Dateline NBC - The Summer of Manson

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Keith Morrison reports on the mind and myth of Charles Manson. Updated to include the 2023 release from prison of former Manson follower Leslie Van Houten who participated in the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca on August 10, 1969. Originally aired on NBC on August 4, 2017.

It's all a play, isn't it? Are you saying shame? Yes. That's relative. Guilty. Hmm. I wouldn't do anything that I felt guilty about. You may think you know the Charles Manson story, but not like this.

Things that police had never seen before. Sharon Tate begged her, please don't kill me. He was primed to take advantage of peace and love, flower power. Even now, almost 50 years later, the world is still fascinated by Charles Manson and his crimes. Tonight, we take you inside his world of drugs. He would dose them with LSD. Sex. He slept with all with LSD. Sex. He slept with all those girls.

And rock and roll. They really did listen to the White Album over and over. With new interviews. He says, Gary, this is your last chance. And new details. He would always frame his statements. This is what I believe and the girls all believed it. The murders.

These people were brutally but believed it. The murders. These people were brutally butchered. The mayhem. Charlie was acting meaner towards the girls. The madman. Maybe I should have killed four or five hundred people, then I would have felt better. He symbolizes the horror that can be possible in this world. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with The Summer of Manson.

All that remains are ruins. The ramshackle Barker Ranch is long gone. Only the fitful baking Death Valley wind left now to stir the faded bits, the rusted junk, the artifacts from another time when this was ground zero for one of the most infamous crimes in history. The hideout of a living personification of evil. You've got it stuck in your brain that I murdered somebody. Charles Manson. One hot, dry weekend in Los Angeles. August 1969.

A pregnant movie star slaughtered, along with four others in her home. Across town, a couple butchered in theirs. These were brutal crime scenes, things that the police had never seen before. Murder so bloody, so ugly, they rewrote history, became a kind of bookmark as an era of optimism ended and a darker time began. The 60s came to a close, 1969, and that was the curtain. That was the final curtain. Who could make sense of it? Are you sane? Sane? That's relative. Who, even now? How do our kids end up doing this kind of incredibly violent crime?

How did that happen? We'll do our best to answer that question, to get past the myths that have clouded the story of Charles Manson, and with the help of those who witnessed, finally explain the chaos, the crimes, the horror. It's a story that begins in a small mill town on the banks of the Ohio River, McMechen, West Virginia, where the myth Manson spun had its beginning. Manson had told his own life story, that he was a child nobody wanted, his mother's

a career criminal and prostitute. But Manson lied. This is Jeff Gwynn, author of Manson, the man whose research revealed the facts behind the myths. Manson was raised by a very loving family, his uncle and aunt and his grandmother. These were folks who were very religious, and they, of course, wanted Charlie to go to church, which he hated. But he had an amazing knack to memorize scripture. He was fascinated particularly with the book of Revelation, which he learned to quote at great length. But he did not learn to be good. He constantly stole. He lied.

He picked on people. He was fascinated with knives. And nothing you would do to try to discipline him worked. Finally, Manson was sent to reform school, eventually prison. By 32, he had spent half his life locked up. He was immediately struck by the pimps. From them, he learned how to control women who were, and this is his quote, bent but not broken. Manson also became fascinated with a popular book by Dale Carnegie called How to Win Friends and

Influence People. This is so strange to hear that he read Dale Carnegie. Not only read Dale Carnegie, absorbed it. That wasn't the only thing Manson picked up in prison. Another inmate gave him guitar lessons.

And one day in the prison workshop, a radio was blaring the top 40 of 1964. He hears a song by the Beatles. And so he sets a goal for himself of becoming even better than the Beatles. And he starts writing songs and performing in prison shows. And so by the time Charlie Manson was released from prison on parole, his fantasy was very strong. He would be signed to a contract, would become world famous, rich, and have all the women and drugs he wanted.

