Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

by Vincent Bugliosi

  I was concerned that DeCarlo might qualify his answers, as he had in the Beausoleil trial. After only a few minutes of testimony, however, my concern suddenly shifted from DeCarlo to Older. When I tried to establish the Manson-Watson relationship through DeCarlo, Older repeatedly sustained the defense objections. He also sustained objections to Manson’s dinnertime conversations when he discussed his philosophy about blacks and whites.

  Back in chambers Older made two remarks which totally stunned me. He asked, “What is the relevance of whether or not Manson was the leader?” And he wanted an offer of proof as to the relevance of Helter Skelter! It was as if Older hadn’t even been present during the trial thus far.

  That I was more than a little disturbed at his stance came across in my reply: “The offer of proof is that he used to say that he wanted to turn blacks against whites. Of course, this is only the motive for these murders. That is all it is. Other than that, it is not much else.”

  I noted: “The prosecution is alleging Mr. Manson ordered these murders. It was his philosophy that led up to these murders. The motive for these murders was to ignite Helter Skelter. I think it is so obviously admissible that I am at a loss for words.”

  THE COURT “I would suggest this to you, Mr. Bugliosi. Over the noon hour give some careful thought as to what you contend your proof is going to show. Now, I realize that part of it may have to come in through one witness and part through another. This is not unusual. But so far I can’t see any connection between what Mr. Manson believed about blacks and whites in the abstract and any motive.”

  I sweated through that noon hour. Unless I could establish Manson’s domination of the other defendants, I wouldn’t be able to convince the jury they had killed on his instructions. And if Older foreclosed me from bringing in Manson’s beliefs about the black-white war from DeCarlo, when my heavyweight witnesses on this—Jakobson, Poston, and Watkins—were still to come, then we were in deep trouble.

  I returned to chambers armed with citations of authority as to both the admissibility and the relevance of the testimony. Yet even after a long, impassioned plea, it appeared that I had not changed Older’s mind. He still couldn’t see, for instance, the relevance of Watson’s subservience to Manson, or why I was trying to bring out, through DeCarlo, that Tex had an easygoing, rather weak personality. The relevance, of course, was that if I didn’t establish both, the jury could very well infer that it was Watson, not Manson, who had ordered these murders.

  BUGLIOSI “I think the Court can tell the relevancy by the fact the defense counsel are on their hind legs trying to keep it out.”

  KANAREK “I think the heart of what we have here is this, that Mr. Bugliosi has lost his cool, because he has a monomania about convicting Mr. Manson.”

  BUGLIOSI “He is charged with seven murders, and I am going to be tenacious on this…I intend to go back with these witnesses and find out who Tex Watson was other than a name, Your Honor.”

  THE COURT “I am not going to stop you from trying, Mr. Bugliosi.”

  On returning to court, I asked DeCarlo exactly the same question I had asked hours earlier: “What was your impression of Tex Watson’s general demeanor?”

  KANAREK “Your Honor, I will object to that as calling for a conclusion.”

  BUGLIOSI “People vs. Zollner, Your Honor.”

  I so anticipated Older saying “Sustained” that I almost thought I was imagining it when he said, “Overruled. You may answer.”

  DECARLO “He was happy-go-lucky. He was a nice guy. I liked Tex. He didn’t have no temper or anything that I could see. He never said much.”

  Glancing back, I saw both Don Musich and Steve Kay staring in open-mouthed disbelief. Moments ago in chambers Older had objected to my whole line of inquiry. He’d now completely reversed himself. Going as fast as I could through the questioning, before he again changed his mind, I brought out that whenever Charlie told Tex to do anything, Tex did it.

  That Older had gone along with us on the domination issue didn’t mean that he saw the relevance of Helter Skelter. My fingers were crossed when I asked: “Do you recall Mr. Manson saying anything about blacks and whites? Black people and white people?”

  Stunned and perturbed, Kanarek objected: “It is the same question that he was asking previously!”

  THE COURT “Overruled. You may answer.”

