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Charles Milles Manson (né Maddox; November 12, 1934 – November 19, 2017) was an American criminal, cult leader and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of at least nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969. In 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, including the film actress Sharon Tate. The prosecution contended that, while Manson never directly ordered the murders, his ideology constituted an overt act of conspiracy. Before the murders, Manson had spent more than half of his life in correctional institutions. While gathering his cult following, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, who introduced Manson to record producer Terry Melcher. In 1968, the Beach Boys recorded Manson's song "Cease to Exist", renamed "Never Learn Not to Love" as a single B-side, but without a credit to Manson. Afterward, Manson attempted to secure a record contract through Melcher, but was unsuccessful. Manson would often talk about the Beatles, including their eponymous 1968 album. According to Los Angeles County District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, Manson felt guided by his interpretation of the Beatles' lyrics and adopted the term "Helter Skelter" to describe an impending apocalyptic race war. During his trial, Bugliosi argued that Manson had intended to start a race war, although Manson and others disputed this. Contemporary interviews and trial witness testimony insisted that the Tate–LaBianca murders were copycat crimes intended to exonerate Manson's friend Bobby Beausoleil. Manson himself denied having ordered any murders. 1934–1967: Early life Childhood Charles Milles Maddox was born on November 12, 1934, to 15-year-old Ada Kathleen Maddox (1919–1973) of Ashland, Kentucky, in the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Manson's biological father appears to have been Colonel Walker Henderson Scott, Sr. (1910–1954) of Catlettsburg, Kentucky, against whom Maddox filed a paternity suit that resulted in an agreed judgment in 1937. Scott worked intermittently in local mills, and had a local reputation as a con artist. He allowed Maddox to believe that he was an army colonel, although "Colonel" was merely his given name. When Maddox told Scott that she was pregnant, he informed her that he had been called away on army business; after several months she realized he had no intention of returning. Manson never knew his biological father. In August 1934, before Manson's birth, Maddox married William Eugene Manson (1909–1961), a laborer at a dry cleaning business. Maddox often went on drinking sprees with her brother Luther Elbert Maddox (1916–1950), leaving Charles with babysitters. Maddox and her husband divorced on April 30, 1937, after William alleged "gross neglect of duty" by Maddox. Charles retained William's last name of Manson. On August 1, 1939, Kathleen and Luther were arrested for assault and robbery. Kathleen and Luther were sentenced to five and ten years of imprisonment, respectively. Manson was placed in the home of an aunt and uncle in McMechen, West Virginia. His mother was paroled in 1942. Manson later characterized the first weeks after she returned from prison as the happiest time in his life. Weeks after her release, Manson's family moved to Charleston, West Virginia, where he continually played truant and his mother spent her evenings drinking. She was arrested for grand larceny, but not convicted. The family later moved to Indianapolis, where Maddox met alcoholic Lewis Woodson Cavender Jr. (1916–1979) through Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and married him in August 1943. First offenses In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Manson stated that when he was aged 9, he set his school on fire. He also got repeatedly in trouble for truancy and petty theft. Although there was a lack of foster home placements, in 1947, at the age of 13, Manson was placed in the Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana, a school for male delinquents run by Catholic priests. Gibault was a strict school, where punishment for even the smallest infraction included beatings with either a wooden paddle or a leather strap. Manson ran away from Gibault and slept in the woods, under bridges and wherever else he could find shelter. Manson fled home to his mother and spent Christmas 1947 at his aunt and uncle's house in West Virginia. However, his mother returned him to Gibault. Ten months later, he ran away to Indianapolis. It was there, in 1948, Manson committed his first documented crime by robbing a grocery store, at first to simply find something to eat. However, Manson found a cigar box containing just over a hundred dollars, which he used to rent a room on Indianapolis' Skid Row and to buy food. For a time, Manson had a job delivering messages for Western Union in an attempt to live honestly. However, he quickly began to supplement his wages through theft. He was eventually caught, and in 1949 a sympathetic judge sent him to Boys Town, a juvenile facility in Omaha, Nebraska. After four days at Boys Town, he and fellow student Blackie Nielson obtained a gun and stole a car. They used it to commit two armed robberies on their way to the home of Nielson's uncle in Peoria, Illinois. Nielson's uncle was a professional thief, and when the boys arrived he allegedly took them on as apprentices. Manson was arrested two weeks later during a nighttime raid on a Peoria store. In the investigation that followed, he was linked to his two earlier armed robberies. He was sent to the Indiana Boys School, a strict reform school outside of Plainfield, Indiana. At the Indiana Boys School, other students allegedly raped Manson with the encouragement of a staff member, and he was repeatedly beaten. He ran away from the school eighteen times. Manson developed a self-defense technique he later called the "insane game", in which he would screech, grimace and wave his arms to convince stronger aggressors that he was insane. After a number of failed attempts, he escaped with two other boys in February 1951. The three escapees robbed filling stations while attempting to drive to California in stolen cars until they were arrested in Utah. For the federal crime of driving a stolen car across state lines, Manson was sent to Washington, D.C.'s National Training School for Boys. On arrival he was given aptitude tests which determined that he was illiterate but had an above-average IQ of 109. His case worker deemed him aggressively antisocial. First imprisonment On a psychiatrist's recommendation, Manson was transferred in October 1951 to Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution in Virginia. His aunt visited him and told administrators she would let him stay at her house and help him find work. Ma.... Discover the David W Mansen popular books. Find the top 100 most popular David W Mansen books.