CULTS: The Manson Family: PART ONE

doc let's not do that thing where you lick your paws hello everybody and welcome back to my channel I'm really excited because today is a cult day and we are starting our next cult series this one is a big one or this cults installment we're talking about Charles Manson and the Manson Family now the Manson Family was most well known for the Sharon Tate murders but there's so much more that's involved in their stories and in Charles Manson's a story and as is usual for this channel we go real deep into Charles Manson's background his childhood I was stunned I was really excited to get into the research because I thought I knew a lot about the cult but I didn't I didn't know a lot of Papa call until I researched it as deeply as I did and one of the main resources I did used to research this cult was Jeff Quinn's book on Charles Manson the book is called Manson the life in times of Charles and Manson you know I love audible audibles amazing audible helps me so much so if you want to try your free trial of audible the link is always in the description box it's an amazing service I couldn't get half as much done as I do without the help of audible but Jeff Quinn's the same author who wrote the road to Jonestown which is the same book that I used to research the Jonestown tragedy and the cult the Jim Jones leg so I really like Jeff win I like it the way he writes I like the way he gets really deep into the background I feel like he's a guy after my own heart so his book on Manson was a big influence on me and also a big help in my research and obviously things I didn't understand or thinks I wanted to know more about Idol deeper and did my own online research and filled in the gaps but that book was amazing so if you're interested in Charles Manson and the Manson Family I highly suggest it before we get started I wanted to show you my t-shirt choice for today I think it's fit it says you're in a cult call your dad I got this shirt from an Etsy shop called the Voodoo vandals they're based out of Toronto Canada and they're nice people over there they have a lot of cool t-shirts there's one that I want to get for Adam which says if I ever get murdered she did it and then a finger pointing and you know ideally I'd be standing next to him pretty accurate anyway let's get right and I'm so excited I'm so excited all the time that I was researching this I was so excited to sit down to record because I love sharing this stuff with you guys and I know a lot of you think in the same way that I think so as I would have read something that would be surprising or hard to believe or just completely bananas I'd be like what and I'd want to like look over to you guys and talk about it but obviously nobody was there so I was just like oh my god I can't wait to sit down and record so that we can discuss this so let's dive right in to Charles Manson this first part is going to mainly be on his background his childhood his teenage years his incarceration I say incarceration space there was many of them and you know his arrival in California I'm thinking there's probably going to be three parts of this but there might be four I just will never know until I get into it and we leave for Mexico and about 10 days we leave in 10 days because my sister's getting married in Mexico so we're going to Mexico to to attend her wedding and I want to make sure all these parts are recorded edited and posted for you before I go because there's no way that I would feel comfortable recording two parts and then leaving you hanging for everything else for you know ten days it would be ridiculous and unacceptable so I'm gonna bust my butt to get it done and if you don't see me as active on social media I'm not gonna be going live things like that because I really need to use that time to just focus on and getting all this research done getting the scripts written and then recording and then editing and then posting them for you guys so they're all out before I leave from Mexico and at least I've left you with a gift because I will be you know probably like a radio silence for the entire time I'm there at least as far as posting on YouTube I'll go live while I'm there I won't be able to post any true-crime videos and I obviously will be posting an Instagram a ton because it's beautiful there and I haven't been on vacation and forever so I'm gonna see a palm tree and be like hey guys this is a palm tree and I'm gonna post it on Instagram so if you don't follow me on Instagram and you want to see my Mexico adventures go ahead and follow me on Instagram right now it's just at Stefanie Harlow let's get started in August of 1969 Charles Manson's family brutally murdered nine people in an insane plan to bring on a race war now Charles Manson would later go on to tell all sorts of stories about his childhood and his mother and some of them were true but some of them were exaggerations in order to make people feel bad for him he told people that his mother traded him for a pitcher of beer when he was just a baby he also said that she didn't give him a name when he was born that she gave him the name no name on his birth certificate because she couldn't be bothered to even name him that stuff's not true a Charles Manson's mother Kathleen although she was a flawed and very young when she gave birth to him she always cared about him and loved him and she always wanted to be a better mother she never tried to sell him for a pitcher of beer or trade him for a pitcher of beer she gave him a name when he was born but he had an interest in making his childhood seem is traumatic and lonely and sad as possible so that people would feel bad for him so in an effort to see why people go on to do the things they do and why they turn into the person they turn into let's go way back let's go back to Charlie Manson's a grandmother and grandfather Nancy Maddox was a Bible loving woman she was raised in the backwoods of Kentucky and she had a strong and unwavering of faith in God and what the Bible said she believed the Bible word for word she believed that what the Bible said was literally what it meant and that you should follow it to the letter she believed that there was good people and bad people she believed that there was a heaven and hell but she also believed that you shouldn't judge people too harshly because everyone deserve a second chance everyone deserved the ability to prove themselves before Judgment Day her husband Charlie Maddox was a veteran of World War one he worked on the railroad and they lived a pretty normal middle-class existence Charlie was a good husband and a good provider and the two of them would go and have four children together the youngest was named ADA Kathleen Maddox just Kathleen for short in 1928 when Kathleen was Tammy moved from Kentucky to Ashland which was on the banks of the Ohio River see Rosie and Doc her being good and laying down and not jumping around being noisy Goleta Nancy and Charley medics were good at parents Nancy raised her kids in the Christian way she took care of them she stayed home and Charlie worked really hard for his family and he was a good father who was respected and loved by all his children however when Kathleen was 13 years old in October of 1931 her father died of pneumonia it took Nancy a while to get over the loss that her husband's death had left in her life she was a very religious woman but even the most religious people can have their faith tested when they lose somebody who's close to them and they begin to wonder why did this happen to me why did God take this person from me she even said that she felt like she had died as well eventually her faith did help her recover from her sadness and her loss and she just started telling herself that this was God's plan even if she didn't understand why Nancy and her three youngest children were left pretty much financially provided for because if Charlie's railroad pensions so bad been she didn't have to go and take a job she could at least stay home and raise her children and be with them because they needed her now more than ever Glenna the oldest daughter had already married and moved out she married a man named Cecil and they had kind of a tumultuous relationship they also had a young daughter Joanne who would often be left with Nancy for days Wow Glenna and Cecil fought it out at home because nobody wanted the young girl to be a witness to that eventually the fighting got so bad it wasn't stopping nothing was changing so Glenna divorced Cecil and brought Joanne back home live with her mother and her other three siblings now of course Nancy struggled with Glenda's divorce because the Bible the Bible doesn't like divorce in Corinthians at seven thirty nine it says a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives but if her husband dies she is free to marry anyone she wishes but he must belong to the Lord so basically if you marry a guy that's your guy until he dies and then you can marry somebody else as long as you know he's approved by the Christian religion but otherwise you're stuck so obviously Nancy struggled with this contradiction in her faith as somebody in her own family her own daughter had committed an act that the Bible and God didn't believe in but remember Nancy Maddux did not want to judge people too harshly and she knew that her daughter Glenna was a good person and a good mother to Joann so she took both of them in and accepted the additional burden and responsibility of having more mouths to feed because that was the Christian Way but Nancy's test to her faith would not end there not by a long shot Eileen the second oldest daughter had been going to business school and when she graduated she treated herself to a trip across the river to Ohio so Nancy and her kids lived in Ashland Kentucky but right across the river was Ohio while eileen was in ohio she began having chest pains and she was hospitalized and 17 months after her father passed away eileen died from the same ailment pneumonia and it took them both in very similar ways they both started coming down with chest pains and not feeling well and then within days they were gone and obviously Nancy could not understand why this was happening hadn't she been a devout Christian hadn't she been following the Bible in exactly the way that she should hadn't she always tried to help everybody why was God taking away from her people that she loved and something like this it may have broken a lesser woman than Nancy Maddox a weaker woman than cymatics but she doubled them and she began to rereading every passage in the Bible every single day until she had convinced herself that this was just a test of her faith she also turned her attention towards her remaining children making it her mission to teach them the right way making it her mission to let them know and show them that the Bible was the law and it seemed like things were gonna turn around for a little bit Blenheim Matt Bill Thomas and Bill Thomas was a railroad man just like Nancy's late husband Charlie Maddox so Nancy really approved of him and Bill really seemed to want to provide for Glenna and take care of Joann Glenna married Bill and she and Joann moved with him to North Charleston Virginia bill was strict but he was solid he was just one Glenna and Joann needed he took care of them he provided for them and he truly loved Joann and meant to raise her as his own that just laughed Luther the only son and his younger sister Kathleen Kathleen and Luther were not on board the guide train to say the least Luther was 18 at this time and Kathleen was 15 and Luther being the typical eighteen year old boy he didn't stay home much he ran around with his friends on the town looking for girls and looking for ways to get into trouble which left Nancy with Kathleen and Kathleen definitely wasn't the model of Sunday school girl that Nancy wanted her to be Nancy believed that young girls should obey wear modest clothing and very little if any makeup the fashion of those times was to cut your hair short but the Bible said that a woman should