what evidence was used to convict Manson of his crimes

Manson Family members outside courthouse during trial

In the register of crime, in that location might never have been a more bizarre motive for killing than that revealed in the 1970-71 trial of 4 Manson "Family unit" members. In the twisted listen of 30-iv-year-old Charles Manson, a moving ridge of bloody killings of loftier-society types in Los Angeles would be the spark that would set off a revolution by blacks confronting the white establishment. When "blackie," every bit Manson chosen black people, proved unable to govern, they would turn to Manson and his tribe of followers, who would have survived "Helter Skelter" by hiding out in an cloak-and-dagger cave in the Death Valley vicinity of California while the chaos raged above.

Manson's vision never materialized. Instead, he and several of his followers found themselves convicted of first-caste murder and sentenced to death in one of the strangest trials the strange land of California has ever witnessed.

THE Route TO SPAHN RANCH

Spahn Ranch

Manson'south early life marked him for trouble. The illegitimate son of a heavy drinking, promiscuous 16-year-old girl from Cincinnati--who would enter prison for armed robbery when Charles was v--, Manson spent most of his life in institutions. Past age thirteen, he had committed his first crime, the burglary of a grocery shop. The adjacent nineteen years were a parade of crimes, apprehensions, incarcerations, escapes, and paroles. Most of the crimes were non-fierce, the major exception being Manson's 1952 sodomization of a boy while holding a razor to his throat.

Psychiatrists saw Manson as "a very emotionally upset youth," "slick" but "extremely sensitive" (1951), "dangerous" with "homosexual and assaultive tendencies" (1952), having "an unstable personality" but existence potentially able "to straighten himself out" (1955), being "unable to control himself" with "a tendency to cut up" (1956), having "piece of work habits that range from skillful to poor" (1957), being "erratic and moody" and "a archetype text book case of a correctional institution inmate" (1958), as an "energetic person" who hides "his loneliness, resentment and hostility behind a facade of superficial ingratiation" (1961), beingness "emotionally insecure" and tending to "involve himself in various fanatical interests" (1963), and, finally, equally "in need of a cracking deal of help in the transition from institution to the free world" (1966).

Manson was scheduled for release on March 21, 1967, following completion of a ten-twelvemonth sentence for forging a Treasury cheque. Manson begged prison house officials to allow him to stay--prison, he told them, was his habitation. Unable to comply, the State of California released Charles Manson. He headed north to the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco. Within months of his arrival, "the Family" had begun to form around him.

The activities of the Family included sexual orgies, hallucinogenic drug trips, and frequent sermons by Manson on the meaning of Beatles' music and the coming of Helter Skelter. Manson dominated Family life, even to the extent of telling members who they could have sex with. No one questioned his authority. Many Family unit members seemed even to see Manson as having "Christ-like" characteristics, a perception Manson encouraged past often asking, "Don't you know who I am?"

Later traveling a complex route around the American West in an old school bus for about eighteen months, the Family unit moved into a series of residences in the Los Angeles area in 1969. Information technology was at Spahn Ranch, a ramshackle collection of movie-set up buildings in the Simi Hills northwest of Los Angeles, where Manson developed his murderous programme to fix off Helter Skelter.

THE TATE-LABIANCA MURDERS

"Decease to Pigs" written in blood in the LaBianca'south living room

On the afternoon of August 8, 1969, Manson set his programme in motion. Calling together several Family unit members, Manson announced, "Now is the time for Helter Skelter." That evening he told iii female person members of the Family unit--Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian--to get an boosted change of apparel, a pocketknife, and a driver's license. Manson discussed details of his plan with a fourth Family member, Charles "Tex" Watson before all four piled into an one-time Ford. Equally they drove downward the driveway of the ranch, Manson stuck his caput in the car window and told them "to leave a sign." He said, "You girls know what I mean, something witchy." Although Tex understood his mission fully, the iii women knew neither their destination nor that the night was destined for murder.

