Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars

by Edward George

  “He talked about Manson all the time … more than he talked about Hitler,” recalled a female friend. “His big plan was to go up to some site in the Sierra foothills which Manson would designate and start an all-white colony.”

  A former neighbor of Wartham added that “he smoked weed heavy and talked about death all the time, like it was a joke.”

  Wartham’s efforts, despite his determination and crazed energy, were going nowhere. He lacked charisma and was a poor leader, making it difficult to attract followers. In contrast, his hero, Manson, had been a magnet for alienated youth and had accomplished so much through the Tate-LaBianca murders. In Wartham’s sick mind, that meant in order to gain Manson’s respect, he had to “make his bones” the way Squeaky had, or at least had tried to when she went after President Ford.

  Joe Hoover was one of Wartham’s small circle of Nazi recruits. He had reluctantly gone along when his best friend, Rafe Barker, and a fourteen-year-old named Chris Jones threw in with the wanna-be neo-Hitler. Hoover’s friends had been swayed by a personally signed photo of Manson and Wartham standing beside each other in the visitors room at CMF. The photo was enough to convince the youths that they were part of something special. Wartham might have been an uninspiring drip, but he had big-time connections! Through him, the boys could boast that they were members of the infamous Manson Family.

  Somewhere along the line, Hoover couldn’t stomach the hate Wartham preached and decided to do something about it. He told the police that his friends Rafe and Chris were the ones who had stuffed racist pamphlets in the lockers of the local high school. One can imagine Wartham’s rage, and then his elation after discovering Hoover’s betrayal. He would now have the opportunity to enact his hero’s most cherished credo, “Kill all snitches.”

  Wartham, Barker, and Jones took the unsuspecting Hoover down a dirt road on the outskirts of town and proceeded to carry out Manson’s Law, Taking the lead, Wartham shot Hoover eight times in the head while the youth’s former friends watched. Afterward, Wartham turned to the boys and growled, “This is what will happen to you if you ever snitch.” It was a frightening and seemingly effective demonstration—and was promptly ignored. After all three were arrested, Barker and Jones quickly cut a deal, snitching out Wartham and paving the way for the Nazi creep to join Manson in a life behind bars.

  At his sentencing, Oroville judge Lloyd Mulkey allowed Wartham to read a long prepared statement into the record. Wartham ripped the Jewish-controlled media, condemned the justice system, and blasted a mixed-race society. It was a standard Manson tirade, only minus the charisma and power. Left to their own merits, the words hung in the air like rancid clouds.

  When it was all over, the story was sadly the same. Another Manson disciple had risen, killed, and fallen, and now was locked away forever, a life ruined.

  That, however true, is an admittedly biased conclusion. Biased from me, biased from the aspect of civilized society, but biased nonetheless. Instead of squandering his life, Wartham viewed himself as a revolutionary hero. His worship of Manson gave his worthless life meaning.

  Inside the prison system, the same thing was happening among men whose existences were even more worthless—convicts who had already destroyed their lives before meeting Charlie. A prime example was a Folsom felon named Dennis, a budding sycophant whose banned letters were smuggled in to Manson through various means. I intercepted this doozy:

  “… I did not lose faith in you. You asked me once if I’d kill for you and I said ‘no.’ But a child of torture such as I has been taught much since I said no’ to my love.…’ But I’d kill for you, for I’d kill for truth, and you are the truth and you are greater than I.… To cut you out of my heart would be to cut out my heart.…

  I’d be dead in my aloneness without little guys like you to fight for.… Without you I could not be ‘Billy Jack.…’ You’re me, and I am you, and the heart of the lion still roars one truth!.… You lead the children into prison! Prison is the only safe place to be.… If it wasn’t for me learning in your love, how could I teach you that we are tough with one thought that doesn’t think, it knows? It just knows.…

  In the end, the worshipful Dennis did what so many of the other men had—he courted, married, and disconnected one of Charlie’s girls.

