Helter Skelter Quotes

“For a lawyer to do less than his utmost is, I strongly feel, a betrayal of his client. Though in criminal trials one tends to focus on the defense attorney and his client the accused, the prosecutor is also a lawyer, and he too has a client: the People. And the People are equally entitled to their day in court, to a fair and impartial trial, and to justice.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

“I may have implied on several occasions to several different people that I may have been Jesus Christ, but I haven't decided yet what I am or who I am.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

“You can convince anybody of anything if you just push it at them all of the time. They may not believe it 100 percent, but they will still draw opinions from it, especially if they have no other information to draw their opinions from.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Charlie said that death was beautiful, because people feared death.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Since we place so much value on human life, why do we glorify, in a perverse sort of way, the extinguishment of life? The answer to that question, whatever it is, is at least a partial answer to why people continue to be fascinated by Hitler, Jack the Ripper—Manson.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

“Manson returned to Death Valley on December 31, 1968, he told the group, according to Poston, “Are you hep to what the Beatles are saying? Helter Skelter is coming down. The Beatles are telling it like it is.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Charlie interpreted the song to mean that the Beatles were telling blackie to get guns and fight whitey.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“All the stories had a common thread—that somehow the victims had brought the murders on themselves…”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“During the first few days a total of forty-three officers would visit the crime scene, looking for weapons and other evidence. In searching the loft above the living room, Sergeant Mike McGann found a film can containing a roll of video-tape. Sergeant Ed Henderson took it to the Police Academy, which had screening facilities. The film showed Sharon and Roman Polanski making love. With a certain delicacy, the tape was not booked into evidence but was returned to the loft where it had been found.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“The irony of all this was not lost on the press, which reported, with some incredulity, that Manson had taken the stand to defend the man who had convicted him of seven murders!”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Apparently Fitzgerald hoped to soften the harshness of her reply when he asked her: “Have you killed anybody to get someone out of jail?” With a strange little smile, Cathy turned her head and, looking directly at the jury, replied: “Not yet.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“If we were to get any of them to talk, I knew, we would have to separate them. There was a cohesion, a kind of”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Crockett doubted if we could ever convict Manson, because “he does nothing himself. His people do it all for him. He doesn’t do anything anybody could pin on him.” He added that “all the women have been programmed to do exactly as he says, and they all have knives. He’s got those girls so programmed that they don’t even exist. They are a copy of him.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Deciding that his own life expectancy was directly proportional to his usefulness to Manson, Crockett made himself very useful, volunteering his truck to haul in supplies, and so forth.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

“the prosecution witnesses. Skrdla also testified: “I have seen individuals who have taken it several hundred times and show no outward sign of any emotional disturbance while they are not on the drug.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“explanation was that Manson had gone to the guest house that afternoon, found no one there (Altobelli was out most of the afternoon, making arrangements for his trip), then returned that evening. This was supported by Hatami’s statement that Manson had come back up the path after “a minute or two, no more,” which hardly left time for his conversation with Altobelli.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“there is no way that you can know the taste of water unless you drink it or unless it has rained on you or unless you jump in the river.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter: The True Crime Classic and Definitive Account of the Manson Murders

“On the fifth day the jury sent a note to the bailiff, requesting NoDoz for themselves and sleeping pills for Mr. Kanarek.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“someone has sat down and programmed people to go out, let’s say, and commit armed robberies, burglaries, assaults? Do you know of any such instances?” A. “Yes. In one sense, that is what we do when we program soldiers in a war…The Army uses a peer group technique and the patriotic ideals that are instilled in citizens of a particular country to bring about this pattern of behavior.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Manson and the Beatles were mentally attuned.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Manson maintained, because he was completely paranoid. Being frightened of everything, he missed nothing.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“chosen people were the Family, Charlie said. He would lead them to the desert, where they would multiply until they numbered 144,000. He got this, Poston said, “from reading things into the Bible, from Revelations.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“I could understand if the detectives had other duties, but they were assigned full time to the case.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Rumors multiplied like bacteria. One”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“She is the best wife a guy could want. I didn’t realize how good she was until I got in here. I beat her at times. She writes to me all the time. She is going to have a baby.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Sheriff Don Ward talked to the two miners in Shoshone and”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“little Squeaky.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Linda had been at Spahn Ranch a little over a month when, on the afternoon of Friday, August 8, 1969, Manson told the Family: “Now is the time for Helter Skelter.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“Including the jury? I wondered, realizing that if Manson put on the mask of the peace-loving hippie at the trial, I’d be able to use Gregg’s remark to unmask him.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“cash a forged U.S. Treasury check for $37.50 in Ralph’s, a Los Angeles supermarket. According to the arresting officers, Manson told them he had stolen the check from a mailbox. Two more”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter