Linda Kasabian
Encyclopedia
Linda Kasabian is a former member of Charles Manson
's "family". She was the key witness
in District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi
's prosecution of Manson and his followers for the Tate-LaBianca murders, one of the highest-profile murder trials in American history.
, Kasabian was raised in the New England town of Milford, New Hampshire
. She was the eldest child, and her mother Joyce Drouin has remarked that with so many younger children to care for she was not able to devote the necessary attention to her teenage daughter. "I didn't have time to listen to her problems. A lot of what has happened to Linda is my fault."
Kasabian was described by friends, neighbors, and teachers as intelligent, a good student, but a "starry-eyed romantic". She was known as kind and shy but "forced to grow up too soon". Kasabian dropped out of high school
and left home at the age of 16 due to increasing problems with her stepfather, who she claimed mistreated her and her mother. She headed to the western states, looking "for God". She married, divorced, remarried, and gave birth to a daughter in 1968. When her second marriage, to Armenian American Robert Kasabian, began to sour, Kasabian and her baby daughter, Tanya, returned to New Hampshire
to live with Linda's mother. Later, Robert Kasabian contacted Linda and invited her to meet him in Los Angeles
. He wanted her to join him and a friend, Charles "Blackbeard" Melton, on a sailing trip to South America
. Kasabian, who has said that she was hoping for a reconciliation, returned to Los Angeles to live with Robert in the Los Angeles hippie
hangouts of Topanga Canyon.
to escape the anticipated social turmoil. The "hole" sounded like the Hopi
legends that she had read about as a girl, and Kasabian was intrigued. In 1969, she decided against attending the July 4th Malibu "Love-In", and instead - daughter Tanya in tow - followed Share to the Spahn Ranch
in the Chatsworth
area of Los Angeles, where she met Manson.
Kasabian was then introduced to Manson, a dramatic event for her. She thought that he looked magnificent in his buckskin clothing, and that he seemed to be Christ
-like. Manson talked with her about why she had come to the ranch, and after feeling her legs, he accepted her. That night, Manson and Kasabian had sexual relations together in a Spahn Ranch cave. She thought that Manson could "see right through her" and that he was perceptive of her issues with her stepfather and her feelings of being "disposable" to the people in her life and to the world in general, as recorded in her trial testimony;
Kasabian adopted the attitude toward Manson that the other ranch girls held: "We always wanted to do anything and everything for him."
Kasabian began joining "family" members on their "creepy crawls", quietly sneaking into random homes in Los Angeles to steal money while the occupants slept. These and other criminal activities were the means by which the members of the "family" supported themselves, and Kasabian was willing to participate. "Everything belongs to everyone," Manson would reiterate during his many philosophical campfire "raps", lectures rendered more powerful by the ingestion of psychedelic drugs. When Mary Brunner
was jailed for using a stolen credit card, Kasabian became the only member of the group to possess a valid driver's license.
On August 8, 1969, Manson announced, "now is the time for Helter Skelter
", a term taken from a Beatles
song that Manson believed (or convinced his associates that he believed) meant a revolution
prophesied in the Book of Revelation
. (The term "helter-skelter" means confusion or disorder, or something occurring haphazardly. In British English
, it also refers to a popular spiral slide for people at fairs and carnivals.) This sense of impending chaos, along with the desire to strike back at the society that had jailed several "family" members and possibly create copy-cat crimes that would exonerate the "family" associate Bobby Beausoleil
(arrested in connection with the murder of Gary Hinman), seemed to propel the events of the next two nights. Kasabian was directed by Manson to gather a knife, a change of clothing and her driver's license, then to accompany three other members of the "family", Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan Atkins
, and Patricia Krenwinkel
, to the residence of the film director Roman Polanski
and his wife Sharon Tate
. There, Kasabian saw Watson shoot and kill Steven Parent
, a teenager who had come to visit the caretaker. Watson then ordered Kasabian to remain outside the residence, and she stood by the car while Watson, Atkins, and Krenwinkel entered the house and killed Abigail Folger
, Wojciech Frykowski
, Jay Sebring
, and the eight-month pregnant Sharon Tate
.
