Charles Manson

Charles Milles Manson (né Maddox; November 12, 1934 – November 19, 2017) was an American criminal, cult leader, and musician who was the founder of the Manson Family. He gained notoriety for orchestrating the Tate–LaBianca murders, where his followers murdered nine people around Los Angeles in 1969.

Before the murders, Manson had spent more than half of his life in correctional institutions. While gathering his cult followers, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through an association with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, who introduced Manson to record producer Terry Melcher. In 1968, the Beach Boys recorded Manson's song "Cease to Exist", renamed "Never Learn Not to Love" as a single B-side, but Manson was uncredited. Afterward, he attempted to secure a record contract through Melcher, but was unsuccessful.

Manson would often talk about the Beatles, including their eponymous 1968 album. According to Los Angeles County District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, Manson felt guided by his interpretation of the Beatles' lyrics and adopted the term "Helter Skelter" to describe an impending apocalyptic race war. During his trial, Bugliosi argued that Manson had intended to start a race war, although Manson and others disputed this. Contemporary interviews and trial witness testimony insisted that the Tate–LaBianca murders were copycat crimes intended to exonerate Manson's friend Bobby Beausoleil. Manson denied having ordered any murders. He served his time in prison and died from complications from colon cancer in 2017.

Charles Milles Maddox was born on November 12, 1934, to 16-year-old Ada Kathleen Maddox of Ashland, Kentucky, in Cincinnati General Hospital, now the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Manson's Ohio birth certificate simply lists his name as "Manson." In August 1934, before Manson's birth, Maddox married William Eugene Manson (1909–1961), a laborer at a dry cleaning business. Maddox often went on drinking sprees with her brother Luther Elbert Maddox (1916–1950), leaving Charles with babysitters. On April 30, 1937, Maddox and her husband divorced, after William alleged "gross neglect of duty" by Maddox. Charles retained William's last name of Manson. On August 1, 1939, Kathleen and Luther were arrested for assault and robbery, and sentenced to five and ten years of imprisonment, respectively.

His biological father appears to have been Colonel Walker Henderson Scott Sr. of Catlettsburg, Kentucky, against whom Maddox filed a paternity suit that resulted in an agreed judgment in 1937. Scott worked intermittently in local mills and had a local reputation as a con artist. He allowed Maddox to believe that he was an army colonel, although "Colonel" was merely his given name. When Maddox told Scott that she was pregnant, he informed her that he had been called away on army business. After several months, she realized he had no intention of returning. Manson never knew his biological father.

Manson was placed in the home of an aunt and uncle in McMechen, West Virginia. His mother was paroled in 1942. Manson later characterized the first weeks after she returned from prison as the happiest time in his life. Weeks after her release, Manson's family moved to Charleston, West Virginia, where he frequently played truant and his mother spent her evenings drinking. She was arrested for grand larceny, but not convicted. The family later moved to Indianapolis, where Maddox met alcoholic Lewis Woodson Cavender Jr. (1916–1979) through Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and married him in August 1943.

In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Manson stated that when he was aged 9, he set his school on fire. He also got repeatedly in trouble for truancy and petty theft. In 1947, although there was a lack of foster home placements, at age 13, Manson was placed in the Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana, a school for male delinquents run by Catholic priests. Gibault was a strict school, where punishment for even the smallest infraction included beatings with either a wooden paddle or a leather strap. Manson ran away from Gibault and slept in the woods, under bridges and wherever else he could find shelter.

Manson fled home to his mother and spent Christmas 1947 at his aunt and uncle's house in West Virginia. His mother returned him to Gibault. Ten months later, he ran away to Indianapolis. It was there, in 1948, that Manson committed his first documented crime by robbing a grocery store, at first to simply find something to eat. Manson found a cigar box containing just over a hundred dollars, which he used to rent a room on Indianapolis's skid row and to buy food.

For a time, Manson had a job delivering messages for Western Union in an attempt to live honestly. He quickly began to supplement his wages through theft. He was eventually caught, and in 1949 a sympathetic judge sent him to Boys Town, a juvenile facility in Omaha, Nebraska. After four days at Boys Town, he and fellow student Blackie Nielson obtained a gun and stole a car. They used it to commit two armed robberies on their way to the home of Nielson's uncle in Peoria, Illinois. Nielson's uncle was a professional thief, and when the boys arrived he allegedly took them on as apprentices. Manson was arrested two weeks later during a nighttime raid on a Peoria store. In the investigation that followed, he was linked to his two earlier armed robberies. He was sent to the Indiana Boys School, a strict reform school outside of Plainfield, Indiana.

