Original subtitles

[traffic noise]

[car horns honking]

[suspenseful music playing]

In 1969, I was assigned to West Los Angeles as a patrol officer.

I can't remember a day

that I would wake up and not want to go to work.

-[woman over radio] 184… -184, roger.

[Robert Burbridge] It was about nine o'clock in the morning.

The call came in as a man-down call.

Could be a drunk, medical emergency, a homicide, could be anything.

And so I rolled on it.

[De Rosa] The address was on the borderline of Beverly Hills.

A low-crime area, very expensive homes.

[Burbridge] Well, the last one on the end of the block

was the 10050 Cielo Drive.

When I arrived at the location, the maid was, um, hysterical.

She could barely say her name.

She kept saying the word muerto, I remember.

And I knew what that meant.

[gate creaking]

I went in through the gate,

and I saw a car.

It was parked kind of in a funny position in the driveway.

[tense music sting]

And I looked into the car,

and I saw a human being laying there in the seat with blood all over him.

We walked around to the front of the house and saw two more bodies on the front lawn.

The body closest to the front door was a male,

and he appeared to have been shot and stabbed.

[Burbridge] The woman was laying on her back with her eyes open.

She had knife wounds in both of her hands.

These people were fighting for their life.

[De Rosa] And then I turned around and saw the word "pig"

written in blood on the front door.

I was so full of adrenaline that my heart was coming out of my chest.

There was blood everywhere.

We went from one room to the next room.

And when we finally got to the living room,

we saw two more bodies.

It was a…

Sorry.

It was a beautiful woman, pregnant and dead.

[haunting music playing]

And she was laying there with a rope around her neck.

It was a very thick white rope.

It went over the beam in the ceiling,

and it went to a man that was laying next to her.

And the rope was wrapped around his neck.

It was horrendous. It was a slaughterhouse of people.

[De Rosa] It was horrific.

After 50-some years,

it's something that you… you don't forget.

[recording tape clicks]

-[click] -[tape whirring]

[Charles Manson] I don't let no people know who I am.

I don't let other people know what I'm doing so they can stop me.

So I'm the underworld. I'm that son of a bitch.

I'm that dirty, low-down motherfucker that you never see.

But I ain't done a goddamn thing, man.

All I did was I played the mistakes of other people.

That's always what the devil does.

He puts on your face and plays you back to yourself.

He'll never let you know what he's thinking.

[atmospheric music playing]

[film reel whirs, then stops]

[whirring]

[helicopter whirring overhead]

[reporter 1] In a scene described by one investigator

as reminiscent of a weird religious rite…

[intriguing music playing]

…five persons, including actress Sharon Tate,

were found dead at the home of Miss Tate and her husband,

screen director Roman Polanski.

Miss Tate, who starred in Valley of the Dolls,

was eight months pregnant.

[reporter 2] Was there a party? What was going on last night? Any idea?

At this point, you must realize we only have tentative

and very meager amount of information.

[reporter 3] Are the bodies badly mutilated?

Uh… this I'd rather not discuss.

[Linda Deutsch] Sharon Tate was the elite of Hollywood.

She was rich, beautiful, famous.

Her husband was internationally famous.

[reporter 1] Among the other victims were Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring

and coffee heiress Abigail Folger.

Nobody really knew what was going on. It was a puzzle.

[Al Wiman] Why Sharon Tate? Why Roman Polanski's house?

Why Abigail Folger? What did they ever do to anybody?

[police siren blaring in distance]

Twenty-four hours later,

there's another murder about 15 miles from the Cielo Drive murders.

The same circumstances and the brutality,

but involving people who were not celebrities.

[reporter 1] Market owner Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary

were found by their children stabbed and mutilated.

The word "War" was carved into LaBianca's chest.

"Death to pigs" was smeared in the blood of one of the victims.

[Deutsch] There was panic in L.A.

People felt like there might be a mass murderer out there

targeting rich people.

And it shocked this town like nothing had ever shocked it before.

People were buying guard dogs. They were buying guns.

People were locking down, keeping their windows closed.

They felt like they were under attack.

[reporter] Tonight, the city of Los Angeles is uneasy

after two strange murders have left seven dead and no clues to the killers.

[Ivor Davis] For four months, the police were clueless.

They didn't know who had done these murders.

And then they found the bogeyman.

[film reel whirs, then stops]

[whirring]

The sheriff says you're not to ask this man any questions.

Not even his name. You're to stay at least five feet away from him.

I was a special correspondent with the Associated Press

assigned to the case.

The hallway was filled with photographers and cameramen.

Everybody was elbow to elbow trying to get pictures.

[clamoring]

It was bedlam.

[door slams]

[reporters clamoring]

[Wiman] The first time I saw Charles Manson,

I was sort of surprised he was of small stature.

