They Blabbed

They blabbed about their crimes.  They blabbed, and blabbed, and blabbed.  And when they were done blabbing, they blabbed some more.  Sadie's famous blab to her jail mates Cory Hurst, Nancy Jordan, Ronnie Howard, and Virginia Graham wasn't the only time the Family suffered from loose lips when talking about the murders. Anybody watching the Family closely would probably have picked up on the many incriminating statements.
(confessions to the cops and lawyers not included)

Chaos, by Tom O'Neill

pg125
John Parks, Beach Boy tour manager:
One of Manson's girls, he explained, had already told him that the Family had murdered one of the caretakers at the Spahn Ranch--Donald "Shorty" Shea, whose body wasn't found until 1977.

pg174

A fire patrolman reported that Family members had told him they'd moved into the canyons because they'd "killed a member of the Black Panthers."

[Fireman Lynn Seeley, Spahn Ranch Raid docs, pg11of54]

pg206

...Leslie told Dianne(Lake) that she had stabbed someone who was already dead. ... Leslie also told Dianne that the murder had occurred some place near Griffith Park, near Los Feliz; that someone had written something in blood on the refrigerator door; and that she, Leslie, then wiped everything so there would be no prints...

pg243

When Guenther and Whitely finally found her(Lutesinger), she told them that Susan Atkins had boasted of torturing and finally killing Hinman with Beausoleil over two nights.

pg410
At the trial, a ranch hand told police that Manson had bragged about killing thirty-five people...

pg451
I located more than a half dozen documents in the Los Angeles District Attorney files and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office files indicating that Manson had discussed the Bernard Crowe shooting with Wilson within a week of the Tate murders...



Helter Skelter by Vince Bugliosi

pg102
....Kitty said she had heard that Manson had sent Beausoleil and a girl named Susan Atkins to Hinman's home to get money from him. A fight had ensued, and Hinman had been killed. Kitty couldn't recall who told her this, just that it was the talk of the ranch. She did recall, however, another conversation in which Susan Atkins told her and several other girls that she had been in a fight with a man who had pulled her hair, and that she had stabbed him three or four times in the legs.

pg105
witness Steve Zabriskie: ... a "Charlie" and a 'Clem' had committed both the Tate and LaBianca murders. He had heard this...from Ed Bailey and Vern Plumlee, two hippie types from California... Bailey had told him something else, Zabriskie said: that he had personally seen Charlie shoot a man in the head with a .45 caliber automatic. This had occurred in Death Valley.

pg119
...Springer said that on Aug 11 or 12... Charles Manson had bragged to him about killing people, adding, "We knocked off five of them just the other night." ... Charlie had told him about cutting some guy's ear off. ...(Crowe shooting) Charlie had told him about it. ... "..he told me something about writing something on the refrigerator. ...Charlie said they wrote something on the fucking refrigerator in blood."

pg124
Danny heard, from the girls, that Shorty "got to know too much and hear too much and got worried too much" and "so they just cut off his arms and his legs and his head off..."

pg137
DeCarlo's primary source was Beausoleil, who, on returning to Spahn after the (Hinman)murder, had bragged to DeCarlo about what he had done.

pg144

Bruce Davis had told him about Shorty's murder, DeCarlo said. Several of the girls had also mentioned it, as had both Clem and Manson.

pg475

...Sadie told Ouisch that Sharon Tate had been the last to die...

pg492
One night in early August 1969, Juan had been watching TV in the trailer when Sadie came in, dressed in black, "Where are you going?" Juan asked. "We're going to get some fucking pigs," Sadie replied. When she left, Jaun looked out the window and saw her get into Johnny Swartz' old yellow Ford. Charlie, Clem, Tex, Linda, and Leslie got in also.

pg500

Tex had told Leslie to stab Rosemary LaBianca, and, later, to wipe fingerprints off everything they had touched--since Katie had related these things to Dianne....

pg550
...Leslie told Dianne(Lake) that stabbing was fun, that, the more she stabbed, the more she enjoyed it....

pg604
Cathy (Gilles) had testified on direct examination that Katie had told her about the Tate-LaBianca murders.

https://www.cielodrive.com/archive/cult-girl-testifies-she-was-willing-to-kill-for-love/

“Katie didn’t say much…except that they had gone and murdered the Tates and LaBiancas,” Miss Gillies said of Miss Krenwinkel.

The Family, by Ed Sanders

pg209
The story of the shooting of the black man(Crowe) spread throughout the family...

pg249
That night the family got together for a songfest and tape-recorded a re-creation of the murder of Gary Hinman in musical form. Each person played a role.

pg250
July 27 Spahn Ranch raid
According to Sheriff's Deputy George Grap, Manson said, "We got into a hassle with a couple of those black motherfuckers and we put one of them in the hospital," after which Manson told him the blacks were going to wreak vengeance...

pg296
When DeCarlo walked up to Clem and asked, "What'd you do last night?" ... Clem then placed his hand on DeCarlo and said, according to DeCarlo, "We got five piggies."

pg339
(Ranch hand David)Hannon began to talk with Manson occasionally. Manson told him about the "Black Panther" he had shot.

pg351
(around Aug 18) Tex laughed and told Snake, according to Snake, that he killed Sharon Tate: "I killed her. Charlie asked me to. It was fun."

pg354

...the Shea murder was discussed from zombi to zombi. Charlie used to joke about it at campfires.

http://www.cielodrive.com/bruce-davis-parole-hearing-2007.php
....(Bruce Davis) knew fully well what was going to happen to Mr. Hinman, that Mr. Hinman was going to be killed, and in fact he bragged about it afterwards to other Family members.

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-24.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1lSaOh0WybfAF-4eUVZBHp3x21SzDmLCv8gZiGqzamRDO3cjCVLZPCpKs
Box 24 pg265of396
VH: "Sadie came in grinning saying, "We killed him(Hinman)."

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-57.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3k9X0l-Zp4U6SOwpUHZINqNu91Zbqy0hXWFfCA-vQaFNtoI_um8TG4d4A

Box 57 pg180of491 April 1969 Grand Jury testimony of Brunner:

"Sadie told me she killed him(Hinman)..."

http://www.cielodrive.com/gary-hinman-homicide-report-05-18-70.php
--A day or so later, late at night .. Mary and Susan ... both related how Gary had snatched the gun and they wrestled it away from him and of Charles Manson and Bruce coming to the house and Charles slashing Gary’s face and telling Hinman to cooperate. Further, how they wiped the house down for fingerprints, how Bobby killed V/Hinman and wrote on the wall “Political Piggy” and each held the pillow over Hinman’s face until he died.

--The following morning... Beausoleil told the same story of the Hinman killing adding that he stabbed Hinman and wrote with his blood on the wall.

--Later the same day, Miss Bailey talked with Bruce Davis who said when he went with Charles Manson to the Hinman house, he held the gun on Hinman while Charles hit him with the sword in the face. Then the girls laid Gary down and Charles said to Hinman, “You might as well cooperate, you’re gonna die anyway.”

