CHARLES MANSON ‘s Murders: The Truth Behind Mindhunter and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

In August 2019, we had a chance to watch two high-profile productions revisiting the murders from half a century ago: the second season of Mindhunter and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. In both titles, Manson was portrayed by Damon Herriman. It’s worth asking the question: who was Charles Manson really, and why does he remain one of America’s most despised criminals to this day?

Portrait of a Monster

Apparently, when he was just 2 or 3 years old, his mother tried to sell him for a beer to a man she met by chance. The man agreed, thinking it was a joke, but when the woman unexpectedly disappeared from the bar, leaving little Charlie behind, the situation stopped being funny. Manson once claimed the man helped him find his mother; another time, he maintained he searched for her on his own, wandering the city for days.

Whether this story is true or not—and the founder of The Family cult loved to embellish—it’s clear that one thing is undeniable. Manson truly had a difficult childhood, though, of course, this does not excuse his later actions in any way. He was born on November 12, 1934, as the illegitimate child of 16-year-old Kathleen Maddox and a random, absentee father who didn’t pay child support. Manson claimed that his mother was a prostitute, though this was never confirmed. What is certain is that after a failed robbery, she ended up behind bars, leaving young Charlie in the care of his deeply religious and strict grandparents.

Manson was a rebellious child. He refused to go to school, stole, and by the age of 9, had already ended up in a juvenile detention center. His defiance toward education was so strong that he never completed elementary school. He passed through a series of reform institutions where—according to his own account—he was beaten and raped by other juvenile offenders, who treated the small and skinny Charlie as an easy target (Manson was only 157 cm tall). Unwanted and full of anger, he ran away multiple times from both home and successive reform schools. As an adult, he primarily earned a living as a pimp. He learned from older pimps how to recruit women, exploit their insecurities, and make them dependent on him—techniques he would later use to draw people into his cult. Manson spent most of his adult life in prison. He was incarcerated for pimping, car theft, and shoplifting. Over time, his feelings of victimization and injustice grew, as did his hatred for society and the system. However, prison also taught him skills that, unfortunately, proved useful to him later. He honed his manipulation techniques and learned the dynamics of hierarchical group structures. A cellmate taught him to play the guitar, and thus, Manson discovered a deep passion for music.

Despite lacking any significant talent, Manson believed he could achieve great success and fulfill his greatest dream of becoming a star. As we know, music wasn’t the source of his fame, but his guitar playing and songwriting helped him connect with young, impressionable hippie women. Many of his followers admitted they fell in love with him because “he sang so beautifully.”

In 1967, at the age of 33, Manson was released from prison after serving a seven-year sentence for pimping. He unsuccessfully tried to launch a music career. Despite his determination, confidence, connections with The Beach Boys’ drummer, and even prostituting his girlfriends to music industry insiders, he failed. This only deepened his frustration and fueled his paranoid thoughts, such as, the whole world is evil and out to get me.

After his release from prison, Manson began presenting himself as a guru and gathering around him people who were lonely, drug-addled, or naive enough to follow him. This group of about twenty people wandered through various parts of California until, in 1968, Manson and his followers settled at the Spahn Ranch, located near Los Angeles, where shows like Bonanza had once been filmed. This became the permanent home of The Family. While the cult became a symbol of hippie degradation and the collapse of the flower child era, Manson himself, oddly enough, did not hold leftist views. He was a typical Southern man—uneducated and harboring a deep hatred for Black people—who decided to exploit the trend of secretive groups to serve his own purposes: living comfortably off a group of gullible followers and feeding his delusions of grandeur. Communes were sprouting up en masse during those years, and Manson simply capitalized on the trend.

Women—his specialty—handed over all their savings to him, sank into debt, and became wholly dependent on him. Manson taught his followers that the Beatles’ song Helter Skelter contained a prophecy of the apocalypse, which involved Black people rising up to murder whites. Naturally, only those who stayed close to him would survive, taking refuge underground during the chaos, and afterward, they would take control of the world.

