Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Hardcover (49 page)

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Bugliosi began by accompanying a team of investigators to Spahn Ranch. Danny DeCarlo came with them, but he insisted on being in handcuffs to give the impression that he was being forced to cooperate. George Spahn granted permission for a search of the property. Dozens of odd-looking people prowled the ranch, most of them young. DeCarlo led the cops to spots where he said Manson and the Family liked to take target practice with the .22 Buntline—Bugliosi wanted to match shell casings and slug fragments with those found at Cielo. They eventually gathered sixty-eight slugs, whole or parts, and twenty-two casings. (A second ranch trip five months later yielded twenty-three additional .22 caliber shell casings.)

Back at Parker Center after his initial Spahn Ranch visit, Bugliosi learned that Susan Atkins would be offered some kind of deal in return for her testimony against Charlie and the other participants in the Tate and LaBianca murders. Bugliosi argued against it—according to Ronnie Howard, Susan had admitted stabbing Gary Hinman and Sharon Tate. They were just starting to put together their case against her. Why offer immunity immediately when, if they just gave him some time, he might deliver an airtight case against all of them? Bugliosi was told that Chief Davis wanted the case rushed to the grand jury; the public was impatient and the LAPD looked worse every day that they didn’t announce they’d solved the Tate murder. Susan Atkins would be offered a deal, and very soon. They’d figure out the details of it when the time came.

Next, Bugliosi and five members of the Tate and LaBianca squads drove to Inyo County. With the help of county district attorney Frank Fowles, they interviewed the officers involved in the Barker Ranch raids and inspected the collected evidence. Many items were sent back to L.A. for lab analysis. Bugliosi talked to Squeaky and Sandy, who offered convoluted explanations of how Charlie Manson was “love, you can’t define it.” As they talked, Bugliosi decided that they were “retarded at a certain stage in their childhood. . . . little girls, playing little-girl games.” He interviewed all five female Family members still in Inyo County custody—Leslie, Gypsy, Ruth Ann, Dianne Lake, and Nancy Pitman. None of them offered any useful information. Clem and Charlie were the Family men remaining in the county lockup. DA Fowles told Bugliosi that Clem had a lawyer who had insisted his client be examined by two psychiatrists—they’d determined that Clem was “presently insane.” At Bugliosi’s request, Fowles agreed to stall any actions involving Clem. That left Charlie.

Bugliosi watched that afternoon as Charlie pleaded not guilty to arson charges in an Inyo County court. He was struck by how at ease Charlie seemed, even in handcuffs. It was as though he didn’t have a care in the world. The judge set Charlie’s bail at $25,000. The Tate and LaBianca cases were still being built against Charlie; Bugliosi wasn’t ready to arrest him yet, but he didn’t want to risk some friend of the Family putting up Charlie’s Inyo County bail and giving him the opportunity to
disappear. He asked Fowles to call him if anyone offered to put up the $25,000. If that happened, whether he felt ready or not Bugliosi would file murder charges against Charlie. Even if nobody put up Charlie’s bail, it was still uncertain whether he could be proven guilty of arson. At any time a county judge might dismiss the charges and set Charlie free. The L.A. prosecutors were racing the clock.

Charlie knew what was going on. Some Family members had been idling at Spahn Ranch when the LAPD investigators went there to check for .22 slugs and shell casings. Bugliosi’s arrival in Inyo County and the questions he’d asked made it certain that the LAPD was after the Family for Tate and LaBianca. Squeaky and Sandy were reliable messengers, bringing Charlie information and passing along his instructions. Susan was in Sybil Brand, which was bad. Charlie didn’t know where Tex and Pat were. He needed to find out. Linda had of course run off right after the murders. Leslie was holding strong in the Independence jail. She was right under Charlie’s thumb there. Potential weak link Zero was dead. Charlie might still be all right. The main thing was, nobody should admit anything, just as he’d taught them. But in case things went much further, Charlie needed an alibi for Tate and LaBianca. He went to work on that.

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As soon as he was back in his L.A. office,
Bugliosi issued a “want” for Charles Montgomery, the shadowy figure who, according to Kitty Lutesinger, might have been involved in some or all of the murders. Besides Lutesinger’s statement, Bugliosi also had an interview card from the Inyo County deputy who’d questioned Charles Montgomery after catching him skinny-dipping. But no information on Montgomery came back; the guy was smoke, impossible to nail down.

