Selects: The Manson Family Murders Part 2
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Hey, everybody. Chuck here, back. I'm still in my spooky mood from two weeks ago. As I'm introducing this episode from January 30th, 2018, it's a follow-up to two weeks ago about the Manson family. It's called The Manson Family Murders, Part 2. What happens? Will Charlie get away with it? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. ♪

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry Roland over there. And this is stuff you should know about the Manson family. Part two. That's right. If you're listening to this one first, then you're doing it wrong. So no need to recap. Just go listen to part one. And we'll pick up.

with the Beatles' White Album, which was a very big deal in how this figures in. Great, great album, obviously, as a Beatles fan. I know you're not super into them, but I love the White Album. It's arguably their weirdest album, and it spoke to Charles Manson for sure because he...

really became pretty obsessed with it and diving into deconstructing the album. It's a very dense, long album anyway, and there's a lot to it. So it's no wonder that Charles Manson with a head full of acid would think that the Beatles are speaking to him. Right. And he definitely did. So he apparently had a history already of deconstructing Beatles lyrics. But before that,

he was deconstructing lyrics to like Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which compared to the White Album is decidedly upbeat and positive, right? So while he was in prison, he was super into the Beatles. When he gets out, the Beatles release the White Album. He's already obsessed with them. But now he's on tons and tons of acid. The White Album is...

kind of a downer compared to sergeant peppers um and the fact that it's speaking to charles manson like really made things turn dark it seems like as far as him and the people in his orbit are concerned yeah so they're hanging out they're lighting bonfires they're doing drugs they're listening to charles manson stomp around with his tiny feet uh

and his redneck voice talking about Helter Skelter, which is a great, great Beatles song. Um, and basically sort of, sort of renamed his, uh,

his vision for this race war and impending apocalypse helter-skelter. He kind of stole that from the Beatles, as Bono would later go on to say. Yeah, he stole it from the Beatles, but he also took it, again, as like a message that the Beatles were sending him a sign that he needed to prepare his family for this because they were the chosen ones, basically, who should wait out the race riot in Death Valley.

So there's this whole idea that all of the Tate-LaBianca murders took place to further this idea of helter skelter, to strike the match that would set it off, to get things going, right? Yeah.

And this idea apparently is the creation of the prosecutor in the case, a guy named Vincent Bugliosi, who wrote a book called Helter Skelter, like a 600-page book. Basically, the definitive true crime book on the Manson family and the Manson family murders. And so most of what we said in part one and most of what everybody knows about the Manson family murders are –

come through this lens that was established by Vincent Bugliosi, who is the lead prosecutor in the case, was privy to tons of information to confessions, to interviews under questioning, to all this stuff. But he's the one who pieced together the idea that the Manson family committed these murders to start Helter Skelter. That was his whole jam.

Yeah, well, I mean, some of the Manson family corroborated, corroborated, corroborated. It's in there somewhere. Corroborated. That's a dark time with that word. Corroborated. Corroborated. I don't have to say it much, luckily, because I'm not in a life of crime. No, but some of them back that up and saying that, you know, at one point he wanted them to throw a wallet of a victim in a black neighborhood.

So so that people would think it was, you know, Black Panthers that did this. Yeah. But there was some evidence that that was probably the case. If you talk, though, to Manson and you or if you listen to some of the stuff he says, some of these explanations, because over the years, people have said, what about this part? What about this part? And have basically presented him with every aspect of the whole case against him.

you know, a lot of the stuff he has no explanation for, nothing good. But that wallet is a sterling example of where it becomes obvious that, wait, we're basically hearing one point of view about this and we've never, that's all we've ever heard. Um,

Which if you're doing any kind of reporting, which you and I are not, but if you were inclined to do any kind of reporting, you never want to just stick to just one source. And with the Manson family case, it's basically one source and it's Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor. But Manson explains it as he told, I think it was Linda Kasabian, to just get rid of that wallet. That it wasn't in a predominantly black neighborhood and that he told her to get rid of the wallet because it was hot.

