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

by Peter Chiaramonte

  She said, “I give her credit for owning up to the truth about what she did and not acting crazy like last time. I hope she gets out.”

  Picking the Times up off the floor, I said, “One of the things I most admire is her not pretending she’s guiltless. She’s being honest about what really went down, and all she’s asking for is a chance to prove herself. The trouble is, the system is a rats’ nest of liars on both sides of the bars.”

  “Nonsense,” Tricia said. “Although I’m confused by what it says in there, Judge Hinz (was it?) ordered certain testimony be given without the jury present to hear it. What’s that all about? What am I missing? Or have I got it backwards?”

  I gave her my weak summary of what Bill Farr had to say in a series of columns that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in May 1977 (“Miss Van Houten Tells Role in Slaying,” May 13, “LSD Influence on Miss Van Houten Told,” May 20, and “Miss Van Houten Believed Only Duty Was to Manson, Expert Says,” May 25). Farr reported the reason Maxwell Keith called Leslie to re-testify about what she told the court at her first trial was in an effort to block district attorney Stephen Kay from using the false testimony she gave in the previous trial against her. In 1971, during the penalty phase, Leslie told the jury she planned the whole thing herself. She said she intended to massacre innocent people, including Gary Hinman. Of course, she was only saying what Manson ordered her to say—that he and Watson had nothing to do with the murders. If she’d turned the others in, she might have walked away with immunity.

  Judge Edward A. Hinz, Jr. rejected Maxwell Keith’s contention that Leslie’s prior statement not be read to this jury. Instead, the judge ruled the prosecution could proceed to read the entirety of Leslie’s earlier testimony from the trial almost eight years before. It was as if time had stood still. It only looks like the truth, only it isn’t. So how much of the truth did the court really know about what happened in August 1969 in the dead of night in the City of Angels?

  * * *

  After driving from Big Sur to San Diego on August 6th, 1969, less than three days before the Tate and LaBianca slayings, Charles Manson took his new teenage conscript Stephanie Schram home to pick up some clothes from her sister’s. They’d dropped LSD together, and Charlie went through his tried and true sex and “surrender your ego to love” routine. Soon, she was under Manson’s trance like so many before her.

  While Ms. Schram packed her things, Manson played The Beatles White Album over and over. He warned Stephanie’s sister, also a big Beatles fan, that John, Paul, Ringo and George were the four angels prophesized about in the book of Revelation. He intimated they were writing their songs as coded messages to him personally. Manson (aka the “fifth Beatle”) explained how the message he got from the song “Helter Skelter” announced that the black race was about to overthrow the white wealthy classes in a bloody and violent Armageddon. It was comin’ down fast. “Can you hear it...can you hear it…?” Yes she is…

  “People are going to be slaughtered,” Charlie told the sisters. “They’ll be lying on their lawns dead.”

  Just a few days later, Manson’s presage proved true. Even if it wasn’t what The Beatles had in mind when they wrote that album of songs from separate rooms at the Maharishi’s Ashram near Rishikesh.

  “Helter Skelter” is in fact a deliberately discordant parade of electronic-musical overkill the band recorded back in London at the Abbey Road studios. Its composers have said it was meant as a send-up of the sexually charged guitar riffs of Pete Townsend and Jimi Hendrix. The lyrics have to do with having an erotic tour of a woman’s body from top to bottom—not exactly a war to end all wars. So where did Manson get the message it was all about his pet peeve and primary source of paranoia?

  After the shooting of Bernard Crowe and the killing of Gary Hinman, many of Manson’s closest confidants, men like Tex Watson and Bruce Davis, were becoming as paranoid as he was. It was contagious. Especially Tex, whose frenzy was being constantly fueled by a stash of methamphetamines that he and Susan Atkins kept hidden.

