1934-2017
Latest News: Documentary Examines Links Between Charles Manson Murders and the CIA
A new documentary explores a major conspiracy about the notorious cult leader Charles Manson and his followers’ 1969 killing spree. Chaos: The Manson Murders, which arrived on Netflix March 7, examines the theory that the Manson Family’s grisly murders were linked to a covert CIA mind-control program called MKUltra, which reportedly used LSD and other drugs to influence people.
Based on the 2019 book CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring, the film invites viewers to question the official account of the Manson murders.
In 1971, Manson and three of his followers were convicted of the murders of seven people, including the pregnant actor Sharon Tate, but the notorious criminal, who died in prison in 2017, is believed to be responsible for as many as 35 murders.
“I’ve found myself trapped in a number of different true-crime stories, and the Manson murders are peculiar,” director Errol Morris told Netflix’s Tudum. “You could encapsulate the mystery in just one question: How is it that Manson managed to convince the people around him that killing was okay?”
Who Was Charles Manson?
Charles Manson was a notorious criminal and cult leader who spearheaded a murderous campaign with his followers, known as the Manson Family. The group’s killing spree included the brutal slayings of pregnant actor Sharon Tate and other Hollywood residents. For these crimes, Manson received the death penalty in 1971, a sentence that was commuted to life in prison the following year. In total, he is thought to be responsible for around 35 murders. Manson died in prison of natural causes in 2017, just after his 83rd birthday.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Charles Milles Manson
BORN: November 12, 1934
DIED: November 19, 2017
BIRTHPLACE: Cincinnati, Ohio
SPOUSES: Rosalie Jean Willis (1955-1958) and Leona Rae “Candy” Steves (1959-1963)
CHILDREN: Charles Manson Jr., Charles Luther Manson, and Michael Brunner
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio
Early Life
Charles Manson, whose real name was Charles Milles Maddox, was born on November 12, 1934, in Cincinnati to Kathleen Maddox, a 16-year-old sex worker who struggled with substance abuse issues. Kathleen later married William Manson, but the marriage ended quickly, and Charles was placed in a boys school at age 12.
Rejected in his attempts to return to his mother, Charles was soon living on the streets and getting by through a string of petty crimes. Manson was still just a teenager when he was first arrested and imprisoned in 1951. He would eventually spend half of the first 32 years of his life behind bars. When Manson wasn’t incarcerated, he moved between foster and group homes and reform schools.
Early on, before he discovered the benefits of being a “model” prisoner, he was considered dangerous. Manson, who reportedly only grew to be 5 feet 2 inches tall, was described by probation reports as suffering from a “marked degree of rejection, instability, and psychic trauma” and “constantly striving for status and securing some kind of love.” Other descriptions included “unpredictable” and “safe only under supervision.”
His various offenses included pimping, stealing cars, and passing stolen checks. In 1961, he was sent to McNeil Island prison in Washington State for 10 years for violating his probation. It was while he was incarcerated that Manson learned how to read music and play the guitar.
The Manson Family Cult
On March 21, 1967, he was released from prison and moved to San Francisco. There, he established himself as a hippie cult leader—his followers are known as the Manson Family. He found his first follower in Mary Brunner, a 23-year-old library assistant at the University of California, Berkeley, who he moved in with, before adding teenage runaway Lynette Fromme to the mix.
Eventually, the Manson Family cult grew to at least 35 confirmed followers, most of whom were impressionable young girls. They all shared Manson’s passion for an unconventional lifestyle and habitual use of hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD and magic mushrooms. In 1967, the Family relocated from San Francisco to a deserted ranch in the San Fernando Valley of California.
What started as more of a commune soon took a turn when the small, hard-core unit began to believe, without question, Manson’s claims that he was Jesus, as well as his prophecies of a race war.
“Helter Skelter”
Manson was influenced not only by drugs, but also by art and music of the time, most notably The Beatles song “Helter Skelter” from their 1968 White Album. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders was later the title of a best-selling book about Manson and his crimes.
Paul McCartney has said the playground slide in “Helter Skelter” was a metaphor for the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Manson, however, interpreted the song as incitation to begin a race war, turning to the album and lyrics to justify his scheme and guide his followers to murder.
In addition, he had a strong belief and interest in the notion of Armageddon from the Book of Revelations and also explored the teachings of Scientology and more obscure cult churches, such as the Church of the Final Judgment.
In many ways, Manson reflected personality traits and obsessions associated with gurus of cult-quasi-religious groups that began to emerge in the 1960s. He was pathologically deluded into believing that he was the harbinger of doom regarding the planet’s future.
The Manson-Beach Boys Connection
Before Manson’s famous murder spree, Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys picked up two female members of the Family who had been hitchhiking. He then allowed Manson and several members of the Family to stay at his home.