And she hid the wallet actually in the tank of a toilet in a women's bathroom in a gas station, which is hardly where you'd put it if you wanted a black person to find it, to use the credit cards inside and to tip off the cops that a black person was behind the Tate-LaBianca murders. So when you kind of dive into stuff like that, you see that there actually are

competing explanations in some aspects of this case. Yeah, but I think Kasabian herself said that too, though, didn't she? Yeah, the thing is, is if you are... Are you going to believe Charles Manson? Right, I know. That's the thing, is it's a terrible realization when you're like, actually, wait a minute, I understand what Charles Manson is saying here. The...

With stuff like that, when you look at the testimony, these were people who were on trial for murder who had every incentive to go along with the lead prosecutor's

theory that it was all Charles Manson's fault. They could have maybe immunity. They could have charges dropped against them. By saying, yes, this is the case or having their testimony jibe with what Vincent Bugliosi's case was, they had an incentive to do that. Whether Charles Manson is right or correct or lying, from an objective perspective, the people on trial for murder had a

an incentive to agree with Vincent Bugliosi. All right. So the way they got caught was actually pretty interesting. Unrelated to these murders, police raided Spahn Ranch because it was sort of became known that people were living there that were out on these creepy crawls doing these crimes. And so that's why they were originally fingered, as they say in the biz,

And they went there and they raided Spahn Ranch and a lot of the family were arrested at that time for like car theft and burglary and stuff. They were released on a technicality and then went to Death Valley to that weird ranch. If you've ever been to Death Valley, it's not a place you want to hang out. No, it's not. Especially in the summertime. Is that where Joshua Tree is? No, that's Joshua Tree. But it's not in Death Valley? No.

No, those are two different places. But is it close by? Is it the same type of terrain kind of thing? Yeah. I mean, I've been to both. Are they similar? Well, I mean, Joshua Tree is the desert for sure, but it's very lovely. Like, I don't remember much about Death Valley that was – I think it was not very hospitable for me. It's appropriately named? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Yeah.

And, of course, now people are going to say Death Valley is the best. You know what you're talking about. Heavy sweater. So they go to Death Valley. Then there were a bunch of raids at the Death Valley camp between October 10th and 12th of 1969. And eventually they ended up rounding up the people responsible for these murders without knowing that they were responsible for these murders. So they were they were in jail for.

kind of luckily already in jail when they sort of decided they could pin, well not pin, like legitimately pin these murders on these people. So this being the second time, there's something that I've ran across in research, Chuck, that never gets talked about but is I think really significant. At both of those raids, the Spahn Ranch raid and the Death Valley raid, the state,

children from this. Like there were kids, babies, toddlers, little kids running around growing up like at the Spahn Ranch and at the Barker Ranch, which is extraordinarily troubling. And some of them have been are thought to have possibly been Charles Manson's kids, like

He may have had some – there's just so much free love going on and so many pregnancies that were the results of this free love. It was difficult to say whose kid was whose. But they think that it's possible at least one or two of those kids was Charles Manson's kids. And they were taken by the state and later adopted by people. But it's like – it's one thing to think of a bunch of hippies just out in the desert taking acid pills.

just being idiots, you know, and then eventually turning dark and murderous. But the idea that there were kids around at any part of this is really, I find that very troubling. Yeah, for sure. I mean, all those cults had kids roaming around, um,

They just weren't murderous cults, you know? Yeah. So Susan Atkins, for her part, she agreed to testify initially against Charles Manson to avoid the death sentence, which for a few years more was still a thing in California. I think in 1972 they reversed that. But at the time, the death sentence was was a threat at the time of the crimes. So.

