FILM STAR, 4 OTHERS

DEAD IN BLOOD ORGY

Sharon Tate Victim

In “Ritual” Murders

The headlines dominated the front pages of the afternoon papers, became the big news on radio and TV. The bizarre nature of the crime, the number of victims, and their prominence—a beautiful movie star, the heiress to a coffee fortune, her jet-set playboy paramour, an internationally known hair stylist—would combine to make this probably the most publicized murder case in history, excepting only the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Even the staid New York Times, which rarely reports crime on its front page, did so the next day, and many days thereafter.

The accounts that day and the next were notable for the unusual amount of detail they contained. So much information had been given out, in fact, that the detectives would have difficulty finding “polygraph keys” for questioning suspects.

In any homicide, it is standard practice to withhold certain information which presumably only the police and the killer(s) know. If a suspect confesses, or agrees to a polygraph examination, these keys can then be used to determine if he is telling the truth.

Owing to the many leaks, the detectives assigned to the “Tate case,” as the press was already calling the murders, could only come up with five: (1) That the knife used was probably a bayonet. (2) That the gun was probably a .22 caliber revolver. (3) The exact dimensions of the rope, as well as the way it was looped and tied. And (4) and (5), that a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a Buck knife had been found.

The amount of information unofficially released so bothered LAPD brass that a tight lid was clamped on further disclosures. This didn’t please the reporters; also, lacking hard news, many turned to conjecture and speculation. In the days that followed a monumental amount of false information was published. It was widely reported, for example, that Sharon Tate’s unborn child had been ripped from her womb; that one or both of her breasts had been slashed off; that several of the victims had been sexually mutilated. The towel over Sebring’s face became a white hood (KKK?) or a black hood (satanists?), depending on which paper or magazine you read.

When it came to the man charged with the murders, however, there was a paucity of information. It was presumed, initially, that the police were maintaining silence to protect Garretson’s rights. It was also presumed that LAPD had to have a strong case against him or they wouldn’t have arrested him.

A Pasadena paper, picking up bits and pieces of information, sought to fill the gap. It stated that when the officers found Garretson, he asked, “When are the detectives going to see me?” The implication was obvious: Garretson knew what had happened. Garretson did ask this, but it was as he was being taken through the gate, long after his arrest, and the question was in response to an earlier comment by DeRosa. Quoting unidentified policemen, the paper also noted: “They said the slender youth had a rip in one knee of his pants and his living quarters in the guest cottage showed signs of a struggle.” Damning evidence, unless one were aware that all this happened during, not before, Garretson’s arrest.

D uring the first few days a total of forty-three officers would visit the crime scene, looking for weapons and other evidence. In searching the loft above the living room, Sergeant Mike McGann found a film can containing a roll of video-tape. Sergeant Ed Henderson took it to the Police Academy, which had screening facilities. The film showed Sharon and Roman Polanski making love. With a certain delicacy, the tape was not booked into evidence but was returned to the loft where it had been found.[5]

I n addition to searching the premises, detectives interviewed neighbors, asking if they had seen any strange people in the area.

Ray Asin recalled that two or three months before there had been a large party at 10050 Cielo Drive, the guests arriving in “hippie garb.” He got the impression, however, that they weren’t actually hippies, as most arrived in Rolls-Royces and Cadillacs.

Emmett Steele, who had been awakened by the barking of his hunting dogs the previous night, remembered that in recent weeks someone had been racing a dune buggy up and down the hills late at night, but he never got a close look at the driver and passengers.

Most of those interviewed, however, claimed they had neither seen nor heard anything out of the ordinary.

The detectives were left with far more questions than answers. However, they were hopeful one person could put the puzzle together for them: William Garretson.

T he detectives downtown were less optimistic. Following his arrest, the nineteen-year-old had been taken to West Los Angeles jail and interrogated. The officers found his answers “stuporous and non-responsive,” and were of the opinion that he was under the residual effect of some drug. It was also possible, as Garretson himself claimed, that he had slept little the previous night, just a few hours in the morning, and that he was exhausted, and very scared.

Shortly after this, Garretson retained the services of attorney Barry Tarlow. A second interview, with Tarlow present, took place at Parker Center, headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department. As far as the police were concerned, it too was unproductive. Garretson claimed that although he lived on the property, he had little contact with the people in the main house. He said that he’d only had one visitor the previous night, a boy named Steve Parent, who showed up about 11:45 and left about a half hour later. Questioned about Parent, Garretson said he didn’t know him well. He’d hitched a ride up the canyon with him one night a couple of weeks ago and, on getting out of the car at the gate, had told Steve if he was ever in the neighborhood to drop in. Garretson, who lived by himself in the back house, except for the dogs, said he’d extended similar invitations to others. When Steve showed up, he was surprised: no one else ever had. But Steve didn’t stay long, leaving after learning that Garretson wasn’t interested in buying a clock radio Steve had for sale.

The police did not at this time connect Garretson’s visitor with the youth in the Rambler, possibly because Garretson had earlier failed to identify him.

After conferring with Tarlow, Garretson agreed to take a polygraph examination, and one was scheduled for the following afternoon.

T welve hours had passed since the discovery of the bodies. John Doe 85 remained unidentified.

Police lieutenant Robert Madlock, who had been in charge of the investigation during the several hours before it was assigned to homicide, would later state: “At the time we first found the [victim’s] car at the scene, we were going fourteen different directions at once. So many things had to be done, I guess we just didn’t have time to follow up on the car registration.”

All day Wilfred and Juanita Parent had waited, and worried. Their eighteen-year-old son Steven hadn’t come home the previous night. “He didn’t call, didn’t leave word. He’d never done anything like that before,” Juanita Parent said.

About 8 P.M., aware that his wife was too distraught to cook dinner, Wilfred Parent took her and their three other children to a restaurant. Maybe when we get back, he told his wife, Steve will be there.

F rom outside the gate of 10050 Cielo it was possible to make out the license number on the white Rambler: ZLR 694. A reporter wrote it down, then ran his own check through the Department of Motor Vehicles, learning that the registered owner was “Wilfred E. or Juanita D. Parent, 11214 Bryant Drive, El Monte, California.”

By the time he arrived in El Monte, a Los Angeles suburb some twenty-five miles from Cielo Drive, he found no one at home. Questioning the neighbors, he learned that the family did have a boy in his late teens; he also learned the name of the family priest, Father Robert Byrne, of the Church of the Nativity, and called on him. Byrne knew the youth and his family well. Though the priest was sure Steve didn’t know any movie stars and that all this was some mistake, he agreed to accompany the reporter to the county morgue. On the way he talked about Steve. He was a stereo “bug,” Father Byrne said; if you ever wanted to know anything about phonographs or radios, Steve had the answers. Father Byrne held great hopes for his future.

