Manson follower Leslie Van Houten granted parole in notorious murders; Brown will make final decision

By Matt Hamilton
Contact Reporter Los Angeles Times

Leslie Van Houten, who was convicted along with other members of Charles Manson's cult in the 1969 killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, was granted parole Wednesday by a panel of state commissioners in Chino.

It was the 21st time that Van Houten, 68, has appeared before a parole board, and the second time that commissioners found her suitable for release.

“She’s very thankful and relieved,” said Van Houten’s attorney, Rich Pfeiffer. “She’s going home. There’s no question she’s going home. The only question is when.”

Gov. Jerry Brown must now once again decide whether to release her after more than 40 years in prison. Brown rejected her parole last year, concluding that Van Houten — the youngest member of Manson’s so-called family — posed “an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison.”

Her attorneys have long argued that she was only 19 when she took part in the crimes and that she has been a model prisoner. But release has been strongly opposed by the families of the victims as well as prosecutors and many others.

State officials will begin a 120-day legal review of the panel’s finding, and after the process concludes, the decision goes to Brown. The governor would have 30 days to take one of five options. He could uphold, reverse or modify the decision, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Brown could also send the decision to the full Board of Parole, or he could take no action, which would allow Wednesday’s decision to stand.

From left, Manson followers Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten walk into a morning court session in 1970. When Manson carved an "X" into his forehead during the trial, his "family" members followed suit. ( Los Angeles Times)

THE CRIME
She stabbed victim 14 times

Van Houten has been considered the least blameworthy member of the group and has been portrayed by supporters as a misguided teen under the influence of LSD on the night of the slayings.

A former homecoming queen from Monrovia, she did not join in the Aug. 9, 1969, murders of Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski, and four others at the Benedict Canyon home that Tate was renting.

But the following day, Van Houten was part of a group that stormed into the LaBiancas' home in Los Feliz. As Charles "Tex" Watson stabbed Leno LaBianca, Van Houten and another woman held down Rosemary LaBianca.

After Watson stabbed Rosemary LaBianca with a bayonet, he handed a knife to Van Houten. She testified to stabbing Rosemary in the back at least 14 more times. The blood of the victims was used to scrawl messages on the walls, as had been done at the Benedict Canyon home.

Leslie Van Houten, shown in 2002, has repeatedly been denied parole. (Peter Phun / Associated Press)

IN THE COURTS

A long, winding legal process

Van Houten, Manson and three others were convicted and sentenced to death, but after the California Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, their sentences were commuted to life in prison.

An appellate court overturned Van Houten’s conviction in 1976, and a second trial the following year ended in a hung jury. She was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy in her third trial in 1978 and sentenced to seven years to life in prison. Starting in 1979, Van Houten has gone before the parole board regularly.

In recent years, Van Houten’s attorneys characterized her as a model inmate, earning a bachelor’s in English literature and master's degree in humanities while running self-help groups for incarcerated women.

At parole board hearing in 2002, Van Houten said she was “deeply ashamed” of what she had done, adding: “I take very seriously not just the murders, but what made me make myself available to someone like Manson.”

Manson, 82, and other acolytes involved in the slaying are still behind bars. Charles “Tex” Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel have each been denied parole several times. Susan Atkins, who was denied parole 13 times, died in prison in 2009.

FREEDOM BLOCKED
‘Shocking nature of the crimes left an indelible mark on society’

A two-member California review board first granted parole to Van Houten in April 2016.

In its first recommendation for release, the board based its decision in part on Van Houten’s age at the time of the crime, her length of incarceration, lack of violent crime as an adult and her spotless prison record: She has never been disciplined for serious misconduct while behind bars.

But Brown last year disagreed, saying in his five-page decision that all of these points were outweighed by other “negative factors that demonstrate she remains unsuitable for parole.”

He said the “shocking nature of the crimes left an indelible mark on society” and that the motive — to trigger a race war “by slaughtering innocent people chosen at random — is equally disturbing.”

In his statement, Brown said it remained unclear how Van Houten had transformed herself from a smart, driven young woman to “a member of one of the most notorious cults in history and an eager participant in the cold-blooded and gory murder of innocent victims.”

At her last parole hearing, she said: "I don't let myself off the hook. I don't find parts in any of this that makes me feel the slightest bit good about myself.”

A SECOND BID
‘She’s going home’

Pfeiffer, Van Houten’s attorney, said Wednesday’s decision by the parole board was an important milestone, calling it “the most difficult one to get.”

The panel was aware that the governor had previously rejected her release but still found her suitable for freedom.

Pfeiffer said he was hopeful that this time around, Brown will set aside public pressure and see that his client has been rehabilitated.

“If he rejects it, we’ll go back to court,” Pfeiffer vowed. “I’m not going away, and she’s going home.”

Charles Manson is escorted to court for a preliminary hearing in 1969 (Bill Murphy / Los Angeles Times)

Ruby Pearl, Barbara Hoyt, and the Murder of Shorty Shea (Again)

Don't worry about this turning into the Donald Shea Blog. Yes, we have recently published this story and this one about the doomed would-be stuntman, but since we have just passed the 48th anniversary of Shea’s demise it would be appropriate to post just one more.

Two of the main witnesses against the defendants in the trials for the murder of Donald Jerome “Shorty” Shea (People v. Manson, People v. David, and People v. Grogan) were women, Ruby Pearl and Barbara Hoyt. Both women’s testimonies were of great assistance to the prosecution’s efforts to obtain murder convictions in a daunting case where no body of the victim had been found. Ruby Pearl’s testimony was important in buttressing the argument that Shea's unexpected and prolonged absence from Spahn's Ranch indicated that he had likely fallen victim to sinister circumstances. She also gave details about an ominous conversation she’d had with Shea on the night before he disappeared. Barbara Hoyt's testimony was also important, but it was much more precise: she claimed to have heard the actual death screams of Shea while he was being murdered.

The testimony that Ruby Pearl gave painted a vivid picture of some of the events of the night before Shea vanished. But much of Pearl’s background testimony was equally valuable in that it is a great help in gaining a more realistic perspective of life at Span's Movie Ranch in the summer of 1969.

Barbara Hoyt’s testimony was also very vivid. Her unequivocal recollections of having heard Shea being slain were quite impressive to the jury and were a considerable factor in convincing them that the absent Shea had indeed been murdered.

Ruby Pearl —

In1969 Ruby Pearl had worked for George Spahn for almost twenty years. As Spahn's "right hand woman" she was his immediate subordinate and oversaw all of the practical aspects of running the ranch, including renting out horses, arranging jobs with other business concerns, hiring and firing workers, taking care of the horses and other livestock, and maintaining whatever supplies and equipment were necessary for the successful running of a movie set and horseback riding business. By the summer of 1969 Pearl was working at the ranch every day, seven days a week, from about nine in the morning until ten or twelve in the evening. As such she was well positioned to give accurate accountings as to what went on there. And those accountings are not only accurate, but they are also very interesting.

Ruby Pearl

Of general interest is that Pearl deflated one of the many myths of the Manson saga with the revelation that the famous ”there were no calendars or clocks at Spahn's Ranch" scenario was not an insidious plan on the part of Charles Manson to keep his "followers" disoriented as to dates and time but was rather the way the situation always existed at the ranch, even before Manson and his friends got there. Repeatedly in her testimony Pearl recalled that the life at the ranch was one of timeless routine where the only chronological landmark she had that summer was the massive police raid that was carried out on August 16, 1969; she could only remember events as having occurred before or after that remarkable and highly memorable event.

