Helter Skelter (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 5 - Some Bad Mistakes - full transcript

[projector clicking]

[somber music]

♪

- My dad, he was very handsome.

He was very loving.

He had a very nice smile.

Family was the most important.

My dad was really a special man.

He was the kind of man

that people looked up to
and respected.

My mom and dad split up.



He was single for a few years,
and then he met Rose.

♪

Rose and Dad seemed to me
like very good friends.

They discussed plans together
as equals.

She was very stylish.
She liked to go shopping.

She had a very
spiritual side too.

She was kind of complex.

♪

- Abigail Folger was 26.

The cause of her death

and the deaths of the four
people murdered with her

is the concern
of scores of investigators

in Southern California.

She had attended Santa
Catalina School for Women



near Carmel and was
graduated from Radcliffe.

Ms. Folger was the daughter
of Peter Folger,

chairman of the board
of the Folger Coffee Company.

♪

- The funeral for writer
Voytek Frykowski

will be held in New York City
this week.

♪

Those for 18-year-old youth
Steven Parent

were conducted elsewhere
in Los Angeles.

- Services were planned

for men's hair stylist
Jay Sebring.

♪

- He was a very personable,
a very confident

little guy, 5'6", 122,
but had big stature.

Jay and Sharon were living
together three years,

and I knew he was still
hung up on her.

♪

- The services for Ms. Tate,
a remarkably pretty actress

who was about
to become a mother,

were held in west Los Angeles.

- All of you know
how beautiful she was.

But only few of... of you know
how good she was.

The last few months as much as

the last few years
I spent with her

were only time of true
happiness in my life.

♪

[ominous music]

♪

- There's no need
to feel guilty.

I haven't done anything
I'm ashamed of.

♪

- There is no wrong.

Aren't we all born to die?

♪

[eerie music]

♪

♪

[clacking]

[dark music]

- Friday night in Los Angeles,
a movie actress

and four of her friends
were murdered,

and the circumstances
were lurid.

♪

And a short time later,
not far away,

a middle-aged couple
was found murdered

in similar circumstances.

[car horns honking]

With daylight,
police searched the premises.

They found no evidence
of robbery,

no suggestion of motive.

A baffling crime, and bizarre.

[helicopter rotors thrumming]

- Meantime, at the Bel Air home

of movie director
Roman Polanski,

police continued
their investigation

of the five slayings.

Police said
the actress's husband

had not visited the home
and was in seclusion.

Beyond these few meager facts,

police clamped a shroud
of secrecy around the case.

- As I say,
there's no reason to hold him.

He's not involved.

- Late this afternoon,
police released

the only suspect they had,
19-year-old William Garretson,

caretaker of the Polanski home.

♪

- As soon as the murders
took place

and there was no reason,

Hollywood went into
a kind of collective panic.

They started getting guns,
and they had guard dogs in.

I remember Steve McQueen

got himself a shotgun
and a pistol.

He put the shotgun under his bed

and the pistol under his pillow.

Because this was
a safe neighborhood,

and all of a sudden,
were there a bunch of killers

running around,
gunning for celebrities?

[birds chirping]

♪

- LA was a very open place
in 1969, and very permeable.

The rich and the poor,

the hippies and straight
society comingled,

and you could walk in and out
of a party or a bar

and be with someone who was

of a different station in life
than you.

After the Tate killings,
the city just tightened up.

LA changed forever.

- Everybody started
locking their cars,

and nobody was picking up
hitchhikers anymore.

It was an incredible,
horrific story.

I mean, it brought the...
A curtain down

on the bricks and ferns
and tie dye of the '60s.

[horse neighing]

[birds chirping]

- Back at Spahn Ranch,

there was strange things
going on.

I mean, it...
It seemed more serious.

Straight Satans,
the motorcycle gang,

was involved,

and there were knives
and there were guns.

They were like a protection
and provider of weapons,

but they also had mechanical
skills for, you know,

converting these Volkswagens
into dune buggies.

That seemed to be part
of their purpose

for this long-term move

from Spahn Ranch
to Death Valley.

[tense music]

- Those dune buggies
would carry barrels

that would keep us alive
when we ran to the desert.

And everybody in this town,
LA and all around,

would be in this
horrible revolution,

fighting each other and killing
each other in the streets.

It was no more fun and games.

We weren't just there
to hang out.

It was like, "Get ready.

We have to get out of here
as soon as possible."

♪

- Innocent people were being
murdered by this family

that I didn't wanna
be a part of anymore.

- I felt like
I was facing death.

This was the opportunity
that I could escape,

knowing that I could not
take my daughter with me.

