Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars

by Edward George

  On November 6, 1976, Squeaky’s guru was dumped into the hole when officers found a broom handle and half a razor blade in his cell. Remembering how he had voluntarily given up the mop holder at San Quentin, I was curious as to why he was now hoarding this material. He mumbled something about self-preservation and then clammed up. When his week in isolation was finished, he refused to come out. That was typical Manson. Punish him, and he’ll pretend to love the punishment. It was all part of his never-ending campaign to beat the system. I let him stay in the hole a few more days, then sprang him in a manner that kept his dignity intact.

  Charlie routinely resisted most of what he was told to do, agitating the guards until their patience ran out. Sometimes he became so loud and abusive the inmates themselves provided the discipline. The phrase “Shut your fuckin’ mouth, Charlie” became like a mantra on every wing the former cult leader was housed. CMF was no different than San Quentin or Folsom in that regard. Charlie usually heeded the warnings of his fellow cons, fearful that someone with sensitive ears might slip into his cell one night and slit his bowels. Similarly, whenever he felt threatened, he’d take a swing at a guard, or throw a tantrum, in order to get himself moved. He did this dance my second month at CMF, earning a trip to the psych ward. The docs cleared him, and he came shuffling back. I knew enough by then to toss him into a new cell on a different wing. I didn’t make a big deal about his tactics because he knew more about his enemies than we did, and we would have moved him anyway had he simply told us his life was in danger. He’d never do that, of course, because it was considered snitching.

  During my third week, Pin, who had been transferred to CMF, told me that Manson had stopped eating. Investigating, I discovered that the guards, tired of his constant bitching, had threatened to put rat poison in his food to shut him up—permanently. Manson responded by refusing to take the trays the guards handed him. When the guards started refusing to switch them, he became convinced they were poisoned.

  “No one’s poisoning your food, Charlie,” I assured him, taking a bite from his lunch. “That would be murder, and it’s easy to prove. The men are just screwing with your head.”

  “Well, tell them to fuckin’ stop!”

  “You stop irritating them so much and the problem will take care of itself.”

  Although that sounded logical, I knew my advice fell on deaf ears. Like a two-year-old, Charlie had a problem understanding “action and reaction.” His brain was incapable of linking the two. I was, however, able to convince him to start eating again.

  After Charlie’s first ninety-day evaluation was completed, his case was referred to the departmental review board, a group of central office staffers who monitored notorious cases. I was asked to put in my two cents. “Based on current psychiatric and psychological evaluations, continued programming in Willis Unit is appropriate,” I wrote, figuring a longer stay would be beneficial to him—and me. “Manson is lucid, alert, and functioning in a manageable fashion. Psychiatric support is available in the event of deterioration.” I advised against putting him under less restrictive custody because of the questionable psychological condition of so many of the other inmates. This was, after all, virtually a mental hospital. There were too many sick and injured minds out there for Manson to manipulate. “If Manson is allowed in the general population, it must be recognized that within a short time unwarranted followers and curiosity seekers will flock after him,” I explained. “His ideas, as antisocial as they are, have an in-depth appeal to certain segments of society both inside and outside prison. It is therefore better to retain him under restricted conditions.”

  Both of my recommendations were followed. Manson stayed at CMF and remained in lockup. That was fine with him. He liked CMF, and although it was tempting, he knew it was too dangerous for him to be in population among the psycho set. There were still a lot of badasses passing through, and despite Pin Cushion’s mass-attack warning, all it would take was one rusty shank across his throat and it would be curtains. In addition, his racial views were well known. If given the chance, an African American con would surely try to win points with the brothers by stilling Charlie’s voice. This was another aspect of Charlie’s psyche that I never could figure. His instincts for self-preservation were strong. He was like a coyote, always alert and cautious. Yet, when it came to African Americans, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, constantly making blood enemies and putting his life in danger.

