infrequently does the public learn of them. Thus the stereotype remains. Far more important, however, is the realization that fairness and justice have prevailed.

Just as I never felt the slightest compunction to conform to this stereotype, so did I rebel against another. Traditionally, the role of the prosecutor has been twofold: to handle the legal aspects of the case; and to present in court the evidence gathered by law-enforcement agencies. I never accepted these limitations. In past cases I always joined in the investigation—going out and interviewing witnesses myself, tracking down and developing new leads, often finding evidence otherwise overlooked. In some cases, this led to the release of a suspect. In others, to a conviction that otherwise might not have been obtained.

For a lawyer to do less than his utmost is, I strongly feel, a betrayal of his client. Though in criminal trials one tends to focus on the defense attorney and his client the accused, the prosecutor is also a lawyer, and he too has a client: the People. And the People are equally entitled to their day in court, to a fair and impartial trial, and to justice.

The Tate-LaBianca case was the farthest thing from my mind on the afternoon of November 18, 1969. I’d just completed a long trial and was on my way back to my office in the Hall of Justice when Aaron Stovitz, head of the Trials Division of the District Attorney’s Office and one of the top trial lawyers in an office of 450 deputy district attorneys, grabbed me by the arm and, without a word of explanation, hurried me down the hall into the office of J. Miller Leavy, director of Central Operations.

Leavy was talking to two LAPD lieutenants I’d worked with on previous cases, Bob Helder and Paul LePage. Listening for a minute, I heard the word “Tate.” Turning to Aaron, I asked, “Are we going to handle it?”

He nodded affirmatively. My only comment was a low whistle.

Helder and LePage gave us a sketchy résumé of what Ronnie Howard had said. As a follow-up to Mossman and Brown’s visit the previous night, two other officers had gone to Sybil Brand that morning and talked to Ronnie for a couple of hours. They had obtained considerably more detail, but there were still huge gaps in the story.

To say that the Tate and LaBianca cases had been “solved” at this point would be a gross overstatement. Obviously, in any murder case finding the killer is extremely important. But it’s only a first step. Neither the finding, the arresting, nor the indicting of a defendant has evidentiary value and none are proof of guilt. Once the killer is identified, there remains the difficult (and sometimes insurmountable) problem of connecting him with the crime by strong, admissible evidence, then proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, be it before a judge or a jury.

And as yet we hadn’t even made the first step, much less the second. In talking to Ronnie Howard, Susan Atkins had implicated herself and “Charles,” presumably meaning Charles Manson. But Susan had also said that others were involved, and we lacked their actual identities. This was on Tate. On LaBianca there was virtually no information.

One of the first things I wanted to do, after reviewing the Howard and DeCarlo statements, was to go to Spahn Ranch. Arrangements were made for me to go out the next morning with several of the detectives. I asked Aaron if he wanted to come along, but he couldn’t make it.[26]

When I returned home late that afternoon and told my wife, Gail, that Aaron and I had been assigned the Tate case, she shared my excitement. But with reservations. She had been hoping that we could take a vacation. It had been months since I’d taken a full day off. Even when I was at home in the evenings, I was either reading transcripts, researching law, or preparing arguments. Although every day I made sure I spent some time with our two children, Vince, Jr., three, and Wendy, five, when I was on a big case I totally immersed myself in it. I promised Gail I’d try to take a few days off, but I honestly had to admit that it might be a while before I could do so.

At that time we were, fortunately, unaware that I would be living with the Tate-LaBianca cases for almost two years, averaging one hundred hours per week, rarely, if ever, getting to bed before 2 A.M. seven days per week. And that the few moments Gail, the kids, and I had together would be devoid of privacy, our home transformed into a fortress, a bodyguard not only living with us but accompanying me everywhere I went, following a threat by Charles Manson that he would “kill Bugliosi.”

NOVEMBER 19–21, 1969

We’d picked a hell of a day for a search. The wind was incredible. By the time we reached Chatsworth, it was almost buffeting us off the road.

It wasn’t a long drive, well under an hour. From the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles it’s about thirty miles to Chatsworth. Going north on Topanga Canyon Boulevard past Devonshire for about two miles, we made a sharp left onto Santa Susana Pass Road. Once heavily traveled but in recent years bypassed for a faster freeway, the two-lane road winds upward a mile or two. Then, suddenly, around a bend and to the left, there it was, Spahn’s Movie Ranch.

Its ramshackle Main Street was less than twenty yards from the highway, in plain view. Wrecked automobile and truck bodies littered the area. There wasn’t a sign of life.

There was an unreality to the place, accentuated by the roaring wind and the appearance of total desertion, but even more so by the knowledge, if the Atkins-Howard story was true, of what had begun and ended here. A run-down movie set, off in the middle of nowhere, from which dark-clad assassins would venture out at night, to terrorize and kill, then return before dawn to vanish into the surroundings. It might have been the plot of a horror film, except that Sharon Tate and at least eight other real human beings were now dead.

We pulled off onto the dirt road, stopping in front of the Long Branch Saloon. In addition to myself, there were Lieutenant Helder and Sergeant Calkins of the Tate team; Sergeant Lee of SID; Sergeants Guenther, Whiteley, and William Gleason from LASO; and our guide, Danny DeCarlo. Danny had finally agreed to accompany us, but only on one condition: that we handcuff him. That way, if any members of the Family were still around, they wouldn’t think he was voluntarily “flapping to the fuzz.”

Though the sheriff’s deputies had been to the ranch before, we needed DeCarlo for a specific purpose: to point out the areas where Manson and the Family target-practiced. The object of our search: any .22 caliber bullets and/or shell casings.

But first I wanted to obtain George Spahn’s permission to search the ranch. Guenther pointed out his shack, which was to the right and apart from the Western set. We knocked and a voice, that of a young girl, said, “Come right on in.”

It was as if every fly in the area had taken shelter there during the storm. Eighty-one-year-old George Spahn was sitting in a decaying armchair, wearing a Stetson and dark glasses. In his lap was a Chihuahua, at his feet a cocker spaniel. A hippie girl of about eighteen was fixing his lunch, while a transistor radio, tuned to a cowboy station, blared “Young Love” by Sonny James.

It seemed as staged as the setting itself: according to DeCarlo, Manson called his girls “young loves.”

Because of Spahn’s near blindness, Calkins handed him his badge to feel. Once we had identified ourselves, Spahn seemed to relax. Asked for permission to search, he magnanimously replied, “It’s my ranch and you’re welcome to search it any time you want to, day or night, and as often as you like.” I explained his legal rights. Under the law, no search warrant was required, only his permission. If he did give permission, however, it might be necessary at some later date for him to testify to this in court. Spahn still agreed.

There was no mention of Manson and his Family. But Spahn must have known that they were in some way the reason for our being there. Although on other occasions I would interview George at length, our conversation at this time was brief and confined to the search.

Once we went back outside, people began appearing from almost every building. There must have been ten to fifteen, most of them young, most in hippie-type clothes, although a few appeared to be ranch hands. How many, if any, were actual members of the Family we didn’t know. While looking around, I heard some odd sounds coming from a doghouse. Leaning down and looking in, I saw two dogs and, crouched in the corner, a toothless, white-haired old woman of about eighty. I later checked with one of the ranch hands to see if she needed help, but he said she was happy where she was.

It was a very strange place.

About a hundred yards behind the main cluster of buildings there was a drop down to a creek, then, beyond it, the hills rose up and became a part of the Santa Susana mountain range. Rocky, brush covered, the area looked far more rugged than it actually was. I wondered how many times as a boy I’d seen this scene in B-grade cowboy films. According to Lutesinger and DeCarlo, it was here, in the canyons and gullies behind the ranch, and across the road, in Devil’s Canyon, that the Family hid out from the police. Here, too, somewhere in this area, if the various accounts were correct, were the remains of Donald “Shorty” Shea.

Charlie’s favorite firing spot, DeCarlo said, was in the creek bed, well out of sight from the road. As targets he used fence posts and a trash can. Under the direction of Sergeant Lee, we began searching. Though no shell casings had been found at 10050 Cielo Drive—the Buntline being a revolver, which doesn’t automatically eject its shell casings—we wanted to collect both in case the gun or additional evidence was found.

While we were searching the creek bed, I kept thinking about George Spahn, alone and almost defenseless in his blindness. I asked, “Anybody bring a tape recorder?” Calkins had; it was in the back of his car. “Let’s go back and get Spahn’s consent on tape,” I said. “Between now and the time we go to trial, I don’t want some s.o.b. putting a knife to Spahn’s throat, forcing him to say he didn’t give us permission.” We went back and taped Spahn’s consent. It was for his protection as well as our own; knowing the tape existed could be discouragement.

DeCarlo indicated another area, about a quarter of a mile up one of the canyons, where Charlie and the men sometimes target-practiced. We found a number of bullets and shell casings there. Because of the wind and dust, the search was less thorough than I’d hoped for; however, Sergeant Lee promised to return at a later date and see what he could find.

Altogether, that day we found approximately sixty-eight .22 caliber bullets (approximate because some were fragments rather than whole slugs) and twenty-two shell casings of the same caliber. Lee put them in envelopes, noting where and when found, and took them back to the police lab with him.

While looking around the corral area, I spotted some white nylon rope, but it was two-strand, not three.

Guenther and Whiteley had made their own find, in Danny DeCarlo. That afternoon they interviewed him on the Hinman murder and Beausoleil’s confession. The only problem was that the Beausoleil trial had been going on for a week now, and both the prosecution and defense had rested.

Against the objections of Beausoleil’s attorney, a continuance was obtained until the following Monday, at which time the prosecution hoped to reopen its case to introduce the confession.

It was agreed that if DeCarlo testified in the Beausoleil trial, LASO would drop the motorcycle engine theft charge against him.

On my return to the Hall of Justice there was a meeting in the office of the then Assistant District Attorney, Joseph Busch. Present in addition to Busch, Stovitz, and myself from the DA’s Office were Lieutenant Paul LePage (LaBianca) and Sergeant Mike McGann (Tate) representing LAPD.

The police wanted to wrap up the case, Lieutenant LePage informed us. The public pressure on LAPD to solve these murders was unbelievable. Every time Chief Edward M. Davis encountered a reporter, he was asked, “What, if anything, is happening on Tate?”

LAPD wanted to offer Susan Atkins immunity, in exchange for telling what she knew about the murders.

I was in total disagreement. “If what she told Ronnie Howard is true, Atkins personally stabbed to death Sharon Tate, Gary Hinman, and who knows how many others! We don’t give that gal anything!”

Chief Davis wanted to rush the case to the grand jury, LePage said. But before that he wanted to break the news that we had caught the killers in a big press conference.

“We don’t even have a case to take to the grand jury,” I told LePage. “We’re not even sure who the killers are, or if they’re free or in custody. All we have is a good lead, but we’re getting there. Let’s see if, on our own, we can get enough evidence to nail all of them. If we can’t, then, as a last resort—a very, very last resort—we can turn to Atkins.”

I could sympathize with LAPD; the media were blasting the department almost daily. On the other hand, it would be nothing compared to the public response if we let Susan Atkins walk off scot-free. I couldn’t forget Susan describing how it felt to taste Sharon Tate’s blood: “Wow, what a trip!”

LePage was firm; LAPD wanted to make a deal. I conferred with Busch and Stovitz; they were far less adamant than I. Against my very strong objections, Busch told LePage that the DA’s Office would be willing to settle for a second degree murder plea for Atkins.

Susan Atkins would be offered a deal. The precise terms, or whether she would even accept them, remained unknown.

At eight that night, the citizens of Los Angeles still thinking that the Tate-LaBianca killers were completely unknown, two cars sped out of Los Angeles, their destination the last home of the Manson Family: Death Valley.

It seemed more than ironic that, following the murders, Manson had chosen as his refuge a place so aptly named.

Sergeants Nielsen, Sartuchi, and Granado were in one car; Sergeants McGann, Gene Kamadoi, and I were in the other. We broke a few speed limits along the way, arriving in Independence, California, at 1:30 A.M.

Independence, seat of Inyo County, is not a large town. The county itself, though second largest in the state, has less than 16,000 residents, just over one per square mile. If one were looking for a hideaway, he could find few better.

We checked into the Winnedumah Hotel for what amounted to little more than a long nap. When I got up at 5:30, the temperature had dropped below zero. I slipped my clothes on over my pajamas and was still cold.

Before leaving Los Angeles, I had telephoned Frank Fowles, Inyo County DA, and we had arranged to meet at a nearby café at 6 A.M. Fowles, his deputy Buck Gibbens, and their investigator Jack Gardiner were already there. The three men were, I would soon learn, very conscientious; the help they would give us in the months ahead would be considerable. At the moment they were also very excited. Unexpectedly, they were in the middle of one of the most publicized murder cases in modern history, the Tate case. Then, with puzzled looks, they’d glance across the table at the big-city prosecutor, pajamas sticking out of his cuffs.

Fowles told me that although they had seized some of Manson’s belongings during the October raid on Barker Ranch, a number of things remained there, including an old school bus, which was littered with clothing and other items. I suggested that before leaving Independence we obtain a search warrant for the ranch that specifically mentioned the bus.

This caught Fowles by surprise. I explained that if we did find evidence, and wished to use it in a trial, we didn’t want it suppressed just because someone suddenly appeared with a pink slip saying, “I’m the real owner of the bus. I only loaned it to Charlie, and you didn’t get my permission.”

Fowles understood that. It was only, he explained cryptically, that they didn’t do things quite that way in Inyo County. We returned to his office and, after waiting for the typist to come to work, I dictated the warrant.

It was necessary to state exactly what we were looking for. Among the items I enumerated were: a .22 caliber revolver; knives and other weapons; rope; wire cutters; wallet, driver’s license, and credit cards belonging to Rosemary LaBianca; motor plates to any vehicle; any male and/or female clothing, including footwear.

It was also necessary that I cite the crime—187 PC, murder—and the suspected perpetrators—“tentatively believed to be CHARLES MANSON, CLEM TUFTS, CHARLES MONTGOMERY, SADIE GLUTZ, and one or more additional females.” The information was based on the testimony of two “untested informants,” whom I did not name but who were Ronnie Howard and Danny DeCarlo.

When typed, the warrant ran to sixteen pages. It was an impressive document, the evidence cited therein more than sufficient to obtain a search warrant. Only I was aware how weak our case actually was.

With McGann and me tagging along, Fowles took the warrant to the office of Judge John P. McMurray. The white-haired jurist was, I guessed, in his seventies; he told us he was near retirement.

A search warrant! Judge McMurray looked at it with amusement. This was the first one he had seen in eighteen years, he told us. In Inyo, he explained, men are men. If you knock on a door and the people inside don’t want to let you in, you assume they are hiding something, and bust the door in. A search warrant indeed! But he read and signed it.[27]

The trip to Barker Ranch would take three hours, leaving us little more than an hour to search before the sun set. En route Fowles told me some of the things he had learned about the Manson Family.[28] The first few members—in effect, a scouting party—had appeared in the area in the fall of 1968. Since you have to be somewhat different to want to live on the edge of Death Valley, residents of the area had developed a tolerance for people who elsewhere would have been considered odd types. The hippies were no stranger than others who passed through—prospectors, desert rats, chasers after legendary lost mines. There were only a few minor brushes with the authorities—the girls were advised to desist from panhandling in Shoshone, and one made the mistake of giving a marijuana cigarette to a fifteen-year-old girl, who just happened to be the sheriff’s niece—until September 9, 1969, when National Park Rangers discovered that someone had attempted to burn a Michigan loader, a piece of earth-moving equipment that was parked in the race-track area of Death Valley National Monument. It appeared a senseless act of vandalism. Automobile tracks leading away from the area were determined to belong to a Toyota. Several persons recalled seeing the hippies driving a red Toyota and a dune buggy. On September 21, Park Ranger Dick Powell spotted a 1969 red Toyota in the Hail and Hall area. The four females and one male who were riding in it were questioned but not detained. Powell later ran a license check, learning that the plates on the Toyota belonged to another vehicle. On September 24, Powell returned to look for the group, but they had gone. On September 29, Powell, accompanied by California Highway Patrolman James Pursell, decided to check out Barker Ranch. They found two young girls there, but no vehicles. As they had found standard in their contacts with this group, the girls gave vague, uncommunicative answers to their questions. As the officers were leaving the area, they encountered a truck driven by Paul Crockett, forty-six, a local miner. With him was Brooks Poston, eighteen, who had previously been a member of the hippie band but was now working for Crockett. On hearing that there were two girls at the ranch, Crockett and Poston appeared apprehensive and, when questioned, finally admitted that they feared for their lives.

Powell and Pursell decided to accompany them back to Barker. The two girls had vanished, but the officers presumed they were still nearby, probably watching them. They began questioning Crockett and Poston.

The officers had come looking for arson suspects, and a possible stolen vehicle. They found something totally unexpected. From Pursell’s report: “The interview resulted in some of the most unbelievable and fantastic information we had ever heard: tales of drug use, sex orgies, the actual attempt to re-create the days of Rommel and the Desert Corps by tearing over the countryside by night in numerous dune buggies, the stringing of field phones around the area for rapid communication, the opinion of the leader that he is Jesus Christ and seemed to be trying to form a cult of some sort…”

The surprises weren’t over. Before leaving Barker, Powell and Pursell decided to check out some draws back of the ranch. To quote Powell: “In doing so we stumbled into a group of seven females, all nude or partially so, hiding behind various clumps of sagebrush.” They saw one male, but he ran away when they approached. They questioned the girls but received no useful information. In searching the area, the officers found the red Toyota and a dune buggy, carefully camouflaged with tarps.

The officers had a problem. Because of the Panamint mountain range, they couldn’t use their police radio. They decided to leave and return later with more men. Before departing, they removed several parts from the engine of the Toyota, rendering it inoperative; the dune buggy had no engine, so they weren’t concerned with it.

They would later learn that “as soon as we left, the suspects pulled a complete Volkswagen engine from under a pile of brush, put it in the disabled dune buggy, and drove off within two hours.”

A check on the two vehicles revealed “wants” on both. The Toyota had been rented from a Hertz agency in Encino, a town near Los Angeles, on a credit card stolen in a residential burglary. The dune buggy had been stolen off a used-car lot only three days before Powell and Pursell saw it.

On the night of October 9, officers from the California Highway Patrol, the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office, and National Park rangers assembled near Barker for a massive raid on the ranch, to commence the following morning.

At about 4 A.M., as several of the officers were proceeding down one of the draws some distance from the ranch, they spotted two males asleep on the ground. Between them was a sawed-off shotgun. The two, Clem Tufts [t/n Steve Grogan] and Randy Morglea [t/n Hugh Rocky Todd], were placed under arrest. Though the officers were unaware of it, the pair had been stalking human game: Stephanie Schram and Kitty Lutesinger, two seventeen-year-old girls who had fled the ranch the previous day.

Another male, Robert Ivan Lane [aka Soupspoon], was apprehended on a hill overlooking the ranch. Lane had been acting as lookout but had fallen asleep. There was still another lookout post, this one a very well disguised dugout, its tin roof hidden by brush and dirt, on a hill south of the ranch. The officers had almost passed it when they saw a female emerge from the brush, squat, and urinate, then disappear back into the bushes. While two officers covered the entrance with their rifles, one climbed above the dugout and dropped a large rock on the tin roof. The occupants rushed out. Apprehended were: Louella Maxwell Alexandria [t/n Leslie Van Houten, aka Leslie Sankston]; Marnie Kay Reeves [t/n Patricia Krenwinkel]; and Manon Minette [t/n Catherine Share, aka Gypsy].

Those inside the ranch house were caught unawares, and offered no resistance. They were: Donna Kay Powell [t/n Susan Denise Atkins, aka Sadie Mae Glutz]; Elizabeth Elaine Williamson [t/n Lynette Fromme, aka Squeaky]; and Linda Baldwin [t/n Madaline Cottage, aka Little Patty].

Other members of the raiding party surrounded nearby Myers Ranch, where the group had also been staying, arresting: Sandra Collins Pugh [this was her married name; her maiden name was Sandra Good, aka Sandy]; Rachel Susan Morse [t/n Ruth Ann Moorehouse, aka Ouisch]; Mary Ann Schwarm [t/n Diane Von Ahn]; and Cydette Perell [t/n Nancy Pitman, aka Brenda McCann].

A total of ten females and three males were arrested during this first sweep of the Barker Ranch area. They ranged in age from sixteen to twenty-six, with the average nineteen or twenty. Two babies were also found: Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz, age one year, whose mother was Susan Atkins; and Sunstone Hawk, age one month, whose mother was Sandra Good. Both were badly sunburned. Mrs. Powell, wife of ranger Dick Powell, who had been brought along as matron, took care of them.

A search of the area revealed a number of hidden vehicles, mostly dune buggies, mostly stolen; a mailbag with a .22 Ruger single-shot pistol inside, also stolen; a number of knives; and caches of food, gasoline, and other supplies. Also found were more sleeping bags than people, indicating that there might be others still in the area.

The officers decided to take the prisoners into Independence and book them, then make a surprise raid at a later date, in case the others returned.

The strategy paid off. The second raid occurred on October 12, two days after the first. CHP officer Pursell and two Park rangers arrived in the area before their support and were hiding in the brush, waiting for the others, when they saw four males walk from one of the washes to the ranch house and enter. Pursell spotted sheriff’s deputy Don Ward of the backup unit approaching in the distance. It was already after 6 P.M., the dusk rapidly becoming dark. Not wanting to risk a gunfight at night, Pursell decided to act. While Powell covered the front of the building, Pursell drew his gun and, to quote from his report, “I quickly moved to the back door, flung it open, and making as much use of the wall on the left of the doorway as possible, I ordered all occupants to remain still and place their hands on their heads.”

The group, most of whom had been sitting around the kitchen table, were ordered outside, lined up, and searched. There were three females: Dianne Bluestein [t/n Dianne Lake, aka Snake]; Beth Tracy [t/n Collie Sinclair]; and Sherry Andrews [t/n Claudia Leigh Smith]. Plus four males: Bruce McGregor Davis [aka Bruce McMillan]; Christopher Jesus [t/n John Philip Haught, aka Zero, who in less than a month would be shot to death while allegedly playing Russian roulette]; Kenneth Richard Brown [aka Scott Bell Davis, Zero’s partner from Ohio]; and one Lawrence Bailey [aka Larry Jones].

There was no sign of the group’s leader, Charles Manson. Pursell decided to recheck the house. It was completely dark now. However, a homemade candle was burning in a glass mug on the table, and, taking that, he began searching the rooms. On entering the bathroom, “I was forced to move the candle around quite a bit, as it made a very poor light. I lowered the candle toward the hand basin, and small cupboard below, and saw long hair hanging out of the top of the cupboard, which was partially open.” It seemed impossible that a person could get into such a small space, but, without Pursell’s having to say anything, “a figure began to emerge from the tiny cupboard. After I recovered from the initial shock, I advised the subject to continue out and not make any false moves. As he emerged, he made a comment, more or less in a humorous vein, about being glad to get out of that cramped space.

“The subject was dressed entirely in buckskins, much differently than all the others we had found…I asked the subject who he was. He immediately replied, ‘Charlie Manson.’ He was taken to the back door and turned over to the officers outside.”

On re-entering the house, Pursell found still another male, who was just emerging from the bedroom. He was David Lee Hamic [aka Bill Vance, an ex-con with more aliases than Manson]. Pursell noted the time: 6:40 P.M.

None of the suspects was armed, although several sheath knives were found on the kitchen table.

The prisoners were handcuffed and, hands on heads, walked single file toward Sourdough Springs, where the officers had left two pickups. En route they encountered two more females driving a car loaded with groceries. Also placed under arrest were: Patti Sue Jardin [t/n Catherine Gillies], and Sue Bartell [aka Country Sue]. All the suspects were loaded in the back of one pickup, the second following immediately behind to provide illumination. As they neared the Lotus Mine area, about three miles from Barker, Manson told the officers that he had left his pack there, near the side of the road. Pursell: “He asked us to stop and pick it up, which we agreed to do; however, we could not locate it by his directions, and we refused to let him loose to search himself as he requested.”

