Mind of a Serial Killer - MURDEROUS MINDS: Charles Manson & The Manson Family Cult Pt.1
Episode Date: March 17, 2025Tune in to explore the chilling rise of Charles Manson, from his troubled youth in reform school and prison to his desperate pursuit of power in the late 1960s. Using his dangerous charisma, Manson fo...rmed the notorious Manson Family, a cult of devoted followers he manipulated into obeying his every word. Murderous Minds is a Crime House Original. For more true crime content, follow us @crimehouse on Tiktok and Instagram. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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We have an exciting update.
Mind of a Serial Killer is now Killer Minds, expanding beyond serial killers to cover cult leaders,
crimes of passion, spree killers, and more.
Nothing else is changing.
Same expert analysis, same deep storytelling, now twice a week.
New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday, right here. No need to do anything, just a week. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday right here.
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Now enjoy the episode.
This is Crime House.
We all want a little guidance in our lives. Whether it's a longtime mentor, a favorite teacher,
or maybe even your weekly astrology chart, it's nice to have someone or something to rely on for
advice when things get tough. That was especially true in the 1960s and 70s during the counterculture era.
It was a chaotic time, dominated by the Vietnam War and the protests against it.
To find a sense of stability, a lot of people looked to spiritual gurus.
With so much uncertainty in the world, it was reassuring to put your faith in someone
who offered a sense of control over the chaos.
But sometimes, that guidance turned out to be dangerous.
Many of those gurus were self-proclaimed, and oftentimes more interested in boosting
their own fortunes than providing the support they promised.
And when it came to these false prophets, none were more dangerous than Charles Manson.
Charles promised his followers the world.
As long as they did what he said, they'd be rewarded with eternal happiness, beyond
their wildest dreams.
His disciples were all too eager to obey. They followed his every order
without question, even if it meant committing murder. The human mind is fascinating.
It controls how we think, how we feel, how we love, and how we hate.
And sometimes the mind drives us to do something truly unspeakable.
This is Killer Minds, formerly known as Mind of a Serial Killer, a Crime House original.
Every Monday and Thursday, we'll be taking deep dives into the minds of history's most notorious serial killers and murderers.
The show is still the same, the name just changed.
And if you're interested in more true crime stories from this week in history, check out Crime House The Show.
Every episode covers multiple cases, unified by the same theme, so every week you get something
a little different.
At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible.
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get access to both at once plus exciting Crime House bonus content. I'm Vanessa Richardson.
And I'm Dr. Tristan Engels.
As Vanessa takes you through our subject's stories,
I'll be helping her analyze what drove them
to commit their crimes as we try to understand
how someone can do such horrible things.
This is the first of two episodes on Charles Manson.
Some call him a cult leader.
Some call him a serial killer, some wonder if he
can even be considered a killer at all. Because even though he went to prison for murder,
Charles didn't deliver the fatal blow to any of his victims. His followers were his weapon
of choice.
In today's episode, we'll dig into Charles' early life and the circumstances that led
him to form the notorious Manson Family cult.
Next time, we'll follow Charles' desperate search for purpose, his descent into madness,
and the tragic murders that still haunt society today.
And as always, we'll be asking the question, What Makes a Killer?
From the moment he was born on November 12, 1934, Charles Manson's life was driven by
deception.
His birth certificate listed Kathleen and William Manson as his parents.
But for years, Charles had no idea that William wasn't his father.
That honor most likely belonged to a con artist named Colonel Scott.
Colonel was Scott's given first name, but if people assumed he was in the army, he didn't bother correcting
them.
That's how he caught Kathleen Maddox's attention at a dance club in Ironton, Ohio.
He was 23.
She was just 15.
Kathleen was charmed by the older man she assumed was a military officer. So when she discovered she was pregnant sometime in the spring of 1934, Kathleen had no reason
to doubt the Colonel when he said he was being called away on duty.
He promised he'd be back as soon as he could, but she never heard from him again.
After a few months, Kathleen finally realized she'd been duped, and now she needed to find
someone to help raise her soon-to-be newborn baby.
That's when William Manson, who worked for a dry cleaning business, entered the picture.
