Free Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi, Curt Gentry Page B

Lieutenant Robert Helder, who was in charge of the Tate investigation.
     
     
    A t Lieutenant Helder’s suggestion, Dr. Noguchi withheld specifics when he met with the press. He did not mention the number of wounds, nor did he say anything about two of the victims’ having ingested drugs. He did, again, deny the already much repeated reports that there had been sexual molestation and/or mutilation. Neither was true, he stressed.
    Asked about Sharon’s child, he said that Mrs. Polanski was in the eighth month of her pregnancy; that the child was a perfectly formed boy; and that had he been removed by post-mortem cesarean within the first twenty minutes after the mother’s death, his life probably could have been saved. “But by the time the bodies were discovered, it was too late.”
    Lieutenant Helder also talked to the press that day. Yes, Garretson was still in custody. No, he could not comment on the evidence against him, except to say that the police were now investigating his acquaintances.
    Pressed further, Helder admitted, “There’s no solid information that will limit us to a single suspect. It could’ve been one man. It could’ve been two. It could’ve been three.
    “But,” he added, “I don’t feel that we have a maniac running around.”
     
     
    L ieutenant A. H. Burdick began the polygraph examination of William Garretson at 4:25 that afternoon, at Parker Center.
    Burdick did not immediately hook up Garretson. In accordance with routine, the initial portion of the examination was conversational, the examiner attempting to put the suspect at ease while eliciting as much background information as possible.
    Though obviously frightened, Garretson loosened up a little as he talked. He told Burdick that he was nineteen, from Ohio, and had been hired by Rudi Altobelli in March, just before Altobelli left for Europe. His job was simple: to look after the guest house and Altobelli’s three dogs. In return, he had been given a place to stay, thirty-five dollars a week, and the promise of an airline ticket back to Ohio when Altobelli returned.
    He had little to do with the people who lived in the main house, Garretson claimed. Several of his replies seemed to bear this out. He still referred to Frykowski, for example, as “the younger Polanski,” while he appeared unfamiliar with Sebring, either by name or description, though he had seen the black Porsche in the driveway on several occasions.
    Asked to relate his activities prior to the murders, Garretson said that on Thursday night an acquaintance had dropped by, accompanied by his girl. They had brought along a six-pack of beer and some pot. Garretson was sure it was Thursday night, as the man was married “and he brought her up there several other times, you know, on Thursday, when his wife lets him go out.”
Q. “Did they use your pad?”
     
A. “Yes, they did, and I drank some beer while they made out…”
     
    Garretson recalled that he drank four beers, smoked two joints, took one dexedrine, and was sick all day Friday.
    About 8:30 or 9 P.M . Friday, Garretson said, he went down to the Sunset Strip, to buy a pack of cigarettes and a TV dinner. He guessed the time of his return at about ten, but couldn’t be sure, not having a watch. As he passed the main house, he noticed the lights were on, but he didn’t see anyone. Nor did he observe anything out of the ordinary.
    Then “about a quarter of twelve or something like that, Steve [Parent] came up and, you know, he brought his radio with him. He had a radio, clock radio; and I didn’t expect him or anything, and he asked me how I’d been and everything…” Parent plugged in the radio, to demonstrate how it worked, but Garretson wasn’t interested.
    Then “I gave him a beer…and he drank it and then he called somebody—somebody on Santa Monica and Doheny—and he said that he would be going there, and so then he left, and, you know, that’s when—that’s the last time I saw