◆ SpookStack

time.hieIQ was pegged.at. 114, and he was considered to have’a "superior intelli- gence." He also had developed cunning. So he always “made out” on the outside during brief periods of freedom—until caught. After parole from Chilli- cothe, he went back to West Virginia to live with relatives, and flitted from one menial job to another —waiter, service station helper and parking lot attendant. He married a McMechen girl, Rosalie Jean Willis, a waitress in a hospital din- ing room whom he had known six months, in Jan- uary, 1955, and fathered a child by her. But by the time the baby, Charles Jr., was born, Manson was back behind bars. For in McMechen, he became an accomplished auto thief, a trade he plied at times throughout the ensuing years. He trans- ported stolen cars from one part of the country to another. At the end of one such transcontinental trip he found himself in Los Angeles—and under ar- rest. He was sentenced to San Pedro's Terminal Island Prison. That was November, 1955. From then on he would be in and out of some of the nation's best known penitentiaries on charges ranging from transporting females across state lines for pros- tition. a escape_ta_.na- role violation. => Visited by Wife In 1956, while he was at Terminal Island, his wife visited him and remained in Los Angeles to be near him. But in early 1957, the visits and correspondence ceased. Then, he tried to escape. Before he was released from prison in 1958, di- vorce papers were served on him, Rosalie remarried and bore three other child- ren. Free of prison, according to a man who knew him then, "the mixed up ideas of morals and morality" he had begun to exhibit— asserted themselves—per- haps a harbinger of con- cepts that would come to savage flower a decade later. He took up with one young woman, then anoth- er, and excused himself by saying he had been "in (prison) for a long time." Acquaintances said he took to pimping. The father of a Michigan girl, who came here to study to be an_ airline stewardess, accused Man- son of being "a sex mani- The girl, 19, nearly died fn a hospital operating room, the father claimed, as the result of sexual indiscretions involving Manson. Another young woman, | also 19, a friend of the Michigan girl, claimed Manson had drugged her on leaving the hospital after visiting her friends, then had taken her to bed. Manson had gained both girls' confidence, the fath- er of the Michigan girl claimed, by posing as a producer when, in fact, he was a bartender and wood lounge. He also da, bled in door-to-door free- zer sales and ballroom dance instruction. In the early 1960s, Man- son was back in prison again, the result of cash- ing two stolen U.S. Trea- sury checks at a super- market here, both written for small amounts. At McNeil Island Prison in Washington, Manson— who had obtained the equivalent of only a sev- enth grade education in his reformatory days—be- gan to experiment with the occult, exploring off- beat religions. He developed an interest | in Scientology, a mystical pseudo-scientific philosop- | hy. He also found he had a natural bent for musician- ship. He took prison cour- ses in music, learned to play the guitar, discovered he had a pleasant voice | and even began to write | songs. Mysticism and music became his dominant in- terests, and he would use them to influence others when he was free once | more. That was in late March, 1967, when he was condi- tionally paroled from Ter- minal Island, where he | last served time. When he came out of ' prison, said an acquain- tance, "a whole new world opened up to him"—that of the hippie. He headed for the Bay Area, at that time still the ‘ hippie's promised land. e took up with a young woman from Wisconsin, and lived for a time in Berkeley. He described himself variously as "a “e man at a Holfy----= walking te a " He and the youn moved into Pnniete hippie pad in Haight-Ash- bury, and he began to collect followers—mostly: other young women, The Wisconsin girl de- scribed their aerie as “a luxurious hobo castle" with “Arabian tapestries: on the walls" and "goat- skin rugs" on the Foor: The yard, she said, was "full of dancing trees and smiling clover." There, in "our elevated and elegant flophouse," she said, occupants whiled away hours "playing our plays, singing and beating our drums." She and the others mar- veled at Manson's musici- anship, the “spontaneity” of it. How they paid their rent or obtained their food only they could have told. But Manson boasted that he was not interested in mo- ney because he had "3,000 friends who will help me." One gave him a piano, which he traded for a camper which he in / turned used to obtain a ' converted school bus, In this, he and.the clan of young women who had become subservient to him headed south in May, 1968. He planned to seek fame as a musician and song- writer here. The young Wisconsin woman gave birth to a baby during the 10-day trip to Los Angeles. It was presumed to be Manson's child. L In Oxnard, the nomads . camped and ran afoul of the law when some of the yo women were flis- ‘sleeping it~ ts