FOLSOM, Dec. 13 – Folsom Prison officials report that guards thwarted an escape attempt by a member of the Charles Manson clan, the slayer of four highway patrolmen and a convicted robber-rapist.

Prison spokesman Max Price said the three men apparently had been using contraband hacksaw blades for some time to cut through four sets of bars on their maximum security cells.

The escape attempt was discovered, Price said, when a guard noticed tiny steel shavings outside a window of one of the men’s cells last Friday.

Three hacksaw blades later were found in a search of the unit where the men’s cells are, Price added.

Price said the three have heavy escape records. They are:

— Kenneth D. Como, 35, serving five life terms for a series of convictions in Los Angeles in 1971, including armed robbery. At the time of his arrest, Los Angeles police said Como was a member of the “family” of Charles Manson, convicted murderer of actress Sharon Tate and six other persons. The robbery, police said, was part of a plot at that time to get guns to bust Manson out of the Los Angeles County Jail.

— Bobby Davis, 34, convicted in Los Angeles in 1970 of the shootout slayings of four highway patrolmen.

— Gerald Gallant, 35, serving two life terms from Los Angeles for robbery, rape and other charges.

Price said Manson is being held in the same cellblock where the bar cutting incident occurred, but that the convicted mass murderer was not involved.