Former Manson cult member Atkins dies in U.S. prison

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Susan Atkins, a leading member of Charles Manson's violent cult who carried out brutal murders at his behest in 1969, has died in a California prison, state corrections officials said on Friday. She was 61.

Atkins, imprisoned since 1971 for her part in eight Manson murders, had a brain tumor. State corrections officials this month rejected her request to be freed so she would not have to die in prison.

Atkins died at 11:46 p.m. on Thursday, the corrections department said.

"Susan passed away peacefully surrounded by friends and loved ones and the incredible staff at the Skilled Nursing Facility at the Central California Women's Facility," her husband, James Whitehouse, said by e-mail.

"Her last whispered word was 'Amen.' No one (on) the face of the Earth worked as hard as Susan did to right an unrightable wrong," Whitehouse said.

As part of Manson's following of hippies, runaways, criminals and misfits, Atkins once said he could see and hear everything she did. But during her time in prison she denounced Manson, and in 1974 became a Christian in a conversion inspired by correspondence with another former "Manson family" member.

At a 1993 parole hearing, Atkins described her time with the disturbed man who nicknamed her "Sexy Sadie" by saying, "It is almost impossible to understand insanity and that's what I was living with -- insanity."

Atkins was 21 years old when the career criminal Manson dispatched her and other followers to the Beverly Hills home of actress Sharon Tate and film director Roman Polanski on August 9, 1969, with orders to kill. Polanski was out of town but the heavily pregnant Tate and four friends were brutally stabbed, beaten and shot to death. Atkins later said she stabbed Tate after ignoring her pleas for mercy.

MACABRE TRIAL

The next night, Atkins and other cult members went to the home of grocery owner Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and killed them. Atkins did not participate in those slayings.

The brutality and randomness of the murders stunned Southern California and the nation.

Atkins was convicted in 1970 with her guru and two other "Manson girls" -- Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel.

The trial took on a macabre air with graphic descriptions of bloody crime scenes, exploration of Manson's powerful grip on the women and their continued devotion to him. The women disrupted the proceedings with laughter, shaved their heads, carved X's on their foreheads and sang Manson-penned songs.

All four were given death sentences, which were commuted to life when a state court ruling invalidated the death penalty.

Before meeting Manson in 1967, Atkins dropped out of high school, worked as a stripper, did drugs and got in trouble with the law at the dawn of the hippie era.

Her talkative nature implicated the Manson cult. Atkins was being held as a suspect in another slaying and bragged about the Tate-LaBianca case to jailhouse acquaintances, even claiming she had tasted Tate's blood.

Atkins wrote a book, "Child of Satan, Child of God," about her experiences. In 1987, she married Whitehouse, who became a lawyer and represented her at parole hearings.

Atkins was incarcerated for 37 years, longer than any other woman imprisoned in California, a distinction that now passes to Krenwinkle.

(Writing by Will Dunham and Bill Trott, additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb)