4:00

a cult, a twisted parody

4:02

of the hippie dream, bound

4:05

together by a warped

4:07

philosophy and a charismatic

4:09

messiah wannabe named Charles

4:11

Manson. Their

4:13

ideology was a chaotic

4:16

blend of Gnostic mumbo

4:18

jumbo and half-baked theology.

4:21

Time didn't exist. But

4:24

an evil were meaningless, and

4:26

death was just a doorway

4:28

to cosmic oneness. Everyone

4:32

was both God and

4:34

the devil, all part

4:36

of some grand interconnected universe.

4:41

It was a seductive message, especially

4:43

for lost souls seeking meaning

4:45

in a turbulent era. But

4:49

beneath, the flower-power facade

4:51

lurked a chilling moral

4:53

code. They wouldn't

4:55

harm a spider, but

4:57

they'd slaughter a human without a

5:00

second thought. Life

5:02

was cheap, death was a

5:04

release, a chance to

5:06

merge with the cosmic cookie. One

5:11

from the man on the streets to

5:13

ivory tower psychiatrists wondered where

5:15

in the world this brutal

5:18

violence had come from. These

5:21

weren't backward savages, they were

5:24

kids from ordinary American towns,

5:27

the kind nobody wanted to claim after

5:29

the bloodbath. Manson

5:32

with his hypnotic gaze

5:34

and messianic delusions had

5:37

tapped into the era's anxieties,

5:40

twisting the hippy dream into a nightmare.

5:43

The family with its free love

5:46

and LSD trips became a

5:48

mirror, reflecting the dark side

5:51

of the counterculture. The

5:55

Tate-Lobianco murders weren't just a

5:57

shock, they were a

5:59

betrayal. The Summer

6:02

of Love had curdled, leaving

6:04

a bitter aftertaste. Hippies

6:07

weren't just harmless dropouts anymore.

6:09

They were a threat, capable

6:12

of unspeakable violence. The

6:15

Manson family had ripped the mask

6:17

off the Peace and Love

6:19

facade, revealing the potential for

6:22

chaos lurking beneath. Sure,

6:25

there had been isolated incidents

6:27

of hippie violence before, but

6:30

nothing like this. The Manson

6:33

murders were cold-blooded, calculated,

6:36

and ordered by a madman. The

6:38

motive was murky. The

6:41

body count uncertain. Some

6:43

estimates put it as high as 33.

6:46

This wasn't

6:48

just another crime, it was

6:51

a turning point. A bloody exclamation

6:53

mark on the end of an era.

6:56

By December, with the

6:58

indictment fresh, Time magazine

7:01

was already drawing shaky links

7:03

between hippies and violence. The

7:07

Manson family had become a symbol, a

7:09

warning, a stain on

7:11

the counterculture that wouldn't wash away.

7:14

The dream was over. The

7:17

nightmare had begun. His

7:22

face, a grotesque mask

7:24

of madness, was suddenly

7:26

everywhere. Charles Manson, the

7:28

35-year-old ex-con who

7:30

orchestrated a reign of terror in

7:33

the summer of 1969, became

7:35

the poster boy for a generation's

7:37

darkest fears. Perhaps the

7:40

embodiment of the Dionysian thrill-seeker,

7:42

a man driven by a

7:44

primal lust for chaos. But

7:47

perhaps he was a product of a

7:49

broken system, a victim of neglect

7:51

and abuse who turned his pain into

7:53

a weapon. Or, as

7:56

with so many things, perhaps

7:58

he was a little bit of both. Manson's

8:02

family was a motley crew

8:05

of lost souls, mostly young

8:07

women, drawn to his magnetic

8:09

personality and twisted ideology. They

8:12

numbered anywhere from two to three

8:14

dozen, and most had been under

8:16

his influence for less than two

8:18

years. Yet they

8:20

were willing to do anything he asked, even

8:23

commit unspeakable acts of violence.

