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

  From the apartment house Clem, Sadie, and Linda walked to the beach, a short distance away. Clem wanted to ditch the gun. He disappeared from sight behind a sandpile, near a fence. Linda presumed that he had either buried the gun or tossed it over the fence.

  Walking back to the Pacific Coast Highway, they hitched a ride to the entrance of Topanga Canyon. There was a hippie crash pad nearby, next door to the Malibu Feedbin, and Sadie said she knew a girl who was staying there. Linda recalled there was also an older man there, and a big dog. The three stayed about an hour, smoking some weed, then left.

  They then hitched two rides, the last taking them all the way to the entrance of Santa Susana Pass Road, where Clem and Linda got out. Sadie, Linda learned the next day, remained in the car until it reached the waterfall area.

  When Linda and Clem arrived at the ranch, Tex and Leslie were already there, asleep in one of the rooms. She didn’t see Katie, though she learned the next day that, like Sadie, she had gone on to the camp by the waterfall. Linda went to bed in the saloon.

  Two days later Linda Kasabian fled Spahn Ranch. The manner of her departure, however, would cause the prosecution a great deal of concern.

  Rather than taking Linda directly to the LaBianca residence, I had the sheriff’s deputy drive to the Los Feliz area, to see if Linda could find the house itself. She did, pointing out both the LaBianca and True houses, the place where they had parked, the driveway up which Manson had walked, and so on.

  I also wanted to find the two houses in Pasadena where Manson had stopped earlier that night, but, though we spent hours looking for them, we were, at this time, unsuccessful. Linda did find the apartment house where the actor had lived, 1101 Ocean Front Walk, and pointed out both his apartment, 501, and the door on which she had knocked, 403. I asked Patchett and Gutierrez to locate and interview both the actor and the man who had been living in 403.

  Linda also showed us the sandpile near the fence where she believed Clem had disposed of the gun, but though we got out shovels and dug up the area, we were unable to locate the weapon. It was possible that someone had already found it, or that Clem or one of the other Family members had reclaimed it later. We never did learn what type of gun it was.

  Having been out since early in the morning, we stopped at a Chinese restaurant for lunch. That afternoon we returned to Pasadena and must have driven past forty churches before Linda found the one where Manson had stopped. I asked LAPD to photograph it and the adjoining parking lot as a trial exhibit.

  Linda also identified the Standard station in Sylmar where she’d left the wallet, as well as the Denny’s Restaurant next door.

  Despite all our security precautions, we were spotted. The next day the Herald Examiner reported: “In addition to winning immunity, Mrs. Kasabian was given a ‘bonus’ in the form of a Chinese dinner at Madam Wu’s Garden Restaurant in Santa Monica. Restaurant employees confirmed Mrs. Kasabian, defense attorney Fleischman and prosecutor Bugliosi ate there Sunday.”

  The paper neglected to mention that our party included a half dozen LAPD officers and two LASO deputies.

  We took Linda out twice more, trying to find the two houses in Pasadena. On both occasions we were accompanied by South Pasadena PD officers who directed us to neighborhoods similar to those Linda had described. We finally found the large house atop the hill. Though I had it and the adjoining houses photographed—they were close together, as Manson had said—I decided against talking to the owners, sure they would sleep better not knowing how close to death they had come. We were never able to locate the first house—which both Susan and Linda had described—where Manson looked in the window and saw the photographs of the children.

  We did grant Linda one special privilege, which might have been called a “bonus.” On the three occasions we took her out of Sybil Brand, we let her call her mother in New Hampshire and talk to her two children. Her attorney paid for the calls. Though Angel was only a month old and much too young to understand, just speaking to them obviously meant a great deal to Linda.

