Authors who shared information on the Manson case include Ivor Davis, Simon Wells, Greg King, Marlin Maryneck, Barney Hoskyns, and Paul Krassner.
Independent researchers who helped me include Jedidiah Laub-Klein, Tommy Schwab, Jason Majik, Jon Aes-Nihil, John Michael Jones, and Mark Turner. Also Bo Edlund and Glenna Schultz, the proprietors of the best websites on the crimes, CieloDrive.com and TruthOnTateLaBianca.com, respectively. These two case “scholars” often found information I’d long given up on. Their knowledge on the crimes surpasses anyone I’ve encountered in my twenty years researching them.
Helpful members and associates of the Family include Dean Moorehouse, Sherry Cooper, Catherine “Cappie” Gillies, Dianne Lake, Brooks Poston, Paul Crockett, Vern Plumlee, and Barbara Hoyt. There were also those who intersected with the group, including Bob Berry, Bob April, Charlie Melton, Corrine Broskette, Rosina Kroner, and Lee Saunooke.
A host of my friends provided unwavering moral support—not to mention beds, couches, and floors when I turned up in their towns with a car full of files and addresses of local criminals I planned to confront. Among them (the friends, not the criminals) are Jenny Jedeikin, Patricia Harty, Holly Millea, Gail Gilchrist, Greg and Erin Fitzsimmons, Jay Russell, Lee Cunningham, Paul Lyons, Nick Smith, Jaceene Margolin, Jane Campbell, Daisy Foote, Mary Fitzgerald, Bryan Northam, Eileen O’Conner, Elaine DeBuhr, Daina Mileris, Beena Kamlani, Anne McDermott, Sean Jamison, Val Reitman, Kim Stevens, Karla Stevens, Fernando Arreola, Brad Verter, and Liz Heskin. Thanks also to Mike Gibbons (who gave me a car), Jesse Despard (who held forty boxes of my files in her basement for two years), Tim and Kyle Dilworth (basement storage for even more boxes), and Tim Guinee (an actor who roleplayed an antagonist with me in preparation for an interview).
I’ve had the best researchers and tape transcribers, including Jim and Desi Jedeikin, Tanya McClure, Chris Kinker, Tucker Capps, Phil Brier, and Julie Tate. The one who hung in the longest and found out the most is Bob Perkins, a true investigator and an excellent writer.
A few lawyers who provided invaluable support are Joe Weiner, David Feige, Richard Marks, Jessica Friedman, Paul McGuire, and Tim O’Conner. And some filmmakers who briefly journeyed with me as we pursued possible collaborations: Errol Morris, John Marks, and Ken Druckerman.
In 2016, my collaborator, Dan Piepenbring, became the final component to finishing this odyssey, breathing life into my moribund pages, making sense of nonsense, and allowing me to see my findings again, with fresh eyes. For that, I will be forever indebted to the best collaborator an overwhelmed author could have. (Also thanks to Dan’s equally talented agent, Dan Kirschen of ICM.)
But my deepest gratitude is reserved for two people without whose support I never would’ve survived these past twenty years: my father, William, who believed in the project from day one, even when others stopped believing; and my mother, Jean, who outlived him, making our joy at the conclusion bittersweet. My siblings, Bill, Tim, and Ellen, and their spouses and kids, were an enormous source of spiritual, sometimes financial, and (with Tim, particularly) legal sustenance. (Thank God there are three lawyers in my family, and thank God they were determined enough to keep me from moving into their basements to make sure all my contracts were ironclad and my lawsuits settled.)
These acknowledgments would mean nothing without a word of thanks to the people who sacrificed, and continue to sacrifice, the most in this story. The survivors of the victims of the crimes described in these pages have to be reminded, yet again, of pain and trauma that needs no reminding. Their generosity and bravery never fail to humble me. Their grace in the face of such tragedy is a far greater testament to the lives of the loved ones they lost than any book could be.
Thank you to the sister of John Philip Haught, Paula Scott Lowe, and to the mother of Marina Habe, Eloise Hardt, who died in 2017 at age ninety-nine, never knowing who killed her only child, and to Marina’s stepbrother and best friend, Mark McNamara.
And my sincerest gratitude to the survivors of the known victims of the Manson group, who shared their stories with me: Frank Struthers, Suzanne LaBerge, Eva Morel, Janet Parent, and, especially, Anthony DiMaria and Debra Tate.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
TOM O’NEILL is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has appeared in Premiere, New York, the Village Voice, and Details.