I left. [sniffles]

I left.

[animal howls]

- Seven days after the killings,

the LA County Sheriff
Department descended on mass

on Spahn Ranch
at 6:00 in the morning.

They had a warrant
to investigate auto theft.

Manson and his family
had been stealing everything,

and they'd been retrofitting
the stolen vehicles

into dune buggies
and riding around firing guns.

[tense music]

Manson was the last person
arrested.

He'd been hiding
in a crawl space

under one of the buildings
on the ranch.

♪

- I was with the whole group.

I guess I assumed that,
"Here's the establishment

coming down on us, you know,
for no reason at all."

They smashed my guitar,

looking for drugs
inside of it, I guess.

I don't know.

They just smashed it
against the wall.

I didn't understand that.
I was pretty upset.

They took us in
and then let us go.

- In the end, they couldn't
pinpoint which of them

stole the two cars
they had the warrants for,

so they were all released.

Charlie got a sense

that the heat
was going to come down.

There was a lot of blood
on their hands.

♪

They got together
their dune buggies,

which were outfitted
with machine gun posts,

and they drove out
into the desert.

♪

[clacking]

- There was talk today
about drugs and a mad killer,

but the Los Angeles police
are no closer to a solution

of the seven killings
of last weekend

than they were then.

- Homicide officers
would not say

the two separate murders
were connected.

They theorized the LaBianca
killer may have used

the same technique
as the Bel Air killer

to throw police off the track.

- The LAPD
made some bad mistakes

in investigating the Tate
and LaBianca killings.

The first of which
was they didn't connect

the Tate murder
to the Gary Hinman murder.

Gary Hinman was murdered

in the part of LA
covered by the county,

and the LaBianca and Tate
killings

were both in the city.

LAPD didn't see the similarity
and ignored it.

- One of the detectives
on the Hinman murder case,

who later
became a friend of mine,

said that he had called LAPD

after the Tate murders and said,

"I think there's some
similarities between

a murder that I had
out in Topanga Canyon,"

and the LAPD basically,
as he put it,

"Told me to go pound sand."

They didn't wanna hear.

And they, for several days,

kept calling it
a copycat murder.

[tense music]

♪

- The police were clueless,
and there were so many rumors.

Is it a drug deal gone wrong?
Is it the mafia?

Is it the... the victims
that brought these crimes

upon themselves
and they deserved it?

Because this is the way
they lived.

They're corrupt, decadent.

- "Yeah, well,
they're devil worshippers.

"See, he did that movie,

"and they're getting back
at him.

"You know, 'Rosemary's Baby.'

That's why this happened."

It was speculation gone crazy.

- And since there were
no culprits,

and since the murder itself
was so hideous and horrendous,

that they thought...
They instinctively felt that

the best way
is to blame the victims

for their own deaths.

♪

[camera shutters clicking]

First of all,
forgive me if my words

will be a little bit incoherent.

The last film she made

was not a very happy experience
for her,

but her greatest picture
she was doing

was her pregnancy.

I never seen a woman
more preoccupied with it.

The house is open now.

And I tell you last thing.

There was a lot of talk about
drugs and use of drugs.

Sharon not only
didn't use drugs,

she didn't touch alcohol,
she didn't smoke cigarettes.

And facts, which will
be coming out day after day

will make ashamed
a lot of newsmen

who, for a selfish reason,

write... unbearable for me...
Horrible things about my wife.

[unsettling music]

I'm sorry, I must step from...

♪

[breathing heavily]

- I remember the coverage
because I was part of it.

Everybody and their brother
was trying to figure out

who committed these murders,
why the murders had stopped,

what was going on,

and we all went and did
these ridiculous interviews.

They sent me to interview a...
A psychic named Peter Hurkos.

I interviewed him after

he went to the house
with Polanski.

I had to ask my question
of his publicist,

who would repeat
my question to him.

Then he would answer her.

I don't know
what he told Polanski,

but if he told Polanski
the same thing he told me,

then there was no information
that was useful.

- From time to time,
I wrote a news story.

I'd go down to Parker Center

for briefings
by the police chief,

and they'd tell us nothing,
you know.

They've interviewed people.

They've spent 600 hours
padding around,

trying to find the killers.

There was nothing
we could write about.

Those who had to write stories
had to write with...

With rumors and innuendo and...

And... and...
And false information.

[light suspenseful music]

♪

♪

Roman became detective.

He thought
for a few crazy moments

that somebody
in his inner circle

was responsible
for killing Sharon.

