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!

Manson Tour 2015: 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 was so quiet, one of the killers would later say, that you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in the cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon."

That's the opening line from Helter Skelter, and we wondered: Is it true?

So, while both Saints were investigating the authenticity of the VW Bus at Murphy Ranch - Matt, ColScott, Julie & Jiri headed out to Benedict Canyon...

Bugliosi based his entire timeline on a clock radio. He surmised that Steven Parent went to Cielo to sell Garretson the clock radio, so he plugged it in to demonstrate. Bugliosi also surmised that before leaving the guesthouse Parent unplugged it, marking the time 12:15AM.

To support his timeline, Bugliosi uses three witnesses.

The first timeline supporters were the immediate neighbors to the Tate/Polanski house at 10070 Cielo Drive where Mr. & Mrs. Seymour Kott resided. The Kotts said that they had dinner guests who left around midnight. The Kotts then went to bed. Mrs. Kott, while admittedly not looking at the clock or noting the time, said she heard, “in close sequence", what sounded like three or four gunshots. They seemed to have come from the direction of the gate of 10050 and she later guessed it to be between 12:30-1AM.

The second timeline supporter was Rudolph Weber—the garden hose guy living on Portola where the killers stopped to hose off the blood. During Weber's police interrogation with Sgt. Calkins, (thanks CieloDrive.com) Weber stated what time he found the killers at his house on Portola: "It must've been about 1 o'clock, I heard the uh, the sound of, running water."

Is it even possible for the killers to have arrived at Weber's by 1AM? With Bugliosi's timeline, Parent left the guesthouse at 12:15 AM and was murdered around 12:30 AM. Could Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel and Kasabian round up, tie up, chase around, and eventually kill the remaining 4 victims, grab their extra clothes, hunt around for the missing Kasabian, run down to the bottom of the cul-de-sac, and drive the (approximate) three minutes to Portola by 1AM? It seems highly improbable. But if so, would that then cancel out the Kott's testimony?

The third supporter of Bugliosi's timeline was Tim Ireland.

Ireland, was a school counselor chaperoning a group of girls during a sleep-over at the Westlake School for girls located at 700 N. Faring Rd. The police report notes: "Between 0100 and 0130 Mr. Ireland was awake, alert and watching the sleeping children. He heard a male voice from what seemed to him a long distance away to the north or northeast shout, 'Oh, God, no. Stop. Stop. Oh, God, no, don't'. Ireland said that the scream persisted for approximately 10 seconds. The male voice was clear and he did not notice an accent."

We drove to the Westlake school to see if Ireland actually had a clear (ear) shot to 10050 Cielo Dr. and we were surprised to find that he did indeed. From the Westlake school we could easily see the guesthouse side of the Cielo property.

10050 Cielo Dr from Harvard-Westlake School on 700 N. Faring Rd

Since the area where Steve Parent was killed was on the other side of that hill and inside his car, chances are that the screams Ireland heard were Woytek Frykowski running for his life. But what about the time? Bugliosi can't have the victims being murdered at the same time Weber said they were hosing off the blood. Therefore, does Ireland's testimony cancel out both Rudolph Weber and the Kott's testimony, or vice versa?

There were other reports that didn't fit Bugliosi's timeline so they were discarded. But, should they have been discarded?  We decided to check out where those witnesses were in relation to 10050 Cielo Drive. And we were surprised by what we found; so surprised that it would be negligent to discount their statements.

At 0400, Bel Air Security Patrolman Mr. Bullington was stopped in front of 2175 Summit Ridge Drive. He was parked facing northbound with the driver's window down and heard what he believed to be three shots.

10050 Cielo Dr. from 2175 Summit Ridge

2175 Summit Ridge is a construction site currently

Note this large auger. We'll get back to it.

"They (the shots) sounded as if they came from some distance to the west. The sequence was one shot, a 2/3-second pause, another shot, a 4/5-second pause, and a final shot. Mr. Bullington contacted Bel Air Patrol by radio (Mr. Karlson, 1-3, states time was 0411) and reported this. (0411 hours) Mr. Karlson was on duty on 8-9-69, and at 0411 was contacted by radio by patrolman Bullington of Bel Air Patrol who had stopped at 2175 Summit Ridge. Officer Bullington reported to Karlton he had heard three shots spaced several seconds apart. Karlton called West Los Angeles (police?) desk a t 0412 and reported this to an unknown officer who stated, "I hope we don't have a murder. We just had a woman-screaming call in that area."

Bullington had an unobstructed "ear-shot" to the front lawn of 10050 Cielo. Following the Steven Parent shooting there were 3 additional gunshots: 1 to Jay Sebring and 2 to Woytek Frykowski. Can it be a coincidence that Bullington heard what sounded like 3 gunshots? And what about the 4:11AM report time? Not just one, but two witnesses (Bullington, Karlson) who are trained service officers for one of the most elite private security forces in the U.S. messed up the time? And what about the third unknown police officer who got the "woman-screaming" call at the same time?

Next we visited the two witnesses who live two houses apart on Beverly Grove Drive, Mr. Emmett Steele, who lived at 9951 Beverly Grove and 14-year-old Carlos Gill, who lived at 9955 Beverly Grove.

