Manson Family member Linda Kasabian dead at 73
Linda Kasabian, a member of Charles Manson’s murderous “Family” who later testified against her fellow cult members, has died at the age of 73.
Kasabian died on Jan. 21 at a hospital in Tacoma, Washington, and her body was cremated, as TMZ first reported Tuesday. Her cause of death has not been revealed.
A death certificate obtained by the gossip site indicated that Kasabian had changed her last name to “Chiochios” in a bid to shield her identity and conceal her former affiliation with the notorious cult.
Kasabian took part in the Manson followers’ murderous spree during “two days of mayhem” in August 1969 that left seven people dead, among them actress Sharon Tate, the eight-months-pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski.
After Charles Manson and his cult members were arrested and put on trial in the early 1970s, Kasabian was offered immunity in exchange for testifying against the defendants.
Over the course of 18 days, Kasabian detailed for the court how Charles “Tex” Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins shot and stabbed five people on Polanski and Tate’s property in the Benedict Canyon section of Los Angeles.
Among the dead were Tate, 25, and her unborn son, Paul; her former fiancé Jay Sebring, 26; coffee heiress Abigail Folger, also 26; her boyfriend Wojciech Frykowski, 37; and 18-year-old Steven Parent, a friend of Tate’s groundskeeper.
On the second night of the murderous spree, Manson’s cohorts stabbed to death Leon and Rosemary LaBianca at their LA home.
Kasabian said from the stand that although she witnessed the slaughter and drove the getaway car during the LaBianca killings, she did not harm anyone.
Kasabian’s testimony helped prosecutors secure murder convictions against Manson and his co-defendants, who were all sentenced to life in prison.
Manson died in prison in 2017 at age 83 after going into cardiac arrest following a battle with colon cancer.
The wild-eyed, 5-foot-6 cult leader was accused of ordering the killings to trigger a race war that he believed was augured in the Beatles song “Helter Skelter,” after which he expected to take power.
Kasabian had reportedly lived in Tacoma with her daughter since the late 1980s.
During an interview with then-CNN host Larry King in 2009, Kasabian, who did not show her face, said she had been “on a path of healing and rehabilitation” — and claimed she felt guilty over the killings, unlike her former accomplices.
