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

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

Leno and Rosemary LaBianca tragically find themselves thrust into the darkest depths of human cruelty. Bounded by the twisted whims of their captors, the LaBiancas are subjected to unimaginable terror, and their lives are extinguished in a merciless act of violence. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack delve deep into the horrifying details of the LaBianca murders, orchestrated by Charles Manson and carried out by Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, and Tex Watson. They provide a comprehensive historical context and detailed account of the unsettling events leading to the murders, delve into the gruesome details of the crime scenes, uncover the Manson family's bizarre motives, and reveal the disturbing after-effects of their reign of terror.  Time-coded Highlights: 00:20 - Joe Scott Morgan sets the stage, introducing the Manson family and the LaBianca murders.  01:46 - Dave Mack shares his personal connection to the Tate-LaBianca murders. 03:00 - Mack discusses the societal fear instilled by the Manson family crimes. He paints a vivid picture of the public's reaction to the horrifying events. 04:00 - Joe Scott reveals an intriguing fact about the discovery of the LaBianca’s bodies, and describes the panic and fear that these murders instilled in the public and the challenges the police faced. 07:00 - Dave Mack brings up news of Leslie Van Houten's recent release from prison and details the disturbing events leading up to the LaBianca murders, providing more details about the people involved, including Charles Manson and Tex Watson. 10:20 - Morgan provides insight into the Manson family's use of LSD and training in stealthy home invasions, known as 'creepy crawling', and discusses the initial investigation of the LaBianca murder and how investigators initially thought it might be a copycat crime due to the brutality of the Tate murders. 14:28 - Mack shares his personal experience of living in the area during the time of the murders and narrates the chilling events of the LaBianca murders.  18:16 - Rosemary LaBianca's brave fight against her attackers and a glimpse into her final moments. 19:21 - Details of the injuries sustained by Leno LaBianca, which included multiple stab wounds to his neck and abdomen, leading to his death by massive hemorrhage. The carving fork left in Lino's abdomen is mentioned, highlighting the gruesome nature of the crime scene. 24:05 - Morgan explains the importance of preserving evidence at a crime scene, using impaled objects as an example. His expertise in forensic investigation guides listeners through the complexities of examining a crime scene. 30:11 - Morgan differentiates between postmortem and antemortem injuries. His explanation aids listeners in understanding the forensic nuances of a murder investigation. 33:05 - Morgan explores the concept of asymmetry in an attack. His analysis of Leslie Van Houten's dominant position during the crime provides an understanding of the crime dynamics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. The song Homesick is a song from my youth. It resonates in my ears. It came out in the 70s. If you've never heard it, it kind of takes you back on a bit of a time travel, if you will. I love ARS. Other people have recorded it.

I think Travis Tritt recorded it or re-recorded it. But it takes you back in time to that moment you begin to think us kids as kids of the 60s where were you I was just a little thing back then I was playing in the backyard of my grandparents house where I lived most of the time it was a very people it's a well-worn phrase people say it's very innocent time and it was for me. Playing in my sandpile, enjoying life in the Deep South. The furthest thing from my mind back then was probably mass homicide. In the news nationally, it sent a chill down everyone's spine of the horrors that were revealed back in 1969 of what was going on in L.A. County, particularly as it applied to the Manson family.

Today on Body Bags, we're going to turn back the page a little bit, and we're going to reexamine the murders of the LaBiancas. August 11, 1969, Rosemary LaBianca's teenage son discovers the brutal murders carried out by three of Charles Manson's followers the night before. Lino LaBianca had been stabbed 12 times with a knife or bayonet and seven times with a two-tied carving fork, leaving 14 puncture wounds in his abdomen. The fork was still stuck in his abdomen, and a kitchen knife pierced his throat. The word war had also been carved into his abdomen. Rosemary LaBianca had a total of 41 stab wounds on the front and back of her body. An autopsy showed

that many of the wounds were post-mortem. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. Hey, Dave Mack, where were you in 69? I was a very, very young child. This murder, the Tate-LaBianca murders, as they are commonly referred to, it actually impacted my life on a personal level and professionally over the years. Because I lived in that area when this happened. I was born and raised in Southern California. Born in Hawthorne and raised in Orange County predominantly.

