Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

JUNE 15–JULY 23, 1970

Judge Charles Older’s court, Department 104, was located on the eighth floor of the Hall of Justice. As the first panel of sixty prospective jurors was escorted into the crowded courtroom, their expressions changed from boredom to curiosity. Then, as eyes alighted on the defendants, mouths dropped open in abrupt shock.

One man gasped, loud enough for those around him to hear, “My God, it’s the Manson trial!”

In chambers the chief topic was sequestration. Judge Older had decided that once jury selection was completed, the jurors would be locked up until the end of the trial—“to protect them from harassment and to prevent their being exposed to trial publicity.” Arrangements had already been made for them to occupy part of a floor at the Ambassador Hotel. Although spouses could visit on weekends, at their own expense, bailiffs would take all necessary precautions to see that the jury remained isolated from both outsiders and any news about the case. No one was sure how long this would be—estimates of the trial’s length ranged from three to six months and up—but obviously it would be severe hardship for those chosen.

STOVITZ “Your Honor has—and I don’t say this in comedy—sentenced some felons for less than three months in custody.”

THE COURT “No doubt about it.”

FITZGERALD “Not at the Ambassador, though.”

Although all the attorneys had some reservations about sequestration, only one strongly opposed it: Irving Kanarek. Since Kanarek had screamed the loudest about the taint of publicity adverse to his client, I concluded that Manson, not Kanarek, must have been behind the motion. And I had my own opinion as to why Charlie didn’t want the jury locked up.

Rumor had it that Judge Older himself had already received several threats. A secret memo he’d sent the sheriff, outlining courtroom security measures, ended with the following paragraph:

“The sheriff shall provide the trial judge with a driver-bodyguard, and security shall be provided at the trial judge’s residence on a 24-hour basis, until such time as all trial and post-trial proceedings have been concluded.”

Twelve names were drawn by lot. When the prospective jurors were seated in the jury box, Older explained that the sequestration could last “as much as six months.” Asked if any felt this would constitute undue hardship, eight of the twelve raised their hands.[62]

Envisioning a mass exodus from the courtroom, Older was very strict when it came to excuses for cause. However, anyone who stated that he or she could not vote the death penalty under any circumstances was automatically excused, as was anyone who had read Susan Atkins’ confession. This was usually approached obliquely, the prospective juror being asked something like “Have you read where any defendant has made any type of incriminating statement or confession?” to which several answered on the order of “Yes, that thing in the L.A. Times.” Questioning on this and other issues dealing with pre-trial publicity was done individually and in chambers, to avoid contaminating the whole panel.

After Older finished the initial questioning, the attorneys began their individual voir dire (examination). I was disappointed in Fitzgerald, who led off. His questions were largely conversational, and quite often showed no sign of prior thought. For example: “Have you or any member of your family ever been the unfortunate victim of a homicide?” Fitzgerald asked this not once but twice, before one of his fellow lawyers nudged him and suggested that if the prospective juror was a homicide victim he wouldn’t be of much use on a jury.

Reiner was much better. It was obvious that he was doing his best to separate his client, Leslie Van Houten, from the other defendants. It was also obvious that in doing so he was incurring Manson’s wrath. Kanarek objected to Reiner’s questions almost as often as did the prosecution.

Shinn asked the first prospective juror only eleven questions, seven of which Older ruled improper. His entire voir dire, including objections and arguments, took only thirteen pages of transcript.

Kanarek began by reading a number of questions obviously written by Manson. This apparently didn’t satisfy Charlie, as he asked Older if he could ask the jurors “a few simple, tiny, childlike questions that are real to me in my reality.” Refused permission, Manson instructed Kanarek: “You will not say another word in court.”

Manson contended, Kanarek later told the Court, that he was already presumed guilty; therefore there was no need to question the jurors, since it didn’t matter who was selected.

To my amazement, Kanarek, usually a very independent sort, actually followed Manson’s instructions and declined to ask further questions.

Lawyers are not supposed to “educate” jurors during voir dire, but every lawyer worth his salt tries to predispose a jury to his side. For example, Reiner asked: “Have you read anything in the press, or heard anything on TV, to the effect that Charles Manson has a kind of ‘hypnotic power’ over the female defendants?” Obviously Reiner was less interested in the answer than in implanting this suggestion in the minds of the jurors. Similarly, walking the thin line between inquiry and instruction, I asked each juror: “Do you understand that the People only have the burden of proving a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; we do not have the burden of proving his guilt beyond all doubt—only a reasonable doubt?”

Initially, Older would not permit the attorneys to instruct the prospective jurors in the law. I had a number of heated discussions with him about this before he let us couch such questions in general terms. This was, I felt, an important victory. For example, I didn’t want to go through the whole trial only to have some juror decide, “We can’t convict Manson of the five Tate murders because he wasn’t there. He was back at Spahn Ranch.”

The heart of our case against Manson was the “vicarious liability” rule of conspiracy—each conspirator is criminally responsible for all the crimes committed by his co-conspirators if said crimes were committed to further the object of the conspiracy. This rule applies even if the conspirator was not present at the scene of the crime. For example: A, B, and C decide to rob a bank. A plans the robbery, B and C carry it out. Under the law, A, though he never entered the bank, is as responsible as B and C, I pointed out to the jury.

From the prosecution’s point of view, it was important that each juror understand such gut issues as reasonable doubt, conspiracy, motive, direct and circumstantial evidence, and the accomplice rule.

We hoped Judge Older would not declare Linda Kasabian an accomplice. But we were fairly sure he would,[63] in which case the defense would make much of the fact that no defendant can be convicted of any crime on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. In researching the law, I found a California Supreme Court case, People vs. Wayne, in which the Court said only “slight” evidence was needed to constitute corroboration. After I brought this to Older’s attention, he permitted me to use the word “slight” in my questioning. This, too, I considered a significant victory.

Though Older had ascertained that each prospective juror could, if the evidence warranted it, vote a verdict of death, I went beyond this, asking each if he could conceive of circumstances wherein he would be willing to vote such a verdict against (1) a young person; (2) a female defendant; or (3) a particular defendant even though the evidence showed that he himself did not do any actual killing. Obviously I wanted to eliminate anyone who answered any of these questions negatively.

Manson and the girls caused no disruptions during jury selection. In chambers during the individual voir dire, however, Manson would often stare at Judge Older for literally hours. I could only surmise that he had developed his incredible concentration while in prison. Older totally ignored him.

One day Manson tried it with me. I stared right back, holding his gaze until his hands started shaking. During the recess, I slid my chair over next to his and asked, “What are you trembling about, Charlie? Are you afraid of me?”

“Bugliosi,” he said, “you think I’m bad and I’m not.”

“I don’t think you’re all bad, Charlie. For instance, I understand you love animals.”

“Then you know I wouldn’t hurt anyone,” he said.

“Hitler loved animals too, Charlie. He had a dog named Blondie, and from what I’ve read, Adolf was very kind to Blondie.”

Usually a prosecutor and a defendant won’t exchange two words during an entire trial. But Manson was no ordinary defendant. And he loved to rap. In this, the first of many strange, often highly revealing conversations we had, Manson asked me why I thought he was behind these murders. “Because both Linda and Sadie told me you were,” I replied. “Now, Sadie doesn’t like me, Charlie, and she thinks you’re Jesus Christ. So why would she tell me this if it wasn’t true?”

“Sadie’s just a stupid little bitch,” Manson said. “You know, I only made love to her two or three times. After she had her baby and lost her shape, I couldn’t have cared less about her. That’s why she told that story, to get attention. I would never personally harm anyone.”

“Don’t give me that crap, Charlie, because I won’t buy it! What about Lotsapoppa? You put a bullet in his stomach.”

“Well, yeah, I shot that guy,” Manson admitted. “He was going to come up to Spahn Ranch and get all of us. That was kinda in self-defense.”

Manson was enough of a jailhouse lawyer to know that I couldn’t use anything he told me unless I’d first informed him of his constitutional rights. Yet this, and many subsequent admissions, surprised me. There was a strange sort of honesty about him. It was devious, it was never direct, but it was there. Whenever I pinned him down, he might evade, but not once in this, or the numerous other conversations we had, did he flatly deny that he had ordered the murders.

An innocent man protests his innocence. Instead, Manson played word games. If he took the stand and did this, I felt sure the jury would see through him.

Would Manson take the stand? The general consensus was that Manson’s prodigious ego, plus the opportunity to use the witness stand as a forum to expound his philosophy before the world press, would impel him to testify. But—though I had already put in many hours preparing my cross-examination—no one but Manson really knew what he would do.

Toward the end of the recess, I told him, “I’ve enjoyed talking to you, Charlie, but it would be much more interesting if we did it with you on the stand. I have lots and lots of things I’m curious about.”

“For instance?”

“For instance,” I replied, “where in the world—Terminal Island, Haight-Ashbury, Spahn Ranch—did you get the crazy idea that other people don’t like to live?”

He didn’t answer. Then he began to smile. He’d been challenged. And knew it. Whether he’d decide to accept the challenge remained to be seen.

Though silent in court, Manson remained active behind the scenes.

On June 24, Patricia Krenwinkel interrupted Fitzgerald’s voir dire to ask that he be relieved as her attorney. “I have talked with him about the way I wish this to be handled right now, and he doesn’t do as I ask,” she told the Court. “He is to be my voice, which he is not…” Older denied her request.

Later the defense attorneys had a meeting with their clients. Fitzgerald, who had given up his Public Defender’s job to represent Krenwinkel, emerged with tears in his eyes. I felt very badly about this and, putting my arm around his shoulder, told him, “Paul, don’t let it get you down. She’ll probably keep you. And if she doesn’t, so what? They’re just a bunch of murderers.”

“They’re savages, ingrates,” Fitzgerald said bitterly. “Their only allegiance is to Manson.”

Fitzgerald didn’t tell me what had occurred during the meeting, but it wasn’t hard to guess. Directly, or through the girls, Manson had probably told the attorneys: Do it my way or you’re off the case. Fitzgerald and Reiner told Los Angeles Times reporter John Kendall that all the attorneys had been instructed to “remain silent” and not question prospective jurors.

When, the following day, Reiner disobeyed this order and continued his voir dire, Leslie Van Houten tried to fire him, repeating almost verbatim the words Krenwinkel had used. Older denied her request also.

What Reiner was going through could be gleaned from some of his questions. For example, he asked one prospective juror: “Even if it appears that Leslie Van Houten desired to stand or fall with the other defendants, could you nevertheless acquit her if the evidence against her was insufficient?”

On July 14 both the prosecution and the defense agreed to accept the jury. The twelve were then sworn. The jury consisted of seven men and five women, ranging in age from twenty-five to seventy-three, in occupation from an electronics technician to a mortician.[64]

It was very much a mixed jury, neither side getting exactly what it wanted.

Almost automatically, the defense will challenge anyone connected with law enforcement. Yet Alva Dawson, the oldest member of the jury, had worked sixteen years as a deputy sheriff with LASO, while Walter Vitzelio had been a plant security guard for twenty years, and had a brother who was a deputy sheriff.

On the other hand, Herman Tubick, the mortician, and Mrs. Jean Roseland, a secretary with TWA, each had two daughters in approximately the same age group as the three female defendants.

Studying the jurors’ faces as they were sworn, I felt that most appeared pleased to have been selected. After all, they had been chosen to serve on one of the most famous trials of all time.

Older was quick to bring them back to earth. He instructed them that when they came to court the following morning they should bring their suitcases, clothing, and personal items, as from that point on they would be sequestered.

There remained the selection of the alternate jurors. Because of the anticipated length of the trial, Older decided to pick six, an unusually large number. Again we went through the whole voir dire.

Only this time it was without Ira Reiner. On July 17, Leslie Van Houten formally requested that Reiner be relieved as her attorney and Ronald Hughes appointed instead.

After questioning Hughes, Manson, and Van Houten on the possibility of a conflict of interest, Judge Older granted the substitution. Reiner was out, receiving not even so much as a thank-you for the eight months he had devoted to the case. Manson’s former attorney, the “hippie lawyer” Ronald Hughes, with his Santa Claus beard and Walter Slezak suits, became Leslie Van Houten’s attorney of record.

Ira Reiner had been fired for one reason, and one reason only. He had tried to represent his client to the best of his ability. And he had properly decided that his client was not Charles Manson but Leslie Van Houten.

There was a slight but perceptible smile on Manson’s face. With good reason. He had succeeded in forming a united defense team. Although Fitzgerald remained its nominal head, it was obvious who was calling the shots.

On July 21 the six alternates were sworn, and they too were sequestered.[65] Jury selection had taken five weeks, during which 205 people had been examined and nearly 4,500 pages of transcript accumulated.

It had been a rough five weeks. Older and I had clashed on several occasions, Reiner and Older even oftener. And Older had threatened four of the attorneys with contempt, carrying through on one.

Three were for violations of the gag order: Aaron Stovitz was cited for an interview he had given the magazine Rolling Stone; Paul Fitzgerald and Ira Reiner for their quoted remarks in the Los Angeles Times story “TATE SUSPECTS TRY TO SILENCE LAWYERS.” Though Older eventually dropped the contempt citations against all three, Irving Kanarek was less lucky. On July 8 he was seven minutes late to court. He had a valid reason—it was very difficult to find a parking space at the time court convened—but Older, who had previously threatened Kanarek with contempt when he was just three minutes late, was not sympathetic. He ruled Kanarek in contempt and fined him twenty-five dollars.

While we were busy selecting a jury, two of Manson’s killers were set free.

Mary Brunner was reindicted and rearrested for the Hinman murder. Her attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus. Ruling that she had fulfilled the conditions of the immunity agreement, Judge Kathleen Parker granted the writ and Brunner was released.

Meanwhile, Clem, t/n Steve Grogan, pleaded guilty to a grand theft auto charge stemming from the Barker raid. Van Nuys Judge Sterry Fagan heard the case. He was aware of Grogan’s lengthy rap sheet. Moreover, the probation department, usually very permissive, in this case recommended that Grogan be sentenced to a year in the County Jail. Aaron also informed the judge that Clem was exceedingly dangerous; and that he had not only been along on the night the LaBiancas were killed, but we also had evidence that he had beheaded Shorty Shea. Yet unbelievably enough, Judge Fagan gave Clem straight probation!

On learning that Clem had returned to the Family at Spahn Ranch, I contacted his probation officer, asking him to revoke Clem’s probation. There was more than ample cause. Among the terms of his probation were that he maintain residence at the home of his parents; seek and maintain employment; not use or possess any narcotics; not associate with known narcotics users. Moreover, he had been seen on several occasions, even photographed, with a knife and a gun.

His probation officer refused to act. He later admitted to LAPD that he was afraid of Clem.

Though Bruce Davis had gone underground, most of the other hard-core Family members were very much in evidence. Some dozen of them, including Clem and Mary, haunted the entrances and corridors of the Hall of Justice each day, where they would cast cold, accusing stares at the prosecution witnesses as they arrived to testify.

The problem of their presence in the courtroom—a concern since Sandy had been found carrying a knife—was solved by Aaron. Prospective witnesses are excluded when other witnesses are testifying. Aaron simply subpoenaed all the known Family members as prosecution witnesses, an act which raised a tremendous furor from the defense but made everyone else breathe a little easier.

JULY 24–26, 1970

Many of the spectators had been waiting since 6 A.M., hoping to get a seat and a glimpse of Manson. When he was escorted into the courtroom, several gasped. On his forehead was a bloody X. Sometime the previous night he had taken a sharp object and carved the mark in his flesh.

An explanation was not long forthcoming. Outside court his followers passed out a typewritten statement bearing his name:

“I have X’d myself from your world…You have created the monster. I am not of you, from you, nor do I condone your unjust attitude toward things, animals, and people that you do not try to understand…I stand opposed to what you do and have done in the past…You make fun of God and have murdered the world in the name of Jesus Christ…My faith in me is stronger than all of your armies, governments, gas chambers, or anything you may want to do to me. I know what I have done. Your courtroom is man’s game. Love is my judge…”

THE COURT “People vs. Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten.

“All parties and counsel and jurors are present…

“Do the People care to make an opening statement?”

BUGLIOSI “Yes, Your Honor.”

I began the People’s opening statement—which was a preview of the evidence the prosecution intended to introduce in the trial—by summarizing the charges, naming the defendants, and, after relating what had occurred at 10050 Cielo Drive in the early-morning hours of August 9, 1969, and at 3301 Waverly Drive the following night, identifying the victims.

“A question you ladies and gentlemen will probably ask yourselves at some point during this trial, and we expect the evidence to answer that question for you, is this:

“What kind of a diabolical mind would contemplate or conceive of these seven murders? What kind of mind would want to have seven human beings brutally murdered?

“We expect the evidence at this trial to answer that question and show that defendant Charles Manson owned that diabolical mind. Charles Manson, who the evidence will show at times had the infinite humility, as it were, to refer to himself as Jesus Christ.

“Evidence at this trial will show defendant Manson to be a vagrant wanderer, a frustrated singer-guitarist, a pseudo-philosopher, but, most of all, the evidence will conclusively prove that Charles Manson is a killer who cleverly masqueraded behind the common image of a hippie, that of being peace loving…

“The evidence will show Charles Manson to be a megalomaniac who coupled his insatiable thirst for power with an intense obsession for violent death.”

The evidence would show, I continued, that Manson was the unquestioned leader and overlord of a nomadic band of vagabonds who called themselves the “Family.” After briefly tracing the history and composition of the group, I observed: “We anticipate that Mr. Manson, in his defense, will claim that neither he nor anyone else was the leader of the Family and that he never ordered anyone in the Family to do anything, much less commit these murders for him.”

KANAREK “Your Honor, he is now making an opening statement for us!”

THE COURT “Overruled. You may continue, Mr. Bugliosi.”

BUGLIOSI “We therefore intend to offer evidence at this trial showing that Charles Manson was in fact the dictatorial leader of the Family; that everyone in the Family was slavishly obedient to him; that he always had the other members of the Family do his bidding for him; and that eventually they committed the seven Tate-LaBianca murders at his command.

“This evidence of Mr. Manson’s total domination over the Family will be offered as circumstantial evidence that on the two nights in question it was he who ordered these seven murders.”

The principal witness for the prosecution, I told the jury, would be Linda Kasabian. I then briefly stated what Linda would testify to, interrelating her story with the physical evidence we intended to introduce: the gun, the rope, the clothing the killers wore the night of the Tate murders, and so forth.

We came now to the question that everyone had been asking since these murders occurred: Why?

The prosecution does not have the burden of proving motive, I told the jury. We needn’t introduce one single, solitary speck of evidence as to motive. However, when we have evidence of motive we introduce it, because if one has a motive for committing a murder, this is circumstantial evidence that it was he who committed the murder. “In this trial, we will offer evidence of Charles Manson’s motives for ordering these seven murders.”

If Manson and the defense were waiting to hear the word “robbery,” they’d wait in vain. Instead, Manson’s own beliefs came back at them.

“We believe there to be more than one motive,” I told the jury. “Besides the motives of Manson’s passion for violent death and his extreme anti-establishment state of mind, the evidence in this trial will show that there was a further motive for these murders, which is perhaps as bizarre, or perhaps even more bizarre, than the murders themselves.

“Briefly, the evidence will show Manson’s fanatical obsession with Helter Skelter, a term he got from the English musical group the Beatles.

“Manson was an avid follower of the Beatles and believed that they were speaking to him across the ocean through the lyrics of their songs. In fact, Manson told his followers that he found complete support for his philosophy in the words of those songs…

“To Charles Manson, Helter Skelter, the title of one of their songs, meant the black man rising up and destroying the entire white race; that is, with the exception of Charles Manson and his chosen followers, who intended to escape from Helter Skelter by going to the desert and living in a bottomless pit, a place that Manson derived from Revelation 9, a chapter in the last book of the New Testament…

“Evidence from several witnesses will show that Charles Manson hated black people, but that he also hated the white establishment, whom he called ‘pigs.’

“The word ‘pig’ was found printed in blood on the outside of the front door to the Tate residence.

“The words ‘death to pigs,’ ‘helter skelter,’ and ‘rise’ were found printed in blood inside the LaBianca residence.

“The evidence will show that one of Manson’s principal motives for these seven savage murders was to ignite Helter Skelter; in other words, start the black-white revolution by making it look as though the black man had murdered these seven Caucasian victims. In his twisted mind, he thought this would cause the white community to turn against the black community, ultimately leading to a civil war between blacks and whites, a war which Manson told his followers would see bloodbaths in the streets of every American city, a war which Manson predicted and foresaw the black man as winning.

“Manson envisioned that black people, once they destroyed the entire white race, would be unable to handle the reins of power because of inexperience, and would therefore have to turn over the reins to those white people who had escaped from Helter Skelter; i.e., Charles Manson and his Family.

“In Manson’s mind, his Family, and particularly he, would be the ultimate beneficiaries of a black-white civil war.

“We intend to offer the testimony of not just one witness but many witnesses on Manson’s philosophy, because the evidence will show that it is so strange and so bizarre that if you heard it only from the lips of one person you probably would not believe it.”

Thus far all the emphasis had been on Manson. Convicting Manson was the first priority. If we convicted the others and not Manson, it would be like a war crimes trial in which the flunkies were found guilty and Hitler went free. Therefore I stressed that it was Manson who had ordered these murders, though his co-defendants, obedient to his every command, actually committed them.

There was a danger in this, however. I was giving the attorneys for the three girls a ready-made defense. In the penalty phase of the trial, they could argue that since Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten were totally under Manson’s domination, they were not nearly as culpable as he, and therefore should receive life imprisonment rather than the death penalty.