He thought Bruce Lee
might be responsible

because Bruce Lee
was the only kind of guy

that could kill five people
singlehandedly.

And then he thought
it was John Phillips,

and Roman knew
that John Phillips knew

that Roman had
had a one-night stand

with John's wife, Michelle,
in London.

And somehow Roman
translated that into,

"Well, he bumped off Sharon."

Of course, it was ridiculous.

- I was also looking
for any trace of blood in...

In cars of people that I knew.

I had chemicals, you know,
that I could smear

and check whether there
were any traces of blood in...

On... on... on the pedals
or steering wheel

or seats or whatever.

So I spent my night sometimes
in the garages of my friends,

you know,
just going through those cars.

I did think that it must have
been someone who knew her.

And as it happened, it wasn't.

- Does that strike you now
as unbalanced behavior?

Would you say you were
unbalanced at the time

from grief or shock?

- Yes, I think
I was unbalanced, yeah.

[clacking]

[soft dramatic music]

♪

[bird squawking]

- After that raid
at Spahn Ranch,

we had to start over.

We were filling up barrels
with food, water, gasoline,

and we were taking them
up to the desert.

We were surviving
the coming doom,

and I believed that.

I believed it was gonna happen.

[camera focus clicking]

- We were hiding out
in the desert,

and I was afraid.

On the other hand, I still,
you know, was vulnerable,

and I wanted Charlie's approval.

We're working
at Barker Ranch at night

and do laundry and cook
and dig lookouts.

At dawn,
we would go back about...

Probably about two miles
behind the ranch.

There were several vehicles,

but the girls would follow
behind the vehicles

and wipe away the tire tracks
with willow branches.

♪

And we would stay under
these sand-colored parachutes.

[dark music]

The day was basically
spent sleeping.

Maybe if it wasn't too hot,

looking for the bottomless pit.

♪

We came back,
and our path was blocked

with all these boulders,
and Charlie was so mad.

When we finally got over that,
here's this big road grader.

So I think it was he
and Tex and Bruce Davis

that took the gas from the jeep,

emptied the gas
onto the tires, and lit it.

♪

- While at Barker's Ranch,

a man named Paul Crockett
and another

drove into the yard.

- On the night that I arrived,
I met Brooks Poston.

They were living
in the big house on the ranch.

We would go
and stay in the cabin

that was just to the left
of the house.

We would sit in the evenings
and talk,

and we began to learn
and hear about Charlie.

- Paul had offered me a job

to go up and down the mountains

and to help him get gold ore

down from some mines
that they had in that area.

- I got Brooks to go
and work with me,

and then Paul Watkins came.

Every day
we would go and inspect

old mine sites, old diggings,

and I could explain to them
what Charlie was doing.

That it was ridiculous,
it was idiotic,

that it had no value
whatsoever to them.

And they decided to quit Charlie

and come and go with me.

♪

- And later on,
when Charlie and the crew

came back up to the desert
when we were there,

I watched him and Crockett

do this little dance
of the gurus.

It just seemed to me
that... that Paul's stuff

packed more reality
than Charlie's.

That was my way out.

[fire crackling]

[coyote yipping]

- I had no one to go back to,

and everybody else had given up
their families.

So what do you go back to
if you think

that everyone else is gonna die?

[ominous music]

We were everything
to each other,

and it's hard to give that up

when things go completely dark.

[indistinct singing]

- We were up in the desert.

I think we'd taken LSD.

The girls started telling me
what they did.

[faint indistinct singing]

I mean, they were,
like, bragging,

and they were almost gleeful

that they had done this
for Charlie.

[faint groaning]

[indistinct chatter]

Sadie, Susan Atkins, told me

how Sharon begged
for the life of her baby.

[faint laughter]

And it was... it was just,
you know, her...

Unbelievable
that they could talk about it,

the... these horrendous events,
the way they did.

[laughter, indistinct chatter]

The girls had told me,
Tex had told me,

"I did this.
Charlie told me to."

The whole time, you know,
I was afraid to leave

because I was afraid
that they would kill me,

'cause now I knew
this horrible secret.

♪

- The dream that I had
about the hippie commune

that we were gonna live on
wasn't...

Wasn't...
Wasn't what I signed up for.

[foreboding music]

For some reason or another,
I probably got the feeling

that Kitty wanted out too.

Maybe the fact
that we were both pregnant.

♪

We would talk about all
the things we were missing.

Thanksgiving dinners.

We'd talk about
Baskin-Robbins ice cream.

And then one night,
we just decided, "This is it."

