Theories I Consider Bullshit #461: The Helter Skelter Theory of the Manson Murders (long post)

I'm posting this here since I've had it in my mind ever since the extended discussion of Susan Atkins on this board.

One Saturday when I was eleven or twelve, my mother took my brothers and me down to our local branch of the New York Public Library, a regular event. I had just read through eight or nine books on the Kennedy assassination, and I was looking for more, so headed over the that section. I’d basically read through the entire batch. Dang. I notice the spine of Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter, and I remembered vaguely having seen snippets of the film version one Saturday when they played it instead of the regular Kung Fu movies on Channel 5. This might be interesting, I thought, so I picked it up. My mom, I remember, raised an eyebrow at it when we checked it out, but she was pretty good about letting me explore my interests, and probably liked the size of the thing. I had read through Best Evidence in about a week earlier that month, so maybe she was proud. Needless to say, it scared the living shit out of me.

As anyone who’s read the book can testify, the first thirty pages of Helter Skelter are absolutely masterful: terrifying beyond belief. I read them and I was hooked, but I would spend the next several months trying not to go to sleep, convinced that “The Family” would be creepy crawling our (third floor!) Queens apartment, a practice reported in the book where they entered homes and stood over sleeping people as a kind of game. One night, as I was hovering near my small light trying not to fall asleep, jumping at every creak in the hardwood floors, my brother, in his bedroom down the hall, called out in his sleep. I damn near pissed myself in my bed. The book is scary. But I read it, and I beleived it. It all made sense, and I was a little gullible and respectful of authority as a pre-teen. Yes, it must have been this crazy Helter Skelter race war plan! For several years afterwards, I’d have to turn away from any image of Manson that showed up on my TV. It got to me that much. For this reason, I’ll always consider Helter Skelter among the best true crime ever written, up there with In Cold Blood at the top of the genre. There’s only one problem: the theory is primarily bullshit.

When I was nineteen I reread Helter Skelter, maybe testing my late-teen bravado to see whether I’d grown. I had. By that time, I had seen and interacted with my share of low-lives. I had smoked more than my share of the funky buddha, and dropped my share of mescalin, psilocybin, and—my favorite—lysergic acid diethylamide-25 (thank you Dr. Hoffmann). I had hung with gangsters, preppies, stoners. I had spent time with hippy kids and hippy adults, people you run into when you hang out in the street, getting high and drinking. I understood what the thing was. I had already buried some friends by then; as Ice Cube says, they died young, doin’ dumb shit. My buddy hung with a hippie crew; he was running some acid for them or something. Then he got in a little trouble after being on a six month acid and coke jag: he cut a guy up who he thought was a snitch, really meant to kill the dude, I think, but luckily didn’t. He got sent off upstate for a four year bid. Hanging with his crew—real loser hippie types, I totally got it. All they did was cage, all day. They caged for cash, for pot, for anything. They shoplifted constantly, came up with weird cages and grifts, conned you down for a nickel if they could, real pieces of shit. If they got a money scheme into their heads, it suddenly all made sense to them, even if it was laughably stupid. But this was the way. They weren’t all kids, either. They hung with grown men and women, long gone druggies, also caging. Fucking caging and scheming constantly.

Me and my boys were fighters, so we thought the hippies were punks. Good to smoke a bowl with from time to time, and always running excellent LSD, but weak, and total shit in a brawl. It didn’t really matter, since they almost never left their hippie rat’s nest apartment, as far as we could tell. But the more we hung with them, the more I noticed that they were all strapped up to the gills. Runaways came in and out, hard fucking hippie faces at age 17. Knives everywhere. And the more uneasy I got around them. You get in a brawl with the project kids or the Puerto Ricans, the worst that happens is you get cut up a bit, broken jaw or something. But these fucking grifters could just up and leave—poof in the wind, and who the fuck knew their real names anyway? Jeremy? That sounded like bullshit. Violet? Please. We were still convinced that we could kick their hippie asses, but we weren’t sure that that’s how the game was played with them. Sometimes the looks they’d give you over the bong were chilling. We were used to danger, but not danger. They weren’t tough (that was our measure), but I did consider them dangerous.

So, I reread Helter Skelter when I was nineteen, and determined that the Helter Skelter theory was bullshit. Here’s why:

FIRST CRIME (Hinman Murder): Gary Hinman is killed by Bobby Beausoleil. They is a straight drug burn gone bad, very typical for these kinds of people. Beausoleil pays Hinman $1000 for mescalin, which has gone bad. He sells it to Straight Satan bikers in order to get into their good graces, no doubt for further grifts. The shit is no good, and they come for Beausoleil. He goes back to Hinman in a panic, demanding the money back so he can return it to the very pissed off bikers, but the money is already spent. After skuffling with Hinman, he manages to get him to sign over two junker cars, one of which actually ends up with the biker gang. Then things go sour. The murder, in this case, is not part of the elaborate extortion scheme that Bugliosi concocts, but one thing leading to another, really a second degree murder. Beausoleil, who wasn’t even really a member of the Family (more on this in a second), brings Susan Atkins and Mary Brunner with him, mostly by accident, and because they knew Hinman. After he kills Hinman, he panics, writing “Political Piggy” on the wall in order to cast blame on radical political groups. It’s well known that Hinman was a musician, but he was also a leftist PhD candidate in political science at UCLA, so he has tons of books by Marx and Lenin, and other “radical” literature. Political Piggies is not part of some grand plan to start a race war, but the sloppy thinking of a panicked hippie try to throw off murder police. Beausoleil is caught on August 5 in Hinman’s car (so much for master criminals), and immediately booked for murder. The Tate-Labianca killings begin 4 days after Beausoleil’s arrest.

SECOND CRIME (Tate et. al): There are several theories on the Cielo Drive murders (of Sharon Tate and her guests). The first is that Manson saw them as an opportunity to get Beausoleil off the hook. This is unlikely, since Beausoleil, contrary to Bugliosi’s assertions, wasn’t really that close with the people at Spahn Ranch. Second, the Helter Skelter theory. I don’t buy it. Third, the Manson people go to the Cielo Drive house to pull some money off Terry Melcher, who Manson thinks burned him for $5000. This is the most plausible explanation. Despite things going sour with Hinman, Manson saw it as a relative success, because Beausoleil managed to get Hinman to sign over the cars before he killed him. So Manson gets it in his head that hippies with knives just scare the shit out of people, including—he thinks—that Terry Melcher, who robbed him. So he sends Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Casabian, and Patricia Krenwinkle over to what he thinks is Melcher’s house. Maybe he’ll sign over a real car! That’s hippie logic. Of course, Melcher didn’t live there any more, and Tex was much more vicious than people thought.

Here’s what I think happened. They go over the fence, and almost immediately Stephen Parent, who was visiting his friend in the guest house, pulls up, like "who the fuck are you?" Maybe Tex Watson panics, or maybe Tex Watson is just off, but he shoots him. That’s the catalyst. They still think Melcher lives there, so they continue on, but at this point, they have to go all the way. They have no idea that five people are going to be in the house until they get in. I won’t go into the gory details of what I think happened. What I will say is that you cannot trust the accounts that we think we know. Virtually every account of what happened in that house is based on the testimony of Susan Atkins, perhaps the most untrustworthy witness in the history of American jurisprudence. Linda Casabian, of course, testified at trial under full immunity, but she only bought that immunity by telling Bugliosi what he wanted to hear, and what he wanted to hear was Atkins’ account before she recanted. The post-conviction accounts from Krenwinkle and Watson likewise seek to confirm the favored prosecution theories, because anything else will be considered further lying at this point, and that makes parole impossible. So, if not Helter Skelter, why the blood on the walls? That's the key question, and that’s all Susan Atkins. She was at the Hinman murder, and saw Beausoleil's hastily conceived plan to throw suspicion to the "communists." After the Tate murders, she gets it in her head that this might also be leveraged to save Bobby Beausoleil, so she starts in with the blood on the walls. But it’s an afterthought, not a motive.