She had a grand jury testimony. It basically led to Manson being arraigned for these murders in December of 69. She recanted that testimony. The deal was revoked by the prosecutors. It was kind of too late at that point. Linda Kasabian, who you might remember, was I think the getaway driver and then the one who –

would not knock on the right apartment door to kill the actor. So she actually didn't commit any murders at all, was not in any of the houses. She was granted immunity for testifying. And I think she was the only one granted immunity. Right. Although I think, yeah, they just took the death penalty off, like you said, for Susan Atkins. And I don't know if you said this or not, but Susan Atkins is the reason the case broke open eventually.

When they rounded up all of the Manson family and had them in jail for the Death Valley raids for burglary and theft and stuff like that.

The way that they found out that the Manson family was responsible for the Tate and LaBianca murders was Susan Atkins bragging about it and a couple of her cellmates going and telling the cops. And that's originally how the case began against the Manson family. That's how the authorities originally found out. Big mouth. Yeah, I guess so. All right. So let's take a break and we'll come back and talk a little bit about one of the weirdest, most sensational trials in American history right after this. All right.

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Toxic friendship? Air it out. We're on your side to help you with your concerns.

Talk about ours. And every once in a while, bring on an awesome guest to get their take on the things that you bring us. While we may be unlicensed to advise, we're going to do it anyway. Listen to Call It What It Is on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. 25 years ago, I wrote my first book called The Tipping Point, all about the moments when an idea or trend crosses a certain threshold and spreads like wildfire.

I've had a lot of time to think about that book, and the way I thought about Tipping Point's changed. So now I'm releasing the sequel, Revenge of the Tipping Point, where I return to the subjects of social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomena.

You can hear a sneak peek of the audiobook on my podcast, Revisionist History. Plus, we'll dive into a duo of narrative episodes about my favorite trial in American history and a re-evaluation of the broken windows theory I explored in my first book. Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you get your audiobooks and listen to Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. ♪

All right, Chuck. So on December 11th, 1969, Charles Manson, who the public had just been acquainted with, I think just in the last few months, was finally arraigned for the murders of Tate LaBianca murders. And I think that did they get him for his role in the Hinman murder at that point?

I'm not actually sure about that. Definitely the Tate-LaBianca murders, which was plenty, enough. And he – it's kind of an understatement to say that he did not offer any public contrition. He actually went the opposite way. Yeah, for sure. He was – well, the whole trial was chaos and he –

He incited chaos at every turn to make it just a circus and was quite successful at doing so. Initially wanted to represent himself and did for a little while, but the judge denied that, Judge William Keene, and said you have to work with a lawyer because of the fact that you're just making this into a circus. Basically, we need this to stay on track.

And he actually was successful, though. Manson was getting Judge Keene ousted as judge and Judge Charles Older eventually would oversee the trial. Yeah. And I read a 2013 interview with Manson and the thing that seemed to still get him the most was that he was denied bail.

the ability to represent himself in court. Like he felt like he never got to have the same court. And that was, that was the thing that got him more than anything else, not being locked up for his whole life or anything like that. It was that he didn't get to open his big mouth in court as much as he wanted to. So, uh, I guess we can go over some of these things that happened in court. Um,

that led to this circus atmosphere. And by the way, if you want to see it yourself, there's a pretty good dramatic recreation in the movie Helter Skelter that was based on Bugliosi's book. Yeah, nothing better than dramatic recreations. Yeah. Lots of yelling and screaming, lots of shouting and cursing, lots of disrespect to the judge and the American flag. They threw a copy of the Constitution in the garbage at one point.

And very famously, Charles Manson carved an X into his forehead, which later became a swastika, saying that he was X'd out of the world. And then his family members would do the same and they would shave their heads and generally just try and disrupt things at every turn. Right. And they did. I mean, they were quite successful, but the trial kept going on and on. Right. I think it was it went on for a couple of years based on news articles I was reading about it. So.

It turns out, though, that Richard Nixon supposedly had the most disruptive effect on the trial by saying while the trial was going on, quote, here's a man who was guilty directly or indirectly of eight murders without reason.