At Bruce Davis’ trial for Shea’s murder L.A. Deputy District Attorney Anthony Manzella asked Pearl, “Miss Pearl, you said that you didn’t have anything to base your dates on. What did you mean by that?”

Pearl responded, “Until we got it in our heads about the time of the raid, we didn’t have anything to base our time on.”

Manzella: “To you — at the ranch, you worked almost every day at the ranch, didn’t you? Seven days a week?”

Pearl: “Yes.” ….

Manzella: “Did you pay much attention to particular dates?”

Pearl: “Not unless something particularly happened.”

Later, she said, “Well, time, a day or two, isn’t important in our memories. We never kept track of the days, of time. Every day was a working day.”

And yet again, "Well, we didn't center dates around any particular thing, until the raid. That determined a lot of conversation and dates. Before that time, we didn't [know]."

Despite this lack of any accurate time measuring system Pearl could, however, recall sequences of events as far as they related to each other. Thus, she remembered the time after which she didn't see Shea anymore, and she remembered the events that immediately preceded that time.

Although she couldn’t recall the exact date, Pearl clearly remembered the last time she saw Donald Shea. It was on a moonlit night near the end of August. Shea had recently been hired by Frank Retz to work as a sort of night watchman, with the added duty of keeping Charles Manson and his associates away from the “back ranch” area, which Retz claimed was on his property.

It was late at night, probably around midnight. Pearl was in her black Rambler pulling out of the parking lot at Spahn’s after a typical long day of work when she was approached by Donald Shea. Shea was fearful, and he was drunk. As Pearl later recalled in her testimony, Shea asked her, “Pearl, can I stay over at your house tonight? It’s kind of weird here.”

Pearl said, “I haven’t got any place but the shed,” referring to a small structure with a bed in it behind her house.

Shea said, “Well, it’s kind of cold in there.”

Pearl suggested, “Why don’t you go over the the Fountain of the World?"  The Fountain was a religious retreat located in Box Canyon a few miles west of Spahn’s Ranch that took in people who had no place to stay. Shea said that he didn't want to go there either and decided to spend the night in his car at the ranch.

Prosecutor Anthony Manzella asked Pearl about Shea’s demeanor during this conversation. She answered, “He was very serious and he kept looking around, and he said, ‘It gives me the creeps to stay here.’”

Manzella: “Had you ever seen him like that before?”

Pearl: “No.”

Pearl allowed that an additional reason for discouraging Shea from staying at her house was because he had been drinking that night.

Bruce Davis defense attorney George Denny asked Pearl,  “All right. Then, you had this conversation with Shorty? And Shorty had been drinking somewhat; is that right?”

Pearl:  “Yes, he had.”

“And in fact, that’s one of the reasons that you were not too keen to have him come to your house that night; is that right?”

“For that reason; and it was late.”

After this encounter with Shea, Pearl recalled:

“Well, he turned and walked away towards the boardwalk. And I started slowly to pull off. And I saw a car come in real fast, into the driveway and park over there by the side of the road, towards the Simi Valley Road…. just on the edge. And all of these boys got out real quick and started over towards the boardwalk.”

Asked to identify “these boys” Pearl replied, “The Manson boys.”

How many boys were there?

“Four…. Charles Manson, Bruce Davis, Steve Grogan, and Tex Watson.”

Question (by Mr. Manzella): "Now, when they pulled in, did they pull in near you?"

Pearl: “Yes, they had to go almost in front of me. [After they got out of the car], they rushed towards the boardwalk…. where Shorty had just went…. The last I could see them, they was just fanning out…. just spreading out around…. around the spot where Shorty went…. I was slowly pulling out anyway, so I just kept going.”

That was the last time Pearl saw Donald Shea.

How soon after that event did Manson and “the Family” leave the ranch?

“Within a day or so.”

Did they ever return to the ranch to live?

“No.”

Donald Shea, crouching, at left. The actor holding the gun on Shea is Bob Bickston. 

Shea was scheduled to do some movie work with Bickston at Spahn's Ranch 

starting on September 1, 1969, but by that date he had vanished.

Ruby Pearl's dramatic testimony was important because it set the stage for the prosecution's scenario of the crime, namely that Shea was murdered sometime later that night after Pearl saw "the Manson boys" surrounding him on the boardwalk. And to absolutely cement the certainty that Shea was murdered that night, the prosecution called Barbara Hoyt, a sometime inhabiter of Spahn's Ranch in the spring and summer of 1969. Hoyt's testimony was direct and damning: she claimed to have heard the death screams of Donald Shea as he was being murdered.

Barbara Hoyt --

Barbara Hoyt is often described as a "member of the Manson Family." ("Manson Family," I will say here, is a media-created term, a nebulous designation with no actual formal or legal criteria. No law enforcement agency has ever officially recognized any group as "The Manson Family" in the way that they have identified such criminally inclined groups as organized crime families or street gangs.) But is that true? What was Barbara Hoyt's real relationship to Charles Manson and the people around him?

According to various courtroom testimonies (Specific cites available on request!), Barbara Hoyt first became acquainted with Manson and some of his associates on April 1, 1969, when she met them at the house they were then staying in at 21019 Gresham Street in the Canoga Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The 17-year-old Hoyt had just run away from her parents' nearby home. Hoyt quickly became the girlfriend of another frequenter of the Gresham Street house, a fellow named David Baker, who sometimes surfaces in the TLB literature as "Karate Dave." Shortly after this meeting on April Fools Day, Hoyt says that the group went to stay at a house in the “Malibu mountains”  for a few days before going to Spahn's Ranch. She left the ranch in early May after being arrested for shoplifting a carton of cigarettes. As a result of this brush with the law she returned to her parents' house for a while before going back to the ranch in the last week in May. After the end of May she left California on a cross-country hitchhiking trip (she was chasing Karate Dave) and didn't return to the ranch until the middle of July (although she did call the ranch perhaps a half dozen times during this period, asking if anyone knew where the elusive Dave was). In mid-July, reunited with Dave at the ranch, she left with him (and with $100 given to the couple by Charles Manson) and drove in a bread truck to the ocean front at Belmont in Long Beach for, as Hoyt later recalled, "I guess it would be about a week and a half, two weeks." While the couple was on a pier in Long Beach they heard about the U.S. moon landing. After returning to Spahn's Ranch at the end of July or beginning of August, Dave Baker finally got away for good. Hoyt remained at Spahn's Ranch and stayed there through August and then went to the desert at the beginning of September when the rest of the people went there.

Between April and August Hoyt characterized her time with "the Family" as "not that much." Even when she was in their proximity she often did not eat dinner with them. And unlike Manson and his associates, Hoyt ate meat. Sometime Hoyt wasn't even sure who "the Family" were. "There were people there [Spahn's Ranch] who were living in the saloon, but I am not sure that that was them ["the Family"], you know," she testified. "I can't say for sure, because I didn't know who they were then." (Emphasis added. Author's questions: When did she find out? And did anybody help her?)

