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-Short Attention Span Theater-
40 years after Manson murders, a bid for parole
2009-06-06
The woman who stabbed pregnant actress Sharon Tate to death will be considered for parole from prison a month after the 40th anniversary of the killings that cast a shadow of fear over southern California.

Susan Atkins, 61, has been denied parole in 17 previous hearings, but the former "Manson Family" member now is terminally ill with brain cancer and is paralyzed.
Yes, but she's still more alive than Sharon Tate. And her baby.
Charles Manson used his hypnotic powers to direct Atkins and other "family" members to kill seven people, including the pregnant Tate, in a two-night rampage that terrorized the city of Los Angeles, California, in August 1969.

Atkins -- who was initially sentenced to death along with Manson and three others -- will have her 18th parole hearing on September 2, according to a spokesman with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In July of last year, Atkins -- California's longest-serving female inmate -- was denied a compassionate release in a unanimous decision by the California Board of Parole Hearings.

She has repeatedly been described as a model prisoner who has accepted responsibility for her role in the slayings, and she now shuns Manson.

By her own admission, Atkins held Tate down as she pleaded for mercy and stabbed the pregnant woman 16 times. In a 1993 parole board hearing, Atkins said Tate "asked me to let her baby live. ... I told her I didn't have any mercy on her."

After stabbing Tate to death, according to historical accounts of the murders, Atkins scrawled the word "pig" in blood on the door of the home Tate shared with her husband, director Roman Polanski. Polanski was not home at the time, but three of Tate's house guests were also slain by the killers, as was a teenager who was visiting the home's caretaker in his nearby cottage.

A Web site maintained by her husband and attorney, James Whitehouse, says Atkins is now paralyzed over 85 percent of her body and cannot sit up in bed or even be moved into a wheelchair.

However, despite her declining condition and her impressive prison record, the site says, "there is still a very real chance the Parole Board will nonetheless insist her release would be a danger to society."
Who cares?
Atkins' compassionate release was opposed by Tate's sister, Debra, Los Angeles County prosecutors and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others. However, the former prosecutor who won her conviction, Vincent Bugliosi, said he supports Atkins' request for release.

"She has paid substantially, though not completely, for her horrendous crimes," Bugliosi told the Los Angeles Times last year. "Paying completely would mean imposing the death penalty."
Or dying flat on her back in a prison bed. Paralyzed. Staring at a picture of Sharon Tate's dead body taped to the ceiling above her.
Bugliosi is the author of several books on the Manson case, including "Helter Skelter."

Debra Tate told CNN in an e-mail in March that she does not believe any Manson family member convicted of murder should ever be set free, saying the slayings were "so vicious, so inhumane, so depraved, that there is no turning back."

"The 'Manson Family' murderers are sociopaths, and from that, they can never be rehabilitated," Debra Tate said. "They should all stay right where they are -- in prison -- until they die. There will never be true justice for my sister Sharon and the other victims of the 'Manson Family.' Keeping the murderers in prison is the least we, as a society who values justice, can do."

In a manuscript posted on her Web site, Atkins, who was known within the Manson family as Sadie Mae Glutz, wrote that "this is the past I have to live with, and I have to live with it every day."

"Unlike the reader, or the people who seem to think Charles Manson was cool, I can't think about it for an hour or so and then go on with my life. Just like the families and friends of the victims, this is with me every day. I have to wake up every day with this and no matter what I do for the rest of my life and no matter how much I give back to the community I will never be able to replace what my crime took away. And that's not 'neat,' and that's not 'cool.'"

Atkins was housed in the California Institution for Women at Frontera until May 2008, when her declining health caused her to be moved to Central California Women's Facility at Chowchilla.

Manson and those convicted along with him in the murders -- Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and Charles "Tex" Watson -- have been in California prisons for more than three decades.

All were initially sentenced to death, only to have their sentences commuted to life in prison when the Supreme Court struck down death penalty laws in 1972, establishing a four-year moratorium on executions. Van Houten was released for six months after her conviction was overturned, but was reconvicted.
Posted by:gorb

#14  Release her to Gitmo.
Posted by: JohnQC   2009-06-06 19:24  

#13  she now shuns Manson.

Well, considering they are in different prisons, that's not that hard to do.
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie   2009-06-06 17:29  

#12  sorry - I don't agree, OP. Let her feel it all the way to her judgement day

/cold-hearted bastard
Posted by: Frank G   2009-06-06 16:02  

#11  I can't but have sympathy with anyone in constant pain. Give her as much morphine as she wants. If she ODs, well, that's how things go. If I were her, I'd probably be BEGGING to die.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2009-06-06 15:47  

#10  Nah she'd shoot a guard, and this shit starts all over, just let her lie there and rot.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2009-06-06 14:41  

#9  Give her a pistol, one round of bullet and tell her to do the right thing.
Posted by: Besoeker   2009-06-06 13:29  

#8  At this point, it is just a money thing. Prison care costs more than hospice care.

Actually, they might turn this to their advantage. Legalize euthanasia for such people. So even though they didn't get executed for their crimes, there would still be a chance that they could get executed. Win-win.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2009-06-06 13:27  

#7  ......where have I seen that lately?

Days of Our Lives? Passions? General Hospital? One Live to Live? As the World Turns? I give up.
Posted by: Large Gleresh2641   2009-06-06 13:26  

#6  Seems to me that the prison doesn't want to pay to keep her on meds, I say keep her until dead.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2009-06-06 12:47  

#5  A visit to her website reveals that Susan has a love of art and would like to share it with her readers. Absent is her most famous work, "PIG".
Posted by: Sheba Phush7028   2009-06-06 09:07  

#4   I can't think about it for an hour or so and then go on with my life. Just like the families and friends of the victims, this is with me every day. I have to wake up every day with this and no matter what I do for the rest of my life

Well as least you get to wake up every day - unlike Sharon Tate. And Sharon's baby didn't get to wake up [in the world] even once.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2009-06-06 08:35  

#3  Excellent no mo, excellent!
Posted by: Besoeker   2009-06-06 08:07  

#2  Let's see, young single women taken in by hypnotic powers to sign onto a bad agenda..........

......where have I seen that lately?
Posted by: no mo uro   2009-06-06 06:41  

#1  Charles Manson used his hypnotic powers to direct Atkins and other "family" members to kill seven people

It is hard enough to take CNN seriously without them writing prattle like this.
Posted by: Free Radical   2009-06-06 06:25  

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