  Yet she never asked to do this. She never asked for anything. She told me not once but several times that although she was pleased to be getting immunity, because it meant that eventually she could be with her children, it didn’t matter that much if she didn’t get it. There was a sort of sad fatalism about her. She said she knew she had to tell the truth about what had happened, and that she had known she would be the one to tell the story ever since the murders occurred. Unlike the other defendants, she seemed burdened with guilt, though, again unlike them, she hadn’t physically harmed anyone. She was a strange girl, marked by her time with Manson, yet not molded by him in the same way the others were. Because she was compliant, easily led, Manson apparently had had little trouble controlling her. Up to a point. But she had refused to cross that point. “I’m not you, Charlie. I can’t kill anybody.”

  Once I asked her what she thought about Manson now. She was still in love with him, Linda said. “Some things he said were the truth,” she observed thoughtfully. “Only now I realize he could take a truth and make a lie of it.”

  Shortly after the story broke that Linda Kasabian would testify for the prosecution, Al Wiman, the reporter with the Channel 7 crew which had found the clothing, showed up in my office. If Kasabian was cooperating with us, then she must have indicated where she threw the knives, Wiman surmised. He begged me to pinpoint the area; his station, he promised, would supply a search crew, metal detectors, everything.

  “Look, Al,” I told him, “you guys have already found the clothing. How is it going to look at the trial if you find the knives too? Tell you what. I’m trying to get someone out. If they won’t go, then I’ll tell you.”

  After Wiman left, I called McGann. Two weeks had passed since I’d asked him to look for the knives; he still hadn’t done it. My patience at an end, I called Lieutenant Helder and told him about Wiman’s offer. “Think how LAPD is going to look if it comes out during the trial that a ten-year-old boy found the gun and Channel 7 found both the clothing and the knives.”

  Bob had a crew out the next day. No luck. But at least during the trial we’d be prepared to prove that they had looked. Otherwise, the defense could contend that LAPD was so skeptical of Linda Kasabian’s story that they hadn’t even bothered to mount a search.

  That they’d failed to find the knives was a disappointment, but not too much of a surprise. Over seven months had passed since the night Linda tossed the knives out of the car. According to her testimony, one had bounced back into the road, while the other had landed in the bushes nearby. The street, though in the country, was much traveled. It was quite possible they had been picked up by a motorist or passing cyclist.

  I had no idea how often the police had interviewed Winifred Chapman, the Polanskis’ maid. I’d talked to her a number of times myself before I realized there was one question so obvious we’d all overlooked it.

  Mrs. Chapman had stated that she washed the front door of the Tate residence just after noon on Friday, August 8. This meant Charles Watson had to have left his print there sometime after this.

  However, there was a second print found at the Tate residence, Patricia Krenwinkel’s, located inside the door that led from Sharon Tate’s bedroom to the pool.

  I asked Mrs. Chapman: “Did you ever wash that door?” Yes. How often? A couple of times a week. She had to, she explained, because the guests usually used that door to get to the pool.

  The big question: “Did you wash it the week of the murders, and, if so, when?”

  A. “Tuesday was the last time. I washed it down, inside and out, with vinegar and water.”

  Under discovery, I was only required to make a note of the conversation and put it in our tubs. However, in fairness to both Fitzgerald and his client, I called Paul and told him, “If you’re planning on having Krenwinkel testify that she went swimming at the Tate residence a couple of weeks before the murders and left her print at that time, better forget it. Mrs. Cha
pman is going to testify she washed that door on Tuesday, August 5.”

  Paul was grateful for the information. Had he based his defense on this premise, Mrs. Chapman’s testimony could have been devastating.

  There was, in such conversations, something assumed though unstated. Whatever his public posture, I was sure that Fitzgerald knew that his client was guilty, and he knew that I knew it. Though only on rare occasions does a defense attorney slip up and admit this in court, when it comes to in-chambers discussions and private conversations, it’s often something else.

  There were two items of evidence in our files which I did not point out to the defense. I was sure they had already seen them—both were among the items photocopied for them—but I was hoping they wouldn’t realize their importance.

  One was a traffic ticket, the other an arrest report. Separately each seemed unimportant. Together they made a bomb that would demolish Manson’s alibi defense.

