Charles Manson

Charles Milles Manson was an American criminal, cult leader, and musician who was the founder of the Manson Family. He gained notoriety for ordering the Tate–LaBianca murders, where his followers murdered nine people around Los Angeles in 1969.

Overview§

Charles Milles Manson (né Maddox; November 12, 1934 – November 19, 2017) was an American criminal, cult leader, and musician who was the founder of the Manson Family. He gained notoriety for ordering the Tate–LaBianca murders, where his followers murdered nine people around Los Angeles in 1969. Before the murders, Manson had spent more than half of his life in correctional institutions. While gathering his cult followers, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through an association with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, who introduced Manson to record producer Terry Melcher. In 1968, the Beach Boys recorded Manson's song "Cease to Exist", renamed "Never Learn Not to Love" as a single B-side, but Manson was uncredited. Afterward, he attempted to secure a record contract through Melcher, but was unsuccessful. Manson would often talk around the Beatles, including their eponymous 1968 album. According to Los Angeles County District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, Manson felt guided by his interpretation of the Beatles' lyrics and adopted the term "Helter Skelter" to describe an impending apocalyptic race war. During his trial, Bugliosi argued that Manson had intended to start a race war, although Manson and others disputed this. Contemporary interviews and trial witness testimony insisted that the Tate–LaBianca murders were copycat crimes intended to exonerate Manson's friend Bobby Beausoleil. Manson denied having ordered any murders. He served his time in prison and died from complications from colon cancer in 2017.

Childhood§

Charles Milles Maddox was born on November 12, 1934, to 16-year-old Ada Kathleen Maddox of Ashland, Kentucky, in Cincinnati General Hospital, now the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Manson's Ohio birth certificate simply lists his name as "Manson." His biological father appears to have been Colonel Walker Henderson Scott Sr. of Catlettsburg, Kentucky, against whom Maddox filed a paternity suit that resulted in an agreed judgment in 1937. Scott worked intermittently in local mills and had a local reputation as a con artist. Although "Colonel" was merely his given name, he allowed Maddox to believe that he was an army colonel. When Maddox told Scott that she was pregnant, he informed her that he had been called away on army business. After several months, she realized he had no intention of returning. Manson never knew his biological father. Before manson's birth, Maddox married William Eugene Manson (1909–1961), a laborer at a dry cleaning business, in August 1934. Maddox often went on drinking sprees with her brother Luther Elbert Maddox (1916–1950), leaving Charles with babysitters. After william alleged "gross neglect of duty" by Maddox, on April 30, 1937, Maddox and her husband divorced. Charles retained William's last name of Manson. On August 1, 1939, Kathleen and Luther were arrested for assault and robbery, and sentenced to five and ten years of imprisonment, respectively. Manson was placed in the home of an aunt and uncle in McMechen, West Virginia. His mother was paroled in 1942. Manson later characterized the first weeks after she returned from prison as the happiest time in his life. Weeks after her release, Manson's family moved to Charleston, West Virginia, where he frequently played truant and his mother spent her evenings drinking. She was arrested for grand larceny, but not convicted. The family later moved to Indianapolis, where Maddox met alcoholic Lewis Woodson Cavender Jr. (1916–1979) through Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and married him in August 1943.

