May 3 – A $2,000,000 malpractice and fraud suit brought by convicted murderess Susan Atkins against two attorneys who once represented her and against former Dep. Dist. Atty Vincent T. Bugliosi has been dismissed.

Superior Court Judge Rodney Potter granted a request for dismissal Tuesday of the suit against Richard Caballero, an attorney who represented Miss Atkins early in the Tate-LaBianca murder case.

Another judge had earlier dismissed the action against Bugliosi.

A third attorney named as a defendant — Paul Caruso — was never served with legal papers and therefore was never actually part of the suit.

Caballero and Caruso represented Miss Atkins prior to the Tate-LaBianca murder trial.

Daye Shinn represented the young woman during the actual trial She, two other women and hippie cult leader Charles Manson were convicted of the 1969 murders and are now serving life prison terms.

“Miss Atkins, in her suit filed by Shinn in January, 1972, claimed Caballero and Caruso did not represent her properly and that they agreed with a writer to publish tape recorded statements she had made.

She said the attorneys represented to her that if she testified before a County Grand Jury, Bugliosi, then a deputy district attorney, would not seek the death penalty against her.

However, she alleged, the district attorney’s office was in fact intending to ask for the penalty.

She and the other defendants were sentenced to death, but that was before the Supreme Court abolished capital punishment.