‘Twisted’ cult leader Manson dies at 83 while serving life
CHARLES MANSON, the hippie cult leader who became the hypnotic-eyed face of evil across America after masterminding the gruesome murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in Los Angeles during the summer of 1969, has died after nearly half a century in prison. He was 83.
Manson died on Sunday night of natural causes at a California hospital while serving a life sentence, his name synonymous to this day with unspeakable violence and depravity.
Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles County, reacted to the death by quoting the late Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor who put Manson behind bars.
Mr Bugliosi said: “Manson was an evil, sophisticated conman with twisted and warped moral values.”
“Today, Manson’s victims are the ones who should be remembered and mourned on the occasion of his death,” Ms Hanisee said.
A petty criminal who had been in and out of jail since childhood, the charismatic, guru-like Manson surrounded himself in the 1960s with runaways and other lost souls and then sent his disciples to butcher some of LA’s rich and famous in what prosecutors said was a bid to trigger a race war, an idea he said he got from a twisted reading of the Beatles song Helter Skelter.
Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Manson maintained during his tumultuous trial in 1970 that he was innocent and that society itself was guilty.