Atkins died in 2009 while incarcerated in Chowchilla.
Only one of those convicted in the nine murders - Steve Grogan, who was involved in the Shea shooting - has been paroled. Since then, Manson and his followers have been eligible for parole hearings. In 1972, the death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment when the state Supreme Court abolished the death penalty.
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In a later trial, Manson was convicted in the slayings of musician Gary Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea, who worked at the San Fernando Valley ranch where the family lived for a time. Then he and his followers would survive by living underground near Death Valley and would eventually take over power. Blacks would win the war even though, according to Manson, they were inferior to whites.
CHARLES MANSON TRIAL
Manson became a metaphor for evil, and evil has its allure.īugliosi argued during the trial that Manson orchestrated the murders as part of a plan to spark a race war that he called Helter Skelter. Prosecutors suspected he was another Manson victim. Van Houten’s attorney, Ronald Hughes, disappeared during the trial and was later found dead. Older, “In the name of Christian justice, someone should chop off your head!” The judge began packing a. While the bailiffs were dragging him out of the courtroom, Manson shouted to Judge Charles H. During the trial, Manson jumped over his attorney’s table and made a dash for the bench. One morning Manson entered the court room with an X carved into his forehead and his followers soon did the same. history at the time - was as bizarre as the crimes.Ī group of young female followers with shaved heads gathered outside the courthouse and conducted a 24-hour vigil for Manson. On the two nights there were 169 stab wounds.” If you’re not safe in your home, where are you safe? And these murders were particularly brutal. “People were so terrified because these seemed to be murders without a motive,” said lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who died in 2015. Before leaving, they helped themselves to some watermelon in the refrigerator, leaving behind the rinds. Using the LaBiancas’ blood, they scrawled on the wall and refrigerator in blood “DEATH TO PIGS” and “HEALTER SKELTER,” the misspelled title of a Beatles song. They cut “WAR” in Leno LaBianca’s flesh and left a carving fork in his stomach and a knife in his throat. Manson picked the house at random, tied up the couple and then left the killings to the others. The next night they killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their Los Feliz home. “PIG” was written in her blood on the front door. Atkins replied, “Woman, I have no mercy for you.” Tate was stabbed 16 times. Tate, 26, who was eight months pregnant, pleaded with her killers to spare the life of her unborn baby. Atkins died in 2009 in prison the others remain incarcerated.
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Linda Kasabian, a pregnant 20-year-old with a baby daughter, who said she was asked to go along that night because she was the only one with a valid driver’s license, testified against the others in return for immunity from prosecution. And Atkins once sang in her church choir. Van Houten a homecoming princess from Monrovia. Krenwinkel a former Sunday school teacher. Watson had been a high school football star. The crimes received frenzied news coverage, because so many lurid and sensational elements coalesced at the time - Hollywood celebrity, cult behavior, group sex, drugs and savage murders that concluded with the killers scrawling words with their victims’ blood. Manson did not commit the murders himself instead he persuaded his group of followers to carry out the killings. He spent decades behind bars, an unrepentant and incorrigible inmate who’d been cited for behavioral issues more than 100 times. Sentenced to death for the crime, Manson escaped execution when the state Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional at the time. Most were in their early twenties, middle-class white kids, hippies and runaways who fell under his charismatic sway.īut in the summer of 1969, Manson masterminded a string of bizarre murders in Los Angeles that both horrified and fascinated the nation and signified to many the symbolic end of the 1960s and the idealism and naiveté the decade represented.Ĭonsidered one of the most infamous criminals of the 20th century, Manson died of natural causes at a Kern County Hospital at 8:13 p.m Sunday, according to Vicky Waters, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. And his followers bore little resemblance to the stereotypical image of hardened killers. A few inches over five feet, he was a petty criminal and small-time hustler. Charles Manson was an unlikely figure to evolve into the personification of evil.