Restless Souls

by Alisa Statman

  Dear Mrs. Tate:

  So many things have happened to bring us together over the last few months, that it is hard to refute that it is from the Lord. It is not that I have not wanted to write you for years. Up until recently, I didn’t know that you were concerned about why I had not written to make a personal apology to you. I have been fearful in some ways of not knowing how you would take my contacting you. I would not want to cause you even more agony than I have already.

  After I became a Christian in 1975, this apology was a major concern of my heart. I talked with chaplains and attorneys about contacting all the families of my victims in hopes to bring us together, but nothing happened. . . . Regardless, there is no excuse for me not adequately expressing my deep regret and remorse to you in the boardroom. . . .

  Over the last few years, a greater and greater realization of what I have done impacts upon my heart. I pray that someday our hearts can come together in a deep personal way to share our true feelings with one another. I envision us doing this on a visit sometime, which I pray will eventually come. . . .

  I realize all this is probably too early for us, but several things have taken place to bring us together. Several people who are your friends have contacted me in a very positive way, praying that one day that healing will come.

  A few Sundays ago, my wife, Kristin, found out that her acquaintance was [a relative of yours]. It was a shock to know that your [relative] had baby-sat for my son. . . . Kristin had a great talk with [her], which gave me the go-ahead to write this letter. . . . I know that I have hurt you in ways that I cannot even imagine. . . . I pray that one day you can personally share your pain with me, and I can share my deep sorrow with you. I experience daily my hurts as my tormentors surround me. I do not expect you to let up on me in any way. I deserve all your resentment and anger.

  We will never forget what has happened, but it is my prayer that we may come into a more complete forgiveness in the face of Christ. I pray you will give me a chance, not a second one in life, but one to share my heart with you. I pray you understand my hesitance in not contacting you until now, and that God will touch your heart with his sufficient grace to forbear all that is to come to pass.

  Humbly in Christ our Lord, Charles D. Watson

  I crumpled the letter, but then something occurred to me. I must have overlooked it. I reread it. Five pages of drivel, but Watson hadn’t apologized. Like everything he did, the letter was a ruse.

  I popped two aspirin over my greater concern, the supposed conversation Karla had with Kristin Watson. Karla was a born-again Christian, too, and there was no telling what she may have said. I put the letter aside and picked up the phone.

  Not only did Karla confirm the conversation, but after thinking it over, she decided that Watson deserved a second chance because he now “walked in the grace of God.”

  “You’re being played for a fool by him, Karla. He’s just using Christianity as a ploy to get out of prison,” I said.

  “How do you know? You’re bringing judgment against him without any proof.”

  “Proof? Killers like Watson don’t find God; they find ways to get out of prison.”

  “That’s your assumption,” Karla countered. “As a Christian you must give him the benefit of the doubt, or you’re no better person than you think he is.”

  Sure that my momentary loss for words wouldn’t last, I slammed the phone down before something horrible oozed out.

  How could my own flesh and blood be in support of Watson? I paced from room to room like a dislodged live wire looking for a source to release its energy. I was damn good and tired of Watson selling himself as the golden boy. He’d gone from awaiting execution to being housed in the country club of prisons. He enjoyed conjugal visits with his wife, which afforded him a family. He received state-granted educational, medical, and psychiatric help for him and his family. From his carpeted cell, he operated a business, disguised as a nonprofit ministry, which under the shelter of donations netted $1,200 per month, tax-free. For lack of a better phrase, he’d been getting away with murder long enough.

  If people wanted proof, then proof was what I’d find.

  In my heart, I knew that Watson was a wolf in sheep’s clothing who used his religion, ministry, family, and supposed remorse for his crimes as a front.

  Exposing Watson’s true agenda, and substantiating that he was at present no more rehabilitated than the day he’d entered the prison system, became my obsession. And there would be no peace of mind until I corroborated that assessment.

  A few years back, I watched an interview with Charles Manson in which the reporter asked, “Tex has conjugal visitations, he’s fathered children, but you can’t even have physical contact with visitors. How do you feel about that?”

  In a rare lucid moment, Manson rubbed his beard then quietly replied, “I guess Tex is smarter than I am. He’s got a college education. Tex knows you got to be smart in jail to get out.”

  Watson was smart. Nevertheless, over an eighteen-year period even the most cunning of liars trips over his pretexts. Determined to find those discrepancies, I planned to chronicle everything Watson had said or written regarding his crimes and rehabilitation. From his 1971 trial to his recent ministry testimonials, I searched to find the hidden Waldo.

  WATSON’S MURDER TRIAL began on August 14, 1971. Without the chaotic support of the Manson Family, and therefore the press coverage, Tex melted in with the rest of the anonymous killers crossing through the halls of justice. Watson, however, had a disadvantage over the others accused by the state. Vincent Bugliosi was his prosecutor.

  During the Manson trial, Bugliosi introduced an exhaustive amount of evidence to prove Manson’s domination over his followers and therefore their willingness to kill on his command. Since Watson had pled not guilty by reason of insanity, the prosecutor presented evidence that Watson was a freethinking individual with a full grasp of his mental faculties.

