commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Charles Manson may be the most infamous mass murderer of all time (though he was insidiously clever at having his followers do his dirty work for him), but no one can deny that he always had a way with the ladies. When he was let out of state prison while still in his early 30s, he hightailed it up to the Haight-Ashbury which then in full flower and began collecting women. Like a little little bearded leprechaun with his guitar slung over his shoulder, according to the stories — which may be apocryphal but are true in essence — Charlie would wander up to a lost hippie maiden, fix her with his hypnotic gaze and say something like, “I’m the gardener and I want to plant you in my soil.”
No doubt it didn’t work every time but it clearly worked often enough as became horribly evident when his girls and a few of his guys went on the infamous killing rampage in Los Angeles in the summer of 1969 which resulted in the death of screen siren Sharon Tate and numerous other privileged Southern Californians including hairdresser-to-the stars Jay Sebring and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
Manson, now 79, would probably have long since received the death penalty but because it was temporarily abolished in California in 1972, he is still alive costing the taxpayers money and giving him — curiously enough — the opportunity to make himself available to any misguided women that might come along. He is incarcerated at California’s Corcoran State Prison, where he walks with a cane and sports chipped prison dentures.
It’s now reported that Manson not only has a young female admirer but that she is determined that he and she will “walk down the aisle together” or however marriages are handled in the notorious California State Prison system. Her name is Star and she is a 25-year-old brunette who’s been loyally visiting Manson in jail since she was 19 years old. She maintains several websites devoted to defending her man and his pro-Earth environmental causes. Star told Rolling Stone that she became enchanted with Manson’s environmental stance, which he calls ATWA — air, trees, water, air — when she was only 19.
In 2007, Star moved to Corcoran to be near Charlie, whom she visits each Saturday and Sunday for up to five hours a day. She makes him gift boxes packed with snacks, clothes and guitar strings.They are only allowed a kiss at the beginning and end of their visits and are always under the supervision of prison guards. Star regrets the fact that inmates with life sentences are not allowed conjugal visits. She states that “California lifers no longer get them,” and adds that if they were an option, “we’d be married by now.”
“Yeah, well, people can think I’m crazy,” she says. “But they don’t know. This is what’s right for me. This is what I was born for.”
Star hails from a town on the Mississippi River near St. Louis, where her deeply religious Baptist parents feared she’d lost her way (“I was smoking marijuana, eating mushrooms, not wanted to go to church every Sunday,” she explains). Although they probably should have sought some form of counseling, instead, they locked her in her room for most of her high school years. The turning point came when a friend gave her some of Manson’s environmental writing. Impressed, she started corresponding with him. Manson apparently reciprocated in kind and when Star was 19, with the help of $2,000 she’d saved up working in a retirement home kitchen, she hopped a train to Corcoran.
After meeting in person a few times, Manson named her Star. In his honor, she recently carved an X onto her forehead.
Many people have commented on the fact that Star bears a resemblance to former Manson Family member Susan Atkins. This does not please Manson’s young devoted admirer and she works hard to distinguish herself from Atkins who was incarcerated for her role in the Tate-LaBianca killings until her death in 2009.
“That bitch was fucking crazy,” Star told Rolling Stone. “She was a crazy fucking whore. ‘Oh Charlie, I did this for you.’ She didn’t know what she was doing.”
Star believes she can prove Manson is more devoted to her than any other girl. Who these other girls are is somewhat of a mystery. Are there a bunch of other Star-like devotees running around enchanted with the old misfit?
“I’ll tell you straight up, Charlie and I are going to get married,” she stated. “When that will be, we don’t know. But I take it very seriously. Charlie is my husband. Charlie told me to tell you this. We haven’t told anybody about that.”
Manson, however, in his typically cynical fashion, refused to corroborate Star’s impassioned statement. “Oh that,” he says. “That’s a bunch of garbage. You know that, man. That’s trash. We’re just playing that for public consumption.”
On another occasion he told Rolling Stone: “Star! She’s not a woman. She’s a star in the Milky Way!”
Star no doubt would disagree.
* * * * *
I find it disheartening that this misguidedly idealistic young woman carries a torch for the old devil. Had he even a modicum of basic decency, he would not be leading her on like this.
Click here to view our earlier Charles Manson post:
Charles Manson: Murderer, Scapegoat, Superstar