by Ed Sanders
More from Doyle from the quicksand of memory: “Wojtek and I had been drinking a lot of champagne and we got into a disagreement. He was a Communist and bountifully anti-Nazi. I made the mistake of saying that Asiatic communism was the worst political system in the world. Wojtek became hysterical, saying the Nazis were the worst. After that, I remember Wojtek said he’d given me an overdose; not maliciously, just to kind of get back to me as a joke. I was really high and needed something to bring me down. He brought me some pills that he said were Sharon’s—very mild sedatives. After I took about eight of them, he told me they were something else, and started laughing. I went crazy, throwing things and such. They called my friend Charles Tacot. He took me to Cass’s house and chained me to a tree for eight hours.”
Doyle denied dealing drugs. He said he bragged about having pounds of coke because all kinds of famous people were having parties and there’d be plenty of naked girls, and Mr. Doyle wanted to ball them all, using cocaine as a lure.
“Was this sort of orgy occurring on Cielo Drive?” Colonel Tate asked.
Doyle replied, “Only when Gibby and Sharon were out of town, and then only for the five-week period that Wojtek had run of the house.”
Doyle claimed that Abigail was very much in love with Frykowski, but would have left him if he didn’t marry her.
Visiting Cass Elliot
Next, Colonel Tate visited Cass Elliot at her two-story Cape Cod on Woodrow Wilson Drive. Cass and the colonel sat in rocking chairs on the front porch. Cass told the colonel she had met Sharon through publicist Steve Brandt, who had done publicity work for Sharon. Elliot said that Brandt had planned parties for Michelle and John. “He must have invited Sharon and Roman to one of them,” she said. “After that, Roman was up at their house a lot more than Sharon. He didn’t like me so much after I found out about him and Michelle.”
Paul asked, “Did you tell John?” to which Cass replied, “No. By that point, we had enough problems in the group. John would have turned it around and made it my fault. He did find out though. Michelle told him during an argument.”
Tate then asked, “What made you think Doyle and Dawson were the killers?” Elliot answered that it wasn’t she, but John Phillips and Steve Brandt who had made the accusation. Both said that the “PIG” on the door was actually “PIC,” for Pic Dawson.
“John blamed me for bringing killers into our group, blamed me for Sharon’s death, and said the police were going to arrest me as an accomplice. I was mortified. They completely convinced me that my daughter and I would be murdered next. At that point, I would have said anything to get them behind bars.”
While the colonel was talking with Cass, his associate Frankie visited John Phillips. Phillips told Frankie he was sure that Doyle and Dawson were the killers. He said he spent a lot of time on Cielo Drive while Sharon was in Italy. And that when Folger was on hand, things were mild, but when she was away, there’d be around twenty naked partyers doing drugs supplied by Doyle and Dawson.
“What else?” the colonel asked Frankie. Frankie replied that it was difficult to keep from smiling when Phillips denied using drugs, because the odor of pot was in the air. Frankie recalled Phillips’s rap. “First, it’s Dawson and Doyle, then he says it’s the Mafia and he’s next on their murder list—hit men have been following him. Then he babbled about drugs, psychics, and some guy out in the desert that steals your soul. I couldn’t keep it all straight.”
The Colonel Surveils Cielo Drive
It is alleged that Colonel Tate conducted nighttime surveillance of 10050 Cielo Drive from a cul-de-sac located above the driveway. There were lots of visitors. Then one night around midnight, there were two headlights of two motorcycles coming up Benedict Canyon. The two motorcycles stopped at 10050. There were four riders. The colonel couldn’t tell the men from the women due to the long hair on all of them. They began scaling the chain link fence, but then two guard dogs leaped toward them, and after a few more minutes, both motorcycles headed north on Benedict Canyon toward the San Fernando Valley.
Colonel Tate allegedly followed the bikes as they wended across the Valley, and then down Santa Susanna Pass road to Spahn Ranch. Did this actually occur?
According to Gene Gutowski, Roman gave the Ferrari to Paul Tate, because Sharon had hoped someday to purchase him a sports car.
