Walpack NJ

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Charles Milles Manson (born November 11, 1934) is an American convict and career criminal, most known for his participation in the Tate-LaBianca murders of the late 1960s.

Manson has spent most of his adult life in prison, initially for offenses such as car theft, forgery and credit card fraud. He also worked some time as a pimp. In the late 1960s, he became the leader of a group known as "The Family", and masterminded several brutal murders, most notoriously that of movie actress Sharon Tate (wife of movie director Roman Polanski), who was eight and a half months pregnant at the time. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in what came to be known as the "Tate-La Bianca case", named after the victims, although he was not accused of committing the murders in person. He is serving a life sentence in California's Corcoran State Prison, and will be up for parole in 2007 at the age of 73. Manson has always maintained his innocence of the crimes.

Manson was also friends with several notable musicians before the murders were committed, including Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys, and was a marginally successful musician himself who recorded several albums and whose songs have since been covered by many artists.

Since his trial and conviction, Manson's name and image have been integrated into American pop culture, typically as a symbol of evil. Marilyn Manson derived his last name from Charles Manson.

Back in 1962, it seems that the Army Corps of Engineers decide to start planning a big dam near Tocks Island. The area of Walpack Centre was going to be flooded to create a lake the size of Lake Michigan.
As soon as the plans were announced, residents from both New Jersey and Pennsylvania got agitated. The residents opposed the dam project. Apperently, the Army Corps decided to play hardball (actually, bully) by doing things like threatening to abandon maintenance of local roads. This would make it impossible for emergency vehicles, school buses and suplly trucks to get to the towns. Many residents left, recieving less then market value for their homes. Some residents stayed behind, which eventually got the attention of the press.
The press coverage helped to gain the attention of environmentalists. These guys realized that there were some serious problems with the dam project. First, it would cause a build up of salmonella in area reservoirs. Second, the dam itself was to be built on unstable glacial land deposits, which would increase its chances of breaking. The environmetalists were able to gain national press coverage, with articles in the New York Times and Playboy Magazine.
The not-so-smart Army Corps of Engineers made a dumb move. They decided to fund their dam/lake project by renting out the homes they had taken (forcefully) from the original residents. They actually ran the add for "houses for rent" in the local paper, The Village Voice. Almost immedeately, the place was taken over by hippies, bikers and wanderers. Most didn't even pay rent, they simply took over.

From then on his continuous scrapes with the law landed him in prison. His record there described Charlie as having "a tremendous drive to call attention to himself.

On March 21, 1967, Charlie was released from prison in California. He was 32 years old and more than half of his life had been spent in institutions. He protested his freedom. "Oh, no, I can't go outside there...I knew that I couldn't adjust to that world."

Charlie started to attract a group of followers, many of whom were very young women with troubled emotional lives who were rebelling against their parents and society in general.

This was the core of the Manson Family execution team who he ordered to kill pregnant actress Sharon Tate, her wealthy house guests, and the well-to-do LaBiancas.

Charlie was trying to start a race war and vet himself as a prophet of doom. Manson was born Charles Milles Maddox at Cincinnati General Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 11, 1934 to a 16-year-old girl named Kathleen Maddox (a scan of an official copy of Manson's birth certificate can be found in the External Links section below). Shortly before her son's birth, Kathleen married William Manson, who provided the last name by which he is now known. William Manson was Charles' stepfather, by all accounts Manson never knew his biological father.

In 1939, his mother and his uncle, Luther Maddox, were convicted of sexual assault and holdup of a gas station. Luther served five years in Moundsville prison, dying there in 1949.

Manson attended Walnut Hills High School as a child. When he was thirteen, his mother (who had become an alcoholic) attempted to put him in a foster home. When she was unable to find one for him, he ended up at Gibault School for Boys, a reform school in Terre Haute, Indiana. Within a year he ran away and back to his mother, who rejected him. He began living on the streets, supporting himself by petty theft; in 1951, after a string of arrests and escapes, Manson fled to California, where he was apprehended and placed in the National Training School for Boys in Washington, D.C., a Federal juvenile facility, for driving a stolen car across state lines. At least one psychiatrist there observed marked anti-social tendencies, and in that same year, Manson raped another boy. By 1952, Manson already had eight assault charges against him. After being transferred to the Federal Reformatory in Petersburg, Virginia, and later to Chillicothe, Ohio, Manson became a model inmate, resulting in his parole in 1954 at the age of 20. Following his release, however, he continued along a criminal path. His crimes quickly escalated to major offenses, including Mann Act violations. [Prior to the Tate-LaBianca murders, Manson had already spent more than half his life (approximately 17 years) in Federal prison — at one point in 1967 asking not to be released.] In January 1955, Manson married 17-year-old Rosalie Jean Willis, and decided to move to California. Soon after the wedding, Manson stole a car and was arrested. Willis became pregnant in April. Manson's parole was revoked in 1956 when he missed a court date. Soon after his arrest, Willis gave birth to their son, Charles Milles Manson, Jr. She then left town with a truck driver and Charles Jr., who committed suicide in 1993.

