Manson in His Own Words Read online

  The judge was a sympathetic guy who really didn’t want to send me to a reform school. He arranged for Father Flanagan’s Boys Town to accept me. I didn’t stick around long enough for the results they got with Mickey Rooney in the film Boys Town. No fault of the school’s; I just wasn’t into the discipline, and running away had become as much a part of my nature as stealing. Four days after being checked in at Boys Town, me and another guy split. We stole a car, wrecked it, pulled a couple of armed robberies and finally made it back to Indianapolis. At Indianapolis, we went to my new partner’s uncle’s house. The uncle was a World War II vet who was living on disability. He was also a thief, and his nephew and I fit right into his program. He was as glad we showed up as we were to have a place to stay. In no time at all he had lined up places for us to burglarize. It was kind of a one-way street, since my partner and I did all the dirty work but the uncle took the big end of the money.

  We got caught going through the skylight of the third place he had cased for us. When the cops arrested us they took me to the Indianapolis City Juvenile Home. I spent a day and part of a night there. As fate would have it, the same day I was put in juvie hall, a maintenance man was doing some work around the place. He turned his back on his toolbox and I stole a pair of wire cutters. That night, after we were counted and the lights were out, I got busy with the wire cutters. In about twenty minutes’ time, some thirty to thirty-five juvenile delinquents were loose on the streets of Indianapolis.

  Some of the guys may have stayed on the loose for a lengthy period of time, but for me it was wasted effort. I was picked up less than two hours later driving a stolen car—I hardly knew how to shift it and could barely see over the dashboard. I was back in custody by the time the morning paper hit the newsstands with a front page spread, complete with photo, that wrote me up as the “ringleader.” Instead of keeping me in juvenile hall, they booked me in the county jail. The youngest offender ever, they told me.

  That was in 1948; I was thirteen years old and almost a year had passed since the day I entered the Gibault School for Boys, the beginning of my life in institutions. I had been a frightened little boy when I went there, and I had resented it with an indescribable passion, but I have to admit the administration at Gibault had the boys’ interest and future as their top priority. That is more than I can say for the place I spent the next three years of my life.

  The escapes from Gibault and Boys Town and my escapades on the run left the judge very little to do but sentence me to a bona fide reform school: the Indiana School for Boys at Plainfield, Indiana. And let me say, Plainfield was a real beauty! It has to have changed since I was there; too many human rights groups and concerned citizens have appeared for a place like that to continue to operate in the manner it did then. I know the school is still in operation, but I hope all the warped, sadistic bastards I met there are now dead.

  While most who get sentenced to those places do need to be separated from the honest element of society, Plainfield has turned out more hard-core criminals than honest citizens. That’s because of the type of person who seeks employment in prisons. For every person whose heart is in the right place, for every person who is dedicated to constructive rehabilitation, there are ten status-seekers out to prove something to themselves. Some are frustrated policemen who, couldn’t qualify for the police force. Others are without the ambition or skills to maintain a job in a competitive trade. Believe it or not, a great many of them are there to obtain an outlet for their own perversion. Confinement and punishment are necessary in the present society, but having sadistic, perverted assholes working in an institution that is supposed to rehabilitate is the biggest bunch of bullshit going. You can’t expect to straighten out an offender’s life when the people in charge of him have worse hang-ups than he does.

  At Plainfield I was in trouble from the very beginning. The probation officer who took me there left me standing in the hallway while he went to the administrator’s office to sign me in. I had already noticed there were no fences, so while waiting I checked the front door. It wasn’t locked—I was gone! My escape attempt lasted about fifteen minutes; I didn’t even get off the grounds. Thirty minutes after arriving at Plainfield I had been registered, assigned to a housing unit and a work detail and charged with an escape attempt. Cottage eleven was my home and the dairy was my work assignment.