Tight Lid on the Police Investigation
Meanwhile, after the initial release of information about the crimes, there was a tight lid kept on information about the police investigation. The LAPD sent only a three-line homicide report to the State Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (CII)—barely complying with the law that requires information about crimes to be collected with the CII. After a month of investigation, law enforcement considered the three possible causes of the Cielo Drive crimes either a residential robbery, a drug grudge, or a “freak-out” of some sort.
First Homicide Progress Report
The First Homicide Investigation Progress Report was a thirty-two-page typed document tracing the crimes, the victims, and various suspects, covering the investigation from August 9 (the discovery of the bodies) through the end of August. There were a number of addenda to the report, including Number 9: “Witnesses. All witnesses are indexed and given interview numbers, starting with one. Investigating officers have included as a part of this report interview numbers 1 through 191 as addendum number 9. Investigating officers are in the process of checking these statements for inconsistencies. We are also plotting the exact location of persons hearing either screams or gunfire on the night or morning of either 8–8/9–69. At the time of this report this phase of the investigation is incomplete and the results will be included in future progress reports.”
Showing how exacting the investigation had to be were the following paragraphs in the First Homicide Investigation Progress Report regarding the .22-caliber pistol, pieces of whose walnut gun grips were found in the hallway by Roman’s steamer trunks, bearing blood type O on them:
“Parent, Frykowski, and Sebring were shot with a caliber 22 long rifle bullet. The probable weapon used was a high standard . . . long horn revolver. It has a 9 1/2 inch barrel and a 15” overall length. It has a nine shot capacity and has a blue steel finish, the catalogue number is 9399. The manufacturer has been contacted and states this weapon has been in production since February of 1967. He has contacted thirty-three west coast jobbers for sale numbers and sales information on all 9399 models. A complete list of all 9399 models sold in Los Angeles since 1967 has been received and is included as addendum number 5 in this report.
“Special Investigations Unit, Administrative Detective Bureau, is in the process of checking all model 9399 sold within a driving radius of two hours of Los Angeles. The results of this investigation will be included in future progress reports.”
The report mentions the horn-rimmed glasses left as a false clue by Manson: “The horn rimmed glasses which were found just east of the trunks which were located in the living room near the archway, which separates the entry hall from the living room. Scientific Investigation Division firearms section is attempting to locate the manufacturer of those glasses. Their investigation will be included in future progress reports.”
As for the Buck knife lost by Susan Atkins, the First Homicide Investigation Progress Report lists it as a clue of “paramount importance”: “A ‘Buck’ clasp-type knife found under the seat cushion of an overstuffed chair, which was located in the living room seven feet south of the north wall of the living room and four feet east of the west wall of the living room. This chair is marked ‘C’ in addendum number 7.”
Second Homicide Progress Report
The nine-page Second Homicide Investigation Progress Report covered the period September 1 till October 22, 1969. Like the first report, this one was also directed to Lieutenant Robert J. Helder, supervisor of investigations, robbery-homicide division. This second report focused here and there, but showed an investigation that was going nowhere a
s it continued plumbing the Los Angeles dope scene.
On October 15, 1969, a letter was sent to the LAPD crime lab listing the names and addresses of twelve humans who had recently ordered replacement grips “that would fit our Double Nine revolver.”
On October 17, assistant LA Police Chief Robert Houghton told a press conference that the initial part of the Tate investigation was over and that now the police would backtrack over the entire case and compare notes. More than four hundred police interviews had been conducted to that date.
At the end of forty days of intensive investigation, the chief possible motives for the Cielo Drive homicides were thought to be a drug burn or a drug freak-out.
LaBianca Homicide Reports
The two teams of LAPD detectives that investigated the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca completed two homicide investigation progress reports, both directed to Lieutenant P. B. LePage, supervisor of investigations, robbery-homicide division.
