Manson 50Th Anniversary Article July 28 19
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$3.66 DESIGNATED AREAS HIGHER © 2019 WST D SUNDAY, JULY 28, 2019 latimes.com COLUMN ONE THE MANSON MURDERS: 50 YEARS LATER Officer slain in Lincoln Heights Off-duty LAPD cop was shot near a taco stand. Police are on the hunt for his killer. By Richard Winton, Alene Tchekmedyian and Angel Jennings The young off-duty offi- cer was eating with friends near a Lincoln Heights taco stand after midnight Sat- urday when he saw someone tagging a wall. He called out for the per- son to stop, setting off a chain of events that left Los Angeles Police Department officers mourning the death of one of their own while si- Associated Press multaneously trying to find THE BODY OF actress Sharon Tate is taken from her Benedict Canyon home Aug. 9, 1969. She had been stabbed 16 times. his killer. According to law enforce- ment sources, a group of young men approached Offi- cer Juan Jose Diaz some- time after the tagging ex- change and began threat- ening the 24-year-old, his A ‘curse’ that does not fade girlfriend and her two broth- ers. One of the men lifted his shirt to reveal a handgun. Other killers have since made headlines, but it’s the murderous Diaz and his group tried to hurry to their car and drive away to avoid a violent Manson ‘family’ that remains seared into L.A.’s collective memory confrontation, a source said. As they got into the vehicle, By Maria L. La Ganga and Erik Himmelsbach-Weinstein the gunman opened fire, fa- tally wounding Diaz and in- juring one of his girlfriend’s earing the retired pros- says. He leans forward, hands splayed brothers. ecutor recount the on knees, his voice rising like a terrified A witness flagged down bloody crimes that woman’s. “ ‘Leno! Leno!’ ” an LAPD motorcycle officer, scarred Los Angeles, it Kay is slender, avid and 76. His who found the two men with H is easy to forget that white hair fluffs out above his tanned gunshot wounds about 1 the savage murders face. He helped put Manson family a.m. at Avenue 26 and Hum- happened half a century ago. members behind bars for the 1969 boldt Street, police said. Di- Stephen Kay runs one hand slowly slayings of nine people and has since [See Shooting, A13] down his cheek, describing the mark a attended 60 parole hearings to make thick rope scraped along actress sure they stayed there. He still recalls Sharon Tate’s face. The rope was every awful detail of the murders, tied around her neck and looped over at times closing his eyes as if to block ELECTION 2020 a living room beam in her rented the images. ■■■■■■ Benedict Canyon home. She was 8½ The slaughter and its aftermath months pregnant. Clad in just a white “left the biggest imprint on Los Ange- bra and panties. Still alive, though not les, [on] all of Southern California,” for long. Kay says. And also, it seems, on the Sanders is He recounts, as if it were yesterday, prosecutor himself. “It’s the case that how Leno and Rosemary LaBianca just never goes away.” were tied up and dragged into sepa- The Tate-LaBianca murders same, but rate rooms in their Los Feliz home, rocked California, drew international where they too died at the hands of attention and came to symbolize the Charles Manson’s brutal “family.” Associated Press city of Los Angeles. And they continue this race is “When Rosemary heard Leno CHARLES MANSON and follower Susan Atkins, to fascinate to this day, as their 50th getting stabbed, she cried out,” Kay seated, appear in court in Santa Monica in 1970. anniversary nears. [See Manson, A8] different Can the 2016 phenom keep standing out in a Backlash crowded field with his targets Puerto Rico’s misery revisited consistent message? By Mark Z. Barabak Syrians Scandal stirs anger and memories from Hurricane Maria COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — After breakfast on a recent Saturday, Robert in Turkey By Marisa Gerber Fraass crossed the river from Omaha to this south- CAROLINA, Puerto Rico west corner of Iowa to catch Government cracks — Every night for a week af- Bernie Sanders at the open- ter Hurricane Maria, David ing of his newest campaign down on refugees, Adames sat in the dark in- office. whom many blame for side his funeral home here He sat in the fourth row, on the outskirts of San Juan cheering and clapping with the battered economy. in case another family about 200 others as the sen- needed him. ator from Vermont delivered By Umar Farooq The 46-year-old embalm- his familiar tirade against and Nabih Bulos er posts his cellphone num- the oligarchs and plutocrats ber on a placard near the and greedy corporations ISTANBUL, Turkey — front door with instructions that he said are choking the When