The fantasy, and Charles Manson himself, would almost certainly have remained anonymous, a complete unknown, had it not been for this. San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury District, where at that very moment in 1967, busloads of kids were arriving to what they thought would be a new world of peace and love.

There'd be hundreds of people sitting on the sidewalk, and they'd go, grass, acid, speed. Roger Smith was Manson's parole officer in San Francisco. And into that scene walked Charlie Manson. He did. He could somehow identify the ones who could be tricked, coerced, drawn in. Bent, but not broken. Troubled young women.

Like Susan Atkins, she left home as a teenager and drifted, washed up in the hate. She worked as a topless dancer, quit, and then fell under Manson's spell. He nicknamed her Sadie. Later, there was Leslie Van Houten, who got into drugs, ran away from home, had an abortion, and then met him. People magazine's Elaine Arradias has written about Manson. He slept with all those girls right away, making a connection with them, and they felt, this man gets me.

He kept adding women to his entourage, and they went with him everywhere, even to meet and flirt with his parole officer, who heard firsthand Manson's preaching to his flock, an oddball mix of free love, social commentary, and apocalyptic prophecies. I found a lot of his stuff pretty silly, but he would always frame his statements, this is what I believe and the girls all believed it. The girls hung on every word he spoke,

seemed ready to do anything he asked, like when he told them to have sex with men he wanted to win over, or when he told them he was destined to be, bigger than the Beatles. Manson fully intended to become a rock and roll star and didn't think it was going to be very hard. The summer of love was over. Manson loaded his family, they now numbered about half a dozen, onto a school bus and took them to Los Angeles. He was still just a small-time criminal with a dream, but not for long. A Beach Boy and Charles Manson. When we return... Dennis was convinced that he could make Charlie a star.

And Manson's strange hold on his family. He dances, he sings, he looks beautiful, he looks happy, and this draws a lot of people. Los Angeles, 1968. The center of the rock and roll universe. Here was Capitol Records, the Beatles record company, the Sunset Strip, and here the producers who could make Charles Manson a star. He positioned his family out here in a wooded haven of alternative living called Topanga Canyon.

He lived on a place in Topanga Canyon. It was a burned-out house. Eric Carlson was living nearby. In his first TV interview, he told us how he got to know Manson and his very available young women. They would come over to take showers and stuff. And stuff, as he said.

Sadie was called Sexy Sadie, and not without cause. Wasn't exactly Eric's house or shower to offer, mind you. The main occupant and owner of the house in which Eric was living was a soft-spoken music teacher named Gary Hinman. He was just generous, basically. You know, He never charged me any rent whatsoever. When some of the Manson women were busted for a spree of minor crimes... Charlie came over and asked Gary if he could help him. Well, he says, well, what's the bail? Of course, Gary Hinman, as he generously paid the bail,

had no idea how Manson would return his favor. Manson and the family moved from Topanga to a defunct western movie location called Spahn Ranch, a few miles farther out. Manson told another of his followers, Lynette Fromm, who was nicknamed Squeaky, to keep the octogenarian owner happy. So the family, in exchange for a few chores, got to live on the ranch for free. For there will surely be no holding dear or hunger. And Manson? He dances, he sings, he looks beautiful, he looks happy. And this draws a lot of people, just like people are drawn to little babies.

They scrounge for food in trash dumpsters, said former family member Barbara Hoyt. It was fun. You go behind the store, they used to throw away some good stuff, good vegetables. You'll find all kinds of treasures out there. But the family didn't just live on scavenged vegetables. They stole cash and credit cards and cars. Manson taught them a skill he called creepy crawling, entering houses at night without waking the sleeping people inside.