Twoscore-five minutes or so afterwards, before long after midnight on August 9, the group pulled up in front of the Bel Air residence of actress Sharon Tate, famous for her contempo role in the movie Valley of the Dolls. Tate shared the home with her husband, director Roman Polanski, who was in London at the time working on his next flick project, The Day of the Dolphin. In his absence, two friends were staying at the large home at 10050 Cielo Drive , including coffee heiress Abigail Folger and her lover, Voytek Frykowski. Also in the abode that night was hair stylist Jay Sebring, a friend of Tate's.

Later Tex cutting the telephone wires leading to the Tate dwelling house, the iv scrambled over the fence at the bottom of the property and began heading up the hill leading to the residence. A car pulled upwards the driveway. Tex leaped forward, stuck his hand through the car window, aimed at the driver's caput, and pulled the trigger 4 times. The first victim in the Tate-LaBianca killings was 18-twelvemonth-old Steven Parent, in the incorrect place at the wrong time. While Kasabian waited beneath by the auto, the other 3 Family members entered the Tate habitation. Within minutes, the screams began. Watson would subsequently depict the next 4 victims "as running effectually the identify like chickens with their heads cut off."

In all, the four victims received 102 stab wounds. Sharon Tate was the last to dice, knived by Watson while she was held downwards by Susan Atkins. Atkins said later that she tasted Tate's blood and found it to exist "warm and sticky." She took some of Tate's blood and used it to scrawl, on the porch wall, "PIG."

The adjacent morning, a maid arriving at the Tate home left screaming, "Murder! Death! Bodies! Blood!" Within hours, investigators discovered two desperately mutilated bodies on the lawn of the Tate residence, those of Folger and Frykowski. Inside, nigh a burrow in the living room, they discovered the encarmine pregnant body of Tate and, with a rope effectually his cervix and a bloody towel over his confront, Jay Sebring.

Manson, meanwhile, expressed his displeasure with the attack at the Tate residence. Too messy, he thought. He decided to accompany the next Helter Skelter mission, which he scheduled for that very night. In improver to the four Family members from the previous dark's mission, Manson was joined by Clem Tufts and Leslie Van Houten. Manson ordered Kasabian to cruise the neighborhoods of Los Angeles, in search for potential victims, before settling on the habitation of Leno and and Rosemary LaBianca. Watson, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten were the killers chosen by Manson. As they left the auto, Manson told them: "Don't allow them know yous are going to impale them."

Police institute Leno LaBianca with a knife lodged in his pharynx, twelve stab wounds, and seven pairs of fork wounds. The word "State of war" had been carved on his tummy. Rosemary LaBianca was found with multiple stab wounds in her chest and neck. On the LaBianca's living room wall, written in claret, were the words "Death TO PIGS" and "RISE." On the refrigerator door was written, "HEALTER SKELTER."

INVESTIGATION AND ARRESTS

Manson photo from police line-up

On September 1, 1969, a ten-twelvemonth-former boy in Sherman Oaks discovered a .22 caliber Longhorn revolver under a bush well-nigh his home. His parents notified the LAPD, who picked up the gun, but failed to brand any connection between it and the Tate murders.

In October, Inyo County officers raided Barker Ranch, in a remote area south of Decease Valley National Monument. Twenty-four members of the Manson Family were arrested, on charges of arson and one thousand theft. Cult leader Charles Manson (dressed entirely in buckskins) and Susan Atkins were among those arrested.

After her arrest, Atkins was housed at Dormitory 8000 in Los Angeles. On November 6, she told another inmate, Virginia Graham, an virtually unbelievable tale. She told of "a beautiful true cat" named Charles Manson. She told of murder: of finding Sharon Tate, in bed with her bikini bra and underpants, of her victim's futile cries for assistance, of tasting Tate'south claret. Atkins expressed no remorse at all over the killings. She even told Graham a list of celebrities that she and other Family members planned to kill in the hereafter, including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Tom Jones, Steve McQueen, and Frank Sinatra. Through an inmate friend of Graham'southward, Ronnie Howard, word of Atkins's amazing story soon reached the LAPD.