Steele reported that he "maintains two trained hunting dogs at his residence. These dogs do not generally respond to ordinary traffic or house noises in the vicinity, but become highly excited and bark and howl when they hear gunshots. On 8-9-69, between 0200 and 0300, both dogs became highly excited, barking and howling. Mr. Steele went out and calmed the dogs, checked the area but could see nothing. Mr. Steele did not hear any gunshots himself, but was concerned about a lavender Volkswagen type dune buggy, XSP 193, and a black foreign-type motorcycle, possibly a Triumph, that have been seen and reported driving about the area for the past six weeks in the late night and early morning hours. These two vehicles have not been connected with the incident at this time."

Carlos Gill reported: "He had been asleep, awoke at 2300 hours and began writing letters in his room. From his bedroom located on the opposite side of Benedict Canyon, it is possible to look directly across the canyon at approximately the same elevation and view the front of the Polanski residence. The distance is estimated as approximately 1/4 to 1/2 mile. At approximately 0400 hours he heard the sound of voices arguing. He believed it was three or four persons. The argument increased in volume and became more heated. It lasted approximately one minute and then subsided abruptly. He indicated that in his opinion the sounds originated from the direction of the Polanski residence. At the time of the occurrence he stood by the window in his lighted room and looked in that direction but could see nothing. He said that the severity of the argument so frightened him that he went immediately to bed after closing the window." What's not noted is the fact that between 11:30PM-4AM Carlos, with an open window did not hear any gunshots between 1-1:30AM.

Zoom in on Carlos Gill's view at 9955 Beverly Grove. 

The auger clearly visible on far left near the blue construction tarps. Tate property on right.

While we were in Benedict Canyon, we checked out one other item of interest. We wondered about the conflicting stories after the killers left the Cielo house, changed clothes as they were driving, hosed off, and then dumped the bloody clothing that was later found by KABC news team and Al Wiman.

Wiman claimed that based on Susan Atkins' testimony, they left from the Cielo house and "We timed ourselves and tried to place ourselves in the same position that the people would have been in that night after they left the Tate house. 6 minutes and 20 seconds of moderate driving up Benedict Canyon led us to this spot." In the later interview that we posted, Wiman says that from Cielo he started a stopwatch and that it took 6 minutes and 30 seconds to changes clothes: "I was changing clothes in the back seat of the car. And at 6 minutes and 30 seconds the first place that you could pull over was exactly that same spot we had been at that morning."

The problem with that theory is that Atkins also testified that they had changed clothes, but made a pit-stop at Weber's house to hose off the remaining blood before driving up Benedict to dump the bloody clothing. This would delay Wiman's 6:30 timing. So, we decided to do a test of our own with me as our Guinea Pig.

The spot where the car was parked during the Cielo murders

We started at the approximate area the killers said they parked the car. I put himself in the same circumstances that the killers would have been in (cramped back seat with 2 others changing next to him). With the car in motion I completed a full change-over in just 1 minute and 20 seconds. We hadn't even made it to Easton Dr.

But, what we did note as we proceeded to the dumping spot at 2901 Benedict Canyon, was that it was the first place between Cielo and Mulholland that had any type of accessible ravine. So, the series of events that happened in between those two locations doesn't really matter because it was the only initial place they could've inconspicuously dumped the clothes!

We did visit one other witness location, 10231 Charing Cross Rd., where at 3:30AM Bel Air Patrolman Mounton heard what he first believed to be three backfires, but on reflection felt that the reports were too sharp and short to be backfires. He said the reports were, two close together, and then one shortly thereafter, which concurs with patrolman Bullington. The location at Charing Cross Rd was at a lower elevation with surrounding high trees so it was impossible to see where in relation to Cielo this was.

For me, seeing the locations of the other 4 witnesses and their audio proximity to the front of Cielo, where 90% of the savagery occurred, gives enough reasonable doubt to the murders not occurring between 12:30-1A. Especially when you consider that Mrs. Kott and Mr. Weber both stated they were guessing at the time as opposed to patrolmen who marked the time. So why was Bugliosi so insistent that the murders occured between 12:30-1A? Did he do it because of the one witness (Weber) who physically saw the killers and therefor placed them in Benedict Canyon on the night of the murders was more valuable than reality?

What do you think?

--------------------------------------

3 Google Earth screen shots

We were at the base of Sharon's cul-de-sac on Cielo. The killers only describe driving down the hill, parking, and hiking back up to the gate so it could be one of 2 places either where we were or there's a bit of an alcove on the cul-de-sac that would also be hidden and at the time, free of houses.

This one shows you the run of the cul-de-sac with 10066/50 at the top and the V where the cul-de-sac meets with Cielo proper - there's actually a car parked where we were in the screen shot. You can also see the alcove I'm talking about where the orange tile roof is.

This is a closer shot of the base of the cul-de-sac where there's an intersection of sorts between Cielo, Sharon's cul-de-sac, and Bella Dr. - again, there's a car parked in the same spot where we started timing the drive.

This is a closer shot of the cul-de-sac area where they may have alternately parked - where the 2 white cars are parked in the shot.