Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders Page 12

  At the end of September neither the Tate nor the LaBianca detectives bothered to write up a progress report.

  OCTOBER 1969

  October 10. Two months had passed since the Tate homicides. “What is going on behind the scenes in the Los Angeles Police investigation (if there is such a thing) of the bizarre murder of Sharon Tate and four others?” the Hollywood Citizen News asked in a front-page editorial.

  Officially, LAPD remained silent, as they had since their last news conference on the case, on September 3, when Deputy Chief Houghton, while admitting that they still didn’t know who had committed the murders, said the detectives had made “tremendous progress.”

  “Exactly what progress?” reporters asked. The pressure was building; the fear remained, if possible even increased, owing to the suggestion, less than subtly hinted at by a popular TV commentator, that perhaps the police were covering for a person or persons “prominent in the entertainment industry.”

  Meanwhile the leaks continued. The media reported that narcotics had been found in several places at the Tate residence; that some of the victims had been on drugs at the time they died. By October it was also widely reported that the gun sought was a .22 (though it was identified as a pistol, rather than a revolver), and there was even one TV report—which the police quickly broke silence to deny—that pieces of the gun’s grip had been found at the crime scene. The TV station stuck by its information, despite the official denial.

  A .22, with a broken grip. Several times Bernard Weiss got to wondering about that gun his son Steven had found. Could it be the Tate murder weapon?

  But that was ridiculous. After all, the police themselves had the gun, and, had it been the weapon, would surely have returned by now to ask more questions and search the hillside. Since turning the weapon over to them on September 1, Weiss had heard nothing. When there was no follow-up, Steven had taken it on himself to make a search of the area. He’d found nothing. Still, Beverly Glen wasn’t all that far from Cielo Drive, just a couple of miles.

  But Bernard Weiss had better things to do than play detective. That was LAPD’s responsibility.

  On October 17, Lieutenant Helder and Deputy Chief Houghton told reporters that they had evidence which, if it could be traced, might lead to “the killers”—plural—of Sharon Tate and the four others. They refused to be more specific.

  The press conference had been called in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure on LAPD. No solid information was released, but a number of current rumors were denied.

  Less than a week later, on October 23, LAPD very hastily called another press conference, to announce that they had a clue to the identity of “the killer”—singular—of the five Tate victims: a pair of prescription eyeglasses that had been found at the scene.

  The announcement was made only because several papers had that same day already printed the “wanted” flyer on the glasses.

  Approximately 18,000 eye doctors had received the flyer from their various member associations; in addition, it had been printed verbatim in the Optometric Weekly and the Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Monthly, which had a combined national circulation of over 29,000. What was surprising was not that the story had leaked, but that it had taken so long for it to do so.

  Starved for solid news, the press heralded “a major breakthrough in the case,” overlooking the obvious fact that the police had had the glasses in their possession since the day the Tate victims were discovered.

  Lieutenant Helder refused comment when a reporter, obviously with excellent connections inside the department, asked if it was true that to date the glasses flyer had yielded only seven suspects, all of whom had already been eliminated.

  It was indicative of the desperation of the Tate detectives that the second, and last, Tate progress report, prepared the day before the press conference, stated: “At this time Garretson has not been positively eliminated.”

  The Tate report, covering the period September 1–October 22, 1969, ran to twenty-six pages, most of which were devoted to closing out the cases against Wilson, Pickett, et al.

  The LaBianca report, closed out on October 15, was a little shorter, twenty-two pages, but far more interesting.

  In one section of the report the detectives mentioned their use of the CII computer: “A MO run on all crimes where the victims were tied is presently being run. Future runs will be made concentrating on the peculiarities of the robberies, used gloves, wore glasses or disabled the phone.”

  Robberies. Plural. Wore glasses, disabled the phone. The phone at the LaBianca residence was not disabled, nor was there evidence that a LaBianca assailant wore glasses. These references were to Tate.

