I would like to express my gratitude to Grove Press, especially Fred Jordan and Walt Bode, who dared, and helped, when others turned their backs.
Finally, to the Tates, LaBiancas, Folgers and other surviving family and friends, I apologize for opening wounds and stirring thoughts of those horrifying days in August 1969.
CHAPTER 1
ON April 19, 1971, in Los Angeles, California, Charles Milles Manson heard Superior Court Judge Charles H. Older say, “It is my considered judgment that not only is the death penalty appropriate, but it is almost compelled by the circumstances. I must agree with the prosecutor that if this is not a proper case for the death penalty, what should be? The Department of Corrections is ordered to deliver you to the custody of the Warden of the State Prison of the State of California at San Quentin to be by him put to death in the manner prescribed by law of the State of California. “
In the courtroom with Manson were three co-defendants, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkel. On March 29, 1971, a jury had found them guilty of the murders of Sharon Tate Polanski, Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, fay Sebring, Steven Parent, Leno LaBianca and Rosemary LaBianca. At a later date, Manson received the same sentence for two additional murders, as did four more co-defendants: Robert Beausoleil, Charles Watson, Bruce Davis and Steve Grogan. Beausoleil was convicted for the murder of Gary Hinman, Davis and Grogan for their participation in the death of Donald (Shorty) Shea. Watson was a member of the group that did the Tate-LaBianca slayings.
—N. E.
JAILS, COURTROOMS AND PRISONS had been my life since I was twelve years old. By the time I was sixteen, I had lost all fear of anything the administration of the prison system could dish out. But convicts, being unpredictable, made it a real possibility that dying in prison would be my fate, especially when the prosecuting attorney, the media and some department of corrections officials planted seeds in the minds of other convicts by statements such as, “Due to the nature of Manson’s crimes he will be a marked man for other convicts seeking attention and notoriety.” In hearing Older pronounce the death sentence, I realized he was doing so with the full authority of the California Judicial System, yet I knew I would never be executed by the State of California. Die in prison, perhaps. But executed by the State, no!
I was right: within a year after being placed on Death Row, the existing capital punishment law was abolished in the state of California. All those awaiting execution were automatically given life terms. For most of those on the Row, it was a new lease on life. For me there was no particular elation, only the thought of, “Now what will I have to contend with?”
My paranoia has been well-founded, for due to the nature of the crimes, the amount of publicity about my arrest and the lengthy court proceedings, the name of Charles Manson has become the most hated and feared epithet of the current generation; a cross I have had to bear since my arrest in 1969. Because of the heavy security and my isolation from the general convict population, the time spent on Death Ro\y was the most comfortable and relaxed I have spent in the last seventeen years. But since then I have been a special case in the California penal system, and because of that I’ve spent my ordinary confinement dodging spears, knives and death threats from other convicts as well as having to watch every guard who gets hear me.
The latest, most newsworthy threat to my life happened in the arts and crafts room at the California Medical Facility. I was sitting on a stool facing a table, working on a clay sculpture. It was one of my first efforts at any form of sculpture and I was totally engrossed with the project—so engrossed it was one of the few times since being locked up that I relaxed my constant vigil on everything that was going on around me. I didn’t hear footsteps, nor was I conscious of anyone being near me until a cold liquid was poured over my head, soaking my hair, face and most of my clothing. Startled, I leaped to my feet and faced the direction from which the liquid came. My eyes were already burning from the substance (a highly inflammable paint thinner), so it was with blurred sight that I saw the assailant, a long-haired, bearded Krishna bastard, throw a burning match at my face. My hands weren’t quick enough to prevent the flame from making contact with the thinner, and like a bomb exploding, I was instantly a human torch. My hair, face and clothing on fire, I lunged toward my assailant. He eluded me. Pain from the flames and instinct for self-preservation didn’t allow me to continue pursuing him.
I hit the floor and pulled my burning jacket over my head in an effort to smother the ignited paint thinner. Though there was a guard and several inmates in the room, I had long ago learned not to expect help or sympathy from anyone. Not that I was thinking about what others might be doing, for at the moment my head was buzzing with what to do to extinguish the flames. I realized how vulnerable I was if the Krishna bastard decided to attack me again. But first things first, I had to get the fire out. Fortunately the guy didn’t come at me but just stood back and watched me struggle. I was aflame for forty-five seconds to a minute, long enough to have all the hair burned from my head and face. My scalp, face, neck, left shoulder, arm and hand suffered third-degree burns. I spent a few days in the hospital, a couple of them on the critical list.
The attack had nothing to do with who I am or what I am accused of. It was the result of a discussion on religion that took place the day before I became a human torch. The guy who threw the match is as flaky and disoriented about the laws of society as most people believe I am. Yet he, like myself, doesn’t see himself as some freak with a demented personality, but as a person who was dealt a hand that couldn’t be played by the rules and values of your society.
My name is Charles Milles Manson. At this writing I am fifty-one years old. If I stretch to my fullest height and cheat a little by slightly lifting my heels from the floor, I can achieve a height of five-foot-five. I think at one time I weighed a healthy hundred forty pounds, but a time or two during my confinement I have dropped as low 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