Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - The End of the Summer of Love: The Manson Family

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

In the summer of 1969, Los Angeles was living in the long glow of the counterculture — until two nights of murders shattered it beyond repair. Charles Manson never held the knife himself, but he held something more powerful: the total psychological devotion of young men and women who would kill on his word. We examine how Manson built his family, what he promised them, the ideology of race war he called Helter Skelter, and the murders of Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, and five others that made the whole country lock its doors. Fifty years on, we ask what made Manson possible — and what made his followers willing.For more, follow Crimes Of wherever you listen to podcasts: https://pod.link/1838511303If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Scams, Money, & Murder to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Scams, Money, & Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Crime House 24/7, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories, and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

This is Crime House. Welcome to Crimes of Colts, a crimehouse original powered by Pave Studios. We're your host, Corinne Bien, and Sabrina Deanna Roga. Every Tuesday, we're exploring a different corner of the true crime universe, examining cases that left a permanent impact on society. This season, we're stepping into some of the world's most dangerous cults and the charismatic leaders who promised salvation. But instead, led their followers to ruin.

We're going to ask the chilling question of when does belief become control? And how can you tell the difference between faith and manipulation, between hope and fear? If you're loving crimes of, please follow, rate, and review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community, and we love hearing from you. To get early access and ad-free listening, subscribe to the Crimehouse Plus community on Apple Podcasts. You can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. Today we're covering Charles Manson, his cult, known as the Manson family, and the murders that stopped a generation in its tracks.

If you're fan of true crime, or even if you're not, you've heard the name Charles Manson. You've heard of the terrible crimes he committed, but the full story is more chilling than anything you could imagine. It's the early hours of August 9, 1969, and Los Angeles police officer, Jerry DeRosa, is one of the first responders to arrive at 10050 CLO Drive. A secluded home tucked behind an iron gate at the top of a winding road in Benedict's Canyon. He doesn't know what he'll find. It probably won't be good. The neighbors heard screaming coming from the house and it got called in as a possible homicide.

And when Jerry pulls up the long driveway, the first thing his headlights catch is a body. Slumped in a car near the gate, the engine still running. It's a young man. Jerry can see he's been shot multiple times, and this man is not moving. Jerry radios it in as he approaches the house. The front door is slightly open, and as he gets closer, he sees it. A word written across the door. Pig.

It's written in blood. He pauses, studies himself. He knows that this is not going to be an ordinary crime scene, but he has a job to do. So he takes a deep breath. He pushes the door open and he steps inside. The living room is in chaos. There's furniture overturned, blood everywhere, and two bodies. A man and a woman both bound with white rope.

But there are more. Outside on the lawn, officers find two more bodies. And it seems like they were trying to run, but they didn't make it far. As they take in this horrific crime scene, they realized that among the victims is a young actress, Sharon Tate, eight and a half months pregnant, brutally murdered. In total, six people, including an unborn child, are dead. And there's no clear motive.

No sign of robbery. Just violence. Messy, frenzied, brutal. Like it was meant to be seen, meant to say something. But what? And more importantly, who would do something? like this. It's so horrific. It's terrible. Yeah. And it's also the crime scene that I feel like most people think of when they hear Charles Manson or the Manson family. But what often gets lost

is that this was not the only crime. There was more violence and more victims. Truly just one night after this crime at Cello Drive, there was another brutal set of murders in Los Angeles. and it took a really long time for the police to connect the two of them together, let alone connect them to Charles Manson and the Manson family. Today, we know the Manson murders as one of the most mainstream moments of that era. And when I was looking up, like, what else was happening around that time, we landed on the moon for the very first time, like literally months before this, and then right after was Woodstock. So you're framing what's happening in this time. It's pretty wild. We'll get into all the details about these crimes and the other ones that

Manson committed. But first, let's talk about Charles Manson. And I do want to acknowledge that before we get into all the details, it's hard to validate a lot of this and about his upbringing as fact because good old Charles Manson, he was really good at lying. Lyer, liar, pants on fire. 100%. The perfect cult leader. Yep, he spun lies. He like tried to control narratives. So we'll try to point out what was alleged by Manson and then what has been like very as fact. And shout out to some of our sources for today's episode, the book The Life and Times of Charles Manson, which was written by Jeff Gwynn, and Chaos Charles Manson, the CIA, and the secret history of the 60s by Tom O'Neill. Charles Manson was born November 12, 1934, in Cincinnati,

Ohio. His mother, Kathleen Maddox, was 16 years old when she got pregnant with him, and from the very beginning, there were some signs of instability within his life. She found out she was pregnant, and Manson's father, who was a 23-year-old man who went by Colonel Scott, left saying that he was being called away on duty. Oh, how convenient. Even though, despite his name, Colonel, he actually wasn't in the military at all. So this was just a total bogus lie. Yep. Another liar liar pants on fire.

Yeah, right? Apple doesn't fall. No. Kathleen never heard from Colonel Scott again. and she knew that she couldn't raise this baby on her own. So sometime before Charles was born, she ended up marrying this other guy named William Manson, which is why he has the last name, Manson. But that's all William really gave to Charles. He really wasn't around much, and he and Kathleen actually divorced when Charles was just two years old, so he really wasn't a big part of his life at all.

Yeah. On top of that, Kathleen was struggling with alcohol abuse, and most days she would leave Charles. in like little tiny Charles with her mom so she could go drinking with her brother. And we also have to remember she was 16 when she got pregnant. She's also basically a child. So it's just a bad. Yeah, instability. Seen altogether.

Now when Charles was nearly five years old, Kathleen and her brother tried to rob a man that they had met at the bar. Their weapon of choice and sources vary a bit on this. But apparently it was either a ketchup bottle filled with salt or a Coca-Cola. bottle as a weapon. Either way, not very effective. And Kathleen was arrested. She was convicted and she was sentenced to five years in prison. So like already, as you can imagine, it's not a great environment to grow up in. It was a little bit volatile, or definitely a lot of bit volatile. It was unpredictable. And then after Kathleen's arrest, Charles was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in McMecan, West Virginia, close to where Kathleen was incarcerated. But this environment

that he was sent into was not much better because his aunt and uncle were not exactly the warm, nurturing, come here, let's give you cuddles and kisses, types of people. They were very strict. And if Charles broke those rules, they enforced harsh punishment. Yeah. It's hard because already he's like getting shuffled around and everyone's so different in there. Yeah. Again. Hardship, their own personal hardships. There are a lot of people who have gone through hard things in their life and they don't become someone like Charles Manson. The majority of people, actually. They're not excusing it, but it's just giving context. Charles was not much better at school either. He acted out a lot and became a problem. And then in 1942, when Charles was just eight years old, Kathleen was released. And he was thrilled. As you can

imagine, any child would be so excited to finally be reunited with their mother. But this actually didn't go as we want. And things got even more complicated. Kathleen had a hard time staying on the straight and narrow. And this time, Charles started to follow her lead. So he stopped going to school altogether and started stealing from local shops. By the time he was 12, Kathleen herself was like, I can't manage this child. And so in 1947, she sent him to the Jibbo school for boys in Terre Haute, Indiana. And within 10 months, Charles ran away. He tried to go back to his mother, but she turned him away and then he fell into this pattern of getting sent to strict institutions and running away and that like happened multiple times and then by 1949 when charles was 14 he was placed at the

indiana boys school in plainfield and according to charles he was sexually assaulted by older boys at the school more than once yeah so basically at this point in his life he's like every institution every authority figure everyone is just betraying him right that would make sense as to why he's acting out. There's a lot that he's out of control, and this is his way of fighting back. In 1951, when Charles was 16, he and a couple other kids stole a car and ran away across state lines, which I'm not condoning doing any of that, but if you cross the state lines, it becomes much more serious. So this got him in trouble with the feds, the federal authorities. Yeah, when you cross state lines, the feds get involved. Yeah, it's no longer a state crime.