And he used his women to advance his dream of becoming famous. He sends them out into the parts of Los Angeles that are known as areas where the rock stars live. To find some of them, do what it takes, and get them to take Charlie on as sort of their project that they will introduce him to the right people. Ridiculous? Of course. But then, the most extraordinary thing. It worked. Dennis picked up a couple of girls on census. They were hitchhiking. Dennis was Dennis Wilson

of the Beach Boys, at the time America's answer to The Beatles. Greg Jacobson was a music producer and friend of Dennis Wilson's. They went to Dennis' house, they had a good time, played music and all the things that they would do. Manson's system worked like a charm, offering his young women as sexual favors to get what he wanted. Before the day was out, he and most of the family had moved right into Dennis Wilson's house. Dennis used to call me up and said, Greg, come on down, man. We're partying. All these girls are here. Charlie, you got to meet Charlie the wizard. Dennis was convinced that he could make Charlie a star. And so, improbable as it seems, Dennis took Manson to his brother Brian's studio, that's Brian Wilson, to record some of his songs. Here's Manson singing during that session.

Restless as the wind, this town is killing me. But when the other Beach Boys actually heard that... They didn't have a very high opinion of the music, or Charlie. The session fizzled. But the Beach Boys did play one of Manson's songs on the Mike Douglas TV show. But Dennis rewrote the words and the title. Oh, Charlie was so angry that anybody would dare to change the lyric or change anything he said. It was like misquoting him.

So the Beach Boys were not the answer to Manson's dreams. But there was one more chance. Greg Jacobson knew a man in Los Angeles who could snap his fingers and get Manson a contract. His name was Terry Melcher, one of L's top music producers. And in the late spring of 69, Melcher agreed to come to Spahn Ranch to hear Manson sing. Charlie almost expected somebody to pull out a contract and a pen and say, here, sign here, where you now have a contract with Columbia Records. But there was to be no contract, Because later, Terry Melcher politely but firmly rejected Charlie Manson. Charlie was really crushed.

He would not be a rock and roll star. He would not be rich and famous. He was a failure. Which to Manson meant, said his parole officer, Roger Smith. Charlie was in serious danger of losing the family. He did something that, you know, politicians are masterful at, and that is he creates this horrible thing out there that there's going to be a race war.

It was a time of racial strife in America, especially in L.A., and Manson blended that information somehow with the Book of Revelation to prophesy Armageddon, a world-ending race war. He called it Helter Skelter after one of the songs on the Beatles' White Album. His followers believed it. But did he? Roger Smith isn't so sure. I think it was basically

used to keep them focused and maybe even divert attention from the fact that he was not doing well in terms of realizing his dream. Time to move, he told his family. Gather money, cars, get to the desert to wait out the

war between the races. Where, again, the Manson story might have disappeared from history without a ripple or a trace. Except. Coming up, a day in the life of the Manson family. Every day, he would gather everyone together and dose them with LSD. And the killing begins when Dateline continues. Charlie Manson had come to Los Angeles with a plan to be bigger than the Beatles.

By the summer of 69, he knew that wasn't going to happen. And that's when Manson told his followers they had to ignite something he called Helter Skelter, an imminent world-destroying race war, which he'd named for reasons only he knew, after a song on the Beatles' White Album. They were going to go in the desert, stay there for 150 years, while the black man takes over. But then they're going to need him later. And that's when he's going to come out as the master race and be the leader of everyone.

It sounds ridiculous, of course. It is ridiculous. But combination of drugs, being isolated, he had them all convinced that this was real. He was serious about this. Oh, yeah. He believed it. Or so he persuaded his followers. He told them he needed complete loyalty and complete control.

Every day, he would gather everyone together and dose them with LSD, and he would talk for a while. That's when, for his bent but not broken flock, Manson portrayed himself as the new Jesus, but not a sweet and kindly version of Jesus. Charlie was acting meaner towards the girls. And if they failed to follow his directions? He'd hit you in the head with a stick. He went from good Charlie to bad Charlie. Yeah, he really got mean. Mean and desperate to find the money and cars to take his family to Death Valley, where he told them they'd wait out Helter Skelter. And who had money and cars? His music teacher friend, Gary Hinman. And Charlie knew all of that. Eric Carlson was with Gary when Manson called and made demands.

