CHARLESTON, W.Va, Dec. 31 — Manson family member Sandra Good was in Vermont when former roommate and prison cellmate Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme broke out of prison and remained at large for two days, a U.S. Justice Department spokesman said yesterday.

Fromme, 39, who in 1967 became the first member to join mass murderer Charles Manson’s “family,” is serving a life sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution for women in Alderson for her 1975 assassination attempt on then-President Gerald Ford.

The freckle-faced redhead, described as “the cornerstone” in holding the Manson family together, escaped from the prison last Wednesday. She was recaptured Friday afternoon after spending two nights in the rugged mountains surrounding Alderson.

Prison officials and federal marshals have refused to reveal what Fromme has told them about how and why she escaped. Federal investigators are scheduled to interrogate Fromme this or next week, and the U.S. attorney’s office in Charleston has said it plans to ask a grand jury to indict Fromme for escaping from a federal institution.

Manson is serving a life sentence at San Quentin prison for the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six other people who were slain over two consecutive nights. Law enforcement officials and chroniclers of the Manson family in the Los Angeles originally said they believed Fromme escaped to try to reach California so she could be near Manson.

Later, friends said Fromme told them just hours before her escape that she heard Manson had cancer and she was desperate to see him. Earlier this week, officials at San Quentin prison in California said there was no truth to the rumor that Manson has cancer.

Good served 10 years in prison, including a stint at Alderson with Fromme, for threatening corporate executives whom she believed were threatening the environment.

On Dec. 2, 1985, Good was released from Alderson and moved to the Burlington area, where she holds a job under a federal work-release program, officials said.

After Fromme’s escape, Steve Kay, an assistant Los Angeles County prosecutor, and others said they had been warned that Good’s house was locked up and that her car was missing.

However, U.S. Justice Department spokesman Joe Krozisky in Washington, D.C., said yesterday that Good has been at her home in Burlington.

Good has been under federal supervision and “has not caused any trouble,” Krozisky said. Her work release program ends Dec. 20, 1990, he said.