Two claim right to Manson’s body, estate
There’s a battle brewing over the remains and estate of mass murderer Charles Manson.
Reports of two unverified wills surfaced Friday, with each leaving the killer’s estate to a different person.
Manson friend Ben Gurecki told the New York Daily News he obtained a January 2017 will from Manson and passed it along to Manson’s self-proclaimed “son” Matthew Roberts in March.
He said Roberts was named as the main beneficiary.
“I can assure you Matthew will be handling this,” Gurecki told the Daily News on Friday.
“Matthew and I will be there next week in person,” he claimed. “Charlie will be given a headstone, a proper burial where people will be able to grieve or deface it, as they see fit.”
Meanwhile, TMZ.com said Friday it obtained a February 2002 will from an unidentified Manson pen pal that disinherited all Manson relatives.
The mysterious pen pal said he is the sole beneficiary and plans to claim Manson’s body before a 10-day deadline expires next week, TMZ reported.
Gurecki said he doesn’t know who the pen pal is but that the more recent will allegedly signed this year supersedes any that came before it.
The Chicago resident said he plans to meet Roberts in Kern County, California, next week.
“There are plans for Charlie’s remains to be handled with dignity and not by the Kern County coroner,” Gurecki told the Daily News. “(I) will absolutely not let this continue to be a circus.”
Manson, 83, died of natural causes at a hospital in Bakersfield, California, on Sunday.
He spent most of his life in prison for the murders of nine people in 1969, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate.
Roberts, 49, is a Los Angeles musician who looks like Manson and was adopted as an infant. When he found his birth mother in 1998, she told him Manson was his father, according to CNN.
Beyond the two alleged wills, Manson’s grandson Jason Freeman told the Daily News earlier this week he also is interested in claiming Manson’s remains. A GoFundMe account set up this week to underwrite his efforts was shut down Thursday.
State officials have so far declined to comment on any final wishes left by Manson.
Manson’s followers killed six people during a terrifying two-night murder spree in August 1969.
Tate, who was 8 months’ pregnant, begged for her life as she was stabbed repeatedly inside her Los Angeles house along with coffee heiress Abigail Folger, celebrity hair stylist Jay Sebring and two others.
The next night, Manson’s gang chose another house at random and brutally murdered wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary.
PARIS — Police in Paris say a tiger escaped from a circus in the city on Friday and roamed the streets of the French capital for “some time” before being killed.
Police said the big cat was “neutralized” by a staff member from the circus near a bridge over the River Seine, about 1.24 miles from the Eiffel Tower.
Police authorities tweeted “all danger is over” alongside a tiger emoticon.
A Paris police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the tiger had been loose for “some time” Friday but said there had been no reported injuries or casualties.
Residents in the 15th district where the tiger was shot circulated photos of the beast’s limp corpse on social media — many angry that it had been killed.