death. Manson talked a lot about death, Stephanie would recall, and it frightened her. They took LSD and had sex. Manson was apparently unusually smitten with Stephanie. Usually he’d have sex with a new girl a few times, then move on to a new “young love.” Not so with Stephanie. He later told Paul Watkins that Stephanie, who was of German extraction, was the result of two thousand years of perfect breeding.
On August 4, Manson, still using the stolen credit card, purchased gas at Lucia. Ripping off the place, which bore a large sign reading “Hippies Not Allowed,” must have given him a special satisfaction, as he did it again the next day.
On the night of the fifth Manson and Stephanie drove north to a place whose name Stephanie couldn’t recall but which Manson described as a “sensitivity camp.” It was, he told her, a place where rich people went on weekends to play at being enlightened. He was obviously describing Esalen Institute.
Esalen was, at this time, just coming into vogue as a “growth center,” its seminars including such diverse figures as yogis and psychiatrists, salvationists and satanists. Obviously Manson felt Esalen a prime place to espouse his philosophies. It is unknown whether he had been there on prior occasions, those involved in the Institute refusing to even acknowledge his visits there.[54]
Manson took his guitar and left Stephanie in the van. After a time she fell asleep. When she awakened the next morning, Manson had already returned. He was in less than a good mood, as, later that day, he unexpectedly struck her. Still later, at Barker Ranch, Manson would tell Paul Watkins—to quote Watkins—that while at Big Sur he had gone “to Esalen and played his guitar for a bunch of people who were supposed to be the top people there, and they rejected his music. Some people pretended that they were asleep, and other people were saying, ‘This is too heavy for me,’ and ‘I’m not ready for that,’ and others were saying, ‘Well, I don’t understand it,’ and some just got up and walked out.”
Still another rejection by what Manson considered the establishment—this occurring just three days before the Tate murders.
With his single recruit, Manson left Big Sur on August 6, making gas purchases that same day at San Luis Obispo and Chatsworth, a few miles from Spahn Ranch. According to Stephanie, they had dinner at the ranch that night and she met the Family for the first time. She felt uncomfortable with them, and, learning that Manson shared his favors with the other girls, told him she would stay only if he would promise to remain with her, and her alone, for two weeks. Surprisingly, Manson agreed. They spent that night in the van, parked not far from the ranch, then drove to San Diego the next day to pick up Stephanie’s clothes.
En route, about ten miles south of Oceanside on Interstate 5, they were stopped by California Highway Patrol officer Richard C. Willis. Though pulled over for a mechanical violation, Manson was cited only for having no valid driver’s license in his possession. Manson gave his correct name and the ranch address, and signed the ticket himself. Officer Willis noted on the ticket that Manson was driving a “1952 cream-colored Ford bakery van, license number K70683.” The date was Thursday, August 7, 1969; the time 6:15 P.M.
The ticket, which Patchett and Gutierrez found, proved Manson was in Southern California the day before the Tate murders.
While Stephanie was getting her clothes together, Manson talked to her sister, who was also a Beatles fan. She had the White Album, and Manson told her the Beatles had laid out “the whole scene” in it. He warned her that the blacks were getting ready to overthrow the whites and that only those who fled to the desert and hid in the bottomless pit would be safe. As for those who remained in the cities, Manson said, “People are going to be slaughtered, they’ll be lying on their lawns dead.”
Just a little over twenty-four hours later, his prediction would be fulfilled, in all its gory detail, at 10050 Cielo Drive. With a little help from his friends.
That night, according to Stephanie, she and Charlie parked somewhere in San Diego and slept next to the van, returning to Spahn Ranch the following day, arriving there about two in the afternoon.
Stephanie was a bit vague when it came to dates. She “thought” the day they returned to Spahn Ranch was Friday, August 8, but she wasn’t sure. I anticipated that the defense would make the most of this, but I wasn’t concerned, because that second piece of evidence conclusively placed Manson back at the ranch on Friday, August 8, 1969.
According to Linda Kasabian, on the afternoon of August 8 Manson gave Mary Brunner and Sandra Good a credit card and told them to purchase some items for him. At four that afternoon the two girls were apprehended while driving away from a Sears store in San Fernando, after store employees checked and found the credit card was stolen. The San Fernando PD arrest report stated that they were driving a “van 1952 Ford license K70683.”
Because of the fine job of digging by the LaBianca detectives, we now had physical proof that Manson was back at Spahn Ranch on Friday, August 8, 1969.
Though both the traffic ticket and arrest report were in the discovery materials, so were hundreds of other documents. I was hoping that the defense would overlook their common denominator: that vehicle description with its telltale license number.
If Manson went with an alibi defense, and I proved that alibi was fabricated, this would be strong circumstantial evidence of his guilt.
There was, of course, other evidence placing Manson at Spahn Ranch that day. In addition to the testimony of Schram, DeCarlo, and others, Linda Kasabian said that when the Family got together that afternoon, Manson discussed his visit to Big Sur, saying that the people there were “really not together, they were just off on their little trips” and that “the people wouldn’t go on his trip.”
It was just after this that Manson told them: “Now is the time for Helter Skelter.”
Bits and pieces, often largely circumstantial. Yet patiently dug out and assembled, they became the People’s case. And with almost every interview it became a little stronger.
I spent many hours interviewing Stephanie Schram, who, together with Kitty Lutesinger, had fled Barker Ranch just hours before the October 1969 raid, shotgun-wielding Clem in close pursuit. I often wondered what would have happened to the two girls had the raid been timed just a day later or Clem been a little faster.
Unlike Kitty, Stephanie had severed all contact with the Family. Though we had kept her current address from the defense, Squeaky and Gypsy found her working at a dog-grooming school. “Charlie wants you to come back,” they told her. Stephanie replied, “No thanks.” Considering what she knew, her forthright refusal was a brave act.
From Stephanie I learned that while at Barker Manson had conducted a “murder school.” He had given a Buck knife to each of the girls, and had demonstrated how they should “slit the throats of pigs,” by yanking the head back by the hair and drawing the knife from ear to ear (using Stephanie as a very frightened model). He also said they should “stab them in either their ears or eyes and then wiggle the knife around to get as many vital organs as possible.” The details became even gorier: Manson said that if the police pigs came to the desert, they should kill them, cut them in little pieces, boil the heads, then put the skulls and uniforms on posts, to frighten off others.[55]
Stephanie had told LAPD that Manson had spent the nights of Friday, August 8, and Saturday, August 9, with her. On questioning her, I learned that about an hour after dinner on August 8, Manson took her to the trailer at Spahn and told her to go to sleep, that he would join her soon. However, she didn’t see him again until shortly before dawn the next morning, at which time he awakened her and took her with him to Devil’s Canyon, the camp across the road from the ranch.
That night—August 9—Stephanie said, “when it got dark, he left and he came back either sometime during the night or early in the morning.”
If Manson was planning on using Stephanie Schram as an alternative alibi, we were now more than ready for him.
On March 19, Hollopeter, Manson’s court-appointed attorney, made two motions: that Charles Manson be given a psychiatric examination, and that his case be severed from that of the others.
Enraged, Manson tried to fire Hollopeter.
Asked whom he wished to represent him, Manson replied, “Myself.” When Judge Keene denied the change, Manson picked up a copy of the Constitution and, saying it meant nothing to the Court, tossed it in a
