Inside the Chilling ‘Murder School’: Charles Manson’s Granddaughter Exposes Dark Family Secrets
Who among us hasn’t had an awkward family secret or two pop up at the holiday table? Maybe Aunt Louise’s ancient potato salad recipe actually came from a magazine in 1989, or, just maybe, you discover you’re the granddaughter of Charles Manson . (Hey, everyone’s got baggage.) That’s exactly the emotional landslide Sophia Maddox finds herself surfing in the latest wave of true crime confessions—where uncomfortable truths blend with Netflix docuseries, and, suddenly, the infamous ‘Helter Skelter’ echoes in your DNA test results!
This isn’t your average stroll back through ‘60s counterculture carnage. No—My Grandfather Charles Manson dives headlong into inherited fear and media myths, with Sophia untangling history, hearsay, and something disturbingly close to empathy . Why does society thirst so feverishly for redemption arcs and boogeyman bedtime stories, even when the skeletons are very much still rattling? Watching Maddox navigate interviews with Family survivors and controversial crime lore, you might actually catch your jaw dropping, or maybe catch yourself questioning—can you love the sinner, abhor the sin, and still make sense of your last name?
Brace yourself for a documentary double-feature that shatters easy answers, stirs up backlash, and leaves you wondering if truth can ever be more than “not all black and white.” Curious about the fine, frazzling line between horror and humanity? LEARN MORE.
A new Charles Manson documentary from Netflix looks into the mind of the world-famous killer by unveiling tapes from his interrogation, but another recent documentary sees a young woman discover that he is her grandfather after a lifetime of not knowing.
My Grandfather Charles Manson released in July of this year focuses on Sophia Maddox, a young filmmaker who discovers her relation to the infamous cult leader. Maddox’s father had never known his own dad, but had told Maddox throughout his life that he felt as if he was ‘cursed’, not even telling her about her relation to Manson for two months after he found out.
In Conversations With a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes, Netflix’s new documentary, several of the members of Manson’s cult are interviewed as part of the doc.
One of these is Stephanie Schram, considered by many to be Manson’s ‘last girlfriend’, who was also interviewed in Maddox’s documentary. My Grandfather Charles Manson sees Maddox not only reckoning with her familial relation, but with what the true facts were about his crimes, examining the circumstances and systemic failures that create such a disturbed individual.
When speaking to Schram the cult-member revealed that Manson had run a ‘murder school’ in which he supposedly taught his acolytes how to handle a knife and kill people. She also claims that anyone in their ‘family’ had been told if they tried to leave he would kill them.
The exchange is one that has sparked controversy, partially due to Maddox not fully believing Schram’s recollection of events, stating in the documentary that it may have been influenced by ‘anti-Manson books’ and responding saying: “It’s not all black and white.”
Speaking exclusively to LADbible Maddox has opened up about this exchange, and the backlash to the documentary about her grandfather.
Sophia found out from her dad that his father was Charles Manson (Hulu)
Maddox explained that, for the documentary, she interviewed several members of the Manson family and people connected to his crimes, adding: “I cross-reference [the interviews] and I didn’t hear from any other women that they had a murder school.
“Stephanie said that happened after the murders (in which Sharon Tate and four others were killed) at Barker Ranch.”
She admitted ‘maybe it is true, maybe Charles Manson was teaching them how to handle a knife’, but added: “At the same time, Diane Lake, Lynette Fromme, Blue [Sandra Good], Gypsy [Catherine Share] I didn’t hear that from them, or before the murders.
“So it’s like I could believe all of them or I could believe none of them or who do you believe? It’s tough to say, but I try and tend to believe what everyone says, but always hold it with nuance, like two things can be true at the same time.
Charles Manson was alleged to run a ‘murder school’, but Sophia disputes this (Albert Foster/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
“Stephanie saying they had this knifing school after the murders happening could very well be true. And then, you know, the other girl saying nothing like that happened before the murders could be very well true.”
Speaking about the backlash to the documentary, which has seen her accused of being ‘overly sympathetic’ to Manson, she said: “I had no intention whatsoever [of] wanting to downplay anything he was guilty of. But I wanted to know what he was guilty of.
“Any time that I don’t believe something happened is because I have literally looked through tooth and nail and turned over every rock and stone to see if something was true or not. It’s never to apologize for a white man. It’s never to make a white man less guilty of the crimes that he did. That’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”
My Grandfather Charles Manson is available to watch on Disney+ and Conversations With a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes is available to watch on Netflix.
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