About the same time, detectives on the LaBianca case interviewed Al Springer, a fellow member of the Straight Satan biker's grouping that Manson had tried to recruit into the Family. Give-and-take had leaked to constabulary that the Directly Satans might have some knowledge virtually who was responsible for some other recent murder with several similarities to the LaBianca killings. Springer told detectives that Manson had bragged to him in Baronial at Spahn Ranch--after offering him his choice from among the eighteen or and then "naked girls" scattered around the ranch--about "knocking off" five people. When Springer told detectives that Manson had said the Tate killers "wrote something on the...fridge in blood"--"something about pigs"--, the detectives knew they might exist onto something. Nonetheless, information technology struck them every bit odd that anyone would confess to several murders to someone that they barely knew. It took another member of the Direct Satans, Danny DeCarlo, to move the focus of the investigation decisively to Charles Manson. DeCarlo told constabulary he heard a Manson Family member brag, "We got five piggies," and that Manson had asked him what to use "to decompose a body."

On November 18, 1969, the District Attorney and his staff selected Vincent Bugliosi to be the chief prosecutor in the Tate-LaBianca example. The choice was no uncertainty influenced past Bugliosi's impressive record of winning 103 convictions in 104 felony trials. The day after getting the Tate-LaBianca assignment, Bugliosi joined in a search of the Spahn Film Ranch, where police force gathered .22 caliber bullets and shell casings from a coulee used past Family unit members for target practice. The next day, the search party moved on to isolated Barker Ranch, the about contempo dwelling of the Family, on the edge of Death Valley. In the small house at Barker Ranch, Bugliosi saw the small-scale cabinet under the sink where Manson was found hiding during the October raid. On an abandoned omnibus in a gully, investigators discovered magazines from World War II, all containing articles about Hitler.

Based on Ronnie Howard's business relationship of Susan Atkin's jailhouse confession and interviews conducted with diverse Manson Family unit members, the LAPD eventually identified the five persons who participated in the actual Tate and LaBianca murders. The suspects consisted of four women, all in their early twenties, and one man in his mid-twenties: Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, Linda Kasabian, and Charles "Tex" Watson. Atkins remained in custody at Dormitory 8000. Van Houten was picked up for questioning in California. Watson was arrested past a local sheriff in Texas. Patricia Krenwinkel was apprehended in Mobile, Alabama. Kasabian voluntarily surrendered to local police force in Concord, New Hampshire.

Knowing that convictions of at least some defendant would require testimony from one of those persons present at the murders, the D. A.'southward office first reached a deal with the attorney for Susan Atkins: a promise not to seek the death penalisation in return for testimony before the Grand Jury, plus consideration of a further reduction in charges for her continued cooperation during the trial. Atkins appeared before the Grand Jury on December v. She told the thousand jury she was "in dearest with the reflection" of Charles Manson and that there was "no limit" to what she would do for him. In an emotionless voice, she described the horrific events in the early morning hours of Baronial ix at the Tate residence. She told of Tate pleading for her life: "Please let me get. All I desire to practice is have my baby." She described the bodily murders, told of returning to the car and stopping along a side street to launder off bloody clothes with a garden firm, and of Manson's reaction on their return to Spahn Ranch. Atkins said that on returning to Spahn Ranch she "felt dead." She added, "I feel dead now." Later on xx minutes of deliberations, the grand jury returned murder indictments against Manson, Watson, Krenwinkel, Atkins, Kasabian, and Van Houten.

