No one was ever more persuaded than I was by the image of the diabolical and charismatic Charles Manson as presented in prosecutor Vince Bugliosi’s famous book Helter Skelter. Manson appeared to an extraordinary figure. According to Bugliosi, he was a man who could lead others to thoroughly believe in a bizarre theory that saw the world plunged into a race war and then conquered by Manson himself. He had supposedly convinced his devoted followers to commit the Tate-LaBianca mass murders on his behalf in hopes of triggering this worldwide conflict.
Bugliosi depicted Manson’s personality as being so strong that he could turn other people – mostly women but some men – into his willing slaves who would do anything at his command. Bugliosi made Manson out to be a proto-Hitler and compares the two figures in a lengthy passage toward the end of Helter Skelter.
Even though I was fascinated by, and genuinely believed, this vision of Manson the monstrous leader, there were always a few nagging doubts. Some of what was presented in Helter Skelter did not seem to support its sensational overall thesis. The memoirs of two of the Tate-LaBianca murderers, Charles “Tex†Watson and Susan Atkins, seemed to slide between depicting themselves as slavishly obedient to Manson and quite independent of him.
Then I read the book Manson: In His Own Words as told to Nuel Emmons. The book seemed believable in its prosaic quality and it appeared to shatter the idea that the common criminal depicted in its pages was some sort of charismatic mastermind.
I later learned that Manson himself had denounced the book as inaccurate. Still later I became acquainted through the Internet with George Stimson, a true crime author who had a romantic relationship with Manson associate Sandy Good and regularly visited Manson in prison. Stimson pointed out problems with the Emmons book but supported its thesis that Manson had not been any kind of dictatorial leader and that the Tate-LaBianca murders were not committed to bring about a race war but had far less grandiose motives.
As a result of changing my mind about Charles Manson, I wrote The Manson Myth, an article that appears on crimemagazine.com at http://www.crimemagazine.com/04/manson,1212.htm
What do my readers think of the case I made?
