Born to a
sixteen year old alcoholic prostitute, Manson was born Charles Miles Maddox on
November 12, 1934, in Cincinnati. His mother, would marry a man, but the
marriage would not last. Charles was placed in a boy's school, and would run
back to his mother. She did not want to have anything to do with him. He lived
on the streets and quickly started stealing. When he first started getting
locked up, he was considered dangerous. After a while, he would discover that
being a model prisoner had its benefits.
In 1955, he
would marry a seventeen year old and the couple moved to California. Even
though she was pregnant, he started committing crimes again, mainly stealing
cars. His wife would leave him in 1956, with their child and her new lover.
It is said,
by different probation officers that he had, that he was suffering from
rejection, psychic trauma, and instability, making him try to get some status
and trying to get people to love him. He was viewed as unpredictable and safe
but only with supervision.
He spent
time in prison, from 1958 until early 1967, for writing bad checks and pimping
for ten years. While inside, he would rape an inmate while he held a razor on
the inmate. He would tap into his creative talents and learned how to play the
guitar.
After being
released in 1967, he started a campaign that would put him down as one of the
most infamous serial killers of all time. He thought he would bring about the
end of the world. He was influenced by different works of art, drugs, and
religions (such as the Church of Final Judgment, Scientology, Book of
Revelations, LSD, and Helter Skelter by the Beatles). All these things made him
have strong feelings that the world was going to end, and he was going to be
the one that was going to bring it about.
Manson
started to put together a group who shared his feelings about living
unconventionally and use of drugs. They became known as 'The Family”. “The
Family” grew to have over a hundred followers, mostly made up of impressionable
young girls from broken but middle class families, who started to believe that
Manson was Christ and that his talk of a race war soon happening would come
true. Manson started out preaching to these kids about peace, love, and
acceptance, typical hippie beliefs of the time. He would quickly change to talk
of revolution and violence.
It was easy
for him to convince them of an impending race war. He would lecture them during
meal times while they were on an isolated ranch, called the Spahn Ranch, that
used to be used for western movies. His voice and opinion was the only things
that these girls would hear. He also set up an arrangement with the owner of
the ranch that his female followers would sleep with the owner as well as
working on the property in lieu of paying rent.
Manson
wanted to become a pop star and devoted some time to it. Some people told him
that he was not a very good musician. Manson, on the other hand, believed that
he was a musical genius and they just did not see it. He hooked up with Dennis
Wilson (drummer and co-founder of the Beach Boys), that put him on the outside
of the music scene in Los Angeles. Wilson paid for Manson's studio time so that
Manson could record his music. He also allowed Manson and part of “The Family”
to stay in his house for some time.
Since 1949,
Manson has spent all but four years locked up; including half of his first 32
years. Him and his gang have killed an estimated 35 people, but were never
tried for most of them for different reasons. Either a lack of physical
evidence or the fact that most of those people involved in the killings were
already convicted of murder in the LaBianca and Tate cases.
Most of the
people involved in the Tate and LaBianca murders were sentenced to death, but
because California abolished the death penalty the next year, all death
penalties were commuted to life with parole. Manson has had twelve parole
hearings, as of 2012, and has been denied each and every time. He has been
eligible for parole since the late 1970s.
