A hospital in Tacoma, Washington, was the location of Linda Kasabian’s death one month ago. She was a former member of the notorious Manson family cult. It was the year 73.
A death notice was published in the Tacoma News Tribune on the day that Kasabian passed away on January 21. In the announcement, the former cult member was identified as Linda Chiochios, which was one of the aliases she adopted following the Manson murder trials. Numerous news organisations have gotten copies of her death certificate, on which there is no indication of the cause of her passing.
Kasabian did not take part in the killings directly; rather, it is believed that he served as a “lookout” while members of the Manson cult were responsible for the deaths of Sharon Tate, Leno, and Rosemary Labianca. Although Kasabian testified against Charles Manson and four other members of the cult at their high-profile trial in Los Angeles in 1970, the prosecutors ultimately decided to award her immunity from further prosecution. Each of the five defendants was found guilty and given a sentence of life in prison. Manson died behind jail in 2017.
Kasabian, who was born Linda Drouin in Maine in 1949, moved to Los Angeles when she was 20 years old. There, she became involved in the brutal rampage that became known as the “two nights of mayhem,” during which members of the cult led by Charles Manson murdered seven people, including actress Sharon Tate.
Tate was more than eight months pregnant at the time of the murder, and at the time of the murder, she was married to the film director Roman Polanski.
When Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor in Los Angeles responsible for Manson’s conviction, was asked about Kasabian by The Observer newspaper in 2009, he responded, “I doubt we would have convicted Manson without her.”
He continued by saying, “Despite the immense strain she was under, she stood in the witness box for 17 or 18 days and never broke down.”
It is reported that Kasabian moved to Tacoma with her daughter in the late 1980s after escaping the overwhelming media attention at her mother’s home in New Hampshire. Kasabian’s mother resided there at the time. Rolling Stone stated in an article that was published in 2016 that Kasabian lived in a trailer park and was “almost poor.”
Larry King had an interview with Kasabian for CNN in the year 2009. Since the killings, she has been on what she called a “road of healing and rehabilitation,” which she revealed to the journalist while she was dressed in a disguise.
The murders committed by Charles Manson rocked Los Angeles and came to define a whole generation. The saga of the Manson family has been the impetus for a plethora of television dramas and movies, the most recent of which being Once Once a Time in Hollywood, directed by Quentin Tarantino. Maya Hawke, who is most known for her role as Eleven in the Netflix series Stranger Things, portrays a character in the film called Flower Child who is a parody of Kasabian.
Read Also: Daffodils and Leeks: The National Emblems of Wales on St David’s Day