Kasabian testified that at one point she heard the "horrible screams" of the victims and left the car. "I started to run toward the house, I wanted them to stop. I knew what they had done to that man [Parent], that they were killing these people. I wanted them to stop." Approaching the house from the driveway, Kasabian was met by Frykowski, who was running out the front door. Kasabian said in her testimony, "There was a man just coming 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, and I said, 'Oh, God, I am so sorry. Please make it stop.' But then he just fell to the ground into the bushes." Then Watson repeatedly stabbed Frykowski and hit him in the head. Kasabian tried to stop the murderers by claiming that she heard "people coming" onto the Tate property, but the killers had insisted that it was "too late". According to Watson and Atkins, Kasabian stood rooted to the front lawn, watching with a horrified expression as her companions committed murder. Kasabian testified that, while in a state of shock, she ran toward the car, started it up, and considered driving away to get help, but then became concerned for her daughter back at the Spahn Ranch
.
The next night, Manson once again ordered the quartet to gather a change of clothing and get into the car, this time joining them to "show them how to do it," because he felt the deed the night before had been performed sloppily. Joined by Leslie Van Houten
and Steve Grogan, the group set off into the city, eventually coming to the LaBianca residence in Los Feliz. Kasabian witnessed Manson and Watson walk towards the house and return to the car a few minutes later, whereupon Manson reported that the occupants of the house were tied up. Manson instructed Watson, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten to enter the house. At that point, Manson, Kasabian, Susan Atkins
, and Grogan drove off. Inside the residence, Watson, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca
. When asked why she went out with the group again, knowing this time that murders would occur, Kasabian responded that when Manson asked her to go with them she was "afraid to say no".
Later the same night, in the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles, Manson asked Kasabian to participate in the murder of an acquaintance, a Lebanese actor named Saladin Nader. Kasabian had met the actor a few days earlier with fellow "family" member Sandra Good
. Atkins and Grogan waited a few feet away, with knife and gun in hand, prepared to kill, as Manson had told them to. Kasabian purposely knocked on the wrong apartment door in order to avoid causing any harm to Nader. When the occupant answered, Kasabian apologized and excused herself, thus preventing the crime. Two days after the LaBianca murders, she fled from the Manson "family", and she eventually returned to her mother's home in New Hampshire
.
by a grand jury for the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Originally, Atkins had been offered a reduced sentence (life imprisonment
instead of the death penalty) for her testimony, since she was the first defendant to be arrested, and she had agreed to tell her story at the grand jury
hearings. However, Atkins relinquished this chance when she resumed her allegiance to Manson and repudiated all her incriminating statements. Next, the prosecutors turned to Kasabian, who had voluntarily turned herself in to New Hampshire authorities and returned to California. Kasabian was offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for turning state's evidence
.
There have been reports that Kasabian wanted to tell her story to the prosecutors, with or without any kind of deal, to "get it out of my head", as chief prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi
described it, but that her attorney, Gary Fleischman, insisted that she remain silent until the district attorney
made an offer of immunity. Kasabian, who was then pregnant with her second child, agreed to the immunity offer.
The immunity agreement was seen at the time as a somewhat controversial option for the prosecution for a number of reasons. Some wanted her to be fully prosecuted for the crimes. However, though Kasabian had been an accomplice to the murders (their driver and lookout) and she had not prevented the crimes or contacted the police or the sheriff afterwards, she had not entered either residence and had not physically participated in any of the murders. She had been described as reluctant and extremely upset during the events of both nights, even challenging Manson ("I'm not you, Charlie. I can't kill anyone"), and she was the only member of the group to express remorse and sympathy for the victims. When brought back to the Tate residence to help reconstruct the crime there, Kasabian reportedly suffered an emotional breakdown. The prosecution was relieved to withdraw the deal from Atkins, whose behavior and statements reportedly seemed especially depraved.
Taking the witness stand, Kasabian was the chief witness for the prosecution, and she tearfully recounted the murders in vivid detail. She related to the trial jury all that she had seen and heard during her stay with the "family" and during the commission of the murders. Her testimony was considered to be the most dramatic segment of the very long trial, and it received an unprecedented amount of news media coverage. During the trial, the unjailed members of the Manson "family" led a campaign of intimidation against Kasabian in an effort to prevent her from testifying. The actual defendants in the crime constantly disrupted her testimony with a blizzard of dramatic courtroom theatrics. Manson would run a finger across his throat, glaring at Kasabian as she testified, an act he would repeat during the testimony of other prosecution witnesses.
