Restless Souls

by Alisa Statman

  The car bottomed out at the base of the LaBerge’s steep driveway. The sight of the kids playing in the yard didn’t slow the terror, only prompted tears. I’d scarcely gotten the car into Park before I was out and running. I dropped to my knees in front of Ally. “Are you all right?”

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  I squeezed her. “Nothing, we just need to leave now.”

  Scurrying to avoid a confrontation with LaBerge, I took Ally’s hand and all but dragged her to the car. Suzan came outside on her porch, smiling at first, then suspicious as she watched our frantic escape. “Patti, where are you going?”

  Not until Ally was securely in the car did I turn back to Suzan. “How could you?” I slammed the car door and then left her in a cloud of dust from my spinning tires.

  I went from the sanctity of tucking my kids into bed, with wishes of sweet dreams, to Mom’s nightmarish history of Watson and LaBerge’s relationship.

  The two met through Watson’s mail-order ministry. Watson corresponded with her for close to a year before LaBerge visited him and confided that she was Rosemary LaBianca’s daughter. Watson had kept their blossoming friendship a secret until Ally went to the LaBerge’s and a game of phone tag commenced.

  Suzan called Kristin Watson with the news of our encounter. Kristin then called Tex. When Watson received the illegal call in the prison chapel, Trouse was there to overhear his joyous reaction and eavesdropped on Watson and Bruce Davis.

  “What was that all about?” Davis asked.

  “Bruce, my friend, I just might have two victims in my corner for my next hearing,” Watson boasted.

  “How do you figure?” Davis asked.

  “Susan LaBerge, née LaBianca, is my ace in the hole.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Watson ruffled Davis’s hair. “Buddy, she’s gonna testify at my next hearing—in my defense,” Watson laughed. “And, if the good Lord Jesus is shining down on me, so will Patricia Tate. The Tate kid is playing in Suzan’s front yard as we speak!”

  Mom and I discussed coincidences and odds. What were the odds that out of close to five hundred cities in California, LaBerge would end up in my small community? What were the odds that our kids would become friends at school? “Has LaBerge forgiven the rest of the killers?” I asked.

  “No.” Mom was quiet for a moment, then said, “Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I don’t think they’d do anything, but keep the kids close and tell Ally to stay the hell away from that LaBerge girl.”

  “You don’t think—”

  “Shit, Patti, I don’t know what to think, but I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  Doris

  In 1976 California’s then chief probation officer James Rowland introduced the first victim impact statement in Fresno County. The supreme court identified three types of information to be contained in these statements: information about the victim and his life; the impact the crime has had on the survivors; and the opinion of the victim as to the appropriate sentencing.

  In 1982 the Victim Impact Statement was entered into law. The statute was never intended to be used by champions of the prisoner as a ruse to undermine the Victim’s Bill of Rights. Nevertheless, LaBerge planned to bastardize the law by exercising her victim’s right with a plea for Watson’s freedom. Surely, Rosemary and Leno LaBianca would have resisted this intolerable representation. Even so, by law, the state was powerless to intervene.

  The scene was set for Watson’s 1990 hearing. Within the beige cinder-block walls, a T-shaped table was almost filled to capacity. Steve Kay and I sat at the top of the cross with Suzan LaBerge behind us in the overflow chairs. On the table, in front of each of the three panel members, lay a copy of Watson’s eight-inch-thick file, and between the files, Styrofoam cups that must have held bitter, lukewarm coffee, since Supt. Bob Carter winced at the taste.

  I hadn’t seen the presiding board member since 1982. His skin had barely aged, but his eyes couldn’t outfool time. He put on his glasses to read a note that Board Member Ascido handed him from his right before he passed it to Ramirez on his left.

  Behind the three men, open windows stretched along the length of the room, teasing a prisoner with the power of freedom to which they held the key. Next to a thirsty plant in the opposite corner, the video camera lightly hummed as it recorded for the press pool outside. The only thing missing was Watson.