But anyway, when this happened, here's the thing that people may or may not know. And Joe, you might not know. It happened August 8th, August 9th, 1969. Think about some of the things that was actually happening in the world. A couple weeks earlier, Neil Armstrong, man on the moon. You bet, buddy. I remember it. I remember watching on black and white television my grandparents' house.

It was a magical thing. So that's a huge deal. It made everybody, I mean, it just made everybody feel like anything's possible. And a week after the murders what else happened woodstock in new york right so imagine and by the way and mixed into this same time period chapa quiddick and teddy kennedy so we had a lot going on in the united states of america at the time that rosemary and lena labian were murdered. It impacted my life because being in Southern California, when Sharon Tate, along with her friends,

and off the top of my head, I remember it was Abigail Folger, Wojtek Frykowski, Jay Sebring, and then they had a guy that was like the yardkeeper. Anyway, that was such a big deal because, first of all, Sharon Tate was a beautiful model. She was an actress married to Roman Polanski, the master of the macabre because of Rosemary's Baby. You start thinking about how all these things kind of come together and it's like crazy time. But the next night, the LaBiancas, and that was fear in the hearts of people. Sharon Tate and celebrity rich people getting murdered is one thing,

but the LaBiancas were looked at as just regular people like the rest of us, and now nobody's safe. There's one little interesting factoid I think that some people might not be aware of, and I got to give you an idea, a measure for how innocent times were. When the LaBianca's bodies were actually discovered, they could not get access to the home. That is the family that they were trying to open the door to get in. Guess where they got the key from to unlock the door to get into the house? Under the mat? No. They went, now dig this just

for a second. They went out to the vehicle parked in the driveway and the keys were in the ignition and they take the key out of the ignition and make access to this house with that key. And can you just imagine when Rosemary, LaBianca's children, went into this environment and they see these words scrawled in blood on the walls, on the doors. I think most famously, the words helter-skelter. By the way, I think it was misspelled. And there's several interesting things about this is because way, I think it was misspelled. And there's several interesting things about this is because some people think that it was intentionally misspelled. There were little clues along the way. I don't know if any of these people were that sophisticated. You walk in and you see this horror show, and it was truly a horror show. Lots and lots of blood

evidence at the scene. And I don't know that you can necessarily take the measure of it. You have the police coming off the so-called Tate homicides on Cielo. And then you walk into this environment. And you know there was resistance at first by the police to at least publicly show any kind of connectivity between what had happened previously with Sharon Tate and that group of people, and then what had happened with the LaBiancas. And it all goes to what was trying to be accomplished here. I think with the police, one of the biggest things for them is they were trying to prevent a panic because you can't can you imagine what those conversations were like you know in the detective bureau when you've got arguably two blood baths that have taken place and you've got the shadow of celebrity that's kind of hanging over both of

these events with sharon tate and everyone up on cielo and then you've got the LaBiancas. Okay, so they're starting up here relative to the celebrities. Now they're going out here where the rest of us mix and mingle, the mere mortals among us. And the one thing to think of, again, 1969 was a different time in the way we lived. The Tate-LaBianca murders, Joe, we could actually spend all of today, tomorrow, the next day talking just about these murders. And we would go for 24 hours a day for the next few days and wouldn't finish. There's too much. So focusing on the LaBiancas, they were a married couple.

They actually were the next day, meaning the day after the tape murders had taken place. And the reason it's in the news this week is because Leslie Van Houten actually was released from prison after 50 some odd years now. Here's the kick, Joe. And you've been around crime scenes and murders for a long time. I really want to hear your explanation of what police were looking at when they got to the scene of the crime. But the bottom line is with Leslie Van Houten being a Manson family member, one of the women, well, she actually only was involved in the LaBianca murders. She was not at the previous night's activities at the LaBianca crime scene. You had Tex Watson, he and Charlie. And by the way, Charlie Manson was not at the Tate murders. He was, however, at the LaBianca house.

At the house, but he beat feet before the actual event occurred. Right. They get there. Well, I'm going to skip through this real fast. Charlie Manson had convinced these young people that a race war was coming and they needed to have a safe place out in the desert, which is why they were maneuvered out there. In reality, they were out there because they'd been stealing Volkswagens and converting them into dune buggies and selling them. And the heat was getting hot. And so they wanted to get out of town. And Charlie went there and they're in their drug, whatever, decided that they needed to commit crimes. The Manson family that they need to commit murders that didn't make sense.

