Original subtitles

[ominous music]

♪

- Between the times of the murders on Cielo Drive

until the arrest of December the 1st,

many months before the trial,

I went down to the Spahn Movie Ranch

and thought, "What the hell is going on here?"

This place was a cesspit.

It was stinking.

There was beaten up, abandoned cars

all over the place.

And then I encountered the delectable and delightful

Sandra Good and Lynne "Squeaky" Fromme,

who told me that Charlie was innocent of anything

and was pursuing happiness and joy

and all that sort of stuff.

And then I was lucky enough

to bump into Paul Watkins and Brooks Poston,

who just happened to be visiting the ranch

and had come back to see their pals.

They knew Charlie was arrested,

they knew he was in jail,

and they knew who was in jail with him.

So they were not too scared to come back.

It was a stroke of luck.

I mean, then they then opened up to me

over a couple of days, and all of a sudden,

I heard this unbelievable story of Charles Manson.

And not only was there a coming race war,

but it was predicted in songs like "Helter Skelter"

that were secret messages to Charlie Manson

from the Beatles.

As a journalist,

you should have a streak of cynicism about you,

but it was so outrageous

and it kind of added up rather well

to what had happened.

After that, I wrote a very quick book

called "5 to Die,"

and the book came out

two or three months before the trial.

And then guess what.

Nine months later, July 1970,

Vincent Bugliosi stood up and said,

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

"I will show you that the motive for these murders

"was Charles Manson's belief

"that there was gonna be a race war.

"And he got the message from a group

from Liverpool, England."

- Now, this is far out and unbelievable,

but a motive for a murder like this,

you're simply not gonna find within the pages

of a textbook on police science.

That's all there is to it.

- And then years later,

I ran into Mr. Aaron Stovitz, and he said,

"You know, your book, Vincent took it.

"He said he used your Beatles thesis

as the blueprint for the prosecution."

And that when I sat in the trial,

it looked like he had.

- You think you're gonna get a jury to believe that story?

- Whether they believe it or not

is legally irrelevant.

We do not have to prove

the reason why they did it.

- You could call Vincent back.

He would deny it vehemently, but there it is.

[soft dramatic music]

♪

♪

[tense ambient music]

[low, indistinct chatter]

- Charlie was a showman on top of everything else.

And that's part of the way he wielded power

over the family members.

From the first day of the trial,

he was having his Hollywood moments.

- [echoing] You're doing this to all these children.

- He has a scab in the form of an X

on his forehead in blood.

Manson has taken the position that

that is a symbolic gesture

indicating that he has x-ed himself

out of society at large.

- The girls x-ed their own foreheads.

♪

Several of the girls were sitting out front

of the Hall of Justice.

They were freaky. They were a spectacle.

Girls: ♪ Oh, whisper words, you come to me ♪

♪ The song I sing for all to see ♪

♪ The past is gone, and now I know ♪

♪ Inside the cell, nowhere to go ♪

- What people don't realize is behind the scenes,

this trial was the Manson show.

He was a puppet master.

He was pulling everybody's strings,

even if they weren't aware of it.

- Charlie had a good PR thing going for him.

He had Sandy Good and Squeaky Fromme

and a couple other girls

that would talk about all good things Charlie

to anybody that wanted to listen.

- I showed up on the first day of the trial,

and Squeaky gave me a sheet saying,

"I've x-ed myself out of the world."

She knew who I was,

and she'd known that I had written the book,

which was not positive towards Mr. Manson.

And she said in a sweet, sing-song voice, she said,

"Do you know what it feels like

to have a sharp knife slipped down your throat?"

[ominous music]

I went away, went into the courthouse,

called my wife,

told her to take my one-year-old daughter,

leave the house until further notice.

[clicking]

- I covered, by that time, a number of trials,

including one of the biggest trials of the country,

and that was the Sirhan trial.

And I had never seen a prosecutor

hand out copies of his opening statement,

which he read, word for word.

You have to remember there were no cameras

in the courtroom, and there was no recording

in the courtroom, so by handing out copies

of his opening statement,

Bugliosi ensured that not only was it reported

the way that he wanted it to be reported,

but it was reported in more depth.

That was a very smart move on his part.

- I felt that his opening statement,

which was brilliant,

was maybe not true entirely,

but it was the greatest job

of promoting a trial that I had ever heard.

- What about the Helter Skelter?

- Well, as I indicated, to Charles Manson,

he had an obsession with Helter Skelter.

He constantly predicted that Helter Skelter was coming down.

- What about Helter Skelter?

- That's the district attorney's illusion.

That's his trick.

Helter Skelter was a nightclub in the desert.

It's where I run a poker game and I shoot dice.

And I make money and I ride around in dune buggies.

- I discussed with Vincent Bugliosi

on a dozen occasions.

To get the conviction he felt was necessary,

jurors had to get a better sense

of the sheer fantasy/insanity

that reigned on Spahn Ranch and the den.

He wasn't making anything up,

but he'd found some facts that, if presented

in the right way,

would get the verdict that he felt those crimes deserved.

