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"I was coming from Columbus, so I didn't know anybody in Lancaster and I didn't know who (Garretson) was," Varga said. He recalls being at work when news came over the wire linking Garretson to the murders in California. Lou Varga, who lived in Columbus at the time, was working as a radio reporter for WHOK in Lancaster on Aug. "I was placed in a cell with a bunch of people and I remember thinking, 'how the hell am I still alive?' "īack in Lancaster, residents were just learning about the murders in California - and the local man who was being questioned for them. "They played a lot of head games and did the whole good cop, bad cop thing and did a polygraph," Garretson said. Garretson said the police showed him part of the murder scene before he was arrested and questioned.
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"The police officer pointed a gun at me and I said, 'what's going on?' and he said, 'shut up, I'll show you,' " Garretson recalls. He recalls a lot of "strange things" going on that night.Īt one point, he said he saw people run past the guesthouse and heard someone rattle the doorknob before they were scared away by a barking dog.īut Garretson said he learned nothing of the murders until the following day when police officers showed up at the clubhouse. The night of the murders, Garretson said he was in a guesthouse located on the Tate-Polanski property. On the front door, the victims' blood was used to scrawl the words, "Death to Pigs." The bodies of Abigail Folger, 25 Jay Sebring, 35 Voyteck Frykowski, 32 and Steven Parent, 18 were found with knife or gunshot wounds. Tate, who was 26 and eight months pregnant, had been stabbed multiple times. 9, 1969, a housekeeper discovered five bodies scattered around the Los Angeles estate. The murder at the home of Tate and her husband, filmmaker Roman Polanski, happened first. 9 incident was one of two grisly slayings committed by Manson and his followers, who were known as the Charles Manson "Family." "It was horrifying," said Garretson of being taken into custody. Shortly after that, Charles Manson and five of his followers were arrested and charged with the murder of seven people, including Tate. Garretson was released from jail two days later. The then 19-year-old, who was living in Los Angeles and working as a caretaker at Tate's home, had been taken into custody Aug. 11, 1969, when Lancaster resident William Garretson's name first appeared in national and local newspaper headlines. LANCASTER - Some Lancaster residents might recall where they were in 1969 when they learned actress Sharon Tate and four others were murdered in California by the followers of Charles Manson.īut only one resident can say he actually was there. Lancaster's William Garretson, who is quoted in the story, died in 2016. It has been reprinted here on the occasion of the death of Charles Manson. Editor's note: This story first appeared in the Eagle-Gazette on Aug.