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[indistinct radio chatter]
[eerie music]
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- I was a member of the Manson Family.
- Charlie was permeating my whole being.
- He was alive.
- He was manipulating in a way that no one knew
he was manipulating.
- I don't need to kill anyone!
I think it.
- What was it about Charlie Manson
that made these women give up their names
and their belongings and join his family?
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- I didn't have any family to speak of.
It was pretty torturous, just this loneliness
of not having anybody to ever count on.
- She's exactly the kind of person ISIS looks for,
because she wanted desperately to be part of something.
- He made victims of more than just the people that died.
There are some people you don't have to forgive.
- I never saw fulfillment and happiness
in the people I looked up to.
I'd say meeting Manson saved my life,
my health, my brain,
my emotional health, my mental health,
my physical health.
I'm thankful.
- I have no idea how you could have been
involved in that family and have continued
to believe what Manson said.
- You want to talk about immoral and evil,
go to Hollywood.
We touched it. It needed to be touched.
♪ ♪
- From my perspective, I was looking for a place
to be a part of something bigger than just myself.
- That's a person who is vulnerable,
and that's why a lot of cult leaders
choose young girls.
Dianne was the perfect target.
- It was hard to live with.
I felt this overwhelming guilt,
just guilty by association.
It's just been very cathartic for me to realize
that I was a victim of his manipulation.
- We were all looking for a family
that we related to.
- Squeaky wanted to rebel.
If you've ever been a parent of a child
who's in their teens and they just wanna rebel
and they find the bad boy...
- Charlie, he had what I wanted.
It was amazing to me.
I had tried to kill
the leader... of the country.
- I knew that Charlie put her up to it.
- I've never regretted any of those experiences.
I've been out for almost ten years.
[dramatic music]
- None of the people should ever be paroled.
- These people can't be trusted.
Are they the same people that they were in 1969?
- Everything was about Charlie.
- It was kill or be killed.
- Just because a person kills
does not make them evil and bad.
War is not murder.
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
[foreboding music]
- That summer and what
Charles Manson and the women did,
I mean, it really took
the innocence away from America.
♪ ♪
- In California, five members of a so-called
religious cult including Charles Manson,
the guru or high priest, have been indicted
in the murder of Sharon Tate and six others.
- Charlie Manson hadn't actually picked up a knife
and stabbed anybody.
He ordered them to go do this, and they did.
♪ ♪
- There's nothing about it that isn't
completely heartrending, disgusting,
scary, vicious.
It was meant to be vicious, violent, and vile.
[chilling music]
♪ ♪
- It was a very scary thing
to have these band of hippies kill people.
- The group was broken up last October
when the deputies raided the camp.
Some of the women were nude,
and some wore only bikini bottoms.
- The Manson Family was going to get us.
That became the proverbial bogeyman.
- The women...
- I don't fear for anybody's testimony.
- They didn't show any remorse.
I mean, they just doubled down,
and they wanted to be there for their leader, for Charlie.
I mean, how frightening is that
to the people that are watching this trial?
Female narrator: It was a shocking trial:
Charles Manson and some of his young followers in court
charged with murder and conspiracy
in the brutal deaths of seven people.
- Manson's influence over these women
was so strong that they believed
what they were doing was the right thing.
- I was interviewing someone in prison,
and she said every woman she knew was there
because of a man,
either because she did his dirty work for him
or maybe retribution because he cheated on her.
But it was mainly that they had been
manipulated by men and had found themselves
in prison as a result.
Narrator: In 1969, Charles Manson convinced
a group of very young women to commit crimes
and murder for him.
Why were these women willing to abandon
the lives they had known for a 5'2" ex-con like Manson?
[rock music]
- Everything's got to be in the context of the '60s.
- It was a very different time, yeah.
The country sort of just opened up
partly due to... different drugs, I guess.
- 500,000 of our brothers are killing and dying
in a jungle 10,000 miles away.
- There were all kinds of things happening
on different college campuses.
Many aspects of society were seeing
the disillusion of the system.
- My mother said she considered me more of a sister
in, you know, this counterculture movement
than she did, you know, her daughter.
- It was peace, love.
People were exploring alternative lifestyles.
I was at that right age.
We loved guys who played guitar.
We loved the guys who were sort of brooding
and mysterious.
Everybody was speaking in psychobabble.
[dark music]
narrator: The women who became a part
of Manson's family were between the ages of 13 and 24.
They were orphans, runaways, and rebels.
But what was it about him that attracted them?
♪ ♪
- I'll say anything you want me to say.
Just, you know, give me some rest, you know?
So everybody's very happy now. They got what they wanted.
I just can't even watch myself talking about it.
It's just horrible.
I was born in France.
My mother was taken by an officer
and raped.
She took her own life after the war,
and then I was adopted by American parents.
My mother who adopted me got cancer
and died when I was 16.
She took her own life also,
because she thought she might be a burden.
And then I was estranged from my stepfather.
Basically, I wasn't homeless like under a bridge
or anything like that, but I really didn't have
a place of my own.
It was pretty torturous, you know,
just this loneliness of not having anybody
to ever count on.
- These young women were searching for love.
- They wanted so desperately to be accepted and to be in.
- I was totally looking for that acceptance.
♪ ♪
At the time,
my home life was pretty disorganized.
My dad had always been kind of enamored
with this counterculture movement.
My mom gave up everything for my dad's dream
of dropping out.
We had a big yard sale and moved into a bread truck.
Five of us, you know, three kids and two adults,
and we were supposed to be doing it
with these other members of this commune.
Then when I got to this commune,
the people that were in charge said they were uncomfortable
with my being there
because I was a sexually active
underaged female.
They weren't kicking me out,
but I didn't feel like I belonged.
My parents, they had given me emancipation as a minor.
I had really gotten lost in the weeds,
and so I was looking for a place
to be a part of something.
- When my parents dropped out, I was 13.
- You've got a combination of elements:
someone who wants to be independent,
someone who may even think they can handle independence,
but who is entirely emotionally ill-prepared.
That's a person who is vulnerable.
[dramatic music]
- I was 18, and then my dad threw me out.
We had started to argue.
He was... he just didn't want
the interaction with me.
It wasn't that I was contesting all the time.
It was that I wanted to know and he didn't have answers.
And he thought he should have all the answers, I guess.
I felt like I had to go out and find out myself.
♪ ♪
My father and I had argued about
just a definition of a word or something,
something really silly.
