Manson and his ‘family’ became notorious for the murder of Sharon Tate and six others during the summer of 1969

Charles Manson, the pseudo-satanic sociopath behind a string of killings that shocked California out of its late 1960s cultural reverie, died on Sunday after almost a half century in prison.

The 83-year-old, who died of natural causes, had been serving multiple life sentences in state prison in Corcoran, California, for orchestrating the violence in 1969 that claimed the lives of Sharon Tate, the heavily pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski, and six others.

While his death prompted the inevitable and renewed questioning around why his grim notoriety had been so enduring, Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles County, said: “Today, Manson’s victims are the ones who should be remembered and mourned on the occasion of his death.”

She went on to quote the late Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor who put Manson behind bars, who had said: “Manson was an evil, sophisticated conman with twisted and warped moral values.”

As the leader of a cult known as the Manson Family, Manson had instructed his followers, made up mostly of disaffected young women, to carry out the killings. The brutality of the murders set Los Angeles on edge, and ended the sunny optimism of the 60s counterculture and its aspirations to a new society built on peace and love. Manson presented himself as a demonic force: at trial, he carved a Nazi swastika into his forehead.

The five received the death penalty but were spared when capital punishment was temporarily abolished following a ruling by the supreme court in 1972.

Manson and three female followers, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, were convicted of murder and conspiracy to murder. Another defendant, Charles “Tex” Watson, was convicted later.

Tate, the wife of Polanski, who was out of the country the night of her murder, was eight and a half months pregnant when Manson’s followers broke into her home in Los Angeles. They stabbed and shot Tate and her visitors, Jay Sebring, Voytek Frykowski, coffee heiress Abigail Folger and Steven Parent. The word “Pig” was written in blood on the front door. Tate, who had starred in The Valley of the Dolls, was stabbed 16 times, and an “X” was carved into her stomach.