[voice echoing]

[girls singing indistinctly]

- It was 6 1/2 months ago

that the Manson Family was arrested for murdering

Sharon Tate and six others.

Since then, they've been in and out of court

dozens of times trying to get the charges dropped.

- How you doing, Charlie? - Good.

- Manson has talked in the hallway.

He has criticized the court. - Pardon?

- He has said he can't get a fair trial.

- It's all a play, isn't it?

- One member of Manson's family

will testify against him, Linda Kasabian,

who says she was a lookout during the murders.

[suspenseful music]

♪

- Linda Kasabian was only with the family

for about a month.

She was given a tentative offer of immunity

if, on the stand, she told everything she knew.

- Well, Linda was testifying now because Susan Atkins

had taken away her testimony

and gotten back into the fold.

- Linda Kasabian, a 21-year-old member

of the so-called Manson Family

and the state's star witness,

testified for the third straight day.

- She said that she and three others

had just crawled over the fence

into the estate area

when the leader of her group, Tex Watson,

shot a man in a car

who was driving out of the driveway.

From then on, she said she heard

screams from the house, saw people running out,

and said it was unbelievably, horribly terrible.

Mrs. Kasabian said she saw Watson stabbing one man

on the lawn near the house,

and that Patricia Krenwinkel had a knife

and was chasing another woman across the lawn.

The witness turned away when she was shown a picture

of one victim, Steven Parent.

She said he had begged not to be hurt.

After the killings, she said that

Ms. Krenwinkel, Ms. Atkins,

complained that the victims had pulled their hair

and that Ms. Krenwinkel said her hand hurt

because her knife had struck bone in one of the victims.

- You gentlemen could see for yourselves.

She appeared to be quite honest,

quite relaxed,

and answered all questions

that were put to her that were relevant.

- I'd like to see them just to fall down on their knees

and beg forgiveness.

Do I feel that I deserve to be free?

Morally or legally or what?

I don't understand... - Any way you like?

- Well, that I feel that I've told the truth and

that I've probably helped a lot of people.

- Linda's testimony is not the truth.

She's been offered immunity.

She gets out if she says what she is saying.

She gets her children back,

and she gets out of jail.

- How do you know this? - And I can see the temptation

to cooperate, but at the same time,

she's hurting five people and she has to live

in that lie she's telling.

It's not the truth.

- After the trial started,

it became apparent that this was not like any other trial.

- The case has since become a bizarre national

and international sensation,

attracting the attention of everyone

from President Nixon to the curious people

who sit in the courtroom where the case is being heard.

- Another bizarre time was the time

that Charlie held up the front page

of... I believe it was the "L.A. Times."

And it said, "Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares."

They had the jury removed.

They talked about it and decided to bring

each juror in.

The judge says, "And what did you think about that?"

I said, "Well, if the president

"said that he thought Manson was guilty

"without hearing any of the evidence,

that was a pretty stupid thing to say."

- I don't think it will have any bearing

on the trial itself.

I'm very confident that each juror

gave the judge a truthful answer.

- The remarks of the president of the United States

were simply indicative of the climate of opinion,

not only in Los Angeles County,

but throughout the United States

in regard to Manson

and the other defendants' guilt.

- What's the latest, Charlie?

- If you judge my world, I'll judge yours.

- What came to that, Charlie? - What's happening?

- Ask the president.

- They claimed a mistrial.

The judge denied the mistrial.

One of the lawyers was sent to prison

for contempt for giving Manson the newspaper.

[soft dramatic music]

I was always amused by the fact that Mr. Bugliosi

claimed that he was hand-picked

out of all the 500 top prosecutors

to run the case.

Well, it wasn't quite that way.

Aaron Stovitz had been warned many times

to keep his mouth shut in talking to the press.

One day during the trial,

he made an off-hand remark about Susan Atkins

being a better actress than Sarah Bernhardt.

The next day, Stovitz was gone,

and Vincent took over.

And the rest for Vince is history.

- Vince Bugliosi had been a star college tennis player

at the University of Miami, and I think for Bugliosi,

everything in life was like a set of tennis.

He was going to, you know, try to control service

and destroy your service.

And he brought that intensity to the Manson prosecution,

and I think that's what it took, actually,

to contend with Manson's antics.

- As a prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi

was extremely hard-working,

extremely centered upon his job.

When he had a case,

he had a cot in his office, and he'd sleep there

and he'd just inhale the whole case

and work and work and work.

- I was put on as the second chair,

and what Vince didn't know was that

I was also told that if Vince got in trouble

with the press,

that I would take over the case.

- I think Vince was obsessed with the trial,

and Stephen Kay was not given all that much to do

by Vince because Vince, as we all know,

solved the whole case himself single-handedly

with a little bit of help from the detectives.

Not much help, but a little bit of help.

- So Barbara Hoyt, Manson Family member,

she escapes from Barker Ranch after the murders,

escapes because she's had a moral break

with Charles Manson.

And she walks out of the desert,

gets home, and the trial comes.

And the family realizes she's gonna testify

against Manson

because she's given depositions to the lawyers.

The prosecution has to share

the depositions with the defense.

