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Who's your daddy? Oh, damn. It's Charles Manson. A 41-year-old man, who was adopted as a 10-year-old and raised in Illinois, spoke out recently about the harrowing discovery. "It was like finding out your father is Hitler," Matthew Roberts told The Sun newspaper. Roberts found out about his long-lost daddy about a dozen years ago after using a search agency to find his birth mother. The birth mother told him that she had been raped and that the 1960s Helter Skelter killer was his father. ------ "I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster," Roberts said....

A Gandhi-following, peace-loving, free-spirited vegetarian who was adopted at birth has discovered the worst possible thing a son could find out about his father – his dad is Charles Manson. "It’s like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father," said Matthew Roberts, a Los Angeles disc jockey. A curious Roberts, 41, began investigating his poisoned family tree about 12 years ago, when he contacted a social services agency, which located his mother, Terry, in Wisconsin, according to the London Sun. His reluctant natural mom fed him bits and pieces, like his first and middle name — Lawrence Alexander —...

A US man has spoken of his anguish after discovering his long-lost father is apparently the notorious serial killer Charles Manson. Matthew Roberts, 41, tracked down his biological mother after she put him up for adoption in 1968. But he sank into depression after the woman revealed his dad is none other than the jailed cult leader, The Sun reported.

At 75, Charles Manson has spent more than half his life in prison for masterminding the notorious Helter Skelter killing spree that left actress Sharon Tate and six others dead in Los Angeles during the summer of 1969. Manson spent his 75th birthday this week at the state prison in Corcoran, California, where he is in the protective housing unit. Some records indicate that Manson was born on November 12, but Manson's current associates and other records indicate his birthday was on Wednesday, November 11. "He spent the day the same way he spends every day in prison," said Terry...

Repent, Roman! A Modest Solution to the Polanski Problem by Brad Linaweaver Ever since the American economy was struck down by a hit and run driver on Wall Street late in 2008, the world has been holding its breath. What would happen next? Well, the Republicans lost power and the Democrats gained power, and somehow the War on Terror marches on without stumbling. The Pentagon budget remains untouchable even though we owe China a trillion dollars. “It's Chinatown , Jake.� The immediate struggle is about a shift in the economy over the possibility of National Health Care. Many people are...

There's a side of America that scares Frenchmen, French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand was quoted by Time magazine Paris-based writer Bruce Crumley, and it's the side of American determination that doesn't let a 32-year-old rape case die, even if the perpetrator is an elderly survivor of the Holocaust. Seeking to explain the "cultural divide" that's as "wide as the Atlantic" between America and Europe, Crumley noted that Europeans are "shocked and dismayed that an internationally acclaimed artist" such as Roman Polanski "could be jailed for such an old offense." Of course, at no point did Crumley cite any public opinion...

With the death of Manson follower Susan Atkins, the man who prosecuted her for first-degree murder said Friday that one of his lasting images was that of a "heartless, bloodthirsty robot." Vincent Bugliosi, however, said that image has become more ambiguous with the passage of time. Atkins, who died Friday, played a central role in the 1969 slayings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and others in a two-night rampage in the Los Angeles area. She later said she killed Tate even as the woman pleaded for mercy. It's possible it will never be known exactly what happened inside the home...

Atkins, 61, becomes the first of the Charles Manson followers on life sentences to die while in California prisons. She died Thursday night as the longest-serving female inmate in the state. Atkins was convicted in the 1969 murders at the home of actress Sharon Tate in Benedict Canyon and the Loz Feliz home of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca. Atkins, raised in San Gabriel, killed Tate while the pregnant 26-year-old actress was tied with a rope tossed over a ceiling beam. "I was stoned, man, stoned on acid," Atkins testified during the penalty phase of her trial. "I don't know how...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Susan Atkins, a follower of cult leader Charles Manson whose remorseless witness stand confession to killing pregnant actress Sharon Tate in 1969 shocked the world, has died. She was 61 and had been suffering from brain cancer..." Debra Tate, the slain actress's younger sister, told the parole commissioners Sept. 2 that she "will pray for (Atkins') soul when she draws her last breath, but until then I think she should remain in this controlled situation." Debra Tate noted that she would have a 40-year-old nephew if her sister had lived..." Atkins married twice while in prison....