--On the following day, while in the saloon at Spahn Ranch, Charles Manson stated, “I found it necessary to use the sword on Gary; I got $27 and his cars.”

The Killing of Sharon Tate, Lawrence Schiller, (and Susan Atkins) published in Jan 1970
pg110

But everybody on the ranch was pretty quiet(the day after the Cielo murders). Everybody on the ranch--and there might have been twenty-five or thirty of us, though people came and went--knew by then there had been a killing. But they didn't know who had done it. They had their suspects, because most of them knew that we had gone out the night before.

https://www.cielodrive.com/stephanie-schram-statement-12-04-69.php

STEPHANIE SCHRAM re Cielo murders:  "I knew that they did it, you know. I, nobody ever said anything, but just from the way they talked and the things they did and you know little snatches of things I'd hear, here and there I could read these articles and just put them together.  ....

....(at Barker)the girls were sitting around and there was one girl who was kind of new to the group and she said something like you mean you guys really killed, you know, somebody before. And Sadie said, sure, she said, and then I heard her talking about stabbing some great big guy in the leg wrestling with some big guy and stabbing him."

Juan Flynn testimony at TLB trial:
http://murdersofaugust69.freeforums.net/thread/479/people-manson-august-1976-appeal
"Q. There was just you and Mr. Manson there?

"A. Yes. I wasn't watching him. I was watching the food, you know. Then he grabbed me by the hair, you know, and put a knife on my throat, and he said, 'You son-of-a-bitch, don't you know I am the one who is doing all these killings?

LVH tape-recorded disclosure to her lawyer Marvin Part:

Miss Van Houten: *** And then the next morning Sadie was watching the news, I think. Somehow I found out that they had done it. Oh, no. I asked Katie, and she told me.
MR. PART: What did she say?
MISS VAN HOUTEN: She(Krenwinkle) said that — that they had murdered five people;

https://archive.org/stream/ladiesgentlemeno00lief#page/255/mode/1up/search/manson

Prosecution's closing argument. Bugliosi: Barbara(Hoyt) also testified that in Sept of '69, while at Myers Ranch, she heard Sadie tell Ruth Moorehouse that Sharon Tate came out and she said "What is going on here," or something like that, and Sadie said, "Shut up, woman." She said Sadie also told Ruth Moorehouse that Sharon Tate was the last to die because she had to see everybody else go first."

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-08-10/how-charles-manson-cast-his-spell

Lake: Van Houten and Atkins gushed about the killings, which disgusted her. She had never connected with either but always had seen Krenwinkel as a nurturing soul. Now she was hearing her close friend Patty tell how she repeatedly stabbed Abigail Folger at the Tate house on Aug. 9 and Rosemary LaBianca the next night.

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-30.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3X_Jd5u7Wyd1RIL6JfmGX0YkmzWJ6ERH2NhpQxLV767nS8aivttzhmZWU
Box 30 pg190of738
Miss Lake had a conversation with appellant Krenwinkle in the last part of August or early September 1969, outside the house at Willow Springs. Other people were present. Appellant Krenwinkle said that she had dragged Abigail Folger from the bedroom to the living room.

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-11.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3DyuZZwQfA5wACZTjQHxo_MmstEU3ByrGL89hqSem2lwmlnXvNj8tkpKM
Manson Case Files Box 11 pg412of446
Atkins interview with Paul Caruso
"...I called Clem in (to see the report of the Tate killings on the TV), because Clem knew about it. ..
Q: Was the killing discussed in front of Clem?
A: Yes."

https://themansonfamily-mtts.medium.com/helter-skelter-began-tonight-c259b18712ba

Sandra gave birth in October 1969 to a little boy. While at the hospital recovering from childbirth, she was visited by Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel, another one of the Tate/LaBianca killers.  Sadie started dropping hints about the name Tate, Katie threw her an angry look and Sandy demanded to know what was going on. They told her about Cielo Drive. They told her that Sharon was pregnant when she was stabbed to death.

http://www.aboundinglove.org/main/images/bookPDFs/Will_You_Die_For_Mesmall.pdf
Tex Watson, Will You Die For Me?  pg65of120

Re Crowe:   ...At the ranch the next day, Charlie couldn't stop talking about how he “plugged blackie.”

(Oddly, he says this happened around July 15)

www.mansonblog.com/2017/01/when-did-dennis-wilson-finally-sever.html    From the progress report

... While at the Wilson residence, there was a conversation between Manson and Wilson regarding a man who died from a gunshot wound to the stomach. ...   During the conversation, Manson indicated that he had been the one that had killed the unknown person.

Knox document release
https://wvw.mansonblog.com/First-Spahn-Raid.pdf
(Charlie to Fire Dept personnel at Spahn) Further explained they had an armed camp and that they were having trouble with the Panthers and that there had been a guy who gave them trouble and his body was dumped on the UCLA campus.

https://www.cielodrive.com/updates/brooks-postons-october-3rd-1969-interview-with-james-pursell-in-inyo-county/

October 3rd, 1969  Brooks Poston interview by Inyo County Sheriff Don Ward.

And he’s(Manson) talked about killing a negro, militant leader in Los Angeles. And he’s talked about killing, a guy named Shorty there too. Or having his people do it – cutting his head off and having the girls bury the body somewhere.

http://murdersofaugust69.freeforums.net/thread/635/barker-ranch-raid-report-1969

Barker Ranch Raid Report

Regarding the rumor that a person known as "Shorty" had been killed, Watkins said Manson told him that Tufts(Grogan) had killed "Shorty". Watkins also stated that Tufts told him that he had killed "Shorty."

LADA files Box 56-2 Bruce Davis' Hinman/Shea trial Dec '71 to Feb '72

Springer: "And that (Bruce)Davis had said(at Mark Ross' house in late Nov '69) that they had taken care of the guy at the ranch... they were afraid he was going to inform on the police... and they had cut him up and buried him--and Clem had buried him at the ranch...
That Mark Ross then said--then asked, "Do you mean Shorty?' And Davis said, Yeah."

http://murdersofaugust69.freeforums.net/thread/1044/life-charles-manson-chapter-22

My Life With Charles Manson, by Paul Watkins, Chapter 22

Bruce(Davis) did a lot of talking on that trip. ... he told me Helter-Skelter would stun the world. He also told me something I’d heard before; how hard it had been to kill Shorty Shea.

http://www.cielodrive.com/manson-case-files/BOX-23.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1CQ93nsaYFf3kB42SjqcFwZqMqh4wlkZfeQhbxUXGaZ3NLl1HKL__dBVE
Manson Case Files Box 23 pg401of416
Sgt McGann interview with Van Houton 11-26-69
McGann re the Tate killings: "They talked freely about it when they got back that night, the next day, and for days following."

LADA files Box 22 vol9028  pg19of144 transcript of LVH interview with Part on Dec 29, 1969
Mr. Part: Now, when you left with Charlie in the car, was there anybody else who saw you leaving?
Miss Van Houten: Only Cathy(Gilles). And she knew. 'Cause she wanted to go." ...
"We were all present. We all knew what we were going to go out to do. Nobody didn't know."
Mr. Part: Well, how did you know?
Miss Van Houten: We all talked about it.

