Helter Skeleton

Susan Atkins, the reason Roman Polanski is currently residing in a Swiss prison, has died of brain cancer at the age of 61, doing her part to help alleviate the California budget crisis. The classic sexually abused middle child of alcoholic parents turned high school dropout topless dancer, Atkins was working both the nature and nurture sides of the crazy street when she met a wannabe Monkee with an interesting take on life. Joining Charlie Manson’s family, she found a new name (Sadie Mae Glutz) and a place for herself. Unfortunately, that place was holding down Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate during the family’s brutal slaying spree, tasting her blood then using it to write “PIG” on the door. Generous to a fault, Tate stayed in the getaway car the next evening to give others the chance to enjoy another night’s carnage. With Atkins bragging about the killings to anyone who’d listen and taunting the court to lock their doors and watch their kids, it didn’t exactly take Jack McCoy to earn a conviction and the death sentence for the 7 murders. Her sentence was reduced to life imprisonment when California abolished the death penalty. But she did have to give up her baby - Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz. In prison, Atkins became a born-again Christian, but kept the crazy coming – a prison marriage to Donald Lee Laisure, a self-described Texas multimillionaire who spelled his name with a dollar sign instead of an ‘s’ and was looking for his 36th wife, then a second one to her lawyer. After being diagnosed with brain cancer, she appealed for compassionate release, ironic after telling Tate that she had no mercy for her and her unborn child.