All language subtitles for Manson.The.Women.2019.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

I was a member
of the Manson Family

Charlie was permeating
my whole being

He was alive

He was manipulating in a way
that no one knew

he was manipulating

I don't need to kill anyone

I think it

What was it
about Charlie Manson

that made these women
give up their names

and their belongings
and join his family?

I didn't have
any family to speak of

It was pretty torturous,
just this loneliness

of not having anybody
to ever count on

She's exactly the kind
of person ISIS looks for,

because she wanted desperately
to be part of something

He made victims of more
than just the people that died

There are some people
you don't have to forgive

I never saw fulfillment
and happiness

in the people I looked up to

I'd say meeting Manson
saved my life,

my health, my brain,

my emotional health,
my mental health,

my physical health

I'm thankful

I have no idea
how you could have been

involved in that family
and have continued

to believe what Manson said

You want to talk
about immoral and evil,

go to Hollywood

We touched it
It needed to be touched

From my perspective,
I was looking for a place

to be a part of something
bigger than just myself

That's a person
who is vulnerable,

and that's why
a lot of cult leaders

choose young girls

Dianne was the perfect target

It was hard to live with

I felt this overwhelming guilt,

just guilty by association

It's just been very cathartic
for me to realize

that I was a victim
of his manipulation

We were all looking
for a family

that we related to

Squeaky wanted to rebel

If you've ever been a parent
of a child

who's in their teens
and they just wanna rebel

and they find the bad boy

Charlie, he had what I wanted

It was amazing to me

I had tried to kill

the leader of the country

I knew that Charlie
put her up to it

I've never regretted
any of those experiences

I've been out
for almost ten years

None of the people
should ever be paroled

These people can't be trusted

Are they the same people
that they were in 1969?

Everything was about Charlie

It was kill or be killed

Just because a person kills

does not make them evil and bad

War is not murder

That summer and what

Charles Manson
and the women did,

I mean, it really took

the innocence away from America

In California,
five members of a so-called

religious cult
including Charles Manson,

the guru or high priest,
have been indicted

in the murder of Sharon Tate
and six others

Charlie Manson hadn't
actually picked up a knife

and stabbed anybody

He ordered them to go do this,
and they did

There's nothing about it
that isn't

completely heartrending,
disgusting,

scary, vicious

It was meant to be vicious,
violent, and vile

It was a very scary thing

to have these band of hippies
kill people

The group was broken up
last October

when the deputies raided
the camp

Some of the women were nude,

and some wore only
bikini bottoms

The Manson Family
was going to get us

That became
the proverbial bogeyman

The women

I don't fear
for anybody's testimony

They didn't show any remorse

I mean, they just doubled down,

and they wanted to be there
for their leader, for Charlie

I mean, how frightening is that

to the people that are watching
this trial?

Female narrator:
It was a shocking trial:

Charles Manson and some of
his young followers in court

charged with murder
and conspiracy

in the brutal deaths
of seven people

Manson's influence
over these women

was so strong that they believed

what they were doing
was the right thing

I was interviewing
someone in prison,

and she said every woman
she knew was there

because of a man,

either because she did
his dirty work for him

or maybe retribution
because he cheated on her

But it was mainly
that they had been

manipulated by men
and had found themselves

in prison as a result

In 1969,
Charles Manson convinced

a group of very young women
to commit crimes

and murder for him

Why were these women
willing to abandon

the lives they had known
for a 5'2" ex-con like Manson?

Everything's got to be
in the context of the '60s

It was
a very different time, yeah

The country
sort of just opened up

partly due to
different drugs, I guess

500,000 of our brothers
are killing and dying

in a jungle 10,000 miles away

There were all kinds
of things happening

on different college campuses

Many aspects
of society were seeing

the disillusion of the system

My mother said she
considered me more of a sister

in, you know,
this counterculture movement

than she did, you know,
her daughter

It was peace, love

People were exploring
alternative lifestyles

I was at that right age

We loved guys who played guitar

We loved the guys
who were sort of brooding

and mysterious

Everybody was speaking
in psychobabble

narrator:
The women who became a part

of Manson's family were
between the ages of 13 and 24

They were orphans,
runaways, and rebels

But what was it about him
that attracted them?

I'll say anything
you want me to say

Just, you know,
give me some rest, you know?

So everybody's very happy now
They got what they wanted

I just can't even watch myself
talking about it

It's just horrible

I was born in France

My mother was taken
by an officer

and raped

She took her own life
after the war,

and then I was adopted
by American parents

My mother who adopted me
got cancer

and died when I was 16

She took her own life also,

because she thought
she might be a burden

And then I was estranged
from my stepfather

Basically, I wasn't homeless
like under a bridge

or anything like that,
but I really didn't have

a place of my own

It was pretty torturous,
you know,

just this loneliness
of not having anybody

to ever count on

These young women
were searching for love

They wanted so desperately
to be accepted and to be in

I was totally looking
for that acceptance

At the time,

my home life
was pretty disorganized

My dad had always been
kind of enamored

with this
counterculture movement

My mom gave up everything
for my dad's dream

of dropping out

We had a big yard sale
and moved into a bread truck

Five of us, you know,
three kids and two adults,

and we were
supposed to be doing it

with these other members
of this commune

Then when I got to this commune,

the people that were in charge
said they were uncomfortable

with my being there

because I was a sexually active

underaged female

They weren't kicking me out,

but I didn't feel like
I belonged

My parents, they had given me
emancipation as a minor

I had really gotten lost
in the weeds,

and so I was looking for a place

to be a part of something

When my parents dropped out,
I was 13

You've got a combination
of elements:

someone who wants
to be independent,

someone who may even think
they can handle independence,

but who is entirely
emotionally ill-prepared

That's a person
who is vulnerable

I was 18,
and then my dad threw me out

We had started to argue

He was he just didn't want

the interaction with me

It wasn't that I was
contesting all the time

It was that I wanted to know
and he didn't have answers

And he thought he should have
all the answers, I guess

I felt like I had
to go out and find out myself

My father and I had argued about

just a definition
of a word or something,

something really silly

And he said,
"You get out of this house

and never come back"

