you certainly couldn't say that about susan atkins. >> as a child, i never felt wanted.ng. i suffered as a child watching my parents drink themselves to death. there was a lot of anger. a lot of fear of wanting to get away from a bad situation with nowhere to go. my mother died of cancer when i was 14. i was dealing with my own anger after losing my mother and having to take care of a father who couldn't take care of himself. i couldn't handle the stress. i had to get away. i did not feel like i belonged to anyone or anything. i felt rejected by my family and society in general. >> susan was a troubled girl. even when she came to manson. and once her mother was gone, her father and she were not as close, and she became a runaway. and she took up with bad company. >> when i interviewed susan atkins in prison, she told me she came to san francisco as a topless dancer for a while and was attracted to the haight counterculture. she was drinking too much and doing too much of this and that, and she met charlie, and it was the greatest thing to ever happen in your life at that

susan atkins printed the word "political piggy" in blood on the gary hinman wall.lly he was arrested because he was driving hinman's fiat car. he had blood on his clothing, the murder knife was found hidden in a tire well. hinman was murdered july 27, 1969, a week and a half before the tate/labianca murders. manson claims the girls were so troubled by beausoleiol's arrest they came up with a plan to convince police they had the wrong man. as a group, leslie, mary, squeaky, sadie and linda informed me of bobby's arrest. the girls held their own meeting and discussed the best method of assisting bobby. they decided if a murder similar to the hinman slaying continued to occur, the police would begin to believe bobby was not their man. deep inside i knew if i stuck around, anything those kids did would come right back in my lap. as i left the back house, i spotted tex walking toward the boardwalk. it's time to get something done for bobby. the girls are ready to do whatever is necessary. they don't have a plan or a place picked out. so it looks like it's going to be pr

until jailed manson follower susan atkins began talking. her story was chilling. >> a lawyer for a girl involved in a peculiar gang which may have killed sharon tate and her friends described the killings today. the lawyer, paul caruso, said five people dressed in black entered ms. tate's home after cutting the power and telephone lines and went methodically about the business of killing five people. the next night, he said, they killed a husband and wife, took a shower in their home, calmly ate some food and left. caruso represents susan atkins, a member of the gang or commune. he said she and the others were completely under what he called the insane influence of charles manson. >> it's all a play, isn't it? >> manson and his followers, charles tex watson, who did most of the actual killing, patricia krenwinkel, shown here on the left, leslie van houten and susan atkins were all convicted and condemned to die in the gas chamber. their sentences, however, were later commuted to life when california temporarily dropped the death penalty in