Police Interview Reveals Details About Victims and Suspects

Police Polygraph and Interview 0
Bill Rinehart
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https://vimeo.com/46262144
BILL RINEHART
POLICE-POLYGRAPH
INTERVIEW
September 30, 1969
[6/22/2018]
GJ TRANSCRIBES
Orange, CA
www.gmrtranscription.com
Police Interview with Bill Rinehart 1
September 30, 1969
Lt Deemer: Noisy out there.
Bill Rinehart: Really.
Lt. Deemer: Need to get some information. Is it William Rinehart or Bill

Rinehart.
Bill Rinehart: Well its William but you know its Bill.
Lt. Deemer: It’s R-E-I –
Bill Rinehart R-I-N-E-H-A-R-T. William B. Jr.
Lt. Deemer: And where do you live?
Bill Rinehart: Gee, I don’t know the address. It’s on Bobstone in Sherman Oaks.
I just moved there and I’m not sure what the address is.
Lt. Deemer: What was your former address?
Bill Rinehart: Former address is 4931 Tarzana West Drive. Tarzana.
Lt. Deemer: Do you have a phone?
Bill Rinehart: Oh, the phone number there was 342 –
Lt. Deemer: You don’t have one now?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: Who are you working for, or what are you doing?
Bill Rinehart: I’m a record producer. I work for various people all over town.
Lt. Deemer: Use to be a guitar man huh?
Bill Rinehart: Oh, I still play rock and roll the last six years. I’m a musician, I’m
a studio musician, I do a lot of work in the studio.
Lt. Deemer: If you had to list your employer who would it be?
Bill Rinehart: Right now, now Mark Slotkin.
Lt. Deemer: Do you have a phone number for him?
Bill Rinehart: 654-7777.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: When were you born?
Bill Rinehart: 2-14-46.
Lt. Deemer: And where?
Bill Rinehart: Honolulu.
Lt. Deemer: Where?
Bill Rinehart: Honolulu, Honolulu Hawaii.
Lt. Deemer: Do you drive a car?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: Married, single, divorced, separated?
Bill Rinehart: Single.
Lt. Deemer: How far did you go in school?
Bill Rinehart: How far? Oh, about a year and a half in college.
Lt. Deemer: Whereabouts?
Bill Rinehart: Santa Barbara City College, and Cal State.
Lt. Deemer: Who are you living with right now?
Bill Rinehart: With a chick.
Lt. Deemer: With a girlfriend?
Bill Rinehart: Yeah.
Lt. Deemer: Any serious illnesses in your life?
Bill Rinehart: Besides mental illness you mean?
Lt. Deemer: Do you have mental?
Bill Rinehart: I don’t know.
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever been called mental?
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: Who was your psychiatrist?
Bill Rinehart: Well not recently, but when I was in high school and junior high I
was in private school that was just the same as being in a – there
was doctors all around that place. So, I don’t know if you could
really call that an illness or not. “Emotionally disturbed.” That’s
what they called it at the time.
Lt. Deemer: But that was in junior high?
Bill Rinehart: Yeah junior high. When I was about 13.
Lt. Deemer: Have you had anything since?
Bill Rinehart: No. Except that they let me out of the draft because of it. I was 4F
because of it.
Lt. Deemer: Been to jail for anything?
Lt. Deemer: What for?
Bill Rinehart: Grass.
Lt. Deemer: Here?
Bill Rinehart: Yeah. Just right here in Los Angeles.
Lt. Deemer: Did you do any time?
Bill Rinehart: No. I never was convicted of anything, I was arrested but I never –
Lt. Deemer: Tossed out?
Bill Rinehart: Well I never even had to go to the courtroom.
Lt. Deemer: Two days, that was it?
Bill Rinehart: Didn’t even have to stay there but an hour.
Lt. Deemer: Oh.
Bill Rinehart: I was arrested down in Mexico.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: Been in the U.S. all your life?
Lt. Deemer: How long have you been in California?
Bill Rinehart: Oh about 13 years.
Lt. Deemer: Are your folks still on the islands?
Bill Rinehart: No. They’re here.
Lt. Deemer: How long have they been that way?
Bill Rinehart: Same amount of time. It might even be more I have to count.
Lt. Deemer: When did you first here about this incident?
Bill Rinehart: I guess it was the day after it happened. I heard about it on the
radio from a friend of mine. I think it was the next afternoon.
Lt. Deemer: Did you know any of the people involved?
Bill Rinehart: No. I knew the people that the warrants were put out for on the
second day. I met Pic Dawson through Cass Elliott and I’ve known
Charles Tacot for a long time. He’s been around town for a lot of
years. I couldn’t even tell you when I first met him though other
people.
Lt. Deemer: Before we start I guess that they told you that we’re not interested
in your involvement with any narcotics –
Bill Rinehart: Right. I know that. I’m just expecting for you to say, “Did you
commit the murder?” And I’m going to say, “No.”
Lt. Deemer: Plus, the facts about people on the peripheral edges of this thing. It
may be of assistance.
Bill Rinehart: Well that’s what my involvement is because a matter of fact I

would be glad if you did ask me a couple of questions about it
because everybody thinks that I’m lying. I guess they think that
everybody else is lying too. Like I don’t know what their story is
and –
Lt. Deemer: Well you’d be surprised how many people are lying to us.
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: Well yeah but I mean yesterday those Lieutenants were telling me,
“What drugs do you take to cheat the lie detector?” and things like
that. I’m going, “Wait, what is this?” You know?
Lt. Deemer: When was the last time that you toked?
Bill Rinehart: Last time I what?
Lt. Deemer: When you used anything?
Bill Rinehart: Got high on some grass yesterday.
Lt. Deemer: But you’re all right now?
Bill Rinehart: Well I was all right last night too. I was willing to take the thing
last night except they said they were going to arrest me for being
under the influence. I don’t know how they could tell. You know,
I really can’t dig it at all, what happened last night. I was willing to
take the test last night.
Lt. Deemer: Well its better this time when I’m here. Okay now you were
talking about Dawson. What did you think about Dawson?
Bill Rinehart: I thought that Pic was pretty stoned out all the time. He used to just
sit there on the telephone, and the couple times that I’ve seen him
he’d just keep making telephone call, after telephone call, after
telephone call and he’d kind of look up and he was very quiet.
Lt. Deemer: He was using the hard stuff then?
Bill Rinehart: I think so. He was using smack. As a matter of fact, Cass just
visited him back in Washington. She said she was going to get an
operation, but I found out yesterday or the day before, the people
that live with Cass told me that she had gone back to see Pic
because Pic was stoned out on smack back there. He couldn’t pull
himself together that’s why he didn’t turn himself in the first place
when they put the warrants out because he was gone. He was gone
for a long time.
I know him, but I don’t know him. Do you know what I mean?
Lt. Deemer: Where did you see him stoned, out at the –
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: Billy Doyle lived on Kingsman Road and I was taken up there to
buy some coke, some cocaine from Charles Tacot. Tacot took me
there to buy some for somebody else.
Lt. Deemer: You bought it from Billy?
Bill Rinehart: Well I bought it from Billy and Charles. I mean I don’t know if I
really bought it from Billy because see here’s the thing and this
might be pertinent, or it may not be but in this case you’re dealing
with a bunch of freaks. Which everybody is in this case. It would
seem to me that its pretty easy for a lie to be turned into the truth
and the truth to become a lie, especially by people thinking that
Charles Tacot is a big dope dealer and Billy Doyle is a big dope
dealer. Other people have told me that Billy just first turned on
this past year. Everybody thinks that Charles is the big dope dealer
and he never gets any stuff. He always claims to and so everybody
thinks he’s the dealer. You know what I mean? That’s the way
something that wasn’t true in the beginning he –
Lt. Deemer: Where’d you get the reputation without being the –
Bill Rinehart: Well that’s how Charles got that rep, I’m sure that’s why they went
after him because Cass knew Charles to be a dope dealer. Her and
Billy Doyle. When the truth of the matter was being that Charles is
just a big bullshitter when it comes to dope. He has got some, but
as far as I know he can’t do jack diddly shit now.
Lt. Deemer: What’s he doing around town now?
Bill Rinehart: He’s not in town. I’ll tell you something he’s paranoid, and really
scared about something. He’s paranoid and scared. There’s been a
couple things that have come down that nobody really knows about
it. I started telling the Lieutenant about it last night, but a client of
Caruso the lawyer told this friend of ours who also knows Charles
that he had been working with Evelle Younger – now this is a
second-hand story because coming from Caruso and I consider that
second hand coming from that guy.
Lt. Deemer: Is Paul your lawyer?
Bill Rinehart: No. But he is the lawyer of this very, very good friend of mine
who’s also a friend of Charles and – see all those people we were
never – everybody hangs around together kind of, I mean really.
Everybody knows everybody else. That’s just the way its come
down. Everybody knows a little bit about somebody else.
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: I was sitting at my friend’s house and this guy walked in and
Charles had walked in about five minutes earlier and he said that
he had some grass from Jamaica or some bullshit story. He gave
us some story.
So, this man came in and he just jumped on Charles. He stated

hitting him and he said, “How can you sit around here with a
fink?” He said he was going to get him down and he was going to
make him confess his testimony. Because Caruso read the
testimony that Charles gave the police department to this friend of
ours in which Charles named so and so and so and so and so and so
and so and so. Now Charles has a suit against the LA Times and
Caruso is the lawyer for the Los Angeles Times, dig what I mean?
And a lot of weird things like that have come down that I don’t
understand about it really. I mean I know that –
Lt. Deemer: You’re talking about a Caruso client –
Bill Rinehart: Yeah, he’s a client but –
Lt. Deemer: Do you mean Harrigan, Tommy Harrigan?
Bill Rinehart: No, it’s not Harrigan, that’s the one guy that I think that I met at
Billy Doyles house. Now nobody told me that he was Tommy
Harrigan, but I assumed it later from seeing him.
Lt. Deemer: I’ve got a picture…but its not Harrigan that’s the client then?
Bill Rinehart: No, no its not him. Its somebody that doesn’t have anything to do
with it. It’s a person that let Charles stay with him a couple of
years ago and Charles got in trouble about something or other. He
didn’t have a place to live and this guy let Charles live at his house
and Charles wanted to screw him in the ass. So, he kicked him out
of his house. The only thing I can really think about is that Charles
is now suing the Los Angeles Times.
Lt. Deemer: On what basis?
Bill Rinehart: Slander, because on the basis that a deal he had going about NBC
fell through because they said they didn’t want anything to do with
a murder suspect. That’s the basis of the suit he filed.
Lt. Deemer: Well who did you learn that from?
Bill Rinehart: Charles told me. And he showed me the letter from his lawyers,
Nigel and whatever. It said he was suing the Los Angeles Times –
September 30, 1969
Yeah that’s him but, no this doesn’t this really doesn’t look like
him, the guy that I saw at Billy’s house the night that I saw him. I
don’t know if it was this guy or not, because I remember the guy
was ugly and had curly black hair. It kind of looked like him and I
thought that he was Tommy Harrigan and Charles had told me –
Oh that’s Pic.
Lt. Deemer: This guy was ugly you say?
Bill Rinehart: Yeah, he kind of looked like that. I always thought it was Harrigan
you know he had a few teeth missing on the sides, Charles told me
that was Billy’s hitman, which I couldn’t even dig on that.
Lt. Deemer: Oh, I know who you’re talking about. That’s not Tommy Harrigan.
Bill Rinehart: Oh? This guy has curly black hair and he said that those were the
guys that had gone up to Ventura to get this faggot that had stole
money from them and wound up torturing him up there and
everything. And then it turned out that the kid was a masochist. He
dug it, you know he got it off, when they did it to him. He was
living at their house. I saw him up there a lot. Well a couple times
and he’s a faggot full on.
Billy, I don’t know about. I have my suspicions about him being

