﻿Some people are certainly more charismatic than others,
but there are few people who had a way with others like psychotic cult leader Charles Manson.
In today’s video we’re taking a look at his life, his rise to power, and the disturbing family he
built and convinced to go out and murder. Charles, more commonly known as Charlie, was
born on November 12th, 1934, to a sixteen year old mother named Cathleen Maddox, and a father known
simply as Colonel Scott. His mother was a drug and alcohol addled prostitute, who was little more
than a child herself, with no clue how to go about raising a child. To make matters worse, Colonel
Scott was a transient laborer, used to frequently moving around and seeing no issue with abandoning
Cathleen as soon as he heard she was pregnant. Cathleen would frequently leave Charlie to fend
for himself while she went about partying and getting drunk and high. Charlie even claimed later
that she once had him on her lap in a cafe, and a waitress asked if she could buy him. Apparently,
Cathleen valued her child equivalent to a pitcher of beer, and left Charlie with the waitress as
soon as she finished her drink, although four days later Cathleen’s brother and Charlie’s uncle
managed to track him down and return him. His uncle would stick around after this, and while
Charlie was 6 years old his uncle and mother were arrested while trying to rob a gas station and
were both sentenced to five years in prison. With no guardian, Charlie was sent to live briefly
with his grandparents for a short time, but ended up moving a few months later to West Virginia,
where he lived with a different Uncle and Aunt. Both of his new guardians were not only
strictly religious, but incredibly rigorous and disciplined, giving Charlie a taste for a more
controlled and orderly life he had yet to know up to this point. His Uncle was particularly strict
and viewed Charlie as a “sissy”, and went so far as to send Charlie to his first day at school
in a dress so that he would learn how to fight. Charlie acclimated well to this new environment
but tragically his Mother eventually got out of jail and he went back to live with her.
Cathleen had no ability to bring in a stable income and provide for her son,
not to mention she was frequently in trouble with the law which forced them to constantly
move around the midwest, never settling anywhere for too long. By the age of only 9 years old,
Charlie dropped out of school and helped his mother in her life of crime. Despite his young
age, Charlie was a skilled thief, however he was eventually caught and sent to the Gibault School
for Boys in Indiana where his Mother promised to visit him frequently, but she failed to make good
on this promise. After 10 months at the school Charlie escaped, a habit that would become very
frequent during his younger years, and when caught was sent to juvie, where he escaped after only two
days with around 30 other boys. Charlie would once again be caught, sent away, and escape, this time
with a friend and fellow aspiring criminal named Blackie Nelson, and the two lived for free at
Nelson’s Uncle’s house, where they assisted the Uncle with a series of armed robberies.
During their third robbery for the man, the two boys were caught and arrested once again,
this time with Charlie being sent away to the Indiana School for Boys in Plainfield.
For 3 years Charlie would stay here, and claimed that during this time he was a victim of sexual
assault and sodomy from fellow inmates and employees due to his small stature and height, as
well as a victim of bullying and beatings from the guards there. In one particularly brutal incident,
Charlie was gang raped by a group of boys, and after the fact Charlie beat one of the boys to
death with a metal rod before placing the weapon underneath the bed of another of his attackers,
successfully managing to frame the boy. This was the beginning of a trend in Charlie’s life,
where he would remain calm while his anger and hatred grew internally
before it eventually boiled over and he exploded into a rage of intense violence and brutality.
In his time at the school in Plainfield he managed to escape a whopping total of 18 times,
before eventually being sent to the National Training School for Boys in Washington, D.C.
This school was run like a well oiled machine and the boys here were treated well, so Charlie soon
adapted and came to enjoy his life here, however he still always knew in the back of his mind
that once he left he would return to a life of crime. At age 15 Charlie was given a psychiatric
evaluation where he was found to be incredibly aggressive, anti-social, and illiterate,
as well as dramatically emotionally traumatized from the horrors he had already endured at such
a young age. On October 24th of 1951 Charlie was sent to the National Bridge Honor Camp,
and not long after sodomized another boy while threatening him with a razor blade.
This obscene act of violence had him transferred to a Federal Reformatory in Virginia where he
would rack up eight major violations within a mere 7 months. These violations caused him to
be labelled a dangerous prisoner and sent to a high security facility, however once
here Charlie suddenly became a model prisoner. On May 8th of 1954 Charlie was released on parole,
but he had actually asked if he could stay in prison, however this request was denied. After
a brief stay with his Aunt and Uncle, Charlie, now 19 years old, ended up back with his mother.
Charlie quickly fell back into crime, becoming a career criminal making money off of stolen cars
and petty theft, and in June of 1960 was placed back into prison facing a 10 year sentence for
forging a check. This stint in the McNeil island Penitentiary drastically affected Charlie,
as this is where he learned to play guitar and first developed his interest in music.
