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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: The Cruel Deaths of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. The song Home Sick is
0:21
Speaker 1: a song from my youth. It resonates in my ears,
0:25
Speaker 1: came out in the seventies and if you've never heard it,
0:27
Speaker 1: it kind of takes you back on a bit of
0:30
Speaker 1: a time travel if you will. I love ars. Other
0:33
Speaker 1: people have recorded I think Travis Tript recorded it or
0:36
Speaker 1: re recorded it, but it takes you back in time
0:40
Speaker 1: to that moment you begin to think as kids, as
0:43
Speaker 1: kids of the sixties, where were you well. I was
0:45
Speaker 1: just a little thing back then. I was playing in
0:49
Speaker 1: the backyard of my grandparents' house, where I lived most
0:52
Speaker 1: of the time. It was a very people It's a
0:54
Speaker 1: well worn phrase. People say it's very innocent time, and
0:57
Speaker 1: it was for me, playing in my sandpile, enjoying life
1:02
Speaker 1: in the Deep South. The further thing from my mind
1:05
Speaker 1: back then was probably mass homicide in the news nationally.
1:11
Speaker 1: It sent a chill down everyone spote of the horrors
1:16
Speaker 1: that were revealed back in nineteen sixty nine, of what
1:21
Speaker 1: was going on in Alick County, particularly as it applied
1:25
Speaker 1: to the Manson family. Today owned body Bags. We're going
1:29
Speaker 1: to turn back the page a little bit and we're
1:32
Speaker 1: going to re examine the murders of the Lobiyankas.
1:37
Speaker 2: August eleventh, nineteen sixty nine, Rosemary Labianca's teenage son discovers
1:43
Speaker 2: the brutal murders carried out by three of Charles Manson's
1:46
Speaker 2: followers the night before. Leno LaBianca had been stabbed twelve
1:50
Speaker 2: times with a knife or bayonet and seven times with
1:54
Speaker 2: a two tined carving fork, leaving fourteen puncture wounds in
1:58
Speaker 2: his abdomen, was still stuck in his abdomen, and a
2:03
Speaker 2: kitchen knife pierced his throat. The word war had also
2:07
Speaker 2: been carved into his abdomen. Rosemary Lebianca had a total
2:11
Speaker 2: of forty one stab wounds on the front and back
2:14
Speaker 2: of her body, and autopsy showed that many of the
2:17
Speaker 2: wounds were post mortem.
2:19
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body bags. Hey,
2:26
Speaker 1: Dave mac where were you in sixty nine?
2:29
Speaker 3: I was a very very young child. This murder, the
2:33
Speaker 3: Tate Lobianca murders, as they are commonly referred to, I
2:37
Speaker 3: had actually impacted my life on a personal level and
2:40
Speaker 3: professionally over the years because I lived in that area
2:43
Speaker 3: when this happened. I was born and raised in southern California,
2:47
Speaker 3: born in Hawthorne and raised in Orange County predominantly. But anyway,
2:50
Speaker 3: when this happened, here's the thing that people may or
2:53
Speaker 3: man I know and Joe you might not know. It
2:55
Speaker 3: happened August eighth, August ninth, nineteen sixty nine. Think about
2:59
Speaker 3: some of the things that was actually happening in the
3:01
Speaker 3: world a couple weeks earlier. Neil Armstrong Man on the Moon.
3:05
Speaker 1: You bet, buddy, I remember it. I remember watching on
3:08
Speaker 1: black and white television my grandparents' house. It was a
3:11
Speaker 1: magical thing.
3:12
Speaker 3: So that's a huge deal. Made everybody, I mean just
3:15
Speaker 3: made everybody feel like anything's possible. And a week after
3:19
Speaker 3: the murders, what else happened? Wouldstock in New York right,
3:23
Speaker 3: so imagine and by the way, and mixed into this
3:26
Speaker 3: same time period Chap Equittic and Teddy Kennedy, So we
3:31
Speaker 3: had a lot going on in the United States of
3:33
Speaker 3: America at the time that Rosemary and Leno Labianco were murdered.
3:40
Speaker 3: It impacted my life because being in southern California when
3:44
Speaker 3: Sharon Tate along with her friends and off the top
3:47
Speaker 3: of my head, I remember it was Abagail Folger and
3:49
Speaker 3: Voytek Freikowski, Jay se Bring and then they had the
3:54
Speaker 3: like a guy that was like the yardkeeper. Anyway, that
3:57
Speaker 3: was such a big deal because first of all, Sharon
3:59
Speaker 3: Tate was a buful model. She was an actress married
4:01
Speaker 3: to Roman Polanski, the master of the macabre. Because of
4:04
Speaker 3: Rosemary's Baby. You start thinking about how all these things
4:07
Speaker 3: kind of come together, and it's like crazy time. But
4:11
Speaker 3: the next night the Labyancas, and that was fear in
4:16
Speaker 3: the hearts of people. Sharon Tate and celebrity rich people
4:19
Speaker 3: getting murdered is one thing, but the Lobyancas were looked
4:23
Speaker 3: at as just regular people like the rest of us,
4:25
Speaker 3: and now nobody's safe.
