Camp Gagnon - The CIA Asset Turned Cult Killer: Charles Manson Explained

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

🚨Make Sure to Rate Us 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟Was Charles Manson a CIA asset or a crazy hippie? Today, we explore Manson's troubled childhood (literally traded for beer), his strange connections to Hollywood and the music scene, and the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders that shocked the nation. WELCOME TO CAMP! 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsor: Morgan & Morgan, Bluechew and Magic SpoonMagicSpoon: https://magicspoon.com/camp👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: https://campgoods.co/🏕️ Get The Daily Today In History Email Here (Free): https://camp.beehiiv.com/TIMESTAMP: 0:00 Intro3:50 Charles Manson’s Childhood + Traded For A Pint of Beer16:24 Manson Joins They Hippie Movement + Picked Up By The Beach Boys Drummer23:49 Manson’s Brainwashing Tactics31:40 The Sharon Tate and Labianca Murders43:19 Tom O’niel and Manson’s Connection To MK Ultra + Jolly West52:51 Parole Officer Let Manson Off The Hook + Operation Chaos56:06 The Trial of Charles Manson1:05:15 Comedy Dates + CampGoods

If I wanted to kill somebody, I'd take this book and beat you to death with it, and I wouldn't feel a thing. Charles Manson, one of the most evil, terrifying, despicable human beings ever walk the face of this big blue planet. But what was his early life like? What led him to creating this despicable cult that murdered seven innocent people in Los Angeles? And was he a part of the CIA's top secret MK Ultra program? I'll be honest, I didn't know a ton about Charles Manson. I've obviously seen some interviews of this crazy guy in court. But after Tom O'Neill's book, Chaos, became a Netflix series,

I have become absolutely captivated. So I wanted to do a deep dive just to learn the history of this infamous and evil man. And yes, we get to the bottom of this MK Ultra thing. It is all very, very strange. So if you are interested in stories of the weird, the evil, and the bizarre, this episode is for you. So sit back, be like the wind, and welcome to camp. What's up people and welcome back to camp. Yes, today we're talking about the infamous Charles Manson. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Mark Gagnon and welcome to my beautiful tent. This is the show I've affectionately called tent talks. I don't talk to an expert. I don't talk to some genius. I don't talk to some criminal. Someone with a crazy life story. I talk to my dumbest friends. That's what I do. I explain the most interesting, fascinating topics from the internet to some of the dumbest people on the people. I talk to some of the dumbest people on the people. I talk to my dumbest friends. I talk to my dumbest friends. I talk to my dumbest friends. I talk to some of the dumbest people on the internet. I talk to some of the dumbest people

I know. But today, there are no dumb people. Well, except Christos, but Christos isn't dumb. He's just Greek. And you at home, you can be my dumb friend, if you want to. Many of you are probably smarter than me, to be honest with you, though. I just happen to have access to Wikipedia. Today, we're going to be talking about Charles Manson. Obviously, there's a very popular Netflix series that is out called Chaos. It's not really a series, just an episode, based off of the book by Tom O'Neill. Chaos. It's a fascinating book, analyzing the true story. of Charles Manson. If truth is a thing, what is truth, right? As Pontch's pilot might say, Tom O'Neill had basically dedicated 20 years of his life to doing research on one specific topic.

It is the life of Charles Manson and how his upbringing adolescence in the 60s was basically intersected with the CIA and their mind control experiments known as M.K. Ultra. At one point, this was a longstanding conspiracy theory that drove people on the internet crazy. But now it seems like it's been confirmed. The MKO.Tro was a real program that went on what the fruits of that program were, unsure. And Charles Manson was a part of it. There's also a lot of other crazy stuff of Charles Manson. He was like friends with the beach boys.

He was like a musician. He murders people. He starts a cult. It's like insane. The courtroom trials are like it wild. There's a lot of stuff that I don't even know. A lot of the research for this specific episode has been done by my friend Zach, just a good old, good old country boy, that put together some information for me that we are going to be learning together. All righty, Charles Manson.

Now, before we jump into this, I also want to point out a couple things. You can see here on my head on my giant skull. I tried to buy a hat at a thrift store yesterday, and I tried on like two different hats. Just didn't fit my head. My head is that large in circumference, full of nothing. Mostly just like bile or something. And yeah, no of the hats fit is pretty disappointed. Sick hat, too.

But these fit. These fit me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they fit many people because they have an adjustable back. And so if you're interested, you can go to campgoadso. Campgoos. Campgoos. Put the link in the description.

Pick up some gear. It's a brand new clothing brand of hoodies and shirts. I guess it's more like merch right now. It's merch at the moment. but will eventually be a full-on brand that'll compete with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Coco Chanel. You know, we'll be in Fashion League eventually. But for now, we're just on a beautiful e-commerce site.

Camp Goods. Also, I'm on the road. I'm going to be touring all over the contiguous United States as well as Canada. So throughout this summer, you can come see me doing one hour exactly of stand-up comedy. Once it hits 59 minutes and 59 seconds, I'm saying the last word, and I'm leaving the stage, one hour. If it goes any more, I will charge you extra. But come out and see me on the road.

A bunch of dates are going to be announced by the time this episode is up. So go to the mark hackneyon.com and check out some tickets. After every show, I'm hanging with everyone. Going to be, you know, just chopping it up, chatting, you know, maybe buy me a drink. Tell me some stories. Go get dinner. You and I. Whatever you want to do.

I mean, I'll be in your town. Let's go skate, actually. I would like to play soccer or skateboard in any city that I go to. So let me know if that's an option. All right, Charles Manson. Cresos, you know about this guy? A little bit. What did he do?

He led a cult? What even is a cult, right? Let's see. I think he led a cult. Charles Manson, born on November 12th, 1934, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a woman named Kathleen Maddox. Kathleen is not the most put-together gal. She's 16 years old when she has them. she names him Charles Miles Manson.

At first she calls him no name Maddox. That's right. She couldn't even be bothered to pick a name for her one and only boy. She's 16 years old. She's also not the most put together woman, as you can imagine. She's a mess. She's not baking cookies for young Chuck. She's out drinking, stealing stuff, running with shady guys.

Yeah, there she is. Kathleen Maddox. That's all right. She's not bad looking. A wayward woman in her own right. You know, she's not doing great. She's not a, she's, she's not a great mom. But a lot of people have bad moms and they don't become, you know, psychopathic killers. And no one really knew who Charles Manson's dad was. Kathleen claims that it was some dude named Colonel Walker Scott.

That's a crazy name. Colonel Walker Scott. Is that his first name? or is that is that like what or is that like a status i don't know walker henderson scott from omaha uh no he's from kentucky senior so it means there's a junior but there's not a third that would be charles manson right and apparently he's just like a random laborer that she she met you know he was laying down bricks and he popped brick in there and we got Charles Manson. And this guy's long gone. He's out of here. Doesn't pay a cent.

And there's even talk that she was, you know, a prostitute at some point, allegedly. So it's a total mystery. No one really knows. Little Charles comes out to the world with no dad, a mom has checked out, and a life that's already a dumpster fire from day one. So he's living in some, you know, crappy apartment in Ohio. Kathleen's chugging beers and hanging out with her. latest boyfriend, and the story begins. Fast forward a bit. Kathleen is over it. She doesn't want this kid slowing her down.

