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Susan Atkins (aka
Sadie Mae Glutz)
As a young teen, Susan Atkins sang in her
church choir
in San Jose, California and nursed her mother, who was dying of
cancer.
After her mother's death, however, her life went seriously off
course.
She fought with her father, dropped out of high school, and moved
to San Francisco where she became a topless dancer, hustler, and gun
moll.
While living in San Francisco's
Haight-Ashbury district
in 1967, Atkins met Charles Manson. In her grand jury
testimony,
Atkins said Manson "gave me the faith in myself to be able to know that
I am a women....I gave myself to him." Atkins said there was "no
limit" to what she would do for "the only complete man I have ever
met."
To Atkins, Manson "represented a Jesus Christ-like person."
Atkins spent a year-and-a-half
traveling around
the Southwest with other Manson Family members on an old school
bus,
taking lots of LSD, and practicing free love with Manson Family members
of both sexes. In 1968, she bore a child, who Manson helped
deliver,
named Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz. Atkins moved into the Family's
Spahn
Ranch in 1969. On August 8 of that year, she obeyed
Manson's
order to join in the what would be the bloody attack that left five
dead
at the home of actress Sharon Tate. Atkins later admitted
stabbing
Voytek Frykowski and holding down Tate while she was stabbed repeatedly
by Tex Watson. She also said she wrote "PIG" using Tate's blood
on
a door of the residence.
While being held on other charges in 1969,
Atkins explained
her decision to participate in the massacre at the Tate residence to
another
inmate, Virginia Graham: "You have to have real love in your heart to
do
this for people."
The LAPD proposed granting Atkins
prosecutorial immunity
in return for her testimony that could convict Manson and other Family
members. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi objected, saying "We don't
give
that gal anything!" In the end, the prosecution offered not to
seek
the death penalty in return for her trial testimony--an offer which
Atkins,
after testifying before the Grand Jury, refused.
Atkins, then twenty-two, was
convicted of first-degree
murder and sentenced to death in 1970. Her sentence was reduced
to
life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court declared the
state's
death penalty unconstitutional.
Atkins continues to reside at this writing
at the California
Institution for Women in Frontero. In September 1974, Atkins said
her cell door opened and "a brilliant light poured over her."
Describing
the experience in her 1977 book Child of Satan, Child of God,
Atkins
said she believed the light was Jesus, telling her she had been
forgiven.
Although Atkins has had an exemplary prison
record, she was never paroled and died of brain cancer on September 24,
2009. She was 61.
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Leslie Van Houten
A psychiatrist, after evaluating Leslie Van
Houten,
described her as "a psychologically loaded gun which went off as a
consequence
of the complex intermeshing of highly unlikely and bizarre
circumstances."
The psychiatrist saw Van Houten as "a spoiled little princess" who,
from
childhood on, was impulsive, easily frustrated, and prone to displays
of
temper. She admitted, for example, to having beaten her adopted
sister
with
a shoe.
Although described as being the least
committed to
Manson of the three female defendants, Van Houten nonetheless agreed to
participate in the murderous raid on the LaBianca home on August 10,
1969.
She helped hold down Rosemary LaBianca while Tex Watson stabbed her to
death. In a November 1969 interview with police, Van Houten
admitted
to knowledge of the Tate-LaBianca murders, but denied
participation.
Van Houten's first attorney, Donald
Barnett, was dismissed
after crossing Manson. Her second lawyer, Marvin Part, wanted to
show that Van Houten was "insane in a way that is almost science
fiction."
Part saw her crime as influenced by LSD and Charles Manson, but
Van
Houten saw it differently: "I was influenced by the war in Viet
Nam
and TV." At Manson's urging, Van Houten fired Part and yet
another
attorney was appointed. When Van Houten's third attorney, Ronald
Hughes, also began pursuing a strategy that ran counter to that favored
by Manson (Manson opposed any strategy that suggested the other
defendants
acted under his influence), the Family had him killed. No one has
ever been charged with his murder.