I took him at his word

I did cry,
because I just thought,

"Well, that's pretty final"

They were, many of them,
in middle-class families

where they just wanted to rebel

And if you've ever been
a parent of a child

who's in their teens,

you can understand that
to an extent

Lynn's father was
an aeronautical engineer

from Southern California

My stepfather was
an aeronautical engineer

We had a lot of similarities
in my upbringing,

but I'd say I was more
upper middle class

I mean, we would be
in the society column

at Christmastime, looking
pretty and photogenic

Like, "Ooh, beautiful,
beautiful American family"

I had so many
respiratory things going on,

two tracheotomies
by the time I was one

My mother did not want me

to survive the many operations
I had

I know that for a fact
She conveyed it daily

I was 24 years old,

and I had learning disabilities

I never saw fulfillment
and happiness

in, you know,
the people I looked up to

None of them were happy

Many of them were alcoholics

Narrator:
It was in the fall of 1967

when many of the women
met Manson for the first time

We were all looking
for a family, I think

We were all looking for a family

that we related to

If you couple
the desire for inclusion

with a fear of rejection,

you can get people
to do almost anything

And it's
a really dangerous thing

when you've got someone
who knows how to do that

Charlie held all the cards

I really, truly believed
that my survival

was going to be to stay
with Charlie

Charlie told me that
I had to be willing to kill

It's so hard to believe
a woman could have

these up-close, personal,
intimate murders

and not feel anything

How can you put
the finger at us

and call us evil for doing
what needed to be done?

By the time
the brutal murders

had occurred,
the women had been with Manson

for almost two years

How was Manson able to find
all these lost souls

from dysfunctional families
and convince them

to give themselves to him?

Charlie was dynamic
and charismatic,

and he would play the guitar,
and he sang

And it was in that culture

where these young women
were searching for love

They were hungry
for a connection

He had the ability
to pay attention,

which picked up strengths

but, most important,
vulnerabilities,

and knew how to manipulate that

I went to Topanga Canyon,

and that's where
I first met Charlie

We walked outside,
and he looked at my throat

And he traced his finger
around my tracheotomy scar

And he said,
"Your mother wanted you dead

because she was jealous"

He's whatever a person
wants to make of him

He's a mirror, actually

And I thought, "Oh, my God,
he is totally in my mind"

And he said,
"You're not weak"

His brilliance was permeating
my whole being

My mind was pretty much blown

just by his voice,
by his demeanor,

by the happiness
and the brightness

Narrator:
He convinced these women

that he had a unique insight
into their beings

And with that, they were hooked

I had a job

I had just boughten a bunch

of scuba diving equipment

I called up my roommate
and said,

"You can sell
my scuba diving equipment,

"you can sell my skis,
and I will call my boss back

and tell her
I'm not coming back to work"

There's a new thought arising

We learned that the only truth
we've ever heard

comes from Charles

Like Blue,
Squeaky met Manson by chance

in Southern California

Squeaky had just left home

after an argument
with her father

I was out at the beach

It was dark
Nobody was around

I had thought I could find
some hippies

Charlie, he had been going
somewhere else

I think to Hollywood

And instead,
he stopped off in Venice,

walked down the road

He didn't see me
until he got close enough,

and then he said,

"So your father
kicked you out?"

And it was amazing to me

He was very interested,
animated

He was interacting

He was alive
That's the main thing

Charlie, he exhibited so much

It was a quiet
it was a presence,

and that's probably the thing
that's hardest to convey

Narrator:
With nowhere else to go

and enamored
by their first meeting,

Squeaky joined Manson
and met the others

In the beginning, Manson
and the women had nothing

They lived off the good nature
of others

and ate out of dumpsters
when there was nothing else

To get around,
they borrowed cars and vans

We traveled in a VW bus

And there were very quickly
three of us

and then five of us,

and then we had to get
a bigger bus

I mean, he was not
recruiting anybody

What it was is,

we were discovering America

Charlie's group
was very nomadic

They didn't have anything

He would drive this bus,
and he would, you know,

literally drive down the coast
and pick up these women

It was happiness, free love,

you know,
sort of the hippie culture

Everybody took everybody in
during that time,

so it didn't feel like
you were homeless

There was all this free love

and people handing people drugs

and, "Yeah, man,
I'll give you free food"

We were irreverent
human beings,

and we were traveling

They were just feeling lost
and vulnerable

to a guy like Manson

Snake celebrated
her 14th birthday

all by herself

She was lonely
and had been abandoned

by her family

When she was most vulnerable,

she crossed paths
with Charles Manson

I'd been on my own
for, you know,

quite a few months

And I met these girls,
and they made me feel like

just incredibly special

Dianne was making decisions

for where she wanted to be,
where she wanted to go

that no 14-year-old
should really be doing

Her parents just wrote out
a letter and said,

"Okay, you can live
on your own"

And they thought it was fine,

and that's when she wound up

being abandoned on her own

Charlie was extremely loving,

and I felt welcome

He took me that night
and made love to me

like I'd never
experienced before,

in a way that, you know,
made me feel like a woman

It was the most magical,
you know,

that I had ever encountered

He used his sexuality

as a way of increasing
dependence on him

In the '60s,
for the first time,

free expression of sexuality
was part of the culture,

something Manson used
to his advantage

When he first met Snake
and had sex with her,

Manson was 34 and she was 14

At the time,
they were experimenting

in open relationships
and sexuality

But there's an imbalance
in the power

and the persuasion,

and that's why we protect
young people

from being influenced by people

who are at a different
maturity level

I remember thinking
that I wanted

Charlie to love only me
and marry me

I was disenfranchised

I didn't feel like
I really belonged anywhere,

and they invited me
to come live with them

So I stayed with them

I think he seduced them
on many different levels,

and he was very good at it

narrator:
When Manson met Gypsy,

his group was still small

and traveling
around Southern California

Gypsy had been homeless

since her adopted mother's
suicide

One day, a car drove up,

an old beat-up Chevy
with an old cowboy

and four girls in it

And that's how I met Charlie

Squeaky was sitting
next to Charlie,

and on the other side of her
was Sandy Good

He was the most confident
person I had ever run into

He was fun-loving,
and everybody seemed

very peaceful and happy

Charlie took me out
to talk to me,

and he really came on to me

really, really strong

I felt accepted

It just felt like
it was kind of like

a dream come true

I was an orphan,
so I was looking for family

So I said, "Well, I'm staying,"

