Stephen Kay Radio Interview Date: June 24, 2012 Location: starcityradio.

com Length: [51:21 of 55:33] Interviewee: Stephen Kay Interviewer: Brian Davis Transcriber: Gina Judd Note: This interview has been transcribed with some editing that did not take away from the context of the interview, the interviewers questions or the interviewees responses. The actual interview is available for listening at https://archive.org/details/TheTateLabiancaRadioProgramPodcastPage Brian Davis: We are pleased to be joined live with our special guest tonight, coprosecutor of the Tate LaBianca murders, former Deputy District Attorney, Stephen Kay on starcityradio.com. Mr. Kay thank you so much for making time with us tonight we so much appreciate it sir. Well youre welcome, Im honored to appear on your show. Back when this unbelievable event happened and this trial took place and you secured the convictions, did you ever imagine, did you ever have the foresight to think it would encompass the rest of your life Mr. Kay? I mean here we are 43 years later tonight talking about it. No I didnt foresee it going on to the extent it has for this long. I ended up prosecuting four Tate LaBianca murder cases, the Hinman and the Shea murder cases and I appeared at sixty parole hearings for the five Tate LaBianca murder defendants. I was actually the first district attorney in California to appear at a lifer parole hearing and that was for Patricia Krenwinkle back in July 17, 1978. A lot of people dont know about the trials that took place after the Tate LaBianca murder trials. What were those trials like because you were involved in all of those trials as well. In fact you secured a conviction for Bruce Davis. Were those trials as bizarre as the Tate LaBianca murder trials? Was the behavior the same out of Charles Manson for example? Everything involving the Manson family was bizarre. These people were very different. A lot of historians have it wrong because they refer to the Manson family as a band of hippies. They were not hippies because hippies were flower children who believed in make

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love not war. The family members referred to themselves as slippies. They said they were going to slip under the awareness of society Society would think that they were peace loving hippies. A lot of hippies came into contact with Manson and his family and when they heard what Manson was saying they got away from him as fast as possible, because what Charles Manson was saying was that Adolf Hitler was his hero for what he did to Jews in World War II. Manson who was very much a racist would not allow any minorities in the family. Actually one of the motives in the Shorty Shea murder was the fact that Shea who was a ranch hand at Spahn ranch and who was white was married to a black woman. Manson just hated that and hated Shea for marrying a black woman. Brian Davis: I had also heard that maybe Shorty Shea had overheard a few details that maybe he should not have overheard. Yes. I think that is true. We couldnt prove that though. We heard talk through family members but nothing we could actually put them on the witness stand for. But they believed that Susan Atkins blabbed to him about her participation in the Tate LaBianca murders. Do you still think Mr. Kay think that Helter Skelter was the actual motive for the Tate LaBianca murders? Yes, I have no doubt about that. The family liked to do many different things, but one of their favorite things would be listening to the Beatles White Album while the Manson family members were on LSD. They would listen to the songs and by listening to the songs they would determine that the Beatles were really the locusts written about in Revelation 9 of the Bible, and the locusts would fly out of the bottomless pit and start Armageddon. Also that the Beatles were sending messages through their songs to blacks to rise up and start a revolution. There was one song in the album called Black Birds and the lyrics went Black bird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly, all your life youve been waiting for this moment to arise....well in Leno LaBiancas blood on the inside of the front door of their residence was written the word RISE and also in Lenos blood on the living room wall was DEATH TO PIGS. For the Manson family, pigs were not police officers they were rich white people such as upper middle class or upper class white people. There was a song in the Beatles White album called Piggies...Piggies out with their piggy wives clutching their forks and knives to eat their bacon, what they need is a damn good whacking. ....well, whacking as you and I

