Cult leader and mass murderer Charles Manson dies

Charles Manson, the imprisoned hippie cult leader who led a group of teens on a killing spree that shocked the nation in August 1969, died Sunday night in a California hospital. He was 83. State officials said he died of natural causes. Manson called his group the Manson Family, a ragtag group of middle class teens he recruited in his bid to start a race war. The group first attacked the home of Hollywood director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate. They killed Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant, and hung her body from a rafter in the living room. They also killed four others at the home, including coffee heiress Abigail Folger. The next night, Manson and his followers killed another wealthy couple in a different Los Angeles neighborhood. Police arrested him three months later. Manson and three female followers were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1970. A male follower also received the death penalty in a later trial, but the California Supreme Court commuted them all to life sentences in 1972 when it struck down the death penalty. Manson later stood trial and was convicted of two more murders. Throughout his trial, Manson maintained his innocence. But during a 2012 parole hearing, Manson told a prison psychiatrist: “I’m special. I’m not like the average inmate. … I have put five people in the grave. I am a very dangerous man.”