Helter Skelter

by Vincent Bugliosi

  That afternoon, Sadie recited the newly revised version of how the Hinman murder went down. According to Susan, when Manson arrived at the Hinman residence, to persuade Gary to sign over the pink slip on a car they had already purchased, Gary drew a gun on him. As Manson fled, Gary tried to shoot him in the back. “I had no choice. He was going to hurt my love. I had my knife on me and I ran at him and I killed him…Bobby was taken to jail for something that I did.”

  The holes in her story were a mile wide. I noted them for my cross-examination.

  After the arrest of Beausoleil, Susan testified, Linda proposed committing copycat murders. “…and she told me to get a knife and a change of clothes…she said these people in Beverly Hills had burned her for $1,000 for some new drug, MDA…”

  Before leaving Spahn Ranch, Susan said, “Linda gave me some LSD, and she gave Tex some STP…Linda issued all the directions that night…No one told Charlie where we were going or what we were going to do…Linda had been there before, so she knew where to go…Tex went crazy, shot Parent…Linda went inside the house…Linda gave me her knife.” At this point in her narrative, Daye Shinn opened the blade of the Buck knife and started to hand the knife to Susan.

  THE COURT “Put that knife back the way it was!”

  SHINN “I only wanted to get the dimensions, Your Honor.”

  Susan skipped ahead in her narrative. She was holding Sharon Tate and “Tex came back and he looked at her and he said, ‘Kill her.’ And I killed her…And I just stabbed her and she fell, and I stabbed her again. I don’t know how many times I stabbed her…” Sharon begged for the life of her baby, and “I told her, ‘Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.’”

  Though Susan’s words were horrifyingly chilling, her expression for the most part remained simple, even childlike.

  There was only one way to describe the contrast: it was incredibly obscene.

  In discussing the Hinman murder, Susan had placed Leslie Van Houten at the murder scene. There had never been any evidence whatsoever that Leslie was involved in the Hinman murder.

  In discussing the night the LaBiancas were killed, Susan made some additional changes in the cast of characters. Manson didn’t go along, she said. Linda drove; Tex creepy-crawled the LaBianca residence; Linda instructed Tex, Katie, and Leslie what to do; Linda suggested killing the actor in Venice. And when they returned to Spahn Ranch, “Charlie was there sleeping.”

  Just as improbable was another of her fictional embellishments. She had implicated Manson in her conversation with me and in her testimony before the grand jury, she claimed, because I had promised her that if she did so I would personally see that none of the defendants, including Manson, would receive the death penalty.

  The best refutation of this was that she had implicated Manson on the tape she made with Caballero, days before our first meeting.

  Describing that meeting, Sadie said, “Bugliosi walked in. I think he was dressed similar to the way he is dressed now, gray suit, vest.”

  Q. “This was way back in 1969, right?”

  A. “Right. He looked a lot younger then.”

  We’d all gone through a lot in the last fourteen months.

  Shinn then began questioning Susan about Shorty! I asked to approach the bench.

  BUGLIOSI “Your Honor, I can’t believe what is going on here. He is talking about Shorty Shea now!” Turning to Daye, I said, “You are hurting yourself if you bring in other murders, and you are hurting the co-defendants.” Older agreed and cautioned Shinn to be extremely careful.

  I was worried that if Shinn continued, the case might be reversed on appeal. What conceivable rationale could there be for having your client take the stand and confess to a murder with which she isn’t even charged?

  Fitzgerald took over the direct. He asked Susan why the Tate victims were killed.

  A. “Because I believed it was right to get my brother out of jail. And I still believe it was right.”

  Q. “Miss Atkins, were any of these people killed as a result of any personal hate or animosity that you had toward them?”

  A. “No.”

  Q. “Did you have any feeling toward them at all, any emotional feeling toward any of these people—Sharon Tate, Voytek Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Steven Parent?”

  A. “I didn’t know any of them. How could I have felt any emotion without knowing them?”

  Fitzgerald asked Susan if she considered these mercy killings.