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know is kind of the Eastern gangster reference for killing someone. You whack them. Leno LaBianca when he was found had a carving fork plunged into his abdomen. Before Krenwinkle had done that, she had taken one of the two tines of the carving fork and carved the word WAR in this abdomen. He had a pillow case over his head, and when he was taken to the coroners office and they removed the pillowcase, he had a knife with the handle sticking out of one side of his neck, the blade traversing his neck severing a carotid artery and part of the blade sticking out of the other end. Of course thats the piggies clutching their knives and forks. On the refrigerator in Leno LaBiancas blood was written the words Healter Skelter. That was actually one of the titles of the Beatles songs and it talked about people who were at the bottom of the slide of society getting back to the top. That is what Manson and the family thought was the current position of Blacks and that they would get to the top. The final song I will tell you about and I put quotes around the word song, it was called Revolution 9. Revolution 9 and Revelation 9, we talked about that. In the song all you hear is one of the Beatles repeating over and over again, NUMBER 9. NUMBER 9. NUMBER 9.over and over again. You hear machine gun fire in the background and it sounds like a crowd of people in great distress moaning and groaning and crying and screaming and this Beatle just says NUMBER NINE. NUMBER NINE. NUMBER NINE. This was the song of the revolution it was going to be the Armageddon. Brian Davis: Amazing. Amazing how you were able to get inside and interpret all that and then put that into the form of a motive.. But, going back Mr. Kay, talk about how you got involved in the prosecution team before we get too far ahead, because you had not been in the prosecution office all that long yourself. How did you get involved in all of this? (laughing) Well it was pretty shocking to me. I was 27 at the time I was put on the case and I had become a licensed attorney when I was 24 but I turned 25 the next month. My wife and I were on a driving vacation up in Canada and on our way back we drove through Las Vegas and I heard on the radio that Aaron Stovitz the Chief Prosecutor was removed from the case. I thought Oh my gosh, you know two months into the trial they remove the chief prosecutor. I had never heard of that before. Well, Id been off work for almost four weeks and I got back to work on Monday and I was going through my mail and some people left some cases on my desk that they wanted me to handle. I got a call from Jay Miller Leavys secretary. Now Jay Miller Leavy was the head of the Trials Division, he was on a different floor. I walked up the stairs and I

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was thinking, gosh I havent been back long enough to screw up, so I wonder why he wants to see me. I walked into the outer part of his office where his secretary was and his secretary Carolyn said, Oh hes waiting for you, go right in. When I walked in I could tell he was talking to somebody on the speaker phone and when he heard me he turned to me and then turned back to the speaker phone and said, Vince, hes here. I thought, oh my goodness, and I knew right then what was going to happen and that was how it started. Brian Davis: What was the relationship between you and Vince like throughout the trial? Was he open to you joining the team? Was he easy to work with? Can you talk about that? Oh he was a very good trial lawyer and he worked very hard. He understood the case very well. Did you hang out during the case and discuss it, or were you friends afterwards? What has it been like through the years for you two. No we havent really had any type of relationship. I dont know specifically of anyone at the DAs office that Vince has had a close relationship too. Hes just a very hard worker and after we finished the Watson case he left the office. That would be at the end of 1971. Ive only seen him just a couple of times since. He went on to do a number of books and I think hes made a pile of money. (Laughter) Yes, I think you would get no argument about that. You actually stayed with the prosecution direction and continued to prosecute some big cases in addition to becoming a victims advocate along with Sharon Tates mother, Doris Tate. Talk about the years after the trials and how you became a victims advocate along with Doris Tate. Well my career spanned 37 years and 9 months in the District Attorneys office. I loved being a prosecutor. It was something that I felt good about, I felt that our job was to do justice and if I could get some murderers and rapists and child molesters off the street that I could help make society a safer place. As far as working with Sharon Tates mom, you know her as Doris but as her close friend, we all called her Gwen which was her middle name. We became very good friends and she always said to me, if there is ever anything that she could do for me all I had to do was call and ask. After the Leslie Van Houten parole hearing in 1981 or 82. Van Houten had presented petitions, people who had signed petitions saying that she should be released on parole. She had about a

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100 signatures and we just had letters from the police department and some concerned citizens but not that many, because I really hadnt seen the need for it. After she presented all these signatures, as soon as I got home from that hearing I said hello to my family and everything and I walked directly to the phone and then I called Gwen Tate and I said, Gwen, Im going to take you up on your offer. I think we can do better than what Van Houten has done. It turned out over the years that we ended up with over 340,000 people signing petitions or sending in letters against parole for the five Tate LaBianca defendants. Brian Davis: (Laughs) That is great. What a crusader she was, that woman.

