Yelling “Freeze!,” DeRosa kicked in the front door.
Startled, the boy looked up to see one, then, moments later, three guns pointing directly at him. Christopher, Altobelli’s large Weimaraner, charged Whisenhunt, chomping the end of his shotgun. Whisenhunt slammed the porch door on his head, then held him trapped there until the youth called him off.
As to what then happened, there are contrary versions.
The youth, who identified himself as William Garretson, the caretaker, would later state that the officers knocked him down, handcuffed him, yanked him to his feet, dragged him outside onto the lawn, then knocked him down again.
DeRosa would later be asked, re Garretson:
Q. “Did he fall or stumble to the floor at any time?”
A. “He may have; I don’t recall whether he did or not.”
Q. “Did you direct him to lay on the ground outside?”
A. “I directed him, yes, to lay on the ground, yes.”
Q. “Did you help him to the ground?”
A. “No, he went down on his own.”
Garretson kept asking, “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” One of the officers replied, “We’ll show you!” and, pulling him to his feet, DeRosa and Burbridge escorted him back along the path toward the main house.
Whisenhunt remained behind, looking for weapons and bloodstained clothing. Though he found neither, he did notice many small details of the scene. One at the time seemed so insignificant that he forgot it until later questioning brought it back to mind. There was a stereo next to the couch. It had been off when they entered the room. Looking at the controls, Whisenhunt noticed that the volume setting was between 4 and 5.
Garretson, meantime, had been led past the two bodies on the lawn. It was indicative of the condition of the first, the young woman, that he mistakenly identified her as Mrs. Chapman, the Negro maid. As for the man, he identified him as “the young Polanski.” If, as Chapman and Asin had said, Polanski was in Europe, this made no sense. What the officers couldn’t know was that Garretson believed Voytek Frykowski to be Roman Polanski’s younger brother. Garretson failed completely when it came to identifying the young man in the Rambler.[2]
At some point, no one recalls exactly when, Garretson was informed of his rights and told that he was under arrest for murder. Asked about his activities the previous night, he said that although he had remained up all night, writing letters and listening to records, he had neither heard nor seen anything. His highly unlikely alibi, his “vague, unrealistic” replies, and his confused identification of the bodies led the arresting officers to conclude that the suspect was lying.
Five murders—four of them probably occurring less than a hundred feet away—and he had heard nothing?
Escorting Garretson down the driveway, DeRosa located the gate-control mechanism on the pole inside the gate. He noticed that there was blood on the button.
The logical inference was that someone, quite possibly the killer, had pressed the button to get out, in so doing very likely leaving a fingerprint.
Officer DeRosa, who was charged with securing and protecting the scene until investigating officers arrived, now pressed the button himself, successfully opening the gate but also creating a superimposure that obliterated any print that may have been there.
Later DeRosa would be questioned regarding this:
Q. “Was there some reason why you placed your finger on the bloody button that operated the gate?”
A. “So that I could go through the gate.”
Q. “And that was intentionally done?”
A. “I had to get out of there.”
It was 9:40. DeRosa called in, reporting five deaths and a suspect in custody. While Burbridge remained behind at the residence, awaiting the arrival of the investigating officers, DeRosa and Whisenhunt drove Garretson to the West Los Angeles police station for questioning. Another officer took Mrs. Chapman there also, but she was so hysterical she had to be driven to the UCLA Medical Center and given sedation.
In response to DeRosa’s call, four West Los Angeles detectives were dispatched to the scene. Lieutenant R. C. Madlock, Lieutenant J. J. Gregoire, Sergeant F. Gravante, and Sergeant T. L. Rogers would all arrive within the next hour. By the time the last pulled up, the first reporters were already outside the gate.
Monitoring the police radio bands, they had picked up the report of five deaths. It was hot and dry in Los Angeles, and fire was a constant concern, especially in the hills, where within minutes lives and property could vanish in an inferno. Someone apparently presumed the five people had been killed in a fire. Jay Sebring’s name must have been mentioned in one of the police calls, because a reporter phoned his residence and asked his butler, Amos Russell, if he knew anything about “the deaths by fire.” Russell called John Madden, president of Sebring International, and told him about the call. Madden was concerned: neither he nor Sebring’s secretary had heard from the hair stylist since late the previous afternoon. Madden placed a call to Sharon Tate’s mother in San Francisco. Sharon’s father, a colonel in Army Intelligence, was stationed at nearby Fort Baker and Mrs. Tate was visiting him. No, she hadn’t heard from Sharon. Or Jay, who was due in San Francisco sometime that same day.
Prior to her marriage to Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate had lived with Jay Sebring. Though thrown over for the Polish film director, Sebring had remained friends with Sharon’s parents, as well as Sharon and Roman, and whenever he was in San Francisco he usually called Colonel Tate.
When Madden hung up, Mrs. Tate called Sharon’s number. The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer.
It was quiet inside the house. Though anyone who called got a ringing signal, the phones were still out. Officer Joe Granado, a forensic chemist with SID, the Scientific Investigation Division of LAPD, was already at work, having arrived about 10 A.M. It was Granado’s job to take samples from wherever there appeared to be blood. Usually, on a murder case, Granado would be done in an hour or two. Not today. Not at 10050 Cielo Drive.
Mrs. Tate called Sandy Tennant, a close friend of Sharon’s and the wife of William Tennant, Roman Polanski’s business manager. No, neither she nor Bill had heard from Sharon since late the previous afternoon. At that time Sharon had said that she, Gibby (Abigail Folger), and Voytek (Frykowski) were staying in that night. Jay had said he’d be dropping over later, and she invited Sandy to join them. No party was planned, just a quiet evening at home. Sandy, just over the chicken pox, had declined. Like Mrs. Tate, she had tried to call Sharon that morning but had received no answer.
Sandy assured Mrs. Tate that there was probably no connection between the report of the fire and 10050 Cielo Drive. However, just as soon as Mrs. Tate hung up, Sandy put in a call to her husband’s tennis club and had him paged. It was important, she said.
Sometime between 10 and 11 A.M., Raymond Kilgrow, a telephone company representative, climbed the pole outside the gate to 10050 Cielo Drive and found that four phone wires had been cut. The cuts were close to the attachment on the pole, indicating that the person responsible had probably climbed the pole too. Kilgrow repaired two of the wires, leaving the others for the detectives to examine.
2
Why he failed to identify the youth, whom he did know, is unknown. A good guess would be that Garretson was in shock. Also, adding to his confusion, it was about this time that, in looking toward the gate, he saw Winifred Chapman, whom he presumed dead, alive and talking to a police officer.