Every generation has its bogeyman. Before 1969, maybe it was Adolf Hitler. After 2001, Osama bin Laden. But for those 30 or so years in between it was unquestionably an aspiring musician, deeply damaged outlaw, and hippie Svengali named Charles Manson. On two nights in the summer of 1969—the same summer as Woodstock—Manson rose from nobody to America’s most fearsome monster. Born in Ohio to an unwed, 15-year- old girl, Manson’s childhood … [Read more...]
OUTLAW LOS ANGELES Takes Readers To The City Where Anything Is Possible, Even The Ghastly
A sunset cruise through a place where ordinary inhumanities are entertainment... Los Angeles is where America’s dreams and nightmares got all tangled up. In this otherworldly place of seemingly everlasting life, death could have an otherworldly quality, too. In a city where anything was possible, even the ghastly could happen. Where else does a list of a city’s top five most recognized citizens include a mass murderer? Stand in the footsteps of … [Read more...]
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Ron Franscell Discusses the “Coolest Crime Sites” He Has Visited While Doing Research For His CRIME BUFF’S GUIDE™ Series
“What’s the coolest crime site you’ve ever visited?” It is crime buffs’ most common question. And after traversing thousands of miles from Pennsylvania to Southern California, and the northern Rockies to the Mexican border, I’ve visited historic crime-related spots most of us have only seen in books or movies. It’s every crime buff’s dream to stand precisely where Wyatt Earp, Bonnie & Clyde, Charles Manson, or Butch Cassidy once … [Read more...]
Corpse Bride: Tourists would love Dead Manson!
Even mass murderer Charles Manson couldn’t wrap his fevered brain around this macabre plot: His erstwhile fiancée had a bizarre scheme to put his corpse in a glass casket and get rich by charging admission. Manson’s beloved, 27-year-old Afton Elaine Burton, wanted to marry the homicidal cult leader just so she’d own his remains when he died. A lot of people, she reckoned, would pay good money to see Manson’s preserved body in a modern-day, … [Read more...]
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