The 1960’s was the decade known for two things: the turning point for the civil rights movement and the rise of the people who preached about peace and love. Those two exact points is what shaped Charles Milles Manson. Manson was a hippie cult leader who claimed that the British rock group, The Beatles “White album” asserted his belief about the war against the whites and blacks (Linder, “The Influence of”). But how does a man from Ohio have the power to influence people into committing murder for him? Was Charles Manson born with the poor to brainwash others? Born to a single mother at the age of 16, Kathleen Maddox gave birth to Charles Milles Manson on November 12th, 1934 in Cincinnati Ohio (“Charles Manson”). The beginning of Manson’s …show more content…
life was not an easy one and his path towards criminal activity started at an early age. Manson never had the stability of a home as a child, he was always in and out of foster homes. By the time, Charles was four years old his mother had already managed to score herself five years in jail for a robbery. Add the youth of his mother when she had him plus her rumored addiction to alcohol to her job as a prostitute that created the lack of parent guidance due to the absence of his father that drove Manson into a reformatory boy’s school (Rosenburg). When Manson was 17 years old, he married Rosaline Jean Will, who worked at a hospital as a waitress. The happy soon to be parents packed up their belongings and started their trip to California, when merely a year later, Manson is sentenced to three years in prison in San Pedro, California (Linder). After getting released from prison in 1958, Manson left the place with a solid criminal education that led him to spend the first 30 years of his life in and out of prison. However, Manson did remarry after his first wife did not endure his criminal activity and ended up taking his first child with another lover. In 1960 Manson married a much younger girl who was barely 19 years old, whom he also had a child with. That marriage much like his first marriage ended up in a divorce. Finally, on March 21st, 1967, Manson is released from prison, but tells one of the guards to let him stay because being in prison had become the only home he’s ever known (“Charles Manson”). Manson had become fascinated with music that during his time in prison he taught himself how to play the guitar and eventually wanted to be a famous writer.
When the Beatles released “White album”, in December of 1968 one of the songs “Helter Skelter” had influenced Manson into believing that there was a race war coming and that he would lead it like a godlike figure and that the only people who would survive it would be his “family” (Linder, “The Influence”). Manson and his family moved into a ranch in Southern California in 1968. Not wanting to give up his dream of being a writer Manson visits Terry Melcher residence (10050 Cielo Drive) on March 23rd, 1969 to ask for Melcher if he could help him publish his music. Manson was cruelly turned away by Sharon Tate’s photographer, providing Manson a motive for revenge (“Charles …show more content…
Manson”). Months later, on August 8th, 1969, Manson announces to his family that the time for Helter Skelter had arrived. That night he ordered Patricia Krenwinkel, Tex Watson, Linda Kasabian, and Susan Atkins to the residence at 10050 Cielo Drive. The famous killings ordered by Manson happened in the early hours of August 9th, where 4 people were brutally stabbed and another shot. The victims included Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Steven Parent, and Voytek Frykowski (“Charles Manson”). After completing Manson’s mission the family returns to the ranch. The bodies of the victims were founded by maid the next morning along with a message written with the victim’s blood. Not a day later the family commits two more murders, this time the victims are Rosemary and Leno LaBianca who owned a well-established grocery stores. The LaBianca’s were also killed in their homes with a similar message on the walls to those found at the Tate residence (Rosenburg). Charles Manson and some members of his family landed in jail almost three months after the murders, but they were not there on accounts of murder rather than petty crimes.
The knowledge of Manson and his family in the murders came to air when Susan Atkins bragged to other inmates about the Family’s participation in the Tate and LaBianca murders (“Charles Manson”). Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkle, and Leslie Van Houten were found guilty of the murders after a nine-month trial during the spring of 1971. Tex Watson was found guilty of the murders during October 1971, in a separate trial (Linder, “The Manson
Trial”). The fascination of Charles Manson is not the murders he’s known for but for the capability to manipulate not only one, but several people into committing the murders for him. It shows how smart, but evil Manson really was. He was smart enough to formulate the plans for the murders and not have himself doing the murders. Manson managed to influence his followers through his ideology that the world was ending only he and his followers would survive the war to come back and dominate. Manson used his godlike figure to manipulate his family into becoming murders.
