Manson never knew his father and never had a real father figure. His mother was the type that children are taken away from. Kathleen had a habit of disappearing for days or weeks at a time, leaving Manson with his grandmother or his aunt. When Kathleen and her brother were both sentenced to prison for an armed robbery, Manson got sent off to live with his aunt and uncle in McMechen, West Virginia. His aunt was very religious and strict in contrast to his mother’s leniency. When Kathleen was released from jail, she was not responsible enough to take care of Manson, preferring her life of hard drinking to any kind of normal lifestyle. There was no stability in Manson life: he was always being thrown on someone new, moving from one dingy foster home to another. There were only short-lived friendships that he made on the streets. When he was nine, he was caught stealing and sent to reform school and then later when he was twelve, he was caught stealing again and sent to the Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1947. He ran away less than a year later and tried to return to his mother who didn’t want him. Living entirely by stealing and burglary, he lived on his own until he was caught. The court arranged for him to go to Father Flanagan’s Boys Town (he didn’t last long) A few days after his arrival, thirteen-year-old Manson and another kid committed two armed robberies. A few more episodes like that landed him in the Indiana School for Boys for three years. In 1951, Charlie and two other boys escaped and headed for California living entirely by burglary and auto theft. They got as far as Utah when they were caught. For a short time, things started to look up for Manson. His aunt had agreed to take care of him and his chances for parole were good. Shortly before the parole hearing, He held a razor blade against another boy’s throat while he sodomized him. Manson was transferred to the Federal Reformatory at Petersburg, Virginia, where he was characterized as definitely homosexual, dangerous and safe only under supervision. At first he lived with his aunt and uncle, then his mother for a short period of time. Early in 1955, he married a waitress who bore him a son, Charles Manson, Jr. Manson worked at various low-paying jobs and augmented his income by stealing cars. One of them he took to Los Angeles with his then pregnant wife. Inevitably, he was caught again eventually found his way to the prison at Terminal Island in San Pedro, California. On March 21, 1967, Manson 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 but, prison officials ignored his protest and unleashed him into the world again.
