Rory White spoke on behalf of his long ago friend Susan Atkins, a follower of Charles MAnson, so that she could get compassionate release from prison because she is in her last days suffering with brain cancer.
Rory White works with the LAMP art project in skid row.
Rory White, a self-described artist and educator who works with clients in the Skid Row section of Los Angeles, told the board he knew Atkins back when she was running with the Manson gang.
"She was very intelligent," White said. "She had this compassionate side. But it would flip into this very clear cult-like, kind of zombie-like, robot-like state."
Rory White works with the LAMP art project in skid row.
Comments
reference to Susan Atkins' hearing in Sacramento, you refused to simply immerse yourself in the
repetitive indulgence in blood guts and horror which mainstream media has never been
able to resist.
To approach any aspect of the Manson murders of the late 1970's, one is approaching, almost
by definition, an undeniably horrific and brutal tragedy.
One of the saddest aspects of the Parole Board's refusal to grant Compassionate Release to
Susan Atkins, was the press coverage. Somehow I had hoped the press would have evolved
since the days that it partook in, as an active accomplice, the Black Circus of the Tate La Bianca
court case.
I am NOT unilaterally condemning the press, for certainly there is good reporting done in the
face of, and against, the mainstream of journalistic exploitation. Such refreshing integrity
reporting is all the more heroic for its refusal to simply follow the herd. The herd is after
selling newspapers, increasing the count of viewers upon the televisions, or hits on the internet.
I do not discount the pressure, including corporate pressure, and the fear of each journalist
of losing their jobs and not being able to pay their rents or their mortgages, that feed into
the thousand tiny, but less than appropriate, decisions they make through their careers.
While the cries of the victim's families cannot be minimalized, there was no reason, seeing that
the compassionate release was not granted, for the press to not adequately cover the tremendous
and highly authoritative recommendations, given by such a wide group of professionals and family,
testifying as to some 35 years of repentance, rehabilitation, and very very good works done
by Susan. For people to mouth that Susan has been unrepentant or unchanged, is to ignore
a testimony of social workers, therapists, friends, family members, all of whom had experienced
Susan, and witnessed her, over the course of a third of a century, manifesting a repentant, changed
life. Susan, in fact, has done awesome good in the helping of other prisoners, and supporting
young women to avoid falling into the same trap that she and her young friends had fallen into,
whether volitionally or through manipulation some 37 years ago.
This was a woman who, as a teenage runaway, was taken in my a master cult leader, a small
adolf hitler, who brainwashed, and using tremendous amounts of psychotropic drugs, manipulated or coerced,
Susan and the other young women to commit a horrible crime.... The crime will always remain horrible,
the deaths inconsolable, and the victim's families grief not discountable, but the life
of a young girl manipulated into murders, and then living over one third of a century
in repentance and good works in prison should not be wiped away.
Furthermore, Susan provided all the essential foundation for the State, to safely remove
Manson from the streets, and to secure convictions in the case. While knowing they were
dealing with a worse-than-hypnotized fragile young woman, barely able to break away for a few
months, from the control of Manson, to provide the state and the Grand Jury, this data, critical
to Manson's arrest, "we", meaning the State of California, then put her in direct unprotected contact
with Manson himself. As we indulged ourselves in being "horrified" by her re-induction into Manson's
control, and after we had "all the goods" we needed from Susan, we basically just threw her again
to the dogs.
When she returned to his control, he orchestrated Susan, into making wildy exaggerated confessions as
to details of her exact involvement in the murders, and to make loud choreographed statements of
"showing no remorse" and other bizarre "antics" during the court case, including shaving her head,
and self scarification, like the other young female defendants, with an X carved into their foreheads.
While the press enjoyed portraying this, and the prosecution clinging to this, why did no one seem to notice
that they or, again, "we" were witnessing
one of the most brazenly obvious manifestations of cult control ever extensively recorded on camera, or
before the eyes of a court.
Yet these extreme, and at face value, nonsensical, behaviors by Susan, again under Manson's control,
did not negate one drop of the testimony she had previously provided the State, nor did her recanting
weaken, in one slightest bit, the case of the State vs. Manson and the young women. Quite the contrary,
it strengthened the case of the state through increasing the horrific aspects of the trial.
Susan and the other young women were clearly brainwashed and under the control of the cult and its
leader. This was a blatant and obvious reality. The young women spoke in cultlike cliches and exhibited
behavior, totally uncharacteristic of their words and lives BEFORE they were taken, mostly as runaways,
into Manson's control.
Once they were not in direct contact with Manson, a few years after their incarcertion, each of these young
women eventually repented and fought the unbelievable existential battle to regain some meaning in their
life. Susan, through a very clear spiritual repentance, and renewed life, has spent a good 35 years in prison
helping others. She wrote a book, describing her repentance and change, "Child of Satan, Child of God", and
refused ANY renumeration for herself of the millions of dollars in revenue the book obtained, instead specifiying
all of her renumeration to go to the cause of helping young at-risk women, so that they would not fall into
the same, or similar, labyrinth, into which Susan had once fallen, and then, in a lonely heroic effort, beginning
on Death Row, and continuing through the decades, extracted herself from.
She had planned to work on a further book in which all proceeds were to go to the victim's families of the Tate LaBianca
tragedy, once Susan realized, after the fact, that she could have directed a large share of the profits from the first book.
Susan was never able to write this additional book. She currently has three month or so to live with brain cancer,
and she simply had asked for some mercy, through her mouth that can now barely speak words, that she might be with her family
in her last few months upon this planet, and before she goes to be with that God who Susan has so clearly believed in
for the latter, and greater, part of her life. This request, if had been granted, would have not even liberated Susan from
the hospital bed she now lies in, unable to attain normal speech, and virtually paralyzed. But her family and friends could
be with her, comfort her, and themselves, in this last bit of time.
I do not think this last request has been that unreasonable.
I have worked ten years in Skid Row urged by the words from the Bible, which although it speaks very powerfully of Justice,
equally powerfully urges us towards having Mercy, and tells us that we are turning our back on God Himself, when we
turn our back upon the poor, the naked, and those in prison.
blessings and very much love to you all,
Rory White
-Rebecca
It was discouraging being misquoted by the press.
[even the short quotation of the original
post, above, was an out of-context
passage, from a, in actuality, comprehensive, and supportive
presentation that I made before the Parole Board
in Sacramento, last Tuesday].
So kind words are appreciated. And from a colleague like yourself!
though I am at my next step, or crossroads, and not at Lamp now.
I knew Susan before the Tate-LaBianca tragedy
and was one of her few, non-Mansonian, support people in those early days,
including when she was on Death Row.
Because of Susan, I designed and taught my first
"art project for marginalized persons",
specifically a for-credit, University of California Extension,
Art Class, right in the Special Security Unit,
(the technical name for the Death Row bunker
in those days)
at C.I.W.
Again thanks for the kind words. We'll talk more later, I'm sure.
Blessings, and Keep the Faith,
rory