[animal howls]

And that night,
when we went to bed,

we made sure
that we were sleeping

a little bit further away
from everybody else

so that we could sneak away
without them hearing us.

I don't even think we had shoes.

We snuck off.

♪

And we decided
to head to the top of a wash

and walk along
the top of a wash.

We'd been gone
about an hour walking,

and we could see they had
started up the dune buggies,

and they were out
looking for us.

We were up high,
and they had to be down low.

The dune buggies couldn't go
to the top of the wash.

Scared to death.

♪

- Charlie had us all
beating the bushes

for these girls
into the late night.

I was terrified.

At that point, I didn't
know what happened to them.

They just disappeared.

- And we walked
through the night.

We finally found a road,
and there was a sheriff

that just happened
to be going by,

and we flagged him down.

He took us to Inyokern jail.

We got out of there
just in time.

- I felt the vibe
that if they had been found,

that they would've been killed.

They knew what had happened too.

♪

[coyote yipping]

Tex, at some point
in the desert,

he, like, disappeared.

They had escaped,
and I had wanted to,

but I just felt like,
"Where would I go?"

[somber music]

♪

I was washing my hair

at the sink inside Barker Ranch,

and the door just slams open,

and I've got a gun
pointed at me,

you know, "Put your hands up."

And Charlie, like, in the blink
of an eye, he's gone.

[indistinct radio chatter]

And I could hear
the walkie-talkies.

I... you know,
I could see that it was...

That it was the sheriff.

And they found Charlie hiding
under this tiny,

tiny little bath vanity.

Somehow he managed
to squeeze in there,

but I guess
some of his hair was...

Was showing up out of the door.

[indistinct radio chatter]

They sent us all outside,

and they put everybody
in pickup trucks.

♪

And they took us to Independence

on charges of grand larceny,
of burning this road grader.

- We have been watching these

so-called hippies for some time,

and they live like animals,
not like people.

The food that they had stashed
was candy.

Not what I would call
staple food

such as potatoes, beans,
and whatnot.

It was mostly candy.

And this is for...
For my opinion only.

I think carbohydrates or sugar
is our bigger...

Bigger menace right now
than marijuana will ever be.

They have a great desire
to run around in the nude,

both men and females.

In the jail here,
we gave them jail clothes,

and the matron tells me that
whenever she had to have one

come out for interrogation
or to see the lawyer,

why, you had to wait
to put their clothes on.

- Sheriff, does Manson seem to
be the leader of these people

even while they're behind bars,

the ones
that you still have here?

- Well, apparently, ye... he is,

but I'm not so sure
that Manson is the leader.

I don't believe...
I'm not so sure

that this is the right man,
Manson.

[indistinct chatter]

♪

[clacking]

- All the girls
are in the same cell together,

and then Susan gets taken to LA

because she had a warrant out
for her arrest.

[ominous music]

- I was in a dormitory in prison

with quite a few people,
and Susan Atkins

slept about, I believe it was
three to five beds up from me,

and for some reason, which
to this day I'll never know,

she started talking to me
and got friendly with me.

We were talking,
and she mentioned,

did I know about the killings
of Benedict Canyon?

And I said, "Why?"

And she says
that she was the one

that... that did the killings.

Well, truthfully, I thought
she was a little ding-a-linger,

there was something wrong
or on drugs or something.

She didn't know it, naturally,

but I had been in that house.

I had almost decided
to rent that house.

So I started questioning her,
and when she described to me

about the beams
in the living room,

I knew then
that she had been there.

I had to speak up.
I had to say something.

♪

- Sharon Tate, a beautiful,
young motion picture actress,

and four of her friends
were murdered last August

in the sumptuous Hollywood
mansion rented by her

and her directing... director
husband Roman Polanski.

The police have been
looking for the murderer

or murderers ever since,

and up until today,
they had had no luck.

But today, there was
a dramatic break in the case.

- Police apparently got their
break in the Tate case

when this girl, Susan Atkins,
a member of Manson's family,

was arrested in another
Los Angeles murder

and talked to a cellmate
about the Tate killings.

- It was like, "What?"

Where did these people
come from?

You couldn't conceive
of hippies committing murders.

I... I mean, that would be...
"Oh, you're crazy.

The love children?
They would never kill anybody."

♪

- The wandering band of members
of a so-called religious cult

with a leader they called Jesus

has had three of its followers
arrested in the investigation

of the murder of Sharon Tate
and six others.

Those arrested are two women
and one man,

and the Los Angeles police
said that they would ask

murder indictments
against several others.

- Charles D. Watson
was the kind of boy

a community like Copeville
could be proud of,

until yesterday.

