Infamous cult leader Charles Manson, whose followers carried out a series of grisly murders in 1969, is being treated at a California hospital after falling seriously ill with an undisclosed medical condition, according to reports.
The wild-eyed 82-year-old mass murderer was taken from Corcoran State Prison, where he is serving a life sentence, to a hospital emergency room in Bakersfield for stomach trouble, TMZ first reported Tuesday afternoon.
The Los Angeles Times later reported that Manson was “seriously ill,” citing an unnamed source.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told the Daily News that privacy laws prohibit them from commenting on inmates’ health.
“It does happen that sometimes inmates are treated at local hospitals,” Krissi Khokhobashvili, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections, said Tuesday when asked about Manson’s status.
Three corrections vans were parked outside Bakersfield’s Mercy Hospital Downtown late Tuesday. Prisoners have been treated there before.
Corcoran has medical facilities to treat inmates requiring urgent or emergency care as well as inpatient hospital stays.
“In general, inmates are sent to outside hospitals if they need surgical services, emergency care, or diagnostic services of an acute nature,” Joyce Hayhoe, a spokeswoman for the federal receiver who controls prison medical care, told The Associated Press.
In November, the state inspector general, which monitors the prison system, characterized care at Corcoran as “inadequate.”
Manson is suffering from gastrointestinal issues, according to TMZ.
The patriarch of his own sadistic sect is serving nine life sentences for orchestrating the 1969 Tate-LaBianca killings.
Over the course of two August nights, Manson’s twisted followers murdered seven people, including 26-year-old actress Sharon Tate, who was nearly nine months pregnant at the time.
Tate and four others were stabbed and shot to death Aug. 9 at the Los Angeles home she shared with her husband, director Roman Polanski.
Polanski was out of town. Coffee heiress Abigail Folger, writer Wojeciech Frykowski, stylist Jay Sebring and visitor Steve Parent were killed at the home.
Supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary were butchered by the band the next night in their Los Feliz home.
Phrases such as “Death to Pigs” and “Healter Skelter” were scrawled in blood at the crime scenes.
Manson hoped the ghastly messages would throw off cops and start a race war, which he dubbed “Helter Skelter,” after the Beatles song of the same name.
The rampage terrorized Los Angeles and the Hollywood elite, and Manson’s sordid legacy has become ingrained in the American psyche.
“These murders were probably the most bizarre in the recorded annals of American crime,” the late Vincent Bugliosi, the former deputy district attorney who prosecuted the killers, said when recounting the trial a few years ago. “Evil has its lure, and Manson has become a metaphor for evil.”
At trial, Manson was depicted as the messianic master of a small army of hippies who were training for the coming apocalyptic race war that he predicted.
The long-haired cult leader was found guilty of ordering the murders and originally sentenced to death. But he was spared execution when California abolished the death penalty in 1972.
In 2014, an obsessed Manson fan, 26-year-old Afton Burton, said she was engaged to the notorious criminal.
The Manson followers who committed the murders at his behest were also sentenced to lengthy prison terms, and repeated requests for parole have been denied.
Susan Atkins died at 61 of brain cancer in a women’s correctional facility in 2009.
A hearing on the possible release of 69-year-old Patricia Krenwinkel, who was present at the Tate house killings and is the longest-serving female inmate in California, was delayed last month.
Leslie Van Houten, convicted in the LaBianca slayings, was recommended for release last year, but the 67-year-old’s parole was denied by California Gov. Jerry Brown.
Manson himself has been denied parole 12 times and his next hearing is scheduled for 2027.