It's not really clear how the two of them met, but by the time Charles was born, on November 12, 1934,
Kathleen and William were married. However, it doesn't seem either of them was all that
interested in parenting. William wasn't around much, and neither was Kathleen. Most days
she dropped Charles off with her mom so she could go out drinking with her brother. Let's discuss the impact of Charles's early childhood. Kathleen was a minor, so her judgment,
reasoning, impulsiveness, decision-making, even emotional regulation is impaired because she did
not have a fully developed frontal lobe. This also affects her ability to cope appropriately with the
demands of being a
new mother, not to mention any postpartum effects she may have had. And given that Charles's
father conned his mother, she may have some conscious or unconscious resentment that she
projected onto Charles as a result. Her seemingly desperate and impulsive decision to marry William appears to be driven by more societal pressures on unwed mothers back then, not necessarily a marriage that was built on love.
And Charles later learning that William is not his biological father will more likely than not affect his sense of self-worth, his identity, and his trust. Kathleen abandoning Charles to go drinking
indicates she may have an alcohol use disorder,
and I also wonder if she drank while she was pregnant.
That could have caused a prenatal injury,
and if so, would warrant further exploration
to understand Charles' development.
Then there's the layer of Kathleen
and William's disinterest in being parents.
The effects of emotionally absent parents on children is well documented.
Those children tend to have more difficulty with trust, with self-esteem, and forming
healthy relationships.
And when you compound that with the abandonment and that William wasn't his biological father,
that is pretty profound.
Nurturance is critical for a child's development.
And if their immediate caregivers aren't providing that
or reinforcing a healthy development,
that child is at risk of exhibiting poor emotional regulation later on.
They have an increase in academic struggles,
behavioral deficits, and developmental delays.
So, even if Charles' grandmother was a nurturing guardian, recent academic struggles, behavioral deficits, and developmental delays.
So even if Charles' grandmother was a nurturing guardian, what kind of impact does it have
on a child when they can tell their parents aren't that interested in raising them?
That's a really good question.
Well, statistically, if a child has emotionally absent parents, but they have at least one
constant loving and nurturing
presence like a grandmother, for example, they are more likely to be resilient and overcome
those statistical odds that I'd mentioned.
And that's why there's so many adult children of emotionally absent parents who are high
functioning.
They are breaking generational cycles and they have learned to have healthy
attachments as adults.
Of course, this all depends on a number of factors, such as when that nurturing presence
entered their life, how long they remained in their life, how available they were to
them, as well as other things.
But the fact remains that children will recognize that their parents are emotionally absent
at some point, and there is a likelihood that there will be some resentment or anger.
With all this going on, it didn't take Kathleen and William long to realize they weren't
right for each other.
Within two and a half years, they were divorced.
After that, Kathleen turned to petty crime to get by. And on August 1, 1939, when Charles was almost five, she was arrested after an unsuccessful
robbery.
Kathleen spent the next few years behind bars while young Charles was given to his aunt,
uncle, and cousin who lived near the West Virginia prison where she was incarcerated.
And this is what I meant about those other variables
that affect resiliency.
If his grandmother was a constant source of nurturance
and affection, then taking him away from her
and passing him around through different relatives
like that really does reduce his ability
to gain that resiliency.
And it was a strict household on top of that.
And Charles was frequently punished for breaking
the rules. And he didn't have it much easier at school. He was small for his age and prone
to mischief. That meant he drew the attention of bullies and received discipline from his
teachers. It was a lot for a young boy to handle on his own. So when Kathleen was released from prison in 1942, eight-year-old Charles was over the
moon.
But after a short period of good behavior from both of them, things went south.
Kathleen had a hard time staying on the straight and narrow, and Charles took his cues from
her.
He stopped going to school and started stealing from local shops.
By the time Kathleen finally decided to get her life on track in 1943, she couldn't control
her son anymore.
In 1947, when Charles was 12, she sent him to a reform school in Terre Haute, Indiana,
called the Jebeau School for Boys.
Predictably, things didn't go well. Within ten months, Charles had run away multiple times. He
alternated between going back to his family and living on his own, stealing to get by. When he
inevitably got caught, he was sent to even stricter institutions.
In 1949, at 13 years old, Charles found himself at a place called the Indiana Boys' School.
And that's when his life became a living hell.
It wasn't like things had been easy until this point.
But at the Indiana Boys' School, things took a tragically dark turn. According to Charles, he was sexually assaulted by some
of his fellow students. And to make a horrifying situation even worse,
it was apparently encouraged by a staff member.
Oh wow.
There's a lot to unpack here. So until this point, Charles has had no real stability or security in his life, starting
from a very young age.
Not to mention the many broken attachments he's had until this point.