Question (by Steve Grogan defense attorney Charles Weedman): "Well, you saw a group there, then that were, perhaps, similar in appearance, generally, to the Manson Family, but you can't say if they were the Manson Family? Is that correct?"

"Yes."

Hoyt's conception of  what it meant to be in "the Family" is also somewhat tenuous. Although she says she "joined the Family" on the first day she met them, April 1, 1969, she recalled no initiation into the group and when asked how she became a member she replied, "I just felt I was in. And I felt accepted, I guess." Later, Hoyt was unable to accurately gauge the depth of her rapport with "the Family" because, "I was not with them."

"Well, then, it's your state of mind that makes you a member or not of the Manson Family; is that right?" asked Bruce Davis defense attorney George Denny.

"Partly," answered Hoyt.

Hoyt said she ceased being a member of "the Family" when she fled Goler Wash in mid-September 1969.

During her scattered presence at this frenzied time she recalled staying at many dispersed places around Spahn's ("I slept in the saloon, in the trailer, in the parachute room, in the wickiup, in the bath house, in the outlaw shacks, in the ca -- you know, where there's a camp; all over the place.") and even took an excursion of several days duration after the raid of August 16 to the desert town of Olancha about 180 miles north of Chatsworth. After a few days in Olancha (where she stayed at the Hannum Ranch with Charles Watson, Nancy Pittman, Ruth Moorehouse, Sherry Cooper, and Diane Lake) she returned yet again to the ranch and remained with the group until after they went to Goler Wash, where she became fearful and disturbed and left to return to her parents’ house in Los Angeles. (Ed Sanders puts the time of her desert departure as September 14 or 15.)

By her own admission on the witness stand, then, Barbara Hoyt was a peripheral character (she never got a "Family" nickname) who only spent several weeks with the Spahn's Ranch people during the late spring and mid-summer of 1969. For most of that time, from April first until the beginning of August, she was apparently focused on her relationship with Dave Baker. After Baker left, Hoyt hung on with the Spahn's Ranch crowd not because of any commonality with them, but because she had nowhere else to go. Her time at the ranch, however, was long and convenient enough for her to be a crucial prosecution witness in the trials against Donald Shea's alleged killers.

Vincent Bugliosi with Barbara Hoyt. Assistant prosecutor Stephen Kay is behind Hoyt. 

Like Ruby Pearl, Barbara Hoyt testified in numerous trials against the three defendants in the Shea murder cases. Her most important testimony described what she claimed she heard on a night at the end of August as she was settling down to sleep behind the main ranch buildings in a little travel trailer known as "the parachute room."

"I had just gotten into bed, and I heard a scream, and I sat up. And for a minute, there wasn't any sound, and so I thought, well, maybe I imagined it. And I laid back down again. And then the screaming started again, and it kept going and going and going for a long time."

"And did you know who it was that was screaming?" asked prosecutor Stephen Kay.

"It was Shorty…. [The screams] sounded pretty far away."

"All right. Did you have any idea of which direction they were coming from?"

"Down the creek, toward the outlaw shacks. Just in that direction…. [The screaming] seemed like a really long time, so I couldn't accurately tell you [how long]. It probably wasn't a real long time, though, but it seemed like it…. [The screams] were loud. And they were painful, and they were the same kind that -- you know, those horror movies when the lady is screaming, that kind of scream? Well, it was like that…."

"Now, is there any doubt at all in your mind that it was Shorty Shea that you heard screaming?"

"No."

Hoyt's testimony regarding hearing the death cries of Donald Shea was compelling, unshakable, and certain. In all of her days and days of testimony, it is the one thing in her mind that she did not budge on. She heard those screams, and they were Donald Shea's screams. Period. But there is something amiss with Hoyt's definitive memories: they are completely at odds with the known facts of Shea's murder.

One problem is the time. Hoyt was absolutely certain that she heard the screams late at night. But in fact, Shea was killed in the morning. This different time is confirmed by two of the convicted killers, Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan, both of whom recall participating in Shea's murder in the morning. At Davis' 1993 hearing he recalled, "And we were at the ranch early in the morning. And Manson came down [and] said, 'We're going to kill Shorty.'

"I said, 'What for?'

"'Well, he's a snitch….'

"And so, we got in the car. Steve [sic] drove; we got in the back…. We started down the hill of the ranch, down towards the [San Fernando] valley, and, somebody -- probably, probably Watson -- tells Shorty to pull over. And Shorty said, 'What for?' At this point, Watson stabbed Shorty Shea in his eye."

Steve Grogan, at his 1981 parole hearing provided more detail, including a very detailed account of the physicality of the crime:

"Well, that morning I was awakened by Charles Manson and still, you know, half asleep, [and he] told me to get to the car and handed me like a pipe wrench. Told me to hit Shorty in the head as soon as Tex gave me the go ahead or gave me the signal.

"We proceeded down Santa Susana Pass toward San Fernando Valley. And about a quarter mile down from the ranch there was like a turnoff where cars, you know, like a rest area. And Tex mentioned that he had some [auto] parts over there that he had to get….

"Then we pulled off the road.  Tex got out….

"I was supposed to hit this guy in the back of the head. And like I never, you know, hit anybody or hurt anybody like that before, and it was hard, you know. I kept on hesitating in my mind, you know, looking at the cars on the highway hoping maybe because of the traffic I wouldn't have to hit him because it was just ten feet off the lane."

There was also a contemporary bit of evidence that corroborated these later parole hearing recollections of Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan, specifically the trial testimony of Frank Retz, the German entrepreneur who was in the process of buying Spahn's Ranch when Shea disappeared and who had arranged for the stuntman to act as a night watchman and keep Manson and his people away from the back ranch house. Retz recalled setting up a meeting with Shea one morning to discuss the responsibilities of the job.

Testifying about a telephone conversation that he had with Shea, which he said had occurred on Tuesday or Wednesday of the last week of August, Retz said, "I was waiting for Shorty, and he said he is going to be in, in half an hour, to my place…. He was supposed to be right out…. in the morning; half an hour after the telephone conversation…. he said 'I just going to be leaving now and be in a half hour down."

Question (by Grogan defense attorney Charles Weedman): "You are certain that Shorty did call you on the telephone in the morning, is that so?"

"Yes."

"And that on the telephone he agreed to see you within the next half hour or so?"

"Correct."

"Did Mr. Shea show up?"

"No, sir."

"Was that the last time you ever heard Mr. Shea?"

"Last time."

So Barbara Hoyt's adamant claims that she heard the murder of Donald Shea occurring at about midnight conflicts with the testimony of Retz and the uncontested parole hearing statements of two of Shea's convicted killers that the murder occurred in the morning.

So far, though, you could say that it was just a case of she said/he, he, and he said.

But there is another big problem with Hoyt's testimony, and that is the place.  Hoyt is not only positive -- and unshakably so -- that Shea was murdered at night, she is equally unequivocal that the screams came from the direction of the "outlaw shacks" which were west of the main buildings at Spahn's Ranch. The problem with this claim is that the outlaw shacks were located in the totally opposite direction from the place where Shea was actually murdered eight or so hours later.