And he said, "You get out of this house
and never come back."
I took him at his word.
I did cry, because I just thought,
"Well, that's pretty final."
- They were, many of them, in middle-class families
where they just wanted to rebel.
And if you've ever been a parent of a child
who's in their teens,
you can understand that to an extent.
- Lynn's father was an aeronautical engineer
from Southern California.
My stepfather was an aeronautical engineer.
We had a lot of similarities in my upbringing,
but I'd say I was more upper middle class.
I mean, we would be in the society column
at Christmastime, looking pretty and photogenic.
Like, "Ooh, beautiful, beautiful American family."
I had so many respiratory things going on,
two tracheotomies by the time I was one.
My mother did not want me
to survive the many operations I had.
I know that for a fact. She conveyed it daily.
I was 24 years old,
and I had learning disabilities.
I never saw fulfillment and happiness
in, you know, the people I looked up to.
None of them were happy.
Many of them were alcoholics.
Narrator: It was in the fall of 1967
when many of the women met Manson for the first time.
- We were all looking for a family, I think.
We were all looking for a family
that we related to.
- If you couple the desire for inclusion
with a fear of rejection,
you can get people to do almost anything.
And it's a really dangerous thing
when you've got someone who knows how to do that.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- Charlie held all the cards.
- I really, truly believed that my survival
was going to be to stay with Charlie.
- Charlie told me that I had to be willing to kill.
- It's so hard to believe a woman could have
these up-close, personal, intimate murders
and not feel anything.
- How can you put the finger at us
and call us evil for doing what needed to be done?
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
narrator: By the time the brutal murders
had occurred, the women had been with Manson
for almost two years.
How was Manson able to find all these lost souls
from dysfunctional families and convince them
to give themselves to him?
- Charlie was dynamic and charismatic,
and he would play the guitar, and he sang.
And it was in that culture
where these young women were searching for love.
- They were hungry for a connection.
He had the ability to pay attention,
which picked up strengths
but, most important, vulnerabilities,
and knew how to manipulate that.
- I went to Topanga Canyon,
and that's where I first met Charlie.
[tense music]
We walked outside, and he looked at my throat.
And he traced his finger around my tracheotomy scar.
♪ ♪
And he said, "Your mother wanted you dead
because she was jealous."
He's whatever a person wants to make of him.
He's a mirror, actually.
And I thought, "Oh, my God, he is totally in my mind."
And he said, "You're not weak."
His brilliance was permeating my whole being.
My mind was pretty much blown
just by his voice, by his demeanor,
by the happiness and the brightness.
Narrator: He convinced these women
that he had a unique insight into their beings.
And with that, they were hooked.
♪ ♪
- I had a job.
I had just boughten a bunch
of scuba diving equipment.
I called up my roommate and said,
"You can sell my scuba diving equipment,
"you can sell my skis, and I will call my boss back
and tell her I'm not coming back to work."
There's a new thought arising.
We learned that the only truth we've ever heard
comes from Charles.
♪ ♪
narrator: Like Blue, Squeaky met Manson by chance
in Southern California.
Squeaky had just left home
after an argument with her father.
- I was out at the beach.
It was dark. Nobody was around.
I had thought I could find some hippies.
Charlie, he had been going somewhere else...
I think to Hollywood.
And instead, he stopped off in Venice,
walked down the road.
He didn't see me until he got close enough,
and then he said,
"So your father kicked you out?"
And it was amazing to me.
♪ ♪
He was very interested, animated.
He was interacting.
He was alive. That's the main thing.
Charlie, he exhibited so much.
It was a quiet... it was a presence,
and that's probably the thing that's hardest to convey.
Narrator: With nowhere else to go
and enamored by their first meeting,
Squeaky joined Manson and met the others.
In the beginning, Manson and the women had nothing.
They lived off the good nature of others
and ate out of dumpsters when there was nothing else.
To get around, they borrowed cars and vans.
- We traveled in a VW bus.
And there were very quickly three of us
and then five of us,
and then we had to get a bigger bus.
I mean, he was not recruiting anybody.
What it was is,
we were discovering America.
- Charlie's group was very nomadic.
They didn't have anything.
He would drive this bus, and he would, you know,
literally drive down the coast and pick up these women.
It was happiness, free love,
you know, sort of the hippie culture.
- Everybody took everybody in during that time,
so it didn't feel like you were homeless.
- There was all this free love
and people handing people drugs
and, "Yeah, man, I'll give you free food."
- We were irreverent human beings,
and we were traveling.
- They were just feeling lost and vulnerable
to a guy like Manson.
Narrator: Snake celebrated her 14th birthday
all by herself.
She was lonely and had been abandoned
by her family.
When she was most vulnerable,
she crossed paths with Charles Manson.
- I'd been on my own for, you know,
quite a few months.
And I met these girls, and they made me feel like
just incredibly special.
- Dianne was making decisions
for where she wanted to be, where she wanted to go
that no 14-year-old should really be doing.
Her parents just wrote out a letter and said,
"Okay, you can live on your own."
And they thought it was fine,
and that's when she wound up
being abandoned on her own.
- Charlie was extremely loving,
and I felt welcome.
He took me that night and made love to me
like I'd never experienced before,
in a way that, you know, made me feel like a woman.
It was the most magical, you know,
that I had ever encountered.
- He used his sexuality
as a way of increasing dependence on him.
Narrator: In the '60s, for the first time,
free expression of sexuality was part of the culture,
something Manson used to his advantage.
When he first met Snake and had sex with her,
Manson was 34 and she was 14.
- At the time, they were experimenting
in open relationships and sexuality.
But there's an imbalance in the power
and the persuasion,
and that's why we protect young people
from being influenced by people
who are at a different maturity level.
- I remember thinking that I wanted
Charlie to love only me and marry me.
I was disenfranchised.
I didn't feel like I really belonged anywhere,
and they invited me to come live with them.
So I stayed with them.
[ominous music]
- I think he seduced them on many different levels,
and he was very good at it.
♪ ♪
narrator: When Manson met Gypsy,
his group was still small
and traveling around Southern California.
Gypsy had been homeless
since her adopted mother's suicide.
- One day, a car drove up,
an old beat-up Chevy with an old cowboy
and four girls in it.
And that's how I met Charlie.
Squeaky was sitting next to Charlie,
and on the other side of her was Sandy Good.
He was the most confident person I had ever run into.