I will not highlight the differences in style between the Tate and LaBianca investigations, but by the twenty-three-page second progress report for the LaBianca case, covering the time period of September 1 till October 15, 1969, Manson was listed as a suspect in the LaBianca case:
“MANSON, CHARLES. Investigators contacted Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau requesting information on murders that were similar to the LaBianca murder. Deputy Charles Guenther informed investigators that he and his partner, Sgt. Whiteley, were presently investigating a homicide that occurred at 964 N. Old Topanga Canyon Road, Topanga (Malibu area), on 7–25-/26–69. The victim, Gary Hinman, lived alone at the above location. In that case the words ‘Political Piggy’ were written on the wall of the victim’s residence in his own blood.
“There are two suspects presently in the Sheriff’s custody for this murder. The first, Robert Kenneth Beausoleil, male, caucasian, 21 years; and the second suspect, Susan Denise Atkins, female, caucasian, 21 years; is presently being held in Inyo County on another charge. A hold has been placed on her for murder by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.”
The homicide report goes on to state, based on information supplied by Beausoleil’s pregnant girlfriend, Kitty Lutesinger, that she had been “living with a group of 30 to 40 hippies and motorcycle riders (Satan Slaves) on the Spahn Ranch in Devonshire Division. She informed investigators, and it was confirmed by other members of her group, that the leader of the people living on the ranch was Charles Manson. Manson was known as ‘Jesus Christ’ and ‘God and the Devil’ by the people living on the ranch. . . .
“The Sheriff’s crime lab has established that the victim’s blood was used to write the words [“Political Piggy” on Hinman’s wall]. Investigators believe it is noteworthy that this murder, which occurred on July 26, 1969 was followed by two other murders, to wit Tate on August 8, 1969 and LaBianca on August 10, 1969. All three murders have the unique characteristic of the suspect using the victims’ blood to write on the wall. This characteristic takes on a greater significance in that in each instance the words make reference to ‘pig’ in one form or another. Other similarities between the Hinman and LaBianca murders were the placing of a pillow over the victim’s face. . . . Although Beausoleil was in custody at the time of the LaBianca murder, Atkins had not yet been apprehended.”
Patti Tate Taunted at New School
Sharon’s sister Patti Tate, having moved with her family during the summer to Palos Verdes, near Los Angeles, enrolled in a new school. She was said to have recounted how one day that fall some classmates were gathered around a magazine whose cover bore the headline, “Sex, Sadism, Celebrities—The Sharon Tate Orgies.” All of a sudden the classmates, according to the account, began to hurl questions: “Did you go to the orgies? How many guys did you fuck? Did your sister really do it with dead people and animals?”
The issue in question, the November 1969 issue of Pageant, was probably available in October or even September. The article, “Those Sharon Tate Orgies,” was written anonymously, the magazine alleged “by an actor-friend of Sharon Tate, the man who introduced Sharon to Jay Sebring” and was a neighbor to 10050 Cielo Drive, but “because of concern for the safety of his family, he must remain anonymous.” Whereas the article does contain considerable occult assertions regarding Sebring, and states that “Sharon was a student of black magic, voodoo and the occult arts,” there is nothing about orgies, or “doing it” with dead people or animals. The apparent taunting goes to show the climate of rampant speculation and fear during the months following the deaths.
Chapter 15
The Manson Group Keeps Killing and Moves to the High Desert Near Death Valley
Robert Beausoleil’s attempt to blame the Gary Hinman murder on the Black Panthers—by writing “Political Piggy” in blood on Hinman’s wall, and then painting, also in blood, a “panther” paw by the writing, and then Sadie/Susan Atkins’s horrific “PIG,” written again in blood on the front door of Cielo Drive—had not connected the Black Panthers to the crimes either among police investigators or in the public’s imagination.
In the days following the murders, Charles Manson tried to raise money from this source or that, but failed. Twice he visited Beach Boy Dennis Wilson asking for cash, but Wilson turned him down. Members of the Family reached out to supporters, but to no avail. He was in over his head at last, though he waved his knife around his cult in threat upon threat.
