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Reformatory authorities who’d dealt with the worst delinquents in America concluded that Charlie Manson was beyond rehabilitating.
After all his experiences during childhood and in reform school and prison, it was ingrained in Charlie to take advantage of everyone that he could.
The street philosophy Charlie initially spouted was a hybrid, cobbled together from Beatles song lyrics, biblical passages, Scientology, and the Dale Carnegie technique of presenting everything dramatically.
Charlie’s immediate goal was to alienate the women from everything in their past. If they had little self-esteem, if there were things wrong with their lives, then that was the fault of their parents, their teachers, people who forced them to go against their own nature.
Remembering how Charlie referred to them, and how they often referred to themselves, Jakobson called them “the Family.” He used the term a couple of times to Melcher and Wilson—and to Charlie and the group members themselves. Everybody liked it and it stuck. From then on they were Charlie and his Family, or Charlie and the Manson Family.
All of them came to Charlie feeling broken in some critical way; he soothed their fears, reassured them that they were special and had the potential to become even better by listening to and following him. He gave them a sense of belonging that most had never felt with their original families. Thanks to Charlie’s influence on Dennis Wilson, they enjoyed luxurious hospitality in the mansion of a rock star. Where they’d previously felt lost and miserable, now they felt loved and happy, just as Charlie had promised.
Charlie hated the government, but he was eager for its handouts.
Books weren’t allowed on the ranch, either. All anyone needed to know was whatever Charlie wanted them to.
Finding anything that appeared to be a flaw in Charlie actually exposed flaws in themselves. They accepted the explanation because they believed in him. They might make mistakes or misunderstand, but anything Charlie said or did had to be right.
Each man was encouraged to pick out whichever girl he wanted, and Charlie would order her to go with the guy and do anything he told her. If a girl refused to do something, that meant she still had hang-ups and Charlie punished her, sometimes by making her strip naked in front of everyone else and then ridiculing her. It was effective.
Charlie had been keeping everyone busy preparing for Helter Skelter, but a cataclysmic race war paled compared to Charlie finally getting a record deal.
Frykowski, roused by the soft sound of Tex’s voice, muttered, “What time is it,” and then, “Who are you? What do you want?” Tex kicked him in the head, hard, before replying, “I’m the devil and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”
Sharon Tate had sixteen stab wounds, five of which could have been fatal. Jay Sebring had been shot once and stabbed seven times. Abigail Folger’s stab wounds totaled twenty-eight. Voytek Frykowski, the victim who fought back hardest, was shot twice, stabbed fifty-one times, and struck over the head with a blunt object thirteen times. Steve Parent had one defensive slash wound and was shot four times.
From the outset, the Tate and LaBianca cases were hampered by the unwillingness of the investigative teams to share information. The Tate detectives were older, seasoned homicide veterans who believed there was no substitute for field experience. The LaBianca team was comprised of younger detectives who liked to employ the latest technological tools. They often operated out of the same long squad room, but never effectively cooperated.
Before Sharon Tate’s murder, Beverly Hills sporting goods stores sold only a few handguns a day. In the two days since her death, one store sold two hundred. Guard dogs were previously for sale for $200; now the price jumped to $1,500.
He berated his guards for letting the girls get away, and gathered the entire Family to announce that any future defectors would be recaptured and killed. They were either with Charlie or against him, he emphasized, and he still carried the authority of the Bible and the Beatles. He had brought them to the desert to save them, and they would show their appreciation by never doubting or complaining.
whenever Charlie felt frustrated he always seemed to beat up women, and now he was frustrated all of the time.
Informed of the vigil by his advisors in the White House, President Nixon had a thought: Why not have Army helicopters hover overhead so that their propellers would blow out the protesters’ candles? He was talked out of it.
This was the kind of high-profile case where a win virtually guaranteed a lucrative practice. During the next six weeks Charlie logged 139 visits from attorneys hoping to gain his trust and business.
“You have created the monster. I am not of you, from you . . . I haved Xed myself from your world. No man or lawyer is speaking for me. I speak for myself. I am not allowed to speak with words so I have spoken with the mark I will be wearing on my forehead.”
Then early in the trial, Fitzgerald went home one night to find Squeaky in his bed offering a stark choice: have fun with her and promise to cooperate with Charlie, or else find other, less friendly Family members waiting for him next time. Later, the women defendants would recall that they were never alone with their lawyers without Charlie present, too. He monitored every word spoken between them.
By her third day of testimony, Charlie was making throat-cutting gestures toward the witness stand, and the total of Kanarek objections topped two hundred. Older finally found Kanarek in contempt of court and sentenced him to a night in jail. The next day, Kanarek made more objections than ever, so many that even Charlie lost patience with him, and asked Older if he was allowed to object to his attorney’s objections. Older said no.
Irving Kanarek took a week. He expounded on every facet of the trial, once again boring even Charlie, listening in the mouse house adjacent to the courtroom. The mouse house wasn’t entirely soundproofed. At one point the jury could hear Charlie shouting, “You’re just making things worse!” On the fifth day of Kanarek’s argument, the jury sent a note to Older requesting NoDoz.
There was nothing mystical or heroic about Charlie—he was an opportunistic sociopath. The unsettling 1960s didn’t create Charlie, but they made it possible for him to bloom in full, malignant flower. In every sense, one theme runs through and defines his life: Charlie Manson was always the wrong man in the right place at the right time.
