Charles Manson granted license to marry 26-year-old woman in prison

Manson is currently serving a life sentence for the brutal murders of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate - the wife of director Roman Polanski

(AP)

Charles Manson, the 80-year-old serial killer, is set to marry a 26-year-old woman who has dedicated her young life to absolving him.

A marriage license was issued 10 days ago for him to wed Afton Elaine Burton.

Manson is currently serving a life sentence for the brutal murders of seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate (the late wife of director Roman Polanski), and one unborn child in Los Angeles in 1969.

Burton moved to be nearer to his jail in California nine years previously.

“Y'all can know that it's true... It's going to happen,” she told AP.

“I love him.”

California Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton confirmed the license had been sent to the prison – and that Manson could be permitted to hold a wedding inside the facility.

He and his prospective spouse would also be able to invite up to 10 external guests to the nuptials and an external officiate to perform the ceremony.

The licence will apparently stay valid for the next 90 days.

However, Burton may have some fairly obvious difficulties maintaining the relationship from the other side of the prison bars if the marriage goes ahead.

Manson, a life prisoner, was refused parole by a prison panel in California after a twelfth bid for freedom in 2012. He will not be eligible for parole again until 2027.

As such, he is not entitled to any visits from family members.

But, she says, she would be able to access information that could help his case for parole more easily if she were to officially become a relative of his.

“There's certain things next of kin can do,” she added.

Her sister Deborah is less than impressed with the announcement.

“I think it's insane,” she said. “What would any young woman in her right mind want with an 80-year-old man?”

Or, you know. A neo-Nazi murderer who was originally handed a death sentence after he and three female accomplices brutally stabbed and shot a number of victims in an attempt to start a race war in the late Sixties.

However, the death sentence was overturned after it was temporarily outlawed in California in 1972.

This isn’t the first time Burton has proposed the idea of marriage to Manson, however. In 2013, she gave an interview to Rolling Stone magazine, during which she revealed her nuptial plans.

But Manson called her claims a “bunch of garbage”.

“We're playing that for public consumption,” he added at the time.