Twenty-five years after sending his cult followers on a bloody rampage of torture and murder, Charles Manson said in an interview published Saturday that he feels no remorse and considers himself a "good person."
"Everybody in the world wants to get mad at me because I won't show remorse because somebody dies. Somebody dies every day," Manson, who was convicted of masterminding the slayings of actress Sharon Tate and six others, told the Los Angeles Times.Manson, who turns 60 in November, repeated his claim of innocence, contending he was denied a fair trial. But after spending three-quarters of his life behind bars, he said he has no desire to leave prison.
"What would I want out for? This beats an old folks home," he said in a typically rambling interview by phone from the state prison in Corcoran, California, where he is being held in solitary confinement.
Manson, a wild-eyed career criminal who wears a swastika engraved on his forehead, said he was never the villain the media made him out to be.
"I am a man of God. I am not a bad person. I am a good person," he said.
He delivered his trademark message of social calamity in disjointed style, saying the environment is being destroyed, children are being abused and the planet is in chaos. "It would take a madman to adjust to this world," he said.
During the counterculture revolution of the 1960s, Manson lived in squalor with his "family" of youthful disciples.
It was after nightfall August 9, 1969, that four members of Manson's cult invaded Tate's posh Benedict Canyon mansion while her husband, film director Roman Polanski, was in Europe.
They butchered everyone inside and scrawled the word "PIG" on the front door. The next night, Manson's followers struck again, killing Leno and Rosemary LeBianca, owners of a supermarket chain, in their Los Feliz home.