A partial description of one of the Tate killers? Possibly. It was also possible that the glasses belonged to someone totally unconnected with the crime, or that they had been left behind as a false clue.
It was at least something to go on. Another flyer, with the exact specifications of the prescription, was sent to all members of the American Optometric Association, the California Optometric Association, the Los Angeles County Optometric Association, and the Ophthalmologists of Southern California, in hopes that it would yield more than had the flyer on the gun.
Of the 131 Hi Standard Longhorn revolvers sold in California, law-enforcement agencies had been able to locate and eliminate 105, a surprisingly large percentage, since many of the owners had moved to other jurisdictions. The search continued, but to date it hadn’t yielded a single good suspect. A second gun letter was sent to thirteen different gunshops in the United States which, in recent months, had ordered replacement grips for the Longhorn model. Though the replies to this one wouldn’t come back until much later, it too drew a blank.
Nor were the LaBianca detectives having any better luck. To date they had given eleven polygraphs; all had been negative. As a result of an MO run through the CII computer, the fingerprints of 140 suspects were checked; a palm print found on a bank deposit slip was checked against 2,150 suspects; and a fingerprint found on the liquor cabinet was checked against a total of 41,034 suspects. All uniformly negative.
At the end of September neither the Tate nor the LaBianca detectives bothered to write up a progress report.
OCTOBER 1969
October 10. Two months had passed since the Tate homicides. “What is going on behind the scenes in the Los Angeles Police investigation (if there is such a thing) of the bizarre murder of Sharon Tate and four others?” the Hollywood
Officially, LAPD remained silent, as they had since their last news conference on the case, on September 3, when Deputy Chief Houghton, while admitting that they still didn’t know who had committed the murders, said the detectives had made “tremendous progress.”
“Exactly what progress?” reporters asked. The pressure was building; the fear remained, if possible even increased, owing to the suggestion, less than subtly hinted at by a popular TV commentator, that perhaps the police were covering for a person or persons “prominent in the entertainment industry.”
Meanwhile the leaks continued. The media reported that narcotics had been found in several places at the Tate residence; that some of the victims had been on drugs at the time they died. By October it was also widely reported that the gun sought was a .22 (though it was identified as a pistol, rather than a revolver), and there was even one TV report—which the police quickly broke silence to deny—that pieces of the gun’s grip had been found at the crime scene. The TV station stuck by its information, despite the official denial.
A .22, with a broken grip. Several times Bernard Weiss got to wondering about that gun his son Steven had found. Could it be the Tate murder weapon?
But that was ridiculous. After all, the police themselves had the gun, and, had it been the weapon, would surely have returned by now to ask more questions and search the hillside. Since turning the weapon over to them on September 1, Weiss had heard nothing. When there was no follow-up, Steven had taken it on himself to make a search of the area. He’d found nothing. Still, Beverly Glen wasn’t all that far from Cielo Drive, just a couple of miles.
But Bernard Weiss had better things to do than play detective. That was LAPD’s responsibility.
On October 17, Lieutenant Helder and Deputy Chief Houghton told reporters that they had evidence which, if it could be traced, might lead to “the killers”—plural—of Sharon Tate and the four others. They refused to be more specific.
The press conference had been called in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure on LAPD. No solid information was released, but a number of current rumors were denied.
Less than a week later, on October 23, LAPD very hastily called another press conference, to announce that they had a clue to the identity of “the killer”—singular—of the five Tate victims: a pair of prescription eyeglasses that had been found at the scene.
The announcement was made only because several papers had that same day already printed the “wanted” flyer on the glasses.
Approximately 18,000 eye doctors had received the flyer from their various member associations; in addition, it had been printed verbatim in the
Starved for solid news, the press heralded “a major breakthrough in the case,” overlooking the obvious fact that the police had had the glasses in their possession since the day the Tate victims were discovered.
Lieutenant Helder refused comment when a reporter, obviously with excellent connections inside the department, asked if it was true that to date the glasses flyer had yielded only seven suspects, all of whom had already been eliminated.
It was indicative of the desperation of the Tate detectives that the second, and last, Tate progress report, prepared the day before the press conference, stated: “At this time Garretson has not been positively eliminated.”
The Tate report, covering the period September 1–October 22, 1969, ran to twenty-six pages, most of which were devoted to closing out the cases against Wilson, Pickett, et al.
The LaBianca report, closed out on October 15, was a little shorter, twenty-two pages, but far more interesting.
In one section of the report the detectives mentioned their use of the CII computer: “A MO run on all crimes where the victims were tied is presently being run. Future runs will be made concentrating on the peculiarities of the robberies, used gloves, wore glasses or disabled the phone.”
The conclusion is inescapable: The LaBianca detectives had decided—on their own, and without consulting the Tate detectives—to see if they could solve the Tate, as well as the LaBianca, case.
The second LaBianca report was interesting for still another reason.
It listed eleven suspects, the last of whom was one MANSON, CHARLES.
PART 2
The Killers
“You couldn’t meet a nicer group of people.”
