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Credits:
Host – Simon Whistler
Author – Steve Theunissen
Producer – Samuel Avila
Executive Producer – Shell Harris
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Transcript Provided by YouTube:
00:00
He is the epitome of pure, unadulterated evil; the mastermind guru with the swastika on his
00:06
forehead and the wild, crazed look in his eyes.
00:09
He was responsible for the one of the most heinous crimes of our time, controlling his
00:14
minions like a puppeteer.
00:16
In this week’s Biographics we discover the dark, disturbing story of Charles Manson.
00:23
A Dysfunctional Beginning
00:32
Charles Milles Manson was born on November 12th, 1934 to sixteen-year old Kathleen Maddox
00:37
and a 24-year old transient laborer known as ‘Colonel Scott’.
00:42
Kathleen was a promiscuous teenager who drank too much and earned money to fuel her habits
00:47
be selling her body.
00:48
The baby was known as ‘No Name Maddox’ for the first few weeks of life until his
00:52
mother settled on Charlie.
00:54
He never knew his father; he cleared out as soon he heard that Kathleen was pregnant.
00:58
Kathleen was too young, immature and unpredictable to provide a stable environment for a young
01:04
child.
01:05
She appeared to have no maternal instinct and would leave the child to fend for himself
01:08
while she went off on one of her benders.
01:10
As an adult, Charlie often related that his mother was once in a café with him on her
01:15
knee when the waitress offered to buy the baby from her.
01:18
Kathleen’s asking price was a pitcher of beer and, having consumed it, she simply walked
01:23
out and left Charlie to the woman.
01:25
According to Charlie, his uncle took four days to track him down and return him home.
01:29
When Charlie was six years old, his mother and uncle decided to rob a gas station.
01:33
They were both caught, convicted and sent for five years to Moundsville State Prison.
01:38
The boy was put into the care of his strictly religious grandparents but after a few months
01:41
he went to live with his aunt and uncle in McMecham, West Virginia.
01:44
This environment was very different to anything Charlie had known previously.
01:48
His aunt, unlike her sister, was regimented and disciplined.
01:51
She was also strictly religious.
01:53
Her husband, Bill, was even more fervent in his faith than his wife.
01:57
A strict disciplinarian, he considered Charlie to be a sissy.
02:01
On his first day of school he sent the boy to class in a dress in order to teach him
02:04
how to fight.
02:06
Charlie soon adapted to this very different kind of life and actually grew to enjoy his
02:09
new regimented routine.
02:11
The two years between six and eight were to prove to be the most stable of his young life.
02:14
But then his mother was released from prison and immediately took him back.
02:18
Kathleen was more unstable than ever.
02:20
She preferred a life of promiscuity and alcohol abuse to maternal domesticity.
02:25
Constantly in trouble with the law and with no money for food and board, the constantly
02:29
moved around the midWest.
02:30
At the age of nine, Charlie dropped out of school.
02:33
The transient life that he was forced to live shaped the type of boy that Charlie became.
02:37
He kept to himself, living his life through his imagination.
02:41
He was constantly watching, taking things in and dreaming of a future free of his no
02:46
hoper mother.
02:47
He also learnt how to become a very accomplished thief.
02:49
At age nine, Charlie was caught stealing and sent to reform school.
02:53
Three years later, he was caught again.
02:55
This time he was packed off to the Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana.
02:59
Before he was taken away, Kathleen promised to visit him often.
03:02
Of course, she never did.
03:04
Just ten months in to his incarceration, Charlie escaped.
03:07
He robbed a grocery store to get some money and, when that ran out, stole other things,
03:11
including a bicycle.
03:12
He got caught in the act of making off with the bike and soon found himself back in confinement.
03:16
This time he was sent to an Indiana juvenile center.
03:19
But after just two days, he stole some wire cutters and freed, not only himself, but 30
03:24
other boys.
03:25
This time the escaped young felon stole, not a bike, but a car.
03:28
But the 13-year old could hardly see over the steering wheel and was apprehended within
03:32
hours of his escape.
03:33
When he ended up in juvenile court, he was surprised to see his mother.
03:36
His spirits were dashed, however, when she testified that she would not take him in.
03:40
The somewhat sympathetic judge sent Charlie to Father Flanagan’s Boys Town.
03:44
But the stay here was almost as short as his last incarceration.
03:47
After just four days, he ran off with another young offender named Blackie Nelson.
03:51
They stole a car which they subsequently crashed.
