Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, 80

LOS ANGELES — Vincent Bugliosi was an anonymous junior member of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office when he was handed the case that, for better or worse, would define his life: the prosecution of one of America’s most notorious mass murderers, Charles Manson.

During a closely watched and oftentimes bizarre trial that lasted nearly a year, the cool, relentless prosecutor became nearly as famous Manson himself as he denounced the ersatz hippie cult leader as the “dictatorial maharajah of a tribe of bootlicking slaves.”

He called Manson’s three murderous disciples, who were on trial with him, “robots” and “zombies.” He told jurors they eagerly killed actress Sharon Tate and seven others during a bloody, two-night rampage that terrified Los Angeles in the summer of 1969.

After all were convicted, Bugliosi would go on to recount the case in “Helter Skelter,” one of the bestselling true-crime books of all time.

He would write 11 more books after that, but Bugliosi, who died Saturday at age 80, would always be best remembered as the man who put Manson and his followers away. He reflected on the reasons for that in an interview 40 years after the slayings:

“These murders were probably the most bizarre in the recorded annals of American crime,” he said. “Evil has its lure and Manson has become a metaphor for evil.”

“He was a really intense, very focused prosecutor and he worked very hard,” said retired district attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons, who covered the trial as a reporter. She and others noted Bugliosi even put a cot in his office so he could sleep there as the case unfolded.

He sought public office, but was defeated in bids for Los Angeles County district attorney and California attorney general. He tried his hand as a defense attorney for a time but said ne never felt comfortable in that role.

Eventually he carved out a career as a successful writer, publishing a dozen books, among them the true-crime stories “And The Sea Will Tell” and “Till Death Do Us Part.” Other non-fiction works included “Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away With Murder.”

He was most proud of “Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” which took him 20 years to write, his son, Vincent Bugliosi Jr., said Saturday.

Born in Hibbing, Minn., in 1934, Bugliosi attended the University of Miami at Coral Gables, on a tennis scholarship. He earned a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

He and his wife of 59 years, Gail, had two children, Wendy and Vince Jr.