8:27

Manson had mastered the art of

8:29

manipulation, cultivating extreme

8:31

compliance from his followers.

8:36

Our short, unassuming man with a

8:38

troubled past managed to rise to

8:40

become such a powerful figure. It's

8:44

an enigma. Born

8:48

to a teenage mother and an

8:50

absent father, Manson's childhood was a

8:53

series of foster homes, reform

8:55

schools, and petty crimes. He

8:58

learned to survive by any

9:00

means necessary, honing his skills

9:02

as a con artist and manipulator.

9:07

He was eight when his mother was released

9:09

from prison. He had been

9:11

in foster care up until then, and

9:13

barely remembered her. They

9:16

spent the next months with

9:18

a succession of unreliable men

9:20

in questionable neighborhoods. Then

9:23

his mother racked up another arrest for

9:25

grand larceny. Eventually, she

9:28

pursued a traveling salesman in

9:30

Indianapolis, marrying him in 1943 and trying

9:34

to cut back on her drinking. Manson,

9:37

not yet nine, was

9:39

already a truant known to steal

9:42

from local shops. Although

9:45

his mother tried to find a nice

9:47

foster home for him, the estate

9:50

decided to send him to the

9:52

Gibault School for Boys, a

9:54

Catholic institution for troubled youth.

9:57

But he ran away. He

9:59

was caught. and returned only

10:01

to escape again. He

10:03

turned to burglary, then more

10:06

serious crimes. At

10:08

thirteen, he was sent to

10:10

the Indiana Boys' School, a

10:12

tougher institution, where he claimed

10:14

he was raped, not once,

10:17

but repeatedly, over and over

10:19

again. He learned to

10:21

feign madness to protect himself, but

10:24

the trauma likely deepened his

10:26

already fractured psyche. Through

10:29

this turmoil, it is likely that

10:32

Manson developed a hatred of

10:34

the quote-unquote all-American family.

10:37

The idyllic idea of the

10:39

nuclear family, living in

10:41

a comfy house with a car,

10:43

a happy housewife, and

10:45

the suit-wearing, pipe-smoking father was

10:48

something Manson could only experience

10:51

as a spectator from outside

10:53

the fence of polite society.

10:57

Manson was a fighter, then

10:59

refused to stay in an institution

11:01

where a rape was not

11:03

only committed by older boys against

11:05

younger boys, but the staff

11:08

was riddled with pedophiles who acted

11:10

as foxes in a hen house,

11:13

abusing vulnerable young boys systematically.

11:16

Eighteen times did Manson run

11:18

away, and eighteen times

11:21

was he brought kicking and

11:23

screaming back to hell. In

11:28

February 1951, 16-year-old Manson

11:30

embarked on another escape,

11:33

this time with two companions. Their

11:36

stolen car crossed state lines,

11:38

a federal offense, and

11:41

the roadblock in Utah abruptly

11:43

ended their journey. Manson

11:45

was sent to the National

11:47

Training School for Boys in Washington

11:50

DC, beginning a long and troubled

11:52

journey through

11:54

the Federal Reformatory System. His

11:58

path led him from the

12:00

National Training School to the

12:02

Natural Bridge Honor Camp, where

12:05

he was caught violently, anally

12:07

raping a young boy. Then

12:10

he was sent to a federal

12:13

reformatory in Virginia, where he kept

12:15

raping young boys. And

12:17

finally to Ohio, where a

12:19

period of good behavior earned

12:22

him early release in 1954, despite

12:25

frequent concerns about

12:27

his antisocial behavior and

12:30

deep-seated trauma. Less

12:33

than a year later, he had a wife

12:35

and a child on the way. Charles

12:38

Manson, surprisingly, was

12:40

a father. He

12:42

held various jobs, but his

12:45

compulsion for stealing cars, some

12:47

of which he drove across

12:49

state lines, persisted. His

12:52

crimes, along with his failure to attend

12:54

a related hearing, resulted

12:56

in a three-year sentence at

12:59

Terminal Island, a federal prison

13:01

in California. Upon

13:03

his release in 1958, his

13:06

wife had filed for divorce, and

13:09

he turned to pimping. The

13:12

following May, he was arrested again

13:14

for forging a government check. This

13:17

led to another ten-year sentence, but

13:20

a judge, swayed by a woman claiming

13:22

to be in love with him, suspended

13:25

the sentence, setting him free.