I n the interim, LAPD discovered the identity of the youth through a print and license check. Shortly after the Parents returned home, an El Monte policeman appeared at the door and handed Wilfred Parent a card with a number on it and told him to call it. He left without saying anything else.

Parent dialed the number.

“County Coroner’s Office,” a man answered.

Confused, Parent identified himself and explained about the policeman and the card.

The call was transferred to a deputy coroner, who told him, “Your son has apparently been involved in a shooting.”

“Is he dead?” Parent asked, stunned. His wife, hearing the question, became hysterical.

“We have a body down here,” the deputy coroner replied, “and we believe it’s your son.” He then went on to describe physical characteristics. They matched.

Parent hung up the phone and began sobbing. Later, understandably bitter, he’d remark, “All I can say is that it was a hell of a way to tell somebody that their boy was dead.”

About this same time, Father Byrne viewed the body and made the identification. John Doe 85 became Steven Earl Parent, an eighteen-year-old hi-fi enthusiast from El Monte.

It was 5 A.M. before the Parents went to bed. “The wife and I finally just put the kids in bed with us and the five of us just held on to each other and cried until we went to sleep.”

A bout nine that same Saturday night, August 9, 1969, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and Suzanne Struthers, Rosemary’s twenty-one-year-old daughter by a previous marriage, left Lake Isabella for the long drive back to Los Angeles. The lake, a popular resort area, was some 150 miles from L.A.

Suzanne’s brother, Frank Struthers, Jr., fifteen, had been vacationing at the lake with a friend, Jim Saffie, whose family had a cabin there. Rosemary and Leno had driven up the previous Tuesday, to leave their speedboat for the boys to use, then returned Saturday morning to pick up Frank and the boat. However, the boys were having such a good time the LaBiancas agreed to let Frank stay over another day, and they were returning now, without him, driving their 1968 green Thunderbird, towing the speedboat on a trailer behind.

Leno, the president of a chain of Los Angeles supermarkets, was forty-four, Italian, and, at 220 pounds, somewhat overweight. Rosemary, a trim, attractive brunette of thirty-eight, was a former carhop who, after a series of waitress jobs and a bad marriage, had opened her own dress shop, the Boutique Carriage, on North Figueroa in Los Angeles, and made a big success of it. She and Leno had been married since 1959.

Because of the boat, they couldn’t drive at the speed Leno preferred, and fell behind most of the Saturday night freeway traffic that was speeding toward Los Angeles and environs. Like many others that night, they had the radio on and heard the news of the Tate murders. According to Suzanne, it seemed particularly to disturb Rosemary, who, a few weeks earlier, had told a close friend, “Someone is coming in our house while we’re away. Things have been gone through and the dogs are outside the house when they should be inside.”

SUNDAY, AUGUST 10, 1969

About 1 A.M. the LaBiancas dropped Suzanne off at her apartment on Greenwood Place, in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles. Leno and Rosemary lived in the same neighborhood, at 3301 Waverly Drive, not far from Griffith Park.

The LaBiancas did not immediately return home but first drove to the corner of Hillhurst and Franklin.

John Fokianos, who had a newsstand on that corner, recognized the green Thunderbird-plus-boat as it pulled into the Standard station across the street, and while it was making a U-turn that would bring it alongside his stand, he reached for a copy of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Sunday edition, and a racing form. Leno was a regular customer.

To Fokianos, the LaBiancas seemed tired from their long trip. Business was slow, and they chatted for a few minutes, “about Tate, the event of the day. That was the big news.” Fokianos would recall that Mrs. LaBianca seemed very shaken by the deaths. He had some extra news fillers for the Sunday Los Angeles Times, which featured the murders, and he gave them one without charge.

He watched as they drove away. He did not notice the exact time, except that it was sometime between 1 and 2 A.M., probably closer to the latter, as not long after they left the bars closed and there was a flurry of business.

As far as is known, John Fokianos was the last person—excluding their killer(s)—to see Rosemary and Leno LaBianca alive.

A t noon on Sunday the hall outside the autopsy room on the first floor of the Hall of Justice was packed with reporters and TV cameramen, all awaiting the coroner’s announcement.

They would have a long wait. Although the autopsies had begun at 9:50 A.M., and a number of deputy coroners had been pressed into service, it would be 3 P.M. before the last autopsy was completed.

Dr. R. C. Henry conducted the Folger and Sebring autopsies, Dr. Gaston Herrera those of Frykowski and Parent. Dr. Noguchi supervised and directed all four; in addition, he personally conducted the other autopsy, which began at 11:20 A.M.

Sharon Marie Polanski, 10050 Cielo Drive, female Caucasian, 26 years, 5-3, 135 pounds, blond hair, hazel eyes. Victim’s occupation, actress…

A utopsy reports are abrupt documents. Cold, factual, they can indicate how the victims died, and give clues as to their last hours, but nowhere in them do their subjects emerge, even briefly, as people. Each report is, in its own way, the sum total of a life, yet there are very few glimpses as to how that life was lived. No likes, dislikes, loves, hates, fears, aspirations, or other human emotions; just a final, clinical summing up: “The body is normally developed…The pancreas is grossly unremarkable…The heart weighs 340 grams and is symmetrical…”

Yet the victims had lived, each had a past.

M uch of Sharon Tate’s story sounded like a studio press release. It seemed she had always wanted to be an actress. At age six months she had been Miss Tiny Tot of Dallas, at sixteen years Miss Richland, Washington, then Miss Autorama. When her father, a career army officer, was assigned to San Pedro, she would hitchhike into nearby Los Angeles, haunting the studios.

In addition to her ambition, she had at least one other thing in her favor: she was a very beautiful girl. She acquired an agent who succeeded in getting her a few commercials, then, in 1963, an audition for the TV series “Petticoat Junction.” Producer Martin Ransohoff saw the pretty twenty-year-old on the set and, according to studio flackery, told her, “Sweetie, I’m going to make you a star.”

The star was a long time ascending. Singing, dancing, and acting lessons were interspersed with bit parts, usually wearing a black wig, in “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Petticoat Junction,” and two Ransohoff films, The Americanization of Emily and The Sandpiper . While the latter film, co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, was being filmed in Big Sur, Sharon fell in love with the magnificently scenic coastline. Whenever she wanted to escape the Hollywood hassle, she fled there. Scrubbed of makeup, she would check into rustic Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn, often alone, sometimes with girl friends, and walk the trails, sun at the beach, and blend in with the regulars at Nepenthe. Many did not know, until after her death, that she was an actress.