At the Indiana Boys School, other students allegedly raped Manson with the encouragement of a staff member, and he was repeatedly beaten. He ran away from the school eighteen times. Manson developed a self-defense technique he later called the "insane game", in which he would screech, grimace and wave his arms to convince stronger aggressors that he was insane. In February 1951, after a number of failed attempts, he escaped with two other boys. The three escapees robbed filling stations while attempting to drive to California in stolen cars, until they were arrested in Utah. For the federal crime of driving a stolen car across state lines, Manson was sent to Washington, D.C.'s National Training School for Boys. On arrival he was given aptitude tests which determined that he was illiterate, with an IQ of 109. His case worker deemed him aggressively antisocial.

In October 1951, on a psychiatrist's recommendation, Manson was transferred to Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution in Virginia. His aunt visited him and told administrators she would let him stay at her house and help him find work. Manson had a parole hearing scheduled for February 1952. In January, he was caught raping a boy at knifepoint. Manson was transferred to the Federal Reformatory in Petersburg, Virginia, where he committed a further "eight serious disciplinary offenses, three involving homosexual acts". He was then moved to a maximum security reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio, where he was expected to remain until his release on his 21st birthday in November 1955. Good behavior led to an early release in May 1954, to live with his aunt and uncle in West Virginia.

In January 1955, Manson married a hospital waitress named Rosalie "Rosie" Jean Willis (January 28, 1939 – August 21, 2009). Around October, about three months after he and his pregnant wife arrived in Los Angeles in a car he had stolen in Ohio, Manson was again charged with a federal crime for taking the vehicle across state lines. After a psychiatric evaluation, he was given five years' probation. Manson's failure to appear at a Los Angeles hearing on an identical charge filed in Florida resulted in his March 1956 arrest in Indianapolis. His probation was revoked, and he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment at Terminal Island in Los Angeles.

While Manson was in prison, Rosalie gave birth to their son, Charles Manson Jr. (April 10, 1956 – June 29, 1993). During his first year at Terminal Island, Manson received visits from Rosalie and his mother, who were now living together in Los Angeles. In March 1957, when the visits from his wife ceased, his mother informed him Rosalie was living with another man. Less than two weeks before a scheduled parole hearing, Manson tried to escape by stealing a car. He was given five years' probation and his parole was denied.

In September 1958, Manson received five years' parole, the same year in which Rosalie received a decree of divorce. By November, he was pimping a 16-year-old girl and receiving additional support from a girl with wealthy parents. In September 1959, he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check, which he claimed to have stolen from a mailbox; the latter charge was later dropped. He received a ten-year suspended sentence and probation after a young woman named Leona Rae "Candy" Stevens, who had an arrest record for prostitution, made a "tearful plea" before the court that she and Manson were "deeply in love ... and would marry if Charlie were freed". Before the year's end, Stevens married Manson. Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor who later secured Manson's murder conviction, believed the marriage may have been so she could not be required to testify against Manson.

Manson took Leona and another woman to New Mexico for purposes of prostitution, resulting in him being held and questioned for violating the Mann Act. Though he was released, Manson correctly suspected that the investigation had not ended. When he disappeared in violation of his probation, a bench warrant was issued. In April 1960, an indictment for violation of the Mann Act followed. Following the arrest of one of the women for prostitution, Manson was arrested in June in Laredo, Texas, and was returned to Los Angeles. For violating his probation on the check-cashing charge, he was ordered to serve his ten-year sentence.

Manson spent a year trying unsuccessfully to appeal the revocation of his probation. In July 1961, he was transferred from the Los Angeles County Jail to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington. There, he took guitar lessons from Barker–Karpis gang leader Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and obtained from another inmate the contact information of Phil Kaufman, a record producer and tour manager. Among Manson's fellow prisoners during this time was future actor Danny Trejo; the two participated in several hypnosis sessions together. Manson's mother moved to Washington State to be closer to him during his McNeil Island incarceration, working nearby as a waitress.