  Defense attorney Sam Bubrick called upon eight psychiatrists to testify that his client was insane.

  Although he denied stabbing Sharon, Watson followed the doctors to the witness stand, where he conceded to participating in the murders, but solely for the purpose of pinning any calculating malice, aforethought, or acts to avoid detection on Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Kasabian.

  Watson’s confession came with other stipulations. One, he wanted it known that he fell completely under Manson’s control—so much so that he thought Manson was Christ. Two, Watson wanted it specified in his testimony that on the date of the murders he had taken a multitude of mentally incapacitating drugs.

  But strand by strand, during the cross-examination, Bugliosi wove a rope that left Watson a dangling, legally sane perjurer. “I believe you said in November of 1968 you left Manson. Is that correct?” Bugliosi asked at the trial.

  “Yes,” Watson said.

  “Did you tell Charlie you were leaving?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Then after that two-month period you got in touch with Charlie by calling him at the ranch?”

  “Yes. And at that point, Manson convinced me to come out and just visit. His voice was so hypnotic I just had to go back.”

  Watson’s rebounds to Manson had nothing to do with mystical powers. Watson returned only during intervals of failure—after running out of money, drug arrests, or encountering trouble from ripping off drug dealers. In reality, Watson spent a minimal amount of time at Spahn’s Ranch, leaving Manson on too tight a schedule to possibly program Tex with the Helter Skelter/second coming of Christ dogma.

  “Tex, you have spoken to many, many psychiatrists since your incarceration, isn’t that right?” Bugliosi questioned.

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “And you went into great detail about Manson, and your relationship with him; isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Isn’t it true, Tex, that you never told one single psychiatrist that you thought Charles Manson was
Jesus Christ?”

  “I might have used the word supreme being or Messiah.”

  Bugliosi knew better. In nearly two hundred pages of psychiatric reports, Watson never referenced that very cornerstone to his diminished capacity argument.

  The question of whether the killers had taken drugs on the night of the murders was a point of contention with me because it mitigated their culpability.

  During a talk show that I paneled with Vince Bugliosi, I asked him why he was so positive the killers were drug-free the night they killed Sharon. Vince said, “It’s common investigative belief that when we interview a witness or a suspect, that their initial response to questions is usually the most truthful information we’ll ever get out of them. This initial statement is made before they’ve had a chance to talk with accomplices, rehearse a story, read other accounts, or had time to contemplate another theory. Now, Susan Atkins’s initial statement to me—before any of the other killers were even arrested—was that they had not taken any drugs. She said Manson specifically instructed them to have clear minds when they murdered. There’s no doubt, and I proved it at the trials.”

  On cross-examination, Bugliosi asked, “Tex, on the night of the Tate murders you claim to have had belladonna, speed, and LSD in your system. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, that would be correct.”

  “Did you have anything else in your system?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you recall telling a doctor by the name of Dr. Frank that you also took cocaine?”

  “No, I do not recall that.”

  “Do you recall telling another doctor, Dr. Bohr, that the only drug you took the night of the Tate murders was belladonna?”

  “No, I don’t recall that.”

  “Now, on the previous night [before the murders] that would be Thursday. Did you take speed on Thursday night?”

  “Yes. I stayed up all night, I believe.”

  “Did you see Charlie at all that night?”

  “Yes, he was at the waterfall sleeping, and I had heard he was on belladonna.”

  “Did you talk to Charlie that night?”

  “I really don’t recall that much.”

  “But you saw him sleeping?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just so we don’t have any confusion here Tex, August seventh, that’s a Thursday, August eighth is a Friday [the night Sharon was murdered], August ninth, a Saturday. You took speed on August seventh, and you were up all night, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you were up in the early-morning hours of Friday, August eight, at the waterfall, is that correct?”

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “You also took some belladonna on August eighth, a Friday?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you say you saw Charlie sleeping?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What would you say, Tex, if I told you Charles Manson wasn’t even in Los Angeles on the morning of August eighth?”

  “Um.”

  “Tex, why don’t you admit to these folks on the jury that you had no drugs in your system on the night of the Tate murders?”

  “Objection!” Bubrick said.

  Bugliosi continued without missing a beat. “You lied about Manson and you’re lying about the drugs.”

  Watson’s testimony to the amount of drugs he had consumed on the night he murdered Sharon was a ridiculous notion. Had he been on belladonna, LSD, cocaine, and speed he would barely have been able to walk, let alone climb a telephone pole (with its first rung six feet from the ground) while carrying thirty-pound bolt cutters, scale the seven-foot fence surrounding the estate, and still have enough wit about him to murder five people.

  By the time Watson composed his autobiography, this must have been apparent to him as well. In his book, Will You Die for Me? he wrote, “While Manson went back to the movie set to round up Sadie [Atkins], Katie [Krenwinkel] and Linda [Kasabian], I reeled over the porch where Sadie and I kept our jar of speed hidden. I took a couple of deep snorts.”