4:27
Speaker 1: There's one little interesting factoid I think that some people
4:31
Speaker 1: might not be aware of, and I got it to
4:34
Speaker 1: give you an idea, a measure for how innocent Tim's
4:38
Speaker 1: were when the Labyanka's bodies were actually discovered that cannot
4:46
Speaker 1: get access to the home, that is the family that
4:51
Speaker 1: they were trying to open the door to get in.
4:54
Speaker 1: Guess where they got the key from to unlock the
4:57
Speaker 1: door to get into the house under the mat No,
5:01
Speaker 1: they went and dig this just for a second. They
5:04
Speaker 1: went out to the vehicle parked in the driveway, and
5:09
Speaker 1: the keys were in the ignition, and they take the
5:13
Speaker 1: key out of the ignition and make access to this
5:16
Speaker 1: house with that key. And can you just imagine when
5:21
Speaker 1: Rosemary Labanca's children went into this environment and they see
5:28
Speaker 1: these words scrawled in blood on the walls, on the doors.
5:34
Speaker 1: I think, most famously the words helter skelter. By the way,
5:38
Speaker 1: I think it was misspelled. And there's several interesting things
5:41
Speaker 1: about this is because some people think that it was
5:44
Speaker 1: intentionally misspelled. There were little clues along the way. I
5:47
Speaker 1: don't know if any of these people were that sophisticated.
5:51
Speaker 1: You walk in and you see this horror show, and
5:54
Speaker 1: it was truly a horror show. Lots and lots of
5:57
Speaker 1: blood evidence at the scene, and I don't know that
6:00
Speaker 1: you could necessarily take the measure of it. You have
6:02
Speaker 1: the police coming off the so called Tate homicides on
6:06
Speaker 1: CLO and then you walk into this environment, and you know,
6:09
Speaker 1: there was resistance at first by the police to at
6:15
Speaker 1: least publicly show any kind of connectivity between what had
6:20
Speaker 1: happened previously with Sharon Tate and that group of people,
6:25
Speaker 1: and then what had happened with the Labiancas, and it
6:29
Speaker 1: all goes to what was trying to be accomplished here.
6:33
Speaker 1: I think with the police one of the biggest things
6:35
Speaker 1: for them is they were trying to prevent a panic
6:38
Speaker 1: because can you imagine what those conversations were like, you know,
6:41
Speaker 1: in the detective bureau when you've got arguably two blood
6:46
Speaker 1: baths that have taken place, and you've got the shadow
6:50
Speaker 1: of celebrity that's kind of hanging over both of these events,
6:55
Speaker 1: with Sharon Tate and everyone up on Colo, and then
6:57
Speaker 1: you've got the Lobyancas. Okay, so they're starting up here
7:01
Speaker 1: in relative to the celebrities. Now they're going out here
7:05
Speaker 1: where the rest of us mix and mingle, the mere
7:07
Speaker 1: mortals among us.
7:09
Speaker 3: And the one thing to think of again, nineteen sixty
7:11
Speaker 3: nine was a different time and the way we lived
7:14
Speaker 3: the Tate Lobianca murders. Joe, we could actually spend all
7:17
Speaker 3: of today, tomorrow the next day talking just about these murders,
7:22
Speaker 3: and we would go for twenty four hours a day
7:25
Speaker 3: for the next few d and wouldn't finish. There's too much.
7:27
Speaker 3: So focusing on the Labyancas, they were married couple. They
7:34
Speaker 3: actually were the next day, meaning the day after the
7:38
Speaker 3: Tate murders had taken place. And the reason it's in
7:42
Speaker 3: the news this week is because Leslie Van Howden actually
7:46
Speaker 3: was released from prison after fifty some odd years. Now
7:50
Speaker 3: here's the kick, Joe, and you've been around crime scenes
7:53
Speaker 3: and murders for a long time. I really want to
7:56
Speaker 3: hear your explanation of what police were looking at when
8:01
Speaker 3: they got to the scene of the crime. But the
8:03
Speaker 3: bottom line is with Leslie van Houghten being a Manson
8:07
Speaker 3: family member, one of the women, well she actually only
8:10
Speaker 3: was involved in the Labyanca murders. She was not at
8:14
Speaker 3: the previous night's activities. At the Lobyanca crime scene, you
8:18
Speaker 3: had Tex Watson, he and Charlie Ye And by the way,
8:21
Speaker 3: Charlie Manson was not at the Tape murders. He was, however,
8:26
Speaker 3: at the Lobbyanca house.
8:28
Speaker 1: At the house, but he beat feet before the actual
8:31
Speaker 1: event occurred.