  On first learning from Fowles that Manson might claim that he was not in the Los Angeles area at the time of the murders, I had asked LaBianca detectives Patchett and Gutierrez to see if they could obtain evidence proving his actual whereabouts on the subject dates. They did an excellent job. Together with information obtained from credit card transactions and interviews, they were able to piece together a timetable of Manson’s activities during the week preceding the start of Helter Skelter.

  On about August 1, 1969, Manson told several Family members that he was going to Big Sur to seek out new recruits.

  He apparently left on the morning of Sunday, August 3, as sometime between seven and eight he purchased gas at a station in Canoga Park, using a stolen credit card. From Canoga Park, he headed north toward Big Sur. At about four the next morning, he picked up a young girl, Stephanie Schram, outside a service station some distance south of Big Sur, probably at Gorda. An attractive seventeen-year-old, Stephanie was hitchhiking from San Francisco to San Diego, where she was living with her married sister. Manson and Stephanie camped in a nearby canyon that night—probably Salmon or Limekiln Creek, both hippie hangouts—Manson telling her his views on life, love, and death. Manson talked a lot about death, Stephanie would recall, and it frightened her. They took LSD and had sex. Manson was apparently unusually smitten with Stephanie. Usually he’d have sex with a new girl a few times, then move on to a new “young love.” Not so with Stephanie. He later told Paul Watkins that Stephanie, who was of German extraction, was the result of two thousand years of perfect breeding.

  On August 4, Manson, still using the stolen credit card, purchased gas at Lucia. Ripping off the place, which bore a large sign reading “Hippies Not Allowed,” must have given him a special satisfaction, as he did it again the next day.

  On the night of the fifth Manson and Stephanie drove north to a place whose name Stephanie couldn’t recall but which Manson described as a “sensitivity camp.” It was, he told her, a place where rich people went on weekends to play at being enlightened. He was obviously describing Esalen Institute.

  Esalen was, at this time, just coming into vogue as a “growth center,” its seminars including such diverse figures as yogis and psychiatrists, salvationists and satanists. Obviously Manson felt Esalen a prime place to espouse his philosophies. It is unknown whether he had been there on prior occasions, those involved in the Institute refusing to even acknowledge his visits there.*

  Manson took his guitar and left Stephanie in the van. After a time she fell asleep. When she awakened the next morning, Manson had already returned. He was in less than a good mood, as, later that day, he unexpectedly struck her. Still later, at Barker Ranch, Manson would tell Paul Watkins—to quote Watkins—that while at Big Sur he had gone “to Esalen and played his guitar for a bunch of people who were supposed to be the top people there, and they rejected his music. Some people pretended that they were asleep, and other people were saying, ‘This is too heavy for me,’ and ‘I’m not ready for that,’ and others were saying, ‘Well, I don’t understand it,’ and some just got up and walked out.”

  Still another rejection by what Manson considered the establishment—this occurring just three days before the Tate murders.

  With his single recruit, Manson left Big Sur on August 6, making gas purchases that same day at San Luis Obispo and Chatsworth, a few miles from Spahn Ranch. According to Stephanie, they had dinner at the ranch that night and she met the Family for the first time. She felt uncomfortable with them, and, learning that Manson shared his favors with the other girls, told him she would stay only if he would promise to remain with her, and her alone, for two weeks. Surprisingly, Manson agreed. They spent that night in the van, parked not far from the ranch, then drove to San Diego the next day to pick up Stephanie’s clothes.

  En route, about ten miles south of Oceanside on Interstate 5, they were stopped by California Highway Patrol officer Richard C. Willis. Though pulled over for a mechanical violation, Manson was cited only for having no valid driver’s license in his possession. Manson gave his correct name and the ranch address, and signed the ticket himself. Officer Willis noted on the ticket that Manson was driving a “1952 cream-colored Ford bakery van, license number K70683.” The date was Thursday, August 7, 1969; the time 6:15 P.M.

  The ticket, which Patchett and Gutierrez found, proved Manson was in Southern California the day before the Tate murders.

