Original subtitles

[news anchor] Five persons, including actress Sharon Tate, were found dead.

Bodies were scattered inside, on the lawn, and the driveway.

- They had been stabbed and shot. - [gunshot]

The bodies of a man and his wife found in their home.

Leno LaBianca and his wife

had both been stabbed to death.

[cell doors clanging]

[automated voice 1] Prepaid call from...

[Manson] Charles.

[voice 1] An inmate at...

[voice 2] ...the California State Prison.

[tone beeps]

[man] Hello?

[eerie voice] Ring, ring!

Ring, ring!

[man] Hello?

He called me out of the blue and...

[exhales] If I only knew what rabbit hole I was stepping into.

Anything ever written about Manson

is contradicted in these tapes.

[dramatic, eerie music playing]

[tone beeps]

[Manson on tape]

[dramatic music continues]

[music fades]

Gentlemen...

[man] If I could ask you to take your glasses off. We're on the record.

This will be a subsequent parole consideration hearing

for Charles Manson.

[Jones] Back in 2001,

I had fallen on hard times.

I was just a strung-out junkie.

And I lost my business, and I just lost my life.

[camera shutter clicks]

And I was on a computer one day

and I noticed that this Manson autograph

was selling for an outrageous amount of money.

Someone offered me something if I would sign something.

But then someone else told me not to sign anything

because my name was worth a lot of money

and they didn't want me using it as another economy.

[Jones] I was like, "Goddamn, that guy's still alive?"

I was like, "Man, I can get this little fuckin' hippie cult leader

to write me a letter or two."

I was just a hustler looking to hustle someone for an autograph.

I figured I'll just get him to write me somehow.

But it wasn't that simple because he never wrote people.

And I knew I had a task in front of me.

I'm thinking, "What do you say to a... a killer-cult leader?"

[man] Shortly before midnight on 8/8 of 1969,

Manson informed his crime partners

that now is the time for Helter Skelter.

Crime partners were directed to accompany Charles "Tex" Watson

in order to carry out his, Manson's, orders.

Where is this coming from? Who's writing this?

[man] This comes from the probation report

from when you first came into the system.

Well, it's a little distorted.

[Jones] I knew that the one thing that this guy just is relentless about is,

"I did not do this."

I gotta make him think

I believe he's innocent.

So I just wrote this poem about an innocent man

sitting on death row in San Quentin.

But it worked.

He was touched by the poem so much, he wrote me,

like, just a whole page of bebop...

[pages fluttering]

...and then at the end, "Charles Manson."

I didn't care about the rest of it, I got that autograph.

You know? I'm like, "Oh, I'm rich!"

But little did I know that

searching for an autograph,

I was gonna walk into

a world that I never, ever would have imagined.

- [receiver clicks] - [dial tone hums]

[dialing]

[automated voice 1] I have a prepaid call from...

- [Manson] Charles. - [voice 2] An inmate at the California State Prison.

He called me out of the blue and...

[exhales] If I only knew what rabbit hole I was stepping into...

[Manson on tape]

[Jones on tape] Oh, man. I'm so glad you called.

[Manson]

[Jones] Right.

[Manson]

[Jones] Everything I have is unreleased.

I've got 20 years' worth of phone calls.

[on tape] Hello?

[Manson]

[Jones] The longer I spent getting to know him,

I slowly started to see that mask come off.

[dramatic music swells]

[music fades]

[Lake] I'm interested to hear the tapes

of him and Charlie talking.

I would love to hear Charlie say something... real.

I'd like to hear him tell the truth.

Whatever it is.

[automated voice] Your call is being connected.

[Manson]

[Jones] 9:20.

[Manson]

[Jones] Yeah.

Is that Charlie?

- [producer] Yeah. - Really?

Are you telling me, is this the first time anybody's heard this?

[Manson]

It feels strange to hear Charlie again after all these years.

[Manson]

[Jakobson] I haven't heard Charlie's voice in, uh...

we're talking about 50 years.

[Manson]

[Jones laughs on tape]

Listening to the tapes is always chilling.

But it's also the Manson version.

[Manson]

[Kaufman] How do you know what's real and what's not real?

You'll never get a straight answer.

In any of these tapes, is he ever guilty?

[Manson]

[Share] He's still the same Charlie.

