Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders Read online

  The big story, Tate, commandeered the top spot, with its headline, “ANATOMY OF A MASS/MURDER IN HOLLYWOOD.”

  Below it was a smaller story, its one-column head reading, “LA BIANCA COUPLE,/VICTIMS OF SLAYER,/GIVEN FINAL RITES.”

  To the left of the Tate story, and just above an artist’s drawing of the Tate premises, was a much briefer, seemingly unrelated item, chosen, one suspected, because it was small enough to fit the space. Its headline read, “POLICE RAID RANCH,/ARREST 26 SUSPECTS/IN AUTO THEFT RING.”

  It began: “Twenty-six persons living in an abandoned Western movie set on an isolated Chatsworth ranch were arrested in a daybreak raid by sheriff’s deputies Saturday as suspects in a major auto theft ring.”

  According to deputies, the group had been stealing Volkswagens, then converting them into dune buggies. The story, which did not contain the names of any of those arrested but did mention that a sizable arsenal of weapons had been seized, concluded: “The ranch is owned by George Spahn, a blind, 80-year-old semi-invalid. It is located in the Simi Hills at 12000 Santa Susana Pass Road. Deputies said Spahn, who lives alone in a house on the ranch, apparently knew there were people living on the set but was unaware of their activity. They said he couldn’t get around and he was afraid of them.”

  It was a minor story, and didn’t even rate a follow-up when, a few days later, all the suspects were released, it being discovered they had been arrested on a misdated warrant.

  Following a report that Wilson, Madigan, Pickett, and Jones were in Canada, LAPD sent the Royal Canadian Mounted Police a “want” on the four men; RCMP broadcast it; alert reporters picked it up; and within hours the news media in the United States were heralding “a break in the Tate case.”

  Although LAPD denied that the four men were suspects, saying they were only wanted for questioning, the impression remained that arrests were imminent. There were phone calls, among them one from Madigan, another from Jones.

  Jones was in Jamaica, and said he would fly back voluntarily if the police wished to talk to him. They admitted they did. Madigan showed up at Parker Center with his attorney. He cooperated fully, agreeing to answer any questions except those which might tend to involve him in the use or sale of narcotics. He admitted having visited Frykowski at the Cielo residence twice during the week before the murders, so it was possible his prints were there. On the night of the murders, Madigan said, he had attended a party given by an airline stewardess who lived in the apartment below his. He had left about 2 or 3 A.M. This was later verified by LAPD, which also checked his prints against the unmatched latents found at the Cielo address, without success.

  Madigan was given a polygraph, and passed, as did Jones, when he arrived from Jamaica. Jones said that he and Wilson had been in Jamaica from July 12 to August 17, at which time he had flown to Los Angeles and Wilson had flown to Toronto. Asked why they had gone to Jamaica, he said they were “making a movie about marijuana.” Jones’ alibi would have to be checked out, but after his polygraph, and a negative print check, he ceased to be a good suspect.

  This left Herb Wilson and Jeffrey Pickett, nicknamed Pic. By this time LAPD knew where both men were.

  The publicity had been bad. There was no disputing that. As Steven Roberts, Los Angeles bureau chief for the New York Times, later put it, “All the stories had a common thread—that somehow the victims had brought the murders on themselves…The attitude was summed up in the epigram: ‘Live freaky, die freaky.’”

  Given Roman Polanski’s affinity for the macabre; rumors of Sebring’s sexual peculiarities; the presence of both Miss Tate and her former lover at the death scene while her husband was away; the “anything goes” image of the Hollywood jet set; drugs; and the sudden clamp on police leaks, almost any kind of plot could be fashioned, and was. Sharon Tate was called everything from “the queen of the Hollywood orgy scene” to “a dabbler in satanic arts.” Polanski himself was not spared. In the same newspaper a reader could find one columnist saying the director was so grief-stricken he could not speak, while a second had him night-clubbing with a bevy of airline stewardesses. If he wasn’t personally responsible for the murders, more than one paper implied, he must know who committed them.

