Charles Manson, the leader of the cult responsible for the murders of seven people in the 1960's is dead at the age of 83.
A Lancaster, Ohio man was just 19 at the time and the lone survivor of the killings in Los Angeles.
The Lancaster High School 1967 yearbook shows 18-year-old William Garretson, a senior studying business education and on the wrestling team.
Tom Householder was one of his classmates.
"A normal student, a likable guy, fairly popular," Householder said. "I didn't know anybody that didn't like him."
After graduation, the class of 67 went their separate ways.
"We all went to college, or went to the military, and it was about that time that the incident happened in California."
What Householder calls "the incident in California" was one of the grisliest, most notorious mass killings in American history.
And his classmate from Lancaster High School was the lone survivor.
"I do remember the first report on it, and them dragging him out of the house. I can still see that vividly," said Householder.
In a 1970 interview with the Columbus Citizen-Journal, William Garretson said he left Lancaster in the fall of 1968 and hitch-hiked to California.
With $1.85 in his pocket, he made it to California, where he was hired as a caretaker at the house that would soon be home to film director Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate.
He was paid $35 a week, plus free lodging in the guest house.
The night of August 8, 1969, Garretson said "I was up until almost daylight, playing the stereo. Then I fell asleep on the couch."
Woken by a barking dog the next morning, he said: "I looked out the window and saw a policeman pointing a pistol at me."
"I kept asking over and over, 'What's wrong?' and finally they said 'Shut up, we'll show you.' That's when they took me across the front lawn and parking lot. There was blood and all everywhere. I saw three bodies."
"It was a nightmare," Garretson told the paper. "I woke up and half an hour later I was booked for five murders."
Two more murders happened while he was in police custody.
After voluntarily taking- and passing- a lie detector test, Garretson was released.
Of his time in custody, he said "I was too shook to know what was going on....All I could think about was those bodies. And I started to think, and still do, how lucky I was I didn't get killed too."
Garretson returned to Lancaster, where he rejected offers of thousands of dollars to tell his story.
"He was innocent of anything, and just a victim of the circumstance," said Householder. "And I'm sure it was traumatizing at the time."
His former classmates say he didn't bring up the murders, and they didn't either. Garretson died of cancer last year.
Today those who knew him aren't thinking of the man who inspired terror 48 years ago, but their friend who survived it.
"God bless you, Billy. You were a nice fella. You're missed."
Garretson sued the Los Angeles Police Department for false arrest, but in 1974 a jury ruled against him.
According to the Los Angeles Times, jurors were sympathetic to him, calling him another victim of the Manson murders.