“I am only a reflection of you. My father is the jailhouse. My father is your system. I am only what you made me…” 

Charles Manson sings “The Big Iron Door.”

Clang bang clang
Went the big iron door
They put me in a cell
With a concrete floor
Nine other men in that cell with me
Moanin’ their fate with destiny

“All the men in the joint raised me up, told me what to do, what was right and wrong…”

Clang bang clang
Clang bang clang clang
Early in the mornin’
At the crack of dawn
They wake us to the tune of a bong bong bong
Line up for chow
Munchin’ hard bread
Drinkin’ black coffee with that noise in my head

 Clang bang clang
Clang bang clang bang clang
The judge said to me, now boy
You had it

“Elvis Presley was only the shadow that was playing up over somebody that was dying in the hole down in Brushy Mountain, Tennessee. Or someone that was over in solitary confinement. In other words the real Humphrey Bogart and the real James Cagney are actors–I mean the ones you know. The real ones, they died in here. In other words, we die so you guys can play act us. We got to be the bad guys so you guys can be the good guys. But in reality we know that you’re not the good guys, that you guys are worse than we are.”

–Charles Manson

McNeil Prison, Washington, 1963

In 1960, 26-year-old pimp and petty thief Charles Manson was sentenced to serve ten years for attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check. The young man was hardly a bright criminal–the check was for a mere $37.50 and amounted to a federal crime. The sentence had previously been suspended, but after breaking parole by leaving the state with a couple prostitutes, leading to a Mann Act indictment that was then dropped, he was ordered to serve the original hard sentence at McNeil Island. His life in crime had been pretty unsuccessful, but if he hadn’t learned how to survive on the streets by this point, he had certainly learned how to survive on the inside. At McNeil, Manson resumed listening carefully to the older respected inmates. The criminal code of the good honest yegg made more sense than the hypocrisy he observed in straight society–mind your own business, don’t lie, and  never ever snitch.

A lot of men go into their cells and end up finding Jesus, but Manson was learning about an increasingly popular self-help religion called Scientology and was soon a firm believer in founder L. Ron Hubbard’s ideas about the power of the will. Hubbard had been a frustrated writer with dreams of making a huge impact on the world. When his science fiction books didn’t do this or make much money, he told fellow writers that he would create a religion that would make him extremely wealthy. Beginning with the publication of Dianetics in 1950, he  succeeded in doing just that. The manual spoke of humans as immortal spiritual beings who have forgotten their true nature. Hubbard was influenced by the ideas of several of his colleagues in the occult world including Thelma mystic Aleister Crowley and the rocket scientist and Crowleyite Jack Parsons.  In these circles, Hubbard participated in magickal rituals aimed at changing the course of history. By the 1980′s Scientology was Satanism for capitalists. As more and more former members stepped forward with accusations of brainwashing and harassment, the church’s reputation was that of a corporate cult rather than a religion. In 1984, Judge Paul G. Breckenridge Jr. described Hubbard as “charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating and inspiring his adherents.” It has been suggested that the ability many claim Manson later had to influence his so called “followers” was modeled after the teachings of this truly master con-artist.

The advent of 60′s rock and roll was also reaching Manson’s prison cell. He started hearing the pop music of groups like the Beatles on the radio and though he was older than the teeny-boppers of the day and had grown up on crooners like Bing Crosby and the mountain music of his Kentucky childhood, he was impressed with this emerging sound. Playing music was a common way of passing time for inmates, and having loved singing since he was a child, Manson now decided to take up the guitar as well. These new-found interests improved his self esteem greatly and he finally felt his life changing for the better. He no longer saw himself as a throw away and a loser. It was the beginning of hope for the young convict.

It was in 1963 that he formed a connection with an inmate whom he looked up to as much as he had when meeting the imprisoned gangster Frank Costello–the kind of feeling most kids would get before a famous baseball player. This time Manson found himself in the presence of another legendary convict–a slender, quiet, 56 year-old-inmate named Alvin Karpis.

Alvin “Creepy” Karpis had been a bank robber during the great depression. Though he shared a “most wanted” bill with John Dillinger, George “Babyface” Nelson, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, the “Ma” Barker gang, Bonnie Parker, and Clyde Barrow, and was the last “Public Enemy Number One,” history makes less mention of him, largely because unlike such contemporaries, he was not shot to death by the authorities.