  Walking through the tier one day, I heard Manson going at it with some Hell’s Angels and other sympathetic cons. “The only things niggers are good for is to cut off their heads and use them for bowling balls,” he cracked. It was just that kind of stupid, tough-guy boasting that was going to get him killed. In this instance, his racist remarks were particularly dangerous. I yanked him from the cell for a private chat in my office.

  “Charlie, are you aware that there’s a high-level Black Guerrilla Family member on your tier?” Manson’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. “He came in a few days ago on a psych. He’s a mean, dangerous man. I’d watch my mouth, if you get my drift.”

  “I’m not afraid of niggers.”

  “I know you’re not afraid, but I’d watch my mouth anyway.”

  After that, Manson stayed in his cell, refusing his exercise time on the tier. “I ain’t in the mood,” he spat. When the word came down that the BGF member had indeed heard his crude analogy and was gunning for him, Manson threw a contrived tantrum designed to earn a trip to the much safer isolation ward. Always an expert at manipulating the system, he got his wish—and probably saved his own life.

  African Americans weren’t the only inmates Charlie had reason to fear. Early in 1977, a Mexican prison gang known as Nuestra Familia had grown so powerful at the Duel Vocational Institute in Tracy that they were on the verge of taking over the institution. A girlfriend of one of the gang members worked in the personnel department and promptly provided the gangbangers on the street with a list of the guards’ addresses and home phone numbers. Anytime an officer came down hard on a Nuestra Familia member in prison, threatening calls would be made to the officer’s family. The new warden, my old friend Bob Rees, deemed the problem so explosive that he ordered the gang broken up and scattered throughout the security housing units in various prisons. That was a drastic step, as fellow wardens hate to take someone else’s cancer, especially in bunches. Rees, however, managed to convince everyone of the severity of the situation.

  My allotment was a rat pack of twenty arrogant Nuestra Familia hoods. Their presence totally disrupted the category D program at CMF, not only because of the cell space they occupied, but because of the tense gang atmosphere they brought with them. To minimize this, I cleared an entire tier on the third floor to deal with the infestation. Shortly after their arrival, I encountered one of the high-ranking NF captains exercising in front of his cell. He was a vicious sociopath named “Joker.”

  “You know, we have Charles Manson here,” I explained. “Do you guys have a problem with him?”

  Joker shot me a gnarly grin. “I’d like to cut his throat.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s got a big mouth.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. In these situations, Charlie was his own worst enemy. I immediately ordered Manson moved to a cell on the second floor.

  “What the hell for?” he groused.

  “The NF guys want to cut your throat.”

  “I ain’t scared of those assholes,” he said, trying to hide the truth. He remained defiant, but no longer protested the transfer. Thanks to the maneuvering, we were able to ride out the NF visit without incident.

  * * *

  Charlie, true to form, believed that like actors, athletes, and entertainers in the outside world, he deserved special privileges because of his “celebrity” status. That might sound repulsive, but there was some truth to it in the prison system. Since these were communities made up of criminals, the most famous criminals were our celebrities. And even on the ou
tside, in a society like America that worships fame, it’s not hard to see how fame and infamy can be confused. Because of his “celebrity” status, Manson did receive certain privileges. One in particular was his acoustic guitar. Musical instruments were not allowed in lockups, but I made an exception for Charlie. He was allowed to select a few hours a day when he wanted to play. A sergeant would bring the six-string to him, then pick it up later. This worked fine for a few weeks. Charlie was pretty good. His singing and speaking voice sounds a lot like the Kris Kristofferson of “Why Me, Lord?” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” fame. The surrounding inmates seemed to enjoy the break in the monotony. I knew it wouldn’t last, and it didn’t. One afternoon, when the guard tried to take the guitar back, Charlie refused. The sergeant was called.

  “Give it up, Charlie, or we’re coming in after it.”

