Helter Skelter

by Vincent Bugliosi

  Every few days I called McGann. No, he hadn’t got around to looking for the knives yet.

  On March 11, Susan Atkins, after formally requesting that Richard Caballero be relieved as her attorney, asked for Daye Shinn in Caballero’s place.

  Inasmuch as Shinn, one of the first attorneys to call on Manson after he was brought down from Independence, had represented Manson on several matters and had visited him more than forty times, Judge Keene felt there might be a possible conflict of interest involved.

  Shinn denied this. Keene then warned Susan of the possible dangers of being represented by an attorney who had been so closely involved with one of her co-defendants. Susan said she didn’t care; she wanted Shinn. Keene granted the substitution.

  I hadn’t come up against Shinn before. He was about forty, Korean born; according to the press, his main practice, before allying himself with the Manson defense, had been obtaining Mexican domestics for Southern California families.

  On leaving the courtroom, Shinn told waiting reporters that Susan Atkins “definitely will deny everything she told the grand jury.”

  On March 15 we took Linda Kasabian out again. Only this time we used not a conspicuous sheriff’s van but unmarked police cars.

  I wanted Linda to trace the route the killers had taken the night the LaBiancas were killed.

  After dinner that night—Saturday, August 9, 1969—Linda and several other Family members were standing outside the kitchen at Spahn. Manson called Linda, Katie, and Leslie aside and told them to get a change of clothing and meet him in the bunkhouse.

  This time he mentioned nothing to Linda about knives, but he did tell her again to get her driver’s license.

  “I just looked at him and, you know, just sort of pleaded with my eyes, please don’t make me go, because,” Linda said, “I just knew we were going out again, and I knew it would be the same thing, but I was afraid to say anything.”

  “Last night was too messy,” Manson told the group when they assembled in the bunkhouse. “This time I’m going to show you how to do it.”

  Tex complained that the weapons they had used the previous night weren’t effective enough!

  Linda saw two swords in the bunkhouse, one of which was the Straight Satans’ sword. She did not see anyone pick them up, but later she noticed the Satans’ sword and two smaller knives under the front seat of the car. In questioning DeCarlo, I’d learned that one night about this time he’d noticed that the sword had been taken out.

  Again the group piled into Swartz’ Ford. This time Manson himself slipped into the driver’s seat, with Linda next to him, Clem on the passenger side, Tex, Sadie, Katie, and Leslie crowded in back. All wore dark clothing, Linda said, except for Clem, who had on an olive-drab field jacket. As he often did, Manson wore a leather thong around his neck, the two ends extending down to his breastbone, where they were looped together. I asked Linda if anyone else was wearing such a thong; she said no.

  Before they left, Manson asked Bruce Davis for some money. Just as DeCarlo took care of the Family guns, Davis acted as comptroller for the group, taking care of the stolen credit cards, fake IDs, and so forth.

  As they drove off, Manson told them that tonight they would divide into two groups: each would take a separate house. He said he’d drop off one group, then take the second group with him.

  When they stopped to buy gas (using cash, not a credit card), Manson told Linda to take over the driving. Questioning Linda, I established that Manson—and Manson alone—gave all the instructions as to where they were to go and what they were to do. At no time, she said, did Tex Watson instruct anyone to do anything. Charlie was in complete command.

  Following Manson’s directions, Linda took the freeway to Pasadena. Once off it, he gave her so many directions she was unsure where they were. Eventually he told her to stop in front of a house, which Linda described as a modern, one-story, middle-class-type home. This was the place where, as described by Susan Atkins, Manson got out, had them drive around the block, then got back in, telling them that, having looked in the window and seen photographs of children, he didn’t want to “do” that particular house, though, he added, in the future it might be necessary to kill children also. Linda’s account was essentially the same as Susan’s.

