Politics | 06/19/2008 12:45 pm

Manson Murderess Begs for Mercy

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

Susan Atkins in 1969 © AP

In August 1969 she slit the throat of a pregnant woman begging for mercy. Today, she’s hoping she has better luck when asking for the same from the government.

A former member of the Manson family, Susan Atkins, 60, has requested a "compassionate release" from prison on the grounds that she is terminally ill and has less than six months to live, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton told wowOwow.

The Golden State’s longest-serving female inmate, Atkins was convicted in 1969 for the murders of actress Sharon Tate (who was eight months pregnant) and four others. Perhaps the most gripping detail from the case file was that, before leaving the crime scene, Atkins wrote "PIG" in blood on Tate’s front door.

Atkins received the death sentence, which later was commuted to life in prison at the California Institution for Women in Corona, CA, where she remained until she was hospitalized in March. She’s listed in serious condition and, while Thornton declined to comment on her illness, it’s been reported that she has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

According to Thornton, the prison did an evaluation of Atkins’s release request and found that she met the two necessary criteria — she is terminally ill with an incurable condition that would cause death in six months AND she has a supportive family with the means to care of her – to be recommended for review by the corrections department. If the corrections department makes a positive recommendation, the decision then goes to the sentencing court, which will do one of three things: deny the request, recall the original sentence and re-sentence to a lower term (which could result in a full discharge) or recall the original sentence and place her under parole supervision.

The Los Angeles Times’s op-ed says that Atkins should not be granted the release. What are your thoughts on this?

Click here to vote: Are you in favor of the death penalty in the United States?

Read more about: Charles Manson, Law, News, Susan Atkins, Terry Thornton

251 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Mugsy thank you for your kind words. The person who murdered my child and kidnapped my grandchildren got set fee when he went to trial. Very similair to the OJ trial. Police officer lied and caused the jury to let him go……….he ended up suing the City and they settled for $4oo,ooo instead of going back to trial……..Our justice system is very lacking. But we must remember people who commit crimes are not US………..It is very tempting to go for revenge……but what would that make me.

By DonaHowlett on 06/19/2008 7:45 pm

Dona, my heart goes out to you. You are a better woman than I think I’d be, in your situation.

By LorraineBates on 06/20/2008 10:05 am

Dona, I am saddened to read about your families pain. I wish you peace. Knowing that the justice system is truly in need of correction and having served on federal jury duty, as a juror, I would hope that the decision would be upheld. In prison for life should mean just that! Illness is not a get out of jail free card.

By PeggySue on 06/20/2008 7:40 pm

I too am at a loss Dona, but for all it’s foibles and deficiencies, it’s still the rule of law and I have to believe in it or else where are we? back in the jungle? No thank you. Cast the first stone means something to me—a great deal actually. Even if I’m not a Christian.

By Frank Peterson on 06/19/2008 8:13 pm

alert me to replies to my comments

frank-“iI’s still the rule of law’ what are you talking about? the questions was she applied for compassionate release. Do you think it should be granted or not? It is rarely granted. She applied. The Director of CA Prisons denied it. Now it’s up to the Parole Board that’s denied her 17 times to go against the public wishes, the victim’s families wishes, and also set a legal argument for every mass murderer who will die in prison—that they must also be released when ill, and then the question becomes how ill? That’s what happens when you’re found guilty of mass murder, you die in prison. She killed 8 people and a baby, she had a 1 1/2 year trial, sentenced to die for 8 first degree murders, commuted due to a fluke intervention of Supreme Court decision during that time which was reinstated, but couldn’t reinstate the death sentences. She has a right to APPLY for compassionate release, she did, it’s denied. What in the hell are you talking about first stones and back in the jungle and rule of law? Are you people just totally uninformed? She’s had MORE compassion than deserve. She applied for something and was denied. Next step will be denied too, and the one after that. that’s what happens when you mass slaughter innocent people. The law’s the law if you don’t like it work to change it instead of spouting off as if supporting mass murderers of innocents is so noble.

By GetSporty on 06/23/2008 7:27 am

You two make me sick.

By GetSporty on 06/21/2008 6:37 am

That was for Mugsy and Frank and their self-congratulatory glee believing they are so high-minded and making inferences about others ‘principles’ for not wanting a mass murderer of 7 innocent people released to further torment the victims families.

By GetSporty on 06/21/2008 6:42 am

Fluffy, It seems some people think because I chose to let go of my hate that I think She should get out of jail………. I think (as I said before) she’s right where she belongs. Unless you’ve had this kind of horrendous crime committed against your own loved ones you can’t imagine the pain you have to live with on a daily basis………..year after year. My daughter was also just 26 years old………The mother of three children. The murderer kidnapping the two oldest girls……ages 5 and 2. Let me tell you to live for 31 years ‘NOT KNOWING’ is the worst kind of torment. I work very hard to be an understanding person……….but torture and murder is not something I can ever understand. When a crime like this occurs there are more victims than the actual people who are murdered. The list is countless. First the Family…….other relatives……..friends………neighbors……….community……..and people at large who become aware of these horrendous crimes. It goes on and on. I remember how terrified we all were when the Sharon Tate murders happened. Those who think She should be released from prison should show the same kind of sympathy to Sharon’s family……. My family continues to live with this pain forever……..not to say the fear for years that the killer might harm other members of my family. It’s impossible to understand unless you’ve been there. I certainly thank all of you who try to understand and are empathtic to my family and families of other such terrible crimes.