THE TRIAL

Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi talks to the press during trial

When efforts to extradite Tex Watson from became bogged down in local Texas politics, the Commune Attorney's Office decided to proceed confronting the 4 persons indicted for the Tate-LaBianca murders who were in custody in California. Jury option began on June 15, 1970 in the 8th floor court of Judge Charles Older in the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles. Manson'southward asking to ask potential jurors "a few uncomplicated, childlike questions that are real to me in my reality" was denied. During the voir dire, Manson fixed his penetrating stare for hours, first on Judge Older and then one day on Prosecutor Bugliosi. After getting Manson's stare treatment, Bugliosi took reward of a recess to slide his chair next to Manson and enquire, "What are you trembling about Charlie? Are you agape of me?" Manson responded, "Bugliosi, yous retrieve I'g bad and I'm not." He went on to tell Manson that Atkins was "just a stupid little bitch" who told a story "to get attention." After a month of voir dire, a jury of seven men and five women was selected. The jury knew it would exist sequestered for a long time, but information technology didn't know how long. As information technology turned out, their sequestration would last 225 days, longer than whatsoever previous jury in history.

Opening statements began on July 24. Manson entered the courtroom sporting a freshly cut, bloody "X" on his brow--signifying, he said in a statement, that "I have X'd myself from your world."

Bugliosi, in his opening statement for the prosecution, indicated that his "principal witness" would exist Linda Kasabian, a Manson Family member who accompanied the killers to both the Tate and LaBianca residences. The prosecution turned to Kasabian, with a hope of prosecutorial immunity for her testimony, when Susan Atkins--probably in response to threats from Manson--announced that she would not evidence at the trial. Bugliosi promised the jury that the evidence would show Manson had a motive for the murders that was "perhaps even more bizarre than the murders themselves."

On July 27, Bugliosi announced, "The People call Linda Kasabian." Manson'due south attorney, fabled obstructionist Irving Kanarek, immediately sprung upwardly with an objection, "Object, Your Honor, on the grounds this witness is non competent and is insane!" Calling Kanarek to the bench and telling him his conduct was "outrageous," Guess Older denied the objection and Kasabian was sworn every bit a witness. She would remain on the stand for an astounding eighteen days, including seven days of cross-test by Kanarek.

Linda Kasabian

Kasabian told the jury that no Family unit fellow member ever refused an society from Charles Manson: "Nosotros e'er wanted to do anything and everything for him." After describing what she saw of the Tate murders, Kasabian was asked past Bugliosi about the render to Spahn Ranch:

"Was at that place anyone in the parking area at Spahn Ranch as you drove in the Spahn Ranch area?"
"Yes."
"Who was in that location?"
"Charlie."
"Was there anyone there other than Charlie?"
"Non that I know of"
"Where was Charlie when you arrived at the bounds?"
"Well-nigh the same spot he was in when he kickoff drove away."
"What happened later on y'all pulled the car onto the parking area and parked the auto?"
"Sadie said she saw a spot of blood on the outside of the automobile when nosotros were at the gas station."
"Who was present at that time when she said that?"
"The four of u.s.a. and Charlie."
"What is the next affair that happened?"
"Well, Charlie told u.s.a. to go into the kitchen, get a sponge, wipe the blood off, and he also instructed Katie and I to go all through the car and wipe off the blood spots."
"What is the next affair that happened after Mr. Manson told you and Katie to cheque out the automobile and remove the blood?"
"He told united states to go into the bunk room and await, which we did."

Kasabian also offered her account of the nighttime of the LaBianca murders. She testified that she didn't want to go, just went anyway "considering Charlie asked me and I was afraid to say no."

Kasabian proved a very credible witness, despite the best efforts during cross-examination of defense attorneys to make her appear a spaced-out hippie. After albeit that she took LSD about fifty times, Kasabian was asked by Kanarek, "Describe what happened on trip number 23." Other defense force questions explored her beliefs in ESP and witchcraft or focused on the "vibrations" she claimed to receive from Manson.

