Charles Manson led a communal group known as the Family in late-1960s California, and in the summer of 1969 members of that group carried out the Tate-LaBianca killings, murders that made Manson one of the most recognizable names in American crime. This film traces that arc from his early life through the 1970 conviction that sent him to prison for the rest of his life, using archival footage and interviews to sort out what actually happened from the mythology that grew up around him afterward. It spends time on the courtroom spectacle itself, the media attention that turned a murder trial into a national obsession, and the mechanics of how Manson held influence over the young followers who carried out the killings on his orders. The victims' families appear as well, a reminder that the case is not only a story about a notorious defendant but about the people whose lives were destroyed by his followers' actions.