03:54
Still, they made their way to the home of Blackie’s uncle, a World War 2 veteran and
03:58
underworld figure who gave the young hoodlums free board and food in exchange for the proceeds
04:03
from armed robberies that he made them commit.
04:05
During their third robbery the two boys were caught.
04:08
This time Charlie was sent to the Indiana School for Boys in Plainfield.
04:11
Here he stayed for three years.
04:14
Charlie would later claim that his small stature led to him being constantly raped and sodomized
04:18
by other inmates as well as by school employees.
04:21
He also recalled that he was constantly picked on by the guards, who would continually find
04:26
fault with him, beating him with leather straps and wooden clubs.
04:30
An Angry Young Man
04:35
One night, after being gang raped by a group of older boys, he beat one of his attackers
04:38
to just short of the point of death with an iron bar as the boy lay sleeping.
04:43
Charlie then placed the bar under the bed of one of his other attackers, successfully
04:47
implicating him in the attack.
04:48
Charlie was exhibiting a trait that would characterize his personality as an adult;
04:53
he would hold in his anger for a time, only for it too explode in an orgy of violence.
04:59
Over the three years that he spent at Plainfield, Charlie escaped no less than eighteen times.
05:04
He was returned every time.
05:06
In March, 1951 his sentence was increased and he was sent to a minimum-security institution.
05:11
He was sent to the National Training School for Boys in Washington, D.C.
05:16
Things here were very different to what Charlie had known at Plainfield.
05:18
The facility was well run, the boys were treated well and a genuine focus was placed on rehabilitation.
05:25
Charlie liked it here but he had no interest in being rehabilitated.
05:28
He’d do his time but then he’d get back to the life of crime that he was the only
05:33
life he knew.
05:34
At around the age of fifteen, Charlie was give a psychiatric assessment.
05:37
He was found to be aggressive, antisocial and illiterate.
05:40
A caseworker reported that the boy was severely emotionally traumatized and in serious need
05:46
of psychiatric treatment.
05:47
It was also noted that he had a higher than normal aptitude for music.
05:51
On October 24th, 1951, Charlie was transferred to the Natural Bridge Honor Camp in Petersburg,
05:56
Virginia.
05:57
Three months later, just weeks before his parole hearing, he sodomized another inmate
06:01
while holding a razor blade to his neck.
06:03
He was reclassified as extremely dangerous and transferred to a tougher high security
06:08
facility – the Federal Reformatory at Petersburg, Virginia.
06:12
After seven months at the Federal Reformatory, Charlie had racked up eight major violations.
06:17
He was classified as ‘defiantly homosexual, dangerous and safe only under supervision,
06:23
with assaultive tendencies.’
06:24
Towards the end of 1952, he was sent to a higher security facility.
06:28
There, to the surprise of everybody, he transformed into a model prisoner.
06:32
He took lessons in reading and math and began working in the vehicle maintenance department.
06:37
On January 1st, 1954, he was given a Meritorious Service Award for his scholastic achievements.
06:42
His application to his studies and his apparent change of attitude led to Charlie being paroled
06:47
on May 8th, 1954.
06:49
He was put in the care of his aunt and uncle but, within a month, the now nineteen-year-old
06:53
was back living with his mother, herself recently released from prison.
06:58
Career Felon
07:02
Six months after his release, Charlie married a waitress by the name of Rosalie Jean Willis.
07:06
Shortly thereafter a son, Charles Manson, Junior, was born.
07:09
Charlie worked at a serious low-income job, augmenting his pay by stealing cars.
07:13
He used one of those stolen cars to move his wife and baby to Los Angeles.
07:17
The car had been taken from Ohio and authorities were able to track it down.
07:20
Charlie was charged with a federal crime for taking the car across state lines.
07:25
He received five years’ probation but, when he failed to show up to a subsequent hearing,
07:28
he was arrested.
07:29
With his probation revoked, Charlie was sent for three years to the prison on Terminal
07:33
Island, in San Pedro, California.
07:36
After being there a few months, he was informed that his wife was living with another man.
07:39
Two years later, she obtained a decree of divorce.
07:43
In September, 1958, Charlie was released on five years parole.
07:46
He now extended his criminal earning potential by becoming a pimp.
07:50
He had a sixteen-year-old girl working for him.
07:53
Over the next year, he roamed around California and New Mexico, committing crimes and repeatedly
07:57
coming before the law.
07:58
In June, 1960 he fled to Laredo, Texas with a California warrant out for his arrest.
08:02
When one of his girls was arrested there for prostitution, he was picked up and returned
08:07
to Los Angeles to face a 10-year sentence for cashing a forged treasury check.