Above and below: Two views of the Shea murder scene today

Shea's murder scene is the only death site related to the case that can easily be visited by students of the crimes, and it is certain that his murder occurred there because his body was located in virtually the same spot. The scene is located at a pull-off on the Santa Susana Pass Road (now directly opposite Red Mesa Drive) about a third of a mile east of Spahn's Ranch. The "back house" direction insisted on by Hoyt during her testimony is located to the west, 180 degrees off of the actual direction of the murder. Further, not only is the murder site so far away from the ranch that it would be extremely unlikely (if not impossible) that screams there could be heard in the parachute room behind the western set buildings, but there is also an arm of the mountain behind the ranch that would have considerably blocked any sound coming from that direction.

Above The red arrow on the left indicates the location of the parachute room. The right red arrow shows the spot where Shea was killed. The pale blue arrow in the center points to the hill that would block sounds coming from the murder scene towards the ranch.

Below: United States Geological Survey map (Oat Mountain, 1962) of the ranch area with the same features highlighted.  

The "parachute room" at Spahn's Ranch was situated behind the western end of the ranch buildings under some trees and between two other trailers occupied by ranch cowboys Larry Craven and Randy Starr. It was also fairly close to George Spahn's house and to another trailer on the other side of Spahn's house that was used by ranch hand John Schwartz. None of these other individuals in Hoyt's immediate vicinity (Craven, Starr, Spahn, or Schwartz) heard the screams that Hoyt claimed to have heard. And this is a safe ass-umption, since prosecutors wanting to corroborate Hoyt's testimony would certainly have called these individuals as witnesses if they had heard screams. But since none of them were called it can be fairly safely ass-umed that none of them heard the same screams that Hoyt claims to have heard, despite being in practically the same location at the same time. (Randy Starr died before any of the Shea-related murder trials took place.)

Hoyt's surety that she heard the death screams of Donald Shea is puzzling. In page after page of "I don't remember"s and "I don't know"s she is positively steadfast that the person she heard screaming was Shea. In her mind there is no doubt whatsoever. It happened the way she described it. Full stop.

Also puzzling is that Hoyt was unshakable in her claim that the screams she heard were absolutely coming from Donald Shea, and Donald Shea alone, even though she also testified that she barely ever spoke to Shea and couldn't remember any distinctive characteristic about his voice. (The Massachusetts born and raised Shea had a noticeable Boston accent.)

"I heard him -- most -- I think most of the times I heard his voice was when he would be talking to somebody else."

"I see. What did Shorty sound like when he was talking to somebody else?" asked George Denny.

"I don't remember."

"Well, can you help this jury just a little bit and tell them, as best you can, describe Shorty's voice? That voice that -- that you heard. Describe it to the jury, would you?"

"At which time? When he was screaming, or when he was talking?"

"When he -- his talking voice."

"I don't really remember…. I remember what it sounded like when he was screaming, but -- "

"Well, how about just when he was talking?"

"No, I can't -- no I cannot….  [But] they were Shorty's screams. There's no doubt in my mind. I knew it then and I know it now."

Of course, none of this is to suggest that Donald Shea was not murdered at Spahn's Ranch during the last days of August, 1969 or that the persons eventually convicted of his murder were not involved with his death. Rather, it goes to the overall credibility of Barbara Hoyt in recalling her time with "the Family" in the spring and summer of 1969. If Hoyt can be so adamant -- and so adamantly wrong -- about hearing the death screams of Donald Shea, what does it say about the rest of her recollections?

After Shea was killed his body was rolled down the hill alongside the pull-out. Later on in the evening after the murder Steve Grogan came back and buried the body by putting it into a depression in the hillside and caving in the dirt over it. The body would famously not be found until Grogan told authorities where is was as part of his successful strategy for being released on parole. Grogan revealed the location of the grave in 1977 and was paroled in 1985.

A recovery crew unearths Donald Shea's body in 1977.

Looking down at the overgrown location of Donald Shea's grave today

Ruby Pearl is long gone, but Barbara Hoyt is still around, and you can expect to see quite a bit of her in the next couple of years until August, 2019. She is, after all, just what the murder media wants, a "Manson Family member" who can graphically testify to the evil that was around her. But Barbara Hoyt wasn't really a "Manson Family member." She was a peripheral character who happened to be at Spahn's Ranch for a few weeks when important things happened. And her perception of some of those things is unquestionably incorrect.

So, as you see her in any upcoming TLB specials or other media appearances you might do well to remember the words of two of the defense attorneys during the Shea trials. "Barbara Hoyt will testify to anything," said Bruce Davis defense attorney George Denny. "I frankly don't believe 99 percent of her testimony," concurred Grogan defense attorney Charles Weedman.

Defense attorney hyperbole? Perhaps. But a closer look at Hoyt's claims in the past should be enough to call any claims she makes in the present into serious question. In fact, it should put her entire credibility into question.

Barbara Hoyt (seated) and Debra Tate

As for Donald Jerome "Shorty" Shea, after his body was exhumed and examined by authorities it lay unclaimed in the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. Despite being sent notices to collect the remains none of Shea's family members retrieved his skeletal corpse. It was finally cremated, and the ashes were buried in a community grave plot in the Angeles Abbey Memorial Park in Compton, California.

Unanswered L.A. Coroner's letter to Donald Shea's wife requesting that she claim her husband's  body (Thank you, Manson's Backporch Tapes!)

Donald Shea's grave marker

A Look At the Evidence #6: Granado’s Big Mistake

Other Posts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

"The Blood Problem. No scenario for the murders in any published account or police report has taken seriously into consideration the fact that Miss Tate and Jay Sebring were outside the house on the front porch during the massacre. If you look at the large picture of the front porch that Life published last August you will see incredible amounts of blood. All this blood is of the two victims mentioned. One supposes that the true story of what happened at the house on Cielo Drive last August 8^th will come out sooner or later. We have reason to believe that Linda Kasabian recounted a different, much different, story of what happened there at the house to at least two people before she was arrested- a story divergent from her 18 day testimony on the witness stand."

Ed Sanders, Cast Call For Blood Alley, The Los Angeles Free Press, September 4, 1970

On the morning of August 9, 1969 at 10:00 a.m. officer Manuel Joseph Granado of the Los Angeles

I think Granado might be in the back with the glasses.

Police Department's Scientific Investigation Division (SID) arrived at 10050 Cielo Drive to participate in the crime scene investigation related to the murders of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger and Steven Parent.

Granado had a bachelor of arts degree (undefined) and a masters degree in Criminalistics. He had six years experience with SID.

Cielodrive thinks this might be him.

Granado first did a walk-through of the crime scene. This is when he noted the gun grip pieces in the front hall (that later were kicked under a chair, see image, below). He then went back and began to collect evidence. He started with the gun grip because he was afraid the pieces might be lost.

Granado logged each location where he collected evidence that day with his initial “G” and a number. According to his testimony, these numbers form the chronological path he followed as he moved about the crime scene that morning.

_____

Q: And the “17” is what? Is that just one of your figures?

A: Just a chronological order that I picked up the various evidence at the scene.

_____

Evidence entries G22-27 are missing from the report he subsequently submitted to Captain Don A. Martin, Commander of SID (below, right). We know these entries once existed because during his testimony he identified G25 as a mark on a beam. It tested negative for blood.

