Ian Hunter
Professor Caldwell
Gen. Psych
11/18/14
Current Event In recent news, infamous serial killer Charles Manson filed for the first round of marriage paperwork. Charles Manson is currently 79-years old serving a lifetime sentence in prison and is engaged to a 26-year old woman, who goes by the name of Star but is formerly known as Afton Burton. Afton Burton first discovered Charles Manson when she was 16 years-old and became fascinated reading about ATWA, Manson’s environmental philosophy that stands for air, trees, water, animals. This philosophy has attracted her to Manson and the two started out exchanging letters and phone calls. Eventually, Star moved out to Corcoran, where Manson has lived for the past 25 years in Corcoran State Prison. Star now visits Manson on most weekends and the two talk on the phone every day. Critics think she is crazy and Manson is just using ATWA to lore attention to himself to young people and manipulating Star along with others interested in following his environmental philosophy. Despite what critics say she stands firm for Manson’s defense and states, "I don't care what those kind of people think. It doesn't make any difference. The man that I know is not what they have in the movies or in documentaries and the books. He's nothing like that. He doesn't tell people what to do. He's not manipulative at all" (Rowlands, 2014). She has grown to be strongly loyal to him, and has even done so much as to make websites to overall persuade the public eye that Manson is innocent in the murders he was convicted of back in the 1970’s. This article has much to deal with what has been discussed in class over the semester. First of all, even though Star knows Manson is a convicted serial killer she is so attracted to him that she sees no wrong in him and even