and I never left

Charlie preached about that,

having fun and being open

and giving yourself
to the family,

but it came at a price

It came at a price
of giving yourself to Charlie

So when it came time for him
to want something from them,

when it came to asking them
to kill,

they were willing
to do that as well

Charlie promised you
that you would be all

part of his family,
because these women

didn't feel like
they were loved enough

in their own family

But by giving up of themselves,

they gave everything to Charlie,

which gave Charlie power

He studied at the foot
of the masters

Before Manson started to gather
his followers,

he had been in prison

Before he went in,

he had all these abandonment
experiences from women

His wife had left him

So when he was in prison,

he was asking,
"How do I keep a woman?"

He learned and was expecting

to come out of prison
and, "Hey, what am I gonna do?

I'll become a pimp,"

except there was
all this free love

In 1969,

Charles Manson was 34 years old,

and he had already spent
22 years in prison,

over half his life

He talked to me
like a brother

We were on the same level

We were communicating
our feelings to each other

right away

It was life-changing

I've been in jail all my life

Man, I've lived
on a handball court

This guy raised me up

All the men in the joint
raised me up,

told me what to do,
what was right and wrong

If you're looking
for Charles Manson

and his values, definitely,
they come from prison,

for sure

The outside world
programs people

The inside unprograms people
to wisdom and understanding

In prison, you have to control

your immediate environment,

because if you don't,
you can end up dead

So this is how he was wired

He was manipulating in a way
that no one knew

he was manipulating

It was, like, unprogramming us
from all the lies

that we were told

and reprogramming us to feel
that we were perfect

Charles Manson, he would
find the vulnerability

in each of the women
that he gathered,

and he would become that

He could look at someone
and size them up

almost immediately,
know exactly what they need,

and give it to them

One year
after Manson met the women,

his group of followers
had grown to 20 people

and was still expanding

Traveling around
Southern California

had become
increasingly difficult

They needed to find
a more permanent home

Charlie had to find a place
for his nomadic band,

and he brought them
to George Spahn's ranch

Narrator:
The ranch was perfect

for Manson's growing family

Manson made a deal

with the blind and elderly
owner, George Spahn

The women would work the ranch

in exchange for everyone's
room and board

The women would take care
of the mules

and clean out the stalls
and work around the ranch

George gave us all names

He would put his hand
on our arm

I kind of went, "Eh,"

and he started calling me
Squeaky

I ended up
with the nickname Snake,

which I didn't
particularly like

I liked being at the ranch

and horses
women that I could respect

But mostly, Charlie was the

You know, I wanted to

be with him

narrator:
Moving to Spahn Ranch

was a turning point
for the women

in Manson's group

The ranch allowed him
to isolate them,

brainwashing them even further

They're completely isolated

The only source
of information, news

that they have
is Charles Manson

There's no television,
no newspapers,

no magazines

There was no electricity

There was no books

There were no calendars

There were no intellectual
debates in the air

It was just the girls
participating

in preparing the meal

The isolation helped Manson
He knew that

It wasn't as if he was
telling people what to do

and being bossy and commanding

He'd ask questions like

"What do you think about this?"

"Should we do this?"
He'd bring you into it

And then if you agreed,

then you were, like, giving
your word you would do it

But you didn't think that you
were being told what to do

Though the women
were providing for Manson,

he convinced them
that he was the one

providing for them

By that time, it had been
about a year's worth

of absolutely believing
that Charlie knew everything

and that my only safety

was to stay with him
and everybody

I had to have a feeling
of safety

Safety has always been
a big issue with me

It was gradual,
and by the time it had become

a totalitarian community,

they no longer
could challenge him

They had no perspective

narrator:
A year after meeting Manson,

the women in the group
were completely enthralled,

becoming more and more
invested in him

and each other

The lines were blurred

It wasn't like one person's
a father;

another person's your brother

It was friend, brother,
lover, father, mother

You know,
it was just all blurred

We were everything
to each other

Narrator:
In the fall of 1968,

another woman
came into the fold,

19-year-old runaway
Leslie Van Houten

Leslie was, you know
I remember her being,

like, you know,
the prom princess,

California, high school gal

And I had never been
to high school at that point

In the '60s,
her parents got divorced,

which today doesn't seem
like a big deal

But back then, it was

She went from being
with the cool kids in school

to being shunned by them

She started using drugs,
and she got pregnant

Her mother also recoiled
physically from Leslie

when she told her
she was pregnant,

and it was devastating

Her mother forced her
to have an illegal abortion

They buried the fetus
in the backyard

And not surprisingly,
drug use escalated,

and then she got involved
in the late '60s

in the hippie movement

That's when she met
Catherine Share

And I said, "I'm going back
to this ranch,"

and I told her where it was

She'd be welcome there anytime

And she came to the ranch
by herself three weeks later

narrator:
In the spring of 1969,

Charles Manson would have
the women take LSD

and then reenact
the crucifixion of Christ

with him as the central figure

He had them take
LSD trips together,

and that made them
even more reliant

on each other
and susceptible to him

I had my first LSD trip
with Charlie

And that was a mind blow

LSD was an experience

you didn't wanna have too often,

because trying to take it
too often

was almost like trying
to grab knowledge

It seemed like a shortcut
to enlightenment

It felt like you could see
the universe

I was already an acidhead

By that time, I took so much

that I lost who I was

I went around picking flowers
and gave 'em to everybody,

and I was just
in this childlike state

for a long time

Charlie took me up
on a big hill

overlooking Los Angeles

And in my first LSD vision,

I saw the whole city in flames,

and I was laughing and laughing

It was a laughter
that I've never experienced

before or since

Later I asked Charlie,
"What what happened?"