[Aside: I count 31 typed blood samples recorded on this report. If I add the missing G25 and the three ‘not blood’ or ‘insufficient amount’ results I get 35. Bugliosi says 45. Where are the other 10?]

While collecting blood samples Granado labeled seven locations, which together form the basis for his 'big mistake':

G4: Blood splatters on front porch next to door, human blood- type OM (Sharon Tate)

G5: Front door porch near post, human blood- type O-MN (Jay Sebring)

G-7. Foot print on porch, human blood. O-M (Sharon Tate)[Aside: several other barefoot prints were also identified in this general location but were not tested for blood.]

G32: Blood left side of door jam, human blood- type OM (Sharon Tate)

G33: Blood 22 inches north of edge of porch, and 42 inches east of edge of porch (front), human blood- type O-MN (Jay Sebring)

G34: Blood on walkway, 28 inches from front porch and 8 inches north of edge of walkway, human blood- type O-MN (Jay Sebring)

G35: Blood on porch (6-18 inches) from south side of entry (splatters) human blood- type OM (Sharon Tate)

These seven locations place Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring on the front porch and walkway of the house. The eyewitness say they were never there.

_____

I would have shot him, but he and Sadie kept rolling and fighting, so I finally threw myself on him and beat him over the head with the butt of the gun until it broke, a section of the grip dropping to the floor. He was enormously powerful, fighting for his life as he dragged the two of us across the hall toward the front door, knocking over the trunks.

As we staggered out onto the front porch, he kept screaming, “Help me. Oh God, help me!” I

stabbed him over and over, blindly, the whole world spinning and turning as red as the blood that was smearing and spattering everywhere. Finally I shot him twice and he slumped onto the stone porch.

(Charles ‘Tex’ Watson, Will You Die For Me)

_____

Atkins initially tells us she was on the floor in the living room and saw neither the shooting nor Frykowski going out the door. Then she changes her story.

_____

PAUL CARUSO: Frykowski was going out, wasn’t he?

SUSAN ATKINS: Yes, but I don’t remember because I was on the floor.

(Atkins Interview by Caballero and Caruso, December 1, 1969- thanks to cielodrive.com)

Q: What happened next?

A (Atkins): Then he got away from me. Mr. Frykowski got away from me. He started running towards the front door which was open and screaming bloody murder, yelling for his life, for somebody to come help him.

*****

Q: What is the next thing that happened?

A: Frykowski was running and screaming. He got to the door and Tex hit him over the head.

*****

Q: In addition to hitting Mr. Frykowski over the head with the gun butt did Tex do anything else to Mr. Frykowski at that point?

A: He was stabbing him as best he could because Frykowski was fighting.

Cielodrive.com. Susan Atkins Grand Jury Testimony (Kindle Locations 560-569). Kindle Edition.

Kasabian tells us that she saw Frykowski come out the door, alone. He made eye contact and then he falls into the bushes at the north end of the porch. Frykowski is next being attacked by Watson on the lawn.

_____

Q. What happened after you ran toward the house?

A (Kasabian). There was a man just entering out of the door and he had blood all over his face and he was standing by a post, and we looked into each other's eyes for a minute, I don't know however long, and I said, "Oh, God, I am so sorry. Please make it stop." And then he just fell to the ground into the bushes.

And then Sadie came running out of the house, and I said, "Sadie, please make it stop." And then I said, "People are coming." And she said, "It's too late." And then she told me that she left her knife and she couldn't find it. And while this was going on, the man had gotten up, and I saw Tex on top of him, hitting him on the head and stabbing him, and the man was struggling, and then I saw Katie in the background with the girl, chasing after her with an upraised knife, and I just turned and ran to the car down at the bottom of the hill.

*****

Q. You will have to speak a little bit more loudly in the microphone. You say when this tall man first came out the door covered with blood, he fell into some bushes?

A . Yes.

Q. Were these bushes close to the front door?

A. Yes.

Q. You say he eventually got up and moved to a different place?

A. Yes.

Q. Tex followed him?

A. Yes.

Q. Finally the man fell down, you say?

A. Yes.

Q. And Tex got on top of him and stabbed him, is that correct?

A. Yes.

_____

[Aside: I usually skim through the various books when I write these posts to see if there is something to add. When I did in my version of Sanders’ The Family I noticed at page 412 (2002 edition) that he has an image of one of the notes Kasabian wrote Bugliosi (right). Remember, those notes are things she ‘remembered’ between interviews.

"At the end of each interview I’d tell her that if, back in her cell, anything occurred to her which we hadn’t discussed, to “jot it down.” A number of these notes became letters to me, running to a dozen or more pages."

Bugliosi, Vincent; Curt Gentry. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders . W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

This story- Sadie’s Stroll- appears in that note. It includes this: “Then I looked at the boy in the car and thought to myself ‘oh no, they’re killing the people- I have to do something.’” She goes on to say she ran over “to the hedge” and saw Frykowski. The note is interesting. First, we are supposed to believe this was something that when interviewed Kasabian didn’t remember and only remembered later, when alone in her cell.  The part where she saw Parent almost sounds like this is the first she knew he had been shot, while she testified she saw him being shot. Then she places herself at ‘the hedge’. This is not at the “LK arrow” on the walkway.]

The Big Mistake

The seven blood locations contradict everything we know happened that night. We know Sebring and Tate never escaped the living room.

If Granado made a mistake in typing Frykowski’s blood, then the Sebring blood evidence reveals a path similar to Folger’s blood evidence and is consistent with our understanding about what happened that night according to the eyewitnesses.

G29: The trunks to the....

G2: Gun grip in the front hall to the ....

G5 and 31: Blood on the porch to the .....

G34: Blood on the walkway to the .....

G16: Scarf found in the grass about ten feet from Frykowski’s body.

[Aside: At the trial Granado testified that he also tested the actual gun for blood and found type B blood on the hammer and in the metal portion of the exposed grip. Granado didn’t have access to the gun until December 16, 1969. This actually lends some support to the argument that Granado didn’t make a mistake as it places blood consistent with the eyewitnesses on the gun following a successful test, months after the events.]

The Number of Mistakes

The first problem encountered is the number of errors Granado has to make for this evidence to be a mistake. Granado had to make a mistake at least seven times (and I would argue nine). This translates to seven out of thirty-one samples (23%) of all blood tested and seven out of eighteen type O blood samples (40%). Add the ribbons and the scarf and it is 50%. The number is actually higher because of the subtypes.

The M-N-MN subtype of Sebring is the same as Frykowski (MN). So that needn't be an error. That still leaves four locations (Sharon Tate’s M subtype) where Granado also had to make a mistake during the M-N-MN subtyping. So, all told, we have eleven to thirteen errors. That is a lot. 

Possible Errors

Possible Error #1: Delay in Testing the Blood Samples

Granado was testing the blood months after the crimes.

_____

Q: And when did you make your examination of these samples?

A: The week immediately following and several months thereafter.

_____

At the Watson trial Granado was clearer on this issue.

_____

Q: And when did you make your examination back at the office?

A: Some of them I started the following day and others I was still running tests several months afterwards.

_____

Could this be the culprit? No

First, remember the gun. Most of these seven locations are mentioned in the First Homicide Investigation Progress Report as having been typed. Many of the seven locations were typed and subtyped by the date of that report. More importantly, as Naguchi testified (below), blood can be typed (but not necessarily subtyped) years after the event. That is an accurate statement.