Anticipating long in advance that I’d have to prove the very opposite, I laid the groundwork in my opening statement:

“What about Charles Manson’s followers, the other defendants in this case, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten?

“The evidence will show that they, along with Tex Watson, were the actual killers of the seven Tate-LaBianca victims.

“The evidence will also show that they were very willing participants in these mass murders, that by their overkill tactics—for instance, Rosemary LaBianca was stabbed forty-one times, Voytek Frykowski was stabbed fifty-one times, shot twice, and struck violently over the head thirteen times with the butt of a revolver—these defendants displayed that even apart from Charles Manson, murder ran through their own blood.”

After mentioning Susan Atkins’ confessions to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard; the fingerprint which placed Patricia Krenwinkel at the Tate murder scene; and the evidence which implicated Leslie Van Houten in the LaBianca murders, I observed: “The evidence will show that Charles Manson started his Family in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in March of 1967. The Family’s demise, as it were, took place in October of 1969 at Barker Ranch, a desolate, secluded, rock-strewn hideout from civilization on the shadowy perimeters of Death Valley. Between these two dates, seven human beings and an eight-and-a-half-month baby boy fetus in the womb of Sharon Tate met their death at the hands of these members of the Family.

“The evidence at this trial will show that these seven incredible murders were perhaps the most bizarre, savage, nightmarish murders in the recorded annals of crime.

“Mr. Stovitz and I intend to prove not just beyond a reasonable doubt, which is our only burden, but beyond all doubt that these defendants committed these murders, and are guilty of these murders; and in our final arguments to you at the conclusion of the evidence, we intend to ask you to return verdicts of first degree murder against each of these defendants.”

Noting that it would be a long trial, with many witnesses, I recalled the old Chinese proverb, “The palest ink is better than the best memory,” urging the jury to take detailed notes to aid them in their deliberations.

I closed by telling the jury that we felt confident that they would give both the defendants and the People of the State of California the fair and impartial trial to which each was entitled.

Kanarek had interrupted my opening statement nine times with objections, all of which the Court had overruled. When I finished, he moved that the whole statement be stricken or, failing in that, a mistrial declared. Older denied both motions. Fitzgerald told the press my remarks were “scurrilous and slanderous,” and called the Helter Skelter motive “a truly preposterous theory.”

I had a strong feeling that by the time of his closing argument to the jury, Paul wouldn’t even bother to argue this.

The defense reserving its opening statements until after the prosecution had completed its case, the People called their first witness, Colonel Paul Tate.

With military erectness, Sharon’s father took the stand and was sworn. Though forty-six, he looked younger, and sported a well-trimmed beard. Before entering the courtroom, he had been thoroughly searched, it being rumored that he had vowed to kill Manson. Even though he glanced only briefly at the defendants, and exhibited no discernible reaction, the bailiffs watched him every minute he was in the courtroom.

Our direct examination was brief. Colonel Tate described his last meeting with Sharon, and identified photos of his daughter, Miss Folger, Frykowski, Sebring, and the house at 10050 Cielo Drive.

Wilfred Parent, who followed Colonel Tate to the stand, broke down and cried when shown a photograph of his son, Steven.

Winifred Chapman, the Tate maid, was next. I questioned her in detail about the washing of the two doors; then, wanting to establish a chronology for the jurors, I took her up to her departure from the residence on the afternoon of August 8, 1969, intending to recall her to the stand later so she could testify to her discoveries the next morning.

On cross-examination Fitzgerald brought out that she hadn’t mentioned washing the door in Sharon’s bedroom until months after the murders, and then she had told this not to LAPD but to me.

This was to be the start of a pattern. Having questioned each of the witnesses not once but a number of times, I had uncovered a great deal of information not previously related to the police. In many instances I had been the only one who had interviewed the witness. Though Fitzgerald initially planted the idea, Kanarek would nurture it until, in his mind at least, it budded into a full-bloomed conspiracy, with Bugliosi framing the whole case.

Kanarek had only one question for Mrs. Chapman, but it was a good one. Had she ever seen the defendant Charles Manson before her appearance in court? She replied that she had not.

Although he had recently married and was not anxious to leave his bride, William Garretson had flown back from his home in Lancaster, Ohio, where he had returned after being released by LAPD. The former caretaker came across as sincere, though rather shy. Although I intended to call both officers Whisenhunt and Wolfer, the former to testify to finding the setting on Garretson’s stereo at between 4 and 5, the latter to describe the sound tests he had conducted, I did question Garretson in detail as to the events of that night, and I felt the jury believed him when he claimed he hadn’t heard any gunshots or screams.

I asked Garretson: “How loud were you playing your stereo?”

A. “It was about medium…It wasn’t very loud.”

This, I felt, was the best evidence Garretson was telling the truth. Had he been lying about hearing nothing, then surely he would have lied and said the stereo was loud.

Most of Fitzgerald’s questions concerned Garretson’s arrest and alleged rough handling by the police. At one point later in the trial Fitzgerald would maintain that Garretson was involved in at least some of the Tate homicides. Since there wasn’t even a hint of this in his cross-examination, I’d conclude that he was belatedly looking for a convenient scapegoat.

Kanarek again asked the same question. No, he’d never seen Manson before, Garretson replied.

When I’d interviewed Garretson prior to his taking the stand, he’d told me that he still had nightmares about what had happened. That weekend, before his return to Ohio, Rudi Altobelli, who was now living in the main house, arranged for Garretson to revisit 10050 Cielo Drive. He found the premises quiet and peaceful. After that, he told me, the nightmares stopped.

By the end of the day we had finished with three more witnesses: Frank Guerrero, who had been painting the nursery that Friday; Tom Vargas, the gardener, who testified to the arrivals and departures of the various guests that day and to his signing for the two steamer trunks; and Dennis Hurst, who identified Sebring from a photograph as the man who came to the front door when he delivered the bicycle about eight that night.

The stage was now set for the prosecution’s main witness, whom I intended to call to the stand first thing Monday morning.

On hearing my opening statement, Manson must have realized that I had his number.

At the conclusion of court that afternoon sheriff’s deputy Sergeant William Maupin was escorting Manson from the lockup to the ninth floor of the jail when—to quote from Maupin’s report—“inmate Manson stated to undersigned that it would be worth $100,000 to be set free. Inmate Manson also commented on how much he would like to return to the desert and the life he had before his arrest. Inmate Manson commented additionally that money meant nothing to him, that several people had contacted him regarding large sums of money. Inmate Manson also stated that an officer would only receive a six month sentence if caught releasing an inmate without authority.”

Maupin reported the bribe offer to his superior, Captain Alley, who in turn informed Judge Older. Though the incident was never made public, Older gave the attorneys Maupin’s report the next day. Reading it, I wondered what Manson would try next.

Over the weekend, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten lit matches, heated bobby pins red-hot, then burned X marks on their foreheads, after which they ripped open the burnt flesh with needles, to create more prominent scars.

When the jurors were brought into court Monday morning, the X’s were the first thing they saw—graphic evidence that when Manson led, the girls followed.

A day or so later Sandy, Squeaky, Gypsy, and most of the other Family members did the same thing. As new disciples joined the group, this became one of the Family rituals, complete to tasting the blood as it ran down their faces.

JULY 27–AUGUST 3, 1970

Eight sheriff’s deputies escorted Linda Kasabian from Sybil Brand to the Hall of Justice, through an entrance that circumvented those patrolled by the Family. When they reached the ninth floor, however, Sandra Good suddenly appeared in the corridor and screamed, “You’ll kill us all; you’ll kill us all!” Linda, according to those who witnessed the encounter, seemed less shaken than sad.

I saw Linda just after she arrived. Though her attorney, Gary Fleischman, had purchased a new dress for her, it had been misplaced, and she was wearing the same maternity dress she’d worn when pregnant. The baggy tent made her look more hippie-like than the defendants. After I’d explained the problem to Judge Older, he heard other matters in chambers until the dress was located and brought over. Later a similar courtesy would be extended to the defense when Susan Atkins lost her bra.

BUGLIOSI “The People call Linda Kasabian.”

The sad, resigned look she gave Manson and the girls contrasted sharply with their obviously hostile glares.

CLERK “Would you raise your right hand, please?”

KANAREK “Object, Your Honor, on the grounds this witness is not competent and she is insane!”

BUGLIOSI “Wait a minute! Your Honor, I move to strike that, and I ask the Court to find him in contempt for gross misconduct. This is unbelievable on his part!”

Unfortunately, it was all too believable—exactly the sort of thing we had feared since Kanarek came on the case. Ordering the jury to disregard Kanarek’s remarks, Older called counsel to the bench. “There is no question about it,” Older told Kanarek, “your conduct is outrageous…”

BUGLIOSI “I know the Court cannot prevent him from speaking up, but God knows what he is going to say in the future. If I were to say something like this in open court, I would probably be thrown off the case by my office and disbarred…”

Defending Kanarek, Fitzgerald told the Court that the defense intended to call witnesses who would testify that Linda Kasabian had taken LSD at least three hundred times. The defense would contend, he said, that such drug use had rendered her mentally incapable of testifying.

Whatever their offer of proof, Older said, matters of law were to be discussed either at the bench or in chambers, not in front of the jury. As for Kanarek’s outburst, Older warned him that if he did that once more, “I am going to take some action against you.”

Linda was sworn. I asked her: “Linda, you realize that you are presently charged with seven counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder?”

A. “Yes.”

Kanarek objected, moving for a mistrial. Denied. It was some ten minutes later before I was able to get in the second question.

Q. “Linda, are you aware of the agreement between the District

Attorney’s Office and your attorneys that if you testify to everything you know about the Tate-LaBianca murders, the District Attorney’s Office will petition the Court to grant you immunity from prosecution and dismiss all charges against you?”

A. “Yes, I am aware.”

Kanarek objected on four different grounds. Denied. By bringing this in first, we defused one of the defense’s biggest cannons.

Q. “Besides the benefits which will accrue to you under the agreement, is there any other reason why you have decided to tell everything you know about these seven murders?”

Another torrent of objections from Kanarek before Linda was able to answer: “I strongly believe in the truth, and I feel the truth should be spoken.”

Kanarek even objected to my asking Linda the number of children she had. Often he used a shotgun approach—“Leading and suggestive; no foundation; conclusion and hearsay”—in hope that at least some of the buckshot would hit. Many of his grounds were totally inapplicable. He would object to a “conclusion,” for example, when no conclusion was called for, or yell “Hearsay” when I was simply asking her what she did next.

Since I’d anticipated this, it didn’t bother me. However, it took over an hour to get Linda up to her first meeting with Manson, her description of life at Spahn Ranch, and, over Kanarek’s very heated objections, her definition of what she meant by the term “Family.”

A. “Well, we lived together as one family, as a family lives together, as a mother and father and children, but we were all just one, and Charlie was the head.”

I was questioning Linda about the various orders Manson had given the girls when, unexpectedly, Judge Older began sustaining Kanarek’s hearsay objections. I asked to approach the bench.

Lay people believe hearsay is inadmissible. Actually there are so many exceptions to the hearsay rule that many lawyers feel the law should read, “Hearsay is admissible except in these few instances.”[66] I told Older: “I had anticipated many legal problems in this case, and I have done research on them—because I kind of play the Devil’s advocate—but I never anticipated I’d have any trouble showing Manson’s directions to members of the Family.”

Older said he sustained the objections because he couldn’t think of any exception to the hearsay rule that would permit the introduction of such statements.

This was crucial. If Older ruled such conversations inadmissible, there went the domination framework, and our case against Manson.

Shortly after this, court recessed for the day. Aaron, J. Miller Leavy, and I were up late that night, looking for citations of authority. Fortunately, we found two cases—People vs. Fratiano and People vs. Stevens—in which the Court ruled you can show the existence of a conspiracy by showing the relationship between the parties, including statements made to each other. Shown the cases the next morning, Judge Older reversed himself and overruled Kanarek’s objections.

Opposition now came from a totally unexpected direction: Aaron.

Linda had already testified that Manson ordered the girls to make love to male visitors to induce them to join the Family, when I asked her: “Linda, do you know what a sexual orgy is?”

Kanarek immediately objected, as did Hughes, who remarked, in a somewhat revealing choice of words: “We are not trying the sex lives of these people. We are trying the murder lives of these people.”

Not only were the defense attorneys shouting objections, many of which Older sustained; Aaron leaned over to me and said, “Can’t we skip this stuff? We’re just wasting time. Let’s get into the two nights of murder.”

“Look, Aaron,” I told him sotto voce, “I’m fighting the judge, I’m fighting Kanarek, I’m not going to fight you. I’ve got enough problems. This is important and I’m going to get it in.”

As Linda finally testified, in between Kanarek’s objections, Manson decided when an orgy would take place; Manson decided who would, and who would not, participate; and Manson then assigned the roles each would play. From start to finish he was the maestro, as it were, orchestrating the whole scene.

That Manson controlled even this most intimate and personal aspect of the lives of his followers was extremely powerful evidence of his domination.

Moreover, among the twenty-some persons involved in the particular orgy Linda testified to were Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkel.

The sexual acts were not detailed, nor did I question Linda about other such “group encounters.” Once the point was made, I moved on to other testimony—Helter Skelter, the black-white war, Manson’s belief that the Beatles were communicating with him through the lyrics of their songs, his announcement, late on the afternoon of August 8, 1969, that “Now is the time for Helter Skelter.”

Describing her appearance on the stand, the Los Angeles Times noted that even in discussing the group’s sex life, Linda Kasabian was surprisingly “serene, soft-spoken, even demure.”

Her testimony was also at times very moving. Telling how Manson separated the mothers and their children, and relating her own feelings on being parted from Tanya, Linda said, “Sometimes, you know, when there wasn’t anybody around, especially Charlie, I would give her my love and feed her.”

Linda was describing Manson’s directions to the group just before they left Spahn Ranch that first night when Charlie, seated at the counsel table, put his hand up to his neck and, with one finger extended, made a slitting motion across his throat. Although I was looking the other way and didn’t see the gesture, others, including Linda, did.

Yet there was no pause in her reply. She went on to relate how Tex had stopped the car in front of the big gate; the cutting of the telephone wires; driving back down the hill and parking, then walking back up. As she described how they had climbed the fence to the right of the gate, you could feel the tension building in the courtroom. Then the sudden headlights.

A. “And a car pulled up in front of us and Tex leaped forward with a gun in his hand…And the man said, ‘Please don’t hurt me, I won’t say anything!’ And Tex shot him four times.”

As she described the murder of Steven Parent, Linda began sobbing, as she had each time she had related the story to me. I could tell the jury was moved, both by the mounting horror and her reaction.

Sadie giggled. Leslie sketched. Katie looked bored.

By the end of the day I had brought Linda to the point where Katie was chasing the woman in the white gown (Folger) with a knife and Tex was stabbing the big man (Frykowski): “He just kept doing it and doing it and doing it.”

Q. “When the man was screaming, do you know what he was screaming?”

A. “There were no words, it was beyond words, it was just screams.”

Reporters keeping track of Kanarek’s objections gave up on the third day, when the count passed two hundred. Older warned Kanarek that if he interrupted either the witness or the prosecution again, he would find him in contempt. Often a dozen transcript pages separated my question and Linda’s answer.

BUGLIOSI “We are going to have to go back, Linda. There has been a blizzard of objections.”

KANAREK “I object to that statement.”

When Kanarek again interrupted Linda in mid-sentence, Older called us to the bench.

THE COURT “Mr. Kanarek, you have directly violated my order not to repeatedly interrupt. I find you in contempt of Court and I sentence you to one night in the County Jail starting immediately after this court adjourns this afternoon until 7 A.M. tomorrow morning.”

Kanarek protested that “rather than my interrupting the witness, the witness interrupted me”!

By day’s end Kanarek would have company. Among the items I wished to submit for identification purposes was a photograph which showed the Straight Satans’ sword in a scabbard next to the steering wheel of Manson’s own dune buggy. Since the photograph had been introduced in evidence in the Beausoleil trial, I didn’t get it until it was brought over from the other court. “The District Attorney is withholding great quantities of evidence from us,” Hughes charged.

BUGLIOSI “For the record, I just saw it for the first time a few minutes ago myself.”

HUGHES “That is a lot of shit, Mr. Bugliosi.”

THE COURT “I hold you in direct contempt of Court for that statement.”

Though in complete agreement with Older’s earlier citing of Kanarek, I disagreed with his finding against Hughes, feeling if he was in contempt of anyone, it was me, not the Court. Too, it was based on a simple misunderstanding, one which, when explained to him, Hughes quickly accepted. Older was less understanding.

Given a choice between paying a seventy-five-dollar fine or spending the night in jail, Hughes told the Court: “I am a pauper, Your Honor.” With no sympathy whatsoever, Older ordered him remanded into custody.

Kanarek learned nothing from his night in jail. The next morning he was right back interrupting both my questions and Linda’s replies. Admonishments from the bench accomplished nothing; he’d apologize, then immediately do the same thing again. All this concerned me much less than the fact that he occasionally succeeded in keeping out testimony. Usually when Older sustained an objection, I could work my way around it, introducing the testimony in a different way. For example, when Older foreclosed me from questioning Linda about the defendants watching the news of the Tate murders on TV the day after those murders occurred, because he couldn’t see the relevance of this, I asked Linda if, on the night of the murders, she was aware of the identities of the victims.

A. “No.”

Q. “When was the first time you learned the names of these five people?”

A. “The following day on the news.”

Q. “On television?

A. “Yes.”

Q. “In Mr. Spahn’s trailer?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “Did you see Tex, Sadie, and Katie during the day following these killings, other than when you were watching television with them?”

A. “Well, I saw Sadie and Katie in the trailer. I cannot remember seeing Tex on that day.”

The relevance of this would become obvious when Barbara Hoyt took the stand and testified (1) that Sadie came in and told her to switch channels to the news; (2) that before this particular day Sadie and the others never watched the news; and (3) that immediately after the newscaster finished with Tate and moved on to the Vietnam war, the group got up and left.

In my questioning of Linda regarding the second night, there was one reiterated theme: Who told you to turn off the freeway? Charlie. Was anyone else in the car giving directions other than Mr. Manson? No. Did anyone question any of Mr. Manson’s commands? No.

In her testimony regarding both nights, there were also literally a multitude of details which only someone who had been present on those nights of horrendous slaughter could have known.

Realizing very early how damaging this was, Manson had remarked, loud enough for both Linda and the jury to hear, “You’ve already told three lies.”

Linda, looking directly at him, had replied, “Oh, no, Charlie, I’ve spoken the truth, and you know it.”

By the time I had finished my direct examination of Linda Kasabian on the afternoon of July 30, I had the feeling the jury knew it too.

When I know the defense has something which might prove harmful to the prosecution’s case, as a trial tactic I usually put on that evidence myself first. This not only converts a damaging left hook into a mere left jab, it also indicates to the jury that the prosecution isn’t trying to hide anything. Therefore, I’d brought out, on direct, Linda’s sexual permissiveness and her use of LSD and other drugs.[67] Prepared to destroy her credibility with these revelations, the defense found itself going over familiar ground. In doing so, they sometimes even strengthened our case.

It was Fitzgerald, Krenwinkel’s defense attorney, not the prosecution, who brought out that during the period Linda was at Spahn, “I was not really together in myself…I was extremely impressionistic…I let others put ideas in me”; and—even more important—that she feared Manson.

Q. “What were you afraid of?” Fitzgerald asked.

A. “I was just afraid. He was a heavy dude.”

Asked to explain what she meant by this, Linda replied, “He just had something, you know, that could hold you. He was a heavyweight. He was just heavy, period.”

Fitzgerald also elicited from Linda that she loved Manson; that “I felt he was the Messiah come again.”

Linda then added one statement which went a long way toward explaining not only why she but also many of the others had so readily accepted Manson. When she first saw him, she said, “I thought…‘This is what I have been looking for,’ and this is what I saw in him.”

Manson—a mirror which reflected the desires of others.

Q. “Was it also your impression that other people at the ranch loved Charlie?”

A. “Oh, yes. It seemed that the girls worshiped him, just would die to do anything for him.”

Helter Skelter, Manson’s attitude toward blacks, his domination of his co-defendants: in each of these areas Fitzgerald’s queries brought out additional information which bolstered Linda’s previous testimony.

Often his questions backfired, as when he asked Linda: “Do you remember who you slept with on August 8?”

A. “No.”

Q. “On the tenth?”

A. “No, but eventually I slept with all the men.”

Time and again Linda volunteered information which could have been considered damaging, yet, coming from her, somehow seemed only honest and sincere. She was so open that it caught Fitzgerald off guard.

Avoiding the word “orgy,” he asked her, regarding the “love scene that took place in the back house…did you enjoy it?”

Linda frankly answered: “Yeah, I guess I did. I will have to say I did.”

If possible, at the end of Fitzgerald’s cross-examination Linda Kasabian looked even better than she had at the end of the direct.

It was Monday, August 3, 1970. I was on my way back to court from lunch, a few minutes before 2 P.M., when I was abruptly surrounded by newsmen. They were all talking at once, and it was a couple of seconds before I made out the words: “Vince, have you heard the news? President Nixon just said that Manson’s guilty!”

AUGUST 3–19, 1970

Fitzgerald had a copy of the AP wire. In Denver for a conference of law-enforcement officials, the President, himself an attorney, was quoted as complaining that the press tended “to glorify and make heroes out of those engaged in criminal activities.”

