Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders Page 15

  Fearing he would be next, Danny had taken his truck and split to Venice. Late one night Clem and Bruce Davis, another of Charlie’s boys, had snuck up on the truck. They had succeeded in prying open the door when Danny heard them and grabbed his .45. Danny felt sure, Springer said, that they had come “to off him.” And he was scared now, not only for himself but because his little boy was living with him. Springer thought Danny was frightened enough to talk to them. Talking to the Venice detectives would be no problem, since “he’s known them most of his life,” but getting him to come down to Parker Center was something else. Springer, however, promised he’d try to get Danny to come in voluntarily, if possible the next day.

  Springer didn’t have a phone. The detectives asked if there was somewhere they could call “without putting any heat on you? Is there some gal you see quite a bit of?”

  A. “Just my wife and kids.”

  The clean, neat, monogamous Springer didn’t conform to their stereotype of a biker. As one of the detectives remarked, “You’re going to give the motorcycle gang a whole new image in the world.”

  Although Al Springer appeared to be telling the truth, the detectives were not greatly impressed with his story. He was an outsider, not a member of the Family, yet the very first time he goes to Spahn Ranch, Manson confesses to him that he’s committed at least nine murders. It just didn’t make sense. It appeared far more likely that Springer was just regurgitating what Danny DeCarlo, who had been close to Manson, had told him. It was also possible that Manson, to impress the cyclists, had bragged about committing murders in which he wasn’t even involved.

  McGann, of the Tate team, was so unimpressed that later he wouldn’t even be able to recall having heard of Springer, much less talking to him.

  Although the interview had been taped, the LaBianca detectives had only one portion transcribed, and that not the section on their case, but the part, less than a page in length, with Manson’s alleged confession, “We knocked off five of them just the other night.” The LaBianca detectives then filed the tape and that single page in their “tubs,” as police case files are known. With other developments in the case, they apparently forgot them.

  Yet the Springer interview of November 12, 1969, was in a sense an important turning point. Three months after the Tate-LaBianca homicides, LAPD was finally seriously considering the possibility that the two crimes were not, as had long been believed, unrelated. And the focus of at least the LaBianca investigation was now on a single group of suspects, Charlie Manson and his Family. It appears almost certain that had the LaBianca detectives continued to pursue the Lutesinger-Springer-DeCarlo lead they would eventually—even if uninformed of Susan Atkins’ confessions—have found the killers of Steven Parent, Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Jay Sebring, Sharon Tate, and Rosemary and Leno LaBianca.

  In the meantime, two people—one at Sybil Brand, the other at Corona—were each, independent of the other, trying to tell someone what they knew about the killings. And having no luck.

  There is some confusion as to exactly when Susan Atkins first discussed the Tate-LaBianca murders with Ronnie Howard. Whatever the date, there was a similarity in the way it came about, Susan first admitting her participation in the murder of Hinman, then, in her little-girl manner, attempting to surprise Ronnie with other, more startling revelations.

  According to Ronnie, one evening Susan came over, sat down on her bed, and started rapping about her experiences. Susan said that she had “dropped acid” (taken LSD) many times, in fact she had done everything there was to do; there was nothing left; she’d reached a stage where nothing shocked her any more.

  Ronnie replied that there wasn’t much that would shock her, either. Since age seventeen, when she’d been sent to a federal penitentiary for two years for extortion, Ronnie had seen quite a lot.

  “I bet I could tell you something that would really blow your mind,” Susan said.

  “I don’t think so,” Ronnie responded.

  “You remember the Tate deal?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was there. We did it.”

  “Really, anyone can say that.”

  “No, I’ll tell you.” And tell her Susan Atkins did.

