A member of the Charles Manson Family convicted of participating in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders and dying of brain cancer has been denied parole. Susan Atkins was turned down for what will probably be her last chance at parole before she dies.Atkins, 61, slept on a gurney during most of the parole hearing at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.
Atkins is dying of brain cancer. She has had one leg amputated and the other leg is paralyzed. Her husband attorney pleaded for her "compassionate release" so that she could die at home.
In July 2008, after Atkins was first diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and given months to live, the 12-member California Parole Board voted unanimously to deny her compassionate release. Wednesday's hearing was a regularly scheduled parole hearing at the Chowchilla facility.
No Mercy for Sharon Tate
Members of the parole board were reminded Wednesday of Atkins' own words at a 1993 parole hearing, referring to actress Sharon Tate begging Atkins to spare her life and that of her unborn child.
"She asked me to let her baby live," Atkins said. "I told her I didn't have mercy for her."
After stabbing Tate to death, Atkins tasted her blood and used it to write "PIG" on the front door of Tate's house.
She has served 38 years in prison, longer than any other woman currently a prisoner in California. Atkins, nicknamed Sadie Mae Glutz by Manson, was also convicted of the murder of musician Gary Hinman.
See Also:
Manson Follower Susan Atkins Denied Parole
Background:
Profile of Susan Atkins, aka Sadie Mae Glutz
Profile of Charles Manson
The Manson Family Photo Album
Photo: Mug Shot
Comments
Her attorney HUSBAND wants her to die at home? What for? Let her die where she belongs – Prison!! the only other option that I would agree to is just execute her and get it over with!!!!!!!!!!
ABSOLUTLY ………….. JOHNNYDEPPLOVER!!!! and throw Charles Manson in with her!!!
Atkins had no mercy for Sharon and her unborn baby.
Pay backs are a b!tch.
She should be given the same mersy that she gave Sharon and her baby. You know, an eye for an eye. She has liven longer than Sharon and her baby did. I think that is mercy enough.
What happened to Atkins child? I hope he has a good life.
Barbara, hopefully he grew up, changed his name, used his brains and got the hell out of town ! ! !
I thought Atkins was expecting her first child and it died when the mother did.
What’s with the leg amputation? That’s not a side effect of brain damage that I know of?
This happened so long ago. Brain tumor diagnoses have less than a year to live – usually months. Kennedy is the longest survivor that I have ever heard of and his treatment was certainly better than what Atkins could get. I think I’d let her out on parole. I can’t see where keeping her locked up is doing anyone any good and though this article does not say so, I suspect she’s changed a lot over time. I am not the same creature that I was in my youth.
I don’t believe in an eye for an eye – that philosophy will just perpetuate never ending war and if we all followed it, and avenged every slight done to us, the end of humanity. It is an archaic and primitive outlook on the world, but one among many.
She was young and impressionable at the time and I would venture that in many a youth if approached at the right time in development by a charismatic ‘leader’ there could be a tendency to get involved with something that would turn ugly.
I think the whole crew was brainwashed and drugged into thinking they were in some sort of ‘never-never’ land by Manson. The shame was that he could have got away scot free because he was the brain and they just followed his commands.
People can be totally different on drugs. Police say things that would normally work to subdue a human often do not work on those who are drugged up.
Ms Dalton – Think you might be singing a different song had Sharon Tate been your daughter and that baby your grandchild? You’re wrong my friend. Very wrong.
The only compassion shown Susan Atkins was letting her live this long. That was certainly WAY more than she deserved given the animalistic, abhorrent, noncompassionate, merciless, disgusting and inhumanly violent way she slaughtered a pleading pregnant woman. She showed no remorse, and we as a society should give her the same courtesy. She’s raped us of our hard-earned tax dollars for decades, and I for one will be happy to see my money going to important things instead of keeping a degenerate waste of life alive.
Sounds to me that God has already beun her punishment. I hope that she realizes that her illness and suffering are a walk in the park compared to her she will be going once she dies.