  After riding around Pasadena for some time, Manson again took over the driving. Linda: “I remember we started driving up a hill with lots of houses, nice houses, rich houses, and trees. We got to the top of the hill and turned around and stopped in front of a certain house.” Linda couldn’t remember if it was one story or two, only that it was big. Manson, however, said the houses were too close together here, so they drove off.

  Shortly after this, Manson spotted a church. Pulling into the parking lot next to it, he again got out. Linda believed, but wasn’t absolutely sure, that he told them he was going to “get” the minister or priest.

  However, he returned a few minutes later, saying the church door was locked.

  Susan Atkins had neglected to mention the church in her account. I learned of it for the first time from Linda Kasabian.

  Manson again told Linda to drive, but the route he gave her was so confusing that she soon became lost. Later, driving up Sunset from the ocean, there occurred another incident which Susan Atkins had neglected to mention.

  Observing a white sports car ahead of them, Manson told Linda, “At the next red light, pull up beside it. I’m going to kill the driver.”

  Linda pulled up next to the car, but just as Manson jumped out, the light changed to green and the sports car zoomed away.

  Another potential victim, unaware to this day how close to death he had come.

  Thus far, their wanderings appeared totally at random, Manson seemingly having no particular victims in mind. As I’d later argue to the jury, up to this time no one in the vast, sprawling metropolis of seven million people, whether in a home, a church, or even a car, was safe from Manson’s insatiable lust for death, blood, and murder.

  But after the sports-car incident, Manson’s directions became very specific. He directed Linda to the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, not far from Griffith Park, having her stop on the street in front of a home in a residential area.

  Linda recognized the house. In June of 1968 she and her husband had been driving from Seattle to Taos when they stopped off in Los Angeles. A friend had taken them to the house—3267 Waverly Drive—for a peyote party. One of the men who were living there, she recalled, was named Harold. In another of the many coincidences which abounded in this case, Linda had also been to the Harold True residence, though at a time none of the Family members were there.

  Linda asked, “Charlie, you’re not going to do that house, are you?”

  Manson replied, “No, the one next door.”

  Telling the others to stay in the car, Manson got out. Linda noticed him shove something into his belt, but she couldn’t see what it was. She watched him walking up the driveway until it curved and he disappeared from sight.

  I presumed, although I couldn’t be sure of this, that Manson had a gun.

  For Rosemary and Leno LaBianca, the horror that would end in their deaths had begun.

  Linda guessed the time was about 2 A.M. Some ten minutes later, she said, Manson returned to the car.

  I asked Linda if he was still wearing the leather thong around his neck. She said she hadn’t noticed, though she did notice, later that night, that he no longer had it. I showed her the leather thong used to bind the wrists of Leno LaBianca, and she said it was “the same kind” Manson had been wearing.

  Manson told Tex, Katie, and Leslie to get out of the car and bring their clothing bundles with them. Obviously they were to be the first team. Linda heard some, though not all, of the conversation. Manson told the trio that there were two people inside the house, that he had tied them up and told them that everything was going to be all right, and that they shouldn’t be afraid. He also instructed Tex, Katie, and Leslie that they were not to cause
fear and panic in the people as had happened the night before.

  The LaBiancas had been creepy-crawled, pacified with Charles Manson’s unctuous assurances, then set up to be slaughtered.

  Linda heard only bits and pieces of the rest of the conversation. She did not hear Manson specifically order the three to kill the two persons. Nor did she see them carrying any weapons. She believed she heard Manson say, “Don’t let them know you are going to kill them.” And she definitely heard him instruct them that when they were done they were to hitchhike back to the ranch.

  As the trio started toward the house, Manson got back in the car and handed Linda a woman’s wallet, telling her to wipe off the prints and remove the change. In opening it, she noticed the driver’s license, which had a photo of a woman with dark hair. She recalled the woman’s first name was “Rosemary,” while the last name “was either Mexican or Italian.” She also remembered seeing a number of credit cards and a wrist watch.

