Almost everyone is familiar with this infamous case. In 1969, on the nights of August 9 and 10, seven people were murdered (eight, if one is willing to count Sharon Tate’s unborn baby). Eventually these bizarre and shocking homicides were connected to a group of people known as the Family. On the surface these young men and women appeared identical to the hippies of the era, and in many instances that is all that they were (for example, Linda Kasabian, star witness for the prosecution). Their leader was a charismatic psychopath named Charles Manson, who was not a typical hippie. A jailbird from early on, he was also an aspiring musician and wannabe christ obsessed with the idea of inciting a race war between whites and blacks. Out of the rubble of this War to End All Wars, Manson and his followers would emerge from hiding and commence a new order, a true utopia—with Manson himself as supreme leader. Not surprisingly, the plan fell through. Charles Manson was arrested, tried and appropriately convicted, along with several of his followers.
I was eight years old when the crimes occurred, and with time became increasingly intrigued. I gained a better understanding of the case when I watched a 1976 television movie called Helter Skelter. Based on the Vincent Bugliosi book of the same name (cowritten with Curt Gentry), it is a well done, finely acted docudrama that is still worth watching. Steve Railsback in the role of Manson is amazingly convincing, and Marilyn Burns as Linda Kasabian is almost equally impressive.
But the most authoritative and comprehensive look at the Manson Murders is almost certainly the Bugliosi book itself. All other resources, including books by former Manson Family members, can serve as useful supplements but should not be treated as substitutes.
Still, at least two of those supplements are good, and both are available on YouTube. The first is titled “Manson’s Night of Horror: the Day We Murdered Sharon Tate.” It focuses on Linda Kasabian’s account, and its re-creation of events is artful and realistic. The second is called “Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World #54: Manson Murders.” Mr. Akin’s approach is not nearly as dramatic as the former, but it is intelligent and admirably objective.
I’ve heard it said that these crimes were a freakish occurrence that could never happen again. I am not so sure. The Manson Murders embody revolutionary and utopian obsessions past and present. They are small-scale versions of Nazism and Communism (Manson had said of Hitler that he “was a tuned-in guy who had leveled the karma of the Jews.”) And the bitter and half-comical irony of it all is that Manson’s mad attempt to start an apocalyptic race war did not end with his capture, or even with his death in 2017. Deliberate attempts to incite racial animosity continue to this day, along with simplistic and murderous solutions to all real or perceived problems in the world.
