Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

by Vincent Bugliosi

  As an alternative motive, Aaron suggested that maybe Manson was trying to get enough money to bail out Mary Brunner, the mother of his child, who had been arrested on the afternoon of August 8 for using a stolen credit card. Again I played the Devil’s advocate. Seven murders, five one night, two the next; 169 separate stab wounds; words written in the victims’ own blood; a knife stuck in the throat of one victim, a fork in his stomach, the word WAR carved on his stomach—all this to raise $625 bail?

  It wasn’t that we lacked a motive. Though Aaron and LAPD disagreed with me, I felt we had one. It was just that it was almost unbelievably bizarre.

  When I interviewed Susan Atkins on December 4, she told me, “The whole thing was done to instill fear in the establishment and cause paranoia. Also to show the black man how to take over the white man.” This, she said, would be the start of “Helter Skelter,” which, when I questioned her before the grand jury the next day, she defined as “the last war on the face of the earth. It would be all the wars that have ever been fought built one on top of the other…”

  “There was a so called motive behind all this,” Susan wrote Ronnie Howard. “It was to instill fear into the pigs and to bring on judgment day which is here now for all.”

  Judgment Day, Armageddon, Helter Skelter—to Manson they were one and the same, a racial holocaust which would see the black man emerge triumphant. “The karma is turning, it’s blackie’s turn to be on top.” Danny DeCarlo said Manson preached this incessantly. Even a near stranger such as biker Al Springer, who visited Spahn Ranch only a few times, told me he thought “helter skelter” must be Charlie’s “pet words,” he used them so often.

  That Manson foresaw a war between the blacks and the whites was not fantastic. Many people believe that such a war may someday occur. What was fantastic was that he was convinced he could personally start that war himself—that by making it look as if blacks had murdered the seven Caucasian victims he could turn the white community against the black community.

  We knew there was at least one secondary motive for the Tate murders. As Susan Atkins put it in the Caballero tape, “The reason Charlie picked that house was to instill fear into Terry Melcher because Terry had given us his word on a few things and never came through with them.” But this was obviously not the primary motive, since, according to Gregg Jakobson, Manson knew that Melcher was no longer living at 10050 Cielo Drive.

  All the evidence we’d assembled thus far, I felt, pointed to one primary motive: Helter Skelter. It was far out, but then so were the murders themselves. It was admittedly bizarre, but from the first moment I was assigned to the case, I’d felt that for murders as bizarre as these the motive itself would have to be almost equally strange, not something you’d find within the pages of a textbook on police science.

  The jury would never buy Helter Skelter, Aaron said, suggesting that we offer something they would understand. I told him it wouldn’t take me two seconds to dump the whole Helter Skelter theory if he could find another motive in the evidence.

  Aaron, however, was right. The jury would never accept Helter Skelter, as is. We were missing far too many bits and pieces, and one all-important link.

  Presuming that Manson actually believed that he could start a race war with these acts, what would he, Charlie Manson, personally gain by it?

  To this I had no answer. And without it the motive made no sense.

  “Always think of the Now…No time to look back…No time to say how.” This rhyme was repeated in almost every letter Sandy, Squeaky, Gypsy, or Brenda sent to the defendants. Its meaning was obvious: Don’t tell them anything.

  Through a barrage of letters, telegrams, and attempted visits, the Manson girls tried to get Beausoleil, Atkins, and Kasabian to dump their present attorneys, repudiate any incriminating statements they may have made, and engage in a united defense.

  Though Beausoleil agreed that “the whole thing balances on whether the Family stays together in their heads & doesn’t break up & start testifying against itself,” he decided, “I’m going to keep my present lawyer.”

  Bobby Beausoleil had always been somewhat independent. Less handsome than “pretty” (the girls had nicknamed him “Cupid”), Beausoleil had had bit parts in several movies, written music, formed a rock group, and had his own harem, all before meeting Manson. Leslie, Gypsy, and Kitty had all lived with Bobby before joining Charlie.

