Governor Brown has 30 days...

California governor weighs parole for Charles Manson follower
By Michael Martinez and Kyung Lah, CNN
updated 10:06 PM EST, Fri February 1, 2013 

(CNN) -- California Gov. Jerry Brown is considering whether to grant parole to a convicted murderer who followed notorious killer Charles Manson, a spokeswoman for the governor said.

Brown's office received a formal recommendation from the state board parole Friday to release Bruce Davis, 70, who would be the first Manson "family" member to secure freedom solely for good behavior.

Brown has 30 days -- or until March 3 -- to either modify, affirm or reverse the parole board's recommendation, a corrections spokeswoman said.

In 2010, Davis secured his first formal recommendation for parole by the state board, but then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reversed the board's decision.

Davis was sent to prison on April 21, 1972, for the 1969 first-degree murders of musician Gary Hinman and stuntman Donald "Shorty" Shea. Davis is serving a life sentence.

Michael Beckman, Davis' attorney, urged Brown to grant parole.

If the case were not connected to Charles Manson, Davis would have already been released by now, Beckman said. He called it "not fair."

"He earned it," Beckman said.

"I think the governor should respect the work by his parole board. That hearing took five or six hours. They took into account everything about Bruce. And they didn't grant him parole as a favor. They didn't grant him parole on a whim. They considered it very carefully," Beckman said.

In 2010, the parole board said that Davis had not been disciplined since 1980 and participated in all available education, vocation and self-help programs.

Davis is one of several imprisoned followers of Manson, 78, who is serving a life sentence for nine murders.

Manson led his "family" of followers in a deadly spree in 1969, whose victims included eight-months-pregnant actress Sharon Tate.

Last year, Manson was denied parole for the 12th time.

Manson, whose gruesome killings inspired the best-selling book "Helter Skelter," will be up for parole again 15 years from now, when he would be 92.

Search Dog Finds Potential Evidence in "Black Dahlia" Murder

Steve Hodel cannot let go.

And so he returned to a distinctive Hollywood mansion with another ex-cop, Paul Dostie, and Dostie's search dog, Buster. Hodel had a mission for them.

In his book "Black Dahlia Avenger," the retired LAPD detective and best-selling author convinced many skeptics that he had solved the gruesome 1947 murder that became LA's perhaps most notorious cold case.

The body of Elizabeth Short, 22, had been severed in two with surgical skill and technique, leading investigators to conclude early on that the killer likely had medical school training.

That killer, Steve Hodel ultimately concluded, was his late father, George Hodel, MD.

What's more, because there was no trace of blood in the empty Leimert Park lot where the remains were found, detectives realized she must have been killed elsewhere.

That elsewhere, Hodel concluded, was the landmark Hollywood mansion where Dr. Hodel made his home, the distinctive "Sowden House" designed on a Mayan theme by famed second-generation architect Lloyd Wright.

Steve Hodel lived there as a child. As he looked into the case, he was able to determine from records that he and his siblings were away with their mother at the time of the Black Dahlia murder.

Hodel marshaled considerable evidence, which was later corroborated after "Black Dahlia Avenger" was published, when the District Attorney Steve Cooley agreed to reopen decades-old case files.

Right at the top was a picture of Dr. Hodel; it turns out he had been the principal suspect. Investigators had even planted a bug in the house to listen for incriminating admissions. But before authorities brought charges, Dr. Hodel abruptly abandoned his family and relocated to Asia.

The likes of Steve Kay, then a head Deputy DA, concluded that Steve Hodel had made the case against his father.

But that wasn't good enough for Steve Hodel, who has continued seeking more evidence in hopes of convincing his former employer, the LAPD, to declare the case officially solved.

So when the opportunity arose to return to the Sowden house with Dostie and Buster, Hodel took it.

The arrangements with the current ownership had been made by producers of a segment for the "Ghost Hunters" program on the SyFy Channel.

Hodel knew that the sounds of blows and a woman's screams had been heard coming from the basement, according to the transcript of what police heard through the bug. The basement had never been finished and when Hodel, Dostie and the SyFy crew went there last November, the floor was still dirt.

With his keen sense of smell, Buster alerted in four locations, indicating he had picked up the scent of human decomposition, faint traces of which can remain for decades, Dostie said.

But is it corroboration? Dostie cannot say for sure. The decomposition of human tissue that Buster detected did not necessarily originate in the basement.

With the house on a slope, it is possible traces may have migrated downslope from the hillside lot above. Labwork may be able to pin down the possibilities. Hodel is waiting for the results.

Dostie and Buster have moved on to other searches, Buster hardly losing a step despite the fact that the black lab was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in a hind leg, which had to be amputated.

READ THE NBC-LA STORY HERE

Thank you Stacey for staying up late to get this!

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& BUSTERS WORK ON THE BLACK DAHLIA CASE