Does an hour or three make a difference?

Readers may remember our post from the 2015 Tour titled "Benedict Canyon and the Surrounding Areas: Report on Strange Sounds, Gunshots, Indications of Violence, Related by Persons who were in Hearing Distance of the Polanski Residence on the Night of 8-8-69 and the Morning of 8-9-69"

It got me to thinking about the witnesses who heard the "Strange Sounds, Gunshots & Indications of Violence" and the timeline involved. Why are there such wide discrepancies? In the case of Mr. & Mrs. Seymour Kott it's unclear to me exactly when they think they heard what they heard.

Helter Skelter page 24:

At 10070 Cielo, Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Kott had already gone to bed, their dinner guests having left about midnight, when Mrs. Kott heard, in close sequence, what sounded like three or four gunshots. They seemed to have come from the direction of the gate of 10050. She did not check the time but later guessed it to be between 12:30 and 1 a.m. Hearing nothing further, Mrs. Kott went to sleep.

An interview Seymour Kott gave to NBC the weekend of the murders:

REPORTER:    What is your name, sir?

KOTT:    My name is Seymour Kott.

REPORTER::    How do you spell that last name?

KOTT:    K-o-t-t.

REPORTER:    Did you hear anything unusual, uh, the Friday, or the, on Saturday morning?

KOTT:    Yes, I -- there was a little more traffic than usual.

REPORTER:    Did they have many parties, or did they have many parties, uh, at the Polanski house?

KOTT:    Uh, well, I understand there have been quite a few parties.Since we moved here, we’ve only been here a few weeks, there have been no parties.

I met uh, Sharon, uh em, -- the Folger girl, Abigail Folger. I introduced myself to her. And the day I met her, she told me that there was going to be a party that evening. But uh, it must’ve been very quiet because we didn’t hear anything. In fact, we heard some cats meowing and it probably was a cat right. But that was down in the canyon.

REPORTER:    What about the bell on the gate? Do you hear that when it opens and closes?

KOTT:    Yes, every time the gate opens or closes, the bell rings.

REPORTER:    So you didn’t hear any activity after midnight?

KOTT:   None, what-so-ever.

REPORTER:   Now, as far as these parties are concerned, did it have anything to do with the occult, or uh, anything unusual like that?

KOTT:    I, uh, certainly wouldn’t know that, since I wasn’t a participant.

REPORTER:    Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

KOTT:    You’re welcome.

Compare the above to this Mary Neiswender article Published August 27, 1969 (thanks to cielodrive.com):

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 27 – The slaughter of actress Sharon Tate and four others at her secluded Benedict Canyon home took place at "2 or 2:30 – no earlier," a neighbor who heard the shots and the screams of one of the victims said Tuesday in an exclusive interview.

The neighbor, from whose home you "can overhear normal conversation" on the grounds of the murder house, asked anonymity because of "possible problems."

Miss Tate, wife of movie director Roman Polanski and one of the stars in "Valley of the Dolls," was slain along with three of her jet-set friends - coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Hollywood hair stylist Jay Sebring, Polish would-be film maker Voityck Frokowski - and 18-year-old Steven Parent of El Monte, who had been visiting the caretaker of the estate, William Garretson.

On the night of the murder, Aug. 8-9, there were two parties going on in the exclusive section of Cielo Drive, the neighbor recalled.

One was at the home next door to the murder house, where a foursome - similar to the ill-fated gathering - had been invited.

"I stayed up late that night," the car-witness said "I was in bed reading and had snapped off the light and just dozed off. Something woke me almost immediately. I reached over and had just turned the light on when I heard a loud shot, a woman's scream, then another shot."

The second shot, he said seemed more muffled than the first - "the first seemed louder."

"At first I thought I was dreaming, but then I heard other noises, so I figured the party was still going on. I paid no attention…what the noises were didn't register. I know all I thought was that the party was still on.

"There's a lot of screaming and yelling in this neighborhood on weekends," he said. You get sort of used to it. It's like living near a freeway - pretty soon you don't hear the cars driving by."

What woke him up, he doesn't know, but he stayed awake long enough after the shots and screams to hear cars driving down the road.

"Where they were coming from, I don't know," he said. "There was a lot of traffic that night - like every weekend night."

The next morning the screaming of the maid at the murder scene brought the previous night's sounds into perspective.

"If I had looked out the window," he said, "I could have seen the murderers cutting the phone wires."

(The telephone wires leading to the home had been cut at the pole just outside the electronic gates of the estate. Police have said that the wires could have been cut either before or after the murders.)

Ever since the Polish-born film director moved into the home "maybe seven or eight months ago," the neighbor said; there was a lot of traffic - both on foot and in cars - going to the home.

