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Linda Kasabian, a former member of the notorious Manson Family cult, died last month at a hospital in Tacoma, Washington. She was 73 years old.
Kasabian died on January 21 and an obituary was published in the local Tacoma News Tribune, which named former cult member Linda Chiochios, one of the names she used after the murder trials. of Manson. Several media obtained copies of his death certificate where no cause is indicated.
Born Linda Drouin in Maine in 1949, Kasabian moved to Los Angeles at the age of 20, where she found herself embroiled in the brutal rampage, known as “two nights of mayhem” in which members of Charles Manson’s sect murdered seven people, including actress Sharon. Tate.
Tate was the wife of filmmaker Roman Polanski and she was over eight months pregnant at the time of the murder.
Kasabian did not participate in the murders themselves and was said to have acted as a “lookout” as members of the Manson cult carried out the murders of Tate as well as Leno and Rosemary Labianca.
Kasabian later won immunity from prosecutors after testifying against Manson and four other cult members in their successful 1970 trial in Los Angeles. All five were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Manson died behind bars in 2017.
Speaking about Kasabian with The Observer newspaper in 2009, Vincent Bugliosi, the Los Angeles prosecutor who convicted Manson, said, “I doubt we would have convicted Manson without her.”
He added: “She was on the witness stand for 17 or 18 days and never broke down, despite the incredible pressure she was under.”
Kasabian has reportedly lived in Tacoma with her daughter since the late 1980s after fleeing her mother’s home in New Hampshire due to intense media attention. In a 2016 profile, Rolling Stone wrote that Kasabian lived in a trailer park “close to poverty.
In 2009, Kasabian was interviewed by Larry King on CNN. She wore a disguise and told the reporter that she had been on a “healing and rehabilitation journey” since the murders.
The Manson murders shook Los Angeles and defined a generation. The Manson family story has inspired countless shows and movies, most recently Quentin Tarantino’s. Once upon a time in Hollywood. In the movie, stranger things Star Maya Hawke plays a Kasabian-inspired parody character named Flower Child.