Peter Lance - Homicide at Rough Point

ALSO BY PETER LANCE

NON-FICTION

Deal with the Devil

Triple Cross

Cover up

1000 Years for Revenge

The Stingray

FICTION

Stranger 456

First Degree Burn

TENACITY MEDIA BOOKS

Homicide at Rough Point Copyright 2021 by Peter Lance. All rights reserved. Printed in The United States of America. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

FIRST EDITION Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.ISBN 978-0-9962855-9-9

Tenacity Media Books

244 Fifth Avenue Suite 2454

New York, NY 10001

212-203-6123

212-591-6029 (fax)

peterlance.com

email: pl@peterlance.com

Book design and cover by

Tom Morine

tommorine@gmail.com

and

Walton Mendelson

walton@12on14.us

Map design by Carlos Cuellar

ccuellarte@aol.com Cover photograph by Jerry Taylor

Mario Puzo famously began The Godfather with Balzacs observation that Behind every great fortune there is a crime. Few concentrations of American wealth are associated with as many crimes as the tobacco, aluminum and energy fortune inherited by Doris Duke. This is the full, unexpurgated story of one of them.

Rough Point: 680 Bellevue Avenue

Cliff Walk : Memorial Boulevard to Ledge Road

Ocean Drive: Ocean Avenue to Castle Hill

Touro Synagogue: 85 Touro Street

Newport Daily News: 140 Thames Street (1967-1968)

The Black Pearl: 10 Bannisters Wharf

De La Salle Academy: 364 Bellevue Avenue

8Cranston-Calvert School: 15 Cranston Avenue

9The Quality Lunch: 25 Broadway

10Newport Police Headquarters (1967-68)

11Newport Reading Room: 29 Bellevue Avenue

12Quatrel/Lorillard Estate: 673 Bellevue Avenue

13Newport Hospital: 20 Powell Avenue

14Rosecliff: 548 Bellevue Avenue

15Hammersmith Farm: 225 Harrison Avenue

16The Elms/Berwind Estate: 367 Bellevue Avenue

17Miramar/Rice Estate: 646 Bellevue Avenue

18The Holmwoods: 161 Coggeshall Avenue

19Newport Casino: 190 Bellevue Avenue

20Clarendon Court: 626 Bellevue Avenue

21Ida Lewis Yacht Club: 170 Wellington Avenue

22Belcourt/Tinney Estate: 657 Bellevue Avenue

23Touro Park: Bellevue Avenue & Mill Street

24Newport Country Club: 280 Harrison Avenue

25Baileys Beach: 34 Ocean Avenue

26The Ledges/Cushing Estate: 66 Ocean Avenue

27Tubleys Spa: 58 Spring Street (1967)

28Superior Courthouse: 45 Washington Square

29Chateau-Sur-Mer: 474 Bellevue Avenue

30Marble House: 596 Bellevue Avenue

31Beacon Hill/Swiss Village: 152 Harrison Avenue

32The Breakers: 44 Ochre Point Avenue

33Beaulieu: 615 Bellevue Avenue

34Rock Cliff: 670 Bellevue Avenue

35The Mailands: 37 Ledge Road

36Sherwood: 533 Bellevue Avenue

37Idle Hour: Ocean Avenue & Hazard Road

38The Clambake Club: 353 Tuckerman Avenue

39The Newport Tower: 152 Mill Street

40Newports Back Yard: 93 Kingston Avenue

41The Hotel Viking: 1 Bellevue Avenue

42Fire Department Headquarters: 21 West Marlborough

43The Blue Cat: 38 Franklin Street

44Fort Adams: 90 Fort Adams Drive

45The Torpedo Station: Goat Island (1939-51)

46Daniel Swinburne: 6 Greenough Place

47The Playhouse: 294 Ocean Avenue

48Seaverge: 4 Ledge Road

49The Hedges / van Rensselaer Estate: 453 Bellevue Avenue

50Timmy & Julia Sullivans House

51Brown Villa/Slocum Estate: 459 Bellevue Avenue

52St. Catherine Academy: 424 Bellevue Avenue

53Pelham Garage: 17 Pelham Street

54Whitehall/Coogan Estate: Catherine Street

55Fairholme/Young Estate: 237 Ruggles Avenue

56St. Marys Church: 12 William Street

57Castle Hill Inn: 590 Ocean Avenue

58Annandale Farm: 25 Ridge Road

59Daniel Lyman House: 28 Kingston Avenue

60Daniel Lyman House: 11 Third Street

61YMCA: 41 Mary Street

62Trinity Church: 1 Queen Anne Square

63Rev. Lockett F. Ballard: 44 Pelham Street

64Dr. McAllisters office: 92 Pelham Street

65Plaisance/Beck Estate: 41 Ledge Road

66Pelican Lodge/Pell Residence: 61 Ledge Road

67Bois Dor: 115 Narragansett Avenue

68Seafair: 254 Ocean Avenue

69Hunter House: 54 Washington Street

Eastbourne Lodge: 78 Rhode Island Avenue

C ielo Drive cuts like a beautiful scar along the bottom of a V-shaped canyon in the hills of Bel Air, off of Benedict. In the winter, when the rains come, its lush and green and thats the way Sharon Tate saw it from 10050 Cielo, the red farmhouse shed rented with her husband Roman Polanski. As she unpacked the moving boxes on Valentines Day in 1969, she had no way of knowing that she only had another six months to live.

On the night of August 9 th, four hyper-violent members of The Manson Family would invade that red house and murder Sharon, along with three of her closest friends. But strangely, half a year earlier, Sharon had a short brush with a different killer.

It happened in late February after her younger sister Falcon Lair.

In 1925 it had been purchased by Rodolfo Alonso Raffaello Pierre Filbert Guglielmi di Valentina dAntonguolla, otherwise known as Hollywoods reigning king and the 16-room villa that sprawled across eight acres equipped with stables, kennels and servants quarters, sat atop the hill like a white stucco castle.

In 1953, that estate was bought by Doris Duke, the fabulously wealthy heiress to a fortune amassed by her father from the profits of American Tobacco Company, Alcoa Aluminum, and Duke Power. She was the reigning female scion of the family that endowed Duke University.

The big black wrought iron gates were open when young Patti wandered inside that day. Suddenly, she heard the caretaker yell out in a loud British accent, This is private property. What are you doing here? Startled, Patti turned and lost her balance in the gravel driveway, falling and skinning her knee. Just then, as if on cue, a black limousine pulled in. A tinted window rolled down and a tall woman in back lowered her sunglasses and asked who she was.