Manson's Girls

By James Clark Duncan

A look back at the many women who become followers of Charles Manson during his Helter Skelter siege in California in the 60s & 70s. All were hippie girls who became loyal to the maniac who told them to kill for him...Among those featured here are the stripper Susan Atkins, a sweet-voiced stripper whose looks belied a devil within. Leslie Van Houten who was an educated young woman that became a murderous animal under Manson's control. Patricia Krenwinkel and Squeaky Fromme, who were mentally unbalanced women that became puppets under the psychotic Manson. Lastly, there was Ruth Moorehouse, long considered the most physically attractive of the Manson Girls.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jun 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201707361

Book preview

MANSON'S GIRLS

JAMES CLARK DUNCAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUSAN ATKINS

SQUEAKY FROMME

LESLIE VAN HOUTEN

PATRICIA KRENWINKEL

RUTH MOOREHOUSE

MARY BRUNNER

SUSAN ATKINS

Susan Atkins was one of the more notorious female members of the Manson Family headed by Charles Manson. She was part of a gang of serial killers that terrorized Southern California in the summer of 1969. Known as Sexy Sadie because of her occupation as a topless dancer, Susan was involved in eight of the nine Manson killings including the gruesome Tate/Labianca Murders. She would be sentenced to death which was later commuted to life in prison. Susan would be denied parole over eighteen times in becoming the longest-incarcerated female inmate in the history of California.

CHILDHOOD OF A KILLER?

Susan was born May 7th, 1948 in San Gabriel, California. She was the middle child of three children born to Edward and Jeanette Atkins. Susan grew up in a middle-class area in San Jose, California. Her personality was described as quiet and she sang in both her school’s glee club and the church choir. She appeared to have been the odd one out of the family, however. She had two other brothers and her parents would favor her brothers over her. Her father preferred the company of the eldest son while her mother preferred the youngest child, Steven.

I didn’t like my mother, Susan said. She tried to get along with me, but I just refused to get along with her. I didn’t like my father either. Didn’t like either one of them. I didn’t like my mother because she was an alcoholic. My father also was an alcoholic, used to beat my mother up. 

The family appeared to be middle-class, forensic psychologist Paula Orange said. And the claim of the parents being alcoholics came from Susan herself. But it is evident that she had a normal upbringing for that era in that she was taken to Sunday school, sang in the church choir and was a member of the Girls Scouts. Not exactly a recipe for a future serial killer. 

Her mother would die of cancer when Susan was fifteen. Susan and members of her church choir sang Christmas carols under her mother’s bedroom window right before she would be hospitalized for the final time. Susan’s relatives, however, remarked at how indifferent Susan was about her mother’s death.

As is the case with a lot of serial killers, Orange said. There is a traumatic event in their lives that numbs them. They lose the ability to feel empathy for others. When Susan’s mother died, it set the stage for her later life and made her vulnerable to the likes of Manson. 

Susan was forced to move several times and wound up fending for herself at the age of eighteen. The cost of her mother’s medical bills took a toll on her father financially and he was forced to sell their family home.  Her father would move to Los Banos, California taking along Susan and her younger brother Steven. He would work on the San Luis Dam construction project but would leave the two teens to look after themselves.

Susan would take a job during her junior year in high school, using the money to support herself and Steven. Academics were not her forte, however, as she was only an average student in Leigh High School in San Jose. When she entered Los Banos High School she had lost complete interest and received bad grades as she bounced from relative to relative.

She (Susan) just didn’t seem to care, stated a friend of Susan’s. Like when her mother died, she didn’t show any real sadness about it. I don’t think Susan cared about anything very much. There was something wrong with her

Susan would leave home the moment she turned eighteen. She would work as a waitress in San Francisco and meet a pair of shady characters named Al Sund and Clint Talioferro. She joined the duo as they stole a Buick Riviera and then drove north up to Salem, Oregon. The trio would hide in the woods and steal food from other campers. A month later, the Oregon State police caught up with the Susan and her car thief friends. She was jailed for three months then placed on two years probation. Susan then returned to San Francisco, once again turning to waitress duties. Needing more money, she began doing some topless dancing as well as doing some housekeeping for rich people on Muir Beach. 

While living in San Francisco, she stayed in a communal house and started taking LSD. She then dabbled in Satanism and other alternative lifestyles and philosophies.

She would then meet the man who would change her life forever, Charles Manson.

ENTER THE PSYCHO

Manson was playing guitar at a home where Susan lived with a few friends who were dope dealers. Janis Joplin lived near the house and Atkins enjoyed sitting on the front porch to listen to Joplin practice. Manson himself began singing songs to her when they first locked eyes.

My eyes landed instantly on a little man sitting on the wide couch in front of the bay windows, Susan recalled. Without moving his head, he opened his eyes and stared directly into my face. I stared back. It was thought our minds were speaking.

Susan then put on a Doors record and began to dance.

Manson came up behind her and placed his hands on her hips. The two strangers began dancing, with Manson leading his new friend with slow, sensual movements.

He whispered in my left ear, Atkins would write in her memoir. That’s right. That’s good. In reality, there’s no repetition. No two moves, no two actions are the same. Everything is new. Let it be new.

Susan then described their dancing as a transcendental encounter. This stranger and I were dancing, passing through one another. It was as though my body moved closer and closer to him and actually passed through him. I thought for a second that I would collapse. What had happened? Was I crazy? It was beyond human reality.

They made love and Manson told Susan to pretend that he was her father as they had sex.  This made Susan even more attracted to him. You are beautiful, Manson whispered. You are perfect. You must break free from the past. You must live now. There is no past. The past is gone. There’s no tomorrow.

Susan would then describe Manson in messianic terms, comparing the cult leader’s treatment of his disciples to Jesus Christ.  He washed her feet. He showed her affection and told her to love herself. Manson played the role of savior and father figure to the hilt.

Charlie had instantly seemed more of a father to me than my own father, Susan said. He played me like a yo-yo, first hugging me and praising me, then demeaning me in some way.

The house would be raided a few weeks after and Susan found herself homeless. Manson caught wind of her situation and invited her to join his family. Susan then informed her probation officer that she would be going on a trip with a traveling preacher named Charlie.  She and seven other girls, two of whom were pregnant got into Manson’s black spray-painted converted school bus on a trip to Los Angeles.  The probation officer nixed the idea but Susan ignored the request and was soon traveling down the coast with Charles Manson in the driver seat, singing made-up songs as he made his way down south with the wayward girls of the Haight-Ashbury district.

A NEW NAME 

Manson christened Susan with the nickname of Sadie Mae Glutz and had someone create a fake ID for her. Susan then settled in the rest of the Family at the Spahn ranch, a former movie set where the followers would get free rent in return for the upkeep of the place.

There was a semblance of unity, Susan said of her attraction to joining Manson’s Family. An ambiance of family camaraderie. Where everybody supposedly loved each other. There was a surface image of loving one another and caring for one another and being there for one another. And it appeared that way on the surface. And there was a lot going on underneath. You had a lot of different personalities. Lot of different personal problems, conflicting with one another but there was an image of commune.

Susan became one of the female leaders at the commune, often driving around other members. She bought into all of Manson’s bizarre theories such as Helter Skelter, the creation of a revolution where the blacks would rise up and kill whites. The followers were subject to daily rantings and pronunciations from Manson as he would brainwash them into accepting his worldview.

"There was