Helter Skelter Tour Review - August 26, 06

by Steve Goldstein of www.BeneathLosAngeles.com

_________________________________________________________________________

Advance purchase is required.  Tours usually sell out in advance!

Check availability and buy tickets online:
The Helter Skelter Tour of the Manson Murder Locations

 
Or call purchase by phone, call Zerve at 1.800.979.3370 or
212.209.3370 (int'l)

_______________________________________________________________

I had the chance to take Scott's new Helter Skelter tour yesterday, and it was even better than I had hoped it would be. Where do I begin? Aside from the obvious stops of the Tate and LaBianca murder locations, Scott takes you on an odyssey that includes the apartment of the LaBianca's daughter, Susan, where they dropped her off just before heading home to their demises (and we learn this was also the exterior location of "Melrose Place"), then shows you where they stopped for gas and bought a newspaper with the headlines of the previous evening's carnage at the Tate residence. Here, Rosemary LaBianca expressed fearing for her life to the newspaper vendor, the last person to see her alive. We see the corner where their son called his sister from a payphone after deciding something was wrong at the house. She and her boyfriend met him at the corner burger joint and they all went to discover the murder scene together, running across the street to an apartment (still there) to call police. 

After the stop on Cielo Drive, we follow the route of the killers up Benedict Canyon to the house where they hosed themselves off (confronting the home's owner before barely escaping), the spot where they discarded their bloody clothes down a mountainside (where they were discovered months later by newspaper reporters tracing their steps, and not by the police who seemed too lazy to try that), the spot where they tossed the gun used to kill Jay Sebring and Vojtek Frykowski down a hillside where it landed in the backyard of a Sherman Oaks residence (our next stop) where it was discovered by a ten-year-old boy who handled it much more professionally than the cops they handed it off to. 

While in the Valley, we see the home of singer Jack Jones, which the family "creepy crawled" sometime before the murders of August, 1969. We see the former residence of Abigail Folger and Frykowski where they lived before moving into the Tate-Polanski place a month before their deaths. We see the studio where Sharon Tate filmed her guest roles on Beverly Hillbillies, the Studio Club where she lived as a young struggling actress, and we see the former location of the Jay Sebring Hair Salon.

But the locations are only half the story. Scott uses multi-media to more fully recreate the Summer of '69, including video clips of Sharon Tate's first film role, the afore-mentioned appearance on the Beverly Hillbillies, Jay Sebring's guest spot on Batman, a video tour of the Cielo Drive residence before it was destroyed by developers, and a soundtrack that features the top 20 hit songs of August, 1969, from the Buffalo Springfield and the Mamas and the Papas, to Herb Alpert and Henry Mancini. The audio also includes eerie interviews with the killers themselves, describing their actions and their motivations. It also includes clips of Manson singing, not only his own song (later recorded by the Beach Boys and included here), but his own version of Helter Skelter. Goosebumps. 

The final bonus of this tour is when Scott hands each customer a genuine piece of the Tate fireplace. Worth it at any price! And as you probably know, Scott is donating a portion of all proceeds to the Doris Tate Foundation, a victims rights organization founded by Sharon Tate's late mother. 

I don't think I can truly do it justice here, but I have tried my best to convey how incredible this tour is. Scott's usual dedication to meticulous research and wry commentary shine brightly here. He is a man with a mission, and I can't wait to see where it takes him next. 

Thanks, Scott! Rock on.
Steve