  As the 1970s came to an end and the other original followers began drifting away, the hooded sisters Squeaky and Sandra merely strengthened their resolve. Manson could always depend upon them to be the spool to wrap his new followers around. As long as they stayed true, the Family would never die. Manson was (and remains) the driving force of Red and Blue’s lives. Without him, they would have nothing. Their letters alternated between cheerful optimism and dark depression over the forced separation. Sandra referred to both Charlie and Squeaky as “the only two friends in the world that I can trust.” Red’s and Blue’s ultimate dream was to win their release so they could move near Charlie’s prison and be close enough to feel his vibes in the air.

  In my own way, I, too, had been feeding on Charlie’s vibes. It was different than with his girls, but no less powerful. I used him to get through my workday, perk me up, amuse me, give me encouragement, entertain me, make me laugh, and make me angry. He was also a great stress reliever. If things got crazy at the prison, I simply escaped into Charlie’s unique world. When the CMF cafeteria became overrun with roaches, I tolerated it until the situation reached riot proportions. All efforts to go through proper channels proved fruitless. Taking a cue from Charlie, I marched into the warden’s office and demanded action. “Will you call the food manager and chew his ass?” The warden hesitated, so I lowered the boom. “Have you heard about the leper we had on the food line last week serving food? That would have started a riot if the inmates found out.”

  “How did that happen?” the warden asked, suddenly concerned.

  “The assignment lieutenant didn’t know the medical term for leprosy. That’s the way riots start. That’s the way guards and doctors get killed!” I stormed out, marched down the tier, and immediately pulled Manson from his cell. “Tell me a story, Charlie!” I demanded.

  “Which one?”

  “Any one,” I said. “Anything’s better than the insanity I just experienced.”

  As Manson began speaking, I thought of a quote I’d long ago memorized from William Wordsworth:

  The world is too much with us; late and soon,

  Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

  Little we see in Nature that is ours;

  We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

  Manson read my mood and shifted gears, repeating a familiar joust. “Soon, you will be an old man, working hard, killing yourself, living in a paper bag. When will you stop chasing money and become free like us?”

  It was a good suggestion. The problem was, the “guru” making it spent his life caged in a tiny cell. That wasn’t exactly the freedom I envisioned.

  Yet, there was no mistaking that from inside that cell, and inside a man with an unmistakable dark, evil side, there was a spark of life that could never be quenched. We could cut off Charlie’s arms and legs, but we could never kill his spirit. Kill it or, unfortunately, change it.

  The next day, a bored guard amused himself by taunting Charlie, working the cult leader into a frenzy like a child teasing a fenced pit bull. When I passed by, Manson decided to turn his anger on me. “Damn you, Ed, this is your fault. Did you know that you’re on my hit list!” he raged, striking a particularly mean posture. I felt my blood rise until he added the kicker. “But you’re so far down the list, I’ll probably never get to you!”

  I nearly doubled over with laughter. As I walked away, I could hear Manson roaring in his cell, enjoying his joke. The following morning, he greeted me in particularly good cheer. “I got mine last night, did you get yours?” he cracked, wiping his lips with his forearm, mumbling about his latest wet dream.

  The good mood didn’t last long. A few days later, Charlie threw a major
tantrum over some meaningless nonsense and set his bed on fire. He put it out by clogging the sink and flooding the floor. He was dragged kicking and screaming into isolation. When I arrived to check him out, he started railing against some minor procedural flaw.

  “Hey, what’s with you? You know the score,” I admonished. “It’s not like perfection is the goal of the Department of Corrections.”

  He rolled his eyes and shifted topics. “Bring me my letters,” he demanded, all too eager to recruit some new assassins.

  “No way,” I responded, noting his homicidal mood. “Just cool down. You pissed everybody off with your fire and flood stunt, so lay low for a while.”

  “Well, bring me my two cockroaches. The ones I was raising.”

  “What?”

  “I captured a pair of cockroaches. I was going to raise them, but they escaped. Track them down for me.”