Kasabian trial testimonly, JULY 30, 1970
"So I hitchhiked up there the next day and I found him(her husband) and I just told him what I have told you the last couple of days, not in great detail, but just basically that I witnessed these murders and I would not go into it again, I told him — "

A: I told him I knew about the Sharon Tate murders and the people that had Tanya were these people that killed Sharon Tate, and that is basically what I told him. ..
Q BY MR. BUGLIOSI: When you told Joe Sage this, was any other person present?
A: Yes, there was. ... A boy named Jeffrey.

The Family blabbed so often that even if Susan Atkins hadn't told her jail-mates what happened, and even if Lutesinger never told cops about Charlie's involvement in the Hinman slaying, the cops eventually would have heard the tales emanating from the Family and would have picked up the thread that way.  TLB was not a crime that would have remained unsolved.

One on One Interview with Manson Follower Susan Atkins | From the Archives | NBCLA

 

Mentalism, Magic, Mesmerism, Mirroring, and More. A Meander into Manson's Mind Manipulation Methods, Means, and Madness

 Chaos by Tom O'Neill, pg369
"The most puzzling question of all," Bugliosi wrote, was how Manson had turned his docile followers into remorseless killers. Even with the LSD, the sex, the isolation, the sleep deprivation, the social abandonment, there had to be "some intangible quality... It may be something that he learned from others."

Here are some other candidates for that 'intangible quality.'


MENTALISM

Death to Pigs, by Robert Hendrickson, c.2011 pg323
".. Phil Phillips was actually being played by the workings of a "mentalist" ..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalism
...mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy... mind control.... Mentalists perform a theatrical act that includes effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces but that are actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities (i.e. reading body language, refined intuition, subliminal communication, emotional intelligence), and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences....

Long Beach Independent, 10-28-70
"When I(Vern Plumlee) first met Charlie, he walked up and said 'Let me run your life down' and he did. It just kinda blew my mind. He said I had been in jail since I was 14; knew I was at McClaren (Juvenile) Hall; knew I was AWOL. I don't know how he knew."

Maybe Charlie was employing the mentalist tactic of 'cold reading.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading                                                                                                                                                                  Cold reading is a set of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, and mediums. Without prior knowledge, a practiced cold-reader can quickly obtain a great deal of information by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. during a line of questioning. Cold readings commonly employ high-probability guesses, quickly picking up on signals as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not, then emphasizing and reinforcing chance connections and quickly moving on from missed guesses.

Before He Became a Monster by Lawson McDowell
By fourteen, Charlie had an uncanny ability to decipher the unspoken vocabulary of body language. His skills were as honed as those of the best analysts.

The Mind Manipulators, by Alan W. Scheflin and Edward Opton, c.1978  pg38
Through his uncanny ability, developed and refined in prison, to see straight through to a person's weaknesses. Charlie was able to build up an immediate trust on the part of the women, and to appear clairvoyant and, therefore, omnipotent.

Dianne Lake 2022 interview
"He (Manson) ...had an uncanny ability to read people..."

------------------

MAGIC

Manson also used simple magic tricks to impress his followers with his powers:

Lynette Fromme says in Reflexion, pg19, shortly after first meeting Charlie:
"Later that night I watched cards, coins, and cigarettes disappear and reappear, slipping through his(Manson's) fingers. Not only did the tricks capture my awe, but his showmanship and spirit did too. I had to remind myself that this person could barely read..."

https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/mentalism/articles/history-of-mentalism/
These talented mind manipulation artists combine their keen understanding of human psychology with excellent showmanship and theatrics to create the illusion of extraordinary powers.

Death to Pigs, pg461
Good: "We've seen him do, you know, what people call supernatural things. We saw him bring a bird back to life. We've seen him jump over things that no human being could jump over, all kinds of things."

Bringing a bird back to life is actually a fairly common magic trick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxQc3HbHJ88

----------------

HYPNOSIS

Manson apparently had sophisticated hypnosis skills, too:

medium.com/@donallogue/before-helter-skelter-2b86c0d3d8d0
(Danny Trejo) said (Manson) had hypnotic powers.
“That was the dude’s trick,” Danny said. “He survived inside by getting people high just talking to them. If he wasn’t a career criminal he might have been one of those dudes who went to high schools and state fairs, the kind that brings people up on stage and gets them to do stupid things like pretend they’re a cat and sh**.”

Helter Skelter, pg162
Joseph Krenwinkel, father of Pat, re Manson:
"I am convinced he was some kind of hypnotist."

Death to Pigs, pg327
Interviewer: "How could he control people like that?"
Inyo County Deputy Sheriff Don Ward: "Through suggestion--through mysticism--hypnosis if you wanna call it."

Shadow Over Santa Susanna, by Adam Gorightly, pg23

Most likely, Charlie employed various elements of hypnotism. It all had to do with the cadence of his voice, the intense look in his eyes, and the rhythmic movements he made with his hands and body.

Cease to Exist – Charles Manson, the Beach Boys and the Death of the Sixties
Atkins: "And as he sang, the song that hit me hardest was The Shadow of Your Smile. Even before I saw him, while I was still in the kitchen, his voice just hypnotised me, mesmerised me. Then, when I saw him, I fell absolutely in love with him."

Death to Pigs, pg244
Brooks: "Well, before when he put his motions in with it, all he had to do was start his motions and it's like, I would immediately turn on like a computer. Like, the button would be clicked and I'd become whatever machine or whatever tape was playing at the time."

http://www.woodstockjournal.com/pdf/RFK%27sFinalDayA.pdf
In late August of 1964 CIA off-oid Sydney Gottlieb
put into place a project called MK-SEARCH.
“A member of the American Society of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis was recruited for the purpose. The hypnotist was dubbed ‘Fingers’ by Dr. Gottlieb from the theatrical way he used his hands to put a patient into a trance."

------------------

ACTING

Amazing acting skills were also part of his repertoire:

Reflexion, pg88

"Charlie was full of characters who took our attention, among them a lounge singer, a cowboy crooner, and "Hyme Feinschleister," a nebbish."

Will You Die For Me? by Tex Watson
He described Manson as a chameleon."And with each change he could be born anew... Hollywood slicker, jail tough, rock star, guru, child, tramp, angel, devil, son of God."

Member of the Family by Dianne Lake
"He could change his voice, intonation, and accent depending upon who was on the receiving end.   ,,,,
Charlie used the shape of his eyebrows and the muscles in his face to become different people. He must have practiced a lot in prison, because he could isolate parts of his face that I didn't realize could move separately from the whole, dropping his brows in unison and then raising up only one. Then he made a V with his brows that made him look like the devil. With every movement of his face, his eyes changed as well, like a shapeshifter creating the illusion of different people and personalities."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tdb8w6UHw8 15:25
Dianne Lake 2022 interview

"He (Manson)just had this uncanny ability to morph into these different personalities and people..."

