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

by Peter Chiaramonte

  All the while, we talked about her trial and my prospects for grad school—about which, on both counts, we still had the jitters. Our first appointment was at 3:00 p.m. with Isabelle Reilly in the registrar’s office. That was a lob. The real test lay ahead. This meeting with the assistant registrar was mainly to sign ourselves up in case we opted for married student housing. We’d need a backup in case I failed in my bid for a scholarship.

  When Ms. Reilly led me upstairs to meet the faculty, Leslie was free to wander around on her own. She said she’d meet me downstairs in the courtyard around five to five-thirty. Then, she gave me a kiss for good luck. Everything seemed to hinge on a few precious moments. Ms. Reilly ushered me in to a conference room where Professors George Brown, Stewart Shapiro and Mark Phillips were seated around a long table. The only one missing that day was Laurence Iannaccone.

  “How was your trip from Toronto?” Mark Phillips asked me.

  He was the youngest and junior member in the department—a frail-looking guy with wild curly red hair in a style that harkened to Harpo Marx. Mark held an EdD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He hadn’t published much. So I wasn’t feeling too threatened by him, though I was rather in awe of the other psychologists from USC and Harvard.

  “It’s great to be away from the cold and damp for a couple of weeks,” I said in response to impatient small talk about such things as the weather.

  That’s not what I came for. I could see Professor Brown was still looking over my file, instead of my present self, when Dr. Stewart Shapiro began to ask more pertinent questions.

  “George tells me you have quite a background in amateur sports but little experience teaching. Is that right?”

  It took me a second to refocus, trying not to appear too defensive.

  “Well…yes and no,” I said. “I’ve played a few sports...some much better than others. I’m teaching right now. And I have done some coaching and teacher training before. Quite a lot these past two years at the University of Toronto Track Club. I’ve been involved in a dozen clinics for schoolteachers and coaches. Does that count?”

  Stew Shapiro smiled.

  “Could be. To be honest, what impressed us most were your letters of reference. Very impressive,” he said before George Brown cut him off.

  “I liked what you wrote about skipping two years of high school and living with your principal and his family,” said George.

  We all had a laugh over my explaining some of that.

  Then, he asked me, “What do you know about our program in terms of confluent education?”

  “Only what I’ve read so far in your books on the subject. But I’m familiar with some of the source work.”

  “Such as?” Mark interrupted.

  That started me namedropping scholars like Rollo May, A.S. Neill, R.D. Lang, Fritz Perls, Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley and a half dozen more before he cut me off again. Just as well.

  Eventually, we got around to more in-depth discussions about higher education in its latest conceptions. They each took turns explaining their research and methods of teaching. Confluent education, as they put it, sought to renew one of the soundest traditions in Western education. That is, education for the whole person—mind, spirit, body—as well as the emotions. Not just the mind by its lonesome. That started a congenial riff on the performance of sport as a branch of aesthetics. I thought that maybe I’d just found a home for what I’d been thinking for so long all alone.

  When it came time to wrap things up, Mark and Stew said they had somewhere to be right away, and George asked me what my immediate plans were. I told them my fiancé was waiting downstairs and that we were due back in LA later that evening.

  “Would you like to meet her?” I asked automatically.

  “We’ll walk you out then, shall we?” George said.

  But, as we got near the courtyard, my mind jumped in the way of my body. The others looked back seeming puzzled when I stopped walking. Looking past them, I saw Leslie sitting on a bench all alone smoking a cigarette and reading a book. The line from Love’s Labour Lost still comes to mind: “What fool is not so wise to lose an oath to win a paradise?” There was no choice left but to risk it. So I swallowed hard.

  “Ah, gentlemen,” I said without warning, “it’s been a pleasure meeting you. This was fun. I hope you will give my application serious consideration.”

  George said, “You’ll be sure to hear from us soon,” looking puzzled.

  After a pause to take another breath, I went on to say, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to introduce my girlfriend, Leslie. But, first, I think I should explain who she is.”