He's telling Gary that it's time for him to join the family because this whole Helter Skelter was coming and that he needed to cash out all of his investments and go with the family and go out to the desert. Gary told Manson no, but the man who'd become used to getting what he wanted persisted. He says, Gary, this is your last chance. If you don't do this, I will not be responsible for the karma you will invoke upon yourself. Karma, Manson style. Then he sent a friend of the family named Bobby Beausoleil, along with loyal family members Susan Atkins and Mary Bruner, to shake down Gary. Beausoleil beats him up, him, and keeps going, oh, any money? I don't have any money. Eventually, Beausoleil called Manson. Manson comes down. He's wearing a sword and he's waving around.

Charlie actually slices part of Hinman's ear off, departs again. Manson's followers tortured Gary Hinman for three days until he finally signed over the pink slips for his cars. But then he threatened to call the police. Beausoleil calls Manson again. What are we going to do? Manson says, you know what you have to do. Beausoleil stabbed Gary Hinman. And then Mary Bruner and Susan Atkins finished him with a pillow over his face. Gary died because he didn't want to give up his money in the cars. Yes, but it was equally important that he become a part of.

What, become a part of us or we'll kill you? The revolution's coming. A lot of people are going to die. Manson had a term for these people, piggies. Another song from the White Album. If you want to be one of the piggies, you know, today's pork is tomorrow's bacon. So on Manson's orders, on the wall of Gary's house, they wrote the words political piggy and left a paw print all in the victim's blood, hoping it would lead the police to suspect Black Panthers committed the murder. The county police come to investigate. It's a murder, but they don't in any way link it to a black revolutionary execution. Manson's misdirection failed.

In less than a week, Bobby Beausoleil was pulled over driving one of Gary Hinman's cars where police found a bloody knife. Beausoleil called Manson from jail, demanding help and saying he hadn't ratted on him yet. Jeff Gwynne believes Manson decided on a plan to spring Beausoleil and save his own skin. Family members at Spahn Ranch are talking about what's happened to Bobby. He's in prison, what's going to happen?

How can we break him out? They did hatch a plan so horrible that the name Charlie Mance would be famous all right. Not as a star, but as a symbol of evil. Coming up, Helter Skelter, a night of madness and murder. Sharon Tate quite naturally is screaming. She's begging not for her life, but for her babies. Susan Atkins says, bitch, I have no sympathy for you. August 6, 1969. Bobby Beausoleil was in jail, accused of murdering Gary Hinman. Charlie Manson was afraid Bobby might talk, implicate him and the family. And then, an idea.

A crazy, horrible idea. They're watching some old James Cagney movie where he's in jail for these murders and they do these copycat murders to prove that he's not the one. And that's when Charlie Manson decided to commit murders so similar to what they did to Hinman that the cops would have to think the real killers were still on the loose. And if they thought that, they'd release Bobby Beausoleil. But the key to these copycat killings, Manson decided, was to find a high-profile victim. If it's somebody famous, and the newspapers and the TV are making a big deal out of it, then it'll work.

They'll have to let Bobby out. Free Bobby and maybe touch off Helter Skelter in the bargain by framing the Black Panthers. August 8th, 1969. Late. Susan Atkins, sexy Sadie, dressed in black and headed out of Spahn Ranch. Sadie hung out of the car window and yelled, we're going to kill some pigs. Also in the car, Tex Watson, Patricia Cranwinkle, and Linda Kasabian. Their target? Whoever lived in the house recently vacated by Terry Melcher, who, months earlier, had politely blown off Manson's hopes for a record deal. Whoever's living there now has to be rich and famous. Nobody else could afford a

house like that. Manson had actually been at the house earlier that year looking for Terry Melcher. He'd moved out, but Manson encountered the current resident, actress Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski. Now, Tex climbed a telephone pole and cut wires to that very same house. They all went over the gate. And just then, a young man named Stephen Parent, who'd been visiting the property caretaker, was headed out of the driveway. Tex confronted him with a knife, then shot him several times. The killing had begun. With Kasabian standing guard, Susan, Patricia, and Tex went inside the house. Bolanski was out of the country that night. But his friend Wojtek Frykowski was asleep on the couch.

