A routine DNA submission to a genealogy site led a California man to a shattering discovery about his own parentage, and his filmmaker daughter is now telling the story on Hulu, even as it has fractured their relationship.

Daniel Arguelles had long suspected the man who raised him was not his biological father. In 2015, he submitted a sample to Ancestry, the consumer genealogy platform, and waited. The match that came back connected him to Michael Brunner, the confirmed son of Charles Manson and one of Manson's earliest followers, Mary Brunner. DNA testing established that Arguelles and Brunner were half-brothers, pointing to one conclusion: Arguelles, born in 1959, was the biological son of one of the most notorious convicted murderers in American history.

Seven years later, in 2022, Arguelles picked up the phone and called his daughter, Sophia Maddox, then a 22-year-old aspiring filmmaker living in Los Angeles. What he told her upended her life and set the stage for a Hulu documentary titled "My Grandfather Charles Manson."

A phone call that changed everything for a 22-year-old in Los Angeles

Maddox told Fox News Digital that her father's tone on the call was unlike anything she had heard from him before. He told her he believed he had found out who his biological father was, and warned her that "if it's true, it's really dark."

"He wasn't sure if I was ready to know. And my dad is not a dark person. He never taught me any dark things. So if he says it's dark, my first thought is it must be famously dark. So I asked him to just get it out of the way."

Maddox said she guessed Ted Bundy first. Arguelles told her to think bigger.

"He said, 'Bigger. Think of the biggest movie you know and the biggest director you know.' And I thought of the movie 'Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.' I was trying to remember the name mentioned in the film. And then I realized who it was: Charles Manson."

She described it simply: "It was a really devastating day."

The connection traces back to a brief relationship between Arguelles's mother, Darlene Arguelles, and Manson, who was reportedly using the alias "Charlie Dear" at the time. People magazine reported that the relationship produced a son, Daniel, born in 1959. Arguelles had confronted his mother about his paternity when he was 21 but did not pursue DNA confirmation until decades later.

Manson's path from juvenile institutions to mass murder

Charles Manson was born in 1934 to a teenage mother, Kathleen Maddox. After Kathleen went to prison for her role in a robbery, the boy bounced among relatives. By his teens he was stealing, running away, and cycling through juvenile lockups. He ended up at the Indiana Boys School, a juvenile institution where, by his own later account, he was beaten and sexually assaulted.

Maddox explored those early years in her documentary, examining what she described as previously unreleased records about Manson's childhood. A juvenile justice expert consulted for the film told her that Manson's experience at the Indiana facility was not singular, that the brutality was systemic.

"I was shocked to read that he was imprisoned with kids who had murdered people. And he was there for running away from home, stealing a bike or stealing a car. But so many boys, older kids with violent records, were placed there. And what does a kid have to do to survive a place like that? It breaks my heart."

By the time Manson left federal prison in 1967 at age 32, he had spent roughly half his life behind bars or in juvenile institutions. His adult record included repeated sentences for theft and forgery. Within two years of his release, he had surrounded himself with runaways and other drifters in the canyons around Los Angeles, and the country was about to learn his name.

On August 9, 1969, members of Manson's group killed five people at the Los Angeles home of actress Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant. The victims included Tate; coffee heiress Abigail Folger; celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring; Polish screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski; and Steven Parent, a friend of the estate's caretaker. Tate's husband, director Roman Polanski, was out of the country. The following night, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were stabbed to death in their home across town.

The Associated Press reported that Manson had sent his followers to commit the murders as part of an effort to trigger a race conflict, tied to a distorted reading of the Beatles song "Helter Skelter." DNA and forensic identification tools were still primitive in that era, a stark contrast to the modern forensic methods that now shape criminal cases across the country.

Manson and three followers, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten, were convicted of murder after a trial that lasted nearly a year. All four received death sentences. Charles "Tex" Watson was convicted and sentenced to death in a separate proceeding. In 1972, the California Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty, and all five sentences were commuted to life in prison.

Manson died in 2017 at age 83, still serving his sentence. Atkins died of cancer in prison in 2009 at 61. Van Houten was released on parole in 2023. Krenwinkel and Watson remain behind bars.

Sophia Maddox chose to confront the legacy rather than hide from it

For a young woman trying to build a career in Hollywood, learning that her grandfather orchestrated some of the most infamous killings in modern American history posed an obvious question: what do you do with that information?

Maddox said the documentary was a form of processing.

"It was cathartic. I'm a filmmaker before I found out who my grandfather is. And my life got uprooted from this. I had something to say at that moment, and I couldn't bottle it up."

She addressed head-on the question that others have put to her, whether she feared she had inherited something from Manson.

"We have no prior records or anything criminal. We grew up as artists. My dad showed me the movies he made and his modeling photos of him photographed by Richard Avedon. So of course, when you learn that someone like Manson is your grandfather, it's normal to wonder, 'Am I that too?' People have asked me, 'Were you afraid that you inherited evil, that you were evil?' But my dad and I are very normal, hardworking people."

That answer carries weight because it speaks to something deeper than celebrity genealogy. The question of whether violence runs in families, through biology, through environment, or through some combination, is one that criminal justice researchers and investigators tracking violent offenders continue to grapple with. Maddox's answer is that her family broke the cycle.

During the making of the film, Maddox met people with direct connections to Manson, including some former followers. She said she has also reached out to relatives of Manson's victims.

"I'm in talks with two relatives at the moment. And I'll just say every experience I've had with them has been very lovely. They were very kind to me. They understood why I am telling this story.... I'm not the only person looking for answers."

She was careful to draw a line: "My intention is never to apologize or justify for anybody's actions. I know what my grandfather did."

Father and daughter split one week before cameras rolled

The documentary came at a personal cost. Maddox and her father had a falling out one week before production began. She said Arguelles encouraged her to make the film but that the weight of the subject ultimately became too much for him.

"I have a little more distance from Manson because I am the grandchild, but that's his father. And he's shared similar experiences in childhood as him. And my dad is a very sensitive person. [But] he was curious. He wanted answers. He wanted me to make this film. But then at the same time, it was all too much."

Maddox said she does not know whether her father has seen the finished documentary. "He hasn't reached out. So I'm just sitting back and respecting his wishes until he reaches back out."

Arguelles offered a brief statement of his own: "I still support Sophia and I'm very proud of her. I believe the falling out between us came from a difference of opinion on the overall narrative. That's really all I can say at this point." He did not elaborate on what that difference was.

The rift between father and daughter over how to tell this story is itself a reminder that violent crime does not end with a conviction or a death certificate. The ripple effects of violent acts reach across generations, touching not only the families of victims but, in this case, the family of the perpetrator as well.

Maddox reclaimed a surname that means 'goodness'

After spending what she described as a year or two investigating her family history, Maddox settled on a new surname, one drawn from Manson's own mother, Kathleen Maddox. Manson had taken the last name of his mother's husband, William Manson. His birth name came from Kathleen's side.

Sophia Maddox said she Googled the name and found it meant "goodness."

"My blood name means goodness. I'm going to own it. That's mine. I'm giving it new life."

Cases involving murder and its aftermath rarely produce tidy endings. Maddox's story is no exception. She has a documentary on a major streaming platform, a new name, and contact with relatives of the people her grandfather's followers killed. She does not, at present, have a relationship with her father.

What she does have is a clear-eyed refusal to let someone else's crimes define her. In a culture that often treats bloodlines as destiny, that counts for something.