Davis was convicted of the 1969 murders of Gary Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea
Credit: Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via AP; Harold Filan/AP/REX/Shutterstock
NEED TO KNOW
- Bruce Davis, a convicted Manson Family member, died at 83 in a California prison hospital on Friday, Sept. 11
- Davis was convicted in 1972 of two 1969 murders of Gary Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea
- He was denied parole multiple times despite being deemed suitable, with decisions reversed by multiple California governors
Bruce Davis, a follower of Charles Manson, has died in a prison hospital in Vacaville, Calif. He was 83.
Davis died at the California Medical Facility on Friday, Sept. 11, Mary Xjimenez, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in a statement to PEOPLE. The cause of death was not shared, and the Solano County Coroner will determine his official cause of death.
Davis was considered the “right-hand man” to Manson and was convicted of the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea.
Credit: Getty
Hinman was killed in July 1969 and is remembered as the first official “Manson family” victim. He was held at his home in Topanga Canyon, outside Los Angeles, for three days before he was found dead on July 31, 1969. He’d reportedly been tortured and stabbed, with a “Manson family” signature — a message in the victim’s blood — marking the scene.
Shea was killed the following month. The stuntman was killed because Manson told his followers that he was a police informant working to have the cult removed from the Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., according to The Los Angeles Times. He was fatally stabbed, and Davis later confessed to cutting him.
At age 30, Davis was convicted of Hinman and Shea’s murders in 1972. He was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for two counts of first-degree murder later that year.
He served most of his sentence at San Quentin State Prison, where he earned a master’s degree and completed multiple self-help programs, the outlet reported. He allegedly became a born-again Christian during his incarceration, according to a 2013 ABC7 report. He allegedly helped former Manson member Susan Atkins do the same.
Credit: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via AP
During his 54 years in prison, he had 34 parole hearings. He was suitable for parole seven times: in January 2010, February 2012, March 2014, August 2015, February 2017, June 2019 and January 2021. Each time, his release was reversed by the sitting California governor.
He was due for a hearing in August 2024, but it was postponed for three years after he appeared on a true-crime podcast called The Lighter Side of Serial Killers, per Fox News.
At his 2014 parole hearing, Davis confessed, “I wanted to be Charlie’s favorite guy.” In a separate parole hearing, he claimed he didn’t know about the infamous Aug. 9, 1969 killing of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Parent. He said he only learned of their deaths the next morning, according to The Los Angeles Times.
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However, prosecutors alleged that he was Manson’s chief lieutenant and helped execute the operations for the Tate-LaBianca killings, according to The Los Angeles Times. Grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary were discovered stabbed multiple times in their home on Aug. 10, 1969.
Additionally, he initially claimed he was only a bystander in the November 1969 killing of the Manson follower, John “Zero” Haught. Haught, whose death at the time was reportedly declared a suicide, died of a gunshot wound to the head after an alleged game of Russian roulette. Manson family members were reportedly present when the shooting occurred.
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