Tex kicked him. Susan Atkins went to see who else was there. She starts down a hallway, and there's a guest bedroom. And there's a woman sitting up in bed. It's Abigail Folger. Heiress to the Folger's coffee fortune. Folger assumed this was just some other friend of Sharon's, and waves to her. And Susan Atkin gives the little finger wave back.

Continues down the hall. In the bedroom, she found Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, a celebrity hairdresser and Tate's former boyfriend. She herded them into the living room. Anthony DiMaria is Jay Sebring's nephew. At a certain point, Watson turned his back, and Jay charged, and he shot Jay as he was coming to him. And then Watson and Krenwinkel went over

and started stabbing and kicking. Sharon Tate, quite naturally, is screaming. Frykowski and Folger break out a side door and are running across the lawn. Krenwinkel and Watson chase after them. Soon, everyone was left for dead, except Sharon Tate. She's begging was left for dead, except Sharon Tate. She's begging, not

for her life, but for her babies. Susan Atkins says, bitch, I have no sympathy for you. And she's slaughtered. Then, Susan Atkins wrote the word pig in blood on the front door to make sure the cops would connect these murders to Gary Hinman's murder. They arrive back at the ranch.

Charlie Manson's waiting for them. What'd you do? Tell me about it. And they tell him. And he's furious. From their description, he doesn't think they've left the house appalling enough that it will get the attention they want. So, said Gwynn, Manson himself returned to the house and draped an American flag near Sharon Tate's body.

Manson, with a sense of theater, thought that would be the thing that would really, really make everybody gasp and pay attention. A movie actress and four of her friends were murdered. The circumstances were lurid. The body is badly mutilated. This I'd rather not discuss. But nobody made a link to Gary Hinman. Beausoleil remained in jail.

Charlie was furious. They had screwed up. He blamed them. Very much so. If they had done it right, we'll do it again tonight. And this time, I'm going with you to make sure it gets done properly. He took his band of killers on a tour of Los Angeles, looking for just the right innocent victims.

There was a street Manson knew had been to a party there in the Los Feliz area of L.A. He picked the house next door. No idea who lived there. It was the home of Lino and Rosemary LaBianca. Charlie says when they're outside the LaBianca home that he'll go in, he'll check it out. Charlie comes back out, gets Tex Watson. They go in. First, they capture Lino LaBianca. He ties LaBianca up, asks, is there anybody else here? My wife's in the bedroom.

Then Manson went and got Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten, who had begged to go with them this time. Charlie tells them, go in there, do what you need to do, and he drives off in the car.

The LaBiancas died as brutally as those the night before. Bound and blindfolded and gagged. The crime scene created to horrify. With blood, the killer had scrawled death to pigs. Helter Skelter,

misspelled, had been written in blood on the refrigerator and carved into Lino LaBianca's torso, there was one word, war. Surely, no one could miss that message. Coming up, the killing still wasn't over. This was the one murder that Manson was personally involved in.

And how a jailhouse chat finally brings the nightmare to an end. When Dateline continues. There were many funerals that week in the summer of 69. Too many. One for the beautiful Sharon Tate. Many of Hollywood's elite turned out for the funeral, despite the fact that it was billed as a private family affair. Families watched the shocking news

on TV. Including the Manson family and follower Barbara Hoyt. I remember being scared by that. How did they react to the news? They laughed. Didn't bother them at all. Charlie Manson thought he'd hoodwinked the police for sure, that they would think the same people who killed Tate and the LaBiancas also killed Gary Hinman. And so they'd free family member Bobby Beausoleil. But even though there was talk that

the Tate and LaBianca murders might be connected to each other... Police today could but speculate whether these two crimes had been done by the same person. No one connected them to the Hinman case. The plan failed. Bobby Beausoleil stayed in jail. And if that wasn't frustrating enough for Manson,

