Charles Manson Research Paper Outline

Charles Manson is one of the most notorious murders in American history. However, what made him stand out from other famous killers, such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, was that he never killed anyone himself. Instead, he managed to convince several members of his cult to kill others who he felt had wronged him. It is this fact that makes people want to know more about his early life and what he is doing today in prison.
On November twelfth, 1934, Kathleen Maddox brought Manson into the world in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kathleen was only a sixteen-year-old runaway at the time she met Manson’s father, a married man known as “Colonel Scott”. She eventually met and married William Manson, who gave Charles his surname. However, the marriage was short lived and William divorced Kathleen in 1939 for a variety of reasons that range from infidelity to abandonment. Two years later, she and her brother were arrested for armed robbery and Manson was sent to live with various relatives in West Virginia. It was not long before he began to get in trouble for petty crimes and authorities dispatched him to his first reform school for theft at the young age of nine. When he was twelve, he was once again caught stealing

On his way to San Francisco, he met the first members of his soon to be cult: Mary Brunner, Lynette Fromme, Susan Atkins and Sandra Good. He and his ‘family’ traveled down to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of being a famous musician and met celebrities such as Dennis Wilson from Beach Boys and Terry Melcher, a big time record producer and son of Doris Day. When it seemed like Manson’s dream would not pan out, they moved to a backdrop for western movies called Spahn Ranch. It was here that Manson convinced his followers that the Beatles’ song, Helter Skelter, foretold of a soon to be apocalyptic race war where it would end with them ruling the world (Petersen 3) (Rotham 2) (Gillis