<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t sure if I was ready to know. And my dad is not a dark person. He never taught me any dark things. So, if he says it\u2019s dark, my first thought is it must be famously dark. So, I asked him to just get it out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Is it Ted Bundy?\u2019\u201d she recalled. \u201cHe said, \u2018Bigger. Think of the biggest movie you know and the biggest director you know.\u2019 And I thought of the movie Once Upon a Time \u2026 in Hollywood. I was trying to remember the name mentioned in the film. And then I realised who it was: Charles Manson.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddox immediately Googled Manson\u2019s name. The resemblance, she said, was uncanny.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought to myself, \u2018That\u2019s my dad,\u2019\u201d Maddox said. \u201cIt was a really devastating day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddox\u2019s journey after learning that Manson was her grandfather is chronicled in the Hulu documentary My Grandfather Charles Manson. In it, she meets people who had direct connections to Manson, including some of his former followers, to better understand her family history.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was cathartic,\u201d Maddox said. \u201cI\u2019m a filmmaker before I found out who my grandfather is. And my life got uprooted from this. I had something to say at that moment, and I couldn\u2019t bottle it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arguelles submitted his DNA to Ancestry in 2015, hoping to identify his father and finally answer a question that had followed him for decades. He had long suspected the man who raised him was not his biological father and confronted his mother about his paternity when he was 21.<\/p>\n
Years passed, and Arguelles had nearly given up when he matched with Michael Brunner. DNA testing confirmed they were half-brothers. Brunner is Manson\u2019s son with Mary Brunner, one of Manson\u2019s earliest followers, People magazine reported.<\/p>\n
Maddox described herself and her father as \u201cnormal, working-class citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no prior records or anything criminal,\u201d Maddox said. \u201cWe grew up as artists. My dad showed me the movies he made and his modelling photos of him photographed by Richard Avedon. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, of course, when you learn that someone like Manson is your grandfather, it\u2019s normal to wonder, \u2018Am I that too?\u2019 People have asked me, \u2018Were you afraid that you inherited evil, that you were evil?\u2019 But my dad and I are very normal, hardworking people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manson, who was convicted of orchestrating the 1969 murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in Los Angeles, died in 2017. He was 83 and serving a life sentence.<\/p>\n
A petty criminal who had been in and out of jail since childhood, the charismatic, guru-like Manson surrounded himself in the 1960s with runaways and other lost souls, The Associated Press reported. <\/p>\n
According to the outlet, he then sent his disciples to butcher some of the rich and famous in what prosecutors said was a bid to trigger a race war, an idea he got from a twisted reading of the Beatles song Helter Skelter.<\/p>\n
Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Manson maintained that he was innocent and that society itself was guilty.<\/p>\n
A horrified Arguelles resisted learning more about his biological father. Maddox wanted to dig deeper into her grandfather\u2019s past. She said she was less interested in the mythology surrounding Manson and more interested in how he became the man America came to fear.<\/p>\n
Manson was born in 1934 to teenager Kathleen Maddox. His biological father was absent, and his mother married William Manson, whose surname Charles took. After that marriage ended, his mother was sent to prison for her role in a robbery, and Manson went to live with relatives. By his teens, he was stealing, running away and bouncing through juvenile institutions.<\/p>\n
He eventually was sent to the Indiana Boys School. Manson later said he was beaten and sexually assaulted while locked up as a juvenile. His troubles continued into adulthood, with repeated prison sentences for crimes including theft and forgery.<\/p>\n
By the time Manson was released from federal prison in 1967 at age 32, he had spent roughly half his life behind bars or in juvenile institutions.<\/p>\n