He's still manipulating whoever he's talking to

and he's still lying through his teeth.

[Manson]

For a moment, I got jerked back to... that period of time.

You know, I wondered what else I heard then

that I don't remember now.

[unsettling music playing]

[Manson]

Listening to his upbringing and his childhood

and the trauma that this guy's been through,

I think Charlie became human to me that day.

And I became more interested in knowing more.

[Manson]

[Jones on tape] How old were you the first time she went to prison?

[Manson]

[Jones on tape] What?

[Manson]

[Jones on tape] Holy shit.

That really happened?

[Manson]

He told me a story about sitting at a window of a boys' home,

and how each time a vehicle would pull in

his heart would start palpitating, thinking,

"They're here for me," only to see another boy leave.

And I remembered as a kid, in my own youth,

sitting at that same window.

[gentle guitar music playing]

And when he told me that story,

I swore from that day forward I would never ask him for another fucking thing.

I didn't want an autograph no more.

I just knew that I was not gonna be one of those people

that left him sitting at that window.

[Jones] How old were you when you started with boxing?

[Manson]

[Jones on tape] Wow.

You were a mean son of a bitch

when you were younger.

[Manson]

[uneasy music playing]

[Jakobson] Used to say his daddy was the street

and his mom was the institutions he grew up in.

He was a master at finding himself in an institution.

He could not conform.

[Jones] How old were you when you did the first thing?

That first crime you ever did?

[Manson]

[Jones] Wow.

[Manson]

[Jones] Uh-huh?

[Manson]

[laughter]

[Share] All Charlie knew was being incarcerated.

That's the core of Charlie.

Who he is is someone that's been in the system

for most of his life.

[ominous music playing]

[inmates chattering]

[Manson]

[Kaufman] He kept himself alive with crime.

He was a pimp and a street guy.

[Manson]

His last bust was forgery.

He was stealing checks.

Didn't seem like the right crime,

'cause he was illiterate.

[Manson]

[echoing gunshot]

[Davis] There are a lot of young men and women who grew up

in America with hard childhoods,

with parents who were unloving, unfeeling,

and they didn't turn out to be killers.

[pensive music playing]

[Manson]

[Kaufman] People who are doing big numbers in the big penitentiaries,

the last five years, they're sent to a low-key prison

like Terminal Island.

That's why Charlie was down there,

and that's where I met him.

He was my cellmate.

And Charlie was over there playing his guitar.

[Jones] You remember the first song you ever wrote?

[Manson]

[guitar strumming]

♪ Your home is where you're happy ♪

♪ It's not where you're not free ♪

♪ Your home is where you can be what you are ♪

♪ 'Cause you were just born to be ♪

[song ends]

[Jakobson] Because Charlie was a little wiry guy,

he had to deal with a place that's very tribal.

[dramatic music playing]

There was the white Aryan Brotherhood,

there's the Black brothers, there's the Latinos.

He had to get along with all those people.

[Manson]

Because he was so used to having to be a chameleon

and having to fit in everywhere he was in order to survive,

he seems to know what everybody needs.

[Manson]

[Lake] It sounds like he learned a lot of bad stuff in there,

and he would use those insights

for his survival.

[uneasy music playing]

[Manson]

[Jones on tape] Be honest with me for a minute.

If you could change one thing about your past,

you could go back and do one thing different,

what would it be?

[Manson]

[Jones] No?

[Manson]

[uneasy music playing]

[cell door clanging]

[inmates chattering]

[automated voice] A collect call from...

[Manson] Charles.

Yeah...

See, I told you you'd call back.

[automated voice] Your call is being connected.

[Jones] Hello?

Over all, nobody on this planet

knew that man better than I did.

Or longer than I did.

Charlie never got the chance to tell his story.

Anything ever written about Manson

is contradicted in these tapes.

[Manson]

[Lake] When he was in jail, he had a life.

And he didn't want to be thrust into society.

[tone beeps]

[Manson]

But when he got out, there was this whole counterculture hippie movement.

He came out into the Summer of Love.

♪ Love is a revolution... ♪

[upbeat psychedelic rock playing]

[Manson]

[Jakobson] Imagine being in a cell, a young, little guy.

Twenty-four hours later, you're in San Francisco.

Free love, drugs, partying.

Unbelievable.

People would gather, and they would call it a love-in.

