Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders (14 page)

Because of his familiarity with the case, it was decided to send Lieutenant Deemer east to interview the two.

Jeffrey “Pic” Pickett had been contacted through a relative, and a meeting was set up in a Washington, D.C., hotel room. The son of a prominent State Department official, Pickett appeared to Deemer to be “under the influence of some narcotic, probably an excitant drug.” He also had a bandaged hand. When Deemer expressed curiosity about it, Pickett vaguely replied that he had cut it on a kitchen knife. Though he agreed to a polygraph, Deemer found that Pickett couldn’t remain still or follow instructions, so he interviewed him informally. He claimed that on the day of the murders he had been working in an auto company in Sheffield, Massachusetts. Asked if he owned any weapons, he admitted he had a Buck knife, purchased, he said, in Marlboro, Massachusetts, on a friend’s credit card.

Later Pickett gave Deemer the knife. It was similar to the one found at Cielo. He also turned over a roll of videotape which he claimed showed Abigail Folger and Voytek Frykowski using drugs at a party at the Tate residence. Pickett didn’t say how he came into possession of the film or what use he had intended to make of it.

Accompanied by Sergeant McGann, Deemer went to Massachusetts. A check of the time cards at the auto company in Sheffield revealed that Pickett’s last workday was August 1, eight days before the homicides. Moreover, though two stores in Marlboro sold Buck knives, neither had ever stocked this particular model.

Pickett’s status as a suspect rose appreciably, until the detectives interviewed the friend he had mentioned. Going through his credit card receipts, he produced the one for the Buck knife. It had been purchased in Sudbury, Massachusetts, on August 21, long after the murders. The friend and his wife also recalled something Pickett had apparently forgotten. He had gone to the beach with them the weekend of August 8–10. Pickett was subsequently polygraphed, twice. Both times it was decided he was telling the truth and was not involved. Eliminate Pickett.

Flying to Toronto, Deemer interviewed Herb Wilson. Although initially reluctant to submit to a polygraph, Wilson consented when Deemer agreed not to ask any questions that might make him liable to Canadian prosecution on narcotics charges. He passed. Eliminate Wilson.

The fingerprints of both Pickett and Wilson were checked against the unmatched Tate latents, with no match.

Although the first Tate investigative report—covering the period August 9–31—concluded that Wilson, Madigan, Pickett, and Jones “have been eliminated at the time of this report,” in early September Deemer and McGann flew to Ocho Rios, Jamaica, to check out the alibis of Wilson and Jones. The pair claimed they had been there from July 8 until August 17, “making a movie about marijuana.”

Interviews with realtors, servants, and airline ticket agencies supported half their story: they had been in Jamaica at the time of the murders. And it was quite possible they did have something to do with marijuana. Their only regular visitor, excluding female friends, was a pilot who, a few weeks before, had without explanation quit his well-paying job with a leading airline to make unscheduled solo runs between Jamaica and the United States.

As for their moviemaking, however, the detectives evinced some skepticism, the maid having told them the only camera she ever saw in the house was a small Kodak.

T
he videotape Pickett gave Deemer was viewed in the SID lab. It was decidedly different from the one previously found in the loft.

Apparently filmed during the period the Polanskis were away, it showed Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Witold K, and an unidentified young lady having dinner in front of the fireplace of the Tate residence. The video machine was simply turned on and left to run, those present after a time seeming to forget it.

Abigail wore her hair tied back in a rather severe chignon effect. She looked both older and more tired than in her other photos; Voytek looked dissipated. Though what appeared to be marijuana was smoked, Voytek seemed more drunk than high. At first Abigail treated him with the exasperated affection one would accord a spoiled child.

But then the mood gradually changed. In an obvious attempt to exclude Abigail, Voytek began speaking Polish. Abigail, in turn, was playing the grand dame, responding to his crude jests with witty repartee. Voytek began calling her “Lady Folger,” then, as he became drunker, “Lady F.” Abigail talked about him in the third person, as if he wasn’t present, commenting upon, with some disgust, his habit of coming down off his drug trips by getting drunk.

To those viewing the tape it must have seemed nothing more than an overly long, exceedingly boring chronicle of a domestic argument. Except for two incidents, which, considering what would happen to two of those present, in this very house, gave it an eeriness as chilling as anything in
Rosemary’s Baby
.

