Recreating Charles Manson

Ed. note – Warning: some of the following images are violent and extreme, and may shock, disturb, or offend more sensitive viewers. Caution is advised.

Photographer Geoff Cordner recently harvested his obsession with the infamous Manson murders for this graphic, visionary series of images. Appropriately enough, Cordner used some of the most notorious names in alternative culture, from Tool’s Maynard James Keenan to porn star Veronica Webb and author Jerry Stahl, to re-enact one of the darkest and yet most celebrated chapters in American and pop culture.

On the evenings of Aug. 8 and 9, 1969, cult leader Manson sent followers Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and newcomer Linda Kasabian into the hills of Los Angeles to commit crimes so brutal and atrocious that he hoped they would spark the racial war he so desired. When it was all over, seven people (including actress Sharon Tate, eight months pregnant with director Roman Polanski’s child, and Folger’s Coffee heiress Abigail Folger) were dead, and the entire community gripped with fear. It wouldn’t be long, though, before all involved would be spending the rest of their lives behind bars.