Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

by Vincent Bugliosi

  A. “No.”

  BUGLIOSI “May I approach the witness, Your Honor? I want to ask the witness a question privately.”

  THE COURT “Yes, you may.”

  I had already questioned Dr. Hochman once about this. But I wanted to be absolutely certain of his reply. Once I had received it, I returned to the counsel table and asked him a number of unrelated questions, so the jury wouldn’t know what we had been talking about. I then gradually worked up to the big one.

  Q. “The term ‘insanity,’ Doctor, you are familiar with that term, of course?”

  A. “Yes.”

  Q. “Basically, you define the word ‘insanity’ to be the layman’s synonym for ‘psychotic’?”

  A. “I would say that the word ‘insanity’ is used generally to mean

  ‘psychotic.’”

  Q. “Then, from a psychiatric standpoint, I take it that in your opinion none of these three female defendants are presently insane nor have they ever been insane, is that correct?”

  A. “That is correct.”

  As far as the psychiatric testimony was concerned, with Hochman’s reply the ball game was over.

  The defense called only three more witnesses during the penalty trial, all hard-core Family members. Each was on the stand only a short time, but their testimony, particularly that of the first witness, was as shocking as anything that had gone before.

  Catherine Gillies, whose grandmother owned Myers Ranch, parroted the Family line: Charlie never led anyone; there was never any talk of a race war; these murders were committed to free Bobby Beausoleil.

  Coldly, matter-of-factly, the twenty-one-year-old girl testified that on the night of the LaBianca murders, “I followed Katie to the car, and I asked if I could go with her. Linda, Leslie, and Sadie were all in the car. And they said that they had plenty of people to do what they were going to do, and that I didn’t need to go.”

  On direct examination by Kanarek, Cathy stated: “You know, I am willing to kill for a brother, we all are.”

  Q. “What do you mean by that?”

  A. “In other words, to get a brother out of jail, I would kill. I would have killed that night except I did not go…”

  Q. “What prevented you from going with them, if anything?”

  A. “Just the fact that they didn’t need me.”

  Apparently Fitzgerald hoped to soften the harshness of her reply when he asked her: “Have you killed anybody to get someone out of jail?”

  With a strange little smile, Cathy turned her head and, looking directly at the jury, replied: “Not yet.”

  Cathy had testified on direct examination that Katie had told her about the Tate-LaBianca murders. On cross-examination I asked her: “When Katie told you that they had murdered these people, did this disturb you at all?”

  A. “Actually it had very little effect on me because I knew why they had done it.”

  Q. “So it didn’t upset you?”

  A. “No, it definitely didn’t upset me.”

  Q. “You didn’t decide that you would rather not continue living with murderers?”

  A. “Obviously not.”

  Q. “Were you upset that you didn’t get to go along with them?”

  A. “I wanted to go.”

  Mary Brunner, first member of the Manson Family, claimed that the police had told her that she would be charged with murder if she did not implicate Manson in the Hinman slaying. She now repudiated this testimony and further denied even being at the Hinman residence.

  Keith brought out that Mary Brunner had testified both in the second trial of Bobby Beausoleil and before the Hinman grand jury, and neither time did she say anything about Leslie Van Houten being present when Hinman was killed.

  I had no questions for her. The point was made.

  Brenda McCann was recalled to the stand, to testify that on the nights of the Tate and LaBianca murders she had seen Manson sleeping with Stephanie Schram in Devil’s Canyon.

  The groundwork for my cross-examination of Brenda had been laid fifteen months before. I impeached her with her testimony before the grand jury, when she stated that she couldn’t remember where she, or Manson, was on either night.

  Brenda was the last witness. She completed her testimony on Tuesday, March 16, 1971. That afternoon, after a number of delays—Kanarek, for example, refused to stipulate that Gary Hinman was dead—the defense rested. Wednesday we worked on the jury instructions, and on Thursday the trial entered its final stage. All that now remained were the arguments, the deliberations, and the verdict.

