Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)

Background

Manson had been predicting racial war for some time before he used the term Helter Skelter. His first use of the term was at a gathering of the Family on New Year's Eve 1968. This took place at the Family's base at Myers Ranch, near California's Death Valley.

In its final form, which was reached by mid-February 1969, the scenario had Manson as not only the war's ultimate beneficiary but its musical cause. He and the Family would create an album with songs whose messages concerning the war would be as subtle as those he had heard in songs of the Beatles. More than merely foretell the conflict, this would trigger it; for, in instructing "the young love", America's white youth, to join the Family, it would draw the young, white female hippies out of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury.

Black men, thus deprived of the white women whom the political changes of the 1960s had made sexually available to them, would be without an outlet for their frustrations and would lash out in violent crimes against whites. A resultant murderous rampage against blacks by frightened whites would then be exploited by militant blacks to provoke an internecine war of near-extermination between racist and non-racist whites over blacks' treatment. Then the militant blacks would arise to sneakily finish off the few whites they would know to have survived; indeed, they would kill off all non-blacks.

In this holocaust, the members of the enlarged Family would have little to fear; they would wait out the war in a secret city that was underneath Death Valley that they would reach through a hole in the ground. As the only actual remaining whites upon the race war's true conclusion, they would emerge from underground to rule the now-satisfied blacks, who, as the vision went, would be incapable of running the world. At that point, Manson "would scratch [the black man's] fuzzy head and kick him in the butt and tell him to go pick the cotton and go be a good nigger".

The term "Helter Skelter" was from the Beatles song of that name, which referred to the British amusement-park ride of that name and was interpreted by Manson as concerned with the war. The song was on the Beatles' White Album, first heard by Manson within a month or so of its November 1968 release:

Former Manson follower Catherine Share, in a 2009 documentary called Manson, for Cineflix Productions et al., claimed:

"When the Beatles' White Album came out, Charlie listened to it over and over and over and over again. He was quite certain that the Beatles had tapped in to his spirit, the truth—that everything was gonna come down and the black man was going to rise. It wasn't that Charlie listened to the White Album and started following what he thought the Beatles were saying. It was the other way around. He thought that the Beatles were talking about what he had been expounding for years. Every single song on the White Album, he felt that they were singing about us. The song 'Helter Skelter'—he was interpreting that to mean the blacks were gonna go up and the whites were gonna go down."

Fulfillment

In the months before the murders were conceived, Manson and his followers began preparing for Helter Skelter, which they thought inevitable. In addition to working on songs for the hoped-for album, which would set off everything, they prepared vehicles and other items for their escape from the Los Angeles area (their home territory) to Death Valley when the days of violence would arrive. They pored over maps to plot a route that would bypass highways and get them to the desert safely. Indeed, Manson was convinced that the song "Helter Skelter" contained a coded statement of the route they should follow.

Manson had said the war would start in the summer of 1969. In late June of that year, months after he had been frustrated in his efforts to get the album made, he told a male Family member that Helter Skelter was "ready to happen". "Blackie never did anything without whitey showin' him how," he said. "It looks like we're gonna have to show blackie how to do it."

On August 8, 1969, the day Manson instructed his followers to carry out the first of two sets of notorious murders, he told the Family, "Now is the time for Helter Skelter." When the murderers returned to Spahn Ranch, the Family's Los Angeles area headquarters, after the crime, Manson asked Tex Watson, the sole man among them, whether it had been Helter Skelter. "Yeah, it was sure Helter Skelter," Watson replied.

At the conclusion of the second set of murders, the following night (August 9–10), one of the killers wrote "Healter [sic] Skelter" on the refrigerator of the house in which the murders took place. That, along with other references to Beatles songs, particularly "Piggies", was written in blood.

Abbey Road epilogue

If Manson's interest in and references to Magical Mystery Tour constituted a prologue to his focus on the White Album, there was also a kind of epilogue in the form of Family references to Abbey Road, the Beatles album that came after the White Album.

Abbey Road was released in the United Kingdom in late September 1969, after the murders. By that time, most of the Family was at the group's camp in the Death Valley area, searching for the Bottomless Pit. Around October 1 (the U.S. release date), three Family members arrived at the camp with an advance copy of the album, which the group played on a battery-operated machine.

In the second week of October, the desert redoubts were raided by law officers who found the Family with stolen vehicles, including dune buggies; Manson and several others were arrested. By mid-November, when Manson had become a suspect in the Tate-LaBianca murders, Family members who had been released from jail had made their way back to Spahn Ranch. There, on November 25, 1969, the LAPD confiscated a door on which someone had written "Helter Scelter [sic] is coming down fast."

A photograph shows the confiscated door was also inscribed with "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 — ALL GOOD CHILDREN (Go to Heaven?)" [sic]. This children's rhyme is heard in "You Never Give Me Your Money", a song that appears on Abbey Road. In October 1970, the prosecution offered testimony about the door during Manson's trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders; but only the "Helter Skelter" inscription seems to have been noted.