8:33
Speaker 3: Right they get there. Well, I'm gonna skip through this
8:35
Speaker 3: real fast. Charlie Manson had convinced these young people that
8:39
Speaker 3: a race war was coming and they needed to have
8:42
Speaker 3: a safe place out in the desert, which is why
8:44
Speaker 3: they were maneuvered out there. In reality, they were out
8:47
Speaker 3: there because they'd been stealing volkswagons and converting them into
8:50
Speaker 3: doom buggies and selling them, and the heat was getting hot,
8:52
Speaker 3: and so they wanted to get out of town. And
8:55
Speaker 3: Charlie went there and in their drug whatever decided that
9:00
Speaker 3: they needed to commit crimes. The Manson family that would
9:03
Speaker 3: they needed to commit murders that didn't make sense. That's
9:06
Speaker 3: what the La Beiyanca murder was all about, a murder
9:09
Speaker 3: that didn't make any sense and would cause fear and
9:13
Speaker 3: panic in people. And Leslie Van Henton said that in
9:17
Speaker 3: her own words. By the way, I actually listened to
9:19
Speaker 3: this yesterday in preparation for the show and heard her
9:23
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy one talking to her new lawyer. He said,
9:27
Speaker 3: how are you going to start a revolution? She actually said,
9:29
Speaker 3: Joe by committing a senseless murder, which is exactly what
9:35
Speaker 3: Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. It was just a murder. But
9:39
Speaker 3: anyway I mentioned, Charles Manson was not at the Tate House, well,
9:42
Speaker 3: he was at the Labyankas. Charles Manson and Text Watson
9:45
Speaker 3: go inside the La Bianca's house. And by the way,
9:48
Speaker 3: these mental giants. The Manson family. They've been driving around
9:52
Speaker 3: for a couple hours looking for a place that they
9:54
Speaker 3: could go in and commit this heinous act. Right they
9:57
Speaker 3: didn't find one right away, and so Leslie van out
10:00
Speaker 3: and said she fall asleep in the car as they
10:02
Speaker 3: were driving around. When she woke up, Charles and Tex
10:06
Speaker 3: Watson had gone in the house and they'd already tied
10:08
Speaker 3: up Leno and Rosemary Labiyanca. They found Lino on the
10:11
Speaker 3: couch in the living room in the den, and so
10:14
Speaker 3: they tied him up, and then Charlie Manson went in
10:18
Speaker 3: and they got Rosemary out of bed, she was already
10:20
Speaker 3: in bed, got her up and you know, sign of
10:23
Speaker 3: the Times, maybe Joe. But before they brought Rosemary Lobyanka
10:28
Speaker 3: out of the bedroom, she was already in her night clothes.
10:31
Speaker 3: And do you know what she did? And they let
10:33
Speaker 3: her They let her put on a dress. Rosemary Lobianca
10:37
Speaker 3: was allowed to put on a dress over her night clothes,
10:41
Speaker 3: to be dressed appropriately for what she thought was just
10:44
Speaker 3: a robbery. Charles Manson and Text Watson said, you're not
10:46
Speaker 3: going to be hurt. We just want your money. So
10:49
Speaker 3: they got the cash and then Charlie goes outside, they
10:53
Speaker 3: send the girls in. They sent Leslie van Houghton and
10:56
Speaker 3: Patricia Crinwinkle to go in and kill Rosemary Lobby.
11:01
Speaker 1: One interesting little aside here is that you think about
11:04
Speaker 1: Manson and kind of how he had been prepping this crew.
11:08
Speaker 1: That's the way you have to look at it. It's
11:09
Speaker 1: an organized crime venture, is what it comes down to.
11:13
Speaker 1: Because they were a collection of thieves, is essentially what
11:17
Speaker 1: they were. And of course they're fueled by asurgic acid
11:20
Speaker 1: to a great degree. You know, it's been well documented
11:23
Speaker 1: stated that they would drop LSD. There's some people that
11:26
Speaker 1: have actually opined that Manson himself would fake taking LSD
11:35
Speaker 1: and then everybody else would have it on board and
11:38
Speaker 1: he could influence them and begin to talk to them
11:41
Speaker 1: when they're tripping essentially. But one of the things that
11:44
Speaker 1: he would do, to give you back to this idea
11:46
Speaker 1: of thievery, this being a theft ring, is that he
11:50
Speaker 1: introduced them to something called creepy crawling. He would actually
11:54
Speaker 1: have these people go out and purposefully go into residences
12:00
Speaker 1: in a stealth like manner, and the trick was not
12:04
Speaker 1: to be caught, and they would go in and perhaps
12:06
Speaker 1: rearrange things and not necessarily take anything, but just to
12:11
Speaker 1: kind of hone these skills so that they could go
12:14
Speaker 1: in and commit thievery, stealing, if you will, burglary and
12:19
Speaker 1: not be caught. I think here's the big question though,
12:23
Speaker 1: If that's the case, what is it that would motivate
12:29
Speaker 1: a band of thieves that lived out in the desert,
12:33
Speaker 1: away from society. What is it that caused them to
12:37
Speaker 1: commit such a horrible, horrible crime. There's a couple of
13:02
Speaker 1: classic images, black and white photography of the exterior of
13:07
Speaker 1: the scene up on Siela, where the Tate home was
13:12
Speaker 1: and where that multiple homicide took place. In One that
13:17
Speaker 1: really jumps to mind is there's an image of one
13:19
Speaker 1: of my heroes at the scene, and that's doctor Tom Magucci,
13:23
Speaker 1: who was with the Medical Examiner corner back during that
13:27
Speaker 1: time at Los Angeles, probably arguably one of the greatest
13:30
Speaker 1: forensic pathologists that's ever worked in my way of estimation.