He was fun-loving, and everybody seemed
very peaceful and happy.
Charlie took me out to talk to me,
and he really came on to me
really, really strong.
I felt accepted.
It just felt like... it was kind of like
a dream come true.
I was an orphan, so I was looking for family.
So I said, "Well, I'm staying,"
and I never left.
- Charlie preached about that,
having fun and being open
and giving yourself to the family,
but it came at a price.
It came at a price of giving yourself to Charlie.
So when it came time for him to want something from them,
when it came to asking them to kill,
they were willing to do that as well.
[suspenseful music]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Charlie promised you that you would be all
part of his family, because these women
didn't feel like they were loved enough
in their own family.
But by giving up of themselves,
they gave everything to Charlie,
which gave Charlie power.
- He studied at the foot of the masters.
Before Manson started to gather his followers,
he had been in prison.
Before he went in,
he had all these abandonment experiences from women.
His wife had left him.
So when he was in prison,
he was asking, "How do I keep a woman?"
He learned and was expecting
to come out of prison and, "Hey, what am I gonna do?
I'll become a pimp,"
except there was all this free love.
Narrator: In 1969,
Charles Manson was 34 years old,
and he had already spent 22 years in prison,
over half his life.
[tense music]
- He talked to me like a brother.
We were on the same level.
We were communicating our feelings to each other
right away.
It was life-changing.
- I've been in jail all my life.
Man, I've lived on a handball court.
This guy raised me up.
All the men in the joint raised me up,
told me what to do, what was right and wrong.
♪ ♪
- If you're looking for Charles Manson
and his values, definitely, they come from prison,
for sure.
- The outside world programs people.
The inside unprograms people to wisdom and understanding.
- In prison, you have to control
your immediate environment,
because if you don't, you can end up dead.
So this is how he was wired.
He was manipulating in a way that no one knew
he was manipulating.
It was, like, unprogramming us from all the lies
that we were told
and reprogramming us to feel that we were perfect.
[solemn music]
- Charles Manson, he would find the vulnerability
in each of the women that he gathered,
and he would become that.
He could look at someone and size them up
almost immediately, know exactly what they need,
and give it to them.
♪ ♪
narrator: One year after Manson met the women,
his group of followers had grown to 20 people
and was still expanding.
Traveling around Southern California
had become increasingly difficult.
They needed to find a more permanent home.
- Charlie had to find a place for his nomadic band,
and he brought them to George Spahn's ranch.
Narrator: The ranch was perfect
for Manson's growing family.
Manson made a deal
with the blind and elderly owner, George Spahn.
The women would work the ranch
in exchange for everyone's room and board.
- The women would take care of the mules
and clean out the stalls and work around the ranch.
- George gave us all names.
He would put his hand on our arm.
I kind of went, "Eh,"
and he started calling me Squeaky.
- I ended up with the nickname Snake,
which I didn't particularly like.
- I liked being at the ranch
and horses... women that I could respect.
But mostly, Charlie was the...
You know, I wanted to...
be with him.
[ominous music]
narrator: Moving to Spahn Ranch
was a turning point for the women
in Manson's group.
The ranch allowed him to isolate them,
brainwashing them even further.
- They're completely isolated.
The only source of information, news
that they have is Charles Manson.
[desolate music]
There's no television, no newspapers,
no magazines.
- There was no electricity.
There was no books.
There were no calendars.
There were no intellectual debates in the air.
It was just the girls participating
in preparing the meal.
- The isolation helped Manson. He knew that.
- It wasn't as if he was telling people what to do
and being bossy and commanding.
He'd ask questions like...
"What do you think about this?"
"Should we do this?" He'd bring you into it.
And then if you agreed,
then you were, like, giving your word you would do it.
But you didn't think that you were being told what to do.
Narrator: Though the women were providing for Manson,
he convinced them that he was the one
providing for them.
- By that time, it had been about a year's worth
of absolutely believing that Charlie knew everything
and that my only safety
was to stay with him and everybody.
- I had to have a feeling of safety.
Safety has always been a big issue with me.
- It was gradual, and by the time it had become
a totalitarian community,
they no longer could challenge him.
They had no perspective.
[suspenseful music]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
narrator: A year after meeting Manson,
the women in the group were completely enthralled,
becoming more and more invested in him
and each other.
- The lines were blurred.
It wasn't like one person's a father;
another person's your brother.
It was friend, brother, lover, father, mother.
You know, it was just all blurred.
We were everything to each other.
Narrator: In the fall of 1968,
another woman came into the fold,
19-year-old runaway Leslie Van Houten.
- Leslie was, you know... I remember her being,
like, you know, the prom princess,
California, high school gal.
And I had never been to high school at that point.
- In the '60s, her parents got divorced,
which today doesn't seem like a big deal.
But back then, it was.
[tense music]
She went from being with the cool kids in school
to being shunned by them.
She started using drugs, and she got pregnant.
- Her mother also recoiled physically from Leslie
when she told her she was pregnant,
and it was devastating.
- Her mother forced her to have an illegal abortion.
They buried the fetus in the backyard.
And not surprisingly, drug use escalated,
and then she got involved in the late '60s
in the hippie movement.
That's when she met Catherine Share.
♪ ♪
- And I said, "I'm going back to this ranch,"
and I told her where it was.
She'd be welcome there anytime.
And she came to the ranch by herself three weeks later.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
narrator: In the spring of 1969,
Charles Manson would have the women take LSD
and then reenact the crucifixion of Christ
with him as the central figure.
He had them take LSD trips together,
and that made them even more reliant
on each other and susceptible to him.
[eerie music]
- I had my first LSD trip with Charlie.
And that was a mind blow.
- LSD was an experience
you didn't wanna have too often,
because trying to take it too often
was almost like trying to grab knowledge.
- It seemed like a shortcut to enlightenment.
It felt like you could see the universe.
[tranquil music]
♪ ♪
- I was already an acidhead.
By that time, I took so much
that I lost who I was.
I went around picking flowers and gave 'em to everybody,
and I was just in this childlike state
for a long time.
♪ ♪
- Charlie took me up on a big hill
overlooking Los Angeles.
And in my first LSD vision,
I saw the whole city in flames,
and I was laughing and laughing.
It was a laughter that I've never experienced
before or since.
Later I asked Charlie, "What... what happened?"
And he said he saw the whole thing.
Narrator: LSD also allowed Manson to create
a growing sense of fear within the group.
