No Journey's End: My Tragic Romance with Ex-Manson Girl, Leslie Van Houten

by Peter Chiaramonte

  “Have you aspirin? Or anythin’ stronger?”

  Yes, I did, and I told him where to find it. I heard him clanking and banging around in the kitchen, so I obliged him by getting them down from the shelf. I handed Jean four or five tablets out of a bottle, and I said to take only one at a time.

  “You should keep a couple on hand for when you need them,” I said.

  “What are they?”

  “Sixty milligrams of codeine sulfate. What’s left in that bottle is leftover from my last surgery. One is a good dose to take this side of a hangover. More than that would be negligent. Be sure to drink plenty of water.” Then I poured him a second glassful.

  “Rx in peace,” I added.

  Jean slept under the sleeping bag I threw over top of him. In the morning I could see he was awake when I came back from my run. He’d made himself coffee in the French press so I asked if he would he like another cup. It took us a while to get around to talking about Gabrielle.

  Jean explained Gabe was more confused than upset, “Which is why she’d rather not talk ’til she’s ready. So I decided I’d come alone.”

  “Hey man, listen,” I said, “I’m cool with that. Tell Gabe to call anytime, or I’ll wait and see her at school. You let me know. I’m happy you two are dating. This way, we can still all be friends. It’s so…modern.”

  I’m no surer of the reasons why I held this attitude either then or now. Was it simply more liberal ties or something more complex and intra-personal? Up until then, I hadn’t been overly possessive or jealous of girlfriends, but all of that changed after Leslie.

  Neither of us said much more about Gabe after that. Jean listened to the radio while I took a shower. When I came out, what we spoke about most was Jean’s hope of finding a job teaching French lit and my chances of getting into OISE that summer. And we spoke about women in general, of course—no one else in particular. All the unknowns…

  “What are the odds you will go on coaching?” Jean asked.

  “None, really,” I said. “At my level, it’s more like volunteer service than the career I was meant for.”

  We drank more coffee, got high and, after a while, Jean asked if he could play a side or two on the stereo.

  “This one okay?” he asked, holding up a disc by T-Rex.

  “Ah, yes,” I said, when I saw which tracks he had chosen. When it came time for the chorus I tried hitting the notes, but was off-key by miles.

  “Something we both can relate to,” I said, with reference to both our new loves. “True blue through and through!”

  And we clanked coffee mugs.

  Soon after that, he left, and I hardly thought twice about what had happened with Gabe. I simply went back to what I’d been reading about my “sullen Garbo siren” and awaiting the siren’s call.

  Jean called a couple of days later, on Friday, March 4th.

  “Thanks again for the tablets.”

  I knew he’d like those blue ones. He’d talked to Gabrielle, and she said everything was “hunky dory” when it came to her and me. Sounded worn but was welcome news all the same, since it came without recriminations.

  Jean told me Gabe and Karen were going up north for the weekend—something to do with Karen’s family in Huntsville. Jean said he was free and asked if I wanted to hang out. He mentioned there might be something cooking downtown that night. Guy Bijaux, Martin’s younger brother, was in TO for a few days before having to head back to Montreal.

  “He’s staying at the Park Plaza and would like to meet you,” Jean said. “He’s offered to treat us to a night on the town. Promised surprises. What do you say? Don’t come dressed in a sweat suit.”

  “There’s a big track meet tomorrow, Jean,” I said. “I was planning to be in bed early.”

  Silence at both ends.

  Then, on impulse, I blurted out, “Sure, okay, what the heck. Why not? I can be late to the Gardens since I’m just a bystander anyway. What time do you want to go out?”

  “Guy said to come by about nine. He has business ’til then. I can meet you before that, and we can head over together.”

  I agreed with the plan.

  In the meantime, another letter arrived from Leslie. That was always a thrill and a treat. She was sure to get me daydreaming, smiling and feeling sure of myself. Although, one thing she said got me thinking about how wrong I had been in making certain assumptions. For instance, I presumed she’d been a politically disaffected, middle-class teenage hippie just like me with an impossible home life. Not so. Leslie told me the reason she left home wasn’t because of any intense alienation. The real reason she went on the road was due to a healthy curiosity about spirituality and communal living, and to be with a boy she’d fallen madly in love with. What were the odds of that working out? I had to wonder. One of the worst things for her, Leslie said, was the pain that she caused her family. They thought what happened to her had been their fault somehow, and that wasn’t the case at all.

  The temperature outside that morning was just above freezing. There was a light wind and rain in the weather. I treated myself to another long, slow-distance jog in the grey swollen fog. I ran for miles east along Davenport Road and turned south at Church Street. I walked slowly past the corner of my grandparents’ old block. Distant memories of great smelling food, loud angry quarrels, shattered glass and images of crying women came to mind—like all kinds of debris after an upriver storm.

  I picked up the pace running past Maple Leaf Gardens but slowed again before turning into a headwind pushing for home. I imagined myself talking to Leslie. I wanted to tell her about where in our previous lives I thought she and I might still be hurting. Cooling down, I ducked inside Hart House to finish my workout. I did a set of four or five one-hundred meter accelerations on the track. Then, I stretched and lifted a bit after that, eventually settling into the hot tub before a cold shower. It felt cozy to change into the fresh cotton sweats and clean socks that I kept in my locker.

  Andy Higgins was nowhere I could find him. Was this even a good time to talk? I did run into Jim Buchanan coming out of the northwest corner of Hart House though. He told me he’d skipped lunch with Higgins also. We talked a little about the Ontario Universities Championship track meet tomorrow.

  “Where’re you headed next?” Buck asked.

  I pointed north.

  He said, “I’m meeting someone at the Colonnade. Want to walk that way together?”

  I guessed he assumed I was on my way home. Actually, I wasn’t. But it always felt good to spend some time with Buck. He was a near-endlessly upbeat and positive person.

  It wasn’t long before I baited him into asking “How’s the Van Houten trial going? Still getting letters?” I gave him a proud, affirmative nod.

  “Her trial starts the end of the month,” I said. “Got another letter today, in fact.”

  “I guessed as much from the way you are smiling. You think she stands a chance of ever getting out?”

  I’d heard that question so often I took my time to come up with a novel evasion but couldn’t find one.

  Finally, I said, “Look, the first trial was a farce. I think I told you already. Manson had the girls put it on like a circus for Bugliosi and company, especially the reporters.”

  “I still don’t get it, Peter. You say she didn’t actually kill anyone. But she was there, right? She got into the car knowing there were going out to kill some people.”

  “Right. But how did she decide? What was her motive? I’m still finding these things out myself. All I know is that she was there to do whatever Charlie and Tex told her to. As weird as this sounds—I think she’d been conditioned just like any captive soldier. Who knows what goes on in anyone’s mind, especially a woman’s? Whatever her part, I’m sure she did what she did out of allegiance and madness, not malice. At
least, that’s my opinion.”

  “You can’t really believe that gets her off,” Buck said.

  It wasn’t a question. I sighed when I heard it put as abruptly as that.

  “Who can predict? All I know is that the Manson girls never dared flout the men. And Tex Watson admits he was the one who killed both Mr. and Mrs. LaBianca. And the five others the night before...as he would have done whether Leslie was there or not. Her job was to take orders. No one could have stopped or started that horrible, cowardly mess but Manson. Even the chief prosecutor admitted as much in the trial. Only Charlie Manson had a motive for committing these terrible crimes. He had complete control over the others.”

  “And you think that’s enough to excuse what she did?”

  “What did she do? Do you know? I think it’s possible she’s paid her time for what she’s done. And time is everything. When is enough, enough?”

  Buck reached out to me with one hand and turned me toward him with a tug on my shoulder.

  “Aren’t you just seeing her the way you want to see her instead of the way things really are?”

  That was a poignant remark. We traded back and forth glances from each other’s faces to our feet.

  “What’s wrong with that? Who’s to say? Instead of what?” Feeling defensive, I practically shouted. Buck’s jaw fell an inch because I said it so brusquely.

  “Look,” I gently added, “If she pled guilty to manslaughter the sentence for that is usually less than the time she’s served already. I want to see her get a fair chance to prove herself.”

  “Yeah, but isn’t this case kinda special, Peter? You know what I mean. What about the victims’ families? Killing like that hurts a lot of people. What about justice for them?”

  “Is vengeance the same thing as justice?”

  Here, we both paused and stopped fast in our tracks. A taxi driver driving past slowed down thinking we might be flagging a ride.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I just don’t get it. I know you’re sincere, but I can’t understand how you can say she isn’t guilty?”

  “I didn’t say that. But guilty of what and to what degree?”

  We went inside the Colonnade on the south side of Bloor Street and sat down at a table on the center mezzanine. Buck was taking an interest in what I was saying, so I owed him as thoughtful an answer as to why, after serving eight years for what she’d done, I thought Leslie Van Houten deserved to be let out of prison.

  I explained that the basis of Leslie’s appeal was because her attorney, Ronald Hughes, mysteriously disappeared during the first trial in 1970. Hughes had told friends he was convinced he would win an acquittal for his pretty young client. But he never had the chance to make his case. Maxwell Keith served as Hughes’ replacement and stuck with Leslie all through her self-restoration. In 1976, Keith argued in court that because he hadn’t been given adequate time to prepare a proper defense, her first trial should have been severed from Manson’s. The appeals court agreed and overturned her conviction.

  Since the trial judge didn’t order a separate trial when he should have, Leslie was given a clean slate to start with. She would stand trial again on the same charges: first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Only now, for the first time in nearly a decade, she was about to show the world what the real Leslie Van Houten was about. She wasn’t just another “Manson girl” any longer. She had become her own woman at last and a beautiful one at that.

  I told Buck, “As of this moment, she has not been proven guilty of anything. She’s been charged with first-degree murder. Personally, I don’t think that’s a proper indictment.”

  “Based on what?” Buck asked.

  So far I had been stumped for an answer.