  A. “No. As a matter of fact, I believe I told Sharon Tate I didn’t have any mercy for her.”

  Susan went on to explain that she knew what she was doing “was right when I was doing it.” She knew this because, when you do the right thing, “it feels good.”

  Q. “How could it be right to kill somebody?”

  A. “How could it not be right when it is done with love?”

  Q. “Did you ever feel any remorse?”

  A. “Remorse? For doing what was right to me?”

  Q. “Did you ever feel sorry?”

  A. “Sorry for doing what was right to me? I have no guilt in me.”

  Fitzgerald looked beaten. By bringing out her total lack of remorse, he had made it impossible for the defense to persuasively argue that she was capable of rehabilitation.

  We had reached a strange situation. Suddenly, in the penalty phase, long after the jury had found the four defendants guilty, I was in a sense having to prove Manson’s guilt all over again.

  If I cross-examined too strenuously, it would appear that I did not feel that we had proven our case. If I eschewed cross-examination, there was the possibility of leaving a lingering doubt as to guilt, which, when it came time for their deliberations, could influence the jury’s vote on penalty. Therefore I had to proceed very carefully, as if trying to walk between raindrops.

  The defense, and specifically Irving Kanarek, had tried to plant such a doubt by providing an alternative to Helter Skelter—the copycat motive. Though I felt the testimony on this was thoroughly unconvincing, this didn’t mean I could sit back and presume the jury would feel as I did.

  As an explanation for why she was lying to save him, it was important that I conclusively prove to the jury Susan Atkins’ total commitment to Manson. At the start of my cross-examination I asked her: “Sadie, do you believe Charles Manson is the second coming of Christ?”

  A. “Vince, I have seen Christ in so many people in the last four or five years, it is hard for me to say which one exactly is the second coming of Christ.”

  I repeated the question.

  A. “I have thought about it. I have thought about it quite a bit…I have entertained the thought that he was Christ, yes…I don’t know. Could be. If he is, wow, my goodness!”

  After confronting her with her letter to Ronnie Howard, in which she stated, “If you can believe in the second coming of Christ, M is he who has come to save,” I asked her: “Even now on the witness stand, Sadie, you think that maybe Charles Manson, the man over there who is playing with his hair, might be Jesus Christ?”

  A. “Maybe. I will leave it at that. Maybe yes. Maybe no.”

  I persisted until Susan admitted: “He represented a God to me that was so beautiful that I’d do anything for him.”

  Q. “Even commit murder?” I asked instantly.

  A. “I’d do anything for God.”

  Q. “Including murder?” I pressed.

  A. “That’s right. If I believed it was right.”

  Q. “And you murdered the five people at the Tate residence for your God, Manson, didn’t you?”

  Susan paused, then said: “I murdered them for my God Bobby Beausoleil.”

  Q. “Oh, so you have two Gods?”

  Evasively she replied: “There is only one God and God is in all.”

  Since Susan had now testified to these matters, the prosecution was able to use her prior inconsistent statements—including her grand jury testimony—for impeachment purposes.

  On cross-examination I had Susa
n repeat the alleged reasons why they went to the Tate residence. Once she’d restated the copycat nonsense, I hit her with her statements regarding Helter Skelter’s being the motive—made to me, to the grand jury, and in the Howard letter.

  I also brought out that she had told me, and the grand jury, that Manson had ordered the seven Tate-LaBianca murders; that Charlie had directed all their activities the second night; and that none of them had been on drugs either night.

  I then led her back through her scenario of the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca murders, step by step, knowing she would slip up, which she did, repeatedly.

  For example, I asked: “Where was Charles Manson when you stabbed Gary Hinman to death?”

  A. “He left. He left right after he cut Gary’s ear.” Having inadvertently admitted this, she quickly added that she had tried to sew up Hinman’s ear.

  I then took her back again: Hinman drew a gun on Manson; Manson ran; Hinman started to shoot Manson; to protect her love, she stabbed Hinman to death. Just when, I asked, did she have time to play Florence Nightingale?

