Charles Milles Mansons Life - Essay Example

Charles Milles Manson was born on November 12, 1934 to an unmarried woman d Kathleen Maddox in Cincinnati, Ohio. Maddox, who was reportedly only sixteen at the time of his birth, was not fit to care for a child and, therefore, Manson’s early childhood development suffered. A while after Manson was born, his mother married a man named William Manson, which is how Charles got his last name. This man was not his biological father, but Manson was given his last name anyway. It is possible that Manson never met his biological father. Manson’s mother was the source of many of his early problems, as she was a heavy drinker. At one time, she sold him to a waitress for a pitcher of beer. This waitress kept him until his uncle retrieved him a few days later. In 1939, his mother and uncle were thrown in jail for robbing a gas station and Manson went to live with another aunt and uncle who were quite religious. When his mother was granted parole three years later, however, Manson returned to his mother’s side, where they moved from hotel to hotel. Kathleen Maddox was constantly attempting to get rid of Manson, as she was not a good mother. In 1947, she attempted to have him placed in a foster home, but she could not find one available. This led to Manson being placed in Gibault School for Boys, where he stayed for ten months before fleeing to find his mother again. His mother, however, rejected him and he was then on his own. The first crime that Manson committed was the robbery of a grocery store. He did this in order to pay for a hotel room. A series of other robberies followed until he was caught and sent to a juvenile center. He escaped from this juvenile hall after only one day and after his recapture, he escaped from another juvenile hall four days later. This time, he escaped with another boy and the two of them committed a series of robberies on their way to the other boy’s uncle’s house. The robberies and escapes continued for years, as Manson was sent to different juvenile centers around the country, but none of them could hold him. He even was caught with a stolen car that he had used to rob gas stations in Utah. It was at these juvenile centers that it was concluded that Manson was aggressively antisocial. The first time that Manson was actually considered a dangerous offender was right before a scheduled parole hearing in 1952 when he held a razorblade to another boy’s throat and sodomized him. After this, he was transferred to the Federal Reformatory, which is where more dangerous juvenile offenders are kept. Once here, however, Manson settled down and even raised his education to the seventh grade level, earning him early parole on May 1954. One of the conditions of his parole was that he live with his aunt and uncle, but he quickly went back to his mother. In January 1955, Manson married Rosalie Jean Willis, who he was able to support with small robberies and auto thefts. He and his wife soon moved to Los Angeles, where Manson was once again arrested for grand theft auto and given five years probation. His failure to appear in court on another auto theft charge in Florida led to his arrest and sentencing to three years in prison. While Manson was in prison, his wife moved in with another man. Manson attempted to escape, but was caught and even more time was added onto his sentence. When Manson got back out of jail, he turned his attention to pimping prostitutes. By November 1958, Manson was caught pimping a sixteen-year old girl, while receiving additional financial support from another wealthy girl. He was questioned in violation of the Mann Act and was eventually given a ten year sentence. In 1961, Manson was sent to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington, where he would stay until June 1966, when he was sent to Terminal Island is preparation for an early release. On March 21, 1967, Manson was released, although he wished to stay in jail because he knew that he could not handle the outside world. It was during this stint on the outside that the major problems would begin surrounding Manson. After his release, Manson moved to San Francisco and made most of his living by panhandling. While in San Francisco, he got to know a twenty-three-year-old student named Mary Brunner. He soon moved in with her and even talked her into letting other women live with them. Manson was upset about the fact that no sexual relationship immediately occurred, but “one developed after the pair spent some time getting to know each other, and after Manson moved in a 14-year-old girl he had met in Haight-Ashbury who was not shy about sleeping with the budding Don Juan” (Noe, 2004). Soon, eighteen other women were living in Brunner’s apartment with them. Manson also manage to make a name for himself in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, which was a hippie locale during the summer of 1967. His philosophy soon earned him a following of people, mostly female, which led to them hitting the road. Manson bought an old school bus and transformed it into a hippie style van and rode around in it with his followers all over the western United States. While traveling, who of Manson’s girls were picked up while hitchhiking by Dennis Wilson, who was a member of the Beach Boys. He then brought them to his house for a few hours. Later on, when Wilson returned home from a late night recording session, Manson came out of Wilson’s own house and greeted him. Wilson, startled by the presence of a man in his house, asked if Manson intended to hurt him, but Manson said that he did not and began kissing Wilson’s feet. Wilson then went into the house and found twelve girls inside. During the next few months, more people came to live at Wilson’s house and these people were referred to at the Manson Family. Having these people live at his home had cost Wilson about $100,000, including a large medical bill for the treatment of gonorrhea and paying for the destruction of an uninsured car. Wilson and Manson would sing and talk to each other, while these girls acted as servants to both of them. Over this time, Manson made many contacts in the music industry and entertainment executives paid money to record his philosophies on tape. It took until August 1968 before Wilson managed to get the Family out of his home. By this time, Manson had created a home base for the Family at Spahn’s Movie Ranch. This Ranch had been the location of a number of western movies over the years and stayed in business by allowing tourists to go on horseback rides. The