(CNN)Charles
Manson, the wild-eyed 1960s cult leader whose followers committed
heinous murders that terrorized Los Angeles and shocked the nation, died
Sunday of natural causes, according to the California Department of
Corrections. He was 83.
The
diminutive and charismatic Manson orchestrated a wave of violence in
August 1969 that took the lives of seven people, spawned headlines
worldwide and landed him and his "Manson Family" of followers in prison
for most of the remainder of their lives.
Manson served nine life terms
in California prisons and was denied parole 12 times. His notoriety,
boosted by popular books and films, made him a cult figure to those
fascinated by his dark apocalyptic visions.
"He
was the dictatorial ruler of the (Manson) family, the king, the
Maharaja. And the members of the family were slavishly obedient to him,"
former Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi told CNN in 2015.
To the point they would kill for him.
The
brutal killings began on August 9, 1969, at the home of actress Sharon
Tate and her husband, famed movie director Roman Polanski. He was out of
the country at the time. The first set of victims were Tate, who was
eight months' pregnant; a celebrity hairstylist named Jay Sebring;
coffee fortune heiress Abigail Folger; writer Wojciech Frykowski; and
Steven Parent, a friend of the family's caretaker.
The next evening, another set of murders
took place. Supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary,
were killed at their home.
Although Manson ordered the killings, he didn't participate.
Over
the course of two nights, the killers inflicted 169 stab wounds and
seven .22-caliber gunshot wounds. Both crime scenes revealed horrifying
images. And a few details linked the two.
The
word "pig" was written in victims' blood on the walls of one home and
the front door of another. There was also another phrase apparently
scrawled in blood: Helter Skelter (it was misspelled Healter). The
reason for the disturbing writings, a prosecutor argued, was because
Manson wanted to start a race war and had hoped the Black Panthers would
be blamed for the killings.
On June 16, 1970, Manson and three of
his followers -- Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten
-- went on trial in Los Angeles.
All
of those details came tumbling out in the trial that both mesmerized
and horrified the nation. During the trial, Manson and his followers
created a circus-like atmosphere in the court with singing, giggling,
angry outbursts and even carving X's in their foreheads.
The
charges came after a major break in the case when Atkins, who was
already in jail on another charge, bragged to a fellow inmate about the
Tate murders. She said they did it "because we wanted to do a crime that
would shock the world. ..."
Manson
was originally sentenced to death but the death penalty was briefly
abolished in the state and his concurrent sentences were commuted to
life in prison.
He also was convicted in the connection with the killings of Gary Hinman, a musician, and stuntman Donald "Shorty" Shea in 1969.
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