13:30

Manson was not deterred or

13:32

convinced to follow the straight and narrow

13:34

path, but continued his life

13:36

of crime, pimping, stealing

13:38

cars, and defrauding people.

13:42

The FBI kept a watchful

13:44

eye, hoping to charge

13:46

him under the MAN Act. Although

13:49

that charge never materialized, when

13:52

Manson fled to Mexico with

13:55

another prostitute, he violated his

13:57

probation and his previous ten

13:59

years' divorce. sentence was

14:01

reinstated. Facing

14:04

long imprisonment, Manson turned

14:06

to the guitar and

14:09

explored Scientology. The

14:12

prison staff noted his charisma

14:14

and storytelling ability, along

14:16

with his persistent personality

14:18

problems. He openly

14:20

expressed his musical ambitions

14:23

and closely followed the Beatles' rise to

14:25

fame. When he was

14:27

finally released at age 32, he

14:31

had spent over half his life

14:33

in state custody. He

14:36

expressed a disturbing preference for prison

14:38

life, even requesting to simply

14:40

stay. Even

14:44

though the mainstream, with

14:46

Time magazine being the main

14:48

perpetrator, made Manson into

14:50

something far more sinister than he

14:52

probably was, other smaller

14:55

independent magazines held a different

14:57

view of him. The

15:00

underground press, as it was called,

15:03

had a swell of sympathy for Manson.

15:06

People thought he was innocent, that

15:08

his status as a left-leaning commune

15:10

had been overblown. Tuesday's

15:14

Child, an L.A.

15:16

counterculture paper geared toward

15:18

occultists, named Manson

15:20

their Man of the Year.

15:23

Some didn't even care if he was behind

15:26

the murders. Bernardine

15:28

Dorn, of the communist

15:30

terrorist organization The Weather

15:32

Underground, put it most

15:34

outrageously, and I quote, "...offering

15:37

those rich pigs with their own

15:39

forks and knives, and then

15:41

eating a meal in the same room, far

15:44

out, the weatherman

15:46

dig Charles Manson." It

15:51

did not take long until Manson

15:53

appeared on national television. Cameras

15:56

followed, as bailiffs led

15:58

him to a pretrial hearing. shackled,

16:00

stooped, and glaring. The

16:03

raw footage revealed few traces

16:05

of his fabled charisma. Manson

16:08

brought a rollicking exhibition

16:10

of controlled insanity whenever he

16:13

appeared before the bench. He

16:16

quarreled with a judge, arguing that

16:18

he should be allowed to represent himself. The

16:22

Manson girls, for their part,

16:24

mimicked their leaders' behavior, publicly

16:26

battling the judge and their court-appointed

16:29

defense attorneys at every opportunity, and

16:32

refusing to obey even the

16:34

most fundamental rules of courtroom

16:36

decorum. That

16:38

Manson had been apprehended in Death

16:40

Valley, as abyssal a

16:42

place as any in the United States,

16:45

made him all the more transfixing

16:47

to the public and reporters alike.

16:50

The media played up the

16:53

Rasputin comparison, emphasizing

16:55

his desert wanderer sorcery.

16:57

He was a bearded demonic mokdi,

17:00

wrote one journalist, who led

17:03

a mystical semi-religious hippie drug

17:05

and murder cult. Another

17:08

described him as a bush-haired,

17:10

wild-bearded little man with piercing

17:13

brown eyes, with

17:15

the family being a

17:17

hippie-type roving band. Manson's

17:21

malevolence was seemingly

17:23

inexplicable. Even

17:25

in the doodles that he left behind

17:28

on a courtroom legal pad, psychiatrists

17:30

saw, and I quote, a

17:33

psyche torn asunder by powerful

17:35

thrusts of aggression, guilt, and

17:37

hostility. I

17:49

told you you could be California's newest superhero.

