THE MISCONCEPTION OF CHARLES MANSON

I began studying murder at the ripe age of ten, more than twenty years ago. The first killer was mass murderer Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower Sniper. The medical community seem to conclude that a tumor made him climb to the top of the University of Texas clock tower and pick off random people with a rifle. This earned him the title of ‘mass murderer,’ but what about someone who is labeled a murderer but never has physically been involved with a murder? Someone like Charlie Manson for example?

Except for forensic psychologist Scott A. Bonn PhD. writing an article for Psychology Today no one has officially addressed the misconception that while convicted of multiple first degree murders he is neither a serial killer nor even a murderer. Manson is clearly one of the most diabolically evil men in history. He ranks with Hitler and Stalin even if Manson did not have the numbers he did have his own ‘cult of personality.’

In multiple classes in college and grad school I have often had to correct people when they have either called Manson a ‘serial killer’ or a ‘vicious killer.’ True. He is vicious but he never laid a hand on any of the people linked to the Manson Family Murders. Unless there was a fist fight between Manson and Gary Hinman, the music teacher who introduced him to Terry Milcher, (Doris Day’s son) and the previously renter of the house on Ciello Drive in San Francisco where Sharon Tate and her friends were slaughtered. He was the intended target that night.

First since he did not kill anyone he cannot be called a murderer. Second, his followers do not fit the definition of serial killer. Granted the FBI did update the definition of serial killer in 2005 to make it two or more people killed in which similarities can suggest that the same perpetrator is involved (motive) and with a significant cooling off period. The classic example of serial killers are Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy both of which led normal even upstanding lives when the urge to kill was not upon them. Gacy was considered a pillar of his community until the bodies under his house rotted to the point the lime he was throwing on them failed to hide the smell.

Dr. Bonn is his psychological assessment of whether one can be classified a serial killer without committing a single murder determined the answer is an emphatic No! By definition the killings themselves while gruesome, even Manson himself was outraged by how much of a mess was made at the Tate household, did not classify as serial murder. Nor did the other murders or attempted murders associated with Manson’s followers classify. Yes, there were at four separate crime scenes, more if you count the attempted jail break and presidential assassination attempt but for the latter of the two Manson was in jail.

If one was to look at all of the crimes chronologically Susan Atkins is the only one who could be examined in an attempt to determine, prior to her death if she was a serial killer. She, along with Bobby BeauSoleil (Handsome Sun in French), Bruce Davis, and one of Manson’s wives, Mary Bruner were involved with the murder of Gary Hinman, the music teacher who introduced Manson to the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson and the Beach Boys producer. It is believed that Bruner stayed in the car during this murder and Atkins was never tried in conjunction with this murder that happened in July 1969. The Tate Labianca Murders occurred between August 8-10 1969. CNN does not give an accurate date as to whether the spree lasted until after midnight for the Tate Home invasion murders and the next night when the Labiancas were murdered.

Dr. Bonn defines this as Spree Killing…series of murders with no cooling off period. Which brings us back to the question if Manson did not “get his hands dirty” is he still considered a murderer? He certainly was convicted of seven counts of first degree murder. Dr. Bonn describes him as a ‘proxy murderer.’ A proxy murder is defined as a murder in which the murder does the killing at the behest of another as his or her proxy.

So, Susan Atkins died in prison, several of the others have been repeated been either turned down for their appeals, or had their appeals reversed by California governors. So, what’s the danger of compassionate releases for these elderly people. What’s the harm?

In a demonstration of power, even behind bars Manson was conversing with a reporter throughout his trial. The reporter lived in a gated community but somehow her son answered the door to four strangers who wished to borrow some matches. In what Manson thought was a sick joke he wrote to the reporter and thanked her for the matches. The four strangers were Manson family members who somehow bypassed security and got into and out of her gated community without detection. Alarmed for her family’s safety she refused to converse with him anymore if he ever did something like that again. In order to get his twisted thoughts to the masses he agreed to never do that again.

Shortly after the arrest and conviction for the Tate-Labianca Murders Mary Bruner and a group of Manson followers attempted a jail break. She and her accomplices were arrested following a shootout.

Again, in 1975 Squeaky Fromme was arrested for trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford in an attempt to get Manson freed.

So, these crimes were all more than 40 years ago. Some people would suggest the danger was long past. The movie Annabelle implies that the idea of Manson as seductive evil master mind still holds sway at least in Hollywood. The Satanic young hippie girl who murders her parents and escapes into the neighbor’s house where a young pregnant woman is in the house alone inspires the image of what could only be imagined as the fear Sharon Tate must have felt upon being faced with Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkle. This was Hollywood belief of how the possessed doll in the possession of Lorraine Warren became possessed with an evil spirit. It is perhaps a silent homage to the victims of the Tate Labianca murders since the girl ‘Annabelle’ was said to be a part of a Satanic hippie commune. I have not heard of Satanism being a part of the Manson family, a lot of drugs, free love, and a little bit of insanity but no mention of Satanism to the best of my knowledge.

Enter the technological age and the twisted minds who fall in love with fame and infamy. One news site reports that one Facebook fan page for Charlie Manson has over 80 thousand followers. The site listed as “Official Charlie Manson” has 8 thousand fans and followers. It looks like it is run by the woman who calls herself, Star and claims to be Manson’s 20 something year old wife. There are pictures of the couple on the page and there are posts as recently as this past May in which Manson preaches to people who tell him how great he is.

Perhaps the reason the end of May is his last post is the belief that Manson is said to be in the hospital. The above picture shows him as a tired old man with the exception of the soulless dark eyes far from the almost demonic visage he presented to the court.

Manson was the boogie man of my childhood. My grandparents lived in San Francisco in the late 60s, early 1970s. My mother was 11 when Sharon Tate was murdered. We both grew up with the idea that he was the poster boy of evil. During my graduate course in profiling at American Public in 2013 I mentioned wanting to write Manson to ask him how he felt about being labeled a murder when he had not physically committed any of the murders. Predictably my grandmother ended up in the hospital with a panic attack thinking he would send followers to murder us in our beds if I opened myself up to what she called ‘his special kind of evil.’

In studying Criminology one has to open themselves up to the darkness to truly understand just what lies in the abyss to protect others from venturing to close. It is why there may be a part two as I commented on one of the recent posts attributed to “Official Charlie Manson” on Facebook.