In late September or early October 1969, before the arrests, Tex Watson had left the desert camp and gone on to separate himself from the Family. Late in the separation, he, too, bought a cassette recording of Abbey Road. Walking for miles across the desert to rejoin the Family in late October, he played his tape continuously to see what The Beatles might have to tell him. When, at the last moment, he turned back, an old prospector informed him the arrests had taken place. Watson returned to his native Texas, where his own arrest, for the Tate-LaBianca murders, occurred a month later.

In late July 1970, while Manson was on trial, three persons were hacked, two fatally, on the beach near Santa Barbara, California. One of the Manson girls spoke of this incident as "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", an Abbey Road song that plainly is about homicidal madness.

1967

March 21: Charles Manson, aged 32, is released from Terminal Island, San Pedro, California, after seven years' imprisonment for attempting to cash a forged government check. He is granted permission to move to San Francisco.

Summer: Manson and the first members of what will come to be known as his Family leave the San Francisco area in an old school bus they modified in hippie style. (In an alternate account, some months of Manson travels and acquisition of Family members precede the group's departure from San Francisco in the school bus, around November 10.)

November 27: The Beatles' album Magical Mystery Tour is released in the United States. The Family will come to call its geographical and psychological movement in the school bus "the Magical Mystery Tour".

1968

April 4: Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

Late spring: Having ended up in the Los Angeles area after months of roaming through the West Coast and the Southwest, Manson and the Family become associated with The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson after Wilson picks up two female Family members hitchhiking in Malibu. Several Family members begin living in Wilson's Pacific Palisades home while, by midsummer, others will be living at the Spahn Ranch in (or near) Chatsworth. During the spring/summer of 1968, Dennis Wilson also introduces Manson to his friend Terry Melcher, a record producer who has worked not only with the Beach Boys, but also with The Byrds, Paul Revere & the Raiders, The Mamas & the Papas, and many other L.A.-based musical acts.

August 9: Gregg Jakobson, another music industry friend of Dennis Wilson, pays for studio time to record songs written and performed by Manson.

August: Three weeks before the lease on his house is to run out, Dennis Wilson has his manager evict the Family members from it.

October 31: Having been consolidated at the Spahn Ranch since the eviction from Dennis Wilson's house, the Family members set out in a new school bus (purchased September 1) toward Death Valley to set up an alternate base.

November 1: The Family members arrive at the Death Valley area's Golar Wash, maybe 120 miles (190 km) north of Los Angeles and 90 miles (140 km) west of Las Vegas. They load themselves into the unused Myers Ranch, which is owned by the grandmother of a new Family member.

November 3: When Manson and Family member Paul Watkins take a short trip from Golar Wash to visit "Ma Barker", owner of another unused (or little-used) ranch, not far from Myers, Manson presents himself and Watkins to her as musicians in need of a residence congenial to their work. When she agrees to let them stay at the ranch if they'll fix what needs fixing, Manson honors her with one of The Beach Boys' gold records, several of which he'd been given by Dennis Wilson. On the way back to Golar Wash, Watkins, who has seen a newspaper while they've been on their trek, mentions a police shooting of a young black in San Francisco; Manson replies that a black revolt has been building up for years. He says the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr., is a "heavy number."

November 13: Animated movie Yellow Submarine, based on the song of the same name by The Beatles, is released in the United States.

November 25: Release of the Beatles' White Album (formal name, The Beatles) in the United States. (Release in the United Kingdom was November 22.)

Mid-December: Family member Paul Watkins and two female Family members go to Los Angeles for a few days. While they're there, they see Yellow Submarine.

Before the end of December: While back at Spahn Ranch, Manson and Charles "Tex" Watson visit an acquaintance in nearby Topanga Canyon. When, in response to a question from the acquaintance, they tell him they haven't heard the new Beatles album, he plays it for them.

New Year's Eve: Around a campfire on a bitter cold night at the Myers Ranch, the Family members listen as Manson lays out the prophecy of Helter Skelter.

1969

~January 10: Word comes from Manson, who is in Los Angeles, that the Family is to move from the desert to a house he's found in Canoga Park. Because the canary-yellow house is a place where the Family, preparing for Helter Skelter, will be "submerged beneath the awareness of the outside world," Manson dubs it the Yellow Submarine.

Mid-February: While riding in a car with Paul Watkins, Manson sees a white woman and a black man holding hands on the street. He explains to Watkins that that's why black men have not yet risen up in rebellion against whites: they're pacified by access to white women.

Before mid-March: In preparation for a visit they are for some reason expecting from Dennis Wilson's friend Terry Melcher, owner of a record company, Family members clean the Canoga Park house, set up their instruments, and prepare vegetables, lasagna, salad, French bread, freshly baked cookies, and marijuana. They are hoping Melcher will agree to record the music they've been preparing to trigger Helter Skelter; Melcher doesn't arrive.

