Marianne Williamson has deleted a tweet falsely accusing President Trump of posthumously pardoning cult leader Charles Manson.
Williamson tweeted out early on Monday that Trump had pardoned Manson. She deleted the tweet about 20 minutes later and issued an apology for the mistake, saying she was “glad to have been wrong.”
Manson was born on Nov. 12, 1934. His 16-year-old unwed mother, by many accounts, was an alcoholic and a prostitute and was in and out of jail as Manson grew up, forcing him to live with a series of relatives at times. He never knew his biological father.
Manson spent time in several juvenile detention centers and federal reformatories after he committed a series of armed burglaries and robberies. On one occasion at a reform school, Manson held a razor blade to another student’s throat and raped him.
He was paroled from his last federal reformatory in 1954 at 19-years-old. He held a series of odd jobs in between stints in prison. He married twice, but both marriages ended in divorce. He is believed to have fathered two children.
Manson attracted a group of about a dozen followers by espousing a philosophy that seemed to be a mix between hippie and Hitler-inspired ideologies. Manson, a virulent racist, preached of an apocalyptic event called Helter Skelter, in which black people would revolt and destroy all white races. His goal, he preached, was to outlast Helter Skelter, come out of hiding, and rule over the black races when it was over.
On Aug. 9, 1969, he pushed Helter Skelter along by directing a group of his followers to a Hollywood Hills home where they murdered actress Sharon Tate, Hollywood hairdresser Jay Sebring, Folger coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Folger’s boyfriend Voytek Frykowski, and Steven Parent.
The next night, Manson and his followers drove to the house of Leno LaBianca. Manson tied LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, up then left the house. Manson’s followers murdered the couple, stabbing them numerous times.
Both sets of murders remained unsolved for months until one of Manson’s followers, in prison on another murder charge, bragged to fellow inmates about the killings. The ensuing trial led to the conviction and imprisonment of Manson and several of his followers on Jan. 25, 1971. Manson was denied parole a dozen times before he died on Nov. 19, 2017, at the age of 83.
