Helter Skelter

by Vincent Bugliosi

  For their part in the attempted murder of prosecution witness Barbara Hoyt, four of the five defendants served ninety days in the County Jail, while the fifth escaped punishment entirely.

  Although I was not assigned to the case, I questioned the way it was handled. Because it was felt that the evidence against the defendants was weak, and because of the expense of flying in witnesses from Hawaii, the DA’s Office, LAPD, and the defense attorneys agreed to a “deal.” In return for the defendants pleading “no contest” to one count of conspiracy to dissuade a witness from testifying, the prosecutor made a motion to reduce the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor. Judge Stephen Stothers granted the motion, and on April 16, 1971, he sentenced four of the five defendants—Lynette Fromme, aka Squeaky; Steve Grogan, aka Clem; Catherine Share, aka Gypsy; and Dennis Rice—to ninety days in the County Jail. Since they had already served fifteen days, they were back on the streets in seventy-five days.

  The fifth defendant, Ruth Ann Moorehouse, aka Ouisch, the girl who actually gave Barbara Hoyt the LSD-laden hamburger, got off scot-free. When it came time for sentencing, she failed to appear. Although a bench warrant was issued for her arrest and she was known to be living in Carson City, Nevada, the DA’s Office decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to extradite her.

  Charles “Tex” Watson went on trial in August 1971. A good portion of my preparation took place not in a law library but in a medical library, since I was relatively sure that Watson was going to plead not guilty by reason of insanity and put on a psychiatric defense.

  The trial had three possible phases—guilt, sanity, and penalty—each of which presented its own special problems.

  Even though defense attorney Sam Bubrick told me that Watson intended to take the stand and confess, I knew I still had to present a strong case during the guilt phase, since it was a safe bet that Watson’s testimony would be self-serving. Too, I had to prove (by evidence such as Watson’s instructing Linda to steal the $5,000) that although Watson was dominated by Manson, he still had enough independence to make him legally responsible for his acts. One of the key issues during the guilt trial, then, was whether Watson was suffering from diminished mental capacity at the time of the murders. If he was, and it was of such a nature that it prevented him from deliberating and premeditating, the jury would have to find the chief Tate-LaBianca killer guilty of second rather than first degree murder.

  If convicted of any degree of criminal homicide, then there would be a sanity trial, in which the sole issue would be whether Watson was sane or insane at the time of the murders. I anticipated, and quite rightly, that the defense would call a number of prominent psychiatrists (eight were called), many of whom would testify that in their opinion Watson was insane. Therefore I’d not only have to subject their testimony to withering cross-examination, I’d also have to present an abundance of evidence showing that Watson was in full command of his mental faculties at the time of the murders and that he was well aware that in the eyes of society what he was doing was wrong. In short, I had to prove that he wasn’t legally insane. Such evidence as his cutting of the telephone wires, his telling Linda to wipe the knives of fingerprints, his manner when talking to Rudolf Weber, and his using an alias when questioned by the authorities in Death Valley a few weeks after the murders thus became extremely important to proving my case, in that all were circumstantial evidence of a consciousness of wrongdoing and guilt on Watson’s part.

  If Watson was convicted of first degree murder and also found sane, then the jury would have to decide the ultimate question: whether he was to be given life or death. And this meant I would again face many of the same problems I had with the girls in the penalty phase of the earlier trial.

  Still another problem was Watson’s demeanor. In an obvious attempt to project a college-boy image, Watson dressed very conservatively in court—short hair, shirt and tie, blue blazer, slacks. But he still looked strange. His eyes were glassy, and never seemed to focus. He reacted not at all to the damning testimony of such witnesses as Linda Kasabian, Paul Watkins, Brooks Poston, and Dianne Lake. And his mouth was always slightly gaping, giving him the appearance of being mentally retarded.

  Taking the stand on direct examination by the defense, Tex played the part of Manson’s abject slave. He admitted shooting or stabbing six of the Tate-LaBianca victims, but denied stabbing Sharon Tate. And everything which showed either premeditation or deliberation he put on Manson or the girls.

