MOBILE, Dec. 2 – Capt. Don Riddle, head of the Mobile Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division, matter-of-factly picked up the ‘phone Sunday afternoon — an afternoon that had been routine, almost dull.

Then he sat up straighter in his chair, Los Angeles police were on the line and wanted his help.

Arrest warrants had been put out on the Sharon Tate murder — the Aug. 9 killings of the starlet and four others and one of the suspects was thought to be in Mobile.

At first, Riddle wanted to know who the man was. “Patricia Kernwinkel” came the reply, and she’s 21, medium build, attractive, and wears her brown hair long, and parted down the center.

It was a description that could fit lots of girls.

Riddle called his people in. “There’s something else to hash over beside the football game,” he told Sergeant Ralph Jordan.

Within minutes, Riddle, Jordan, and four other men and a woman officer were beginning the search.

They fanned out, asking questions. Then located the suspect’s mother, Dorothy Kernwinkel, who lives in a house trailer just off Gunn Road.

By Monday morning their search zeroed in on southwestern Mobile, a middle-class section of the city sporting clean, tree-lined streets and neat houses.

One of the streets rambling through the area is Bucknell Road, and Riddle’s group learned that Garnet Reeves lived there. She is Miss Kernwinkel’s aunt.

“We had the house spotted,” Riddle said, “but we didn’t want to blow the thing by moving right in and tipping our hand. We didn’t want her to know we were looking for her.”

The team questioned residents about the girl with long brown hair, but nobody seemed to recall seeing her.

Somehow, in most minds, the brutal, ritual-like slayings had conjured up pictures of men as the executioners.

Late in the afternoon, Riddle and Jordan were still questioning people in the area. Sergeants Henry Wilson, Leo Pope and Mrs. Bessie Evon Smith were working the opposite side of the street.

Sgt. John McKellar and Sgt. Charles Snipes were in an unmarked ear, watching the traffic. Suddenly a sports car came down the street, a young man driving. He had a girl companion with him, and despite the hat she was wearing, the long brown hair falling over her.

Instinctively, it seems, her hands went up and pulled the hat down over her forehead. McKellar revved up the car and said, “That looks like her.”

He pulled in behind and a block further they halted the car. The driver, a student at the University of South Alabama, wanted to know what the score was.

So did the girl. And so did McKellar and Snipes.

“Who are you?” they asked her. She mumbled a name, and added she was from California, McKellar repeated the questions.

Then they took her back up the street to where Riddle was questioning residents of the area.

He asked her name. After a pause she almost timidly replied, “I’m Patricia Kernwinkel.”

“At that time,” Riddle said, “I advised her that she was wanted for murder and told her of her rights. We brought her to headquarters.”

By FRANK SIKORA