Yesterday, it was learned
that Watson,

who once taught Sunday School
in this church

and who worked behind his
father's country store counter

had been arrested in McKinney,
charged with the brutal,

ritualistic slaying of
Hollywood actress Sharon Tate

and four other persons.

♪

- The Family left
the Spahn Movie Ranch

in the early fall
after the Tate Murders.

The Family set up another camp

in the desert near Death Valley.

Five members are now in jail
on other charges

in the desert town
of Independence.

The Family's leader,
Charles Manson,

is jailed here.

It is expected
that he will be charged

in the Tate murders.

[unsettling music]

- People who lived with Manson
on the ranch and in the desert

deny that they were
a violent group.

- We was just playing.

That's what the whole thing is,
that we... we were...

All we was doing out there
was playing, or you know...

♪

- Manson was arrested

during a raid last month
at the desert camp

where he and his
young followers were living.

Some of the girls
from the camp were spectators

in court today during
his preliminary hearing

on charges of auto theft

and concealing stolen property
found in the camp.

- He seems to be a...
A deep person, philosophical.

Yeah. Friendly person.

I don't know at this time

that he is a leader
of any particular group.

♪

- Among his followers,
members of the Family,

Manson is regarded as a saint.

Many call him Jesus.

Police view him
somewhat differently,

as a dangerous ex-convict
with a long record,

who may have masterminded
the Tate killings and others.

[clacking]

[helicopter rotors thrumming]

[tense music]

♪

[indistinct chatter]

- All of us girls got sent
to testify, you know,

for the indictments
of the grand jury.

And it wasn't until then,
when I was standing

before the bailiff,
just ready to, you know,

enter the grand jury
to be questioned,

and he asked me
what my name is, and I... I said,

"I'm... I'm...
My name is Dianne Lake.

"I'm 16, and I want my mommy.

"I want..."
you know, I was, like...

I suddenly woke up to,

"I'm in... I'm in deep doo-doo
here, and I want out,

and you know, help me."

They made me
a ward of the court,

and they sent me
for 90 days observational

at a mental health institute
in San Bernardino County.

And that... that turned out
to be a good thing.

You know, I was protected in a...

In a... in a safe environment
that was nurturing.

♪

- 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.

- Shocking. Very shocking.

It was a terrible group
of murders.

It was probably the worst
in the history of California.

- Pardon me.

- Was it the testimony of Susan
Atkins that really cinched it?

- Well, that certainly
was a part of it.

- Susan Atkins, who told the
shocking story of the crimes,

was one of those indicted.

Her lawyers say
she was hypnotized.

Her father, who didn't want
to be identified, disagrees.

- I think they're all on dope.

And if you get under
enough dope,

you can be involved
in almost anything.

[indistinct chatter]

- Do you plan
to stand by her side

in what undoubtedly will
be the trial which she faces?

- I don't know how
to stand by her side.

I lost her.

- Susan Atkins,
Leslie Van Houten,

and Linda Kasabian,
who is five months pregnant,

were the first Tate suspects
called into court.

Each were given more time

to enter a plea
on murder charges.

- I was 23 or 24
during the Manson trial.

I was covering the biggest
trial in the country

for the world's largest
news-gathering agency.

[solemn music]

I was not much older
than they were,

and I was looking at them
and thinking,

"There but for
the grace of God."

What if I had been dragged
into some cult like this?

♪

- The interest in this trial
has been created

by the 60 reporters
who cover it.

Each recess, they rush
from their assigned seats

in the courtroom to their
newly installed telephones

across the hall to tell the
world the latest happening.

- In those days
they allowed the press

into the hallways
of the old Hall of Justice,

and every camera crew in town
was up there along with us.

Manson was brought in
for arraignment.

And finally, down a long hallway

comes this little figure.

♪

And the camera crews went crazy.

And they were pushing forward
against each other

to get shots of him,
and they knocked

a water fountain out
of the wall in the hallway,

and the whole hallway
was flooded.

And then when you saw
his picture on the cover

of "Life" magazine with
the crazy eyes and the hair,

he looked like
the devil incarnate.

- Charles Manson, the leader
of a Los Angeles cult,

charged with eight murders,
including Sharon Tate,

was arraigned today.

While he was in court,
the police were searching

the ranch where his group
used to live,

looking for evidence of other
murders they suspect occurred.

For one, a movie stuntman
who moonlighted

as a beer-hall bouncer
who once had an argument

with Manson
and has not been seen since.

- Oh, I've known him
for ten years or more.

We worked together in lots
of pictures and circuses.

