The devil's business

Charles Manson and his killers have been behind bars for nearly four decades now. But his hold on the popular imagination refuses to fade away. There was the 1976 TV movie “Helter Skelter,” a Guns and Roses recording of Manson's music, countless books, Manson Web sites, and until the state of California grew weary of his act, Manson's regular appearances as a TV bogeyman.

Tom Snyder: If you got out of here there are lot of people who thought you'd go killing people again.

Manson: Again? You guys are misinformed, I haven't killed anyone.

Heidi Schulman: Why should anyone care what Charles Manson thinks?

Manson: Why should they care what I think? Because they're all in my brain, they're all in my thoughts. I took your heads.

With the commutation of their death sentences, as if to rub salt into the wounds of their victims families, came the specter of parole for the killers. It shook the family of Sharon Tate.

Debra Tate: Justice wasn't served.

Keith Morrison: What do you mean?  They were-- they're in jail, these people. 

Debra Tate: They're in jail.  With the exception of Charlie and Charlie doesn't want out. They're using-- good church going people against the system. They've got a lot of support from-- from various religious organizations. It is unacceptable for a just society to return serial killers back into society.

The prospect of freedom for these killers helped midwife the crime victims rights movement that swept California and then the whole nation. Sharon Tate's mother, doris, took the lead against parole for any of the Manson family in 1982 when it appeared Leslie van Houton might get out.

Co-prosecutor Steve Kay represented the people of Los Angeles.  Kay left the L.A. D.A.'s office, works for another city now. But keeping the Manson tribe in prison was and is more than just his job.

Steve Kay: It's the case that never goes away. I mean, from that point on.  I've done four Tate-Labianca murder trials, one Hinman and Shea - murder trial, 60 parole hearings. I felt that I owed it to the victims families.

The years went by, and - one by one Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkle, Leslie van Houton and Susan Atkins all became born-again Christians. Watson set up a prison ministry, got married and fathered four children before the system caught on and denied conjugal visits.

Steve Kay: All of these people know that their only hope of getting out is to be model prisoners, so they're all model prisoners except Manson, who's a terrible prisoner. I mean he threatens to kill the guards, he throws hot coffee on staff members, he's been caught with a knife in his shoe, razor blades.

Keith: He has a reputation to uphold.

Kay: Oh yeah.

Manson: Hmm. I wouldn't do anything I'd feel guilty about.

And Manson? He is 73 years old now. He's been behind bars for most of his life; more than 50 years. Buried deep inside the protective housing unit at Corcoran State Prison. A carefully guarded man, not because of what he might do, but because of what could be done to him.

Kay: They have to keep him in a single cell because there are so many life prisoners that would want to kill him to make a reputation for themselves.

And in fact some have tried. Several times.  Once, in 1984, somebody threw paint thinner on Manson and set him on fire, turned out improbably to be a Hare Krishna angry at some Manson insult.

There are rumors the old man is sick now though prison authorities won't comment on that or on anything to do with the life and activities of Charlie Manson here at Corcoran State Prison.

Keith Morrison: Manson gets on the average four fan letters a day.  People write--

Keith Morrison: Kinda sick, isn't it?

Steve Kay: Yeah, it's-- it's sick, but what he does with those letters shows-- what a con he is, because people will get those letters answered.  And they'll open the letter and they'll say, "Wow, I got a letter from Charles Manson, and it's signed by Charles Manson. This is gonna be valuable."  Manson passes out those letters to other prisoners and he has them act as his correspondent secretary.

Sixty-year-old Susan Atkins has brain cancer, has had a leg amputated. She is reported near death.

Keith Morrison: She may only have a few months left.  Should she be granted clemency?

Steve Kay: My position on that is no, emphatic no.  I remember that when Sharon Tate begged for her life and begged for the life of her baby, Susan Atkins showed her no mercy at all.

So far the state of California has agreed with Kay. In July Susan Atkins’ request for compassionate release was denied. Lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi became an accomplished and successful author in the wake of the Manson trial.  His account of the case, the book "Helter Skelter," sold an astounding 7 million copies, and is still selling. He went on to write eight more books, including his latest, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder," a controversial critique of the president's Iraq policy.

But it keeps coming back to Manson.

Keith Morrison: Whatever happened to all those people?

Vincent Bugliosi: They've all gone their separate ways. The Manson family ended for all intents and purposes in 1971 when Manson was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

But is it over? Here in Death Valley it is, as always, blistering hot. The trail from the valley floor winds up a rutted canyon road through ancient cathedrals of cactus-studded rock. And here at the top of Golar Wash, near the ranch that served as an apocalyptic church of mass murder, 21st century science is about to take a run at the last of Charles Manson's unholy mysteries.

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