Vincent Bugliosi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vincent Bugliosi, 2009

Vincent Bugliosi (born August 18, 1934 in Hibbing , Minnesota , † June 6, 2015 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American lawyer and best-selling author .

Life

jurist

Vincent Bugliosi completed his studies at the University of Miami in Coral Gables as valedictorian . In 1969 he was assistant prosecutor for the Los Angeles County District when the "Manson Trial" ( Charles Manson ) began. Bugliosi was installed here as chief prosecutor, which made him very well known nationally and internationally. He led the murder charges against four members of the Manson Family . This group murdered at least nine people in a series of murders. Since the well-known actress Sharon Tate was among the victims and the acts were particularly cruel, the trial aroused considerable media interest .

Bugliosi's evidence was accepted by the jury in 1971 and sentenced all of the defendants, including the instigator Manson, to death in the gas chamber . However, in 1972 the State of California made the death penalty unconstitutional and all death sentences were subsequently commuted to life imprisonment. In the same year, Bugliosi resigned from the prosecutor's office and has since worked as a defense attorney.

author

He published his first book Helter Skelter in 1974, it was translated into numerous languages and sold around 10 million copies. In Germany, the news magazine Der Spiegel published a short version of the book in a four-part series in issues 49 to 52. In 1976 it was filmed under the title Helter Skelter - The Night of Long Knives , and the film was also a box-office hit. In 2004, his first book was filmed again as a two-part TV series under the title Helter Skelter .

In addition to his numerous legal articles in relevant journals , Bugliosi continued to be active as a book author. He achieved another success in 1991 with And the sea will tell (German title: Wen die See verrät ), which was filmed in the same year under the title of the same name. In this book, too, he described a bizarre murder case in which he and Leonard Weinglass took over the defense of the co-accused Stephanie Stearns (named Jennifer Jenkins in the book) and obtained her acquittal.

In July 1986 English television filmed a fictional trial of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy . The hearing was based on documents and statements made before the various committees of inquiry that were available at the time. There was no script or actors, only the actual witnesses testified. Bugliosi took on the role of prosecutor from Oswald's defense attorney Gerry Spence, a well-respected lawyer in the United States. A five hour summary of the 21 hour recording was broadcast in November 1986 under the title On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald .

In 1996 he dealt in the book: Outrage: The Five Reasons Why OJ Simpson Got Away With Murder ("Outrage: The five reasons why the murderer OJ Simpson got away") with the acquittal of OJ Simpsons , which he disapproved of.

In 2007 he published Reclaiming History , a more than 1,600 page book in which he tried to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald acted as a sole culprit in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In the same year, the short version Four Days appeared in November .

In 2008 The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder came on the market, which was also translated into German.

Film adaptations

Works

  • (with Curt Gentry): Helter Skelter. The True Story of the Manson Murders. (1974).
    • German edition, with Curt Gentry: Helter Skelter - Charles Manson's Mordrausch. Riva Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-86883-057-6 .
  • And the Sea Will Tell. WW Norton & Co, New York 1991, ISBN 0-393-02919-0 .
    • German edition: Who the sea reveals. Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1992, ISBN 3-404-13409-5 .
  • Outrage. WW Norton & Co, New York 1996, ISBN 0-393-04050-X .
  • Reclaiming History. The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. WW Norton & Co, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-393-04525-3 .
  • Four Days in November. The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. WW Norton & Co, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-393-33215-5 .
  • The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Vanguard, New York 2008, ISBN 978-1-59315-481-3 .

Awards

Edgar Allan Poe Award
  • 1975: for Helter Skelter , Category: (Best Fact Crime book)
  • 1979: for Till Death Us Do Part: A True Murder Mystery (with Ken Hurwitz) (1978), Category: (Best Fact Crime book)
  • 2008: for Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (2007), Category: (Best Fact Crime book)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vincent Bugliosi, Prosecutor In Manson Trial, Dies At 80 on losangeles.cbslocal.com (English)
  2. ↑ Rise - Death to the Pigs! In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 1974 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Bugliosi, Vincent
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer and best-selling author
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Hibbing , Minnesota, United States
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 2015
Place of death Los Angeles , California, United States