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- Yeah, every girl ought to have a daddy like Charlie.
Should--deserves to have a daddy like Charlie.
male narrator: Charles Manson:
Hippie guru,
would-be rock star,
and, until his death in 2017,
the most notorious prison inmate in America.
- You can't prove anything.
Now is the only thing that's real.
narrator: Manson was the leader of a cult
called The Family.
narrator: They murdered nine people,
including movie actress Sharon Tate
in the summer of 1969.
- It was one of the worst things I've ever seen.
There was blood all over her.
narrator: The murders sent shockwaves through Hollywood.
- No one was safe.
- Entertainers out there are hiring bodyguards.
It put the fear of God in them.
narrator: The court argued
that Manson had brainwashed his followers
and programmed them to kill.
- They had no idea that where Manson was leading them
was mayhem and murder.
narrator: But could one man have this much power?
And if so, how?
For the first time, we can see how.
Shortly after his arrest,
Manson gave a group of young filmmakers
led by Robert Hendrickson
exclusive access inside his cult.
- Scene one, take two, roll 53.
narrator: Hidden away for decades,
the original footage has now been found:
More than 100 hours of film, and with it
reels of unheard audio...
- We've seen Charlie do things that no human being
has ever done. Or no human being has...
narrator: And dozens of unseen photographs.
- No, we've seen miracles.
- This is dynamite information to have.
Where's it been all these years, all this stuff?
- Some people are making a movie.
narrator: Today, former cult members can see themselves
as they once were.
- Did you ever think of Sharon Tate's baby?
-I didn't know her.
I never met her.
Anybody watching this would think I was a monster.
narrator: Never-before-seen interviews
give us a firsthand view of the programming process.
- I am Charlie.
And if he dies, I die.
narrator: And long-forgotten film
provides shocking revelations
about how Manson's followers lived,
loved...
And ultimately,
how they were turned from regular, peace-loving kids
into brutal and brainwashed killers.
-I didn't want to believe the things I heard.
- I'm ready to die.
- I didn't want to believe the things I saw.
- They're persecuting what they can't stand
to look at in themselves:
The truth.
- When somebody needs to be killed...
There's no wrong. You do it.
- Bam.
- And you kill whoever gets in your way.
This is us.
- ♪ Your home is where you're happy ♪
♪ It's not where you're not free ♪
narrator: In the hills above Hollywood, California,
lives a small band of young men and women
about two dozen in all.
They share a love of music and each other.
They call themselves the Family.
- Roll 136.
- All we ever did amounted to
smoking grass
and taking acid
and making love as much as we could.
If we weren't doing that, we was leading up to it.
If we weren't leading up to it, we was doing that.
narrator: The group's leader is a career criminal
with a rap sheet containing multiple offenses
from forgery to armed robbery:
32-year-old Charles Manson.
Manson never knew his father.
His mother was a petty thief
who was in and out of jail.
And Manson followed in her footsteps.
His latest sentence: a seven-year stretch
for forgery and breaking parole.
He's released on March 21, 1967.
He heads to California...
and the Summer of Love.
- My name's Peter Coyote.
I'm the last ancient hippie,
and I was a serious player in the counterculture.
It was wonderful to wake up in the morning.
You could get food, friendship,
whatever you needed.
People of like minds got together
and they formed extended families.
- My name is Aesop Aquarian.
There was a lot of talk about going to the Summer of Love
and we did love each other in those days.
We believed in peace and love
and that things actually could get better.
♪
- Charlie saw the hippie movement
and saw the power in it;
saw the power behind the young people;
could see a huge revolution starting.
And there really is a revolution.
And Charlie wanted to take this power
and turn it into his own game.
- When Charlie was released from prison,
he had spent over half of his life in jail.
So he had no family.
For him, recruiting followers
was creating the family that he never had.
♪
narrator: Guitar in hand,
Manson sets up at street corners
and starts playing.
Gradually, he attracts followers.
- ♪ People say that I'm no good ♪
- In the late '60s, music led kids
off the suburban sidewalks
to hear the sounds of authentic voices
for whom the American dream didn't work.
- The counterculture was this idea that
young people had been led astray.
What did it mean to be a human being
in a capitalistic society?
Young people had been fed a myth about
American exceptionalism
and American democracy that was untrue.
♪
narrator: And Manson
knew just how to get the kids to listen.
- My name is John Douglas.
I'm with the FBI, former criminal profiler--
developed criminal profiling--
and I interviewed Charles Manson
as part of the serial murderer research project.
When Charles was in prison,
he was fascinated by the pimps.
Because these pimps didn't look anything extraordinary.
So how are you able to, you know, master,
have this control, you know, over others?
These pimps told him where to find these girls.
They look like a broken wing.
A broken wing meaning that
something was wrong.
There was this rejection.
So Manson had the ability
to approach these so-called broken wings
and talk to them.
- My name is Dianne Lake.
I was one of the first and the youngest member
of the Manson Family.
I was 14 when I met Charlie.
♪ Say a little prayer?
- He expressed his love and adoration for me.
It was a high. It was magic.
It was an incredible
upwelling of love, and, you know, joy.
My mom and dad were not the warm, fuzzy
hugging variety. They really weren't.
And I think that I needed to feel that.
-♪ As long as you've got love in your heart ♪
- Charlie invited me to be a part of their family.
It was what I was looking for.
narrator: By the spring of 1968,
Manson has gathered half a dozen girls.
The lost tapes show how he uses them
to lure men.
- Action.
What is your name? - Paul Watkins.
- How did you get in?
- How did I get in to The Family?
- Yes.
- I was walking through Topanga Canyon
and it was starting to get dark.
I needed a place to sleep.
And there was this little house
in the clearing in the woods.
Who came to the door was
one of the prettiest girls I'd ever seen.
- I go answer the door
and it's Paul.
- Big puff of marijuana smoke hit me in the face.
And that smelled good to me.
- Charlie told me,
"I want you to reel him in."
- There was 15 people sitting around in there.
And it was a big room that had mattresses all over it
and a little table in the middle.
Charlie, he was playing the guitar.
He laid all his girls out in front of me
and says, "They're yours.
What are you gonna do with them?"
And uh...
I was flattered.
- Nancy and I made him feel welcome
and had sex with him.
- I agreed that I would stay with them for the summer
'cause he said he needed some help;
he was all alone with them
and he couldn't handle them all by his own,
couldn't keep them satisfied.
