Linda Kasabian Finishes Slaying Account
Tuesday, April 26th, 1977
LOS ANGELES, Apr. 26 – Linda Kasabian completed her courtroom account Monday about a night in 1969 when she said Charles Manson and a carload of his followers roamed from the mountains to the sea searching for someone to kill.
That was the night they finally selected grocery chain operator Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, as their victims.
Mrs. Kasabian, now a 27-year-old mother of four living in Florida, is again cast in the role of star prosecution witness in the retrial of former Manson follower Leslie Van Houten.
In her testimony Monday, Mrs. Kasabian told of Manson instructing Charles (Tex) Watson, Patricia (Katie) Krenwinkle and Miss Van Houten to go into the LaBiancas’ Los Feliz district home and kill them.
Manson, she testified, had first gone into the LaBianca residence alone. “He came back down the driveway and told Tex, Katie and Leslie to get out of the car,” she said.
Under questioning by Dep. Dist. Atty. Stephen Kay, she then told the six-woman, six-man jury:
“They all went to the back of the car and Charlie said that there was a man and a woman in there and that he had tied their hands together.
“He told them, ‘Don’t let them know you are going to kill them. Don’t create fear and panic.'”
Mrs. Kasabian said Manson also instructed the trio to hitchhike back to the “family” encampment at Spahn Movie Ranch near Chatsworth.
Manson then drove off, she said, with her in the car along with two other “family” members, Susan Atkins and Steve Grogan.
In her earlier testimony about the night the LaBiancas were slain, she told of Manson calling the group together at the ranch.
“Charlie said we were going to go out again and this time he would show us how to do it. He said there was too much fear and panic the night before and that it was too messy,” Mrs. Kasabian testified.
The “night before” was the savage assault on the Benedict Canyon estate of actress Sharon Tate where she and four others were killed Aug. 9, 1969.
Neither Manson nor Miss Van Houten accompanied the attackers to the Tate residence. She is being tried only for the LaBianca murders and conspiracy.
Mrs. Kasabian said the night after the Tate slayings Manson led the group out on a rambling, random search for victims.
“We took two swords and a gun, I think,” she said.
The sinister search began in a quiet Pasadena residential area but Manson rejected the first house he looked into, Mrs. Kasabian testified, “because he saw some pictures of children on the wall.”
She said they next selected another house but abandoned this as a potential murder site “because the houses there were too close together.”
The next target, according to her testimony, was a church in the same neighborhood. “Charlie said we were going to find us a priest or minister,” she testified, “but when Charlie went up to this church, he couldn’t get in because the door was locked.”
Then they roamed the hills above Sunset Blvd. but did not find any likely victims, she said.
But as they continued on toward the beach, Manson singled out a driver in the area of Will Rogers State Beach. “He told me to pull up along side and he got out,” Mrs. Kasabian said. “But the car pulled away before Charlie could do anything.”
They then drove to the Los Feliz district and pulled up at the residence of Harold True, who lived next door to the LaBiancas, she said True was not home, she said, so Manson, apparently without any particular reason, invaded the LaBianca home.
Up until she had finished her tale about the evening the LaBiancas were slashed to death, prosecutor Kay had Mrs. Kasabian testify only limitedly about what she saw and heard during the slaughter at the Tate estate.
But over the strenuous objections of Miss Van Houten’s attorney, Maxwell Keith, Kay then asked that Mrs. Kasabian be allowed to give the jury full details of the Tate estate attacks, too.
Superior Judge Edward Hinz Jr. ruled that the testimony could be heard.
Mrs. Kasabian’s description about the savagery that occurred at the Tate estate was delivered this time in a dull monotone, in stark contrast to her tearful testimony in the first trial, almost seven years ago.
She said Steven Parent, the teenager who was driving out of the estate just as the attackers were walking in, begged, “Please don’t hurt me.”
“What happened then?” Kay asked.
“Tex shot him in the head four times,” she replied.
By WILLIAM FARR
It’s a pity Mr LaBianca didn’t have one of his firearms loaded and handy on that fateful night. I suppose he was a collector and appreciator of firearms but not a person intent on using them.