Susan Atkins also repeatedly whispered to Linda across the courtroom "You're killing us!", to which Kasabian responded, "I am not killing you, you have killed yourselves". Manson notoriously interrupted Kasabian's testimony by holding up a copy of the Los Angeles Times
newspaper to the jury with the headline "Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares" referring to President Richard Nixon
's statements to the press about the pre-verdict trial. He apparently hoped that this stunt would result in a mistrial, which the defense argued for, but lost. Judge Charles H. Older
refused to allow the defendants to legally benefit from the antics.
For the majority of her 18 days of testimony, the defense attorneys tried unsuccessfully to discredit Kasabian by bringing into account her extensive use of LSD
and by attempting to perforate her story. Kasabian did not break under the intensive cross-examination
, and her testimony matched all of the physical evidence
that had been presented, in addition to being supported by the subsequent prosecution witnesses.
During Kasabian's cross-examination, Manson's defense lawyer Irving Kanarek
showed her large color crime-scene photographs of the Tate murders. Kasabian's emotional reaction was in stark contrast to the other "family" members. Manson and Krenwinkel's defense attorney Paul Fitzgerald would later assert that Kanarek's tactic — meant to discredit Kasabian — was a grave error that completely backfired, and further it exonerated the state's primary witness. Composing herself enough to look up from the color photo of the dead, bloodied Sharon Tate, Kasabian shot a look across the courtroom to the defendants. "How could you do that?", she stated. The female defendants laughed. Manson's defense attorney Kanarek asked Kasabian how she could be so certain, considering her LSD use, that she had not participated in the gruesome act. "Because I don't have that kind of thing in me, to do something so animalistic," she replied.
Although the Charles Manson gang's murder trial lasted nine months, with testimony from numerous witnesses (including several other former "family" members), Kasabian's testimony, more than anything else, led to the convictions of Manson, Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten.
for a time and worked as a cook later. Kasabian was called back to Los Angeles County several times after the first trial: she was a witness against Tex Watson in his separate trial in 1971, and also against Leslie Van Houten in her two retrials in 1977. Linda Kasabian later divorced her husband Robert Kasabian, and eventually she remarried.
Kasabian was detained for numerous traffic violations, until an automobile accident left her partially disabled. During an Easter celebration in New Hampshire in 1978, she and some friends interfered with firemen who were attempting to extinguish a bonfire. Though she had severed all of her ties with the Manson "family", the Secret Service
kept her under surveillance for a time after her former Manson associate Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme
attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford
. Kasabian was the target of scorn from the few remaining Manson "family" members.
Over the years, Kasabian has avoided and refused most news media attention. She appeared only once from 1969 to 2008, for an interview with the syndicated American television program A Current Affair in 1988.
Most recently, Cineflix, a production company in the United Kingdom
and Canada
, produced a docu-drama called Manson, in which Kasabian appears, telling her story in complete detail for the first time. This program was telecast in the U.K. on August 10, 2009, and also in the United States on Sept. 7, 2009, on the History Channel. In this taped interview, Kasabian recounts her four weeks spent with the Manson "family". Her image is slightly obscured to protect her identity.
In a September 2, 2009 live interview on CNN
's Larry King Live
, Kasabian recounted her memories of the murders at Sharon Tate's home. To help her maintain her now-quiet life, Kasabian wore a disguise provided by the program during her interview. She told King during the interview that after the trial she had been in need of, but had never obtained, "psychological counseling", and that during the previous 12 years, she had been "on a path of healing and rehabilitation." When asked about the degree of remorse she felt for her participation in the crimes, Kasabian said that she felt as though she took on all the guilt that "no one else [who was involved in the crimes] felt guilt for", apparently referring to the fact that, even during her own court testimony, the co-defendants in the case showed extreme nonchalance when faced with such gruesome murders.
Charles Manson
Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...