  Susan further claimed that she didn’t tell Manson that she had killed Hinman until after their arrest in the Barker raid. In other words, though she had lived with Manson from July to October 1969, she hadn’t got around to mentioning this? “That’s right.” Why? “Because he never asked.”

  She hadn’t even told him she committed the Tate and LaBianca murders, she claimed. Nor, until two days ago, had she told anyone that Linda Kasabian masterminded the murders.

  Q. “Between August 9, 1969, and February 9, 1971, how come you never told anyone that Linda was behind these murders?”

  A. “Because I didn’t. It’s that simple.”

  Q. “Did you tell anyone in the Family that you committed all these murders?”

  A. “No.”

  Q. “If you told outsiders like Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham, how come you didn’t tell members of your own Family, Sadie?”

  A. “Nothing needed to be said. What I did was what I did with those people, and that is what I did.”

  Q. “Just one of those things, seven dead bodies?”

  A. “No big thing.”

  I paused to let this incredible statement sink in before asking: “So killing seven people is just business as usual, no big deal, is that right, Sadie?”

  A. “It wasn’t at the time. It was just there to do.”

  I asked her how she felt about the victims. She reponded, “They didn’t even look like people…I didn’t relate to Sharon Tate as being anything but a store mannequin.”

  Q. “You have never heard a store mannequin talk, have you, Sadie?”

  A. “No, sir. But she just sounded like an IBM machine…She kept begging and pleading and pleading and begging, and I got sick of listening to her, so I stabbed her.”

  Q. “And the more she screamed, the more you stabbed, Sadie?”

  A. “Yes. So?”

  Q. “And you looked at her and you said, ‘Look, bitch, I have no mercy for you.’ Is that right, Sadie?”

  A. “That’s right. That’s what I said then.”

  BUGLIOSI “No further questions.”

  On Tuesday, February 16, after lengthy discussions in chambers, Judge Older told the jury that he had decided to end the sequestration.

  Their surprise and elation were obvious. They had been locked up for over eight months, the longest sequestration of any jury in American history.

  Though I remained worried about possible harassment from the Family, most of the other reasons for the sequestration—such as mention of the Hinman murder, Susan Atkins’ confession in the Los Angeles Times, her grand jury testimony, and so on—no longer existed, since the jury heard this evidence when Sadie and the others took the stand.

  It was almost as if we had a new jury. When the twelve entered the box the next day, there were smiles on all their faces. I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen them smiling.

  The smiles would not remain there long. Patricia Krenwinkel now took the stand, to confess her part in the Tate and LaBianca homicides.

  An even more improbable witness than Susan Atkins, her testimony regarding the copycat motive was vague, nebulous, and almost devoid of supporting detail. The point in her taking the stand was to take the focus off Manson. Instead, like the other Family members who had preceded her, she repeatedly highlighted his importance. For example, describing life at Spahn Ranch, she said: “We were just like wood nymphs and wood creatures. We would run through the woods with flowers in our hair, and Charlie would have a small flute…”

  On the murder of Abigail Folger: “And I had a knife in my hands, and she took off running, and she ran—she ran out through the back door, one I never even touched, I mean, nobody got fingerprints because I never touched that door…and I stabbed her and I kept stabbing her.”

  Q. “What did you feel after you stabbed her?”

  A. “Nothing—I mean, like what is there to describe? It was just there, and it’s like it was right.”

  On the murder of Rosemary LaBianca: According to Katie, she and Leslie took Rosemary LaBianca into the bedroom and were looking through the dresses in her closet when, hearing Leno scream, Rosemary grabbed a lamp and swung at them.

  On the mutilation of Leno LaBianca: After murdering Rosemary, Katie remembered seeing Leno lying on the floor in the living room. She flashed, “You won’t be sending your son off to war,” and “I guess I put WAR on the man’s chest. And then I guess I had a fork in my hands, and I put it in his stomach…and I went and wrote on the walls…”

  On cross-examination I asked her: “When you were on top of Abigail Folger, plunging your knife into her body, was she screaming?”