He was somebody that you would ignore.

[unsettling music playing]

And he looked malnourished and very thin and had this long beard.

[Deutsch] These murders were so violent.

Everybody thought that this was committed by men.

The horror of Sharon Tate being killed when she was pregnant,

it seemed like no woman could ever do that.

[women singing eerily]

As it turned out, more of the killers were women than men.

But the girls were kind of pitiful.

They were so obviously under Manson's control,

and they became known as the Manson Family.

[reporter] All the elements are present

for one of the most sensational murder trials in American history.

Young girls supposedly under the spell of a bearded Svengali

who allegedly masterminded the seven murders.

One girl implicated in the murders said she had been hypnotized by Manson.

"If Charlie said it was right, then it was right."

These were flower people gone bad,

and it scared the hell out of people.

-[reporter] Are you sane? -Sane?

-[reporter] Yes. -That's relative.

[indistinct chatter]

Here was this man who somehow got all these followers.

And some of them committed horrendous murders.

[intriguing music playing]

I was a member of the family.

It's a real enigma, you know, even for me.

Even for me, it's like,

how did that all come to pass?

[Manson] You say there's no mind control. That's bullshit.

I'm an expert in mind control.

You can control anybody you want to control

if you decide you want to control them.

[hangs up phone]

[Lake] It's hard to talk to people about, you know, my childhood.

My parents weren't cruel.

They were just part of this counterculture.

My dad was an artist, and he got this idea.

"Hey, let's drop out."

[dreamy synth music playing]

So drop out meant, you know, you sell all your stuff,

and you move into a truck, and you go down the road.

So my parents became hippies,

and we ended up living at a famous commune

right on the outskirts of Los Angeles called the Hog Farm.

Within the commune, I wasn't their daughter anymore.

I was just another person in the commune.

I was not happy in this situation.

I was super happy back in our Santa Monica home,

going to junior high,

then I was gonna be going into high school.

They took that away from me.

[film reel whirs]

One day I went to a party.

This couple that we met said,

"We want you to meet this groovy guy and his girls."

I was greeted by the first girl.

"Charlie, Dianne is here!"

Charlie was like this playful, impish kind of guy with a guitar.

And he gives me a loving hug.

And the girls are all smiling. They're all happy to see me.

And it was just this magical moment that I did not want to let go of.

[inaudible]

Charlie seduces me.

And it was wonderful.

I'd never had someone really, like, make love to me.

He made me feel like a really beautiful woman,

not just a child.

I mean, I was just overwhelmed

with love and the feeling of acceptance.

It wasn't me like, "Oh, can I go with you?" No.

They wanted me to go with them.

I was 14 when I met Charlie,

and I was 16 when I got out.

[tense music playing]

The best description I heard of Charlie Manson,

and I talked to hundreds of people who interacted with him over the years,

was that he was a chameleon.

He could be whoever the person he was talking to wanted him to be.

But we cannot understand Charles Manson

and the things that happened

without understanding the 1960s themselves.

[unsettling music playing]

[whirring]

[pulsing synth music playing]

[Traci Parker] The Summer of Love in '67 in San Francisco

is the height of the hippie movement.

There's this true belief that love could change it all.

Young people flock into Haight-Ashbury.

They had tours. "Come and see the hippies."

It's the first and only foreign tour within the continental United States.

We're now entering what is known as the largest hippie colony in the world.

[Parker] The hippies are all about free love.

The birth control pill is now more available.

Women now could find pleasure in sex.

It wasn't just about giving birth to children.

It liberates them.

Majority of the people that flocked to the Haight at that time

were seekers of a different way of living.

[Parker] They really are trying to reject the social conservatism

that they've been reared in, and they're curious.

They are very much tapped into the music.

They're taking psychedelic drugs.

LSD is everywhere.

[Smith] Many of the young people that came to the area

had these mind-altering experiences.

[man] Hallucinations, illusions,

distortions of perception and thinking.

What's going on in the United States today is a revolution in consciousness

facilitated by these psychedelic chemicals.

[Smith] But psychedelic drugs like LSD have a very profound impact on the brain.

[Parker] So you have these kids.

A lot of them had dropped out of high school, dropped out of college.

They're no longer under their parents' watchful eye,

and they're looking for some sort of guidance.

[Jeff Guinn] And into this scene comes the master manipulator,

and you had better believe he took advantage of that.

The whole '60s turned into, where are we gonna drop acid

and how are we gonna get high?

Psychedelics will leave you pretty open to a lot of good things,

but it also will leave you vulnerable if you're not with the right guide.

People had to tell me what my name was after my first acid trip.

I stayed pretty much on acid for a good year,

and during that time I met all the girls and…

met Charlie.