He often had them take the drug together
to create a communal sense of right and wrong
dictated by him.
- One of the things to make this kind of thing work
is, the outsiders have to be dangerous.
You develop empathy
for your brothers and sisters in the group,
and then there's a threat from outside.
Manson was so good at manipulating
that feeling of threat.
[foreboding music]
- For a long time, Charlie talked about
more esoteric kind of things.
But after a while, he started talking about
the fact that there was going to be a revolution.
♪ ♪
- There were so many different aspects
to American culture then
for what they considered to be the inevitable revolution.
There was the war in Vietnam.
♪ ♪
- There was, you know, lots of civil rights issues.
- It's time now for us to say to these men
that you have been foul with us.
- Everybody talked about him.
I mean, it was in music.
- We weren't intending to participate.
We wanted to get away from the cities
and away from the anarchy.
- We began to distrust.
The police wouldn't protect us.
The military wasn't gonna protect us.
We had to count on each other.
- You know, as time went on,
he talked about it more and more,
and he was just saying that it was gonna start.
- Charles Manson isolated them from outside reality.
They only had him to turn to.
[suspenseful music]
Manson, he's paranoid and he's losing his grip.
- He came to me and said,
"They might attack us at any time."
- I'm afraid for my life, but on the other hand,
I'm still looking for his approval.
- If somebody's threatening their master,
they're dangerous.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
narrator: By 1969, the women had spent two years
being brainwashed into total devotion
to their leader.
- They really had nothing except Charlie.
They'd given up their names.
They'd given up their families.
They'd given up their identity.
They'd given up their money.
- He would say, "You can leave me,
but no one will ever love you like I love you,"
or, "No one will ever love you, period."
narrator: In the months leading up to the murders,
Manson took a darker turn.
He began to test the limits of his power.
Being the youngest, Snake was the most vulnerable.
- I don't think Dianne, at that time,
would have thought that she was being abused,
and she was living in a hippie cult.
- I remember wanting Charlie to make love to me.
I wanted him to make love to me like he could
and that he had in the past.
I think that just like people who get addicted to heroin,
they're always trying to have that first high again,
that's what it was for me.
I wanted that initial feeling
of being super special and super loved
and, you know, like in the very beginning.
And he took me down, you know, the road
and took me into this little gypsy caravan
and sodomized me, raped me,
left me in tears and bleeding.
And he said something to the effect of,
"Well, that's the way we do it in prison."
♪ ♪
I don't know.
It just was a really ugly... it was a really ugly
side of him.
I don't know how to describe it.
I'm afraid for my life,
but on the other hand,
I'm still looking for his approval.
Narrator: A month before the Manson Family's
infamous murder spree,
his power over the women escalated.
He had been using a fear of outsiders
to hold his group together.
And on July 1, 1969, things got violent.
[menacing music]
- There was a bad drug deal,
and Charlie shot a black man.
[gunshot]
So I was cooking one night.
He came to me and said,
"The Black Panthers know where we are,
and they might attack us at any time."
- The Black Panther Party for Self Defense believes
that the time has come for black people
to arm themselves against this terror,
the terror of the white people, presumably,
before it is too late.
♪ ♪
narrator: It wasn't politics
that had Manson running scared.
It was a drug deal gone wrong
between Manson and a member of the Black Panthers
that had him fearing retaliation.
- To me, it was, "Well, it's started.
The Black Panthers are starting the revolution."
[indistinct chanting]
- In Los Angeles,
the Black Panthers and the police were killing
each other, I guess.
- There was all this activity.
- I really, truly believed
that my survival was going to be to stay with Charlie,
'cause he knew how to maneuver all this.
- Manson, he's paranoid, and he's losing his grip.
- That's when Charlie asked Bobby if he would come
and stay at the ranch and just protect the ranch.
[ominous music]
narrator: In order to protect himself
from the Black Panthers, Manson invited
a 21-year-old musician named Bobby Beausoleil
to join the family at Spahn Ranch.
To the women, recruiting Bobby was another sign
that Manson was protecting them from a revolution.
- He was a self-confident kid.
He was wearing a top hat and a cape.
He had run away when he was young.
But he and Charlie were different,
but they liked each other.
They got a kick out of each other.
Narrator: Two weeks before the Tate-LaBianca murders,
Bobby Beausoleil killed a man named Gary Hinman.
- After we entered the home,
we saw signs of a struggle,
and it appeared as though there had been
some degree of violence.
Narrator: Charles Manson and Bobby Beausoleil
held Hinman hostage in a dispute over a drug deal.
Beausoleil eventually killed Hinman
and staged the crime scene to look like
the Black Panthers committed the murder.
The goal was to point the finger at someone
other than Manson and his family.
And since Manson was having a dispute
with the Black Panthers,
it seemed like they were the most obvious choice.
- They put signs on the walls to indicate
that it was a Black Panther.
- At the Hinman murder, you have Beausoleil writing
"political piggy" in Hinman's blood
and then putting paw prints.
- Clearly they were trying
to point suspicion at the Black Panthers.
Narrator: Bobby Beausoleil committing
that first murder was a turning point
for the women.
Now they had to decide how far they were willing
to go to defend the group
and prove their commitment to Manson.
- Whenever you have these so-called normal people
doing these extraordinarily brutal things,
it's a threat that has been usually manipulated.
- Charlie told me that I had to be willing to kill
in order to not be killed.
Narrator: When Bobby Beausoleil
was arrested, Manson had everything
he needed to convince the family to kill for him.
The women thought the revolution had begun.
Their enemy was the Black Panthers,
and now Bobby Beausoleil needed their help.
♪ ♪
- The catalyst for the murders
was Bobby Beausoleil being arrested
for the Hinman murder.
Narrator: Manson had convinced them that they were at war.
They planned a mission to kill more people
to frame their enemies and free Bobby Beausoleil.
- It's not a coincidence that they went out
and committed those murders two days after learning
that Bobby Beausoleil had been arrested.
It was a copycat crime designed... poorly designed
to make the authorities think that the killer of Gary Hinman
was still at large and that they would thus
release Bobby Beausoleil, which was kind of naive.
- They were doing a job for Charlie.
Pit bulls, they make wonderful, loyal dogs,
and if somebody's threatening their master,
they're dangerous.
I think it explains some of what happened.
- There was this extra energy about "Bobby's been arrested."
- I wanted to ask Charlie, "What's going on with Bobby?"
