Charles Manson, from guru to killer

In short
Charles Manson (1934-2017) was the leader of the cult known as the Manson Family. In August 1969 his followers, at his instigation, murdered seven people in Los Angeles, including actress Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant. Sentenced to death in 1971, later commuted to life imprisonment, he died in prison on 19 November 2017.

Charles Manson is surely one of the most famous criminals of the 20th century, but why?

What crimes did Manson commit, and why did he commit them? Here is the story of a charismatic man, a singer and a criminal: Charles Manson.

The guru

Charles Milles Maddox is born on 12 November 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio. When he is born, his mother is only 16 and on her own. For little Charles this means an unhappy childhood marked by squalor.

As a boy he ends up in reform school several times, and in 1955, at 20, he gets married. Unfortunately he soon ends up in prison again, and his wife leaves him for another man. By the time of the murders, Manson will have spent more than half of his life in correctional institutions and prisons.

It is after getting out of prison that he proclaims himself a guru.

He moves in with a young woman and little by little convinces her to let other women live with them. Those women will be Charles’s first followers and the first members of the so-called Manson Family.

Charles is an extremely charismatic man, and he tells his followers that they are the reincarnation of the early Christians, while the institutions are the Romans persecuting them. He, on the other hand, often compares himself to Jesus.

According to prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Manson had his own interpretation of the Beatles’ lyrics, especially those on the 1968 White Album, and used the phrase “Helter Skelter” for an impending apocalyptic race war between white and black people.

Manson and other members of the Family, however, always disputed this account.

The resentment

In prison Manson learns to play the guitar from another inmate, and when he gets out, as well as proclaiming himself a guru, he starts writing songs. Two of his followers meet Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys while hitchhiking and bring him to Charles.

Dennis is captivated by Manson’s charisma and tries to launch him in the music world. In 1968 the Beach Boys even record one of his songs, Cease to Exist, renamed Never Learn Not to Love, but without crediting him. Wilson also introduces him to record producer Terry Melcher.

Unfortunately for him, Melcher offers him no contract, and Charles Manson will forever hold a grudge against record companies and the rich.

The murders

Charles Manson did not carry out the murders himself, but he ordered them. The most famous is that of actress Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski, who was eight and a half months pregnant.

On the night of 8 to 9 August 1969 four members of the Family, Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian, leave Spahn Ranch, where the cult lives, and drive to 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles. It is the house where Sharon Tate and Polanski live. It had previously been rented by Terry Melcher himself, the producer who had turned Manson down.

The first to die is Steven Parent, an 18-year-old who had been visiting the guest house caretaker and is leaving in his car. Watson shoots him.

Kasabian stays outside as a lookout, while the other three go in armed with a revolver, knives and a long rope. In the house, with Sharon, are three friends: celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folgers coffee fortune, and her boyfriend, aspiring screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski. They tie Sharon and Sebring together by the neck with the rope, then kill everyone with gunshots and stab wounds.

The last to be killed is Sharon Tate, despite her pleas to spare her for the sake of the baby she is carrying.

Her husband Roman Polanski survives because at the time he is in Europe working on a film.

The following night the four, together with Manson, Leslie Van Houten and Steve “Clem” Grogan, strike again. Manson reportedly wanted to show the others how to do it. In the early hours of 10 August Watson, Krenwinkel and Van Houten kill supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in their home in Los Feliz.

According to some witnesses, the crimes were meant to look like the work of the same killer behind a murder for which Bobby Beausoleil, a friend of Manson’s, had been arrested, so as to clear him.

The trial

Investigators reach the Manson Family thanks in part to the testimony of some former followers. The prosecution is led by Vincent Bugliosi, and in 1971 Manson and his followers are sentenced to death.

In 1972 the California Supreme Court rules the death penalty unconstitutional, and the sentences are commuted to life imprisonment.

According to some testimony, Manson planned to kill many other celebrities, including Liz Taylor and Frank Sinatra. His hatred of artists is thought to have come from his rejection by the music world and from his troubled childhood.

How it ended

Manson always denied ordering the murders. All his parole requests were rejected, and he died in prison from complications of colon cancer on 19 November 2017, a week after turning 83.

Leslie Van Houten, after 53 years in prison and repeated vetoes by California governors, was released on parole in 2023. Patricia Krenwinkel is now the longest-serving female inmate in California: in 2025 the parole board recommended her release, but Governor Gavin Newsom rejected it.

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