He continued: “I noted, for example, the coverage of the Charles Manson case…Front page every day in the papers. It usually got a couple of minutes in the evening news. Here is a man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders. Yet here is a man who, as far as the coverage is concerned, appeared to be a glamorous figure.”

Following Nixon’s remarks, presidential press secretary Ron Ziegler said that the President had “failed to use the word ‘alleged’ in referring to the charges.”[68]

We discussed the situation in chambers. Fortunately, the bailiffs had brought the jury back from lunch before the story broke. They remained sequestered in a room upstairs, and so, as yet, there was no chance of their having been exposed.

Kanarek moved for a mistrial. Denied. Ever suspicious that the sequestration was not effective, he asked that the jurors be voir dired to see if any had heard the news. As Aaron put it, “It would be like waving a red flag. If they didn’t know about it before, they certainly will after the voir dire.”

Older denied the motion “without prejudice,” so it could be renewed at a later time. He also said he would tell the bailiffs to inaugurate unusually stringent security measures. Later that afternoon the windows of the bus used to transport the jury to and from the hotel were coated with Bon Ami to prevent the jurors from seeing the inevitable headlines. There was a TV set in their joint recreation room at the Ambassador; ordinarily they could watch any program they wished, except the news, a bailiff changing the channels. Tonight it would remain dark. Newspapers would also be banned from the courtroom, Older specifically instructing the attorneys to make sure none were on the counsel table, where they might inadvertently be seen by the jury.

When we returned to court, there was a smug grin on Manson’s face. It remained there all afternoon. It isn’t every criminal who merits the attention of the President of the United States. Charlie had made the big time.

The jury was brought down, and Atkins’ defense attorney, Daye Shinn, began his cross-examination of Linda.

Apparently intent on implying that I had coached Linda in her testimony, he asked: “Do you recall what Mr. Bugliosi said to you during your first meeting?”

A. “Well, he has always stressed for me to tell the truth.”

Q. “Besides the truth, I’m talking about.”

As if anything else were important.

Q. “Did Mr. Bugliosi ever tell you that some of your statements were wrong, or some of your answers were not logical, or did not make sense?”

A. “No, I told him; he never told me.”

Q. “The fact that you were pregnant, wasn’t that the reason that you stayed outside [the Tate residence] instead of going inside to participate?”

A. “Whether I was pregnant or not, I would never have killed anybody.”

Shinn gave up after only an hour and a half. Linda’s testimony remained unshaken.

With a heavy, ponderous shuffle, Irving Kanarek approached the witness stand. His demeanor was deceiving. There was no relaxing when Kanarek was cross-examining; at any moment he might blurt out something objectionable. There was also no anticipating him; he’d suddenly skip from one subject to another with no hint of a connecting link. Many of his questions were so complex that even he lost the thought, and had to have the court reporter read them back to him.

It was excruciatingly tiring listening to him. It was also very important that I do so, since, unlike the two attorneys who preceded him, Kanarek scored points. He brought out, for example, that when Linda returned to California to reclaim Tanya, she told the social worker that she’d left the state on August 6 or 7—which, had this been true, would have been before the Tate-LaBianca murders occurred. If accurate, this meant that Linda had fabricated all of her testimony regarding those murders. And if she had lied to the social worker to get her daughter back, Kanarek implied, she could very well lie to this Court to get her own freedom.

But mostly he rambled and droned on and on, tiring the spectators as well as the witness. Many of the reporters “wrote off” Kanarek early in the proceedings. Given a choice of defense attorneys, they quoted Fitzgerald, whose questions were better phrased. But it was Kanarek, in the midst of his verbosity, who was scoring.

He was also beginning to get to Linda. At the end of the day—her sixth on the stand—she looked a little fatigued and her answers were less sharp. No one knew how many days of this lay ahead, since Kanarek, unlike the other attorneys, consistently avoided answering Older’s questions about the estimated length of his cross-examination.

On my way home that night I was again thankful the jury had been sequestered. You could see the headlines on every newsstand. The car radio had periodic updates. Hughes: “I am guilty of contempt for uttering a dirty word, but Nixon has the contempt of the world to face.” Fitzgerald: “It is very discouraging when the world’s single most important person comes out against you.” The most reported quote was that of Manson, who had passed a statement to the press via one of the defense attorneys. Mimicking Nixon’s remarks, it was unusually short and to the point: “Here’s a man who is accused of murdering hundreds of thousands in Vietnam who is accusing me of being guilty of eight murders.”

The next day in chambers Kanarek charged the President with conspiracy. “The District Attorney of Los Angeles County is running for attorney general of California. I say it without being able to prove it, that Evelle Younger and the President got together to do this.”

If this was so, Kanarek said, “he shouldn’t be President of the United States.”

THE COURT “That will have to be decided in some other proceeding, Mr. Kanarek. Let’s stay with the issues here…I am satisfied there has been no exposure of any of these jurors to anything the press may have said…I see no reason for taking any further action at this time.”

Kanarek resumed his cross-examination. On direct, Linda had stated that she had taken some fifty LSD “trips.” Kanarek now asked her to describe what had happened on trip number 23.

BUGLIOSI “I object to that question as being ridiculous, Your Honor.”

Though there is no such objection in the rule books, I felt there should be. Apparently Judge Older felt similarly, as he sustained the objection. As well as others when I objected that a question had been repeated “ad nauseam” or was “nonsensical.”

Just after the noon recess Manson suddenly stood and, turning toward the jury box, held up a copy of the front page of the Los Angeles Times.

A bailiff grabbed it but not before Manson had shown the jury the huge black headline:

Older had the jury taken out. He then demanded to know which attorney, against his express orders, had brought a newspaper into court. There were several denials but no one confessed.

There was no question now that the jury would have to be voir dired. Each member was brought in separately and questioned by the judge under oath. Of the twelve jurors and six alternates, eleven were aware of the full headline; two saw only the words MANSON GUILTY; four only saw the paper or the name MANSON; and one, Mr. Zamora, didn’t see anything: “I was looking at the clock at the time.”

Each was also questioned as to his or her reaction. Mrs. McKenzie:

“Well, my first thought was ‘That’s ridiculous.’” Mr. McBride: “I think if the President declared that, it was pretty stupid of him.” Miss Mesmer: “No one does my thinking for me.” Mr. Daut: “I didn’t vote for Nixon in the first place.”

After an extensive voir dire, all eighteen stated under oath that they had not been influenced by the headline and that they would consider only the evidence presented to them in court.

Knowing something about jurors, I was inclined to believe them, for a very simple reason. Jurors consider themselves privileged insiders. Day after day, they are a part of the courtroom drama. They hear the evidence. They, and they alone, determine its importance. They tend, very strongly, to think of themselves as the experts, those outside the courtroom the amateurs. As juror Dawson put it, he’d listened to every bit of the testimony; Nixon hadn’t; “I don’t believe Mr. Nixon knows anything about it.”

My over-all feeling was that the jurors were annoyed with the President for attempting to usurp their role. It was quite possible that the statement might even have helped Manson, causing them to be even more determined that they, unlike the President, would give him every benefit of the doubt.

A number of national columnists stated that if Manson was convicted, his conviction would be reversed on appeal because of Nixon’s statement. On the contrary, since it was Manson himself who brought the headline to the attention of the jury, this was “invited error,” which simply means that a defendant cannot benefit from his own wrongdoing.

One aspect of this did concern me just a little. It was a subtler point. Although the headlines declared that Manson—not the girls—was guilty, it could be argued that as Manson’s co-defendants the guilt “slopped over” onto them. Although I assumed this would be an issue they would raise on appeal, I felt fairly certain it would not constitute “reversible error.” There are errors in every trial, but most do not warrant a reversal by the appellate courts. This might have, had not Older voir dired the jury and obtained their sworn statements that they would not be influenced by the incident.

Nor did the three female defendants exactly help their case when, the next day, they stood up and said in perfect unison: “Your Honor, the President said we are guilty, so why go on with the trial?”

Older had not given up his search for the culprit. Daye Shinn now admitted that just before court resumed he’d walked over to the file cabinet where the bailiff had placed the confiscated papers and had picked up several and brought them back to the counsel table. He’d intended to read the sports pages, he said, unaware that the front pages were also attached.

Declaring Shinn in direct contempt of Court, Older ordered him to spend three nights in the County Jail, commencing as soon as court adjourned. We were already past the usual adjournment time. Shinn asked for an hour to move his car and get a toothbrush, but Older denied the motion and Shinn was remanded into custody.

The next morning Shinn asked for a continuance. Being in a strange bed, and an even stranger place, he hadn’t slept well the night before, and he didn’t feel he could effectively defend his client.

These were not all of his troubles, Shinn admitted. “I am now having marital problems, Your Honor. My wife thinks I am spending the night with some other woman. She doesn’t read English. Now my dog won’t even talk to me.”

Declining comment on his domestic woes, Older suggested that Shinn catch a nap during the noon recess. Motion denied.

Irving Kanarek kept Linda Kasabian on the stand seven days. It was cross-examination in the most literal sense. For example: “Mrs. Kasabian, did you go to Spahn Ranch because you wanted to seek out fresh men, men that you had not had previous relations with?”

Unlike Fitzgerald and Shinn, Kanarek examined Linda’s testimony regarding those two nights as if under a microscope. The problem with this, as far as the defense was concerned, was that some of her most damning statements were repeated two, three, even more times. Nor was Kanarek content to score a point and move on. Frequently he dwelt on a subject so long he negated his own argument. For example, Linda had testified that on the night of the Tate murders her mind was clear. She had also testified that after seeing the shooting of Parent she went into a state of shock. Kanarek did not stop at pointing out the seeming contradiction, but asked exactly when her state of shock ended.

A. “I don’t know when it ended. I don’t know if it ever ended.”

Q. “Your mind was completely clear, is that right?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “You weren’t under the influence of any drug, is that right?”

A. “No.”

Q. “You weren’t under the influence of anything, right?”

A. “I was under the influence of Charlie.”

Although Linda remained responsive to the questions, it was obvious that Kanarek was wearing her down.

On August 7 we lost a juror and a witness.

Juror Walter Vitzelio was excused because both he and his wife were in ill health. The ex–security guard was replaced, by lot, by one of the alternates, Larry Sheely, a telephone maintenance man.

That same day I learned that Randy Starr had died at the Veterans Administration Hospital of an “undetermined illness.”

The former Spahn ranch hand and part-time stunt man had been prepared to identify the Tate-Sebring rope as identical with the one Manson had. Even more important, since Randy had given Manson the .22 caliber revolver, his testimony would have literally placed the gun in Manson’s hand.

Though I had other witnesses who could testify to these key points, I was admittedly suspicious of Starr’s sudden demise. Learning no autopsy had been performed, I ordered one. Starr, it was determined, had died of natural causes, from an ear infection.

KANAREK “Mrs. Kasabian, I show you this picture.”

A. “Oh, God!” Linda turned her face away. It was the color photo of the very pregnant, and very dead, Sharon Tate.

This was the first time Linda had seen the photograph, and she was so shaken Older called a ten-minute recess.

There was no evidence whatsoever that Linda Kasabian had been inside the Tate residence or that she had seen Sharon Tate’s body. Aaron and I therefore questioned Kanarek’s showing her the photograph. Fitzgerald argued that it was entirely possible that Mrs. Kasabian had been inside both the Tate and LaBianca residences and had participated in all of the murders. Older ruled that Kanarek could show her the photo.

Kanarek then showed Linda the death photo of Voytek Frykowski.

A. “He is the man that I saw at the door.”

KANAREK “Mrs. Kasabian, why are you crying right now?”

A. “Because I can’t believe it. It is just—”

Q. “You can’t believe what, Mrs. Kasabian?”

A. “That they could do that.”

Q. “I see. Not that you could do that, but that they could do that?”

A. “I know I didn’t do that.”

Q. “You were in a state of shock, weren’t you?”

A. “That’s right.”

Q. “Then how do you know?”

A. “Because I know. I do not have that kind of thing in me, to do such an animalistic thing.”

Kanarek showed Linda the death photos of all five of the Tate victims as well as those of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca. He even insisted that she handle the leather thong that had bound Leno’s wrists.

Perhaps Kanarek hoped that he would so unnerve Linda that she would make some damaging admission. Instead, he only succeeded in emphasizing that, in contrast to the other defendants, Linda Kasabian was a sensitive human being capable of being deeply disturbed by the hideousness of these acts.

Showing Linda the photos was a mistake. And the other defense attorneys soon realized this. Each time Kanarek held up a picture, then asked her to look closely at some minute detail, the jurors winced or squirmed uncomfortably in their chairs. Even Manson protested that Kanarek was acting on his own. And still Kanarek persisted.

Ronald Hughes approached me in the hall during a recess. “I want to apologize, Vince—”

“No apology necessary, Ron. It was a ‘heat of the moment’ remark. I’m only sorry that Older found you in contempt.”

“No, I don’t mean that,” Hughes said. “What I did was a hell of a lot worse. I was the one who suggested that Irving Kanarek become Manson’s attorney.”

On Monday, August 10, 1970, the People petitioned the Court for immunity for Linda Kasabian. Though Judge Older signed the petition the same day, it was not until the thirteenth that he formally dropped all charges against her and she was released. She had been in custody since December 3, 1969. Unlike Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten, she had been in solitary confinement the whole time.

My wife, Gail, was worried. “What if she goes back on her testimony, Vince? Susan Atkins did; Mary Brunner did. Now that she has immunity—”

“Honey, I have confidence in Linda,” I told her.

I did, yet in the back of my mind was the question: Where would the People’s case be if that confidence was misplaced?

The next day Manson passed Linda a long handwritten letter. It seemed, at first, mostly nonsensical. Only on looking closer did one notice that key phrases had been marked with tiny check marks. Extracted, spelling errors intact, they read:

“Love can never stop if it’s love…The joke is over. Look at the end and begin again…Just give yourself to your love & give your love to be free…If you were not saying what your saying there would be no tryle…Don’t lose your love its only there for you…Why do you think they killed JC? Answer: Cause he was a Devil & bad. No one liked him…Don’t let anyone have this or they will find a way to use it against me…This trile of Man’s Son will only show the world that each man judges himself.”

Coming just after she had been granted immunity, the message could only have one meaning: Manson was attempting to woo Linda back into the Family, in hopes that once freed she would repudiate her testimony.

Her answer was to give the letter to me.

Though a number of people had seen Manson pass Linda the letter, Kanarek maintained that she had grabbed it out of his hand!

The most effective cross-examination of Linda Kasabian was surprisingly that of Ronald Hughes. Though this was his first trial, and he frequently made procedural mistakes, Hughes was familiar with the hippie subculture, having been a part of it. He knew about drugs, mysticism, karma, auras, vibrations, and when he questioned Linda about these things, he made her look just a little odd, just a wee bit zingy. He had her admitting that she believed in ESP, that there were times at Spahn when she actually felt she was a witch.

Q. “Do you feel that you are controlled by Mr. Manson’s vibrations?”

A. “Possibly.”

Q. “Did he put off a lot of vibes?”

A. “Sure, he’s doing it right now.”

HUGHES “May the record reflect, Your Honor, that Mr. Manson is merely sitting here.”

KANAREK “He doesn’t seem to be vibrating.”

Hughes asked Linda so many questions about drugs that, had an unknowing spectator walked into court, he would have assumed Linda was on trial for possession. Yet Linda’s alert replies in themselves disproved the charge that LSD had destroyed her mind.

Q. “Now, Mrs. Kasabian, you testified that you thought Mr. Manson was Jesus Christ. Did you ever feel that anybody else was Jesus

Christ?”

A. “The biblical Jesus Christ.”

Q. “When did you stop thinking that Mr. Manson was Jesus Christ?”

A. “The night at the Tate residence.”

Though I felt confident the jury was impressed with Linda, I was pleased to hear an independent evaluation. Hughes requested that the Court appoint psychiatrists to examine Linda. Older replied: “I find no basis for a psychiatric examination in this case. She appears to be perfectly lucid and articulate. I find no evidence of aberration of any kind insofar as her ability to recall, to relate. In all respects she has been remarkably articulate and responsive. The motion will be denied.”

Hughes ended his cross-examination of Linda very effectively:

Q. “You have testified that you have had trips on marijuana, hash, THC, morning-glory seeds, psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, peyote, methedrine, and Romilar, is that right?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “And in the last year you have had the following major delusions: You have believed that Charles Manson is Jesus Christ, is that right?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “And you believed yourself to be a witch?”

A. “Yes.”

HUGHES “Your Honor, I have no further questions at this time.”

The basic purpose of redirect examination is to rehabilitate the witness. Linda needed little rehabilitating, other than being allowed to explain more fully replies which the defense had cut off. For example, I brought out that Linda meant “state of shock” figuratively, not medically, and that she was very much aware of what was going on.

On redirect the prosecution can also explore areas first opened on cross-examination. Since the theft of the $5,000 had come out on cross, I was able to bring in the mitigating circumstances: that after stealing the money, Linda had turned it over to the Family and that she neither saw it again nor benefited from it.

Not until the re-redirect was I able to bring out why Linda had fled Spahn Ranch without Tanya.

The delay in getting this in was actually beneficial, I felt, for by this time the jury knew Linda Kasabian well enough to accept her explanation.

Direct. Cross. Redirect. Recross. Re-redirect. Re-recross. Just before noon on Wednesday, August 19, Linda Kasabian finally stepped down from the stand. She had been up there seventeen days—longer than most trials. Though the defense had been given a twenty-page summary of all my interviews with her, as well as copies of all her letters to me, not once had she been impeached with a prior inconsistent statement. I was very proud of her; if ever there was a star witness for the prosecution, Linda Kasabian was it.

Following the completion of her testimony, she flew back to New Hampshire for a reunion with her two children. For Linda, however, the ordeal was not yet over. Kanarek asked that she be subject to recall by the defense, and she would also have to testify when Watson was brought to trial.

Randy Starr was not the only witness the People lost during August.

Still afflicted with wanderlust, Robert Kasabian and Charles Melton had gone to Hawaii. I asked Linda’s attorney, Gary Fleischman, if he could locate them, but he said they were off on some uncharted island, meditating in a cave, and there was no way to reach them. I’d wanted Melton especially, to testify to Tex’s remark, “Maybe Charlie will let me grow a beard someday.”

The loss of the other witness was a far greater blow to the prosecution. Saladin Nader, the actor whose life Linda had saved the night the LaBiancas were killed, had moved out of his apartment. He’d told friends he was going to Europe, but left no forwarding address. Although I requested the LaBianca detectives to try to locate him through the Lebanese Consulate and the Immigration Service, they were unsuccessful. I then asked them to interview his former landlady, Mrs. Eleanor Lally, who could at least testify that during August 1969 the actor had occupied Apartment 501, 1101 Ocean Front Walk, Venice. But with Nader’s disappearance, we lost the only witness who could even partially corroborate Linda Kasabian’s story of that second night.

On August 18, however, we found a witness—one of the most important yet to appear.

Over seven months after I had first tried to get Watkins and Poston to persuade him to come in for an interview, Juan Flynn decided he was ready to talk.

Fearful that he would become a prosecution witness, the Family had launched a campaign of harassment against the tall, lanky Panamanian cowboy that included threatening letters, hang-up phone calls, and cars racing past his trailer in the night, their occupants oinking or shouting “Pig!” All this had made Juan mad—mad enough to contact LASO, who in turn called LAPD.

Since I was in court, Sartuchi interviewed Flynn that afternoon at Parker Center. It was a short interview; transcribed, it ran to only sixteen pages, but it contained one very startling disclosure.

SARTUCHI “When did you first become aware of the fact that Charles Manson was being charged with the crimes that he is presently on trial for?”

FLYNN “I became aware of the crimes that he is being charged with when he admitted to me of the killings that were taking place…”

In his broken English, Flynn was saying that Manson had admitted the murders to him!

Q. “Was there any conversation about the LaBiancas, or was that all at the same time, or what?”

A. “Well, I don’t know if it was at the same time, but he led me to believe—he told me that he was the main cause for these murders to be committed.”

Q. “Did he say anything more than that?”

A. “He admitted—he boasted—of thirty-five lives taken in a period of two days.”

When LAPD brought him to my office, I hadn’t yet talked to Sartuchi or heard the interview tape, so when in interviewing Flynn I learned of Manson’s very incriminating admission, it came as a complete surprise.

In questioning Juan, I established that the conversation had taken place in the kitchen at Spahn Ranch, two to four days after news of the Tate murders broke on TV. Juan had just sat down to lunch when Manson came in and, with his right hand, brushed his left shoulder—apparently a signal that the others were to get out, since they immediately did. Aware that something was up, but not what, Juan started to eat.

(Ever since the arrival of the Family at Spahn Ranch, Manson had been trying to get the six-foot-five cowboy to join them. Manson had told Flynn: “I will get you a big gold bracelet and put diamonds on it and you can be my head zombie.” There were other enticements. When first offered the same bait as the other males, Juan had sampled it eagerly, to his regret. “That damn case of clap just wouldn’t go away,” Juan told me, “not for three, four months.” Though he had remained at Spahn, Juan had refused to be anybody’s zombie, let alone little Charlie’s. Of late, however, Manson had become more insistent.)

Suddenly Manson grabbed Juan by the hair, yanked his head back, and, putting a knife to his throat, said, “You son of a bitch, don’t you know I’m the one who’s doing all of these killings?”

Even though Manson had not mentioned the Tate-LaBianca murders by name, his admission was a tremendously powerful piece of evidence.[69]

The razor-sharp blade still on Juan’s throat, Manson asked, “Are you going to come with me or do I have to kill you?”

