The cult leader has died aged 83.
Charles Manson, the cult leader whose crimes in the late ’60s terrorised America, has died in the early hours of Monday. He was 83.
Manson was hospitalised on Tuesday for an undisclosed ailment. He was serving nine life sentences, most recently incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison.
BREAKING: Authorities say Charles Manson, cult leader and mastermind behind 1969 deaths of actress Sharon Tate, 6 others, has died.
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 20, 2017
Manson rose to notoriety as the leader of the Family, which TIME described in 1969 as a “semi-religious hippie drug-and-murder cult.”
In the late ’60s, Manson ordered his followers to carry out a number of murders, most notably that of Sharon Tate. At the time, Tate was married to the director Roman Polanski and she was almost nine months pregnant when she died. Four other people were also brutally stabbed to death during that particular incident.
Throughout August 1969, members of the Manson Family killed seven people in total, following the orders of their leader.
Manson was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death in 1971. In 1972, the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional by the California supreme court and Manson’s sentence was changed to life imprisonment.
He died of natural causes.