And he said
he saw the whole thing

LSD also allowed
Manson to create

a growing sense of fear
within the group

He often had them take
the drug together

to create a communal sense
of right and wrong

dictated by him

One of the things to make
this kind of thing work

is, the outsiders
have to be dangerous

You develop empathy

for your brothers and sisters
in the group,

and then there's
a threat from outside

Manson was so good
at manipulating

that feeling of threat

For a long time,
Charlie talked about

more esoteric kind of things

But after a while,
he started talking about

the fact that there was going
to be a revolution

There were so many
different aspects

to American culture then

for what they considered to be
the inevitable revolution

There was the war in Vietnam

There was, you know,
lots of civil rights issues

It's time now for us
to say to these men

that you have been foul with us

Everybody talked about him

I mean, it was in music

We weren't intending
to participate

We wanted to get away
from the cities

and away from the anarchy

We began to distrust

The police wouldn't protect us

The military wasn't gonna
protect us

We had to count on each other

You know, as time went on,

he talked about it
more and more,

and he was just saying
that it was gonna start

Charles Manson isolated them
from outside reality

They only had him to turn to

Manson, he's paranoid
and he's losing his grip

He came to me and said,

"They might attack us
at any time"

I'm afraid for my life,
but on the other hand,

I'm still looking
for his approval

If somebody's threatening
their master,

they're dangerous

By 1969,
the women had spent two years

being brainwashed
into total devotion

to their leader

They really had nothing
except Charlie

They'd given up their names

They'd given up their families

They'd given up their identity

They'd given up their money

He would say,
"You can leave me,

but no one will ever love you
like I love you,"

or, "No one will ever love you,
period"

In the months
leading up to the murders,

Manson took a darker turn

He began to test the limits
of his power

Being the youngest,
Snake was the most vulnerable

I don't think Dianne,
at that time,

would have thought
that she was being abused,

and she was living
in a hippie cult

I remember wanting Charlie
to make love to me

I wanted him to make love
to me like he could

and that he had in the past

I think that just like people
who get addicted to heroin,

they're always trying
to have that first high again,

that's what it was for me

I wanted that initial feeling

of being super special
and super loved

and, you know,
like in the very beginning

And he took me down,
you know, the road

and took me into this little
gypsy caravan

and sodomized me, raped me,

left me in tears and bleeding

And he said something
to the effect of,

"Well, that's the way
we do it in prison"

I don't know

It just was a really ugly
it was a really ugly

side of him

I don't know how to describe it

I'm afraid for my life,

but on the other hand,

I'm still looking
for his approval

A month before
the Manson Family's

infamous murder spree,

his power over the women
escalated

He had been using
a fear of outsiders

to hold his group together

And on July 1, 1969,
things got violent

There was a bad drug deal,

and Charlie shot a black man

So I was cooking one night

He came to me and said,

"The Black Panthers
know where we are,

and they might attack us
at any time"

The Black Panther Party
for Self Defense believes

that the time has come
for black people

to arm themselves
against this terror,

the terror of
the white people, presumably,

before it is too late

narrator:
It wasn't politics

that had Manson running scared

It was a drug deal gone wrong

between Manson and a member
of the Black Panthers

that had him fearing
retaliation

To me, it was,
"Well, it's started

The Black Panthers
are starting the revolution"

In Los Angeles,

the Black Panthers
and the police were killing

each other, I guess

There was all this activity

I really, truly believed

that my survival was going
to be to stay with Charlie,

'cause he knew how to maneuver
all this

Manson, he's paranoid,
and he's losing his grip

That's when Charlie
asked Bobby if he would come

and stay at the ranch
and just protect the ranch

In order to protect himself

from the Black Panthers,
Manson invited

a 21-year-old musician
named Bobby Beausoleil

to join the family
at Spahn Ranch

To the women, recruiting Bobby
was another sign

that Manson was protecting
them from a revolution

He was a self-confident kid

He was wearing a top hat
and a cape

He had run away
when he was young

But he and Charlie
were different,

but they liked each other

They got a kick
out of each other

Two weeks before
the Tate-LaBianca murders,

Bobby Beausoleil killed
a man named Gary Hinman

After we entered the home,

we saw signs of a struggle,

and it appeared as though
there had been

some degree of violence

Charles Manson
and Bobby Beausoleil

held Hinman hostage
in a dispute over a drug deal

Beausoleil eventually
killed Hinman

and staged the crime scene
to look like

the Black Panthers
committed the murder

The goal was to point
the finger at someone

other than Manson
and his family

And since Manson
was having a dispute

with the Black Panthers,

it seemed like they were
the most obvious choice

They put signs on the walls
to indicate

that it was a Black Panther

At the Hinman murder,
you have Beausoleil writing

"political piggy"
in Hinman's blood

and then putting paw prints

Clearly they were trying

to point suspicion
at the Black Panthers

Narrator:
Bobby Beausoleil committing

that first murder
was a turning point

for the women

Now they had to decide
how far they were willing

to go to defend the group

and prove their commitment
to Manson

Whenever you have these
so-called normal people

doing these extraordinarily
brutal things,

it's a threat that has been
usually manipulated

Charlie told me that I had
to be willing to kill

in order to not be killed

Narrator:
When Bobby Beausoleil

was arrested,
Manson had everything

he needed to convince
the family to kill for him

The women thought
the revolution had begun

Their enemy
was the Black Panthers,

and now Bobby Beausoleil
needed their help

The catalyst for the murders

was Bobby Beausoleil
being arrested

for the Hinman murder

Manson had convinced
them that they were at war

They planned a mission
to kill more people

to frame their enemies
and free Bobby Beausoleil

It's not a coincidence
that they went out

and committed those murders
two days after learning

that Bobby Beausoleil
had been arrested

It was a copycat crime
designed poorly designed

to make the authorities think
that the killer of Gary Hinman

was still at large
and that they would thus

release Bobby Beausoleil,
which was kind of naive

They were doing a job
for Charlie

Pit bulls, they make
wonderful, loyal dogs,

and if somebody's threatening
their master,

they're dangerous

I think it explains
some of what happened

There was this extra energy
about "Bobby's been arrested"

I wanted to ask Charlie,
"What's going on with Bobby?"

