Back at the ranch there was a ranch hand named Donald Shae who helped out around the ranch and felt like the family was taking advantage of the older man who owned the ranch. On August 16 1969, 26 family members were arrested on suspicion of auto theft though due to some paper work errors they were all released, however Manson thought the ranch hand had something to do with the arrest, so shortly after the family returned to the ranch, Donald Shae was never seen again. The group now heavy on the police radar moved to another ranch in Death Valley “Barker Ranch” but is soon raided by police again on suspicion of auto theft. This time 24 members are arrested. While in jail, one of the family members Susan Atkins was bragging about the murders to her cellmates who tells investigators hoping to secure a shorter sentence for themselves. This gives investigators the break they were looking for, previously not conspiring the family at all for more than simple auto theft now realized they had what looked like a murder cult right under their noses.
December 1969, Charles Manson and five members were being charged with the Tate and LaBianca murders. June 15th 1970, the giant spectacle of a trial starts. Now prosecutors were having trouble pinning the murders on Manson because he wasn’t at the Tate murders and didn’t participate in the LaBianca murders, so they had to get him using only circumstantial evidence and the “law of conspiracy” so getting creative they came up with a storyline that would convict him, which leads us to the famous “Helter Skelter” story we all know today.
During the extent of the trial, Manson made sure to put on a show for the media, often having stare downs with the cameras and jury and just all around acting bizarre. Every day, Manson would meet with the ladies to discuss what the plan was for court, for example one day he wanted them all to stand up and hold hands in some symbols, another day he wanted the to get up and scream or sing his songs while walking into court. Just bizarre. At one point, Manson carved an “X” into his forehead to symbolize his removal from society and the girls followed suit. Eventually he turned his “X” into a swastika.
So how we got the “Helter Skelter” story we know today, the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote a book on the case. (Helter_Skelter) The story which was presented in court was that Manson formed a cult full of people who didn’t want to be a part of society. Manson wanting to be a rockstar was obsessed with bands like the Beatles and the Beach boys and through them met producer Terry Melcher who stole his music and represented “the establishment” and Manson hated the establishment. He believed The Beatles were predicting a race war through hidden messages in their songs, and he needed to prepare for this race war. He brainwashed his members into believing there was a race war, then ordered them to kill white people in order to frame black people, and ordered them to kill whoever was at Melcher’s house. Then Manson picked another house at random to attack and again ordered everyone to be killed. The plot was to frame black people and order his followers to leave messages from the “White Album” to further that idea. This would eventually lead to a race war that while taking place the Manson family would hide in the desert until it was over, then Manson would come out of hiding, becoming leader of the black army and rebuild the world. This, in summary is the story that convicted Charles Manson and gained Vincent fame and fortune for selling his book. They left out the auto theft, the Hineman murders and all drug related things to avoid reasonable doubt that Manson had any involvement and that it was just a drug deal gone bad.
