‘They’re Forcing Me Out Against My Will’ : Manson Disciple Sandra Good to Be Freed This Month

Manson Family member Sandra Good, who says she has “too much anger inside me� to return to society, will be released from a federal prison in West Virginia later this month, authorities said Friday.

“Really stupid� federal authorities plan to release her March 29 even though she doesn’t want to be free, Good told the Sacramento Bee in a telephone interview published Friday. “They’re forcing me out against my will,� she said.

“I still feel the way I did the day I walked into prison. I don’t want out until Manson and the family get a fair trial. Charlie is inside, and that’s where my soul, that’s where my love lies--inside.�

Manson is serving a life sentence for masterminding the 1969 killings of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

A federal judge in Sacramento sentenced Good, 41, to 15 years in prison in 1976 after she was convicted of conspiring to send death threats to 171 business leaders she described as “corporate polluters.�

“I’m not ready to come out because I really haven’t come to forgive and love the people out in society who are destroying the air, water, land and wildlife,� Good told the newspaper. “I have too much anger inside me. It’s actually a rage.�

Asked if she would be a threat to others if released, Good said in the interview: “I really don’t know. I just know I can’t fit in and obey their lies.�

One of Charles Manson’s original disciples, Good, daughter of a San Diego stockbroker, was the roommate of another Manson cultist, Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, who was sentenced to a life prison term for attempting to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford in Sacramento’s Capitol Park in 1975.

David Helman, executive assistant to the warden at the Alderson, W. Va., federal prison, told a Sacramento radio station that no final decision has been made on where Good would be released, but normal prison policy would be to return her to her home area, Northern California.

Former Assistant U.S. Atty. Bruce Babcock Jr., who prosecuted Good, said in an interview Friday that it “seems dangerous to let her out. It seems a shame to release her when she doesn’t think she’s fit to be released.�

Babcock, now a Sacramento commodities futures trader, added that Good appears to be trying to send a message to society saying that she is dangerous.

“She seems to be saying, ‘Don’t let me out there where I can harm them,’ � he said. “No one seems to be listening. Who knows what she might try to do?�

Helman, however, said that prison officials have no authority to keep a person in prison beyond the term of his or her sentence.

“Without a further court sentence, or a further law violation--which has not occurred--we have no authority to further detain her here,� he said in the radio interview.

Good earned the maximum amount of good-behavior time on her original 15-year sentence, he said, and the expiration date on that sentence is March 29.

Sacramento Police Department spokesman Sgt. Bob Burns said that the department had not yet been notified of Good’s release. But she would not be required to report to police if she returns to Sacramento, he said.

“We will put her on a list of high-risk parolees as we do with any other high-risk parolees who are released to our fair city,� Burns said.