And he said, "He got arrested,"

and I said,
"Well, is he in jail?"

He goes, "Yeah, he's in jail,"

and I said,
"Well, I'll go visit him

What jail is he in?"

He goes, "I've got this covered

You stay out of it"

narrator:
Events had escalated quickly,

and some would say Manson
was completely unhinged

It's power and anger

he had at institutions

I think what's more important
and more dangerous

and has more implications
for our world

is his subjects,
and that's scary

Because we'd like to think

they're real different
than us, and they aren't

How can you put
the finger at us

and call us evil
for being good soldiers

and doing what needed
to be done?

It's more frightening
because it's women

We got stopped
and went to jail

It was that night
that the murders happened

Sharon Tate was
8 1/2 months pregnant

Manson's influence
over these women

was so strong that they believed

what they were doing
was the right thing

They had depersonalized
the victims

In that moment, a person
has a conscious choice

to do something that is
so against human nature,

to kill someone

I have very strong feelings
about what the women

who committed the murders,

but I also do believe
that there's abuse involved

and you act in a certain way

that otherwise
you would not act

Narrator:
Over the course of two years,

Charles Manson used fear
and isolation to convince

his followers
that they were in danger

and had to kill in order
to defend themselves

The first group of people
he chose to commit murder

were family members Tex Watson,

Patricia Krenwinkel,
Susan Atkins,

and Linda Kasabian

Tex Watson, I mean,
he was really the one

who was the ringleader,
if you will,

of the most violent,
horrendous murders

Tex had come from a very strict

family upbringing back in Texas,

and I think he was happy to be
out from under that thumb

And he just felt love,

as he said
all these years later,

love from Charlie,
acceptance from Charlie

And he was
sort of Charlie's wingman,

for lack of better words

Like Tex,

Susan Atkins, nicknamed Sadie,

was blinded by Manson's words
of love and acceptance

She had been abandoned
by her family

at the age of 18

Susan was quirky

Susan would irritate
the hell out of you

I willingly got into something

that completely took control
over me

You take away
a person's conscience

of right and wrong
by telling them

when they're under LSD
or any mind-expanding drug,

"There's no such thing
as guilt"

Charlie, he would hold
our fingers over candle flames

and tell us
that it's just you know,

it's all in our head
that that hurts

You don't like the feeling
of guilt, so it's easy to say,

"Yeah, there's no such thing
as guilt

"I'll believe
there's no such thing as guilt

Therefore I can do anything
and not feel guilty about it"

I've come to the realization
that they really

they really believed
hook, line, and sinker

that death didn't mean anything

Like many
of the other women,

Patricia Krenwinkel,
nicknamed Katie,

grew up feeling
like an outsider

Patty Krenwinkel,
really of all the girls,

I think
the most dramatic difference,

that she of all the girls

could have committed murders

Pat was working
for an insurance company

She was tired of that

She'd walk along the beach,
and she'd imagine

just walking off into the water

Her sister was a heroin addict

Her parents had divorced

She had everything
but a feeling of home,

you know

As a child, she was teased

and she wasn't treated well
and she just didn't fit in

Linda Kasabian
was a young single mother

who was homeless
and joined the group

a month before
the Tate-LaBianca murders

Linda Kasabian
joined the group

She was just lost

I had been on the ranch
It was really, really hot

I had just taken
a nice cold shower,

and I was like, "I would like
to get away from the heat"

In the meantime,

Blue and another woman
from the group

had just been arrested
for using stolen credit cards

We got stopped
and ditched the credit cards

and went to jail

I think it was that night
that the murders happened

On the night
Sharon Tate and her friends

were murdered,

Manson spoke to Tex, Patricia,

Sadie, and Linda but was careful

not to give them
explicit instructions

Charlie said different
things to different people

depending on who they were

to get the effect
that he wanted

He made each one feel like
the special one,

and that was just
a manipulation tactic

This is how pimps
control their women

Manson did evidently say,
"Do what has to be done"

I mean, people think
that the murders

were committed by people
who were bloodthirsty

They were not

They weren't bloodthirsty

They were doing
whatever they had to do

War is not murder

There are many theories
as to why the group went

to the Tate estate
and that house on that night

A lot of people are convinced
it had to do with

Manson's music being rejected
by Terry Melcher,

who had lived in that house

I don't believe
the women knew that

and I doubt that Manson knew
who Sharon Tate was

She was just really pretty,
a very talented actress,

and people really loved her

They had Tex
as their pseudo-leader

telling them,
"Follow through with this,

and I'll be there to help
make sure you get it done"

narrator:
Steven Parent was a teenager

who happened to be leaving
the property

at the same time the killers
were walking up the driveway

Watson shot him four times
at point-blank range

Steve Parent was absolutely
the definition

of the kid in the wrong place
at the wrong time,

just assassinated

When they got to the house,

Frykowski was asleep
on the front sofa

Narrator:
Wojciech Frykowski was

Sharon Tate's houseguest
who had fallen asleep

in the living room

Krenwinkel and Atkins
went through looking

for other people in the house

They walked past Folger,
who was in bed reading

Narrator:
Abigail Folger, the heiress

to the Folgers Coffee fortune,

was also staying at the house

Sharon Tate was in bed,

and on the foot of her bed
was Jay Sebring

Jay Sebring
was a celebrity hairstylist

and Sharon Tate's
closest friend

And Sharon Tate
was 8 1/2 months pregnant

Watson tied this long rope
he had

One end around Sebring's neck

He threw it over the high beam

and tied the other end
around Sharon Tate's neck

Watson took his gun

and smashed Sebring in the face

and stabbed him and shot him,

killing him

Abigail Folger ran
out of the back of the house,

Krenwinkel chasing her
with an upraised knife,

finally catching her
on the front lawn

Frykowski got out,
Watson chasing him

with a knife and a gun,

catching him in the front yard

Sharon Tate
is about to give birth,

and she's faced
with this murderer

And all she wants to do is,

"Please save my child"

And she begs,
"Just let me have my child

Please let me have my baby"