Although the Mann Act charge had been dropped, the attempt to cash the Treasury check was still a federal offense. Manson's September 1961 annual review noted he had a "tremendous drive to call attention to himself", an observation echoed in September 1964. In 1963, Leona was granted a divorce. During the process, she alleged that she and Manson had a son, Charles Luther Manson. According to a popular urban legend, Manson auditioned unsuccessfully for the Monkees in late 1965. This is refuted by the fact that Manson was still incarcerated at McNeil Island at the time.

In June 1966, Manson was sent for the second time to Terminal Island in preparation for early release. By the time of his release day on March 21, 1967, he had spent more than half of his thirty-two years in prisons and other institutions. This was mainly because he had broken federal laws. Federal sentences were, and remain, much more severe than state sentences for many of the same offenses. Telling the authorities that prison had become his home, he requested permission to stay.

Less than a month after his 1967 release, Manson moved to Berkeley from Los Angeles, which could have been a probation violation. Instead, after calling the San Francisco probation office upon his arrival, he was transferred to the supervision of criminology doctoral researcher and federal probation officer Roger Smith. Until the spring of 1968, Smith worked at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic (HAFMC), which Manson and his family came to frequent. Roger Smith, as well as the HAFMC's founder David Smith, received funding from the National Institutes of Health, and reportedly the CIA, to study the effects of drugs like LSD and methamphetamine on the counterculture movement in San Francisco's Haight–Ashbury District. The patients at the HAFMC became subjects of their research, including Manson and his expanding group of mostly female followers, who came to see Roger Smith regularly.

Manson received permission from Roger Smith to move from Berkeley to the Haight-Ashbury District. He first took LSD and would use it frequently during his time there. David Smith, who had studied the effects of LSD and amphetamines in rodents, wrote that the change in Manson's personality during this time "was the most abrupt Roger Smith had observed in his entire professional career." Manson also read the book Stranger in a Strange Land, a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein.

Inspired by the burgeoning free love philosophy in Haight–Ashbury during the Summer of Love, Manson began preaching his own philosophy based on a mixture of Stranger in a Strange Land, the Bible, Scientology, Dale Carnegie and the Beatles, which quickly earned him a following. He may have also borrowed some of his philosophy from the Process Church of the Final Judgement, whose members believed Satan would become reconciled to Jesus and they would come together at the end of the world to judge humanity.

Manson began studying Scientology while incarcerated with the help of fellow inmate Lanier Rayner, and in July 1961 listed Scientology as his religion. A September 1961 prison report argues that Manson "appears to have developed a certain amount of insight into his problems through his study of this discipline". Another prison report in August 1966 stated that Manson was no longer an advocate of Scientology. Upon his release in 1967, Manson traveled to Los Angeles where he reportedly "met local Scientologists and attended several parties for movie stars". Manson completed 150 hours of auditing. His "right hand man", Bruce Davis, worked at the Church of Scientology headquarters in London from November 1968 to April 1969.

Shortly after relocating to San Francisco, Manson became acquainted with Mary Brunner, a 23-year-old graduate of University of Wisconsin–Madison. Brunner was working as a library assistant at the University of California, Berkeley, and Manson, until that point making his living by panhandling, moved in with her. Manson then met teenaged runaway Lynette Fromme, later nicknamed "Squeaky", and convinced her to live with him and Brunner. According to a second-hand account, Manson overcame Brunner's initial resistance to him bringing other women in to live with them. Before long, they were sharing Brunner's residence with eighteen other women. Manson targeted individuals for manipulation who were emotionally insecure and social outcasts.

Manson established himself as a guru in Haight-Ashbury which, during the Summer of Love, was emerging as the signature hippie locale. Manson soon had the first of his groups of followers, most of them female. They were later dubbed as the "Manson Family" by Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and the media. Manson allegedly taught his followers that they were the reincarnation of the original Christians, and that The Establishment could be characterized as the Romans.

Sometime around 1967, Manson began using the alias "Charles Willis Manson". Before the end of summer, he and some of his followers began traveling in an old school bus they had adapted, putting colored rugs and pillows in place of the many seats they had removed. They eventually settled in the Los Angeles areas of Topanga Canyon, Malibu and Venice along the coast.