bisexual for a long time. The first time I ever met him he came up
and kissed me, you know, and I never even had met him before in
my life. Of course, he was really drunk.
Lt. Deemer: How long ago was that when you first met him?
Bill Rinehart: When I first met him was about, maybe six months ago, something
like that. Maybe it was longer than that because I was in Mexico
for a long time, when I came back I went –
Lt. Deemer: Did you end up locked up in Mexico?
Bill Rinehart: Yeah because of the play, Hair. They arrested the whole cast in
Acapulco, they threw us in prison.
Lt. Deemer: I read about that, you were in the –
Bill Rinehart: In the old prison
Lt. Deemer: How long?
Bill Rinehart: Three weeks.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: What was the circumstances Was it just from pot or was it just
from?
Bill Rinehart: Well see that’s what they said, but it wasn’t really pot. They said
that we were doing all these different things. The truth of the
matter is in the play the people take off their clothes and the
Federales said, “If you put on this play and you take off your
clothes your disgracing our women and were’ gonna kick you out
of the country.” The play went on the first night you know the
people, this generation I guess you could call them. They’re going
do it anyways. On opening night there was a lot of big stars and a
lot of people there. They did the play and it was a fantastic success
and the next morning the Federales came and arrested all of us.
Lt. Deemer: How long did you stay in jail?
Bill Rinehart: Three and a half weeks. It wasn’t jail though it was some weird
prison. I didn’t ever know that – I mean when they threw me in
there I was wishing that I was here in LA County. I would have
rather been in the LA County jail than there for sure. Dirt floors
and solitary confinement and water dripping out of a little faucet.
I’m serious, into a bucket, and no food for federal prisoners, which
we were, and they shaved our heads. They cut it off with the
scissors they didn’t shave it. They just threw us in this place and
we got our ass kicked. The first second we were in there the
Mexicans – because I had a pair of low cut Levi’s on and I was
real tan and everything and they threw me in there with all my hair
cut off by scissors and it was a weird experience.
Lt. Deemer: The gals go too?
Bill Rinehart: Oh, I don’t think you’d believe the stories about what happened to
some of the girls that were down there. We saw a couple girls get
raped.
Lt. Deemer: With the cast you mean?
Bill Rinehart: Yeah, the cast. I heard a lot of things like that. This one Federales
took my watch and this necklace that I had and then he wore it in
front of me the next day. You gotta sign this declaration that says
you disgraced our women and disgraced your country and our
country and that you’ll be penalized. I just said, “I’m not signing
this.” Because it was all in Spanish and each day they’d bring in an
interpreter, but they’d never let us have a lawyer or make a phone
call. I mean we were really – and we had driven down there in a
new Ford Station Wagon, I had two guitars that cost about a
September 30, 1969
$1,000.00 each. One that was a custom guitar that I’d waited a
long time for, and all the clothes from the play, hundreds of
trinkets from Mexico and the car. They got it down there now and
they’re just driving it around.
Lt. Deemer: Things are a little different down there.
Bill Rinehart: Oh well we finally wised up. All they wanted us to do was admit it
and as soon as we admitted it they released us, they deported us.
Now some people invited me to go to Puerta Vallarta about a
month after that happened, so I went down to the registration and I
said I have a certain amount of money and I’m cool –I had short
hair then too. I said, “I’d like to go down to Mexico.” And they
gave me my visa, and no one bothered me down there, stayed
down there for another month. It’s a weird place. They had whores
that would come on Thursdays and the families would come on
Sundays. It was strange, very strange. Unbelievable as a matter of
fact.
Lt. Deemer: Okay now what about Billy Doyle?
Bill Rinehart: Well, Billy Doyle has – I don’t know. I don’t know about him.
He’s a crazy kid. Billy’s a crazy kid. Billy has shot guns out of the
windows at people. He’s a crazy kid is all I can really say about
him. He’s supposedly a black belt in Karate, 3rd degree blackbelt,
can break things with his feet and his hands. People have
challenged him to do those things and its blown his mind because
he hasn’t been able to do it. Every time I saw Billy he was stoned.
For awhile he was stoned on Dordens and other various downers
and things. This was the one time that I really got involved with it
was when I was going to produce some records with Cass and I
was over there, and Charles came in and there was a phone call and
it was this guy Voytek who I’ve never met.
See they don’t believe me, that’s why when you ask me these
questions on the lie detector, why I’m not afraid to take it is
because I have never even met Roman Polanski or Sharon Tate, or
Voytek, or Jay Sebring. I’ve never even met them. I’ve never
talked to those people in my whole life. The only one that I know
is Billy Doyle and Charles. This one time there was a phone call,
and it was Voytek supposedly and he said he had a gun on Billy
and that if somebody didn’t come over and pick up Billy right then
and there he was going to do him in. When Charles came back
with Billy he was laying in the backseat and his face was all cut up
and everything and Charles then chained him to the tree in the
backyard at Cass’s house. That’s the closest I’ve ever been to
September 30, 1969
being involved with him in anyway except being at Billy’s house

buying cocaine from him.
Lt. Deemer: Was he stoned on coke that night?
Bill Rinehart: Oh, his big trip is champagne and coke. He would call down to
Green Blasts and just have bottles of the most expensive
champagne brought up there. It was a crazy scene. Like if you
walked in there, Pic would be sitting on the couch talking on the
phone all paranoid thing that his scene was into, I don’t even
know. Other people that I knew that are friends of mine that are
straight people compared to them because I consider myself
straight compared to Pic or Billy. They’re nutty people. You could
really pick up some heavy vibrations in there if you’re a sensitive
person. You walked in there and all the sudden there’s an aura of
craziness and this little fag that was running around. This other guy
was telling me that the guy with the curly black hair who Charles
told me was a hitman for Billy, some guy from Canada, some
mafia.
Lt. Deemer: Italian name?
Bill Rinehart: I really don’t know if you showed me a picture of him I’m sure I
could recognize him.
Lt. Deemer: I don’t have a picture of him, but I think I know who you mean.
Did he kind of run around there too at that time?
Bill Rinehart: Well he was always there and there was another guy there too.
Lt. Deemer: Was he the heavy?
Bill Rinehart: He was supposedly the heavy guy, there wasn’t a pay off or
something like that, he was the guy. Charles says, “Look it. Just
cool it, don’t go over there without me.” At the time Charles had
Cass’s dune buggy, that’s why all these people’s stories are so
weird. Because Cass says she didn’t know what was going on and
blah blah and John Phillips, I’ve heard said a few things. John
Phillips just had a party at his house a couple nights ago and this
girl that I live with – I mean I don’t ball her or anything, I just live
with her in the same house. And she told me – she didn’t come
home, and I said, “Well, where were you?” And she said, “I went
to this party with these freaky people that seen.” I said, who’s was
it and she said, “John Phillips and everybody was stoned on
mescaline.” So, here’s all these people saying they don’t have
September 30, 1969
anything to do with these drugs and this and that, and their having
parties right now. They’re all stoned out of their heads.
Lt. Deemer: This was just recently?
Bill Rinehart: This was just the night before last. But people –
Lt. Deemer: Cass was –
Bill Rinehart: I don’t know. Cass really did a number on my head, I couldn’t
believe it. She wanted to talk to me and she said, “Everything is
cool now, I don’t care about Billy.” She looked right in my eyes
and just told me the biggest fucking lies. I mean if she wasn’t lying
to me than the two people that talked to me last night were lying
full on to me. Because they said, “Were going to book this kid for
suspicion of murder.” I’m going, ‘Wait a second, I’ve never even
been to the house.” They said, “Well we have people that say
they’ve seen you at that house.” So, I don’t know. I’d just like to
take the test or whatever.
Lt. Deemer: How close are you with Cass?
Bill Rinehart: Well I was really close at one time. I really dug her. I still think
she’s really a groovy person. But I think she’s got a big mouth. In
the first place she didn’t have to say anything to anybody. She
didn’t have to get my name in involved, or Charles who I don’t
think had anything to do with it, or Billy. I don’t think any of those
people really had anything to do with it. And I heard that Charles
told the police that they were after a big load of grass from Jamaica
which turned out to be a big BS story. See it was a lie that became
the truth, because it so happened that Charles stooged Cass for a
motorcycle, so Charles could get some collateral, are you
following me? To get some collateral to go to Jamaica. They just
went there for vacation, I know they did. Now Charles has just
come back in the last couple of weeks and he says, “Here’s the
grass from Jamaica.” I know full well its Mexican grass that he got
from San Francisco. He’s gone around and told Cass and the
people that live with Cass, “This is the Jamaican grass.” The whole
thing is totally screwed up.
I heard from the very beginning that they wanted to question me,
but I figured, ‘Well if they want me they’ll call me up and tell me.’
All right so last night – the police that came and got me last night
were a little bit off base. They came and ran right over my mother
and she was standing there in the door and she says, “No you can’t
come in.” They just shoved her out of the way, it was kinda
September 30, 1969
ridiculous. They put the cuffs on me and you know dragged me out
in the neighborhood and it was really kind of a weird scene to have
come down on you.
Lt. Deemer: You’re lucky it wasn’t Mexico.
Bill Rinehart: Hey well at least in Mexico they don’t handcuff you or nothing.
They don’t humiliate you like that. They’re at least cool about it.
The guy says, “I’ve got a gun if you take one wrong step we’re
going to shoot you in the back of the head.” They tell you where
it’s at, at least. They don’t say, “You better come out here.” And
then slap, slap handcuffs, throw you in the backseat and say sit
here. They’re not like that you know. They have this family thing,
and they have this brotherhood thing down there that’s different
than around here, even though, they are backwards technically, and
they’re all fucked up in that way. They’re cool in other ways that
people around here don’t even understand.
Lt. Deemer: Different culture.
Bill Rinehart: It’s not really a different culture because you can go down to the
Yucatan Peninsula where the Aztecs and meet some of the Indians
from Acapulco that have high cheek bones and long black hair and
big eyes and look like Egyptian people. You’re getting into a very
sophisticated race of primitive Indians, that are very sophisticated
people that can do a lot thing that we can’t do around here. It’s
almost not like it’s a different culture it’s almost like it’s groovy.
Lt. Deemer: At one time –
Bill Rinehart: Hey well they lasted for how many thousands of years? The United
States has been around for 100 years and we don’t really have too
much chance of surviving the way things are now.
Lt. Deemer: 200 years.
Bill Rinehart: 200 years, even 300. 400. 500. It’s still a little bit at a time
compared to how much these other races of people. Like the
Romans and the Egyptians or you know.
Anyways. That’s where its at I think. But, I know Billy, I know

