Houses of Death (True Crime) by Kerr Gordon

Author:Kerr, Gordon [Kerr, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Nonfiction
Publisher: Canary Press
Published: 2011-02-21T16:00:00+00:00

The Manson Family

10050 Cielo Drive, Los Angeles, USA

Charles Manson and his 'family' have gone down in folk history as the most notorious serial killing cults of all time, but they were largely unknown until the night of 9 August 1969 - when 'helter skelter' was unleashed on the wealthy celebrity inhabitants of 10050 Cielo drive. The extraordinarily violent events that took place there that night, meant the whole world would find out just who the Manson family were, and what they stood for.

10050 Cielo Drive was designed by Robert Byrd for the French actress Michèle Morgan, in 1944. This French country-style structure sat in 1.2 hectares (three acres) of land at the end of a cul-de-sac in Benedict canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains, west of Hollywood. Facing east and overlooking Beverly Hills and Bel Air, past residents had included Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon, Henry Fonda and record producer, Terry Melcher (son of Doris Day) and his girlfriend, Candice Bergen.

Charles Manson had spent more than half his 32 years in prison and institutions. In 1968, he was the leader of a group of hippies and drop-outs, called ‘the Family’ which had been living in the house of Beach Boy, Dennis Wilson. Wilson had expressed enthusiasm for some songs that Manson had written and introduced him to Terry Melcher at 10050 Cielo Drive. Melcher, however, was not as impressed as Wilson and decided he did not want to record Manson’s songs. Eventually, Wilson and Melcher stopped taking his calls, and Manson was infuriated.

Not long after this, Melcher moved out of the Cielo Drive house, and it was rented by film director, Roman Polanski and his wife, Sharon Tate. Every so often, however, Manson would turn up at the house looking for Melcher, to be told, on more than one occasion, that he had moved.

Manson developed a strange philosophy that was partly based around the music of The Beatles. He assimilated their work, especially the newly released White Album into his belief that the blacks in America’s cities would shortly rise up and slaughter the whites. He believed that The Beatles were talking directly to the Family through their lyrics.

In Topanga Canyon, he finessed his vision of the impending apocalypse, calling it ‘Helter Skelter’, after a track on the White Album. The Family would be safe while the killing was going on, he said; they would go into hiding in ‘the bottomless pit’, a secret city beneath Death Valley.

A few months later, on the night of 9 August 1969, Manson, having come to the conclusion that he would have to show the blacks the way, unleashed Helter Skelter. He ordered Family members, Charles ‘Tex’ Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins and Linda Kasabian to go to Cielo Drive and ‘totally destroy everyone in it as gruesome as you can.’

Arriving at the quiet, secluded house, they cut the phone lines and climbed the fence into the grounds. A car approached and Watson instructed the girls to hide in some bushes. Pulling out a gun, he shot the car’s driver dead.

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