Susan atkins
Susan Denise Atkins was born May 7, 1948, in the Los Angeles suburb of San Gabriel. When she fell ill, she was moved to a medical unit at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. She spent 37 years in the California Institution for Women at Frontera. The last words she spoke in public at the September hearing were to say in unison with her husband: “My God is an amazing God.” I sinned against God and everything this country stands for.” She said she had found redemption in Christianity. “I don’t have to just make amends to the victims and families,” she said softly. The matronly, gray-haired Atkins who appeared before a parole board in 2000 cut a far different figure than that of the cocky young defendant some 30 years earlier. It was right then and I still believe it was right.” Asked how it could be right to kill, she replied in a dreamy voice, “How can it not be right when it’s done with love?” She said she felt “no guilt for what I’ve done. “She kept begging and pleading and begging and pleading and I got sick of listening to it, so I stabbed her.” “I don’t know how many times I stabbed (Tate) and I don’t know why I stabbed her,” she said. “I was stoned, man, stoned on acid,” Atkins testified during the trial’s penalty phase. “Helter Skelter” was written in blood on the refrigerator. The next night, a wealthy grocer and his wife were found stabbed to death in their home across town. He was not home, but Tate, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and four others were killed.
They went to the home of Tate and her husband. One night in August 1969, Manson dispatched Atkins and others to a wealthy residential section of Los Angeles, telling them, as they recalled, to “do something witchy.”
Susan atkins trial#
Watson had a separate trial and was convicted.
They tried to absolve Manson, the ex-convict who had gathered a “family” of dropouts and runaways to a ranch outside Los Angeles, where he cast himself as the Messiah and led them in an aberrant lifestyle fueled by drugs and communal sex. But once they were convicted, the so-called “Manson girls” confessed in graphic detail. Supreme Court in the 1970s.ĭuring the sensational 10-month trial, Atkins, Manson and co-defendants Krenwinkel and Van Houten maintained their innocence. 2 that she “will pray for (Atkins’) soul when she draws her last breath, but until then I think she should remain in this controlled situation.” Debra Tate noted that she would have a 40-year-old nephew if her sister had lived.Ītkins’ prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, had spoken out earlier in favor of release, saying the mercy requested was “minuscule” because Atkins was on her deathbed.Ītkins and her co-defendants were originally sentenced to death but their sentences were reduced to life in prison when capital punishment was briefly outlawed by the U.S. But 40 years after the murders, she learned that few had forgotten or forgiven what she and other members of the cult had done.ĭebra Tate, the slain actress’ younger sister, told the parole commissioners Sept. She underwent brain surgery, and in her last months was paralyzed and had difficulty speaking.Ītkins, who confessed from the witness stand during her trial, had apologized for her acts numerous times over the years. Terminally ill, she was brought to a parole board hearing on a gurney and slept through most of it, but managed to recite religious verse with the help of her husband, attorney James Whitehouse.Ītkins was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008, had a leg amputated and was given only a few months to live. She was 61 and had brain cancer.Ītkins, who eventually came to call the crimes a sin, died late Thursday, according to the California Department of Corrections.Ĭorrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said that at the time of Atkins’ death she had been in prison longer than any woman currently incarcerated in California.Ītkins’ final chance at freedom was denied on Sept. Susan Atkins, a member of the Charles Manson “family” who admitted ruthlessly stabbing pregnant actress Sharon Tate to death in the cult’s 1969 murder spree, has died in prison less than a month after a parole board turned down a bid for compassionate release.