DAN PIEPENBRING is an advisory editor for The Paris Review and a contributor to The New Yorker’s website.
NOTES
Prologue
1 Vince’s own handwriting: Vincent Bugliosi interview with Terry Melcher, Los Angeles District Attorney’s office.
2 I believed he’d framed Manson: Author interview with Rudolph Altobelli.
1. The Crime of the Century
Helter Skelter was published in 1974. An updated edition was published in 1994 to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the murders. All citations are from that 1994 edition. The accounts of the crimes and investigation in this chapter are taken from the trial transcripts and Helter Skelter. Where information is used from the trial transcript that was either not used or abridged by Bugliosi in Helter Skelter, that information will be cited.
1 “a metaphor for evil”: Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter Skelter (New York: Norton, 1994), 640.
2 “the dark and malignant side of humanity”: Bugliosi quoted in Richard C. Paddock, “The Long, Chilling Shadow of Charles Manson,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 8, 1994.
3 “We’re going to get some fucking pigs!”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 442.
4 would often molest her: Susan Atkins testimony, Subsequent Parole Consideration Hearing, State of California Board of Prison Terms, in the Matter of the Life Term Parole Consideration Hearing of Susan Atkins, CDC Inmate W-08340, Dec. 16, 1988.
5 “‘You’re going downhill’”: This and all quotations from the Manson trial in this chapter are from the court transcripts, California v. Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, case 22239.
6 At the top of the driveway they found Steven Parent: I uncovered ample evidence suggesting that Parent’s relationship with William Garretson was significantly different than the one depicted at trial and in Helter Skelter, including the purpose of his visit to the guesthouse on August 8, 1969.
7 put on “a crooked orbit.”: Steven V. Roberts, “Polanskis Were at Center of a Rootless Way of Life,” New York Times, Aug. 31, 1969.
8 she’d apparently stopped traffic: Author interview with Martin Ransohoff.
9 the home she called the “Love House”: Author interview with Rudolph Altobelli, who added that Tate got the name from the house’s prior occupant, Candice Bergen.
10 her child would strengthen her marriage: Author interview with Elaine Young.
11 “It was like I was dead”: Susan Atkins testimony, California v. Manson et al.
12 called the murders a “blood orgy”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 45.
13 others reported “ritualistic slayings”: Dial Torgerson, “Ritualistic Slayings,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 10, 1969.
14 “overtones of a weird religious rite”: Kay Gardella, “Actress and 4 Slain in Ritual,” New York Daily News, Aug. 10, 1969.
15 “It’s like a battlefield”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 37.
16 “Eeny meeny miney mo”: Associated Press, “Two More Killings Spur Coast Manhunt,” Aug. 11, 1969.
17 breaking in and moving their furniture: LAPD Second Homicide Investigation Progress Report, DR 69-586-381, 4.
18 “breaking off a minute piece”: Tex Watson and Chaplain Ray, Will You Die for Me? (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1978), 79.
19 as many as thirty-three people: Bugliosi reported in Helter Skelter (615–16) that ranch hand Juan Flynn told him that Manson bragged that he h
ad killed thirty-five people; Bugliosi believed the actual number might’ve been higher.
20 “invitation to freedom”: “Hippies and Violence,” Time, Dec. 12, 1969.
21 “I am a mechanical boy”: Watson and Ray, Will You Die for Me?, 80.
22 antisocial behavior and psychic trauma: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 193.
23 “If there ever was a man”: Ibid., 200.
24 “an evil Pied Piper”: United Press International, “Leader Played Part of Evil Pied Piper,” Dec. 8, 1969.
25 “a nomadic band of hippies”: Associated Press, untitled article, Dec. 2, 1969.
26 “pseudo-religious cult”; United Press International, “Pseudo-Religious Cult Members Suspects in Bloody Slayings,” Dec. 2, 1969.
27 “power to control their minds and bodies”: Steven V. Roberts, “3 Suspects in Tate Case Tied to Guru and ‘Family,’” New York Times, Dec. 3, 1969.
28 “man of the year” and “Offing those rich pigs”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 297.
29 “hippie drug-and-murder cult”: “The Demon of Death Valley,” Time, Dec. 12, 1969.
30 “bushy-haired, wild-bearded”: Associated Press, “Charles Manson, Hippie Leader Key Figure in Tate Murder Case,” Dec. 4, 1969.
