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Charles Manson follower Bruce Davis approved for parole

Charles Manson follower Bruce Davis won his California parole board hearing on Wednesday, opening a potential path to freedom for the 71-year-old killer.

The board’s granting of parole triggered a 120-day review process that’ll eventually end on the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown.

Davis has won parole-board recommendation for release twice before, only to have his bids for freedom terminated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010 and by Brown last year.

Stephen Kay, a retired Los Angeles deputy DA who prosecuted Davis, said the killer doesn’t deserve to see the light of day.

“He shouldn’t be allowed out,” Kay told The Post today. “He was Manson’s chief lieutenant of the family. Whenever Manson was away, he’d place Davis in charge.”

A spokesman for Brown declined immediate comment on Davis’ potential release.

“We hope [Gov. Brown] won’t play politics this time and do the right thing,” Davis’ lawyer Michael Beckman told The Tribune of San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Davis was convicted in 1972 for the 1969 murders of music teacher Gary Hinman and stunt man Donald “Shorty” Shea.

Hinman was killed because Manson’s followers believed the musician had family money and he when wouldn’t fork it up, he was killed, according to Kay.

Shea was a ranch hand, who Manson followers believed was going to rat them out, Kay said.

Davis, however, was not with Manson followers when they carried out the cult’s most infamous slaughters – those of supermarket owners Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and actress Sharon Tate in summer 1969.

Manson, 79, is now rotting away at Corcoran State Prison. He’s been denied parole 12 times.

The crazed cult leader will be back in front of a parole board when he’s 92.

Davis’ accomplice in the Shea slaying, Steve “Clem” Grogan, won his freedom in 1985. Grogan got favorable treatment from authorities because he led LA County Sheriff’s deputies to Shea’s body.

Grogan remains the only Manson follower to ever win parole.