It's good to solve a cold case and what makes this one easier to deal with is the fact that the accused criminal is already in jail. From the LAPD: "The Robbery-Homicide Division’s (RHD) Detectives, obtained a warrant for the arrest of Michael Hubert Hughes, 51-years-old, charging four counts of murder with additional charges relating to sexual assault of the four female victims. The series of crimes occurred between 1986 and 1993. Three occurred in......

Calculating prison terms and release dates may more easily lead to errors in numbers, but when it comes to who has the honor of being California's longest-incarcerated woman, that distinction does indeed belong to Susan Atkins, the former Manson family member who is currently asking for a compassionate release from her life sentence. In an email to LAist from Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Spokeswoman Terry Thornton, it seems it comes down to a mere......

Photo by o2ma via Flickr Last week, news that one branch of what remains of the Manson family tree, Susan Atkins, was seeking a compassionate release due to an undisclosed and likely terminal illness triggered waves of reaction from the public, many of whom believe convicts of Atkins' ilk should remain incarcerated for the duration of their life sentences. In public statements made regarding Atkins' 37 years' imprisonment to date, California Department of Corrections......

Convicted murderer Susan Atkins has earned a dubious honor: She has been the longest incarcerated woman in California history*, having logged 37 of her 59 years as an inmate following her conviction in the famous 1969 "Manson Murders." Now, Atkins is pleading for an early compassionate release by State corrections officials because she faces another kind of life sentence--the impending end of her own. Although specific medical details have not been made public, Atkins is......

Photo by nailmaker via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr 22-year-old Alan Hamai from Redondo Beach had just been awarded his degree in Anthropology from UC Berkeley and was celebrating when he fell to his death from the third floor of a dorm building. Hamai is the second student from SoCal to die at UCB this month; two weeks ago Christopher Wootton was fatally stabbed after a party on campus. The folks at......

Photo by Steven Fernandez via Flickr The results of a recent survey administered in seven public schools in South Los Angeles are downright depressing. Students feel scared, unmotivated, unsupported, and ignored, and it's causing many to experience the symptoms of clinical depression. Administrators and psychologists agree, noting that the multiple killings of youth in the community leaves a pall on the students, and that their choice to skip school because they are "tired, had......

Photo by kristi.nicole via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr One week after being subdued in his cell with a taser gun and lapsing into a coma, 35-year-old Orange County inmate Jason Jesus Gomez has died, officials announced today. Gomez, who was in jail for a probation violation, stopped breathing after officers used the taser on him during a scuffle. Say cheese: LA City Council voted today to approve a contract that will put......

Willie Earl Green was arrested 25 years ago for shooting to death a woman in a crack house. Today, his conviction has been overturned by L.A. Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Marcus, and he has been freed from jail. The decision to set Green, 56, free came after a key witness to the murder, Willie Finley, admitted to having been high on either crack or cocaine at the house in South Los Angeles at the......

Three Los Angeles Sheriff Department (LASD) deputies assigned to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown are suspended (or, paid leave, that is) as a criminal investigation is opened into accusations from an inmate saying that he was isolated by them, punched and pepper-sprayed in the anus and scrotum area. It all started when inmate Alejandro Franco, 23, who is there for "allegedly violating terms of his probation for a domestic violence conviction," swore......

There are 14,000 firefighters our there right now helping protecting us. 3,000 of them are prison inmates who began working the front lines yesterday.A spokesman for the corrections department says it's close to the most the state has ever used. The inmates go through a four-week training program. They must be physically fit, have no history of violent crime and have between four months to three years remaining on their sentences. They're paid $1......