Helter Skelter: The Manson murders

[zeebee]

Helter Skelter was the first true crime book I ever read and is probably responsible for my fascination with true crime to this day.  I've read a couple of other Vince Bugliosi books too, another good one is And The Sea Will Tell, but totally different kind of story.

Interesting Q&A article: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1915134,00.html

[mialynneb]

I know old thread is old and the murders themselves ...but I'm reading Helter Skelter right now. My mom is a big true crime reader and I remember being little and seeing her copy of the book. I have a lot of other books on infamous crimes and there is always a section about Manson but good lord, Bugliosi did a great job with this book. It's one massive mind-fuck but very interesting (sad for obvious reasons). The couple parts in the book that freak me out is how Manson supposedly went to two other homes for a "creepy-crawl" and he decided against one because there were pictures of children on the walls and the other I think because the people weren't home. They never figured out the house with the kids but Kasabian identified the other house they had scoped out. The police and prosecutor decided not to tell the people living there because they didn't want them to live in fear or with the knowledge that they could have been murdered.

The other part of the book is how Bugliosi described how he would just chat with Manson in chambers. He would tell Bugliosi all sorts of crazy shit because he knew it couldn't be used in trial because he hadn't been made aware of his rights etc.

Anyway, if you haven't read it and have an interest, I highly recommend it.