Shea came here to work on
a picture, do some stunt work,

and he saw the gang
of hippies here.

- Charlie Manson
thought Shorty Shea

blew the whistle on the Family
for car theft.

When the sheriffs
raided the Spahn Ranch,

Manson was furious.

So when Charlie got released
from jail, he sought revenge.

- He was supposed to have been
killed up here and buried.

We've been trying
to find him ever since

his life was threatened
and he disappeared.

- How do you know this?

- That his life was threatened?

I was here
when it was threatened.

- This area right in here
is where we're going.

[ominous music]

- The last valiant effort
to see what the boulders

might conceal was made
with plenty of resources.

And all that work revealed
was nothing.

♪

[clacking]

- Susan Atkins had said
in the "LA Times"

that they were all bloody

and that Charlie told them
to take a change of clothes.

The LAPD was looking
for the clothes

the Manson family members wore
the night of the murder.

And I said, "Look,
let us go back to Cielo Drive.

I've got an idea."

♪

How long will it take me
to undress and redress

in the backseat of this car,
driving up in the canyon?

That gave us an idea
of where to look.

Where we were?

The first place
you could turn off the road.

We timed ourselves
and tried to place ourselves

in the same position that
the people would've been in

that night after they
left the Tate house.

6 minutes and 20 seconds
of moderate driving

up Benedict Canyon
led us to this spot.

And looking over
the edge of this hill,

we found several pairs
of blue jeans

and what appear to be
some very dark sweatshirts.

These shirts and the blue jeans

appear to have stains on them.

So without hesitation,

I call Lieutenant
Robert Helder, LAPD Homicide,

and told him that
I think we have found

the clothes they're looking for.

He said, "What? Where are you?"

I said, "Wait a minute.

"I'm gonna tell you
exactly where I am,

"but you're gonna
give me a promise.

"You're not gonna broadcast
this on any police frequency,

"including the detective
frequency,

because everybody
monitors that."

This is where we found them.
It's right down there.

There are several pairs
of blue jeans,

and there are some
black T-shirts.

What are you going to do
with the evidence now?

- The evidence
will be transported

to scientific
investigation division,

the laboratory at Parker Center,

and examined by experts.

- How did you get word about
this this afternoon?

- We were notified by my boss,
Lieutenant Robert Helder,

who received a phone call from

what I believe
is Channel 7 News.

- "Channel 7 News."

See, he wouldn't say
"Eyewitness News."

That would've been too much
of a commercial.

[unsettling music]

♪

- Shortly after
the Tate killing,

a little kid off of Beverly Glen

found the gun
that had been used.

And this kid was
a Crime Stoppers kind of kid.

He and his dad took the gun

to the Van Nuys LAPD substation.

The LAPD didn't know
it had the gun.

It was looking for the gun
all these three months,

but it had been shelved
in Van Nuys.

So a lot of missing pieces

could've solved the crime
earlier.

That's one of the reasons
this case was so terrifying

to the city of Los Angeles,
because it took months

before they got
to the bottom of it.

[helicopter rotors thrumming]

- Charles Watson,
one of the defendants

in the Sharon Tate murder case,

contended through
an attorney today

that he cannot get
a fair trial in California

and should not be extradited
from Texas.

- County attorney Tom Ryan
argued, however,

that all of the material
evidence

the defense were seeking
was not germane to this case,

and the only thing the defense
was seeking was delay.

Fingerprint experts testified

that the same prints found
in California matched those

of Charles Watson
here in McKinney.

Judge Brown set the next
hearing for February the 16th.

This is Carl Mayo in McKinney,
Channel 8 News.

[indistinct chatter]

[indistinct singing]

- Turn around once girls will
you? [speaks indistinctly]

[women singing indistinctly]

- Fine, how are you?

- Beautiful, Charlie.

- Yup.

- For an attorney,
I have myself.

- For an investigator,
I have myself.

I have no police officers
working for me.

I have no access to any files.
I have no equipment.

My office is a small cell.

I may not take law books
into my cell.

The jail law library is totally
inadequate for legal research.

I may not have a phone
in my name.

I may not receive calls.

- Would you like to comment
on the letter

Mr. Manson has written
Mr. Younger?

- I'd like to change
the baby first.

- Okay.

- Daye, you represent
Susan Atkins?

- That's correct.
- Now, I understand

the rumor is, and maybe
you can confirm or deny it,

that she is gonna deny
that everything she said

on the witness stand
in the grand jury.

- That's correct.
She... she's gonna deny

all of the statements
made at the grand jury.

And then they would have
to dismiss the indictment.

And they may pursue her
for maybe perjury.