It was through this association that Manson, who wanted to be a musician, got the opportunity to audition for Terry Melcher, the son of Doris Day, who was a friend and producer of the popular 1960s band The Beach Boys. At the time, Melcher was living at director Roman Polanski’s house. Ultimately, the producer wasn’t interested in signing a contract with Manson.
Manson allegedly recorded some music at the home studio of Dennis’ brother Brian Wilson. The Beach Boys later released a song written by Manson entitled “Cease to Exist” (renamed “Never Learn Not to Love”) on their 1969 album, 20/20, as a single B-side.
Murders and Victims
Manson and his young, loyal disciples are thought to have carried out as many as 35 murders, but most of their cases were never tried, due in part to lack of evidence. The main perpetrators had also already been sentenced to life in prison for brutally killing seven people— including actor Sharon Tate and wealthy supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary—on back-to-back nights in August 1969.
On August 9, 1969, Manson gathered a group of followers to carry out his massacre among Hollywood’s elite and “beautiful people.” The first of Manson’s victims was murdered at the home director Roman Polanski had rented, located at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, an area just north of Beverly Hills. Polanski was away in London shooting a film, and four soon-to-be victims had just returned home from dinner when they were attacked.
Although Manson himself took no part in the actual killings, he directed four of his most obedient followers—Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian—to the address and instructed them to kill everyone. According to one of the Family member’s statements, the Polanski household had been targeted because it represented the showbiz world that had rejected Manson.
Steven Parent had been visiting a friend when he became the Manson Family’s first victim. As he drove away from the house in the dark early morning hours, he was spotted by the intruders and shot dead. Kasabian was horrified by the shooting of the 18-year-old, and she remained outside to keep watch. Kasabian acted as the getaway driver and later became the star witness during the trial.
When the other three broke into the house, they herded actor Sharon Tate, writer Wojciech Frykowski, coffee bean heiress Abigail Folger, and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring into the living room and tied them up. Sebring was shot and brutally kicked as he tried to defend Tate, who was eight months pregnant. During the terrifying attack, both Frykowski and Folger managed to escape from the house, but were chased down 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.
Tate, who was married to Polanski, pleaded for the life of her unborn child. She was mercilessly stabbed in the stomach by Atkins. Kasabian later shared 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. However, instead of this brutal massacre sating the pathological Manson, he criticized the murderers for being sloppy.
The following night, Manson took Family members Watson, Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten to the Los Feliz address of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, where the couple was murdered in a similarly horrifying fashion.
Trial and Conviction
Ironically, Manson and his family were arrested not on suspicion of the Tate-LaBianca murders, but simply on the belief that they had vandalized a portion of the Death Valley National Park while hiding out in the Mojave Desert. The county sheriff had taken them into custody in 1969, not realizing that they were involved in the heinous murders. It was the confession of Susan Atkins, while held in detention on suspicion of murdering Gary Hinman during an unrelated incident, that led detectives to realize that Manson and his followers were involved in the killings.
Various motivations were examined during the course of the trial. The most feasible was that Manson’s pathological ego, insanity, and belief in Armageddon were influences that led him to leave behind a trail of destruction. He believed he was the new Messiah and that after a “nuclear attack” he and his followers would be saved by hiding in a secret world under the desert.
His prophetic visions included a belief that the race war would result in a Black victory, which would lead to Manson, along with his followers, mentoring the Black community, as they would lack experience to run the planet. As Manson and the family were to be the beneficiaries of the race war, he told his followers they had to help initiate it.
According to defense witness and murderer Leslie Van Houten, this was the primary reason why they murdered the LaBiancas. Manson had taken the wallet of murdered Rosemary LaBianca with the intention that he would deposit it in a section of Los Angeles where a Black person might find it, use it, and then possibly have the murders pinned on them.
Later in court, Van Houten, who was just 19 when she took part in the LaBianca killings, alleged that Manson had taken advantage of her vulnerability and dislike for her mother, though she believed, like the other members, that he was a man of vision. Thirty years later, during a parole board hearing, Van Houten said she was horrified by what she had done that night and desperately wanted to redeem herself.
Susan Atkins 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 other grisly and macabre acts were to be perpetrated against the victims and that 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 celebrities, Atkins replied the Manson Family wanted to commit murders that would shock the world and make people take notice.
The trial began in June 1970, with lawyer Ronald Hughes named the attorney for Manson and Van Houten. Hughes soon dropped Manson as a client, reportedly because he felt he could convince the jury that Van Houten had been unduly influenced by the cult leader. The move might have cost him his life: Later in the year, Hughes went camping and disappeared. His decomposed body turned up several months later. It is thought that he was the victim of a retaliation killing by members of the Manson Family.
During the trial, Manson released an album titled Lie in an effort to raise money for his defense. He reveled in the media attention, and during court proceedings, he turned up with an X carved into his forehead. Some of his female followers copied the act and shaved their heads, sometimes sitting outside the courthouse. The X was gradually modified until it turned into a swastika.