And this is how he got sent to the federal facility, the Natural Bridge Honor Camp in Virginia. And do you think that this was the time that he finally gets to reform? I think we can all agree based on what we know about Charles Manson. Absolutely not. In January of 1952, Charles Manson was caught sexually assaulting another boy while holding a knife to that boy's throat. And this got him sent to a high security reform institution. And it is here that he decided that he would finally turn things around in his life. and he appeared to be very compliant.

And based on this, he was released for good behavior in 1954. Charles went back to McMeckin. He got a job, and then that's when he met a girl. Rosalie Willis. They got married on January 13, 1955, and before long, they were expecting their first child together. And Charles tried to support this young family, but quickly reverted back to stealing cars. and you would think maybe he would learn not to move them across state lines, but no, he would sell them across state lines. And it brought in money, but it was not nearly enough, and it's not like the most dependable job.

And so Charles was getting tired of West Virginia and decided he wanted to go to California where his mom, Kathleen, was living, and he figured he could move in with her. So he stole another car, and he and Rosalie headed to L.A., driving across multiple state lines. But now they're living in L.A., they're living life. But Charles was driving the stolen car, and a police officer actually ran his plates, discovered that it was stolen, and they were looking for Charles. And Charles knew that he had messed up, that he knew they were after him. So he ends up fleeing with Rosalie, his wife, and end up in Indianapolis where... His pregnant wife. His pregnant wife, yeah.

Can you imagine the stress on her and her pregnancy? Right. They end up in Indianapolis where Rosalie gave birth to their son, Charles Jr., on April 10th, 1956. Four days later, police tracked 21-year-old Charles down and bring him back to California. And he ends up with a three-year sentence and serves it at Terminal Island Penitentiary. And this is where you can really see the next steps, like the evolution of Charles Manson take place. About a year into a sentence, Rosalie stops visiting, and she ends up divorcing him for another man.

So they were officially divorced in 1958, which, as you can have been. imagine no one's going to be a fan of that, but Charles was not happy about it. And he tried to get his mind off of his heartbreak. He could have picked up a hobby, knitting, reading books, education of some kind. He started making friends with a particular group of inmates who had gotten convicted for pimping and they start telling him all these stories about how they recruited young vulnerable women and boasted and bragged about how they would control these women by separating them from their families. And they used a mixture of isolation, manipulation, love bombing, and fear. And most people, like us, would find that absolutely horrifying.

But here's Charles, whose wife had just left him. And he likes this idea of like, oh, how do I manipulate someone? How do I make someone stay with me forever? And never abandoned me. Right. Yeah. Oh. You know what else I have a problem with when it comes to Colts?

Not only is LA kind of a common thread theme with a lot of them when it comes to like recruiting people, but I feel like a lot of the idea swapping is happening in jail. Fair. I don't know how to stop it. Me either. It's just a thought. But you're putting pieces together. Talk about something else. Yeah.

And stop that. All the people listening in jail. Now he's like learning this from these people and he's like, okay, well, I like this. I find this fascinating. and maybe that's how I get people to stay and not abandon me. And he turns to step number two, which is the works of self-help guru Dale Carnegie, specifically his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And Charles latches onto this phrase that's in this book, in quotes, it says,

let the other fellow feel that the idea is his. So basically manipulate them. Yeah. And so these would become the guiding principles for the rest of his. his life, although it would take a while for him to really figure out how to do it. After getting released from Terminal Island, Charles tried his hand at recruiting sex workers now with the knowledge he had from his prison friends, but it did not go as planned. He ended up back in prison just 13 months after getting let out.

But this time, he was sent to a different institution, one that was off the coast of Washington State. And he used his time behind bars here to learn other opportunities that molded later, how he would become. It is so wild because I do feel like, I mean, this is part of the stuff that I didn't know about Manson because all the media really focuses on. You just see the photos of him looking so crazy with like getting arrested and all the pictures of Sharon.

But that he had a whole life of crime prior to the crimes we know about. Which is not how they have portrayed it before. Which is like this little hippie-dippy family. They're like playing music and then suddenly they murder a pregnant celebrity. Nope. But it's a lifelong journey. It didn't happen overnight. Yeah.

So in jail, he decided to explore Scientology and picked up some concepts about ego suppression and the possibility of self-reinvention. I hear Scientology and I think, oh, that's another cult. So, yeah. Right. First, he joined a cult and then he became a leader. He also later became fixated on a science fiction book called Stranger in a Strange Land. And this is about a guy who was raised on Mars and started his own religion on Earth. And the guy in the book uses his mind to destroy his enemies, engage in group sex, and become an immortal spirit.

Let me guess. Charles Manson really especially loved the group sex part. Obviously. And probably also the immortal spirit idea. Just the whole thing, I think. Yeah. Because he's like obviously identifying his feeling out of this world. Right.

He doesn't belong on this planet. He's copy and pasting. Yes. He's taking like a sci-fi book. He's plagiarizing. Oh my gosh, guys, go get him. And during this time, he also discovered that he loves music. He loved playing guitar.

He loved the Beatles. And by the time he got out on March 21st, 1967, Charles Manson believed that he was destined to be this world famous musician, which is what led him to move to San Francisco. Because this was the height of counterculture, pieces love movement. he could totally have maybe a successful shot at having a music career here. And San Francisco is the place to be. Yeah. So here, 32-year-old Charles Manson walks into the middle of the notorious hate Ashbury district with a guitar, a dream, this strange sci-fi, Scientology, control sex, combo ideology.

Very wordy ideology. And between playing music, having sex and doing drugs, Charles starts to share his philosophy with other people. It does make me wonder, like, if you took him out of this time period and this bubble and put him just like today somewhere, people would be like you're on drugs. Like you're having a mental moment and you might need to go seek help, right? Well, that's such a big thing of this is it is such a drug induced. But everyone else is too. Yeah. Right.

Right. It's tough. It's very tough. So he ends up what we'll call the first recruit, although he wasn't technically, most cult leaders aren't being like, I'm starting. starting a cult. But one of his first, if not his first recruit, was a woman named Mary Brunner, who was a 23-year-old assistant librarian at UC Berkeley. And Charles was able to, like, very quickly charm her so much so that he charmed her into letting him stay with her. And then Charles starts bringing home other women with him. But he had gotten so deep into Mary's head. And also this is

like a time of like free love and all this stuff where as long as Charles, at the end of the day, Charles would like prioritize her and still give her attention she was like yeah bring whoever you want as many women as you want over i need to see pictures of him from this time period because the amount of like charisma and charm and convincing people and in my head all i can think of is all of his arrest photos where he looks like a rabid raccoon like literally looks like he just crawled out of his own grave yeah he's terrifying absolutely horrifying so like how is someone who's at you see berkeley which is a very difficult school to get into well he's not attending Wasn't the person working there?

She was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like how does she find herself in front of Charles Manson? It's just the time. And it's like, sure. It's the time.