  I looked into his eyes, the feared eyes of a maniacal killer. There it was, the first honest trace of compassion. He wasn’t bullshitting. Charlie had actually been sheltering a pair of pet roaches.

  “I’m not tracking down any roaches,” I said. “But there’s hope for you yet.”

  “Fuck you!” he screamed as I walked away. It was almost as if he’d been insulted by my compliment.

  After he did his isolation time and was released to his home cell, I immediately pulled him out to resume our daily chats.

  “All these reporters don’t know shit,” he spat, looking through the latest media requests. “Why don’t you interview me?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you ask the right questions.”

  “I thought you hated my questions. I don’t let you get away with all that bullshit.”

  “I do hate them. But that doesn’t mean they’re not the right questions.”

  “The trouble is, Charlie, you never give the right answers.”

  A week later, Charlie began behaving oddly every time I passed his cell. He appeared to be holding something in his hand. As each day passed, he made it more and more obvious. Knowing he was dying for me to ask, I refused, giving him back a little of his own medicine. Finally, on the third day, his eyes shifted back and forth between me and his hand. He was all but begging me to inquire.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s in your hand, Charlie?”

  He smiled with glee and beckoned me closer. I felt a tinge of fear, wondering what surprise he had in store. Was it an exploding cap, or a handful of some kind of industrial acid? Would he try to blind me for all those penetrating questions I’d asked him over the years? Despite my misgivings, I edged forward, too curious to be cautious. Charlie elevated his palm and spread open his fingers. Cradled inside was a single sparrow egg. I was pretty stunned. I was expecting a bomb, not a baby.

  “Think it’ll hatch?” he chirped like a small boy.

  “I don’t know. How’d you get that?” I asked. I knew that birds commonly built nests on the ledges outside the tier windows, but they were all out of Manson’s reach. The maintenance crew routinely (and rather heartlessly) knocked the nests off with brooms, splatting the eggs on the asphalt below. Manson had spotted one within his eyesight and begged the crews to leave it alone.

  “Just wait until the eggs hatch and the babies can fly. It’ll only take a couple of weeks,” he pleaded. The crew ignored him, following sanitary procedures and clearing the window of the offending nest. Before knocking it off, one of the men had a rare moment of human kindness, either for the bird, Manson, or both. He pulled a tiny egg from the nest and gave it to the world’s most notorious criminal.

  “Think it will hatch?” Manson repeated, desperate for my affirmation.

  “I don’t know, Charlie. If anybody can make it hatch, you can.”

  Charles Manson held that egg in his hand for weeks, cherishing it, talking to it, willing the baby bird to emerge.

  It never did.

  12.

  CHARLIE SPENT A great deal of time at CMF unraveling socks, shirts, and sweaters and using the yarn to weave mobiles, cockroach cages, and those annoying little voodoo dolls. At San Quentin, where the hard-ass guards were bitter and cynical, nobody really cared about his creations. At CMF, it was a different story. The treatment-oriented staff, heavy on New Age shrinks and counselors, were more fearful of the occult. Every month or so, someone would wander by my office, pace around for a while, then nervously enter. After some small talk, he’d get to the point.

  “Uh, Ed, you know those, uh, dolls Manson makes? Do you think…”

  “No way,” I’d assure him. “He’s got power, but not that kind of power.”

  “Are you sure? One of those dolls looks a lot like me.”

  “That’s what everybody says,” I’d laugh. “It’s an illusion. You’re seeing things through your own fears. He’s playing with your head. That’s what he lives for. Just ignore it.”

  Even a few members of CMF’s tougher-minded custody staff were unnerved by Charlie’s dolls. The rumor spread that he was reproducing images of guards he didn’t like, casting evil spells, and puncturing them with needles taken from new shirt packages late at night. A couple of officers came to my office, asking if there was anything they could do about it. I brushed them off. “You guys have been watching too much television.”

