the timboucher experience

Manson’s life story is wild. Apparently his birth name was “No name Maddox” and his mother later named him after one of her lovers. I’d only ever read about the circumstances surrounding the Tate-LaBianca murders previously. Check out this article for an overview of his life. It’s not especially detailed, but it gives you an idea of how much time Manson spent in prison. Haven’t added up the years, but it seems like way way more of it was imprisoned than on the outside. Crime TV also has an overview of his life. Rotten.com also has a timeline of his life.

There are two particular incidents in his life that strike me as very strange. Not trying to imply any particular conclusions about them, but they strike me as suspicious. On happened around 1954, when Manson was 19. After almost ten years of on-and-off institutionalization, Manson suddenly had a magical change of heart. Court TV writes:

In September of 1952, he was sent to a more secure institution in Chillicothe, Ohio. His keepers there saw him as “criminally sophisticated despite his age and grossly unsuited for retention in an open reformatory type institution.” For some reason, Manson suddenly changed his attitude. He was more cooperative and genuinely improved educationally so that he was able to read and understand basic math. This improvement lead to his parole in May of 1954 at the age of nineteen.

The other website says:

In February 1951, Manson and two other inmates escaped from the Plainfield “school,” fleeing westward in a series of stolen cars. Arrested in Beaver, Utah, Manson was sentenced to federal time for driving hot cars across state lines. Starting off in a minimum-security establishment, Manson assaulted another inmate in January 1952, holding a razor blade to the boy’s throat and sodomizing him. Reclassified as “dangerous,” Manson was transferred to a tougher lock-up, logging eight major disciplinary infractions - including three homosexual assaults - by August 1952. He was moved to the Chilicothe, Ohio reformatory a month later, and suddenly turned over a new leaf, becoming a “model” prisoner almost overnight. The cunning act was rewarded by parole in May 1954.

Obviously it’s impossible for me to know why he had a sudden change of heart, but it’s rather interesting. Especially when you look at the rest of his illustrious career of near constant fraud, forgery, drug-dealing, homosexual assault, pimping, rape, grand theft auto, murder, etc. The other incident that I find rather questionable is Manson’s 1967 release from prison on parole, against his own objections:

On March 21, 1967, Charlie was released from prison and given transportation to San Francisco. He was 32 years old and more than half of his life had been spent in institutions. He protested his freedom. “Oh, no, I can’t go outside there…I knew that I couldn’t adjust to that world, not after all my life had been spent locked up and where my mind was free. I was content to stay in the penitentiary, just to take my walks around the yard in the sunshine and to play my guitar…” The prison officials ignored his protest and unleashed him on the world again.

This one’s weird because later in his prison career, he became notorious for not even showing up at his parole hearings at all. Presumably, he didn’t want to leave prison then either. Notably, in 1979 he skipped out on it and sent the parole board a “get out of jail free” card from his Monopoly set.

Anyway, it’s weird, but that doesn’t prove anything. I’m just looking for historical anomaly’s though, to perhaps see if there’s any way all these Manson conspiracy theories could actually work.

This is also an interesting quote from Charles “Tex” Watson who was an associate of Manson’s:

“People seem to think that Manson had all of us drugged out, while he remained sober so he could easily manipulate our minds. This may be true, but a sorcerer such as Manson uses mind-altering drugs himself in order to contact spiritual beings, and gain supernatural powers.”

More on all this as I find it.

UPDATE!

This is an interesting and possibly related bit explaining what happened after Manson’s 1967 release from prison.

Charles Manson, before he committed mass murder, was himself an NIMH [National Institute of Mental Health] “research subject.” Manson was released from a California prison in March 1967. He was required by law to report regularly to a parole officer named Roger Smith, who was based at the Haight-Ashbury Medical Clinic in San Francisco. This was an NIMH project designed to observe and in effect supervise the first large-scale drug addiction of white teenagers, thousands of whom were the clinic’s clients. Clinic director David E. Smith was also the publisher of the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, and a leading national advocate for the legalized use of narcotics. Within the clinic arrangement, Charles Manson’s parole officer was officially commissioned to scientifically investigate the effects that various kinds drugs had on addicts served by the NIMH clinic. David Smith also collaborated with another NIMH project: a behavioral study of children in communes. He was an expert on the breeding of violent anti-social characters in the mind-crushing environment of the hippie or cult commune.

Not sure how solid of a source that is, but it’s certainly an interesting connection and trail for further research.

• Manson’s Helter Skelter Apocalypse
• Eckankar on Charles Street
• I need a place to live!!
• Those crazy carp!
• Technocracy & Science Fiction