I don't know. He had something, something we don't understand. Also, going back to the drugs thing, like I said, Charles Manson was on a lot of drugs. Like a lot. He was smoking weed, doing mushrooms, loved LSD. and then the more he did, as we know, scientifically, people become more disconnected from reality. So Charles Manson, the more drugs he's doing, which is a lot, is becoming increasingly more disconnected from reality. He started comparing himself to Jesus Christ, but Jesus says something he didn't.

Apostles. So that meant Charles Manson needed some followers. So he starts recruiting more people to come live with him and marry, and they're all. Can you guess what types of people he's recruiting? Young hot women. Yes. Young vulnerable women looking for a sense of belonging. The first was a woman named Lynette Fromm, a 18-year-old runaway who Charles met on a trip down to Venice Beach in May of 1967.

And then by the end of the summer, they were joined by two more women, Patricia Crenwinkel, who later said that she had felt ugly and unwanted her entire life until Charles told her she was beautiful. And then Susan Atkins was the newest member who had an unstable childhood. And prior to meeting Charles had briefly explored the Church of Satan. So it's like once you start learning people's backstories, it starts to make sense as to like why they're starting to click with him. Yeah. And Charles was quite obsessed with testing his followers' devotions. So sometimes he would make them stand in front of a tree while he threw knives at them. Absolutely.

Terrific. And if Charles felt like someone was kind of. spacing out during one of his long rants, one of his rambling sermons, he would get physically violent. He decided he needed more discipline in the group, and so he felt that he should finally open up the group to men, because who was more disciplined than the man? But it's like he needed men who would still bow down to him, but be able to discipline the women when he couldn't. Right.

And also it's better for someone else to discipline the women so that they still idolize and love Charles. It's sick. It is sick. And sometime in the fall of 1967, he went over a guy named Bruce Davis. And Bruce looked up to Charles just like all the women, the Mary Lynette, Susan, and Patricia did. And Bruce was so desperate to be the right hand man. That's who he wanted to be Charles. He was going to be like his second in command. And Charles was like, oh my God, this worked out really great. I'm super happy to have such a devoted follower like him. Yeah. And I do think it's important to mention that aside from the knife throwing and some of the abusive tactics here that are happening, from the outside, this does not look like a violent group. And it really didn't for a long time. This was a group of young people who had been looking for somewhere to belong, looking for a family. And they found that with Charles, you know, just a family that does a lot of drugs and has orgies and really has no boundaries. Although a lot of families don't have boundaries. So I guess that way it does feel like a family. But it didn't feel or look sinister. Like it felt like they

were breaking away from a world that up until this moment hadn't been working for them. And beneath it all, Charles was still the one in control. He was shaping the rules. He was dictating everything. In fact, the more his followers gave up, the more they felt like they were gaining, which is like that should be... It feels backwards. It's so backwards, but like if Colts had a Pinterest page, I feel like that would have like a sunset in the background and that would be like a motivational. Give up everything and gain more. Yes.

Like you'll feel more fulfilled. So now that everything was going in the way that Charles Manson felt like it should go, he was like, okay, time for phase two. Which meant moving from San Francisco down to Los Angeles so that he could be a famous musician, right? Because his love for the Beatles and music and playing guitar that was still within him. And at this point, the violence had not started yet, but everything that would make it possible, was already in place. So in late 1967, Charles Manson, like you were saying, was ready to fulfill his destiny of becoming a famous musician, which meant moving to Los Angeles.

Because Hollywood, maybe. So very of this age, Charles Manson found an old school bus and loaded up everyone. So he brought the whole crew. They drove south to Los Angeles. And you might be like, okay, well, everyone wants to go to Hollywood, but the reality is most people don't make it, right? But Charles, in this part, is not really delusional. He actually had a meeting planned. Like, he knew someone because it turns out his guitar teacher from prison had a connection

in the music industry, Gary Stromberg, who was an exec at Universal Music. So Gary set this studio session up with Charles. So Charles drove down to L.A. with everyone and then goes to the studio session. And let's just say, like when I was reading this, I was like, wow, this reminds me of the time that I really wanted to be on a swim team because my cousin's, Svens were really good swimmers. And so I went and tried out for a swim team. And I come up all like happy and giddy after I swam the laps. And the guy goes, really good job.

You should take swim lessons. Oh, shoot. Yeah. So that's kind of what happened to Charles. He performed his music. And Gary is like... He didn't get enough practice. He didn't get his 10,000 hours in jail.

Gary's like, hey, you should work on your material buddy. as in hey no thanks but what's more Hollywood than that you got a 100-100 nose to get your one yes right isn't that so i can still be on a swim team you could still be a swimmer Sabrina just take your lessons but so yeah Charles even though he's getting denied right now he's like you know what I will keep practicing I will work on my material I'm not giving up I know this is my destiny he is so gung-ho about his dream and he was going to keep going to keep going So they stay. I was going to say something so mean, and I don't know if this is going to be super controversial.

I was going to say, well, Bob Dylan could be a musician. I think anyone can. So I almost do believe in Charles Manson's ability, even if he can barely play guitar. It is one of those. And I know some people are going to get really pissed at that. I know. Sorry. But, I mean, I feel like people can agree.

He doesn't have the best voice, but his music is great. There is also the part where I'm like, I wish I, like, I don't want to listen to what Charles Manson's music sound. I don't want to give him the time of the day, but I'm just so curious. Like, I really hope it's terrible. Like, just really, really bad. Can you even listen to it? Is it recorded? I didn't even look because I didn't want to. Right. I don't want to feed the algorithm with that search. Yeah. Okay, so Charles and the group who we're going to, for the sake of familiarity, we're going to call them the Manson family. But just a note, they didn't refer to themselves as the Manson family. Like, that's a name that the public gave to them once the story became streamlined. But we'll call them. the family or the Manson family, just to be clear. So they settled into Topanga Canyon, which was a hippie enclave in the hills of West L.A. A lot of other musicians lived there.

And Charles spent his time working the social circuit. He would show up at parties, he would charm people. And he also, taking from what he learned in prison, he would send the women of the family out to make connections, in quotes, aka he would pamph them out. Yeah. He was also growing the family and attracting more followers into the family. And then here's the thing. This is actually one of my favorite stories because it's so crazy. Charles and the family didn't really have a house. They didn't really pay rent. So they would move and sleep around and take advantage of opportunities like, oh, there's a party here going all night. Like this is where we're staying for a couple days. But this is how they end up bunking at the drummer of the B-choys, Dennis Wilson's house. Here's the story. It's watching. It's watching. Because I also did not know this until preparing for this episode. It is the spring of 1968. Dennis Wilson, again, the drummer of the Beach Boys, is driving through Malibu when all of a sudden he sees two beautiful women hitchhiking on the side of the road. What does he do?

He pulls over and he's like, hey, ladies. I don't know if he actually said that, but he invites. I'm only in L.A. for a short amount of time. He invites them back to his house and he drives them to his house. and I'm pretty sure he, like, has his fun with them, and he has to, like, go do something. So he leaves his house, leaves the two women there. But when he gets back, Charles and the entire family has moved in. It's so scary.

