defense attorney popping up in court pointing a finger, or rather a pair of eyeglasses, at an alternate suspect.
I was also curious about whom those glasses belonged to.
After Calkins and McGann left, I got in touch with the LaBianca dectectives and gave them similar instructions regarding the photos and the Waverly Drive latents.
Five of the Manson girls were still in jail in Independence. LAPD decided to bring them to Los Angeles for individual interrogation. They would be confined at Sybil Brand but a “keep away” would be placed on each. This meant they could have no contact with each other or with anyone else LAPD designated—for example, Susan Atkins.
It was a good move on LAPD’s part. There was a chance that, questioned separately, one or more might decide to talk.
That evening TV commentator George Putnam startled his listeners with the announcement that on Wednesday he would reveal who had committed the Tate murders. Our office called LAPD, who had their public relations spokesman, Lieutenant Hagen, contact Putnam and other representatives of the media asking them to hold off, because publicity now would hurt our investigation. All the newspapers, wire services, and radio and TV stations agreed to sit on the story, but only for one week, until Monday, December 1. The news was too big, and each was afraid someone else would try for a scoop.
There had been a leak. It wouldn’t be the last.
On Tuesday, the twenty-fifth, Frank Fowles, the Inyo County DA, called, and we traded some information.
Fowles told me that Sandra Good had been overheard talking again. She had told another Family member that Charlie was going to “go alibi.” If he was brought to trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders, they would produce evidence showing he wasn’t even in Los Angeles at the time the murders occurred.
I told Fowles of a rumor I’d heard. According to McGann, a police informant in Las Vegas had told him that Charles “Tex” Montgomery and Bruce Davis had been seen there the previous day, driving a green panel Volkswagen. They had allegedly told someone that they were attempting to raise enough money to bail out Manson; failing in that, they intended to kill someone.
Fowles had heard similar rumblings among the Manson girls. He took them seriously enough to send his own family out of Inyo County over the Thanksgiving weekend. He remained behind, however, ready to forestall any bail attempt.
After hanging up, I called Patchett and Gutierrez of the LaBianca team and told them I wanted a detailed report on Manson’s activities the week of the murders. Unlike the Tate detectives, they didn’t ask how to do it. They went out and did it, eventually giving me evidence which, together with other information we obtained, would blow any alibi defense to smithereens.
That afternoon McGann and Patchett re-interviewed Ronnie Howard, this time on tape. She provided several details she’d recalled since LAPD last talked to her, but nothing that was of help in the current investigation. We still didn’t know who all the killers were.
Wednesday, November 26. “Hung jury on Beausoleil,” one of the deputy DAs yelled in the door of my office. “Eight to four for conviction.”
The case had been so weak our office hadn’t sought the death penalty. Also, the jury hadn’t believed Danny DeCarlo. Brought in at the last minute, without adequate preparation, he had not been a convincing witness.
Later that day LASO asked my office if I would take over the prosecution of Beausoleil in his new trial, and I was assigned this case in addition to the two cases I was already handling.
That same morning Virginia Graham decided she had to tell someone what she knew. A few days earlier her husband had visited her at Corona. Whispering through the wire screen in the visitor’s room, she told him she had heard something about the Benedict Canyon murders, and didn’t know what to do.
He advised her: “Mind your own business.”
But, she would later state: “I can see a lot of things I don’t say anything about, but this is sick. This is so bad that I don’t know who could mind their own business with this.”[35]
Having failed to get an appointment with Dr. Dreiser, Virginia instead went to her counselor. The authorities at Corona called LAPD. At 3:15 that afternoon Sergeant Nielsen arrived at the prison and began taping her story.
Unlike Ronnie, who was unsure whether four or five people were involved in the Tate homicides, Virginia recalled Sadie’s saying there were three girls and one man. Like Ronnie, however, she presumed the man, “Charles,” was Manson.
The individual questioning of the five girls took place that afternoon and evening at Sybil Brand.
Sergeant Manuel “Chick” Gutierrez interviewed Dianne Bluestein, aka Snake, t/n Dianne Lake, given age twenty-one, true age sixteen. The interview was taped. Listening to the tapes later, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Q. “My name is Sergeant Gutierrez and I’m with the Los Angeles Police Department and I work homicide…. I’ve talked to several of the girls. The girls have been real nice and we’ve had some long, long chats. We know a lot of things that went on over at Spahn. We know a lot that happened other places. We know who is involved, and who is not involved. We also know things that maybe you don’t know, that we’re not going to tell you until the right time comes up, but we’ve got to talk to everybody who was involved, and I think you know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Charlie and the Family and everybody. I don’t know how tight you are with the Family. You’re probably real tight with them, but somebody’s going to go down the tubes, and somebody’s going to get the pill in the gas chamber for a whole bunch of murders which you are a part of, or so some other people have indicated.”
There was no evidence whatsoever that Dianne was involved in any of the murders, but “Chick” wasn’t deterred by this.
“Now, I’m here for one specific reason, and that’s to listen to you, see what you’ve got to say, so I can go to the District Attorney and tell him, ‘Look, this is what Dianne told me, and she’s willing to turn state’s evidence in return for her full release.’ We’re not interested in nailing you. We’re interested in the big guy, and you know who we’re talking about, right, honey?”
A. [No audible answer]
Q. “Now, somebody’s going to go to that gas chamber, you know that. This is just too big. This is the biggest murder of the century. You know that and I know it. So, in order to protect yourself from getting even indicted or spending the rest of your life in jail, then you’re going to have to come up with some answers…We know of about fourteen murders right now, and you know which ones I’m talking about.”
A. [Unintelligible]
Gutierrez accused her of involvement in all fourteen. He then said: “I’m prepared to give you complete immunity, which means that if you are straight with me, right down the line, I’ll be straight with you, and I’ll guarantee you that you will walk out of that jail a free woman ready to start over again and never go back up there to Independence to do any time. I wouldn’t say that unless I meant it, right?”
Actually, Sergeant Gutierrez did not have the authority to guarantee this. The granting of immunity is a complicated procedure, involving the approval not only of the Police Department but also of the District Attorney’s Office, with the final decision being made by the Court. Gutierrez offered it to her as casually as if it were a stick of gum.
Commenting on her silence, Sergeant Gutierrez said, “Now, what’s that going to prove, huh? Right now the only thing you’re proving to me, honey, is that, heck, you’re out there sticking your nose out for a guy by the name of Charlie. Now, what’s Charlie? He got you guys in all this problem. You could have been out right now doing your thing, but here you’re holding silent for what? For Charlie? Charlie ain’t never going to get out of that jail. You know