keep her hair long I looked it up in the Bible actually it does say that Corinthians again 11:15 but that if a woman has long hair it is her glory for it has been given to her as a covering a young girl shouldn't drink curse or interact with young men improperly and Kathleen rebelled as teenage girls who have very strict parents often do and she complained that her mother wasn't letting her live her life and wasn't letting her have any fun Nancy pretty much wanted Kathleen to go to Sunday School and then come home and sew or learn how to cook and do the things young girls to do but Cathleen wanted to dance she loved to dance she thought Sunday school was boring other girls her age who went to Sunday school were boring and the small conservative town of Ashland that they lived in didn't really have any places to dance they were a very Christian town and dancing was thought to be a sin it was basically moving your body and suggestive movements typically with somebody of the opposite sex and I mean imagine the Footloose town right where they didn't want the kids to dance because it will lead to other things that's pretty much what Ashland was at this time so Nancy was horrified at her daughter's hobby and Kathleen who didn't really want to hurt or upset her mother who had been through enough but still wanted to pursue the things she wanted to pursue ended up hiding this from her mother and sneaking out she couldn't go dancing in Ashland first of all there wasn't a lot of places to do that second of all it was a small town and they all talked they all gossips and if somebody didn't know something there was somebody who did know it and would be more than happy to tell the person who didn't know it and everything would get around it would get back to Nancy and Kathleen really didn't need any lectures about how she was going to go to how because she loved to dance iron in Ohio was across the river and it had a thriving nightlife it had a very scandalous red-light district basically the people of Ashland thought Ironton was a Sodom and Gomorrah like a place where people sinned and where everybody had loose morals it's not a place they wanted their young children to go so of course that was exactly where Kathleen went with all the gossip around town about how Ironton was a sinful place full of alcohol prostitutes and Saks Kathleen couldn't imagine any place that she would rather be she would sneak out at night and go to Ironton go to these dance clubs at ritzy Ray's was her favorite and it's thought that that's where she meant Colonel Scott now colonel wasn't in the military he had never been in the military colonel was actually his his name his birth name but his father a farmer Walter Scott had given him armor it was not actually his father's first name farmer was his profession he was a farmer and he had two sons colonel being one of them and Darwin being the other he lived in a a smaller agricultural area near Ashland and Darwin and Colonel were basically known around the small town as being con man and they spent most of their time in Ironton as well and it's the traditional story we all know so well young naive small-town girl goes to the big city and meets a fast-talking a handsome older man who basically sweeps her off her feet he is usually also hiding a wife at home and this was the case for Colonel Scott he bought Kathleen drinks he plied her with alcohol he got her into bed told her she was special told her he loved her and when she was pregnant his tune changed in the spring of 1935 when Kathleen informed Colonel Scott that she was carrying his child he got suddenly called away from military business even though remember he wasn't in the military but she didn't know that he told her he would be back soon and that they would have raised their child together and he would marry her and then he never contacted her again and for a while she believed he was coming back for a while she imagined this happily ever after life because Kathleen Maddox was a romantic at heart and this would be true of her until her dying day she always believed that she would find somebody who loved her and that she could love but after a while as her stomach got bigger in time past and Colonel didn't show his face she realized that he'd skipped out on her Kathleen didn't try to hide the fact that she was pregnant from her mother at this point she didn't have anybody left but her mother and Nancy dentist's owner or turn her away she let her live in her home and took care of her while she was pregnant because once again that was the Christian Way this was her daughter and she hoped that at least now she could show her daughter that your way of sin was the wrong way look where it got you now you should follow the right path and will raise your child to follow the right path as well instead of making Kathleen feel happy and relieved that she was going to be taken care of and her mother wasn't turning her back it kind of made her pressed she saw this incredibly dull life in front of her where she would have a baby be an unwed mother and have to go to church and read the Bible and they just made her feel incredibly trapped and oppressed she knew if she wanted out of this life she needed to find a husband who would marry her and take care of her and her child in August before her son was born she married William Manson there's not much known about William Manson except that he had been in the Army and overall he was a pretty unremarkable man he was born in 1909 in West Virginia he died fifty-two years later and he really didn't do much with his life he was a small man slight of build like I said just pretty unremarkable didn't stand out on their marriage license it listed Williams ages 25 and Kathleen's ages 21 but we know she wasn't 21 she was much younger if you do the math they were married in 1934 and Kathleen it was born in 1919 she was still 15 years old at this time she listed her age as being 21 because if she'd been any younger she would have needed her mother's permission to marry isn't it funny how back in the day you could just lie on things like to get into the military or to get married they'd be like what's your age and you would tell them and then they would believe you even if it wasn't true when you research the relationship between Kathleen and William Manson some sources say William didn't know whether the baby was his or not which I find incredibly tough for him to not know if the baby was his or not because they were married in August and Charlie Manson was born in November so three months three months that she was pregnant before she gave birth so I'm pretty sure William Manson knew that baby was not his unless he had absolutely no idea how pregnancy worked or how long it took I mean unless Kathleen was messing around with William Manson at the same time that she was messing around with Colonel which is very possible which would then confuse him as to whether or not the baby was his or another man's but that is not stated just so you know for the record I just speculated that that would be the only way I would think that William Manson would question whether Charlie was his child or not so on November 12th 1934 Charles Miller Manson was born named after his beloved grandfather and his father's name was listed as William Manson Charles Manson is a Scorpio guys is anybody really surprised though like I stated at the beginning of this video there's many many websites that stated that Charles Manson was born and not given a name until much later that Kathleen listed his name as no name that's not true he had a name from the beginning he was named after Kathleen's father and given the surname of the man that she married before he was born and Charles Manson will also say that he wasn't loved by his mother he wasn't loved by anybody when he was growing up he had no affection he had no attention and that's not true either Charlie was actually incredibly loved by both his mother and his grandmother but Kathleen was still a teenager still not ready to take on the responsibility of having a child so she would often leave Charlie with his grandmother Nancy who showered him with love and affection and she and her husband would go out to the clubs dancing eventually Kathleen started hanging out with her older brother Luther and the two of them would disappear for days without any word and William Manson got sick of not knowing where his wife was or what she was doing he could only assume he knew what she was doing and after two and a half years of marriage he filed for divorce citing the reason as a gross neglect of duty she didn't contest it and she didn't even go to court to defend herself or try to fight it at all and he was granted the divorce and at this point it does seem pretty clear that william manson knew the child wasn't his because in the court documents of this time it's listed that there's no children that he would be responsible to pay child support for and two weeks before william manson a file for divorce Kathleen filed a bastardy suit against Colonel Scott it was an effort to get him to take some responsibility for the child if only financial and the Court did rule in her favor it appears that Colonel actually even came and visited with Kathleen and Charlie a couple of times but he never did pay her anything he was told to pay five dollars a month for child support and she didn't ever see any of that she once again went to court to try and garnish his wages but they didn't do anything and at this time Kathleen wasn't interested in getting a job to support herself or her son she was more interested in finding a husband who would do that for them like I said hopeless romantic at heart there was the financial aspect that she wanted to be taken care of she wanted to be able to have the freedom to do whatever she wanted and she didn't want to be tied down with a job but she also had this school girl's fantasy that one day a white knight would come fall in love with her be completely Noble and loyal and bend over backwards for her and she felt she was gonna find this man he never stopped looking but she picked a terrible terrible man and I'm sure if you asked Kathleen she would say she didn't find these men they found her but I want to say it was a little bit of both on October 2nd 1938 she became engaged to a James Aerobie who was a convicted thief and that engagement didn't last long during her short-lived engagement to James Roby she seemed to have picked up some bad habits it was August 1st 1939 Kathleen was living in Charleston West Virginia at this time and she and her brothers a girlfriend Julia Vickers were just hanging out in town walking around looking at shops and chatting at this point Charlie Manson would have been 5 and Kathleen was 20 but she was a very old very bitter 20 she had grown into a bitter woman and she felt the Sheep and dealt a bad hand in life and that she was entitled to things as she deserved but she wasn't getting and as her and her friend Julia were wandering around town they ran into a friendly stranger his name was Frank Martin and he drove a grey Packard convertible and the three of them spent that afternoon and that evening together at first he brought the two girls to the valley Bela Derry and bought them some cheese and then they went to Dan's beer parlor where he purchased beer for all of them until 11:30 p.m. Frank was open and generous with his money and he paid for the girls drinks with money that he peeled off of a lot of dollar bills that he had in his pocket Kathleen brought Julia into the ladies room and said hey don't you think this guy is a lot of money like we should take it from him basically he's got too much money for his own good let's relieve him of that burden they go back to Martin in the bar and they suggest to him that they get a hotel room and at this point this guy's thinking he's locked out he's won the lottery these two young girls want to take him back to a hotel room and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what might happen next Kathleen called her older brother Luther