Vincent Bugliosi - Helter Skelter

Yet she killed at his command.

Keith asked Hochman: “Doctor, did you ask her whether or not Mr. Manson, during her association with him, had any influence over her in her thought process and in her conduct and activity?”

A.“She denies it. But I don’t buy that.”

Q.“Why don’t you buy that?”

A.“Well, I don’t understand why she would stay on the scene that long if there was nothing there for her, on some unconscious basis.”

As I’d observe in my final argument, many came to Spahn Ranch but only a few stayed; those who did, did so because they found the black-hearted medicine Manson was peddling very palatable.

According to Hochman, in talking to him Leslie professed “a kind of primitive Christianity, love for the world, acceptance of all things. And I asked her, ‘Well, professing that, how can it be you would murder someone?’ She said, ‘Well that was something inside of me too.’”

Maxwell Keith should have stopped right there. Instead, he asked Hochman: “How do you interpret that?”

A.“I think it’s rather realistic. I think that in reality it was something inside of her, despite her chronic denial of the emotional aspects of herself, that a rage was there.”

Nor did Keith leave it at that. He now asked: “When you say a rage was there, what do you mean by that?”

A.“In my opinion it would take a rage, an emotional reaction to kill someone. I think it is unquestionable that that feeling was inside of her.”

Q.“Bearing in mind that she had never seen or heard of Mrs. LaBianca, in your opinion there was some hate in her when this occurred?”

A.“Well, I think it would make it easier for her not to know Mrs. LaBianca…It is hard to kill someone that you have good feelings towards. I don’t think there was anything specific about Mrs. LaBianca.

“Let me make myself clear: Mrs. LaBianca was an object, a blank screen upon which Leslie projected her feelings, much as a patient projects his feeling on an analyst whom he doesn’t know…feelings towards her mother, her father, toward the establishment…

“I think she was a very angry girl for a long time, a very alienated girl for a long time, and the anger and rage was associated with that.”

Hochman was articulating one of the main points of my final summation: namely, that Leslie, Sadie, Katie, and Tex had a hostility and rage within them that pre-existed Charles Manson. They were different from Linda Kasabian, Paul Watkins, Brooks Poston, Juan Flynn, and T. J. When Manson asked them to kill for him, each said no.

Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten said yes.

So there had to be something special about these people that caused them to kill. Some kind of inner flaw. Apart from Charlie.

Though he had badly damaged his own case, Keith had tried to put the hat on Manson. Fitzgerald, in his examination of Hochman, did just the opposite. He sought to minimize the importance of Manson’s influence over Leslie. Asking Hochman what Manson’s influence actually was, he received this reply: “His ideas, his presence, the role he played in his relationship to her, served to reinforce a lot of her feelings and attitudes. It served to reinforce and give her a way of continuing her general social alienation, her alienation from the establishment.”

Q.“So, really, all you are saying is that (A) Manson could possibly have had some influence, and (B), if he did have some influence, it would only contribute to the lowering of her restraints on her impulsiveness, is that correct?”

A.“Yes.”

Q.“So any influence Manson had on Leslie Van Houten, in terms of your professional opinion, is tenuous at best, is that correct?” [83] There was no meaningful dichotomy between Leslie Van Houten and Fitzgerald’s client, Patricia Krenwinkel. Both young girls had joined the Family, submitted to Manson’s domination, and ultimately murdered for him. In trying to establish that Manson was not responsible for causing Leslie to kill, Fitzgerald was at the same time establishing that Manson wasn’t responsible for Katie’s killing either. Hochman’s reply badly hurt not only Leslie but Katie and Sadie as well.

A.“Let me give you another example that may make it clearer… Suppose someone comes in and says, ‘Let’s eat the whole apple pie.’ Obviously your temptation is stimulated by the suggestion, but your final decision on whether or not to eat the whole pie or just one piece comes out of you. So the other person is influential, but is not a final arbiter or decider of that situation…

“Someone can tell you to shoot someone, but your decision to do that comes from inside you.”

Kanarek, when his turn came, picked up the scent. “And so you are telling us then, in layman’s language, that when someone takes a knife and stabs, the decision to do that is a personal decision?”

A.“In the ultimate analysis it is.”

Q.“It is a personal decision of the person who does the stabbing?”

A.“Yes.”

Ironically, Kanarek and I were now on the same side. Both of us were seeking to prove that, even independent of Manson, these girls had murder within them.

Manson was very impressed by Hochman and at first wanted to be interviewed by him. I was relieved, however, when he later abandoned the idea. I wasn’t greatly worried about Manson conning Hochman. But even if Hochman didn’t buy Manson’s story, Kanarek would make sure he repeated it on the stand. Thus, using Hochman as a conduit, Manson could get almost everything he wanted before the jury, without being subject to my cross-examination.

Hochman found in all three girls “much evidence in their history of early alienation, of early antisocial or deviant behavior.” Even before joining the Family, Leslie had more emotional problems than the average person. Sadie actively sought to be everything her father warned her not to be. “She thinks now, in retrospect,” Hochman noted, “that even without Charles Manson she would have ended up in jail for manslaughter or assault with a deadly weapon.” Katie first had sex at fifteen. She never saw the boy again, and she suffered tremendous guilt because of the experience. Manson eradicated that guilt. He also, in letting her join the Family, gave her the acceptance she desperately craved.

Of the three, Hochman felt Sadie had a little more remorse than the other two—she often talked of wishing her life were over. Yet he also noted, “One is struck by the absence of a conventional sense of morality or conscience in this girl.” And he testified, “She does not seem to manifest any evidence of discomfort or anxiety about her present circumstances, or her conviction and possible death sentence. On the contrary, she seemed to manifest a remarkable peacefulness and self-acceptance in her present state.”

According to Hochman, all three girls denied “any sense of guilt whatever about anything.” And he felt that intellectually they actually believed there is no right or wrong, that morality is a relative thing. “However, I, as a psychiatrist, know that you cannot rationally do away with the feelings that exist on the irrational, unconscious level. You cannot tell yourself that killing is O.K. intellectually when you have grown up all your life feeling that killing is wrong.”

In short, Hochman believed that as human beings the girls felt some guilt deep down inside, even though they consciously suppressed it.

Keith asked Hochman: “In your opinion, Doctor, would Leslie be susceptible or respond to intensive therapy?”