The rising sun turned the evening’s frostiness into a furnace, recharging to hit its noon zenith. A mélange of people—from toddlers to the elderly—began emerging from the buildings and tents. Apparently, communication wasn’t part of the morning ritual, as they dispersed around the ranch without so much as a nod to one another. Some of them looked the part of a ranch hand, while others seemed wayward in hippie garb. Contrasting to a greater degree were the ones who didn’t bother with clothing. There was, however, one commonality among the residents. The toilet was an ignored contraption.
What in the hell is this place?
Jake and Guy were making breakfast when I got home. “Just make yourself at home, gentlemen,” I said.
“What,” Jake answered, “we’re gonna wait for your booty to come home? Where the hell you been?”
“Following some bikers that showed up at Cielo last night.”
“Anything?” Guy asked.
“I don’t know. There were no tags on the bikes, so I trailed them to an area out in Chatsworth—Spahn’s Movie Ranch—strange place.”
“Call me crazy,” Jake said, “but wasn’t there something in the newspaper back in August about that place being raided?”
I shrugged, not remembering.
“Let’s put a call into the sheriffs out there and see if they got anything,” Jake suggested.
“Not until I’ve showered,” I said. “I’m filthy just from looking at the place.”
“Princess, you go ahead. Let the real men take care of the work,” Jake winked at Guy.
On my way out, I saluted them with the finger.
After my shower, I fell soundly asleep. I didn’t know Jake and Guy had left until the phone rang. “Hey, sleeping beauty, you awake?” Jake asked.
“Getting there, what’s up?”
“I’m gathering the troops to your place. I’ve got something hot.”
THE NIGHT FOLLOWING Sharon’s murder, a middle-aged couple were slain in a strikingly similar manner. At a glance, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca had nothing in common with Sharon’s crowd. They lived a quiet life in the conservative suburb of Los Feliz. The couple’s sole connection to the entertainment industry was once living in Walt Disney’s former home. Leno was president of Gateway supermarkets. Rosemary owned a dress shop in downtown Los Angeles. The LaBiancas’ paths never crossed Sharon’s, and yet they were intrinsically tied together by their murders.
The team sat around the kitchen table poring over the LaBiancas’ detective’s second progress report. Jake was in the middle of his discovery. “So I call up the sheriffs and get a deputy who tells me that on August sixteenth they raided this Spahn’s Ranch to bust an auto-theft ring. The raid turns out to be a cop’s wet dream; they uncover an arsenal of weapons, drugs, stolen credit cards, IDs, abused minors—you name it. After the arrest, they have to release the entire group because the warrant stank. Half of them—including the key guy, Charles Manson—skip town to another ranch out in Inyo County.”
Jake turned the page. “Now, check this out, at the bottom of the LaBianca suspect list is Charles Manson. Why him? Because back in July the sheriffs had a similar murder. Their victim, Gary Hinman, also had bloody messages on the wall—including the word pig—and the same stabbing overkill.
“The sheriffs bust Bobby Beausoleil for Hinman’s murder; he’s driving the vic’s car with a bloody knife in the trunk, fingerprint match from the scene, the whole shebang. Now, Bobby Beausoleil’s a cat heavily tied to Manson and his group.
“So, I call Sergeant Guenther, the lead on Hinman, and he says he talked to Helder’s boy, Jess Buckles, the day of Sharon’s autopsy; tried to convince him he’s got a link to one of his killers in jail. Buckles, the cocky prick, says, ‘We’re working a major narcotics ring. Our case has nothing to do with a bunch of hippies.’
“The next day, after the LaBiancas are killed, Guenther goes to those detectives with the same spiel. They disregard Guenther as a no-brain hick.”
“Jake, are you going to take a breath anytime soon?” I interrupted.
“What?” Jake looked at me innocently.
“You lost me about five minutes ago. Explain how Manson ends up on the LaBianca report and the tie-in to Sharon.”
