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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  DECEMBER 1, 1969

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The reporters ran for the phones.

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

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

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

  DECEMBER 2, 1969

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

  A somewhat different decision had been reached in Texas.

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

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

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

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

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

  “Little cooperation” would be a gross exaggeration.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Although very frightened, Barbara agreed to cooperate with us.

  That cooperation would nearly cost her life.

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

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

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

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

  The Family had been born.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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