Parole panel denies compassionate release for Manson follower Susan Atkins
She has served 37 years for killing actress Sharon Tate and others in 1969. Now doctors give her only months to live.
SACRAMENTO -- — A state parole panel today unanimously denied "compassionate release" for terminally-ill Manson follower Susan Atkins after hearing emotional testimony both for and against her release.
The 12-member State Board of Parole Hearing, as is customary, did not release any explanation for its decision.
Atkins, 60, played a central role in the 1969 slayings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and others in a bloody two-night rampage in the Los Angeles area. She has served 37 years in prison, longer than any other female prisoner, officials said.
Now ill with brain cancer and with one leg amputated and the other paralyzed, Atkins has only months to live, doctors have said.
The petition for Atkins' release had ignited debate about when mercy is appropriate, particularly considering the grisly crimes for which she was convicted. With the rejection by the panel, the process is effectively over, making it highly likely that she will die in custody.
Those backing her release argued unsuccessfully that the cost of keeping Atkins in prison, which is estimated at $1.4 million for medical care and security just since March, should be a factor in favor of releasing her because it would save the state substantial amounts of money.
At the hearing today, Atkins supporters spoke first to the 12-member State Board of Parole Hearing.
"She has without a doubt, she has paid her debt to society," said her niece Sharisse Atkins, 17. "You see her as a part of the Manson family I see her as a part of our family. I hope you can find it in your heart to do the right thing."
Her supporters drew attention at the hearing to former Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's support for Atkins release. In an e-mail this week to Atkins' attorney, Bugliosi wrote that it was wrong to say "just because Susan Atkins showed no mercy to her victims, we therefore are duty-bound to follow her inhumanity and show no mercy to her."
Opponents of Atkins' release disagreed. They spoke today of their memories of learning of the murders and the effects of the killings on their families.
Tate, the wife of film director Roman Polanski, was 8 1/2 months pregnant when she and four others were killed at her hilltop home in Benedict Canyon. The actress, who was stabbed to death, had begged Atkins for her for her life.
"She asked me to let her baby live," Atkins told parole officials in 1993. "I told her I didn't have mercy for her."