He rapidly grew obsessed with The Beatles, and his ego became so inflated that Charlie
was completely convinced that he would rise to a greater level of musical fame than them.
He also became friends with a fellow inmate named Alvin Karpis who would later go on to comment that
during his prison time Charlie became an expert at manipulating those around him, and often wanted to
be the center of attention. After his release from prison, Charlie made his way to Haight-Ashbury in
San Francisco, and soon found himself living in the apartment of a woman named Mary Brunner. Using
his masterful manipulation tactics, Charlie soon convinced Mary to allow 18 other women to also
live there within only a few months. These women mainly came from broken homes, often leaving them
with no other choice than to follow Charlie, and to make matters worse he also got them
hooked on drugs including LSD, making them even easier to control. Eventually, Charlie claimed
that he was “worried” about the african Americans in their area, stating that they were causing the
crime rate to go up, even though Charlie and his gaggle of girls were directly responsible for the
uptick in crime in the area, and eventually they all bought a bus and travelled down the California
coastline before settling in Topanga Canyon. It was here that Charlie recruited his first male
member of the family in the form of teenager Bobby Beausoliel, who had previously been living
with his music teacher Gary Hinman. Charlie was determined to make it in the music industry, and
in 1968 two girls from his family managed to hook up with Dennis WIlson, the drummer for The Beach
Boys. The girls introduced Dennis to Charlie, and the Manson family began to live a life of luxury
courtesy of Dennis who had taken an extreme liking to Charlie and his makeshift family. Soon rumors
began to spread about the debauchery caused by Charlie and his group, causing Dennis’s manager to
kick the family out of Dennis’s house, and causing the Hollywood community to shun them and closing
off any chance Charlie might have had at making a career in music. The family was forced to find a
new home, which they found at the Spahn Ranch, an abandoned western movie set. This is where
Charlie’s cult really began to take shape, with Charlie quoting bible verses and Beatles’ lyrics
to the group, focusing specifically on how they all were written specifically for the group. He
was especially preoccupied with the song “Helter Skelter”, stating that the song was about a race
war where blacks would kill whites and start an apocalypse that would force all of society to
turn to Charlie for guidance, and Charlie wanted to kickstart this black revolution himself.
On July 26th, 1969, Bobby and two other women were ordered by Charlie to break into the home of Gary
Hinman, Bobby’s former teacher, and take $20,000 he had just come into, however they failed to
get the money themselves and were forced to call Charlie in. WHen he arrived he cut Hinman’s ear
off and told Bobby that if he didn’t get the money then he needed to kill Gary. Three days later
Gary would be stabbed to death by Bobby, and the group wrote “Politcal Piggy” in blood on the wall,
as well as drawing a panther paw print in order to frame the Black Panther group for the murder.
A few months later in August Bobby was arrested for the Hinman’s murder when he was caught driving
the man’s car. Two days after this, Charlie directed Tex Watson, Linda Kasabian, Susan Atkins,
and Patricia Krenwinkel to break into the house of Terry Melcher, a music producer who had wronged
Manson, and “totally destroy everyone in it, making it as gruesome as possible.” Tragically,
the house they broke into no longer belonged to Melcher, but in fact to famous director Roman
Polanski and his heavily pregnant wife, Sharon Tate who was hosting a small party while Roman
was away filming in Europe. While approaching the house they were spotted by a passing driver, whom
tex promptly slashed and shot. Everyone present in the house was tied up and stabbed, and when asked
why they were doing this, Tex replied that “I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s work”.
On the wall the killers wrote “Pig” in Sharon Tate's blood, and then made their way from the
crime scene. The very next day the murders would continue, with the murder of Leno and Rosemary
LaBianca, this time with Charlie being directly involved. Once again the victims were stabbed,
and in their blood the group wrote “WAR”, “Rise”, “Death to Pigs”, and “Healter Skelter”.
Due to the similarities between the Tate and LaBianca murders, the police were able
to put two and two together, and decided to pay a visit to the Spahn Ranch, where they arrested
24 members of the Manson Family, including Charlie, and charged them with Arson and Grand
Larceny. While in custody Susan Atkins begins to brag about the murders they’ve committed,
which when paired with the fingerprint of Patricia Krenwinkel found on Sharon Tate’s bedroom door,
were key pieces of evidence levied against the group during their trial, after which they were
all given the death penalty, although none of them would actually receive that penalty. The death
penalties were instead changed to life sentences, and Charlie would spend the rest of his life in
prison until his death on November 19th, 2017, when he passed away from a heart attack.
That’s the end of the chilling story of Charles Manson and the Manson Family. Let us know what
you thought down in the comment section below and let us know what other stories you would
like to see us cover in future videos. If you enjoyed the video then hit that like button and
subscribe to the channel to catch more videos just like this one, and we’ll see you in the next one.