Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

by Vincent Bugliosi

  After the noon recess, Judge Older instructed the jury. At 3:20 P.M., on Friday, January 15, 1971—exactly seven months after the start of the trial—the jury filed out to begin their deliberations.

  The jury deliberated all day Saturday, then took Sunday off. On Monday they sent out two requests: that they be given a phonograph so they could play the Beatles’ White Album, which, though introduced in evidence and much discussed, had never been played in court; and that they be permitted to visit the Tate and LaBianca residences.

  After lengthy conferences with counsel, Older granted the first request but denied the second. Though admitting that, not having been to either of the death scenes, he too was naturally curious, the judge decided such visits would be tantamount to reopening the case, complete to the recalling of witnesses, cross-examination, and so on.

  On Tuesday the jury asked to have Susan Atkins’ letters to her former cellmates reread to them. This was done. Probably unprecedented in a case of this magnitude and complexity, at no time did the jury request that any of the actual testimony be reread. I could only surmise they were relying on the extensive notes each had taken throughout the trial.

  Wednesday, Thursday, Friday—no further messages were received from the jury. Long before the end of the week the New York Times was reporting that the jury had been out too long, that it appeared they were deadlocked.

  I wasn’t bothered by this. I’d already told the press that I didn’t expect them to come back for four or five days at the very minimum, and I wouldn’t have been surprised had they stayed out a week and a half.

  Nor did I worry about our having proven our case.

  What did worry me was human nature.

  Twelve individuals, from completely different backgrounds, had been locked up together longer than any jury in history. I thought a great deal about those twelve persons. One juror had let it be known that he intended to write a book about his experiences, and some of the other jurors were apprehensive about how they might be portrayed. The same juror also wanted to be elected foreman, and when he wasn’t even in the running, was so piqued that for a day or two he wouldn’t eat with the others.* Would he—or any of the other eleven—hang up the jury because of some personal animosity or slight? I didn’t know.

  Both Tubick and Roseland had daughters about the same age as Sadie, Katie, and Leslie. Would this affect their decision, and if so, how? Again I didn’t know.

  It was rumored, largely on the basis of glances they had exchanged in court, that the youngest member of the jury, William McBride II, had become slightly enamored of defendant Leslie Van Houten. It was unsubstantiated gossip, yet in the long hours the press waited for some word from the jury room, reporters made bets on whether McBride would vote second degree for Leslie, or perhaps even acquittal.

  Immediately after my assignment to the case, I’d requested as much information as was available on the background of Charles Manson. Like much of the evidence, it came in piecemeal. Not until after the People had rested their case did I finally receive the records covering the seven months Manson spent at the National Training School for Boys in Washington, D.C. I found most of the information already familiar, with one startling exception. If true, it could very well be the seed which—nurtured with hate, fear, and love—flowered into Manson’s monstrous, grotesque obsession with the black-white revolution.

  Manson had been sent to the institution in March 1951, when he was sixteen years old. In his admission summary, which was drawn up after he had been interviewed, there was a section on family background. The first two sentences read: “Father: unknown. He is alleged to have been a colored cook by the name of Scott, with whom the boy’s mother had been promiscuous at the time of pregnancy.”

  Was Manson’s father black? Reading through the rest of the records, I found two similar statements, though no additional details.

  There were several possible explanations for the inclusion of this statement in Manson’s records. The first was that it was totally erroneous: some bureaucratic snafu of which Manson himself may even have been unaware. Another possibility was that Manson had lied about this in his interviews, though I couldn’t imagine any conceivable benefit he would derive, particularly in a reform school located in the South. It was also possible that it was true.

  There was one further possibility, and in a sense it was even more important than whether the information was true or false. Did young Charles Manson believe it to be true? If so, this would go a long way toward explaining the genesis of his bizarre philosophy, in which the blacks finally triumph over the whites but eventually have to hand over the reins of power to Manson himself.

  I knew only one thing for sure. Even had I received this information earlier, I wouldn’t have used it. It was much too inflammatory. I did decide, however, to ask Manson himself about it, if I got the chance.

  I was in bed with the flu when, at 10:15 A.M. on Monday, January 25, court clerk Gene Darrow telephoned and said, “Just got the word. The jury has reached a verdict. Judge Older wants to see all the attorneys in his chambers as soon as they can get here.”

  The Hall of Justice resembled a fortress, as it had since the jury went out. A secret court order had been issued that same day, which began: “Due to intelligence reports indicating a possible attempt to disrupt proceedings on what has been described as ‘Judgment Day’ additional security measures will be implemented…” There followed twenty-seven pages of detailed instructions. The entire Hall of Justice had been sealed, anyone entering the building for whatever reason being given a personal effects and body search. I now had three bodyguards, the judge a like number.

  The reason for this intensive security was never made public. From a source close to the Family, LASO had heard what they initially believed to be an incredible tale. While working at Camp Pendleton Marine Base, one of Manson’s followers had stolen a case of hand grenades. These were to be smuggled into court on “Judgment Day” and used to free Manson.

  Again, we didn’t know precisely what the Family meant by Judgment Day. But by this time we did know that at least a part of the story was true. A Family member had been working in the arms depot at Pendleton, and after he quit, a case of hand grenades was missing.