  MARCH 18–29, 1971

  My opening argument in the penalty trial was brief, lasting less than ten minutes. As with all my arguments during the trial, Manson decided to sit this one out, in the lockup. The psychology behind this was obvious: he didn’t want the jury focusing on him when I discussed him.

  I began by saying: “I am not going to address myself to the frantic effort by the three female defendants and the defense witnesses to make it look like Charles Manson wasn’t involved in these murders. I am sure all of you clearly saw that they were lying on that witness stand to do what they could for their God, Charles Manson.

  “Well, Charles Manson has already been convicted. He has already been convicted of seven counts of first degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.

  “The difficulty in your decision, as I see it, is not whether these defendants deserve the death penalty, ladies and gentlemen. In view of the incredibly savage, barbaric, and inhuman murders they committed, the death penalty is the only proper verdict.” I then stated the very heart of my argument: “If this case were not a proper case for the imposition of the death penalty, no case ever would be. In view of what they did, life imprisonment would be the greatest gift, the greatest charity, the greatest handout, as it were, ever given.

  “The difficulty in your decision, as I see it, is whether you will have the fortitude to return verdicts of death against all four defendants.”

  The defense attorneys, I anticipated, would beg for their clients’ lives. This was not only commendable, I told the jury, it was also understandable, just as it was understandable that they “argued during the guilt phase that their clients were not involved in these murders, even though during the penalty phase the three female defendants took the stand and said: ‘Yes, we were involved.’”

  There was absolutely no reason for these defendants to viciously and inhumanly snuff out the lives of these seven human beings, I noted. There were no mitigating circumstances.

  “These defendants are not human beings, ladies and gentlemen. Human beings have a heart and a soul. No one with a heart and a soul could have done what these defendants did to these seven victims.

  “These defendants are human monsters, human mutations.

  “There is only one proper ending to the Tate-LaBianca murder trial,” I concluded, “verdicts of death for all four defendants.”

  Kanarek stipulated, at the start of his argument, that “Mr. Manson is not all good.” However, he continued, “Mr. Manson is innocent of these matters that are before us.”

  Why was he on trial then? Kanarek returned to his two favorite themes: “Mr. Manson has had quite a share of troubles because of the fact that he likes girls.” And he was only brought to trial “so someone in the District Attorney’s Office can have a gold star and say, ‘I got Charles Manson.’”

  Kanarek’s argument stretched over three days. It was occasionally ridiculous, as when he said, “We can perform a public service for the United States of America by giving these people life, because if there is a revolution, this is the kind of thing that could spark it.” It was sometimes unintentionally funny, as when he stated that, unlike Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, “Charles Manson has no family to come here to testify.” But mostly he tried to plant little seeds of doubt.

  Why, if Susan Atkins lied on the stand to absolve Manson, would she have implicated him in the Hinman murder? Wasn’t the fact that M
anson himself shot Crowe, to protect the people at Spahn Ranch, evidence that he didn’t need to order others to act for him? If these girls were lying about Manson’s non-involvement in the murders, wouldn’t they have also lied and said they had sorrow and remorse?

  Kanarek only briefly mentioned the copycat motive; he didn’t even try to argue it. Instead, he suggested still another alternative motive. “But for the fact that at least some of these people [supposedly referring to the Tate victims] were engaged in a narcotic episode of some type, these events would not have taken place.”

  Daye Shinn, who argued next, fastened on Dr. Hochman’s statement that he believed these girls had subconscious if not conscious remorse.

  As for Susan, “She is still young,” Shinn argued. “She is only twenty-two years old. I believe there is still a hope of rehabilitating her…Maybe someday she may be rehabilitated to the extent that she may finally realize what she has done was not right. I believe that she deserves the chance, an opportunity, so that maybe someday she may be released and live the rest of her life out of prison.”

  This was very bad strategy on Shinn’s part, implying that if Susan Atkins was given life imprisonment she might someday be released on parole. By law, the prosecution can’t argue this, it is so prejudicial to the defendant.

