Charles Manson was an “illegitimate and unplanned child…of a promiscuous sixteen year old who drank too much and got into a lot of trouble” (Bardsley, p.5). Manson also had no father figure growing up. He told this story which circulated within this family: ‘Mom was in a café one afternoon with me in her lap. The waitress, a would-be mother without a child of her own, jokingly told my mom she’d buy me from her. Mom replied, ‘A pitcher of beer and he’s yours’. The waitress set up the beer; mom stuck around long enough to finish it off and left the place without me. Several days later my uncle had to search the town for the waitress and take me home’ (Bardsley, p.5).

Charles Manson is a serial killer from the 1970’s whose background in criminal activities stems from his childhood. He was first released on parole for a car theft in May 1954 at the age of twenty- one. “He had been in prison since he was sixteen” (Sanders, 1971, p.21) and prior to that he was in youth correction facilities for various charges. From 1954 Manson was arrested for parole violations, writing bad checks and federal pimp charges. During his time in prison he took up studying “magic, warlockry, hypnotism, astral projection, Masonic lore, scientology, ego games, and subliminal motivation” (Sanders, 1971, p.28). He would practice using these subliminal motivation skills using the prisons’ radio station.
The events that Charles Manson is known for occurred on August 9, 1969. Charles has accumulated quite the following over the years since his last release from prison. He and his posse broke into the house of the pregnant Sharon Tate and three of her friends. The next night, two other murders were committed. The murders were brutal. At Sharon Tate’s house, two bodies (one Sharon Tate’s) hung on the same rope through a rafter, both bodies covered in blood. Sharon’s two other friends were found stabbed and shot on the front lawn. A visitor of the caretaker was also shot that night, “ a boy of only 18, the young man had just graduated from high school in June and worked several jobs so that he could go to college in the fall” (Bardsley, p.2). After many months of questions it was determined that Charles Manson and his family were responsible for the murders. The Family consisted of a group of Manson’s followers who lived in a pace called Soahn Ranch. Charles taught his family to believe in the core of his philosophy, “Charlie preached that the black man was going to rise up and start killing whites and turn the cities in to an inferno of racial revenge. The black man would win this war, but would not be able to hang onto the power he seized because of innate inferiority” (Bardsley, p. 6). The woman who first admitted to participating in the murders, Susan Atkins, told fellow inmates that “her lover Charlie was Jesus Christ and he was going to leas her to a hole in the Death Valley where there was a civilization” (Bardsley, p.4).

There are eight categories of explanations for criminal behavior. The murders that were committed by Charles Manson can fall into many of these categories, the Psychological category being one of them. This theory says that “crimes result from inappropriately conditioned behavior or from abnormal, dysfunctional, or inappropriate mental processes within the personality” (Schmalleger, 2004, p.104). They can each be linked with a large number of causes. Charles Manson fits well into this category because he felt no remorse for his victims. When one of Charles Manson’s Family members was asked why they would commit such a horrible crime the response was “we wanted to do a crime that would shock the world, that the world would have to stand up and take notice” (Bardsley, p.4). Charles Manson has also been associated with the term psychopath. A psychopath is any individual with a mental illness or personality disorder. He was quoted saying to a television reporter “’ I could take this book and beat you to death with it, and I wouldn’t feel a thing, it’d be just like walking into the grocery store” (Schmalleger, 2004, 105-106).

Another theory that is helpful in trying to examine and explain Charles Manson is the Sociological theory. This theory emphasizes the importance society’s structure, group dynamics, and social groups as a way of explaining criminal behavior. In the early years of Manson’s criminal record his crimes were less severe, car theft, breaking parole, bad checks. However, after Manson’s ten year stay in jail he began gathering a following and gaining control of other individuals, “ mostly young women with troubled emotional lives who were rebelling against their parents and society”(Bardsley, p.6). He chose his followers carefully picking those that were ‘naïve, gullible and easy to lead” (Bardsley, p.6) those that he could convince to “question the validity of their notions of good and evil” (Bardsley, p.6). This is important to note because this is the start of an increase in the severity of his crimes. The Susan Tate murders were conjured up by Manson and were committed by “three girls and a man, all of whom had been given their instructions by Charlie” (Bardsley, p.6). Manson thrived off of having a following, leading something and having control. During his prison term in the 1960’s Charles record described him as having “a tremendous drive to call attention to himself” (Bardsley, p.5). Manson gave order to the others, making him the focus and him the mastermind behind the plan.

Charles Manson is a troubled individual with a history of criminal activities that date way prior to the Sharon Tate/ Helter Skelter murders. I think one of his prison friends, Alvin Karpis, describe his pal Charlie the best in saying: “There was something unmistakably unusual about Manson. He was a runt of sorts, but found his place as an experienced manipulator of others… I did feel manipulated, and under circumstances where it hadn’t been necessary” (Bardsley, p.5).

Work Cited

Bardsley, Marilyn. Charles Manson, the Manson Family. Retrieved May 26, 2004, from http://www.crimelibrary.com/manson/mansonmain.htm

King, Greg. (2000). Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders. New York: Barricade Book Inc.

Sanders, Ed. (1971). The Family: The Story of Charles Mason’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion. New York: E.P Dutton and Co., Inc.

Frank Schmaleger. (2004) Criminal Justice Today: An Introduction Text for the 21st century (8th ed). New Jersey: Prentice Hall