Manson's prison and probation reports showed a consistent theme:

(1950-52) "Tries to give the impression of trying hard although actually not putting forth any effort ...marked degree of rejection, instability and psychic trauma ... constantly striving for status ... a fairly slick institutionalized youth who has not given up in terms of securing some kind of love and affection from the world ... dangerous ... should not be trusted across the street ... assaultive tendencies ... safe only under supervision ... unpredictable ... in spite of his age he is criminally sophisticated and grossly unsuited for retention in an open reformatory type institution"; (1958-59) "Almost without exception [he] will let down anyone who went to bat for him ... an almost classic case of correctional institutional inmate ... a very difficult case and it is almost impossible to predict his future adjustment ... a very shaky probationer and it seems just a matter of time before he gets into further trouble".
Manson was paroled in 1958 after serving two years of a three-year sentence. In 1959, he was arrested again for passing stolen checks. Once again, he was given probation, which was revoked nine months later.

On June 1, 1960, Manson was arrested for solicitation of prostitution. He was ordered to serve his 10-year suspended sentence for passing stolen checks at the federal prison on McNeil Island in Washington state. While at McNeil, Manson was a cellmate of notorious 1930s bank robber Alvin Karpis who taught Manson to read music and to play the guitar. It is interesting what Karpis wrote about Manson in his memoirs "On the Rock: Twenty-five Years at Alcatraz" (written with Robert Livesey, published in 1980):

"This kid approaches me to request music lessons. He wants to learn guitar and become a music star. 'Little Charlie' is so lazy and shiftless, I doubt if he'll put the time required to learn. The youngster has been in institutions all of his life--first orphanages, then reformatories, and finally federal prison. His mother, a prostitute, was never around to look after him. I decide it's time someone did something for him, and to my surprise, he learns quickly. He has a pleasant voice and a pleasing personality, although he's unusually meek and mild for a convict. He never has a harsh word to say and is never involved in even an argument."
After Manson had become somewhat proficient on the guitar, he asked Karpis for help in getting a job playing in Las Vegas as Karpis had contacts with nightclub and casino owners there. Manson even told him he would be bigger than the Beatles, but in the end Karpis decided to leave Manson on his own regarding his music career. Manson was moved to a Los Angeles facility in 1967, a step which proved to be one of the most ominous prison transfers ever. Later Karpis added "The history of crime in the United States might have been considerably altered if 'Little Charlie' had been given the opportunity to find fame and fortune in the music industry."

Manson was finally released March 21, 1967, against his own expressed wish to remain in prison. While either in prison or on probation, he had, among other things, raped another inmate at razor point, stolen cars, pimped inmates, and forged federal checks. His prison reports continued with the same message:

(1961-62) "He hides his resentment and hostility behind a mask of superficial ingratiation ... even his cries for help represent a desire for attention with only superficial meaning"; (1964) "Pattern of instability continues ... intense need to call attention to himself ... fanatical interests"; then finally, (1966) "Manson is about to complete his ten-year term. He has a pattern of criminal behavior and confinement that dates to his teen years ... little can be expected in the way of change."

(Squatters) The overflow of squatters spilled into Pensylvania, taking over the abandoned houses there as well. The local residents were extremely pissed that these poeple had taken over the homes of friends and family, while collecting welfare checks from the local community.
The tension between the locals and squatters was at a head. The Army Corps of Engineers was actually the first to move on this. In 1974 (yes, 12 years after they announced they were planning this project), an army of state troopers and US Marshals arrived at the area. Armed with ev everything from shotguns to tear gas, they forced the squatters out.When the last had been cleared out, the bulldozers came in. Many homes were demolished, some that were historically important. As you might have guessed, this was another dumb move. Just about everyone spoke up against that. The State of New Jersey withdrew its support for the project and the State of Delaware condemned the project because it would effect the quality of their water supply.
In 1978, Congress finally killed the project. The result is abandoned towns all around the valleys of the Delaware Water Gap.

The Killings
The Manson Family was responsible for several murders, known collectively as the Tate-LaBianca murders.