And he said, "He got arrested,"
and I said, "Well, is he in jail?"
He goes, "Yeah, he's in jail,"
and I said, "Well, I'll go visit him.
What jail is he in?"
He goes, "I've got this covered.
You stay out of it."
narrator: Events had escalated quickly,
and some would say Manson was completely unhinged.
- It's power and anger
he had at institutions.
I think what's more important and more dangerous
and has more implications for our world
is his subjects, and that's scary.
Because we'd like to think
they're real different than us, and they aren't.
- How can you put the finger at us
and call us evil for being good soldiers
and doing what needed to be done?
[suspenseful music]
- It's more frightening because it's women.
- We got stopped and went to jail.
It was that night that the murders happened.
- Sharon Tate was 8 1/2 months pregnant.
- Manson's influence over these women
was so strong that they believed
what they were doing was the right thing.
They had depersonalized the victims.
In that moment, a person has a conscious choice
to do something that is so against human nature,
to kill someone.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- I have very strong feelings about what... the women
who committed the murders,
but I also do believe that there's abuse involved
and you act in a certain way
that otherwise you would not act.
Narrator: Over the course of two years,
Charles Manson used fear and isolation to convince
his followers that they were in danger
and had to kill in order to defend themselves.
The first group of people he chose to commit murder
were family members Tex Watson,
Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins,
and Linda Kasabian.
- Tex Watson, I mean, he was really the one
who was the ringleader, if you will,
of the most violent, horrendous murders.
Tex had come from a very strict
family upbringing back in Texas,
and I think he was happy to be out from under that thumb.
And he just felt love,
as he said all these years later,
love from Charlie, acceptance from Charlie.
And he was sort of Charlie's wingman,
for lack of better words.
Narrator: Like Tex,
Susan Atkins, nicknamed Sadie,
was blinded by Manson's words of love and acceptance.
She had been abandoned by her family
at the age of 18.
- Susan was quirky.
Susan would irritate the hell out of you.
- I willingly got into something
that completely took control over me.
You take away a person's conscience
of right and wrong by telling them
when they're under LSD or any mind-expanding drug,
"There's no such thing as guilt."
- Charlie, he would hold our fingers over candle flames
and tell us that it's just... you know,
it's all in our head that that hurts.
- You don't like the feeling of guilt, so it's easy to say,
"Yeah, there's no such thing as guilt.
"I'll believe there's no such thing as guilt.
Therefore I can do anything and not feel guilty about it."
[solemn music]
- I've come to the realization that they really...
they really believed hook, line, and sinker
that death didn't mean anything.
Narrator: Like many of the other women,
Patricia Krenwinkel, nicknamed Katie,
grew up feeling like an outsider.
- Patty Krenwinkel, really of all the girls,
I think the most dramatic difference,
that she of all the girls
could have committed murders.
♪ ♪
- Pat was working for an insurance company.
She was tired of that.
She'd walk along the beach, and she'd imagine
just walking off into the water.
♪ ♪
Her sister was a heroin addict.
Her parents had divorced.
She had everything but a feeling of home,
you know.
- As a child, she was teased
and she wasn't treated well and she just didn't fit in.
♪ ♪
narrator: Linda Kasabian was a young single mother
who was homeless and joined the group
a month before the Tate-LaBianca murders.
- Linda Kasabian joined the group.
She was just lost.
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
- I had been on the ranch. It was really, really hot.
I had just taken a nice cold shower,
and I was like, "I would like to get away from the heat."
narrator: In the meantime,
Blue and another woman from the group
had just been arrested for using stolen credit cards.
- We got stopped and ditched the credit cards
and went to jail.
I think it was that night that the murders happened.
Narrator: On the night Sharon Tate and her friends
were murdered,
Manson spoke to Tex, Patricia,
Sadie, and Linda but was careful
not to give them explicit instructions.
- Charlie said different things to different people
depending on who they were
to get the effect that he wanted.
- He made each one feel like the special one,
and that was just a manipulation tactic.
This is how pimps control their women.
- Manson did evidently say, "Do what has to be done."
- I mean, people think that the murders
were committed by people who were bloodthirsty.
They were not.
They weren't bloodthirsty.
They were doing whatever they had to do.
- War is not murder.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- There are many theories as to why the group went
to the Tate estate and that house on that night.
♪ ♪
A lot of people are convinced it had to do with
Manson's music being rejected by Terry Melcher,
who had lived in that house.
I don't believe the women knew that
and I doubt that Manson knew who Sharon Tate was.
She was just really pretty, a very talented actress,
and people really loved her.
- They had Tex as their pseudo-leader
telling them, "Follow through with this,
and I'll be there to help make sure you get it done."
♪ ♪
narrator: Steven Parent was a teenager
who happened to be leaving the property
at the same time the killers were walking up the driveway.
- Watson shot him four times at point-blank range.
[gunshot]
♪ ♪
- Steve Parent was absolutely the definition
of the kid in the wrong place at the wrong time,
just assassinated.
- When they got to the house,
Frykowski was asleep on the front sofa.
Narrator: Wojciech Frykowski was
Sharon Tate's houseguest who had fallen asleep
in the living room.
- Krenwinkel and Atkins went through looking
for other people in the house.
[sinister music]
♪ ♪
They walked past Folger, who was in bed reading.
Narrator: Abigail Folger, the heiress
to the Folgers Coffee fortune,
was also staying at the house.
- Sharon Tate was in bed,
and on the foot of her bed was Jay Sebring.
Narrator: Jay Sebring was a celebrity hairstylist
and Sharon Tate's closest friend.
[malevolent music]
♪ ♪
- And Sharon Tate was 8 1/2 months pregnant.
Watson tied this long rope he had...
One end around Sebring's neck.
He threw it over the high beam
and tied the other end around Sharon Tate's neck.
[distorted scream]
Watson took his gun
and smashed Sebring in the face
and stabbed him and shot him,
killing him.
[gunshot]
- Abigail Folger ran out of the back of the house,
Krenwinkel chasing her with an upraised knife,
finally catching her on the front lawn.
Frykowski got out, Watson chasing him
with a knife and a gun,
catching him in the front yard.
- Sharon Tate is about to give birth,
and she's faced with this murderer.
And all she wants to do is,
"Please save my child."
And she begs, "Just let me have my child.
Please let me have my baby."
- Atkins said, "Look, bitch,
"I don't care about you or your baby.
