An investigative journalist chronicles his twenty-year obsession with the 1969 Manson murders and describes how he discovered evidence of a cover-up, carelessness from police, misconduct by prosecutors, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents.

A journalist's twenty-year obsession with the Manson murders brings shocking revelations about the most infamous crimes in American history: carelessness from police, misconduct by prosecutors, and even potential surveillance by intelligence agents. What really happened in 1969? In 1999, when Tom O'Neill was assigned a magazine piece about the thirtieth anniversary of the Manson murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Were not the facts indisputable? Charles Manson had ordered his teenage followers to commit seven brutal murders, and in his thrall, they had gladly complied. But when O'Neill began reporting the story, he kept finding holes in the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's narrative, long enshrined in the best-selling Helter Skelter. Before long, O'Neill had questions about everything from the motive to the manhunt. Though he would never considered himself a conspiracy theorist, the Manson murders swallowed the next two decades of his career.

"Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the young followers of Charles Manson murdered seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate, then eight months pregnant. With no mercy and seemingly no motive, the Manson Family followed their leader's every order -- their crimes lit a flame of paranoia across the nation, spelling the end of the sixties. Manson became one of history's most infamous criminals, his name forever attached to an era when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia -- or dystopia -- was just an acid trip away. Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up behind the "official" story, including police carelessness, legal misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents. Every discovery brought more questions: Who were Manson's real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they

An investigative journalist chronicles his twenty-year obsession with the 1969 Manson murders and describes how he discovered evidence of a cover-up, carelessness from police, misconduct by prosecutors, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents.

"El true crime del momento. El libro que rechaza la version oficial para contar la verdadera historia de Charles Manson y de los asesinatos perpetrados por su familia. Este libro sigue los veinte anos de investigacion de Tom O'Neill para refutar la historia "oficial" detras de Manson. ¿Quienes eran sus verdaderos amigos en Hollywood y hasta donde llegarian para ocultar las relaciones entre ellos? ¿Por que la policia no actuo en muchas de las ocasiones en las que podria haberlo hecho? ¿Y como convirtio a un grupo de hippies pacificos en asesinos sin escrupulos? La busqueda de respuestas lleva a O'Neill a pasar desde celebridades solitarias a espias experimentados, desde el Verano del Amor a los sombrios espacios en los que tenian lugar los experimentos de control mental de la CIA, en un camino lleno de encubrimientos y coincidencias."--Publisher's description