Helter Skelter

One day when I was keeping my youngest grandnephew company, we were watching a YouTube program known as 'Twin Paranormal' with twins and Ryan and River and Wyatt as the ghosthunters. These three men go to and visit haunted houses and places that are kind of famous and try to help and figure out why these entities/demons are still here, and maybe even send them to a better place.

One particular episode these three went to an area that The Manson Family were living and is known to be haunted by the family. After watching this episode, it made me think about the book written by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry "Helter Skelter" The True Story of the Manson Murders". I just finished reading this book and now I am glad my mom did not allow me to read it back in 1976 when I found it when cleaning one day.

This horrendous event of these several murders took place in the year 1969 when I was a mere five-year old child, but for some reason I do kind of remember hearing about these killings on the television news quite a bit along with Vietnam war news and all that occurring over there. Boy, no wonder my parents always seemed to want to send me out to play a lot. Anyhow, this is a book about a very infamous case of a deranged, psychotic man who thought at times that he was Jesus Christ and the leader of the pack who killed several famous people from Sharon Tate, an actress and a few of her friends, as well as another night killing LaBianca and his wife on a second night of terror. In reading this book there two sections of pictures of where the Manson family lived and of the murder scenes too and a second section mainly of the courtroom scenes.

Other than this book there was a movie made of it in, I think, 1976 and my parents watched it and since I was in middle school at time I did see some of it and it was horrifying and once was enough. I remember I could not watch too much of the beginning for that was when the murders were depicted, but the trials scenes were something else, and the Bugliosi's writing in the book was quite visual and the television scenes even after all these years later I can still see Charlie sitting at the defense table and his three girls bounding about right down to the 'x's on their foreheads. During the courtroom accountings and from the investigations they found that Charlie liked and listened to The Beatles and The Beach Boys and wrote his own songs in his own peculiar way with words and how Charlie saw this world.

Vincent Bugliosi is the attorney of record and the co-writer with Curt Gentry in writing this book and putting away Charles Manson for such despicable actions and telling others to do his dirty work. Bugliosi and Gentry are it seems visual writers who let their readers really see the actions even in the footnotes of the book. Bugliosi did mention at the end that if the courts in Manson's younger days listened to him and let him stay in jail and those institutions maybe the Tate and LaBianca murders would never have occurred.

Back to that episode of 'Twin Paranormal' and the reason I read this book in the first place. These three Ryan, River and Wyatt went to a site where they were 'getting to know' certain entities of the Manson family in a cave area and would make utterances like some of the women and Charlie did during the trial at least in the movie almost like talking in tongues or maybe just babbling various nonsensical syllables. Believe it or not one can learn from YouTube even from various kinds of programs that are just to make you think could this really be real. Actually, I believe in ghosts and this particular episode gave me the creeps for if I watched any longer and even Ryan ended this episode early for, they got creeped out thinking that Charlie was not far away for Mr. Charles Milles Manson is really dead now and could be back there with those other entities. I have re-read this essay and it makes sense to me and I hope it makes sense to you. The book "Helter Skelter" is an adult read only and one that would make good reading for criminal law students.