The 1960’s was a radical decade filled with political tensions, social strife, and overall cultural intrigue. The beginning of the decade allowed for the transition from President Eisenhower to President Kennedy, the youngest President to take office, and the first Roman Catholic. The move represented a shift from a Republican to Democratic administration in the Oval Office. Kennedy became a symbol for the young vibrancy of the American populous, as he was quickly accepted by the grand majority. After Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon B. Johnson took office, the nation was further engulfed in the war that would come to define America for years to come. The Republican Party regained office as Richard Nixon was elected in his second attempt to run as the decade came to a close. Activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X paved the way for the civil rights movement that swept the nation and captivated the spirit of not only black Americans, but white Americans as well. The race between the United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for domination of space escalated as Kennedy pushed for a man on the moon by the close of the decade, achieved in 1969. The possibility of nuclear war became all too real in 1962 as the launch of nuclear missiles became an abundantly clear possibility. The drug culture emerged in the 1960’s in large part due to the newfound accessibility of illegal drugs, such as marijuana and Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD. American society was entrenched in the chaotic desire for new, improved highs. The profound ascent of the drug culture was truly realized when the 3-day music festival, Woodstock, took place in 1969, as “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll” symbolized America’s...
In this very short time he killed 7 to 9 people. ¨When he was caught Manson's pathological ego, insanity and belief in Armageddon were influences that led him to leave behind a trail of destruction showed more. Manson believed that he was the new Messiah and that after a "nuclear attack" he and his followers would be saved by hiding in a secret world under the desert.¨ They decided that Manson was able to attend the court hearings and able to withstand
Charles Manson, who is known today as the notorious criminal for the murder of not just one individual, but many. There are many books, movies, and journals about him and his actions that put society on pause for a while. As many today from past history, Charles Manson was a cult leader from the 1960’s. Some terms he describes himself, and what other individuals may describe him as are, a white supremacist, Nazi, a mass murderer, a druggy, and a cultist. The mind fogging issue here was that he didn’t commit the murders himself; he had his followers do all of the murdering, that’s how much of an influence he was the cult he led. He was born November 12th, 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio making him 82 years old today, and still alive. His residence
Once there Manson met Rev. George Powers who had him sent to Boys Town near
Neither county police department really wanted to take responsibility for law enforcement in the area, so nobody kept an eye on Manson. Charles never let his family watch television or listen to the radio, which people say now, is the cause of what happened. Manson’s hard-core followers began to believe, without question, Manson’s claims that he was Jesus and his prophecies of a race war. Manson believed that there was still a tension between the blacks and whites and that would erupt into a cataclysmic race war ending in the slaughter of nearly all the white people. He called this doomsday “helter skelter.” His belief stated that while in the mist of these masseurs he and his family would stowaway in a deep hole in Death Valley. Upon the war’s end, the group would rise from the desert and rule the victorious blacks, whom Manson thought would be incapable of governing themselves. Manson became obsessed with the beetles white album, which included a song called “helter skelter.” Manson became impatient after his race war failed to
As a child he was sent to many reform schools. He has spent the last four decades behind bars. He will never get out prison. He will eventually die in prison. This is the life of Charles Manson. Charles Manson is a sick and cruel criminal.
Charles Manson and the Manson family committed gruesome crimes that shocked Los Angeles in 1969. The actress Sharon Tate and four others were ritualistically slaughtered in her Hollywoods Hills home. The murderers had left cryptic messages on the walls in the victims blood, and law enforcement were stumped by the multiple stab wounds found on the victims. The next day a married couple, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, who were successful shop owners, were found in their Las Feliz home murdered in the same way as Sharon Tate and her friends.
