Venue an issue in fight over Charles Manson’s estate

LOS ANGELES — The battle brewing over the estate of Charles Manson entered court Monday, though it is unclear where it will be fought or whether others will join a pen pal and purported grandson laying claim to the cult leader’s possessions and body.

The issue of venue is clouded because Manson, 83, died at a hospital in Kern County in November, but was incarcerated in Corcoran State Prison in Kings County. His body is still being held at the coroner’s office in Bakersfield.

Attorney Alan Davis, representing the proposed administrator of the estate for purported grandson Jason Freeman, said Los Angeles County is the proper venue because Manson lived there before he was imprisoned for orchestrating the 1969 killings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and eight other people.

Judge David Cowan scheduled a hearing Jan. 26 to determine the county where the matter should be decided.

Michael Channels, who said he became friends with Manson decades ago after repeatedly writing him in prison, challenged the Freeman claim. He holds a will that he said Manson signed and sent him 16 years ago.

The two-page document said Manson disinherited two known sons and any unknown children, and leaves Channels the entire estate, which includes potentially lucrative rights to his image, and music he wrote and recorded.

Court documents filed by Davis claim Freeman is the son of the late Charles Manson Jr., and the grandson of Charles Manson and his first wife, Rosalie Willis.

A man who believes Manson fathered him during a Wisconsin orgy in the late 1960s also plans to make a claim.

Matt Lentz, a Los Angeles-area musician who goes by Matthew Roberts, has a will Manson purportedly signed in January 2017 naming him as beneficiary, said his agent, Mike Smith. He said Manson gave the will to friend Ben Gurecki, who is named as executor.

Lentz didn’t show up in court Monday.