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Oh she was wonderful! I always say that she was the best thing that happened to the Tate LaBianca murder case. There was a lot pain and heartache and all that, but she became really one of the most powerful woman in California. She started the Victims Rights movement by founding the group Parents of Murdered Children. For a number of years I acted as the legal advisor for that group. The victims rights movement just went on from there. Were talking with the co-prosecutor of the Tate LaBianca murders, Stephen Kay here on the Tate LaBianca program, starcityradio.com, Im Brian Davis. Mr. Kay what are you doing these days? I read last that you were a prosecutor in Redondo Beach, is that true? I did that for two and a half years I was the Redondo Beach City prosecutor, then for a year after that I worked with two retired Redondo Beach detectives and we worked on the cold case murders that Redondo had not solved going back as far as 1962. Right now the only job I have is I teach trial skills to a very large civil law firm. I teach it to their associates. Its usually two weeks during January for the regular associates and one week in June for the summer associates. Even though they do civil law and I do criminal law there are a lot of things that are very transferrable like what you look for in jurors, how to give an opening statement, how to cross examine a witness, how to give your arguments. Anyway they think I have something to offer, so Ive been doing that for five years. Oh thats great, I dont think they could have asked or picked a better person. I have some questions from our live discussion room right now at starcityradio.com/tlbradio. Before we get into that Id like to ask you about some of the most recent Tate

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LaBianca news, and I mentioned this at the top of the program. These audio tapes that have surfaced of the conversations between Tex Watson and his then attorney, Bill Boyd. Now that they have come to light, the LAPD wants these tapes and Tex Watson is filibustering. What are your thoughts on these tapes Mr. Kay, and what do you think they may contain? Stephen Kay: I think they would be interesting to listen too. I think the interviews were probably while Watson was fighting extradition in Texas and Boyd was representing him. It was probably some time in early 1970. The issue became that there was a prison minister that wrote a book on Tex Watson and he wanted to hear the tapes, so Watson waived his attorney client privilege in the tapes. So now its kind of hard for him to go back and say, I really want to invoke my attorney client privilege. Boyd passed away and I guess there was some bankruptcy proceeding and the tapes came into possession of a judge in Texas and LAPD wants to listen to them to see what Tex had to say. Now Tex has said in a recent interview that he and the family did not commit any other murders other than the nine that they were charged with. But, well see. I think LAPD is doing the right thing to try and listen to the tapes and find out whats on them. We did prosecute the family for all the murders that we knew about and that we could. As I told you Ronald Hughes body was too badly decomposed so we couldnt tell the cause of death, and anyway his body was found in Sespe Hot Springs which is in Ventura County and we didnt have any jurisdiction over that. The only other murder that we think the family was responsible for was Sandy Goodes husband who we believe was murdered by Bruce Davis in London. Manson sent Bruce Davis to London to study at the Scientology headquarters and Sandy Goode and her husband were there. I doubt they were attending Scientology meetings but anyway the word from the family was that Bruce helped him to commit suicide. The British authorities looked at the case and they felt it was a suicide so nothing ever became of it. So the belief is actually that is how Bruce murdered him per se is assisting him in suicide. Is that what youre saying? Well yeah interesting enough, now Ive never heard of this and you have to tell me if youve ever heard of it; Pugh was his last name and supposedly he committed suicide by slitting his own throat. Now Ive never heard of anybody committing suicide by slitting their own throat. You know hanging, shooting themselves, slitting their wrists, but slitting their own throat? Ive never heard of that. I cant argue that one. That is very questionable at that. I noticed