The Karpis-Barker gang had made a good run in the early 30’s robbing banks across America. At their height they even pulled off a few high profile abductions, first of millionaire brewer William Hamm, for which they were paid a $100,000 ransom, and then Minnesota banker Edward Bremer, Jr., which brought them $200,000. The gang was led by Karpis and Fred Barker who had met in the Kansas State Penitentiary where Karpis was serving an auto theft sentence. The outfit also included Barker’s brother, Doc, and “Shotgun” George Ziegler–a former hit-man for Al Capone who had been the lead suspect in 1929′s Saint Valentine’s Day massacre–as well as nearly two dozen others over the span of the syndicate’s crimes. From his 1931 release to his capture in 1936, Karpis and his cohorts were thought to have committed three kidnappings and countless bank robberies and other hold ups. They were also suspected of anywhere from three to fourteen murders, including that of Ziegler when he made the drunken mistake of bragging about their crimes, and that of gangland surgeon Dr. Joseph Moran. Doc Moran had mysteriously disappeared shortly after botching fingerprint alteration and plastic surgery jobs for Karpis and Freddie Barker.

Karpis was thought to be the “brains of the operation.” He seemed to know which risks were worth taking and which moves would be mistakes. An extremely intelligent criminal with a photographic memory, he meticulously poured over maps and charts when plotting jobs. Soon he was something of a folk hero, partly because, like the generous “Pretty Boy” Floyd, he was known to be sympathetic to the poor and therefore fit a sort of Robin Hood mold. It’s also easy to see how his crimes were romanticized at a time when many farmers had lost land to foreclosure, and must have taken pleasure in seeing banks get a taste of the same medicine. In his 1939 “Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd,” Woody Guthrie expressed this populist sentiment, singing, “As through this world I’ve wandered/I’ve seen lots of funny men/Some will rob you with a six-gun/And some with a fountain pen/And as through your life you travel/Yes, as through your life you roam/You won’t never see an outlaw/Drive a family from their home.” These bank robbers were blue collar, and though some did have mob-land ties, most were looked down on by members of organized crime who considered most of the outlaws stupid hillbillies.

Friends called Karpis by his alias, “Ray,” or his nickname, ”Slim,” but as Karpis’ notoriety grew, the men on his trail began calling him “Old Creepy.” No doubt Karpis loathed this as much as “Pretty Boy” Floyd and “Baby Face” Nelson loathed the names G-men had given them. One story was that his sinister smile had earned Karpis this nickname, another was that rival mobsters had given him the name after being on the receiving end of a cold, creepy stare. Whatever the origin, it’s certain the nickname was popularized by the G-men using wanted posters and quotes to reporters, probably to dissuade adoration from the public. But the attraction and mythology of such criminal figures would only grow over the years, certainly in pop culture, but also in underworld circles.

The year 1934, the same year Charles Manson was born, produced the bullet riddled bodies of nearly all the famous outlaws, beginning in May with 23-year-old Bonnie Parker and 25-year-old Clyde Barrow. The two were ambushed without warning on the side of a desolate road in Louisiana by a posse of Texas Police Officers and two Louisiana officers attending for jurisdiction purposes. 130 rounds were fired at the two without even an order to surrender. Parker was not wanted for any capital offense, and Bureau of Investigation files contain only one warrant against her, for aiding Barrow in the interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle. She caught at least 25 bullets that day. The coverage was sensational. From then on, Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover would make sure his organization, and he in particular, would get credit for taking famous outlaws down. In fact, he’d had his sights set on the biggest fish for quite a while–the man Clyde Barrow modeled himself after–John Dillinger.

In the press, Dillingermania had swept the country. The fun loving outlaw’s narrow getaways and two escapes from prison had made him as legendary as Billy The Kid. During his 1933 capture and trial, he charmed reporters by joking around, and even posing for them with his prosecutor, Robert Estill (photos that would lead to Estill’s firing). The press, who was used to covering hard, big city mob figures, fell in love with the good old Indiana boy. In March of 1934 he broke out from the supposedly escape proof Crown Point, Indiana County Jail, allegedly using a fake gun fashioned out of wood or soap and painted with shoe polish. True to form, the charismatic thief then stole Sheriff Lillian Holley’s V-8 Ford to make his getaway. 24-year-old George “Baby Face” Nelson, who envied the older robber, set Dillinger up with a hideout and made him a part of a new gang that included Dillinger’s old partner Homer Van Meter. When Alvin Karpis had met Nelson just a year before, the kid was a mob-land chauffeur looking for a leg up in the crime world. He had approached Karpis about pulling some jobs together but Karpis considered Nelson to be too hot-headed to work with. Nelson had indeed proved to be a novice under pressure–while the cool veteran Dillinger was able to calmly go about business under the scream of bank alarms, Nelson would lose his temper and soon his reputation was that of a trigger happy psychopath. The new outfit robbed two banks, but before Dillinger and Nelson were able to get too sick of each other, the agency was tipped off about their whereabouts–a little hideout called Bohemian Lodge near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. The leader of the Dillinger manhunt, Special Agent Melvin Purvis approached early one morning in April. But he and his men blew it, mistakenly gunning down three innocent people, and in the process announcing  their presence to the gang. After a brief gun fire exchange during which a crazed Nelson killed Agent W. Carter Baum, the entire gang escaped. Dillinger headed for Chicago to lay low–of course, not so low that he would stop robbing banks. 

