• 2 Followers Indicted With Him: Cult Leader Manson Charged For Murder of L.A. Musician

2 Followers Indicted With Him: Cult Leader Manson Charged For Murder of L.A. Musician

LOS ANGELES, Apr. 15 – Charles Manson, accused mastermind of the Tate-LaBianca slayings, was charged here Tuesday in a secret indictment with still another killing—the torture-murder of musician Gary Hinman.

Two of Manson’s followers were indicted along with him for the Hinman slaying:

• Susan Atkins, the young woman whose testimony before a grand jury last December led to the Tate-LaBianca indictments.

• A 27-year-old male member of the Manson cult who still is at large.

Tuesday’s indictment came just a day after Robert K. Beausoleil, currently on trial for the Hinman murder, told a trial jury that Manson, not he, slew the young musician last July.

Beausoleil claimed that the 35-year-old hippie cult leader stabbed Hinman twice in the chest because the latter refused to join Manson’s “family.”

However, it is understood that Tuesday’s secret indictments resulted from an entirely different version of the Hinman killing than the one offered publicly Monday by Beausoleil.

It is believed the indictments were based largely on testimony reportedly given the Los Angeles County grand jury by Mary Brunner, by whom Manson fathered a baby more than a year ago.

Miss Brunner, a 26-year-old blonde, is a former Eau Claire resident who has been working for the last few months in the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library. A graduate of the UW, with a major in history, she is said to have joined the Manson Family in 1967.

She was arrested in Los Angeles last week on an alleged probation violation, and testified in the Beausoleil case only after being threatened by the district attorney, she reportedly told the jury Monday.

The district attorney’s office here refused to confirm either the appearance of Miss Brunner before the grand jury Tuesday or even the existence of the secret indictments.

But it is understood that she told grand jurors the same story she related in testifying against Beausoleil at his trial last week.

According to her trial testimony on the Hinman killing, Beausoleil inflicted the fatal wounds after he was instructed by Manson to do so.

She said Hinman first was tortured, then killed, because he refused to turn over $20,000 Manson believed he had inherited.

During the torture sequence, she said, Manson severed Hinman’s ear with a sword, He later drove away from the Hinman cottage with another man, leaving behind Beausoleil, Miss Atkins and Miss Brunner, the latter testified.

She claimed that Beausoleil stabbed Hinman after talking by telephone with Manson, who had returned to the Spahn movie ranch in suburban Los Angeles where the family then was living. Miss Brunner, 26, testified at the Beausoleil trial on the promise of immunity from prosecution.

Miss Atkins previously had been charged in a complaint with the Hinman murder, filed even before she, Manson and four other family in were accused of the Tate-LaBianca killings.

Meanwhile, Beausoleil testified during his trial Tuesday that he lied to detectives last August when questioned about the Hinman slaying.

Beausoleil was arrested last Aug. 6 three miles north of San Luis Obispo, Calif., in a car that had once belonged to Hinman. Dep. Dist. Atty. Burton Katz is attempting to prove that Beausoleil tortured Hinman into giving him the car.

When questioned by two Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives after his arrest, Beausoleil told them that he had gone to Hinman’s home July 25 and found Hinman bleeding profusely from a slash wound on the left side of his face.

In cross examination, Katz asked him why he lied.

“I was trying to protect Charlie,” Beausoleil said, referring to Manson.

“I was afraid of what he might have done to me. He has a lot of influence over people and I was afraid.”

By JERRY COHEN

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