13:35
Speaker 1: But he was at the scene and what he bore
13:38
Speaker 1: witness to there. He's talked about or had talked about
13:42
Speaker 1: previously on many occasions at the Tate residence. Horrible things
13:47
Speaker 1: had happened, obviously over the years and we see this
13:51
Speaker 1: carnage that erupts from time to time, but I don't
13:54
Speaker 1: know that anybody could really fully appreciate what they were
13:58
Speaker 1: seeing then and try to make sense of it, the
14:02
Speaker 1: level of brutality. And so one interesting little point bringing
14:07
Speaker 1: it back to the Lobbyanca double homicide is that apparently
14:12
Speaker 1: at first the investigators really were thinking that they might
14:17
Speaker 1: be dealing with a copycat crime. That the word had
14:22
Speaker 1: leaked out at that point in time about how horrific
14:25
Speaker 1: the Tate homicides were, and then you see this horror
14:29
Speaker 1: show that takes place at the Lobbyanca household. They're thinking, Okay,
14:34
Speaker 1: somebody read about this and they just wanted to see
14:36
Speaker 1: if they could duplicate it. What do you think about that, Dave.
14:39
Speaker 3: I lived there in this area at that time as
14:42
Speaker 3: a young child, And one of the things that I
14:45
Speaker 3: think people forget it's about copycat crimes. There was so
14:48
Speaker 3: much made about Sharon Tate because she was eight and
14:52
Speaker 3: a half months pregnant when she was murdered, and this
14:54
Speaker 3: was a horrible crime scene and it was splashed everywhere.
14:58
Speaker 3: And then you have this normal middle class Rosemary and
15:01
Speaker 3: Lena LaBianca being murdered, and there was some thought that
15:05
Speaker 3: copycat crimes were going to occur. My family personally, we
15:08
Speaker 3: were moving into a a different home, a bigger home.
15:12
Speaker 3: In the process of the move Joe Scott Morgan, I
15:14
Speaker 3: remember going to that house on our move in was
15:17
Speaker 3: delayed for some reason. I was a kid, I don't
15:19
Speaker 3: you know. I didn't know why at the time, but
15:21
Speaker 3: I know that when we got there the week after Halloween,
15:25
Speaker 3: you could still see the chalk outline in the next
15:27
Speaker 3: door neighbors driveway where a dead body had been. We
15:31
Speaker 3: didn't know if it was actually a Halloween prank or
15:35
Speaker 3: if there was a copycat murder, because that's what we
15:39
Speaker 3: were all talking about at the time. One thing people
15:41
Speaker 3: need to know is that while the murders took place
15:45
Speaker 3: August eight, nine ten, the Tate Lobianca murders, that they
15:49
Speaker 3: were not caught right away. It was actually a couple
15:52
Speaker 3: of months, and there was a lot of tabloid journalism
15:56
Speaker 3: at work and a lot of very poorly researched information,
15:59
Speaker 3: so it was a lot of lies. A lot of
16:01
Speaker 3: myths were being created at the time. But when you
16:04
Speaker 3: get right down to it, there were only three people
16:06
Speaker 3: inside the house for the lobbyancas that actually committed the murders,
16:10
Speaker 3: and that's Tax Watson, Patricia Crinwinkle, and Leslie van Houghton,
16:15
Speaker 3: Charles Manson. He did go in the house and he
16:18
Speaker 3: in text tied up Leno and Rosemary Lobyanca, but Charles
16:23
Speaker 3: left because he's that kind of guy. And he told
16:27
Speaker 3: them the night before at the Tate resident that it
16:30
Speaker 3: had been very messy, and he said, don't you know,
16:33
Speaker 3: let's make it more clean. And when he of course,
16:36
Speaker 3: he takes off with other members of the family there
16:40
Speaker 3: and he leaves the job of murder up to Patricia
16:44
Speaker 3: cram with Leslie van Houghton, who were supposed to take
16:46
Speaker 3: out Rosemary and tex who was supposed to take out Leno.
16:49
Speaker 3: When it actually happened, Leslie van Houghton had never killed
16:52
Speaker 3: anybody before, and she wrote and talked about some things
16:56
Speaker 3: that I'm kind of I'm hoping you'll explain this to us.
16:59
Speaker 3: She actually pointed out some things that were just horrific
17:01
Speaker 3: to me. But setting the stage inside the house, Lino
17:05
Speaker 3: and Rosemary LaBianca have both been tied up. Their hands
17:08
Speaker 3: are tied in the case of Rosemary LaBianca, A pillow
17:11
Speaker 3: case had been placed over her head and it had
17:14
Speaker 3: been tied off with a lamp cord. But they didn't
17:18
Speaker 3: bother like rip the cord off the lamp. The lamp
17:20
Speaker 3: was still attached. So Rosemary LaBianca hands tied up the
17:26
Speaker 3: pillow case over her head and she's sitting there. Lino meanwhile,
17:29
Speaker 3: Lebyanka had his hands tied and he also is sitting
17:33
Speaker 3: and waiting for the robbery to finish, because that's what
17:36
Speaker 3: they were told. Since Charles Manson and those guys are
17:39
Speaker 3: down the road, that's when the murder begins. Tex Watson
17:42
Speaker 3: took charge of killing Lino LaBianca, Patricia Creenwinkle, and Leslie
17:46
Speaker 3: Van Houghten. It was their job to kill Rosemary in
17:50
Speaker 3: her bedroom. To Rosemary Labyanca, already we had text Watson
17:54
Speaker 3: stabbing away on Lino just I mean horrifically. But Leslie
18:00
Speaker 3: Van Houghton said later that it wasn't new for Text,
18:03
Speaker 3: he had done this before, he had killed before. For
18:06
Speaker 3: Leslie Van Houghten to kill Rosemary Labyanca, it was horrific,
18:12
Speaker 3: to the point that she didn't know what it was
18:14
Speaker 3: like cutting through human flesh. She thought it would be different.
18:17
Speaker 3: Joseph Scott Morgan, and I wonder how many of us
18:21
Speaker 3: because I've never thought about it until I read that,
18:23
Speaker 3: how many has really thought about what it would be? Like,
18:25
Speaker 3: what force does it take to actually kill somebody with
18:29
Speaker 3: a knife. That's a personal thing. If you're shooting somebody,
18:33
Speaker 3: you can do it from a distance. With a knife,
18:36
Speaker 3: you're up close and personal. It is very personal. And
18:39
Speaker 3: so while Leslie Van Houghton and Patricia Creamwinkle are trying
18:43
Speaker 3: to kill Rosemary Lebyanka in her bedroom, Rosemary fights back
18:47
Speaker 3: and the lamp cord used to keep that pillow case
18:50
Speaker 3: on her head, well, the lamp now becomes a weapon.
18:53
Speaker 3: She can't see, but she was fighting for her life
18:56
Speaker 3: and winning. She was beating Leslie Van Houghton and Patricia
19:00
Speaker 3: cremwigill to the point where they yelled protext Watson. He's
19:03
Speaker 3: in the middle of stabbing Lino and they're like, Tex,
19:06
Speaker 3: you got to get in here now. He had already
19:08
Speaker 3: stabbed Lena LaBianca a Lotleno had no fight left in him,
19:12
Speaker 3: so Tex left him to go back and help them
19:16
Speaker 3: kill Rosemary Labyanca.
19:18
Speaker 1: With the participation of Van Houghten. I think that it's
19:22
Speaker 1: important to remember that she was out of the so
19:25
Speaker 1: called Manson family. She was one of the youngest members
19:29
Speaker 1: nineteen at the time, I believe.
19:32
Speaker 3: High school cheerleader and prince at homecoming princess.
19:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, from this area of the country as well. She's
19:39
Speaker 1: one of these kind of people that was kind of
19:42
Speaker 1: glommed on to Manson. However, later reports say that she
19:47
Speaker 1: was kind of a leader among these folks, but she
19:50
Speaker 1: wasn't present when the Tate murders took place. She was
19:53
Speaker 1: specifically brought in to handle the Lobyancas, these random people
19:59
Speaker 1: that they had identified. And what's quite interesting when you
20:04
Speaker 1: begin to kind of explore what happened at this residence
20:08
Speaker 1: that particular night with Lobyanca, mister Lobianca, all of his
20:14
Speaker 1: injuries are essentially anterior, which means on the front of
20:18
Speaker 1: his body, and there are multiple stab wounds to his
20:22
Speaker 1: neck and to his abdomen, and he died as a
20:27
Speaker 1: result of massive hemorrhage, which means that every time this
20:32
Speaker 1: knife is plunged into his body, that you're creating another
20:37
Speaker 1: channel for blood to kind of seep out, and he's
20:40
Speaker 1: going to be bleeding out internally. When you begin to
20:44
Speaker 1: look through the autopsy reports on him. His right carotid artery,
20:49
Speaker 1: which is the major artery in the neck that essentially
20:52
Speaker 1: supplies the brain with blood, is the right one on
20:57
Speaker 1: the right aspect of People will essentially place your index
21:01
Speaker 1: finger just to the right of your trachea. It's rest
21:05
Speaker 1: right in this area. So that knife was buried through
21:09
Speaker 1: that surface into his neck. It's completely what they've referred
21:13
Speaker 1: to as transsected. In addition to that, he's got a
21:17
Speaker 1: laceration of his trachea. So if you take that orientation
21:22
Speaker 1: that we just mentioned about the carotid artery and slightly
21:25
Speaker 1: move over to the midline which people refer to as
21:29
Speaker 1: the wind pipe with the trachia, it's lacerated as well,
21:33
Speaker 1: which means that Dave, this is not just merely a
21:38
Speaker 1: slice when they say laceration, You've got this kind of
21:43
Speaker 1: blunting action that's taking the edges and the margins of
21:47
Speaker 1: this thing. Would not have been very neat and moving
21:50
Speaker 1: from the top of the body. Just to give you
