HONOLULU, HI, Dec. 21 – A woman fugitive from California, whose testimony helped send the Charles Manson murder gang to prison, said here yesterday that everyone who values freedom should support efforts to get Los Angeles Times reporter William T. Farr out of jail.

Farr has been in virtual solitary confinement in the Los Angeles County jail since Nov. 27 because he refused a court order to name the lawyer who gave him advance information about the testimony of a star witness in the Manson case.

That witness is Virginia Graham, 40, living temporarily in Honolulu under an assumed name after changing her appearance. She is a fugitive because she “jumped parole” in California.

Miss Graham was the cellmate of 22-year-old Susan Atkins, who along with Manson and other members of the gang was convicted in March 1971 of the murders of seven persons, including actress Sharon Tate.

Miss Graham testified against Miss Atkins for four days in October 1970. She said Miss Atkins told her of killing Miss Tate and four companions.

Miss Atkins said “she wanted to take their eyes out and squash them against the wall and cut off their fingers, but she didn’t have the time,” according to Miss Graham’s testimony.

Advance information about what Miss Graham was expected to say on the witness stand was leaked to reporter Farr, who then worked for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.

Farr later was a public information man for the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, then joined the Los Angeles Times. After losing a series of appeals, he was jailed for contempt of court because he has refused to identify the person who gave him information about Miss Graham’s expected testimony.

“I believe my testimony was slipped to Bill (Farr) in the hope that its publication would cause a mistrial,” Miss Graham told The Honolulu Advertiser. “I believe the attorney was absolutely desperate.”

The court gave all defense lawyers in the Manson case copies of the statement Miss Graham made to prosecution investigators, and which indicated what her testimony would cover, she said.

Partly as a result of Miss Graham’s testimony, Manson, Miss Atkins and two other women were sentenced to death for the Tate murders and for the killing of a husband and wife in another case. California since has abandoned the death penalty, and the killers are in prison.

Miss Graham was Miss Atkins’ cellmate, while the latter was awaiting trial, at the California Institute for Women in Corona.

Miss Graham had been given probation on a had-check charge — she said she wrote the check to cover a hospital bill — then was picked up for violating probation when it was learned she had experimented with LSD.

While defense lawyers tried to convince the Manson jury that Miss Graham had made a “deal” with the prosecution in return for her testimony, she denied this yesterday.

“I got nothing, and I was never promised anything,” she said. She said she is hoping to collect part of the $25,000 reward money that was offered in the Sharon Tate murders, but added that she never knew such a reward offer existed until after she had promised to testify.

She disclosed that in addition to telling her about killing Miss Tate and the others, Miss Atkins said the Manson gang planned to murder entertainer Frank Sinatra, singer Tom Jones and actor Steve McQueen.

“I hesitated to testify against this girl,” Miss Graham said. “I felt sorry for her. I have a son her age.

“I thought about it for three weeks. It was early in November 1969 when she told me the whole thing. It was about Nov. 23 that I couldn’t handle it emotionally anymore — not after she had told me what was going to happen to Sinatra and the others if she went free.”

Miss Graham said she once had been “very close” to Sinatra, in her days as a model and Hollywood starlet. Since she came to Honolulu, she said, she has avoided places where Sinatra’s friends such as local restaurateur Matty Jordan and actor Peter Lawford might congregate, in the fear that she would be recognized.

After deciding to tell authorities about her conversations with Miss Atkins, Miss Graham said, she conferred with a prison counselor who called Los Angeles district attorney investigators.

Miss Graham says she feels she did the right thing in testifying against the Manson clan — but that she doesn’t know if she’d do it again.

Paroled from Corona, she went to work for Los Angeles attorney Robert K. Steinberg, a cousin of famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey. But, apparently because of her testimony in the Manson case, she received threatening telephone calls at Steinberg’s office and quit her job.

Miss Graham said that her husband — her third, from whom she now is separated — had urged her not to testify, but that she ignored his advice.

“I don’t know if I’d go through it again,” she said. “I really, really don’t. It sounds cruel and cold to say, ‘I don’t want to get involved,’ but I can understand now when people take that attitude.

“After I testified, I couldn’t hold a job. My husband and I lost everything we had. So I ran away from California, and I’ve worked every day since.

“I’d be willing to go back and do maybe 90 days in the county jail for jumping parole, but I’m afraid for my life if I go to prison. Susan Atkins and the other women in the Manson case are at Corona — and it’s the only women’s prison in California. Or, I’d be willing to be on parole in some state other than California, but I don’t know if they’d go for it.”

Of reporter Fares going to jail, Miss Graham said:

“I’ve been there, and I know what the man is going through. Other people — even convicted killers — have been given probation, but he goes to jail. Not because he’s done anything violent, but because he won’t reveal a news source.

“I think in this case the courts are being criminal.

“If this can happen to Bill Farr then, hey, Joe Public, you better be careful — because your freedom is at stake, too. People who value freedom should work to get Bill out of jail, or else they’re liable to be next.

“They’ve got him in a windowless cell; he can’t talk to other prisoners, watch television or listen to the radio. They say that’s because persons held on a civil charge like contempt have to be kept apart from other prisoners.

“I wonder what Bill’s attitude toward crime is going to be now. He was very much of a ‘good citizen’ — always in favor of law enforcement. Now they’ve done this to him.”

Miss Graham suggested that persons who want to contribute to a fund to help finance Farr’s appeals for freedom send money in his name to his lawyer, Los Angeles attorney Mark E. Hurwitz.

Miss Graham said she doesn’t plan to stay in Honolulu long.

“It’s a good place — but it’s small,” she said. “Too many people get to know you.

“And every time I see a longhaired kid from the Mainland I begin to get a little paranoid. Not all the Manson people are locked up, you know.”

By GENE HUNTER