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
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
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.