She's got big dreams, and Charles Manson is getting in the way. So she's passing him off to anyone who's going to take care of him, grandma, aunt, whatever. And she's basically just being like, yeah, I'm not going to raise you at all. She's got her own problems. It's crazy. There's even a rumor that she once traded him to a waitress for beer. Yikes.

Can we get a fact check on that? Look that. That's a crazy rumor. I mean, very sad. I mean, again, I don't want to sympathize with Charles Manson here, but this is a tough go of it for sure. So, yeah, he's getting traded around for a pitcher of beer. I mean, if you've ever been to a bar that sells beer by the pitcher, you know that this is not even a good place to be traded. You know what I mean? Oh, well, from Reddit. Charles Manson's mother once sold him to a waitress for a pitcher of beer. His uncle retrieved him some days later. Damn. I mean, that's a tough look, right? I think that is kind of also like the story here a little bit. Like with every serial killer, there's probably like a parent that also deserves to get fucking thrown in jail forever. Yep. Right?

Like, like, again, I don't have any empathy for people that commit atrocious acts and murder people in cold blood. That's not good. And I don't like to get political on the show, but I'm going to stand on that. But furthermore, if also you raise a kid and you are severely negligent and you're trying to sell them for alcohol, you should probably also just get thrown at the bottom of prison.

Yes, right? Like, what, like, this is crazy. So, again, up until he starts doing bad stuff, I feel a little bad for old Chuck Manson, you know? And it gets worse. 1939, when Charles is five, she decides to rob a gas station with her brother. Kathleen, that is. She's swinging a ketchup bottle, like a baseball bat, and she gets caught.

Typical, right? What do women know about hitting a baseball bat? Maybe the cashier was pitching underhand She would have got a chance But she gets caught thrown into prison And Charles is shipped To go see his aunt and uncle In Belair

And this is the beginning of the show Called the Fresh Prince of Bell I mean if it was if imagine it wasn't Will Smith But it was Charles Manson I mean that would be wild No he gets shipped to see his auntie and uncle In West Virginia Very different version of that show

Yeah Fresh Prince of West Virginia His uncle is like a Hardcore, old school type dude Who thinks that the kid is soft He decides that old Charles Manson He needs to get toughened up Because he cries a lot

He makes Charles wear a dress to school In order to tough him and up Toughen him up Kind of like a boy named Sue situation How does that toughen him up? Because it's like boy named Sue Johnny Cash You've heard the song

Have you? I have not Oh, it's a great, I can't believe you never heard. Basically, you name your boy Sue. And because the dad's like, I wasn't able to be in the picture. The dad, I forgot in the song, why he couldn't be around. But dad was like, I can't be here to raise the kid, so I'm going to name Sue. And so the kid goes his whole life being like, why do my dad name me Sue?

I've been getting the shit kicked out of me. I've been getting beat up. I've been going through so much shit. Then he finally sees his dad and he's like, why the fuck did you do that? And his dad's like, because I wasn't there to teach you how to be a man. So I gave you a hard name that was going to teach you to man up on your own. Build your character. Yeah.

Yikes. It sounds good, but it rhymes, all right? You make it sound like it's a way worse thing. Anyway, she gets out of jail after a couple years, and she links back up with her son Charles, kind of. She's still just like a disaster. She's dragging him through sketchy towns, crashing in cheap motels with her, you know,

friends, not clients. And maybe around like eight or nine, he's watching her stumble and drunk, seeing the world through this blurry, angry lens, like in this, you know, motel they're staying. And so he starts to steal, small stuff at first, candy, coins, just to kind of feel like he has control over something. And then pretty soon it snowballs even worse. He's breaking the stores, stealing bikes, getting nabbed by the cops.

And then this is where things take a dark turn. At 13, he lands in a reform school called the Gibalt School for Boys in Indiana. It's supposed to fix him, but it's more like just a, like a jail cell. It's just like a holding cell for kids that are wayward. So now he's stuck in this school with a bunch of other angry, you know, troubled kids and a bunch of strict rules that he can't stand. So after 10 months, he flees. He just runs away.

He runs back to his mom, but she's just at this point, like completely destitute. She looks at him and basically says like, hey, I can't even take care of my own life. I definitely can't take care of you, so I'm not your mom anymore. At 13, he escapes the school, goes back to his mom, and she's like, Sorry. So now he's just homeless, sleeping in alleyways, stealing food. And then the system snags him again. That he gets caught doing some other crime, gets picked up, and then sent to the Indiana boys' school.

Tougher, meaner, and lockdown even more strictly. He's surrounded by bigger kids, rougher fights, and guards who are straight up just like abusing the children. He's small, barely 5'2 with these dark eyes, messy hair, but he's scrappy. He does this basically up until he's 17. Also, are any of these the schools that he went that Jeffrey Epstein also went to with, uh, yeah, this is one of the things I wanted to point out. So he, I don't know when in this entire saga, it's while he's young. He ends up getting sent to Omaha, Nebraska. Where Nick Bryant told us. As Nick Bryant told us, infamously about the Franklin scandal that

also occurred in Omaha, Nebraska that allegedly, big alleged, because this is not confirmed, that they had connection to a place called Boys Town. And Boys Town back in that time was a hotbed of sexual abuse, allegedly, as some people might want to point out. I don't believe that. That's absurd. Not only does he have terrible mother, but he's also being abused.

Oh, for sure. Not that we're trying to make excuses for Charles Manson. Up until the bad stuff he does, I feel bad for him. Right. But everyone has free will. Everyone has their own autonomy to do what they would like to do. So then by 1951, Charles Manson, breaks out again out of this facility that he's at in Indiana, steals a car, takes off of some buddies,

and the feds find him having stolen a car, cross state lines, you know, that's illegal. So now he's bouncing between these like juvenile, like detention centers, Virginia, Ohio. He's just going up all over, piling up more charges. By 1954, he's 20 years old. And he gets a little taste of parole. He's finally free. Okay, he's not under the tutelage of his abusive drunk mom. He's no longer in these prison facilities. So he's like, you know what? I'm going to get my life together and just do the normal thing. All right?

He marries a woman named Rosalie at 20 years old. He has a child, Charles Manson Jr., which is a tough name. Apparently, that guy's still out there. He's like still rolling around the world with that name. He never thought to change it? I mean, they probably thought it. You know? Yeah.

But also, I wonder if there's a point where like it's kind of interesting. Like, because everyone you meet is like, oh, this is Charles, this kid. And then they meet you and you're like, yeah, my name's Charles Manson Jr. Oh, wow, he died in 1993. Apparently, wow. How did he die? He shot himself, whoa, along a section of the eastern Colorado state line. It's a rough life. Dang. I mean, like, some of these, like, just generational curses are just, like, so sad. Yeah. You know, like, you just live your life and your dad is just a psycho serial killer cult leader and then you have to deal with that, but he's doing it. But he's doing it. because his mom was a piece of, it's just like, whoa.

