Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders (9 page)

Buckles never did call, nor did he think the information important enough to walk across the autopsy room and mention the conversation to his superior, Lieutenant Robert Helder, who was in charge of the Tate investigation.

A
t Lieutenant Helder’s suggestion, Dr. Noguchi withheld specifics when he met with the press. He did not mention the number of wounds, nor did he say anything about two of the victims’ having ingested drugs. He did, again, deny the already much repeated reports that there had been sexual molestation and/or mutilation. Neither was true, he stressed.

Asked about Sharon’s child, he said that Mrs. Polanski was in the eighth month of her pregnancy; that the child was a perfectly formed boy; and that had he been removed by post-mortem cesarean within the first twenty minutes after the mother’s death, his life probably could have been saved. “But by the time the bodies were discovered, it was too late.”

Lieutenant Helder also talked to the press that day. Yes, Garretson was still in custody. No, he could not comment on the evidence against him, except to say that the police were now investigating his acquaintances.

Pressed further, Helder admitted, “There’s no solid information that will limit us to a single suspect. It could’ve been one man. It could’ve been two. It could’ve been three.

“But,” he added, “I don’t feel that we have a maniac running around.”

L
ieutenant A. H. Burdick began the polygraph examination of William Garretson at 4:25 that afternoon, at Parker Center.

Burdick did not immediately hook up Garretson. In accordance with routine, the initial portion of the examination was conversational, the examiner attempting to put the suspect at ease while eliciting as much background information as possible.

Though obviously frightened, Garretson loosened up a little as he talked. He told Burdick that he was nineteen, from Ohio, and had been hired by Rudi Altobelli in March, just before Altobelli left for Europe. His job was simple: to look after the guest house and Altobelli’s three dogs. In return, he had been given a place to stay, thirty-five dollars a week, and the promise of an airline ticket back to Ohio when Altobelli returned.

He had little to do with the people who lived in the main house, Garretson claimed. Several of his replies seemed to bear this out. He still referred to Frykowski, for example, as “the younger Polanski,” while he appeared unfamiliar with Sebring, either by name or description, though he had seen the black Porsche in the driveway on several occasions.

Asked to relate his activities prior to the murders, Garretson said that on Thursday night an acquaintance had dropped by, accompanied by his girl. They had brought along a six-pack of beer and some pot. Garretson was sure it was Thursday night, as the man was married “and he brought her up there several other times, you know, on Thursday, when his wife lets him go out.”

Q.
“Did they use your pad?”

 

A.
“Yes, they did, and I drank some beer while they made out…”

 

Garretson recalled that he drank four beers, smoked two joints, took one dexedrine, and was sick all day Friday.

About 8:30 or 9
P.M
. Friday, Garretson said, he went down to the Sunset Strip, to buy a pack of cigarettes and a TV dinner. He guessed the time of his return at about ten, but couldn’t be sure, not having a watch. As he passed the main house, he noticed the lights were on, but he didn’t see anyone. Nor did he observe anything out of the ordinary.

Then “about a quarter of twelve or something like that, Steve [Parent] came up and, you know, he brought his radio with him. He had a radio, clock radio; and I didn’t expect him or anything, and he asked me how I’d been and everything…” Parent plugged in the radio, to demonstrate how it worked, but Garretson wasn’t interested.

Then “I gave him a beer…and he drank it and then he called somebody—somebody on Santa Monica and Doheny—and he said that he would be going there, and so then he left, and, you know, that’s when—that’s the last time I saw him.”

When found in Parent’s car, the clock radio had stopped at 12:15
A.M
., the approximate time of the murder. Although it could have been a remarkable coincidence, the logical presumption was that Parent had set it while demonstrating it to Garretson, then unplugged it just before he left. This would coincide with Garretson’s estimate of the time.

According to Garretson, after Parent left, he wrote some letters and played the stereo, not going to sleep until just before dawn. Though he claimed to have heard nothing unusual during the night, he admitted that he had been “scared.”

Why? Burdick asked. Well, Garretson replied, not long after Steve left, he noticed that the handle of the door was turned down, as if someone had tried to open it. And when he tried to use the phone, to learn the time, he found it was dead.

Like the other officers, Burdick found it difficult to believe that Garretson, though admittedly awake all night, heard nothing, while neighbors even farther away heard shots or screams. Garretson insisted, however, that he had neither heard nor seen anything. He was less sure on another point—whether he had gone out into the back yard when he let Altobelli’s dogs out. To Burdick he appeared evasive about this. From the yard, however, he couldn’t see the main house, though he might have heard something.

As far as LAPD was concerned, the moment of truth was now arriving. Burdick began setting up the polygraph, at the same time reading Garretson the list of questions he intended to ask.

This, too, was standard operating procedure, and more than a little psychological. Knowing a certain question was going to be asked, but not when, built tension, accentuating the response. He then began the test.