She has already been granted compassion and mercy- she wasn’t cut up while she was pregnant, and her blood wasn’t used to spell “PIG” on a wall, actions that have forever etched her crime into the history books. She had no mercy for Tate, or the child, so for what reason should we, under ANY value system (religious, political, etc.) grant mercy? The only truly “merciful” action I think I would be willing to grant her is a bullet right between the eyes….at least then she wouldn’t have to worry about that brain cancer anymore.
I find it curious that many people cite the reason for their approval of continued incarceration is that she showed no mercy to Sharon Tate and therefore no mercy should be shown to her. To claim moral equivalence to Susan Atkins is to claim very little indeed. Surely the very concept of mercy is to give it to those who are defenceless and unworthy.
What goes around comes around. she didn’t show one scrap of compassion for sharon tate and her baby. i am sure she can be kept on the hospital wing until the end in reasonable comfort. i don’t believe in the death penalty normaly but i was very torn over her sentance.
She possibly has diabetes as well?? – Leg amputations are not part of the sequelae of brain cancer.
I hope for her sake that she’s truly repented and received mercy from the truly awesome God (yes he does forgive murderers too). However, society does not owe her “mercy”. She should be kept comfortable with the help of morphine the rest of her days–BEHIND BARS.
To hell with her!
I believe Susan Atkins should continue to be in prison for this reason: She was given “life” in prison when her sentence was commuted from the death penalty. Life, with the possibility of parole. She was denied by the parole board. No reason needed. I wouldn’t even use poor Sharon Tate as the backdrop of why she shouldn’t be released. She was given life…after death…and the case is a done deal. No parole. No “freedom.” Why should there be any other reason other than simple justice.
Susan Atkins has had enough mercy. Roman Polanski and his wife, Jay Sebring and the others probably would have liked to have had the futures that Atkins stole.
Let her die in prison.
Joan Dalton, ARE YOU CRAZY ? ? ? ? ?
One word…….KARMA!
It makes me sick to see how much money is being spent to care for this lying killer when my mother who raised 5 kids, was a devoted military wife from just after WWII untild 1971, and who took care of my father who died from the same cancer she has is struggling to get to appointments, and I am her 45 y.o. son and I am taking care of her alone. Any help I get I pay for. Atkins and her atty. husband are not paying for anything. My mom never hurt anyone. I say that Ca. should just kill Atkins how is not important to me, or at the very least, give her a little morphine in the prison hospital and let her die there, and take the millions they are spending for her health care, they should use that money to find a cure for this awful disease. Atkins is a worthless killer and not worthy of the attention or care she is getting. To hell with her. IF my family had the millions spent on Atkins, maybe our mother would not be suffering now, and keep getting bad news every time she see’s her Dr. Keep Atkins in prison and stop all of the expensive care she is getting. Let the animal die.
wife from doing what they did! The registry laws, and especially the residency / work place restrictions, have done far more harm than good. Forget about all the cases of vigilantism and suicide; forget about the fact that while these laws are proposed to protect the children, they include children, while a huge percentage of those on the list committed crimes that had nothing to do with children; forget about the fact that study after study has proven these laws not only are ineffective, but have actually made matters worse. Forget about the fact that upon release from custody, registered sex offenders have one of the lowest recidivism rates, not the highest. In fact those who receive counseling and treatment have outstanding records versus those convicted of other violent crimes! The fact is the registry and any restrictions should be limited to those who are proven child molesters and pedophiles; that Law Enforcement could handle and monitor effectively. Do you seriously believe a committed pedophile cannot walk or drive 500, 1000, 2500, 5000 feet or more? Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted miles from where Philip Garrido lived!