  The day before I left for a much needed vacation, Charlie and I had a big pissing match. He resented the fact that I could have vacations and he couldn’t, and spared no effort telling me about it. The argument ended with his standard threats. I thought nothing of it, too busy thinking about my upcoming days languishing on the beautiful beaches of Hawaii. Near the end of the splendid trip, I was swimming off Waikiki when I was caught in a powerful undertow known as the “Molokai Express” after the train that used to travel into the heart of Hawaii’s famous leper colony. For me, the ominous analogy was an understatement. I fought for my life, swimming to the point of exhaustion to keep from being sucked all the way to Japan. Weakening, my only option was to cling to some coral until the rushing water eased. Thankfully, it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, enabling me to flop my way to the beach. When I tried to stand, I felt a sharp pain in my right leg. Somehow, I’d injured it during the struggle.

  A noticeable limp remained when I arrived back at CMF. The moment Manson saw me, he renewed his prevacation tirade. “You better shape up or I’ll take the other leg,” he bellowed.

  “What?”

  “I put a curse on you to scare you, but I didn’t use enough needles to kill you,” he explained, affecting his most sinister look. “A few more pins and you’d be dead.”

  “Well, if that’s true, you almost got me there,” I said, half serious. After that incident, I was far more sympathetic to the guards and doctors who knocked on my door worrying about Charlie’s dolls.

  Not surprisingly, Manson soon began getting his hands on banned contraband in order to make other things. The feeling was, if he busied himself building something else, he wouldn’t spend his time making dangerous voodoo dolls. In short order, he’d crafted a miniature electric fan about three inches tall, complete with a skillfully wound rotor. The materials, including numerous magnets and batteries, came from old radio parts.

  “Damn, that’s pretty impressive,” I complimented as the little blades spun. Charlie smiled, extremely pleased with himself. The possibility existed that if he could make such a fan, he could also construct a motorized weapon of some kind. Regardless, the guards ignored it, happy that it wasn’t another doll.

  The following month, Manson stood in his cell holding a tiny mandolin.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked.

  “I made it!”

  “No you didn’t.”

  “Yes I did.”

  Sure enough, he showed me how he’d ingeniously crafted the little instrument using some guidelines from a book. He strummed it, playing a sweet tune. As I stood admiring his workmanship, he cracked an evil smile, dropped it to the floor, and stomped it into little pieces with his fo
ot.

  “What the hell did you do that for?”

  “You figure it out,” he challenged.

  Call me stupid, but I just didn’t get it. Although typical of his impulsive, masochistic behavior, what was the point? Why work so hard on something so beautiful, only to destroy it for a few seconds of shock value? Then again, isn’t that exactly what Charles Manson always did? Whether it was a guitar, a radio, a television, an impressionable young girl, or an entire family of devoted disciples, Charlie always seemed to destroy what he cherished the most. Strange little dude.

  Charlie drew his next line in the sand over baby oil. Some of the night guards began secretly slipping him the solution to burn in a little lamp he made. The day crew felt he was using the illumination to stay up all night and make more voodoo dolls. Every morning, they’d confiscate whatever he had left. On the third morning, instead of letting the day guards take it, Charlie poured his entire supply over his head, anointing himself like a biblical king. He stood there, grinning devilishly, as the officer stumbled over what to do.

  “Fu-fuck you, Charlie,” the guard stuttered, leaving in a huff.

  That night brought a new supply. Realizing that the day officer was going to go berserk, Charlie prepared for his arrival by soaking a sheet and using it to tie his cell door shut. When the officer stormed to his cell, Charlie lit a match and set the oily cloth ablaze. The show earned him another stint in isolation, but from Charlie’s perspective, it was well worth it. He’d beaten the system again.

  The longer Charlie stayed at CMF, the more his cell began to take on the appearance of his home at San Quentin. Bit by bit, the smoke-scarred walls swelled with pictures of natural landscapes and animals, mostly from National Geographic. This particular montage was heavy into predatory animals like wolves, eagles, and bears. As I admired his decorative work one afternoon, he put it into perspective as only he could. “I’d rather kill a man than a snake!”