A social worker, Byron Galloway, saw the young girl sprawled on a curb near the Salvation Army headquarters. Fortuitously, Galloway was employed at the State Hospital, his specialty drug cases. Realizing that the girl was extremely ill, he rushed her to Queen’s Medical Center, where her condition was diagnosed as acute psychosis, drug-induced. The doctor who examined her was able to get her name and her Los Angeles address, but the rest made little sense: according to the hospital records, “Patient said, ‘Call Mr. Bogliogi and tell him I won’t be able to testify today in the Sharon Tate trial.’”
After giving her emergency treatment, the hospital called the police and Barbara’s parents. Her father flew to Hawaii and was able to bring her back to Los Angeles with him the next day.
On receiving the first fragmentary report, I told LAPD I wanted the persons involved charged with attempted murder.
Since Barbara was a witness in the Tate case, the investigation was given to Tate detectives Calkins and McGann.
SEPTEMBER 11–17, 1970
Though I knew Danny DeCarlo was afraid of Manson, the motorcyclist did a good job of disguising it while on the stand. When Charlie and the girls smiled at “Donkey Dan,” he grinned right back.
I was concerned that DeCarlo might qualify his answers, as he had in the Beausoleil trial. After only a few minutes of testimony, however, my concern suddenly shifted from DeCarlo to Older. When I tried to establish the Manson-Watson relationship through DeCarlo, Older repeatedly sustained the defense objections. He also sustained objections to Manson’s dinnertime conversations when he discussed his philosophy about blacks and whites.
Back in chambers Older made two remarks which totally stunned me. He asked, “What is the relevance of whether or not Manson was the leader?” And he wanted an offer of proof as to the relevance of Helter Skelter! It was as if Older hadn’t even been present during the trial thus far.
That I was more than a little disturbed at his stance came across in my reply: “The offer of proof is that he used to say that he wanted to turn blacks against whites. Of course, this is only the motive for these murders. That is all it is. Other than that, it is not much else.”
I noted: “The prosecution is alleging Mr. Manson ordered these murders. It was his philosophy that led up to these murders. The motive for these murders was to ignite Helter Skelter. I think it is so obviously admissible that I am at a loss for words.”
THE COURT “I would suggest this to you, Mr. Bugliosi. Over the noon hour give some careful thought as to what you contend your proof is going to show. Now, I realize that part of it may have to come in through one witness and part through another. This is not unusual. But so far I can’t see any connection between what Mr. Manson believed about blacks and whites in the abstract and any motive.”
I sweated through that noon hour. Unless I could establish Manson’s domination of the other defendants, I wouldn’t be able to convince the jury they had killed on his instructions. And if Older foreclosed me from bringing in Manson’s beliefs about the black-white war from DeCarlo, when my heavyweight witnesses on this—Jakobson, Poston, and Watkins—were still to come, then we were in deep trouble.
I returned to chambers armed with citations of authority as to both the admissibility and the relevance of the testimony. Yet even after a long, impassioned plea, it appeared that I had not changed Older’s mind. He still couldn’t see, for instance, the relevance of Watson’s subservience to Manson, or why I was trying to bring out, through DeCarlo, that Tex had an easygoing, rather weak personality. The relevance, of course, was that if I didn’t establish both, the jury could very well infer that it was Watson, not Manson, who had ordered these murders.
BUGLIOSI “I think the Court can tell the relevancy by the fact the defense counsel are on their hind legs trying to keep it out.”
KANAREK “I think the heart of what we have here is this, that Mr. Bugliosi has lost his cool, because he has a monomania about convicting Mr. Manson.”
BUGLIOSI “He is charged with seven murders, and I am going to be tenacious on this…I intend to go back with these witnesses and find out who Tex Watson was other than a name, Your Honor.”
THE COURT “I am not going to stop you from trying, Mr. Bugliosi.”
On returning to court, I asked DeCarlo exactly the same question I had asked hours earlier: “What was your impression of Tex Watson’s general demeanor?”
KANAREK “Your Honor, I will object to that as calling for a conclusion.”
BUGLIOSI “People vs. Zollner, Your Honor.”
I so anticipated Older saying “Sustained” that I almost thought I was imagining it when he said, “Overruled. You may answer.”
DECARLO “He was happy-go-lucky. He was a nice guy. I liked Tex. He didn’t have no temper or anything that I could see. He never said much.”
Glancing back, I saw both Don Musich and Steve Kay staring in open-mouthed disbelief. Moments ago in chambers Older had objected to my whole line of inquiry. He’d now completely reversed himself. Going as fast as I could through the questioning, before he again changed his mind, I brought out that whenever Charlie told Tex to do anything, Tex did it.
That Older had gone along with us on the domination issue didn’t mean that he saw the relevance of Helter Skelter. My fingers were crossed when I asked: “Do you recall Mr. Manson saying anything about blacks and whites? Black people and white people?”
Stunned and perturbed, Kanarek objected: “It is the same question that he was asking previously!”
THE COURT “Overruled. You may answer.”
A. “He didn’t like black people.”
DeCarlo testified that Manson wanted to see the blacks go to war with the police and the white establishment, both of whom he referred to as “pigs”; that Charlie had told him that the pigs “ought to have their throats cut and be hung up by their feet”; and that he had heard Manson use the term Helter Skelter many, many times. Through all this Kanarek objected repeatedly, often in the midst of DeCarlo’s replies. Older told him: “You are interrupting, Mr. Kanarek. I have warned you several times today. I warn you now for the last time.”
KANAREK “I don’t wish to make unnecessary objections, Your Honor.”
THE COURT “Don’t you? Then cease from doing it.”
Within minutes, however, Kanarek was doing it again, and Older called him to the bench. Very angrily, Older told Kanarek: “You seem to have some sort of physical infirmity or mental disability that causes you to interrupt and disrupt testimony. No matter how many times I warn you, you seem to do it repeatedly, again and again and again…You are trying to disrupt the testimony of this witness. It is perfectly clear. Now, I have gone as far as I am going to go with you, Mr. Kanarek.”
Kanarek complained, “I am trying to conscientiously follow your orders.”
THE COURT “No, no, I am afraid your explanation won’t go. I have heard too much from you. I am very familiar with your tactics, and I am not going to put up with it any longer.” Older found Kanarek in contempt of Court and, at the conclusion of the day’s testimony, sentenced him to spend the weekend in the County Jail.
Danny DeCarlo had never really understood Helter Skelter, or cared to. As he admitted to me, his major interests while at Spahn were “booze and broads.” He couldn’t see how his testimony about this black-white stuff really hurt Charlie, and he testified to it freely and without qualification. But when it came to the physical evidence—the knives, the rope, the gun—he saw the link and pulled back, not much, but just enough to weaken his identifications.