In July, Dillinger was betrayed by Ana Sage, who became known in the papers as “the woman in red,” so called for the dress the G men were on the look out for as she and Dillinger exited the Biograph Movie Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Agent Purvis was waiting just outside, ready to cue his men by lighting a cigar when he spotted Dillinger. Most accounts agree that Dillinger looked directly at Purvis, looked across the street, and then ran for a nearby alley. It’s sometimes said that he drew a gun as he ran. He was not wearing a jacket and while it’s entirely possible he had a gun in his pants pocket, reports vary. One thing that all the reports confirmed is that the 31-year-old was shot from behind and collapsed at the entrance of the alley. A small Colt semi-automatic pistol that Dillinger had allegedly pulled on the approaching agents was for years exhibited in a display case at FBI Headquarters (along with Dillinger’s death mask). However, the gun was manufactured five months after his death, supporting the claim that the agents, without warning, shot and killed an unarmed Dillinger. Dillinger’s take-down was Hoover’s big win after spending a whole third of the bureau’s budget that year on the manhunt. Melvin Purvis found himself a star and was immediately on the case of the next ”Public Enemy Number One,” Oklahoma’s favorite son, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd.

The media frenzy surrounding the hunt for John Dillinger had brought serious heat on the other public enemies. When Alvin Karpis took Kate “Ma” Barker to the movies, a newsreel at the start of the film showed pictures of all four bank robbers, warning audiences, “One of these men could be sitting right next to you.” Karpis sunk in his seat. Things were heating up all right. Connections who would have sheltered or helped the men earlier, now kept their distance. Thirty-year-old “Pretty Boy” Floyd was sure feeling it more than anyone and moved through his last days with the tragic air of a condemned man. Despite limited evidence, Hoover was certain Floyd had been a hired gun in the Kansas City Massacre the previous year. The attempt to break out robber Richard “Jelly” Nash left two detectives, a police chief, an agent, and Nash himself dead. Floyd maintained his innocence and historians still debate his involvement, but Hoover had made up his mind and Floyd was more a marked man than ever. In July of 1934, Karpis was hiding out in Cleveland, Ohio, when a sad and desperate Floyd arranged a meeting. The doomed man said, “Chances are we’ll both get killed or caught in the end… I’m hoping we both get killed rather than caught.”  pre=”caught “>Karpis nodded, knowing exactly how he felt. The purpose of the visit was that Floyd was looking to make some money and asked if Karpis needed any men for any bank jobs coming up. Karpis said that if he did, he’d get in touch through mutual associates, but he knew he couldn’t afford to risk working with Floyd, telling a friend, “These guys just seem to draw heat wherever they go.” Just days later Karpis heard the news about Dillinger’s death, which he considered an assassination. He knew his gang should now expect the same kind of betrayal and would have to be extra careful about who they trusted.

In October, Agent Purvis was notified of a close call between Floyd and local police in Wellsville, Ohio, and set out with his three best agents and his aid, Agent Herman Hollis. Floyd was cornered in a farm field near East Liverpool. Chester Smith, a retired East Liverpool Police Captain and former World War I sniper, was the sharpshooter most agree shot Floyd first. He later stated that he had deliberately wounded, but not killed, Floyd, adding, “I knew Purvis couldn’t hit him, so I dropped him with two shots from my .32 Winchester rifle.” Smith claimed that Floyd did not regain his footing after he had shot him, that he then disarmed Floyd, and that Purvis ran up ordering everyone to back away. Purvis questioned him briefly. One account of the exchange is that Floyd was asked if he was involved in the Kansas City massacre and that he shook his head no. Another account is that he told Purvis to fuck off. Smith claimed Purvis then ordered Floyd shot at point-blank range, telling Agent Hollis to “Fire into him.” Asked about an FBI cover-up, Captain Smith responded, “Sure was, because they didn’t want it to get out that he’d been killed that way.” If his account is true, Purvis effectively executed Floyd without benefit of judge or jury. The FBI account of the incident has East Liverpool police and Agent Hollis himself not even present at the scene. But most articles on the incident support Smith’s claim that local officers were involved.