In 1967, Brunner became pregnant by Manson. On April 15, 1968, she gave birth to their son, whom she named Valentine Michael, in a condemned house where they were living in Topanga Canyon. She was assisted by several of the young women from the fledgling Family. Brunner, like most members of the group, acquired a number of aliases and nicknames, including: "Marioche", "Och", "Mother Mary", "Mary Manson", "Linda Dee Manson" and "Christine Marie Euchts".

In his book Love Needs Care about his time at the HAFMC, David Smith claimed that Manson attempted to reprogram his followers' minds to "submit totally to his will" through the use of "LSD and ... unconventional sexual practices" that would turn his followers into "empty vessels that would accept anything he poured". Manson Family member Paul Watkins testified that Manson would encourage group LSD trips and take lower doses himself to "keep his wits about him". Watkins stated that "Charlie's trip was to program us all to submit." By the end of his stay in the Haight in April 1968, Manson had attracted twenty or so followers, all under the supervision of Roger Smith and many of the staff at the HAFMC. The core members of Manson's following eventually included: Brunner; Charles "Tex" Watson, a musician and former actor; Bobby Beausoleil, a former musician and actor; Susan Atkins; Patricia Krenwinkel; and Leslie Van Houten.

On April 6, 1968, Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys was driving through Malibu when he noticed two female hitchhikers, Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey. He picked them up and dropped them off at their destination. On April 11, Wilson noticed the same two girls hitchhiking again and this time took them to his home at 14400 Sunset Boulevard. Wilson later recalled that he "told [the girls] about our involvement with the Maharishi and they told me they too had a guru, a guy named Charlie [Manson] who'd recently come out of jail after twelve years."

Wilson then went to a recording session. When he returned later that night, he was met in his driveway by Manson, and when Wilson walked into his home, about a dozen people were occupying the premises, most of them young women. By Manson's own account, he had met Wilson on at least one prior occasion: at a friend's San Francisco house where Manson had gone to obtain marijuana. Manson claimed that Wilson invited him to visit his home when Manson came to Los Angeles.

Wilson was initially fascinated by Manson and his followers, referring to him as "the Wizard" in a Rave magazine article at the time. The two struck a friendship, and over the next few months members of the Manson Family – mostly women who were treated as servants – were housed in Wilson's residence. This arrangement persisted for about six months.

Wilson introduced Manson to a few friends in the music business, including the Byrds' producer Terry Melcher. Manson recorded numerous songs at Brian Wilson's home studio, although the recordings remain unheard by the public. Band engineer Stephen Desper said that the Manson sessions were done "for Dennis [Wilson] and Terry Melcher". In September 1968, Wilson recorded a Manson song for the Beach Boys, originally titled "Cease to Exist", but reworked as "Never Learn Not to Love", as a single B-side released the following December. The writing was credited solely to Wilson. When asked why Manson was not credited, Wilson explained that Manson relinquished his publishing rights in favor of "about a hundred thousand dollars' worth of stuff". Around this time, the Family destroyed two of Wilson's luxury cars.

Wilson eventually distanced himself from Manson and moved out of the Sunset Boulevard house, leaving the Family there, and took residence at a basement apartment in Santa Monica. Virtually all of Wilson's household possessions were stolen by the Family. The members were evicted from his home three weeks before the lease was scheduled to expire. When Manson sought further contact, he left a bullet with Wilson's housekeeper to be delivered with a threatening message.

Manson established a base for the Family at the Spahn Ranch in August 1968, after their eviction from Wilson's residence. The ranch had been a television and movie set for Westerns, but the buildings had deteriorated by the late-1960s. The ranch then derived revenue primarily from selling horseback rides. Female Family members did chores around the ranch and, occasionally, had sex on Manson's orders with the nearly blind 80-year-old owner, George Spahn. The women also acted as guides for him. In exchange, Spahn allowed Manson and his group to live at the ranch for free.

The Manson Family evolved into a doomsday cult when Manson became fixated on the idea of an imminent apocalyptic race war between America's Black minority and the larger White population. A white supremacist, Manson told some of the Family that Black people would rise up and kill the entire White population except for Manson and his followers, but they were not intelligent enough to survive on their own. They needed a white man to lead them, and so they would serve Manson as their "master". In late-1968, Manson adopted the term "Helter Skelter", taken from a song on the Beatles' recently released White Album, to refer to this upcoming war.

