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Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where

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Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes we look at stories

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Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make

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Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In the last episode, when

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Speaker 1: Love Breaks Down, we followed two young women on two

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Speaker 1: very different paths, albeit ones that were destined eventually to

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Speaker 1: collide in devastating and tragic circumstances. With all the conflicting testimonies,

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Speaker 1: it isn't known exactly what took place inside the main

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Speaker 1: house of one hundred and fifty Cello Drive on the

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Speaker 1: night of August eighth, nineteen sixty nine. What is known, however,

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Speaker 1: is that sometime around midnight, Susan Atkins, Patricia Cremwinkle, and

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Speaker 1: Charles tex Watson entered the property uninvited, while Linda Kasabian

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Speaker 1: remained outside on lookout. By the time they'd left, Sharon Tate,

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Speaker 1: eight months pregnant at the time, j Sebring, Abigail Falger,

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Speaker 1: and Voycheck Frykovsky, who were staying with Sharon that night,

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Speaker 1: and Stephen parent who'd been visiting the property's caretaker, William

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Speaker 1: Garretson in the guest house, had all been murdered. Though

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Speaker 1: at first tex Watson attempted to take responsibility for all

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Speaker 1: the murders, it was made clear in the subsequent trial

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Speaker 1: that although he may have taken the lead, he was

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Speaker 1: far from acting alone. Reports vary as to whether Techs

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Speaker 1: murdered Sharon Tate single handedly, or whether, in fact, she

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Speaker 1: was also stabbed by Susan Atkins. The killing spree continued

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Speaker 1: the following night, when Watson and Kremwinkle joined, this time

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Speaker 1: by then nineteen year old Leslie Van Houghton, were ordered

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Speaker 1: by Charles Manson to kill Rosemary and Lino Labianko at

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Speaker 1: their home in Los Felis in Los Angeles. The Tate

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Speaker 1: Labyanka murders, perpetrated by some of the members of the

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Speaker 1: Manson family, as they have since come to be known,

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Speaker 1: occupy a complicated place in the annals of twentieth century culture,

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Speaker 1: occurring as they did within the context of the counterculture

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Speaker 1: movement of the time, and at the center of it all,

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Speaker 1: of course, was Charles Manson. Although Manson didn't take part

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Speaker 1: physically in the killings, he was through the influence he

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Speaker 1: exerted on his followers, judged by the law to have

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Speaker 1: been equally responsible for them. It wasn't a particularly controversial ruling,

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Speaker 1: and certainly few would argue against it, much less defend

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Speaker 1: Manson for his involvement. Manson has been described as both

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Speaker 1: a psychopath and a sociopath, devoid of any empathy for

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Speaker 1: those he harmed, whose sole intention was to manipulate and

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Speaker 1: control people for his own deluded ends. Nonetheless, we are

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Speaker 1: still left with the rather thorny issue of trying to

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Speaker 1: decipher what it was exactly that encouraged so many seemingly

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Speaker 1: ordinary young men and women to perpetrate murder on his behalf.

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Speaker 1: It would certainly be far too easy to dismiss them

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Speaker 1: as simply drug adult drifters with psychological problems. Central to

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Speaker 1: Manson's power was the landscape and era in which he

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Speaker 1: was operating. The term hippie is largely a pejorative one

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Speaker 1: that goes back to the Beach Generation, a term itself

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Speaker 1: coined by Jack Carouac in nineteen forty eight as a

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Speaker 1: way to describe the growing anticonformist creative scene in New

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Speaker 1: York at the time. As the scene developed and became

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Speaker 1: more widely dispersed into mainstream culture, many of the early

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Speaker 1: Beat generation became scornful of the sudden influx of people

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Speaker 1: trying to participate in it, the problem being that since

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Speaker 1: the scene was no longer underground, it could no longer

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Speaker 1: be anticonformist. Those who arrived late to the party were,

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Speaker 1: in effect deemed to be merely mimicking Beat sensibilities, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to really embodying what made the scene in the

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Speaker 1: first place. Hippy was coined by the Beat generation to

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Speaker 1: describe any one who wasn't considered hip enough. Ironically, this

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Speaker 1: term would later be used by more conservative elements of

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Speaker 1: society as a pejorative to describe any one they took

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Speaker 1: to be a member of the new anticonformist creative movement

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Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixties, in effect completely reversing its meaning.

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Speaker 1: Hippy quickly became shorthand for virtually any one who didn't

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Speaker 1: readily adopt conservative values and fashion styles. However, anyone who

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Speaker 1: might genuinely have considered themselves part of the counterculture movement

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Speaker 1: would rarely use the term, preferring instead to describe themselves

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Speaker 1: as freaks or children of love. The central tenet of

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Speaker 1: that counterculture fostered in the communes and collect gives of

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Speaker 1: hate Ashbury and to Panga Canyon was the rejection of

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Speaker 1: the stale, rigid norms of society. It encouraged people to

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Speaker 1: be open to who or what they could be, and

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Speaker 1: to remove all inhibitions and worries about how others might

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Speaker 1: perceive them, but also not to be coerced into having

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Speaker 1: to be a certain way just for the comfort of others.

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Speaker 1: It was a movement that also rejected notions of property

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Speaker 1: and possession, where everyone and everything was free and equal.

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Speaker 1: Such things, they believed encouraged repression and competition, and ultimately violence,

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Speaker 1: things that destroyed humanity rather than enriched it. Rosemary Kent,

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Speaker 1: Black Hills Forest, needs your help to find her missing son.

