fact.”
MANSON “Well, I was going to ask him if he would call the whole thing off. It would save a lot of trouble.”
THE COURT “Disappoint all these people? Never, Mr. Manson.”
When Manson again appeared before Judge Dell, on the twenty-eighth, he was still complaining about the limitations of his pro per privileges. For example, he wanted to interview Robert Beausoleil, Linda Kasabian, and Sadie Mae Glutz, but their attorneys had denied permission. Judge Dell informed him they had that right.
MANSON “I got a message from Sadie. She told me that the District Attorney had made her say what she had said.”
Manson was playing to the press, certain that they would pick up the charge, and they did. It was the next best thing to calling Susan on the phone and telling her how to recant.
Aaron played out our bluff, stating that the People were prepared to go to trial.
Manson, to our relief, wanted more time.
Judge Dell assigned the case to Judge William Keene, and granted a continuance to February 9, at which time the trial date would be set.
Our relief was real. Not only was our case still weak, Aaron and I couldn’t even agree on the motive.
The prosecution does not have the legal burden of proving motive. But motive is extremely important evidence. A jury wants to know why. Just as showing that a defendant has a motive for committing a crime is circumstantial evidence of guilt, so is the absence of motive circumstantial evidence of innocence.
In this case, even more than in most others, proving motive was important, since these murders appeared completely senseless. It was doubly important in Manson’s case, since he was not present when the murders took place. If we could prove to the jury that Manson, and Manson alone, had a motive for these murders, then this would be very powerful circumstantial evidence that he also ordered them.
Aaron and I had been friends for a long time. We had developed a mutual respect that allowed us to say exactly what we felt, and quite often our discussions were heated. This one was no exception. Aaron thought that we should argue that the motive was robbery. I told him quite frankly that I felt his theory was ridiculous. What had they stolen? Seventy-some dollars from Abigail Folger, Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet (which they ditched, money intact), possibly a sack of coins, and a carton of chocolate milk. That was it. As far as we knew, nothing else had been taken from either residence. There was, the police reports reiterated, no evidence of ransacking or theft. Items worth thousands of dollars, though in plain view, were left behind.
As an alternative motive, Aaron suggested that maybe Manson was trying to get enough money to bail out Mary Brunner, the mother of his child, who had been arrested on the afternoon of August 8 for using a stolen credit card. Again I played the Devil’s advocate. Seven murders, five one night, two the next; 169 separate stab wounds; words written in the victims’ own blood; a knife stuck in the throat of one victim, a fork in his stomach, the word WAR carved on his stomach—all this to raise $625 bail?
It wasn’t that we lacked a motive. Though Aaron and LAPD disagreed with me, I felt we had one. It was just that it was almost unbelievably bizarre.
When I interviewed Susan Atkins on December 4, she told me, “The whole thing was done to instill fear in the establishment and cause paranoia. Also to show the black man how to take over the white man.” This, she said, would be the start of “Helter Skelter,” which, when I questioned her before the grand jury the next day, she defined as “the last war on the face of the earth. It would be all the wars that have ever been fought built one on top of the other…”
“There was a so called motive behind all this,” Susan wrote Ronnie Howard. “It was to instill fear into the pigs and to bring on judgment day which is here now for all.”
Judgment Day, Armageddon, Helter Skelter—to Manson they were one and the same, a racial holocaust which would see the black man emerge triumphant. “The karma is turning, it’s blackie’s turn to be on top.” Danny DeCarlo said Manson preached this incessantly. Even a near stranger such as biker Al Springer, who visited Spahn Ranch only a few times, told me he thought “helter skelter” must be Charlie’s “pet words,” he used them so often.
That Manson foresaw a war between the blacks and the whites was not fantastic. Many people believe that such a war may someday occur. What
We knew there was at least one secondary motive for the Tate murders. As Susan Atkins put it in the Caballero tape, “The reason Charlie picked that house was to instill fear into Terry Melcher because Terry had given us his word on a few things and never came through with them.” But this was obviously not the primary motive, since, according to Gregg Jakobson, Manson knew that Melcher was no longer living at 10050 Cielo Drive.
All the evidence we’d assembled thus far, I felt, pointed to one primary motive: Helter Skelter. It was far out, but then so were the murders themselves. It was admittedly bizarre, but from the first moment I was assigned to the case, I’d felt that for murders as bizarre as these the motive itself would have to be almost equally strange, not something you’d find within the pages of a textbook on police science.
The jury would never buy Helter Skelter, Aaron said, suggesting that we offer something they would understand. I told him it wouldn’t take me two seconds to dump the whole Helter Skelter theory if he could find another motive in the evidence.
Aaron, however, was right. The jury would never accept Helter Skelter, as is. We were missing far too many bits and pieces, and one all-important link.
Presuming that Manson actually believed that he could start a race war with these acts, what would he, Charlie Manson, personally gain by it?
To this I had no answer. And without it the motive made no sense.
“Always think of the Now…No time to look back…No time to say how.” This rhyme was repeated in almost every letter Sandy, Squeaky, Gypsy, or Brenda sent to the defendants. Its meaning was obvious: Don’t tell them anything.
Through a barrage of letters, telegrams, and attempted visits, the Manson girls tried to get Beausoleil, Atkins, and Kasabian to dump their present attorneys, repudiate any incriminating statements they may have made, and engage in a united defense.
Though Beausoleil agreed that “the whole thing balances on whether the Family stays together in their heads & doesn’t break up & start testifying against itself,” he decided, “I’m going to keep my present lawyer.”
Bobby Beausoleil had always been somewhat independent. Less handsome than “pretty” (the girls had nicknamed him “Cupid”), Beausoleil had had bit parts in several movies, written music, formed a rock group, and had his own harem, all before meeting Manson. Leslie, Gypsy, and Kitty had all lived with Bobby before joining Charlie.
Beausoleil requested that Squeaky and the others not visit him so often. They were taking up all his visiting time, when the person he really wanted to see was Kitty, who was expecting his child in less than a month.
Beausoleil wasn’t the only one being pressured. Without Susan Atkins, the prosecution had no case against Manson, and Manson knew it. Family members called Richard Caballero at all hours of the day and night. When cajoling didn’t work, they tried threats. Less because of their pressure than that of his own client, Caballero finally gave in and let some of the Manson girls—though not Manson himself—visit Susan.
It was, at best, a holding action. At any moment Susan could insist on seeing Charlie, and Caballero would be unable to prevent it. After Susan’s story had appeared in the Los Angeles
Manson was also aware that if Susan Atkins refused to testify at the trial, our only hope lay with Linda Kasabian. After a time Linda’s attorney, Gary Fleischman, refused to see Gypsy, so persistent had her visits
