We check our guns and badges back out, Tench doesn't even say a word until we are on the road, "it's such bullshit."

"I agree." I nod and shrug.

Ford glances between Tench and I, "but which makes more sense? Manson being forced to go along with Tex and Sadie's copycat crime, or a race war predicted by the Beatles?"

"Are you saying the DA lied?" Tench scoffs.

"With our history with DAs does the thought shock you in any way?" I chuckle.

"I'm saying he gave it a narrative." Ford shakes his head, "He had to explain to a normal, middle-class jury how some normal, middle-class kids brutally murdered seven people."

"Watson's only an hour away." I lean forward, placing my elbows on the back of the boys' seats, "Let's just spend the night and talk to him."

"I have to get home." Tench shakes his head.

"That's fine." I shrug, "Holden and I can stay."

"After Atlanta, we can't fuck up again. If you two stay and do this interview, I need to know, can I trust you?" Tench looks over to Ford, I think his question is directed toward Ford more then me.

"Absolutely." Ford nods.

"Just go in, do the interview, come home. Got it?"

"We promise." I nod. "Thanks, Bill."

Tench looks to his watch and sighs, "Fuck. What time have you got?"

I look down to my watch, "5:16." Tnech sighs again, "something wrong with your watch?"

"If we don't hurry I'm gonna miss my plane."

"Just drive to the airport. Holden and I can find a hotel."

Tench drives, more speeds, to the airport and runs into the building. Holden and I find a hotel nearby for the night. When we get into the room, Ford puts his case on the bed, "so… was meeting Kemper all that you thought it would be?"

I nod, "it was very insightful and…" I take a deep breath, "very interesting." I turn to Ford, "did you really talk about me when you got up there before your panic attack?"

Ford shrugs and glances around, "I may have mentioned you. And he may have read into more than I had intended at the time."

"Seems like Ed knows you better than you know yourself."

"He'd love to hear you say that." Ford chuckles. "What'd you think of Manson."

"I never thought I'd meet someone who is so clearly a moron."

"Yeah, he wasn't making much sense was he?"

"It's not that he wasn't making sense he was." I shrug, "when he talked about doing this based on your love, I think he meant we do things based on the morals we learn as children."

Ford nods, "so when we kept saying 'your children,' he meant there was already the want to kill inside them?"

"He just gave them enough drugs to get rid of the moral code telling them not to." I nod. "But we will have to wait until tomorrow to find out."

The next morning we head up to Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California. The trip taking a little less than an hour. Ford had called the night before to see if Watson would be willing to talk to us and luckily he was. When we get out of the car Ford looks over to me, "any fun facts?"

"About Tex or the prison?"

"Either one."

"Well, RJD Correctional has a capacity of 2,992 inmates and it's a medium-max. As for Tex, he was originally admitted to Atascadero State Hospital, for 90 days. He was known as Charles Montgomery as well as Texas Charlie." I shake my head, "just another way Manson was throwing his net, I suppose."

"Maybe it was his way of staying out in the world if Tex didn't get caught."

"Maybe," I shrug, "but I think Manson was planning on staying out of prison. I don't thikn he realized conviencing people to murder is just as punishable as murder itself."

"Well, no ones saying he's the smartest cult leader ever." When we head inside, and check everything in, we are shown to the rec room that has a couple of tables, before long Watson is shown in and he comes over to us, even shaking Ford's hand, "Tex Watson, I'm Special Agent Holden Ford, this is Special Agent Nancy Freeman."

Watson looks over to me and nods with a smile, "Ma'am."

I smile, "we'd like to talk to you about what happened with the Manson family, if that is alright."

"Of course." Watson nods. Ford goes about telling Watson our opening bit about how this can't be used against him and he won't be mentioned in the research by name, before Watson begins, "Now that I've been in here a while, I understand Charlie a whole lot better."

"How so?"

"It's survival. Charlie's not a tough guy, so he created a prophet persona. A false prophet, for sure. Nothing he ever said came true except for the things we did. But he could convince you of things you never thought possible. We didn't know if he was Jesus or the Devil, but… either was better than facing the world alone."

"But you didn't grow up alone, did you?" I shake my head, "for all counts, even your own, you had a loving family. You must have developed a moral compass before you ever met Charlie."

"Let's just say Charlie had a way of making you think things were your idea."

I nod, "I could see him being manipulative."

"He'd start small, like, he'd gather us in a circle, and he'd put a chair in the middle, and he would tell us to imagine there was a person in that chair and that we had to scare them to death. Staring at 'em. Screaming at 'em."

"An empty chair?" Ford leans his head forward and down a bit.

"But in our minds, they were sirens of the apocalypse sittin' there. Charlie would talk about things we might do to them. Like break into their houses, tie them up, kill their families. Those ideas, they were only ours because they were his first. Once we incorporated them, he'd send us out creepy-crawling."