 

https://www.cielodrive.com/archive/charlie-mansons-music-still-rings/

Curt Gentry, co-author of Helter Skelter

"He can change his face so amazingly and there are so many facets of his personality. He seems able to be whatever a person wants or needs him to be,” Gentry said.

-------------------

LSD

Charlie's employment of LSD to influence his recruits is well known, using some well placed props:

Shadow Over Santa Susanna,  pg17
On the wall of Manson's pad was a picture of Jesus, and below it Charlie often sat, sending out heavy vibes. ... Brockman was stunned by the realization that, if one dropped enough acid, then--like a psychelic alchemist--Charlie could manipulate the elements, turning himself into Jesus at will. "Charlie as Jesus was branded into my thoughts.... .. I knew I couldn't submit to whatever it was the idea of Charlie as Jesus expected of me. I only knew the man was playing heavy games. Charlie could plant that in a person's head, or create it, the same way a magician creates a bunch of flowers in the air.."

Transcript from May 1977 LVH retrial:
“Looking back,” she said, “I know he (Manson) used the acid and the acid trips (for the group living at the Spahn ranch near Chatsworth) to help encourage us to lose our own identities."

----------------------

PSYCHOLOGY

Charlie also used his knowledge of human nature to exploit people's vulnerablities:

Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered by Lester Grinspoon c. 1997  pg186
In a 1977 prison interview with one of the authors... When she(LVH) became attached to Manson as a father-substitute, he taught her to "get rid of Leslie": abandon the self that cut her off from the work, and allow it to die so that she could give herself up completely to him. She had to purge from her mind everything that her parents had taught her--what Manson called "reflections."

https://www.stlmag.com/news/years-of-chat-with-charles-manson/
Ken Dickerson, 20 in 2017, Manson pen pal 2005 to 2012
"He always wanted people to get rid of their ego..

--“He would make sure that any weirdness you had inside you, he found it.” Manson used that knowledge two ways: “He’d make you feel good about yourself, always make sure that you were happy in one way or another, give you compliments. If you didn’t feel comfortable with your body, he’d always say, ‘You are perfect. There’s nothing wrong with you. What’s wrong is other people judging.’” On the other hand, he also knew how to “make you as uncomfortable as possible.” Suggest homosexuality to someone who was totally straight. Keep people off base."

www.oxygen.com/true-crime-buzz/helter-skelter-charles-manson-follower-stephanie-schram
Schram said there was something about the cult leader that immediately drew her to him.
“He just had something and it’s hard to put your finger on it, but he made you feel so special,” she said on the podcast. “It was as if he could read your thoughts. He told you what you wanted to hear, somehow he knew that.”

hallegralansing.medium.com/was-the-manson-family-a-cult-c3626b939239
Manson frequently used fear of rejection, guilt over disloyalty... to maintain control.

 

----------------------

VISUALIZATIONS

Examples of how Charlie manipulated his followers, according to Tex Watson psych reports:


From Dr. Joel Fort's interview of July 1971, pg6:
"In recalling his life on the ranch Watson states that a "bunch of times Manson would give us a lot of acid and have us play games with make believe people there and us killing them. " "

From Dr. A. Tweed's interview of June 15, 1971, pg4,7,8:
.... Every night, while they were under the influence of various drugs, Manson would work through their fear and resistance against killing. ... He(Watson) became so confused during that period that he began to see imaginary people which were being "killed" in these situations which Manson was creating for them to visualize.

Alone with the Devil by Ronald Markman and Dominick Bosco, c.1989 pg205
Manson led the Family in "visualizations" where they were imagined they were killing people. ... they would go through exercises in which they would kill "imaginary people,' who were visualized sitting on chairs in the middle of the group.

------------------------

MIRRORING

No Journey's End My Tragic Romance With Ex Manson Girl, Leslie Van Houten (c.2015) by Peter Chiaramonte, pg n49
Charlie had plenty of experience handling runaway teenaged girls like Leslie before. First, he tacitly implied he possessed insight into all of her lonely disaffections. For example, he used a common theatrical device to mirror her moods. By copying each changing expression or gesture Leslie made, Manson intended to show how well he could identify what she was thinking and feeling.

------------------------

LOVE BOMBING

-'Love Bombing' is showering the subject with intense affection and praise

Dianne Lake: "[Manson] made you feel like you were his one and only love. ... He made you feel really special, and specially loved."

“He called me beautiful. He made me feel like I belonged, like I was important.” (Lake & Herman, Member of the Family, c. 2017)

LVH letter written not long after being sent to prison:
"Charlie gave me and Bobbie a warm hug before we left. His touch was gentle. The love put forth in that hug I can still recall. I carried the memory of it for a long time knowing I had already become part of the family."

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ937CtExjw&list=PL5ExWv9LjBFQPZxAwcwTdWFQjVodmuhSh&index=3

Hoyt: "I felt like I was loved and accepted the way I was. It was unconditional. I needed that."
https://lamag.com/lahistory/manson-an-oral-history

Sharon Rayfield, a girl who lived near the Spahn Ranch and rode horses there, said: “I always thought I was ugly, but Charlie made me feel beautiful.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/04/archives/charlie-manson-one-mans-family-charlie-manson-one-mans-family.html

-----------------------

FEAR

No Journey's End, Chiaramonte (c.2015) pg24
...Mr. Bugliosi discussed the ways Manson used fear to make his followers' sense of themselves disappear, so he could replace their will with his own. In fact, Bugliosi admitted, "Whether he perfected this technique in prison or later is not known, but it was one of his most effective tools for controlling others."

Death to Pigs, by Robert Hendrickson, pg209

Watkins:  He'd say it like this, "if you go against me, I'll kill you." He said that many times."

------------------------

THE RUSSIAN SCAM

Give something to get something back

Another tactic that Charlie used was something known as the "Russian Scam" in magic circles. It's based on the theory of reciprocity. The magician gives you something--like a playing card--and he then gets you to give him something back--like your wallet.
Charlie of course was known for giving a lot of stuff away--cars, cash, sex with his girls--but you can bet he always demanded or expected something in return. Note how Charlie used this tactic to get Tex to go to Cielo when Charlie reminded Tex that he had killed for Tex(referring to the shooting of Crowe) so Tex had to kill for him.

Cease to Exist – Charles Manson, the Beach Boys and the Death of the Sixties
Charlie was no hippie. He was an entrepreneur. He gave people things – drugs, his own shirt – to get things back. ....


----------------------------

STRUGGLE SESSIONS

Communist-style indoctrination techniques used:

LVH: "It was a strange feeling to see them all sharing their food and listening to each other tell secrets about themselves most people would have been ashamed to ever reveal. The hang ups they had, things they'd done, and incidents that used to upset them. As one would tell of a situation, others would listen, then giggle because each of us had the same ones. It seems that by doing this, the Family became so much closer. Instead of hiding from one another, we were learning to show off for one another. .... Soon, I became accustomed to revealing my personality's hidden secrets. Everytime I gave one up, it was gone forever, never to haunt me again."

