Charles Manson

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 orchestrating 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 about 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.

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." In August 1934, before Manson's birth, Maddox married William Eugene Manson (1909–1961), a laborer at a dry cleaning business. Maddox often went on drinking sprees with her brother Luther Elbert Maddox (1916–1950), leaving Charles with babysitters. On April 30, 1937, Maddox and her husband divorced, after William alleged "gross neglect of duty" by Maddox. 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.

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. He allowed Maddox to believe that he was an army colonel, although "Colonel" was merely his given name. 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.

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.

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.

Less than a month after his 1967 release, Manson moved to Berkeley from Los Angeles, which could have been a probation violation. Instead, 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. 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, as well as the HAFMC's founder David Smith, received 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 received 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 began 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 a following. 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.

Manson began 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.

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 was admitted to state prison from Los Angeles County on April 22, 1971, for seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of Abigail Ann Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Earl Parent, Sharon Tate Polanski, Jay Sebring, and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. In 1972, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state's death penalty statute was unconstitutional, and subsequently Manson was re-sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. His initial death sentence was modified to life on February 2, 1977.

On December 13, 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder in Los Angeles County Court for the July 25, 1969, death of musician Gary Hinman. He was also convicted of first-degree murder for the August 1969 death of Donald Shea. Following the 1972 decision of California v. Anderson, California's death sentences were ruled unconstitutional and that "any prisoner now under a sentence of death ... may file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the superior court inviting that court to modify its judgment to provide for the appropriate alternative punishment of life imprisonment or life imprisonment without possibility of parole specified by statute for the crime for which he was sentenced to death." Manson was thus eligible to apply for parole after seven years' incarceration. His first parole hearing took place on November 16, 1978, at California Medical Facility in Vacaville, where his petition was rejected.

On September 5, 1975, the Family returned to national attention when Squeaky Fromme attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford. The attempt took place in Sacramento, to which Fromme and fellow Manson follower Sandra Good had moved so that they could be near Manson while he was incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. A subsequent search of the apartment shared by Fromme, Good, and another Family recruit turned up evidence that, coupled with later actions on the part of Good, resulted in Good's conviction for conspiring to send threatening communications through the United States mail service and for transmitting death threats by way of interstate commerce. The threats involved corporate executives and U.S. government officials vis-à-vis supposed environmental dereliction on their part.

Fromme was sentenced to 15 years to life, becoming the first person sentenced under United States Code Title 18, chapter 84 (1965), which made it a federal crime to attempt to assassinate the President of the United States. In December 1987, Fromme, serving a life sentence for the assassination attempt, escaped briefly from Federal Prison Camp, Alderson in West Virginia. She was trying to reach Manson because she heard that he had testicular cancer; she was apprehended within days. She was released on parole from Federal Medical Center, Carswell on August 14, 2009.

In the 1980s, Manson gave four interviews to the mainstream media. The first, recorded at California Medical Facility and aired on June 13, 1981, was by Tom Snyder for NBC's The Tomorrow Show. The second, recorded at San Quentin State Prison and aired on March 7, 1986, was by Charlie Rose for CBS News Nightwatch, and it won the national news Emmy Award for Best Interview in 1987. The third, with Geraldo Rivera in 1988, was part of the journalist's prime-time special on Satanism. At least as early as the Snyder interview, Manson's forehead bore a swastika in the spot where the X carved during his trial had been. Nikolas Schreck conducted an interview with Manson for his documentary Charles Manson Superstar. Schreck concluded Manson was not insane, but merely acting that way out of frustration.

The panel at Manson's March 27, 1997 hearing noted that Manson had a "history of controlling behavior" and "mental health issues" including schizophrenia and paranoid delusional disorder, and was too great a danger to be released. The panel noted that Manson had received 108 rule violation reports, had no indication of remorse, no insight into the causative factors of the crimes, lacked understanding of the magnitude of the crimes, had an exceptional, callous disregard for human suffering and had no parole plans.

In a 2023 re-analysis of Manson's psychological state, researchers suggested that he may have been misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. They proposed that Manson had bipolar disorder and psychopathy.

