SHARON’ S FATHER EXPECTED TO BE FIRST WITNESS

Many of the spectators had been waiting since 6 A.M., hoping to get a seat and a glimpse of Manson. When he was escorted into the courtroom, several gasped. On his forehead was a bloody X. Sometime the previous night he had taken a sharp object and carved the mark in his flesh.

An explanation was not long forthcoming. Outside court his followers passed out a typewritten statement bearing his name:

“I have X’d myself from your world…You have created the monster. I am not of you, from you, nor do I condone your unjust attitude toward things, animals, and people that you do not try to understand…I stand opposed to what you do and have done in the past…You make fun of God and have murdered the world in the name of Jesus Christ…My faith in me is stronger than all of your armies, governments, gas chambers, or anything you may want to do to me. I know what I have done. Your courtroom is man’s game. Love is my judge…”

THE COURT “People vs. Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten.

“All parties and counsel and jurors are present…

“Do the People care to make an opening statement?”

BUGLIOSI “Yes, Your Honor.”

I began the People’s opening statement—which was a preview of the evidence the prosecution intended to introduce in the trial—by summarizing the charges, naming the defendants, and, after relating what had occurred at 10050 Cielo Drive in the early-morning hours of August 9, 1969, and at 3301 Waverly Drive the following night, identifying the victims.

“A question you ladies and gentlemen will probably ask yourselves at some point during this trial, and we expect the evidence to answer that question for you, is this:

“What kind of a diabolical mind would contemplate or conceive of these seven murders? What kind of mind would want to have seven human beings brutally murdered?

“We expect the evidence at this trial to answer that question and show that defendant Charles Manson owned that diabolical mind. Charles Manson, who the evidence will show at times had the infinite humility, as it were, to refer to himself as Jesus Christ.

“Evidence at this trial will show defendant Manson to be a vagrant wanderer, a frustrated singer-guitarist, a pseudo-philosopher, but, most of all, the evidence will conclusively prove that Charles Manson is a killer who cleverly masqueraded behind the common image of a hippie, that of being peace loving…

“The evidence will show Charles Manson to be a megalomaniac who coupled his insatiable thirst for power with an intense obsession for violent death.”

The evidence would show, I continued, that Manson was the unquestioned leader and overlord of a nomadic band of vagabonds who called themselves the “Family.” After briefly tracing the history and composition of the group, I observed: “We anticipate that Mr. Manson, in his defense, will claim that neither he nor anyone else was the leader of the Family and that he never ordered anyone in the Family to do anything, much less commit these murders for him.”

KANAREK “Your Honor, he is now making an opening statement for us!”

THE COURT “Overruled. You may continue, Mr. Bugliosi.”

BUGLIOSI “We therefore intend to offer evidence at this trial showing that Charles Manson was in fact the dictatorial leader of the Family; that everyone in the Family was slavishly obedient to him; that he always had the other members of the Family do his bidding for him; and that eventually they committed the seven Tate-LaBianca murders at his command.

“This evidence of Mr. Manson’s total domination over the Family will be offered as circumstantial evidence that on the two nights in question it was he who ordered these seven murders.”

The principal witness for the prosecution, I told the jury, would be Linda Kasabian. I then briefly stated what Linda would testify to, interrelating her story with the physical evidence we intended to introduce: the gun, the rope, the clothing the killers wore the night of the Tate murders, and so forth.

We came now to the question that everyone had been asking since these murders occurred: Why?

The prosecution does not have the burden of proving motive, I told the jury. We needn’t introduce one single, solitary speck of evidence as to motive. However, when we have evidence of motive we introduce it, because if one has a motive for committing a murder, this is circumstantial evidence that it was he who committed the murder. “In this trial, we will offer evidence of Charles Manson’s motives for ordering these seven murders.”

If Manson and the defense were waiting to hear the word “robbery,” they’d wait in vain. Instead, Manson’s own beliefs came back at them.

“We believe there to be more than one motive,” I told the jury. “Besides the motives of Manson’s passion for violent death and his extreme anti-establishment state of mind, the evidence in this trial will show that there was a further motive for these murders, which is perhaps as bizarre, or perhaps even more bizarre, than the murders themselves.

“Briefly, the evidence will show Manson’s fanatical obsession with Helter Skelter, a term he got from the English musical group the Beatles.

