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

by Peter Chiaramonte

  He was probably right about that. Apparently, when Maxwell Keith asked the jury to recognize the legal implications of Leslie’s delusional mental state at the time of the murders “as a good soldier carrying out orders,” Kay shouted out, “Was Sirhan Sirhan doing his duty as a good Arab killing Bobby Kennedy?

  “To call them the LaBianca manslaughters would be a travesty of justice,” Stephen Kay said in his closing. “When you go into that jury room, you’re not going to be alone. Society will be watching that jury room. So society will be watching you.”

  I’m not a lawyer, thank the gods, but even I know you can’t say shit like that to the jury.

  The judge had to contradict Kay’s inflammatory statements and reminded the jurors of their obligation to judge Leslie Van Houten solely on the evidence presented in court—“regardless of what society as a whole thinks of this case.” Judge Hinz ordered them to judge Leslie Van Houten as an individual and to base their decision on the evidence—and on that alone. Stephen Kay must’ve fretted he was losing the case because he was. Even he could see how both the public and members of the jury had come to see Leslie as she really was, not as he liked to portray her. His fibs were as phony as he was.

  My last day of classes at OISE was on Tuesday, July 26th. I’d already loaded my teal blue ’73 MGB the night before. There was only room enough in the boot and the jump seat for a few clothes, lots of books and my trusty Smith Corona Super 12 electric typewriter. Tuesday afternoon, I topped off the fluids, kicked the tires and said my goodbyes, headed west on Highway 401 for two hundred and fifty miles to the border at Windsor and Detroit. I stopped at the University of Windsor dorm where my buddy Mike Flynn was staying to to drop off half of my books. He was taking them back to my mother’s place in Toronto for me, where I was storing the rest of my stuff. I left them behind because the extra weight was soaking up all of the MG’s suspension.

  As always, I was hassled by short-haired US Customs agents at the Ambassador Bridge. They granted me a six-month visa to check out graduate schools in California. I don’t remember if I told them about my girlfriend or not. I spent that first night in a motel just off Interstate 94, somewhere outside of Chicago. The next morning, there were thin, high-level clouds on the eastern horizon that turned magnificent shades of oranges, yellows and blues when the light came up in my mirrors. I kept myself pointed west toward the sunset horizon with The Rolling Stones on my Sony tape deck playing it loud.

  Pitching and plunging the car across summer hills and dry, open plains with the top down and Rolling Stones blaring, I was clear out of my head and hungry for substance and adventure.

  12

  Death of a Ladies’ Man

  The day I left Toronto was the same day Judge Hinz ordered the jury to begin deliberations all over again. They were to start on Monday, after an alternative juror replaced the one who became ill. The composition of the jury was now seven women and five men, only I didn’t learn about this until later. I was in transit.

  The next morning before sunrise, there were astounding saffron and tango blue skies that sparkled with stars in the heavens behind me. For almost an hour after dawn, I had these remarkable lightshows of pastel colors playing brightly in my rearview mirrors. Varying my speed between seventy and ninety mph—depending on traffic conditions and the threat of police patrols—I pretty much stuck to the fastest routes on interstate highways. I took I-80 west all the way through Illinois, then straight across Iowa into Nebraska. Each time I stopped for gas it took longer to wash and wipe beetle juice off the windshields than to fill the tanks and pans with gasoline, water and oil. The chrome bumpers and headlamps were all caked with bits and pieces of fresh and dried bugs. I just hoped not to hit anything larger.

  At the Colorado state border, I took I-76 and set my bearing more to the southwest than before—better for tanning for one thing. Up until now, my right side was relatively pale by comparison with the left side of my face turning more dark pink than brown. After such a slow start in the morning and some carburetor problems lugging up the mountainside to Denver, I still made it through to I-70 past Vail and as far as Grand Junction, Colorado. The hotel I checked into was downtown near North Third Street and Main, two or three blocks from the Museum of the West. I checked in then jogged around the block just to loosen up.