THIRD CRIME (LaBianca): I honestly think Charlie was surprised by the events when his crew came back from the Tate house. Not only was Terry Melcher not there, but his crew killed everybody! Unbelievable! He still thinks Melcher lived there, probably, and they just missed him. How long is it gonna take the cops to come knocking on his door once they start asking who Melcher’s enemies might be? When they tell him about writing on the walls, he flips. Yeah, it’s gonna be connected to Beausoleil, he thinks, but not in a good way of getting him off. It’s gonna be connected in a bad way of leading the cops HERE! They hear I had a beef with Melcher AND they see the same thing that they saw at Hinman's, knowing Bobby hangs out with us? We're fucking cooked! They need a random act that couldn’t possibly be connected to people Manson knows. As soon as Charlie gets that paranoid notion in his head, the LaBianca’s fate is sealed. The LaBianca killings are the copycat killings meant to deflect attention from the Tate killings, and they are the only killings Charlie ordered as killings.

None of it has anything to do with any stupid Helter Skelter. It was all drug burns, and shit going south too fast for a bunch a caging fucks keep up with. It was all dumb ideas based on dumb ideas of what the cops would think, and panic, and itchy trigger fingers. There was no grand plot, but rather a brutal accumulation of stupidities. I’d even go so far as to say there was no “Family” as such. They were just a bunch of hippie grifters whose momentum pushed them into the ultimate horror. None of this minimizes their actions (with the exception, probably, of Beausoleil, who was convicted of first degree murder, an inaccurate charge in my mind). These were among the most brutal slayings in American history. All the more scary that they were triggered in an almost painfully random way, by small chance events and silly notions.

but perhaps that will be my next read. I am currently reading war and peace...

they used the words Helter Skelter (in blood on the wall) only at that La Bianca scene - and they spelled it wrong

What appeared at Tate was meant to mimic the Hinman scene.

Makes sense. I gotta digest this for a bit.

I always thought it was strange how much access Manson had to the rich and powerful. I guess California can be weird like that, rock star millionaires hanging out with panhandlers. Manson was also hanging out at the Esalen Institute.

Bobby Beausoleil was never considered one of the "family" and as such, I don't think Charlie or the gang would have gone out of their way to avenge his treatment or try to help him. Wasn't he there at the ranch long before Charlie?

I do agree that there was no grand "Helter Skelter" ideology here. I don't think the family bought into all of Charlie's grand schemes or even fully understood what he was saying.

This was simply a warped "cult" scenario, fuelled by drugs and fuzzy thinking all around.

Although the fanaticism of the girls continues to freak everyone out to this day.

Myself included.

"There are several theories on the Cielo Drive murders (of Sharon Tate and her guests). The first is that Manson saw them as an opportunity to get Beausoleil off the hook. This is unlikely, since Beausoleil, contrary to Bugliosi’s assertions, wasn’t really that close with the people at Spahn Ranch."

I think what happened was that Susan Atkins, because she had been with Beausoleil at the Hinman house, devised the copycat business AFTER the Tate murders had already occurred. This actually even comports with some of Casabian's testimony, since she never seems really sure of why the writing happened. Once she did that, Charlie thought they needed a completely unconnected murder to get suspicion off themselves, not Beausoleil. Atkins' writing at the Tate house was pure afterthought, as I said in my post. The LaBianca was the planned "copycat" slaying, not Tate.

Atkins seemed to be a ringleader or at least "Charlie's conscience" in the murders.

What I don't get is Tex Watson's role. Did he just go along for the ride? Was he really one of Charlie's "true believers"?

I don't think Charlie planned Cielo Drive as murders. They turned into murders because Tex Watson freaked out in the driveway.

Moreover, Susan Atkins quickly hatched idea to write in blood on the walls had nothing to do with Charlie. She did that independently.

haunting

Also, I don't consider Manson a hippie. He was a psycho-path that used hippies, but I wouldn't call him one.

While you built a nice logical argument, you are assuming that Manson was logical in his thinking. That's where every theory about the murders falls apart.

Who really knows what that guy was thinking? I doubt he even remembers.

Manson was and is a dangerous predicate felon with no concept of how to live in society. He's also a jailbird conman, and 90% of what you think you know about him is an act, pure and simple. It's part of the caging. Pretty much everything about these murders can be explained through simple deduction and past experience, if you've ever spent any time with similar kinds of people. The notion that Manson developed some wacky, irrational motive that can only be approximately deduced is precisely what I don't buy.

As for "hippie," I'm not really using it in its traditional political sense, but more in subcultural sense.

This wasn't a "surprise look at all the people, let's kill them and get out" murder. Those murders took time. So, that leads me to believe that the murders were planned to be gruesome. They had a gun, a crime spinning out of control usually doesn't end in a torture/murder.

As for Manson, at some point the acting becomes reality. By now, the assimilation is complete, but I suspect it was well on the way back then accelerated by the drugs.

These don't have the mark of planned murders. They exhibit either accumulating frenzy or accumulating panic. Frenzy would be Bugliosi's position. Panic is more mine. No doubt there's a little of both. The killing of Parent in the clue. Watson shoots Parent before they even get to the house. This can be interpreted in one of two ways. First, they shoot him because he's seen them, and they know they;re going to commit the murders. That's plausible, but it is certainly an iffy proposition to have an open gun shot in the canyon if you're planning to commit murder afterwards. Indeed, numerous ear witnesses heard that shot. The other explanation was that it was a fuck-up. To me that's more plausible. At that point, the die was cast. If there was planing, it started THEN, at that point. Going into the house AFTER the Parent murder indicates that they didn't know how many people would be there, but they thought it was reasonable that the cops would come asking THEM questions about the dead guy in the driveway (i.e., they still thought Melcher lived there). The scene itself, moreover, does not indicate order at all. One of the victims broke free from the house and made it halfway across the yard before he was shot multiple times (again in the open canyon) and stabbed. Not only does this look like the act of people who didn't know what they were doing, it looks like the act of people who didn't know they were going to do it until a short time before they did it. That said, even if you date the intent to murder the people in the house to immediately after the Parent slaying, it's still first degree all around, and particularly gruesome first degree at that.

I just can't reconcile a "panic killing" with the type of murders that were committed.

They shot someone outside, everyone heard it, they panic, but they spend all that time slowly killing everyone inside, except for the one who gets out and that one is shot.

If they were in a panic, then wouldn't they just shoot everyone and be done with it? What panicked person plans a slow gruesome murder?

Slow gruesome murders tend to be planned.

The key word in your account is "slow." It wasn't slow. They gathered them and killed them, and not very efficiently at that.

Why did they have to go in at all after the Parent slaying? Because they thought Melcher still lived there, and when asked why there was a dead guy in his driveway, he'd say, maybe you should go talk to that crazy motherfucker Charlie Manson and his band of happy assholes. Charlie had been spreading threats against Melcher over the Beach Boys song royalties all over California.

We disagree on this basic point: you say "slow and gruesome," I say, well, yes, gruesome, but panicked and inefficient. I don't know where you get slow. Atkins spewed a lot of nonsense about having conversations with the victims, but this strikes me as mostly jailhouse bluster. The whole thing took 15 to twenty minutes at Cielo Drive, maybe less.

I see your point, though: why not just shoot them, then. Stabbing is inherently slower than shooting. Absolutely. This is a problem for the theory. Watson did apparently shoot Sebring almost immediately. I suspect that caused panic in the rest of the group that required the girls to get involved.

Especially for a group in a panic.

How long would it have taken to shoot them? They had a working gun. They obviously weren't afraid of the noise. They weren't opposed to shooting people. They did shoot those who weren't under their control inside. Why choose their method unless it was planned to be gruesome?

That part doesn't compute (IMHO).

