Ben Rhodes

English III

Mrs. Records

5/13/2017

Charles Manson

The 1960s was a time of peace and prosperity. It seemed that the world was a safe place, and the

country was thriving. However, one man named Charles Manson thought that this world was not what it

was made out to be. Charles Manson is one of the most creative and persuasive criminals because he

never had to lay a finger on his victims.

Charles M. Manson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 11, 1934. His mother, Kathleen

Maddox, was a teenage prostitute. Mansons father walked out on the still pregnant Maddox, never to be

seen again. In order to give her son a name, Ms. Maddox married William Manson. He soon abandoned

the both of them. Mansons mother often neglected Charles after her husband left her. She tried to put him

into a foster home, but the arrangements fell through. As a last resort she sent Charles to school in Terre

Haute, Indiana. Mrs. Manson failed to make the payments for the school and once again Charles was sent

back to his mothers abuse. At only fourteen, Manson left his mother and rented a room for himself. He

supported himself with odd jobs and petty theft. His mother turned him into the juvenile authorities, who

had him sent to Boys Town, a juvenile detention center, near Omaha, Nebraska. Charles spent a total of

three days in Boys Town before running away. He was arrested in Peoria, Illinois for robbing a grocery

store and was then sent to the Indiana Boys School in Plainfield, Indiana, where he ran away another

eighteen times before he was caught and sent to the National Training School for Boys in Washington

D.C. Manson never had a place to call home or a real family. He spent his childhood being sent from

one place to another, and trouble always seemed to follow him. His mothers negligence left Manson
without a home and without much of a future. Manson turned to crime to support himself, and he soon

became very good at it. When just a child, he became a criminal and spent his last years of childhood in a

correctional facility.

After his release from the training school in 1954, a new period of Mansons life began. He went to West

Virginia and soon married a girl named Rosalie Jean Willis. She became pregnant and Manson had a

child. This was Mansons first real family, but he didnt stray from the criminal lifestyle. He started

stealing cars to make the money necessary to support his new family. By the time the baby was born,

Manson was in prison on Grand Theft Auto charges.

In 1958 Charles was released from prison. His wife and child had left him, leaving Charles alone

once again. Several arrests for car theft and pimping followed; in 1960 Charles was given ten years

imprisonment for forging government checks. While he was serving his ten year sentence at McNeil

Penitentiary, he studied philosophy, took up guitar, and taught himself sing and compose songs. His

newfound musical skills would later attract followers. His study of philosophy helped create some of his

outlandish ideas that later appealed to his would-be followers. Manson was released in March, 1967 after

serving seven years. By the time Manson was thirty-two years old, he had spent seventeen years, more

than half of his life, in prison.

This long stretch of incarceration had left its mark. If Charlie has any roots, theyre in the penal system,

1 said one acquaintance.

Whenever Manson succeeded in gaining one of these followers, the first thing he did was to

deprogram both their ego and their hang ups, about conventional society. By hang ups, he meant

anything he did not like. Richard DeMargeno, a criminologist, believed Manson was able to control these

people by replacing their father figures. It wasnt a very difficult process. He was dealing with lonely
insecure people in need of a father figure, people who didnt have much ego to begin with. What he did,

in effect, was to tear down that ego and substitute himself, thus gaining enormous control over his

followers. 2 To his girls, Charles Manson was a beautiful man who loved us all totally. Later, a group

of young women outside of Mansons murder trial replied, Were waiting for our father to be set free,

when asked why they sat on the street-side corner. Manson had obviously replaced these girls father

figure, placing himself at the center of their lives. Manson soon recruited dozens of girls into his

Family. Yet, many outsiders found him to be a relentless recruiter who came on strong with every girl

he met, a cynic who treated his followers like possessions and seldom showed any real affection to them.

Alan Springer, a man Manson once tried to recruit, said, In away he was very frank and truthful, but in

away he was very treacherous with words.3 Dr. David Smith, founder and director of the free clinic in

Haight Ashbury, thought that these two sides of Charles Manson were not contradictory: To take an

example, if you get to know any paranoid schizophrenics it wont puzzle you at all. The schizophrenic

usually believes in a mystical system in which he is right, and he can plan in the most calculating and

cunning way possible. He himself does not really know he is a con man, or whether he really does love

the girls. He vacillates between one emotion and the other, one of the characteristics of a schizoid

personality is the inability to sustain one emotion. It doesnt confuse me that he would be able to convey

sincere emotion and carry on in a very plotting way. Of course, he would hide the cunning side as much

as possible from those he wanted to involve in his system. 4 When a new girl came into Mansons group,

their biggest conflict was the idea of sex on demand. Charles could be very brutal when necessary and any

girl that stayed with him accepted the idea of having sex with him or anyone else he wanted. He preached

that women should be submissive to men. Surprisingly, these girls came to believe as he did. Obviously,

