The gruesome facts of the Manson Family murders have never been in dispute. In the summer of 1969, a group of young cult members murdered seven people, including the pregnant actress Sharon Tate, supposedly while under the influence of an ex-convict musician named Charles Manson.
Why did they do it? During the trial, the prevailing narrative put forward by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi was that Manson was using his followers to bring about his predictions of a race war based in part on messages he believed he was receiving from the Beatles’ White Album. Bugliosi elaborated on this theory in his book, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders.
