Manson Family was rumored, although never proven, that Hughes was murdered by the Family, possibly because he had stood up to Manson and refused to allow Van Houten to take the stand and absolve Manson of the crimes. Though he might have perished in flooding, Family member Sandra Good stated that Hughes was "the first of the retaliation murders". Watson returned to McKinney, Texas after the Tate–LaBianca murders. He was arrested in Texas on November 30, 1969, after local police were notified by California investigators that his fingerprints were found to match a print found on the front door of the Tate
Charles Manson to see if Freeman and Roberts were related to each other and found they were not. (Matches between Roberts and Manson were attempted but the results were reportedly "contaminated".) On March 12, 2018, the Kern County Superior Court in California decided in favor of Freeman in regard to Manson's body. Freeman had previously said he would have Manson cremated, and, in fact, did so on March 20, 2018. In 1974, Manson stated his religion was Scientology, and identified as a Scientologist after studying the religion while incarcerated. Manson completed 150 hours of auditing before declaring Scientology "too crazy". In 2009,