Charles Manson died on Nov. 19 at the age of 83 of natural causes, and the stories have kept on rolling for the past week. “Charles Manson Bragged In Prison, ‘All Women Want Me,’” says a Newsweek headline. In the latest scoop, picked up by various sources, it is revealed that a pen pal of Manson’s, Michael Channels, has filed a probate case in Kern County, California to claim the remains of the infamous cult leader. According to TMZ, Channels is in possession of a 2002 will which leaves him Manson’s entire estate. Manson’s blood relatives, whom he specifically disowned in his will, have 120 days to contest the will. To further complicate matters, the New York Daily News reports that Ben Gurecki, another friend of Manson’s, is in possession of a January 2017 will which leaves most of Manson’s belongings to Matthew Roberts, 49, the alleged biological son of Manson. Roberts, who was adopted and raised in Rockford, Illinois, discovered the very real possibility that Manson is his biological father after finding his biological mother, who was briefly a member of “the Family,” Manson’s odious cult. Roberts’s mother claims that Manson fathered Roberts during an orgy in 1967 during which she was raped by Manson. Roberts was born on March 22, 1968.
Manson was convicted in 1971 for his involvement in the series of brutal murders committed by members of “the Family” in 1969. As described by chief prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi at the time, Manson developed a social theory he called “Helter Skelter”—after the Beatles song of the same name—in which he said that racial tensions in the United States were reaching an apex. Manson believed that a race war was inevitable, that African-Americans would win, and would then be ruled by the Manson Family, who would be the only surviving whites. The prosecutors of the Manson family murders claimed that this “Helter Skelter” theory was the motivation behind the killings, saying that Manson desired to incite a race war in the United States by having members of “the Family” stage the crime scenes to appear as if the killings were perpetrated by African-Americans. Whether or not “Helter Skelter” was the reason for the killings, however, has never been certain.
As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the first killings were the murders of actress Sharon Tate (the wife of film director Roman Polanski; at the time, Tate was pregnant), Polanski’s friend Wojciech Frykowski, Frykowski’s girlfriend- coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Sharon Tate’s ex-fiancé Jay Sebring and 18-year-old Steven Parent, who was found shot to death in his car. Parent had driven to the estate to visit 19-year-old William Garretson, the caretaker of the estate and the only individual left alive on the property after the murders as he was staying in the guest house and heard nothing suspicious. Everyone thought that the victims had been targeted because they were celebrities. Many celebrities temporarily left the Los Angeles area or remained on high alert. The next victims were Leno and Rosemary La Bianca, wealthy supermarket chain owners.
Similarities between the two homicide cases were noted immediately by both law enforcement and the press, including similarities that had not yet been released to the public. However, police quickly developed the theory that the La Bianca murders were the work of a “copycat killer,” and the cases were investigated separately.
Fascination with the Manson Family murders has held strong for the 45 years which have passed since they were committed; the court proceedings are often labelled as the “Trial of the Century.”