Jun 22 2008
Susan Atkins Has a Brain Tumor
CORONA, Calif. (AP) — California’s director of adult prisons is recommending that former Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer Susan Atkins be denied a compassionate release on the basis of terminal illness.
A prison spokeswoman says director Suzan Hubbard made the decision Wednesday.
Officials at the California Institution for Women had recommended that she be released to die in the care of her family.
The 60-year-old Atkins was held at the facility for decades before a move to a hospital to treat her brain cancer.
Hubbard’s recommendation is advisory. The Board of Parole Hearings must decide whether to take up Atkins’ case, and her original sentencing court in Los Angeles County would make the final decision.
Atkins confessed to killing pregnant actress Sharon Tate during a murderous rampage with other Manson followers in 1969. (Source)
It’s interesting to note that Atkins married twice while in prison. Her current husband graduated from Harvard law in ‘97. She has found God (yawn).
In a recent interview, Vincent Bugliosi, the Manson murders prosecutor, stated: ”Under these unique circumstances, told she has only about six months to live . . . . I don’t have any objection to her being released,” he said. “She has paid substantially, though not completely, for her horrendous crimes. Paying completely would mean imposing the death penalty.”
Bugliosi said his decision to support Atkins’ release wasn’t easy.
“She told me out of her own mouth that Sharon Tate begged for her life, ‘Please let me live, so I can have my baby,’ ” Bugliosi recalled. “And she said, ‘I don’t have mercy for you. . . . You’re going to die.’ And now, she wants mercy?”