21:52
Speaker 1: an idea how extensive this was. They had taken the
21:55
Speaker 1: knife and buried it into not just his small bowel,
21:59
Speaker 1: but also his large bowel, into his colon, so you've
22:03
Speaker 1: got insults that are running the full length of his
22:07
Speaker 1: upper body, and when the body is received at the morgue,
22:12
Speaker 1: I can only imagine at that moment in time they're
22:15
Speaker 1: trying to make sense of One of the things that
22:18
Speaker 1: you're always asked about with these types of events, are
22:21
Speaker 1: sequencing in what order did these things actually occur? And
22:26
Speaker 1: you begin to think about, well, it's not necessarily possible
22:30
Speaker 1: to be able to tell anyone what sequence they actually
22:34
Speaker 1: took place in. There's been a lot of as they
22:38
Speaker 1: used to say, ink slung over the injuries that LaBianca
22:42
Speaker 1: sustained probably one of the more striking things. Even at
22:46
Speaker 1: the scene, the corner investigator made note of the fact
22:49
Speaker 1: that there was some kind of rudimentary engraving on the
22:53
Speaker 1: surface of this man's abdomen, and the word, as it
22:56
Speaker 1: turns out, was the word war. This means that the
23:00
Speaker 1: individual that had done this would have had to have
23:04
Speaker 1: had the will to sit there and make this happen,
23:09
Speaker 1: to actually sit there and be able to perhaps tolerate
23:14
Speaker 1: the sounds of this man as life is leaving his body,
23:18
Speaker 1: taking the tip of a knife which they believe was utilized,
23:22
Speaker 1: and making it through the dermis of his skin, so
23:27
Speaker 1: that the individuals could appreciate that later on when they
23:30
Speaker 1: walked onto the scene. This goes into areas like motivation,
23:33
Speaker 1: you know, why would somebody do this? And going back
23:36
Speaker 1: with our theme here, the idea that back during this
23:39
Speaker 1: time the police are trying to make sense of this.
23:41
Speaker 1: And then interestingly enough, one of the things that was
23:45
Speaker 1: also documented was this idea of the carving fork that
23:50
Speaker 1: was left behind the individual little points on forks or
23:55
Speaker 1: referred to as times, well, the times for carving fork,
24:00
Speaker 1: only two of them. I think that in some of
24:02
Speaker 1: the media that's out there, these movies that have been
24:05
Speaker 1: created over the years, I think there was one in particular,
24:08
Speaker 1: the very graphic where they showed the victim the actor
24:12
Speaker 1: was stabbed with a fork and it was kind of
24:14
Speaker 1: bouncing about and that sort of thing. This was actually
24:17
Speaker 1: a superficial wound. And the corner investigator makes an interesting
24:21
Speaker 1: point here, and this goes to the larger group of
24:25
Speaker 1: evidence here in this case where he talks about if
24:28
Speaker 1: they had not removed that fork, that carving fork from
24:35
Speaker 1: mister Labianca's abdomen, it could very well have fallen out
24:38
Speaker 1: and they would have lost the evidence at that moment
24:41
Speaker 1: in time. For us in forensics, you know kind of
24:44
Speaker 1: our rule of thumb, and this actually applies in medicine too.
24:46
Speaker 1: If you ever see these things where people say, well,
24:49
Speaker 1: if there's an object impaled in somebody's body, don't remove it,
24:52
Speaker 1: because it's going to If you remove it, you're going
24:55
Speaker 1: to promote blood flow. Okay, you're creating this kind of
24:59
Speaker 1: defect in the But for us in forensics, we want
25:03
Speaker 1: to be able to appreciate an item in sight too,
25:07
Speaker 1: is what it's referred to as in place rather in place,
25:10
Speaker 1: so that it can be fully documented and appreciated by
25:14
Speaker 1: the forensic pathologist. Keep in mind, most of the time
25:16
Speaker 1: you're not going to have a forensic pathologist at the
25:19
Speaker 1: scene to see the body in its pristine post mortem state,
25:24
Speaker 1: So you try to leave any kind of elements that
25:27
Speaker 1: are in or on the body in place, and that
25:30
Speaker 1: way it'll be more thoroughly examined at the morgue. And
25:32
Speaker 1: in this particular case, they actually had to remove it
25:35
Speaker 1: because they very well could have lost that evidence. And
25:39
Speaker 1: of course we know that it's significant because it goes
25:43
Speaker 1: to the behavior of the individual. It wasn't just simply
25:48
Speaker 1: a knife wound. We're talking about multiple weapons that led
25:53
Speaker 1: to mister Lobianca's death. Many of the deaths that I've
26:17
Speaker 1: investigated over the course of my career, for good or bad,
26:21
Speaker 1: I have an ability of kind of placing myself in
26:26
Speaker 1: the position of victims, or at least kind of trying
26:28
Speaker 1: to imagine what they've gone through. With single victims, it's
26:33
Speaker 1: it's hard, I think, or it's less nuanced when you
26:37
Speaker 1: have family members that are killed simultaneously. There's something about
26:43
Speaker 1: from in my case, my own humanity that begins to
26:46
Speaker 1: think about the relationship that these individuals within a home
26:50
Speaker 1: like this had La Bianca's. I'm referring to what was
26:54
Speaker 1: going through their minds at that moment in time, because
26:56
Speaker 1: you have two people that were apparently have married, they'd
27:01
Speaker 1: built a life together. Missus Lobianca managed to address store.
