Charles Manson Essay, Research Paper

“You can try to kill me a million times more, but you can’t kill a person’s soul. Truth was, is, and always will be, you’ve beaten me, broken my neck, knocked my teeth out. You’ve drugged me for years, dragging me up and down prison hallways, laying my head on every chopping block you’ve got in this state, chained me, burnt me, but you cannot defeat me. All you can do is destroy yourselves with your own judgements.” These are the words of Charles Manson at a parole hearing. This man was the leader of a serial killing group called the Manson Family. This group was responsible for the deaths of seven people and even worse, he claims he is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is truly one of the most dangerous men on this planet because he believes he is cleansing the earth of evil and his followers believe he is right. Luckily, there was enough evidence to convict him and his family to cleanse the earth of his evil. Many lives have been saved thanks to his arrest. What if he wasn’t arrested though? That’s a terrifying question to think about, but it’s a sensible one. It’s obvious there would be total chaos if his group was able to grow and cause more deaths in America. If you learn about Charles Manson’s childhood, then you’d understand how he became a serial killer.

The childhood of Charles Manson was the childhood no person would want. He grew up in a family that showed no love for him. His mother grew up in an extremely religious home and was shown no love or affection. When she could take no more, she ran away when she was fifteen. In her search for acceptance, she got pregnant with Charles when she was sixteen. His mother treated him horribly. She’d leave him with his aunt or grandma and disappear for weeks at a time. Manson tells a story of how once in a caf?, a waitress jokingly told Charles’ mother that she would buy him, and his mom replied, “a pitcher of beer and he’s yours.” After his mother was arrested for armed robbery, Charles was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in West Virginia. They were also very strict and religious just as the grandma was. After his mother was released from jail, he went to live with her again, but she wasn’t nearly responsible enough to take care of him properly. She lived a very promiscuous life and alcohol filled life, and kept her kid around to witness it. She often moved him from one-room house to one-room house and Charles never made any real friends. He eventually moved to a life of crime. He stole just like his mother and spent more than half of his life in institutions. There, he learned how to play guitar and learned how to manipulate people. Even prisoners said they felt manipulated by Manson. He loved it in prison. Manson claimed it was where his mind was free and he wanted to stay, but the prison officials ignored his request and released him into the world which ends up being one of their biggest mistakes.

By observing Charles Manson’s childhood, you can easily distinguish why he was persuaded by the hippie way of life. Hippies believed in free love. Charles was never shown love his entire life. His whole life, all he wanted was love and attention. With the hippies is where he finally got it. Also, the hippie way of life didn’t expect much from him at all. This is where he began to manipulate people to get their mind set to his. His first group of followers was very small. It was mostly made up of young girls who lived very troubled emotional lives and were rebelling against their parents and society. The rest of his followers were very weak-willed, gullible, and easy to lead. He also used drugs to persuade these mislead people into thinking he was the Lord.

A large part of Manson’s philosophy was Helter Skelter. This was his belief that in the summer of 1969, black men would wipe out the white race; a racial war would begin. While the war would be happening, Manson told his followers that they would be hiding in a cave underneath Death Valley that led to a city of gold. They would wait there until the war was finally over and come to the surface of the earth and take over the weakened black forces and turn them into their slaves. He would be the fifth angel, the first four: the Beatles.

Music was still a big part of his life. Manson wanted desperately to market his music and had a man named Terry Melcher come to his ranch and listen to him play his music. After a few trips down to Charles’s ranch, Melcher decided that it was nothing worth recording. This was too much for Manson. Music was the most important thing to him in his life. Charles was now very angry. And the summer of 1969 was almost over and no signs of Helter Skelter had appeared yet. Manson knew that if he didn’t spark a Helter Skelter himself, then his followers would lose faith in him. So, he decided to commit a few murders and finally found a chance to try and get back at Terry Melcher. The only problem was, the house that Charles thought Terry lived in, was no longer his. He sold it to a woman named Sharon Tate. Manson and his family went to the house looking for him but only found a pregnant woman named Sharon Tate a few guests, and some servants. They brutally tortured and killed all five people at the house that night. They wrote racial slurs on the walls in their own blood to make it look like a racist homicide. They did almost the same vicious act at the LaBianca house where they brutally murdered two more people. Racial slurs were also written on their walls in their blood to make it look like another racial homicide. The police found enough evidence to get the Manson Family convicted, but they really didn’t need any because the Manson Family confessed to everything. They were proud of themselves for what they had done and would do it again for Charles if another chance was provided for them.

If Charles Manson had not been arrested, his madness would’ve spread throughout the United States even more than it did. He would’ve had the chance to gather more followers and a larger group means that they’re going to create more problems. If he was not arrested, then he would’ve realized that to cause a Helter Skelter is almost impossible. The prophecy he recited to his devotees would have been incorrect. This would possibly make him lose followers and he would have to devise a way to keep those followers. Which is why he would probably kill again, and again, until his followers were satisfied. He would do all of this for love. He became a hippie to be loved by people and be respected, now he had that and would do anything to keep it. Many more innocent lives would have been lost at the expense of Manson’s prophecy if he had not been arrested. Thank God he was.

Love, probably one of the most powerful emotions. With it, you feel special, like you can do anything, but without it, it can drive a man insane. That’s what happened to Charles Manson. He’s the perfect example of what happenes to a person who is not given love. He was never given the love and affection he needed as a child. Now, he is paying the price of his bad parenting by being locked in jail on death row. Maybe if he was shown what real love is, he would still be part of the outside world and seven people wouldn’t have lost their lives while Manson was struggling to hold on to his Family. Charles was turned into a person we don’t want on our streets, but for some reason we put him out there. We gave him the chance to kill those people and regret it dearly. Hopefully, we’ve learned from this mistake and will pay more attention to such a troubled human being. To this day, he feels he is right for doing what he did. He believes that he did nothing wrong people are just judging him because they are afraid of change. He believes he was unjustly put in jail and still goes to a judge thinking he can get parole. Fortunately, we’ve learned from our mistakes and will not set a man free who can say things like this: “In all that was said about me, it was not me saying it. And if you see a false prophet, it is only a reflection of your judgements, for in truth, it is motions, not words, that speak for the Manson Family. We each have our own words and judgments. I have no judgements outside of what you all have set for yourselves. I’m content wherever I am. Whatever you do or say does not touch my inner circle. I have peace within myself. Peace of mind.”

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