That's what the law of Bianca murder was all about. A murder that didn't make any sense and would cause fear and panic in people. And Leslie Van Houten said that in her own words, by the way. I actually listened to this yesterday in preparation for the show and heard her in 1971 talking to her new lawyer. He said, how are you going to start a revolution? She actually said, Joe, by committing a senseless murder, which is exactly what Lino and Rosemary LaBianca. It was just a murder. But anyway, I mentioned Charles Manson was not at the Tate House. Well, he was at the LaBianca, it was just a murder. But anyway, I mentioned Charles Manson was not at the Tate house. Well, he was at the LaBianca's. Charles Manson and Tex Watson go inside the

LaBianca's house. And by the way, these mental giants, the Manson family, they've been driving around for a couple hours looking for a place that they could go in and commit this heinous act, right? They didn't find one right away. And so Leslie Van Houten said she fell asleep in the car as they were driving around. When she woke up, Charles and Tex Watson had gone in the house and they'd already tied up Lino and Rosemary LaBianca. They found Lino on the couch in the living room, in the den. And so they tied him up and then Charlie Manson went in and they got Rosemary out of bed. She was already in bed. Got her up and you know, sign of the times maybe, Joe, but before they brought Rosemary LaBianca out of the bedroom, she was already in her nightclothes. And you know what she did? And they let her? They let her put on a dress. Rosemary LaBianca was allowed to put on a dress over her

nightclothes to be dressed appropriately for what she thought was just a robbery. Charles Manson and Tex Watson said, you're not going to be hurt. We just want your money. So they got the cash and then Charlie goes outside. They send the girls in. They sent Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel to go in and kill Rosemary LaBianca. One interesting little aside here is that you think about Manson and kind of how he had been prepping this crew. That's the way you have to look at it. It's an organized crime venture is what it comes down to because they were a collection of thieves is essentially what they

were. And of course, they're fueled by lasurgic acid to a great degree. You know, it's been well documented and stated that they would drop LSD. There's some people that have actually opined that Manson himself would fake taking LSD and then everybody else would have it on board and he could influence them and begin to talk to them when they're tripping, essentially. But one of the things that he would do to give you back to this idea of thievery, this being a theft ring, is that he introduced them to something called creepy crawling. He would actually have these people go out and purposefully go into residences in a stealth-like manner, and the trick was not to be caught.

And they would go in and perhaps rearrange things and not necessarily take anything, but just to kind of hone these skills so that they could go in and commit thievery, stealing, if you will, burglary, and not be caught. I think here's the big question, though. If that's the case, what is it that would motivate a band of thieves that lived out in the desert, away from society? What is it that caused them to commit such a horrible, horrible crime. There's a couple of classic images, black and white photography, of the exterior of the scene up on Cielo where the Tate home was and where that multiple homicide took place. And one that really jumps to mind is there's an image of one of my heroes at the scene and

that's Dr. Tom Noguchi who was with the medical examiner coroner back during that time in Los Angeles probably arguably one of the greatest forensic pathologists that's ever worked in my my way of estimation but he was at the scene and what he bore witness to there he's talked about or had talked about previously on many occasions at the tate residence horrible things that happened obviously over the years and we see this carnage that erupts from time to time but i don't know that anybody could really fully appreciate what they were seeing then and try to make sense of it, the level of brutality. And so, one interesting little point, bringing it back to the LaBianca double homicide, is that apparently, at first, the investigators really were thinking that they might be dealing with a copycat crime.

That the word had leaked out at that point in time about how horrific the Tate homicides were. And then you see this horror show that takes place at the LaBianca household. They're thinking, okay, somebody read about this and they just wanted to see if they could duplicate it. What do you think about that, Dave? I lived there in this area at that time as a young child. And one of the things that I think people forget, it's about copycat crimes. There was so much made about Sharon Tate because she was eight and a half months pregnant when she was murdered. And this was a horrible crime scene and it was splashed everywhere.

And then you have this normal middle class Rosemary and Lena LaBianca being murdered. And there was some thought that copycat crimes were going to occur. My family, personally, we were moving into a new, a different home, a bigger home. In the process of the move, Joe Scott Morgan, I remember going to that house when our, our move-in was delayed for some reason. I was a kid. I didn't know why at the time. But I know that when we got there the week after Halloween, you could still see the chalk outline in the next door neighbor's driveway where a dead body had been. We didn't know if it was actually a Halloween prank or if there was a copycat murder. Because that's what we were all talking about at the time. One thing people need to know is that while the murders took place, August 8, 9, 10, the Tate-LaBianco murders, that they were not caught right away.