His mother was seemingly grooming him into a career criminal and then once again abandoned
him, this time to a reform school,
because she could no longer control what she herself had actually helped to
create. Now at this boy's school, he continues to lack any control over his
life and once again the adults that should be protecting him aren't and
instead are encouraging crimes against him. And this, I believe, greatly impacted his ability to empathize with others,
or rather his lack of ability to do that,
and why he only forms attachments to others if he has something to gain from them.
And those attachments will remain superficial.
He is learning more versatile ways to be a criminal,
and more importantly, this really shapes who he is to become.
His lack of control is going to be overcompensated
by a need to always be in control of everyone
and everything around him,
which we will definitely be getting into in detail
as you take us through his story.
Now, it is important to note
that Charles Manson was a notorious liar, and as author
Jeff Gwyn pointed out in The Life and Times of Charles Manson, it's possible he was not
being entirely truthful about the situation.
But based on his later actions, it does seem like Charles experienced some kind of sexual
abuse at the Indiana Boy School. So it wasn't surprising that Charles constantly tried to run away, to the tune of 18 times
over the course of three years.
And in February 1951, when Charles was 16, he got away from the Indiana Boy School for
good.
He and a couple other kids stole a car and decided to take it for a multi-state joy ride,
which got him in trouble with the federal authorities.
Instead of sending Charles back to Indiana, he was placed in the federal system.
First at a facility called the National Training School in Washington, D.C., and then the Natural
Bridge Honor Camp in Virginia.
This time, he was the one attacking others.
In January 1952, Charles was caught sexually assaulting another boy while holding a blade to his throat.
And this is how I mentioned we're starting to see his overcompensation for years of feeling out of control of his life.
He is ensuring he has all the power and control now.
And control is what sexual assault is motivated by.
After that, he was transferred to a high-security reform institution.
With nowhere left to go, it seems like Charles realized he had to turn things around, or at least pretend he did.
He became such a model student that he was released early in 1954.
Let's talk about this alleged reformation and why it's not genuine.
By now, Charles has met the criteria for conduct disorder, which is a precursor to antisocial
personality disorder.
Since he's not yet 18, he cannot be given a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder,
but he is showing signs already of juvenile psychopathy.
Criminality runs in the family.
His biological father was arguably very cunning, charming, and manipulative,
and was actually using stolen valor to con Charles' mother, Kathleen. Kathleen also
has a criminal history, one that took her from her son's life for a number of years.
In a family, history of criminality is important for us to look at because it shows there could
be a genetic component for mental illness
or psychopathy, but also it gives insight
into learned behaviors.
People who are abusive and manipulative
are taught those behaviors, and Charles clearly
had that influence and exposure with his mother
and the institutions that he had been housed in.
Charles learned how to mirror others and what they want
in order to get results,
making it more likely than not
that his reformation is not genuine.
Now that's not to say that there isn't a possibility
for juveniles to be successfully reformed
because that can certainly be the case.
But given what I just outlined with Charles,
his quote, model behavior, definitely was a con in and of itself.
It was another way to remain in control of how others see him and how quickly he can get released.
Whether or not Charles improved behavior was for real,
he actually kept it up after his release.
Now 19 years old, Charles moved to McMeck in West Virginia, bouncing
between his family there. Charles was well-behaved. He got a job mucking out stables at a horse
track and even met a girl, Rosalie Willis. They quickly started going steady, and on
January 13, 1955, they got married. Charles and Rosalie settled into a comfortable life
together. He made a few friends and even learned guitar. It wasn't long before Rosalie was
expecting their first child. But adding to their family was expensive, and Charles was
struggling to make ends meet. So he turned to what he did best, stealing.
He mostly stole cars and sold them in other states. But the extra money wasn't enough to give Charles
the life he wanted. By the summer of 1955, he'd had enough of West Virginia. He wanted to go west
to California. His mother Kathleen had moved there and Charles figured he and Rosalie could stay with her.
So he stole another car and they headed to Los Angeles to move in with Kathleen.
Charles kept driving the vehicle around for months after their arrival.
But in September 1955, a cop ran his plate and realized it was stolen.
Charles was terrified of being locked up. The second he got the chance, he and Rosalie skipped
town. They ended up in Indianapolis, where Rosalie gave birth to Charles Manson Jr. on April 10, 1956.
But the new parents didn't have much time to enjoy their new baby.
Just four days later, the cops caught up to them and Charles was dragged back to California.
And this time, there was no escaping. In April 1956, 21-year-old Charles Manson was arrested after trying to evade car theft
charges.