“Manson was an avid follower of the Beatles and believed that they were speaking to him across the ocean through the lyrics of their songs. In fact, Manson told his followers that he found complete support for his philosophy in the words of those songs…

“To Charles Manson, Helter Skelter, the title of one of their songs, meant the black man rising up and destroying the entire white race; that is, with the exception of Charles Manson and his chosen followers, who intended to escape from Helter Skelter by going to the desert and living in a bottomless pit, a place that Manson derived from Revelation 9, a chapter in the last book of the New Testament…

“Evidence from several witnesses will show that Charles Manson hated black people, but that he also hated the white establishment, whom he called ‘pigs.’

“The word ‘pig’ was found printed in blood on the outside of the front door to the Tate residence.

“The words ‘death to pigs,’ ‘helter skelter,’ and ‘rise’ were found printed in blood inside the LaBianca residence.

“The evidence will show that one of Manson’s principal motives for these seven savage murders was to ignite Helter Skelter; in other words, start the black-white revolution by making it look as though the black man had murdered these seven Caucasian victims. In his twisted mind, he thought this would cause the white community to turn against the black community, ultimately leading to a civil war between blacks and whites, a war which Manson told his followers would see bloodbaths in the streets of every American city, a war which Manson predicted and foresaw the black man as winning.

“Manson envisioned that black people, once they destroyed the entire white race, would be unable to handle the reins of power because of inexperience, and would therefore have to turn over the reins to those white people who had escaped from Helter Skelter; i.e., Charles Manson and his Family.

“In Manson’s mind, his Family, and particularly he, would be the ultimate beneficiaries of a black-white civil war.

“We intend to offer the testimony of not just one witness but many witnesses on Manson’s philosophy, because the evidence will show that it is so strange and so bizarre that if you heard it only from the lips of one person you probably would not believe it.”

T hus far all the emphasis had been on Manson. Convicting Manson was the first priority. If we convicted the others and not Manson, it would be like a war crimes trial in which the flunkies were found guilty and Hitler went free. Therefore I stressed that it was Manson who had ordered these murders, though his co-defendants, obedient to his every command, actually committed them.

There was a danger in this, however. I was giving the attorneys for the three girls a ready-made defense. In the penalty phase of the trial, they could argue that since Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten were totally under Manson’s domination, they were not nearly as culpable as he, and therefore should receive life imprisonment rather than the death penalty.

Anticipating long in advance that I’d have to prove the very opposite, I laid the groundwork in my opening statement:

“What about Charles Manson’s followers, the other defendants in this case, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten?

“The evidence will show that they, along with Tex Watson, were the actual killers of the seven Tate-LaBianca victims.

“The evidence will also show that they were very willing participants in these mass murders, that by their overkill tactics—for instance, Rosemary LaBianca was stabbed forty-one times, Voytek Frykowski was stabbed fifty-one times, shot twice, and struck violently over the head thirteen times with the butt of a revolver—these defendants displayed that even apart from Charles Manson, murder ran through their own blood.”

After mentioning Susan Atkins’ confessions to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard; the fingerprint which placed Patricia Krenwinkel at the Tate murder scene; and the evidence which implicated Leslie Van Houten in the LaBianca murders, I observed: “The evidence will show that Charles Manson started his Family in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in March of 1967. The Family’s demise, as it were, took place in October of 1969 at Barker Ranch, a desolate, secluded, rock-strewn hideout from civilization on the shadowy perimeters of Death Valley. Between these two dates, seven human beings and an eight-and-a-half-month baby boy fetus in the womb of Sharon Tate met their death at the hands of these members of the Family.

“The evidence at this trial will show that these seven incredible murders were perhaps the most bizarre, savage, nightmarish murders in the recorded annals of crime.

“Mr. Stovitz and I intend to prove not just beyond a reasonable doubt, which is our only burden, but beyond all doubt that these defendants committed these murders, and are guilty of these murders; and in our final arguments to you at the conclusion of the evidence, we intend to ask you to return verdicts of first degree murder against each of these defendants.”

Noting that it would be a long trial, with many witnesses, I recalled the old Chinese proverb, “The palest ink is better than the best memory,” urging the jury to take detailed notes to aid them in their deliberations.

I closed by telling the jury that we felt confident that they would give both the defendants and the People of the State of California the fair and impartial trial to which each was entitled.