Despite the negative portrayal in mainstream 1960s media, justifications expressed by counterculture activists for further investigation, education and experimentation under government control of LSD were rational and valid arguments. Sex, drugs, protests, war, political upheaval, cultural chaos, and social rebellion; the many comforts TV dinner eating, republican voting, church going, suburbia conformists tried to escape through conservative ideals, town meetings, and The Andy Williams Family Hour. National consciousness in 1960s United States was alive, but existed differently in every mind it dwelled, and stirred uninterrupted in every life to which it was introduced. A dream of money, success, and a house with a white picket fence still existed within the pandemonium of the nation and many still relished in the idea of “Americanism.” Television was a base for a magnitude of world news and national information. Television situation comedies created ideal families and contenting distractions from unsettling national realities. Mainstream media, both fact and fiction, influenced the nation’s minds resulting in the effect of political change and further media influence over the government. The new decade, along with the effects of the Vietnam War and the strong influence of television, began to leak from the cracks of the nation a new counterculture of rebellious teenagers, unfamiliar narcotics, and a wave of promiscuity. Among the many issues and events molding our nation into a new decade, came the question of government and mind control. For some it was the next step into human evolution, a potential tool for mind control, a liberator of human kind, but for most LSD helped define 1960s counterculture, in which it was deeply rooted.
In the duration of one year, 1968, the American national mood shifted from general confidence and optimism to chaotic confusion. Certainly the most turbulent twelve months of the post-WWII period and arguably one of the most disturbing episodes the country has endured since the Civil War, 1968 offers the world a glimpse into the tumultuous workings of a revolution. Although the entire epoch of the 1960's remains significant in US history, 1968 stands alone as the pivotal year of the decade; it was the moment when all of the nation's urges toward violence, sublimity, diversity, and disorder peaked to produce a transformation great enough to blanket an entire society. While some may superficially disagree, the evidence found in the Tet Offensive, race relations, and the counterculture's music of the period undeniably affirm 1968 as a turning point in American history.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. "Charles Manson." About.com 20th Century History. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2013. .
Subsequently to that, in the same year the following to Hinman’ murder in which Atkins participated , the assassination of Sharon Tate who was pregnant, Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Abigail Folger took place. According to the forensic evidence the crime was describe as brutal (Wikipedia). During Atkins declaration she confesses to be the killer of Tate during her statement. “She stated that she had stabbed Tate because she was ‘sick of listening to her, pleading and begging, begging and pleading’” (Wikipedia). During trail the audience saw a lack of remorse about the crime committed by her and the Mason Family. During one her declaration she confesses t...
the oceans in their lyrics and songs. Manson saw the 4 Beatles as the 4
In 1969, the County Sheriff had taken them into custody, not realizing that they were involved in the brutal murders. But the confession of one member involved with the Tate and LaBianca murders, while in detention on suspicion of murdering Gary Hinman, an unrelated incident, had shown detectives that Manson and his followers were involved in the killings. The trial began in June, 1970. Charles Manson protested to the media and court proceedings by turning up with an X carved into his forehead. Some of the female family members copied the act and shaved their heads while outside the courthouse during trial. January 25, 1971, Manson was convicted of first degree murder for masterminding the deaths of the Tate and LaBianca victims. He was sentenced to the gas chamber, this however became life in prison because California's Supreme Court overturned all death sentences before
The years 1960-1969 were very impressionable years. With events that changed America , turning the innocence and hope of American people into violence and anger. The young nation of the 60s were the most influential of all ,with rioting about war or turning music into culture. This was a completely different america than it was years before . In a Music standpoint artists such as The Beatles , Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix were changing the way music was made . They were changing music into an artform , a way for people to express their feelings , beliefs and ideas. The Music of the 1960s evolved into an artform which lead the path for American music of today.
Fillmer, Deborah K. "Forensic Science and the Charles Manson Murders." < http://www.cris.com/ ~dfillmer/manson.htm > (20 Jan. 2000).