Where are the surviving Manson Family members now? Here’s what happened to Charles’ followers after their crimes

In 2019, journalist Tom O'Neill published Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, a book that calls into question nearly everything we know about the Manson Family and the murders they committed in the summer of 1969. This week, Netflix is releasing a new Errol Morris documentary that unpacks several of the book's biggest revelations.

Across two nights in Los Angeles, Manson ordered members of his Family — a group of young women and men he lived with on a ranch — to kill seven people: actress Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Manson, along with several members of the Family, was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder.

O'Neill worked on the book for roughly 20 years. In the process, he poked holes in several conclusions reached by author (and Manson prosecutor) Vincent Bugliosi in his 1974 book Helter Skelter, which was long considered the definitive account of Manson and the Tate-LaBianca murders. Chaos even opens with a scene of Bugliosi, who died in 2015, berating O'Neill for presenting him with his findings.

It's an incredible work of reporting, even if it raises more questions than it answers about Manson's motives, his relationship with the U.S. government, and various projects conducted by the FBI and CIA, including COINTELPRO, MKUltra, and Operation CHAOS.

Ahead of the documentary's Netflix premiere on March 7, here's what happened to the Manson Family in the decades since their crimes.

Charles Manson

In 1971, Manson was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder for the Tate-LaBianca murders. Later that year, he was also convicted of first-degree murder in the death of musician Gary Hinman. He was sentenced to death, but that was later modified to a life sentence after California's death penalty statutes were ruled unconstitutional.

Related: Manson speaks: Mindhunter actor on playing the cult leader again in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Manson spent the rest of his life at a number of different California prisons, including San Quentin State Prison, the California Medical Facility, Folsom State Prison, Pelican Bay State Prison, and Corcoran Prison.

He was nearly murdered in 1984 after a fellow inmate poured paint thinner on Manson and set him on fire. Manson survived but had second- and third-degree burns on 18 percent of his body. In 1997, a prison disciplinary committee determined that he had been trafficking drugs.

Related: See how Mindhunter actor compares to the real Charles Manson in creepy side-by-side video

In 2014, he became engaged to a 26-year-old named Afton Elaine Burton, who operated websites advocating for him. The marriage never occurred, though, with the New York Post reporting that Manson ended the relationship after discovering she wanted to gain possession of his corpse and parade it as an attraction.

In the handful of interviews he gave during these years, he remained manic, combative, and remorseless. In 2012, a parole board noted that Manson had not shown "any indication of remorse," nor any "indication that you have any kind of insight into the causative factors of the life crime."

Manson died on Nov. 19, 2019, at Bakersfield's Mercy Hospital. As reported by CBS News, he died of "cardiac arrest accompanied by respiratory failure, triggered by colon cancer that had spread to other areas of his body."

Susan Atkins

Susan Atkins was involved in the Tate-LaBianca murders, as well as the murder of Hinman. Like Manson, her death sentence was commuted to life in prison. She was denied parole over a dozen times. She got married twice while imprisoned, first to Donald Lee Laisure from 1981 to 1982, then to James Whitehouse, an attorney who represented her in parole hearings, in 1987.

Atkins admitted in court that she killed Tate herself. “She said, ‘Please let me have my baby.’ Then Tex came in and he said, ‘Kill her,’ and I killed her. I just stabbed her and she fell and I stabbed her again. I don't know how many times. I don't know why I stabbed her.”

Atkins eventually showed remorse for her crimes and claimed to be a born-again Christian.

She also spoke about the lingering effects Manson had on her in a 1978 interview with KCRA-TV. "It's so alive in me, even just recalling it. I remember that I had gone so far, and there was no turning back. Even if I had wanted to run, even if I had wanted to leave, I couldn't," she said. "It was like I was caught in something I had no control over. I had absolutely no say-so as to what was happening there. I was just like a tool in the hands of the devil."

Atkins died of terminal brain cancer on Sept. 24, 2009, at age 61.

Linda Kasabian

Linda Kasabian, a mother who had only been at Spahn Ranch for a month, was present for the Tate-LaBianca murders, though she didn't participate in the crimes. Instead, she became a witness for the prosecution and received immunity for her testimony.

As described in Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, this prompted the members of the Family to intimidate and threaten Kasabian. They even falsely testified that it was her, not Manson, who had orchestrated the murders.

Following the trial, she mostly stayed out of the public eye, but she did do an interview with A Current Affair in 1988. In 2023, she died in Tacoma, Wash., at age 73.