  That line got their attention. I just made up the rest as I went along.

  “I’m here with Leslie Van Houten,” I said.

  Each of the others took turns looking at me, then at each other. I could see they knew who she was, but it still must have come as a shock in the moment.

  Stew Shapiro spoke first.

  “Well, I’d certainly like to meet her,” he smiled.

  Then, with the others, he stepped forward to greet her. Leslie smiled, and I sheepishly shrugged.

  As Stew and George held out their arms for a handshake, Mark turned to say, “You realize of course, Ms. Van Houten is a very controversial figure here in this state at the moment?”

  I tightened my jaw and wondered if that would count for or against us? All the same, I knew there would always be other graduate schools but only one Leslie.

  Les was charming as always just by being herself. We stood there shooting the breeze for ten minutes or so, before I sensed it was time for us to be leaving. There was a lot for us all to take in and process. But, by the time Les and I skipped clear out of sight, I’d already begun cheering—even that understated my feelings. We were ecstatic! Quite a rush!

  I shouted, “That went very well! Don’t you think?”

  Leslie agreed wholeheartedly. Things looked to be going as well, or better, than we had expected. We vowed to keep our hearts tangled and our fingers crossed. After a snack on our way out of town, we split a fajita and drove straight on to Highway 101 bearing south-by-southeast down the coastline. We each had that eerie in sync sense you get by being in the flow of things coming together. For instance, with immaculate timing, Leslie found station KTYD FM 99.9 on the dial and wound herself up singing along with some Moody Blues song.

  Once the singing stopped, the sky overhead had grown quite a bit darker. I switched on the headlamps as we passed Paradise Cove. When I did, the Lucas electrics gave out—as anyone who has ever owned an MGB could have predicted. We’d blown a fuse. All the circuit lights had completely gone dead. I could have stuck a piece of aluminum foil into the breaker, but we decided to stop ’round the clock until daylight instead. Les rang ahead to the Malones from our room in a quirky motel alongside Highway 1—a place called the Malibu Riviera.

  We had my mother’s 8 mm Kodak movie camera, and (somewhere) there exists a three-minute film of us horsing around in the spirit of youthful exuberance, fear and desire. There was something irresistible about having Leslie all to myself. For so long, I had imagined it wouldn’t be possible. The best scenes between us were the ones that occurred after the film had run out. I remember the prolonged lovers’ tête-à-têtes, our laughter over creaky bedsprings and the noisy coin-operated gismo called Magic Fingers. Afterwards, we each imparted a wholesome night’s sleep with a pleasant wake up call to attention at dawn between showers. I tried to mix up my humming like the hairless monkey that I was. I’m a believer…I couldn’t leave her, if I tried…I’m an ape-man, I’m an ape-ape-man, oh I’m an ape-man….and so on and on as if this were our honeymoon. Crazy, but happy—if unwisely in love.

  Pancakes at daybreak for breakfast at the first family restaurant we found. No more nightmares reported, but hopef
ul fantasies just like regular folks sharing their mutual daydreams. Fueled up the B and, soon after, were back to making good time on the open road—only to be stalled for nearly two hours getting through sixty miles of so-called Los Angeles “freeways.” We played tapes by the Plastic Ono Band, Bob Dylan and The Beach Boys. And, of course, we talked and talked.

  We were headed to a small coastal town near the southern end of the San Joaquin Hills in Orange County called Laguna Niguel. As I may have mentioned before, our friends Jane and Michael Malone lived on Grand Canyon Drive, less than a mile from the coast off the Crown Valley Parkway. After all the usual smiles, cries, hugs and kisses, the gals wandered into the wilds of Jane’s garden to be alone. Michael and I sneaked off to the garage, where he tossed me the keys to his convertible Mercedes SL. We went for a spin down the canyon to Dana Point and parked in a lot alongside the Marina.