Charlie said that The Family was my family forever.
♪
narrator: The lost tapes show how Manson
broke down The Family members' inhibitions
and used sex not just to seduce,
but also to control them.
- We all had to go through lots and lots of changes.
All the guys had to get over all their homosexual things
by doing everything that you could possibly think of
doing with guys. And all the girls had to do
everything they could possibly think of doing
with girls.
- He would have them talk while he's having sex.
Was there anything, sexually,
that went on that you feel disgraced by
or embarrassed by?
By doing that they just felt better
about themselves,
although he had, now, all the intelligence information
on them, and then would know
what kind of buttons to push.
narrator: Manson's technique is finding the thing
each of his followers really feels they need
and giving it to them.
- He'd mirror people.
He did that the very first day with me.
He just mirrored me.
And he told me, "You're me.
We're the same."
He knew people. He knew human nature.
So he made me feel that this was just
meant to be.
And he made me feel important.
- People would say,
"Well, how come you didn't leave?"
I stayed with Charlie because
Charlie captured my heart.
And like heroin addicts the first time they take heroin,
I was addicted to that initial
feeling of love and adoration and acceptance.
I wanted that again and again and again.
narrator: As he gathers his followers around him,
Manson pursues an idea first dreamt about
during his years in prison:
A career in music.
♪
He sends his girls out into the streets,
hoping to meet people with connections to the business.
- On some level, Manson's entrance
into the LA music scene is rooted in a chance encounter.
Two of the women in The Family happen to meet
Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys,
one of the central figures of rock music
in Los Angeles in the late 1960s.
- Wilson takes the girls home.
And shortly afterwards, Manson follows.
- I was at Dennis Wilson's house.
It astounded me at that time
because I'd never seen a place like that.
It was like a fairy tale.
And Charlie comes dancing out of the house,
and I said, "Wow."
♪
- There's no other way to put it.
Dennis Wilson falls in love with Charles Manson
and falls in love with the women.
- Both Charlie and Dennis, I think that
there was a mutual admiration
going on between them.
They were both wild, liked women,
liked music.
Dennis was very much impressed
with the fact that Charlie could get his girls
to participate.
narrator: They party. They hang out.
They even record together.
On one occasion, captured in the lost tapes,
Manson gives his home-spun philosophy on life.
- The way out of a room
is not through the door, partner.
Because then you just go into another room
which leads into another room,
which leads into a bigger room
and you're still inside your cage, man.
- Dennis was kind of looking for
some kind of spiritual guidance, and I think that
you know, Charlie kind of fit the bill.
- That's not the way out. The way out is
to give it all up and love every bit of it
as being perfect.
- Manson couldn't have scripted it better.
Wilson introduces him to his good friend
Terry Melcher,
one of the hottest rock-and-roll producers
in America.
- He's the music producer who has produced The Byrds,
and Paul Revere and the Raiders.
He's got a number of hits behind him.
narrator: Melcher has it all:
a superstar mom in Doris Day,
a superstar girlfriend in Candice Bergen.
And at the time, he even rents
a superstar's mansion in Beverly Hills
with an address Charlie and the world
will never forget:
10050 Cielo Drive.
Coming up on "Inside the Manson Cult"...
- Anyone in that house on Cielo Drive...
- On Cielo Drive, over.
- Was going to die that night.
They were all going to die.
narrator: The real inside story
of America's most shocking cult.
- It was just pandemonium in Los Angeles.
- It was terrifying, the idea of
testifying against them.
- He's programming us.
-We are sneaking in a county jail.
- He's telling us to break him out.
male narrator: Hidden and forgotten
for more than 40 years,
the lost tapes take us inside the Manson cult
and show how Charles Manson
turns a group of hippie runaways
into brainwashed zombies,
some capable of mass murder.
narrator: It is spring of 1968.
The whole world is rock-and-roll crazy.
- In that era, music's a talking newspaper.
Music is a way that young people were processing
the conflicts that were all around them
in the culture.
It wasn't a secret code.
It was another language,
and it was a language that
thousands and thousands of young Americans
spoke fluently.
narrator: Manson speaks the language too,
and fame would bring him the widest possible audience
for his ideas.
He's living with California music legend
Dennis Wilson,
drummer of the Beach Boys.
He knows the power rock stardom can bring.
Now he gets a taste for the life.
- Charlie evolved.
He didn't want money or fame,
because he never had money or fame.
But then when he sees Dennis Wilson,
people are fawning over him,
he's got this beautiful house.
And Charlie thought,
"Hey, this is something I want."
narrator: Wilson hooks Manson up
with top Hollywood music producer Terry Melcher.
Melcher is rock-and-roll royalty.
- ♪ Just come and say you love me ♪
- Manson thought Melcher was there to audition him
for a record contract.
- I think Charlie was very nervous,
but I don't think he wanted to show that.
- ♪ Come on and look at me
narrator: Melcher holds the keys
to Manson's musical dreams.
But a sound recording from the lost tapes
reveals what Melcher thinks of Manson's music.
-When Charlie was rejected by Terry Melcher
and the music industry,
it festered with Charlie.
It's something he focused on
and fixated on
for a very long time afterwards.
- He talked about all these Hollywood people.
"They're all liars."
narrator: Manson has had it with show business
and the people in it.
It marks a turning point in the Manson story.
From now on, Hollywood is the enemy.
Their dreams dashed, The Family pack up
and hit the road.
♪
They settle at a horse ranch
around 30 miles north of Los Angeles.
♪
- Spahn Ranch was private.
You know, it had that interesting little flair
because it's been in a lot of Western movies
but there also was, like, a façade of a saloon
and, you know, they rented horses
for horseback riding.
- Spahn Ranch sat on old Highway 70.
It was a place...
Yeah, it had its own magic.
My job was looking after horses and the cowboys,
the people that worked on Spahn's Ranch.
A place like that isn't actually a job.
It's a way of living.
narrator: A way of living that is about to change.
- In comes this little guy who bangs through the door
like he thought he was God,
and he screamed at us, "I'm Charles Manson!"
And I was like, "I don't give a hell who you are,
Get the hell out of my house!"
narrator: But it isn't Windy's ranch.
It belongs to 80-year-old George Spahn.
And Manson makes a deal with him.
The Family can stay free of charge
if the girls help out.
