Charles Manson Crime Scene Investigation and Trial

Introduction: Crime Scene Investigation and Charles Manson

Crime scene investigation is the most important preliminary step in pursuing parties believed guilty of the crime in question. Where the case is murder, the investigation is of a particularly sensitive nature, with the manner in which the act was committed, the space producing evidence of a homicide, and the array of forensic clues made available there all helping to fuel the process of apprehension and to build a case for conviction. Murderers who act in a serial nature tend to leave common features that may be seen as "calling cards," helping to reveal an identity and provide glimpses into the psyche of the killer. Patterns, preferences, and messages can be deciphered in the body of work committed by such an individual.

Perhaps few killers would leave so vexing an apparent motive and so grotesque a body of evidence as Charles Manson. The charismatic and dangerous demagogue who appointed himself a figure of historical and cultural importance in the lives of a number of young female runaways would exploit the naivety and subversive spirit of the 1960s to instigate a series of horrific and confusing homicides. The crime scene investigations that would make Manson known to the world invoked horror and intrigue, with the perpetrators clearly intending to shock the public with the extent of their brutality.

Manson's Helter Skelter Motive and Its Origins

A particularly disturbing aspect that made the Manson case so uniquely difficult to diagnose from a crime scene perspective was the highly convoluted nature of Manson's own motives. These concerned a highly intricate scenario in which Manson himself played a key role in what he claimed was an impending race war in the United States. The crime scenes would contain various clues concerning the details of this imagined scenario, as well as a host of evidence relating to how Manson ultimately pursued the killings in question. Manson's scenario incorporated some of the realities of America's internal strife over the Civil Rights movement, blended with his own highly contrived interpretation of the music of the Beatles — and "Helter Skelter" in particular — alongside a delusional sense of his own importance in the events of history. This combination of forces inclined Manson's cult of followers toward acts of bloody and horrific murder.

According to Linder (2002), "in the twisted mind of thirty-four-year-old Charles Manson, a wave of bloody killings of high-society types in Los Angeles would be the spark that would set off a revolution by blacks against the white establishment. When 'blackie,' as Manson called black people, proved unable to govern, they would turn to Manson and his tribe of followers, who would have survived 'Helter Skelter' by hiding out in an underground cave in the Death Valley area of California while the chaos raged above" (Linder, 1).

The Tate-LaBianca Crime Scenes

This ideology would produce the famous Tate-LaBianca murders, which would require a trial holding multiple defendants on multiple counts of first-degree murder. The nature of the crime scenes themselves would be of significant importance in building an inherently complicated case. Of note is the fact that the case would become one of the longest and most expensive criminal trials in modern U.S. history, owing to the challenge of deciphering degrees of responsibility among the members of Manson's cult, including Manson himself. The two major crime scenes were located in the Los Angeles area, and though the Manson "Family," as it was known, is believed to have committed other murders, the concentration of evidence came from these two sites.

In the first crime scene, "on August 9, 1969, police in Los Angeles, California, responded to a hysterical call from actress Sharon Tate's housekeeper. When officers arrived at the house rented by Tate and her husband, film director Roman Polanski, they found the corpses of the pregnant actress and three house guests: Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Voyteck Frykowski" (Older, 1). This was followed immediately thereafter with the discoveries at the LaBianca estate, where the residing husband and wife were found stabbed multiple times, leaving behind a mass of evidence as to motive and the identity of the killers.

In both cases, evidence of multiple participants in the murders was strewn about the crime scenes, which appeared to revel in the gory detail of the homicides. The Tate house was distinguished by the brutal and messy fashion in which the victims were left displayed for police, but the LaBianca house held many of the most explicit clues as to the "motives" for the killings. There, the bodies were found with stab wounds in excess of 100, with the word "WAR" carved into the stomach of Leno LaBianca and a knife lodged in his neck (Linder, 1).

References

Bardsley, M. (2008). Charles Manson and the Manson Family. TruTV Crime Library.

Campbell, C. D. (2004). The bizarre case of mass murderer Charles Manson. Mystery Magazine Web.

Linder, D. (2002). The Charles Manson (Tate-LaBianca murder) trial. Charles Manson Trial Homepage.

Older, C. H. (1971). Charles Manson trial: 1970–71. Law Library.

Robinson, B. A. (1996). The Family: Charles Manson. Religious Tolerance.