Helter Skelter (Manson Scenario) - Manson's Testimony

Manson's Testimony

At his 1970 trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders, Manson was permitted to testify, after the attorneys for the other defendants and him had attempted to rest their case, without calling a single witness. Lest he violate the California Supreme Court's decision in People v. Aranda by implicating his co-defendants, the jury was removed from the courtroom. He spoke for over an hour. As to Helter Skelter, he said the following:

It means confusion, literally. It doesn't mean any war with anyone. It doesn't mean that some people are going to kill other people ... Helter Skelter is confusion. Confusion is coming down around you fast. If you can't see the confusion coming down around you fast, you can call it what you wish.

As to there having been a conspiracy, of which he was alleged to have been a part, to commit the murders, Manson said this:

Is it a conspiracy that the music is telling the youth to rise up against the establishment because the establishment is rapidly destroying things? Is that a conspiracy?

The music speaks to you every day, but you are too deaf, dumb, and blind to even listen to the music ...

It is not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says 'Rise,' it says 'Kill.'

Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music.

At about the one-fifth point of his 1992 parole hearing, Manson said the following:

s far as lining up someone for some kind of helter skelter trip, you know, that's the District Attorney's motive. That's the only thing he could find for a motive to throw up on top of all that confusion he had. There was no such thing in my mind as helter skelter.