  The conclusion is inescapable: The LaBianca detectives had decided—on their own, and without consulting the Tate detectives—to see if they could solve the Tate, as well as the LaBianca, case.

  The second LaBianca report was interesting for still another reason.

  It listed eleven suspects, the last of whom was one MANSON, CHARLES.

  PART 2

  The Killers

  “You couldn’t meet a nicer group of people.”

  LESLIE VAN HOUTEN,

  describing the Manson Family to Sergeant

  Michael McGann

  “At twelve o’clock a meeting round the table

  For a seance in the dark

  With voices out of nowhere

  Put on especially by the children for a lark.”

  T HE BEATLES,

  “Cry Baby Cry,”

  “White Album”

  “You have to have a real love in your heart

  to do this for people.”

  SUSAN ATKINS,

  telling Virginia Graham why

  she stabbed Sharon Tate

  OCTOBER 15–31, 1969

  The physical distance between Parker Center, headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Hall of Justice, which houses the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, is four blocks. That distance can be traversed in the time it takes to dial a telephone.

  But it isn’t always that easy. Though LAPD and LASO cooperate on investigations that involve both jurisdictions, there exists between them a certain amount of jealousy.

  One of the LaBianca detectives would later admit that he and his fellow officers should have checked with LASO homicide detectives in mid-August to see if they had any similar murders. But it wasn’t until October 15, after most of their other leads had evaporated, that they did so.

  When they did, they learned of the Hinman murder. And, unlike Sergeant Buckles of the Tate team, they found the similarities striking enough to merit further investigation.

  There had been some recent developments in the Hinman case, Sergeants Whiteley and Guenther told them. Less than a week before, Inyo County officers had raided isolated Barker Ranch, located in an extremely rugged, almost inaccessible area south of Death Valley National Monument. The raid, based on charges ranging from grand theft to arson, had netted twenty-four members of a hippie cult known as the “Manson Family.” Many of these same people—including their leader, Charles Manson, a thirty-four-year-old ex-con with a long and checkered criminal history—had also been arrested in an earlier raid conducted by LASO, which had occurred on August 16, at Spahn’s Movie Ranch in Chatsworth.

  During the Barker raid, which took place over a three-day period, two young girls had appeared out of the bushes near a road some miles from the ranch, asking the officers for protection. They claimed they had been attempting to flee the “Family” and were afraid for their lives. One was named Stephanie Schram, the other Kitty Lutesinger.

  Whiteley and Guenther had been looking for Kitty Lutesinger ever since learning that she was a girl friend of Bobby Beausoleil, the suspect in the Hinman murder. Informed of her arrest, they drove 225 miles to Independence, the Inyo County seat, to question her.

  Kitty, a freckled, frightened seventeen-year-old, was five months pregnant with Beausoleil’s child. Though she had lived
with the Family, she apparently was not trusted by them. When Beausoleil disappeared from Spahn Ranch in early August, no one would tell her where he had gone. Only after several weeks did she learn that he had been arrested, and, much later, that he had been charged with the murder of Gary Hinman.

  Questioned about the murder, Kitty said she had heard that Manson had sent Beausoleil and a girl named Susan Atkins to Hinman’s home to get money from him. A fight had ensued, and Hinman had been killed. Kitty couldn’t recall who told her this, just that it was the talk at the ranch. She did recall, however, another conversation in which Susan Atkins told her and several other girls that she had been in a fight with a man who had pulled her hair, and that she had stabbed him three or four times in the legs.

  Susan Atkins had been arrested in the Barker raid and booked under the name “Sadie Mae Glutz.” She was still in custody. On October 13, the day after they talked to Kitty, Sergeants Whiteley and Guenther questioned her.