"I'm sorry." I shake my head, "what is creepy-crawling?"

"It's what Charlie called it, sneakin' into people's houses, movin' furniture around. He said it would help us face our fears, go beyond them. But Charlie was giving us so many drugs, we didn't know what fear was."

"What did he give to you?"

"Belladonna, Orange Sunshine, STP. By the time Charlie said Helter Skelter was coming, we were doin' really heavy stuff."

"Charlie talked about Helter Skelter?"

"All the time."

"He told us Helter Skelter was concocted by the district attorney."

Watson shakes his head, "From the moment I met him, Charlie was talkin' about a race war. We lived every day thinking the world was about to end. There is freedom in that. If there's no tomorrow there's no consequences. Does it matter what you do on your last day on earth? What crimes might you two commit?" Watson looks between Ford and I.

Ford glances over to me, "I'd like to think I'd still know right from wrong."

"By then, there was no wrong. I had no conscience. That had been taken from me."

"By Charlie?" I tilt my head a bit. "Charlie said you and Sadie came up with the murders as a way of getting Bobby Beausoleil out of prison."

Watson shakes his head, "you have to understand, we were all one. We were part of the all. We thought the same thoughts. Charlie kept saying that if blackie didn't start Helter Skelter soon, then we'd have to show 'em how. He chose Cielo Drive because he'd been there before."

"So that was his idea."

"They were all his ideas."

Ford shakes his head a bit, "but he didn't go with you."

"Charlie wasn't about getting his hands dirty. He did go to the house. Only after it was all over."

" Did Charlie give you or the girls any specific orders?"

"He told me to kill everyone. He said, 'make it as gruesome as you can.' Told me, 'kill 'em all'."

"And you did."

"Yes, sir." Watons shakes his head and looks down, "I remember... " he signs, "... being in the car. I had so many drugs in my system, my mind kept phasing in and out. I was lyin' with my head in Sadie's lap. She shook me and told me to cut the phone lines. Next thing I remember, we were walkin' up the drive. There were headlights, and Sadie hollered, 'get him.' I looked down, I had a gun in my hand, so I stuck it in the window and I pulled the trigger. There was no thought. No feeling at all."

I nod, "Steven Parent."

"That was the first true sin of my life. But I've repented of it. God's grace has blessed my soul with the peace of his forgiveness."

"You said you felt nothing."

"Because death didn't matter to us."

"Okay." Ford nods, "what happened at the house?"

"I remember following Sadie inside. There was a man asleep on the couch, it was quiet. Then people started coming in from other rooms. A man was comin' at me, yellin'. I... I had the gun, so I shot him. Everything just busted open. Women were screamin'. We were stabbin' people, runnin' around. There was blood everywhere."

"Did you feel anything then?"

"Sadie had to kick me to get me going."

"But you…" I take a deep breath, "got going."

"You have to remember, those people, they were just shapes. They had no faces. Sadie was outside hollerin' for me. She had this woman pinned on the lawn… so I stabbed her."

"You stabbed Abigail Folger… 28 times."

"Yeah." Watson nods, his head hung low, "She was... practically dead when I got there."

"Frykowski had 51 stab wounds."

"I remember the knife going up and down, like, um… a hammer in an engine block until my fist disappeared in the mess."

"And then?"

"And then we went into the living room."

"where Sharon Tate was." I shake my head, "Could you see she was pregnant?"

"Oh, yeah. She begged us to take her with us, let her have her baby and kill her after." Watson zones out.

"Tex?"

Watson takes a deep breath, but keeps the spaced out look on his face, "It didn't seem crazy at the time, the idea of takin' her. But I kept hearing Charlie's voice, 'kill 'em all.' he told me over and over again, 'make sure everyone's dead'."

"So you made sure." Ford nods.

"I did what Charlie told me. Except go to the other houses."

"What other houses?"

"Charlie had given us a list, but... " Watson shakes his head and sighs, "I was tired. It's hard stabbin' people. Sometimes you hit bone. My hands were aching. So we went back to the ranch, and… I slept like a baby."

I lean forward a but, "Tex, do you think you would have ever killed anyone if you hadn't met Charlie?"

"I hope not. I pray to God I wouldn't have, but… I know, in my heart, I harbored anger. I shot and I stabbed them. I beat Frykowski's head with a pistol until it broke in my hand."

"But Charlie told you to do it."

"Charlie never killed anyone." Watson shakes his head, "He just removed our fear of doin' it."

"So you're taking responsibility."

"I killed those people. All of them. Those people are victims of the Watson murders. But the Bible tells us, all have sinned, and all fall short of the glory of God. He who confesses obtains mercy. I was lost… until I gave myself to the Lord. But now, I've been redeemed by the perfect blood of Christ."