[Guinn] Charlie is wandering Haight-Ashbury with his guitar.

Charlie loves music,

and he has a dream of becoming a rock and roll star.

But more than that, he wants attention.

[Parker] Manson's not a hippie.

He is someone who's able to manipulate hippie life, the counterculture.

[Lake] He had this uncanny ability

to regurgitate all kinds of things that he'd heard.

The Bible, Scientology, Buddhism.

Putting it back out there in a riddle that made it sound kind of mystical.

[Guinn] He would say, "Give up your ego, give yourself to the world."

"You want to have sex with somebody? Nobody owns anybody else's body."

"You can do with yours whatever you want to do."

He would tell them, "You've been ruined by your families."

"Come be part of a real family where everyone loves you for who you are."

Ultimately, he's so persuasive that they buy into it.

And he tells people he's called the gardener

because he tends to all the flower children.

[unsettling echo]

[Manson] I had a lot of sympathy for all them young hippie girls.

I opened up for them and they could do whatever they wanted.

Because I never put no rules on nobody, man.

[haunting music playing]

[James Buddy Day] I always describe the Manson women as lost souls.

They were running away from something. All of them.

At first, it's just Manson and four women.

Mary Brunner,

Patricia Krenwinkel,

Lynette Fromme,

and Susan Atkins.

Almost everybody in the family had some kind of a nickname.

Either they came with it or Charlie bestowed it on them.

Mary Brunner was Charlie's first girl.

She was known as Mother Mary,

and she was the matriarch of our little family.

And then there was Lynette, known as Squeaky.

She was devoted to Charlie.

[Fromme] We are each other,

and like she's my sister and my mother and everything.

[Lake] Patricia Krenwinkel was known as Katie.

She was the salt of the earth, kind and nurturing.

She was a good person.

I felt really loved by him.

When we made love,

all I remember is just crying and crying to this man.

[Lake] Susan Atkins was way more streetwise.

She could seduce.

She'd been a stripper.

So that's probably how she got the name Sexy Sadie.

He captured my attention by the power he possessed with his mind

to make people feel good about themselves.

[suspenseful music playing]

My first actual encounter with Charles Manson

occurred in the waiting room in the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic.

Our clinic dealt with the bad trips.

and with everybody constantly changing sexual partners,

we saw a lot of venereal disease.

Charlie walks in with his girls.

The only thing that made him stand out was this control he had over these girls.

They were well known in the Haight.

And we knew them as Charlie's girls.

They moved in unison.

Charlie would direct them.

"Sit here, do this, go in there."

He was in total command of what they did. That was unusual at that time.

Part of the counterculture is women have rights

and they don't have to take direction of the men.

Here was total control from a man, Charlie.

[Manson] They seen a nice guy.

And I'm not a nice guy.

So I said, "Well, as long as they seen a nice guy, I'll reflect a nice guy."

"I'll be the nice guy to them."

So I played as much nice guy as they could deal with.

And I looked out for everybody, and I gave them places to stay,

and I kept all the other not-so-nice guys off of them.

[Day] Manson and the women are just kind of driving around California,

very nomadic, crashing on people's couches.

[Guinn] They go up and down the coast in a secondhand school bus,

and they pick up some more followers.

I was 17 years old, fresh out of high school.

You know, you kind of want to rebel just a little bit.

The day after I graduated, I jumped in my car and took off.

[intriguing music playing]

Well, one night, around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning,

I stopped at a gas station, and somebody whistled at me.

I heard this guy say,

"What's somebody as pretty as you doing out here this late at night?"

And so we started chatting,

and he told me the things you want to hear.

"You need to be loved, you're so beautiful."

"I bet your parents didn't love you."

"I'll bet they never showed love in your home."

All the things that were so true.

Then I thought, "Man," you know,

"this guy knows me, this guy knows what I'm looking for."

There really was something captivating about him.

So I went with him.

[Lake] When I came to the family, Charlie wanted us to be separate.

Isolated from everybody else other than the family.

[Guinn] Once you joined the Manson Family, you were expected to stay.

But for Charlie,

the challenge is to find a place that's isolated enough

that nobody can get at your followers but you.

And that's where they first come to Spahn Ranch.

[film reel whirs, then stops]

[Lake] Spahn Ranch was an old movie set.

I think they filmed Bonanza and Zorro there a few times.

It's an old-fashioned western town.

There's this whole facade.

The jail, the saloon.

Behind that, there's a barn.

And then there's a big corral where they rent horses.

This becomes their home base.

[Lake] The owner of Spahn Movie Ranch was George Spahn.

An old man with a cane who was blind.

Somehow, Charlie talks to George.

"Oh, we can help you clean up this place."

By this time, the group has grown quite large.

