Charles Manson

The backstory

The Family

By 1969 Manson was living with a group of about 20 people that the courts call the Family, at Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth, where the owner, George Spahn, let them stay in exchange for work on the ranch, according to the Court of Appeal.¹ The court wrote that “without doubt, Manson was the leader of the Family.”¹ Witnesses testified that he decided where members lived and slept, what they wore and when they ate, and the court wrote that “membership in the Family required giving up everything to Manson and never disobeying him.”¹ According to the court’s summary of the evidence, Manson spoke constantly of a coming race war he called “Helter Skelter,” a name taken from a Beatles song.¹⁶

Gary Hinman

The first murder of conviction was that of Gary Allan Hinman at his home on Old Topanga Canyon Road in late July 1969.² A sheriff’s deputy found his body on July 31, and the autopsy found that he died of a stab wound through the heart.² The words “Political Piggy” were written in apparent blood on a living room wall.²

The evidence at Manson’s separate trial, as the Court of Appeal summarized it, was that Bobby Beausoleil, Susan Atkins and Mary Brunner were taken to Hinman’s house, that Manson and Bruce Davis came later, and that Manson had a sword.² Brunner had given that account at Beausoleil’s trial; at Manson’s trial she said it was a lie, and the jury heard her earlier testimony.² Witnesses testified that Manson told them he had cut Hinman’s ear, and one testified that he said all they had gained were two vehicles and about $27.² The court held that Hinman was killed in the course of a robbery, that Beausoleil struck the fatal blow, and that Manson, who “by his own admissions” struck Hinman with a sword in aid of the robbery, was “clearly an aider and abettor.”²

Cielo Drive

On the evening of Aug. 8, 1969, according to the testimony of Linda Kasabian, Manson told her at the ranch, “Now is the time for Helter Skelter,” had her collect a knife and a change of clothing, and told her to go with Charles “Tex” Watson and do what he said.¹ Kasabian testified that she, Watson, Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel drove to a house on Cielo Drive, where Watson cut the overhead wires and shot the driver of a car.¹ She testified that Watson sent her to stand lookout, that she heard screams from the house, and that she saw Atkins, Krenwinkel and Watson take part in the attacks.¹ Manson was not there.¹

The next morning the housekeeper, Winifred Chapman, found five people dead, the Court of Appeal wrote.¹ Steven Parent, the driver, was in his car near the entrance; the coroner found he had been shot.¹ Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski were on the lawn, and the coroner found both had been stabbed; Frykowski had also been shot and struck.¹ Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring were in the living room; the coroner found Tate had been stabbed and Sebring stabbed and shot. State prison records note that Tate was pregnant.¹⁴ The word “Pig” was written in blood on the front door, and nothing in the house appeared to have been ransacked.¹ Kasabian testified that after the group returned to the ranch, Manson asked whether they felt remorse.¹

Waverly Drive

The next night, according to Kasabian, Manson rode with her, Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and Steve Grogan and gave directions.¹ She testified that he stopped next door to the home of Leno and Rosemary La Bianca on Waverly Drive, went in alone and returned several minutes later to say he had tied up a man and a woman.¹ She testified that he told Watson, Krenwinkel and Van Houten, “Don’t let them know you are going to kill them,” and left the three there.¹

The La Biancas were found on Aug. 10.¹ The coroner found that Leno La Bianca had been stabbed and that his hands were tied behind his back with a leather thong; several witnesses testified that Manson often wore such thongs.¹ Rosemary La Bianca had been stabbed, and her hands were tied with an electric cord, the coroner found.¹ “Death to the Pigs,” “Rise” and “Healter Skelter,” so spelled, were written in blood in the house.¹

Kasabian testified that Manson then gave her a wallet to leave where it would be found, so that, as the court summarized her account, a Black person would be blamed, and later handed her a pocketknife and told her to kill an actor; she said she deliberately led the others to the wrong apartment.¹

Donald Shea

Donald Shea, a ranch hand who lived mostly at Spahn Ranch, disappeared in late August 1969.²¹⁰ A witness, Ruby Pearl, testified that a couple of weeks after a police raid on the ranch on Aug. 16, she saw Manson, Watson, Grogan and Davis approach Shea, and that she never saw him again.² Barbara Hoyt testified that late one night she heard screams “down by the creek” that she recognized as Shea’s, and that the next day she heard Manson say Shea had “committed suicide, with a little help from us.”² Other witnesses testified that Manson told them Shea had been killed and buried.² Shea’s body was not found before trial, and the Court of Appeal held that the murder was proved by circumstantial evidence and that “Manson’s own admissible admissions established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”² His remains were found in 1977.¹⁰

The Tate-La Bianca trial

The killings went unsolved until the fall of 1969, when Atkins, jailed on another murder charge, spoke about them to fellow inmates, who reported her statements to the authorities.⁶¹ Manson, Atkins and Krenwinkel were indicted on seven counts of murder and one of conspiracy; Van Houten on two murder counts and the conspiracy count.¹ Watson, who had gone to Texas, was tried separately.⁶