  A. “Yes.”

  Q. “And the more she screamed, the more you stabbed?”

  A. “I guess.”

  Q. “Did it bother you when she screamed for her life?”

  A. “No.”

  Katie testified that when she stabbed Abigail she was really stabbing herself. My next question was rhetorical. “But you didn’t bleed at all, did you, Katie; just Abigail did, isn’t that right?”

  The defense was contending, through these witnesses, that the words POLITICAL PIGGY (Hinman), PIG (Tate), and DEATH TO PIGS (LaBianca) were the clue which the killers felt would cause the police to link the three crimes. But when I’d asked Sadie why she’d written POLITICAL PIGGY on the wall of the Hinman residence in the first place, she had no satisfactory answer. Nor could she tell me why, if these were to be copycat murders, she’d only written PIG and not POLITICAL PIGGY at Tate. Nor was Katie now able to give a convincing explanation as to why she’d written HEALTER SKELTER on the LaBiancas’ refrigerator door.

  It was obvious that Maxwell Keith wasn’t buying the copycat motive either. On redirect he asked Katie: “The homicides at the Tate residence and the LaBianca residence had nothing to do, did they, with trying to get Bobby Beausoleil out of jail?”

  A. “Well, it’s hard to explain. It was just a thought, and the thought came to be.”

  Judge Older was becoming increasingly irritated with Kanarek. Repeatedly, he warned him that if he persisted in asking inadmissible questions, he would find him in contempt for the fifth time. Nor was he very happy with Daye Shinn. Shinn had been observed passing a note from a spectator to Susan Atkins. The week before, the girls on the corner had been seen reading court transcripts which had Shinn’s name on them. Confronted with this by Older, Shinn explained: “They borrowed them to look at them.”

  THE COURT “I beg your pardon? Are you familiar with the publicity order in this case?”

  Shinn admitted that he was.

  THE COURT “It appears to me, Mr. Shinn, that you are not paying the slightest attention to the publicity order, and you haven’t been for some time. I have felt, in my own mind, for a long, long time, that the leak—and there is a leak—is you.”

  Maxwell Keith very reluctantly called his client, Leslie Van Houten, to the stand. After taking
her through her background, Keith asked to approach the bench. He told Older that his client was going to involve herself in the Hinman murder. He had discussed this with her for “hours and hours” but to no avail.

  Once she began reciting her tale, the transparency of her fictions became obvious. According to Leslie, Mary Brunner was never at the Hinman residence, while both Charles Manson and Bobby Beausoleil left before the actual killing took place. It was Sadie, she said, who killed Gary.

  Though implicating herself in the Hinman murder, at least by her presence, Leslie did try to provide some mitigating circumstances for her involvement in the LaBianca murders. She claimed she knew nothing about the Tate murders and that when she went along the next night she had no idea where they were going or what they were going to do. The murder of Rosemary LaBianca was made to seem almost like self-defense. Only after Rosemary swung at her with the lamp did she “take one of the knives and Patricia had a knife, and we started stabbing and cutting up the lady.”

  Q. “Up to that time, did you have any intention of hurting anybody?”

  A. “No.”

  Q. “Did you stab her after she appeared to be dead, Les?”

  A. “I don’t know if it was before or after she was dead, but I stabbed her…I don’t know if she was dead. She was lying there on the floor.”

  Q. “Had you stabbed her at all before you saw her lying on the floor?”

  A. “I don’t remember.”

  Leslie’s forgetting such things was almost as improbable as her claim that she hadn’t mentioned the murders to Manson until they were in the desert.

  Very carefully, Keith tried to establish that Leslie had remorse for her acts.

  Q. “Leslie, do you feel sorrow or shame or a sense of guilt for having participated in the death of Mrs. LaBianca?”

  A. [Pause]

  Q. “Let me go one by one. Do you feel sorrowful about it; sorry; unhappy?”

  You could almost feel the chill in the courtroom when Leslie answered: “Sorry is only a five-letter word. It can’t bring back anything.”

  Q. “I am trying, Leslie, to discover how you feel about it.”