There's a dozen or more.

There's children running around.

There's babies.

Spahn Ranch is in the middle of nowhere.

All they have is each other, and it bonds them all together.

[uneasy music playing]

When Charlie and I very first pulled up to the ranch,

we weren't there more than a minute

before all these young gals start running out.

"Charlie's back! Charlie's back!"

So glad to see him.

I didn't know this at the time,

but he had been hoping to bring back more than just me.

Everything I had became communal.

You gave your ID, any money you had. Anything, anything that you had.

Nothing left.

But when I made the decision that I was gonna stay,

uh,

I made it wholeheartedly.

You know, I was still searching for something.

I was still looking and still hoping that I was gonna find it there with them.

[tape player starts]

[Manson] Over in our ranch, you get up in the morning

and you build yourself a good day.

And, man, it's beautiful.

And there was no leaders or followers.

Everybody was doing whatever they wanted to do, man.

It was just a big party, that's all.

[Day] In the beginning, Spahn Ranch is a very happy place.

They're really living a very classic 1960's commune life.

Money is not of importance to them.

They're dumpster diving for food.

Once Charlie had a few women, then he wanted to add men to the group.

What the men could do was provide Charlie with muscle if he needed it,

and they would get broken-down motorcycles and cars from people

and fix them up and then try to sell them.

[Lake] He wanted the women to have the babies

and keep house and cook food,

and we enjoyed that.

Plus, I had all these sisters.

We were Charlie's girls.

[Catherine Share] And Charles Manson is your brother.

And, um, he's your father.

And he's your little boy.

He's all men.

Being an orphan, I've been wanting a family my whole life.

And I felt like I had found a home and I had found the family that I wanted.

Catherine Share was known as Gypsy.

She was kind of like a bohemian,

and she was tasked by Charlie to look after me.

[Share] My mother and father were Jews

living the good life on the Left Bank in Paris,

and then, one day, the Nazis marched in and put a swastika on the Eiffel Tower.

[distant marching]

I was born two years into that.

The French underground found a safe home for me,

but I was kept in a dark room,

tied to a crib for a very long time.

Those are my first memories.

The first time I met Charlie, I think the first thing he said was,

"You've been through a whole lot of hard knocks in your life, haven't you?"

He was very intuitive.

From the beginning, Charlie and I did trauma bond.

That word wasn't around then.

But we talked about some pretty deep things that we went through.

He had a very traumatic childhood.

It doesn't excuse anything that he did,

but I think his trauma made him.

[Manson] I wanna tell you something that's been on my mind.

I was born and raised by myself.

I raised myself.

You know, I was just like one of those that nobody wanted for anything.

[film reel whirs, then stops]

[birds tweeting]

[Day] Manson was raised in the Ohio River Basin,

primarily in West Virginia.

It's what you think of when you think of the American heartland.

[Guinn] McMechen, West Virginia, is a small town.

It's blue collar.

It is an old-fashioned sort of culture.

Mom keeps house.

She defers to Dad, exactly as Jesus wanted.

And even then, Charlie was different.

He was the kid that didn't fit in.

[Day] I think you can see Manson as a perfect storm

of bad influences that created him.

He never knew his father.

He grew up in poverty, essentially, with a very young mother.

Her name was Kathleen Maddox.

And for a living, his mother and his uncle would just pull off small scams.

And Manson just kind of followed her around until he was 4 or 5.

Then she was arrested.

So Manson's first exposure to prison is visiting his mother.

And he grew up as a delinquent, fighting, scamming, petty crimes.

And eventually, he robs a grocery store.

-[police whistle blowing] -And he is put in front of a judge.

Manson is a teenager at that time.

And then over the next seven years, he goes to six different reform schools.

He'd say, "In reform schools, I learned how to suck and fuck and fight."

[Manson] You don't ever let nobody beat your ass.

You let somebody beat your ass, they're gonna to fuck you in it.

And I was never a tough guy, you know.

I'd whine and cry to get out of a fight.

But if I had to fight, I'd always win.

There are stories of Manson being sexually assaulted and being raped.

[Guinn] Rape was a way of taking control.

Charlie wanted that.

He would study how they did it and got away with it

so he could do it too.

[Day] Manson is not physically imposing. So all he has is his wits.

[Guinn] And he can be vicious.

At one point, he's caught sodomizing a boy

while holding a homemade knife to the kid's throat.

[cheerful '50s-style music playing]

[Guinn] When Charlie Manson finally gets out of reform school,

he manages something that he doesn't manage again for the rest of his life.

He goes on the straight and narrow.

He tries.

[Day] He met a young woman named Rosalie Willis,

and they got married.

He's about 20 years old.

And for a little while, Charlie's just a working stiff in McMechen.