First offenses§

In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Manson stated that when he was aged 9, he set his school on fire. He also got repeatedly in trouble for truancy and petty theft. In 1947, although there was a lack of foster home placements, at age 13, Manson was placed in the Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana, a school for male delinquents run by Catholic priests. Gibault was a strict school, where punishment for even the smallest infraction included beatings with either a wooden paddle or a leather strap. Manson ran away from Gibault and slept in the woods, under bridges and wherever else he could find shelter. Manson fled home to his mother and spent Christmas 1947 at his aunt and uncle's house in West Virginia. His mother returned him to Gibault. Ten months later, he ran away to Indianapolis. It was there, in 1948, that Manson committed his first documented crime by robbing a grocery store, at first to simply find something to eat. Manson found a cigar box containing just over a hundred dollars, which he used to rent a room on Indianapolis's skid row and to buy food. For a time, Manson had a job delivering messages for Western Union in an attempt to live honestly. He quickly started to supplement his wages through theft. He was eventually caught, and in 1949 a sympathetic judge sent him to Boys Town, a juvenile facility in Omaha, Nebraska. After four days at Boys Town, he and fellow student Blackie Nielson gained a gun and stole a car. They used it to commit two armed robberies on their way to the home of Nielson's uncle in Peoria, Illinois. Nielson's uncle was a professional thief, and when the boys arrived he allegedly took them on as apprentices. Manson was arrested two weeks later during a nighttime raid on a Peoria store. He was linked to his two earlier armed robberies in the investigation that followed. He was sent to the Indiana Boys School, a strict reform school outside of Plainfield, Indiana. At the Indiana Boys School, other students allegedly raped Manson with the encouragement of a staff member, and he was repeatedly beaten. He ran away from the school eighteen times. Manson developed a self-defense technique he later called the "insane game", in which he would screech, grimace and wave his arms to convince stronger aggressors that he was insane. In February 1951, after several failed attempts, he escaped with two other boys. The three escapees robbed filling stations while attempting to drive to California in stolen cars, until they were arrested in Utah. For the federal crime of driving a stolen car across state lines, Manson was sent to Washington, D.C.'s National Training School for Boys. On arrival he was given aptitude tests which determined that he was illiterate, with an IQ of 109. His case worker deemed him aggressively antisocial.

First imprisonment§

In October 1951, on a psychiatrist's recommendation, Manson was transferred to Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution in Virginia. His aunt visited him and told administrators she would let him stay at her house and help him find work. Manson had a parole hearing scheduled for February 1952. In January, he was caught raping a boy at knifepoint. Manson was transferred to the Federal Reformatory in Petersburg, Virginia, where he committed a further "eight serious disciplinary offenses, three involving homosexual acts". He was then moved to a maximum security reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio, where he was expected to remain until his release on his 21st birthday in November 1955. Good behavior led to an early release in May 1954, to live with his aunt and uncle in West Virginia.

In January 1955, Manson married a hospital waitress named Rosalie "Rosie" Jean Willis (January 28, 1939 – August 21, 2009). Around October, around three months after he and his pregnant wife arrived in Los Angeles in a car he had stolen in Ohio, Manson was again charged with a federal crime for taking the vehicle across state lines. After a psychiatric evaluation, he was given five years' probation. Manson's failure to appear at a Los Angeles hearing on an identical charge filed in Florida resulted in his March 1956 arrest in Indianapolis. His probation was revoked, and he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment at Terminal Island in Los Angeles. While Manson was in prison, Rosalie gave birth to their son, Charles Manson Jr. (April 10, 1956 – June 29, 1993). Manson gained visits from Rosalie and his mother, who were now living together in Los Angeles during his first year at Terminal Island. In March 1957, when the visits from his wife ceased, his mother informed him Rosalie was living with another man. Less than two weeks before a scheduled parole hearing, Manson tried to escape by stealing a car. He was given five years' probation and his parole was denied.

Second imprisonment§

In September 1958, Manson gained five years' parole, the same year in which Rosalie gained a decree of divorce. He was pimping a 16-year-old girl and receiving additional support from a girl with wealthy parents by November. In September 1959, he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check, which he claimed to have stolen from a mailbox; the latter charge was later dropped. He gained a ten-year suspended sentence and probation after a young woman named Leona Rae "Candy" Stevens, who had an arrest record for prostitution, made a "tearful plea" before the court that she and Manson were "deeply in love... and would marry if Charlie were freed". Before the year's end, Stevens married Manson. Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor who later secured Manson's murder conviction, believed the marriage may have been so she could not be required to testify against Manson. Manson took Leona and another woman to New Mexico for purposes of prostitution, resulting in him being held and questioned for violating the Mann Act. Though he was released, Manson correctly suspected that the investigation had not ended. When he disappeared in violation of his probation, a bench warrant was issued. In April 1960, an indictment for violation of the Mann Act followed. After the arrest of one of the women for prostitution, Manson was arrested in June in Laredo, Texas, and was returned to Los Angeles. For violating his probation on the check-cashing charge, he was ordered to serve his ten-year sentence. Manson spent a year trying unsuccessfully to appeal the revocation of his probation. In July 1961, he was transferred from the Los Angeles County Jail to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington. There, he took guitar lessons from Barker–Karpis gang leader Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and gained from another inmate the contact information of Phil Kaufman, a record producer and tour manager. Among Manson's fellow prisoners during this time was future actor Danny Trejo; the two participated in several hypnosis sessions together. Manson's mother moved to Washington State to be closer to him during his McNeil Island incarceration, working nearby as a waitress. Although the Mann Act charge had been dropped, the attempt to cash the Treasury check was still a federal offense. Manson's September 1961 annual review noted he had a "tremendous drive to call attention to himself", an observation echoed in September 1964. In 1963, Leona was granted a divorce. She alleged that she and Manson had a son, Charles Luther Manson during the process. According to a popular urban legend, Manson auditioned unsuccessfully for the Monkees in late 1965. This is refuted by the fact that Manson was still incarcerated at McNeil Island at the time. In June 1966, Manson was sent for the second time to Terminal Island in preparation for early release. 1967, he had spent more than half of his thirty-two years in prisons and other institutions by the time of his release day on March 21. This was mainly because he had broken federal laws. Federal sentences were, and remain, much more severe than state sentences for many of the same offenses. Telling the authorities that prison had become his home, he requested permission to stay.

