Dec. 11 – Sheriff’s deputies searched a movie ranch near Chatsworth Wednesday for a missing stunt man authorities believe may be a victim of the band of hippies accused of the Tate and LaBianca murders.

As three young women charged with murder were arraigned at the Civic Center, deputies began a hunt for a tall, powerful horse wrangler and beerhall bouncer named Donald O’Shea, 40, missing since August.

The three women who appeared in court Wednesday were accused of taking part in seven murders, and one of them was charged earlier with killing an eighth man whose death has been attributed to the same band.

O’Shea could be the ninth victim of the group, police said. Detectives are known to be investigating the possibility the cult may have been linked to as many as 12 deaths.

Officers searched the Spahn Ranch at Chatsworth until dark without success. Two sheriff’s deputies were injured when a rock wall collapsed as they probed a well for some sign of the missing man.

In other ramifications to the Tate-LaBianca slayings:
— Charles Manson, 35, bearded, longhaired leader of the hippie group known as the Manson Family, was to be arraigned today on charges of conspiracy and murder.

— Dist. Atty. Evelle J. Younger said he may comment today on a strict no-publicity rule imposed by the judge who arraigned three former members of Manson’s group Wednesday.

— Sheriff’s officers said they would resume a search of the Spahn Ranch today — apparently acting on information given by one of the witnesses at the County Grand Jury inquiry which indicted the three young women, Manson, and a man and woman now in custody in other states.

Members of Manson’s group claimed that he wielded an almost hypnotic power over them, ordering them to kill Sharon Tate and four others at her estate Aug.9, then Leno and Rosemary LaBianea in the Los Feliz district the next night.

George C. Spahn, 80, owner of the ranch at Chatsworth, said Wednesday that Manson and his group were living at the ranch against his will at the time of the murders.

Last summer, before he disappeared, O’Shea and Manson argued, Spahn said.

‘Shorty — we called him Shorty because he was so big — was a likable kinda cuss, always laughing and cutting up,” Spahn said. “He worked in pictures, driving teams and handling saddle horses, but he leaned more to beer joints. He was a bouncer.

“He married a Negro woman. Charlie (Manson) hated colored people. Shorty was walking along, minding his own business, and Charlie said to him, ‘Nigger lover.’ They got into a tiny argument. It didn’t last a minute.”

Later, the ranch owner added, Shorty disappeared. But, he said, he wasn’t reported as missing because he had a way of coming and going. Spahn said Manson and his group had been staying at the ranch over his protests, claiming their traveling bus was broken down, until, in August, “they all of a sudden cleared out.”

Manson was brought to Los Angeles from Independence, Calif., Tuesday to await arraignment. Police allowed him to use the phone. He called Spahn.

“Sounded cheerful and friendly,” Spahn said later. “He said, ‘Merry Christmas,’ but someone cut him off in the middle of ‘Christmas.’

Police began to clamp down on release of information about the Tate-LaBianca cases Wednesday after a Superior Court judge imposed a strict no-publicity rule on all officials and witnesses in the case.

Superior Judge William B. Keene’s sweeping order was similar to that ordered last year in the case of Sirhan B. Sirhan.

Judge Keene issued his order after arraigning the young women on a total of 16 counts of murder.

The defendants — identified as members of the Manson band of hippies — stood impassively during the brief proceedings. They are Susan Denise Atkins, 21, Linda Kasabian, 20, and Leslie Louise Van Houten, 19, who had previously given her name as Leslie Sankston.

The judge said he was ordering public officials, attorneys and witnesses in the Tate and LaBianca cases to refrain from making public comments on the case to preserve what he called the rights of the defendants to a fair trial.

Said Judge Keene:
“It is apparent that this case has received extensive news media coverage that is not limited to Los Angeles and California but to the nation as well.

“This court is of the conviction that the impossible task of choosing between freedom of the press and a fair trial need not be made.”

His order restricted attorneys, public officials, law enforcement officers, members of the grand jury which indicted the defendants, witnesses before that jury, prospective witnesses and others connected with the case from making “extra-judicial statements…related to this case.”

Younger opposed the gag rule in the Sirhan case. He took the Sirhan ruling to the Supreme Court, which declined to give his action a hearing. The no-publicity rule remained in effect throughout the celebrated trial of Sirhan, who was subsequently convicted of murdering Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

Judge Keene also ordered the transcript of the grand jury inquiry withheld from publication until 10 days after the last of the defendants it indicted is arraigned.

Because of delays in returning those resisting extradition, this could mean weeks. Judge Keene ordered all three young women returned to court later for plea. Dep. Dist. Attys. Aaron H. Stovitz and Vincent T. Bugliosi represented the prosecution at Wednesday’s arraignment.

Mrs. Kasabian, who is five months pregnant, was ordered to return to court Dec. 22. She was represented by attorney Gary B. Fleischman. She is charged with conspiracy and seven counts of murder.

Miss Atkins, represented by Richard Caballero, is to appear next Tuesday on similar charges.

Miss Van Houten, represented by attorney Donald Barnett, is to enter a plea Dec. 22. She is charged with conspiracy and with two counts of murder, in the LaBianca case only.

Manson or members of his group have been accused of slaying the five Tate victims, the LaBiancas and Gary Hinman, a musician with whom the band once lived in Topanga Canyon.

In addition to O’Shea, authorities are investigating the group’s possible complicity in the deaths of two members of the Church of Scientology, a dope peddler, a motorcyclist killed in Bishop and a member of the group shot to death in Venice after Manson was in custody.

In the Bishop and Venice cases, the deaths were originally listed as suicides.

By DIAL TORGERSON and RON EINSTOSS