According to close friends, though Sharon Tate looked the part of the starlet, she didn’t live up to at least one portion of that image. She was not promiscuous. Her relationships were few, and rarely casual, at least on her part. She seemed attracted to dominant men. While in Hollywood, she had a long affair with a French actor. Given to insane rages, he once beat her so badly she had to be taken to the UCLA Medical Center for treatment.[6]Shortly after this, in 1963, Jay Sebring spotted Sharon at a studio preview, prevailed upon a friend for an introduction, and, after a brief but much publicized courtship, they became lovers, a relationship which lasted until she met Roman Polanski.

It was 1965 before Ransohoff decided his protégé was ready for her first featured role, in Eye of the Devil, which starred Deborah Kerr and David Niven. Listed seventh in the credits, Sharon Tate played a country girl with bewitching powers. She had less than a dozen lines; her primary role was to look beautiful, which she did. This was to be true of almost all her movies.

In the film, Niven became the victim of a hooded cult which practiced ritual sacrifice.

Though set in France, the film was made in London, and it was here, in the summer of 1966, that she met Roman Polanski.

Polanski was at this time thirty-three, and already acclaimed as one of Europe’s leading directors. He had been born in Paris, his father a Russian Jew, his mother Polish of Russian stock. When Roman was three, the family moved to Cracow. They were still there in 1940 when the Germans arrived and sealed off the ghetto. With his father’s help, Roman managed to escape and lived with family friends until the war ended. Both his parents, however, were sent to concentration camps, his mother dying in Auschwitz.

Following the war, he spent five years at the Polish National Film Academy at Lodz. As his senior thesis, he wrote and directed Two Men and a Wardrobe, a much acclaimed surrealistic short. He made several other short films, among them Mammals, in which a Polish friend, Voytek Frykowski, played a thief. After an extended trip to Paris, Polanski returned to Poland to make Knife in the Water , his first feature-length effort. It won the Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival, was nominated for an Academy Award, and established Polanski, then only twenty-seven, as one of Europe’s most promising filmmakers.

In 1965, Polanski made his first film in English, Repulsion, starring Catherine Deneuve. Cul de Sac followed, which won the Best Film Award in the Berlin Film Festival, the Critics Award in Venice, a Diploma of Merit in Edinburgh, and the Giove Capitaliano Award in Rome. In the news stories following the Tate murders, reporters were quick to note that in Repulsion Miss Deneuve went mad and murdered two men, while in Cul de Sac the inhabitants of an isolated castle each meets a bizarre fate until only one man is left alive. They also noted Polanski’s “penchant for violence,” without adding that most often in Polanski’s films the violence was less explicit than implied.

Roman Polanski’s personal life was no less controversial than his films. After his marriage to Polish film star Barbara Lass ended in divorce in 1962, Polanski became known as the playboy director. A friend would later recall him leafing through his address book, saying, “Who shall I gratify tonight?” Another friend observed that Polanski’s immense talent was matched only by his ego. Non-friends, who were numerous, had stronger things to say. One, referring to the fact that Polanski was just over five feet tall, called him “the original five-foot Pole you wouldn’t want to touch anyone with.” Whether one was captivated by his gaminlike charm or repelled by his arrogance, he appeared to touch off strong emotions in nearly everyone whom he met.

It was not so with Sharon Tate, at least not at first. When Ransohoff introduced Roman and Sharon at a large party, neither was particularly impressed. The introduction was not accidental. On learning that Polanski was considering doing a film spoof of horror movies, Ransohoff had offered to produce it. He wanted Sharon for the female lead. Polanski gave her a screen test and decided she would be acceptable for the part. Polanski wrote, directed, and starred in the film, which eventually appeared as The Fearless Vampire Killers , but Ransohoff did the cutting, much to the displeasure of the Polish director, who disavowed the final print. Though the film was more camp than art, Polanski revealed another phase of his multi-faceted talent in his comic portrayal of the bumbling young assistant of a scholarly vampire hunter. Sharon, again, looked pretty and had less than a dozen lines. A victim of the vampire early in the picture, in the last scene she bites her lover, Polanski, creating still another monster.

Before the filming was over, and after what was for Polanski a very long courtship, Sharon and Roman became off-screen lovers too. When Sebring flew to London, Sharon told him the news. If he took it hard, he was careful not to show it, very quickly settling into the role of family friend. There were indications, asides made to a few associates, that Sebring hoped that Sharon would eventually tire of Roman, or vice versa, the presumption being that when this happened he intended to be around. Those who claimed that Sebring was still in love with Sharon were guessing—though Sebring knew hundreds of people, he apparently had few really close friends, and kept his inner feelings very much to himself—but it was a safe guess that although the nature of that love had changed, some deep attachment remained. After the breakup, Sebring was involved with many women, but, as revealed in the LAPD interview sheets, for the most part the relationships were more sexual than emotional, the majority “one night stands.”

Paramount asked Polanski to do the film version of Ira Levin’s novel Rosemary’s Baby . The film, in which Mia Farrow played a young girl who had a child by Satan, was completed late in 1967. On January 20, 1968, to the surprise of many friends to whom Polanski had vowed never again to marry, he and Sharon were wed in a mod ceremony in London.

Rosemary’s Baby premiered that June. That same month the Polanskis rented actress Patty Duke’s home at 1600 Summit Ridge Drive in Los Angeles. It was while they were living there that Mrs. Chapman began working for them. In early 1969 they heard that 10050 Cielo Drive might be vacant. Though they never met in person, Sharon talked to Terry Melcher on the phone several times, making arrangements to take over his unexpired lease. The Polanskis signed a rental agreement on February 12, 1969, at $1,200 a month, and moved in three days later.

Though Rosemary’s Baby was a smash success, Sharon’s own career had never quite taken off. She had appeared semi-nude in the March 1967 issue of Playboy (Polanski himself took the photos on the set of The Fearless Vampire Killers ), the accompanying article beginning, “This is the year that Sharon Tate happens…” But the prediction wasn’t fulfilled, not that year. Though a number of reviewers commented on her striking looks, neither this nor two other films in which she played—Don’t Make Waves , with Tony Curtis, and The Wrecking Crew , with Dean Martin—brought her much closer to stardom. Her biggest role came in the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls , in which she played the actress Jennifer who, on learning that she has breast cancer, takes an overdose of sleeping pills. Not long before her death, Jennifer remarks, “I have no talent. All I have is a body.”