As she was serving the dinner, Abigail recalled a time when Voytek, stoned on drugs, looked into the fireplace and saw a strange shape. He had rushed for a camera, hoping to capture the image, a blazing pig’s head.

The second incident was, in its own way, even more disturbing. The microphone had been left on the table, next to the roast. As the meat was being carved, it picked up, amazingly loud, over and over and over again, the sound of the knife grating on the bone.

H
urkos was not the only “expert” to volunteer a solution to the Tate homicides. On August 27, Truman Capote appeared on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” to discuss the crime.

One person, acting alone, had committed the murders, the author of
In Cold Blood
said authoritatively. He then proceeded to tell how, and why.

The killer, a man, had been in the house earlier. Something had happened “to trigger a kind of instant paranoia.” The man then left the premises, went home to get a knife and a gun, and returned to systematically assassinate everyone in the place. According to Capote’s deductions, Steven Parent was the last to die.

From the knowledge accumulated in over a hundred interviews with convicted murderers, Capote revealed that the killer was “a very young, enraged paranoid.” While committing the murders, he probably experienced a sexual release, then, exhausted, went home and slept for two days.

Although Capote had taken up the single-suspect theory, the Tate detectives had by now abandoned it. Their sole reason for adopting it in the first place—Garretson—was no longer a factor. Because of the number of victims, the location of their bodies, and the use of two or more weapons, they were now convinced that “at least two suspects” were involved.

Killers. Plural. But as to their identity, they had not the slightest idea.

A
t the end of August there was a summing up, for both the Tate and the LaBianca detectives.

The “First Homicide Investigation Progress Report—Tate” ran to thirty-three pages. Nowhere in it was there any mention of the LaBianca murders.

The “First Homicide Investigation Progress Report—LaBianca” was seventeen pages long. Despite the many similarities between the two crimes, it contained not one reference to the Tate homicides.

They remained two totally separate investigations.

Although Lieutenant Bob Helder had over a dozen detectives working full time on the Tate case, Sergeants Michael McGann, Robert Calkins, and Jess Buckles were the principal investigators. All were long-time veterans on the force, having worked their way up to the status of detective the hard way, from the ranks. They could remember when there was no Police Academy, and seniority was more important than education and merit examinations. They were experienced, and inclined to be set in their ways.

The LaBianca team, under Lieutenant Paul LePage, consisted, at various times, of from six to ten detectives, with Sergeants Frank Patchett, Manuel Gutierrez, Michael Nielsen, Philip Sartuchi, and Gary Broda the principal investigators. The LaBianca detectives were generally younger, better educated, and far less experienced. Graduates of the Police Academy for the most part, they were more inclined to the use of modern investigative techniques. For example, they obtained the fingerprints of almost everyone they interviewed; gave more polygraph examinations; made more
modus operandi
(MO) and fingerprint runs through the California State Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification (CII); and dug deeper into the backgrounds of the victims, even checking the outgoing calls Leno LaBianca had made from a motel while on vacation seven years ago.

They were also more inclined to consider “far out” theories. For example, while the Tate report didn’t attempt to explain that bloody word on the front door, the LaBianca report speculated as to the meaning of the writings found inside the residence on Waverly Drive. It even suggested a connection so remote it couldn’t even be called a wild guess. The report noted: “Investigation revealed that the singing group the Beatles’ most recent album, No. SWBO 101, has songs titled ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘Piggies’ and ‘Blackbird.’ The words in the song ‘Blackbird’ frequently say ‘Arise, arise,’ which might be the meaning of ‘Rise’ near the front door.”

The idea was just sort of tossed in, by whom no one would later remember, and just as promptly forgotten.

T
he two sets of detectives had one thing in common, however. Though to date the LaBianca team had interviewed some 150 persons, the Tate investigators more than twice that, neither was much closer to “solving” the case than when the bodies were first discovered.

The Tate report listed five suspects—Garretson, Wilson, Madigan, Pickett, and Jones—all of whom had by this time been eliminated.