31 “a psyche torn asunder”: “The Demon of Death Valley.”
32 “even-toned arguments”: Associated Press, “Beatles Song Inspired Tate Murders, Says D.A.,” July 24, 1970.
33 That house was no longer occupied: I was able to document that the house was, in fact, occupied at the time, by the owner’s son, Leonard Posella. (His mother, the owner, lived in the guesthouse in the back.)
34 a .38 revolver under his robes: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 487.
35 “Over and over”: Watson and Ray, Will You Die for Me?, 180.
36 “It’s better than a climax”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 139.
37 “agreements from his followers” and “got right up”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 318.
38 “locating deep-seated hang-ups” through “melt-twisted”: Paul Watkins with Guillermo Soledad, My Life with Charles Manson (New York: Bantam, 1979), 80–81.
39 “were like computers”: Brooks Poston testimony in California v. Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, case 22239.
40 “to a purity and nothingness”: Watson and Ray, Will You Die for Me?, 78–79.
41 “coursing through their veins”: Steve Oney, “Manson: An Oral History,” Los Angeles Magazine, Jul. 1, 2009.
42 “Death? That’s what you’re all going to get”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 594.
2. An Aura of Danger
1 “unreality and hedonism”: Stephen V. Roberts, “Polanskis Were at Center of Rootless Way of Life,” New York Times, Aug. 31, 1969.
2 “Los Angeles sewer system is stoned”: Thomas Thompson, “A Tragic Trip to the House on the Hill,” Life, Aug. 29, 1969.
3 sound tests that supported Garretson: The police, nonetheless, were hardly convinced, as noted in the LAPD First Homicide Investigation Progress Report, DR 69-059-593 (p. 29): “It is highly unlikely that Garretson was not aware of the screams, gunshots and other turmoil that would result from a multiple homicide such as took place in his near proximity.” Stephen Kay told me he believed Garretson had fled the guesthouse during the murders and hid in the hills above the house. In interviews with me and other reporters before his death in 2017, Garretson claimed that he’d recovered memories of the night of the murders after seeing a reenactment on television in the 1990s. He believed he’d been picked up by associates of the killers who were casing the house earlier that evening. He added that Barry Tarlow, the attorney who represented him at the time of his arrest, had said he’d been sent “by a friend,” refusing to identify who that “friend” was. (Tarlow’s office confirmed that he had been sent by a “friend,” but insisted he wasn’t paid and never learned the friend’s identity.)
4 that a drug dealer had once been tied up: Among the books reporting this story are Steven Gaines, Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys (Boston: Da Capo, 1995), Barney Hoskyns, Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes, and the Sound of Los Angeles (New York: St. Martin’s, 1996), and Ed Sanders, The Family, 3rd ed. (New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2002).
5 a tape of Roman and Sharon: Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter Skelter (New York: Norton, 1994), 47.
6 “climbed the ladder to the loft”: Ibid., 88.
7 assigned the Tate murder case until November: Ibid., 166–67.
8 Kaczanowski finally consented to be interviewed: The account of Kaczanowski’s interactions with the police, victims, Polanski, and original suspects comes from my interviews with Kaczanowski and the LAPD files on the case (provided by retired LAPD Sgt. Mike McGann).
9 Billy Doyle, Tom Harrigan, and Pic Dawson: First Homicide Investigation Progress Report; individual subject interviews by LAPD; author interviews with William Tennant, Kaczanowski, Billy Doyle, Thomas Harrigan, and Charles Tacot.
10 Gene Gutowski and two friends: Author interviews with Gutowski, Victor Lownes, and Richard Sylbert.
11 Denny’s parking lot: Author interviews with Kaczanowski, Gutowski, and Lownes.
12 barred from entering Polanski’s suite: Robert Helder and Paul Tate, Five Down on Cielo Drive (unpublished manuscript; Talmy Enterprises, Inc., 1993), 27.
13 “Polanski was taken to an apartment”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 79.
14 denied knowing Kaczanowski at all: Roman Polanski, LAPD Polygraph Examination, Aug. 11, 1969.
15 a turbulent time at the Cielo house: The information in this chapter about the activities at Cielo Drive in the months leading up to the murders—including the details about the drug dealing by Doyle, Harrigan, Dawson, and Tacot—is from First Homicide Investigation Progress Report; LAPD Second Homicide Investigation Progress Report, DR 69-059-593; witness interviews by LAPD (from McGann files); numerous author interviews; and Helder and Tate, Five Down.
