Helter Skelter

“It was so quiet, one of the killers would later say, you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon.”

Before the murders started, Manson and his followers would go out on what they called “creepy crawlies”—break-ins of strangers’ homes in which they’d subtly rearrange their belongings. In starting his book with this line, Bugliosi suggests that Manson turned an era of silence and trust into one of paranoia and fear.

“In literature a murder scene is often likened to a picture puzzle. If one is patient and keeps trying, eventually the pieces will fit into place. Veteran policemen know otherwise […] some pieces will always be missing.”

The Manson killers left evidence scattered all over Los Angeles county. It was to be found and catalogued over the course of months. Additionally, the Family itself was a diffuse organization which could not internally distinguish between petty crimes and more serious ones.

“The curious thing: as in the Tate homicides, a message had been left at the scene. On the wall in the living room, not far from Hinman’s body, were the words POLITICAL PIGGY, printed in the victim's own blood.”

The unique gruesomeness of the murders defined the case. Manson, in his deranged cosmology, believed that words like “PIG” and “RISE” would lead investigators to automatically pin these crimes on the Black Panthers, though that group was never in contention as suspects.