Frykowski got free and made a break for it. He was shot twice, then Watson broke the gun handle smashing him in the head with it. The gun was finished at that point. He actually complained to Manson about it later, supposedly. Frykowski kept going. Folger went out the other door. It was a mess. I think probably Watson planned to shoot them all, but he and his group were so inept that he was unable to do so.

Furthermore, they let one person (Folger? ...it's been a long time since I've read the book) go get her purse beforehand.

Those don't seem like the actions of a panicked group. Maybe they did plan on shooting them, but why the delay? Why the tie them up first if you are panicked and are going to shoot them?

You may be right though.

Let me explain what I mean a little more, since I think I've done a lousy job.

Charlie sees that that threatening Hinman actually produced revenue, so he plans to do the same with Melcher. That means the plan was for threats and extortion. But everything goes south when Watson shoots Stephen Parent in the driveway. This causes the panic. What I mean by panic is more like a vacillation between positions: the theft plan, and the requirements of the new situation (i.e., eliminating any connection back to Spahn for the Parent murder). It's not so much "We have to do this now!" as it is "Oh fuck, what do we do? What do we do?" I think that indecision explains a lot about the scene, particularly tying up the victims, and still trying to get money from the situation (i.e., Abigail Folger's purse...just as a note, Abigail Folger was the heiress to the Folger's Coffee fortune). I think Watson is the real problematic character here, the guy who keeps pushing the action, though he's completely vacillating between positions.

Just as another note, I said in the OP that we really don't know what happened in the house. I would consider Kasabian's testimony fairly relaible, but she was nowhere near the house when the murders started inside. We know the gun was broken because they found it. Apart from that, we have really only the murderer's testimony, which is contradictory and variable. (For instance, Watson likely killed Sharon Tate himself, though common mythology still attributes this to Atkins, based largely on her jailhouse bluster).

So why kill him unless they are there to kill a lot of people?????

The only thing they have done at this point is hopped a fence. They could have just said they were there to see so and so or claim they were lost or something.

But they shot him. Why take that extreme measure???

Why would they be so panicked at that point?

You've definitely identified the key moment and question: why kill Parent? That's the moment, in my theory, when everything goes south.

There are two explanations: First, Watson knows he's there to kill the people in the house, so he must kill Parent. That's plausible.

Second, Watson just freaks out, or acts impulsively, or the encounter with Parent is more complicated than what we've been told. I think it's equally plausible, and may explain the scene more coherently. It's utterly banal, but I think these events are far more banal than the mythology surrounding them suggests.

If theory one is correct, is Watson acting on his own to kill them or under orders? Are they there only for the caging and Watson is just that unhinged that he wants to kill them?

For theory 2, yes, there could have been some words exchanged that might have prompted the 1st shooting. We may never know what exactly was said.

I don't dismiss out of hand that Charlie ordered the slayings at Cielo. It just doesn't comport with the way I think events like this usually happen.

in the guesthouse.
I have never bought his "he had a radio and wanted to know If I wanted to buy it" story.
My money is on sex and/or drugs.

Wrong place wrong time seems plausible to me. Garretson's story has always been a bit suspect, especially on what he heard or didn't hear.

They had cut the lines. This is a clear indication that they were there to commit a serious crime. Steve Parent was, sadly, at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was killed simply because the family members going there were not going to leave any witnesses alive.

a la Hinman. It's up in the air.

However, the relationship between those at the Hinman residence with Gary Hinman was distinct from the relationship between those going to the Tate household and Steve Parent.

"Extended" extortion such as in the Hinman case is, of course, a violent crime. Had Hinman lived, he might have been too afraid of those who had visited him to approach authorities. That would likely have been different in the case of Steve Parent, if he had simply seen some people walking up the driveway in the darkness, but had no other contact with them. (Of course, many witnesses to crime are intimidated, but in a manner different from the victims.)

I'm not referring to extortion of Parent, but Melcher, as in the OP.

cheers.

I understood that. I don't think that there is evidence that Manson thought Melcher was living there at the time.

in numerous posts. I don't mean that in a dickey way. I already explained why I think that's questionable.

You've raised a lot of interesting, extremely well thought out points.

Needless to say, this is just an extremely guilty pleasure for me, so it's always a bit slapdash.

There's no doubt, reading the responses here, that the strongest objection to my case is Charlie's knowledge of Melcher's move. If he knows Melcher moved, does the theory fall apart? Well, yes and no. It could have been an extortion scheme on "those rich people he saw at Melcher's old place" when he went by there. The problem then would be explaining - given my thesis of the snap killing of Stephen Parent - why they wouldn't just leave at that point. If it was Melcher's place, they would almost be obligated to continue, since he would certainly point them back to Spahn. If it was somebody else's place, and they knew it, it would be hard to explain why they'd continue (given my assumptions). It's a very good point brought up by numerous posters. Those with knowledge (like yourself) mostly identified the biggest flaw in my argument.

:thumbsup:

Not only for those interested in "true crime," but for its political implications. It is worth noting that Rick Perlstein includes it in his outstanding book, "Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America." Most people familiar with the case know that President Nixon said that Manson was guilty during his trial (which, especially in the context of Nixon's education, was a terrible error). What is too often underappreciated is how the republican machine used the horror of the image of the "giggling Manson girls" to promote their "law and order" agenda -- which included a heck of a lot of law-breaking on their part.

The abuse of the image of the Manson women was used to scare the heck out of the middle-aged middle class. "Could your daughter(s) kill?" actually became a question that inflicted upon the public. In truth, of course, the women who Charlie attracted were not the average girl-next-door. Far, far from it. But the republican machine would use that image, and even transplant it upon the two female victims at Kent State, as if they were some type of threat to national security, instead of just some decent kids in college, who had a sense of values that included a social conscience and an appreciation of the difference between right and wrong -- the very qualities the female Tate-LaBianco killers utterly lacked.

Not familiar with your usage in a psychological/mind control context.

Nothing to do with psychology or mind-control. Have you ever met anyone who is constantly on the grift? That's all I mean by caging. It was money and stupidity, not mind control.

Or at least it's credibility. Because everyone saw Charlie as a "hippie", that must have been how EVERY hippie was, deep down.

Bu you're right. Charlie was no hippie. He had been in and out of jail so much, he missed almost all of the 60's. He was a thug, a grifter and a psychopath.

If he ever heard about the "free love" and "peace" movements, he certainly didn't practice them. He was always scheming - his mind always squirming like a toad, if you get my meaning.

He had ONE talent. He was able to convince young impressionable minds that he was some sort of "visionary".

Unfortunately, all the drugs around at the time probably helped him accomplish his dreams.

from the leeches.

I'm sure ol' Charlie knew all about the subculture of free love, and used it to his advantage.

I've known a lot of hippies who were in it for the sex and the drugs and the freeloading and the conning, and I've also known a lot of hippies who were just really, really, really naive people who did what the leeches wanted them to. :shrug:

:thumbsup:

Ostensibly that is the argument given by proponents of the theory posited in post #29. Since there was this link, at least in the public mind, the Manson Case was exploited to discredit the 'hippies' / counterculture / anti-war movement.

--more here--

WAs the LA counterculture a covert op?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3536251

And if it was a Covert Op -- It Worked -- as this series from NPR's Day to Day demonstrates:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/daydreaming/2008/06/the_future_began_yesterday.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92034265

I was reading it in a gloomy apartment during gloomy November when it got dark, like, around 6 PM, and it was so scary that by 9 PM I, literally, put one of the bed's feet on the closed book!1

Yeah, it could have all just been the devolution of hippiness downwards into street-hoboness to the logical extreme of psychopathic consciousless anarchy. Either way...

That book will definitely fuck up your confidence in the dark.

That said, I'd stop the devolution at the level of street hoboness. No psychopathology. Most murders are far more banal than we like to think: a couple of hundred dollar here, some specious reasoning (if I do X, then Y will happen) there. I think these were the same. Just this little series of grifts, counter-grifts, bad reasoning and bad decisions that have been blown up into some mystical irrationality through popular culture.