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you said we, is this something the DAs office has always thought or is this something that Stephen Kay has thought personally, that Bruce is responsible for Joel Pughs death? Stephen Kay: This is something that the LAPD investigators and Vincent and myself all had suspicions about. Did we have proof beyond a reasonable doubt? No, we had hearsay from the family that it might have been what happened. Davis doesnt have to worry about that because the London authorities ruled that it was a suicide. Maybe it was a suicide but like I say Ive never heard of a suicide by a person slashing their own throat. Interesting. So is it fair to say then, Mr. Kay, you are not in favor of Bruce Davis getting parole? Obviously his parole is coming up again soon. I am absolutely never in favor of him getting parole. Now he kind of goes under the radar because people hear Tex Watson was really Mansons chief lieutenant and everything. Thats baloney. Bruce Davis was the chief lieutenant. Whenever Manson left Spahn Ranch, he would leave Bruce Davis in charge of the family. Davis was a very bright individual. He had completed two years at the University of Tennessee. He was the one that Manson called on to be his assistant, Watson was just somebody who could be counted on to murder a lot of innocent people. Yes, obviously. In the Hinman murder, Bruce Davis held a gun on Gary Hinman while Manson cut off his ear, and then Davis was one of the participants in stabbing Shorty Shea to death. Im glad you brought this up. I had never understood how Davis got convicted in the Hinman murder. I did understand the Shorty Shea murder but the Hinman murder I didnt know he was actually holding the gun as Charlie sliced off part of his ear. I thought Charlie just did that. So he was there with a gun on him the whole time. Oh yes he was part of the conspiracy. So thats how he was convicted. I mean he didnt physically kill Hinman. I mean Beausoleil did that with inflicting stab wounds on him and Atkins held a pillow over his nose and mouth when he was making sounds so that he would be suffocated. But, Bruce Davis was part of the conspiracy. Was it as hard for you to get a conviction after the Tate LaBianca

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murders on the other trials? Stephen Kay: It was harder because in the first case, the ten month trial with Manson and the three women, the defense put on no defense. As the prosecutor when the defense doesnt put on a defense, I mean okay great my lucky day. But then starting with Watson they put on psychiatric defenses and we had guilt phase and a sanity phase and the penalty phase and I think that there were maybe 11 psychiatrists that testified in the Watson trial. Now Davis didnt have any psychiatric defense. His defense was just attacking the prosecution case. But then Van Houten, when her case was reversed she put on psychiatric defenses at trial and they were harder to combat because most people think that these members of the Manson family were whacko. So our job was prove that yes they are not normal but then nobody who commits murder is really normal in a non life threatening or wartime situation. So they were definitely tougher. We are talking with Stephen Kay, co-prosecutor of the Manson trials live on starcityradio.com. Let me just get to some of these live questions that are coming through here. Ive promised people that I would pass along some of these questions for them. I appreciate them attending here tonight and tuning in. Lets go to this first question here. Weve got actually about five people asking this one question, Mr. Kay they are dying to know. From the Alisa Statman book, Restless Souls, supposedly this take place in July of 1978, and it says here from the book, He turned, sure that hed find prying eyes upon him, even so Krenwinkle startled him. Stay the blank away from me! She snarled through the chainlink fence and Kay replied, And miss all the fun? That was quite a performance in there Pat. Just like old times. She replied back, Youre the same as Bugliosi, looking to make a buck off this case. Well guess what Mr. DA, I dont have to take your blank anymore. And then you replied back, Thats where youre wrong Pat. Im going to be here to make sure the only way you leave this dump is in a pine box. and she laughed. Mr. Kay did that conversation ever take place with Pat Krenwinkle? Never. It never took place (laughs). Thats just made up. The only thing that Pat Krenwinkle ever said to me and it was out in the hall while the members of the Community Release Board (which was what it was called at the time), she said to me, What the f are you doing here? and that was all she said and I didnt even reply to her. She had guards around her and everything. To be truthful Pat Krenwinkle and I have never had a conversation even during the trial. Now Leslie VanHouten and I have had many