Despite being illiterate (!), Manson reportedly had a relatively high IQ and, according to psychologists, was a textbook psychopath—possessing all the traits necessary to manipulate others. Interviews with Manson, available on YouTube, reveal a drugged-out man with an intense stare and a swastika tattooed between his eyebrows, often losing his train of thought and rambling with lines like: I am a terrified fifteen-year-old girl who just ran away from home. He comes across as an old degenerate spewing pretentious, pseudo-profound nonsense. Yet, I can’t deny his charisma and fervor. I can understand how his demonic charm might have profoundly affected weak, lost, and aimless people who lacked strong role models. These were the individuals he preyed on, adhering to a principle from his pimping days: to target women with deficits in intelligence, self-esteem, or healthy father-daughter relationships. He treated his followers in much the same way—as prostitutes.

The living conditions at the hippie commune on Spahn Ranch were abysmal. There was no plumbing, electricity, or hot water. Neither the followers nor Charles himself—who disliked bathing and reportedly washed only every few weeks—were deterred from engaging in constant ritualistic group sex without contraception (women were supposed to bear numerous children for their “god”). Everyone was perpetually under the influence of LSD, and perhaps only acid explains why the group members regarded their leader as the modern incarnation of Jesus.

Under the guise of liberation from traditional societal roles, Manson turned his drugged-out followers into sexual slaves and maids for the most menial tasks. He decided who they should sleep with, and women were not allowed to defy his orders—those who did (or sometimes without cause) were beaten. They could only speak when their guru permitted it. Aside from this, they performed all the physical labor on the ranch: men were reserved for “higher” purposes.

Women were also responsible for providing food for Manson and the other men in the group. To do so, they stole, scavenged from dumpsters, or most often, offered themselves to local shopkeepers in exchange for groceries. The women were so brainwashed by Manson that they saw their miserable existence as a paradise compared to the allegedly oppressive life in a traditional family from which their leader had “freed” them. As it turned out, some of them were even willing to kill for their guru.

The first of the future murderers, 21-year-old Susan Atkins, came from a dysfunctional, alcoholic family and had been sexually abused since childhood. She grew into a vulgar, perverse young woman with the nickname Sexy Sadie. The second murderer, 19-year-old Patricia Krenwinkel, suffered from obesity and excessive body hair due to hormonal issues. This clumsy girl was bullied at school, and years later, when asked why she blindly obeyed Manson, she confessed: He was the first man who told me I was beautiful. The third murderer was 20-year-old Leslie Van Houten, a polite and talented girl from a good family, who complained about her overprotective and demanding parents. Upon joining The Family, she embodied the classic “dog off the leash” syndrome. And finally, there was not just a murderess, but a murderer: 23-year-old Tex Watson, Manson’s right-hand man and the second most important person in The Family’s hierarchy. He was one of those strong, masculine types whom the scrawny Manson both despised and subconsciously tried to emulate. Watson was a normal guy, a student, who no one would have suspected of being a serial killer.

The Crime

Manson preached that the impending apocalypse should be preempted by delivering the first blow. That’s why he sent his followers out to kill—or so the most popular version of events goes. In truth, Manson’s motivations remain unclear to this day, shrouded in conspiracy theories. Some claim Manson was connected to the FBI; others suggest he was covering for someone or that the murders were commissioned by unknown parties. Charles himself tried to implicate The Beatles, asserting that their songs inspired him to commit evil (Lennon and McCartney were forced to publicly interpret their lyrics to prove such messages weren’t their intent).

However, the motives for this macabre crime may have been far more mundane: LSD, boredom, a desire to test the loyalty of his followers, a sectarian rite of passage, or simply the twisted whim of a psychopath. Most likely, though, it all began with something even more trivial: an attempted murder that sparked a chain of bloody events.

On June 1, 1969, Manson shot a Black drug dealer named Bernard Crowe after Crowe discovered that The Family, which bought drugs from him, had cheated him multiple times. Crowe’s body was dumped by the roadside, presumed dead. Although this incident was never linked to Manson, it sent him into a paranoid frenzy. He turned Spahn Ranch into a veritable fortress and began proclaiming that the “audacity” of the Black man who had defied him was proof that the n*****s are already gearing up for war against the whites.

Gary Hinman—another victim—was a music teacher and part-time drug dealer who allegedly sold Manson faulty merchandise, enraging The Family‘s guru to the point of issuing a death sentence against him. An additional motive was Manson’s desire to seize Hinman’s wealth, as he mistakenly believed the man was rich. On July 25, Manson sent Susan Atkins, Mary Brunner, and Bobby Beausoleil—who was not a member of The Family—to Hinman’s home. For two days, the attackers held Hinman captive in his own house, beating him and demanding money he did not have. Even after slicing the teacher’s ear with a knife, he could not provide the cash they sought.

