No remains at Manson hideout

Inyo County, Calif., sheriff’s investigators Wednesday ended their search for human remains at a remote Death Valley National Park ranch used in 1969 as a hide-out by Charles Manson and his followers.

“One bullet casing was found in the site,” Inyo County Sheriff’s Lt. Jim Jones said, “but forensic testing indicates that there were no human remains in or around that site.”

Excavation of a second potentially promising site yielded only remnants of ash and small animal bones. That spot was turned over to the National Park Service to be handled as an archaeological site.

Inyo County sheriff’s deputies and forensics experts found the .38-caliber shell casing 2 inches beneath the surface of a 3- by 6-foot plot that had been identified by sensors and a cadaver-sniffing dog as potential grave sites.

Manson and his followers holed up at the ranch in 1969 after the killing of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in the Los Angeles area. A member of the Manson group later suggested that there were bodies buried at Barker Ranch.

The Manson gang roamed the barren Death Valley landscape in dune buggies and prepared for “Healter Skelter,” a race war that Manson was trying to spark.

Manson and his followers planned to survive by living in a tunnel, emerging later as leaders of a new world order.

Manson was arrested by law enforcement personnel who discovered him hiding beneath a sink in the ranch house.