Pic, I know Charles and I don’t know Tommy Harrigan, I don’t
think that I’ve ever met him before. I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen
him before.
Lt. Deemer: You think Billy had the coke then?
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: Tommy Harrigan, I know is dealing cocaine right now in this
town. Right at this very second you can buy coke from Tommy
Harrigan. I’ve had four or five people tell me that he’s dealing
again, and here’s Caruso saying he’s beer drinking Irishman. These
people are morally screwed up. I can’t believe it. That’s why if I’m
the last person who’s going to be questioned, like I said last night,
“You guys are desperate to get somebody.” Which must be true.
See there’s other things that I think are true too that I don’t see
why it couldn’t be true. Like I’ve heard for a long time that
Sharon’s baby belonged to Jay, and that Polanski was all fucked up
over it. And that he wasn’t get along with Sharon for a long, long
time before he ever left for London, why he was there during the
killings. I’ve heard a couple of tell me that its totally a job that
Polanski hired four people in Europe to do the job. Three Polish
guys and one American guy involved.
That story would seem a lot more correct with some more basis
than to say, “Here’s a lone person, Bill Rinehart –” and to tell you
the truth I’m just a stoned-out freak. If you say, “Where were you
on the night of so and so?” I’m going to say well duh, just like if I
tripped over a big crack in the sidewalk and I wanted to sue the
city, I’d never be able to sue the city because I wouldn’t remember
where the crack in the sidewalk was. Even my mother said to me,
“If they asked me where I was on a certain night, I wouldn’t be
able to say.” I really don’t know what questions you’re going to
ask me except –
Lt. Deemer: I think if you’d killed five people you’d remember where you
were.
Bill Rinehart: Yeah. I’m sure that the lie detector would say. You know I’d like
to see murderers caught too, I hate to see this whole scene get
broken up the way its being broken up because people that were
friends at one time are now stabbing other people in the back. I’ve
gotten this from a lot of sources. I mean people will say that Bill
Rinehart is a little bit crazy, but I’ll say that Cass is a little bit
flipped out herself, and so is Charles, and so is Billy, and so is
John Phillips, and so is his wife. I mean I use to work with this guy
who went out with John Phillips wife, that went out with Michelle.
Gene Clark he went out with Michelle and I used to play with him
in a group. He was in a group called the Birds. John Phillips was
crazy when she was going out with this other guy. He’d called up
and sneak around the house and do his little numbers. All these
September 30, 1969
people are – anybody who’s taken drugs I’m sure is change vastly.
I mean everybody that I know that’s taken drugs is paranoid,
everybody is schizophrenic. It’s very hard to find somebody that’s
not telling you two stories at the same time. Even I realize that I
tell two stories at the same time and without hardly even realizing
it.
Lt. Deemer: Do you think people are schizophrenic before they take the drugs
and then the drug accentuates it, or they take the drugs and they
become schizophrenic?
Bill Rinehart: Well a lot of it is because most of the hippies, whether you guys
know it or not are conservative hippies. I consider myself a
conservative, I really do. I mean I like to live in the United States, I
think it’s a groovy place. I’m not a protester or an antiwar
anything, I don’t want to see the communists walk over us. I’m a
conservative. The only thing I really think is that grass should be
legalized. I consider myself very conservative, I’m not a radical at
all or just because I have long hair. The other police are saying,
“How would you like it if the communist walked over you?”
They’re taking me as being a….
Lt. Deemer Symbol.
Bill Rinehart: Right. All these people like John Phillips and Cass, those people
are conservative people. You know we’re right along with the
establishment. We’re using all the technological equipment in the
recording studios, things that were invented by scientists who are
part of the establishment. We’re not freaking out in communes or
anything like that, and to have questions thrown at you that you’re
a radical – they assume that you’re a radical type of person. You
can be schizophrenic in the answer back because there’s not really
any answer. You must tell them two answers to a question, “Why
do you smoke pot?” or something like that.
Lt. Deemer: Billy mentioned to me he thought you were in Guadalajara?
Bill Rinehart: No, I’ve never been to Guadalajara.
Lt. Deemer: Is there another Rinehart?
Bill Rinehart: No. Not that I know of.
Lt. Deemer: A Bruce Rinehart?
Bill Rinehart: No. Not in my family.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: And you’ve never been to Guadalajara?
Bill Rinehart: No. Only Puerta Vallarta and Mexico City and Acapulco.
Lt. Deemer: But you do produce records.
Bill Rinehart: Yes, I do. If Billy said it was Bruce Rinehart, then it must not be
me because he’s knows me.
Lt. Deemer: He wasn’t sure, he said he thought you were in Guadalajara

producing some records.
Bill Rinehart: In Guadalajara producing records (laughs).
Lt. Deemer: No, he said you produce records, and he thought you were in
Guadalajara.
Bill Rinehart: Oh.
Lt. Deemer: You haven’t left the state since the what time?
Bill Rinehart: Well I’ve been to Puerta Vallarta and I was in Boca during
Christmas.
Lt. Deemer: How about Susan Howe? Do you know a Susan Howe?
Bill Rinehart: Susan Howe? No. I’ve never heard the name before.
Lt. Deemer: Dark haired gal.
Bill Rinehart: No. I can tell you how many dark-haired girls I know on one hand.
Lt. Deemer: Did you talk to either Doyle or Dawson since this thing went
down?
Bill Rinehart: Indirectly. One time when I was with Charles and Billy called him
from Canada and Charles told him that I was in the room. That’s
about as close to Billy as I’ve gotten.
Lt. Deemer: Was that after Charles talked to the police?
Bill Rinehart: A week and a half ago, it was a week and a half or so. And I know
that Billy has called Charles a couple of times from Canada. He
wants Charles to come up there.
Lt. Deemer: What’s Billy doing now?
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: Well he’s a dope dealer, he always will be a dope dealer. You
know – he considers – he’s crazy, he’s a crazy kid, he’s a lunatic. I
wouldn’t have anything to do with him and never have.
Lt. Deemer: A sense of erratic behavior?
Bill Rinehart: He completely screwed Cass up. He’s neurotic. He’s a neurotic
person. He’s got so many different personalities inside of him that
it’s kind of hard to pick out one thing. He’s very, very paranoid.
He’s a very paranoid kid. Every time you’d go someplace with him
he’s paranoid, like he’ll always say – like somebody will take a
stare at him, because he’s kind of a strange looking kid, and he’ll
look back at him, and he’ll eyes will go, you know he’ll really give
them the eye back. And that’s paranoia when somebody looks at
you and you immediately try and defend yourself, he makes it
obvious its paranoia.
He’s also got these other weird things that go along with his
paranoia. Like I said he’s neurotic. He’s just a strange kid. I wish I
could give you the kind of terms that you would understand, I
could only tell you things that he’s done you know. Paranoid I
understand.
Lt. Deemer: Of course, coke will make you paranoid too.
Bill Rinehart: What?
Lt. Deemer: Coke.
Bill Rinehart: Well if you use it the way he does.
Lt. Deemer: Especially coming down.
Bill Rinehart: No. Well if you’re on a down trip if you’re on a bummer. He was
on a big bummer because the story that I’ve always heard was that
Billy was a kind of executive for his father who owns some bank
in Canada or something like that. He’s president of some bank, and
Billy had been in business and so and so and he lost all his money
and everything. If you’re on that kind of a trip and that’s all he
ever thought about, I know. He would always claim to be the
businessman and he was going to be the manager for so and so.
But if he had ever walked into an office in front of some of the
people that I have to work with they would have laughed right in
his face. Because the demands that he wanted to make, like the
contracts and everything were totally ridiculous. He was in a
September 30, 1969
different world as far as – like he was trying to get into the music
business. He would have never got in there, ever. He was going to
have Charles go in with him, I mean it was funny.
Charles use to come into my sessions with Billy. That’s their big
trip for people that are bored. Actors and actresses that are bored
and their friends, they like to go to recording sessions when a good
group is recording. They sit around and get high, that’s their thing.
Take a hit or two and that’s an evening for them. I’ve had people
come to all my sessions and they sit there in the front row, you
know they have a place for people to sit and they dig on what’s
happening. That’s how I got to know Charles was through a rock
and roll group that I was producing.
Charles is in a place that everybody knows about. Everybody

knows he’s a big bullshitter. Everybody knows that its groovy to
be friends with Charles because Charles is a groovy guy. People
who just meet him one or two times immediately swayed by
Charles Tacot because he can look you in the eye and give you a
story that is so far out – you know everybody knows where he’s at.
I gotta tell ya that all my friends do. Charles Tacot is groovy,
sometimes he has some good grass, sometimes he has some coke.
That’s Charles’ scene he goes around from house to house with a
couple lids of grass and some coke in his pocket and he turns on all
his friends. Everybody knows where he’s at. He lives in a little
dump that’s down at the end of Doheny, a crash pad that he can
hardly even pay the rent for, its like $50.00 a month or something
like that. Everybody that Charles has ever had anything to do with
doesn’t dig him because he’s wound up screwing them. But
Charles is still Charles and he’s always been around just like he is
now.
Lt. Deemer: So, he and Billy Doyle seemed to hit off?
Bill Rinehart: Because Charles moves in on the scene he moved into Cass’s
scene. Like Charles was there every day and every night keeping
things under control. He had Billy swayed because Billy so stoned
out of his mind that it was Uncle Charles here. Anything that
would happen, anytime that Billy got paranoid he would say,
“Charles, uh…” he would really turn to him just like a father or
something like that. Billy took him to Jamaica with him and
everything. He got the motorcycle for Charles to sell to a friend of
mine for collateral. Charles was going to give him ten kilos of
grass back for the motorcycle. My friend gave Charles a $1,000 for
the motorcycle which wasn’t even Cass’s it belonged to Pic. And
through Billy, Charles stooged Cass into giving the motorcycle up.
September 30, 1969
This is the way Charles operates, he always has, and he always

