![]() Kathleen and William Manson married Augin Newport Kentucky. Her mother sent her with her sister to Cincinnati, to have the baby away from Ashland and while awaiting the baby she accepted the marriage proposal of William Manson, so the baby would have a name. He was a lot older than me, 24, and he loved me, too." And I was really in love with Colonel Scott. I guess we had a tendency to be a little wild, the way kids will."But I didn't go around with men that way, and when Charles came along, that had happened twice in in my life. "But my mother was a very strict woman, very religious, so when me and my sister got a few years on us. I wasn't a prostitute, I've never been a prostitute. "Charles was born out of wedlock," she admits, "but it wasn't just any man. Manson speaks frankly about her past, denying some points and admitting others in a thin, weary voice that retains the country accents of her native Ashland, Kentucky. That is the general picture that until now has been drawn of Manson's early years.īut that is not the way it was, according to his mother. She will hear descriptions-here-to-fore unchallenged-of a mother said to have been a teen-age prostitute who didn't know who fathered Charles Manson an ex-convict sent to prison with her brother for beating and robbing men she hustled in riverfront bars in Cincinnati, an alcoholic who lived with so many different men that even her son, already delinquent himself, moved out in disgust, and an indifferent, abusive mother whose neglect and cruelty planted seeds of violence in a sensitive and deprived boy. ![]() The girl will learn of a half-brother she was too young to remember, but who spoke proudly of "my baby sister" and then went on to notoriety in one of the most pointless, vicious massacres of the century. Then my husband and I will tell her."Įven then, it will be a tall order for a 12-year-old to absorb. If I can just have three more years, then it'll be blown over a little, and she'll be 12, more able to understand. She doesn't know any of this, and I've hoped I could keep it quiet until she's older. "They'd pick me to pieces, and I could take that," she says, "but it's for my little girl's sake. Located by The Times, she consented to an interview-the first she has ever given-with a plea that her name, even the state where she lives, not be identified. Married five years to her third husband and mother of a little girl from her second marriage, she lives today virtually in hiding, known only to her husband, a few relatives and one woman friend. In the Charles Manson who sent his disciples out to kill, she can recognize one strong trait in the little boy she remembers-the charming boy who never worked or fought for what he wanted, but let others, usually women, do it for him. But she kept silent and hidden, thinking back over the past and realizing, she says now, that her worst mistake with her infamous son was an overindulgence that became a law of life, even a necessity, to Charles Manson. If anything, it was just the opposite, she knows. Since his arrest, in November, 1969, for the slayings of actress Sharon Tate and six others, she has heard herself described as the worst kind of tramp and bad mother, whose son went wrong because he was so cruelly deprived. Then the constant tension catches her in spasms, making her shake so badly she can hardly pick up a tea- cup or light her cigarets. Sometimes, when fear keeps her sitting up all night, tiredness the next day knocks her mind off-guard. Thin and slightly hunched from emphysema that keeps her from working, she still smokes heavily. ![]() She looks older than her 53 years and feels 90, she says. Let Others, 'Usually Women,' Do His Work, She Remembers The article will be broken up with commentary and documentation. The interview was conducted by Los Angeles Times staff reporter Dave Smith and ran on the front page of the Januedition of the newspaper. The story of Kathleen and her amateurish attempt at motherhood is probably best told by posting the only interview she ever gave regarding her son Charles.
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