The sub-headline over the article says it all: "The investigation into a cop killing in the '70s leads to a law professor who helped launch Barack Obama's political career." The law professor is former Communist terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, a leader of the Weather Underground known for praising mass murderer Charles Manson.

People don't always get what they deserve in this world, so it is gratifying to see when someone does. It happened Wednesday when a California parole board insisted that Susan Atkins, a 61-year-old amputee with incurable brain cancer, live her few remaining months in prison rather than the embrace of her loved ones. This may sound like pointless excess inflicted on someone whose crime, committed 40 years ago, is ancient history. But even to mention Atkins without first mentioning her victims is an affront. In 1969, she repeatedly thrust a knife into an innocent woman who was eight and a...

The vote was unanimously against her. She was at the hearing, rolled into the room on a bed, and she slept through most of the proceedings, after she read Psalm 23 as her statement.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Susan Atkins, a follower of mass killer Charles Manson convicted nearly four decades ago in some of the most notorious murders in U.S. history, lost her 18th bid for release on Wednesday. Atkins -- terminally ill with brain cancer and, according to her attorney, paralyzed over much of her body -- was denied her freedom by the California Parole Board after a hearing at the prison where she is being held. Now 61, Atkins was convicted in 1971 of taking part in seven "Manson Family" murders, including that of heavily pregnant actress Sharon Tate, the wife...

Forty Years After Gruesome Cult Killings, Susan Atkins is Paralyzed, Near Death Charles Manson follower and convicted mass murderer Susan Atkins is expected to appear in person today to plead for parole so she can die outside of prison, but officials said her condition is on an "hour by hour" basis.

FORT WORTH, Texas – The Charles Manson follower convicted of trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford was released Friday from a Texas prison hospital after more than three decades behind bars, a prison official said. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was just 26 years old when she pointed a semiautomatic .45- caliber pistol at Ford in September 1975 in Sacramento, Calif. Secret Service agents grabbed her and Ford was unhurt. Fromme, now 60, left the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth at about 8 a.m. Friday, spokeswoman Dr. Maria Douglas said in a statement.

These days, it is difficult to recognize the face of Susan Atkins, a notorious murderer from the Charles Manson cult. Still imprisoned, she's now gravely ill with brain cancer and asking for mercy that she did not give her victims. It was Atkins who held down pregnant actress Sharon Tate while she was stabbed 16 times. Atkins described the crime in blood-curdling detail at a parole hearing 16 years ago. "She asked me to let her baby live," Atkins said at the time. " I told her I didn't have mercy for her." Manson ordered Atkins and other "family" members...

"Feel-good nostalgia tells us that 1969 was the height of the hippie, warm-fuzzy era of peace and love," said Murray Whyte in the Toronto Star, but Charles Manson's "stamp on the culture is arguably deeper and more lasting" than even Woodstock's. Forty years ago, "puppetmaster" Manson orchestrated "a generation's defining criminal atrocity"—the "Helter Skelter" killings in Los Angeles, Calif., during which director Roman Polanski's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was among those murdered. To this day, "legions of gawkers" still make a "macabre pilgrimage" to the scene of the crime. "Long after his capture and incarceration," said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment...

Forty years ago today, brainwashed members of Charles Manson's "Family" embarked on one of the most bizarre killing spree in recorded history. From Aug. 9-10, 1969, seven people were brutally slaughtered in wealthy LA enclaves, and messages -- one of which read "Helter Skelter" -- were left smeared in blood for the cops.

[the program originally aired yesterday (Friday, 8/7/09) at 10 PM ET, but will re-air tonight (Sat, 8/8/09) at 10 PM ET and repeat at 2 AM and 4 AM ET very early Sunday morning, at least according to my cable TV program guide -etl] "On the Record" host Greta Van Susteren hosts "Summer of Evil: The Manson Murders" on FOX News Channel. Forty years ago, a two-night murder rampage in Los Angeles by the followers of an aspiring rock star and cult leader named Charles Manson terrified the Hollywood community and made headlines across the world. In the last four...