Parolee and patient§

Less than a month after his 1967 release, Manson moved to Berkeley from Los Angeles, which could have been a probation violation. After calling the San Francisco probation office upon his arrival, he was transferred to the supervision of criminology doctoral researcher and federal probation officer Roger Smith, instead. Until the spring of 1968, Smith worked at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic (HAFMC), which Manson and his family came to frequent. Roger Smith, along with the HAFMC's founder David Smith, gained funding from the National Institutes of Health, and reportedly the CIA, to study the effects of drugs like LSD and methamphetamine on the counterculture movement in San Francisco's Haight–Ashbury District. The patients at the HAFMC became subjects of their research, including Manson and his expanding group of mostly female followers, who came to see Roger Smith regularly. Manson gained permission from Roger Smith to move from Berkeley to the Haight-Ashbury District. He first took LSD and would use it frequently during his time there. David Smith, who had studied the effects of LSD and amphetamines in rodents, wrote that the change in Manson's personality during this time "was the most abrupt Roger Smith had observed in his entire professional career." Manson also read the book Stranger in a Strange Land, a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein. Inspired by the burgeoning free love philosophy in Haight–Ashbury during the Summer of Love, Manson started preaching his own philosophy based on a mixture of Stranger in a Strange Land, the Bible, Scientology, Dale Carnegie and the Beatles, which quickly earned him an after. He may have also borrowed some of his philosophy from the Process Church of the Final Judgement, whose members believed Satan would become reconciled to Jesus and they would come together at the end of the world to judge humanity.

Involvement with Scientology§

Manson started studying Scientology while incarcerated with the help of fellow inmate Lanier Rayner, and in July 1961 listed Scientology as his religion. A September 1961 prison report argues that Manson "appears to have developed a certain amount of insight into his problems through his study of this discipline". Another prison report in August 1966 stated that Manson was no longer an advocate of Scientology. Upon his release in 1967, Manson traveled to Los Angeles where he reportedly "met local Scientologists and attended several parties for movie stars". Manson completed 150 hours of auditing. His "right hand man", Bruce Davis, worked at the Church of Scientology headquarters in London from November 1968 to April 1969.