  That evening, like every evening and morning, the whole institution assembled for “count,” as in the military. When the count was completed and cleared, a supervisor, A.B. Clark was his name, shouted out that cottage eleven was to report to the plumbing shop. As we marched, I was thinking the whole detail was going to do some extra work. We got there, halted, and stood like soldiers on parade. Clark called out, “Charles Manson and his four best friends step forward.” Hell, I didn’t know what was happening but I stepped forward as commanded. Naturally “four best friends” didn’t step forward. I didn’t have any! I’d only been there for three hours. When no one else moved, old Clark had four detail boys from the cottage step out, then motioned us inside the plumbing shop. Tension was beginning to mount and I started to realize that I was in for something other than just extra work. Once inside, Clark grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me toward the center of the room, saying, “Okay, Manson, drop your strides!” I asked what for. “Just get those fucking pants down, you little bastard,” shouted Clark. The shop had regular work benches around the walls, but in the middle of the room was a bench that was espefcially designed for what was to come next. It was about waist-high on the average man. Bare ass, I was told to lay across the bench. I hesitated and Clark planted a boot in my ass and told the detail boys to anchor me down. Each of the detail boys grabbed an arm or leg and spread me out ass up on the bench. I was in proper position for one of two things, a fucking or a beating. When Clark picked up a leather strap, I remember feeling relieved; at least I wasn’t going to get fucked in my ass.

  Clark wasn’t too tall, about five-foot-seven, but he was built like a fireplug and strong as a bull. The strap was made of leather, about three feet long, a quarter of an inch thick, and four inches wide, with holes drilled in the leather and a strong wooden handle. He hit the bench next to my head a couple of times to loosen himself up. I about pissed just out of fear. “Stretch him out,” Clark said, and they all tightened their grip. (I found out later that if any of them let go during the lashing, they would get the same beating I was about to take.) Clark knew how to use that strap. I wanted to shout the first time he laid it across my ass, but gritted my teeth and waited for the next blow. After three more swats, the detail boy holding my right arm whispered, “Groan or cry, don’t try to be tough with this motherfucker—he don’t come until you cry.” Clark hit me twice more on that side and, whether I wanted to or not, I screamed and the tears burst loose. He backed off and I was relieved because I thought he was through. No luck, he was just changing sides. I got an equal number on the other cheek. When Clark was finished and the boys let go of my arms and legs, I didn’t have strength enough to lift myself off the bench. I just slid to the floor and lay there like a quivering puppy. When I was able to stand I noticed that none of the detail boys would look at me. But Clark had a grin on his face, and with the strap still in his hand, said, “Manson, we’ve been told you are a rotten little bastard, and I’m here to tell you, your ass is going to be full of scars before you leave here.” It was. In fact, it still is.

  I pulled my pants on. Blood was surfacing from where the strap had broken the skin and I was sobbing for breath, trying to get enough air in my lungs to control my body and erase the fear and pain. Back outside, I got in line and as a unit we marched back to the cottage. The others went to the mess hall. I was too sick to think about eating and wanted to see a doctor. But after a “fanning,” as they called it, you weren’t allowed any medical attention until the next day. Welcome to the Indiana School for Boys!

  The next morning I went to the infirmary. They put some salve on the open welts and
sent me to the dairy to work. A Mr. Fields was in charge of the boys on that detail. Fields had been told about the ass-whipping, so, nice guy that he was, he assigned me a wheelbarrow and a shovel. My job was to load all the manure in the wheelbarrow, push it up a steel ramp and dump it in a bin. With the strain of shoveling and the exertion needed to push the loaded wheelbarrow up the ramp, the cuts on my ass started seeping pus and bleeding. Fields was so sympathetic that he cracked me across the ass with a stick he always carried, and encouraged some of the inmates to take shots at me as I struggled up the ramp.