“Baby Face” Nelson, despite being a devoted husband and father, had a reputation completely different to Dillinger and Floyd. He was known to fly into a rage and kill innocent people and policemen without a second thought. His ego also apparently couldn’t handle the fact that the others were more famous and he was even infuriated that the Bureau wouldn’t raise the bounty on his head. Adding to this frustration was the credit Dillinger received for bank jobs pulled in a gang that Nelson had called himself the leader of. After the Bohemian Lodge shoot out, and the killing of Dillinger, Nelson found himself understaffed for a crime spree he hoped would make him bigger than his former partner. Everyone in the underworld knew Nelson was poison and predicted he wouldn’t live to see the end of the year. They were right. It wasn’t hard for G-men to track the loud-mouthed lunatic down.

In November, in the town of Barrington outside Chicago, Agent Hollis and Agent Sam Cowley fought a running gun battle with Nelson, who carried wife Helen Gillis and partner John Paul Chase in tow. The exchange ended at a filling station where Nelson was shot badly. He sat down on the running board of his car for a moment, realizing the severity of his injury, and then stepped out into the open, reportedly shouting, “I’m going to kill you sons of bitches!” as he fired at the agents with a .351 rifle so rapidly that bystanders thought it was a machine gun. Agent Cowley found his ammunition exhausted and Nelson unloaded a hail of bullets killing the Agent. Agent Hollis then fired a shotgun blast that struck Nelson in the leg, but Nelson was quickly back on his feet and relentlessly coming at the Agent. Hollis drew an automatic pistol but was downed under Nelson’s fire before he could even pull the trigger. After limping to the agents’ bullet riddled Hudson and collecting his wife and Chase, he escaped the bloody scene. Having been shot nine times, he told his wife, “I’m done for,” and died with her at his bedside several hours later. That made three dead public enemies and a very good year for the Bureau. Building the outlaws up and then taking them down became a winning formula for Hoover and papers began calling him “Public Hero Number One.” Next on the list was Karpis and his gang.

January of 1935 saw the Capture of Doc Barker, again by star agent Melvin Purvis, and the killing of Freddie and ”Ma” Barker a few days later. Immediately the Bureau justified her brutal killing by portraying the 61-year-old lady as the ringleader of the robberies. Karpis and others close to Barker said that although she knew of her beloved sons’ activities, she had nothing to do with the crimes other than her function in the innocent mother and sons cover story as the operation traveled. Karpis later wrote, “Ma was always somebody in our lives… She was somebody we looked after and took with us when we moved city to city, hideout to hideout. It is no insult to Ma’s memory that she just didn’t have the know-how to direct us on a robbery. It would not have occurred to her to get involved in our business, and we always made it a point of only discussing our scores when Ma wasn’t around. We’d leave her at home when we were arranging a job, or we’d send her to a movie. Ma saw a lot of movies.”

Just three days later, Karpis himself was nearly killed while hiding out with his partner Harry Campbell and their girlfriends in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He and Campbell shot their way out of a surprise raid on their hotel and stole a car, hoping to pick up the ladies in an alley. But during the daring shoot out, Karpis’ eight-month-pregnant girlfriend Dolores Delaney had been wounded in the leg and the women had decided not to run. When they couldn’t be found, Karpis and Campbell were forced to abandon the plan, and after a close car chase with Karpis at the wheel, they managed to elude the feds. In November of that year, Karpis and his new gang popped up in Ohio where he paid homage to his outlaw heroes of the old west by executing an old-fashioned train robbery. By then Karpis knew his time was limited, as he was the latest “Public Enemy Number One” and his predecessors had all been killed. Not to be outdone, Karpis sent word to Hoover that he intended to kill the director the way Fred and Ma Barker had been killed.