The five Family women in Inyo County cells were transferred to Sybil Brand in L.A. On Bugliosi’s instructions, they were kept separated. He believed they had some sort of strange “cohesion” that reinforced their individual resolve to not cooperate.

Inyo County DA Frank Fowles called Bugliosi:
Sandy Good had been overheard telling someone that Charlie had an alibi plan. If he got charged with Tate and LaBianca, he’d say that he wasn’t anywhere near L.A. on those nights and the rest of the Family would swear that it was
true. Simple and effective, because how could the L.A. prosecutors prove otherwise? Bugliosi was shaken. He called in a couple of the LaBianca investigators and told them that they had to find some proof of where Manson was for the whole week of the murders. He was pleased that they didn’t ask him how. They were pros.

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On November 26,
Bobby Beausoleil’s trial for the murder of Gary Hinman ended with a hung jury. Four jurors were so put off by Danny DeCarlo that they refused to vote for conviction. The prosecutors immediately announced that they would retry him. Bugliosi was assigned the case in addition to Tate and LaBianca. If all went well with those investigations, they’d be able to make a stronger case against Beausoleil the second time around.

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Two weeks after she made her original request, Virginia Graham finally was granted the opportunity to tell what she knew about the Tate-LaBianca murders to a psychologist on the Corona prison staff. The psychologist passed Virginia along to one of the Tate-LaBianca squad members. Everything Virginia related matched what investigators had already learned from Ronnie Howard. The corroboration reinforced their conviction that they were finally on the right track.

LAPD investigators interrogated the five female Family members that had been transferred to Sybil Brand. No useful information was gleaned from Dianne Lake, Gypsy, Ruth Ann, or Nancy Pitman, but Leslie cracked just a little when she learned that Zero supposedly committed suicide. Sensing she was stunned by the news, Sgt. Mike McGann, who was conducting the interview, pounced. He told Leslie that he knew Charlie Manson was one of five Tate killers. Leslie mumbled that she didn’t think Charlie “was in on any of them,” and, besides, only four people were involved at Cielo. Three of them were girls, and one of the girls named Linda didn’t kill anyone. That matched what Susan Atkins had told Ronnie Howard—“Linda wasn’t in on [that] one.” McGann kept pushing: What was Linda’s last name? Who told Leslie that Linda was at Cielo? Leslie turned sulky and uncooperative. She did suggest that she knew things about eleven murders. The LAPD was investigating nine—five
at Cielo, two at Waverly Drive, Gary Hinman, and Shorty Shea. But try as McGann might, he could not get Leslie to be specific about the other two. It would not be the last time that a Family member alluded to murders that authorities knew nothing about.

McGann tried to goad Leslie out of her sulk. She didn’t respond when he told her that Susan had implicated Katie (Pat), but was shocked when McGann added that Susan bragged about going out the night after the Cielo murders and killing two more people. After that Leslie refused to talk anymore, even though McGann offered her twenty-four-hour protection if she cooperated. The session had still been useful for Bugliosi and the other investigators. They had confirmation that Susan, Pat, and Linda were the three women at Cielo, though beyond her name they still had no idea of who or where Linda was. But the interrogation was helpful for Charlie, too. Leslie had learned that Susan was snitching, and through Family members who visited her at Sybil Brand, probably Squeaky and Sandy, she was able to pass that information back to Charlie in the Inyo County jail. No one understood Susan Atkins’s foibles and insecurities better than Charlie Manson. Armed with the knowledge that she was betraying him, probably as a consequence of her compulsion to show off, Charlie could plot his countermoves.

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A Spahn ranch hand told detectives that Linda’s last name was Kasabian. Los Angeles County officials identified Katie as Patricia Krenwinkel, who had been released to her father after the Barker Ranch raid.
The LAPD contacted Mr. Krenwinkel, who said that Pat was staying with her mother in Alabama. But Linda was more elusive; no one knew where she might have gone. Charles Montgomery also remained at large.

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Susan Atkins, who had still not been officially interrogated by the Tate-LaBianca investigators, was given a court-appointed attorney named Richard Caballero. Having studied the evidence already accumulated against her, Caballero advised his new client that her only hope of avoiding California’s death penalty was to cooperate with the police. He told Susan that Charlie was “a force working in your life that is stronger than you are.”

