Manson Courtroom – Unbelievable World
Sunday, August 9th, 1970
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 9 – It’s an unbelievable world in the Los Angeles Superior Court, Dept. 101.
In the always crowded courtroom, spectators, defendants, attorneys and even the jury have been described like “something out of central casting.”
Little old ladies and young longhairs stand in line for hours to get one of 10 precious spectators’ seats. They want a glimpse of three skinny, vacant-eyed, long haired girls, all charged with wanton killing, and Charles Manson, the man accused of masterminding the killings by ordering the slaughtering at the homes of actress Sharon Tate and market owner Leno LaBianca.
Writers from London and Paris, Munich and Milan, Toronto and Hamburg as well as radio, television, magazine and newspaper reporters from throughout the United Stales add to the drama by rushing back and forth between their assigned places in the 92-seat courtroom and a battery of telephone and teletype machines lining the walls outside the court.
They feed to a waiting public the story of what prosecutors have charged is a marauding band of cold-blooded killers murdering for thrills.
A half dozen artists sketch the drama in color but it’s hard to capture a tear in the eye of a father whose son was a victim or the look of horror from an eyewitness whose mind had not registered the carnage.
But the artists’ sketches are the only inside look the public receives.
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