“You have to have a real love in your heart to do this for people.”
OCTOBER 15–31, 1969
The physical distance between Parker Center, headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Hall of Justice, which houses the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, is four blocks. That distance can be traversed in the time it takes to dial a telephone.
But it isn’t always that easy. Though LAPD and LASO cooperate on investigations that involve both jurisdictions, there exists between them a certain amount of jealousy.
One of the LaBianca detectives would later admit that he and his fellow officers
When they did, they learned of the Hinman murder. And, unlike Sergeant Buckles of the Tate team, they found the similarities striking enough to merit further investigation.
There had been some recent developments in the Hinman case, Sergeants Whiteley and Guenther told them. Less than a week before, Inyo County officers had raided isolated Barker Ranch, located in an extremely rugged, almost inaccessible area south of Death Valley National Monument. The raid, based on charges ranging from grand theft to arson, had netted twenty-four members of a hippie cult known as the “Manson Family.” Many of these same people—including their leader, Charles Manson, a thirty-four-year-old ex-con with a long and checkered criminal history—had also been arrested in an earlier raid conducted by LASO, which had occurred on August 16, at Spahn’s Movie Ranch in Chatsworth.
During the Barker raid, which took place over a three-day period, two young girls had appeared out of the bushes near a road some miles from the ranch, asking the officers for protection. They claimed they had been attempting to flee the “Family” and were afraid for their lives. One was named Stephanie Schram, the other Kitty Lutesinger.
Whiteley and Guenther had been looking for Kitty Lutesinger ever since learning that she was a girl friend of Bobby Beausoleil, the suspect in the Hinman murder. Informed of her arrest, they drove 225 miles to Independence, the Inyo County seat, to question her.
Kitty, a freckled, frightened seventeen-year-old, was five months pregnant with Beausoleil’s child. Though she had lived with the Family, she apparently was not trusted by them. When Beausoleil disappeared from Spahn Ranch in early August, no one would tell her where he had gone. Only after several weeks did she learn that he had been arrested, and, much later, that he had been charged with the murder of Gary Hinman.
Questioned about the murder, Kitty said she had heard that Manson had sent Beausoleil and a girl named Susan Atkins to Hinman’s home to get money from him. A fight had ensued, and Hinman had been killed. Kitty couldn’t recall who told her this, just that it was the talk at the ranch. She did recall, however, another conversation in which Susan Atkins told her and several other girls that she had been in a fight with a man who had pulled her hair, and that she had stabbed him three or four times in the legs.
Susan Atkins had been arrested in the Barker raid and booked under the name “Sadie Mae Glutz.” She was still in custody. On October 13, the day after they talked to Kitty, Sergeants Whiteley and Guenther questioned her.
She told them that she and Bobby Beausoleil were sent to Gary Hinman’s house to get some money he had supposedly inherited. When he wouldn’t give it to them, Beausoleil pulled out a knife and slashed Hinman’s face. For two days and two nights the pair had taken turns sleeping, so Hinman wouldn’t escape. Then, on their last evening at the residence, while she was in the kitchen, she had heard Gary say, “Don’t, Bobby!” Hinman then staggered into the kitchen bleeding from a chest wound.
Even after this, Hinman didn’t die. After wiping the house of prints (not effectively, since both a palm print and a fingerprint belonging to Beausoleil were found), they were going out the front door when they heard Hinman moaning. Beausoleil went back in, and she heard Gary cry out, “Oh, no, Bobby, please don’t!” She also heard “a sound like gurgling as when people are dying.”
Beausoleil then hot-wired Hinman’s 1965 Volkswagen bus and they drove back to Spahn Ranch.
Whiteley and Guenther asked Susan if she would repeat her statement on tape. She declined. She was transported to the San Dimas sheriff’s station, where she was booked for suspicion of murder.
Susan Atkins’ statement—unlike that of Kitty Lutesinger—did not implicate Manson in the Hinman murder. Nor, contrary to what Kitty had said, did Susan admit to having stabbed anyone. Whiteley and Guenther strongly suspected she was telling only what she thought they already knew.
Nor were the two LaBianca detectives very impressed. Hinman had been close to the Manson Family; several of its members—including Beausoleil, Atkins, even Manson himself—had lived with him at various times in the past. In short, there was a link. But there was no evidence that Manson or any of his followers knew the LaBiancas or the people at 10050 Cielo Drive.
Still, it was a lead, and they proceeded to check it out. Kitty had been released into the custody of her parents, who had a local address, and they interviewed her there. From LASO, Inyo County officials, Manson’s parole officer, and others, they began assembling names, descriptions, and fingerprints of persons known to belong to or associate with the Family. Kitty had mentioned that while the Family was still living at Spahn, Manson had tried to enlist a motorcycle gang, the Straight Satans, as his personal bodyguard. With the exception of one biker named Danny, the group had laughed at Manson. Danny had stuck around for several months.
On learning that the motorcycle gang hung out in Venice, California, the LaBianca detectives asked Venice PD if they could locate a Straight Satan named Danny.
Something in Kitty Lutesinger’s statement puzzled Whiteley and Guenther. At first they thought it was just a discrepancy. But then they got to wondering. According to Kitty, Susan Atkins had admitted stabbing a man three or four times in the legs.
Gary Hinman hadn’t been stabbed in the legs.
But Voytek Frykowski had.
Although rebuffed once before, on October 20 the sheriff’s deputies again contacted the Tate detectives at LAPD, telling them what they had learned.
It is possible to measure the Tate detectives’ interest with some exactness. Not until October 31, eleven days later, did they interview Kitty Lutesinger.
NOVEMBER 1–12, 1969
November was a month for confessions. Which, initially, no one believed.
After being booked for the Hinman murder, Susan Denise Atkins, aka[15] Sadie Mae Glutz, was moved to Sybil Brand Institute, the women’s house of detention in