There's always gonna be girls and guys hooking up.

Anything that happened wouldn't be too unusual after a while.

It's hard to picture what an extreme opposite that is.

Charlie would be like a child in a candy store.

[upbeat music continues]

[discordant psychedelic music playing]

[tone beeps]

[Manson]

[discordant music continues]

[Jones on tape] Was that the first time you took acid?

[Manson]

[psychedelic music continues]

[Lake] It was like this new age.

This new way of thinking.

And there were all kinds of gurus popping up.

And so he realized, "I don't have to be a pimp, I can be a guru."

[camera shutter clicks]

[Jakobson] He was a real chameleon.

Whatever the scene demanded, he would change color

so that he would fit in.

There was a lot of messages going around,

and Charlie soaked that kind of stuff up

because anything and everything was ammo for Charlie.

[Davis] Charlie was a mature ex-con

who knew how to get his way and how to talk to people.

I'm sure he never said, "I'm gonna come out of jail and become a cult leader." No.

He went out of jail and discovered that

his line of patter went down rather well.

- [tone beeps] - [Jones] I can imagine how much pussy you got in your life.

- [Manson laughs] - Have you ever had a woman

that just knocked your socks off?

You got her in bed and you were like, "Oh, I'm in love!

This woman is crazy!"

[Manson]

[Lake] I was really one of the first girls, and I was the youngest.

At that time, I was 14.

I met him in October,

and he had gotten out of jail like in March.

And when I met Charlie and the girls,

they were all sitting around in a circle,

and Charlie got up

and invited me to come sit in the circle.

They all instantly love bombed me.

It was so emotionally fulfilling

to feel so loved and accepted.

[tense music playing]

I mean, I needed, like, a father figure

or somebody to make me feel like I belonged.

And he was able to do it. And that's what I needed.

I think he was somebody a little bit different for all of the girls,

and yet he had this way of making us all feel like

we were the special one.

Charlie could really perceive

what someone had in them.

He just said, "You're not like all the rest.

You've gone through a lot of hard knocks, haven't you?"

And so, people felt comfortable with him

because they think, "Well, he's just like me."

He started meeting these girls that are basically throwing themselves at him,

he wasn't used to that, you know?

The girls, for whatever their reasons,

they liked the way he sang,

they liked the way he played his guitar,

and they liked the way he looked at life,

and I think his ego got a little inflated.

[Lake] Later, Charlie took me to the bus,

he made love to me like I was a woman,

not just a little child,

which made me feel wonderful.

But I'm 14.

See, he always couched it

that it was an opportunity for me

to get rid of my inhibitions, you know?

I was uncomfortable, but it's not till later that I realized, "Oh."

I-I wasn't street smart.

I just wasn't.

[Kaufman] I mean, Charlie was very good at not conning,

but influencing people without them knowing it.

These kids had run away from home,

and they were susceptible.

The hook was in and he'd get another girl.

And he just really knew how to take advantage of 'em.

He just... "Ka-rum!"

[Share] I was looking for a family because I'm an orphan.

Being an orphan puts you in a different mindset

than anybody else.

I didn't have any set rules that I was trying to get rid of

because I had been on my own for so long anyway.

And the hippie movement was everything I'd been looking for.

[Lake] Just before I met Charlie,

my parents became hippies and we lived in a commune.

My parents weren't enfolding me

as their child.

I was just another body.

And I felt I needed to belong somewhere

where they wanted me,

and when I met Charlie and the girls,

that's what I got.

[Rose] When I first met Charlie,

I was living in San Francisco at the time as a hippie.

A lot of the kids, like myself,

were looking for... answers.

- [dark music playing] - [tone beeps]

[Manson]

[Lake] Charlie would get in a circle

and he'd play his guitar.

He wanted to share his message.

I think that that was important for him.

He wanted people to listen to his songs.

[Manson]

I think his message was,

get over our doubts,

get rid of your inhibitions, and live life.

[slow psychedelic music playing]

[Manson]

[Deutsch] I hope you're not going to be exonerate Manson,

'cause I don't want any part of it if you are.

I have lived with this now for over 50 years.

For us, as reporters,

no one could understand how such nice girls

could have followed this crazy guy.

You know, within the girls, there was Mary Brunner.

[Brunner] I was living in an apartment.

It was so routine, it was a drag.

