42 pages • 1 hour read
Vincent Bugliosi, Curt GentryHelter Skelter
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaParts 3-4 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3 Summary: “The Investigation—Phase Two”
Bugliosi begins this part with a self-introduction, explaining that, on November 18, 1969 he was employed as the Deputy District Attorney for the city of Los Angeles. On that day, he discovered that he would be on the prosecution team against the Family. He’s a family man, worried about how such a case will affect his family. He quotes from Canon of Ethics of the American Bar Association: “The primary duty of a lawyer engaged in public prosecution is not to convict, but to see that justice is done” (165).
The first thing Bugliosi did, he says, was to explore the Spahn Ranch with representatives of the LAPD and LASO, including Detectives Helder and Calkins of the Tate team: “It was a very strange place,” he recounts (170). After receiving Spahn’s taped permission to search the ranch, the team noted nothing of interest but a few .22 caliber bullets. The DA’s office and the LAPD argued about how quickly the case should be wrapped up and announced, and whether Atkins would be given a deal for her testimony. Bugliosi believed that, as a murderer, Atkins should have been given no deal at all. With no deal or announcement, a new team of investigators drove out to the Barker Ranch.
The Manson Family populated two ranches in Death Valley: the Barker ranch and the nearby Myers ranch. In the last few months, it had been the subject of several raids and observations by LASO and Death Valley park rangers. In corroborating with the Inyo County DA, Bugliosi picked up several lurid details, including the fact that the gang had been attempting to “recreate the days of Rommel and the Desert Corps” using dune buggies out on the desert (176), and the odd circumstances in which they’d found the leader, who had been hiding in a cupboard that seemed “impossible,” even for even Manson’s small 5’2” frame (178). He led the Family in unnerving prayer as they were driven to the station that day. Bugliosi also interviewed several of the still-incarcerated members of the Family. Because they were in such close quarters, they coordinated their answers to questions.
Bugliosi went on to do research on Manson, who’s spent most of his life in institutions; first in foster care, then in jails, and finally, for a 10-year sentence in prison for violations of the Mann Act. Manson was released on parole in March of 1967. According to the report, Manson was obsessed with Scientology and the Beatles, and began assembling his gang soon after release, first in San Francisco and finally in Los Angeles. His record showed auto theft, prostitution, and other offenses but no sustained history of violence. He was also obsessed with the music industry, variously presenting himself as a music producer or as a musician.
By November 26, Bugliosi and his team had gathered so little evidence that Beausoleil’s first trial resulted in a hung jury. Soon after, however, Leslie Van Houten, still in custody, revealed the number of Family members who had gone out to the Tate-LaBianca murders. On November 30, the LAPD matched “Tex” Watson’s fingerprints on record to a print at the Tate residence. Watson was taken into custody in his hometown of Denton, Texas later that day. Soon after, Patricia Krenwinkel would be arrested in Alabama on the barest of warrants. Kasabian, on the other hand, turned herself in upon hearing of the warrant.
Soon, more members of the Family came forward to testify, including Barbara Hoyt and Mary Brunner, who was known to have been one of Manson’s first acolytes. Nevertheless, a strong case depended on Atkins’ December 5 grand jury testimony; in this regard, her lurid and detailed testimony was a success for the prosecution. Her defense deal stipulated that she would not receive the death penalty if convicted. Bugliosi writes that he worried whether the trial jury would find her credible. On December 8, indictments were issued for Manson, Watson, Krenwinkel, Atkins and Kasabian. Their pleas were heard by Judge William Keene. Public Defender Paul Fitzgerald organized the Family’s defense.
The case, already heavily reported, exploded in the media, and Manson bathed in the attention. A version of Atkins’ confession was leaked to the Los Angeles Times. Bugliosi writes that “finding twelve jurors who hadn’t read or heard of the account […] would be a difficult task” (262). In the meantime, Atkins sent an intimidating “kite”—that is, an illegal communication between inmates—to informant Ronnie Howard. In it, she quotes from one of Manson’s lyrics, “Cease to exist, just come and say you love me” (264).
The LAPD took a .22 Caliber gun into evidence that would later be used as evidence in the case. On Christmas Eve, Manson persuaded Judge Keene that he could defend himself in court and asked that the public defender assigned to him be dismissed. Bugliosi, convinced that Manson would try to pin the murders on Watson, began collecting evidence that would establish their relationship. Watson’s Texas attorney was successfully fighting extradition.
Part 4 Summary: “The Search for the Motive”
If Bugliosi was to successfully convict Manson (who, as of the beginning of 1970, could not be substantially linked to any of the crimes), he had to find a motive in the cult leader’s behavior. His process began by sorting through the evidence, a job which the veteran Tate detectives were loath to perform. The younger LaBianca detectives were more cooperative.