"You're gonna die, and you better be ready for it,
and I don't feel a thing about it."
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- It's so hard to believe a woman could have
these up-close, personal, intimate murders
and not feel anything.
- It must have been so absolutely horrifying.
To think Sharon Tate is about to give birth,
and she's faced with this murderer.
[menacing music]
She's laughed at before she's killed
and that knife is plunged into her belly.
I mean, I don't think we can imagine it.
I don't think we can put ourselves there.
I just don't think we can.
The horror that she must have felt...
- Susan talked about thinking about cutting out
Sharon Tate's baby and saving it.
It's just... I have no idea
how they could have done that.
[tense music]
- Atkins got a towel
and dipped it in Sharon Tate's blood
and went out and wrote the word "pig"
on the front door.
♪ ♪
- They felt what they did was right.
If I ever had to,
I hoped that I could be that fierce.
- You want to talk about devils and demonic
and immoral and evil, go to Hollywood.
We don't touch the rotten horribleness of that world,
don't even skim it.
However, we did skim it.
Yeah, yeah, we touched it...
touched it.
It needed to be touched.
♪ ♪
- Friday night in Los Angeles,
a movie actress and four of her friends were murdered,
and the circumstances were lurid.
Narrator: The day after the murders,
the women who had participated kept to themselves
under strict instructions from Manson
not to talk about what happened.
- I didn't know what really happened,
and Charlie, by that time,
was using his need-to-know basis.
You know, you talk to the people
that need to know
and only the people that need to know.
Narrator: Five brutal murders had already occurred,
but the next day, Manson was ready for more.
He convinced the group
that the revolution was escalating
and their part was far from over.
In this interview from 1969,
Leslie Van Houten explained how Manson primed her to kill.
[somber music]
- I still cannot believe that, you know,
she allowed Charlie to manipulate her
to that extent that she would actually murder for him.
I don't know how she could have gotten
to that point.
♪ ♪
- It was kill or be killed.
That was what drove them on.
It's that feeling of threat from the outside,
and Manson was so good at manipulating.
- How do we look at these people
who commit certain types of crimes under this duress
of being undue influence of someone else.
- In that moment, a person has a choice
to do a good thing or a bad thing.
When you are making a conscious choice
to kill someone,
you are faced with consequences.
[lively music]
♪ ♪
- They drove around that night
looking for a house to hit, basically.
And Charlie had looked
at a couple of different houses.
♪ ♪
- They went to Waverly Drive,
and some of the girls had been to the house next door before.
Narrator: It was time for a second
lethal home invasion.
This time, the group broke into the home
of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
- The LaBiancas were really nice people.
Leno was a corporate executive,
and Rosemary had been a waitress.
And he met her at a restaurant and fell in love with her.
Narrator: The three family members
who were chosen to kill the LaBiancas
on the night of August 10th
were Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel,
and, for the first time, Leslie Van Houten.
[eerie music]
♪ ♪
- When they went in, Krenwinkel immediately went
to the kitchen to get kitchen knives
for herself and Van Houten.
♪ ♪
Van Houten and Krenwinkel took Rosemary into the bedroom.
And Van Houten unplugged a lamp
that was on the table next to the bed...
And put a pillowcase over Rosemary's head
and then wrapped the lamp cord around her neck.
Rosemary heard Leno getting stabbed to death
in the living room and she got a sudden burst of energy
and rose up from the bed and screamed out,
"Leno, Leno!"
♪ ♪
- I mean, I've looked at a lot of crime scene photos,
and these are just the most horrific.
♪ ♪
- Krenwinkel wrote "death to pigs"
and on the refrigerator wrote "helter skelter."
- Tex, he had newspaper, and he slapped it,
and he said, "I did this. Charlie told me to."
- I wasn't ready for killing.
I hoped that if I needed to, I would.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- I mean, I've looked at a lot of crime scene photos
as a federal prosecutor,
and these are just the most horrific.
And it's hard to imagine that the people
who are responsible for them are these young
sort of flighty young women,
but that's the reality.
Those are the murderers right there.
Narrator: On the night of August 10th,
the Manson Family broke into a second affluent home,
this time slaughtering husband and wife
Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
- The thing that I have the hardest time with
with the LaBiancas' murders was
Mrs. LaBianca hearing her husband being killed
in the next room.
[harrowing music]
♪ ♪
- Watson came in,
and then Watson and Van Houten proceeded
to stab Rosemary LaBianca to death.
♪ ♪
[chilling music]
♪ ♪
- It's far more brutal and gratuitous.
It's vicious, even... almost more vicious.
- Krenwinkel went into the LaBiancas' living room.
She took the tines of a carving fork
and plunged it into his abdomen
and wrote in big letters the word "war,"
W-A-R, etched into his abdomen.
[unsettling music]
♪ ♪
Krenwinkel, above the inside part of the front door,
she wrote the wrote the word "rise" in big letters
and on the living room wall
in big letters wrote "death to pigs"
and the refrigerator wrote
"helter skelter," but she misspelled "helter."
Leslie took coins, and when she got back
to the Spahn Ranch, she went to a backhouse.
And the first thing that Leslie did was,
she went out and collected firewood.
♪ ♪
- I had woke up to find Leslie burning stuff.
♪ ♪
She gave me a bag with some coins in it,
you know, for candy.
They weren't acting weird.
They were just kind of matter of fact.
I knew that they'd gone out on some of these
creepy-crawly missions where they dressed in black
and they would sneak into people's homes
and rearrange stuff.
And I thought that that was just some stuff
that, you know, she had acquired through that.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- We were an innocent country,
and what Charlie Manson and the family did
those two nights...
really changed American culture.
People who didn't have alarm systems
went out and got them.
I mean, moms who hadn't before
walked their kids to school
started walking their kids to school.
Narrator: In the days following the murders,
word began to circulate around Spahn Ranch.
The women who had been following Charles Manson
learned that their brothers and sisters had committed
brutal acts of violence.
- Leno LaBianca, supermarket owner,
and his wife had both been stabbed to death
in their home.
Narrator: On the day of the Tate murders,
Blue was arrested
for using stolen credit cards.
When she was released a few days later,
she learned that members of the family
had killed seven people.
- I was in jail for a couple days,
got released.
I hitchhiked back from jail by myself,
got an ice cream cone, got off at the ranch.
Sadie couldn't wait to spill her story.
Just because a person kills
does not make them evil and bad.