Q.
“Is your true last name Garretson?”

 

A.
“Yes.”

 

No significant response.

Q.
“Concerning Steve, did you cause his death?”

 

A.
“No.”

 

Facing forward, Garretson couldn’t see Burdick’s face. Burdick kept his voice matter-of-fact as he moved on to the next question, in no way indicating that the steel pens had jerked across the graph.

Q.
“You understood the questions?”

 

A.
“Yes.”

 

Q.
“Do you feel responsible for Steve’s death?”

 

A.
“That he even knew me, yes.”

 

Q.
“Huh?”

 

A.
“That he even knew me. I mean he wouldn’t have come up that night, and nothing would have happened in other words to him.”

 

Burdick relieved the pressure cup on Garretson’s arm, told him to relax, talked to him informally for a while. Then again the pressure, and the questions, only slightly changed this time.

Q.
“Is your true last name Garretson?”

 

A.
“Yes.”

 

Q.
“Did you shoot Steve?”

 

A.
“No.”

 

No significant response.

More test questions, followed by “Do you know who caused Mrs. Polanski’s death?”

A.
“No.”

 

Q.
“Did you cause Mrs. Polanski’s death?”

 

A.
“No.”

 

Still no significant response.

Burdick now accepted Garretson’s explanation, that he felt responsibility for Parent’s death, but had no part in causing it or the other murders. The examination went on for another half hour or so, during which Burdick closed off several avenues of investigation. Garretson was not gay; he had never had sex with any of the victims; he had never sold drugs.

There was no indication that Garretson was lying, but he remained nervous throughout. Burdick asked him why. Garretson explained that when he was being taken to his cell, a policeman had pointed at him, saying, “There’s the guy that killed all those people.”

Q.
“I would imagine it would shake you up. But that doesn’t mean you’re lying?”

 

A.
“No, I’m just confused.”

 

Q.
“Why are you confused?”

 

A.
“For one thing, how come I wasn’t murdered?”

 

Q.
“I don’t know.”

 

A
lthough legally inadmissible as evidence, the police believe in the polygraph.
*
Though uninformed of it at the time, Garretson had passed. “At the conclusion of the examination,” Captain Don Martin, commander, SID, wrote in his official report, “it was the examiner’s opinion that Mr. Garretson was truthful and not criminally involved in the Polanski homicides.”

Unofficially, though Burdick believed Garretson “clean” on participation, he felt he was a little “muddy” on knowledge. It was possible that he had heard something, then, fearful, hidden until dawn. This was just conjecture, however.

For all intents and purposes, with the polygraph William Eston Garretson ceased to be a “good suspect.” Yet that bothersome question remained: Every single human being at 10050 Cielo Drive had been slaughtered save one; why?

Because there was no immediate answer, and certainly in part because, having been the only warm body on the premises, he had seemed such a likely suspect, Garretson was held for another day.

That same Sunday, Jerrold D. Friedman, a UCLA student, contacted the police and informed them that the call Steven Parent made at approximately 11:45 on Friday night had been to him. Parent was going to build a stereo set for Friedman, and he wanted to talk over the details. Friedman had tried to beg off, saying it was late, but finally gave in and told Parent he could drop by for a few minutes. Parent had asked him the time and, when he told him, said he would be there about 12:30.
*
According to Friedman, “he never got there.”

T
hat Sunday, LAPD not only lost their best suspect to date, another promising lead fizzled out. Sharon Tate’s red Ferrari, which the police had thought might have been used as a getaway car, was located in a Beverly Hills garage where Sharon had taken it the previous week for repairs.

That evening Roman Polanski returned from London. Reporters who saw him at the airport described him as “terribly crushed” and “beaten by the tragedy.” Though he refused to talk with the press, a spokesman for him denied there was any truth to the rumors of a marital rift. Polanski had remained in London, he said, because he hadn’t finished his work there. Sharon had returned home early, by boat, because of airline restrictions against travel during the last two months of pregnancy.

Polanski was taken to an apartment inside the Paramount lot, where he remained in seclusion under a doctor’s care. The police talked to him briefly that night, but he was, at that time, unable to suggest anyone with a motive for the murders.

Frank Struthers also returned to Los Angeles that Sunday night. About 8:30
P.M
. the Saffies dropped him off at the end of the long driveway leading to the LaBianca residence. Lugging his suitcase and camping equipment up the driveway, the fifteen-year-old noticed that the speedboat was still on the trailer behind Leno’s Thunderbird. That seemed odd; his stepfather didn’t like to leave the boat out overnight. Stowing his equipment in the garage, he went to the back door of the residence.

Only then did he notice that all the window shades had been pulled down. He couldn’t recall ever seeing them that way before, and it frightened him just a little bit. The light was on in the kitchen, and he knocked on the door. There was no response. He called out. Again no answer.