“Just hear me out. Hinman had two cars. In October, the sheriffs raid the Inyo County ranch, find Hinman’s other car, and arrest twenty-four freaks, including Manson. In jail, the chicks from the group start spilling their guts about murder. One in particular, Kathryn Lutesinger, is scared; says that they’re going to kill her because she knows about the Hinman murder. So she farts on all of them, giving the names of three who killed Hinman: Beausoleil, Sadie Mae Glutz, and Mary Brunner—Manson was there, but he didn’t participate.
“During Guenther’s interrogation, Lutesinger tells him that one of the girls stabbed Hinman in the legs. Thing is, Hinman wasn’t stabbed in the legs—but Woytek Frykowski was.”
I raised my eyebrows in frustration. “The point, Jake?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting to it. All along, this guy Guenther has a boner to tie all three cases together—Hinman, Sharon, and LaBianca—and starts wondering about the vic with the leg wounds. He calls Helder’s group again, gets no return call. Then he calls Jimenez from LaBianca, who’s a little more humbled by this point, so he throws Manson’s name in the hat.”
Jake turned the report to page fifteen. “Take a look at this. The LaBianca detectives start putting two and two together and run an MO for suspects who wear glasses and disable phone lines—that’s Sharon’s case, not theirs.”
Jake tapped his heart. “My gut instinct’s telling me these three cases are tied to the same perp. I ain’t Sherlock Holmes, but I ain’t stupid, either. If Manson and these other clowns did Hinman, then they did Sharon and the LaBiancas.”
As an afterthought, Jake added, “Forgot to give you the frosting. The bikers you followed? Probably Straight Satans from Venice. Big-time bad boys. Guenther says one in particular hung out at Spahn’s, goes by the name Donkey Dan.”
BOB HELDER AND I shared a table at the Hamburger Hamlet. “Bob, the LaBianca detectives are trying to steal your thunder.”
“What are you talking about?” Helder asked.
“Just what I said. One of your boys ought to lean across that long desk they all share and check it out. They’re tying Sharon’s case to the LaBianca couple without consulting your guys, and they’re throwing away solid leads.”
I slid the LaBianca report across the table. “I’ve seen it, P.J.”
“Have you really, or did you scan it?”
“Scanned it,” Helder admitted. “Not my case.”
I turned the report to the MO run. “Wore glasses, or disabled the phone. Sound familiar?”
Helder took the report from me. “What else you got?”
“The last two names on their suspect list, Charles Manson and Kathryn Lutesinger, both tied to Robert Beausoleil, the suspected murderer of Gary Hinman.”
“I know all about Beausoleil and Hinman. McGann checked it out. Beausoleil was in jail the night Sharon was killed.”
“Yeah, but McGann didn’t follow through on the lead. Man-son, Lutesinger, and the rest of this group hanging out with Beausoleil were free as birds to kill Sharon. Up in the Inyo County jail, Lutesinger is begging to turn evidence before she’s the next victim.”
Helder pensively paged through the report.
“Bob, you’re a damn fine detective, but the men under you need a wake-up call. I’m giving your guys a few days on this and then we’re moving in.”
We never got the chance. Within the week, confessions were rolling in faster than Helder could document them.
7
A FAMILY LIKE
NO OTHER FAMILY
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
—SHERLOCK HOLMES
“You could hide the Empire State Building out there and no one could find it,�
� commented a ranger on the complex geology of the 3.3 million acres of California’s Death Valley, where temperatures rise as high as 134 degrees and then drop to 30 degrees in the thick of the night.
Naturists love the area for its vast and often colorful beauty. The 1840s’ gold rushers who died crossing the treacherous range understood it only as its namesake. Charles Manson and his group found the barren region an unyielding utopia of obscure places to disappear in after the August 16 sheriff’s raid on Spahn’s Ranch. And had it not been for the Inyo County authorities, the killers might have avoided detection for years, possibly forever.
The Manson Family, as they called themselves, began appearing on the desert authority reports as early as August 21, 1969, when a Lone Pine deputy cited family member Charles Watson for loitering.
Game Warden Vern Burandt filed field reports from residents who complained about hippies killing the quails, defecating in public, and swimming nude in the creeks.
