High-tech search for bodies to begin at former Manson ranch

Using technology not available 40 years ago, forensic specialists and detectives will beginexcavating the former California ranch of Charles Manson, looking for bodies that may be buried there.

Along with the help ofold-fashioned shovels, searchers will scour an areaof the Panamint Mountainrangeusing radar, magnetometers and portable gas-chromatograph and mass spectrometers that can detect chemical markers characteristic of bodies in decomposition.

The search comesafter agroupthat included a police investigator with a cadaver-sniffing dog and an anthropologist with a magnetic resonance readerfoundtwo sites that could be graves last February.

After further soil sampling revealed inconsistent results, Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze agreed to the exploratory excavation of the ranch. Manson and his followers hid there following the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

For years there have been rumours that hitchhikers and runaways who ended up at the camp may have also been victims.

The expedition is expected to last through Thursday.

Manson is serving a life sentence at Corcoran State Prison.