Helter Skelter

Nor did the three female defendants exactly help their case when, the next day, they stood up and said in perfect unison: “Your Honor, the President said we are guilty, so why go on with the trial?”

Older had not given up his search for the culprit. Daye Shinn now admitted that just before court resumed he’d walked over to the file cabinet where the bailiff had placed the confiscated papers and had picked up several and brought them back to the counsel table. He’d intended to read the sports pages, he said, unaware that the front pages were also attached.

Declaring Shinn in direct contempt of Court, Older ordered him to spend three nights in the County Jail, commencing as soon as court adjourned. We were already past the usual adjournment time. Shinn asked for an hour to move his car and get a toothbrush, but Older denied the motion and Shinn was remanded into custody.

The next morning Shinn asked for a continuance. Being in a strange bed, and an even stranger place, he hadn’t slept well the night before, and he didn’t feel he could effectively defend his client.

These were not all of his troubles, Shinn admitted. “I am now having marital problems, Your Honor. My wife thinks I am spending the night with some other woman. She doesn’t read English. Now my dog won’t even talk to me.”

Declining comment on his domestic woes, Older suggested that Shinn catch a nap during the noon recess. Motion denied.

Irving Kanarek kept Linda Kasabian on the stand seven days. It was cross-examination in the most literal sense. For example: “Mrs. Kasabian, did you go to Spahn Ranch because you wanted to seek out fresh men, men that you had not had previous relations with?”

Unlike Fitzgerald and Shinn, Kanarek examined Linda’s testimony regarding those two nights as if under a microscope. The problem with this, as far as the defense was concerned, was that some of her most damning statements were repeated two, three, even more times. Nor was Kanarek content to score a point and move on. Frequently he dwelt on a subject so long he negated his own argument. For example, Linda had testified that on the night of the Tate murders her mind was clear. She had also testified that after seeing the shooting of Parent she went into a state of shock. Kanarek did not stop at pointing out the seeming contradiction, but asked exactly when her state of shock ended.

A. “I don’t know when it ended. I don’t know if it ever ended.”

Q. “Your mind was completely clear, is that right?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “You weren’t under the influence of any drug, is that right?”

A. “No.”

Q. “You weren’t under the influence of anything, right?”

A. “I was under the influence of Charlie.”

Although Linda remained responsive to the questions, it was obvious that Kanarek was wearing her down.

On August 7 we lost a juror and a witness.

Juror Walter Vitzelio was excused because both he and his wife were in ill health. The ex–security guard was replaced, by lot, by one of the alternates, Larry Sheely, a telephone maintenance man.

That same day I learned that Randy Starr had died at the Veterans Administration Hospital of an “undetermined illness.”

The former Spahn ranch hand and part-time stunt man had been prepared to identify the Tate-Sebring rope as identical with the one Manson had. Even more important, since Randy had given Manson the .22 caliber revolver, his testimony would have literally placed the gun in Manson’s hand.

Though I had other witnesses who could testify to these key points, I was admittedly suspicious of Starr’s sudden demise. Learning no autopsy had been performed, I ordered one. Starr, it was determined, had died of natural causes, from an ear infection.

KANAREK “Mrs. Kasabian, I show you this picture.”

A. “Oh, God!” Linda turned her face away. It was the color photo of the very pregnant, and very dead, Sharon Tate.

This was the first time Linda had seen the photograph, and she was so shaken Older called a ten-minute recess.

There was no evidence whatsoever that Linda Kasabian had been inside the Tate residence or that she had seen Sharon Tate’s body. Aaron and I therefore questioned Kanarek’s showing her the photograph. Fitzgerald argued that it was entirely possible that Mrs. Kasabian had been inside both the Tate and LaBianca residences and had participated in all of the murders. Older ruled that Kanarek could show her the photo.

Kanarek then showed Linda the death photo of Voytek Frykowski.

A. “He is the man that I saw at the door.”

KANAREK “Mrs. Kasabian, why are you crying right now?”

A. “Because I can’t believe it. It is just—”

Q. “You can’t believe what, Mrs. Kasabian?”

A. “That they could do that.”

Q. “I see. Not that you could do that, but that they could do that?”

A. “I know I didn’t do that.”

Q. “You were in a state of shock, weren’t you?”

A. “That’s right.”

Q. “Then how do you know?”

A. “Because I know. I do not have that kind of thing in me, to do such an animalistic thing.”

Kanarek showed Linda the death photos of all five of the Tate victims as well as those of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca. He even insisted that she handle the leather thong that had bound Leno’s wrists.

Perhaps Kanarek hoped that he would so unnerve Linda that she would make some damaging admission. Instead, he only succeeded in emphasizing that, in contrast to the other defendants, Linda Kasabian was a sensitive human being capable of being deeply disturbed by the hideousness of these acts.

Showing Linda the photos was a mistake. And the other defense attorneys soon realized this. Each time Kanarek held up a picture, then asked her to look closely at some minute detail, the jurors winced or squirmed uncomfortably in their chairs. Even Manson protested that Kanarek was acting on his own. And still Kanarek persisted.

Ronald Hughes approached me in the hall during a recess. “I want to apologize, Vince —”

“No apology necessary, Ron. It was a ‘heat of the moment’ remark. I’m only sorry that Older found you in contempt.”

“No, I don’t mean that,” Hughes said. “What I did was a hell of a lot worse. I was the one who suggested that Irving Kanarek become Manson’s attorney.”

On Monday, August 10, 1970, the People petitioned the Court for immunity for Linda Kasabian. Though Judge Older signed the petition the same day, it was not until the thirteenth that he formally dropped all charges against her and she was released. She had been in custody since December 3, 1969. Unlike Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten, she had been in solitary confinement the whole time.

My wife, Gail, was worried. “What if she goes back on her testimony, Vince? Susan Atkins did; Mary Brunner did. Now that she has immunity—”

“Honey, I have confidence in Linda,” I told her.

I did, yet in the back of my mind was the question: Where would the People’s case be if that confidence was