In the town of Shoshone, just south of Death Valley, Deputy Don Ward confronted a group he suspected of pushing hashish in the community. On Main Street, where Ward stopped to question them, Manson threatened, “You just made a big mistake, partner.”
All those incidents aside, it was Manson’s decision to burn the county’s $35,000 earthmover that launched Inyo’s search for the Family. On September 29, when park workers arrived at the sight of the still flaming machine, they noticed a set of Toyota 4×4 tire tracks. Desert authorities are well-bred trackers; the tire marks were fingerprints in the sand.
Six highway patrolmen, four deputies, three rangers, and airplane pilots pursued the suspects through Death Valley, from the northeastern shadows of the Nevada border to the southern San Bernardino county line. Over the span of five days, the trackers uncovered camouflaged dune buggies, cars, caches of auto parts, fuel, weapons, and food hidden by Manson’s group.
Near the Inyo/San Bernardino border, Officer James Pursell and Ranger Dick Powell traveled into ruinous Goler Wash to check out two properties: the Myers and Barker ranches. Except for the occasional prospect miner who drifted into the area, both houses were vacant, filthy, and rarely inspected by the owners.
A quarter mile from the Barker acreage, the officers encountered seven seminude teenage girls, two men, and a red Toyota 4×4 with the suspected tire tread. The smaller of the two men took off into the brush. The taller one stayed and identified himself as Charlie Montgomery (true name Charles Watson).
“Who owns the 4×4?” Pursell asked.
“I have no idea, Officer,” Watson smiled. “I’m from Olancha. I hitched a ride with these guys to get to the 395 freeway.”
“Far cry from the 395,” Pursell commented. “What are you doing here?”
“Needed a place to stay the night,” Watson said.
Pursell looked at the women. “What about you ladies?”
One of them mumbled something incoherent that caused the other girls to laugh.
During Pursell’s interaction with the group, Powell kept his distance, surveying the area for the smaller man who’d fled. From the corner of his eye, he caught some movement in the brush, and then the barrel of a shotgun. Outnumbered and out of radio range, he had to think quickly. “Come on, Jim, I’m hungry. These guys aren’t causing anyone harm.” When Pursell turned to argue, Powell shifted his eyes toward the brush.
Pursell caught on. “I guess you’re right. Besides, I want to get down the wash before sunset. You folks take it easy.”
Because of the rugged terrain, it took Powell and Pursell three hours to reach the town of Ballarat, where they made radio contact. By the time they returned with the support officers, the ranch areas were deserted, vehicles and all.
For a vastly uninhabited area, word of mouth spreads quickly through the Valley, and on October 8, the rangers received confirmation that the hippies had returned to the Goler Wash ranches. The prospectors who had spotted the group also gave the rangers a warning: Manson had armed patrol members scattered throughout the wash.
Acting quickly on the tip, four Inyo County law enforcement agencies organized a raid on the ranches.
There are numerous passages surrounding the Barker and Myers ranches, including Anvil, Sourdough, and Willow Springs, Mengel Pass, and Goler Wash. Between two and three in the morning on October 10, officers were dropped at each of the access points to hike the four miles into the ranch areas. On their trek, they arrested five armed Family members lying in wait.
The sun was well above the horizon by the time the officers descended on Barker Ranch. On the south ridge, above the main house, they spotted a camouflaged lookout post alongside two bunkhouses.
Teams deployed around each of the smaller dwellings and the main house as another team drove a Jeep right up to the porch. Two women bolted from the front door and right into Pursell’s grasp. A deputy who entered from the back brought out a third woman.
On the ridge above, the officers captured three girls in the lookout, and two more in the bunkhouses.
Over the half-mile radius between the Barker and Myers ranches, they apprehended ten women, two infants, and three men. At the time, authorities had no idea there were killers among them, including Leslie Van Houten, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Steven Grogan.
Atkins must have sensed that her freedom was about to end for a long time to come. She called over Pursell. “Would you unhook me for just a few minutes?”