  A. “He didn’t like black people.”

  DeCarlo testified that Manson wanted to see the blacks go to war with the police and the white establishment, both of whom he referred to as “pigs” that Charlie had told him that the pigs “ought to have their throats cut and be hung up by their feet” and that he had heard Manson use the term Helter Skelter many, many times. Through all this Kanarek objected repeatedly, often in the midst of DeCarlo’s replies. Older told him: “You are interrupting, Mr. Kanarek. I have warned you several times today. I warn you now for the last time.”

  KANAREK “I don’t wish to make unnecessary objections, Your Honor.”

  THE COURT “Don’t you? Then cease from doing it.”

  Within minutes, however, Kanarek was doing it again, and Older called him to the bench. Very angrily, Older told Kanarek: “You seem to have some sort of physical infirmity or mental disability that causes you to interrupt and disrupt testimony. No matter how many times I warn you, you seem to do it repeatedly, again and again and again…You are trying to disrupt the testimony of this witness. It is perfectly clear. Now, I have gone as far as I am going to go with you, Mr. Kanarek.”

  Kanarek complained, “I am trying to conscientiously follow your orders.”

  THE COURT “No, no, I am afraid your explanation won’t go. I have heard too much from you. I am very familiar with your tactics, and I am not going to put up with it any longer.” Older found Kanarek in contempt of Court and, at the conclusion of the day’s testimony, sentenced him to spend the weekend in the County Jail.

  Danny DeCarlo had never really understood Helter Skelter, or cared to. As he admitted to me, his major interests while at Spahn were “booze and broads.” He couldn’t see how his testimony about this black-white stuff really hurt Charlie, and he testified to it freely and without qualification. But when it came to the physical evidence—the knives, the rope, the gun—he saw the link and pulled back, not much, but just enough to weaken his identifications.

  In interviewing Danny, I’d learned a great many things which were not on the LAPD tapes. For example, he recalled that in early August 1969, Gypsy had purchased ten or twelve Buck knives, which had been passed out to various Family members at Spahn. The knives, according to DeCarlo, were about 6 inches in length, 1 inch in width, 1/8 inch in thickness—very close to the dimensions provided by Kasabian and Noguchi. In going through the sheriff’s reports of the August 16 raid, I found that a large number of weapons had been seized (including a submachine gun in a violin case) but not a single Buck knife.

  The logical presumption, I’d later argue to the jury, was that after the murders the rest of the Buck knives had been ditched.

  I intended to call Sergeant Gleason from LASO to testify that no knives were found in the raid. First, however, I wanted Danny to testify to the purchase. He did, but he qualified it somewhat. When I asked him who bought the Buck knives, he replied: “I’m not sure. I think Gypsy did, I’m not sure.”

  When it came to the Tate-Sebring rope, DeCarlo testified it was “similar” to the rope Manson had purchased at the Jack Frost store. I persisted: “Does it appear to be different in any fashion?”

  A. “No.”

  DeCarlo had told me that Charlie preferred knives and swords to guns because “in the desert guns could be heard for a long distance.” I asked DeCarlo if, among the guns at Spahn Ranch, Manson had a special favorite. Yeah, DeCarlo said, a Hi Standard .22 caliber Buntline revolver. I showed him the gun and asked him: “Have you ever seen this revolver before?”

  A. “I saw one similar to it.”

  Q. “Does it appear to differ in any
fashion?”

  A. “The trigger guard is broken.”

  Other than that?

  A. “I can’t be sure?”

  Q. “Why can’t you be sure?”

  A. “I don’t know. I don’t know the serial number of it. I am not sure that is it.”

  DeCarlo had cleaned, cared for, and shot the gun. He had an extensive background in weapons. The model was unusual. And he had made a drawing of it for LAPD even before he was told that such a gun had been used in the Tate homicides. (I’d already introduced the drawing for identification purposes, over Kanarek’s objection that it was “hearsay.”) If anyone should have been able to make a positive identification of that revolver, it was Danny DeCarlo. He didn’t do so, I suspected, because he was afraid to.

  Though he was a shade weaker on the stand than in our interviews, I did succeed in getting a tremendous amount of evidence in through DeCarlo. Though court was interrupted for another three-day recess, DeCarlo’s direct took less than a day and a half of actual court time. I completed it on September 17.