There were reviewers who felt that adequately summed up Sharon Tate’s performance. To be fairer, to date she hadn’t been given a single role which gave her a chance to bring out whatever acting ability she may have had.

She was not a star, not yet. Her career seemed to hesitate on the edge of a breakthrough, but it could easily have remained stationary, or gone the other way.

But for the first time in her life, Sharon’s ambition had slipped to second place. Her marriage and her pregnancy had become her whole life. According to those closest to her, she seemed oblivious to all else.

There were rumors of trouble in her marriage. Several of her female friends told LAPD that she had waited to tell Roman of her pregnancy until after it was too late to abort. If she was concerned that even after marriage Polanski remained the playboy, she hid it. Sharon herself often told a story then current in the movie colony, of how Roman was driving through Beverly Hills when, spotting a pretty girl walking ahead of him, he yelled, “Miss, you have a bea-u-ti-ful arse.” Only when the girl turned did he recognize his wife. Yet it was obvious that she hoped the baby would bring the marriage closer together.

Hollywood is a bitchy town. In interviewing acquaintances of the victims, LAPD would encounter an incredible amount of venom. Interestingly enough, in the dozens of interview sheets, no one who actually knew Sharon Tate said anything bad about her. Very sweet, somewhat naïve—these were the words most often used.

That Sunday a Los Angeles Times reporter who had known Sharon described her as “an astonishingly beautiful woman with a statuesque figure and a face of great delicacy.”

But then he didn’t see her as Coroner Noguchi did.

Cause of death: Multiple stab wounds of the chest and back, penetrating the heart, lungs, and liver, causing massive hemorrhage. Victim was stabbed sixteen times, five of which wounds were in and of themselves fatal.

Jay Sebring, 9860 Easton Drive, Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles, male Caucasian, 35 years, 5-6, 120 pounds, black hair, brown eyes. Victim was a hair stylist and had a corporation known as Sebring International…

B orn Thomas John Kummer, in Detroit, Michigan, he had changed his name to Jay Sebring shortly after arriving in Hollywood, following a four-year stint as a Navy barber, borrowing the last name from the famous Florida sports-car race because he liked the image it projected.

In his personal life, as in his work, appearances were all-important. He drove an expensive sports car, frequented the “in” clubs, even had his Levi jackets custom-made. He employed a full-time butler, gave lavish parties, and lived in a “jinxed” mansion, 9860 Easton Drive, Benedict Canyon. Once the love nest of actress Jean Harlow and producer Paul Bern, it was here, in Harlow’s bedroom, that Bern had committed suicide, two months after their marriage. According to acquaintances, Sebring had bought the house because of its “far out” reputation.

It was widely reported that a motion-picture studio had flown Sebring to London just to cut George Peppard’s hair, at a cost of $25,000. While the report was probably as factual as another also current, that he had a black belt in karate (he had taken a few lessons from Bruce Lee), there was no question that he was the leading men’s hair stylist in the United States, and that more than any other single individual, he was responsible for the revolution in male hair care. In addition to Peppard, his customers included Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Peter Lawford, and numerous other motion-picture stars, many of whom had promised to invest in his new corporation, Sebring International. While keeping his original salon at 725 North Fairfax in Los Angeles, he planned to open a series of franchised shops and to market a line of men’s toiletries bearing his name. The first shop had been opened in San Francisco in May 1969, Abigail Folger and Colonel and Mrs. Paul Tate being among those at the grand opening.

On April 9, 1968, Sebring had signed an application for a $500,000 executive protection policy with the Occidental Life Insurance Company of California. A background investigation, conducted by the Retail Credit Company, estimated his net worth at $100,000, of which $80,000 was the appraised worth of his residence. Sebring, Inc., the original business, had assets of $150,000, with liabilities of $115,000.

The investigators also looked into Sebring’s personal life. He had married once, in October 1960, he and his wife, Cami, a model, separating in August 1963, their divorce becoming final in March 1965, the couple having had no children. The report also stated that Sebring had never “used drugs as a habit.” LAPD knew otherwise.

They also knew something else the credit company investigators had never discovered. There was a darker side to Jay Sebring’s nature that surfaced during numerous interviews conducted by the police. As noted in the official report: “He was considered a ladies’ man and took numerous women to his residence in the Hollywood hills. He would tie the women up with a small sash cord and, if they agreed, would whip them, after which they would have sexual relations.”

Rumors of this had long circulated around Hollywood. Now picked up by the press, they became the basis for numerous theories, chief among them that some sort of sadomasochistic orgy had been in progress on the night of August 9, 1969, at 10050 Cielo Drive.

LAPD never seriously considered Sebring’s odd sexual habits a possible cause of the murders. None of the girls interviewed—and the number was large, Sebring frequently dating five or six different girls a week—claimed that Sebring had actually hurt them, though he often asked them to pretend pain. Nor, as far as could be determined, was Sebring involved in group sex: he was too afraid his private quirks would subject him to ridicule. The mundane truth appeared to be that behind the carefully cultivated public image there was a lonely, troubled man so insecure in his role that even in his sex life he had to revert to fantasy.

Cause of death: Exsanguination—victim literally bled to death. Victim had been stabbed seven times and shot once, at least three of the stab wounds, as well as the gunshot wound, being in and of itself fatal.

Abigail Anne Folger, female Caucasian, 25 years, 5-5, 120 pounds, brown hair, hazel eyes, residence since the first of April, 10050 Cielo Drive. Prior to that she lived at 2774 Woodstock Road. Occupation, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune…

A bigail “Gibby” Folger’s coming-out party had been held at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco on December 21, 1961. The Italianate ball was one of the highlights of the social season, the debutante wearing a bright yellow Dior she had purchased in Paris the previous summer.

After that she had attended Radcliffe, graduating with honors; worked for a time as publicity director for the University of California Art Museum in Berkeley; quit that to work in a New York bookstore; then became involved in social work in the ghettos. It was while in New York, in early 1968, that Polish novelist Jerzy Kosinski introduced her to Voytek Frykowski. They left New York together that August, driving to Los Angeles, where they rented a house at 2774 Woodstock Road, off Mulholland in the Hollywood hills. Through Frykowski, she met the Polanskis, Sebring, and others in their circle. She was one of the investors in Sebring International.

Shortly after arriving in Southern California, she registered as a volunteer social worker for the Los Angeles County Welfare Department, and would get up at dawn each day for assignments that took her into Watts, Pacoima, and other ghetto areas. She continued this work until the day before she and Frykowski moved into 10050 Cielo Drive.