Charlie was mightily pissed that Terry Melcher (a) failed to get him a recording contract; (b) burned him in a dope deal; or (c) both. Manson, thinking that Melcher still lived in the house on Cielo Drive, sent his hit squad there to snuff Melcher and anyone else who might be there. Problem was that Melcher was long gone and the Polanskis and their friends, who wouldn't have known Melcher from a house cat, were not. So Charlie wound up ordering a hit that resulted in none of his intended victims being found, much less murdered, and a lot of innocent bystanders being hacked to pieces. Real organized crime is at least smart enough to find out where their intended victims actually are or will be.

I do think that Charlie was crazy enough to have come up with something like Helter Skelter, but it may have been retconned onto the events after they took place.

BTW, I've read Helter Skelter several times, most recently a few months ago.

I think it was more like a robbery/extortion gone very, very bad. But definitely with Melcher as the target. Apparently, Manson had been told that Melcher moved. This is taken by Bugliosi as evidence that Manson knew Melcher was no longer at the Cielo Drive residence. I dunno. My experience with caging little fucks like that is that they never believe anything you say, largely because they always lie. If anything, the announcement that Melcher had moved the Malibu would further infuriate Manson, since it would look like Melcher just outright dodging him through surrogates. That's why Manson kept coming back, even after being told Melcher had picked up stakes and left. He didn't believe it.

than the complex Helter Skelter story.

Real world doesn't sell as many papers, though.

Just for clarification, my description in the OP is my "shit happens" theory of the case.

I think Bugliosi mentioned that Manson visited the house and talked to Altobelli (owner of the property at the time). The suggestion being that Manson was aware that Melcher was no longer living there. Aktins is quoted as telling a fellow jail mate that the violence was intended to "shock the world." If the motive was drug related then why wouldn't Atkins, Krenwinkel or Kasabian have been given a gun instead of knives?

Atkins told so many versions of the story that her various retellings could support pretty much any theory.

It wasn't drug related. It was extortion related, and knives are scarier. Atkins, moreover, had almost had her gun taken away by Hinman not three weeks earlier.

Manson was just a jailbird and con artist. We have a lot of those, you know? There's not "more to the Manson story" than we know. There's less.

I'm just reading John Ray's book on his brother and he says he was snagged in the military --
and later was at McGill -- He says James was never the same after his military service.
Spoke about hypnotism early on -- chemicals given to him by spinal injections.

The picture we were given of the family is quite a bit off also ---

Coming back to the Tate murders --- it looks like more of an attempt to create fear of drug
users -- though the scariest drug users/abusers were the CIA! -- and that Manson would look
like someone they could have controlled; played with.

I think it was a warning to Hollywood -- and another whack at "hippies" ---

Still all rather suspicious to me ---!!!

all of the other victims were just "collateral damage"
Frykowski (a long time ne'er do well) had burned some higher level dealers for a purported $10,000.
Manson accepted the contract to hit Frykowski. Of the Family members, only Manson, and possibly Watson, knew the true reason for the killing of the people in that house.

:-)

Wouldnt he want to clear himself of that then and throw Watson, Atkins and crew under the bus? That way he might be convicted of drugs but not multiple murders.

Also didnt Manson go to the Tate residence months before and was directed to the back and not the main house??? He knew someone else lived in the main house then didnt he?

acted on their own. Now, I'm not inclined to believe Manson, who is a liar and and a conman, but I wonder whether there's some truth to it.

In terms of whether Manson knew Melcher had moved, I spoke to that in post #24. I think Manson WAS told Melcher ha moved, but he didn't believe it. He thought Melcher was just dodging him.

family/murders for about 30 years (since I first saw the movie on TV...I had to sneak out of bed to watch it).

I have never been comfortable with the whole race-riot scenario Bugliosi puts forth.

While I'm sure that Manson told his drug-addled crew all sorts of shit (and who KNOWS what *I* have said when I was fucked up), I think that the whole thing was a combination of drug deals, Melcher-hate, prostitution (express or implied), and just plain old whacked-out druggies letting the moment get away from them.

as to hippies, drugs, etc -- group living --- than what might have happened from any

truly uncontrolled situation ---

They all looked so whacked out that either someone was plying them with tons of drugs

-- not anything mainstream --- and/or playing games with their minds.

As were most groups living on the margins of society and largely surviving through small time cons, retail drug sales, and petty criminality. Why does that make a difference?

prostitutes, heavy drugs --- these people could be moved any way MKULTRA wanted ---

Nor was there much talent in this group -- we're not talking a Crosby-Doors kind of

intelligence/career potential --- !!!

These were low life grifters who tipped.

There's no need to imagine a sinister larger purpose, in either Helter Skelter or MKULTRA. It's all very simple.

Could anything be more "sinister" than MKULTRA and the murderous attacks on the counter-
culturists . . . in every way possible!!!

....and do you actually believe that Oswald killed JFK -- and that it wasn't a coup
on our government?

... do you actually believe that James Earl Ray killed MLK, Jr.?

... or maybe that Sirhan Sirhan killed RFK?

...

sums up your debating skills . . .

Your evidence-less speculations?

Or your attempted thread hijacking so we can talk about something YOU want to talk about?

As it stands, there is no evidence whatsoever, in circumstantial or other form, that would suggest the murders committed by the the group I'm referring to in 1969 have the slightest thing to do with the CIA, MKULTRA, or whatever other fantasy you're imposing on these events. None. Zero. Zip. So what's to debate? Nothing but your pre-established and completely faith-based "belief." You want a thread on RFK and MKULTRA, and your weird brainwashing stuff? Start one. Throughout this thread, I've offered voluminous specific reasoning for my theory of these crimes, with specific evidence where required. You've provided none. Not one shred of reasoning or evidence. So you should check yo'self before you go impugning somebody else's debating skills, since you do not appear to understand what debate means. If you want to debate this set of crimes, please feel free to do so. Others have throughout this thread, and I've engaged them in a civil and forthright manner, explaining my reasoning with evidence. If you want to talk about some weirdo JFK/MLK/RFK conspiracy, you can do that on your own. I'm not interested.

in the sixties including the high-profile political assassinations we're all familiar with.

See? There's nothing to debate.

knowing what we now know about the CIA, the GOP, and former California rep, senator, and failed gov candidate Nixon, who was inaugurated US President the same year as the Tate murders, not to mention Bugliosi's ludicrous book defending the Warren Commission, yes.

Anyway, I just looked at the Manson wiki entry, and apparently he wasn't even present at the crime. Good grief.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson

the Tate crime scene is a revelation that you JUST learned on Wikipedia. For this reason, I don't see how it's worthwhile playing your silly word association game with you at this point. You apparently did not even read the OP, either, so I don't consider you to be responding in good faith here.

You apparently have a beef with Bugliosi over "Reclaiming History," and you are transferring that beef on to this discussion of the Tate-Labianca murders, which you know nothing about.

the more it stinks.

when you have the capacity to discuss it knowledgeably.

and it looks like the usual suspects up to their usual tricks, and that includes that fat piece of shit Bugliosi.

You know squat. You are putting "two and two" together based on nothing but your hostility toward Bugliosi. That's fine, but it is a know-nothing and silly approach.

never mind that this thread disputes Bugliosi's theory throughout. For you, it has to be yet another example of this thing you already thought it was, evidence be damned. It's a dishonest way to conduct an inquiry.

capacity and knowledge of the case . . .

