# Presenting: KILLER MINDS

An episode of [Morbidology](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1463979546), 20 Mar 2025, 10 min.

Audio: https://prefix.up.audio/s/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/s.gum.fm/s-610c47a4222ada0024acb2d8/pscrb.fm/rss/p/prfx.byspotify.com/e/tracking.swap.fm/track/2IMk17EdnEqyRhJTIpIU/claritaspod.com/measure/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/64861487/morbidology_feed_drop_killer_minds.mp3

Formerly known as Mind of A Serial Killer, Killer Minds takes you deep into the psychology of history’s most chilling murderers—from infamous serial killers to ruthless cult leaders, deadly exes, and terrifying spree killers. Every Monday and Thursday, hosts Vanessa Richardson and Dr. Tristin Engels, a Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, blend gripping true crime storytelling with expert psychological analysis to uncover what drives people to kill. From the calculated minds of serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy to crimes of passion and cold-blooded murders, Killer Minds goes beyond the headlines to explore the twisted psychology behind the crimes. What fuels their darkness? How do their minds work? And most hauntingly—could they have been stopped? A Crime House Studios original, new episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Follow Killer Minds wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us at Killerminds on social media. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/morbidology--3527306/support.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Emily. If you're loving morbidology, you need
[0:03] Speaker 1: to check out the new podcast, Killer Minds, hosted by
[0:06] Speaker 1: licensed forensic psychologists doctor Tristan Engels and crime houses Vanessa Richardson.
[0:11] Speaker 1: Each episode of Killer Minds features a deep dive into
[0:13] Speaker 1: the psychology of a notorious murderer, from infamous serial killers
[0:17] Speaker 1: to ruthless cult leaders, deadly x'es and terrifying spree killers.
[0:22] Speaker 1: Along with Donessa's immersive storytelling full of high stakes, twist
[0:25] Speaker 1: and turns, Doctor Engels will be providing expert analysis of
[0:29] Speaker 1: the people involved, not just how they killed, but why.
[0:33] Speaker 1: Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Grisel de Blanco aka the Cocaine Grandmother.
[0:39] Speaker 1: These are just a few of the names they'll be covering.
[0:41] Speaker 1: It's about so much more than just their crimes. It's
[0:45] Speaker 1: about their minds. And now here's a sneak peak of
[0:49] Speaker 1: Killer Minds.
[0:52] Speaker 2: From the moment he was born on November twelfth, nineteen
[0:56] Speaker 2: thirty four. Charles Manson's life was driven by deception. His
[1:01] Speaker 2: birth certificate listed Kathleen and William Manson as his parents,
[1:06] Speaker 2: but for years Charles had no idea that William wasn't
[1:11] Speaker 2: his father. That honor most likely belonged to a con
[1:14] Speaker 2: artist named Colonel Scott. Colonel was Scott's given first name,
[1:20] Speaker 2: but if people assumed he was in the army, he
[1:23] Speaker 2: didn't bother correcting them. That's how he caught Kathleen Maddox's
[1:28] Speaker 2: attention at a dance club in Ironton, Ohio. He was
[1:32] Speaker 2: twenty three, she was just fifteen. Kathleen was charmed by
[1:38] Speaker 2: the older man she assumed was a military officer, so
[1:42] Speaker 2: when she discovered she was pregnant sometime in the spring
[1:45] Speaker 2: of nineteen thirty four, Kathleen had no reason to doubt
[1:49] Speaker 2: the colonel when he said he was being called away
[1:52] Speaker 2: on duty. He promised he'd be back as soon as
[1:55] Speaker 2: he could, but she never heard from him again. After
[2:01] Speaker 2: a few months, Kathleen finally realized she'd been duped and
[2:05] Speaker 2: now she needed to find someone to help raise her
[2:08] Speaker 2: soon to be newborn baby. That's when William Manson, who
[2:13] Speaker 2: worked for a dry cleaning business, entered the picture. It's
[2:17] Speaker 2: not really clear how the two of them met, but
[2:20] Speaker 2: by the time Charles was born on November twelfth, nineteen
[2:24] Speaker 2: thirty four, Kathleen and William were married. However, it doesn't
[2:29] Speaker 2: seem either of them was all that interested in parenting.
[2:32] Speaker 2: William wasn't around much, and neither was Kathleen. Most days
[2:37] Speaker 2: she dropped Charles off with her mom so she could
[2:39] Speaker 2: go out drinking with her brother.
