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. She was 61 and had brain cancer.
Atkins, who eventually came to call the crimes a sin, died late Thursday, according to the California Department of Corrections.
Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said that at the time of Atkins' death she had been in prison longer than any woman currently incarcerated in California.
Sounds okey dokey to me, but then I am rather heartless...
Atkins' final chance at freedom was denied on Sept. 2. 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.
Atkins was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008, had a leg amputated and was given only a few months to live. She underwent brain surgery, and in her last months was paralyzed and had difficulty speaking.
Atkins was the first of the convicted killers to die. Manson and three others involved in the murders -- Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and Charles "Tex" Watson -- remain imprisoned under life sentences.
Atkins, who confessed from the witness stand during her trial, had apologized for her acts numerous times over the years. But 40 years after the murders, she learned that few had forgotten or forgiven what she and other members of the cult had done.
Atkins 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. Supreme Court in the 1970s.
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. "I don't have to just make amends to the victims and families," she said softly. "I have to make amends to society. I sinned against God and everything this country stands for." She said she had found redemption in Christianity.
He gave her a cult name, Sadie Mae Glutz, and, when she became pregnant by a "family" member, he helped deliver the baby boy, naming it Zezozoze Zadfrack. His whereabouts are unknown.
The Manson slayings remained unsolved for three months, until Atkins confessed to a cellmate following her arrest on an unrelated charge. Police found Manson and other cult members living in a ranch commune in Death Valley, outside Los Angeles.
Atkins married twice while in prison. Her first husband, Donald Lee Laisure, purported to be an eccentric Texas millionaire. They quickly divorced. Whitehouse, her second husband, is a Harvard Law School graduate and had recently served as one of her attorneys.
| May some good end up coming from all of this. |
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