Is anybody reading the Tom O'Neill book about the Manson case? I'm 15% thru it and it is absolutely riveting. For the last 20 years he's asked and in his reporting attempted to answer obvious questions about the case, but interestingly finds the narrative we know is far from the truth and two, very few people are willing to talk. The pieces of his interview with Bugliosi I've read so far read as a terrifying encounter between someone hiding something vs someone wanting to find out that something on a Parallax View level. He has Elke Sommer, Joanna Petter and Polanski's manager at the time, Bill Tennant, on the record absolutely roasting Polanski. Tennant also interestingly outright rejects the notion that these murders represented the loss of anything...
Bill Tennant wrote:There was nothing innocent about it. It was retribution. He who dies with the most toys wins. I think it's pretty self-serving to that period, and what was going on, innocent... What's innocent about drugs? What's innocent about promiscuous sex?... You tell me where the innocence was. Nobody cared or gave a shit about Sharon Tate. Not because they weren't nice but because she was expendable. As expendable as an actor whoe option comes up and gets dropped.
I'd really recommend the book.