LOS ANGELES, Jan. 6 – Linda Kasabian was taken into a Los Angeles courtroom under heavy guard Wednesday where she signed a written promise to testify at the retrial of former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten on murder charges.

Mrs. Kasabian, 27, also a former Manson follower, was arrested Monday near Miami on a material witness warrant.

That warrant was issued here Dec. 29 by Superior Judge Edward Hinz Jr. after Dep. Dist. Atty. Stephen Kay presented evidence she was trying to avoid coming here to testify.

However, at Kay’s request, Hinz quashed the warrant Wednesday. “I have spent several hours with Mrs. Kasabian and she is now very cooperative,” Kay told the judge.

In the agreement signed by Mrs. Kasabian, she promised to return for the Van Houten trial, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 28.

Hinz ordered Mrs. Kasabian to be present that day but indicated she really would not be required to appear until a later time because both Kay and defense attorney Maxwell Keith have indicated the trial will not get under way until some time in March.

Mrs. Kasabian, a short, plump woman, answered “Yes” and “No” when questioned by Hinz, accompanying her nearly inaudible answers with a nod or shake of the head.

She will face felony charges herself if she fails to keep her promise to appear at the trial.

Mrs. Kasabian was surrounded by plainclothes district attorney’s investigators and sheriff’s deputies as she arrived and departed from the 15th-floor court via a freight elevator.

Kay said she wanted to avoid the news media and is still fearful of retribution from Manson cultists.

“She would like to avoid all of this since she has four children now and wants to make a new life for herself,” Kay told newsmen after the court session. “But she understands that there has to be this second trial for Leslie and that she has to testify.”

Kay said that if Mrs. Kasabian did not show up to testify, the prosecution would be allowed to read her testimony from the first trial into the record.

“But I want the jurors to see her in person. She is our star witness and I think she will be an excellent witness,” Kay said. “Besides, her testimony covers 32 volumes and to read it all back might make it difficult to hold the jurors’ interest.”

Mrs. Kasabian is expected to return to Florida but Kay declined to say when she was leaving or specifically where she was headed.

She was taken into custody on the material witness warrant by authorities in Homestead, Fla., a community south of Miami, after a policeman in New Hampshire provided information as to her whereabouts.

Kay said she would be under guard whenever she is in Los Angeles.

“It is reasonable to believe that Charlie Manson is still unhappy with her, since without her testimony it is unlikely he would have been convicted,” the prosecutor said.

Irving Kanarek, Manson’s attorney, expressed outrage at Kay’s remarks and scoffed at Mrs. Kasabian’s claim that she did not come forward earlier because she was afraid of retribution from Manson followers.

“There is no foundation for those remarks and it is terribly unfair to Manson to make them,” Kanarek said. “This woman ( Mrs. Kasabian) did not want to come back here because she knows she was in on the butchery of seven people and got off only by testifying for the prosecution.”

Mrs. Kasabian’s testimony also was a key factor in Miss Van Houten’s being convicted for the murders of grocery chain operator Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary.

That conviction was overturned by the state Court of Appeal last Aug. 12 on grounds that she should have been given a separate trial after her attorney disappeared in the midst of the marathon proceedings conducted in 1970-71.

By WILLIAM FARR