A purported son of cult leader Charles Manson is dropping his fight for the killer’s estate and another possible heir is in jeopardy of being booted from the case.
An attorney representing a purported grandson said in court Tuesday that he received notice that Michael Brunner is seeking to be dismissed from the case.
Brunner’s mother is a former Manson family member and he is widely believed to be Manson’s offspring. But his legal claim to collect the remains of the convicted murderer was dashed because he had been adopted. His bid for the estate was likely to meet a similar fate.
Another supposed son, Matthew Lentz, showed up to court late and has until a July 13 hearing to show why he shouldn’t be dismissed from the case.
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Michael Brunner, 49, whose birth certificate lists Manson and cult member Mary Brunner as his parent, was in on the fight for Manson’s estate, but has since dropped out. He has stayed out of the public eye after giving the above 1993 interview about his infamous father
Matthew Lentz, who says he was fathered by convicted murderer Charles Manson at an orgy, is still in the running to stake a claim in the killer’s estate
Manson (pictured left in 2017 and right on trial in 1970) was originally sentenced to death, but had his sentence commuted after California invalidated the state’s death penalty statute
Lentz claims he was fathered by Manson during a Wisconsin orgy. He is named as the sole beneficiary in a 2017 will that Manson apparently signed and sent to Ben Gurecki, another friend and memorabilia collector, who is named as executor.
Who inherits Manson’s estate – which could include potentially lucrative rights to the use of his image and songs he wrote, as well as his possessions – will be adjudicated by Los Angeles Superior Court.
In March the world got one final glimpse of cult leader Charles Manson, whose body was put on display before he was finally cremated.
Manson’s open casket viewing preceded his cremation, four months after his death, during a memorial service in Porterville, California.
The funeral came a week after Manson’s grandson Jason Freeman was granted the rights to his body following months of legal battles.
Jason Freeman, Charles Manson’s grandson (pictured), won a California court battle to retrieve Manson’s remains in March for funeral services
Manson, who died at 83, had been hospitalized in Bakersfield while serving a life sentence for orchestrating the 1969 killings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and eight others
Attendees included his former fiancee Afton Burton and former Manson Family member Sandra Good, a lifelong devotee to the murderer.
Manson, who died at 83, was hospitalized in Bakersfield while serving a life sentence for orchestrating the 1969 killings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and eight others.
The fight over his corpse devolved into a circus of sorts with friends filing competing wills purportedly signed by the infamous inmate.
Kin began to come out of the woodwork to stake a claim to the killer’s body and estate.
The case in Kern County was brought by the coroner’s office, which said it wanted to quickly resolve the matter because bodies were piling up at the morgue from the methamphetamine and opioid epidemics.
To prevent photos of the body from being leaked, the coroner’s office stored Manson’s remains under a pseudonym and only two employees were told its true identity.
Attendees at Manson’s funeral, held at Porterville Funeral & Cremation Center (pictured) included his former fiancee Afton Burton and former Manson Family member Sandra Good
Brunner’s mother was an early member of the so-called Manson family and he was fathered by the cult leader, according to his birth certificate, though it misspelled Manson’s middle name.
Freeman, a former professional mixed martial arts fighter from Florida, is the son of the late Charles Manson Jr., who was the child of Manson and his first wife.
Although some raised questions about whether Freeman was really Manson’s grandson, a judge determined he was ‘the surviving competent adult next of kin’.