Anthony DiMaria's Response to Rolling Stone story on Manson

Below is a letter that Jay Sebring's nephew, Anthony DiMaria, sent in response to Rolling Stone story on Manson. It is republished with permission from Restless Souls.

mansondirect.com

On June 15, 1970 Rolling Stone featured Charles Manson on it's magazine cover. Sadly, the narrative following the massacres on the nights of August 8th and 10th, 1969 holds firm approaching four and a half decades- Manson and his clan are sensationalized, glamorized as anti establishment pop celebrity icons, while their eleven victims remain trivialized and vilified to fit the sexy packaged formula of good old true crime mass murder. The Tate - LaBianca killings have become a massive source of interest and profit for countless news/tabloid organizations, books, TV/film companies, TIME, LIFE and prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.

It is painful and disturbing to see that the Rolling Stone piece by Erik Hedegaard (December 5, 2013) is yet another example of how horribly the victims are disregarded, even slandered ( "Sharon Tate wasn't a movie star. Even now, nobody's ever really heard of her, even though she was supposedly killed by Charlie Manson, the most famous guy in the world. And that's the only reason anybody knows who she is. And still nobody knows who the fuck she is") while Mr. Hedegaard presents Charles Manson in a reverent, mystical light, "I will never know or understand why when Manson rested his hand on my arm it felt so good, not passively good, but actively... it's a presence."

Apparently, Mr. Manson has the same impact on Mr. Hedegaard as he had on Vincent Bugliosi's wrist watch when it stopped suddenly upon Manson's telepathic powers as depicted in Bugliosi's 1974 television version of "Helter Skelter".

It is curious that Mr. Hedegaard would omit from Manson's interview what the interviewee said he would do to a random baby ("he says something truly awful about what you could do to that baby, worse than you could imagine"), yet the author printed Manson's abhorrent slander of one of his victim's ( Sharon Tate's) character, " She compromised her body for everything she did. And if she was such a beautiful thing, what was she doing in the bed of another man [Jay Sebring] when that thing jumped off? What kind of shit is that?"

So the narrative continues and everyone wins. Charles Manson is back in the spotlight as mystical boogeyman, fascinated consumers satiate their appetites- while an author and his employers line their pockets with cash.

But for eleven people who lie in their graves, the blood letting continues... this time at the hands of Erik Hedegaard and Rolling Stone magazine.