Amjad Tablieh went to call at any hour. But the life from America’s middle out to buy some groceries Category 4 hurricane had and working classes. one night last week, he knocked out power and cel- Fraass voted for Sanders thought it would be a quick lular service on much of the in the 2016 Democratic pri- trip. But when police island, so people would just mary when the candidate stopped him to ask for his walk into Funeraria Adames ran as the left-leaning, fist- identification card, known Memorial and tell him where shaking alternative to estab- as a kimlik, all he had in his to pick up the dead. lishment favorite Hillary pocket was about $5 in cash. He embalmed 20 bodies Clinton. He’s still a fan. But The 18-year-old student that month — more than this time, with more than from Damascus is one of a twice the usual number — two dozen presidential can- half-million Syrian refugees and worked at a frantic pace didates to choose from, officially registered to live in to avoid burning out his gas- Fraass is shopping around. Istanbul. But increasingly, oline-powered generator or Carolyn Cole Los Angeles Times He worries that Sanders, he and others are finding wasting precious fuel. When MANY ARE outraged at leaders’ remarks that made light of post-storm suffer- 77, is too old and too far left to that their welcome is fray- a nearby hospital fried its ing. A week after Maria in 2017, Heydee Perez and her son endured without a roof. win a general election. “Real- ing, and Turks want them to generator, it couldn’t keep politik,” said Fraass, 53, a go back to the war-ravaged its mortuary cold and project manager who works country they fled. corpses started to rot. in the credit card industry. “I “I told the police officer He said families pleaded [See Sanders, A11] Weather: my kimlik is at home, it’s a with him: “Is there anything Trump stirs new Baseball brings 15-minute walk away and I you can do so we can see her racism charge back memories Mostly sunny. L.A. Basin: 88/66. B10 can go get it, but he didn’t one more time?” President’s tweets assail The magic of America’s GM plant to close want to listen,” Tablieh said Like Adames — who can Rep. Elijah Cummings pastime makes for fine in key voting state in an interview. close his eyes and flash back and his “disgusting” and therapy for the ravages Shoved onto a waiting to those memories — most “rodent infested” dis- of dementia, writes Bill As Democrats arrive for bus, Tablieh said, he Puerto Ricans clearly recall debate, lives are upended trict. NATION, A6 Plaschke. SPORTS, D1 [See Syrians, A4] [See Puerto Rico, A14] in Michigan. NATION, A12 A8 SUNDAY, JULY 28, 2019 S LATIMES.COM Associated Press MANSON “FAMILY” MEMBERS Susan Atkins, left, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten laugh as they are escorted into court Aug. 11, 1970, in Los Angeles. A dark cap on the free-loving ’60s [Manson, from A1] recent summer morning, Scott “Helter Skelter” tours that Michaels, founder of Hollywood- follow the family’s bloody foot- based Dearly Departed Tours, steps regularly sell out. Quentin prepares his passengers as he Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … heads toward Cielo Drive in Bene- in Hollywood” — fiction wound dict Canyon. around Manson family fact — “This is the story of the Tate opened Thursday night. Chief murders told by the killers.” prosecutor Vincent T. Bugliosi’s But it is still unsettling to hear 1974 book, “Helter Skelter,” has the disembodied voices of Charles never gone out of print; it is joined “Tex” Watson, Linda Kasabian, on a regular basis by new entries Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan into the Manson canon, at least Atkins describe that awful night 50 two this summer alone. years ago — Aug. 9, 1969. They were Other killers have come and Manson family stalwarts, 20 to 23 gone. Other crimes since have years old at the time. The record- accounted for more deaths. People ings were taken from parole hear- more famous than Tate, hair- ings and old media interviews. dresser-to-the-stars Jay Sebring Watson, with a slight twang, and coffee heiress Abigail Folger describing Manson’s instructions: have been slain. Still, the memory “ ‘I want you all to go together and of Manson and the men and wom- go up to Terry Melcher’s old house. en he persuaded his followers to And I want you to kill everyone in murder has not faded. there.’ Terry Melcher was Doris The question, which persists to Day’s son. And we had previously this day, is why? met him and had been in that “It’s a story that still baffles,” house before.” says Linda Deutsch, who covered Kasabian: “I was told to get a the Manson case for the Associ- change of clothing and a knife and ated Press.