  From a national news weekly:

  “Sharon’s body was found nude, not clad in bikini pants and a bra as had first been reported…Sebring was wearing only the torn remnants of a pair of boxer shorts…Frykowski’s trousers were down to his ankles…Both Sebring and Tate had X’s carved on their bodies…One of Miss Tate’s breasts had been cut off, apparently as the result of indiscriminate slashing…Sebring had been sexually mutilated…” The rest was equally accurate: “No fingerprints were found anywhere…no drug traces were found in any of the five bodies…” And so on.

  Though it read like something from the old Confidential, the article had appeared in Time, its writer apparently having some tall explaining to do when his editors became aware of his imaginative embellishments.

  Angered by “a multitude of slanders,” Roman Polanski called a press conference on August 19, where he castigated newsmen who “for a selfish reason” wrote “horrible things about my wife.” There had been no marital rift, he reiterated; no dope; no orgies. His wife had been “beautiful” and “a good person,” and “the last few years I spent with her were the only time of true happiness in my life…”

  Some of the reporters were less than sympathetic to Polanski’s complaints about publicity, having just learned that he had permitted Life to take exclusive photos of the murder scene.

  Not quite “exclusive.” Before the magazine reached the stands, several of the Polaroid prints appeared in the Hollywood Citizen News.

  Life had been scooped, by its own photographs.

  There were some things Polanski did not tell the press, or even his closest friends. One was that he had agreed to be polygraphed by the Los Angeles Police Department.

  Polanski’s polygraph examination was conducted by Lieutenant Earl Deemer at Parker Center.

  Q. “Mind if I call you Roman? My name is Earl.”

  A. “Sure…I will lie one or two times during it, and I will tell you after, O.K.?”

  Q. “Well—all right…”

  Deemer asked Roman how he first met his wife.

  Polanski sighed, then slowly began talking. “I first met Sharon four years ago at some kind of party Marty Ransohoff—a terrible Hollywood producer—had. The guy who makes ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ and all kinds of shit. But he seduced me with his talk about art, and I contracted with him to do this film, a spoof on the vampires, you know.

  “And I met Sharon at the party. She was doing another film for him in London at the time. Staying in London alone. Ransohoff said, ‘Wait until you see our leading lady, Sharon Tate!’

  “I thought she was quite pretty. But I wasn’t at that time very impressed. But then I saw her again. I took her out. We talked a lot, you know. At that time I was really swinging. All I was interested in was to fuck a girl and move on. I had a very bad marriage, you know. Years before. Not bad, it was beautiful, but my wife dumped me, so I was really feeling great, because I was a success with women and I just like fucking around. I was a swinger, uh?

  “So I met her a couple of more times. I knew she was with Jay. Then [Ransohoff] wanted me to use her in the film. And I made tests with her.

  “Once before I wanted to take her out, and she was being difficult, wanting to go out, not wanting to go out, so I said, ‘Fuck you,’ and I hung up. Probably that was the beginning of everything, you know.”

  Q. “You sweet-talked her.”

  A. “Right. She got intrigued by me. And I really played it cool, and it took me long dating before—And then I started seeing that she liked me.

  “I remember I spent a night—I lost a key—and I spent a night in her house in the same bed, you know. And I knew there was no question of making love with her. That’s the type of girl she was.

  “I mean, that rarely happens to me!
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  “And then we went on location—it was about two or three months later. When we were on location shooting the film, I asked her, ‘Would you like to make love with me?’ and she said, very sweetly, ‘Yes.’ And then for the first time I was somewhat touched by her, you know. And we started sleeping regularly together. And she was so sweet and so lovely that I didn’t believe it, you know. I’d had bad experiences and I didn’t believe that people like that existed, and I was waiting a long time for her to show the color, right?

  “But she was beautiful, without this phoniness. She was fantastic. She loved me. I was living in a different house. I didn’t want her to come to my house. And she would say, ‘I don’t want to smother you. I only want to be with you,’ etc. And I said, ‘You know how I am; I screw around.’ And she said, ‘I don’t want to change you.’ She was ready to do everything, just to be with me.

