Helter Skelter

Manson—making me wonder just how far Sadie, Katie, and Leslie would be willing to go to save Charlie—and the other that Danny DeCarlo hedged on many of his previous statements to LAPD. I was worried that Danny might be getting ready to split, all too aware that he had little reason to stick around. Though the motorcycle engine theft charge had been dropped in return for his testimony in the Hinman case, we had made no deal with him on Tate- LaBianca. Moreover, although he had a good chance of sharing the $25,000 reward, it was not necessary that he testify to obtain it.

DeCarlo and Brunner did testify that same month before the grand jury, which brought additional indictments against Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, and Bruce Davis on the Hinman murder. But testifying before a grand jury in secret and having to face Manson himself in court were two different things.

Nor could I blame Danny for being apprehensive. As soon as the grand jury indictments were made public, Davis, who had been living with the Family at Spahn, vanished.

MAY 1970

In early May, Crockett, Poston, and Watkins encountered Clem, Gypsy, and a youth named Kevin, one of the newer Family members, in Shoshone. Clem told Watkins: “Charlie says that when he gets out you all had better not be around the desert.”

From a source at Spahn Ranch we learned that Family members there appeared to be “preparing for some activity.”

The Manson girls were interviewed so often that they were on a first-name basis with many of the reporters. Inadvertently, several times they implied that Charlie would be out soon. Perhaps significantly, the girls said nothing about his being “acquitted” or “released.”

It was obvious that something was being planned.

On May 11, Susan Atkins filed a declaration repudiating her grand jury testimony. Both Manson and Atkins used the declaration as basis for habeas corpus motions, which were subsequently denied.

Aaron and I conferred with District Attorney Younger. Sadie couldn’t have it both ways. Either she had told the complete truth before the grand jury and, according to our agreement, we would not seek a first degree murder conviction against her, or, according to her recent declaration, she recanted her testimony, in which case the agreement was breached.

My personal opinion was that Susan Atkins had testified “substantially truthfully” before the grand jury, with these exceptions: her omission of the three other murder attempts the second night; her hedging on whether she had stabbed Voytek Frykowski (which she had admitted to me when I interviewed her); and my instinctive, but strong, feeling (corroborated by her confessions to Virginia Graham and Ronnie Howard) that she had lied when she testified that she had not stabbed Sharon Tate. Under Atkins’ agreement with our office, “substantially” wasn’t good enough—she had to tell the complete truth.

With her declaration, however, the issue was closed. On the basis of her repudiation, Aaron and I asked Younger’s permission to seek the death penalty against Susan Atkins as well as the other defendants. He granted it.

Sadie’s about-face was not unexpected. Another change, however, caught almost everyone off guard. In court to petition for a new trial, Bobby Beausoleil produced an affidavit, signed by Mary Brunner, stating that her testimony in his trial “was not true,” and that she had lied when she said Beausoleil stabbed Hinman to death.

Although obviously stunned, prosecutor Burt Katz argued that the other evidence in the trial was sufficient to convict Beausoleil.

Investigating further, Burt learned that a few days before she was due to testify, Mary Brunner had been visited by Squeaky and Brenda at her parents’ home in Wisconsin. She was again visited by Squeaky, this time accompanied by Sandy, two days before she signed the affidavit. Burt charged that the girls, representing Manson, had coerced Mary Brunner into repudiating her testimony.

Called to the stand, Mary Brunner first denied this, then, after conferring with counsel, did another about- face, and repudiated her repudiation. Her testimony in the trial was true, she said. Still later she again reversed herself.

Eventually, Beausoleil’s motion for a new trial was denied, and he was sent to San Quentin’s Death Row to wait out his appeal. The District Attorney’s Office was left with a perplexing legal dilemma, however. After her testimony in the Beausoleil trial, the Court had granted Mary Brunner complete immunity for her part in the Hinman murder.

Except for the possibility that she might be tried for perjury, it looked as if Mary Brunner had managed to beat the rap.

Indicted on the Hinman murder, Manson appeared before Judge Dell to request that he be allowed to represent himself. When Dell denied the motion, Manson requested that Irving Kanarek and Daye Shinn be made his attorneys. Judge Dell ruled there would be “a clear conflict of interest” if Shinn represented both Manson and Susan Atkins. This left Kanarek.

Commenting, “I think we are well aware of Mr. Kanarek and his record,” Manson told Judge Dell, “I do not wish to hire this man as my attorney, but you leave me no alternative. I understand what I am doing. Believe me, I understand what I am doing. This is the worst man in town I could pick, and you are pushing him on me.” If Dell would permit him to represent himself, Manson said, then he would forget about having Kanarek.

“I am not going to be blackmailed,” Dell told Manson.

MANSON “Then I will take it up to the bigger father.”

Judge Dell said that Manson could, of course, appeal his decision. However, since Manson was already appealing the revocation of his pro per status in the Tate-LaBianca proceedings, Dell was willing to postpone a final decision until that writ was either accepted or rejected.

Aaron and I discussed the possible Kanarek substitution with District Attorney Younger. In view of his record, with Kanarek on the case the prospect that the trial might last two or more years was very real. Younger asked us if there was any legal basis for removing an attorney from a case. We told him we knew of none; however, I’d research the law. Younger asked me to prepare an argument for the Court, and suggested that it stress Kanarek’s incompetency. From what I had learned of Kanarek, I did not feel that he was incompetent. His obstructionism, I felt, was the major issue.

I had no trouble obtaining evidence of this. From judges, deputy DAs, even jurors, I heard examples of his dilatory, obstructionist tactics. One deputy DA, on learning that he had to oppose Kanarek a second time, quit the office; life was too short for that, he said.

Anticipating that Manson would ask to substitute Kanarek on Tate-LaBianca as well as Hinman, I began preparing my argument. At the same time I had another idea which just might make that argument unnecessary.

Maybe, with the right bait, I could persuade Manson to dump Kanarek himself.

On May 25, I was going through LAPD’s tubs on the LaBianca case when I noticed, standing against the wall, a wooden door. On it was a multicolored mural; the lines from a nursery rhyme, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7—All Good Children Go to Heaven”; and, in large letters, the words “HELTER SKELTER IS COMING DOWN FAST.”

Stunned, I asked Gutierrez, “Where in the hell did you get that?”

“Spahn Ranch.”

“When?”

He checked the yellow property envelope affixed to the door.

“November 25, 1969.”

“You mean for five months, while I’ve been desperately trying to link the killers with Helter Skelter, you’ve