MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. -- The warden of the West Virginia Penitentiary doesn't want anything to do with convicted killer Charles Manson.
Manson is serving a life term in a California prison for his role in a series of killings in 1969, including actress Sharon Tate.
Last week he wrote a letter to warden Donald Bordenkircher asking to be accepted as a transfer from the Vacaville Medical Facility.
'My reaction was that I laughed, and I said, 'It will be a cold day in hell,'' Bordenkircher said.
'He apparently grew up in the Benwood-McMechen area, which is just a few miles from here. Some of his relatives did time in the facility here, and he said they helped build a lot of the roads in the area. He just wanted to carry on the family tradition, I guess.'
California law allows for transfer of prisoners to other states. But West Virginia authorities aren't allowed to accept transfers, nor is Bordenkircher partial to the idea.
'I've had a taste of that,' he said. 'They'll throw ringers in on you, clean a man up so he looks like Little Lord Fauntleroy. Before you know it, you've got a wildman on your hands. We have our own problems without taking anybody else's.'
Manson is in administrative segregation in California for various disciplinary violations, including possession of a 100-foot rope and a prison guard's uniform in his cell.
But he wrote Bordenkircher that he has mended his ways.
'The California prison people had me in the hole for 14 years ... I got nine live (life sentences) and don't want no more,' Manson wrote. 'I am a good worker and I give you my word I'll start NO trouble.'