Juan replied, “I am eating and I am right here, you know.”

Manson put the knife on the table. “O.K.,” he said. “You kill me.”

Resuming eating, Juan said, “I don’t want to do that, you know.”

Looking very agitated, Manson told him, “Helter Skelter is coming down and we’ve got to go to the desert.” He then gave Juan a choice: he could oppose him or join him. If he wanted to join him, Charlie said, “go down to the waterfall and make love to my girls.”

(Manson’s “my girls” was in itself a powerful piece of evidence.)

Juan told Charlie that the next time he wanted to contract a nine-month case of syphilis or gonorrhea, he’d let him know.

It was at this point that Manson boasted of killing thirty-five people in two days. Juan considered it just that, a boast, and I was inclined to agree. If there had been more than seven Manson-ordered murders during that two-day period, I was sure that at some point in the investigation we would have found evidence of them. Too, as far as the immediate trial was concerned, the latter statement was useless, as it was obviously inadmissible as evidence.

Eventually Manson picked up the knife and walked out. And Juan suddenly realized he didn’t have much appetite left.

I talked to Juan over four hours that night. Manson’s admission was not the only surprise. Manson had told Juan in June or July 1969, while Juan, Bruce Davis, and Clem were standing on the boardwalk at Spahn, “Well, I have come down to it. The only way to get Helter Skelter going is for me to go down there and show the black man how to do it, by killing a whole bunch of those fuckin’ pigs.”

Among Flynn’s other revelations: Manson had threatened to kill him several times, once shooting at him with the .22 Longhorn revolver; on several occasions Manson had suggested that Juan kill various people; and Flynn had not only seen the group leave Spahn on probably the same night the LaBiancas were killed; Sadie had told him, just before they left, “We’re going to get some fucking pigs.”

Suddenly Juan Flynn became one of the prosecution’s most important witnesses. The problem now was protecting him until he took the stand. Throughout our interview Juan had been extremely nervous; he’d tense at the slightest noise in the hall. He admitted that, because of his fear, he hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in months. He asked me if there was any way he could be locked up until it came time for him to testify.

I called LAPD and requested that Juan be put in either jail or a hospital. I didn’t care which, just so long as he was off the streets.

Bemused by this unusual turnabout, Sartuchi, when he picked up Juan, asked him what he wanted to be arrested for. Well, Juan said, thinking a bit, he wanted to confess to drinking a beer in the desert a couple of months ago. Since he was in a National Park, that was against the law. Flynn was arrested and booked on that charge.

Juan remained in jail just long enough to decide he didn’t like it one bit. After three or four days he tried to contact me. Unable to reach me right away, he called Spahn Ranch and left a message for one of the ranch hands to come down and bail him out. The Family intercepted the message, and sent Irving Kanarek instead.

Kanarek paid Juan’s bail and bought him breakfast. He instructed Juan, “Don’t talk to anyone.”

When Juan had finished eating, Kanarek told him that he had already called Squeaky and the girls and that they were on their way over to pick him up. Hearing this, Juan split. Though he remained in hiding, he called in periodically, to assure me that he was still all right and that when the time came he would be there to testify.

Although it would never be mentioned in the trial, Juan had a special reason for testifying. Shorty Shea had been his best friend.

AUGUST 19–SEPTEMBER 6, 1970

After Kasabian left the stand, I called a series of witnesses whose detailed testimony either supported or corroborated her account. These included: Tim Ireland, counselor at the girls’ school down the hill from the Tate residence, who heard the cries and screams; Rudolf Weber, who described the hosing incident and dropped one bombshell: the license-plate number; John Swartz, who confirmed that was the number on his car and who told how, on two different nights in the first part of August 1969, Manson had borrowed the vehicle without asking permission; Winifred Chapman, who described her arrival at 10050 Cielo Drive on the morning of August 9, 1969; Jim Asin, who called the police after Mrs. Chapman ran down Cielo screaming, “Murder, death, bodies, blood!”; the first LAPD officers to arrive at the scene—DeRosa, Whisenhunt, and Burbridge—who described their grisly find. Bit by bit, piece by piece, from Chapman’s arrival to the examination of the cut phone wires by the telephone company representative, the scene was recreated. The horror seemed to linger in the courtroom even after the witnesses had left the stand.

Since Leslie Van Houten was not charged with the five Tate murders, Hughes did not question any of these witnesses. He did, however, make an interesting motion. He asked that he and his client be permitted to absent themselves from the courtroom while those murders were discussed. Though the motion was denied, his attempt to separate his client from these events ran directly counter to Manson’s collective defense, and I wondered how Charlie was reacting to it.

When McGann took the stand, I questioned him at some length as to what he had found at the Tate residence. The relevancy of many of the details—the pieces of gun grip, the dimensions and type of rope, the absence of shell casings, and so on—would become apparent to the jury later. I was especially interested in establishing that there was no evidence of ransacking or robbery. I also got in, ahead of the defense, that drugs had been found. And a pair of eyeglasses.

Anticipating the next witness, Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi, Kanarek asked for a conference in chambers. He’d had a change of heart, Kanarek said. Though he’d earlier shown the death photos to Mrs. Kasabian, “I have thought about it, and I believe I was in error, Your Honor.” Kanarek asked that the photos, particularly those which were in color, be excluded. Motion denied. The photos could be used for identification purposes, Older ruled; as to their admissibility as evidence, that motion would be heard at a later time.

Each time Kanarek tried such a tactic, I thought surely he can’t better this. And each time I found he not only could but did.

Although I had interviewed Dr. Noguchi several times, I had a last conference with him in my office before we went to court. The coroner, who had conducted Sharon Tate’s autopsy as well as supervised those of the other four Tate victims, had a habit of holding back little surprises. There are enough of these in a trial without getting them from your own witnesses, so I asked him outright if there was anything he hadn’t told me.

Well, one thing, he admitted. He hadn’t mentioned it in the autopsy reports, but, after studying the abrasions on her left cheek, he had concluded, “Sharon Tate was hung.”

This was not the cause of death, he said, and she had probably been suspended less than a minute, but he was convinced the abrasions were rope burns.

I revised my interrogation sheets to get this in.

Although almost all of Dr. Noguchi’s testimony was important, several portions were especially so in terms of corroborating Linda Kasabian.

Noguchi testified that many of the stab wounds penetrated bones; Linda had testified that Patricia Krenwinkel had complained that her hand hurt from her knife striking bones.

Linda testified that the two knives she’d thrown out the car window had about the same blade length, estimating, with her hands, an approximate length of between 5½ and 6½ inches. Dr. Noguchi testified that many of the wounds were a full 5 inches in depth. This was not only close to Linda’s approximation, it also emphasized the extreme viciousness of the assaults.

Linda estimated the blade width at about 1 inch. Dr. Noguchi said the wounds were caused by a blade with a width of between 1 and 1½ inches.

Linda estimated the thickness as maybe two or three times that of an ordinary kitchen knife. Dr. Noguchi said the thickness varied from ¹/₈ to ½ inch, which corresponded to Linda’s approximation.

Linda—who, on Manson’s instructions, had several times honed knives similar to these while at Spahn Ranch—testified that the knives were sharpened on both sides, on one side all the way back to the hilt, on the other at least an inch back from the tip. Dr. Noguchi testified that about two-thirds of the wounds had been made by a blade or blades that had been sharpened on both sides for a distance of about 1½ to 2 inches, one side then flattening out while the other remained keen.[70]

As I’d later argue to the jury, Linda’s description of those two knives—their thickness, width, length, even the fine point of the double-edged blade—was strong evidence that the two knives she was talking about were the same knives Dr. Noguchi had described.

In his cross-examination of Noguchi, Kanarek not only repeatedly referred to the victims’ “passing away,” he spoke of Abigail Folger running to her “place of repose.” It was beginning to sound like a guided tour of Forest Lawn.

The idiocy of all this was not lost on Manson. He complained: “Your Honor, this lawyer is not doing what I am asking him to do, not even by a small margin…He is not my attorney, he is your attorney. I would like to dismiss this man and get another attorney.”

I was not sure whether Manson was serious or not. Even if he wasn’t, it was still a good tactical move. Charlie was in effect telling the jury, “Don’t judge me by what this man says or does.”

Kanarek then questioned Noguchi about each of Miss Folger’s twenty-eight stab wounds. His purpose, as he admitted at the bench, was to establish “the culpability of Linda Kasabian.” Had she run for help, he suggested, perhaps Miss Folger might still be alive.

There were several problems with this. At least for the purpose of the questioning, Kanarek was in effect admitting Linda’s presence at the scene. He was also stressing, over and over and over again, the involvement of Patricia Krenwinkel. There was nothing unethical about this: Kanarek’s client was Manson. What was surprising was that Krenwinkel’s own attorney, Paul Fitzgerald, didn’t object more often.

Aaron spotted the basic fallacy of all this. “Your Honor, had Dr. Christiaan Barnard been present with an operating room already set up to operate on the victim, the wound to the aorta would still have been fatal.”

Later, while the jury was out, Older asked Manson if he still desired to replace Kanarek. By this time Charlie had changed his mind. During the discussion Manson made an interesting observation as to his own feelings on the progress of the trial thus far: “We did pretty good at the first of it. Then we kind of lost control when the testimony started.”

Although Channel 7 newscaster Al Wiman had actually been the first to spot the clothing the TV crew found, we called cameraman King Baggot to the stand instead. Had we used Wiman as a witness, he wouldn’t have been able to cover any portion of the trial for his station. Before Baggot was sworn, the judge and attorneys conferred with him at the bench, to make sure there was no mention of the fact that Susan Atkins’ confession had led them to the clothing. Thus, when Baggot testified, the jury got the impression that the TV crew just made a lucky guess.

After Baggot identified the various items of apparel, we called Joe Granado of SID. Joe was to testify to the blood samples he had taken.

Joe wasn’t on the stand very long. He’d forgotten his notes and had to go get them. Fortunately, we had another witness ready, Helen Tabbe, the deputy at Sybil Brand who had obtained the sample of Susan Atkins’ hair.

Although I liked Joe as a person, as a witness he left much to be desired. He appeared very disorganized; couldn’t pronounce many of the technical terms of his trade; often gave vague, inconclusive answers. Granado’s failure to take samples from many of the spots, as well as his failure to run subtypes on many of the samples he had taken, didn’t exactly add to his impressiveness. I was particularly concerned about his having taken so few samples from the two pools of blood outside the front door (“I took a random sampling; then I assumed the rest of it was the same”) and his failure to test the blood on the bushes next to the porch (“At the time, I guess, I assumed all of the blood was of similar origin”). My concern here was that those samples he had taken matched in type and subtype the blood of Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, although there was no evidence that either had run out the front door. While I could argue to the jury that the killers, or Frykowski himself, had tracked out the blood, I could foresee the defense using this to cast doubt on Linda’s story, so I asked Joe: “You don’t know if the random sampling is representative of the blood type of the whole area here?”

A. “That is correct. I would have had to scoop everything up.”

Granado also testified to finding the Buck knife in the chair and the clock radio in Parent’s car. Unfortunately, someone at LAPD had apparently been playing the radio, as the dial no longer read 12:15 A.M., and I had to bring out that this occurred after Granado observed the time setting.

Shortly after the trial Joe Granado left LAPD to join the FBI.

Denied access to the courtroom, the Family began a vigil outside the Hall of Justice, at the corner of Temple and Broadway. “I’m waiting for my father to get out of jail,” Sandy told reporters as she knelt on the sidewalk next to one of the busiest intersections in the city of Los Angeles. “We will remain here,” Squeaky told TV interviewers, as traffic slowed and people gawked, “until all our brothers and sisters are set free.” In interviews the girls referred to the trial as “the second crucifixion of Christ.”

At night they slept in the bushes next to the building. When the police stopped that, they moved their sleeping bags into a white van which they parked nearby. By day they knelt or sat on the sidewalk, granted interviews, tried to convert the curious young. It was easy to tell the hard-core Mansonites from the transient camp followers. Each of the former had an X carved on his or her forehead. Each also wore a sheathed hunting knife. Since the knives were in plain view, they couldn’t be arrested for carrying concealed weapons. The police did bust them several times for loitering, but after a warning, or at most a few days in jail, they were back, and after a time the police left them alone.

Nearby city and county office buildings provided rest-room facilities. Also public phones, where, at certain prearranged times, one of the girls would await check-in calls from other Family members, including those wanted by the police. Several sob sisters who were covering the trial wrote largely sympathetic stories about their innocent, fresh, wholesome good looks and their devotion. They also often gave them money. Whether it was used for food or other purposes is not known. We did know the Family was adding to its hidden caches of arms and ammunition. And, since the Family was against hunting animals, it was a safe guess that they were stockpiling for something other than self-protection.

The deaths of her mother and stepfather had caused Suzanne Struthers to have a nervous breakdown. Though she was slowly recovering, we called Frank Struthers to the stand to identify photographs of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and to describe what he’d found on returning home that Sunday night. Shown the wallet found in the Standard station, Frank positively identified it, and the watch in the change compartment, as his mother’s. On questioning by Aaron, Frank also testified that he had been unable to find anything else missing from the residence.

Ruth Sivick testified to feeding the LaBianca dogs on Saturday afternoon. No, she saw no bloody words on the refrigerator door. Yes, she had opened and closed the door, to get the food for the dogs.

News vender John Fokianos, who testified to talking to Rosemary and Leno between 1 and 2 A.M. that Sunday, was followed by Hollywood Division officers Rodriquez and Cline, who described their arrival and discoveries at the crime scene. Cline testified to the bloody writings. Galindo, the first of the homicide officers to arrive, gave a detailed description of the premises, also stating: “I found no signs of ransacking. I found many items of value,” which he then enumerated. Detective Broda testified to seeing, just prior to the autopsy of Leno LaBianca, the knife protruding from his throat, which, because of the pillowcase over the victim’s head, the other officers had missed.

This brought us to Deputy Medical Examiner David Katsuyama. And a host of problems.

According to the first LaBianca investigative report, “The bread knife recovered from [Leno LaBianca’s] throat appeared to be the weapon used in both homicides.”

There was absolutely no scientific basis for this, since Katsuyama, who conducted both autopsies, had failed to measure the victims’ wounds.

However, since the knife belonged to the LaBiancas, if this was let stand the defense could maintain that the killers had gone to the residence unarmed; ergo, they did not intend to commit murder. While a killing committed during the commission of a robbery is still first degree murder, this could affect whether the defendants escaped the death penalty. More important, it negated our whole theory of the case, which was that Manson, and Manson alone, had a motive for these murders, and that that motive was not robbery—a motive thousands of people could have—but to ignite Helter Skelter.

Shortly after I received the LaBianca reports, I ordered scale blowups of the autopsy photos, and asked Katsuyama to measure the length and thickness of the wounds. Initially I presumed there was no way to determine their depth, which would indicate the minimum length of the blade; however, in going over the coroner’s original diagrams, I discovered that two of Rosemary LaBianca’s wounds had been probed, one to the depth of 5 inches, the other 5½ inches, while two of Leno LaBianca’s wounds were 5½ inches deep.

After many, many requests, Katsuyama finally measured the photos. I then compared his measurements with those of the bread knife. They came out as follows:

Length of blade of bread knife: 4⁷/₈ inches.

Depth of deepest measurable wound: 5½ inches.

Thickness of blade of bread knife: just under ¹/₁₆ inch.

Thickness of thickest wound: ³/₁₆ inch.

Width of blade of bread knife: from ³/₈ to 1³/₁₆ inch.

Width of widest wound: 1¼ inches.

There was no way, I concluded, that the LaBiancas’ bread knife could have caused all the wounds. Length, width, thickness—in each the dimensions of the bread knife were smaller than the wounds themselves. Therefore the killers must have brought their own knives.

Recalling, however, how Katsuyama had confused a leather thong for electrical cord before the grand jury, I showed him the two sets of figures and—questioning him in much the same manner as I would in court—asked him: Had he formed an opinion as to whether the bread knife found in Leno LaBianca’s throat could have made all of the wounds? Yes, he had, Katsuyama replied. What was his opinion? Yes, it could have.

Suppressing a groan, I asked him to compare the figures again.

This time he concluded there was no way the LaBianca knife could have made all those wounds.

To be doubly safe, the day I was to call him to the stand I interviewed him again in my office. Again he decided the knife could have made the wounds, then again he changed his mind.

“Doctor,” I told him, “I’m not trying to coach you. If it’s your professional opinion that all the wounds were made by the bread knife, fine. But the figures that you yourself gave me indicate that the bread knife couldn’t possibly have caused all the wounds. Now, which is it? Only don’t tell me one thing now and something different on the stand. You’ve got to make up your mind.”

Even though he stuck to his last reply, I had more than a few apprehensive moments when it came time to question him in court. However, he testified: “These dimensions [of the bread knife] are much smaller than many of the wounds which I previously described.”

Q. “So it’s your opinion that this bread knife, which was removed from Mr. LaBianca’s throat, could not have caused many of the other wounds, is that correct?”

A. “Yes, it is.”

Rosemary LaBianca, Katsuyama also testified, had been stabbed forty-one times, sixteen of which wounds, mostly in her back and buttocks, having been made after she had died. Under questioning, Katsuyama explained that after death the heart stops pumping blood to the rest of the body, therefore post-mortem wounds are distinguishable by their lighter color.

This was very important testimony, since Leslie Van Houten told Dianne Lake that she had stabbed someone who was already dead.

Though Dr. Katsuyama had come through on direct, I was worried about the cross-examination. In his initial report the deputy coroner had the LaBiancas dying on the afternoon of Sunday, August 10—a dozen hours after their deaths actually occurred. This not only contradicted Linda’s account of the events of that second night, it gave the defense an excellent opportunity to go alibi. Conceivably, they could call numerous people who would testify, truthfully, that while horseback riding at Spahn Ranch that Sunday afternoon they had seen Manson, Watson, Krenwinkel, Van Houten, Atkins, Grogan, and Kasabian.

I not only hadn’t asked Katsuyama about the estimated time of death on direct, I hadn’t even asked Noguchi this on the Tate murders, because—though I knew his testimony would have supported Linda’s—I didn’t want the jury to wonder why I asked Noguchi and not Katsuyama.

Since Fitzgerald led off the cross-examination, he always had first chance to explode any bombs in the defense arsenal, and this was certainly a big one. But he only said, “No questions, Your Honor.” As, to my amazement, did Shinn, Kanarek, and Hughes.

I could think of only one possible explanation for this: though they had received all these reports through discovery, none of the four had realized their importance.

Susan Atkins had a stomach-ache. Though a fairly minor occurrence, in this instance it led to Aaron Stovitz’ being yanked off the Tate-LaBianca case.

Four court days were lost when Susan Atkins complained of stomach pains which the doctors who examined and tested her said “did not exist.” After sending the jury out, Judge Older called Susan to the stand, where she dramatically enumerated her ailments. Unimpressed, and convinced “she is now putting on an act,” Older brought the jury back in and resumed the trial. As he was leaving the courtroom, a reporter asked Aaron what he thought of Susan’s testimony. He replied, “It was a performance worthy of Sarah Bernhardt.”

The next morning Aaron was ordered to appear in District Attorney Younger’s office.

After the Rolling Stone interview, Younger had told Aaron: “No more interviews.” Being somewhat easygoing by nature, Aaron had trouble complying with the edict. Once, when Younger was in San Francisco, he’d turned on the radio to hear Aaron commenting on some aspect of the day’s courtroom proceedings. Though Aaron’s comments were not in violation of the gag order, on his return to L.A. Younger warned Aaron, “One more interview and you’re off the case.”

I accompanied Aaron to Younger’s office. There was no way Aaron’s comment could be called an interview, I argued. It was simply a passing remark. All of us had made many such during the trial.[71] But Younger autocratically declared, “No, I’ve made up my mind. Stovitz, you’re off the case.”

I felt very badly about this. In my opinion, it was completely unfair. But in this case there was no appeal.

Since I had prepared the case and examined most of the witnesses, Aaron’s removal did not affect this portion of the trial. We had agreed, however, that we would share the arguments to the jury, each of which would last several days. Having to handle them all myself added a tremendous burden to the load I was already carrying; in terms of time alone it meant another two hours of preparation each night, when I was already putting in four or five. Although two young deputy DAs, Donald Musich and Steven Kay, had been assigned to replace Aaron, neither was familiar enough with the case to participate in the trial.

Ironically, Steve Kay had once dated Family member Sandra Good, the pair, both of whom had grown up in San Diego, having gone on a date arranged by their mothers.

Sergeants Boen and Dolan of the Latent Prints Section of SID came across as the experts they were. Latents, exemplars, lift cards, smudges, fragmentary ridges, nonconductive surfaces, points of identity—by the time the two officers had finished, the jury had been given a mini-course in fingerprint identification.

Boen described how he had lifted the latent prints found at the Tate residence, particularly focusing on the latent found on the outside of the front door and the latent on the inside of the left French door in Sharon Tate’s bedroom.

Using diagrams and greatly magnified photographs I’d ordered prepared, Dolan indicated eighteen points of identity between the print lifted from the front door of the Tate residence and the right ring finger on the Watson exemplar and seventeen points of identity between the print lifted from the door of the master bedroom and the left little finger on the Krenwinkel exemplar. LAPD, he testified, requires only ten points of identity to establish a positive identification.

