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Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi
Book Description A national bestseller—7 million copies sold. Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the twentieth century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Here is the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime. 50 pages of b/w photographs. Both Helter Skelter and Vincent Bugliosi's subsequent Till Death Us Do Part won Edgar Allan Poe Awards for best true-crime book of the year. Bugliosi is also the author of Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder (Norton, 1996) and other books. Curt Gentry, an Edgar winner, is the author of J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (available in Norton paperback) and Frame-Up: The Incredible Case of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings. Reader Reviews Horror for Hollywood, September 20, 2003 Reviewer: Edward Wright from San Francisco Despite its length (600 + pages) and punctilious court room detail in the second half, Vincent Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter" is a fascinating account of the two nights of savagery which shocked the nation in 1969: starlet Sharon Tate and her three house guests (plus an unfortunate young man who, like Ronald Goldman, was in the wrong place at the wrong time) on August 9th, then the LaBiancas, a middle-aged upper-class couple on August 10th. With his co-author Curt Gentry, Mr Bugliosi opens the narrative with the discovery of the carnage at the Tate residence, goes through the invesigation (the LAPD does NOT look good here), and closes with the nine-month trial where Charles Manson and his "Family" members were brought to justice. The story is haunted by Hollywood history. Sharon Tate was the beautiful wife of acclaimed director Roman Polanski (they met while filming his "The Fearless Vampire Killers"); but her chances of ever becoming a major star, had she lived, is today debatable. Before she moved into the residence where she was murdered, the house had been occupied by Terry Melcher, the son of Doris Day and producer Martin Melcher. (He had been living there with Candice Bergen, herself the child of a popular entertainer.) Manson was introduced to Terry Melcher by Gregg Jacobson, a talent scout who was married to Lou Costello's daughter. One of the TV crewmen who discovered the bloody clothes discarded by the murderers was named King Baggott. It's an unusual name, and I assume he was the son or grandson of the silent film star. On a darker level, one of Manson's "indoctrinated", Bobby Beausoleil, appeared (according to Mr Bugliosi) in a Kenneth Anger film; and one of Manson's victims, a ranch hand named Donald "Shorty" Shea, had aspirations to be a movie actor. Hollywood Babylon,indeed.The "star"of the story, even with Mr Bugliosi's first-person narrative in the major part of the book, is Charles Manson. Extremely enigmatic, with a rhapsodic influence over individuals as well as groups, he is simple and extraordinarily complicated. One thinks of Rasputin, but Mr Bugliosi successfully compares him to Hitler: both were frustrated artists, both had nagging doubts regarding legitimacy and ethnicity in their family backgrounds, and both were vegetarians who loved animals (according to one of Manson's followers, he once petted a rattlesnake). Manson's mystique is undeniable. Mr Bugliosi relates how in court one day with Manson time literally stood still -- i.e., Mr Bugliosi's watch stopped. Manson was giving him a strange little smile. But in the final analysis one realizes that Manson, for all his mystical blend of the Bible and the Beatles, was simply a person who liked to kill people.As other reviewers have stated, while reading "Helter Skelter" you may asÝwell resign yourself to nightmares, as well as checking and re-checking your windows and doors. (Sometimes the most casual detail will turn your blood to ice: after butchering the LaBiancas, the killers raided their refrigerator and had a snack.) But stop reading? No, not once you've started. A gripping revelation of Hollywood's "creepy-crawley" underside, "Helter Skelter" gives the Bad and the Beautiful a horrible new meaning.
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