It was actually a couple of months and there was a lot of tabloid journalism at work and a lot of very poorly researched information. So there was a lot of lies, a lot of myths were being created at the time. But when you get right down to it, there were only three people inside the house for the LaBiancas that actually committed the murders. And that's Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten. Charles Manson, he did go in the house and he and Tex tied up Lino and Rosemary LaBianca. But Charles left because he's that kind of guy. And he told them the night before at the Tate resident that it had been very messy. And he said, don't, you know, let's make it more clean.

And when he, of course, he takes off with other members of the family there. And he leaves the job of murder up to Patricia Crane with Leslie Van Houten, who was supposed to take out Rosemary, and Tex, who was supposed to take out Lino. When it actually happened, Leslie Van Houten had never killed anybody before. And she wrote and talked about some things that I'm hoping you'll explain this to us. She actually pointed out some things that were just horrific to me, but setting the stage inside the house, Lino and Rosemary LaBianca have both been tied up. Their hands are tied. In the case of Rosemary LaBianca, a pillowcase had been placed over her head and it had been tied off with a lamp cord, but they didn't bother to like rip the cord off the lamp. The lamp was still attached. So Rosemary LaBianca, hands tied up, the pillowcase over her head, and she's sitting there. Lino,

meanwhile, LaBianca had his hands tied, and he also is sitting and waiting for the robbery to finish because that's what they were told. Since Charles Manson and those guys are down the road, that's when the murder begins. Tex Watson took charge of killing Lino LaBianca, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten said later that it wasn't new for tex he had done this before he had killed before for leslie van houten to kill rosemary la bianca it was horrific to the point that she didn't know what it was like cutting through human flesh she thought it would be different joseph scott Morgan. And I wonder how many of us, because I've never thought about it until I read that, how many has really thought about what it would be like? What force does it take to actually kill somebody with a knife? That's a personal thing. If you're shooting somebody, you can do it from a distance. With a knife, you're up close

and personal. It is very personal. And so while Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krimwinkle are trying to kill Rosemary LaBianca in her bedroom, Rosemary fights back and the lamp cord used to keep that pillowcase on her head. Well, the lamp now becomes a weapon. She can't see, but she was fighting for her life and winning. She was beating Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krimwinkle to the point where they yelled for Tex Watson. He's in the middle of stabbing Lino. And they're like, Tex, you got to get in here. Now, he had already stabbed Lino LaBianca a lot. Lino had no fight left in him. So Tex left him to go back and help them kill Rosemary LaBianca.

With the participation of Van Houten, I think that it's important to remember that she was out of the so-called Manson family. She was one of the youngest members, 19 at the time, I believe. High school cheerleader and homecoming princess. Yeah, from this area of the country as well. She's one of these kind of people that was kind of glommed on to Manson. However, later reports say that she was kind of a leader among these folks. But she wasn't present when the Tate murders took place. She was specifically brought in to handle the LaBiancas,

these random people that they had identified. And what's quite interesting when you begin to kind of explore what happened at this residence that particular night with LaBianca, Mr. LaBianca, all of his injuries are essentially anterior, which means on the front of his body. And there are multiple stab wounds to his neck and to his abdomen. And he died as a result of massive hemorrhage, which means that every time this knife is plunged into his body, that you're creating another channel for blood to kind of seep out. And he's going to be bleeding out internally. When you begin to look through the autopsy reports on him, his right carotid artery, which is the major artery in the neck

that essentially supplies the brain with blood, is the right one on the right aspect of people will essentially place your index finger just to the right of your trachea. It's rest right in this area. So that knife was buried through that surface into his neck. It's completely what they refer to as transected. In addition to that, he's got a laceration of his trachea. So, if you take that orientation that we just mentioned about the carotid artery and slightly move over to the midline, which people refer to

as the windpipe with the trachea, it's lacerated as well, which means that, Dave, this is not just merely a slice. When they say laceration, you've got this kind of blunting action that's taking the edges and the margins of this thing would not have been very neat. And moving from the top of the body, just to give you an idea of how extensive this was, they had taken the knife and buried it into not just his small bowel, but also his large bowel, into his colon. So, you've got insults that are running the full length of his upper body. And when the body is received at the morgue, I can only imagine at that moment in time, they're trying to make sense of one of the things that you're always asked about with these types of

events are sequencing. In what order did these things actually occur? And you begin to think about, well, it's not necessarily possible to be able to tell anyone what sequence they actually took place in. There's been a lot of, as they used to say, ink slung over the injuries that LaBianca sustained. Probably one of the more striking things, even at the scene, the coroner investigator made note of the fact that there was some kind of rudimentary engraving on the surface of this man's abdomen. And the word, as it turns out, was the tip of a knife, which they believe was utilized, and making it through the dermis of his skin so that the individuals could appreciate that later on when they walked onto the scene.

