Bugliosi had to use a little prosecutorial hocus-pocus to tell stories like these. He argued that the Manson women had been psychologically compromised, but he didn’t assert that Manson had actually created his killers. Despite Manson’s talk about “reprogramming,” there was no template for one person’s ever having done such a thing to another. Instead, Bugliosi purported that Manson’s followers must have had some preexisting homicidal impulse buried in their subconsciouses. Manson had learned to recognize and exploit that impulse, but even so, each woman was responsible for her actions.