  My cross-examination so shook Tex that he often forgot he was supposed to be playing the idiot. By the time I’d finished, it was obvious to the jury that he was in complete command of his mental faculties and probably always had been. I also got him to admit that he had stabbed Sharon Tate too; that he didn’t think of the victims as people but as “just blobs”; that he had told Dr. Joel Fort that the people at the Tate residence “were running around like chickens with their heads cut off,” and that when he said this he had smiled; and I tore to shreds his story that he was simply an unthinking zombie programmed by Charles Manson, as well as cast considerable doubt on his claim that he now felt remorse for what he had done.

  Watson’s testimony cleared up some mysteries:

  Contrary to the findings of LAPD evidence-expert DeWayne Wolfer, Watson identified the pair of red wire cutters found in Manson’s dune buggy as the pair he had used to cut the Tate telephone wires that night.

  Also revealed for the first time were Manson’s exact instructions to Watson on the night of the murders at 10050 Cielo Drive. Watson testified: “Charlie called me over behind a car…and handed me a gun and a knife. He said for me to take the gun and knife and go up to where Terry Melcher used to live. He said to kill everybody in the house as gruesome as I could. I believe he said something about movie stars living there.”

  And Watson admitted that when he entered the LaBianca residence, he was already armed with a knife.

  My greatest difficulty during the entire Watson trial came not from the evidence, the defense attorneys, or the defense witnesses, but from the judge, Adolph Alexander, who was a personal friend of defense attorney Sam Bubrick.

  Alexander not only repeatedly favored the defense in his rulings, he went far beyond that. During voir dire he remarked: “Many of us are opposed to the death penalty.” When prosecution witnesses were testifying, he gave them incredulous, unbelieving looks; when defense witnesses took the stand, he industriously took notes. All this was done right in front of the jury. He also frequently cross-examined the prosecution witnesses. Finally, I’d had it. Asking to approach the bench, I reminded Alexander that this was a jury trial, not a court trial, and that I was immensely concerned that by cross-examining the prosecution witnesses he was giving the jury the impression that he didn’t believe the witnesses, and since a judge has substantial stature in the eyes of a jury, this could be extremely harmful to the People. I suggested that if he wanted to have certain questions asked, he write them out and give them to the defense attorneys to ask.

  Thereafter Alexander cut down on his cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses. However, he still continued to amaze me. When the jury went out to deliberate, he didn’t even have the exhibits sent back to the jury room—a virtually automatic act—until after I had demanded that he do so. And once, in chambers and off the record, he referred to the defendant as “poor Tex.”

  Also off the record was a remark I made to him toward the end of the trial: “You’re the biggest single obstacle to my obtaining a conviction of first degree murder in this case.”

  Despite the problems presented by Judge Alexander, on October 12, 1971, the jury found Watson guilty of seven counts of first degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. That I had effectively destroyed the testimony of the defense psychiatrists on cross-examination was borne out by the fact that on October 19 it took the jury only two and a half hours to decide that Watson was sane. And on October 21, after remaining out only six hours, they returned with a verdict of de
ath.

  The trial had lasted two and a half months and cost a quarter of a million dollars. It also added another forty volumes, 5,916 pages, to the mini-library on the Tate-LaBianca murders.

  Although Judge Alexander thanked the jury for the conscientious job they had done, he remarked, on the day he sentenced Watson, “If I had tried this case without a jury, I possibly would have arrived at a different verdict.”

  In still other proceedings, Susan Atkins pleaded guilty to the murder of Gary Hinman and was given life imprisonment. In sentencing her, Judge Raymond Choate called her “a danger to any community,” who should spend “her entire life in custody.”

