Susan Atkins, 61, is dying of brain cancer in Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, California. Her husband attorney pleaded for her release yesterday but was turned down. Atkins will likely die behind bars, where she has spent the last 40 years of her life. Had it not been for the Supreme Court's temporary suspension of the death penalty in the 1970's, Atkins would have already been long dead. She was originally sentenced to death for her part in the Charles Manson ordered murders of Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, the LaBiancas and others.
Sharon Tate, an actress who starred in "The Valley of the Dolls" was eight and a half months pregnant when she was murdered. She pleaded for her life and that of her unborn son, but Susan Atkins stabbed her to death with a butcher knife anyway, telling her "Look bitch, I have no mercy for you."
TruTV describes Sharon's wounds:
Sharon's life was ended by five stab wounds in her chest and back, which penetrated her heart, lungs and liver and caused massive internal hemorrhaging. The remaining eleven wounds simply added insult to her savaged body.
Her little boy, Paul Richard Polanski, died with her.
In her teen years Susan Atkins lived for a time in Cambrian Park, an area of San Jose, California. I lived in Cambrian Park at the same time. She attended Leigh High School and was a classmate of my first wife. My former brother in law shared a study hall with Atkins. He remembers her as quiet, almost invisible.
My current wife's uncle was a prison guard (he's now retired) at San Quentin Prison and once moved Manson from one cell to another. Manson was annoyed with him and threatened to turn him into a sparrow. The aging crackpot imagined that he had magical powers, perhaps as a result of all that LSD he swallowed in the 1960's.
The Manson scum are unfit to draw breath. The Parole Board made the right decision. Atkins should die behind bars. "Look bitch, we have no mercy for you."
More information: the history of Charles Manson and the murders and trial are described at TruTV at this link.
