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The one-bedroom house at 761 Marion County Road 8054 burned to the ground early Friday morning. It was the address at the center of every Manson family criminal case in Marion County, the place where an 18-year-old woman escaped to a neighbor’s home in March and where deputies pulled 8.71 pounds of marijuana out of a tote in July.
The cause of the fire has not been determined. No one was living there when it burned. What is left is a taped-off foundation, a family split between the Marion County jail and Illinois, and a court calendar that now runs into 2027.
The fire
Firefighters were dispatched at about 2 a.m. Friday, according to a neighbor who is a volunteer firefighter and responded to the call. The house was fully engulfed when crews arrived. The Observer is identifying her as Ellen because the Manson family has threatened residents of the road.
The fire was contained to the house, Ellen said. The garage and outbuildings, where the family stored much of its belongings, were not damaged.
Neighbors who reviewed their security camera footage afterward told Ellen it showed a light in the woods near the property at about 1 a.m. that grew steadily larger over the next hour. Some also reported hearing explosions before the house was fully involved. The Observer has asked to review the footage but had not seen it as of Tuesday.
Rain began falling in the area at about 1:30 a.m., Ellen said. Firefighters found no sign of a lightning strike.
Crews returned Saturday after neighbors reported the debris had reignited, she said. They found a small flame and put it out. Two investigators were on the property when firefighters arrived.
The house had been empty since Aug. 13, when deputies arrested Manson Sr. on a no-bond warrant. The animals that once covered the property were gone too, sold off or taken in by shelters.
Yellow tape remained around the property as of Tuesday. Neither the Marion County Sheriff’s Office nor the fire departments that answered the call have issued a release on the fire.
What burned
When the Observer visited the property on March 23, the house sat at the center of what could only be described as a compound of filth. An estimated 500 to 700 chickens spilled across the land, into the road and onto neighbors’ property. Dogs were chained around the edges, and dead animals were displayed on structures, including pigs placed on stakes.
The property belongs to Steven M. Manson Jr.’s mother, who does not live there. She had let the family live on it. Manson Jr., 35, his father Steven L. Manson Sr., 56, and Dezarae Manson, 19, were all living there when the rape cases broke.
None of them is there now.
Manson Jr. is in the Marion County jail. So is Manson Sr., who has been unable to post the $15,000 cash bond set for him on Aug. 18. Dezarae Manson has left the family and, according to a source who has seen her there, has moved to Illinois and is staying with her maternal grandmother.
How it came apart
The Manson men arrived in Marion County with Illinois felony records. Manson Jr. is a registered Level II sex offender with a prior conviction for aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a 13-year-old.
In December, he was charged with raping his 10-year-old stepdaughter at the house in November, along with kidnapping, terroristic threatening and possession of a firearm by a felon. He bonded out on $350,000 with an ankle monitor.
Three months later, an 18-year-old woman told deputies she had been raped at the house by Manson Jr. and Dezarae Manson while Manson Sr. was outside feeding animals. She said she later heard Manson Sr. say they should stab her to death afterward so she could not tell anyone, and heard him get a knife from the kitchen. She fled to a neighbor’s home.
Manson Jr. was charged with rape. Dezarae Manson, described in court filings as his stepdaughter and girlfriend, was charged with rape, sexual assault and coercion. Manson Sr. was charged with conspiracy to commit rape, terroristic threatening and coercion.
All three hired the same Little Rock attorney, Eugene Clifford. At a hearing in the spring, Clifford said discovery would show a strong chance of acquittal.
On July 24, he moved to withdraw from every Manson case, citing a conflict of interest under Rule 1.7 of the Arkansas Rules of Professional Conduct. Six days later, deputies raided the property, seized the marijuana and three handguns from a safe, and arrested Manson Sr. He bonded out on $50,000.
On Aug. 5, Circuit Judge Andrew S. Bailey revoked that bond and issued a no-bond warrant after prosecutors documented his recent travel to Missouri and Illinois. For eight days he was not arrested. During that stretch, the Observer found household items from the property listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace under the alias Mari Vest. Deputies arrested him Aug. 13.
The family turns on itself
The reason for Clifford’s conflict came out at the Aug. 18 hearing. Dezarae Manson had turned on both Manson men and was working with the state.
Her own sworn paperwork says the rest. In an affidavit of indigency signed July 21, three days before Clifford’s withdrawal, she wrote that she had legal counsel getting paid by the Mansons but that now that she had left, she had no money to afford anything. She listed her assets and income as zero, and court filings describe her as homeless. The Marion County Public Defender’s Office now represents her.
She was not the only one. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Russo told the court that Manson Jr.’s mother had been appalled by the condition of her property and was also working with the state. She had come to Arkansas to tend to the animals.
That same morning, Manson Sr.’s new attorney, Jack Lofton, argued for a low bond on the grounds that his client had more than 100 animals on the property with no one to care for them. Bailey said he was required by law to set a new bond and set it at $15,000 cash. Manson Sr. told the court the allegations about his animals were lies. He has not made the bond and remains in jail.
By then, Have a Heart Animal Shelter had already begun hauling dogs off the property, many of them sick. The rest of the animals were sold or taken in by shelters in the weeks that followed. By the time the house burned, there was nothing left on the property to tend.
What is next
Manson Jr.’s jury trial on the child rape charges is set for Feb. 10, 2027, with a status hearing Nov. 10 and a pretrial hearing Jan. 12. Bailey has said all of the family’s cases will run on the same schedule. Manson Sr. has a status hearing Oct. 13. Dezarae Manson’s docket shows no upcoming court date.
The house where all of it allegedly happened will not be there for any of them. Whether that matters to the prosecution, which has photographs, an affidavit and now two cooperating members of the family, is a question the fire investigators may answer first.