  She was a fucking angel. She was a unique character, who I’ll never meet again in my life.”

  Deemer asked about his first meeting with Sebring. It had occurred in a London restaurant, Polanski said, describing how nervous he had been, and how Jay had broken the ice by saying, “I dig you, man. I dig you.” More important, “he seemed happy to see Sharon happy.” Roman had remained slightly uncomfortable through their next several meetings. “But when I came to Los Angeles, started living here, he came to our parties, etc. And I started liking Jay very very much. He was a very sweet person. Oh, I know of his hangups. He liked to whip-tie girls. Sharon told me about it. He tied her once to the bed. And she told me about it. And was making fun of him…To her it was funny, but sad…

  “And he was more and more often a guest of ours. He would just hang around, hang around, and sometimes Sharon would resent his staying too long, because he was always the last to leave, you know.

  “I’m sure in the beginning of our relationship there was still his love for Sharon, but I think that largely it disappeared. I’m quite sure.”

  Q. “So there was no indication that Sharon went back to Sebring at any time?”

  A. “Not a chance! I’m the bad one. I always screw around. That was

  Sharon’s big hangup, you know. But Sharon was absolutely not interested in Jay.”

  Q. “Was she interested in any other men?”

  A. “No! There was not a chance of any other man getting close to

  Sharon.”

  Q. “O.K., I know you have to get on your way. We might as well start.

  I’ll tell you how this works, Roman.” Deemer explained the mechanics of the polygraph, adding, “It’s important for you to remain quiet.

  I know you talk a lot with your hands. You’re emotional. You’re an actor type person, so it’s going to be a little difficult for you…But when the pressure is on, I want you to remain quiet. When it’s off, you can talk and even wave your arms. Within reason.”

  After instructing Polanski to confine his answers to “yes” and “no” and to save any explanations for later, Deemer began the interrogation.

  Q. “Do you have a valid California driver’s license?”

  A. “Yes.”

  Q. “Have you eaten lunch today?”

  A. “No.”

  Q. “Do you know who took the life of Voytek and the others?”

  A. “No.”

  Q. “Do you smoke cigarettes?”

  A. “Yes.” There was a long pause, then Polanski began laughing.

  Q. “You know what you are going to do, with that screwing around?

  I’m going to have to start over again!”

  A. “Sorry.”

  Q. “Look at the increase in your blood pressure when you start to lie about your cigarettes. Boom, boom, boom, just like a staircase. O.K., let’s start over again…

  “Are you now in Los Angeles?”

  A. “Yes.”

  Q. “Did you have anything to do with taking the life of Voytek and the others?”

  A. “No.”

  Q. “Have you eaten lunch today?”

  A. “No.”

  Q. “Do you feel any responsibility for the death of Voytek and the others?”

  A. “Yes. I feel responsible that I wasn’t there, that is all.”

  Q. “From running this thing through your mind, repeatedly, as I know you must have, who have you come up with as the target? I don’t think it ever crossed your mind that Sharon might be the target, that anyone had that kind of mad on for her. Is there anyone else who was up there that you can think of who would be a target for this type of activity?”

  A. “I’ve thought everything. I thought the target could be myself.”

  Q. “Why?”

  A. “I mean, it could be some kind of jealousy or plot or something. It couldn’t be Sharon directly. If Sharon were the target, it would mean that I was the target. It could be Jay was the target. It could be Voytek. It could also be sheer folly, someone just decided to commit a crime.”

  Q. “What would Sebring be doing, for instance, that would make him a target?”

  A. “Some money thing, maybe. I’ve also heard a lot about this drug thing, drug deliveries. It’s difficult for me to believe…” Polanski had always believed Sebring to be “a rather prosperous man,” yet he’d recently heard he had large debts. “The indication to me is that he must have been in serious financial trouble, despite the appearances he gave.”

  Q. “That’s a hell of a way to collect debts. It’s no ordinary bill collector that goes up there and kills five people.”

  A. “No, no. What I’m talking about is for this reason he might have got into some dangerous areas to make money, you understand? In desperation, he may have got mixed up with illegal people, you know?”