will. He’ll never change, his ways are totally set. I’ve known him
to be the same for a long time. Everybody else does too.
Lt. Deemer: Did you ever know him to do any filming?
Bill Rinehart: Oh yeah, he went to Mexico to film a pot movie. But I think that’s
a bunch of bullshit too. He’s got all these reels in his apartment
he’s gonna cut this and he’s gonna cut that. But every time you ask
him to see it or anything like that he gives you a bullshit story.
Lt. Deemer: He does have reels at his house?
Bill Rinehart: He does but –
Lt. Deemer: But if there’s anything on them you don’t know.
Bill Rinehart: No, I don’t know. I don’t think so either because I know some
smugglers down in Mexico that say that if Charles comes down to
Mexico he’s had it. They don’t dig him down there. They don’t
want him around there he’s gonna get killed if he goes back.
Charles carries a gun on him he’s had ever since I’ve known him
because a smuggler is after him, a certain smuggler that Charles
turned in his name at one time. They blew a deal, as a matter of
fact Charles’ friend this other guy who was killed by the Federales
and Charles ran and left him there. It was a whole scene. When
Charles got back to this country this other smuggler came and spit
in his face in the street said he was going to do him in right there.
He was going to fight him right there. Ever since then Charles has
carried a gun on him. That’s what I know about Charles. I know
that Billy had a couple guns too and I know that he traded one of
his guns to another friend of mine for some coke.
I told them that last night and I don’t know if they believed me.
They just looked at me and they said, “You’re lying about
everything that you’re saying.” I was telling them exactly what I’m
saying to you right now.
Lt. Deemer: Your friend gave Billy a gun in exchange for coke?
Bill Rinehart: No Billy gave him the gun in exchange for coke. It’s a .25 caliber
automatic, I think. You know with the clip that goes in the bottom.
Now Steven Oliver who is also another friend of mine told me that
they showed him a knife, some sort of a bowie knife, or knife with
a bone handle on it. So, Oliver told this friend of mine, Nick, who
September 30, 1969
is a friend of mine and a friend of Charles that at one time he had

tried to buy this knife off me in front of Charles. He said that he
flashed on it that it was my knife, now I really have been thinking
hard about this, and I had a knife that sounds like it could be the
knife, but I really don’t know. I mean I flashed heavily last night
and all the sudden this thought just came to me that I had it. I don’t
remember anyone ever saying, “Can I buy a knife from you”.
Lt. Deemer: Steven Oliver’s knife that you’re talking about?
Bill Rinehart: I’m talking about Steven Oliver.
[Background sound and whistle]
Bill Rinehart: This is really a valuable knife right here. I know a couple of people
that have these. No, none of these are the kind. I am sure am glad
too, because the knife that had is shaped like this (indicates) but
it’s a little wider at the end, its about this short, and the blade is not
this kind of blade, it’s a straight blade. I’m sure this must be the
knife he’s talking about though. This knife here, I’d like to have it
I’d like to buy one of these. Now I’m not even afraid – the shape of
it was like this but it was with a bone handle like this one.
Lt. Deemer: What’s your relationship with Oliver, Steven Oliver?
Bill Rinehart: Steve and I are like groovy friends because Steven is a very
talented cat. Like I’ve written a lot of songs with Steven. I’ll sit
down with Steven up in the hills or some place. We’ll go out in the
hills and sit down with a guitar and I’ll play the guitar and he starts
writing fantastic lyrics that have made me a lot of money and made
him money too. That’s the relationship I have. I have a very close
relationship with him as far as his talent goes for writing songs.
Other than that, I think he’s a stinking actor. I saw a series on TV
last Friday. He’s on a new series. It’s a piece of junk.
Lt. Deemer: What new series?
Bill Rinehart: It’s called Bracken’s World. It’s on Friday night at 10:00. It’s
about some Hollywood producer or something, I don’t know. He’s
on this series and he uh… That’s the relationship I’ve had with
Oliver.
This doesn’t work.
Lt. Deemer: Yeah. It’s an auto-injector.
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: This is the best knife right here. These kind lock, I know.
Seriously a couple friends of mine that are in this yoga class with
me, they’re like vegetarians and everything. They have these kinds
of knives here. You can’t buy them around town anymore. They’re
not available. They just are not happening. They cost like about
$25 - $30 anyways.
Lt. Deemer: They’re $16.00.
Bill Rinehart: $16.00?
Lt. Deemer: You can get them downtown.
Bill Rinehart: Downtown? I know I went to this knife store on Reseda Blvd and
the guy said that they weren’t making them anymore. They came
in a box and everything that said, “Dealers…”
Lt. Deemer: Well I don’t know whether they’re making them anymore or not.
They’re made right here in San Diego.
Bill Rinehart: Oh yeah?
Lt. Deemer: Oliver says that he –
Bill Rinehart: He says, and I’m assuming he was talking about the knife with the
bone handle, this is the only one I’ve seen with a bone handle. He
says that at one time he tried to buy a knife off me with a bone
handle at Charles’ house. Now I don’t recall this but last night I did
flash, I really did. I was really thinking about it very strongly. I had
this flash in my head of the knife that I owned and its this shape
here, and it doesn’t have this kind of a blade. It’s not this knife.
Like I was kind of even scared about it if you asked me that
question on the lie detector but now I’m not –
Lt. Deemer: Last night you told the guys you didn’t have a knife, or didn’t have
a knife?
Bill Rinehart: Well I really couldn’t remember about it until this friend of mine,
Nick told me he said Oliver told him that he had recalled me
having a knife that he tried to buy off me at one time at Charles’
house that I wouldn’t sell him. So, when I started really thinking
about it I can remember that I do have a knife with a bone handle,
and I don’t know where it is. But its not anyone of these knives
here.
Lt. Deemer: Is Charles a knife nut?
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: Knife nut? Charles taught me how to throw a knife. He’s a knife
thrower. He’s got all these special knives you know, some circus
knives and stuff.
Lt. Deemer: Did he ever throw knives?
Lt. Deemer: Where? At Cass’s?
Bill Rinehart: No at the ra– Charles did once in a while, he also had this blowgun
too that was really fucking dangerous. This Wham-O blowgun that
shot these darts about this long, this crazy thing. But Charles
taught me how to throw a knife [tape goes static for 43 seconds,
resumes in mid-sentence] – .25 Buntline which is kind of a
ridiculous gun. It’s kind of a six shooter, Buntline, they have a
long barrel. And he would never let me shoot his handgun that he
keeps on him, but he did teach me how to throw a knife. There’s a
whole thing to it. It must go around one turn at three and half feet
and two turns from six and half feet, and he knows what he’s
doing. It’s where its at, he can stick it in the log every time.
Lt. Deemer: What other guns have you seen?
Bill Rinehart: Well I seen this gun that supposedly Billy was shooting out the
window with, you know?
Lt. Deemer: Was that the .25 you’re talking about?
Bill Rinehart: I’m pretty sure that’s the gun that he traded to Chris Selman (sic)
for the coke. This friend of mine that he gave him this gun for
something else. That’s really all I know about it. That guy was a
.25, I was told that. I’m not even sure if it was a .25 or not.
But another story that is come back. This is from Caruso that they
had already found fingerprints and footprints at the murder site and
that the gun was a small caliber gun. They also said that in the Free
Press and in Time magazine.
I just really don’t know what to tell you, there’s so many things.
There’s so many involved little things. Little side trips because
everybody does know everybody else. I don’t care what anybody
says, these people everybody knows everybody else. Everybody at
one time or another has sold a little dope that they’ve got to a
friend. Which would make all of them a dealer in actual reality.
The way the law stands it makes all of us dealers.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: When you’re blowing, do you use anything else?
Bill Rinehart: Sure, I’ve tried everything, but I’ve never shot up anything. I’ve
taken some meth in a glass of water before and its like taking a
Desbutol.
Lt. Deemer: How about mescaline?
Bill Rinehart: Mescaline I’ve taken. Mescaline see I’ve never taken any synthetic
mescaline. But in Mexico you can get organic mescaline, what you
get is peyote buttons. You can go to the reservation in New
Mexico and eat peyote buttons along with the Indians where its
legal. They have special cards where they can eat it. Whereas I’ve
heard if you’re caught around here its like being caught with
smack. I mean the whole thing is a little strange. Acid I haven’t
taken for a long time. I used to take it all the time, but it really gets
you too – every time you want to take acid or something like that it
picks you up and drops you in a different place. No matter what’s
happening, you have different feelings about the same thing. You
know what I mean?
Lt. Deemer: No.
Bill Rinehart: Well I mean you might look at a leaf and it might look green to
you, well after the acid trip you might look at it and it might look
brown to you. I’m just using that as a subject, you know a leaf. It
could be the same thing with somebody’s personality though, and
that’s what causes a lot of friendships to breakup on acid. A lot of
people flip out because they’ll see something, and they won’t be
able to realize that its just happening in their head and no place
else. If they sat there and looked the other way it wouldn’t affect
them.
Lt. Deemer: When you’re using drugs has anyone ever indicated to you that
you might make statements that uh…
Bill Rinehart: People say that my personality is grossly changed because I smoke
grass, but I say that about other people too. I mean everybody says
that, there is not too many people that I know that don’t change
when they’re high. Either they get very quiet or they get a little bit
crazy.
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever made any statements that about this crime either in
jest or in –
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: Well in jest not really in jest but just as a part of the conversation.
I’ve maybe indicated in certain ways that I might know something
about it. People think that I know something – see that’s why, it’s a
lie that gets turned into the truth. Because I really don’t know these
people.
Lt. Deemer: Why would you say these things?
Bill Rinehart: Well I did not really say it but almost be intimidated by other
people and myself, by certain words that you say, and people
assume that you know what’s happening and you really don’t. A
lot of people have told me people that work with me, two girls
have told me a lot about Polanski. And they told me a lot about
Warren Beatty and some of the scenes that Polanski had with
Warren Beatty with these two girls, two twin girls. They’d been to
his house at parties and stuff like that –
Lt. Deemer: With sex you mean?
Bill Rinehart: Well I mean like, look it, can I just say the words that I wanna say?
Yeah, I mean like Roman wanting to masturbate while some girl
watched him because that was what – Warren Beatty set of their
cracked up and popped some amyl nitrates. Now see when you
repeat this – If I have ever repeated this story to somebody, then
you know the story will get back to somebody else that I told the
story and they’ll naturally assume that I saw it. That’s what I mean
not really connected to them but in a way kind of. I’ve never met
Roman, I never met Sharon, I’ve never met Jay, and I’ve never met
Voytek. I’ve only heard about Voytek one time.
Lt. Deemer: Were you ever up to Cielo?
Bill Rinehart: I’ve never been up to Cielo Drive. Never seen the house in person
only in the newspapers.
Lt. Deemer: Well like they were telling you last night there have been a couple
of people that indicate they have seen you there.
Bill Rinehart: That’s right, well you should give them a lie detector test and find
out if they’re really being cool too. I’m willing to take it because I
figure that even if I am crazy and even if my body is a little bit
disrupted from drugs that if the lie detector is true to form, that my
mind is not going to be – it’s going to be cool. Because I’ve never
been there. I’ve never met those people. That’s just where it’s at.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever made any statements regarding – well for instance
how you were telling me about Polanski hiring four people. Uh –
Bill Rinehart: I’ve been a lot of stories by Cass, by the people that live with Cass,
by Charles, stories that have come through the people who lived
with Cass through John Phillips. Conversations that –
Lt. Deemer: You might repeat things?
Bill Rinehart: Sure, I’ve repeated a lot of things. I’ve repeated them to try to save
other people misery too, like people say that they were going to
pick up Steven Oliver. So, Steven said, “What’s happening Bill,
why do they want to question me?” I’ll say, “Well look it Steven,
I’ve been up at Cass’s house and I’ve heard them say this and this.
Indirectly said things to other people, because everybody knows
everybody else. It’s a very simple thing I mean everybody gets
high together and all the people do that are involved.
I’ve heard from a lot of people that Sharon Tate and Sebring that
they were the biggest freaks on drugs of anybody. They took more
drugs than any people did. I’ve heard on the news that they didn’t
take any drugs and I know indirectly that they do take drugs. Just
like I know that indirectly John Phillips had a party were
everybody was stoned on mescaline. Because I’m hearing it from
a different source that doesn’t know anything about this murder.
She’s saying that she was up there and that she was so stoned that
she couldn’t even drive home. She had to take a cab home. I said,
“Well who’s house where you at?” John Phillips.
Also last month there was a party at that house on Cielo Drive. I
got invited to the stupid thing. Somebody asked me to come along
to this party.
Lt. Deemer: You got invited to a party?
Bill Rinehart: Yes. After the murder by the guy that owns the house. He owns
another house where the Beatles were staying at too. He’s a freaky
guy he rents houses to the stars and stuff. Why he was having a
party up there is beyond me. I can’t understand it at all.
Lt. Deemer: A little bit ghoulish huh?
Bill Rinehart: Well he’s a little bit – People are a little bit crazy. I don’t even
hang out with these people, I really don’t. I really can’t understand
why I even got involved in this. Because it originally started out
that I was going to produce a record for Cass. The only reason that
September 30, 1969
the thing never came down is because Cass was so hung up on

