Inside the evil death cult of Charles Manson
Today Dianne Lake is a church-going grandmother but 50 years ago she fell under the spell of the madman who masterminded the killing of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate, as her shocking new book reveals
DIANNE LAKE was barely 14 when she became the 32-year-old Charles Manson’s lover. She joined the harem of women in his cult which was known as “The Family” for two years as he plotted the savage murders that shocked America in 1969.
Lake was not part of the slayings, whose victims included Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, but she listened as her “family” later described the killings in gruesome detail and hid out with them as police scoured the nation.
Almost half a century later Lake, now 64, is speaking for the first time about Manson after the release of her shocking memoir Member Of The Family, which has just been published.
“He made you feel like you were his one and only love,” she says. “Yes, there were other girls but we all shared him. He made you feel very special and specially loved.”
Manson, now 82, hoped to spark a nationwide race war with his slayings. During his trial he carved a swastika into his forehead and since being imprisoned in California in 1969 he has repeatedly been denied parole.
Yet Lake found the bearded sociopath 18 years her senior “cute, impish, you know, fun”. She is no longer the 1960s flower child known to the Manson family as Snake, whose seduction by the murderous cult became a cautionary tale parents told their teens.
Her pale blue eyes and chestnut hair are much the same but today Lake is a church-going widowed grandmother with three children. A special education teacher with a master’s degree she never told her husband of her past and kept the secret from her children – until now. “It’s time for me to exorcise my demons and to face the truth, as much as I can remember it,” says Lake. “I was with the Manson family from the age of 14 until my arrest at Barker Ranch aged 16. This is my story and this is my confession.”
Life in the Manson family was never normal. “They were all misfits, looking for affection,” she says. Their leader, who had sex with his many female followers, claimed to be the second coming of Christ but Manson’s love-and-peace rhetoric turned to homicidal ravings in a bid to ignite revolution. He gave knives to every family member and taught Lake stabbing techniques.
Lake claims she knew nothing of Manson’s plans and was left at home when the family went on a two-night murder rampage in Los Angeles in 1969. But she soon learned of their atrocities. “They gave me the gory details with a certain amount of glee,” says Lake. “I was stunned into silence.”
Cult killer Patricia Krenwinkel detailed the first night’s slayings. “I listened to her talk about the blood and how she dragged a woman, Abigail Folger, from her bedroom to the living room. After she had stabbed her the woman got up to run and Patty said she tackled her. She then stabbed her until she saw the life leave her eyes.”
Tex Watson spoke of slaughtering eight and a half months pregnant Sharon Tate, confessing: “I killed her. Charlie told me to. It was fun.” Then Leslie Van Houten described the second night’s spree. “I thought that she would say something about how awful it was,” says Lake. “But instead she described how strange it was to stab someone but that after a while it was fun.
“They continued to compare notes like teenage girls discussing make-up and the boys they liked at school. I slowed my breathing so that my face would not betray my emotions.”
Lake was tragically ripe for seduction when she met Manson in 1967. The daughter of hippie artist parents she was an emancipated 14-year-old who lived in a commune and was already smoking marijuana, dropping LSD and having group sex with strangers when she became the youngest member of Manson’s family.
Amazingly it was Lake’s mother who first met Manson and gave him a photograph of the pretty teenager. Six weeks later Manson spotted Lake at a party in Los Angeles, pulling her close while his female followers stroked her hair and gave her marijuana.
“Charlie made me feel very special and meeting him and his girls was like magic,” she says. “This is how people are drawn into communities like the family.” Within hours he led her to the former school bus with the psychedelic decor that served as his living quarters and it was there that they had sex for the first time.
“He took his time to explore my body,” she says. “Charlie was offering me far more than just sex. He told me I should forget my parents and give up my inhibitions. He made it clear that he wanted me to be part of the group – his group. I felt as if there was no turning back.”
AND IT turned out to be a life of drugs and brainwashing. Manson was “extremely intelligent” with the “incredible ability to pick up on other people’s weaknesses and their needs and desires”, she says. “He preyed on them and he wanted to teach us how to do it too.”
Under Manson’s direction they broke into homes and rearranged people’s furniture to “mess with their minds”. But the cult leader’s ambitions turned deadly and he compiled a hit list that included Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Also on the list was Steve McQueen, who had planned to visit Sharon Tate on the night she was killed.
After the murders the Manson family hid out at remote desert ranches and it took two months for police to find them. Yet Lake remained silent even when threatened with the gas chamber.
“We were arrested in October but it wasn’t until December that I felt comfortable enough before the grand jury to tell them, ‘I’m Dianne Lake. I’m 16 and I want my mummy’.” She testified against Manson in court.
“My biggest fear was that I was going to succumb to that feeling of loyalty that I had for him and that he was going to mesmerise me but he didn’t,” she says. “The spell was broken.”
The cult members were convicted and given the death penalty, later commuted to life in prison. A year after the murders Lake was committed to a mental institution – where she was labelled schizophrenic due to her emotional trauma – for “rehabilitation”. Ultimately taken in as a foster child by police detective Jack Gardiner and his wife, she began healing.
Writing her memoir has proved to be cathartic. “I feel very unburdened and untethered by the shame of being associated with this person who has become an icon of evil,” she says.
Lake now sees Manson for what he is: “A scruffy little man with an enormous ego who thought the rules didn’t apply to him. He was a fake, a fraud, a pimp and a con artist. And now I am truly free of him.”
To order Member Of The Family by Dianne Lake (Harper Collins, £14.99) call the Express Bookshop with your credit card/debit card details on 01872 562310 or visit expressbookshop.co.uk. Or send a cheque or postal order made payable to Express Bookshop to Dianne Lake Offer, Express Bookshop, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ. UK delivery is free.