Page 5 - ARUBA TODAY

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U.S. NEWS Wednesday 9 May 2018
Purported sons could be out of

Charles Manson estate fight

By BRIAN MELLEY midnight train,” one letter
Associated Press said. “Your mom’s father
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The ran me off saying you bad
purported sons of Charles bandit OUTLAW BIKE TRASH
Manson could soon be out - stay out of her life. It’s not
of the legal battle over his that I didn’t care. It was
estate after failing to show free love and you paid the
up in court Tuesday. price.”
Matthew Lentz, who claims Lentz, a musician, said he
he was fathered by Man- was hoping to get the rights
son at a 1967 orgy, looking to a song Manson said he
disheveled and frazzled wrote for him.
when he arrived at Los An- The judge said Lentz had
geles Superior Court after until a July 13 hearing to
the brief hearing conclud- show why he shouldn’t be
ed in the probate case of dismissed from the case.
the late cult leader. An- A lawyer for Brunner filed
other supposed son, Mi- papers to dismiss his case.
chael Brunner, filed papers Attorney Daniel Mortensen
to drop his claims as an al- was not in court and did Matthew Lentz, who says he was fathered by convicted mur-
leged heir to the convict- not return phone calls seek- derer Charles Manson at an orgy, stands outside Los Angeles
ed murderer. ing comment on why he Superior Court Tuesday, May 8, 2018.
If the two drop out, it would was dropping out. Associated Press
pit a purported grandson Brunner’s mother was a for- race war. mains cremated and scat-
against a pen pal who has mer Manson family mem- Michael Brunner had been tered the ashes after a brief
filed a will that names him ber and he is widely be- among those who also private funeral in March.
as sole beneficiary to the lieved to be Manson’s off- fought in court over the Brunner lost that fight be-
potentially lucrative estate. spring. right to collect the body of cause he surrendered his
At least three people Mary Brunner was in jail on Manson for burial. right to be deemed an heir
claiming kinship to the killer credit card fraud case in That round was won by when he was adopted by
and two so-called murder- August 1969 when Man- Jason Freeman, a purport- his maternal grandparents,
abilia collectors who be- son instructed his follow- ed grandson and former a judge said. His bid for the
friended the inmate have ers to carry out killings that mixed martial arts fighter estate was likely to meet a
emerged in the court fight he hoped would spawn a from Florida. He had the re- similar fate.q
since Manson, 83, died in a
hospital in November while
serving a life sentence for
orchestrating the 1969 kill-
ings of pregnant actress
Sharon Tate and eight oth-
ers.
Lentz, who doesn’t have a
lawyer, lamented his late
arrival and said he feared
he would be out of luck
because he had hoped
to forge an alliance with
Brunner, who has been
represented by counsel.
“I blew it,” Lentz said out-
side court. “I wasted how
many years of my life for this
dumb crap? For what?”
Lentz is listed as sole ben-
eficiary in a 2017 will that
names memorabilia col-
lector Ben Gurecki as exec-
utor. Others have claimed
the will is a fraud.
Wearing an inside-out
plaid shirt, Lentz clenched
a hard plastic case over-
flowing with the rambling
letters from Manson that
he hoped would sway a
judge to believe he was his
son.
“You got the same father I
got - a Hobo just left on a