Recently in Manson Family Category

Former Pomona teacher Steven Petralia is set to be sentenced in Superior Court *tomorrow.

A wrong way crash on the Southbound 605 kills a driver.  Just minutes before the accident, Anissa Rivera, our "Mom's the word" blogger describes her family's close call.

APU students are causing a parking problem in the neighborhood.

The search for more Manson Family victims at Barker Ranch in Inyo was a big zip.

Sheriff's Department about to release more information in the March slaying of a Covina Hills woman who was on the phone with 9-1-1 when she was shot to death.

There's a possibility that victims of the Manson Family may still be buried in near a desert hideout in Inyo County.

This from Radar:

The search for remains at the Barker Ranch in Death Valley begins Next Tuesday when a crew of scientists, laser technicians, cadaver dogs, soil testers, and search team from Inyo County Sheriff's Office will comb the cult's old clubhouse grounds. Since the 1969 murders, rumors and speculation have been rampant as to whether additional bodies had been disposed of at Barker Ranch, where Manson was arrested, found hiding under a kitchen sink in fetal crouch. So, why now after all these years? "The sheriff just really wants to put this to rest," sheriff spokesperson Carma Roper tells Radar. "He wants conclusive answers."

Google map below shows the location of the ranch.

This from the Associated Press:

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — Bone-white stretches of salt, leached up from the lifeless soil, lay like a shroud over the high desert where a paranoid Charles Manson holed up after an orgy of murder nearly four decades ago.

Now, as then, few venture into this alkaline wilderness — gold-diggers, outlaws, loners content to live and let live. But a determined group of outsiders recently made the trek. They were leading forensic investigators searching for new evidence of death — clues pointing to possible decades-old clandestine graves.

And the results of just-completed followup tests suggest bodies could indeed be lying beneath the parched ground. The test findings — described in detail to The Associated Press, which had accompanied the site search — conclude there are two likely clandestine grave sites at Barker Ranch, and one additional site that merits further investigation.

Next step, the ad hoc investigators urge: Dig.

The SGV connection?

Leslie Van Houten,  former Monrovia High School homecoming queen.