  Beausoleil requested that Squeaky and the others not visit him so often. They were taking up all his visiting time, when the person he really wanted to see was Kitty, who was expecting his child in less than a month.

  Beausoleil wasn’t the only one being pressured. Without Susan Atkins, the prosecution had no case against Manson, and Manson knew it. Family members called Richard Caballero at all hours of the day and night. When cajoling didn’t work, they tried threats. Less because of their pressure than that of his own client, Caballero finally gave in and let some of the Manson girls—though not Manson himself—visit Susan.

  It was, at best, a holding action. At any moment Susan could insist on seeing Charlie, and Caballero would be unable to prevent it. After Susan’s story had appeared in the Los Angeles Times, little signs had appeared on the walls at Sybil Brand reading, “SADIE GLUTZ IS A SNITCH.” This greatly upset Susan. And each time something like this happened, the scales seemed to tip a little more in Manson’s favor.

  Manson was also aware that if Susan Atkins refused to testify at the trial, our only hope lay with Linda Kasabian. After a time Linda’s attorney, Gary Fleischman, refused to see Gypsy, so persistent had her visits become. If Linda didn’t testify, Gypsy told him on numerous occasions, everyone would get off. Fleischman did take her along one time when he went to see his client. Gypsy told Linda—in the presence of several persons—that she should lie and say that on the nights of the Tate-LaBianca murders she had never left Spahn Ranch but remained with her at the waterfall. Gypsy promised to back up her story.

  Given a choice between Susan and Linda as the star witness for the prosecution, I much preferred Linda: she hadn’t killed anyone. But in the rush to get the case to the grand jury, we’d made the deal with Susan and, like it or not, we were stuck with it. Unless Susan bolted.

  Yet this posed its own problems. If Susan didn’t testify, we’d need Linda, but without Susan’s testimony we had no evidence against Linda, so what could we offer her? Fleischman wanted immunity for his client, yet from Linda’s standpoint it would be better to be tried and acquitted than get immunity, testify against Manson and the others, and risk retribution by the Family.

  We were very worried at this point. Exactly how worried is evidenced by a telephone call I made. After Manson had been indicted for the Tate-LaBianca murders, the Inyo County authorities had dropped the arson charges against him, though they had a strong case. I called Frank Fowles and asked him to refile the charges, which he did, on February 6. We were that afraid that Manson would be set free.

  FEBRUARY 1970

  That an accused mass murderer could emerge a counterculture hero seemed inconceivable. But to some Charles Manson had become a cause.

  Just before she went underground, Bernardine Dohrn told a Students for a Democratic Society convention: “Offing those rich pigs with their own forks and knives, and then eating a meal in the same room, far out! The Weathermen dig Charles Manson.”

  The underground paper Tuesday’s Child, which called itself the Voice of the Yippies, blasted its competitor the Los Angeles Free Press for giving too much publicity to Manson—then spread his picture across the entire front page with a banner naming him MAN OF THE YEAR.

  The cover of the next issue had Manson on a cross.

  Manson posters and sweat shirts appeared in psychedelic shops, along with FREE MANSON buttons.

  Gypsy and other spokesmen for the Family took to the late-night radio talk shows to play Charlie’s songs and denounce the prosecution for “framing an innocent man.”

  Stretching his pro per privileg
es to their utmost limits, Manson himself granted a number of interviews to the underground press. He was also interviewed, by phone from the County Jail, by several radio stations. And his visitor’s list now included, among the “material witnesses,” some familiar names.

  “I fell in love with Charlie Manson the first time I saw his cherub face and sparkling eyes on TV,” exclaimed Jerry Rubin. On a speaking tour during a recess in the Chicago Seven trial, Rubin visited Manson in jail, giving rise to the possibility that Manson might be considering the use of disruptive tactics during his own trial. According to Rubin, Charlie rapped for three hours, telling him, among other things, “Rubin, I am not of your world. I’ve spent all my life in prison. When I was a child I was an orphan and too ugly to be adopted. Now I am too beautiful to be set free.”