On the way to Independence, Manson told Pursell and Ward that the blacks were going to take over the country and that he and his group only wanted to find a quiet, peaceful place away from the conflict. But the establishment, as represented by the police, wouldn’t let them alone. He also told them that they, being both cops and white, were in deep trouble and should escape to the desert or somewhere while they still had the chance.

Also during the ride, again according to Pursell, “two things happened which indicated to me the leadership exerted over the group by subject Manson. At least twice Charlie made statements that would cause the others to say ‘amen’ two or three times in unison. Also, a few times when the others would become involved in whispered, giggly conversations, Charlie would simply look at them and immediately they would fall silent.

“The amazing part of the stare,” Pursell noted, “was how obvious the results were without a word being spoken.”

On arriving in Independence, the suspects were charged with grand theft auto, arson, and various other offenses. The leader of the Family was fingerprinted, photographed, and booked as “MANSON, CHARLES M., aka JESUS CHRIST, GOD.”

According to Frank Fowles, although all but three of the eleven vehicles recovered were stolen, there was insufficient evidence to link most of the group with the thefts, and after a few days more than half of those arrested were released. Though most had left the area, two of the girls, Squeaky and Sandy, had rented a motel room and were staying in Independence, so they could run errands for Manson and the others still in custody.

I asked Fowles if he knew why the group had come to the area in the first place. He told me that one of the girls, Cathy Gillies, was the granddaughter of the woman who owned Myers Ranch. The Family had apparently camped there first, then moved to nearby Barker. After the raid a sheriff’s deputy interviewed Mrs. Arlene Barker, who was living at Indian Ranch in the Panamint Valley. She told him that about a year ago Manson had visited her, asking permission to camp at Barker Ranch. Like George Spahn, Mrs. Barker presumed there were only a few people and that they intended to stay only a few days. On this visit Manson gave her a gold record which had been presented to the Beach Boys, commemorating one million dollars in sales of their LP “The Beach Boys Today.” Manson told her that he was the composer or arranger for the group. Manson had contacted her again, two or three weeks before the October raid, wanting to buy Barker Ranch. She told him she wanted cash; Manson said he’d see her again when he had it.

Apparently Manson felt that if he actually owned the property he would have fewer problems with local law-enforcement agencies.

I was unaware until much later that Manson supposedly had an alternate plan, to get control of Myers Ranch, which called for murdering Cathy’s grandmother,[29] and that the plan had been frustrated by something very simple and commonplace: while en route to her home, the three killers he’d chosen had a flat tire.

I asked Fowles about the evidence recovered in the raids and subsequent searches. Were any of the knives Buck brand? Yes, several. Any rope? No. What about wire cutters? Yes, there was a big red pair; they’d found them in the back of what they later learned was Manson’s personal, or command, dune buggy. Aside from the Ruger .22 and Clem’s shotgun, any other firearms? Not one, Fowles said. In none of the searches did the officers turn up the machine guns, shotguns, rifles, pistols, and large stores of ammunition Crockett, Poston, and others said the Family had.

Throughout the trials that followed, we would remain very aware that those members of the Family still at large probably had access to a sizable cache of arms and ammunition.

Barker Ranch was located in Golar Wash, one of seven dry washes in the Panamint range, approximately twenty-two miles southeast of Ballarat. He had been all over the country, Fowles told me; those dry washes comprised the roughest terrain he had ever seen; we’d have to walk much of it, he said, otherwise our heads would bounce through the roof of the four-wheel-drive jeep Fowles had chosen for the trip.

“Ah, come on, Frank,” I said, “it can’t be that rough.”

It was. The washes were extremely narrow and rock-strewn. Going up them, we’d frequently gain one foot, then with an angry screech of rubber, slide back two. You could smell the tires burning. Finally, Fowles and I got out of the vehicle and walked in front of it, removing boulders as McGann drove forward, foot after foot. It took us two hours to travel five miles.

I asked Fowles to have photographs taken of the washes. I wanted to show the jury how isolated and remote an area the killers had chosen for their hiding place. Circumstantial evidence, a tiny speck, but of such specks, one after another, are strong cases made.

No one would have chosen to live at either Barker or Myers Ranch, which were about a quarter of a mile apart, except for one thing: there was water. There was even a swimming pool at Barker, though, like the stone ranch house and outlying shacks, it was in disrepair. The house was small—living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom. I also wanted photos of the cabinet under the sink where Manson hid. It measured 3 by 1 ½ by 1 ½ feet. I could see why Pursell was so surprised.

When I saw the large school bus, I couldn’t believe Manson had brought it up one of the washes. He hadn’t, Fowles told me; he’d driven it in over the road on the Las Vegas side. Even that had been an ordeal, and the condition of the bus showed it. It was a battered green and white. On the side was an American flag decal with the slogan AMERICA—LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT. While Sartuchi and the others searched the house, I went to work on the abandoned bus.

The placement of the warrant took some thought. It had to be left in sight. However, if it was, anyone could come along and remove it. I didn’t want a defense attorney contending we hadn’t fulfilled the requirements of the search. I put it on one of the racks just under the roof of the bus. You could see it, if you looked up.

At least a foot of clothing was piled on the floor. I later learned that wherever the Family stayed, they kept a community clothing pile. When an item was needed, they’d root through the pile until they found it. I got down on my hands and knees and began rooting too. I was looking for two things in particular: clothing with bloodstains, and boots. A bloody boot-heel print had been found on the front porch of the Tate residence. There was a small mark, a little indentation, in the heel that I was hoping we could match up. Although I found several boots, none had such a mark. And when Joe Granado applied the benzidine test to the clothing, the results were uniformly negative. I had all the clothing taken back to L.A. anyway, hoping SID might come up with something in the lab.

There were eight to ten magazines in the bus, half of which were National Geographics. Looking through them, I noticed something curious: all dated from 1939 to 1945 and all had articles on Hitler. One also had photographs of Rommel and his Desert Corps.

But that was about all we found. Our search appeared to have yielded little, if anything, of evidentiary value. However, I was anxious to go through the items picked up in the raids.

On the way back to Independence we stopped in Lone Pine. While I was nursing a beer with the officers, Sartuchi remarked that he and Patchett had interviewed Manson in Independence some weeks earlier, questioning him about the Tate as well as the LaBianca murders. The following day when I called Lieutenant Helder, I mentioned this, thinking he probably had a report on the interview. Helder was amazed; he had no idea anyone from LAPD had ever talked to Manson. This was my first indication that the Tate and LaBianca detectives hadn’t exactly been working hand in glove.

Helder did have some news. It wasn’t good. Sergeant Lee had run a ballistics comparison on the .22 caliber bullets we’d found at Spahn: all were negative to those recovered at 10050 Cielo Drive.

I wasn’t about to give up that easily. I still wanted a much more thorough search of Spahn Ranch.

We stayed at the Winnedumah again that night. Up early the next morning, I walked to the courthouse. I’d forgotten what fresh air smelled like. That trees, grass, have scents. In L.A. there are no smells, just smog. A couple of blocks from the courthouse I saw two young girls, one carrying a baby. It was a wild guess but I asked, “Are you Sandy and Squeaky?” They admitted they were. I identified myself and said that I would like to talk to them in the District Attorney’s office at 1 P.M. They said they would come if I would buy them some candy. I said I would.

In the DA’s office, Fowles opened his files and gave me everything he had on the Manson Family. Sartuchi set to work photocopying.

In going through the documents, I spotted a reference to Crockett and Poston: “Inyo County Deputy Sheriff Don Ward talked to the two miners in Shoshone and has their entire conversation recorded.” I wanted to interview the pair, but it would save time if I heard the tape first, so I asked McGann to contact Ward and get it for me.

There was also an October 2, 1969, California Highway Patrol report in which it was stated: “Deputy Dennis Cox has F.I.R. card on suspect Charles Montgomery, 23 years of age (dob 12-2-45).” Field Interrogation Reports are three-by-five cards that are made whenever a person is stopped and questioned. I wanted to see that card. We still knew very little about Tex, who hadn’t been arrested in either the Spahn or Barker raids.

After going through the large stack of documents, I started on the evidence seized in the October 10–12 raid. I had Granado test the knives for blood: negative. The wire cutters were large and heavy. It would have been difficult to shinny up a telephone pole with them; still, maybe they were the only pair available. I gave them to the officers so SID could make comparison cuts on the Tate telephone wires. Boots, but no discernible heel mark; I put them aside for SID. I checked the labels on all the clothing, noting that a number of the women’s garments, though now filthy, came from expensive shops. I had them taken to L.A. for analysis. I also wanted Winifred Chapman and Suzanne Struthers to look at them, to see if any of the items might have been the property of Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, or Rosemary LaBianca.

Squeaky and Sandy kept the appointment. I’d done a little checking before talking to them. Though the information was sketchy, I knew that both had been born in Southern California, and had come from fairly well-to-do families. Squeaky’s parents lived in Santa Monica; her father was an aeronautical engineer. Sandy’s parents had divorced and remarried; her father was a San Diego stockbroker. According to DeCarlo, when Sandy joined the Family, sometime early in 1968, she had some $6,000 in stocks, which she sold, giving the money to Manson. She and her baby were now on welfare. Both girls had started college, then dropped out, Squeaky attending El Camino Junior College in Torrance, Sandy the University of Oregon and San Francisco State. Squeaky had been one of the earliest members of the Family, I later learned, casting her lot with Manson just months after he got out of prison in 1967.

They were the first Family members I had talked to, other than DeCarlo, who was a fringe member at best, and I was immediately struck by their expressions. They seemed to radiate inner contentment. I’d seen others like this—true believers, religious fanatics—yet I was both shocked and impressed. Nothing seemed to faze them. They smiled almost continuously, no matter what was said. For them all the questions had been answered. There was no need to search any more, because they had found the truth. And their truth was “Charlie is love.”

Tell me about this love, I asked them. Do you mean this in the male-female sense? Yes, that too, they answered, but that was only a part. More all-encompassing? Yes, but “Love is love; you can’t define it.”

Did Charlie teach you this? I asked, genuinely curious. Charlie did not need to teach them, they said. Charlie only turned them around so they could look at themselves and see the love within. Did they believe that Charlie was Jesus Christ? They only smiled enigmatically, as if sharing a secret no one else could possibly understand.

Although Squeaky was twenty-one and Sandy twenty-five, there was a little-girl quality to them, as if they hadn’t aged but had been retarded at a certain stage in their childhood. Little girls, playing little-girl games. Including murder? I wondered.

Is your love for Charlie, say, different from your love for George Spahn? I asked Squeaky. No, love is love, Squeaky said; it’s all the same. But she’d hesitated just a moment before answering, giving the impression that though these were the words she was supposed to say, there was heresy in them, in denying that Charlie was special. Perhaps to overcome this, she told me about her relationship with George Spahn. She was in love with George, Squeaky said; if he asked her to marry him, she would. George was, she went on, a beautiful person inside. He was also, she added, in an obvious attempt to shock me, very good in bed. She was quite graphic.

“I’m not that interested in your sex life, Squeaky,” I told her. “But I am very, very interested in what you know about the Tate, LaBianca, Hinman, and other murders.”

Neither expression changed in the slightest. The smiles remained. They knew nothing about any crimes. All they knew about was love.

I talked to them for a long time, asking specific questions now, but still getting pat answers. On asking where they were on a certain date, for example, they’d reply, “There is no such thing as time.” The answers were both non-responsive and a guard. I wanted to get past that guard, to learn what they really felt. I couldn’t.

I sensed something else. Each was, in her own way, a pretty girl. But there was a sameness about them that was much stronger than their individuality. I’d notice it again later that afternoon, in talking to other female members of the Family. Same expressions, same patterned responses, same tone of voice, same lack of distinct personality. The realization came with a shock: they reminded me less of human beings than Barbie dolls.

Looking at Sandy’s almost beatific smile, I remembered something that Frank Fowles had told me, and a chill ran up and down my spine.

While she was still in jail in Independence, Sandy had been overheard talking to one of the other girls in the Family. Sandy had told her, “I’ve finally reached the point where I can kill my parents.”

Leslie, Ouisch, Snake, Brenda, Gypsy—Frank Fowles arranged to have them brought over from the jail, where they were still being held on charges stemming from the Barker raid. Like Squeaky and Sandy, they accepted my “bribe,” candy and gum, and told me nothing of importance. Their answers were as if rehearsed; often they gave identical responses.

If we were to get any of them to talk, I knew, we would have to separate them. There was a cohesion, a kind of cement, that held them together. A part of it was undoubtedly their strange—and to me still puzzling—relationship with Charles Manson. Part was their shared experiences, the world known as the Family. But I couldn’t help wondering if another of the ingredients wasn’t fear: fear of what the others would say if they talked, fear of what the others would do.

The only way we could find out would be to keep them apart, and owing to the smallness of the jail, it couldn’t be done in Independence.

Besides Manson, there was only one male Family member still in custody: Clem Tufts, t/n Steve Grogan. Jack Gardiner, Fowles’ investigator, gave me the eighteen-year-old Grogan’s rap sheet:

3-23-66, Possession dangerous drugs, 6 mos. probation; 4-27-66, Shoplifting, Cont’d on probation; 6-23-66, Disturbing the peace, Cont’d on probation; 9-27-66, Probation dismissed; 6-5-67, Possession marijuana, Counseled & released; 8-12-67, Shoplifting, Bail forfeiture, 1-22-68; Loitering, Closed after investigation; 4-5-69, Grand theft money & Prowling, Released insuff. evidence; 5-20-69, Grand theft auto, Released insuff. evidence; 6-11-69, Child molesting & Indecent exposure…

Grogan had been observed exposing himself to several children, ages four to five years. “The kids wanted me to,” he explained to arresting officers, who had caught him in the act. “I violated the law, the thing fell out of my pants and the parents got excited,” he later told a court-appointed psychiatrist. After interviewing Grogan, the psychiatrist ruled against committing him to Camarillo State Hospital, because “the minor is much too aggressive to remain in a setting which does not provide containment facilities.”

The court decided otherwise, sending him to Camarillo for a ninety-day observation period. He remained a grand total of two days, then walked away, aided, I would later learn, by one of the girls from the Family.

His escape had occurred on July 19, 1969. He was back at Spahn in time for the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca murders. He was arrested in the August 16 Spahn raid, but was released two days later, in time to behead Shorty Shea.

Currently, as a result of the Barker raid, he was charged with grand theft auto and possession of an illegal weapon, i.e., the sawed-off shotgun. I asked Fowles the present status of the case.

He said that, at the instigation of Grogan’s attorney, he had been examined by two psychiatrists, who had decided that he was “presently insane.”

I told Fowles I hoped he would request a jury trial and fight the insanity plea. If I brought Clem to trial in Los Angeles, charged with participating in the Tate murders, I didn’t want the defense introducing evidence that a court in Inyo County had already found him insane. Frank agreed to go along with this.

At the moment our case against Grogan was so thin as to be nonexistent. There was no proof that Donald “Shorty” Shea was even dead; to date, no body had been found. As for the Tate murders, all we had was DeCarlo’s statement that Clem had told him, “We got five piggies.”

There was no way we could use that statement in court if there was a joint trial. In 1965 the California Supreme Court ruled, in the case of People vs. Aranda, that the prosecution cannot introduce into evidence a statement made by one defendant which implicates a co-defendant.

Since Aranda would have a bearing on all the trials involving the Manson Family members, a simplified explanation is in order. For example, if there were a joint trial, with more than one defendant, we couldn’t use Susan Atkins’ statement to Ronnie Howard, “We did it,” the plural being inadmissible because it implicated co-defendants. We could, however, use her statement, “I stabbed Sharon Tate.” It is possible to “sanitize” some statements so they don’t violate Aranda. Susan Atkins’ admission to Whiteley and Guenther, “I went to Gary’s house with Bobby Beausoleil” could be edited to “I went to Gary’s house,” although a good defense attorney can fight, and—depending on the prosecutor and judge—sometimes win the exclusion of even that. But when it came to the pronoun “we,” there was no way we could get around it.

Therefore, Manson’s statement to Springer, “We knocked off five of them just the other night,” was useless. As was Clem’s remark to DeCarlo, “We got five piggies.”

Manson and Grogan could have made such confessions on nationwide TV and, if there was a joint trial, we could never use their remarks against them.

So we had virtually nothing on Clem.

In going through Grogan’s file, I noticed that one of his brothers had made application for the California Highway Patrol; I made note of this, thinking maybe his brother could influence Clem to cooperate with us. DeCarlo had described Grogan in two words: “He’s nuts.” In his police photograph—big, wide grin, chipped front tooth, moronic stare—he did look idiotic. I asked Fowles for copies of the recent psychiatric reports.

Asked, “Why do you hate your father?” Grogan replied, “I’m my father and I don’t hate myself.” He denied the use of drugs. “I have my own bennies, adrenalin. It’s called fear.” He claimed that “love is everything,” but, according to one psychiatrist, “he also revealed that he could not accept the philosophy of interracial brotherhood. Quotes supposedly from the Bible with sexual correlation were given in defense of his attitude.”

Other quotes from Clem: “I’m dying a little every day. My ego is dying and knows he’s dying and struggles hard. When you’re free of ego you’re free of everything…Whatever you say is right for yourself…Whoever you think I am, that’s who I am.”

The philosophy of Clem? Or Charles Manson? I’d heard the same thoughts, in several instances even identical words, from the girls.

If the psychiatrists had examined one of Manson’s followers and, on the basis of such responses, found him insane, what of his leader?

I saw Charles Manson for the first time that day. He was walking from the jail to the courtroom for arraignment on the Michigan loader arson charge, and was accompanied by five sheriff’s deputies.

I hadn’t realized how small he was. He was just five feet two. He was thin, of slight build, a shade hunchbacked, wore his brown hair very long, almost to his shoulders, and had a good start on a beard, grown—I’d noticed in comparing the LASO and Inyo mug shots—after his arrest in the Spahn Ranch raid. He wore fringed buckskins, which were not inexpensive. Though handcuffed, his walk was casual, not stiff, as though he was completely at ease.

I could not believe that this little guy had done all the things it was said he had. He looked anything but a heavyweight. Yet I knew that to underrate him would be the biggest mistake I could make. For if the Atkins and DeCarlo stories were true, he was not only capable of committing murder himself, he also possessed the incredible power to command others to kill for him.

Manson’s girls had talked a great deal about the Indian concept of karma. It was like a boomerang, they said. Whatever you threw out would, eventually, come back to you. I wondered if Manson himself really believed this and if he sensed that, nearly three and a half months after these hideous murders, his own karma was finally returning. He must. You don’t assign five sheriff’s deputies to an arson suspect. If he didn’t know now, he would soon enough, when the jail grapevine repeated some of the questions we’d been asking.

Before leaving Independence, I gave Frank Fowles both my home and office numbers. If there were any developments, I wanted to be notified, whatever the hour. Manson had pleaded not guilty to the arson charge, and his bail had been set at $25,000. If anyone attempted to meet it, I wanted to know immediately, so we could move fast on the murder charges. It might mean revealing our case before we were ready to do so, but the alternative was worse. Aware that he was suspected of murder, once free Manson would probably split. And with Manson at large it would be extremely difficult to get anyone to talk.

NOVEMBER 22–23, 1969

That weekend I went through LAPD’s files on the Tate-LaBianca murders; the Inyo County files; LASO’s reports on the Spahn Ranch raid and other contacts with the Family; and numerous rap sheets. LAPD had conducted over 450 interviews on Tate alone; although they had netted less than had a ten-cent phone call from an ex-hooker, I had to familiarize myself with what had and hadn’t been done. I was especially interested in seeing if I could find any link between the Tate-LaBianca victims and the Manson clan. Also, I was looking for some clue as to the motive behind the slayings.

Occasionally writers refer to “motiveless crimes.” I’ve never encountered such an animal, and I’m convinced that none such exists. It may be unconventional; it may be apparent only to the killer or killers; it may even be largely unconscious—but every crime is committed for a reason. The problem, especially in this case, was finding it.

After listening to the seven-hour taped interview with Daniel DeCarlo, I began studying the criminal record of one Manson, Charles M.

I wanted to get to know the man I would be up against.

Charles Manson was born “no name Maddox” on November 12, 1934, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the illegitimate son of a sixteen-year-old girl named Kathleen Maddox.[30]

Though Manson himself would later state that his mother was a teenage prostitute, other relatives say she was simply “loose.” One remarked, “She ran around a lot, drank, got in trouble.” Whatever the case, she lived with a succession of men. One, a much older man named William Manson, whom she married, was around just long enough to provide a surname for the youth.

The identity of Charles Manson’s father was something of a mystery. In 1936 Kathleen filed a bastardy suit in Boyd County, Kentucky, against one “Colonel Scott,”[31] a resident of Ashland, Kentucky. On April 19, 1937, the court awarded her a judgment of $25, plus $5 a month for the support of “Charles Milles Manson.” Though it was an “agreed judgment,” Colonel Scott apparently didn’t honor it, for as late as 1940 Kathleen was attempting to file an attachment on his wages. Most accounts state that Colonel Scott died in 1954; though this has never been officially verified, Manson himself apparently believed it. He also stated on numerous occasions that he never met his father.

According to her own relatives, Kathleen would leave the child with obliging neighbors for an hour, then disappear for days or weeks. Usually his grandmother or maternal aunt would have to claim him. Most of his early years were spent with one or the other, in West Virginia, Kentucky, or Ohio.

In 1939 Kathleen and her brother Luther robbed a Charleston, West Virginia, service station, knocking out the attendant with Coke bottles. They were sentenced to five years in the state penitentiary for armed robbery. While his mother was in prison, Manson lived with his aunt and uncle in McMechen, West Virginia. Manson would later tell his counselor at the National Training School for Boys that his uncle and aunt had “some marital difficulty until they became interested in religion and became very extreme.”

A very strict aunt, who thought all pleasures sinful but who gave him love. A promiscuous mother, who let him do anything he wanted, just so long as he didn’t bother her. The youth was caught in a tug-of-war between the two.

Paroled in 1942, Kathleen reclaimed Charles, then eight. The next several years were a blur of run-down hotel rooms and newly introduced “uncles,” most of whom, like his mother, drank heavily. In 1947 she tried to have him put in a foster home, but, none being available, the court sent him to the Gibault School for Boys, a caretaking institution in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was twelve years old.

According to school records, he made a “poor institutional adjustment” and “his attitude toward schooling was at best only fair.” Though “during the short lapses when Charles was pleasant and feeling happy he presented a likable boy,” he had “a tendency toward moodiness and a persecution complex…” He remained at Gibault ten months, then ran away, returning to his mother.

She didn’t want him, and he ran away again. Burglarizing a grocery store, he stole enough money to rent a room. He then broke into several other stores, stealing, among other things, a bicycle. Caught during a burglary, he was placed in the juvenile center in Indianapolis. He escaped the next day. When he was apprehended, the court—erroneously informed that he was Catholic—made arrangements through a local priest to have him accepted at Father Flanagan’s Boys Town.

He didn’t make its distinguished alumni list. Four days after his arrival, he and another boy, Blackie Nielson, stole a car and fled to the home of Blackie’s uncle in Peoria, Illinois. En route they committed two armed robberies—one a grocery store, the other a gambling casino. Among criminals, as in the law itself, a distinction is made between non-violent and violent crimes. Manson had “graduated,” committing his first armed robbery at age thirteen.

The uncle was glad to see them. Both boys were small enough to slip through skylights. A week after their arrival in Peoria, the pair broke into a grocery store and stole $1,500. For their efforts, the uncle gave them $150. Two weeks later they tried a repeat, but this time they were caught. Both talked, implicating the uncle. Still only thirteen, Charles Manson was sent to the Indiana School for Boys at Plainfield.

He remained there three years, running away a total of eighteen times. According to his teachers, “He professed no trust in anyone” and “did good work only for those from whom he figured he could obtain something.”

In February 1951, Charles Manson and two other sixteen-year-olds escaped and headed for California. For transportation they stole cars. For support they burglarized gas stations—Manson would later estimate they hit fifteen or twenty—before, just outside Beaver, Utah, a roadblock set up for a robbery suspect netted them instead.

In taking a stolen vehicle across a state line, the youths had broken a federal law, the Dyer Act. This was the beginning of a pattern for Charles Manson of committing federal crimes, which carry far stiffer sentences than local or state offenses.

