TJ Walleman interview from 1970

Missing 911

Anomalies in the 911 Police Response Time at the Tate Crime Scene



There is a huge oddity in this case that appears in the first few pages of Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, though I've never seen it commented on anywhere.  That is the curious, lengthy delay in the arrival of police first responders after getting the first 911 calls from the Asin residence at 10090 Cielo Drive (next door to the Kott residence, which was itself next door to 10050 Cielo) that reported a suspected homicide(or multiple homicides) on the morning of August 9nth.


Helter Skelter, pg5
Winifred Chapman sees two bodies--one on the lawn and another in the white Rambler.

pg6
Neighbor Jim Asin, 15, called 911. 

"While they were trying to calm the hysterical Mrs. Chapman, Jim dialed the police emergency number.  Trained by the scouts to be exact, he noted the time: 8:33am."

"Jim called the police a second time, and some minutes later, a third."

Was he, too, wondering at the delay in the police response?

 Jim Asin

pg6
"There is some confusion as to exactly what happened to the (911)calls.  The official police report only states, "At 9:14 hours, West Los Angeles Units 8L5(DeRosa) and 8L62(Whisenhunt) were given a radio call, 'Code 2, possible homicide, 10050 Cielo Drive.' " "

"The confusion extends to the arrival time of the units.  Officer DeRosa would later testify he arrived about 9:05am, which was before he supposedly received the Code 2.  Officer Whisenhunt, who came next, set the time of his arrival between 9:15am and 9:25am, while officer Burbridge, who arrived after both men, testified he was there at 8:40am."

You would think Asin's 911 calls would have been logged in somewhere with the times the calls were made, to help clear up this 'confusion.'  But that 911 information is missing.


So the official timeline says patrol units got their first radio alert at 9:14am.  If the first 911 call came in at 8:33am, and if you add a couple of minutes for the police to drive to the crime scene, then you've got about 45 minutes between the first 911 call and when the cops showed up.

45 minutes?  On a suspected multiple homicide call...  in Bel-Air...  on a quiet Saturday morning? 

 
What's wrong with this picture?  If you don't think that is unusual, ask yourself this:  'If I called 911 to report a suspected homicide(s), how long before police show up at my door?'  Where I live, the response time in minutes would probably be in the single digits.  And I don't live in Bel-Air.
So what is your theory on this bizarre and unexplained delay in the 911 response time? 


 *In comparison, at the LaBianca crime scene, it was at most 15 minutes from the 911 call to when the cops showed up.

-------------------------

Another curious delay:

pg11
"It was 9:40am.  DeRosa called in, reporting five deaths and a suspect in custody."

pg16
"It was 1:30pm before the first homicide detectives arrived."

Almost four hours between the report of five homicides in a rich part of town and the arrival of a single homicide detective?*  Normally you would expect the homicide detectives to respond as quickly as possible, as they know how a crime scene can become adulterated by officers and responders tromping all over the scene--which is what happened at Cielo Drive.

*In comparison, at the LaBianca crime scene, it took about two hours for the homicide detectives to show up.

NBC LA

Here are a few recently released videos of Manson related things from NBC Los Angeles.  The interview with Manson is with Tom Snyder and may have already been shown or it might be some stuff that wasn't in the original that aired in 1989.

The Susan Atkins vid has a short interview with Donald Laisure, Atkin's first husband.  Boy he was a beaut!


Manson Followers React to Verdict.

Raw Footage of Press conference Following Tate Murders

One on One Interview With Susan Atkins

One on One Interview With Charles Manson

Genuine Remorse?

It's been a long, long time folks, but wanted to post an old 60 Minutes Australia video clip I found of Susan Atkins (and her dragon lady fingernails) weeping, claiming remorse and putting on a damn good act. Personally, I don't buy it. Is my opinion popular on this blog? Nope, it never has been, but that's ok. Thoughts?

Eve Babitz's Bummer Bob

Blog reader Cristiane brought this book to my attention recently. Eve Babitz was once a fairly common name in Hollywood. This book is described as partially fictive, but this short chapter on Bobby B seems accurate. if you have any interest in reading the book it can either be read on-line or downloaded here.

------------------------------

BUMMER BOB

"Hi," I said. What was her name?

It was another one of those faces, a friend of Karen's, I pieced together, and someone else, too, that guy Bob.

She and Bob had been close and I always saw them at Cantor's together when LSD was the rage. Everyone would leave the Strip at 2 when the clubs closed and go to Cantor's en masse so blasted out of their heads that if you asked someone what time it was they backed away, wide-eyed, as though you'd presented them with a philosophical impossibility. Bob was adorable but so obnoxious that he wore his nickname on his lapel. He'd had it made into a button and it said, "I am Bummer Bob."

Bummers were when the acid had something in it that didn't agree with you. It was anything else disagreeable and a drag as well, so you can't say he didn't tell you. Except that he looked like an archangel. Bright.

People said he was a narc and a thief, but I knew he wasn't sophisticated to be either of those when I let him stay at my house once for a week with his white dog. He needed someplace to stay, nobody would talk to him, and even though I didn't sleep with him, he was beautiful and couldn't help it that he was such a bummer. He never understood anything and always asked the wrong questions. He was so unable to understand anything and he shorted out so many trains of thought that people thought he was a narc. He never took anything from my house when he stayed there, he even tried to buy food.

He left L.A. and I had heard that he'd moved to the country.

After I came back from New York and was up in San Francisco, I ran into him one night in the Fillmore. He was playing guitar in a band, and the leader of the band, my friend, had complained of him and how disruptive he was.

"What else can you expect from someone called Bummer Bob?" I asked.

"I never heard that before," he said.

"That's what he's called," I said. We were upstairs at the Fillmore, and there was Bob, dressed dramatically in black with a top hat and a cape. A look of sudden surprised hospitality flooded his face when he saw me, completely the opposite of the black cape, and he said, like a kid, "Wowie, Evie!"

My friend, the leader, was amazed later, he'd never seen him look like that before. Shortly thereafter, Bob left the group in a lurch and quit rock and roll or said he was going to.

"It's just as well," I told my friend.

Now, I faced this girl in Ohrbach's and I couldn't remember her name. She'd just been, like me, a friend to him when no one would be. She'd been more than me because she'd loved him, I thought, and he had telephoned her from my house every day because he

cared about her. It was a time when no one cared about anyone, so I noticed.

"Have you heard from Bob after he went to San Francisco?" I asked her. It was 5 years later, but she still had this dewy kind of thing about her.

"He sent me a Christmas card," she said.

It was sweet, I thought, that no matter how much of a bummer he was, he held onto the amenities like Christmas cards and daily phone calls.

"How nice," I said. "Where is he?"

"Haven't you heard?" she asked. She looked struck with pain.

"What's he done?" I knew he must have done something terrible from her face. Something ... really terribIe.

"He's been ... in San Quentin. He's the one they call Cupid in the Manson family, the one Manson's supposed to have tried to free by the other murders ... "

Bobby Beausoleil had romped with his dog in my house. He'd worn a sign that said "I am Bummer Bob." I'd let him stay but hadn't slept with him because anyone who called themself that, I figured, must have the clap or some other expensive social disease. He didn't understand. He sent Christmas cards from Death Row.

"What'd he say?" I asked.

"Merry Christmas."

"Oh, God," I said, helplessly thrown back into the archaic idiom that even he had used to describe what he was. "What a bummer!"

She looked away quickly, she was crying in Ohrbach's. I still don't remember her name and I just touched her shoulder goodbye.