Crime Stories

Case of Charles Manson

Charles Manson (1934–)

Charles Manson is an American cult leader whose followers carried out several notorious murders in the late 1960s and inspired the book Helter Skelter.

Born in Ohio in 1934, Charles Manson is notoriously connected to the brutal slayings of actress Sharon Tate and other Hollywood residents, but he was never actually found guilty of committing the murders himself. However, the famous Tate-La Bianca killings have immortalized him as a living embodiment of evil. Images of his staring "mad eyes" are still used today to illustrate countless serial-murder news stories. The Manson Family—including Charles Manson and his young, loyal dropout disciples of murder—is thought to have carried out some 35 killings. Most were never tried, either for lack of evidence or because the perpetrators were already sentenced to life for the Tate/La Bianca killings. In 2012, Manson was denied parole for the 12th time.Charles Manson was born Charles Milles Maddox on November 12, 1934, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Kathleen Maddox, a 16-year-old girl who was both an alcoholic and prostitute. Kathleen later married William Manson, but the marriage ended quickly and Charles was placed in a boys school. Although the boy ran back to his mother, she didn't want anything to do with him. Charles was soon living on the streets and getting by through petty crime. In many ways, Manson reflects personality traits and obsessions that are associated with gurus of cult-quasi-religious groups that began to emerge in the 1960s and are still with us today. He was pathologically deluded into believing that he was harbinger of doom regarding the planet's future, in much the same way that cult and evangelist figures today claim prophetic knowledge of the world's end. After 1967, Manson gathered a group of followers who shared his passion for an unconventional lifestyle and habitual use of hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD and magic mushrooms. "The Family," as they became known, moved to San Francisco and later to a deserted ranch in the San Fernando Valley. His followers, numbering around 100, also included a small hard-core unit of impressionable young girls. They began to believe, without question, Manson's claims that he was Jesus and his prophecies of a race war.In August 1969, a series of Hollywood murders were to shock the world and tarnish the 1960's free love and peace legacy, when Manson gathered a group of his most loyal Family followers to carry out a massacre among Tinseltown's elite and "beautiful people." The act would shock the nation and effectively bring the era to an end. The first victim of the night was 18-year-old Steven Parent, a friend of Tate's gardener. He was shot as he drove up to the house and was spotted by the intruders. Kasabian was horrified by the shooting of the boy, and she remained outside to keep watch. When the other three broke into the house, they herded the occupants into the living room and tied them up. Manson himself took no part in the actual killings but directed his murderous disciples to the address and instructed them to kill everyone.According to one of the Family member's statements, the Polanksi household had been targeted because it represented Manson's rejection by the showbiz world and society. Jay Sebring was shot and brutally kicked as he tried to defend Ms. Tate. During the terrifying fracas, both Frykowski and Folger managed to escape from the house but were chased and stabbed to death. At the trial, Kasabian described how she saw Frykowski staggering out of the house covered in blood and was horrified at the sight. She told him she was "sorry," but despite her pleas to his attacker to stop, the victim was bludgeoned repeatedly. Folger escaped from the house with terrible injuries but was caught on the front lawn and stabbed 28 times. The most inhumane killing is arguably that of Sharon Tate, who despite pleading for the life of her unborn child was mercilessly stabbed in the stomach by Susan Atkins. Kasabian told of Atkins' chilling words to Tate before she stabbed her: "Look, bitch, I have no mercy for you. You're going to die, and you'd better get used to it." Atkins then used Tate's blood to write the word "pig" on the front door. Instead of this brutal massacre sating the pathological Manson, he instead criticized the murderers for being sloppy. The following night, on the August 10, 1969, Manson took Family members Watson, Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten to the Los Feliz address of wealthy supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, and the couple was murdered in a similarly horrifying fashion.Susan Atkins, possibly the most disturbed of all the killers, admitted in initial confessions to fellow prisoners that she had wanted to cut out Tate's unborn baby but didn't have the time. She also revealed that other grisly and macabre acts were to be perpetrated against the victims and that a list of other high-profile Hollywood stars were on a list to be killed and mutilated. These included Elizabeth Taylor and husband Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen and Tom Jones. When asked why they wanted to kill such people, Atkins replied that they (Manson and Family) wanted to commit murders that would shock the world and make people take notice. Throughout the trial, the killers often giggled and exchanged grimaces with Manson, showing no remorse for their crimes.