They know what she's gonna say.

- Every day I got a death threat,

sometimes twice a day.

Well, it was Gypsy and Squeaky

and Clem and Sandy.

I mean, they threatened me every way they possibly could.

They threatened me, they threatened my family,

so I cooperated with them,

went to Hawaii with them.

- One of the family members takes her to Honolulu,

and at the airport, gives her a hamburger.

- And she disappeared with the hamburger.

And I went to pay for it.

So we sat down. She took a swipe

off the ketchup and ate some.

I ate the hamburger.

And the last thing she says to me was,

"Just imagine if there were ten tabs of acid in that."

- There were ten tabs of acid in the hamburger.

[dramatic music]

- I was high as a kite, and then somebody said,

you know, "Are you all right?" And I said, "No."

and I asked him to call a policeman.

They gave me IV valium to bring me down

from the acid.

And I told them to call Mr. Bugliosi

and tell him I couldn't testify that day.

- I guess valium has a very extreme impact

on... as she described it,

"My mind was ripped out."

It's a terrible thing to have gone through.

- Had you ever been on an LSD trip before?

- Not like that one. [laughs]

- Four more of Manson's followers

were arrested and charged with attempting to kill

a prosecution witness with an overdose of LSD.

[indistinct chatter]

- But she recovered and testified against Manson.

- Barbara, could you repeat what you overheard

Susan Atkins say in the kitchen

when you were on the bed in the other room?

- She said,

"Sharon Tate came out and said,

'what's going on here?'" Something like that.

And she said, "Shut up, woman."

And then she said,

"Sharon Tate was the last to die.

She had to watch the others go first."

- Are you afraid of Charles Manson?

- [chuckles softly]

Not when there's a bunch of other people around.

- Well, were you afraid of him

at the time that you decided to leave Manson and the family?

- Yes. - Why?

- Because when he got in the desert,

he got meaner.

[tense ambient music]

- Tex Watson managed to dodge extradition

for almost a year.

He was the invisible person in the courtroom,

this hometown good-body who turned into a monster.

If he appeared in the trial,

Manson would've pointed out

as his lawyers would've pointed out,

well, Charlie didn't go to the murder house.

Tex Watson led the killers.

Tex is the one to blame.

Tex knew the Sharon Tate house.

Charlie just said go out.

Tex is the real number one fiend,

and if Tex had gone on trial with Manson,

I wouldn't have been surprised

if Manson might've been acquitted.

- Well, it's been ten months of hard work, Carl,

and, of course, we're very happy

he's on his way to California.

I think there's something wrong with the system

that can take an alleged killer

that slaughtered people

and hide him in the state of Texas

for ten months.

[dramatic music]

- Fires are sweeping over thousands of acres

of Southern California, filling the sky with smoke

and threatening several communities.

It hasn't rained since last spring.

More than a hundred homes have been destroyed or damaged.

- The Spahn Ranch was the home of the Manson Family.

It burned down during the fire.

Since that time, many members of the family

have disappeared, gone to jail,

and some stand vigil waiting for Charlie.

- I felt badly for some of the girls

because they were not eating.

They were really literally sleeping out there.

And so I would get them milk from the milk machine

or, you know, snacks and bring it to them,

which led the prosecutor to scream at me

and tell me I was feeding murderers.

But it was hard not to feel some...

sorrow for these kids

that had been dragged into this cult,

and now their whole life was spent on a street corner.

- During the trial, one day after court

on my way to where I parked my car,

Squeaky and Sandy Good snuck up behind me,

and said they were gonna do to my house

what was done at the Tate house.

Vince had a DA investigator that was either inside

or in his car outside his house

for the whole trial.

[suspenseful music]

- Charlie would call us in to visit.

He actually sent me to Beverly Hills Hotel,

and Vincent Bugliosi was staying there

'cause he had gotten some threats.

And I stood outside the hotel

with a kingsnake wrapped around me.

And he came out, and I said,

"Hey, Boogie, do you want to pet my snake?"

And he just, like, freaked that I knew where he was.

♪

- In the last week, the defendants

in the Manson trial in Los Angeles

have become increasingly disruptive.

Twice the court has had them removed

to another room where they could hear the testimony

but could not interrupt the proceedings.

- In those days, every TV station

had their own artists.

I worked for CBS News at that time.

I had never set foot in a courtroom in my life.

And I was thrust into the center of it.

There were seven artists covering the Manson trial,

and we sat in the front row.

And at that time, the girls, I could touch them,

they were so close to me, the three of them.

[overlapping chatter]

- Charles Manson interrupted the opening testimony today

to complain to Judge Charles Older

about the conduct of the trial.

"You are trying to use this courtroom

to kill me," Manson charged.

"You want me dead."

The judge ordered Manson to be quiet

or he would be removed from the courtroom.

- Manson was only 5'2".

He was a short little wiry guy.

- Manson replied, "The minute I see

"you are going to kill me,

you know what I'm going to do."

And the judge snapped back,

"No. What are you going to do?"

- He jumped up on the counsel table

with a brand new,

freshly sharpened number two pencil.