On March 9, 1951, Manson was ordered confined to the National Training School for Boys, in Washington, D.C., until reaching his majority.

Detailed records were kept on Charles Manson during the time he was there.[32] On arrival, he was given a battery of aptitude and intelligence tests. Manson’s IQ was 109. Though he had completed four years of school, he remained illiterate. Intelligence, mechanical aptitude, manual dexterity: all average. Subject liked best: music. Observed his first case worker, with considerable understatement, “Charles is a sixteen-year-old boy who has had an unfavorable family life, if it can be called family life at all.” He was, the case worker concluded, aggressively antisocial.

One month after his arrival: “This boy tries to give the impression that he is trying hard to adjust although he actually is not putting forth any effort in this respect…I feel in time he will try to be a wheel in the cottage.”

After three months: “Manson has become somewhat of an ‘institution politician.’ He does just enough work to get by on…Restless and moody most of the time, the boy would rather spend his class time entertaining his friends.” The report concluded: “It appears that this boy is a very emotionally upset youth who is definitely in need of some psychiatric orientation.”

Manson was anxious to be transferred to Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution. Because of his run-away record, school officials felt the opposite—i.e., transfer to a reformatory-type institution—was in order, but they decided to withhold decision until after the boy had been examined by a psychiatrist.

On June 29, 1951, Charles Manson was examined by a Dr. Block. The psychiatrist noted “the marked degree of rejection, instability, and psychic trauma” in Manson’s background. His sense of inferiority in relation to his mother was so pronounced, Block said, that he constantly felt it necessary “to suppress any thoughts about her.” Because of his diminutive stature, his illegitimacy, and the lack of parental love, “he is constantly striving for status with the other boys.” To attain this, Manson had “developed certain facile techniques for dealing with people. These for the most part consist of a good sense of humor” and an “ability to ingratiate himself…This could add up to a fairly ‘slick’ institutionalized youth, but one is left with the feeling that behind all this lies an extremely sensitive boy who has not yet given up in terms of securing some kind of love and affection from the world.”

Though the doctor observed that Manson was “quite unable to accept any kind of authoritative direction,” he found that he “accepted with alacrity the offer of psychiatric interviews.”

If he found this suspicious, the doctor did not indicate it in his report. For the next three months he gave Manson individual psychotherapy. It may be presumed that Charles Manson also worked on the doctor, for in his October 1 report Dr. Block was convinced that what Manson most required were experiences which would build up his self-confidence. In short, he needed to be trusted. The doctor recommended the transfer.

It would appear that Charles Manson had conned his first psychiatrist. Though the school authorities considered him at best a “calculated risk,” they accepted the doctor’s recommendation, and on October 24, 1951, he was transferred to Natural Bridge Camp.

That November he turned seventeen. Shortly after his birthday he was visited by his aunt, who told the authorities that she would supply a home and employment for him if he was released. He was due for a parole hearing in February 1952, and, with her offer, his chances looked good. Instead, less than a month before the hearing, he took a razor blade and held it against another boy’s throat while he sodomized him.

As a result of the offense, he lost ninety-seven days good time and, on January 18, 1952, he was transferred to the Federal Reformatory at Petersburg, Virginia. He was considered “dangerous,” one official observing, “He shouldn’t be trusted across the street.” By August he had committed eight serious disciplinary offenses, three involving homosexual acts. His progress report, if it could be called that, stated, “Manson definitely has homosexual and assaultive tendencies.” He was classified “safe only under supervision.” For the protection of himself as well as others, the authorities decided to transfer him to a more secure institution, the Federal Reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio. He was sent there on September 22, 1952.

From the Chillicothe files: “Associates with trouble makers…seems to be the unpredictable type of inmate who will require supervision both at work and in quarters…In spite of his age, he is criminally sophisticated…regarded as grossly unsuited for retention in an open reformatory type institution such as Chillicothe…” This from a report written less than a month after his transfer there.

Then, suddenly, Manson changed. For the rest of the year there were no serious disciplinary offenses. Except for minor infractions of the rules, and a consistently “poor attitude toward authority,” his good conduct continued into 1953. A progress report that October noted: “Manson has shown a marked improvement in his general attitude and cooperation with officers and is also showing an active interest in the educational program…He is especially proud of the fact that he raised his [educational level from lower fourth to upper seventh grade] and that he can now read most material and use simple arithmetic.”

Because of his educational advancement and his good work habits in the transportation unit, where he repaired and maintained vehicles belonging to the institution, on January 1, 1954, he was given a Meritorious Service Award. Far more important to Charles Manson, on May 8, 1954, he was granted parole. He was nineteen.

One of the conditions of his parole was that he live with his aunt and uncle in McMechen. He did, for a time, then, when his mother moved to nearby Wheeling, he joined her. They seemed drawn together, yet unable to stand each other for any length of time.

Since fourteen, Charles Manson’s only sexual contacts had been homosexual. Shortly after his release he met a seventeen-year-old McMechen girl, Rosalie Jean Willis, a waitress in the local hospital. They were married in January 1955. For support Manson worked as a busboy, service-station helper, parking-lot attendant. He also boosted cars. He would later admit to stealing six. He appeared to have learned nothing; he took at least two across state lines. One, stolen in Wheeling, West Virginia, he abandoned in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The second, a 1951 Mercury, he drove from Bridgeport, Ohio, to Los Angeles in July 1955, accompanied by his now pregnant wife. Manson had finally made it to the Golden State. He was arrested less than three months later, and admitted both Dyer Act violations. Taken to federal court, he pleaded guilty to the theft of the Mercury, and asked for psychiatric help, stating, “I was released from Chillicothe in 1954 and, having been confined for nine years, I was badly in need of psychiatric treatment. I was mentally confused and stole a car as a means of mental release from the confused state of mind that I was in.”

The judge requested a psychiatric report. Manson was examined on October 26, 1955, by Dr. Edwin McNiel. He gave the psychiatrist a much abbreviated version of his past, stating that he was first sent to an institution “for being mean to my mother.” Of his wife, Manson said, “She is the best wife a guy could want. I didn’t realize how good she was until I got in here. I beat her at times. She writes to me all the time. She is going to have a baby.”

He also told McNiel that “he spent so much time in institutions that he never really learned much of what ‘real life on the outside was all about.’ He said that now he has a wife and is about to become a father it has become important to him to try to be on the outside and be with his wife. He said she is the only one he has ever cared about in his life.”

Dr. McNiel observed: “It is evident that he has an unstable personality and that his environmental influences throughout most of his life have not been good…In my opinion this boy is a poor risk for probation; on the other hand, he has spent nine years in institutions with apparently little benefit except to take him out of circulation. With the incentive of a wife and probable fatherhood, it is possible that he might be able to straighten himself out. I would, therefore, respectfully recommend to the court that probation be considered in this case under careful supervision.” Accepting the suggestion, on November 7, 1955, the court gave Manson five years probation.

There remained the Florida charge. Though his chances of getting probation on it were excellent, before the hearing he skipped. A warrant was issued for his arrest. He was picked up in Indianapolis on March 14, 1956, and returned to Los Angeles. His probation was revoked, and he was sentenced to three years imprisonment at Terminal Island, San Pedro, California. By the time Charles Manson, Jr., was born, his father was back in jail.

“This inmate will no doubt be in serious difficulty soon,” wrote the orientation officer. “He is young, small, baby-faced, and unable to control himself…”

Given another battery of tests, Manson received average marks in all the categories except “word meaning,” where he had a high score. His IQ was now 121. With some perception, when it came to his work assignment Manson requested “a small detail where he is not with too many men. He states he has a tendency to cut up and misbehave if he is around a gang…”

Rosalie moved in with his mother, now living in Los Angeles, and during his first year at Terminal Island she visited him every week, his mother somewhat less frequently. “Manson’s work habits and attitudes range from good to poor,” noted his March 1957 progress report. “However, as the time of his parole hearing approaches, his work performance report has jumped from good to excellent, showing that he is capable of a good adjustment if he wants to.”

His parole hearing was set for April 22. In March his wife’s visits ceased. Manson’s mother told him Rosalie was living with another man. In early April he was transferred to the Coast Guard unit, under minimal custody. On April 10 he was found in the Coast Guard parking lot, dressed in civilian clothes, wiring the ignition of a car. Subsequently indicted for attempted escape, he pleaded guilty, and an extra five years probation was tacked onto the end of his current sentence. On April 22 the parole request was denied.

Rosalie filed for divorce not long after this, the divorce becoming final in 1958. She retained custody of Charles, Jr., remarried, and had no further contact with Manson or his mother.

April 1958, annual review: His work performance was “sporadic,” his behavior continued to be “erratic and moody.” Almost without exception, he would let down anyone who went to bat for him, the report noted. “For example, he was selected to attend the current Dale Carnegie Course, being passed over a number of other applicants because it was felt that this course might be beneficial in his case and he urgently desired enrollment. After attending a few sessions and apparently making excellent progress, he quit in a mood of petulance and has since engaged in no educational activity.”

Manson was called “an almost classic text book case of the correctional institutional inmate…His is a very difficult case and it is impossible to predict his future adjustment with any degree of accuracy.”

He was released September 30, 1958, on five years parole.

By November, Manson had found a new occupation: pimping. His teacher was +Frank Peters, a Malibu bartender and known procurer, with whom he was living.

Unknown to Manson, he was under surveillance by the FBI, and had been since his release from prison. The federal agents, who were looking for a fugitive who had once lived with Peters, told Manson’s parole officer that his “first string” consisted of a sixteen-year-old girl named Judy, whom he had personally “turned out”; as additional support, he was getting money from “Fat Flo,” an unattractive Pasadena girl who had wealthy parents.

His parole officer called him in for a talk. Manson denied he was pimping; said he was no longer living with Peters; promised never to see Judy again; but stated that he wished to continue his relationship with Flo, “for money and sex.” After all, he said, he had “been in a long time.” After the interview the parole officer wrote: “This certainly is a very shaky probationer and it seems just a matter of time before he gets in further trouble.”

On May 1, 1959, Manson was arrested attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check for $37.50 in Ralph’s, a Los Angeles supermarket. According to the arresting officers, Manson told them he had stolen the check from a mailbox. Two more federal offenses.

LAPD turned Manson over to Secret Service agents for questioning. What then happened was somewhat embarrassing. “Unfortunately for them,” read a report of the incident, “the check itself has disappeared; they feel certain subject took it off table and swallowed it when they momentarily turned their backs.” The charges remained, however.

In mid-June an attractive nineteen-year-old girl named Leona called on Manson’s parole officer and told him she was pregnant by Charlie. The parole officer was skeptical and wanted to see a medical report. He also began checking her background.

With the aid of an attorney, Manson obtained a deal: if he would plead guilty to forging the check, the mail theft charge would be dropped. The judge ordered a psychiatric examination, and Dr. McNiel examined Manson a second time.

When Manson appeared in court on September 28, 1959, Dr. McNiel, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the probation department all recommended against probation. Leona also appeared and made a tearful plea in Manson’s behalf. They were deeply in love, she told the judge, and would marry if Charlie were freed. Though it was proved that Leona had lied about being pregnant, and that she had an arrest record as a prostitute under the name Candy Stevens, the judge, evidently moved by Leona’s plea and Manson’s promise to make good, gave the defendant a ten-year sentence, then suspended it and placed him on probation.

Manson returned to pimping and breaking federal laws.

By December he had been arrested by LAPD twice: for grand theft auto and the use of stolen credit cards. Both charges were dismissed for lack of evidence. That month he also took Leona-aka-Candy and a girl named Elizabeth from Needles, California, to Lordsburg, New Mexico, for purposes of prostitution, violating the Mann Act, still another federal beef.

Held briefly, questioned, then released, he was given the impression that he had “beat the rap.” He must have suspected that the investigation was continuing, however. Possibly to prevent Leona from testifying against him, he did marry her, though he didn’t inform his probation officer of this. He remained free throughout January 1960, while the FBI prepared its case.

Late in February, Manson’s probation officer was visited by an irate parent, +Ralph Samuels, from Detroit. Samuels’ daughter +Jo Anne, nineteen, had come to California in response to an ad for an airline stewardess school, only to learn, after paying her tuition, that the school was a fraud. She had $700 in savings, however, and together with another disillusioned student, +Beth Beldon, had rented an apartment in Hollywood. About November 1959, Jo Anne had the misfortune to meet Charles Manson, who introduced himself, complete with printed card, as “President, 3-Star-Enterprises, Nite Club, Radio and TV Productions.” Manson conned her into investing her savings in his nonexistent company; drugged and raped her roommate; and got Jo Anne pregnant. It was an ectopic pregnancy, the fetus growing in one of the Fallopian tubes, and she nearly died.

The probation officer could offer little more than a sympathetic ear, however, for Charles Manson had disappeared. A bench warrant was issued, and on April 28 a federal grand jury indicted him on the Mann Act violation. He was arrested June 1 in Laredo, Texas, after police picked up one of his girls on a prostitution charge, and brought back to Los Angeles, where, on June 23, 1960, the court ruled he had violated his probation and ordered him returned to prison to serve out his ten-year sentence. The judge observed: “If there ever was a man who demonstrated himself completely unfit for probation, he is it.” This was the same judge who had granted him probation the previous September.

The Mann Act charge was later dropped. For a full year Manson remained in the Los Angeles County Jail, while appealing the revocation. The appeal was denied, and in July 1961 he was sent to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington. He was twenty-six.

According to staff evaluation, Manson had become something of an actor: “He hides his loneliness, resentment, and hostility behind a façade of superficial ingratiation…An energetic, young-appearing person whose verbalization flows quite easily, he gestures profusely and can dramatize situations to hold the listener’s attention.” Then a statement which, in one form or another, was to reappear often in his prison records, and, much later, in post-prison interviews: “He has commented that institutions have become his way of life and that he receives security in institutions which is not available to him in the outside world.”

Manson gave as his claimed religion “Scientologist,” stating that he “has never settled upon a religious formula for his beliefs and is presently seeking an answer to his question in the new mental health cult known as Scientology.”

Scientology, an outgrowth of science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, was just coming into vogue at this time. Manson’s teacher, i.e., “auditor,” was another convict, Lanier Rayner. Manson would later claim that while in prison he achieved Scientology’s highest level, “theta clear.”[33]

Although Manson remained interested in Scientology much longer than he did in any other subject except music, it appears that, like the Dale Carnegie course, he stuck with it only as long as his enthusiasm lasted, then dropped it, extracting and retaining a number of terms and phrases (“auditing,” “cease to exist,” “coming to Now”) and some concepts (karma, reincarnation, etc.) which, perhaps fittingly, Scientology had borrowed in the first place.

He was still interested in Scientology when his annual progress report was written that September. Furthermore, according to the report, that interest “has led him to make a semi-professional evaluation of his personality which strangely enough is quite consistent with the evaluations made by previous social studies. He appears to have developed a certain amount of insight into his problems through his study of this discipline. Manson is making progress for the first time in his life.”

The report also noted that Manson “is active in softball, basketball, and croquet” and “is a member of the Drama Club and the Self Improvement Group.” He had become “somewhat of a fanatic at practicing the guitar.”[34]

He held one fairly responsible job eleven months, the longest he held any prison assignment, before being caught with contraband in his cell and reassigned to janitorial work.

The annual report that September took a close, hard look at the twenty-eight-year-old convict:

“Charles Manson has a tremendous drive to call attention to himself. Generally he is unable to succeed in positive acts, therefore he often resorts to negative behavior to satisfy this drive. In his effort to ‘find’ himself, Manson peruses different religious philosophies, e.g., Scientology and Buddhism; however, he never remains long enough with any given teachings to reap meaningful benefits. Even these attempts and his cries for help represent a desire for attention, with only superficial meaning. Manson has had more than the usual amount of staff attention, yet there is little indication of change in his demeanor. In view of his deep-seated personality problems…continuation of institutional treatment is recommended.”

On October 1, 1963, prison officials were informed, “according to court papers received in this institution, that Manson was married to a Leona Manson in 1959 in the State of California, and that the marriage was terminated by divorce on April 10, 1963, in Denver, Colorado, on grounds of mental cruelty and conviction of a felony. One child, Charles Luther Manson, is alleged to have been of this union.”

This is the only reference, in any of Manson’s records, to his second marriage and second child.

Manson’s annual review of September 1964 revealed a clear conduct record, but little else encouraging. “His past pattern of employment instability continues…seems to have an intense need to call attention to himself…remains emotionally insecure and tends to involve himself in various fanatical interests.”

Those “fanatical interests” weren’t identified in the prison reports, but at least several are known. In addition to Scientology and his guitar, there was now a third. In January 1964 “I Want to Hold Your Hand” became the No. 1 song on U.S. record charts. With the New York arrival of the “four Liverpool lads” the following month, the United States experienced, later than Great Britain but with no less intensity, the phenomenon known as Beatlemania. According to former inmates at McNeil, Manson’s interest in the Beatles was almost an obsession. It didn’t necessarily follow that he was a fan. There was more than a little jealousy in his reaction. He told numerous people that, given the chance, he could be much bigger than the Beatles. One person he told this to was Alvin Karpis, lone survivor of the Ma Barker gang. Manson had struck up a friendship with the aging gangster after learning he could play the steel guitar. Karpis taught Manson how. Again an observable pattern. Manson managed to get something from almost everyone with whom he associated.

May 1966: “Manson continues to maintain a clear conduct record…Recently he has been spending most of his free time writing songs, accumulating about 80 or 90 of them during the past year, which he ultimately hopes to sell following release…He also plays the guitar and drums, and is hopeful that he can secure employment as a guitar player or as a drummer or singer…

“He shall need a great deal of help in the transition from institution to the free world.”

In June 1966, Charles Manson was returned to Terminal Island for release purposes.

August 1966: “Manson is about to complete his ten-year term. He has a pattern of criminal behavior and confinement that dates to his teen years. This pattern is one of instability whether in free society or a structured institutional community. Little can be expected in the way of change in his attitude, behavior, or mode of conduct…” This last report noted that Manson had no further interest in academic or vocational training; that he was no longer an advocate of Scientology; that “he has come to worship his guitar and music”; and, finally, “He has no plans for release as he says he has nowhere to go.”

The morning Charles Manson was to be freed, he begged the authorities to let him remain in prison. Prison had become his home, he told them. He didn’t think he could adjust to the world outside.

His request was denied. He was released at 8:15 A.M. on March 21, 1967, and given transportation to Los Angeles. That same day he requested and received permission to go to San Francisco. It was there, in the Haight-Ashbury section, that spring, that the Family was born.

Charles Manson was thirty-two years old. Over seventeen of those years—more than half his life—had been spent in institutions. In those seventeen years, Manson had only been examined by a psychiatrist three times, and then very superficially.

I was surprised, in studying Manson’s record, to find no sustained history of violence—armed robbery age thirteen, homosexual rape age seventeen, wife beating age twenty, that was it. I was more than surprised, I was amazed at the number of federal offenses. Probably ninety-nine out of one hundred criminals never see the inside of a federal court. Yet here was Manson, described as “criminally sophisticated,” violating the Dyer Act, the Mann Act, stealing from the mails, forging a government check, and so on. Had Manson been convicted of comparable offenses in state courts, he probably would have served less than five years instead of over seventeen.

Why? I could only guess. Perhaps, as he said before his reluctant release from Terminal Island, prison was the only home he had. It was also possible that, consciously or unconsciously, he sought out those offenses that carried the most severe punishments. A third speculation—and I wasn’t overlooking the possibility that it could be a combination of all three—was a need, amounting almost to a compulsion, to challenge the strongest authority.

I was a long way from understanding Charles Manson. Though I could see patterns in his conduct, which might be clues to his future actions, a great deal was missing.

Burglar, car thief, forger, pimp—was this the portrait of a mass murderer?

I had far more questions than answers. And, as yet, not even a clue as to the motive.

NOVEMBER 24–26, 1969

Although Lieutenants Helder and LePage remained in charge of the Tate and LaBianca cases, the assignments were more jurisdictional than operational, since each was in charge of numerous other homicide investigations. Nineteen detectives had originally been assigned to the two cases. That number had now been cut to six. Moreover, for some odd reason, though there were only two victims in the LaBianca slayings, four detectives remained assigned to that case: Sergeants Philip Sartuchi, Mike Nielsen, Manuel “Chick” Gutierrez, and Frank Patchett. But on Tate, where there were five victims, there were only two detectives: Sergeants Robert Calkins and Mike McGann.

I called Calkins and McGann in for a conference and gave them a list of things I needed done. A few samples:

“How do we do that?” Calkins asked. “They’re not about to admit it.”

“I presume you talk to their acquaintances, parents, relatives, to any of the Family members like Kitty Lutesinger and Stephanie Schram who are willing to cooperate,” I told him. “If you can check out the glasses with eye doctors all over the United States and Canada, you can certainly check out some thirty-five people.”

This was our initial estimate of the size of the Family. We’d later learn that at various times it numbered a hundred or more. The hard-core members—i.e., those who remained for any length of time and who were privy to what was going on—numbered between twenty-five and thirty.

Something occurred to me. “You did check out Garretson, didn’t you, to see if those glasses were his?”

They weren’t sure. They’d have to get back to me on that.

I later learned that although Garretson had been the first—and, for a time, the only—suspect in the murders, no one had thought to ascertain if those glasses, the single most important clue found at the murder scene, belonged to him. They hadn’t even asked him if he wore glasses. It turned out he sometimes did. I learned this in talking to his attorney, Barry Tarlow. Eventually I was able to get LAPD to contact the police in Lancaster, Ohio, Garretson’s home town, where he had returned after his release, and they obtained the specifics of Garretson’s prescription from his local optometrist. Not even close.

From the evidence I’d seen, I didn’t believe Garretson was involved in the murders, but I didn’t want a defense attorney popping up in court pointing a finger, or rather a pair of eyeglasses, at an alternate suspect.

I was also curious about whom those glasses belonged to.

After Calkins and McGann left, I got in touch with the LaBianca dectectives and gave them similar instructions regarding the photos and the Waverly Drive latents.

Five of the Manson girls were still in jail in Independence. LAPD decided to bring them to Los Angeles for individual interrogation. They would be confined at Sybil Brand but a “keep away” would be placed on each. This meant they could have no contact with each other or with anyone else LAPD designated—for example, Susan Atkins.

It was a good move on LAPD’s part. There was a chance that, questioned separately, one or more might decide to talk.

That evening TV commentator George Putnam startled his listeners with the announcement that on Wednesday he would reveal who had committed the Tate murders. Our office called LAPD, who had their public relations spokesman, Lieutenant Hagen, contact Putnam and other representatives of the media asking them to hold off, because publicity now would hurt our investigation. All the newspapers, wire services, and radio and TV stations agreed to sit on the story, but only for one week, until Monday, December 1. The news was too big, and each was afraid someone else would try for a scoop.

There had been a leak. It wouldn’t be the last.

On Tuesday, the twenty-fifth, Frank Fowles, the Inyo County DA, called, and we traded some information.

Fowles told me that Sandra Good had been overheard talking again. She had told another Family member that Charlie was going to “go alibi.” If he was brought to trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders, they would produce evidence showing he wasn’t even in Los Angeles at the time the murders occurred.

I told Fowles of a rumor I’d heard. According to McGann, a police informant in Las Vegas had told him that Charles “Tex” Montgomery and Bruce Davis had been seen there the previous day, driving a green panel Volkswagen. They had allegedly told someone that they were attempting to raise enough money to bail out Manson; failing in that, they intended to kill someone.

Fowles had heard similar rumblings among the Manson girls. He took them seriously enough to send his own family out of Inyo County over the Thanksgiving weekend. He remained behind, however, ready to forestall any bail attempt.

After hanging up, I called Patchett and Gutierrez of the LaBianca team and told them I wanted a detailed report on Manson’s activities the week of the murders. Unlike the Tate detectives, they didn’t ask how to do it. They went out and did it, eventually giving me evidence which, together with other information we obtained, would blow any alibi defense to smithereens.

That afternoon McGann and Patchett re-interviewed Ronnie Howard, this time on tape. She provided several details she’d recalled since LAPD last talked to her, but nothing that was of help in the current investigation. We still didn’t know who all the killers were.

