Each time she gazed upon a portrait of Charles Manson, her heart would flutter. Telling her friends about her affection for that wicked man was out of the question —she was already the craziest person they knew. She owned a colossal collection of horror novels and serial killer biographies. She loved to spend hours indulging in their pages, imagining she was a close friend or lover to any of those deadly men. In her mind, she pictured herself in a relationship with these psychopaths. What was the process of death like? Death will always be shrouded in mystery and these creatures, which are detached from any human empathy, are its darkest, most malevolent minions.
As a passionate lover of gore, snuff, slasher, or any other genre in which death is present, she felt a strange pull towards the darkest dregs of society. Some of its most wicked phantoms would haunt her, Charlie would float around at the top of her mind. Her fascination with this figure would lead her to collect a vast number of Manson memorabilia.
Her life changed the day she discovered the “Museum of Death” in Los Angeles, California while surfing on the internet. That place exhibited a surprising variety of items related with murderers, criminals, and the most horrific side of their minds. She felt her heart beat faster the minute she found that the museum had a guitar that once belonged to her beloved Manson.
Without a moment to lose she packed her bags and prepared her trip to L.A. to visit the museum. As the date of her trip drew closer, she was seized by an overwhelming thrill.
Finally, the day arrived. Her flight took off early in the morning and by the afternoon she was already at Los Angeles. She arrived at a hotel and immediately she dropped her bags and headed off to meet Death face to face.
She recognized the place immediately: the main entrance was framed by an oversized skull with vines above its head. As she struggled to control her shaking body, she bought a ticket and felt like Alice in Wonderland entering into a dark abyss.
The walls were littered with the darkest dregs of society, from the clown killer John Wayne to the charismatic Ted Bundy.
In another section, she stood in awe of the severed head of murderer Henri Landru —better known as “Bluebeard”—, who was executed in 1922. A few steps ahead, she spotted morgue photographies of one of the criminal cases she considered most fascinating: The Black Dahlia, a gruesome, unresolved case that continues to haunt L.A. to this day.
She pressed on until her eyes caught sight Charlie’s face. There he was, and as she approached his section, she was inevitably drawn to the pictures of Manson and his family. A cosy unit that hid a despicable side.
She finally found the guitar tucked in a corner and she grazed her fingers across it, she was struck by the silence of death. The guitar strings were untouched and only the echoes of the actions of its player could be heard. The music and its life had faded long ago.
Fiction
The museum isn’t an altar to honor these people or glorify these horrific acts but rather it is a reflection on the different faces of death.
Death isn’t a single event, but a lifelong process.
The Museum of Death is located at 6031 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, California. It is a place as fascinating as it is bizarre. It was opened in 1995 in San Diego by a married couple, JD Healy and Cathy Shultz. Years later, the museum had to be relocated to Los Angeles and opened another branch in New Orleans. Their owners decided to turn death into a business, and confront the audience with the only certainty in life:
we will all depart from this world one day.
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Sources:
Museum of Death
Trip Advisor
The Culture Trip
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