The logical assumption was that Watson left his print while chasing Frykowski, Krenwinkel while in pursuit of Folger.
These were the strong points of the fingerprint testimony. There was one weak spot. Anticipating that the defense would try to make the most of those unidentified latents—twenty-five of the fifty found at the Tate residence, six of the twenty-five found at the LaBianca residence—I brought this out myself. But with several possible explanations. Since, as Dolan testified, no person has two matching fingerprints, it was possible the twenty-five unmatched Tate latents could have been made by as few as three persons, while the six at the LaBiancas’ could even have been made by one person. Moreover, I established through Dolan that latent fingerprints can have a long life; under ideal conditions those inside a residence may last for several months. I could afford to point this out, since I’d already established that the two prints I was most concerned about, Krenwinkel’s and Watson’s, were on surfaces Winifred Chapman had recently washed.
I expected Fitzgerald to hit hardest on that one weak spot. Instead, he attacked Dolan where he was least vulnerable: his expertise. Earlier, I’d brought out that Dolan had been in the Latent Prints Section of SID for seven years, while assigned there conducting over 8,000 fingerprint investigations and comparing in excess of 500,000 latent fingerprints. Fitzgerald now asked Dolan: “Correct me if my mathematics are incorrect, Sergeant, but you testified you went to the scene of 8,000 crimes. If you went to one a day, and worked an average of 200 days a year, you would have been doing this for forty years?”
A. “I would have to figure that out on a piece of paper.”
Q. “Assuming that you went to one crime scene per day—is that a fair statement, that you went to one crime scene per day, Sergeant?”
A. “No, sir.”
Q. “How many crime scenes did you go to per day?”
A. “Anywhere, for two or three years there, between fifteen and twenty.”
Q. “A day?”
A. “Yes, sir.”
Fitzgerald had been knocked on his rump. Instead of getting up, dusting himself off, and moving onto safer territory, he set himself up for another pratfall by trying to attack the statistics. Had he done his homework (and, since a fingerprint was the only physical evidence linking his client to the murders, there was no excuse whatsoever for his not doing so) he would have learned, as the jury now did, that since 1940 SID had kept detailed records indicating exactly how many calls each officer made, the number of readable latents he obtained, and the number of times a suspect is thus identified.
Kanarek, in his cross-examination of Dolan, tried to imply that in using benzidine to test for blood, Granado could have destroyed some of the prints at the LaBianca residence. Unfortunately for Kanarek, Dolan noted that he had arrived at the LaBianca residence before Granado did.
Though Kanarek did less well with Dolan than some of the other prosecution witnesses, this didn’t mean I could relax my guard. At any moment he was apt to do something like the following:
KANAREK “Your Honor, in view of the fact that the Los Angeles Police Department did not even choose to compare Linda Kasabian’s fingerprints—”
BUGLIOSI “How do you know that, Mr. Kanarek?”
KANAREK “—I have no further questions of this witness.”
THE COURT “Your comment is out of order.”
BUGLIOSI “Would Your Honor admonish the jury to disregard that gratuitous remark of Mr. Kanarek’s?”
Older did so.
Hughes’ cross was brief and to the point. Had the witness compared a fingerprint exemplar of Leslie Van Houten with the latents found at the LaBianca residence? Yes. And none of those prints matched the prints of Leslie Van Houten, is that correct? Yes, sir. No further questions.
Hughes was learning, fast.
Apparently believing Kanarek was really on to something, Fitzgerald reopened his cross-examination to ask: “Now, did you have occasion to compare the latent fingerprints obtained at the Tate residence and the latent fingerprints obtained at the LaBianca residence against an exemplar of one Linda Kasabian?”
A. “Yes, sir, I did.”
Q. “What was the result of that comparison?”
A. “Linda Kasabian’s prints were not found at either scene.”
FITZGERALD “Thank you.”
As much as possible, I tried to avoid embarrassing LAPD. It wasn’t always possible. Earlier, for example, I’d had to bring in Sergeant DeRosa’s pushing the gate-control button, so the jury wouldn’t wonder why there was no testimony regarding that particular print. In my direct examination of eleven-year-old Steven Weiss, I stuck to his finding the .22 caliber revolver on September 1, 1969, and did not go into the subsequent events. However, Fitzgerald, on cross, brought out that although an officer had recovered the gun that same day, it was December 16, 1969, before LAPD Homicide claimed the weapon—after Steven’s father called and told them they already had the gun they were looking for. Fitzgerald also brought out how, after Steven had taken care not to eradicate any prints, the officer who picked up the gun had done so literally, putting his hands all over it.
I felt sorry for the next witness. The spectators had barely stopped laughing when officer Watson of the Valley Services Division of LAPD took the stand to testify that he was the officer who recovered the gun.
Officer Watson’s testimony was essential, however, for he not only identified the gun—bringing out that it was missing its right-hand grip and had a bent barrel and broken trigger guard—he also testified that it contained two live rounds and seven empty shell casings.
Sergeant Calkins then testified that on December 16, 1969, he had driven from Parker Center to the Valley Services Division to pick up the .22 caliber revolver.
On cross, Fitzgerald brought out that between September 3 and 5, 1969, LAPD had sent out some three-hundred gun flyers—containing a photograph and detailed description of the type of revolver they were looking for—to different police agencies in the United States and Canada.
Lest the jury begin wondering why LAPD hadn’t recovered the gun from the Valley Services Division immediately after the flyers went out, I was forced to ask Calkins, on redirect: “Did you ever send a flyer to the Valley Services Division of the Los Angeles Police Department in Van Nuys?”
A. “Not to my knowledge, sir.”
To avoid further embarrassment to LAPD, I didn’t ask how close the Valley Services Division was to the Tate residence.
SEPTEMBER 7–10, 1970
Because of the State Bar Convention, court recessed for three days. I spent them working on my arguments, and worrying about a telephone call I’d received.
When court reconvened on the tenth, I made the following statement in chambers:
“One of our witnesses, Barbara Hoyt, has left her parents’ home. I don’t have all the details, but the mother said Barbara received a threat on her life, that if she testified at this trial she would be killed and so will her family.