He was sentenced to three years at Terminal Island Penitentiary in San Pedro, California,
just a few miles south of LA. Meanwhile, his wife
Rosalie and their newborn baby returned to California and moved back in with Charles'
mom so they could be nearby.
At Terminal Island, Charles interacted with all sorts of convicts. Unlike his time at
reform school though, he didn't need to worry about asserting his dominance over them.
If he didn't start any trouble, there wouldn't be any trouble.
Instead, he decided to use his time to learn from his fellow convicts, specifically the
pimps.
They told Charles how they recruited vulnerable young women, then controlled them by separating
them from their families.
To make sure the women didn't try to leave, the pimps would give them just the right mixture
of love bombing and fear.
Most people would find that advice horrifying.
Charles found it fascinating.
Yeah, I would expect he would.
His fascination in controlling sex workers really speaks to what I've already been really
touching on with Charles.
He's overcompensating for a life of feeling no control to ensure he has a life where he
is in full control.
And this includes being in total control of others.
Charles has never really experienced loyalty to the degree that most people do in their family, because
he's never really experienced a sense of belonging or family in the traditional sense.
He also learned that no one was willing to protect him when he was undergoing abuse in
the various institutions he had been in.
And it certainly sounds like no one really protected the people that he abused in return.
So now, as an adult, he's wanting to expand on this control.
As we know, he's looking to form a devoted chosen family or what would soon become a
cult and that he feels will always remain loyal, prove their loyalty, and whom he can
maintain control over by isolating them and expecting total obedience.
Do you think there's actually some part of him that has a desire to be a twisted sort of provider for them?
In a sense, yes, but not because he genuinely cares about them as people.
Charles longs to be the one who is provided for in every sense of the word,
so he cares more about their belief that he is their provider, only because of what he'll gain in return.
But there were some things in life Charles couldn't control. At first, Rosalie would
bring Charles Jr. with her to visit the prison every week. Then, about a year into Charles'
sentence, she stopped showing up. Rosalie had met someone else and was moving on.
In June 1957, she and Charles were officially divorced. After that, Rosalie and the baby were
completely out of his life. And we've talked about just a moment ago about how he's really never had
a sense of belonging or loyalty or family, this felt like another
abandonment to him because this was probably the first time he might have actually felt
some semblance of that. And now it's gone.
Yeah, they had given Charles a sense of purpose. But now that they were gone, he needed to
find a new direction in his life. It came in the form of a self-help guru named Dale Carnegie, the author of How to
Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie offered self-improvement classes at Terminal
Island, and Charles was allowed to join one. He took to it like a fish to water. Carnegie's
book contained advice that would become especially important to Charles. He specifically latched onto the phrase,
quote, let the other fellow feel that the idea is his, end quote.
The course seemed to spark new life in Charles. Like his final stint in reform school, he became
a model inmate, and on September 30, 1958, he was released early for good behavior.
Once again, he had the opportunity to take his life in any direction.
But he couldn't seem to hold down a job.
He was too focused on trying to become a pimp.
It didn't go well.
After his release, he stayed in LA and managed to recruit a couple young women.
But he didn't follow his prison mentor's advice because he let them stay in touch with their
families. Almost immediately, one of the women's fathers complained about Charles to the police.
Charles managed to talk his way out of it, and it wasn't long before he found himself in more hot water.
On May 1, 1959, 24-year-old Charles got caught after he stole a U.S. Treasury check from
a mailbox and tried to cash it. He was only able to avoid jail time because one of his
few remaining sex workers pretended to be pregnant with his child, and they convinced Charles'
parole officer to intervene. Instead, he got a 10-year suspended sentence that let him
remain a free man.
But in what had now become a predictable pattern, Charles didn't use the opportunity to better his life. Instead, he dug in further, continuing to work as a pimp and stealing cars.
However, Charles wasn't exactly a criminal mastermind.
It didn't take long for the authorities to catch on to him, and he was arrested barely
a year after being released from Terminal Island.
His suspended sentence was revoked, and he was sent to a
prison off the coast of Washington State to serve out the rest of his time.
Thirteen months after his release from Terminal Island, 25-year-old Charles was arrested again.
Let's discuss why Charles does not seem to learn from past mistakes. And there's a number of possibilities for this.
But since Charles has been engaging in theft at a young age, it's possible that part of
this is that he struggles with an impulse control disorder, like kleptomania.
That could be a condition on its own, but more often it is a symptom of something else,
such as antisocial personality disorder.