The trial began June 15, 1970.⁶ Kasabian testified for the prosecution for 18 days after being offered immunity; the Court of Appeal called her testimony the “only direct evidence” tying the defendants to the killings and treated her as an accomplice whose account required corroboration.¹ The corroboration it found as to Manson included his statements about Helter Skelter, a revolver, his familiarity with the two locations and the leather thongs.¹ Other witnesses testified to admissions by Atkins, Krenwinkel and Van Houten; Krenwinkel’s fingerprint was found at Cielo Drive.¹

A detective testified that Manson drew a finger across his chin while Kasabian was testifying, which the court said could be seen as a threat, and that Manson appeared with an “X” on his forehead, as the three women did the next day.¹ According to news accounts, Manson lunged at the judge with a pencil during the trial, and he held up a newspaper headline after President Richard Nixon called him guilty.⁶⁷

Verdicts and sentences

On Jan. 25, 1971, the jury convicted Manson, Atkins and Krenwinkel of seven counts of first-degree murder each, and Van Houten of two, and convicted all four of conspiracy.⁶⁵ On March 29, 1971, the jury of seven men and five women chose death for all four over the only alternative, life imprisonment, rejecting defense pleas for a “gift of life,” according to wire reports.⁵⁶ The trial judge was Charles H. Older.⁵ Manson was admitted to state prison on April 22, 1971.⁴

At the separate Hinman-Shea trial, the court denied Manson’s requests to represent himself; he was removed from the courtroom almost daily for disruptions, and the trial judge found that he lacked the capacity to waive counsel knowingly and intelligently, the Court of Appeal wrote.² The jury returned its verdict on Nov. 2, 1971, finding him guilty on all three counts and fixing the penalty at life imprisonment.² State prison records date that conviction Dec. 13, 1971.⁴

Appeals

The death sentences were appealed directly to the California Supreme Court. After that court held in People v. Anderson on Feb. 18, 1972, that capital punishment violated the state constitution’s ban on “cruel or unusual” punishment, the appeals were transferred to the Court of Appeal.³¹ State prison records say the Los Angeles County Superior Court set aside Manson’s death sentence under Anderson and that his sentence was modified to life on Feb. 2, 1977.⁴

On Aug. 13, 1976, the Court of Appeal rejected challenges to Kasabian’s immunity and competence, to the use of the co-defendants’ statements, to the photographs and to the grand jury, and held that the evidence “is sufficient to support the verdicts of guilty as to each appellant.”¹ On the theory of the case, it wrote: “If the jury believed Manson to be a conspirator, aider or abettor he was culpable for all of the homicides.”¹

On June 23, 1977, the Court of Appeal affirmed the Hinman-Shea judgment, rejecting his claims about publicity, the grand jury, Brunner’s earlier testimony, the sufficiency of the evidence and his right to represent himself.²

Personal backstory

Early life

Manson was born in Cincinnati on Nov. 12, 1934, to a teenage, unmarried mother, Kathleen Maddox.⁶⁸¹⁴ He took the surname Manson after his mother married William Manson.⁸ When he was about 5, his mother was jailed, and he was moved among relatives, The New York Times reported; WKYC reported that he was sent to live with extended family in McMechen, West Virginia, in 1942.⁶⁸ According to the Associated Press, he was in reform school by the age of 8.⁷ The sources reviewed differ on his mother’s age at his birth and on the reasons for her imprisonment, and this page leaves those details out.

Institutions and prison

From childhood, he was held in a series of boys’ homes, reform schools and federal reformatories, including the federal reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio, according to news accounts.⁶⁸ As an adult in the 1950s and 1960s, he was imprisoned repeatedly for crimes including car theft and forging checks.⁶⁸ He married twice in those years, and both marriages ended in divorce, the Times reported.⁶ He learned guitar in prison.⁶ When he was paroled in March 1967, at 32, he had spent more than half his life in correctional institutions, according to the Times.⁶

San Francisco and Los Angeles

After his release he settled in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco and gathered followers, most of them young women.⁶⁷ He tried to build a music career and became acquainted with the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson and the producer Terry Melcher, according to the Associated Press.⁷ By 1969 the group was living at Spahn Ranch.¹

In custody

Manson spent the rest of his life in California prisons, including San Quentin, Folsom and Pelican Bay, and from 1989 in the protective housing unit at California State Prison, Corcoran.⁴ He was denied parole 12 times between 1978 and 2012 and last attended a hearing in 1997.⁴ At the 2012 hearing, which he did not attend, a board member read his statement to a prison psychologist, “I’m special. I’m not like the average inmate,” and the panel said it agreed with his own description of himself as “a very dangerous man.”⁹ Sharon Tate’s sister attended that hearing.⁹

He died of natural causes at a Kern County hospital on Nov. 19, 2017, at 83.⁴ The sources reviewed contain no diagnosis of Manson made by a court or testified to at either trial.

The victims’ families

The sources reviewed for this page contain no statement from the victims’ families about Manson’s death.