LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 – Ronnie Howard, one of two informants credited with tying the Charles Manson “family” to the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, has died from injuries received in a robbery and beating, Los Angeles police reported Thursday.

Police said Miss Howard, who was robbed and beaten last month, succumbed to brain injuries Wednesday at a Cedar-Sinai Medical Center.

Investigators reported they have no suspects in the death but said they were convinced that the slaying was not connected to Miss Howard’s testimony at the 1970 trial of Manson family member Susan Atkins.

Detectives said Miss Howard, 40, was kidnaped, beaten with a blunt instrument and robbed of $400 in cash and $800 in jewelry the night of Sept. 22 after she returned with her husband, Richard Lopez, and his brother, Rudy Lopez, from a trip to Las Vegas.

According to Dets. Ken Vogel and Larry White, the trio was offered a ride by a “gypsy” cab driver outside the downtown bus terminal after they returned from Las Vegas.

Miss Howard got in the cab while her husband and brother-in-law went back into the depot to get their luggage. When they returned, Miss Howard and the cabby were gone.

Later that night, Miss Howard called her husband, saying she had been beaten, robbed and put out of the car in an industrial area of Los Angeles, east of Inglewood. Three days later, she and her husband reported the crime to Los Angeles police.

Miss Howard entered Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Monday, complaining of head pains. She died there Wednesday of brain injuries. The coroner’s office said she had suffered a compressed brain stem, hemorrhaging and fluid collection in her skull.

Miss Howard has shared a cell with Miss Atkins in 1969 at the Sybil Brand Institute. Miss Atkins told Miss Howard and a second inmate, Virginia Graham, about the “sexual release” she felt while plunging a knife into the chest of actress Sharon Tate.

Jail matrons repeatedly rebuffed Miss Howard’s attempts to contact detectives. Finally, during a few brief moments in a holding cell that had a pay phone, Miss Howard telephoned first Beverly Hills and then Los Angeles police detectives.

Miss Howard later said she regretted testifying. She told The Times in 1971 that her actions had lead to a sniper firing into her apartment, a long-haired young man harassing her and her being laid off as a cocktail waitress because co-workers thought she was a police agent.

By DAVID JOHNSTON and TIM WATERS