Charles Manson

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.

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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."

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.

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.

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.