Charlies Manson, the infamous cult leader who became known as the face of evil after being behind the gruesome murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in L.A. during the summer of 1969 has died. Manson reportedly died of natural causes at age 83. He was in the process of serving out a life sentence in prison.
Though there was an overwhelming amount of evidence against Manson, he professed his innocence until the day he died, in a series of very strange quotes:
“It seems a shame to have to sneak to get to the truth. To make the truth such a dirty old nasty thing. You gotta sneak to get to the truth, the truth is condemned. The truth is in the gas chamber. The truth has been in your stockyards. Your slaughterhouses.The truth has been in your reservations, building your railroads, emptying your garbage. The truth is in your ghettos. In your jails. In your young love, not in your courts or congress where the old set judgement on the young. What the hell do the old know about the young? They put a picture of old George on the dollar and tell you that he’s your father, worship him. Look at the madness that goes on, you can’t prove anything that happened yesterday. Now is the only thing that’s real.Everyday, every reality is a new reality. Every new reality is a new horizon, a brand new experience of living. I got a note last night from a friend of mine. He writes in this note that he’s afraid of what he might have to do in order to save his reality, as I save mine. You can’t prove anything. There’s nothing to prove. Every man judges himself. He knows what he is. You know what you are, as I know what I am, we all know what we are. Nobody can stand in judgement, they can play like they’re standing in judgement. They can play like they stand in judgement and take you off and control the masses, with your human body. They can lock you up in penitentiaries and cages and put you in crosses like they did in the past, but it doesn’t amount to anything. What they’re doing is, they’re only persecuting a reflection of themselves. They’re persecuting what they can’t stand to look at in themselves – the truth.”
A courtroom soliloquy quoted him as saying:
“These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them; I didn’t teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.”
On a day like today, it’s best to remember the victims, as Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles County, said:
“Today, Manson’s victims are the ones who should be remembered and mourned on the occasion of his death.”
There were two movie adaptations of Helter Skelter, one in 1976 and one in 2004, as well as a movie coming from Quentin Tarantino, though not an adaptation of Helter Skelter, it will be a story that uses Charles Manson’s cult as a background story:
“Set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1969, Tarantino’s upcoming movie…focuses on a male TV actor who’s had one hit series and his looking for a way to get into the film business. His sidekick — who’s also his stunt double — is looking for the same thing. The horrific murder of Sharon Tate and four of her friends by Charles Manson’s cult of followers serves as a backdrop to the main story.”
I’m not sure too many people will be sad about Manson’s death.