He had been in prison since August 1969, for instigating his followers to murder seven people in the Beverly Hills area. Among the victims of the crimes, was the then actress Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanski, who was 8 months pregnant. Charles Manson, leader of the “La Familia” sect, has died at the age of 83.
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Leader of a sect that caused two massacres
Charles Manson has been the archetype of manipulative murderer, who although he never killed anyone with his bare hands, he was able to get his disciples to kill just by asking.
We travel back in time to August 9, 1969, to the northwest area of Beverly Hills, in Los Angeles, California. In a luxurious chalet in this upper part of the city lived Sharon Tate and her husband, the filmmaker Roman Polanski, who at that time was traveling in London. That day, Sharon Tate, a few weeks after giving birth to her firstborn, was accompanied by four other people.
For no reason other than to cause chaos, Charles Manson ordered four of his disciples (Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Charles “Tex” Watson) to storm the house and kill everyone they found in it. And said and done; Without the slightest consideration, the three young women entered and left no one alive, while “Tex” waited in his car for him. Sharon Tate received 16 stab wounds and, with her blood, they wrote a message on the wall: “PIG”, pig in English.
The following night, two of the participating participants (Tex and Krenwinkel, who was joined by the very young Leslie Van Houten, just 19 years old), murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, a married couple who had a house in the Los Feliz area. . This time, they painted with the blood of Mr. LaBianca the words “RISE” (translated, “get up”), “Death to the pigs” (“death to the pigs”) and “Helter Skelter”, extracted from the song by The Beatles and that La Familia used as a slogan for its racist crusade.
According to the leader of the cult, the lyrics of the song concealed a message that he had interpreted as the advent of an apocalyptic world war of whites against blacks and whose only survivors would be the members of the clan.
Charles Manson, for better or worse, an icon
Okay, there may be those who think that we can fall into frivolity if we say that Manson has been a symbol of American pop culture. However, his name, like that of many others, has crossed borders and has become known throughout the world.
It has been talked about in songs, it has inspired the artistic name of a metal singer (Marilyn Manson) and it has served for the plot of episodes of series such as South Park or American Horror Story: Cult . Not to mention the number of reports that have been dedicated to him or the number of books on heinous crimes that devote several pages to him.
Manson’s health had worsened this last year
At the beginning of this year, Manson had already been hospitalized for intestinal complications that had led to internal bleeding, which suggested that his health was delicate and that he could take little else. As the months have passed , his life has been extinguished like a candle until this Sunday , around 8:15 p.m. (4:13 p.m. Greenwich time), the psychopath has given his last breath .
Charles Manson is, along with Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy, one of the best-known serial killers, both for the atrocities they committed, and for his particular personality . In all this time, Manson has never regretted what happened. Symbol or not, now that he’s dead, the world is a slightly better place.
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