Atkins said, "Look, bitch,

"I don't care about you
or your baby

"You're gonna die, and you
better be ready for it,

and I don't feel a thing
about it"

It's so hard to believe
a woman could have

these up-close, personal,
intimate murders

and not feel anything

It must have been
so absolutely horrifying

To think Sharon Tate
is about to give birth,

and she's faced
with this murderer

She's laughed at
before she's killed

and that knife is plunged
into her belly

I mean, I don't think
we can imagine it

I don't think we can
put ourselves there

I just don't think we can

The horror
that she must have felt

Susan talked about
thinking about cutting out

Sharon Tate's baby
and saving it

It's just I have no idea

how they could have done that

Atkins got a towel

and dipped it
in Sharon Tate's blood

and went out
and wrote the word "pig"

on the front door

They felt
what they did was right

If I ever had to,

I hoped that I could be
that fierce

You want to talk
about devils and demonic

and immoral and evil,
go to Hollywood

We don't touch the rotten
horribleness of that world,

don't even skim it

However, we did skim it

Yeah, yeah, we touched it

touched it

It needed to be touched

Friday night in Los Angeles,

a movie actress and four
of her friends were murdered,

and the circumstances
were lurid

Narrator:
The day after the murders,

the women who had participated
kept to themselves

under strict instructions
from Manson

not to talk about what happened

I didn't know
what really happened,

and Charlie, by that time,

was using
his need-to-know basis

You know, you talk to the people

that need to know

and only the people
that need to know

Five brutal murders
had already occurred,

but the next day,
Manson was ready for more

He convinced the group

that the revolution
was escalating

and their part
was far from over

In this interview from 1969,

Leslie Van Houten explained
how Manson primed her to kill

I still cannot believe
that, you know,

she allowed Charlie
to manipulate her

to that extent that she would
actually murder for him

I don't know
how she could have gotten

to that point

It was kill or be killed

That was what drove them on

It's that feeling of threat
from the outside,

and Manson was so good
at manipulating

How do we look at these people

who commit certain types
of crimes under this duress

of being undue influence
of someone else

In that moment,
a person has a choice

to do a good thing
or a bad thing

When you are making
a conscious choice

to kill someone,

you are faced with consequences

They drove around that night

looking for a house to hit,
basically

And Charlie had looked

at a couple of different houses

They went to Waverly Drive,

and some of the girls had been
to the house next door before

Narrator:
It was time for a second

lethal home invasion

This time, the group
broke into the home

of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca

The LaBiancas
were really nice people

Leno was a corporate executive,

and Rosemary had been
a waitress

And he met her at a restaurant
and fell in love with her

Narrator:
The three family members

who were chosen to kill
the LaBiancas

on the night of August 10th

were Tex Watson,
Patricia Krenwinkel,

and, for the first time,
Leslie Van Houten

When they went in,
Krenwinkel immediately went

to the kitchen to get
kitchen knives

for herself and Van Houten

Van Houten and Krenwinkel
took Rosemary into the bedroom

And Van Houten unplugged a lamp

that was on the table
next to the bed

And put a pillowcase
over Rosemary's head

and then wrapped
the lamp cord around her neck

Rosemary heard Leno
getting stabbed to death

in the living room and she got
a sudden burst of energy

and rose up from the bed
and screamed out,

"Leno, Leno"

I mean, I've looked
at a lot of crime scene photos,

and these are just
the most horrific

Krenwinkel wrote
"death to pigs"

and on the refrigerator wrote
"helter skelter"

Tex, he had newspaper,
and he slapped it,

and he said, "I did this
Charlie told me to"

I wasn't ready for killing

I hoped that if I needed to,
I would

I mean, I've looked
at a lot of crime scene photos

as a federal prosecutor,

and these are just
the most horrific

And it's hard to imagine
that the people

who are responsible for them
are these young

sort of flighty young women,

but that's the reality

Those are the murderers
right there

On the night
of August 10th,

the Manson Family broke
into a second affluent home,

this time slaughtering
husband and wife

Leno and Rosemary LaBianca

The thing that I have
the hardest time with

with the LaBiancas' murders was

Mrs LaBianca hearing
her husband being killed

in the next room

Watson came in,

and then Watson and Van Houten
proceeded

to stab Rosemary LaBianca
to death

It's far more brutal
and gratuitous

It's vicious,
even almost more vicious

Krenwinkel went into
the LaBiancas' living room

She took the tines
of a carving fork

and plunged it into his abdomen

and wrote in big letters
the word "war,"

W-A-R, etched into his abdomen

Krenwinkel, above the inside
part of the front door,

she wrote the wrote the word
"rise" in big letters

and on the living room wall

in big letters wrote
"death to pigs"

and the refrigerator wrote

"helter skelter,"
but she misspelled "helter"

Leslie took coins,
and when she got back

to the Spahn Ranch,
she went to a backhouse

And the first thing
that Leslie did was,

she went out
and collected firewood

I had woke up to find
Leslie burning stuff

She gave me a bag
with some coins in it,

you know, for candy

They weren't acting weird

They were just
kind of matter of fact

I knew that they'd gone out
on some of these

creepy-crawly missions
where they dressed in black

and they would sneak
into people's homes

and rearrange stuff

And I thought that
that was just some stuff

that, you know,
she had acquired through that

and what Charlie Manson
and the family did

those two nights

really changed American culture

People who didn't have
alarm systems

went out and got them

I mean, moms who hadn't before

walked their kids to school

started walking
their kids to school

In the days
following the murders,

word began to circulate
around Spahn Ranch

The women who had been
following Charles Manson

learned that their brothers
and sisters had committed

brutal acts of violence

Leno LaBianca,
supermarket owner,

and his wife had both
been stabbed to death

in their home

On the day
of the Tate murders,

Blue was arrested

for using stolen credit cards

When she was released
a few days later,

she learned that members
of the family

had killed seven people

I was in jail
for a couple days,

got released

I hitchhiked back from jail
by myself,

got an ice cream cone,
got off at the ranch

Sadie couldn't wait
to spill her story

Just because a person kills

does not make them evil and bad

I knew these were warm, good

I mean, Katie was one
of the most warm, gracious,

hospitable people I've ever met

These two crimes this weekend

so grotesquely similar

Tex, he had newspaper
in his hand,

and it had the headlines,
the Tate-LaBianca murders,

and a big headline,
and he slapped it, and he said,

"I did this,"
and, "Charlie told me to"

