Manson Family


The Manson Family was a commune, gang and cult led by criminal Charles Manson that was active in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At its peak the group consisted of approximately 100 followers who lived an unconventional lifestyle, frequently using psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine and hallucinogens such as LSD. Most were young women from middle-class backgrounds, many of whom were attracted by hippie counterculture and communal living, and then radicalized by Manson's teachings. The group murdered at least nine people, and may have killed as many as twenty-four.
Manson had been institutionalized or incarcerated for more than half of his life by the time he was released from prison in 1967. He began attracting acolytes in the San Francisco Bay Area. They gradually moved to a run-down movie ranch, called the Spahn Ranch, in Los Angeles County. According to group member Susan Atkins, members of the Family became convinced that Manson was a manifestation of Jesus Christ, and believed in his prophecies concerning an imminent, apocalyptic race war.
In 1969, Manson Family members Atkins, Charles Denton "Tex" Watson, and Patricia Krenwinkel entered the home of actress Sharon Tate and murdered her and four others. Linda Kasabian was also present but did not take part. The following night, members of the Family murdered supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary at their home in Los Angeles. Members also committed a number of assaults, petty crimes, theft and street vandalism, including an assassination attempt on U.S. president Gerald Ford in 1975 by Family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme.

Confirmed members and associates

The following is an incomplete list of individuals associated with the Manson Family:

San Francisco followers

Following his release from prison on March 22, 1967, Charles Manson moved to San Francisco, where, with the help of a prison acquaintance, he moved into an apartment in Berkeley. In prison, bank robber Alvin Karpis had taught Manson to play the steel guitar. Living mostly by begging, Manson soon became acquainted with Mary Brunner, a 23-year-old graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who was working as a library assistant at the University of California, Berkeley, and moved in with her. According to a second-hand account, Manson overcame Brunner's resistance to him bringing other women in to live with them. Before long, the pair were sharing Brunner's residence with eighteen other women.
Manson established himself as a guru in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, which during 1967's "Summer of Love" was emerging as the signature hippie locale. He may have borrowed some of his philosophy from the Process Church of the Final Judgment, members of which believed Satan would become reconciled to Jesus and they would come together at the end of the world to judge humanity. Manson soon had the first of his groups of followers, most of them female; they were later dubbed the "Manson Family" by Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and the media. Manson allegedly taught his followers that they were the reincarnation of the original Christians, and that the establishment could be characterized as the Romans. Sometime around 1967, he began using the alias "Charles Willis Manson."
Before the end of summer, Manson and some of his followers began traveling in an old school bus they had adapted, putting colored rugs and pillows in place of the many seats they had removed. They eventually settled in the Los Angeles areas of Topanga Canyon, Malibu and Venice.
In 1967, Brunner became pregnant by Manson. On April 15, 1968, she gave birth to their son, whom she named Valentine Michael, in a condemned house where they were living in Topanga Canyon. She was assisted by several of the young women from the Family. Like most members of the group, Brunner acquired a number of aliases and nicknames, including: "Marioche", "Och", "Mother Mary", "Mary Manson", "Linda Dee Manson" and "Christine Marie Euchts."

Manson's self-presentation

Actor Al Lewis had Manson babysit his children on a couple of occasions and described him as "a nice guy when I knew him." Music producer Phil Kaufman introduced Manson to Universal Studios producer Gary Stromberg, then working on a film adaptation of the life of Jesus set in modern America, featuring a Black Jesus and southern "redneck Romans." Stromberg thought that Manson made interesting suggestions about what Jesus might do in a situation, seeming to be attuned to the role. He had one of his women kiss his feet and then kissed hers in return to demonstrate the place of women. At the beach one day, Stromberg watched while Manson preached against a materialistic outlook. One of his listeners questioned him about the well-furnished bus. Manson tossed the bus keys to the doubter, who promptly drove the bus away while Manson watched, apparently unconcerned.
According to Stromberg, Manson had a dynamic personality; he was able to read a person's emotional weaknesses and manipulate them. For example, Manson tried to manipulate Danny DeCarlo, the treasurer of the Straight Satans motorcycle club, by granting him "access" to Family women. He convinced DeCarlo that his large penis helped keep the women in the group.