  The hotel had a busy bar, and, although I can’t recall all the details, I remember sharing pitchers of beer and big plates of nachos with two pretty, half-drunk girls and one of their boyfriends. I’ve forgotten just how we met, but I remember spending time in a cushioned four-person booth where someone had recently vomited. When I woke up the next day, I read this note scrawled in my diary: Met a girl named Sally. Pretty brunette, late teens. Shared a pitcher inside the Wild West Saloon. Shared a joint outside in her girlfriend’s new Mazda GLC. Sally complained about the bar music and noise, and wanted me to hear her favorite band on her girlfriend’s tape deck. Another of Sally’s boyfriends showed up, and she got out to greet him. I stayed alone in their car until the Electric Light Orchestra finished playing “Telephone Line.”

  According to my highway journal notes “things very nearly got ugly.” But after some pretty harsh words, I staggered up to my room and passed out to the tune of the air conditioner turned up to louder and loudest—so to cover the noise of the traffic and clowns. Woke up without a hangover, which was a blessing. I drew open the curtains right before sun up. I was glad for the foresight to eat a good early breakfast of steak and eggs with brown toast and honey. That final day on the road was the longest, hottest and hardest of the entire journey—eight hundred miles in eleven hours. It started out well enough though, thanks to the first of two joints Sally gave me as a gift for the road. I saved the last one for the plateaus and basins of Utah. The rest of the way, I stayed on I-15 south through Nevada and the wide-open vistas beyond. I throttled through Las Vegas, not even stopping for water, sensing the end of my journey was within reach if I kept pushing hard.

  Although the landscape surrounding Las Vegas had its charms, I was unhappy to see a Nevada state highway patrolman creeping up in my mirrors. I slowed down way before he gave me the signal to pull over. Being Canadian, it’s always a shock to be approached by a cop with his hand on a .357 Smith and Wesson in an open hip holster. I must have looked quite a sight, sunbaked by three days with the top down out there on the edge of the desert. Maybe the whole thing was a mirage? I expected the worst—I’d spend the night field-goal kicking crickets through the bars, see a judge in the morning, post bond through Western Union…and so on and so forth. Sunstroke will do that to a person. But, deus ex machine, the patrolman let me go with a warning to slow down, Ontario license plates and all. He must have thought I wasn’t worth all the bother. I kept it down to seventy-five as far as the McCullough Pass. Then, just a mile from the state line with California, I opened her up.

  Nearly burned out in the Mojave Desert. At one hundred miles an hour, the air feels like the blast from one of the furnaces they use in the brickyards. I completely scorched my arms and the entire left side of my head, never thinking to wear a hat or put the top up. All I wanted was a half decent tan, not to have my face fried. It was well after nightfall when I finally arrived at my destination—city lights, mazes of highway traffic, short and tall buildings, ballparks, and shopping mall clusters of oases and nightlights inside the Los Angeles city limits.

  In spite of how thirsty, starving, hysterical, sun sick and half naked I was at the time, it was always a thrill to be back in The City of Angels. Running low on both fuel and carbohydrates, I got off the highway somewhere very near Cal State LA and gave Judy Frutig a call from a phone booth—munching on Cracker Jacks. She didn’t pick up, so I left a message then called over to Jane Van Houten’s place next. Jane invited me to crash at her place in Monterey Park, which I consented to gratefully. I was happy to see her after such a long haul in a small, open car with n
o one but my lonesome self to talk to.

  As deadbeat and crippled as I was right before bed, I got up at dawn out of habit. Never one to sleep in very much, I would be sure to collapse sometime after I’d been to see Leslie, my love. Took a long hot and cold shower, shampooed twice and shaved. Flipped through the Times, made toast and brewed enough coffee for six thirsty people. Then, Jane and I drove in my car to Sybil Brand for a visit that morning with Les. Twenty minutes was all we were given. Leslie asked if there was something wrong, since I was so two-faced, wind bitten and worn tired. I didn’t say much the whole time we were there, which was unlike me.

  When Jane passed me the phone, all I could do at first was to whisper, “Obviously, I think this only goes to show you just how much of a fool I am for you girl.” And there I was feeling shameless and obvious. “It’s good to be home where the heart is.”

