LOS ANGELES, Aug. 7 – Randy Starr, a cowboy stunt man and resident at the Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth, died Thursday of meningitis, in Veterans Hospital.

Starr, who was about 55, was one of the chief prosecution witnesses in the Tate-LaBianca murder case.

A foreman at the ranch while Charles Manson’s “family” headquartered there, he was scheduled to testify that the gun used in the killing of actress Sharon Tate and four others in her Benedict Canyon home Aug. 9, 1969, belonged to him.