Wednesday, November 26. “Hung jury on Beausoleil,” one of the deputy DAs yelled in the door of my office. “Eight to four for conviction.”

The case had been so weak our office hadn’t sought the death penalty. Also, the jury hadn’t believed Danny DeCarlo. Brought in at the last minute, without adequate preparation, he had not been a convincing witness.

Later that day LASO asked my office if I would take over the prosecution of Beausoleil in his new trial, and I was assigned this case in addition to the two cases I was already handling.

That same morning Virginia Graham decided she had to tell someone what she knew. A few days earlier her husband had visited her at Corona. Whispering through the wire screen in the visitor’s room, she told him she had heard something about the Benedict Canyon murders, and didn’t know what to do.

He advised her: “Mind your own business.”

But, she would later state: “I can see a lot of things I don’t say anything about, but this is sick. This is so bad that I don’t know who could mind their own business with this.”[35]

Having failed to get an appointment with Dr. Dreiser, Virginia instead went to her counselor. The authorities at Corona called LAPD. At 3:15 that afternoon Sergeant Nielsen arrived at the prison and began taping her story.

Unlike Ronnie, who was unsure whether four or five people were involved in the Tate homicides, Virginia recalled Sadie’s saying there were three girls and one man. Like Ronnie, however, she presumed the man, “Charles,” was Manson.

The individual questioning of the five girls took place that afternoon and evening at Sybil Brand.

Sergeant Manuel “Chick” Gutierrez interviewed Dianne Bluestein, aka Snake, t/n Dianne Lake, given age twenty-one, true age sixteen. The interview was taped. Listening to the tapes later, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Q. “My name is Sergeant Gutierrez and I’m with the Los Angeles Police Department and I work homicide…. I’ve talked to several of the girls. The girls have been real nice and we’ve had some long, long chats. We know a lot of things that went on over at Spahn. We know a lot that happened other places. We know who is involved, and who is not involved. We also know things that maybe you don’t know, that we’re not going to tell you until the right time comes up, but we’ve got to talk to everybody who was involved, and I think you know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Charlie and the Family and everybody. I don’t know how tight you are with the Family. You’re probably real tight with them, but somebody’s going to go down the tubes, and somebody’s going to get the pill in the gas chamber for a whole bunch of murders which you are a part of, or so some other people have indicated.”

There was no evidence whatsoever that Dianne was involved in any of the murders, but “Chick” wasn’t deterred by this.

“Now, I’m here for one specific reason, and that’s to listen to you, see what you’ve got to say, so I can go to the District Attorney and tell him, ‘Look, this is what Dianne told me, and she’s willing to turn state’s evidence in return for her full release.’ We’re not interested in nailing you. We’re interested in the big guy, and you know who we’re talking about, right, honey?”

A. [No audible answer]

Q. “Now, somebody’s going to go to that gas chamber, you know that. This is just too big. This is the biggest murder of the century. You know that and I know it. So, in order to protect yourself from getting even indicted or spending the rest of your life in jail, then you’re going to have to come up with some answers…We know of about fourteen murders right now, and you know which ones I’m talking about.”

A. [Unintelligible]

Gutierrez accused her of involvement in all fourteen. He then said: “I’m prepared to give you complete immunity, which means that if you are straight with me, right down the line, I’ll be straight with you, and I’ll guarantee you that you will walk out of that jail a free woman ready to start over again and never go back up there to Independence to do any time. I wouldn’t say that unless I meant it, right?”

Actually, Sergeant Gutierrez did not have the authority to guarantee this. The granting of immunity is a complicated procedure, involving the approval not only of the Police Department but also of the District Attorney’s Office, with the final decision being made by the Court. Gutierrez offered it to her as casually as if it were a stick of gum.

Commenting on her silence, Sergeant Gutierrez said, “Now, what’s that going to prove, huh? Right now the only thing you’re proving to me, honey, is that, heck, you’re out there sticking your nose out for a guy by the name of Charlie. Now, what’s Charlie? He got you guys in all this problem. You could have been out right now doing your thing, but here you’re holding silent for what? For Charlie? Charlie ain’t never going to get out of that jail. You know that, right? Didn’t we start out on good terms? Huh?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “O.K. And I’m not about to beat you over the head with a hammer or hose and all that. All I want to do is talk to you friendly…”

Gutierrez interviewed Dianne for nearly two hours, obtaining from the sixteen-year-old little more than the admission that she liked candy bars.

Later Dianne Lake would become one of the prosecution’s most important witnesses. But credit for this goes to the Inyo County authorities, in particular Gibbens and Gardiner, who, instead of threats, tried patient, sympathetic understanding. It made all the difference.

Having got nothing from Dianne, Gutierrez next interviewed Rachel Morse, aka Ouisch, t/n Ruth Ann Moorehouse, age eighteen. Ruth Ann was the girl Danny DeCarlo identified as his “favorite sweetie,” the same girl who at Barker Ranch had told him she couldn’t wait to get her first pig.

Unlike Dianne, Ruth Ann answered Gutierrez’ questions, though most of her replies were lies. She claimed she’d never heard of Shorty, Gary Hinman, or anyone named Katie. The reason she knew so little, she explained, was that she had been with the Family only a short time, a month or so before the Spahn Ranch raid (all five girls said this, obviously by prearrangement).

Q. “I want to know everything you know, because you’re going to testify before that grand jury.”

A. “I don’t know anything.”

Q. “Then you’re going to hang with the rest of them. You’re going to go to the joint. If you don’t start cooperating, you’re going to go to the joint, and let me tell you what it is down there. They may drop that pill on you. They may drop that cyanide pill on you.”

A. (nearly screaming) “I haven’t done anything! I don’t know anything about it!”

Then, later:

Q. “How old are you?”

A. “Eighteen.”

Q. “That’s old enough to go to the gas chamber.”

There was also no evidence linking her to any of the homicides, but Gutierrez told her, “Fourteen murders, and you’re involved in each one!” He also promised her complete immunity (“You’re either going to go up for murder or you are going to go free”), and added, “Also, there is a $25,000 reward.”

Manon Minette, aka Gypsy, t/n Catherine Share, who at twenty-seven was the oldest female member of the Family, gave the detectives nothing of value. Nor did Brenda McCann, t/n Nancy Pitman, age eighteen.

It was otherwise, however, with twenty-year-old Leslie Sankston.

Leslie, whose true name, Van Houten, was not known to us at this time, was interviewed by Mike McGann. McGann tried using her parents, conscience, the hideousness of the murders, the implication that others had talked and involved her—none worked. What did work was Leslie’s little-girl cuteness, her I-know-something-you-don’t game playing. Repeatedly she trapped herself.

Q. “What did you hear about the Tate murders up there?”

A. “I’m deaf. I didn’t hear nothing.” [Laughs]

Q. “Five people were killed up there, on the hill. And I know three for sure that went up there. I think I know the fourth. And I don’t know the fifth. But I suspect you do. Why are you holding back? You know what happened.”

A. “I have a pretty good idea.”

Q. “I want to know who was involved. How it went down. The little details.”

A. “I told Mr. Patchett [in Independence] I’ll tell him if I changed my mind. I haven’t changed my mind yet.”

Q. “You’re going to have to talk about it someday.”

A. “Not today…How did you ever trace it back to Spahn?”

Q. “Who did you see leave the night of the eighth of August?”

A. [Laughs] “Oh, I went to bed early that night. Really, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Q. “Who went?”

A. “That’s what I don’t want to talk about.”

All these were little admissions, if not of participation, at least of knowledge.

Though she didn’t want to talk about the murders, she didn’t mind talking about the Family. “You couldn’t meet a nicer group of people,” she told McGann. “Of all the guys at the ranch, I liked Clem the best; he’s fun to be with.” Clem, with the idiot grin, who liked to expose himself to little children. Sadie was “really kind of a nice person. But she tends to be on the rough side…” As Sharon Tate, Gary Hinman, and others had discovered. Bruce Davis was all talk, Leslie continued, always going on about how he was going to dynamite someone, but she was sure it was “only talk.” She commented on some of the others, but not Charlie. In common with the four other girls who had been brought down from Independence, she avoided the subject of Manson.

Q. “The Family is no more, Leslie.” Charlie was in jail; Clem was in jail; Zero had killed himself playing Russian roulette—

A. “Zero!”

Obviously shocked, she dropped her little-girl role and pressed McGann for details. He told her that Bruce Davis had been present.

A. “Was Bruce playing it too?”

Q. “No.”

A. (sarcastically) “Zero was playing Russian roulette all by himself!”

Q. “Kind of odd, isn’t it?”

A. “Yeah, it’s odd!”

Sensing an advantage, McGann moved in. He told her that he knew five people had gone to the Tate residence, three girls and two men, and that one of the men was Charles Manson.

A. “I don’t think Charlie was in on any of them.”

Leslie said she had heard only four people went to Tate. “I would say that three of them were girls. I would say that there were probably more girls involved than men.” Then, later, “I heard one girl who didn’t murder someone while they was, they were up there.”

Q. “Who is that?”

A. “A girl by the name of Linda.”

Susan Atkins had told Ronnie Howard, in regard to the killings the second night, “Linda wasn’t in on this one,” presumably meaning she had been along the first night, but until now we had been unsure of this.

Questioned, Leslie said she didn’t know Linda’s last name; that she was at Spahn only a short time and hadn’t been arrested with them; and that she was a small girl, maybe five feet two, thin, with light-brown hair.

McGann asked her who had told her that Linda had been along on Tate. Leslie replied, petulantly, “I don’t remember. I don’t remember who told me little details!” Why was she so upset? McGann asked. “Because so many of my friends are getting knocked off, for reasons I don’t even know about.”

McGann showed her the mug shots taken after the Barker raid. Though she had been present, she claimed she couldn’t recognize most of the people. When handed one of a girl booked as “Marnie Reeves,” Leslie said, “That’s Katie.”

Q. “Katie is Marnie Reeves?”

Leslie equivocated. She wasn’t sure. She really didn’t know any of these people all that well. Though she had lived with the Family at both Spahn and Barker, she associated mostly with the motorcycle riders. She thought they were neat.

McGann brought the questioning back to the murders. Leslie began playing games again, and in the process making admissions. She implied that she knew of eleven murders—Hinman 1, Tate 5, LaBianca 2, Shea 1, for a total of 9—but she declined to identify the other two. It was as if she were keeping score in a baseball game.

There was a break in the questioning. It’s standard police procedure to leave a suspect alone for a while, to think about his or her answers, to provide a transition between “soft” and “hard” interrogation. It also gives the officers an opportunity to visit the can.

When McGann returned, he decided to shock Leslie some more.

Q. “Sadie has already told fifteen people in the jailhouse that she was there, that she took part in it.”

A. “That’s incredible.” Then, after a thoughtful pause, “Didn’t she mention anyone else?”

Q. “No. Except for Charlie. And Katie.”

A. “She mentioned Charlie and Katie?”

Q. “That’s right.”

A. “That’s pretty nauseating.”

Q. “She said Katie was there, and I know it was Marnie Reeves, and you know it was Marnie Reeves.”

At this point, McGann later told me, Leslie nodded her head affirmatively.

Q. “Sadie also said, ‘I went out the next night and killed two more people, out in the hills.’”

A. “Sadie said that!”

Leslie was astonished. With good reason. Though we were as yet unaware of it, Leslie knew Susan Atkins had never entered the LaBianca residence. She knew that because she was one of the persons who had.

After this, Leslie refused to answer any further questions. McGann asked her why.

A. “Because if Zero was suddenly found playing Russian roulette I could be found playing Russian roulette.”

Q. “We’ll give you twenty-four-hour protection from now on.”

A. (laughing sarcastically) “Oh, that would really be nice! I’d rather stay in jail.”

From Leslie we learned that three girls had gone to the Tate residence: Sadie, Katie, and Linda. We also learned that Linda was “one girl who didn’t murder someone,” the clear implication being that the two other girls had. Beyond Leslie’s limited description of Linda, however, we knew nothing about her.

We also knew that Katie was “Marnie Reeves.” According to her Inyo arrest sheet, she was five feet six, weighed 120 pounds, had brown hair and blue eyes. Her photograph revealed a not very attractive girl, with very long hair and a somewhat mannish face. She looked older than twenty-two, the age she gave. In comparing the Barker and Spahn photos, it was discovered that she had been arrested in the earlier raid also, at that time giving the name “Mary Ann Scott.” It was possible that “Katie,” “Marnie Reeves,” and “Mary Ann Scott” were all three aliases. She had been released a few days after her arrest at Barker, and her current whereabouts were unknown.

In return, Leslie had learned a few things from McGann: that Tex, Katie, and Linda were still free; and, more important, that Susan Atkins, aka Sadie Mae Glutz, was the snitch.

Even with a “keep away” on the girls, it wouldn’t be long before this information got back to Manson.

NOVEMBER 27–30, 1969

We could have used a private line between Independence and L.A.; Fowles and I were averaging easily a dozen calls a day. Thus far, no attempt to meet Manson’s bail, or any sign of Tex or Bruce. However, there were reporters all over Independence, and KNXT was sending in a camera crew tomorrow to film Golar Wash. I had Lieutenant Hagen call the TV station. They told him they didn’t plan to use the film until Monday, the first, the agreed date, but wouldn’t promise an extension to Wednesday, which I wanted.

Although nothing had seen print, the leaks continued. Chief Davis was enraged; he wanted to break the news himself. Someone was talking, and he wanted to know who. Determined to catch the culprit, he suggested that everyone working on the case, at LAPD and in the DA’s Office, take a polygraph.

Even his own office ignored the suggestion, and I resisted the impulse to suggest that we concentrate on catching the killers instead.

On Saturday, Sergeant Patchett interviewed Gregg Jakobson. A talent scout, who was married to the daughter of old-time comedian Lou Costello, Jakobson had first met Charles Manson about May 1968, at the Sunset Boulevard home of Dennis Wilson, one of the Beach Boys rock group.

It was Jakobson who had introduced Manson to Terry Melcher, Doris Day’s son, while Melcher was still living at 10050 Cielo Drive. In addition to producing his mother’s TV show, Melcher was involved in a number of other enterprises, including a record company, and Jakobson had attempted to persuade him to record Manson. After listening to him play and sing, Melcher had said no.

Though Melcher had been unimpressed by Manson, Jakobson had been fascinated with the “whole Charlie Manson package,” songs, philosophy, life style. Over a period of about a year and a half, he’d had many talks with Manson. Charlie loved to rap about his views on life, Gregg said, but Patchett wasn’t particularly interested in this, and moved on to other subjects.

Did he know a Charles “Tex” Montgomery? Patchett asked. Yes, very well, Jakobson replied; only his real name wasn’t Montgomery—it was Watson.

Sunday, November 30. At LAPD from 8:30 A.M. to midnight.

Charles Denton Watson had been arrested in Van Nuys, California, on April 23, 1969, for being on drugs. Though he had been released the next day, he had been fingerprinted at the time of his arrest.

10:30 A.M. Latent Prints Section called Lieutenant Helder. The print of Watson’s right ring finger matched a latent found on the front door of the Tate residence.

Helder and I jumped up and down like little kids. This was the first physical evidence connecting the suspects to the crime scene.

Helder sent out fifteen detectives to see if they could locate Watson at any of his old addresses, but they had no luck. They did learn, however, that Watson was from a small town in Texas, McKinney.

Checking an atlas, we found that McKinney was in Collin County. Patchett called the sheriff of Collin, informing him that a former local resident, Charles Denton Watson, was wanted for 187 PC, murder, in California.

The sheriff’s name was Tom Montgomery. A coincidence, Watson’s using as alias the last name of the local sheriff? It was more than that: Sheriff Montgomery was Watson’s second cousin.

“Charles is living here now,” Sheriff Montgomery said. “He has an apartment in Denton. I’ll bring him in.”

The sheriff, we later learned, called Watson’s uncle, Maurice Montgomery, saying, “Can you bring Charles over to the jail? We’ve got some trouble.”

Maurice picked up his nephew and drove him to McKinney in his pickup truck. “He didn’t say much on the way,” the uncle later said. “I didn’t know what it was all about, but I guess he knew all the time.”

Watson supposedly refused comment and was lodged in the local jail.

Texans are straight shooters, LAPD told me. They’ll hold him until we get around to sending an arrest warrant.

Not wanting to take any chances, I suggested we send someone to McKinney with the warrant, and it was decided that Sartuchi and Nielsen would leave at eleven the next morning.

Manson, Atkins, and Watson were now in custody, but two other suspects were still at large. From one of the ranch hands at Spahn, LAPD heard that Linda’s last name was Kasabian, and that she was supposedly in a convent in New Mexico.[36] Marnie Reeves was rumored to be on a farm outside Mobile, Alabama.

That same day Patchett interviewed Terry Melcher regarding his contacts with Manson. He confirmed what Jakobson had already said: he had gone to Spahn Ranch twice, to hear Manson and the girls perform, and was “not enthused”; he had also seen Manson twice before this, while visiting Dennis Wilson. Melcher, however, added one important detail Jakobson hadn’t mentioned.

On one of the latter occasions, late at night, Wilson had given him a ride back to his house on Cielo Drive. Manson had come along, sitting in the back seat of the car, singing and playing his guitar. They’d driven up to the gate and let him out, Melcher said, Wilson and Manson then driving off.

We now knew that Charles Manson had been to 10050 Cielo Drive on at least one occasion prior to the murders, although there was no evidence that he had ever been inside the gate.

At 5:30 that Sunday afternoon, while still at LAPD, I talked to Richard Caballero. A former deputy DA now in private practice, Caballero was representing Susan Atkins on the Hinman charge. Earlier Caballero had contacted Aaron Stovitz, wanting to know what the DA’s Office had on his client. Aaron laid it out for him: while at Sybil Brand, Susan Atkins had confessed to two other inmates that she was involved not only in the Hinman but also the Tate and LaBianca murders. Aaron gave Caballero copies of the taped statements Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham had given LAPD.

Under the law of discovery, the prosecution must make available to a defense attorney any and all evidence against his client. This is a one-way street. While the defense therefore knows in advance exactly what evidence the prosecution has, the defense isn’t required to tell the prosecution anything. Although discovery usually occurs after a formal request to the Court, Aaron wanted to impress Caballero with the strength of our case, hoping his client would decide to cooperate.

Caballero came to Parker Center to see me and the detectives, wanting to know what kind of deal we could offer. In accordance with the earlier discussion between our office and LAPD, we said that if Susan would cooperate with us, we would probably let her plead guilty to second degree murder—i.e., we would not seek the death sentence, but we would ask for life imprisonment.

Caballero went to Sybil Brand and talked to his client. He would later testify: “I told her what the problems were, what the evidence was against her as it was related to me. That included the Hinman case (to which she had already confessed to LASO) and the Tate-LaBianca case. As a result of all this, I indicated to her that there is no question in my mind but they were going to seek the death penalty and that they would probably get it. I told her, ‘They have enough evidence to convict you. You will be convicted.’”

About 9:30, Caballero returned to LAPD. Susan was undecided. She might be willing to testify before the grand jury, but he was sure she would never testify against the others at the trial. She was still under Manson’s domination. Any minute she could bolt back to him. He said he’d let me know what she finally decided.

It was left hanging there. Though we had the Howard-Graham statements implicating Atkins, and physical evidence linking Watson to the Tate murder scene, our whole case against Manson and the others rested on the decision of Sadie Mae Glutz.

DECEMBER 1, 1969

7 A.M. Aaron reached me at home. Sheriff Montgomery had just called. If he didn’t have a warrant in two hours, he was going to release Watson.

I rushed down to the office and made out a complaint. McGann and I took it to Judge Antonio Chavez, who signed the warrant, LAPD teletyping it to Sheriff Montgomery with just minutes to spare.

I also made out two other complaints: one against Linda Kasabian, the other against Patricia Krenwinkel. The latter, LAPD had learned from LASO, was the real name of Marnie Reeves, aka Katie. Following the Spahn raid, her father, Joseph Krenwinkel, an Inglewood, California, insurance agent, had arranged for her release. On learning this, Sergeant Nielsen had called Krenwinkel, asking where he could reach his daughter. He had told him she was staying with relatives in Mobile, Alabama, and had given him the address. LAPD had then contacted Mobile Police Chief James Robinson, and he had men out looking for her now. Judge Chavez signed these warrants also.

Buck Compton, the Chief Deputy District Attorney, called to inform me that Chief Davis had scheduled a press conference for two that afternoon. Aaron and I were to be in his office at 1:30. “Buck, this is way too premature!” I told him. “We don’t even have enough on Manson for an indictment, much less a conviction. As for Krenwinkel and Kasabian, if the story breaks before they’re picked up, we may never catch them. Can’t we persuade Davis to hold off?” Buck promised to try.

At least part of my worry was unnecessary. Patricia Krenwinkel was arrested in Mobile a few minutes before we arrived in Compton’s office. Mobile police had gone to the home of her aunt, Mrs. Garnett Reeves, but Patricia wasn’t there. However, Sergeant William McKellar and his partner were driving down the road that runs in front of the residence when they saw a sports car with a boy and a girl inside. As the two cars passed, McKellar “noticed the female passenger pulled her hat down lower over her face.” Convinced this was “an effort to avoid identification,” the officers pulled a quick U and sirened the car to a halt. Though the girl fitted the teletype description, she said her name was Montgomery (the same alias Watson had used). On being taken to the aunt’s home, however, she admitted her true identity. The young man, a local acquaintance, was questioned and released. Patricia Krenwinkel was read her rights and placed under arrest at 3:20 P.M., Mobile time.

1:30 P.M. Buck, Aaron, and I met with Chief Davis. I told Davis that I’d scraped together barely enough evidence against Krenwinkel and Kasabian to get warrants, but it was all inadmissible hearsay: Leslie Sankston’s statement to McGann; Susan Atkins’ statements to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard. We can’t get a grand jury indictment on this, I told him, adding, “If Susan Atkins doesn’t cooperate, we’ve had it.”

There were over two hundred reporters and cameramen waiting in the police auditorium, Davis said, representing not only all the networks and wire services but newspapers from all over the world. There was no way he could call it off now.

Shortly before the press conference Lieutenant Helder called both Roman Polanski and Colonel Paul Tate, telling them the news. For Colonel Tate, the news meant the end of his months-long private investigation; despite his diligence, he had not come up with anything that was of use to us. But at least now the wondering and suspicion were over.

2 P.M. Facing fifteen microphones and dozens of bright lights, Chief Edward M. Davis announced that after 8,750 hours of police work LAPD had “solved” the Tate case. Warrants had been issued for the arrests of three persons: Charles D. Watson, twenty-four, who was now in custody in McKinney, Texas; Patricia Krenwinkel, twenty-one, who was in custody in Mobile, Alabama; and Linda Kasabian, age and present whereabouts unknown. It was anticipated that an additional four or five persons would be named in indictments which would be sought from the Los Angeles County grand jury. (Neither Charles Manson nor Susan Atkins was mentioned by name in the press conference.)

These persons, Davis continued, were also involved in the murder deaths of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca.

This came as a big surprise to most of the newsmen, since LAPD had maintained almost from the start that there was no connection between the two homicides. Though a few reporters had suspected the crimes were linked, they had been unable to sell their theories to LAPD.

Davis went on to say: “The Los Angeles Police Department wishes to express their appreciation for the magnificent cooperation rendered by other law enforcement agencies during the development of information regarding both of the above cases, in particular, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s office.”

Davis did not mention that it had taken LAPD over two months to follow up the lead LASO had supplied them the day after the Tate murders.

Questioned by reporters, Davis credited “tenacious investigation carried on by robbery-homicide detectives” with forcing the break in the case. He stated that the investigators “developed a suspicion which caused them to do a vigorous amount of work in this Spahn Ranch area and the people connected with Spahn Ranch which led us to where we are today.”

There was also no mention of that ten-cent telephone call.

The reporters ran for the phones.

Caballero called Aaron. He wanted to interview Susan Atkins on tape, but he didn’t want to do it at Sybil Brand, where there was a chance one of the other Manson girls would hear of it. Also, he felt Susan would be inclined to talk more freely in other surroundings. He suggested having her brought to his own office.