The LaBianca report listed fifteen—but included Frank and Suzanne Struthers, Joe Dorgan, and numerous others who were never serious suspects. Of the fifteen, only Gardner remained a good possible, and, though lacking a palm print for positive elimination (one had been found on a bank deposit slip on Leno’s desk), his fingerprints had already been checked against those found in the residence with no match.

The progress reports were strictly intradepartmental; the press would never see them.

But already a few reporters were beginning to suspect that the real reason for the official silence was that there was nothing to report.

About noon on Monday, September 1, 1969, ten-year-old Steven Weiss was fixing the sprinkler on the hill behind his home when he found a gun.

Steven and his parents lived at 3627 Longview Valley Road in Sherman Oaks. Running parallel to Longview, atop the hill, was Beverly Glen.

The gun was lying next to the sprinkler, under a bush, about seventy-five feet—or halfway—up the steep hill. Steven had watched “Dragnet” on TV; he knew how guns should be handled. Picking it up very carefully by the tip of the barrel, so as not to eradicate prints, Steven took the gun back to his house and showed it to his father, Bernard Weiss. The senior Weiss took one look and called LAPD.

Officer Michael Watson, on patrol in the area, responded to the radio call. More than a year later Steven would be asked to describe the incident from the witness stand:

Q.
“Did you show him [Watson] the gun?”

 

A.
“Yes.”

 

Q.
“Did he touch the gun?”

 

A.
“Yes.”

 

Q.
“How did he touch it?”

 

A.
“With both hands, all over the gun.”

 

So much for “Dragnet.”

Officer Watson took the cartridges out of the cylinder; there were nine—seven empty shell casings and two live rounds. The gun itself was a .22 caliber Hi Standard Longhorn revolver. It had dirt on it, and rust. The trigger guard was broken, the barrel loose and slightly bent, as if it had been used to hammer something. The gun was also missing the right-hand grip.

Officer Watson took the revolver and shells back to Valley Services Division of LAPD, located in Van Nuys, and after booking them as “Found Evidence” turned them over to the Property Section, where they were tagged, placed in manila envelopes, and filed away.

Between September 3 and 5, LAPD sent out the first batch of confidential “flyers” on the wanted Tate gun. In addition to a photograph of a Hi Standard .22 caliber Longhorn revolver, and a list of Hi Standard outlets supplied by Lomax, Deputy Chief Robert Houghton sent a covering letter which asked police to interview anyone who had purchased such a gun, and to “visually check the weapon to see if the original grips are intact.” To avoid leaks to the media, he suggested the following cover story: such a gun had been recovered with other stolen property and the police wished to determine its ownership.

LAPD sent out approximately three hundred of the flyers, to various law-enforcement agencies in California, other parts of the United States, and Canada.

Someone neglected to mail one to the Valley Services Division of the Los Angeles Police Department in Van Nuys.

O
n September 10—one month after the Tate murders—a large advertisement appeared in newspapers in the Los Angeles area:

REWARD

$25,000

Roman Polanski and friends of the Polanski family offer to pay a $25,000 reward to the person or persons who furnish information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer or murderers of Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and the other four victims.

 

Information should be sent to

Post Office Box 60048,

Terminal Annex,

Los Angeles, California 90069.

Persons wishing to remain anonymous should provide sufficient means for later identification, one method of which is to tear this newspaper page in half, transmit one half with the information submitted, and save the remaining half for matching-up later. In the event more than one person is entitled to the reward, the reward will be divided equally between them.

 

In announcing the reward, Peter Sellers, who had put up a portion of the money, together with Warren Beatty, Yul Brynner, and others, said: “Someone must have knowledge or suspicions they are withholding, or may be afraid to reveal. Someone must have seen the blood-soaked clothing, the knife, the gun, the getaway car. Someone must be able to help.”

Although unannounced in the press, others had already begun their own unofficial inquiries. Sharon’s father, Colonel Paul Tate, had retired from the Army in August. Growing a beard and letting his hair grow long, the former intelligence officer began frequenting the Sunset Strip, hippie pads, and places where drugs were sold, looking for some lead to the killer(s) of his daughter and the others.

The police were fearful Colonel Tate’s private investigation might become a private war, since there were reports he did not go on his forays unarmed.

