LOS ANGELES, Sept. 16 – Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted Charles Manson and his family said this week he is “terribly disturbed” over reports that an Indiana mass murder may have been inspired by a movie based on a book Bugliosi wrote about the Manson case.

“It’s a terrible tragedy and I’m extremely upset about it Bugliosi said when told that one of the accused Indiana killers alluded to the movie “Helter Skelter” in court testimony

Dan Stonebraker, 20, and three others are accused of indiscriminately killing four brothers in a Valentine’s Day shotgun attack in Hollandsburg, Ind. Stonebraker, who has turned state’s evidence, testified earlier this week that he and another of the accused had watched “Helter Skelter” on television two months before they walked into the mobile home of Mrs. Betty Spencer and opened fire.

“We talked about it (the movie),” Stonebraker testified. “It was the movie of how Charles Manson killed people for no reason.”

Stonebraker said he, Roger Drollinger, 24, David Smith, 17, and Mike Wright 21, picked the Spencer family at random. The attack killed 14-year-old Ralph Reese, his brothers, Reeve, 16, and Raymond, 17, and their half-brother, Gregory Brooks, 22. Mrs. Spencer’s wig was blown off and the killers left her, apparently thinking she was dead.

“This is the first indication I’ve ever received that anyone ever got any ideas from ‘Helter Skelter,’ ” said Bugliosi, now a private attorney in Beverly Hills.

“People have asked me before if I was worried someone might get ideas from the book or the movie, but I said it has never happened. I’m terribly disturbed about it.

“I’m sure people will start saying that shows like ‘Helter Skelter’ shouldn’t be aired, but that’s an extreme too,” he said.

“What’s the alternative? Are we going to keep stories of tragedies off the air because some demented mind might try to parallel the act? I just can’t believe that just watching a movie could turn someone into a cold-blooded killer.”

Lee Rich, head of Lorimar Productions, which made “Helter Skelter,” said the alleged tie-in between the movie and the Indiana murders is “ridiculous.”

“’We didn’t show any violence in regard to the killings,” Rich said.

“We showed only who these people were and how they came to be that way.”

The four Indiana men were granted changes of venues because of pretrial publicity and are being tried in separate parts of the state.

“It’s a terrible tragedy,” Bugliosi said. “I don’t know what to say.”