  One week later, on August 5th, after twenty-five days of deliberations, the jury in the Leslie Van Houten first-degree murder case reported to Judge Hinz that they were “hopelessly deadlocked.” Five votes for manslaughter and seven for first-degree murder was the final tally. I was there when the judge declared a mistrial and set a September 12th hearing date to determine if and when Leslie would be put on trial yet again. One of the jurors, Alphonzo Miller, told reporters that although he agreed that Leslie was “believable,” at first he was in favor of convicting her of first-degree murder. But, because of the court’s instructions on “reasonable doubt,” he said, he changed his vote to second-degree. Alphonzo then changed his verdict again, this time to “manslaughter” on the final ballot. Alas, the story of a man gradually coming to his senses. That’s what deliberation should be about. Rather than true, deliberate consensus, what we usually get is “groupthink” for the most part.

  “It was impossible for us to unanimously decide on whether she actually was responsible for her actions,” Miller said. “And I doubt if you will ever find a jury that could.”

  In fact, never before in California history had a hung jury in a first-degree murder case led to a further trial. Things were really beginning to look up for Leslie Van Houten. It was reasonable to expect a reduced sentence on a lesser charge. Fair, just and simple. That’s what I thought.

  I was at Jane’s, hanging out with Betsy, David and Shannon Van Houten, when a very excited Leslie called the house in response to the news. People lined up to say “Congratulations.” Everyone seemed to think Leslie was a giant step closer to being free after eight years in prison.

  Max Keith told the press how delighted he was with this result. “When we started, most of the people I talked to didn’t think she had a chance, and...so, I think what happened is a good outcome.”

  Leslie said that she was pleased but also exhausted.

  That weekend Jane’s place on Sefton Avenue was frantic with telephone calls. Well-wishing visitors came by the house by the dozens. It was really nice—sounds cliché—only it really was nice. There were lots of snacks, wine store pick-up and speculative chatter about Leslie’s impending freedom. I don’t recall what time it was on Saturday night when Max finally showed up with three more bottles of Mumm’s. The first toast was “To a most deserving and humble gentleman, Maxwell S. Keith.” There would have been more toasts only he left soon after that. Max said he needed time to prepare for his meeting the next week with District Attorney John Van de Kamp.

  “There might be a realistic chance,” he said, “for some sort of reduced sentencing deal.”

  Even the guards at Sybil Brand, who’d heard about the hung jury, were more noticeably friendly towards Leslie than before. Instead of the usual twenty-minute morning visit, that next day (on Sunday) was the first time deputies left us alone from eight until nine in the morning.

  A tired looking Leslie said, “No use trying to guess what will happen next. Not at this point. We’ll know more once Max sits down with the DA.”

  “Don’t worry, Les,” I said. “They won’t gamble the cost and bad press of another trial. That would be senseless and stupid.”

  Then again…

  “Okay, let’s talk about something else honey, please,” Leslie said. “What are you up to? Did you get my card? What’s in the news besides me?”

  “Wha...no. Yes. Ah, compared with you? Nothing of interest. My lifestyle’s blushing bourgeois at the moment. Besides thinking about you, my days consist of long leisurely runs around Griffith Park and reading Charles Bukowski. Soon you can join me. I’m sure we’ll find better things to do than just hang around in the hot tub.”

  “Oh yeah, such as what? Speak for yourself, mister. I could sure do with a hot tub right about now.” She seemed to pause to soak in the notion. “Judy is coming to visit tomorrow. She called mom. She’s been away...Judy has, you know...I keep forgetting you live there!”

  “Yes, I do know,” I said, and then I paused before switching topics. “Did she tell you the news about Roman Polanski? No? Well, there’s a deal being struck where he can plead guilty to unlawful intercourse with a minor, and, if he does, the more severe charges could be dropped. The girl and her parents don’t want a trial. They don’t want Polanski imprisoned. All they’ve asked for is an admission of guilt...and for him just to say that he’s sorry. He will still need to go through the whole rigmarole and be examined by squads of consulting psychiatrists.”

