It was obvious that one or more persons had violated the gag order. Older, however, did not press the issue, and there, it appeared, the matter rested. There was no indication at this time that the issue would eventually become a
Prior to his questioning by Older, Farr told Virginia Graham’s attorney, Robert Steinberg, that he had received the statement from one of the defense attorneys. He did not say which one.
Gregg Jakobson was an impressive and very important witness. I had the tall, modishly dressed talent scout testify in detail to his many conversations with Manson, during which they discussed Helter Skelter, the Beatles, Revelation 9, and Manson’s curious attitude toward death.
Shahrokh Hatami followed Jakobson to the stand, to testify to his confrontation with Manson at 10050 Cielo Drive on the afternoon of March 23, 1969. For the first time the jury, and the public, learned that Sharon Tate had seen the man who later ordered her murder.
In Rudi Altobelli, Kanarek finally met his match. On direct examination the owner of 10050 Cielo Drive testified to his first encounter with Manson at Dennis Wilson’s home, and then, in considerable detail, he described Manson’s appearance at the guest house the evening before he and Sharon left for Rome.
Extremely antagonistic because Altobelli had refused him permission to visit 10050 Cielo Drive, Kanarek asked: “Now, presently, the premises on Cielo Drive where you live are quite secure, is that correct?”
A. “I hope so.”
Q. “Do you remember having a conversation with me when I tried to get into your fortress out there?”
A. “I remember your insinuations or threats.”
Q. “What were my insinuations or threats?”
A. “That ‘We will take care of you, Mr. Altobelli,’ ‘We will see about you, Mr. Altobelli.’ ‘We will get the court up at your house and have the trial at your house, Mr. Altobelli.’”
Altobelli had told Kanarek that if the Court ordered it, he would be glad to comply. “Otherwise, no. It is a home. It is not going to be a tourist attraction or a freak show.”
Q. “Do you respect our courts of law, Mr. Altobelli?”
A. “I think more than you, Mr. Kanarek.”
Despite defense objections, I had succeeded in getting in perhaps 95 percent of the testimony I’d hoped to elicit through Jakobson, Hatami, and Altobelli.
With the next witness, I suddenly found myself in deep trouble.
Charles Koenig took the stand to testify to finding Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet in the women’s rest room of the Standard station in Sylmar where he worked. He described how, on lifting the top of the toilet tank, he’d seen the wallet wedged above the mechanism, just above the waterline.
Kanarek cross-examined Koenig at great length about the toilet, causing more than a few snickers among spectators and press. Then I suddenly realized what he was getting at.
Kanarek asked Koenig if there was a standard procedure in connection with servicing the toilets in the rest room.
Koenig replied that the Standard station operating manual required that the rest room be cleaned every hour. The bluing agent, which is kept in the tank of the toilet, Koenig further testified, had to be replaced “whenever it ran out.”
How often was that? Kanarek asked.
As “lead man,” or boss of the station, Koenig had not personally cleaned the rest rooms, but rather had delegated the task to others. Therefore I was able to object to this and similar questions as calling for a conclusion on Koenig’s part.
Fortunately, court then recessed for the day.
Immediately afterward I called LAPD with an urgent request. I wanted the detectives to locate and interview every person who had worked in this particular station between August 10, 1969 (the date Linda Kasabian testified she left the wallet there) and December 10, 1969 (the date Koenig found it). And I wanted them interviewed before Kanarek could get to them, fearing that he might put words in their mouths. I told the officers: “Tell them, ‘Forget what the Standard station operating manual says you should do; forget too what your employer might say if he found you didn’t follow the instructions to the letter. Just answer truthfully: Did you personally, at any time during your employment, change the bluing agent in that toilet?’”
To replace the bluing agent, you had to lift the top off the tank. Had anyone done so, he would have immediately seen the wallet. If Kanarek could come up with just one employee who claimed to have replaced the bluing agent during that four-month period, the defense could forcefully contend that the wallet had been “planted,” not only destroying Linda Kasabian’s credibility as to all of her testimony, but implying that the prosecution was trying to frame Manson.
LAPD located some, but not all, of the former employees. (None had ever changed the bluing agent.) Fortunately, Kanarek apparently had no better luck.
Hughes had only a few questions for Koenig, but they were devastating.
Q. “Now, Sylmar is predominantly a white area, is it not?”
A. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Q. “Sylmar is not a black ghetto, is it?”
A. “No.”
According to Linda, Manson had wanted a black to find the wallet and use the credit cards, so blacks would be blamed for the murders. My whole theory of the motive was based on this premise. Why, then, had Manson left the wallet in a white area?
In point of fact, the freeway exit Manson had taken was immediately north of Pacoima, the black ghetto of the San Fernando Valley. I tried to get this in through Koenig, but defense objections kept it out, and I later had to call Sergeant Patchett to so testify.
With a single witness, a service-station attendant, the defense—specifically Kanarek and Hughes—had almost knocked two huge holes in the prosecution’s case.
By now I had narrowed down my opponents. Fitzgerald made a good appearance but rarely scored. Shinn was likable. For his first trial Hughes was doing damn well. But it was Irving Kanarek, whom most members of the press considered the trial’s buffoon, who was scoring nearly all the points. Time and again Kanarek succeeded in keeping out important evidence.
For example, when Stephanie Schram took the stand, Kanarek objected to her testimony regarding the “murder school” Manson had conducted at Barker Ranch, and Older sustained Kanarek’s objection. Though I disagreed with Older’s ruling, there was no way I could get around it.
On direct Stephanie had testified that she and Manson returned to Spahn Ranch from San Diego in a cream- colored van on the afternoon of Friday, August 8. On cross-examination Fitzgerald asked her: “Could you be mistaken one day?” This indicated to me that Manson might still be planning to go alibi, so on redirect I brought in the traffic ticket they had been given the previous day. With the August 8 arrest report on Brunner and Good, which contained the license number of the same van, I was now ready to demolish Charlie if the defense claimed he wasn’t even in Southern California at the time of the murders.
Yet I had no way of knowing whether Manson might have his own surprise bombshell, which he was waiting to explode.
As it happened, he had.
Sergeant Gutierrez, on the “HELTER SKELTER” door. DeWayne Wolfer, on the sound tests he’d conducted at the Tate residence. Jerrold Friedman, on the last telephone call Steven Parent made. Roseanne Walker, on Atkins’ remarks about the eyeglasses. Harold True, on Manson’s visits to the house next to the LaBianca residence. Sergeant McKellar, on Krenwinkel’s attempts to avoid recognition just prior to her arrest in Mobile, Alabama. Bits and pieces, but cumulative. And eventually, I hoped, convincing.
Only a few prosecution witnesses remained. And I still didn’t know what the defense would be. Although the prosecution had to give the defense a list of all our witnesses, the defense had no such obligation. Earlier Fitzgerald had told the press that he intended to call thirty witnesses, among them such celebrities as Mama Cass, John