- We helped out renting the horses,
shoveling horse poop.
- Charles Manson took two of the girls
and he assigned them to keep George Spahn happy...
in any way they could.
And they did.
narrator: Manson's commune
attracts more and more followers,
including 25-year-old musician Catherine Share,
nicknamed Gypsy.
- To me, it was beautiful.
I didn't see the dust.
I just saw the quaintness of it.
And it just looked almost dreamlike to me.
I was told by one of the girls that
everybody picked new names,
and I could pick whatever name I wanted,
and I said, "Oh, okay, then I'll call myself Gypsy."
- We didn't need food.
Charlie showed us how to get food out of the dumpsters
at the back of the grocery stores.
- You wouldn't believe what we got
out of the garbage cans today.
We got a whole watermelon,
six boxes of bananas, four boxes of oranges, um...
- Don't forget the artichokes. - Artichokes...
- We'd wash it off and make fruit salads.
We ate very well, actually.
Playing music and
making love and getting to know everyone...
It was quite ideal for quite a long time.
But beneath the surface there was a monster
that was lurking.
narrator: The lost tapes reveal the tightening grip
Manson has on his followers' minds.
- I am Charlie.
And if he dies, I die.
- You said you are Charlie?
- I gave up my personality
and become what he showed me I can be.
- And that is what?
- Total love.
- So in this clip we can see
more about the mindset of Manson's followers;
that, in essence, they had eliminated their identities.
They have nothing else to go upon
except what Charlie had provided,
and this instills this idea of groupthink,
where all they know is the benefit of the group.
- We didn't talk about our inner feelings
or emotions because we weren't supposed to have any.
It was one mind with a lot of hands.
And there was no discussing it.
narrator: Somehow The Family seemed to believe
they're actually living the dream Manson had sold them.
But those outsiders close enough to witness
see something very different.
- Manson had a bunch of ragtag...
dirty little girls.
They were kind of pathetic.
They sure were strange.
The men all carried knives.
When I went up there,
I always carried a gun.
narrator: Coming up,
the lost tapes reveal how Manson takes his cult
a step closer to killing.
- Everybody just went stark raving mad,
I mean, just completely crazy.
narrator: And startling recordings
show that he is bending their minds
to believe he is God.
- We've seen Charlie do things that no human being
has ever done.
We've seen miracles.
male narrator: It is the summer of 1968.
Charles Manson, wannabe musician and ex-con,
has established a commune on a run-down ranch
30 miles outside of Los Angeles...
And he's turning it from commune to cult.
- Every now and then,
them girls would ask me
why I didn't throw away my bras
and run like them half-naked around the ranch.
Didn't I feel like I should be free?
I said, "You're not free. You're slaves."
narrator: Along with sex, music, and mind-control,
Manson throws one more ingredient
into his cult-creating cocktail:
isolation.
At the ranch there are no calendars or clocks;
no magazines or newspapers.
Manson's word is the only word.
- We were totally reliant on Charlie's idea
of what our family should be doing.
♪
- The isolation that Manson imposed
upon his followers by taking them out into the Ranch
was pivotal.
In that environment, he controlled
everything they saw,
everything they heard.
He could create an absolute bubble.
- In hindsight, it was the perfect breeding ground
for his philosophy to grow
and our commitment to him
to deepen.
narrator: The lost tapes contain a unique record
of Manson's preaching.
- You're born with a survival instinct
to be selfish.
So the first thing that happens, man,
is they start giving you their thoughts
and making things out of you that they want out of.
And then by the time you reach 30,
you're exactly what they want.
You're a free soul standing in a cage
who has to die because he was taught.
Yeah.
- We would listen
to everything he had to say.
We never joined in,
commented,
disagreed.
He would seem to just answer your questions
before you had any.
narrator: Manson's Family is now about 30 strong.
Some have been with him more than a year.
He has bent them to his will
with sex, isolation, and domination.
And the lost tapes show one last vital ingredient.
- We took things like belladonna
and smoked hashish a lot
and smoked marijuana all the time, and...
and psilocybin and mescaline...
When I was with Charlie we took
anywhere between 30 and 40 trips
on acid alone.
♪
Everybody just went stark raving mad.
I mean, just completely crazy.
- People are jumping in and out of the fireplace,
flying through windows,
hitting other people in the face.
- Arms and legs flying in every directions
and people screaming,
"Charlie! Charlie!"
- ♪ One too many trips
♪ To the moon and back
♪ Feel like I'm shot through
♪ From green to black
♪ Had so many highs
- The LSD was fun.
Everything became more animated,
the songs, you know, the words,
I felt totally disconnected
from reality.
narrator: But not everybody in the cult is high.
- Manson was smart enough to know
how to dose out LSD.
I've interviewed Manson three times.
He told us in the interview at San Quentin
he would take drugs, but not that much.
But what about your flock?
"I gave them the full dosage of it."
You know, "Why?"
"Because I felt I could have more of an impact
over them."
- The shadow side of psychedelics
is that you're nakedly innocent and vulnerable.
And someone can weasel their way inside your mind
and alter your perspective.
narrator: With The Family drugged and under his spell,
Manson takes his power to a whole nother level.
-Charlie never just said he was Jesus Christ,
but then he always said it.
He said it in every other way
except for just coming flat-out and saying
"I am Jesus Christ."
- He said that 2,000 years ago he'd hung on a cross
and died for everyone's sins,
and it didn't do a bit of good,
so now he's up again.
- He started using subliminal messages
such as, "They won't kill me this time
because I've already died."
But he'd say it very quickly
with a lot of other things.
- The most extreme form of grandiosity
and power and narcissism is to be godlike.
- You look the part.
You got the hair,
you got the beard,
and now you start talking
and it's very, very convincing.
Before you know it,
you're Jesus.
You're Christ.
- It looked to me like he was
hanging on the cross and...
you know, bleeding from his hands.
It seemed very real.
It seemed like other people were, you know,
believing it.
- We've seen what's possible.
We've seen Charlie do things that no human being...
has ever done.
Or no human being has revealed that he could do these things.
No, we've seen miracles.
- He often talked about
the significance of his name, Man-son.
That he was Man's Son.
The Son of Man.
- We saw him bring a bird back to life.
We know that anything's possible.
narrator: It's taken two years of sex, mind-control,
drugs, and domination
for Manson to turn regular kids
into a cult of worshippers
ready to obey his every command.