  She told them that she and Bobby Beausoleil were sent to Gary Hinman’s house to get some money he had supposedly inherited. When he wouldn’t give it to them, Beausoleil pulled out a knife and slashed Hinman’s face. For two days and two nights the pair had taken turns sleeping, so Hinman wouldn’t escape. Then, on their last evening at the residence, while she was in the kitchen, she had heard Gary say, “Don’t, Bobby!” Hinman then staggered into the kitchen bleeding from a chest wound.

  Even after this, Hinman didn’t die. After wiping the house of prints (not effectively, since both a palm print and a fingerprint belonging to Beausoleil were found), they were going out the front door when they heard Hinman moaning. Beausoleil went back in, and she heard Gary cry out, “Oh, no, Bobby, please don’t!” She also heard “a sound like gurgling as when people are dying.”

  Beausoleil then hot-wired Hinman’s 1965 Volkswagen bus and they drove back to Spahn Ranch.

  Whiteley and Guenther asked Susan if she would repeat her statement on tape. She declined. She was transported to the San Dimas sheriff’s station, where she was booked for suspicion of murder.

  Susan Atkins’ statement—unlike that of Kitty Lutesinger—did not implicate Manson in the Hinman murder. Nor, contrary to what Kitty had said, did Susan admit to having stabbed anyone. Whiteley and Guenther strongly suspected she was telling only what she thought they already knew.

  Nor were the two LaBianca detectives very impressed. Hinman had been close to the Manson Family; several of its members—including Beausoleil, Atkins, even Manson himself—had lived with him at various times in the past. In short, there was a link. But there was no evidence that Manson or any of his followers knew the LaBiancas or the people at 10050 Cielo Drive.

  Still, it was a lead, and they proceeded to check it out. Kitty had been released into the custody of her parents, who had a local address, and they interviewed her there. From LASO, Inyo County officials, Manson’s parole officer, and others, they began assembling names, descriptions, and fingerprints of persons known to belong to or associate with the Family. Kitty had mentioned that while the Family was still living at Spahn, Manson had tried to enlist a motorcycle gang, the Straight Satans, as his personal bodyguard. With the exception of one biker named Danny, the group had laughed at Manson. Danny had stuck around for several months.

  On learning that the motorcycle gang hung out in Venice, California, the LaBianca detectives asked Venice PD if they could locate a Straight Satan named Danny.

  Something in Kitty Lutesinger’s statement puzzled Whiteley and Guenther. At first they thought it was just a discrepancy. But then they got to wondering. According to Kitty, Susan Atkins had admitted stabbing a man three or four times in the legs.

  Gary Hinman hadn’t been stabbed in the legs.

  But Voytek Frykowski had.

  Although rebuffed once before, on October 20 the sheriff’s deputies again contacted the Tate detectives at LAPD, telling them what they had learned.

  It is possible to measure the Tate detectives’ interest with some exactness. Not until October 31, eleven days later, did they interview Kitty Lutesinger.

  NOVEMBER 1–12, 1969

  November was a month for confessions. Which, initially, no one believed.

  After being booked for the Hinman murder, Susan Denise Atkins, aka* Sadie Mae Glutz, was moved to Sybil Brand Institute, the women’s house of detention in Los Angeles. On November 1, after completing orientation, she was assigned to Dormitory 8000, and given a bunk opposite one Ronnie Howard. Miss Howard, a buxom former call girl who over her thirty-some years had been known by more than a dozen and a half aliases, was at present awaiting trial on a charge of forging a prescription.

  On the same day Susan moved into Dormitory 8000, one Virginia Graham did also. Miss Graham, herself an ex–call girl with a sizable number of aka’s, had been picked up for violating her parole. Although they hadn’t seen each other for five years, Ronnie and Virginia had not only been friends and business associates in the past, going out on “calls” together, but Ronnie had married Virginia’s ex-husband.

  As their work assignments, Susan Atkins and Virginia Graham were given jobs as “runners,” carrying messages for the prison authorities. In the slow periods when there wasn’t much work, they would sit on stools in “control,” the message center, and talk.

