Charles Manson, the infamous cult-leader of the 'Manson Family' has died according to TMZ.
Debra Tate, the sister of one of his most famous victims, Sharon Tate, told the website that she received a call from the prison telling her that Manson died at 8:13 p.m. Sunday evening. The prison is reportedly contacting all of the victim's families.
The notorious cult-leader had been serving seven life sentences at the Corcoran State Prison in California, and had been suffering health issues for some time. He was recently wheeled into a Bakersfield hospital, escorted by five uniformed cops.
In January, Manson was hospitalized for severe intestinal bleeding. He had also needed surgery to repair a lesion, but doctors elected to send him back to prison at the time as they felt he was too weak to survive the procedure.
Besides the self-carved swastika on his forehead, Manson is best known for directing his protege Charles 'Tex' Watson and three others from his cult (known as the Manson Family) to a home above Sunset Blvd. and kill everyone there.
The Manson Family members murdered Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of movie director Roman Polanski, as well as celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, the heiress to the Folger coffee fortune Abigail Folger, writer Wojciech Frykowski and teenage Steven Parent.
Manson was tried and convicted for the murders, and sentenced to death along with several other members in his cult. The death sentence was commuted in 1972 when the death penalty was briefly outlawed in California.
At the time, prosecutors said Manson and his 'family's' motivation for the murder spree was an attempt to incite a race war he believed was suggested by the Beatles' song "Helter Skelter."
Manson had been in prison since 1971 and been denied parole several times.