Michael Channels, a longtime Newhall resident, is currently caught up in a legal battle over who will take responsibility for convicted cult leader Charles Manson’s estate.

KHTS reporter Caleb Lunetta spoke with Channels in an exclusive interview in the KHTS studio about Manson and the struggle over his body and estate.

Related: Charles Manson Estate, Body Being Claimed By Santa Clarita Resident

YOUR NAME IS MUDD

After speaking with Channels for more than two hours at the KHTS studio on Saturday, I’ve not been able to get this old idiom out of my head: “Your name is Mudd.”

This phrase — which implies that one is in disgrace or unpopular — is an idiom that is uniquely American; a statement of figurative language that many agree has a history dating back to the Civil War.

The story goes that following his assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, John Wilkes Booth infamously leapt from the theater balcony, and shouted “sic semper tyrannis (Ever thus to tyrants)!”

However, during his jump, Booth broke his leg landing on the stage and needed immediate medical attention. In the dead of night, Dr. Samuel Mudd was awoken by a knock on his door, and standing in the doorway was the man who had just slain the 16th President of the United States.

Accounts vary on what Mudd’s involvement in the conspiracy was: Did he help mastermind the shooting? Was he a friend of Booth’s and knew of the plot but did not say anything to the proper authorities? Or was he oblivious to the whole ordeal.

However, one thing that most people agree on is that Mudd was honorbound to help Booth: the doctor took his Hippocratic oath seriously. And regardless of who it was, Dr. Samuel Mudd needed to do everything in his power to save this injured man.

Mudd, for his fulfillment of professional and personal ethics, was labeled a conspirator and jailed. He was pardoned by President Johnson and many modern historians continue to argue for his innocence. But his conviction has never been expunged, nor has his name ever been removed from the idiom.

Due to Mudd’s personal ethics and respect for human life, he was lumped in with assassins, traitors and conspirators for all time, dying a disgraced man with his family and descendents to shoulder the burden.

HELPING A FELLOW HUMAN BEING

“It’ll be the same thing about this article, people saying that I’m going to eat their faces, calling me crazy,” said Channels. “I was put into this predicament, I didn’t ask for it in the first place and now I’m dealing with it.”

For all intents and purposes, Michael Channels is a normal guy. He’s been a resident of Santa Clarita since the early 90’s, never been arrested, is married, works locally as a contractor, and has a son who attended Hart and is now in the Army.

He also wrote and visited with Charles Manson regularly for nearly three decades.

“I was never a part of the Manson family, but I got dragged into it,” said Channels. “I feel sorry for what happened to the Tate family, but I’m treated like the man that smeared the blood on the walls of the house. I’m guilty by association.”

The relationship between the Newhall resident and the convicted killer began in the early 90s after Channels, a memorabilia and autograph collector, wrote to Manson asking for his autograph.

“I have collected everyone’s autographs over the years, from Mother Teresa, to John Glenn, to Neil Armstrong, to Ted Bundy. But Manson’s autograph was the hardest to get,” said Channels. “I wrote him fifty unanswered letters, and then on the 50th, he wrote me back.”

Channels had always grown up a curious kid, never truly getting into trouble, but wanting to discover what people were too scared to.

“There was this old black gentlemen that lived on our block, and where we lived back then it was pretty racist, so no one really talked to him,” said Channels. “One time he caught me breaking into his house, and he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and said ‘If you want to come in, just ask.’”

Channels said that he developed a friendship with this man after that moment, and he would go knock on his neighbors door from time to time and have conversations with him, where this man would tell him all about the railroad and his life.

It is this same curiosity that, in part, drove Channels to continue writing Manson. Channels acknowledged that Mason had had a hand in the murders — in that he did not do anything to prevent them — but contended that the “devil” Manson has become in popular culture is far from the truth.

“He was a criminal, but he wasn’t a murderer; he didn’t have it in him,” said Channels. “He wasn’t there when the actual murders were happening, but everything was pinned on him because he did not give everyone else up to the police.”

Channels said that another reason he had written Manson was because he could relate to the man on a number of things, outside of the murders and “Charles Manson” legend.

He told me that he and Manson had both grown up in a small town, Midwest, religious family, wearing hand-me-downs to school everyday. They also had rebellious men or strong women in their lives while growing up.

“I had my Uncle Chuck, who kind of looked like a Manson character, and my grandmother who one time gave Pretty Boy Floyd water when he was hiding out on her property,” said Channels. “She was a very religious woman and would never talk about it — ever — but I forced it out of her only one time.”

“She said she had given him water and that was the end of the story. The FBI caught up to him in my hometown and shot him the next day,” said Channels. “But she said she did it because she said she ‘wanted to be right by God and by Jesus by helping a fellow human being.’”

Listening in on his story, it was this story of his grandmother’s compassion — despite knowing exactly who Pretty Boy Floyd, a notorious bank robber, was — that became the most telling reason for why Channels continued his friendship with Manson.

SO I’LL BURY HIM

“I had been writing and talking to him for a while, when I, just one day, opened up a letter from him and it had the will inside,” said Channels. “We talked about it a couple times, but it’s not like we’re best friends or family. I’m just a trustworthy person.”

According to Channels, Manson had hundreds of friends and family members who would occasionally come out of the woodwork, always wanting something from Manson. However, the Newhall man made a point after that first autograph to never ask “Charlie” for anything.

“I knew what he had done,” said Channels. “And people have come out and said terrible things about me or recognized me in public and judged me. But all people deserve to have their last words and last wishes to be heard and respected.”

“The last thing he said to me was he thanked me for ‘having as much faith in him that I have in myself,’” said Channels. “So, not only is it California law for a person that is in possession of a will to turn it in, but I also had this man entrust me with his body after he died. And so I’ll bury him.”

Channels said that he could not disclose publicly yet the exact location of where he’ll bury Manson, but adamantly told me it would “not be in Santa Clarita.”

Channels, in our interview, stated that Manson had written him a final letter that he wished would be read at his funeral. A eulogy for himself.

“I’ll read the first couple of lines here at the very beginning (of the letter written by Manson to be read at his funeral): ‘To understanding the end is not easy. No more, never again, blank forever. If there is a forever, how the Hell could there be an end to forever.’”

Channels’s case to take responsibility of Manson’s body began this past Monday, Jan. 9 and will be continued on Jan. 26.

“I hope that one day, that if there is a heaven, I can stand there and say that I acted like Jesus everyday,” added Channels.

Click here to listen to various sections of Michael Channels interview:

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