Married to Murder: The Bizarre and True Accounts of People Who Married Murderers (3 page)

Whitehouse married Atkins before going off to Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1994. Whitehouse stayed married to Atkins until her death from brain cancer at the California state prison in Chowchilla. At the time, Whitehouse had been trying to arrange a “compassionate release” for his client and wife, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied the release.

James Whitehouse is hardly the kind of man that you would expect to marry an imprisoned killer. He is an honors graduate from Harvard Law School and a very successful criminal defense attorney who has appeared before one of America’s highest courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Whitehouse has also written
Writs of Certiorari
that have gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The interesting thing is James Whitehouse’s law career and passionate defense of inmates and their rights appear to be motivated by his compassion and love for somebody that most people regard as a monster. Susan Atkins was Charles Manson’s lover and the mother of one of his children.

She also helped stab actress Sharon Tate to death on Aug. 8, 1969. At the time, Sharon Tate was eight months pregnant with her first child. She then wrote the word “pig” on the door in Tate’s own blood. Pig was an insult for police that was popularized by the Black Panthers; Manson hoped to frame the Black Panthers for the murders and spark a race war.

Tate was part of a Manson family death squad led by Charles “Tex” Watson. The family members broke into Tate’s home and killed five people, including an innocent teenager who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Before going into the house, Watson cut the phone line so those inside couldn’t call for help. The fearsome Manson family was apparently afraid of the police, just like any other band of criminals.

Tate’s murder wasn’t the first time that Atkins had killed for Manson. She helped other family members torture Gary Hinman to death in an attempt to extort money from him. The family held Hinman hostage for several days and mutilated his body until one of them, Bobby Beausoleil, finally killed him.

When Atkins was finally arrested for her crimes and sent to jail, she was extremely proud of her actions for her leader. She bragged about killing Tate to other inmates in the Los Angeles county jail. Not surprisingly, the inmates ran straight to the DA to rat her out.

Atkins later testified to a grand jury that Sharon Tate had begged for the life of her unborn child during the stabbing. Atkins later retracted this confession, but it is public record because it was made in front of a grand jury. In 1971, Atkins was convicted of eight separate counts of murder. In addition to the Hinman and Tate murders, she was also convicted of involvement in the murders of grocery store owner Leno LaBianca and his wife.

The courts initially sentenced Atkins, two other women, Leslie Van
Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, and Manson to death. The death sentences were reduced to life in prison in 1971 when California abolished the death penalty. Susan Atkins spent the rest of her life behind bars. California later reinstated the death penalty, but because of legal technicalities, none of the Manson family were eligible for it, much to the public’s disgust.

Like Tex Watson, Susan Atkins claimed to have found God and reformed while in prison. Atkins announced that she had become a born-again
Christian in 1974. She later formed a prison ministry and did charitable work behind bars. In 1977, she wrote a memoir called
Child of Satan, Child of God
with author Bob Slosser.

Atkins attracted a lot of attention in 1981 by marrying a con man named Donald Lee
Laisure in the prison chapel. Laisure claimed to be a multimillionaire that had been married 29 times. Among other things, Laisure had bragged that he could bribe the Governor of California into releasing her. Newspaper reports indicate that Laisure really spelled his name with a dollar sign instead of an S. The marriage quickly fell apart when Laisure was revealed to have no money and been married 35 times.

Laisure
wasn’t the first man she had been linked to; Atkins had been engaged to at least two other men in prison, John Daiberl and Michael Holbrook. She ended both of the engagements before marriage.

James Whitehouse started writing to Atkins in 1985 after reading
Child of Satan, Child of God
and Vincent Bugliosi’s account of the Manson family’s activities
Helter Skelter.
They married in 1987 when Whitehouse was an honors student at the University of California in Irvine. The two enjoyed a honeymoon in the prison family living apartments at the state prison. In those days, California allowed conjugal (sex with prisoners) visits for those on life sentences. Such visits were ended after the public outrage at Tex Watson’s ability to father four children while in prison.

After the marriage and his graduation from Harvard Law School, Whitehouse represented Atkins in numerous appeals and attempts to win parole. The last of these occurred within a month of her death.

James W. Whitehouse is currently a respected attorney in private practice in Orange County, Calif. He specializes in criminal law, the appeals of sentences, and prisoners’ rights issues.

Interestingly enough, Whitehouse apparently has a stepson with an infamous father. In 1968, Susan Atkins gave birth to Charles Manson’s son, whom she called
Zezozse Zadfrack Glutz. Atkins was using the alias Sadie Mae Glutz at the time of her life in the Manson family. Fortunately for the boy, he was taken away by authorities and put up for adoption. It is not known if the son, who would now be a middle-aged man, knows who his parents are or if he met his mother or stepfather. Hopefully, the son hasn’t followed in his birth parents’ footsteps.

Fox, Margalit. "Susan Atkins, Manson Follower, Dies at 61." 25 September 2009.
www.nytimes.com .
NY Times Newspaper Article. 28 January 2013.

Mathis, CJ. "You Hear the News and You Ask Yourself - Suan Atkins is Married ." 17 July 2008.
voices.yahoo.com .
Yahoo News Blog. 28 January 2013.

Middlecamp, David. "Charles "Tex" Watson Wedding, the Manson murders 40 years later ." 2009.
sblogs.thetribunenews.com/slovault.
News Blog Entry. 27 January 2013.

