CHARLES MANSON: BIOGRAPHY AND VICTIMS - ARTE - 2025

Charles Manson is an American psychopath who was sentenced to the death penalty and later reduced to life in prison on the charges of conspiracy and murder. He was known for leading the so-called Manson Family in the late 1960s and, as incredible as it may sound, the killer is considered by many Americans as an icon of popular culture.

Manson spent more than half of his life in correctional institutions and in jail for various crimes. But before becoming one of the most abominable criminals in history, he was an underground musician in the city of Los Angeles; He even had a partnership with The Beach Boys' drummer and co-founder Dennis Wilson.

In fact, it is said that it was from his failure in music that his anger began to grow and forge what he called the Helter Skelter, a supposed race war between black and white.

Childhood and adolescence

Charles Milles Manson was born on November 12, 1934 in the city of Cincinnati, in Ohio, United States. His mother, Kathleer Maddox, had him when she was 17 years old. According to Manson himself, the woman was a prostitute. The identity of his biological father is unknown.

However, in some official documents a colonel named Walker Scott is named after his father. This was a man that Kathleer had a relationship with for a few years. And although the woman filed a paternity suit, with a trial in 1937, it appears that Charles never knew her.

Shortly after her birth, Kathleer married William Manson, a laborer who gave her his last name. Not many accurate details of Manson's early life are known. Apparently his mother was an alcoholic and according to the criminal, she once sold him to a childless waitress for a mug of beer. Days later the boy was recovered by his uncle.

His mother was arrested for robbery and battery in 1939. From that time, Manson lived with his uncles in McMechen, West Virginia. His aunt was a religious fanatic who considered any form of pleasure a sin. When his mother was released from prison, he returned to live with her for a couple of years until he managed to become independent thanks to a robbery.

Manson's first crimes began at age 13. In 1947 he carried out his first armed robbery by robbing a food store. After this incident, he was arrested and locked up in a high school, but escaped with another boy a few days later.

From that moment began a criminal life that would get worse with the passage of time. He spent much of his youth in and out of reformatories. He was arrested on multiple occasions and was accused of robbery and assault and even a homosexual rape of a partner.

By 1951 his history of crimes and escapes was long. That year he went to prison for having driven a stolen vehicle and by the end of 1952 he already had eight charges against him. In 1954, at just 19 years old, he was released for good behavior.

At this time Manson married Rosalie Jean Willis, who was a 17-year-old nurse. After being arrested a second time for theft of vehicles, in 1958 he obtained provisional freedom. That same year he divorced his first wife and in 1959 he married a prostitute named Candy "Leona" Stevens. It is said that the criminal married Candy to prevent her from testifying against him in court. From this union his second son, Charles Luther, was born.

In 1961 Manson was arrested again for the crime of forging checks. At this point he had spent most of his adult life in prison, charged with car theft, fraud and pimping.

The birth of the Manson Family

It could be said that the only training Charles Manson had was the one he lived in prison. After entering prison in 1961, he began to train in esotericism. He also began reading about Buddhism and Orientalism and according to him, he became a member of the Church of Scientology.

In 1967 he was released from prison and moved to San Francisco, California. There he met Mary Brunner, a 23-year-old girl with whom he soon went to live. Charles's new life was between hippies, drugs, sex and rock. With his esoteric training, the criminal began to preach a curious doctrine that mixed orientalist concepts with a reinterpretation of the Bible.

Little by little he began to have a group of followers, mainly women. And after a time she had a commune made up of obedient men and women, believers in her philosophy. At that time, Brunner became pregnant and in 1968 gave birth to what would be Manson's third child, Valentine Michael.

This would be the beginning of the so-called Manson Family. The criminal became a guru in San Francisco. He was welcomed with open arms in the alternative Californian community and very soon his group began to travel the entire coast in a school bus that they had redecorated in a hippie style. They were preaching the idea of ​​environmentalism and free sex, and thus they attracted the attention of many followers.

This family of murderers became one of the attractions of Los Angeles, so much so that the rich and famous welcomed them into their homes. One of them was Dennis Wilson, the drummer for The Beach Boys.

In fact, it is said that it was the relationship between Manson and Wilson that gave rise to the macabre crimes committed by the psychopath. In prison he had learned to play the guitar and in his youth he had been a musician. For this talent the drummer introduced him to music producer Terry Melcher, who was the son of Doris Day.