After Dolan had testified that there has never been a reported case of two separate persons having an identical fingerprint, or of any single person having two matching prints, I brought out, through him, that in 70 percent of the crimes investigated by LAPD’s fingerprint men not a single readable print belonging to anyone is obtained. Therefore, I could later argue to the jury, the fact that none of Susan Atkins’ prints were found inside the Tate residence did not mean she had not been there, since the absence of a clear, readable print is more common than uncommon.[72]

No print belonging to Manson, Krenwinkel, or Van Houten had been found at the LaBianca residence. Anticipating that the defense would argue this proved that none of them had been there, I asked Dolan about the handle of the fork found protruding from Leno LaBianca’s stomach. It was ivory, he said, a surface which readily lends itself to latent prints. I then asked him: “Did you secure anything at all from that fork, a smudge, a trace, a fragmentary fingerprint, anything at all?”

A. “No, sir, there was not so much as a slight smudge on it; in fact it gave the impression to me”—Kanarek objected, but Older let

Dolan finish—“it gave the impression to me that the handle of that particular fork had been wiped.” Later, Dolan testified, he had run a test: he’d grasped the fork with his fingers, then dusted it, “and found fragmentary ridges.”

Although Mrs. Sivick had opened and closed the refrigerator door about 6 P.M. on the night of the murders, Dolan had found “not a smudge” on the chrome handle or enamel surface of the door. However, in examining the door, he testified, he did find “wipe-type marks.”

Also important were the locations of the Krenwinkel and Watson latents at the Tate residence. That Krenwinkel’s print had been found on the inside of the door which led from Sharon Tate’s bedroom outside to the pool not only proved that Patricia Krenwinkel had been inside the residence, together with other evidence it indicated that she had probably chased Abigail Folger out this door. Blood spots inside the house, on the door itself, and outside the door were determined to be B-MN, Abigail Folger’s type and subtype.[73] Therefore finding Krenwinkel’s print here was completely consistent with Linda Kasabian’s testimony that she saw Abigail running from this general direction chased by the knife-wielding Krenwinkel.

Even more conclusive was the position of the Watson print. Although Boen testified that it was on the outside of the front door, he’d also said that it was six to eight inches above the handle, near the edge, the tip of the finger pointing downward. As I illustrated to the jury, to leave the print where he did, Watson would have to be inside the Tate residence coming out. To make the print had he been outside, he would have had to twist his arm in a very uncomfortable and extremely unnatural direction. (Using the right ring finger and trying it both ways on a door, the reader will see what I mean.)

The logical assumption was that Watson left his print while chasing Frykowski, Krenwinkel while in pursuit of Folger.

These were the strong points of the fingerprint testimony. There was one weak spot. Anticipating that the defense would try to make the most of those unidentified latents—twenty-five of the fifty found at the Tate residence, six of the twenty-five found at the LaBianca residence—I brought this out myself. But with several possible explanations. Since, as Dolan testified, no person has two matching fingerprints, it was possible the twenty-five unmatched Tate latents could have been made by as few as three persons, while the six at the LaBiancas’ could even have been made by one person. Moreover, I established through Dolan that latent fingerprints can have a long life; under ideal conditions those inside a residence may last for several months. I could afford to point this out, since I’d already established that the two prints I was most concerned about, Krenwinkel’s and Watson’s, were on surfaces Winifred Chapman had recently washed.

I expected Fitzgerald to hit hardest on that one weak spot. Instead, he attacked Dolan where he was least vulnerable: his expertise. Earlier, I’d brought out that Dolan had been in the Latent Prints Section of SID for seven years, while assigned there conducting over 8,000 fingerprint investigations and comparing in excess of 500,000 latent fingerprints. Fitzgerald now asked Dolan: “Correct me if my mathematics are incorrect, Sergeant, but you testified you went to the scene of 8,000 crimes. If you went to one a day, and worked an average of 200 days a year, you would have been doing this for forty years?”

A. “I would have to figure that out on a piece of paper.”

Q. “Assuming that you went to one crime scene per day—is that a fair statement, that you went to one crime scene per day, Sergeant?”

A. “No, sir.”

Q. “How many crime scenes did you go to per day?”

A. “Anywhere, for two or three years there, between fifteen and twenty.”

Q. “A day?”

A. “Yes, sir.”

Fitzgerald had been knocked on his rump. Instead of getting up, dusting himself off, and moving onto safer territory, he set himself up for another pratfall by trying to attack the statistics. Had he done his homework (and, since a fingerprint was the only physical evidence linking his client to the murders, there was no excuse whatsoever for his not doing so) he would have learned, as the jury now did, that since 1940 SID had kept detailed records indicating exactly how many calls each officer made, the number of readable latents he obtained, and the number of times a suspect is thus identified.

Kanarek, in his cross-examination of Dolan, tried to imply that in using benzidine to test for blood, Granado could have destroyed some of the prints at the LaBianca residence. Unfortunately for Kanarek, Dolan noted that he had arrived at the LaBianca residence before Granado did.

Though Kanarek did less well with Dolan than some of the other prosecution witnesses, this didn’t mean I could relax my guard. At any moment he was apt to do something like the following:

KANAREK “Your Honor, in view of the fact that the Los Angeles Police Department did not even choose to compare Linda Kasabian’s fingerprints—”

BUGLIOSI “How do you know that, Mr. Kanarek?”

KANAREK “—I have no further questions of this witness.”

THE COURT “Your comment is out of order.”

BUGLIOSI “Would Your Honor admonish the jury to disregard that gratuitous remark of Mr. Kanarek’s?”

Older did so.

Hughes’ cross was brief and to the point. Had the witness compared a fingerprint exemplar of Leslie Van Houten with the latents found at the LaBianca residence? Yes. And none of those prints matched the prints of Leslie Van Houten, is that correct? Yes, sir. No further questions.

Hughes was learning, fast.

Apparently believing Kanarek was really on to something, Fitzgerald reopened his cross-examination to ask: “Now, did you have occasion to compare the latent fingerprints obtained at the Tate residence and the latent fingerprints obtained at the LaBianca residence against an exemplar of one Linda Kasabian?”

A. “Yes, sir, I did.”

Q. “What was the result of that comparison?”

A. “Linda Kasabian’s prints were not found at either scene.”

FITZGERALD “Thank you.”

As much as possible, I tried to avoid embarrassing LAPD. It wasn’t always possible. Earlier, for example, I’d had to bring in Sergeant DeRosa’s pushing the gate-control button, so the jury wouldn’t wonder why there was no testimony regarding that particular print. In my direct examination of eleven-year-old Steven Weiss, I stuck to his finding the .22 caliber revolver on September 1, 1969, and did not go into the subsequent events. However, Fitzgerald, on cross, brought out that although an officer had recovered the gun that same day, it was December 16, 1969, before LAPD Homicide claimed the weapon—after Steven’s father called and told them they already had the gun they were looking for. Fitzgerald also brought out how, after Steven had taken care not to eradicate any prints, the officer who picked up the gun had done so literally, putting his hands all over it.

I felt sorry for the next witness. The spectators had barely stopped laughing when officer Watson of the Valley Services Division of LAPD took the stand to testify that he was the officer who recovered the gun.

Officer Watson’s testimony was essential, however, for he not only identified the gun—bringing out that it was missing its right-hand grip and had a bent barrel and broken trigger guard—he also testified that it contained two live rounds and seven empty shell casings.

Sergeant Calkins then testified that on December 16, 1969, he had driven from Parker Center to the Valley Services Division to pick up the .22 caliber revolver.

On cross, Fitzgerald brought out that between September 3 and 5, 1969, LAPD had sent out some three-hundred gun flyers—containing a photograph and detailed description of the type of revolver they were looking for—to different police agencies in the United States and Canada.

Lest the jury begin wondering why LAPD hadn’t recovered the gun from the Valley Services Division immediately after the flyers went out, I was forced to ask Calkins, on redirect: “Did you ever send a flyer to the Valley Services Division of the Los Angeles Police Department in Van Nuys?”

A. “Not to my knowledge, sir.”

To avoid further embarrassment to LAPD, I didn’t ask how close the Valley Services Division was to the Tate residence.

SEPTEMBER 7–10, 1970

Because of the State Bar Convention, court recessed for three days. I spent them working on my arguments, and worrying about a telephone call I’d received.

When court reconvened on the tenth, I made the following statement in chambers:

“One of our witnesses, Barbara Hoyt, has left her parents’ home. I don’t have all the details, but the mother said Barbara received a threat on her life, that if she testified at this trial she would be killed and so will her family.

“I know two things. I know the threat did not come from the prosecution and it did not come from an aunt I have that lives in Minnesota.

“I think the most reasonable inference is it came from the defense.

“I’m bringing this out because I want the defense attorneys and their clients to know that we are going to prosecute whoever is responsible for subornation of perjury. Not only will we prosecute, when our witnesses take the stand I will do my best to bring out, in front of the jury, that they received threats on their lives. It is relevant.

“I suggest the defendants tell their friends this.”

When we returned to the courtroom, I had to leave such concerns behind and focus completely on the evidence we were presenting. It was crucial. Piece by piece we were trying to link the gun to Spahn Ranch and Charles Manson.

On Friday, before our long adjournment, Sergeant Lee of the Firearms and Explosives Unit of SID positively identified the Sebring bullet as having been fired from the gun. Lee also stated that while the other bullets recovered from the Tate scene lacked sufficient stria to make a positive identification, he found no markings or characteristics which would rule out the possibility that they too were fired from the same gun.

When I attempted to question Lee about still another link in this chain, the shell casings we had found at Spahn Ranch, Fitzgerald asked to approach the bench. It was the defense’s contention, he said, that the shell casings were the product of an illegal search, and therefore inadmissible.

“Anticipating that just such an objection might be raised,” I told the Court, “I obtained George Spahn’s permission on tape. Sergeant Calkins should have it,” I said. “He was there with me.”

Only Calkins didn’t have the tape. And now, nearly a week later, he still hadn’t found it. Finally, I called Calkins to the stand to testify that we had obtained Spahn’s permission. Cross-examined by Kanarek, Calkins denied that the tape had “disappeared” or was “lost”; he just hadn’t been able to locate it, he said.

Older finally ruled the search valid, and Lee testified that when examined under a comparison microscope the shell casing he’d test-fired from the gun and fifteen of the shell casings he’d found at Spahn Ranch had identical firing pin compression marks.

Stria, lands, grooves, firing pin marks: after hours of highly technical testimony, and more than a hundred objections, most of them by Irving Kanarek, we had placed the Tate murder gun at Spahn Ranch.

Although he had agreed to testify, Thomas Walleman, aka T. J., was a reluctant witness. He’d never completely broken with the Family. He’d drift away, drift back. He seemed attracted by the easy life style, repelled by the memory of the night he saw Manson shoot Bernard Crowe.

Though I knew I couldn’t get the shooting itself in during the guilt trial, I did question T. J. as to the events immediately prior to it. He recalled how, after receiving a telephone call, Manson borrowed Swartz’ ’59 Ford, got a revolver, then, with T. J. accompanying him, drove to an apartment house on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood. After stopping the car, Manson handed T. J. the revolver and told him to put it in his belt.

Q. “Then you both entered the apartment, is that correct?”

A. “Yes.”

This was as far as I could go. I then showed T. J. the .22 caliber Hi Standard revolver and asked: “Have you ever seen that particular revolver before?”

A. “I don’t think so. It looks like it, but I don’t know for sure, you know.”

T. J. was hedging. I wasn’t about to let him get away with it. Under further questioning, he admitted that this gun differed from the gun he had seen that night in only one particular: half the grip was missing.

Q. “Now, your first statement, I believe, was to the effect that you didn’t think this was the revolver, and then you said it looked like it.”

A. “I mean, I don’t know for sure whether it was the revolver, but it looks like the revolver. There are a lot of those made.”

I wasn’t worried about that little qualification, for Lomax of Hi Standard had already testified that this model was relatively uncommon.

Though qualified, T. J.’s testimony was dramatic, as he was the first witness to connect Manson and the gun.

LAPD contacted me that night. Barbara Hoyt was in a hospital in Honolulu. Someone had given her what was believed to be a lethal dose of LSD. Fortunately, she had been rushed to the hospital in time.

I did not learn many of the details until I talked to Barbara.

After fleeing Barker Ranch, the pretty seventeen-year-old had returned home. Though she had cooperated with us, Barbara was extremely reluctant to testify, and when she was contacted by the Manson girls on the afternoon of September 5 and offered a free vacation in Hawaii in lieu of testifying, she’d accepted.

Among the Family members who’d helped persuade her were Squeaky, Gypsy, Ouisch, and Clem.

Barbara spent that night at Spahn Ranch. The next day Clem drove Barbara and Ouisch to one of the Family hideouts, a house in North Hollywood which was being rented by one of the newer Family members, Dennis Rice.[74]

Rice took the pair to the airport, bought them tickets, and gave them fifty dollars in cash plus some credit cards, including, not inappropriately, a TWA “Getaway” card. Using assumed names, the two girls flew to Honolulu, where they booked the penthouse suite of the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel. Barbara saw little of the islands, however, since Ouisch, sure the police would be looking for Barbara, insisted they remain in the suite.

While there, the pair, who had been close friends, had several long talks. Ouisch told Barbara, “We all have to go through Helter Skelter. If we don’t do it in our heads, we’ll have to do it physically. If you don’t die in your head, you’ll die when it comes down.” Ouisch also confided that Linda Kasabian was not long for this world; at the most, she had six months to live.

At approximately the same time each morning, Ouisch made a long-distance call. (The number was that of a pay phone in North Hollywood, three blocks from the Rice residence. At least one of these calls was to Squeaky, the unofficial leader of the Family in Manson’s absence.)

Just after the call on the ninth, Ouisch’s manner suddenly changed. “She became very serious and looked at me kind of strangely,” Barbara said. Ouisch told Barbara that she had to go back to California, but that Barbara was to remain in Hawaii. She called and made a reservation on the 1:15 flight to Los Angeles that afternoon.

They caught a cab to the airport, arriving just before noon. Ouisch said she wasn’t hungry, but suggested that Barbara eat something. They went into a restaurant, and Barbara ordered a hamburger. When it arrived, Ouisch took it and went outside, telling Barbara to pay the check.

There was a line at the cash register, and for several minutes Barbara lost sight of Ouisch.

When she came out, Ouisch gave her the hamburger, and Barbara ate it while they were waiting for Ouisch’s flight. Just before she was to board, Ouisch remarked, “Imagine what it would be like if that hamburger had ten tabs of acid in it.” Barbara’s response was, “Wow!” She had never heard of anyone taking more than one tab of LSD, Barbara later said, and the thought was kind of frightening.

After Ouisch left, Barbara began feeling high. She tried to take a bus to the beach but became so sick she had to get off. Panicked, she then started running, and ran and ran and ran until she collapsed.

A social worker, Byron Galloway, saw the young girl sprawled on a curb near the Salvation Army headquarters. Fortuitously, Galloway was employed at the State Hospital, his specialty drug cases. Realizing that the girl was extremely ill, he rushed her to Queen’s Medical Center, where her condition was diagnosed as acute psychosis, drug-induced. The doctor who examined her was able to get her name and her Los Angeles address, but the rest made little sense: according to the hospital records, “Patient said, ‘Call Mr. Bogliogi and tell him I won’t be able to testify today in the Sharon Tate trial.’”

After giving her emergency treatment, the hospital called the police and Barbara’s parents. Her father flew to Hawaii and was able to bring her back to Los Angeles with him the next day.

On receiving the first fragmentary report, I told LAPD I wanted the persons involved charged with attempted murder.

Since Barbara was a witness in the Tate case, the investigation was given to Tate detectives Calkins and McGann.

SEPTEMBER 11–17, 1970

Though I knew Danny DeCarlo was afraid of Manson, the motorcyclist did a good job of disguising it while on the stand. When Charlie and the girls smiled at “Donkey Dan,” he grinned right back.

I was concerned that DeCarlo might qualify his answers, as he had in the Beausoleil trial. After only a few minutes of testimony, however, my concern suddenly shifted from DeCarlo to Older. When I tried to establish the Manson-Watson relationship through DeCarlo, Older repeatedly sustained the defense objections. He also sustained objections to Manson’s dinnertime conversations when he discussed his philosophy about blacks and whites.

Back in chambers Older made two remarks which totally stunned me. He asked, “What is the relevance of whether or not Manson was the leader?” And he wanted an offer of proof as to the relevance of Helter Skelter! It was as if Older hadn’t even been present during the trial thus far.

That I was more than a little disturbed at his stance came across in my reply: “The offer of proof is that he used to say that he wanted to turn blacks against whites. Of course, this is only the motive for these murders. That is all it is. Other than that, it is not much else.”

I noted: “The prosecution is alleging Mr. Manson ordered these murders. It was his philosophy that led up to these murders. The motive for these murders was to ignite Helter Skelter. I think it is so obviously admissible that I am at a loss for words.”

THE COURT “I would suggest this to you, Mr. Bugliosi. Over the noon hour give some careful thought as to what you contend your proof is going to show. Now, I realize that part of it may have to come in through one witness and part through another. This is not unusual. But so far I can’t see any connection between what Mr. Manson believed about blacks and whites in the abstract and any motive.”

I sweated through that noon hour. Unless I could establish Manson’s domination of the other defendants, I wouldn’t be able to convince the jury they had killed on his instructions. And if Older foreclosed me from bringing in Manson’s beliefs about the black-white war from DeCarlo, when my heavyweight witnesses on this—Jakobson, Poston, and Watkins—were still to come, then we were in deep trouble.

I returned to chambers armed with citations of authority as to both the admissibility and the relevance of the testimony. Yet even after a long, impassioned plea, it appeared that I had not changed Older’s mind. He still couldn’t see, for instance, the relevance of Watson’s subservience to Manson, or why I was trying to bring out, through DeCarlo, that Tex had an easygoing, rather weak personality. The relevance, of course, was that if I didn’t establish both, the jury could very well infer that it was Watson, not Manson, who had ordered these murders.

BUGLIOSI “I think the Court can tell the relevancy by the fact the defense counsel are on their hind legs trying to keep it out.”

KANAREK “I think the heart of what we have here is this, that Mr. Bugliosi has lost his cool, because he has a monomania about convicting Mr. Manson.”

BUGLIOSI “He is charged with seven murders, and I am going to be tenacious on this…I intend to go back with these witnesses and find out who Tex Watson was other than a name, Your Honor.”

THE COURT “I am not going to stop you from trying, Mr. Bugliosi.”

On returning to court, I asked DeCarlo exactly the same question I had asked hours earlier: “What was your impression of Tex Watson’s general demeanor?”

KANAREK “Your Honor, I will object to that as calling for a conclusion.”

BUGLIOSI “People vs. Zollner, Your Honor.”

I so anticipated Older saying “Sustained” that I almost thought I was imagining it when he said, “Overruled. You may answer.”

DECARLO “He was happy-go-lucky. He was a nice guy. I liked Tex. He didn’t have no temper or anything that I could see. He never said much.”

Glancing back, I saw both Don Musich and Steve Kay staring in open-mouthed disbelief. Moments ago in chambers Older had objected to my whole line of inquiry. He’d now completely reversed himself. Going as fast as I could through the questioning, before he again changed his mind, I brought out that whenever Charlie told Tex to do anything, Tex did it.

That Older had gone along with us on the domination issue didn’t mean that he saw the relevance of Helter Skelter. My fingers were crossed when I asked: “Do you recall Mr. Manson saying anything about blacks and whites? Black people and white people?”

Stunned and perturbed, Kanarek objected: “It is the same question that he was asking previously!”

THE COURT “Overruled. You may answer.”

A. “He didn’t like black people.”

DeCarlo testified that Manson wanted to see the blacks go to war with the police and the white establishment, both of whom he referred to as “pigs”; that Charlie had told him that the pigs “ought to have their throats cut and be hung up by their feet”; and that he had heard Manson use the term Helter Skelter many, many times. Through all this Kanarek objected repeatedly, often in the midst of DeCarlo’s replies. Older told him: “You are interrupting, Mr. Kanarek. I have warned you several times today. I warn you now for the last time.”

KANAREK “I don’t wish to make unnecessary objections, Your Honor.”

THE COURT “Don’t you? Then cease from doing it.”

Within minutes, however, Kanarek was doing it again, and Older called him to the bench. Very angrily, Older told Kanarek: “You seem to have some sort of physical infirmity or mental disability that causes you to interrupt and disrupt testimony. No matter how many times I warn you, you seem to do it repeatedly, again and again and again…You are trying to disrupt the testimony of this witness. It is perfectly clear. Now, I have gone as far as I am going to go with you, Mr. Kanarek.”

Kanarek complained, “I am trying to conscientiously follow your orders.”

THE COURT “No, no, I am afraid your explanation won’t go. I have heard too much from you. I am very familiar with your tactics, and I am not going to put up with it any longer.” Older found Kanarek in contempt of Court and, at the conclusion of the day’s testimony, sentenced him to spend the weekend in the County Jail.

Danny DeCarlo had never really understood Helter Skelter, or cared to. As he admitted to me, his major interests while at Spahn were “booze and broads.” He couldn’t see how his testimony about this black-white stuff really hurt Charlie, and he testified to it freely and without qualification. But when it came to the physical evidence—the knives, the rope, the gun—he saw the link and pulled back, not much, but just enough to weaken his identifications.