On March 23, 1969, Manson entered the grounds of 10050 Cielo Drive, which he had known as Melcher's residence. He was not invited. As he approached the main house, Manson was met by Shahrokh Hatami, an Iranian photographer who had befriended film director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate during the making of the documentary Mia and Roman. Hatami was there to photograph Tate before she departed for Rome the following day. Seeing Manson approach, Hatami went onto the front porch to ask him what he wanted.

Manson said that he was looking for Melcher, whose name Hatami did not recognize. Hatami told him the place was the Polanski residence and then advised him to try the path to the guest house beyond the main house. Tate appeared behind Hatami in the house's front door and asked him who was calling. Hatami and Tate maintained their positions while Manson went back to the guest house without a word, returned to the front a minute or two later and left.

That evening, Manson returned to the property and again went to the guest house. He entered the enclosed porch and spoke with Altobelli, the owner, who had just come out of the shower. Manson asked for Melcher, but Altobelli felt that Manson was instead looking for him. It was later discovered that Manson had apparently been to the property on earlier occasions after Melcher left. Altobelli told Manson through the screen door that Melcher had moved to Malibu and said that he did not know his new address, although he did.

Altobelli told Manson he was leaving the country the next day, and Manson said he would like to speak with him upon his return. Altobelli said that he would be gone for more than a year. Manson said that he had been directed to the guest house by the persons in the main house. Altobelli asked Manson not to disturb his tenants. Altobelli and Tate flew together to Rome the next day. Tate asked him whether "that creepy-looking guy" had gone to see him at the guest house the day before.

Manson was admitted to state prison from Los Angeles County on April 22, 1971, for seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of Abigail Ann Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Earl Parent, Sharon Tate Polanski, Jay Sebring, and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. In 1972, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state's death penalty statute was unconstitutional, and subsequently Manson was re-sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. His initial death sentence was modified to life on February 2, 1977.

On December 13, 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder in Los Angeles County Court for the July 25, 1969, death of musician Gary Hinman. He was also convicted of first-degree murder for the August 1969 death of Donald Shea. Following the 1972 decision of California v. Anderson, California's death sentences were ruled unconstitutional and that "any prisoner now under a sentence of death ... may file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the superior court inviting that court to modify its judgment to provide for the appropriate alternative punishment of life imprisonment or life imprisonment without possibility of parole specified by statute for the crime for which he was sentenced to death." Manson was thus eligible to apply for parole after seven years' incarceration. His first parole hearing took place on November 16, 1978, at California Medical Facility in Vacaville, where his petition was rejected.

On September 5, 1975, the Family returned to national attention when Squeaky Fromme attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford. The attempt took place in Sacramento, to which Fromme and fellow Manson follower Sandra Good had moved so that they could be near Manson while he was incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. A subsequent search of the apartment shared by Fromme, Good, and another Family recruit turned up evidence that, coupled with later actions on the part of Good, resulted in Good's conviction for conspiring to send threatening communications through the United States mail service and for transmitting death threats by way of interstate commerce. The threats involved corporate executives and U.S. government officials vis-à-vis supposed environmental dereliction on their part.

Fromme was sentenced to 15 years to life, becoming the first person sentenced under United States Code Title 18, chapter 84 (1965), which made it a federal crime to attempt to assassinate the President of the United States. In December 1987, Fromme, serving a life sentence for the assassination attempt, escaped briefly from Federal Prison Camp, Alderson in West Virginia. She was trying to reach Manson because she heard that he had testicular cancer; she was apprehended within days. She was released on parole from Federal Medical Center, Carswell on August 14, 2009.

In the 1980s, Manson gave four interviews to the mainstream media. The first, recorded at California Medical Facility and aired on June 13, 1981, was by Tom Snyder for NBC's The Tomorrow Show. The second, recorded at San Quentin State Prison and aired on March 7, 1986, was by Charlie Rose for CBS News Nightwatch, and it won the national news Emmy Award for Best Interview in 1987. The third, with Geraldo Rivera in 1988, was part of the journalist's prime-time special on Satanism. At least as early as the Snyder interview, Manson's forehead bore a swastika in the spot where the X carved during his trial had been. Nikolas Schreck conducted an interview with Manson for his documentary Charles Manson Superstar. Schreck concluded Manson was not insane, but merely acting that way out of frustration.

