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Manson: Charles Manson
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Charles Manson was a would-be musician and charismatic petty criminal who found his way to San Francisco when the 1960s drug culture was at its height. By the end of the decade, he and several members of his "family" settled on borrowed land outside of Los Angeles. Believing he was a modern incarnation of Jesus Christ, and figuring he could benefit from a race war in America, Manson convinced followers to go on a murderous spree in 1969, during which they killed seven people. The most prominent victim was actress Sharon Tate, the wife of film director Roman Polanski. The subsequent murder trial lasted seven months (at the time the longest and most expensive in U.S. history), and resulted in guilty verdicts and death sentences for Manson and his followers. In 1972 California outlawed the death penalty, and Manson was sentenced instead to life in prison.
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Manson was an advid reader of the Bible and often quoted from the Book of Revelation. In December 1968, he and Charles Watson listened to the new Beatle's album, The White Album, and Manson became obsessed with some of the songs, especially Helter Skelter and Revolution 9. His interpretation of the lyrics, woven in with his view of Revelations, resulted in a philosophy which envisioned an apocalypse brought on by a race war of blacks killing whites.
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Charles Manson a bizarre, well-known, and feared criminal with a powerful ability to control his followers was responsible for the deaths of nine people, during a murderous rampage from July 25, 1969 through August 28, 1969. The initial three crime scens had a common element -- large words smeared on the walls in the victim's blood. Words like "PIG" and "WAR" were left on doors and walls. These words were part of a grander plan stemming from Manson's apocolyptic delusion for taking over the United States, if not the world.
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Manson spent the next six years in prison. It was during this time that he befriended the infamous Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, former member of Ma Barker's gang. After Karpis taught Charles Manson to play the steel guitar, Manson became obsessed with making music. He practiced all the time, wrote dozens of original songs, and started singing. He believed that when he got out of prison, he could be a famous musician.
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Charles Manson was born in 1934 and never knew his father. His single mother often abandoned him. Eventually he found himself within public institutions. Beginning at the age of nine he was caught in a series of petty crimes and sent to boys schools and reformatories. One early teacher said little Charlie "did good work only [when he]...figured he could obtain something." He was tested and found to have an IQ of 109, but a psychiatrist concluded he would one day become a "fairly slick institutionalized youth."
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Charles Manson was good at manipulating people. He took pieces from various religions to form his own philosophy. When the Beatles released their White Album in 1968, Manson believed their song "Helter Skelter" predicted an upcoming race war. "Helter skelter," Manson believed, was going to occur in the summer of 1969 when blacks were going to rise up and slaughter all the white people. He told his followers that they would be saved because they would go underground, literally, by traveling to an underground city of gold located in Death Valley.
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