Helter Skelter, shorthand for the most famous American murders of the 20th Century, will never die. That story will never be toe-tagged, body bagged, and closed up in a refrigerated drawer. There will always be the books, college theses, and pilgrimages to all associated locations. Every generation will revisit the story on film. Each one telling it in a slightly unique way, but each one ending with murders so grisly they generated sensational headlines worldwide, provoked commentary from the President of the United States, and gave the world a real live boogeyman they could see in the daylight unobscured by bedroom corner shadows.
Helter Skelter wasn’t just the murders, but the dizzying hurricane caused by them that is still churning in the waters of our collective consciousness 50 plus years later.
Unfortunately, this was the goal of fame obsessed Charles Manson. He is getting what he wants. He is getting infamy, and has been for over 50 years.
You can’t mention any of the murderers individually without including Charlie Manson for context, even though he didn’t commit any of the killings himself.
Today’s Los Angeles Times headline reads “Leslie Van Houten, former Manson family member, released from prison after 5 decades.” It’s in the California section, and not the leader on the front page like she is used to, though. Van Houten is only a headline at all because of him.
Even this article invokes his name in the title to garner interest and possible eyes on these words. No one would know who Leslie Van Houten was without him, and wouldn’t care to open a report with only her name mentioned.
Linda Kasabian, the same thing when she died. There have been lots of informants who never garnered one drop of ink, or a clicked computer key, from a news outlet. She was just the rat in Manson’s nest whose testimony put the guilty away for life. Boom! Charles Manson headline!
Susan Atkins passed away 14 years ago from brain cancer, and got a mention or two. Each one mentions Charlie, but she kind of had her own notoriety. She was the ugly soul that killed beautiful Sharon Tate who was 8 months pregnant. The moment Atkins stabbed Tate’s belly swollen with fetus and said “I have no sympathy for you bitch!”, she was birthed into infamy. But Charlie still lingered in the background.
She eventually wrote a book behind bars detailing her side of the story, “Child of Satan, Child of God”, about how she found the Lord and his eternal salvation. Of course, painting herself as a victim too, because she was just simply playing follow-the-leader. No one really read it, no one cared, and it was quickly forgotten.
The only word she will be remembered for writing is the word “PIG” she handpainted on the front door of the Cielo Drive house in Sharon Tate’s blood.
When Patricia Krenwinkle dies, no one will have sympathy, or even care, even though she was a part of both of those awful nights, and in Charles Manson’s “family”. His name will overshadow her. She is only fame adjacent.
The same goes for Charlie’s right hand man, Tex Watson. Fame adjacent that no one cares about.
Charles Milles Manson was famous because he was the eccentric leader, the mastermind behind Helter Skelter. He never picked up a knife, or fired a gun. He simply told his followers what to do, and they did it without question, because he was the son of God to them. He told them so, and they believed his prophecies.
His eyes. His eyes garner their own headlines because of his ability to project a look of inherent evil from them, and they are immortalized in photographs for generations to see and fear.
But we figured out it was all an act from a little man with nothing in life, who had achieved nothing, and never would. Had his group not killed anyone famous, their legend never would have lasted this long. Charlie, the creator, director, showrunner, and manager of The Family, understood there were permanent spotlights and cameramen at the intersection of celebrity and death.
Leslie Van Houten’s headline is different because she is the only one of the Horrific 5 that will see daylight outside of prison walls. Her role is being deemed more as an accessory instead of actual murderer because she was at the scene, and only stabbed Rosemary LaBianca post mortem…14 times.
The claim is she was only imprisoned because the murders and their director were so famous, that their wave of celebrity pulled her into their undertow.
In the summer of 2019, some friends and I went to several of the “Helter Skelter” locations for the 50th anniversary of the slayings. I’d like to state that it was not a tour of celebration at all, but an LA history tour, but I’ll admit, we had some morbid curiosity as well.