  On potent psychedelic drugs like LSD, what’s going on inside a person gets smudged with what’s on the outside. So after Manson had sold everyone on his warped construal of “Helter Skelter,” Family members like Tex armed themselves with more guns, knives and favors to bikers for drugs and the girls. They needed protection from the soon to be rampaging black militant armies Charlie imagined. There was also a supply of ammunition that Spahn Ranch weapons master Danny DeCarlo kept in his shabby quarters. However menacing Vincent Bugliosi liked to make this preparation for war sound, in reality it was little more than a dangerous, hideous play-act that Manson had taken too far out of ireful vengeance and criminal convenience.

  * * *

  Shortly after 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, August 9th, the Polanski’s housekeeper Winifred Chapman accompanied West LAPD officers on to the property at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon to see what a bloodbath of horrors she’d discovered that morning.

  Although police didn’t yet know any of the victims’ identities, the first body they found was that of a red-haired high school kid from El Monte, Steven Parent. Steven was slumped over the front seat of his Rambler sedan. His plaid shirt and blue jeans were sodden with blood. Young Mr. Parent had been slashed in the arm and shot four times at close range in the face and head with a small caliber revolver. He bled to death in his car.

  The officers slowly proceeded past the black Porsche parked beside the garage. No sign of any activity there. Then, they spotted two more bodies sprawled out on the lawn in front of the ranch house. Cautious the killer or killers might still be lurking around, Mrs. Chapman was kept back while police searched the rest of the premises. Out by the guesthouse, officers heard dogs barking and someone yelling for them to stop. They kicked in the door and immediately handcuffed and arrested the lone occupant, who turned out to be a friend the dead boy they found in his car. Police dragged the young caretaker, William Garretson, out to look at the bodies. It wasn’t until later that police figured out he had nothing to do with the murders.

  After a thorough search of the buildings and automobiles, the officers went back to the front of the house to have a closer look at the body of Roman Polanski’s friend from Poland, ‘Voytek’ Frykowski. As police came nearer the corpse, they could see from his torn, swollen face and head just how brutally he had been bludgeoned to death. Mr. Frykowski was found on his side, with one hand clutching blades of grass in his palm. Fifty-one stab wounds and gashes had punctured his body and limbs. He had also been shot twice with a revolver and clobbered over the head with a blunt object more than a dozen times. Hard.

  Also on the lawn underneath a fir tree in front of the gleaming blue pool laid the remains of coffee fortune heiress and Radcliffe grad, Abigail Folger. Ms. Folger had been just twenty-five years old when she bled to death from twenty-eight stab wounds. Both she and her boyfriend, Voytek, were later found to have psychedelic-entactogenic drugs (THC and MDA) in their bloodstreams. Just enough to make them acutely aware and hypersensitive to the terror of those final moments before drowning in pools of lasting unconsciousness.

  One of the officers was standing beside the porch when he noticed the word “PIG” smeared in blood on the front door. Inside the house near the fireplace on the far side of a bloodstained couch lay the vanquished bodies of another man and a pregnant young woman. Vast splashes and smears of gore were on all the walls and floors. A nylon rope was slung over the rafters above them, tied at each end around the necks of the victims.

  Jay Sebring had been shot once and stabbed no less than seven times. The gunshot alone, as well as each of three stab wounds, would have in and of themselves been enough to end his life. Mr. Sebring, like the others, died of exsanguination. His heart pumped out all of his blood. Four feet away at the other end of the rope lay the remains of a blonde and strikingly beautiful Hollywood actress. Someone had draped
a bloodstained American flag over the sofa beside where she laid in a fetal position.

  Sharon Tate Polanski had been eight-months pregnant at the time of her death. She died of hemorrhaging from sixteen stab wounds, some of which penetrated deeply into her lungs and heart. Five wounds were in and of themselves lethal. She was wearing a colorfully patterned bikini, now soaked with the last of her blood. In death, at last, actress Sharon Tate was about to reach true celebrity status. That’s how awful this world had become.