But it lasted less than six months.

[music distorts and turns tense]

His wife was pregnant.

He needs more money. So he decides to steal cars instead.

[tires screeching]

Drives all the way to Los Angeles in a stolen car.

-[police siren blares] -[Day] He is arrested almost immediately.

Manson's wife leaves him. He never meets his child.

[Guinn] Over the next 12-year period,

he goes to prison for car theft, forging checks,

and finally for being a pimp.

Charlie likes the idea of recruiting women.

They do all the work, and you collect the money.

It strikes him as sort of the perfect life.

[cell door slams]

[Day] And those are really the formative years for him.

[Davis] Prison was the way he learned about life.

It was his college of education,

the jail, the prison cell, the other inmates.

[Manson] In prison, a guy that can't sit in a cell with himself,

and all he does is cause trouble

'cause he ain't gonna be able to get along with anyone else.

I got that from Dale Carnegie. [chuckles]

Yeah, that helped me a lot, man.

[Faye Emerson] Mr. Carnegie, about your book,

How to Win Friends and Influence People, about how many copies did that sell?

Publishers say that it has sold more copies

than any other nonfiction book ever published.

[Davis] In prison, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People

became a sort of Bible for him.

[Guinn] For Charlie Manson, Dale Carnegie was the perfect guru.

What Carnegie would teach

is how to make people want to do what you want them to do.

Charlie was able to reflect people and be what they needed.

Especially women.

[Schram] But when Charlie spoke to you,

whether it be in anger

or whether it be warm and loving,

he had an ulterior motive.

[Guinn] Everyone who was involved with the Manson Family

thought he had some mystic powers

when, in fact, he was just using the Dale Carnegie techniques.

[intriguing music playing]

[gate opening]

[Phil Kaufman] I met Charles Manson

when I was in the prison in Terminal Island.

First of all, I'm not a murderer. I'm a pot smoker.

I got busted for smuggling pot.

[match strikes and ignites]

On my first day in prison,

I run into Charles Manson.

I was walking across the prison yard.

Charlie was playing his guitar.

And the guard came up to Charlie and said,

"Manson, you can't play your guitar there."

He didn't pay any attention to the guy.

And the guy says, "Manson, you ain't never gonna get out of here."

And then Charlie said, "Out of where, man?"

And he just kept doing what he was doing.

It did not faze him that that was gonna cost him more time.

Charlie had built his psyche,

having been incarcerated in so many different facilities.

He was a professional prisoner.

But the music thing is what caught my attention with Charlie.

And he started writing songs, which sounded pretty good.

He wasn't bad.

And we became friends

because the subject came up that I knew people in the music business.

Once Charlie heard about that, he stuck to me like Velcro.

[radio presenter] From Stereo 101, KHJ…

[Guinn] Manson's musical influences up to this time were country.

But one day, he was working away in one of the prison sweatshops,

and he heard this sound coming out of the radio.

But it's different.

It's The Beatles.

And Charlie is hearing about these crowds and the mob scenes.

[crowd screaming]

Charlie thought he can be a rock and roll star.

Music would be his salvation,

if I can use that word with Charles Manson.

I don't think Charlie wanted to become some kind of rock star.

He was just a brilliant songwriter,

and he loved music.

Charlie would claim,

"What my songs are about is teaching people a better way to live."

"The fame doesn't matter to me at all."

But Charlie Manson can never stand to be ordinary.

And so when he gets out of prison,

Charlie makes the decision.

He is going to be bigger than The Beatles.

[Manson] I got my own kind of music, my own Manson-- Mansonism music.

I'm kind of a combination of something never been.

It's informative. It's mind control.

It's controlling the mind.

[film reel whirs and stops]

[Lake] When we were at Spahn Ranch, we would get together, get in a circle,

take LSD, play music,

and then, you know, Charlie would talk about his songs.

I thought his music was the most important on the planet.

Every one of his songs had a message of being real,

being honest with each other, not playing games.

"Look at your game, girl."

♪ Look at your game, girl ♪

♪ What a mad delusion ♪

[Share] "Are my feelings real, or am I just playing?"

♪ Frustration and doubt ♪

♪ Can you ever live without the game? ♪

[Share] He just kind of hit home.

Charles Manson's music was written specifically to entice young girls.

The lyrics all pointed towards "nobody loves you but me."

Most of the young girls were runaways, and they bought it.

I felt sorry for them.

[Lake] Music was heightened.

When I took LSD,

flowers were more beautiful, and that's on a good trip.

Bad trip, you know, you're scared.

You know, I've experienced that too.

We didn't just take trips when we wanted to.

[Lake] Charlie treated LSD like a sacrament.

He would go around, and he would place the tabs on each person's tongue.

[Schram] You had to do it.

