Susan Atkins - Imprisonment

Imprisonment

Atkins' death sentence was automatically commuted to life in prison the following year after the California Supreme Court's People v. Anderson decision invalidated all death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972.

In 1977, Susan Atkins published her autobiography, Child of Satan, Child of God, in which she recounted the time she spent with Manson and the family, her religious conversion, and her prison experiences.

From 1974 onwards, Susan stated she was a born-again Christian after seeing a vision of Jesus Christ in her cell. She became active in prison programs, teaching classes and received two commendations for assisting in emergency health interventions with other inmates, one of which was a suicide attempt. She was married on September 9, 1981 to Donald Lee Laisure, a Texan claiming to be a multi-millionaire who would use his resources to help secure her freedom, but Atkins had the marriage annulled in 1982 when it was revealed that many of his claims were false. She married a second time, in 1987, to a man 15 years her junior, James W. Whitehouse, who earned a degree from Harvard Law School and represented Atkins at her 2000 and 2005 parole hearings. He maintained a website dedicated to her legal representation.

During her 2000 parole hearing, Sharon Tate's sister, Debra, read a statement written by their father, Paul, which said in part, "Thirty one years ago I sat in a courtroom with a jury and watched with others. I saw a young woman who giggled, snickered and shouted out insults, even while testifying about my daughter's last breath, she laughed. My family was ripped apart. If Susan Atkins is released to rejoin her family, where is the justice?"

In April 2002, she told a reporter of her work to discourage teenagers from idolizing Manson and her hope of someday leaving prison to live in Laguna Beach, California.

In 2002, Atkins filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that she was a "political prisoner" due to the repeated denials of her parole requests regardless of her suitability.

On June 1, 2005, Susan Atkins had her 17th parole hearing. This hearing was attended by various family members of the victims, such as Debra Tate and members of the Sebring family, and they requested that her parole be denied. She received a four-year denial.