A major distraction from Kasabian's testimony came on August three, when Manson stood before the jury and held upward a copy of the Los Angeles Times with the headline, "MANSON GUILTY, NIXON DECLARES." The defence force moved for a mistrial on the grounds that the headline prejudiced the jury against the defense, but Judge Older denied the motion afterward each juror stated under adjuration that he or she would not be influenced by the President's reported declaration of guilt.

Testimony corroborating that of Kasabian came from several other prosecution witnesses, most notably the woman Atkins confided in at Dormitory 8000, Virginia Graham. Other witnesses described receiving threats from Manson, evidence of Manson's total control over the lives of Family unit members, or conversations in which Manson had told of the coming Helter Skelter.

Nineteen-year-old Paul Watkins, Manson'southward foremost recruiter of young women, provided key testimony nearly the strange motive for the Tate-LaBianca murders--including its link to the Bible's Volume of Revelation. Watkins testified that Manson discussed Helter Skelter "constantly." Bugliosi asked Watkins how Helter Skelter would commencement:

"At that place would be some atrocious murders; that some of the spades from Watts would come up upward into the Bel-Air and Beverly Hills district and just really wipe some people out, only cut bodies up and smear claret and write things on the wall in claret, and cut lilliputian boys up and brand parents spotter. And so, in retaliation-this would scare; in other words, all the other white people would exist afraid that this would happen to them, then out of their fear they would go into the ghetto and just start shooting black people like crazy. But all they would shoot would be the garbage homo and Uncle Toms, and all the ones that were with Whitey in the first place. And underneath it all, the Blackness Muslims would-he would know that it was coming downwardly."

"Helter Skelter was coming down?"

"Yes. So, after Whitey goes in the ghettoes and shoots all the Uncle Toms, then the Black Muslims come out and appeal to the people past saying, 'Look what yous have done to my people.' And this would split Whitey downwards the middle, between all the hippies and the liberals and all the up-tight piggies. This would carve up them in the middle and a large civil war would outset and actually split them up in all these dissimilar factions, and they would but kill each other off in the meantime through their war. And after they killed each other off, and so at that place would be a few of them left who supposedly won."

"A few of who left?"

"A few white people left who supposedly won. And then the Blackness Muslims would come out of hiding and wipe them all out."

"Wipe the white people out?"

"Yes. Past sneaking effectually and slitting their throats."

"Did Charlie say anything about where he and the Family would be during this Helter Skelter?"

"Yes. When nosotros was [sic] in the desert the first fourth dimension, Charlie used to walk around in the desert and say-y'all see, there are places where water would come upwards to the top of the ground and then information technology would get downward and there wouldn't be no more water, and so information technology would come up up again and become down over again. He would look at that and say, 'In that location has got to be a hole somewhere, somewhere here, a large old lake.' And it just really got far out, that there was a hole underneath in that location somewhere where you could bulldoze a speedboat across it, a big underground city. Then we started from the 'Revolution 9' song on the Beatles album which was interpreted by Charlie to hateful the Revelation 9. So-"

"The final book of the New Testament?"

"Just the book of Revelation and the vocal would exist 'Revelations ix: And so, in this book it says, in that location is a function about, in Revelations 9, it talks of the bottomless pit. Then after, I believe it is in 10."

"Revelation ten?"

"Aye. It talks about there will be a metropolis where there will be no sun and there volition be no moon."

"Manson spoke about this?"

"Yes, many times. That there would exist a metropolis of gold, but there would be no life, and there would be a tree there that bears twelve different kinds of fruit that changed every month. And this was interpreted to mean-this was the hole down under Decease Valley."

"Did he talk virtually the twelve tribes of Israel?"

"Yes. That was in in that location, too. It was supposed to get dorsum to the 144,000 people. The Family was to grow to this number."

"The twelve tribes of Israel being 144,000 people?"

"Yeah."

"And Manson said that the Family would eventually increase to 144,000 people?"

"Aye."

