Linda Kasabian - Life After Trial

Life After Trial

The heavy news media coverage of the Manson trial had made Linda Kasabian a well-known, if somewhat controversial, figure by the time the sentences had been handed down, with opinions about her ranging from sympathetic to hostile. Kasabian shortly returned to New Hampshire with her husband and her children, seeking to escape the glare of the media, and to raise her children quietly. She lived on a hippie commune for a time and worked as a cook later. Kasabian was called back to Los Angeles County several times after the first trial: she was a witness against Tex Watson in his separate trial in 1971, and also against Leslie Van Houten in her two retrials in 1977. Linda Kasabian later divorced her husband Robert Kasabian, and eventually she remarried.

Kasabian was detained for numerous traffic violations, until an automobile accident left her partially disabled. During an Easter celebration in New Hampshire in 1978, she and some friends interfered with firemen who were attempting to extinguish a bonfire. Though she had severed all of her ties with the Manson "family", the Secret Service kept her under surveillance for a time after her former Manson associate Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. Kasabian was the target of scorn from the few remaining Manson "family" members.

Over the years, Kasabian has avoided and refused most news media attention. She appeared only once from 1969 to 2008, for an interview with the syndicated American television program A Current Affair in 1988.

Most recently, Cineflix, a production company in the United Kingdom and Canada, produced a docu-drama called Manson, in which Kasabian appears, telling her story in complete detail for the first time. This program was telecast in the UK on August 10, 2009, and also in the United States on Sept. 7, 2009, on the History Channel. In this taped interview, Kasabian recounts her four weeks spent with the Manson "family". Her image is slightly obscured to protect her identity.

In a September 2, 2009 live interview on CNN's Larry King Live, Kasabian recounted her memories of the murders at Sharon Tate's home. To help her maintain her now-quiet life, Kasabian wore a disguise provided by the program during her interview. She told King during the interview that after the trial she had been in need of, but had never obtained, "psychological counseling", and that during the previous 12 years, she had been "on a path of healing and rehabilitation." When asked about the degree of remorse she felt for her participation in the crimes, Kasabian said that she felt as though she took on all the guilt that "no one else felt guilt for", apparently referring to the fact that, even during her own court testimony, the co-defendants in the case showed extreme nonchalance when faced with such gruesome murders.