  The next morning, the mood at Spahn Ranch was perversely ecstatic. Each of the last night’s marauders, Charles ‘Tex’ Watson, Susan ‘Sadie’ Atkins, Patricia ‘Katie’ Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian, stopped by the trailer next to George Spahn’s house to watch the breaking news on TV. Hearing the victims’ identities revealed for the first time, Tex got excited and ran to let Charlie know. Manson had already gone back to Cielo Drive to see for himself what havoc he’d caused.

  Watson was quoted as telling the others, “The Soul really picked a good one this time.”

  Up until then, Tex didn’t even know who it was he had killed. Still, he was proud that he’d practically, singlehandedly, knocked off a famous heiress, a celebrity stylist and a Hollywood actress all in one go. Manson should be pleased about that. Only he wasn’t—not entirely.

  It was great news to Manson that he’d instigated something so horrendously gruesome he had the whole world asking, “Who could have done such a thing?”

  It’s what Manson didn’t hear that galled him. He expected to hear that police detectives suspected black militants were involved in these murders—murders that were apparently linked to Gary Hinman’s slaying two weeks before. Though he thought the similarities would appear obvious to the police and the press, there was no mention of the Black Panthers or the connection to Hinman. Charlie would just have to try harder next time. Manson promised to command the next assault in person and vowed to go out again that very night.

  Leslie said she found out later that afternoon from Patricia Krenwinkel what had happened early Saturday morning. She did say she didn’t want to kill anyone but believed it had to be done. Manson convinced her that what happened in Benedict Canyon was the first epic battle in the revolution he dubbed “Helter Skelter.” Indeed, the press, radio, and TV broadcasts appeared to confirm it. One had to wonder what Terry Melcher and Dennis Wilson thought about all of these goings on.

  As crazy as all of that seemed to her now, Leslie admitted how, back then (in 1969 to 1971), she was willing to sacrifice herself for Manson’s championed cause. Manson’s illusions of grandeur infected them all to such a degree that they would murder for him if he wanted it done, even if that meant the gas chamber if and when they were caught.

  * * *

  Around sundown on Saturday, August 9th 1969 at Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth, Charles Manson told past masters from the previous night—Charles Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian, plus rookies Steve Grogan and Leslie Van Houten—to bring a dark change of clothing and meet him back at the bunkhouse.

  Charlie’s agenda was to divide the group into two separate assault teams. Each, he said, would take a different house and not leave any witnesses. Leslie knew there would be killing and that she, herself, might have to die. But she was anxious to prove her loyalty to Manson, and nothing else mattered. That’s why she got into the car. What she didn’t know yet, however, was what her role would be or how far she would have to go to do everything Charlie told her.

  During his briefing with Watson, who had spent two days in a row dropping acid and snorting meth as a chaser, Manson complained about the chaos, panic and noise of the midnight before. Tex insisted the problem was that Charlie hadn’t outfitted him properly weapons-wise to kill so many people.

  Manson insisted, “That wasn’t the problem. Last night was too messy. This time, I’m going to show you how to do it.”

  Charlie and Tex armed themselves with a gun and a military bayonet. None of the girls were issued weapons at first.

  After getting lost a couple of times and aborting three or more random attempts, Manson became very deliberate in his directions. Somewhere near Griffith Park and the Golden State Freeway, he told Linda Kasabian to stop the old borrowed Ford in front of a house she immediately recognized. Of those in the car, Linda, Pat and Charlie had been to this place at least once before.

  Some months earlier, they’d been to a peyote party in the house next door to where they were parked. After that party, Manson and some of the others went on a “creepy crawl” tour through Harold’s neighbors’ houses. Sneaking in and moving items around while the occupants were sleeping—just for kicks, petty theft or perhaps even reconnaissance training. There’s no way of telling for sure all that Manson may have been up to.

  Linda Kasabian asked Charlie, “You’re not going to do that house, are you?”

  To which Manson replied, “No, the one next door.”