March 23: Entering uninvited upon 10050 Cielo Drive, which he has known as the residence of Terry Melcher, Manson gets a cool reception from a male friend of Sharon Tate, who, with her husband, Roman Polanski, is the new lessee; Tate looks on. Manson, who possibly knows Melcher no longer lives at the place, has come calling for someone and is told to check the guest house; after briefly going back to the guest house, he leaves. In the evening, when he enters the property again, Manson is received with an equal lack of enthusiasm, at the guest house, by landlord Rudi Altobelli, an entertainment-industry figure who had met him the previous summer through Dennis Wilson. Though Manson asks for Melcher, he prolongs the conversation with Altobelli and attempts to establish a connection with him. Altobelli, who will be going to Europe the next day, lies that he will be out of the United States for a year; he gives Manson incomplete information about Melcher's new location. In learning that Manson had been directed to the guest house by persons at the main house, Altobelli expresses his wish that Manson not disturb his tenants. Manson leaves; Tate later asks Altobelli whether "that creepy-looking guy" showed up at the guest house.

~April 1: The Family starts settling back into the Spahn Ranch, which they had quit after owner George Spahn, under pressure from police, had shut down an unlicensed nightclub they'd set up at the ranch to raise money for their preparations for Helter Skelter. They will not concern themselves with Spahn's objections; during Helter Skelter, they must be at Spahn, from which they'll have a "clear escape route to the desert."

Mid-June: While Manson and Family member Paul Watkins are discussing Helter Skelter, Manson tells Watkins "it looks like we're gonna have to show blackie how to do it."

July 27: In a dispute over money, Family member Bobby Beausoleil acts on Manson's instruction to murder Family acquaintance Gary Hinman. After stabbing Hinman to death, Beausoleil writes "Political piggy" on a wall in Hinman's blood.

August 6: Beausoleil is arrested after he is caught driving Hinman's car; the knife he used to stab Hinman is found in the car's tire well.

August 8: In the afternoon, Manson tells the Family members, "Now is the time for Helter Skelter."

August 9: After midnight, acting on Manson's instruction, three Family members including Tex Watson murder Sharon Tate and four other persons on the premises of 10050 Cielo Drive. Susan Atkins, one of the killers, writes "Pig" on the house's front door, in Sharon Tate's blood. When the killers and a fourth Family member, who accompanied them, return to Spahn Ranch, Watson assures Manson it was Helter Skelter.

August 10: After midnight, three Family members acting on Manson's instruction murder Leno and Rosemary LaBianca at their Los Feliz home, next door to a house at which Manson and Family members had attended a party the previous year. Using LaBianca blood, one of the killers writes "Rise" and "Death to Pigs" on the living room walls. She writes "Healter [sic] Skelter" on the refrigerator.

Impact

Manson entranced youths of the 1960s, and at first he and his Family represented a peaceful, harmonious, and loving revolution to strive for a better world than they inherited. To Tex Watson, Manson had exactly the type of love that he needed. Through this convincing love that Manson put out, he was able to create murderers for his plan to start a race war.

Watson, who, as noted above, was with Manson when Manson first heard the White Album, took part in both the Tate murders and the LaBianca murders. Indeed, in his own recounting of the crimes, he is the only killer to participate directly in every one of the seven homicides and is the sole killer of at least three of the victims. While awaiting trial, he told other Family members, "It seemed like I had to do everything."

On the late 1968 day he and Manson first heard the album, Watson separated himself from the Family, which he did not rejoin until the following March (1969). By that time, Manson's prophecy had captured the group's imagination, but Watson would be a while in grasping its details. In his 1978 autobiography (as told to Ray Hoekstra), he wrote as follows:

"Although I got it in bits and pieces, some from the women and some from Manson himself, it turned out to be a remarkably complicated yet consistent thing that he [Manson] had discovered and developed in the three months we'd been apart. ... It was exciting, amazing stuff Charlie was teaching, and we'd sit around him for hours as he told us about the land of milk and honey we'd find underneath the desert and enjoy while the world above us was soaked in blood."

Manson's testimony

At his 1970 trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders, Manson was permitted to testify, after the attorneys for the other defendants and him had attempted to rest their case, without calling a single witness. Lest he violate the California Supreme Court's decision in People v. Aranda by implicating his co-defendants, the jury was removed from the courtroom. He spoke for over an hour. As for Helter Skelter, he said the following:

It means confusion, literally. It doesn't mean any war with anyone. It doesn't mean that some people are going to kill other people ... Helter Skelter is confusion. Confusion is coming down around you fast. If you can't see the confusion coming down around you fast, you can call it what you wish.

As to there having been a conspiracy, of which he was alleged to have been a part, to commit the murders, Manson said this:

Is it a conspiracy that the music is telling the youth to rise up against the establishment because the establishment is rapidly destroying things? Is that a conspiracy? The music speaks to you every day, but you are too deaf, dumb, and blind to even listen to the music ... It is not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says 'Rise,' it says 'Kill.' Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music.

In various press and parole board interviews, Manson has dismissed the Helter Skelter conspiracy as an invention by the trial prosecutor to tie him to the murders. At about the one-fifth point of his 1992 parole hearing, Manson said the following:

[A]s far as lining up someone for some kind of helter skelter trip, you know, that's the District Attorney's motive. That's the only thing he could find for a motive to throw up on top of all that confusion he had. There was no such thing in my mind as helter skelter.