  By 11:15 all counsel were in chambers. Before bringing the jury in, Judge Older said he wanted to discuss the penalty trial.

  California has a bifurcated trial system. The first phase, which we had just completed, was the guilt trial. If any of the defendants were convicted, a penalty trial would follow, in which the same jury would determine the penalty for the offense. In this case we had requested first degree murder verdicts against all the defendants. If the jury returned such verdicts, there were only two possible penalties: life imprisonment or death.

  The penalty trial is, in most cases, very short.

  After conferring with counsel, Judge Older decided that if there was a penalty phase, it would commence in three days. Older also said he had decided to seal the courtroom until after the verdicts were read and all the jurors polled. Once the jurors and the defendants had been removed, the press would be allowed out, and then the spectators.

  The three girls were brought in first. Though they had usually worn fairly colorful clothing during the trial, apparently there hadn’t been time for them to change, as all were wearing drab jail dresses. They seemed in good spirits, however, and were giggling and whispering. On being brought in, Manson winked at them and they winked back. Charlie was wearing a white shirt and blue scarf, and sporting a new, neatly trimmed goatee. Another face, for judgment day.

  Single file, the jurors entered the jury box, taking their assigned seats, just as they had hundreds of times before. Only this time was different, and the spectators searched the twelve faces for clues. Perhaps the most common of all courtroom myths is that a jury won’t look at the accused if they have reached a guilty verdict. This is rarely true. None held Manson’s gaze when he stared at them, but then neither did they quickly look aw
ay. All you could really read in their faces was a tired tenseness.

  THE COURT “All jurors and alternates are present. All counsel but Mr. Hughes are present. The defendants are present. Mr. Tubick, has the jury reached a verdict?”

  TUBICK “Yes, Your Honor, we have.”

  THE COURT “Will you hand the verdict forms to the bailiff.”

  Foreman Tubick handed them to Bill Murray, who in turn gave them to Judge Older. As he scanned them, saying nothing, Sadie, Leslie, and Katie fell silent and Manson nervously fingered his goatee.

  THE COURT “The clerk will read the verdicts.”

  CLERK “In the Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Los Angeles, the People of the State of California vs. Charles Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, and Leslie Van Houten, Case No. A–253,156. Department 104.”

  Darrow paused before reading the first of the twenty-seven separate verdicts. It seemed minutes but was probably only seconds. Everyone sat as if frozen, waiting.

  “We, the jury in the above-entitled action, find the defendant, Charles Manson, guilty of the crime of murder of Abigail Folger in violation of Section 187, Penal Code of California, a felony, as charged in Count I of the Indictment, and we further find it to be murder of the first degree.”

  Glancing at Manson, I noticed that, though his face was impassive, his hands were shaking. The girls displayed no emotion whatsoever.

  The jury had deliberated for forty-two hours and forty minutes, over a nine-day period, a remarkably short time for such a long and complicated trial. The reading of the verdicts took thirty-eight minutes.

  The People had obtained the verdicts they had requested against Charles Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Susan Atkins: each had been found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit murder and seven counts of murder in the first degree.

  The People had also obtained the verdicts requested against Leslie Van Houten: she had been found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of murder in the first degree.

  I later learned that although McBride had suggested the possibility of a lesser finding against Leslie Van Houten, when it came time to vote there was only one ballot and it was unanimous.

  While the individual jurors were being polled, Leslie turned to Katie and said, “Look at the jury; don’t they look sad?” She was right, they did. Obviously it had been a very rough ordeal.

  As the jury was being taken out, Manson suddenly yelled at Older: “We are still not allowed to put on a defense? You won’t outlive that, old man!”

  Kanarek seemed strangely unmoved by the verdict. Though Fitzgerald told the press, “We expected the worst from the start,” he appeared thoroughly shaken. Outside court, he told reporters, “We felt we lost the case when we lost our change of venue motion. We had a hostile and antagonistic jury. The defendants had the same chance Sam Sheppard had in Cleveland—none.” Fitzgerald further stated that had the trial been held anywhere but in Los Angeles, he was sure they would have won acquittals for all the defendants.

  “I don’t believe that for one minute,” I told the press. “It is just weeping on the part of the defense. The jury was not only fair, they based their verdict solely and exclusively on the evidence that came from that witness stand.”

  “Yes,” I responded to the most frequently asked question, “we will seek the death penalty against all four defendants.”

  The Manson girls on the corner outside the Hall of Justice first heard the news over the radio. They too were strangely calm. Though Brenda told newsmen, “There’s a revolution coming, very soon,” and Sandy said, “You are next, all of you,” these were Manson’s words, delivered in court months before, which they had been mouthing ever since. There were no tears, no outward display of emotion. It was as if they really didn’t care. Yet I knew this wasn’t true.

  Watching the interview later on TV, I surmised that perhaps they had conditioned themselves to expect the worst.

  In retrospect, another possibility emerges. Once the lowest of the low in the Manson hierarchy, good only for sex, procreation, and serving men, the girls had now become his chief apostles, the keepers of the faith. Now Charlie was dependent on them. It appears quite likely that they were undisturbed by the verdict because they were already formulating a plan which, if all went well, could set not only Manson but all the other Family members free.