Something changed after that. Probably it was a combination of things. She became depressed over how little such work actually accomplished, how big the problems stayed. “A lot of social workers go home at night, take a bath, and wash off their day,” she told an old San Francisco friend. “I can’t. The suffering gets under your skin.” In May, black city councilman Thomas Bradley ran against incumbent Samuel Yorty for mayor of Los Angeles. Bradley’s defeat, after a campaign heavy with racial smears, left her disillusioned and bitter. She did not resume her social work. She was also disturbed about the way her affair with Frykowski was going, and with their use of drugs, which had passed the point of experimentation.

She talked about all these things with her psychiatrist, Dr. Marvin Flicker. She saw him five days a week, Monday through Friday, at 4:30 P.M.

She had kept her appointment that Friday.

Flicker told the police that he thought Abigail was almost ready to leave Frykowski, that she was attempting to build up enough nerve to go it alone.

The police were unable to determine exactly when Folger and Frykowski began to use drugs heavily, on a regular basis. It was learned that on their cross-country trip they had stopped in Irving, Texas, staying several days with a big dope dealer well known to local and Dallas police. Dealers were among their regular guests both at the Woodstock house and after they moved to Cielo Drive. William Tennant told police that whenever he visited the latter residence, Abigail “always seemed to be in a stupor from narcotics.” When her mother last talked to her, about ten that Friday night, she said Gibby had sounded lucid but “a little high.” Mrs. Folger, who was not unaware of her daughter’s problems, had contributed large amounts of both money and time to the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, to help in their pioneer work in treating drug abuse.

The coroners discovered 2.4 mg. of methylenedioxyamphetamine—MDA—in Abigail Folger’s system. That this was a larger amount than was found in Voytek Frykowski’s body—0.6 mg.—did not necessarily indicate that she had taken a larger quantity of the drug, but could mean she had taken it at a later time.

Effects of the drug vary, depending on the individual and the dosage, but one thing was clear. That night she was fully aware of what was happening.

Victim had been stabbed twenty-eight times.

Wojiciech “Voytek” Frykowski, male Caucasian, 32 years, 5-10, 165 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes. Frykowski had been living with Abigail Folger in a common-law relationship…

“V oytek,” Roman Polanski would later tell reporters, “was a man of little talent but immense charm.” The two had been friends in Poland, Frykowski’s father reputedly having helped finance one of Polanski’s early films. Even in Poland, Frykowski had been known as a playboy. According to fellow émigrés, he had once taken on, and rendered inoperative, two members of the secret police, which may have had something to do with his exit from Poland in 1967. He had married twice, and had one son, who had remained behind when he moved to Paris. Both there and, later, in New York, Polanski had given him money and encouragement, hopeful—but knowing Voytek well, not too optimistic—that one of his grand plans would come through. None ever quite did. He told people that he was a writer, but no one could recall having read anything he had written.

Friends of Abigail Folger told the police that Frykowski had introduced her to drugs so as to keep her under his control. Friends of Voytek Frykowski said the opposite—that Folger had provided the drugs so as not to lose him.

According to the police report: “He had no means of support and lived off Folger’s fortune…He used cocaine, mescaline, LSD, marijuana, hashish in large amounts…He was an extrovert and gave invitations to almost everyone he met to come visit him at his residence. Narcotic parties were the order of the day.”

He had fought hard for his life. Victim was shot twice, struck over the head thirteen times with a blunt object, and stabbed fifty-one times.

Steven Earl Parent, male Caucasian, 18 years, 6-0, 175 pounds, red hair, brown eyes…

H e had graduated from Arroyo High School in June; dated several girls but no one in particular; had a full-time job as delivery boy for a plumbing company, plus a part-time job, evenings, as salesman for a stereo shop, holding down the two jobs so he could save money to attend junior college that September.

Victim had one defensive slash wound, and had been shot four times.

During the fluoroscopy examination that preceded the Sebring autopsy, Dr. Noguchi discovered a bullet lodged between Sebring’s back and his shirt. Three more bullets were found during the autopsies: one in Frykowski’s body, two in Parent’s. These—plus the slug and fragments found in Parent’s automobile—were turned over to Sergeant William Lee, Firearms and Explosives Unit, SID, for study. Lee concluded that all the bullets had probably been fired from the same gun, and that they were .22 caliber.

W hile the autopsies were in progress, Sergeants Paul Whiteley and Charles Guenther, two homicide detectives from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office, approached Sergeant Jess Buckles, one of the Los Angeles Police Department detectives assigned to the Tate homicides, and told him something very curious.

On July 31 they had gone to 964 Old Topanga Road in Malibu, to investigate a report of a possible homicide. They had found the body of Gary Hinman, a thirty-four-year-old music teacher. He had been stabbed to death.

The curious thing: as in the Tate homicides, a message had been left at the scene. On the wall in the living room, not far from Hinman’s body, were the words POLITICAL PIGGY, printed in the victim’s own blood.

Whiteley also told Buckles that they had arrested a suspect in connection with the murder, one Robert “Bobby” Beausoleil, a young hippie musician. He had been driving a car that belonged to Hinman, there was blood on his shirt and trousers, and a knife had been found hidden in the tire well of the vehicle. The arrest had occurred on August 6; therefore he had been in custody at the time of the Tate homicides. However, it was possible that he hadn’t been the only one involved in the Hinman murder. Beausoleil had been living at Spahn’s Ranch, an old movie ranch near the Los Angeles suburb of Chatsworth, with a bunch of other hippies. It was an odd group, their leader, a guy named Charlie, apparently having convinced them that he was Jesus Christ.

Buckles, Whiteley would later recall, lost interest when he mentioned hippies. “Naw,” he replied, “we know what’s behind these murders. They’re part of a big dope transaction.”

Whiteley again emphasized the odd similarities. Like mode of death. In both cases a message had been left. Both printed. Both in a victim’s blood. And in both the letters PIG appeared. Any one of these things would be highly unusual. But all —the odds against its being a coincidence must be astronomical.

Sergeant Buckles, LAPD, told Sergeants Whiteley and Guenther, LASO, “If you don’t hear from us in a week or so, that means we’re on to something else.”

A little more than twenty-four hours after the discovery of the Tate victims, the Los Angeles Police Department was given a lead by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office, which, if followed, could possibly have broken the case.

Buckles never did call, nor did he think the information important enough to walk across the autopsy room and mention the conversation to his superior, Lieutenant Robert Helder, who was in charge of the Tate investigation.

