( CNN ) -- Former `` Manson Family '' member Susan Atkins , who stabbed actress Sharon Tate to death more than 40 years ago and now is terminally ill , was denied parole Wednesday , prison officials said . Susan Atkins , shown here after her indictment in the Manson murders , was denied parole again Wednesday . The parole hearing was the 13th for Atkins , 61 , who is battling terminal brain cancer . Held at the Central California Women 's Facility in Chowchilla , California , the hearing stretched to more than six hours . The panel set another hearing for Atkins in three years , said Michele Kane , spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation . Atkins was 21 when she and other followers of Charles Manson participated in a two-night rampage that left seven people dead and terrorized the city of Los Angeles in August 1969 . She and the others -- Manson , Leslie Van Houten , Patricia Krenwinkel and Charles `` Tex '' Watson -- were initially sentenced to death in the slayings of five people , including Tate , and two additional deaths the following night . Their sentences were automatically commuted to life in prison when the Supreme Court struck down the nation 's death penalty laws in 1972 . Watch Atkins , victims ' kin speak » . By her own admission , Atkins , known as Sadie Mae Glutz within the Manson family , held Tate down as she pleaded for mercy , and stabbed the actress 16 times . Tate was eight months pregnant . In a 1993 parole board hearing , Atkins said Tate `` asked me to let her baby live . ... I told her I did n't have any mercy on her . '' After killing Tate , according to historical accounts of the slayings , Atkins scrawled the word `` pig '' in blood on the door of the home Tate shared with her husband , director Roman Polanski . Polanski was not home , but three of Tate 's house guests were also slain by the killers , as was a teenager who was visiting the home 's caretaker in his nearby cottage . In an interview scheduled to air Friday on CNN 's `` Larry King Live , '' Linda Kasabian , a former Manson follower who was the prosecution 's star witness against Manson and Atkins , recounted the Tate slayings . Watch Kasabian recall killings » . `` I started hearing like horrible screaming and I started running toward the house and Sadie came running out and I just looked at her and I said , 'Sadie , please make it stop , ' '' Kasabian said . `` And she said , ' I ca n't . It 's too late . ' ... It was unreal . It was so real that it was unreal . '' On whether she asked Atkins and the others why they were killing , Kasabian said , `` It was n't that kind of a scenario . All that I said was , 'Sadie , make it stop . ' '' For her safety , Kasabian asked to wear a disguise during the interview , which was conducted last month . As of earlier this year , Atkins was paralyzed over 85 percent of her body and could not sit up in bed or be moved into a wheelchair , according to a Web site maintained by her husband and attorney , James Whitehouse . She has been described as a model prisoner who has accepted responsibility for her role in the slayings and now shuns Manson . But Tate 's sister , Debra Tate , told CNN in an e-mail in March that she does not think any Manson family member convicted of murder should ever be set free , saying the slayings were `` so vicious , so inhumane , so depraved , that there is no turning back . '' `` The 'Manson Family ' murderers are sociopaths , and from that , they can never be rehabilitated , '' Tate said . `` They should all stay right where they are -- in prison -- until they die . There will never be true justice for my sister Sharon and the other victims of the 'Manson Family . ' Keeping the murderers in prison is the least we , as a society who values justice , can do . '' In a manuscript posted on her Web site , Atkins wrote that `` this is the past I have to live with , and I have to live with it every day . '' `` Unlike the reader , or the people who seem to think Charles Manson was cool , I ca n't think about it for an hour or so and then go on with my life . Just like the families and friends of the victims , this is with me every day . I have to wake up every day with this and , no matter what I do for the rest of my life and no matter how much I give back to the community , I will never be able to replace what my crime took away . And that 's not 'neat , ' and that 's not 'cool . ' '' Atkins ' brain cancer was diagnosed in March 2008 , Whitehouse wrote on his Web site . On May 15 , doctors predicted she would live less than six months . But she passed that deadline , he wrote , and celebrated her 21st wedding anniversary on December 7 .
Susan Atkins held Sharon Tate down and stabbed the pregnant actress 16 times . Parole hearing was the 13th for Atkins , who is battling terminal brain cancer . The panel set another hearing for Atkins in three years .