When he was 15, Beausoleil was sent to Los Prietos Boys Camp for ten months for running away from home and a series of juvenile pranks.

[2] After his release, Beausoleil moved to the Los Angeles area and drifted between there and San Francisco, gravitating towards the emerging counterculture music scene and acting.

[5] According to the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, the slaying became the first in a series of murders committed by the "Family" that set in motion the "Helter Skelter" scenario, which Manson envisioned and preached would happen in the near future in America.

He was arrested on August 6, 1969, after falling asleep in the car, having pulled off the highway at Cuesta Grade, a steep segment of U.S. Route 101 between San Luis Obispo and Atascadero.

[5] In a jailhouse interview twelve years after the murder, Beausoleil asserted that the killing was the result of a drug transaction gone wrong.

[10] No reference to a drug deal was made in either of Beausoleil's two trials for the murder or in related books by Ed Sanders and Vincent Bugliosi.

[10] According to his 1981 interview published in Oui magazine, Beausoleil first said he had unknowingly supplied members of the Straight Satans motorcycle gang with a batch of bad mescaline, sold to him by Hinman, and the bikers had demanded their money back.

[12][failed verification] Conspirator Susan Atkins stated before her death that she never heard Beausoleil indicate that a drug transaction was related at all to why they went to Hinman's house seeking money from him.

[13] On April 18, 1970, a Superior Court jury in Los Angeles found the 22-year-old Beausoleil guilty of first-degree murder of Hinman and sentenced him to death.

[10] In 1972, following the Supreme Court of California ruling (in the case of People v. Anderson) that the prevailing death penalty statutes were unconstitutional, Beausoleil's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Called as a witness at a 1973 sanity hearing for four other Manson associates, Beausoleil said that he and they would not conform to society's standards of sane behavior.

These family members of victims of the Manson murders had been involved in the parole hearings and continued to oppose the release of Beausoleil.

They noted that, during his nearly half-century of incarceration, he had pursued creative outlets and pro-social growth, gradually maturing into a person exhibiting compassion and empathy.

[11] Beausoleil's attorney responded to the comment about the music and art activities by saying that "Everything he has produced so far was done with the full permission of the warden of his prior institutions.

[26] Beausoleil was to star in Kenneth Anger's 1967 version of the film Lucifer Rising, but little footage was shot before the two had a falling out, and the project was abandoned.

[27] Beausoleil at the age of 16 had a brief appearance as Cupid in the 1967 film Mondo Hollywood, a documentary about the social, political, and cultural climate of Los Angeles.

[30] Incarcerated for most of his adult life, Beausoleil has nonetheless produced a significant body of musical recordings, visual art, and writings.

[30] Among his most notable works is the soundtrack for Lucifer Rising, an indie-underground film by Kenneth Anger, paired with a prog-rock symphony for a fallen angel's mythical journey.

[32] The Lucifer Rising Suite released by The Ajna Offensive in 2009 documents the film's soundtrack project from its beginnings in 1967 to its completion and delivery to the filmmaker in 1979.

The 2014 compilation Whispers Through The Black Veil was released on the Wyrd War label, containing the song "The Wailing On Witch Mountain", composed, performed, and recorded in 2012.

The triple gatefold LP and CD packaging integrates Nicholas Syracuse's photography with calligraphy by Timo Ketola.

[37][38] Following the book's publication, Beausoleil said that Capote took gross literary license in his reporting of the interview from eight years earlier.