K anarek had interrupted my opening statement nine times with objections, all of which the Court had overruled. When I finished, he moved that the whole statement be stricken or, failing in that, a mistrial declared. Older denied both motions. Fitzgerald told the press my remarks were “scurrilous and slanderous,” and called the Helter Skelter motive “a truly preposterous theory.”

I had a strong feeling that by the time of his closing argument to the jury, Paul wouldn’t even bother to argue this.

T he defense reserving its opening statements until after the prosecution had completed its case, the People called their first witness, Colonel Paul Tate.

With military erectness, Sharon’s father took the stand and was sworn. Though forty-six, he looked younger, and sported a well-trimmed beard. Before entering the courtroom, he had been thoroughly searched, it being rumored that he had vowed to kill Manson. Even though he glanced only briefly at the defendants, and exhibited no discernible reaction, the bailiffs watched him every minute he was in the courtroom.

Our direct examination was brief. Colonel Tate described his last meeting with Sharon, and identified photos of his daughter, Miss Folger, Frykowski, Sebring, and the house at 10050 Cielo Drive.

Wilfred Parent, who followed Colonel Tate to the stand, broke down and cried when shown a photograph of his son, Steven.

Winifred Chapman, the Tate maid, was next. I questioned her in detail about the washing of the two doors; then, wanting to establish a chronology for the jurors, I took her up to her departure from the residence on the afternoon of August 8, 1969, intending to recall her to the stand later so she could testify to her discoveries the next morning.

On cross-examination Fitzgerald brought out that she hadn’t mentioned washing the door in Sharon’s bedroom until months after the murders, and then she had told this not to LAPD but to me.

This was to be the start of a pattern. Having questioned each of the witnesses not once but a number of times, I had uncovered a great deal of information not previously related to the police. In many instances I had been the only one who had interviewed the witness. Though Fitzgerald initially planted the idea, Kanarek would nurture it until, in his mind at least, it budded into a full-bloomed conspiracy, with Bugliosi framing the whole case.

Kanarek had only one question for Mrs. Chapman, but it was a good one. Had she ever seen the defendant Charles Manson before her appearance in court? She replied that she had not.

Although he had recently married and was not anxious to leave his bride, William Garretson had flown back from his home in Lancaster, Ohio, where he had returned after being released by LAPD. The former caretaker came across as sincere, though rather shy. Although I intended to call both officers Whisenhunt and Wolfer, the former to testify to finding the setting on Garretson’s stereo at between 4 and 5, the latter to describe the sound tests he had conducted, I did question Garretson in detail as to the events of that night, and I felt the jury believed him when he claimed he hadn’t heard any gunshots or screams.

I asked Garretson: “How loud were you playing your stereo?”

A. “It was about medium…It wasn’t very loud.”

This, I felt, was the best evidence Garretson was telling the truth. Had he been lying about hearing nothing, then surely he would have lied and said the stereo was loud.

Most of Fitzgerald’s questions concerned Garretson’s arrest and alleged rough handling by the police. At one point later in the trial Fitzgerald would maintain that Garretson was involved in at least some of the Tate homicides. Since there wasn’t even a hint of this in his cross-examination, I’d conclude that he was belatedly looking for a convenient scapegoat.

Kanarek again asked the same question. No, he’d never seen Manson before, Garretson replied.

When I’d interviewed Garretson prior to his taking the stand, he’d told me that he still had nightmares about what had happened. That weekend, before his return to Ohio, Rudi Altobelli, who was now living in the main house, arranged for Garretson to revisit 10050 Cielo Drive. He found the premises quiet and peaceful. After that, he told me, the nightmares stopped.

By the end of the day we had finished with three more witnesses: Frank Guerrero, who had been painting the nursery that Friday; Tom Vargas, the gardener, who testified to the arrivals and departures of the various guests that day and to his signing for the two steamer trunks; and Dennis Hurst, who identified Sebring from a photograph as the man who came to the front door when he delivered the bicycle about eight that night.

The stage was now set for the prosecution’s main witness, whom I intended to call to the stand first thing Monday morning.

O n hearing my opening statement, Manson must have realized that I had his number.

