Press clips

 

Alta: Mystery novelist Denise Hamilton joins us on the Mansonland tour, just one stop on a deep dive into the Charles Manson Industry…

Spectrum News 1 video: A sneak peek of some of the sites that flesh out the lost world of psychedelic Los Angeles, as featured on the Mansonland tour.

In this special event tour, a sequel to his popular tour about Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army, author Brad Schreiber (Revolution’s End: The Patty Hearst Kidnapping, Mind Control, and the Secret History of Donald DeFreeze and the SLA) takes us deeper down the counterculture rabbit hole, for a wild ride through the mean streets of Los Angeles, on the trail of the Manson Family.

August 1969, the city shuddered at news of two brutal and apparently random home invasions, the first claiming the lives of actress Sharon Tate and four visitors in the Hollywood Hills, the second leaving supermarket owners Leno and Rosemary LaBianca lifeless in Los Feliz. The unknown killers left a chilling message for the public: cryptic phrases scrawled in the victims’ blood.

What followed is perhaps the best documented criminal investigation and trial in history, concluding in the murder convictions of a sinister crew of hollow-eyed cultists and the elevation of small-time hustler Charlie Manson to the starring role of America’s Bogeyman.

You already know the story of Charlie’s brainwashed family of acid-damaged dropouts, their black school bus and stolen dune buggies, Charlie’s thwarted musical ambitions and dreams of a coming race war called Helter Skelter. It’s the true crime story that’s inspired dozens of books, documentaries, podcasts and dramatizations. (If you’d like to read up on the case before taking the tour, our Kim Cooper considers The Family by Ed Sanders a great example of immersive true crime reporting, and host Brad Schreiber’s research for this tour relied most upon Nikolas Schreck and his definitive, nearly 1,000 page work, The Manson File: Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman.)

But the truth behind the Manson Family’s crimes is even weirder, darker and more complicated than you know.

To truly understand the Manson Family, you must understand Manson’s relationship to Los Angeles, and the complex web of underworld activities that entwined drug dealers (both local and international), movie stars, organized crime, sex workers, the Black Panthers, motorcycle gangs and Charlie Manson’s gang of true believers.

So join Esotouric for a time travel trip to that hot summer of 1969, as Brad Schreiber gives us a fresh perspective on dark secrets and repugnant characters. The crimes are white collar, blue collar and bloody red, as the optimism and warmth of the ‘60s comes to a shattering Los Angeles cataclysm. We’ve got some special surprises in store–you won’t want to miss it!

Please note that this is a Special Event, and vouchers and discounts good on our regularly scheduled tours are not accepted for this tour.

ABOUT GUEST HOST BRAD SCHREIBER

BRAD SCHREIBER has written for all media. He has been a producer, executive, director, consultant and actor. His early-years biography Becoming Jimi Hendrix was called “fascinating” by the New York Times and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library. He was Vice President of Storytech Literary Consulting, founded by story structure expert Christopher Vogler, for 11 years. In television, he created the series North Mission Road, which ran for six seasons on tru-TV, based on his book Death in Paradise: An Illustrated History of the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner. He was a writer, producer and development executive for L.A. PBS affiliate KCET-TV, and director of development for TV/film director Jonathan Kaplan. Schreiber’s writing has been honored by the Edward Albee Foundation, the National Press Foundation and others. Schreiber has taught at the American Film Institute, the Directors Guild of America, University of Wisconsin, Madison and many other locations, in the US, Canada and Mexico. His book, Revolution’s End, an expose of the Patricia Hearst kidnapping, won 2017 awards from the International Book Awards and Independent Publisher Book Awards and is being developed as a television series.

Brad will have copies of his books Revolution’s End: The Patty Hearst Kidnapping, Mind Control, and the Secret History of Donald DeFreeze and the SLA and Death in Paradise: An Illustrated History of the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner available for sale and signing.