- And all of a sudden, Manson yells to the judge,

"Somebody ought to cut your head off, old man."

- Manson screamed, "I will have you removed

"if you don't stop.

I have a little system of my own."

Then he jumped up and hurled himself

over the defense table in the direction of the judge.

- So he went at the judge like this.

- The bailiff tackled him in midair,

and it happens in an instant.

You know, everybody sat stunned in the courtroom.

- And as they struggled to take him out,

Manson again shouted, "You think I'm kidding?

"In the name of Christian justice,

someone should cut your head off."

- The judge had the composure,

leaned over the bench and said,

"Let the record reflect Mr. Manson

"has made a lunge for the bench,

and is now being subdued by the deputies."

- The trial continued with Manson and his girl followers

listening over a loud speaker in another room.

[dark music]

- Today's proceedings were somewhat more spontaneous

than yesterday's.

- Bugliosi was obsessed.

He felt he had to have every person

that ever set foot at Spahn Ranch testify.

And so you had the guy who shoveled horse manure,

motorcycle gangs,

people who just stopped by there.

- He called in witnesses

who didn't really talk about the murders.

They talked about Helter Skelter,

and Charlie's idea

that there was going to be a race war.

- One of the key pieces of testimony

came from Danny DeCarlo

about the lifestyle, the drugs that they used,

and the guns at the Spahn Ranch.

- We had fun shooting guns.

- Mm-hmm. - No doubt about that.

- He took us down to the place behind the ranch

where Charlie used to fire the Buntline revolver,

and that's where we found shell casings,

which we matched up with one of the murder weapons.

- How are you? How are you feeling?

- I'm nervous.

- In a case that has been particularly gruesome,

today's testimony was perhaps the most horrifying yet.

Prosecution witness Virginia Graham

had shared a jail cell with Susan Atkins,

and she testified that Ms. Atkins told her

she had killed Sharon Tate.

[dramatic chords]

Mrs. Graham went on with several hours

of gruesome details.

[indistinct chatter]

- Gregg Jakobson was fascinated by Manson,

and he was a crucial witness for the prosecution

because Jakobson reiterated

that Manson spent hours and hours

talking about the Beatle lyrics,

and particularly "Helter Skelter"

and how they were messages to him from the Beatles.

- During Melcher's testimony,

he made it clear that he'd never offered Manson

a recording contract.

He thought the music was average

or nothing special.

Brooks Poston and Paul Watkins

left the Manson Family before the murders.

They escaped and they both testified

for the prosecution.

- He said Manson gave him a knife and told him,

"If you are with us,

"you will take this knife,

"sneak into the sheriff's home,

and cut his throat."

Poston admitted he defied Manson's orders

and did not kill the sheriff,

something the defense said showed that Manson

did not control Poston.

Another witness, Paul Watkins,

said he often heard Manson talk about

starting a race war by killing whites in rich suburbs

and making it appear that blacks had done it.

- Paul Watkins testified, "Death was Charlie's trip."

- Some people are saying the more domination

you put on Manson over his family,

you're going in the direction, then,

of lessening the culpability

of those who were dominated

to the point where maybe they're not guilty, Paul.

Because if you're simply a robot or an automaton,

then you lack criminal intent.

So I presented evidence to the jury

that there were other members of the family

that were equally slavishly obedient

to Charles Manson,

do anything in the world for him,

but they wouldn't kill for him.

And I told the jury when those words,

Helter Skelter, were found printed in blood

at the LaBianca murder scene,

that was tantamount to Manson's fingerprints

being found at the murder scene.

That was his motive.

- I was very worried about testifying.

We went to the trial,

and I was scared that I was gonna hear Charlie's voice

and that he was gonna be able to intimidate me enough

that I, you know, I wouldn't be able to tell the truth.

When I went into and faced Charlie,

Charlie was, you know, at the defense table.

One of the first things that I was asked was,

"Did you love Charlie?"

And it was like, "Yeah, I guess... I guess I did."

I mean, I did have love for him,

or I had had love for him.

The first thing Charlie says is,

"Don't pin it all on Mr. Manson.

She loved everybody."

And it just... you know, and he did it in such a way

that, you know, he totally had dismissed

what I said.

And he was playing the crowd.

I was very much relieved that...

Oh, yeah, he doesn't have, you know,

he doesn't have control over me anymore.

I don't hear his voice.

You know, and he just looked like this little...

This little con man pimp, you know?

- Charles Manson has been listening now

for 14 weeks to witnesses who say

he and the three girl defendants

are guilty of the Tate and LaBianca murders.

Soon he'll get a chance to defend himself.

- Three young woman charged along with Charles Manson

in the murders first wanted to testify,

to confess, it was widely speculated.

But they insisted the jury hear them.

They were refused and then decided

they didn't want to say anything.

- Manson, however, did address the court

in a rambling, quite amazing,

one-hour dissertation about life and...

I mean, without notes.

- Through it all, he was soft-spoken,

at one time appearing near tears.

Often Manson lost track of his story,

telling some things over and over,

and then continuing incoherently

into another chapter in his uneven life story.

Only once did he directly respond

to the accusations against him.