In interviewing Danny, I’d learned a great many things which were not on the LAPD tapes. For example, he recalled that in early August 1969, Gypsy had purchased ten or twelve Buck knives, which had been passed out to various Family members at Spahn. The knives, according to DeCarlo, were about 6 inches in length, 1 inch in width, 1/8 inch in thickness—very close to the dimensions provided by Kasabian and Noguchi. In going through the sheriff’s reports of the August 16 raid, I found that a large number of weapons had been seized (including a submachine gun in a violin case) but not a single Buck knife.

The logical presumption, I’d later argue to the jury, was that after the murders the rest of the Buck knives had been ditched.

I intended to call Sergeant Gleason from LASO to testify that no knives were found in the raid. First, however, I wanted Danny to testify to the purchase. He did, but he qualified it somewhat. When I asked him who bought the Buck knives, he replied: “I’m not sure. I think Gypsy did, I’m not sure.”

When it came to the Tate-Sebring rope, DeCarlo testified it was “similar” to the rope Manson had purchased at the Jack Frost store. I persisted: “Does it appear to be different in any fashion?”

A. “No.”

DeCarlo had told me that Charlie preferred knives and swords to guns because “in the desert guns could be heard for a long distance.” I asked DeCarlo if, among the guns at Spahn Ranch, Manson had a special favorite. Yeah, DeCarlo said, a Hi Standard .22 caliber Buntline revolver. I showed him the gun and asked him: “Have you ever seen this revolver before?”

A. “I saw one similar to it.”

Q. “Does it appear to differ in any fashion?”

A. “The trigger guard is broken.”

Other than that?

A. “I can’t be sure?”

Q. “Why can’t you be sure?”

A. “I don’t know. I don’t know the serial number of it. I am not sure that is it.”

DeCarlo had cleaned, cared for, and shot the gun. He had an extensive background in weapons. The model was unusual. And he had made a drawing of it for LAPD even before he was told that such a gun had been used in the Tate homicides. (I’d already introduced the drawing for identification purposes, over Kanarek’s objection that it was “hearsay.”) If anyone should have been able to make a positive identification of that revolver, it was Danny DeCarlo. He didn’t do so, I suspected, because he was afraid to.

Though he was a shade weaker on the stand than in our interviews, I did succeed in getting a tremendous amount of evidence in through DeCarlo. Though court was interrupted for another three-day recess, DeCarlo’s direct took less than a day and a half of actual court time. I completed it on September 17.

That morning Manson passed word through Fitzgerald and Shinn that he wanted to see me in the lockup during the noon recess. Kanarek was not present, though the other two attorneys were.

I asked Manson what he wanted to talk to me about.

“I just wanted you to know that I didn’t have anything to do with the attempted murder of Barbara Hoyt,” Manson said.

“I don’t know whether you ordered it or they did it on their own,” I replied, “but you know, and I know, that in either case they did it because they thought it would please you.”

Manson wanted to rap, but I cut him off. “I’m not really in the mood to talk to you, Charlie. Maybe, if you have enough guts to take the stand, we’ll talk then.”

I asked McGann what was happening on the “Honolulu hamburger case,” as the papers had dubbed the Hoyt murder attempt. McGann said he and Calkins hadn’t been able to come up with any evidence.

I asked Phil Sartuchi of the LaBianca team to take over. Phil efficiently turned in a detailed report, with information on the airline tickets, credit card, long-distance calls, and so forth. It was December, however, before the case was taken to the grand jury. In the interim, Ouisch, Squeaky, Clem, Gypsy, and Rice remained at large. I’d often see them with the other Family members at the corner of Temple and Broadway.

On cross-examination Fitzgerald asked DeCarlo: “Is it not true that Mr. Manson indicated to you that he actually loved the black people?”

Danny replied: “Yeah. There was one time he said that.”

On redirect I asked DeCarlo about that single conversation. Charlie had told him he loved the blacks, he said, “for having the guts to fight against the police.”

Shinn brought out that DeCarlo was aware of, and more than passingly interested in, the $25,000 reward, thereby establishing that he had a reason to fabricate his testimony. Kanarek pursued the subject in detail in his cross. He also dwelt at length on DeCarlo’s fondness for weapons. Earlier DeCarlo had testified that he loved guns; would he describe that love? Kanarek asked.

DeCarlo’s replay brought down the house. “Well, I love them more than I do my old lady.”

It was easy to see where Kanarek was heading: he was trying to establish that it was DeCarlo, not Manson, who was responsible for all the weapons being at Spahn Ranch.

Kanarek switched subjects. Wasn’t it true, he asked DeCarlo, that “during the entire time you were at the ranch you were smashed?”

A. “I sure was.”

Q. “Were you so smashed that on many occasions you had to be carried to bed?”

A. “I made it a few times myself.”

Kanarek hit hard on DeCarlo’s drinking, also his vagueness as to dates and times. How could he remember one particular Saturday night, for example, and not another night?

“Well, that particular night,” DeCarlo responded, “Gypsy got mad at me because I wouldn’t take my boots off when I made love to her.”

Q. “The only thing that is really pinpointed in your mind, that you really remember, is that you had a lot of sex, right?”

A. “Well, even some of that I can’t remember.”

Kanarek had scored some points. He brought out that DeCarlo had testified on an earlier occasion (during the Beausoleil trial) that while at Spahn he was smashed 99 percent of the time. The defense could now argue that DeCarlo was so inebriated that he couldn’t perceive what was going on, much less recall specific conversations. Unfortunately for the defense, Fitzgerald unintentionally undermined this argument by asking DeCarlo to define the difference between “drunk” and “smashed.”

A. “My version of ‘drunk’ is when I’m out to lunch on the ground. ‘Smashed’ is just when I’m walking around loaded.”

SEPTEMBER 18, 1970

That afternoon we had a surprise visitor in court—Charles “Tex” Watson.

After a nine-month delay that would necessitate trying him separately, Watson had finally been returned to California on September 11, after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black refused to grant him a further stay of extradition. Sergeants Sartuchi and Gutierrez, who accompanied Watson on the flight, said he spoke little, mostly staring vacantly into space. He had lost about thirty pounds during his confinement, most of it during the last two months, when it became obvious his return to Los Angeles was imminent.

Fitzgerald had asked that Watson be brought into court, to see if DeCarlo could identify him.

Realizing that Fitzgerald was making a very serious mistake, Kanarek objected, strenuously, but Older granted the removal order.

The jury was still out when Watson entered the courtroom. Though he smiled slightly at the three female defendants, who grinned and blew him kisses, he seemed oblivious to Manson’s presence. By the time the jury came in, Watson was already seated and appeared just another spectator.

FITZGERALD “Mr. DeCarlo, you previously testified that a man by the name of Tex Watson was present at Spahn Ranch during the period of time that you were there in 1969, is that correct?”

A. “Yeah.”

Q. “Do you recognize Mr. Watson in this courtroom?”

A. “Yeah. Right over there.” Danny pointed to where Tex was sitting.

Obviously curious, the jury strained to see the man they had heard so much about.

FITZGERALD “Could I have this gentleman identify himself for the Court, Your Honor?”

THE COURT “Will you please stand and state your name.”

Watson stood, after being motioned to his feet by one of the bailiffs, but he remained mute.

Fitzgerald’s mistake was obvious the moment Watson got up. One look and the jury knew that Charles “Tex” Watson was not the type to order Charles Manson to do anything, much less instigate seven murders on his own. He looked closer to twenty than twenty-five. Short hair, blue blazer, gray slacks, tie. Instead of the wild-eyed monster depicted in the April 1969 mug shot (when Watson had been on drugs), he appeared to be a typical clean-cut college kid.

Offstage, Watson could be made to seem the heavy. Having once seen him, the jury would never think this again.

Since our first meeting in Independence, I had remained on speaking terms with Sandy and Squeaky. Occasionally one or both would drop in at my office to chat. I usually made time for such visits, in part because I was still attempting to understand why they (and the three female defendants) had joined the Family, but also because I was remotely hopeful that if another murder was planned, one or the other might alert me. Neither, I was sure, would go to the police, and I wanted to leave at least one channel of communication open.

I’d had more hopes for Sandy than Squeaky. The latter was on a power trip—acting as Manson’s unofficial spokesman, running the Family in his absence—and it seemed unlikely she would do anything to jeopardize her status. Sandy, however, had gone against Manson’s wishes on several occasions, I knew; they were minor rebellions (when her baby was due, for example, she had gone to a hospital, rather than have it delivered by the Family), but they indicated that maybe, behind the pat phrases, I’d touch something responsively human.

On her first visit to my office, about two months earlier, we’d talked about the Family credo: Sandy had maintained it was peace; I’d maintained it was murder, and had asked how she could stomach this.

“People are being murdered every day in Vietnam,” she’d countered.

“Assuming for the sake of argument that the deaths in Vietnam are murders,” I responded, “how does this justify murdering seven more people?”

As she tried to come up with an answer, I told her, “Sandy, if you really believe in peace and love, I want you to prove it. The next time murder is in the wind at Spahn Ranch, I want you to remember that other people like to live just as much as you do. And, as another human being, I want you to do everything possible to prevent if from happening. Do you understand what I mean?”

She quietly replied, “Yes.”

I’d hoped she really meant that. That naïve hope vanished when, in talking to Barbara Hoyt, I learned that Sandy had been one of the Family members who had persuaded her to go to Hawaii.

As I left court on the afternoon of the eighteenth, Sandy and two male followers approached me.

“Sandy, I’m very, very disappointed in you,” I told her. “You were at Spahn when Barbara’s murder was planned. There’s no question in my mind that you knew what was going to happen. Yet, though Barbara was your friend, you said nothing, did nothing. Why?”

She didn’t reply, but stared at me as if in a trance. For a moment I thought she hadn’t heard me, that she was stoned on drugs, but then, very slowly and deliberately, she reached down and began playing with the sheath knife that she wore at her waist. That was her answer.

Disgusted, I turned and walked away. Looking back, however, I saw that Sandy and the two boys were following me. I stopped, they stopped. When I started walking again, they followed, Sandy still fingering the knife.

Gradually they were closing the distance between us. Deciding it was better to face trouble than have my back to it, I turned and walked back to them.

“Listen, you God damn bitch, and listen good,” I told her. “I don’t know for sure whether you were or weren’t involved in the actual attempt to murder Barbara, but if you were, I’m going to do everything in my power to see that you end up in jail!” I then looked at the two males and told them if they followed me one more time, I was going to deck them on the spot.

I then turned and walked off. This time they didn’t follow me.

My reaction was, I felt, exceptionally mild, considering the circumstances.

Kanarek felt otherwise. When court reconvened on Monday, the twenty-first, he filed a motion asking that I be held in contempt for interfering with a defense witness. He also asked that I be arrested for violating Section 415 of the Penal Code, charging that I had made obscene remarks in the presence of a female.

SEPTEMBER 21–26, 1970

Finding nothing in Sandra Good’s declaration “that in my opinion constitutes contemptuous conduct on the part of Mr. Bugliosi,” Judge Older dismissed Kanarek’s several motions. Again Manson asked to see me in the lockup during the noon recess. He hoped I wasn’t taking all this—the attempted murder, the knife incident, the trial—personally.

“No, Charlie,” I told him, “I was assigned to this case; I didn’t ask for it; this is my job.”

By now it should be obvious to me, Manson said, that the girls were acting on their own, that nobody was dominating them. When I raised a skeptical eyebrow, Manson said, “Look, Bugliosi, if I had all the power and control that you say I have, I could simply say, ‘Brenda, go get Bugliosi,’ and that would be it.”

It was interesting, I thought, that Manson should single out Brenda McCann, t/n Nancy Pitman, as his chief assassin.

Later I’d have good reason to recall Manson’s remarks.

Nothing personal. But immediately after this, the middle-of-the-night hang-up calls began. They’d continue even after we changed our unlisted number. And several times when I left the Hall of Justice at night, I was followed by various Family members, including Sandy. Only the first time disturbed me. Gail and the kids were circling the block in our car, and I was afraid they would be identified or the license number spotted. When I pretended not to see her, Gail quickly sized up the situation and drove around until I was able to shake my “followers,” though, as she later admitted to me, she was far less cool than she appeared.

Though concerned with the safety of my family, I didn’t take any of this very seriously until one afternoon when, apparently enraged at the domination testimony that was coming in, Manson told a bailiff, “I’m going to have Bugliosi and the judge killed.”

By telling a bailiff this, Manson was making sure we got the message. Older was already under protection. The next day the District Attorney’s Office assigned me a bodyguard for the duration of the trial. Additional precautions were taken, which, since they’re probably used in protecting others, needn’t be enumerated, though one might be noted. In order to prevent a repetition of the events at 10050 Cielo Drive, a walkie-talkie was installed in our home, which provided instant communication with the nearest police station, in case the telephone wires were cut.

Though Older and I were the only trial principals who had bodyguards, it was no secret that several, if not all, of the defense attorneys were frightened of the Family. Daye Shinn, I was told by one of his fellows, kept a loaded gun in each room of his house, in case of an unannounced visitation. What precautions, if any, Kanarek took I never learned, though Manson often assigned him top spot on his kill list. According to another defense attorney, Manson threatened numerous times to kill Kanarek; it was only fair, Manson supposedly said, since Kanarek was killing him in court.

Manson, at one point, had Fitzgerald draw up papers for Kanarek’s dismissal. According to Paul, who told the story to me, Kanarek literally got down on his knees and, with tears in his eyes, begged Manson not to fire him. Manson relented and, though they continued to disagree, Kanarek remained on the case.

Each week a member of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors issued a press release itemizing trial costs to date. Yet even with Kanarek’s multitudinous objections, many of which called for lengthy conferences, we were covering a tremendous amount of testimony each day. A veteran court reporter said he’d never seen anything like it in twenty-odd years.

Thus far, Judge Older had done a remarkable job of holding Kanarek in check. Had he granted even half the “evidentiary hearings” Kanarek was always calling for, the ten-years estimates might have become a reality. Instead, each time Kanarek made the request, Older said, “Put your motion in writing with supporting citations.” Because of the time involved, Kanarek rarely took the trouble.

For our part, although I’d originally planned to call some hundred witnesses, I’d cut that number down to about eighty. In a case of this magnitude and complexity this was a remarkable low number. Some days saw as many as a half dozen witnesses taking the stand. Whenever possible, I’d use a single witness for several purposes. In addition to his other testimony, for example, I asked DeCarlo the names and approximate ages of each of the Family members, so it would be apparent to the jury that Manson, being older than all of them, was not likely to have played a subservient role.

When I called sheriff’s deputy William Gleason to testify that when Spahn Ranch was raided on August 16 not one Buck knife was found, Kanarek, seeing the implication of this, objected, and Older sustained the objection.

I’d almost given up getting this in when Fitzgerald, apparently thinking the absence of such knives was a plus for the defense, asked on cross-examination: “Did you find any Buck knives at the Spahn Ranch on the date of August the sixteenth, 1969?”

A. “No, sir.”

The Family’s attempt to silence Barbara Hoyt backfired. Once a reluctant witness, she was now very willing to testify.

Barbara not only confirmed Linda’s story of the TV incident; she recalled that the previous night, the night of the Tate murders, Sadie called her on the field phone at the back house, asking her to bring three sets of dark clothing to the front of the ranch. When she arrived, Manson told her, “They already left.”

Barbara’s story was both support for Linda Kasabian’s testimony and powerful evidence of Manson’s involvement, and, though unsuccessful, Kanarek fought hard to keep it out.

I was not able to bring out the Myers Ranch conversation until after a full half day of argument in chambers, and then, as I’d anticipated, I could only get in part of it.

One afternoon in early September 1969, Barbara had been napping in the bedroom at Myers Ranch when she awoke to hear Sadie and Ouisch talking in the kitchen. Apparently thinking Barbara was still asleep, Sadie told Ouisch that Sharon Tate had been the last to die because, to quote Sadie, “She had to watch the others die.”

I got this in, finally. What I couldn’t get in, because of Aranda, was the rest of the conversation: Barbara had also heard Sadie tell Ouisch that Abigail Folger had escaped and run out of the house; that Katie had caught up with her on the lawn; and that Abigail had struggled so much that Katie had to call for help from Tex, who ran over and stabbed Abigail.

In chambers, Shinn argued that he should be allowed to question Barbara about this. Older, as well as the other defense attorneys, strongly disagreed. By “Arandizing” the conversation—omitting all reference to her co-defendants—this put the onus for all five murders on Susan, Shinn complained, adding, “But other people were there too, Your Honor.”

BUGLIOSI “They were, Daye?”

Inadvertently, Shinn had admitted that Susan Atkins was present at the Tate murder scene. Fortunately for both attorney and client, this dialogue took place in chambers and not in open court.

As with the other ex–Family members, I was able to bring in through Barbara numerous examples of Manson’s domination, as well as a number of Manson’s conversations about Helter Skelter. The one thing I couldn’t get in was the Family’s attempt to prevent Barbara Hoyt from testifying.

During his cross-examination of Barbara, Kanarek attacked her for everything from her morals to her eyesight.

Aware that Barbara had very poor vision, Kanarek had her take off her glasses, then he moved around the courtroom asking how many fingers he had up.

Q. “How many can you see now?”

A. “Three.”

KANAREK “May the record reflect she said three and I have two up clearly, Your Honor.”

THE COURT “I thought I saw your thumb.”

Kanarek finally proved Barbara had bad eyesight. The issue, however, wasn’t her sight but her hearing: she didn’t claim to have seen Sadie and Ouisch in the kitchen at Myers Ranch, only to have heard them.

Kanarek also asked Barbara: “Have you been in any mental hospital for the last couple of years?”

Ordinarily I would have objected to such a question, but not this time, for Kanarek had just opened wide the door through which I could, on redirect, bring in the murder attempt.

Redirect is limited to the issues raised on cross-examination. For example, on redirect I had Barbara approximate the distance between the bedroom and the kitchen at Myers Ranch, then conducted a hearing experiment. She passed with no trouble.

Asking to approach the bench, I argued that since Kanarek had implied that Barbara Hoyt was in a mental hospital for an extended period of time, I had the right to bring out that she was in a mental ward only overnight and that it was not because of a mental problem. Older agreed, with one limitation: I couldn’t ask who gave her LSD.

Once I’d brought out the circumstances of her hospitalization, I asked: “Did you take this overdose voluntarily?”

A. “No.”

Q. “Was it given to you by someone else?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “Were you near death?”

KANAREK “Calls for a conclusion, Your Honor.”

THE COURT “Sustained.”

It was good enough. I was sure the jury could put two and two together.

On Saturday, September 26, 1970, an era came to an end. A raging fire swept Southern California. Whipped by eighty-mile-an-hour winds, a wall of flame as high as sixty feet charred over 100,000 acres. Burned in the inferno was all of Spahn’s Movie Ranch.

As the ranch hands tried to save the horses, the Manson girls, their faces illuminated by the light of the conflagration, danced and clapped their hands, crying out happily, “Helter Skelter is coming down! Helter Skelter is coming down!”

SEPTEMBER 27–OCTOBER 5, 1970

Juan Flynn, who described his job at Spahn Ranch as “manure shoveler,” seemed to enjoy himself on the stand. Of all the witnesses, however, the lanky Panamanian cowboy was the only one who openly showed animosity to Manson. When Charlie tried to stare him down, Juan glared back.

After positively identifying the revolver, Juan remarked, “And Mr. Manson on one occasion fired this gun, you know, in my direction, you see, because I was walking with a girl on the other side of the creek.”

It was difficult to stop Juan once he got started. The girl had come to Spahn Ranch to ride horses; she’d ignored Manson but went off down the creek with amorous-minded Juan. Charlie was so miffed he’d fired several shots in their direction.

Kanarek succeeded in having all this, except Juan’s seeing Manson fire the revolver, struck.

He also tried, but failed, to keep out the two most important pieces of evidence Juan Flynn had to offer.

One night in early August 1969, Juan had been watching TV in the trailer when Sadie came in, dressed in black. “Where are you going?” Juan asked. “We’re going to get some fucking pigs,” Sadie replied. When she left, Juan looked out the window and saw her get into Johnny Swartz’ old yellow Ford. Charlie, Clem, Tex, Linda, and Leslie got in also.

According to Juan, the incident had occurred after dark, about 8 or 9 P.M., and, though he wasn’t able to pinpoint the date, he said it was about a week before the August 16 raid. The logical inference was that he was describing the night the LaBiancas were killed.

Juan’s story was important both as evidence and as independent corroboration of Linda Kasabian’s testimony. Not only did the time, participants, vehicle, and color of Susan Atkins’ clothing coincide, Juan also noticed that Manson was driving.

Juan then testified to the kitchen conversation which occurred “a day or so” later, when, putting a knife to his throat, Manson told him, “You son of a bitch, don’t you know I’m the one who’s doing all of these killings?”

The newsmen rushed for the door.

Kanarek’s objections kept out another piece of extremely damaging evidence.

One night in June or July 1969, Manson, Juan, and three male Family members were driving through Chatsworth when Charlie stopped in front of a “rich house” and instructed Juan to go in and tie up the people. When he’d finished, Manson said, he was to open the door and, to quote Manson, “We’ll come in and cut the motherfucking pigs up.” Juan had said, “No thanks.”

This was in effect a dress rehearsal for the Tate-LaBianca murders. But ruling that “the prejudicial effect far outweighs the probative value,” Older wouldn’t permit me to question Juan about this.

I was also unable, for the same reason, to get in a comment Manson made to Juan: “Adolf Hitler had the best answer to everything.”

That answer, of course, was murder, but, owing to Kanarek’s objections, neither of these two incidents was heard by the jury or ever made public.

