Charles Manson took a torch to the swinging Sixties and set the decade ablaze in a frenzy of bloodshed.
But like fellow serial killers John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy and scores of others, the Manson Myth has not died.
Now, audio of one of Manson’s prison phone calls has emerged and the flower power cult king claims there were many more murders than the ones that were previously known.
“There’s a whole part of my life that nobody knows about,” Manson said in the phone call, revealed in a short teaser clip for Peacock’s upcoming docuseries Making Manson.
“I lived in Mexico for a while. I went to Acapulco, stole some cars,” Manson is heard saying. “I just got involved in stuff over my head, man. Got involved in a couple of killings. I left my .357 Magnum in Mexico City, and I left some dead people on the beach.”
Manson had been sentenced to die for his role in his so-called Family’s southern California rampage in the late 1960s that left a slew of people dead, including actress Sharon Tate.
He died in prison in November 2017. Manson was 83.
The scrawny killer with the swastika carved into his forehead was a notorious fabulist and one forensic psychologist told Fox News that his claims should be taken with a grain of salt.
“It’s not surprising at all,” forensic psychologist Kris Mohandie told Fox News. “He was a psychopath, and you know, really involved in a multitude of different criminal behaviours and violence and getting his followers to do violence. It would not surprise me at all, given his history and what we know about what a psychopath he was.
“He’s very comfortable with manipulating people, hurting people, dominating people and taking advantage of people . . . it would not surprise me if there are other murders that he is responsible for, historically.”
According to Fox News, the documentary being released Tuesday covers more than two decades of unreleased Manson conversations. Much of the material covers the years before forming the Manson Family.
“Charlie was very good at being evil and not showing it,” former cellmate Phil Kaufman says in the series. “Anything that detracted him from his game plan at that time, he would squash it, but he did it with velvet gloves.”
Using a twisted charisma and hallucinogenic drugs, Manson recruited a clan of mostly troubled young women. By the time their rampage concluded in the summer of 1969, seven people were dead.
While Manson did not directly commit the slayings, he manipulated his followers to kill, stoking their bloodlust.
Mohandie added: “Most people that have been found responsible for multiple murders, like serial killers and such, [everyone says], ‘This person killed so many people,’ but you really only know what they’ve been caught for.
“A person like him [Manson] also lies and he’s extraordinarily manipulative. The truth of what that really was will never be known. A psychopath like him lies if there’s something that can be gained for it, for things as simple as attention or to shock people – that becomes a complicating variable in ever getting to the truth of it. We’ll never know what it was – people like him, and especially him, lie, deceive and manipulate for all kinds of motivations.”
@HunterTOSun