“I have to believe some of it.” He exploded and I got my first look at those sharp, penetrating eyes that appeared so often in newspapers and on the covers of magazines during the court proceedings in 1970. He came at me, not in a physical attack, but shouting, his face inches from mine. “You motherfucker, you ain’t no friend, you’re just another victim of Sadie’s [Susan Atkins] and Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter bullshit! Fuck you, get your ass on down the road.” The guard had his keys out and was about to open the door to break up the fight he thought would surely happen, but I told the guard, “It’s all right, we’re just having a little disagreement.” The guard hesitated and Charlie backed off and glared at both of us. He was trembling with anger. Then I saw him relax, and he said to the guard, “Yeah, it’s all right, everything’s under control.” The flare of temper subsided as quickly as it had surfaced. Manson picked up the conversation in a quiet, calm tone of voice. “You know, I been around long enough to know that if you do the crime you gotta pay, but I ain’t guilty the way those pricks convicted me. So I ain’t supposed to be here! At least not under the gun the way they got me. They might have made me on conspiracy, an accessory before or after the fact; that would have carried the same sentence, and I’d be doing my time without crying.” Then quickly, for fear I might think he was showing weakness, “I ain’t crying, understand, but these fuckers are doing me wrong.” There was a moment or two of silence as his eyes bored through me in an effort to read whether I believed him or not. I broke the silence by saying, “If that’s the way it is, Charlie, let me write the book the way you say it was.” He smiled and said, “You cagey mother. After two months you finally got it out. But man, I don’t know if I can trust you.” “What’s to trust, Charlie?” I asked. “Everything bad has been said about you. But your life represents all the ills in our society and, properly illustrated, it could be an example for society. You’ve always said, Those parents sent their kids to me.’ Your life as it really was, without all that Helter Skelter bullshit that went down during your trials, could show why those kids came to you, and make parents take a look at themselves and their kids. There is a lot to be learned from the life you have lived. And besides, you have your own version of what happened to bring about the slayings. Let me write it.”
“You know what, Emmons, I don’t give a fuck about those kids out there! It’s up to their parents to take care of them. Those kids and their one-way parents are what got me here. Let them take care of themselves. No—fuck it! I ain’t into being no part of no book! Especially a book that makes me look like some do-gooder. Fuck ’em, they built the image, let them live with all these kids writing me letters wanting to visit me and join my ‘Family.’ Fuck, there was no family! Some reporter stuck that on us one time when they hassled us out at the ranch. Besides, ain’t nobody out there wants to read something they might learn from. Blood ’n guts and sex is the only trip they get behind when they’re spending their dollars.”
I left the visiting room that day feeling discouraged. I realized I’d used the wrong approach when suggesting he allow me to use his life as an example. He hated everyone in conventional society so much that he didn’t want to contribute anything that might, even remotely, be of value to society.
Several days after that particular visit, I received a letter from Manson that included two letters from publications requesting interviews with him. In his letter to me he asked if I thought he should do the interviews. Instead of writing back, I went to see him the next day. No mention of the book was made, but I told him if he was allowing interviews, let me be the first. “You got it!” he replied. “But one of these letters is from a girl from a local newspaper who has been hounding me for a long time to let her come in, so why don’t you check her out and maybe bring her with you.” We agreed that the woman and I would interview Manson together. I spoke with her and she, in turn, agreed to certain restrictions.
During the interview the reporter asked Manson, “Why do you have so much confidence in Emmons? I mean, you have refused so many interviews, but you have allowed him to interview you.” Charlie’s answer held a pleasant surprise for me. “Well, me and Emmons go back a long way. He understands me. Actually he’s one of my fathers, he helped raise me and he’s doing a book on my life.” For Manson to suggest that I had been like a father to him and had helped raise him was anything but flattering, but he had mentioned the book and I wasn’t going to press him as to why or when he had changed his mind. Perhaps he appreciated my regular visits, perhaps he recalled the favor I’d done him; whatever the case, he was willing to cooperate.
In addition to the publication I was working for, I had made arrangements with UPI to furnish their wire service with some pictures and a release on the interview. My story did not mention that Manson had agreed to furnish me information for a book, but UPI’s release said that I was writing a book on Charles Manson. I immediately began receiving letters about him. Though his crimes had been history for over a decade, Manson still attracted a startling amount of attention and interest. Most of the mail came from the United States, but there were also letters from Canada, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Australia. Many of them offered information for a book about Manson, all such letters suggesting that he be allowed to tell his version of his life and the chain of events that led to the slayings of 1969.
The material for this first-person narrative has been assembled from many interviews, corroborated by his correspondence with me and with others, despite numerous obstacles. Even after Manson had agreed to cooperate, he was not always willing to do so, and I listened to hours upon hours of repetitive complaints about how rotten the prisons and the prison system were. I was allowed the use of a tape recorder only when interviewing Manson for a commissioned article for publication. On such occasions, the institution furnished me with a tape recorder because some years earlier, after an escape attempt at San Quentin, it was believed that an attorney had used his tape recorder to smuggle a gun inside. With the exception of these limited occasions, I had to make mental notes until I could record them on tape or in writing. I spent many hours in the prison parking lot, writing down names and specific phrases that typified Manson’s speech and his ideas. I frequently had to go over events with Manson several times to confirm details and correct the misperceptions created by other accounts. In some cases it was impossible to corroborate Manson’s version of the facts, but the purpose of this book is, above all, to record that version.
I pieced his childhood together with help from many sources. In addition to what he told me, which contained many gaps, I journeyed across the United States to where he was born and the places he spent the first sixteen years of his life. In Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky I talked to those who could fill in gaps and verify what Manson said. When there was new information, I would return to Manson and repeat what I had been told, to hear his words and sense his feelings about it.
What I have recorded here as a continuous chronological narrative is therefore actually the result of a long process of discussion and re-examination of the events, checking and cross-checking of details, and re-organization of the frequent, frustrating leaps of Manson’s conversation. Nevertheless, it represents Manson’s recollections of his life and his attitudes toward it as accurately, consistently, and coherently as is humanly possible.
Since my first visit with Manson, more than six years have passed. During those six years, and hundreds of hours of conversation, I have experienced his hate and contempt—and he mine. I have seen tenderness, a soft side that may well have been his strength in attracting those involved with him. But never has he demonstrated any remorse or uttered a word of compassion for those lives taken in the madness he and his group shared.
When questioned about his lack of remorse, Manson abruptly changes his attitude and aggressively defends himself: “Remorse for what? I didn’t kill those people! Ask the DA and all the media people if they have any remorse for sending all these kids to me, kids wanting to pick up knives and guns for me because the DA and the money-hungry writers pumped the public into believing I’m something I’m not. Shit, they built the image—and they keep feeding the myth.”
The myth of Charles Manson, the publicity that made him