27:06
Speaker 1: Mister Lobianca was a grocery executive. They had built a
27:11
Speaker 1: home together, not simply a house, but a home, and
27:16
Speaker 1: they were still involved in their children's lives. And you think,
27:20
Speaker 1: in those last moments before you leave this earth, what
27:23
Speaker 1: was going through their mind? The pure horror, the pure terror,
27:26
Speaker 1: because it's not just what's happening to you. You begin
27:30
Speaker 1: to kind of imagine what's happening to my loved one,
27:34
Speaker 1: what's happening to my beloved spouse that might be in
27:37
Speaker 1: the other room. You're hearing screams, you're hearing commotion, and
27:41
Speaker 1: maybe not thinking about the pain that's being inflicted upon you,
27:44
Speaker 1: but about the pain that's being inflicted upon them.
27:48
Speaker 3: Leno and Rosemary LaBianca had been told when they were
27:52
Speaker 3: woken up, they were told, this is justin robbery. We're
27:55
Speaker 3: just taking your money, and you're not going to be hurt.
27:57
Speaker 3: They were tied up with that in mind. That's what
28:00
Speaker 3: Text Watson told and that's what Charles Manson told him,
28:02
Speaker 3: You're not going to be hurt. All the way up
28:04
Speaker 3: until the point where the killing began, they were told,
28:07
Speaker 3: you're not going to be hurt. Rosemary LaBianca was in
28:10
Speaker 3: her bedroom with Leslie Van Holton and Patricia Crinwinkle. She
28:13
Speaker 3: hears commotion going on while Tex Watson is stabbing Lena LaBianca,
28:18
Speaker 3: and she asked, what's going on with Lenoleno? Are you okay?
28:22
Speaker 3: And that's what caused her, Rosemary Labyanka to actually really
28:26
Speaker 3: fight back hard to the point where Patricia Crinwinkle and
28:30
Speaker 3: Leslie van Houghton could not control her. They screamed out
28:34
Speaker 3: for text to get help. Because of Rosemary LaBianca. She
28:38
Speaker 3: just I don't the heart of that woman. But I
28:41
Speaker 3: have a question for you, Joe, because I'm curious after
28:44
Speaker 3: the fact. Could you tell an examination the difference between
28:48
Speaker 3: a wound being done by Leslie van Houghton and Patricia
28:52
Speaker 3: Crinwinkle versus a wound created by Tex Watson, who is
28:57
Speaker 3: obviously going to hit harder. Could you do you tell
29:00
Speaker 3: a difference between that type of a knife wound that's going.
29:04
Speaker 1: To be heavily depended day First off, on the instrument
29:07
Speaker 1: that's used, how robust the instrument is that is being
29:11
Speaker 1: utilized in order to inflict the injuries, and what structures
29:15
Speaker 1: this instrument is going to strike. Because it's not, as
29:18
Speaker 1: we've talked about before on body bags, it's not just
29:21
Speaker 1: passing through the skin and through the muscle. You have
29:25
Speaker 1: to think about any kind of bony prominences that are there,
29:29
Speaker 1: whether it's ribs or the spine. In Miss Lobianca's case
29:34
Speaker 1: in particular, because her spinal cord is essentially transacted, what
29:38
Speaker 1: type of force would it take in order to inflict
29:42
Speaker 1: these There's another important piece to this. There was a
29:47
Speaker 1: need on the part of the Manson family as it
29:50
Speaker 1: applied to vin how and I believe, for her to
29:53
Speaker 1: get her hands dirty. So the question arises, how many
29:58
Speaker 1: of these insults that that both of these victims, and
30:01
Speaker 1: Rosemary in particular, because hers were as bad as it
30:05
Speaker 1: is to talk about carving on Lobianca's body and this
30:09
Speaker 1: carving knife that was utilized on him in its measure,
30:13
Speaker 1: I think that Rosemary got the real horror show thrown
30:16
Speaker 1: at her. Her injuries were over the top. A lot
30:19
Speaker 1: of that has to go to you were mentioning how
30:21
Speaker 1: much she fought. She had to be restrained. They had
30:24
Speaker 1: to guarantee that she was not going to get back
30:27
Speaker 1: up off of that floor. Most of her injuries are
30:30
Speaker 1: posterior on her back. You begin to think about that
30:35
Speaker 1: and the level of force that's used, and also how
30:38
Speaker 1: many of these injury tracks where she sustained these stab wounds,
30:43
Speaker 1: how many of these actually had hemorrhage in them, Because
30:48
Speaker 1: that's the big delineation here for us between this idea
30:52
Speaker 1: of post mortem and anti mortem injuries. You know, you
30:56
Speaker 1: think about the anti mortem injuries, these wounds that are
30:59
Speaker 1: inflicted on her. You think about, well, how many of
31:02
Speaker 1: these came while she was still alive, and how many
31:07
Speaker 1: of these happened afterwards. And they're randomized. It's not like
31:12
Speaker 1: they're necessarily in any particular order or have penetrated specific
31:19
Speaker 1: anatomical structures and stayed in that particular area. A lot
31:24
Speaker 1: of the stuff that has occurred to her is randomized.
