Corrections officials in California quoted Charles Manson's own words when they denied him parole for a 12th time yesterday. "I am special. I am not like the average inmate. I have put five people in the grave," Manson told a prison psychologist late last year, according to a report read aloud during the hearing. "I've been in prison most of my life. I'm a very dangerous man." It was the first time that Manson, who is serving a life sentence for nine murders, has admitted to any guilt.
Manson has accumulated 108 serious disciplinary violations in prison since 1971, 35 of them violent, and seven of them since his last hearing in 2007. He made numerous calls from a cell phone he was caught with in 2010, and is currently being held in isolation after being caught with a prison-manufactured weapon last October. He skipped yesterday's hearing, and the next one has been scheduled for 2027, when he will be 92. (More Charles Manson stories.)