Did you know that one of our nation’s most notorious killers gets his twelfth shot at parole next week, on April 11? Considering he has been in prison for forty years for crimes that rocked our nation and prison officials share that he hasn’t exactly been a model inmate, the chances of this man breathing free air are quite small. But, the fact remains that a parole board will once again spend at least a few minutes discussing the merits of choosing to let Charles Manson back into society.
Almost everyone is familiar with Manson and the cult following he developed during the 1960s. He used his brainwashing and influence to lead his devoted groupies, known as “The Family,” to murder actress Sharon Tate and seven others in 1969. He initially received the death penalty for the murders, which occurred in July and August of that year, but that sentence was changed to life in prison after California suspended its use of the death penalty in the 1970s.
Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has come out strongly against granting parole to Manson, agreeing with the 2007 parole board that Manson still poses an “unreasonable danger to others” and “still may bring harm” to anyone with whom he comes into contact. Considering that Manson hasn’t bothered to attend his own parole hearings in fifteen years and has described himself as a bad man from the underworld, I don’t think he is expecting to walk out of those prison gates.
As you can see above, the California Department of Corrections released a couple of photos just ahead of the parole hearing, this one taken last June. Even though he is now 77 years old, those same menacing eyes and the still-visible swastika tattoo remind us that the evil he did as a much younger man exists even to this day.
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Author Jennifer Chase 
Believe it or not, I worry that he might be set free. How can that be? This is California where anything is possible, no matter how insane.
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Even decades later he’s still an evil little troll. He may have “orchestrated” what happened to Sharon Tate and the others, but he still deserves to rot and burn. If he gets parole, it’ll be a sad day for the justice system and society.
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Fascinating as always. It seems that Manson has had so many parole hearings that they could have been strung together as a long-running soap opera. You could write a brilliant books simply based on the hearings. In fact, I would stand in line to buy it.
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Frightening, and good to know. I don’t believe the core of who we are changes much, particularly in prison.
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Great comments everyone! There is another serial killer in California that comes up for parole every 5 years — Edmund Kemper known as the co-ed killer in the 1970s. Again, these killers won’t be set free, but it’s chilling to know that they get parole hearings. It’s sad how much tax payers money has been used to keep these killers alive…
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Reblogged this on PORTAFOLIO. BITACORA DE UN TRANSFUGA. 2000.2010.
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