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Ex-Manson follower Susan Atkins dies

(CNN) -- Susan Denise Atkins, a former member of the Manson family who killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate during a two-day killing spree in 1969, has died, according to a California corrections spokesman. She was 61.

Atkins died at 11:46 p.m. PT Thursday (2:46 a.m. Friday ET) at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, said Terry Thornton with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Atkins, California's longest-serving female inmate, was suffering from terminal brain cancer. Since she entered prison in 1971, she became a born-again Christian who worked to help at-risk youth, victims of violent crimes and homeless children, among others, according to a Web site maintained by her attorney and husband, James Whitehouse.

But Atkins was best known for her actions in 1969 when as a 21-year-old she and other Manson family members participated in seven murdersover two days, a rampage that terrorized Los Angeles.

By her own admission, Atkins held Tate, who was the eight months' pregnant, down as the 26-year-old actress pleaded for mercy, stabbing her 16 times. In a 1993 parole board hearing, Atkins said Tate "asked me to let her baby live. ... I told her I didn't have any mercy on her."

After stabbing Tate to death, Atkins -- known in the family as Sadie Mae Glutz -- scrawled the word "pig" in blood on the door of the home Tate shared with her husband, director Roman Polanski, according to historical accounts of the murders.

Polanski was not home at the time, but three of Tate's houseguests -- Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring and Voytek Frykowski -- were killed. Also slain was teenager Steven Parent, who was visiting the home's caretaker in his cottage out back.

All of those involved -- Manson, Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel and Charles "Tex" Watson -- were convicted in connection with the five deaths that night and the killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the following night. Atkins also was convicted in the earlier murder of music teacher Gary Hinman.

They were all sentenced to death. But their sentences were automatically commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the nation's death penalty laws in 1972.

Atkins' brain cancer was diagnosed in March 2008, Whitehouse wrote on his Web site. On May 15, 2008, doctors predicted she would live less than six months. But she passed that deadline, he wrote, and celebrated her 21st wedding anniversary on December 7.

In July 2008, Atkins requested a "compassionate release" from the California Board of Parole Hearings. It was denied by unanimous decision. Her request was opposed by Tate's sister, Debra, Los Angeles County prosecutors and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others.

Royal_Foxx wrote:I often wonder what would have happened if she had never met Manson.

Mikey wrote:Manson was a very charismatic and influential man, obviously - but someone like this needs both to be easily led, and have a disposition toward the sort of thing in which she became involved.