The Other Manson Families

“What, then, of famous murders — ones we didn’t commit or witness, but still live with, in a sense? We stare at a house ringed by crime scene tape during the evening news; if we’re truly devoted, we can follow Court TV’s live coverage of the indictment six months later. But our lives aren’t split into a before and after; in fact, they haven’t changed much at all. Maybe, if we’re Joan Didion, we have a panic attack and start to lock our front door. Meanwhile, the rest of us eat our oatmeal and do the crossword puzzle as always, only with an occasional shiver of dread: something horrible happened somewhere else today. Most of us, at least. But there are many ways to be a victim of a crime, and not all of them look like you might expect.”
 — Rachel Monroe has a thoughtful piece in the LA Review of Books looking at Sharon Tate and the victims’ rights movement, about which there is a fascinating new book.