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Born in Cincinnati, Ohio
Born Charles Milles Maddox to Kathleen Maddox -
Commits his first known crime-burglary of a grocery store
Caught and sent to juvenile detention center; escapes and commits two armed robberies, apprehended again and sent to the Indiana School for Boys in Plainfield where he spends three years with eighteen escapes -
Escapes from the School for Boys
burglarizes 15-20 gas stations; gets caught in Utah -
Arrested for auto theft
Sentenced to five year probation -
Violates his probation
Sentenced to three years imprisonment at San Pedro, CA -
Arrested for forging a treasury check
Given a ten-year suspended sentence -
Indicated on federal Mann act charges
Arrested in Laredo, brought back to CA where is ordered to prison to serve ten-year sentence that had been suspended in 1959 -
The Beatles
Manson becomes obsessed with the Beatles; learns to play steel guitar -
Completes ten-year sentence
Released, heads for San Fransisco -
"The Family"
Manson and a number of his followers move into Spahn ranch in southern CA -
The Tate Residence
Manson visits 10050 Cielo Drive, looking for Terry Melcher, hoping he would publish his music; Tate's photographer tells Manson to leave by " the back alley." possibly a motive for the later attack at the Tate home -
"Political Piggy"
A music teacher, Gary Hinman, is stabbed to death; on the wall near Hinman's body, in his blood, was written "political piggy" -
"Now is the time for Helter Skelter."
Manson tells Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, Tex Watson, and Linda Kasabian to get knives and a change of clothes; he tells them "to leave a sign --something witchy." Watson then drives to the Tate residence -
Attack at the Tate Residence
102 stab wounds are inflicted on four victims; a fifth victim is shot. Left dead are actress Sharon Tate (who was eight and a half months pregnant) , Jay Sebring, Voytek Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Steven Parent; Tate's blood was used to write the word "PIG" on the home's front door -
"Death to Pigs" and "Helter Skelter"
Family members stab to death Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. "Death to Pigs" and "Healter Skelter" were found printed on a wall and a refrigerator door -
Murder Weapon Found
Under a bush near his home, a ten-year-old boy finds the gun used in the Tate murders; the boy's father turns the gun over to the LAPD -
Grand Theft Auto
Manson is arrested at Barker Ranch in Death Valley and charged with grand theft auto; put in jail in Independence -
Death List
While in jail in Los Angeles on other charges, Susan Atkins tells a fellow inmate, Virginia Castro Graham, that she participated in the Tate murders. She tells Castro of a "death list" of celebrities targeted by the Family, including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Tom Jones, Steve McQueen, and Frank Sinatra. Through an inmate friend of Graham's, Ronnie Howard, word of Atkins's story soon reached the LAPD -
Al Springer
Al Springer, a visitor to the Spahn ranch, tells LAPD detectives that on August 11 or 12 Charles Manson had bragged about "knocking off five pigs" the other night -
Danny DeCarlo
DeCarlo told police he heard a Manson Family member brag, "We got five piggies," and that Manson had asked him what to use "to decompose a body" -
The Tate-LaBianca Case
Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi is assigned the Tate-LaBianca case -
The Tate-Labianca Murder Trial
The Tate-LaBianca murder trial, with defendants Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten, opens in Los Angeles -
Linda Kasabian
Linda Kasabian, a Manson Family member who accompanied the killers to both the Tate and LaBianca residences, was granted immunity from prosecution in return for aggreeing to appear as the prosecution's star witness at the trial -
Charles Manson Testifies
Mason announced that he wished to testify, which lasted over an hour. He testified first without the jury being present. As he walked by the counsel table, he told his three co-defendants, "You don't have to testify now" -
The Jury's Verdict
The jury found all defendants guilty on each count of first-degree murder -
The Death Sentence
After hearing additional evidence in the penalty phase of the trial, the jury completed its work by sentencing the four defendants to death -
Trial Aftermath
The death sentences imposed by the Tate-LaBianca jury would never happen, because of a California Supreme Court ruling declaring the state's death penalty law unconstitutional. The four convicted defendants were sentenced to life in prison. Only three of the four currently remain in prison in CA; Susan Atkins died in prison of terminal brain cancer in September 2009