The woman who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford is expected to be released from prison on August 16 after serving her sentence. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a one-time follower of mass murderer Charles Manson, has been serving a life sentence . Fromme has been incarcerated at a prison in Fort Worth, Texas. Fromme had told her defense attorney she staged the attack because she "wanted to get some attention for a new trial" for Manson and members of his gang.

Here is video from this afternoon where Fox News talked with Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor of the infamous Charles Manson Family murders of actress Sharon Tate and the Labianca family in California. The murders took place nearly 40 years ago on August 9, 1969. Bugliosi talks about the grisly murders, which included 269 stab wounds, and shocked the entire nation. Fox News is planning a major special report this coming Friday night at 9 pm cdt, with Greta Van Susteren hosting. . . . . (Watch Video)

On Thursday we reported on an overture allegedly made by Charles Manson to recently-incarcerated music producer Phil Spector. Blogs and newspapers were lighting up with the story, including the New York Post's Page Six, which spoke to Spector's wife and publicist. Apparently, the bearded man pictured above wanted to work with the man known for the Wall of Sound. But it turns out, it isn't true. Contact of any kind between the two inmates never occured, says Terry Thornton, spokeswoman in the Office of Public and Employee Communications at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. In fact, they aren't...

CHARLES Manson secretly runs an autograph business out of his cell, peddling his signature to sicko collectors of crime memorabilia, a new book claims. In "Five to Die," out this month from Thor Publishing, veteran journalist Ivor Davis claims the homicidal cult leader has become one of the richest inmates in the California corrections system by selling signed photos and other mementos he quietly smuggles out of Corcoran State Prison. "Only he doesn't even sign the pictures. He has fellow inmates doing an assembly line of signatures for him. It shows you he's still manipulating people. It really boggles the...

LONDON, Aug 2 — They were the murders that ended the 1960s, the decade of love, in a bloodbath that shocked the world. Now, on the 40th anniversary of the killing of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and her friends by Charles Manson's "Family", the gang member whose testimony convicted the killers has revealed for the first time her full involvement in the crimes. On the night of Aug 9, 1969, Linda Kasabian was sent by Manson with three other members of his Family — Tex Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel — to break into Tate's home. There they...

Manson follower Susan Atkins, with six months to live, granted parole hearing June 5, 2009 Last year, doctors diagnosed Susan Atkins with terminal cancer, prompting a failed bid by the convicted murderer and Charles Manson follower to receive a "compassionate release" from state prison. But Atkins, who gained infamy for her role in the 1969 slayings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and others in a bloody two-night rampage in Los Angeles, may get one last chance to convince state parole officials she should no longer be kept behind bars. Officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Thursday...

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — A California desert cabin that became cult leader Charles Manson's last hideout has been gutted by fire. Death Valley National Park spokesman Terry Baldino said Thursday that the isolated cabin was discovered burned on Tuesday. He says it's not known if it was an accident or a deliberate act. The cabin was last seen intact Friday and may have burned over the weekend.

Barker Ranch, an abandoned desert cabin that was Charles Manson's last hideout following his notorious cult murders, was gutted by fire, a park spokesman said Thursday. The isolated cabin was discovered burned on Tuesday, Terry Baldino said. "We don't know the cause. We don't know if it was an accident or on purpose," he said. The cabin was last seen intact last Friday and may have burned over the weekend, he said. The ranch, which included a main building and a guesthouse, was built of wood, stone and cement. The fire burned most of the wood and damaged the tin...

Dr. Vaknin has written extensively about narcissism. Dr. Vaknin States "I must confess I was impressed by Sen.Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American...

(CNN) -- Susan Atkins is terminally ill; Charles "Tex" Watson is an ordained minister. They and other members of Charles Manson's murderous "family" now shun him. After three decades behind bars, Manson family members Atkins, Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten have repeatedly been described as model prisoners who have accepted responsibility for their crimes. Parole boards, however, continue to reject their bids for release, and a debate rages over whether the four should ever be freed. The release of Manson's prison photo recently rekindled public interest in slayings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in a...

