A secret history, like no other.
Sophia Maddox was a 22-year-old filmmaker in Los Angeles when her father, Daniel Arguelles, called with news he wasn’t sure she was ready to hear: an Ancestry test had revealed that Charles Manson was his biological father—and her grandfather. Maddox Googled Manson’s face and immediately saw the resemblance. “That’s my dad,” she thought.
Arguelles had submitted his DNA to Ancestry in 2015 after spending decades wondering who his biological father was. Years later, he matched with Michael Brunner, Manson’s son with his early follower Mary Brunner. Further testing confirmed that Arguelles and Brunner were half-brothers. Arguelles, born in 1959, was conceived during a brief relationship between his mother and Manson, who was then using the alias “Charlie Dear,” according to People.
That discovery became My Grandfather Charles Manson, Maddox’s Hulu documentary. She met with former Manson followers and examined previously unreleased records from his childhood, focusing less on the mythology surrounding him than on how he became the man America feared.
Manson was born in 1934 and spent much of his childhood cycling through juvenile institutions. By the time he left federal prison in 1967, he had spent roughly half his life locked up. “He was there for running away from home, stealing a bike or stealing a car,” Maddox said of his early years. “But so many boys, older kids with violent records, were placed there. And what does a kid have to do to survive a place like that?”
Manson was later convicted of orchestrating the 1969 murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others. He died in prison in 2017 at 83 while serving a life sentence. Maddox has emphasized that examining his childhood does not mean excusing his crimes. “My intention is never to apologize or justify for anybody’s actions,” she said. “I know what my grandfather did.”
But the discovery that inspired the documentary ultimately fractured Maddox’s relationship with her father. They had a falling out one week before production began, and Arguelles, who saw parallels between parts of his own childhood and Manson’s, found the project too painful.
“I don’t know if he’s seen the film,” Maddox said. “He hasn’t reached out.” Arguelles has said only that the rift resulted from “a difference of opinion on the overall narrative.”
Maddox also changed her surname during the process, choosing the name of Manson’s mother after learning what it meant to her. “My blood name means goodness,” she said. “I’m going to own it. That’s mine. I’m giving it new life.”
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