Member of the Family

In late 1967, fourteen-year-old Dianne Lake became one of "Charlie's girls," a devoted acolyte of cult leader Charles Manson and member of his Family. The two years that followed were a mixture of sexual manipulation, psychological control, and physical abuse, as the harsh realities and looming darkness of Charles Manson's true nature revealed themselves to the impressionable teenager. Though Dianne never participated in any of the group's gruesome crimes, as one of its longest members, she lived through it all, becoming a crucial eyewitness to the Family's descent into madness and ultimately providing critical testimony against Manson and his collaborators that helped put them behind bars--for life. Now Dianne shares the full story of her time with Manson, revealing how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the twentieth century's most notorious criminals. For the first time, Dianne opens up about her life in the Family. Drawing upon never-before-told stories, Dianne delivers an inside account of how Manson's paranoid volatility grew over time, culminating in the final chaotic months before the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders brought the idealism of the 1960s to a stunning conclusion. Featuring sixteen pages of photos, Member of the Family is a riveting look at how one young girl helped convict one of the most diabolical and fascinating figures in modern American history and reckoned with a past she kept hidden even from those closest to her.