Manson’s Death Sentence Served

Charles Manson, former leader of a cult named the “Mason Family,” died of natural causes on Sunday, November 19^th at age 83. Vincent Bugliosi, Manson’s former prosecutor, described him as, “The dictatorial ruler of the (Manson) family, the king, the Maharaja. And the members of the family were slavishly obedient to him.”

Manson was charged with first-degree murder in 1971 for commanding the deaths or Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Along with this, he was also convicted for connection to the murder of a musician named Gary Hinman. Manson was originally sentenced to death, but California abandoned the death penalty in 1972, so his sentence changed to life in prison. He applied for parole twelve times and was always denied.

Manson’s point of view differs extremely from that of a normal human being. When asked in a 1986 interview whether he thought his life got off-track when he was imprisoned for petty crimes, he responded, “See, that doesn’t even compute in my world, because like, there is no wrong…according to everyone else, I’ve never done anything right. In the world I live in, I’ve never made a bad move in my whole life.” In several of Manson’s interviews, he seemed to be both accepting credit for and denying the murders carried out by the family. He states that there was no cult and he never murdered anyone, yet he also stated, “maybe I should’ve killed four or five-hundred people, then I would’ve felt better.” When asked if he felt remorse, he replied with, “I wouldn’t do anything that I felt guilty about…there’s no need to feel guilty. I haven’t done anything I need to be ashamed of.”

The morning after Manson’s death, Bugliosi gave a statement: “Manson was an evil, sophisticated con man with twisted and warped moral values. Today, Manson’s victims are the ones who should be remembered and mourned on the occasion of his death.”