  Susan would flash from one thought to another with such rapidity that Ronnie was often left confused. Too, Ronnie’s recollection of details—especially names, dates, places—was not as good as Virginia’s. Later she would be unsure, for example, exactly how many persons were involved: at one time she thought Susan said five—herself, two other girls, Charlie, and a guy who stayed in the car; another time it was four, with no mention of the man in the car. She knew a girl named Katie was involved in a murder, but which murder—Hinman, Tate, or LaBianca—Ronnie wasn’t sure. But she also recalled details Susan either hadn’t told Virginia or Virginia had forgotten. Charlie had a gun; the girls all had knives. Charlie had cut the telephone wires, shot the boy in the car, then awakened the man on the couch (Frykowski), who looked up to see a gun pointing in his face.

  Sharon Tate’s plea and Susan’s brutal response were nearly identical in both Ronnie’s and Virginia’s accounts. However, the description of how Sharon died differed somewhat. As Ronnie understood it, two other people held Sharon while, to quote Susan, “I proceeded to stab her.”

  “It felt so good the first time I stabbed her, and when she screamed at me it did something to me, sent a rush through me, and I stabbed her again.”

  Ronnie asked where. Susan replied in the chest, not the stomach.

  “How many times?”

  “I don’t remember. I just kept stabbing her until she stopped screaming.”

  Ronnie knew a little bit about the subject, having once stabbed her ex-husband. “Did it feel sort of like a pillow?”

  “Yeah,” Susan replied, pleased that Ronnie understood. “It was just like going into nothing, going into air.” But the killing itself was something else. “It’s like a sexual release,” Susan told her. “Especially when you see the blood spurting out. It’s better than a climax.”

  Remembering Virginia’s question, Ronnie asked Susan about the word “pig.” Susan said that she printed the word on the door, after first dipping a towel in Sharon Tate’s blood.

  At one point in the conversation Susan asked, “Don’t you remember that guy that was found with the fork in his stomach? We wrote ‘arise’ and ‘death to pigs’ and ‘helter skelter’ in blood.”

  “Was that you and your same friends?” Ronnie asked.

  “No, just three this time.”

  “All girls?”

  “No, two girls and Charlie. Linda wasn’t in on this one.”

  Susan rapped on about a variety of subjects: Manson (he was both Jesus Christ and the Devil); helter skelter (Ronnie admittedly didn’t understand it but thought it meant “you have to be killed to live”); sex (“the whole world is like one big intercourse—everything is in and out—smoking, eating, stabbing”); how she would play crazy to fool the psychiatrists (“All you have to do is act normal,” Ronnie advised her); children (Charlie had helped deliver her baby, whom she had named Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz; within a couple of months after his birth she had begun fellating him); bikers (with the motorcycle gangs on their side, they “would really throw some fear into the world”); and murder. Susan loved to talk about murder. “More you do it, the better you like it.” Just the mention of it seemed to excite her. Laughingly, she told Ronnie about some man whose head “we cut off,” either out in the desert or in one of the canyons.

  She also told Ronnie, “There are eleven murders that they will never solve.” And there were going to be more, many more. Although Charlie was in jail “in Indio,” most of the Family was still free.

  As Susan talked, Ronnie Howard realized that there were still some things that could shock her. One was that this little girl, who was twenty-one but often seemed much younger, probably had committed all these murders. Another was Susan’s assertion that this was only the beginning, that mo
re murders would follow.

  Ronnie Howard would later state: “I’d never informed on anyone in the past, but this one thing I could not go along with. I kept thinking that if I didn’t say anything these people would probably be set free. They were going to pick other houses, just at random. I just couldn’t see all those innocent people being killed. It could have been my house next time or yours or anyone’s.”

  Ronnie decided she “just had to tell the police.”

  It would seem that if one were in jail, talking to a policeman would be relatively easy. Ronnie Howard discovered otherwise.

  The dates, again, are vague, but, according to Ronnie, she told +Sergeant Broom,* one of the female deputies at Sybil Brand, that she knew who had committed the Tate and LaBianca murders; that the person who told her had been involved and was now in custody; but that the other killers were on the loose and unless they were apprehended soon there would be more murders. Ronnie wanted permission to call LAPD.

  Sergeant Broom said she would pass the request to her superior, +Lieutenant Johns.