  At night, after lights-out, Ronnie Howard and Susan talked also.

  Susan loved to talk. And Ronnie and Virginia proved rapt listeners.

  On November 2, 1969, one Steve Zabriske appeared at the Portland, Oregon, Police Department and told Detective Sergeant Ritchard that a “Charlie” and a “Clem” had committed both the Tate and LaBianca murders.

  He had heard this, the nineteen-year-old Zabriske said, from Ed Bailey and Vern Plumlee, two hippie types from California whom he had met in Portland. Zabriske also told Ritchard that Charlie and Clem were at present in custody in Los Angeles on another charge, grand theft auto.

  Bailey had told him something else, Zabriske said: that he had personally seen Charlie shoot a man in the head with a .45 caliber automatic. This had occurred in Death Valley.

  Sergeant Ritchard asked Zabriske if he could prove any of this. Zabriske admitted he couldn’t. However, his brother-in-law, Michael Lloyd Carter, had also been present during the conversations, and would back him up if Sergeant Ritchard wanted to talk to him.

  Sergeant Ritchard didn’t. Since Zabriske “did not have last names nor did he have anything concrete to establish that he was telling the truth,” Sergeant Ritchard, according to the official report, “did not place any credence on this interview and did not notify the Los Angeles Police Department…”

  The girls in Dormitory 8000 called Sadie Mae Glutz—as Susan Atkins insisted on being known—“Crazy Sadie.” It wasn’t just that ridiculous name. She was much too happy, considering where she was. She would laugh and sing at inappropriate times. Without warning, she would stop whatever she happened to be doing and start go-go dancing. She did her exercises sans underpants. She bragged that she had done everything sexual that could be done, and on more than one occasion propositioned other inmates.

  Virginia Graham thought she was sort of a “little girl lost,” putting on a big act so no one would know how frightened she really was.

  One day while they were sitting in the message center, Virginia asked her, “What are you in for?”

  “First degree murder,” Susan matter-of-factly replied.

  Virginia couldn’t believe it; Susan looked so young.

  In this particular conversation, which apparently took place on November 3, Susan said little about the murder itself, only that she felt a co-defendant, a boy who was being held in the County Jail, had squealed on her. In questioning Susan, Whiteley and Guenther hadn’t told her that it was Kitty Lutesinger who had implicated her, and she presumed the snitch was Bobby Beausoleil.

  The next day Susan told Virginia that the man she was accused of killing was named Gary Hinman. She said that she, Bobby, and another gir
l were involved. The other girl hadn’t been charged with the murder, she said, though she had been in Sybil Brand not too long ago on another charge; right now she was out on bail and had gone to Wisconsin to get her baby.*

  Virginia asked her, “Well, did you do it?”

  Susan looked at her and smiled and said, “Sure.” Just like that.

  Only the police had it wrong, she said. They had her holding the man while the boy stabbed him, which was silly, because she couldn’t hold a big man like that. It was the other way round; the boy held him and she had stabbed him, four or five times.

  What stunned Virginia, she would later say, was that Susan described it “just like it was a perfectly natural thing to do every day of the week.”

  Susan’s conversations were not limited to murder. Subjects ranged from psychic phenomena to her experiences as a topless dancer in San Francisco. It was while there, she told Virginia, that she met “a man, this Charlie.” He was the strongest man alive. He had been in prison but had never been broken. Susan said she followed his orders without question—they all did, all the kids who lived with him. He was their father, their leader, their love.

  It was Charlie, she said, who had given her the name Sadie Mae Glutz.

  Virginia remarked that she didn’t consider that much of a favor.

  Charlie was going to lead them to the desert, Susan said. There was a hole in Death Valley, only Charlie knew where it was, but deep down inside, in the center of the earth, there was a whole civilization. And Charlie was going to take the “family,” the chosen few, and they were going to go to this bottomless pit and live there.