Charles Manson...

Charles Manson
Charles Manson was born to a promiscuous sixteen-year-old girl named Kathleen Maddox on November 12, 1934 in Cincinnati. His presumed father was a "Colonel Scott" of Ashland Kentucky, whom Manson never met. When Manson was five, his mother received a five-year sentence for armed robbery, and Manson moved in with his aunt and uncle in West Virginia. His mother reclaimed him in 1942 when she was paroled, but within five years her heavy drinking led to Manson's being placed in a caretaking school in Indiana. School officials described young Manson as moody and suffering a persecution complex--but "likable" during those periods he was feeling happy.

At age 13, Manson began his life of crime, robbing a grocery store and a casino. For most of the next decade, Manson was shuffled from one institution to another, usually committing a series of crimes during his brief periods of freedom. By age 16, Manson had been labeled "aggressively antisocial." A prison psychiatrist described Manson at age 18 as suffering "psychic trauma," but still "an extremely sensitive boy who has not yet given up in terms of securing some love and affection from the world."

Released on parole in 1958, Manson took to pimping. In June 1960, Manson was arrested on a Mann Act charge. The Mann Act charges were dropped, but Manson was given a ten-year sentence for violating the parole terms relating to an earlier federal conviction for forging a Treasury check. Prison records from the early 1960s show Manson as having interests in Scientology, drama, softball, croquet, and especially the guitar. By the mid-1960s, Manson became obsessed with the music of the Beatles. When Manson's release date came on March 21, 1967, Manson begged authorities to let him stay in prison, but he was told they had no power to allow him to do so.

Manson, age 32, headed for San Francisco and there gave birth to what would soon be called "The Family." Manson became the unquestioned head of the Family. He dominated lives, even to the point of telling Family members who they must have sex with. To some members of the Family, Manson represented a "Christ-like" figure. He encouraged such talk, sometimes asking a Family member, "Don't you know who I am?"

Combining ideas taken from the Beatles White Album and the Bible's Book of Revelation, Manson developed a bizarre prophecy that blacks would soon rise up against the white establishment and then turn to him--having survived the coming "Helter Skelter in an underground pleasure dome beneath Death Valley--to lead the newly constituted nation. In August 1969, in the hopes of giving Helter Skelter a push, Manson sent a team of Family members on their murderous missions to the Tate and LaBianca homes.

Ronald Hughes, a young lawyer with an extensive knowledge of alternative culture, was the state-appointed attorney for defendants Manson and Van Houten. He suggested to Manson that he obtain a more competent attorney, Irving Kanarek, and continued to defend Van Houten. Kanarek took over two weeks before the start of the trial. The reason for Hughes' pre-trial maneuver was apparently so that he could defend Van Houten more effectively. He hoped to show that Van Houten was acting under the influence of Manson, and to portray Manson as controlling her actions.

This may have cost him his life. In late November, 1970, Hughes went camping near Sespe Hot Springs. He disappeared, and his decomposed body was discovered four months later. It is thought that other members of the Family killed him in reprisal for impugning Manson in court.

Manson himself was not present at the Tate killings, but he was convicted of murder on January 25, 1971 and on March 29 was sentenced to the death penalty. The death sentence was later automatically commuted to life in prison after the California Supreme Court's People v. Anderson decision resulted in the invalidation of all death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972. Manson remains imprisoned to this day; all of his applications for parole have been denied, most notably in 1986 when he appeared before the parole board with a swastika embossed on his forehead. During his stay in prison, Manson has received more mail than any other prisoner in the United States prison system. It is said that he gets over 60,000 pieces of mail a year, much of it fan mail from young people in the hopes of joining the Family. He currently resides in California's Corcoran State Prison.

In his own testimony at trial, Manson described himself as a chameleon-like character: "Charlie never projects himself....People see in Charlie their own reflection....Linda Kasabian testified against me because she saw me as the father she never liked....I do what love tells me."

Since his conviction, Manson has been denied parole ten times, most recently in 2002. He is given almost no hope of ever being released. He currently resides in a maximum security section of a state penitentiary in Concoran, California.

Encyclopedia Definition of "Charles Manson"

U.S. cult leader. Born in Cincinnati, he was a criminal from an early age. In 1967 he formed a communal cult, the Manson Family. He tried to become a pop musician in Los Angeles, but when the producer Terry Melcher failed to help him, Manson decided to launch a racial war by murdering prominent white people, for which he believed blacks would be blamed. In 1969 he sent cult members to Melcher's house, which was rented to the actress Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski; they murdered Tate and five friends and elsewhere killed three others. In 1971 Manson and his followers were sentenced to death; when California abolished the death penalty (1972), the sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.

It seems hundreds of musicians, most unknown or minor, have recorded songs related to Manson. Neil Young is likely the best known, plus he knew Manson. System of a Down wrote the song ATWA on their Toxicity album about the media's viewpoints on Manson. The list seems endless. Guns 'n Roses drew the most notice when they recorded a song authored by Manson. Part of the profits would have gone to him but legal action diverted them to victim Frykowski's son, instead.