Rosemary and Leno LaBianca
Rosemary and Leno LaBianca returned to LA from their
weekend away late Saturday night, technically Sunday morning of August 10th.
They wanted to beat the Sunday traffic. Think about that for a
second. They stopped at
the Chevron Station on Hillhurst
for a fill up and a newspaper. Rosemary commented on the front-page story about the Tate
murders the night before. She was spooked. The man that sold them the paper,
John Fokianos, was
the last to see them alive. He gave them the special filler section on the
Tate murders. COMP. Thanks!
Leno managed the Gateway Supermarket (of which there were two) and Rosemary had a boutique in the same strip mall called The Boutique Carriage.
Driving their 68 green Thunderbird, hauling their boat behind them, they dropped off Rose's daughter a the place used for Melrose Place, and headed to their Silverlake home on Waverly Drive (then and now). After they settled in, they received some not so very nice visitors. This time Charlie went along, as did Leslie Van Houten, another budding psychopath. They picked the LaBianca house because Charlie had partied in the house next door.
Charlize left the others in the car and climbed into a back window of the house. He found Leno dozing in the living room, while reading the paper. Charlie woke him and tied his hands behind his back with a leather string he kept around his neck. Rosemary was in the bedroom, so he brought her into the living room, and did the same. The search for loot led Mrs. LaBianca back to the bedroom. Charlie took off for the ranch, leaving the others to do his dirty work.
Again, according to Tex, he put a pillowcase over Leno's head, and tied a lamp cord around his skull and mouth. He did the same to Rosemary, in the other room. Tex then stabbed Leno. A lot. 26 times. Rosemary starting blindly swinging the lamp around the bedroom, but eventually Tex got to her too. 41 times. He made Leslie stab Rosemary 16 times in the lower back, after she was dead. But Leslie was not a doctor. She couldn't know that Rosemary was already dead.
More art work. This time they carved the word "WAR" in Leno's stomach, and Pat wrote "Death to pigs" and "Rise" on the walls in the victim's blood. "HEALTER SKELTER" (big dummies spelled the name of the movie wrong) was written on the fridge. I did it once in ketchup on a friend's fridge, and scared the crap out of her. Try it. It's very funny.
Only if you can handle it, here are two photographs of the victims. Be warned. Its nasty.
After the murders, the killers showered, sat in the bushes in front of the house eating chocolate milk and cheese - nicked from the LaBianca fridge, and hitchhiked back to the Spahn Ranch, where they lived.
The bodies were discovered about 8pm the next night.
Rosemary's daughter Susan insisted that Rosemary wanted to be cremated - so she was, and scattered at sea. Leno was buried in Calvary Catholic Cemetery, because his arrangements were completed, and he already had family there. There was a joint rosary said for the both of them, on Friday night.
December 01 - Karen Valentine sends this photograph of the grave of Ronald Hughes, Leslie Van Houten's attorney. Hughes was found drowned, face down, wedged between two boulders in Sespe Creek, CA.
Trivia: The address on LaBianca house was changed from 3301 to 3311. The house has gone through some renovations, but still looks pretty much the same.
March 2002 - findadeath.com friend and my pal Cole sends us this: I just reread the Labianca story and thought id tell u a couple of things. Manson partied at the house next door{3267 Waverly} to the Labiancas, when his friend Harold True lived there in '68, prior to the murders and prior to Leno and Rosemary purchasing 3301 Waverly from his mother. Leno had spent his teen years living there. the house was known then as "Oak Terrace". True even visited Manson in jail after his arrest. 3301 was vacant though. When True lived at 3267 the neighbors complained about the loud parties. The Labiancas not the complainers though.
On Aug 10, '69, Manson parked in front of 3301 and walked up the curved driveway of 3267 and cut across to 3301. The pic you took of the back of the house shows part of 3267. It was said in a article on www.mansonmurders.com, that Susan Struthers, Rosemary's daughter (baby?), had dated a biker associated with Manson. It was also mentioned that the Labianca home was "creepy crawled" by the "family" just prior to the killings. In a book written by his first wife Alice Labianca, she said Leno didn't want his kids coming to 3301 cause of the weird happenings prior to the murders.
Another hunk o history gone. The LaBianca gas station is no longer as of June 2004.