Billy Doyle that she went a little bit insane herself.
[Crosstalk]
They were going to get married, she was in love with him.
Lt. Deemer: What’s Billy’s reputation, is he a great fucker or something?
Bill Rinehart: Well I don’t think he’s got any kind of reputation, I think he’s
bisexual myself. He’s indicated to me a lot of times by coming up
and kissing me and doing weird kind of things. I’ve seen him do it
to a lot of other people too. He told Cass and I got the story from
Cass, that Voytek had balled him in the ass one time. Now Cass
told me three days ago that the reason why they talked to Billy was
because Voytek’s pants were pulled down at the murder site. I
mean there are so many stories I really don’t know what to believe
myself.
Lt. Deemer: There’s several people hanging around this Cass. Is it because
she’s –
Bill Rinehart: She’s a superstar.
Lt. Deemer: Is that why?
Bill Rinehart: That’s why. Because she in actual reality was a superstar at one
time. She’s a very in thing. They talk about her on the radio all the
time. “Mama Cass is going to do this” Cass is friends with
Donavon and Johnny Cash. She knows all these people and they all
know her. She’s a part of a very in crowd. Now there’s not too
many friends that come over there anymore. Nobody comes over
to see Cass anymore. People come over to see the people that live
with her, another guy who’s an actor his name is Benny Caruthers.
I’m sure you’ve heard about him too. He lives there with his wife
and they have a baby. But Cass has a kid that the maid takes care
of and the kid calls the maid, “Mama”. I mean that’s where Cass is
at you know.
Lt. Deemer: Does she have sexual relationships with these people or is it just
the –
Bill Rinehart: Cass?
Lt. Deemer: Yeah.
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: Oh no. Cass was pregnant herself, she wasn’t married. I mean Cass
likes to get into it herself, which is kinda hard to believe from
talking to her, but she’s just as freaked out as anybody else is.
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever had relations with her?
Bill Rinehart: No. I just wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Lt. Deemer: Take it by the pound you’d be in trouble.
Bill Rinehart: Really. It’d be a little bit ridiculous.
[Crosstalk] but I’m sure that Billy has. Pic was living with her at
one time, so was Billy and I know a couple of other guys that lived
with her too. I’ve always heard about Cass like I still haven’t found
out who got her pregnant. There’s a story about that and that was
three years ago.
Lt. Deemer: Maybe it was the toilet seat.
Bill Rinehart: Maybe it was.
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever made the statement to anybody, repeated a said
story that a couple of Spanish guys did this?
Bill Rinehart: Uh, I’ve repeated a story that I’ve heard that the Black Panthers
did it, and I know for a fact that you can get coke from the Black
Panthers anytime. I had the feeling all the time that…well this is
kind of weird to say because I really don’t know. I’ve always had
the feeling because the like Black Panther’s have always said to
me “We’ll give coke” – the ones that I know about – “We’ll give
you cocaine for guns.” I know Billy and Charles were really into
guns and knives and stuff like that. They really are, especially
Charles he’s not a lot. Like I said he taught me how to throw a
knife. I know a couple of other friends of mine that he’s also taught
how to throw knife and shoot a gun.
Spanish guys, they’re not Spanish guys but there’s this one person
that Charles – I was telling you before the reason why he carries a
gun on him is in Guadalajara, he’s making a grass buy. Charles use
to be friends with this guy, now so it turns out – now I’ve heard
this, and I don’t know if its true or not, I’d like to find out but,
supposedly there’s been two murders down there. Two Mexicans
just recently. This guy supposedly just bumped them off, this
friend of Charles. But you see Charles has got himself in so much
heat, because he said he’s going to go to Jamaica and get grass, he
September 30, 1969
never came back with anybody with any grass. He had all this front
money and these things that people were giving him as Charles’
last chance. I really mean that too, nobody will even associate with
him now. Then all the sudden he came up with this pound of grass
a couple weeks ago, and he’s gone around to all the people that he
said he was going to bring Jamaican grass to and told them that it
was Jamaican grass. He’s told some people it was Mexican grass.
It’s hard to really get a true picture of what’s happening between
all these people’s personalities because everybody is freaked
personality wise. Everybody lies I lie a little bit myself to get
myself out of things.
Lt. Deemer: Do you steal?
Bill Rinehart: Sometimes. I’ve been known to be a pack rat at times, but I know a
lot of other people that are too. They’ll see some groovy little
roach clip or something like that. I mean I’ve had people take
things from me, the same way as I’ve picked up something of
theirs.
It’s a funny kind of a scene it’s the kind of a scene where nobody
really…well I’m kind of sorry that I’m the last one that their
talking to, that they’re going after because if I would have come in
on the very first day, maybe my story would have believed and
theirs wouldn’t have been.
Lt. Deemer: Yeah after the first liar, the second liar doesn’t have a chance.
Bill Rinehart: That’s right. Because as soon as somebody lies then the next
person who wants to lie doesn’t have a chance. That’s true.
Lt. Deemer: Well we’ll give you this exam and give you a chance – Oh one
thing though, did you ever pull a knife on anybody?
Bill Rinehart: Uh, well there’s this one chick that says I did but it’s a bunch of
BS. She told me she was going to shoot me with a gun, this chick
that I was living with you know, and I had gone through this whole
scene with her. It’ll take a while to explain this kind of scene. I was
living with her, we had agreed to live together, and we were
sleeping in the same bed you know. She had an operation or
something like that, she was all screwed up, bleeding or whatever
you know. I wound up getting pissed off about the second week
and we just didn’t get along and so she wanted me to move out and
I wanted her to move out. I’d given the money for rent and she had
signed the lease because they won’t rent to long hairs and that’s
true they just don’t. So, she wound up kicking me out and what she
September 30, 1969
used to get me out of the house was that I told her that I wasn’t
going to leave is that one night I called her cunt front of her friends
and so she said if I had a gun I’d shoot you. At the time she had a
knife in her hand, a big kitchen knife. She was cutting up onions
and stuff, and when she put it down I grabbed it and she went and
called her mother right there and she said, “He pulled a knife on
me.” She said she was going to make a police report to that effect.
That’s what she used to get me out of the house. She said, “I’m
afraid of you and I’ve told the police I’m afraid of you and so you
better get out because if you come back I’m going to call the
police.” So, what am I supposed to do? So, she says that I pulled a
knife on her but I’m saying that I didn’t really pull a knife on her. I
picked up this knife because she had it in her hand, and she’s
talking about how she’s going to shoot me with a gun.
Lt. Deemer: You messed up her car over it?
Bill Rinehart: She stole a whole bunch of my stuff.
Lt. Deemer: Then you messed up her car.
Bill Rinehart: No, I didn’t mess up her car.
Lt. Deemer: You know about it.
Bill Rinehart: I know about it, yeah. I can’t believe that she would say these
kinds of things though, because see our stories are so – she went to
my parents and I don’t have very good relations with my parents
and they said, “Well if you don’t call the police and tell them he
pulled a knife on you, well pay for the damage on your car.” I went
back to my parents and told them to fuck off because I’m not
digging that at all. She would ask me for money to buy food for the
house. The first week I went in there and I gave her $60.00 to buy
groceries, because a friend of mine was living there. She went out
and bought an antique dresser drawer and a new pair of jeans for
herself. She came back, and I got pissed off at her. This is how the
whole fight started. I didn’t have that much money and she didn’t
have any money at all. My friend didn’t have any money, I’m the
only one who had some bread. I give her the bread and I say, “Go
out and buy some food.” And she came back with an antique
dresser drawer, that blew my mind, I really didn’t dig it at all. Plus,
she signed the least and she made it, so I was the one who got
kicked out, she just kicked me out on the street and threw my
clothes out on the street. I don’t know if you have that written
down either. That’s the way it wound up. She just took all my stuff
and threw it out in the street. She says that I took some leather
September 30, 1969
clothes from my friend that I have since told my friend, I still work
with him now. He come back to me and says, “I finally found out
that Louise is really a cunt.” You can even ask Steven Oliver,
Steven Oliver started to take her out and he says, “That chick’s not
going to give me any shit.” Well you know what Steven Oliver
says now he says that she’s a cunt. My friend wants to move out of
there now too because she’s just a total screwy chick. She was
married when she was 18 and she has a kid and the kid doesn’t
even know her as her mother. And Louise is a little screwed up
over it. She can’t take kid, uh she’s really screwed up. Her life has
been screwed up by her husband and now she feels that she should
be allowed to go out and be free. I said, “Look it. What are you
telling me you’re going to live with me for and then a week later
you’re saying that you were married to young and that now you’re
just finding out that you have to go and find out where its at?”
That’s what she was telling me. So, I said, “You’re a cunt.” And
she said if she had a gun she’d shoot me for calling her that, and at
the time she had a knife. So, I left after that, she took all myself
and threw it out in the street and I haven’t seen her since then. Not
only that but she took some valuable art stuff that I had put in the
house for decoration and stuff. I never saw it. She took about five
or six silver watches that I had and silver boxes that I had. I collect
these little boxes, she took all those things, she took a leather shirt
that the Indian’s made, the Apache Indians made, old with a bullet
hole in the sleeve and everything. It cost a $180, she took that and
hid that when I left. It was totally ridiculous she wouldn’t give me
even my rent back. I said, “Look it baby just give me my money
back that I spent, and I’ll leave.” She says, “Well you don’t get any
money back.” But she says that I’m crazy, I say that she’s really
fucked. But that doesn’t have anything to do with any of this
anyway.
Lt. Deemer: No.
Bill Rinehart: Like she says that I pulled a knife on her but ask me that question.
Lt. Deemer: As you say, it has no bearing.
Bill Rinehart: Yeah it doesn’t really.
Lt. Deemer: You may recall some of this.
Bill Rinehart: Downtown you get these huh?
Lt. Deemer: hmm mmm
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: This is illegal unless you carry it in the case though huh. I really
am happy that I’ve never seen any of these knives before.
Lt. Deemer: Do you know a guy by the name of Charles Sinatra?
Bill Rinehart: Yeah. He just killed himself.
Lt. Deemer: When was this?
Bill Rinehart: Just yesterday he killed himself.
Lt. Deemer: Oh. You’re bullshitting?
Bill Rinehart: No. That’s strange that you mentioned his name because really, he
committed suicide yesterday.
Lt. Deemer: What was his problem?
Bill Rinehart: He was hung up on this chick and she wanted a divorce from him
and he couldn’t handle it. That’s the truth. Charles was a good
friend of mine for a long time. It blew my mind yesterday I talked
to this chick who just said Charles is dead. He tried to commit
suicide before, he took Seconals and they got him to the hospital in
time and I guess this time he just got a bigger amount about 40 or
50 of them. She told me yesterday that they found him dead. But
that’s weird. Why did that name come in – do you have something
written down about him? He used to sell acid and stuff like that a
long time ago. He doesn’t even know Billy Doyle, or he didn’t
know any of those people and anyways he’s dead. That’s weird,
that’s a flash that you mentioned his name because I just heard this
as a matter of fact it was just last night after I left here. I went over
and saw this chick and the doctor had been there giving her a shot
of some sedative. She said Charles is dead, he killed himself.
That’s how far paranoia takes you when you take a lot of acid.
Like when she first left him he flipped out, he was taken acid
everyday for about three weeks and drinking a lot of booze. He
might have gotten taken in for shooting up his apartment one time.
They put him in jail and then he came out and he couldn’t believe
he’d been in jail. He’d never experienced anything like that, he
saw a couple of people get beat up and he went on this whole trip
for the last few months he’s been totally in a different place. He
tried it before.
Lt. Deemer: Finally made the big team huh?
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: Oh, that’s the most cowardly out you can, it’s hard to believe he
just took a bunch of downers and just fall asleep.
Lt. Deemer: He’s with that big acid peddler in the sky. This guy was a pretty
good friend of yours huh?
Bill Rinehart: He was at one time. He uh, I don’t know its weird. He’s gone.
Lt. Deemer: Were you ever at a party with Charles?
Bill Rinehart: Gee I don’t know I’ve probably been to a couple of parties where
he’s been too you know, you mean Charles Sinatra?
Lt. Deemer: hmm mm
Bill Rinehart: Not that I can really remember I’ve gone out with Charles for
dinner and things like that. He and this other friend of mine
Antonio they use to both work at a clothes store in Hollywood. I
met them there. I was playing rock and roll, I bought clothes there
and that’s where I met them.
Lt. Deemer: Do you recall of have you been told by anyone that you’ve ever
gotten violent before.
Bill Rinehart: I’ve been really pissed off at the studio because I feel when I’m
producing a session somebody starts to give me some shit than its
my right to tell them to leave the studio.
Lt. Deemer: What’s your primary gig are you an arranger or a –
Bill Rinehart: I’m an arranger and a producer. Primarily I’m a song writer
though.
Lt. Deemer: You write?
Lt. Deemer: You write music and lyrics?
Bill Rinehart: Music and lyrics. I’ve wrote somethings with Oliver he’s written
some lyrics. Sure, I mean hasn’t everybody had an occasion to get
violent. And get pissed off at somebody. I smacked some girl one
time pretty good in front of a whole lot of people.
Lt. Deemer: You ever pull a knife on anyone?
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: No. Never pulled a knife on anyone. Except that one-time Louise
says I did, which was a bunch of bullshit.
Lt. Deemer: When you were shooting with Charles –
Bill Rinehart: This was over two and half years ago, that I shot with Charles.
Lt. Deemer: On this Buntline, what caliber was this?
Bill Rinehart .45
Lt. Deemer: Did you ever see a smaller caliber Buntline?
Bill Rinehart: Sure. No not a Buntline, I’ve never seen smaller caliber Buntline,
you mean like a .38 Buntline? No. I’ve seen .45 with short barrels
that Charles has had. I’ve never seen a .38 around any of those
people or any fat kind of caliber gun. Only small like .22’s and
.25’s and then the .45 is the next gun that they have up there.
Polygraph Section
Lt. Deemer: Okay, I’ll give you some of these questions. All you must do is
answer “Yes” or “No” Bill.
Bill Rinehart: Okay. Well what if you like I was thinking you know if you were
to ask me questions, something that I wasn’t sure yes or no the
only thing I can say is I’m not sure.
Lt. Deemer: Uh, these will be ones that you’re sure of.
Bill Rinehart: Oh, you mean you have questions.
Lt. Deemer Yeah, there’s no curves. Their all clear cut. If there is something
you want to add to it just wait until I have the pressure up on your
arms.
Bill Rinehart: The thing I want to add to it is that my heart is beating fast
compared to normally and my hands sweaty, and I’m not usually
like that at all.
Lt. Deemer: That’s okay, this thing is designed to put you completely at your
ease.
Bill Rinehart: Well I’m
Lt. Deemer: That’s no problem.
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: I tell you if I lit up a cigarette I’d probably be calmer if you got an
ashtray around here.
Lt. Deemer: For now, let’s hold off.
Bill Rinehart: I don’t really care about smoking, but it does really calm me down.
I haven’t even smoked a cigarette today. I didn’t eat breakfast
either though.
Lt. Deemer: Personal aside, this has nothing to do with it. But you know you
talk about legalizing grass and all that sort of thing and you turn
right around and say, oh these people are real shitheads.
Bill Rinehart: Right – that’s why I said to you that its’ hard not to be
schizophrenic when you’re saying that you’re a conservative hippy
because there’s a lot of groovy aspects to have grass legalized just
like there was to have booze legalized. There’s a lot of bad parts
about it too though. It’s hard to say that you’re a radical if you
want these things done and conservative at the same time, and that
you dig your country. You dig going up in the Malibu hills or to
Oregon. The beauty in this country is fantastic.
The reason why you say you don’t dig your country is because
maybe you don’t agree with what they’re doing. I don’t agree with
the marijuana laws, their heavy.
You get just as high from drinking and taking booze, you do. It
even puts you in the same hallucinatory state. at times, just like
other narcotics will. I could consider booze a narcotic. At least if
you want to call marijuana a narcotic, the booze is too. Heck in the
30's when they filtered wormwood, and all those freaks in the 20's
and 30's sat around and drank Perino, they were taking a narcotic
that was stronger than any marijuana. That’s an opiate you know?
It’s been going on for a long time and I know a couple of people
that turned onto grass when it was legal in California in the thirties,
or I mean legal in the United States. Those people are groovy
people right now, they’re in business and they’re groovy. They still
get high though, you know. It’s hard to say that grass should be
legalized, or it shouldn’t be but all I can tell you is there are so
many people bootlegging grass for themselves now that the police
department is going to have the worst problem patrolling all these
hills and all these areas looking for people’s homegrown pot. It
spreads thin, when you must worry about all those numbers. They
must worry about smugglers coming in here and planes flying
across the border at low altitude and all those things. Plus, if it was
September 30, 1969
legal the United States would make so much revenue that they
would be able to clean up everything. They’d make so much
money off it if they grew their fields. The American tobacco
companies already has a purchase thing on all the land in Mexico.
You know they’re expecting it I think. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised
at all if they were expecting it. Is that all for me?
Lt. Deemer: Yeah, I’ll put it on you right now, in fact. Let me see your hands.
Just the one. I understand you’re a surfer?
Bill Rinehart: Yeah. Many years. It’s kind of even weird that I still surf and I’m a
rock and roller. I don’t know too many people that are.
Lt. Deemer: The two don’t go together you mean?
Bill Reinhart: Well it’s kind of hard to stay up until 3a.m. and wake up at 6 and
hit the cold water. You must have some weird stamina to do that.
Lt. Deemer: All you must do is remain quiet.
Bill Rinehart: Is this the way the electric chair feels?
Lt Deemer: Well no, it has some similarities I must admit.
Bill Reinhart: Weird.
Lt. Deemer: Did you ever see an electric chair?
Bill Reinhart: I’ve seen pictures of it. But I don’t think it was a real one.
Lt Deemer: I was at the jail in Chicago one time, they had an electric chair
there that’s one instrument I’ll tell you.
Bill Rinehart: Was it wooden?
Lt Deemer: Yeah, this one was wooden it must have been brought over on the
Mayflower.
Bill Rinehart: That’s the kind of picture I had of it too. That’s the way that jail
was in Mexico. It was made from adobe.
Lt. Deemer: As long as you could wait until Thursday and no girls came you
were alright.
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart: Oh, it was weird. They put up sheets over the cots in one of the
cells and I just took it for granted that was where it was happening.
The girls that they paraded in were ugly. They were bad.
Lt Deemer: Spend three or four weeks in there I bet they start looking better.
Bill Rinehart: They didn’t even look good, it was hard to handle. It really was. If
you had to buy drugs in there, like they had this thing called Sick
Pill. It’s like Seconol you know, I just took a couple of those every
day and I’d just sleep all day. It was either that or walk up and
down this yard that they have which was about 20 steps long, and
drink coke and smoke these rotten cigarettes that they had called
Devicado Regulars. It’s like taking a hit of rolled up newspaper.
Lt. Deemer: Okay Bill let’s get on with this now. All you must do is remain
quiet. Keep your feet flat on the floor. Just look straight ahead and
when you answer, stay straight ahead. You don’t have to look to
me.
Bill Rinehart: Can I wipe my hands off?
Lt. Deemer: Yeah on your pants and don’t during the test.
Bill Rinehart: Okay. This hand must be flat down here?
Lt Deemer: Just remain reasonably quiet there. Those deep breaths will screw
things up.
Bill Rinehart: Well I just feel my heart beating fast.
Lt. Deemer: Okay now remember just answer these yes or no. I’ll put some
pressure on your arm. The thing is uncomfortable, and I’ll have it
off so don’t worry about that. Don’t move until we’re done with
the exam.
Bill Rinehart: Ah, I can feel my heart beating in my arm it’s horrible.
Lt. Deemer: Well if it wasn’t you’d be dead so. Keep your arm still.
Bill Rinehart: I’ll never be able to do this if I can feel my pulse that strong. I just
can’t do it.
Lt. Deemer: What if I put it down on your uh?
Bill Rinehart: Down on my wrist?
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: Yeah.
Bill Rinehart: It makes my shoulder hurt.
Lt. Deemer: You mean you’re that sensitive? How do they take your blood
pressure?
Bill Rinehart: I haven’t been to the doctor in a long time. It only last for a second
when they take your blood pressure.
Lt. Deemer: If you’d sit still this only lasts for a second. Two minutes at the
most.
Bill Rinehart: Yeah. I can’t feel it at all right now. Well, I’m starting to feel it,
my pulse beating.
Lt. Deemer: Okay just answer these yes or no. Just breath regular now, you’re
breathing like a panting goat.
Bill Rinehart: That’s the way I breath.
Lt. Deemer: Stop squeezing your arm. You don’t breathe that way, if you
breathed that way you’d be --
Bill Rinehart: I’m really breathing normally.
Lt. Deemer: Well when you become aware with it –
Bill Reinhart: It’s hard to breathe through my nose.
Lt. Deemer: Just breath normally. There we go. Do you ever watch television?
Bill Rinehart: Yes.
Lt. Deemer: Do you play the guitar?
Bill Rinehart: Yes.
Lt. Deemer: Do you know who killed Sharon Tate and the others?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: Do you have a California Driver License?
Bill Rinehart: I don’t think I have one anymore No. I don’t have one right now.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: Just yes or no. Did you have anything to do with Sharon’s death
and the others?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: Do you know how to drive an automobile?
Bill Rinehart: Yes.
Lt. Deemer: Do you ever use heroin?
Bill Rinehart: Um. I used it but not by shooting it. No.
Lt. Deemer: Have you eaten lunch today?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: Did you ever force a girl off the road in Malibu Canyon?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: That was pretty good towards the end there, now you kept yourself
still. Do you want to try it again?
Bill Rinehart: Okay. I started to get use to this thing on my arm. It was strange.
Are you going to ask me if I knew these people? I’d really like you
to ask me that question, because I never met them ever in my life.
Lt. Deemer: No. I’ll ask you if you’ve ever been to the Cielo pad and that
should take care of that. If you were up there, you’d probably have
to know them, right?
Bill Rinehart: Uh not necessarily. The house is rented by another person.
Lt. Deemer: Well, now it is.
Bill Rinehart: Uh no. He’s the man that owns the house. He’s had many things
happen up there long before Roman and Sharon moved up there.
Lt. Deemer: Well have you ever been there?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: You’re fussing with your fingers again.
Bill Rinehart: My hands sweating.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: That’s alright. We’re not going to be shaking hands. So, relax. Do
you ever listen to the radio?
Bill Rinehart: Yes.
Lt. Deemer: Are you a citizen of the United States?
Bill Rinehart: Yes.
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever been to the Cielo address?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: Do you smoke cigarettes?
Bill Rinehart: Yes.
Lt. Deemer: Are you withholding any information in this case?
Bill Rinehart: No. None that I know about.
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever stolen a .22 caliber cleaning kit?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: Did you ever pull a knife on a bartender?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer Have you lied to me in this room today?
Bill Rinehart Uh. Not knowingly.
What I meant to say to that last question is that what I believe to be

