LOS ANGELES, Apr. 15 – Charles Manson, accused mastermind of the Tate-LaBianca slayings, was charged Tuesday in a secret indictment with still another killing — the torture murder of musician Gary Hinman.

Two of Manson’s followers were indicted along with him for the Hinman slaying:

— Susan Atkins, the young woman whose testimony before a grand jury last December led to the Tate-LaBianca indictments.

— A 27-year-old male member of the Manson cult who still is at large.

Both Manson and Miss Atkins have been in custody since last October when they were seized at a remote Death Valley ranch as suspects in a dune buggy theft ring.

Tuesday’s indictments came just a day after Robert K. Beausoleil, 22, currently on trial for the Hinman murder, told a trial jury that Manson, not he, slew the young musician last July.

Beausoleil claimed Manson, 35-year-old hippie cult leader, stabbed Hinman twice in the chest because the latter refused to join his “family.”

However, it is understood that Tuesday’s secret indictments resulted from an entirely different version of the Hinman killing than the one offered publicly Monday by Beausoleil.

It is believed the indictments were based largely on testimony reportedly given the grand jury by Mary Brunner, by whom Manson fathered a baby more than a year ago.

The district attorney’s office refused to confirm either the appearance of Miss Brunner before the grand jury Tuesday or even the existence of the secret indictments.

But it is understood that she told grand jurors the same story she related in testifying against Beausoleil at his trial last week.

However, Miss Brunner did make at least one appearance at the Hall of Justice. She was called as a rebuttal witness to refute Beausoleil’s version of the Hinman killing and confirmed her earlier testimony.

Beausoleil inflicted the fatal wound after he was instructed by Manson to do so.

She said Hinman first was tortured, then killed, because he refused to turn over $20,000 Manson believed he had inherited.

During the torture sequence, she said, Manson severed Hinman’ s ear with a sword. He later drove away from the Hinman cottage in Topanga Canyon with another man, leaving behind Beausoleil, Miss Atkins and Miss Brunner, the latter testified.

She claimed that Beausoleil stabbed Hinman after talking by telephone with Manson, who had returned to the Spahn Ranch where the family then was living.

Miss Brunner, 26, testified at the Beausoleil trial on the promise of immunity from prosecution.

Miss Atkins previously had been charged in a complaint with the Hinman murder, filed even before she, Manson and four other family members were accused of the Tate-LaBianca killings.

That complaint presumably will be dismissed. It is believed that the prosecution strategy calls for her to be tried jointly with Manson and the man being sought on the indictments.

Meanwhile, Beausoleil testified during his trial Tuesday that he lied to detectives last August when questioned about the Hinman slaying. Beausoleil was arrested last Aug. 6 three miles north of San Luis Obispo in a car that had once belonged to Hinman. Dep. Dist. Atty. Burton Katz is attempting to prove that Beausoleil tortured Hinman into giving him the car.

When questioned by two Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives after his arrest, Beausoleil told them that he had gone to Hinman’s home July 25 and found Hinman in a bathroom bleeding profusely from a slash wound on the left side of his face.

In cross examination, Katz asked him why he lied. “I was trying to protect Charlie,” Beausoleil said, referring to Manson, and then gave another reason:

“I was afraid of what he might have done to me. He has a lot of influence over people and I was afraid.”

Beausoleil also injected the name of Terry Melcher, actress Doris Day’s son, into the Hinman trial for the first time Tuesday.

Melcher formerly lived in the Benedict Canyon mansion where actress Sharon Tate and four others were slain last August, and reportedly refused to help Manson further his singing career.

Beausoleil testified that shortly after the Hinman killing — and about a week before the Tate-LaBianca murders — Manson told him “Terry Meicher’s karma (fate) called for him to be killed because he wasn’t prepared to experience death.”

While they were watching television in a trailer at the Spahn Ranch, Beausoleil claimed, Manson told him he personally had visited the Benedict Canyon estate and “checked out telephone wires and the electric gate.”

On the night of the Benedict Canyon slayings, wires were cut at the Tate estate, allegedly by Charles Watson, now in custody in Texas and resisting extradition to California as a defendant in the murder cases.

By JERRY COHEN