Charles Manson receives license to tie the knot behind bars

Convicted mass murderer Charles Manson has received permission to get married behind bars, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed on Monday.

Terry Thornton said Manson, who turned 80 on November 12, was issued a marriage license by Kings County in the state of California, where he is serving a life sentence at the maximum security California State Prison, Corcoran.

Afton Elaine Burton, his to-be-wife, told the Associated Press that she intended to marry him next month.

"Y'all can know that it's true. It's going to happen," she said, adding, "I love him. I'm with him."

The 26-year-old Burton goes by the name of "Star" and maintains several websites advocating for the lifer's innocence. She said she was interested in helping him get released from prison, and that she, as his spouse, could gain access to certain information in his file in order to help him. "There's certain things next of kin can do," she said.

Regarding a December 2013 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, in which Burton made public their plans to tie the knot, Manson responded, saying, "That's trash. We're playing that for public consumption."

When asked about last year's interview, Burton said "none of that's true."

Should Manson marry - a privilege granted to some inmates in ceremonies carried out the first Saturday of every month - he would not be allowed to consummate the marriage with a conjugal visit, said Thornton, as he has not been granted a parole date. Manson would not be eligible for parole until 2027.

Mansion became notorious in the late 1960s when he led a cult of mostly young women to commit gruesome murders, the most high-profile of which was the stabbing death of Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, in 1969, along with four house guests.

sb/av (AP, Reuters, dpa)