Charles Manson

As a petty criminal, Manson had been taught to play guitar by 1930's bank robber Alvin Karpis while in prison for fraud, and boasted he would be "bigger than The Beatles". 

After his release from the McNeil Island penitentiary in Washington, Manson latched on to Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. In 1968, Manson and his coterie of female followers moved into Wilson's home for nearly a year, and persuaded him to record one of Manson's songs, Never Learn Not To Love - which turned up on The Beach Boys' 20/20 album.

On August 9, 1969, Manson ordered his followers to murder actress Sharon Tate and four others at her home in Beverly Hills. Manson, 35, called himself 'Jesus Christ' and dominated the teenage girls in his commune, which was known as The Family.

On December 24 1969, Manson and the four members of his hippie commune were charged with the murder of Sharon Tate and six others. Prosecutors claimed that the drug-crazed members of Manson's 'family' invaded Tate's Hollywood house and slaughtered the pregnant actress, three of her friends and a passer-by. They smeared the walls with blood and went on to kill two more people the following night.

TRIVIA NOTE
An oft-repeated urban-myth claims Manson was one of the 400 people who turned up to auditions for The Monkees in September 1965. Manson was in fact still an inmate in McNeil Island penitentiary in Washington at that time and didn't return to Los Angeles until 1967.