Manson Clan’s Beausoleil Denied Parole a 5th Time

Bobby Beausoleil, a follower of convicted mass murderer Charles Manson who is serving a life sentence for the 1969 torture-slaying of a musician at his Topanga Canyon home, was denied parole Wednesday by the Board of Prison Terms after an emotional debate over whether he indeed was a member of the clan.

“I regret being known as a Manson family member,” Beausoleil, 38, told the three-member board during a four-hour hearing here at the California Men’s Colony. “I was not a bona fide member. . . . I was influenced to a certain extent.”

But Jeffrey C. Jonas, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, angrily charged that the slightly built former musician was trying to design a new strategy to win his freedom.

“Manson, Manson, Manson is all we hear from Mr. Beausoleil for his first eight or nine years (in prison), and he’s proud of it,” Jonas said. “Is Mr. Beausoleil denying to this day (that) he was a member of the Manson family? It’s ludicrous.”

Still Threat, Panel Told

Beausoleil was fully indoctrinated into the Manson family and is still a threat to society, Jonas told the panel. To support his contention, he introduced into evidence a manuscript by the late author Truman Capote in which Beausoleil underscored just how close he was with the Manson clan.

In addition, Jonas produced pornographic writings and sketches that he charged were produced by Beausoleil inside prison in a further effort to convince the board that Beausoleil was not yet morally fit to be granted parole.

Beausoleil, who lived with Manson in 1968, was sentenced to death in April, 1970, for the July 27, 1969, stabbing death of musician Gary Hinman, 34, at the victim’s Topanga Canyon home.

Wednesday’s hearing was Beausoleil’s fifth unsuccessful parole attempt. Manson, who is serving a life sentence in San Quentin, is scheduled for another parole hearing next week.

After a 1983 parole hearing for Beausoleil, government sources said, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office felt that it had been embarrassed by one of its own staffers who wrote to the Board of Prison Terms suggesting that there was never any proof that Beausoleil was indeed a member of the Manson family. Since then, the prosecutor’s office has made a concerted effort to refute that argument.

‘Our Family . . . Our World’

“You know . . . we are a family,” Beausoleil told Capote for his 1975 book, “Music for Chameleons.” “It’s just like if you’re really one with a family, I mean, like we’re mother, father, brother, sister, daughter, son to each other; that’s where it’s at, that’s our family, that’s our country, our world. . . .”

Presiding board member Joe Aceto said after Beausoleil’s parole bid was rejected that both the Capote interview and the pornographic material--voluminous child and adult pornography material that Jonas charged that Beausoleil had somehow created in prison--were important factors in the board’s decision.

Daniel L. Helbert, representing Beausoleil, asked for an administrative hearing and charged that neither the Capote interview nor the pornographic material was relevant to his client’s case for parole.

Beausoleil contended that Manson “did not order” him to kill musician Hinman--a murder that he fully admits. But Jonas charged that Manson did indeed order the slaying after Hinman refused to turn over his money and property to Manson.