At the conclusion of court that afternoon sheriff’s deputy Sergeant William Maupin was escorting Manson from the lockup to the ninth floor of the jail when—to quote from Maupin’s report—“inmate Manson stated to undersigned that it would be worth $100,000 to be set free. Inmate Manson also commented on how much he would like to return to the desert and the life he had before his arrest. Inmate Manson commented additionally that money meant nothing to him, that several people had contacted him regarding large sums of money. Inmate Manson also stated that an officer would only receive a six month sentence if caught releasing an inmate without authority.”

Maupin reported the bribe offer to his superior, Captain Alley, who in turn informed Judge Older. Though the incident was never made public, Older gave the attorneys Maupin’s report the next day. Reading it, I wondered what Manson would try next.

Over the weekend, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten lit matches, heated bobby pins red-hot, then burned X marks on their foreheads, after which they ripped open the burnt flesh with needles, to create more prominent scars.

When the jurors were brought into court Monday morning, the X’s were the first thing they saw—graphic evidence that when Manson led, the girls followed.

A day or so later Sandy, Squeaky, Gypsy, and most of the other Family members did the same thing. As new disciples joined the group, this became one of the Family rituals, complete to tasting the blood as it ran down their faces.

JULY 27–AUGUST 3, 1970

Eight sheriff’s deputies escorted Linda Kasabian from Sybil Brand to the Hall of Justice, through an entrance that circumvented those patrolled by the Family. When they reached the ninth floor, however, Sandra Good suddenly appeared in the corridor and screamed, “You’ll kill us all; you’ll kill us all! ” Linda, according to those who witnessed the encounter, seemed less shaken than sad.

I saw Linda just after she arrived. Though her attorney, Gary Fleischman, had purchased a new dress for her, it had been misplaced, and she was wearing the same maternity dress she’d worn when pregnant. The baggy tent made her look more hippie-like than the defendants. After I’d explained the problem to Judge Older, he heard other matters in chambers until the dress was located and brought over. Later a similar courtesy would be extended to the defense when Susan Atkins lost her bra.

BUGLIOSI “The People call Linda Kasabian.”

The sad, resigned look she gave Manson and the girls contrasted sharply with their obviously hostile glares.

CLERK “Would you raise your right hand, please?”

KANAREK “Object, Your Honor, on the grounds this witness is not competent and she is insane!”

BUGLIOSI “Wait a minute! Your Honor, I move to strike that, and I ask the Court to find him in contempt for gross misconduct. This is unbelievable on his part!”

Unfortunately, it was all too believable—exactly the sort of thing we had feared since Kanarek came on the case. Ordering the jury to disregard Kanarek’s remarks, Older called counsel to the bench. “There is no question about it,” Older told Kanarek, “your conduct is outrageous…”

BUGLIOSI “I know the Court cannot prevent him from speaking up, but God knows what he is going to say in the future. If I were to say something like this in open court, I would probably be thrown off the case by my office and disbarred…”

D efending Kanarek, Fitzgerald told the Court that the defense intended to call witnesses who would testify that Linda Kasabian had taken LSD at least three hundred times. The defense would contend, he said, that such drug use had rendered her mentally incapable of testifying.

Whatever their offer of proof, Older said, matters of law were to be discussed either at the bench or in chambers, not in front of the jury. As for Kanarek’s outburst, Older warned him that if he did that once more, “I am going to take some action against you.”

Linda was sworn. I asked her: “Linda, you realize that you are presently charged with seven counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder?”

A. “Yes.”

Kanarek objected, moving for a mistrial. Denied. It was some ten minutes later before I was able to get in the second question.

Q. “Linda, are you aware of the agreement between the District

Attorney’s Office and your attorneys that if you testify to everything you know about the Tate-LaBianca murders, the District Attorney’s Office will petition the Court to grant you immunity from prosecution and dismiss all charges against you?”

A. “Yes, I am aware.”

Kanarek objected on four different grounds. Denied. By bringing this in first, we defused one of the defense’s biggest cannons.

Q. “Besides the benefits which will accrue to you under the agreement, is there any other reason why you have decided to tell everything you know about these seven murders?”

Another torrent of objections from Kanarek before Linda was able to answer: “I strongly believe in the truth, and I feel the truth should be spoken.”

Kanarek even objected to my asking Linda the number of children she had. Often he used a shotgun approach—“Leading and suggestive; no foundation; conclusion and hearsay”—in hope that at least some of the buckshot would hit. Many of his grounds were totally inapplicable. He would object to a “conclusion,” for example, when no conclusion was called for, or yell “Hearsay” when I was simply asking her what she did next.

Since I’d anticipated this, it didn’t bother me. However, it took over an hour to get Linda up to her first meeting with Manson, her description of life at Spahn Ranch, and, over Kanarek’s very heated objections, her definition of what she meant by the term “Family.”

A. “Well, we lived together as one family, as a family lives together, as a mother and father and children, but we were all just one, and Charlie was the head.”

I was questioning Linda about the various orders Manson had given the girls when, unexpectedly, Judge Older began sustaining Kanarek’s hearsay objections. I asked to approach the bench.

Lay people believe hearsay is inadmissible. Actually there are so many exceptions to the hearsay rule that many lawyers feel the law should read, “Hearsay is admissible except in these few instances.”[66]I told Older: “I had anticipated many legal problems in this case, and I have done research on them—because I kind of play the Devil’s advocate—but I never anticipated I’d have any trouble showing Manson’s directions to members of the Family.”

Older said he sustained the objections because he couldn’t think of any exception to the hearsay rule that would permit the introduction of such statements.

This was crucial. If Older ruled such conversations inadmissible, there went the domination framework, and our case against Manson.

Shortly after this, court recessed for the day. Aaron, J. Miller Leavy, and I were up late that night, looking for citations of authority. Fortunately, we found two cases—People vs. Fratiano and People vs. Stevens —in which the Court ruled you can show the existence of a conspiracy by showing the relationship between the parties, including statements made to each other. Shown the cases the next morning, Judge Older reversed himself and overruled Kanarek’s objections.

Opposition now came from a totally unexpected direction: Aaron.

Linda had already testified that Manson ordered the girls to make love to male visitors to induce them to join the Family, when I asked her: “Linda, do you know what a sexual orgy is?”

Kanarek immediately objected, as did Hughes, who remarked, in a somewhat revealing choice of words: “We are not trying the sex lives of these people. We are trying the murder lives of these people.”

Not only were the defense attorneys shouting objections, many of which Older sustained; Aaron leaned over to me and said, “Can’t we skip this stuff? We’re just wasting time. Let’s get into the two nights of murder.”

“Look, Aaron,” I told him sotto voce, “I’m fighting the judge, I’m fighting Kanarek, I’m not going to fight you. I’ve got enough problems. This is important and I’m going to get it in.”

As Linda finally testified, in between Kanarek’s objections, Manson decided when an orgy would take place; Manson decided who would, and who would not, participate; and Manson then assigned the roles each would play. From start to finish he was the maestro, as it were, orchestrating the whole scene.

That Manson controlled even this most intimate and personal aspect of the lives of his followers was extremely powerful evidence of his domination.

Moreover, among the twenty-some persons involved in the particular orgy Linda testified to were Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkel.

The sexual acts were not detailed, nor did I question Linda about other such “group encounters.” Once the point was made, I moved on to other testimony—Helter Skelter, the black-white war, Manson’s belief that the Beatles were communicating with him through the lyrics of their songs, his announcement, late on the afternoon of August 8, 1969, that “Now is the time for Helter Skelter.”

Describing her appearance on the stand, the Los Angeles Times noted that even in discussing the group’s sex life, Linda Kasabian was surprisingly “serene, soft-spoken, even demure.”

Her testimony was also at times very moving. Telling how Manson separated the mothers and their children, and relating her own feelings on being parted from Tanya, Linda said, “Sometimes, you know, when there wasn’t anybody around, especially Charlie, I would give her my love and feed her.”

L inda was describing Manson’s directions to the group just before they left Spahn Ranch that first night when Charlie, seated at the counsel table, put his hand up to his neck and, with one finger extended, made a slitting motion across his throat. Although I was looking the other way and didn’t see the gesture, others, including Linda, did.

Yet there was no pause in her reply. She went on to relate how Tex had stopped the car in front of the big gate; the cutting of the telephone wires; driving back down the hill and parking, then walking back up. As she described how they had climbed the fence to the right of the gate, you could feel the tension building in the courtroom. Then the sudden headlights.

A. “And a car pulled up in front of us and Tex leaped forward with a gun in his hand…And the man said, ‘Please don’t hurt me, I won’t say anything!’ And Tex shot him four times.”

