Charles Manson

American criminal and ritual cult leader, a psychopath with a band of drug-numbed followers known as the "Manson Family", a quasi-commune he founded in 1967. Manson, a singer-songwriter, mesmerized his gang with liberal sex and drugs while living on the commune-ranch in the desert of southern California.

He was no stranger to penal institutions spending 19 of his first 32 years behind bars. In the late '60s, Manson lived in the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco, California. He gathered adoring women around him by giving out LSD. Soon he was able to attract young men to his group by promising sex with his "young loves." Manson was befriended by celebrity children like Terry Melcher, Doris Day's son and rock singers like Dennis Wilson of the "Beach Boys." Unable to keep his friendships, Manson began to prophesy chaos to his followers. On 9 August 1969, he directed the ritual grisly killings now known as the Tate-La Bianca murders in Hollywood. The deaths frightened the Hollywood community and the perpetrators of the Manson massacres were tried in 1970-1971.

Manson was the illegitimate son of a teen prostitute and an army colonel. He was raised by an aunt and uncle in Charleston, West Virginia. By the age of 11, he developed into a delinquent, shuffling from foster parent to foster parent. Manson spent his youth and adulthood in and out of prison.

In 1967, while on parole he went to San Francisco to be a part of the hippie counter-culture in the Height-Ashbury district. After gathering his "family" together, they moved to Chatsworth, California and enjoyed long group LSD sessions listening to the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" song on the White Album. Manson believed in a horrific black and white race war imminent and used interpretations from the book of Revelations to impress his followers. When the war did not occur, he sent his followers to Hollywood to "instill fear into the Establishment.