Charles Manson was the closest thing to Jesus, says former lover: 'He gave women what they needed'
A former lover and devout member of the notorious Manson family has come out to reveal that their leader, Charles Manson, was a God-like figure among people in the cult. She also called for the release of three members of the family serving life sentences for a series of nine murders they carried out in July and August 1969.
Catherine Share, a one-time lover of Manson, explained how he had her and other girls under a spell. "He just made you feel good about yourself. He gave women what they needed and wanted in a lot of different ways. So they wanted to be with him," stated a 9 News report.
At just 26 years of age, Share, who had no surviving family members of her own, became a devout member of the family in 1969 and even moved to Manson's ranch half-an-hour North of Los Angeles to be close to him.
She explained that the other members were eager to follow orders because he made them feel as though they were coming from a higher power. "I thought he was the closest thing to Jesus," she said. "So we listened to everything he said like it was gospel." However, later the same year, Manson, convinced he could spark 'Helter Skelter' — his term to describe an impending apocalyptic race war — by killing Los Angeles' rich and elite, hatched a plan to carry out a murder spree.
This coming July and August will mark the 50th anniversary of the horrific deaths of Abigail Ann Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Earl Parent, Sharon Tate Polanski, Jay Sebring, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Gary Hinman, and Donald Jerome Shea.
Manson and four of his followers — Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel, Charles 'Tex' Watson, and Susan Atkins — were subsequently convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. While Atkins died in prison in 2009, and Manson passed away in 2017, the other three still remain incarcerated.
While Share said she would have never participated in the murders even if she was asked as she was "older and more of a human and less susceptible," she is advocating for the release of her former family members, insisting they should not still be facing punishments for crimes they committed when they were mostly teenagers.
"They’ve just done the work on themselves for years and years and years," she told 9 News. "They’re just not the same people they were when they were 20 and 18 at all. It's time."
Share might see part of her wish come true as well. Houten — who was involved in the stabbing of Leno LaBianca and wife Rosemary when she was just 19 — is currently 69 years old and is the second longest serving female prisoner in California after Krenwinkel. Houten saw her bid for parole recently granted.
Houten applied for parole 20 times beginning from 1979 and saw it getting rejected at the last hurdle during her last two attempts. Her fate is now in the hands of the Governor of California Gavin Newsom, who will take the final call on whether to approve the parole board's decision. Krenwinkel and Watson have each been denied parole multiple times too.