  While Stephanie was getting her clothes together, Manson talked to her sister, who was also a Beatles fan. She had the White Album, and Manson told her the Beatles had laid out “the whole scene” in it. He warned her that the blacks were getting ready to overthrow the whites and that only those who fled to the desert and hid in the bottomless pit would be safe. As for those who remained in the cities, Manson said, “People are going to be slaughtered, they’ll be lying on their lawns dead.”

  Just a little over twenty-four hours later, his prediction would be fulfilled, in all its gory detail, at 10050 Cielo Drive. With a little help from his friends.

  That night, according to Stephanie, she and Charlie parked somewhere in San Diego and slept next to the van, returning to Spahn Ranch the following day, arriving there about two in the afternoon.

  Stephanie was a bit vague when it came to dates. She “thought” the day they returned to Spahn Ranch was Friday, August 8, but she wasn’t sure. I anticipated that the defense would make the most of this, but I wasn’t concerned, because that second piece of evidence conclusively placed Manson back at the ranch on Friday, August 8, 1969.

  According to Linda Kasabian, on the afternoon of August 8 Manson gave Mary Brunner and Sandra Good a credit card and told them to purchase some items for him. At four that afternoon the two girls were apprehended while driving away from a Sears store in San Fernando, after store employees checked and found the credit card was stolen. The San Fernando PD arrest report stated that they were driving a “van 1952 Ford license K70683.”

  Because of the fine job of digging by the LaBianca detectives, we now had physical proof that Manson was back at Spahn Ranch on Friday, August 8, 1969.

  Though both the traffic ticket and arrest report were in the discovery materials, so were hundreds of other documents. I was hoping that the defense would overlook their common denominator: that vehicle description with its telltale license number.

  If Manson went with an alibi defense, and I proved that alibi was fabricated, this would be strong circumstantial evidence of his guilt.

  There was, of course, other evidence placing Manson at Spahn Ranch that day. In addition to the testimony of Schram, DeCarlo, and others, Linda Kasabian said that when the Family got together that afternoon, Manson discussed his visit to Big Sur, saying that the people there were “really not together, they were just off on their little trips” and that “the people wouldn’t go on his trip.”

  It was just after this that Manson told them: “Now is the time for Helter Skelter.”

  Bits and pieces, often largely circumstantial. Yet patiently dug out and assembled, they b
ecame the People’s case. And with almost every interview it became a little stronger.

  I spent many hours interviewing Stephanie Schram, who, together with Kitty Lutesinger, had fled Barker Ranch just hours before the October 1969 raid, shotgun-wielding Clem in close pursuit. I often wondered what would have happened to the two girls had the raid been timed just a day later or Clem been a little faster.

  Unlike Kitty, Stephanie had severed all contact with the Family. Though we had kept her current address from the defense, Squeaky and Gypsy found her working at a dog-grooming school. “Charlie wants you to come back,” they told her. Stephanie replied, “No thanks.” Considering what she knew, her forthright refusal was a brave act.

  From Stephanie I learned that while at Barker Manson had conducted a “murder school.” He had given a Buck knife to each of the girls, and had demonstrated how they should “slit the throats of pigs,” by yanking the head back by the hair and drawing the knife from ear to ear (using Stephanie as a very frightened model). He also said they should “stab them in either their ears or eyes and then wiggle the knife around to get as many vital organs as possible.” The details became even gorier: Manson said that if the police pigs came to the desert, they should kill them, cut them in little pieces, boil the heads, then put the skulls and uniforms on posts, to frighten off others.*

  Stephanie had told LAPD that Manson had spent the nights of Friday, August 8, and Saturday, August 9, with her. On questioning her, I learned that about an hour after dinner on August 8, Manson took her to the trailer at Spahn and told her to go to sleep, that he would join her soon. However, she didn’t see him again until shortly before dawn the next morning, at which time he awakened her and took her with him to Devil’s Canyon, the camp across the road from the ranch.

  That night—August 9—Stephanie said, “when it got dark, he left and he came back either sometime during the night or early in the morning.”