  “Charles Watson’s attorney, Mr. Jan, is delayed in traffic.” Ramirez’s pudgy fingers crumpled the phone message and then impatiently kneaded his shiny scalp. If Jan held up the hearing much longer, he’d miss his flight to Sacramento.

  A hand tapped at my shoulder. “Mrs. Tate?”

  I turned to face LaBerge.

  “Doris, why do you do this? Don’t you think the time has come to get over this and move on with your life?”

  “My dear, I will never get over this. I don’t have that power. This man that you are here today to defend, slaughtered my daughter—and your mother—without an inkling of humanity and a world away from the Holy Spirit.”

  “But God has forgiven him, why can’t you?” LaBerge asked.

  “That is between him and God, it has nothing to do with the laws of this state. We have to have deterrents whether God has forgiven them or not, otherwise we’d have nothing but chaos. . . .” My voice trailed off as LaBerge glanced away, distracted. I closed my eyes and felt his presence behind. Dear Lord, grant me the courage to fearlessly confront the past and the demons that sealed this fate. My hands remained locked in prayer as my eyes opened in time to see Watson’s reassuring wink to LaBerge. I leaned to the right to disrupt their reunion, and for just a split second, Watson caught my glare. He tugged at the lapels of his jean jacket then turned to face the board.

  “Mr. Watson, I know you’ve been asked questions in the past,” Carter began the hearing, “in fact, I’ve sat on your panel before and asked you a great number of questions about the murders you committed, but I’d like to know if you want to make any comment regarding your life crimes?”

  “Only that it makes me sick to sit here and listen, knowing it was me that did this, and I take full responsibility for the crime, and for these people to have lost their lives so needlessly. It really hurts. But,” he added nonchalantly with his lips pursed, palms upturned, “there’s not much I can do but feel these feelings that I feel, and continue to go through the pain that I go through. It’s tough on the heart.”

  “At the time of these crimes, did you form the opinion that you were going to be put to death?” Carter asked.

  “No. My state of mind was that there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow. That there wasn’t going to be any punishment. I came to the conclusion that the end of the world was coming.”

  “Let me interrupt you,” Carter said. “I’ve read the transcripts from past hearings. It’s quite evident that you and your crime partners place the total blame on Charles Manson.”

  “I don’t place the total blame on Manson, but if there hadn’t been a Charles Manson, we wouldn’t have done what we did.”

  “Well, what if we had Mr. Manson here and he said, ‘I would not have committed the crime had it not been for Mr. Watson?’”

  “Well, I don’t truthfully think he could say that,” Watson smirked. “You have to remember that at the time of the crimes, I was twenty-one and the other victims were young as well. Well, not victims, although I guess we are all victims of this case. But uh—”

  I startled everyone when I smacked the table in a reflexive backlash to Watson’s blunder. Carter gave me a warning look over his glasses while Watson continued, “Manson had us in a delusion. We were committed not only to kill for him, but to die for him.”

  “Weren’t you second in command?” Carter asked.

  “We were all followers. Even though I’ve matured and grown over the years, I didn’t have leadership qualities at the time. We were deceived and manipulated by a person that was a con man.”

  “But it
was a group action. It wasn’t one man.”

  “Yes, it was, but—”

  “All of you believed what you were talking about. All of you believed in murder,” Carter stated.

  “I take responsibility for that, but at the time, I would have done anything for Manson. I was willing to die for him. He had a knife to my throat—”

  “Yes, we’ve heard that story already. Mr. Ramirez, why don’t you take us into the psychiatric reports.”