  “His words and courage inspired us,” Rubin later wrote. “Manson’s soul is easy to touch because it lays quite bare on the surface.”*

  Yet Charles Manson—revolutionary martyr—was a difficult image to maintain. Rubin admitted being angered by Manson’s “incredible male chauvinism.” A reporter for the Free Press was startled to find Manson both anti-Jewish and anti-black. And when one interviewer tried to suggest that Manson was as much a political prisoner as Huey Newton, Charlie, obviously perplexed, asked, “Who’s he?”

  As yet the pro-Mansonites appeared to be a small, though vocal minority. If the press and TV reports were correct, a majority of the young people whom the media had lumped together under the label “hippies” disavowed Manson. Many stated that the things he espoused—such as violence—were directly contrary to their beliefs. And more than a few were bitter about the guilt by association. It was almost impossible to hitchhike any more, one youth told a New York Times reporter. “If you’re young, have a beard, or even long hair, motorists look at you as if you’re a ‘kill crazy cultist,’ and jam the gas.”

  The irony was that Manson never considered himself a hippie, equating their pacifism with weakness. If the Family members had to have a label, he told his followers, he much preferred calling them “slippies,” a term which, in the context of their creepy-crawly missions, was not inappropriate.

  What was most frightening was that the Family itself was growing. The group at Spahn had increased significantly. Each time Manson made a courtroom appearance, I spotted new faces among the known Family members.

  It could be presumed that many of the new “converts” were sensation seekers, drawn like moths to the glare of publicity.

  What we didn’t know, however, was how far they would go to gain attention or acceptance.

  Leslie Van Houten was legally sane, Judge Dell ruled on February 6, basing his decision on the confidential reports of the three psychiatrists, and granting her motion for a substitution of attorneys.

  In court the same day, Manson unexpectedly called our bluff: “Let’s have an early trial setting. Let’s go tomorrow or Monday. That’s a good day for a trial.” Keene set a trial date of March 30, the date already assigned Susan Atkins. That gave us a little more time, but not nearly enough.

  On February 16, Keene heard Manson’s motion for a change of venue. “You know, there has been more publicity on this, even more, than the guy who killed the President of the United States,” Manson said. “You know, it is getting so far out of proportion that to me it is a joke, but actually the joke might cost me my life.”

  Though the other defense attorneys would later submit similar motions, arguing that it would be impossible for their clients to obtain fair trials in Los Angeles because of the extensive pre-trial publicity, Manson didn’t argue this too strongly. The motion was really “trivial,” he said, because “it doesn’t seem it could be done anywheres.”

  Though Keene disagreed with Manson’s contention that he couldn’t obtain a fair trial, he did observe, in denying the motion, that “a change of venue, even if warranted, would be ineffectual.”

  This was also the view of the prosecution. It was doubtful if there was any place in California, or the rest of the United States, where the publicity had not reached.

  Each time the defense made a motion—and there would be hundreds before the end of the trial—the prosecution had to be prepared to answer. Though Aaron and I shared the verbal arguments, I prepared the written briefs, many of which required considerable legal research. All this was in addition to the heavy investigative responsibilities I had taken on.

  Yet the latter job had its special satisfactions. At the start of February there were still huge holes in our case, big areas where we had almost no information whatsoever. For example, I still had very little insight into what made Charles Manson tick.

  By the end of the month I had that, and a great deal more. For by then I understood, for the first time, Manson’s motive—the reason why he’d ordered these murders.

  I rarely interview a witness just once. Often the fourth or fifth interview will bring out something previously forgotten or deemed insignificant, which, in proper context, may prove vital to my case.

  When I had questioned Gregg Jakobson before the grand jury, my primary concern had been to establish the link between Manson and Melcher.