On September 25, 1984, Manson was imprisoned in the California Medical Facility at Vacaville when inmate Jan Holmstrom poured paint thinner on him and set him on fire, causing second and third degree burns on over 20 percent of his body. Holmstrom explained that Manson had objected to his Hare Krishna chants and verbally threatened him. After 1989, Manson was housed in the Protective Housing Unit at California State Prison, Corcoran, in Kings County. The unit housed inmates whose safety would be endangered by general-population housing. He had also been housed at San Quentin State Prison, California Medical Facility in Vacaville, Folsom State Prison and Pelican Bay State Prison.

After his March 27, 1997 parole hearing, Manson refused to attend any of his later hearings.

In June 1997, a prison disciplinary committee found that Manson had been trafficking drugs. He was moved from Corcoran State Prison to Pelican Bay State Prison a month later.

On September 5, 2007, MSNBC aired The Mind of Manson, a complete version of a 1987 interview at California's San Quentin State Prison. The footage of the "unshackled, unapologetic, and unruly" Manson had been considered "so unbelievable" that only seven minutes of it had originally been broadcast on Today, for which it had been recorded.

In 2009, Los Angeles disc jockey Matthew Roberts released correspondence and other evidence indicating that he might be Manson's biological son. Roberts' biological mother claims that she was a member of the Manson Family who left in mid-1967 after being raped by Manson. She returned to her parents' home to complete the pregnancy, gave birth on March 22, 1968, and put Roberts up for adoption. CNN conducted a DNA test between Matthew Roberts and Manson's known biological grandson Jason Freeman in 2012, showing that Roberts and Freeman did not share DNA. Roberts subsequently attempted to establish that Manson was his father through a direct DNA test which proved definitively that Roberts and Manson were not related.

In 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported that Manson was caught with a cell phone in 2009 and had contacted people in California, New Jersey, Florida and British Columbia. A spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections stated that it was not known if Manson had used the phone for criminal purposes. Manson also recorded an album of acoustic pop songs with additional production by Henry Rollins, titled Completion. Only five copies were pressed: two belong to Rollins, while the other three are presumed to have been with Manson. The album remains unreleased.

On April 11, 2012, Manson was denied release at his twelfth and final parole hearing, which he did not attend. It was determined at that hearing that Manson's next parole hearing would be in fifteen years, or 2027, at which time he would have been 92.

In 2013, Manson stated that he was bisexual, saying "Sex to me is like going to the toilet. Whether it's a girl or not. It doesn't matter. I don't play that girl-guy shit. I'm not hung up in that game." In 2014, the imprisoned Manson became engaged to 26-year-old Afton Elaine Burton and obtained a marriage license on November 7. Manson gave Burton the nickname "Star". She had been visiting him in prison for at least nine years and maintained several websites that proclaimed his innocence. The wedding license expired on February 5, 2015, without a marriage ceremony taking place.

The panel at Manson's March 27, 1997 hearing noted that Manson had a "history of controlling behavior" and "mental health issues" including schizophrenia and paranoid delusional disorder, and was too great a danger to be released. The panel noted that Manson had received 108 rule violation reports, had no indication of remorse, no insight into the causative factors of the crimes, lacked understanding of the magnitude of the crimes, had an exceptional, callous disregard for human suffering and had no parole plans.

In a 2023 re-analysis of Manson's psychological state, researchers suggested that he may have been misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. They proposed that Manson had bipolar disorder and psychopathy.

On January 1, 2017, Manson was being held at Corcoran Prison, when he was rushed to Mercy Hospital in downtown Bakersfield, because he had gastrointestinal bleeding. A source told the Los Angeles Times that Manson was very ill, and TMZ reported that his doctors considered him "too weak" for surgery that normally would be performed in cases such as his. He was returned to prison on January 6, and the nature of his treatment was not disclosed. On November 15, 2017, an unauthorized source said that Manson had returned to a hospital in Bakersfield, but the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not confirm this in conformity with state and federal medical privacy laws. He died from cardiac arrest resulting from respiratory failure, brought on by colon cancer, at the hospital on November 19.