  The reason Watson continues to claim that he was on speed is best said by him. “I made the choices that I made, but the methamphetamine caused all the violence, all the anger, all the hatred. It caused the rebellion and the resentment. Everything that was in me that I thought the drugs were taking away from me, were actually bringing me to that state of nothingness, and that raging individual was ready to come out.”

  Bugliosi had a few more strands to gather before his rope would be a readied noose. First, he needed to prove that Watson employed premeditation and deliberation. Second, he had to prove that Watson could decipher reality, as well as right from wrong.

  “Is it your testimony, Tex, that on the night of the Tate murders you were doing whatever the girls told you to do?” Bugliosi asked at the trial.

  “I was doing what Charles Manson had told me to do, and Charles Manson was the girls, and I was Charles Manson, and we were all Charles Manson.”

  “Uh-huh. On the night of the Tate murders you knew that you were going to Terry Melcher’s former residence to kill everyone inside, right?”

  “I really had no thought of what even murder was. I was just doing what Charlie and the girls told me to do.”

  “You knew you weren’t going to the Tate residence to play canasta didn’t you, Tex?” Bugliosi mocked.

  “I had no thought.”

  “Have you ever heard of canasta, Tex?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Have you ever heard of volleyball?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “You weren’t going there to do those things were you?”

  “I had no thought of what I was doing.”

  “What was the knife in your hand for?”

  “It was put there by Mr. Manson.”

  “What were you going to do with it?”

  “I was told to kill everybody in the house with it.”

  “Now the word kill comes out, not canasta, right, Tex? Kill? Isn’t it true that no matter how many people were inside that residence you were going to kill them?”

  “I was told by Mr. Manson to make sure everybody was dead.”

  “I am talking about after you were told by Mr. Manson, it was your state of mind that no matter who was inside that residence you were going to kill them. Right?”

  “That’s what they told me to do.”

  “What would you have done, Tex, if you arrived at the Tate residence and saw a squad of police cars? What would you have done then?”

  “That’s objectionable, Your Honor,” Bubrick said.

  “How did you know what to do if you never had any thought in your mind, Tex?”

  “Well, I was being run by Mr. Manson.”

  Hogwash. I discovered an interview in which Watson contradicted this alibi by admitting that he’d actually defied Manson’s instruction to kill all of Sharon’s neighbors. “It [the murders at Cielo] was horrific and no way were we going to go to a second and third house even though Manson had ordered it.”

  In Watson’s book, he wrote of the night he murdered Sharon, “We gathered up our clothes and weapons and quietly slipped back up the driveway. I carried the white rope over my shoulder. . . . I wrapped the rope around Sebring’s neck and then slung it up over one of the rafters. . . . I started to tie the rope around Sharon’s neck.”

  From the evidence table, Bugliosi picked up a bloodied piece of rope. “Tex, this is the rope that was tied around Sharon Tate’s neck. Are you saying that you’ve never seen this rope before?”

  “That is correct.”

  “You have no knowledge of how Sharon Tate had a rope tied around her neck?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Now, Tex, when you spoke with all those psychiatrists who interviewed you, did you lie to any of them about anything?”

  “No, I told them like it was.”

  “How come you never told any of those psychiatrist[s] that Manson ordered you to bring rope, cut the telephone wi
res, wash blood off, and throw the clothing away?”

  “I thought I told them that. Like I say, I don’t know what I told them exactly.”

  “Isn’t it true, Tex, that the only thing that Manson told you to do was go up there [to Cielo] and kill these people. And that it was your idea to cut the telephone wires?”

  “No.”

  “And to bring the rope.”

  “No, that is not true.”

  “Now you claim that you were in the backseat of the car and Linda drove. Did you give Linda directions on how to get to the Cielo address?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Do you have any idea how she found her way there, Tex?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Linda Kasabian testified that while you drove to the Tate residence that you told her, Katie, and Sadie that you had been to the residence before, that you knew the layout, and that they were to do everything you told them to do. Do you deny that?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You had been to the Cielo address about five times?”

  “About three that I can remember.”

  “Then you know that there are a lot of trees and high bushes preventing a person from seeing the residence from the telephone pole. Isn’t that right?”

  “I think you are right.”

  “When the girls, as you claim, told you to cut the telephone wires, didn’t it strike you as rather strange that they would know which telephone pole had wires that led to the Tate residence when you can’t even see the house from the telephone pole?”

  “I never asked any questions; I just climbed the pole.”

  “Well, isn’t the real reason you didn’t ask any questions, Tex, is that it was your idea to cut those telephone wires, and no one said ‘boo’ to you about doing it?”

  “No, that is not correct.”

  If Sherlock Holmes had investigated Watson’s guilt for premeditating Sharon’s murder, he would have said, “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” If Manson ordered Watson to cut phone wires and to bring enough rope to tie up an army, why didn’t Manson follow suit the next night when he led the killers to the LaBianca house?