http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/02/charles-manson-linda-kasabian-polanski
The 1960s, the decade of love, came to an abrubt and bloody end when
Charles Manson's 'family' murdered actress Sharon Tate and her
friends. Now, accomplice Linda Kasabian, tells the full story of that
awful night for the first time, reports Robin McKie
Robin McKie
2 August 2009
They were the murders that ended the 1960s, the decade of love, in a
bloodbath that shocked the world. Now, on the 40th anniversary of the
killing of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and her friends by Charles
Manson's "Family", the gang member whose testimony convicted the
killers has revealed for the first time her full involvement in the crimes.
On the night of 9 August 1969, Linda Kasabian was sent by Manson with
three other members of his Family - Tex Watson, Susan Atkins and
Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel - to break into Tate's home. There they
tied up the actress and her friends and stabbed them to death.
Kasabian acted as look-out.
Tate was married to the film director Roman Polanski and was eight
months' pregnant. In the interview with Kasabian, to be screened in
the docu-drama Manson on Channel Five next week, she tells how Tate
pleaded in vain for the life of her unborn child. She was stabbed 16
times. Her killers wrote the word "pig" in her blood on the wall of her house.
"I saw a woman in a white dress and she had blood all over her and
she was screaming and she was calling for her mom. I saw Katie
stabbing her," says Kasabian, who is now 60. "I thought about going
to a house where there were lights down the road and then I said,
'No, don't do that, because they'll find me and kill all those
people'. So I went down the hill and I got into the car and I just
stayed there and waited."
The killings horrified America and the rest of the world and the
subject has continued to fascinate ever since. It is not hard to see
why. Manson's strange, hypnotic hold over his followers turned a
group of peaceful hippies living in a commune into a group of
merciless killers. In addition, the case involved a range of
celebrity names including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and record
producer Terry Melcher, the son of Doris Day.
In the end, Manson was convicted of the murders of nine people,
thanks to Kasabian who was the prosecution's star witness at his
trial in 1970 - although he and his followers claimed they had, in
fact, "offed" a total of 35 people whose bodies had been buried in
the desert. It is a claim "that may be high, but could still be
true", according to Vincent Bugliosi, the lawyer who prosecuted them.
"The Manson murders sounded the death knell for hippies and all they
symbolically represented," Bugliosi told the Observer last week.
"They closed an era. The 60s, the decade of love, ended on that
night, on 9 August 1969."
Kasabian had been living in hiding, under an assumed name, since the
trial. The documentary is her first full public interview since her
appearance 20 years ago on an American cable chat show. "I could
never accept the fact that I was not punished for my involvement,"
says Kasabian. "I felt then what I feel now, always and forever, that
it was a waste of life that had no reason, no rhyme."
Kasabian was a 20-year-old hippy with a 16-month daughter in July
1969 when she met members of Manson's Family and was asked to join
their commune at a dilapidated ranch known as Spahn's. There she met
Manson, a 32-year-old racist who had already spent more than half his
life in jail. About 20 people were living on the ranch, maintained by
a life of petty crime and selling drugs.
"Manson - who was uneducated but highly intelligent - had this
phenomenal ability to gain control over other people and get them to
do terrible things," said Bugliosi. "Eventually he convinced them
that he was the second coming: Christ and the Devil all wrapped up in
the same person."
Armageddon was coming, Manson claimed as part of his racist,
anti-establishment gospel that predicted a black uprising against the
state. Once that was over, he and his followers would take over
America. Manson named this insurrection Helter Skelter because he
believed details of it were revealed in the song of the same name on
the Beatles' White Album. "A typical day would be Charlie playing
guitar, telling stories, dancing around just being free," Kasabian
states in the documentary. In fact, Manson was a talented musician
who had met Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. The pair had recorded a
few tracks, including one jointly written song "Never Learn Not to
Love" that was subsequently recorded by the Beach Boys.
Manson also tried to set up a record contract with the producer Terry
Melcher, but the deal had fallen through, a development that was to
lead directly to the murders of Tate and her friends. Manson was
angry with Melcher for not pursuing the deal and arrived at the
latter's house at 10050 Cielo Drive to confront him. However, Melcher
had moved on and the house was now occupied by Roman Polanski and
Sharon Tate. Manson was told to leave.
