The Story of Who Charles Manson Was and What He Is Known for
Some think he is insane; others think he is acting. At least he is not “normal”, but whether his rambling, hyperactive monologues are forced or not, only Charles Manson himself knows.
Charles Manson the American criminal and cult leader, who made his followers into murderers in the late 1960’s. From the age of nine he started spending time in and out of juvenile reformatories which later turned into prison as he got older. In 1967 when he was released from prison he moved to San Francisco where he attracted a small group of followers from the city’s bohemian youth culture. A year later he had become the leader of “the Family”, a cult dedicated to studying and implementing Manson’s eccentric religious teachings, that were from science fiction as well as the occult and fringe psychology. He preached to them that an apocalyptic race war would destroy the community of the United States and make The Family the leaders of the country.
This essay will discuss the life of Charles Manson and what led to him becoming the person he was, and furthermore how does one convince people to murder several other human beings? Imagine having so much faith in your leader that you are willing to kill for him and his beliefs. The purpose of this essay is to increase the knowledge on his life and his work as well as showing how deranged and crazy cult life can be. This subject was chosen out of pure interest, but also to get more insight of what his life and his persona was like, while hoping to be able to dig a little deeper in his history and what went on in his mind.
Before there was the Manson family, there was Ada Kathleen Maddox. She was born in Kentucky on January 11th in 1918 and was the youngest of five siblings. Always known by her middle name, Kathleen lived the average, comfortable working-class lifestyle in a highly religious household. Kathleen was always said to be extremely free-spirited and would often sneak out to party with one of her older brothers, which was not something her family approved of. In an interview in 1971 she said: “I guess I had a tendency to be a little wild, the way kids will”. Eventually she became a runaway from her home in Ashland, Kentucky and ended up working as a prostitute. Kathleen became pregnant in 1934 and was sent to Cincinnati, a city in Ohio. There she met William Manson and married him at six months pregnant. In November of 1934, at only 16 years old, she gave birth to Charles at Cincinnati General Hospital. Maddox´s marriage with William didn´t last long and he disappeared out of her and Charles' life, long before Charles could get to know the man whose name he took. When they divorced Kathleen and her son moved back to Kentucky to live with her mother.
People seem to think that Charles never knew his biological father, but that is not the case. Colonel Walker Scott was supposedly active in young Manson's life and used to come and pick him up and take him home over the weekends. Walker later died of cancer in 1954.
When Charles published his book, Manson in his own words, he talked about his mother quite a bit. He did not judge her decision of running away or simply living life how she wanted to. In the book he wrote about how other people just think of her as a teen whore who later gave birth to a killer, but his view of her was different. He thought of her as a flower child in the 30s, only thirty years ahead of her time.
One could only hope that giving birth to a child would help her come down to earth and calm down, but Kathleen still had that wildness in her and often found herself in troubling situations involving the law. At 18, Maddox and the same older brother who snuck out with her, were arrested for robbing a gas station and they were sentenced to three years in jail. After being released, her and Charles moved across several hotel rooms over the course of a few years. Manson wasn't very old when his criminal actions started, at a young age he was stealing and skipping school and when Kathleen realized she could not control his bad behavior, she decided it was best to send him to Catholic school when he was 12 years old. Charles tried again and again to escape from the school until he finally succeeded in 1951. During his escape, he stole a car and robbed a gas station which led to him being sent to a maximum-security prison.
Charles Manson was born, as Charles Milles Maddox, on November 12th, 1934 in Ohio. He was a bad behaved child from an early age and his mother gave up and sent him to Gibault, which was a school for juvenile delinquents run by Catholic priests. Manson fled Gibault twice, the first time attempting to return to his mother who sent him straight back to Gibault. Later he fled again but this time to Indianapolis where he rented a room and survived by burglarizing stores at night.
He was in and out of boys’ schools throughout the US and even says he was beaten and raped at some of them. He was later sent to Natural Bridge Honor Camp recommended by Physicians in Washington as he was very antisocial and had physiological problems. He raped another boy at knifepoint right before his scheduled parole hearing set for 1952 and was transferred to the Federal Reformatory in Petersburg, Virginia where he was caught several times raping or molesting other boys and was transferred yet again to a maximum-security facility in Ohio. He was released in 1954 to his aunt and uncle at twenty years old. In 1955 he married a waitress named Rosalie Jean Willis. He found a job and lived a quiet life for a moment. Though it was not long after that he started going in and out of prison again and when he got out of prison one time in 1967, he moved to San Francisco where he formed his first group of followers.