"Did he say when this would have place?"

"Oh, yeah. See, information technology was all happening simultaneously. In other words, as we are making the music and it is drawing all the young dear to the desert, the Family increases in ranks, and at the same time this sets off Helter Skelter. So so the Family finds the hole in the meantime and gets down in the hole and lives there until the whole thing comes down."

"Until Helter Skelter comes down?"

"Yes."

"Did he say who would win this Helter Skelter?"

"The karma would take completely reversed, significant that the blackness men would be on meridian and the white race would be wiped out; there would be none except for the Family."

"Except for Manson and the Family?"

"Aye."

"Did he say what the black man would do in one case he was all past himself?"

"Well, co-ordinate to Charlie, he would clean upwardly the mess, simply like he always has done. He is supposed to be the servant, see. He will clean up the mess that he made, that the white man made, and build the world back upwardly a little scrap, build the cities back upwardly, but and so he wouldn't know what to exercise with it, he couldn't handle it."

"Blackie couldn't handle it?"

"Aye, and this is when the Family would come up out of the hole, and existence that he would take completed the white man'south karma, then he would no longer have this vicious want to kill."

"When you say 'he,' you hateful Blackie?"

"Blackie then would come to Charlie and say, you know, 'I did my matter, I killed them all and, yous know, I am tired of killing now. Information technology is all over.' And Charlie would scratch his fuzzy head and kicking him in the barrel and tell him to become choice the cotton and get exist a good nigger, and he would live happily e'er after."

On November xvi, 1970, afterwards twenty-two weeks of testimony, the prosecution rested its instance.

Irving Kanarek, Manson'due south defense attorney

When the trial resumed three days later, the defense startled courtroom spectators and the prosecution past announcing, without calling a unmarried witness, "The defense rests." Suddenly, the 3 female defendants began shouting that they wanted to show. In chambers, attorneys for the women explained that although their clients wanted to prove, they were strongly opposed, believing that they would--however nether the powerful influence of Manson--show that they planned and committed the murders without Manson's help. Returning to the courtroom, Judge Older declared that the right to testify took precedence and said that the defendants could prove over the objections of their counsel. Atkins was then sworn as a witness, but her chaser, Daye Shinn, refused to question her. Returning to chambers, 1 defense chaser complained that questioning their clients on the stand would be like "aiding and abetting a suicide."

The adjacent 24-hour interval came another surprise. Charles Manson announced that he, too, wished to testify--before his co-defendants did. He testified showtime without the jury being nowadays, so that potentially excludable testimony relating to evidence incriminating co-defendants might be identified before it prejudiced the jury. His over one-hour of testimony, full of digressions, fascinated observers:

"I never went to school, so I never growed upward to read and write too good, so I have stayed in jail and I accept stayed stupid, and I accept stayed a child while I have watched your world grow upwards, and and then I look at the things that you lot do and I don't understand. . . .

"You eat meat and you kill things that are better than you lot are, and and so you say how bad, and even killers, your children are. You made your children what they are. . . .

"These children that come up at you with knives. they are your children. You taught them. I didn't teach them. I just tried to assistance them stand. . .

"Nigh of the people at the ranch that y'all phone call the Family unit were just people that you did non want, people that were aslope the road, that their parents had kicked out, that did not want to go to Juvenile Hall. So I did the all-time I could and I took them up on my garbage dump and I told them this: that in beloved there is no wrong. . . .

"I told them that anything they practise for their brothers and sisters is good if they exercise it with a good thought. . . .

"I don't understand you, but I don't try. I don't attempt to judge nobody. I know that the only person I tin judge is me . . . But I know this: that in your hearts and your own souls, you are as much responsible for the Vietnam war as I am for killing these people. . . .

"I can't judge any of you. I have no malice confronting you and no ribbons for you. Just I remember that it is high time that you all beginning looking at yourselves, and judging the lie that y'all live in.

