Since Ms. Bennett has ABUNDANTLY shown herself to be a woman of principle, I would bet yes.

Yes.

Sorry - should be “I don’t think so”.

They were NOT on a boatload of drugs when they committed the crimes. They cooly prepared for the killings overtime at the ranch. Learning how to thrust knives in and pull them up to do the maximum damage, swing a bayonet, use guns. The armed themselves with bolt cutters, knives, guns and drove long distances in the dead of night. Four of them together in the instance of the Tate murders, more when they were driving around LA to choose a random house to go in and kill more people, which turned out to be the LaBiancas, both business owners in their pajamas preparing for bed, and having just returned from a boating trip with their grown children. To reach the Tate residence was a long dark drive through a mostly deserted canyon so quiet you could practically ‘hear the ice tinkle in the martini shakers’ of the few residences. They cut the phone wires. They first murdered an 18 year old boy leaving in his car who’d been visiting the caretaker. Tex Watson snuck in a window and they let the women in the front door. He kicked one of the men awake who was asleep on the sofa. Susan Watkins waved at Abagail Folger who was reading a novel in one bedroom and proceeded into the master bedroom where Sharon Tate and the longtime friend of her and Roman Polanski were seated, talking. She hearded then by knifepoint into the living room. When Jay Sebring objected to the order that Sharon Tate should get on the ground face down, 8 1/2 months pregnant, Jay Sebring objected and Tex Watson shot and stabbed him in front of his closest friends. When the Abigail and her boyfriend bolted out the door in fear they were chased down and stabbed dozens of times. So bloody that the police thought Abigail’ nightgown was red when it had been white. Sharon Tate heard and saw everything while she begged for mercy, Susan Atkins taunted her and told her she was going to die, and while she and Tex Watson stabbed her repeatedly she called out for her own mother. There were MANY decisions points in this cold attacked in the planning, in the driving to the residence, there faced with the victims (one of the killers said when they got back to the ranch “they were so young” THEY KNEW what they were doing. They KNEW earlier when they slaughtered the musician, and the next night when they slaughtered the La Biancas. They partied afterwards as their victims lay hacked to death in pools of blood waiting for the housekeeper to discover them in the morning. Waiting for the LaBiancas children to find them the next night. Tex Watson became a “minister” in prison, married and has fathered two children on conjugal visits. He has had free run of the prison where they all are, a one story park-like campus where he leaves to go into town. They escaped death and had their lives. The surviving families paid mightily and spent the intervening three decades in parole board meeting after parole board meeting each separate for each mass-murderer (each convicted for either 7 or 8 murders. the state did not include unborn children at that time. They really killed 9) year after year reliving the gruesomeness of one of the 20th centuries most brutal and senseless and heinous mass murders. The two murderers that Truman Capote wrote about in “In Cold Blood” killed the parents and their two children also awoken in their beds in surprise and senseless attacks. In that case the murderers were soon enough hung. This was three separate events, 8 victims, over 100 family members left behind grieving, the murderers living cushy lives in a college campus like one story prison….escaping their death sentence by a fluke of timing….and putting the surviving families through parole hell year after year. Susan Atkins and Tex Watson were the worst of all, the leaders, the cruelest, the most brutal, the most unmerciful, still the most clueless of the weight of all they’ve done. They deserve absolutely no mercy. They received their parole when they escaped the death sentence that they deserved.

Mugsy—apt choice, The Lottery—and one more truly good post —thank you.