and enlisted his help in their plan and he was more than happy to be a part of it because Luther was kind of a hooligan so after they leave this bar Kathleen and Julia direct Frank to a gas station which he's a little confused about because he thought they were gonna go to a hotel room he's gonna get lucky and that's where they pick up Luther who introduces himself to Frank as a John Ellis so they all go to another bar together at they're drinking dancing they're having fun and at some point Luther pulls Kathleen aside and he's like okay here's the plan Luther and Kathleen take Frank and they get in the car and they leave Julia back at the bar but the three of them leave and I wonder what Frank was thinking at this point he's like wow this turned from me and two girls to me another guy and one girl but I'm still gonna see where it's going like I'm curious but as soon as they got out of town Luther told Frank to pull the car over and get out and Frank was like really and Luther's like yeah seriously they leave Kathleen in the car Luther takes a ketchup bottle filled with salt and presses it to Frank's back and says I have a gun and give me all your money and Frank basically laughed at him and he was like you don't have a gun dude and Luther was like okay I don't have a gun but I have this ketchup bottle full of salt which he then proceeded to smack Frank over the head with and knocked him out he then took Frank some money got back into Frank's car with Kathleen and they drove away they found about 227 dollars in Frank's wallet which wasn't a lot I mean in those days obviously $27 is more than it is today but even then really not what you would be hoping to gain from a robbery of somebody you thought was loaded they picked Julia back up from the bar they ditched the car and then they got a hotel room to hide out in and lay low but once Frank Martin came to he walked back to Charleston called the police if he was able to describe his assailants and tell them what happened even though sure it was a pretty embarrassing story once the police started investigating it really didn't take too much to figure out who had done this like I said Frank identified them and told them what bars that they'd been at that night the police went to these bars and asked around and Luther Julia and Kathleen were pointed out immediately because they were regulars at all these places and they'd all seen them with Frank Kathleen was arrested at her sister Glennis house in North Charleston and it's assumed that Charlie her five-year-old son looked on as she was put in handcuffs and taken away Luther in a gentlemanly gesture most likely an echo from his Christian upbringing he tried to take the fall for the whole thing he told the police in his statement that the girls didn't know anything about the robbery they hadn't been in on it they didn't know what he was going to do and he tried to take complete blame for it however they were all interviewed separately and in the girls statements they they confess to everything and said they'd been a part of it and what their part was so Luther's gesture kind of was pointless but it makes me like him a little bit more the three of them were made fun of in the local papers as the ketchup bottle robbers but the police and the court system didn't find their crime is funny as the local media Luther Maddox was found guilty of armed robbery and was sentenced to ten years in prison and Kathleen was sentenced to five years in prison for unarmed robbery and can you imagine how devastated Nancy Maddox felt at this time she had one daughter who was taken from her too soon she's got another daughter who may be happily married now but already went through a divorce and now her other two kids her other daughter and her only son they're in prison after she tried so hard to teach them the right way after she done everything in her power to guide them down right path and now Charlie was left with no father and no mother and he had to be told that although he would be able to visit his mother once in a while he probably wouldn't be living with her for several years both Kathleen and Luther were going to be serving out their sentences in Moundsville and Ashland was over 200 miles away from Moundsville so it was decided that Charlie should go live with his aunt Glenna and his uncle Bill and his cousin Joanne bill had been relocated to mcmechen West Virginia because of his railroad job mcmechen was only five miles north of Moundsville so Charlie would be able to see his mother more often and still have her be a part of his life now do you see what I mean though about Charles Manson painting such a gruesome picture of his childhood but he had people around him who really cared about him he had people around who even though his mother was in prison they made efforts and provisions to allow him to live with other family members so that he could be a part of her life so that he could still see her so that he could retain some sense of normalcy while she was in jail he wasn't a street child which he likes to call himself he wasn't born an outlaw which is something he said he was born a normal baby to a family that maybe had some flaws but at the end of the day loved each other and supported each other and were there for each other mcmechen was a lower-middle-class town their population at the time was 4,000 but they had over 1,000 churches there almost as many churches as there were bars there was an unspoken understanding that traditional values were to be upheld at McMackin and when I say traditional values I mean the man goes to work all day to provide for his family and then on the weekends and after work during the week he goes to the bars and gets drunk these were mainly men who brandished shotguns loved hunting loved fishing loved being manly men anything that a manly man would do the men of mcmechen were probably doing and the women their main duty was to stay home and raise the children keep the house cook the meals and not question her husband on anything he was doing the young boys were taught by their fathers to be good providers be good hunters and to be manly men and young girls were taught by their mothers to be happy housewives the people of mcmechen brought their children to church every Sunday never locked their doors and reveled in their simple small-town life when charlie arrived in mcmechen he did not fit in at all not with the townspeople not with his aunt's family who fit in seamlessly to the life of mcmechen this was late 1939 Charlie was 5 and he was actually a very attractive adorable child he had dark hair and dimples when he smiled which he didn't do often he was very small smaller than any of the other boys his age and this would be something that followed him through life he would always be smaller and slider and less built than the other men he was also a compulsive liar who took no accountability for anything like most small children that age if he didn't feel like he was getting enough attention he would act out he would cause trouble so he could get attention one way or the other his cousin Joanne who was 8 at the time Charlie came to live with her family she disapproved of him and she wasn't really happy about him coming to stay with them her parents Glenna and bill were very clear to her that Charlie would be her responsibility she was Charlie's big sister now and it was up to her to make sure he got his bearings in his new town that he fit in and that he had no trouble Charles was enrolled in the local school and he went but he was immediately disliked by his teacher mrs. Varner and it wasn't really strange for mrs. Varner to dislike students she had a hierarchy she had assigned seating based on who she felt was worthy of her time and attention the front seats were filled with children she liked mainly girls the middle seats were filled with students she it wasn't crazy about but didn't hate and then the back seats were filled with those students that she felt were lost causes they lacked potential they came from bad backgrounds they didn't try hard enough they didn't impress her so they got isolated to the back of the classroom and she basically gave up on them she was the worst kind of teacher and I think these teachers were more common in these days and now I hope less common but they still exist she prey on the insecurities of these small children and make them feel even smaller and more insignificant than little kids already do no doubt when Charlie Manson arrived in her classroom she'd already heard the gossip that flitted around the small town that he had no father that his mother was in prison and she judged him immediately and put him in the very last seat in the back signaling to every other student who was very familiar with her hierarchy that he was a pariah he was five guys he was five years old and she immediately began picking on him and his first day of school he ran home crying but instead of being greeted with understanding and sympathy which i think is how you should treat a child who has a rough a first day of school his Uncle Bill thought he was being very unmanly not mcmechen like at all he was called a [ __ ] and bill took one of Joanne's dresses out of her closets and put it on Charlie and he made him wear it to school the next day he made him wear that dress all day of all the lies and exaggerations that Charles and medicine made up later in life to make his childhood seem horrific this one is believed to have been 100% true he never forgot it he never got over it and I'm sure it was a degrading and humiliating experience for a five-year-old boy to go through something that a lot of us probably can't even understand or comprehend and it was no surprise that he was a poor student he struggled with reading and writing he would struggle with reading and writing all his life and he was bullied constantly because he was smaller than everyone else and because the students took the lead of their teacher if it was okay for her to harass him why couldn't they even though he was smaller than the other boys he had a bigger mouth than anyone in the school and that also made him a target for a lot of bullying his cousin Joann had to step in one day to defend him because that's what her job was her parents had made it very clear and Joann was a girl who obeyed and did as she was told a bigger boy was harassing Charlie on the playground and Joann snapped between the two and the boy slapped her in the face Joanne although a good mcmechen girl who was obedient and did as her parents told her she still had a little bit of that Maddox fire and she bit his finger hard she made him bleed and he ran away crying the teacher has heard about what happened they called Joanne into their office because she wasn't a girl that would get in trouble ever she was always good and well-behaved never got into trouble they asked her what happened and she said that the bigger boy was picking on Charlie Charlie was her cousin so she had to take a stand and help him well when Charlie was asked what happened he threw his cousin under the bus and he said he didn't know why she did it he just saw her bite the boy he has no idea why it was completely unprovoked most likely Charlie was embarrassed at having to have a girl step in and defend him but this would set a standard and a habit for being the reason people did things and then backing out and saying he had nothing to do with it that they were just doing what they wanted to do this turned Joanne inside against her cousin though she realized he was not an ally and she would obey her parents and look out for him but she would never step in to help him again in fact Joanne thought he was legitimately crazy from the time he was a small child one day when Joanne was 10 and Charlie was 7 Glenn and Bill had to go away for the day and they left Joanne in charge and told her keep an eye on your cousin do your chores make sure the house is clean we'll be back soon she began doing what she was told she was making one of the beds that when Charlie came into the room the shoes in he had a sickle