  Of the four defense attorneys, Maxwell Keith gave the best opening argument. He was also the only one who really attempted to rebut my contentions.

  “Mr. Bugliosi tells you that if the death penalty is not appropriate in this case, it would never be appropriate. Well, I wonder if it ever is appropriate?

  “Mr. Bugliosi read to you at the close of his argument on the guilt phase the roll call of the dead. Let me read to you now, ladies and gentlemen, the roll call of the living dead: Leslie, Sadie, Katie, Squeaky, Brenda, Ouisch, Sandy, Cathy, Gypsy, Tex, Clem, Mary, Snake, and no doubt many more. These lives, and the lives of these three young girls in particular, have been so damaged that it is possible, in some cases, their destruction is beyond repair. I hope not, but it is possible.”

  Leslie Van Houten, he strongly argued, was capable of rehabilitation. She should be studied, not killed. “I am not asking you to forgive her, although to forgive is divine. I am asking you to give her the chance to redeem herself. She deserves to live. What she did was not done by the real Leslie. Let the Leslie of today die—she will, slowly and maybe painfully. And let the Leslie as she once was live again.”

  Nowhere in Paul Fitzgerald’s argument, which followed, did he state, or even imply, that Manson was responsible for what had happened to Patricia Krenwinkel.

  “Patricia Krenwinkel is twenty-three years old,” Fitzgerald observed. “With 365 days in the year, there are approximately 8,400 days in 23 years, and approximately 200,000 hours in her lifetime.

  “The perpetration of these offenses took at best approximately three hours.

  “Is she to be judged solely on what occurred during three of 200,000 hours?”

  Just before court commenced on March 23, I walked over to the water cooler. Manson, in the nearby lockup, called out to me, rather loudly, “If I get the death penalty, there is going to be a lot of bloodletting. Because I am not going to take it.”

  Both the court clerk and Steve Kay overheard the remark. Kay intemperately rushed out of the courtroom and repeated it to the press. Learning of this, I asked the reporters not to print it. The Herald Examiner wouldn’t agree, and it broke the story with a banner headline:

  MANSON DEATH THREAT

  Warns of Terror

  If Doomed to Die

  Before this, however, Judge Older, made aware of what had happened, decided that rather than wait to the close of arguments, he would sequester the jury immediately.

  In my final argument I rebutted point by point the earlier defense contentions. For example, the defense had claimed that Linda got her story from listening to the Susan Atkins tapes. Why would Linda need to listen to the tapes, I asked, when she was present both nights?

  Kanarek had told the jury that if they returned death penalty verdicts, they would be killers. This was a very heavy argument. As support, he cited the Fifth Commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.”

  In answer, I told the jury that most biblical scholars and theologians interpret the original language to mean: “Thou shalt not commit murder,” which is exactly how it appears in the New English Bible, dated 1970.

  The Ten Commandments appear in Exodus, chapter 20, I noted. What Kanarek did not mention, I observed, is that the very next chapter authorizes the death penalty. Exodus 21, verse 12, reads: “Whoever strikes a man a mortal blow must be put to death,” while verse 14 of the same chapter reads: “When a man kills another, after maliciously scheming to do so, you must take him even from my altar and put him to death.”

  Kanarek argued that there was no domination. In addition to all the evidence during the guilt trial, I observed, during the penalty trial, “When Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten played the part of the sacrificial lamb and admitted their participation in these murders, and then lied on that witness stand and said that Manson wasn’t involved, the fact that they were willing to lie on that witness stand just proves, all the more, Manson’s domination over them…” As for the other Family witnesses, Squeaky, Sandy, and the others, “All of them sounded like a broken record on that witness stand. They all have the same thought; they use the same language; each one was a carbon copy of the other. They are all still totally subservient and subject to Charles Manson. They are his X’d-out slaves.”

  I came now to the copycat motive. My objective was to completely demolish it, yet not dwell on it so long that it would seem that I was giving it credence.