08:12
At the age of 26, he was sent to the U.S. Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington.
08:17
While serving his sentence he learned to play the guitar and became interested in Scientology.
08:22
During his time at McNeil Island, he also became obsessed with the Beatles.
08:26
Charlie had an inflated appreciation of his own musical talent, claiming that he would,
08:30
with the right backing and training, be even bigger than the Beatles.
08:34
Charlie became friends with an inmate by the name of Alvin Karpis.
08:37
This former Public Enemy Number One was a former member of the infamous Ma Barker gang.
08:42
He taught Charlie how to play the steel guitar.
08:44
This further fuelled his musical obsession.
08:46
In 1966, Charlie’s prison record noted that he spent most of his free time writing songs,
08:52
accumulating 80 or 90 of them in a year.
08:55
Karpis later commented on the Charlie that he knew at that time.
08:58
He recalled that Manson was a master manipulator of other people.
09:02
Prison authorities also noted that he had a tremendous drive to call attention to himself.
09:07
In June, 1966, Charlie was sent once again to Terminal Island – this time in preparation
09:11
for early release.
09:12
When that release day arrived on March 21st, 1967, he had spent more than half of his 32
09:18
years behind bars.
09:19
He requested that the authorities let him stay in jail but he was told that he had to
09:23
leave.
09:25
Charlie Unleashed
09:29
And so it was that the five foot nothing drifter with the penetrating stare and gift of the
09:33
gab wandered into the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco with $35 in his pocket and
09:39
no plans except for a desire to make it big in the music business.
09:44
Charlie moved into an apartment in Berkeley and made money by panhandling.
09:47
Before long he had gotten to know a 23-year-old assistant librarian at UC Berkeley named Mary
09:52
Brunner.
09:53
He quickly won her over and moved into her apartment.
09:55
Brunner came under Charlie’s spell and he convinced her to widen out the home.
09:59
Within a few months, there were eighteen young women living with them.
10:02
Charlie introduced Mary and the other girls to drugs and before long Mary had quit her
10:06
job and become a devoted follower of Manson.
10:08
The ‘family’ was beginning to take shape.
10:11
With his female entourage and his guitar, Charlie merged perfectly into the hippie culture
10:15
that was then in full bloom in San Francisco.
10:18
He refined his role as spiritual master, guru and prophet, using mind control techniques
10:23
to get his girls to do whatever he wanted.
10:26
Most of the girls that he gathered around him came from troubled backgrounds and suffered
10:29
from insecurities that left them directly about open to Charlie’s manipulations.
10:34
As well as breaking down their inhibitions with mind control techniques, he used LSD
10:38
and amphetamines to control his ever-expanding harem.
10:41
After about nine months living in and around San Francisco, Charlie began to despair of
10:46
the place.
10:47
It had, he asserted become too overrun with African Americans and crime was rampant.
10:51
Of course, the ‘Family’ were doing their bit to add to those crime statistics.
10:56
They stole credit cards and used counterfeit money to get what they needed.
10:59
They also stole a big yellow bus and painted it black.
11:05
The Family
11:08
Charlie and his followers took to travelling by bus down the California coastline as far
11:11
as Mexico and Texas, partying and committing more crimes.
11:15
After eighteen months of extended travel, they finally settled in Topanga Canyon near
11:19
Los Angeles in a two-storey house.
11:21
It was here that Charlie began gathering some male members to the Family.
11:25
The first was a teenager named Bobby Beausoliel, who turned up one night for a party and then
11:29
stayed on as Charlie’s right-hand man.
11:31
Bobby had been staying with his music teacher Gary Hinman not far from the Manson home.
11:36
Bobby recruited an 18-year-old named Leslie Van Houtein to the family in June, 1968.
11:41
Around that time, Charlie and some of the girls travelled to Los Angeles where he met
11:45
up with a record executive at universal studios.
11:48
Former jail friend Phil Kaufman had arranged the meeting.
11:50
This was Charlie’s entry into the rich jet set crowd and he turned on all his charm to
11:55
make a good impression.
11:56
Soon the ‘Family’ were rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous at posh parties in
12:00
the Hollywood Hills.
12:01
In the late spring of 1968, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson was driving away from Malibu
12:06
Beach when he happened to pick up two hitchhikers.
12:09
The girls were part of the Manson family and, they quickly agreed to go back to his Beverly
12:12
Hills home with Wilson on Sunset Boulevard.
12:13
The three made love that afternoon and then Wilson left for a recording session, promising
12:16
to return later to take up where they left off.