Van Houten's first-degreee murder
conviction in the
Tate-LaBianca trial was overturned by a state appellate court in 1976
on
the ground that Judge Older erred in not granting Van Houten's motion
for
a mistrial following the disappearance of attorney
Ronald Hughes. In her first re-trial,
the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Released on bond for a
few
months, Van Houten lived with a former writer for the Christian
Science
Monitor. She was tried a third time in 1978 and convicted of
first-degree murder after the jury rejected her defense of diminished
capacity
as the result of prolonged use of hallucinogenic drugs.
In prison at the California Institution for
Women ,
Van Houten accepted responsibility for her crime: "Being a follower
does
not excuse." She earned a degree from a correspondence school
(with
a major in English Lit), edited the prison paper, sewed for the
homeless,
and wrote short stories. Although no one could find fault with
her
prison record, she was again denied parole in 2002. Van Houten's
life in prison is described in a recent book by Karlene Faith, The
Long
Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten (2001).
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Patricia Krenwinkel
("Katie")
In September 1967, twenty-year-old Patricia
Krenwinkel
joined the Family, leaving behind her Manhattan Beach apartment, her
car,
her job, and even her last paycheck. She joined many other Family
members on a drug-and-sex-filled eighteen-month tour of the American
West
in an old school bus, before settling into Spahn ranch in
1969.
At her sentencing, Krenwinkel idealized the Family's early days:
"We were just like wood nymphs and wood creatures. We would run
through
the woods with flowers in our hair, and Charles would have a small
flute."
In August 1969, Krenwinkel participated in
the murders
at the Tate and LaBianca residences. At the Tate home, Krenwinkel
dragged Abigail Folger from her bedroom to the living room, fought with
her, and stabbed her. Later she would say, "I stabbed her and I
kept
stabbing her." Asked about how it felt, she replied, "Nothing--I
mean, what is there to describe? It was just there, and it was
right."
The next night, Krenwinkel stabbed Rosemary LaBianca and carved the
word
"WAR" on Leno LaBianca's stomach.
Krenwinkel was arrested near her aunt's
home in Mobile,
Alabama on December 1, 1969. Krenwinkel had gone to Alabama, she
said much later, because she feared Manson would find her and kill
her.
In February, she waived extradition proceedings and voluntarily
returned
to California to stand trial with the other defendants. Her trial
attorney, Paul Fitzgerald, offered only a weak defense. At one
point,
Fitzgerald suggested that although Krenwinkel's fingerprints were found
inside the Tate home, she might just have been "an invited guest or
friend."
Krenwinkel spent much of the trial drawing doodles of devils and other
satanic figures.
At the California Institution for Women in
Frontero,
Krenwinkel has been a model prisoner. She has, with Leslie Van
Houten,
counseled young drug offenders, completed a course in data processing,
and played on the prison softball team. She has expressed deep
remorse
for her role in the killings. In a 1994 interview broadcast on
ABC,
Krenwinkel said, "I wake up every day and know that I'm a destroyer of
life, and living with that is the most difficult thing of all.
That's
what I deserve--to wake up every morning and know that."
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Charles Manson
Charles Manson was born to a promiscuous
sixteen-year-old
girl named Kathleen Maddox on November 12, 1934 in Cincinnati.
His
presumed father was a "Colonel Scott" of Ashland Kentucky, whom Manson
never met. When Manson was five, his mother received a five-year
sentence for armed robbery, and Manson moved in with his aunt and uncle
in West Virginia. His mother reclaimed him in 1942 when she was
paroled,
but within five years her heavy drinking led to Manson's being placed
in
a caretaking school in Indiana. School officials described young
Manson as moody and suffering a persecution complex--but "likable"
during
those periods he was feeling happy.
At age 13, Manson began his life of crime,
robbing
a grocery store and a casino. For most of the next decade, Manson
was shuffled from one institution to another, usually committing a
series
of crimes during his brief periods of freedom. By age 16, Manson
had been labeled "aggressively antisocial." A prison psychiatrist
described Manson at age 18 as suffering "psychic trauma," but still "an
extremely sensitive boy who has not yet given up in terms of securing
some
love and affection from the world."
Released on parole in 1958, Manson took to
pimping.
