Susan Atkins, the follower of Charles Manson and the murderer of the pregnant Sharon Tate, is dead. The news account of her death tells quite a story, going from unimaginable depravity to the Cross:
One night in August 1969, Manson dispatched Atkins and others to a wealthy residential section of Los Angeles, telling them, as they recalled, to “do something witchy.”
They went to the home of Tate and her husband. He was not home, but Tate, who was 8{ months pregnant, and four others were killed. “Pigs” was scrawled on a door in blood.
The next night, a wealthy grocer and his wife were found stabbed to death in their home across town. “Helter Skelter” was written in blood on the refrigerator.
“I was stoned, man, stoned on acid,” Atkins testified during the trial’s penalty phase.
“I don’t know how many times I stabbed (Tate) and I don’t know why I stabbed her,” she said. “She kept begging and pleading and begging and pleading and I got sick of listening to it, so I stabbed her.”