He looked at her curiously. “Why?”
Atkins pointed toward Grogan. “I want to make love to him one more time. He’s about the best piece I’ve ever had, and I may never see him again.”
“I don’t think so,” Pursell told her.
“Fine,” Atkins said, then squatted to urinate near his feet.
“Jesus Christ, what’s the matter with you?” Pursell exclaimed at the sight.
Later that same evening, two young women approached Highway Patrol officers Anderson and Hailey, who gathered evidence from the stolen dune buggies recovered during the raid. Stephanie Schram and Kathryn Lutesinger, both Manson Family members, were frightened. “Can you help us?” Lutesinger timidly asked.
Anderson looked the two over. “What’s the problem?”
“The people up at the ranch want to kill us,” Lutesinger told him.
Hailey stepped in. “Why’s that?”
“Because we wanted to leave,” Lutesinger said.
“Well there’s nothing to worry about now. They’re all locked up over in Independence,” Anderson said.
Lutesinger shook her head. “No, there’s a lot more of them, and when they come back, they’ll chop off our heads like they did Gary’s.”
Stephanie shot her a look.
“Who’s Gary?” Hailey asked.
“It’s nothing,” Lutesinger quietly replied. “Can you just call our parents?”
Once in Independence, Officer Anderson did more than call the girls’ parents. He researched murder victims named Gary. As it turned out, the Malibu sheriffs had issued a warrant for Lutesinger as a material witness to Gary Hinman’s murder.
Based on Lutesinger’s concern that Family members would return to the area, the deputies planned to raid the ranches again on October 12.
This time, the officers had the upper hand as they now knew the layout of the place. Pursell and Powell busted through the back door of the Myers Ranch house. In the kitchen they found three women and six men, including Charles Manson and Bruce Davis.
Although Inyo County is technically the second largest in California, their jail was tiny and now bursting with suspects. Working with the district attorney’s office, the sheriffs processed the group, determining who they had enough evidence against to file charges for auto theft and arson and who could be let go. Unaware that they were housing a contingency of murderers, they released Bruce Davis, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Mary Brunner.
It could be said that Kathryn Lutesinger triggered the avalanche of confessions that came down around the Manson Family a
fter she implicated Susan Atkins as an accomplice in Gary Hinman’s murder. But there were others willing to disclose their knowledge; some of the informants lived to testify at the trial; others weren’t so lucky.
When confronted by Sgt. Guenther, Susan Atkins, also known as Sadie Mae Glutz, surprisingly confessed to participating in Hinman’s murder.
At the coffee shop in Independence, Atkins ate a sweet roll. In between bites, she recounted Hinman’s three-day torturous execution. Lutesinger had it wrong; they didn’t behead Hinman, just chopped off his ear.
Booked on suspicion of murder, Atkins was moved to Los Angeles and processed into the Sybil Brand Institute (SBI) for Women.
Rather than housing inmates in individual cells, most of the SBI facility had dormitory-style floor plans with more than two hundred women in each of the sleeping quarters. The open setting, including row upon row of bunk beds, made it easy for the women to have sexual relations after lights-out; a situation that Atkins eagerly took advantage of.
At the close of her first week’s stay, Sexy Sadie was the talk of dorm 8000. The women joked, “She’s the fastest tongue in the West and responsible for the removal of more underwear than last call for laundry.”
By the time Atkins made her way to Ronnie Howard’s bed, Sexy Sadie’s promiscuous celebrity was fading, so she developed a new act to premier that night.
Different from the other women, Ronnie didn’t push Atkins away after their sexual encounter; she wanted to talk, and Atkins obliged. Cross-legged at the foot of the bed, Atkins asked, “What are you in for?”
“Violating my parole. You?”
Atkins smiled. “First-degree murder.”
“Did you do it?”
“Sure, but it’s not the only one, there’s more.” Atkins’s voice rose excitedly. “Are you ready for me to blow your mind?”
“Shush, there are ears all over this place. My ex-husband was busted for a robbery because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut in jail.”
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