Though unusual, the request wasn’t unprecedented. Aaron made up a removal order, which was signed by Judge William Keene, and that evening Susan Atkins, escorted by two sheriff’s deputies, was taken to Caballero’s office, where Caballero and his associate, Paul Caruso, interviewed her on tape.

The tape was for two purposes, Caballero told Aaron. He wanted it for the psychiatrists in case he decided on an insanity plea. And if we went ahead on the deal, he would let us listen to it before we took the case to the grand jury.

DECEMBER 2, 1969

LAPD called a few minutes after I arrived at the office. All five suspects were now in custody, Linda Kasabian just having voluntarily surrendered to Concord, New Hampshire, police. According to her mother, Linda had admitted to being present at the Tate residence but claimed she had not participated in the murders. It looked as if she wasn’t going to fight extradition.

A somewhat different decision had been reached in Texas.

McKinney was less than thirty miles north of Dallas, and only a few miles from Farmersville, where Charles Watson had grown up and gone to school. Audie Murphy had been a Farmersville boy. Now they had another local celebrity.

The news had already broken by the time Sartuchi and Nielsen reached McKinney. Stories in the Texas papers described Watson as having been an A student in high school, a football, basketball, and track star, who still held the state record for the low hurdles. Most local residents expressed shocked disbelief. “Charles was the boy next door,” one said. “It was drugs that did it,” an uncle told reporters. “He started taking them at college and that was where the trouble started.” The principal of Farmersville High was quoted as saying, “It almost makes you afraid to send your kids off to college any more.”

On the instruction of Watson’s attorney, Bill Boyd, the Los Angeles detectives were not allowed to speak to his client. Sheriff Montgomery wouldn’t even permit them to fingerprint him. Sartuchi and Nielsen did see Watson, however—accidentally. While they were talking to the sheriff, Watson passed them on the stairs, on his way to the visitor’s room. According to their report, he was well dressed, clean-shaven, with short, not long, hair. He appeared in good health and looked like “a clean-cut college boy.”

While in McKinney, the detectives established that Watson had gone to California in 1967 and that he hadn’t moved back until November 1969—long after the murders.

Sartuchi and Nielsen returned to Los Angeles convinced we’d have little cooperation from the local authorities. It wasn’t only a matter of relatives; somehow the whole affair had become involved in state politics!

“Little cooperation” would be a gross exaggeration.

Reporters were busy tracing the wanderings of the nomadic Family and interviewing those members not in custody. I asked Gail to save the papers, knowing the interviews might be useful at a later date. Though still uncharged with the murders, Charles Manson had now taken center stage. Sandy: “The first time I heard him sing it was like an angel…” Squeaky: “He gave off a lot of magic. But he was sort of a changeling. He seemed to change every time I saw him. He seemed ageless…”

There were also interviews with acquaintances and relatives of the suspects. Joseph Krenwinkel recalled how in September 1967 his daughter Patricia left her Manhattan Beach apartment, her job, and her car, not even picking up a paycheck due her, to join Manson. “I am convinced he was some kind of hypnotist.”

Krenwinkel was not the only one to make that suggestion. Attorney Caballero talked to reporters outside the Santa Monica courtroom where his client had just entered a not guilty plea to the Hinman murder. Susan Atkins was under the “hypnotic spell” of Manson, Caballero said, and had “nothing to do with the murders” despite her presence at the Hinman and Tate residences.

Caballero also told the press his client was going to go before the grand jury and tell the complete story. This was the first confirmation we had that Susan Atkins had agreed to cooperate.

That same day LAPD interviewed Barbara Hoyt, whose parents had persuaded her to contact the police. Barbara had lived with the Family off and on since April 1969, and had been with them at Spahn, Myers, and Barker ranches.

The pretty seventeen-year-old’s story came out in bits and pieces, over several interviews. Among her disclosures:

One evening while at Spahn, about a week after the August 16 raid, she had heard screams that seemed to come from down the creek. They lasted a long time, five to ten minutes, and she was sure they were Shorty’s. After that night she never saw Shorty again.

The next day she heard Manson tell Danny DeCarlo that Shorty had committed suicide, “with a little help from us.” Manson had also asked DeCarlo if lime would dispose of a body.

While at Myers Ranch, in early September 1969, Barbara had overheard Manson tell someone—she wasn’t sure who—that it been real hard killing Shorty, once he had been “brought to Now.” They’d hit him over the head with a pipe, Manson said, then everyone stabbed him, and finally Clem had chopped his head off. After that they’d cut him up in nine pieces.

While still at Myers, Barbara had also overheard Sadie tell Ouisch about the murders of Abigail Folger and Sharon Tate. Sometime later Ouisch told Barbara that she knew of ten other people the group had murdered.

Not long after this, Barbara and another girl—Sherry Ann Cooper, aka Simi Valley Sherri—fled the Family’s Death Valley hideout. Manson caught up with them in Ballarat, but, because other people were present, had let them go, even giving them twenty dollars for their bus fare to Los Angeles.[37]

Although very frightened, Barbara agreed to cooperate with us.

That cooperation would nearly cost her life.

About this same time another of Manson’s girls agreed to help the police. She was the last person from whom I expected cooperation—Mary Brunner, the first member of the Manson Family.

Following his release from prison in March 1967, Charles Manson had gone to San Francisco. A prison acquaintance found him a room across the bay in Berkeley. In no hurry to find a job, subsisting mostly by panhandling, Manson would wander Telegraph Avenue or sit on the steps of the Sather Gate entrance to the University of California, playing his guitar. Then one day along came this librarian. As Charlie related the story to Danny DeCarlo, “She was out walking her dog. High-button blouse. Nose stuck up in the air, walking her little poodle. And Charlie’s fresh out of the joint and along he comes talking his bullshit.”

Mary Brunner, then twenty-three, had a B.A. degree in history from the University of Wisconsin and was working as an assistant librarian at the University of California. She was singularly unattractive, and Manson apparently was one of the first persons who thought her worth cultivating. It was possible he recalled the days when he lived off Fat Flo.

“So one thing led to another,” DeCarlo resumed. “He moved in with her. Then he comes across this other girl. ‘No, there will be no other girls moving in with me!’ Mary says. She flatly refused to consider the idea. After the girl had moved in, two more came along. And Mary says, ‘I’ll accept one other girl but never three!’ Four, five, all the way up to eighteen. This was in Frisco. Mary was the first.”

The Family had been born.

By this time Manson had discovered the Haight. According to a tale Manson himself often told his followers, one day a young boy handed him a flower. “It blew my mind,” he’d recall. Questioning the youth, he learned that in San Francisco there was free food, music, dope, and love, just for the taking. The boy took him to Haight-Ashbury, Manson later told Steven Alexander, a writer for the underground paper Tuesday’s Child: “And we slept in the park and we lived on the streets and my hair got a little longer and I started playing music and people liked my music and people smiled at me and put their arms around me and hugged me—I didn’t know how to act. It just took me away. It grabbed me up, man, that there were people that are real.”

They were also young, naïve, eager to believe, and, perhaps even more important, belong. There were followers aplenty for any self-styled guru. It didn’t take Manson long to sense this. In the underground milieu into which he’d stumbled, even the fact that he was an ex-convict conferred a certain status. Rapping a line of metaphysical con that borrowed as much from pimping as joint jargon and Scientology, Manson began attracting followers, almost all girls at first, then a few young boys.

“There are a lot of Charlies running around, believe me,” observed Roger Smith, Manson’s parole officer during his San Francisco period.

But with one big difference: somewhere along the line—I wasn’t yet sure how or where or when—Manson developed a control over his followers so all-encompassing that he could ask them to violate the ultimate taboo—say “Kill” and they would do it.

Many automatically assumed the answer was drugs. But Dr. David Smith, who got to know the group through his work in the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, felt “sex, not drugs, was the common denominator” in the Manson Family. “A new girl in Charlie’s Family would bring with her a certain middle-class morality. The first thing Charlie did was to see that all this was worn down. That way he was able to eliminate the controls that normally govern our lives.”

Sex, drugs—they were certainly part of the answer, and I’d soon learn a great deal more about how Manson used both—but they were only part. There was something more, a lot more.

Manson himself de-emphasized the importance of drugs, at least as far as he was concerned. During this period he took his first LSD trip. He later said that it “enlightened my awareness” but added “being in jail for so long had already left my awareness pretty well open.” Aware Charlie was.

Manson claimed he foresaw the decline of the Haight even before it came into full flower. Saw police harassment, bad trips, heavy vibes, people ripping off one another and OD’ing in the streets. During the famous Summer of Love, with free rock concerts and Owsley’s acid and a hundred more young people arriving every day, he got an old school bus, loaded up his followers, and split, “looking for a place to get away from the Man.”

Mary Brunner eventually left her job and joined Manson’s wandering caravan. She had a child by him, Michael Manson, the whole Family participating in the delivery, Manson himself biting through the umbilical cord.

Interviewed in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where she had gone following her release from jail, Mary Brunner agreed to cooperate with the police in return for immunity in the Hinman murder. She supplied numerous details regarding that crime. She also said that in the latter part of September 1969, Tex Watson had told her about the murder of Shorty. They had buried his body near the railroad tracks at Spahn, Tex said, and Gypsy abandoned his car in Canoga Park near a residence the Family had previously occupied on Gresham Street. On the basis of this information, LASO began a search for both the body and the vehicle.

Obviously, Mary Brunner would be an important witness in both the Hinman and Shea cases. Though she had been in jail when the Tate and LaBianca murders occurred, for a time I even considered using her as a witness in that case, since she could testify to the beginnings of the Family. But I remained very leery of her. According to others I interviewed, her devotion to Manson was fanatical. I just couldn’t visualize her testifying against the father of her child.

The Tate case had been big news abroad since the murders occurred, eclipsing even the incident at Chappaquiddick. The arrests commanded just as much attention.

Because of the time difference, it was nearly midnight of December 1 before reports of the “hippie kill cult” reached London. As in the United States, the sensational dispatches dominated the headlines of the papers the next day, led off radio and TV broadcasts.

At eleven that morning a maid in the Talgarth Hotel, on Talgarth Road in London, tried to open the door of a room occupied by an American youth named Joel Pugh. It was locked from the inside. Shortly after 6 P.M. the hotel manager unlocked the door with a passkey. “It only opened about one foot,” he stated. “There seemed to be a weight behind it.” Kneeling down and reaching in, “I felt what seemed like an arm.” He hastily called the police. A constable from Hammersmith station arrived minutes later and pushed the door open. Behind it was the body of Joel Pugh. He was lying on his back, unclothed except for a sheet over the lower half of his body. His throat had been slit, twice. There was a bruise on his forehead, slash marks on both wrists, and two bloody razor blades, one less than two feet from the body. There were no notes, although there were some “writings” in reverse on the mirror, along with some “comic-book type drawings.”

According to the manager, Pugh had checked into the room on October 27 with a young lady who had left after three weeks. A “hippie in appearance,” Pugh was quiet, went out rarely, seemed to have no friends.

There being “no wound not incapable of being self-inflicted,” the coroner’s inquest concluded that Pugh “took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed.”

Although the circumstances of the death, including the wounds themselves, were equally if not more consistent with murder, it was considered a routine suicide. No one thought the drawings or writings important enough to take down (the manager later recalled only the words “Jack and Jill”). No attempt was made to determine the time of death. Nor, though Pugh’s room was on the ground floor and could be entered and left through the window, did anyone feel it necessary to check for latent prints.

At the time no one connected the death with the big American news that day. If it hadn’t been for a brief reference in a letter over a month later, we probably would have remained unaware that Joel Dean Pugh, age twenty-nine, former Manson Family member and husband of Family member Sandra Good, had joined the lengthening list of mysterious deaths connected with the case.

When she and Squeaky moved out of their motel room in Independence, Sandy left some papers behind. Among them was a letter from an unidentified former Family member which contained the line: “I would not want what happened to Joel to happen to me.”

DECEMBER 3, 1969

About eight that night Richard Caballero brought the Susan Atkins tape to LAPD. He requested that no copy be made; however, I was allowed to take notes. In addition to myself, both Lieutenants Helder and LePage and four or five detectives were present while the tape was being played. We said little as, with all the casualness of a child reciting what she did that day in school, Susan Atkins matter-of-factly described the slaughter of seven people.

The voice was that of a young girl. But except for occasional giggles—“And Sharon went through quite a few changes [laughs], quite a few changes”—it was flat, emotionless, dead. It was as if all the human feelings had been erased. What kind of creature is this? I wondered.

I’d soon know. Caballero had agreed that before we took the case to the grand jury, I could personally interview Susan Atkins.

The tape lasted about two hours. Although the monumental job of proving their guilt remained, when the tape had ended—Caballero saying to Susan, “O.K., now we’re going to get you something to eat, including some ice cream”—we at least knew, for the first time, exactly who had been involved in the Tate and LaBianca murders.

Though Manson had sent the killers to 10050 Cielo Drive, he had not gone along himself. Those who did go were Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian. One man, three girls, who would mercilessly shoot and stab five people to death.

Manson, however, did enter the Waverly Drive residence the next night, to tie up Rosemary and Leno LaBianca. He then sent in Watson, Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten, aka Sankston, with instructions to “kill them.”

Susan Atkins herself hadn’t been inside the LaBianca residence. She had remained in the car with Clem and Linda. But she had heard—from Manson, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten—what had occurred inside.

Though the tape cleared up some mysteries, many remained. And there were discrepancies. For example, although Susan admitted stabbing the big man (Frykowski) five or six times, “in self-defense,” she said nothing about stabbing Sharon Tate. In contrast to what she had told Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard, Susan now claimed that she had held Sharon while Tex stabbed her.

Returning to my office, I did what I do after every interview—converted my notes into a tentative interrogation. I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask Sadie Mae Glutz.

Linda Kasabian waived extradition proceedings and was flown back to Los Angeles that same day. She was booked into Sybil Brand at 11:15 P.M. Aaron was there, as was Linda’s attorney, Gary Fleischman. Though Fleischman permitted her to ID some photographs of various Family members which Aaron had, he would not let Aaron question her. Aaron did ask her how she felt, and she replied, “Tired, but relieved.” Aaron got the impression that Linda herself was anxious to tell what she knew but that Fleischman was holding out for a deal.

DECEMBER 4, 1969

Caballero had made an excellent deal, as far as his client was concerned. If she testified truthfully before the grand jury, we could not seek the death penalty against her in the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca cases; nor could we use her grand jury testimony against her or any of her co-defendants when they were brought to trial. As Caballero later put it, “She gave up nothing and got everything in return.”

For our part, I felt we got very much the short end. Susan Atkins would tell her story at the grand jury. We’d get an indictment. And that would be all we would have, a scrap of paper. For Caballero was convinced she would never testify at the trial. He was worried that even now she might suddenly change her mind.

We had no choice but to rush the case to the grand jury, which was meeting the following day.

Our case was getting a little stronger. The previous day Sergeant Sam McLarty of the Mobile Police Department had taken Patricia Krenwinkel’s prints. On receiving the exemplar from Mobile, Sergeant Frank Marz of LAPD “made” one print. The print of the little finger on Krenwinkel’s left hand matched a latent print officer Boen had lifted from the frame on the left French door inside Sharon Tate’s bedroom. This was the blood-splattered door that led outside to the pool.

We now had a second piece of physical evidence linking still another of the suspects to the crime scene.

But we didn’t have either suspect. Like Watson, Krenwinkel intended to fight extradition. She would be held fourteen days without bond. If extradition papers were not there before the fifteenth day, she would be released.

Caballero drove me to his office in Beverly Hills. By the time we arrived, about 5:30 P.M., Susan Atkins was already there, having been taken out of Sybil Brand on the basis of another court order, requested by Aaron. Caballero had suggested that Susan would be much more apt to speak freely with me in the relaxed atmosphere of his office than at Sybil Brand, and Miller Leavy, Aaron, and I had agreed.

Although she had opened up to both Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard, my interview with Susan Atkins on the Tate-LaBianca murders was the first she had had with any law-enforcement officer. It would also be the last.

Twenty-one years old, five feet five, 120 pounds, long brown hair, brown eyes, a not unattractive face, but with a distant, far-off look, similar to the expressions of Sandy and Squeaky but even more pronounced.

Although this was the first time I had seen Susan Atkins, I already knew quite a bit about her. Born in San Gabriel, California, she had grown up in San Jose. Her mother had died of cancer while Susan was still in her teens, and, after numerous quarrels with her father, she’d dropped out of high school and drifted to San Francisco. Hustler, topless dancer, kept woman, gun moll—she’d been all these things even before meeting Charles Manson. I had a certain amount of pity for her. I tried my best to understand her. But I couldn’t summon up very much compassion, not after having seen the photographs of what had been done to the Tate victims.

After Caballero introduced us, I informed her of her constitutional rights and obtained permission to interview her.

A male and female deputy sheriff sat just outside the open door of Caballero’s office, watching Susan’s every move. Caballero remained for most of the interview, leaving only to take a few phone calls. I had Susan tell me the whole story, from the time she first met Manson in Haight-Ashbury in 1967 to the present. Periodically I’d halt her narrative to ask questions.

“Were you, Tex, or any of the others under the influence of LSD or any other drug on the night of the Tate murders?”

“No.”

“What about the next night, the night the LaBiancas were killed?”

“No. Neither night.”

There was something mysterious about her. She would talk rapidly for a few minutes, then pause, head slightly cocked to the side, as if sensing voices no one else could.

“You know,” she confided, “Charlie is looking at us right now and he can hear everything we are saying.”

“Charlie is up in Independence, Sadie.”

She smiled, secure in the knowledge that she was right and I, an outsider, an unbeliever, was wrong.

Looking at her, I thought to myself, This is the star witness for the prosecution? I’m going to build my case upon the testimony of this very, very strange girl?

She was crazy. I had no doubt about it. Probably not legally insane, but crazy nonetheless.

As on the tape, she admitted stabbing Frykowski but denied stabbing Sharon Tate. I’d conducted hundreds of interviews; you get a sort of visceral reaction when someone is lying. I felt that she had stabbed Sharon but didn’t want to admit it to me.

I had to interview over a dozen witnesses that same night: Winifred Chapman, the first police officers to arrive at Cielo and Waverly, Granado and the fingerprint men, Lomax from Hi Standard, Coroner Noguchi and Deputy Medical Examiner Katsuyama, DeCarlo, Melcher, Jakobson. Each presented special problems. Winifred Chapman was petulant, querulous: she wouldn’t testify to seeing any bodies, or any blood, or…Coroner Noguchi was a rambler: he had to be carefully prepared so he would stick to the subject. Danny DeCarlo hadn’t been believable in the Beausoleil trial: I had to make sure the grand jury believed him. It was necessary not only to extract from very disparate witnesses, many of them experts in their individual fields, exactly what was relevant, but to bring these pieces together into a solid, convincing case.

Seven murder victims, multiple defendants: a case like this was not only probably unprecedented, it required weeks of preparation. Because of Chief Davis’ rush to break the news, we’d had only days.

It was 2 A.M. before I finished. I still had to convert my notes to interrogation. It was 3:30 before I finished. I was up at 6 A.M. In three hours we had to take the Tate and LaBianca cases before the Los Angeles County grand jury.

DECEMBER 5, 1969

“Sorry. No comment.” Although grand jury proceedings are by law secret—neither the DA’s Office, the witnesses, nor the jurors being allowed to discuss the evidence—this didn’t keep the reporters from trying. There must have been a hundred newsmen in the narrow hallway outside the grand jury chambers; some were atop tables, so it looked as if they were stacked to the ceiling.

In Los Angeles the grand jury consists of twenty-three persons, picked by lot from a list of names submitted by each Superior Court judge. Of that number twenty-one were present, two-thirds of whom would have to concur to return an indictment. The proceedings themselves are usually brief. The prosecution presents just enough of its case to get an indictment and no more. Though in this instance the testimony would extend over two days, the “star witness for the prosecution” would tell her story in less than one.

Attorney Richard Caballero was the first witness, testifying that he had informed his client of her rights. Caballero then left the chambers. Not only are witnesses not allowed to have their attorneys present, each witness testifies outside the hearing of the other witnesses.

THE SERGEANT AT ARMS “Susan Atkins.”

The jurors, seven men and fourteen women, looked at her with obvious curiosity.

Aaron informed Susan of her rights, among which was her right not to incriminate herself. She waived them. I then took over the questioning, establishing that she knew Charles Manson and taking her back to the day they first met. It was over two years ago. She was living in a house on Lyon Street in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, with a number of other young people, most of whom were into drugs.

A. “…and I was sitting in the living room and a man walked in and he had a guitar with him and all of a sudden he was surrounded by a group of girls.” The man sat down and began to play, “and the song that caught my attention most was ‘The Shadow of Your Smile,’ and he sounded like an angel.”

Q. “You are referring to Charles Manson?”

A. “Yes. And when he was through singing, I wanted to get some attention from him, and I asked him if I could play his guitar…and he handed me the guitar and I thought, ‘I can’t play this,’ and then he looked at me and said, ‘You can play that if you want to.’

“Now he had never heard me say ‘I can’t play this,’ I only thought it. So when he told me I could play it, it blew my mind, because he was inside my head, and I knew at that time that he was something that I had been looking for…and I went down and kissed his feet.”

A day or two later Manson returned to the house and asked her to go for a walk. “And we walked a couple blocks to another house and he told me he wanted to make love with me.

“Well, I acknowledged the fact that I wanted to make love with him, and he told me to take off my clothes, so I uninhibitedly took off my clothes, and there happened to be a full-length mirror in the room, and he told me to go over and look at myself in the mirror.

“I didn’t want to do it, so he took me by my hand and stood me in front of the mirror, and I turned away and he said, ‘Go ahead and look at yourself. There is nothing wrong with you. You are perfect. You always have been perfect.’”

Q. “What happened next?”

A. “He asked me if I had ever made love with my father. I looked at him and kind of giggled and I said, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘Have you ever thought about making love with your father?’ I said, ‘Yes.’

And he told me, ‘All right, when you are making love…picture in your mind that I am your father.’ And I did, I did so, and it was a very beautiful experience.”

Susan said that before she met Manson she felt she was “lacking something.” But then “I gave myself to him, and in return for that he gave me back to myself. He gave me the faith in myself to be able to know that I am a woman.”

A week or so later, she, Manson, Mary Brunner, Ella Jo Bailey, Lynette Fromme, and Patricia Krenwinkel, together with three or four boys whose names she couldn’t remember, left San Francisco in an old school bus from which they had removed most of the seats, furnishing it with brightly colored rugs and pillows. For the next year and a half they roamed—north to Mendocino, Oregon, Washington; south to Big Sur, Los Angeles, Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico; and, eventually, back to L.A., living first in various residences in Topanga Canyon, Malibu, Venice, and then, finally, Spahn Ranch. En route others joined them, a few staying permanently, most only temporarily. According to Susan, they went through changes, and learned to love. The girls made love with each of the boys, and with each other. But Charlie was complete love. Although he did not have sex with her often—only six times in the more than two years they were together—“he would give himself completely.”

Q. “Were you very much in love with him, Susan?”

A. “I was in love with the reflection and the reflection I speak of is Charlie Manson’s.”

Q. “Was there any limit to what you would do for him?”

A. “No.”

I was laying the foundation for the very heart of my case against Manson, that Susan and the others would do anything for him, up to and including murder at his command.

Q. “What was it about Charlie that caused you girls to be in love with him and to do what he wanted you to do?”

A. “Charlie is the only man I have ever met…on the face of this earth…that is a complete man. He will not take back-talk from a woman. He will not let a woman talk him into doing anything. He is a man.”

Charlie had given her the name Sadie Mae Glutz because “in order for me to be completely free in my mind I had to be able to completely forget the past. The easiest way to do this, to change identity, is by doing so with a name.”

According to Susan, Charlie himself went under a variety of names, calling himself the Devil, Satan, Soul.

Q. “Did Mr. Manson ever call himself Jesus?”

A. “He personally never called himself Jesus.”

Q. “Did you ever call him Jesus?” From my questioning the night before, I anticipated that Susan would be evasive about this, and she was.

A. “He represented a Jesus Christ–like person to me.”

Q. “Do you think Charlie is an evil person?”

A. “In your standards of evil, looking at him through your eyes, I would say yes. Looking at him through my eyes, he is as good as he is evil, he is as evil as he is good. You could not judge the man.”