  “So how do you like teaching?” Michael asked, sitting down on a lonely rock twenty feet from the shoreline.

  At first, I stood in the surf cooling my toes.

  “It’s not really teaching,” I said. “It’s more like theater than teaching. But I like the subject an awful lot. After all, it’s an excuse to get paid for reading Shakespeare. I know I’m being greedy...doing this all for myself.”

  “Not the students?”

  “Not at all. And you, Michael? Now that you’re back from Mykonos, what are your plans? Go back to teaching?”

  “Just living. Jane has her art and her garden. I thought I’d have a look around for part-time work in some local college...maybe write a new edition to my last textbook, if so inspired. Speaking of inspiration, how did things go for you in Santa Barbara?”

  “As well as expected, I think.” I said with a laugh. “Les got to meet each of the program professors but one. I liked their conceptions of self-science and confluent education. It suits the kind of work I was doing with Higgins and Kidd for one thing.”

  “What was their reaction to meeting you two as a couple?”

  “With Les? Charmed, I’m sure. With me there’s really no telling. They didn’t seem the least put off or threatened when I introduced them to her though.”

  “I shouldn’t think so…” Michael said.

  I laughed once I caught the joke he implied by his rhythm and tone.

  “She’s certainly less foreboding than I am,” I laughed, and he smiled that I wasn’t offended.

  Indeed, I was proud.

  Sunday morning, we four went shopping for pastries, books and sets of Mexican glass and ceramics. Before lunch, Les and I sneaked away to be alone in their oversized bath adjoining the guest room—a luxury she liked to afford in the attempt to shed the last of the jail from her body and soul. We had lunch at the house in back of the garden. Soon after that, it was time for Les and I to pack up our gear and head back to Jane’s place in Monterey Park. Michael was kind in helping me fit the MGB with new circuit breakers and fuses. We were headed back north with the top down all too soon and spent the rest of the week camped out in the guest room at Jane Van Houten’s house. Leslie was shy about sleeping in the room next to her Mom’s, so we played the music loud when we had to. Everyone knows the song “Wouldn’t it be nice…” Good Vibrations…

  Leslie had to be in court early each day of the week. Since I was visiting, she asked Max Keith and Glen Peters for evenings off from her two part-time jobs. Leslie, who had secretarial training after high school, split her time between Max’s office and another job she had working for Glen downtown at the Times. Most days during court, I sat with Linda. When not with Linda, I hung with Betsy, David, Shannon, or someone else from the family entourage. The last day, I made it to court on that visit.Judy Frutig and I sat together a row back from the front. I preferred to hang back and watch from the corner, but Judy said she needed to hand messages to Max—although that rarely happened that I ever saw.

  Once court was adjourned, Leslie whispered something to Max, and I saw her hand him a letter she had stashed in her notepad. She glanced over her shoulder at me, though I pretended not to notice. When I looked up again, I saw Max tuck the letter in his inside jacket pocket. Then, while Leslie and Max ran up to his office for something or other, Judy and I waited on West Third Street in front of the Plaza. I asked Judy straight up if she’d noticed Leslie passing a letter to Max in the courtroom. She said “No,” she hadn’t.

  “Probably just another admirer or something. Letters get sent to her care of Max all the time.” Judy seemed pleased to inform me.

  “Does she ever write back?” I wondered aloud.

  “She wrote back to you, didn’t she?”

  Leslie and Max dropped me off at LAX early on Monday morning. Les and I knew this would be our last embrace for another three months. I turned to make my way inside the terminal. Right as I did, Leslie tugged on my shoulder strap, swung me around and looked me straight in the eye.

  “I know you don’t believe it...and I never could stand on my head...so there’s not much more I can do to convince you. I hope we won’t have to keep going over this again and again. Yes, Peter. There have been some letters sent to me at the office. Judy told me you said something. I just wish you’d asked me instead of her. There’s absolutely nothing goin’ on. Please stop this suspicion, because there’s no need. Okay?”

