When Charles Manson introduced that he needed Ronald Hughes to characterize him at his homicide trial, even Hughes appeared stunned. He was nobody’s thought of a talented protection legal professional. He had handed the bar, after three failed makes an attempt, simply 10 months earlier. He had been Manson’s most frequent jailhouse customer, serving as his “authorized runner” — a glorified gofer — however had by no means tried a case.
Now, improbably, Hughes would take a key seat at America’s most-watched trial, with a consumer accused of masterminding the ugly dwelling invasion murders of actress Sharon Tate, grocer Leno LaBianca and 5 others.
On this collection, Christopher Goffard revisits previous crimes in Los Angeles and past, from the well-known to the forgotten, the consequential to the obscure, diving into archives and the reminiscences of those that have been there.
Often known as the “hippie lawyer,” with a bushy, unkempt beard, Hughes was an enormous, amiable mess. He typically wore a love-bead necklace to courtroom. He slept on a mattress in a two-car storage with holes within the roof. On the wall hung his UCLA regulation diploma, adorned in psychedelic colours.
It was March 1970. Hughes had simply turned 35. For many who studied Manson, there was a sure logic within the alternative. Hughes spoke the language of the counterculture and had socialized with Manson earlier than the cult chief’s 1969 arrest. Hughes was imagined to be one other of Manson’s many puppets, a neophyte legal professional who could be simply manipulated — or intimidated — to do no matter Manson demanded.
Quickly, Manson appointed him because the legal professional for 19-year-old Leslie Van Houten, one in all three younger feminine co-defendants. The previous highschool homecoming princess was accused of collaborating within the stabbing deaths of LaBianca and his spouse at their Los Feliz dwelling.
Charles Manson’s devoted co-defendants Susan Denise Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten head to courtroom in August 1970.
(George Brich/Related Press)
“What’s your relationship with Mr. Manson now?” a reporter requested Hughes.
“I feel it’s a really pleasant one, and at all times has been,” Hughes replied. “We’ve seen eye to eye on a large number of issues.”
Hughes made a powerful impression on folks as candy and pleasant, an Military veteran from a conservative household who had served in Korea after which drifted into late-’60s Los Angeles counterculture.
It’s unclear how or when he met Manson. Music may need been the connection. In 1968, Hughes was the highway supervisor for an experimental psychedelic band referred to as the USA of America, and Manson was an aspiring singer-songwriter.
In some unspecified time in the future, Hughes started visiting the previous film ranch above Chatsworth the place Manson lived with a ragged band of followers, principally younger girls. They have been referred to as the Household, an outlaw commune of simple intercourse and free-flowing medicine, held collectively by Manson’s demented messianic charisma.
“He used to exit to Spahn Ranch and drop acid with them,” Stephen Kay, a Manson prosecutor, advised The Occasions in a current interview.
Hughes acquired the job as Van Houten’s legal professional as a result of Manson didn’t just like the method her prior lawyer, the expert and skilled Ira Reiner, was taking.
“I attempted to separate Leslie from the opposite defendants,” Reiner, who went on to function L.A. County’s prime prosecutor and is now 88, advised The Occasions. “She was very younger, a cultist beneath the thrall of a cult chief. That was going to be my protection.”
Reiner requested potential jurors whether or not they might choose Van Houten on the proof towards her, and probably acquit her, no matter her need to share no matter destiny her co-defendants acquired. He requested whether or not they’d heard of the “hypnotic energy” Manson wielded over followers.
“That didn’t go over nicely with Charlie,” Reiner recalled.
When Reiner visited his consumer in jail, he seen a change in her. She had been pleasant to him, even charming, however now she was coldness itself.
Charles Manson in December 1970 after a courtroom outburst resulted in his ejection, alongside along with his three co-defendants, from the Tate-LaBianca homicide trial.
(George Brich/Related Press)
“Leslie’s entire demeanor modified. She mentioned, ‘I feel it’s best to withdraw from the case.’”
Three of Manson’s younger feminine disciples had proven up for the assembly. They sat in a semicircle behind Reiner, exuding menace.
“It was clear they meant it to be threatening. ‘You are able to do it this fashion or the onerous method.’”
Reiner feared the Manson disciples would comply with him, so he requested a sheriff’s captain to detain them whereas he left the jail.
“It’s not paranoia. Paranoia is simply an unreasonable suspicion. They killed sufficient those who once they threatened you, you took it critically,” Reiner mentioned. “The subsequent day, I went into courtroom and mentioned, ‘My consumer would really like a substitution.’”
And so in July 1970, 5 weeks into the trial, Hughes signed on, with out pay, to characterize Van Houten.
Reiner tried to warn Hughes concerning the Manson clan.
“You’re coping with homicidal maniacs. Don’t get too shut.”
Hughes was slovenly and ill-prepared. Kay recalled that at one level, Hughes had simply two ties — one that includes Mickey Mouse, the opposite a nude girl. When the choose reprimanded him for not sporting a jacket, Hughes borrowed one from a Newsweek reporter that was a lot too tight for his 250-pound body. He started shopping for low cost fits from auctions on the MGM film lot and favored to indicate off the names of actors, akin to Raymond Burr, who had worn them.
As soon as, the choose held Hughes in contempt of courtroom for saying “s—” and gave him a alternative: pay a $75 high quality or spend the evening in jail.
Ronald Hughes was handpicked by Charles Manson to defend him towards costs that he masterminded a collection of murders in Los Angeles in August 1969.
(George Brich/Related Press)
“I’m a pauper,” Hughes mentioned, and checked into jail. Afterward, he advised reporters, “It was a very good expertise. I might have paid one other $75 to undergo it.”
