Charles Manson - Decoding the Past: Cults: Dangerous Devotion TV - Robert Lifton - Great Crimes and Trials TV - Deranged Killers: Charles Manson TV - Charles Manson: Then and Now TV - Manson 2009 - Manson: Kill For Me TV - Linda Kasabian - Catherine Share - Tex Watson - Susan Atkins - Rozzers’ press conferences - Vincent Bugliosi - Helter Skelter 1976 - The Manson Family: Born to Kill TV - Deborah Tate - Manson’s Lost Girls: Beyond the Headlines TV - Manson 1973 - Face of Evil: The Charles Manson Murder TV - Manson Speaks: Inside the Mind of a Madman TV - Manson: The Lost Tapes TV - People Magazine Investigates TV - Charles Manson: The Final Words TV - Dateline - Too Young to Die TV - Once Upon a Time in America 2019 - Serial Killers TV -
I believe what I’m told to believe. Don’t you? Charles Manson
Yes the judge made a fool of himself. Again. And then he questions my sanity. I question his. Charles Manson
You can convince anyone of anything if you just push it at them 100% of the time. They may not believe it completely, but they will still use it to form opinions, especially if they have nothing else to draw on. Charles Manson
Sane? That’s relative. Charles Manson
I’m the other end of your society. Charles Manson, interviewed in court
I fear no bad. I know no bad. Charles Manson
Anything you see in me is in you. If you want to see a vicious killer, that’s who you’ll see. Do you understand that? If you see me as your brother, that’s what I’ll be. It all depends on how much love you have. I am you. And when you can admit that, you will be free. I am just a mirror. Charles Manson, interview Rolling Stone magazine June 1970
I’m probably one of the most dangerous men in the world if I want to be. But I never wanted to be anything but me. ibid.
You guys blame me for the sixties. Charles Manson
I never thought I was normal, never tried to be normal. Normal runs in that little rut down there. I don’t know nothing about being normal. I’ve been in jail all my life, man. I lived on the handball court. This guy raised me up. All the men in the joint raised me up, told me what to do, what was right and wrong, told me where to sit down, where to stand up. I just did whatever I was told. You know, and I got to the end of it and I just turned around and said, ‘Wow, far out!’ Charles Manson, interview Tom Snyder, 1981
Well, we’re our own prisons. We’re each our own wardens and we do our own times. We get stuck in our own little trips and we kind a judge ourselves the way we do. You know, I can’t judge uh, nobody else; best thing I can do is try to judge myself and live with that. See, what other people do is not really my affair, unless they approach me with it, and want me to do something about it. Uh, then I’ll uh take into consideration what has to be done. But other than that I just uh, try to do my number, and do my time. ibid.
Do you feel blame? Are you mad? Uh, do you feel like wolf kabob Roth vantage? Gefrannis booj pooch boo jujube; bear-ramage. Jigiji geeji geeja geeble google. Do you begep flagaggle vaggle veditch-waggle bagga? Charles Manson, interview San Quentin Prison
Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn’t that give me equal right? I can do anything I want to you people at any time I want to, because that’s what you’ve done to me ... Maybe I haven’t done enough. I might be ashamed of that, for not doing enough. For not giving enough. For not being more perceptive. For not being aware enough. For not understanding. For being stupid. Maybe I should have killed four, five hundred people – then I would have felt better. The I would have felt like I’d really offered society something. Charles Manson
You’ve got it stuck in your brain I murdered someone. Charles Manson
Believe me, if I started murdering people, they’d be none of you left. Charles Manson
There’s a time for livin’
The time keeps on flying’
Think you’re loving, baby,
And all you’re doing is cryin’
Can’t feel aw the feeling’s real
Look at your game, girl
Look at your game, girl. Charles Manson, ‘Look at Your Game, Girl’
From the world of darkness I did loose demons and devils in the power of scorpions to torment. Charles Manson
Cult leader Charles Manson used a systematic program of drug use and sexual violation to break down his young recruits’ resistance, rendering them vulnerable to Manson’s bizarre re-education ... Manson gave his girls LDS perhaps two or three times a week. Soon he held power over their minds and bodies, commanding them to have sex with men he wanted to recruit. Like many cult leaders, Manson was able to sexually exploit his followers because of the strength of his indoctrination. He had convinced the girls he was Christ incarnate. Using the girls as bait, Manson lured more and more men into the cult. With their addition to the Family, Manson could start enacting his great plan: Helter Skelter. Decoding the Past: Cults: Dangerous Devotion, History 2007
What you have in gurus like Manson is a charismatic person with a certain brilliance – it’s a sort of superficial brilliance, but it’s part of that charisma and on the edge of madness. Professor Robert Lifton, Harvard University
Twenty-six of the Manson family as they called themselves were arrested in the raid. Their arrest was unconnected to the Tate or LaBianca murders. Manson appeared in court for a preliminary hearing on a charge of auto-theft. Some of the girls from the camp were there as spectators. Great Crimes and Trials: The Manson Family Murders
Charles Manson, father unknown, had been born thirty-four years before, the unwanted son of a prostitute. With his mother often in jail, Charles lived in a series of orphanages, then reformatories and finally jails, where he was sent for burglary, stealing cars, forging and pimping. ibid.
The trial of Charles Manson and followers lasted over nine-and-a half months, breaking the records for the longest and most expensive murder trial ever held in the USA. Most of the Manson family stayed solidly behind their leader. Tripping into court with him every day like three innocents were twenty-one-year old Susan Atkins, Lesley van Houten aged twenty, and Patricia Krenwinkel twenty-one. The defence had its problems. Sometimes the three girls sang like schoolgirls on their way into court to show their solidarity with Manson ... shaving their heads and cutting crosses and swastikas into their foreheads, but nothing they could do could hide their depravity. It emerged that Manson believed that he could ferment racial hatred by murdering rich people at random and putting the blame on black activists. So he trained his disciples in breaking and entering, and sent them out with instructions to kill, using the most revolting methods possible ... How Manson could have achieved this domination was a major question, as was his sanity. The issue of Manson’s sanity dominated the trial ... The jury took ten days to reach their verdicts. Then they found Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel and van Houten guilty. They were sentenced to death. In a later trial, Manson, Bruce Davis, Bobby Beausoleil and Steven Grogan were found guilty of other murders. Tex Watson was tried separately and found guilty. Despite all the revelations, Manson’s followers stayed loyal. ibid.
It was a crime that took LA by surprise. A Hollywood murder that shocked a city and America. It was the first time an underground family entered the spotlight: a brutal killer leading his cult. Charles Manson and his followers struck fear in the hearts of Hollywood’s elites and ordinary residents of LA. The anarchy they created made them deranged killers. Deranged Killers: Charles Manson, Discovery 2008
Charles Manson and a band of misfits he called his family moved to the Spahn Ranch. He helped owner George Spahn run his riding stable. Mason had the ability to attract many women into his family. Then followed Charlie as they called him from San Francisco to LA. There he met Patricia Krenwinkel and a former beauty queen Leslie van Houten. There were men in Manson’s family too, including Tex Watson. Violence was in the air at the ranch. ibid.
Manson had musical aspirations. He knew the house where Sharon and Roman lived. ibid.
This was the first death in Charles Manson’s master plan that was supposed to lead to race riots and the overthrow of the American way of life. ibid.
The killers revelled in their success. ibid.
In 1969 LA was far from peaceful. ibid.
There were two separate investigations. ibid.
An unbelievable tale of murder and manipulation ... Helter Skelter. ibid.
Inside the courtroom Manson held centre stage. ibid.
Tex Watson was also found guilty. ibid.