  After waiting three days and hearing nothing, Ronnie asked Seargeant Broom about the request. Lieutenant Johns didn’t think there was anything to the story, the sergeant told her. By this time the lieutenant had probably forgotten all about it, Sergeant Broom said, adding, “Why don’t you do the same thing, Ronnie?”

  By now, according to Ronnie, she was literally begging. People were going to die unless she warned the police in time. Could you call for me? Ronnie asked. Please!

  It was against the rules for a guard to make a call for an inmate, Sergeant Broom informed her.

  On Thursday, November 13, biker Danny DeCarlo came down to Parker Center, where he was interviewed by the LaBianca detectives. It was not a long interview, and it was not taped. Although DeCarlo had a great deal of information about the activities of Manson and his group, having lived with them for more than five months, at no time had Charlie admitted to him that he was involved in either the Tate or the LaBianca murders.

  This made the officers even more skeptical about Springer’s tale, and it was probably at this point that they decided to write him off as a reliable source. When Springer came back the following week, he was given some photos to identify but was asked few questions.

  Arrangements were made to interview DeCarlo on tape, and at length, on Monday, November 17. He was to come in about 8:30 in the morning.

  Ronnie Howard kept after Sergeant Broom, who finally mentioned the subject to Lieutenant Johns a second time. The lieutenant suggested that she ask Ronnie for some details.

  Sergeant Broom did, and Ronnie—still without identifying the people involved—told her a little of what she had learned. The killers knew Terry Melcher. They had shot the boy, Steven Parent, first, four times, because he saw them. Sharon Tate had been the last to die. The word “pig” had been written in her blood. They were going to cut out Sharon’s baby, but didn’t. Again she stressed that more killings were planned.

  Sergeant Broom apparently misunderstood Ronnie, for she told Lieutenant Johns that they had cut out the baby. And Lieutenant Johns knew this wasn’t true.

  Your informant is lying, Sergeant Broom informed Ronnie, and told her why.

  Ronnie, now almost hysterical, told Sergeant Broom that she had misunderstood what she’d said. Could she talk to Lieutenant Johns herself?

  But Sergeant Broom decided that she had already bothered the lieutenant enough. As far as she was concerned, she informed Ronnie, the matter was closed.

  There was an irony here, although Ronnie Howard was unaware of it, and wouldn’t have appreciated it had she known: Sergeant Broom dated one of the Tate detectives. But apparently they had other, more important things to talk about.

  Virginia Graham was having her own troubles with bureaucracy. Although, unlike Ronnie Howard, she was not yet completely convinced that Susan Atkins was telling the truth, the possibility that there might be more murders worried her too. On November 14, two days after her transfer to Corona, she decided she had to tell someone what she had heard. There was one person at the prison she knew and trusted, Dr. Vera Dreiser, a staff psychologist.

  In order for an inmate to talk to a staff member at Corona, it is necessary to fill out a “blue slip,” or request form. Virginia made one out, writing on it, “Dr. Dreiser, it is very important that I speak with you.”

  The form was returned with a notation stating that Miss Graham should fill out another blue slip, to see Dr. Owens, administrator of the unit to which she was assigned. But Virginia didn’t want to speak to Dr. Owens. Again she requested a personal interview with Dr. Dreiser.

  The request was granted. But not until December. And by then the whole world knew what Virginia Graham had wanted to tell Dr. Dreiser.

  NOVEMBER 17, 1969

  Danny DeCarlo was due at LAPD Homicide at 8:30 that Monday morning. He didn’t show. The detectives called his home first, getting no answer, then his mother’s number. No, she hadn’t seen Danny, and she was a little worried. Danny was supposed to leave his son with her, so she could baby-sit while he went down to LAPD, but hadn’t even called.

  It was possible DeCarlo had skipped. He had been very frightened when the detectives talked to him the previous Thursday.

  There was another possibility, one that they didn’t want to think about.

