is!” Because he was so desperate, I decided to back off, agreeing not to object if he would describe this as a hypothetical situation—“Imagine that this is happening”—and not as fact. He did so, after which Judge Older instructed the jury. They left the courtroom at 5:25 P.M. on Friday, March 26, 1971.
While I felt confident that the jury would return a death penalty verdict against Charles Manson, I was less sure when it came to the girls. Only four females had been executed in California history, none of them as young as the defendants.
I had anticipated that the jury would be out at least four days. When I received the call Monday afternoon, after only two days, I knew there could be only one verdict. It was too fast for anything else. Their actual deliberations, I later learned, had taken only ten hours.
Again under extraordinary security precautions, the jury was brought back into the courtroom, at 4:24 P.M. on Monday, March 29, with their verdicts.
Manson and the girls had been brought into the courtroom earlier—the three female defendants now, when it was too late to influence the jury, having shaved their heads also—but before the clerk could read the first verdict, Manson yelled, “I don’t see how you can get by with this without letting me put on some kind of defense… You people have no authority over me…Half of you in here ain’t as good as I am…” and Older ordered him removed.
Manson’s no-defense claim was nonsense. It was obvious that the defense he intended to put on during the guilt phase had been delivered in toto during the penalty phase. The jury’s reaction to it was now being delivered, in a courtroom jammed with spectators and press.
The clerk read the first verdict: “We, the jury in the above-entitled action, having found the defendant Charles Manson guilty of murder in the first degree as charged in Count I of the Indictment, do now fix the penalty as death.”
KRENWINKEL “You have just judged yourselves.”
ATKINS “Better lock your doors and watch your own kids.”
VAN HOUTEN “Your whole system is a game. You blind, stupid people. Your children will turn against you.”
Judge Older had the three girls removed. They too listened over the loudspeaker as the clerk fixed the penalty for all four defendants as death on all counts.
Judge Older left the bench to shake hands with each juror. “If it were within the power of a trial judge to award a medal of honor to jurors,” he told them, “believe me, I would bestow an award on each of you.”
For the first time the jurors could speak to the press about their ordeal.
Jury foreman Herman Tubick told reporters that the jury was convinced “the motive was Helter Skelter.” Mrs. Thelma McKenzie said the jury had “certainly tried” to find points upon which they could sentence the female defendants to a verdict less severe, “but we couldn’t.” William McBride remarked: “I felt sympathy for the women but sympathy can’t interfere with justice. What they did deserves the death penalty.” Marie Mesmer said she felt more pity for Susan Atkins than for the other two girls, because of her background, but that she was shocked when all three showed no signs of remorse. As for Manson, she said: “I wanted to protect society. I think Manson is a very dangerous influence.” Jean Roseland, mother of three teen-agers, two of them girls, said the most terrible part of the whole trial was Leslie Van Houten “looking at me with those big brown eyes.” Mrs. Roseland was convinced Manson’s power to manipulate others came not from within himself but “from the voids within the minds and souls of his followers.”
Later
Ironically, there appeared in the same issue an article entitled “Paul McCartney on the Beatles Breakup.”
That there had been irreconcilable troubles within the group became apparent, McCartney said, while they were making the White Album.
Colonel Paul Tate was reported to have said, regarding the death sentence verdicts: “That’s what we wanted. That’s what we expected. But there’s no jubilation in something like this, no sense of satisfaction. It’s more a feeling that justice has been done. Naturally I wanted the death penalty. They took my daughter and my grandchild.”
Mrs. Tate told reporters that she didn’t believe any human being should have the power to take a life, that that was up to God.
Roman Polanski declined comment, as did the other relatives of the victims whom the media contacted.
Sandy, Cathy, and the other girls on the corner had threatened to burn themselves to death with gasoline if any of the four were given death sentences. They didn’t carry out their threat, though all did later shave their heads.
On learning of the decision, Sandy looked into the TV cameras and screamed: “
With the exception of the sentencing, the trial was over. It had been the longest murder trial in American history, lasting nine and a half months; the most expensive, costing approximately $1 million; and the most highly publicized; while the jury had been sequestered 225 days, longer than any jury before it. The trial transcript alone ran to 209 volumes, 31,716 pages, approximately eight million words, a mini-library.
For almost everyone, the ordeal was not only long but expensive. A number of the jurors, anticipating that they would be paid by their employers, now found themselves either unpaid or without jobs. Mrs. Roseland, for example, claimed that TWA did not honor a verbal agreement to keep her on salary until the end of the trial, and estimated she lost about $2,700 in back pay. TWA denied there was any such agreement. There were several such denials.
The financial sacrifice on the part of the defense attorneys was enormous. Fitzgerald said: “It’s just really wiped me out.” He told a reporter that he had lost about $30,000 in income and incurred $10,000 in trial expenses. He had been forced to sell his stereo and other possessions, and had spent $5,000 which he didn’t have. Six- times-married Daye Shinn said: “I’m behind in my house payments and child support and my alimonies.” Shinn had received $19,000 in royalties from the Atkins book, he said, but he claimed that about $16,000 of it went back to the Manson Family. Kanarek refused to discuss his financial situation. Another of the defense attorneys did tell me, however, that at one point during the trial Manson had ordered Shinn to give Kanarek $5,000 from the Atkins account, to help defray his expenses, but how much more he received, if any, is unknown. Keith, who received a fee from the county, since he was court-appointed, admitted his private practice had gone downhill and that he didn’t expect to gain any new clients as a result of the publicity.
The trial cost another attorney his life.
In the avalanche of stories on the Manson verdict, one small item which appeared that same day went almost unnoticed.
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office reported that they had found a body believed to be that of the missing defense attorney, Ronald Hughes. The badly decomposed corpse had been found face down, wedged between two boulders, in Sespe Creek, miles from where Hughes had last been seen alive.
Two fishermen had discovered the body early Saturday but didn’t report it until Sunday night, because “we didn’t want to spoil our fishing trip.”
The cause of death was at this time unknown. Through our office, I ordered an immediate autopsy.
APRIL 19, 1971
Judge Older had set Monday, April 19, 1971, as the date of sentencing.
There was speculation that Older might decide on his own to reduce at least some of the verdicts from death to life. In a previous case Older had done this for a defendant who had poured gasoline on two beds where