As she described the murder of Steven Parent, Linda began sobbing, as she had each time she had related the story to me. I could tell the jury was moved, both by the mounting horror and her reaction.

Sadie giggled. Leslie sketched. Katie looked bored.

By the end of the day I had brought Linda to the point where Katie was chasing the woman in the white gown (Folger) with a knife and Tex was stabbing the big man (Frykowski): “He just kept doing it and doing it and doing it.”

Q. “When the man was screaming, do you know what he was screaming?”

A. “There were no words, it was beyond words, it was just screams.”

Reporters keeping track of Kanarek’s objections gave up on the third day, when the count passed two hundred. Older warned Kanarek that if he interrupted either the witness or the prosecution again, he would find him in contempt. Often a dozen transcript pages separated my question and Linda’s answer.

BUGLIOSI “We are going to have to go back, Linda. There has been a blizzard of objections.”

KANAREK “I object to that statement.”

When Kanarek again interrupted Linda in mid-sentence, Older called us to the bench.

THE COURT “Mr. Kanarek, you have directly violated my order not to repeatedly interrupt. I find you in contempt of Court and I sentence you to one night in the County Jail starting immediately after this court adjourns this afternoon until 7 A.M. tomorrow morning.”

Kanarek protested that “rather than my interrupting the witness, the witness interrupted me”!

By day’s end Kanarek would have company. Among the items I wished to submit for identification purposes was a photograph which showed the Straight Satans’ sword in a scabbard next to the steering wheel of Manson’s own dune buggy. Since the photograph had been introduced in evidence in the Beausoleil trial, I didn’t get it until it was brought over from the other court. “The District Attorney is withholding great quantities of evidence from us,” Hughes charged.

BUGLIOSI “For the record, I just saw it for the first time a few minutes ago myself.”

HUGHES “That is a lot of shit, Mr. Bugliosi.”

THE COURT “I hold you in direct contempt of Court for that statement.”

Though in complete agreement with Older’s earlier citing of Kanarek, I disagreed with his finding against Hughes, feeling if he was in contempt of anyone, it was me, not the Court. Too, it was based on a simple misunderstanding, one which, when explained to him, Hughes quickly accepted. Older was less understanding.

Given a choice between paying a seventy-five-dollar fine or spending the night in jail, Hughes told the Court: “I am a pauper, Your Honor.” With no sympathy whatsoever, Older ordered him remanded into custody.

K anarek learned nothing from his night in jail. The next morning he was right back interrupting both my questions and Linda’s replies. Admonishments from the bench accomplished nothing; he’d apologize, then immediately do the same thing again. All this concerned me much less than the fact that he occasionally succeeded in keeping out testimony. Usually when Older sustained an objection, I could work my way around it, introducing the testimony in a different way. For example, when Older foreclosed me from questioning Linda about the defendants watching the news of the Tate murders on TV the day after those murders occurred, because he couldn’t see the relevance of this, I asked Linda if, on the night of the murders, she was aware of the identities of the victims.

A. “No.”

Q. “When was the first time you learned the names of these five people?”

A. “The following day on the news.”

Q. “On television?

A. “Yes.”

Q. “In Mr. Spahn’s trailer?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “Did you see Tex, Sadie, and Katie during the day following these killings, other than when you were watching television with them?”

A. “Well, I saw Sadie and Katie in the trailer. I cannot remember seeing Tex on that day.”

The relevance of this would become obvious when Barbara Hoyt took the stand and testified (1) that Sadie came in and told her to switch channels to the news; (2) that before this particular day Sadie and the others never watched the news; and (3) that immediately after the newscaster finished with Tate and moved on to the Vietnam war, the group got up and left.

In my questioning of Linda regarding the second night, there was one reiterated theme: Who told you to turn off the freeway? Charlie. Was anyone else in the car giving directions other than Mr. Manson? No. Did anyone question any of Mr. Manson’s commands? No.

In her testimony regarding both nights, there were also literally a multitude of details which only someone who had been present on those nights of horrendous slaughter could have known.

Realizing very early how damaging this was, Manson had remarked, loud enough for both Linda and the jury to hear, “You’ve already told three lies.”

Linda, looking directly at him, had replied, “Oh, no, Charlie, I’ve spoken the truth, and you know it.”