So, spoiler alert. He has a kid, though. And had a kid. I guess, well, yeah, dude, that's right, because he died in like 2017. Whoa. So that's basically the story. He just lives a normal life and just has a good time.

Sike. He's stealing cars, doing a bunch of crime, you know, just being a psycho. Who had the rougher life? Charles Manson or her son would you say? I would say he's, I don't know. I don't know enough about his son's life. I don't know enough about Charles Manson's life, to be honest with you. I mean, I'm just reading about his mom being a piece of shit.

Right. But I feel like his son is a tougher time because his dad is an actual serial killer psycho, whereas his mom is obviously abusive and evil, but kind of she's more of, she's a victim of her own circumstances as well, whereas Charles Manson is like an actual deranged psychopath that is now also a dad. Right. Which is crazy. So yeah, that's basically his life.

At this point, he's got a kid, married, and then still committing crime. And then he gets jammed up again, back to prison. And the next 10 years of his life are basically just, you know, California, Washington, prison cells, prison cells, prison cells. And prison at this point is not even a punishment. He spent most of his life at this point in prison. You know, like he's just a prisoner. And then 1967, Charles Manson's. 32. He spent 17 years, more than half of his life in prison. No family, no school, just a rap sheet,

a bunch of, you know, crimes on it. Short guy. Wiery. What was his final height? Was he 5'2? Like, by the time he, like, hit adulthood. And he's got this crazy spark that apparently is, like, very captivating to people. Wow, he topped out at 5-2. So yeah, he's a short dude that's spent most of his life in prison with, you know, degenerate parents. And now his kid, maybe it's actually good that he was in prison while his kid was young, because, like, I feel like it's better if your dad is Charles Manson that he's in prison and not raising you. I don't know. And yeah, he's got this apparently this intense kind of charm. That's how people have described it. He knows how to read a room, how to survive. 1967, he's paroled again,

stepping into a world that's about to go nuts. The hippie explosion has begun. drugs everywhere. He's got no cash. He's got no plan. But he's got the ability to survive and a psychotic brain that wants to just be in the mix. What's up, guys?

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So this guy at this point, 32 years of his life, he's a disaster, ditched his mom, bounced around, locked up, violent, gets married, has a kid, goes to prison and is there for an entire decade. And then this is where it gets interesting. This is the first chapter where things start to take off. He goes to San Francisco in 1967. The streets are packed with You know, hippies, a bunch of people are rejecting the war, Vietnam's doing its thing. And all these people are like, hey, let's just love each other. And Manson is right in the middle of the whole thing. So he's in San Francisco, and now he's getting tangled up in the Hollywood web.

That's all about fame, music, power. The air smells like bad weed and incense. There's a, you know, just a vibe of like freedom. Anything is possible. You can love whoever, you know. Drugs are flowing. LSD is on the streets. big time, weed is everywhere.

People are smoking up a storm and the city's alive with music, weird art. And into this chaos strolls a 32-year-old, freshly out of prison, Charles Manson. Looking like a scruffy little drifter, which just so happens to be the exact look that's popular at the time. You know, if he got out of prison in like the 30s, they'd be like, what the hell is wrong on this guy? But he got out of prison at the time where looking like this is chill as hell. You know what I mean? like he was like, you know, in the mix. He blended in perfectly.

He's got a guitar on his shoulder, and he's ready just to, you know, party it up, get to business. He's not just some square showing up in a suit. He's one of them, right? He's been locked up for a few years, so he's not clueless. He's got street smarts. He knows how to survive. He knows how to talk fast, how to charm, how to read people.

And in this hippie paradise, he starts to preach. Not like some boring church guy. He's got this wild, crazy, energy. He's spouting rants about love in the end of the world. He's on his guitar, singing these little songs, and people actually stop and listen to him. And Manson doesn't just get like some, you know, he's not just some random street preacher for a long time. He starts pulling people in, especially young women. Yeah. And these are just young girls, runaways out in California, looking to make a new life for themselves. And, you know, maybe their parents kicked them out,

or they're just sick of this boring straight world and they want to go party and have a good time. And Mansom sees him coming and he's got this like creepy manipulative ability to just pray on whatever it is that a person needs, whether it's love, a family, a purpose. He's able to manipulate and just turn himself into a chameleon for whatever it is that you're going through. So he meets you. He's telling me about the world, how things could be, how you are important, how you are special. and now he's building up this

basically like this connection, this network of people that are all seduced by his charm and his energy and his ability to make them feel good. Now, let's crank it up a little bit, right? This is where Hollywood comes into the mix. One day, Manson hitching a ride, right? Typical hippie shit.

And he's got his thumb out on the highway and guess who picks him up? Dennis Wilson. You ever heard of that name? No. Infamously, the drummer from the Beach Boys. A great band for the record.

I never really got into the Beach Boys. I obviously knew the classics. Like, wouldn't it be nice? Like those songs. Right. And I heard some of them. I actually listened to Pet Sounds front to back recently.

Unbelievable. Amazing album. One of the best. My buddy David Sanchez put me on to them. And yeah, I'm a little late. I mean, probably 65, 70 years too late. But, dude, they're good. They're very, very good.

bad of discerning though they have an inability to understand if people are demented psychotic you know killers so this guy Dennis Wilson picks up Charles Manson and uh you know Dennis at this point he's a star he's living in this beautiful house in the Pacific Palisades he's parting with this cool crowd and he digs Manson's vibe he meets this guy and he's like yo this guy Charles Manson he's an interesting dude Dennis hears him play the guitar listens to some of his like freaky songs and he's like yo this guy is wild. And so what does he do? He invites Manson and his whole rag-tag crew of, you know, random women to crash his place. And Dennis isn't just being nice, all right? He's into this entire

counterculture thing, right? He's into very much like the hippy freedom movement, you know, drugs, free love, weird music. And Charles Manson is him. He's all of those things at that time. Charles Manson is doing drugs. He's into the weird love. Like he's completely like epitomizes the time. So as a result, him and Dennis Wolves and become buddies. I hit it off. And Manson's strumming tunes, dropping his wild rants, and Dennis is just kind of, you know, on drugs, just nod and off like, yeah, this guy gets it. The Beach Boys even recorded one of Manson's songs ceased to exist,

though they tweak it into, quote, never learn not to love, and they slap their name on it. Hmm, crazy. Manson's pissed about that. He wants the credit, but for a minute, he's in the game. So the Beat Boys are literally biting Manson's tracks. I mean, Manson has music out there. You ever heard it? Yeah, we've played some.

Oh, yeah, who do we play it? Joey Avery. Oh, is that what it was? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shockin, or maybe it was with Christoph and Luke. Oh, it was. Not bad. Not bad.