  When I asked Linda the color of the wallet, she said it was red. Actually it was brown. She also claimed to have removed all the change, but when the wallet was found there were still some coins in one of the inner compartments. Both were understandable errors, I felt, particularly overlooking the extra change compartment.

  Manson again took over the driving. Linda was now on the passenger side, Susan and Clem in back. Manson told Linda that when they reached a predominantly colored area he wanted her to toss the wallet out onto a sidewalk, so a black person would find it, use the credit cards, and be arrested. This would make people think the Panthers had committed the murders, he explained.

  Manson drove onto the freeway not far from where they had dropped off Tex, Katie, and Leslie. After driving for a long time, he pulled off the freeway and stopped at a nearby service station. Apparently having changed his plans, Manson now told Linda to put the wallet in the women’s rest room. Linda did, only she hid it too well, lifting the top of the toilet tank and placing it over the bulb, where it would remain undiscovered for four months.

  I asked Linda if she could remember anything distinctive about the station. She remembered there was a restaurant next door and that it seemed “to radiate the color orange.”

  There was a Denny’s Restaurant next to the Standard station in Sylmar, with a large orange sign.

  While Linda was in the rest room, Manson went to the restaurant, returning with four milk shakes.

  Probably at the same time the LaBiancas were being murdered, the man who had ordered their deaths was sipping a milk shake.

  Again Manson had Linda drive. After a long time, perhaps an hour, they reached the beach somewhere south of Venice. Linda recalled seeing some oil storage tanks. All four got out of the car, Sadie and Clem, at Charlie’s instructions, dropping behind while he and Linda walked ahead in the sand.

  Suddenly Manson was again all love. It was as if the events of the last forty-eight hours had never happened. Linda told Charlie that she was pregnant. Manson took Linda’s hand and, as she described it, “it was sort of nice, you know, we were just talking, I gave him some peanuts, and he just sort of made me forget about everything, made me feel good.”

  Would the jury understand this? I thought so, once they understood Manson’s charismatic personality and Linda’s love for him.

  Just as they reached a side street, a police car pulled up and two officers got out. They asked the pair what they were doing.

  Charlie replied, “We were just going for a walk.” Then, as if they should recognize him, he asked, “Don’t you know who I am?” or “Don’t you remember my name?” They said, “No,” then returned to the patrol car and drove off, without asking either for identification. It was, Linda said, “a friendly conversation,” lasting only a minute.

  Finding the two officers on duty in the area that night should be fairly easy, I thought, unaware how wrong I could be.

  Clem and Sadie were already back in the car when they returned. Manson then told Linda to drive to Venice. En route he asked the three if they knew anyone there. None did. Manson then asked Linda, “What about the man you and Sandy met in Venice? Wasn’t he a piggy?” Linda replied, “Yes, he’s an actor.” Manson told her to drive to his apartment.

  I asked Linda about the actor.

  One afternoon in early August, Linda said, she and Sandy had been hitchhiking near the pier when this man picked them up. He told them he was Israeli or Arab—Linda couldn’t recall which—and that he had appeared in a movie about Kahlil Gibran. The two girls were hungry, and he drove them to his apartment and fixed them lunch. Afterward, Sandy napped and Linda and the man made love. Before the girls left, he gave them some food and spare clothing. Linda couldn’t remember the man’s name, only that it was foreign. However, she felt sure she could find the apartment house, as she had located it when Manson asked her to drive there that night.

  When they pulled up in front, Manson asked Linda if the man would let her in. “I think so,” she replied. What about Sadie and Clem? Linda said she guessed so. Manson then handed her a pocketknife and demonstrated how he wanted her to slit the actor’s throat.

  Linda said she couldn’t do it. “I’m not you, Charlie,” Linda told Manson. “I can’t kill anybody.”

  Manson asked her to take him to the man’s apartment. Linda led Charlie up the stairs, but deliberately pointed to the wrong door.