"There was a lot of liquor delivered and a lot of air freight - and scripts from the studios, too. Reason I know," he said, "is that they'd always stop at our place to ask how you get into the estate, and I'd always have to show them the way."

The last vehicle he noticed going to the house before the murders, he claimed, was a white delivery truck, whose driver asked directions about 6:30 that evening.

From his home, he said, "you can't miss anything that is done" at the PoIanski home.

"I overheard the conversation between the detective and the telephone man as they were trying to get some clues from the way the wires were cut. But that's not the case," he said, "as far as the guest house is concerned – where the caretaker lived. You can't hear anything that's happening, in front when you're in the guest house."

This, he said he determined from previous with the caretaker and the house's owner, Rudy Altabelli, who both lived in the guest house. At the time of the murder Altabelli was in Europe.

But from his home he said, if your listen closely you can hear the chatter of guests, the music and "even the tinkle of cocktail glasses."

Although he admits he never met the blonde actress personally, they would wave "as neighbors" when she would drive by.

The home, in which he has been an occasional visitor, he described as "looking like a remodeled New England barn."

Since the murder no one but police and a few personal friends of the movie director have been allowed entrance.

A guard stands at the electronic gate leading to the house, taking down names of visitors, but allowing no one inside. The belongings of the Polanskis, the neighbor said, have been removed, but otherwise the house remains as it was found the day following the killings.

"Except." the guard adds, "the blood has dried."

By MARY NEISWENDER

What Mr. Kott said to Neiswender completely contradicts what he said to the NBC reporter, doesn't it? He tells NBC he heard no activity What.So.Ev.Er immediately after the murders, but later tells Neiswender he heard the shots and the screams no earlier than 2:00 - 2:30.

This can't sit well with TLB scholars. Especially considering that Seymour wanted to remain anonymous in Neiswender’s article. That's only logical conclusion a discerning mind can arrive at as to why Kott didn’t tell NBC he or his wife heard shots - is that he later embellished his story to Neiswender.

Prosecutors tend to bring forth evidence that works for their timeline and throw away those that don't work. Did Bugliosi actually ever do an interview with Mr. or Mrs. Kott? I don't know, but if he did, it's quite possible that in separate interviews they gave conflicting timelines to the DA's office OR, they both said something like "I heard screams no earlier than 2-2:30" At which point Bugliosi could have said to Mrs. Kott - who admittedly had been drinking and unsure, "Could it have been closer to 12:30A?" And Mrs. Kott replied "It could have been" which, if coached correctly before taking the stand, Bugliosi knows her reply will be "Around 12:30A" and unless a good defense attorney cross-examines her with, "Well, could it have been closer to 2:30" her testimony of 12:30 stands.

But the mere fact that Bugliosi uses this in his book to manipulate his readers into supporting his timeline (for me) is telling when clearly, Mr. Kott said "no earlier than 2-2:30" because now you have one of four 12:30 timeline witnesses discredited. Did Bugliosi know about Mary Neiswender's article?

Also interviewed by NBC the same weekend as Mr. Kott was Maureen Serot, the step-daughter of Ray Asin:

REPORTER:    What’s your name, Miss?

MAUREEN SEROT:   Maureen Serot.

REPORTER:   How do you spell that last name?

MAUREEN SEROT:    S-e-r-o-t.

REPORTER:    Where you home the night, uh, the murders, here?

MAUREEN SEROT:    No, I got home about 1 o’clock.

REPORTER:    Did you notice anything unusual?

MAUREEN SEROT:    The lights weren’t on. And usually the gate light is on, at least.

REPORTER:    Why would you take note of that?

MAUREEN SEROT:    It’s always been on, as long as we lived here, it’s usually the main light. Because you can’t see the gate or anything, without that on.

REPORTER:    Did you hear the bell on the gate closing, uh, at any time at all?

MAUREEN SEROT:    Not -- Saturday, Friday night.

REPORTER:   How about the people that were involved, were you acquainted with them?

MAUREEN SEROT:    Well, I had met Bill, the young guy they arrested, a couple times, walking the dogs. And my step father had met Sharon Tate a couple times.

REPORTER:    But you’ve never been in the house, uh --

MAUREEN SEROT:    Not since they’ve lived there

REPORTER:    Had you been in prior to that?

MAUREEN SEROT:    Yes.

REPORTER:    Would you say it was a good setting for a murder?

MAUREEN SEROT:    Yeah. It was a -- it’s a big spooky type of house at night.

REPORTER:    Thank you very much.

So, Maureen Serot told NBC that on the night of the murders she arrived home around 1am and noticed the light at the gate was off and that was unusual. But she didn’t hear anything afterwards.

