and brutalized, a pregnant Sharon Tate and four of  her socialite friends were murdered in her home.  

In the days to come the world would come to  know who carried out this brutal atrocity,  

but only today do we know the full  extent of the evil and insanity  

that surrounded Charles Manson  and his infamous Manson Family.

Mother of the Year

If you're a fan of our serial killer episodes,  then you already know that all too often  

nurture, rather than nature, is what  can turn a man from a path of light,  

to one of unspeakable darkness. For Charles  Manson, the story is no different. Pregnant at 16,  

his mother didn't bother to name young Charles  when she gave birth to him, with his birth  

certificate reading “No Name Maddox”. Not too long  later, Manson's mother would end up selling him  

for a pint of beer to a childless woman, though  the next day his uncle would scour the town and  

find the young Manson. We can only imagine  what might have happened if Manson was raised  

by anybody else than this literal wild wolf. At  least he got exactly one hug that we know of,  

when his mother and brother were released from  jail after attempting a robbery with a ketchup  

bottle, and she hugged him. Manson would later  call this the only bright spot of his childhood.

Manson the Pacifist

Despite his name being synonymous with murder,  

Manson actually never once killed anybody.  He left the killing to his extended 'family',  

which may have killed as many as 35 people  in total. Many of these murders were never  

attributed to them as the individuals who  carried them out were already being tried for  

other killings. We're not exactly sure how this  makes sense, but hey, the 60s were a crazy time.

Scientology and Self-Help

Manson spent most of his formative years in  and out of prison as a juvenile delinquent,  

serving short sentences for pimping and petty  theft. While in prison Manson briefly fell  

under the spell of Scientology, the  world's only religion that is actually  

a scam and insane enough to probably send  undercover Scientologists to try and shut  

the Infographics Show down for calling them out  on it- to which we say: bring it, space nerds.

With Manson, it seems that prison was actually  achieving the only thing that leads to less crime  

and that the prison industry really hates  to do- as he found himself rehabilitating  

as he engrossed himself in self-help books  such as How To Win Friends And Influence  

People. When he was released from prison  Manson actually begged to not be set free,  

saying that in prison was the  only place he had found any peace,  

and that he was worried about what he'd do  when he failed to adjust to the outside world.

Opiate For the (Ignorant) Masses

After being released from prison, Manson  moved to San Francisco, and then to Berkeley.  

Diving deep into the hippie culture, Manson  re-branded himself as a spiritual guru,  

which wasn't hard to sell to a bunch of  drug addicts using pacifism as an excuse  

to just do more drugs. As his influence grew,  he began to gather his 'family', which mostly  

consisted of young women that he plied with  drugs, alcohol, and sometimes intimidation,  

for sex. Establishing themselves as a formal  cult, Manson taught his budding family that  

they were the reincarnations of the first  Christians, persecuted by the Romans who  

were now the establishment- all while behaving in  exactly the opposite way of said early Christians.

While he never fully stated it, Manson began to  allude himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus  

Christ, recalling dreams he'd had of himself  crucified on a cross and changing his name to  

“Charles Willis Manson”. He'd state his new  name slowly to people, so that it sounded  

more like “Charle's Will Is Man's Son, and thus  creating a connection to Jesus, the Son of Man.  

Manson's growing family grew to believe  in his divinity, because if Jesus really  

did come back to earth he'd definitely spend  his time sitting in an overcrowded apartment  

doing a bunch of drugs. We guess that all the  hallucinogens probably helped sell the idea.

Manson the Babysitter

Manson babysitted the children of actor Al Lewis,  

best known for his role as  the grandpa on The Munsters,  

on numerous occasions. Lews later said that the  entire time he knew him Manson was a “nice guy”.

Penicillin Budget

Manson's 'family' was basically just a huge sex  cult, consisting mostly of women with some of  

them as young as 14. With little regard for safe  sex, one of the family's greatest expenditure  

was perhaps non-surprisingly, penicillin shots  for persistent gonorrhea which plagued the family.  

At one point the family accrued a  $21,000 medical bill for gonorrhea.