Although Susan didn’t state that she believed Manson was Christ, the implication was there. Though I was at this time far from understanding it myself, it was important that I give the jury some explanation, however partial, for Manson’s control over his followers. Incredible as all this was to the predominantly upper-middle-class, upper-middle-aged grand jurors, it was nothing compared to what they would hear when she described those two nights of murder.

I worked up to them gradually, having her describe Spahn Ranch and the life there, and asking her how they survived. People gave them things, Susan said. Also, they panhandled. And “the supermarkets all over Los Angeles throw away perfectly good food every day, fresh vegetables and sometimes cartons of eggs, packages of cheese that are stamped to a certain date, but the food is still good, and us girls used to go out and do ‘garbage runs.’”

DeCarlo had told me of one such garbage run, when, to the astonishment of supermarket employees, the girls had driven up in Dennis Wilson’s Rolls-Royce.

They also stole—credit cards, other things.

Q. “Did Charlie ask you to steal?”

A. “No, I took it upon myself. I was—we’d get programmed to do things.”

Q. “Programmed by Charlie?”

A. “By Charlie, but it’s hard for me to explain it so that you can see the way—the way I see. The words that would come from Charlie’s mouth would not come from inside him, [they] would come from what I call the Infinite.”

And sometimes, at night, they “creepy-crawled.”

Q. “Explain to these members of the jury what you mean by that.”

A. “Moving in silence so that nobody sees us or hears us…Wearing very dark clothing…”

Q. “Entering residences at night?”

A. “Yes.”

They would pick a house at random, anywhere in Los Angeles, slip in while the occupants were asleep, creep and crawl around the rooms silently, maybe move things so when the people awakened they wouldn’t be in the same places they had been when they went to bed. Everyone carried a knife. Susan said she did it “because everybody else in the Family was doing it” and she wanted that experience.

These creepy-crawling expeditions were, I felt sure the jury would surmise, dress rehearsals for murder.

Q. “Did you call your group by any name, Susan?”

A. “Among ourselves we called ourselves the Family.” It was, Susan said, “a family like no other family.”

I thought I heard a juror mutter, “Thank God!”

Q. “Susan, were you living at Spahn Ranch on the date of August the eighth, 1969?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “Susan, on that date did Charlie Manson instruct you and some other members of the Family to do anything?”

A. “I never recall getting any actual instructions from Charlie other than getting a change of clothing and a knife and was told to do exactly what Tex told me to do.”

Q. “Did Charlie indicate to you the type of clothing you should take?”

A. “He told me…wear dark clothes.”

Susan ID’d photos of Watson, Krenwinkel, and Kasabian, as well as a photo of the old Ford in which the four of them left the ranch. Charlie waved to them as they drove off. Susan didn’t notice the time, but it was night. There was a pair of wire cutters in the back seat, also a rope. She, Katie, and Linda each had a knife; Tex had a gun and, she believed, a knife too. Not until they were en route did Tex tell them, to quote Susan, that they “were going to a house up on the hill that used to belong to Terry Melcher, and the only reason why we were going to that house was because Tex knew the outline of the house.”

Q. “Did Tex tell you why you four were going to Terry Melcher’s former residence?”

Matter-of-factly, with no emotion whatsoever, Susan replied, “To get all of their money and to kill whoever was there.”

Q. “It didn’t make any difference who was there, you were told to kill them; is that correct?”

A. “Yes.”

They got lost on the way. However, Tex finally recognized the turnoff and they drove to the top of the hill. Tex got out, climbed the telephone pole, and, using the wire cutters, severed the wires. (LAPD still hadn’t got back to me regarding the test cuts made by the pair found at Barker.) When Tex returned to the car, they drove back down the hill, parked at the bottom, then, bringing along their extra clothing, walked back up. They didn’t enter the grounds through the gate “because we thought there might be an alarm system or electricity.” To the right of the gate was a steep, brushy incline. The fence wasn’t as high here. Susan threw over her clothing bundle, then went over herself, her knife in her teeth. The others followed.

They were stowing their clothing in the bushes when Susan saw the headlights of a car. It was coming up the driveway in the direction of the gate. “Tex told us girls to lie down and be still and not make a sound. He went out of sight…I heard him say ‘Halt.’” Susan also heard another voice, male, say “Please don’t hurt me, I won’t say anything.” “And I heard a gunshot and I heard another gunshot and another one and another one.” Four shots, then Tex returned and told them to come on. When they got to the car, Tex reached inside and turned off the lights; then they pushed the car away from the gate, back up the driveway.

I showed Susan a photo of the Rambler. “It looked similar to it, yes.” I then showed her the police photograph of Steven Parent inside the vehicle.

A. “That is the thing I saw in the car.”

There were audible gasps from the jurors.

Q. “When you say ‘thing,’ you are referring to a human being?”

A. “Yes, human being.”

The jurors had looked at the heart of Susan Atkins and seen ice.

They went on down the driveway, past the garage, to the house. Using a scale diagram I’d had prepared, Susan indicated their approach to the dining-room window. “Tex opened the window, crawled inside, and the next thing I knew he was at the front door.”

Q. “Did all of you girls enter at that time?”

A. “Only two of us entered, one stayed outside.”

Q. “Who stayed outside?”

A. “Linda Kasabian.”

Susan and Katie joined Tex. There was a man lying on the couch (Susan ID’d a photo of Voytek Frykowski). “The man stretched his arms and woke up. I guess he thought some of his friends were coming from somewhere. He said, ‘What time is it?’…Tex jumped in front of him and held a gun in his face and said, ‘Be quiet. Don’t move or you’re dead.’ Frykowski said something like ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’”

Q. “What did Tex say to that, if anything?”

A. “He said, ‘I am the Devil and I’m here to do the Devil’s business…’”

Tex then told Susan to check for other people. In the first bedroom she saw a woman reading a book. (Susan ID’d a photo of Abigail Folger.) “She looked at me and smiled and I looked at her and smiled.” She went on. A man and a woman were in the next bedroom. The man, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, had his back to Susan. The woman, who was pregnant, was lying on the bed. (Susan ID’d photos of Jay Sebring and Sharon Tate.) The pair were talking and neither saw her. Returning to the living room, she reported to Tex that there were three more people.

Tex gave her the rope and told her to tie up the man on the couch. After she’d done this, Tex ordered her to get the others. Susan walked into Abigail Folger’s bedroom, “put a knife in front of her, and said, ‘Get up and go into the living room. Don’t ask any questions. Just do what I say.’” Katie, also armed with a knife, took charge of Folger while Susan got the other two.

None offered any resistance. All had the same expression on their faces, “Shock.”

On entering the living room, Sebring asked Tex, “What are you doing here?” Tex told him to shut up, then ordered the three to lie on their stomachs on the floor in front of the fireplace. “Can’t you see she’s pregnant?” Sebring said. “Let her sit down.”

When Sebring “didn’t follow Tex’s orders…Tex shot him.”

Q. “Did you see Tex shoot Jay Sebring?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “With the gun that he had taken from Spahn Ranch?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “What happened next?”

A. “Jay Sebring fell over in front of the fireplace and Sharon and Abigail screamed.”

Tex ordered them to be quiet. When he asked if they had any money, Abigail said she had some in her purse in the bedroom. Susan went with her to get it. Abigail handed her seventy-two dollars and asked if she wanted her credit cards. Susan said she didn’t. On their return to the living room, Tex told Susan to get a towel and retie Frykowski’s hands; she did, she said, but couldn’t get the knot very tight. Tex then took the rope and tied it first around Sebring’s neck, then the necks of Abigail and Sharon. He threw the end of the rope over the beam in the ceiling and pulled on it, “which made Sharon and Abigail stand up so they wouldn’t be choked to death…” Then, “I forget who said it, but one of the victims said, ‘What are you going to do with us?’ and Tex said, ‘You are all going to die.’ And at that time they began to plead for their lives.”

Q. “What is the next thing that happened?”

A. “Then Tex ordered me to go over and kill Frykowski.”

As she raised her knife, Frykowski, who had managed to free his hands, jumped up and “knocked me down, and I grabbed him as best I could, and then it was a fight for my life as well as him fighting for his life.

“Somehow he got ahold of my hair and pulled it very hard and I was screaming for Tex to help me, or somebody to help me, and Frykowski, he was also screaming.

“Somehow he got behind me, and I had the knife in my right hand and I was—I was—I don’t know where I was at but I was just swinging with the knife, and I remember hitting something four, fives times repeatedly behind me. I didn’t see what it was I was stabbing.”

Q. “But did it appear to be a human being?”

A. “I never stabbed a human being before, but I just know it was going into something.”

Q. “Could it have been Frykowski?”

A. “It could have been Frykowski, it could have been a chair, I don’t know what it was.”

Susan had changed her story. In my interview with her, and on the tape, she had admitted to stabbing Frykowski “three or four times in the leg.” Also, if the story she told Virginia Graham was true, she knew exactly how it felt to stab someone, i.e., Gary Hinman.

Frykowski ran for the front door, “yelling for his life, for somebody to come help him.” Tex got to him and hit him over the head several times with “I believe a gun butt.” Tex later told her that he had broken the gun hitting Frykowski and that it wouldn’t work any more.[38] Apparently Tex had a knife ready, as he began stabbing Frykowski “as best he could because Frykowski was still fighting.” Meanwhile, “Abigail Folger had gotten loose from the rope and was in a fight with Katie, Patricia Krenwinkel…”

THE FOREMAN “We have a grand juror who would like to be excused for just a couple of minutes.”

A recess was taken. There was more than one pale face in the jury box.

We resumed where Susan had left off. Someone was moaning, she said. Tex ran over to Sebring, “and bent down and viciously stabbed him in the back many times…

“Sharon Tate, I remember seeing her struggling with the rope.” Tex ordered Susan to take care of her. Susan locked her arm around Sharon’s neck, forcing her back onto the couch. She was begging for her life. “I looked at her and said, ‘Woman, I have no mercy for you.’ And I knew that I was talking to myself, not to her…”

Q. “Did Sharon say anything about the baby at that point?”

A. “She said, ‘Please let me go. All I want to do is have my baby.’

“There was a lot of confusion going on…Tex went over to help Katie…I saw Tex stab Abigail Folger and just before he stabbed—maybe an instant before he stabbed her—she looked at him and let her arms go and looked at all of us and said, ‘I give up. Take me.’”

I asked Susan how many times Tex had stabbed Abigail. “Only once,” Susan replied. “She grabbed her middle section of her body and fell to the floor.”

Tex then ran outside. Susan released her grip on Sharon but continued to guard her. When Tex returned, he told Susan, “Kill her.” But, according to the story Susan was now telling, “I couldn’t.” Instead, “in order to make a diversion so that Tex couldn’t see that I couldn’t kill her, I grabbed her hand and held her arms, and then I saw Tex stab her in the heart area around the chest.” Sharon then fell from the couch to the floor. (Susan only mentioned Tex stabbing Sharon Tate once. According to the autopsy report, she had been stabbed sixteen times. According to Ronnie Howard, Susan told her, “I just kept stabbing her until she stopped screaming.”)

The next thing she remembered, Susan now testified, was that she, Tex, and Katie were outside, and “I saw Abigail Folger on the front lawn, bent over falling onto the grass…I didn’t see her go outside…and I saw Tex go over and stab her three or four—I don’t know how many times…” (Abigail Folger had twenty-eight stab wounds.) “While he was doing that, Katie and I were looking for Linda, because she wasn’t around…and then Tex walked over to Frykowski and kicked him in the head.” Frykowski was on the front lawn, away from the door. When Tex kicked him, “the body didn’t move very much. I believe it was dead at that time.” (Which was not surprising, since Voytek Frykowski had been shot twice, struck over the head thirteen times with a blunt object, and stabbed fifty-one times.)

Then “Tex told me to go back into the house and write something on the door in one of the victims’ blood…He said, ‘Write something that will shock the world.’ …I had previously been involved in something similar to this [Hinman], where I saw ‘political piggy’ written on the wall, so that stuck very heavily in my mind…” Re-entering the house, she picked up the same towel she had used to tie Frykowski’s hands, and walked over to Sharon Tate. Then she heard sounds.

Q. “What kind of sounds were they?”

A. “Gurgling sounds like blood flowing into the body out of the heart.”

Q. “What did you do then?”

A. “I picked up the towel and turned my head and touched her chest, and at the same time I saw she was pregnant and I knew that there was a living being inside of that body and I wanted to but I didn’t have the courage to go ahead and take it…And I got the towel with Sharon Tate’s blood, walked over to the door, and with the towel I wrote PIG on the door.”

Susan then threw the towel back into the living room; she didn’t look to see where it landed. (It fell on Sebring’s face, hence the “hood” referred to in the press.)

Sadie, Tex, and Katie then picked up the bundles of spare clothing they’d hidden in the bushes. They left by the gate, Tex pushing the button, and hurried down the hill. “When we got to the car, Linda Kasabian started the car, and Tex ran up to her and said, ‘What do you think you’re doing? Get over on the passenger side. Don’t do anything until I tell you to do it.’ Then we drove off.”

They changed clothing in the car, all except Linda, who, not having been in the house, had no blood on her. As they were driving away, Susan realized she had lost her knife, but Tex was against going back.

They drove somewhere along “Benedict Canyon, Mulholland Drive, I don’t know [which street]…until we came to what looked like an embankment going down like a cliff with a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other.” They pulled off and stopped, and “Linda threw all the bloody clothes over the side of the hill…” The weapons, the knives and gun, were tossed out at “three or four different places, I don’t remember how many.”

Susan then described, as she had to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard, how after they’d pulled off onto a side street and used a garden hose to wash off the blood, a man and a woman rushed out of the house and threatened to report them to the police. “And Tex looked at him and said, ‘Gee, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you were home. We were just walking around and wanted a drink of water. We didn’t mean to wake you up or disturb you.’ And the man looked down the street and said, ‘Is that your car?’ And Tex said, ‘No, I told you we were just walking.’ The man said, ‘I know that is your car. You better get in and get going.’”

They got in the car, and the man, apparently having decided to detain them, reached in to get the keys. Tex quickly started the car, however, and drove off fast.

After stopping at a service station on Sunset Boulevard, where they took turns going to the bathroom to check for “any other blood spots,” they drove back to Spahn Ranch, arriving there, Susan guessed, about 2 A.M.

When they pulled up in front of the boardwalk of the old movie set, Charles Manson was waiting for them. He walked over to the car, leaned inside, and asked, “What are you doing home so early?”

According to Susan, Tex told Manson “basically just what we had done. That it all happened perfectly. There was a lot of—it happened very fast—a lot of panic, and he described it, ‘Boy, it sure was helter skelter.’”

While at the service station, Susan had noticed blood on the door handles and steering wheel. She now went into the ranch kitchen and got a rag and a sponge and wiped it off.

Q. “How was Charles Manson acting when you arrived back at Spahn Ranch?”

A. “Charles Manson changes from second to second. He can be anybody he wants to be. He can put on any face he wants to put on at any given moment.”

Patricia “was very silent.” Tex was “nervous like he had just been through a traumatic experience.”

Q. “How did you feel about what you had just done?”

A. “I almost passed out. I felt as though I had killed myself. I felt dead. I feel dead now.”

After she’d finished cleaning the car, Susan and the others had gone to bed. She thought she had made love to someone, maybe Clem, but then again maybe she had imagined it.

The noon recess was called.

Throughout her testimony Susan had referred to the victims by name. After the recess I established that she hadn’t known their names that night, nor had she ever seen any of them before. “…when I first saw them, my reaction was, ‘Wow, they sure are beautiful people.’”

Susan first learned their identities the day after the murders, while watching the news on TV in the trailer next to George Spahn’s house. Tex, Katie, and Clem were also there, and maybe Linda, though Susan wasn’t sure.

Q. “As you were watching the television news coverage, did anyone say anything?”

Someone—Susan thought the words came from her own mouth, but she wasn’t positive—said either, “The Soul sure did pick a lulu,” or “The Soul sure did a good job.” She did remember saying that what had happened had “served its purpose.” Which was? I asked.

A. “To instill fear into the establishment.”

I asked Susan if any other members of the Family knew they had committed the Tate murders.

A. “The Family was so much together that nothing ever had to be said. We all just knew what each other would do or had done.”

We came now to the second night, the evening of August 9 and the early-morning hours of August 10.

That evening Manson again told Susan to get an extra set of clothing. “I looked at him and I knew what he wanted me to do, and I gave a sort of sigh and went and did what he asked me to do.”

Q. “Did he say what you were going to go out and do that night?” I asked.

A. “He said we were going to go out and do the same thing we did the last night…only two different houses…”

It was the same car and the same cast—Susan, Katie, Linda, and Tex—with three additions: Charlie, Clem, and Leslie. Susan didn’t notice any knives, only a gun, which Charlie had.

They stopped in front of a house, “somewhere in Pasadena, I believe,” Charlie got out, and the others drove around the block, then came back and picked him up. “He said he saw pictures of children through the window and he didn’t want to do that house.” In the future, however, Manson explained, they might have to kill the children also.

They stopped in front of another house, but saw some people nearby so remained in the car and after a few minutes drove off. At some point Susan fell asleep, she said. When she awakened, they were in a familiar neighborhood, near a house where, about a year before, she, Charlie, and about fifteen others had gone to an LSD party. The house had been occupied by a “Harold.” She couldn’t recall his last name.

Charlie got out, only he didn’t walk up the driveway of this particular house but the one next door. Susan went back to sleep. She woke up when Charlie returned. “He said, ‘Tex, Katie, Leslie, go into the house. I have the people tied up. They are very calm.’

“He said something to the effect that last night Tex let the people know they were going to be killed, which caused panic, and Charlie said that he reassured the people with smiles in a very quiet manner that they were not to be harmed…And so Tex, Leslie, and Katie got out of the car.”

Susan ID’d photographs of Tex, Leslie, and Katie. Also of the LaBianca residence, the long driveway, and the house next door.

I asked Susan what else Charlie told the trio. She replied that she “thought,” but it may be “my imagination that tells me this,” that “Charlie instructed them to go in and kill them.” She did recall him saying that they were “to paint a picture more gruesome than anybody had ever seen.” He’d also told them that after they were done they were to hitchhike back to the ranch.

When Charlie returned to the car, he had a woman’s wallet with him. Then they drove around “in a predominantly colored area.”

Q. “What happened next?”

Susan said they stopped at a gas station. Then “Charlie gave Linda Kasabian the woman’s wallet and told her to put it in the bathroom in the gas station and leave it there, hoping that somebody would find it and use the credit cards and thus be identified with the murder…”

I wondered about that wallet. To date, none of Rosemary LaBianca’s credit cards had been used.

After leaving the station, Susan said, she went back to sleep. “It was like I was drugged” though “I was not on drugs at the time.” When she woke up, they were back at the ranch.

(At this time we were unaware that Susan Atkins had made some significant omissions in her grand jury testimony—including three other attempts at murder that night. Had we known of them, we probably would have asked for an indictment of Clem. As it was, however, all we had against him was Susan’s statement that he had been in the car. And we still had a slim hope that his brother, whom we’d contacted at the Highway Patrol Academy, might persuade him to cooperate with us.)

Susan had not entered the LaBianca residence. However, the next morning Katie told her what had happened inside.

A. “She told me that when they got in the house they took the woman in the bedroom and put her on the bed and left Tex in the living room with the man…And then Katie said the woman heard her husband being killed and started to scream, ‘What are you doing to my husband?’ And Katie said that she then proceeded to stab the woman…”

Q. “Did she say what Leslie was doing while—”

A. “Leslie was helping Katie hold the woman down because the woman was fighting all the way up until she died…” Later Katie told Susan that the last words the woman spoke—“What are you doing to my husband?”—would be the thought she would carry with her into infinity.

Afterwards, Katie told Susan, they wrote “‘Death to all pigs’ on the refrigerator door or on the front door, and I think she said they wrote ‘helter skelter’ and ‘arise.’”

Then Katie walked into the living room from the kitchen with a fork in her hand, and “she looked at the man’s stomach and she had the fork in her hand and she put the fork in the man’s stomach and watched it wobble back and forth. She said she was fascinated by it.”

Susan also said that it was “Katie, I believe,” who carved the word “war” on the man’s stomach.

The three then took a shower and, since they were hungry, they went to the kitchen and fixed themselves something to eat.

According to Susan, Katie also told her that they presumed the couple had children and that they would probably find the bodies when they came over for Sunday dinner later that day.

After leaving the residence, “they dumped the old clothing in a garbage can a few blocks, maybe a mile, away from the house.” Then they hitchhiked back to Spahn Ranch, arriving about dawn.

I had only a few more questions for Susan Atkins.

Q. “Susan, did Charlie oftentimes use the word ‘pig’ or ‘pigs’?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “How about ‘helter skelter’?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “Did he use the words ‘pigs’ and ‘helter skelter’ very, very frequently?”

A. “Well, Charlie talks a lot…In some of the songs he wrote, ‘helter skelter’ was in them and he’d talk about helter skelter. We all talked about helter skelter.”

Q. “You say ‘we’; are you speaking of the Family?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “What did the word ‘pig’ or ‘pigs’ mean to you and your Family?”

A. “‘Pig’ was a word used to describe the establishment. But you must understand that all words had no meanings to us and that ‘helter skelter’ was explained to me.”

Q. “By whom?”

A. “Charlie. I don’t even like to say Charlie—I’d like to say the words came from his mouth—that helter skelter was to be the last war on the face of the earth. It would be all the wars that have ever been fought built one on top of the other, something that no man could conceive of in his imagination. You can’t conceive of what it would be like to see every man judge himself and then take it out on every other man all over the face of the earth.”

After a few more questions, I brought Susan Atkins’ testimony to an end. As she nonchalantly stepped down from the witness stand, the jurors stared at her in disbelief. Not once had she shown a trace of remorse, sorrow, or guilt.

There were only four more witnesses that day. After Susan Atkins was taken from the room, Wilfred Parent was brought in to identify his son in a high-school prom picture. After identifying photos of the other Tate victims, Winifred Chapman testified that she had washed the front door of the Tate residence shortly before noon on Friday, August 8. This was important, since it meant that in order to leave a print Charles “Tex” Watson had to have been on the premises sometime after Mrs. Chapman left at four that afternoon.

Aaron questioned Terry Melcher. He described meeting Manson; told of how Manson had been along when Dennis Wilson drove him home to 10050 Cielo Drive one night; and described, very briefly, his two visits to Spahn Ranch, the first to audition Manson, the second to introduce him to Michael Deasy, who had a mobile recording unit and who he felt might be more interested in recording Manson than he was.[39]

According to various Family members, Melcher had made numerous promises to Manson, and hadn’t come through on them. Melcher denied this: the first time he went to Spahn, he had given Manson fifty dollars, all the money he had in his pocket, because “I felt sorry for these people”; but it was for food, not an advance on a recording contract; and he’d made no promises. As for Manson’s talent, he “wasn’t impressed enough to allot the time necessary” to prepare and record him.

I wanted to interview Melcher in depth—I had a feeling that he was withholding something—but, like most of the other grand jury witnesses, he was here for a very limited purpose, and any real digging would have to wait.

Los Angeles Coroner Thomas Noguchi testified to the autopsy findings on the five Tate victims. When he had concluded, the session was adjourned until Monday.

That the proceedings were secret encouraged speculation, which, in some cases, appeared not as conjecture but fact. The headline on the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that afternoon read:

It wasn’t true; Susan Atkins had stated the very opposite, that the killers were not on drugs either night. But the myth was born, and it persisted, perhaps because it was the easiest explanation for what had happened.

Though, as I’d soon learn, drugs were one of several methods Manson used to obtain control over his followers, they had no part in these crimes, for a very simple reason: on these two nights of savage slaughter, Charles Manson wanted his assassins in complete control of their faculties.

The reality, and its implications, were far more frightening than the myth.

DECEMBER 6–8, 1969

On Saturday, Joe Granado went to the impound garage in Canoga Park to examine John Swartz’ 1959 Ford, which had been held there since the August 16 Spahn raid. This was the car Susan Atkins said the killers had used on both nights.

Granado got a positive benzidine reaction on a spot in the upper right-hand corner of the glove compartment, indicating blood, but there wasn’t enough to determine whether it was animal or human.

