A Mystery Solved & A Theory Debunked

On any given day, about half of the visitors to Kiko's House are not regulars but rather Googlers who are in pursuit of a favorite musician, automobile, book or war story. Then there are the folks who come out of the woodwork and stumble onto a September 2007 post titled "Nancy Pelosi Is An Idiot" because of the sna[[y headline, and more recently a May 2007 post titled "Why Are Jane And John Doe Hiding?"

The latter has probably been linked to 500 times in the last five weeks, a goodly number of hits for a small blog, and I've been puzzled as to why a story about a controversial high school teacher being sued by a student's parents for showing their daughter's class photos of the Charles Manson Family murders would be so interesting.

Well, brainiac that I am, I finally figured it out: The post included a grisly crime-scene photo (above) of actress Sharon Tate, and there continues to be a macabre fascination with the murders, the 40th anniversary of which was August 8. So much fascination that there is an Official Tate-Labianca Murders Blog.

As blogger Andrew Sullivan notes here, the Internet has changed journalism in some interesting ways, and the Manson blog is a terrific example because a blogger called The Colonel is doing a pretty effective job of debunking the "Helter Skelter" theory of the killings pushed tirelessly by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.

It's The Colonel's view that while Manson was by no means innocent, other people in his "family" played larger roles. That always has been my view.