  Awkwardly, I said, “I know when this stretch is over we’ll both be on firmer ground. I’ll try not to blow it. I don’t entirely know why I give you such grief. Really, I don’t. I’m surprised by this myself.”

  Even so, I thought I might be projecting on to Leslie what I envisioned myself doing if I was in her place. Would simply recognizing that tendency in me help to change things?

  “I’ll call you tonight after midnight. What time is that in Toronto?”

  “Three a.m.,” I moaned, and she giggled.

  “Until then,” she said and blew me a kiss.

  She waved goodbye from the car, and I watched very closely as she and Max drove away into traffic. I still had hours to kill before boarding the plane, so I toured the coffee shops and hunted the newsstands. I sat on the floor reading alternate bits of the Times and William Shakespeare. Air Canada Flight #792 left at 1:20 p.m. and landed in Toronto at a quarter to nine. I wish I could say it was good to be home. Only somewhere, deep down inside, I felt that it wasn’t—To seek their fortunes farther than at home, where small experience grows. I believe that was Shakespeare, early on in The Taming of the Shrew—but of course.

  * * *

  The 50th Academy Awards at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on April 3rd, 1978, was the occasion of Bob Hope’s final appearance as master of ceremonies. Leslie was there with a mysterious escort. Don’t ask, I didn’t. Woody Allen skipped off, so, for sure, it wasn’t him that brought her along. I’ve often wondered what Mr. Hope’s monologue might have been like if he’d known a former Charles Manson codefendant was seated among the crowd. It was still a great big world, all right, but also a rather small club. I never asked Leslie who she was with that night at the Oscars, and she never told me. I was trying my best to act more grown up about such things from now on.

  Other than for a politically charged acceptance speech by Vanessa Redgrave, who won the Best Supporting Actress award, it was a big night for romantic comedy—my second least-favorite genre. Annie Hall won for Best Picture and Diane Keaton for Best Actress. Woody Allen won Oscars for Best Screenplay and Best Director. He was also nominated—against all odds—for Best Actor in a leading role. At least Woody had the good form to keep away from the most brazen celebrity side of the business.

  The next day, April 4th, nearly seven years after her first conviction for the murder of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Leslie was back in court to hear Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay present the prosecution’s case against her for a third time. Here’s what Mr. Kay had to say in his opening statement:r />
  “Neither drugs nor sex forced her, and she always did just what she wanted to do,” he told the judge and jury of seven women and five men. “Even when it came to murder, she had to weigh and consider at least two days before she could decide if she could kill anyone…She knew there were two guns and two knives in the car, and she knew what they were to be used for. She knew exactly what had happened the night before and knew exactly what was going to happen. They were out to commit murder.”

  In Leslie’s defense, Max Keith told the jurors that the woman who stood before them now was not same woman who took part in that nightmare more than eight years before.

  “For her to have done what she did...to have believed what she believed...there must have been something horribly wrong. At the time of the murders, she was not aware of her obligation to obey the law. Therefore, she could have had no malice aforethought. Mr. Kay makes her sound like a tramp. That is not so. Evidence will show that she suffered from a type of mental illness that has been called ‘group psychosis’ by some doctors and ‘phobia famille’ by others.”

  Max’s defense was the same as the one which had won him a hung jury the last time. He meant to prove that Leslie could not be held entirely responsible for her actions—not while acting as a member of the Charles Manson cult. For instance, who in their right mind would ignore a deal for immunity from the death chamber to protect some self-proclaimed guru faux-Jesus Christ? If that wasn’t daft, then what was? Instead of the truth, Leslie lied to save Manson and Watson. Whose idea was that? Certainly not a perfectly sane Leslie Van Houten. Now she admitted lying during the first trial. But, either way, Stephen Kay used this against her. Max Keith said he hoped to show how, at the time of the killings, Leslie’s psyche had been so severely damaged by Manson’s mind control methods that she could not have meaningfully premeditated murder.