  On returning to the car, Manson gave the trio explicit instructions. They were to go to the actor’s apartment. Linda was to knock. When the man let her in, Sadie and Clem were to go in also. Once they were inside, Linda was to slit the man’s throat and Clem was to shoot him. When finished, they were to hitchhike back to the ranch.

  Linda saw Manson hand Clem a gun, but was unable to describe it. Nor did she know if Sadie also had a knife.

  “If anything goes wrong,” Manson told them, “just hang it up, don’t do it.” He then slid into the driver’s seat and drove off.

  Like the church and sports-car incidents, Susan Atkins had not mentioned the Venice incident to me, nor had she said anything about it when testifying before the grand jury. While I felt that she might have forgotten the two earlier incidents, I suspected the third was omitted intentionally, since it directly involved her as a willing partner in still another attempted murder. It was possible, however, that had I had more time to interview Susan, this too might have come out.

  The actor’s apartment was on the top, or fifth, floor, but Linda did not tell Clem or Sadie this. Instead, on reaching the fourth floor, she knocked on the first door she saw. Eventually a man sleepily asked, “Who is it?” She replied, “Linda.” When the man opened the door a crack, Linda said, “Oh, excuse me, I have the wrong apartment.”

  The door was open only a second or two and Linda caught just a glimpse of the man. She had the impression, though she was unsure of this, that he was middle-aged.

  The three then left the building, but not before Sadie, ever the animal, defecated on the landing.

  It was obvious that Linda Kasabian had prevented still another Manson-ordered murder. As independent evidence corroborating her story, it was important that we locate not only the actor but the man who answered the door. Perhaps he’d remember being awakened at 4 or 5 A.M. by a pretty young girl.

  From the apartment house Clem, Sadie, and Linda walked to the beach, a short distance away. Clem wanted to ditch the gun. He disappeared from sight behind a sandpile, near a fence. Linda presumed that he had either buried the gun or tossed it over the fence.

  Walking back to the Pacific Coast Highway, they hitched a ride to the entrance of Topanga Canyon. There was a hippie crash pad nearby, next door to the Malibu Feedbin, and Sadie said she knew a girl who was staying there. Linda recalled there was also an older man there, and a big dog. The three stayed about an hour, smoking some weed, then left.

  They then hitched two rides, the last taking them all the way to the entrance of Santa Susana Pass Road, where Clem and Linda got out. Sadie, Linda learned the next day
, remained in the car until it reached the waterfall area.

  When Linda and Clem arrived at the ranch, Tex and Leslie were already there, asleep in one of the rooms. She didn’t see Katie, though she learned the next day that, like Sadie, she had gone on to the camp by the waterfall. Linda went to bed in the saloon.

  Two days later Linda Kasabian fled Spahn Ranch. The manner of her departure, however, would cause the prosecution a great deal of concern.

  Rather than taking Linda directly to the LaBianca residence, I had the sheriff’s deputy drive to the Los Feliz area, to see if Linda could find the house itself. She did, pointing out both the LaBianca and True houses, the place where they had parked, the driveway up which Manson had walked, and so on.

  I also wanted to find the two houses in Pasadena where Manson had stopped earlier that night, but, though we spent hours looking for them, we were, at this time, unsuccessful. Linda did find the apartment house where the actor had lived, 1101 Ocean Front Walk, and pointed out both his apartment, 501, and the door on which she had knocked, 403. I asked Patchett and Gutierrez to locate and interview both the actor and the man who had been living in 403.

  Linda also showed us the sandpile near the fence where she believed Clem had disposed of the gun, but though we got out shovels and dug up the area, we were unable to locate the weapon. It was possible that someone had already found it, or that Clem or one of the other Family members had reclaimed it later. We never did learn what type of gun it was.

  Having been out since early in the morning, we stopped at a Chinese restaurant for lunch. That afternoon we returned to Pasadena and must have driven past forty churches before Linda found the one where Manson had stopped. I asked LAPD to photograph it and the adjoining parking lot as a trial exhibit.