which he'd gotten from outside and a sickle is basically like a farming tool it has a long handle usually and then a curved blade on the end and I think it's used for harvesting crops like wheat I'm not exactly a hundred percent sure but that's what I think it's used for so he had this sickle he'd gone from outside and he kept getting in her way while she was trying to make the bats like standing in front of her and rubbing the sickle on the bed and basically just being obnoxious and she yelled at him and she told him to get out and when he didn't listen she physically removed him from the house and locked the screen door behind him and said go play outside let me get my work done well he lost his mind he started freaking out screaming at the top of his lungs literally losing it and he started slashing at the screen door with the sickle and Joanne was terrified she said she thought a hundred percent that if he'd gotten into that house that he would have used that sickle on her when Bill and Glenna got home they saw their shredded screen door and they asked the kids what happened here and Charlie said that Joanne had started it he was forced to defend himself which obviously bill and Glenna didn't believe he was whipped for misbehaving Joanne recalls that he was often whipped but it never made a difference she said you could whip him all day and he'd still act however he wanted early in life Charlie Manson became obsessed with guns knives and music he may have had issues with reading but when he sat down at the Thomases a piano he could play songs by ear and he had a lovely voice and he was pretty decent on the piano and the only reason that he tolerated going to church was because he loved singing there now Charlie's uncle Luther he never learned to behave himself in prison on February 21st 1942 he stole a prison truck and escaped it seemed as much as he loved illegal activities he was really bad at getting away with them and he was caught three days later and brought back to prison Kathleen kept a low profile during her imprisonment and in late 1942 she was released on parole after having served only three years of her 5-year sentence now according to Kathleen at this time she was ready to walk the straight and narrow she was ready to be the mother that Charlie deserved three years in prison had given her a lot of time to think a lot of time to go over the mistakes she had made she didn't want to live with Nancy because she didn't want Nancy to try to control her and Charlie's life and Glenna her sister was Don having Charlie there and definitely wasn't going to invite his mother and him to stay at her house so when Kathleen got out she took Charlie from McMackin which he was really happy about and they kind of moved around quite a bit eventually she and Charlie moved back to Charleston and she got a job as a grocery store clerk in Charlie in in school but he never wanted to go to school he'd always skip and he was blatant about it - he didn't try to hide it from his mother or anybody he'd even go into her store while she was working during the day when he was supposed to be in school and ask for candy but even though Charlie was a disturbed and it will behave child he remembers this time with his mother as being the happiest of his life he was happy to be out from under Bill and Glenn on out of mcmechen he was happy to be with his mother who was actually trying but he had become manipulative and a user if you didn't have something to offer him he didn't have any time for you or any use for you if you had something he wanted or if you were going to give him something he could be the most charming friendly sweet kid in the world but if you said no he would just turn on you and Kathleen noticed this but she had bigger things on her mind at this time she was 24 years old she was still young and she had to be worried about her social life because she needed to find a man to marry who would take care of her and her son so she returned to her life of drinking and dancing and carousing in the local bars after Charleston Kathleen and Charlie drifted around to a lot of different places they stayed in Indianapolis for a while where it is rumoured that Kathleen was a prostitute but these rumors have never been confirmed and as Charlie got older his behavior just got worse and worse when he was 9 Kathleen admitted she had a problem with alcohol and she started attending a a meetings this is where she met Lewis a fellow alcoholic who was also trying to get his life straight she hoped once again that Lewis was the right man for her and for Charlie and she knew that Charlie needed a man in his life to set him straight so she married Lewis she got her drinking under control but Lewis never did and she became the mother to two children her ill-behaved his son and her grown husband who couldn't hold a job because he liked alcohol too much Lewis also wasn't a great role model or father figure to the boy he had no patience for Charlie he didn't really like him they would constantly get into arguments which would just stress everybody out more and then Lewis felt like he had to drink more to you know get over that stress and then Charlie would get mad and leave and it just became a really stressful environment to live in Charlie began as stealing from his own home and from local stores and if he got caught he was never apologetic about it he just blamed somebody else anyone else this was a hallmark of Charles Manson's personality something he would do for his entire life if he got caught stealing he'd say it was his mother's fault because she didn't give him the things he wanted so he had to take them or Lewis was always on his case and accusing him of things and blaming him for things anyway so if he was gonna get yelled at no matter what he did he might as well just do the things he was being accused of and yelled at for him and no matter how many truant officers came to the house or how many people begged him to go to school he still refused to attend regularly Kathleen turned to her mother Nancy for help the woman she had never cared to take advice from before she hoped that Charley's grandmother could get through to him the two had a special relationship Charlie was always sweet to his grandmother no matter who else he was rude to or disrespectful to he was always respectful and kind to his grandmother and his grandmother really loved him and doted on him Kathleen who really did struggle with the guilt of how the choices she'd made in life had contributed to the way Charlie was turning out she tried to be a good mother she tried to give him the life and the home that he needed but it was too late at this point she couldn't find the right male figure to bring into the house she didn't know how else to be a mother and Charlie was already too comfortable with his rebellious and bad-boy persona he was still small for his age but he had a temper that he could not control and he would work himself into such a rage and look at his mother with what she called his crazy eyes it would terrify her she would back down she had no idea what to do how to reach him how to help him and so she thought it might be a good idea if he went to a place that was designed to help boys like him who had behavioral issues this way she could put her focus on fixing Lewis and getting him like on the right track and by the time Charlie was fixed in this place that he went which fixes young boys allegedly they would all come back together all fixed all flawless and live happily ever after and this hope was obviously misguided and naive for many reasons because nobody can be fixed alcoholics can't be fixed by their wives who want to fix them they need help and guidance and programs and time and little boys aren't fixed by turning them over to boarding schools little boys who already feel abandoned are going to feel more abandoned when their parents give up on them and send them away in 1947 when Charlie was 12 she began looking around for some place to send him and she found it in Indiana 75 miles away from where they lived the jabal school for boys was a school for male delinquents run by priests filled with 124 boys at the time Charlie would attend Manson later in life would make this place sound like a prison camp but it wasn't that bad they had sports the students worked a large farm that fed the school and its occupants they had school and religion classes it was strict and there were physical punishments if the students behaved in a way that wasn't allowed and according to Manson he was on the receiving end of many of these punishments while there Charlie underwent academic and psychological testing these tests revealed that his school skills were fair he was Moody and exhibited a persecution complex which basically is what it sounds like you always think you're being attacked you always think you're being a persecuted by others and usually with the intention to harm according to the DSM persecution delusions are the most common form of delusions in paranoid schizophrenia and Charlie would have his moments or he would be agreeable friendly even nice to be around but they wouldn't last long before he become a moody angry frustrated or withdrawn he tried to leave several times he ran away and he made it back to his mother's house 75 miles away and he tells the story that when he got back she opened the door and told him to leave and shut the door in his face and that didn't happen she brought him in she listened to him she felt bad that she had to send him back but she had to send him back she couldn't help him she couldn't fix him and maybe it wasn't the right decision to stop trying and send him away but at this point it was all she could do he did get a pass from the Jew vault school to spend Christmas with his aunt uncle and cousin in mcmechen and his grandmother and uncle Luther who had recently been paroled they would be there too however Kathleen and Lewis would not be present at this Christmas holiday Luther at this point was weak and sick and basically dying he had contracted tuberculosis it had basically wasted him and his family knew it was only a matter of time his sister Glenna allowed him to stay with her for periods so that she could care for him and nurse him Luther like his sister Kathleen had come to the realization that his choices in life had brought him nothing but pain and suffering and he'd become devoted to the Nazarene faith once he was faced with mortality he died in 1950 after becoming a changed man one that was respected in his community for his faith and one that could finally make his mother proud and it was actually Charlie's cousin Joanne's idea for Charlie to come home and spend Christmas with the family he wasn't her favorite person but she was a good girl and she didn't think it was right for anybody to be away from family during Christmas but in 1947 she came down with a case of tuberculosis that she contracted while she was caring for her uncle Luther luckily she wasn't as sick she was young she could handle it better and she was released from the hospital so that she could be home for the Christmas holidays but she was bedridden she couldn't leave the bed she had to be cared for so she was basically a stuck in bed but alive on Christmas Eve everyone went to church this size jo-ann who had to be in bed and Charlie for some reason and Joann wasn't happy about this she didn't know why they were letting Charlie stay home she didn't really feel comfortable being alone in the house with him but there wasn't really a lot of options so everybody went to church and the two kids stayed home now as she was laying in bed she heard Charlie turn the water on down stairs and the water was on for quite a while so she began to get suspicious she knew that the shower running for so long wasn't Charlie taking a shower he wasn't big on hygiene she knew he was trying to cover something up but she was weak and bedridden she didn't want to say anything I'd try to stop him for fear that he would hurt her so when everyone got back from church they asked why was the