By now I could see the pattern. The more damaging the testimony, the more chance Manson would create a disturbance, thereby assuring that he—and not the evidence itself—would get the day’s headlines. Juan Flynn’s testimony was hurting him badly. Several times while Flynn was on the stand, Older had to order Manson and the girls removed because of their outbursts. When it happened again, on October 2, Manson turned to the spectators and said: “Look at yourselves. Where are you going? You’re going to destruction, that’s where you’re going.” He then smiled a very odd little smile, and added, “It’s your Judgment Day, not mine.”
Again the girls parroted Manson, and Older ordered all four removed.
Kanarek was livid. I’d just showed the judge the transcript pages where Kanarek accused Flynn of lying. Older ruled: “There is no question: there was an implied, if not express, charge of recent fabrication.” Highway patrolman Dave Steuber would be permitted to play that portion of the taped interview dealing with Manson’s incriminating admission.[75]
After establishing the circumstances of the interview, Steuber set up the tape recorder and began playing the tape at the point where the statement had begun. There is something about such physical evidence that deeply impresses a jury. Again, in words very similar to those they had heard him use when he was on the stand, the jurors heard Juan say: “Then he was looking at me real funny…And then he grabbed me by the hair like that, and he put a knife by my throat…And then he says, ‘Don’t you know I’m the one who is doing all the killings?’”
Monday, October 5, 1970. Bailiff Bill Murray later said he had a very strong feeling that something was going to happen. You get a kind of sixth sense dealing with prisoners day after day, he said, noting that when he brought Manson into the lockup he was acting very tense and edgy.
Although they had made no assurances that they would conduct themselves properly, Older gave the defendants still another chance, permitting them to return to the courtroom.
The testimony was dull, undramatic. There was, at this point, no clue as to its importance, though I had a feeling Charlie just might suspect what I was up to. Through a series of witnesses, I was laying the groundwork for destroying Manson’s anticipated alibi.
LASO detective Paul Whiteley had just finished testifying, and the defense attorneys had declined to cross-examine him, when Manson asked: “May I examine him, Your Honor?”
THE COURT “No, you may not.”
MANSON “You are going to use this courtroom to kill me?”
Older told the witness he could step down. Manson asked the question a second time, adding, “I am going to fight for my life one way or another. You should let me do it with words.”
THE COURT “If you don’t stop, I will have to have you removed.”
MANSON “I will have you removed if you don’t stop. I have a little system of my own.”
Not until Manson made that very startling admission did I realize that this time he wasn’t playacting but deadly serious.
THE COURT “Call your next witness.”
BUGLIOSI “Sergeant Gutierrez.”
MANSON “Do you think I’m kidding?”
It happened in less time than it takes to describe it. With a pencil clutched in his right hand, Manson suddenly leaped over the counsel table in the direction of Judge Older. He landed just a few feet from the bench, falling on one knee. As he was struggling to his feet, bailiff Bill Murray leaped too, landing on Manson’s back. Two other deputies quickly joined in and, after a brief struggle, Manson’s arms were pinned. As he was being propelled to the lockup, Manson screamed at Older: “In the name of Christian justice, someone should cut your head off!”
Adding to the bedlam, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten stood and began chanting something in Latin. Older, much less disturbed than I would have expected, gave them not one but several chances to stop, then ordered them removed also.
According to the bailiffs, Manson continued to fight even after he had been taken into the lockup, and it took four men to put cuffs on him.
Fitzgerald asked if counsel might approach the bench. For the record, Judge Older described exactly how he had viewed the incident. Fitzgerald asked if he might inquire as to the judge’s state of mind.
THE COURT “He looked like he was coming for me.”
FITZGERALD “I was afraid of that, and although—”
THE COURT “If he had taken one more step, I would have done something to defend myself.”
Because of the judge’s state of mind, Fitzgerald said, he felt it incumbent upon him to move for a mistrial. Hughes, Shinn, and Kanarek joined. Older replied: “It isn’t going to be that easy, Mr. Fitzgerald…They are not going to profit from their own wrong…Denied.”
Out of curiosity, after court Murray measured the distance of Manson’s leap: ten feet.
Murray wasn’t too surprised. Manson had very powerful leg and arm muscles. He was constantly exercising in the lockup. Asked why, he’d once told a bailiff: “I’m toughening myself up for the desert.”
Murray tried to re-create his own leap. Without that sudden shot of adrenaline, he couldn’t even jump up on the counsel table.
Though Judge Older instructed the jury to “disregard what you saw and what you have heard here this morning,” I knew that as long as they lived they’d never forget it.
All the masks had been dropped. They’d seen the real face of Charles Manson.
From a reliable source, I learned that after the incident Judge Older began wearing a .38 caliber revolver under his robes, both in court and in chambers.
Judgment Day. Echoing Manson, the girls waiting outside on the corner spoke of it in conspiratorial whispers. “Wait till Judgment Day. That’s when Helter Skelter will really come down.”
Judgment Day. What was it? A plan to break out Manson? An orgy of retribution?
As important was the question of when. The day the jury returned their verdict of “Not guilty” or “Guilty”? Or, if the latter, the day the same jury decided “Life” or “Death”? Or perhaps the day of sentencing itself? Or might it even be tomorrow?
Judgment Day. We began to hear those words more and more often. Without explanation. As yet unaware that the first phase of Judgment Day had already begun, with the theft, from Camp Pendleton Marine Base, of a case of hand grenades.
OCTOBER 6–31, 1970
Some weeks earlier, on returning to my office after court, I’d found a phone message from attorney Robert Steinberg, who was now representing Virginia Graham.
On the advice of her previous attorney, Virginia Graham had withheld some information. Steinberg had urged her to give this information to me. “Specifically,” the phone message read, “Susan Atkins laid out detailed plans to Miss Graham concerning other planned murders, including the murders of Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor.”
Since I was very busy, I arranged to have one of the co-prosecutors, Steve Kay, interview her.
According to Virginia, a few days after Susan Atkins told her about the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca murders—probably on November 8 or 9, 1969—Susan had walked over to Virginia’s bed at Sybil Brand and begun leafing through a movie magazine. It reminded her, Susan said, about some other murders she had been planning.
75
Steuber had been investigating a stolen auto report, not murder, when he talked to Flynn, Poston, Crockett, and Watkins in Shoshone. However, realizing the importance of their story, he had spent over nine hours quizzing them on their knowledge of Manson and his Family. After the trial I wrote a letter to the California Highway Patrol, commending Steuber for the excellent job he had done.