He said, "I have killed no one,

and I have ordered no one to be killed."

In apparent reference

to his female codefendants, Manson continued,

"These children who come at you with knives,

"they are your children.

I did not teach them, you did."

- And after Manson finished his rant,

the judge said, "Now, we'll bring the jury in Mr. Manson,

"and perhaps you'd like to say

whatever you want to say to the jury,"

and Manson said, "I've said it."

He said, "I'm not gonna testify."

He didn't testify to the jury,

and he told the girls not to testify.

So you had a murder trial, capital case,

death penalty on the line,

and none of the defendants testified.

Then the defense came out and said,

"We have no witnesses."

Nobody testified.

- Actually, we thought it was very, very dangerous

for him to take the stand, and it's very dangerous

to subject yourself to cross-examination.

- Are you pleased with the fact

that the defense is seemingly offering no defense?

- No, Stan, I'm not.

Obviously, I'm a prosecutor, and I seek convictions

in any case that I'm on.

However, I always welcome and I encourage

a very spirited, vigorous defense.

- No one is really certain what happens next.

It has been that kind of trial for 23 weeks.

- Just when the prosecution

and the defense rested their case,

one of the lawyers for Leslie Van Houten,

Ronald Hughes, disappeared.

[eerie music]

During the trial, I heard personally

that Ron Hughes suggested that Leslie Van Houten's case

be separated from the rest of the Manson Family,

and Charlie immediately got angry at that and said,

"No way."

And then suddenly, Ronnie Hughes disappeared.

- Well, we received some information this morning

from a very close personal acquaintance of Mr. Hughes

that Hughes contacted him on Thanksgiving Eve

and asked for a ride to the Sespe Hot Springs area,

Ventura County, which is a remote mountainous area.

We're actually concerned for his physical safety.

- Four months after he disappeared,

his body was found in a river.

- The attorney who replaced Hughes, Maxwell Keith,

was prepared to go into court today

and ask that a mistrial be declared for Ms. Van Houten.

But when court opened, before he could do that,

there was a wild melee between the three girl defendants,

matrons, and deputies.

It began when Ms. Van Houten objected to her new attorney.

She shouted at the judge, refused to sit down,

then she struck out at the bailiffs.

- Morning, Charlie. - Morning.

- Any comment at all?

- I have a big laugh. [laughs]

[tense music]

- Irving Kanarek, Mr. Manson's attorney,

is in the fifth day of a marathon

final address to the jury,

the longest summation to a jury

in a criminal case in California.

He's been accused of conducting a filibuster,

and he says he is still not through.

- Kanarek droned on so endlessly

that the jurors requested No Doz pills to stay awake.

- It will be well after the first of the year

before the arguments and the instructions

are completed, and the jury

will finally begin its deliberations.

[helicopter whirring]

- We all took it very seriously.

Took a lot of handwritten notes during the trail.

[suspenseful music]

And we had four defendants

so you had to talk about the defendants individually

and talk about the evidence that related

to each one of them.

But with regard to Leslie Van Houten,

I was the lone holdout for a while.

I had a little different take

on her involvement than most of the other jurors

because Leslie Van Houten was only involved

on the second night,

and of all the people that were stabbed,

she only stabbed one person, Rosemary LaBianca,

after she died.

But I began to see it as she was equally guilty.

- It took 42 1/2 hours of deliberating

before the jury sent out word that it had indeed

reached a verdict.

- We sat there for a while

before we notified the bailiff,

just letting it all sink in.

And then we called the bailiffs and said we have a verdict.

- The courtroom was packed

as the jury foreman handed over the forms

on which the decisions were written.

The three girls on trial, Susan Atkins,

Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten,

grinned and talked among themselves.

Charles Manson smiled and stroked his beard,

then the verdicts were read.

- There's something called the California conspiracy rule

that said any member of a conspiracy

is equally guilty of any crimes committed

by his coconspirators,

and Charlie was obviously the head

of the conspiracy.

So that's what got Charlie.

Guilty. Seven counts of murder,

and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.

- You've heard the verdict. How do you feel now?

- Are you guys proud of a system

where a man cannot defend himself?

There's a revolution coming very soon.

- What are you going to do right now?

- We're gonna stay here until Charlie's out.

[camera shutter clicking]

- Could you have won the case outside of Los Angeles?

- Yes, I think we could've won the case

outside of Los Angeles.

I think that we were forced to select a jury

from a very hostile and antagonist community.

- I don't believe that.

This jury is 12 people chosen from this community.

They based their verdict solely and exclusively

on the evidence that came from that witness stand.

They were not influenced in any fashion whatsoever

from any pretrial publicity.

This is just weeping on the part of the defense.

- Are you going to ask for the death penalty?

- Yes.

- The nearly eight-month ordeal of sequestration

for the jurors is not over.

The seven men and five women

will continue to be locked in a hotel each night

until they decide life or death sentences

in the penalty phase of the trial,

which will begin Thursday and could take several weeks.

[helicopter whirring]

[dramatic music]

- When the penalty phase started,

everything was different.

