Charles Manson, Orgins of a Madman

Charles Manson is known as one of the most sinister and evil criminals of all time.

He organized the murders that shocked the world and his name still strikes fear into

American hearts. Manson's childhood, personality, and uncanny ability to control people

led to the creation of a family-like cult and ultimately to the bloody murders of numerous

innocent people.

Charles M. Manson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 11, 1934. His

mother, Kathleen Maddox, was a teenage prostitute. Manson's father walked out on the

still pregnant Maddox, never to be seen again. In order to give her bastard son a name,

Ms. Maddox married William Manson. He soon abandoned the both of them.

Manson's mother often neglected Charles after her husband left her. She tried to

put him into a foster home, but the arrangements fell through. As a last resort she sent

Charles to school in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Prince Charles in Upton-upon-Severn

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Mrs. Manson failed to make the payments for

the school and once again Charles was sent back to his mother's abuse. At only fourteen,

Manson left his mother and rented a room for himself. He supported himself with odd

jobs and petty theft. His mother turned him into the juvenile authorities, who had him sent

to 'Boys Town,' a juvenile detention center, near Omaha, Nebraska. Charles spent a total

of three days in 'Boys Town' before running away. He was arrested in Peoria, Illinois for

robbing a grocery store and was then sent to the Indiana Boys School in Plainfield,

Indiana, where he ran away another eighteen times before he was caught and sent to the

National Training School for Boys in Washington D.C. Manson never had a place to call

'home' or a real family. He spent his childhood being sent from one place to another,