Charles Milles Manson is an antagonist in the Netflix original series Mindhunter. Like his real-life counterpart he is the leader of the cult known as the "Manson Family" responsible for a series of murders in California in the 1960s.
He was portrayed by Damon Herriman, who also played another version of Manson in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Kabal in the 2021 film Mortal Kombat, Dale Kemp in Stingers, Tom Kitten in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, and Scary Skell in Breaking Bad.
Biography[]
Manson was born into a life of poverty. His mother was a neglectful alcoholic prostitute, and his uncle was a religious fanatic who repeatedly beat him within an inch of his life and taunted him for being too weak to defend himself. Manson began committing crimes, both as a reaction to the abuse and to try and support himself, and was soon imprisoned for pimping and armed robbery, spending over twenty years behind bars where he suffered further abuse at the hands of other inmates. Unable to defend himself against much stronger inmates, he began looking for ways to manipulate others into doing his bidding in order to survive, soon becoming very skilled at it.
Manson was eventually released in 1967, having spent more than half his life up to that point in prison. He soon used the skills he had learned in prison to amass a small following who would become known as "the Family" who he preached to about visions he had whilst on drugs. His followers would later claim that Manson had brainwashed them through a combination of drugs and the power of persuasion. He also tried to make a living as a singer-songwriter and succeeded in having the Beach Boys record one of his songs under the title "Never Learn Not To Love", though he wasn't credited.
In 1968 Manson started preaching to his followers about Helter Skelter: an apocalyptic race war in which all white people outside of the Family would be exterminated and the Family would rise to take over the world. The following year, family members Mary Brunner and Bobby Beausoleil were arrested for a gruesome murder where he had used the victim's blood to draw Black Power symbols and messages on the wall in an attempt to frame the Black Panther Party. Manson began planning for his followers to commit similar crimes, either to exonerate Beausoleil or in an attempt to inflame racial tensions and kick-start Helter Skelter. Two days after Beausoleil was arrested, Manson sent a group of four led by Tex Watson to a house on Cielo Drive with orders to kill everyone inside and make it as gruesome as possible. They brutally murdered five people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, but did not go on to attack other houses as Manson had wanted. Displeased, Manson sent them to kill two more people, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, the following night, and helped them to break in and tie the victims up before they were killed. In both cases graffiti referencing Black Power was written at the scene.
Manson was eventually apprehended thanks to the confession of a Family member. His followers turned on him at trial, accusing him of brainwashing them to commit the murders, but Manson claimed they had committed the murders themselves to try and exonerate Bobby Beausoleil. All of them were eventually convicted and Manson was sentenced to life without parole. He continued to officially maintain his innocence, but behind bars he constantly bragged about the Tate-LaBianca murders and massively exaggerated his participation to get clout with the other inmates.
Mindhunter[]
Special Agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench of the Behavioural Science Unit get permission to interview Manson in prison in order to try and gain insight into how he convinced a group of teenagers to become sadistic killers. Manson denies that he ordered his followers to do anything or preaching a race war, claiming his followers and the District Attorney made up Helter Skelter between them. He also claims the murders were Tex Watson's idea to get Bobby Beausoleil out of prison, although he admits that he knew Tex was planning to kill people and that he was present during the LaBianca murders, supposedly because he needed his followers to know that he, not Tex, was in charge. He argues that society is to blame for the crimes, as they rejected his "children" and left them in a position where they felt they had no choice but to kill.
Bill is angered by Manson's insane ramblings and gets into a shouting match with him, accusing him of being a coward who made other people kill for them and was too afraid to take responsibility afterwards. Manson laughs in his face and accuses him of projecting his self-hatred onto him. He also argues that he is a reflection of the system, having been imprisoned since he was eight, and claims that the system created him and is truly responsible for his actions. He declares that everyone in the world is in a prison of their own minds dictated by society and he is the only one who is truly free. Before ending the interview, he autographs Holden's copy of a book about the murders and asks to borrow his sunglasses; once Holden is gone, he shows his fellow prisoners the sunglasses and spins a tall tale about stealing them from Holden to try and enhance his reputation. He is soon overheard by the guards and the sunglasses are confiscated while Manson is thrown into solitary confinement.