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conversations during the first trial we had kind of an interesting conversation and her attorney was right there. He could have said dont talk to her, or tell her not to talk to me. Most people think these Manson girls were whacked out on drugs, they arent very smart or whatever. Well, Van Houten and I had this ongoing debate about the validity of the death penalty. I thought at the time, wouldnt it be funny if the jurors knew that this supposedly spaced out Manson girl was having an intelligent conversation about whether or not the death penalty was a deterrent. Brian Davis: Have any of them ever threatened you personally in court or any of the parole hearings? Manson has threatened me on three occasions. The last time was after one of his parole hearings where he said he was going to have somebody kill me in the parking lot after the parole hearing. Sandy Goode and Lynette Fromme (more commonly known as Squeaky) during the first trial when I was walking to my car after court one evening snuck up behind me and they said they were going to do to my house what had been done at the Tate house. I definitely considered that a threat. What Ive always thought is if somebody can kill a president of the United States as unfortunately has been done, I think that they can kill anyone. I just dont focus on it, Im careful and I always look at whats going on around me but do I dwell on it day in and day out? No. This next question comes from Greg Sansion, Do you still feel emotionally drained? The toll its taken over you over the years, do you still feel it after forty something years? Well its kind of like going through a war I guess post traumatic stress disorder not only from this case but I even did a case that was worse I thought than the Tate LaBianca murders and it involved two ex-cons who kidnaped, tortured and murdered five teenaged girls. That was the worst. It takes a toll on you but somebody has to do it and I like being a prosecutor and being on the right side of justice. As a prosecutor our job wasnt just to get convictions but to see that justice was done. One of the cases that Ive done which I felt best about was the largest arson murder case in the history of the City of Los Angeles 25 victims. I ended up proving out the defendants alibi and that he was innocent and got the charges dismissed. This is from Louis in our live discussion room at starcityradio.com/tlbradio. Why was Clem or Steve Grogan not charged for the LaBianca murders when Susan Atkins was and

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were you surprised when he got out? Stephen Kay: Ill answer both parts of the question. The reason that he was not prosecuted was because the witness against him would be Linda Kasabian who obviously was an accomplice, but she was given immunity. She was guilty of the Tate and LaBianca murders because she was the getaway driver, the lookout. But in California you cant convict a defendant based on the testimony of an accomplice itself. You have to corroborate the testimony with some other evidence tending to connect the defendant to the crime and we had no other evidence other than Kasabians testimony about Steve Grogan being present during the night of the LaBianca murders. We couldnt prosecute him. Was I surprised about him being released? No because I had found out that the person that had prosecuted him, Burton Katz and sheriffs homicide were led by Grogan to Shorty Sheas body which we didnt have during the trial. Based on his cooperation with sheriffs homicide and with former prosecutor Burton Katz they wrote letters on his behalf and he was granted parole and I think he was paroled in like 1985 so hes been out on parole a long time. From what I understand he has pretty much straightened himself out. Hes a successful musician. Well I dont know about the musician part. The last I heard he was a house painter. He had a lot to straighten out if hes straightened himself out. We had kind of found out what has become of him. I didnt know if you had known or not. No the last I heard he was a house painter out in the San Fernando valley. Well, to be honest Mr. Kay what we have found out is that he has been a successful musician in a band for quite a many years. He goes under another name. From Joanna, she would like to know if you think that Charles Manson returned to the Cielo house on the night of the murders or the morning after. That was always something that we tried to look into and prove because there were a pair of glasses found not from the front door and we never could find who owned those and so that gave us a suspicion but we never could prove that Manson went back there. We knew that he had been there before. He and Watson had been there to a party one time when Terry Melcher and Candace Bergen