Charles had an unbelievable talent of manipulating people. According to Paul Watkins, a one-time

follower of Manson, he soon had almost complete control over his followers. I lived with Charlie for

about one year straight and on and off for two years. I know Charlie. I know him inside and out. I became
Charlie. Everything I once was, was Charlie. There was nothing left of me anymore. And all of the people

in the Family, theres nothing left of them anymore, theyre all Charlie too. 5 Charles packed his crew of

fourteen, consisting of nine girls and five boys, into an old school bus and headed south in the spring of

1968. The Family settled at Spahn Ranch in the Santa Susana Mountains, just north of San Fernando

Valley. The owner of the Ranch, eighty-five year old George Spahn, was blind and feeble and allowed the

family to stay with him. Manson ordered one of his girls to care for the man so that the Family could

might stay there as long as they wished. Mr. Spahn soon grew desperately afraid of Manson and only

allowed him to stay because he enjoyed the attention he got from the girls who cooked and cleaned for

him. It was at this ranch that Manson seriously started developing his cult.

Mansons following grew and many more people were recruited in the Family. He started preaching to

his followers in bizarre ways. He would have the group take acid trips then listen to him as he spun

twisted stories that put ideas into their heads. Charles would reenact the Crucifixion of Christ, trying to

instill upon his followers minds that he was Jesus Christ, that he was a higher power that they all needed

to follow unquestionably. Manson convinced his followers that a war of the races was coming, which he

named Helter Skelter. He got the name from a Beatles song, and had his followers prepare for the

upcoming war by collecting guns and other weapons. Manson turned the ranch into a fortress. He started

to change his following from being a group of freedom searching people into an organized army-like

force. A prosecution witness in the later murder trial said, , he [Manson] wants to build up a thing

where he can be leader of the world. Hes crazy. 6 The men would target practice and guards were

posted. Escape routes to the desert were planned. Caches of gasoline and other necessities were buried all

over the Death Valley area. Then Manson had his followers start the crimes, then he had them start the

killings.
 On August 9th, 1969, Manson ordered a party of his followers to burglarize a residence in the Los

Angeles. All of the people going knew they were supposed to kill everyone there, yet they didnt think

twice about doing it for Manson. Before they left, Manson told the party, If youre going to do

something, leave something witchy. 7 This order was later followed to a hideous extent. The residence

targeted by Manson for the robbery and murders belonged to Roman Polanski, a movie director, and his

pregnant wife Sharon Tate, an up-and-coming movie star. Mr. Polanski was in Europe. His wife had

Abigail Folger and Voytek Frykowski staying with her until his return. That night, Jay Sebring and

Steven Parent were visiting Mrs. Tate. Mansons followers broke into the residence, and viciously

murdered everyone there. They were very brutal in the slayings, acting without remorse or guilt. Manson

had them believing there was nothing wrong with murdering these people. One of Mansons girls, Sandra

Good, said, Whatever is necessary, you do it. When somebody needs to be killed, theres no wrong. You

do it, then you move on. 8 Mansons followers mutilated the bodies, Ms. Folgers corpse was so bloody

that her once white night gown appeared to be red. Sharon Tates body was no different. She was covered

in stab wounds and had a rope tied around her neck that ran over a rafter in the ceiling and was bound to

Mr. Frykowski neck. The word PIG was scrolled with blood on the front door of the home, thus

Mansons orders of leaving something witchy were followed. Susan Atkins, one of Mansons followers,

claimed to have almost enjoyed these murders, saying it gave her a sort of trip. She had wanted to cut out

the baby, Susan said, but there hadnt been time. They wanted to take out the eyes of the people, and

squash them against the walls, and cut off their fingers. We were going to mutilate them, but we didnt

have a chance to. 9 The next night following the Tate murders, Manson and his followers struck again.

The target was the home of Mr. and Mrs. LaBianca. This time, Manson himself accompanied his family

members to the residence. After the group broke into the home and detained the LaBiancas, Manson

issued orders to kill the couple and then left. Mansons followers stabbed Mrs. LaBianca forty-one times,

stabbed her husband to death, left a fork and a knife in his chest, and carved the word WAR into his
stomach. The words RISE, HELTER SKELTER, and DEATH TO PIGS were scribbled on the

walls and the refrigerator in the victim's blood. Manson was given life in prison for his crimes and has

been denied parole numerous times from his actions.

Charles Manson is without a doubt is the most notorious criminal in the 1960s, with the way he

persuaded others to do his dirty work to the reasoning for doing his crimes.