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Members of the Tate and LaBianca teams began interviewing L.A.-area residents who’d been mentioned by Susan to Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham. Gregg Jakobson was cooperative.
He told about his interest in Charlie’s music and the Family’s lifestyle, and how he tried unsuccessfully to interest his friend Terry Melcher into either recording Charlie or else financing a movie about the Family. But Charlie couldn’t have intended to have Melcher killed on the night of the Cielo murders, Jakobson pointed out, because he knew by then that Melcher had moved. Jakobson tried to tell about Charlie’s weird beliefs, but the officer interrogating him wasn’t interested in any of that. He just wanted to hear about Charlie’s grudge against Melcher. As an afterthought, he asked Jakobson if he knew a guy named Charles Montgomery, probably nicknamed Tex. Jakobson said that he did, but Tex’s last name was Watson, not Montgomery. The LAPD ran checks on Charles
Watson
and found that he’d been arrested for drugs in Van Nuys back in April. Fingerprints taken then matched one found on the front door at Cielo. It took only a few more hours of digging to learn that Watson was from a small town in Collin County, Texas, not too far from Dallas. Investigators called the sheriff there—Tom Montgomery, Tex’s cousin. He thrilled the L.A. cops by saying that Tex was living at home, and that he’d pick him up right away.

Tex had hooked up with an old girlfriend. When they returned from an afternoon drive, Tex’s father was waiting. He asked his son if he knew anything about a murder back in California. Tex said that he didn’t, and he, his father, and Tex’s uncle Maurice drove to the county jail in McKinney. Sheriff Tom Montgomery sheepishly told Tex that he had to take him into custody, but the misunderstanding would surely be cleared up soon: “We know for sure you didn’t commit no murder.” Word of Tex’s arrest spread quickly throughout the small community, but nobody who knew Tex there believed he’d killed anybody. He was such a sweet guy.

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Gregg Jakobson was willing to assist LAPD investigators. Dennis Wilson and Terry Melcher weren’t.
Dennis rightly feared the wrath of the other Beach Boys. They hadn’t liked Charlie Manson to begin with, and now, thanks to Dennis they would soon be linked with some crazy guru and
his killer cult, hardly the best association for a band whose trademark song subjects were sun and fun. To Dennis, whose self-esteem was always shaky, the Beach Boys and his place in the band were the most important things in the world. So when the police came to question him, Dennis downplayed his relationship with Charlie. Yes, the guy and his people stayed with Wilson for a little while. So what? Lots of people did—he’d been living in a big house at the time. Sure, he’d had Charlie audition for Brother Records. That’s what you did when you had a label, try out just about every would-be music star you came across to see if any of them really had some talent. Charlie didn’t, and that was that.

Melcher stonewalled, too.
Columbia wouldn’t be pleased to have its boy wonder producer publicly associated with long-haired mass murderers. Melcher knew that he couldn’t completely avoid the Manson taint, but he could at least try to limit it. Where Wilson avoided specifics, Melcher lied. He claimed that he’d only met Manson a couple of times, really just out at Spahn Ranch where he went to listen to the guy’s music at the insistence of Gregg Jakobson. He hadn’t been impressed, though out of pity he did hand over the cash he had in his pocket because those people on the ranch, especially the little kids, looked so raggedy and starved. That Manson apparently thought he’d broken his word about a recording contract was news to him, Melcher insisted. He didn’t understand why Manson would have gone to his former residence on Cielo seeking revenge, if that was what had happened in the Tate murder case. When the investigators said they’d heard that Melcher liked to mess around with the Family women, he showed them pictures of some of his recent girlfriends, including spectacular Candy Bergen. He asked, “When I’ve got beauties like these to get in bed with, why would I want to screw any of Manson’s clap-ridden, unwashed dogs?” The cops might not have believed him, but the unwritten rule of L.A. law enforcement apparently prevailed—celebrities got passes where regular people wouldn’t. Melcher was taken at his word. The investigative team did get one bit of new, useful information from Melcher. He conceded that one time Dennis Wilson had given him a ride home to Cielo, and Charlie Manson rode along in the backseat, strumming his guitar. But Dennis dropped him at the gate, Melcher emphasized. Charlie didn’t come onto the grounds, let alone inside
the house. Still, to the investigators it was confirmation that Charlie Manson had been to Cielo at least once. He knew where the place was.