It's literally, like, a horror movie. But this is the, like, late 60s, early 70s. So Dennis, it's very, like, peace and love. It reminds me of a book we just read, which is a paranormal wine that we used to live here. Yes. Which I'm like, oh, don't let. him in. He had no choice. But then also, when he first met Charles, he was actually enchanted by him as well. Charles, you know, he had this way about him that when he focused on you, it felt like

the most significant attention you'd ever received, even if you're part of one of the biggest bands. Right. He's like, here's this guy who could be my good bud, who was no problem with all of his lady friends sleeping with me. Right. And he gives me a bunch of drugs. Right. It kind of does seem like a good situation for some. Dennis becomes friends with these strangers who are now living in his home. And he has no interest in joining the family, but he did introduce Charles around town. He even introduced him to the music producer Terry Melcher. But Terry just didn't just sign people because they were a good, good time. And he even said that Charles didn't have what it took. So after Terry Melcher kind of turns Charles down this like music career is for a good time. And he even said that Charles didn't have what it took. So after Terry Melcher kind of turns Charles down. This like music career is for. And he. And he even. So after. So after. So after. So after. So he said, and further away from Charles, but he's still, like, not going to give up. But it also doesn't take long before Dennis gets sick of Charles. But I also need to point out that I'm pretty sure Charles and the family bunked in Dennis's

house for, like three to six months. So it's not. Yeah, it's not like they stayed for a couple of nights. No, they fully took over his home to the point that they crashed one of Dennis's cars. They were making a complete mess of Dennis's house. I think they racked up a bill of the number here says to the tune of $100,000, which is almost a million dollars today. Was he not totally panicked? I don't know.

So Dennis's lease, which ended in late 1968, he decides to move somewhere smaller and he does not invite Charles and the family to come with him. I also read that Dennis like escaped his own home, like ran away from his own home to escape Charles in the group, but I don't know. know that as a fact. Either way. Oh, I wanted the lore that existed within the Beach Boys. Like, what was the drama that he was bringing to recording sessions? Like, when he was going to a show. That whole era and like the Laurel Canyon sound and like the Mamas and the Pappas and the music scene that was happening there. Oh, the Mamas and the Pappas. Ooh. I just feel like. That's for like a music drama podcast. We'd have a lot to say about that. Because there's just so much that's happening there. Yeah. There's so much.

love to be a fly on the wall. But yes. I wouldn't be able to keep up. There's too much going on. One night is all I could handle and I'd have to sleep for a month. So regardless of how any of this happened, Charles and the family were without a roof over their heads. And this illusion of becoming a famous musician started to crack. And Charles, while he realized it might not happen for him, he wasn't ready to give up on L.A. just yet. After Dennis ditched him, which I feel like ditched isn't even the right word. It's like, escaped. escaped, survived the Manson family. He moved the family to Spawn Ranch. This was an abandoned western movie set about 30 miles northwest of L.A.

in the northern hills of San Fernando Valley. It wasn't quite abandoned because they did have an owner, 80-year-old George Spahn, who was nearly blind. And Charles was able to make a deal with George in exchange for the family being allowed to live on the ranch's various shacks and outbuildings for free. he offered to fix up the place. And what else did he offer, Corinne? A female companion. A young female companion, Lynette from a 20-year-old to spend time with 80-year-old George. I think we know what that means.

Yeah. So, yeah. Implications are clear. Charles was fully in control of his followers, and it was here while living on Spawn Ranch that he got an even firmer grip on the family. Their days were tightly scheduled, ranch work in the morning, LSD sessions in the afternoon, communal sex at night, don't be late, and Charles controlled it all from supervising their acid trips to choosing who slept with who, which is so wild. It's not just like, okay, group board you time, it's like you two together. Oh, I don't like it. He should have just gone into the porn industry in L.A. Actually, now that I think about it, it, is a huge industry. Yeah. That's probably where he would have had success. He wanted to be a musician. Well, choose your soundtrack. Make your own music for the porn videos you're creating. Anyway, he also decided who could leave the property for how long and what they did when they left. He stripped away every external anchor they had to their jobs, their families, their money, their identities in some cases, which is like classic cult behavior, right?

Yeah. One particularly dark example is Diane Lake. She was only 14 years old when she joined the family. Oh, sad. She was like, oh my God, you're way too young to even be seeing what's going on. Babies. Nevermore participating in it. Charles gave her a fake ID with the name Diane Bluestein, which made it much harder for anyone to try to track this child down.

Yeah. And as with most cults and cult leaders, they break someone down until they are just, there's nothing left. Except for Charles. Except for Charles. And that was exactly what he did. during the group LSD sessions, Charles would move through the group and narrate their hallucinations in real time. Which is crazy to think about. He was.

Like he's trying to control the trip. Yeah. And he was. And he's also probably tripping. So it's like how trippy. Sorry, there's lack of better word there, but is this whole situation? Right. Like is their trip becoming whatever he says it is?

Or is he actually accessing something? But I understand why it would be like very confusing where it's like, oh, he is a leader. He does understand things. He knows everything. He was relating himself to Jesus. Yeah. And took inspiration from a guy who grew up on Mars in the book. So it is very otherworldly in a way.

Yeah. So not only was he shaping their day-to-day realities, but also their imaginations and hallucinations and drug-induced hypnosis. Yes, I was going to say it's hypnosis. Yeah. Yeah. I wish that's where it stopped, that all this was a bunch of people having sex and doing drugs, but we know it is not. And here is one of the biggest turning points, Helter Skelter.

Helter Skelter was a song by The Beatles that was released in late November 1968 on their newest album, The White Album. And Charles, who already loved the Beatles, like he discovered them while he was in prison and, like, fell in love with them, loved them. He became obsessed with this song almost immediately, not just because it slapsed, but because Charles believed that it held a secret prophecy specifically for him. Poor Charles Manson. The Beatles wrote a song. A secret message just for Charles Manson, someone who they have no idea who he is. Yeah. And before I tell you what he believed this prophecy is, I'm going to be very clear. It's a very racist, very white, like, horrible thing. It's delusion. The theory was Charles thought the Beatles were predicting an imminent apocalyptic

race war, where black Americans would rise up, slaughter wealthy white people, seize control of the country, but because they weren't supposed to govern, a power vacuum would form. And when that black community failed to govern, Charles Manson specifically, and his family would emerge from a underground golden city beneath the Mojave Desert, where they had been hiding, and Charles and the family would rule the world. What the fuck? I know. Oh my God, what?

Right. Insane. Yes. Let's just repeat that. There's a lot going on here. Charles Manson... Well, first of all, there are mole people living in a golden city beneath the crust of the earth. Well, just under the desert.

They're not going that deep. I don't know. There's a whole city. A golden city. You got to go somewhat deep. Yeah. So there's a lot going on here, namely white supremacy. Like, let's just that you can't ignore that. It's horrible. And I do feel like, again, that's a part of the story that really does get erased when you hear about Charles Manson. Like you don't, it's not often talked about. At the heart of it, Charles was just presenting racism and white supremacy as this like so-called enlightened ideology. And it is really hard to say what his followers believed. But we do know that they believed in Charles wholeheartedly. And Charles started to use some real world events. And no one in the group was black either. No.

Yeah, yeah. So he's a racist. Charles would use some real-world events to prove his theory that the race war was imminent. So in early 1969, there were protests all over L.A., fueled by racial tensions in the Vietnam War. So Charles used these as proof that the apocalypse would be upon them by the summer. And of course, that meant that they have to get ready for it, right? Because it's coming. So end of days, everyone. Yeah. Listen to Charles. So he started teaching the family. knife fighting and he ran what he called creepy crawling exercises where they would break into people's homes at night, move things around and then leave without waking anyone up. Horrifying. What are you doing? That's so creepy. Yeah. But I guess like the point of all of this was he was like, okay, things are going to be hard to come by, guns are going to be hard to come by, supplies, things like that that we need to survive and to fuel our underground city. So we have to practice

creeping around at night and getting what we need without letting others know that we're there. But finally he called it the creepy crawling. Creepy crawling. Creepy crawling exercises, yeah. So for that part of the plan, Charles acquired a remote property in Death Valley called Barker Ranch. And this would be their like Golden City area. Yeah. He had dune buggies modified for the desert. And he even ran survival training classes. Like Mad Max. Yes. And all this is happening while Charles is still bugging Terry Melcher to sign him for a record deal. Just think about that duality. Yeah. It's like I'm still holding on to my plan A.