The question now
is what will he make them do?
- Manson knew where he wanted to go.
He knew where he was taking these people.
But they had no clue.
They had no idea that
where Manson was leading them was mayhem and murder.
narrator: Coming up,
the lost tapes show Manson as he prepares for war...
- We're always ready.
narrator: And the killings start.
- He was the commander now
and we were all in boot camp.
narrator: And an incredible confession
never broadcast before.
- He said that one day
in Beverly Hills,
there would be some atrocious murders
and people would be chopped to pieces.
There'd be things written on the walls in blood.
narrator: June 1969.
Charles Manson is becoming increasingly obsessed
with one extraordinary vision.
- I think Charles Manson was looking for some
chaotic Armageddon
into which he could take even more advantage
of disorder, and rally people
behind a common threat.
- Charlie used to say the blacks would
fight against the whites, and
everyone would fight against everybody else
and that everyone would get killed except for Charlie
and a few blacks who'd be left to be their servants.
- He became increasingly, you know,
paranoid about that,
and started preparing us
for that event.
- Manson is imbibing what's happening
in terms of popular and political culture
in the United States.
When we think about the late 1960s,
the Civil Rights movement, Malcolm X,
the Black Panther party,
the Vietnam War,
there were really hundreds of civil disturbances.
And there was a real fear
that race war was coming to the United States.
It seemed as if
the end of the world was coming.
narrator: Manson dubs his race war prophecy
"Helter Skelter,"
a name he takes from a most unlikely source.
Male announcer: You guessed it, the Beatles!
This rock-and-roll group has taken over
as the kingpins of musical appreciation
among the younger element.
narrator: In November 1968,
the Beatles release their "White Album."
Manson becomes obsessed.
- Charlie played it forwards and backwards
and he played it over and over again.
He said, "The Beatles are sending me a message...
That it's time."
Black man was gonna take over the world.
- There was a song called "Helter Skelter"...
About people who were at the bottom of the slide
of society getting back to the top.
According to Manson, these were the blacks.
- The Beatles now were confirming
that it was all true.
It was crazy, crazy thinking.
narrator: Now free love transforms to boot camp
as Manson readies his Family for Helter Skelter.
- Mark it. - Sandy, Brenda, Squeaky,
six, take one, roll 210.
-We're always ready.
- The new thought is to be a strong reflection
of the father.
Now, I'm just finding out about this, see.
And it feels good.
It feels good to know.
- He issued us all buck knives
and showed us the most effective way
to kill someone.
He said it...
"You have to be willing to kill
in order to not be killed."
- ♪ If you want it
♪ Here it is
♪ Come and get it
- ♪ But you better hurry
Because it won't be here long, you.
- He told us
you stab and then you rip up.
You know, you--that's what I remember.
It's like, you know, so,
the reason being that you would hit as many organs--
you know, vital organs as possible.
- He was the commander now.
And we were all in boot camp.
I think the dangerous side of Charlie
was that
he would do anything...
to survive.
narrator: While Manson's Family
think they're getting ready
to defend themselves,
in reality,
their leader's intentions are very different.
- At that time, I was staying with a man named Pete Nell
who was president of the San Francisco Hell's Angels.
And I got to his house one day
just as Charles Manson had left,
and he was flabbergasted.
Charles Manson had come to them
to try to get the Hell's Angels
to begin a race war;
to just go start randomly shooting black people.
And Pete had said, "You know, if you want a race war,
go start it yourself."
narrator: A chilling piece of audio
captured on the lost tapes
when the cameras stopped rolling
and never broadcast before
reveals that Manson now does plan
to start that race war himself.
And the place he's chosen?
The very heart of Hollywood's elite:
Beverly Hills.
- He said
that one day, up in the
mountains of Beverly Hills
that they just, uh...
go in and have a bunch of mass murders.
That they would be so atrocious.
That there would be blood splattered
all over everything.
That people would be chopped to pieces
and cut up with knives.
There'd be things written on the walls in blood.
And, uh, the white man would get all uptight about it
and blame the for it.
narrator: Coming up
on "Inside the Manson Cult"...
- He confided in me about killing people.
About how groovy it was
to take a gun and blast some guy in the stomach.
narrator: And a former cult member
has to face her younger self
from half a century before.
- Did I ever think of her baby?
I've pictured her pregnant.
Anybody watching this would think I was a monster.
narrator: Early summer, 1969.
Charles Manson is convinced a race war
is coming down fast.
- The ranch changed completely
after that.
narrator: And the lost tapes
show how his world view turns dark.
- He confided in me about killing people.
About how groovy it was
to take a gun and
blast some guy in the stomach
just because he was black.
About how far out it would be
to go into a house and...
cut the out of women
and cut the off of little boys
and just have pools of blood everywhere.
- Manson addressed
the issue of the pending race war
by creating what he thought
would be the circumstances to ignite it.
narrator: As Manson hones his master plan,
the tapes show how he's conditioned his followers
to commit the ultimate crime
by conquering their deepest fears
of death.
-There is no death.
There's no such thing. When you die,
you die with the thoughts that you have in your head.
- Their reality was such that oh,
you know, death was no big deal.
- When somebody needs to be killed,
there's no wrong.
You do it.
And then you move on.
- Manson had weaponized his followers
to use--like a knife,
like a gun,
like a rope,
to kill the people that he had targeted.
narrator: Manson has trained his Family
to be able to kill for him.
But are they ready to really do it?
It's time to find out.
-Gary Hinman had his ear chopped off...
along with being killed and stabbed and
tortured...
everything else he had done to him.
- We'd been to Gary's house
you know, several times.
He lived in Topanga Canyon.
narrator: Gary Hinman has sold Bobby Beausoleil some drugs.
Beausoleil sells them on
but his buyers think the drugs are bad.
Beausoleil needs the money back.
- So, uh, Bobby was driven over there
to make it right
with two girls that knew Gary very well.
In fact I think he had slept with both of them.
Susan Atkins
and Mary Brunner.
- Hinman denies he did anything wrong.
He doesn't have any money, he swears by it.
But he's getting loud, he's getting angry.
- The women get on the phone with Manson
and tell him what's going on
and Manson decides
that now he has to ride in again
and solve the situation.
- Charlie gets a samurai sword.
He takes the sword to the house.
- Once you show up with a sword,
things will not end well.
