Charles Manson's granddaughter takes personality test to compare herself to cult leader
Charles Manson is a name everyone has known for decades – but one of his sons had no idea he was connected to the criminal until 2022, resulting in a shock for the woman who then learned she was Manson's granddaughter.
Manson founded what he called 'The Manson Family', which was a cult and criminal organization in California. Ultimately Manson coerced his followers into murdering several people in Los Angeles, the highest profile one being the death of pregnant actress Sharon Tate.
Prior to his imprisonment, Manson fathered four children with different women: Charles Manson Jr. (now Jay White), Charles Luther Manson (who now goes by Jay Charles Warner), Michael Brunner, and David Arguelles. It was David who spend much of his life with no knowledge of who his real father was, until a DNA test revealed the truth in 2022.
David then shared the news with his daughter, Sophia Maddox, a budding actress and filmmaker who started documenting her life and coping to terms with the news. Eventually she pitched the film to Hulu and they acquired her film, My Grandfather Charles Manson.
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In the documentary, which was filmed over the last few years and premiered on Hulu and Disney+ July 22, Sophia takes an inkblot test (a type of psychological projective assessment) to see how it compares to inkblot testing her grandfather had done.
Fortunately, Sophia got the news she was hoping for – that she's not like her murderous grandfather.
Dr Robert Schug, a forensic psychologist in neurocrimonology, broke down both Manson and Sophia's test results.
Her grandfather's results signalled things such as hypomanic symptoms, elevated mood, irritability, manic episodes, all of which are sometimes associated with bipolar disease, said Dr Schug. Sophia then said that she's seen some similar traits in her own father.
Going further into his analysis of Manson, Dr Schug explained that Sophia's grandfather seemed to have the idea that 'people were out to get him'.
Directly comparing some of Sophia's answers to Manson's, Dr Schug told her: "Your responses tended to be more light hearted and whimsical and kind of creative. At the very least, they weren't concerning or scary or anything like that."
He continued to tell her as his analysis went on: "You don't show signs of thought disorder and you are able to see the world in a conventional way. [Manson] was not.
"So, if you came in her worried that Dr Schug was going to tell you that you were just like Charles Manson, you're not."
Sophie's connection to Manson began after David's mom, Darlene Arguelles, had a brief fling with Manson when she was 17 years old and later gave birth to her son. It wasn't until 10 years later that she saw Manson making the headlines that she realized who David's father was. With the nature of his crimes in mind, she chose never told her son who his biological father was.
Fast forward to 2022, and David found a connection on Ancestry.com – that being his half-brother Michael. It wasn't long until David learned that the connection between them was their father, Charles Manson.
To make sure he was related to the notorious cult leader, David subpoenaed Kern County and attained Manson’s DNA from his estate. A DNA test found a 99.9999 percent positive match to Manson, TIME reports.
In the wake of his crimes, Manson had been convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder in 1971 and spent the rest of his life behind bars up until his passing aged 83 in 2017.
My Grandfather Charles Manson is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
Topics: True crime, Hulu, Disney Plus, Documentaries, Film and TV
Niamh Shackleton