Helter Skelter

Dorothy Krenwinkel said of her daughter, “She would rather hurt herself than harm any living thing.”

FITZGERALD “Did you love your daughter?”

A. “I did love my daughter; I will always love my daughter; and no one will ever convince me she did anything terrible or horrible.”

FITZGERALD “Thank you.”

BUGLIOSI “No questions, Your Honor.”

Fitzgerald wanted to introduce into evidence a number of letters Patricia Krenwinkel had written to various persons, including her father and a favorite priest at Spring Hill.

All were hearsay and clearly inadmissible. All I would have needed to do was object. But I didn’t. Though aware that they would appeal to the sympathies of the jury, I felt that justice should prevail over technicalities. The issue now was whether this girl should be sentenced to death. And this was an issue for the jury to decide, not me. I felt that in reaching that extremely serious decision, they should have any information even remotely relevant.

Fitzgerald was both relieved and very grateful when I let them come in.

Keith handled the direct examination of Jane Van Houten, Leslie’s mother. Keith later told me that although Leslie’s father didn’t want to testify, he was behind Leslie 100 percent. Although, like the Krenwinkels, the Van Houtens were divorced, they too had stuck by their daughter.

According to Mrs. Van Houten, “Leslie was what you would call a feisty little child, fun to be with. She had a wonderful sense of humor.” Born in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, she had an older brother and a younger brother and sister, the latter Korean orphans whom the Van Houtens had adopted.

When Leslie was fourteen, her parents separated and divorced. “I think it hurt her very much,” Mrs. Van Houten testified. That same year Leslie fell in love with an older youth, Bobby Mackey; became pregnant; had an abortion; and took LSD for the first time. After that she dropped acid at least once and often two or three times a week.[81]

During her freshman and sophomore years at Monrovia High School, Leslie was one of the homecoming princesses. She tried out again her junior year, but this time she didn’t make it. Bitter over the rejection, she ran away with Mackey to Haight-Ashbury. The scene there frightened her, however, and she returned home to finish high school and to complete a year of secretarial training. Mackey, in the meantime, had become a novitiate priest in the Self Realization Fellowship. In an attempt to continue their relationship, Leslie became a novitiate nun, giving up both drugs and sex. She lasted about eight months before breaking with both Mackey and the yoga group.

Mrs. Van Houten did not testify to the period which followed; possibly she knew little if anything about it. From interviews I’d learned that Leslie went full spectrum. The former nun was now anxious to “try anything,” be it drugs or answering sex-partner ads in the Los Angeles Free Press. A long-time friend stopped dating her because she had become “too kinky.”

For a few months Leslie lived in a commune in Northern California. During this period she met Bobby Beausoleil, who had his own wandering “family,” consisting of Gypsy and a girl named Gail. Leslie became a part of the menage a quatre. Gail, however, was jealous, and the arguments became near constant. First Gypsy split, moving to Spahn Ranch. Then, shortly after, Leslie followed, also joining Manson. She was nineteen.

About this time Leslie called her mother and told her that she had decided to drop out and that she wouldn’t be hearing from her again. She didn’t, until Leslie’s arrest.

Keith asked Mrs. Van Houten: “How do you feel about your daughter now?”

A. “I love Leslie very much.”

Q. “As much as you always have?”

A. “More.”

As the parents testified, one realized that they too were victims, just as were the relatives of the deceased.

Calling the defendants’ parents first was a bad tactical error on the part of the defense. Their testimony and plight evoked sympathy from everyone in the courtroom. They should have been called at the very end of the defense’s case, just before the jury went out to deliberate. As it was, by the time the other witnesses had testified, they were almost forgotten.

Shinn called no witnesses on behalf of Susan Atkins. Her father, Shinn told me, had refused to have anything more to do with her. All he wanted, he said, was to get his hands on Manson.

A reporter from the Los Angeles Times had located Charles Manson’s mother in a city in the Pacific Northwest. Remarried and living under another name, she claimed Charles’ tales of childhood deprivation were fictions, adding, “He was a spoiled, pampered child.”

Kanarek did not use her as a witness. Instead, he called Samuel Barrett, Manson’s parole officer.

Barrett was a most unimpressive witness. He thought he first met Manson “about 1956, around that”; he couldn’t remember whether Manson was on probation or parole; he stated that since he was responsible for 150 persons, he couldn’t be expected to recall everything about each one.

Repeatedly, Barrett minimized the seriousness of the various charges against Manson prior to the murders. The reason he did this was obvious: otherwise, one might wonder why he hadn’t revoked Manson’s parole. One still did wonder. Manson associated with ex-cons, known narcotics users, and minor girls. He failed to report his whereabouts, made few attempts to obtain employment, repeatedly lied regarding his activities. During the first six months of 1969 alone, he had been charged, among other things, with grand theft auto, narcotics possession, rape, contributing to the delinquency of a minor. There was more than ample reason for parole revocation.

During a recess one of the reporters approached me in the hall. “God, Vince,” he exclaimed, “did it ever occur to you that if Barrett had revoked Manson’s parole in, say, April of 1969, Sharon and the others would probably still be alive today?”

I declined comment, citing the gag order as an excuse. But it had occurred to me. I had thought about it a great deal.

On direct, Barrett had testified that there was nothing in Manson’s prison records to indicate that he was a behavioral risk. Over Kanarek’s objections, on cross-examination I had him examine the folder on Manson’s attempted escape from federal custody in 1957.

The parade of perjurers began with little Squeaky.

Lynette Alice Fromme, twenty-two, testified that she was from an upper-middle-class background, her father an aeronautical engineer. When she was seventeen, she said, her father kicked her out of the house. “And I was in Venice, sitting down on a curb crying, when a man walked up and said, ‘Your father kicked you out of the house, did he?’

“And that was Charlie.”

Squeaky placed great importance on the fact that she had met Manson before any of the other girls, excepting only Mary Brunner.

In questioning her about the Family, Fitzgerald asked: “Did you have a leader?”

A. “No, we were riding on the wind.”

No leader, but—

“Charlie is our father in that he would—he would point out things to us.”

Charlie was just like everyone else, but—

“I would crawl off in a corner and be reading a book, and he would pass me and tell me what it said in the book…And also he knew our thoughts…He was always happy, always…He would go into the bathroom sometimes to comb his hair, and there would be a whole crowd of people in there watching him because he had so much fun.”

Squeaky had trouble denying the teachings of her lord and master. When Fitzgerald tried to minimize the importance of the Beatles’ White Album, she replied, “There is a lot in that album, there is a lot.” Although she claimed, “I never heard Charlie utter the words ‘helter skelter,’” she went on to say that “it is a matter of evolution and balance” and “the black people are coming to the top, as it should be.”

Obviously these were not the answers Fitzgerald wanted, and apparently he betrayed his reaction.

FROMME “How come you’re making those faces?”