FRONTERA, Calif., Jan. 24 — Susan Atkins, a member of the Charles Manson family who is serving a life sentence for her part in the 1969 “Tate murders,” has found God inside the California Institute for Women here, according to The American Baptist magazine.

Fearful that the public would be skeptical of her conversion, Ms. Atkins reported it to only a few persons. She was baptized by immersion Feb. 23, 1975.

The Rev. Serge Wright, a minister who had known Ms. Atkins in her childhood in San Jose, asked the new concert, “Daughter, do you know what this means … that your sins are forgiven, everything you’ve ever done?”

As she came up out of the water, Ms. Atkins said, “Thank the Lord, I’m clean,” witnesses reported.

In letters to a Christian friend, the prisoner said that Bible study and prayer helps her “meet the glares and gazes of those who are so skeptical, but who want to know what it is that has brought about a change in my life.”

Ms. Atkins said she is trying to share her new faith in prison. “I found, though, that not many here want love, or a better way to put it is that they don’t know how to receive it, as it isn’t something given away in here. it comes as a strange thing to them.

“There are several Christian women in here, but they are living what appears to me to be a joyless and defeated life,” she wrote.