Son of Chuckie?

Around this time of year, we often hear and read heartwarming stories about families reuniting, kids given up for adoption to find out their best friend or boss is their sibling, or that someone donated a kidney to person who is actually their long lost parent. This time, not so much.

Matthew Roberts’ reunion tale makes for a very unpleasant Thanksgiving tale: He discovered Charles Manson is his father.

Roberts grew up in Rockford, Illinois and learned he was adopted when he was 10; his sister told him, which is sort of messed up to begin with. Twelve years ago, according to The Sun, he decided to track down his biological parents. Matthew eventually located his biological mother, Terry and after a series of letters she revealed that during the summer 1967 she hopped on a bus and joined a group of hippies led by a

a white trash-bike bandit

and headed for San Francisco. She was raped, she says by the group’s leader, returned home and gave birth to a son in March of 1968 who she named Lawrence Alexander before putting him up for adoption. The rapist hippie, she claims, is Charles Manson.

Needless to say, this revelation has caused Matthew some anguish. He carried the information around for five years before writing to Manson who is serving a life sentence in California’s Cochoran State Prison for ordering the murders of nine people including actress Sharon Tate in a five week spree during the summer of 1969.

I didn’t want to believe it. I was frightened and angry. It’s like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father.I’m a peaceful person – trapped in the face of a monster…My hero is Gandhi. I’m an extremely non-violent, peaceful person and a vegetarian. I don’t even kill bugs. I’ve had long hair all my life. I could make it go away, but I can’t let the world and their fears change me.

Now he’s received almost a dozen handwritten letters and postcards from Manson signed with a swastika. Manson even claims to remember Roberts’ biological mother, though his verison his slightly different than hers

I remember her. We came back to LA on the super-cheap train.

It’s pretty logical that Manson–a career convict who had spent half his life behind bars before the Tate-La Bianca murders resulted in a life sentence–would want to claim anyone as his kid and would say whatever he thought was effective: It’s a way for the 75-year old convict who is in solitary confinement ot wile away time, and there’s the chance of money being put in his prison account, a new person with whom to correspond, and the possibility of phone calls and visits.

But Roberts–a musician and DJ–has been in touch with Manson for several years now, so one has to wonder why he’s come forward with the news of who’s his daddy now.