[2:42] Speaker 3: Let's discuss the impact of Charles's early childhood. Kathleen was
[2:47] Speaker 3: a minor, so her judgment, reasoning, impulsiveness, decision making, even
[2:52] Speaker 3: emotional regulation is impaired because she did not have a
[2:56] Speaker 3: fully developed frontal lobe. This also affects her ability to
[3:01] Speaker 3: cope appropriately with the demands of being a new mother,
[3:04] Speaker 3: not to mention any postpartum effects she may have had,
[3:08] Speaker 3: and given that Charles's father conned his mother, she may
[3:12] Speaker 3: have some conscious or unconscious resentment that she projected unto Charles.
[3:17] Speaker 3: As a result, her seemingly desperate and impulsive decision to
[3:21] Speaker 3: marry William appears to be driven by more societal pressures
[3:25] Speaker 3: on unwed mothers back then, not necessarily a marriage that
[3:29] Speaker 3: was built on love, and Charles later learning that William
[3:33] Speaker 3: is not his biological father will more likely than not
[3:37] Speaker 3: affect his sense of self worth, his identity, and his trust.
[3:42] Speaker 3: Kathleen abandoning Charles to go drinking indicates she may have
[3:46] Speaker 3: an alcohol use disorder, and I also wonder if she
[3:49] Speaker 3: drank while she was pregnant that could have caused a
[3:52] Speaker 3: prenatal injury, and if so, would warrant further exploration to
[3:56] Speaker 3: understand Charles's development. Then the the layer of Kathleen and
[4:01] Speaker 3: William's disinterest in being parents. The effects of emotionally absent
[4:06] Speaker 3: parents on children is well documented. Those children tend to
[4:10] Speaker 3: have more difficulty with trust, with self esteem, and forming
[4:14] Speaker 3: healthy relationships. And when you compound that with the abandonment
[4:18] Speaker 3: and that William wasn't his biological father, that is pretty profound.
[4:23] Speaker 3: Nurturance is critical for a child's development, and if their
[4:27] Speaker 3: immediate caregivers aren't providing that or reinforcing a healthy development,
[4:31] Speaker 3: that child is at risk of exhibiting.
[4:34] Speaker 4: Poor emotional regulation.
[4:36] Speaker 3: Later on, they have an increase in academic struggles, behavioral deficits,
[4:41] Speaker 3: and developmental delays.
[4:43] Speaker 2: So, even if Charles's grandmother was a nurturing guardian, what
[4:47] Speaker 2: kind of impact does it have on a child when
[4:49] Speaker 2: they can tell their parents aren't that interested in raising them.
[4:53] Speaker 4: It's a really good question.
[4:55] Speaker 3: Well, Statistically, if a child has emotionally absent parents, but
[5:00] Speaker 3: they have at least one constant, loving and nurturing presence,
[5:05] Speaker 3: like a grandmother, for example. They are more likely to
[5:08] Speaker 3: be resilient and overcome those statistical odds that I'd mentioned,
[5:13] Speaker 3: And that's why there's so many adult children of emotionally
[5:16] Speaker 3: absent parents who are high functioning. They are breaking generational cycles,
[5:21] Speaker 3: and they have learned to have healthy attachments as adults.
[5:25] Speaker 3: Of course, this all depends on a number of factors,
[5:28] Speaker 3: such as when that nurturing presence.
[5:30] Speaker 4: Entered their life, how long they remained in.
[5:32] Speaker 3: Their life, how available they were to them, as well
[5:35] Speaker 3: as other things. But the fact remains that children will
[5:38] Speaker 3: recognize that their parents are emotionally absent at some point,
[5:42] Speaker 3: and there is a likelihood that there will be some
[5:45] Speaker 3: resentment or anger.
[5:47] Speaker 2: With all this going on, it didn't take Kathleen and
[5:50] Speaker 2: William long to realize they weren't right for each other.
[5:53] Speaker 2: Within two and a half years, they were divorced. After that,
[5:58] Speaker 2: Kathleen turned to petty crime to get by, and on
[6:01] Speaker 2: August first, nineteen thirty nine, when Charles was almost five,
[6:06] Speaker 2: she was arrested after an unsuccessful robbery. Kathleen spent the
[6:11] Speaker 2: next few years behind bars, while young Charles was given
[6:15] Speaker 2: to his aunt, uncle, and cousin who lived near the
[6:18] Speaker 2: West Virginia prison where she was incarcerated.