Conclusion: Not the error.

Possible Error #2: The Chain of Evidence

Forensic procedural manuals, textbooks, training literature and protocols all stress documenting everything the forensic investigator does by video tape if possible (today). Documentation is critical. (John Schiro. Forensic Scientist, Louisiana State Police Crime Laboratory, Collection and Preservation of Blood Evidence at Crime Scenes, Crime Scene Network)

The error would go something like this: Granado collected G32 from somewhere other than the front porch door jam and either mislabeled the location or switched two sample locations.

One clue to this error would be locations where type B blood is ‘out of place’ because Granado switched the actual locations. Example: G32 is really from location G26 (let’s assume G26 is near Tate’s body) and G26 appears as type B in the report. Alternatively, there should be locations identified where no test was performed. Example: G32 is really from G26 but there is no typed blood from G26.

There is, perhaps, an indication this error may have occurred. That comes from the homicide report and the missing entries in his memo to the SID commander.

____

Blood around area of Polanski's body and Sebring's body and rope which they were tied with, type O. (First Tate Homicide Investigation Progress Report, emphasis added)

_____

Granado has no record of samples from 'around the area' of Polanski or Sebring if he did take them. Evidence items G22-27, however, are missing from the blood report, above. Granado testified that G25 was the beam. Since the “G” numbers are chronological and G25 is the beam and G28 is the rope G26 and G27 logically could be in the living room at the bodies of Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring. G21 is from Parent’s car which suggests to me G22-24 may be outside and further away from the house (the garage?) or that at some point in the sequence the location shifts to the living room. But without knowing what the missing evidence was there is no way to say for sure. This could account for five, but not seven, errors.

Conclusion: Unable to determine, but I’ll say unlikely due to the number of errors involved.

Intermission

Before moving on to other possible errors you need to have two pieces of information.

Naguchi’s Testimony

Naguchi testified as follows on cross examination.
______

Q (Kanarek) **** In a week could you still tell that blood type?

A (Naguchi). We should be able to tell blood type, yes.

Q: And what time period, could you give us some sort of time period, let’s say, ordinary Southern California type atmosphere, minimum amount of rain, and so forth, what would the time period after which you could not tell the blood type was?

A. Well, if a blood stain has sufficient quantity we should be able to tell the blood type of the A, B, O system. If it dried without chemical changes I would say we should be able to tell even though it had been dry for many years.

Q. I see. Now, what happens, Doctor, if blood of different types mixes? Does that interfere with the analysis?

A. Yes.

[Aside: why on earth is Kanarak asking Naguchi these questions? These are the questions he should be asking Granado, who testifies, next. He doesn’t. Or at least I would add: "Kanarek, ask the next damn question!"- “How does it interfere?”]

______

ABO Typing

This is how ABO blood typing works, the only test Granado had to work with in 1969. With dried blood, it is a little more complicated then described below, but this is close enough for this post.

Granado sets up two test tubes. He places the same sample from the crime scene in each one. He then takes a known sample of type A blood from the lab and places it in test tube A and a known sample of blood type B in test tube B. He waits thirty minutes or so. The results are then apparent to the naked eye and can be confirmed by a microscope.

He is looking for clumping. Here, to the right, test tube B shows clumping. That happens when type B blood mixes with type A blood. Test tube A shows no reaction. Granado knows he has type A blood.

If he gets the opposite result he has type B.

If both clump (left) he has type AB.

And if neither clumps it is type 0 (lower right).

The images are good representations of what Granado would
actually see with the naked eye.

(Corey Harbison ABO Blood Type Identification and Forensic Science (1900-1960), Embryo Project Encyclopedia, 2016)

Possible Error #3: Blood Transfer

It is well documented that this happened. Several police officers tracked blood out onto the porch and even kicked the gun grip under a chair while Granado was present at the scene. It is also a certainty blood was transferred due to the movements of the murderers. But does this account for the seven suspected blood samples?

In a slightly different form this theory was also Bugliosi’s theory at the trial: our seven, suspect, blood samples were ‘cast off’ blood from the killers or their weapons carried from Sebring and Tate in the living room to the front porch. Bugliosi even had Granado circle an area in a photo to show where he collected the sample from a larger bloodstain to make his point.

Bugliosi’s theory says drops of Tate/Sebring blood fell into these seven locations (where Frykowski’s blood was located) and by some miraculous accident when Granado collected samples from the larger bloodstained areas, with pinpoint accuracy, he accidentally took his samples from those precise locations. Then, when he tested them he obtained a type O result, seven times.

Granado would have to pull off this feat seven times, each time collecting a transferred drop from a larger area of Frykowski’s blood. He would also need to get a subtype of M on four samples.

The eyewitnesses say Sebring was attacked in the living room, first. His blood could transfer in the ensuing ‘chase’ of Frykowski. But how does Tate’s blood get onto the front porch?

One possible explanation is that Tate’s blood was transferred by Atkins when she wrote ‘Pig’ on the door. The door to the Polanski home, however, was open not closed when police arrived. That would suggest any cast off from the ‘Pig’ writing should be in the front hall, not on the porch.

____

Q: Before you entered, did you notice whether the front door was to the Tate residence was open or closed?

A (Wheisenhunt): The door was open.

*****

Q: All right, now, before running outside of the kitchen door with your purse did you notice whether or not the front door was open or closed?

A (Chapman): It was open.

*****

Q: I show you People’s 103 for identification and direct your attention to the front door of the Tate residence. You will notice it is open. Was the front door open when you arrived on the premises?

A (De Rosa): Yes it was.

_____

That really leaves Atkins and Watson, leaving the house, as the mechanism  to transfer Sharon Tate's blood to the front porch. 

That doesn’t mean the victims’ blood couldn’t have been mixed. It was, and that is what Naguchi is alluding to at the end of his testimony (where Kanarek drops the ball, again). If two types of blood are mixed (remember, we are pre-DNA by twenty years) any blood typing of that blood is unreliable if you know it is mixed.

This issue comes up, frequently, in exoneration cases of convicted rapists (by DNA) today. The concept, there, is known as ‘masking’. If more of the victim’s blood type is present in the fluid the smaller amount from the assailant will be hidden from the ABO test- masked- making the test unreliable. The concept should be explained to the jury. (Vanessa Meterko, M.A., Strengths and Limitations of Forensic Science: What DNA Exonerations Have Taught Us and Where to Go From Here, Virginia Law Review, Vol.119, 2017)

That means our seven suspect samples are, indeed, ‘unreliable’. It also means we can’t say Frykowski’s blood is not also at the seven locations.

But ‘masking’ also suggests something interesting. The higher quantity blood type should appear during the test. (Meterko, supra) This means when Granado found type O blood at these locations there was far more type O blood in his sample then type B. According to the official narrative, that is backwards.

The way this error can provide an explanation for our seven suspect samples is if Bugliosi is correct.   Granado would need to collect a mix of the transferred type O blood and a lesser amount of type B from each location. The type O blood in the sample then ‘masks’ the type B blood. If this happened it could explain all of the suspect samples.

