as one-fifteen. A bulky bruising hulk I am not. But my voice can be as big and loud as the largest of men. In 1970, prior to and during the court proceedings that resulted in my conviction, I made more magazine covers and news headlines than Coca-Cola has advertisements. Most of the stories and articles written painted me as having fangs and horns from birth. They say my mother was a whore, my nose was snotty from birth and my diapers, when I had any on, were full of shit which was often seen running down my dirty legs. They would have one believe that before I was five I was a beggar on the streets, scrounging for food to feed my dirty face and fill my empty stomach. By the time I was seven, my first followers were stealing and bringing me the spoils. Before reaching nine, I had a gun in my hand and was robbing the old and feeble. Still under the age of twelve, I had raped the preacher’s daughter and choked her little brother to keep him from snitching on me. At thirteen, I had a police record that would qualify me to be on Nixon’s staff or head the Mafia. The dope I distributed had the choir boys strung out and stealing from the collection plate. In my string of brainwashed broads were the ten-and twelve-year-old girls of the neighborhood. To prove their love for me, they brought me the money they earned from turning tricks and making porno movies.
Isn’t that the way you have me framed in your thoughts? Haven’t the famed prosecuting attorney, the judges, my alleged followers, and the news media given you that picture?
Would it change things to say I had no choice in selecting my mother? Or that, being a bastard child, I was an outlaw from birth? That during those so-called formative years, I was not in control of my life? Hey listen, by the time I was old enough to think or remember, I had been shoved around and left with people who were strangers even to those I knew. Rejection, more than love and acceptance, has been a part of my life since birth. Can you relate to that? I doubt it. And this late in life, I could’nt care less! But I’ve been asked where my philosophy, bitterness, and anti-social behavior came from. So without searching to change public opinion, I’ll relate some of my life as I lived and remember it through the guy who is writing this book. You’ve read everyone else’s “Charlie’s this, Manson’s that,” and their version of the Family’s history, but nobody is ever totally all that is said or believed about him.
Books have been written, more are being written; movies made, and, undoubtedly, more in the making. The media have had a puppet to dangle and a dummy in which to plunge their swords. All have taken my words and thoughts, rephrased them, and published them with twisted meaning. Distortion, sensationalism and fabricated quotes were printed daily—so much so that life on earth no longer held valid meaning for me. Nor does it now. My body remains trapped and imprisoned by a society that creates people like me, but my mind has entered a chamber of thought that is not of this earth. I have learned that to be one’s self, one must never utter a word, make a sound or motion, or even bat an eye, for by doing so in the presence of another, an opinion will be formed. A self-styled psychologist will analyze you and describe you to others so that you become something other than what you are.
As I said, the media have had their day. Nobodies have become rich and influential. So-called “Manson Family” members have purged and turned, testifying for the State, lying in the courts. They have written books and sold interviews playing down their role, putting it all on Charlie. Lawyers on both sides of the fence have made fortunes through their association with the “Manson Family” trials. My feeling is, I’ve been raped and ravaged by society. Fucked by attorney and friends. Sucked dry by the courts. Beaten by the guards and exhibited by the prisons. Yet my words have never been printed or presented as they were said. So at this point, I have nothing to gain, or lose, by telling it the way I feel it was.
To date, thirty-seven of my fifty-one years of life have been spent in reformatories, foster homes or prisons. For the past seventeen years I have been living like a caged animal in a zoo. The cage is very much the same, concrete and steel. I am fed just as the animals are, through the bars and on schedule. I have guards patrolling my cage, making certain it is still locked and that I still live. People come to visit the institution and no matter what their other interest, all want to know, “Where is Charles Manson kept? Can we go by his cell?” And like good zoo attendants, the guards accommodate. Seeing Charles Manson in his cage, like seeing the rarest of wild animals, has made their visit complete. To satisfy my personal curiosity, I look into a mirror to see if perhaps horns are growing from my head or fangs protruding from my mouth. Unless the mirror lies, I see no horns or fangs. I check the rest of my body to see how it differs from those who stop and stare. With eyes that see, blink and stare like those who have just stopped to view, I see a body, two arms, hands and feet, and a head that grows hair in the customary places, complete with eyes, nose, ears and mouth. I’m no different from those who stopped by to give me their hated glare. Or you, who are interested in what I have to say. If writers and other media people had stuck to the facts as disclosed by investigating law officers from the beginning, Charles Manson would not have been remembered. But with each writer, each book, or each television personality exaggerating, fabricating, reaching for sensationalism and adding hostilities of their own, myself and those who lived with me became more than what we were. Or had ever intended to be.
Most stories depicted me and those arrested with me as dopecrazed sickies. A June, 1970, issue of Rolling Stone captioned an article “A Special Report: Charles Manson—the incredible story of the most dangerous man alive.” However, there were publications that speculated that the crimes weren’t without underlying principles. For example, a February 1970 issue of Tuesday’s Child said I might be more of a revolutionary martyr than a callous killer. Naturally I, and some who shared in the madness, were quick to pick up on anything that was even remotely sympathetic.
I didn’t read either of the articles at the time although I heard much about them, but since late 1969 I have been reading similar headlines and seeing pictures of myself almost daily. All refer to me as the “hippie cult leader who programmed people to kill for him—the man responsible for the Tate-LaBianca slayings.” They established me as some kind of mystical super-being that could look into the eyes of another and make him or her carry out my every whim. I was portrayed as a regular Pied Piper who lured kids into crime and violence.
Knowing what I am, how I was raised, and all that I’ve ever been, I see those stories as ridiculous. I am dismayed at the readers who lap up the lies and believe them like the Bible, but I have to hand it to the guys who created the image—the skillful writers who can suck the most out of anything and build mountains from mole hills. I really shouldn’t blame the readers ’cause I kind of get caught up in the stories myself. But when I start believing I might really possess all the powers attributed to me and I try to work a whammy on my prison guard—he or she shuts the prison door in my face. Back to reality. I realize I am only what I’ve always been, “a half-assed nothing.”
The reason for this book is not to fight the case of “the most dangerous man alive,” if I am that (or was), but just to give the other side of an individual that has been compared with the Devil. And even the Devil, if there is a Devil, had a beginning.
I can’t remember ever hearing about old Lucifer’s mother, so I don’t know if he was born or just created as a means of putting fear in the lives of children. If he did have a mother, we have two things in common. If not, our link is that we are both used to put fear in kids’ minds. Anyway, I had a mother.
Her name was Kathleen Maddox, born in Ashland, Kentucky, and the youngest of three children from the marriage of Nancy and Charles Maddox. Mom’s parents loved her and meant well by her, but they were fanatical in their religious beliefs. Especially Grandma, who dominated the household. She was stern and unwavering in her interpretation of God’s Will, and demanded that those within her home abide by her views of God’s wishes.
According to Grandma, the display of an ankle or even an over-friendly smile to one of the opposite sex was sinful. Drinking and smoking were forbidden. Make-up was evil and only used by women of the streets. Cursing would put you in hell as quickly as stealing or committing adultery.
My
