Bruce Davis, 83, the person said to have been Charles Manson’s “right-hand man” and convicted of the 1969 murders of Gary Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea, died in a prison hospital Friday in Vacaville, California.
Charles Manson Follower Dies in Prison
Davis died on Friday, September 11, 2026, at a California Medical Facility, according to a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The Solano County Coroner has not shared the cause of death and is assumed to be in the process of determining it.
The Manson Family
Charles Manson started a cult known as the Manson Family in the late 1960s and carried out criminal acts in California through the early 1970s. They called themselves the Family, even though none of them were related by blood.
Manson was incarcerated for most of his life; when he was released in 1967, he began forming his family in the San Francisco Bay Area. They grew so large, upward of 100 people, that they moved to a run-down movie ranch, known as Spahn Ranch. He convinced members of the cult that he was a manifestation of Jesus Christ and that there was an imminent apocalyptic race war heading their way.
The group would frequently use psychoactive drugs such as hallucinogens like LSD. Most of Manson’s followers were young middle-class women, many of whom were interested in the hippie lifestyle and communal living. But they were radicalized by Manson’s teachings, and they began murdering people.
Initial Manson Family Victims
Davis lived a long life in prison after his conviction in 1972 for the infamous murders of Gary Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea. Hinman’s murder in July 1969 was known as the first official “Manson family” victim.
Hinman’s body was found in his home outside of Los Angeles on July 31, 1969, after he had been held for three days. He was reportedly tortured and stabbed, and the “Manson family” signature mark was at the scene: a message in the victim’s blood.
Shea was killed the next month after Manson told his deranged followers that the stuntman was a police informant attempting to remove the cult from the Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth, California. Davis later confessed to being the one to cut Shea, who was found fatally stabbed.
Right-Hand Man Convicted
Davis was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder in 1972 for the deaths of both men and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Most of his sentence was served at San Quentin State Prison, where he became a born-again Christian. He earned his master’s degree, completed self-help programs, and helped former Mason member Susan Atkins do the same.
Throughout his 54 years in prison, he had 34 parole hearings, but none of them prevailed in his favor. Although he was eligible for parole on seven occasions, most recently in January 2021, the sitting California governor denied his release each time.
His next parole hearing was set for August 2024 but was postponed for three years after he appeared on a true-crime podcast called The Lighter Side of Serial Killers. The parole board wanted to investigate the podcast discussion and determine the true motive behind Davis’s presence before making a decision.
Tate-LaBianca Murders
At Davis’s 2014 parole hearing, he confessed that he “wanted to be Charlie’s favorite guy.” He claimed in a separate hearing that he had no idea about the August 9, 1969 killings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate, celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, writer Wojciech Frykowski, and visitor Steven Parent, and only found out the morning after their deaths.
The Tate-LaBianca murders became the downfall of Manson’s cult empire. Three months after the killings of Tate and her team, and of grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary, who were found stabbed to death on August 10, 1969, one of Manson’s followers, Susan Atkins, spoke about the killings while in prison.
Prosecutors at Davis’s trial alleged that he helped execute the infamous two-day Tate-LaBianca killing spree, but he claimed he had no knowledge of them. He was found to have no presence at the killings, and he even stated he turned down invitations from fellow cult followers to attend either night.
Fellow Cult Follower Killed
Davis also claimed to be a bystander in the November 1969 killing of a fellow Manson follower known as John “Zero” Haught, 22, who died by a gunshot wound to the head. His death was ruled a suicide, but the incident reportedly occurred during a game of Russian roulette where Manson family members were present.
Haught’s suicide ruling was heavily criticized because the revolver used was said to have been fully loaded, so in that game of Russian roulette, either he was the first one to fire, or the intention was that they were all going to die.