A cult is defined as a group of people with unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs while often having a great devotion to a certain person or idea. In the late twenty’s rumors of cult-like activity started spreading in the United States. Those cults were said to engage in blood sacrifices, wild sex rituals or child abuse and that was what led to the negative meaning of cults.
The Family were Manson's followers, they were a group of around 60 people that shared his passion for an unconventional lifestyle and habitual use of hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD and magic mushrooms. They all lived together on the Spahn ranch, a former television and movie set for Western productions located in the San Fernando Valley. In the spring of 1968, Charles Manson and the Family moved there, living at the ranch on-and-off in exchange for labor. 80-year-old George Spahn, who was not so healthy anymore, allowed them to move onto the ranch rent free in exchange for daily chores and help with running his horse rental business.
One of Manson’s primary ways of preaching to his followers was by playing guitar and singing songs, by both the Beatles and himself. He convinced his followers that the Beatles music, and particularly the song, Helter Skelter contained subliminal messaging to commit violence. Helter Skelter was in fact used a lot by the Manson family. He would constantly read over his followers that Helter Skelter was coming and that they, with forewarning, would go and hide in a cave in the desert while the entire white civilization was slaughtered by African Americans. Once the “blackies” (as he called African Americans) took over the world, although they would have what it takes to defeat the white man, they would not have the ability to rule and would need help running the world and that would be where Charles and his followers come in, they would all rise from the underground and show the the “blackies” how the whites do it. He also said that the song helped serve as inspiration for the killing spree he and his followers committed in the summer of 1969 that ended in nine murders.
The crimes committed by the Family included multiple murders, hostage-taking, torture and the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford. On August 8, 1969, a few members of the Family, on orders from their leader, brutally murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others, Jay Sebring, Voytek Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Steven Parent, shooting and stabbing them repeatedly. Steven Parent was found outside in his car and had been shot four times and stabbed once, Voytek Frykowski and Abigail Folger were also found outside of the house, Abigail had twenty-eight stabbing wounds and Voytek was shot twice, struck over the head thirteen times and had fifty-one stabbing wounds. However, Sharon and Jay were found inside the house, tied together by a rope around their necks that was hung over a rafter in the ceiling. Sharon had died from sixteen stab wounds to the chest and back. Jay, who was found hanging with Sharon, had been stabbed seven times and shot once. Sharon begged them to keep her alive just so that she could give birth to her baby and offered herself as a hostage, but instead, the group stabbed her 16 times. The night after this gruesome murder, Manson himself joined the group in a search for more victims. They arrived at the house of a grocery store owner, Leno LaBianca, and his wife. The couple was also brutally murdered like the other victims from the night before by the group. After killing them they used the victim's blood to write “Rise” and “Death to Pigs” on the walls of the house and misspelled “Healter Skelter” on the refrigerator. Before leaving the house, the group showered and petted LaBiancas dogs.
On September 5, 1975 President Gerald Ford survives an attempted assassination from a member of the Family, Lynette Fromme. She approached the president while on a walk near the California Capitol and pointed a .45 caliber handgun toward him. Before she was able to fire the gun, Secret Service agents tackled her to the ground.
Manson and his followers later claimed they had murdered a total of 35 people and buried the bodies in the desert.
Who was Charles Manson and what is he known for? I have come to the conclusion that a mixture of insanity and bad parenting made him the way he was, a maniac who cost at least 35 people their lives and stole a part of the lives from those who joined his cult. To sum up what he was known for; he was a bad behaved individual from an early age and certainly did not want help from others to work out his problems. Charles did many terrible things to himself and others, for example using LSD for a long period of time and forcing it upon others.
In our opinion, Charles Manson was a gruesome murderer and in total a horrendous person. To think that one can be so cruel and have the intention to start a race war, all influenced by a catchy song, Helter Skelter, written by the Beatles. It is safe to say that Charles was extremely racist and let his ideas get in the way of rational thinking.
I think he got what he deserved by spending the rest of his life in prison after he was arrested on January 15th, 1971 and later died of natural causes on the 19th of November in 2017.
Bibliography
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- https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/charles-manson
- Carter, J. (2019, 10, ágúst). 9 Things You Should Know About the Manson Family Cult.
- The Gospel Coalition. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-things-know-manson-family-cult/
- Charlesmanson. (e.d.). Charles Manson’s childhood.
- Charles Manson's Childhood
- Charlesmanson. (e.d.). Closing Arguments.
- The Closing Argument
