Mass murderer Charles Manson is at Corcoran State Prison in Kings County after a reported trip to a hospital in Bakersfield, authorities have confirmed, while another report said the infamous former death row inmate was to undergo surgery.
A spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told the Associated Press that the 82-year-old Manson was at the prison Saturday, but that medical privacy laws prevented him from saying anything more.
“We never stated he was anywhere else,” Jeffrey Callison told the AP.
The celebrity news website TMZ reported Saturday that Manson has been deemed healthy enough to undergo surgery to repair a lesion in his intestines that has caused internal bleeding. The website sites unidentified sources who say that Manson was taken to the Bakersfield hospital earlier this week but was considered too weak for the surgery. TMZ says the surgery is expected to take place later Saturday, and will include a blood transfusion.
Manson and his “family” members were convicted for the Aug. 9, 1969, murders of actress Sharon Tate and four others in the rented Benedict Canyon home of Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski, who was out of the country. Tate was eight months pregnant at the time. Manson was not actually present, but ordered the slayings.
A day later, the group struck again — stabbing to death grocery store chain owner Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in their Los Feliz-area home.
Manson was convicted of first degree-murder and conspiracy in the killings.
Also convicted were Charles “Tex” Watson, Patricia Krenwinkle and Susan Atkins. A third woman, Leslie Van Houten, was convicted of the murders of LaBianca and his wife, along with a conspiracy charge.
The murderers left bloody messages at both crime scenes, in what authorities believe was an effort to start a race war.
The five defendants were spared the death penalty in 1972 when the state Supreme Court overturned capital punishment.
Manson was denied parole in 2012 for the 12th time. He is not eligible for another parole hearing until 2027.
—City News Service