"This residence - 10050 Cielo Drive - where Tate and Polanski now
lived, came to symbolise the establishment to Charles Manson,
particularly the establishment's rejection of him," said Bugliosi. By
now, Manson's control over his Family was virtually total, and on 25
July he ordered three of them to go to the house of a drug-dealing
acquaintance, Gary Hinman, to demand money. Hinman refused, so they
stabbed him to death, using his blood to paint the words "political
piggy" on the wall - a grim rehearsal for what would occur at Tate's house.
Then Manson ordered Kasabian, Watson, Atkins and Krenwinkel to drive
to Cielo Drive. "I felt excited, special, chosen," recalls Kasabian.
"When we arrived at the Tate residence there were lights on the
outside, the driveway was lit up. Tex got a rope and wire cutters and
cut the telephone wires. There was a car coming so we got down. Tex
jumped out and shot the gun four times. He told me to take the wallet
from the kid he had shot. I got in the car. There was this person
slumped over. I didn't see any blood or anything but I knew he wasn't there."
The others went inside the house. Polanski was in Europe, but Tate
was entertaining her friends Wojtek Frykowski, Abigail Folger and Jay
Sebring. "You are all going to die," Watson told them after tying
them with rope. There was a desperate fight in which all four victims
were stabbed to death. A total of 102 wounds were inflicted. As they
drove off, Kasabian took the weapons, wiped them clean and dropped
them in a ravine.
The next day Manson sent his Family out again to kill and this time,
at random, he selected the house of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca,
wealthy owners of a chain of grocery stores. Manson broke in and tied
them up. Then he left, ordering three of the Family to stab them to
death. Manson was involved in at least one more murder - of an
acquaintance known as "Shorty" Shea - before his arrest in October.
However, it was for his instigation of the slaying of Tate and her
friends that he will always be remembered.
"Some people point to the extreme brutality of the murders to explain
our enduring interest, but you know we have had killings even more
brutal in America,' said Bugliosi. "And yes, the victims were
prominent people but they weren't that prominent. But what really
gives the Tate killings such durability is the fact they are the most
bizarre murders in the recorded annals of American crime. If they had
been written as fiction no one would have read it. It would have
seemed too far out. After all, the story has just about everything -
Beatles lyrics spelled out in blood, quotes from the Bible, and nice
kids from average families being persuaded to go on horrible killing sprees.
"The very name Manson has now become a metaphor for evil as a result.
The name is synonymous with evil today. Mike Tyson, when he was
applying for reinstatement of his boxing licence, admitted he was a
bad guy but insisted 'I am not Charlie Manson'. Certainly Manson was
different from all other mass murderers. He got others to do his work
and he was intelligent and manipulative. Most deranged cult leaders
end up getting their followers to commit suicide en masse. Manson got
them to carry out mass murders. That is why we remember him."
How the hunt for Linda Kasabian led TV producers to a trailer park
Nick Godwin, the Cineflix executive producer responsible for making
Manson, had only an assumed name to go on when his company began its
search for Linda Kasabian. "We also had a vague area, somewhere in
the west of America, in which she was said to be living," he told the Observer
So his team tracked down each woman with that name and ruled them out
one by one - until they had a shortlist of two.
"One was a school librarian in California who was very surprised to
be mistaken for an accessory to mass murder," said Godwin. The other
was living in near-poverty in a trailer. Her details were checked out
and fitted those of Linda Kasabian, but when contacted by the company
she refused to cooperate. "None of her friends or neighbours knew
about her dramatic past," said Godwin.
It took six months to establish a rapport and to get Linda to tell
the story of the four weeks she lived with the Manson Family. Then
she was shown a tape of the programme in which actors portray her and
other gang members . "Linda had her entire extended family sitting in
the trailer for the viewing. It was an emotional experience. Linda's
daughter cried throughout the murder scene. But Linda said it
accurately portrayed what happened."
She also had no idea that a British band had been named after her. So
Cineflix gave her a CD by Kasabian to listen to. She was pleasantly
surprised, said Godwin.
As to Linda's role in the conviction of Manson and the rest of his
Family, the prosecutor at the trial, Vincent Bugliosi, is in no
doubt. "She never asked for immunity from prosecution, but we gave
it," he said. "She stood in the witness box for 17 or 18 days and
never broke down, despite the incredible pressure she was under. I
doubt we would have convicted Manson without her."
• Manson by Cineflix Productions will be shown on Five on 10 August at 10pm
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment