How many manson family members were there

He is currently in prison at the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo where he acts as a minister in the prison chapel. He has also gotten married and fathered one child. Like many other convicted Manson Family members, Davis has been recommended for parole multiple times only to have those recommendations reversed. In early , Gov. Jerry Brown elected to block his release , saying, "As I've discussed twice before, Davis' own actions demonstrate that he had fully bought into the depraved Manson Family beliefs.

He not only watched as Manson cut Mr. Hinman's face open with a sword, but held him at gunpoint while Manson was doing so. The state parole board recommended Davis for release in June but Gov.

Gavin Newsom reversed that decision. Davis was again recommended for in but Newsom also denied that request , saying Davis "currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time. Leslie Van Houten grew up in a middle-class family in Altadena. Following the divorce of her parents when she was 14, Van Houten began using drugs. According to her testimony in her parole hearing , her mother forced her to have an abortion at 17, which deeply affected her relationship with her family.

Still, she was a popular prom queen in high school, and she briefly attended classes to become a secretary. However, Van Houten favored the hippie lifestyle over school and dropped out. On Aug. She has maintained that of the 47 stab wounds found on Rosemary's body, she only inflicted ones that occurred after Rosemary's death.

She was convicted of murder in and was sentenced to death but in her sentence was commuted to life in prison. Van Houten currently resides in the California Institution for Women in Corona, where she is considered a model prisoner.

She has earned a bachelor's and a master's degree while incarcerated and leads self-help groups for her fellow inmates. She has long since renounced Manson. Van Houten has been up for parole more than 20 times. She was most recently recommended for parole on Nov. Four previous recommendations were rejected by California governors. In April , the state parole board recommended Van Houten for parole.

Sharon Tate's sister, Debra Tate, as well as L. Then Gov. Jerry Brown blocked her release , saying , "Both [Van Houten's] role in these extraordinarily brutal crimes and her inability to explain her willing participation in such horrific violence cannot be overlooked and lead me to believe she remains an unreasonable risk to society if released.

By then, Van Houten had been recommended for release again, in January , only to stay behind bars when Gov. Gavin Newsom overruled a new parole recommendation in June A court declined to reverse Newsom's decision. On July 23, , the Associated Press reported a panel had once again recommended Van Houten for parole, the fourth time in four years. In November , Newsom denied the recommendation for parole. On November 9, , a California parole panel recommended for the fifth time that Van Houten be freed from prison.

Governor Newsom will probably deny the recommendation. Charles "Tex" Watson was arguably the most vicious member of the Manson Family. Manson may have orchestrated the killings, but Watson was, more often than not, the hand that carried them out.

He participated in the Cielo Drive murders, personally shooting Steven Parent and Jay Sebring, and assisted in the other slayings. He was also active in the LaBianca murders. Watson grew up in Texas, hence his nickname. In the s, he worked for Braniff Airlines as a baggage handler. This gave him access to free airline tickets, which he used to visit an old college friend in Los Angeles.

He eventually decided to move to the L. According to his parole hearing , Watson was renting a house in Malibu with a friend. He one day picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson. Wilson invited Watson to his home, where he met Charles Manson and ultimately joined Manson's followers. Watson was sentenced to death in , which was commuted to life in prison the following year. Since his incarceration, he has converted to Christianity and became an ordained minister in In , he married Kristin Joan Svege, with whom he fathered four children via conjugal visits.

The state of California got rid of those visits for prisoners serving life sentences in the late s. At the time, Sharon Tate's mother, Doris Tate, was one of the biggest advocates for eliminating such visits for violent felons. She was enraged that Watson murdered her daughter and grandchild, yet was allowed to father children of his own. Svege amicably divorced Watson in Watson apparently reads his Wikipedia page and seems to have submitted requests to have it edited.

In those requests, he named Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's book Helter Skelter as his preferred source for Manson-related research. He was most recently eligible for parole in October He was denied for the seventeenth time in 47 years. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement. Sharon Tate's sister Debra Tate also spoke out, calling him a sociopath who is "incapable of having insight or empathy for anything. Watson is currently He was denied parole at a hearing on Oct.

Patricia Krenwinkel grew up in Los Angeles as the quiet daughter of an insurance salesman and a stay-at-home mom. While living with her sister in Manhattan Beach in , she met Manson and became enamored with him.

She joined his commune and traveled with him for several months. In , at age 21, she was a devoted follower who agreed to participate in Manson's plans for Helter Skelter.

Krenwinkel was present for the murders on Cielo Drive. In particular, she testified that she was the one to murder Abigail Folger. She first stabbed her in the living room of the house, then chased her outside and stabbed her several more times. It was just there, and it was right. In , she was sentenced to death in but in , her sentence was also commuted to life in prison. She is currently held at the California Institution for Women in Chino, where she apparently goes by "Krenny.

She, too, has renounced Manson. Krenwinkel has been denied parole more than a dozen times. Her most recent attempt, in , was delayed by her lawyers' assertion that she was suffering from "intimate partner battery" at the time of her crimes, a legal defense that has been used to free individuals who suffered abuse at the hands of romantic partners or family members.