  PART 8

  Fires in Your Cities

  “Mr. and Mrs. America—you are wrong.

  I am not the King of the Jews nor am

  I a hippie cult leader. I am what you

  have made of me and the mad dog devil

  killer fiend leper is a reflection of

  your society…Whatever the outcome of

  this madness that you call a fair trial

  or Christian justice, you can know

  this: In my mind’s eye my thoughts

  light fires in your cities.”

  STATEMENT ISSUED BY CHARLES MANSON

  after his conviction for the Tate-LaBianca murders

  JANUARY 26–MARCH 17, 1971

  During the penalty trial the sole issue for the jury to decide was whether the defendants should receive life imprisonment or the death penalty. Considerations like mitigating circumstances, background, remorse, and the possibility of rehabilitation were therefore now relevant.

  To avoid prolonging the trial and risk alienating the jury, I called only two witnesses: officer Thomas Drynan and Bernard “Lotsapoppa” Crowe.

  Drynan testified that when he arrested Susan Atkins outside Stayton, Oregon, in 1966, she was carrying a .25 caliber pistol. “I asked Miss Atkins what she intended to do with the gun,” Drynan recalled, “and she told me that if she had the opportunity she would have shot and killed me.”

  Drynan’s testimony proved that even before Susan Atkins met Charles Manson she had murder in her heart.

  On cross-examination Shinn asked Drynan about the .25 caliber pistol.

  Q. “The size is very small—it looks like a toy gun—is that correct?”

  A. “Well, not to me.”

  Crowe described how, on the night of July 1, 1969, Manson had shot him in the stomach and left him for dead. The importance of Crowe’s testimony was that it proved that Manson was quite capable of committing murder on his own.

  On February 1, I rested the People’s case. That afternoon the defense called their first witnesses: Katie’s parents, Joseph and Dorothy Krenwinkel.

  Joseph Krenwinkel described his daughter as an “exceedingly normal child, very obedient.” She was a Bluebird, Camp Fire Girl, and Job’s daughter, and belonged to the Audubon Society.

  FITZGERALD “Was she gentle with animals?”

  MR. KRENWINKEL “Very much so.”

  Patricia had sung in the church choir, Mr. Krenwinkel testified. Though she was not an exceptional student, she received good grades in the classes she liked. She had attended one semester of college, at Spring Hill College, a Jesuit school in Mobile, Alabama, before returning to Los Angeles, where she shared an apartment with her half sister.

  The Krenwinkels had divorced when Patricia was seventeen. According to Joseph Krenwinkel, there was no bitterness; he and his wife had parted, and remained, friends.

  Yet just a year later, when Patricia was eighteen, she had abandoned her family and job to join Manson.

  Dorothy Krenwinkel said of her daughter, “She would rather hurt herself than harm any living thing.”

  FITZGERALD “Did you love your daughter?”

  A. “I did love my daughter; I will always love my daughter; and no one will ever convince me she did anything terrible or horrible.”

  FITZGERALD “Thank you.”

  BUGLIOSI “No questions, Your Honor.”

  Fitzgerald wanted to introduce into evidence a number of letters Patricia Krenwinkel had written to various persons, including her father and a favorite priest at Spring Hill.

  All were hearsay and clearly inadmi
ssible. All I would have needed to do was object. But I didn’t. Though aware that they would appeal to the sympathies of the jury, I felt that justice should prevail over technicalities. The issue now was whether this girl should be sentenced to death. And this was an issue for the jury to decide, not me. I felt that in reaching that extremely serious decision, they should have any information even remotely relevant.

  Fitzgerald was both relieved and very grateful when I let them come in.

  Keith handled the direct examination of Jane Van Houten, Leslie’s mother. Keith later told me that although Leslie’s father didn’t want to testify, he was behind Leslie 100 percent. Although, like the Krenwinkels, the Van Houtens were divorced, they too had stuck by their daughter.

  According to Mrs. Van Houten, “Leslie was what you would call a feisty little child, fun to be with. She had a wonderful sense of humor.” Born in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, she had an older brother and a younger brother and sister, the latter Korean orphans whom the Van Houtens had adopted.

  When Leslie was fourteen, her parents separated and divorced. “I think it hurt her very much,” Mrs. Van Houten testified. That same year Leslie fell in love with an older youth, Bobby Mackey; became pregnant; had an abortion; and took LSD for the first time. After that she dropped acid at least once and often two or three times a week.*

  During her freshman and sophomore years at Monrovia High School, Leslie was one of the homecoming princesses. She tried out again her junior year, but this time she didn’t make it. Bitter over the rejection, she ran away with Mackey to Haight-Ashbury. The scene there frightened her, however, and she returned home to finish high school and to complete a year of secretarial training. Mackey, in the meantime, had become a novitiate priest in the Self Realization Fellowship. In an attempt to continue their relationship, Leslie became a novitiate nun, giving up both drugs and sex. She lasted about eight months before breaking with both Mackey and the yoga group.