shower running and Joanne said ask charlie and she told them I think he was trying to steal dad's gun they confronted him about it and sure enough he had the gun he couldn't help himself given the opportunity to prove that he could turn things around when his family brought them into their home for Christmas even though he always misbehaved and trouble followed him wherever he went he couldn't help himself from doing something that would prove to everyone that he was the bad kid that they thought he was after Christmas he went back to DeVault but it didn't last long he couldn't even make it another year after 10 months he ran away he'd learned it the first time that going back home wasn't going to end the way he wanted so he basically committed petty crimes he'd go into stores after they closed and robbed the cash register he was only 13 when he was caught attempting to rob another store and he was sent to Boys Town Boys Town is a non-profit community in Douglas County Nebraska that's dedicated to the care treatment and education of at-risk children it was founded in 1917 by Father Edward Flanagan an Irish born Catholic priest Flanagan did not believe in reform school and is quoted as saying there is no such thing as a bad boy it's a good thing that father Flanagan died a year before Charles and Manson would arrive at the orphan town or he might have had to eat his words an Indianapolis news story from March of 1949 read Charles Manson 14 a dad and kid who has lived in an emotional blind alley most of his life is happy today he is going to Boys Town Manson told the court I think I could be happy working around cows and horses I like animals the judge who sent him to Boys Town told him maybe you'll have that farm yet and be a real farmer son you just have to try hard and learn the things they teach you Manson would have you believe his whole life that nobody ever took a chance on you nobody ever gave him a break you'll see in his childhood he was given many breaks many chances many opportunities to turn it around this being one of them this judge could have sent him to another reform school but he sent him to Boys Town Boys Town was an actually pleasant place to be there were people who had more faith in him than clearly he had in himself who thought that if he could be sent to the right place with the right environment and the right tutelage he could actually make something of himself he didn't even make it four days at Boys Town maybe he didn't want to become a good contributing a member of society either way he and another boy at Blackie Nilsen they stole a car and drove to Peoria Illinois where Blackie had a convict uncle they committed two armed robberies with a gun on their way to Illinois once in Peoria Charlie was picked up again by cops when he was attempting to rob a business and he was then linked to the two armed robberies that had occurred two weeks prior on his way to Illinois and he was put in front of a judge again who was not as hopeful about Manson's future as the Boys Town judge and but this time he was sent to the Indiana boys school in Plainville which was basically a reformatory school this school was formatted similarly to his first reform school devold it gave classes to teach useful skills and trades but the 400-plus occupants at Plainville were more hardened criminal than misguided youth many of them were sent there for crimes such as armed robbery and manslaughter and because of this the discipline at the school matched the crimes that its inhabitants were there for the punishments that were doled out to these kids would be considered the same as torture at times and with so many unruly boys in one place and so few adults who cared to supervise them there was often a lot of infighting with the bigger stronger boys who had been there longer picking on the smaller weaker newcomers there was all sorts of physical and sexual abuse going on here and Charles Manson claimed that he was on the receiving end of this too many times to even count this is also one of his claims that is very possibly true but during this time he developed what he called the insane game which was essentially just acting crazy so someone approached him and he thought that he was about to get beat up Charlie would just act completely insane start screaming waving his arms around talking nonsense looking as crazy and making his face as distorted and insane as he possibly could and the plan was that this would confuse and throw off his attacker and maybe that person would move on and find somebody who wasn't acting like an insane person sometimes these tactics worked and sometimes they didn't on October of 1949 Charlie and six other boys attempted to escape now he had already attempted to escape four times before this on his own but this was his first group escape attempt they did make it out of the school but Charlie who was never good at laying low was caught 12 hours later trying to rob a gas station and he was sent back again less than a year later Charlie and two other boys escaped they stole a car and they headed west eventually they were stopped at a roadblock which had been set up for an unrelated crime they were found out and they were sent back to Plainville but now Charlie had been a part of a crime that was a federal offense he had drove in a stolen car over state lines he was sentenced to the National Training School for boys in Washington DC he was to remain there until he was 21 and at this point he was just 16 years old so he was facing another five years in these reformatory schools and even though they called it a school it was actually a juvenile correctional facility so he was it was basically a prison for kids who were underage he arrived there in 1951 where his caseworkers diagnosed him as being aggressively anti-social mostly due in part to an unfavorable family life if it can be called a family life at all and that was actually written in his report I have a sneaking suspicion that when Charlie met with his caseworkers he spun some tales about the you traded for a pitcher of beer when he was a baby his caseworker wasn't really that stupid though noting that after a month Charlie made an effort to seem as if he wanted to fit in but he didn't really want to fit in or conform at all by the fall of 1951 he had manipulated the administration at the National Training School to transfer him to Natural Bridge which was a less restrictive facility his psychiatrists at the Training School wrote that despite his many shortcomings at his heart Charlie was probably a truly sensitive boy who had not given up on receiving some kind of love and affection from the world maybe what he really needed was something to give him self-confidence like a transfer to Natural Bridge which was exactly what Charlie wanted the whole time after he arrived at Natural Bridge in a surprising turn of events his antek lana visited him there and she told the authorities that if he was allowed to be released from Natural Bridge early she promised that he could come live with her that she would make sure he got a job and walked the straight and narrow I can't for the life of me understand why she would do this since any time he stayed with her and her family he just caused problems in trouble and was violent I have to wonder if it was witnessing her mother Nancy always giving and being there for people even when they disappointed her if it was just the way she was brought up and she was compelled to help her family I don't know why it happened but that is what happened and he would have been out early see what I mean about people continuing to believe in him and give him chances and opportunities which he messed up he would have been out early all he had to do was be on his best behavior for three months three months and then it would have been behind him parole hearing was in February of 1952 and it was pretty much guaranteed that at that parole hearing he would be released into the custody of a Santa Glenna if only he could behave but not Charlie Manson in January of 1952 he was caught trying to sexually assault a fellow inmate while holding a razor to his throat there definitely wasn't gonna be any early-release anymore and they didn't want him at Natural Bridge either he was transferred again this time to a federal reformatory in Petersburg Virginia he was 17 at this point still small he only stood about 5'4 which is my height so you know very small for a man I'm not trying to be insulting to any of the men out there who are 5'4 and I mean you're small I mean it's short it's it's below average for a man's height but he had developed a sense of his self and he had spent enough time in these kinds of places where he knew how to protect himself now and at this time he would have been considered more of a predator than prey Hispanic country in Petersburg Virginia was considered high security and he was such a threat to the other inmates that they had to transfer him again to a maximum-security reformatory in Ohio in order to keep the other inmates safe from him and there had been ideas thrown around about releasing him early there's always the issue with overcrowding there's always the issue of having to make room for the next round of criminals but his evaluations that were done on a regular basis always pointed to this being a bad idea one of the comments these evaluations said that he shouldn't be trusted to even cross the road but then something happened in late 1952 he stopped committing any serious infractions and he became a model inmate he started focusing on academics and his skills were raised from a fourth grade level to a seventh grade level his math skills improved and he showed a lot of promise in the mechanics division at the reformatory where basically they'd have inmates who worked on the prison vehicles to teach them how to fix them and maintain them and he was very good at this he wasn't supposed to get out until he was 21 when they had to release him but because he was keeping his nose clean and showing that he was trying they let him out when he was 19 into the custody of his aunt and uncle so it's pretty clear that Charlie Manson could behave any way he wanted if it got him the result that he wanted which in this case was to get the hell out of that reform school which he did but he was never reformed he was never planning and actually learning any skills that could get him a real job out in the real world he just wanted out he had spent 7 years in and out of different in various reform schools the reform schools were supposed to take troubled boys who were not behaving correctly and turned them into boys who had skills for a trade who wanted to be functioning members of society but some would argue Charlie Manson came out of his time in reform schools worse off than he went in being amongst the lowest of the low criminals and training and boys that had done far worse than Charlie he learned that there were the hunted and the hunters the weak and the strong the ones who called the shots and the ones who obeyed reformatory school didn't reform him it hardened him and it taught him the ins and outs of the dark side he returned to mcmechen but where would he stay he didn't really want to live with his aunt and uncle since they were always judging him his mother had moved to nearby Whelan but she was living with her husband Lewis who was an alcoholic that wasn't too keen on Charlie he spent most of his time with his grandmother Nancy who had moved to mcmechen to be closer to Glenna and Joanne and who now was taking Charlie under her wing to try straighten him out just like she'd done for all her previous kids she still believed that he could be saved why not right her own son had lived a life of sin and crime and at the end of it had reformed and become a great person so why not Charlie he got a job at Wheeling Downs which was a local racetrack and he did menial jobs you know cleaning out the stalls and running the horses around the track but he seemed to like it because he did like animals and he enjoyed hanging out with the horses what he didn't