- Manson makes a swipe.
He made a slice from the ear down to the face.
It was bleeding a lot.
- Pretty much what he's telling Beausoleil
is, "Come on.
You know what you have to do."
- Bobby Beausoleil takes one of the cars
and leaves the area.
Beausoleil is found in the car, asleep,
arrested, charged with the crime
of killing Gary Hinman.
Manson gets a call letting him know
that Beausoleil has been arrested,
and this is where the chaos really sets in.
- This is when things start getting really dire.
I mean, really murderous.
narrator: Manson's Family are now murderers
and, it seems, ready to give up everything for him.
It's time to put his master plan into action.
The Helter Skelter race war won't start on its own.
But his family can start it for him,
and he knows just where and how
he wants them to do it.
It has taken over two years,
but he has created an army of followers
ready to kill to please their master.
On the evening of August 8, 1969,
Charles Manson selects his most trusted
for a mission that will haunt U.S. history.
- Manson told his followers
that this would be the ignition point
for Helter Skelter.
narrator: Charles "Tex" Watson,
23-year-old ex-high school football star.
Patricia Krenwinkle,
21, a onetime church choir member.
And Susan Atkins,
also 21,
a former Girl Scout.
They'll be driven to the onetime home
of Terry Melcher,
the man who rejected Manson for a record deal:
10050 Cielo Drive.
Coming up
on "Inside the Manson Cult"...
Manson brings terror to Tinseltown...
- The gore. The blood.
This was what Charles Manson wanted.
narrator: And the threat of more murder to come
on the lost tapes.
- If you had to kill more, you'd kill more?
- Mm-hmm.
- Whatever we have to do. - Whatever.
- We leave our house open to the soul.
narrator: Charles Manson has turned
his young followers...
- We're always ready.
narrator: Into killers.
- There is a deed to be done.
There is something that has to be taken care of here.
narrator: The murder spree has begun.
-When somebody needs to be killed,
there's no wrong.
You do it.
woman on radio: Man down, man down,
at 10050 Cielo Drive, over.
- August 9, 1969.
9:00 a.m.
Bob Burbridge is a 25-year-old cop on patrol
for the LAPD.
- Well, I just got out of roll call
at West Los Angeles Police Station
and the call was a man down call,
a call of a drunk or it could be a dead body.
So I rolled on the call...
- We're turning onto Cielo Drive.
This is the way I came up on that day.
We're approaching the driveway going up to the mansion,
the Sharon Tate mansion.
As soon as I went through the gate,
I discovered a body in a white car.
I looked on the lawn,
and there were two more bodies laying on the lawn.
We decided that there might be a sniper involved,
so we asked one of the policemen
to go get a shotgun
to cover us while we went
running across this open area to the house.
narrator: By the summer of 1969,
Terry Melcher
had moved out of the Cielo Drive house.
- Manson knew pretty damn well
that Terry Melcher no longer lived there.
What you have here is you have a resonance--
it's a symbolic resonance.
And there's gonna be revenge
on whoever is there: men, women, children.
It didn't really matter.
narrator: The people now living at 10050 Cielo Drive
are Hollywood director Roman Polanski
and his wife,
Sharon Tate.
- Sharon Tate was a rising young movie actress.
She had not starred in any A movies
but she was certainly headed in that direction.
narrator: Polanski is in London working on a movie.
But Tate is at home with friends.
♪
Three of Charles Manson's most trusted followers
had paid them a visit.
♪
Charles "Tex" Watson,
Patricia Krenwinkle,
and Susan Atkins.
The LAPD is just about to find out
what horrors they had inflicted
inside the house.
- We got to the living room.
We saw two more bodies--
towels over their head
and a rope wrapped around both of their necks.
One of them was Sharon Tate.
She was obviously eight to nine months pregnant.
man's voice: A movie actress and four
of her friends were murdered.
And the circumstances were lurid.
- I just remember she was the most beautiful thing
I've ever seen.
And there was blood all over her and...
it was awful.
It was just awful.
I--I hate to even think about it.
- Identification of the persons are as follows:
Sharon Polanski,
Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger...
- Jay Sebring was an internationally famous
hairstylist.
Abigail Folger was the heiress
for the Folger coffee fortune.
Wojciech Frykowski was good friends with Roman Polanski.
Steven Parent had just been there to visit the caretaker.
The victims suffered 102 stab wounds.
Three of the victims were shot.
One of the victims was pounded
on his head with a gun butt.
Sharon Tate was hung from a high beam
going across the living room ceiling.
- The Manson followers, they leave "pig" scrawled in blood
to try to convince investigators
that the Black Panthers had done this.
The Panthers call police officers pigs
because they're trying to
dehumanize law enforcement
in the same way they argue law enforcement
has dehumanized black people.
- The gore. The blood.
Manson told his followers
that this would be the ignition point
for Helter Skelter.
- The revolution is waiting for a spark.
Everybody's ready.
Everybody's got their-- their guns together.
- All right, this is beautiful.
Okay, you'll be able to...
You have to have this thing to where
it just slides right out with your own motion.
- Everybody's waiting for somebody
to...
have enough love
to start it.
narrator: Not content with one bloodbath,
on the following night
Manson decides that the killing spree
must continue.
- The Family drove around Los Angeles county
for 4 1/2 hours
looking at random for people to murder.
Then Manson started giving
more specific directions,
and they ended up at the LaBianca house
at 3301 Waverly Drive.
narrator: The house belongs to supermarket owner
Leno LaBianca
and his wife, Rosemary.
♪
- He said, "Don't move. This is just a robbery."
He assured them that
he wasn't going to hurt them.
♪
He took Rosemary LaBianca's wallet
because he wanted to have it planted in a black area
and he wanted a black person to find the wallet
and use the credit cards
and get blamed for the murders.
♪
He said, "Don't let them know that you're gonna kill them."
♪
- In a personality-driven cult,
whatever the leader says is right is right,
and whatever the leader says is wrong is wrong.
His ideas,
his prescriptions
are absolute
and must be accepted without question.
- No "why?"
We never ask why.
- Mm-hmm.
- Whatever we have to do. - Whatever.
- We leave our house open to the soul.
We leave our mind open.
- In the LaBianca house,
above the inside of the front door
is written the word "rise."
On the living room wall
in Leno LaBianca's blood
is written "death to pigs."
- Well, that was the whole point of it.
