I’ve been listening to any podcasts on YouTube featuring Tom O’Neil, the author of the book ‘Chaos’ about his exploration into the infamous Tate/LaBianca ‘Manson murders’ of the late 60s. It started with an assignment he was given to revisit the story on its 30 year anniversary when he was a reporter on his way out of a job with US magazine. He had zero interest and did not want to do it. It ended up turning into a 20 year investigation where he uncovered so much sordid stuff about all of the players involved including A list celebrities, corrupt law enforcement and prosecution (Vince Bugliosi) politicians and the CIA. It was uncovered in the mid 70s that the CIA had been doing secret experiments on prisoners to study mind control and the effects of large doses of LSD to create a ‘Manchurian Candidate’ who could commit extremely violent acts that they would later not recall. Apparently there were senate hearing back then looking into the matter. There are tons of other offshoots of these expiraments along the way, involving connections to Sirhan Sirhan, Jack Ruby, Whitey Bulger and more, some of whose prison stints occurred in the same prisons in which the expiraments were conducted. Whitey Bulger revealed some of what was done to him to a reporter before his passing.
As far as the celebrities go it’s like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon on steroids. Ex. It turns out that Carey Grant was visiting the young caretaker staying in the guest house the night of the murders. Their ‘session’ was interrupted by some scary screams so they fled on foot to Grant’s house. His black Rolls Royce was found parked near the Tate house the following day. The police covered up so much stuff to save people like Grant’s ass due to their association with the Manson family that ran far deeper than the public was made aware of.
Then there was the conduct of Bugliosi which should have stripped him of his law license prior to being assigned the case. It is believed the gov’t chose him due to the fact that he was already compromised. He was considered a rookie prosecutor for it being such a high profile case. The book goes into many things O’Neil uncovered which led him to believe that the gov’t wanted to squash the hippie/anti-war movement with Nixon pulling some strings along with the CIA. Bugliosi was a truly hideous person who created a totally false narrative to sell books. Helter Skelter is still the best selling true crime novel of all time. I always suspected it didn’t add up from the time I read it in college.
The Chaos book came out I believe right before the pandemic and almost broke O’Neil financially. He kept finding more and more stuff that needed fact checking which kept prolonging the release. Apparently he has enough stuff for a new book from leads he gets from an array of characters, famous or non, who had brushes with the people involved or offer tidbits of proof of the widespread corruption.
There is another author, Neil Sanders, who also wrote a lesser known book, who has been interviewed on various podcasts. He originally started studying mind control and stumbled on the MK Ultra experiments the CIA were doing in the 50s and 60s. He gets into a lot of the gossipy stuff concerning celebrities who the family supplied drugs to. Dean Martin, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, and several more. One of the victims Jay Sebring, was considered at the time the first ‘hairdresser’ to male celebrities (like Jim Morrison) The other male victim was a friend of Polanski’s, Voytek Frykowski. Both men were big time drug dealers to the stars and all the evidence points to a drug deal gone bad in both of the 2 murder scenes that the cops covered up. Manson was arrested so many times after he got out of prison in 1967 for rape and other crimes that he was never charged for, which was very suspicious considering how long he was locked up for petty crimes. It is believed that he became more valuable on the ‘outside’ in society as a chaos agent. If that’s the case, the gov’t was successful in achieving its goal of crushing the hippie movement and instilling fear that they were violent addicts. Although the proof of direct association to the MK Ultra experiments was never proven in Manson’s case, it may have been if started shortly after Manson went back to prison for life. It is believed he was drugged more when he returned, rendering him incoherent. Fascinating stuff for people interested in that era of California history. I’m thinking about getting the audio version.
As far as the celebrities go it’s like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon on steroids. Ex. It turns out that Carey Grant was visiting the young caretaker staying in the guest house the night of the murders. Their ‘session’ was interrupted by some scary screams so they fled on foot to Grant’s house. His black Rolls Royce was found parked near the Tate house the following day. The police covered up so much stuff to save people like Grant’s ass due to their association with the Manson family that ran far deeper than the public was made aware of.
Then there was the conduct of Bugliosi which should have stripped him of his law license prior to being assigned the case. It is believed the gov’t chose him due to the fact that he was already compromised. He was considered a rookie prosecutor for it being such a high profile case. The book goes into many things O’Neil uncovered which led him to believe that the gov’t wanted to squash the hippie/anti-war movement with Nixon pulling some strings along with the CIA. Bugliosi was a truly hideous person who created a totally false narrative to sell books. Helter Skelter is still the best selling true crime novel of all time. I always suspected it didn’t add up from the time I read it in college.
The Chaos book came out I believe right before the pandemic and almost broke O’Neil financially. He kept finding more and more stuff that needed fact checking which kept prolonging the release. Apparently he has enough stuff for a new book from leads he gets from an array of characters, famous or non, who had brushes with the people involved or offer tidbits of proof of the widespread corruption.
There is another author, Neil Sanders, who also wrote a lesser known book, who has been interviewed on various podcasts. He originally started studying mind control and stumbled on the MK Ultra experiments the CIA were doing in the 50s and 60s. He gets into a lot of the gossipy stuff concerning celebrities who the family supplied drugs to. Dean Martin, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, and several more. One of the victims Jay Sebring, was considered at the time the first ‘hairdresser’ to male celebrities (like Jim Morrison) The other male victim was a friend of Polanski’s, Voytek Frykowski. Both men were big time drug dealers to the stars and all the evidence points to a drug deal gone bad in both of the 2 murder scenes that the cops covered up. Manson was arrested so many times after he got out of prison in 1967 for rape and other crimes that he was never charged for, which was very suspicious considering how long he was locked up for petty crimes. It is believed that he became more valuable on the ‘outside’ in society as a chaos agent. If that’s the case, the gov’t was successful in achieving its goal of crushing the hippie movement and instilling fear that they were violent addicts. Although the proof of direct association to the MK Ultra experiments was never proven in Manson’s case, it may have been if started shortly after Manson went back to prison for life. It is believed he was drugged more when he returned, rendering him incoherent. Fascinating stuff for people interested in that era of California history. I’m thinking about getting the audio version.