In recent years, Discovery ID’s Most Evil show has spent considerable airtime discussing Charles Manson and the Helter Skelter murders. Like many shows on the subject, it featured former-prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi as a talking head. One statement Bugliosi made, in an episode originally airing January 2008, so neatly outlined Mae Brussell’s predictions regarding the consequences of the trial that I transcribed it in its entirety for presentation here without further comment:

The Manson case, here in LA, is a story, obviously on page one. And because the murders were so exceptionally brutal, and they seemed to be somewhat random, and there was no discernable, conventional motive such as burglary, or robbery, people in LA were very, very frightened, particularly in Beverley Hills and Bel Air, the heart of the movie colony, where the Tate murders happened. [Unintelligible] People were dropped from guest lists, parties were canceled, no one knew if the killer or killers were among them.

Sometimes you can measure the fear overnight. The sale of guns, guard dogs, the employment of security services rose dramatically. It shocked the nation, these murders, no question about it--particularly when the facts emerged that the killers did not know the victims, that they entered the homes of total strangers in the middle of the night, and mercilessly stabbed them to death. I mean, if you’re not safe in your own home, where are you safe? And who these people were, who the killers were, they seemed to be average kids from average American backgrounds.

There are people that believe that the murders were the end of innocence. [Unintelligible] The Sixties mantra of love peace and sharing in this country. Joan Didion, in her memoir of the era, The White Album, said that many people believed that the Sixties came to an abrupt end on the night of August 9, 1969. ABC’s Diane Sawyer said that the murders brought an end to the decade of love, that something changed in the heart of America with these murders. So these views basically are saying that the Manson murders were a watershed moment in the social evolution of this country.

The only thing that I will say--and I’m not a sociologist, so I can’t address myself to that point--but I will say this: before the Manson murders, no one associated hippies, identified hippies, with murder, you know, just drugs, free love, and peace. Yes, the hippies wanted to change the status quo in this country, but by peaceful means, not violence. Then Manson comes along, looking like a hippie, living like a hippie, and he’s a mass murderer. And I don’t think there’s any question that the Manson murders hurt the counterculture movement in our society.

So it’s hard to know the sociological implications of this case, but there are people that feel that it kinda changed America. The countercultural flower got deseeded.