just six days after the LaBianca murders, more than 100 sheriff's deputies descended on the family. They decide they're going to have a huge raid on Spahn Ranch. They're going to arrest everybody in it. But the raid turned out to be good news for Charlie Manson because it didn't have anything to do with murder. The warrant was for auto theft. Totally unrelated. And even that charge didn't stick. Manson uses this as a great example. See how powerful he is? They arrested all of us, but I used my power and they're letting us go. The LA Times ran a small story about the car theft raid,

along with an article about the Tate murders and the LaBianca murders. Each story completely separate. But Manson was still on the edge, especially after he found out a ranch hand named Shorty Shea was trying to get the family kicked out of Spahn Ranch. Barbara Hoyt remembers what happened next. I heard a scream, and I bolted up. Is there any way to describe what that sounded like?

Just pure horror. Did you have any idea whether it was a human or an animal? I knew it was Shorty. You knew it was Shorty? I recognized the voice. This was the one murder that Manson was personally involved in. And Shea was sort of hacked to pieces. Manson decided it was time to get out of L.A.

Maybe he was feeding the heat from that raid. Or maybe he wanted an even more remote place to keep his family under his control. To him, the whole idea of control is not just having people worshiping you, but having people follow your orders in ways that contradict common sense. That is, fleeing an apocalyptic race war, helter-skelter. He moved them out to an old homestead called Barker Ranch, over 200 miles from Los Angeles, now part of Death Valley National Park. Yes, Death Valley.

During this war, he will lead his family into Death Valley, where there is a bottomless pit and a city underneath the surface. They will go down there and be safe. He seriously thought there was something beneath the earth where all of you could go and hide and escape the race war. Rivers of milk and honey, trees with different kinds of fruit. Barbara Hoyt remained loyal to Manson until, as she tells it, out in the desert one day, she overheard Susan Atkins gleefully describing the murder of Sharon Tate and suddenly feared for her own life. I knew I had to get out of there. So early one morning, Barbara and a friend took a huge risk.

We walked out. You walked out? Yeah, we walked out. Into the heat of Death Valley, they walked from miles to the nearest ranch, said Barbara, and she eventually reunited with her real family. But the rest of the Manson family stayed busy in the desert. The family's up to its old tricks. There's cars stolen, there's different desecration of national monument areas. All of which once again drew the notice of law enforcement. During two raids in October, they rounded up most of the family. The last to be captured was Manson himself, hiding under the bathroom sink. He told authorities his name was Manson Charles M., a.k.a. Jesus Christ, God. The charges were auto theft and arson.

They'd faced similar charges before, had beaten the rat before. But this time, something unexpected, completely out of Manson's control. Somebody in the family squealed about Susan Atkins and her role in Gary Hinman's murder. So Atkins was moved from a jail near Death Valley to Los Angeles. She couldn't stay quiet. She started sharing this incredible and unbelievable story. Atkins boasted to a fellow inmate named Virginia Graham about the Sharon Tate murders. She said, you know who did it, don't you?

And I looked at her and I said, no, I don't. And her words to me were, well, you're looking at her. Atkins told Virginia Graham every hideous detail, even mocking one of her victims. He was screaming, help, help, somebody please help me. And she said, and nobody came. And we killed him. Virginia told the cops. Police apparently got their break in the Tate case when this girl, Susan Atkins, was arrested

and talked to a cellmate about the Tate killings. Four months after the Tate and LaBianca killings, Charles Madsen and several of his followers were indicted for murder. He'd come to L.A. seeking fame. He was about to find it. Coming up, what if the Manson family hadn't been stopped? Who might have been next?

Elizabeth Taylor, Steve McQueen, and Frank Sinatra. I don't have any guilt. I know what I've done. It's all a play, isn't it? Banter from a man about to be tried for one of the most notorious killing sprees in American history. I think Mr. Manson feels that he is a product of our society. The case went to the late Vincent Bugliosi, a young prosecutor at the time. I used to have conversations with Manson all the time. Charlie, I said, I'm going to convict you, I said, but after you get a fair trial.

