Inside the weird world of Charles Manson, the Beatles-obsessed cult leader who spends his prison days making voodoo dolls and browsing hot air balloons brochures
CULT leader Charles Manson has been charged with over 100 behavioural violations during his four decades behind bars.
The deranged fanatic, who masterminded the killings of seven people in 1969, has been cited for assault, making voodoo dolls and hiding a hot air balloon order catalogue in his cell.
Manson is ‘seriously ill’ after being rushed to hospital in California this week after reportedly suffering from gastrointestinal bleeding.
Following his illness, the has reported details of his numerous rule breaks while in prison.
Authorities say the depraved sociopath once threw ‘hot coffee' on a guard and spat on another’s face.
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The news outlet also revealed that Manson has started numerous fights with other inmates, tried to cause a flood in jail and once set his bed on fire.
On one occasion he was found with a nylon rope and a hot balloon brochure, in a bizarre attempt to escape.
In 1985, he was found with a hacksaw blade in his shoe days after being transferred to the notorious San Quentin State Prison.
A year later, he admitted in a parole hearing that he liked to make voodoo dolls in his cell and branded himself a ‘caged, vicious animal.’
Retired Los Angeles County prosecutor Stephen Kay spoke to about Manson’s doll-making hobby.
He said: “He was making little dolls, but they were like voodoo dolls of people, and he would stick needles in them hoping to injure the live person the doll was fashioned after.
“He said his main activity was making those dolls.”
While in a medical facility in Vacaville in 1989, guards found another hacksaw blade in his cell along with cannabis and LSD.
The LA Times also reveals Manson was targeted by other lags including on one occasion where he was set on fire by a Hare Krishna following inmate.
The attacker had reportedly been threatened by the twisted cult leader because of his religious beliefs.
During his trial in 1971, Manson punched his lawyer in the face and threatened “murder and bloodshed” if he received the death penalty.
Manson was born in Cincinatti, Ohio, in 1934 and quickly turned to crime during an unsettled childhood.
After being placed in a foster home in Indiana in 1947, a 12-year-old Manson escaped after 10 months and managed to track down his alcoholic mother who rejected him.
He was then placed in a juvenile detention centre shortly after where he claims he was repeatedly sexually assaulted.
A social worker reportedly described a young Manson as “aggressively antisocial”.
In his late teens, Manson was released from a juvenile institution to live with relatives in a West Virginia town.
In January 1955 he married a hospital waitress named Rosalie Jean Willi but the marriage hit the rocks he was imprisoned for car theft.
While Manson, who had an higher-than average IQ and reportedly a magnetic personality, was in prison, Rosalie gave birth to their son Charles Manson, Jr and divorced him.
After he was released he turned to pimping and was imprisoned again in 1960, where he learned to play the guitar.
After leaving prison he moved to San Francisco and was successful in gathering a small group of young, largely female devotees, mainly from broken middle-class homes and preached a bizarre philosophy incorporating Christianity, Scientology and the hippy movement.
In 1968, Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys became friends with singer-songwriter Manson after meeting two of his followers Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey.
Wilson recorded a Manson song for the Beach Boys called Never Learn Not to Love but took sole credit.
The two fell out and Wilson reportedly beat Manson up after he threatened him with a bullet.
In the summer of 1969, he directed his mostly young followers, dubbed the 'Manson Family', to murder seven people in what prosecutors said was part of a plan to incite a race war.
In May of that year Manson shot a black drug dealer named Bernard “Lotsapoppa” Crowe. Crowe survived but never reported the crime to the police.
On August 8, the feared cult leader ordered four of his blood-thirsty disciples – Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel and Charles ‘Tex’ Watson – to the Beverly Hills address of movie actress Sharon Tate with the instruction to kill everyone in the house.
As well as Tate, who was married to director Roman Polanski and pregnant with his child, they murdered four other people at the property that fateful night.
Less than 24 hours later, the deadly gang – plus Leslie Van Houten and Steve ‘Clem’ Grogan – savagely tortured, murdered and mutilated wealthy LA couple Rosemary and Leno LaBianca.
They used their blood to write "Rise," "Death to Pigs," and "Healter Skelter," a misplaced reference to the Beatles song "Helter Skelter," on the walls and refrigerator door.
Manson and his accomplices were all sent down for the murders, apart from Kasabian who testified against them and played no direct part in the killings.
During the trial Manson carved an X into his forehead to signify he had removed himself from society. Years later, Manson carved the X into a swastika
Manson was originally sentenced to death but was spared execution and his sentence converted to life in prison after the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in that state.
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