Unfortunately, kind of a hit. This is where I guess even weirder, all right? Dennis Wilson introduces Manson to Terry Melker. this like hot shot music producer guy who's a big deal. Terry, he's the son of Doris Day, if you ever heard of that name, the super famous actress from a bunch of old movies. I don't know anything about her. I just have heard the name Doris Day before. But this guy, Terry, he's got connections all over Hollywood. He's produced hits for the birds, works a bunch of big names. He's got a house on, you know, straight out of like just like a

Hollywood magazine, like a huge mansion. So Dennis brings Manson to Terry saying, yo, check this guy out. Terry's curious meets Manson. Here's his music, sees this weird little, like, following of people around him. And he's not like, yes, but he's also not no. He's kind of just like, all right, this is interesting. And Manson is on 10. He's, like, absolutely stoked. He's like, oh, this is my moment. This is my shot at fame. Suddenly, Manson's not just a San Francisco oddball. He's brushing elbows with, you know, top tier Hollywood elite. Like, I mean, if you're tight with the Beach Boys, like, that's, as far as being in America. Like, it's like the Beatles, the Beach Boys. Like, it's, like, you're, that's, that you're,

that you arrived. He's chilling at Dennis Wilson's place, parting with like the who's who of Hollywood. And, uh, the crew is growing because you can imagine this guy who's like crazy, charming, psycho, but also connected to really powerful people. Women are going to be down for that. Susan Atkins, Lynette Squeaky Fromm, Patricia Crenwinkel. They're all in deep, calling him Charlie, like he's their savior. They're living in this weird bubble, crashing in Dennis's mansion, eating his food, driving his cars. Dennis spends a fortune.

Some estimate even $100,000 just keeping them around, buying drugs and fixing the chaos that they leave behind. But Manson's not just chasing fame. He wants power. These girls are following him, all right? But they're not just fans. They are hooked. He is their drug.

He's using everything he's got, sex, drugs, these rants to, like, twist their minds. He's manipulating them. He'll sit them down and look into their eyes. and like spin these stories about how society's, society's crumbling and everything's falling apart. But you know who has the answers? Charlie. He's dosing them with LSD, getting them high,

breaking them down until they're basically doing everything that he says. He's basically mind controlling them with LSD. Sound familiar? We'll get to that in a second. So he's talking about love and peace and how everything is, you know, freedom. And then at the same time, he's controlling these people that are, you know,

following him, you know, and his, his, uh, his acolytes, so to speak. So Susan Atkins, for example, who's this girl? 19 year old runaway. Uh, she's, you know, beautiful. Let's get a picture of Susan Atkins. Um, but she's, you know, lost. She's, she's a drifter kind of figuring out life. Uh, she's dancing at, uh, some height Ashbury gig when he spots her, pulls her in with that, you know, terrifying, creepy stare. And within days, she's a part of the family as he starts calling them. or Lynette Fromm. She's 18, kicked out by her dad, sitting on a curb when Manson walks up,

starts chatting with her, and then boom, there she goes. Oh, there they go. The Manson girls, the family. I mean, so bizarre. Like, it's, oh, wow, she died pretty recently. Wow. I mean, yeah, her whole story is going to get a lot darker,

as we will find out. So, yeah, this girl, Lynette, she stood on the curb and all of a sudden, boom. Manson comes up and says, hey, I will give you a shot at a new family. Your family hates you. I'm your dad now. Don't worry. You will get all the love you need.

And he's got this charming gift where he can just get people to believe him, to jump on board and to like go on his mission. And he finds the lonely ones. He's not going for people to have like a bunch of connections, da-da-da-da. Like he's not going to try to bring in some, you know, crazy person into his, you know, cult, like some super famous, whatever. He's trying to find people that are wayward that have, you know, broken homes and turn them into like his soldiers. And how is he doing it? He's just that smooth. Right? Where do you learn all

these social skills? I mean, he was in prison for most of his life. Christos. I'm glad to bring that out. Some people will say, oh, yeah, he was just in prison. You know, he had to grow up fast. He was kicked out of his house and he was like 10 years old. So of course, he's going to learn how to survive. He's going to learn how to be crafty. He's going to learn how to make it. This guy is a survivor because it is sink or swim. Or, Maybe. There's a conspiracy of foot. Some people have suggested that Manson's Hollywood big break wasn't some accident, right? Just think about it, right? He's fresh out of prison. He's got no money, no skills, and within a couple weeks, he's parting with one of the biggest musicians of all time.

It's kind of a fast climb. That's a fast ascent, right? Some people say, a little too fast. Manson's parole officer barely checks in on him. He's breaking rules left and right. He's doing drugs. He's parting all the time. And nobody takes him back to prison? Maybe he was allowed to run wild. Maybe his parole officer was told, hey, just lay low.

Let him do his thing. So this is just a theory, all right? There's just a conspiracy. It's not one I necessarily believe. There's just a theory out there that we could explore. That someone, maybe someone big was pulling the strings. Maybe they saw Manson as a tool a way to mess with the hippie movement to test something shady. Yeah. Interesting. Just think about it, right? Back to the story. Manson's riding high for a bit, right?

He's got his family, about 20, maybe 25, 30 people at this point. They're typically, you know, generally living off Dennis Wilson's generosity. They're this weird tribe of misfits that are all about Charlie's truth. They're preaching this mix of hippie love but also doomsday vibes. saying that the world's going to end in a race war that he's calling helter-skelter, inspired by the Beatles song. It's nuts, but these people, like many cult members do, they buy in.

He's got them chanting, sharing everything, food, clothes, even each other. That's right. Free love, baby. Christo, stop smiling. I know you would join this cult in a second. You freaking purve.

You little horn dog. But underneath it, it's all about control. He's sleeping with the women. He's pairing them up with each other. he's keeping him loyal. If they step out of line, he's not above smack him around either. This guy's got a little bit of an abusive streak, all right?

This whole free love thing, this whole peace and flowers, uh-uh. Nope, it is a full-blown cult. And it starts to become an issue. Dennis Wilson, Beach Boys drummer, he's getting tired of the mess. His house is trashed. His money is slowly leaking out. And Manson is getting pushy about that music career

that Dennis, you know, kind of teed him up with. Dennis tries to distance himself. Manson is not letting it go easy. Remember Terry Melker, that guy, Doris Day's son, that's a bust. He listens to some of Manson's tapes, and he visits him at this creepy ranch that they moved into called Span Ranch.

And yeah, he's just like, yeah, it's just not good enough. You're not where we need you to be. Terry's just like, not my thing. And he bounces. Manson obviously takes out super well. It's like, he's pissed. And he thinks that he's been promised fame, and now it's slipping away.

way, just like everything else in his life, it is gone in an instant. Span Ranch, that is the creepy old ranch where, you know, the whole cult really takes shape. It's this old movie set in the desert. It's falling apart. And it's perfect for a psychotic crew of, you know, misfits and drifters to go live. They're living rough. It's not great. It's not Dennis Wilson's mansion.

They're sleeping in shack, scavenging food. But they've got each other. They're running group sessions now. these like trippy, like drug-fueled talks where he's like, you know, explaining to them, like the truth about the universe. And just the whole time, he's breaking them down psychologically more and more and more. He'll, you know, dose them with acid, playing mind games, telling them that they're special. And that if they're feeling the effects, it's that's because they're chosen.