On January 1, 2017, Manson was being held at Corcoran Prison, when he was rushed to Mercy Hospital in downtown Bakersfield, because he had gastrointestinal bleeding. A source told the Los Angeles Times that Manson was very ill, and TMZ reported that his doctors considered him "too weak" for surgery that normally would be performed in cases such as his. He was returned to prison on January 6, and the nature of his treatment was not disclosed. On November 15, 2017, an unauthorized source said that Manson had returned to a hospital in Bakersfield, but the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not confirm this in conformity with state and federal medical privacy laws. He died from cardiac arrest resulting from respiratory failure, brought on by colon cancer, at the hospital on November 19.

Three people stated their intention to claim Manson's estate and body. Manson's grandson Jason Freeman stated his intent to take possession of Manson's remains and personal effects. Manson's pen-pal Michael Channels claimed to have a Manson will dated February 14, 2002, which left Manson's entire estate and Manson's body to Channels. Manson's friend Ben Gurecki claimed to have a Manson will dated January 2017 which gives the estate and Manson's body to Matthew Roberts, another alleged son of Manson.

On March 12, 2018, the Kern County Superior Court in California decided in favor of Freeman in regard to Manson's body. A funeral service was held for Manson on March 17, 2018, after which Freeman had his remains cremated and scattered on a California hillside.

In June 1970, Rolling Stone made Manson their cover story. Bernardine Dohrn of the Weather Underground reportedly said of the Tate murders: "Dig it, first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate's stomach! Wild!" Manson fanatic James Mason claimed to be acting on a suggestion from Charles Manson based on his interpretation of something Manson said in a televised interview, when Mason founded the Universal Order, a neo-Nazi group that has influenced other movements such as the terrorist group the Atomwaffen Division. Bugliosi quoted a BBC employee's assertion that a "neo-Manson cult" existed in Europe, represented by approximately 70 rock bands playing songs by Manson and "songs in support of him".

The original surnames of the Star Wars characters Luke Skywalker and his father Anakin Skywalker were revised in light of Manson's reputation in the 1970s. Written between January 1973 and March 1976, screenplays for Star Wars (1977) had used the names Luke and Annikin Starkiller, but after production of the movie began, George Lucas changed the surname to Skywalker. In 2007, Lucas explained "[he] felt a lot of people [on set] were confusing him with someone like Charles Manson. It had very unpleasant connotations." — Starkiller could be misconstrued as "celebrity killer" in a time when coverage on Manson was renewed following Fromme's attempted assassination of Gerald Ford, and Hollywood productions incorporated increased themes of sexual violence and gore following the sensationalizing of the Tate–LaBianca murders.

Manson was a struggling pop musician, seeking to make it big in Hollywood between 1967 and 1969. The Beach Boys recorded one of his songs. Other songs were publicly released only after the trial for the Tate murders started. On March 6, 1970, LIE, an album of Manson music, was released. This included "Cease to Exist", a Manson song the Beach Boys had recorded with modified lyrics and the title "Never Learn Not to Love". Over the next couple of months only about 300 of the album's 2,000 copies sold.

There have been several other releases of Manson recordings – both musical and spoken. One of these, The Family Jams, includes two compact discs of Manson's songs recorded by the Family in 1970, after Manson and the others had been arrested. Guitar and lead vocals are supplied by Steve Grogan; additional vocals are supplied by Lynette Fromme, Sandra Good, Catherine Share, and others. One Mind, an album of music, poetry, and spoken word, new at the time of its release, in April 2005, was put out under a Creative Commons license.

American rock band Guns N' Roses recorded Manson's "Look at Your Game, Girl", included as an unlisted 13th track on their 1993 album "The Spaghetti Incident?" "My Monkey", which appears on Portrait of an American Family by the American rock band Marilyn Manson, includes the lyrics "I had a little monkey / I sent him to the country and I fed him on gingerbread / Along came a choo-choo / Knocked my monkey cuckoo / And now my monkey's dead." These lyrics are from Manson's "Mechanical Man", which is heard on LIE. Crispin Glover covered "Never Say 'Never' to Always" on his album The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution=Let It Be released in 1989.