  That morning Manson passed word through Fitzgerald and Shinn that he wanted to see me in the lockup during the noon recess. Kanarek was not present, though the other two attorneys were.

  I asked Manson what he wanted to talk to me about.

  “I just wanted you to know that I didn’t have anything to do with the attempted murder of Barbara Hoyt,” Manson said.

  “I don’t know whether you ordered it or they did it on their own,” I replied, “but you know, and I know, that in either case they did it because they thought it would please you.”

  Manson wanted to rap, but I cut him off. “I’m not really in the mood to talk to you, Charlie. Maybe, if you have enough guts to take the stand, we’ll talk then.”

  I asked McGann what was happening on the “Honolulu hamburger case,” as the papers had dubbed the Hoyt murder attempt. McGann said he and Calkins hadn’t been able to come up with any evidence.

  I asked Phil Sartuchi of the LaBianca team to take over. Phil efficiently turned in a detailed report, with information on the airline tickets, credit card, long-distance calls, and so forth. It was December, however, before the case was taken to the grand jury. In the interim, Ouisch, Squeaky, Clem, Gypsy, and Rice remained at large. I’d often see them with the other Family members at the corner of Temple and Broadway.

  On cross-examination Fitzgerald asked DeCarlo: “Is it not true that Mr. Manson indicated to you that he actually loved the black people?”

  Danny replied: “Yeah. There was one time he said that.”

  On redirect I asked DeCarlo about that single conversation. Charlie had told him he loved the blacks, he said, “for having the guts to fight against the police.”

  Shinn brought out that DeCarlo was aware of, and more than passingly interested in, the $25,000 reward, thereby establishing that he had a reason to fabricate his testimony. Kanarek pursued the subject in detail in his cross. He also dwelt at length on DeCarlo’s fondness for weapons. Earlier DeCarlo had testified that he loved guns; would he describe that love? Kanarek asked.

  DeCarlo’s replay brought down the house. “Well, I love them more than I do my old lady.”

  It was easy to see where Kanarek was heading: he was trying to establish that it was DeCarlo, not Manson, who was responsible for all the weapons being at Spahn Ranch.

  Kanarek switched subjects. Wasn’t it true, he asked DeCarlo, that “during the entire time you were at the ranch you were smashed?”

  A. “I sure was.”

  Q. “Were you so smashed that on many occasions you had to be carried to bed?”

  A. “I made it a few times myself.”

  Kanarek hit hard on DeCarlo’s drinking, also his vagueness as to dates and times. How could he remember one particular Saturday night, for example, and not another night?

  “Well, that particular night,” DeCarlo responded, “Gypsy got mad at me because I wouldn’t take my boots off when I made love to her.”

  Q. “The only thing that is really pinpointed in your mind, that you really remember, is that you had a lot of sex, right?”

  A. “Well, even some of that I can’t remember.”

  Kanarek had scored some points. He brought out that DeCarlo had testified on an earlier occasion (during the Beausoleil trial) that while at Spahn he was smashed 99 percent of the time. The defense could now argue that DeCarlo was so inebriated that he couldn’t perceive what was going on, much less recall specific conversations. Unfortunately for the defense, Fitzgerald unintentionally undermined this argument by asking DeCarlo to define the difference between “drunk” and “smashed.”

  A. “My version of ‘drunk’ is when I’m out to lunch on the ground.

  ‘Smashed’ is just when I’m walking around loaded.”

  SEPTEMBER 18, 1970

  That afternoon we had a surprise visitor in court—Charles “Tex” Watson.

  After a nine-month delay that would necessitate trying him separately, Watson had finally been returned to California on September 11, after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black refused to grant him a further stay of extradition. Sergeants Sartuchi and Gutierrez, who accompanied Watson on the flight, said he spoke little, mostly staring vacantly into space. He had lost about thirty pounds during his confinement, most of it during the last two months, when it became obvious his return to Los Angeles was imminent.

  Fitzgerald had asked that Watson be brought into court, to see if DeCarlo could identify him.