A t Lieutenant Helder’s suggestion, Dr. Noguchi withheld specifics when he met with the press. He did not mention the number of wounds, nor did he say anything about two of the victims’ having ingested drugs. He did, again, deny the already much repeated reports that there had been sexual molestation and/or mutilation. Neither was true, he stressed.

Asked about Sharon’s child, he said that Mrs. Polanski was in the eighth month of her pregnancy; that the child was a perfectly formed boy; and that had he been removed by post-mortem cesarean within the first twenty minutes after the mother’s death, his life probably could have been saved. “But by the time the bodies were discovered, it was too late.”

Lieutenant Helder also talked to the press that day. Yes, Garretson was still in custody. No, he could not comment on the evidence against him, except to say that the police were now investigating his acquaintances.

Pressed further, Helder admitted, “There’s no solid information that will limit us to a single suspect. It could’ve been one man. It could’ve been two. It could’ve been three.

“But,” he added, “I don’t feel that we have a maniac running around.”

L ieutenant A. H. Burdick began the polygraph examination of William Garretson at 4:25 that afternoon, at Parker Center.

Burdick did not immediately hook up Garretson. In accordance with routine, the initial portion of the examination was conversational, the examiner attempting to put the suspect at ease while eliciting as much background information as possible.

Though obviously frightened, Garretson loosened up a little as he talked. He told Burdick that he was nineteen, from Ohio, and had been hired by Rudi Altobelli in March, just before Altobelli left for Europe. His job was simple: to look after the guest house and Altobelli’s three dogs. In return, he had been given a place to stay, thirty-five dollars a week, and the promise of an airline ticket back to Ohio when Altobelli returned.

He had little to do with the people who lived in the main house, Garretson claimed. Several of his replies seemed to bear this out. He still referred to Frykowski, for example, as “the younger Polanski,” while he appeared unfamiliar with Sebring, either by name or description, though he had seen the black Porsche in the driveway on several occasions.

Asked to relate his activities prior to the murders, Garretson said that on Thursday night an acquaintance had dropped by, accompanied by his girl. They had brought along a six-pack of beer and some pot. Garretson was sure it was Thursday night, as the man was married “and he brought her up there several other times, you know, on Thursday, when his wife lets him go out.”

Q. “Did they use your pad?”

A. “Yes, they did, and I drank some beer while they made out…”

Garretson recalled that he drank four beers, smoked two joints, took one dexedrine, and was sick all day Friday.

About 8:30 or 9 P.M. Friday, Garretson said, he went down to the Sunset Strip, to buy a pack of cigarettes and a TV dinner. He guessed the time of his return at about ten, but couldn’t be sure, not having a watch. As he passed the main house, he noticed the lights were on, but he didn’t see anyone. Nor did he observe anything out of the ordinary.

Then “about a quarter of twelve or something like that, Steve [Parent] came up and, you know, he brought his radio with him. He had a radio, clock radio; and I didn’t expect him or anything, and he asked me how I’d been and everything…” Parent plugged in the radio, to demonstrate how it worked, but Garretson wasn’t interested.

Then “I gave him a beer…and he drank it and then he called somebody—somebody on Santa Monica and Doheny—and he said that he would be going there, and so then he left, and, you know, that’s when—that’s the last time I saw him.”

When found in Parent’s car, the clock radio had stopped at 12:15 A.M., the approximate time of the murder. Although it could have been a remarkable coincidence, the logical presumption was that Parent had set it while demonstrating it to Garretson, then unplugged it just before he left. This would coincide with Garretson’s estimate of the time.

According to Garretson, after Parent left, he wrote some letters and played the stereo, not going to sleep until just before dawn. Though he claimed to have heard nothing unusual during the night, he admitted that he had been “scared.”

Why? Burdick asked. Well, Garretson replied, not long after Steve left, he noticed that the handle of the door was turned down, as if someone had tried to open it. And when he tried to use the phone, to learn the time, he found it was dead.

Like the other officers, Burdick found it difficult to believe that Garretson, though admittedly awake all night, heard nothing, while neighbors even farther away heard shots or screams. Garretson insisted, however, that he had neither heard nor seen anything. He was less sure on another point—whether he had gone out into the back yard when he let Altobelli’s dogs out. To Burdick he appeared evasive about this. From the yard, however, he couldn’t see the main house, though he might have heard something.

As far as LAPD was concerned, the moment of truth was now arriving. Burdick began setting up the polygraph, at the same time reading Garretson the list of questions he intended to ask.

This, too, was standard operating procedure, and more than a little psychological. Knowing a certain question was going to be asked, but not when, built tension, accentuating the response. He then began the test.

Q. “Is your true last name Garretson?”

A. “Yes.”

No significant response.

Q. “Concerning Steve, did you cause his death?”

A. “No.”

Facing forward, Garretson couldn’t see Burdick’s face. Burdick kept his voice matter-of-fact as he moved on to the next question, in no way indicating that the steel pens had jerked across the graph.

Q. “You understood the questions?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “Do you feel responsible for Steve’s death?”

A. “That he even knew me, yes.”

Q. “Huh?”

A. “That he even knew me. I mean he wouldn’t have come up that night, and nothing would have happened in other words to him.”

Burdick relieved the pressure cup on Garretson’s arm, told him to relax, talked to him informally for a while. Then again the pressure, and the questions, only slightly changed this time.

Q. “Is your true last name Garretson?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “Did you shoot Steve?”

A. “No.”

No significant response.

More test questions, followed by “Do you know who caused Mrs. Polanski’s death?”

A. “No.”

Q. “Did you cause Mrs. Polanski’s death?”

A. “No.”

Still no significant response.

Burdick now accepted Garretson’s explanation, that he felt responsibility for Parent’s death, but had no part in causing it or the other murders. The examination went on for another half hour or so, during which Burdick closed off several avenues of investigation. Garretson was not gay; he had never had sex with any of the victims; he had never sold drugs.

There was no indication that Garretson was lying, but he remained nervous throughout. Burdick asked him why. Garretson explained that when he was being taken to his cell, a policeman had pointed at him, saying, “There’s the guy that killed all those people.”

Q. “I would imagine it would shake you up. But that doesn’t mean you’re lying?”

A. “No, I’m just confused.”

Q. “Why are you confused?”

A. “For one thing, how come I wasn’t murdered?”

Q. “I don’t know.”

A lthough legally inadmissible as evidence, the police believe in the polygraph.[7]Though uninformed of it at the time, Garretson had passed. “At the conclusion of the examination,” Captain Don Martin, commander, SID, wrote in his official report, “it was the examiner’s opinion that Mr. Garretson was truthful and not criminally involved in the Polanski homicides.”

