I'll just start off by saying Charles Manson was one creepy-ass motherfucker. He did have some admirable achievements, though.
For example, he originally wanted to be a rock singer. He even had a few studio recordings, many of which were covered by popular musicians like Guns N' Roses.
As a side note, one of my all-time favorite albums, Crimson by Alkaline Trio, has a song about a girl named Susan Atkins (known as Sadie Glutz) called Sadie on it. If you haven't heard it, you should definitely listen to it.
Aaaanyway, back to Manson. He had a ranch in Southern California where he'd convinced hundreds of people from the ages of 14 to 28 to live with him. Of course, all of them had deep emotional damage. He supervised numerous orgies and supported the use of vast quantities of drugs like LSD, heroin and cocaine. He named the group "Helter Skelter" after the Beatles song.
Once Manson had gained the trust of his followers, he ordered them to go out and murder Sharon Tate's entire street. Fortunately enough, they only got to seven people. Among the victims were:
Sharon Tate herself. She was eight months pregnant at the time and was found having been stabbed and hung from a rafter in her living room. On the front door, the word "pig" had been written in her blood. In one interview with Susan Atkins, she recalled the actress begging for the lives of herself and her unborn child.
Voityck Frykowski. The Polish director was good friends with Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate's husband. He and his partner Abagail Folger were guests of Tate's that night. By the time he had been found, he'd suffered 51 stab wounds and two gunshots. Wrong place, wrong time.
Abagail Folger. Voityck Frykowski's partner and heiress to the Folger Coffee Company, she died of stab wounds. Frykowski and Folger reportedly escaped the house at some point during the attack, but were caught and stabbed to death.
Jay Sebring. A celebrity hair stylist and founder of the company Sebring International, famed for breakthroughs on styling men's hair. Some of his clients were Warren Beatty and Steve McQueen. He'd had a relationship with Tate before she met Polanski, and later befriended them both. He was supposedly shot, kicked, and stabbed attempting to defend Tate.
Steven Parent. The first victim of the August 9th killing spree, he was a friend of the gardener's. He'd been seen by an intruder walking down the driveway and spotted his attacker before he was shot.
Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. They had no association with the Tate household, but Manson was unhappy with how the first killing had gone. On August 10th, 1969, Manson picked their house at random and tied up both residents, leaving the rest of the cult to do the killing.
Manson had a swastika branded onto his forehead which isn't really relevant, but it adds to the psycho vibe he gives off.
In a 1985 interview, 19 years after the killing, Manson said he didn't do any killing and he didn't feel guilty because he'd done nothing he was ashamed of. In that same interview he said to the reporter (they were talking about a biography published on him, so he had a copy) that if he wanted to kill someone, he would murder them with the book.
In a 1976 interview, Susan Atkins had turned full-on super religious Christian and said she didn't care about the world's judgement and all that mattered was that God forgave her. She recalled some events from the killings and blamed drugs for her actions.
Manson was sentenced to execution by gas chamber, but California banned it shortly before he was supposed to go. It's a bit mortifying that the government would let someone that violently insane live as long as he did. He just recently died in November when he was 83 years old.
I'm not exactly sure why I felt like doing this take but here it is. Hope you find Manson as creepy as I do.
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