The death toll from the notorious killing spree unleashed by Charles Manson across Southern California is higher than previously thought, according to a lawyer who represented one of Manson's followers.
Fox's Los Angeles station obtained a recording of Bill Boyd, a lawyer for a "Manson family" convicted killer, alleging that Manson told his client about other slayings.
"He told me about a bunch of other people Manson had killed," Boyd said in an interview recorded about his client Charles "Tex" Watson. "He was extremely candid."
Boyd died in 2009 and Watson is serving life for obeying Manson's commands to kill actress Sharon Tate and her four house guests as well as the separate murder of a married couple in another part of Los Angeles later in August 1969.
Manson remains imprisoned for life for ordering the killings that he called "Helter Skelter," a twisted homage to The Beatles song of the same name.
Unlike the seven known victims killed by Watson and other disciples, Boyd recalls his client telling him there were people that Manson killed on his own.
"This was Manson killing other people," Boyd says during the recorded interview with an author. Watson didn't implicate himself in any of these other alleged acts, Boyd said.
Boyd possessed more than 20 hours of conversations with Watson taped more than four decades ago. The Los Angeles Police Department has sued to get access to these tapes, which became property of Boyd's Texas law firm that was in bankruptcy court in 2012.
Watson has tried to stop a judge from releasing his talks with Boyd to the LAPD, writing in court documents that it would be a "public dishonor" to people "emotionally attached" to the Manson family murders.
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