SACRAMENTO, Sept. 6 – Lynette Alice Fromme was one of Charles Manson’s earliest and most loyal followers. He called her “Squeaky” because of her tiny, child-like voice.

She has been a Manson devotee since 1967 — moving to Sacramento last year to be near Manson at Folsom Prison, before he was transferred to San Quentin in June. Her friend and fellow Manson follower, Sandra Good, roomed with Fromme in the attic apartment of a building at 1725 P Street. A third Manson woman, Heather Murphy, also lived in the P Street house.

Yesterday morning, Squeaky Fromme put on a long red robe and walked down P Street toward the State Capitol. A neighbor saw her at 9:30 a.m., just 40 minutes before she is said to have aimed a loaded .45 Caliber automatic at Gerald Ford.

“I saw her walking down P Street, toward the capitol,” the neighbor recalls. “I didn’t know her, but I remember her. She turned and smiled at me with kind of a funny expression on her face.”

Squeaky Fromme took another walk in the red robe about two months ago, up to the Bee newsroom to deliver a news release of sorts — a strange, rambling statement with numerous misspellings and a San Quentin address.

“All laws were broken,” the release proclaimed, “to put Manson in prison. He is living in a closet because of what Nixson (sic) taught his children. If Nixson’s reality wearing a new face continues to run this country against the law, your homes will be bloodier than the Tate-LaBianca houses and Mi (sic) Lai put together.

“The truth of your fear’s ignorance and unconcern for your children will come running through your bedrooms with butcher knives.”

Similar missives were sent to other news media several days later, including a statement carried by the Associated Press July 7, which said:

“We’re doing everything we can to clean up the earth. We’re working with people all over the country, all over the world …It’s a network of people who are interested in living.”

According to an account in “Helter-Skelter,” Fromme was kicked out of the house by her father, a Santa Monica aeronautical engineer, when she was 17. She met Manson in Venice, Calif. while she was sitting on a curb crying. “A man walked up and said, ‘Your father kicked you out of the house, did he?’ And that was Charlie.”

She was one of Manson’s strongest supporters during Manson’s trial for the Sharon Tate murders, carving a cross on her forehead to match one that Manson had carved in his and
keeping daily vigil outside the courthouse.

“Manson’s girls had been taught that having babies and caring for men were their sole purpose in life,” wrote Bugliosi, who successfully prosecuted Manson in the Tate case. ” …there was a sameness about them that was much stronger than their individuality. Same expressions, same patterned responses, same tone of voice, same lack of distinct personality …They reminded me less of human beings than Barbie Dolls.”

He wrote of an interview with Squeaky when she was 22 and Sandy Good was 25: “There was a little-girl quality to them, as if they hadn’t aged but had been retarded at a certain stage in their childhood. Little girls, playing little-girl games. Including murder? I wondered.”

Law enforcement authorities say Fromme had been arrested more than a dozen times on charges ranging from drug possession and petty theft to robbery and attempted murder. But, they said, she had been convicted only of minor charges and spent a few months in jail.

The 1972 attempted murder charge was filed in Stockton in the death of 19-year-old Lauren Willett, who allegedly was killed because she was going to tell authorities about the killing of her husband, James. He had allegedly been killed earlier because he intended to tell authorities about a series of robberies by Manson followers.

The charge against Fromme was eventually dropped for lack of evidence in 1973.

In unsuccessful attempts to arrange visiting with Manson at Folsom, Fromme and Good were regular visitors at the California Department of Corrections headquarters in Sacramento during the past year. They eventually succeeded in obtaining correspondence privileges, but not visits with the man they believe “has got the answer” to life’s dilemmas.

“Good and Fromme have been in here many times,” says Corrections official Helen Atkinson. “They were always extremely ladylike, but then they were trying to get something.

“I talked to Fromme not too long ago. She was waiting for the elevator. I’d just read ‘Helter-Skelter’, and I asked her if she’d read it. She said she tried, but it made her sick. She said it was full of lies. She was writing her own book.“

The residential building where Squeaky Fromme lived with Sandy Good — and apparently with Heather Murphy as well — is on a tree-lined street of apartment houses and a couple of restored Victorians. From the exterior, it is clean, well-tended. According to County Assessor’s records, it is owned by Jessie and Mary Fain.

Jessie Fain told reporters yesterday the two-bedroom attic apartment where Fromme and her friends lived rents for $100 a month. He said there was once a “large photo of Manson on the wall, but they took it down and now have a map of the world. Their behavior was A-0.K.”

By SIGRID BATHEN