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Cult leader dies at 83 while serving a life sentence; William La Jeunesse reports from Los Angeles.
Hippie cult leader Charles Manson, who was the mastermind behind one of Hollywood’s most gruesome slayings, confessed to additional murders before becoming the leader of the Manson Family cult, as featured in chilling audio that will be included in a new docuseries on Peacock.
The confessions were featured in a teaser clip of the new series, “Making Manson,” in which Manson could be heard talking from a prison phone about his time south of the U.S. border.
“There’s a whole part of my life that nobody knows about,” Manson is heard saying in the clip. ‘I lived in Mexico for a while. I went to Acapulco, stole some cars.
“I just got involved in some stuff over my head, man,” he continued. “Got involved in a couple of killings. I left my .357 Magnum in Mexico City, and I left some dead people on the beach.”
HIPPIE CULT LEADER CHARLES MANSON DEAD AT 83
Charles Manson was convicted of one count of murder and several counts of attempted murder. He was the leader of the Manson Family, a cult that carried out several murders. (AP/Ron Galella )
The docuseries premieres Nov. 19 on streaming service Peacock.
In 1971, Manson was convicted of nine murders, including the 1969 slaughter of actress Sharon Tate, who was pregnant at the time.
Prosecutors said he was attempting to foment a race war, an idea he supposedly got from a misreading of the Beatles song, “Helter Skelter.”
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The Manson murders were brutally horrific. Tate, who was 26 at the time of her death, was stabbed and hung from a rafter in her living room. The intruders used the victim’s blood to write, “Pigs,” while also misspelling “Healter Skelter.”
While Manson did not carry out the murders himself, he was the master manipulator who persuaded others to kill for him.
Manson was convicted of nine murders. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Members of the Manson Family, as his followers were called, slaughtered five of its victims on Aug. 9, 1969: Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, Polish movie director Voityck Frykowski and Steven Parent, a friend of the property’s caretakers. The murders took place at Tate’s home while her husband, director Roman Polanski, was out of the country at the time.
MANSON FAMILY MEMBERS SPEAK OUT 50 YEARS LATER IN SHOCKING DOC, RECALL MEETING CULT LEADER: ‘I FELT ACCEPTED’
The next night, a wealthy grocer and his wife, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, were stabbed to death in their home across town.
Manson, a petty criminal who had been in and out of jail since childhood, surrounded himself in the ‘60s with runaways and other lost souls during the heyday of the hippie movement in California. Though he was in his mid-30s, Manson began collecting followers — mostly women — who likened him to Jesus Christ. Most were teenagers and many were at odds with their families.
Cameramen film the scene as Charles Manson is brought into the Los Angeles city jail under suspicion of having masterminded the Tate-LaBianca murders of August 1969. Manson died in 2017 while serving a life prison sentence. (Getty Images)
The “family” eventually established a commune-like based at Spahn Ranch outside of Los Angeles, where Manson manipulated his followers with drugs, oversaw orgies and subjected them to bizarre lectures.
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Manson was arrested three months after the murders. After a trial that lasted nearly a year, Manson and three followers – Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten – were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Another defendant, Charles “Tex” Watson, was convicted later. All were spared execution and given life sentences after the California Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972.
Manson died of natural causes at a California hospital while serving a life sentence, on Nov. 19, 2017. He was 83.
Fox News Digital’s Stephanie Nolasco and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Greg Wehner is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital.
Story tips and ideas can be sent to Greg.Wehner@Fox.com and on Twitter @GregWehner.
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