I Wrote to Charles Manson and Got This Drawing in Response

Lots of people are interested in serial killers. And right now, in the wake of the death of notorious 1960s cult leader Charles Manson at the age of 83, pseudo-psychological op-eds are being written in newsrooms around the globe, frantically trying to explain why.

But what’s it like being so interested that you decide to become penpals with a killer? Here’s Rocco Casella, who, briefly, became just that with Manson.

VICE: Hey Rocco. How did you come to be interested in Charles Manson and the Manson Family?

Rocco Casella: Just reading [1974 true crime book, by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry] Helter Skelter after seeing the 1970 miniseries with Steve Railsback in it. I would have been 17. I was a pretty average kid. Football team, C student, interested in computers and art – but I was really into horror movies at the time. This would have been 1988. But this stuff scared me much more than horror movies. Charlie and the Family were real, whereas Jason and Freddy were fiction.

Did you have an interest in serial killers in general?
Not really. Charles Manson was actually the first one I was interested in. I knew of John Wayne Gacy, obviously, because I lived in Illinois, Chicago, and he was local, and all the kids would share stories they’d heard about him. But no, I wasn’t really interested in this stuff before I read about Charlie and the Family.

When did you decide to write to him?
It would have been the same year, so 1988. I worked in a bookstore at the time, and someone came in asking about a book called The Garbage People, which is a book by John Gilmore and Ron Kenner about the Manson Family. He came in the next week with the addresses of the institutions where they were being incarcerated. I think he was trying to show off or something. I mailed all the Family. Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, Lynette Fromme and Charlie. Only Charlie and Lynette wrote back to me.

What did you say in your letter to them?
I sent basic letters saying that I had read all about them and was wondering if I could have their perspective about what happened, in their words. I heard back from Charlie and Leslie about four months later. I wanted to know if the media got it wrong back then. I’d watched a documentary about the Family, where the girls said that a lot of what was said about them wasn’t true. I was interested to know what they thought the truth was.

What did Charlie say in his letter?
Charlie sent a Photostat drawing and the single phrase, “Look down at me, you will see a fool, look up at me, you will see your lord. Look straight at me, and you will see yourself.”

Did that creep you out?
When I saw the letter, I was disappointed more than anything. I’d already heard what he wrote in an interview. I think it was a go-to saying of his. There was nothing original or personal at all.

There’s a website address on the Photostat. What’s that about?
It was for the Family’s conservation project. It’s no longer a reputable address. ATWA is short for air, water, trees, animals. I think Charlie valued those things more than humans, to be honest.

What did Lynette say?
Lynette responded with a postcard. She said, “I like – and I think most people like – to hear from the principles of any news story, rather than hearing an interpretation of what was said from the reporter. Reporters used to be much worse in always leaving out what was actually said. I’d like to see newspapers phased out as they are notoriously inaccurate, are produced from vast quantities of trees and are effemeral.”

I’m not sure effemeral is a word. Do you think she meant ephemeral?
I don’t know what she meant!

Sorry, go on, what else did she say?
She said, “Today’s news is tomorrow’s trash. That leads to more incredibly bad reporting. As for my opinions – they haven’t changed much from the day I came to jail, but I’ve seen more to support them. Lynette,”

Did your friends or family, no pun intended, know you’d written to them? What did they think?
My friends at the time knew. I showed my mom the letters when they arrived. She called me an idiot. That said, she was a bartender and took them to work to show everyone.

Did you ever consider keeping up the correspondence?
I never contemplated writing to any of them again. Around that time I got interested in the new FBI personality profiling they were doing on all the living killers, a project Agent John Douglas was conducting [the inspiration for the Netflix TV show, Mindhunter], and I kinda wanted to do that for a job. When I got the kooky letters from them I thought it was a waste of time if I wasn’t getting paid for it. I realised, if I wanted straight answers from these two, I’d have to dedicate more time to get through the babble. I grew into other interests, like girls, and my hobby of rollercoasters and travel. The only regret I have in writing them was I put more time into them than they deserved.

What did you feel when you’d heard Charlie had died?
I was a little sad when I heard he died. Not for Charlie, but for the families whom he hurt with his masterminding. And knowing what I know from reading about them so much, he was a deeply troubled person from the start, and never actually had a chance to ever be normal from birth. He was in abusive foster homes, in and out of boy’s homes and juvenile detention the first 15 of his 20 years. I think that shows that he just couldn’t adjust to what real life was. He was in jail or in institutions for 68 of his 83 years of existence. It was all he ever knew.

@jamesjammcmahon