He'd make you wiggle your tongue around and show that you had swallowed it.

Charlie wanted to be in control,

and if he took acid too, he may lose control.

So a lot of us think he never took it at all.

Sometimes the LSD trip would be like a love-in, you know, like an orgy.

[Kaufman] Remember, it was sex on demand.

The girls were there for a purpose.

They were his acolytes.

They would entice young men into Charlie's army.

[Lake] I found myself in that position several times,

where he insisted that I have sex with somebody

that I really didn't want to,

but he needed me to.

I think that we all wanted to please him,

and pleasing him meant doing Charlie's bidding.

[Share] I heard from Dianne

that Charlie asked her to sleep with people

that she didn't want to sleep with.

I never had that experience with Charlie

because I was, at the time,

or at least I thought I was, a free spirit, and I was just like,

"Yeah, he's cute. Why not?" You know?

[Lake] We kept George happy.

We took turns doing that.

In fact, Squeaky got her nickname from George Spahn

because when he would pinch her, she would, "Eeh!"

She'd squeak. And so that stuck.

[Manson] We used to have, like, little orgies there, and, you know,

in church, you'd call it evil.

But, I mean, to us, it was just lust and passion

for that exciting thing called sex.

You know, we just had a lot of open sex

that was just, uh, normal to us because we lived in that, you know?

[Schram] Charlie played the role of God.

The girls obeyed what he said.

Sometimes he would even ask for things that were,

you know, a little out of the ordinary.

There was one time we were walking through the desert.

You had to step on the exact spot he stepped on.

And every one of us was supposed to walk on the same exact step,

and if we didn't, you know, we got punished for it.

Gypsy took a pretty bad beating one time.

He was kicking her, and she was on the ground.

He punched me in the nose, not hard enough to break it or anything,

but he just… It just shocked me.

I think she, like the rest of us,

felt like this was just another step in us becoming

what Charlie wanted us to be.

He was telling us not to think.

Live in the moment.

Be more in touch with the higher power.

I thought that Charlie was closer to God than any of us

because he said he didn't think anymore.

Of course, I was wrong about that. He thought all the time.

He just didn't want any of us to think.

[film reel whirs and stops]

[haunting music playing]

[Guinn] Charlie Manson has come to Los Angeles

with the specific goal of the women in the family going out

and making the acquaintance of the kind of music industry heavyweights

who could hear Charlie's music and get him a record deal.

One day, members of the family are hitchhiking,

and a good-looking guy in a fancy car stops.

And they're kind of surprised when the guy takes them to this fabulous house

just off Sunset Strip.

They all hang out for a while.

The guy explains that he's got to get into the studio,

but he hopes they'll come back sometime.

And he tells them his name is Dennis Wilson,

and he's a member of a band.

What do I have to say except here are The Beach Boys!

[Guinn] Three brothers, a cousin, and a friend who made music

that didn't sound like anyone else's.

Dennis Wilson was the middle brother, the rebel.

He was the drummer.

[Gregg Jakobson] And he was a good-looking guy.

It was girls and cars, and he had money to spend.

Talk about no rules. Dennis really didn't have any rules.

[Guinn] The next day, Dennis Wilson drives back to his house,

and there's something weird.

Out of his house, acting like the host coming out to greet him,

is this scrawny little guy.

And the first thing Dennis Wilson ever says to Charlie Manson is,

"Are you going to hurt me?"

And Charlie said, "Do I look like I'm going to hurt you, man?"

He knelt down, and he kissed Dennis Wilson's feet.

[Jakobson] Dennis called me. "Gregg, you've got to come over here."

"There's this guy here, and there's a bunch of girls."

So I went over to his house.

Charlie could be very entertaining with his guitars.

Also, he could tell the girls to do anything,

anything, and they would do it.

It was sex and drugs. Dennis was loving all this.

[Guinn] The next morning when he woke up, they were still there.

[Lake] It was just a few of us, really, that lived at Dennis' for the summer.

Charlie had always talked about getting the best for us,

and it came true.

Dennis had a big swing hung from a tree house.

It was like going to heaven.

Charlie took me over there, to Dennis Wilson's house.

And Dennis kept staring at me.

And he looked at Charlie.

And Charlie said, "Dennis, this is Gypsy."

"Gypsy's a free spirit. She does anything she wants to do."

He says, "Well, hello, Gypsy."

We spent a lot of time together, Dennis and I.

Charlie would say to Dennis,

"When are you gonna get free from your brothers?"

They're old, and they're jealous of you because you're the young, bright one."

[Jakobson] I wasn't sure about Charlie.

I was very protective of Dennis because I knew how vulnerable Dennis was.

He was a rock and roll star,

but he didn't have the respect that his brother had.

