RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Charles Manson has died. He was 83 years old. He was still a prison inmate, still one of the most notorious killers in American history. Manson was a cult leader who orchestrated the murders of seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate who was pregnant at the time. As NPR's Ina Jaffe reports, the crimes of the so-called Manson family captivated the country.
INA JAFFE, BYLINE: Charles Manson has been a brand-name criminal for decades. He's been the subject of more than 30 books. His likeness with its Svengali-like stare can still be found on T-shirts, coffee mugs, even mouse pads. It all began in August of 1969 when Manson's followers butchered total strangers for no other reason than to advance his bizarre plot. He called it Helter Skelter after the Beatles song. He wanted to murder wealthy white people, blame the crimes on blacks and start a race war. When it was over, Manson himself would take over as ruler.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
VINCENT BUGLIOSI: The murders were probably the most bizarre in the recorded annals of American crime...
JAFFE: ...Said the late Vincent Bugliosi who prosecuted the case. He spoke to NPR in 1994.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
BUGLIOSI: The very thought of young women dressed in black, armed with sharp knives, entering the homes of total strangers in the middle of the night is really so horrendous a thought that it's difficult to contemplate a thought like that.
JAFFE: The young women he spoke of were Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins. They were joined by Charles Watson, known as Tex. They broke into the Hollywood Hills home of film director Roman Polanski. He was out of town, but they killed everyone who was there - his pregnant wife Sharon Tate as well as Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Parent. The next night, Manson drove the group to the home of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary. His followers broke in and murdered the couple. In both houses, the killers used the victim's blood to write pig and Helter Skelter on walls and doors.
LINDA DEUTSCH: People have said that it was the end of the '60s.
JAFFE: That's Linda Deutsch who covered the Manson family trial for the Associated Press.
DEUTSCH: Because up until then, we were watching this kind of idyllic situation develop with the hippies and the young people. And two years before was the Summer of Love in San Francisco.
JAFFE: But it was clear that Manson didn't think of himself or his followers as flower children. In a 1973 documentary, he described the family more like outcasts who made their own reality.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MANSON")
CHARLES MANSON: The people you call my family were people that you didn't want, children that were alongside the road that their parents had kicked out. So I took them to my garbage dump and fed them and taught them that in love there's no wrong. Everything they've done, they've done for love of brother.
JAFFE: Manson was convicted for masterminding the murders. Linda Deutsch says that trial was the craziest one she's seen in her 40 plus years of covering the courts in LA.
DEUTSCH: Manson choreographed the whole thing so that there were scenes every day. The girls who were on trial with him would get up and sing. He would act out and have to be taken out of the courtroom.
JAFFE: Manson continued to cause trouble behind bars. He had more than 100 infractions including assault, threatening guards, possessing a weapon and dealing drugs. In fact, none of the people convicted in the Tate and LaBianca murders has ever been released from prison. One, Susan Atkins, died of cancer in 2009. Ina Jaffe, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE SEVEN MILE JOURNEY'S "PASSENGERS LOG, THE UNITY FRACTION") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
