Manson's killer follower dies in jail

Charles Manson cult follower Susan Atkins has died in prison, the first of the remorseless killer’s gang to join their helpless victims.

Atkins, whose remorseless confession to killing pregnant actress Sharon Tate in 1969 shocked the world, was 61 and had been suffering from brain cancer.

Her death came less than a month after a Los Angeles parole board turned down the terminally ill woman’s last chance at freedom.

Atkins died late last night. She had been diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008, had a leg amputated and was given only a few months to live.

Tate, the 26-year-old actress who appeared in the film “Valley of the Dolls” and the wife of director Roman Polanski, was one of seven murdered in two Los Angeles homes during the Manson cult’s bloody rampage in August 1969.

Manson and three others involved in the murders – Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and Charles “Tex” Watson – remain in prison under life sentences.

Atkins apologised for her acts numerous times over the years but few had forgotten or forgiven what she and other members of the cult did.

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 81/2 months pregnant, and four others were killed. “Pigs” was scrawled on a door in blood.

“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.”

She said she felt “no guilt for what I’ve done. It was right then and I still believe it was right.” Asked how it could be right to kill, she replied in a dreamy voice, “How can it not be right when it’s done with love?”

The Manson slayings remained unsolved for three months, until Atkins confessed to a cellmate following her arrest on an unrelated charge. Police found Manson and other cult members living in a ranch commune in Death Valley, outside Los Angeles.

Besides Tate, their other victims were celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, filmmaker Voityck Frykowski and Steven Parent, a friend of Tate’s caretaker; and grocery owners Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Atkins also was convicted with Manson of still another murder, of musician Gary Hinman, in July 1969.