Good riddance, in my opinion.
I know a lot of people put the blame solely on Charlie, who I agree is a vicious, evil manipulator and was the mastermind of the entire horrific mess. I definitely do not intend that to mean that he is less guilty or anything. In my opinion the whole bunch of them should have been executed for their crimes, not endlessly interviewed on TV every couple of years. I once had a teacher who made us watch a couple of Charlie's interviews in school as a history lesson, but the focus was never on the victims but rather Manson's cult status.
However, these people in the "family" were mentally twisted and sadistic individuals themselves. Susan Atkins was one of the very worst of them. You can't explain that away as just drug abuse or manipulation.
She never showed any compassion, even after she claimed to be born again as a Christian (then a Roman Catholic). When she had her book published she pocketed 14 million and when asked why she didn't share the money amongst the victims' families, she said she "never though of it." That's because she never actually cared about what she did or the people who died with her help.
This woman wanted to cut the baby from Sharon Tate's womb. I don't doubt for a second that if she'd been given the time to do it, she would have.
This "family" deserves about as much of our compassion as Hitler. Absolutely NONE. What I find really disturbing is that there are people in the world today who still idolize and some even worship the Manson family (disturbingly Hitler too). These are people we should be worried about in society.
I watched that special on the History Channel too, and I'm not really sure I buy Catherine Share (Gypsy)'s story that she just stood around outside the house and didn't do anything but take Steve Parent's wallet and then watch the others kill the victims from outside the house.