“Frankly, I still don’t know what happened,” he admits in the documentary.
“But I know that what we were told isn’t what happened.”
RepresentingHelter Skelter’s narrative is Stephen Kay, an attorney who worked to convict Manson alongside Bugliosi.
Charles Manson.Credit:Bettmann Archive
Similar to the Tate-LaBianca murders, the killers left disturbing messages written in blood on the walls.
As with any Morris documentary,Chaosis clear-eyed and fleet-footed, balancing multiple perspectives and challenging its subjects.
MKUltra notably investigated whether it’s possible to program a person toassassinate a target while under hypnosis.
Sharon Tate.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
(If this sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen 1962’sThe Manchurian Candidateorits 2004 remake.)
But O’Neill has the receipts, and Morris highlights several official documents that support the author’s findings.
Manson’s parole officer, Roger Smith, also had an office there.
Tom O’Neill in ‘Chaos: The Manson Murders’.Courtesy of Netflix
Smith told O’Neill that he met Manson at the clinic on a weekly basis.
That, he says, was a key research objective for the MKUltra researchers.
“How did he learn how to brainwash those kids, really in under a year?”
Charles Manson.Albert Foster/Mirrorpix/Getty
Nobody took him seriously.
He suddenly got help.
Where did that come from?"
Vincent Bugliosi.Bettmann Archive
“What does it all mean?
I’m very honest about not knowing,” he says.
If that sounds tough to swallow, you’re not alone.
Vincent Bugliosi.Fotos International/Getty
Fotos International/Getty
Beausoleil feels the same.
“Bugliosi knew what the truth was but didn’t reveal it,” he tells Morris.
But it really had nothing to do with the murders.
Bobby Beausoleil.Courtesy of Netflix
which is what he did.
He had to get a conviction.
He wanted to portray himself in this book as the white knight protecting all the people of America."
Bobby Beausoleil in 2016.California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Manson himself balked at it, saying on multiple occasions that the phrasesimply meant “confusion.”
The thing is, Crowe didn’t die, nor was he a Black Panther.
“I remember that everybody had it in their minds about the Black Panthers,” Beausoleil tells Morris.
Charles Manson.Bettmann Archive
“Charlie’s way of protecting himself… was the typical convict way of insurance,” Beausoleil says.
“If someone is a potential snitch, then you make that person complicit in illegal activity.
You have something on them just as they have something on you.”
Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten.Bettmann Archive
He continues, “There’s no doubt in my mind what the motivation was.
Charlie had got paranoid of his own people.
“[People] don’t wanna hear how mundane this story really is.
‘Chaos: The Manson Murders’.Courtesy of Netflix
How not a mastermind Charlie actually was.
In his paranoid delusions, in his miscalculations.
It was just blunder after blunder after blunder.
Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten.Bettmann Archive
If you only knew what I know now in terms of the criminal mindset.”
What’s more, it took the LAPD months to pin down the Manson family for the Tate-LaBianca murders.
“How did they know [the Family wasn’t] part of the narcotics traffickers?”
Tom O’Neill in ‘Chaos: The Manson Murders’.Courtesy of Netflix
Manson, meanwhile, didn’t see his parole violated.
He adds, “They were basically all working for the prosecution.”
“When a story did start to emerge it was managed very carefully,” Morris says in response.
“It was managed and manipulated,” O’Neill says.
“Exactly what we think of now when we think of the Manson murders,” says O’Neill.
These efforts sought to disrupt and undermine anti-war and New Left movements.
It could’ve just been that Manson had leeway to do whatever he wanted for two years.
Maybe that’s all it was.