There is a problem, however: how could Granado have accidently pulled this off seven times? The problem is illustrated by the footprint. How did Atkins track the O blood across the walk in greater quantities then type B and then how did Granado collect the O type blood out of that mix?

Conclusion: This is the scenario that best explains the errors but it requires a lot of extraordinary coincidences.

Possible Error #4: A Testing Error

Bugliosi wanted to identify whose blood was located at each location and show the movements of the victims. He was also attempting to corroborate Kasabian. But Granado can’t really do that. All he can really say, for example, is that G35 could be any one of several million people, including Jay Sebring. Because of this, Bugliosi stays away from asking questions about procedure, protocols or testing techniques. He also does this because he has blood at the wrong place. The defense.....well, they were incompetent. Only one person ever asked the critical question: Judge Alexander at the Watson trial.

_____

The Court: I have a couple questions I would like to ask. Maybe I was mistaken listening to your testimony. You say on the pathway outside the house you found blood O with a sub type MN; is that correct? The early part of your testimony.

A: Walkway. Okay.

Q: The walkway?

A: Yes.

Q: Am I correct in that?

A: Yes; O MN.

Q: O MN. The only bodies outside the house were those of Abigail Folger and Wojiciech Frykowski; is that correct, sir?

A: That is correct.

Q: Neither one of them has O with sub type MN; is that correct?

A: That is correct.

Q: Can you account for the O MN blood type outside the house when the only bodies outside of the house were Wojiciech Frykowski and Folger and neither one of them had O sub type MN?

A: Unless one of the two O—the O MN bodies had at one time been outside bleeding and brought back in. [I believe a ‘not’ is missing here at the start of the last answer.]

_____

Because of DNA by the end of the 1980’s no one cared about ABO blood typing at crime scenes so finding helpful research is difficult. In fact, since the advent of non-human reagents the procedures used by Granado were no longer used even when ABO blood typing occurred.

In 1977 a grant was given to the Forensic Sciences Foundation to run a study on crime lab proficiency (Joseph L. Peterson et al., Crime Laboratory Proficiency Testing Research

Program, Natl. Inst. L. Enforcement & Crim. Just. 1978). Several hundred labs were given a series of
tests and asked to submit their results. The tests included ballistics, paint samples, finger prints, hair blood stains, etc. As part of the study, and as part of a promise of anonymity, the ‘codes’ identifying which lab had performed how on which test were destroyed [Aside: given the results, probably so defense lawyers couldn’t access the information]. Both Naguchi’s office and LAPD’s SID (Wolfer) participated in the study. Granado moved on to the FBI shortly after first trial. The overall results were abysmal.

The 1977 study included two ‘blood tests’. Test #3 required the lab to type and subtype a blood stain just like Granado. Test #8 required the lab to determine if two blood stains could have originated from the same source. Granado couldn’t and didn’t attempt this in 1969. The results appear to the right.

Test #3 statistically supports the argument that Granado didn’t make a mistake. The error rate is only 3.8% for typing blood which is good. However, the detail on the testing reveals an interesting piece of information.

_____

Type MN blood was reported correctly by 15 of 25 laboratories attempting this system. This represents 60% of the attempts.

*****

All of the laboratories attempting the MN typing used the absorption elution method [used by Granado]. Each of the 9 laboratories reporting type M had also used the absorption elution technique in the ABO typing [used by Granado], and had correctly typed the stain as type B. The Project Advisory Committee concludes that the errors may well be attributable to considerations other than technique. MN antisera is widely held to be treacherous, and the erroneous results may possibly be attributed to poor antisera.

_____

This means the M-N-MN sub-typing (used by Granado) had an error rate in the study of 40%. The reason was the antisera. The antisera if not used carefully can have two impacts N antigens can bond with M cells from the actual bloodstain making the bloodstain appear to be subtype MN. Alternatively, the antisera can 'destroy' the 'N' aspect of the MN cell making it appear to be 'M'. (Robert Shaler, Phd. et al, MN Determination in Bloodstains-Selective Destruction of Cross-Reacting Activity, National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, May 1977)

This could explain the odd coincidence that every victim except Sharon Tate was subtype MN. It also means Granado’s subtype results are likely wrong (or at least there is a 40% chance each one is wrong). It also means the O-MN blood found on the porch and elsewhere could be type O-M and that, at least, places Sebring back in the living room. Of course it also means the O-M blood could be O-MN.

This possible error potentially makes all seven samples (and others) Sharon Tate’s blood. For example, if you believe the official narrative, given the order the victims were killed, it is more likely the greater quantity of blood on Watson’s hand when he left the scene would be from Sharon Tate, the last victim, not Sebring, the first. This error may explain why Sebring’s blood appears to be on the gate button. MN sub typing clearly was not very reliable. 

The second test, #8, suffered a 71.2% error rate but this test was to determine whether two bloodstains could come from the same source. Granado couldn’t and didn’t attempt that in this case.

[Aside: After 1977 proficiency testing continued under the study and the results continued to be abysmal into the 1990’s (Randolph N. Jonakait, Forensic Science: The Need for Regulation, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Vol.4, 1991)]

The explanation offered in the 1977 report for the various errors included: lack of training and education, problems with reagents, poorly equipped facilities, overworked staff, underpaid staff, lack of protocols, bias and lack of staff, turning the investigator into a ‘jack of all trades’. All of these, arguably, apply to Granado. Bias- he knew the detectives believed Sharon Tate’s body had been moved and that may have influenced his results.

[Aside: It is too bad the lab ‘codes’ were destroyed. It would be interesting to see how Wolfer’s lab faired.]

Conclusion: There is no solid evidence of this error in part because no one asked the right questions at either trial. Statistically, however, it is highly probable Granado’s M-N-MN subtyping is wrong. I don’t think there is enough evidence to say his ABO typing is wrong (as in ‘the wrong type was identified during the test’).

Possible Error #5: Frykowski is type O-MN

Granado typed the victims’ blood from the morgue, first. If he made a mistake in typing Frykowski then the Sebring blood evidence reveals a path heading out the front door. However, the coroner also typed Frykowski’s blood and concluded it was type B. It is also much easier to type ‘wet’ blood versus dried bloodstains.

Conclusion: Not the Error.

Possible Error #6: Almost all of the above

This may be the best explanation if mistakes were made. Each of the seven suspected blood samples could result from one or more different errors. The problem I keep running into is: it is seven errors. We are also saying at the same time Granado made this mistake he got all the type B blood right. There is one potential explanation for this outcome. The best explanation for that outcome is the error of transferred blood (mixing types) as described by Bugliosi because the type-B locations do not suffer from blood transfer. But that takes me back to the footprint.

The Footprints

Part of the evidence discovered that morning was a series of footprints that ran from near the front door easterly off the porch towards the grass.

_____

“Continuing toward the porch, three bloody footprints were noted. All four of these prints are blood type O and indicated the person was moving east from the porch.

Continuing onto the porch in a westerly direction, two bloody barefoot prints are noted. Both of these prints are blood type O and are also pointing in an easterly direction.”

(First Tate Homicide Progress Report)

_____

Again, adding to the mystery, Granado’s blood report only identifies one of these footprints (G7) and fails to record the other five mentioned as type ‘O’ in the report.

There are no bloody barefoot prints noted in the front hall but the images clearly show blood there. That means whomever left these stepped in the blood on the porch, not in the living room.