Staging the murder scene the way it was staged
was so that it would be believed that
this was a race war.
That this was the disenfranchised
lashing out at the rich and the privileged.
- And it's the people that will cause a revolution.
And it's the people that will cause a change
in the country.
- And on the refrigerator at the LaBiancas
in Leno LaBianca's blood
is written the words "Helter Skelter."
narrator: Coming up on "Inside the Manson Cult,"
news of the murders spreads through The Family...
- Tex tells me, "I did this.
Charlie told me to."
They were almost like lethal.
They didn't seem to have any remorse.
narrator: And a new member
shares an extraordinary confession
for the first time.
- One of the girls came up to me and said
"We want you to go to the courthouse and...
Kill the judge."
Male announcer: The latest murders were discovered
during the night.
Leno LaBianca, a supermarket owner,
and his wife had both been stabbed to death,
repeated stab wounds.
- It was just pandemonium, in Los Angeles especially.
People were so scared
that gun sales went up tremendously.
- People are buying extra locks on their doors.
Entertainers out there are hiring bodyguards
to be--to be with them,
you know, 24/7.
So it put the fear of God in them.
- Charles Manson accomplished his goal
of terrorizing Los Angeles.
No one was safe.
narrator: Back at Spahn Ranch,
news of the murders spread through The Family.
- Tex tells me, "I did this.
Charlie told me to."
Patty said that she had stabbed somebody
and at first, you know, it was hard
but then it got to be more fun.
They were almost like boastful
or gleeful.
I mean, it's like they...
they didn't seem to have any remorse.
- Despite the violence and the brutality
of these murders,
the people that had committed them
of this following
were still very proud of what they had done.
For them, it was a way to sort of say,
"Hey, look at what I did.
This is how loyal I am for Charlie."
narrator: For the first time in decades,
Catherine Share,
known in The Family as Gypsy,
sets eyes on her younger self.
She was filmed shortly after the Tate murders.
- Mm-hmm.
- Did I ever think of her baby?
I've pictured her pregnant.
Yeah.
No, I've--I've only pictured her pregnant.
That's the only way I can picture her.
I was so cut off that I couldn't feel...
what I should have felt for another pregnant woman
and her child.
And it's very disturbing to watch me
put that out.
- The baby?
- No, I picture Sharon Tate pregnant at times. Yeah.
Anybody watching this would think I was a monster.
- I didn't know her.
I never met her.
How can you tell what's in a picture?
It's not even living.
And there was part of me
that still believed that he had all the answers
and he was the one.
There was another part of me
that was starting to know better.
But I was keeping it
just deep down inside.
Because if I showed it,
my life would be in danger.
narrator: While Manson plots his next move,
the cops are fumbling their investigation.
- The police had no idea
who committed these murders.
They had one team working on
the Tate murders,
and another team working on the LaBianca murders.
- They didn't think these cases, ah, were related,
you know, at all.
I mean, this is obvious to me.
Here's the signature.
Here's the symbolism of this.
What are the probability
that someone else is perpetrating the same crime,
the same way?
♪
narrator: As the investigation stumbles along,
Manson leads his followers to the desert
to hide out from the Helter Skelter race war
he still insists is coming.
♪
But then things start to go wrong.
- Charlie decided that he was gonna burn up an earth-mover.
Not a very swift move when you,
when you want to hide.
- I was washing my hair.
- Get your hands up!
Everybody up, turn around!
- And I had a gun pointing at me,
"You're under arrest."
- Quiet, give me your other hand.
I said move!
- Charlie disappeared.
Just--
You know, he made himself invisible.
-Get up! Get up!
- So the police found Charlie
under the sink cupboard.
♪
narrator: To The Family's relief,
the cops aren't hunting for the Tate
and LaBianca killers.
They're looking for the people who burnt the earth-mover.
- We got arrested for vandalizing
government property.
♪
narrator: The police have no idea
that they have America's most wanted killers
in their care.
Coming up,
exclusive lost tape footage with the prisoner
who blows the Sharon Tate murder case
wide open.
- She told me
she just kept stabbing her until she stopped screaming.
narrator: And shocking evidence
of the power Charles Manson
has over his followers.
- I'm ready to die for Charlie.
I'm ready to die.
narrator: Charles Manson
and some of his most faithful followers
are in jail after burning an earth-mover.
But they also just may be getting away with murder.
- It wasn't until Susan Atkins
got transferred
to Los Angeles County Jail Sybil Brand
that she started talking to her cellmate
about Charlie, and, you know,
Helter Skelter.
narrator: Susan Atkins, known in The Family as Sadie,
was at the Hinman murder
and also at the Tate mansion on Cielo Drive.
- Susan Atkins came from a, uh, middle-class family.
Unfortunately her mother died at a very, very young age,
which devastated her.
She wasn't getting the attention anymore
from the mother who she loved, she loved dearly
and she sought out others
to get some type of attention.
narrator: While in jail,
Atkins latches onto cellmate Ronnie Howard.
- Roll 159.
What is your name?
- My name is Ronnie Howard.
narrator: And the lost tapes reveal how Atkins
unwittingly gives the game away.
- She was telling me about
different things that
she thought would shock me.
And I told her, "Nothing shocks me."
And she said, "Well, I think I can tell you
a few things that would shock you."
- She confessed to Ronnie Howard
about her participation
and Charles Manson's participation
in these murders.
- I asked her, "If you were really there,"
I said, "Who really killed Sharon Tate?"
And she told me
that she killed Sharon Tate.
She said she was the one that stabbed her.
Every time she screamed she'd stab her again and...
she just kept stabbing her until she stopped screaming.
And she said it sent
a hot rush all the way through her body.
And she told me that
to stab somebody
is better than having a climax.
But she--she told me that
the future murders would be more gruesome.
They wanted to do something to really shock the world.
A few of them were celebrities.
- Which celebrities were they going to kill?
- Steve McQueen.
Tom Jones.
Frank Sinatra.
Liz Taylor.
♪
- Ronnie Howard
called LAPD and said, "Hey,
this is what this woman has told us,"
and that broke the case.
narrator: On December 9, 1969,
the charge against Manson is changed from arson
to first-degree murder.
Male announcer: A wandering band
of members of a so-called religious cult
with a leader they call Jesus
has had three of its followers arrested
in the investigation of the murder of Sharon Tate
and six others.
narrator: But Manson's arrest for the murders
does not signal the end of his Family.