Family worked around the Ranch and Manson kept the owner, George Spahn, occupied by having one of his girls, named Lynette Fromme, attend to him sexually and act as his eyes, as he was nearly blind. Another man named Charles Watson soon joined the rest of the family at Spahn, who Manson had met at Dennis Wilson’s house. On March 23, 1969, Manson showed up at 10050 Cielo Drive uninvited, as this was the last known residence of Terry Melcher, who he had met at Wilson’s house. Melcher no longer lives there anymore, however, as the house was now occupied by actress Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski. When he arrived at the residence, Manson was greeted by a photographer and friend of Tate named Shahrokh Hatami and was told that Melcher no longer lived there. The fact that this stranger was on the property concerned Hatami. Manson went and search around the guesthouse for Melcher, with no luck. He then returned to the property that evening and encountered Rudi Altobelli, who was living in the guest house. Altobelli told Manson that Melcher had moved to Malibu and asked that Manson not return and disturb the tenants. A few months later, Manson told Charles Watson to take other Family members Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to Tate’s house and to kill absolutely everyone there. He also instructed them to make it as gruesome as possible. When they arrived at the property, Watson climed a telephone pole and cut the phone line. They then parked their car at the bottom of a hill and walked back up to the house. Just then, a car came up the hill. Watson ordered the car to stop and then shot and killed the eighteen-year old driver of the vehicle, Steven Parent. The Family members then broke into the Tate residence. The Family members then found all of the occupants of the house and brought them into the living room. They were Tate, who was pregnant, her ex-boyfriend Jay Sebring, who was a hairstylist, and Abigail Folger, who was the heir to the Folger coffee fortune. Also, Wojciech Frykowski was present, as he had been sleeping on the couch. Watson began to tie them up with the intention of hanging them, but Sebring was soon shot to for sticking up for the rought treatment of Tate. He was then stabbed multiple times. Frykowski was also stabbed and shot multiple times. Folger was stabbed twenty-eight times as she attempted to escape. Tate pleaded for her life, but she was also stabbed to death by the Family. The very next night, six Family members were instructed to carry out another murder. Manson accompanied them in order to show them how to do it. This murder was at 3301 Waverly Drive, which was the home of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife. Leslie Van Houten was also involved in this murder, even though she was not at the previous night’s killing. Manson ordered that the couple’s heads be covered by pillowcases and that they be killed. They were both eventually stabbed to death with a bayonet. The house was then defaced with the blood of the victims. On August 16, members of the Manson Family, including Manson himself, were arrested in connection with a major auto theft ring. Weapons were taken from the property, but they were all released a few days later because a warrant had been misdated. The police had still not seen a connection between the two murders. It was not until the LAPD talked to members of a motorcycle gang called the Straight Satan and member Al Springer that they discovered a connection between Manson and the murders when “Springer told detectives that Manson had bragged to him in August at Spahn Ranch--after offering him his pick from among the eighteen or so ‘naked girls’ scattered around the ranch--about ‘knocking off’ five people“ (Linder, 2002). More information came in from a roommate of Susan Atkins about the involvement of the Family in these crimes and arrests quickly followed. While Atkins was in custody, she confirmed her involvement and admitting to cellmates what had happened. The trial of the Family members began on June 15, 1970, with the prosecution’s main witness being Kasabian in exchange for a lesser charge. During the trial, it was learned that Manson was a racist who wanted the black community to suffer as a result of his actions. The defendants would constantly interrupt the trial, leaving chaos throughout. At one point, Manson attempted to jump over a table and attack the judge. Soon after, the judge degreed that the defendants not be allowed in the courtroom anymore. On January 25, 1971, the defendants were found guilty on all counts of murder and conspiracy. The defendants did not even bother calling a witness during the trial, as the lawyers for the women would not let them give their accounts of the events, which would have portrayed Manson as being completely innocent. One of these lawyers was eventually murdered, after not returning from a vacation. All of these individuals received the death penalty, but this was changed after California revoked the death penalty in February 1972. The aftermath led to even more Family members, including Watson, being convicted for their crimes. On September 5, 1975, Fromme attempted or assassinated President Gerald Ford. Many of Manson’s women moved near his prison and still send him letters to this day. Various television interviews followed Manson’s imprisonment, as the world seemed fascinated by the control Manson had over these people. Manson remained a figure in pop culture, as he appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stone, has had songs by the Beach Boys and Neil Young written about him, had his name taken by rocker Marilyn Manson, and is still talked about today. On May 23, 2007, Manson was denied parole for the eleventh time and will not be eligible again until 2012. It has been written that “Mansons cobbling together of hippie philosophy—apocalyptic prophecy, Zen paradox, radical politics, pop occultism, acid logic, hipster jargon—was seamless and so mesmerizing that any challenge would ricochet back on you” (Dalton, 1998). Sources Dalton, David. (October 1998). "If Christ Came Back as a Con Man.". Gadfly Online. Viewed 6 November 2007. http://www.gadflyonline.com/archive/October98/archive-manson.html Linder, Doug. (2002). "The Charles Manson (Tate-LaBianca Murder) Trial". Viewed 6 November 2007. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/manson/mansonaccount.html Noe, Denise. (12 December 2004). "The Manson Myth". Crime Magazine. Viewed 6 November 2007. http://crimemagazine.com/04/manson,1212.htm Read More