This goes into areas like motivation. Why would somebody do this? And going back with our theme here, the idea that back during this time, the police are trying to make sense of this. And then, interestingly enough, one of the things that was also documented was this idea of the carving fork that was left behind. The individual little points on forks are referred to as tines. Well, the tines for carving fork, there's only two of them. I think that in some of the media that's out there, these movies that have been created over the years, I think there was one in particular was very graphic where they showed the victim, the actor was stabbed with a

fork and it was kind of bouncing about and that sort of thing. This was actually a superficial wound. And the coroner investigator makes an interesting point here. And this goes to the larger grouping of evidence here in this case, where he talks about if they had not removed that fork, that carving fork from Mr. LaBianca's abdomen, it could very well have fallen out and they would have lost the evidence at that moment in time. For us in forensics, you know, kind of our rule of thumb, and this actually applies in medicine too. If you ever, you see these things where people say, well, if there's an object impaled in somebody's body, don't remove it because it's going to, if you remove it, you're going to promote blood flow, okay? You're creating this kind of defect in the body. But for us in forensics, we want to be able to appreciate an item in situ is what it's referred to as in place, rather, in place so that it can be fully documented and appreciated by the forensic pathologist. Keep in mind, most of the time, you're not going to have a forensic pathologist at the scene to see the body in its pristine postmortem state.

So, you try to leave any kind of elements that are in or on the body in place. And that way, it'll be more thoroughly examined at the morgue. And in this particular case, they actually had to remove it because they very well could have lost that evidence. And of course, we know that it's significant because it goes to the behavior of the individual. It wasn't just simply a knife wound. We're talking about multiple weapons that led to Mr. LaBianca's death. Many of the deaths that I've investigated over the course of my career, for good or for bad, I have an ability of kind of placing myself in the position of victims or at least kind of trying to imagine what they've gone through. With single victims, it's hard, I think, or it's less nuanced. When you have family members that are killed simultaneously, there's something about,

in my case, my own humanity that begins to think about the relationship that these individuals within a home like this had, the LaBiancas I'm referring to. What was going through their minds at that moment in time? Because you have two people that were apparently happily married. They'd built a life together. Mrs. Labianca managed a dress store. Mr. Labianca was a grocery executive. They had built a home together, not simply a house, but a home. And they were still involved in their children's lives. And you think in those last moments before you leave this earth, what was going through their mind? The pure horror, the pure terror, because it's not just what's happening to you. You begin to kind of imagine what's happening to my loved one.

What's happening to my beloved spouse that might be in the other room. You're hearing screams. You're hearing commotion, and maybe not thinking about the pain that's being inflicted upon you, but about the pain that's being inflicted upon them. Lino and Rosemary LaBianca had been told when they were woken up, they were told this is just a robbery. We're just taking your money and you're not going to be hurt. They were tied up with that in mind.

That's what Tex Watson told them. That's what Charles Manson told them. You're not going to be hurt. They were tied up with that in mind. That's what Tex Watson told him. That's what Charles Manson told him. You're not going to be hurt. All the way up until the point where the killing began, they were told you're not going to be hurt. Rosemary LaBianca was in her bedroom with Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel. She hears commotion going on while Tex Watson is stabbing Lino LaBianca. And she asked, what's going on with Lino? Lino, are you okay? And that's what caused her, Lino LaBianca. And she asked, what's going on with Lino? Lino, are you okay? And that's what caused her, Rosemary LaBianca, to actually really fight back hard to the point where Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten could not control her. They screamed out for Tex to get help because of Rosemary LaBianca.

She just, I don't, the heart of that woman. But I have a question for you, Joe, because I'm curious after the fact, could you tell in the examination the difference between a wound being done by Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel versus a wound created by Tex Watson, who is obviously going to hit harder?