Individuals who have antisocial personality disorder
or have such a severe case of it
that it rises to psychopathy have a need for stimulation,
as well as impulse control deficits,
and they are not deterred by consequences.
He is also around an age where,
should he have an undiagnosed severe mental
illness like schizophrenia or bipolar, those symptoms would begin to become more prominent.
But there is also a learned pattern of criminality here from a young age that I touched on earlier.
Not only has he learned that stealing cars and trafficking women is fast and easy money, but he's also
been in and out of institutions since he was young, and that can create a criminal cycle.
Most individuals who are in and out of institutions suffer serious setbacks financially and in
meeting their basic needs when they're released.
It can be very difficult for them to find work, but also find work that pays them enough to get their own place, provide for their needs, pay off debts, let alone save any money.
And they definitely have to work longer and harder for less money than what their criminal
career is likely provided, making traditional work an unattractive option if they feel desperate.
After all, the biggest risk for recidivism or reoffending
is their inability to meet their basic needs.
And Charles was struggling to hold on a job.
So with Charles, it's likely a combination
of biological, psychological, and social deficits
that cause him to reoffend and not learn from his mistakes.
Well, one thing was for sure.
Charles treated this last incarceration
as another learning opportunity.
This time, he dove into the Church of Scientology,
which had been founded just a few years earlier.
But like the Dale Carnegie classes,
Charles saw it less as an opportunity for self-improvement
and more as a opportunity for self-improvement and more
as a tool for manipulation.
He thought he could use the tenets of Scientology to appeal to potential sex work recruits,
but he also used his new religion to placate the prison's staff.
They liked it when inmates showed a positive attitude and were encouraged by Charles'
interest in Scientology.
Around this time, Charles also became interested in a science fiction book called Stranger
in a Strange Land.
It's about a man raised on Mars who starts his own religion on Earth.
The character also uses his mind to destroy his enemies, engages in group sex, and becomes an immortal spirit.
These ideas, particularly the group sex, would become a major factor in Charles' ideology
down the road.
I want to point out something you said, Vanessa, that's really interesting regarding the book
Stranger in a Strange Land.
I have not personally read this book,
but given what you described,
I can see why he was so drawn to it.
A person's interest in a story helps psychologists
identify the concept of the hero's journey.
And that's important because essentially
that is a projection of their core values,
identity, and subconscious desires.
Based on his interest in this book, it highlights how Charles has never felt like he belonged
anywhere, which we've already covered, but it also shows that he lacked value and resonated
with this book as a result.
In the book, the man from Mars discovered a sense of purpose and belonging on Earth
by teaching people a new religion.
And then there's his interest in Scientology.
This has taught him how people find a sense of belonging and purpose and acceptance through
religion.
The other interesting part of that was when you said the character uses his mind to destroy
his enemies, much like his interest in how to win friends and influence
people, it shows that Charles has an unconscious desire to have connection but also full control
of those connections to avoid any kind of rejection.
He also has a fixation on mind control.
And if he begins to truly believe in this concept, he could form a grandiose delusion regarding mind control, and that could indicate signs of psychosis.
In addition to learning to manipulate people, Charles used his time in prison to rekindle
the guitar hobby he'd started back in West Virginia.
One of the prison's most notorious convicts, former outlaw Alvin Creepy Carpus was also a talented musician, and he was happy
to give Charles lessons, although he didn't think his new student was very good.
But the biggest musical influence on Charles during this time was the Beatles. After hearing
them on the radio, Charles became obsessed with becoming a famous musician himself. Until now, music had always been a fun
hobby. Now, it was his life's calling. His interest in becoming a famous musician
after hearing the Beatles was likely due to the fact that the Beatles had a
massive cult following, particularly with young women. Charles' obsession with
music helped him stay out of trouble though, and on March 21, 1967,
he was released early.
Left with nowhere to go, he called a former prisoner he'd been friendly with.
He invited 32-year-old Charles to come stay with him in Berkeley, California, in the San
Francisco Bay Area.
As one of the hippie movement's hot spots,
it was the ideal place for an aspiring musician like Charles to hone his craft. But to Charles
Manson, the Bay Area must have seemed like another planet.
Until this point, he'd spent over half his life, and almost all of his adult years, in some kind
of correctional facility. Now, he was set loose in the streets of Berkeley, the epicenter
of the counterculture revolution that was sweeping the nation. It was home to people
from all walks of life. From the Black Panthers, to student protests at the University of California to people just looking
to express themselves freely.
That included aspiring musicians like Charles, which presented a problem.