Melcher lived in a luxurious mansion located at 10500 Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills. It is said that Manson went to this place several times to convince Melcher to produce a record for him. However, when rejected, he made the producer his target for revenge.

By August 1968 the Manson Family established their lair at Spahn Ranch. During his stay in that place, he ordered the women of his “family” to have sexual relations with the owner of the ranch so that he would not charge them rent. Three months later, the Manson Family occupied two more ranches in and around California's Death Valley.

Manson believed in the philosophy of the Apocalypse, a theory he called "Helter Skelter", after the song titled Helter Skelter by The Beatles. According to him, this topic spoke of a race war that would occur between blacks and whites. The criminal thought that this racial tension was growing, so they had to do something to control the supposed apocalypse.

Charles Manson believed that one way to unleash this chaos would be to create an album with songs as subtle as those of The Beatles. In March 1969 he decided to look once more for Melcher but could not find him at the address he knew, as the producer had moved. The new tenants were actress Sharon Tate and film director Roman Polanski.

The murders of Charles Manson and his family

In July 1969, Bobby Beausoleil and Susan Atkins, members of the Manson Family, went to the home of musician Gary Hinman to ask him for money back. Hinman was a dealer and had apparently sold them a low-quality mescaline.

The criminals are said to have held Hinman for three days. Refusing to cooperate, Charles appeared at the house with a knife and cut off the musician's ear. Beausoleil later stabbed Hinman to death, allegedly on Manson's instructions.

Following Beausoleil's arrest, Manson notified members of the Manson Family that it was time for Helter Skelter. Thus, the bloody group organized what would be the worst massacre ever to occur in Beverly Hills. Manson ordered Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten Manson to execute everyone at 10050 Cielo Drive, Terry Melcher's former address.

In the early morning of August 9, 1969, armed with knives, a rifle and a nylon rope, the group entered the mansion. There were actress Sharon Tate, who was 8 months pregnant, Polish writer Voyteck Frykowski, stylist Jay Sebring and a friend of Tate, Abigail Folger. Upon entering they were subdued and told they were only going to steal.

But it was not like that. They were all led into the room, where the massacre would begin. After several fights and attempts to escape, the writer was shot and stabbed several times. The stylist was stabbed multiple times and Tate's friend was also killed by multiple stab wounds and shots.

The actress, who was just two weeks away from giving birth, was stabbed 16 times. They all died in a savage way. When finished, they wrote in blood on the door of the house the word “pig” (pig). That day the young Steve Earl Parent, a friend of the actress who was leaving the mansion at the time the murderers entered, also died.

As if this wasn't enough, the next day, he organized another murder. This time he accompanied his disciples to give them instructions on how they should do it. The victims were Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, a married couple who lived at 3301 Waverly Drive in Los Angeles. Leno was a supermarket executive and Rosemary was the co-owner of a clothing store.

Manson woke the victims at gunpoint. They covered their heads with pillowcases and held them down using a telephone wire. He left the place leaving clear instructions to his disciples that they should murder the couple.

Watson was in charge of stabbing Leno LaBianca with a bayonet and did the same with the woman to subdue her. He stabbed the man 12 times and the women of the family were in charge of finishing the work with Mrs. LaBianca, who were stabbed 41 times, as detailed in the autopsy.

The sentences to the Manson family

Following the murders, the Los Angeles police launched an investigation. Although at first they did not obtain results, soon they arrived at a hippie camping that was located in the Valley of the Death, in the desert of California. They questioned the occupants, all of them members of the 'family' led by Charles Manson.

Susan Atkins provided the first leads and was charged with participating in the death of Gary Hinman. Once in prison, she spoke about the other crimes, so in early October 1969 the police arrested Manson along with other members of the clan. The "family" was dismantled and its important members were brought to trial.

Susan Atkins, Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten were sentenced to life in prison. Linda Kasabian, another member of the family, alluded to being horrified by what her peers did at Sharon Tate's home. For this reason she escaped from the ranch and once the family members were caught, she was offered immunity in exchange for her statement.

Manson was not present at the murders, but was unable to escape justice for that. He was accused of conspiracy and of being the mastermind of the crimes. Thus on March 29, 1971, he was sentenced to the death penalty. However, this sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment due to the temporary elimination of capital punishment in the state of California.

After his sentence and from prison, Manson continued to dedicate himself to art. Not only does he produce music but he is also dedicated to painting and poetry. He has applied for parole multiple times, but all have been denied. He cannot apply again until 2027. So far the criminal maintains that he has nothing to regret.