Susan Atkins, one of the most notorious members of Charles Manson’s cult and a participant in the infamous 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, died in custody at California’s Central California Women’s Facility while serving a life sentence.
Atkins had spent nearly four decades behind bars, repeatedly denied parole despite being terminally ill with brain cancer in her final years. Her role in the killing of actress Sharon Tate and others made her one of the most infamous figures to emerge from the Manson Family’s 1969 murder spree.
Vernon Howell was born on this day in 1959, destined to become one of the most notorious cult leaders in American history. The Branch Davidians, the sect he would eventually command, were themselves an offshoot of the Davidians, a reform movement within the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Howell later renamed himself David Koresh, drawing on biblical symbolism to cement his claim as a messianic figure. His leadership of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas would end in a 51-day federal siege in 1993, a catastrophic fire, and the deaths of 76 of his followers.
In the early hours of 9 August 1969, members of Charles Manson’s Family carried out the Tate murders at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles, leaving five dead. The killings were the first act in what Manson called Helter Skelter, an apocalyptic race war he had been prophesying since at least New Year’s Eve 1968, drawing on the Book of Revelation and the Beatles’ 1968 White Album. Manson believed the murders, staged to look like the work of Black militants, would ignite a war between the races from which the Family would emerge as rulers.
At trial, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi used the testimony of Family member Paul Watkins to reconstruct the vision in full. Bugliosi later detailed the case in his 1974 book, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. Manson and three co-defendants were convicted on all charges of conspiracy and murder, though some writers, detectives, and even participants have since argued the killings were also driven by copycat motives or revenge for a bad drug deal.