"I can't dislike you, but I will say this to you lot: you haven't got long before you lot are all going to kill yourselves, because y'all are all crazy. And you tin can projection it back at me . . . only I am only what lives inside each and everyone of y'all.

"My father is the jailhouse. My father is your organisation. . . I am but what you made me. I am only a reflection of you.

"I accept ate out of your garbage cans to stay out of jail. I accept wore your 2nd-hand clothes. . . I have done my all-time to get forth in your world and at present you want to kill me, and I look at you, and then I say to myself, Y'all want to impale me? Ha! I'k already expressionless, take been all my life. I've spent twenty-three years in tombs that you congenital.

"Sometimes I think about giving it back to you; sometimes I remember almost just jumping on you lot and letting you shoot me . . . If I could, I would jerk this microphone off and beat your brains out with it, because that is what you deserve, that is what you deserve. . . .

"These children [indicating the female defendants] were finding themselves. What they did, if they did whatever they did, is up to them. They will have to explain that to you lot. . . .

"You await to intermission me? Impossible! You broke me years ago. Yous killed me years ago. . . .

"Mr. Bugliosi is a hard-driving prosecutor, polished educational activity, a master of words, semantics. He is a genius. He has got everything that every lawyer would want to have except one affair: a case. He doesn't accept a case. Were I allowed to defend myself, I could have proven this to yous. . .The evidence in this case is a gun. There was a gun that laid around the ranch. It belonged to everybody. Anybody could have picked that gun upwardly and done annihilation they wanted to practise with it. I don't deny having that gun. That gun has been in my possession many times. Like the rope was in that location because you lot need rope on a ranch. . . .Information technology is really convenient that Mr. Baggot found those apparel. I imagine he got a trivial gustatory modality of coin for that. . . .They put the hideous bodies on [photographic] brandish and they imply: If he gets out, see what volition happen to you. . . .[Helter Skelter] ways defoliation, literally. Information technology doesn't mean whatsoever war with anyone. It doesn't mean that some people are going to kill other people. . . Helter Skelter is defoliation. Confusion is coming down around you lot fast. If you can't run across the confusion coming downward effectually you fast, you lot can call it what you wish. . Is information technology a conspiracy that the music is telling the youth to ascent upwards confronting the establishment because the establishment is rapidly destroying things? Is that a conspiracy? The music speaks to you lot every mean solar day, merely you are too deaf, dumb, and bullheaded to even listen to the music. . . It is not my conspiracy. Information technology is not my music. I hear what it relates. Information technology says "Rise," information technology says "Kill." Why arraign it on me? I didn't write the music. . . .

"I haven't got any guilt about anything considering I have never been able to see any wrong. . . I have always said: Do what your honey tells you lot, and I do what my beloved tells me . . . Is it my fault that your children practice what y'all do? What well-nigh your children? You say there are just a few? At that place are many, many more, coming in the aforementioned direction. They are running in the streets-and they are coming right at you!"

At the conclusion of Bugliosi's cursory cantankerous-examination of Manson, Older asked Manson if he at present wished to testify before the jury. He replied, "I accept already relieved all the pressure I had." Manson left the stand. As he walked by the counsel table, he told his three co-defendants, "You don't have to testify now."

At that place remained one concluding frightening surprise of the Tate-LaBianca murder trial. When the trial resumed on November thirty following Manson's testimony, Ronald Hughes, defence force attorney for Leslie Van Houten failed to show. A subsequent investigation revealed he had disappeared over the weekend while camping in the remote Sespe Hot Springs area northwest of Los Angeles. It is widely believed that Hughes was ordered murdered past Manson for his determination to pursue a defense strategy at odds with that favored by Manson. Hughes had made articulate his promise to show that Van Houten was not acting independently--as Manson suggested--but was completely controlled in her actions by Manson.