He was the sitting U.S. president commenting, saying unequivocally that this guy was guilty of a trial that was going on, which is you just don't do that. It doesn't matter what the case is. Not for any compassion for Charles Manson or anything like that, but just because even on the other side, you could have blown the case and he legitimately could have created a mistrial there. Yeah. Just because the president said something and everyone reported on it. I can't imagine that happening today. Yeah.

I totally can't. It was a very Trumpian move. Yeah. So we talked. I think we covered the Helter Skelter thing enough, don't you? We did. But I think there's a there's a big thing that all this hinges on is that the prosecution said and you said earlier, you even had a quote from Tex Watson that Charles Manson told him to go and just destroy the people in that house gruesome as you can. Yeah.

And the prosecution said that Charles Manson was trying to spark the helter-skelter race war that he believed was going to happen. Manson's whole thing was this. This is Charles Manson's explanation for what happened and why he's innocent.

He said, yeah, I believed in Helter Skelter. Yes, I believe there's a race war coming. I talked about it at night around bonfires with everybody on acid. I also talked about death of the ego and all sorts of other stuff. And if you ask me, what happened was my friends just took things and went, it took it too literally and went too far.

And that it all hinged on this Bobby Boussoleil thing, right? And even before that, this Lots of Papa thing. So Tex Watson rips off Bernard Lots of Papa Crow, and he's got a problem with Lots of Papa who wants to kill him now. And Manson goes over there to help Tex Watson solve his problem by shooting Lots of Papa.

So now, as far as Manson and Tex are concerned, Tex owes Watson a debt, any kind of debt. Well, Tex owes Manson a debt. Now, Manson's friend, Bobby Bousselet, who is one of his tightest family members, gets arrested for murder, the murder of Gary Hinman.

And Manson says, well, you know, I mean, you should do something to help my brother, Bobby Boussoleil. And, you know, Tex says, well, what should I do? And apparently Manson flew off the handle and said, don't ask me what you should do. You know what you should do. And that was that.

And the next thing Manson knows, Watson and Krenwinkel and Atkins are over at the Tate residence carving up Sharon Tate and the rest of the people in the house. He didn't say anything about going to kill anybody. He didn't direct them anywhere. He didn't say anything like that. He just said...

They took what all the other stuff that he'd said too far and that really what they were doing was trying to cover up cover for Bobby Boussoulet to get him out of prison. That's Manson's explanation for the whole thing. Well, yeah. And for and for the part. Well, I guess we should go ahead and say that that all of these people went to prison because.

And Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, they all were still so under his spell that they were fully ready and did take the blame for these killings. But when it comes to parole, it was in January 1971 that they were all convicted on all the counts, murder, conspiracy to commit murder. But years later, as parole hearings would come up for all these women and Tex Watson and Manson himself,

The reason why they were continually denied, even like Tex Watson became a born again Christian and and, you know, supposedly turned his life around. But they none of them would would deny.

take responsibility all these years later. They would all still say that it was Manson, it was Manson. And from what I understand, a big part of getting your parole approved is to finally take full responsibility for what you had done. - Right. - And none of them would do it. And they were all denied over the years. Susan Atkins eventually died of brain cancer in 2009. And then just a few days ago,

Well, Leslie Van Houten in September of last year was actually recommended for parole. And just a few days ago, as of this recording, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, denied that. Oh, really? And said, no, she still isn't taking responsibility. And I think these cases are just so loaded still that it would be really tough, even though parole was recommended for the governor to to approve that, you know. Mm hmm.

So we'll see. They're going to – apparently they're going to keep pursuing that, and I'm not sure what the next steps are, but they're going to fight that ruling by Jerry Brown, and we'll see where that goes. So I think – and then Patricia Krenwinkel is still in prison, and I think now that Susan Atkins died, she is the longest-serving female inmate in California prison system. Yeah. Oh, and we should say too that –

Squeaky Fromm tried to kill Nixon. That's where she gained later fame. No, that was Ford. Oh, what did I say? Nixon? Yeah. Yeah, Gerald Ford. And...

She's out of prison. She lives in upstate New York, and I think the last I've seen of her was someone took her picture in a Walmart parking lot, and she smacked the camera down. Yeah, so she's an interesting case. Squeaky Frome was out. She wasn't indicted for any of the murders or any role in the murders, but she was the number two person to join the Manson family, remember? Yeah. And she...

still to this day refuses to denounce Manson. It's still very much all about Charles Manson and just as much as she was before. And she went to

I guess – I'm not sure what she was doing with a gun and Gerald Ford, but she aimed a gun at Gerald Ford. It was – the gun wasn't loaded, but it still had the effect of sending her to prison for decades for an assassination attempt on the president, right? I'm surprised she ever got out. Yeah.

I am too, but she was paroled eventually. But she still never denounced Charles Manson. All of the other ones denounced Manson. She's the only one who hasn't. And supposedly one time she escaped in the 80s because she heard that Charles Manson was sick. So she broke her way out of prison to try to get to him, I guess. Yeah, she was a Manson family member who tried to kill the president and escape from prison, and she earned parole. Yeah. Yeah.

Hard to believe. But I think it's like you said, I think those at the case, the Tate-LaBianca murders were so politically charged and so loaded that that like it just didn't they just weren't going to get out. The people who actually committed the murders. Yeah. Yeah. Manson had an interesting time in prison, too. He had a guy try and kill him by lighting him on fire at one point. And like 20 percent of his body was badly burned.

And he had a string of relationships with people from pen pals, which we'll kind of cover at the end, to a woman that he – did he actually marry that woman recently? I don't know. She was in that 2013 article that I was reading. And I don't know if they got married. Man, we should do – I don't know what we would call it, but an episode on generally women who –

serial killers. We totally should. In prison. Let's do that. But first, let's take a break. How about that? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Okay.

Did you know Tide has been upgraded to provide an even better clean in cold water? Tide is specifically designed to fight any stain you throw at it, even in cold. Butter? Yep. Chocolate ice cream? Sure thing. Barbecue sauce? Tide's got you covered. You don't need to use warm water. Additionally, Tide Pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new Coldzyme technology. Just remember, if it's

If it's got to be clean, it's got to be tied. This election season, the stakes are higher than ever. I think the choice is clear in this election. Join me, Charlemagne Tha God, for We The People, an audio town hall with Vice President Kamala Harris and you, live from Detroit, Michigan, exclusively on iHeartRadio. They'll tackle the tough questions, depressing issues, and the future of our nation. We may not see eye to eye on every issue, but America, we are not going back.

Don't miss this powerful conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris. Tomorrow at 5 p.m. Eastern, 2 p.m. Pacific on the free iHeartRadio app's Hip Hop Beat Station. Hey, friends. I'm Jessica Capshaw. And this is Kamala Luddington. And we have a new podcast, Call It What It Is. You may know us from Graceland Memorial, but...

And now here we are, opening up the friendship circle...

To you. Someone's cheating? We've got you on that. In-laws are in-lying? Let's get into it. Toxic friendship? Air it out. We're on your side to help you with your concerns.

Talk about ours. And every once in a while, bring on an awesome guest to get their take on the things that you bring us. While we may be unlicensed to advise, we're going to do it anyway. Listen to Call It What It Is on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. 25 years ago, I wrote my first book called The Tipping Point, all about the moments when an idea or trend crosses a certain threshold and spreads like wildfire.

I've had a lot of time to think about that book, and the way I thought about Tipping Points changed. So now I'm releasing the sequel, Revenge of the Tipping Point, where I return to the subjects of social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomena.

