The World Is A Slightly Better Place

[Rev. Rye]

I remember seeing a documentary where he was interviewed by mental health experts, who had studied his life on top of his interactions prior to starting the cult. He was abused as a kid, had an arrest record. But, he was an aspiring musician, and got his demo recording rejected by a record company. Turned out one of the houses he had targeted in the murders, was once occupied by the executive who rejected him. So it is most likely all that shit was merely him trying to mask getting even for being rejected.

That certainly seems to be part of it. I recently read Jeff Guinn's book about Manson, and he suggested that part of the timing (apart from the bizarre "Helter Skelter" scenario) was because they got into a fight with a self-aggrandizing pusher named Bernard "Lotsapoppa" Crowe who they ripped off and who claimed he would get the Black Panthers to exact revenge (even though the Panthers were on the wane at that point) and they shot him. They were convinced they had killed him and they decided that they should do the murders to make it seem like Crowe's murder was made by someone else. So, yes, it seems like the whole reason Sharon Tate died is because Charlie wound up in a particularly strange season of Fargo and decided the best way to cover it up was by committing mass murder.

I'm sure it makes sense if you're on enough drugs that a song about a playground slide seems like a scenario for a brutal race war, eat out of the trash, and spend most of your time baking in the hot sun, which the Family were.