  About a week later four of the bigger and older inmates cornered me in one of the feed bins. Right away I knew what they were up to. I made a dash for the door, but two of the guys grabbed me and the other two stripped my pants off. I fought like a wild man, struggling frantically. I screamed and hollered, but they gagged me so that my screams were muffled. Two of the guys held me while one tried to force his dick in my ass. The fourth guy was standing point at the door, watching for the man. I broke loose, but all four of them wrestled me to the floor and beat on me some more. Two of them had time to rape me before the guy at the door shouted, “The man is coming!” They tried to get away from the scene before Fields arrived, but they didn’t quite make it. I was crying and trying to get my pants back on. All Fields said was, “You know I don’t allow any wrestling. You guys get the hell out of here. And you, Manson, go wash your face and stop all your crying.”

  After that, Fields himself started playing games with me like I was some joint punk, available to anyone. On numerous occasions, depending on his mood, he would tell me, “Pull your pants down, Manson, I want to see if you’ve been getting fucked.” The first time I thought he was just kidding and I walked right on by him, but he grabbed me and yanked my pants down around my ankles and made me bend over while he looked at my ass. He always did this in the presence of several other inmates. To add insult, he would pick up a handful of raw silage from the dairy floor, spit tobacco juice on it and shove it up my ass. “I got him lubed,” he’d tell his pets, “so fuck him if you get a chance.” The tobacco juice and silage burned and I got an infection from it, but the humiliation was worse. Yeah, Fields was a real beauty, he really knew how to care for the wards of the state and earn his state paycheck. I worked in the dairy for five months and every day was some kind of unimaginable experience.

  I never was able to even things up with Fields, but I did take some of the desire out of the first guy who put his dick in my ass. That was about the only thing I ever got away with at Plainfield. One night after the lights were out and everyone was asleep, I took one of the iron handles used for cranking the windows open or closed off a window. The crank was about twelve inches long and weighed two or three pounds. It wasn’t as large or as heavy as I would have liked, but it did the job. I crept down to where Mr. Stiff Dick was sleeping, eased his blanket up over his head and clubbed him several times as hard as I could. I left him there unconscious, and on the way back to my bed I slipped the crank under the covers of one of the other guys who had been in on the rape. The beaten inmate might have died, but he was lucky; security came through the cottage for a late-night count a few minutes later. In routinely lifting the blanket to make sure there was someone under the covers, the security man saw the blood and realized the guy was unconscious. He was taken to the hospital and treated for a severe concussion. Shaking down the cottage for the weapon, the guards found it in the other guy’s bed. All of us were questioned. No one was charged with the assault, although the other rapist was the prime suspect.

  When his partner returned from the hospital, the two of them didn’t have much to do with each other. It was whispered that I had done the clubbing, and no matter how small I was, no one else at Plainfield tried to put his dick in my ass again.

  I ran away constantly, not because I was such a rebel but because it was always me who was punished when someone had to be punished to illustrate a point. I didn’t have anyone on the outside to tell my troubles to. No one was visiting me and I got very little mail. I was just there, and nobody gave a fuck. The fear of getting caught wasn’t any worse than the fear of what the next breath might bring, so my head was looking toward the road every minute.

  One of my escapes was planned so skillfully that I was sure I’d make it. About six guys were on early wake-up crew so that they could go out in the pastures, round up the milk cows, put them in the barn and feed them during milking time. Bed tags were used to identify them to the night attendant, who would wake them up around four-thirty. These inmates were trusted to work without supervision until Fields showed up at six o’clock. One night I stole a tag from a crew member’s bed and put it on my own. The night man woke me up and out I went with the others. One of the fellows on the crew was a friend and the two of us went to the far pasture to get the cows. I kept right on going and my friend herded the cows by himself to cover for me. I wasn’t missed until after Fields showed up. I had gotten off the institution grounds fast enough, but I wasted a lot of time sneaking around town trying to find a car that I could steal. Not finding one, I decided to hoof it and stay off the roads until I made it to the next town.

