Beyond the gate the reporters and photographers now numbered in the dozens, with more arriving every few minutes. Police and press cars so hopelessly jammed Cielo Drive that several officers were detailed to try and untangle them. As Tennant pushed through the crowd, clutching his stomach and sobbing, the reporters hurled questions at him: “Is Sharon dead?” “Were they murdered?” “Has anyone informed Roman Polanski?” He ignored them, but they read the answers on his face.
Not everyone who visited the scene was as reluctant to talk. “It’s like a battlefield up there,” police sergeant Stanley Klorman told reporters, his features grim with the shock of what he had seen. Another officer, unidentified, said, “It looked ritualistic,” this single remark providing the basis for an incredible amount of bizarre speculation.
Like the shock waves from an earthquake, news of the murders spread.
“FIVE SLAIN IN BEL AIR,” read the headline on the first AP wire story. Though sent out before the identity of the victims had become known, it correctly reported the location of the bodies; that the telephone lines had been cut; and the arrest of an unnamed suspect. There were errors: one, to be much repeated, that “one victim had a hood over his head…”
LAPD notified the Tates, John Madden, who in turn notified Sebring’s parents, and Peter Folger, Abigail’s father. Abigail’s socially prominent parents were divorced. Her father, chairman of the board of the A. J. Folger Coffee Company, lived in Woodside, her mother, Inez Mijia Folger, in San Francisco. However, Mrs. Folger was not at home but in Connecticut, visiting friends following a Mediterranean cruise, and Mr. Folger reached her there. She couldn’t believe it; she had talked to Abigail at about ten the previous night. Both mother and daughter had planned to fly to San Francisco today, for a reunion, Abigail having made a reservation on the 10 A.M. United flight.
On reaching home, William Tennant made what was, for him, the most difficult call. He was not only Polanski’s business manager but a close friend. Tennant checked his watch, automatically adding nine hours to get London time. Though it would be late in the evening, he guessed that Polanski might still be working, trying to tie up his various film projects before returning home the following Tuesday, and he tried the number of his town house. He guessed right. Polanski and several associates were going over a scene in the script of
Polanski would remember the conversation as follows:
“Roman, there’s been a disaster in a house.”
“Which house?”
“Your house.” Then, in a rush, “Sharon is dead, and Voytek and Gibby and Jay.”
“
“How?” Polanski asked. He was thinking, he later said, not of fire but a landslide, a not uncommon thing in the Los Angeles hills, especially after heavy rains; sometimes whole houses were buried, which meant that perhaps they could still be alive. Only then did Tennant tell him that they had been murdered.
Voytek Frykowski, LAPD learned, had a son in Poland but no relatives in the United States. The youth in the Rambler remained unidentified, but was no longer nameless; he had been designated John Doe 85.
The news spread quickly—and with it the rumors. Rudi Altobelli, owner of the Cielo property and business manager for a number of show-business personalities, was in Rome. One of his clients, a young actress, called and told him that Sharon and four others had been murdered in his house and that Garretson, the caretaker he had hired, had confessed.
Garretson hadn’t, but Altobelli would not learn this until after he returned to the United States.
The specialists had begun arriving about noon.
Officers Jerrome A. Boen and D. L. Girt, Latent Prints Section, Scientific Investigation Division, LAPD, dusted the main residence and the guest house for prints.
After dusting a print with powder (“developing the print”), a clear adhesive tape was placed over it; the tape, with the print showing, would then be “lifted” and placed on a card with a contrasting background. Location, date, time, officer’s initials were noted on the back.
One such “lift” card, prepared by Boen, read: “8-9-69/10050 Cielo/1400/JAB/Inside door frame of left French door/from master bedroom to pool area/handle side.”
Another lift, taken about the same time, was from the “Outside front door/handle side/above handle.”
It took six hours to cover both residences. Later that afternoon the pair were joined by officer D. E. Dorman and Wendell Clements, the latter a civilian fingerprint expert, who concentrated on the four vehicles.
Contrary to popular opinion, a readable print is more rare than common. Many surfaces, such as clothing and fabrics, do not lend themselves to impressions. Even when the surface is such that it will take a print, one usually touches it with only a portion of the finger, leaving a fragmentary ridge, which is useless for comparison. If the finger is moved, the result is an unreadable smudge. And, as officer DeRosa demonstrated with the gate button, one print placed atop another creates a superimposure, also useless for identification purposes. Thus, at any crime scene, the number of clear, readable prints, with enough points for comparison, is usually surprisingly small.
Not counting those prints later eliminated as belonging to LAPD personnel at the scene, a total of fifty lifts were taken from the residence, guest house, and vehicles at 10050 Cielo Drive. Of these, seven were eliminated as belonging to William Garretson (all were from the guest house; none of Garretson’s prints were found in the main house or on the vehicles); an additional fifteen were eliminated as belonging to the victims; and three were not clear enough for comparison. This left a total of twenty-five unmatched latent prints, any of which might—or might not—belong to the killer or killers.
It was 1:30 P.M. before the first homicide detectives arrived. On verifying that the deaths were not accidental or self-inflicted, Lieutenant Madlock had requested that the investigation be reassigned to the Robbery-Homicide Division. Lieutenant Robert J. Helder, supervisor of investigations, was placed in charge. He in turn assigned Sergeants Michael J. McGann and Jess Buckles to the case. (McGann’s regular partner, Sergeant Robert Calkins, was on vacation and would replace Buckles when he returned.) Three additional officers, Sergeants E. Henderson, Dudley Varney, and Danny Galindo, were to assist them.
On being notified of the homicides, Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi asked the police not to touch the bodies until a representative of his office had examined them. Deputy Coroner John Finken arrived about 1:45, later to be joined by Noguchi himself. Finken made the official determination of death; took liver and environmental temperatures (by 2 P.M. it was 94 degrees on the lawn, 83 degrees inside the house); and severed the rope connecting Tate and Sebring, portions of which were given to the detectives so that they could try to determine where it had been manufactured and sold. It was white, three-strand nylon, its total length 43 feet 8 inches. Granado took blood samples from the rope, but didn’t take subtypes, again presuming. Finken also removed the personal property from the bodies of the victims. Sharon Tate Polanski: yellow metal wedding band, earrings. Jay Sebring: Cartier wristwatch, later determined to be worth in excess of $1,500. John Doe 85: Lucerne wristwatch, wallet with various papers but no ID. Abigail Folger and Voytek Frykowski: no property on persons. After plastic bags had been placed over the hands of the victims, to preserve any hair or skin that might have become lodged under the nails during a struggle, Finken assisted in covering and placing the bodies on stretcher carts, to be wheeled to ambulances and taken to the Coroner’s Office, Hall of Justice, downtown Los Angeles.
Besieged by reporters at the gate, Dr. Noguchi announced he would have no comment until making public the autopsy results at noon the following day.
Both Noguchi and Finken, however, privately had already given the detectives their initial findings.
There was no evidence of sexual molestation or mutilation.
Three of the victims—the John Doe, Sebring, and Frykowski—had been shot. Aside from a defensive slash wound on his left hand, which also severed the band of his wristwatch, John Doe had not been stabbed. But the other four had—many, many times. In addition, Sebring had been hit in the face at least once, and Frykowski had been struck over the head repeatedly with a blunt object.
Though exact findings would have to await the autopsies, the coroners concluded from the size of the bullet holes that the gun used had probably been .22 caliber. The police had already suspected this. In searching the Rambler, Sergeant Varney had found four bullet fragments between the upholstery and the exterior metal of the door on the passenger side. Also found, on the cushion of the rear seat, was part of a slug. Though all were too