  Q. “Eliminating Sharon and the kid, of the three remaining you think that Sebring would be the logical target, huh?”

  A. “The whole crime seems so illogical.

  “If I’m looking for a motive, I’d look for something which doesn’t fit your habitual standard, with which you use to work as police—something much more far out…”

  Deemer asked Polanski if he had received any hate mail after Rosemary’s Baby. He admitted he had, surmising, “It could be some type of witchcraft, you know. A maniac or something. This execution, this tragedy, indicates to me it must be some kind of nut, you know.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if I were the target. In spite of all this drug thing, the narcotics. I think the police like to jump too hastily on this type of lead, you know. Because it is their usual kind of lead. The only connection I know of Voytek with any kind of narcotic was he smoked pot. So did Jay. Plus cocaine. I knew he was sniffing. In the beginning I thought it was just an occasional kick. When I discussed it with Sharon, she said, ‘Are you kidding? He’s been doing it for two years, regularly.’”

  Q. “Did Sharon mess with narcotics to any extent, other than pot?”

  A. “No. She did take LSD before we met. Many times. And when we met we discussed it…I took it three times. When it was legal,” he added, laughing. Then, serious again, Polanski recalled the only time they had taken it together. It was toward the end of 1965. It was his third trip, and Sharon’s fifteenth or sixteenth. It had begun pleasantly enough, with them talking all night. But then “in the morning she started flipping out and screaming and I was scared to death. And after that she said, ‘I told you I couldn’t take it and this is the end.’ And it was the end, for me and for her.

  “But I can tell you this, without question. She took no drugs at all, except for pot, and not too much. And during her pregnancy there was no question, she was so in love with her pregnancy she would do nothing. I’d pour a glass of wine and she wouldn’t touch it.”

  Once more Deemer took him through the questioning, then ended the examination, satisfied that Roman Polanski had no involvement in, or any hidden knowledge of, the murder of his wife and the others.

  Before leaving, Roman told him, “I’m devoted now to this thing.” He intended to question even his friends. “But I’m going
to do it slowly, so they don’t get suspicious. No one knows I’m here. I don’t want them to know that I’m trying in any way to help the police, you know? I’m hoping in this way they’ll have more sincerity.”

  Q. “You have to go on living.”

  Polanski thanked him, lighted a cigarette, and left.

  Q. “Hey, I thought you didn’t smoke cigarettes!”

  But Polanski had already gone.

  On August 20, three days after Peter Hurkos accompanied Roman Polanski to the Cielo residence, a picture of Hurkos appeared in the Citizen News. It was captioned:

  “FAMED PSYCHIC—Peter Hurkos, famed for his consultation in murder cases (including the current Sharon Tate massacre), opens Friday night at the Huntington Hartford, appearing through Aug. 30.”

  Madigan and Jones had been eliminated as suspects. Wilson and Pickett remained.

  Because of his familiarity with the case, it was decided to send Lieutenant Deemer east to interview the two.

  Jeffrey “Pic” Pickett had been contacted through a relative, and a meeting was set up in a Washington, D.C., hotel room. The son of a prominent State Department official, Pickett appeared to Deemer to be “under the influence of some narcotic, probably an excitant drug.” He also had a bandaged hand. When Deemer expressed curiosity about it, Pickett vaguely replied that he had cut it on a kitchen knife. Though he agreed to a polygraph, Deemer found that Pickett couldn’t remain still or follow instructions, so he interviewed him informally. He claimed that on the day of the murders he had been working in an auto company in Sheffield, Massachusetts. Asked if he owned any weapons, he admitted he had a Buck knife, purchased, he said, in Marlboro, Massachusetts, on a friend’s credit card.

  Later Pickett gave Deemer the knife. It was similar to the one found at Cielo. He also turned over a roll of videotape which he claimed showed Abigail Folger and Voytek Frykowski using drugs at a party at the Tate residence. Pickett didn’t say how he came into possession of the film or what use he had intended to make of it.