In , parole board commissioners once again denied Krenwinkel parole. Her mother died of cancer when Atkins was 15, and her father fell into alcoholism following his wife's death. By , Atkins had been abandoned by her father and was living in Los Banos, working as a waitress and attending high school while attempting to care for her little brother.

She dropped out during her junior year of high school and relocated to San Francisco. There, she encountered Manson while he was playing guitar and soon accepted his invitation to join his commune. Within the Manson family, she went by the name Sadie Mae Glutz. Manson prosecutor and Helter Skelter author Vincent Bugliosi once said that excluding Manson himself, it was Atkins who had the "most unfortunate background.

On July 25, , Atkins went with several followers, including Bobby Beausoleil and Mary Brunner, to the home of musician Gary Hinman, who Manson believed had money he could give them. They attacked Hinman and Manson sliced Hinman's ear with a sword. When the others left, Atkins and Brunner remained with Hinman and treated his wounds. Two days later, Beausoleil returned and murdered Hinman while Atkins and Brunner were present.

They wrote "political piggy" on Hinman's living room wall in his blood. Atkins was also present on the night of the Cielo Drive murders and used Tate's blood to write "PIG" on the front door of the home. She was present the night of the LaBianca murders as well, but stayed in the car. While in jail on unrelated charges in October , she boasted to two other inmates about how she had murdered actress Sharon Tate.

These inmates informed authorities of her story, which helped the detectives working the case. Atkins later agreed to testify against the others, admitting in court that she held Tate down as Watson stabbed her. She said that she told Tate that she had no mercy for her, as Tate begged for her and her baby's lives. Atkins was sentenced to death in , which was, like the others' sentences, commuted to life in She renounced Manson and became a born-again Christian.

She also married twice while incarcerated. In , she married Donald Lee Laisure, who had been married at least two dozen times before.

The marriage lasted less than a year. She remarried attorney James W. Whitehouse in , who represented her at her and parole hearings. They remained married to her until she died. In , Atkins was diagnosed with brain cancer.

As she was dying, she requested compassionate release but she was denied by the California Board of Parole. Atkins died in September at age 61, after spending 38 years at the California Institution for Women in Chino. At the time of her death, she was the longest-serving female inmate in the state of California.

After she died, that dubious honor went to Krenwinkel. In , Beausoleil married a year-old fan, subsequently got divorced, and then ended up marrying a woman from Oregon with whom he fathered four children.

I live by my own law, you know. I make my own laws and live by them. I have my own sense of justice. After abandoning her plans to become a nun wow, that would have been a better life path , Big Patty moved to San Francisco and met Manson in We would run through the woods with flowers in our hair and Charles would have a small flute.

On August 8, , Big Patty participated in the brutal murder of Sharon and her friends, stabbing coffee heiress Abigail Folger to death. I mean, like, what is there to describe? Krenwinkel also killed a grocer named Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, by stabbing them with a knife and fork. Big Patty was sentenced to death which was later reduced to life in prison , and—in a notoriously creepy move—she spent her trial drawing doodles of devils.

In prison. Krenwinkel no longer worships Manson and has expressed remorse for her actions. I take responsibility every day for every word I say, what I believe, what I do. I am who I am today because I have fought desperately for everything that I am.

A year later, Atkins had given birth to a kid with a fellow Family member named Bruce White, so yeah, you could say she was in it. Atkins spent her life in prison after her death sentence was commuted, and in , she published an autobiography called Child of Satan, Child of God.

At this point, she was a born-again Christian, which makes sense, given that she initially thought Manson was Christ. Atkins died in prison in , after many failed attempts at getting paroled. While she was incarcerated, she kinda lived it up, by which I mean she got married twice—including once to a lawyer who represented her during a couple parole hearings.

I hope to be out some day. Which had nothing to do with Manson, shockingly! She did live with the Family during the Sharon Tate murder trial, though, and even carved an X in her head to support Manson.

He became a born-again Christian behind bars, earned a doctoral degree in philosophy of religion, and ministers to other inmates. Kasabian ended up with the Manson group after she left an unhappy marriage when she was There she became romantically involved with Watson and a devoted member of the family until she fled shortly after the LaBianca murders.

He later had his sentence commuted to life in prison, where he joined the Aryan Brotherhood gang and suffered a broken jaw and other injuries in various fights. He was then moved to the California Medical Facility in Vacaville in Beausoleil, now 71, has been denied parole at least 18 times. Newsom reversed a parole recommendation to free Beausoleil in Matt Hamilton is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

He won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting with colleagues Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle and was part of the team of reporters that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attack. All Sections.

About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. Charles Manson, at left, on his way to court in and, at right, in Charles Manson: Died in at age 83 Manson, who ordered the Tate-LaBianca killings but was not present for any of them, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

At right, Krenwinkel in Susan Atkins: Died in prison in Susan Atkins at age 21 in , left, and in an undated prison photo. Roman Polanski: Living in Europe, wanted in the U. At right, he arrives for a hearing in Krakow, Poland, in Bruce Davis, at left, in and, at right, in