Manson Family cult member who provided crucial murder trial testimony dies in Tacoma
A member of Charles Manson’s infamous “family” cult, who acted as a lookout and driver during a two-night killing spree in southern California, died in Tacoma on Jan. 21, according to TMZ and other online sources.
Linda Kasabian was 73, according to death information from Pierce County and published in The News Tribune on Feb. 19.
The Independent, a British newspaper, said Kasabian had lived in Tacoma with her daughter since the late 1980s. Rolling Stone said in 2016 that she was living in a trailer park “near poverty.”
The shocking Manson rampage took the lives of actress Sharon Tate and six others in August 1969 and became one of the 20th century’s most notorious crimes.
Kasabian was given immunity after she became a key witness for the prosecution in Manson’s trial and those of his accomplices in the early 1970s. She said she didn’t participate in the killings, which included Tate’s unborn child. Tate was the wife of film director Roman Polanski.
Kasabian lived in Tacoma under the name Linda Chiochios.
In a 2009 television interview with talk show host Larry King, Kasabian appeared in disguise. She told King that she thought about the killings every day.
The self-described “flower child” was mesmerized by the charismatic Manson, she told King. That quickly changed the first night of the murders, she said, as she waited outside Tate’s house.
“I started hearing horrible screaming,” Kasabian told King.
Manson did not participate in the killings, instead directing his followers to conduct them.
“Without her testimony it would have been extremely difficult for me to convict Manson and his co-defendants,” the trial’s prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi told King.
Following the killings, fear kept her there until she fled three days later to New Mexico. She left her 18-month-old daughter behind at Manson’s compound.
A warrant was issued for her arrest, and she returned to California voluntarily.
“She has suffered through the years from people and towns she’s lived — and her children — thinking she involved in these murders,” Bugliosi said.
Kasabian told King she raised four children and tried to live a “normal life” in an undisclosed location. “I’ve been on a mission of health and rehabilitation,” she said.
Manson never expressed remorse or guilt over the slayings. He died in prison in 2017 from cancer at age 83.
“I carried the guilt that nobody else had the guilt for at the time,” Kasabian said.
This story was originally published March 1, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
