Chapter 28

“Now Is the Time for Helter Skelter”

Charles Manson returned to Spahn Ranch on the morning of Friday, August 8. He quickly learned that Bobby Beausoleil had been arrested earlier that week. Manson was furious. If Beausoleil talked, the police would almost certainly come after him as an accessory in Gary Hinman’s murder. The investigation would undoubtedly lead the police straight back to Spahn Ranch. In either case, the situation looked hopeless for Charles Manson.

While Manson considered what to do, Mary Brunner and Sandy Good drove to a nearby Sears store to purchase a few things with a stolen credit card. The card, however, showed up on a list while they were making their purchases, and both were apprehended after an extended car chase through the streets of the San Fernando Valley. They were booked into custody around 6 PM.

When Brunner and Good did not return as usual, Manson began to worry. After dinner, the Family gathered around a camp-fire. At ten that evening, Manson got a telephone call: it was Sandy Good, informing him of the arrest earlier in the day.

According to his own account, when he hung up the telephone, Manson was “in a rage. I walked away from the buildings, stood beside a tree and pounded my fists against it.… All I could focus on was, ‘What the fuck is happening here? One by one this fucked-up society is stripping my loves from me. I’ll show them! They made animals out of us—I’ll unleash those animals—I’ll give them so much fucking fear the people will be afraid to come out of their houses.…’ Every abuse, every rejection in my entire life flashed before my eyes.”¹

Although things had not been going Manson’s way for several months, by Friday, 8 August, it must have seemed as if his world were falling apart. On that day he found out that Bobby Beausoleil had been arrested for Hinman’s murder—an arrest which he believed would eventually lead the police back to Spahn Ranch. This was followed by the news of Brunner’s and Good’s arrest that evening. Dennis Wilson had rejected him; Terry Melcher had rejected him; Rudi Altobelli had rejected him; the Establishment had rejected him; his Family was on the verge of being destroyed.

Much ink has been spilled on the events of that August weekend, in an attempt to make sense of what surely must rate as one of the most senseless of the twentieth century’s mass murders. The tendency to seek the fantastic, the most bizarre explanation for the Tate-LaBianca murders, flows naturally enough from the very nature of the crimes. It is difficult to assign to such a savage rampage the most logical conclusions, and this difficulty in accepting the obvious has plagued historians of the case for thirty years.

It is apparent that the murders were not planned; these were random acts of violence, undertaken on a criminal whim. And that whim can only have been brought about by the momentous events of Friday, 8 August. Manson’s plans for the future were disrupted; his very freedom was threatened should Beausoleil be traced back to Spahn Ranch. Two of his most ardent disciples were in jail. Manson had been unable to exert any control over the Establishment, and had been rejected by them. Now, he was fast losing control of his own Family. It does not stretch credulity to believe that the resulting murders were as much an attempt by Manson to re-assert his authority over the group at Spahn as they were to instigate a race war.

Manson undoubtedly believed that a race war, Helter Skelter, was indeed on the horizon. He may very well have believed that two nights of murder would help speed the process along. It was also later claimed during the trial by various Family members that a series of crimes, committed in a manner similar to Gary Hinman’s murder—that is, vicious knife wounds, messages left in blood at the scene, the use of the word “Pig” in the phrases—would at least give the police pause that they might have arrested the wrong suspect.

But Manson’s determination to maintain his hold over his followers cannot be underestimated as one of the motives for the crimes which took place. Certainly the very act of committing the various crimes solidified, at least for a time, not only Manson’s position as head of the Family, but the bonds among the Family members themselves. The two nights of murder once again restored Manson to what he perceived as his rightful place: that of leader, of seer, of manipulator, of master over life and death.

Seething with anger over his own tenuous position, and facing not only the months of rejection at the hands of others but the disintegration of his Family, Manson struck out. His target, the residents of 10050 Cielo Drive, represented the establishment in abstract, and, in particular, a substitute for Melcher, Wilson, Altobeli and all of those who had turned their backs on him and ignored their promises to promote Manson and his music.

