Charles Manson went to jail before he became infamous for petty crimes and parole violations , not for the later Tate-LaBianca murders that made him notorious. The best-documented overlap with Danny Trejo is from a 1961 stint in the Los Angeles County Jail, when Manson was still just a small-time career criminal rather than a household name.

What he was jailed for

Before the Manson Family era, Manson had already cycled through the system for things like:

  • Theft and related property crimes.
  • Vehicle-related offenses and parole problems.
  • Other repeat criminal conduct that kept him in and out of custody.

Why Trejo remembered him

Danny Trejo later described Manson as a tiny, scrappy inmate who tried to impress people with ā€œguided meditationā€ and hypnosis-style talk, long before Manson became infamous for orchestrating murders in 1969. That jail story is why the two names come up together so often in interviews and articles.

Timing

The important part is the timeline: Trejo met Manson in jail in the early 1960s, and Mansonā€™s most notorious crimes happened years later, after he was released and had built up his cult following. So the short answer is: Manson was in jail for ordinary repeat-criminal offenses, and Trejo encountered him before the murders made him infamous.

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