Julian Wasser: 'I felt awful, like, my God, why was I there? What an invasion of privacy'

Julian Wasser's best shot: Roman Polanski at the scene of the Manson family killings, 1969

'Polanski asked me to take shots of the murder scene and give them to a psychic – to find out who did it'

Interview by Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Thu 10 july 2014

O

ne August day in 1969, I was listening to a police radio when I heard all this strange talk about something going on in this residential area next to Beverly Hills. It was the kind of neighbourhood where people would say nothing if they heard screaming. They'd put pillows over their heads if murders were going on.