At least one Manson Family member, Lynette Fromme, said Hughes was murdered in retaliation for betraying Charles Manson.
Ronald Hughes was a defense attorney for Charles Manson and later Leslie Van Houten. Hughes was different from the other attorneys in that he had experience with the hippy movement and subculture in Southern California. This became useful in his defense strategies.
They were told to search in the area of the Barker Ranch in Inyo County, California, an area where Manson and several family members lived after the Spahn Ranch raids. It took weeks of searching but the badly decomposed and naked body of Ronald Hughes was found between two rocks on March 29, 1971.
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FILE - In this 1969 file photo, Charles Manson is escorted to his arraignment on conspiracy-murder charges in connection with the Sharon Tate murder case in Los Angeles.
On successive nights in August 1969, the so-called Manson family murdered seven people. Manson died in prison on Nov. 19, 2017.
On successive nights in August 1969, the so-called Manson family murdered seven people. (AP Photo/Harold Filan, File) FILE - This file combination of images shows the five victims slain the night of Aug. 9, 1969 at the Benedict Canyon Estate of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate.
FILE - In this June 25, 1970, file photo, Charles Manson sticks his tongue out at photographers as he appears in a Santa Monica, Calif., courtroom on, charged with the slaying of musician Gary Hinman.
Kay helped lock up Manson family members but never really relinquished the case in his nearly 40 years in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. He attended some 60 parole hearings over the years where he argued the killers should never be released. “The crime was simply too heinous,” Kay said.
LOS ANGELES — Stephen Kay was a fresh-faced prosecutor just 27 years old and three years out of law school when circumstances handed him the Charles Manson “family” murder case .
After a hung jury, he won a conviction in 1978 , and Van Houten returned to prison, where she has earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in counseling and leads programs to rehabilitate fellow inmates. She was recommended for parole three times in recent years, but each time the governor blocked the recommendation.