----------------------------

REPETITION, RHYME-AS-REASON, and CHARLIE-BABBLE

The Mind Manipulators, by Alan W. Scheflin and Edward Opton, c.1978  pg39
Another aspect of the indoctrination process that served to increase Manson's control over his Family is a technique familiar to all persons interested in persuasion, from teachers to brainwashers... repetition. He preached his philosophy daily, over and over again. ... This daily drumming-in of doctrine, did much to erase the members' former thoughts.

youtu.be/rs03qn8uSCk

"Cult leaders often use this rhyming, ambiguous language as a tool to exert control over followers. This can be explained by a few key principles here.
"First, there is something in psychology called the 'Rhyme as Reason' effect. We tend to make this error because it suggests that statements that rhyme are perceived as more truthful, So rhyming makes a statement easier to remember and process, which tells our brain, 'Oh, that must be some good data there.' ["Thinkin' is stinkin'" "If the glove does not fit, you must acquit."]
"Second, ambiguous or nonsensical language [Charlie babble] can create mental confusion or cognitive dissonance, so its a form of a confusion technique where the leader obliterates the familiar, and replaces it with weird, and makes you more susceptible.
"Finally, unusual language can serve to separate the cult from the outside world and kind of creates a unique little vocabulary that only members think that they understand."
["(prosecutor Dino Fulgoni at LVH's second re-trial) ...stated that the mansonites actually used a private language as part of their everyday communications."]

------------------------------

 

AMORALITY

Another big weapon that Charlie used to bastardize the minds of his followers was his relentless promotion of amorality--the absence of any morality at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorality

Amorality (also known as amoralism) is an absence of, indifference towards, disregard for, or incapacity for morality. ... Amoral should not be confused with immoral, which refers to an agent doing or thinking something they know or believe to be wrong.

Witness to Evil, by George Bishop c.1971 pg352
Manson told Jacobson, through the course of many conversations, that he believed there was no such thing as right or wrong and that he personally could do no right or wrong.
Q: (Bugliosi) He told you that it was not wrong to kill?
A: Yes

lamag.com/lahistory/manson-an-oral-history

Bugliosi: While they were on these trips he’d say, “Who says it’s wrong to kill? There’s nothing wrong with death. Death is a very beautiful thing.”

Alone with the Devil by Ronald Markman and Dominick Bosco, c.1989 pg205
...a major part of the Family program planned by Manson was their fear and resistance to killing. Manson led the Family in "visualizations" where they were imagined they were killing people. Manson told them there was no such thing as bad and no such thing as wrong,  Also, Tex recounted, "there was no such thing as death, so it was not wrong to kill a fellow human being." ... And then they would go through exercises in which they would kill "imaginary people,' who were visualized sitting on chairs in the middle of the group. "He'd tell us that they were already dead, and that the only people that were, were at the ranch."

The Manson Women, a "Family" Portrait, by Clara Livsey MD, c.1980 pg196
She(Lynette) was admired and respected by Manson, unconditionally. ...she felt that according to Manson she could do no wrong.

Will You Die for Me? by Tex Watson pg67
I quoted Charlie and told her(Kasabian) that there was no wrong, no sin; everything anyone had was meant to be shared.

Witness to Evil, by George Bishop c.1971 pg7
I asked if they have any sense of remorse for anything they might have done.

"No guilt feelings at all," Fitzgerald replied. "They've been conditioned away from society's generally accepted mores."

Death to Pigs, by Robert Hendrickson, c.2011 pg367
Ronnie Howard: " ...they really don't see that they've done anything wrong. ... if you wanna call it a religion or cult or whatever, that's the way they believe. They do not believe they have done anything wrong. After all, they haven't killed the soul, they've only killed the body or bodies. ... So they were doing people a favor."

IMO, it was this, rather than any inherent coldness or callousness, that caused all the inappropriate behavior by the girls in the courts--the singing, the giggling, etc.

The success Charlie had conning people out of their property is a testament to his powers:

Death to Pigs, pg230
Watkins: "Charlie could go into some guy's house and talk him out of a ten thousand dollar piano."

The Family, pg50
-"Manson.. gave to Melba(Cronkite) a 1967 Red Ford Mustang which a New Yorker named Michael... had given to Manson."

Death to Pigs, pg258
Watkins: When a guy goes off the ranch and comes back thirty minutes later and has a car and two hundred dollars and says somebody gave it to him. you know. He used to do that...

Reflexion, pg120
Lynette: "I don't think I ever heard him directly ask for money, but it seemed that people couldn't wait to give it to him."

The Myth of Helter Skelter by Susan Atkins-Whitehouse ©2012 (credit to H. Allegra Lansing)
Sandra Good has reported to have given Charles Manson over $6,000… Linda Kasabian confessed to stealing $5,000 and giving it to the Family. Juanita donated over $10,000 and her van, turning it all over to Charles Manson. And poor Dennis Wilson estimated he spent close to $100,000 on Charles Manson during the several months he provided for the Family.

The point of this thread is not to show that Manson had some kind of natural affinity for one or two mind-manipulation skills. The point, rather,  is to show that Manson seemed to be EXPERT in ALL of them.  Charlie wasn't just good at what he did, he was TOO good.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalism
Like any performing art, mentalism requires years of dedication, extensive study, practice, and skill to perform well and perfect.

Charlie developed a high degree of expertise in the use of these mental techniques. The question is, where did Charlie acquire these skills? He didn't get it from reading a book on magic tricks or hypnosis. Someone must have taught him.  He probably spent years being schooled in the various techniques by multiple experts in their respective fields.

We all know that Alvin Creepy Karpis schooled Charlie in prison on the rudiments of playing the steel guitar. So why don't we know the names of these other teachers?

Anthony DiMaria (nephew of Jay Sebring) pt 2

 

Gibbie being surveilled?

 This poster on a defunct forum claims to have had connections to the case via her dad's friendship with Vince Bugliosi, and posted this re Gibbie:

http://truthontatelabianca.com/threads/maybe-something-new-maybe-not.5232/

When Abigail moved to NYC, she did so with the blessing of her father. He was eager to see her begin a career and was hoping that she might also be introduced to another blue-blood, marry, and have little blue-bloods. But we know that Gibbie liked the bad boys and had a few of them as paramours prior to her being introduced to Voytek.

Peter Sr. immediately became suspicious of the new man in his daughter's life, after all he was an immigrant who had only been in the US for a very short time and seemed to have neither ambition nor money.

What many do not know is that from very early on in their relationship, Peter Sr. had all of Gibbie's and Voytek's comings and goings monitored. Peter Sr. had an investigative and security team which could put the CIA and FBI to shame. In fact, both of these teams were made up of former members of these institutes and of the Secret Service as well as other high-ranking retired military men. His legal team was beyond reproach as well.

Needless to say, Gibbie was on a much shorter leash than she believed she was. And the heat on she and Voytek only increased with their move to California. Peter did not approve of Voytek whom he saw as an opportunistic cad who was riding on Gibbie's financial coattails.

