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Those free from jail, still imprisoned by their horrific acts
LOS ANGELES -- Forty years ago, they were kids.
Vulnerable, alienated, running away from a world racked by war and rebellion. They turned to a cult leader for love and wound up tied to a web of unimaginable evil.
They were part of Charles Manson's family and now, on the brink of old age, they are the haunted.
"I never have a day go by that I don't think about it, especially about the victims," says Barbara Hoyt, who was 17 the summer of the Sharon Tate-LaBianca murders.
The ones who aren't in prison are scattered across the U.S. Some live under assumed names. Some have undergone surgery to remove the X that Manson ordered them to carve on their foreheads. Some live with endless regret.
Those who escaped taking part in the spasm of terror that snuffed out at least nine lives seem to be lucky. But their lives have been linked forever to one of the craziest mass murders in history.
"Manson made a lot of victims besides the ones he killed," said Catherine Share, who once lived with the Manson family under the nickname Gypsy.
"He destroyed lives. There are people sitting in prison who wouldn't be there except for him."
It was 1969, the summer of the first moon landing. War raged in Vietnam. Hippies were on the streets of San Francisco. For many, that summer is remembered for one thing -- the most shocking celebrity murders ever to hit Los Angeles.
On the morning of Aug. 9, a housekeeper ran screaming from a home in lush Benedict Canyon. She had found a scene of unspeakable carnage -- five bodies scattered around the estate.
The most famous, actress Sharon Tate, 26, the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, had been stabbed multiple times. Abigail Folger, 25, heiress to a coffee fortune, Jay Sebring, 35, celebrity hair stylist, Voyteck Frykowski, 32, a Polish film director, and Steven Parent, 18, a friend of the caretaker, were found stabbed or shot.
On the front door the victims' blood was used to scrawl the words, Death to Pigs.
The city was thrown into a state of fear. Then, a similar scene was discovered the next...