There are basically 5 Witnesses to the 12:30 timeline:

Garretson and a radio-clock: Considering Garretson's story changed even within the time of his arrest and release, and now, doesn't even remotely resemble his LAPD interrogation I think we could suspect whether he was correct in his estimation of when Steve left.

Mr & Mrs. Seymour Kott (see above)

Tim Ireland who said the screams were around 12:40

Rudy Weber who Bugliosi said encountered the group at 1:00 AM when they stopped to hose off.

Maureen Serot who noticed that the light at the gate was off at 1:00 AM

Verses the 2:30-4:00 timeline:

Emmett Steele (9951 Beverly Grove Dr.) who was awakened by the barking of one of his hunting dogs. He estimated the time to be between 2 and 3am.

14-year-old Carlos Gill,  who had a clear eye-view to the house and sound would travel right to his window who said it was 4:00 AM.

Robert Bullington and Eric Karlson, two security patrol trained to mark the time who both said 4:11am

Mr & Mrs. Seymour Kott: It's interesting that in HS Bugliosi uses Mrs. Kott as an important reference to his 12:30 timeline, but later in the book doesn't list her as a witness to support his timeline at trial. She did not testify.


At the trial Bugliosi wrote in HS: After Kasabian left the stand, I called a series of witnesses  whose detailed testimony either supported or corroborated her account. These included: Tim Ireland... Rudy Weber... John Swartz...

Do you find it telling that Mr and Mrs Kott were NOT called to testify? In two interviews they support both timelines. Bugliosi doesn't call them to the stand, but he features Mrs. Kott 's words in the first chapter of Helter Skelter?

As a SPOOKY side note, Maureen Serot went to the same high school as Patricia Krenwinkel and was a year behind her. ooo-EEE-ooo

*** A special shout out to Cielo and Cindy Lee for input on this post!

Sanders New Book

Both Matt and myself have Sanders new book Sharon Tate- A Life.  We are both trying to read it but we are having trouble because it's so damn bad.  Speculation and flights of fancy abound.  We have agreed to each work on certain parts of the book and present a book report together.  So stay tuned.

When Sanders wrote his first book, The Family, veteran reporter Mary Neiswender who covered the Tate  LaBianca trial for the Long Beach Independent did a review.  In the opening paragraph she proffered an alternative title for the book "Rumors I Have Heard Or Thought About Re: Manson, Cults, Weirdos, Etc." .  This would have been a great title for the new book!

Transcribed:

Manson book mixes fact and fancy

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
Mary Neiswender

"The Family — The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion." (E. P. Dutton & Co., $8.95) by former Free Press writer Ed Sanders should have been entitled “’Rumors I Have Heard or Thought About Re. Manson, Cults, Weirdos, Etc.”

It's 412 pages of journalistic minutiae, put together in an attempt to show the “real" Charles Manson, the "real" Manson Famiiy and the "real” blood-and-guts behind the Tate-LaBianca killings and any other murder that looked or sounded similar.

But what it really shows instead is a massive amount of disjointed stories tied together with the now-infamous name of Charles Mlles Manson.

HOWEVER, it's a fantastic piece of journalism. No one I know except the long-haired, always-digging Sanders could come up with all the fact-and-fiction he did, then get it all down chronologically as well as comprehensively.

If you're not used to underground press phraseology - shock instead of sharpness - some of the tales may raise year eyebrows. But, to Ed's credit, there are fewer four-letter words in his book than there were in any one of the Manson articles he wrote for the Free Press.

Although Sanders uses many dates that don't match with the faces (they may be typographical errors), many of his "facts" sound more like the writer's Imagination than Manson’s actions. And, In many of the shady arrests of the Manson story, Sanders uses rumor to fill the void where no  known facts are available.

BUT THEN, no one - except the hippie chief himself - knows how to fill those voids accurately.

Sanders seems to gloss over this "real" Manson - and this also may be because no one really knows the "real" Manson. Sanders apparently hasn't talked with Manson sufficiently - if at all on nitty-gritty matters - to illuminate the subject.

Sanders himself seems confused about what he thinks Manson is all about. But that's understandable too.

He accepts the courtroom testimony of Juan Flynn, a Spahn ranch hand, without question.

WHEN I FIRST interviewed the curly-haired Panamanian at Spahn Ranch a few days after Manson was arrested, he was quoting the Bible and telling anyone who would listen what a rotten guy Manson wae oed what a rotten VD-infeelod bunch of girls he had.

A few months later, I saw the same Juan Flynn in a corridor of the Hall of Justice playing "hand love" with one of Manson's girl “followers and telling television reporters Manson was his "brother" and the greatest guy since Jesus Christ.

