As there’s a battle brewing over the remains and estate of mass murderer Charles Manson, our Los Angeles murder attorneys have decided to take a look back at the infamous cult leader’s life, his crimes and charges.
Charles Manson, who’s often referred to as the mass murderer who never touched a soul, passed away aged 83 in a hospital north of Los Angeles on Sunday, November 19. The cult leader had served 46 years in California’s prisons, but was hospitalized shortly before his death.
Manson is perhaps one of the most notorious murderers of the last century, and yet, technically, he is believed to have never committed a murder himself. Instead, the cult leader used his influence over his followers – the so-called Manson Family – to orchestrate a series of heinous killings in Los Angeles in the late 1960s.
Manson was convicted of nine murders, served nine life terms in jail and was denied parole 12 times. The mass murderer is best known for his brutal killings during a two-night crime spree in Southern California on August 1969. On one of the nights, Manson’s followers brutally murdered Sharon Tate, an actress who was married to the film director Roman Polanski. Tate was eight and a half months pregnant at the time.
Our Los Angeles murder attorneys here at Okabe & Haushalter have closely examined records of Manson’s trial and the cult leader’s life as a whole.
Since the age of 12, Charles Manson was put in numerous reform schools. At one of the schools, he held a razor to a small boy’s throat and then sexually assaulted him.
But sexual assault in Los Angeles is not the only thing the young Manson was known for, as the soon-to-be cult leader committed a series of burglaries, auto thefts and armed robberies.
Manson spent a lot of time at juvenile detention centers for his crimes and even ended up in federal reformatories, from which he was paroled at age 19. Since then, the soon-to-be mass murderer was a pimp, car thief and check forger.
Manson had spent more than half his life in correctional facilities and prisons by 1967, when he was 32 years old. Since that period, Manson started amassing a large following – a hippy cult in Los Angeles – growing his influence among frenzied followers and fans.
On August 9, 1969, four of Manson’s followers broke into the house of Mr. Polanski’s wife, Ms. Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant at the time. They killed Ms. Tate along with four other people in the house. The Manson Family’s brutality knew no boundaries, as they committed the murders with the combination of stabbing, beating, shooting and hanging. The famous filmmaker was in London at the time of the heinous killings.
The next night, Manson and six of his followers entered another house in Los Angeles, which they apparently selected randomly. Manson himself tied up the residents – a rich grocer and his wife – and then left the house. After the cult leader left, the stabbing and killings of the couple began.
On June 15, 1970, Manson and three of his followers who committed the murders went to trial for murder. Manson was initially sentenced to death, but was later taken off death row.
Given Manson’s immense influence over his followers and fans, the cult leader may have inspired numerous other killings across the country, particularly in Los Angeles, even after he was sent to prison.
Here at the Okabe & Haushalter, our murder attorneys have seen murders that were just as bloody and heinous as Manson’s orchestrated killings in the summer of 1969.
Unfortunately, with or without Manson or his followers, people get murdered in Los Angeles and all across our nation every day. Our attorneys have represented both defendants who were accused of murder and families of murdered victims.
Our founding partner Mark Haushalter is a renowned legal commentator for CNN on the Casey Anthony case, one of the most complex cases in America’s history. Here at Okabe & Haushalter, our Los Angeles murder attorneys take an aggressive approach when representing our clients no matter what your circumstances are.
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