Want to learn the ideas in Helter Skelter better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi here.

Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.

Video Summaries of Helter Skelter

We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on Helter Skelter, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Vincent Bugliosi.

1-Page Summary of Helter Skelter

Overall Summary

Bugliosi (1934-2015) was a prosecuting attorney in the Charles Manson murder case. He wrote Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders as an account of how he and his team put these criminals behind bars. It’s written with help from Curt Gentry, who interviewed Bugliosi extensively for this book. In it, Bugliosi criticizes law enforcement agencies for their failure to catch these killers earlier than they did, while also describing gruesome details about the murders committed by them.

Bugliosi opens the book in 1969, at a house on Cielo Drive. The owner of the home was Sharon Tate and she had been murdered along with 4 others. The police investigated her murder because it seemed like someone who knew her killed her. There were no signs of robbery so the police assumed that whoever killed them might have been looking for drugs or money. Two nights later another family found their parents dead under similar circumstances as Sharon Tate’s murder but there was no connection between these two murders which meant they needed to look into other motives such as gambling connections since this was what happened to Leno LaBianca, one of the victims’ husband.

It took months for the police to catch up with Manson and his group of followers. The murders had been done by a group that called themselves the Family, who lived at Spahn Ranch, an old Western movie set outside of Los Angeles. Several members had already been arrested for arson and stealing cars when two other members were arrested for killing Gary Hinman on July 27th. They boasted about their crimes in prison, which led to the connection between these murders and those committed on August 9th at Tate-LaBianca house (which was owned by Roman Polanski). These five people were eventually caught: Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, Van Houten and Watson

The prosecution was led by Bugliosi. He started the investigation in November 1969 and learned more about Manson’s followers. In his investigation, he found Linda Kasabian as a star witness who had seen the murders of Sharon Tate and others. She agreed to testify against Manson if she received immunity from prosecution for her part in the crime. The case lacked physical evidence linking Manson to the crimes, so Bugliosi decided that his best chance at getting a conviction was on conspiracy charges rather than murder charges because of all the diaries laying out Manson’s plans for Helter Skelter (a race war).

Manson and the other three women were held in jail. They planned to disrupt the trial, but it ended up doing them more harm than good. Manson was provided with a lawyer who wasn’t very good at his job, so he got another one that helped him out. The media was all over this case, which made things difficult for everyone involved. In court on Friday, July 24th and through the weekend, Manson had an “X” carved onto his forehead along with the other defendants as a sign of solidarity against society’s norms.

The Manson trial had a profound effect on the public. It was so well-known that President Nixon commented on it and Charles Manson was known for causing chaos during the proceedings. The jury members were unhappy with their sequestration by the end of the trial, which lasted over eight months. After deliberation, they found Manson guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder as well as other counts of first degree murder in January 25th 1971. In August 1971, Tex Watson’s case went to court and he was accused of 7 accounts of first degree murder and one account for conspiracy to commit murder. He received death penalty sentences but after an appeal from California Supreme Court abolished capital punishment in February 18th 1972, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment where he remains up until today when Bugliosi wrote this book