Susan Denise Atkins (May 7, 1948 - September 24, 2009) was an American convicted murderer who was a member of Charles Manson's "Family." Manson's followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in California over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969. Known within the Manson family as Sexy Sadie, Atkins was convicted for her participation in eight of these killings, including the most notorious, the Tate murders in 1969. She was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court invalidated all death sentences issued prior to 1972. Atkins was incarcerated until her death in 2009. At the time of her death, she was California's longest-serving female inmate, since surpassed by fellow Manson family members Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel. The following interview is from 1978 while Atkins was incarcerated at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, CA.