Every street corner was claimed, and every club was booked.
So making a living playing guitar wasn't going to be easy.
And Charles wasn't interested in working a typical blue-collar job in the meantime.
He couldn't crash on his friend's couch forever, though.
So if Charles was going to make his dreams come true, he needed to find somewhere to
stay long-term that didn't require him to pay rent.
And thanks to what he'd learned in prison, he knew exactly how to do it.
In March of 1967, 32-year-old Charles Manson arrived in Berkeley, California,
with dreams of becoming a famous musician.
But the reality of that dream quickly set in.
If Charles was going to stick around, he needed somewhere to stay that wasn't a fellow ex-convict's
couch.
And it wasn't long before he found the perfect opportunity.
Shortly after arriving in Berkeley, Charles was on the University of California's campus
when he noticed someone standing out in the crowd, a 23-year-old assistant librarian named
Mary Brunner.
Unlike most of the people in Berkeley, Mary was very conservative.
And she dressed like it.
Charles sensed she was lonely in the sea of hippies, and they
struck up a conversation. That was all Charles needed to sink his hooks into her.
One of Charles Manson's enduring mysteries is how he convinced people to do such awful
things for him. But when it came to Mary Brunner, all he had to do was be nice to her. He sang her
some songs, complimented her dog, connected with her about the environment. He made her
feel seen. And when he mentioned he didn't have anywhere to stay at the moment, she was
happy to put him up for a few nights. But Charles had no intention of leaving. It wasn't long before he and Mary were sleeping
together and he'd moved in for good. Charles wasn't really interested in a traditional
relationship though. He frequently brought other girls over to Mary's apartment. And
she tolerated it. As long as Charles still made her feel special, Mary turned a blind
eye.
This is really showcasing how manipulative and parasitic Charles has learned to become,
both of which are very good signs and traits of psychopathy. Like you shared, Charles
saw Mary and recognized quickly that she likely did not feel like she fit in as a conservative woman among free-spirited
hippies. She had a hard time identifying with the culture and making friends and connections,
and was therefore lonely and insecure. And it appears he was right, because like you
said, all it took was for him to be attentive and nice to her. These are predatory and grooming
behaviors. A lot of these behaviors are learned, most of which are learned and honed while in prison, for him,
and I think it's also worth noting just how influential institutions can be.
If you're incarcerated, and Manson was for the majority of his life,
you learn that you must control your environment and the people around you to survive,
not just with other inmates,
but with the correctional staff as well, since they're not necessarily safe for him either,
as he learned very early on. Individuals who are incarcerated had very little to do.
They paid very close attention to everyone else, especially staff. And having worked in prisons myself, we were
taught how to recognize this kind of manipulation and over-familiarity from some of the incarcerated
population because this behavior is to be expected. They limit tests to see what they
can get away with, and in doing so, are looking for specific insecurities that they can prey upon to gain loyalty.
The end goal is that they get a compromised employee or another incarcerated individual,
one who could smuggle and contraband, for example.
And then once that individual has done it once, they're trapped in that cycle or they lose
their jobs and possibly face their own set of legal challenges.
So this is exactly the tactics
that Charles is using here on Mary.
He's preying on her insecurities
and he's looking to entrap her into a cycle,
one that makes it hard for her to leave.
And Charles loved the attention he got
from all the various women he brought back to the apartment.
But that feeling was fleeting.
As soon as his visitors went home,
it was just him and Mary again. Although she certainly doted on him, it wasn't enough.
He wanted that feeling of overwhelming adoration, permanently.
To make that happen, he headed across the bay to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district.
Charles loved going to the Haight, as it was known.
It was a hippie neighborhood with easy access to sex, drugs, and plenty of new age thinking.
While the district had its fair share of opportunities for street musicians like him, that's not
what brought Charles there.
He liked Haight because it was a hot spot for street preachers.
Charles was fascinated by the hold some of these gurus had on their followers, and after
everything he'd learned in prison, he felt like he could build a flock of his own.
So he found an open stretch of sidewalk and started preaching.
A lot of it was the same hippie philosophy all the others were spouting – self-love,
limitless possibility, New Age spirituality, that sort of thing.
But Charles delivered it better than anyone else.
It wasn't long before his sermons attracted a devoted audience.
Along with the attention he was getting, Charles enjoyed the easy access to drugs in the hate,
particularly LSD.
As his mind became increasingly divorced from reality, he started to equate himself with
none other than Jesus Christ.