like was being around humans though especially those who told him what to do such as an employer and Charlie really didn't fit in with any of the young people in town he was 19 all the other kids in town were straight-laced from birth mekin was a very secluded isolated town it was pretty much cut off from the rest of the world they did things their own way and these kids have been poured into these molds from the day they were born that the boys would turn into a strapping manly man who hunted and who took girls out to movies and who became great husbands who worked really hard and drank just as hard and the girls would turn into a skirted housewives who always made sure that dinner was hot on the table whatever her husband decided to stumble home from the bar nineteen year olds and mcmechen they went to the movies they went to the soda shops and got ice cream they hung out and laughed and talked about silly things like school and crushes Charlie had spent the last seven years of his life in one institution or the other trying to basically survive and always worried about being attacked always worried about how he would have to manipulate people in order to get what he wanted needless to say he didn't fit in with them at all and he didn't know how to in the institutions when you wanted to impress somebody you told them all the bad things you've done because that impressed the people that were imprisoned with you basically like oh wow your crime is worse than mine I should watch out for you you're a badass but in mcmechen in the beginning he hung out with mostly Sunday school kids because his grandmother forced him to go to church and forced him to go to Sunday school and the Sunday school kids the Nazarenes they were not impressed by his crazy escapades his armed robbery his alleged drug use they didn't even know what drugs were I mean they were teenagers so they they drank a little bit they smoked a couple cigarettes here or there but when Charlie talked about shooting up they were like what is that we don't want anything to do with it you're weird but Charlie did go to church with his grandmother every Sunday and she was really impressed with him just like our buddy Jim Jones Charlie had a knack and a talent for remembering a full passages of Scripture especially the Book of Revelations it's always the Book of Revelations and when he was in church with his grand mother on Sunday he would sit there and you know pretend to pay attention and behave for her sake because I really believe that Nancy was probably the only person that Charlie Manson ever cared about besides himself but when he was in Sunday school and his grandmother wasn't around and he was faced with trying to impress kids his own age he acted out you know I'm too cool for Sunday School he carved his name and the pews and slouched low in his seat and kind of make laughing noises while the sermons were being read just so he could show everybody that he was above it you know he was superior he was too good for this so essentially the kids at his church they didn't want anything to do with him they isolated him and then they also began to go back to school and tell the other kids the kids who didn't go to church how weird and crazy charlie was how much trouble he was how people didn't like him and that spread through the small town very quickly until he was essentially a pariah kids wouldn't talk to him on the streets they would act as if he didn't exist as if he wasn't there he was worse than somebody who was disliked or hated he was ignored on Halloween the youth group had a costume party at one of the girls houses Charlie was actually really excited about it he had never gone to a Halloween party and definitely never to a costume party they don't have costume parties in reform school he put together his costume himself he was a carnival barker and he had a big wide brimmed hat and suspenders but when he got to the party he was completely ignored nobody would talk to him except for the girl who was hosting the party because she felt obligated to he tried to act like it didn't bother him he wasn't concerned but how could it have not bothered him with no one in town who would talk to him he got a little lonely obviously and he decided to visit his cousin Joanne who had moved across the river to Ohio when she married a minister it feels like everyone's always going across the river to Ohio doesn't it she was surprised when Charlie showed up at her door considering it wasn't a short distance from McMackin to her house and considering that the two had never really gotten along or been close but she was raised right she was a good girl she invited him in inside her husband the minister was talking to a young girl who was having some problems with her parents and when Charlie was introduced to this young underage girl he had stars in his eyes he was you know kind of interested in her I mean everybody from his hometown knew about his past knew he was not to be talked to and he wasn't somebody that was accepted but here nobody knew his past nobody knew his story and when he flirted with this young girl she flirted back and that was something that he wasn't used to but he shamelessly flirted with this young girl telling her she was pretty and she was special and this really really sketched out his cousin Joanne who was uncomfortable by the whole situation and she told Charlie hey you better be getting home to make Mack in it's getting dark and she waited to make sure Charlie was gone before she allowed the girl to leave her house and go home Charlie Manson wanted a girlfriend I'm not sure why considering he was selfish and narcissistic and really didn't care about anyone but himself but he wanted a girlfriend so he had to find himself one that's when he met Clarence Willis at Wheeling Downs and Clarence was called cowboy he liked to go to the horse track and Gamble he liked to wear a big cowboy hat he was loud and friendly and he took a liking to Charlie Willis was also kind of an outcast in town because he had divorced his wife and left her and his young daughters at home before moving out and getting an apartment of his own and that was pretty much unheard of at that time you didn't just divorce your wife but he still had a good relationship with his ex-wife he had a good relationship with his children and he decided to introduce Charlie to his daughters isn't that a weird statement you want to introduce Charlie Manson to your family and this isn't the first time this happens this happens quite a bit in Charlie's life where these men are like hey let me introduce you to my daughter I'm not sure why I am I'm really having a hard time understanding why but it happens so he introduces him to his daughters the oldest Eileen was already married rosalie the youngest who was still in high school she was obviously and not married and she was very pretty very well liked and very popular in school so everybody was incredibly surprised when she began dating the boy that no one else liked Rosalie somebody who is universally liked who's pretty and popular and outgoing and probably could have had her choice she chose the the social outcasts of the town in my opinion when you ask yourself how did this happen I think that Rosalie was just a girl who liked a bad boy she was drawn by the dangerous element in him he had a magnetic personality and he had a way of attracting people to him and she was probably looking for a little bit more excitement in her life then mcmechen was giving her but that's just my opinion whatever it is that attracted Rosalie to Charlie Manson they were engaged after just a few short months of dating in January 13th 1955 they applied for a marriage license in Moundsville and rosalee's age was listed as 17 wedding happened four days later at the mcmechen Nazarene Church a small reception was held in Nancy's home afterwards where I'm sure everyone was standing around scratching their heads as the cake was caught Kathleen wasn't present she had left Luis and had made her way west to California Rosalie and Charlie rented a place and he tried to act normal for a while blending in with the other townspeople by keeping his head down working hard sitting out on his in-laws front porch at night chatting with neighbors as they walked by because it seemed as if he was trying people began to warm a little bit towards Charlie Manson he picked up playing the guitar around this time some of his favorite music to strum along to being the country singer Frankie laine Frank Sinatra and Perry Cuomo he spent a lot of time trying to master the guitar and he thought he was pretty good at it and Charles Manson does have a nice voice but his guitar abilities could be described as a fair at best he pretty much just knows three or four chords it appears to me and finds a way to kind of arrange them to make the song work but he's never been considered a fantastic guitar player and if you hear that he was a tastic musician and he was actually really good and stuff like that that's false I think he had a really pretty singing voice but his musical abilities with instruments were not so great after a few months of small town living Charlie's wife became pregnant pregnancy can put a strain on any relationship with the added responsibility and the new financial burden the couple were already struggling to make ends meet as it was he had to figure out a quick way to make more money so he began stealing cars in Ohio and driving them to other states to sell during Rosalie's pregnancy charlie also wanted to drive to california and visit his mother even though they didn't have the best track record I think something in him still wanted her acceptance and maybe he wanted to show off the fact that he had you know gone down the right path he had a wife they were pregnant and going to have a baby so maybe that is why he decided to go to California and see his mother he and his pregnant wife drove to Los Angeles in a stolen of mercury and he really liked the big city feel of LA once he got there and things were going pretty well for a couple of days he was preparing to become a father he was trying to rebuild the relationship with his mother and he was having fun in the city but he for some reason continued to drive around this stolen vehicle maybe thinking because Ohio was so far away from California he wouldn't get caught but one day an LAPD officer had the presence of mind to run the plates discovered that it was stolen and promptly arrested Charlie Charlie was put before a judge and everybody kind of wondered was he okay mentally in his head because he was you know under arrest for this charge of a stealing this car in Ohio and driving it to California so once again driving a stolen car over state lines is a felony but then he admitted that he'd done it before so everybody was kind of wondering is he okay in his head why would he admit to committing other felonies when we've already got him for this one why are you making it worse so they ordered him a psychiatric evaluation he told the psychiatrist dr. Edwin McNeil that the reason he'd been sent to reformatory school in the first place was because he was mean to his mother after being released he said he had a lot of trouble adjusting to civilian life but he loved his wife very very much even though sometimes he got frustrated and he beat her he loved her very much he knew he had flaws he knew he had a temper that he couldn't control but he was going to be a father and he really wanted to be there for his child he couldn't do that if he was in prison dr. McNeil's recommendation was that Charlie Manson was a poor candidate for parole however the incentive of being a father and a husband might just straighten him out instead of recommending that Charlie go to prison he recommended he be sentenced to five years of probation he would have to go to court in February of 1956 to face charges for the other car that he'd driven from Ohio to Florida and had strangely for some reason confessed to but it was pretty much understood that he wasn't gonna get trouble for that but