Stragglers in the Manson Family

The last members to join, after the murders and arrests

You would think that learning about a commune/cult who were implicated in the most notorious killing spree of the late 1960s would be a turn-off to other young people, but believe it or not there are people who actually joined the Manson Family after they were indicted for murder!

Nearly all of the people you see here at Spahn Ranch were latecomers to the Manson Family, including the children pictured.

Some were convinced that the Family were innocent, and being persecuted as part of the counter-culture. Others just thought that most of the Family were cool and the uncool (violent) ones got locked up. Some actually thought the Family were the perfect anti-heros for that era. And some came into their association with the Family through a special deal brokered by Charles Manson with the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist movement based in prison. Charlie wanted protection in jail after he was found guilty of the Tate/LaBianca murders and agreed to ‘loan’ his women out to the AB as ‘comfort aides.’

Some of those who joined the Family are pictured in photographs taken for LIFE magazine at Spahn Ranch. Some wound up committing crimes on behalf of the Family, such as the 1971 shootout in Hawthorne, California of an Army…