Filmmaker Sophia Maddox ‘devastated’ and ‘dumbstruck’ to learn her grandfather was Charles Manson

NY Post ^ | 7/24/26 | Lauren Sarner

[Libloather]

Her DNA search results went helter-skelter.

Filmmaker Sophia Maddox broke down in tears when she and her father, Daniel Arguelles, learned from an online ancestry search that his dad was one of America’s most notorious criminals — Charles Manson.

“I was obviously very devastated,” Maddox, 26, exclusively told The Post. She recalled feeling “dumbstruck” and “sobbing.”

“My dad was just rubbing my back and holding me, and telling me we were nothing like him. But it was a little traumatic,” she added.

Co-directed by Maddox and Alexandra Orton, the Hulu documentary, “My Grandfather Charles Manson,” follows Maddox as she looks into Manson’s past, struggles with her fraught relationship with her father, and interviews former Manson family members such as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Manson trial prosecutor Stephen Kay.

Arguelles was born in 1959, when his mother, Darlene, was 17. She met Manson at a bus stop when he was going by the name “Charlie Dear” and the pair had a one-night stand.

Manson — who was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder, including the horrific 1969 slaying of the pregnant Sharon Tate — died in prison at 83 in 2017.

[MayflowerMadam]

“She was so devastated she made a Hulu documentary.”

That was the first thing that entered my mind. Cha-CHING! Epic case of “when life hands you lemons ...”

[Crusher138]

Then that means you also have Gen. Robert E. Lee in your family tree.

Kinda sorta. He is an uncle. We are descended from one of Harry's other children. Carter, I think.