By the time I had finished my direct examination of Linda Kasabian on the afternoon of July 30, I had the feeling the jury knew it too.

W hen I know the defense has something which might prove harmful to the prosecution’s case, as a trial tactic I usually put on that evidence myself first. This not only converts a damaging left hook into a mere left jab, it also indicates to the jury that the prosecution isn’t trying to hide anything. Therefore, I’d brought out, on direct, Linda’s sexual permissiveness and her use of LSD and other drugs.[67]Prepared to destroy her credibility with these revelations, the defense found itself going over familiar ground. In doing so, they sometimes even strengthened our case.

It was Fitzgerald, Krenwinkel’s defense attorney, not the prosecution, who brought out that during the period Linda was at Spahn, “I was not really together in myself…I was extremely impressionistic…I let others put ideas in me”; and—even more important—that she feared Manson.

Q. “What were you afraid of?” Fitzgerald asked.

A. “I was just afraid. He was a heavy dude.”

Asked to explain what she meant by this, Linda replied, “He just had something, you know, that could hold you. He was a heavyweight. He was just heavy, period.”

Fitzgerald also elicited from Linda that she loved Manson; that “I felt he was the Messiah come again.”

Linda then added one statement which went a long way toward explaining not only why she but also many of the others had so readily accepted Manson. When she first saw him, she said, “I thought…‘This is what I have been looking for,’ and this is what I saw in him.”

Manson—a mirror which reflected the desires of others.

Q. “Was it also your impression that other people at the ranch loved Charlie?”

A. “Oh, yes. It seemed that the girls worshiped him, just would die to do anything for him.”

Helter Skelter, Manson’s attitude toward blacks, his domination of his co-defendants: in each of these areas Fitzgerald’s queries brought out additional information which bolstered Linda’s previous testimony.

Often his questions backfired, as when he asked Linda: “Do you remember who you slept with on August 8?”

A. “No.”

Q. “On the tenth?”

A. “No, but eventually I slept with all the men.”

Time and again Linda volunteered information which could have been considered damaging, yet, coming from her, somehow seemed only honest and sincere. She was so open that it caught Fitzgerald off guard.

Avoiding the word “orgy,” he asked her, regarding the “love scene that took place in the back house…did you enjoy it?”

Linda frankly answered: “Yeah, I guess I did. I will have to say I did.”

If possible, at the end of Fitzgerald’s cross-examination Linda Kasabian looked even better than she had at the end of the direct.

I t was Monday, August 3, 1970. I was on my way back to court from lunch, a few minutes before 2 P.M., when I was abruptly surrounded by newsmen. They were all talking at once, and it was a couple of seconds before I made out the words: “Vince, have you heard the news? President Nixon just said that Manson’s guilty! ”

AUGUST 3–19, 1970

Fitzgerald had a copy of the AP wire. In Denver for a conference of law-enforcement officials, the President, himself an attorney, was quoted as complaining that the press tended “to glorify and make heroes out of those engaged in criminal activities.”

He continued: “I noted, for example, the coverage of the Charles Manson case…Front page every day in the papers. It usually got a couple of minutes in the evening news. Here is a man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders. Yet here is a man who, as far as the coverage is concerned, appeared to be a glamorous figure.”

Following Nixon’s remarks, presidential press secretary Ron Ziegler said that the President had “failed to use the word ‘alleged’ in referring to the charges.”[68]

We discussed the situation in chambers. Fortunately, the bailiffs had brought the jury back from lunch before the story broke. They remained sequestered in a room upstairs, and so, as yet, there was no chance of their having been exposed.

Kanarek moved for a mistrial. Denied. Ever suspicious that the sequestration was not effective, he asked that the jurors be voir dired to see if any had heard the news. As Aaron put it, “It would be like waving a red flag. If they didn’t know about it before, they certainly will after the voir dire.”

Older denied the motion “without prejudice,” so it could be renewed at a later time. He also said he would tell the bailiffs to inaugurate unusually stringent security measures. Later that afternoon the windows of the bus used to transport the jury to and from the hotel were coated with Bon Ami to prevent the jurors from seeing the inevitable headlines. There was a TV set in their joint recreation room at the Ambassador; ordinarily they could watch any program they wished, except the news, a bailiff changing the channels. Tonight it would remain dark. Newspapers would also be banned from the courtroom, Older specifically instructing the attorneys to make sure none were on the counsel table, where they might inadvertently be seen by the jury.