But perjury's better
than murder.

- [chuckles] Thank you, Daye.

- Is this your first case
that you'll be trying?

- Yeah, this will be the first
case that I've ever tried.

- How long have you been
an attorney?

- Just since last June.

- Ronald Hughes was this big,
kind of teddy bear guy who...

You could see him wearing
flowers in his hair.

He lived in a garage
which had holes in the roof,

and those who went to visit him

recalled the rain
pouring in on him.

Very strange, but a sweet guy.

Everybody liked Ron.

- Do you feel you're capable
of defending him?

- I believe that,
as Mr. Manson stated earlier,

that no man is capable
of representing another.

[dynamic music]

♪

- The district attorney's
office of Los Angeles county

has... has chosen to use
the mass media

to cast their ideas
into the community.

- Irving Kanarek
was hired by Manson,

and Manson said, "If you don't
let me defend myself,

I'm gonna get the worst lawyer
to defend me."

And Kanarek said,
"I am the worst lawyer.

"I'm the worst lawyer
when it comes to judges

"and opposing attorneys.

"They don't like me.

They think I'm too effective."

- It's bad for all of us.

Any one of us
could be accused of a crime,

and I ask,
would we like to be tried,

or anyone that's
near and dear to us...

Would we want someone
near and dear to us to be tried

in this carnival atmosphere
that we have right now?

It's preposterous.

[light tense music]

- Paul Fitzgerald came in.

He was in the public
defender's office.

He felt that Patricia Krenwinkel

needed a good defense.

He was forced to quit his job

at the public defender's
office to do it, and he did.

- We also intend to meet
with representatives

of the district
attorney's office,

Mr. Aaron Stovitz
and Mr. Vincent Bugliosi,

in order to determine
what witnesses, if any,

they are going to call
at the time of trial.

- Paul was dazzling
in the courtroom.

He was basically
making the decisions

for the whole defense team.

♪

- By then, there had been
a whole mythology...

Had already built up
about the Manson family.

Everybody was waiting to hear
what this group was all about.

- ♪ KHJ Weather

- Mostly sunny today, a little
warmer with a high of 77.

There will be light smog.

Currently 64 in Hollywood.

- On June 15th,
the case will be called.

The court will ask
if all sides are ready,

and then right then and there
the jury will be summoned,

and for the next several weeks,

we will be in the process
of selecting a jury.

- We were sitting in the jury
assembly room in Los Angeles.

The jury commissioner
came out and said,

"Will the following names
that I draw out of this drum

please go with all these cops?"

And that got my suspicions up,
and anyway,

my name was the first one
drawn out of the hopper.

They took us in
a black and white prisoner bus

over to the Hall of Justice,
went down by the morgue,

up the freight elevator,
down a back hall,

into the back of the courtroom,

where it was just
full of people.

Still didn't know
what was going on,

and the judge came out and said

this is the People vs.
Charles Manson, Susan Atkins,

Patricia Krenwinkel,
and Leslie Van Houten.

- Tex Watson managed to dodge
extradition for almost a year,

and he finally
had his own trial later.

- It could take four or five
months just to get a jury

because the attorneys,
all six of them,

are going to be very selective.

Because the people picked
are going to have to know

that once the trial begins,
they're going to spend

every night locked up
in a hotel room.

- During jury selection,
my company let me know that,

"We can't pay you
for that trial.

That's gonna go a long time."

And the judge says,
"Well, let me just write

a little letter to the company."

They should be proud
to have their employee

serve on jury duty,
and that they should pay me.

And they did.

- There will be few spectators
in court

while the jury
is being selected.

The room will be filled
with newsmen

who have been assigned seats.

Some of Manson's followers
tried to get in today.

They were turned away.

- Would you like to be
on the Manson jury?

- No.
- Why not?

- Because I think that no jury
could really do a good job

because it's... it's been sort of
exploited and messed up

by the... you know, by the media,
by the newspapers, and by TV,

and they've just made
too much out of it, you know?

- Manson jury?

No, I wouldn't
wanna be on that jury.

- Why not?
- Because I feel he's guilty.

- This is one I don't want
to have anything to do with.

This is one I don't want
to have anything to do with.

[low suspenseful music]

♪

[indistinct chatter]

- I don't accept the whole
situation, you know.

Like, I was in the desert
minding my business.

This confusion belongs to you.

It's your confusion.

I don't have any confusion.

I don't have any guilt.

I know what I've done,
and no man can judge me.

I judge me. - Next.

- I've stayed in the desert
and run with the coyotes

and ate off the plants

and found out you can live
out there without this society.

