Who Is Charles Manson

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Charles Manson, born Charles Milles Maddox, is one of the most notorious criminals in American history. His name is synonymous with the brutal Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969, and his cult of followers are regarded as two of the most infamous and terrifying symbols of the era’s counterculture.

Manson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 12, 1934 to 16-year-old Kathleen Maddox and a mentally-ill, unknown father. Shortly after, his mother married a laborer named William Manson and Charles adopted his stepfather’s surname.

Manson had a deeply troubled childhood, including being sent to numerous reform schools for crimes such as theft, forgery, and pimping. He also claimed to have spent time living in federal penitentiaries.

In 1967, Manson was released from prison on a parole and travelled to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district to begin forming his ‘Family’ – a group of often drug-addled, primarily young followers. Michael Aquino, a soldier-turned-hippie then part of the ‘Family’ described Manson as a ‘magnetic attraction’ and said that ‘everybody was devoted to him’.

Manson, who believed he was the second coming of Jesus Christ, communicated his apocalyptic prophesies and beliefs through songs and poetry. He felt that the world’s ‘ultimate evil’ was war, so he hoped that his ‘Helter Skelter’ framework — a violent and gruesome ‘race war’ — would bring a utopian society, and eventually, his rule.

It was during this time that Manson and members of the ‘Family’ were implicated in more than two dozen murders, committed in two locations: Sharon Tate and four of her friends in a rented house above Beverly Hills, and supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in their own home.

On August 9th, 1969, Manson and four of his followers – Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel and Tex Watson – were arrested and later sentenced to life imprisonment for their role in the Tate-La Bianca murders.

To this day, Charles Manson’s heinous acts continue to shock. He has become a symbol of evil, who continues to spread fear and terror to this day.