San Francisco followers§

Shortly after relocating to San Francisco, Manson became acquainted with Mary Brunner, a 23-year-old graduate of University of Wisconsin–Madison. Brunner was working as a library assistant at the University of California, Berkeley, and Manson, until that point making his living by panhandling, moved in with her. Manson then met teenaged runaway Lynette Fromme, later nicknamed "Squeaky", and convinced her to live with him and Brunner. According to a second-hand account, Manson overcame Brunner's initial resistance to him bringing other women in to live with them. Before long, they were sharing Brunner's residence with eighteen other women. Manson targeted individuals for manipulation who were emotionally insecure and social outcasts. Manson established himself as a guru in Haight-Ashbury which, during the Summer of Love, was emerging as the signature hippie locale. Manson soon had the first of his groups of followers, most of them female. They were later dubbed as the "Manson Family" by Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and the media. Manson allegedly taught his followers that they were the reincarnation of the original Christians, and that The Establishment could be characterized as the Romans. Sometime around 1967, Manson started using the alias "Charles Willis Manson". Before the end of summer, he and some of his followers started traveling in an old school bus they had adapted, putting colored rugs and pillows in place of the many seats they had removed. They eventually settled in the Los Angeles areas of Topanga Canyon, Malibu and Venice along the coast. In 1967, Brunner became pregnant by Manson. On April 15, 1968, she gave birth to their son, whom she named Valentine Michael, in a condemned house where they were living in Topanga Canyon. She was assisted by several of the young women from the fledgling Family. Brunner, like most members of the group, acquired several aliases and nicknames, including: "Marioche", "Och", "Mother Mary", "Mary Manson", "Linda Dee Manson" and "Christine Marie Euchts". In his book Love Needs Care around his time at the HAFMC, David Smith claimed that Manson attempted to reprogram his followers' minds to "submit totally to his will" through the use of "LSD and... unconventional sexual practices" that would turn his followers into "empty vessels that would accept anything he poured". Manson Family member Paul Watkins testified that Manson would encourage group LSD trips and take lower doses himself to "keep his wits around him". Watkins stated that "Charlie's trip was to program us all to submit." By the end of his stay in the Haight in April 1968, Manson had attracted twenty or so followers, all under the supervision of Roger Smith and many of the staff at the HAFMC. The core members of Manson's after eventually included: Brunner; Charles "Tex" Watson, a musician and former actor; Bobby Beausoleil, a former musician and actor; Susan Atkins; Patricia Krenwinkel; and Leslie Van Houten.

Subsequent arrests§

Supervised by his ostensible parole officer Roger Smith, Manson grew his family through drug use and prostitution without interference from the authorities. Manson was arrested on July 31, 1967, for attempting to prevent the arrest of one of his followers, Ruth Ann Moorehouse. Instead of Manson being sent back to prison, the charge was reduced to a misdemeanor and Manson was given three additional years of probation. After his bus crashed into a ditch, he avoided prosecution again in July 1968, when he and the family were arrested while moving to Los Angeles. Manson and members of his family, including Brunner and Manson's newborn baby, were found sleeping naked by police. Afterwards, he was again arrested and released only a few days later, this time on a drug charge.

Involvement with the Beach Boys§

On April 6, 1968, Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys was driving through Malibu when he noticed two female hitchhikers, Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey. He picked them up and dropped them off at their destination. On April 11, Wilson noticed the same two girls hitchhiking again and this time took them to his home at 14400 Sunset Boulevard. Wilson later recalled that he "told [the girls] around our involvement with the Maharishi and they told me they too had a guru, a guy named Charlie [Manson] who'd recently come out of jail after twelve years." Wilson then went to a recording session. When he returned later that night, he was met in his driveway by Manson, and when Wilson walked into his home, around a dozen people were occupying the premises, most of them young women. He had met Wilson on at least one prior occasion: at a friend's San Francisco house where Manson had gone to gain marijuana by Manson's own account. Manson claimed that Wilson invited him to visit his home when Manson came to Los Angeles. Wilson was initially fascinated by Manson and his followers, referring to him as "the Wizard" in a Rave magazine article at the time. The two struck a friendship, and over the next few months members of the Manson Family – mostly women who were treated as servants – were housed in Wilson's residence. This arrangement persisted for around six months. Wilson introduced Manson to a few friends in the music business, including the Byrds' producer Terry Melcher. Although the recordings remain unheard by the public, manson recorded many songs at Brian Wilson's home studio. Band engineer Stephen Desper said that the Manson sessions were done "for Dennis [Wilson] and Terry Melcher". Wilson recorded a Manson song for the Beach Boys, originally titled "Cease to Exist", but reworked as "Never Learn Not to Love", as a single B-side released the after December in September 1968. The writing was credited solely to Wilson. When asked why Manson was not credited, Wilson explained that Manson relinquished his publishing rights in favor of "around a hundred thousand dollars' worth of stuff". Around this time, the Family destroyed two of Wilson's luxury cars. Wilson eventually distanced himself from Manson and moved out of the Sunset Boulevard house, leaving the Family there, and took residence at a basement apartment in Santa Monica. Virtually all of Wilson's household possessions were stolen by the Family. The members were evicted from his home three weeks before the lease was scheduled to expire. When Manson sought further contact, he left a bullet with Wilson's housekeeper to be delivered with a threatening message. Band manager Nick Grillo recalled that Wilson became concerned after Manson had got "into a much heavier drug situation... taking a tremendous amount of acid and Dennis wouldn't tolerate it and asked him to leave. It was difficult for Dennis because he was afraid of Charlie." Writing in his 2016 memoir, Mike Love recalled Wilson saying he had witnessed Manson shooting a black man "in half" with a M16 rifle and hiding the body inside a well. Melcher said that Wilson had been aware that the Family "were killing people" and had been "so freaked out he just didn't want to live anymore. He was afraid, and he thought he should have gone to the authorities, but he didn't, and the rest of it happened."