Manson then ordered Bobby to stab Hinman to death. The victim’s blood was used to paint symbols of the Black Panthers on the walls, an attempt to frame the murder as racially motivated and incite anger among Los Angeles residents against the Black community.

Bobby Beausoleil was never the sharpest tool in the shed—he fled the crime scene in Hinman’s car, which led to his immediate arrest by the police. Manson, overcome by paranoia, panicked. He feared Beausoleil might start talking and implicate both him and the girls. This fear birthed Manson’s “brilliant” plan, which defies any logic a sane person might comprehend. Manson decided to orchestrate a series of murders mimicking the execution of Hinman, targeting the white social elite of Los Angeles to shift suspicion onto the Black Panthers. He ordered the slaughter with the same ease one might ask to pass the salt. Now the end of the world will truly begin, he told his followers. And the end of the world began in Polanski’s house.

The choice of the house Manson’s followers were sent to on August 9 was not entirely random, contrary to popular belief. Manson was familiar with the property because a year earlier it had been home to Terry Melcher, a music producer, son of Doris Day, and an acquaintance of The Family. Perhaps Melcher himself was the intended target; he had angered Charles by breaking a promise to help him release an album. Manson did not know Roman Polanski but had previously met Sharon Tate. The actress was hosting a photoshoot in her home when the Family leader knocked on the door, asking whether a man (whose name neither the photographer nor Tate recognized) was inside. It was not Melcher he was looking for. That day, Manson loitered around the house several times (was he already planning a future break-in and murders?). Sharon confided in the photographer: That man is strange, and he gives me chills.

It is unclear whether she still remembered that unsettling visitor months later, as she counted down the days to her son’s birth in the mansion at 10050 Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills. Polanski was in England shooting a film and was set to return to his wife as soon as filming wrapped. Meanwhile, the pregnant actress was accompanied by three friends: Wojciech Frykowski, a film producer and longtime friend of Polanski from the very beginning of the director’s career, who was planning to start a new life in the United States after breaking up with Agnieszka Osiecka. In the U.S., he had met his new love, Abigail Folger, who was at Polanski’s home on that fateful night. The final guest was Jay Sebring, a hairstylist and Sharon’s first boyfriend, who remained close to the actress even after she left him for Polanski. That evening, Quincy Jones was also supposed to visit, but the musician canceled at the last minute.

The four friends went to bed shortly before 11 p.m., but less than two hours later, members of Manson’s gang broke into the mansion. Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, and Tex Watson had a specific task: Watson was to ensure that none of the girls chickened out before completing their assignment. On the street in front of the villa, the gang encountered 18-year-old Steven Parent, an acquaintance of the caretaker, who was leaving his guesthouse. The boy had terrible luck—the killers, seeing him as a potential witness, shot him on the spot. The intruders dragged everyone they found in Polanski’s home into the living room and tied them up. As all the girls later unanimously claimed, they had no idea they were supposed to kill anyone. They believed the plan was merely a robbery. Manson had only informed Tex of the full details. Despite their lack of preparation, none of the girls protested when it became clear they were to commit murder; worse, they quickly took to the cruelty with relish.

It was a slaughter. The tied-up, sleep-deprived victims were killed one by one, forced to witness each other’s deaths as the murderers argued in real time over how best to dispatch their targets. Sebring dared to object to the rough treatment of pregnant Sharon, so Watson shot him and then finished him off with a knife, irritated by the dying man’s groans. Frykowski and Folger managed to free themselves. Frykowski fought fiercely, attempting to overpower the attackers: he was stabbed 51 times and shot multiple times. Some speculate that Frykowski may have been the primary target due to alleged drug dealings, which would align the gang’s motives with the reasons behind Hinman’s execution, but this theory is difficult to confirm today. His girlfriend, Abigail Folger, fled into the garden but was caught by Krenwinkel, who savagely butchered her in a frenzy.

After killing the pair, the murderers returned to the living room to deal with the terrified Tate. Sharon begged them to take her with them and wait until her baby was born before killing her, pleading for the life of her child. She even suggested they put the baby up for adoption. Her pleas fell on deaf ears: Tex held her down while the girls stabbed her repeatedly. The last words Sharon Tate heard before her death were Atkins’s cruel taunt: I don’t care about your baby, bitch. Prepare to die.