17:51

You don't need a fancy cape, x-ray, vision,

17:53

or a sidekick. You just need to sign

17:56

up for power saver rewards and save energy

17:58

during a flex alert. Not only- who

24:00

dreamed of rock and roll stardom, but

24:03

ultimately declined. Months

24:06

before the murders, Manson visited the

24:08

house, seeking Melcher, hoping to

24:10

change his mind, but was told

24:12

he had moved. Manson

24:15

resented the dismissive attitude he

24:17

received. Consequently, the

24:19

Cielo Drive House symbolized the

24:21

establishment that had rejected him.

24:25

When he ordered the killings, Susan

24:27

Atkins testified he aimed to

24:30

instill fear in Terry Melcher,

24:33

sending a message to the stars and

24:35

executives who had spurned him. The

24:39

La Bianca house was chosen because

24:41

Manson had once stayed next door.

24:45

Though that house was now empty, it

24:47

did not matter. The

24:49

neighbors, Manson decided, would serve

24:51

as targets. They too,

24:53

regardless of who they were, represented

24:56

the establishments he sought to

24:58

destroy, with helter

25:00

skelter. The

25:04

trial was a spectacle, etching

25:07

itself into history as the longest

25:09

and most expensive in the US

25:11

at that time. But

25:15

the case wasn't as straightforward as one

25:17

might assume. Manson himself

25:19

hadn't physically committed the murders. He

25:22

was absent from the Tate scene entirely,

25:25

and though he had briefly entered

25:27

the La Bianca home, he had

25:29

left before the brutal killings. This

25:32

meant the prosecution's path

25:34

to convicting Manson of

25:37

first-degree murder lay in

25:39

charge of conspiracy. They

25:41

had to prove, beyond a reasonable

25:43

doubt, that Manson's sway

25:45

over his followers was so

25:48

absolute, so insidious, that

25:50

they would carry out his

25:52

orders, even murder, without hesitation.

25:56

It was a complex legal battle, made even

25:58

more of a crime. sidewalk

28:00

vigils. Barefoot and

28:03

belligerent, they sat in

28:05

wide circles, singing songs in praise

28:07

of their leader. The

28:10

women suckled newborns. The

28:12

men laughed and ran their fingers

28:14

through their long unwashed hair. All

28:18

had followed Manson's lead and cut

28:20

excess into their foreheads, distributing

28:23

typewritten statements, explaining that

28:25

the self-mutilation symbolized their

28:28

exing themselves out of

28:30

society. Bugliosi

28:34

called the defendants bloodthirsty

28:36

robots, a pompous phrase,

28:39

but an apt one. It

28:41

captured the unsettling duality of

28:43

the killers. At

28:45

once, animal, an artificial,

28:48

divorced from emotion, and

28:50

yet capable of executing the

28:53

most intimate visceral form of

28:55

murder imaginable. Tex

28:58

Watson would letter him the

29:00

detached, automated ecstasy

29:02

of stabbing, and

29:04

I quote, over and over

29:06

again and again my arm like

29:09

a machine, at one

29:11

with the blade. End

29:14

quote. Susan Atkins

29:16

told a sailmate that plunging

29:18

the knife into Tate's pregnant

29:20

belly was, and I quote,

29:23

like a sexual release, especially

29:25

when you see the blood spurting out.