The much publicized “epidemic” of bank robberies that made up the so-called crime wave of the great depression is now generally agreed by historians to have been greatly exaggerated in order to support Hoover’s “War on Crime,” which served as a pretext for the expansion of the Bureau, and led to the renamed Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935 where Hoover would be the first director and serve as its corrupt tyrant all the way to his death in 1972. Despite the transformation of the FBI and Hoover’s incredible talent for self promotion, in April of 1936 he was lambasted in a Senate hearing following a series of bumblings blamed on bad intelligence. He was also attacked for the fact that he had never made an arrest personally.  After this hearing, a determined Hoover vowed he would capture Karpis with his own hands.

On May 1, 1936, Karpis was located in New Orleans and Hoover flew in to be in charge of the take down. The FBI was preparing to bust in and shoot up the hideout, but Karpis and accomplice Freddie Hunter happened to step out before the move was made. Not wanting to shoot on a crowded street, they decided to arrest the men. Sources vary, but anywhere from a dozen to twenty-eight men set upon the two. As Karpis started up the car he turned his head and found himself staring down the barrel of Special Agent Clarence Hurt’s rifle. The Bureau boys had not planned on taking them alive. In fact, no one had brought handcuffs and Special Agent W. L. “Buck” Buchanan was forced to use his neck tie to bind Karpis’ hands. Hoover later claimed to have arrested Karpis personally before Karpis could reach for a gun in the back seat of his car. The model of Plymouth coupe Karpis was arrested in didn’t have a back seat, though Karpis said there was a bundle of guns rolled up in a blanket in the luggage compartment and several fire arms in the apartment. Karpis countered Hoover’s sensational claims in his own memoirs, describing this scene after the arrest, “I notice someone peeping around the corner of a building. My hesitation causes the others to follow my stare and we are all gazing at the half hidden form. Several agents begin shouting, ‘It’s OK! Come on Chief! We got him!’” Karpis also added, “I made that son of a bitch.”

This is perhaps no exaggeration. The publicity of the Karpis capture alone propelled Hoover’s name into the public eye, where it would be synonymous with law enforcement for years. Karpis always maintained that Hoover’s reputation had not been earned fairly. The bureau’s highly publicised war on bank robbers overshadowed the fact that they had done very little to fight counterfeiting and the larger problem of organized crime in the 30′s.  Hoover’s reputation would change drastically over the span of his career. By his death at age 77, his critics believed he had exceeded the jurisdiction of the FBI, using it to amass secret files on nearly every political figure of the day. The Bureau was also accused of harassing political dissenters, activists, and anyone else Hoover thought might be a threat–from Jean Seberg to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These activities and the illegal methods used to collect evidence under Hoover’s orders made him a controversial figure and many presidents considered firing him, including Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson, but each concluded that the political cost would be much too great, such was his power by then. Hoover’s involvement or knowledge about nearly every behind closed doors plot of his day is still the subject of endless speculation, particularly the events and assassinations of the turbulent 1960′s. At the very least, his investigation into the Kennedy assassination has been heavily criticised, most notably in The House Select Committee on Assassinations’ report of 1979 in which the FBI’s poor performance and reluctance to thoroughly investigate the possibility of a conspiracy is detailed. Because of Hoover’s long and unpopular reign, FBI directors are now limited to 10-year-terms. Posthumously, Hoover is little remembered beyond the power mad, cross dressing, self-hating, closet homosexual often portrayed in pop culture. 

The fate of the blindly loyal Agent Melvin Purvis is also a good example of Hoover’s agenda. His jealousy over the amount of press coverage Purvis got for the Dillinger and Floyd take-downs led to the agent being reduced to busy work around the Bureau and he soon retired. He then became a public spokesman for several companies and served as a Colonel during World War II. Hoover allegedly blocked Purvis’s chance at a federal judgeship in 1952 and the former star agent had fallen so far out of favor that he isn’t once mentioned in the Bureau’s 1956 authorized history, The FBI Story. Purvis’s death in 1960 was ruled a suicide. The 57-year-old had apparently shot himself with a gun given to him by the FBI as a retirement present. When Hoover made no comment and sent no condolences, Purvis’ widow wrote to her husband’s old boss, saying, “We are honored that you ignored Melvin’s death… Your jealousy hurt him very much, but until the end I think he loved you.”

The capture of the final “Public Enemy Number One” seemed to mark the end of the era of famous criminals. The country had gradually begun to recover from the Great Depression. The beginnings of economic prosperity and the various advances in law enforcement agencies seemed to render such figures a thing of the past–just tough, smooth-talking characters portrayed by matinee idols in Hollywood fantasies. Meanwhile, Alvin Karpis was convicted of kidnapping charges and did 25 hard years in Alcatraz–the longest term ever served at the notorious prison.