When we returned to court, there was a smug grin on Manson’s face. It remained there all afternoon. It isn’t every criminal who merits the attention of the President of the United States. Charlie had made the big time.

T he jury was brought down, and Atkins’ defense attorney, Daye Shinn, began his cross-examination of Linda.

Apparently intent on implying that I had coached Linda in her testimony, he asked: “Do you recall what Mr. Bugliosi said to you during your first meeting?”

A. “Well, he has always stressed for me to tell the truth.”

Q. “Besides the truth, I’m talking about.”

As if anything else were important.

Q. “Did Mr. Bugliosi ever tell you that some of your statements were wrong, or some of your answers were not logical, or did not make sense?”

A. “No, I told him; he never told me.”

Q. “The fact that you were pregnant, wasn’t that the reason that you stayed outside [the Tate residence] instead of going inside to participate?”

A. “Whether I was pregnant or not, I would never have killed anybody.”

Shinn gave up after only an hour and a half. Linda’s testimony remained unshaken.

W ith a heavy, ponderous shuffle, Irving Kanarek approached the witness stand. His demeanor was deceiving. There was no relaxing when Kanarek was cross-examining; at any moment he might blurt out something objectionable. There was also no anticipating him; he’d suddenly skip from one subject to another with no hint of a connecting link. Many of his questions were so complex that even he lost the thought, and had to have the court reporter read them back to him.

It was excruciatingly tiring listening to him. It was also very important that I do so, since, unlike the two attorneys who preceded him, Kanarek scored points. He brought out, for example, that when Linda returned to California to reclaim Tanya, she told the social worker that she’d left the state on August 6 or 7—which, had this been true, would have been before the Tate-LaBianca murders occurred. If accurate, this meant that Linda had fabricated all of her testimony regarding those murders. And if she had lied to the social worker to get her daughter back, Kanarek implied, she could very well lie to this Court to get her own freedom.

But mostly he rambled and droned on and on, tiring the spectators as well as the witness. Many of the reporters “wrote off” Kanarek early in the proceedings. Given a choice of defense attorneys, they quoted Fitzgerald, whose questions were better phrased. But it was Kanarek, in the midst of his verbosity, who was scoring.

He was also beginning to get to Linda. At the end of the day—her sixth on the stand—she looked a little fatigued and her answers were less sharp. No one knew how many days of this lay ahead, since Kanarek, unlike the other attorneys, consistently avoided answering Older’s questions about the estimated length of his cross-examination.

O n my way home that night I was again thankful the jury had been sequestered. You could see the headlines on every newsstand. The car radio had periodic updates. Hughes: “I am guilty of contempt for uttering a dirty word, but Nixon has the contempt of the world to face.” Fitzgerald: “It is very discouraging when the world’s single most important person comes out against you.” The most reported quote was that of Manson, who had passed a statement to the press via one of the defense attorneys. Mimicking Nixon’s remarks, it was unusually short and to the point: “Here’s a man who is accused of murdering hundreds of thousands in Vietnam who is accusing me of being guilty of eight murders.”

T he next day in chambers Kanarek charged the President with conspiracy. “The District Attorney of Los Angeles County is running for attorney general of California. I say it without being able to prove it, that Evelle Younger and the President got together to do this.”

If this was so, Kanarek said, “he shouldn’t be President of the United States.”

THE COURT “That will have to be decided in some other proceeding, Mr. Kanarek. Let’s stay with the issues here…I am satisfied there has been no exposure of any of these jurors to anything the press may have said…I see no reason for taking any further action at this time.”

Kanarek resumed his cross-examination. On direct, Linda had stated that she had taken some fifty LSD “trips.” Kanarek now asked her to describe what had happened on trip number 23.

BUGLIOSI “I object to that question as being ridiculous, Your Honor.”

Though there is no such objection in the rule books, I felt there should be. Apparently Judge Older felt similarly, as he sustained the objection. As well as others when I objected that a question had been repeated “ad nauseam” or was “nonsensical.”

J ust after the noon recess Manson suddenly stood and, turning toward the jury box, held up a copy of the front page of the Los Angeles Times .

A bailiff grabbed it but not before Manson had shown the jury the huge black headline:

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 611