Their case, and the defense’s counterarguments, led to some of the most unnerving testimony yet, including a kind of symposium on LSD—not as a recreational drug, but as an agent of mind control. This death-penalty phase of the trial entertained some of the same questions that engrossed and vexed me for the next two decades. Had Manson really “brainwashed” people? If so, how? And if one person was truly under the psychological control of another, then who was responsible for that person’s actions?