When I finally got Joe’s written report, I noticed the blood wasn’t mentioned. Asked about this, Joe said the amount was so small he hadn’t bothered to note it. I had Joe prepare a new report, this time including reference to the blood. Our case thus far was basically circumstantial, and in such a case each speck of evidence counts.

“I just had a talk with Gary Fleischman, Vince,” Aaron said. “He wants a deal for his client Linda Kasabian. Complete immunity in exchange for her testimony at the trial. I told him maybe we could go along with her pleading to voluntary manslaughter, but we couldn’t give her—”

“Christ, Aaron,” I interrupted. “It’s bad enough that we had to give Susan Atkins something! Look at it this way—Krenwinkel’s in Alabama, Watson’s in Texas; for all we know, we may not be able to extradite them before the others go on trial; and Van Houten wasn’t along on the night of the Tate murders. If we give deals to Atkins and Kasabian, who are we going to prosecute for the five Tate killings? Just Charlie? The people of this city won’t tolerate that. They’re shocked and outraged by these crimes. Drive through Bel Air sometime; the fear is still so real you can feel it.”

According to Fleischman, Linda was anxious to testify. He had urged her to fight extradition; she’d gone against his advice and come back to California because she wanted to tell the whole story.

“O.K., what can she testify to? According to Susan, Linda never entered either the Tate or LaBianca residences. As far as we know, she wasn’t an eyewitness to any of the murders, with the possible exception of Steven Parent. More important, as long as we have Susan, Linda’s testimony would be valueless to us, since Susan and Linda are both accomplices. As you well know, the law is clear on this: the testimony of one accomplice can’t be used to corroborate the testimony of another accomplice. What we really need, more than anything else, is corroboration.”

This was one of our biggest problems. In a sense it didn’t matter who ended up as our star witness; without corroboration our case would be lost as a matter of law. We not only had to find corroboration against each of the defendants, that corroborating evidence had to be completely independent of the accomplice’s testimony.

Aaron had seen Linda briefly, when she was booked into Sybil Brand. I’d never seen her. For all I knew, she was probably just as freaky as Sadie Mae Glutz.

“Now if Susan bolts back to Charlie,” I told Aaron, “and we’re left without a major witness for the trial—as well we might be—then we can talk about a deal for Linda. In fact, if that happens, Linda may be our only hope.”

When the grand jury reconvened on Monday, we moved quickly through the remaining testimony. Sergeant Michael McGann described what he had found at 10050 Cielo Drive on the morning of August 9, 1969. Sergeant Frank Escalante testified to having rolled Charles Watson’s prints on April 23, 1969, when he was arrested on a drug charge; Jerrome Boen of SID described how he lifted the latent from the front door of the Tate residence; and Harold Dolan, also of SID, testified to having compared it to the Watson exemplar, finding eighteen points of identity, eight more than LAPD requires for a positive identification. Sergeant William Lee testified regarding the pieces of gun grip and the .22 caliber bullets. Edward Lomax of Hi Standard matched the grips with his firm’s .22 caliber Longhorn revolver, and gave statistics indicating that the gun itself, because of its low production figures, was “rather unique.” Gregg Jakobson told of touting Manson to Melcher. Granado testified regarding the rope, the blood on the gun grips, and his discovery of the Buck knife.

It was for the most part highly technical testimony, and the appearance of Daniel DeCarlo provided a respite, as well as more than a little local color.

Aaron asked Danny: “Did you have any particular reason for staying at the ranch?”

A. “Lots of pretty girls up there.”

How did he get along with particular girls—for example, Katie?

A. “We talked, that is about it, but I never did nothing. You know, I never snatched her up or anything.”

Q. “And is your motorcycle club the kind that goes into a town and scares everybody?”

A. “No, that only happens in the movies.”

DeCarlo’s appearance, however, was intended for more than comic relief. He testified that Manson, Watson, and others, including himself, target-practiced with a .22 caliber Buntline revolver at Spahn. He said that he had last seen the gun “maybe a week, week and a half” before the sixteenth of August, and never after that. The drawing of the revolver which he had made for LAPD before he knew it was the Tate murder weapon was introduced into evidence. DeCarlo also recalled how he and Charlie had bought the three-strand nylon rope (which, being an ex–Coast Guardsman, he called “line”) at the Jack Frost store in Santa Monica in June 1969, and, shown the rope found at Cielo, said it was “identical.”

After Susan Atkins, the outlaw motorcyclist looked almost like a model citizen.

Deputy Medical Examiner David Katsuyama followed DeCarlo. Katsuyama had conducted the LaBianca autopsies. I’d have many, many problems with this witness. The grand jury provided only a sample. Aaron was to show Katsuyama a photo of Leno LaBianca’s hands, which were bound with a leather thong. DeCarlo was then to retake the stand and describe how Charlie always wore leather thongs around his neck. Sergeant Patchett was to follow and introduce the thongs he had found in Independence among Manson’s personal effects. He was also prepared to testify that they were “similar.”

Aaron showed Katsuyama the photo, asking what material had been used to tie Leno LaBianca’s hands. “Electrical cord,” he replied. I managed to suppress a groan: the electrical cord had been around the necks of the LaBianca victims. Would he look at the photo a little more closely? It still looked like electrical cord to him. I finally had to show Katsuyama his own autopsy notes, where he’d written: “The hands are tied together with a rather thin leather thong.”

Roxie Lucarelli, an officer with LAPD and a lifelong friend of Leno’s, identified photos of the LaBiancas, both Suzanne and Frank Struthers being still too shaken by the deaths to testify. Sergeant Danny Galindo told what he had found at 3301 Waverly Drive the night of August 10–11, 1969, and stated that a search of the residence revealed no trace of Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet.

Of the five girls brought down from Independence, Catherine Share, aka Gypsy, refused to testify, and we had not called Leslie Van Houten, since we were now aware that she was one of the LaBianca killers. The three remaining—Dianne Lake, aka Snake; Nancy Pitman, aka Brenda; and Ruth Ann Moorehouse, aka Ouisch—all denied any knowledge of the murders.

I’d anticipated this. However, I had another reason for calling them. If they appeared as defense witnesses when we went to trial, any discrepancy between what they told the grand jury and the trial jury would give me a prior inconsistent statement with which to impeach their testimony.

At 4:17 P.M. the Los Angeles County grand jury began their deliberations. Exactly twenty minutes later they returned the following indictments: Leslie Van Houten, two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder; Charles Manson, Charles Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, and Linda Kasabian, seven counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.

We’d got the indictments. And that was about all we had.

DECEMBER 9–12, 1969

Neither Aaron nor I logged the calls we received, but it would be a safe guess that we were getting upward of a hundred a day, to most of which our only response was “no comment.” The press was frantic. Although the indictments had been made public, the grand jury transcript itself had been “sealed”; it would remain secret until a week to ten days after the last defendant was arraigned. It was rumored that one magazine offered $10,000 just to look at a copy.

An officer Thomas Drynan called from Oregon. He had arrested Susan Atkins in 1966, as part of a holdup gang. At the time she had been carrying a .25 caliber pistol and had told Drynan that if he hadn’t drawn first she would have shot and killed him. At this stage of the investigation such information had no relevance. There was always a chance, however, that it might be useful later, and I made a note of his name and telephone number.

My cubicle in the Hall of Justice measured 20 feet by 10 feet, the furnishings consisting of a battered desk, a rickety cot brought in for cat naps at lunch hour, a filing cabinet, a couple of chairs, and a large table, usually piled high with transcripts and exhibits. A reporter once described the decor as 1930 Chicago. At that I was lucky, since the other deputy DAs had to share their offices. When I had a witness to interview, I’d have to drive everyone else out—not always diplomatically. That left the phone, which, since none of us had secretaries, we had to answer ourselves.

Each day brought new developments. Thus far, although sheriff’s deputies had dug up a sizable portion of Spahn Ranch, no trace of the remains of Donald “Shorty” Shea had been found. However, acting on the information supplied by Mary Brunner, LASO searched the neighborhood adjacent to 20910 Gresham Street, Canoga Park, and found, just around the corner from the former Family residence, Shea’s 1962 Mercury. It was dirt-covered and rain-streaked, apparently having been abandoned some months before. Inside the vehicle was a footlocker containing Shea’s personal effects; dusting it, LASO found a set of palm prints, which were later matched to Family member Bruce Davis. Shea’s cowboy boots were also in the car. They were caked with dried blood.

Independence, California, 4 P.M., December 9. Charles Milles Manson, aka Jesus Christ, age thirty-five, address transient, occupation musician, was charged with the Tate-LaBianca murders. Sartuchi and Gutierrez were bringing him to Los Angeles.

We scheduled Manson’s arraignment on a different date than that of the other defendants, fearing that if Atkins and Manson met in the courtroom he’d persuade her to repudiate her testimony.

A reporter located Susan Atkins’ father in San Jose. He said he didn’t believe this claim that Susan was under the “hypnotic spell” of Manson. “I think she is just trying to talk her way out of it. She’s sick and she needs help.” According to the reporter, Mr. Atkins blamed Susan’s involvement on her use of drugs and the leniency of the courts. He said he’d tried for three years to get the courts to keep his rebellious daughter off the streets; had they done so, he implied, this might not have happened.

For Susan, I realized, the Family was her only family. I understood now why Caballero felt it was only a matter of time before she returned to the fold.

On December 10, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Leslie Van Houten were brought before Judge William Keene. All three requested and were granted continuances before entering pleas.

This was the first time I had seen Kasabian. She was short, about five feet one, with long, dark-blond hair and green eyes, and was quite obviously pregnant. She looked older than twenty. In contrast to Susan and Leslie, who smiled and giggled through most of the proceedings, Linda seemed on the edge of tears.

Following the grand jury hearing, Judge Keene had called Aaron and me into chambers. At that time he’d told us that since the DA’s Office was not discussing the case with the press, he saw no need to issue a “publicity order” (or, as it is most often called, a “gag order”) covering the case. However, owing to the incredible amount of pre-trial publicity—a New York Times reporter told me that already it far exceeded that given the first Sam Sheppard trial—Judge Keene, without consulting our office, now went ahead and issued a detailed publicity order. Later amended several times, it would run to a dozen pages. In essence, it forbade anyone connected with the case—prosecutors, defense attorneys, police officers, witnesses, and so forth—to discuss the evidence with any representative of the media.

Though unknown to me at the time, the order was already too late to prevent an inside account of the murders from making headlines around the world. The previous evening, attorney Richard Caballero, acting on the basis of an agreement with Susan Atkins, had arranged the sale of the publication rights to her story.

Call from LAPD. Charles Koenig, an attendant at the Standard service station at 12881 Ensenada Boulevard in Sylmar, was cleaning the women’s rest room when he noticed the toilet was running. Lifting the lid off the tank, he found, on top of the mechanism, damp but above the waterline, a woman’s wallet. He’d checked the driver’s license and credit cards, saw the name “Rosemary LaBianca,” and immediately called LAPD.

SID was checking the wallet for prints but, because of both the material and the dampness, they doubted they’d find any.

Just the discovery of the wallet was enough for me, for it provided another piece of independent evidence supporting Susan Atkins’ story. Apparently the wallet had been there, undiscovered, since Linda Kasabian placed it there the night of the LaBianca murders, exactly four months ago.

At 11 A.M. on December 11 buckskin-clad Charles Manson was brought before Judge William Keene. The courtroom was so packed with reporters and spectators you couldn’t have squeezed another person in with a shoehorn. Since Manson lacked funds to hire an attorney, Keene appointed Paul Fitzgerald of the Public Defender’s Office to represent him. I’d come up against Paul before on several jury trials and knew he had a good reputation in his office. Manson was arraigned, and a postponement granted until December 22 for the entering of his plea.

In Independence, Sandra Good had told me that once, in the desert, Charlie had picked up a dead bird, breathed on it, and the bird had flown away. Sure, Sandy, sure, I replied. Since then I’d heard a great deal about Manson’s alleged “powers”; Susan Atkins, for example, felt he could see and hear everything she did or said.

Midway through the arraignment I looked at my watch. It had stopped. Odd. It was the first time I could remember that happening. Then I noticed that Manson was staring at me, a slight grin on his face.

It was, I told myself, simply a coincidence.

Following the arraignment, Paul Fitzgerald told Ron Einstoss, veteran crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times: “There’s no case against Manson and these defendants. All the prosecution has are two fingerprints and Vince Bugliosi.”

Fitzgerald was right about our case being weak. But I didn’t intend that it should remain that way. Nearly three weeks ago I’d given the Tate detectives, Calkins and McGann, an initial list of things to do, among which were to interview Terry Melcher; check the prints of every known Family member against the unmatched Tate latents; show photographs of Family members to friends and relatives of the victims; determine if the glasses belonged to anyone in the Family.

I called in Calkins and McGann and asked for a progress report. I learned that only one of the things on the list had been done. Melcher had been interviewed. By the LaBianca detectives.

To date LAPD hadn’t even begun looking for the Tate weapons and clothing, though Susan Atkins’ statements gave us some good clues as to the general area where they should be. Arrangements were made through our office for Susan to be taken from Sybil Brand the following Sunday, to see if she could point out the spots where Linda Kasabian had thrown the various items.

Fitzgerald was not the only one who felt we had no case. The consensus in the DA’s Office and the Los Angeles legal community—which I picked up from many sources, usually with some such remark as “Too bad you had to get involved in such a bummer”—was that the case against Manson and most of the other defendants would be thrown out on an 1118 motion.

Under section 1118.1 of the California Penal Code, if at the end of the People’s case the court feels the prosecution has failed to put on enough evidence to sustain a conviction on appeal, the judge is empowered to acquit the defendants. They aren’t even required to put on a defense to the charges.

Some felt it wouldn’t even get that far. Newsweek quoted an unnamed Los Angeles County deputy district attorney as saying that our case against Manson was so anemic that it would be thrown out even before we went to trial.

Such talk, in addition to the national exposure that would be accorded any defense attorney connected with the case, was, I suspected, the reason Manson was having so many visitors at the Los Angeles County Jail. As one deputy sheriff put it, “It’s like a bar association convention over here.” (Between December 11, 1969, and January 21, 1970, Manson had 237 separate visits, 139 of which were by one or more attorneys.) Among the first lawyers to call on him were Ira Reiner, Daye Shinn, and Ronald Hughes, none of whom I knew at that time, though I’d know all three much better before the trial ended.

Rumors multiplied like bacteria. One was that, prior to the imposition of the gag order, Caballero had sold Atkins’ story to a European press syndicate, with the stipulation that the story was not to be released in the United States until after the grand jury transcript was made public. If true, I seriously doubted if American papers would respect such an agreement. There were bound to be leaks.

DECEMBER 14, 1969

I didn’t have to look for a newsstand that sold foreign papers. When I got up that Sunday morning, I needed only to walk out the front door, reach down, and pick up the Los Angeles Times.

The story covered nearly three pages. Though obviously edited and rewritten, with some additional material on her childhood, it was essentially the same story Susan Atkins had related on the tape made in Caballero’s office.

Not until the trial itself would the story-behind-the-story come out. The following is reconstructed from the courtroom testimony. I can make no claim as to its accuracy, only that this is what the various participants testified under oath.

Before the imposition of the gag order, Lawrence Schiller, a self-described Hollywood “journalist and communicator,” approached Richard Caballero and his law associate, Paul Caruso, asking if they would be interested in selling Susan Atkins’ first-person account of the murders. After consulting with Susan, an agreement was reached and a “ghost”—Los Angeles Times reporter Jerry Cohen, on leave of absence from the paper—was hired to write the account.[40] Using as his main source the December 1 tape, Cohen completed the story in just two days, while locked in a room in Schiller’s home. To make sure he maintained “exclusivity,” Schiller saw that Cohen had neither carbon paper nor access to a phone, and he destroyed all but the finished draft.

According to their subsequent courtroom testimony, Caballero and Caruso understood that initially the story was to appear in Europe only, with a publication date of Sunday, December 14.

According to Schiller, on December 12 he made three Xerox copies of the manuscript: one was given to Caballero; one to a German editor who had bought the rights for his magazine and who translated it as he flew back to Germany; and the third flown by special courier to the London News of the World, which had paid $40,000 for exclusive English rights. Schiller put the original in his own safe.

The following day, Saturday, December 13, Schiller learned (1) that the Los Angeles Times also had a Xerox copy of the manuscript, and (2) that the Times intended to run it in full the following day. Screaming copyright infringement, Schiller tried, unsuccessfully, to stop publication.

Exactly how the Los Angeles Times obtained the story remains unknown. During the trial Caballero more than hinted that he suspected Schiller, while Schiller attempted to put the blame on Caballero.

Whatever the ethics of the whole matter, the Atkins story created immense problems which would plague both the defense and the prosecution throughout the trial. The story was not only reprinted in newspapers all over the world; even before the trial started it appeared as a paperback book, titled The Killing of Sharon Tate.[41] It was felt by some that the Atkins revelations would make it impossible for the defendants to obtain a fair trial. Although neither Aaron nor I nor, eventually, the trial judge, shared this view, we were all too aware, from the moment the story broke, that finding twelve jurors who hadn’t read or heard of the account, and then keeping any mention of it out of the courtroom itself, would be a difficult task.

Few of the Angelenos who read Susan Atkins’ story in the Times that Sunday were aware that she was at the same time riding around Los Angeles and its environs in a nondescript, though heavily guarded, automobile. We were hoping she would point out the places where the clothing and weapons had been discarded following the Tate murders.

On returning to Sybil Brand that night, Susan wrote a letter to a former cellmate, Kitt Fletcher, in which she told of her excursion: “My attorney is great. He has had me out to his office twice and today he got me out for 7 hours. We went riding in a car up to the Tate mansion and through the canyons. The LAPD wanted me to see if I could recall where certain things happened. It was such a beautiful day my memory vanished.”

As in most jails, the mail at Sybil Brand was censored, both letters received and letters sent being read by the authorities. Those which contained what appeared to be incriminating statements were photocopied and given to our office. Under existing case law, this could be done without violating a prisoner’s constitutional rights.

Susan/Sadie was in a letter-writing mood. Several of her letters contained damaging admissions which, unlike her grand jury testimony, could be used against her in the trial, if we chose to do so. To Jo Stevenson, a friend in Michigan, she’d written on the thirteenth: “You rember the Sharon Tate murder and LaBianca murder? Well because of my big mouth to a cell-mate they just indicted me and 5 other people…”[42]

Even more incriminating, and revealing, was a “kite” Susan sent Ronnie Howard. In jail parlance, a kite is any illegal communication. The letter, which Susan smuggled to Ronnie via the underground at Sybil Brand, read as follows:

“I can see your side of this clearly. Nor am I mad at you. I am hurt in a way only I understand. I blame no one but myself for even saying anything to anybody about it…Yes, I wanted the world to know M. It sure looks like they do now. There was a so called motive behind all this. It was to instill fear into the pigs and to bring on judgment day which is here now for all.

“In the word kill, the only thing that dies is the ego. All ego must die anyway, it is written. Yes, it could have been your house, it could have been my fathers house also. In killing someone phisally you are only releasing the soul. Life has no boundris and death is only an illusion. If you can believe in the second coming of Crist, M is he who has come to save…Maybe this will help you to understand…I did not admit to being in the 2nd house because I was not in the 2nd house.

“I went before the grand jury because my attorney said your testimony was enough to convict me and all the others. He also said it was my only chance to save myself. Then I was out to save myself. I have gone through some changes since then…I know now it has all been perfect. Those people died not out of hate or anything ugly. I am not going to defend our beliefs. I am just telling you the way it is…As I write to you I feel more at ease inside. When I first heard you were the informer I wanted to slit your throat. Then I snapped that I was the real informer and it was my throat I wanted to cut. Well that’s all over with now as I let the past die away from my mind. You know it will all turn out ok in the end anyway, M or no M, Sadie or no Sadie, love will still run forever. I am giving up me to become that love a little more every day…”

Quoting a lyric from one of Manson’s songs, Susan ended the letter: “Cease to exist, just come and say you love me. As I say I love you or I should say I love Me (my love) in you.

“I hope now you understand a little more. If not, ask.”

Ronnie, who was now living in deathly fear of Susan, turned the letter over to her attorney, Wesley Russell, who passed it on to our office. It would prove far more damaging to Susan Atkins than the confession which appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

DECEMBER 15–25, 1969

When on a case, I made it a habit periodically to scour LAPD’s “tubs,” or files, often finding something useful to my case whose evidentiary value wasn’t apparent to the police.

In going through the LaBianca tubs, I made two discoveries. The first was the Al Springer interview. Only one page had been transcribed, the one on which Springer related how Manson told him, “We knocked off five of them just the other night.”

As desperate as we were for evidence, none of the detectives had mentioned the Springer statement to me, nor, when I questioned Lieutenants Helder and LePage, were they aware they had a confession by Manson in their files. I took the tape and had it transcribed, adding “Interview Al Springer” to my own already lengthy list of Things to Do. Though, because of Aranda, Manson’s confession couldn’t be used against him at the trial, it was quite possible he had made other admissions that could.

The second find was a photocopy of a letter mailed to Manson while he was in jail in Independence. The content was innocuous; however, it was signed “Harold.” Susan Atkins had told the grand jury that a guy named “Harold” had been living at the house next door to the LaBianca residence when she, Charlie, and a number of others had gone there for an LSD party a year or so earlier. I had a feeling this might be the same person, and made another note for the LaBianca detectives: “Find Harold.” This shouldn’t be too difficult, as he had given an address in Sherman Oaks and two telephone numbers.

Why? The biggest and most puzzling question of all remained: what was Manson’s motive? On learning that Manson often told his followers that he was a Scorpio, and thinking that possibly his belief in astrology might be a factor, I obtained back copies of the Los Angeles Times and checked Carroll Righter’s “Astrological Forecast” for his sign.

You could, I realized, read just about any meaning you wanted into such forecasts. Including plans for murder?

It was indicative of our desperation that I went to such unlikely lengths in trying to ascertain why Manson had ordered these murders.

I didn’t even know whether Manson read newspapers.

Since the story first broke, LAPD had been receiving inquiries from various police departments regarding unsolved murders in their jurisdictions which they believed could have been committed by one or more members of the Manson Family. I went through these reports, eliminating a great many, setting others aside as “possibles.”[43] Though my principal concern was the Tate-LaBianca homicides, I wanted to see if there was a discernible pattern which might help explain the killings at Cielo and Waverly drives. Thus far, if there was one, I couldn’t find it.

In her printed “confession” Susan Atkins had described how, after changing clothes in the car, the Tate killers drove “along a steep embankment,” with a mountain on one side, a ravine on the other. “We stopped and Linda got out of the car and threw all the clothes, all drippy with blood…over the side.”

With the Times story on the seat beside them, a TV camera crew from Channel 7, KACB-TV, attempted to re-create the scene. Driving from the gate at 10050 Cielo Drive, they proceeded down Benedict Canyon, all but the driver changing clothes on the way. It took them six minutes and twenty seconds—during which they later admitted they felt more than a little foolish—to complete their change of apparel. At the first spot where they could pull off the road—a wide shoulder opposite 2901 Benedict Canyon Road—they stopped and got out.

Mountain on one side, ravine on the other. Newscaster Al Wiman looked down the steep embankment and, pointing to some dark objects about fifty feet down, said, laughing, “Looks like clothing down there.” King Baggot, the cameraman, and Eddie Baker, the sound man, looked too and had to agree.

It was just too easy—if the clothing was in plain view from the road, surely LAPD would have found it by now. Still, they decided to check it out. They were about to descend the slope when the car radio buzzed: they were needed on another story.

While on the other assignment they couldn’t get those dark objects out of mind. About 3 P.M. they returned to the spot. Baker went down first, followed by Baggot. They found three sets of clothing: one pair of black trousers, two pairs of blue denim pants, two black T-shirts, one dark velour turtleneck, and one white T-shirt which was spotted with some substance that looked like dried blood. Some of the clothing was partly covered by dirt slides; all of it, however, was in an area about twelve feet square, as if thrown there in one bundle.

They yelled the news up to Wiman, who called LAPD. By the time McGann and three other detectives arrived, shortly before five, it was beginning to get dark, so the TV crew set up artificial lighting. While the detectives placed the clothing in plastic bags, Baggot filmed the incident.

