Charles Manson

Danny Galindo, a retired Los Angeles police detective who helped investigate the notorious Tate-LaBianca murders, died of a heart ailment Tuesday at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, his family said. He was 88. "He was an important member of the Manson murders investigative team," said Vincent Bugliosi, who was the chief prosecutor in the case. Cult leader Charles Manson and several followers were sentenced to death (later reduced to life terms) in the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and five others.

Maybe there's something to this “let the private sector do it” mantra. California's prisons have been battling an epidemic of smuggled cellphones.  Heck, even Charles Manson had a couple. (And don't you wonder who was on the other end of those calls?  I mean, he's been in prison for four decades. How many friends in the real world can he have?) Anyway, various solutions have been proposed, including bills in the Legislature that would get tough on phone smugglers and that would permit random searches of prison employees.

Contraband cellphones are becoming so prevalent in California prisons that guards can't keep them out of the hands of the most notorious and violent inmates: Even Charles Manson, orchestrator of one of the most notorious killing rampages in U.S. history, was caught with an LG flip phone under his prison mattress. Manson made calls and sent text messages to people in California, New Jersey, Florida and British Columbia before officers discovered the phone, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections.

Dwayne Kennedy threw a man from a moving car in 1988, but that's not what's keeping him in prison today. It's not the inmate he stabbed 17 years ago either; the state parole board forgave him that. Instead, California prison officials are keeping Kennedy locked up for an extra five years — costing taxpayers roughly $250,000 — because guards caught him with a contraband cellphone he says he borrowed to tell his family he had just been granted parole and was coming home. It was "just stupid on my part for even using it," Kennedy told a pair of parole commissioners convened in June 2010 to decide his punishment for breaking prison rules.

Susan Atkins, who committed one of modern history's most notorious crimes when she joined Charles Manson and his gang for a 1969 killing spree that terrorized Los Angeles and put her in prison for the rest of her life, has died. She was 61. Atkins was diagnosed in 2008 with brain cancer, which caused paralysis and the loss of one leg. She was receiving medical treatment at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla and entered hospice care in recent days. She died there at 11:46 p.m. Thursday of natural causes, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Aaron Stovitz, the original prosecutor of mass murderer Charles Manson and three female followers who was removed from the trial for comments he made about the case, has died. He was 85. Stovitz died Monday at a Tarzana hospital after a long battle with leukemia, said his daughter, Rhonda Steinberg. Stovitz, who was removed in September 1970 by then-Dist. Atty. Evelle Younger, later said he wasn't bitter over the decision but thought his remark was "innocuous." A 1970 Times story speculated that Stovitz got into trouble for an off-hand remark he made after defendant Susan Atkins testified that she was too ill to continue with the trial.

What? Another record company with a Charles Manson song on its hands? Yes, and unlike Geffen Records--which has been doing its best to distance itself from the Manson composition on the latest Guns N' Roses album--this company isn't at all defensive about its track, by another hit rock band. Three years before its version of "Mrs.

Would using the music of Charles Manson in a movie about him glamorize the notorious mass murderer? That's the dilemma of the makers of a planned feature film of "Helter Skelter," from the book by Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor at Manson's trial. Using the Internet, the filmmakers will solicit public input about that and other music elements for the film, which is in pre-production. (A TV miniseries was made from the book in 1976.

You'd expect to hear old songs by the Damned, UK Subs and maybe even Nazareth on the new Guns N' Roses album saluting some of the band's punk and hard-rock influences. But a song written by convicted mass murderer and one-time pop aspirant Charles Manson? Despite heated denials by Geffen Records when a rumor about the alleged track circulated last month, sources close to the label now confirm that the song is part of the package due in stores Tuesday.

It has been almost 18 years since that summer of madness. Still, the names are not easily forgotten--Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan (Sadie) Atkins, Charles (Tex) Watson. Sent out twice into the night, they returned each time with smiles and laughter. The morning after the first night, the police found five bodies scattered about a Bel-Air residence and its grounds.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Restaurants in California would have to stop using food containers made of polystyrene foam under legislation approved Thursday by the state Senate to address environmental worries. Lawmakers also moved forward with tougher penalties for those who smuggle or possess cellphones in state prisons and expanded a state ban on workplace smoking. Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) proposed the prohibition on polystyrene containers, saying they do not decompose quickly and thus can linger for years in landfills, storm drains and ocean waters.