Montaldo, Charles. "Charles "Tex" Watson - Charle Manson's Right-Hand Man." n.d.
crime.about.com.
About.com Article . 27 January 2013.

Whitehouse, James W. "The Law Offices of James W. Whitehouse." n.d.
jameswhitehouselawoffices.com.
Online Business Business Description. 28 January 2013.

Wikipedia . "Charles "Tex" Watson." n.d.
en.wikipedia.org .
Online Encyclopedia Entry. 27 January 2013.

Love at first sight has always been a popular fantasy for romantics. Unfortunately, some people take it too far; Dagmar Polzin, a waitress from Hamburg, Germany, fell in love with a man whose pictures she saw on a bus stop advertisement. She even crossed the Atlantic to be near the man and eventually married him.

The man was Bobby Lee Harris, a murderer with an IQ of 75, who was
on death row in North Carolina. Harris had robbed his employer, John Redd, and stabbed him to death in August 1991. Redd was the owner of the shrimp fishing boat where Harris was working at the time of the murder. Harris reportedly stabbed Redd in the back and threw him overboard.

Dagmar
Polzin, a 32-year-old waitress, first became aware of Harris from a bizarre advertisement for the Italian fashion company, Benetton. The advertisement on a Hamburg bus stop featured images of seven death row inmates in North Carolina, including Harris. The advertisements were placed around German cities in 1999 in an effort to grab attention.

The American death penalty is highly controversial in Europe and attracts a lot of media attention on the continent. Generally, Europeans criticize the death penalty as barbaric even though polls indicate a majority of the population in several European countries, such as Poland, like the idea of the death penalty. Other countries that regularly mete out the death sentence, such as China, Japan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, are rarely criticized by Europeans. The advertisement was so controversial that it caused an American retailer to stop selling Benetton’s clothes.

Polzin was so moved by Harris that she travelled to North Carolina and visited him on death row in September 2000. By October 2000 she had moved to North Carolina full time to be near him. She later told ABC News that she fell in love with Harris at first sight.

Polzin
delayed her marriage to Harris because he was scheduled for execution in January 2001. The execution was eventually delayed because of appeals for clemency and the controversial nature of the case.

Harris’s case was controversial because of his low IQ and the possibility that he was framed by a partner in crime. A co-worker named Joe Simpson helped Harris plan and carry out the murder. Simpson was initially charged with the murder, but charges were dropped when
Harris confessed. Simpson testified against Harris at the trial. Simpson served less than 20 years in prison for his part in the murder.

Dagmar
Polzin gave up her life and country and travelled 4,000 miles to be near a man whom she will never be with. Bobby Lee Harris was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole after his death sentence was commuted in 2003.

When
Polzin first travelled to North Carolina, she was apparently resigned to the idea of Bobby Lee Harris’s execution. She had planned to go back to Germany and speak out against the death penalty. Instead, she ended up staying to be near her man.

Polzin
did seek publicity by going on television and hiring an attorney to represent her. Her behavior may have been partially motivated by European newspapers, which regularly pay for good stories.

It isn’t known whether
Polzin was simply seeking publicity and attention or love. Harris’s aunt, Carolyn Parker, told the Associated Press that she thought Polzin was up to no good and trying to cash in on her nephew.

Harris’s low IQ and the circumstances of his case eventually caused North Carolina courts to resentence him. Part of the reason for the new sentence was that other murderers, including some serial killers, had not been sentenced to death in North Carolina. Harris’s crime was a simple robbery gone bad rather than a murder spree.

Harris himself did admit to the crime and accept guilt. He also said he was consigned to spending the rest of his life in prison for doing something wrong. The judges apparently believed the claims of Harris’s defense attorney, Chris Edwards, who said his client was genuinely remorseful.

Polzin
herself told the media that she thought Harris had been a victim of injustice. Like others, she demanded clemency, which the courts eventually granted.

Bobbie Lee Harris remains in prison in North Carolina. Dagmar
Polzin apparently remains in the state to be near him. She has largely dropped from view in recent years, so perhaps her claims of being motivated by love and compassion for Harris are real.

The sensational and dramatic nature of the Harris/
Polzin love affair still attracts media attention, most noticeably from British newspapers such as
The Guardian.

Mina, Denise. "Why are women drawn to men behind bars." 12 January 2003.
guardian.co.uk/world.
Newspaper Column. 29 January 2013.

Murderpedia. "Bobby Lee Harris." n.d.
murderpedia.org.
Online Encyclopedia Entry. 29 January 2013.

Robinson, Bryan. "Woman Explains Love for Death Row Prisoner." 19 January 2001.
abcnews.go.com.
Online News Article . 29 January 2013.

Thompson, Estes. "Woman Falls in Love with Killer in Benetton Ad." n.d.
abcnews.go.com.
Online News Article. 29 January 2013.

A social worker and opponent of the death penalty is supposed to be opposed to all forms of killing. Yet socialite turned social worker and death penalty foe Rosalie Martinez married a notorious serial killer on Florida’s death row. What’s most bizarre is that Martinez, a successful businesswoman and the mother of two daughters, divorced her husband, a prominent attorney, in order to marry the killer, Oscar Ray Bolin.