[6:21] Speaker 3: And this is what it meant about those other variables
[6:23] Speaker 3: that affect resiliency. If his grandmother was a constant source
[6:28] Speaker 3: of nurturance and affection, then taking him away from her
[6:32] Speaker 3: and passing him around through different relatives like that really
[6:35] Speaker 3: does reduce his ability to gain that resiliency.
[6:39] Speaker 2: And it was a strict household on top of that,
[6:42] Speaker 2: and Charles was frequently punished for breaking the rules, and
[6:46] Speaker 2: he didn't have it much easier at school. He was
[6:49] Speaker 2: small for his age and prone to mischief. That meant
[6:52] Speaker 2: he drew the attention of bullies and received discipline from
[6:56] Speaker 2: his teachers. It was a lot for a young boy
[6:59] Speaker 2: to handle on his own. So when Kathleen was released
[7:03] Speaker 2: from prison in nineteen forty two, eight year old Charles
[7:07] Speaker 2: was over the moon. But after a short period of
[7:11] Speaker 2: good behavior from both of them, things went south. Kathleen
[7:16] Speaker 2: had a hard time staying on the straight and narrow,
[7:18] Speaker 2: and Charles took his cues from her. He stopped going
[7:22] Speaker 2: to school and started stealing from local shops. By the time,
[7:27] Speaker 2: Kathleen finally decided to get her life on track in
[7:30] Speaker 2: nineteen forty three, she couldn't control her son anymore. In
[7:35] Speaker 2: nineteen forty seven, when Charles was twelve, she sent him
[7:39] Speaker 2: to a reform school in Tara Hate, Indiana, called the
[7:42] Speaker 2: Jibot School for Boys. Predictably, things didn't go well. Within
[7:49] Speaker 2: ten months, Charles had run away multiple times. He alternated
[7:53] Speaker 2: between going back to his family and living on his own,
[7:57] Speaker 2: stealing to get by when he Inevitably, when he got caught,
[8:00] Speaker 2: he was sent to even stricter institutions. In nineteen forty nine,
[8:06] Speaker 2: at thirteen years old, Charles found himself at a place
[8:09] Speaker 2: called the Indiana Boys' School, and that's when his life
[8:14] Speaker 2: became a living hell. It wasn't like things had been
[8:19] Speaker 2: easy until this point, but at the Indiana Boys' School,
[8:23] Speaker 2: things took a tragically dark turn. According to Charles, he
[8:28] Speaker 2: was sexually assaulted by some of his fellow students, and
[8:32] Speaker 2: to make a horrifying situation even worse, it was apparently
[8:36] Speaker 2: encouraged by a staff member.
[8:38] Speaker 4: Oh wow, there's a lot to unpack here.
[8:42] Speaker 3: So until this point, Charles has had no real stability
[8:46] Speaker 3: or security in his life starting from a very young age,
[8:50] Speaker 3: not to mention the many broken attachments he's had until
[8:53] Speaker 3: this point, his mother was seemingly grooming him into a
[8:58] Speaker 3: career criminal and then once again abandoned him, this time
[9:02] Speaker 3: to a reform school because she could no longer control
[9:05] Speaker 3: what she herself had actually helped to create. Now at
[9:09] Speaker 3: this boy's school, he continues to lack any control over
[9:13] Speaker 3: his life, and once again the adults that should be
[9:16] Speaker 3: protecting him aren't and instead are encouraging crimes against him.
[9:21] Speaker 3: And this I believe greatly impacted his ability to empathize
[9:26] Speaker 3: with others, or rather his lack of ability to do that,
[9:29] Speaker 3: and why he only forms attachments to others if he
[9:32] Speaker 3: has something to gain from them, and those attachments will
[9:35] Speaker 3: remain superficial.
[9:37] Speaker 4: He is learning more versatile ways to be a criminal,
[9:40] Speaker 4: and more importantly, this really shapes who he is to become.
[9:44] Speaker 4: His lack of control is going to be overcompensated by
[9:47] Speaker 4: a need to always be in control of everyone and
[9:51] Speaker 4: everything around him, which we will definitely be getting into
[9:55] Speaker 4: in detail as you take us through his story.
[10:00] Speaker 2: Oh Killer Minds a crime House Studio's original Now new
[10:04] Speaker 2: episodes drop every Monday and Thursday again. That's Killer Minds.
[10:09] Speaker 2: Follow now wherever you get your podcasts, and for early
[10:13] Speaker 2: ad free access, subscribe to crime House Plus on Apple
[10:16] Speaker 2: Podcasts

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