Manson, acting in his own defense, had “pro per” privileges to the same material Bugliosi had, except for witnesses’ addresses and photos of the crime scenes, which could fetch thousands of dollars in the tabloids. He also had access to the other defendants, and Bugliosi feared that they could coordinate their stories and form a stronger defense. Behind the scenes, he tried to make a substitution on behalf of Leslie Van Houten’s defense, but the court was unsure about her ability to make decisions on her own behalf. Bugliosi, on his back foot, was relieved to find that the trial would not go to court immediately.
With prosecutor Aaron Stovitz, Bugliosi began brainstorming a strategy toward determining Manson’s motive, which would act as the narrative backbone of their case. Robbery was a weak motivation, as the gang stole very little. They rejected the idea that they were trying to put together bail money for an incarcerated member. The prosecution acknowledged that Manson had attempted to do a business deal with a former resident of 10050 Cielo Drive, music manager Terry Melcher, but that did not explain the LaBianca killings. From his notes, Bugliosi pieced together Manson’s deranged belief that he could, with a few high-profile killings, make society believe that a race war was imminent, and that the Family could hide out in Death Valley and wait it out. Bugliosi had his doubts about using what he called the “Helter Skelter” thesis, but he felt it was his best case. He told Aaron, “[I]t wouldn’t take me two seconds to dump the whole Helter Skelter theory if I could find another motive in evidence” (294). However, his talks with family member Gregg Jakobson firmed up the theory.
Through February, Manson stretched his pro per privileges to the maximum, granting press interviews and coordinating his story with Atkins. Bugliosi makes a point of noting that Manson developed a cult following among the alternative press. Manson interviewed with high-profile anti-war activist Jerry Rubin, who in 1968 had staged disruptions at his own trial as a member of one of the “Chicago Eight.” Among the first attorneys to visit him were Ira Reiner, Daye Shinn, and a large, unkempt man named Ronald Hughes. These three would become prominent in Manson’s defense.
Bugliosi spent the rest of February gathering witnesses. He spoke to Melcher, Altobelli, and others who had seen Manson near the Cielo Drive residence. He spoke to a couple of miners who worked near the Barker Ranch, who testified that Manson had told him “that Hitler was a tuned-in guy who had leveled the karma of the Jews” (316). He spoke to more family members, who reaffirmed that Manson had a firm psychological grip over the Family. According to Family member Paul Watkins, Manson created “masterpiece[s] […] but instead of clay he was using warm bodies” (317). Bugliosi performed a deep read on the Beatles’ White Album, whose track listing included songs named “Piggies” and “Helter Skelter.” Gregg Jacobsen, a songwriter and friend to Beach Boy Dennis Wilson (at whose house the Family often invited themselves), described in detail Manson’s bizarre racial cosmology. All these witnesses firmed up Bugliosi’s commitment to the Helter Skelter theory.
Most importantly, Bugliosi reached an immunity deal for Kasabian’s testimony. Kasabian acted as a lookout for the murders, staying in the car as the murders took place. She claimed to have been an eyewitness to Folger’s and Frykowski’s murder on the lawn of the Cielo Drive property. This made her, at least, an accessory to the crimes.
Parts 3-4 Analysis
In this section, Bugliosi finally steps out of the shadows to take control of the narrative. This was his job as a prosecutor after all: to tell a believable story about the Manson Family to a jury, and he simply repeats that work in the book.
As a storyteller, then, Bugliosi is provided with a great number of plot points and locations but a serious deficit in character motivations. As a law-abiding citizen, Bugliosi is consistently amazed at the depth of weirdness and squalor surrounding the Manson Family’s lifestyle. His first action is to visit the Spahn Ranch to speak with the blind and nearly infirm George Spahn. The place, desolate at first, soon populated with people, “ten to fifteen, most of them young, most in hippie-type clothes, although a few appeared to be ranch hands […] it was a very strange place” (170). At the Barker Ranch, he finds the community clothing pile from which Manson and his associates would pull clothing as needed. He also finds a collection of National Geographic magazines dated from 1939 to 1946, all devoted to the subject of Adolph Hitler. Talking to members of the biker gang The Straight Satans reaffirmed the strange, fascist way of thinking that pervaded the Manson Family.
While other investigators involved with the case focused on simple narratives like robberies-gone-sour or bad drug deals, Bugliosi understood that such simple narratives could easily get shot down by a competent defense team for lack of evidence. Indeed, there was little evidence that implicated the Manson Family in mundane criminal activity connected to the murders. Bugliosi also understood that credible evidence leading to criminal conspiracy with hysterical and apocalyptic ends would put the defense team on its back foot. Out of this came Bugliosi’s winning “Helter Skelter” narrative, in which a white supremacist leader came to believe that no less than The Beatles were masking messages of (in Atkins’ words) “the last war on the face of the earth” (249), in which the Black Panthers would rise up and kill the white establishment if only Manson’s Family kicked things off for them. There was much corroboration of this story and many threads pointing to Manson’s belief in this tale. Its staying power is a testament to Bugliosi’s power as a prosecuting lawyer, and as a storyteller.
