Manson Women: American Nightmare A&E
Product Feature
- Manson women
- mass murders
Product Description
50 minute VHS tape from A&E Television Networks about the Manson women.Manson Women: American Nightmare A&E Review
How could such young, average middle class women commit such grisly crimes as the Tate/LaBianca murders? That's the overriding question of any discussion about Charles Manson and the Family he built around him in the California desert. Maybe that's a question that can't be satisfactorily answered; to be sure, I don't believe it is answered in this documentary. That being said, I did find this presentation more insightful than the A&E Biography program on Charles Manson himself. Both programs share a significant amount of the same interview footage of Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, but this particular video also includes footage of a "remorseful" Susan Atkins begging for parole, along with information and interviews with Family members Barbara Hoyt and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme. It also includes information on the murders of Gary Hinman (10 days before the Tate killings) and Donald "Shorty" Shea following a raid of the Family compound two weeks after the murders.Obviously, the video talks about the way Manson controlled and brainwashed his followers, but we never hear about Manson's initial contact with these women. We only know how his very first encounter with Squeaky Fromme played out. The Manson Women are always talked about as all-American girls who somehow fell under the influence of a diabolical man, but I think the facts as they are presented here belie that to some degree. Yes, Van Houten's and Patricia Krenwinkel's parents got divorced in the girls' teens, but that hardly justifies the darkness that began to manifest within their lives even before they met up with Charles Manson. They changed their tune and started making the "Charlie made me do it" argument only after they became eligible for parole (always denied). If former Family member Barbara Hoyt (who escaped from the Family in the wake of Shay's murder) is to be believed, Atkins told a ranch hand they were heading out to kill some pigs that fateful night of August 9, 1969, contradicting Krenwinkel's claim that she did not know where the group was going that night. Hoyt also says that Manson had Tex Watson teaching the girls how to kill in the weeks leading up to the murders.
Oddly enough, Squeaky Fromme is the only Family member whose words then or now seem truthful - largely because she is still imbibing deeply from the crazy Manson Kool-Aid. This is a woman who felt so guilty about not getting to take part in the murders that she tried to prove her loyalty to the Family by attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford. Her face still lights up at the mention of Manson's name.
I was surprised to find interview segments with the fathers of both Van Houten and Krenwinkel included here, as it can't be easy for them to deal with the situation. There's even an interview with one of Squeaky Fromme's high school boyfriends. You also get to hear from the mother of Sharon Tate as well as Virginia Graham, the woman who passed on to authorities the information about the Tate/LaBianca murders she heard from her cellmate Susan Atkins. And yes, you're also treated to some of Manson's "wisdom." It all makes for a pretty good introduction to the young women who committed some of the most gruesome crimes in American history. The sad thing is that these murderers are still around to give interviews; were it not for a stupid Supreme Court decision against execution coming down in 1972, justice would have been done - Atkins, Van Houten, and Krenwinkel would all have been put to death in the gas chamber at San Quentin long ago.
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