I knew two people who were part of the Manson Family. Went to high school with one, worked at a restaurant with another a few years later. They both came from very unhappy homes and I guess the Manson “family” gave them something to belong to. Neither were involved in the crimes, they were just part of the larger group.
The kid from high school wanted some of us to go up to Hollywood with him to meet his new friends, the “family”. We got the idea that is was a rock band of some sort, but he insisted it was just something called “the family”. Anyway he ran away from home to go live there. I think he’s mentioned once in Helter-Skelter as one of the younger teens living with the group.
Weird, Pelham! See my previous post for my much much looser connection.
The Manson crimes might have been my first true crime story I followed, but much later. When it happened I was far too young and didn’t know. But in high school I read the Bugliosi book and it completely freaked me out, how local everything was. And when I went to Hollywood with my friends, we used to come back through Benedict Canyon and drive up to Cielo Drive and look in. At that time it looked the same as it did during the murders, and had the same address. Not long after, they bulldozed it and changed the address and full appearance of everything up there, even the road changed.
I knew a female artist that illustrated posters for trancendental meditation Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. She was a gentle loving person and was dismayed by the killings from Manson and followers. She said she and many leading stars, bands partied with these people, she illustrated album covers for many of the bands in LA.