WHO REALLY WANTS CHARLIE MANSON’S BODY?                                                       

This serial killer died on September 14^th 2017. I wrote a four-part series about this killer in my blog titled Charlie Manson and his cult of killers. I told my readers about this killer, his followers and the nine murders they committed. The first article was published on January 8, 2018.

 The policy in California where he died is that the prison warden can offer the body to friends of the deceased or interested private agencies for interment. The manual states that if there isn't anyone claiming the body, it will be disposed of by cremation or burial within ten calendar days of his death. His body wasn’t cremated or buried because family members made a claim for his body. Now there appears to be a fight over who in the family gets to bury Manson’s body. It is currently in the Kern County Coroner's Office building.

Charles Manson’s grandson, Jason Freeman, age 41 said that he regretted never meeting his reviled relative in the flesh and hopes it's not too late to claim his remains. He said to the Daily News, by phone, a day after California prison officials confirmed the cult leader died at a Bakersfield hospital, “I’m going to move towards having a proper burial. I will definitely speak with the inner circle of people who love my grandfather and who may know more of where he would want to be. I’m working on doing my part.”

The married father of three now living in Florida declined to specify what legal steps he’s taking to prove his next-of-kin status to prison officials, but Freeman said he planned to fly to California later to make his claim for his grandfather’s body.

When Jason Freeman was born , he was named  Charles Manson Jr. He later changed his name to Jay White after his mom divorced Manson. His stepfather (White) later killed himself in June 1993 while he was in his late 30s. Freeman said he blamed his grandfather for his own dad’s death until he started speaking with Manson by phone eight years ago and decided to forgive his grandfather. 

Manson’s grandson started lobbying for the right to visit Manson at Corcoran State Prison but he never succeeded. Asked why a meeting never took place, he declined to get specific but suggested Manson himself never gave up hoping he could see his grandson. “I get emotional talking about this.  Some stuff is frustrating. He wanted to protect me, keep me out of all the pressure and hatred the world has.” Quite frankly, I doubt that was Manson’s motive.

Freeman accepted the fact that Manson was a killer but said he was unfairly convicted of murdering Sharon Tate and the four other people who were at the Los Angeles home the pregnant actress shared with her husband, filmmaker Roman Polanski, in August 1969. Manson was not at the house for the mass slaughter but chose the location and directed his disciples to kill everyone there. That is true but it was Manson who told the killers to go to the Tate residence to kill everyone in the house.

The next night, Manson joined the same four followers along with Leslie Van Houten and Steve (Clem) Grogan as they broke into the Los Feliz home of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary. Admittedly, Manson wasn`t in the house when the couple was murdered be he ordered them to commit the murders. Manson reportedly wanted to show the group the correct way to execute and ordered the LaBiancas bound with lamp cords and their heads covered by pillowcases before the savage stabbing started.

Freeman said he got to know a different man than what his mother always told him during his phone conversations with Manson. That certainly doesn`t mean that he wasn`t a vicious killer. Someone with Manson`s mind doesn`t change from being a vicious killer to a pleasant and kind man. Manson`s demeanor when he was a killer didn`t change when he was on the phone decades later, Freeman was listening to a façade that Manson chose to create for himself. .

Freeman said, "He told me he loved me. I told him I loved him. It took five years for that to come out of his mouth." No doubt Manson knew that if he continued to play the tough guy with his grandson, his telephone calls night come to an end.

 Freeman, who described himself as deeply spiritual, said, "Most people in the world wouldn't understand. They wouldn't get what I'm saying. We all look at anybody and everybody who kills as a killer. But all I have is my love.”

Many times I have read and heard of members of families of victims expressing their forgiveness and their love of the killers of their loved ones.  I have always considered it as pure drivel that they throw out in the media  in hopes the general public will think of them as real Christians.

It isn't clear yet if Manson left a Will. If he didn't, and nobody comes forward, his assets will be inventoried. Any funds could be used to cover cremation or burial expenses. Any other money or personal effects would then be held for one year. After that, Manson's possessions would become state property and could theoretically be auctioned off.

The cremated remains of serial killer Ted Bundy are to be strewn over the Cascade Mountains in Washington, where Bundy admitted before his electrocution Tuesday that he had dumped several bodies of his victims there.  

Bundy's final Will stipulated that his ashes were to be thrown to the winds over the Cascades, the Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville said. Bundy, 42, told a Washington investigator of dumping four of his young female victims on Taylor Mountain, east of Seattle. The will did not give a specific location for the ashes.

I can think of a great many people who would pay good money to get a h0ld of his ashes and then take them to the nearest garbage dump and spread them all over the surface of the dump where they will later be covered with more garbage.

As an aside, I sat on that same electric chair that Bundy sat on prio to when he was executed. However, I wasn’t a condemned killer.  Several years before he died on that chair, I was invited to tour the prison by the Florida Director of Corrections and that was when I sat on that State’s electric chair.

The fight for the corpse of Charles Manson was thrown out of a Los Angeles court as another potential heir stepped into the case and the grandson of the cult leader made an emotional plea to a judge. In a hearing to determine the venue for legal battles over Manson’s estate and the disposition of his remains, Jason Freeman echoed the frustration of several parties who have been trying to get control of the notorious criminal’s body.  

Judge David Cowan divided the two dueling Manson cases, deciding that litigation over the potentially lucrative estate should remain in Los Angeles because that’s where Manson was living when he was arrested and convicted in the murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and eight others.

Cowan said the case over Manson’s remains  belongs in either Kings County, where the cult leader was imprisoned, or Kern County,  A hearing is already scheduled in Bakersfield, and the Kern County coroner, which has the body, requested the case be decided there.

I don’t know when that hearing with be scheduled but as soon as it is and I get its findings. I will UPDATE this article and give you the results at the end of this article.