Parole Recommended For Ex-Manson Follower, Bruce Davis

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — A state parole board panel Friday recommended parole for Bruce Davis, 78, a one-time Charles Manson Family follower who was convicted in 1969 of two killings.

Davis has been found suitable for parole six previous times, with three different governors reversing the recommendation for parole.

Most recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom blocked Davis' release in November 2019. Former governors Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger had also reversed the parole board's recommendation.

Davis was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy for the July 25, 1969, stabbing death of musician Gary Hinman in his Topanga Canyon home and the killing of Donald "Shorty" Shea, who was last seen alive on August 27, 1969.

Davis was not involved with other followers of Manson in the August 9, 1969, murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in a rented Benedict Canyon home, or the stabbing deaths of grocery store owner Leno La Bianca and his wife, Rosemary, a day later in their Los Feliz home.

Steve Grogan, who was convicted in Shea's murder and helped lead authorities to the site where the victim was buried, was the first former Manson follower to be paroled from prison in 1985.

Former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who held the office from 2000-2012, said a group of attorneys is being organized to make appearances at parole hearings on behalf of victims and their families, whom he said would otherwise have "no advocate" at the hearings if deputy district attorneys do not travel to the hearings.

Manson, who died in 2017, was repeatedly denied parole, as have most of his co-defendants.

(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)