The Tate murders
On the night of August 9, 1969, Manson directed some members of the Family, including Charles "Tex" Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, and Linda Kasabian to go to the former residence of an acquaintance, record producer Terry Melcher, and kill whoever was on the premises. It was stated at trial that others, including Catherine Gillies (aka "Gypsy"), wanted to go as well, but didn't because there "was no room in the car." There is no proof that they were under influence of drugs or that any of them challenged Manson’s wishes. They left their Spahn Ranch compound and arrived at midnight at the grounds of the Beverly Hills home of the film director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate. Polanski, highly acclaimed for his recent hit Rosemary's Baby, was in London working on his next film and had asked friends to stay with Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant. Before entering the house, the Manson family members shot dead Steven Parent, an 18-year-old friend of Tate's gardener, who was leaving the property and had unwittingly seen the intruders while getting in his car. Kasabian, who was acting as the getaway driver, expressed horror at the murder of Parent and was told to remain outside and keep watch while the others entered the house. The quotation, "I am the devil, and I have come to do the devil's work" has been attributed to Watson when Wojciech Frykowski awoke from his slumber on the living room couch. They assembled the four occupants of the house into the living room. The intruders asked if anyone had money, and, in replying that she did, Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folgers Coffee Company, was led to her bedroom to empty her purse. She was led back to the living room where the the four occupants of the house were tied together. Jay Sebring, a noted hairstylist and friend of the Polanskis was visiting, and when he attempted to defend Tate, he was shot by Watson, who then kicked him several times in the face. Wojciech Frykowski and Abigail Folger, who were staying in the house until Polanski's return from London, were able to escape from the living room and were each pursued as they ran onto the front lawn. Quickly overtaken by the attackers, Frykowski was stabbed fifty-one times, shot twice, and pistol-whipped 13 times in the head; Folger was stabbed twenty-eight times. Tate remained in the living room and begged for the life of her unborn baby. Susan Atkins later testified that she had replied, "Look bitch, I don't care about you. I don't care if you are having a baby. You are going to die and I don't feel a thing about it", before stabbing her to death. Before leaving the house Atkins used a towel to soak up some of Sharon Tate's blood and then used it to write "PIG" on the front door. This was allegedly inspired by the Beatles song Piggies.

Linda Kasabian later received immunity for submitting evidence against the group. She told Manson, "I'm not like you, I can't kill," and evinced shock and horror at finally seeing the pictures of the killings in court.

The LaBianca murders
Main article: Leno LaBianca
The following night in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, California, wealthy supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary were killed in their home, once again by members of the Family (Watson, Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten). On this occasion, Manson apparently went along to "show them how to do it" with less tumult, and pacified the victims, tying them up before returning to the car to tell his followers to commit the killings. Watson apparently killed Mr. LaBianca, and Krenwinkel and Van Houten took turns stabbing Mrs. LaBianca when she began to struggle. Between them, the two girls stabbed Mrs. LaBianca 41 times, including more than 20 stab wounds made after the woman was dead. Krenwinkel then added to the butchery, using a carving fork to cut the word "WAR" into Mr. LaBianca's stomach. She then left the fork embedded in his stomach, soaking up some blood on a piece of paper and writing the phrases "RISE" and "DEATH TO PIGS" on the walls, as well as the misspelled "HEALTER SKELTER" on the refrigerator.

There was a strong link between the "Tate" and "La-Bianca" murders: motive; the instigator (Manson); the two main assassins (Watson and Krenwinkel); and witnesses common to both cases. The witnesses included police, medical and scientific witnesses, and civilian witnesses. All of the crimes committed on both nights were prosecuted by Los Angeles assistant district attorney Vincent Bugliosi in a single combined trial.

Other murders
Members of the Manson Family had previously been responsible for the death of Gary Hinman, a high school music teacher in nearby Topanga Canyon. Manson ordered the killing of Hinman after he denied the Manson Family money that Charles claimed Hinman owed them. Bobby Beausoleil was arrested for Hinman's murder a few days before the Tate slaying; later Susan Atkins confessed her part in the plot.

On August 16, 1969, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies descended upon Spahn Ranch and arrested Manson and most of the Family members on suspicion of auto theft (the Family were not, as yet, suspected of the Tate or LaBianca killings). Ranch hand Donald "Shorty" Shea offered to tell the deputies what he knew about the Family's activities, but disappeared before he could give them a statement. It is believed that on August 25 or 26, after the Family members were released due to lack of evidence, Manson directed Family members, including Steve "Clem Tufts" Grogan, to kill Shea. One of the enduring Family myths, presumably used to frighten members into submission, was that Shea was dismembered and his body parts buried in different places around the ranch. In 1977, the incarcerated and extremely remorseful Grogan directed law enforcement officials to Shea's body, and it was found in one piece, contrary to the horror story passed down through the Family. Grogan, who was paroled in 1985, is still the only former Family member to have been paroled after being convicted of a Manson-ordered murder.

They claimed a total of some 35 killings, but most were not tried either for lack of evidence or because the perpetrators were already sentenced to life for the Tate/La Bianca killings.

Capture
Barker Ranch, in California's Mojave Desert, is known as the last hideout of Manson and "the Family" after the gruesome Los Angeles murder spree. The local county sheriff's department and National Park Service officers had arrested Manson and his group in 1969 on suspicion of trespassing and vandalism. Some of the members of the cult were seen burning a mass of road-grading material and arson investigators suspected the crime to have come from Manson. At the time of the Manson arrests, the officers were unaware of other criminal actions by those they had in custody. They wanted to apprehend and prosecute the persons responsible for vandalizing road repair equipment in Death Valley National Park farther north, not knowing that they had Manson and his followers. Manson was ultimately discovered hiding beneath a sink in the Barker Ranch bathroom.