's "family". She was the key witness
Witness
A witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about an event, or in the criminal justice systems usually a crime, through his or her senses and can help certify important considerations about the crime or event. A witness who has seen the event first hand is known as an eyewitness...
in District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi
Vincent Bugliosi
Vincent Bugliosi is an American attorney and author, best known for prosecuting Charles Manson and other defendants accused of the Tate-LaBianca murders. His most recent books are Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy , The Prosecution of George W...
's prosecution of Manson and his followers for the Tate-LaBianca murders, one of the highest-profile murder trials in American history.
Early life
Born as Linda Darlene Drouin in Biddeford, MaineBiddeford, Maine
Biddeford is a town in York County, Maine, United States. It is the largest town in the county, and is the sixth-largest in the state. It is the most southerly incorporated town in the state and the principal commercial center of York County. The population was 21,277 at the 2010 census...
, Kasabian was raised in the New England town of Milford, New Hampshire
Milford, New Hampshire
Milford is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States, on the Souhegan River. The population was 15,115 at the 2010 census. It is the retail and manufacturing center of a six-town area known informally as the Souhegan Valley....
. She was the eldest child, and her mother Joyce Drouin has remarked that with so many younger children to care for she was not able to devote the necessary attention to her teenage daughter. "I didn't have time to listen to her problems. A lot of what has happened to Linda is my fault."
Kasabian was described by friends, neighbors, and teachers as intelligent, a good student, but a "starry-eyed romantic". She was known as kind and shy but "forced to grow up too soon". Kasabian dropped out of high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
and left home at the age of 16 due to increasing problems with her stepfather, who she claimed mistreated her and her mother. She headed to the western states, looking "for God". She married, divorced, remarried, and gave birth to a daughter in 1968. When her second marriage, to Armenian American Robert Kasabian, began to sour, Kasabian and her baby daughter, Tanya, returned to New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
to live with Linda's mother. Later, Robert Kasabian contacted Linda and invited her to meet him in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. He wanted her to join him and a friend, Charles "Blackbeard" Melton, on a sailing trip to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. Kasabian, who has said that she was hoping for a reconciliation, returned to Los Angeles to live with Robert in the Los Angeles hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
hangouts of Topanga Canyon.
Introduction to the Manson Family
By the time she had become pregnant with her second child, Kasabian was feeling rejected by her husband, who had left her behind for the South American trip. A friend of Melton's, Catherine "Gypsy" Share, described an idyllic ranch where a group of hippies was establishing a "hole in the earth" paradiseParadise
Paradise is a place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and...
to escape the anticipated social turmoil. The "hole" sounded like the Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
legends that she had read about as a girl, and Kasabian was intrigued. In 1969, she decided against attending the July 4th Malibu "Love-In", and instead - daughter Tanya in tow - followed Share to the Spahn Ranch
Spahn Ranch
Spahn Ranch, also known as the Spahn Movie Ranch, was a movie ranch used for filming generally Western-themed movies and television programs. With mountainous terrain, boulder-strewn scenery, and an 'old Western town' set, Spahn Ranch was a versatile filming site for many scripts...
in the Chatsworth
Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California
Chatsworth is a district of Los Angeles, California, United States; in the northwestern San Fernando Valley. The district is bordered by the Santa Susana Mountains and unincorporated Los Angeles County lands to the north, Porter Ranch to the northeast, Northridge to the east, West Hills, Canoga...
area of Los Angeles, where she met Manson.
Involvement in the Tate-LaBianca murders
Kasabian was welcomed by group members, who greeted her with professions of peace and love and assurances that she and her daughter would be cared for, provided she proved loyal. Kasabian became privy to various events and statements that would later prove to be important to the criminal case. During her first night with the "family", she met and had sexual relations with the high-ranking Manson follower Charles "Tex" Watson. Both of them have described their initial encounter as very intense. Watson persuaded Kasabian to steal a sum of money from her ex-husband's friend, Charles Melton.Kasabian was then introduced to Manson, a dramatic event for her. She thought that he looked magnificent in his buckskin clothing, and that he seemed to be Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
-like. Manson talked with her about why she had come to the ranch, and after feeling her legs, he accepted her. That night, Manson and Kasabian had sexual relations together in a Spahn Ranch cave. She thought that Manson could "see right through her" and that he was perceptive of her issues with her stepfather and her feelings of being "disposable" to the people in her life and to the world in general, as recorded in her trial testimony;
Kasabian adopted the attitude toward Manson that the other ranch girls held: "We always wanted to do anything and everything for him."