You got to also understand, like at this point, people are not doing psychedelics that regularly. Like, obviously in the 60s, like you're in California, you can get them. But a lot of these people are coming from, you know, middle of the country where they're not doing drugs. And all of a sudden, they're hanging out with this guy having the most insane mind-bending experiences they've ever had in their life. He's tying in, like, Bible verses with Beatles lyrics, the helter-skelter thing about chaos and blood. The girls are literally calling him Jesus or Satan, depending on the day. And, yeah, this guy, he's, while, you know, putting all these people into this psychotic cult, he's sharper than ever. He's building a very serious, you know, death family, for lack of a better word.

And up into this point, we've seen Charles Manson from this, you know, messed up childhood to this Hollywood hustle. And now here's the part that made him infamous and, you know, in a pretty disgusting, terrible way. I didn't even realize how messed up this whole thing was. I saw a picture on Reddit of, you know, the Tate household. and I was like, holy shit, this is crazy. August, 1969, you're in Los Angeles, the city of sunshine, movie stars. Everyone's got a dream.

But there's something dark brewing in the hills. Manson's been out of prison for a couple years. He's built his little family out on Span Ranch. He's got his crew, you know, the girls like Susan Atkins, Crenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, and a tough guy named Tex Watson, all brainwashed, all on drugs, all extremely loyal. And they're living rough. They're eating scraps, doing drugs all the time, listening to Charlie

Rumble about the end of the world, you know, normal 60s, 70s, hippie stuff. And one day, Charlie gets this idea called Helter Skelter where he says there's a race war coming, black people versus white people, and he's going to lead out the survivors. I'm assuming he's on the white side, if I had to guess. Why is it always black versus white? It's like such an American thing. Why can't they get Asian versus Mexican. You know? That would be a battle for the ages. I would watch that one.

I would do a pay-per-view for that. But yeah, Charles Manson, he is, he's going to lead the winners, the survivors out of this race war. So August 8th, 1966. There's a fancy street in Benedict Canyon where there's a bunch of beautiful houses,

all modern, tucked into the hills. And there's a woman named Sharon Tate, beautiful actress. She's eight months pregnant. She's 26. Wow, I did not realize she was so young. And she's a rising star married to Roman Polanski, the big shot director, who I will say nothing else about, who has no other tattered history. Wow, she was beautiful. She was a piece. Wow. She's 26. That is so sad. I know Margot Robbie plays her in some movie. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, wow. I mean, that's actually good casting. But yeah, she's beautiful. Wow, that's so sad.

I didn't realize. And she was married to Roman Polansky. It's crazy, huh? Isn't Roman Polansky in France right now? Yep. And why is he in France? Because America's too strict. And you can't have, he can't do what he wants.

Some would say justifiably strict on that matter, but yeah. I mean, that's what Roma would say. Roman would say that this is, there's not enough freedom here in America. But yeah, what's the deal? Allegedly, he's a, he's a PDF. Mm-hmm. Oh, damn. All I know him from is from this movie, The Pianist.

That's right. Well, I feel like he's like, everyone's like, oh, he's this legendary actor. Or legendary director. Oh, he's the most legendary director. Had one hit. Right? How good of a movie is it? You know what?

Roman Polansky movies. Let's check it out. Mm-hmm. I think there's a worthwhile tangent. Oh, he's still making movies. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. But I don't know any of these.

Wow. I mean, I can't imagine that they're getting major distrable. The pianist, right? Pirates, he made a pirate film? He made Chinatown. Is Chinatown? That's popular? It's a really good neo-noir, yeah.

Oh, wow, Macbeth. Oh, he did Rosemary's Baby. I've heard this. I don't know. I did see an interview, I did see an interview recently where Ron Polanski's like, look, I like young women. That's crazy. I like young women.

That's all men like young women. And, yeah, he fled to France after being convicted. I don't think he got a chance to be convicted. He just fled before he was found innocent. Let's check you know. Is what you were going to say. Yeah, I'd be, I'd be curious to know. I did not realize she was married to Rome Plansky.

I don't know why that changes this for me. Like, I don't know, like, it just adds, like, layers. I think it makes more real. It adds layers of, like, very twisted disturbance. Yeah. Basically, she's there, August 8th, with, uh, You know, she's married to Roman Polansky. She's there with her friends, Jay Sebring, a hairstylist,

Abigail Folger, yes, the coffee heiress. And then Whitechek, Frickowski, who's a writer. She's also there. There's also an 18-year-old kid, Stephen Parent, just leaving after visiting the caretaker. It's a chill night. She's sipping tea, chatting, and then there's something sinister outside. Manson's not there himself.

He's back at the ranch calling the shots. He's told Tex Watson and the girls, Susan Patricia, and Linda Kazabian to go to that house and destroy everyone in it. What the hell? He's mad about Terry Melcher, the producer who snubbed his music dreams. Melcher used to live at 1,050 Celio Drive,

but he's moved out. What? That's crazy. I did not know that it was a mistake. He wanted to get back at Terry Melcher for turning down his music career. But instead, He sent people to the address, but the Tates had moved in.

That's crazy. And this is going to kick off the Helter-Skelter vision. So around midnight, Tex and the girls roll up in a beat-up car, lenders the lookout, the others grab a bunch of weapons, and these four hippies creep up the driveway to unleash hell. Tex cuts the phone lines first so no one can call for help. Then here comes Stephen Parents in the car about to drive off when Tex spots him. shoots him. He dies. That's the first person to die. Then he climbs over the gate, sneaks in the

property, gets in the house. They have no idea what's coming. He busts in, says, I'm the devil, here to do the devil's business. Jay Sebring, start a little bit protective, steps forward trying to shield Sharon Tate. Text doesn't hesitate. Swings the gun like a club, hits him in the face, breaks his nose, starts shooting everyone. People try to escape. It's just absolute mayhem. They push past the attacker, scrambling to the back door, Susan Atkins and Patricia Crenwinkel are on them in seconds. Whitechek wrestles with Susan, breaking free lineups to make it to the front door. He stumbles on the lawn and then Tex shoots him. He dies.

Oh, my goodness, he stabbed a bunch of times on left. I mean, this is like so brutal. 51 times. Yeah, this is crazy. Abigail makes it farther, nearly reaching the pool. She then gets stabbed a bunch of times. Sharon Tate is inside. I mean, oh my goodness, this is like,

they just murder everyone in the house. They wash off the blood, ditch their clothes, head back to Span Ranch. Linda's freaking out because she didn't kill anyone. She just saw what happened, and Texan the girls are all like high off the experience. Manson's waiting, he asks how it went, and he wants to know all the details.

He's cool with it, and he says that it's the start of Helter Skelter, the war that he's been preaching about. The very next night, they strike again. This time, it's a house, and Los Felas. I wonder, I mean, if he thought that he was trying to get Melcher, if he knew that he didn't get him and, like, if he just didn't care, or maybe he didn't know because, like, the people were like, yeah, we killed, like,

you know, two girls and a guy, and he was like, all right, that's probably them. That's good enough. Right. Like, I wonder if he was just like, all right, who cares? Next time, the next night, House in Las Felas, a quieter part of L.A., Leno and Rosemary La Bianca live there, just regular folks, not movie stars. Leno is a grocery store owner. Rosemary runs a dress shop.

They're in bed when Manson shows up himself this time, not to kill, but to set it up. He creeps in with texts. They tie up the people and they tell him it's just a robbery. Then he leaves telling Tex Susan Patricia to finish it. I mean, this is crazy. They kill them. They write a bunch of messages all over the fridge and all over the walls.