Unofficially, though Burdick believed Garretson “clean” on participation, he felt he was a little “muddy” on knowledge. It was possible that he had heard something, then, fearful, hidden until dawn. This was just conjecture, however.

For all intents and purposes, with the polygraph William Eston Garretson ceased to be a “good suspect.” Yet that bothersome question remained: Every single human being at 10050 Cielo Drive had been slaughtered save one; why?

Because there was no immediate answer, and certainly in part because, having been the only warm body on the premises, he had seemed such a likely suspect, Garretson was held for another day.

That same Sunday, Jerrold D. Friedman, a UCLA student, contacted the police and informed them that the call Steven Parent made at approximately 11:45 on Friday night had been to him. Parent was going to build a stereo set for Friedman, and he wanted to talk over the details. Friedman had tried to beg off, saying it was late, but finally gave in and told Parent he could drop by for a few minutes. Parent had asked him the time and, when he told him, said he would be there about 12:30.[8]According to Friedman, “he never got there.”

T hat Sunday, LAPD not only lost their best suspect to date, another promising lead fizzled out. Sharon Tate’s red Ferrari, which the police had thought might have been used as a getaway car, was located in a Beverly Hills garage where Sharon had taken it the previous week for repairs.

That evening Roman Polanski returned from London. Reporters who saw him at the airport described him as “terribly crushed” and “beaten by the tragedy.” Though he refused to talk with the press, a spokesman for him denied there was any truth to the rumors of a marital rift. Polanski had remained in London, he said, because he hadn’t finished his work there. Sharon had returned home early, by boat, because of airline restrictions against travel during the last two months of pregnancy.

Polanski was taken to an apartment inside the Paramount lot, where he remained in seclusion under a doctor’s care. The police talked to him briefly that night, but he was, at that time, unable to suggest anyone with a motive for the murders.

Frank Struthers also returned to Los Angeles that Sunday night. About 8:30 P.M. the Saffies dropped him off at the end of the long driveway leading to the LaBianca residence. Lugging his suitcase and camping equipment up the driveway, the fifteen-year-old noticed that the speedboat was still on the trailer behind Leno’s Thunderbird. That seemed odd; his stepfather didn’t like to leave the boat out overnight. Stowing his equipment in the garage, he went to the back door of the residence.

Only then did he notice that all the window shades had been pulled down. He couldn’t recall ever seeing them that way before, and it frightened him just a little bit. The light was on in the kitchen, and he knocked on the door. There was no response. He called out. Again no answer.

Really upset now, he walked to the closest pay phone, which was at a hamburger stand at Hyperion and Rowena. He dialed the number of the house, then, getting no response, tried to reach his sister at the restaurant where she worked. Suzanne wasn’t working that night, but the manager offered to try her apartment. Frank gave him the number of the pay phone.

Shortly after nine she called. She hadn’t seen or heard from their mother and stepfather since they had dropped her off at her apartment the previous night. Telling Frank to remain where he was, she called her boy friend, Joe Dorgan, and told him Frank thought something was wrong at the house. About 9:30, Joe and Suzanne picked up Frank at the hamburger stand, the three driving directly to 3301 Waverly Drive.

Rosemary often left a set of house keys in her own car. They found them and opened the back door.[9]Dorgan suggested that Suzanne remain in the kitchen while he and Frank checked out the rest of the house. They proceeded through the dining room. When they got to the living room, they saw Leno.

He was sprawled on his back between the couch and a chair. There was a throw pillow over his head, some kind of cord around his neck, and the tops of his pajamas were torn open so his stomach was bare. Something was protruding from his stomach.

He was so still they knew he was dead.

Afraid Suzanne would follow and see what they had, they returned to the kitchen. Joe picked up the kitchen phone to call the police, then, worried that he might be disturbing evidence, put it back down, telling Suzanne, “Everything’s O.K.; let’s get out of here.” But Suzanne knew everything wasn’t O.K. On the refrigerator door someone had written something in what looked like red paint.

Hurrying back down the driveway, they stopped at a duplex across the street, and Dorgan rang the bell of 3308 Waverly Drive. The peephole opened. Dorgan said there had been a stabbing and he wanted to call the police. The person inside refused to open the door, saying, “We’ll call the police for you.”

LAPD’s switchboard logged the call at 10:26 P.M., the caller complaining about some juveniles making a disturbance.

Unsure whether the person had really made the call, Dorgan had already pushed the bell of the other apartment, 3306. Dr. and Mrs. Merry J. Brigham let the three young people in. However, they were so upset Mrs. Brigham had to complete the call. At 10:35, Unit 6A39, a black-and-white manned by officers W. C. Rodriquez and J. C. Toney, was dispatched to the address, arriving very quickly, five to seven minutes later.

While Suzanne and Frank remained with the doctor and his wife, Dorgan accompanied the two Hollywood Division officers to the LaBianca residence. Toney covered the back door while Rodriquez went around the house. The front door was closed but not locked. After one look inside, he ran back to the car and called for a backup unit, a supervisor, and an ambulance.

Rodriquez had been on the force only fourteen months; he had never discovered a body before.

Within a few minutes, Ambulance Unit G-I arrived, and Leno LaBianca was pronounced DOA—dead on arrival. In addition to the pillow Frank and Joe had seen, there was a bloody pillowcase over his head. The cord around his neck was attached to a massive lamp, the cord knotted so tightly it appeared he had been throttled with it. His hands were tied behind his back with a leather thong. The object protruding from his stomach was an ivory-handled, bi-tined carving fork. In addition to a number of stab wounds in the abdomen, someone had carved the letters WAR in the naked flesh.

The backup unit, 6L40, manned by Sergeant Edward L. Cline, arrived just after the ambulance. A veteran of sixteen years, Cline took charge, obtaining a pink DOA slip from the two attendants before they left.

The pair were already on their way down the driveway when Rodriquez called them back. Cline had found another body, in the master bedroom.

R osemary LaBianca was lying face down on the bedroom floor, parallel to the bed and dresser, in a large pool of blood. She was wearing a short pink nightgown and, over it, an expensive dress, blue with white horizontal stripes, which Suzanne would later identify as one of her mother’s favorites. Both nightgown and dress were bunched up over her head, so her back, buttocks, and legs were bare. Cline didn’t even try to count the stab wounds, there were so many. Her hands were not tied but, like Leno, she had a pillowcase over her head and a lamp cord was wrapped around her neck. The cord was attached to one of a pair of bedroom lamps, both of which had overturned. The tautness of the cord, plus a second pool of blood about two feet from the body, indicated that perhaps she had tried to crawl, pulling the lamps over while doing so.