Kasabian began joining "family" members on their "creepy crawls", quietly sneaking into random homes in Los Angeles to steal money while the occupants slept. These and other criminal activities were the means by which the members of the "family" supported themselves, and Kasabian was willing to participate. "Everything belongs to everyone," Manson would reiterate during his many philosophical campfire "raps", lectures rendered more powerful by the ingestion of psychedelic drugs. When Mary Brunner
Mary Brunner
Mary Theresa Brunner is a former member of the Manson Family who was present during the 1969 murder of Gary Allen Hinman, a California musician and UCLA Ph.D. candidate in sociology...
was jailed for using a stolen credit card, Kasabian became the only member of the group to possess a valid driver's license.
On August 8, 1969, Manson announced, "now is the time for Helter Skelter
Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)
The murders perpetrated by members of Charles Manson's "Family" were inspired in part by Manson's prediction of Helter Skelter, an apocalyptic war he believed would arise from tension over racial relations between blacks and whites...
", a term taken from a Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
song that Manson believed (or convinced his associates that he believed) meant a revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
prophesied in the Book of Revelation
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
. (The term "helter-skelter" means confusion or disorder, or something occurring haphazardly. In British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
, it also refers to a popular spiral slide for people at fairs and carnivals.) This sense of impending chaos, along with the desire to strike back at the society that had jailed several "family" members and possibly create copy-cat crimes that would exonerate the "family" associate Bobby Beausoleil
Bobby Beausoleil
Robert Kenneth "Bobby" Beausoleil is a convicted American murderer and associate of the Charles Manson "Family" who is serving a life sentence. He killed music teacher and fellow associate Gary Hinman on July 27, 1969, and has been imprisoned since his arrest for that crime...
(arrested in connection with the murder of Gary Hinman), seemed to propel the events of the next two nights. Kasabian was directed by Manson to gather a knife, a change of clothing and her driver's license, then to accompany three other members of the "family", Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan Atkins
Susan Atkins
Susan Denise Atkins was a convicted American murderer who was a member of the "Manson family", led by Charles Manson. Manson and his followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in California, over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969...
, and Patricia Krenwinkel
Patricia Krenwinkel
Patricia Dianne Krenwinkel is an American convicted killer and a former member of Charles Manson's murderous commune, known as "the Family". During her time with Manson's group, she was known by various aliases such as "Big Patty", "Yellow", and "Mary Ann Scott", but to The Family she was most...
, to the residence of the film director Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...
and his wife Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
. There, Kasabian saw Watson shoot and kill Steven Parent
Steven Parent
Steven Earl Parent was a victim of the Charles Manson murders.-Early life:Steven Earl Parent was born in California to Wilfred Elmer Parent, a construction superintendent and his wife, Juanita, a homemaker...
, a teenager who had come to visit the caretaker. Watson then ordered Kasabian to remain outside the residence, and she stood by the car while Watson, Atkins, and Krenwinkel entered the house and killed Abigail Folger
Abigail Folger
Abigail Anne "Gibbie" Folger was an American coffee heiress, debutante, socialite, volunteer social worker, civil rights devotee and member of the prominent United States Folger family. She was the great-granddaughter of J. A. Folger, the founder of Folgers Coffee...
, Wojciech Frykowski
Wojciech Frykowski
Wojciech Frykowski was a Polish actor and writer who was murdered in the home of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski by members of Charles Manson's "Family".-Early life:...
, Jay Sebring
Jay Sebring
Jay Sebring was an American hair stylist for celebrities, and the founder of the hairstyling corporation Sebring International. He is also known as one of the murder victims of the Manson Family.-Early life:...
, and the eight-month pregnant Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
.
