The Closing Argument...

Much of the evidence, of course, I haven't got into yet. There is no question at all that Manson was sending Tex, Sadie, Katie, and Linda out on his mission of murder. Linda testified that they were all wearing dark clothing, Sadie a black T-shirt, Katie a dark T-shirt, Tex with a black turtleneck, sort of a velour velvet shirt. She said all three were wearing dark Levi's.

Linda testified that [when] they drove off from Spahn Ranch she did not know where they were going, although Tex did say he had been to the place before. Linda said she also did not know what Tex, Sadie, and Katie were going to do. In other words, Linda thought she was going out to steal that night. She apparently did not know that the mission was going to be murder.

As they were proceeding toward their destination, Tex told Linda to wrap the three knives and a gun in a piece of clothing, and if they were stopped, to throw them out of the window, whereupon Linda did wrap the three knives and the gun in a skirt of hers which was part of her change of clothing. Linda testified that Tex drove all the way to their ultimate destination. She said Tex drove directly to the Tate residence. The significance of this is that apparently this night as opposed to the following night when they were roaming the city, this particular night the killers knew exactly where they were going to go from the moment they left the Spahn Ranch.

She said that it took Tex between a half hour and an hour to drive to the Tate residence, and she guessed they arrived roughly around midnight. Tex turned the car around at the top of the hill, outside the gate of the Tate residence, and parked the car next to a telephone pole. And you will recall that Linda testified that eventually she, Tex, Katie, and Sadie climbed over the front gate.

She said Tex got out of the car, climbed the telephone pole, and although she doesn't remember hearing Tex cut the telephone pole wire, she did see a few wires fall onto the ground. Tex got back in the car, drove to the bottom of the hill, and parked the car. All four got out of the car at that particular point and started to walk up the hill. Tex was carrying a rope. Let's pick up her testimony at this point: "We climbed over a fence and then a light started coming toward us and Tex told us to get back and sit down."

more on the closing argument