Linda Kasabian, part of the kill pack at Cielo, fled to New Mexico, then came back to retrieve her child from Child and Family Services, fled again to New Mexico, and finally wound up with her mother in New Hampshire. And Manson, the heat threatening to burn him down, sought a place to move his Family. He thought of moving everybody to a nearby religious community, the Fountain of the World, but Sadie/Susan Atkins, part of the delegation he sent to make the proposal to the Fountain, called someone a pig, and the delegation was asked to leave.
Meanwhile, law enforcement began paying close attention to Manson’s act at Spahn Ranch, not for murder, but for running a hot car operation. Sergeant Bill Gleason was an expert on motorcycle gangs for the Malibu station of the LA sheriff’s office. For a couple of months he had been gathering data about Manson. He knew about the threats to various firemen who had come across Manson. He knew about Manson’s alleged shooting of a “Black Panther.” He knew about the weapons and machine guns at the ranch and about an incident in the spring where Manson had been accused of raping a girl from nearby Reseda. He knew about the dune-buggy manufacturing line at the ranch and the rumors that the M group was girding for a war with the blacks. He had learned from Beausoleil’s girlfriend about the hideous death-threats with which Manson terrorized his followers. The sheriff’s office decided to mount a large nighttime land-air operation against Manson, involving helicopters, horses, patrol cars, submachine guns, and 102 law enforcement officers.
At dawn on August 16, a week after the LaBianca murders, the raid on Spahn Ranch occurred, with many sheriff’s deputies taking part. Twenty-five were arrested and placed in a circle in the dirt parking area in front of the mock Western town. Two helicopters whirred overhead, creasing the hair below when dipping near. One of the dogs was running around wearing a brassiere placed on it by someone in the Family.
But Manson was not anywhere to be found. “Where’s Jesus?” a sheriff’s deputy asked, as brother officers began to search about for the Jesus/Devil synapse. Finally, crouching down and beaming flashlights into the space beneath the floor of the saloon among the foundation timbers, a deputy named Dunlop spotted Charlie lying face down thirty or so feet from the back porch. They told Manson to pull himself out. As Charlie stood up, a folder of stolen credit cards fell out of his shirt pocket. They dragged him down the side alley to the front of the building, then they hand-cuffed his hands behind him and carried him to the circle, where they dumped him next to other arrestees. He was barefoot, wearing buckskin trousers and a light-colored shirt.
Manson was certain he was about t
o be charged with murder. Then he and Krenwinkel looked at one another with smiles of relief when the sheriff’s officer revealed the charge—auto theft!
Manson was also charged with burglary, possibly because of all the credit cards that had tumbled out during his arrest. After a few days, Manson and the others were released. Apparently, something was amiss regarding the search warrant under which the arrests were made. Then, on August 22, Manson was arrested in one of the so-called “outlaw shacks” at the Spahn Ranch with a young female follower, and charged with possession of marijuana. He called from the jail and demanded that someone arrive to take the blame for the pot in his shirt. Thus Manson, through will, cunning, threat, and chance, continued to escape
Sheriffs’ officers search the yellow and white 1959 Ford used by the murderers on Cielo Drive, August 16. Officers discovered rifles and bullets.
Machine gun in violin case found in August 16 raid
M Group arrested in August 16 raid. Manson on the left, handcuffed.
On August 26, forty-year-old stuntman Donald “Shorty” Shea, a Spahn Ranch hand, was killed by a bunch of Mansonites, and buried in a creek bank near the ranch. While Manson was in jail, “Shorty was doing a lot of nasty talking about Charlie,” a Family member told me a year after the murder. Charlie believed that it was Shorty who set up the raid on the outlaw shacks where he and his young follower were arrested.
Some Family members were friendly to the outgoing Shorty Shea, who wanted to become a movie star, and who had at least three friends who allowed him to use their phones as answering services in the event someone in show business should want to call Shea about a movie gig. One important transgression, in the opinion of the Family, was that Shea had married a black dancer whom he had met in Las Vegas. The Family was upset because his wife’s black friends began visiting the Spahn Ranch. However much Shea had hankered to force the Mansonites off the ranch, the murder was likely caused because Shorty knew something about the Tate-LaBianca killings.