Kasabian testified that at one point she heard the "horrible screams" of the victims and left the car. "I started to run toward the house, I wanted them to stop. I knew what they had done to that man [Parent], that they were killing these people. I wanted them to stop." Approaching the house from the driveway, Kasabian was met by Frykowski, who was running out the front door. Kasabian said in her testimony, "There was a man just coming 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, and I said, 'Oh, God, I am so sorry. Please make it stop.' But then he just fell to the ground into the bushes." Then Watson repeatedly stabbed Frykowski and hit him in the head. Kasabian tried to stop the murderers by claiming that she heard "people coming" onto the Tate property, but the killers had insisted that it was "too late". According to Watson and Atkins, Kasabian stood rooted to the front lawn, watching with a horrified expression as her companions committed murder. Kasabian testified that, while in a state of shock, she ran toward the car, started it up, and considered driving away to get help, but then became concerned for her daughter back at the Spahn Ranch
Spahn Ranch
Spahn Ranch, also known as the Spahn Movie Ranch, was a movie ranch used for filming generally Western-themed movies and television programs. With mountainous terrain, boulder-strewn scenery, and an 'old Western town' set, Spahn Ranch was a versatile filming site for many scripts...
.
The next night, Manson once again ordered the quartet to gather a change of clothing and get into the car, this time joining them to "show them how to do it," because he felt the deed the night before had been performed sloppily. Joined by Leslie Van Houten
Leslie Van Houten
Leslie Louise Van Houten is a former member of Charles Manson's "Family" who was convicted of the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.-Life with Manson:...
and Steve Grogan, the group set off into the city, eventually coming to the LaBianca residence in Los Feliz. Kasabian witnessed Manson and Watson walk towards the house and return to the car a few minutes later, whereupon Manson reported that the occupants of the house were tied up. Manson instructed Watson, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten to enter the house. At that point, Manson, Kasabian, Susan Atkins
Susan Atkins
Susan Denise Atkins was a convicted American murderer who was a member of the "Manson family", led by Charles Manson. Manson and his followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in California, over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969...
, and Grogan drove off. Inside the residence, Watson, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca
Leno LaBianca
Pasqualino Antonio "Leno" LaBianca and his wife Rosemary LaBianca were victims of the Manson Family murders.-Rosemary LaBianca:...
. When asked why she went out with the group again, knowing this time that murders would occur, Kasabian responded that when Manson asked her to go with them she was "afraid to say no".
Later the same night, in the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles, Manson asked Kasabian to participate in the murder of an acquaintance, a Lebanese actor named Saladin Nader. Kasabian had met the actor a few days earlier with fellow "family" member Sandra Good
Sandra Good
Sandra Collins Good a long-time member of the Manson Family and a close friend of Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme. Good's Manson Family nickname is "Blue," given to her by Charles Manson because of her blue eyes....
. Atkins and Grogan waited a few feet away, with knife and gun in hand, prepared to kill, as Manson had told them to. Kasabian purposely knocked on the wrong apartment door in order to avoid causing any harm to Nader. When the occupant answered, Kasabian apologized and excused herself, thus preventing the crime. Two days after the LaBianca murders, she fled from the Manson "family", and she eventually returned to her mother's home in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
.
Witness for the prosecution
Susan Atkins was arrested along with the rest of the remaining "family" members following a raid on the Spahn Ranch in October for car theft. The police had no idea that they were also rounding up the murderers in the Tate and LaBianca cases. The investigations of these were already in progress, along with the intensive news media coverage of the murders. Atkins gave the critical break in the search for the murderers when she told her fellow cellmates, including a woman named Ronnie Howard, about the crimes. Howard and others from Los Angeles County women's jail told the criminal authorities what they had learned from Atkins. In early December 1969, Manson, Watson, Krenwinkel, Atkins, Van Houten, and Kasabian were indictedIndictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
by a grand jury for the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Originally, Atkins had been offered a reduced sentence (life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
instead of the death penalty) for her testimony, since she was the first defendant to be arrested, and she had agreed to tell her story at the grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
hearings. However, Atkins relinquished this chance when she resumed her allegiance to Manson and repudiated all her incriminating statements. Next, the prosecutors turned to Kasabian, who had voluntarily turned herself in to New Hampshire authorities and returned to California. Kasabian was offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for turning state's evidence
Turn state's evidence
To turn state's evidence is when an accused or convicted criminal testifies as a witness for the state against his associates or accomplices. Turning state's evidence is occasionally a result of a change of heart or feelings of guilt, but more often is done in response to a generous offer from the...