By DonaHowlett on 06/22/2008 10:39 am

Dona— I agree completely with what you said. I also understand what it means to lose family members to horrific events and how that never leaves you. The mercy and compassion are for all the people impacted and for those who lose their lives and not for cold blooded perpetrators of events. I esp dislike the glibness of people who don’t know what they are talking about. Don’t THINK about the impacts on the victims of their events before they spout off. And WORSE if they wish to hold deranged opinions do so while also inferring that others lack their self-congratulatory false sense of high-mindedness and ‘saintly’ compassion and mercy. There can be understanding for how these stupid people ruined their own lives too. They did things that 6 year olds know better not to do and they did these things after careful plotting and thinking, and did them repeatedly. And they got to have lives in a relatively lowscape cushy campus like prison. They received much better than they deserved. Their victims families in one day had their lives forever turned around. They were plunged into a world of bottomless pain and have spent the last three decades missing their loved ones, knowing how they died, living in a media circus and having to fight year after year after each of these animals comes up for parole. And while other people, uninvolved, blithely chime in, “let them go.” Susan Atkins and Tex Watson were the worst of all. Patricia Krinwinkle has the grace to repeatedly say, I wake up everyday and know I am a destroyer, I took away the most precious of all things, life.” To my knowledge, she hasn’t repeatedly tried to be parole. She has tried to redeem herself while also admitting she deserves her fate. And she did spare the caretaker at the Tate residence, and she did return to the ranch and say “they were so young.” But she also got in the car the next day and helped murder the LaBiancas and wrote the messages in their blood. And then they stole cheese and chocolate milk from the residence and went outside and had a snack. I can have a slight amount of compassion for her because she admits in a comprehending way what she did. But she is still where she belongs. Sharon Tate was so excited about that baby. Roman Polonski and her mother and sisters all said no expectant mother was ever (most families think that about their ‘golden girls’) more excited. The baby was taken in a post-mortum c-section. They buried her in a blue Pucci dress and with her baby in her arms…when she would have been in a hospital within days surrounded by flowers, her estactic family and with her baby Paul held up against her, and photos of her shinning happiness in all the papers. Instead the last picture of her is hacked up in a pool of blood in her own living room of the what she referred to as “the Love House.” I do understand the courage and character and understanding it takes to get to where you are Dona, and I admire it. The Atkins request will go to the parole board July 15th….and they WILL listen to what the public thinks. There is a form in an earlier post to send in opinions. She is in a hospital. She has a husband who is an attorney and he sticks by her, She has people in her ‘ministry’ who are supporters. She has more than she deserves and she doesn’t deserve to be let out. The jurisdictional court can overturn the board’s decision. Less than 20% of requests for compassionate early release are approved. By the way, Dona. Sharon Tate’s mother, Doris, her sister Patti, both spent the rest of their lives fighting for the right’s of victims families. Doris Tate founded an prominent group for parents of murdered children, she had legislation passed that won them rights to go to the parole board meetings, etc, and to speak in court. She died of cancer and Patti also did from breast cancer….they are buried with Sharon and her baby. The elder sister, Debra Tate, carries on. Her sister was a sweet, down to earth, generous, loveable totally innocent person viciously murdered for no reason whatsoever as Susan Atkins tauted her and left her in a pool of blood to go back to the ranch and party. And that is but one of 8 (9 including the baby) murders she committed. She should never, ever get out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-AmDViBArY

By GetSporty on 06/22/2008 2:59 pm

Get Sporty, Are you aware that this lashing out at everyone is beginning to sound like you need some counselling for anger management and to overcome your obssession with this particular crime. You haven’t quit sucking the air out of this thread from your very first post. We are intelligent and get your point. It doesn’t mean that we have to agree with you.

By CARose on 06/27/2008 4:30 am

Yeah, right. Maybe the Director of the California Prison System who said NO compassionate release…should sit down and read a novel first. Perhaps that just might change her mind. Maybe THAT could make her forget that this woman butchered 8 innocent people and a baby for NO reason whatsoever, then wished she would have had time to cut out the baby and the victims eyes, and laughed at their families during the trial, and received a death sentence on 8 counts of first degree murder, and is only alive because her sentence was lessened by a fluke. Am sure the Director of Prisons, all the victims families, and the tens of millions of people across the US and world who’ve read this news and are on blogs, overwhemingly saying NO, will sit down and read a novel and change their mind. Oh, but it doesn’t matter anyway….because now Mugsy says the poor mass murderer should stay in prison where she can be protected against bloggers.

By GetSporty on 06/23/2008 12:53 am

Above was for Mugsy and Frank———-who’d like to dismiss the opinion of the jury, 11 different parole boards, the vast majority of people, law enforcement, the victim’s families, the CA Director of Prisons, the fact of one of the most brutal senseless random horrifying crimes against 8 totally innocent people and a baby etc, the law, etc etc….and have everyone read a novel and then decide what they think.

By GetSporty on 06/23/2008 1:00 am

Mugsy can start by not framing her ridiculous support of mass murderers as ‘principled’ and others who support the victim’s rights as lacking in principle, mercy, compassion…oh and not making a bunch of false statements like the State of California’s #1 industry is prisons….that will also earn a response. What’s interesting is that you don’t even live in this country, you didn’t live near the mass murder, and you didn’t find it simple to side with justice for the victims and their families that have worked for 37 years to keep the mass murderers in prison….while Mugsy would like to undo that and set a legal precident that when murderers are ill—they should get out. If she doesn’t want a response then she can state her opinion without inferring that others that side with the victims families are unprincipled.

By GetSporty on 06/23/2008 4:03 pm