Another one of Bill Ayers’ and Bernardine Dohrn’s terrorist comrades is being released on the streets of America. Sara Jane Olson, a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an off-shoot of the Weather Underground, has served only seven years for involvement in the murder of a bank customer and the attempted murder of Los Angeles police officers by bombing their cars. Meanwhile, justice continues to be sought for the victims of Weather Underground terrorism such as San Francisco Police Sergeant Brian V. McDonnell, who was killed by a bomb on February 16, 1970. Former FBI informant Larry Grathwohl has...

The thick dark hair and beard has thinned and turned grey, his wild dark eyes are watery and his skin sags, but that swastika tattoo hints at the evil within. Almost 40 years after he was convicted of butchering six people, a new photograph of mass murderer Charles Manson has been released. The 74-year-old was pictured yesterday by corrections officials at a high security prison in California. It was taken as part of a routine update of files on inmates at Corcoran State Prison. Manson founded an infamous hippy commune in California in the late 1960s that became known as...

It couldn't have been easy for Bill Ayers to keep quiet while the McCain campaign tarred him as the Obama's best friend, the terrorist. Unfortunately, the silence was too good to last. On Saturday's New York Times op-ed page, he announced that "it's finally time to tell my true story." Like his memoir, Fugitive Days , "The Real Bill Ayers" is a sentimentalized, self-justifying whitewash of his role in the weirdo violent fringe of the 1960s-70s antiwar left. "I never killed or injured anyone, "Ayers writes. "In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an...

Tis the season for disturbing holiday displays. Some more outrageous than others. For example, which do you find more disturbing? Gov. Sarah Palin hanging in effigy in West Hollywood or this Los Feliz store display featuring the Manson family murders, complete with a pregnant Sharon Tate, hanging from a noose around her neck. The photo was taken by local resident Julie Horowitz. She says she complained to the store that she was deeply offended. The store owner reportedly told her that the staff had agreed the display was in the Halloween spirit.

Ayers participated in 30 bombings in this period, including attacks on the New York Police Department headquarters in 1970, the US Capitol in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972. After the Charles Manson-led Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969, Dohrn enthused: "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! Wild!"

Mean while Charles Mansion still lives and will be eligible for parole one day.

SUSAN Atkins, who admitted slitting actress Sharon Tate's throat during the Manson Family murders, was refused "compassionate release" from jail. The 12-member parole board listened to arguments on releasing Atkins, who is thought to be suffering brain cancer, before issuing its decision in court documents without further explanation.

Just saw it on AP. She's been hospitalized since March, has only one leg, has terminal cancer and a few months to live, and was denied a "get out of jail" card by the California Board of Prison Terms. Thank you, Board of Prison Terms commissioners. You did the right thing.

The district attorney says despite Atkins' terminal brain cancer, the Charles Manson follower's crimes warrant denying a 'compassionate release.'Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley has strongly urged state prison officials to reject former Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer Susan Atkins' request for "compassionate release" because of a terminal illness. In a July 11 letter to the chairman of the state Board of Parole Hearings, Cooley said Atkins' "horrific crimes alone warrant a denial of her request" to be released because she is dying of brain cancer. The board is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday to consider Atkins'...

Few if any murders carry the horrifying cachet of the Manson murders in 1969. The deaths of seven people on two nights at the end of a tumultuous decade combined all of the political and cultural baggage of the era — drugs, counterculture, celebrity, cults, and pure evil in the form of the perpetrators, especially Charles Manson himself. Combining mass murder and serial murder, the Manson Family has played on the imaginations of Americans for almost 40 years, while its members routinely apply for parole and get rejected. Now one of them faces death, although much different in nature than...

CORONA, Calif. (June 13) - Former Charles Manson follower Susan Atkins, convicted in the 1969 murder of actress Sharon Tate, could soon be released from prison because she is near death, authorities said.

