In newly released audio, Charles Manson, the cult leader behind a string of killings during the late 1960s in California, admitted his involvement in additional killings that occurred prior to his assembly of the notorious Manson Family.
An audio recording in a teaser clip from Peacock’s latest docuseries Making Manson features Manson saying: “There’s a whole part of my life that nobody knows about.”
The cult leader, speaking on a phone call from prison, goes on to add: “I lived in Mexico for a while. I went to Acapulco, stole some cars. I just got involved in stuff over my head, man. Got involved in a couple of killings. I left my .357 Magnum in Mexico City, and I left some dead people on the beach.”
Who was Charles Manson?
Charles Manson was one of the most notorious murderers of the 20th century. He led a cult known as the Manson Family in California, most of whom were disaffected young women. Some became killers under his messianic influence.
Murder from afar
Despite spending more than 40 years in prison for the murders of seven people in 1969, Manson did not carry out the killings. Instead he convinced members of his ‘family’ to murder. One of their victims was the actor Sharon Tate, who was married to Roman Polanski and was more than eight months' pregnant when she was killed.
Celebrity friends
By the time of his trial in 1970, Manson had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for various crimes. He became a singer-songwriter before the Tate murders and got a break in the music industry when he met Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson, who let him crash at his home.
Helter Skelter
It is believed that Manson intended using the murders to incite an apocalyptic race war he called Helter Skelter, taking the name from the Beatles song.
Notorious by name
The killings and the seven-month trial that followed were the subjects of fevered news coverage in the US. Manson occupied a dark, persistent place in American culture, inspiring music, T-shirts and half the stage name of musician Marilyn Manson.
According to Peacock, the new three-part docuseries investigates 20 years’ worth of never-before-aired conversations in which Manson talks about his crimes, his upbringing and Family, a commune and cult led by Manson from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The cult leader did not commit the murders himself, preferring to persuade his followers to do it. The group murdered at least seven people in the late 1960s.
Manson and his followers were arrested in 1969. At his trial in 1970, Manson presented himself as a demonic force, showing up with a Nazi swastika he had carved into his forehead.
At a 2012 parole hearing, which was denied, Manson was quoted as having said to one of his prison psychologists: “I’m special. I’m not like the average inmate. I have spent my life in prison. I have put five people in the grave. I am a very dangerous man.”
Manson, who died from natural causes in November 2017, served more than 40 years in a prison in Corcoran, California, for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder over the deaths of seven people, including the actor Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Manson committed hundreds of rules violations while at the Corcoran state prison, including assault, repeated possession of a weapon and threatening staff. Officials said he has spat in guards’ faces, started fights, tried to cause a flood and set his mattress ablaze.
Describing the new docuseries which is scheduled to premiere next Tuesday, Peacock said: “Former ‘Family’ members listen to the exclusive conversations and are taken back to the time when they ‘would do anything for Charlie’.”
“Manson recounts the early crimes that led to the murder spree in the summer of 69, laying out an explanation of loyalty and brotherhood that pushes against the accepted motive: his desire to incite Helter Skelter,” Peacock added, referring to an apocalyptic vision embraced by Manson and his cult members.
