It was the crime that rocked the world- August 9th, 1969, and after being tortured
and brutalized, a pregnant Sharon Tate and four of her socialite friends were murdered in her home.
In the days to come the world would come to know who carried out this brutal atrocity,
but only today do we know the full extent of the evil and insanity
that surrounded Charles Manson and his infamous Manson Family.
Mother of the Year
If you're a fan of our serial killer episodes, then you already know that all too often
nurture, rather than nature, is what can turn a man from a path of light,
to one of unspeakable darkness. For Charles Manson, the story is no different. Pregnant at 16,
his mother didn't bother to name young Charles when she gave birth to him, with his birth
certificate reading “No Name Maddox”. Not too long later, Manson's mother would end up selling him
for a pint of beer to a childless woman, though the next day his uncle would scour the town and
find the young Manson. We can only imagine what might have happened if Manson was raised
by anybody else than this literal wild wolf. At least he got exactly one hug that we know of,
when his mother and brother were released from jail after attempting a robbery with a ketchup
bottle, and she hugged him. Manson would later call this the only bright spot of his childhood.
Manson the Pacifist
Despite his name being synonymous with murder,
Manson actually never once killed anybody. He left the killing to his extended 'family',
which may have killed as many as 35 people in total. Many of these murders were never
attributed to them as the individuals who carried them out were already being tried for
other killings. We're not exactly sure how this makes sense, but hey, the 60s were a crazy time.
Scientology and Self-Help
Manson spent most of his formative years in and out of prison as a juvenile delinquent,
serving short sentences for pimping and petty theft. While in prison Manson briefly fell
under the spell of Scientology, the world's only religion that is actually
a scam and insane enough to probably send undercover Scientologists to try and shut
the Infographics Show down for calling them out on it- to which we say: bring it, space nerds.
With Manson, it seems that prison was actually achieving the only thing that leads to less crime
and that the prison industry really hates to do- as he found himself rehabilitating
as he engrossed himself in self-help books such as How To Win Friends And Influence
People. When he was released from prison Manson actually begged to not be set free,
saying that in prison was the only place he had found any peace,
and that he was worried about what he'd do when he failed to adjust to the outside world.
Opiate For the (Ignorant) Masses
After being released from prison, Manson moved to San Francisco, and then to Berkeley.
Diving deep into the hippie culture, Manson re-branded himself as a spiritual guru,
which wasn't hard to sell to a bunch of drug addicts using pacifism as an excuse
to just do more drugs. As his influence grew, he began to gather his 'family', which mostly
consisted of young women that he plied with drugs, alcohol, and sometimes intimidation,
for sex. Establishing themselves as a formal cult, Manson taught his budding family that
they were the reincarnations of the first Christians, persecuted by the Romans who
were now the establishment- all while behaving in exactly the opposite way of said early Christians.
While he never fully stated it, Manson began to allude himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus
Christ, recalling dreams he'd had of himself crucified on a cross and changing his name to
“Charles Willis Manson”. He'd state his new name slowly to people, so that it sounded
more like “Charle's Will Is Man's Son, and thus creating a connection to Jesus, the Son of Man.
Manson's growing family grew to believe in his divinity, because if Jesus really
did come back to earth he'd definitely spend his time sitting in an overcrowded apartment
doing a bunch of drugs. We guess that all the hallucinogens probably helped sell the idea.
Manson the Babysitter
Manson babysitted the children of actor Al Lewis,
best known for his role as the grandpa on The Munsters,
on numerous occasions. Lews later said that the entire time he knew him Manson was a “nice guy”.
Penicillin Budget
Manson's 'family' was basically just a huge sex cult, consisting mostly of women with some of
them as young as 14. With little regard for safe sex, one of the family's greatest expenditure
was perhaps non-surprisingly, penicillin shots for persistent gonorrhea which plagued the family.
At one point the family accrued a $21,000 medical bill for gonorrhea.