And I just dropped it, you know, whatever was happening,

and took off.

Then there was Susan Atkins.

I think she'd been a sex worker

and she'd done strip dancing.

Lynette, her parents had kicked her out of the house.

He let us be beautiful.

And he, um, he robbed us from our parents

and he gave us back to ourselves.

- [intense music playing] - [tone beeps]

[Manson]

[Lake] Then there was Patty Krenwinkel

who had her dad's gas card.

[laughs]

That took us quite a ways, so...

[Manson]

[Lake] The rest of us were just, like, homegirls,

more on the innocent side of...

you know, being a woman.

[tone beeps]

[Manson]

[exhales]

Charlie's right, that's what they were.

Wayward children.

But they were led totally astray by him.

I think that Manson's real gift, if you would call it that,

was that he chose his followers very young.

They all had had disputes with their parents.

They were part of a counterculture era

which made them in conflict with most adults.

They saw themselves as knowing everything,

but they knew nothing.

[ominous music playing]

[Stimson] I'm a longtime friend of Charles Manson.

The narrative that Charles Manson got out of prison in March of 1967

and immediately began collecting recruits

to eventually commit mass murder doesn't really make a lot of sense,

but it's the one that's been sold.

He was really just a fella who was out of prison

and making his way through a new world and he met people.

Sure, he was agreeable if somebody wanted to come along and stay,

but I'm not aware of any instance where he

actively tried to recruit, if you will,

anybody into his group of associates.

[Manson]

He always had to alienate them immediately from their parents

so that they would not go home.

They had left their parents behind.

[Lake] He would tell us, "Forget about your mother and your father.

You don't belong to them."

He made us strong inside ourselves and be our own leader.

But, see, our parents, uh, they didn't do that.

They made us depend on them, ask them questions.

We don't need 'em.

[Share] Charlie was an abused and damaged human being.

Just like all of us, he had been thrown away.

[Manson]

[Jones] Man, that's heartbreaking.

I know you loved your mom.

Problem is, she couldn't love you back.

[Manson]

And at first, I think he learned from the pimps

to pick what they call

"a bird with broken wings."

Children that were thrown away.

But it turned into something else.

It turned into "all for one, one for all,"

and loyalty, and love that he had never experienced.

[Deutsch] He saw himself as some kind of uber-parent

who took care of them.

It was the first family he ever really had.

Every girl ought to have a daddy like Charlie.

Should, deserves to have a daddy like Charlie.

The reason that I hung in there with Charlie

is because I wanted to experience that same

feeling of love and acceptance and...

magical joy that I felt at that first meeting.

And I didn't jump into the Family right away.

But then they were gonna leave, they were gonna go on a trip,

and I didn't want to be left behind.

So I... I jumped on the bus.

- [somber music playing] - [tone beeps]

[Manson]

[Jones on tape] That's right.

[dramatic chord plays]

[mellow, somber music playing]

[Lake] I wouldn't say we were a cult at that point.

You know, in that first year, we were a commune.

I don't think we paid rent anywhere.

So, you know, we were freeloaders

in vacant houses in Topanga.

We definitely considered Charlie our leader.

You know, or the head of the...

commune.

[Deutsch] He thought he was gonna start some wonderful...

nirvana for everybody.

They were gonna be happy there, it was gonna be this

commune where they all ate together

and did everything together, but he was...

he couldn't help but be a criminal in every way.

- [Manson] - [Jones] Yeah.

[Jones] Yeah.

[Manson]

[Jones] Yeah.

[Rose] I think there was probably

some thought in people's minds

that the girls needed to do what he wanted

if they wanted to stay and be accepted by him.

He had been so under the thumb of what he called "the man,"

which was law enforcement,

and he had to obey the rules set by the man,

and now he was gonna break all the rules.

And he was going to control other people

and have them under his thumb.

And that's what he did.

[ominous music playing]

[Lake] We would take LSD and we sat around and got high.

An acid trip in the Manson Family

was more of a...

a spiritual awakening,

and Charlie did give it to us like a sacrament.

He would put the tab on each person's tongue.

They took a lot of LSD.

It was like taking lunch.

It was really good stuff, too.

I never took an LSD tab unless Charlie gave it to me.

[distorted, ominous laughter]

[Share] When you're on LSD, if you don't have the right guide,

it could be a very dangerous drug.