it would just add to his parole Charlie who was always worried that everybody would come after him even though people just seemed to give him chance after chance after chance he got scared he didn't want to face the charges and he took his pregnant wife and fled where they hid in Indianapolis I wonder if Rosalie was questioning her choice at this point to marry the bad boy their son Charles Manson jr. was born on March 10th 1956 but when Charlie hadn't shown up for his trial in February the Los Angeles courts had issued a bench warrant for him they tracked him down and they arrested him on March 14th four days after his son was born he was transferred back to California and his probation was revoked there would be no reform school now he was 21 years old he wasn't a juvenile offender anymore he was an adult he was sentenced to three years at San Pedro's Terminal Island penitentiary a prison for low-risk nonviolent prisoners he was given an IQ test when he was booked at Island and he scored a 121 which they considered to be on the normal to high range and Charlie was used to being imprisoned with the juvenile offenders and teenagers and even though Terminal Island was a minimum security prison there was still adults here who had committed real adult crimes they'd had done it all they'd seen it all and his childish game of pretending to be crazy to avoid being beaten on was ineffective on these seasoned criminals so instead of fighting it Charlie Manson decided to use his time there to learn from these men especially the pimps who would educate him on how to pick up the perfect girl to be controlled they told him to look for girls who had obvious weaknesses daddy issues and low self-esteem somebody who was just bent enough but not completely broken because you didn't want a crazy check on your hands you needed girls who would be appreciative of the attention who craved male acceptance because they didn't get it from their father figures they taught him the best way to completely have all control over these girls was to isolate them and separate them from their friends and family and you always had to keep them on their toes with some kind of emotional or physical abuse you had to keep him guessing about whether you are gonna be nice today or smack him across the face they had to love you but they also had to fear you they had to know you were the boss but they also had to feel like you were on their side Rosalie and Charlie jr. were living with Kathleen and the three of them would visit Charlie every week at the prison eventually Rosalie got bored with this life living with her mother-in-law caring for a small baby while her convict husband was behind bars and she moved away and she found another man to marry and served Charlie with divorce papers in prison as usual his time in this prison began with him behaving like a model prisoner so that he could hopefully get released early once he had found out he'd been left by his wife a woman he thought he had had full control over who would do whatever he wanted he kind of broke a little bit he lost it his parole hearing was on April 22nd 1957 and it was pretty much guarantee that he was going to be granted an early release but he attempted to escape by stealing one of the prison's cars on April 10th just 12 days before his parole hearing so after that happened early release was pretty much off the table but he was given another opportunity in a prison system that had recently shifted its focus from discipline to rehabilitation the authorities thought his IQ was high enough he seemed too smart enough even though he really didn't have the academic skills he could still learn something that would allow him to function if not flourish in the world after release there were GED classes trade school classes there was even employment classes but Charlie wasn't interested in any of these things what he was interested in was the Carnegie Institute classes which were offered at Terminal Island the Carnegie classes were the most popular offerings at Terminal Island and many other prisons and there was a waiting list of people who wanted to get into it now if you've ever worked at any sales job Dale Carnegie's bestseller it was probably on your mandatory reading list I know I've read it twice his book how to win friends and influence people is broken up into four parts part one fundamental techniques and handling people part two six ways to make people like you part three how to win people in your way of thinking and part four be a leader how to change people without giving offence or arousing resentment I think it's pretty clear to see why Charles Manson a man who would go on to a brainwash people and make them do his dirty work was so gung-ho I'm taking Dale Carnegie's class and even though there was a long wait list Charles Manson was for some reason moved to the front of it and gained immediate access to the class the prison officials thought that Carnegie's words and tactics would have a positive influence on Charlie I'd like to say for the record that I think they were wrong and he actually flourished in this class because he was interested in the material make the other person feel important avoid arguments make the other person feel like what they want is important to you use showmanship if necessary if you want attention and Charlie would use this tactic often in life he would decide what he wanted to happen and then he would talk to a person in a way where they would come to that decision as if it had been their own idea when in fact it was not it was Charlie's idea from the beginning the program was supposed to last for four months but once Charlie basically got the gist of it got what he wanted out of it he dropped out he felt like he'd already become a master manipulator and it surprised his teachers because he'd been thriving and doing so well he was their star pupil they didn't realize he had a bigger fish to fry than completing a course in prison so armed with his new knowledge of how to be a really successful pimp how to prey on people's weaknesses and manipulate them into doing what you want them to do given to him by the American prison system thank you very much Charles Manson was released on to the general public he had been a good prisoner and once again there was prison overcrowding he had to get him out because more people were coming in so he walked free it was September of 1958 and he had a new lease on life sure he had to check in with his parole officer every so often but he was free and he didn't have the burden of a wife or a child any longer not that he really had that for very long anyways but now he was really free he'd do what he wanted he was young he was in Los Angeles and now he had some knowledge which would help him be successful in life he recruited two girls of beauty and flow to be prostitutes for him this was a pretty bad first attempt at being a pimp because Judy's father then liked what was happening and he basically blew Charlie into the police so Charlie learned from man on not to work with any women who had connections to their parents and if they did have connections to their parents he had to learn how to sever those connections first he'd been living with his mother when he got out of prison but she caught on pretty quickly to what he was doing and she didn't like it he didn't have very much success as a pimp at this time he wasn't making as much money as he wanted to he had it had this glamorized view of what a pimps life would be like just tons of money and fur coats and sunglasses with the diamonds encrusted in them and it definitely wasn't like that so he had to figure out a way to make some more money and as usual instead of getting a legitimate job he turned to crime seven months after he was paroled he was arrested again this time for check forgery he was trying to cash a check for $37.50 that he'd stolen from our mailbox he was turned over to the Secret Service and while he was being questioned by two agents they pulled out the check and they asked him is this your signature on this track for some reason these two agents left with the check on the table and at one point turned their heads or weren't paying attention and then the check disappeared and the two Secret Service agents claimed up and down that while they weren't looking Charles Manson took the check off the table and eat it but it was stupid he had to eat a check for absolutely no reason because there was already half a dozen people who had seen the check had seen his forged signature on it and were willing to testify that they'd seen it in court on July 19th 1959 Charley's grandmother Nancy died in West Virginia Kathleen struggled with her guilt of all she had put her mother through as well as feeling somewhat responsible for the life of crime that her son seemed to have chosen with her mother gone Kathleen could only continue what her mother had taught her to do which was believed that her child could redeem himself and turn out all right because that's what Nancy had always done with her children no matter how bad they were no matter what trouble they got into she stood by them and never turned her back in the fall of 1959 a 19 year old girl approached Manson's parole officer and a begged for Manson to be released she said she was pregnant with his child and she pleaded with the parole officer to not take away her baby's father now this was all a lie this girl was actually a prostitute who worked for Charley and they had orchestrated this plan where she would come and say she was pregnant and make this big sob story to garner sympathy for Charlie's plight but it worked and he was offered a deal even though dr. Edwin McNeil his old psychiatry came in and gave his recommendation that Charlie should not be released on parole McNeil was of the opinion that Charlie should go back to prison that was the only place that society would be safe from him but I guess the word of an expert psychiatrist who had spent some time with the person at hand was not as compelling as a crying teenager in court who claimed she was pregnant in December Charlie once again free and on the streets drove a couple of his girls to New Mexico from California to see if they would be more successful as prostitutes there and surprise surprise they were caught and arrested now he wasn't just guilty of driving stolen cars over state lines he was guilty of bringing humans across the state lines for the purpose of sex he actually married the girl who lied about being pregnant with his child because he thought marrying this girl would lessen the charges if they were married she couldn't be compelled to testify against him and by then she actually was pregnant with his child while Charlie was waiting for his trial he got picked up by LAPD several more times for grand theft auto and credit card fraud these charges would eventually be dropped for lack of evidence but he would probably most definitely be doing some jail time providing the Mann Act the Mann Act is that law that makes it illegal to transport any woman or girl across state lines for immoral purposes which I feel like is really broad you could say a lot of people violated the Mann Act what would immoral acts be defined us in 1917 the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of two married men who had gone on a romantic weekend getaway with their girlfriends not their wives and they'd crossed state lines and they got in trouble for violating the Mann Act so who it's kind of dangerous kind of scary so because Charlie knew he was probably going to go back to prison he fled again and he left behind the girl he married and got pregnant and she promptly turned on him once she realized he'd left with her testimony and confession the grand jury indicted him a warrant was issued for his arrest and Charlie Manson has never been really good at eluding the law he was picked up on June 1st in Texas and sent right back to Los Angeles he was then sentenced to ten years at McNeil Island in the South Puget Sound located southwest of Tacoma Washington an island that's only