And so I think I read
a little bit about it,

and it was just, like, shocking

I was totally traumatized
from then on and scared

The services for Ms Tate,
a remarkably pretty actress

who was about to become
a mother,

were held in West Los Angeles

I didn't I didn't feel

bad that these people were dead

I didn't even know
they were alive

But as far as killing goes,

I wasn't ready for killing

I hoped that if I needed to,
I would

I feel very, very sad
for the victims

I can't I can't I was
so shut down during that time

that I can't
it's just horrible

I mean, just I mean

I just can't imagine

how horrible their family feels
and everything

You know,
I feel very sad for them

And I also feel sad
for the young people

that were turned into murderers

You can't excuse somebody,
then, for going into the home

and brutally murdering
another human being

You can't excuse it by saying,

"Oh, well,
they were brainwashed"

I'm sorry,
that doesn't excuse you

They still committed the murder

The women,
they didn't show any remorse

I mean, they just doubled down

How frightening is that?

I stood up and said,

"This court is a mockery
of justice"

We were afraid
that the Manson Family

was going to get us

That was absolutely
terrifying

I was holding this huge gun,

and then I said to myself,

"Are you gonna shoot him?"

One month after
the Tate and LaBianca murders,

the women of
the Manson Family were dealing

with the aftermath,
worried that authorities

could find them at any moment

There was this whole
different kind of energy,

and it didn't feel good

Manson was now
immersed in paranoia

and made the decision
to move the family

to an even more isolated ranch

located 200 miles away
in Death Valley

There was this frenetic energy

to create supplies
and a foundation or whatever

to move us to the desert

We were gathering
our last leather clothing

and whatever we needed
to live out in the desert

While the women
prepared to follow Manson

into further isolation,

Los Angeles authorities were
struggling to find the people

responsible
for the terrifying crimes

The investigation really
was not going anywhere fast

Police searched the premises

They found no evidence
of robbery,

no suggestion of motive

The police bungled the case,

completely literally walking
over pieces of evidence

It's one of these examples
where law enforcement just

one arm wasn't talking
to the other arm

A baffling crime and bizarre

And at this point,
nobody is interested

in Charles Manson

Not for murder, but authorities did have

their sights on the family

Police stormed the new hideout

and nabbed them
for stealing cars

They were arresting us
for grand larceny,

which I was in the
middle of washing my hair,

and a door blew open

and I've got a gun, you know,
pointed at me

The group was broken up
last October

after sheriff's deputies
investigated

a series of thefts

We're in Inyo County

All the girls were
in the same cell together

I was afraid to move
I was afraid to talk

I was just
I think I was, like,

literally in shock, you know

I just went along

Squeaky, at the time,
would just, like,

look at me like, "Shut up"

Four months
after the murders,

there was a breakthrough
in the case

It wasn't till December

They'd taken Susan Atkins away

'cause she had a warrant out
for her arrest,

and that's when she started
telling this whole delusion

to her cellmate

Susan Atkins
was one of the four

who committed the Tate murders

Susan Atkins just randomly
starts speaking

to two of her cellmates
about the Tate murders

That was a huge break
for the prosecution

when they heard that tip
from just a random conversation

heard in lockup

That's really
what broke the case

Charles Manson
It stopped everything

It had the same impact
as earlier that summer

watching the man on the moon

I was Charlie's legal writer
in the very beginning,

so I would hitchhike
with my baby

to the LA County Jail,

and I would, you know,
visit him in the attorney room

narrator:
During the Tate-LaBianca

murder trial,
some of the women remained

unapologetically devoted
to Manson

I didn't feel
I could judge them

Now they say
that it was Charlie's fault

Was he should he have been
responsible for us?

Is he responsible for anything

that happened with us?

I don't feel like that

We weren't raised by him

He wasn't our leader

People are what they are

They brought the rest of us up

to testify in front
of the grand jury,

and the bailiff asks,
you know, "Name?"

For the first time I say,
"Dianne Lake

I'm 16,
and I want my mommy"

And I did I was scared

I felt alone and so vulnerable

They quickly make me
a ward of the court

and send me off
for a 90-day observation

at Patton State Hospital,

which turned into, like,
nearly nine months

I was coming out
of that psychosis

It took the grand jury
just 20 minutes

to agree that six members
of the hippie tribe

should be indicted
in the Sharon Tate murders

and those of a supermarket
owner and his wife

Narrator:
Manson and five others

were indicted for murder

and conspiracy to commit murder

And even though Manson
didn't hold a weapon

and wasn't on the scene,

he was charged
because there was no doubt

in prosecutors' minds
as to who was the mastermind

behind these horrific crimes

I stood up and said,

"The court is this court
is a mockery of justice"

And another one of the women
stood up and said

something else,
and another one stood up

and said something else

We might have done a day or two

or three days,
maybe four days in jail

for contempt of court

After that, we were banned
from the courtroom

We decided to do a vigil
on the street corner

Of course, everything was
about Charlie on the corner,

so it was about
getting Charlie out

He was the person
that doesn't mind

who they put under the bus,
who gets killed,

who gets blamed
as long as he survives

It's just pure
self-preservation

Young people starting
to stand up for themselves,

and it's always gratifying
to me to see it,

because that's us

That's what we were doing

It was clear to everyone
in the courtroom

that Manson was calling
the shots

Manson would stand up
and say something

Then the three girls
would stand up

and say the same thing

And Manson put an X
on his forehead,

and the next day, the girls
had Xs on their forehead

They're hiding the truth

In the name of fair trial

you know, there's no fair trial

We X'd ourselves
out of the system

They played
right into our hands,

because we were trying to show
that he was the mastermind

and that he ordered
these murders

I remember the day they were
given the death penalty

I didn't think
they would be killed,

and I certainly don't think
they should be

Do you believe that there
should be a death penalty?

