On November 12, 1934, Charles Manson was born to a sixteen-year-old single mother in Cincinnati, Ohio. By all accounts, Manson endured a tumultuous childhood, moving in and out of foster homes and having repeated encounters with the law. At the age of twenty-one, upon release from a juvenile reformatory, Manson moved from Ohio to California.

In California, Manson was arrested for, among other crimes, robbing at gunpoint, forging government checks, and stealing an automobile. In his early thirties, after spending nearly half of his life behind bars, Manson began to develop a cult following comprised primarily of young women. These young followers were said to be mostly from upper-to-middle-class backgrounds. A self-proclaimed messiah, Manson preached that an apocalypse was coming. Manson predicted that he, as well as those who followed him, popularly known as the Manson family, would be the sole survivors. Claiming to have discovered the impending apocalypse while...