Wednesday, December 3, 2025

The Private Investigators

 


There were a whole slew of private investigators doing work on the TLB case.


The Family Ed Sanders pg306
Mr. Peter Folger, Abigail Folger's father, according to numerous people involved, initiated an intense investigation into the matter, as did Roman Polanski who were assisted by several famous Los Angeles private investigators. ... In fact, at least ten private investigators in Los Angeles were used extensively throughout the investigation of the case, both by private parties and the district attorney.

newsblaze.com/entertainment/books/sharon-tate-a-life-by-ed-sanders-power-book-review_72226/
William Garretson’s attorney, Barry Tarlow, hired a private investigator to conduct an additional polygraph examination, hoping to get to the bottom of this survival mystery.

Here are some names:

labyrinth13.com/eBook-ROYF.pdf
Paul Krassner, writing for a 1999 edition of Scope magazine:
--When Hal Lipset, the renowned private investigator, informed me a few years ago that the Los Angeles Police Department seized pornographic films and videotapes found in Polanski's loft ,,,

--Excerpt from Sharon Tate - A Life by Ed Sanders
"Hatami told me he has no memory at all of Manson coming to the front door of Cielo Drive, but that the memory was suggested to him by an investigator named Reeve Whitson, who worked for both Col. Paul Tate and the prosecutor Vince Bugliosi."

[The Private Sector: Private Spies, Rent-a-Cops, and the Police Industrial Complex by George O'Toole c.1978 pg223
When the CIA first considered the very sensitive question of operating within the United States, someone must have pointed out that firms like Fidelity Reporting Service could offer ideal cover. Private detective agencies are licensed to snoop, and they provide a confidential service, routinely refusing to disclose their clients' identities. They could provide perfect camouflage for the CIA's domestic intelligence activities.]


--Ed Sanders and Paul Fitzgerald employed a private investigator(PI) named Larry Larsen.

--Scanlans, May 1970
"Michael McCowan was the investigator for the defense in the Panther case, as well as in the Charles Manson case..."

--Witness to Evil, by George Bishop c.1971  pg144
Hughes...employed an investigator, long-haired William Swinney, whose wife took to breast-feeding their infant baby while sitting on the floor of the corridor outside the courtroom, right beside the men's lavatories.


Did Leno have his own PI, hired to look into the break-ins at the Waverly house?

--www.mansonblog.com/2023/08/54-years-of-remembering-victims.html (comments section)
Louise(Leno's daughter) said...
As far as the burglaries, for example, I recall those instances on several occasions where Dad and Rose talked about them. They never had those issues on Woking Way. All happened at Waverly, there were many times it happened, and different things happened--rug cuttings once, moving things around, and the actual thefts/burglaries. Dad told us he hired a detective but I never saw him. All mysteries.



--truthontatelabianca.com/threads/maybe-something-new-maybe-not.5232/    poster 'martine'
What many do not know is that from very early on in their relationship, Peter Sr. had all of Gibbie's and Voytek's comings and goings monitored. Peter Sr. had an investigative and security team which could put the CIA and FBI to shame. In fact, both of these teams were made up of former members of these institutes and of the Secret Service as well as other high-ranking retired military men.


--Some details about PJ Tate's own private investigation:

Restless Souls, by Alisa Statman
pg73
PJ to Helder: "...I'm confident that my network of connections can accomplish in one day what will take your men a week."

pg74
PJ: I turned off the television. There were three other men in the family room, all friends from the US Department of Defense, all skilled investigators. After the murders, Guy was the first to offer his assistance. As an FBI agent, he'd spent twenty of his forty-nine years traveling the globe...
(The men start discussing plans to investigate Roman, One of the men--"Jake"--watches Roman being polygraphed by Lt. Deemer)

Thus 'Jake' is close enough to the LAPD to get access to the polygraph room.



Unfortunately whatever they found out is totally private and there has been no leaks(other than Larson) in the decades since. 









17 comments:

orwhut said...

Larry Larson must be the guy's real name. It sounds so much like a fictional detective that I doubt a real PI would make it up.

James D. The Manson Archives said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
James D. The Manson Archives said...

"William Garretson’s attorney, Barry Tarlow, hired a private investigator to conduct an additional polygraph examination, hoping to get to the bottom of this survival mystery."

There was no separate or additional polygraph for Garretson. His attorney told the media in a conference the day he was released that his office had detectives and they had nothing to do with the homicide investigation but specifically for William to determine his innocence or guilt.

Can be heard here.

https://youtu.be/InMzzEKqsnE?si=HXHt0efg1WW-L4oh

He also said that Rudi Altobelli told him.thay if William was in the bedroom with the TV on, he would not be able to hear anything at all from the main house. The ariel views make the guest house look closer than what it is. There was a good distance between the two.

James D. The Manson Archives said...

I grabbed this from Cielo Drive. It's a photo that appeared in Latin American press after the murders. I have a copy of it from an Argentine newspaper, the Buenos Aires times, but I don't have access to it because I'm at work and I don't have access to all of my files, and I sent the news pressing to George Stimson once to show the distance and it's not as close to the main house as people think it is.

https://imgur.com/a/FIYutmX

James D. The Manson Archives said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Torque said...

