Charles Manson. Did the justice system get it wrong?Source:AP
CHARLES Manson — the charismatic cult leader convicted in the deaths of actress Sharon Tate and eight other victims — might not be guilty, according to New York journalist Daniel Simone.
Simone and co-author Heidi Ley are putting the finishing touches on a book that will lay out all the evidence that Manson, 80, was the victim of ruthlessly ambitious prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who died in June.
“The reader will walk away with doubts,” Simone says.
“Of Manson’s 37 prior arrests, none involved violence. And [almost] every single witness who testified against him was a convicted felon or facing trial.”
Manson wasn’t even at the scenes of the Tate-LaBianca murders but was convicted because he told his co-conspirators to do it.
Manson, who gave the authors 12 hours of prison interviews, has authorised the tome.
“He not only signed off on it, he placed his thumbprints beneath his signature in case someone questions its authenticity,” Simone said. “He’s quite clever.”
But Manson wasn’t clever when he insisted on representing himself at his 1971 murder trial. Simone says a good lawyer would have argued in a pre-trial motion that there was no proof Manson had directed his followers to kill.
“He probably could have gotten the case dismissed based on the lack of evidence,” Simone said.
As for Manson, who famously has a swastika scratched into his forehead, “At times he’s completely incoherent,” Simone said. “Other times, he’s articulate and made a lot of sense ... I am sure he is using illegal narcotics.”
Manson’s engagement to a woman 53 years his junior was called off in February after Simone claimed the convicted killer’s fiancee, 27-year-old Afton Elaine Burton, known as Star, planned to profit from his death. Manson apparently got cold feet after learning of Star’s alleged plot to take ownership of his corpse and put it on display in a wild, money-making scheme. “He’s finally realised that he’s been played for a fool,” Simone said. Also, Manson believes he is immortal.
“He feels he will never die. Therefore, he feels it’s a stupid idea to begin with.”
Manson with ex-fiancee Star. He apparently broke up with her after discovering what she planned to do with his dead body. TITLE: Mass Murderer Charles Manson Gets Marriage LicenseSource:Supplied
“From the world of darkness I did loose demons and devils in the power of scorpions to torment.” —Charles Manson
In a Nutshell
Charles Manson, widely considered among the most notorious serial killers of all time—in fact, practically synonymous with the term- never actually killed anyone, only directed others to do so.
The Whole Bushel
The so-called “Manson Family” were essentially a cult that came into the orbit of Charles, a charismatic and talented man (he even wrote a song that was recorded, with altered lyrics, by the Beach Boys). It was four of these “family members”—Susan Atkins, Charles Watson,
Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian—who descended upon the house previously owned by record producer Terry Melcher on August 6, 1969 (Manson knew Melcher from his brief foray into the music business). He instructed them to “totally destroy everyone… as gruesome as you can”—and they did nothing if not comply. Actress Sharon Tate and coffee heiress Abigail Folger were among five dead, counting Tate’s unborn child (she was eight months pregnant). The very next night, the same four plus two more- Leslie Van Houten and Steve Grogan- were accompanied by Manson to the home of Leno and Rosemary Bianca, randomly chosen for being rich (some family members had recently been to a party at the house next door). Manson helped tie up the unfortunate couple and gave the order that they be killed- but left before it was carried out.
Sure, judging by the brutal nature of the crimes he gleefully ordered—and as anyone who has listened to him talk for ten seconds can readily agree—Charles Manson is a complete psychopath, and should probably never be allowed in the same room with another human being on general principle. But a serial killer? Far from it- in fact, an FBI criminologist classified the Manson Family’s crimes as being much closer to spree killings—and Manson wasn’t even present for the crimes he is associated with, and never actually killed anyone.
Charles Manson is a notorious inmate and arguably an American icon of evil but, according to experts, the aging convict is not a serial killer or a mass murderer, as he is typically described.
While the terms “serial killer” and “mass murderer” are often used synonymously, experts distinguish between the two. Scott A. Bonn, a serial killer expert and assistant professor of sociology at Drew University, said it is time to set the record straight.
“Manson is a fascinating, infamous individual, but he was not a serial killer or a mass murderer,” Bonn told The Huffington Post. The misconceptions about Manson began decades ago and continue today, according to the technical definitions. Media outlets around the world mischaracterized him this week in covering the 77-year-old’s 12th — and likely final — parole hearing, when his parole was denied again. Manson was leader of the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that he formed in California in the late 1960s. Manson believed in an impending apocalyptic race war, which he termed “Helter Skelter,” after the song of the same name. He orchestrated a series of gruesome murders on consecutive nights in an effort to help precipitate the race war. In 1969, Manson and his followers were convicted in the slaying of actress Sharon Tate and several others. Initially sentenced to death, Manson’s sentence was later commuted to life in prison. According to the FBI, serial murder is “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events,” with a cooling-off period between the murders. The FBI previously set the number of victims at three, but its Behavioral Analysis Unit lowered that number to two in 2005. “The emotional cooling-off period is the most important factor in determining a serial killer,” Bonn said. “Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are good examples. They both slipped back into their seemingly normal lives in between their murders. That’s where the cooling-off period comes into play — their ability to maintain this outward appearance of being completely normal and functioning in society and then, when the urge to kill becomes overwhelming, they strike again.” Retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Mark Safarik agrees that Manson does not meet the criteria of a serial killer. “The question of whether Manson was a serial killer comes up a lot, but was he a serial killer? Based on the definition, no,” Safarik, now a partner in Forensic Behavioral Services International, told HuffPost. Manson also fails to meet the definition of a mass murderer. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a mass murder as “the murder of four or more victims at one location, within one event.” According to Bonn, incidents of mass murder are often triggered by a psychotic break from reality. “Those individuals are often likely to take their own life by turning the gun on themselves or being shot at the scene of the crime, whereas serial killers are often very cold and calculating,” Bonn explained.
CHARLES MANSON PHOTOS: (Article Continues Below) So what category does Manson fall into? Some may say the murders were cult killings, but Bonn said they could loosely be described as spree killings. The Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as “killings at two or more locations with almost no time-break between murders.” The FBI’s general definition of spree killing is two or more murders committed by an offender or offenders without a cooling-off period. “The Manson killings would come closest to a killing spree,” Bonn explained. “They were multiple killings that took place in a short period of time, so there was no emotional cooling-off period. They were cold, calculated and planned murders.” “In some ways they were mission killers. They had a mission, a purpose, and yet this purpose led to a killing spree.” The argument that Manson never killed anyone himself persists, but he was convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder for his role in the killings. Safarik simplified the distinction. “Technically, he never murdered anybody, but the way people look at Manson is that he is such a charismatic individual that had the ability to control people. Essentially, all of his followers were doing his bidding. They were doing what he wanted them to do, when he wanted them to do it, how he wanted to do it. His followers were an extension of him.”
