Cult leader Charles Manson died during the overnight hours after spending nearly half a century behind bars.

  • Officials say Manson died of natural causes
  • He was known as the leader of the cult The Manson Family

The 83-year-old man shocked the world after his followers killed actress Sharon Tate and six others in the summer of 1969.

The California Department of Corrections says Manson, who was serving a total of nine consecutive life sentences, died of natural causes. He suffered from health problems in recent years.

His followers, a cult known as The Manson Family, were behind a string of gruesome murders in California in 1969.

The 26-year-old Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant was found stabbed to death in her Hollywood home, along with several of her friends.

The next night a wealthy couple was killed in a similar fashion.

Manson sent the group to commit the murders as a part of a twisted, quasi-religious belief in the hopes of launching a race war.

Manson’s childhood was a blueprint for a life of crime. He was born in Cincinnati on Nov. 12, 1934, to a teenager, possibly a prostitute. When he was 5, his mother went to prison for armed robbery. By the time he was 8, he was in reform school. He spent years in and out of penal institutions.

“My father is the jailhouse. My father is your system,” he said in a monologue on the witness stand. “I am only what you made me. I am only a reflection of you.”

Manson’s chaotic trial in 1970 transformed a courtroom into a theater of the absurd.

He and three female followers, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, sang and chanted, and Manson at one point launched himself across the counsel table at the judge. Many of his followers camped outside the courthouse, threatening to immolate themselves if he was convicted.

When Manson carved an “X″ in his forehead, his co-defendants did the same, saying they were “Xed out of society.” He later changed his “X″ to a swastika.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, he maintained his innocence.

“I have killed no one, and I have ordered no one to be killed,” Manson said.

He and the three women were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Another defendant, Charles “Tex” Watson, was convicted later. All were spared execution and given life sentences after the California Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972. Manson also was convicted in the killings of stuntman Donald “Shorty” Shea and musician Gary Hinman.

Manson and his female followers appeared sporadically at parole hearings where their bids for freedom were repeatedly rejected.

At a 2012 parole hearing Manson boycotted, he was quoted as telling a prison psychiatrist: “I’m special. I’m not like the average inmate. ... I have put five people in the grave. I am a very dangerous man.”

The parole board decided he should stay behind bars for at least 15 more years.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.