Plan B Forum

With his long, grey hair and beard, this latest photo of Charles Manson shows how the renowned serial killer is slowly becoming a frail old man in his prison cell.

Now 77, the only outward sign that he isn't just any other pensioner is the chilling swastika tattooed on his forehead.

The photo has been released by Californian prison officials ahead of the killer's twelfth parole hearing on Wednesday.





Getting old: Charles Manson is pictured, right, on the way to a Los Angeles courtroom in 1970. This image on the left was taken in 2009

It's amazing how sentences, back in the day, actually reflected the crimes committed.

Did he actually murder anyone?

On January 15, 1971, seven months after the start of the trial, the jury began to deliberate. Nine days later, it came to a verdict. Security was very tight around the Hall of Justice since a Manson follower had stolen a case of hand grenades from a Marine Base and reportedly had planned a special event on what they were calling "Judgment Day."

The jury had found Charles Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins and Leslie Van Houten each guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Charles "Tex" Watson, because of extradition proceedings and other legal complications did not stand trial until later in the year and was also found guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder.



On March 29, 1971, the jury completed deliberations on the penalty phase of the trial. Manson and the three female defendants had shaved their heads for the reading of their verdicts.

"We, the jury in the above-entitled action, having found the defendant Charles Manson guilty of murder in the first degree...do now fix the penalty as death."

Ah well you see here, where there is no death penalty, we are seeing a shortening of timing for serious crime, (or at least that's how it feels to me).

Lord Jim wrote:You go down this road far enough, and you get to what happened in Norway last year...

Where a man who machine gunned 60 sixty children faces a maximum of 20 some odd years in prison...

They must be doing something right, given they have a homicide rate that is the envy of most of the rest of the world.

The Hen wrote:Ah well you see here, where there is no death penalty, we are seeing a shortening of timing for serious crime, (or at least that's how it feels to me).

Gob wrote:Did he actually murder anyone?

Jarlaxle wrote:Too bad nobody has offed him in prison. Some D-Con (or some ground glass) in his food should do the trick nicely.