I'm sure all of you know who Charles Manson is. In my AP Psych class in high school, I watched a documentary about Manson and I've been interested in the story ever since. The thing that I find interesting about his case is that Manson never killed anybody himself, yet he is in prison for first degree murder.
I found a website that has his biography, a storyline of the crime, the arrest, the trial, and some aftermath of what happened.
I found the biography part particularly interesting. It highlights his criminal background as a juvenile, and his abandonment by his mother. The biography also goes into his influences, such as LSD and The Beatles. Perhaps most important, though, is the fact that he started "The Family" and was incredibly manipulative and persuasive. This website doesn't go into detail about how he recruited members for his "family" but it does emphasize the fact that they did indeed believe he was Jesus like.
I’ve seen the documentary you refer to I believe, where an interview is shown, along with an analysis of the interview by a psychological profiler. His charisma alone is certainly enough to ensure that psychologists will be talking about him for years. I remember him talking about Marxism, along with problems inherent in a culture as materialistic as ours is.
He makes you think about how we categorize criminals. Often it seems that top level executives, and corporate CEO’s are beyond the law. Many people go to jail for writing bad checks, or spending money they don’t have, or not claiming money on their taxes; yet the federal budget is always overdrawn, and numerous wealthy individuals find loop holes and ways to get around paying taxes, etc.
However, in the end it does seem like his rants and craziness are the result of his poor childhood and his inability to make his music career pan out. This bitterness more than anything is likely the cause of his rants, because even if he does have a point, there is no reason to justify killing people and acting as he did.
Charles Manson has always interested me before, but I never really knew in detail about his life and the crimes. The website was very interesting to read, I found out tons of things about Manson's life and the crimes he convinced others to commit. What amazes me is that Manson never actually killed anyone himself. He always got his "family" to commit the murders. These members of his "family" obviously had problems in their lives and Manson was able to make them worship him in a way and do what he wanted. For this the guy must be pretty persuasive to have people commit murder because he said so. I have talked to some people who think that Charles Manson should not have been charged with murder because he never actually killed anyone. I disagree with this, if he was able to get people to kill for him he is a dangerous man. Without his influence over his "family" these people probably would have never committed murder. Manson is fully responsible for the murders of all those innocent people. If he was not convicted, he would have found a new “family” to commit more crimes for him.
It would be very interesting to interview Charles Manson. I would love to ask him why he choose those people to kill and how he feels about the crimes. In a way Charles Manson in famous, almost everyone has at least heard of him. It would just fancinate me to talk Charles Manson and just see what he was to say.