A death penalty?
Yeah

Aren't we all born to die?

They did something

They gave their lives, really

Prison is not a nice place

I wanted to stay
with the girls, with Charlie,

with everybody that was inside

I said, "I don't want out

until my people
get a fair trial"

All the death penalty cases
had to become life

with the possibility of parole

How would you like to wake up
some morning and find out

that Leslie Van Houten
is your next-door neighbor?

In the aftermath

of the Tate-LaBianca
murder trial,

the women went from being
isolated with Manson

to being isolated without him

At the time of an arrest,

why didn't the women say,

"Thank goodness you captured me

I'm out of here
I've been in this cult"

They didn't say that

In 1971,
Gypsy was convicted

of armed robbery in connection
with a raid

on a gun shop followed by
a shoot-out with the police

She ended up in prison

with her former family members

the women convicted
of the Tate-LaBianca murders

I did five years,
and three years was

in the special security
housing unit

with Leslie and Patricia
and Susan Atkins

Patricia, at that time,

she'd have all the pictures
of Charlie up,

and then she'd tear 'em down
and just

Like, she was back and forth

Pat would swoon about Charlie

and say the things he said
and how he paid attention

This inmate said,
"Every pimp who's any good

"says all this stuff

"Manson isn't special

You know, he's just doing what
all pimps do and hustlers"

I think, for her,
that was one of the steps

Leslie, how she describes
dismantling

the hold Manson had on her,
it was gradual

Leslie had hoped
that they would go through

with the death penalty
so it could just be over

Susan Atkins
renounced Manson

and became a born-again
Christian in prison

Six years after
she was sentenced to death,

she began giving interviews,
asking for forgiveness

Once in prison,

Gypsy began to reflect
on her role as a mother,

finally finding the strength
to break free

from Manson's hold

My son is the one
that really you know,

I didn't want him
to be an orphan

There was somebody besides me
that I needed to take care of

He's the one that changed
my life

So everything that I did
was so that he would be okay

from then on

After being released
from the psychiatric hospital,

Snake was plagued by guilt
and focused on trying

to live a normal life

I started going to church

I told my pastor
just because I felt I felt

this overwhelming,
you know, guilt

I confessed that I had been

a member of this
murderous family

I really looked to God,
you know, for forgiveness

Squeaky and Blue's
belief in Manson

has never wavered

After he was incarcerated,

they committed crimes
in the hopes of reuniting

with their former
family members in prison

Prison is not a nice place,

but I felt a solidarity
with the other people

Five years
after the Tate-LaBianca trial,

Squeaky was arrested
for attempting

to assassinate
President Gerald Ford,

who was making
a public appearance

where she lived

I heard that Ford
was coming, and I thought,

"Oh, I'll go and
I'll go and talk to him"

And then I thought,
"He isn't gonna talk to you

He's not gonna stop on his way
He's not gonna stop"

And then I thought,

"Well, maybe I'll bring a gun"

And I just put the gun out
and stuck it in there

A Secret Service agent
grabbed it

And they had me on the ground,

and I was telling them,
"It's okay

It's okay It didn't go off
It's okay"

The guy walked over,

and he picked up my hand,

and I was so relaxed

And then he was talking to me,

and the Secret Service agent
said, "Who are you?"

Sandra Good, another member

of the so-called Manson Family,

was picked up by police

We were living together,
so they arrested me

And they took me to jail,

and they wanted to ascertain
if there was a conspiracy

to assassinate the president
of the United States

Narrator:
Squeaky was sentenced

to life in prison

with the possibility of parole

I was able to go

to the parole board
after ten years

But I didn't go
to the parole board

I wanted to stay
with the girls, with Charlie,

with everybody that was inside

narrator:
After Squeaky's trial,

Blue was tried, convicted,
and sentenced to 15 years

for sending death threats
to corporate executives

The women were sent
to the same federal prison

I didn't snivel and cry
and go to the parole board

I did my time

And then I refused to leave

I said, "I don't want out until
my people get a fair trial"

They had to basically
kick me out

Squeaky was paroled
after serving 34 years

I've been out
for almost ten years

It's hard to be sorry
if you're going by your heart

In the 50 years

since the Tate-LaBianca murders,

members of the Manson Family

have been denied parole
over 100 times

They all received
the death penalty at trial

But California,
a few years later,

overturned the death penalty

That meant that everybody
on death row

Manson, Krenwinkel, Watson,

Van Houten, Atkins

they all had their sentences
commuted from death to life

All the death penalty cases,
then, had to become life

with the possibility of parole

There's no question
that the women

who followed Charles Manson
suffered all kinds of abuse

Some look back with regret,

and others have never lost
their faith in him

And those women
who killed on his behalf,

do they ever deserve
a second chance?

I just feel like

when someone's
gotten their mind back

and they've done everything
they could to make up

for a horrible thing they've
done when they were kids

that it's just time
to do a little forgiving

and let them, you know,
not die in prison

They weren't remorseful

Think about that

They were not remorseful
at the time

Yeah, you get remorseful
in prison

Manson died
on November 19, 2017

And Tex Watson
remains in prison,

having never been found
suitable for parole

Bobby Beausoleil was found
suitable for parole in 2019,

but his release was blocked
by the governor of California

Three women went to prison
for the Tate-LaBianca murders

Susan Atkins died in prison
from brain cancer in 2009

Patricia Krenwinkel has been
denied parole 14 times

Leslie Van Houten
has been found suitable

for parole three times,

but her release
has also been blocked

by the governor of California

As a rehabilitated woman,
I would like to state

that the insight I have gained

is not meant to excuse
any of my acts

How would you like
to wake up some morning

and find out
that Leslie Van Houten

is your next-door neighbor?

Now, she's gonna be somebody's
next-door neighbor,

and you know what she's done

There's people that have
done 50 times worse

and they've gotten out

They're being used politically

They're being used
to sell crime

You've got to have a scapegoat

Got to have the evil people

If they really had remorse,

they would waive
their parole hearings

so that the families
of the victims

don't have to relive
this experience over and over

narrator:
For more information

on "Manson: The Women,"

go to oxygencom