Charles Manson ordered 9 murders in two nights in August 1969. One victim was Sharon Tate - actress, wife of Roman Polanski, 8 months pregnant. The case broke every courtroom record in California history. Netflix spent $65 million on productions tied to his name. Quentin Tarantino built a $375 million film around the night of the murders. He was denied parole 12 times and died in prison in 2017. This is parole hearing number 12. Corcoran State Prison. March 27th, 1997. In the video below, the most dangerous cult leader in American history sits across from the parole board - and what comes out of his mouth is something no one in that room was prepared for. The board reads the facts. Nine murders. Two nights. A pregnant woman stabbed to death on Cielo Drive. He listens, then says the report is "a little distorted." Then he starts talking. He says he's still 10 years old on the inside. That his mother dropped him off with Irish Catholic monks as a child. That his grandmother was a First World War sharpshooter from Kentucky with a long rifle. That he's a rebel boy from Tennessee and California never understood him. Then he mentions Ronnie Reagan riding a wheelchair on fire in a nuclear submarine coming back from China. The board stares at him. This is a man whose followers killed for him without hesitation. Who convinced a group of young Americans that he was Jesus Christ. Who turned a California commune into a murder machine and called it Helter Skelter. In that room in 1997 he looked like anything but a monster. That was always the most terrifying thing about him. Was Manson a criminal genius who played insane, or did the prison system spend 50 years housing a man who genuinely lost his mind?