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lived there. Terry Melcher was Doris Days son. He was a record producer and Manson was a fairly talented musician and he wanted to get a recording contract. Melcher even went out to the Spahn Ranch and recorded Manson and the family as kind of a folk rock group. He didnt give them a contract and Manson was very angry that he did not get a contract. He knew that Melcher and Bergen had moved out of that house, and he didnt know who lived there, but he figured it was somebody important because it was such a nice house. Watson and he had both been inside the house and they knew the layout of the place. In fact Manson told the girls when they went with Watson to the Cielo residence, Do whatever Tex says, because he knows the place. Brian Davis: What about your personal thoughts. Did he go back? I know you cant prove it, but just your gut feeling do you think that he did? I really dont know. Because you guys went on a very extensive and thorough search to find out who owned those glasses didnt you? Yes. We never could answer that question. But Manson didnt wear glasses. We figured that there was somebody else there that we didnt know about. Whether it was somebody participating in the murders or somebody who was just a visitor at the house and they certainly had lots of visitors at the house. It was kind of party central. Wow. This is kind of somewhat laughable but as I understand it, true. Comment on your famous date with Sandra Goode if you dont mind. Sure. As it turned out it was kind of unusual the paths that we took from that time. But when I was fifteen and she was fourteen, she lived in San Diego she was part of a wealthy family. Her father was wealthy insurance broker and my mothers best friend was Sandra Goodes godmother. The godmother found out that Sandra and her mother were going to come up to L.A. to fly out of Los Angeles International Airport to Hawaii. The godmother thought wouldnt it be a good idea if we could introduce Stephen and Sandra. So we met with our mothers at a Pancake House in Burbank and had lunch with our mothers and about ten minutes into the lunch, I had grown to dislike Sandy. I thought she was a stuck up little snob and about fifteen minutes into the lunch I excused myself and I left and went over to a buddies house and went swimming. Never to see her again until the trial and she recognized me and I recognized her

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and what a different path our lives had taken. She had gone to the University of Oregon and graduated and just went downhill from there. I met her when she was a Manson girl and really she still is a Manson girl. She lives close to where Manson is in prison because she feels like she can get good vibes that he sends from the prison. Now shes not allowed to visit him because she is a convicted felon and they dont allow convicted felons as visitors in the prison. Brian Davis: Have you ever contacted the Folgers or anybody else through the years when you were trying to get support for keeping these murderers from getting paroled? Have any of the other victims families come forward to talk to you? The Tate family, Sebring family and the LaBianca (both Rosemarys and Lenos family). At first it was just the Tate family. Ive never heard from the Folgers. My heart goes out to them as to all the other victims family members. What was your reaction when Suzan LaBerge came up at one of those parole hearings and was actually in defense of Tex Watson? You had to have just been blown away. I felt like if it wasnt against the law that Gwen Tate would have strangled her. Then out in the parking lot there was a confrontation between Gwen and Suzan. Gwen said to Suzan, You know your mother is probably rolling over in her grave knowing what you did today, testifying on behalf of Tex Watsons release on parole. Nothing physical happened, but oh Mrs. Tate was mad. I just shook my head at her. She said she was a born again Christian and she had to forgive and she had actually gone and visited Watson in prison. They had prayed together and all that good stuff. Mr. Kay have you ever thought about writing a book yourself? I feel like your book would be very interesting. No, Vince wrote the definitive book on the case and more power to him on that. I was so busy trying cases, that I didnt have time to write a book and you know really now being retired I try and think of other things than all the horrific murder cases that Ive tried over the years and to leave those in the past. If I wrote a book Id have to revisit everything again. Thats not how I want to spend my retirement. Sure. Very understandable in that regard. Well, Mr. Kay Ill tell you this has been incredible talking with you. Im so sorry to have taken you past the agreed time that we had talked about. Its just when

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you start talking about this case... Stephen Kay: Youre like an attorney who stands up in court and says, Oh your honor I only have one more question and then theres about thirty questions. Its fine. Its been a pleasure Brian and I appreciate being on your show and it sounds like you have a lot of knowledgeable listeners. Well we certainly do, Im proud to say that the listenership that weve garnered and built up has been some great minds of TLB as I like to say. I would like to extend an invitation anytime, maybe if you would come back sometime if anything happens to break or anything down the road. Who knows where this case continues to go but you certainly would be an incredible guest to have back on at sometime possibly. If you would consider we would be honored Mr. Kay. Well lets see what happens in the future. I know that you know how to get me. I do and thank you so much Mr. Kay, it has been an honor and a privilege and we wish all the best in the future. Thank you again. Thank you Brian.

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