The murderers scrawled the word pig on the door in the actress’s blood. Photos from the crime scene still evoke horror today—I do not recommend looking at them.

The following day, the murderers attacked the home of the La Bianca couple, who made their living running various stores. A chilling coincidence is that the housewife’s name was Rosemary—just like the main character in Polanski’s 1968 horror film. Furthermore, the wife of the Polish director was, as we know, pregnant at the time of her death; once again, just like the character played by Mia Farrow. These two pieces of information fueled rumors that the macabre crime was a consequence of the Rosemary’s Baby curse… But the humble, practical La Biancas probably never even watched Polanski’s film. When Tex and Manson arrived at their home on August 10, the couple was bound by the two men and then stabbed to death by their companions: Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel. Charles wanted to be present at the crime scene this time, as he felt his people hadn’t done their job properly before. On Leno La Bianca’s stomach, the word war was carved into his skin with a knife, and once again, horrific messages were written on the walls in blood, such as death to pigs. For a moment, Krenwinkel amused herself with the dead body of Mr. La Bianca, using a fork to make “tattoos” on it. Van Houten, almost in a trance, stabbed the already deceased Mrs. La Bianca more than 40 times, unable to stop. The group hitchhiked back to Spahn Ranch—Manson drove off in a car, eager for another murder, but fortunately, his plans came to nothing. However, to this day, many people believe that Manson’s gang is responsible for more crimes than they have been convicted of. Some unsolved murders that occurred in California during the summer and fall of 1969 may have been the result of the Family’s actions.

Manson’s foolish plan could not succeed—nothing in these crimes pointed to the Black Panthers or a race purge. Moreover, the police could find no logical motive for the brutal murders, which initially benefited The Family, as it hindered narrowing down the search area. Panic spread across Los Angeles. Manson was certainly no criminal genius, but in the end, he was undone by the fact that he relied on incompetent people—Atkins blurted out the truth to a few random friends, and one of them went to the police. Another member of The Family, Linda Kasabian, who had been on lookout during the murder at Polanski’s home, decided to testify against her now-former sect. After the trial, which gripped the entire United States, on March 29, 1971, the court sentenced Manson, Van Houten, Krenwinkel, Atkins, and Watson to death.

Epilogue

The sentence was never carried out. Meanwhile, California liberalized its laws and abolished the death penalty, so the five were sentenced to life imprisonment instead. This was another reason for the criminals’ overall satisfaction, as they smiled freely in black-and-white photos taken by the press in the courtroom—the first reason for their joy was, of course, fame. Van Houten, Krenwinkel, and Atkins scandalized American society with their attitude toward the murders. The murderesses mockingly taunted the victims and acted like celebrities, proudly displaying the burned “X” symbols on their foreheads, which were meant to symbolize nihilism and a rejection of traditional values. They detailed their crimes and boasted that killing was better than orgasm (which, by the way, doesn’t speak well of Manson’s skills). Tex Watson was the only one to show something resembling remorse in court, though it was most likely an insincere ploy to receive a lighter sentence. In prison, he converted to Christianity and got married; despite his incarceration, he managed to father four children. He is still alive.

Manson radiated self-satisfaction. His face appeared on the covers of all the newspapers. Until the very end, he maintained that he was innocent, because after all, he didn’t personally kill anyone, right? With calculated manipulation, he appealed to cheap populism, proclaiming that a greater criminal than him was the United States, killing hundreds of thousands of people in Vietnam. For a significant group of citizens, he became a symbol of nonconformity, an idol. In prison, Manson also fulfilled his dream of recording an album, which he achieved in 1970. The album was panned by critics, but in the wake of the scandal surrounding its release, it sold well enough that Manson managed to pay for good lawyers with the money he earned.

He had admirers up until his death at the age of 83. He still has them today. In the final years of his life, he planned to marry a psychofan who was 55 years his junior. Susan Atkins, Manson’s favorite, also got married in prison. Her husband was a smart guy, a lawyer who tried to get her out of prison. All of Manson’s girls repeatedly appealed their verdicts, playing the roles of victims manipulated by the bad guy, the evil man. Each time, the court rejected their claims. Van Houten adapted well in prison, finished her studies, and was considered a well-behaved inmate. Things were harder for the depressive and withdrawn Krenwinkel—but she was the only one of Manson’s girls who seemed genuinely affected by what she had done.