None of it has anything to do with any stupid Helter Skelter. It was all drug burns, and shit going south too fast for a bunch a caging fucks keep up with. It was all dumb ideas based on dumb ideas of what the cops would think, and panic, and itchy trigger fingers. There was no grand plot, but rather a brutal accumulation of stupidities. I’d even go so far as to say there was no “Family” as such. They were just a bunch of hippie grifters whose momentum pushed them into the ultimate horror. None of this minimizes their actions (with the exception, probably, of Beausoleil, who was convicted of first degree murder, an inaccurate charge in my mind). These were among the most brutal slayings in American history. All the more scary that they were triggered in an almost painfully random way, by small chance events and silly notions.

Re this . . .

Your evidence-less speculations?

MKULTRA is evidence, in itself -- though, presumably, we only know half of what happened --
if, even that.

And you seem to have almost no familiarity with it as seems clear from this:

...and your weird brainwashing stuff?

Meanwhile, nor have the Church Hearings ever been released.


MKULTRA was about removing resistance to government fascism --
whether in the form of Segregation, Inc., or control of plants/drugs, Hollywood liberalism,
peace groups, anti-war movement.

When we discuss the basis of what was moving the Manson "group" it was drugs --
and certainly it was government who had the kinds of drugs which would create
behavior at these levels.

And it is MKULTRA which had the organization and high desire to defame and create
fear surrounding "hippie groups" - communes -- Hollywood and its social/political
liberalism -- and drig use connected to all of this.

I do agree with you that Bugliosi wrote myth ---

and reasoning, and most summations are.

Your thinking, on the other hand, is pure post hoc fallacy: these crimes affected the way people viewed the counterculture, therefore they must have been engineered by shadowy groups seeking to discredit the counterculture.

You say "MKULTRA is evidence, in itself." Only a faith-based belief would even think such a thing, much less say it. Your CLAIM is of MKULTRA involvement. That cannot also be your EVIDENCE (in itself, no less!).

And, a "summation" is a recap of evidence ---

Of course, MKULTRA is evidence --- and, again, you have no familiarity with it, yet
you're suggesting it's to be dismissed!

I'd also suggest you try to run down a few more of the government programs from
Operation Gladio to Mockingbird --- from Operation Northwoods to Nixon's Huston Plan.

It may shock you, but much of our existence has been managed/manipulated by corrupt
government with false evidence from the Gulf of Tonkin incident to Bush's claim of
Iraq's WMD.

They are, on the contrary, utterly pedestrian.

I'll be back in touch with you when you have some specific evidence of a connection.

:rofl:

pitiful . . .

They are so frequent on these boards that the conceit of their very super secrecy is like a joke. You said "It may shock you, but much of our existence has been managed/manipulated by corrupt government with false evidence from the Gulf of Tonkin incident to Bush's claim of Iraq's WMD."

It doesn't shock me that people make such claims. It's an everyday affair on this board. You clearly like to think of yourself as trafficking in some hidden radical knowledge. You aren't. You're simply substituting this silly explain-all faith for some other. It's not shocking. It's boring.

Your up is down thinking either provides that you are aware of all of this and

dismiss it -- or that you are unaware and dismiss it.

Can't be both ---

with specific evidence relating to this case, which you continue to be unable or unwilling to provide. As soon as you provide a connection not posed at the very general level of "society" or "the government" but actually manages to touch down on some person involved with this case, then we have something to talk about. Put up your specific evidence related to this case, and then we can evaluate it in a reasonable manner. Thanks.

At this point, since you haven't provided any plausible specific connection to this case, it doesn't matter what I know or don't know about your pet concern. It's like me talking about baseball and you yelling "AHA! You know nothing about marine mammals! Aha!" Who gives a fuck about marine mammals. We're talking about baseball.

Bugliosi had no evidence of motive --- and you have no evidence of anything!

And, at this point you're looking for 100% certainty . . . as though you've

daydreamed yourself into believing that you have anything at all, leave alone

a certainty of evidence!!

Good lord . . . DU is on shakier ground than I ever imagined---!!!


What you're talking about is nonsense ---

Good luck!!

I don't think I want to see this sad level of thinking again ---

Thanks for playing.

What possible motive would Manson and his friends have for this kind of mass murder beyond the sensational claptrap cooked up in Bugliosi's sordid imagination?

That's what this thread is trying to work out.

:eyes:

The difference, is that I make an actual argument, while your contention is an illogical move from the general to the specific (the CIA committed crimes, so they probably committed THIS crime, too!).

He wasn't there.

He was certainly NOT at the Cielo Drive murders. He almost certainly was at the LaBianca scene immediately prior to the murders there.

So what's your point?

He doesn't seem to have been in the house at the La bianca murders, either, and it looks like there's a lot of ambiguity about who did what where on whose instructions, at least according to the notably restrained wiki account.

the murders there.

I think you should go back and read the OP before we go on.

However it seems that you're basically substituting one implausible narrative (Tarantino-style randomness) for an equally implausible but more outdated one (Bugliosi's Capote-style psychopathology, to give it more dignity than it deserves).

I don't believe either murder was "a random act," and since Manson didn't commit any of them, I seriously doubt whether much if any of Bugliosi's sordid tale is true.

That is, whether most shit that happens is random or planned. I fall on the side of chance/contingency. You seem to fall on the side of plan/plot. This is a dispute that goes back to the very beginnings of philosophical thought, so I suspect we won't be able to resolve it in this thread. My apologies if I've been less than civil thus far.

Or the truth may be somewhere in between Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter" theory and your theory.

As a lawyer, let me point out that Bugliosi's concern was to present the jury with a MOTIVE for the murders. Now, motive is not an element of the crime of murder, but unless you catch the perp red-handed, a jury is less likely to convict unless you make them understand the WHY, i.e., the motive. Bugliosi found the motive in Helter Skelter. Was it crazy? Hell yeah. But Manson sure as hell looked and sounded crazy at trial (to say nothing of elsewhere ...). So here you have the jury, trying to figure out why these crazy people did these horrible crimes. Straightforward, good-old-fashioned caging? These people were CRAZY, so the jury wants to believe there was a really CRAZY motive to match.

Bugliosi did some damn good lawyering there. Whether or not it's the truth as to the motive is irrelevant. Manson and Family certainly DID the crimes; there's no suggestion that they didn't. So they WERE, in fact guilty of the murders. Bugliosi just gave them the reason to convict.

Bake

I have no problem with rhetorical strategies that aim for the optimal result, even if what they present is more an amplification of the audience's predispositions. That's fine, and I think you're right that Bugliosi devised a brilliant trial argument, and - as I said - wrote an excellent book. That's all great. My post really just says that I don't believe the argument, not that I have any problem with him having made it.

If there was a negative consequence, it was the mythologization of these acts, an image of them in popular culture that is, well, plain silly. But also may lead to some inequities, as I'll describe more fully in another thread on this tonight.

I don't know a lot about this case but thank you for your very healthy skepticism. I strongly suspect that local and/or high-level "law enforcement" was involved in the murders as well as the cover up, as is often the case in California. Nice indictment by Bugliar of the counterculture too.

Did he actually commit a crime?
Like murder?

Sure he's a nutcase.

Bugliosi, on the other hand, writes a compelling tale of "radical evil." The truth is usually much more mundane--an anathema to "true" crime books.

but he had previously been to the house before the murders and was told that Terry Melcher was no longer living there, he actually was living at his mother Doris Days' house, (manson was not told), and I guess manson didn't believe them.

Terry Melcher was associated with the Beach Boys...Manson had invaded Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson's home and the family was living at Dennis' home. Dennis had taken manson to the beach boy's studio/record company, Brother records, and ended up recording one of manson's songs titled "cease to exist", the Beach boys took the song and changed the title to "never learn not to love" and was on the 20/20 album, changing the title angered manson, he had no recognition for his song. The family wouldn't leave Dennis Wilson's home, so Denny ended up moving out of his own home.

Manson had inquired about a recording or film deal with Melcher, and Terry Melcher didn't ever give him a contract. I don't know why they killed Sharon Tate and the others, who knows.

