From Death To Life

From Death To Life

She asked him what his name was, and he answered, “Charlie Manson.”

SUSAN ATKINS had met the savior of the world—or so she thought. When she asked his name, he answered, “Charlie Manson.”

Soon Susan, just eighteen, had joined Manson’s “family” in a life of drugs and sex, and life took an ugly turn. Charlie told her that a friend, Gary Hinman, had inherited twenty-one thousand dollars. He said, “If you want to do something important, why don’t you kill Gary and get his money?”

A few days later Charlie sent Susan with Bobby and Mary, two of his other followers, to get Gary’s money. They were unsuccessful, but in the process Bobby killed Gary. To confuse the police, he wrote “Political Piggy” in Gary’s blood on the living-room wall. Bobby was arrested a few days later. Obsessed with getting Bobby out of jail, Manson decided to stage “copy cat” murders to make the police believe that the real murderer was still at large.

A few nights later Susan and three others were sent to a house in Beverly Hills, where they were to kill everyone they found. One man was killed in the driveway, and inside the house they found Wojiciech Frykowski, a Polish playboy; Sharon Tate, an actress; Jay Sebring, an internationally known hairstylist; and Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folgers coffee fortune. After a bloody struggle all four were murdered. Susan wrote the word Pig on the front door in blood to convince the police that the murderer of Gary Hinman was still on the loose.

Susan was later convicted of multiple counts of murder and sentenced to death. As she sat defiantly on death row at the California Institute for Women, she received a Bible from an unknown benefactor. It was inscribed, “Jesus, my prayer is that you reveal yourself to Susan Atkins.”

One day Susan heard on the radio that the California Supreme Court had voted six to one to abolish the death penalty. Susan dropped to her knees sobbing uncontrollably. For the first time in years she prayed, “Thanks, God. I want to thank you for letting me live—and all the others too.”

In the succeeding months a member of the Manson family, “Old Bruce,” serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison, began writing her letters about God and recommended that she read Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth and enroll in a Bible correspondence course. She took Old Bruce’s advice.

On the night of September 27, 1974, as Susan lay on her prison bed, thinking about her numerous sins, she found herself saying, “I want to be forgiven.”

The words came to her, You have to decide. She felt that if she didn’t give her life to Jesus Christ at that moment, the opportunity would never come again. She recalled these words from the Bible: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Revelation 2:20, KJV).

Her response was, “Okay. If you’re there, come in.”

Total silence. Then, All right, I’ll come in, but you have to open the door.

She talked back to the voice, “What door?”

You know what door and where it is, Susan. Just turn around and open it, and I’ll come in.

Suddenly she saw a door with a handle. She pulled on it, and it opened. The brightest light poured in upon her. Vaguely there was the form of a man, whom she knew to be Jesus. He spoke to her, Susan, I am really here. I’m really coming into your heart to stay. Right now you are being born again, and you will live with me in heaven for all eternity, forever and ever. This is really happening. It is not a dream. You are now a child of God. You are washed clean, and your sins have all been forgiven.

For the first time Susan Atkins felt clean inside and out.

Reflection

Do you really believe that God can save even the worst criminal? The apostle Paul was an accessory to the murder of Stephen, and we are all by nature desperately wicked and in need of forgiveness.

This is a true saying, and everyone should believe it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I was the worst of them all.

1 Timothy 1:15