Danny Trejo Spent Time In Jail With Cult Leader Charles Manson: ‘He Could Have Been A Professional Hypnotist’

Danny Trejo had a rare encounter with enigmatic cult leader Charles Manson.

Trejo, 77, reflected on his meeting with Manson in his new self-titled memoir. The “Machete” actor was sent to Los Angeles County jail in 1961, where Manson was also being held. Trejo described Manson as a “greasy, dirty, scrawny” guy who convinced Trejo and others that he could make them feel “high” with hypnotic powers.

“It was like a guided meditation,” Trejo explained.

Manson argued he could give Trejo and the other prisoners a sensation similar to marijuana and heroin through his words.

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“By the time he described it hitting my bloodstream, I felt the warmth flowing through my body,” Trejo, who was a teenage heroin addict, recalled. “If that white boy wasn’t a career criminal, he could have been a professional hypnotist.”

Mason was released from prison in 1967 and founded the Manson Family. He was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder in 1971 in conjunction with the “Helter Skelter” murders of 1969. He died from cardiac arrest and colon cancer in 2017 while still imprisoned.