accessible by air or sea he was 26 when he arrived at McNeil Island in the summer of 1961 and he had spent most of his life in captivity of some kind escaped from McNeil Island was virtually impossible and anybody who tried had either been recaptured or drowned getting to and from the island was so tough that most of the prison's staff lived on McNeil Island with their families their children now before being sentenced to McNeil Charlie had fought this imprisonment he'd appealed it he had tried so hard to not get sent back well once he arrived he admitted to the McNeil staff that he was actually happy to be there institutions had become his natural habitat it was where he felt more comfortable there was a forum of security and education there that was never going to be available for him on the outside just as he had done during his previous incarceration Charlie made it his mission to learn from as many criminals about as many things as he could while he was there it's time it was Scientology that caught his attention his cellmate a man who called himself a Lafayette or Emir but whose real name was actually lay near Rimmer he taught fellow inmates about the religion in Scientology they call it auditing where a practicing member of the church helps a new member of the church to confront past traumatic events and move on from them Charles Manson underwent 150 hours of auditing which is quite a bit the beliefs and lessons of Allah ron Hubbard the founder of the Church of Scientology could be seen later in the lessons of Manson would teach to his family his interest in Scientology also gave him the extra advantage of appearing to the prison administration as a man who had found spirituality a report on him in September of 1961 said it appeared Manson had developed insight into his problems through the study of Scientology and that he was making progress for the first time in his life who is running these prisons like do they not have anybody on staff who is aware and a trained to deal with prisoners who manipulate them into thinking they've changed or they found God so that they can get out or get some special circumstances like who's running these prisons in August of 1963 the divorce papers have found their way to Charlie Manson in prison again Leona his working girl wife had given birth to his second son in 1961 charles luther manson that's really all that's known about Charlie Manson's second son because charles luther manson that seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth once his mother laughed but it does make you wonder and i wondered this many times while researching this case how many children do you think Manson had out there and how many of those children went on to have children of their own how many descendants of Charles Manson are walking around amongst us and we don't even know it and maybe they don't even know it maybe I could be one maybe you could be one even though both of his wives had left him he still had the one lady in his life who would always be there his mother she had moved to Washington State specifically for the purpose to visit him more often so he didn't feel alone or abandoned she was working as a waitress trying to make her marriage with alcoholic Louis work still for some reason and still living with the heavy guilt that somehow Charlie Manson was in prison because she hadn't been a good enough mother and when she did visit her son in prison he didn't ask her how are you doing her how's marriage how's your job he asked her for money he always wanted something usually money she gave him everything she could but she was the only income in her household and money was always tight once he told her he wanted money for a new guitar and she explained to him that she just didn't have that kind of money laying over right now the next time she came to visit him she came with a surprise a little baby girl cradled in her arms that she had adapted and named Nancy after her mother she proudly introduced Charlie to his new sister and said she felt like she was at a place in her life right now where she could definitely be a good mother and she was excited for Charlie to me to this new addition but Charlie was not excited charlie was pissed he asked her how much did the adoption cost when he found out that it costs $2,000 he was furious he said you don't have money to give me for a guitar but you have $2,000 laying around to adopt a baby like it's the same thing or something like you have to pick between a baby or a guitar and you pick the guitar cuz it's cheaper he told her to leave that he never wanted to see her again and he definitely didn't want to see that baby again now of course later when he ran low on money he relented and he allowed her to come visit him but Kathleen never brought little Nancy in again she didn't want to anger at Charlie she didn't want to set him off so whenever she came to the prison she left a little Nancy in the car Kathleen continued to try to do everything she could for him but to hear Manson talk about her later in life you would think she was the absolute worst most neglectful parent that ever lived and she wasn't a perfect parent but my god who is I'm not I have faults I have days where I look back and wish I had done things in the day differently and trying to improve the next day but none of us are perfect she wasn't perfect but she wasn't the monster that her son made her out to be later in life she even offered to put her how's this she worked hard to buy up for security you know if he ran or if he didn't do what he was supposed to the court could take her house Alvin creepy Karpis had been imprisoned at Alcatraz since 1936 for leading the Barker gang with Fred and Arthur Barker he was one of only four people to ever be named public enemy number one by the FBI and the only one ever to be taken into custody alive the other three Baby Face Nelson John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd they were all killed before being captured once he was a man who is considered so dangerous he was a public enemy number one now in his 60s he was considered a threat in fact his job at McNiel was to drive the school bus that transported the prison workers kids back and forth from school every day can you imagine you just like send your kid on a bus with Elven creepy car bus I can't he was also an excellent - steel guitar player which obviously it drew Manson to him because a Manson loved music and he wanted Karpis to teach him purpose was in prison he was an old guy he had nothing better to do so yeah he spent some time with Manson and taught him a few chords and then there was the book that Manson was influenced by very heavily stranger in a strange land now he didn't read books himself obviously he was pretty much a literate but the prisoners who were big on reading books they would talk to the other prisoners about what they read it kind of like the book club that Jodi arias wanted to set up in her prison and a lot of prisoners read it and they talked about it and Manson did what he was best at doing he listened and he learned the main character in the novel is Valentine Michael Smith who comes to earth as an adult after being raised on Mars by Martians it's sat in a post-world War three United States where organized religions are politically powerful and influential Smith's character is defined by his psychic abilities his superhuman intelligence and childlike naivete and he starts his own religion the Church of all worlds here he basically teaches its members psychic abilities and everyone has a bunch of orgies Smith explains to those who will pose him that those who cannot or will not learn his methods will eventually die out leaving a race of superior humans inhabiting the earth he is eventually assassinated and it's hinted at in the book that he was the reincarnation of the Archangel Michael I know what book I'm gonna be reading on vacation it sounds super good and I'm sure most of you are familiar with the way Manson developed and ran his group later to see the parallels in the work of fiction stranger in a strange land and the leader the Manson one day see himself as it's very eerie but as always his love of music was his main inspiration and drive in prison he discovered and fell in love with the Beatles like everybody else all over the world was doing he loved their music but mostly he loved the godlike status they had achieved how women in every country in every world would pass out and faint too when they stepped off a plane he started telling people that he was gonna be bigger than the Beatles and channeled all his time and energy into writing his own songs and perfecting them and the prison staff was also encouraged by Manson's obsession with music they saw it as a positive thing they noted in his may 1966 report that he had been spending his free time writing songs almost 90 of them in the past year which he hoped to sell following his release he is hoping that he can gain employment as a guitar player a drummer or a singer yeah aren't we all aren't we all Charlie in May of 1966 after two solid years of no disruptions and no bad behavior he was considered a candidate for early release and he was transferred back to Terminal Island but he was also an unapologetic racist and he refused to look at or talk to anyone who had a darker skin color than he did he believed blacks were genetically inferior and less intelligent which was rich coming from a guy who could barely read and write in his 30s he did grudgingly seemed to respect their strength their physical strength and the way they seemed to band together especially the black Muslims who even the prison guards seemed to be afraid of and didn't want to cross their path his final prison report in August of 1966 stated that he had not taken advantage of any vocational classes and he no longer claimed to be a Scientologist instead he worshiped his guitar and music but he had no place to go after being released and little change could honestly be expected in him still the prisons were overcrowded and he was eligible for parole so what do we do he got excited as the date got closer but then he started to panic as the day got even closer he said he felt safe here he knew prison life he knew how things worked on the inside he didn't want to on the outside where he might do something bad but prisons aren't for people who want to be there and there was a new fresh wave of young offenders rolling in and he had to go he had to go he had to make room for all the new prisoners they had to bring in so they handed him a suitcase handed him a guitar open to the gates to Terminal Island and said there you go get out here you're society's problem now and they unleashed Charles Manson on the world thank you so much okay that is it for part one it's probably super long but hopefully I can added it down to a manageable video we will pick up with part two when Charlie's released from prison how he starts to gather his family to him the things that he does it gets a very very interesting I think that his childhood and early life was incredibly interesting so we went from birth to age 32 here I think we got a lot covered in that time thank you guys so much for watching I hope you liked the video let me know in the comments what you think and as always I will see you very soon stay kind and stay beautiful she's like a sickness in my brain a vision standing by the window she ripples through the blinds and leaves me in a daze it's in the way about of me

Channel: Stephanie Harlowe

Views: 532,233

Rating: 4.8930106 out of 5

Keywords: charles manson, cults, manson family, charles manson childhood, kathleen maddox, the manson family, stephanie harlowe, the cult series, true crime

Id: 4AqgrcXUtvQ

Length: 97min 48sec (5868 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/kaedekatt]

Stephanie’s videos are my favorite. She puts so much time into researching and uses multiple sources for everything. Pure genius.

[u/momoknen]

I LOVE Stephanie's videos. They're all so informative

[u/moneyquestionthrowit]

She’s my soul sister ❤️