29:28

It's better than a climax. End

29:31

quote. And

29:33

behind them was Manson, who

29:35

was obsessed with sex, even as

29:37

he described himself in one of

29:40

his songs as the

29:42

mechanical boy. After

29:46

seven grueling months, the first

29:48

phase of the

29:50

trial drew to a close,

29:53

and the jury, after ten days

29:56

of deliberation, arrived at

29:58

unanimous guilty verdict. Now,

30:01

in the second phase, the

30:03

prosecution had to present an

30:05

argument for putting the defendant

30:08

to death. Their

30:10

case and the defense's

30:12

counterarguments led to some

30:15

of the most unnerving testimony yet,

30:17

including a kind of symposium

30:20

on LSD. Not

30:22

as a recreational drug, but as

30:25

an agent of mind control. This

30:28

death penalty phase of the trial

30:31

entertained some of the same questions

30:33

that still causes true crime aficionados

30:35

like me to wander

30:38

so many decades later. Manson's

30:41

alleged brainwashing of his followers

30:43

raises questions about the nature

30:45

of influence and responsibility. The

30:49

extent to which he exerted

30:51

psychological control over them remains

30:54

a subject of debate. If

30:57

such control existed, understanding

30:59

the methods he employed is

31:01

crucial. Furthermore, if

31:04

an individual is genuinely

31:06

under another's psychological sway,

31:09

the issue of accountability for

31:11

their actions becomes

31:13

complex and ethically challenging.

31:18

The courtroom fell into a

31:20

stunned silence as the three

31:23

convicted women, Askins, Cranwinkle and

31:25

Van Houten, took the witness

31:27

stand for the first time. One

31:29

after another, they detailed their

31:31

involvement in the murders, shockingly

31:34

absolving Manson of any

31:36

responsibility and declaring their

31:38

complete lack of remorse. The

31:41

victims' families watched in disbelief

31:44

as the women recounted their loved

31:46

one's final moments with chilling detachment.

31:51

Killing, they explained, was an

31:53

act of love, freeing the

31:55

victim from their physical limitations.

31:58

Susan Haskins almost without blinking

32:00

recalled how Tex Watson had

32:02

instructed her to murder Sharon

32:05

Tate. I quote, He

32:07

looked at her, and he said, Kill her.

32:10

And I killed her. I just

32:12

stabbed her. And she fell. And

32:15

I stabbed her again. I

32:18

don't know how many times I stabbed her.

32:21

When asked if she felt any animosity

32:23

towards Tate or the others, she

32:26

shrugged. Again I quote, I

32:29

didn't know any of them. How could

32:31

I have felt any emotion without knowing them?

32:34

End quote. She knew

32:36

what she was doing was right, she

32:39

added, because it felt good. Patricia

32:43

Krenwinkle claimed to have felt

32:45

nothing while stabbing Abigail Folger

32:47

28 times. I

32:50

quote, What is there to

32:52

describe? It was just there. And

32:55

it's like it was right. It's

32:57

hard to explain. It was just

32:59

a thought. And a thought came

33:01

to be. End quote.

33:04

Leslie Van Houten began her statement

33:07

with a provocative challenge when

33:09

questioned about her role in stabbing

33:11

Rosemary LaBianca 41 times. I

33:14

quote, Sorry is only

33:17

a five-letter word. It

33:19

can't bring back anything. What

33:21

can I feel? It happened. She

33:24

is gone. End quote.

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coverage details. Despite

34:50

the women's unrepentant stance, Bugliosi

34:53

faced a difficult task in

34:55

securing the death penalty. This

34:58

argument hinged on a seeming

35:00

contradiction. In the first

35:02

phase of the trial, he

35:04

had portrayed the women as

35:07

brainwashed zombies, completely under Manson's

35:09

control. Now he

35:11

had to prove the opposite, that they

35:14

were equally complicit. Though

35:16

there were automatons, Bugliosi

35:18

argued, slavishly obedient

35:20

to Manson's every command, the

35:23

women still possessed deep down

35:25

inside themselves a quote

35:28

unquote bloodlust that warranted

35:30

the ultimate punishment. And

35:35

with that, we come to

35:37

the end of part two in

35:39

this series covering Charles Manson. Next

35:42

episode continues this expose, so

35:45

as they say in the land of radio, stay

35:48

tuned. you