Then they shower, eat some watermelon from the kitchen, and then bounce. two nights later seven are dead and LA is about to lose its mind. I mean, this is crazy. It also makes you wonder, like, how do you get people to murder for you? You know what I mean? Like, it's kind of an interesting question. Like, you get these people that are like wayward drifters, sure, but you get them into

your cult and then you get them to kill for you? I mean, that's like insane. So now the news has hit all the newspapers, okay? Like one of the most famous actresses in the world is now dead. And there's a headline saying that there's a ritual slang. There's this hippie cult. They see these words written on the door pig. Then there's the La Bianca place.

There's the same thing. More crazy writings. And people are freaking out. They lock their doors. People are buying guns. They start seeing hippies on the street. And people are trying to connect the dots. They don't know.

They don't have a lead. And Charles Manson is obviously, like, you know, connected to some famous people, or obviously he was. So he's not like a household name. So like people just don't know what's going on. and this is where it gets weird. So Manson is this whole time talking about helter-skelter, this apocalyptic race war where black people rise up,

they kill white people, and then Manson's crew is going to hide out in the desert until it's over. Then he claims that he'll take over the chaos. He ties him with the Beatles white album saying that Piggy's and Revolution 9 was a secret code telling him to spark it. They think that murdering these rich white folks and leaving bloody messages are enough to light the fuse. So the aftermath of these horrific murders are a mess.

Tops are stumped. There's no fingerprints. There's no motive. Like these two random groups of people that literally have nothing to do with each other. The family, you know, Manson and his gang, they're sloppy. Linda Kasabian spills everything to a cellmate after getting nab for something that had nothing to do with the murders. Susan Atkin brags in jail telling some hippie chick every detail. And then by December 69, the word has spread. and the net was closing in on Manson Tex and the girls. They all eventually get scooped up. And the trial is just insane. I bet you it's probably one of the first, like, you know,

like newsworthy trials that becomes like a sensation. If I had a bet, that's probably one of the first ones. You know, shaved heads. He's got a swast to get carved on his forehead. He's ranting like this mad prophet. They eventually get convicted in 71. Everyone gets life sentences. and, you know, L.A. is able to kind of chill and breathe again, still reeling from the, you know, the brutal murders that happened just a few years before.

Two nights, seven people died, Sharon Tate, you know, her friends, the La Bianca's, all because Manson said, do it. Manson didn't hold the knife, didn't kill anyone directly, but he's the name that we remember. Why? Because he was able to turn these lost kids into killers with nothing but his voice. you know, some messages, some charm and maybe some drugs. And the helter-skelter thing is wild. Like, I don't know if he believed it. I don't know if it was something that he actually thought was going to happen. Maybe it was a lie.

Maybe it was, you know, given to him, perhaps, to discredit the hippie movement and the anti-war movement. But whatever it was, it worked. And these people bought in, and they ended up killing a bunch of innocent folks. And this is where it gets a little weirder, okay? And this is where some of the Tom O'Neill stuff, comes into play. M.K. Ultra. All right? So we've talked about

his messed up childhood, the Hollywood stuff, the murders, the trials. But now here's the kind of the backdoor, some of the conspiratorial stuff. Again, not necessarily that I believe this. This has just been compiled in what people are saying on the net. So, is it possible that the government

turned Charles Manson into a weapon that then spun out of control? Yeah. M.K. Ultra, secret experiments, and you know, this creepy connection that just might change how you see this whole saga. So let's go back a little bit, right? To 1967, Manson is fresh out of prison.

He's in San Francisco as the hippie scene is exploding, right? We talked about this. He's 32. He's, you know, scruffy, he's got his guitar. It's a summer of love. But here's a crazy thing that happens. There's a program called MK Ultra. This is a legit CIA program that ran from the 50s into the 60s.

And if you're watching this, there's a good chance you've probably heard that before, right? This wasn't some like noble spy mission. This was like the weird, rogue, freaky CIA shit that they were doing back in the day and definitely not anymore. The CIA wanted to figure out how to control people's minds,

full on brainwashing. And they were doing this through LSD tests, hypnosis, electric shock, even torture on a bunch of different people, prisoners, soldiers, regular people that didn't know what was going on. And this might sound crazy, but this is

all documented. There are, you know, declassified files, there's lawsuits, there's a movie by Errol Morris called Wormwood that I think talks about some of this stuff. But coincidentally, Errol Morris also does this movie Chaos on Netflix about Manson. And so what does this matter for Manson? Why is this, why is this connection interesting? Because he's walking to the city where this stuff was still bubbling under the surface. The CIA had been at it for years. starting in 53 when they greenlit MK Ultra to fight the Cold War, worried that the Soviets were already brainwashing people. They dosed hundreds, potentially even thousands of people with acid, sometimes without even telling them, trying to see if they could erase their memories

and plant ideas and essentially turn people into like robots. They worked with doctors, scientists. I'm pretty sure they, this is again, just another conspiracy tangent, they worked with this guy named Jolly West, who infamously was the doctor that. that saw Jack Ruby while he was in prison. Jack Ruby infamously killed Leah Harvey Oswald, who infamously killed John F. Kennedy. And this guy was like a known on the record doctor that worked within the MK Ultra program.

And they were setting up these MK Ultra systems all over, San Francisco, New York, L.A. And by the 1960s, the program was officially winding down. Or so they say. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break. really quick because I'm sitting here in my beautiful tent, as you can see, every week, day in, day out. And people always ask, they say, Mark, how do I have a tent like that? I want to sit in a beautiful

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You have flowers, peace signs, free love, but it's also the petri dish for all the CIA stuff, right? One of the names that keeps popping up, I just said it. That is Lewis Jolly West. This guy is a big-time psychiatrist, the master of mind control, and he's neck deep and all the MKOLU-LTR stuff. He's a dude who'd put in like a creepy movie. Like he's like a severance type, right? Brilliant, he's charming, but he's got like this dark side. And he ran experiments, dosing people with LSD, studied.

how it broke them down. There he is. The old infamous Jolly West. I wonder if he's still alive. There's no way, but maybe. He'd be a great guest. We've got to get him on the pod. And yeah, he would dose people with LSD

to see how he would break them down. He even bragged once about giving an elephant 300 times a human dose of acid just to see what would happen. Whoa. What happened? The elephant, you know how they never forget? This one forgot.

That's one. go. He also died. Yakes. The elephant, that is. And this is where it gets crazy. So West is working at the Hate Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, where he spots, you know, hippies coming in, trying to get help, whether they're, you know, Odean, going through withdrawals, drugs, STDs. And guess who keeps on showing up at this clinic? A guy by the name of Charles Miles Manson.

That's right, a.k. Charlie. He's out of prison. He's hooked on a bunch of drugs and is hanging with his crew of runaways. and he's a regular at this clinic. And maybe, you know, it's just a coincidence that he's going to the same clinic that this guy that's very connected to all the MK Ultra programs is also working out of.