I knew these were warm, good...
I mean, Katie was one of the most warm, gracious,
hospitable people I've ever met.
- These two crimes this weekend
so grotesquely similar.
- Tex, he had newspaper in his hand,
and it had the headlines, the Tate-LaBianca murders,
and a big headline, and he slapped it, and he said,
"I did this," and, "Charlie told me to."
And so I think I read a little bit about it,
and it was just, like, shocking.
I was totally traumatized from then on and scared.
[dispiriting music]
♪ ♪
- The services for Ms. Tate, a remarkably pretty actress
who was about to become a mother,
were held in West Los Angeles.
♪ ♪
- I didn't... I didn't feel...
bad that these people were dead.
I didn't even know they were alive.
But as far as killing goes,
I wasn't ready for killing.
I hoped that if I needed to, I would.
♪ ♪
- I feel very, very sad for the victims.
I can't... I can't... I was so shut down during that time
that I can't... it's just horrible.
I mean, just... I mean...
I just can't imagine...
how horrible their family feels and everything.
You know, I feel very sad for them.
And I also feel sad for the young people
that were turned into murderers.
- You can't excuse somebody, then, for going into the home
and brutally murdering another human being.
You can't excuse it by saying,
"Oh, well, they were brainwashed."
I'm sorry, that doesn't excuse you.
They still committed the murder.
[suspenseful music]
The women, they didn't show any remorse.
I mean, they just doubled down.
How frightening is that?
- I stood up and said,
"This court is a mockery of justice."
- We were afraid that the Manson Family
was going to get us.
- That was absolutely terrifying.
- I was holding this huge gun,
and then I said to myself,
"Are you gonna shoot him?"
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
narrator: One month after the Tate and LaBianca murders,
the women of the Manson Family were dealing
with the aftermath, worried that authorities
could find them at any moment.
- There was this whole different kind of energy,
and it didn't feel good.
Narrator: Manson was now immersed in paranoia
and made the decision to move the family
to an even more isolated ranch
located 200 miles away in Death Valley.
- There was this frenetic energy
to create supplies and a foundation or whatever
to move us to the desert.
- We were gathering our last leather clothing
and whatever we needed to live out in the desert.
Narrator: While the women prepared to follow Manson
into further isolation,
Los Angeles authorities were struggling to find the people
responsible for the terrifying crimes.
[sullen music]
- The investigation really was not going anywhere fast.
- Police searched the premises.
They found no evidence of robbery,
no suggestion of motive.
- The police bungled the case,
completely... literally walking over pieces of evidence.
It's one of these examples where law enforcement just...
one arm wasn't talking to the other arm.
- A baffling crime and bizarre.
♪ ♪
- And at this point, nobody is interested
in Charles Manson.
Narrator: Not for murder, but authorities did have
their sights on the family.
Police stormed the new hideout
and nabbed them for stealing cars.
- They were arresting us for grand larceny,
which I was in the middle of washing my hair,
and a door blew open
and I've got a gun, you know, pointed at me.
- The group was broken up last October
after sheriff's deputies investigated
a series of thefts.
- We're in Inyo County.
All the girls were in the same cell together.
I was afraid to move. I was afraid to talk.
I was just... I think I was, like,
literally in shock, you know.
I just went along.
- Squeaky, at the time, would just, like,
look at me like, "Shut up."
narrator: Four months after the murders,
there was a breakthrough in the case.
- It wasn't till December.
They'd taken Susan Atkins away
'cause she had a warrant out for her arrest,
and that's when she started telling this whole delusion
to her cellmate.
Narrator: Susan Atkins was one of the four
who committed the Tate murders.
- Susan Atkins just randomly starts speaking
to two of her cellmates about the Tate murders.
That was a huge break for the prosecution
when they heard that tip from just a random conversation
heard in lockup.
That's really what broke the case.
[ominous music]
- Charles Manson. It stopped everything.
It had the same impact as earlier that summer
watching the man on the moon.
- I was Charlie's legal writer in the very beginning,
so I would hitchhike with my baby
to the LA County Jail,
and I would, you know, visit him in the attorney room.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
narrator: During the Tate-LaBianca
murder trial, some of the women remained
unapologetically devoted to Manson.
- I didn't feel I could judge them.
Now they say that it was Charlie's fault.
Was he... should he have been responsible for us?
Is he responsible for anything
that happened with us?
I don't feel like that.
We weren't raised by him.
He wasn't our leader.
People are what they are.
- They brought the rest of us up
to testify in front of the grand jury,
and the bailiff asks, you know, "Name?"
For the first time I say, "Dianne Lake.
I'm 16, and I want my mommy."
And I did. I was scared.
I felt alone and so vulnerable.
They quickly make me a ward of the court
and send me off for a 90-day observation
at Patton State Hospital,
which turned into, like, nearly nine months.
I was coming out of that psychosis.
- It took the grand jury just 20 minutes
to agree that six members of the hippie tribe
should be indicted in the Sharon Tate murders
and those of a supermarket owner and his wife.
Narrator: Manson and five others
were indicted for murder
and conspiracy to commit murder.
And even though Manson didn't hold a weapon
and wasn't on the scene,
he was charged because there was no doubt
in prosecutors' minds as to who was the mastermind
behind these horrific crimes.
- I stood up and said,
"The court is... this court is a mockery of justice."
And another one of the women stood up and said
something else, and another one stood up
and said something else.
We might have done a day or two
or three days, maybe four days in jail
for contempt of court.
After that, we were banned from the courtroom.
We decided to do a vigil on the street corner.
- Of course, everything was about Charlie on the corner,
so it was about getting Charlie out.
He was the person that doesn't mind
who they put under the bus, who gets killed,
who gets blamed as long as he survives.
It's just pure self-preservation.
- Young people starting to stand up for themselves,
and it's always gratifying to me to see it,
because that's us.
That's what we were doing.
- It was clear to everyone in the courtroom
that Manson was calling the shots.
Manson would stand up and say something.
Then the three girls would stand up
and say the same thing.
And Manson put an X on his forehead,
and the next day, the girls had Xs on their forehead.
- They're hiding the truth.
In the name of fair trial...
you know, there's no fair trial.
We X'd ourselves out of the system.
- They played right into our hands,
because we were trying to show that he was the mastermind
and that he ordered these murders.
- I remember the day they were given the death penalty.
I didn't think they would be killed,
and I certainly don't think they should be.