Master Manipulators
Manson, and his family, were keen manipulators. At his direction, the family engaged in the
manipulation of everyone from criminals to Hollywood players. One such sucker was a
prominent member of a motorcycle gang, whom Manson kept influence over by granting him access to the
family's women. Manson would then tell the biker that he himself was sexually pathetic,
and that the only thing keeping the family together was the biker's “large endowment”
and sexual prowess. The women of the family happily went along with the ruse.
Family Rules
The Manson family lived under a strict set of rules which included
no books. Ever the master manipulator, Manson also included a ban of calendars,
watches, and clocks of any kind- leaving his followers completely dependent on him
for any information. Curiously, Manson even banned his followers from wearing glasses,
claiming he wanted them to see the world for its natural beauty. In reality, this was yet
another manipulative ploy to further extend his control over the family by leaving them helpless.
The Beach Boys May Be To Blame
What's more wholesome than the Beach Boys, who's music is prime Americana? Well,
it might have been those very same Beach Boys who'd be responsible for Manson's murder spree.
One day Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson was driving home when he saw two young female
hitchhikers. Picking them up and dropping them off at their home, Wilson would later run into
them again in the exact same spot. This time Wilson brought them to his own house,
where they told him about the magical, mystery, musical guru, Charles Manson.
Wilson left the women at his home as he headed to the studio for a late night recording session,
and when he returned in the morning he found Manson himself in his driveway.
Wilson, afraid he was being robbed, asked Manson if he was going to hurt him, to which Manson told
him he had no such plans and even began to kiss his feet. Wilson then entered his home with Manson
and discovered another twelve people inside, most of them Manson's young female family members.
Wilson would go on to host the family for several months, while the women played servants to Wilson
and Manson both. He even went as far as covering $100,000 in the family's expenses, including the
total destruction of one of his cars which the family had borrowed. Eventually a rift developed
between Wilson and Manson, and fearing for his life, Wilson separated himself from the family.
Had Wilson not taken the family in, Manson may have never been able to grow his family
or keep it together long enough to cause the inevitable carnage it would soon undertake.
The Beatles May Also Be To Blame
After the killing of Martin Luther King Jr., Manson became convinced that a race war was
coming. This paranoia was fueled by The Beatle's White Album- specifically the song Helter Skelter.
Manson believed that the song included subliminal messages warning of the coming race war,
despite containing such lyrics as: “When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide,
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride, Till I get to the bottom and I see you again.”
Normally when you read a popular song's lyrics you realize... well, just how stupid they really
are and how little sense they make. Manson though saw a warning that the end was coming.
Scientology is Definitely To Blame
Did we mention that Scientology is a scam? Well, while spending time learning about Scientology,
Manson got a keen insight into many of the manipulative tools that L Ron Hubbard used
to launch his fake religion and keep people in check. While in prison in his twenties,
Manson was cellmates with Layette Raimer, who was a Space-Bishop or whatever high
ranking Scientologists are called. Raimer spent over 150 hours 'auditing' Manson,
utilizing church-approved techniques to worm into Manson's brain. Instead of creating a
convert though, Manson reverse-engineered the manipulation and adapted it for hinself,
eventually complaining about Raimer to guards until he received a new cell mate. Manson would
later say that Scientology was too crazy even for him, and that's really saying something for
a religion that wants you to believe you're full of ghost aliens and that's why you do bad things.
The Family Killed The Wrong Person
When a race war failed to materialize, Manson got it in his head to start it himself.
His plan would be to murder influential white people in the hopes they'd blame it on blacks,
and then murder some black people to inspire the black community to retaliate.
His first target would be a record producer who had spurned Manson during his brief stint as a
failed musician. Manson instructed Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Linda Kasabian to go to 10050
Cielo Drive and kill everyone there. The problem was that the house had been rented
out to Sharon Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski. The three members of the family,
having given no other orders than to kill everyone there, did exactly that.
Go brush up on your serial killer knowledge with America's Most Evil
Serial Killer- John Wayne Gacy. Or click this other video instead.