Brian was the musical genius,

and I think Dennis had a need to be accepted and loved.

[Share] Dennis Wilson was fascinated with Charlie's music.

He thought it was very deep.

[Lake] I remember Dennis proudly introducing Charlie to Terry Melcher.

[psychedelic rock music playing]

[Guinn] Terry Melcher is the son of movie star Doris Day.

[Jakobson] Terry was a successful record producer.

What an opportunity for somebody like Charlie Manson.

[Guinn] The problem was that Terry Melcher wasn't enamored of Manson,

and he had grown up in Hollywood

knowing how you keep people at arm's length.

One time, Dennis Wilson is giving Melcher a ride home.

Charlie's riding along.

Melcher won't actually let them go in the front gate

because he doesn't want Charlie in his house.

He says thanks and hops out

outside the gate at the house he rented on Cielo Drive.

[uneasy music playing]

[film reel whirs and stops]

[Lake] Dennis invites Charlie into the recording studio

at Brian Wilson's house.

[Guinn] When the recording started,

the engineer tries giving Charlie instructions.

"Lean a little closer to the microphone."

"I think your guitar's out of tune."

Charlie won't have it.

[Jakobson] See, Charlie now had been taken out of his comfort zone.

And if Charlie got uncomfortable, he would get physical.

Charlie was, you know, like a ferret or something.

You-- You wouldn't stick your hand out, it's gonna bite it.

[Guinn] Charlie actually holds the engineer at knifepoint.

The engineer says, "That's it, session's over."

[Lake] Next thing we know, Charlie says, "Girls, we're leaving."

[Share] And everybody, like Pied Piper, walked out after him.

Charlie didn't take well to suggestions.

[Guinn] The resulting tapes didn't impress anybody,

but it seemed to Charlie that it was Dennis Wilson's job

to get him signed, Dennis hadn't done it.

Charlie saw that as a betrayal.

[tense music playing]

Dennis started realizing he was being taken advantage of.

[Guinn] They would run up great bills on Dennis' credit cards.

They'd been freeloading for too long.

Dennis had seen Charlie become violent now.

He didn't want to kick them out for fear of what Charlie might do.

Dennis' lease was about to be up,

and so he very quietly sneaked out.

He had to go on the road with The Beach Boys.

And so while Dennis was on tour, I went and found another house.

About a week later, the landlord showed up and threw Manson and the girls out.

We were like, "Okay, I guess we're leaving."

It's kind of the end of a fun time.

And so we went back to Spahn Ranch.

But still, Charlie definitely wanted to make the music thing happen

'cause it was his dream.

The story goes on.

Charlie had written a song, "Cease to Exist."

It was this typical '60's song, very acid.

♪ Cease to exist ♪

♪ Just come and say you love me ♪

[Jakobson] "Don't be a human. Be what you really are."

"What are you really? Cease to exist."

♪ Give up your world ♪

♪ Come on, you can be ♪

[Jakobson] Dennis made a deal with Charlie.

He gave Charlie money for the song.

And he took Charlie's song and made it much more… much more sexual.

♪ Submission is a gift ♪

♪ Give it to your lover ♪

[Jakobson] He changed the lyric

and changed the title to "Never Learn Not to Love,"

and it was published as that.

♪ I know I could never learn Not to love you ♪

[Guinn] And he listed himself, Dennis Wilson, as the sole songwriter.

Charlie was furious.

"No, you don't get to change my lyrics, my song."

Charlie owned that as far as he was concerned.

And as far as Dennis was concerned, he owned the song, he bought it.

Charlie wanted to get into a business he didn't know anything about,

but he wasn't gonna take my word for it or Dennis' word,

so he zeroed in on Terry.

[Guinn] Manson besieges the secretaries at Columbia.

"Tell Terry Melcher that Charlie needs to see him!"

Charlie's putting a lot of pressure on him,

and Terry finally said, "Okay, Charlie."

We treated Charlie like you would treat a loaded gun, with a lot of respect.

[tense music playing]

You didn't really know what he would do next.

[Guinn] Melcher sends a message.

"In a couple days I am gonna come out to Spahn Ranch,

and you can play me your music."

[Lake] We were all excited. "Terry's coming!"

I was there that day. All the girls were there.

They had everybody cleaned up, looking good.

[Share] We set up right behind the cowboy town.

He staged it all.

[whinnies]

[Jakobson] It was great theater to me.

Girls dancing.

Charlie singing with the guitar, always performing.

But there's such a difference between somebody being an entertainer

and somebody being in a recording studio with a record contract.

[Share] I looked at Terry a couple times.

He looked fascinated, but uncomfortable.

After about three or four songs, he said, "Well, I've gotta go."

I know what Terry's speech was to Charlie, and it's a speech I've used.