But also you've got to think about it, right? Manson's got no job, no money, and he's just got a rap sheet. And all of a sudden, he's connected with this guy, Jolly West, who spent years trying to figure out how to work minds with LSD and hypnosis. So Manson is at the clinic, you know,

maybe he's there, just, you know, working, trying to, you know, get some testing for an STD or something. He's already tripping on LSD all the time. It's everywhere in 67, right? He's dosing himself, dosing his followers. And then he gets this spooky talent for getting inside people's heads. Prison teaches him some tricks, sure, how to read people, how to survive.

But the family is next level. He's like teaching people, teaching people how to become killers. Some folks, like the writer I mentioned before, Tom O'Neill, he's dug into this for 20 years. He was assigned the story, like, back in the 90s to, like, look into it and didn't turn in the story on time and then spent the next two decades working on this book called Chaos that came out in 2019. And he says that Manson would have been the perfect lab rat for MK Ultra, right? The CIA has this guy. He's unstable. He's desperate.

He's already a criminal. He's loose in San Francisco. So maybe you could hook him up with some acid, you know? Maybe you could get him a line to, you know, get more drugs if he needs them. Maybe you could, you know, tell his parole officer to kind of. chill and not, you know, be on his case and get him back in prison. And why would you want to do this? Well, the hippie movement, why, you know, Niceties 67 is massive. Millions of kids tuning in, dropping out and freaking out the government. Again, the hippie movement is like deeply tied

with the anti-war movement, uh, which is not great. Can you look up a quote about how they're going to, uh, use, what was it, like to discredit black people and hippies? Okay, we have the Quote, basically, you have this guy. What's his name, Ehrlichman? Yeah, John Ehrlichman. He is the domestic policy chief for Nixon. And he says this in an interview. The Nixon campaign in 68,

and the Nixon White House after that had two enemies, the anti-war left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana, of the blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes,

break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. Wow. Pretty crazy. Yeah. So let's say you're trying to create an agent provocateur within the hippie movement, and you already are doing these MK Ultra, you know,

tests where you're giving people acid to see how it's affecting their psyche. and then you meet these drifters that are coming into, you know, your clinic. And Jolly West is there, right? And he's connected with the CIA. And there's other doctors that are there that are tied to CIA projects. And, you know, they have a penchant for dosing people with LSD. And then Manson's popping in and out. And he's with these girls.

And he's got, you know, this collection of people. And he seems pretty smart. And he's pretty sharp. And he's able to get people to follow him. Is it possible that that guy could be, you know, a potential subject to discredit the hippie movement. It's interesting that he got drug, allegedly by the CIA, and then went and did the same thing to other unsuspecting people.

Right. If M.K. Ultra was done to turn soldiers into puppets to create like the super soldier, he basically turned his followers, random drifters that came from, you know, some random town, into murderers. Yeah. Like, you have to be a certain level of psychotic to go murder for no reason. Like, if someone does something bad to you, steal, you. all your money, kill someone in your family, and you go murder them, it's like, okay, I think a lot of

people could get to that level, maybe 35, 40% of the population. If some random guy tells you, hey, go kill random people, innocent women, pregnant, like the most like vulnerable people in a society, you have to be mentally deranged to do that. Yeah, just on someone's request, like to risk your entire life and freedom. Like, you, I guess you have to just be so bought into the ideology or personally deranged or both. So it seems like he was able to use whatever he learned if he was a part of these MK Ultra experiments. And, you know, Manson is popping in and out. Potentially he, you know, uses what he learned while he was, you know, doing these sessions, goes to Span Ranch and teaches them the way that he was taught these MK Ultra tactics. All right,

here's a freaky little detail. Manson's parole officer, this guy Roger Smith worked at the same clinic. Smith's not just a parole guy. He got a PhD, studied violence, and was a part of a federal project on drug rehab. He's supposed to keep Manson in line, but Charles breaking rules left and right, living with a harem, stealing cars and tripeon acid, and Smith's reports are like, nah, he's a good guy. He's fine. Nothing to see you here. He's good. Some people allege that Smith was in on it, maybe, you know, reporting back to someone higher, maybe even watch. watching Manson from afar. So, Manson, he's fresh out, right?

Lands in the city with MK.K. Ultra Ghosts. He's at this clinic where CIA doctors are linked and, you know, they're hanging out, working. He's doing acid a bunch, turning runaways into this cult faster you could believe. His parole is a joke. He's got freedom that no ex-convict, especially a violent ex-convict, should ever have. And then he turns all of these runaways into killing machines that murder seven people in two days. And, yeah, he's cool. Next time they catch up to him, they arrest him, he's just chilling.

Like, just a natural psycho. Or maybe he feels like he's got some leverage. Maybe he feels like he has an angle, okay? But who knows? Maybe Manson is just, he's a, you know, some lucky nut case who had a negligent parole officer who's lazy and was just shown up at a clinic because it's free and not because he's a test subject. and the whole helter-skelter thing is just this crazy thing that he made up. But like I said before, maybe there was a concerted effort by the CIA to try to disrupt the hippie movement. Another example, this is Operation Chaos, where the book in the documentary we're talking about gets its name,

which is another real thing that basically the CIA spied domestically on activists and infiltrated groups that they saw as a threat to the state. So what if Manson was a chaos agent, right? you let him run wild. He's able to turn these lovers into murderers, scare the public straight and basically like, hey, this hippie movement is evil and we got to stop letting our kids be doing drugs.

And, you know, these murders make the news and then all of a sudden hippies aren't some cute, you know, peacekeepers. They are murderers that are strung out on drugs. Tom O'Neill, you know, if it wasn't for him, we probably wouldn't have most of this information. He actually found Jolly West Files

and learned of Smith's weird lenient see, his parole officer, and ended up writing about it. But the CIA burned most of the MK Ultra records in 73. Seems convenient. Witnesses are dead, stories that shift, and Jolly West dies in 99, never telling the secrets. Smith stays quiet. And Manson, he rambled all the way up to the end, right? He was just saying all sorts of crazy shit before he died in 2017.

But never did he say the CIA made me do it. Interesting. You would think he probably would, right? if not if you're brainwashed. Oh, that's a good point. If he's so brainwashed that, you know, he's going crazy, he thinks he's doing, you know, the helter-skelter stuff, this, you know,

race war that ends all humanity. So the interesting part about this whole thing, you know, beyond the MKLter stuff, is how the trial about these, like, gruesome murders turns into this like freak show parade, right? And what if that is part? of the agenda. If you're trying to discredit the hippie movement,

you make the trial front and center and you show how crazy and disrain the range this hippie is. And by doing that, you're able to now throw out the hippie movement, baby with the bathwater. Right? Because most trials, especially up to this point, are pretty boring, pretty uneventful. They're pretty, you know, manicured.

The lawyer speaks for the client and the client doesn't do that much stuff. But that is not the case with this trial, right? Fast forward, everybody gets arrested. Okay, so then by July 24th, 1970, the trial of the century kicks off at the Hall of Justice. Charles Manson, you know, all five feet, two inches of them. He's just standing there. He struts in with everyone, you know, all the people that were involved in the seven murders,

all facing seven counts of first degree and conspiracy. They're all looking at death in the California gas chamber, which at the time was still a method that they used. for, you know, execution at the hands of the state. The prosecutor of this guy, Vincent Bugliosi, he's this sharp dude with a mustache that's, you know, he's got this mountain of evidence, he's got the clothes, he's got the testimony, he's got all the people inside the family that are just like basically saying, like pleading guilty.