  “It is really laughable, ladies and gentlemen,” I began, “the way the three female defendants and the defense witnesses sought to take the hat off Charles Manson.

  “They had to come up with a motive for these murders other than Helter Skelter. Why? Because no less than ten witnesses during the guilt trial had irrevocably connected Manson with Helter Skelter, so they certainly could not say from that witness stand that the motive for these murders was Helter Skelter. If they said that, they would be saying, ‘Yes, Charles Manson masterminded these murders.’ So they came up with the copycat motive.

  “I could give you between twenty and thirty reasons why it’s obvious that this nonsensical story of the defense was fabricated out of whole cloth, but I won’t take up your time with it, and I am not going to insult your intelligence.” I did point out a few:

  Linda Kasabian testified during the penalty trial that she had never heard anyone discuss committing these murders to free Bobby Beausoleil.

  Gary Hinman was stabbed not more than four times. Voytek Frykowski was stabbed fifty-one times, Rosemary LaBianca forty-one times, Leno LaBianca twenty-six times. Rather a great difference, if these were copycat slayings.

  And, if these murders were to be carbon copies, why weren’t the words “political piggy” used at the Tate and LaBianca residences? And why no bloody paw print at the latter two houses?

  The most powerful evidence demolishing this ridiculous motive, I noted, was that as early as February 1969, “long before there was any Hinman murder to copy, long before there were any words ‘political piggy’ to copy, Manson told Brooks Poston and other Family members—including all of his co-defendants—that, quoting Poston: ‘He said a group of real blacks would come out of the ghettos and do an atrocious crime in the richer sections of Los Angeles and other cities. They would do an atrocious murder with stabbing, killing, cutting bodies to pieces, smearing blood on the walls, writing “pigs” on the walls.’

  “Writing ‘pig’ on the walls,” I repeated.

  “So writing ‘pig’ at the Tate and LaBianca residences was simply a part of Manson’s blueprint for starting Helter Skelter, not an effort to copy the Hinman murder.

  “Incidentally,” I observed, “Mr. Kanarek never did try to explain to you why the words ‘helter skelter’ were pr
inted in blood on the refrigerator door at the LaBianca residence. What does Helter Skelter have to do with freeing Bobby Beausoleil or an alleged $1,000 MDA burn at the Tate residence? Absolutely nothing, that’s what. The words ‘helter skelter’ were found printed in blood on the LaBianca refrigerator door because all of the evidence at this trial shows beyond all doubt that Helter Skelter was the principal reason for these savage murders.

  “Yes,” I admitted, “there is a connection between the Hinman murder and the Tate-LaBianca murders. But it was not this silly Bobby Beausoleil nonsense. Here is the connection. Mr. Manson not only ordered the Tate-LaBianca murders, he also ordered the Hinman murder. That is the connection.”

  As for Susan Atkins’ claim that Linda Kasabian masterminded these murders, I noted that not until the penalty phase did she say anything about this, and then “all of a sudden Linda Kasabian is Charles Manson.”

  I noted some of the reasons why this was preposterous, among them the ridiculousness of the docile, subservient Linda taking over the leadership of the Family in just one month. “Only one person ordered these murders, ladies and gentlemen, and his initials are CM. He also has an aka: JC. And he is in that lockup right now listening to me…”

  The most preposterous thing about all this was that supposedly for one and a half years both Sadie and Gypsy kept this secret in their perjurous bosoms. They not only didn’t tell the other members of the Family, they didn’t even tell Manson’s attorney, though both testified they loved and would willingly die for Charlie.

  “And why didn’t they tell him about this motive? Because it didn’t exist. It was recently fabricated.”

  As for Manson’s alibi, that he was with Stephanie Schram in Devil’s Canyon on both of these nights, “Isn’t it strange that all of Mr. Manson’s X’d-out slaves have testified to this during the penalty trial, and the very person, Stephanie Schram, whom they claim Manson was with, testified that Manson was not with her?”