When he got an the witness stand, he was back to his his first stories - only vastly expanded and strengthened.

AT THIS POINT I don't think even Juan Flynn knows where he stands, but Sanders took his courtroom testimony only - without hedging his bet, or letting tits readers know the background.

Sanders apparently did the same with other Manson "contacts."

There are a lot of questions Sanders left unanswered in his book - but the answers probably will never be known until Manson tells his own story, if he ever does.

Until then, Sanders' book is the most detailed on the subject to come out… even though the details have a little to be desired.

What I’m waiting for now is Sanders' next book -  which he told me a few months ago would be on another carachter: Richard Milhous Nixon.

Teflon Charlie

PRESS-TELEGRAM
Long Beach CA
December 4, 1969

By Mary Neiswender
staff writer

"He reminded me of an old car.... you knew things were going to keep going wrong with it, but you kept trying to repair it."

This was the impression that hippie cult leader Charles Manson left with most guards of the federal prison on Terminal Island and with one in particular Guard Henry Tippett of 2577 Jefferson St., Long Beach, now retired, watched over the self-styled Messiah during his almost three years in the prison.

Manson's sentence in Terminal Island followed conviction of transporting a stolen car across state lines, and parole violation.

Manson- apparently a Svengali even in prison, Tippett said- charmed the then associate warden, who made him a trustee.

"The officers who had contact with him didn't agree with the warden," said Tippett.  "We opposed making him a trustee.  If you work in prison long enough, you get to know these things, especially with this guy's background."

Tippett, who retired in 1959- a year after Manson was released- claimed Manson had a tendency to break the rules.

"He was always doing things wrong- anything to violate the rules.  It seemed intentional.  It wasn't because he was dumb," Tippett said.

"Fro example, a simple thing like being assigned to a dormitory.  Manson wouldn't stay in one dorm.  He'd switch around just to annoy the guards."

Tippett said the guards quit "writing him up" because Manson was never disciplined.

"He would have been in isolation all the time if the warden paid attention to the guards," Tippett added.

Tippett, who was previously at Leavenworth Prison, Kansas, claimed the even older inmates who associated with the then 22-year old Manson eventually ended up in "trouble."

"But he apparently charmed one of the associate wardens," said Tippett.  "The warden him on one job, then another- never doing anything."  Finally, say Tippett went before the classification board and became a trustee.

"I guess they felt they could make something out of him," he added, "but most of us - the ones who saw him in action- felt he wouldn't last long as a trustee."  Manson didn't.

Assigned to clean-up work at the adjacent Coast Guard base, Manson got into a locker room, outfitted himself in new clothing, picked up some car keys.

Ironically, he was caught at a roadblock near San Francisco shortly after his escape by police who weren't even looking for him.

Manson was returned to the prison, where he stayed until his release in 1958.

He had a few "followers" at that time, Tippett said.  "Most of the other inmates stayed away from him."  Not so today.

The bearded, long haired leader of the cult suspected of the Tate killings and "at least 10 others" has a following whose loyalty is hard to believe.

Held in the Inyo County jail for 10 days awaiting preliminary hearings on a charge of receiving stolen property, he "still runs his 'family' in jail,"  say the officers.

"'They' are the remnants of his gang in the desert area -- three men in a large cell with him, and one woman in a separate part of the jail.

"We find Manson a model prisoner though," added the officers.  "But he should be by now.  He has been in and out of jail since he was 15."

Manson was first arrested on an adult charge in 1951, in Beaver, Utah, for taking a stolen car across a state line (a federal offense).  He was sent to National Training School for Boys in Washington D.C., then transferred to the federal reformatory at Petersburg, Pa.

In 1955 he was arrested for auto theft in Los Angeles and given a five years' probation; he violated his federal probation a year later in Indianapolis and was sent to the Terminal Island prison.

When released in 1958, he was picked up for a vehicle code violation in Los Angeles.  The following year he was arrested for auto theft, and later in the year for forgery.  In 1960 he was arrested in Laredo, Tex., for transporting women across a state line for immoral purposes (another federal offense).

In 1967 he was arrested in Ukiah for interfering with an officer; in 1968 in Ventura for having a false driver's license.

In 1969 his Los Angeles arrests included possession of marijuana; assault with intent to commit bodily harm, later changed to forcible rape; auto theft; burglary; cultivation and possession of marijuana, and the final charges for which he is currently in jail; contributing to the delinquency of a minor, firearm theft, receiving stolen property and auto theft.

At his preliminary hearing Wednesday, some of his followers were in the audience lending him moral support; others in jail spoke out in his defense.

Some of his followers have even said they would kill for him -- and they allegedly did.