  “Okay. Most recently there’s a report that was prepared on February 23, 1990, and a prior one that the panel conducted for your last hearing in 1987—you had all the staff here for that one, Mr. Watson.” Ramirez smiled. “I’ll just dovetail the two together. The counsel concluded that parole considerations remain premature, and your violence potential remains an unpredictable threat to society. The report states: ‘Mr. Watson is acutely aware of his unpopularity both within and outside the institution. While his removal from the chapel was fraught with accusations regarding his position and conduct, he was able to maintain a good attitude and demeanor as he swept trash and cleaned windows. He hopes to work with religious ministries in east Texas someday to show people what he has accomplished. Claims he will live his life for his wife and kids in a relative anonymity. To quote Mr. Watson: ‘With my ministry work, I’ll only be on regional TV, not the networks, so most of my time will be spent at home.’”

  Ramirez looked up from the report. “Mr. Watson, this part really jumped out at me: ‘It’s been during the last three years of one-on-one therapy that he [Watson] has begun to truly experience a sense of deep remorse for the crime victims and for the family of the crime victims.’ What were you doing for the eighteen years before that?”

  “It’s not that I haven’t experienced it before, it’s just that the things I have been doing over the last few years and my Christian faith has really brought it home. You have to realize at the time of my crimes, the people that we killed weren’t human beings to us, we didn’t see them as people with feelings, and lives, and families. We didn’t see any of that. I began to see it through your eyes, for instance, because of opening myself up. For eighteen years, I didn’t see the depth of it. I’ve always had a hard time living with it.”

  Ramirez removed his glasses. “You talk as if you’re from another planet.”

  The muscles constricted in Watson’s throat. “Well, I’m sorry, but I think I’ve come a long way as far as acknowledging what I’ve done in this crime. The psychiatrists think I’ve come a long way,” he said curtly.

  “To what? Being human?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  Ramirez looked at the other panel members. “Do either of you have any comments.”

  “I think we both do,” Ascido said. “Mr. Carter, why don’t you go first.”

  “Okay. Mr. Watson, why did you have children?”

  “Because my wife and I desired children,” Watson replied. “When we decided to have children in the 1970s, things looked different; we were on rehabilitation instead of punishment. When I would come before the board, there wouldn’t be these television cameras; there wouldn’t be the district attorney, and the victims’ families weren’t there. It looked like in the 1970s that everyone was getting a date. Then the tide started to turn in 1982. Things looked completely different. Since then, we’ve often wondered why we had children.”

  “I’m not a mathematician, but your kids are six years, eight years, and fourteen months. That wasn’t in the 1970s.”

  “Well,” Watson stammered, “our marriage began in the 1970s.”

  “You were married in 1979. And if you’re correct on the ages of your children, the first one was born in 1982.”

  “Still, in 1980 it looked good because, really, the cameras and the people here today didn’t start showing up until 1982.”

  “You lost me,” Carter said.

  Watson jumped in before the question was finished. “Well I’m sorry, Mr. Carter, we seem to be having a communication problem—”

  “That we are,” Carter was just as quick to interrupt. “Why did you have children?”

  “Well, we had children because we desired to have children.”

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  “Well, yes,” Watson said, “you’re wondering how they will handle the situation, how they don’t have a dad. That they’ll have grandkids before I get out. We thought about all this.”

  “And you went ahead and did it anyway.”

  “We didn’t think about it in advance. Like I said, the tide hadn’t completely turned when we made those decisions, but I can’t say that we wouldn’t have made those decisions anyway. Ah, if we had looked at what we are looking at now, we wouldn’t have even gotten married.”

  In the twelve years that I’d been attending Susan Atkins’s and Watson’s parole hearings, a smile had never raised my lips, not even a smirk. At the initial hearings, I used my hands to cover my trembling lips; later, my hands concealed a possible snarl. Presently, my hands tried to keep down a satisfying, barn door–sized grin.

  I didn’t know why, and didn’t care why this group of board members hammered Watson until he was as indefensible as a dozen eggs in the middle of a catfight. But it felt damned good to watch Tex squirm in his seat, to see his jaw muscles clench and unclench, to see his Adam’s apple bob with uncertainty, and to see him lick his lips with a parched tongue. Through it all, I smoothed my grin to a ruler’s edge.