12:19
When Wilson returned home in the early hours of the following morning, he was surprised
12:22
to see that a full-scale party was underway.
12:25
He was greeted in the driveway by a short man with a scraggly beard who approached him,
12:29
dropped to his knees and began kissing his feet.
12:32
The girls who Dennis had met earlier came running out declaring, ‘This is the guy
12:35
we were telling you about . . . this is Charlie.’
12:38
Inside his home, Wilson found twelve more women, most of them topless, lying around
12:42
smoking pot.
12:44
Manson told him that the girls were all there for Wilson’s pleasure.
12:47
Wilson was impressed with the sway that Charlie held over the women.
12:50
He welcomed the ‘Family’ with open arms and his home become the regular venue for
12:53
Charlie orchestrated orgies.
12:55
Wilson called Manson the Wizard and began inviting influential showbiz friends to come
12:59
and meet him.
13:00
Dennis also allowed Charlie to use anything he wanted – his Ferrari or Rolls Royce and
13:04
all the food drink and drugs he or his groupies wanted.
13:07
Eventually Wilson’s manager became fed up with the influence and expense that Manson
13:11
was having on his client and Charlie and the girls were ordered out of the mansion.
13:16
Rumors were also spreading of the children of the rich and famous being given drugs and
13:19
having sex under Charlies direction.
13:22
Suddenly, the door to the Hollywood elite lifestyle was slammed shut.
13:26
Charlie’s planned for music career was also shut down.
13:29
This caused that familiar build up of jealousy, anger and rage that would inevitably find
13:33
expression in violence.
13:36
Manson managed to convince the owner of a former Western movie set, the Spahn Ranch,
13:40
in Chatswood, not far from Topanga Canyon, to allow the family to live on the abandoned
13:44
property.
13:45
The family now moved to the ranch, getting by stealing and scavenging.
13:49
Charlie took to quoting the Bible to Family members as they gathered round a bonfire during
13:53
the evenings.
13:54
He also interpreted Beatles songs, explaining that the lyrics were directed toward them.
13:58
He was obsessed with one song ‘Helter Skelter’, telling his followers that the song envisioned
14:03
an apocalypse brought on by a race war of blacks killing whites.
14:07
The blacks would win, he said, but would then turn to Manson to lead the new world.
14:12
Helter Skelter
14:16
For Charlie, however, the revolution was taking too long.
14:19
He wanted it to happen immediately.
14:21
He began preparing family members for a series of actions that would precipitate the black
14:26
uprising.
14:27
The first step would be to release an album of music that would contain subtle messages
14:30
that would foment the black revolution.
14:33
On May 18th, 1969, Terry Melcher, a producer who Charlie had met through Dennis Wilson
14:37
arrived at Spahn Ranch to listen to Charlie and the girls sing.
14:41
Melcher made promises but never followed through on them.
14:44
On July 25th 1969, Charlie ordered Bobby Beausoliel and two women to the home of Gary Hindman,
14:50
the music teacher who Bobby used to live with.
14:52
Manson had heard that Hindman had inherited $20,000 and he wanted it.
14:57
Hinman refused to hand over the money.
14:59
Charlie was called and he soon arrived.
15:01
After screaming at Hinman, Charlie pulled out a sword and cut off his ear.
15:04
He then left, giving instructions to get the money or kill Hinman.
15:08
After three days, Bobby stabbed his former teacher to death.
15:11
Before leaving he and the girls wrote the words ‘Political Piggy’ on the wall along
15:13
with a panther paw in red to lay the blame on the Black Panther movement.
15:18
Bobby Beusoliel was arrested for the murder on August 6th, 1969 after being caught driving
15:23
around in Hinman’s car.
15:24
Manson was now ready to get his revenge on Terry Melcher, the record producer who had
15:28
let him down.
15:29
On the evening of August 8th, he directed followers Tex Watson, Linda Kasabian, Susan
15:33
Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel to the house where he believed Melcher was living with
15:37
instructions to ‘totally destroy everyone in it, making it as gruesome as possible.’
15:43
The house was located at 1050 Celio Drive but Melcher didn’t live there anymore.
15:48
It was now occupied by famous director Roman Polanski and his beautiful 8-month pregnant
15:54
wife, actress Sharon Tate.
15:56
That night, Polanski was in Europe on a film project.
15:58
His wife was entertaining guests at the property – hairdresser Jay Sebring, screenwriter
16:02
Voyteg Frykowski and coffee empire heiress Abigail Folger.
16:07
Arriving at the property, around midnight, Watson climbed a telephone pole near the gate
16:11
and cut the phone line.