Nor were the police happy about the reward. Besides the implication that LAPD wasn’t capable of solving the case on its own, such an announcement usually yields only crackpot calls, and of these they already had a surplus.

Most had come in following the release of Garretson, the callers blaming the murders on everyone from the Black Power movement to the Polish Secret Police, their sources imagination, hearsay, even Sharon herself—returned during a seance. One wife called the police to accuse her husband: “He was evasive as to his whereabouts that night.”

Hustlers, hairdressers, actors, actresses, psychics, psychotics—all got into the act. The calls revealed not so much the underside of Hollywood as the underside of human nature. The victims were accused of sexual aberrations as peculiar as the minds of the persons who called them in. Complicating LAPD’s task was the large number of people—often not anonymous, and in some cases very well known—who seemed anxious to implicate their “friends”—if not directly connecting them with the murders, at least involving them with the drug scene.

There were proponents of every possible theory. The Mafia did it. The Mafia couldn’t have done it because the killings were so unprofessional. The killings were
intentionally
unprofessional so the Mafia wouldn’t be suspected.

One of the most persistent callers was Steve Brandt, a former gossip columnist. Because he had been a friend of four of the five Tate victims—he had been a witness at Sharon’s and Roman’s marriage—the police ftook him seriously, at first, Brandt supplying considerable information on Wilson, Pickett, and their associates. But as the calls became more and more frequent, the names more and more prominent, it became obvious that Brandt was obsessed with the murders. Sure there was a death list and that he was next, Brandt twice attempted suicide. The first time, in Los Angeles, a friend arrived in time. The second time, in New York, he left a Rolling Stones concert to return to his hotel. When actress Ultra Violet called to make sure he was all right, he told her he had taken sleeping pills. She immediately called the desk man at the hotel, but by the time he reached the room Brandt was dead.

For such a well-publicized crime there were surprisingly few “confessions.” It was as if the murders were so horrible that even the chronic confessors didn’t want to become involved. A recently convicted felon, anxious to “make a deal,” did claim another man had bragged of involvement in the killings, but, after investigation, the story proved bogus.

One after another, leads were checked out, then eliminated, leaving the police no closer to a solution than when the murders were discovered.

Though almost forgotten for a time, by mid-September the pair of prescription glasses found near the trunks in the living room of the Tate residence had, simply by the process of attrition, become one of the most important remaining clues.

Early that month the detectives showed the glasses to various optical company representatives. What they learned was in part discouraging. The frames were a popular model, the “Manhattan” style, readily available, while the prescription lenses were also a stock item, meaning they didn’t have to be ground to order. But, on the plus side, they also learned several things about the person who had worn them.

Their owner was probably a man. He had a small, almost volley-ball-shaped head. His eyes were far apart. His left ear was approximately ¼ to ½ inch higher than his right ear. And he was extremely myopic—if he didn’t have an extra pair, he would probably have to replace the glasses soon.

A partial description of one of the Tate killers? Possibly. It was also possible that the glasses belonged to someone totally unconnected with the crime, or that they had been left behind as a false clue.

It was at least something to go on. Another flyer, with the exact specifications of the prescription, was sent to all members of the American Optometric Association, the California Optometric Association, the Los Angeles County Optometric Association, and the Ophthalmologists of Southern California, in hopes that it would yield more than had the flyer on the gun.

Of the 131 Hi Standard Longhorn revolvers sold in California, law-enforcement agencies had been able to locate and eliminate 105, a surprisingly large percentage, since many of the owners had moved to other jurisdictions. The search continued, but to date it hadn’t yielded a single good suspect. A second gun letter was sent to thirteen different gunshops in the United States which, in recent months, had ordered replacement grips for the Longhorn model. Though the replies to this one wouldn’t come back until much later, it too drew a blank.

Nor were the LaBianca detectives having any better luck. To date they had given eleven polygraphs; all had been negative. As a result of an MO run through the CII computer, the fingerprints of 140 suspects were checked; a palm print found on a bank deposit slip was checked against 2,150 suspects; and a fingerprint found on the liquor cabinet was checked against a total of 41,034 suspects. All uniformly negative.

At the end of September neither the Tate nor the LaBianca detectives bothered to write up a progress report.