Warner Brothers: Helter Skelter (1976) Story of The Charles Manson Family

Source:Warner Brothers– Looks like part of the filming of the 1976 Helter Skelter movie.

Source:The Daily Press 

“Helter Skelter – Trailer”

From Warner Brothers

“The investigation and trial of the horrific Tate-LaBianca mass murders orchestrated by the psychotic pseudo-hippie cult leader, Charles Manson.”

Source:IMDB– “Helter Skelter: (TV Mini-Series 1976”

From IMDB

In 1976 there was a two-part TV mini-series I believe on CBS about the Manson Crime Family from the late 1960s and even after their leader Charles Manson was arrested in late 1969 for his role in the Tate murders and other murders during the Manson Family murder spree from the summer of 1969, a summer Los Angeles will never forget.

The Manson Family was still in business so to speak in the early 1970s and even up to 1975 with Lynette Squeaky Frohm’s attempt to assassinate President Gerald Ford.

And this mini-series was about the murders of the Manson Family in the Summer of 1969 and other business about the Manson Family. It was not a religious cult, there was some spirituality in it. But it was basically about a petty thief, pimp, career criminal who was never very good at staying out of prison. Who would get released from prison for the last time in the mid 1960s and work his way to the San Francisco area, pick up some girls in their late teens early 20s who ran away from home.

These were young adults late teens for the most part who seemed somewhat lost and build a family made up of high school and college dropouts. People that they believed were kissed off from society and Charlie Manson finally found a group of people who seemed like him, somewhat lost in the World. That didn’t seem to fit in with mainstream society and he founded his soldiers that would take out their anger against mainstream society.

Charlie Manson wasn’t intelligent in the sense that he was well-educated, he didn’t get through high school or make it to high school. He grew up in prison basically, in juvenile hall and probably didn’t spend much time in school there. He never knew his father and his mother was a prostitute who didn’t spend much time with her son and Charlie got moved around a lot as a kid. And probably didn’t feel very loved, as an FBI profiler once said about Manson on NBC Dateline: “Charlie Manson is an example of what happens when we don’t raise our kids well”.

Society in a sense has some blame here for creating Charlie Manson. Not to excuse Manson because he’s exactly where he belongs and will and should never leave prison. But society isn’t innocent here in the creation of Charlie Manson.

And what Manson had in his crime family were the people who would take out revenge for him against society: “If you were part of the establishment and successful in life, living in the Los Angeles area and they knew about you, you were a target of the Manson Family”. To paraphrase Vince Bugliosi who prosecuted the Manson Family. Charlie wasn’t stupid but he wasn’t educated either.

Charlie Manson had talent to play and write music, but also to read people and know how they work and how he could work them up to the point where he could make people kill for him, Charles Watson, Patricia Krenwenkell, Leslie Van Houten, Susan Atkins and others. And they found their targets in actress Sharon Tate, Karen Folger and others and killed them.

The Manson Family murders were some of the worst murders ever committed. Adolph Hitler, Saddam Hussein would’ve been proud of these murders.

The Manson victims literally being stabbed and hanged to death in their own homes and their blood being spread around their homes. The Manson Family literally left their mark and were begging for the death penalty with their murders. And we’re given the death penalty before the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty in I believe 1973. The only reason why these serial murderers are alive today. Their lives being spared something they didn’t do for their victims and they are the poster children for why we need to raise our kids well.

And the Manson Crime Family had to be stopped for them to pay their debt to society. But to put them out of business so they couldn’t strike again.

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Mike Atkinson: Stan Atkinson- 1976 Interview of Susan Atkins

Source:Mike Atkinson– Stan Atkinson, interviewing convicted murderer and Manson Family soldier Susan Atkins in 1976.

Source:The Daily Press 

“Stan Atkinson interviews Susan Atkins”

From Mike Atkinson 

KCRA-TV News (Sacramento, California) journalist Stan Atkinson interviewing Susan Atkins who was one of Charles Manson’s solders in his Manson Family in the 1960s, which was really a crime family, as well as a cult.

Source:Stan Atkinson– interviewing Manson Family solider Susan Atkins in 1976.

Susan Atkins represents what can happen when people who are not sure where they are going in life, perhaps somewhat lost and need to and is term is used over and over, but to find themselves. Perhaps take a trip to Europe after high school or something. The way Susan Atkins life turned out, probably doesn’t happen that way if she never meets Charlie Manson.

Not to excuse Susan’s role in the vicious crimes of Sharon Tate and others, because she’s clearly responsible for her actions in these crimes. But she represents the damage that Manson not only did by ordering all of these murders, but the damage he did to his followers.

Charlie Manson, picked up all of these young adults were somewhat lost and didn’t feel needed and felt unwanted and assembling them into his cult, what I call the Manson Crime Family. That Charlie Manson assembled in the late 1960s, starting in the Bay Area and moving down to the Los Angeles Area.

Susan, was one of the Manson Family members that managed to make a life for herself behind bars. And hopefully her criminal career would’ve been over had she ever been released from prison. She was sentenced to life and died in prison in 2009.

And to some extent Susan’s life in prison sparked a debate in whether or not she, Pat Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, should ever be paroled or not. Me personally I don’t believe that convicted murderers, especially serial murderers, should ever be paroled. That they should be officially held responsible for the crimes they committed. Which is what you get with life sentences, because their victims will never recover from their crimes and it’s that simple.

But these three women do represent the potential of prison rehabilitation not just for lifers, but for inmates who will eventually be released from prison. The lives of some of the Manson Family members, except for their leader and perhaps Tex Watson, is a damn shame. Because some of these people are very intelligent, articulate and had a lot of potential that they could see come to life. Had they not ended up part of the Manson Family and ended up going to college, getting educated and living a productive life instead.

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