Leslie Van Houten

Leslie Van Houten, a former Homecoming queen and high school cheerleader, linked up with Manson at age 19.

Though not present at the Tate murders, Van Houten testified to stabbing Rosemary LaBianca 14 to 16 times. She was convicted and sentenced to death — later commuted to life — but was granted a retrial in 1977 due to the failure to declare a mistrial when her lawyer died. The jury deadlocked during her second trial, leading to a third in 1978. There, she was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy, resulting in a sentence of seven years to life in prison.

According to Jeff Guinn's Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson, Van Houten earned a master's degree while in prison and worked with educational programs for inmates. She also admitted fault in following Manson. “I believed that he was Jesus Christ,” she said in a 2002 parole hearing. “I bought into it lock, stock, and barrel.”

In 2023, she was granted parole after serving 53 years in prison.

Patricia Krenwinkel

Patricia Krenwinkel had considered becoming a nun before meeting Manson, who was the first person to tell her she was beautiful, according to Guinn.

She participated in both the Cielo Drive and LaBianca murders, later admitting in a 1978 life parole hearing to stabbing Folger and jamming a fork into Leno LaBianca's stomach. Krenwinkel was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. She was sentenced to death, though her term was later commuted to life.

Guinn reports in his book that Krenwinkel completed a college degree in prison and trained rescue dogs to serve the handicapped. In 2022, California Gov. Gavin Newsom overruled the recommendation for her release, stating that she "still poses an unreasonable danger to society if paroled at this time."

Charles "Tex" Watson

A former high school football captain and fraternity member from Dallas, Charles "Tex" Watson linked up with Manson through Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, whom Tex picked up hitchhiking.

According to testimony, Watson took the lead in both the Cielo Drive and LaBianca murders. After being convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder, he was sentenced to death, though his sentence was later commuted to life.

In 1978, he published an autobiography, Will You Die For Me?, in which he posited that Manson was possessed by demons. According to Guinn's book, Watson became a born-again Christian and founded Abounding Love Ministries while in prison. He married Kristin Joan Svege in 1979 and fathered four children via conjugal visits. The pair divorced in 2003.

He was denied parole in 2021 and won't be eligible again until 2026.

Mary Brunner

Mary Brunner, often considered Manson's first follower, gave birth to his son Valentine in April 1968. She was later charged for the murder of Hinman but received immunity after testifying against Bob Beausoleil and Susan Atkins.

She remained loyal to Manson, though. In his book, Guinn writes that Brunner and several other Family members held up a Western Surplus Store at gunpoint in 1971, stealing roughly 140 guns to aid them in a plan to hijack a plane and demand that Manson be freed from prison. They were soon arrested, though, and Brunner spent six years incarcerated.

According to Guinn, she "successfully disappeared from public view, anonymously raising her son by Charlie."

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme

A former dancer who appeared on The Lawrence Welk Show as a child, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme became a follower of Manson after meeting him at a bus stop. She had no links to the Tate-LaBianca murders, though she found herself in hot water for trying to prevent her fellow Family members from testifying at their trial.

In 1975, she was arrested after pointing a gun at President Gerald R. Ford and was later convicted of an attempted assassination. Fromme received a life sentence but was released on parole in 2009.

Speaking with ABC News in 2019, Fromme said she was still in love with Manson. “I don’t think you fall out of love. “I feel very honored to have met him, and I know how that sounds to people who think he’s the epitome of evil.”

Bobby Beausoleil

Bobby Beausoleil was a California musician who also dabbled in acting, having appeared in the late Kenneth Anger's short film Lucifer Rising. Though he wasn't present at the Cielo Drive and LaBianca murders, he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death — later commuted to life — for the murder of Hinman.

Reports indicate that he began to distance himself from Manson in 1982, when he was stabbed by other inmates while in prison. To this day, he remains one of the loudest voices calling Bugliosi's (and Helter Skelter's) official narrative into question, specifically that Manson wanted the murders to trigger a race war. “I’d known Charlie for 20 months and never heard him talk about a race war,” he told Rolling Stone in 2019. He speaks on the topic in greater detail with Morris in Chaos: The Manson Murders.

Like Krenwinkel, Beausoleil had his parole recommendation denied by Gov. Newsom in 2019. However, in January 2025, a state parole board found him suitable for parole. The recommendation will receive a "thorough and comprehensive review" by the Board of Parole Hearings and Gov. Newsom.

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