And that's where
I'd like to go live, you know?

Owe them anything?

I've paid with 22 years
of my life.

You know, I'm the other end
of your society.

You know, so you can ride your
bicycles and do your thing.

I've lived in your reform
schools and your orphanages.

- Do you feel good feelings
towards the judge...

- I feel a little nervous...
A little nervous.

I feel good feelings
towards everything.

I feel no bad. I know no bad.

- Okay, gentlemen,
that's about it.

- Thank you
for your cooperation.

[indistinct chatter]

- Charles Manson
will be tried by a jury

of seven men and five women.

It took four weeks

and 150 prospective jurors
to find them.

[clacking]

[soft dramatic music]

- I worked for the "LA Times"
for seven years.

The "Rolling Stone"
was looking for an LA editor,

and so they hired me.

One of the first assignments
was Manson,

which I didn't
particularly like.

I mean, I... you know, I...
I hadn't followed it.

I wasn't really a crime writer
or anything like that.

David Dalton
was also assigned to the story

because he had hung out
with Dennis Wilson.

♪

Also, he knew the culture
much... he really was a hippie.

So the two of us
actually brought

a kind of balance to the story.

- Quite sensibly,

David was ambivalent
about the whole thing.

He... he felt, you know,
he might've done it.

And I and... and many,
many other hippies

figured he had been railroaded.

I argued with David Felton
the whole time.

You... you know, like,
"You traitor to the cause."

- We interviewed Manson
one afternoon in jail.

His record manager,
Phil Kaufman,

who he met in jail,
he got us in to see him,

because he figured
"Rolling Stone"

would promote his album.

♪

- You could see all these
different phases

of his character
flashing in his face.

That was scary to us.

And then we spent time
on Spahn Ranch.

The... the whole place
was alternately

sort of joyful and spooky.

Every afternoon, we'd meet on
the steps of the Spahn's house

and tell stories about
the lake that had no bottom

or other improbable things.

They had this hive mentality.

They seemed
to be totally bonded,

channeling Charlie's thoughts
absolutely

because they're totally
indoctrinated with this.

♪

- I had contacted
the police department

and in the
the prosecutor's office.

The prosecutor, whose name
we disguised in the piece,

was Aaron Stovitz.

- We called him Porfiry
after the detective

in "Crime and Punishment."

I thought he was innocent.

I was, by now, a total believer
in all of this.

And he pulled out
these photographs...

They're, like,
4x4 police photographs

of the LaBianca murders,

and they're the most gruesome
things you... you can imagine,

and on it, I saw "piggies"
and "Helter Skelter" misspelled.

And at that point,
I knew they'd done it.

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

- Stovitz talked too much.

He... he loved telling this story,

and he just told us everything.

And we had offered to turn off
the tape recorder at any time,

and he never asked for it.

- Mr. Stovitz had a private,
confidential conversation

with these people
from the "Rolling Stones."

They gave him their promises,
their assurances

that they would not put it
into their publication.

They breached that agreement,
and they are the ones, I think,

who violated the gag rule.

This was an obscure article
in a periodical

with limited circulation.

- The district attorney
was somewhat upset,

and he said to Mr. Stovitz,

"Aaron, if you carry on
this way, you know,

you're gonna be taken
off the case."

[tense music]

[clacking]

[helicopter rotors thrumming]

[tense music]

- The Manson trial was going
on at a time in our society

when everything was chaotic.

The Vietnam War
was raging overseas,

and there had been
two major assassinations.

[indistinct shouting]

And then to have
these crazy "hippies,"

as they called them then,
had engineered

one of the most ghastly crimes
in American history,

it was something that

just turned
everybody's minds around.

They said, "What is going on
in this world now?"

And so the Manson trial
became symbolic

of everything evil
that was happening in society.

- The world is getting crazy.

♪

- All the elements are present
for one of the most

sensational murder trials
in American history.

Seven people, brutally murdered,

in the glare
of Hollywood publicity.

Involvement of a mystical
hippie clan,

which despised the straight,
affluent society.

[indistinct singing]

Young girls,
supposedly under the spell

of a bearded Svengali,
allegedly masterminded

the seven murders.

- It was testing
the justice system,

and whether it could cope.

And at times, it appeared
it could not.

[Cody Crump's "Burn"]

♪

- ♪ As we watch

♪ This world burn

♪ A simple truth,
so hard to learn ♪

♪ When things go wrong,
it's hard to see ♪

♪ It's not just you

♪ But also me

♪ I will burn this

♪ World to the ground

- Greg, move your head!