The distance from the guesthouse to the main house is also compounded by sight lines and the amount of light provided by electric lighting in the yard. The architectural layout of the guesthouse is available here at the blog (provided by Cielodrive.com), and shows a window in the closet/bedroom, and the windowed door to the pantry affording at least some view of the main house and the yard between them.

The sidewalk between the pool and the guesthouse is also not straight, but curving, and this is punctuated by a covered gate, or pergola, in addition to shrubs. All of which would create a potential challenge for one to see from the guesthouse towards the main house and front yard.

There are several nighttime photos on the internet, taken by Jack Gorofolo on October 1, 1969, which clearly show yard lights and accent lighting on in the front yard and the area of the pool. Were those exact lights on the night of August 8th? That is unknown, but the light they cast in the photos is--in my opinion--substantial.

Taken together, it will continue to be difficult to determine what Bill Garretson could have seen that night, if he even bothered to look out the window at all.

Even more mysterious to me is where were the three dogs that were in the guesthouse during the murders? We know from his testimony that Bill left the patio door open during the night, allowing Christopher, the Weimaraner dog, to exit and enter. The poodles are hardly mentioned, but Christopher certainly was in and out. If only Christopher could talk, he might have had a very awful tale to tell.




James D. The Manson Archives said...

"l looked over and I saw a dog in the window. The dog ran away."

Susan Atkins grand jury testimony.

Which window? The living room window?

Torque said...

James D, I have always thought it to be the living room window, but she does not specify. The living room windows were large, but so were the windows in Abigail and Voytek's bedroom. Either way, it would probably been easy to see the dog. But when did she "look over"? After the inside lights were turned out? With lights on inside, the reflection of those lights may have glared off the windows, preventing a good view to the outside. With the inside lights off (which we are told they were just as the living room attack began) a better view of outside into the front yard may have been afforded.

James D. The Manson Archives said...

We do know that she acknowledges seeing a dog. And we do know that according to her from what she told her attorneys they were in the house at midnight because of the clock on the mantle above the fireplace struck 12:00 and she counted the chimes. If she saw the dog then she would have to be standing in front of the back of the couch because it was the back of the couch that faced the window. That would be sort of consistent with her fight with Frykowski...I suppose... because it was around that time she claimed to have lost the knife in just assume the dog took it.

James D. The Manson Archives said...

I should also add that when working on Making Manson, Manson told John Michael Jones that Susan gave Manson a knife after returning from the Polanski's home. When reading Susan's interview with Caballero and Caruso, She mentioned that her knife had tape around it and she thought to herself that that was going to leave fingerprints.

starviego said...

I'll bet the FBI and LAPD intell had more than a few "mutual aid pacts" with the PIs, where they fed each other tidbits of info to the mutual benefit of both parties. So a lot of what these PIs found out would be in those FBI files. The truth is out there!

Medium Patty said...

Starviego: Nice work! Could you list what each of the investigators found? It would be interesting to see what information was uncovered, and if any were contradicted by another.

James D: I'm in doubt if Susan actually saw a dog. She was on meth and known to exaggerate, so I don't completely trust her account. Pat was an animal lover, I'm sure she would have mentioned any pets if she saw them.

starviego said...

Medium Patty said...
Could you list what each of the investigators found?

Larry Larson is the only one that ever talked. But he talked in a big way. As defense attorney Paul Fitzgerald's investigator, he would have had access to all the 'discovery' materials compiled by police and prosecutors. And he then promptly gave the information to author Ed Sanders, he put most of it in his book "The Family." The truth is, Ed Sanders did not have a lot of sources inside the Family.

starviego said...

Now you'd think this would have opened them up to charges of an outrageous violation of the gag order, unprofessional conduct, conflict of interest, etc. But no one raised a peep in this case.

This ranks up there with that other, unpunished outrageous violation of the gag order, that of the Rolling Stone interview with Aaron Stovitz, who showed the two reporters the entire prosecution file on the murders, photos included.

You'll notice the publications that got these exclusive leaks, The LA Free Press and Rolling Stone, were aimed at the hippie youth market, which indicates to me that these were deliberately sanctioned leaks to convince those hippy youth that Charlie was indeed guilty as sin.

CieloDrive.com said...

That photo definitely didn’t appear in Latin American press or any press for that matter

Dan S said...

So maybe hatami's memory was suggested and CM didn't really know Rudy moved out or at least CM never actually visited let alone saw Sharon

grimtraveller said...

James D. The Manson Archives said:

And we do know that according to her from what she told her attorneys they were in the house at midnight because of the clock on the mantle above the fireplace struck 12:00 and she counted the chimes

That came during the Grand Jury. She said "I remember being in the house -- going back -- being at the Tate house, I recall either hearing twelve chimes or seeing a clock that said twelve".

I should also add that when working on Making Manson, Manson told John Michael Jones that Susan gave Manson a knife after returning from the Polanski's home

Yeah, well Charlie was known to make statements that flew in the face of known evidence, wasn't he. While many try to make him out to be such a hero of defiance, truth is, he was a little man who lived much of his criminal life in embarrassing denial.