  I said. “Look, Jim, Les’s lawyer will contend she’d been suffering from ‘diminished mental capacity.’ Because of the hex she was under. In her delusional state, she believed Charlie Manson was the incarnation of Christ. Therefore, her participation in that cruel disaster might warrant a lesser charge. That’s all I’m saying—but it should not be first-degree murder.”

  “Err…what’s the difference?”

  In criminal law, as poorly as I understood it, “diminished responsibility” is a defense by which the accused doesn’t dispute breaking the law but offers proof they were injured at the time of the crime. Thus, if Leslie was incapable of “premeditating with malice aforethought,” she shouldn’t be held criminally liable. Leslie’s psychic dysfunctions—leading up to the crime, during, and after—were mitigating factors in her defense.

  I told Buck, “Her ability to use her own judgment was impaired through a program of sex, drugs and brainwashed devotion to Manson.”

  Right as I was saying this, Buck’s rendezvous came to the top of the escalator and walked towards where we were sitting out in front of the Mauk Sandwich Shop. Buck stood up right away to greet her. That ended our talk. Buck and I split-up soon after his attractive, but fragile-looking, girlfriend arrived. I’ve forgotten her name, but I remember that the way she looked reminded me a lot of my friend, Tricia Woodbridge—the nurse I’d spent time with in Los Angeles.

  * * *

  Instead of turning for home after that, I backtracked to the library as previously planned. There was a recent edition of the Los Angeles Times (as recent as February 17th) that I copied and read in the periodicals’ room. That kept up my heart rate. In it was a report by staff writer Bill Farr about Leslie. She told him she was still haunted by nightmares for her role in the killing of Mr. and Mrs. LaBianca.

  “I know that I did something horrible,” she said, “… I don’t expect people to forgive me but I hope eventually they will give me a chance.”

  She went on to say she looked forward to telling the truth about what really happened.

  For instance, at the first trial Leslie could only say what Manson wanted her to. Same as he orchestrated the exact scripts of the others. The real reason Manson had Gary Hinman killed was because he threatened to go to the cops. After all, Charlie was torturing him for his money. (I made a note to look into that closely.) Manson’s paranoid whims about “Helter Skelter” also were, to an extent, just another conjurer’s trick to get others to carry out this dirty work for him. Just like he used sex, isolation and the constant threat of violence to get what he wanted.

  Manson used sex to gain power over the others. That is no secret. The scores of acid trips Leslie took with Manson were his deliberate treatment exercises for total mind control, which must have amused him. Besides, it was vital for erasing an individual’s previous conditioning and replacing it with the contagious mantras he compelled his followers to repeat. (“I would die for you. Would you die for me?”) And no one could play any music but Manson’s, The Beatles or The Moody Blues. Everyone had to be of one mind, and that mind belonged to Charlie.

  Given the profound isolation at Spahn, no one knew about, nor could debate, things such as student anti-war protests or the crisis in black and white America. Even the sex treatment was playacting and taking on various roles—just like Charlie’s customary reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion—only less serious. On the surface, the orgies were just innocent fun, but, underneath, Manson used it like magic to make time and ego disappear. If you’ve ever done MDA or LSD in a group, you can imagine how readily someone like Manson could replace the sense of self a person normally has. With the drug-induced sureness of oneness that comes with that experience, the victim comes to associate with the persona of one Charles M. Manson.

  Timing is everything. When Charlie was released from prison in 1967, he must have thought he’d died and gone to heaven. The times were just ripe for his con. He’d learned how to size up these hippies in an instant. He knew of his or her desperation for someone older and seemingly wiser that cared, so he put that costume on and grabbed his guitar. Manson may have been
anti-social deep down, but he sure put on a show of support for a new generation. He was, by all accounts, quite the enticing procurer of very young women.

  Followers had no selfhood of their own, and the drugs and the cult practices marred what was left. That much was obvious. Less clear were Manson’s convoluted reasons for each of the murders. Had he just been putting everyone on? Leslie told Bill Farr, in retrospect, the truth had nothing to do with triggering a race war or a real revolution. Although that’s what she was once duped into believing. It was the fantasy Manson made up as he went along, and he used it for control. Leslie fell for his con and so did many others—most pathetically, Vince Bugliosi, who bought the whole rap.

  The LA Times interview with Leslie suggested that Manson’s motives for the massacres at the homes of the Polanskis and the LaBiancas—complete with bloody writing on the walls—were to deliberately mislead the authorities. Manson was worried that, after his arrest, Bobby Beausoleil would implicate him for the murder of Hinman. So, in order to show Bobby how far he would go in his defense, Charlie had innocent people slaughtered at 10050 Cielo Drive and the next night at random. This less than ingenious, irrepressible plan was intended to lead detectives into thinking they had arrested the wrong culprit. Charlie told his team of assassins to make it look like a series of murders committed by the same attack wing of the Black Panthers. I made a note to check this out further. I would start by asking Leslie.

  In the late sixties, it wasn’t hard to believe that a race war was about to begin. The Watts Rebellion in August 1965 had resulted in thirty-four deaths, more than a thousand injured and three times that many violent arrests. The streets were ablaze for six days and nights, and no one was certain if this was the end or just the beginning.