- Do you believe that there should be a death penalty?
- A death penalty? - Yeah.
- Aren't we all born to die?
- They did something.
They gave their lives, really.
[suspenseful music]
- Prison is not a nice place.
- I wanted to stay with the girls, with Charlie,
with everybody that was inside.
- I said, "I don't want out
until my people get a fair trial."
- All the death penalty cases had to become life
with the possibility of parole.
- How would you like to wake up some morning and find out
that Leslie Van Houten is your next-door neighbor?
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
narrator: In the aftermath
of the Tate-LaBianca murder trial,
the women went from being isolated with Manson
to being isolated without him.
- At the time of an arrest,
why didn't the women say,
"Thank goodness you captured me.
I'm out of here. I've been in this cult."
They didn't say that.
Narrator: In 1971, Gypsy was convicted
of armed robbery in connection with a raid
on a gun shop followed by a shoot-out with the police.
She ended up in prison
with her former family members,
the women convicted of the Tate-LaBianca murders.
- I did five years, and three years was
in the special security housing unit
with Leslie and Patricia and Susan Atkins.
Patricia, at that time,
she'd have all the pictures of Charlie up,
and then she'd tear 'em down and just...
Like, she was back and forth.
[daunting music]
- Pat would swoon about Charlie
and say the things he said and how he paid attention.
This inmate said, "Every pimp who's any good
"says all this stuff.
"Manson isn't special.
You know, he's just doing what all pimps do and hustlers."
I think, for her, that was one of the steps.
[foreboding music]
Leslie, how she describes dismantling
the hold Manson had on her, it was gradual.
♪ ♪
- Leslie had hoped that they would go through
with the death penalty so it could just be over.
Narrator: Susan Atkins renounced Manson
and became a born-again Christian in prison.
Six years after she was sentenced to death,
she began giving interviews, asking for forgiveness.
Narrator: Once in prison,
Gypsy began to reflect on her role as a mother,
finally finding the strength to break free
from Manson's hold.
- My son is the one that really... you know,
I didn't want him to be an orphan.
There was somebody besides me that I needed to take care of.
He's the one that changed my life.
So everything that I did was so that he would be okay
from then on.
Narrator: After being released from the psychiatric hospital,
Snake was plagued by guilt and focused on trying
to live a normal life.
- I started going to church.
I told my pastor just because I felt... I felt
this overwhelming, you know, guilt.
I confessed that I had been
a member of this murderous family.
I really looked to God, you know, for forgiveness.
Narrator: Squeaky and Blue's belief in Manson
has never wavered.
After he was incarcerated,
they committed crimes in the hopes of reuniting
with their former family members in prison.
- Prison is not a nice place,
but I felt a solidarity with the other people.
Narrator: Five years after the Tate-LaBianca trial,
Squeaky was arrested for attempting
to assassinate President Gerald Ford,
who was making a public appearance
where she lived.
- I heard that Ford was coming, and I thought,
"Oh, I'll go and... I'll go and talk to him."
[tense music]
And then I thought, "He isn't gonna talk to you.
He's not gonna stop on his way. He's not gonna stop."
And then I thought,
"Well, maybe I'll bring a gun."
And I just put the gun out and stuck it in there.
♪ ♪
A Secret Service agent grabbed it.
And they had me on the ground,
and I was telling them, "It's okay.
It's okay. It didn't go off. It's okay."
The guy walked over,
and he picked up my hand,
and I was so relaxed.
And then he was talking to me,
and the Secret Service agent said, "Who are you?"
- Sandra Good, another member
of the so-called Manson Family,
was picked up by police.
- We were living together, so they arrested me.
And they took me to jail,
and they wanted to ascertain if there was a conspiracy
to assassinate the president of the United States.
Narrator: Squeaky was sentenced
to life in prison
with the possibility of parole.
- I was able to go
to the parole board after ten years.
But I didn't go to the parole board.
I wanted to stay with the girls, with Charlie,
with everybody that was inside.
♪ ♪
narrator: After Squeaky's trial,
Blue was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years
for sending death threats to corporate executives.
The women were sent to the same federal prison.
- I didn't snivel and cry and go to the parole board.
I did my time.
And then I refused to leave.
I said, "I don't want out until my people get a fair trial."
They had to basically kick me out.
♪ ♪
narrator: Squeaky was paroled after serving 34 years.
- I've been out for almost ten years.
It's hard to be sorry if you're going by your heart.
Narrator: In the 50 years
since the Tate-LaBianca murders,
members of the Manson Family
have been denied parole over 100 times.
- They all received the death penalty at trial.
But California, a few years later,
overturned the death penalty.
- That meant that everybody on death row...
Manson, Krenwinkel, Watson,
Van Houten, Atkins...
they all had their sentences commuted from death to life.
- All the death penalty cases, then, had to become life
with the possibility of parole.
Narrator: There's no question that the women
who followed Charles Manson suffered all kinds of abuse.
Some look back with regret,
and others have never lost their faith in him.
And those women who killed on his behalf,
do they ever deserve a second chance?
- I just feel like
when someone's gotten their mind back
and they've done everything they could to make up
for a horrible thing they've done when they were kids
that it's just time to do a little forgiving
and let them, you know, not die in prison.
- They weren't remorseful.
Think about that.
They were not remorseful at the time.
Yeah, you get remorseful in prison.
Narrator: Manson died on November 19, 2017.
And Tex Watson remains in prison,
having never been found suitable for parole.
Bobby Beausoleil was found suitable for parole in 2019,
but his release was blocked by the governor of California.
Three women went to prison for the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Susan Atkins died in prison from brain cancer in 2009.
Patricia Krenwinkel has been denied parole 14 times.
Leslie Van Houten has been found suitable
for parole three times,
but her release has also been blocked
by the governor of California.
- As a rehabilitated woman, I would like to state
that the insight I have gained
is not meant to excuse any of my acts.
- How would you like to wake up some morning
and find out that Leslie Van Houten
is your next-door neighbor?
Now, she's gonna be somebody's next-door neighbor,
and you know what she's done.
- There's people that have done 50 times worse
and they've gotten out.
They're being used politically.
They're being used to sell crime.
You've got to have a scapegoat.
Got to have the evil people.
- If they really had remorse,
they would waive their parole hearings
so that the families of the victims
don't have to relive this experience over and over.
♪ ♪
narrator: For more information
on "Manson: The Women,"
go to oxygen.com.