Karpis was just 27 years old when he was sent to the new super-prison where he met up with his fall partner Freddie Hunter and his old friend Doc Barker. He was also reunited with underworld associates like Al Capone, who was losing his mind to syphilis, “Machine Gun” Kelly, whom Karpis was not fond of, and “Baby Face” Nelson’s old partner John Paul Chase. Karpis was well liked by the prison personnel, though he was hardly a model prisoner and was often involved in fights, usually with known stoolies. In 1939, Doc Barker was shot to death during an escape attempt. Although Karpis himself plotted several escapes over the years, his good judgement always overcame his desperation as he looked out at the icy waters of the bay, and he never made any actual attempts. He did later admit to providing necessary resources to John and Clarence Anglin, who, along with Frank Morris, made what was possibly the only successful escape from the island in 1962.

In 1963 “the rock” was closed down by Attorney General Robert Kennedy, as it was extremely expensive to run and was deteriorating by the minute. Karpis was transferred to McNeil prison in Washington. While there, a young inmate approached Karpis, who was known to be a skilled musician, and asked if he would teach him to play guitar. Karpis later described him in his autobiography, saying, “This kid approaches me to request music lessons. He wants to learn guitar and become a music star. ‘Little Charlie’ is so lazy and shiftless, I doubt if he’ll put the time required to learn. The youngster has been in institutions all of his life–first orphanages, then reformatories, and finally federal prison. His mother, a prostitute, was never around to look after him. I decide it’s time someone did something for him, and to my surprise, he learns quickly. He has a pleasant voice and a pleasing personality, although he’s unusually meek and mild for a convict. He never has a harsh word to say and is never involved in even an argument.”

Years later, Charles Manson would remember Karpis fondly too, telling Nuel Emmons in his book Manson in His Own Words (It should be noted that it’s unclear how accurate this title is, though the book does seem to genuinely express Manson’s thoughts even when the wording doesn’t sound like his own), “With over thirty years of prison behind him, the old timer might have been a humbled, shriveled-up, defeated old man. Not Karpis… He had an extra-sharp mind and a quiet dignity that commanded respect from convicts, guards, prison personnel and everyone who met him. Karpis played steel guitar, and though we weren’t tuned into the same style of music, our mutual interest in our instruments and music established a solid friendship between us. He taught me a few chords and I had the opportunity to teach him a few things. In many ways I was still a snot-nosed kid and headed nowhere, but Alvin always had more than just the time of day for me. When we weren’t playing or practicing, we spent a lot of time just talking. I liked the old man and listened with open ears to everything he had to say. He hardly ever discussed the chain of events that led to his imprisonment, but for a guy with so much time behind him, he was well versed on what was going on in the outside world. His knowledge of government, unions and foreign affairs always amazed me. Like a lot of old timers, he was always saying how corrupt the system was. But unlike the other guys who just said the words, he would pinpoint circumstances and motives behind laws and government procedures. He told me things that the CIA was doing in other countries (time has since proven he knew exactly what he was talking about). Hell, at that time I didn’t even know there was a CIA.”

After his release in 1969, Alvin Karpis moved to Spain and wrote two books, Public Enemy Number One and On the Rock: Twenty-five Years at Alcatraz. His death in 1979 was ruled a suicide though no autopsy was performed and the official report was later changed to natural causes. Some close to Karpis say it may have been an accidental death caused by a combination of alcohol and pills. There were also rumors of foul play. But all who knew him agreed that he was a survivor, and that after 33 years in prison, suicide seemed very unlikely. He was buried the next day in Spain. Alvin Karpis was 72 years old.

Manson recalled about his days with the old timer at McNeil, “There were times when I would try to sell Karpis on the things I was learning through Scientology. ‘Kid,’ he would say, ‘your mind is your greatest friend, yet it can be your worst enemy. Don’t let it get any more fucked up than the world has already made it!’”

Before being released in 1967, ‘Little Charlie’ told Karpis that he planned on being bigger than The Beatles. By the time Karpis himself was released a couple years later, Manson would be back inside, this time facing the multiple homicide charges that would lead to a heavier sentence than even Alvin Karpis had served.

Karpis had written, “The history of crime in the United States might have been considerably altered if ‘Little Charlie’ had been given the opportunity to find fame and fortune in the music industry.”

Copyright 2009, Gib Strange, Copywrong as well.