Three people stated their intention to claim Manson's estate and body. Manson's grandson Jason Freeman stated his intent to take possession of Manson's remains and personal effects. Manson's pen-pal Michael Channels claimed to have a Manson will dated February 14, 2002, which left Manson's entire estate and Manson's body to Channels. Manson's friend Ben Gurecki claimed to have a Manson will dated January 2017 which gives the estate and Manson's body to Matthew Roberts, another alleged son of Manson.

On March 12, 2018, the Kern County Superior Court in California decided in favor of Freeman in regard to Manson's body. A funeral service was held for Manson on March 17, 2018, after which Freeman had his remains cremated and scattered on a California hillside.

In June 1970, Rolling Stone made Manson their cover story. Bernardine Dohrn of the Weather Underground reportedly said of the Tate murders: "Dig it, first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate's stomach! Wild!" Manson fanatic James Mason claimed to be acting on a suggestion from Charles Manson based on his interpretation of something Manson said in a televised interview, when Mason founded the Universal Order, a neo-Nazi group that has influenced other movements such as the terrorist group the Atomwaffen Division. Bugliosi quoted a BBC employee's assertion that a "neo-Manson cult" existed in Europe, represented by approximately 70 rock bands playing songs by Manson and "songs in support of him".

The original surnames of the Star Wars characters Luke Skywalker and his father Anakin Skywalker were revised in light of Manson's reputation in the 1970s. Written between January 1973 and March 1976, screenplays for Star Wars (1977) had used the names Luke and Annikin Starkiller, but after production of the movie began, George Lucas changed the surname to Skywalker. In 2007, Lucas explained "[he] felt a lot of people [on set] were confusing him with someone like Charles Manson. It had very unpleasant connotations." — Starkiller could be misconstrued as "celebrity killer" in a time when coverage on Manson was renewed following Fromme's attempted assassination of Gerald Ford, and Hollywood productions incorporated increased themes of sexual violence and gore following the sensationalizing of the Tate–LaBianca murders.

Manson was a struggling pop musician, seeking to make it big in Hollywood between 1967 and 1969. The Beach Boys recorded one of his songs. Other songs were publicly released only after the trial for the Tate murders started. On March 6, 1970, LIE, an album of Manson music, was released. This included "Cease to Exist", a Manson song the Beach Boys had recorded with modified lyrics and the title "Never Learn Not to Love". Over the next couple of months only about 300 of the album's 2,000 copies sold.

There have been several other releases of Manson recordings – both musical and spoken. One of these, The Family Jams, includes two compact discs of Manson's songs recorded by the Family in 1970, after Manson and the others had been arrested. Guitar and lead vocals are supplied by Steve Grogan; additional vocals are supplied by Lynette Fromme, Sandra Good, Catherine Share, and others. One Mind, an album of music, poetry, and spoken word, new at the time of its release, in April 2005, was put out under a Creative Commons license.

American rock band Guns N' Roses recorded Manson's "Look at Your Game, Girl", included as an unlisted 13th track on their 1993 album "The Spaghetti Incident?" "My Monkey", which appears on Portrait of an American Family by the American rock band Marilyn Manson, includes the lyrics "I had a little monkey / I sent him to the country and I fed him on gingerbread / Along came a choo-choo / Knocked my monkey cuckoo / And now my monkey's dead." These lyrics are from Manson's "Mechanical Man", which is heard on LIE. Crispin Glover covered "Never Say 'Never' to Always" on his album The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution=Let It Be released in 1989.

Musical performers such as Kasabian, Spahn Ranch, and Marilyn Manson derived their names from Manson and his lore.

1973: Manson, directed by Robert Hendrickson and Laurence Merrick

1989: Charles Manson Superstar, directed by Nikolas Schreck

2014: Life After Manson, directed by Olivia Klaus

2017: Manson: Inside the Mind of a Mad Man, television documentary about Reet Jurvetsen.

2017: Murder Made Me Famous, Charles Manson: What Happened?

1971: Sweet Savior, an exploitation film inspired from the case, but set in New York City. First fictional work about the case.

1976: Helter Skelter, a television drama.

1984: Manson Family Movies, a film drama.

1990: The Manson Family, a musical opera by John Moran.

1990: Assassins, a Broadway musical with references to Manson.