On cross-examination Fitzgerald brought out an interesting anomaly. Even after Manson had allegedly threatened him, not once but several times, Juan still stuck around. After the raid he’d even accompanied the Family to Death Valley, remaining with them a couple of weeks before splitting to join Crockett, Poston, and Watkins.

That had puzzled me too. One possible explanation was that, as Juan testified, at first he had thought Manson was “bullshitting” about the murders, that “nobody in their right mind is going to kill somebody and then boast about it.” Also, Juan was easygoing and slow to anger. Probably more important, Juan was an independent cuss; like Paul Crockett, who didn’t leave Death Valley until long after Manson threatened to kill him, he didn’t like to be intimidated.

Kanarek picked up on Fitzgerald’s discovery. “Now, Mr. Flynn, were you scared to be at the Myers Ranch with Mr. Manson?”

A. “Well, I was aware and precautious.”

Q. “Just answer the question, Mr. Flynn. I understand you are an actor, but would you just answer the question please.”

A. “Well, I liked it there, you know, because I wanted to think nice things, you know. But every time I walked around the corner, well, that seemed to be the main subject, you know, about how many times they could do me in. Then, finally, I just left.”

Q. “Now, Mr. Flynn, will you tell me how you were aware and precautious? How did you protect yourself?”

A. “Well, I just protected myself by leaving.”

Kanarek brought out that when Flynn was interviewed by Sartuchi he’d said nothing about Manson putting a knife to his throat. “You were holding that back, is that it, Mr. Flynn, to spring on us in this courtroom, is that right?”

A. “No, I told the officers about this before, you see.”

Ignoring Flynn’s response, Kanarek said: “You mean, Mr. Flynn, that you made it up for the purposes of this courtroom, is that correct, Mr. Flynn?”

Kanarek was charging that Flynn had recently fabricated his testimony. I made a note of this, though as yet unaware how important this bit of dialogue would soon be.

After focusing on all the things I had brought out which were not in the Sartuchi interview, Kanarek asked Juan when he first mentioned the knife incident to anyone.

A. “Well, there was some officers in Shoshone, you see, and I talked to them.” Flynn, however, couldn’t recall their names.

Kanarek strongly implied, several times, that Flynn was fictionalizing his story. Juan didn’t take kindly to being called a liar. You could see his temper rising.

Intent on proving that Flynn was testifying so he could further his movie career (Juan had had bit parts in several Westerns), Kanarek asked: “You recognize, do you not, that there is lots of publicity in this case against Mr. Manson, right?”

A. “Well, it is the type of publicity that I wouldn’t want, you big catfish.”

THE COURT “On that note, Mr. Kanarek, we will adjourn.”

After court I questioned Juan about the Shoshone interview. He thought one of the officers was from the California Highway Patrol, but he wasn’t sure. That evening I called the DA’s Office in Independence and learned that the man who had interviewed Juan was a CHP officer named Dave Steuber. Late that night I finally located him in Fresno, California. Yes, he’d interviewed Flynn, as well as Crockett, Poston, and Watkins, on December 19, 1969. He’d taped the whole conversation, which had lasted over nine hours. Yes, he still had the original tapes.

I checked my calendar. I guessed Flynn would be on the stand another day or two. Could Steuber be in L.A. in three days with the tapes and prepared to testify? Sure, Steuber said.

Steuber then told me something I found absolutely incredible. He had already made a copy of the tapes and given it to LAPD. On December 29, 1969. Later I learned the identity of the LAPD detective to whom the tapes had been given. The officer (since deceased) recalled receiving the tapes but admitted he hadn’t played them. He thought he had given them to someone, but couldn’t remember to whom. All he knew was that he no longer had them.

Perhaps it was because the interview was so long, nine hours. Or perhaps, it being the holiday season, in the confusion they were mislaid. Neither explanation, however, erases the unpleasant fact that as early as December 1969 the Los Angeles Police Department had a taped interview containing a statement in which Manson implied that he was responsible for the Tate-LaBianca murders, and as far as can be determined, no one even bothered to book it into evidence, much less play it.

Ordinarily there would have been no way I could introduce the Steuber tape into evidence at the trial, for you cannot use a previously consistent statement to bolster a witness’s testimony. However, there is an exception to that rule: such evidence is admissible if the opposing side contends the witness’s testimony was recently fabricated and the prior consistent statement was made before the declarant had any reason to fabricate. When Kanarek asked, “You mean, Mr. Flynn, that you made it up for the purposes of this courtroom, is that correct, Mr. Flynn?” he was charging recent fabrication, and opening the door for me to bring the prior consistent statement in.

A lot of doors were opened on cross-examination, but at first the biggest did not look like a door at all. The defense had made much of the fact that Juan did not tell his story to the authorities until long after the events occurred. With this opening, I argued, I should be allowed to bring out the reason why: he was in fear of his life.

Responding to Kanarek’s objection, Older said: “You can’t go into all of these things on cross and expect the other side to do nothing about them, Mr. Kanarek. You can’t paint them in a corner and say they can’t work their way out.”

Juan was permitted to testify that he didn’t go to the police because “I didn’t think it was safe for me to do that, you see. I got a couple of threat notes…”

Actually, Juan had received three such notes, all handed him by Family members, the last as late as two weeks ago, when Squeaky and Larry Jones had discovered that Juan was living in John Swartz’ trailer in Canoga Park. Arguing against their admission, Fitzgerald made an interesting statement: “My life has been threatened three times, and I haven’t come forward and talked about it.”

BUGLIOSI “Has the prosecution threatened you?”

FITZGERALD “No, I am not saying that.” He didn’t elaborate.

Older ruled that Juan could testify to the notes, though not the identities of the persons who gave them to him. Juan also testified to the hang-up calls, the cars that raced past in the night, their occupants oinking and screaming, “Motherfucker!” and “Pig!”

I asked him: “And you considered these threats, is that correct?”

A. “Well, they sounded, you know, pretty strong to me.”

Q. “Are those among the reasons why you didn’t want to come downtown and talk?”

A. “Well, this was one of the reasons, yes.”

Q. “Because of fear of your life?”

A. “Yes.”

When I asked about the other reasons, Juan described how Manson, Clem, and Tex had creepy-crawled Crockett’s cabin at Barker Ranch.

All of this came in because the defense so gratuitously opened the door on cross.

Because Kanarek had questioned Juan about Manson’s “programming” of Family members, I was able to bring in a conversation Manson had with Juan in which he explained that he had to “unprogram” his followers to remove the programming placed upon them by their parents, schools, churches, and society. To get rid of the ego, Manson told him, you had to obliterate “all the wants that you had…give up your mother and father…all the inhibitions…just blank yourself out.”

Since Manson’s techniques differed depending on whether his subject was male or female, I asked what Manson had said about unprogramming the girls. I didn’t anticipate that Juan would go into the detail he did.

A. “Well, he says, you know, to get rid of the inhibitions, you know, you could just take a couple of girls and, you know, have them lay down, you know, and have them eat each other, or for me to take a girl up in the hills, you know, and just lie back and let her suck my dick all day long…”

KANAREK “Your Honor, Your Honor! May we approach the bench, Your Honor?”

Earlier one of the alternate jurors had written Judge Older a letter complaining about the sexual explicitness of some of the testimony. I didn’t look at him, but I suspected he must be having apoplexy. As I passed the counsel table on the way to the bench, I told Manson, “Don’t worry, Charlie, I’m keeping all the bad stuff out.”

Older struck the entire answer as nonresponsive.

I asked Juan: “Did Mr. Manson discuss with you—without going into what he said, Juan—plans that he had to ‘unprogram’ the people in the Family?” When he replied “Yes,” I let it go at that.

What Manson never explained to his Family was that in the process of unprogramming them, he was reprogramming them to be his abject slaves.

Throughout his cross-examination Kanarek had implied, as he had with many of the earlier witnesses, that Juan had been coached by me. I thought Kanarek was going to do this again, for the umpteenth time, when on recross he started: “Mr. Flynn, when a question is asked of you that you think may not help the prosecution in this case—”

BUGLIOSI “Oh, stop arguing.”

KANAREK “Your Honor, he’s interrupting!”

BUGLIOSI “Be quiet.”

THE COURT “Mr. Bugliosi, now, I’m not going to warn you again, sir.”

BUGLIOSI “What’s he doing, Your Honor? He’s accusing me of something and I don’t like it.”

THE COURT “Approach the bench.”

BUGLIOSI “I am not going to take it. I’ve had it up to here.”

My indignation was as much a matter of trial tactics as anything else. If I let Kanarek get away with the same trick time after time, the jury might assume there was some truth to his charges. At the bench I told Older: “I’m not going to be accused of a serious offense by this guy day in and day out.”

THE COURT “That’s absurd. You interrupted Mr. Kanarek. You made outrageous statements in front of the jury…I find you in direct contempt of Court, and I fine you fifty dollars.”

To the amusement of the clerk, I had to call my wife to come down and pay the fine. Later the deputy DAs in the office put up a buck each for a “Bugliosi Defense Fund” and reimbursed her.

As with the earlier citation of Hughes, I felt if I was in contempt of anyone, it was Kanarek, not the Court. The following day, for the record, I responded to the contempt, noting among other things that “in the future I would ask the Court to please consider two obvious points: this is a hotly contested trial and tempers become a little frayed; and also take into consideration what Mr. Kanarek is doing which incites a response on my part.”

With my citation, we now had a perfect score: every attorney involved in the trial had been either cited for contempt or threatened with it.

The defense tried their best to ridicule Juan’s fear of Manson.

Hughes brought out that since Manson was locked up, it was hardly likely he could hurt anyone; did Mr. Flynn actually expect the jury to believe that he was afraid of Mr. Manson?

Juan might have been speaking for all the prosecution witnesses when he answered: “Well, not of Mr. Manson himself, but the reach that he has, you know.”

By now I could see the pattern. The more damaging the testimony, the more chance Manson would create a disturbance, thereby assuring that he—and not the evidence itself—would get the day’s headlines. Juan Flynn’s testimony was hurting him badly. Several times while Flynn was on the stand, Older had to order Manson and the girls removed because of their outbursts. When it happened again, on October 2, Manson turned to the spectators and said: “Look at yourselves. Where are you going? You’re going to destruction, that’s where you’re going.” He then smiled a very odd little smile, and added, “It’s your Judgment Day, not mine.”

Again the girls parroted Manson, and Older ordered all four removed.

Kanarek was livid. I’d just showed the judge the transcript pages where Kanarek accused Flynn of lying. Older ruled: “There is no question: there was an implied, if not express, charge of recent fabrication.” Highway patrolman Dave Steuber would be permitted to play that portion of the taped interview dealing with Manson’s incriminating admission.[75]

After establishing the circumstances of the interview, Steuber set up the tape recorder and began playing the tape at the point where the statement had begun. There is something about such physical evidence that deeply impresses a jury. Again, in words very similar to those they had heard him use when he was on the stand, the jurors heard Juan say: “Then he was looking at me real funny…And then he grabbed me by the hair like that, and he put a knife by my throat…And then he says, ‘Don’t you know I’m the one who is doing all the killings?’”

Monday, October 5, 1970. Bailiff Bill Murray later said he had a very strong feeling that something was going to happen. You get a kind of sixth sense dealing with prisoners day after day, he said, noting that when he brought Manson into the lockup he was acting very tense and edgy.

Although they had made no assurances that they would conduct themselves properly, Older gave the defendants still another chance, permitting them to return to the courtroom.

The testimony was dull, undramatic. There was, at this point, no clue as to its importance, though I had a feeling Charlie just might suspect what I was up to. Through a series of witnesses, I was laying the groundwork for destroying Manson’s anticipated alibi.

LASO detective Paul Whiteley had just finished testifying, and the defense attorneys had declined to cross-examine him, when Manson asked: “May I examine him, Your Honor?”

THE COURT “No, you may not.”

MANSON “You are going to use this courtroom to kill me?”

Older told the witness he could step down. Manson asked the question a second time, adding, “I am going to fight for my life one way or another. You should let me do it with words.”

THE COURT “If you don’t stop, I will have to have you removed.”

MANSON “I will have you removed if you don’t stop. I have a little system of my own.”

Not until Manson made that very startling admission did I realize that this time he wasn’t playacting but deadly serious.

THE COURT “Call your next witness.”

BUGLIOSI “Sergeant Gutierrez.”

MANSON “Do you think I’m kidding?”

It happened in less time than it takes to describe it. With a pencil clutched in his right hand, Manson suddenly leaped over the counsel table in the direction of Judge Older. He landed just a few feet from the bench, falling on one knee. As he was struggling to his feet, bailiff Bill Murray leaped too, landing on Manson’s back. Two other deputies quickly joined in and, after a brief struggle, Manson’s arms were pinned. As he was being propelled to the lockup, Manson screamed at Older: “In the name of Christian justice, someone should cut your head off!”

Adding to the bedlam, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten stood and began chanting something in Latin. Older, much less disturbed than I would have expected, gave them not one but several chances to stop, then ordered them removed also.

According to the bailiffs, Manson continued to fight even after he had been taken into the lockup, and it took four men to put cuffs on him.

Fitzgerald asked if counsel might approach the bench. For the record, Judge Older described exactly how he had viewed the incident. Fitzgerald asked if he might inquire as to the judge’s state of mind.

THE COURT “He looked like he was coming for me.”

FITZGERALD “I was afraid of that, and although—”

THE COURT “If he had taken one more step, I would have done something to defend myself.”

Because of the judge’s state of mind, Fitzgerald said, he felt it incumbent upon him to move for a mistrial. Hughes, Shinn, and Kanarek joined. Older replied: “It isn’t going to be that easy, Mr. Fitzgerald…They are not going to profit from their own wrong…Denied.”

Out of curiosity, after court Murray measured the distance of Manson’s leap: ten feet.

Murray wasn’t too surprised. Manson had very powerful leg and arm muscles. He was constantly exercising in the lockup. Asked why, he’d once told a bailiff: “I’m toughening myself up for the desert.”

Murray tried to re-create his own leap. Without that sudden shot of adrenaline, he couldn’t even jump up on the counsel table.

Though Judge Older instructed the jury to “disregard what you saw and what you have heard here this morning,” I knew that as long as they lived they’d never forget it.

All the masks had been dropped. They’d seen the real face of Charles Manson.

From a reliable source, I learned that after the incident Judge Older began wearing a .38 caliber revolver under his robes, both in court and in chambers.

Judgment Day. Echoing Manson, the girls waiting outside on the corner spoke of it in conspiratorial whispers. “Wait till Judgment Day. That’s when Helter Skelter will really come down.”

Judgment Day. What was it? A plan to break out Manson? An orgy of retribution?

As important was the question of when. The day the jury returned their verdict of “Not guilty” or “Guilty”? Or, if the latter, the day the same jury decided “Life” or “Death”? Or perhaps the day of sentencing itself? Or might it even be tomorrow?

Judgment Day. We began to hear those words more and more often. Without explanation. As yet unaware that the first phase of Judgment Day had already begun, with the theft, from Camp Pendleton Marine Base, of a case of hand grenades.

OCTOBER 6–31, 1970

Some weeks earlier, on returning to my office after court, I’d found a phone message from attorney Robert Steinberg, who was now representing Virginia Graham.

On the advice of her previous attorney, Virginia Graham had withheld some information. Steinberg had urged her to give this information to me. “Specifically,” the phone message read, “Susan Atkins laid out detailed plans to Miss Graham concerning other planned murders, including the murders of Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor.”

Since I was very busy, I arranged to have one of the co-prosecutors, Steve Kay, interview her.

According to Virginia, a few days after Susan Atkins told her about the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca murders—probably on November 8 or 9, 1969—Susan had walked over to Virginia’s bed at Sybil Brand and begun leafing through a movie magazine. It reminded her, Susan said, about some other murders she had been planning.

She had decided to kill Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Susan matter-of-factly stated. She was going to heat a knife red-hot and put it against the side of Elizabeth Taylor’s face. This was more or less to leave her mark. Then she’d carve the words “helter skelter” on her forehead. After which, she was going to gouge her eyes out—Charlie had shown her how—and—

Virginia interrupted to ask what Richard Burton was supposed to be doing during all this.

Oh, both would be tied up, Susan said. Only this time the rope would be around their necks and their feet, so they couldn’t get away “like the others.”

Then, Susan continued, she would castrate Burton, placing his penis, as well as Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes, in a bottle. “And dig this, would you!” Susan laughed. “And then I’d mail it to Eddie Fisher!”

As for Tom Jones, another of her intended victims, she planned to force him to have sex with her, at knife point, and then, just as he was climaxing, she would slit his throat.

Steve McQueen was also on the list. Before Susan could explain what she had in mind for McQueen, Virginia interrupted, saying, “Sadie, you can’t just walk up to these people and kill them!”

That would be no problem, Susan said. It was easy to find out where they lived. Then she’d simply creepy-crawl them, “just like I did to Tate.”

She had something choice for Frank Sinatra, Susan continued. She knew that Frank liked girls. She’d just walk up to his door and knock. Her friends, she said, would be waiting outside. Once inside, they’d hang Sinatra upside down, then, while his own music was playing, skin him alive. After which they’d make purses out of the skin and sell them to hippie shops, “so everyone would have a little piece of Frank.”

She had come to the conclusion, Susan said, that the victims had to be people of importance, so the whole world would know.

Shortly after this, Virginia terminated the conversation with Susan. When asked by Steve Kay why she hadn’t come forward with the story before this, Virginia explained that it was just so insane that she didn’t think anyone would believe her. Even her former attorney had advised her to say nothing about it.

Were these Sadie’s own plans, or Charlie’s? Knowing as much as I did about Susan Atkins, I doubted if all this came from her. Though I had no proof, it was a reasonable inference that she had probably picked up these ideas from Manson.

In any case, it didn’t matter. Reading a transcript of the taped interview, I knew I’d never be able to introduce any of this in evidence: legally, its relevance to the Tate-LaBianca murders was negligible, and whatever limited relevance it did have would be outweighed by its extremely prejudicial effect.

Though Virginia Graham’s statement was useless as evidence, a copy of it was made available to each of the defense attorneys under discovery.

It would soon make its own kind of legal history.

Although it was Ronnie Howard who first went to the police, I called Virginia Graham to the stand first, since Susan had initially confessed to her.

Her testimony was unusually dramatic, since this was the first time the jury had heard what had happened inside the Tate residence.

Since their testimony was only against Susan Atkins, only Shinn cross-examined Graham and Howard. His attack was less on their statements than their backgrounds. He brought out, for example, sixteen different aliases Ronnie Howard had used. He also asked her if she made a lot of money as a prostitute.

Asking him to approach the bench, Older said, “You know the rules, Mr. Shinn. Don’t give me that wide-eyed innocent stare and pretend you don’t know what I am talking about.”

SHINN “Does Your Honor mean I cannot ask a person their occupation?”

The prosecution had made no “deals” with either Virginia Graham or Ronnie Howard. Howard had been acquitted on the forgery charge, while Graham had served out her full sentence at Corona. In both cases, however, Shinn did bring up the reward. When he asked Ronnie if she knew about the $25,000, she bluntly answered: “I think I am entitled to it.”

On redirect I asked each: “Are you aware that testifying in court is not a prerequisite to collecting the money?” Objection. Sustained. But the point was made.

The letters Susan Atkins had written to her former cellmates, Ronnie Howard, Jo Stevenson, and Kitt Fletcher, were very incriminating. Although I was prepared to call a handwriting expert to testify to their authenticity, Shinn, in order to save time, stipulated that Susan had written them. However, before they could be introduced in evidence, we had to “Arandize” them, excising any references to Atkins’ co-defendants. This was done in chambers, outside the presence of the jury.

Kanarek fought to exclude almost every line. Disgusted at his constant objections, Fitzgerald complained to Older: “I don’t have the rest of my life to spend here.” Older, equally disgusted, told Kanarek: “I would suggest that you use a little more discretion and not try to clutter up the record with motions, objections, and statements which any ten-year-old child can see are either nonsense or totally irrelevant…”

Yet time and again Kanarek pointed out subtleties the other defense attorneys missed. For example, Susan had written Ronnie: “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.”

You don’t “inform” on yourself, Kanarek argued; you “confess.” This implied that other people were involved.

After nineteen pages of argument, much of it very sophisticated, we finally edited this particular section to read: “When I first heard you were the informer I wanted to slit your throat. Then I snapped that it was my throat I wanted to cut.”

Kanarek wanted the line “Love Love Love” excluded from the Stevenson letter because “it refers to Manson.”

THE COURT “It sounds more like Gertrude Stein.”

Since the “Love” references were among the few favorable things in Susan’s letters, Shinn fought to retain them, remarking, “What do you want to do, make a killer out of her?”

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner broke the story on October 9, in an exclusive article bearing the by-line of reporter William Farr. Learning the night before that the story was going to appear, Judge Older again ordered the windows of the jury bus covered so the jurors couldn’t see the headlines on corner newsstands.

Farr’s article contained direct quotes from the Virginia Graham statement, which we had turned over to the defense on discovery.

Questioned in chambers, Farr declined to identify his source or sources. After observing that under California law he could not order the reporter to do so, Older excused Farr.

It was obvious that one or more persons had violated the gag order. Older, however, did not press the issue, and there, it appeared, the matter rested. There was no indication at this time that the issue would eventually become a cause célèbre and result in the jailing of Farr.

Prior to his questioning by Older, Farr told Virginia Graham’s attorney, Robert Steinberg, that he had received the statement from one of the defense attorneys. He did not say which one.