When Manson returned to his followers, his mood had changed. He began to complain about the establishment. Everyone in Hollywood, he said, was too busy with their own lives to notice what was going on around them. No one was interested in anyone else. No one was interested in Manson anymore. With this, he turned to his followers and declared flatly, “Now is the time for Helter Skelter.”²

Manson pulled Tex Watson, Susan Atkins and Linda Kasabian aside. He told each to get a knife and a change of clothes, and to meet him at the front of the ranch when they were ready. He asked them to dress in dark clothes.³

According to his own account, earlier in the day, Tex Watson had taken a large dose of acid.⁴ He and Susan Atkins also allegedly had their own stash of Methedrine, which they had been snorting for several days.⁵ Prior to Manson’s announcement, Atkins again used the crystal speed. Once he had a moment after receiving his instructions from Manson, Watson, too, went to their stash and snorted Methedrine.⁶ According to Atkins, “We were both stoned, but our senses were keen. We were alert. We knew what we were doing.”⁷

Patricia Krenwinkel was asleep in the children’s trailer, when Manson came in and woke her. “Get up,” he said. “I want you to go somewhere.” On his instructions, she grabbed a knife, and joined Watson and Atkins on the boardwalk in front of the Longhorn Saloon.⁸

On her way to the Saloon, Manson told Kasabian to stop at the bunkhouse to retrieve her California Driver’s License, which he had confiscated when she had joined the Family only a month earlier.

Within fifteen minutes, Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel and Kasabian stood waiting on the boardwalk. Considering this group, Family member Ruth Ann Morehouse later declared that Manson had “sent out the expendables.”⁹

Watson wore black cowboy boots, black jeans and a black velour turtleneck over a white cotton tee shirt. Atkins and Krenwinkel were dressed in blue denim jeans and black tee shirts. Linda Kasabian wore a dark skirt and purple shirt. All the women were barefoot.

They had three knives between them, two Buck knives and a larger kitchen knife with a taped handle. Manson had brought out the .22 caliber Buntline Special, with which he had shot the drug dealer Bernard Crowe just over a month before. Watson had a pair of red-handled bolt cutters and around forty feet of the white nylon three strand rope which Manson had purchased earlier that summer, coiled over his shoulder.

Manson took Watson aside. “I want you to go to that house where Terry Melcher used to live … and totally destroy everyone in that house, as gruesome as you can. Make it a real nice murder, just as bad as you’ve ever seen. And get all their money.”¹⁰ According to Manson, the house was occupied by “some movie stars.”¹¹

Manson was explicit in his instructions. First, he told Watson to cut the telephone lines, so that no one could call for help. Watson was not to use the electronic gate either, even though both men were familiar with its operation, having previously been to 10050 Cielo Drive. Manson feared that there might be some kind of new security alarm. He wanted the bodies mutilated. “Pull out their eyes and hang them on the mirrors!” he exhorted Watson. He also told him to leave messages written in blood.¹² “If you don’t get enough money at the Melcher house,” Manson told Watson, “then go to the house next door, and then to the house after that.…”¹³

“There is no reason to suppose,” writes journalist David Cooper, “that the wily Manson was unaware of what he was doing or of the illegality and commonly accepted immorality of his actions.… Even if Manson’s disciples had become unthinking zombies, brainwashed into automatic obedience to their master’s commands, Manson himself was no zombie incapable of not giving those commands. And Manson, moreover, displayed in all his behavior a scheming canniness and sharp instinct for self-preservation, which are incompatible with the picture of a man who is victim to unshiftable, unalterable intentions.”¹⁴

Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel and Kasabian all climbed into ranch hand Johnny Schwartz’s 1959 white and yellow Ford. Watson drove, although Kasabian had been brought along specifically because she was the only one at the ranch who possessed a valid driver’s license. Instead, she sat in the front passenger seat, with Atkins and Krenwinkel crouched on the rear floor; the back seat had been removed earlier that year to make room for more food on the Family’s garbage runs. Watson had enough self-possession to tell Kasabian that there was a gun in the glove compartment, and that, if they were stopped by the police along the way, she should throw the gun, and all of the knives—which she carried in her lap—out the window.¹⁵ As the car began to drive away, Manson ran up to the open passenger window and leaned in. “Leave a sign,” he told them. “You girls know what to write. Something witchy.” With that, the four drove off into the night.¹⁶