  Plainfield is a small town bordered by a river on one side. Thinking I might be seen if I used the bridge, I decided to swim the river. When I was about halfway across, I could see people on the bank. I turned around and started swimming the other way, only to see more people on the other bank. They were guards and inmates from the school (trusted inmates helped catch other inmate runaways). My heart sunk—I didn’t know what to do. It seemed senseless at that point, but I turned downstream and tried to out-swim all the people on the riverbank. Finally a couple of them dove in the river and dragged me ashore. Grinning with his tobacco-stained teeth, Mr. Fields was there to pull me up the bank.

  Back at the school, a guard gave me thirty lashes with the escape strap. The escape strap was longer and thinner than the strap used by Clark. It cut a lot more and brought blood instantly. That lashing put me in bed for several days, and it was a couple of weeks before I could walk without wanting to lie down and cry.

  That escape attempt got me out of the dairy cottage and away from Fields. But, fuck, I’d already been pegged as a guy to watch and the move was almost like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I was put in a cottage that was run by a Mr. Carr. Carr was an ex-marine, a big son-of-a-bitch whose favorite thing was to run a “jaw-line.” He had a couple different versions of his jaw-line. One was to make two lines out of all the inmates in the cottage. The lines were about four feet apart, good swinging distance. The sucker being punished ran between the lines, while the others swung at him with closed fists. If one of the blows knocked him off his feet, he had to get up and try to get through again. If Carr thought someone wasn’t putting enough force into his punches, that guy would have to run the line.

  Carr’s other “jaw-line” held more personal satisfaction for him. He’d place you about twenty or twenty-five feet from him, double up his fist, hold his arm at your jaw level, and then say “run.” You had to charge into that fist. If he felt you hadn’t charged at full speed, he would make you do it again and again until he was satisfied. If the blows were severe enough to require medical attention—broken nose, cut lip or damaged eye—he would give you a pass to the infirmary listing the cause of injury as “slipped in the shower” or “fell while horse-playing.” Carr was another guy like Fields. He’d turn his back while some of his snitching pets would try to fuck someone.

  I was at the Indiana School for Boys for over three years and the only good thing I can say about it is that it had an impressive front lawn. From town it looked like a small university. But while proud parents bragged of their child’s good behavior and scholastic accomplishments, I was busy watching my back and taking the shit those guards dished out. At an age when most kids are going to nice schools, living with their parents and learning all about the better things in life, I was cleaning silage and tobacco juice out of my
ass, recuperating from the wounds of a leather strap and learning to hate the world and everyone in it.

  When I was sixteen, I finally made a successful escape with two other inmates. The day we left, I had no more promise of going home through proper channels than I’d had three years earlier on the day I arrived. Release was obtained through merit or a court order. Mom never sought a court order, and my escape attempts and other infractions put me on the minus side of the merit system.

  When my escape partners and I got away from the institution, we stole a car and headed toward California. Along the way we stole other vehicles and abandoned them, as we needed. For gas and food money, we burglarized grocery stores and service stations. We made it as far as Utah where we were arrested for being in a stolen car. Since the car had been driven across state lines, we were turned over to the federal authorities and prosecuted under the Dyer Act. In March 1951 I was sentenced to the National Training School for Boys in Washington, DC. I’d had two weeks of freedom. I knew the new offenses meant a lot more time in jail but I didn’t care. I was out of the Indiana School for Boys.

  The difference between a federal reformatory and a state reformatory is about like the difference between night and day. On a federal level, there seems to be more concern about how you got there and what it will take to straighten out your life. At the state level—at least during my confinement—the idea was to punish the shit out of you and make you sorry you were ever born.

  Even the federal inmates are of a higher caliber, a “class” group instead of the derelicts found in state joints. But guys being guys, immature, trying to prove their manhood, they still create problems for themselves. In retrospect, I have to say I have always been guiltier than most in trying to prove myself. I wanted to be one of the “in crowd” at any cost. The “in crowd” in a youth-filled institution is mostly based on physical strength—the tough guy has all the respect in the joint.