If you don't have the right guide with the right intentions.

[Kaufman] Charlie, he knew that they were susceptible

to his nonsense.

On LSD, he could really direct mind traffic.

[uneasy music playing]

It was... hypnotizing.

And to some extent, he did hypnotize his followers

into believing he was the word.

[Manson]

[Jones] That's right.

[Jones] That's right.

[Jones] Right on.

I think you're the most incredible

fucking human being on the planet Earth.

I wanna put--

[Manson]

[Share] He took it even a step further

and thought that he knew it all.

And that can happen sometimes with too much acid,

and I think that's what happened to him.

[fire crackling]

[Lake] I wasn't there when it happened.

But he felt like he was being crucified,

on the cross, as Jesus.

[fire crackling]

I think after that,

Charlie didn't take any more acid,

or if he did, he took very little.

[Davis] Manson was very manipulative,

and he knew the impact of drugs,

so he very carefully avoided taking them himself.

And then handed out those drugs to the girls

and never, never got himself stoned in front of them,

because he wanted to be in control.

[Manson]

[Jones] Yeah.

The programming probably wouldn't have worked without the drugs.

If you were one of Charlie's people,

if that was really your family,

it'd be like being in the army, you know?

You'd just take orders.

That's the only thing that makes sense to me.

At least I can blame it on the drugs.

[Rose] Most of the communes I knew of did have a single,

titular head,

but Charlie got into it a little bit deeper.

The concept of going off together

and living according to his rules

and his-his ways of doing things.

[Manson]

[Jones] Right on.

[Manson]

[Jones] Yeah.

[Lake] Charlie was adamant

about non-materialism.

That was one of the reasons that he wanted to drop out.

We didn't need all of that.

[Manson]

We learned how to survive on very little.

He taught us how to get food out of the dumpsters

behind the grocery stores.

[Manson]

He was about 50 years ahead of his time,

you know, living off the wasted food this country produces.

Charlie called it "postulating."

Basically what it was is,

is praying and asking the universe to bring us clothes,

or food, or gas.

And, amazingly enough,

it worked.

Or it seemed to work.

People came to the Family,

brought us clothes,

shared their-their music.

[somber music playing]

He wanted people to play music with him.

He continued to write songs.

[Manson singing] ♪ Oh, garbage dump ♪

♪ Oh, garbage dump ♪

♪ Why are you called a garbage dump? ♪

♪ I claim all these garbage dumps ♪

♪ In the name of ♪

♪ The Garbage Pickers of America ♪

[overlapping singers]

♪ The Garbage Pickers of America ♪

♪ Oh, but it smells ♪

♪ P-U! ♪

Yeah.

"Garbage Dump" was his--

the pinnacle of his achievement. [laughs]

He's got that West Virginia twang.

If he wasn't a murderer,

he probably could've done something.

[intense music builds]

[music fades]

[ominous music playing]

- [inmates chattering] - [tone beeps]

[Manson]

[Jones] They said that you were like the wizard

because you never wrote music, it just came outta ya.

[Manson]

[Jones] God.

[Manson]

Mm-hmm. Yep. Sounds about right.

[upbeat surf rock music playing]

[Stimson] The girls were hitchhiking somewhere

and Dennis Wilson picked them up

and invited them back to the house.

I mean, come on. This is the Beach Boys?

[crowd screaming]

They're the top dog.

[Stimson] Dennis Wilson picked up the girls,

made love to them, and then said,

"You're welcome to stay here anytime you want."

And they said, "We have more people back home."

And he said, "Bring them, too."

So that's what they did.

[Deutsch] The music scene in America was changing

as much as the society was changing.

That really was what propelled Manson,

'cause he saw all these acts that were getting famous

and making money

and having people worshipping them,

and he wanted to be one of them.

[Jakobson] All of a sudden, Charlie showed up at Dennis's house

with his big bus and a bunch of girls.

Dennis told me, he walked in the house

and there's a party going on.

[Manson]

[Jones laughs]

[Jones laughs]

[Jones laughs]

Charlie was so good that he had Dennis

in the palm of his hand almost immediately

[somber music playing]

[Lake] I got to stay at Dennis's.

He liked Charlie.

He called him a wizard.

He proudly introduced him to all kinds of music people

that came to the house.