  “Oh boy,” Leslie said, a look of weariness in her eyes. “That’s something I could easily have gotten along well without.”

  Neither of us said anything more right away. For once in a long time, I sat quiet and just watched and listened.

  “I dreamed all last night of you and me,” Leslie said. “And you were teasing me about being so skinny. You were thumpin’ your chest and acting so strong. We had a lot of fun pinching each other...you can imagine. It felt so good to be kissed and gently touched by you. When I woke up, I wanted to go on dreaming, but the noise in this place is too much to sleep through.

  “Peter, I think since you and me have come together I look more alive. I believe it’s true. I was tripping on the changes I feel. One thing I noticed is that I am a lot calmer...not with regard to the case...that’s intense. But I’m more settled in my inner-life thoughts. I feel pretty and wanted because of the way you make me feel.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said, “You’re absolutely incredible. Not to mention fall-down, knee-buckling gorgeous. It’s not just the way that you look at the world around you that pleases. That ‘s what ‘good-looking’ really means.” I said this glancing around at the bars, guards and inmates. “What a place in which to go about falling in love.”

  “Tell me something special and soft before you go...so when I close my eyes later on I can put these jailhouse vibes out of my mind. How ’bout a Beatles song?”

  “John, George or Paul?”

  “John.” I roughly mangled the first six lines of verse to “Because.”

  When I drove back down the hill that night away from the Sybil Brand Institute, I punched in a far less romantic song on the tape deck from Death of a Ladies’ Man. Rumor was that record producer Phil Spector held Leonard Cohen captive at gunpoint in his house the night they recorded those songs. In my letter to Leslie later that night, I tried to confirm the same feelings contained in Cohen’s anecdote.

  13

  Au Pays de Cocaine

  The night before his first post-mistrial meeting with Los Angeles District Attorney John Van de Kamp, Max Keith invited Judy Frutig and me to dinner with four other guests at the Valley Hunt Club near Pasadena. The Hunt Club was a century-old social club rooted in blue blood, gold stock and old-fashioned manners. Judy went with Max, and I drove my own car. When I got there, the maître d wouldn’t admit me into the dining room—not without a jacket and tie. Max had a suitcase of “emergency courtroom supplies” in the trunk of his car. So I slipped on a necktie and put on a new white
shirt with sleeves that were too long. The blazer, I got from the coatroom. No one other than the daughter of Max’s friends, Lisa, noticed that I had no socks on inside my loafers.

  We were seated outside on the patio. Max seemed in high spirits right from the start. It was great to see him in such a good mood for a change. I paid little attention to the others at our table, except Lisa, of course. Besides being blonde, there was something intriguing about her. She was a pretty, ingenuous, sad-looking young woman I guessed to be somewhere mid-way in her twenties. There was also something audacious and daring about her, which caused me to wonder what I found so attractive in women who were a touch reckless and wild.

  Mid-way through dinner someone asked Max, “What’re you expecting to get out of that tight-ass Van de Kamp, Max?”

  “Plea to a lesser charge. Leslie’s time served is already longer than the average in this state for second-degree murder.”

  Someone, not me, responded that in this case there wasn’t much “average” about it.

  “Yes,” Judy agreed, “but neither is a split decision. This last trial cost the state more than a quarter of a million dollars, and what did it prove? Half the jurors agreed she was guilty of manslaughter, not murder.”

  No one present seemed to hold any doubt. Nor had anyone much more to add on the subject of Leslie Van Houten that evening. Subjects changed by the second and depended a lot on the number of glasses of dark violet wine we consumed. I had a pretty good time up to that point, despite the stiff shirt and mosquitos biting me on the ankles.

  Around nine-thirty or ten, Lisa asked me if I would give her a ride home. I asked her father—through Max of course—if it was all right with him. We’d all been drinking, but I assured them I wasn’t suffering from “diminished capacity.” Everyone laughed except Judy, who shot me a look of doubt. But Max assured Lisa’s dad it would be all right to trust me. Judy said she’d see me later.