A panel denied parole Friday for Charles “Tex” Watson, convicted along with Charles Manson and his other followers for the 1969 murders of seven people during a two-day crime spree in Los Angeles.
Watson, 75, was denied for the 18th time. He will be eligible for another parole hearing in five years.
A Board of Parole Hearings panel heard Watson’s case at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa.
Watson, a native Texan who turned to religion after the killings, was convicted along with Manson, who died in 2017, and followers Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins of first-degree murder.
Jurors found them guilty in the Aug. 9, 1969, deaths of pregnant actress Sharon Tate, Abigail Ann Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Earl Parent and Thomas Jay Sebring at a Benedict Canyon home.
The four also were convicted, along with Leslie Van Houten, of the stabbing deaths of wealthy businessman Leno La Bianca and his wife, Rosemary, in their home the next day.
Watson received a death sentence in 1971, but it was reduced to life in prison after the California Supreme Court overturned capital punishment statutes the following year.
– City News Service