• Manson Girls Termed ‘Bloodthirsty Vampires’

Manson Girls Termed ‘Bloodthirsty Vampires’

LOS ANGELES, Mar. 25 — Cult leader Charles Manson was described as “the most evil, satanic man that ever walked the face of the earth” and his girlfriend- co-defendants were labeled “bloodthirsty…vampires” Wednesday as the prosecution ended its part in the Tate-LaBianca murder trial penalty phase.

The trial was postponed a day today when Paul Fitzgerald, defendant Patricia Krenwinkel’s lawyer, called the court to say he had the flu.

Final arguments by defense attorneys will continue Friday when court resumes.

Only rebuttal from the four defense attorneys remains before the case goes to the jury which will decide whether the four — Manson, Susan Atkins, Miss Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten — live or die.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent Bugliosi, at times whispering and at times screaming at the jury, Wednesday pounded the podium as he demanded that all four be sent to San Quentin’s gas chamber for the seven brutal murders.

“These people can’t be rehabilitated,” the 36-year-old prosecutor shouted. “Rehabilitation deals not only with the mind, but with hearts and souls. How do you rehabilitate a heart filled with murder? How do you give a person a new heart and soul?

“Should they be permitted to live,” he said pointing to the three girls who chatted quietly at the counsel table, “when they saw to it that Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Voityck Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Steven Parent, Leno LaBianca and Rosemary LaBianca — all of whom wanted to live just like you and me — would never savor another dinner…hear music…meet with their friends…or see another sunrise.

“They all had full lives ahead of them until these savages brutally snuffed out their lives.
“Now the defense attorneys want you to give these defendants a break. Did they give their victims a break?

“The defense attorneys want you to have mercy on their clients. Did these defendants show any mercy when these seven victims begged for their lives?”

Then directing his remarks to the three girl defendants individually, he pointed out that Miss Krenwinkel actively participated in all seven murders, adding: “and she enjoyed every bloody moment of these orgies of murder…and laughed about the fact that she committed them.

“Life imprisonment for her, a virtual savage, would be unthinkable.”

Miss Atkins, he shouted, was not only a murderess, but a vampire.

“She tasted Sharon Tate’s blood…as Sharon Tate’s blood was streaming out of her body, and she begged, ‘Just let me have my baby,’ Susan Atkins answered, ‘I have no mercy for you, bitch.’

“And then she stabbed and stabbed until her heart stopped and a few minutes later her baby’s heart stopped.”

The actress was 8-months pregnant.

Turning, to Leslie Van Houten, Bugliosi told the panel that the fact her co-defendants committed five more murders than she did didn’t lessen her guilt.

“She’s a vicious cold-blooded, premeditated murderess in her own right.- Two murders are more than enough to warrant the death penalty for her.”

Manson’s attorney, Irving Kanarek, began his final summation, following the prosecution, claiming he wasn’t “begging” for his client’s life.

“But, he said, you can’t substitute prejudice, passion, hatred and complacency for evidence.”

Kanarek claimed that “something good” should come out of the trial, pointing out that a study of the defendants — alive — would be better than killing them.

“The Tate-LaBianca trial should point out one tiling — that tiling should stick in our craws — it’s that we have a problem — a drug problem.”

By MARY NEISWENDER

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