Helter Skelter

by Vincent Bugliosi

Being behind bars also hasn’t inhibited Manson from reaching America’s vast television audience. The media (NBC’s Today Show, CNN, BBC, Charlie Rose, Tom Snyder, the ABC Special in March of 1994, etc.) have sought him out, enabling him to verbally spew his venom. In a 1988 interview with Geraldo Rivera, he said: “I’m going to chop up some more of you mother-fuckers. I’m going to kill as many of you as I can. I’m going to pile you up to the sky. I figure about fifty million of you. I might be able to save my trees and my air and my water and my wildlife.” When Rivera later said, “There’s nine dead people out there” (referring to Manson’s nine murder convictions), Manson answered, “There’s a lot more than nine, son, a whole lot, and there’s going to be a whole lot more.” When Rivera asked if he told the women in his Family to kill, he responded, “I don’t deal with women I got to tell what to do. They know what to do.” He told Rivera: “I make laws. I’m the lawmaker. I’m the one that lays down the track.”