Bill Lee of SID compared the three pieces of gun grip with the butt of the revolver: a perfect fit. Joe Granado tested some brown spots on the barrel: blood, human, same type and subtype as Jay Sebring’s. After test-firing the gun, Lee placed the test bullets and the Tate bullets under a comparison microscope. Three of the four bullets recovered after the Tate murders were either too fragmented or battered for the stria to be matched up. With the fourth, the Sebring bullet, he made a positive ID. There was no doubt whatsoever, he told me, that it had been fired from the .22 Longhorn.
One very important step remained: linking the gun to Charles Manson. I asked the Tate detectives to show it to DeCarlo, to determine if it was the same gun with which Manson and the other men used to target-practice at Spahn. I also requested as complete a history of the gun as they could manage, from the day it was manufactured by Hi Standard to the day it was found by Steven Weiss.
It was decided that there was insufficient evidence to convict either Gypsy or Brenda, and the two hard-core Manson Family members were released from custody. Although Brenda returned to her parents for a short time, both soon rejoined Squeaky, Sandy, and the other Family members at Spahn, lonely George having weakened and let them move back to the ranch.
Manson’s frequent court appearances gave me opportunities to study him. Though he’d had little formal schooling, he was fairly articulate, and definitely bright. He picked up little nuances, seemed to consider all the hidden sides of a question before answering. His moods were mercurial, his facial expressions chameleonlike. Underneath, however, there was a strange intensity. You felt it even when he was joking, which, despite the seriousness of the charges, was often. He frequently played to the always packed courtroom, not only to the Family faithful but to the press and spectators as well. Spotting a pretty girl, he’d often smile or wink. Usually they appeared more flattered than offended.
Though their responses surprised me, they shouldn’t have. I’d already heard that Manson was receiving a large volume of mail, including many “love letters,” the majority of which were from young girls who wanted to join the Family.
On December 17, Manson appeared before Judge Keene and asked to have the Public Defender dismissed. He wanted to represent himself, he said.
Judge Keene told Manson that he was not convinced that he was competent to represent himself, or, in legal jargon, to proceed “in pro per” (in propria persona).
MANSON “Your Honor, there is no way I can give up my voice in this matter. If I can’t speak, then our whole thing is done. If I can’t speak in my own defense and converse freely in this courtroom, then it ties my hands behind my back, and if I have no voice, then there is no sense in having a defense.”
Keene agreed to reconsider Manson’s motion on the twenty-second.
Manson’s insistence that only he could speak for himself, as well as his obvious enjoyment at being in the spotlight, led me to one conclusion: when the time came, he probably wouldn’t be able to resist taking the stand.
I began keeping a notebook of questions I intended to ask him on cross-examination. Before long there was a second notebook, and a third.
On the nineteenth Leslie Van Houten also asked to have her present attorney, Donald Barnett, dismissed. Keene granted the motion and appointed Marvin Part to be Miss Van Houten’s attorney of record.
Only later would we learn what was happening behind the scenes. Manson had set up his own communications network. Whenever he heard that an attorney for one of the girls had initiated a move on behalf of his client which could conceivably run counter to Manson’s own defense, within days that attorney would be removed from the case. Barnett had wanted a psychiatrist to examine Leslie. Learning of this, Manson vetoed the idea, and when the psychiatrist appeared at Sybil Brand, Leslie refused to see him. Her request for Barnett’s dismissal came immediately after.
Manson’s goal: to run the entire defense himself. In court as well as out, Charlie intended to retain complete control of the Family.
Manson wanted to represent himself, he told the court, because “lawyers play with people, and I am a person and I don’t want to be played with in this matter.” Most lawyers were only interested in one thing, publicity, Manson said. He’d seen quite a few of them lately and felt he knew what he was talking about. Any attorney previously associated with the DA’s Office was not acceptable to him, he added. He had learned that two other defendants had court-appointed attorneys who were once deputy DAs (Caballero and Part).
Judge Keene explained that many lawyers engaged in the practice of criminal law first gained experience in the office of the District Attorney, the City Attorney, or the U.S. Attorney. Knowing how the prosecution worked was often a benefit to their clients.
MANSON “It sounds good from there, but not from here.”
“Your Honor,” Manson continued, “I am in a difficult position. The news media has already executed and buried me…If anyone is hypnotized, the people are hypnotized by the lies being told to them…There is no attorney in the world who can represent me as a person. I have to do it myself.”
Judge Keene had a suggestion. He would arrange for an experienced attorney to confer with him. Unlike other attorneys to whom Manson had talked, this attorney would have no interest in representing him. His function would be solely to discuss with him the legal issues, and the possible dangers, of defending himself. Manson accepted the offer and, after court, Keene arranged for Joseph Ball, a former president of the State Bar Association and former senior counsel to the Warren Commission, to meet with Manson.
Manson talked to Ball and found him “a very nice gentleman,” he told Judge Keene on the twenty-fourth. “Mr. Ball probably understands maybe everything there is to know about law, but he doesn’t understand the generation gap; he doesn’t understand free love society; he doesn’t understand people who are trying to get out from underneath all of this…”
Ball, in turn, found Manson “an able, intelligent young man, quiet-spoken and mild-mannered…” Although he had attempted to persuade him, without success, that he could benefit from the services of a skilled lawyer, Ball was obviously impressed with Manson. “We went over different problems of law, and I found he had a ready understanding…Remarkable understanding. As a matter of fact, he has a very fine brain. I complimented him on the fact. I think I told you that he had a high IQ. Must have, to be able to converse as he did.” Manson “is not resentful against society,” Ball said. “And he feels that if he goes to trial and he is able to permit jurors and the Court to hear him and see him, they will realize he is not the kind of man who would perpetrate horrible crimes.”
After Ball had finished, Judge Keene questioned Manson for more than an hour about his knowledge of courtroom procedure, and the possible penalties for the crimes with which he was charged, throughout almost begging him to reconsider his decision to defend himself.
MANSON “For all my life, as long as I can remember, I’ve taken your advice. Your faces have changed, but it’s the same court, the same structure…All my life I’ve been put in little slots, Your Honor. And I went along with it…I have no alternative but to fight you back any way I know because you and the District Attorney and all the attorneys I have ever met are all on the same side. The police are on the same side and the newspapers are on the same side and it’s all pointed against me, personally…No. I haven’t changed my mind.”
THE COURT “Mr. Manson, I am imploring you not to take this step; I am imploring you to either name your own attorney, or, if you are unable to do so, to permit the Court to name one for you.”
Manson’s mind was made up, however, and Judge Keene finally concluded: “It is, in this Court’s opinion, a sad and tragic mistake that you are making by taking this course of action, but I can’t talk you out of it.…Mr. Manson, you are your own lawyer.”
It was Christmas Eve. I worked until 2 A.M., then took the next day off.