On learning of the find, I asked the Tate detectives to conduct a thorough search of the area, to see if they could locate any of the weapons. I had to make the request not once but many, many times. In the interim, a week after the initial discovery, Baggot and Baker returned to the scene and conducted their own search, finding a knife. It was an old, badly rusted kitchen knife, which, because of its dimensions and dull edge, was eliminated as one of the murder weapons, but it was in plain view less than a hundred feet from where the clothing had been found.

That a TV crew had found the clothing was an embarrassment to LAPD. Faces at Parker Center, however, would be far redder before the end of the following day.

On Tuesday, December 16, Susan Atkins appeared before Judge Keene and pleaded not guilty to all eight counts of the indictment. Keene set a trial date of February 9, 1970. Since this was the same date set for the retrial of Bobby Beausoleil, I was taken off the Beausoleil-Hinman case, and it was assigned to Deputy DA Burton Katz. I wasn’t unhappy about this; I had more than enough to do on Tate-LaBianca.

That Tuesday was, for Bernard Weiss, a most trying day.

Weiss hadn’t read Susan Atkins’ story when it appeared in the Los Angeles Times, but a colleague at work had, and he mentioned to Weiss that a .22 caliber revolver had definitely been used in the Tate murders. Odd coincidence, wasn’t it, his boy finding a similar type gun?

Weiss thought it might be something more than that. After all, his son had found the revolver on September 1, a little over two weeks after the Tate murders; they lived not far from the Tate residence; and the road right above the hill where Steven had found the gun was Beverly Glen. That morning Weiss called the Valley Services Division of LAPD in Van Nuys and told them he thought they might have the missing Tate gun. Van Nuys referred him to LAPD Homicide at Parker Center.

Weiss called there about noon, and repeated his story. He observed that the gun his son had found had a broken trigger guard and part of the wooden grip was missing. “Well, it sounds enough like the gun,” the detective told him. “We’ll check it out.”

Weiss anticipated that the detective would call him back; he didn’t. That evening on arriving home, Weiss read the Atkins story. It convinced him. About 6 P.M. he again called LAPD Homicide. The officer he’d talked to at noon was out, so he had to repeat the story a third time. This officer told him, “We don’t keep guns that long. We throw them in the ocean after a while.” Weiss said, “I can’t believe you’d throw away what could be the single most important piece of evidence in the Tate case.” “Listen, mister,” the officer replied, “we can’t check out every citizen report on every gun we find. Thousands of guns are found every year.” The discussion became an argument, and they hung up on each other.

Weiss then called one of his neighbors, Clete Roberts, a newscaster for Channel 2, and told Roberts the story. Roberts in turn called someone at LAPD.

Although it remains unclear which of the five calls triggered a response, at least one did. At 10 P.M.—three and a half months after Weiss gave the gun to officer Watson—Sergeants Calkins and McGann drove over to Van Nuys and picked up the .22 caliber Hi Standard Longhorn revolver.

News of the find “leaked” to the Los Angeles Times four days later. It was a somewhat selective leak. There were no details as to when or where the gun was found, or by whom, the implication being that it had been discovered by LAPD sometime after the clothing, and in the same general area.

The cylinder contained two live rounds and seven empty shell casings. This tallied perfectly with the original autopsy reports, which stated that Sebring and Frykowski had each been shot once, and Parent five times. There was only one problem: I’d already discovered the autopsy reports were in error.

After Susan Atkins testified that Tex Watson shot Parent four (not five) times, I’d asked Coroner Noguchi to re-examine the Parent autopsy photos. When he did, he found that two of the wounds had been made by the same bullet. This reduced the number of times Parent was shot to four; it also left one bullet unaccounted for.

This time I had Noguchi re-examine all the autopsy photos. In doing so, he found that Frykowski had been shot not once but twice, the coroners performing the autopsy having overlooked a gunshot wound in the left leg. So the count was again consistent, even if the reports were not.

Bill Lee of SID compared the three pieces of gun grip with the butt of the revolver: a perfect fit. Joe Granado tested some brown spots on the barrel: blood, human, same type and subtype as Jay Sebring’s. After test-firing the gun, Lee placed the test bullets and the Tate bullets under a comparison microscope. Three of the four bullets recovered after the Tate murders were either too fragmented or battered for the stria to be matched up. With the fourth, the Sebring bullet, he made a positive ID. There was no doubt whatsoever, he told me, that it had been fired from the .22 Longhorn.

One very important step remained: linking the gun to Charles Manson. I asked the Tate detectives to show it to DeCarlo, to determine if it was the same gun with which Manson and the other men used to target-practice at Spahn. I also requested as complete a history of the gun as they could manage, from the day it was manufactured by Hi Standard to the day it was found by Steven Weiss.

It was decided that there was insufficient evidence to convict either Gypsy or Brenda, and the two hard-core Manson Family members were released from custody. Although Brenda returned to her parents for a short time, both soon rejoined Squeaky, Sandy, and the other Family members at Spahn, lonely George having weakened and let them move back to the ranch.

Manson’s frequent court appearances gave me opportunities to study him. Though he’d had little formal schooling, he was fairly articulate, and definitely bright. He picked up little nuances, seemed to consider all the hidden sides of a question before answering. His moods were mercurial, his facial expressions chameleonlike. Underneath, however, there was a strange intensity. You felt it even when he was joking, which, despite the seriousness of the charges, was often. He frequently played to the always packed courtroom, not only to the Family faithful but to the press and spectators as well. Spotting a pretty girl, he’d often smile or wink. Usually they appeared more flattered than offended.

Though their responses surprised me, they shouldn’t have. I’d already heard that Manson was receiving a large volume of mail, including many “love letters,” the majority of which were from young girls who wanted to join the Family.

On December 17, Manson appeared before Judge Keene and asked to have the Public Defender dismissed. He wanted to represent himself, he said.

Judge Keene told Manson that he was not convinced that he was competent to represent himself, or, in legal jargon, to proceed “in pro per” (in propria persona).

MANSON “Your Honor, there is no way I can give up my voice in this matter. If I can’t speak, then our whole thing is done. If I can’t speak in my own defense and converse freely in this courtroom, then it ties my hands behind my back, and if I have no voice, then there is no sense in having a defense.”

Keene agreed to reconsider Manson’s motion on the twenty-second.

Manson’s insistence that only he could speak for himself, as well as his obvious enjoyment at being in the spotlight, led me to one conclusion: when the time came, he probably wouldn’t be able to resist taking the stand.

I began keeping a notebook of questions I intended to ask him on cross-examination. Before long there was a second notebook, and a third.

On the nineteenth Leslie Van Houten also asked to have her present attorney, Donald Barnett, dismissed. Keene granted the motion and appointed Marvin Part to be Miss Van Houten’s attorney of record.

Only later would we learn what was happening behind the scenes. Manson had set up his own communications network. Whenever he heard that an attorney for one of the girls had initiated a move on behalf of his client which could conceivably run counter to Manson’s own defense, within days that attorney would be removed from the case. Barnett had wanted a psychiatrist to examine Leslie. Learning of this, Manson vetoed the idea, and when the psychiatrist appeared at Sybil Brand, Leslie refused to see him. Her request for Barnett’s dismissal came immediately after.

Manson’s goal: to run the entire defense himself. In court as well as out, Charlie intended to retain complete control of the Family.

Manson wanted to represent himself, he told the court, because “lawyers play with people, and I am a person and I don’t want to be played with in this matter.” Most lawyers were only interested in one thing, publicity, Manson said. He’d seen quite a few of them lately and felt he knew what he was talking about. Any attorney previously associated with the DA’s Office was not acceptable to him, he added. He had learned that two other defendants had court-appointed attorneys who were once deputy DAs (Caballero and Part).

Judge Keene explained that many lawyers engaged in the practice of criminal law first gained experience in the office of the District Attorney, the City Attorney, or the U.S. Attorney. Knowing how the prosecution worked was often a benefit to their clients.

MANSON “It sounds good from there, but not from here.”

“Your Honor,” Manson continued, “I am in a difficult position. The news media has already executed and buried me…If anyone is hypnotized, the people are hypnotized by the lies being told to them…There is no attorney in the world who can represent me as a person. I have to do it myself.”

Judge Keene had a suggestion. He would arrange for an experienced attorney to confer with him. Unlike other attorneys to whom Manson had talked, this attorney would have no interest in representing him. His function would be solely to discuss with him the legal issues, and the possible dangers, of defending himself. Manson accepted the offer and, after court, Keene arranged for Joseph Ball, a former president of the State Bar Association and former senior counsel to the Warren Commission, to meet with Manson.

Manson talked to Ball and found him “a very nice gentleman,” he told Judge Keene on the twenty-fourth. “Mr. Ball probably understands maybe everything there is to know about law, but he doesn’t understand the generation gap; he doesn’t understand free love society; he doesn’t understand people who are trying to get out from underneath all of this…”

Ball, in turn, found Manson “an able, intelligent young man, quiet-spoken and mild-mannered…” Although he had attempted to persuade him, without success, that he could benefit from the services of a skilled lawyer, Ball was obviously impressed with Manson. “We went over different problems of law, and I found he had a ready understanding…Remarkable understanding. As a matter of fact, he has a very fine brain. I complimented him on the fact. I think I told you that he had a high IQ. Must have, to be able to converse as he did.” Manson “is not resentful against society,” Ball said. “And he feels that if he goes to trial and he is able to permit jurors and the Court to hear him and see him, they will realize he is not the kind of man who would perpetrate horrible crimes.”

After Ball had finished, Judge Keene questioned Manson for more than an hour about his knowledge of courtroom procedure, and the possible penalties for the crimes with which he was charged, throughout almost begging him to reconsider his decision to defend himself.

MANSON “For all my life, as long as I can remember, I’ve taken your advice. Your faces have changed, but it’s the same court, the same structure…All my life I’ve been put in little slots, Your Honor. And I went along with it…I have no alternative but to fight you back any way I know because you and the District Attorney and all the attorneys I have ever met are all on the same side. The police are on the same side and the newspapers are on the same side and it’s all pointed against me, personally…No. I haven’t changed my mind.”

THE COURT “Mr. Manson, I am imploring you not to take this step; I am imploring you to either name your own attorney, or, if you are unable to do so, to permit the Court to name one for you.”

Manson’s mind was made up, however, and Judge Keene finally concluded: “It is, in this Court’s opinion, a sad and tragic mistake that you are making by taking this course of action, but I can’t talk you out of it.…Mr. Manson, you are your own lawyer.”

It was Christmas Eve. I worked until 2 A.M., then took the next day off.

DECEMBER 26–31, 1969

A call from LAPD. A cook at the Brentwood Country Club says that the chief steward there, Rudolf Weber, was the man in front of whose house the Tate killers stopped to hose off about 1 A.M. on August 9.

Bringing along a police photographer to take photos of the area, Calkins and I went to see Weber at his home at 9870 Portola Drive, a side street just off Benedict Canyon Drive, less than two miles from the Tate residence. As I listened to Weber’s story, I knew he was going to be a good witness. He had an excellent memory, told exactly what he remembered, didn’t try to fill in what he did not. He was unable to make a positive identification from the large batch of photos I showed him, but his general description fitted: all four were young (Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Kasabian were all in their early twenties), the man was tall (Watson was six feet one), and one of the girls was short (Kasabian was five feet one). His description of the car—which had never appeared in the press—was accurate down to the faded paint around the license plates. How was it he could recall such a detail about the car but not their faces? Very simple: when he followed the four down to the car, he turned the flashlight on the license plate; when he saw them on the street, near the hose, they were in the dark.

Weber had a surprise—a big one. Following the incident, thinking perhaps the four people had committed a burglary in the area, he had written down the license number of the vehicle. He had since thrown the piece of paper away—my heart sank—but he still remembered the number. It was GYY 435.

How in the world could he remember that? I asked him. In his job as steward he had to remember numbers, he replied.

Anticipating that this point might be brought up by the defense, I asked Weber if he had read the Atkins story. He said he hadn’t.

On returning to my office, I checked the impound report on John Swartz’ car: “1959 Ford 4 Dr., Lic. # GYY 435.”

When I interviewed Swartz, the former Spahn ranch hand told me that Manson and his girls often borrowed the car; in fact, he had taken the back seat out so they could fit the big boxes in when they went on their “garbage runs.” With the exception of one particular night, they always asked his permission before taking the car.

What night was that? Well, he wasn’t exactly sure of the date, but it was a week, two weeks before the raid. What happened that particular night? Well, he’d already gone to bed in his trailer when he heard his car start up. He got up and looked out the window just in time to see the taillights pulling away. Any idea what time that was? Well, he usually went to bed around ten or thereabouts, so it was after that. When he woke up the next morning, Swartz said, the car was back. He’d asked Charlie why they’d taken the car without asking, and Charlie had told him that he hadn’t wanted to wake him up.

Any other nights during this same period when Manson borrowed the car? I inquired. Yeah, one other night Charlie, the girls, and some other guys—he was unable to remember which girls and guys—said they were going downtown to play some music.

Swartz was unable to date this particular night except that it was around the same time they took the car without permission. Before or after? He couldn’t remember. Consecutive nights? Couldn’t remember that either.

I asked Swartz if he had ever belonged to the Family. “Never,” he very emphatically replied. One time, after the raid, and after Shorty had dropped from sight, he and Manson had an argument, Swartz said. Charlie had told him, “I could kill you any time. I could come into your sleeping quarters any time.” After that Swartz quit his job at Spahn, where he had been working off and on since 1963, and got a job at another ranch.

What did he know about Shorty’s disappearance? Well, a week or two after the raid Shorty just wasn’t around any more. He’d asked Charlie if he knew where he was, and Charlie had told him, “He’s gone to San Francisco about a job. I told him about a job there.” He didn’t exactly feel confident with that explanation, he said, not after having noticed that Bill Vance and Danny DeCarlo each had one of Shorty’s .45 caliber pistols.

Shorty would never willingly part with those matched pistols, Swartz said, no matter how hard up he was.

Under the Constitution of the United States, extradition is mandatory, not discretionary.[44] When a state has a valid and duly executed indictment—as we did in the case of Charles “Tex” Watson—there is no legitimate reason why the accused shouldn’t be extradited forthwith.

Certain powers in Collin County, Texas, felt otherwise. Bill Boyd, Watson’s attorney, told the press he’d fight to keep his client in Texas if it meant going all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

Bill Boyd’s father, Roland Boyd, was a powerful southern politician of the Sam Rayburn school. He was also the campaign manager of a candidate who was running for attorney general of Texas. It was his candidate, Judge David Brown, who heard the Watson extradition request, and granted delay after delay after delay to young Boyd’s client.

Bill Boyd was himself an aspiring politician. Tom Ryan, the local DA, told a Los Angeles Times reporter: “I’ve heard it said that Bill wants to be President of the United States. And after that he wants to be God.”

Time magazine reported: “As swarms of reporters begged for jailhouse interviews with his client, Boyd began dropping ten-gallon hints that Watson’s family might go along ‘if the offer is substantial.’ One photographer offered $1,800. ‘We need lots and lots of money,’ retorted Boyd. How much? ‘About $50,000,’ said the lawyer. Though the press balked, Boyd still has not lowered his client’s price—and he is quite sure that eventually he will get it.”

Meanwhile, Tex apparently wasn’t suffering unduly. We heard, from various sources, that his one-man cell was comfortably furnished, that he had his own record player and records. His vegetarian meals were cooked by his mother. He also wore his own clothing, which she laundered. And he was not completely lacking company, his cell adjoining that occupied by the female prisoners.

Though the extradition of Watson was proving difficult, there were indications that Katie Krenwinkel might decide to return voluntarily, on Manson’s orders. Squeaky, acting as Charlie’s liaison, had sent Krenwinkel a barrage of letters and telegrams, photocopies of which we received from the Mobile, Alabama, authorities: “Together we stand…If you go extra is good…”

I also presumed that the togetherness referred to in each of the messages meant that Manson intended to conduct a joint, or umbrella, defense.

Since the Family had contacted Krenwinkel but, as far we could determine, not Watson, I carried my conjecture a step further, guessing that when the case went to trial Manson and the girls would try to put the hat on Watson.

Presuming they would try to prove that Tex, not Charlie, was the mastermind behind the Tate-LaBianca murders, I began collecting every bit of evidence I could find on the Manson-Watson relationship, and the role each played in the Family.

When interrogated in Los Angeles, sixteen-year-old Dianne Lake had been threatened with the gas chamber. And had said nothing. Inyo County Deputy DA Buck Gibbens and investigator Jack Gardiner tried kindness, something Dianne had known little of during her life.

Dianne’s parents had “turned hippy” while she was still a child. By age thirteen she was a member of the Hog Farm commune, and had been introduced to group sex and LSD. When she joined Manson, just before her fourteenth birthday, it was with her parents’ approval.

Apparently not finding Dianne submissive enough, Manson had, on various occasions: punched her in the mouth; kicked her across a room; hit her over the head with a chair leg; and whipped her with an electrical cord. Despite such treatment, she stayed. Which implies something tragic about the alternatives available to her.

After her return to Independence, Gibbens and Gardiner had a number of lengthy conversations with Dianne. They convinced her that other people did care about her. Gardiner’s wife and children visited her regularly. Hesitantly at first, Dianne began telling the officers what she knew. And, contrary to what she had told the grand jury, she knew a great deal. Tex, for example, had admitted to her that he’d stabbed Sharon Tate. He did it, he told her, because Charlie had ordered the killings.

On December 30, Sartuchi and Nielsen interviewed Dianne in Independence. She told them that one morning, maybe a week to two weeks before the August 16 raid, Leslie had come into the back house at Spahn with a purse, a rope, and a bag of coins. She hid them under a blanket. When, a short time later, a man arrived and knocked on the door, Leslie hid herself. She told Dianne the man had given her a ride from Griffith Park and she didn’t want him to see her.

The two LaBianca detectives exchanged looks. Griffith Park was not far from Waverly Drive.

After the man left, Leslie came out from under the blanket and Dianne helped her count the money. There was about eight dollars in change, in a plastic sack.

Because of Leno LaBianca’s coin collection, the detectives were very interested in that bag of change.

Q. “O.K., you say you helped Leslie count the money or coins. Did you see any coins in there from another country?”

A. “Canada.”

Leslie then built a fire and burned the purse (Dianne recalled it as being brown leather), some credit cards (one was an oil company card), and the rope (it was about 4 feet long and 1 to 1½ inches in diameter). Then she took off her own clothing and burned it too. Had Dianne noticed any blood spots on the clothing? No.

Later, in late August or early September, while they were at Willow Springs, about ten miles from Barker Ranch, Leslie told Dianne that she had stabbed someone who was already dead. Was it a woman or a man? Leslie hadn’t said.

Leslie also told Dianne that the murder had occurred someplace near Griffith Park, near Los Feliz; that someone had written something in blood on the refrigerator door; and that she, Leslie, then wiped everything so there would be no prints, even wiping things they hadn’t touched. When they left, they took some food with them. What kind of food? A carton of chocolate milk.

Had Leslie said anything about the Tate murders? Leslie had told her she wasn’t in on that.

Sartuchi attempted to get more details. The only other thing Dianne could recall was that there had been a big boat outside the house. But she couldn’t remember whether Leslie had told her about the boat or whether she had read it in the paper. She did, however, remember Leslie describing it.

Prior to this, the only evidence we had linking Leslie Van Houten with the LaBianca murders was the testimony of Susan Atkins. Since Susan was an accomplice, this would not stand up in court without independent corroboration.

Dianne Lake supplied it.

There was a question, however, as to whether Dianne would be able to testify at the trial. She was obviously emotionally disturbed. She had occasional LSD flashbacks. She feared Manson, and she loved him. At times she thought he was inside her head. Shortly after the first of the year the Inyo County court arranged for her to be sent to Patton State Hospital, in part for treatment for her emotional problems, in part because the court didn’t know what else to do with her.

Additions to my list of Things to Do: Check to see if any LaBianca credit cards are still missing. When doctors permit, interview Dianne; find out if anyone else present during back-house incident or Willow Springs conversation. Check with Katsuyama to see if any of the LaBianca stab wounds were post-mortem, i.e., inflicted after death. Ask Suzanne Struthers if her mother had a brown leather purse and if it is missing. Ask Suzanne and/or Frank Struthers if either Rosemary or Leno liked chocolate milk.

Tiny details, but they could be important.

The “Harold” whose letter I’d found in the Tate tubs was the same “Harold” Susan Atkins had mentioned in her grand jury testimony. His full name was Harold True, and he was a student. When LAPD found him, I was busy with another interview, so Aaron volunteered to talk to him.

From True, who remained friendly to Manson, visiting him several times at the County Jail, Aaron learned that he had met Charlie in March of 1968, while the Family was living in Topanga Canyon. The next day Charlie and about ten others (including Sadie, Katie, Squeaky, and Brenda, but not Tex or Leslie) had shown up at 3267 Waverly Drive, the house True shared with three other youths, and stayed overnight. Manson had visited him maybe four or five times there, before True and the others moved out in September 1968. While they were still living at Waverly, True said, neighbors had frequently complained about their noisy parties.

Aaron hadn’t asked True if the LaBiancas had been among the neighbors who complained, and I made a note to check this. When I did, I learned that True couldn’t recall having ever seen the LaBiancas; as best he could remember, 3301 Waverly Drive was vacant all the time they were living there.

Going back to the LaBianca investigative reports, I saw that Leno and Rosemary hadn’t moved into 3301 Waverly Drive until November 1968, which was after True and the others moved out.

I’d been looking for a possible incident involving the LaBiancas and the Family. I didn’t find it. We were left with two facts, however: Manson had been to the house next door to the LaBianca residence on five or six occasions, and he had been as far as the gate to the Tate residence at least once.

Coincidence? Anticipating that this was probably what the Manson defense would argue, I jotted down some ideas for my rebuttal.

Charles Manson was not without a sense of humor. While in the County Jail he had somehow managed to obtain an application for a Union Oil Company credit card. He filled it in, giving his correct name and the jail address. He listed “Spahn’s Movie Ranch” as his previous residence, and gave George Spahn as a reference. As for his occupation, he put “Evangelist”; type of business, “Religious”; length of employment, “20 years.” He also wrote, in the blank for wife’s first name, “None,” and gave as his number of dependents “16.”

The card was smuggled out of jail and mailed from Pasadena. Someone at Union Oil—obviously not a computer—recognized the name, and Charles Manson didn’t get the two credit cards he’d requested.

Another characteristic I’d noticed while observing Manson in court was his cockiness. One possible reason for this was his new notoriety. At the beginning of December 1969 few had ever heard of Charles Manson. By the end of that month the killer had already upstaged his famous victims. An enthusiastic Family member was heard to brag, “Charlie made the cover of Life!”

But it was something more. You got the feeling that, despite his verbal utterances, Manson was convinced that he was going to beat the rap.

He wasn’t the only one to feel this. Leslie Van Houten wrote her parents that even if convicted she’d be out in seven years (in California a person given life imprisonment is eligible for parole in seven years), while Bobby Beausoleil wrote several of his girl friends that he expected to be acquitted in his new trial, after which he was going to start his own Family.

The problem, at year’s end, was that there was a very good chance that at least Manson would be right.

“What if Manson demands an immediate trial?”

Aaron and I discussed this at length. A defendant has a constitutional right to a speedy trial and a statutory right to go to trial within sixty days after the return of the indictment. If Manson insisted on this, we were in deep trouble.

We needed more time, for two reasons. We still desperately lacked evidence to corroborate the testimony of Susan Atkins, presuming—and it was a very big presumption—that she agreed to testify. And two of the defendants, Watson and Krenwinkel, were still out of state. They just happened to be the only two defendants against whom there was scientific evidence of guilt, i.e., the fingerprints at the Tate residence. If there was to be a joint trial, which we wanted, we needed at least one of the two sitting behind that defense table.

I suggested we bluff. Every time we were in court, we should indicate that we wanted to go to trial as quickly as possible. Our hope was that Manson would think this was bad, and start stalling himself.

It was a gamble. There was a very real possibility that Charlie might call our bluff, saying, with his strange little grin, “O.K., let’s go to trial right now.”