As a prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi put Charles Manson behind bars. As an author, he outlined legal cases against O.J. Simpson, Lee Harvey Oswald and George W. Bush. It turns out that Bugliosi was just warming up. Now the author of "Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders," has written a book that takes on God. In "Divinity of Doubt: The God Question" (Vanguard Press), the former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney has applied his ample prosecutorial skills to the ultimate mystery: Is there a God and, if so, why does He allow evil?

Patricia Krenwinkel, who joined Charles Manson's clan in a string of grisly killings more than 40 years ago, was denied parole Thursday. Krenwinkel, 63, was convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder for her role in the Tate-LaBianca murders that terrorized Los Angeles in 1969. Among the victims was actress Sharon Tate, who was married to director Roman Polanski. Tate was stabbed 16 times and hanged. She was seven months pregnant. The parole hearing was held at the women's state prison in Corona, where Krenwinkel is serving a life sentence.

Contraband cellphones are becoming so prevalent in California prisons that guards can't keep them out of the hands of the most notorious and violent inmates: Even Charles Manson, orchestrator of one of the most notorious killing rampages in U.S. history, was caught with an LG flip phone under his prison mattress. Manson made calls and sent text messages to people in California, New Jersey, Florida and British Columbia before officers discovered the phone, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections.

SERIES Battle of the Supercars: In this new series, host Lee Reherman guides drivers Tanner Foust and Paul Tracy in a round of contests staged at Beale Air Force base in Northern California (7 p.m. Speed). So You Think You Can Dance: This week's results episode features performances by Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull. (9 p.m. Fox). Burn Notice: Burt Reynolds makes a memorable guest appearance in a new episode of this crime drama as a former CIA operative whose current situation could be a cautionary tale for Michael (Jeffrey Donovan)

Known for his tall tales and a brush with the homicidal Manson family in the 1960s, Robert "Ballarat Bob" Dunlap was one of the last Death Valley prospectors who dynamited and burrowed through the Panamint Valley in search of riches. Dunlap died of cancer at the VA Medical Center in Loma Linda on June 1, joining the likes of Seldom-Seen Slim, Panamint Tom and other well-known desert characters now laid to rest near Ballarat, an abandoned blast furnace of a town in Inyo County. He was 87. With his wily humor and knack for self-promotion, Dunlap often referred to himself as "Ballarat Bob, a legend in his own time."

California corrections officials released a photograph taken Wednesday of aging convicted mass murderer Charles Manson, replete with receding hairline, fading forehead swastika carving and a thick, heavily graying beard.

Vincent Bugliosi has moved on, but the world hasn't. Forty years after the impossibly grisly Tate-LaBianca murders, he is still "the Manson prosecutor." This, in spite of his many books since, arguing with magisterial fury about the JFK assassination, the O.J. Simpson trial, the Bush vs. Gore case and now the Iraq war. His book about the murders masterminded by Charles Manson, "Helter Skelter," written with coauthor Curt Gentry, hasn't been out of print since it appeared in 1974.

A convicted killer who has been described as mass murderer Charles Manson's "right-hand man" should not be released from prison, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday. Bruce Davis, 67, who has served 38 years in prison for the 1969 killings of musician Gary Hinman and ranch hand Donald "Shorty" Shea, was recommended for release by a two-member Board of Prison Terms panel in January. In a letter to the governor, who has the power to reverse parole recommendations, Cooley wrote that he believes that Davis "continues to minimize, rationalize and offer excuses" for his role in the killings.

Luke McKissack, a prominent Los Angeles criminal defense and civil rights attorney whose clients included Sirhan B. Sirhan after his conviction for the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy and an Army private charged with the hand-grenade killing of two officers in Vietnam, has died. He was 72. McKissack, who also was a TV legal analyst during the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, died Sunday of complications from brain cancer at his home in Los Angeles, said his son-in-law, Brian Chisholm.