16:12
The car was then back to the bottom of a hill that led to the house and the murder team
16:16
walked up to find the victims.
16:18
Watson thought the gate might be electrified so he and the girls climbed a brushy embankment
16:22
to get onto the grounds.
16:23
Just then, car headlights came on from farther up the property.
16:27
Ordering the women to lie down in the bushes, Watson approached the vehicle and levelled
16:30
his 22-caliber rifle at the driver, 18-year-ol Steven Parent.
16:35
Watson first slashed hm with a knife and them shot him four times in the chest.
16:39
Watson then ordered Linda Kasabian to keep watch down by the gate.
16:42
He and the other two women then made their way to the house.
16:45
The occupants were quickly gathered together in the lounge.
16:47
When asked by Frykowski who they were, Watson replied, “I’m the devil and I’m here
16:52
to do the devil’s work.’
16:54
Watson then began to tie the heavily pregnant Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring together by their
16:58
necks with rope he’d brought and slung over a beam.
17:01
When Sebring protested over the rough handling of Sharon, Watson shot him and then stabbed
17:05
him seven times.
17:07
Meanwhile Frykowski began struggling with Susan Atkins, who repeatedly stabbed him in
17:11
the legs and torso.
17:12
Still Frykowski managed to get to the front door.
17:14
Seeing this, Watson rushed after him, meeting up with him on the porch and smashing in his
17:19
head with the gun butt before shooting him twice.
17:21
Abigail Folger had managed to escape out onto the yard.
17:24
She was chased by Patricia Krenwikel who tackled her and then stabbed her to death.
17:29
The only remaining victim was now Sharon Tate.
17:31
As she lay on the lounge room floor with a rope around her neck she begged to be able
17:35
to live long enough to have her child.
17:37
But her pleas were ignored and either Watson or Atkins stabbed her repeatedly, including
17:42
in the abdomen, until both she and her unborn baby were dead.
17:47
Remembering Manson’s instructions to leave a sign on the walls, Atkins wrote the word
17:51
“PIG” with Tate’s blood.
17:53
The very next day, the Family struck again.
17:55
This time the victims were Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
17:59
Unhappy with the messiness of the previous night’s killings, this time Charlie went
18:02
with the group to show them how it was done.
18:05
Different accounts have been giving about the exact happenings that night but we do
18:08
know that Manson was in the house and he orchestrated the tying up of the couple, He then left with
18:14
orders that the couple be killed.
18:15
They were finished off by Watson with a chrome plated bayonet.
18:16
Before leaving the words “WAR”, “Rise”, “Death To Pigs” and “Healter Skelter’
18:21
were written with the blood of the victims on the walls and refrigerator door.
18:27
Caught
18:30
The murders caused a huge panic through Hollywood.
18:32
The pressure was now on to solve the heinous crimes.
18:36
The police got nowhere until they finally linked the Hinman murder to the Tate-LaBianca
18:40
killings.
18:41
They knew that Bobby Beusoliel had lived with a group of hippies at Spahn Ranch so they
18:45
decided to pay the ranch a visit.
18:47
Bobby’s girlfriend had told police that Charlie Manson, the hippie guru, had ordered
18:50
the killing of Hinman.
18:52
Still there was no evidence linking the group to the later murders.
18:55
Then, in October, twenty-four Manson family members, including Charlie, were arrested
18:59
on charges of arson and grand theft.
19:01
Susan Atkins was also taken into custody and it was she who first began to spill beans.
19:06
She bragged to a cellmate about killing Sharon Tate, giving a detailed account and implicating
19:11
Charlie as the mastermind.
19:13
About the same time, police interviewed a member of the Straight Satans motorcycle gang
19:16
who was a Manson acquaintance.
19:18
He told them that Manson had recently been bragging about ‘knocking off’ five people.
19:22
The first piece of physical evidence was a fingerprint of Patricia Rewinkle that was
19:26
found on Sharon Tate’s bedroom door.
19:28
When other pieces of physical evidence were recovered, the police were ready to send the
19:32
case to court.
19:33
Manson and the four people who had committed the Tate-La Bianca murders were found guilty
19:37
and sentenced to death.
19:39
These penalties, however, would never be imposed.
19:42
In 1972 the California Supreme Court declared the state’s death penalty law unconstitutional.
19:47
Manson’s’ death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
19:51
Charles Manson died on November 19, 2017, of cardiac arrest having spent nearly fifty
19:56
years behind bars for his orchestrating of the crimes that shook the world in 1969.
20:02
He was 83 years of age.
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video.