I've always liked your posts for years by the way. :hi:

I haven't read the book but I did see the movie which doesn't provide the depth of detail that you possess. I never really "got" the whole Helter Skelter thing. I think my idea was that it was something that Charlie invented to manipulate for his own purposes. Revenge on Melcher seems the most plausible. I only heard about that recently and it was like an epiphany. More it was about Charlie wanted to be a musician and this guy rejected him. I didn't know that he thought he was owed anything. But I also think that Charlie liked the attention, liked the myth around him and surrendered into playing the role and building it up for the pleasure of being notorious, a boogeyman. Considering his history with his mother it was all to balance the emptyness of his childhood.

So I think that for the women they were truly followers, truly wanting to please him, buying his bullshit. Tex may have just wanted to release his own demons and your theory of just shit happens, circumstances led to something gruesome spiralling out of control seems so logical. I watch a lot of true crime shows and this is how most things happen, randomly and with panic and disorganization. I have also had my hippy moments (drugs not "caging") and generally people aren't violent and all consumed with radical plans and fantasies but caught up in the day to day aspects of their individual wants and needs.

The picture you paint- a Drug deal gone bad, a revenge plot out of control and then somestupid attempt to thrwart suspicion sounds a lot more plausible than an organized grandiose vision of radical social change and race war blah blah blah. Much more like screwed up typical human nature.

My question is how do you feel this reflects Bugilosi's other works? Like his very convincing indictment of the president?

Also are you familiar with the Jeffery MacDonald killings as well? The Manson killing official story is suspicious but his explanation was always supremely ludicrous to me. "Acid is groovy. Kill the pigs." I mean c'mon? His whole gamble was betting on the, at the time, given concept that Hippies are just deranged violent subversives that you never know may get high and butcher some people for fun. All I ever want to do is eat too much and watch Adult cartoons. Like I said Puh-leeze!

He does seem to believe his own lies, though. Given the horror at his home, I'm not surprised.

It's also weird because I've just been re-reading 'The Family," Ed Sanders' book. I realize that Bugliosi and Sanders created simultaneous myths and competing narratives.

One thing that sticks in my craw, though, is that even if this were just a bunch of low-lifes committing murders based on drug burns (and the remnants of the Family's history after Manson was imprisoned, what with Kenneth Como leading the Family under the aegis of the Ayran Brotherhood prison gang, etc. bears this theory out), etc., how does one explain the very real and very powerful spiritual component of the Family's worldview, and specifically how they actually DID view Manson as a spiritual leader of some sort? I mean, in the court case, sure, Susan Atkins' testimony basically filled in the blanks for most observers. But Atkins ALONE didn't deify Charlie; she ALONE couldn't have made up such a byzantine set of beliefs by herself.

There was real and genuine religion in the minds of these people, centering on Manson himself. If the court proceedings were all bunk, where did this religious nuttery - which predated the Hinman killings; remember that Dean Morehouse, to name just one person, became one of Charlie's followers after just a brief meeting with him in late 1967 - come from? A panicked Bobby Beausoliel and Susan Atkins alone? Paul Watkins also told the police about Helter Skelter and Charlie's religious intentions (maybe they're not one in the same, but this was indeed a real cult).

Maybe they were just dumb hoods, but they definitely BELIEVED. {i]That's the part that always scared the hell out of me.

I think the 'community' they built included some wacky ideas about society that were reinforced by the both drugs and their general isolation. If you went into any marginalized commune in 1969, you'd likely find a lot of the same ideas floating around. What strikes people as most strange about the "Family" is the way they tend to respond to establishment figures, either through playing up authorities worst fears about them, or through a series of non-responses that puts the onus back on the questioner. Both are classic techniques for marginalized groups and individuals which leverages their marginality for rhetorical ends; they are not special ways of responding developed by this group. The problem is that when this group used that very common rhetorical tactic, it was already colored by the specter of these murders in the public mind, so what is off-putting in even the most peaceful settings (i.e., having your question itself questioned; sarcastic intensification of your accusations or criticisms, etc.) became utterly terrifying (the girls getting into crucifix stance in the courtroom, etc.).

I never quite bought the "Manson as Boss." More like, "this guy's an ex-con with a lot of wisdom, man." He was just the oldest one there hanging around, so the younger people looked to him for answers. As somebody familiar with the hippie subculture, you must have seen this a million times. I know I did, and I wasn't even that connected. Most of the Family were 19-22 year old kids, rootless and withou8t education, cut off from parental support networks either through choice or necessity. They get this kind of jailhouse wisdom from "this older dude who hangs out with us" (Manson was in his mid-30's!), but they're still getting their food out of the garbage cans. Since he was a conman and predicate felon, he could leverage that at times, but at times not. I honestly don't think the Tate murders were "ordered" by Manson, though he definitely participated in and almost certainly planned the LaBianca murders.

Family talked of how Charlie was capable of all sorts of psychic feats? OR the supposed Hole in the Earth which they were all supposed to pass through? That wasn't exclusive to any one member of the group - Steve Grogan believed in as much as Susan Atkins, Sandy Good, etc. Their rhetorical strategies, as you point out, were not original. But Manson indeed had them believing in some crazy shit (Chocolate fountains in the center of the Earth?) and this can be verified by more than just a few sources. All the insiders, IMO, had remarkably consistent anecdotes, at least according to Sanders.

It may be that I trust Sanders' narrative more than Bugliosi's because Sanders was OF the counterculture and thus inured to the wild and rootless weirdness endemic to cultic subsets of the counterculture, whereas Bugliosi came from the "straight" world. I believe Snaders was able to penetrate the Family's psychic miasma and thus 'The Family" centered on those aspects of Manson and the Family while "Helter Skelter" read something like Capote (or Jack Webb).

It may be that we're all looking at the Family through our own personal prisms.

Anyhow, as a former psychedelics enthusiast, I had the opportunity to hear "Lie" under the influence of LSD and I admit that I considered Manson's music to be terribly dull. :smile:

I'm not convinced that they believed a lot of this stuff literally (esp. the 'Hole in the earth').

My claim is that the weird things that they believed weren't the motive for the murders.

Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

I so wanted to give this rec 5!

Great post! Thanks alcibiades. I relate.

You have to discredit the eyewitness statements of the former members of the cult, and ignore the behavior of the followers during the trial. They burned Xs on their foreheads and shaved their heads! They tried to kill one of the witnesses with LSD.

I saw Dr. Stone's interview with Catherine Share on the ID channel. She was emphatic about the manipulations and games Manson played on his followers to keep them in line. Most of the ex-members discuss the Helter Skelter beliefs.

There may have been elements of drug-dealing gone wrong with Terry Melcher and Dennis Wilson, but overall, I think that Bugliosi was right. He had so many witnesses, and so much evidence.

sat around conducting exegesis of Beatles records and the like, and developing an internal construct of society that was reinforced by their isolation and the general hostile atmosphere they both faced and created. What did they mostly do? Took drugs and talked. So, yeah, that's the kind of environment in which bizarre social ideas can take root and reinforce themselves. I say this having sat around tripping on LSD and listening to the most ingenious theories regarding A Tribe Called Quest's People's Instictive Travels and the paths of Rhythm. You know the drill: "Yeah, that's so fuckin' deep, man. Uh huh."


I think that's what most of Mr. Bugliosi's evidence shows: that an isolated group at the margins of society developed a truly weird construct of society. But I think that's all it really shows. Moreover, i don't think that anyone in the group actually believed that they would find a "bottomless pit" in Death Valley where they would ride out a race war.

Ultimately, I don't believe that Mr. Bugliosi convincingly demonstrated that these weird social beliefs they developed were actual motives for these crimes. He demonstrated that they existed, but not that they caused anything. As I see it, he linked two unconnected things: the strange beliefs that took root in this group on the one hand(although not that strange for the times, the group's practices, and the social structure, really), and these crimes on the other. It was a masterful connection that worked perfectly to play on the audience's predispositions, but I don't think the link is accurate.

revenge killings for drug sales' "burns" (including Manson's ties with other criminal groups) and "Helter Skelter" are not inconsistent with one another. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin, and are both needed to understand the series of crimes associated with the Manson family.