Gregg Jakobson was an impressive and very important witness. I had the tall, modishly dressed talent scout testify in detail to his many conversations with Manson, during which they discussed Helter Skelter, the Beatles, Revelation 9, and Manson’s curious attitude toward death.

Shahrokh Hatami followed Jakobson to the stand, to testify to his confrontation with Manson at 10050 Cielo Drive on the afternoon of March 23, 1969. For the first time the jury, and the public, learned that Sharon Tate had seen the man who later ordered her murder.

In Rudi Altobelli, Kanarek finally met his match. On direct examination the owner of 10050 Cielo Drive testified to his first encounter with Manson at Dennis Wilson’s home, and then, in considerable detail, he described Manson’s appearance at the guest house the evening before he and Sharon left for Rome.

Extremely antagonistic because Altobelli had refused him permission to visit 10050 Cielo Drive, Kanarek asked: “Now, presently, the premises on Cielo Drive where you live are quite secure, is that correct?”

A. “I hope so.”

Q. “Do you remember having a conversation with me when I tried to get into your fortress out there?”

A. “I remember your insinuations or threats.”

Q. “What were my insinuations or threats?”

A. “That ‘We will take care of you, Mr. Altobelli,’ ‘We will see about you, Mr. Altobelli.’ ‘We will get the court up at your house and have the trial at your house, Mr. Altobelli.’”

Altobelli had told Kanarek that if the Court ordered it, he would be glad to comply. “Otherwise, no. It is a home. It is not going to be a tourist attraction or a freak show.”

Q. “Do you respect our courts of law, Mr. Altobelli?”

A. “I think more than you, Mr. Kanarek.”

Despite defense objections, I had succeeded in getting in perhaps 95 percent of the testimony I’d hoped to elicit through Jakobson, Hatami, and Altobelli.

With the next witness, I suddenly found myself in deep trouble.

Charles Koenig took the stand to testify to finding Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet in the women’s rest room of the Standard station in Sylmar where he worked. He described how, on lifting the top of the toilet tank, he’d seen the wallet wedged above the mechanism, just above the waterline.

Kanarek cross-examined Koenig at great length about the toilet, causing more than a few snickers among spectators and press. Then I suddenly realized what he was getting at.

Kanarek asked Koenig if there was a standard procedure in connection with servicing the toilets in the rest room.

Koenig replied that the Standard station operating manual required that the rest room be cleaned every hour. The bluing agent, which is kept in the tank of the toilet, Koenig further testified, had to be replaced “whenever it ran out.”

How often was that? Kanarek asked.

As “lead man,” or boss of the station, Koenig had not personally cleaned the rest rooms, but rather had delegated the task to others. Therefore I was able to object to this and similar questions as calling for a conclusion on Koenig’s part.

Fortunately, court then recessed for the day.

Immediately afterward I called LAPD with an urgent request. I wanted the detectives to locate and interview every person who had worked in this particular station between August 10, 1969 (the date Linda Kasabian testified she left the wallet there) and December 10, 1969 (the date Koenig found it). And I wanted them interviewed before Kanarek could get to them, fearing that he might put words in their mouths. I told the officers: “Tell them, ‘Forget what the Standard station operating manual says you should do; forget too what your employer might say if he found you didn’t follow the instructions to the letter. Just answer truthfully: Did you personally, at any time during your employment, change the bluing agent in that toilet?’”

To replace the bluing agent, you had to lift the top off the tank. Had anyone done so, he would have immediately seen the wallet. If Kanarek could come up with just one employee who claimed to have replaced the bluing agent during that four-month period, the defense could forcefully contend that the wallet had been “planted,” not only destroying Linda Kasabian’s credibility as to all of her testimony, but implying that the prosecution was trying to frame Manson.

LAPD located some, but not all, of the former employees. (None had ever changed the bluing agent.) Fortunately, Kanarek apparently had no better luck.

Hughes had only a few questions for Koenig, but they were devastating.

Q. “Now, Sylmar is predominantly a white area, is it not?”

A. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Q. “Sylmar is not a black ghetto, is it?”

A. “No.”

According to Linda, Manson had wanted a black to find the wallet and use the credit cards, so blacks would be blamed for the murders. My whole theory of the motive was based on this premise. Why, then, had Manson left the wallet in a white area?

In point of fact, the freeway exit Manson had taken was immediately north of Pacoima, the black ghetto of the San Fernando Valley. I tried to get this in through Koenig, but defense objections kept it out, and I later had to call Sergeant Patchett to so testify.

With a single witness, a service-station attendant, the defense—specifically Kanarek and Hughes—had almost knocked two huge holes in the prosecution’s case.

By now I had narrowed down my opponents. Fitzgerald made a good appearance but rarely scored. Shinn was likable. For his first trial Hughes was doing damn well. But it was Irving Kanarek, whom most members of the press considered the trial’s buffoon, who was scoring nearly all the points. Time and again Kanarek succeeded in keeping out important evidence.

For example, when Stephanie Schram took the stand, Kanarek objected to her testimony regarding the “murder school” Manson had conducted at Barker Ranch, and Older sustained Kanarek’s objection. Though I disagreed with Older’s ruling, there was no way I could get around it.

On direct Stephanie had testified that she and Manson returned to Spahn Ranch from San Diego in a cream-colored van on the afternoon of Friday, August 8. On cross-examination Fitzgerald asked her: “Could you be mistaken one day?” This indicated to me that Manson might still be planning to go alibi, so on redirect I brought in the traffic ticket they had been given the previous day. With the August 8 arrest report on Brunner and Good, which contained the license number of the same van, I was now ready to demolish Charlie if the defense claimed he wasn’t even in Southern California at the time of the murders.

Yet I had no way of knowing whether Manson might have his own surprise bombshell, which he was waiting to explode.

As it happened, he had.

Sergeant Gutierrez, on the “HELTER SKELTER” door. DeWayne Wolfer, on the sound tests he’d conducted at the Tate residence. Jerrold Friedman, on the last telephone call Steven Parent made. Roseanne Walker, on Atkins’ remarks about the eyeglasses. Harold True, on Manson’s visits to the house next to the LaBianca residence. Sergeant McKellar, on Krenwinkel’s attempts to avoid recognition just prior to her arrest in Mobile, Alabama. Bits and pieces, but cumulative. And eventually, I hoped, convincing.

Only a few prosecution witnesses remained. And I still didn’t know what the defense would be. Although the prosecution had to give the defense a list of all our witnesses, the defense had no such obligation. Earlier Fitzgerald had told the press that he intended to call thirty witnesses, among them such celebrities as Mama Cass, John Phillips, and Beatle John Lennon, the latter to testify as to how he interpreted his own song lyrics. But that, and the rumors that Manson himself planned to testify, were the only clues to the defense. And even Manson’s testifying was an iffy thing. In my talks with Charlie, he seemed to vacillate. Maybe I’ll testify. Maybe I won’t. I continued to goad him, but was worried that perhaps I’d overplayed my hand.

The defendants hadn’t been in court since Manson’s attack on the judge. The day Terry Melcher was to testify, however, Older permitted their return. Not wanting to face Manson, Terry asked me, “Can’t I go back in the lockup and testify through the speaker?”

Of all the prosecution witnesses, Melcher was the most frightened of Manson. His fear was so great, he told me, that he had been under psychiatric treatment and had employed a full-time bodyguard since December 1969.

“Terry, they weren’t after you that night,” I tried to reassure him. “Manson knew you were no longer living there.”

Melcher was so nervous, however, that he had to be given a tranquilizer before taking the stand. Though he came over somewhat weaker than in our interviews, when he finished his testimony, he told me, with evident relief, that Manson had smiled at him, therefore he couldn’t be too unhappy with what he’d said.

Kanarek, probably at Manson’s request, did not question Melcher. Hughes brought out that when Wilson and Manson drove Terry to the gate of 10050 Cielo Drive that night, they probably saw him push the button. The defense could now argue that if Manson was familiar with the gate-operating device, it would be unlikely he’d have the killers climb over the fence, as Linda claimed they had.

By this time I had proof that both Watson and Manson had been to 10050 Cielo Drive on a number of occasions before the murders. But the jury would never hear it.

Some months earlier I’d learned that after Terry Melcher had moved out of the residence, but before the Polanskis had moved in, Gregg Jakobson had arranged for Dean Moorehouse, Ruth Ann Moorehouse’s father, to stay there for a brief period. During this time Tex Watson had visited Moorehouse at least three, and possibly as many as six, times. In a private conversation with Fitzgerald, I informed him of this (which I had a legal obligation to do) and he replied that he already knew it. Though I intended to introduce this evidence during the Watson trial, I didn’t want to bring it in during the current proceedings, and I was hoping that Fitzgerald wouldn’t either, since it emphasized the Watson rather than the Manson link. Although I suspected that Manson had visited there also during the same period, I had no proof of this until the trial was well under way, when I learned from the best possible source that Manson had been to 10050 Cielo Drive “on five or six occasions.” My source was Manson himself, who admitted this to me during one of our rap sessions. Manson denied, however, having been in the house itself. He and Tex went up there, he said, to race dune buggies up and down the hills.

But I couldn’t use this information against Manson, because, as he well knew, all of my conversations with him were at his insistence and he was never advised of his constitutional rights.

It was a decidedly curious situation. Although Manson had vowed to kill me, he still asked to see me periodically—to rap.

Equally curious were our conversations. Manson told me, for example, that he personally believed in law and order. There should be “rigid control” by the authorities, he said. It didn’t matter what the law was—right and wrong being relative—but it should be strictly enforced by whoever had the power. And public opinion should be suppressed, because part of the people wanted one thing, part another.

“In other words, your solution would be a dictatorship,” I remarked.

“Yes.”

He had a simple solution to the crime problem, Manson told me. Empty the prisons and banish all the criminals to the desert. But first brand their foreheads with X’s, so if they ever appeared in the cities they could be identified and shot on sight.

“Do I need two guesses as to who’s going to be in charge of them in the desert, Charlie?”

“No.” He grinned.

On another occasion, Manson told me that he had just written to President Nixon, asking him to turn over the reins of power to him. If I was interested, I could be his vice-president. I was a brilliant prosecutor, he said, a master with words, and, “You’re right on about a lot of things.”

“What things, Charlie? Helter Skelter, the way the murders came down, your philosophy on life and death?”

Manson smiled and declined to answer.

“We both know you ordered these murders,” I told him.

“Bugliosi, it’s the Beatles, the music they’re putting out. They’re talking about war. These kids listen to this music and pick up the message, it’s subliminal.”

“You were along on the night of the LaBianca murders.”

“I went out a lot of nights.”

Never a direct denial. I couldn’t wait to get him on the stand.

Manson told me that he liked prison, though he liked the desert, the sun, and women better. I told him he’d never been inside the green room at San Quentin before.

He wasn’t afraid of death, Manson responded. Death was only a thought. He’d faced death before, many times, in both this and past lives.

I asked him if, when he shot Crowe, he’d intended to kill him.

“Sure,” he replied, adding, “I could kill everyone without blinking an eye.” When I asked why, he said,” Because you’ve been killing me for years.” Pressed as to whether all this killing bothered him, Manson replied that he had no conscience, that everything was only a thought. Only he, and he alone, was on top of his thought, in complete control, unprogrammed by anyone or anything.

“When it comes down around your ears, you’d better believe I’ll be on top of my thought,” Manson said. “I will know what I am doing. I will know exactly what I am doing.”

Manson frequently interrupted the testimony of Brooks Poston and Paul Watkins with asides. Kanarek’s interruptions were so continuous that Older, calling him to the bench, angrily told him: “You are trying to disrupt the testimony with frivolous, lengthy, involved, silly objections. You have done it time and again during this trial…I have studied you very carefully, Mr. Kanarek. I know exactly what you are doing. I have had to find you in contempt twice before for doing the same thing. I won’t hesitate to do it again.”

It was all too obvious, to both Kanarek and Manson, that Poston and Watkins were impressively strong witnesses. Step by step they traced the evolution of Helter Skelter, not intellectually, as Jakobson understood it, but as onetime true believers, members of the Family who had watched a vague concept slowly materialize into terrifying reality.

The cross-examination didn’t shake their testimony in the slightest; rather, it elicited more details. When Kanarek questioned Poston, for example, he accidentally brought out a good domination example: “When Charlie would be around, things would be like when a schoolteacher comes back to class.”

Hughes asked Poston: “Did you feel you were under Mr. Manson’s hypnotic spell?”

A. “No, I did not think that Charlie had a hypnotic spell.”

Q. “Did you feel he had some power?”

A. “I felt he was Jesus Christ. That is power enough for me.”

Looking back on his time with Manson, Poston said: “I learned a lot from Charlie, but it doesn’t seem that he was making all those people free.” Watkins observed: “Charlie was always preaching love. Charlie had no idea what love was. Charlie was so far from love it wasn’t even funny. Death is Charlie’s trip. It really is.”

Since his extradition to California, Charles “Tex” Watson had been behaving peculiarly. At first he spoke little, then stopped speaking entirely. The prisoners in his cell block signed a petition complaining of the unsanitary condition of his cell. For hours he’d stare off into space, then inexplicably hurl himself against his cell wall. Placed in restraints, he stopped eating and, even though force-fed, his weight dropped to 110 pounds.

Though there was evidence that he was faking at least part of his symptoms, his attorney, Sam Bubrick, asked the Court to appoint three psychiatrists to examine him. Their conclusions differed but they agreed on one point: Watson was rapidly reverting to a fetal state, which, unless immediately treated, could be fatal. Acting on the basis of their examination, on October 29 Judge Dell ruled Watson was at present incompetent to stand trial and ordered him committed to Atascadero State Hospital.

Manson asked to see me during the recess.

“Vince,” Manson pleaded through the lockup door, “give me just half an hour with Tex. I’m positive I can cure him.”

“I’m sorry, Charlie,” I told him. “I can’t afford to take that chance. If you cured him, then everyone would believe you were Jesus Christ.”

NOVEMBER 1–19, 1970

The day before Watson was committed to Atascadero, two court-appointed psychiatrists found seventeen-year-old Dianne Lake competent to testify.

Following her release from Patton, Dianne had received some good news: Inyo County investigator Jack Gardiner and his wife, who had befriended Dianne after her arrest in the Barker raid, had been appointed her foster parents. She would live with them and their children until she finished high school.

Because of Aranda, there were some things the jury never heard—for example, that Tex had told Leslie to stab Rosemary LaBianca and, later, to wipe fingerprints off everything they had touched—since Katie had related these things to Dianne, and any reference by Katie to her co-defendants had to be excised.

Dianne could testify to what Leslie had told her she had done; however, the problem here was that Leslie never told Dianne whom she had stabbed. She said she had stabbed someone who was already dead; that this occurred near Griffith Park; and that there was a boat outside. From these facts I hoped the jury would conclude that she was talking about the LaBiancas. Dianne also testified that one morning in August Leslie had come into the back house at Spahn and proceeded to burn a purse, a credit card, and her own clothing, keeping only a sack of coins, which the girls divided and spent on food. Dianne, however, was unable to pinpoint the exact date, and though I hoped the jury would surmise this had occurred the morning after the LaBiancas were killed, there was no proof that this was so.

Since this was the only evidence, independent of Linda Kasabian’s testimony, which I had linking Leslie Van Houten to the LaBianca homicides, it hurt, and badly, when Hughes on cross brought out that Dianne wasn’t sure whether Leslie had told her about the boat or whether she had about it in the newspapers.

Hughes also focused on a number of minor discrepancies in her previous statements (she’d told Sartuchi the coins were in the purse, while she’d told me they were in a plastic bag), and what could have been one very big bombshell. On direct Dianne had said that she, Little Patty, and Sandra Good, “I believe,” had divided the money.

If Sandy was present, this couldn’t have been August 10, the morning after the LaBianca murders, since Sandra Good, along with Mary Brunner, was still in custody. However, questioned further, Dianne said Sandy “might not have been there.”

In his cross-examination Kanarek brought out that Sergeant Gutierrez had threatened Dianne with the gas chamber. Fitzgerald also came up with a prior inconsistent statement: Dianne had told the grand jury that she was in Inyo County, rather than at Spahn Ranch, on August 8 and 9.

On redirect I asked Dianne: “Why did you lie to the grand jury?”

A. “Because I was afraid that I would be killed by members of the Family if I told the truth. And Charlie asked me not to—he told me not to say anything to anybody who had the power of authority.”

On November 4, Sergeant Gutierrez, in search of a cup of coffee, had wandered into the jury room where the female defendants stayed during recesses.

He found a yellow legal pad with the name Patricia Krenwinkel on it. Among the notes and doodlings, Katie had written the words “healter skelter” three times—misspelling that first word exactly the same way it had been misspelled on the LaBianca refrigerator door.

Older would not permit me to introduce it in evidence, however. I felt he was 100 percent wrong about this: it was unquestionably circumstantial evidence; it had relevance; and it was admissible. But Older ruled otherwise.

Older also gave me a scare when I attempted to introduce Krenwinkel’s refusal to make a printing exemplar. Older agreed it was admissible, but he felt Krenwinkel should be given another chance to comply, and ordered her to do so.

The problem here was that this time Krenwinkel just might, on the advice of counsel, make the exemplar, and if she did, I knew there would be real problems.

Katie refused—on the instructions of Paul Fitzgerald!

What Fitzgerald apparently did not realize was that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for LAPD to match the two printing samples. And had LAPD failed to do so, by law Patricia Krenwinkel would have to be acquitted of the LaBianca murders. Her refusal to give an exemplar was the only speck of independent evidence I had supporting Kasabian’s testimony regarding Krenwinkel’s involvement in these crimes.

Krenwinkel had been given an excellent chance to “beat the rap.” To this day I still don’t understand why her attorney instructed her as he did and so lost her that chance.

The People’s last two witnesses, Drs. Blake Skrdla and Harold Deering, were the psychiatrists who had examined Dianne. On both direct and redirect examination, I elicited testimony from them to the effect that, although a powerful drug, LSD does not impair memory, nor is there any demonstrable medical evidence that it causes brain damage. This was important, since the defense attorneys had contended that the minds of various prosecution witnesses, in particular Linda and Dianne, had been so “blown” by LSD that they could not distinguish fantasy from reality.

Skrdla testified that people on LSD can tell the difference between the real and the unreal; in fact, they often have a heightened awareness. Skrdla further stated that LSD causes illusions rather than hallucinations—in other words, that which is seen is actually there, only the perception of it is changed. This surprised a lot of people, since LSD is called a hallucinogenic drug.

When Watkins was on the stand, I personally brought out that although he was only twenty, Paul had taken LSD between 150 and 200 times. Yet, as the jury undoubtedly observed, he was one of the brightest and most articulate of the prosecution witnesses. Skrdla also testified: “I have seen individuals who have taken it several hundred times and show no outward sign of any emotional disturbance while they are not on the drug.”

Fitzgerald asked Skrdla: “Would LSD in large doses over a period of time make someone sort of a zombie, or would it destroy rational thought processes?”

If, as I suspected, Fitzgerald was trying to lay the foundation for a defense based on this premise, that foundation collapsed when Skrdla replied: “I have not seen this, counsel.”

Dr. Deering was the People’s last witness. He finished testifying on Friday, November 13. Most of Monday, the sixteenth, was spent introducing the People’s exhibits into evidence. There were 320 of these, and Kanarek objected to every one, from the gun to the scale map of the Tate premises. His strongest objections were to the color death photos. Responding, I argued: “I grant the Court that these photographs are gruesome, there is no question about it, but if in fact the defendants are the ones who committed these murders, which the prosecution of course is alleging, they are the ones who are responsible for the gruesomeness and the ghastliness. It is their handiwork. The jury is entitled to look at that handiwork.”

Judge Older agreed, and they were admitted into evidence.

One exhibit never made it into evidence. As mentioned earlier, a number of white dog hairs had been found on the discarded clothing the killers wore the night of the Tate murders. Shown them, Winifred Chapman told me they looked like the hair of Sharon’s dog. When I requested that they be brought over from LAPD, however, I got only excuses. Finally, I learned that while walking across the street to the Hall of Justice, one of the Tate detectives had dropped and broken the vial containing the hairs. He had been able to recover only one. Realizing that the expression “grasping at hairs” would be all too appropriate in this case, I decided against introducing that single hair into evidence.

At 4:27 P.M. that Monday—exactly twenty-two weeks after the start of the trial, and two days short of a year after my assignment to the case—I told the Court: “Your Honor, the People of the State of California rest.”

Court was recessed until Thursday, November 19, at which time each of the defense attorneys argued the standard motions to dismiss.

Back in December 1969 a great many attorneys predicted that when we reached this point Manson would have to be acquitted because of insufficiency of evidence.

I doubted if any lawyer in the country felt that way now, including the attorneys for the defense.

Older denied all the motions.

THE COURT “Are you ready to proceed with the defense?”

FITZGERALD “Yes, Your Honor.”

THE COURT “You may call your first witness, Mr. Fitzgerald.”

FITZGERALD “Thank you, Your Honor. The defendants rest.”

Nearly everyone in the courtroom was caught completely off guard. For several seconds even Judge Older seemed too stunned to speak. The ultimate legal issue at a criminal trial is not the defendant’s guilt or innocence, as most people believe. The issue is whether or not the prosecution has met its legal burden of proving the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty.[76] The defense obviously, but unexpectedly, had decided to avoid cross-examination and to rely on the argument that we hadn’t proved the guilt of Manson and his co-defendants beyond a reasonable doubt and, hence, they were entitled to not-guilty verdicts.

The biggest surprise, however, was still to come.