Plan A is like be able to go on stage and play my guitar and sing my songs. Plan B is bat shit wild. Yeah. It's like, hey, let's prepare for the end of the world, but also, hey, can someone listen to my tracks? If you don't listen to my music, I'm going to crawl into the earth. Just weird, weird, weird. It's very, yeah. Such an ordinary thing to walk home from high school. Her name was Mickey Costanzo, just 16. She didn't have far to go.

Seemed perfectly safe until it wasn't. What happened to Mickey? I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Five Miles From Home, an all-new podcast from Dateline. Search Five Miles From Home to start. listening now. So obviously, I don't know if we can say there's any logic here, at least not any sound logic. No. So Manson is planning for the apocalypse.

He's fighting for his music career. He's trying to make money, and he's a racist. And a major way of making all this happen is through drug dealing. He makes a drug dealing agreement with a biker gang called straight satans. And the straight satans were happy to supply the drugs so long as they got to go to the ranch and enjoy with everyone, aka be with and sleep with the women. Before long, the straight satans were always hanging around the spawn ranch and so were their drugs. But the one thing about them coming to the ranch with drugs is that they brought a lot of harder drugs,

which is like almost hard to imagine because they were doing so many drugs and so many like hallucinatory drugs. Which you would consider really hard drugs. Right, but no, the Spiker gang, they were like, here's some. amphetamines and other hard stuff and things that like made it harder for Charles to control the group, which he did not like. Right. Like people were getting moody. Whereas like the other drugs they were taking him was more of like, ooh, let's like connect to the earth.

Yes. And this epiphany. Yeah. That starts to become a problem that's annoying Manson, but it's something he has to deal with later because in March of 1969, guess who finally agrees to come to Spawn Ranch and listen to Charles' play. Terry Maltor. This is the guy that Dennis Wilson from the Beach Boys had introduced Charles to. So this is a big deal.

Like, Terry Melcher is coming to listen to Charles play. But then when the day arrived, Terry didn't show up. And Charles was pissed. He was furious. So furious, he got in his car and he drove to Melcher's house, which was on Cello Drive in L.A.'s Benedict Canyon to confront Terry. Although when Charles gets to the house, Terry's not there because he had moved. So the house is not Terry's. He knows the house is not Terry's.

The new tenants are actress Sharon Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski. Keep that in mind. I think everyone knows where we're going with this. But so at this time, he's furious that he can't find Terry and he leaves. Eventually, he does get in touch with Terry, who actually agrees to come to Spawn Ranch later on May 18th. And then on May 18th, Terry actually shows up. but once again after listening to charles play terry's like yeah no thanks which as you can imagine charles did not like this rejection and was pissed so eventually once charles did commit all of his

crimes people have wondered if part of this and part of his motive was this rejection but then there's also that helter-skelter prophecy which as summer is getting closer he's getting way more serious about this prophecy and these creepy crawling expeditions turned straight up into thievery, like they're stealing things now from people's houses, and his LSD-fueled sermons start to become all about death. Charles even starts asking his listeners if they will die for him. And of course, the answer was yes. But here's the thing. This prophecy said the race war was happening. This summer, it was coming, it was imminent. But the days are taking by, and that apocalypse is just not happening. So Charles decides,

ah, it's because I have to make it happen. I have to move it along. How messed up is that thing gang? Yeah, it's all wrong. It does make me wonder, because I feel like in so many other cult conversations that we have, the cults are much larger, right? There's like 40 to 100 or even thousands of members sometimes, depending on which one you're talking about. But this is such a small group. Yeah, they're like about 20-ish or 20 or so. Yeah. Yeah, but small. It makes me wonder if there were people, who were, like, cracking through, who weren't fully bought in. But I guess there's also the fear of, like, if you don't say you'll die for him, if you don't do this, you're going to get knives thrown at you. Right. In front of a tree or whatever. But I feel like when it comes to the Manson family, we don't hear of, like, the few people who left or challenged him or something. Yeah.

Yeah. So I am curious. But anyway, so he's like, hey, I need to start this thing myself. Get the ball rolling. and the shift from proposed ideology turned into actual violence because Charles is planning the apocalypse himself now. But in order to do the things he wants to do, they need more money. And he thought he could get more money and kick off the world-consuming race war all at once. It's all connected to one of his friends, Bobby Bosolay, who wasn't officially part of the family,

although they were close, which is like another question. It's like, if you're that close and you see what's going on? Are you like, oh, him and his silly followers? Or are you kind of bought in, but you have other things that are keeping you? Well, based on what happens, I feel like he was enough under Charles's command that I would almost consider him a part of it. Or was he just kind of already having some of those thoughts himself? And this was a convenient pairing. I don't know.

Anyway, Bobby had an axe to grind with a music teacher slash drug dealer that the family named Gary Hinman. Apparently, Gary had sold Bobby a bad batch of mescaline and Bobby wanted his money back. And Charles was pretty sure that Gary had a lot of money laying around because he was a drug dealer. Right. And so he came up with a plan, one to convince Bobby, one that was easy to convince Bobby to go along with. And now what we're about to say happened at Gary's house. has been pieced together through various testimonies and interviews. So it's kind of hard to say exactly what happened. But here's the most accepted version of events, according to Jeff Gwynn's book. On July 25th, 1969, Charles sent Bobby to Gary's house. He brought two followers with him as backup. When they got to Gary's, Bobby demanded that Gary give him all of his money. And Gary was like, I don't have any. I swear I don't have any. And then Bobby beat him to a pulp. Gary still did not hand over any money

So Bobby and the others called Charles Who came to the house With a sword Charles then slashed Gary's ear Told Bobby to handle it And then left For almost three days Bobby and the others kept Gary

Alive tied up And continued to beat him Over and over Demanding money Which Gary continued to swear he did not have any. At the end of the three days, Charles Manson ordered Bobby to kill Gary.

They didn't have money, but they could still kick off Helter Skelter. And how were they going to do that? Well, they were going to make it look like the Black Panthers had killed Gary and start the race war that way. After Bobby murdered Gary, he wrote political piggy on the wall with Gary's blood and then drew the Black Panther symbol,

which was a poprant. And the idea was basically to make it look like this white man was viciously murdered by this group and the media would cover it. It would be all over the news and then the race war would start and the apocalypse would happen and blah, blah, blah. And one thing I do want to say is that this idea that Manson wanted to start a race war and that being the motive behind all of his crimes, very well may be true. But it is also a theory that was popularized by Vincent Bugliosi, who was the prosecutor on the Manson case. So like, as we'll talk about later, when he became the prosecutor and was trying to piece together, the case, like this is the theory he came up with based on evidence, but there are also other theories which we'll discuss. Either way, it is the result of a very deranged man who had

complete hold of his family members. And regardless of his motive, Gary's murder did not incite a race war. Gary's body was found a few days later on July 31st, 1969, and when the police saw the messages on the wall, they really didn't know what to make of it. But they did know it was a murder. And at the crime scene, like, looking at it, they saw that Gary's car had been stolen. So they marked it as stolen. And then a couple days later, the police see that car driving in Los Angeles, and they pull it over. And they find Bobby Vosolay driving the car. And they also find a bloody knife hidden behind the wheel. So they're like, okay, well, this must be our murderer. And they also match Bobby's fingerprints to those found at the crime scene in their match. So now,

Bobby's arrested. There's no race war. Charles still does not have the money he wanted. And he's starting to fear that Bobby's going to turn him in. Because if he's not a family member, yeah, he's not part of the family. Right. So what does Charles decide to do? He decides to kill again. Oh, just the natural path forward out of this terrible situation you've just created. Right. And again, we can't say with 100% certainty what the motive here was. Some say it has to do with, again, starting helter-skelter and the race war. Others have theorized that it had to do with making it seem like Bobby wasn't the killer. So if they do copycat crimes, it will make it look like, oh, they caught the wrong man and that the killer is still out there.