In the film, Maddox examined previously unreleased records that shed light on Manson\u2019s troubled childhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard about my dad\u2019s abuse as a child from a reform school and from his own parents,\u201d she explained. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad\u2019s was really bad, but that was the \u201870s. Imagine what it was like back in the \u201840s or \u201850s. It was shocking how bad they treated boys in these reform schools. The juvenile justice expert we spoke to said that Manson\u2019s experience at Indiana was not singular. Manson\u2019s story was not exceptional. That\u2019s how they learned their lessons in survival.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest shock for me was how Manson\u2019s decision-making as an adult in his 30s can really stem from the survival mechanisms he learned from his childhood in these prisons,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Maddox said she was disturbed to learn that Manson, who had been institutionalised for offences, including running away and theft, was housed alongside older juveniles with violent records.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was shocked to read that he was imprisoned with kids who had murdered people,\u201d Maddox said. \u201cAnd he was there for running away from home, stealing a bike or stealing a car. But so many boys, older kids with violent records, were placed there. And what does a kid have to do to survive a place like that? It breaks my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arguelles, born in 1959, learned that he was the result of a brief relationship between his mother, Darlene Arguelles, and Manson, who was using the alias \u201cCharlie Dear\u201d at the time, People magazine reported.<\/p>\n
But as Maddox dug deeper into the family\u2019s past, the search that initially brought father and daughter together began pulling them apart.<\/p>\n
Maddox said she and her father had a falling out one week before production on the documentary began. Arguelles had previously sat for an interview and encouraged his daughter to make the film, but she said confronting his biological father\u2019s past ultimately became too painful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a little more distance from Manson because I am the grandchild, but that\u2019s his father,\u201d Maddox said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s shared similar experiences in childhood as him. And my dad is a very sensitive person. [But] he was curious. He wanted answers. He wanted me to make this film. But then, at the same time, it was all too much.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019s seen the film,\u201d Maddox said. \u201cHe hasn\u2019t reached out. So, I\u2019m just sitting back and respecting his wishes until he reaches back out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI still support Sophia, and I\u2019m very proud of her,\u201d Arguelles told Fox News Digital. \u201cI believe the falling out between us came from a difference of opinion on the overall narrative. That\u2019s really all I can say at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Manson Family slaughtered five of its victims on Aug. 9, 1969, at Tate\u2019s home: the actress, who was 8-and-a-half months pregnant; coffee heiress Abigail Folger; celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring; Polish screenwriter Wojciech (Voityck) Frykowski; and Steven Parent, a friend of the estate\u2019s caretaker. <\/p>\n
Tate\u2019s husband, \u201cRosemary\u2019s Baby\u201d director Roman Polanski, was out of the country at the time.<\/p>\n
The next night, a wealthy grocer and his wife, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, were stabbed to death in their home across town.<\/p>\n
After a trial that lasted nearly a year, Manson and three followers \u2014 Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten \u2014 were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Another defendant, Charles \u201cTex\u201d Watson, was convicted and sentenced to death later. Their sentences were commuted to life in prison after the California Supreme Court struck down the state\u2019s death penalty in 1972.<\/p>\n
Atkins died of cancer in prison in 2009 at age 61. Van Houten was released on parole in 2023. Krenwinkel and Watson are still behind bars.<\/p>\n
Maddox said she reached out to the victims\u2019 loved ones during filming.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in talks with two relatives at the moment,\u201d Maddox said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll just say every experience I\u2019ve had with them has been very lovely. They were very kind to me. They understood why I am telling this story. \u2026 I\u2019m not the only person looking for answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddox said examining the forces that shaped Manson was never about absolving him of his crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy intention is never to apologise or justify for anybody\u2019s actions,\u201d she said. \u201cI know what my grandfather did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddox said understanding Manson\u2019s past wasn\u2019t about excusing his crimes but about understanding what shaped him \u2014 and potentially preventing future violence.<\/p>\n
In the film, Maddox also explained her decision to change her surname.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad and I were always trying to find a last name that resonated with us,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI spent a year or two investigating my family and re-looked at the name \u2018Maddox.\u2019 And when I Googled it, it meant \u2018goodness.\u2019 My blood name means goodness. I\u2019m going to own it. That\u2019s mine. I\u2019m giving it new life.\u201d<\/p>\n