During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Baggot worked as a portable
field camera operator at KABC-TV in Los Angeles. While working at this
job, he became involved with the
Sharon Tate murder case. On 14 December
1969, the Los Angeles Times printed a confession by Manson "family"
member
Susan Atkins (aka Sadie), detailing, among other things, how they
changed into clean clothes during their getaway drive and then dumped
the bloody clothes into a roadside ravine. To their everlasting
embarrassment, the Los Angeles Police Department ignored this part of
the confession while Baggot and the other members of his news
team--reporter Al Wiman and sound man Eddie Baker--did not. The three
of them decided to recreate the getaway drive the day after the Times
printed the confession. While Wiman drove from Tate's house, down Cielo
Drive, then Benedict Canyon Road, Baggot and Baker changed their
clothes. When they finished, Wiman parked at the next wide spot on the
shoulder. The spot matched the description Atkins gave. At the bottom
of the ravine, they found the bloody clothes. At the trial, Baggot
testified for the news team because the district attorney's office
wanted Wiman to cover the trial as a reporter. Since Atkin's L.A. Times
confession was suppressed, no mention of it was made during Baggot's
testimony. This made it sound as if he'd found the clothes out of sheer
luck. During his self-defense testimony,
Charles Manson used this to try to
implicate Baggot in the murder. Wiman, Baggot, and Baker are portrayed
in
Helter Skelter (1976), but are not credited by name. Their names do appear in the
book "Helter Skelter.".