The girls had decided to testify

and confess to everything

and absolve Charlie from any responsibility.

That was their mission from him.

- It wasn't going to change the outcome of the verdict,

but during the penalty phase,

you're looking for mitigating factors.

And they were trying to save his life.

♪

- Manson shaved his head.

They ended up with shaved heads as well,

which stunned everybody.

Manson eventually turned that X into a swastika.

He looked more menacing.

- I was in jail for 90 days for Barbara Hoyt,

and one of the girls comes to visit me

and has a piece of paper

that she puts on the glass, and it said,

"The girls want you to testify,

and this is what they want you to say."

[helicopter whirring]

She said, "Read every word," and she said,

"Now, Charlie's gonna be in the courtroom

listening to every word, you dig?"

Like he used to say, "You dig?"

So I read this crazy story

that was all Linda's idea

because she was a prosecution witness.

And that's when Vincent Bugliosi said to me,

"You're saying all this to make sure that

"Charles Manson doesn't go to a gas chamber, right?"

And I said, "No."

And I was just splintered. I was just saying

what everybody expected me to say.

I was acting,

the biggest acting job I've ever done.

- And so they began to take the stand,

one after the other,

and tell the most horrific stories

with details that we had not heard

during the trial.

They were now convicted, of course,

and so they could say anything.

And their own lawyers refused to question them

because they felt that they were committing suicide

on the stand.

They would just let them go up there and talk,

and the judge allowed it.

Susan was devastating.

I mean, she talked about stabbing Sharon Tate.

- It was the first time the jurors have heard

an admission of guilt from any of the four

convicted murderers.

Ms. Atkins said it was Linda Kasabian

who picked the Tate house for the killings

because she said she had once been to the home to buy drugs,

had been badly treated, and wanted revenge.

She said Charles Manson was not to blame.

- We drove to the house

with instructions to kill everyone in the house.

- It was probably the most grisly day

of the entire trial, and it was the most horrible.

[dark music]

- On the evening of August 8th,

Charles Manson gathered some of his family members,

Susan Atkins and Tex Watson,

Linda Kasabian and Patricia Krenwinkel,

and directed them to go to the Cielo Drive residence.

[eerie music]

♪

- I remember getting in the car with Tex,

and my three co-defendants. - Tex Watson.

- Tex and I had our own special little stash

of cocaine.

Yeah, I think it was cocaine or methadrine.

I'm not sure which.

We both snorted some speed and got in the car.

We were very, very wired.

♪

As we went in, a car came up.

- The driver of the car was 18-year-old Steven Parent.

Watson was armed with a .22 caliber

Buntline revolver that had a 9-inch barrel.

- Um...

- Boy Steven Parent was killed.

- Right, was killed. - In the car outside.

- Right.

- Tex shot the gun four times, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Tex told me to go to the back of the house.

And him and the girls went to the front of the house.

- Linda Kasabian saw Watson at the dining room window,

which was ajar.

She saw him reach in and push the window up,

took the screen off, then climbed in.

He then went and opened the front door.

Atkins and Krenwinkel, they came in.

They were both armed with knives.

Watson told them to go check at the back of the house,

see if there was anybody else there.

When they walked past Abigail Folger's bedroom,

she was in bed reading,

and she just waved at Atkins and Krenwinkel like,

"Well, I guess they're just guests

of Sharon Tate or whoever."

- The people in the house

were all brought into the living room.

- Watson smashed Jay Sebring in the face

with the gun butt

and shot him and stabbed him seven times.

At that point, pandemonium broke loose.

- All I can remember seeing is people just scattering

in different places

and running in different places.

- Abigail Folger ran out of the back of the house.

Krenwinkel chased her with an upraised knife,

and on the shutters next to the back door,

left a fingerprint.

And so with that fingerprint,

Krenwinkel could be placed inside the residence.

Krenwinkel chased her to the front yard,

jumped on her, and started stabbing her.

Abigail Folger was stabbed 28 times.

Now in the meantime,

Wojciech Frykowski tried to run out of the house.

- Next thing I know,

a man comes stumbling out of the house,

covered in blood, and falls down,

and Tex starts stabbing him.

- Frykowski was hit 13 times with the gun butt.

He was shot several times,

and he ended up getting stabbed 51 times.

Atkins, all the while, had Sharon Tate at knifepoint,

and Sharon Tate was crying and pleading and begging.

[dramatic music]

♪

- I remember that I felt nothing.

I felt absolutely nothing for her

as she begged for her life and for the life of her baby.

- Watson, with this long rope that he brought in,

threw the rope over the high beam,

tied one end around Jay Sebring's neck,

and the other around Sharon Tate's neck.

Then Susan Atkins took a towel,

and on the front door in Sharon Tate's blood

that she had dipped the towel in,

wrote the word "pig."

[eerie music]

Now, the next day,

Manson gathered Susan Atkins,

Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten,

Linda Kasabian, Tex Watson, and Steve Grogan.

They drove around.

Manson gave directions

about where to go.

They ended up at the house next door

to where Leno and Rosemary LaBianca lived.

So Manson went up to the house,

found an unlocked door,

and came in.

