Charlie Manson and his cult of killers (Part 1)                                                       

Charles Milles Manson was born as Charles Milles Maddox, on November 12, 1934. (a year after I was born in October 1933)  to unmarried 16-year-old Kathleen Manson-Bower-Cavender, née Maddox (1918–1973) in the General Hospital, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Charles Manson's biological father appears to have been Colonel Walker Henderson Scott Sr. (1910–1954) against whom Kathleen Maddox filed a paternity suit that resulted in an agreed judgment in 1937. Manson may not have known his biological father. In August 1934, before Manson's birth, Maddox married William Eugene Manson (1909–1961), whose occupation was listed on Charles' birth certificate as a labourer at a dry cleaner's. Manson’s mother went on drinking sprees for days at a time with her brother, Luther, leaving Charles with a variety of babysitters. She and Manson were divorced on April 30, 1937,

His mother was sentenced to five years for her part in a robbery.  Manson was placed in the home of an aunt and uncle in McMechen, West Virginia. His mother was paroled in 1942 and was reunited with her son, Charlie.

They moved to Charleston where Manson continually played truant, and his mother spent her evenings drinking. She was arrested for grand larceny, but not convicted. After moving to Indianapolis, his mother met an alcoholic named Lewis, who she married in August 1943. As well as constantly playing truant, Manson began stealing from stores and even his home. In 1947, his mother looked for a temporary foster home for Manson, but could not find a suitable one. She decided to send him to the Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana, a school for male delinquents run by Catholic priests. He soon fled home to his mother, but she brought him back to the school. He spent Christmas 1947 in McMechen, at the house of his aunt and uncle, where he was caught stealing a gun.

Manson was returned to Gibault and ran away ten months later to Indianapolis, but instead of returning to his mother, he supported himself by burgling stores at night  He was eventually caught, and a sympathetic judge sent him to Boys Town, a juvenile facility in Omaha, Nebraska. After four days, he and a student named Blackie Nielson stole a car and somehow obtained a gun, which they used to rob a grocery store and a casino, while making their way  to the home of Nielson's uncle in Peoria, Illinois.

Neilson's uncle was a professional thief, and when the boys arrived at his home, he apparently took them on as his apprentices. During the second of two subsequent break-ins of grocery stores, Manson was arrested and sent at age 13 to the Indiana Boys School, a strict "reform school". He later claimed that he was raped there by other students with the encouragement of a staff member. He developed a self-defense technique he later called the ‘insane game’, in which he would screech, grimace and wave his arms to convince aggressors that he was insane when he was physically unable to defend himself. After many failed attempts to break out of the juvenile correctional facility, he escaped with two other boys in 1951.

The three escapees were attempting to drive to California in stolen cars when they were arrested in  the State of Utah. They had robbed several filling stations along the way. Driving a stolen car across state lines is a federal crime that violates the Dyer Act. Manson was sent to Washington, D.C.'s National Training School for Boys.  On arrival he was given aptitude tests. He was illiterate, and his IQ was 109 (the national average was 100). His case worker deemed him aggressively antisocial.

On a psychiatrist's recommendation, Manson was transferred in October 1951 to Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution. His aunt visited him and told administrators she would let him stay at her house and would help him find work. He had a parole hearing scheduled for February 1952. However, in January, he was caught raping a student at knifepoint. He was transferred to the Federal Reformatory in Petersburg, Virginia, where he committed a further eight serious disciplinary offenses, three involving homosexual acts, He was then sent to a maximum security reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio, where he was expected to stay until his release on his 21^st birthday in November 1955. Good behavior led to an early release in May 1954.  He then lived with his aunt and uncle in Mcmehen, West Virginia.

In January 1955, he married a hospital waitress named Rosalie Jean Willis. Around October, about three months after he and his pregnant wife arrived in Los Angeles in a car he had stolen in Ohio, Manson was again charged with a federal crime, for taking the stolen vehicle across state lines.

After a psychiatric evaluation, he was given five years' probation. His subsequent failure to appear at a Los Angeles hearing on an identical charge filed in Florida resulted in his March 1956 arrest in Indianapolis. His probation was revoked; he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment at Terminal Island, San Pedro in California.

While Manson was in prison, Rosalie gave birth to their son Charles Manson Jr. During his first year at Terminal Island, Manson received visits from Rosalie and his mother, who were now living together in Los Angeles. In March 1957, when the visits from his wife ceased, his mother informed him Rosalie was living with another man. Less than two weeks before a scheduled parole hearing, Manson tried to escape by stealing a car. His parole was denied.

Manson received an additional five years' parole in September 1958, the same year in which Rosalie received her decree of divorce. By November, Manson was pimping a 16-year-old girl and was receiving additional support from a girl who had  wealthy parents.

In September 1959, he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check, which he claimed to have stolen from a mailbox; the latter charge was later dropped. He received a 10-year suspended sentence and probation after a young woman with an arrest record for prostitution made a "tearful plea" before the court that she and Manson were "deeply in love  and would marry Charlie if were freed. By the year's end, the woman did marry Manson, possibly so testimony against him would not be required of her as per the law.

The woman's name was Leona. As a prostitute, she had used the name Candy Stevens. Manson took her and another woman from California to New Mexico for purposes of prostitution. He was held and questioned for violation of the Mann Act. Though he was released, he correctly suspected that the investigation had not ended. When he disappeared in violation of his probation, a bench warrant was issued. An indictment for violation of the Mann Act followed in April 1960.

 When one of the women was arrested for prostitution, Manson was arrested in June in Laredo, Texas and he was returned to Los Angeles. For violation of his probation on the check-cashing charge, he was sentenced to serve a 10-year sentence in prison.

Manson spent a year unsuccessfully trying to appeal the revocation of his probation. In July 1961, he was transferred from the Los Angeles County Jail to the United States Penitentiary at        McNeil Island.

While he was there, , he took guitar lessons from the Ma Barker–Karpis gang leader, Alvin Creepy Karpis, and obtained a contact name of someone at Universal Studios  in Hollywood from another inmate, Phil Kaufman.  Manson was an unknown failure. Later he became a known failure as a musician.    

Charles' mother, Kathleen moved from California to Washington State to be closer to her son during his McNeil Island incarceration, working nearby as a waitress.

Although the Mann Act charge had been dropped, the attempt to cash the Treasury check was still a federal offense. His September 1961 annual review noted he had a tremendous drive to call attention to himself, an observation echoed in September 1964. 1963, Leona was granted a divorce, in the pursuit of which she alleged that she and Manson had a son, Charles Luther.

In June 1966, Manson was sent for the second time to Terminal Island in preparation for early release. By the time of his release day on March 21, 1967, he had spent more than half of his 32 years in prisons and other institutions. This was mainly because he had broken federal laws. Federal sentences were, and remain, much more severe than state sentences for many of the same offenses. In a 1981 television interview with Tom Snyder, Manson. told him that prison had become his home and that he had he requested permission to stay in prison. He had become institutionalize which is common with prisoners who spend years in prison.

Part 2  will be a description of his followers