  Manson stood firm. The sergeant ordered the sliding cell door opened. Manson stuck the neck of the guitar across the stationary bars, preventing the moving part from operating. The sergeant, in no mood for fun and games, grabbed the wooden instrument and ripped it away, splitting it in half. As the officers marched in to pick up the pieces, Manson cracked, “If you want to play, you gotta pay.”

  The incident symbolized Manson’s self-destructive side. Although the guitar was important to him and was a vital tool for killing the excruciating boredom, he decided that it was more important to display a few seconds of defiance than to have months of tranquillity. Whatever long-term consequences he had to suffer because of it was of no concern. This quality, more than anything, defines both the criminal and the psychotic mind, and how they differ from the rest of us. Oblivious of the concept of cause and effect, these felons destroy their entire lives to satiate a temporary desire or to act upon a single, fleeting emotion. Manson’s stupid show hurt no one but himself. Of course, he didn’t see it that way. He was incapable of connecting that meaningless moment of antisocial behavior with the loss of something he cherished and the subsequent weeks spent sulking in his cell with nothing to do. The spin he put on it was that the evil “system” had destroyed his beautiful instrument.

  Without the guitar to soothe his nerves, Charlie became tense and agitated again. His speeches during our afternoon chats grew more grandiose and chilling. He began drifting farther and farther away from reality, replacing it with his “reality,” the apocalyptic revolution that he insisted was still going to happen. His Family, he boasted, was stronger and more active than ever. “We’re going to change the world!”

  Whenever he got like this, I pestered him about the murders. If he was worked up enough, he might make that long-awaited confession. “Yeah, yeah, Charlie, I’ve heard that ‘change the world’ tune before, but tell me, why did you allow your followers to commit those senseless murders? You’ve said that it wasn’t your idea, but you also admitted that you had the power to stop them. What did you possibly gain by letting them go through with it? Those people didn’t deserve to die.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” he shot back, angered, as always, by the question. Only instead of changing the subject, this time he continued. “They deserved to die! They were Hollywood lowlife. They were into devil worship, pornography, and drugs. They were part of the greedy rich who are responsible for slaughtering the forests and raping the land so they can build their fancy houses with redwood decks.”

  That raised my eyebrows. The pornography, drugs, devil-worship stuff was nothing more than after-the-fact rationalization. As the world knows, Charlie sent his stoned killers to a house where the occupants were unknown, so there couldn’t have been a personal motivation before the fact. Afterward, once he found out the victims were director Roman Polanski’s wife and friends, he developed the excuses. Polanski had made some racy films, so he was a “pornographer.” One of his most famous movies, Rosemary’s Baby, used devil worship and the occult as a scare tactic, so that apparently meant the people at the death house were “into devil worship.” The drug angle was stupid and hypocritical, as Manson and his Family were far more into hard drugs than any gathering of Hollywood socialites.

  It was the “redwood decks” that caught my attention. Charlie had been at that house before. Had the redwood decks really infuriated him to the point of murder? Preservation of the forests was one of his main themes. Lumber industry executives remained prominent on his frequent hit lists. The nature-scene pictures he plastered on his cell walls proved that his concern went beyond just using the environment as a good pickup line. Hell, maybe he did do it because of the redwood decks. It was as good a reason as the one Vincent Bugliosi used to convict him, the “Helter Skelter” plan of starting a war between the races to destroy the black man.

  Charlie segued from the “they deserved it” nonsense to another treatise on the “truth” about his so-called Family. “It wasn’t a real family. The media made that up, I didn’t. We were just a bunch of kids who wanted to live together. Everybody drove us out, so we found this ranch. We all had work to do. Everyone did their own thing and we were happy. They came to me with their problems and I helped them. I told them what I would do, but I didn’t make their decisions for them.”

  “What did you tell them to do?”

  “Get rid of your fear. Be what you are. I would teach them the truth.”

  “What’s the truth?”