You can hear a sneak peek of the audiobook on my podcast, Revisionist History. Plus, we'll dive into a duo of narrative episodes about my favorite trial in American history and a re-evaluation of the broken windows theory I explored in my first book. Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you get your audiobooks and listen to Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Okay, Chuck, we're back. We were talking about, so Manson's in prison. For a while there, this is just mind-blowing to me. For a good decade, he enjoyed, actually more than that, he enjoyed the limelight. He could get interviewed by huge names. Like you said, Diane Sawyer, Charlie Rose, Geraldo Rivera very famously did an interview with Charles Manson where apparently Manson, you were saying how much poise Diane Sawyer showed during her interview. Mm-hmm.

Supposedly, Manson just owned Geraldo during that interview. It just totally took control of the whole thing. But these were things that were televised like on national news. And these people were giving – these networks were giving Charles Manson a platform to –

about himself, to talk about his philosophy, to show the world how crazy he was. No, he loved it. Oh, yes. To keep him in the public eye, in the public mind, until finally, after the Diane Sawyer interview, they not only pulled the plug on his interviews, they said for

You couldn't televise interviews with any inmates in California because of Charles Manson, basically. So it's just really strange to me, especially these days looking back, that he had a platform for so long to stay that boogeyman that just scared the bejesus out of America. Yeah, I think those last like – whatever, like 23, 25 years –

in prison with no, uh, limelight was that had to have been like the darkest time of his life. Cause you know, he wanted, he clearly wanted to be a singing star and in a weird way, he ended up kind of getting what he wanted because some of his music ended up being recorded by, you know, the guns and roses and the lemon heads. And, um, he became this kind of weird, uh, cult figure and not as in, uh,

Jim James cult? Oh, like a cult movie type cult? He's my morning jacket. Jim Jones. But like, yeah, like a cult figure and revered by some people weirdly. It just is so strange that people would look at him that way, you know? So one person who revered him later on in life was a woman, I believe he named Star, right?

And she moved from her parents' house in Mississippi out to California to be just down the street from where Manson was held. And she was the woman who was supposed to marry him. Right.

And she was a follower of his. She said she didn't care anything about 1969. So Manson later in life became really interested in preserving the environment. He came up with this thing called ATWA, air, trees, water, environment.

I can't remember the last A. Air? Yeah, air again. That would be A-T-W-A-A. Right. So she became very interested in him for his ecological stance, right? And she moved out to be close to him and would visit him on weekends, and they became very close.

And I guess to kind of demonstrate to the world that he still had it. I still got it, world. He asked her to carve an X in her forehead, and she did. So, yeah.

She was also big time into collecting and selling Manson memorabilia. And Ed points out in this article, I think he's referring to her, that the whole marriage thing may have been a ploy to get at Manson memorabilia, but I don't believe that's the case at all. So she actually ran a website and still does called mansondirect.com. And it's like up to date. So I think...

She had not abandoned him after some big, big score with memorabilia. Like she seems to have been the real deal follower, like a early Manson family girl reincarnated. Huh. Weird. So there were a bunch of other. I saw an article where there are at least 10 other weird deaths related to the Manson family that.

Some people say could have been them or maybe not. I looked into a few of them. There was his original or at least this guy was originally going to represent Manson. He's an attorney named Ron Hughes. He ended up representing, I think, Leslie Van Houten. Yeah. But she he disappeared while on a there was a 10 day recess in the trial. So he goes camping there.