Master Manipulators

Manson, and his family, were keen manipulators.  At his direction, the family engaged in the  

manipulation of everyone from criminals to  Hollywood players. One such sucker was a  

prominent member of a motorcycle gang, whom Manson  kept influence over by granting him access to the  

family's women. Manson would then tell the  biker that he himself was sexually pathetic,  

and that the only thing keeping the family  together was the biker's “large endowment”  

and sexual prowess. The women of the  family happily went along with the ruse.

Family Rules

The Manson family lived under a  strict set of rules which included  

no books. Ever the master manipulator,  Manson also included a ban of calendars,  

watches, and clocks of any kind- leaving  his followers completely dependent on him  

for any information. Curiously, Manson even  banned his followers from wearing glasses,  

claiming he wanted them to see the world for  its natural beauty. In reality, this was yet  

another manipulative ploy to further extend his  control over the family by leaving them helpless.

The Beach Boys May Be To Blame

What's more wholesome than the Beach Boys,  who's music is prime Americana? Well,  

it might have been those very same Beach Boys  who'd be responsible for Manson's murder spree.  

One day Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson  was driving home when he saw two young female  

hitchhikers. Picking them up and dropping them  off at their home, Wilson would later run into  

them again in the exact same spot. This  time Wilson brought them to his own house,  

where they told him about the magical,  mystery, musical guru, Charles Manson.

Wilson left the women at his home as he headed  to the studio for a late night recording session,  

and when he returned in the morning he  found Manson himself in his driveway.  

Wilson, afraid he was being robbed, asked Manson  if he was going to hurt him, to which Manson told  

him he had no such plans and even began to kiss  his feet. Wilson then entered his home with Manson  

and discovered another twelve people inside, most  of them Manson's young female family members.

Wilson would go on to host the family for several  months, while the women played servants to Wilson  

and Manson both. He even went as far as covering  $100,000 in the family's expenses, including the  

total destruction of one of his cars which the  family had borrowed. Eventually a rift developed  

between Wilson and Manson, and fearing for his  life, Wilson separated himself from the family.

Had Wilson not taken the family in, Manson  may have never been able to grow his family  

or keep it together long enough to cause the  inevitable carnage it would soon undertake.

The Beatles May Also Be To Blame

After the killing of Martin Luther King Jr.,  Manson became convinced that a race war was  

coming. This paranoia was fueled by The Beatle's  White Album- specifically the song Helter Skelter.  

Manson believed that the song included subliminal  messages warning of the coming race war,  

despite containing such lyrics as: “When I get  to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide,  

Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride,  Till I get to the bottom and I see you again.”

Normally when you read a popular song's lyrics  you realize... well, just how stupid they really  

are and how little sense they make. Manson  though saw a warning that the end was coming.

Scientology is Definitely To Blame

Did we mention that Scientology is a scam? Well,  while spending time learning about Scientology,  

Manson got a keen insight into many of the  manipulative tools that L Ron Hubbard used  

to launch his fake religion and keep people  in check. While in prison in his twenties,  

Manson was cellmates with Layette Raimer,  who was a Space-Bishop or whatever high  

ranking Scientologists are called. Raimer  spent over 150 hours 'auditing' Manson,  

utilizing church-approved techniques to worm  into Manson's brain. Instead of creating a  

convert though, Manson reverse-engineered  the manipulation and adapted it for hinself,  

eventually complaining about Raimer to guards  until he received a new cell mate. Manson would  

later say that Scientology was too crazy even  for him, and that's really saying something for  

a religion that wants you to believe you're full  of ghost aliens and that's why you do bad things.

The Family Killed The Wrong Person

When a race war failed to materialize, Manson  got it in his head to start it himself.  

His plan would be to murder influential white  people in the hopes they'd blame it on blacks,  

and then murder some black people to  inspire the black community to retaliate.  

His first target would be a record producer who  had spurned Manson during his brief stint as a  

failed musician. Manson instructed Tex Watson,  Susan Atkins, and Linda Kasabian to go to 10050  

Cielo Drive and kill everyone there. The  problem was that the house had been rented  

out to Sharon Tate and her husband, Roman  Polanski. The three members of the family,  

having given no other orders than to  kill everyone there, did exactly that.

Go brush up on your serial killer  knowledge with America's Most Evil  

Serial Killer- John Wayne Gacy.  Or click this other video instead.