'Manson family' member Linda Kasabian dies at 73

Linda Kasabian, a member of Charles Manson’s ‘Manson Family’ notorious criminal gang, has died at the age of 73.

Linda Kasabian passed away on January 21 at a hospital in Tacoma, Washington. As per the reports, her body has been cremated but her cause of death has not been revealed.

A death certificate, obtained by TMZ, recorded that Kasabian changed her surname in later life to ‘Chiochios’ in order to protect her identity after she ended her association with the cult.

Kasabian, served as a star witness for the prosecution in the Manson Family murder trial in 1970. Kasabian, then 20, waited outside the rented Los Angeles home of pregnant film star Sharon Tate on Aug. 9, 1969 while members of the Manson Family stabbed the actress and three other people to death, according to a report.

Linda Kasabian, who did not take part in the murders themselves, was granted immunity by prosecutors to testify against Manson and four of his followers at their sensational 1970 trial in Los Angeles. All five were convicted.

She testified that Watson, Krenwinkel and Atkins fatally shot and stabbed five victims at the scene – Tate and her unborn child Paul, hairdresser Jay Sebring, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, her boyfriend Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Parent, a friend of Tate’s groundskeeper – while Mr Polanski was away in Europe shooting a movie.

Manson, a charismatic ex-convict, assembled a group of runaways and outcasts, including Kasabian, and established a makeshift commune at a defunct movie ranch northwest of Los Angeles.

In the summer of 1969, Manson directed his mostly young, female followers to murder seven people in what prosecutors said was part of a plan to incite a race war.
Manson was sentenced to death in 1969 for the Manson Family killings and murder of an acquaintance, Gary Hinman.

(With inputs from agencies)

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