Manson's defence force attorney, Irving Kanarek, argued to the jury that the female defendants committed the Tate and LaBianca murders out of a love of the crimes' true mastermind, the absent Tex Watson. Kanarek suggested that Manson was being persecuted because of his "life fashion." He argued that the prosecution's theory of a motive was fanciful. His statement lasted seven days, prompting Gauge Older to phone call it "no longer an argument but a filibuster."

Bugliosi's powerful summation described Charles Manson as "the Mephistophelean guru" who "sent out from the fires of hell at Spahn Ranch three heartless, bloodthirsty robots and--unfortunately for him--one homo, the fiddling hippie girl Linda Kasabian." Bugliosi ended his summation with "a ringlet telephone call of the dead": "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Sharon Tate...Abigail Folger...Voytek Frykowski...Jay Sebring...Steven Parent...Leno LaBianca...Rosemary LaBianca...are not here with united states in this courtroom, but from their graves they cry out for justice."

The jury deliberated a week before returning its verdict on January 25, 1971. The jury constitute all defendants guilty on each count of first-caste murder. After hearing additional prove in the penalty phase of the trial, the jury completed its work by sentencing each of the four defendants to death on March 29. Every bit the clerk read the verdict, Manson shouted, "You people have no authority over me." Patricia Krenwinkel declared, "Y'all have judged yourselves." Susan Atkins said, "Meliorate lock your doors and scout your own kids." Leslie Van Houten complained, "The whole system is a game." The trial was over. At over ix-months, it had been the longest and and virtually expensive in American history.

TRIAL Backwash

Manson at his 1992 parole hearing

The death sentences imposed by the Tate-LaBianca jury would never be imposed, thanks to a California Supreme Court ruling in 1972 declaring the land's death penalty law unconstitutional. The decease sentences for the four convicted defendants, likewise every bit for Tex Watson who had been convicted and sentenced to death in a split trial in 1971, were commuted to life in prison. All v currently remain in prison in California.

Charles Manson was incarcerated in a maximum security section of a state penitentiary in Concoran, California. He has been denied parole 11 times, most recently in 2012. In prison, he has assaulted prison staff a half dozen times. A search of the prison house chapel where Manson took a job in 1980 revealed his hidden enshroud including marijuana, one hundred feet of nylon rope, and a post-order catalog for hot air balloons. In 1986, he published his story, Manson in His Own Words. In his volume, Manson claims: "My optics are cameras. My listen is tuned to more television channels than exist in your world. And it suffers no censorship. Through it, I have a globe and the universe as my ain."

All three female defendants take expressed remorse for their crimes, been exemplary inmates, and offered their time for clemency work. Yet none has been released past the California Parole Board, fifty-fifty though each of them was young and clearly under Manson's powerful influence at the time of their crimes. There is no question that but for their unfortunate connection with Charles Manson, none would accept committed murder. Information technology is sad, but undoubtedly true, that parole boards are political bodies that base of operations decisions as much upon predictable public reaction to their decisions as on a conscientious review of a parole applicant's prison tape and statements.
Susan Atkins died in prison house of terminal encephalon cancer in September 2009. The remaining Manson family unit defendants (excluding Charlie, of course) deserve release, but given the reality of politics, might never again feel freedom.

In Nov 2014, the California Department of Corrections announced that it had received a request for a marriage license from their famous eighty-twelvemonth-erstwhile prisoner. Manson's helpmatehoped-for is Afton Elaine Burton, a twenty-six-yr one-time woman who has worked for Manson's release. Burton said, "I love him. I'thou with him. There's all kind of things." Debra Tate, sister of the slain actress Sharon Tate, had a different take. "I think it's insane," Tate said. "The devil is live and well."

The end came for Charles Manson on November 19, 2017 in a hospital in Kern County, California.  Manson died of natural causes.  He was 83.

2009 Update: CNN, "Aging Manson Family Members Long for Freedom"

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Source: https://www.famous-trials.com/manson/243-home