Linda Kasabian's Story Sounds Like B.S.

The History Channel aired a little docudrama about the Tate-LaBianca murders back in 2009, to mark the fortieth "anniversary" of the deaths, and they were kind enough to replay it this past weekend.  I think I may have seen it when it originally aired but if so, it either didn't make enough of an impression on me to warrant comment or I didn't fully watch.  In any event, I watched yesterday and what I saw made me angry.


The docudrama was told as Linda Kasabian saw it, with dramatic reenactments interspersed with interviews of Kasabian who was supposedly hidden with a bad wig, sunglasses (in some shots) and sketchy lighting.  I have to say that if this was how to keep her hidden I sure wouldn't want to go into witness protection with the History Channel covering my back.   I could pick Kasabian out in the dead of night, with one eye shut, in a swamp covered in mud on a foggy day.  Sheesh.


Anyhow, this was promoted back in 2009 as the first time she spoke publicly in forty years about what happened - - or in other words, since she testified at the trial that put Charles Manson and his merry band of murderers in prison.  If you aren't up on your Manson facts, Kasabian was given immunity in order to testify as she did not actually kill anyone that night and prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi stressed that she was just a little hippie girl that wasn't cut from the same cloth as Manson and his followers.


What struck me right away (besides the bad wig) was that when recounting meeting "the Family" and Manson for the first time, Kasabian looked wistful, as if she were remembering a loved one who had passed on or recollecting a fun, joyous time in her life.  I have no doubt that she bought lock, stock and barrel into the commune style living and the free love-share everything philosophy that the Family espoused.  To each his own.  I do think that the reenactment of Spahn Ranch was much cleaner than the reality likely was and the actors cast were much more attractive and prettier than their real life counterparts would have been. 


I found it unsettling that Kasabian recalls her first meeting with Tex Watson in such dreamy, awe-inspired tones, as if she was a lovesick teen.  Watson's sex appeal was off the charts, per Linda, and the attraction so instant that the two were having sex within hours of her arrival at the Ranch.  Tex Watson, in case you need a refresher, was Manson's main hit man on the nights of August 9 and 10, 1969 and personally stabbed to death a pregnant woman.  Yep, you can see why he would be so attractive.   So here I'm thinking that not only is Linda's judgment on where to live a bit sketchy but also who she finds attractive.


So her story about the murder nights is essentially the same as what she told Bugliosi with the notable exception that she is now claiming that she climbed into Steven Parent's car after the oh-so-sexy Tex Watson shot him four times in order to take the wallet from the dead teenager's body.  Hmmmmm.  She didn't kill him but her hands aren't exactly as clean as Bugliosi would like us to believe.  Unless of course she is lying.  More on that.


Linda continues to maintain that she was sent around the back of the house to look for open doors or windows and returned to Tex and lied, despite the nursery window being open and without a screen and then remained outside while Watson, Krenwinkle and Atkins went inside to do away with Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger and Voytek Frykowski.  She claims she remained outside, giving Atkins her knife when Susan ran outside asking for it and then telling her to listen for sounds, and came face to face with Frykowski when he stumbled outside after being attacked, desperate for a means of escape.  She sobbed and cried about how she looked into his eyes . . . and then did nothing, watching him stumble off before Watson (again) caught up him and slaughtered him on the lawn.  That Watson, he sure is a catch.


She claims she wanted the killings to stop but she did nothing to stop them.  Did she run screaming from the property?  Nope.  Did she jump in the killers' car, to which she had the keys, and peel the hell out of there?  Nope.  She waited in or by the car and when the trio returned, exuberant over their fresh kills, she collected the bloody knives and clothing and tossed them out the window. 


Let's break this down.


She said she thought the group was going on another "creepy crawlie," wherein they would dress in black, break into homes and rearrange furnishings in order to freak the occupants out when they awoke.  So why would the group need rope, a gun and knives?  Why would Watson need to cut the phone lines at Cielo?   


I can buy that she was in a state of shock during and after the murders.  Her daughter was back at the Ranch and even if she had taken off from the Cielo property, if Watson, et. al. had gotten to a phone before she could get back to reclaim her daughter, who knows what could have happened.  She couldn't very well show up at the Ranch without her cohorts. 


She certainly knew the next night when she was instructed to put on black clothing and grab a knife what was going down.  She didn't enter the LaBianca home or property but claims that she thwarted another planned attack on an actor she had met.  She, Atkins and Grogan were instructed by Manson to drive to Venice Beach, gain entry to this man's apartment and kill him.   Linda claims that she intentionally knocked on the wrong door so that said man wouldn't be killed.  Okay, but what about the poor person who opened the wrong door?  How did she know they wouldn't kill him or her?


Linda sees her chance for escape - - too late to save Sharon Tate, her unborn child, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Steven Parent, Rosemary LaBianca or Leno LaBianca - - when she is asked to visit Bobby Beausoleil in jail in L.A.  She says she is unable to get to her daughter so leaves without her.  Okay, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.  But does she drive directly to the LAPD and tell them she can solve the Tate-LaBianca homicides?  Nope.  She goes to New Mexico and into hiding.


What mother does this?  She says that she "knew" the Family wouldn't harm her daughter but she also told Bugliosi that Manson had said that at some point in the future they may have to kill children as well.  Knowing absolutely that the Family had butchered a pregnant woman, I certainly wouldn't be betting my child's life on anything they had to say. 


A few more things come to mind as well.  Linda was supposedly brought along on the two nights of murder because she was the only member of the Family with a valid driver's license.  However, Linda did not drive on either night.  So what difference did having the license make?  So why was she brought along?  She had only been with the Family for a month.  Some have speculated that Manson chose those Family members that were most expendable to him to send on his murderous mission but I don't think so.  Patricia Krenwinkel was said to be Manson's female equivalent - - utterly devout.  Leslie Van Houten and Susan Atkins were also reported to be fully in with the Family and its beliefs, including murder.  Only Tex Watson was said to be independent in any way but he followed Manson's orders like a good soldier.  It doesn't wash for me suggesting that any of these people were expendable.  I think Manson sent those followers he knew were the most antisocial, the angriest, the most fucked up who would slaughter strangers for shits and giggles.  So what does that say about Linda Kasabian?


She claims she didn't hurt anyone.  She says that Tex ordered her to stay outside . . . but why?  They didn't know how many people were inside.  Does it make sense that Tex would enter the house with just two women to commit those murders?  (Granted, they were armed with a gun, bayonet and knives.)  Did they truly need a look out (a job which Linda failed at pretty miserably) or was Tex making sure that his little sweetie wouldn't go down for murder? 


Linda Kasabian, in my mind, proved herself to be a shitty mother.  She joined the Family, where her daughter was promptly taken away from her.  Manson believed that parents ruined their own children and therefore shouldn't be allowed to raise them.  Linda should have run right then but she stayed and handed her daughter over to be grouped with the other children, in a separate building, taken care of by other Family members.  When she fled after the Tate-LaBianca murders without her daughter, she didn't get herself to the nearest law enforcement officer or building; she fled to freaking New Mexico.  Where she hid without her daughter, who she would get back only after the raid at Spahn and all the children were taken into protective services.  Still at that time, Linda said nothing.  Only after Susan Atkins began spilling the beans while in jail and an arrest warrant was issued for Kasabian did Linda start talking.


Had Linda come forward immediately, the murder of Donald "Shorty" Shea wouldn't have happened.     It's also possible the deaths of John Philip Haught (known as "Zero" within the Family and who was found dead from playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded pistol), and Joel Pugh (husband of Family member Sandra Goode) could have been prevented. 


I'm not sure I buy Bugliosi's suggestion that Linda was just a little hippie girl.  She had committed criminal activities prior to joining up with Manson and happily stole $5,000 from her husband's friend after Tex Watson suggested it to her on the day they met.  She clearly had no problem with the theft, as she had no problem doing the "creepy crawlies" with the Family.  She admitted in 2009 that she searched a dead teenager's body for a wallet.  How do we know she didn't do more than that?