I recently saw members of the Manson "family" interviewed on television, and I have no doubt that the remorse displayed by Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel is real, and that they now see the reality of what Manson was and still is, but I also have no doubt that they owe society a great debt, and must stay in prison for the rest of their lives.
But Manson? Manson is a different story. I don't get scared easily, but because he remains so paranoid and because of his virulent psychopathology, he is a truly frightening individual, and "Helter Skelter" is the best assessment of his life, psyche, and crimes ever written.
"Helter Skelter" is a blow by blow account of the gruesome Tate/LaBianca murders written by the man who, as the prosecuting district attorney, had the disturbing job of being forced to immerse himself in this grisly case for over two years in order to convict the killers. As a result, no one knew, and indeed still knows, the intimate details of this story better than Vincent Bugliosi, and that is why there was no one better qualified to write this book. It is a compelling story which is almost too horrific to be true, but the blood, gore, and savagely mutilated corpses testify to the harrowing sadness of the reality that these crimes really did occur. Indeed, no horror movie could be as frightening, as gory,or as disturbing as the Manson murders, and this book paints a compelling and graphic portrait as to why the perpetrators of these crimes should never be paroled from prison.