  Carter closed the file. “I’m finished with this portion. Go ahead Mr. Ascido.

  “I’m surprised that you didn’t have any comments about the counsel’s report, Mr. Watson. What I found interesting was the counselor’s view that you are an unpredictable threat to public safety. Because what the counselor is referring to is whether you would be able to cope outside of this institution. With that in mind, would you like to tell the panel why you haven’t been able to function in any institution other than this one?”

  “I haven’t been to any other institutions,” Watson said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, I came here in 1972 from death row, and I’ve always done real well here, and I’ve never had any problem or reason for transfer. I think any time you transfer from one institution to another in a high-profile case such as mine, there’s some fear. And when you have a family and you do things within the community with your family, you just don’t want to move. Moving my family, my kids schooling, you know, everything that we’re involved in. So it’s not that I couldn’t cope in another institution, I feel that I could. I feel I have qualities that would work out there.”

  “Mr. Watson, the board recommended to the staff that you be transferred to another institution. See, when an individual has completed all the programs here, it’s best for them to move on. Most prisoners are transferred upon completion of programming. You’re one of the exceptions. And, when you were asked to transfer, you indicated that you didn’t want to go.”

  “Well, I feel safe here. My family feels safe here—”

  “But that doesn’t have anything to do with—”

  “Oh, yes it does,” Watson said testily. “My family has a lot to do with my life.”

  “Don’t you think that applies to every prisoner? So that’s immaterial.”

  Watson toyed with his file. “I think the CDC takes consideration now for family. Even legislature with a new bill that says you have to take consideration of my family and them being a part of the community and us being closest to our family.”

  Ascido looked at the other two on the panel. “That’s news to me.”

  Watson searched his file. “Really, there’s a Senate Bill 2190 that requests that inmates be allowed to be in the community closest to their family within the point guideline.”

  “That’s not the current law,” Carter said.

  “Yes it is,” Watson insisted.

  I scribbled a note and passed it to Steve, who passed it to Ascido. “The law that you’re speaking of is specifi
cally for parole violators. Now, back to the issue of prison. In light of what the counselor is saying—that you can’t cope—this would be a good test. Don’t you agree?”

  “No,” Watson shook his head, “I do not agree.”

  “Well, it may be the only way you get out of this particular prison, Mr. Watson, so you may want to revisit that thought. Back to you, Chairman Carter.”

  “It’s time to hear from Mr. Kay. After him, Mrs. LaBerge, and then Mrs. Tate.”

  “Thank you,” Steve said. “I’ve seen each of you at various board hearings for these killers, and I know you’re familiar with the crime details; however, there is one detail on the night of the Tate murders that I’d like to share because it shows Watson’s thought process.

  “The incident occurred right after Watson and the others left Sharon Tate’s house. Watson began looking for a place to clean off the blood. He eventually pulled up in front of the home of Rudolph Weber because there was a garden hose out front.

  “At the trial, Mr. Weber testified, ‘Mr. Watson was calm, cool, polite, gentlemanly, and apologetic for awakening my wife and I.’ Now, this was ten minutes after murdering Sharon and the others. So, believe me, he can sit here during a parole hearing and sound like he’s a reasonable person, heck ten minutes after killing five people he could sound reasonable.

  “Watson is so unpredictable it’s scary. There’s something within him, maybe a Jekyll and Hyde personality—he can be the world’s nicest guy at times, and he can be the world’s most bloodthirsty killer at other times—so how do we ever know what’s going to happen with him? We don’t, and I think that’s what’s troubled the psychiatrists.”

  Steve pulled out a picture taken in 1969. It’s a wild-eyed depiction of Watson, with long hair, his face covered with a beard, mustache, and dirt. “No matter what he looks like now, or how he portrays himself, this is what lies beneath the façade of Tex Watson. I leave it to you gentlemen to do the right thing and give him a three-year denial before his next hearing. Thank you.”