The scene described here is that into which wandered an impressionable 22 year old kid, fresh to LA from a small town in Texas, who had come to California like many thousands of others to seek the freedom, good times, and easy living that the culture of the decade promised.  What he didn’t know was that this gentle, charismatic guy named Charlie —whom the Hollywood jet-set embraced as a purveyor of good dope and easy girls— was a violent psychotic with extraordinary abilities for seduction and an apocalyptic vision of himself as Jesus Christ.

Within eighteen short months, the young Texan would slaughter seven innocent people in cold blood for his guru Charles Manson in what have been acknowledged as among the most infamous and heinous crimes of the last 100 years.

Cease to Exist is the first person account of descent into the madness of the Manson Family, directly through the eyes Manson’s right-hand man —and murderer of all seven of the Tate-LaBianca victims— Charles “Tex” Watson.

Through ‘Tex’ Watson’s eyes, audiences will witness the Manson Family from a perspective that is not only authentic, unique, and chillingly close, but which sheds unexplored light on the social and political climate of the times and its contribution to the conditions that made such an unthinkable thing almost inevitable.

Narrated by Watson directly from the rich, borne-of-hindsight accounts in his autobiography, the audience will accompany him on his descent, and will —as if he were a likeable character in a horror film about to open the door that is their doom— yearn for him not take each next step.  The fact that so few people know it was Watson that did the vast majority of the killing will make it all the more suspenseful.

“Cease to Exist” is the Manson saga from a completely fresh perspective; one that is brimming with heretofore only partially known or entirely unknown facts, and which doesn’t have to fictionalize anything or employ gimmicky storytelling to remain engrossing.  And, it’s entirely true.

At its heart, this is the cautionary tale of a young man’s downward spiral to self-annihilation as he gets caught up in the times and the events that forever changed those times.  On this journey the audience will encounter a series of historical pop-culture figures, bizarre counter-culture characters and events, and will witness firsthand the death throes of the most dynamic, exciting, and influential decade in American history.

Aside from the insiders’ perspective and unparalleled level of authenticity, Watson’s journey also contains direct witness accounts many details heretofore unknown except by the most die-hard aficionados of the case. He was there to experience head-on things that audiences will find incredible:

–One of the major contributors to the motive –and choice of venue- for the killings was the perceived ‘rip-off’ of aspiring rock star Charles Manson’s song “Cease to Exist” by his friends, The Beach Boys;

–Charles Watson’s introduction to Charlie Manson comes through Beach Boy’s drummer Dennis Wilson, who Watson picks up hitchhiking on Sunset (after Wilson’s Rolls is totaled).

–Watson’s primary guide into The Family was a middle-aged former Methodist minister who had come to LA to rescue his 15 year old daughter from Charles Manson.  The minister was instead converted, and soon became The Family’s most devoted member and chief evangelist of ‘The Gospel According to Charlie’.

–Watson’s story contains multiple, earlier visits to Doris Day’s son in the house on Cielo Drive where new resident Sharon Tate and four others would be slaughtered months later;

–Having been a subject of Manson’s artful control himself, and having escaped from it twice, Watson’s perspective of the dynamics of “Family” life and the fascinating characters in it is not only captivating, but disturbingly authentic;

–He was there at the moment Manson first heard The White Album, Manson’s reaction to the track ‘Helter Skelter’ being so extreme that Watson runs from the Family, until Charlie’s programming draws him back;

–His story contains Manson’s shooting of a Black pimp in Hollywood, ….and numerous other, heretofore little known characters and events that are fascinating, entertaining, and engrossing;

–It was Charles “Tex” Watson that did the vast majority of the killing, but he’s been virtually written out of the lore, primarily due to the fact that he was not part of D.A. Vince Bugliosi’s case, and therefore not much mentioned in “Helter Skelter”;

–And of course there are the murders themselves, the murders, which are clumsy and awkward —about as different from the stylized, manicured violence in movies and television as imaginable, and therefore all the more horrific.

Other renderings of this saga have been sensationalist fiction, conspiratorial nonsense, or police procedurals like “Helter Skelter”.  This is a truly different approch from the others, with the benefit of primary-source authenticity and an easy to follow story arc.

It’s a serious and engrossing true-crime drama in a period setting richer than “Madmen”, and containing the elements to make it an entertaining, Emmy-caliber series or Oscar winning film. It has sex, drugs, violence, regligion, Black Panthers, celebrities, bikers, a music industry rip-off, redemption, a future presidential assassin, a cast organically containing young people, and great locations …all presented with an unrivaled authenticity.