  The defense obtained separate trials for Charles Manson, Bruce Davis, and Steve Grogan on the combined Hinman-Shea murder charges. Despite the fact that the body of Donald “Shorty” Shea hadn’t been found (and hasn’t to this day), prosecutors Burt Katz, Anthony Manzella, and Steven Kay succeeded in the difficult task of obtaining guilty verdicts against each of the defendants on all of the counts. Verdicts of life imprisonment were returned for Manson and Davis. The Grogan jury voted death, but when it came time for sentencing—two days before Christmas 1971—Judge James Kolts, commenting that “Grogan was too stupid and too hopped up on drugs to decide anything on his own,” and declaring that it was really Manson “who decided who lived or died,” reduced the sentence to life imprisonment.

  During voir dire in his trial, Manson, angered by the judge’s refusal to let him represent himself, told the Court: “I enter a plea of guilty. I chopped off Shorty’s head.” The judge refused to accept the plea, and the next day Manson withdrew it. During another angry outburst, Manson turned to the press and said, “I’ve told my people to start killing you.”

  Again Manson was represented by Irving Kanarek. With Irving, he knew it would be a long trial, postponing his trip to San Quentin’s Death Row.

  Through all the trials, the Manson girls continued their vigil on the corner of Temple and Broadway. Literally in the shadow of the Hall of Justice, in view of the thousands of people who passed that corner every day, they fashioned a bizarre plot to free all the imprisoned Manson Family members.

  In late July of 1971 my co-author learned from a Family member in the San Francisco Bay Area that the Family was planning to break out Manson sometime within the next month. Though he was not told how they intended to accomplish this, he was given some additional details: the Family was stockpiling arms and ammunition; they had secretly rented a house in South Los Angeles and were hiding an escaped convict there; and with Manson’s escape “Helter Skelter will really start; the revolution will be on.”

  Wishful thinking? I wasn’t sure, and passed the information along to LAPD. When I did, I learned that among the witnesses Manson had called in the Hinman-Shea trial was a Folsom convict named Kenneth Como, also known by the colorful aka Jesse James. Though it hadn’t been publicized, when brought to Los Angeles less than a week before, Como had managed to escape from the Hall of Records. LAPD doubted, however, that he was still in the area. As for the Manson escape, they had heard rumors also, but nothing definite. They were inclined to doubt the tale.

  On schedule, less than a month later, the Manson Family made their attempt.

  Shortly after closing time on the night of Saturday, August 21, 1971, six armed robbers entered the Western Surplus Store in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne. While one kept a shotgun on the female clerk and two customers, the others began carrying rifles, shotguns, and pistols to a van parked in the alley outside. They had collected about 140 guns when they spotted the first police car. LAPD, alerted by a silent alarm, had already sealed off the alley.

  The robbers came out shooting. In the ten-minute gun battle that followed, the van was riddled with over fifty bullets, and some twenty bullets crashed into the black-and-whites. Surprisingly, no one was killed, though three of the suspects received slight wounds.

  All six robbers were Manson Family members. Apprehended were Mary Brunner, twenty-seven, first member of the Family; Catherine Share, aka Gypsy, twenty-nine, and Dennis Rice, thirty-two, both recently freed after serving ninety-day sentences for their part in the attempted silencing of Barbara Hoyt; Lawrence Bailey, aka Larry Jones, twenty-three, who was present the night the Tate killers left Spahn; and escaped convict Kenneth Como, thirty-three. Another Family member, Charles Lovett, nineteen, got away during the gun fight but was subsequently apprehended.

  After their arrest it was learned that the same group was also responsible for the robbery of a Covina beer distributorship on August 13, which netted them $2,600.

  The police surmised that through the robberies the group intended to get enough guns and ammunition to stage a San Rafael–type commando raid on the courthouse. Steve Grogan had called Manson as a witness in his trial. It was believed that the day Manson appeared in court the Family intended to storm the Hall of Justice, breaking out both.

  Actually, the real plan was far more spectacular. And, given the right circumstances and enough public pressure, it just might have worked.

  Although never made public before this, according to a Family member who was privy to the planning of the Hawthorne robbery, the real plan was as follows:

  Using the stolen weapons, the Family was going to hijack a 747 and kill one passenger every hour until Manson and all the other imprisoned Family members were released.

