Battle Over Charles Manson’s Corpse

Charles Manson died almost two months ago, but his body is still cooling on a morgue slab as a battle rages over his remains — and chilling rumors fly that his attempts to return from the grave using voodoo worked!

The fiend, who in 1969 sent his followers to slaughter seven people — including pregnant actress Sharon Tate — over two nights in L.A., died of heart failure and colon cancer on Nov. 19.

His remains remain at California’s Kern County morgue while five people — so far — stepped forward to claim his corpse. “Basically, he’s on ice,” The National ENQUIRER learned from coroner spokesman Sgt. Stephen Wells, who says the next of kin will decide what to do with the body.

So far, his grandson Jason Freeman, two prison pen pals and two others say the body belongs to them. Matthew Roberts, who insists he's the resulting offspring of Manson raping his mom, intends to file a claim for the carcass.

Jailhouse pen pal Michael Channels of Santa Clarita, says he has Manson’s will, which left everything to him. He says he visited the crazed killer in 2002 after they’d been writing to each other, and the fiend later sent him the documents.

Channels said he’d have the body cremated and spread the ashes in the desert. “Cemeteries don’t want him,” he says. “They think if they take him, they will pollute the whole ground.” Kern County Deputy Attorney Bryan Walters said of the post-mortem Manson melee: “It’s like a circus!”

Meanwhile, some believe the demonic fiend, who’d been in prison since 1971, will rise again. As The ENQUIRER reported, Manson had been drinking a homemade voodoo potion he concocted in his cell, believing it would make him immortal.

“The fact that his body hasn’t been buried or destroyed yet," said a source, "fits in with his crazy black-magic plan!”