31:27
Speaker 1: It's all over her body, so that gives you an
31:30
Speaker 1: idea of what kind of fight had ensued initially, and
31:35
Speaker 1: when you begin to look at it, you begin to
31:37
Speaker 1: think about the horror that was inflicted upon her. What
31:41
Speaker 1: we do know is that they have enumerated these injuries
31:45
Speaker 1: and she had sustained I think, if I'm not mistaken,
31:50
Speaker 1: twenty two insults on the upper portion of her back
31:54
Speaker 1: and fourteen on the lower portion of her back. And
31:58
Speaker 1: one of these that gives you idea as to how
32:01
Speaker 1: much power was involved in this, is that she's got
32:06
Speaker 1: transsecting injury of her neck. Place your finger at the
32:12
Speaker 1: base of your skull. The first vertebral body that you
32:15
Speaker 1: have there is c one that's referred to as the atlas,
32:18
Speaker 1: and you just think about atlas holding up the world.
32:21
Speaker 1: From mythology, you go to the second vertebral body, which
32:27
Speaker 1: is immediately below the atlas, and then the third. There
32:31
Speaker 1: is a wound that passes between that junction right there,
32:37
Speaker 1: and the vertebral bodies are some of the most robust
32:41
Speaker 1: elements in our body as far as the skeletal structure goes.
32:45
Speaker 1: They transacted that day. That's how much power was involved
32:49
Speaker 1: in this, which means that that knife passed through in
32:52
Speaker 1: between those two vertebral bodies and completely transsected her cerebral
32:57
Speaker 1: spinal cord.
32:59
Speaker 3: The one thing that I did see with Leslie van
33:01
Speaker 3: Houghton describing the killing, this is her exact words. I
33:07
Speaker 3: was supposed to mess her up, and I took the
33:09
Speaker 3: knife and I started stabbing, and I turned into an
33:13
Speaker 3: animal almost. I just completely let out on that woman's back.
33:19
Speaker 3: You just mentioned the wounds on her back, Leslie Van
33:22
Speaker 3: Houghten talking about I completely let out on that woman's back.
33:28
Speaker 3: But then she says, it's not like cutting a piece
33:31
Speaker 3: of meat. It's much tougher. I had to use both
33:34
Speaker 3: hands and all my pressure and all my strength behind
33:38
Speaker 3: it to get it in. What actually is she describing there, Joe.
33:42
Speaker 1: She's in a dominant position. And remember this is not
33:46
Speaker 1: something she's doing by herself, Dave. There are other people,
33:49
Speaker 1: other hands involved in this, and she is essentially in
33:54
Speaker 1: a dominant position. This is a perfect example of what
33:58
Speaker 1: we refer to as a symmetry in an attack. That
34:01
Speaker 1: means you've got one individual that's dominant over another. And
34:04
Speaker 1: what's really the tail of the tape is that since
34:07
Speaker 1: these injuries are posterior on Rosemary la Bianca's body, that
34:13
Speaker 1: means that she's faced down more than likely throughout most
34:16
Speaker 1: of this attack, and you have access to that particular
34:20
Speaker 1: plane of the body. The knife is being driven downward.
34:25
Speaker 1: When say, look, if you're ever attacked by a bear,
34:28
Speaker 1: crawl up into a kind of contract yourself up into
34:31
Speaker 1: a ball. And one of the reasons is is that
34:33
Speaker 1: I've often envisioned in my mind that our back is
34:37
Speaker 1: almost like a turtle shell. We have all of these
34:39
Speaker 1: bony prominences and structures posteriorly because you know, our ribs
34:43
Speaker 1: are not just on the front of our body and sides.
34:46
Speaker 1: They mixed in into the back and they attached to
34:50
Speaker 1: our spine, and so you've got this kind of rigidity
34:54
Speaker 1: that comes in well, no wonder she is stating and
34:59
Speaker 1: has admitted to having to drive this knife through these
35:03
Speaker 1: bony structures with both hands, and essentially to give you
35:08
Speaker 1: an idea as to how much force was involved. Not
35:12
Speaker 1: only do we have this laceration of the spinal cord,
35:16
Speaker 1: but in addition to that, there was so much force
35:20
Speaker 1: used during the midst of this attack that Rosemary LaBianca
35:26
Speaker 1: also sustained injuries of her lung it perforated, along also
35:31
Speaker 1: her stomach, and in addition to that her spleen was lacerated.
35:36
Speaker 1: And for what For absolutely what you asked that question,
35:39
Speaker 1: I think we all do. It's just a random event
35:44
Speaker 1: that occurred where these two people who had nothing to
35:47
Speaker 1: do with race wars, had nothing to do with hippie culture,
35:51
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with anything other than just simply living.
35:56
Speaker 1: Their lives are gone and now Leslie Van Houghton is free.
36:05
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body Backs