Charles Manson was born in 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His birth was unplanned and that of a single,16 year old prostitute and alcoholic. His young mother placed him in a boarding school, but would not allow him to return home when he ran away and no longer wanted to be involved in caring for him. He turned to the streets for answers, taking up a life of small crimes to get paid and try and get by. This led him to live a constant life in and out of prison. This was like a dream to him, since his mother had abandoned him and he was aware that she was too often incarcerated. When not in prison, he spent time with his uncle from the mountains, which is where he gained a lot of his unique points of view. In fact, some of his uncle's rants are what inspired him to light his school on fire at the age of 9. By the age of thirteen he had already committed higher levels of crime like stealing cars and armed robbery. By the age of 20 he had decided to marry and have a baby with a 17 year old girl who came from a very different background than him. Although he managed to hold small odd jobs to take care of them, he continued to steal cars on the side and was in prison for his 21st birthday in Los Angeles, California. He continued to spend time in jail for miscellaneous crimes that held severe punishments, from mail theft, to forging treasury checks for minimal amounts, other forgery, to running prostitutes. .
By 32, he had spent more than half of his life in prison, and had no real home or family. He even asked not to be released once his sentence was served in the late 1960's. Prison was all he knew, and the world was constantly changing while he was away, but he made his place in it once released. During this time, many people liked to partake in hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD and "magic mushrooms"." Charles had always dreamt of having a family, and was able to make his place in this new world amongst these high hippie types as some type of leader.
