They were chronically short of money, despite Manson pimping out the women and organising non-lethal burglaries he called "creepy crawlies".Īlthough Bobby Beausoleil carried out the actual killing of Hinman, and Watson, in his later memoir claimed that he, not Atkins, had murdered Sharon Tate, Atkins accepted responsibility, especially after becoming a born-again Christian in 1974, as detailed in her 1978 memoir, Child of Satan, Child of God. "Helter Skelter" may have been the result of his fear of reprisals by the Black Panthers after the family botched a drug scam against a black drug dealer. Manson was worshipped as a guru by his "family", but he was a petty criminal who had spent most of his adult life in prison. The motives for the "Helter Skelter" killings have been debated over the years, most notably in the poet Ed Sanders' seminal The Family, and in Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi, the district attorney who prosecuted the case. When she gave birth to a son in 1968, fathered by another family member, he was called Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz. Manson renamed her Sadie Mae Glutz, partly after the Beatles' "Sexy Sadie". Drifting south to San Francisco, working odd jobs and dancing topless, she met the Manson family and moved to the Spahn Ranch, a former movie set in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Los Angeles, where she slept with Charles "Tex" Watson and then Manson himself on her first two nights in residence. In 1966 she quit school after her previously good academic record deteriorated, and hitched to the Pacific Northwest, where she was arrested as a passenger in a stolen car. Having sold their possessions to pay for his wife's treatment, her father began moving the family while looking for work, and eventually abandoned Susan with her grandparents in Los Banos, where she cared for her younger brother. Both her parents were heavy drinkers, and she claimed to have been abused by a male relative, but her childhood was, on the surface, normal until her mother died of cancer. She ultimately served 38 years behind bars.Susan Denise Atkins was born on in San Gabriel, California, and raised in San Jose. Prison staff supported her 2005 parole bid, but she would be kept imprisoned. ![]() In prison, she became a Christian and denounced Manson. Once, she was arrested and charged while hitchhiking because the car that gave her a ride was stolen. She struggled to look after both herself and her brother and later worked as a topless dancer. Both were in foster care for a time and Atkins dropped out of school after her standards fell. He became an alcoholic and first neglected, then abandoned Atkins and her younger brother. Her mother died of cancer while Atkins was fifteen, her father selling the family's house and all their possessions to pay hospital bills. She was very violent."Įx-chief prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi said that she "had the most unfortunate background," of all the killers except Manson himself. Prosecutor Stephen Kay described her as "the scariest of the Manson girls. ![]() She was denied compassionate release last year and parole earlier this month, with the parole board citing the vicious and remorseless nature of the crimes. In recent years, Atkins had developed cancer which spread, almost totally paralysing her. All convicted killers in the Manson clan were sentenced to death but this was replaced with life imprisonment after the death penalty was abolished in California. Subsequently, her testimony ensured that she, Charles Manson and several others would be convicted of a string of murders in a 10-month trial, including those of heavily pregnant actress Sharon Tate and of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.Ītkins received another murder conviction for the separate killing of Gary Alan Hinman, bringing her total to eight murders. Two fellow inmates reported her to the authorities. It was Atkins who exposed those responsible for the murders after she bragged of her involvement while imprisoned for an unrelated offence. Susan Atkins, a former member of the Manson clan and the longest-serving female prisoner of California, US, has died in prison.
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