A good book to read for a greater appreciation of the drug crimes is Ed Sanders' "The Family." There are others, along with articles of interest authored by people associated with the defense attorneys.

On a relatively unimportant note, Steve Parent was visiting an acquaintance, rather than a friend, and was unfamiliar with the property. Hence, it can be ruled out that he approached the gang in a "who the fuck are you?" manner.

Second, much of the information about what happened -- including Steve Parrent's tragic death -- came from Linda Kasabian. Her memory of the events matched Susan Atkin's in most important ways, and included other important points introduced in the trial.

Vincent Bugliosi's book was, of course, based upon what he presented in the context of a court case. And, as we all know, the rules of evidence do not allow for "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" to be introduced. Mr. Bugliosi was aware of many other facts in the case, which were not allowed into evidence in the trial. Among them were reports that connected Leno LaBianco to the drug trade that went through Cielo Drive and eventually wound its way into the desert.

As for Parent, you're likely right about that. My intent was more to suggest some weird encounter between Parent and Watson than to really claim that parent took an authoritative tone with respect to the property. While I do find Kasabian relatively believable as to sequence, I also think her testimony could have been significantly guided by the DA's investment in Atkins' prior account. Kasabian arguably had more involvement in these crimes than Van Houten, even though she never actually went into either house. She knew, certainly, what would happen at the LaBianca's, for instance. So her motivation to tell a story favored by the prosecution was likely pretty high. To say that her memory of the events "matched" Atkins in important ways is thus believable, but not because they both comport with reality. Rather, they comport with each other. What we take from that depends on how much we think the DA guided the witnesses based on Atkins' account.

Linda Kasabian was certainly an impressionable person, and that was something that both the prosecution and defense attorneys noted. She had a history of "following" others before she met Manson, and obviously that was a personality trait that Mr. Bugliosi showed to his advantage. The defense attorneys knew that she was, exactly as you note, prone to provide the answers that the prosecution was looking for. In her favor, I suspect, as far as the jury was concerned, was the point where Manson sought to intimidate her while she was on the witness stand, and she responded by saying that she was telling the truth, and that Charlie knew it.

The concept of "revenge killings" has many possibilities; some may overlap. Did Manson target that house, because of his rage at previous occupants? Possibly. Perhaps more likely, especially in the context of Tex Watson knowing the lay-out because he had previously been there, is the possibility that the "family" had other relationships with people associated with it. Many believe that Voytek Frykowski was involved with the sale of significant quanties of expensive drugs. The Manson family not only consumed large amounts of drugs, but they were engaged in the buying and redistribution of large amounts of drugs.

It is unlikely that the responsibility for such activities was entrusted to the entire group. More likely, the idea that Manson had a small number of men in control of this is accurate. Tex Watson would seem to be a strong possibility for this, which could explain his familiarity with the house. (Manson also had direct contacts with groups such as the motorcycle gangs, who likewise had significant investments in the drug trade. Manson's extreme paranoia about the motorcycle gangs being after the family in the later stages of their relationship seems more likely related to this than to VD.)

There is apparently evidence that Leno LaBianco was involved in the drug trade. While there is no evidence that Manson knew him, it is known that Charlie had frequented a neighbor's home. It could be that the second night of killings was as a result of a random selection, even though the area was known to Manson. Criminals often pick "comfort zones" they are familiar with. It is also possible, as some people associated with the defense teams believed, that Leno was the next level up from Voytek Frykowski.

There was a significant amount of evidence never introduced at the trial. For example, many of the police and people from the prosecutor's office were aware that Manson probably went to the Tate residence after the killers returned to the ranch. Most of the defense attorneys believed this to be true. It would explain some of the differences between the crime scene the killers described leaving, and the one the police found. That information was on its own ruled to be prejudicial against Manson, and only could have been introduced if Charlie had taken the stand under oath. He obviously declined to testify in open court, though if he were looking to further his Helter Skelter agenda, the witness stand would have been an attractive soap box.

One other area where I respectfully disagree with you on is the influence of religion in the case. Manson and several followers had close ties to a number of "religious" groups in California at the time, which were not introduced in the trial. Some of these were "cults," and Manson had several followers who were involved in them, either before joining Charlie, or while they were associated with the family. The activities of the Manson family, including many of their rituals, are classic examples of the behaviors of religious cults.

What is certainly a myth is that Manson had the power to "convert" those who were basically good people, and turn them into killers. He instead found severely problemed, anti-social people, and exploited their potential for violence and hatred. He combined the con-man skills that he learned in prison settings with the drugs, sex, and cult behavior, and it happened to be at a time of severe cultural strain in the greater society. One of the curious things is how close he became with a number of people associated with rock & roll at the time. It gave the little rat access to more influence (including money and drugs) than he could possibly have obtained otherwise.

I'm aware of the belief that Manson returned to the Cielo Drive scene after the murders. I think such a return would actually support my theory fairly well, since Manson may have wanted to see for himself how bad it was (i.e., how much the plan had gone awry). There's also some very strange evidence about arguments and even gunshots being reported into the very, very late hours of the night (as late as 4am). Certainly, given the time of death on the Cielo victims, these were not the initial event, but it would also comport with a surprised Manson returning to the scene with, say, Watson. It would also comport with the idea that writing on the wall was not part of the plan, and that Manson only learned about it when he returned to the scene (and freaked out given the connection to the Hinman scene). Finally, it would comport with reports that somebody tried to open the door at the guesthouse, which certainly did not happen during the initial events. In other words, it would support the idea that mimicking the Hinman scene was not part of the plan, but an independent and spontaneous decision of one of the killers (i.e., Atkins) on the spot. When Manson saw it, he concluded that the police would connect the crime to Hinman, and thus to Spahn. (Indeed, the Sheriff's department did just that as early as August 12-14, but LAPD Robbery/Homicide ignored and dismissed it). One of the real issues of the "return" narrative is who would have done the driving. Unfortunately, the answer to that would be Kasabian, most likely, for the same reasons she drove there initially, and drove during the night of August 10.

The deals with the motorcycle gangs (and especially the Straight Satans) is a crucial part of the theory I put forth in the OP. The Hinman murder was almost certainly connected to Beausoleil's deal with that gang, and I think everything flows from that, really. As far as Frykowski and LaBianca being involved in drug dealing, I have yet to see any credible evidence to that effect (although I'd be open to seeing it), so I'm not comfortable with that theory at all. This much is true: Frykowski was a tough motherfucker.

other book, no longer in print, that one of my brother's had years ago, which had more information from one of the women's attorneys. That had a lot of information that showed the defense attorneys believed the killings were primarily drug-related, and that the Helter Skelter business was pretty much what Manson used in dealing with two groups: the females in his family, and outsiders.

Sharon Tate's father was, as you know, a member of the military intelligence community. I had a relative, since deceased, who was also in military intelligence, and who lived in the general area of the crimes. My brother ended up moving out to the west coast, and lived both with and near my uncle. The Manson episode had been really upsetting to my uncle, and he took a real interest in it.

One of the things that probably would have come out, had Charlie not punked out in regard to taking the stand, was that he had brought the "mysterious" pair of glasses to the house when he visited after the killings. My impression is that he made the visit solo, but it certainly could have been with Tex (though not with anyone else from the ranch).

Planting "false clues" -- either at the scene, or by having Mrs. LaBianco's wallet planted elsewhere the following night -- is a common habit of career criminals, and the type of thing that Charlie no doubt learned while in prison.