  Realizing that Fitzgerald was making a very serious mistake, Kanarek objected, strenuously, but Older granted the removal order.

  The jury was still out when Watson entered the courtroom. Though he smiled slightly at the three female defendants, who grinned and blew him kisses, he seemed oblivious to Manson’s presence. By the time the jury came in, Watson was already seated and appeared just another spectator.

  FITZGERALD “Mr. DeCarlo, you previously testified that a man by the name of Tex Watson was present at Spahn Ranch during the period of time that you were there in 1969, is that correct?”

  A. “Yeah.”

  Q. “Do you recognize Mr. Watson in this courtroom?”

  A. “Yeah. Right over there.” Danny pointed to where Tex was sitting.

  Obviously curious, the jury strained to see the man they had heard so much about.

  FITZGERALD “Could I have this gentleman identify himself for the Court, Your Honor?”

  THE COURT “Will you please stand and state your name.”

  Watson stood, after being motioned to his feet by one of the bailiffs, but he remained mute.

  Fitzgerald’s mistake was obvious the moment Watson got up. One look and the jury knew that Charles “Tex” Watson was not the type to order Charles Manson to do anything, much less instigate seven murders on his own. He looked closer to twenty than twenty-five. Short hair, blue blazer, gray slacks, tie. Instead of the wild-eyed monster depicted in the April 1969 mug shot (when Watson had been on drugs), he appeared to be a typical clean-cut college kid.

  Offstage, Watson could be made to seem the heavy. Having once seen him, the jury would never think this again.

  Since our first meeting in Independence, I had remained on speaking terms with Sandy and Squeaky. Occasionally one or both would drop in at my office to chat. I usually made time for such visits, in part because I was still attempting to understand why they (and the three female defendants) had joined the Family, but also because I was remotely hopeful that if another murder was planned, one or the other might alert me. Neither, I was sure, would go to the police, and I wanted to leave at least one channel of communication open.

  I’d had more hopes for Sandy than Squeaky. The latter was on a power trip—acting as Manson’s unofficial spokesman, running the Family in his absence—and it seemed unlikely she would do anything to jeopardize her status. Sandy, however, had gone against Manson’s wishes on several occasions, I knew; they were minor rebellions (when her baby was due, for ex
ample, she had gone to a hospital, rather than have it delivered by the Family), but they indicated that maybe, behind the pat phrases, I’d touch something responsively human.

  On her first visit to my office, about two months earlier, we’d talked about the Family credo: Sandy had maintained it was peace; I’d maintained it was murder, and had asked how she could stomach this.

  “People are being murdered every day in Vietnam,” she’d countered.

  “Assuming for the sake of argument that the deaths in Vietnam are murders,” I responded, “how does this justify murdering seven more people?”

  As she tried to come up with an answer, I told her, “Sandy, if you really believe in peace and love, I want you to prove it. The next time murder is in the wind at Spahn Ranch, I want you to remember that other people like to live just as much as you do. And, as another human being, I want you to do everything possible to prevent if from happening. Do you understand what I mean?”

  She quietly replied, “Yes.”

  I’d hoped she really meant that. That naïve hope vanished when, in talking to Barbara Hoyt, I learned that Sandy had been one of the Family members who had persuaded her to go to Hawaii.

  As I left court on the afternoon of the eighteenth, Sandy and two male followers approached me.

  “Sandy, I’m very, very disappointed in you,” I told her. “You were at Spahn when Barbara’s murder was planned. There’s no question in my mind that you knew what was going to happen. Yet, though Barbara was your friend, you said nothing, did nothing. Why?”

  She didn’t reply, but stared at me as if in a trance. For a moment I thought she hadn’t heard me, that she was stoned on drugs, but then, very slowly and deliberately, she reached down and began playing with the sheath knife that she wore at her waist. That was her answer.

  Disgusted, I turned and walked away. Looking back, however, I saw that Sandy and the two boys were following me. I stopped, they stopped. When I started walking again, they followed, Sandy still fingering the knife.

  Gradually they were closing the distance between us. Deciding it was better to face trouble than have my back to it, I turned and walked back to them.