He was armed with a firearm.

He got the drop on both of them,

and he tied them

with their hands behind their back with rawhide.

He told the LaBiancas

this was just a robbery,

and that he wasn't going to hurt them.

- Manson came back, looked in the car,

and he pointed at Pat and I and told us to get out

and go do what Tex said.

He said to Tex to make sure that everybody did something.

- So Watson, who was armed with a bayonet,

and the two women entered the house

and immediately Krenwinkel went to the kitchen

and got knives for herself

and Leslie Van Houten.

- Tex said for Pat and I to take

Mrs. LaBianca into the bedroom.

- Van Houten took a pillowcase from the bed,

put it over Rosemary's head,

unplugged the lamp on the nightstand,

and wrapped the cord

around the base of the pillowcase

with the lamp still attached.

At which point, Rosemary could hear Leno

getting stabbed in the front living room.

♪

And Rosemary had this sudden burst of energy

where she took the lamp cord

and swung the lamp in Van Houten's direction.

Van Houten knocked the lamp out of her hands

and wrestled her down to the bed.

And Krenwinkel, with the kitchen knife,

stabbed her as hard as she could,

but hit her collarbone and the knife blade bent.

Van Houten immediately ran to the hallway and said,

"Tex, Tex, it's not working."

And so Watson came in,

and Watson and Van Houten then proceeded

to stab Rosemary LaBianca.

- When I started stabbing, I didn't...

I didn't really have any idea in my mind

that it's a real feeling.

It's... it's not even like cutting a piece of meat.

It's much tougher.

I just completely bled out on that woman's back.

- Rosemary LaBianca was stabbed 41 times.

One of the stab wounds from Watson's bayonet

severed her spinal cord.

Leno was in the living room.

Krenwinkel plunged the carving fork

in his abdomen seven times,

and then she stabbed him 12 times with a knife.

And she carved the word "W-A-R" in his abdomen.

After Leno and Rosemary were murdered,

Watson and Krenwinkel took showers.

And Leslie Van Houten went to the refrigerator

in LaBianca's kitchen, the same refrigerator

that had "Helter Skelter" in blood written on it.

And she got out some chocolate milk

and drank the chocolate milk.

I think Watson had some cheese.

♪

When they got Leno into the coroner's office

and took the pillowcase off,

he had a knife with the handle

protruding out of one side of the neck,

the blade traversing his neck, severing a carotid artery,

and part of the blade sticking out

of the other side of his neck.

- It was incomprehensible slaughter

of innocent people.

And that was hard for anybody to get their minds around.

It was beyond drama.

It was horrific.

[suspenseful music]

- Charles Manson preached the idea of love and peace.

He hid behind the idea of love and the hippie culture,

but he used it as a shield.

Obviously, considering executing somebody

is a pretty tough decision.

I think we deliberated three days for the penalty.

We talked about it and talked about it,

and we all agreed that the death sentence

was the right punishment.

- How does it feel to be out? - Good.

- And so the Manson jury ends its stay

at the Ambassador Hotel after seven months

of being sequestered on orders of Judge Charles Older.

- Today, the judge formally passed sentence

on Charles Manson and his girls.

The death penalty, he said, for seven senseless murders.

- What are your thoughts of the verdict handed down?

- What is the verdict? - Death.

- For all of them? - Death for all of them.

- For all.

Uh... you know what?

The system has just judged itself.

It's just judged itself. It's all a matter of time now.

You can't kill love.

You can't kill the soul.

And the love and the soul is in the penitentiaries

and it's in the jails,

and those brothers and sisters are coming out soon.

And they're gonna judge you as you have judged them.

[eerie music]

♪

[distorted voice echoes indistinctly]

- People would visit Charlie.

Squeaky came back and said,

"I got some acid for everybody."

Okay, so we all took acid.

And then she said,

"Charlie would like us to show the world

how much we love him."

I said, "Okay."

And so she said, "What we're gonna do is start...

It was around the Whiskey a Go Go

on Sunset Boulevard.

And we're gonna crawl

all the way back to the courthouse.

- ♪ If you don't think

♪ This world is filled with pain ♪

♪ You don't know that wars become insane ♪

♪ No explanation is an insult to your brain ♪

♪ Then you try dying in the rain ♪

- When the acid was coming on,

you kind of feel like you can do anything

and you don't feel much physically,

but it got pretty excruciating.

And I thought to myself,

"Well, this does it.

I'll be crippled for life now."

- ♪ When you see the little children ♪

♪ Play with guns

♪ And you let them think that killing is fun ♪

♪ If you're too dumb

♪ To know the harm you've done ♪

- The police just checked to see

if any of us had warrants.

- ♪ Try bleeding in the sun

- And I was very glad when I had warrants

out for me for traffic tickets.

They took me and Mary Brunner in,

and the other girls crawled on.

- ♪ I've got too much on my mind ♪

♪ I've got too much - I still have some scars...

- ♪ On my mind

- On one knee from that crawl.

- How did you get rid of the X on your forehead?

- I actually did it myself.

Mm-hmm. I sanded it off.

- Oh, my goodness.