  Same as the night before, he chose the house at 3301 Waverly Drive primarily because he knew the layout. Armed with a gun and a sabre, Manson disappeared into a stand of trees between the two houses while the others remained in the car. When he came back, he told Tex to come with him, and they vanished back into the darkness.

  The backdoor was unlocked, and, once inside, Manson waved his handgun while Tex held the point of his bayonet close to Leno LaBianca, who had been sleeping alone on the living room sofa.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” asked the stunned and frightened business exec in his pajamas.

  Mr. LaBianca stood up from where he had been reading the racing forms and newspaper accounts of the killings in Benedict Canyon. Manson told him to sit back down and be quiet. Nobody was going to be hurt if he did what he was told. Holding the heavyset man at gunpoint, he ordered him to roll over on to his stomach while Tex Watson secured him with the leather thongs they brought for that purpose. Manson asked if anyone else was in the house.

  “My wife is upstairs in the bedroom.”

  Tex found Rosemary LaBianca seated in bed in her nightgown and ordered the terrified woman downstairs to the living room at the end of a knife. Then, he bound the couple together back-to-back by their wrists and ankles while Manson held them at gunpoint.

  “We’ll give you anything. We won’t call the police,” Rosemary LaBianca assured them.

  Watson told her to shut the fuck up. Acting out his own twisted version of the good cop-bad cop routine, Manson kept assuring the LaBiancas that if they remained calm, and did exactly what they were told, no harm would come to either of them.

  “This is only a robbery,” is what he said, coolly.

  He took their wallets and returned to the street to call Pat and Leslie out of the car.

  Manson told the girls to take their changes of clothes with them and do whatever Watson ordered.

  “Follow Tex’s commands,” Charlie repeated.

  As always, the men were completely in charge. He told Pat not to cause fear or panic like had happened the previous night.

  “Don’t let them know you are going to kill them.”

  And he said to be sure and leave the scene looking witchy and shocking.

  “Paint a picture more gruesome than anybody has ever seen.”

  Once they were finished with their rampage, the gang was told to hitchhike back to the ranch where Charlie would meet them.

  Watson had his weapons and knew what to do. All Leslie could think about was not letting down Charlie. Before leaving the house, Manson instructed the girls to pull down the blinds in the kitchen and bring back a couple of steak knives.

  Then, he whispered to Tex, “Make sure everybody does something to get her hands dirty.”

  Krenwinkel returned with an eight-inch serrated knife and a ten-inch tined carving fork. Leslie can’t remember that part.

>   Then, Manson drove off with his veteran troupers Kasabian, Atkins and, novice, Steve Grogan. Presumably, they would go on in search of further victims. Manson’s one other attempt at murder that night never came off. Later on in the evening, he had Linda Kasabian plant Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet inside a gas station washroom near the black neighborhood district of Watts. Then, Charlie headed back to Spahn Ranch to hear Tex Watson’s report.

  Tex pulled a pillowcase over Leno LaBianca’s head and tied it with a lamp cord he used to gag the man with. Leno’s hands were still tied behind him. Watson then jostled Rosemary LaBianca back to the bedroom and pulled a pillowcase over her head the same way he had done with her husband. Tex told Leslie and Pat to keep her there pinned to the bed. Leslie couldn’t remember if Katie handed her a knife or not, because she needed both of her hands to hold the woman down. Only she couldn’t. Rosemary was strong and struggled with both of the girls once Tex left them alone.

  Fueled on speed and bloodlust for a second night in a row, Tex returned to the living room where his captive lay on the couch, hands bound and defenseless. Mr. LaBianca must have sensed what horrors were coming. Pushing him flat on his back, Watson ripped open the man’s pajamas and began plunging his bayonet as hard as he could into his body.

  LaBianca’s last words were, “I’m dead, I’m dead.”

  Only he wasn’t, not yet, even though Watson thought so.

  Hearing the horrible, blood-curdling shrieks of her husband drowning in his own blood, Rosemary LaBianca began struggling harder.