And then others say that this next act of murder was an act of revenge because of his failed music career. Whatever the motive, Charles Manson decided that this time they would pick an even bigger target. one that would send a message loud and clear. When killing Gary Hinman didn't get Charles Manson what he wanted, so no money, no race war, he decided he needed to try again. His motives have been debated, but basically this led to him visiting Terry Milcher's house at 10050 CLO Drive. Well, Old House, like he knows. He knows that he doesn't live there anymore. Yeah.

That there are other people living there. Also, it's possible that maybe he had just forgotten. It's possible that he chose the house because it was nice and because he knew the layout or because he still really wanted to be a musician. And so he did need Terry alive. But he did want to send a message and threaten him. Either way, he was also pretty sure that whoever was living there would have a lot of money. Yeah.

And I feel like the theory about Terry Melcher, like him still needing him alive, but wanting to send Terry a message. Like, one, if that's true, it's kind of backwards because... But it's like, everything is. Yeah, everything's backwards. Nothing is logical. Nothing makes sense. No. So it's hard to kind of like predict exactly what's going on and what he was thinking

in his line of reasoning because it doesn't, it just doesn't make sense. Yeah. And he has changed his story. Right. Then his family have like always just defended him and not really told the right story. Yeah. So it's just really hard. You know, and this episode's already been full of horrible crimes, but I do want to give

another content morning here because what we're about to describe is so violent and it does involve the murder of a pregnant woman. This is the murder, the crime scene that everyone talks about when they think of Charles Manson. But on the night of August 8th, 1969, Charles Manson ordered his follower Charles Tex Watson, who will call Tex, to go to 10050 Cielo Drive with three other family members. And Charles' instructions were clear. Kill everyone inside. Make it brutal, leave a message. So they arrived to the property sometime after midnight. They cut the phone lines and made their way up to the house.

Almost immediately, this is when they encountered a car leaving the home. 18-year-old Stephen Parent is the definition of wrong place, wrong time. He had been visiting the estate's caretaker and was just leaving when unfortunately, like the timing of this is just so horrible. He ran into techs and the others. Tex Watson shot Stephen to death. Then Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Crenwinkel continued up to the house while Linda Casabian remained by the gate as lookout. Unfortunately, the brutality did not end there as there were four people inside the home. Four innocent, unsuspecting people. Inside were Jay Sebring, a celebrity hairstylist,

Boychek Vrykowski, a writer and one of Roman Polanski's, close friends, Abigail Fulger, an heir to the Fulger coffee fortune, and a dedicated philanthropist, and most notoriously, the actress Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant. So five innocent people in this home. Sharon's husband, Roman Polanski, was filming a movie overseas, and this is so tragic because apparently Sharon Tate had really wanted to go with him while he was filming, but because she was so far along in her pregnancy, doctors were like, no, you have to stay. Yeah, she can't travel. But like in another world, she could have, like the timing of it.

I know. Well, in another world, Charles Manson doesn't exist. That's true. That's the world we'd prefer. Yeah, she doesn't need to travel super pregnant to avoid death. He just needs to not be a fucking awful person. Yeah. Yeah. It's heartbreaking. The Tex, Susan and Patricia broke into the house and went on to commit a truly horrific murder. They wrangled everyone. from inside the home into the living room. They bound them with rope. J.C. Bering was shot and stabbed to death. Somehow, Voichek and Abigail managed to free themselves and make a run for it. I think one ran to the front, one ran to the back. Ultimately, they were caught and killed by Tex and Patricia. It's one of those things where, like, I think about it sometimes, too, just being in this space and, like, just generally being a paranoid person, then when I have additional people in my home,

like, there's a greater sense of security. Right. Who would dare do anything now when there's, like, five adults present. Most crimes are committed by people, like, or on people by people they know. Yes. Yeah. Like this, this is so random. It's a random act of violence and it's a group of people attacking another group. Yeah. Unrelated. It's not anything to do with. Right. Gangs or drugs or anything like that. 50 to 80% of violent incidents are committed by non-stangers. So, yeah, this is like truly horrific. And then, Another really horrific thing, according to Susan Atkins, Sharon Tate, pregnant Sharon Tate, begged to spare her life so the baby could live. But they fatally stabbed Sharon and her unborn baby to death and had no mercy.

Just like in the murder of Gary Hinman, Tex, Susan and Patricia left a bloody message. They wrote, pig and blood on the front door. But Charles Manson was not done. The next night on August 9th into August 10th, Charles personally took some family members out to the nice part of Los Feliz, which is a neighborhood in L.A. He partied at a house in the area a few times, so he decided that this would be a good place to go. He chose to go after the people who lived next door to that house. Which like some people are like, oh, he didn't go to the house that he had partied at because he was scared it would connect to him. So he chose, again, random strangers right next door.

Or right? You're like, oh, no, no, no, I think it was this house. It was dark. I can't, I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure it's this house. Like, who knows. Anyway, the people who lived next door were Lino and Rosemary La Bianca. And like with the other murders, they were brutal. They were bloody.

They were messy. Manson worked with his family to tie the couple up and rob them. According to Manson and his family, Charles then left and gave the others orders to kill the couple. Again, this is also hard to confirm because Manson, like, constantly was trying to Like, well, I wasn't there for the actual murders. Right. Convenient. Yeah.

They stopped the couple to death with a bayonet and knife and then left the word rise and death to pigs written in blood on the walls. War, the word war, was carved in Tolino's stomach. Helter Skelter was written in blood on the refrigerator. And as you can imagine, these crimes created a panic in Los Angeles. I mean, they were horrific and brutal. and despite these words written in blood and despite our ability to talk about it after the fact, investigators did not put them together.

They did not connect them at all. Like for a long time. How many people are writing pig in blood at crime scenes? Like, how is that not connected? Well, like, some people were like, did they see the news of the other one? And then they were copying it. And then also, I'm pretty sure investigators thought

the Tate murders had to do with like a bad drug deal or something like that. It's also just so disturbed. I'm like, what is he telling his followers? Because it's like, there needs to be this one thing to happen to trigger all of the events. But it's like convincing them to murder one person is one thing. I know. To continue on this like big murder spree.

That's horrible. Yeah. So regardless, investigators did not make the connection between the two murders until mid-October. So like over two months later. But in the meantime, when this race war still didn't start, Charles is telling his followers like, no, no, no, no. This is, everything's going as planned. This is slowly happening. We're building, like the race war is imminent.

We're doing everything right. Now it's time we have to go hide out. And remember they had bought that land in Death Valley. So Charles and his over two dozen family members picked up and moved to Barker Ranch in Death Valley. Once they got there, Charles was like, the prophecy says this underground city of gold, we have to find it. It's somewhere here in the Death Valley, a desert. Right. So he starts sending.