In June 1960, Manson was arrested on a Mann Act charge. The Mann
Act charges were dropped, but Manson was given a ten-year sentence for
violating the parole terms relating to an earlier federal conviction
for
forging a Treasury check. Prison records from the early 1960s
show
Manson as having interests in Scientology, drama, softball, croquet,
and--especially
--the guitar. By the mid-1960s, Manson
became
obsessed with the music of the Beatles. When Manson's release
date
came on March 21, 1967, Manson begged authorities to let him stay in
prison,
but he was told they had no power to allow him to do so.
Manson, age 32, headed for San
Francisco and
there gave birth to what would soon be called "The Family."
Manson
became the unquestioned head of the Family. He dominated lives,
even
to the point of telling Family members who they must have sex
with.
To some members of the Family, Manson represented a "Christ-like"
figure.
He encouraged such talk, sometimes asking a Family member, "Don't you
know
who I am?"
Combining ideas taken from the Beatles
White Album
and the Bible's Book of Revelation, Manson developed a bizarre prophecy
that blacks would soon rise up against the white establishment and then
turn to him--having survived the coming "Helter Skelter in an
underground
pleasure dome beneath Death Valley--to lead the newly constituted
nation.
In August 1969, in the hopes of giving Helter Skelter a push, Manson
sent
a team of Family members on their murderous missions to the Tate and
LaBianca
homes.
Convicted and sentenced to death largely on
the evidence
of Family member Linda Kasabian, Manson saw his death sentence commuted
to life in prison following a 1976 California Supreme Court decision
declaring
the state's death penalty law unconstitutional.
In his own testimony at trial, Manson
described himself
as a chameleon-like character: "Charlie never projects
himself....People
see in Charlie their own reflection....Linda Kasabian testified against
me because she saw me as the father she never liked....I do what love
tells
me."
Since his conviction, Manson has been
denied parole
ten times, most recently in 2002. He is given almost no hope of
ever
being released. He currently resides in a maximum security
section
of a state penitentiary in Concoran, California.
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Charles "Tex" Watson
(Tried Separately)
One of Charles "Tex" Watson's former neighbors
in
Collin County, Texas described him as "the boy next door." Watson
was an "A" student in a high school and a sports star. He held
the
state record in the low hurdles. According to his uncle, Watson's
problems started when he began taking drugs in college. In 1966,
he dropped out of college and the next year he was in California, using
and dealing drugs.
Watson joined the "Family" in 1967, and
soon became
Manson's right-hand man. Family member Al Springer told police
that
"Charlie and Tex are the brains out there" on the ranch. Springer
described Watson as "just like a college student." He said
Watson "kept his mouth shut" and enjoyed working on dune buggies.
In August 1969, Watson became the principal
killer
in the Tate-LaBianca murders. Announcing his arrival at the Tate
residence, Watson said, "I am the Devil and I'm here to do the Devil's
business." He shot Steven Parent and Jay Sebring, and stabbed to death
Voytek Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Sharon Tate, and Leno LaBianca.
After the Tate murders, Watson told Manson, "Boy, it sure was helter
skelter."
Watson returned to McKinney, Texas after
the Tate-LaBianca
murders. He was arrested in Texas on November 30, 1969, after
local
police were notified by California investigators that his fingerprints
were found to match a print found on the front door of the Tate
home.
Watson fought extradition to California
long enough
that he was not included among the three defendants tried with
Manson.
Instead, Watson went on trial separately in August 1971. His
defense
attorneys produced eight psychiatrists to prove the glassy-eyed Watson
was insane at the time of the murders--or at least suffered from
severely
diminished capacity. On the witness stand, Watson tried to
portray
himself as Manson's unthinking slave. (He also testified that the
victims at the Tate residence were "running around like chickens with
their
heads cut off.") The jury convicted Watson of first-degree murder.
Watson, who now resides at the Mule Creek
State Prison
in Ione, California, has renounced Manson and expressed "deepest
remorse"
to his "many victims." In 1975, Watson became a born-again
Christian
and, in 1983, an ordained minister. He married a Norwegian wife
and
has three children. In 1978 he co-wrote a book, Will You Die
For
Me?
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