In fact, it gains a new member
at a crucial time.
- I walked away from my house and everything that was in it.
Just...away.
And, uh, went to the ranch.
narrator: 24-year-old Aesop Aquarian
is a musician and aspiring actor.
The lost tapes show him playing guitar
with the Family just days after the murder charge
is filed.
- I was, "part of The Family."
I was living on the ranch, working the ranch.
I was taking care of the girls,
I was driving the girls,
I was making sure they were safe.
And the love that was there was...
undeniable, anybody who came on the ranch
even for a second,
you know, caught the love that we had.
- Even when he was in jail,
Charlie was still able to manipulate
and have power and control over his followers.
narrator: New recruit Aquarian
can see firsthand how Manson's power
is getting, if anything, stronger.
- These girls loved Charlie so much
that they literally
would do anything for him.
Literally would do anything for him.
- Whenever we need to,
we respond.
We respond with our knives.
We respond with whatever we have.
narrator: Among Manson's most loyal disciples
on the outside
are Nancy Pitman, known as Brenda,
Lynette Fromme, known as Squeaky,
and Sandra Goode, known as Sandy.
- We could respond so quickly.
Teeth... - Anything.
Whatever. Whatever's at hand.
Because we are animals.
- We are.
- And I know that if they
ever laid a finger on Charlie,
if we were unarmed, we would
chew their necks off,
anything. Claw their eyes out.
And they know it.
- Those members that stayed
to the very end with Charles Manson
were in love with him.
- N-88!
- The idea that they might imagine
another life did not occur to them.
- I'm ready to die for Charlie.
He's ready to die for me.
He has died for me.
I'm ready to die.
I'm ready to die for-- to protect my own.
narrator: The Manson trial begins on July 24, 1970.
- I have no, uh, absolute knowledge,
but I don't think any case in history
has received this much pre-trial publicity
throughout the world.
narrator: Stephen Kay
was a rookie prosecutor working on the case.
- At age 27, I had been assigned
to be a prosecutor on
what was then considered the crime of the century.
narrator: Kay's job will be tough.
- Manson left no fingerprints at the locations.
There was nothing at the scene
of the crimes to tie Manson into the crime
so it was all testimony.
- So what basically had to be proved
was that Charlie had manipulated his followers
so much that he himself was culpable of these murders.
man: You want Mr. Kanarek
to challenge the jurors or are you ready to accept
anyone that's put in the box?
- You've already tried the case.
narrator: To bring Manson down,
the prosecution needs someone on the inside
to turn against him.
But getting a Family member to break ranks
will be no easy task.
- In the visiting room he said to a Family member,
"If Gypsy tries to get away,
"I want you to...
"tie her behind a car
"and drag her slowly
"back to the ranch. Don't kill her,
but you can get close."
And then he looked at me and said,
"Are you going anywhere?"
And I said, "No."
narrator: Another potential witness is Dianne Lake,
known in The Family as Snake.
She's now 16.
Still under Manson's control,
Lake has kept her true identity hidden
from the prison authorities...
Until now.
- They sent us to testify in front of the Grand Jury
and that's when I finally felt safe enough
to say...
"My name is Dianne Lake.
I'm 16, and I want my mommy."
narrator: But after two years of near-daily LSD use
Lake is in no position to testify.
Diagnosed with schizophrenia,
she's sent for emergency psychiatric treatment.
- They committed me to 90 days observation
at Patton State Hospital.
And then the 90 days turned into nine months.
It was like he was in my head
telling me,
"Turn left. Turn right."
You know, "Turn the light off."
"Don't say that" or "Don't talk to that person."
There was one officer in particular that really
treated me with--with respect
and like a tenderness.
He made me feel safe
enough to start telling...
telling the truth.
- Sandy, Brenda, Squeaky, four, take one, roll 209.
narrator: As Lake prepares to testify against Manson
the tapes reveals what her former friends think of her.
-She's a very young girl,
and by the time the, the DAs had gotten through with her
she was speaking their language.
She's just like a baby.
She can be molded whatever way
anyone chooses to mold her.
- I'm sure that's what they believed, you know,
that I had been, uh, swallowed up.
You know, that I was being manipulated
by the courts.
narrator: The big question is:
will Lake be brave enough to testify?
- Snitches will be taken care of.
- How?
-Oh, that's to be seen.
That's to be seen.
narrator: Still to come on "Inside the Manson Cult,"
secretly filmed footage of Manson in prison...
- We are sneaking
in the county jail.
Looking under the door to see if the man is there.
- He's telling us to break him out.
narrator: And an extraordinary command
to young member of the cult:
Kill the judge.
- I felt my jaw drop
to the ground.
narrator: Charles Manson is on trial
for multiple murders.
Teenage cult member Dianne Lake
might be key to convicting him
if she can escape his control.
- It was like he was in my head.
narrator: A unique moment from the lost tapes
shows just how hard that's going to be.
Secretly, the filmmaker smuggles a camera
into Manson's jail cell.
And the cult leader takes his chance
to speak directly to his followers.
- We are sneaking in the county jail.
Looking under the door to see if the man is there.
Sneaking like little children out of town.
Sneaking...
Sneaking all around
the courthouse.
- He's programming us.
Telling us what to do.
- Everything is sneaky up around Sneakyville.
- He was telling us to break him out
of jail.
To learn where the vents are,
learn how to get in and out of the building
and learn how to set him free.
- You gotta sneak to get to the truth.
The truth is condemned.
The truth is in the gas chamber.
- Manson had a very powerful personality.
When he was in a room, you could almost feel
the electricity pouring off of him.
And he would kind of command the room.
Manson one time came into court,
and he had taken a razor blade
and put an X on his forehead.
And the next day, the girls all had Xs on their foreheads.
They said they were going to X themselves out of society.
- Some of the behaviors that the girls exhibited
during the trials really was frightening.
Because you can see that despite being back in reality
back in society,
they're still totally under Charlie's spell.
narrator: The tapes show how Manson's followers
may be ready to threaten anyone
involved in the prosecution.
- Sandy, Brenda, Squeaky.
- Ask me a question.
- What if they execute Charlie?
- Well, they'll have to contend with us.
narrator: Just how far the cult is prepared to go
is made frighteningly clear
to new member Aesop Aquarian.
- One of the girls came up to me and said
"We've got to get Charlie out.
