The devil's business

Steve Kay: Life Magazine put a picture of Charles Manson on the cover.  People have just been mesmerized by that picture, and, by the trial, where the defendants became more known than the victims. 

Here it is: The image that washed a career dirtbag with the gloss of evil… That lured a horrified nation to his circus of a trial.

Manson: I don't have any guilt, I know what I've done. And no man can judge me.

Pete Noyes: It was a nightmare. The O.J. Simpson case attracted a lot of press.  But, it was nothing compared to the Manson case.

Manson and family.  Seven counts of capital murder.

Vincent Bugliosi: It shocked the nation because hippies up to this point were associated with peace, love, sharing, drugs.  And then the Manson family comes along, looking like hippies and living like hippies, but mass murderers.

It was June 1970. Prosecutors Vincent Bugliosi and Steve Kay laid out the gruesome story, but the more people learned about the family, the harder it was to comprehend. The accused ringleader turned out to be a life-long loser: petty car thief, check-kiter, pimp.

He lived with an aunt and uncle in this house, Manson never knew his father. His mother was a prostitute who spent time in prison.

His attitudes molded by a life in reformatories, jails and prisons.

In his last years in prison Manson began studying off-beat religions. He read books about influencing people and he took an interest in music.

But Manson's followers, who at times numbered as many as fifty, at first blush, could be the kids down the street. Manson started collecting them after he got out of prison in the San Francisco summer of love.

Bugliosi: Manson was able to detect weaknesses and fears in people and exploit those-- exploit those weaknesses and fears.

Catherine "Gypsy" Share: Who is Charlie Manson? He's your brother and he's your father, and he's your little boy. He's all men.

Bugliosi: He would give anyone what they were lookin' for.  If they're lookin' for a father figure, he was their father.  If they were lookin' for Jesus, he was their Jesus. By his own admission he said, I'm a man of a thousand faces.

And it was with the certainty of true believers that some Manson family members belittled his arrest by donning their finery and parading past news cameras at Spahn ranch. Who were they? Where did they come from? A Berkeley librarian named Mary Bruner was his first recruit.  And then...

Steve Kay: Susan Atkins - he met up in the Haight-Ashbury district. She was a topless go-go dancer at Big Al's in North Beach San Francisco.

Sandra Good, Manson Family Member: That's what attracts people, he's completely happy. gentle, he dances, he sings, he looks beautiful, he looks happy, and this draws a lot of people just like people are drawn to little babies.

Sandra Good, his most devoted follower, came from a wealthy family with assets of her own.

Kay: The Manson family lived off of that trust fund, mainly.

Librarian, stripper, trust fund baby, Manson had something for all of them. There were more than a dozen young women eventually.

Kay: Although he collected women, at first he used the women to get men. 

Among them - Charles Tex Watson --  smalltown football hero --   sucked into Manson's vortex.  His was a restless commune.  They drifted to L.A., perhaps for the sex, drugs and rock and roll... Or perhaps for Manson's own ambitions.

Kay: He was a fairly talented guitar player.  And-- The Beach Boys, before the murders, did record one of his songs. 

Ah, the improbabilities... Beach boy Dennis Wilson had the bad luck to pick up two hitchhikers, who turned out to be Manson girls. And before long, the family literally moved in with Wilson.  After they'd gone again, the beach boys released a version of a Manson song "Cease to Exist"  ...only the Beach Boys called it " Never Learn Not to Love."

Bugliosi: As bizarre as this case was, we go to trial and it's almost equally bizarre.

Manson: Always good. Everything's good. The judge made a fool of himself this morning. And then he questions my sanity. I question his.

Pete Noyes: Every day, the Manson followers were-- picket the building.  It was really a freak show.  And-- and the girls would come into court swaggering, Van Houten, Krenwinkel and Atkins singing.

At the start of the trial, first Manson, then his co-defendants and supporters carved “X”s into their foreheads. Prosecution witnesses were threatened. A defense lawyer showed up quite mysteriously dead. Manson tried to stab the judge.  Even the president of the United States weighed in.

Bugliosi: Nixon gets into the act and he starts talking about the Manson case, ‘cause it's on the news every night. And he says, "I think Manson's guilty."

Which actually - for a day or two - put the case in some jeopardy.  But the bigger problem for prosecutor Bugliosi and his team was proving motive.  Why, in heaven's name, would anyone commit such heinous crimes?

Bugliosi: That motive was Helter Skelter to ignite a war between blacks and whites. And when the words Helter Skelter were found printed in blood at the murder scene, I told the jury that was the equivalent of Manson's fingerprints being found at the murder scene.

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