For a few months Leslie lived in a commune in Northern California. During this period she met Bobby Beausoleil, who had his own wandering “family,” consisting of Gypsy and a girl named Gail. Leslie became a part of the ménage à quatre. Gail, however, was jealous, and the arguments became near constant. First Gypsy split, moving to Spahn Ranch. Then, shortly after, Leslie followed, also joining Manson. She was nineteen.
About this time Leslie called her mother and told her that she had decided to drop out and that she wouldn’t be hearing from her again. She didn’t, until Leslie’s arrest.
Keith asked Mrs. Van Houten: “How do you feel about your daughter now?”
A. “I love Leslie very much.”
Q. “As much as you always have?”
A. “More.”
As the parents testified, one realized that they too were victims, just as were the relatives of the deceased.
Calling the defendants’ parents first was a bad tactical error on the part of the defense. Their testimony and plight evoked sympathy from everyone in the courtroom. They should have been called at the very end of the defense’s case, just before the jury went out to deliberate. As it was, by the time the other witnesses had testified, they were almost forgotten.
Shinn called no witnesses on behalf of Susan Atkins. Her father, Shinn told me, had refused to have anything more to do with her. All he wanted, he said, was to get his hands on Manson.
A reporter from the Los Angeles Times had located Charles Manson’s mother in a city in the Pacific Northwest. Remarried and living under another name, she claimed Charles’ tales of childhood deprivation were fictions, adding, “He was a spoiled, pampered child.”
Kanarek did not use her as a witness. Instead, he called Samuel Barrett, Manson’s parole officer.
Barrett was a most unimpressive witness. He thought he first met Manson “about 1956, around that”; he couldn’t remember whether Manson was on probation or parole; he stated that since he was responsible for 150 persons, he couldn’t be expected to recall everything about each one.
Repeatedly, Barrett minimized the seriousness of the various charges against Manson prior to the murders. The reason he did this was obvious: otherwise, one might wonder why he hadn’t revoked Manson’s parole. One still did wonder. Manson associated with ex-cons, known narcotics users, and minor girls. He failed to report his whereabouts, made few attempts to obtain employment, repeatedly lied regarding his activities. During the first six months of 1969 alone, he had been charged, among other things, with grand theft auto, narcotics possession, rape, contributing to the delinquency of a minor. There was more than ample reason for parole revocation.
During a recess one of the reporters approached me in the hall. “God, Vince,” he exclaimed, “did it ever occur to you that if Barrett had revoked Manson’s parole in, say, April of 1969, Sharon and the others would probably still be alive today?”
I declined comment, citing the gag order as an excuse. But it had occurred to me. I had thought about it a great deal.
On direct, Barrett had testified that there was nothing in Manson’s prison records to indicate that he was a behavioral risk. Over Kanarek’s objections, on cross-examination I had him examine the folder on Manson’s attempted escape from federal custody in 1957.
The parade of perjurers began with little Squeaky.
Lynette Alice Fromme, twenty-two, testified that she was from an upper-middle-class background, her father an aeronautical engineer. When she was seventeen, she said, her father kicked her out of the house. “And I was in Venice, sitting down on a curb crying, when a man walked up and said, ‘Your father kicked you out of the house, did he?’
“And that was Charlie.”
Squeaky placed great importance on the fact that she had met Manson before any of the other girls, excepting only Mary Brunner.
In questioning her about the Family, Fitzgerald asked: “Did you have a leader?”
A. “No, we were riding on the wind.”
No leader, but—
“Charlie is our father in that he would—he would point out things to us.”
Charlie was just like everyone else, but—
“I would crawl off in a corner and be reading a book, and he would pass me and tell me what it said in the book…And also he knew our thoughts…He was always happy, always…He would go into the bathroom sometimes to comb his hair, and there would be a whole crowd of people in there watching him because he had so much fun.”
Squeaky had trouble denying the teachings of her lord and master. When Fitzgerald tried to minimize the importance of the Beatles’ White Album, she replied, “There is a lot in that album, there is a lot.” Although she claimed, “I never heard Charlie utter the words ‘helter skelter,’” she went on to say that “it is a matter of evolution and balance” and “the black people are coming to the top, as it should be.”
Obviously these were not the answers Fitzgerald wanted, and apparently he betrayed his reaction.
FROMME “How come you’re making those faces?”
FITZGERALD “I’m sorry, continue.”
Calling counsel to the bench, Judge Older said, “She can only harm the defendants doing what she is doing.”
I explained to Older, “If the Court is wondering why I am not objecting, it is because I feel that her testimony is helpful to the prosecution.”
So helpful, in fact, that there was little need for cross-examination. Among the questions I had intended to ask her, for example, was one Kanarek now asked: “Did you think that Charles Manson was Jesus Christ?”
Squeaky hesitated a moment before answering. Would she be the apostle who denied Jesus? Apparently she decided she would not, for she replied: “I think that the Christians in the caves and in the woods were a lot of kids just living and being without guilt, without shame, being able to take off their clothes and lay in the sun…And I see Jesus Christ as a man who came from a woman who did not know who the father of her baby was.”
Squeaky was the least untruthful of the Family members who testified. Yet she was so damaging to the defense that thereafter Fitzgerald let the other defense attorneys call the witnesses.
Keith called Brenda McCann, t/n Nancy Laura Pitman, nineteen. Though not unattractive, Brenda came across as a tough, vicious little girl, filled with hostility that was just waiting to erupt.
Her father “designed the guidance controls of missiles over in the Pentagon,” she said. He also kicked her out of the house when she was sixteen, she claimed. The dropout from Hollywood High School asserted there was no such thing as a Family, and Charlie “was not a leader at all. It was more like Charlie followed us around and took care of us.”
But, as with Squeaky and the girls who would follow her, it was obvious that Brenda’s world revolved around a single axis. He was nobody special but “Charlie would sit down and all the animals would gather round him, donkeys and coyotes and things…And one time he reached down and petted a rattlesnake.”
Questioned by Kanarek, Brenda testified that Linda “would take LSD every day…took speed…Linda loved Tex very much…Linda followed Tex everywhere…”
On cross-examination I asked Brenda: “Would you give up your life for Charles Manson if he asked you to?”
A. “Many times he has given you his life.”
Q. “Just answer the question, Brenda.”
A. “Yes, I would.”
Q. “Would you lie on the stand for Charles Manson?”