This being said, Peter Sr. did have Voytek extensively investigated and traced his whereabouts in the US prior to meeting Gibbie and throughout Europe. Unfortunately, for those tin-foil hat wearers, Peter Sr. was only able to find out that Voytek was a deadbeat dad and husband having left behind in Poland both a wife and son who were barely getting by while he was flitting around Abigail's fortune. He also found out that although Voytek was a drug user, and a sometimes seller of the stuff, he was not a dealer of any notability.

It has been said that Voytek didn't want to marry Gibbie because of her money. That's total BS. He would have jumped at the chance at marrying her had it been possible. But it couldn't, because, #1 he was married already, and #2 Peter Sr. was in the process of putting in place an iron-clad pre-nup should the event ever occur. There was no way Voytek was ever going to inherit a penny from Abigail other than what she willingly gave him while alive.

Voytek was a cad, and a user...no doubt, but he wasn't a high-level drug-dealer as much as we would like to believe he was.   ....

Abigail was watched the entire time she was living in LA.  ...

Peter Sr. had people stationed in LA who reported back to him regularly about Abigail's whereabouts. I do know that he was concerned about the frequency of her visits with her psychiatrist. He was afraid that this information would get into public hands and that Abigail would be perceived as "unstable". Back then, seeing a shrink wasn't nearly as accepted as it is today. There was a definite stigma associated with it.

As far as Voytek was concerned, he was definitely low-level when it came to drug-selling. Peter thought him to be dangerous to Abigail not so much because of who he would expose her to, but rather because he could provide her with drugs that she could become dependent on. He was suspicious of Jay too but not for the same reasons. Abigail had asked her father to look into investing in Sebring International. Jay was not a great businessman. His forte was PR and the actual artistry of the cut. When he died he was in debt, not to drug dealers but to creditors. He tried to expand too much and too quickly and this is what Peter was wary of.

Peter Sr. was an incredible businessman and he did question Abigail's judgment in investing in Jay's company even though the amount of her investment was negligible. He was looking into Sebring International's fiscal viability at the time of the murders. I doubt he would have invested had that night not happened because Jay had bitten off more than he could chew.

I will say that Jay's investors were all legit. There was not money laundering within his business nor were there any sketchy shareholders. This was all confirmed via investigation by the DA's office.

 

 ----------------------------

 

Thoughts?  It sounds realistic, imo.

Anthony DiMaria (Jay Sebring’s Nephew) Interview Pt 1

"I had the pleasure of interviewing the nephew of Jay Sebring Anthony DiMaria. Anthony has spent over two decades gathering information and speaking to people who knew his uncle as well as authorities, authors and other victims families. He gives us a candid and heartfelt interview about his family, the after-effects of the murders, what he found out has been misconstrued about his uncle and his fight to keep the killers in prison. any of the information we speak about with backing paperwork will be added to our Facebook page and linked below along with links to his book and documentary sites for ‪@JaySebringCuttingtotheTruth‬."

 

Larry Buendorf, U.S. Agent Who Saved President Ford, Dies at 87

By Sam Roberts NY Times
March 13, 2025

By grabbing a loaded handgun from Squeaky Fromme in 1975, Mr. Buendorf, as part of a Secret Service detail, thwarted a would-be assassin in California's capital.

Larry Buendorf, foreground, with President Gerald R. Ford at McClellan Air Force Base in California the afternoon after the assassination attempt by Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme.Credit...David Hume Kennerly/Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library

Larry Buendorf, the Secret Service agent who, by wresting a handgun away from Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, was credited with saving the life of President Gerald R. Ford in an assassination attempt in 1975 in California, died on Sunday at his home in Colorado Springs. He was 87.

His death was announced by his wife, Linda.

After leaving the government in 1993, Mr. Buendorf (pronounced BOON-dorf) was the chief security officer for the United States Olympic Committee until he retired in 2018.

On Sept. 5, 1975, President Ford spurned his limousine, which was idling outside the Senator Hotel in Sacramento, and, flanked by Secret Service agents, strode across the street to greet a throng of well-wishers on his way to the State Capitol to meet with Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

"My position was right at his shoulder," Mr. Buendorf recalled in 2010 in an interview for the President Gerald R. Ford Oral History Project.

"Squeaky was back in the crowd, maybe one person back, and she had an ankle holster on with a .45," he said, referring to a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. "That's a big gun to have on your ankle. So, when it came up, it came up low, and I happened to be looking in that direction, I see it coming, and I step in front of him, not sure what it was other than that it was coming up pretty fast, and yelled out ‘Gun!' When I yelled out ‘Gun!' I popped that .45 out of her hand."

He added: "I got a hold of her fingers, and she's screaming — the crowd is screaming — and I'm thinking, ‘I don't have a vest on, I don't know where the next shot is coming from,' and that I don't think she's alone. All of this is going on while I'm trying to control her."

Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme was handcuffed by security agents in Sacramento after Mr. Buendorf grabbed a gun that she was about to use against President Ford.Credit...Associated Press

"She turns around, and I pulled her arm back and dropped her to the ground, and agents and police come from the back of the crowd" as Ms. Fromme shrieked in disbelief, he said.

"She's screaming, ‘It didn't go off!'" he continued. "I had it in my hand. I knew what she was doing, she was pulling back on the slide, and I hit the slide before she could chamber a round. If she'd had a round chambered, I couldn't have been there in time. It would've gone through me and the president."

Ms. Fromme, who was nicknamed Squeaky because of her high-pitched voice, was a 26-year-old disciple of the cult leader Charles Manson, whose gang's brutal killing spree in 1969 claimed the lives of the actress Sharon Tate and eight others.

Cloaked in a full-length red robe and matching turban, Ms. Fromme had cocked the hammer, but none of the four bullets that the gun was armed with had entered the chamber yet.

Testifying for the prosecution at Ms. Fromme's trial, Mr. Buendorf said she jerked the gun when he grabbed it "as though she was trying to pull it away or fire it." Other agents hustled Mr. Ford to safety.

"I was in the right place at the right time," Mr. Buendorf, who was 37 at the time and had been an agent for five years, said. "If I had been looking someplace else, who knows how history would have changed."

Ms. Fromme was convicted of attempted assassination and sentenced to life in prison. She was paroled in 2009.

Harvey Schiller, the former chief executive of the Olympic Committee who hired Mr. Buendorf, described him in an interview as "a real hero who was universally loved and trusted."

Mr. Buendorf while he was on the job protecting Mr. Ford, days after the assassination attempt. Credit...United Press International

Lawrence Merle Buendorf was born on Nov. 18, 1937, in Wells, a city of about 2,000 in southern Minnesota. His father, Merle, managed a furniture store. His mother was Ruby (Meyer) Buendorf.

In high school, Larry himself was a president — of his junior class. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business from Mankato State College (now Minnesota State University, Mankato) in 1959, then joined the U.S. Navy and became a pilot during the Vietnam War.

"I think he wanted to serve the country in the military — that was his first choice — and wanted to be a defender of freedom," Mr. Schiller, the Olympic Committee official, said.