true is what I’m telling you. My body is fairly calmed down now. I
kind of feel myself getting more relaxed.
Lt. Deemer Okay. Repeat that last one. Do you ever listen to the radio?
Bill Rinehart: Yes.
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever met Frykowski?
Bill Rinehart: No.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: Are you withholding any information in this case?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever made the statement that two Spanish guys made this
hit?
Bill Rinehart: No.
Lt. Deemer Have you ever been to the Woodstock place, out near the Cielo
place?
Bill Rinehart: Uh no. I’m not sure where Woodstock is, even.
Lt. Deemer: Have you ever fired a gun into a truck?
Bill Rinehart: Yes. My own truck. I don’t see how anybody could know about
that except for one person. That’s strange.
Lt. Deemer: Your shadow knows.
Bill Rinehart Oh yeah. This was up in the middle of the mountains where our
truck got stuck. I had a 22 on my and I shot right into the back of
the truck, because we were pissed off at it.
Lt. Deemer That makes a lot of sense!
Bill Rinehart That question was really -- Yeah, I guess what we did made a lot
of sense. But you would have too if the truck would have been
stuck in the middle of the --.
Lt. Deemer Oh yeah, every time my car breaks down I fire into it.
Bill Rinehart What?
Lt. Deemer Laughing
Bill Rinehart It wasn’t like that at all. No. My friend fired into to a couple of
times. That’s one of the reasons that chick kicked me out, because
I had this friend living there at the house. She didn’t dig it.
Lt. Deemer: Have you used that MDA yet?
Bill Rinehart Um. Somebody told me that I had a cap of it and I did sniff half of
it. I don’t think it was MDA. It didn’t do anything to me. So maybe
I did, maybe I didn’t. It didn’t influence me though.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer: How about fairy dust?
Bill Rinehart: Fairy dust, I’ve sniffed.
Lt. Deemer: What is it?
Bill Rinehart: Supposedly it’s an anesthetic but I say that it’s that gorilla
tranquilizer, that they were passing off for THC.
Lt. Deemer Gorilla tranquilizer. That’s a new one.
Bill Rinehart No, it’s animal tranquilizer, you just take a little bit of that and
supposedly it gives you the same effect as THC would.
Lt. Deemer What’s THC?
Bill Rinehart THC is supposed to be synthetic marijuana. It’s tetrahydrochloride,