He thought that if he could get a few devoted followers, they could recruit more exponentially,
just like the apostles did
for Jesus.
So why was Charles so obsessed with creating a group of devoted followers?
I think we've really touched on that.
His seeking belonging, he's seeking acceptance, purpose, security, and he definitely has a
low sense of self-worth that he's trying to overcompensate for.
But at the same time, because these are such critical unmet needs that he's had since
childhood, he's very successful in identifying and exploiting the same needs out of vulnerable
women through manipulation, through isolation, and drug addiction.
The more he can keep them under the influence, the more he can distort their reality and perceptions and keep them dependent on him to supply not just the addiction,
but their own sense of belonging. He wants to control their minds and using religion
makes it easier to make his following feel a part of something important. And that's
why he's drawn to becoming a guru. If he can use fear tactics to get them to believe in him without questioning his teachings,
then he can indoctrinate, and he can brainwash them.
In May of 1967, 32-year-old Charles gained his first disciple, Lynetteomey, an 18-year-old runaway he
met on a trip to Venice Beach. Like with Mary Brunner, Charles made Lynette feel loved and
appreciated. He gave her the meaning she was searching for, and she was eager to accompany
him back to Berkeley.
Lynette moved in with Charles and Mary, and by the end of the summer they were joined
by two women named Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins.
But it wasn't all love and sunshine.
Between the moments of bliss, Charles was always looking to test his followers' devotion.
Sometimes he made them stand in front of a tree while Charles threw knives around them.
He wanted to see if they would trust him with their lives.
And they did.
That wasn't enough for him, though.
He needed their focus on him at all times.
If Charles felt like someone's attention was drifting during one of his sermons, he
could get physically violent.
By the end of the summer, Charles may have decided he needed more discipline in the group.
To him, that meant recruiting some men as well.
Sometime in the fall of 1967, he won over a guy named Bruce Davis.
Bruce looked up to Charles just like the others did, and was desperate to become his right-hand man.
Charles was happy to have a follower who was that devoted to him.
And for the moment, the group he called the Manson family felt complete.
Let's discuss why he would want men to join the family,
because that's a deviation so far, right?
Yeah.
Charles, like we've talked about, you know, he wants full devotion from his followers
and he's starting to notice that he was losing their interest.
And if he did, he would become violent towards them.
And if we recall that violence and abuse is a learned behavior, and in prison, Charles
learned from other pimps how they were able to recruit
and maintain obedience from women.
And it's no secret that even if women volunteer to do sex work, if they have a pimp, there
is inevitably almost always some form of force or coercion.
Charles is using violence and psychologically coercive techniques to do the same. So when
he starts to notice that women are getting bored or their attention is drifting and his
presence was not enough to maintain the discipline, having more men certainly would. Not only
could he use them to keep the women obedient, but if they were ever to get curious about the affections of a man other than Charles,
and there are men in his family, they are more likely to explore that within the family
than leave the family altogether.
And that fear is far greater to Charles than anything else.
Well, now that Charles had his dedicated group of acolytes, he decided it was time to move
on from the Bay Area.
Although being a spiritual guru was nice, he still held on to his dreams of becoming
a professional musician.
To do that, he had to be where the action was, Los Angeles.
So in November 1967, he gathered the family and they drove down to LA in an old school bus.
It turned out his old prison mentor who'd taught Charles guitar was well connected in
the music scene.
He told Charles to seek out an executive at Universal Music named Gary Stromberg.
Stromberg actually agreed to see him and liked Charles' music enough to set up a studio
session.
But once he got into the booth, Charles was out of his depth.
Stromberg suggested he work on his music some more and they could try again another time.
That meant the Manson family needed somewhere to stay.
They crashed at a few places in Topanga Canyon, LA's hippie hotspot. A
lot of musicians lived there, and Charles spent a lot of time trying to connect with
them. But they didn't think he was all that talented, and they brushed him off.
Charles didn't take it well. He took out his frustrations on his followers, sometimes
through physical abuse.
But his hold over them remained powerful, and they refused to abandon him while he pursued
his dreams.
It's hard to imagine from the outside looking in that anyone would want to remain loyal
to Charles when he is violent and he would take out frustrations on them.
So why do they continue to stick with him?
Aside from how we've
already established that he's a master at manipulation, we also need to think
about the abuse cycles that occur, especially within intimate partner
violence. The abuser vacillates between using affection and being loving with
being abusive. The abuser isolates their partner and makes them dependent on
them for their physical
and emotional needs, making it harder for the victim to leave.
