Hours of audio recordings of 'confessions' made by Charles Manson's right-hand man could provide vital details of unsolved murders carried out by their notorious 1960s gang.

Los Angeles Police Department has made a request for eight hours of taped conversations between Charles 'Tex' Watson and his lawyer Bill Boyd, America's NBC reported.

Detectives believe the recordings could hold new information about killings carried out by the Manson Family, which in 1969 murdered seven people including film director Roman Polanski's pregnant wife Sharon Tate.

Notorious: Serial killers Charles 'Tex' Watson, 66, (left) and Charles Manson, 77

In a letter obtained by NBC, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck asked the US Department of Justice to hand over the tapes .

'The LAPD has information that Mr Watson discussed additional unsolved murders committed by followers of Charles Manson,' Chief Beck said in the March 19 letter.

'It is requested that the original recordings be given to the LAPD in order to determine if information regarding unsolved murders was included.'

Watson, 66, like his one-time leader Manson, is currently serving a life sentence for his involvement in the murders.

He was originally sentenced to death for killing Sharon Tate Polanski, Abigail Ann Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Thomas Jay Sebring and Steven Earl Parent.

However, California temporarily suspended the death penalty in 1972, and he has been serving a life sentence ever since. 

Murdered: Actress Sharon Tate was eight and a half months pregnant when she was killed

He was denied parole last November, as was Manson this April - Manson's 12th, and possibly last, bid for freedom.

Mr Boyd was Watson's attorney from 1969 and 'for some time thereafter', according to the letter from Chief Beck.

However, the lawyer died in 2009 and his Texas-based firm is being liquidated.

Request: An excerpt of the letter from LAPD Chief Charlie Beck to the US Department of Justice, asking them to hand over the Charles 'Tex' Watson recordings

NBC reported that a decision on whether to give LAPD the recordings will be made at a bankruptcy court hearing due to take place next Tuesday in Plano, Texas.

Chief Beck asked for the audio tapes to be given to a detective in the LAPD's 'special section', which is part of its robbery-homicide division.

The recordings were private until September 1976 when Watson authorised their sale to author Chaplain Ray Hoekstra to help cover legal fees. 

The material was used in Mr Hoekstra's book 'Will You Die For Me?' which was released in 1976.

Targeted: The Benedict Canyon estate, sheltered in the hills of Los Angeles, where actress Sharon Tate was murdered along with four others on August 9, 1969

Charles Manson, now 77, is one of America's most notorious mass murderers.

Amid the hippie culture of the 1960s, the charismatic ex-convict put together a collection of runaways and outcasts known as the Manson Family.

In the summer of 1969 he became one of the 20th century's most infamous criminals when he directed his mostly young, female followers to murder seven people.

Actress Sharon Tate was stabbed 16 times by members of the cult in the early morning hours of August 9, 1969 at the Benedict Canyon estate, sheltered in the hills of Los Angeles.

She was eight and a half months pregnant.

Four other people were stabbed or shot to death in Tate's home that night by the Manson followers, who scrawled the word 'Pig' in blood on the front door before leaving.

The following night, Manson's group stabbed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca to death, using their blood to write 'Rise,' 'Death to Pigs' and 'Helter Skelter' - a misspelled reference to the Beatles song - on the walls and refrigerator door.

Murder scene: The room where Sharon Tate was brutally killed by the Manson Family

Manson is imprisoned at Corcoran State Prison in Kings County, California.

He was convicted of the seven slayings as well as the murder of an acquaintance, Gary Hinman, who was stabbed to death in July 1969.

Like Watson, he was originally given a death sentence but spared execution after the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional. 

In 1977, his sentence was commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Manson will next be eligible for parole in 15 years, when he will be 92-years-old.

When he was denied release in 2007 the parole board ruled that he 'continues to pose an unreasonable danger to others and may still bring harm to anyone he would come in contact with'.

 

 

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