Dennis used to call me up and tell me, "Gregg,

you gotta come out, we're having a party."

There was always something going on.

Dennis was, like, showing Charlie off.

Charlie was teaching him how to play the guitar.

There was this mutual admiration between the two of them.

[Jakobson] I thought, "Wow, it'd be fun to watch Charlie work."

We just played some music and it lit me up a little bit.

I'm always good with being entertained, so Charlie fit right in.

[Manson]

[Jones] Right.

[Manson]

We did garbage runs in his Rolls-Royce.

Dennis was very impressed

with the food that we could prepare

and set before him on his table

that came from a dumpster. [laughs]

[Share] Dennis almost gave up everything.

And I saw him, you know, change his look,

stop bleaching his hair.

But he was under contract,

and he liked the good life, too.

He liked, you know, the mansion and all that.

But he was...

He came close, he was tempted.

[Manson]

[Jones] What?

[Manson]

[Jones laughing]

[Manson]

[Jones] No way. What, was he just paranoid?

Charlie was very good at be-being evil,

and not... not showing it.

Anything that detracted him from his game plan,

at that time, he would squash it,

but he did it with velvet gloves.

No. It slowly unfolded,

and I was told he had gotten out of jail, or prison,

or whatever, I never knew the details.

And that didn't mean much in the '60s.

But if we knew that he had murdered somebody,

that would be different, but he just had--

he had just gotten out of jail, that's all we knew.

I knew that he had been in prison

for taking a girl over the state line.

It seemed minimal. [laughs]

At the time.

[Manson]

[Jakobson] I didn't know anything about a lot of this.

But when I think about it now,

I don't know how he sleeps at night. You know, he's like a predator.

[Roy] That's a new story. I haven't heard that one before.

He's claiming he murdered someone.

I had a unique opportunity to evaluate Charlie Manson

right after I was employed by the California Department of Corrections.

You know, he used people throughout his life.

He's crossed the line in a number of areas, with people dying.

Anyone that came in contact with him

ended up hurt or dead.

[Jakobson] So you can tell, it would just be a matter of time

before he did something just as off-the-wall

and destructive as that was.

It has to end that way with Charlie.

[ominous chord plays]

[mellow rock music playing]

[Lake] When we were at Dennis Wilson's,

I didn't get that feeling that we were welcome anymore.

It's a difficult situation.

And then we got kicked out.

So it was getting harder and harder to find a place

for all of us to live.

Till the Spahn Ranch showed up.

[unsettling music playing]

[Manson]

[Jones] No! Who went with you?

[Manson]

[whinnying]

[dog barking]

[Lake] It was a failing movie set

that had been thriving at some point

for Westerns.

But now it was just a weekend rental of horses.

It seemed really remote. [laughs]

Now it's kind of like in the middle of Los Angeles.

[horse huffs]

[dramatic Western music playing]

That was a place to spread out. It was fun.

[Share] We just thought everything was playacting.

I lived in a fantasy, anyway.

I didn't want to live in reality. It hurt too much.

[Lake] I loved walking out in the woods,

up in the hills with all the beautiful rocks.

[Share] It was my ideal dream come true.

Never having to be alone again.

It was very pure.

[tone beeps]

[Jones] Let me ask you this.

- [Manson] What? - [Jones] The truth is,

that whole thing was consensual.

[Manson]

[Jones] Yeah.

[Jones] Yeah.

[Manson]

[Jones] Right on.

[Manson]

[Share] Even though Charlie, behind the scenes,

orchestrated everything,

there was never, "Now you will do the laundry.

And you will cook." [chuckles]

It was just doing what you felt you could do well

and wanting to help people.

And loving them.

[girls singing]

[ominous music playing]

[Jakobson] He was at his best at the ranch.

With the girls, with the... the whole backdrop.

Charlie made sure that the show went on,

and even the girls were instructed to be a certain way.

He would orchestrate that.

He was like a director.

[projector clicks]

I never realized how much,

but you could tell.

It was Charlie's show.

[Lake] We were taking care of George,

the old cowboy that owned the ranch.

He's blind.

And Charlie saw an opportunity to take advantage of this guy.

But we helped clean his house.

You know, we had sex with him.

Kept him happy.

Right? This old guy.

Charles Manson was still a pimp. [laughs]

You know, call it what you want,

but he was still, uh... still scamming.