Mr. Buendorf pointed at reporters as he and President Jimmy Carter left the White House press room after a briefing in 1977. Mr. Buendorf had earlier been assigned to protect Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ford.Credit...Peter Bregg/Associated Press

After he was discharged in 1970, Mr. Buendorf applied to the Secret Service and the F.B.I. and was accepted by both. Choosing the Secret Service, he was assigned to its Chicago field office before being deployed in 1972 to the Presidential Protective Division in Washington, where he helped safeguard Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Ford and Jimmy Carter.

He served in the Denver field office from 1977 to 1982 and ran the Omaha office from 1982 to 1983 before returning to the Protective Division, where he became special agent in charge of a California-based team that was assigned to Mr. Ford. Mr. Buendorf retired from the Secret Service in 1993. Mr. Ford died in 2006, at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

When Mr. Ford skied, Mr. Buendorf's job was "to make sure that he didn't trip over his own skis or let the chair hit him," he said, referring to mountain ski-chair lifts — although he added that the president was actually a good athlete. When Mr. Ford went swimming in the ocean, Mr. Buendorf said, "I was one of the assigned swimmers that would go out as shark bait — go further out than the president — and swim along."

He was awarded the U.S. Treasury Meritorious Service Award (the service was an arm of the Treasury Department until 2003, when it was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security) and the United States Secret Service Valor Award.

In addition to his wife, Linda (Allen) Buendorf, whom he married in 2013, Mr. Buendorf is survived by a daughter, Kimberly, from a previous marriage; a stepdaughter, Stephanie; and three grandchildren.

Even after Mr. Buendorf left government service, he and Mr. Ford maintained their relationship; they touched base by phone almost every Sept. 5, the anniversary of the assassination attempt.

Mr. Buendorf in 2004, when he was the chief security officer for the United States Olympic Committee.Credit...John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

At the Olympic Committee, he supervised security at its headquarters in Colorado Springs and at training sites in Lake Placid, N.Y., and Chula Vista, Calif.

During the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, he oversaw the safety of the athletes after a call to 911 warned of a terrorist's pipe bomb in the Centennial Olympic Park. The explosion killed one person and injured more than a hundred.

"Him smiling gives you a lot of confidence," Rulon Gardner, who won a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2000 Sydney Olympics in Australia, told The Gazette of Colorado Springs. "You feel like you had a cocoon whenever you traveled with him. You put him in a 450-degree oven and he's as cool as ice. The man will not sweat."

After the attack in 1975, Mr. Ford resumed his prearranged schedule, meeting with Governor Brown and then returning to Air Force One, where he was met by his wife, Betty Ford, who, Mr. Buendorf said, "had been off doing her thing."

Mr. Buendorf was being debriefed at the time, but he vividly remembered the president's account of her greeting.

"He said he approached the plane and Mrs. Ford goes, ‘So, how was your day?'" Mr. Buendorf recalled in the oral history interview, with the biographer Richard Norton Smith.

"‘How was your day?'" Mr. Smith repeated quizzically. "I assume he wanted to tell her very gently. I mean, how do you answer that?"

Sam Roberts is an obituaries reporter for The Times, writing mini-biographies about the lives of remarkable people. More about Sam Roberts

Disappearing Act: The Avulsion Cut (GRAPHIC)

Video interview of TLB first responder LAPD Robert Burbridge:

"The only wound I could see on Sharon Tate was right in her pregnant belly. It was a big gash... like an avulsion cut... It's like they were almost going to cut the baby out of her, that's what it looked like."


It appears to me that there is indeed a large, deep, horizontal 'avulsion' cut across Sharon's belly, filled with blood.  Also, there appears to be a shorter vertical slash through the middle of the horizontal cut, as though an 'X' was cut into the flesh of the belly.  

 Greg King, Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders, c. 2000  pg243
Time magazine 8-15-69: "..there was an X cut on her(Tate's) stomach." 

 

Also note the puckering and swelling in the flesh along the borders of the horizontal cut.  This suggests the wound was inflicted while Sharon was still alive.

Though this prominent and clearly visible cut mark is not mentioned in the autopsy report of Sharon Tate. 

Nor is it marked on the autopsy diagram.

Tate Autopsy Report
'There are four stab wounds on the chest.  ...others labeled #5 through #16 are described in a subsequent report.'

So why the discrepancy?  Was it because the avulsion cut suggests it was done for the purposes of removing the baby from the womb, as Burbridge suspected, and that the prosecution did not want to go there, for whatever reason?

====================

The only possible reference to the avulsion cut on the frontal autopsy diagram is a 'stab wound #5'.  Oddly, there is another 'stab wound #5" marked on the rear view of the autopsy diagram.

Was this the coroner's roundabout way of letting us know that there was something hinky about 'stab wound #5'?  Or did The LA County Coroner's Office suffer a bout of "sudden-onset amateur hour" syndrome?

Actor Bryan Cranston Reveals His Creepy Encounter with Charles Manson | The Dan Patrick Show

 

What Did the CIA Know About Charles Manson? Netflix’s ‘Chaos’ Dives Into Conspiracy Theory

"It's a strange, surreal excursion into some no man's land of investigation," director Errol Morris says of the new documentary, which is based on Tom O'Neill's 2019 book

By Jon Blistein

February 21, 2025 

When Errol Morris was a graduate student in philosophy at University of California Berkeley, he made a "pilgrimage" to the California Medical Facility prison in Vacaville. Interested in insanity pleas and murder, the future Oscar-winning documentarian was there to interview the serial killer Ed Kemper. But while at the CMF, he was given another unexpected opportunity. 

"I was asked by the guard following my interview, 'You interested in meeting Charles Manson?'" Morris recalls in a recent interview. "And I said, 'Sure! Of course I am.'" 

The meeting didn't amount to much, Morris says: "Manson wanted to complain to me about his lack of masturbation privileges," he quips. Still, this was the mid-Seventies, and Manson remained a phenomenon. In 1971, the wild-eyed Svengali had been convicted on murder charges related to the Tate-LaBianca killings, carried out two years earlier by members of his so-called Family. In 1974, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi published his best-selling book Helter Skelter, in which he recounted the case — centered around Manson's apparent desire to ignite an apocalyptic race-war —  that had secured his conviction. "Everybody was aware of this case," Morris says. "It's one of the most famous cases in American history, if not world history. And a lot of people, including myself, had read more than one book about it." He cites Helter Skelter, as well as Ed Sanders' The Family, though it was the former that forward the narrative that would define the Manson murders for years — one centered on LSD, brainwashing, out of control hippies, race wars, and the Beatles. 

Decades later, a new book would complicate that narrative. Tom O'Neill's Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties, co-written with journalist Dan Piepenbring and published in 2019, punctured Bugliosi's case, arguing the prosecutor hid evidence, coerced witnesses into lying, and pushed falsehoods that may have provided cover for other dark forces swirling around Manson — chief among them, the Central Intelligence Agency and its top-secret MKULTRA mind-control program. O'Neill's reporting suggested the Manson killings weren't a product of poisoned free-love, but a kind of blowback from the CIA's own experiments with LSD and brainwashing. And a cover-up may have furthered the aims of domestic espionage operations like the CIA's CHAOS and the FBI's COINTELPRO, which targeted and discredited radical movements whether hippies, Black Panthers, or anti-war activists.

