VINCENT BUGLIOSI DIES: A NEIGHBOR'S OBIT

Vincent Bugliosi died on Saturday of cancer.....He is firmly entrenched in Los Angeles culture as a former district attorney and most noteworthy as prosecutor of Charles Manson and the ”Manson Family” following the Tate and La Bianca murders in 1969.

Vincent Bugliosi was a neighbor of mine when I lived in Glendale. He was very friendly and always willing to talk about anything related to his famous crime cases. I remember once seeing him in the grocery store and we talked about whether Manson family member, Leslie Van Houten, should be released from jail. We both held on to our grocery bags for what seemed like a half hour as he made his argument that Van Houten, the least offensive of the those in prison for the Manson murders, should never be released...for any reason. I disagreed. Isn’t 45 years enough? After all, she isn’t a hardened criminal...she was likely on drugs and ”brainwashed” at the time. I tried to make the case that Van Houten was at the LaBianca house and, yes, she stabbed him with a fork...but he was already dead at the time.....and, she has been a model prisoner...she sounds like Mother Teresa now.....clearly no risk to society. Bugliosi would have none of it...he said, ”one day Leslie is going to start screaming and she is never going to stop”.

There have only been a few books that I have read in my life that I couldn’t put down.....one was ”Helter Skelter”, written by Bugliosi, and another was ”And the Sea will Tell”, also by Bugliosi. Both were made into movies. Strangely, these are both true crime books, and cases that Bugliosi worked on as an attorney. I have never read any other true crime books but those......and I have no interest in true crime, but these books are so compelling that I was captured.

In ”Helter Skelter” Manson was the prosecutor for the city of Los Angeles. In the book “And the Sea will Tell, Bugliosi was acting as a defense attorney for the accused. It was an incredible story that took place in the Palmyra Islands...riveting...

Bugliosi left the DA’s office to become a defense attorney. He was incredibly successful in both capacities.....he won virtually every case he tried when in the DA’s office. Bugliosi told me that he had a personal ethic as defense attorney that said that he wouldn’t defend someone who he felt was guilty. He would ask his potential clients to submit to a polygraph test before he would take a case. He told me about the time when the family attorney for Jon Benet Ramsay called him and asked if he would act as a defense attorney for the parents of Jon Benet. He told the attorney that the parents would have to submit to a polygraph. The attorney for the family never got back to him.

In the defense of Jennifer Jenkins in the book, ”And the Sea Will Tell”, Bugliosi was able to get a ”not guilty” verdict but he expressed that he never was fully convinced of her innocence. He had to settle for uncertainty. It was one of the rare times for Bugliosi.

R.I.P. Vincent Bugliosi.....you were formidable.....you brought us justice, intrigue, drama, and integrity.....