"We want you to," uh...
"To go the courthouse and...
Kill the judge."
I felt my jaw drop to the ground.
"You want me to what?"
Said, "We want you to kill the judge."
"That'll show them that we're serious
and that'll get Charlie out."
"Are you for real?"
And she said, "Yeah."
My first thought was,
"What the hell am I doing here?"
I don't think that was the next day that I left
but it could have been.
♪
narrator: Manson's power over his followers
may be giving Dianne Lake second thoughts.
- It was terrifying,
the idea of going by the girls
and testifying against them.
And I was always afraid that I was going to have
mind control by Charlie again.
That was a big fear.
And also that fear of wanting that...
you know, that original feeling
of love and adoration from him.
I thought that was going to be a weakness.
- The truth has not been in your courtrooms.
Never has been in your courtrooms.
All you have is confusion in your courtroom.
- We went in, like, the back door,
and there was still a lot of press
but they kind of snuck me in.
- You can't prove anything
that happened yesterday.
Now is the only thing that's real.
- The girls were outside the Hall of Justice.
I was scared.
- We were on pins and needles.
We didn't know how the jury was gonna respond
to Dianne Lake.
We felt that she had been a great witness.
Believable, but...
she had spent eight months in a mental hospital.
We didn't know what the jury was going to do.
narrator: Still to come on "Inside the Manson Cult"...
- He's waiting in a cage.
He's looking down like I'm one of his disciples.
narrator: An astonishing revelation...
- I don't believe Charlie believed in Helter Skelter.
It was just a crazy story.
narrator: One of Charles Manson's
earliest converts
has testified against the man she loved.
- It was terrifying,
going by the girls
and testifying against them.
narrator: Time for the jury to decide.
man: The jury, hearing the charges
against Charles Manson and three girl members
of his so-called Family
brought in its verdict this afternoon.
All were found guilty of murder in the first degree.
narrator: The trial has lasted seven months
and is, at the time, the most expensive
in U.S. criminal history.
The jury takes ten days to reach a verdict.
man: Manson then shouted at the jurors,
"You're all guilty!"
narrator: On Monday, March 29, 1971,
Manson is sentenced to die
for the murder spree that shocked the world.
Leslie Van Houten,
Susan Atkins,
and Patricia Krenwinkle
will also be given the death sentence.
- I couldn't understand how they could
be so happy
and cheerful when they were facing the death penalty.
It would be years later that I would see that look
in other eyes of cult followers
and I would realize
this is the way that people look
when they're under undue influence
and they're not thinking for themselves.
♪
narrator: In 1972,
Charles Manson and his three female accomplices
have their death sentences commuted to life in prison
when California temporarily abolishes the death penalty.
- After Charlie Manson
was locked away for life,
he became the most popular prison inmate
in the United States
measured by the amount of fan mail
that he received.
For a lot of young people,
he was like the ultimate outlaw,
the counterculture icon...
And he continued to live on in that sense
and continued to have a cult following
in the broader population.
- I think within the psychodrama of his own mind
Manson tapped into this idea
of a fear of black-led racial violence.
And I think that idea
was something that is a
carry-over from the '60s
even to this day.
- Charlie Manson wanted to be rich and famous.
When he couldn't do it in the music business,
he figured out another way to be famous.
- Manson frequently said
he wanted to be bigger than the Beatles.
And it could be argued
that he did have even more of an impact
than the Beatles on our lives,
on American culture.
It did something to us.
We're no longer as free and able to just...
think that we're safe in our homes.
- Roll N-72, scene four girls A, take one.
narrator: Over the years, many of Manson's followers
remained devoted to their Messiah.
- Again and again I've gotta pay for your sins.
I've been laying up here paying for your sins
for 2,000 years.
narrator: Others managed to break free.
- Do I feel that Charlie Manson conned me?
As time went on, absolutely.
Charlie had learned to be a very good manipulator.
A shark, it will eat whatever to survive.
And it will kill whatever to survive.
- I lost some innocence for sure.
But I--I survived
and I thrived,
and, um, I'm very thankful for that.
narrator: In the space of two years,
Manson brainwashed dozens of followers
and even convinced some to kill for him.
Behind it all lay his twisted world view,
the Helter Skelter race war.
But did Manson ever truly believe in this philosophy
or did he simply use it
to frighten and control The Family?
In 1979,
when FBI profiler John Douglas
met Charles Manson in prison,
they had a revealing exchange.
- He's waiting in a cage.
He's looking down,
he's looking down like I'm one of his disciples.
Like, you know.
- You gotta sneak to get to the truth.
The truth is condemned.
The truth is in the gas chamber.
- At the end of the day, I don't believe Charlie
believed in Helter Skelter
at all.
It was just a crazy story.
And I didn't believe it,
I told him he didn't believe it,
and he laughed
when I told him, "I don't believe your BS here, Charlie,
"Come on, man.
You're just into sex, drugs, and rock and roll."
- And he was nodding his head, he was smiling,
laughing, you know.
So.
- ♪ Pretty girl
♪ Pretty, pretty girl
♪ Cease to exist
♪ Just come and say you love me ♪
♪ Give up your world
♪ Come on, you could be
♪ I'm your kind
♪ Oh your kind
♪ And I can see
- Um, as far as these things go, um...
You have to make love with it.
- ♪ Walk on, walk on
♪ I love you, pretty girl
♪ My life is yours
♪ And you can have my world
♪ Never had a lesson
♪ I ever learned
♪ But I know
♪ We all get our turn
♪ I love you
♪ Never learn
♪ Not to love you
♪ Submission is a gift
♪ Go on, give it to your brother ♪
♪ Love and understanding
♪ Is for one another
♪ I'm your kind
♪ I'm your brother
♪ I never had a lesson
♪ I ever learned
♪ But I know we all
♪ Get our turn
♪ And I love you
♪ Never learn
♪ Not to love you
♪ Never learn not to love you ♪
♪ Never learn
♪ Not to love you
Thanks for watching.
And here are a few more shows to check out from Fox.
Buckle up, Buttercup.
It's real, and it pulls people together.
♪ We're breaking waves♪
♪ Shooting stars♪
♪ We live for glory not forever♪
Touchdown!
♪ Reach out♪
- ♪ Make this right here right now♪
♪ Stand up♪
♪ Here right now♪
That sounds like fun.