- I think it's important when we look at the Manson Family

to understand that they operated very much like a cult.

So it starts out that an individual

with a certain personality structure

seeks out individuals who are vulnerable.

[soft dramatic music]

There's an initial stage where a person is bombarded

with messages of love and complete acceptance,

so the person feels that

in all of the schools of thought that led to them

being not good enough, have now been disintegrated,

and they have found a place where it's not necessary

to meet any of the criteria of the outside world.

The person is then isolated,

and there is a relentless effort

to keep the media away from them.

If it slips though,

the message is that it's lies. It's untrue.

You only believe the leader of the cult.

There is then a period of treating

the person very badly,

either through forced sexual activity,

beating them, belittling them,

so that what psychologically happens

is the individual now says,

"I want to get back to a place

"where I get the perfect acceptance

"that I was getting before,

and I would do absolutely anything to get it."

All of the strengths that would create boundaries

between themself and the leader

are disintegrated gradually.

And what Charlie did was to make people believe

that the disintegration of their ego

was philosophically driven

and that it was being done for their own good.

When reality, it was all the interest of himself.

- The element of con man in Charlie as a philosopher

was essential because you can't have a philosopher

or a guru, whatever, without also being a con man.

- The closer you get to the Manson case,

the more you focus in,

the less glamorous it becomes,

and you realize that Charles Manson

took over the lives of these kids

and hurt everyone,

ruined everyone around him.

Because he had lived in prison

for more than half of his life at this time,

he was very canny and was charismatic.

He knew how to twist people.

He knew how to survive.

I think any of us,

if we'd been walking down the road

in the summer of 1969

and had a fight with our parents,

could've ended up in the Manson Family.

- It makes me sad a little bit when I look back on it

because most of us just loved each other,

and we didn't realize that...

we were looking up to someone that was so damaged.

- The thing that was driving Charlie at that time

was his insecurities,

his fear and paranoia.

And it became directed at his own people.

- It came during this height

of the hippie culture.

Everybody was looking for this enlightenment.

And then with these murders,

just out of the blue, scaring everybody,

and people not knowing how this happened,

and then to find out it's this ragtag,

you know, band of guru Charlie Manson followers.

And then watching them, you know,

parade down the halls of justice,

singing in satin dresses and just looney tunes.

- A part of it, I think, is because

it's just so hard to believe.

That little thing that Charlie had,

whatever it was that made people go to him.

Maybe that's part of the reason why

we're still talking about it,

that almost supernatural

whatever the heck it was about him.

Maybe that's it. I don't know.

♪

- There has never been a lack of interest

in the Manson story

because it is

something that was such an aberration.

It changed society.

It brings out all of our fear.

- I think the Charles Manson case

is of enduring fascination

because LA changed forever.

There's a paranoid culture in modern LA

that was not here in the 1960s.

One of the most incredible things is that

Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys

could pick up two of the Manson girls

hitchhiking on Pacific Coast Highway,

and the next thing you know, the Manson Family

has moved into his house in Pacific Palisades.

It was a more innocent time in that regard,

and the Manson killings ended that time.

[helicopter whirring]

- People have been brainwashed

or have read so much about the real reason

behind these murders was to start a race war

that they believe it,

and I do not think that that was true.

- A large number of people

believe that it was this Helter Skelter theory,

which I don't believe, and if it was not,

then what was it?

That's the question.

- People glamorize the case, and it wasn't glamorous.

People think Spahn Ranch was groovy.

Free sex, love.

But it was syphilis and violence

and motorcycle gangs

and rape and degradation.

- Look at the bodies, look at the lives

that were destroyed.

And singed and paralyzed...

By this man and what he wrought.

- What Charlie wanted more than anything

was to be famous, to be important.

And curse his soul...

He did it. We're still talking about him.

The puppeteer played us,

and he didn't just play us once,

he kept doing it.

He knew what strings to yank,

and when the time was right,

he always did it.

Let's take what we can learn from Manson

and finally, thank God, move on past him.

[mellow music]

♪

- ♪ Pull the string, and I'll wink at you ♪

♪ I'm your puppet

♪

♪ I'll do funny things if you want me to ♪

♪ I'm your puppet

♪

♪ I'm yours to have and to hold ♪

♪ Darling, you've got full control ♪

♪ Of your puppet

♪

♪ Pull another string, and I'll kiss your lips ♪

♪ I'm your puppet

♪

♪ Snap your finger

♪ And I'll turn you some flips ♪

♪ I'm your puppet

♪

♪ Your every wish is my command ♪

♪ All you gotta do is wave

♪ Your little hand

♪ I'm your puppet

♪

♪ I'm your puppet

♪

♪ I'm just a toy

♪ Just a funny boy

♪ That makes you laugh when you are blue ♪

♪

♪ I'll be wonderful

♪ I'll do just what I'm told

♪ I'll do anything for you

♪ 'Cause I'm your puppet

♪

♪ Darling, darling

♪ Darling, darling

♪ I'm your puppet

♪

- Greg, move your head.

Subtitles Diego Moraes(oakislandtk) www.opensubtitles.org