Spahn Ranch§

Manson established a base for the Family at the Spahn Ranch in August 1968, after their eviction from Wilson's residence. The ranch had been a television and movie set for Westerns, but the buildings had deteriorated by the late-1960s. The ranch then derived revenue mainly from selling horseback rides. Female Family members did chores around the ranch and, occasionally, had sex on Manson's orders with the nearly blind 80-year-old owner, George Spahn; the women also acted as guides for him. In exchange, Spahn allowed Manson and his group to live at the ranch for free.

Doomsday beliefs§

The Manson Family evolved into a doomsday cult when Manson became fixated on the idea of an imminent apocalyptic race war between America's Black minority and the larger White population. A white supremacist, Manson told some of the Family that Black people would rise up and kill the entire White population except for Manson and his followers, but they were not intelligent enough to survive on their own. They needed a white man to lead them, and so they would serve Manson as their "master". Manson adopted the term "Helter Skelter", taken from a song on the Beatles' recently released White Album, to refer to this upcoming war in late-1968.

Tate encounter§

On March 23, 1969, Manson entered the grounds of 10050 Cielo Drive, which he had known as Melcher's residence. He was not invited. As he approached the main house, Manson was met by Shahrokh Hatami, an Iranian photographer who had befriended film director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate during the making of the documentary Mia and Roman. Hatami was there to photograph Tate before she departed for Rome the after day. Seeing Manson approach, Hatami went onto the front porch to ask him what he wanted. Manson said that he was looking for Melcher, whose name Hatami did not recognize. Hatami told him the place was the Polanski residence and then advised him to try the path to the guest house beyond the main house. Tate appeared behind Hatami in the house's front door and asked him who was calling. Hatami and Tate maintained their positions while Manson went back to the guest house without a word, returned to the front a minute or two later and left. That evening, Manson returned to the property and again went to the guest house. He entered the enclosed porch and spoke with Altobelli, the owner, who had just come out of the shower. Manson asked for Melcher, but Altobelli felt that Manson was instead looking for him. It was later discovered that Manson had apparently been to the property on earlier occasions after Melcher left. Although he did, altobelli told Manson through the screen door that Melcher had moved to Malibu and said that he did not know his new address. Altobelli told Manson he was leaving the country the next day, and Manson said he would like to speak with him upon his return. Altobelli said that he would be gone for more than a year. Manson said that he had been directed to the guest house by the persons in the main house; Altobelli asked Manson not to disturb his tenants. Altobelli and Tate flew together to Rome the next day. Tate asked him whether "that creepy-looking guy" had gone to see him at the guest house the day before.

Crowe shooting§

Tex Watson became involved in drug dealing and robbed a 22-year-old rival named Bernard "Lotsapoppa" Crowe. Crowe allegedly responded with a threat to kill everyone at Spahn Ranch. In response, Manson shot Crowe on July 1, 1969, at Manson's Hollywood apartment. Manson's belief that he had killed Crowe was seemingly confirmed by a news report of the discovery of the dumped body of a Black Panther in Los Angeles. Although Crowe was not a member of the Black Panthers, Manson concluded he had been and expected retaliation from the Panthers. He turned Spahn Ranch into a defensive camp, establishing night patrols by armed guards. Watson would later write, "Blackie was trying to get at the chosen ones." Manson brought in members of the Straight Satans Motorcycle Club to act as security.