And yeah, this is an open-shut case. Pretty easy. They should be able to come in, have the jury deliberate, and then that's it. But that's not what happens. It is a spectacle, and Charles Manson is about to stay. steal the show, right? So day one, he walks in and his head is shaved bald and he's got an X carved directly into his forehead and like a like scratched him with a razor like straight up just and when he's asked about the X he says that he exed himself out of the world. It was pretty

like edge Lord like high school fake deep shit and Susan Patricia and Leslie Strollin the next day and they also have their heads shaved and X's on their forehead too. Could you get a picture of that? I mean, that seems pretty crazy. And again, these girls are coming in. They're not just like defendants. They are his disciples.

They're parroting his every move. And by the end of the trial, the X morphs into a swastika. So it starts as an X, and then he turns them into, he turns the X into the swastika. Again, the media is just evening this up. The headlines are saying, like, the Manson, mad cult,

and the world is glued to this, you know, nightmare that's become like this massive, uh, you know, courtroom drama. And, uh, you know, Susan starts singing mid trial, like, for real. Like, she starts like, you know, singing like a Manson song, like all high pitched and eerie. Uh, Patricia and Leslie join in, like, giggling while they're singing in court. After they've murdered, like a dozen people at this point, right? Um, the girls, like, they're following him. Uh, they're saying that we're not afraid to the judges and to the jurors. And people are like, is this allowed? Like, you know, like is this like what are the rules in a courtroom? And this judge, this guy Charles Older,

who's like a no nonsense like vet in the in the district, he can barely keep this thing together. The lawyers, they're all scrambling, right? Manson fires his first attorney, this guy, Ronald Hughes, because Hughes wants a real defense, right? Thinking that, you know, the trial is about laws, idiot. Manson takes over his own case for a bit, ranting about Helter Skelter and how the Beatles made him do it. And then, you know, the girls' lawyers aren't much better. This guy Irving, Canarek turns into a filibuster, objecting to everything, dragging it out like he's like auditioning for like the worst lawyer of all time. This thing goes for nine months because this is like a performance piece for them. Like this is their chance to like get attention, become famous, like ego, like delusion.

Crazy. This guy, Ronald Hughes, by the way, the first lawyer that Manson fires, he goes missing mid-trial. And they find his body later in a ditch. Jesus, gross. How he died, nobody really knows. Could just be a coincidence. Maybe he got into a drug deal gone wrong. Or maybe, you know, Charlie's reach stretched beyond the courtroom.

Imagine Charles Manson tells this guy some of the details. He's like, yeah, I was a part of these mind control experiments. and all of a sudden the CIA hears about it and then somehow get a hold of him and say like, hey, fire this guy, and then he ends up dead. Manson is glaring at people the entire time in the courtroom threatening Judge Older on the record saying, I'll get you.

It said that Older started packing a gun under his robe after that while he's in the courtroom. Jurors are freaking out. They're locked in a hotel for nine months, no TV, no papers because the press is like a feeding frenzy. And the prosecution got a rough. Bugliosi, he's a bulldog. He's got a,

Linda Kasabian on the stand, 18 days straight, spilling every detail. The tech stuff, the shooting, Susan's jailhouse confession backs it all up. She's proud of it, for the record. They finally get, like, weapons, and it's like, it's a slam dunk, right? Manson's defense, he claims that he's a victim. Society made him do it. The murders were, quote, love. And, yeah, the girls try to protect him, saying that they acted alone, that he's innocent.

And, yeah, the whole thing is just. absurd. So January 25th, the verdict drops, guilty, all of them. Seven murders are sentenced to life in prison, no parole with the death penalty off the table because California did away with it in 1972. But not before Manson's last act. He leaps at Judge Older with a pencil screaming in the name of Christian justice. Guards tackle him and the girls are screaming. The courtroom is just an absolute, just frenzy. Everyone's going crazy. What the hell? This must be from a movie. traumatization, but still. I mean, crazy.

Yeah, that's chaos. That is Charles Manson's entire MOs. Just send the world into chaos. He is just a agent of chaos. So, there you have it. That's basically the story of Charles Manson, one of the most, I mean, you could say, crazy, evil, bizarre, you know,

people to ever exist. A proper agent of chaos, I could say. Was he connected with the M.K. Ultra stuff? I don't know. I got to watch this document. on Netflix. I'm going to check it out. But, uh, it's hard to imagine he wasn't to be able to get away with a lot of the stuff. Wouldn't surprise me. I mean, how do you have a parole officer that just doesn't check in?

Right. Or like, does he get in trouble? Right. Like Charles Manson's parole officer, like after seven people get murdered and the entire city shuts down, that guy has to be accountable. Also, what the Manson tell his first lawyer where that guy had to get ice. Yeah. I mean, I have no idea. And how did he die? Like, I wonder if they ever did an autopsy or like, figured out how he died. There's a lot more of this that we got to figure out. But all that to say, I didn't really know that much about Charles Manson, be honest with you. But now I feel like I have a better idea. I mean, also, it's just so convenient that like they need to discredit the hippie movement that for all intents of purposes is nothing other than like, you know, people that

want to like bang each other and do drugs. Right. Which, sure, you can have your qualms with that, but I don't think that people are enemies of the state. But if they are provoking, you know, or invoking this anti-war sentiment that I could see how that would become problematic, right? And then the fact that right at the sort of apex of this entire saga, you have one of the most violent chaos agents ever shows up on the scene in the place where it's all happening in San Francisco and then is murdering famous people to get on national news to then,

and then he's in this courtroom for nine months putting on this entire freak show to then basically tell people. And then it seems like the hippie movement basically ends after that. Like, not directly, but it's the end of the 60s. And then, like, it seems like it dramatically shifts. And I wonder if there's a direct fallout where, like, you have agents going and breaking up hippie gatherings being like, hey, you guys can't get together anymore because what if there's a Manson in here?

What if there's another Charles Manson? We've got to stop Charles Manson. I mean, that's crazy. I don't know. What do you all think? Was Charles Manson an MK Ultra agent? Was he tied in? Have you guys seen the documentary?

Have you read Tom O'Neill's book? Because I feel like there's a lot in there that we did not cover today, that we might need to do another deep dive on. But I appreciate you guys all for listening. I mean, it's the world. Thanks for holding me down, especially as we're, you know, dialing in our content here and figuring out what's best for you, the camper. As always, I've been Mark. You can see me on the road coming to your city, not as an agent of chaos, but as an agent of love, joy, and happiness. You can check out the tickets at themark markyagnon.com. You can also check out the merch clothing line, whatever you want to call it.

It's on the website. Campgoids.co. You can get these sick mugs, a bunch of other awesome stuff that we'll be putting there, and hopefully coming out with brand new products throughout the year. And I would love for you guys to, you know, to match with me and to put on some sick outfits. Just come to the shows and the camp gear.

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