that’s what it means. See they say its synthetic marijuana but I’ve
read some reports that say that’s a bunch of BS and that they use
this stuff called gorilla dope. They use it to tranquilize gorillas and
apes out in the jungles. They buff it down with whatever. I’ve
taken some smack one time too, but I’ve never shot up anything
like that. The one time I sniffed some smack I wound up vomiting
for five hours. That was the last time.
Lt. Deemer You weren’t used to it huh?
Bill Rinehart Well I thought it was coke. It was given to me and a friend of mine
too. He whipped out this thing and said, “This is cocaine.”
Lt. Deemer: The synthetic marijuana wouldn’t that be an excitant to some

extent?
Bill Rinehart Not really. Marijuana really isn’t an excitant, marijuana is a

downer.
Lt. Deemer I thought it heightened the senses.
Bill Rinehart Well it depends on if you smoke good grass. That’s the truth of the
matter. If you smoke the best grass you it will get you high.
Lt. Deemer the best grass is not in Mexico.
Bill Rinehart Yes, it is. They cut it off individually, they don’t just chop it down
and put it in kilos. It
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer What does a kilo sale for?
Bill Rinehart A kilo of that grass sales anywhere from 300 to 500 and always
has.
Lt. Deemer That’s the good stuff?
Bill Rinehart Yes. Are we finished?
Lt. Deemer Yeah. Unless there’s something else you want to say.
Bill Rinehart Well I’d like to point out where it’s at you know. Did it say I was
telling the truth about not knowing those people?
Lt. Deemer Yeah you did good.
Bill Rinehart Well, I’d like to tell you something now. You said that I told the
truth. Now the cops that I talked to yesterday said, I was a liar
because they believed the other people were telling the truth. When
I started to tell them all this,
Lt. Deemer Well some of these things you straightened out.
Bill Rinehart No I gotta tell you the scene that is going down now. You people
do not know the way it’s coming down. You think you do but you
really don’t know. To have police people come into my house and
go through my mother, I didn’t dig it at all you know to have that
kind of a thing. Like I told them I’d call like three times and they
didn’t believe that either. They wouldn’t believe me that I’d call
down here.
Bill Rinehart No. Cass told me that they wanted to talk to me. So, she dialed for
me and I called right here. They said to call Sgt. Buckles and Det.
Geller and I wouldn’t have remembered those two guys’ names
unless I would have called. Sgt. Buckles or Lt. Geller so I’d have
to call at 8:00 in the morning between eight and nine. They
wouldn’t believe that either.
I mean they told my mother that they were going to hold me for
murder. You don’t know what this did to my parents. It’s a totally
blown scene between my parents and me now- It was a bum trip
before now its ten times worse. Now my mother thinks that I had
something to do with it you know? Then they told her they were
going to arrest me for suspicion of murder. I mean you don’t know
what came down for a family when they hear that. I’m just telling
September 30, 1969
you that because I just don’t dig the way it went down. I mean I
know I can’t do anything about it but.
Lt. Deemer: Well...
Bill Rinehart Do you have pictures in there of the murder?
Lt. Deemer Yeah.
Bill Rinehart: Can you show them to me?
Lt. Deemer: No. It wouldn’t prove anything.
Bill Rinehart Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t do any good.
Lt. Deemer Next trip you’re on you might fly in here and confess and I’ll have
to go through this shit all over again.
Bill Rinehart I’ve heard that a lot of guys have said they done it. You got tell
them this too. I tried to tell them this last night, and they don’t
seem to believe me. That baby, Sharon’s baby is Jay’s. I don’t care
what anybody says, that baby that Sharon is going to have is Jay’s.
Lt. Deemer You don’t know these people, how the hell can you know that?
Bill Rinehart Because. The reason why I know this is because of Cass and I are
good friends, and this is something that Cass told me, and I’ve
wrapped with Cass about it; also, Denny is very good friends with
them.
To me personally, I know a lot of men that would kill if they found