With really harsh conditions. called Death Valley for a reason. I remember when one of my close friends was for part of her like honeymoon was doing a bunch of a road trip in her van with her husband. And they went and spent time at Death Valley. She was like, I'm not going to have any service. And I was a wreck for those five days. I was like, I got to make sure she's okay. So imagine like moving here. And then Charles Manson is directing and ordering his followers to go out on expeditions to look for this underground city of gold. For weeks. They are trudging through the Mojave Desert on his orders, but it was becoming increasingly

clear that this underground city did not exist, and that living in the middle of the desert was not easy. One by one, members started slipping away in the middle of the night and going to, like, stay in a nearby town rather than, like, living on Barker Ranch in the middle of the desert. But Manson continued with his orders, and then completely unrelated to the Tate-La Bianca murders, the police were investigating the Manson family because, and this is so, like, full circle, they had been stealing cars. So the investigators were searching and looking for the Mansons because of their past, like, all these stealing of the cars.

So on October 10th, 1969, again, completely unrelated to the Tate-Labianca murders. They raid Barker Ranch in Death Valley and take everyone into custody. I guess Charles Manson wasn't there at the time, but he came back a couple days later, and that's when police were able to round him up. Again, for stealing cars. Grand Theft Auto is a serious crime, but, like, if they actually knew about the other crimes, there's so much worse. Like, murder. And also, let's not forget the 14-year-old that he actively covered up and changed her identity to essentially continue to abduct a child who was then assaulted. I'm pretty sure when they did the raid after.

Parker Ranch, there were young children running around. I mean, they're having orgies all the time, I'm sure, yeah. So, all in all, lots of crimes happening here. But they're arrested, taken into custody for stealing cars. The police are still investigating the Tate Law Bianca murders, still trying to figure out, have never even once considered Charles Manson and the Mansley family responsible for these crimes. Not once. But in November, while in custody, Susan Atkins, who, if you remember, is a member of the family, couldn't help but talk to a fellow inmate about how she murdered Sharon Tate. It is said that she told another inmate

that she killed Sharon Tate and in quotes because we wanted to do a crime that would shock the world that the world would have to stand up and take notice. Meanwhile, they're literally dressed as hippies. Yeah. But that... Peace and love. That is what made the connection. That is how police are like, oh.

I kind of get it, though. It's before CCTV footage. it's before social media, it's before all this stuff. They're such like an insular, like, group, right? They're not going out and communicating with many people. They're not allowed to. And it's random. So Charles is the one who, yes.

And it would appear so random because how would you connect, especially like someone in the music industry, who knows thousands and thousands and thousands of people. It's probably rejected so many. How would you connect it to, like, one person who was introduced at one time. Right. It was just like, oh, keep trying.

Yeah. Yeah, of course. It would be really difficult. Right. And they also weren't outwardly saying the word pig or like different things that they were writing in their messages in the way that they communicated as a group. No, because they were trying to frame their crimes to look like the Black Panthers had

committed them. So yeah, it would have been really hard for the police to piece together. But so this is how the police start to suspect the Manson family was actually involved in the Tate La Bianca murders. And within that week, the LA sheriff's detective speak to Al Springer, who, if you remember the motorcycle gang, the straight Satan's, Al was a member of that motorcycle gang who used to hang out with Charles Manson all the time. So the detectives speak to Al, and Al tells police that Manton told him about killing people days after the Tate Law Bianca murders were in the news. He didn't specify, but he told Al about killing people, which made Al think. Right.

But again, like, it would be hard because if you met this guy, Charles Manson, who just seems so out of his mind, and it seems like he's making stuff up and believing whatever. And then you see, like, a famous crime happen on TV. And then suddenly this guy is like, oh, I'm responsible for that. Yeah. I'd be like, okay, right. Right. But the police are trying to put together witnesses and evidence to really pin them for this case. And so this is three months after the murders.

Police are now finally putting the pieces together kind of by accident. On November 30th, 1969, police apprehend Tex Watson, who was in Texas. And on December 8th, 1969, Charles Manson, Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Crenwinkel, and Linda Casabian are all indicted for the murders of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Vojek-Frikkowski, Abigail Fulger, and Stephen Parent. The grand jury also indicted those five and Leslie Van Houghton for the La Bianca murders. As you can imagine, these arrests and the truth about these crimes send the public into a frenzy. Some people who'd always been anti-Hippie movement use the Manson family as evidence that they're all just crazed killers. And then the trials began in June of 1970.

They ran for nine and a half months, and at the time, it was one of the longest and most expensive trials in California history. Wild. It's making me, because now, like, the clips will resurface from it, and it's just all I can picture is, like, the women who were still accompanying him and, like, going to his trials at his defense. Right. Yeah. Still in love with him. So, yeah, it was very chaotic, as you would expect. And Charles finally had the platform that he always treated.

of and on the first day of the trial, he showed up with a shaved head and an X carved into his forehead. Which that image, I mean, there's so many images of him from around this time that are just so haunting. Because he does look insane. He does. His eyes look absent and vacant and crazed. It looks like it's still from a movie, honestly, from like a true horror movie.

I wish it was. He described it as being crossed out of. society and that is why he presented himself that way. So very chilling these images. Yeah. If there were any questions about if he still had the loyalty of his closest followers, like I said before, a lot of them were showing up to his trial. And they also cut matching X's into their own foreheads before the day was over. So they were still very actively following him, no matter what he was doing or what people were saying about what he was doing. Yeah. They still did it. Outside of the courthouse, a rotating vigil of family members protested for months, shouting out that Charles

was innocent. Yeah, family members being like the family, Manson family. The family, not family members of those who were murdered. Yeah. The same thing was going on in the courtroom. So his co-defendants also the same thing. He had nothing to do with the murders. Charles Manson is innocent. And at one point, Charles Manson insists on representing himself, but the judge does not allow it. And the case becomes mainstream news. And the headlines are everywhere. Even the president at the time, who was Richard Nixon, made a very bold statement. Like, this is wild. It's like an active trial.

He is quoted as saying, here is a man who was guilty directly or indirectly of eight murders without reason. Yeah. No, it was a circus. Yeah. It was wild. But in the end, the jury was not buying it. In August 1970, Linda Kasabian was given immunity in exchange for testimony against Charles Manson and the others. On January 25th, 1971, the jury found Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Crenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houghton guilty.

The four of them received the death penalty. In 1971, Tex Watson was also found guilty, and he was sentenced to death. But then, about a year later, their sentences were all commuted to life in prison because California abolished the death penalty in February of 1972. And more shockingly, Charles Manson would be eligible for... for parole just seven years later. To go from a death sentence to, oh, just kidding, and now you're eligible for parole in seven years. Is such a, like, those two, they couldn't be more opposite. How did his mom serve five years in prison for robbing someone with a Coca-Cola bottle?

Right. But he is in charge of a murderous cult who took the lives of many people actively consciously in over numerous days and have the opportunity to get out after seven fucking years. Good question. Don't worry, though. The good thing is that he was never paroled. But Charles Manson really did become something of a celebrity after this. And then, like I mentioned before, the lead prosecutor on the case, Vincent Bugliosi published a book in 1974 all about it. And it was called Helter Skelter, the true story of the Manson murders, which made Charles even more famous. And in this book, it's where he posed a lot of his theories. But again, Charles lied a lot.

