Quotes from Vincent Bugliosi

Although Capote had taken up the single-suspect theory, the Tate detectives had by now abandoned it. Their sole reason for adopting it in the first place—Garretson—was no longer a factor. Because of the number of victims, the location of their bodies, and the use of two or more weapons, they were now convinced that "at least two suspects" were

It looked ritualistic

were going to cut out Sharon's baby, but didn't. Again she stressed that more killings were planned. Sergeant Broom apparently misunderstood

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.

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.

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.

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.

blackie's fuzzy head and kick him in the butt and tell him to go pick cotton and go be a good nigger, and we would live happily ever after…" The Family, now grown to 144,000, as predicted in the Bible—a pure, white master race—would emerge from the bottomless pit. And "It would be our world then. There would be no one else, except for us and the black servants.

I'd rather kill people than animals.

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.

Rumors multiplied like bacteria. One

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.

Garretson recalled that he drank four beers, smoked two joints

It is well known in the legal profession that many judges, upon ascending the bench, think they are three steps closer to God.

He (Bugliosi) took bits and pieces out of context and presented my views and opinions in a much distorted and unrecognizable fashion." -- Dr. Cyril Wecht, forensic pathologist and former president of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American College of Legal Medicine

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.

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

Whatever you do is what you are supposed to do; you are following your own karma.

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.

Sheriff Don Ward talked to the two miners in Shoshone and

kill an animal or plant. Yet

The primary duty of a lawyer engaged in public prosecution is not to convict, but to see that justice is done…

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

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.