Name: Charles Milles Manson
Date of birth: 11/11/1934
Date of death: 11/19/2017
Cause of death: natural causes
AKA: The Wizard, Jesus Christ, The Devil
Children: Charles Mansons Children
Charles Milles Manson led a commune what became known as the Manson Family, that arose in California in the late 1960s. Manson and his followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969.
Manson was admitted to state prison from Los Angeles County on April 22, 1971, for seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of Abigail Ann Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Earl Parent, Sharon Tate Polanski, Jay Sebring and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
On December 13, 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder in Los Angeles County Court for the July 25, 1969 death of musician Gary Hinman. He was also convicted of first-degree murder for the August 1969 death of Donald Jerome “Shorty” Shea.
He was sentenced to death. When the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional in 1972, he was resentenced to life with the possibility of parole. His original death sentence was modified to life on February 2, 1977.
He is currently serving nine concurrent life sentences at Corcoran State Prison in Corcoran, California. Manson died Sunday night at 8:13 p.m. local time at Kern County Hospital, California. He was 83. The cause of death was listed as natural causes.
Motive
The mainstream narrative is that Manson wanted to start a race war. This “Helter Skelter” motive was adopted by all major media outlets, however if you dig deeper it’s pretty clear that the motive for these murders were either residential related or just hate crimes combined with a copycat murder to try and get Beausoleil out of jail for the Hinman murder. Manson was a manipulator, someone who could influence others to do his dirty work. A manipulator with a failed music career combined with a hate for society fueled by a criminal mind led to these murders.
Manson told his followers to kill. His plan to let others do the killing for him backfired when he was charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Scroll down to read about all the murders.
Donald Shorty Shea Murder
Somewhere between August 26 and 28, Charles Manson, Tex Watson, Steve Grogan, Bill Vance, Larry Bailey, and Bruce Davis asked Donald Shea to come with them to get some auto parts. Shea was in the drivers seat, Grogan sat behind Shea, Watson sat next to Shea in the passenger seat and Davis sat behind Watson. Manson, Vance and Bailey followed them in another car. After Watson gave a sign, Grogan hit Shea over the head with a pipe wrench and Watson stabbed Shea several times. Shea managed to get out of the car. He then was surrounded by the gang and they brutally stabbed him to death. Grogan later said that Shea was so strong it took all of them to kill him.
According to Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan, both Bill Vance and Larry Bailey were participants in Shea’s murder. However Vance and Bailey were never prosecuted for Shea’s death.
The Hinman Murder
On July 25, 1969, Manson told Robert Beausoleil, Susan Atkins, and Mary Brunner to pay Gary Hinman a visit. According to Beausoleil they went to Hinman because Hinman had sold Beausoleil 1000 tabs of bad mescaline and Beausoleil wanted his money back.
However according to statements made to the police the motive to visit Hinman was because the Manson Family needed money for their move to the desert and Manson thought Hinman had money.
Someone in the group suggested going to Santa Monica and kidnap Terry Melcher and holding him for Ransom.
At this time, the name of Gary Hinman was brought up and Charles Manson stated, “Yeah, he’s single and owns that house and probably has stocks and lots of money.”
When Beausoleil asked Gary Hinman for money, Gary told Beausoleil that he didn’t have any money. Gary then was held captive for 3 days. According to Danny Decarlo Beausoleil had knocked Gary around for 3 or 4 hours. Later on Charles Manson and Bruce Davis stopped by. Manson had a sword on him and struck Gary in the head, slicing of a piece of his ear while Davis pointed a gun at Hinman. Atkins and Brunner tried to stitch up Gary’s face with a needle and dental floss.
The ordeal finally ended when Beausoleil stabbed Gary twice in the chest. Gary didn’t die immediately and made loud gurgling sounds so Atkins and Brunner took turns smothering Gary with a pillow.
After Gary died Beausoleil wrote the words “Political Piggy” and drew a paw print on the wall in Gary’s blood, in an attempt to make authorities think the Black Panthers committed the murder.
Before the trio left they covered Gary’s body with a blanket, took his bagpipes and two pink slips for his cars and took the cars to Spahn Ranch.
When the cops later examined the crime scene they found blood in the living-room, on the hall floor between the living-room, bath and kitchen, and on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the kitchen.
The Tate Murders
On the night of August 8, 1969, Manson told Tex Watson to take some of the girls and to go to “that house where Melcher used to live” and to “totally destroy everyone inside, as gruesome as you can” and Manson told Watson to “leave a sign, something witchy”. Tex Watson took Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to 10050 Cielo Drive.
When they arrived at the entrance of the Cielo Drive property, Watson climbed a telephone pole near the gate and cut the phone line to prevent telephone access from the house. At this point it was after midnight, August 9, 1969.