We decided to start north, deep in the valley at Spahn Movie Ranch, off the 118 in the Santa Susana Pass, also known as the “Devil’s Slide”. Some classic television was filmed there including Bonanza, and The Lone Ranger.
The sets and housing quarters burned down by wildfire in 1970, but the Manson Family lived there for a couple years prior, 1968-1969. They moved in after they were evicted by Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys from his home where they had been squatting.
All that is really left is the land. Nothing new has been built on it. The only remnants of Spahn Ranch that we saw were some wires from the border fence, bent and haphazardly sticking out of the ground.
Through some Google sleuthing, we found the road and mile marker promised by the internet that would mark the spot of a trail leading to where the ranch was. Sure enough, some previous explorer put a Charles Manson sticker on the back of that mile marker.
We walked down the narrow trail and into the lush gully full of trees and brush, keeping a watchful eye out for rattlesnakes and poison ivy. We came to an opening and found one of the holy grails of the Manson sites. The cave.
We got back in the car and left the valley, heading into Beverly Hills, navigating Sunset, passing billions of dollars in homes and manicured landscaping.
The Beverly Hills Hotel cabana pink exterior started to peak out to our left. It stood there as our landmark for where to turn for passage through Benedict Canyon. Curving with light traffic, we rolled slightly uphill as we went towards our next destination., the Cielo Drive home.
We passed homes with grand Hollywood histories and mysteries. Movie industry houses, screen star boudoirs, spare homes used by rich unfaithful spouses to secret their lover(s) from their real families, and the home where George Reeves supposedly committed suicide, or possibly murdered, build this neighborhood.
Hooking left, we turned onto Cielo Drive, passed the sign marking the addresses on that road, and slowly creeped up the only road in this neighborhood. It’s lined with a row of houses on the cliffside that had to be expertly planned, gently placed, and precisely put together because of how they are constructed into the mountain. The road dead ends at the gate of 10066 Cielo Drive (formerly 10050), where Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate’s rented summer home was.
I say “was” because the home was torn down in 1994, and a new gaudy mansion built in its place.
The night of August 8th, 1969, the Manson gang arrived outside the gate, parked, and climbed the embankment to the right of the gate to get to the main house. The Devil was there, and they did the Devil’s business.
The next morning on August 9th, the housekeeper discovered the bodies of Jay Sebring, and a pregnant Sharon Tate soaked in blood with nooses around their necks. Three more bodies were found outside. Two on the front lawn; Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski. One in a car in the driveway; Stephen Parent.
August 9th, 1969, the members of the Family came back down from Spahn Movie Ranch, and another night of mayhem would happen. This is the night that former Miss Monrovia High School homecoming queen came along.
Turning onto Rowena, I couldn’t help but think about this being the same route they took to get to their next murder destination.
3311 Waveerly Drive (formerly 3301), the house that the LaBianca murders took place in, and where the infamous words were written in blood, “Healter Skelter” misspelled with an “a”. This time courtesy Patricia Krenwinkle.
We ended our morbid sojourn at the El Coyote Mexican restaurant, where Sharon Tate and her friends had their last meal before returning to Benedict Canyon, crossing paths with the Manson gang.
If your party is big enough, they will seat you at the “Tate booth” upon request.
Leslie did ultimately get what she asked for. She did “X” herself out of society forever. Not just for the duration of the 53 years she was incarcerated, but for the rest of her life. Everywhere she goes, she will be known as a murderer, as a “Manson girl”, and as a follower so devoted to that man that she chose to believe so deeply in that she X’ed herself right along with him. She will be whispered about in grocery stores. She will be followed by strangers sneaking candid photos for their social media.
The ghosts of the victims as well as her “family” of murderers will haunt her for the rest of her life, and cast a shadow over her for anyone that meets her. So in a sense, she is still serving time. Whether she deserves to do it on this side of the wall, I don’t know. The LaBianca’s are still serving the life sentence that she helped bestow upon them. They won’t get an opportunity for parole.
