job, at the stereo shop, later that afternoon.
About 12:30 two of Sharon’s friends, Joanna Pettet (Mrs. Alex Cord)[12] and Barbara Lewis, arrived at Cielo for lunch. Mrs. Chapman served them. It was all small talk, the women would later recall, mostly about the expected baby. Sharon showed the two women the nursery, and introduced them to Guerrero.
About 1 P.M. Sandy Tennant called Sharon. As previously noted, Sharon told her she wasn’t planning a party that evening, but did invite her to drop by, an invitation Sandy declined.
(If one believed all the subsequent talk, half of Hollywood was invited to 10050 Cielo Drive for a party that night, and, at the last minute, changed their minds. According to Winifred Chapman, Sandy Tennant, Debbie Tate, and others close to Sharon, there was no party that night, nor was one ever planned. But LAPD probably spent a hundred man-hours attempting to locate people who allegedly attended the non-event.)
Having finished the first coat of paint, Guerrero left about 1:30. He didn’t replace the screens, since he intended to return Monday to give the room a final coat. The police later concluded the killer(s) either didn’t notice they were off or feared entering a freshly painted room.
About 2 P.M. Abigail purchased a bicycle from a shop on Santa Monica Boulevard, arranging for it to be delivered later that afternoon. About the same time David Martinez, one of Altobelli’s two gardeners, arrived at 10050 Cielo and began work. Voytek and Abigail arrived not long after this, joining Sharon and her guests for a late lunch.
About 3 P.M. the second gardener, Tom Vargas, arrived. As he came in the gate, Abigail was driving out in her Camaro. Five minutes later Voytek also left, driving the Firebird.
Joanna Pettet and Barbara Lewis departed about 3:30.
At about that same time Sebring’s butler, Amos Russell, served Jay and his current female companion coffee in bed.[13] About 3:45 Jay called Sharon, apparently telling her he would be over earlier than expected. He later called his secretary, to pick up his messages, and John Madden, to discuss his visit to the San Francisco salon the next day. He didn’t mention to either his plans for that evening, but he did tell Madden he had spent the day hard at work on a crest for the new franchise shops.
Just after Sebring called Sharon, Mrs. Chapman told her she had finished her work and was leaving for the day. Since it was so hot in the city, Sharon asked her if she would like to stay over. Mrs. Chapman declined. It was undoubtedly the most important decision she ever made.
David Martinez was just leaving, and he gave Mrs. Chapman a ride to the bus stop. Vargas remained behind, completing his work. While gardening near the house, he noticed Sharon asleep on the bed in her room. When a deliveryman from the Air Dispatch Company arrived with the two blue steamer trunks, Vargas, not wishing to disturb Mrs. Polanski, signed for them. The time, 4:30 P.M., was noted on the receipt. The trunks contained Sharon’s clothing, which Roman had shipped from London.
Abigail kept her 4:30 appointment with Dr. Flicker.
Before Vargas left, about 4:45, he went back to the guest house and asked Garretson if he would do some watering over the weekend, as the weather was extremely hot and dry.
Across the city, in El Monte, Steven Parent hurried home, changed clothes, waved to his mother, and was off to his second job.
Between 5:30 and 6 P.M. Mrs. Terry Kay was backing out of her driveway at 9845 Easton Drive when she observed Jay Sebring driving down the road in his Porsche, seemingly in a hurry. Perhaps because her car was blocking his progress, he did not wave in his usual genial manner.
Sometime between 6 and 6:30 P.M. Sharon’s thirteen-year-old sister Debbie called her, asking if she could drop by that evening with some friends. Sharon, who tired easily because of her advanced pregnancy, suggested they make it another time.
Between 7:30 and 8 P.M. Dennis Hurst arrived at the Cielo address to deliver the bicycle Abigail had purchased in his father’s shop earlier that day. Sebring (whom Hurst later identified from photographs) answered the door. Hurst saw no one else and observed nothing suspicious.
Between 9:45 and 10 P.M. John Del Gaudio, manager of the El Coyote Restaurant on Beverly Boulevard, noted Jay Sebring’s name on the waiting list for dinner: party of four. Del Gaudio didn’t actually see Sebring or the others, and it is probable that he was off on the time, as waitress Kathy Palmer, who served the four, recalled they waited in the bar fifteen to twenty minutes before a table was available, then, after finishing dinner, left about 9:45 or 10. Shown photographs, she was unable to positively identify Sebring, Tate, Frykowski, or Folger.
If Abigail was along, they must have left the restaurant before ten, as it was about this time that Mrs. Folger called the Cielo number and talked to her, confirming that she planned to take the 10 A.M. United flight to San Francisco the next morning. Mrs. Folger told the police that “Abigail did not express any alarm or anxiety as to her personal safety or the situation at the Polanski house.”
A number of people reported seeing Sharon and/or Jay at the Candy Store, the Factory, the Daisy, or various other clubs that night. None of the reports checked out. Several persons claimed to have talked by phone with one or another of the victims between 10 P.M. and midnight. When questioned, they suddenly changed their stories, or told them in such a way that the police concluded they were either confused or lying.
About 11 P.M. Steve Parent stopped at Dales Market in El Monte and asked his friend John LeFebure if he wanted to go for a ride. Parent had been dating John’s younger sister Jean. John suggested they make it another night.
About forty-five minutes later Steve Parent arrived at the Cielo address, hoping to sell William Garretson a clock radio. Parent left the guest house about 12:15 A.M. He got as far as his Rambler.
The police also interviewed a number of other girls rumored to have been with Sebring on the evening of August 8.
“Ex-girl friend of Sebring, was supposed to have been with him on 8-8-69–not so—last slept with him 7-5-69. Cooperative, knew he used ‘C’—she does not…”
“…dated him steady for three months…knew nothing of his way-out bedroom activities…”
“…was to go to a party at Cielo that night, but went to a movie instead…”
It was no small assignment, considering the number of girls the stylist had dated, yet none of the detectives was heard to complain. It wasn’t every day they got the chance to talk to starlets, models, a
There was another barometer to the fear: the difficulty the police had in locating people. To have suddenly moved a few days after a crime would, in ordinary circumstances, be considered suspicious. But not in this case. From a not untypical report: “Asked why she had moved right after the murders, she replied that she wasn’t sure why, that like everyone else in Hollywood she was just afraid…”
AUGUST 16–30, 1969
Though the police told the press there had been “no new developments,” there were some that went unreported. After testing them for blood, Sergeant Joe Granado gave the three pieces of gun grip to Sergeant William Lee of the Firearms and Explosives Unit of SID. Lee didn’t even have to consult his manuals; one look and he knew the grip was from a Hi Standard gun. He called Ed Lomax, product manager for the firm that owns Hi Standard, and arranged to meet him at the Police Academy. Lomax also made a quick ID. “Only one gun has a grip like that,” he told Lee, “the Hi Standard .22 caliber Longhorn revolver.” Popularly known as the “Buntline Special”— patterned after a pair of revolvers Western author Ned Buntline had made for Marshal Wyatt Earp—the gun had the following specifications: capacity 9 shots, barrel 9? inches, over-all length 15 inches, walnut grips, blue finish, weight 35 ounces, suggested retail price $69.95. It was, Lomax said, “rather a unique revolver”; introduced in April 1967, only 2,700 had been manufactured with this type grip.
Lee obtained from Lomax a list of stores where the gun had been sold, plus a photograph of the model, and LAPD began preparing a flyer which they planned to send to every police department in the United States and
