The Closing Argument...

"The man was right behind us and he came to the driver's seat and he started to put his hand in the car to reach for the keys and Tex blocked him, grabbed his hand and just jammed, you know."
"What is the next thing that happened?"
"I remember we came to sort of a level part of the road and through a dirt shoulder, and he pulled off"--referring to Tex--"and handed me the clothing and told me to throw them out, which I did."
"What clothing are you talking about?"
"The clothing that the three, Tex, Katie, and Sadie had changed from."

At this point in Linda's testimony she identified the black T-shirt Katie wore, the dark blue T-shirt Sadie wore. The only article of clothing Linda could not identify, as you recall, was the white T-shirt. She said she doesn't recall seeing it at that time.

I think that is understandable, the mission this night, ladies and gentlemen, was murder. The reason, of course, why Tex, Katie, and Sadie and Linda were all dressed in black, obviously, was to avoid detection. After Linda threw the clothing over the side of the hill, Tex drove off and told Linda to wipe the fingerprints off the two knives and throw them out of the window. Linda testified she wiped the prints off with a rag, and while the car was still in motion, threw the first knife out, a few seconds thereafter the second knife was thrown out, bounced into the curb off the side of the road. She testified she threw the knives out of the window shortly after throwing the clothing over the side of the hill. She said she did not remember whether or not she threw the revolver out of the car. Now, if Linda didn't, surely one of these defendants must have, probably Tex. The revolver was found very close to where the clothing was found. Obviously Tex or Manson did not drive back to this area a day or two later and throw the revolver over the side of the hill, it must have been thrown on that particular night by either Katie, Sadie, or, probably, Tex, because Linda just does not simply recall the revolver being thrown out of the car.

Linda testified that after the clothing and the knives and undoubtedly the revolver were thrown out of the car, Tex stopped at a gas station where Sadie and Katie and Tex went into a restroom and washed off Linda then became the driver and she drove back to Spahn Ranch.

Was Charlie Manson sleeping, ladies and gentlemen? Was he sleeping when Tex, Sadie, Katie, and Linda arrived back at Spahn Ranch? Mter successfully completing his mission of murder, was he sleeping? Mter all, Linda testified that they arrived back at the ranch about an hour to an hour and a half after the murders, which would place their arrival back at the ranch somewhere around one-thirty or two A.M. in the morning, when only the goblins are out. But no, Charlie Manson was up; he was up around two o'clock all by himself, and in fact almost in the same place in the parking area of Spahn Ranch where he had seen them off a couple-several hours earlier. Charlie was not going to go to sleep that night, when he sent his robots off on a mission like that he wanted to know what happened, obviously. I asked Linda:

"Was there anyone in the parking area at Spahn Ranch as you drove in the Spahn Ranch area?"

more on the closing argument