CHARLES MANSON

CHARLES MANSON’S PROFILE Classification: Murderer Characteristics: Cult leader - Prosecutors said that Manson and his followers were

trying to start a race war that he believed was predicted in the Beatles' song "Helter Skelter“

Number of victims: 10 Date of murders: July-August 1969 Date of arrest: October 12, 1969 Date of birth: November 12, 1934 Victims profile: Gary Allen Hinman, 34 / Movie actress Sharon Tate, 26 (eight and a half

months pregnant); Jay Sebring, 35; Wojciech Frykowski, 32; Abigail Folger, 25, and Steven Earl Parent, 18 / Leno LaBianca, 44, and his wife, Rosemary, 38 / Donald Jerome "Shorty" Shea

Method of murder: Stabbing with knife Location: Los Angeles County, California, USA Status: Sentenced to death on April 19, 1971. Automatically commuted to life

imprisonment when a 1972 decision by the Supreme Court of California temporarily eliminated the state's death penalty

Charles Manson’s Parents• Charles was given birth by Kathleen Maddox, his 16 year old

mother, in the general hospital, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Manson was

first named "no name Maddox". Within weeks, he was

called Charles Milles Maddox. For a period after his birth, his

mother was married to a worker named William Manson whose

last name the boy was given. His biological father appears to

have been Colonel Walker Scott. But, Charles Manson never

really knew his biological father.

WHO WAS CHARLES MANSON

Charles Manson is a convicted serial killer who has become an icon of evil. In the late 1960s, Manson founded a hippie cult group known as "the Family" whom he manipulated into brutally killing others on his orders. Kathleen had run away from home at the age of 15 and spent the next few decades drinking too much, with periods of time spent in jail.

Since his mother couldn't take care of him, Charles spent his youth at the homes of his relatives and often at special reform schools and boys homes. By age nine, Charles Manson had already started stealing and soon added burglary and stealing cars to his lifestyle.

Manson’s Elder Life

• In 1954, at age nineteen, he was released on parole after a good behavior. The next year, he married Rosalie Willis, a waitress, and they had a son together, Charles Manson Jr. Even while married, Manson had continued making extra money by stealing cars. In April 1956, he was again sent to prison. After Manson had been in prison for a year, his wife found someone new and divorced Manson in June 1957.

Charles as a prisoner

He also married again, to a prostitute named Candy Stevens (real name Leona), and fathered a second son, Charles Luther Manson. Manson was again arrested on June 1, 1960 and sent to the McNeil Island Penitentiary off the coast of Washington. His wife soon divorced him. Manson spent the next six years in prison. It was during this time that he wasn’t friends anymore with the infamous Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, former member of Ma Barker's gang. After Karpis taught Charles Manson to play the steel guitar, Manson became obsessed with making music. He practiced all the time, wrote dozens of original songs, and started singing.

Manson’s musical life

On March 21, 1967, Manson was once again released from prison. This time he headed to San Francisco where, with a guitar and drugs, he began to get a following. In 1968, he and several followers drove to Southern California.

Manson was still hoping for a music career. Through an acquaintance, Manson met and hung out with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys did record one of Manson's songs, which appeared as "Never Learn Not to Love" on the B-side of their 20/20 album.

THE FAMILY

Through Wilson, Manson met Terry Melcher, Doris Day's son. Manson believed Melcher was going to advance his music career but when nothing happened, Manson was very upset.

During this time, Charles Manson and some of his followers moved into the Spahn Ranch. Located northwest of San Fernando Valley the Spahn Ranch had been a popular location to film westerns in the 1940s and 1950s. Once Manson and his followers moved in, it became a cult compound for "the Family."

Manson’s Philosophy

Charles Manson was good at manipulating people. He took pieces from different religions to form his own philosophy. When the Beatles released their White Album in 1968, Manson believed their song "Helter Skelter" predicted an upcoming race war.

"Helter Skelter" Manson believed, was going to occur in the summer of 1969 when blacks were going to rise up and kill all the white people. He told his followers that they would be safe because they would go underground, literally, by traveling to an underground city of gold located in Death Valley.

However, when the Armageddon that Manson had predicted did not happen, he said he and his followers have to show the blacks how to do it.

CHARLES MANSON’S CRIMES

Manson told four of his followers to go to 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles and kill the people inside. This house once belonged to Terry Melcher, the man who had not helped Manson with his music career. However, Melcher no longer lived there; actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski, had rented the house.

On August 9, 1969, four of Manson's followers brutally murdered Tate, her unborn baby, and four others who were visiting her (Polanski was in Europe for work). The following night, Manson's followers brutally killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home.

Experts opinion

Charles Manson is a notorious inmate and an American icon of evil but, according to experts, the convict is not a serial killer or a mass murderer, as he is described.  Scott A. Bonn, a serial killer expert and assistant professor of sociology at Drew University, said it is time to set the story right.

"Manson is a fascinating, infamous individual, but he was not a serial killer or a mass murderer," Bonn told The Huffington Post.

"The Manson killings would come closest to a killing entertainment," Bonn explained. "They were multiple killings that happened in a short period of time, so there was no emotional cooling period. They were cold, calculated and planned murders."

"In some ways they were mission killers. They had a mission, a purpose, and this purpose led to a killing entertainment."

The argument that Manson never killed anyone himself persists, but he was convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder for his role in the killings.

Charles Manson Identification

I think that Charles Manson was a crazy and brutal person, because he believed that the apocalypse was about to happen and he was racist, he believed that black people would rebel and slaughter or kill all the white people. What he believed in was nonsense and psychopathic. Killing and slaughtering all those innocent people, there is no excuse about it, or maybe the reason it’s his early life, that he had no parents to look out for him and guide him.

QUIZ

1. When was Charles Manson born ?

2. What did Manson believe in that made him kill all those people, or what was his philosophy ?

3. How many people did Manson kill ?

Sources and Bibliography

1. http://murderpedia.org/male.M/m/manson-charles-v-people.htm

2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201403/if-not-serial-killer-then-what-is-charles-manson

3. http://history1900s.about.com/od/1960s/p/charlesmanson.htm

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson

5. http://www.biography.com/people/charles-manson-9397912