Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

The #1 True Crime Bestseller of All Time—7 Million Copies Sold

In the summer of 1969, in Los Angeles, a series of brutal, seemingly random murders captured headlines across The us. A famous actress (and her unborn child), an heiress to a coffee fortune, a supermarket owner and his wife were a number of the seven sufferers. A thin trail of circumstances eventually tied the Tate-LeBianca murders to Charles Manson, a would-be pop singer of small talent living in the desert with his “family” of devoted young men and women. What was once his hold over them? And what was once the motivation at the back of such savagery? In the public imagination, through the years, the case assumed the proportions of myth. The murders marked the end of the sixties and became a direct symbol of the dark underside of that era.

Vincent Bugliosi was once the prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, and this book is his enthralling account of how he built his case from what a defense attorney dismissed as only “two fingerprints and Vince Bugliosi.” The meticulous detective work with which the story begins, the prosecutor’s view of a complex murder trial, the reconstruction of the philosophy Manson inculcated in his fervent followers…these elements make for a true crime classic. Helter Skelter is not merely a spellbinding murder case and courtroom drama but also, in the words of The New Republic, a “social document of rare importance.”

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