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Speaker 1: Curse of the Blair Witch. Whether Manson actually believed the

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Speaker 1: things he said or was merely exploiting the philosophies of

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Speaker 1: the culture, much of what he said and claimed to

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Speaker 1: stand for, it could be argued wasn't wholly reprehensible to

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Speaker 1: all intents and purposes. Anyone traveling to San Francisco to

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Speaker 1: take part in the Summer of Love would have struggled

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Speaker 1: at first to separate Manson's ideas from the real thing.

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Speaker 1: By way of example, Manson's testimony at his trial makes

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Speaker 1: for some uncomfortable reading. As he said, then, I never

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Speaker 1: went to school, so I never growed up to read

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Speaker 1: and write too good. So I have stayed in jail,

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Speaker 1: and I have stayed stupid, and I've stayed a child

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Speaker 1: while I've watched your world grow up. And then I

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Speaker 1: look at the things that you do, and I don't understand.

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Speaker 1: You eat meat and kill things that are better than

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Speaker 1: you are, and then you say how bad and even

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Speaker 1: killers your children are. You made your children what they are.

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Speaker 1: These children that come at you with knives, they're your children.

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Speaker 1: You taught them. I didn't teach them. I just tried

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Speaker 1: to help them stand up. Most of the people at

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Speaker 1: the ranch that you call the family were just people

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Speaker 1: that you did not want. Much of Manson's proselytizing was

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Speaker 1: directed towards society at large and its inherent hypocrisies. How

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Speaker 1: was it he reasoned that he could be branded a

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Speaker 1: murderer while someone like President Nixon was free to be

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Speaker 1: leader of the most powerful country in the world, while

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Speaker 1: simultaneously be sending America's children off to die in Vietnam

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Speaker 1: for a cause that many did not support, therefore also

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Speaker 1: contributing to the deaths of hundreds and thousands of Vietnamese

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Speaker 1: or As Manson said, I know this that in your

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Speaker 1: hearts and your souls you are as much responsible for

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Speaker 1: the Vietnam War as I am for killing these people.

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Speaker 1: I can't judge any of you. I have no malice

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Speaker 1: against you and no ribbons for you. But I think

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Speaker 1: that it is high time that you all start looking

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Speaker 1: at yourselves and judging the lie that you live in,

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Speaker 1: none of which is by any means an attempt to

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Speaker 1: justify what Manson and his followers did, but rather to

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Speaker 1: ask what is one guilty of that the other is not.

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Speaker 1: Embedded also in Manson's words is another uncomfortable truth about

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Speaker 1: just what it means to be human. That to be

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Speaker 1: human is to be both love and hate, good and evil,

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Speaker 1: whatever we take those terms to mean. Whether or not

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Speaker 1: we consider ourselves to be practitioners of nefarious deeds, we

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Speaker 1: cannot escape the reality that if we are to consider

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Speaker 1: ourselves part of a collective human species, we have to

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Speaker 1: also accept that any action perpetrated by a human being

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Speaker 1: is in a sense perpetrated by us. We cannot pick

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Speaker 1: and choose what we do and don't want to be

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Speaker 1: considered human within That too, is perversely a logical extension

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Speaker 1: of the peace and love philosophy of sixties counterculture, in

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Speaker 1: which we are encouraged to look beyond the boundary of

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Speaker 1: ego and self in order to recognize that we are

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Speaker 1: all one and the same with everything in the universe.

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Speaker 1: It is precisely this idea, catalyzed by the use of

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Speaker 1: hallucinogenic drugs like LSD, that led Manson's followers into a

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Speaker 1: state whereby they no longer recognize the people they were

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Speaker 1: murdering as being individuals. Since all was one and the

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Speaker 1: ego and self were just illusions, what is left to

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Speaker 1: actually kill? For many, it is this that is the

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Speaker 1: ultimate horror of the Manson family murders, or the true

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Speaker 1: horror of having to confront any kind of such fanatical

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Speaker 1: reasoning for that matter, For if that person no longer

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Speaker 1: occupies the same reality that you do, there is no

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Speaker 1: knowing just what they might be capable of. I remember

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Speaker 1: I was screaming for help, and he was screaming for help,

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Speaker 1: and then text came and helped me, and I was

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Speaker 1: left to sit and watch Sharantate. At about that time,

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Speaker 1: I can remember seeing peoples scattering in different places and

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Speaker 1: running in different places, and I was left sitting with

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Speaker 1: Sharantate and she was talking to him, and I remember

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Speaker 1: that I had absolutely I could help. I felt nothing.

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Speaker 1: I felt absolutely nothing for her as she begged for

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Speaker 1: her life and for the life of her baby. I

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Speaker 1: remember when we first went in, one of the people said,

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Speaker 1: who are you in Texan? I'm the devil and I'm

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Speaker 1: here to do the Devil's business. And I remember that

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Speaker 1: in my conscience. It's so alive in me even just

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Speaker 1: recalling it. I remember that I had gone so far

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Speaker 1: and there was no turning back. That even if I

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Speaker 1: had wanted to run, even if I had wanted to leave,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't. I was like I was caught in something

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Speaker 1: that I had no control over. I had absolutely no

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Speaker 1: say so as to what was happening now. I was

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Speaker 1: just like a tool in the hands of the devil.

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Speaker 1: Is the only way I can put it. And if

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Speaker 1: you enjoy unexplained and would like to help supporters, you

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