16 “one of the most evil people”: Author interview with Judy Pierson.
17 smashed Tate’s face into a mirror: Author interview with James Mitchum; author interview with Tom Grubbs.
18 having sex with another woman: James Mitchum, LAPD Interview, #85, by Celmer, Burke, and Stanley, Aug. 13, 1969; author interview with Mitchum; author interview with Pierson; author interview with Grubbs.
19 he threw her into the pool: Author interview with Elke Sommer.
20 without his wife’s knowledge or consent: Author interview with Joanna Pettet.
21 Tennant’s fall from grace: Peter Bart, “Exec Comes Full Circle After Descent into Despair,” Variety, Feb. 8, 1993.
22 subject of Interpol surveillance: Eddi Fiegel, Dream a Little Dream of Me: The Life of “Mama” Cass Elliot (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 2005), 244–45; Author FOIPA Request, 1122260-000, Dawson, Harris Pickens, III, Nov. 24, 2008.
23 The young son of a diplomat: “Evelyn Parks Dawson” (obituary), Washington Post, Aug. 20, 1987; LAPD First Homicide Investigation Progress Report, DR 69-059-593, 9–10.
24 1966 London arrest: Fiegel, Dream a Little Dream, 244–45.
25 Polanski’s circle through Mama Cass: LAPD First Homicide Investigation Progress Report.
26 According to police reports: Ibid.
27 selling drugs in Los Angeles: Author interview with Margot Tacot Silverman.
28 conviction was later overturned: LAPD First Homicide Investigation Progress Report, 30.
29 anally raped him: Accounts of this incident come from individual LAPD interview subject reports; the LAPD Homicide Progress Reports; author interviews with Doyle and Tacot; Gaines, Heroes and Villains; Hoskyns, Waiting for the Sun; and Sanders, The Family.
30 Candice Bergen, in an interview with the LAPD: LAPD Interview with Bergen, #145, by Warren and Gilmore, Aug. 21, 1969.
31 Dennis Hopper told the Los Angeles Free Press: Sanders,
The Family, 195. Sanders says Hopper also told the Press that Doyle’s rape was filmed, quoting Hopper: “They had fallen into sadism and masochism and bestiality—and they recorded it all on videotape too. The L.A. police told me this. I know that three days before they were killed, twenty-five people were invited to that house to a mass whipping of a dealer from Sunset Strip who’d given them bad dope.”
32 In short, he told: All quotations and summaries in this section are from Billy Doyle, LAPD Interrogation (transcript), by Earl Deemer, Aug. 28, 1969.
33 “if they’d fucked me or not!”: Helder and Tate, Five Down, 63.
34 Dawson had died: Fiegel, Dream a Little Dream, 143; “Harris Pickens Dawson, III” (obituary), Washington Post, Aug. 20, 1986.
35 Harrigan was nowhere to be found: I did find and interview Harrigan, but not until 2014.
36 “chained a sign to the tree”: Doyle, LAPD Interrogation transcript.
37 No footage from this film has ever surfaced: Doyle admitted to me that the movie was a ruse, but gave differing reasons for the trip’s true purpose. Reed B. Mitchell, a Los Angeles disc jockey, told the LAPD that he’d been approached by Tacot before the murders “regarding a boat to bring back some drugs possibly [from] Jamaica” (Mitchell, LAPD Interview, #106, by Celmer, Burke, and Stanley, Aug. 19, 1969).
38 “I took a lie-detector test,” Tacot told me: I have never been able to find this lie detector test, or any reference to a polygraph being administered to Tacot in the LAPD files.
39 “You can’t kill somebody long-distance”: The LAPD was never able to corroborate that the two men were in Jamaica when the murders occurred. Several interview subjects told police they saw Doyle in Los Angeles around the time of the murders. According to the Homicide Investigation Report, Harrigan visited the Tate house the day before the murders (Aug. 7) to discuss “a delivery of MDA in the near future” with Frykowski (First Homicide Investigation Progress Report, 11); Harrigan’s attorney, when he was a suspect in the Tate murders and questioned by police, was Paul Caruso, who would later represent Susan Atkins with his law partner, Richard Caballero. Caruso told me that Harrigan sold drugs to Frykowski but was never paid for them.
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