I am sure we will see comments from hysterical, uninformed individual(s) who will suggest that all those on the registry should be locked up for life or worse and say there is no rehabilitation for these people. And for a few they are right, we need to focus on those! Once a person has done their time, that should be it. That is the foundation of this great country and its legal system. Don’t like it, move to China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, or wherever individual rights are ignored. If a person is a pedophile, lock them up for a long time and provide treatment. Treatment not working, keep them locked up. Many families are being destroyed for political expediency, children of those on the registry are being abused and ostracized at school. Whole families are forced into isolation and restricted from the work place. If the registry is to truly protect the children, then let’s focus on the pedophiles and child molesters’. Get rid of the residency/work place restrictions, focus on the loitering laws. Let the rest on the registry re-assimilate into society after they have done their time, become solid, productive citizens; part of the solution not the problem. The facts, (and the Garrido case) as well as virtually all of the research, and study after study have proven what we are doing now, mostly for political expediency and to appease hysterical uninformed parents is not working and is in fact making matters worse!
If there is a hell then this woman is going there.
She murdered three people – it doesn’t matter how much she’s changed she SHOULD and WILL die in prison.
Mrs Dalton,
You’re either an uber liberal or a complete idiot.
I think you’re the latter.
What can we do with a person like that? Only the dead can really say. Thing is, they’re not around to ask. I’ve done “very” bad things myself and I want God, and those I’ve grievously harmed, to forgive me because I am a different person.
God should have invented Heaven and said, “Screw everything else that’s even remotely bad. From now on Heaven will be every living creature’s reality.”
But God didn’t say that. And he didn’t build reality like that. So I say again, it’s up to the dead, and the soul of a criminal, to really know if forgiveness is warranted. Am I right?
Susan Atkins should be allowed home she has spent 38 yrs in prison for her crime,she is no danger to the public and as many of you pointed out she showed Sharon tate no mercy which makes her an animal but what does it make us?not to allow this woman who has maybe weeks to live home to die,she has paid for what she did to Sharon and her unborn child..What a lot of people fail to remember is Susan and the others were also victims Charles Manson had there minds warped he was more to blame for what happened than Susan and the others,,And b4 anyone asks YES i would still feel the same if it had been my daughter and grand child.We should show this woman mercy and allow her home simply because we are not like the Susan Atkins of the world we can and do show mercy not to show her mercy is to be as bad if not worse than her..Susan is not the same person today she was 38 yrs ago that person died along time ago in prison let her home for the short time she has left to die she cant harm anyone..If susan was your daughter would you still feel the same about her dying in prison no i dont think you would you would be shouting that she has paid for what she did and asking for compassion..
When Atkins, Tex and the Manson Family committed the murders of Sharon Tate, her unborn son Paul and several others that day, they raped all society of a level of innocence. To torture and murder a pleading pregnant woman begging for her childs life is beyond comprehension. It is for that reason more than revenge, justice or even the barbaric crime, that they must all die in jail. A shower of manure would fall on any politician that would grant any of them parole, ever.
What the hell kind of mental cases are marrying and/or having children with these people? Some crimes should never allow congical visits – and these warped people should have been sterilised!
Wonder what the after life holds for this tormented twisted soul… ? Drugs do NOT make people commit crimes. The seed is already there, the drugs just give them the confidence to complete the mission…
Anyone who prescribes mercy for this vicious killer has obviously never been the victim of a violent crime. If it had been YOUR daughter they did that to I doubt you would be so anxious to see her out in society. So she’s dying, so what? She didn’t care that a very pregnant, innocent woman was dying due to her own actions, as well as other undeserving victims, so why should she have mercy? If you don’t believe in an eye for an eye, how about what goes around comes around? Or, you reap what you sow? What you put out there eventually comes back to you and no one can argue with that!
I met Sharon Tate in 1962 on three occasions.
I was 13 and she said I reminded her of her sister.
She was so kind, so nice and so incredibly beautiful.
If I could pull a switch to execute Atkins and
those deplorable monsters in co-conspiracy, I would.
She didn’t deserve to be released nor do the rest of the
monsters.
May she burn in hell for all eternity.
I understand that there are some things that people do when they are young and impressionable that you can say they are just young but this is not one of them. She did not rob a corner store she killed a pregnant woman and wrote on the wall with her blood. Why are they even wasting time hearing a parole on this woman, she should be dead.