Could you tell a difference between that type of a knife wound? That's going to be heavily dependent, Dave, first off on the instrument that's used, how robust the instrument is that is being utilized in order to inflict the injuries, and what structures this instrument is going to strike. Because it's not, as we've talked about before on body bags, it's not just passing through the skin and through the muscle. You have to think about any kind of bony prominences that are there, whether it's ribs or the spine. In Ms. Labianca's case in particular, because her spinal cord is essentially transected. What type of force would it take in order to inflict these?

There's another important piece to this. There was a need on the part of the Manson family, as it applied to Van Houten, I believe, for her to get her hands dirty. So the question arises, how many of these insults that both of these victims, and Rosemary in particular, because hers were as bad as it is to talk about carving on LaBianca's body and this carving knife that was utilized on him. In its measure, I think that Rosemary got the real horror show thrown at her. Her injuries were over the top. A lot of that has to go to, you were mentioning how much she fought. She had to be restrained. They had to guarantee that she was not going to get back up off of that floor. Most of her injuries are posterior

on her back. You begin to think about that and the level of force that's used. And also, how many of these injury tracks where she sustained these stab wounds, how many of these actually had hemorrhage in them? Because that's the big delineation here for us between this idea of post-mortem and anti-mortem injuries. You know, you think about the anti-mortem injuries, these wounds that are inflicted on her. You think about, well, how many of these came while she was still alive and how many of these happened afterwards. And they're randomized. It's not like they're necessarily in any particular order or have penetrated specific anatomical structures and stayed in that particular area.

A lot of the stuff that has occurred to her is randomized. It's all over her body. So, that gives you an idea of what kind of fight had ensued initially. And when you begin to look at it, you begin to think about the horror that was inflicted upon her. What we do know is that they have enumerated these injuries. And she had sustained, I think, if I'm not mistaken, 22 insults on the upper portion of her back and 14 on the lower portion of her back. And one of these that gives you an idea as to how much power was involved in this is that she's got transecting injury of her neck. Place your finger at the base of your skull. The first vertebral body that you have there is C1.

That's referred to as the atlas. And you just think about atlas holding up the world from mythology. You go to the second vertebral body, which is immediately below the atlas. And then the third, there is a wound that passes between that junction right there. And the vertebral bodies are some of the most robust elements in our body as far as the skeletal structure goes they transected that day that's how much power was involved in this which means that that knife passed through in between those two vertebral bodies and completely transected her cerebral spinal cord. The one thing that I did see with Leslie Van Houten describing the killing,

this is her exact words. I was supposed to mess her up and I took the knife and I started stabbing and I turned into an animal almost. I just completely let out on that woman's back. You just mentioned the wounds on her back. Leslie Van Houten talking about, I completely let out on that woman's back. But then she says, it's not like cutting a piece of meat. It's much tougher. I had to use both hands and all my pressure and all my strength behind it to get it in. What actually is she describing there, Joe?

She's in a dominant position. And remember, this is not something she's doing by herself, Dave. There are other people, other hands involved in this, and she is essentially in a dominant position. This is a perfect example of what we refer to as asymmetry in an attack. That means you've got one individual that's dominant over another. And what's really the tale of the tape is that since these injuries are posterior on Rosemary LaBianca's body, that means that she's face down, more than likely, throughout most of this attack. And you have access to that particular plane of the body,

the knife is being driven downward. When they'll say, look, if you're ever attacked by a bear, crawl up into a kind of contract yourself up into a ball. And one of the reasons is, is that I've often envisioned in my mind that our back is almost like a turtle shell. We have all of these bony prominences and structures posteriorly because, you know, our ribs are not just on the front of our body and sides. They extend into the back and they attach to our spine. And so, you've got this kind of rigidity that comes in. Well, no wonder she is stating and has admitted to having to drive this knife through these bony structures with both hands. of the spinal cord. But in addition to that, there was so much force used during the midst of this attack that Rosemary LaBianca also sustained injuries of her lung. It perforated

her lung, also her stomach. And in addition to that, her spleen was lacerated. And for what? For absolutely what? You asked that question. I think we all do. It's just a random event that occurred where these two people who had nothing to do with race wars, had nothing to do with hippie culture, had nothing to do with anything other than just simply living their lives are gone. And now Leslie Van Houten is free. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. This is an iHeart Podcast.