A. “That is correct. I would have had to scoop everything up.”
Granado also testified to finding the Buck knife in the chair and the clock radio in Parent’s car. Unfortunately, someone at LAPD had apparently been playing the radio, as the dial no longer read 12:15 A.M., and I had to bring out that this occurred after Granado observed the time setting.
Shortly after the trial Joe Granado left LAPD to join the FBI.
Denied access to the courtroom, the Family began a vigil outside the Hall of Justice, at the corner of Temple and Broadway. “I’m waiting for my father to get out of jail,” Sandy told reporters as she knelt on the sidewalk next to one of the busiest intersections in the city of Los Angeles. “We will remain here,” Squeaky told TV interviewers, as traffic slowed and people gawked, “until all our brothers and sisters are set free.” In interviews the girls referred to the trial as “the second crucifixion of Christ.”
At night they slept in the bushes next to the building. When the police stopped that, they moved their sleeping bags into a white van which they parked nearby. By day they knelt or sat on the sidewalk, granted interviews, tried to convert the curious young. It was easy to tell the hard-core Mansonites from the transient camp followers. Each of the former had an X carved on his or her forehead. Each also wore a sheathed hunting knife. Since the knives were in plain view, they couldn’t be arrested for carrying concealed weapons. The police did bust them several times for loitering, but after a warning, or at most a few days in jail, they were back, and after a time the police left them alone.
Nearby city and county office buildings provided rest-room facilities. Also public phones, where, at certain prearranged times, one of the girls would await check-in calls from other Family members, including those wanted by the police. Several sob sisters who were covering the trial wrote largely sympathetic stories about their innocent, fresh, wholesome good looks and their devotion. They also often gave them money. Whether it was used for food or other purposes is not known. We did know the Family was adding to its hidden caches of arms and ammunition. And, since the Family was against hunting animals, it was a safe guess that they were stockpiling for something other than self-protection.
The deaths of her mother and stepfather had caused Suzanne Struthers to have a nervous breakdown. Though she was slowly recovering, we called Frank Struthers to the stand to identify photographs of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and to describe what he’d found on returning home that Sunday night. Shown the wallet found in the Standard station, Frank positively identified it, and the watch in the change compartment, as his mother’s. On questioning by Aaron, Frank also testified that he had been unable to find anything else missing from the residence.
Ruth Sivick testified to feeding the LaBianca dogs on Saturday afternoon. No, she saw no bloody words on the refrigerator door. Yes, she had opened and closed the door, to get the food for the dogs.
News vender John Fokianos, who testified to talking to Rosemary and Leno between 1 and 2 A.M. that Sunday, was followed by Hollywood Division officers Rodriquez and Cline, who described their arrival and discoveries at the crime scene. Cline testified to the bloody writings. Galindo, the first of the homicide officers to arrive, gave a detailed description of the premises, also stating: “I found no signs of ransacking. I found many items of value,” which he then enumerated. Detective Broda testified to seeing, just prior to the autopsy of Leno LaBianca, the knife protruding from his throat, which, because of the pillowcase over the victim’s head, the other officers had missed.
This brought us to Deputy Medical Examiner David Katsuyama. And a host of problems.
According to the first LaBianca investigative report, “The bread knife recovered from [Leno LaBianca’s] throat appeared to be the weapon used in both homicides.”
There was absolutely no scientific basis for this, since Katsuyama, who conducted both autopsies, had failed to measure the victims’ wounds.
However, since the knife belonged to the LaBiancas, if this was let stand the defense could maintain that the killers had gone to the residence unarmed; ergo, they did not intend to commit murder. While a killing committed during the commission of a robbery is still first degree murder, this could affect whether the defendants escaped the death penalty. More important, it negated our whole theory of the case, which was that Manson, and Manson alone, had a motive for these murders, and that that motive was not robbery—a motive thousands of people could have—but to ignite Helter Skelter.
Shortly after I received the LaBianca reports, I ordered scale blowups of the autopsy photos, and asked Katsuyama to measure the length and thickness of the wounds. Initially I presumed there was no way to determine their depth, which would indicate the minimum length of the blade; however, in going over the coroner’s original diagrams, I discovered that two of Rosemary LaBianca’s wounds had been probed, one to the depth of 5 inches, the other 5½ inches, while two of Leno LaBianca’s wounds were 5½ inches deep.
After many, many requests, Katsuyama finally measured the photos. I then compared his measurements with those of the bread knife. They came out as follows:
Length of blade of bread knife: 47/8 inches.
Depth of deepest measurable wound: 5½ inches.
Thickness of blade of bread knife: just under 1/16 inch.
Thickness of thickest wound: 3/16 inch.
Width of blade of bread knife: from 3/8 to 13/16 inch.
Width of widest wound: 1¼ inches.
There was no way, I concluded, that the LaBiancas’ bread knife could have caused all the wounds. Length, width, thickness—in each the dimensions of the bread knife were smaller than the wounds themselves. Therefore the killers must have brought their own knives.
Recalling, however, how Katsuyama had confused a leather thong for electrical cord before the grand jury, I showed him the two sets of figures and—questioning him in much the same manner as I would in court—asked him: Had he formed an opinion as to whether the bread knife found in Leno LaBianca’s throat could have made all of the wounds? Yes, he had, Katsuyama replied. What was his opinion? Yes, it could have.
Suppressing a groan, I asked him to compare the figures again.
This time he concluded there was no way the LaBianca knife could have made all those wounds.
To be doubly safe, the day I was to call him to the stand I interviewed him again in my office. Again he decided the knife could have made the wounds, then again he changed his mind.
“Doctor,” I told him, “I’m not trying to coach you. If it’s your professional opinion that all the wounds were made by the bread knife, fine. But the figures that you yourself gave me indicate that the bread knife couldn’t possibly have caused all the wounds. Now, which is it? Only don’t tell me one thing now and something different on the stand. You’ve got to make up your mind.”
Even though he stuck to his last reply, I had more than a few apprehensive moments when it came time to question him in court. However, he testified: “These dimensions [of the bread knife] are much smaller than many of the wounds which I previously described.”
Q. “So it’s your opinion that this bread knife, which was removed from Mr. LaBianca’s throat, could not have caused many of the other wounds, is that correct?”