I mean, they wouldn't even think they're being manipulated

because it was so smooth.

He was slick.

He was a street hustler.

And he's got a game going.

There wasn't prostitution like he used to have,

but it really was.

[uneasy music playing]

[Manson]

[Jones] You had 'em all, huh?

[Manson]

[Jones laughs]

There was a lot of sex going on,

but it wasn't a sex cult.

It just seemed like a bunch of people that had a lot in common

with this great, brilliant guy

that took care of us and we took care of him.

Charlie had us physically and mentally and emotionally love each other.

[uneasy music continues]

People would call it an orgy.

But in my perspective then, it was okay,

in this new...

counterculture.

You know, and this was being fed to us, of course, by Charlie.

It was frowned upon by the straights,

the people outside of the counterculture.

It didn't seem to me to be perverted.

[Manson]

[Jones] I know.

[Manson]

[Jones] Yeah.

[Manson]

Charlie was having a hard time keeping us all happy.

So he said. [laughs]

- [ominous music playing] - [horse whinnying]

- [dog barking] - [crow cawing]

[Lake] Charlie wanted to bring more guys into the Family

who could provide money, food,

love, sex.

[Kaufman] I got out of prison in '68.

I couldn't wait to get out of prison and hang out with Charlie.

He says, "Come on in. Stay with us." I says, "Yeah."

And he said, "It's a family, and we all make love.

And every night, a new-new girl."

I mean, they were serious, those girls.

They-they really went for it.

And Charlie, he just really knew how to take advantage of 'em.

[Manson]

[Jones] Well, who had the best body, out of all the girls?

[Manson]

[Jones] Yeah.

[Manson]

[Jones] Wow.

[Manson]

Charlie went through, I think, an evolutionary process

where he began to realize the power and the control that he had.

And he exercised it more and more.

[dramatic music playing]

[Rose] The new women that came to the group

passed "Manson's inspection," quote-unquote, first.

They would have to spend a day, a night with him

before they spend time with the other people that were there.

Charlie brought one of these girls back,

and when we came out in the morning and gathered round,

Charlie had the woman stand up

and he said, "You know, I'm not going to ask her

to become a member of the Family

because she wouldn't give me head."

Which not only embarrassed her,

but made us feel awkward as well.

And that's when I began to realize

he began to show abuse of power.

[Share] We ignored signs.

Because sometimes we'd understand

that he had our greater good,

and he knew what was going on,

and we needed to, you know, listen to him

about all things.

[Manson]

[Lake] He definitely used us,

and he definitely abused us.

You know, I-I got hit and beat and, you know,

and raped once.

And I think the other girls probably did, too.

But they kept it... they kept it a secret.

Me and Linda couldn't get a big barrel down

'cause we were filling it up with water and gasoline.

And we rolled it down a ravine,

and the top came off,

and so we just decided, "Look, nobody knows about this.

We'll just come get it tomorrow."

But Charlie found out.

He asked who, exactly, rolled it down and just

almost beat me within an inch of my life.

Seriously, within an inch of my life.

[tone beeps]

[Manson]

I told him, I said, "You got a good game going here, Charlie.

You got the girls and you got a good life here.

Don't blow it."

Yeah, he had other plans at the time.

I said, "Wait a minute, where's he gonna go next

with this abuse of power?

This is not the kind of leader I want to follow."

[Manson]

[Jones] Yeah.

At that time, I realized that

it's probably time for me to leave.

[ominous music playing]

[tone beeps]

[Manson]

For me, it started getting darker

when Dennis bought a song from Charlie.

Dennis always had a good sense of music,

but he didn't have much of a lyric sense,

a melody lyric sense.

Dennis had given Charlie some cash,

which wasn't a big deal to Dennis.

But Charlie had no idea what that meant.

[Share] He just said, if I can be a rock star,

he could have more control over his life,

he wouldn't have to live hand-to-mouth.

And he could do more of what he wanted.

He wanted his own ranch.

♪ Cease to resist ♪

♪ Come on, say you love me ♪

♪ Give up your world ♪

♪ Come on and be with me ♪

He gave him $500, and now Dennis owned the song.

Dennis could put his name on the song,

and he could change it,

and even get royalties

should it ever be recorded.

[Manson]

[Jones] I heard that pissed you off.