  That same day Ronnie Howard had a court appearance in Santa Monica, on the forgery charge. When inmates of Sybil Brand are due in court, they are first transported to the men’s jail on Bouchet Street, where a bus picks them up and delivers them to the assigned departments. Before the arrival of the bus, there are usually a few minutes during which each girl is permitted to make one call from a pay phone.

  Ronnie saw her chance and got in line. However, time began running out and there were still two girls ahead of her. She paid each fifty cents to let her call first.

  Ronnie called the Beverly Hills Police Department and asked to speak to a homicide detective. When one came on the line, she gave him her name and booking number, and told him she knew who had committed the Tate and LaBianca murders. The officer said those cases were being handled by the Hollywood Division of LAPD, and suggested she call there.

  Ronnie then called Hollywood PD, giving a second homicide officer the same information. He wanted to send someone over immediately, but she told him she would be in court the rest of the day.

  She hung up, however, before the officer could ask which court she would be in.

  All day in court Ronnie Howard had the feeling that she was being watched. She was sure that two men, sitting in the back of the courtroom, were homicide detectives, and expected at any minute they would arrange to speak to her. But they never did. When court adjourned, she was taken by bus back to Sybil Brand, Dormitory 8000, and Susan Atkins.

  Shortly before 5 P.M., Danny DeCarlo arrived at LAPD Homicide. He had been on his way downtown earlier when he noticed he was low on gas and had pulled into a service station. On leaving, he had made an illegal turn, had been spotted by a black-and-white, and, after the officers checked and found he had some outstanding traffic tickets, had been hauled in. It had taken all day to secure his release.

  Unlike Al Springer, Danny DeCarlo looked, talked, and acted like a biker. He was short, five feet four, weighed 130 pounds, had a handlebar mustache, tattoos on both arms, and burn scars on one arm and both legs from motorcycle pile-ups. Wary, frequently glancing back over his shoulder as if expecting to find someone there, he spoke in a colorful jargon that the interviewing officers—Nielsen, Gutierrez, and McGann—unconsciously adopted. Now twenty-five, he had been born in Toronto, then given U.S. citizenship after serving four years in the Coast Guard, his job: weapons expert. Currently he was in business with his father, selling firearms. When it came to the guns at Spahn Ranch, the detectives couldn’t have found a better source. When he wasn’t getting drunk and chasing girls—which he admitted occupied most of his time—he looked after the weapons. He not onl
y cleaned and repaired them, he slept in the gunroom where they were kept. When a weapon was taken out, Danny knew about it.

  He also knew a great deal about Spahn’s Movie Ranch, which was located in Chatsworth, not more than twenty miles from downtown Beverly Hills, yet, seemingly, a world away. Once William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Johnny Mack Brown, and Wallace Beery had made movies here; it was said that Howard Hughes had come to Spahn, to oversee personally the filming of portions of The Outlaw; and the rolling hills behind the main buildings provided settings for Duel in the Sun. Now, except for an occasional Marlboro commercial or a “Bonanza” episode, the main business was renting horses to weekend riders. The movies sets—Longhorn Saloon, Rock City Cafe, Undertaking Parlor, Jail—which fronted on Santa Susana Pass Road, were old now, run down, as was George Spahn, the eighty-one-year-old, near blind owner of the ranch. For years Ruby Pearl, a onetime circus bareback rider turned horse wrangler, had run the riding stable part of the business for George: getting hay, hiring and firing cowboys, making sure they looked after the horses and stable and kept their hands off the too young girls who came for riding lessons. Almost sightless, George depended on Ruby, but at the end of the day she went home to a husband and another life.

  Over the years George had sired ten children, each of whom he had named after a favorite horse. He could recall in detail the namesakes but was less clear about the kids. All lived elsewhere, and only a few visited him with any regularity. When the Manson Family arrived, in August 1968, George was living alone in a filthy trailer, feeling old, lonely, and neglected.

  This was long before Danny DeCarlo became involved with the Family, but he had often heard the tale from those who were there.

  Manson, who originally asked Spahn’s permission to stay for a few days, but neglected to mention that there were twenty-five to thirty people with him, assigned Squeaky to look after George.