  Extraordinary security measures were taken during the trial of the Hawthorne robbery defendants, in part because the defense had called as witnesses what Judge Arthur Alarcon labeled “the biggest collection of murderers in Los Angeles County at one time.” Twelve convicted killers, including Manson, Beausoleil, Atkins, Krenwinkel, Van Houten, Grogan, and Davis, took the stand. Their presence in one place made everyone a little nervous. Especially since by this time the Family had discovered that the Hall of Justice was not escapeproof.

  In the early-morning hours of October 20, 1971, Kenneth Como hack-sawed his way through the bars of his thirteenth-floor cell, climbed down to the eighth floor on a rope made of bed sheets, kicked in a window in the courtroom of Department 104 (where just a few months earlier I’d prosecuted Manson and his three female co-defendants), then left the building by way of the stairs. Sandra Good picked up Como in the Family van. Though Sandy later smashed up the van and was arrested, Como managed to elude capture for seven hours. Also arrested—but subsequently released, there being no positive proof that they had aided and abetted the escape—were Squeaky, Brenda, Kitty, and two other Family members.

  No attempt was made to break out Manson during the Hawthorne trial. However, two of the jurors had to be replaced by alternates after receiving telephone threats that they would be killed if they voted for conviction. The calls were linked to an unidentified female Family member.

  Although Gypsy and Rice had previously been given only ninety days for their part in the attempted murder of a prosecution witness, they and their co-defendants found that the courts take shooting at police officers a little more seriously. All were charged with two counts of armed robbery. Rice pleaded guilty and was sent to state prison. The others were convicted on both counts and given the following sentences: Lovett, two consecutive five-year-to-life terms; Share, ten years to life; Como, fifteen years to life; Brunner and Bailey, twenty years to life.

  Sandra Good was subsequently tried for aiding and abetting an escape. Her attorney, the one and only Irving Kanarek, claimed she had been kidnaped by Como. The jury didn’t buy it, and Sandy was given six months in jail.

  The day Como escaped, Kanarek, appearing in Judge Raymond Choate’s court, claimed in his patented way: “I allege with no proof at this particular time that this escape was deliberately allowed to take place.”

  Judge Choate asked Kanarek if he could explain why Como was forced to climb down a rope from the thirteenth to the eighth floor.

  “That makes it look good, Your Honor,” Kanarek explained.

  While Manson was still on trial for the Hinma
n-Shea murders, I dropped into the courtroom one day. It was a welcome relief to be a spectator for a change.

  Manson, who had recently taken to wearing a black storm trooper’s uniform in court, spotted me and sent a message by the bailiff that he wanted to speak to me. There were a few things I wanted to ask him about also, so I stayed over after court recessed. Sitting in the prisoner’s dock in the courtroom, we talked from 4:30 P.M. to nearly 6 P.M. None of the talk concerned the current charges against him. Mostly we discussed his philosophy. I was especially interested in learning the evolution of some of his ideas, and questioned him at length about his relationship with Scientology and with the satanic cult known as The Process, or the Church of the Final Judgement.

  Manson had wanted to speak to me, he said, because he wanted me to know “I don’t have no hard feelings.” He told me that I had done “a fantastic, remarkable job” in convicting him, and he said, “You gave me a fair trial, like you promised.” He was not bitter about the result, however, because to him “prison has always been my home; I didn’t want to leave it the last time and you’re only sending me back there.” There were regular meals, not great, but better than the garbage at Spahn Ranch. And since you don’t have to work if you don’t want to, he’d have plenty of time to play his guitar.

  “That may be, Charlie, but you don’t have any women there,” I said.

  “I don’t need broads,” he replied. “Every woman I ever had, she asked me to make love to her. I never asked them. I can do without them.” There was plenty of sex in prison, he said.

  Although Manson again claimed that the Beatles’ music and LSD were responsible for the Tate-LaBianca murders, he admitted that he had known they were going to happen, “because I even knew what the mice were doing at Spahn Ranch.” He then added, “So I said to them: ‘Here, do you want this rope? Do you want this gun?’ And later I told them not to tell anyone about what happened.”