The trial was briefly delayed when he was jailed on a site visitors warrant, and once more when a freeway patrolman ordered him to get his decrepit automobile off the highway.
“He was one in all a form,” mentioned Kay. “I by no means earlier than or after ever noticed an legal professional in courtroom that appeared something like him. He was so overmatched within the courtroom. … Right here he was on this so-called crime of the century, and he was simply attempting to tread water.”
Hughes stumbled however realized. He skillfully questioned a fingerprint knowledgeable and established that Van Houten’s prints weren’t discovered on the LaBianca dwelling.
The Los Feliz dwelling the place Leno and Rosemary LaBianca have been discovered murdered, photographed on Aug. 11, 1969.
(Related Press)
And he made a vivid impression when he cross-examined the state’s star witness, 21- year-old Linda Kasabian, a Member of the family who had been current on the homicide scenes. Hoping to discredit her, Hughes dwelled on her prodigious drug use, displaying a more-than-casual information of the topic. His questions included:
A peyote button has high quality white hairs in the course of it, does it not?
Typically on grass or on cannabis, don’t you see issues in a very new gentle?
Do you’re feeling that you simply have been managed by Mr. Manson primarily by vibrations?
Did you’re feeling that the universe was made from molecules and that in some way you match into these molecules your self in some excellent method?
Hughes’ escape from Manson’s shadow — his metamorphosis from a pawn to an actual protection legal professional — turned clear on Nov. 20, because the trial neared its finish. That day, Van Houten and the 2 different feminine co-defendants, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins, insisted on testifying.
No person doubted Manson’s sway over them — they’d carve Xs into their foreheads in solidarity with him — and this appeared a part of his plan. Perhaps they’d attempt to exonerate Manson by claiming he hadn’t ordered the murders. Perhaps he simply needed a present.
Vincent Bugliosi, lead prosecutor within the trial of Manson and three younger girls, wrote that his respect for Ronald Hughes grew because the trial progressed.
(Related Press)
The choose thought they’d the proper to testify. Hughes thought it could wreck Van Houten’s possibilities. Accused of solely two of the seven murders, she appeared the likeliest to be acquitted.
“Your Honor, I refuse to participate in any proceedings the place I’m pressured to push a consumer out the window,” Hughes mentioned.
Kay was sitting beside Hughes that day. He remembers Manson’s rage that Hughes was not following the script. Manson pointed throughout the counsel desk on the hippie lawyer.
“I’ll always remember the stare that he gave,” Kay mentioned. “He mentioned, ‘Legal professional, I don’t need to ever see you on this courtroom once more.’”
The choose ordered a 10-day recess so legal professionals might put together their closing arguments. Hughes confirmed confidence that he might win Van Houten’s freedom.
For the break, Hughes advised a reporter, he was going to a “love-in” at Sespe Scorching Springs in Los Padres Nationwide Forest, a rugged space the place he continuously camped. He was bringing alongside transcripts to review.
He caught a journey with two teenage associates in a Volkswagen, which turned mired in mud as torrential rains pounded the world, creating mudslides and washed-out roads. His associates hitchhiked out. Hughes determined to remain.
When courtroom resumed on Nov. 30, 1970, he hadn’t come again. An nameless tipster mentioned he was buried on the Dying Valley ranch the place the Manson household had lived. Police searched. He wasn’t there.
Manson demanded a mistrial, which the choose denied, and Van Houten’s newly appointed legal professional scrambled to study the case. All 4 defendants have been convicted of homicide, and Hughes remained lacking.
Drew Mashburn, a retired park ranger from Ojai, advised The Occasions he was tenting within the Sespe Scorching Springs space in early 1971 when he encountered a slight younger lady and a gaunt younger man who wanted a journey.
They mentioned they have been in search of Ronald Hughes. The younger lady mentioned he was her boyfriend. Additionally they needed to social gathering with Mashburn, who declined. They’d Xs on their foreheads.
4 months after Hughes disappeared, trout fishermen discovered a badly decomposed physique wedged between boulders in a distant, rocky space a number of miles from Sespe Scorching Springs.
Paul Fitzgerald, a Manson protection legal professional, drove to the morgue to take a look at the physique.
“Hughes had a strange-shaped head, form of an imposing configuration, and the top is identical,” Fitzgerald advised reporters.
Dental X-rays confirmed it was the lacking legal professional. There have been no indicators of foul play, however the situation of the physique made it inconceivable to attract agency conclusions. The post-mortem listed the reason for loss of life as “undetermined.”
In his e book “Helter Skelter,” lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi posited that it was homicide, that Hughes “would pay along with his life” for defying Manson. No onerous proof has surfaced to show it, although one Manson acolyte, Sandra Good, claimed to a documentary filmmaker that the Household had killed 35 to 40 folks. Hughes, she mentioned, had been “the primary of the retaliation murders.”
For individuals who knew the Sespe Scorching Springs space, who knew how treacherous the sudden floods might be, it was attainable to ascertain the large, ungainly man dropping his footing … misjudging a river as he tried to cross … stumbling.
“Was Hughes murdered? Probably,” Kay mentioned. “Was he killed by a flash flood? Probably. We’ll by no means know.”
Reiner can’t say both. However he remembers the sense of menace he felt when Manson’s disciples advised him to stop. Perhaps Hughes had acquired the same order and resisted.
Perhaps “they fired him the onerous method.”
Sources for this story embrace newspaper accounts, video, transcripts of the Tate-LaBianca trial, “Helter Skelter” by Bugliosi (with Curt Gentry), and “Assassins… Serial Killers… Corrupt Cops…” by Mary Neiswender.