Telephone Pole Near The Gate
Just then, headlights approached. Watson ordered the women to lie in the bushes. He then stepped out and ordered the approaching driver to halt. Eighteen-year-old student Steven Parent had been visiting the property’s caretaker, William Garretson, who lived in the property’s guest house. Watson first lunged at Parent with a knife, giving him a defensive slash wound on the palm of his hand, then shot him four times in the chest and abdomen.
The group then proceeded to the main house. Watson told Kasabian to keep watch down by the gate. Watson cut the screen of a window and entered through the window, and let Atkins and Krenwinkel in through the front door.
They found Wojciech Frykowski sleeping on the living room couch. Watson kicked him in the head. When Frykowski asked him who he was and what he was doing there, Watson replied: “I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”
Atkins and Krenwinkel searched the house and found Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring and Abigail Folger and forced them to the living room. Watson began to tie Tate and Sebring together by their necks with rope and slung the rope up over one of the living room’s ceiling beams. Sebring’s protested to the rough treatment of the pregnant Tate. Watson then shot Sebring and stabbed him seven times.
Frykowski’s hands had been bound with a towel. Freeing himself, Frykowski began struggling with Atkins, who stabbed at his legs with the knife with which she had been guarding him. As he fought his way toward and out the front door, onto the porch, Watson caught up with Frykowski and struck him over the head with the gun multiple times, stabbed him repeatedly, and shot him twice.
Around this time, Kasabian was drawn up from the driveway by “horrifying sounds”. In an effort to stop the massacre, she falsely told Atkins that someone was coming.
Meanwhile, Folger had escaped from Krenwinkel and fled out a bedroom door to the pool area. Krenwinkel ran after Folger, caught her, stabbed her, and tackled her to the ground. Watson joined Krenwinkel and they stabbed Folger 28 times. In the meantime Frykowski struggled across the lawn. Watson went over to Frykowski and then stabbed him to death. Frykowski was stabbed a total of 51 times.
In the house, Tate pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to have her baby, and even offered herself as a hostage in an attempt to save the life of her unborn child. Susan Atkins told Tate as she begged, “Look, bitch, I don’t care about you. I don’t care if you are having a baby. You are going to die and I don’t feel a thing about it.” At this point either Atkins, Watson, or both killed Tate (testimonies vary). Tate was stabbed 16 times. Watson later wrote that as Tate was being killed, she cried for her mother.
Using the towel that had bound Frykowski’s hands, Atkins wrote “pig” on the house’s front door in Tate’s blood.
LaBianca Murders
In the early morning hours of August 10, 1969, Manson and Watson entered the LaBianca house. They awoke Leno LaBianca at gunpoint and tied his hands. Leno was then asked if there was anyone else in the house. He told them that his wife was in the bedroom. Manson went to the bedroom and awoke Rosemary. Manson and Watson reassured the couple that they wouldn’t be hurt, and were just being robbed. After collecting all the cash in the house, Manson ordered Watson to take Rosemary back to her bedroom where Watson placed a pillowcase over her head, wound a lamp cord around her head, and gagged her. He told her to stay quiet and remain in the room. Watson returned to the living room and Manson then left the house. Manson then send Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel to the residence.
Watson began stabbing Leno repeatedly, only stopping briefly when Leno started screaming. Rosemary, hearing her husband screams, began screaming and flailing around the room. Krenwinkel and Van Houten called Watson for help. Watson left the badly bleeding Leno in the living room, and entered the bedroom to find Rosemary swinging the lamp still attached to the cord used to gag her. Watson, Krenwinkel and Van Houten sthen stabbed Rosemary to death. Rosemary was stabbed 41 times.
Leno was still alive when Watson came back to the living room and the stabbing resumed. After Watson finished stabbing Leno, one of the family members carved the word “WAR” into Leno’s stomach. Krenwinkel then stabbed him a number of times and left a carving fork protruding from his stomach, and a steak knife from his throat. The girls then wrote messages in Leno’s blood. “Death to pigs” and “Rise” were written on the living room wall, and “Healter Skelter” (they mispronounced Helter Skelter) was written on the refrigerator door.
After the murders, the Family members remained at the house. Some ate food from the LaBianca’s refrigerator, played with the couple’s dogs and showered before hitchhiking back to Spahn Ranch.
Death
On January 1, 2017, Manson was suffering from gastrointestinal bleeding. He was rushed to Mercy Hospital in downtown Bakersfield. A source told the Los Angeles Times that Manson was seriously ill and that the doctors considered him “too weak” for surgery. On November 15, 2017, Manson returned to a hospital in Bakersfield. He died from cardiac arrest resulting from respiratory failure and colon cancer at the hospital four days later on November 19.
Funeral
Nearly four months after Manson’s death his remains were cremated following a private funeral that featured songs by the Beach Boys and Guns ‘N Roses.
Mark Pitcher, pastor of the Church of the Nazarene who presided over the service, told the Associated Press that 20 to 25 of Manson’s friends and family members attended the service, held at a funeral and cremation center in Porterville, California. Manson’s ashes were later scattered in a nearby creek bed.