A second pink DOA slip was filled out, for Mrs. Rosemary LaBianca. Joe Dorgan had to tell Suzanne and Frank.

There was writing, in what appeared to be blood, in three places in the residence. High up on the north wall in the living room, above several paintings, were printed the words DEATH TO PIGS. On the south wall, to the left of the front door, even higher up, was the single word RISE. There were two words on the refrigerator door in the kitchen, the first of which was misspelled. They read HEALTER SKELTER.

MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 1969

At 12:15 A.M. the case was assigned to Robbery-Homicide. Sergeant Danny Galindo, who had spent the previous night on guard duty at the Tate residence, was the first detective to arrive, at about 1 A.M. He was joined shortly after by Inspector K. J. McCauley and several other detectives, while an additional unit, ordered by Cline, sealed off the grounds. As with the Tate homicides, however, the reporters, who had already begun to arrive, apparently had little difficulty obtaining inside information.

Galindo made a detailed search of the one-story residence. Except for the overturned lamps, there were no signs of a struggle. Nor was there any evidence that robbery had been the motive. Among the items that Galindo would log into the County Public Administrator’s Report were: a man’s gold ring, the main stone a one-carat diamond, the other stones also diamonds, only slightly smaller; two woman’s rings, both expensive, both in plain view on a dresser in the bedroom; necklaces; bracelets; camera equipment; hand guns, shotguns, and rifles; a coin collection; a bag of uncirculated nickels, found in the trunk of Leno’s Thunderbird, worth considerably more than their $400 face value; Leno LaBianca’s wallet, with credit cards and cash, in the glove compartment of his car; several watches, one a high-priced stopwatch of the type used to clock race horses; plus numerous other easily fenced items.

Several days later Frank Struthers returned to the residence with the police. The only missing items, as far as he could determine, were Rosemary’s wallet and her wristwatch.

Galindo was unable to find any indications of forced entry. However, testing the back door, he found it could be jimmied very easily. He was able to open it with only a strip of celluloid.

The detectives made a number of other discoveries. The ivory-handled carving fork found protruding from Leno’s stomach belonged to a set found in a kitchen drawer. There were some watermelon rinds in the sink. There were also blood splatters, both there and in the rear bathroom. And a piece of blood-soaked paper was found on the floor in the dining room, its frayed end suggesting that possibly it had been the instrument used to print the words.

In many ways the activities at 3301 Waverly Drive the rest of that night were a replay of those that had occurred at 10050 Cielo Drive less than forty-eight hours earlier. Even to, in some cases, the same cast, with Sergeant Joe Granado arriving about 3 A.M. to take blood samples.

The sample from the kitchen sink wasn’t sufficient to determine if it was animal or human, but all the other samples tested positive on the Ouchterlony test, indicating they were human blood. The blood in the rear bathroom, as well as all the blood in the vicinity of Rosemary LaBianca’s body, was type A—Rosemary LaBianca’s type. All the other samples, including that taken from the rumpled paper and the various writings, were type B—Leno LaBianca’s type.

This time Granado didn’t take any subtypes.

The fingerprint men from SID, Sergeants Harold Dolan and J. Claborn, lifted a total of twenty-five latents, all but six of which would later be identified as belonging to Leno, Rosemary, or Frank. It was apparent to Dolan, from examining those areas where fingerprints should have been but weren’t, that an effort had been made to eradicate prints. For example, there was not even a smudge on the ivory handle of the carving fork, on the chrome handle of the refrigerator door, or on the enamel finish of the door itself—all surfaces that readily lent themselves to receiving latent fingerprints. The refrigerator door on close examination showed wipe marks.

After the police photographer had finished, a deputy coroner supervised the removal of the bodies. The pillowcases were left in place over the heads of the victims; the lamp cords were cut near the bases, so the knots remained intact for study. A representative of the Animal Regulation Department removed the three dogs, which, when the first officers arrived, had been found inside the house.

Left behind were the puzzle pieces. But this time at least a partial pattern was discernible, in the similarities:

Los Angeles, California; consecutive nights; multiple murders; victims affluent Caucasians; multiple stab wounds; incredible savagery; absence of a conventional motive; no evidence of ransacking or robbery; ropes around the neck of two Tate victims, cords around the necks of both LaBiancas. And the bloody printing.

Yet within twenty-four hours the police would decide there was no connection between the two sets of murders.

SECOND RITUAL

KILLINGS HERE

Los Feliz Couple Slain;

Link to 5-Way Murder Seen

The headlines screamed from the front pages that Monday morning; TV programs were interrupted for updates; to the millions of Angelenos who commuted to work via the freeways their car radios seemed to broadcast little else.[10]

It was then the fear began.

When the news of the Tate homicides broke, even those acquainted with the victims were less fearful than shocked, for simultaneously came the announcement that a suspect had been arrested and charged with the murders. Garretson, however, had been in custody when these new murders took place. And with his release that Monday—still looking as puzzled and frightened as when the police “captured” him—the panic began. And spread.

If Garretson wasn’t guilty, then it meant that whoever was was still at large. If it could happen in places as widely separated as Los Feliz and Bel Air, to people as disparate as movie colony celebrities and a grocery market owner and his wife, it meant it could happen anywhere, to anyone.

Sometimes fear can be measured. Among the barometers: In two days one Beverly Hills sporting goods store sold 200 firearms; prior to the murders, they averaged three or four a day. Some of the private security forces doubled, then tripled, their personnel. Guard dogs, once priced at $200, now sold for $1,500; those who supplied them soon ran out. Locksmiths quoted two-week delays on orders. Accidental shootings, suspicious persons reports—all suddenly increased.

The news that there had been twenty-eight murders in Los Angeles that weekend (the average being one a day) did nothing to decrease the apprehension.

It was reported that Frank Sinatra was in hiding; that Mia Farrow wouldn’t attend her friend Sharon’s funeral because, a relative explained, “Mia is afraid she will be next”; that Tony Bennett had moved from his bungalow on the grounds of the Beverly Hills Hotel to an inside suite “for greater security”; that Steve McQueen now kept a weapon under the front seat of his sports car; that Jerry Lewis had installed an alarm system in his home complete with closed circuit TV. Connie Stevens later admitted she had turned her Beverly Hills ho

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 1023