out that their wives baby belonged to somebody else and I can’t
see where you guys are going if you can’t even see that fact. That’s
a fact. I’m not trying to butt in or anything like that, it’s just kind
of beyond me.
Lt. Deemer Okay. Are you still dealing with Cass?
Bill Rinehart I’m trying to get a record going with her. It would really make a
fantastic part of my reputation as a record producer, because I have
a song it’s really a hit and I’ve really been trying to push it on her.
Lt. Deemer Is she kind of straightened out?
Bill Rinehart No. See this is what Benny told me; he told me that she, she told
me that she had gone to Washington to have an operation on her
September 30, 1969
throat. Benny said that’s bullshit she went to go meet Pic in

Washington DC, that he was all stoned out on smack and she was
going to go take care of him.
But now Cass appears to be working things out with herself

because when I wrapped at her she seemed very truthful to me. She
even called up Sgt. Buckles. That was the first time I found out
about it and she dialed the number for me. That’s the way it went
down you know. She says she doesn’t care about Billy Doyle
anymore and when he calls she refuses to talk to him. I know that
for a fact because I’ve been there when he’s called. I know the way
she feels about the whole situation now too. But I also know that
John Phillips is having parties up there and they’re all stoned out of
their minds on mescaline and coke, just like they always were. It’s
just not fair to be busting up all these little people’s scenes and to
have those people that were close friends with them and they’re
still freaking out. They’re still doing what they always did, still
doing their bum scene. I really don’t think they’re scene is groovy.
I’ve been invited to their parties and I’ve never gone because I
can’t dig the stories that I’ve heard about them going down to
Hollywood and them picking up hitchhikers and bringing them up
and sexually molesting them and other stories that I’ve heard. As a
matter of fact, one chick told me that they tied her to the fireplace
and whipped her. Now to hear these kinds of stories and to know
that I’m getting pulled in and Steven Oliver who’s just a freak and
he doesn’t even know those people. He really doesn’t.
You know because they’re being incriminated by people like John

Phillips and Cass who are really the freaks who were friends with
Polanski and those people that were murdered. They’re the peoples
that were friends and their paranoia is causing them to open their
mouths and say all kinds of things that are rotten.
Lt. Deemer This tying him to the tree...did you indicate that you were there
when Billy was tied?
Bill Rinehart Yeah. Charles chained his foot to the tree. He just left him there
with a glass of orange juice. He was knocked out. He was also
stoned on mescaline. It was weird –
Lt. Deemer You were present then?
Bill Rinehart Yeah. I helped carry him in. Charles carried him out of the back of
the car that day.
September 30, 1969
Lt. Deemer That’s when Charles went down to Voytek’s.
Bill Rinehart Now this was when –
Lt. Deemer How come you didn’t go with Charles?
Bill Rinehart I didn’t want to go. Also, Charles didn’t want me to come either.
Voytek called up and Charles told me what he said. He said, “That
was Voytek on the phone and he said, ‘you have somebody come
pick up this crazy bastard’.
Lt. Deemer I thought you said you didn’t know Voytek now he’s talking to
you like you knew him.
Bill Rinehart No, no not Voytek I’m talking about Charles. Voytek told Charles
on the telephone, do you know what I mean? And then after
Charles hung up.
Lt. Deemer So you don’t know Voytek?
Bill Rinehart No I’ve never met him before, I never met any of them before.
Lt. Deemer You just heard what he said?
Bill Rinehart Well, no. I asked Charles when he hung up what was wrong, and
he said, “Well he’s over at Voytek’s house”, I had heard Voytek’s
name mentioned but I never did meet him. I never knew him. So,
he says he’s over at Voytek’s house and Voytek says that he has a
gun on him, and he just told me to go over there and get that crazy
bastard out of there, or he was going to finish him off himself. So,
I said, “Well do you want me to come with you Charles?” and he
said, “No, you’d better not.” He says, “I’m going to bring him back
here and chain him to the tree.” Because he had told him, “Next
time you freak out Billy, I’m going to chain you to the tree, and
you won’t get any drugs for as long as it takes you to come down.”
So, he went over there and when he brought Billy back, Billy’s
face was all cut up. He was knocked out cold. I helped him carry
him out of the back of the car and chain him to the tree. Billy says
that Voytek hit him with a gun. That he beat him up with the gun,
that he pistol-whipped him. Voytek says, no, according to Charles.
That’s what I mean about my intimate relationship with them,
that’s how I just know about it. I’ve just heard so many stories.
Lt. Deemer What did you guys do just go about your business after you helped
Charles chain Billy to the tree?
September 30, 1969
Bill Rinehart I wasn’t going to do anything against either Charles or Billy. I’m
not about to do anything or tell someone who has a gun that I don’t
like the way they act. I’m just not going to do it. There’s too many
–
Lt. Deemer Was that the time that Billy got screwed in the ass?
Bill Rinehart That was what he told Cass. Cass told me this a couple of weeks
ago.
Lt. Deemer Was Billy rational when you talked to him?
Bill Rinehart He’s never been rational. The only time he was rational was one
day which was a couple of weeks after. They had taken away from
him. He didn’t have a car and he couldn’t go anyplace. He wasn’t
getting high because they kept him locked up. He started to be
rational but to be rational when you’re not stoned, he was on a
different trip. That brought out a different thing inside of him. He
was being rational by saying he was going to get himself together.
He was lying to himself and you can’t really call that being
rational. Do you know what I mean?
Lt. Deemer No, I’m afraid I don’t. I can’t dig that drug scene if you’re out of
the stuff you mean you’re still on it? You are either stoned or you
aren’t stoned.
Bill Rinehart No that’s not true at all. I feel stoned all the time now. All the
people I know who study yoga, if you sit there and do yoga for
three hours you’re ten thousand times higher than you could ever
get on any drugs. You might even want to light up a joint to come
down.
Lt. Deemer Well that’s because of the breathing –
Bill Rinehart Sure I know the type of ventilation and all the breathing exercises
and everything but I’m saying that I’m more stoned anyway
Lt. Deemer That’s why you screwed this thing up (polygraph machine) by
hyperventilating.
[End of Recording]
Total time: 1 hr. 58 min 2.5 sec
.

Police Interview Reveals Details About Victims and Suspects

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Police Polygraph and Interview 0

Lt Deemer: Noisy out there.

Bill Rinehart: Really.

Lt. Deemer: Need to get some information. Is it William Rinehart or Bill

Lt. Deemer: It’s R-E-I –

Bill Rinehart R-I-N-E-H-A-R-T. William B. Jr.

Lt. Deemer: And where do you live?

Lt. Deemer: What was your former address?

Bill Rinehart: Former address is 4931 Tarzana West Drive. Tarzana.

Lt. Deemer: Do you have a phone?

Bill Rinehart: Oh, the phone number there was 342 –

Lt. Deemer: You don’t have one now?

Bill Rinehart: No.

Lt. Deemer: Use to be a guitar man huh?

Bill Rinehart: Right now, now Mark Slotkin.

Lt. Deemer: Do you have a phone number for him?

Bill Rinehart: 654-7777.

Lt. Deemer: When were you born?

Bill Rinehart: 2-14-46.

Lt. Deemer: And where?

Bill Rinehart: Honolulu.

Lt. Deemer: Where?

Bill Rinehart: Honolulu, Honolulu Hawaii.

Lt. Deemer: Do you drive a car?

Bill Rinehart: No.

Lt. Deemer: Married, single, divorced, separated?

Bill Rinehart: Single.

Lt. Deemer: How far did you go in school?

Lt. Deemer: Whereabouts?

Bill Rinehart: Santa Barbara City College, and Cal State.

Lt. Deemer: Who are you living with right now?

Bill Rinehart: With a chick.

Lt. Deemer: With a girlfriend?

Bill Rinehart: Yeah.

Lt. Deemer: Any serious illnesses in your life?

Bill Rinehart: Besides mental illness you mean?

Lt. Deemer: Do you have mental?

Bill Rinehart: I don’t know.

Lt. Deemer: Have you ever been called mental?

Bill Rinehart: Yeah.

Lt. Deemer: Who was your psychiatrist?

Lt. Deemer: But that was in junior high?

Bill Rinehart: Yeah junior high. When I was about 13.

Lt. Deemer: Have you had anything since?

Lt. Deemer: Been to jail for anything?

Bill Rinehart: Yeah.

Lt. Deemer: What for?

Bill Rinehart: Grass.

Lt. Deemer: Here?

Bill Rinehart: Yeah. Just right here in Los Angeles.

Lt. Deemer: Did you do any time?

Lt. Deemer: Tossed out?

Bill Rinehart: Well I never even had to go to the courtroom.

Lt. Deemer: Two days, that was it?

Bill Rinehart: Didn’t even have to stay there but an hour.

Lt. Deemer: Oh.

Bill Rinehart: I was arrested down in Mexico.

Lt. Deemer: Been in the U.S. all your life?

Bill Rinehart: Yeah.

Lt. Deemer: How long have you been in California?

Bill Rinehart: Oh about 13 years.

Lt. Deemer: Are your folks still on the islands?