Tate Juror ‘To Explain’
Thursday, April 1st, 1971
LOS ANGELES, Apr. 1 — The foreman of the Sharon Tate murder trial jury says he wants to clear up misunderstandings created by jurors’ comments to news media, and said he would hold a news conference Thursday.
The unusual move by Herman Tubick, announced, through a spokesman Wednesday, came after several jurors were interviewed and one said on a TV show that some jurors had been “promiscuous” during their long sequestration at a hotel.
William Zamora, a bachelor juror, said in a television interview Tuesday that he had told other jurors from the start of the nine-month trial that he was going to write a book about their life at the hotel.”
I told them I was going to write this book, so I said, ‘Watch yourselves’.”
But he added, “In nine months, people do give up and become what they really are and somehow they are promiscuous.”
Asked if he was aware of the full meaning and implications of the word “promiscuous” in reference to other jurors, he said, “Yes.”
Zamora also said that when other jurors find out the contents of his book, “They are probably going to call me a so-and-so.”
The dark-haired, bearded Zamora, a highway engineer, continually sketched pictures of witnesses and trial participants throughout the trial, and said he was doing them for his book.
Tubick declined to talk with newsmen Wednesday and sent word that whatever he had to say would come out at the news conference. He has declined to be interviewed since the jury returned verdicts of death for Charles Manson and three women co-defendants Monday in the slayings of Miss Tate and six others.
One juror, William McBride, 25, said he has spoken openly to news media, without payment, because he felt jurors shouldn’t try to make money from their jury duty. “I just don’t care about it,” he said.
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