Involvement with Wilson, Melcher and others

In late spring 1968, Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys picked up Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey when they were hitchhiking, while under the influence of alcohol and LSD. Wilson took them to his Pacific Palisades house for a few hours. The following morning, when he returned home from a night recording session, he was greeted by Manson in the driveway, who emerged from his house. Wilson asked the stranger whether he intended to hurt him. Manson assured him that he had no such intent and began kissing Wilson's feet. Inside the house, Wilson discovered twelve strangers, mostly women.
The account given in Manson in His Own Words is that Manson first met Wilson at a friend's San Francisco house where Manson had gone to obtain marijuana. Manson claimed that Wilson gave him his Sunset Boulevard address and invited him to stop by when he came to Los Angeles. Wilson said in a 1968 Record Mirror article that when he mentioned the Beach Boys' involvement with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to a group of strange women, "they told me they too had a guru, a guy named Charlie."
Over the next few months, the number of women doubled in Wilson's house. He covered their costs, which amounted to approximately $100,000. This total included a large medical bill for treatment of their gonorrhea, and $21,000 for the destruction of his uninsured car, which they borrowed. Wilson would sing and talk with Manson, and both men treated the women as servants.
Wilson paid for studio time to record songs written and performed by Manson and introduced him to entertainment business acquaintances, including Gregg Jakobson, Terry Melcher and Rudi Altobelli. Altobelli owned a house which he rented to actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski. Jakobson was impressed by "the whole Charlie Manson package" of artist, life-stylist and philosopher, and he paid to record Manson's material. Wilson moved out of his rented home when the lease expired, and his landlord evicted the Family.

Spahn Ranch

In August 1968, Manson established a base for the Family at the Spahn Ranch after Wilson's landlord evicted them. It had been a television and movie set for Westerns, but the buildings had deteriorated by the time the Family first appeared at the property. By the late 1960s the ranch had derived revenue primarily from selling horseback rides. Female Family members did chores around the ranch and, occasionally, had sex on Manson's orders with the ranch's nearly blind 80-year-old owner, George Spahn. The women also acted as guides for him. In exchange, Spahn allowed Manson's group to live at the ranch for free. Lynette Fromme acquired the nickname "Squeaky" because she often squeaked when Spahn pinched her thigh.
Charles Watson, a small-town Texan who had quit college and moved to California, soon joined the group at the ranch and Spahn gave him the nickname "Tex", due to his accent.

Encounter with Tate

On March 23, 1969, Manson entered the grounds of 10050 Cielo Drive, which he had known as Melcher's residence. He was not invited.
As he approached the main house, Manson was met by Shahrokh Hatami, an Iranian photographer who had befriended Polanski and Tate during the making of the documentary Mia and Roman. He was there to photograph Tate before she departed for Rome the next day. Seeing Manson approach, Hatami went onto the front porch to ask him what he wanted.
Manson said that he was looking for someone whose name Hatami did not recognize. Hatami told him the place was the Polanski residence. He advised Manson to try "the back alley," by which he meant the path to the guest house beyond the main house. Concerned about the stranger, he went down the front walk to confront Manson. Tate appeared behind Hatami in the house's front door and asked him who was calling. Hatami said that a man was looking for someone. He and Tate maintained their positions while Manson went back to the guest house without a word, returned to the front a minute or two later, and left.
That evening, Manson returned to the property and again went to the guest house. He entered the enclosed porch and spoke with Altobelli, the owner, who had just come out of the shower. Manson asked for Melcher, but Altobelli felt that Manson was looking for him. It was later discovered that Manson had apparently been to the property on earlier occasions after Melcher left.
Altobelli told Manson through the screen door that Melcher had moved to Malibu and said that he did not know his new address, although he did. Altobelli said that he was in the entertainment business. He had met Manson the previous year at Wilson's home and was sure that Manson already knew that. At that meeting, he had given limited compliments to Manson on some of his musical recordings, which Wilson had been playing.
Altobelli told Manson he was leaving the country the next day, and Manson said he would like to speak with him upon his return. Altobelli said that he would be gone for more than a year. Manson said that he had been directed to the guest house by the persons in the main house; Altobelli asked Manson not to disturb his tenants.
Altobelli and Tate flew together to Rome the next day. Tate asked him whether "that creepy-looking guy" had gone to see him at the guest house the day before.