Authorities say Susan Atkins -- a Charles Manson follower convicted in the 1969 murder of actress Sharon Tate -- could soon be released from prison because she is near death. State corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton says the now 59-year-old Atkins is terminally ill and is being considered for so-called "compassionate release." Thornton says the corrections department is reviewing the request, which would then be passed to a state sentencing court. Such releases are rare -- only 16 percent of requests were granted last year. Thornton did not say what sort of illness Atkins has.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Former Manson family member Susan Atkins has requested a "compassionate release" from prison because she has less than six months to live, a California prisons spokeswoman said Friday. Susan Atkins, Califorina's longest-serving female inmate, is shown in her most recent mug shot. 1 of 2 Atkins, 60, was convicted in the 1969 slayings of actress Sharon Tate and four others. She had been incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in Corona, California. But Atkins, the state's longest- serving female inmate, has been hospitalized since March 18 and is listed in serious condition, state corrections...

CORONA, Calif. (AP) — Former Charles Manson follower Susan Atkins, convicted in the 1969 murder of actress Sharon Tate, could soon be released from prison because she is near death, authorities said. Atkins, 59, is terminally ill and being considered for so-called "compassionate release," state corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said. She gave no details of Atkins' illness, but said a doctor had determined she had less than six months to live. The corrections department was reviewing the request, which if approved would then be passed to the state Board of Parole which has the power to release Atkins under state...

Manson ranch to be searched for bodies Published: May 10, 2008 at 9:26 PM INDEPENDENCE, Calif., May 10 (UPI) -- Authorities say they will dig at a desert ranch in California once used by 1960s convicted killer and cult leader Charles Manson in search of bodies. Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze issued a statement Friday saying an earlier search of Barker Ranch, located in Death Valley 150 miles west of Las Vegas, utilizing a cadaver dog and detection equipment was inconclusive, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Saturday. "There was no consistent response from the dogs that searched, and no conclusive...

After weeks of speculation in the international media over whether bodies are indeed buried at a former Death Valley hide-out for Charles Manson and his followers, the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department has decided to launch an official investigation. The Sheriff’s Department will, nevertheless, proceed cautiously. “What we’ve determined after a careful review of all of the recent data that has been provided to us, following those trips out to Barker Ranch by laboratory scientists, professors and some highly-trained search dogs,” Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze said, “is that there’s reason enough to look for more scientific indicators of potential burial...

Breaking on Fox, no link yet. This means there are new murders to tie to Charles Manson. Maybe, just maybe, he can get the death penalty for one or more of these. Assuming the liberal gods in black robes don't block it again to save him.

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — Bone-white stretches of salt, leached up from the lifeless soil, lay like a shroud over the high desert where a paranoid Charles Manson holed up after an orgy of murder nearly four decades ago. Now, as then, few venture into this alkaline wilderness — gold-diggers, outlaws, loners content to live and let live. But a determined group of outsiders recently made the trek. They were leading forensic investigators searching for new evidence of death — clues pointing to possible decades-old clandestine graves. And the results of just-completed followup tests suggest bodies could indeed be...

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif.: Bone-white stretches of salt, leached up from the lifeless soil, lay like a shroud over the high desert where a paranoid Charles Manson holed up after an orgy of murder nearly four decades ago. Now, as then, few venture into this alkaline wilderness — gold-diggers, outlaws, loners content to live and let live. But a determined group of outsiders recently made the trek. They were leading forensic investigators searching for new evidence of death — clues pointing to possible decades-old clandestine graves. And the results of just-completed followup tests suggest bodies could indeed be lying...

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles Herman Older had been on the bench only a few years when the trial of accused mass murderer Charles Manson landed in his courtroom. By the time the 10-month, highly publicized trial ended, he was a veteran. In the early 1970s the case was as bizarre as anything the city had seen until then: Manson and his LSD-dropping followers — mostly young women — told of committing gruesome murders in the name of starting a race war, showed up in court with shaved heads and Xs on their foreheads, and sometimes chanted nonsensically, in...