John Waters On Manson Madness
John Waters has been obsessed with the Charles Manson murders for 40 years. He’s just written a thoughtful, not entirely un-jokey reflection about them: “I have a really good friend who was convicted of killing two innocent people when she was nineteen years old on a horrible night of 1969 cult madness. Her name is Leslie Van Houten and I think you would like her as much as I do. She was one of those notorious “Manson girls” who shaved their heads, carved X’s in their foreheads and laughed, joked, and sang their way through the courthouse straight to death row without the slightest trace of remorse forty years ago.”
