Manson Prosecutor: ‘It Would Be Nice If It Would Just Go Away’

Manson Prosecutor: ‘It Would Be Nice If It Would Just Go Away’
Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay holds up a magazine profiling convicted murderer Charles Manson while delivering his closing statement at Manson's parole hearing at San Quentin Prison, Calif., on Feb. 9, 1989. Eric Risberg/AP Photo
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LOS ANGELES—Stephen Kay was a fresh-faced prosecutor just 27 years old and three years out of law school when circumstances handed him the Charles Manson “family” murder case.

Over the next half-century, it would come to define his career and lead to death threats that to this day he worries a Manson sycophant might try to carry out.