• Witness Repeats ‘Clan’ Talked of Tate Deaths

Witness Repeats ‘Clan’ Talked of Tate Deaths

hoyt

Former Clan Member: Barbara Hoyt, 18, former member of Charles Manson’s hippie “family” arrives at court to testify as a prosecution witness in the Tate-LaBianca murder trial. Miss Hoyt claims she ate a hamburger at the airport in Honolulu which she believes was seasoned with a near-lethal dose of LSD by a woman member of the “family.” Miss Hoyt lived with the Manson “family” at the time Miss Tate and six others were killed.

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 24 – A former member of Charles Manson’s “family” today stuck to her account of overhearing a defendant in the Tate-LaBianca murder trial talk knowingly about the slayings, despite apparent attempts by defense attorneys to discredit her testimony.

Barbara Hoyt, 18, on the stand in Los Angeles Superior Court for the second day, testified she was in a bedroom at the Myers Ranch in Inyo County, trying to sleep, when she heard defendant Susan Atkins talking loudly in the kitchen about the murders.

Lawyers for Manson and the three female defendants appeared intent upon invalidating Miss Hoyt’s testimony by showing that her memory of the six months she spent with Manson’s hippie “family” was not clear.

Miss Hoyt, however maintained she did overhear the conversation, less than a month after the deaths of the actress and six others.

Manson and his followers are on trial for the murders, which occurred on two days in August, 1969.

Miss Hoyt said Wednesday she overheard Miss Alkins tell another “family” member that Miss Tate was the last to die, because she had to watch the others killed at her Benedict Canyon home succumb first.

The witness, a tall, dark-haired young woman who wears thick glasses lived at the Spahn Ranch near Chatsworth from April until September of last year.

The ranch used for movie and television westerns was the stronghold of Manson’s nomadic band of young people.

Miss Hoyt said the conversation which she overheard occurred when the “family” moved to the desert in Inyo County shortly after the murders.

“She said that Sharon Tate came out and she said ‘What’s going on here’ and Susan said ‘Shut up, woman.’ Sharon Tate was the last to die because she (Miss Atkins) said she had to watch the others die first,” Miss Hoyt said.

The testimony was finally allowed into the trial following a heated three hour in-chambers argument by defense attorneys who contended the “confession” was inadmissible.

The testimony, defense lawyers contended, implicated all the defendants because of the apparent tie-in by previous prosecution witnesses between Miss Atkins, Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten.

Although Judge Charles Older apparently ruled in favor of the prosecution, he admonished jurors before the testimony that the witness’ statements should be used in relation to Miss Alkins only.

Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi had said earlier that the girl was “enticed” to Honolulu by members of the “family” still living at the Spahn ranch, and had been slipped a near-fatal dose of LSD. She only recently returned from the islands.

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