O'Neill's book serves as the basis for Morris' new documentary, Chaos: The Manson Murders, which hits Netflix March 7. (The film's trailer is also premiering today, exclusively via Rolling Stone.) O'Neill's book is thrilling but dense, filled with countless threads to pull and dark corridors to explore. It could've easily been turned into a multi-part series, but Morris instead distilled the book's essence and most significant arguments into a 90-minute documentary that elucidates the potential links between Manson and the CIA, while using the case's myriad unanswered questions as a jumping off point to "reflect on the nature of investigations and truth."

But O'Neill also acknowledges that his reporting encroaches upon a truth that remains elusive. He still cannot, for instance, place West and Manson in the same room together. This ambiguity leads Morris to describe Chaos as "a strange, surreal excursion into some no man's land of investigation." For his new film, Morris embraced the uncertainties and instead tried to "deal with various accounts of why Manson committed these murders." 

Morris was first introduced to O'Neill, and his investigation, while the journalist was still struggling to finish his book. In fact, Morris says he was brought in to help O'Neil with this "labyrinthine enterprise." Morris spent three days interviewing O'Neill in his apartment, bursting with Manson research — "Folder after folder, box after box after box, cassette tape after cassette tape after cassette tape" — but O'Neill ultimately decided against the film. He went on to finish the book with Piepenbring, and after it became a hit, he reconnected with Morris to see if he wanted to finish the movie. 

Morris was eager to do just that. "I've probably read [Chaos] more times than I would like to admit," Morris says, adding: "Reading Tom's book, knowing Tom, and interviewing Tom has been an experience in and of itself. It's a very odd thing to say but true: Tom's book has caused me to reflect on the nature of investigations and the nature of truth." 

Tom O'Neill's 2019 book 'Chaos' introduced the theory that the CIA may have been studying the Manson Family long before the murders

Morris knows what it's like to obsess over a confounding case or fall down a CIA-sized rabbit hole. He did both in his 2017 miniseries Wormwood, about the mysterious MKULTRA-linked death of scientist Frank Olson. And his 2012 book, Wilderness of Error, probed the case of former Green Beret surgeon, Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters; while Morris believes he showed the prosecution of MacDonald was "a violation of what we take to be due process," he acknowledges he was not successful in proving MacDonald's guilt or innocence. Morris is drawn to the "strange gray area of hunches, suppositions, [and] strange beliefs," but remains committed to the truth, even though he knows attaining it, in full, is rarely possible. (Through "sheer, obsession, diligence, and luck," he says, he came closest in 1988's The Thin Blue Line, which helped exonerate convicted murderer Randall Dale Adams.)

With Manson, the case is replete with — to paraphrase another Morris subject, Donald Rumsfeld — known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. "There will be so many questions about this murder that will never be answered," Morris says. "Or let's just put it this way: I don't have answers to them, and I'm not sure when those answers will be forthcoming. I guess never say never."

What Morris feels he can say definitively is that Chaos dismantles the Helter Skelter theory. "I find Bugliosi's version far-fetched," Morris says. "Do I believe the Beatles and 'Helter Skelter' and the whole dream of a race war motivated this story? I think it's unlikely."

More far-fetched than a version involving MKULTRA and CIA experiments?

"I think it is," Morris says with a smile. "Was that stuff going on? Yes. Was it going on with Manson? Maybe." 

In lieu of concrete answers, Morris latched onto other people and elements of the mystery, like Manson's music. The film is partly soundtracked by Manson demo recordings, and features an interview with Gregg Jakobson, a talent scout and close friends of the Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson, who famously wound up in Manson's orbit. (Wilson earned Manson's ire when he remade Manson's song "Cease to Exist" as the Beach Boys' "Never Learn Not to Love," without giving Manson credit.) 

"I like Manson's music!" Morris exclaims. "Call me a fool. But I think there's something really interesting [about it], and a lot of other people were interested in his music." 

Morris pushes back against what he calls the "default position that Manson was deeply untalented" and suggests his songs reveal "the desperation of the man." He's also partial to the theory that Manson's rejection by the record producer Terry Melcher played a role in the Tate-LaBianca murders. Melcher famously lived at the house at 10050 Cielo Drive before Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate moved in. Revenge — not unlike MKULTRA and LSD mind control — feels less far-fetched than "Helter Skelter." 

"We've all heard the argument that we should default to the simplest explanation, but maybe there is no simple explanation," Morris says. "Maybe there's just a stupid explanation. The explanation of confusion, cross purposes, people who don't know what they're doing, and have mixed, confused reasons for doing anything."

Bobby Beausoleil was arrested for murder a day before the Tate massacre took place.

Bobby Beausoleil was arrested for murder a day before the Tate massacre took place

Morris found this thread, too, in the story of Bobby Beausoleil, the Family member serving a life sentence for murdering Gary Hinman in July 1969, a few weeks before the Tate-LaBianca killings. As Beausoleil recalls in the doc, he was confronting Hinman over a drug deal gone bad when Manson barged in, slashed Hinman's face, then left Beausoleil to deal with his mess. Worried Hinman would snitch if he took him to an emergency room, Beausoleil says he called Manson and demanded he fix the problem. Manson allegedly told Beausoleil that he "knew what to do as well as" Manson did, then hung up the phone. 

"I've asked Bobby several times, 'You kill Hinman, you take his car, you put the murder weapon in the car, so that when you're ultimately arrested, they have the car, the murder weapon, and you! Who does that kind of thing?' The only explanation that I have, and I've said this many times to Bobby, is it's all incredibly so stupid. But not so stupid that it didn't actually happen."

While Morris says O'Neill "discounts" much of what Beausoleil says, the filmmaker found him "entirely compelling" — not because he believed everything Beausoleil told him, but because, over 50 years later, he was still "trying desperately to come to terms with what he had done and what happened to him."

He adds, "In everything that Bobby says to me, he too is trying to grapple with, if you like, the stupidity of it all. I sometimes look back on my life and I think, 'My god, this was stupid. How could you have ever lived it?' And the fact that Bobby is grappling with it still, I find endlessly interesting and moving."

Morris even gives Beausoleil the penultimate word in Chaos (Manson, obviously, gets the last), as he succinctly meditates on peoples' fondness for fantasy, speculation, and conspiracy when reality is often so much more mundane — even stupid. 

"Could it be that some things are just a result of confusion and ignorance?" Morris wonders. "Rather than some kind of grand conspiracy that's being played out and orchestrated by one person, or a group of few people working in consort." Extrapolating to the chaos engulfing the world now, he adds, "I suppose when the history is written of our current era, and we ask questions about why our democracy fell apart, the feelings that I'm left with — maybe this shows my own inclinations — is that we're looking at the machinations of total incompetence thrashing around in reality."