[Manson]

[Jakobson] Charlie was really angry Dennis had changed it,

more than that he had maybe stolen the song from him,

as far Charlie was concerned.

And Dennis said, "Please don't take it too personally.

It's part of the music business."

But Charlie never experienced that.

What does he know about the music business?

It just pissed him off.

[Manson]

[Jones] Mm-mm.

[Davis] It's a classic example of Hollywood music industry rip-off,

and when you do it to a guy like Manson,

it festers in his brain.

"I've written a great song.

They've actually brought it out, they're selling it,

and I don't get a nickel of what I wrote."

[tone beeps]

[Manson]

[Jones] Yeah.

Charlie was getting more and more desperate.

I think there was a lot of pressure on Charlie

out at the ranch.

But the light at the end of the road

was the potential record contract.

[Share] Gregg Jakobson, Dennis Wilson's manager,

who was very close to Charlie and really loved his music,

brought Terry Melcher to listen to us.

[Jakobson] Now, Terry's a successful music producer.

Always looking for a new act.

His job was taking people into the studio

who had never been in the studio.

Don't forget, Terry's a celebrity.

I mean, his mother is Doris Day.

Terry went out there, he brought a couple of musicians one time,

and Terry was really impressed with Charlie.

He was going to produce a record with us

if he liked what he heard.

[Davis] And then all of a sudden,

as he was about leave the Spahn Movie Ranch

with a mellow feeling about Charlie,

he saw Charlie go up and beat the hell out of a guy.

One minute he was this pacifist,

the next minute he was a raving lunatic.

When Terry Melcher saw that,

um, he just freaked out.

[Share] When Charlie walked Terry back to the car,

Terry told Charlie, "I'll get back to you real soon."

But he did not get back to him, at all.

In any way. Through anybody. Period.

Terry broke his word.

To him, it was a slap in the face.

[Kaufman] I mean, that's a common mafia-type thing.

You know, people say, "It's my word,

and if I break my word, you can kill me."

His code of conduct

was that of a convict.

And he wore it proudly.

Honesty and integrity is part of their code,

'cause all they had in prison was their word.

They couldn't decide what to eat,

they couldn't decide when to turn off the lights,

they couldn't decide anything.

But one thing they could decide is,

whether they could back up their word.

[Manson]

[Jones] That's right.

[Manson]

[Jones] Right on.

[Share] Charlie did say things like,

"Those lames in Hollywood

have no idea what their word means."

He wanted to threaten him.

Charlie told me

"We're going to go visit Terry.

I think he's living with his mom."

[uneasy music playing]

He drove me there

and had me knock on the door

of Doris Day's house,

and casually ask,

"Hey, is Terry home?"

And the housekeeper

told me, "No, um,

he's not home yet. Um, can I take a message?"

And so, Charlie had me write,

"Hey, Terry. This is Charlie.

I'm still waiting."

I was thinking,

if this turns out bad,

in other words, if he comes and hurts Terry,

this is all in my handwriting and I'm complicit in this.

It's a conspiracy.

It's all in my handwriting.

It was a gangster move.

"Your word is your bond, and you better keep it.

Or you're in trouble."

He got angry or manipulated.

You know, I know he was disappointed that

Terry Melcher and Gregg

kind of dangled this carrot, and then...

cut him off.

[Jones on tape] Beach Boys stole your songs

and so did Terry Melcher, too.

I don't know if it's true.

[Manson]

His own behaviors and...

destructiveness came to pass.

Rejection, obviously, was-was a very strong feature

of Charlie's early childhood experience.

His worldview is, "There's nobody out there I can--

I can rely on or I can trust.

They're out there to hurt me.

And therefore, I'm going to protect myself."

And then it goes to another level.

"So I'm going to be on the lookout for it.

And when it happens, I'm gonna retaliate."

[Lake] When the music thing fell through,

that's really what sent him off the rails.

[Roy] His ingrained criminality crept in.

The benign, manipulative, cunning, almost desperate...

individual emerged.

He was always needing to be in control,

and that came from having all control

taken from him at a very young age

and being helpless.

And a man does not want to be helpless,

and he'll do anything not to feel that way again.

He tried love for a while.

He said, "Oh, that worked."

And he said, "But fear is stronger."

[Manson]

[rapid, tense music building]

[dramatic theme music playing]