  Reinterviewing the talent scout, I was surprised to discover that since meeting Manson at Dennis Wilson’s home in the early summer of 1968, Jakobson had had over a hundred long talks with Charlie, mostly about Manson’s philosophy. An intelligent young man, who flirted off and on with the hippie life style, Gregg had never joined the Family, though he’d often visited Manson at Spahn Ranch. Besides seeing in Manson certain commercial possibilities, Jakobson had found him “intellectually stimulating.” He was so impressed that he often touted him to others, such as Rudi Altobelli, the owner of 10050 Cielo Drive, who had been both Terry Melcher’s and Sharon Tate’s landlord.

  I was surprised at the wide variety of people Manson knew. Charlie was a chameleon, Gregg said; he often professed that “he had a thousand faces and that he used them all—he told me that he had a mask for everyone.”

  Including the jury? I wondered, realizing that if Manson put on the mask of the peace-loving hippie at the trial, I’d be able to use Gregg’s remark to unmask him.

  I asked Gregg why Manson felt it necessary to don masks.

  A. “So he could deal with everyone on their own level, from the ranch hand at Spahn, to the girls on the Sunset Strip, to me.”

  I was curious as to whether Manson had a “real” face. Gregg thought he had. Underneath it all he had very firm beliefs. “It was rare to find a man who believed in his convictions as strongly as Charlie did—who couldn’t be swayed.”

  What were the sources of Manson’s beliefs? I asked.

  Charlie rarely, if ever, gave anyone else credit for his philosophy, Gregg replied. But it was obvious that Charlie was not above borrowing.

  Had Manson ever mentioned Scientology or The Process?

  The Process, also known as the Church of the Final Judgement, was a very strange cult. Led by one Robert DeGrimston, t/n Robert Moore—who, like Manson, was an ex-Scientologist—its members worshiped both Satan and Christ. I’d only begun to look into the group, acting on the basis of a newspaper story which indicated Manson might have been influenced by them.

  However, Jakobson said Manson had never mentioned either Scientology or The Process. Gregg himself had never heard of the latter group.

  Images in this book are not displayed owing to permissive issues.

  Did Charlie ever quote anyone? I asked Gregg.

  Yes, he replied, “the Beatles and the Bible.” Manson would quote, verbatim, whole lyrics from the Beatles’ songs, finding in them a multitude of hidden meanings. As for the Bible, he most often quoted Revelation 9. But in both cases he usually used the quotations as support for his own views.

  Though I was very interested in this odd coupling, and would later question Gregg in depth about it, I wanted to know more about Manson’s personal beliefs and attitudes.

  Q. “What did Manson say, if anythin
g, about right and wrong?”

  A. “He believed you could do no wrong, no bad. Everything was good.

  Whatever you do is what you are supposed to do; you are following your own karma.”

  The philosophical mosaic began taking shape. The man I was seeking to convict had no moral boundaries. It was not that he was immoral, but totally amoral. And such a person is always dangerous.

  Q. “Did he say it was wrong to kill a human being?”

  A. “He said it was not.”

  Q. “What was Manson’s philosophy re death?”

  A. “There was no death, to Charlie’s way of thinking. Death was only a change. The soul or spirit can’t die…That’s what we used to argue all the time, the objective and the subjective and the marriage of the two. He believed it was all in the head, all subjective. He said that death was fear that was born in man’s head and can be taken out of man’s head, and then it would no longer exist…

  “Death to Charlie,” Gregg added, “was no more important than eating an ice cream cone.”

  Yet once, in the desert, Jakobson had run over a tarantula, and Manson had angrily berated him for it. He had denounced others for killing rattlesnakes, picking flowers, even stepping on a blade of grass. To Manson it was not wrong to kill a human being, but it was wrong to kill an animal or plant. Yet he also said that nothing was wrong, everything that happened was right.

  That Manson’s philosophy was riddled with such contradiction apparently bothered his followers little if at all. Manson said that each person should be independent, but the whole Family was dependent on him. He said that he couldn’t tell anyone else what to do, that they should “do what your love tells you,” but he also told them, “I am your love,” and his wants became theirs.