Mr. Bugliosi was prepared for any eventuality. "Helter Skelter" was, I think, very real in the context of how Manson got the females to kill for him. It does not seem to really explain either the participation of Watson or Bobby Beausoleil fully. In both cases, these were guys who had, to different extents, posed a challenge to Manson's authority. (That was particularly true of Beausoleil, who had his own little satanic group before meeting Charlie. Tex would become more of a Mansonite as time went on.)

Had Manson not punked out, and testified, Mr. Bugliosi would have been able to enter a lot more evidence. It would have included information that went beyond the Helter Skelter business. In my opinion, Manson thought that by not getting in front of the jury, he would be more likely to get the comfort of a life sentence, while the females would go to the gas chamber. That would not have resulted in his losing a minute's sleep.

Regarding Leno LaBianco, I am not aware of any solid evidence that was ever produced that proved he was involved in drug trade. I know that some people associated with the teams believed it was true, though their reasons for this were not, so far as I know, documented. However, in all the cases of murder that were either prosecuted in court, or where they were suspects (both Mr. Bugliosi's and Mr. Sander's books include information on these), it would make it the only instance where the violence appears truly random. Anything is possible, of course, but criminals such as Manson tend to commit crimes that fit into general modus operandi, that tends to indicate not only the criminal's comfort zone, so to speak, but also allows for profiling. The random selection of the LaBianca household would not, in my opinion, make sense.

It was, in any case, only semi-random, since Manson and crew had been to the area before in connection with the neighbor.

Why go random? To cover the connection between Hinman and Cielo. It's more of the same "throwing the cops off." So, Tex goes buckwild at Cielo, and kills everyboduy contrary to the plan. Atkins, similarly acting on her own, writes with blood on the door, seeking to save Beausoleil. Manson goes back to the scene with Tex, and devises the NEW plan to clean the Hinman-Tate connection. It's a desperation move. But they can only get so random, so they go to the neighbor of a place they've already been (they know the area, etc.). LaBianca is thus deliberately random to throw off the investogators. Little did Manson know that the cops would fail to connect the three crimes until it was dropped in their laps. Manson fully believed that the August 16 (!) raid on Spahn was in response to the murders.

Leno LaBianco could have offended Manson earlier, with anything from a look Manson felt was "dirty," to a spoken word. Manson had a large chip on his shoulder, carried grudges, and despised those he felt were "better" than him. (And without a gun or knife, even at his age, it is unlikely Mr. LaVianco would have viewed Manson as anything other than a dirty little rat.)

In terms of the writing in blood, it seems that it fits not only with what Susan A. and Linda K. said, but it seems to be in line with what the others have said in the many years since. While there are many areas where the "truth" is probably unknown and never to be known, I think that the idea that the group was planning to kill everyone at the Tate residence and do so in a vicious manner that left a hideous crime scene behind is pretty well documented. However, I think that your ideas are interesting, and make for a good discussion.

If your theory is correct, why didn't the prosecutor go that direction? Your explanation involves proving that your theory is the correct one and rather simple to conceive and, therefore, should have been easy to prove. So, it would seem that it would have been the easier of the two motives to prove, right? I'm sure DA's would rather go with the motive that would be easiest to prove in court because that would make getting a conviction more likely. So, why didn't they?

Two possible reasons, there may be more, but I came up with two. The first draws on your belief, that the real motives were drug related and more base with regard to human nature than esoteric like the helter skelter idea. Well, Manson wasn't actually present at the crimes or killings, so it would have been more difficult to prove murder in the first degree. His sentence would have been much lighter and he probably would have gotten out years ago. So, the DA, instead of getting the certain convictions of 1st degree murder on the family members, but a lesser charge or acquittal against Manson, risks trying for a much harder conviction to include Manson. Possible reason, but very risky.

Or, perhaps the DA actually believed the motive he came up with. Now, from your post I gather you weren't alive, let alone an adult, during the Tate-LaBianca murders. You get to look at this crime from a 40 year perspective of your experiences and the changes in society. It may be hard to comprehend the times and consciousness that the US was going through then.

In 1969 the country was in great turmoil, much of it race related. A few years before there were the race riots in Watts, there were the riots in Chicago at the Democratic primary in 1968, Martin Luther King had been assassinated the previous year, civil rights issues and confrontations were common with a lot of them violent, black and white civil rights workers had been murdered, there were lynchings still going on, Huey Newton, the Black Panthers, the Weatherman all contributed the uneasy tension that gripped the US. Let's not forget the disruption and clash of society due to the Vietnam War, especially the belief among many blacks that they were serving and dying disproportionally in that conflict and that the war was indeed racist.

It seemed to the average, middle class citizen (see white) that the nation was in a state of anarchy, society was breaking down. How difficult would it be to believe that some people would like to incite a massive race riot, of blacks against whites. Some people believed that it was inevitable. I believe the fear was there and real for some.

You bring up very good points and there may even be much truth to them compared to the Helter Skelter motive looking back with more objective eyes. But, to call Bugliosi's courtroom strategy "bullshit" implies he was trying to scam the public and the court with some moonbeam, nutter court room shenanigans he didn't think were true is disingenuous to me. I think if he'd followed your motive theory Manson would not have been convicted of murder one and quite possibly would have been paroled or served his sentence years ago.

1) When I say "bullshit," I just mean it's not really true. I'm a foul-mouthed motherfucker. :-)
2) I think Bugliosi put forth the best argument for the situation, as I said in response to dbaker above.
3) Manson should not get out of prison, ever. He's a violent predicate felon.

Thought I read that in Helter Skelter and the Sharon Tate bio that he spoke to Altobelli the owner that spring when he went up there looking for Melcher and was informed that Melcher had moved on?... :shrug:

Whether he believed it is another question.

He inquired where Melcher had moved to, and Altobelli was vague, refusing to give Mnason the address. Manson returned several times.

Sharon Tate/Roman Polanski, the new occupants of the home, sent manson to the guest house, where Altobelli was, and Altobelli told manson that Melcher moved and had no idea where he moved to (melcher was at his mother's home in Malibu, manson was not told this).

Melcher was taken to spahn ranch to meet with manson 2 different times in the spring 1969.

I read Hel Skel when I was a sophomore in HS. I vaguely remembered the Tate murders in the news and thought I'd pick up the book. Reading it freaked me the hell out.

Kudos to Vincent Bugliosi both for the conviction of the Manson family and for a grab-you-by-the-throat book the likes of which I've never read before or since.

For a while I've wanted to get his new book about GWB the murdering psychopath and it really whetted my appetite to re-read Hel Skel.

Thanks for providing so much food for thought on that topic. :hi:

I'm a voracious reader. I might have to hit the library or Borders this weekend to pick up a copy. ;-) I've never read it. I'm very familiar with the murders - but I've never read that book.

It WILL scare the shit out of you, even now.

Thanks for the warning.

I lived "in step" for six years with a crazy ex wife lurking in my life - at one time.

Betty Broderick? 'Til the 12th of Never - that book scared the hell out of me. Should be quite a ride to read this!

which include the 1994 "afterword" is fascinating.

(I'm sorry I found this thread too late to give it rec #5.)

I can't really add anything of substance to this discussion, but I do want to mention a few things.

First, I was 19 in 1969, so those events are part of my own personal historical memory.

Second, I ended up living in Venice Beach in mid-1970 with some cocaine dealers who were peripherially connected with part of that biker/musician/Hollywood drug underworld. Not that I was ever afforded any insight into the Manson stuff -- which no one I knew ever discussed -- but I got a fair inkling about the weird inter-connections that operated in that world.

Third, I read the Sanders book (The Family) first (I'm pretty sure it was published before the Bugliosi book), right when it came out and I remember thinking it made lots of sense from the point of view of my own knowledge and experiences. I then read Helter Skelter as soon as it came out, and my indelible impression was that Bugliosi was full of shit.

I've not read either book since (and don't really have any interest in doing so), but throughout all these years I've always thought it was a damn shame that Helter Skelter got all the attention when, to me, it was full of utter nonsense and bullshit.

sw