Who was Linda Kasabian? Witness who helped send Charles Manson to prison dead at 73

Kasabian passed away on January 21 at a hospital in Tacoma, according to a death certificate, obtained by TMZ. Her body was cremated and her cause of death was not revealed.

Who was Linda Kasabian?

Linda Darlene Kasabian was a member of the Manson Family. Linda Darlene Drouin was born in Biddeford, Maine on June 21, 1949, and raised in the New England town of Milford, New Hampshire.

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She was introduced to Charles Manson after she became pregnant with her second child. At the time, Kasabian was feeling neglected by her husband Robert Kasabian, who had ultimately left her behind for the South American sailing trip. Through her husband’s friend, Charles “Blackbeard” Melton, made she met Catherine Share, who told Kasabian about an idyllic ranch outside Los Angeles where a group of hippies was establishing a “hole in the earth” paradise to escape an anticipated race war which they referred to as “Helter Skelter”.

She met Charles Manson in a Spahn Ranch cave where they engaged in a sexual encounter. She thought that Manson could “see right through her” and she soon became part of the Manson family.

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After cutting ties with the Manson Family, Kasabian changed her last name to ‘Chiochios’ to protect her identity. She was a key prosecution witness in the 1970-71 Manson trial. During her testimony which went on for 18 days, she described in graphic detail how Manson and his followers massacred seven people in Los Angeles in 1969.

She said under oath at the court that Charles “Tex” Watson drove her, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Susan Atkins to filmmaker, Roman Polanski’s house in Benedict Canyon. According to her, Tex, Krenwinkel, and Atkins fatally shot and stabbed five victims, which included Polanski’s pregnant wife, Sharon Tate.

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Kasabian maintained during her testimony that she witnessed the bloodshed, but she never physically harmed anyone. At the time his wife and unborn child were killed, Polanski was working on a movie in Europe. On the night that Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were butchered inside their Los Angeles home, Kasabian testified that she was the driver.

Kasabian’s crucial testimony sealed the fate of Manson and his accomplices. All of them were convicted of the murders and handed life sentences.

Charles Manson died in 2017 in prison at the age of 83 after he went into cardiac arrest due to complications of colon cancer.