  “The truth is there is no truth!” he answered as if he were handing down the Ten Commandments. “There is no right or wrong. There is only one, and it does what it wants to do. There is no fear, only the thought of fear. There is no guilt for doing what you must do!”

  After a dramatic pause, he flashed back to a scene at the ranch before it all went bad. “There was this fire and everybody was singing, dancing, and getting high. We were in the country, out of sight. I was sitting on the top of this big boulder like an Indian chief looking down on his children. When I gave orders, it was done. When I told a girl to go sleep with a certain guy, she did it. Imagine that? It was like I was a god sitting there. Wow, man. It was far out!”

  At times like these, Manson completely contradicted his earlier claims that his “friends” acted on their own and that he had no power over them. In truth, he had extraordinary power over them. He might have been surprised by it, and he might not have fully understood it in the beginning, but by the night of the murders, he was keenly aware of it.

  “I controlled the dope, and that was important,” he continued. “I didn’t want them to get completely stoned. I’d take a little less than everybody else so I could keep an eye on things.”

  Then, almost as if he realized his contradictions, Manson changed course.

  “I didn’t want to be their leader,” claimed the man incapable of functioning in any other role. “But they needed somebody. I couldn’t just split. They needed me, so I stayed with them.”

  Stayed with them, and led them into the abyss.

  10.

  PULLING MANSON FROM his cell for our daily chats soon became the highlight of my day. I was aware that I was falling into the same trap as I had before, once again feeding my psychological addiction to this extremely dangerous man simply because he was interesting. I was unable to contain myself at home and with friends, a problem that naturally worried Beth. I was aware of her increasing concern, but my “Charlie stories” bubbled with such intensity inside my mind I had to share them.

  In truth, Charlie was often inspirational. He’d plant ideas in my head, compliment me, then say, “Go do it!” The ideas would usually be impossible and outrageous—and always benefiting him—but I’d come away strangely uplifted and empowered. “Don’t waste your life on an eight-to-five job, living inside a paper bag. You’re killing yourself. Do something with your life!” he’d say.

  Although he never expressed it plainly, it was clear that “doing something with my life” consisted of helping him escape, joining the Family, and teaming up to change the world. At times, he could almost make it sound inviting. Of course, it was such moments of
idle fantasy that drove Beth crazy with the fear that Manson was having a marked effect upon my mental state.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I’d assure her. “I’m not going to trade you in for a harem of homicidal earth children with questionable personal hygiene habits, enticing as that might sound. Besides, I’m not the revolutionary type.”

  I wasn’t, but there were legions of loose wires on the outside who definitely were. One of the strangest, and most persistent, was Richard Rubacher, an odd man who numbered among Charlie’s most fervent post—Helter Skelter groupies. Instead of writing passionate letters promising to love, support, and, if need be, kill for Manson, as hundreds of others had, Rubacher lusted for an audience with his chosen master. A quizzical character who operated on the fringes of society, Rubacher would occasionally surprise me with his connections. Professing to be a freelance journalist of some sort—an easy claim to make in an unregulated profession—he convinced the local San Francisco public television outfit to allow him to provide them with a filmed interview with Manson. Clever as the scheme was, I had to turn it down. The rules stated that reporters had to be full-time employees of the designated media outlet. Not to be deterred, Rubacher came at me again. He somehow convinced the famous German tabloid style magazine Stern to put him on the payroll for the sole purpose of getting an interview with Manson. Rubacher trumped us with that move, so we had to stamp the approval.

  Prior to the interview, Rubacher was cleared for a preliminary chat in the visiting room. The date was set for February 3, 1977. Manson had been behaving himself, so his custody was dropped to close B, meaning he could greet his visitors without wearing handcuffs. An associate warden on the custody side overruled the decision and jumped Manson back to maximum A. That meant he’d have to wear cuffs to the Rubacher sit-down. Manson refused and the meeting was canceled. That afternoon, Charlie requested an audience with me. He was hot.