California vandals mimic Manson

Vandals broke into an unoccupied Palm Springs, Calif., vacation home last week, unnerving neighbors by scrawling the walls with “Helter Skelter,” “Pigz” and “Blood,” markings reminiscent of the grisly Los Angeles slayings orchestrated by cult leader Charles Manson in 1969.

The Palm Springs Police Department is searching for suspects in the burglary of the Caliente Drive home.

On Friday, eight days after the 38th anniversary of the slayings of actress Sharon Tate and her guests by Manson’s followers, a Palm Springs cleaning crew found a large pentagram laid out with sticks on a shag-like carpet in the living room of the home.

The vandals also turned all the chairs upside down and hung every picture backward. The toilet was filled with straw-like sticks.

They wrote the word “Blood” in soap across a television screen and what appeared to be the word “Pigz” on a glass door. They scrawled “Helter Skelter” on the fireplace.

Officers think the vandals broke in through a sliding-glass door. They are investigating whether items are missing from the home. The owner, who could not immediately be reached for comment, told police that he had last stayed there three days before the incident.

In the Aug. 9, 1969, slayings of Tate and her guests in her Los Angeles home, the Manson family killers smeared the word “Pigs” on the front door in Tate’s blood.

They wrote “Death to pigs” and “Healter Skelter” on the wall and refrigerator in blood.

The prosecutor, who proved Manson had ordered three followers to carry out the killings, alleged that the use of the term Helter Skelter, from the title of a Beatles song, was evidence of Manson’s desire to use the killings to touch off a race war.