.
There have been reports that Kasabian wanted to tell her story to the prosecutors, with or without any kind of deal, to "get it out of my head", as chief prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi
Vincent Bugliosi
Vincent Bugliosi is an American attorney and author, best known for prosecuting Charles Manson and other defendants accused of the Tate-LaBianca murders. His most recent books are Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy , The Prosecution of George W...
described it, but that her attorney, Gary Fleischman, insisted that she remain silent until the district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
made an offer of immunity. Kasabian, who was then pregnant with her second child, agreed to the immunity offer.
The immunity agreement was seen at the time as a somewhat controversial option for the prosecution for a number of reasons. Some wanted her to be fully prosecuted for the crimes. However, though Kasabian had been an accomplice to the murders (their driver and lookout) and she had not prevented the crimes or contacted the police or the sheriff afterwards, she had not entered either residence and had not physically participated in any of the murders. She had been described as reluctant and extremely upset during the events of both nights, even challenging Manson ("I'm not you, Charlie. I can't kill anyone"), and she was the only member of the group to express remorse and sympathy for the victims. When brought back to the Tate residence to help reconstruct the crime there, Kasabian reportedly suffered an emotional breakdown. The prosecution was relieved to withdraw the deal from Atkins, whose behavior and statements reportedly seemed especially depraved.
Taking the witness stand, Kasabian was the chief witness for the prosecution, and she tearfully recounted the murders in vivid detail. She related to the trial jury all that she had seen and heard during her stay with the "family" and during the commission of the murders. Her testimony was considered to be the most dramatic segment of the very long trial, and it received an unprecedented amount of news media coverage. During the trial, the unjailed members of the Manson "family" led a campaign of intimidation against Kasabian in an effort to prevent her from testifying. The actual defendants in the crime constantly disrupted her testimony with a blizzard of dramatic courtroom theatrics. Manson would run a finger across his throat, glaring at Kasabian as she testified, an act he would repeat during the testimony of other prosecution witnesses.
Susan Atkins also repeatedly whispered to Linda across the courtroom "You're killing us!", to which Kasabian responded, "I am not killing you, you have killed yourselves". Manson notoriously interrupted Kasabian's testimony by holding up a copy of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
newspaper to the jury with the headline "Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares" referring to President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's statements to the press about the pre-verdict trial. He apparently hoped that this stunt would result in a mistrial, which the defense argued for, but lost. Judge Charles H. Older
Charles Older
Charles Herman "Chuck" Older was a member of the American Volunteer Group "The Flying Tigers" and one of its Aces. In his distinguished military career, he served in both World War II and the Korean War...
refused to allow the defendants to legally benefit from the antics.
For the majority of her 18 days of testimony, the defense attorneys tried unsuccessfully to discredit Kasabian by bringing into account her extensive use of LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
and by attempting to perforate her story. Kasabian did not break under the intensive cross-examination
Cross-examination
In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination and may be followed by a redirect .- Variations by Jurisdiction :In...
, and her testimony matched all of the physical evidence
Evidence
Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...
that had been presented, in addition to being supported by the subsequent prosecution witnesses.
During Kasabian's cross-examination, Manson's defense lawyer Irving Kanarek
Irving Kanarek
Irving A. Kanarek is a retired criminal defense attorney best known for representing Charles Manson and "Onion Field" killer Jimmy Lee Smith....
showed her large color crime-scene photographs of the Tate murders. Kasabian's emotional reaction was in stark contrast to the other "family" members. Manson and Krenwinkel's defense attorney Paul Fitzgerald would later assert that Kanarek's tactic — meant to discredit Kasabian — was a grave error that completely backfired, and further it exonerated the state's primary witness. Composing herself enough to look up from the color photo of the dead, bloodied Sharon Tate, Kasabian shot a look across the courtroom to the defendants. "How could you do that?", she stated. The female defendants laughed. Manson's defense attorney Kanarek asked Kasabian how she could be so certain, considering her LSD use, that she had not participated in the gruesome act. "Because I don't have that kind of thing in me, to do something so animalistic," she replied.
