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Hello and welcome back to Cult Leader. I'm your Cult Leader, Spencer Henry, and I am back with one of the most exciting stories today.

I honestly don't even know where to begin. I know it's been some time since we've covered a cult, but also keep in mind that Cult Leader isn't just about cult. Somebody asked me in a Q&A the other day.

Did you run out of cults to cover? Definitely not. There's so many I haven't touched on, but Cult Leader is about all of the creepy, not just cults.

To be honest, my biggest fear would be if I had to talk about just one thing every week, because I would be so bored, and then you cult babes would be bored.

Everybody would be bored. People would die. The world would end. We just can't do it. Not every week.

But this case, the Manson family is what prompted my fascination with True Crime in the first place. I vividly remember reading a book on Hollywood stars when I was little.

I remember it talked about Sharon Tay. It talked about what happened. Something just clicked in my little Spencer head where I was like, what?

I need to know more because it was different, right? Like the killers didn't look like killers. And I guess that was perhaps like the beginning of my realization that there is no defined measurement of what a murderer looks like.

It could be your neighbor. It could be the party clown. It could be the 14 year old girl next door. Like there is no definitive shared physicalities, but one thing's for sure.

If there ever was a monster, it was cult leader Charles Manson. He had the quintessential sad childhood. His mom was a teen mom. She was also a party mom. He was born in Ohio in Cincinnati on November 12, 1934.

And like I said, his mom was 16. There was no father figure around because his alleged father, Colonel Walker Henderson Scott senior was nowhere in sight because he'd been called away on army business.

At least that's what he told Kathleen, but he wasn't actually a Colonel in the army at all. His name was Colonel. That's true. But that was like his birth name.

So he when he found out Kathleen was pregnant, he's like, oh, I got to go do some army stuff. And she's like, all right, but he never came back. So a few months before she gives birth to Charles, Kathleen married William Eugene Manson, which is where Charles acquired the last name Manson.

But for the first few weeks of his life, Charles didn't even have a name. She just called him no name Maddox, which is identity crisis from the get go. His mom sucked. She was like a party mom. She's super irresponsible. She was always out with her brother drinking. And I even read on one article on CNN that at one point she sold Charles to a woman for a picture of beer.

And her brother had to go track the woman down later to get Charles back. And like, I don't know if that's actually been confirmed, but based on everything that I've read, slash seen about Kathleen, it really wouldn't surprise me.

So around five years old on August 1st, 1939, his mom, Kathleen was out with her brother's girlfriend, Julie. And they meet this dude at a bar. He looks like he's of wealth. He looks like a baller.

So they call Kathleen's brother Charles his uncle. And he comes and helps them rob this guy. And they end up getting caught pretty soon after. And so Kathleen's brother goes to jail. Kathleen receives five years in jail for her part.

So I mean, Charles had to go somewhere. He's put into the care of his aunt and uncle in good old West Virginia. And after his mom gets out a few years later in 1942, she comes back for him. And he is just like beyond thrilled.

He later refers back to that time as being like the happiest time in his life. So it's sad. They're living, living a sad life. They move to Charleston, West Virginia.

Mom was still drinking a lot. Charles was constantly getting in trouble, ditching school. He would get in trouble for true and see all the time, which is basically when you just don't show up. And his mom started going to AA meetings like good.

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