With another couple, and the couple left, and he's like, I'm going to stay on here in the woods. He was never seen again. So that was a little weird. They never found a body or anything, I don't think. It wasn't. Even though he was one of their defense attorneys, they had a huge grudge against him because, like you said earlier, Van Houten, Krenwinkel, and Atkins were all –

Or not Atkins. I can't remember who the third one was. We're all going to to incriminate themselves. So as Leslie Van Houten's defense attorney, he said, I'm not. He rested after the prosecution rested. He never presented a defense because he knew that they were going to incriminate themselves and he refused to take part in it. So they had a grudge against him. So it's possible. Possibly there was a spawn ranch worker there.

that disappeared, and they were actually convicted, some other family members of his murder. His name was Shorty Shea, Donald Shorty Shea. There was this one dude, Joel Pugh, who was married to Sandra Good, who was a member, and he was found dead in his London hotel. It was ruled a suicide, but his wrist was

had been slashed and his throat was slashed twice. And there was something written in blood on the mirror that was erased. You know, it's one of these shoddy jobs, I think, by the London cops. But some say it said Jack and Jill. Other people say they don't remember what it said.

But that was definitely one of those that was like, hmm, could he have been killed by a Manson family member? Yeah. And the list goes on. One of those Manson family members who was convicted of killing Shorty Shea had made a couple trips to the UK while Joel Pugh was there. Oh. So there's even more. It's definitely weird that he died like that. Yeah.

You know, having your throat slashed in a London hotel, it's weird no matter what. And so, like we said, you know, you said at the beginning, it was definitely the end of the peace love movement and sort of put a pin on what the...

What people thought about what a lot of people thought about the counterculture and like this is that these are the hippies. They're not peace and love. They can murder people on drugs. And this is what acid can do to you. So that was mainstream media. You had other alternative media or places like Rolling Stone that was still a pretty young magazine that would would not say things like that would not kind of buy into the mainstream media portrayal. But it captured that.

And still captures a lot of people's imagination. You know, it was a part of the zeitgeist, but it just endured for decades after, you know. For sure. And Rolling Stone actually did a tremendous amount of reporting on –

Charles Manson. That was really good at the time. That 2013 article I read was really good. That was from Rolling Stone. You can get into a Manson rabbit hole just going onto Rolling Stone's website. And that, that 2000, um, the 2013 article I read, Chuck, the, the author, um, he, I think he kind of summed up Charles Manson better than I've seen it anywhere else. Um,

But he said this. He said, sometimes he can be so transparent, which makes him look like nothing more than a goofy, klutzy, small-timer who made some bad decisions that led to more bad decisions that led to murder, and who then got caught up in an ambitious DA's dream about a mastermind sangali with demonic visions of world domination. Some crook, some outlaw, some gangster, some desperado, probably the worst ever. But in the end, a tiny redneck.

I mean, that definitely falls in there, too. Yeah. So as far as these kids go, it's kind of hard to get good information because I read a bunch of different things. But from what I can tell, he had three sons for sure. Yeah. One with Candy Stevens named Charles Luther Manson, one with Mary Bruner named Valentine or Valentine Michael Manson.

Those two guys are impossible to find anything on. I'm sure they probably changed their names. There was a Charles Manson Jr. who killed himself in the, I think, early 90s. Yeah, 93. And then there's this dude. Did you see this Matthew Roberts guy?

I ran across his name, but I don't know anything about him. Well, he claims that his mother said, you know what, Charles Manson was your dad. We had sex in an orgy.

in San Francisco in the late 60s. And I believe that he is probably your father. Although, given that it's an orgy, you know how those things go. So that is the last thing you ever want to hear your mom tell you. That whole story. The whole story from beginning to end is just bad news for you, the kid. Yeah. So just look this guy up. And if he doesn't look like

Charles Manson incarnate, then I don't know what to say. But the dude looks exactly like him. Here's the deal, though, is he ended up he tried to get DNA from the prison, tried to smuggle it out, but it got contaminated. The test didn't work. He ended up taking a DNA test to match with

who we know was Charles Manson Jr.'s son, a dude named Jason Freeman, who was the grandson of Charles Manson. And there was no match there. But Matthew Roberts says, well, that doesn't prove anything because we've never seen the DNA match from Freeman and Manson. Oh, I see. So he's still claiming to be his son. And, I mean, the guy looks so much like him, it's a little creepy. So...