It's a speech that every producer uses in the business.

"Listen, I really like your music. I think you've got talent."

"But I don't know what to do with you in the studio."

[Guinn] And with that,

Charlie Manson's dream of being a rock star is over.

[Jakobson] Charlie felt betrayed, for sure.

He was incensed.

[Guinn] Charlie failed, and his followers saw it.

So he tells his family,

"Terry Melcher promised me the record deal,

and he reneged."

"He betrayed me, just like Jesus was betrayed by Judas."

[Share] What he said to me is, "These lames, these Hollywood lames,

don't know what their word means."

"Where I come from, your word is your bond,

and you'd better keep it."

[tape player starts]

[Manson] I don't forget nothing.

I'm not in the business of forgiveness.

If somebody beats me for something,

man, I'm-- I'm-- I'm after them the rest of my life.

As long as I got breath in my soul.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Lake] Charlie did change.

The playful Charlie wasn't there anymore.

Things were getting dark.

No more fun and games.

Most of Charlie's talks, and I would call them rants,

were angry rants.

From really the beginning of our existence together,

Charlie had been talking about this Black-white race war that was coming.

[Guinn] That Blacks were going to rise up,

and the whites would either be killed or become slaves.

[Share] Charlie talked about a race war all the time.

And he said, that's what they were talking about in prison.

This is what's gonna happen.

Charlie was a racist.

He used to say, "There's white, Black, and brown,

and they don't hang around."

He really had a hate of Black people.

Charles Manson is tapping into this fear about the rise of Black Power.

We want Black Power! We want Black Power!

[Parker] After Martin Luther King is assassinated on April 4, 1968,

there are uprisings, riots, upheavals in over 100 cities.

[dramatic music playing]

You have police, the National Guard, coming in with tanks,

with guns, with military gear,

treating Black citizens as if they are enemy combatants in war.

The Black Panther Party is about self-defense.

And so in response to police brutality,

they are willing to use violence when necessary.

Fuck the pigs!

♪ No more pigs in our community ♪

Fuck the pigs!

[Lake] Charlie started talking about the race war more.

It got more intense.

And then The Beatles' White Album came out.

Every song had, to Charlie, some kind of subliminal message.

[Guinn] What the White Album did for Charlie

was give him the platform to expand on this race war he's predicting.

[Lake] There's this song called "Piggies."

The piggies were the police.

"Blackbird," it was about the Black man was gonna rise up.

[Guinn] But most of all, it was one other song,

"Helter Skelter."

Manson said that this song, with the lyric about being at the top,

going to the bottom, then back to the top of the slide,

was The Beatles telling us the name of this violent race war that's to come.

And he started calling the race war Helter Skelter.

[clamoring]

[Manson] Helter Skelter is a reality.

It's created by greed, frustration,

fear, lies, confusion, all of that.

I didn't make it.

The world's ending and they won't accept it,

and they're running from it, and that's what's bringing it faster.

[Lake] Charlie was obsessed with the White Album.

I mean, he listened to it frontwards, backwards,

over and over and over and over again.

[unsettling music playing]

I remember being in the living room.

He played the record. I had to go to the bathroom.

Charlie said, "No, you just, you're gonna sit there and listen to this."

My bladder's just bursting.

And so I got up to just go,

and he hit me with the chair leg.

He was mad.

So I sat down.

And I ended up peeing on the rug.

It was very embarrassing, but he was teaching me a lesson.

"Don't disobey me,

and do what I tell you to do."

[Schram] To this day, when I hear the White Album,

I'm glad to be alive.

[sniffles]

[Share] For almost a year and a half, when I was there in the family,

it was just playacting, having fun,

loving each other.

And then we had to stop playing.

Charlie said the race war was about to start.

[clamoring]

[gunshot]

We had to be armed. We had to be ready.

I remember one night, Charlie passed out these six-inch buck knives

and gave us a little talk-to on how to use them effectively.

He said, "You've got to be willing to kill to not be killed yourself."

[tense music playing]

[Schram] He talked about, "This is how you do it."

"You slit their throat from ear to ear."

"And if you stab them in the abdomen,

wiggle that knife around so that you get plenty of organs,

so that you know you're going to kill them."

[Lake] I didn't like having a buck knife,

and I didn't like the idea of using it,

certainly to kill somebody.

But it's like, "Okay, I don't want to be killed."

"So I'll take it and tuck it away."

[Share] I was terrified, but I was also committed to Charlie.

I was totally in by that time.

[Lake] Looking back at it now, I can see how that was all building.

[reporter] The word "Pig" had been scrawled in blood on the door

where actress Sharon Tate and four others were slain.

This definitely, in hindsight, was a lesson on how you could effectively…

kill somebody.

[haunting music playing]