So we can't really trust anything he says. And then many of the Manson members took deals or worked with the prosecutor. And you have to keep in mind when someone's working with the prosecutor for a lighter sentence, they're likely going to go along with the prosecutor's like theories. Yeah. To help them. True. Regardless, we can all agree, Manson is a monster. And when he was behind bars, he also was convicted for another murder. In 1972, Charles Manson and two other family members Clem Grogan and Bruce Davis were found guilty of murdering Donald Jerome Shea in 1969. Donald was a stuntman and actor who also worked at Spawn Ranch while the family was there. And I guess they didn't get along. There are a few theories, as there are with lots of these crimes,

about why Charles wanted to kill Donald, but there was apparently major beef between them. And so Charles ordered Clem and Bruce to kill Donald on August 26, 1969, a couple weeks after the Tate La Bianca murders. Donald's body wasn't found until 1977, but there was enough evidence to convict Charles and the others without a body. It is so wild how many people died when really, like even in my own mind, after knowing this, I still connect Sharon Tate in that group with Charles Manson. And yet there are so many more bodies. So many more murders. So many more innocent people. It was just attacked by the family.

And probably some that have never been like confirmed. True. Like killed by Manson. Right. Probably he was responsible for. And you would think after all of these murders came out, after being behind bars, after being found guilty, like these followers would slowly stop worshiping Charles Manson. Yep. But no.

No. So many stayed so committed to him. And he actually got more and new followers. there was even a woman or multiple women who wanted to marry him but in 2014 26 year old 26 after Elaine Burton who went by Star and Charles Manson got engaged she literally picked up her life and moved to California to be closer to him to where he was being held and for nine years she lived there and tried to like argue that Charles was innocent to the world they got a marriage license in November of 2014, but the wedding never happened and the license expired. Yeah. It's just

bizarre. It is. I don't understand that psychology. And neither do I. Well, I don't need, yeah, again, I was going to say, I don't think he has anything to do with Charles Manson. I think that there's a whole other thing. Yeah. Like, there's a famous case of these twin sisters who married to convicted murderers in jail. And then when they got released, the twin sisters were brutally murdered. by these men who they married. Maybe another season of crimes of. Oh, my God. If you want ice picks and teeth being plucked out, then sure.

Yuck. Unsurprisingly, Charles Manson was never granted parole. He was denied 12 times and apparently accrued over 108 serious disciplinary violations while in prison, which I'm actually not surprised at all. At all. Yeah. He never once showed remorse for the murders. The X on his head, he later turned into a. swastika. So if we weren't confused already about how messed up his ideologies were. Yep.

More evidence. Over the years, he kept a powerful grip over our imaginations and what happened. And it's literally still kind of in mainstream media. Yeah. The craze wild-eyed look, the horrific crimes, the unimaginable control that he had over the family members. It's just still unbelievable. Yeah. It's been. It's haunting. 50 years. Yeah. On November 19th, 2017, Charles Manson died of natural causes. And again, you would think that this would be the end of it, but no, because there are rumors that Charles Manson and the Manson family were actually involved in other murders. In November of 2024, the docu series Making Manson was released on Peacock. And in it, there are recordings and statements made by Charles Manson, where he suggests

that he was involved in a couple of killings while living in Mexico. And there are others. Like there are so many. You can look it up online. Some of them are kind of conspiracy, but there are rumors of other Manson-related murders. We'll share just a couple. So Ronald Hughes, who initially defended all of the Manson members, he kind of realized that these women were at the mercy of Charles Manson. So he kind of wanted to argue that they were being manipulated and coerced by Charles Manson. And when Charles heard that, he was pissed, obviously, and had like a vendetta against Ronald Hughes.

There's even a report that Charles Manson was so pissed off and yelled at Ronald Hughes saying he never wanted to see him again. And not long after that, Ronald Hughes disappeared. Ronald Hughes's body was discovered after an anonymous tip in March of 1971. His body was badly decomposed and naked, discovered between two rocks in Cessby Hot Springs, and he had been eaten by animals. But there was no sign of foul play. But Lynette Fromm, who was a Manson family member, said that Ronald Hughes was murdered by the family in retaliation for betraying Charles. She did also say that the family murdered 35 to 40 other people, like anywhere between that number. But again, there's no evidence of foul play. And then this is really

sad. There was a man named Joel Pugh, whose girlfriend, Sandy Good, had, while they were dating, had met Charles Manson and the family and become so mesmerized by Charles Manson that in 1968, she left Joel. On December 1, 1969, Joel Pugh's body was found in his hotel. tell room in London, England. And it was officially ruled a suicide, but, and this might be conspiracy again, but it's like speculation too. There was no suicide note. Both his wrists and his neck had been cut, and his neck had been cut twice. The reason specifically most people theorize it might be connected to the Manson's is because there was some kind of writing that had been written on the mirror that had been like tried to like be erased, but it was very similar to

the writings on the walls and everything that had been left at the Tate La Bianca murders. Same M.O. Yeah. Again, it was officially ruled a suicide, but there was a family member, Bruce Davis, who was in London at the time. So people like conspire or theorize that it's connected. And there are some others. But I think all in all, most people do agree there are likely other deaths that Charles Manson and the family were responsible for that they have never been charged for. Which is so wild because if the numbers are right with people theorizing, that there could be like over 40 murders, that's more than the number of family members. And it's a cult.

And you normally think of a cult as being a group that wants to recruit more people, not just go on a murderous rampage. It's because of his messed up ideologies. Yeah. Yeah, it's just so wrong. Which is why there are movies about it and documentaries and films. And we still talk about it today. Yeah. And even if once upon a time in Hollywood, the Quentin Tarotino film from 2019, tried to re-referred,

write the story and give the victims a new ending, the truth is tragic and it's important to always remember the innocent lives that he took along the way. You said a questionably, like, people might be mad at you, hot take. Yeah. My hot take is that I hated once upon a time in Hollywood. And I'm not a Tarantino film fan. Yeah. You told me you hated it. I also tried it. I didn't get past the party scene. Yeah. She's like, oh. Not for me. Not for me. Not for me. Sorry, Quentin Tarantino. It's okay.

He'll still be very successful, despite our takes. Sharon Tate's mom, Doris, and her sister, Patty, spent years trying to fight against what the mythology around him had done to his victim's stories. Yeah. Doris appeared at every single man's in family parole hearing to oppose release until her death. While Patty co-founded an organization dedicated to the victim's rights in the context of perpetrator celebrity. both died in 1992, having spent their final years fighting for Sharon to be remembered as a person and not a prop in someone else's legacy. So with that in mind, that's how we're going to end this episode. We're going to honor and name and remember the victims. Gary Allen Hinman, 34 years old. Stephen Earl Parent, 18 years old. Jay Sebring, 35 years old. Abigail Ann Folger, 25 years old.

Sharon Tate, 26 years old, and her unborn child due to be born just a few weeks later, named Paul Richard Polansky. Vojek-Frikowski, 32 years old. Pasquilino Antonio, or Lino La Bianca, 44 years old. Rosemary La Bianca, 39 years old. And Donald Jerome, or Shorty Shea, 35 years old. A heavy, heavy case. Thank you so much for listening. We can officially say court is adjourned. We will be back next week. We are your host, Sabrina Deanna Roga and Karun Bien.

Please join us next Tuesday for another peek inside another Crimes of Colts case. And if there are any cases that you would like us to cover, please let us know in the comments. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. And if you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Crimes of wherever you get your podcast. because your feedback truly makes a difference. Goodbye, Jurs. Goodbye.

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