grately -- greatly and his life turned bad. he didn't know who his father was, he didn't think his mother knew. so he said he finally learned, even as a child, that the street was his father and prison was his mother. that's what everybody pretty much accepted. i decided to check it out. so the first part is let's look at the man's whole life. how did he get there? second question, where was he and what kind of things were happening in our culture that made it possible for a charles manson to recruit a few dozen followers who would do these kinds of god awful things. again, history doesn't happen in a vacuum. i'm kind of convinced if charles manson had been paroled from prison in nebraska and ended up in omaha ha instead of los

angeles and tried these things, he would have been impaled on a pitch fork and stuck in a field as a scare ceo. he was in the right places at the right time. howhow did that happen? what i thought i would do, because you folks tonight, you have heard over and over during the years people's different versions of what happened on the nights of august 9th and 10th. 1969. let me tell you there's new term in my book, because in the course of my interviewing quite a few people, including, especially patricia who was involved in both nights and besides a couple of sound bytes on the 25*9 anniversary of the murder has never given the full account of it. she explained it all in such depth with such hon ety, with such clarity that she ended up answering the final couple of questions that the lapd has had about the murders all of these years. yes, there's some new things.

most of all, if it's okay with you, i would like to talk very briefly about four parts of this book charles manson, his life and the world he grew up in. let's begin with his child hood. we talked about what he claims. guess what, they are all lies. and it's all documentable. i put 21,000 miles open my car in the last couple of years, i went every place he went. a lot of the lice can be proven with simple visits to county court houses. charles manson was not ill legitimate. his mother, kathleen, when she was 15, was unhappy with her fundamentalist christian mother, nancy, who believed that girls should not cut their hair, shouldn't wear makeup, and do the terrible sinful thing that

lead to every evil in the world, that, of course, is dancing. we know now kathleen's side of the story for the first time, because charles manson's sister, nancy, never before interviewed anywhere, and i found her and she told her mother's side of the story for the first time. gave me dates and places i could dry to look. so here is what happened. this is what everybody in the family knew the real manson family, including charles himself. when she's 15 kathleen maaed docks, living in kentucky, crosses bridge over the river to a town called ironton. goes there because there are some clubs there where people can dance. and at one of these clubs, ritzy rays she meets a man, an exciting older man. 29 years old. his name is colonel scott.

colonel is the given name. not a military rank. but he doesn't mind letting the 15-year-old girl think he's a war hero. of course, he actually works in the factory, is married, and has two children. that's the part he leaves out. not long later, kathleen becomes pregnant. she's 15. and she tells colonel scott. the colonel announces he's going dot right thing for her, but he's just been called away by the army. he's going to come back in just a couple of weeks and they'll take care of everything. and so kathleen goes to her mother say she's pregnant, the father is going to marry her. you can imagine her mother's reaction but nancy really does love kathleen, and so she says

she'll stick with her. they'll get through this. it's not the child's fault. and colonel scott never comes back. and kathleen is furious. there's another fellow in kathleen's life who would like to get her attention. his name is william manson. he's a common laborer, whose dream is to be a dry cleaner. and knowing kathleen is pregnant with another man's child, he marries her about five months before the birth. there was never any question that charles manson was an ill legitimate baby. his birth certificate was filed a few weeks after his birth. william manson listed as a father. but the whole family and charles himself knew throughout that the real father was colonel scott. no doubt whatsoever. so the later rumors that manson hated and feared blacks because

he had a black father, for instance, never, folks. never ever. manson and kathleen's marriage lasts a couple of years. he divorces her. she's still a young girl. she's trying to run around and have a little fun. her son is never just left with strangers or offered far pitcher of beer. instead she does what many young women that age do, and sticks him with her mother or her sister, glenna. but he's cared for always. kathleen and her brother luther, spectacular botch an attempted robbery. they try to use a ketchup bottle and folk it somebody's back calling it a gun. and kathleen gets five years in prison in west virginia. luther gets 10.

yes, that's on kathleen's record. never once anywhere before then or the next 15 years was there any record she was arrested for prostitution, ever warned about being a prostitute. she bunge old crime, she never should have tried to commit it. charles manson was not the child of a prostitute. not then, not ever. he goes to live in west virginia. a little factory town with hiss uncle bill, aunt glenna, and cousin jo ann who was three years older. i found jo ann, who has never talked before. and if you get a chance to look in the book. you'll see that the photograph section includes pictures of manson from his baby pictures and his wetting album. those come from jo ann and nancy. they tell the real story. here is an interesting one jo ann told me about charlie.

he said from the time he came tow live with them 5 years old he's scary. he's violent, he lies about everything. the first person he ever physically attacked was jo ann. he picked up a sickle in the backyard and tried to stab her. her parents stopped him. his explanation, she made me do it. it wasn't my fault, she is older than me. i was defending myself. in first grade, not only told to me by jo ann but corroborated by other people who were in school with manson at the time. first grade, he organizes some girls in his class to beat up boy he doesn't like. the principal comes looking for char -- charlie. his explanation? the girls were doing what they wanted to do out of their own -- that's what they wanted. you can't blame me. the same defense he uses all the years later with tate.

you can watch this and over programs online at booktv.org. with a few weeks left in 2013, many publications are putting out their year-end list of notable books. these titles were included in the chicago tribune's books. ..

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