The Crimes of Charles Manson Research Paper Example

Is murder really murder if the suspect never laid a finger on the victims? This question has been debated since the 1960s, when the Manson Family went on a murderous spree and were all sentenced to prison, even though some of them were never at the scenes of the crimes. The murders and trials inspired numerous movies and books, mainly because of the Family’s infamous face, Charles Manson. He orchestrated many crimes and was the center of media attention for many years, due to his disturbing antics. Charles Manson is the most controversial killer of the twentieth century because of his ability to use his talent and charisma to manipulate others, his troubling childhood, and his debatable case in the fact that he had never actually murdered anyone himself. 

Manson was born November 12, 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His mother had him at age sixteen, and he never met his father. An early foreshadowing of a troubling childhood to come was when his mother named him “No Name” on his birth certificate. Early in his life she would be imprisoned for robbery, so Manson spent many of his early years with an aunt and uncle in West Virginia. Life here wasn’t nearly as bad as it would be upon his mother’s release date. 

At age eight, Manson was returned to his mother, Kathleen, but she still battled an addiction problem, and never paid much attention to her child. According to a cousin, Manson was remembered as “a child who could switch from violent to charming in the blink of an eye” (Flight). The lack of parental guidance furthermore allowed Manson to continuously get worse with age. Manson was quoted later in life saying “one day I rounded up all of their toys I could find and carted them home with me… I stacked up wood and threw the toys on top and started a fire,” referring to when he didn’t get any Christmas presents so he burned the other neighborhood children’s. Shortly after, Kathleen sent him to a juvenile delinquent center, which only corrupted the boy more.

At age thirteen Manson escaped from his first juvenile delinquent center, and robbed multiple convenience stores for cash, trying to earn enough money to rent a room for himself (Flight). Shortly after, police tracked Manson down and the teenager was sent to a second juvenile delinquent center, in which he was able to escape in four days. During his time of being a fugitive he would commit auto theft and burglary, (Jenkins). Consequently, he would spend the next two decades in and out of these delinquent centers and jails, in which he was sexually abused in, adding more fuel to his long, lingering fire. At age thirty-three he was released for a final time, and he ironically begged not to leave. 

Upon his release, Manson moved to San Francisco to pursue his longtime dream as a singer. He was actually musically gifted, and has somewhat of a cult-following for his songs today. Grammy-nominated band “The Beach Boys” even stole a track from him after befriending and spending a whole summer together recording music in their studio. This caused Manson to leave a bullet in their drummer’s bed (Kreps). He never had true success in this industry though, and it can be argued that he may not have gone down such a rough path if his musical career had taken off.

During his tenure in San Francisco, Manson attracted a group of followers known as “The Manson Family.” They were mostly young women from a troubled home life, and were seen as easy targets for Manson (O’Dell). The group lived on Spahn Ranch, an old movie set, in exchange for free labor, and Manson would pimp these women to the owner. Manson didn’t have trouble expanding The Family, as he relied on his musical talent and charming looks to win people’s hearts over. Eventually Manson would attend Scientology groups that focused on brainwashing, and he learned their native tongue. He would drug his followers, before preaching to them about him being the second coming of Jesus Christ. These people were fully invested in his teachings, and were even convinced of an upcoming race war that would wipe out most of the United States, leaving them to rule this post-apocalyptic world. 

On August 8, 1969, Manson grew impatient with his race war and commanded some of his followers to invade famous movie director Roman Polanski’s house and murder everyone “as gruesome as you can” (Flight). The ideology was that they would kill everyone and blame the African-Americans, sparking a war. When they arrived, the house was occupied by Roman Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, who was a famous actress and eight months pregnant with his child. Her husband was in Europe filming a movie, but she was accompanied by friends Abigail Folger, Wojeiech Frykowski, and Jay Sebring. Abigail Folger was the heiress of famous coffee brand, “Folger’s Coffee.” They broke into the house and killed all four, stabbing Frykowski fifty-one times, Folger twenty-eight times, and Jay Sebring seven times. Tate was spared for a moment, begging for her child’s life, but was still stabbed sixteen times. The word “pig” was written on the wall with her blood. 

Their wrath didn’t end that night, as the next day Manson summoned them to murder more people. He said the previous night’s work was sloppy, therefore he sent the same crew to a new house, with targets they spent three hours hand-picking (O’Dell). They entered through the back door, and killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their sleep. They wrote “Helter Skelter” on the wall, which was the name of a song by The Beatles, which Manson believed to have had hidden messages directed at him regarding his race war. These murders aren’t as popular, due to the fame of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski in the film industry. 

Some members of The Family were arrested a few days later for vandalizing a park, not the murders, and Charles Manson wasn’t arrested until one of the women confessed to everything. Manson was charged with first-degree murder, even though he never killed anyone. They were all sentenced to death, but the death penalty became outlawed in 1972, so their sentences were changed to life in prison. Manson tattooed a swastika on his forehead, and committed 108 other violations in prison. He applied for parole eleven times, but was rejected (Flight). 

Manson would spend the rest of his life in prison, dying from a heart attack in 2017. He never showed any remorse, and denied all charges against him (Jenkins). The argument he provided stated that he never killed anyone, so he had no right to be incarcerated, which is still a common debated. The forty years of prison time he spent ultimately had the final say.

Works Cited

Flight, Tim. “40 Facts About Charles Manson, the Notorious Cult-Leader.” History Collection. 1 September, 2019. https://historycollection.com/40-facts-about-charles-manson-the-notrious-cult-leader/6/

Jenkins, John. “Charles Manson- American Criminal and Cult Leader.” 3 December, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Manson

Kreps, Daniel. “How a Stolen Beach Boys Song Helped Lead To Charles Manson’s Murderous Path.” Rolling Stone Online Magazine. 17 March, 2017. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/how-a-stolen-beach-boys-song-helped-lead-to-charles-mansons-murderous-path-117577/

O’Dell, Tom. “Manson: Music From an Unsound Mind” (film.) 2019. Tom O’Dell (writer and director.)