Bugliosi tried to flip family members to testify against Manson. Most stayed ferociously loyal. And some of those not charged staged demonstrations outside the courthouse. Even shaved their heads in a show of solidarity. You know, we die,

we do anything for a brother. Chatty Susan Atkins was supposed to be a key witness. She had bragged about the killings in jail, then told the whole story to a grand jury. Now that you've had a chance to get it off your chest, can you describe to me how you feel? Dead.

Dead? What kind of feeling is that? But Atkins recanted. So, Bugliosi turned to Virginia Graham, one of the two fellow jail inmates Atkins had confessed to. Graham told the jury how Atkins giddily described the Tate and LaBianca murders. There wasn't a sign of remorse of anything. In fact, it was almost very boastful. And Atkins vowed they were just getting started, said Graham. They had a plan to murder A-list celebrities.

It was Tom Jones, Elizabeth Taylor, Steve McQueen, and Frank Sinatra. They were going to skin him alive and make purses out of it and sell it on Hollywood Boulevard. Virginia Graham's testimony made the front page, one of many headlines in a trial that lasted some seven months. The jury hearing the charges against Charles Manson and three girl members of his so-called family brought in its verdict this afternoon. All were found guilty of murder in the first degree. Manson and several members of the family were sentenced to death for the Tate and LaBianca murders, a career-making victory for Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi,

who was emphatic that the sentence was richly deserved. In view of the incredible brutality of these savage, nightmarish murders, the death penalty unquestionably was the proper verdict in this case. But then, a little over a year later, it all changed. The California Supreme Court ruled today that the death penalty is unconstitutional. There would be no gas chamber for Manson or any of his convicted family members. Do you believe that there should be a death penalty? Aren't we all born to die?

We're born with a death penalty. In a gas chamber? I believe what I'm told to believe. Don't you? Because of that California State Supreme Court ruling, the sentences were reduced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, even for Manson. And that touched off a debate that still rages decades later.

Can people like these be rehabilitated? Should they ever be released? There are so many reasons why I'm against parole. Anthony DeMaria has spent most of his adult life fighting parole for the killers of his uncle, Jay Sebring. When somebody says, well, I've changed, I've rehabilitated, well, you might have. But your victims are dusty and rotting in a grave. Over the years, Manson, Tex Watson, Patricia Cranwinkle, and Susan Atkins all had parole hearings. Each time, they were quickly denied. But Leslie Van Houten seemed to have some hope of being paroled. This was her hearing in 2000.

It's really hard to live with the murder. I accept responsibility. I know that what I did is inexcusable. Van Houten was recommended for parole on five different occasions, but each time the governor's office overruled the decision. And Sharon Tate's sister, Deborah, was relieved. I don't think she deserves it. These people were brutally butchered. There has to be some kind of accountability in this world. There just simply has to be.

And it doesn't stop when a person is 65. No. But then in the spring of 2023, Deborah Tate got the news she had feared for years. The California Court of Appeal overruled the governor and granted Van Houten's parole. And the man behind it all, who wanted so desperately to be famous. After nearly 50 years in prison, Charles Manson had become a shell of his former self, frail and in ill health. One of his friends told us he believed Manson was suffering from early stages of dementia. Shortly after his 83rd birthday, in November of 2017, Charles Mills Manson died of natural causes,

up until his last day on earth. Never even a hint of remorse. I haven't done anything I'm ashamed of. Guilty. Hmm. I wouldn't do anything that I felt guilty about. Manson and his family still seem to occupy some dark corner of our imagination. But, said Jeff Gwynn, it's time to strip away the mystery and stop burnishing the legend of Charles Manson.

We can't stop what Manson did. We can't stop his fame. If he's notorious, let him be notorious for what he is. This horrible sociopath. A small man who used his talents, such as they were, to become not just a symbol of the loss of innocence or of naivete, but an enduring lesson in how not to be a human being. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.