Throughout the trial, the killers often giggled and exchanged grimaces with Manson, showing no remorse for their crimes.
On January 25, 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder for directing the deaths of the Tate-LaBianca victims. He was sentenced to death, but this was automatically commuted to life in prison after California’s Supreme Court invalidated all death sentences prior to 1972. He spent the next four decades behind bars at Corcoran State Prison in California.
Atkins and Van Houten were also sentenced to death, but their sentences were similarly commuted to life in prison. Atkins was incarcerated from 1969 until her death in 2009. After multiple parole hearings, Van Houten was released from prison in July 2023 after serving more than 50 years. Kasabian was granted immunity for her part as star witness.
Manson Children and Wives
In 1955, between prison sentences, Manson married Rosalie Jean Willis, a 17-year-old hospital server. The couple moved to California and had a son, Charles Manson Jr., who later changed his name to Jay White and died by suicide in the 1990s. By 1956, Willis had left with their child to be with her new lover, and she divorced Manson two years later.
In 1959, Manson married his second wife, Leona Rae “Candy” Stevens, who was a sex worker. With Stevens, he had a second son, Charles Luther Manson, who also changed his name more than a decade later to Jay Charles Warner. Stevens divorced him in 1963, and Warner died in 2007. His third child, Michael Brunner, was born in 1968 to Manson and his first cult follower, Mary Brunner. He was 14 months old at the time of the Manson Family murders and was later adopted by his maternal grandparents.
In an interview with Rolling Stone in November 2013, Afton Burton, who called herself Star, claimed that she and Manson were in a relationship, telling the reporter: “I’ll tell you straight up, Charlie and I are going to get married. When that will be, we don’t know. But I take it very seriously. Charlie is my husband. Charlie told me to tell you this.”
At the age of 19, Star had moved from Illinois to Corcoran, California, to be near the prison where Manson was incarcerated, and she also ran multiple websites aimed at securing his release. In November 2014, the 26-year-old Star and 80-year-old Manson obtained a marriage license. However, their license expired in 2015, and allegations were made in February of that year by writer Daniel Simone that Star primarily intended to marry Manson so she could publicly display his corpse for profit after his death.
In February 2015, Star told Inside Edition that the nuptials were still on, while her mother disputed Simone’s claims. The two never married.
Death
Manson died on November 19, 2017, of natural causes. The 83-year-old had been in prison for more than 46 years for his crimes. Days earlier, Manson had been admitted to a hospital in Bakersfield, California. No details about his medical condition or his location were disclosed, due to privacy and security reasons. The longtime prisoner had also been hospitalized earlier in the year.
Posthumous Legal Battles
In the months after Manson’s death, the Kern County Superior Court of California sought to determine who had the right to claim the notorious cult leader’s body. Four people expressed interest, including two who claimed to be his son, one who demonstrated he was a grandson, and a fourth who said he was a longtime pen pal. The matter was further complicated by the submission of competing wills.
In March 2018, the court awarded Manson’s body to his grandson, Jason Freeman, the only child of Charles Manson Jr. A resident of Bradenton, Florida, Freeman told a local news channel he planned to cremate his grandfather’s body and scatter the ashes in an undisclosed location.
Documentaries and Movies
The infamy of Charles Manson has led to dozens of books, documentaries, and movies. One of the earliest documentaries is 1973’s Manson, which includes footage of places where the Manson family lived and interviews with former followers of the cult leader. The seminal documentary earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary in 1972.
More recently, the two-part documentary Manson Speaks: Inside the Mind of a Madman, released in 2017, investigates whether the Manson family was connected to other unsolved murders in late 1969, while 2019’s Manson: Music from an Unsound Mind delves into Manson’s musical ambitions and brief friendship with The Beach Boys’ drummer Dennis Wilson.
Elsewhere, the Peacock docuseries Making Manson, which came out in 2024, offers exclusive insights and conservation about the notorious cult leader and killer, including jailhouse records of Manson admitting to more murders. In addition, the new Netflix documentary Chaos: The Manson Murders, which released on March 7, explores links between the Manson Family killings and the CIA.
The horrific crimes of the Manson family have also inspired several onscreen dramatizations. The best-selling book Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders was twice made into a movie. The 1976 adaptation featured Steve Railsback as Manson, and in 2004’s Helter Skelter, Jeremy Davies portrayed the infamous criminal mastermind. Other movies include House of Manson (2014) with Ryan Kiser and Charlie Says (2018), starring Matt Smith. The Manson family was also included in an episode of American Horror Story: Cult, the seventh season of the popular anthology series that aired in 2017.
Quotes
- I am not a bad person, I am a good person.
- Look down at me, and you see a fool. Look up at me, and you see a god. Look straight at me, and you see yourself.
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