Nowhere in Paul Fitzgerald’s argument, which followed, did he state, or even imply, that Manson was responsible for what had happened to Patricia Krenwinkel.
“Patricia Krenwinkel is twenty-three years old,” Fitzgerald observed. “With 365 days in the year, there are approximately 8,400 days in 23 years, and approximately 200,000 hours in her lifetime.
“The perpetration of these offenses took at best approximately three hours.
“Is she to be judged solely on what occurred during three of 200,000 hours?”
Just before court commenced on March 23, I walked over to the water cooler. Manson, in the nearby lockup, called out to me, rather loudly, “If I get the death penalty, there is going to be a lot of bloodletting. Because I am not going to take it.”
Both the court clerk and Steve Kay overheard the remark. Kay intemperately rushed out of the courtroom and repeated it to the press. Learning of this, I asked the reporters not to print it. The
Before this, however, Judge Older, made aware of what had happened, decided that rather than wait to the close of arguments, he would sequester the jury immediately.
In my final argument I rebutted point by point the earlier defense contentions. For example, the defense had claimed that Linda got her story from listening to the Susan Atkins tapes. Why would Linda need to listen to the tapes, I asked, when she was present both nights?
Kanarek had told the jury that if they returned death penalty verdicts, they would be killers. This was a very heavy argument. As support, he cited the Fifth Commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.”
In answer, I told the jury that most biblical scholars and theologians interpret the original language to mean: “Thou shalt not commit murder,” which is exactly how it appears in the New English Bible, dated 1970.
The Ten Commandments appear in Exodus, chapter 20, I noted. What Kanarek did not mention, I observed, is that the very next chapter authorizes the death penalty. Exodus 21, verse 12, reads: “Whoever strikes a man a mortal blow must be put to death,” while verse 14 of the same chapter reads: “When a man kills another, after maliciously scheming to do so, you must take him even from my altar and put him to death.”
Kanarek argued that there was no domination. In addition to all the evidence during the guilt trial, I observed, during the penalty trial, “When Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten played the part of the sacrificial lamb and admitted their participation in these murders, and then lied on that witness stand and said that Manson wasn’t involved, the fact that they were willing to lie on that witness stand just proves, all the more, Manson’s domination over them…” As for the other Family witnesses, Squeaky, Sandy, and the others, “All of them sounded like a broken record on that witness stand. They all have the same thought; they use the same language; each one was a carbon copy of the other. They are all still totally subservient and subject to Charles Manson. They are his X’d-out slaves.”
I came now to the copycat motive. My objective was to completely demolish it, yet not dwell on it so long that it would seem that I was giving it credence.
“It is really laughable, ladies and gentlemen,” I began, “the way the three female defendants and the defense witnesses sought to take the hat off Charles Manson.
“They had to come up with a motive for these murders other than Helter Skelter. Why? Because no less than ten witnesses during the guilt trial had irrevocably connected Manson with Helter Skelter, so they certainly could not say from that witness stand that the motive for these murders was Helter Skelter. If they said that, they would be saying, ‘Yes, Charles Manson masterminded these murders.’ So they came up with the copycat motive.
“I could give you between twenty and thirty reasons why it’s obvious that this nonsensical story of the defense was fabricated out of whole cloth, but I won’t take up your time with it, and I am not going to insult your intelligence.” I did point out a few:
Linda Kasabian testified during the penalty trial that she had never heard anyone discuss committing these murders to free Bobby Beausoleil.
Gary Hinman was stabbed not more than four times. Voytek Frykowski was stabbed fifty-one times, Rosemary LaBianca forty-one times, Leno LaBianca twenty-six times. Rather a great difference, if these were copycat slayings.
And, if these murders were to be carbon copies, why weren’t the words “political piggy” used at the Tate and LaBianca residences? And why no bloody paw print at the latter two houses?
The most powerful evidence demolishing this ridiculous motive, I noted, was that as early as February 1969, “long before there was any Hinman murder to copy, long before there were any words ‘political piggy’ to copy, Manson told Brooks Poston and other Family members—including all of his co-defendants—that, quoting Poston: ‘He said a group of real blacks would come out of the ghettos and do an atrocious crime in the richer sections of Los Angeles and other cities. They would do an atrocious murder with stabbing, killing, cutting bodies to pieces, smearing blood on the walls, writing “pigs” on the walls.’
“Writing ‘pig’ on the walls,” I repeated.
“So writing ‘pig’ at the Tate and LaBianca residences was simply a part of Manson’s blueprint for starting Helter Skelter, not an effort to copy the Hinman murder.
“Incidentally,” I observed, “Mr. Kanarek never did try to explain to you why the words ‘helter skelter’ were printed in blood on the refrigerator door at the LaBianca residence. What does Helter Skelter have to do with freeing Bobby Beausoleil or an alleged $1,000 MDA burn at the Tate residence? Absolutely nothing, that’s what. The words ‘helter skelter’ were found printed in blood on the LaBianca refrigerator door because all of the evidence at this trial shows beyond all doubt that Helter Skelter was the principal reason for these savage murders.
“Yes,” I admitted, “there is a connection between the Hinman murder and the Tate-LaBianca murders. But it was not this silly Bobby Beausoleil nonsense. Here is the connection. Mr. Manson not only ordered the Tate- LaBianca murders, he also ordered the Hinman murder. That is the connection.”
As for Susan Atkins’ claim that Linda Kasabian masterminded these murders, I noted that not until the penalty phase did she say anything about this, and then “all of a sudden Linda Kasabian is Charles Manson.”
I noted some of the reasons why this was preposterous, among them the ridiculousness of the docile, subservient Linda taking over the leadership of the Family in just one month. “Only one person ordered these murders, ladies and gentlemen, and his initials are CM. He also has an aka: JC. And he is in that lockup right now listening to me…”
The most preposterous thing about all this was that supposedly for one and a half years both Sadie and Gypsy kept this secret in their perjurous bosoms. They not only didn’t tell the other members of the Family, they didn’t even tell Manson’s attorney, though both testified they loved and would willingly die for Charlie.
“And why didn’t they tell him about this motive? Because it didn’t exist. It was recently fabricated.”
As for Manson’s alibi, that he was with Stephanie Schram in Devil’s Canyon on both of these nights, “Isn’t it strange that all of Mr. Manson’s X’d-out slaves have testified to this during the penalty trial, and the very person, Stephanie Schram, whom they claim Manson was with, testified that Manson was not with her?”
I then addressed myself to the issue of whether the four defendants should receive the death penalty.
The strongest argument that can be made in support of capital punishment is, I feel, deterrence—that it may save additional lives. Unfortunately, under California law the prosecution could not argue deterrence, only retribution.
“These weren’t typical murders, ladies and gentlemen. This was a one-sided war where unspeakable atrocities were committed. If all of these defendants don’t receive the death penalty, the typical first-degree murderer only deserves ten days in the County Jail.”
As for Fitzgerald’s contention that killing these defendants would not bring the seven victims back to life, “If we were to accept that line of reasoning, no one would ever be punished for any crime, since punishing a person does not remove the fact that the crime was committed.” For example, “Don’t punish a man for arson because the punishment is not going to rebuild the building.”