Although the Charles Manson gang's murder trial lasted nine months, with testimony from numerous witnesses (including several other former "family" members), Kasabian's testimony, more than anything else, led to the convictions of Manson, Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten.
Penalty phase
On January 25, 1971, the defendants were found guilty on all counts by the jury, leading to the penalty phase of the trial, which would decide the punishments of the convicted. Various female witnesses, including the defendants and other loyal "family" members (all of whom carved bloody Xs into their foreheads as a sign of their allegiance to Manson), testified that Kasabian, rather than Manson, had masterminded the crimes. The trial jury completely rejected their testimony, however. More recently, these accusations have been publicly repudiated by many of the former "family" members who originally offered the tale, including Catherine Share, Susan Atkins, and particularly Tex Watson, who has since described those allegations as “patently ridiculous".Life after trial
The heavy news media coverage of the Manson trial had made Linda Kasabian a well-known, if somewhat controversial, figure by the time the sentences had been handed down, with opinions about her ranging from sympathetic to hostile. Kasabian shortly returned to New Hampshire with her husband and her children, seeking to escape the glare of the media, and to raise her children quietly. She lived on a hippie communeCommune
Commune may refer to:In society:* Commune, a human community in which resources are shared* Commune , a township or municipality* One of the Communes of France* An Italian Comune...
for a time and worked as a cook later. Kasabian was called back to Los Angeles County several times after the first trial: she was a witness against Tex Watson in his separate trial in 1971, and also against Leslie Van Houten in her two retrials in 1977. Linda Kasabian later divorced her husband Robert Kasabian, and eventually she remarried.
Kasabian was detained for numerous traffic violations, until an automobile accident left her partially disabled. During an Easter celebration in New Hampshire in 1978, she and some friends interfered with firemen who were attempting to extinguish a bonfire. Though she had severed all of her ties with the Manson "family", the Secret Service
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
kept her under surveillance for a time after her former Manson associate Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme
Lynette Fromme
Lynette Alice "Squeaky" Fromme is an American member of the Manson Family. She was sentenced to life imprisonment for attempting to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975...
attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
. Kasabian was the target of scorn from the few remaining Manson "family" members.
Over the years, Kasabian has avoided and refused most news media attention. She appeared only once from 1969 to 2008, for an interview with the syndicated American television program A Current Affair in 1988.
Most recently, Cineflix, a production company in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, produced a docu-drama called Manson, in which Kasabian appears, telling her story in complete detail for the first time. This program was telecast in the U.K. on August 10, 2009, and also in the United States on Sept. 7, 2009, on the History Channel. In this taped interview, Kasabian recounts her four weeks spent with the Manson "family". Her image is slightly obscured to protect her identity.
In a September 2, 2009 live interview on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
's Larry King Live
Larry King Live
Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....
, Kasabian recounted her memories of the murders at Sharon Tate's home. To help her maintain her now-quiet life, Kasabian wore a disguise provided by the program during her interview. She told King during the interview that after the trial she had been in need of, but had never obtained, "psychological counseling", and that during the previous 12 years, she had been "on a path of healing and rehabilitation." When asked about the degree of remorse she felt for her participation in the crimes, Kasabian said that she felt as though she took on all the guilt that "no one else [who was involved in the crimes] felt guilt for", apparently referring to the fact that, even during her own court testimony, the co-defendants in the case showed extreme nonchalance when faced with such gruesome murders.
In popular culture
- In The White AlbumThe White Album (book)The White Album is a 1979 book of essays by Joan Didion. The entire contents of this book are reprinted in Didion's We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction .-I...
, Joan DidionJoan DidionJoan Didion is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation...
wrote of her meetings with Kasabian during her stay in custody while testifying. - Kasabian has been portrayed in various movies by the actresses Clea DuvallClea DuVallClea Helen D'Etienne DuVall is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Sofie on the television series Carnivàle as well as for films such as The Faculty , Girl, Interrupted and The Grudge .-Early life:DuVall was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Rosemary and...
, Marilyn BurnsMarilyn BurnsMary Lynn Ann Burns , better known as Marilyn Burns, is an American actress, best known for her roles in the horror cult films The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , and Eaten Alive...
, Michelle Briggs, and Tamara Hope. - A British alt-rock band took on the name Kasabian in the early 2000's.