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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Charles Manson Taken From Prison to Hospital

Mass murderer Charles Manson has been taken from Corcoran state prison to a Bakersfield hospital, and prison officials will say only, “He is alive.”

(CN) — Mass murderer Charles Manson has been taken from Corcoran state prison to a Bakersfield hospital, and prison officials will say only, “He is alive.”

News wires, including The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times, reported that Manson was taken to a Bakersfield hospital Tuesday night with undisclosed medical problems.

Late Tuesday night, three vans from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation were parked outside Bakersfield's Mercy Hospital Downtown, where state prisoners have been treated before.

But CDCR spokeswoman Terry Thornton said only that Manson is still alive and still assigned to the prison in Corcoran. She declined to say whether he was at the hospital in Bakersfield, citing safety privacy laws prohibit her from discussing an inmate's medical situation.

Manson, 82, and his so-called “family” killed seven people at actress Sharon Tate’s hilltop home in Los Angeles in 1969. Tate, the wife of director Roman Polanski, was 8½ months pregnant.

Tate's sister Debra Tate told The Associated Press on Tuesday night that, as a Catholic, she makes "no ill wishes" for the people who killed her sister, and will reserve her feelings until hearing Manson has died.

"I would probably say a prayer for them and shed a tear and ask God to have mercy on their souls, but so far I haven't allowed myself to feel anything because it's unsubstantiated," Tate said. "I'm not allowing myself to feel anything until I know that it's true."

Manson and three female followers, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, were convicted of murder and sentenced to death for killings at two gruesome scenes in the summer of 1969. Another defendant, Charles "Tex" Watson, was convicted later.

All were spared execution when a U.S. Supreme Court ruling temporarily banned the death penalty in 1972.

Manson, who has been denied parole 12 times, has been charged with “hundreds” of rules violations in prison, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Bakersfield news outlets and the AP reported that Manson is in Mercy Hospital in Bakersfield under the name Joe Doe.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Categories / Criminal

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