Here is what Atkins says about the footprints:

_____

Then I threw the towel back into the room and left. To get out of the door, I had to step in blood with one foot, so I hopped on the other foot down to the grass and wiped my bare foot back and forth several times.

Slosser, Bob; Atkins, Susan. Child of Satan, Child of God (p. 143). Menelorelin Dorenay’s Publishing. Kindle Edition.

_____

We can ignore her. We know this statement is completely inaccurate (surprise!) for two reasons. She didn’t have to step in the blood to exit the house and because she left several footprints.

The footprint is transferred blood from the doorway to the walk. It is blood moved from G32 (in all likelihood) to G7 by Atkins as she left the scene. And this blood sample, I believe, is the most compelling evidence that Sharon Tate was on the front porch. To exclude G7 you have to assume that Granado made one of the above errors (as to the and subtype) two times in connection with what is really the same blood sample.

The Violet Ribbons

G43: Violet colored ribbons found on side of door near blood splatters, human blood- type O.

If our seven suspect samples are wrong, it seems that this too has to be wrong unless someone carried these out the front door and dropped them. No one mentions this act and explaining ‘why’ this would happen is difficult. The more likely scenario is they fell there and no one saw that happen.

If we had an image of the ‘ribbons’ it would be helpful. I couldn’t find one. This is the one time Granado didn’t subtype the type O blood, which may suggest this is one he tested months later. Since this is G43 it is one of the last items Granado addressed, which suggests to me it ought to be in a picture. It is not mentioned in either trial.

If Sharon Tate was on the front porch these could from Sharon Tate’s hair.

The Scarf

G-16. Violet colored scarf found on grass area between body of Frykowski and pathway to front of house, human blood. O-MN [Aside: notice they match the ribbons]

This too, it seems, has to be the wrong blood type if the official narrative is right. Again, I have never seen an image of the scarf. Either the blood type is an error or someone carried this to the yard for some unexplained reason. Again, I have to ask 'why' this would happen?

There is some suggestion in the trial that G16 is actually the same object as G43 from Granado’s testimony (below). I do not think it was.

It is fair to ignore the subtype. We know that could easily be an error. Despite the eyewitness 

(Atkins) this could be what was used to write ‘Pig’ on the door which means she never threw anything back in the room but dropped it as she left the scene. The scarf as the writing instrument makes more sense than either towel. Neither towel is described as having sufficient blood on it. The beige towel, according to the SID report, has blood 'spots' and the yellow towel, well, judge for yourself. [Aside: in a previous post I stated that I thought the yellow towel was used. I no longer think that was the case.]

_____

A: ***** Next I move to G16, which appeared to me like a violet colored scarf with violet ribbons. This scarf was stiff and appeared to have material that appeared to me to be blood, and I took this to the lab and analyzed it. I found it to contain human blood type O, subtype MN.

This was near the body of Frykowski on the front lawn of the residence and approximately 10 feet from the sidewalk leading to the residence.

____

I set out to prove Granado’s mistake, not to vindicate him. I don’t believe I did either.

I believe it is likely that he didn’t make the ‘big mistake’. I believe the evidence says it is more probable then not that Sharon Tate’s blood is on the front porch and that she was there. I think it is also possible that she could be there either with or without Jay Sebring because of the likelihood the MN subtyping is erroneous. And frankly, I don't think he was. 

I can see two ways Sharon Tate could be on the front porch.

 In one scenario little of the ‘official narrative’ has to
change.

It starts with Atkins and Watson both attacking Frykowski as he fights his way towards the front door. The broken gun grip in the front hall, the additional blood in the front hall (right) and the evidence Atkins stabbed Frykowski several times in the back document these events. Perhaps Sharon Tate followed Frykowski (or was near him) because Krenwinkel and Folger were blocking the other obvious exit from the living room. Remember, the fight between Atkins and Frykowski started in front of the couch and heads towards the chair at the north end of the room thus blocking access to the third exit from the room (below).

Frykowski then moves to the porch falling into the bushes at the north end. This act separates Frykowski from his attackers for a few moments. Frykowski's attempted escape leads away from actual help, which is down the driveway, because the presence of Kasabian blocks his best route. He would assume she is another foe coming to aid his attackers (and perhaps she was). 

Then practically everything described by Atkins can happen. Atkins is commanded by Watson to get Sharon. Without a knife she gets her in a head lock. Her conversation with Sharon ensues. She was then attacked by Watson while Atkins held her. Her body was either subsequently carried back into the house to stage a hanging- hanging her with her apparent ‘lover’ or Atkins walked her back there while wounded, in a bizarre way honoring her request to sit down.

I admit I reach this conclusion, in part, because I don’t believe Sharon Tate would ‘freeze’ (some do and your arguments are certainly valid). I also acknowledge one of the reasons I believe she didn't is anecdotal, relating to an incident involving my pregnant wife twenty-eight years ago and how she responded to a far less life threatening, yet still potentially injurious situation. Put simply, I believe Sharon Tate would have fought like hell to save her unborn child or as my wife put it at the time 'she became a she wolf'. 

The second possibility is Kasabian did 'hear' something, Steven Parent leaving, and that sent Watson after him before he could escape ("I won't tell anyone."). With only Krenwinkel and Atkins  in the living room everyone makes a break for it and Watson returns in time to meet them at the front door. But this version says the official narrative is completely wrong. 

The second reason I believe Sharon Tate was on the front porch is, to me, this fact: all seven (I would argue nine) of these samples have to be errors for Granado to be wrong.

In concluding he must be wrong we also start with the assumption Granado made these errors because we choose to believe the eyewitnesses. I started there. 

Comment after comment here, however, asks the question ‘when will they [the killers] tell the truth about what happened’. That is a legitimate question. The most innocuous issue, a bloody barefoot print on the walkway that is irrefutable, results in yet another inaccurate explanation from the one who left them there. Of course, she also claims she only stabbed Frykowski in the leg a few times.

So why would they not tell the truth about Sharon Tate being on the front porch? I can think of two pretty good reasons:

(1.) If they did they would have to explain why they moved the body. Moving her body to attempt to hang her from the rafters with Jay Sebring (his body obviously was at least ‘staged’ for that) is pretty damn sick. You decide how that might impact their trial or parole chances. As to the trial aspect, look at Kasabian’s self-serving comment, above. She already had immunity and was still trying to distance herself from 'them'.

I believe hanging the victims was part of the plan. I can’t imagine why you would bring 43’ of rope in one piece to tie up the victims and instead put the rope around three (and maybe all four) of their necks and then use a towel to tie them up.

I’ll add only that once Atkins’ version of events came to light it became the narrative for everyone, including Bugliosi, and everyone, ever since and Ms. Atkins is anything but a reliable source.

(2.) Giving the killers the benefit of a doubt, maybe they can’t emotionally or psychologically accept the fact that they tried to hang the victims. I'm not sure I could. It would be easier to say ‘I hid by the guest house until it was over’. Then, I don’t have to accept responsibility and don’t have to 'embrace' what I did.

I would like to acknowledge the substantial contribution made to this post by Bo at Cielodrive.com. Bo probably deserves partial credit on all of my posts but on this one especially. 

Pax Vobiscum

Dreath