This is no different, only it's in a group, which is arguably even more manipulative because
of a hive mentality or group polarization and group think.
It's hard to deconstruct the manipulation of one person, especially when they are surrounded by an entire group who are lacking insight into the manipulation themselves.
So imagine you start to question things.
A group of devotees will quickly share that information, and the pressure to concede or face total alienation or even retaliation is high. And that's terrifying, especially for vulnerable people
who have no family or nowhere to go
and nowhere else that they feel they belong.
Even though Charles had plenty of loyal followers at this point,
he decided he wanted to grow the family even more.
He used the new environment to recruit more people,
including 18-year-old Paul Watkins, the family's
second male recruit, Ruth Ann Morehouse, a girl who Charles had been trying to get to
join them for a while, and Dee Dee Lansbury, actress Angela Lansbury's teenage daughter.
By early 1968, there were almost 20 people in the Manson family. Money wasn't a huge concern for them, they had plenty of places to stay, and there were
so many of them, they could scrounge up enough from panhandling to get by.
With this many people at his disposal, Charles was more interested in using his followers
to help him make connections.
He liked to send the girls into the city to make friends with
anyone who could introduce him to the right people.
And sometime in the spring of 1968, it paid off when a couple of them befriended Dennis
Wilson, the drummer of the Beach Boys. They introduced him to Charles, who wormed his
way into Dennis' good graces.
Within a few days, the entire Manson family was getting comfortable at Dennis' large
estate on Sunset Boulevard.
Dennis loved Charles.
He wasn't interested in joining the family, but he was more than happy to introduce Charles
to a few friends in the music business.
One of them was a young producer named Terry Melcher.
Terry was a verified hitmaker.
Signing with him was almost a guaranteed success.
But even though Charles came highly recommended to Terry, he didn't just sign people as a
favor.
And Terry wasn't interested in Charles' music.
Dennis Wilson wasn't much of a resource anymore either.
After a few months, he'd started to tire of the family's constant presence.
What began as a fun novelty had become an exhausting chore.
Charles was extremely demanding and too much to deal with.
When Dennis' lease ended later that summer, he
moved into a smaller place that couldn't accommodate the Manson family. Charles and
his followers were back on their own, and his dreams of becoming a musician seemed farther
away than ever.
This isn't the first time that Charles has faced rejection in the music industry, and
it hasn't derailed him so far.
But Dennis rejecting him, I imagine, did not go over well,
especially if that rejection was witnessed by his family.
Part of why he's so successful in maintaining their loyalty
and devotion is he continues to maintain an image
that doesn't appear questioned by anyone.
Now you have an influential musician who seemingly has
a fresh perspective of Charles and his family and how
he's demanding he can be. And if he was going to be reactive to his rejection,
it was likely because of the fear that Dennis's feelings about him might influence his family and fracture everything he's built. In
addition to obvious the grandiose dreams of becoming a big musician.
to obvious, the grandiose dreams of becoming a big musician. Dr. Engels, do people like Charles tend to make excuses in situations like this?
Are they capable of introspection and really understanding why someone's upset with them?
I don't think someone like Charles is capable of introspection or accountability.
In fact, I don't think he's aware that anything he is doing is wrong. In situations like this, I would expect Charles to get angered and project that anger onto
the rejecter.
He responds with violence.
It's a course of tactic that he's used to maintain obedience and avoidance conditioning,
meaning that he reacts like this with individuals because they're less likely to do whatever
it was in the first place that caused that reaction.
So he's conditioning them to avoid questioning him, to avoid rejecting him.
LESLIE KENDRICK-HILL, JR.
However Charles felt about getting kicked out of Dennis' place, he was certainly adaptable.
He moved the family into Spahn Ranch, an old western movie set outside of LA that had fallen
into disrepair.
In exchange for helping fix up the place, the ranch's elderly owner let them stay in
the various shacks around the property for free.
Away from the hustle and bustle of the city, Charles was able to reassert control over
the family.
Dennis Wilson's house had been full of distractions.
Now that they were more isolated out in the country, he could strengthen the hypnotic
hold he had over his followers. He wanted more than a family. He wanted a cult. Thanks so much for listening. Come back next time for the conclusion of our series on Charles
Manson and the terrifying murders he called Helter Skelter.
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This episode was brought to life by the Killer Minds team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex
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Of the many sources we used when researching this episode, the one we found the most credible
and helpful was The Life and Times of Charles Manson by Jeff Gwynn.
Thank you for listening.