It's hard to not say, you know, why would his mom make up the story? The guy happens to look just like him. But who knows? And in the end, his will and supposedly his estate is worth money. I don't know how much, but they say, you know, there could be a lot of dough there. And right now there's a legal battle going on between Jason Freeman, who is the grandson, and then this pen pal,

That Manson had for like decades named Michael Channels, who he scribbled out a will to this guy. And he's saying, hey, look, he wrote this will. He wants me to have this money. Jason Freeman saying it's mine for their part. They're both saying what they want to do. His body's on ice still as they want to. They both want to scatter his ashes just where no one knows. So there it doesn't become like some weird shrine.

Yeah. But the ongoing legal battle for his will, we'll see what happens there. So in that Star Lady weighed in saying if anybody who says he has a will is lying, that he purposefully said he was not going to leave a will. Right. But it would just it would be just like Charles Manson to scribble off a will, deny that he ever did it and just leave a big mess behind afterwards. You know? Yeah. Just one more mess for everybody to sort out. So strange. Yeah.

So strange and sad. Absolutely. In the 60s, there was some I know he talked about the who is that one cult that I saw the documentary with Father Zod or whatever. I mean, that was a crazy documentary. I mean, just that whole time was so, so strange. It really was just people looking for something to belong to or something, some meaning that wasn't their parents meaning, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, all right, Chuck. They found it, by the way. They found it. They all became stockbrokers in the 80s. If you want to know more about the Manson family, well, like I said, there's rabbit holes all over the internet. Um,

And in the meantime, you can also read this great article by Egg Grabinowski by typing the words Manson family in the search bar at HowStuffWorks. And like I said, it'll bring up this great Grabster article. And while I said that, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this Confederate Monuments. Well, not Confederate Monuments, but Removal of Monuments. Okay. Follow up. Nice. So we got a lot of great email about that podcast. Yeah.

I don't know how many of those you read, but, you know, people roundly said we did a good, fair take on this tricky subject. Yeah, I saw that, too. Which always makes me feel good. And a shout out. This is not from her, but one of the people who wrote in was an artist named Kara Walker, who just look up her work. She is amazing. She's, I think, the second youngest person to ever receive a MacArthur Genius Grant award.

And she does these great she does a lot of stuff and a lot of mediums. But what she's known for, I think, are these room sized silhouette like black cut out silhouettes depicting like statements on race and gender and civil rights. And she's just like a rock star in the New York art scene. And she went to my high school.

Yeah, I saw that. Did not know that. She introduced herself. She graduated two years ahead of me at Redan. So I wrote back to her and just told her how proud I was to be an alum. Nice. So anyway, go check out Carl Walker's work. That's a mouthful. It is. But this is from someone else. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for the podcast. I'm a big fan. Especially enjoyed the public monument episode. I'm writing to clarify a small point about the Georgia state flag.

that Chuck discussed in that episode. I got this thing wrong, by the way. You pointed out that Georgia, like some other former Confederate states, included the familiar Confederate battle flag with the X pattern in its state flag from 1956 to 2001. However, that flag is not the Stars and Bars. The Stars and Bars was the official national flag of the Confederacy and is the flag after which the current Georgia flag is patterned.

It turns out that the flag Georgia used until 1956 was modeled after the national Confederate flag and the state switched to the Confederate battle flag in 56. In other words, while the most familiar Confederate flag was removed in 2001, it was replaced with another one. That's so Georgia. I thought we did the right thing.

So I thought you guys would be interested. By the way, Mississippi is the only state that still uses the Confederate battle flag and its official state flag. Keep up the great work. And I don't have a name on this one. Well, thanks a lot. I don't have a name on this one. That was some good info. We appreciate that. And Chuck, that was big of you to say, hey, I got it wrong. I got it wrong. That's all right, man. That's all right.

If you want to write in to tell us we got something wrong, lay it on us. That's fine. You can send us all, including Jerry, an email to stuffpodcasts at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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