LOS ANGELES, Oct. 13 – Charles (Tex) Watson, 25, Tuesday was found guilty on seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to murder in the first degree in the Tate-LaBianca homicides.

Watson, whose deterioration from a strapping, handsome high school hero and university fraternity man to a drug-using, skeletal member of a murder cult was detailed during the 10-week trial, accepted the verdict without visible emotion.

As Clerk John Pappas read the long, eight-count verdict in Superior Judge Adolph Alexander’s court, Watson seemed to be listening but not really comprehending the import of the six-man, six woman jury’s judgment.

Two phases of Watson’s trial remain. The phase to consider his plea of innocence by reason of insanity will begin Friday.

If he is found sane, the jury will then deliberate his penalty — either life imprisonment or death.

Watson’s guilt was not in question after he took the witness stand and confessed the murders. The degree of his guilt, however, was left outstanding for the jury to decide.

And in finding for first instead of second-degree murder, the jurors rejected Watson’s bizarre defense that he had been reduced to a mindless, robot killer by cult leader Charles Manson through brainwashing abetted by ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs.

The jury’s decision may have hinged on the testimony of medical experts – 11 psychiatrists, two neurologists and a clinical psychologist.

They were divided evenly as witnesses for the state and defense. In general, the defense experts testified that Watson had suffered brain damage and psychosis at the time of the murders. And the prosecution’s medical experts, in most aspects, testified to the opposite.

Dep. Dist. Attys. Vincent T. Bugliosi and Stephen Kay said that the trial represented a landmark case in Southern California in respect to its presentation of psychiatric testimony.

“The jury was confronted by sophisticated, complex issues and had to come to mental grips with them,” Bugliosi said.

“The jurors took careful notes and deliberated long and hard,” he said, “and they returned a just verdict.”

Bugliosi added that he never believed the jury would return a second-degree murder verdict. “I felt it would be either first degree or a hung jury,” he said.

The jurors, after four-and-a-half days of deliberation, notified court bailiffs at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday that they had reached a verdict.

But it took time to round up the attorneys and the judge, who was attending a funeral. It was not until 4:10 p.m. that Alexander asked jury foreman Carlos Rodriguez, a labor union official, whether the jury had reached a verdict.

“We have, your honor,” Rodriguez replied.

Watson’s trial necessarily was anticlimactic to that of Manson and three female members of his “family” for the same murders. They were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death last April following a chaotic nine-and-one-half-month trial.

Watson was not tried with the others because, after his arrest in Texas in December, 1969, he successfully fought extradition until September, 1970, long after the Manson trial had begun.

Within a few weeks after his return here, his physical and mental condition were such that the court committed him to Atascadero State Hospital.

He responded to treatment rapidly and was deemed “restored to legal capacity” by hospital authorities early in February.

The murders, on Aug. 9 and 10, 1969, were committed in accordance with Manson’s plan to foment a race war which would end finally with him and his followers controlling the world.

The first foray was to the Benedict Canyon estate of actress Sharon Tate, pregnant at the time. She was slain there along with Steve Parent, Voityck Frykowski, Abigail Folger and Jay Sebring.

On the following night, Mr. and Mrs. Leno LaBianca were murdered in their Los Feliz district home.

In all cases, the victims were unknown to the murderers.

By ED MEAGHER