Dear Pat:
Every now and then, I read something about Charles Manson. I know he’s cooling his heels in prison (thank God), but what’s happened to his “disciples,” the ones who actually did the killing of Sharon Tate and her friends? Have they been executed?

— BAYRON BINKLEY

No, they haven’t been executed. But a couple of them have died — and been raised from the dead.

I’m talking about Charles “Tex” Watson and Susan Atkins. Under the hypnotic influence of ‘Jesus-Satan’ Charles Manson and all kinds of mind-bending drugs, these two young people led the pack to the Tate and LaBianca homes and brutally slashed helpless people to death. They were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Many felt this was too good for them, and that if there was ever an open-and-shut case for capital punishment, this was it. But – end of story. Right?

Wrong.

Recently I visited the huge, sprawling California Men’s Colony where as many as 2.000 major offenders are imprisoned, close to San Luis Obispo, in central California. I was there at the invitation of Chaplain Ray to do a show for the inmates and to participate in a prison-wide spiritual outreach. Almost 509 prisoners had jammed into the big recreation hall to hear the music, and excitement was high. The fellas there don’t get much in the way of entertainment, so this was a big day.

It was over 90 degrees as l arrived backstage, so I took off my jacket and looked around for someplace to put it — when a tall, lean young man smilingly reached out to take it from me.

“Let me help you, brother Pat: praise the Lord!” He looked at me with clear blue eyes and an open, joyful expression. “I’m the chaplain’s assistant, Charles Watson.”

“Charles Watson? Not ‘Tex’ Watson —?” I was obviously taken back, to put it mildly.

“Yeah that’s me,” he answered, still smiling, “but I don’t use the ‘Tex’ anymore. I’m just Charles – brother Charles.”

And I couldn’t help it. As I looked deep into those eyes, my mind instantly flashed to the pictures I’d seen of the Tate house and the accounts of the terrible atrocities this man had committed. I thought, “Sharon Tate looked into these very eyes and begged for mercy, for herself and her unborn child. And found none. These were the last eyes she saw, and filled with drugs and mindless malevolence, they sentenced her to gory death.”

Why wasn’t I repulsed? Why didn’t I have cold chills? Why did I find myself warmly shaking his hand, returning his smile, actually liking him?

Because these eyes were different now. There was no hate there, no cold haze, no demonic menace; there was openness, an honest warmth, an obvious and earnest desire to communicate friendship. Naturally, I was intrigued and I asked Charles what had happened.

“Brother Pat, I met Jesus. That’s all. Right here in prison, after the trial and after the drugs all wore off, and after I finally saw what I’d been part of and what I’d done, and the way I’d let the Devil use me, I fell on my knees and asked God to forgive me. I asked Jesus to forgive me and come into my heart — and He did. He can’t take away or change what I did, but He’s changed me. I’ve been born again!”

The prisoners were beginning to stomp their feet and whistle impatiently from out front, so still a little numb from this encounter, I started the show. About midway through the program, the power went off.

The recreation hall was plunged into semi-darkness, there was no sound system, the air-conditioning ceased, and there was going to be a very uncomfortable, indefinite delay. Immediately the inmates were hooting and rattling their chairs, and the guards were considering marching them back to their cells, sensing a possible riot.

Suddenly a voice cut through the darkness, high and strong, singing “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. …” The noise subsided, while some of the prisoners began to sing along. There was something contagious, something appealing about the voice and the “rightness” of singing just then. “I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind, but now I see.”

I peered through the shadowed hall to see who the song-leader was. It was Charles Watson.

For almost 20 minutes he led the inmates in singing, and though not all joined in, the mood was tempered and the situation was calmed until the power was hooked up again, and the show could go on. Chaplain Ray told me later that the change in Charlie is dramatic and total. One of the guards shook his head in amazement and said, ”A lot of the cons think this is some kind of act with Watson, some effort to get out. They make it mighty tough on him, but he just smiles and keeps going. No doubt about it, it’s real.

And then, just a few days ago, I got a letter and a picture from Susan Atkins, the girl who participated with Watson in carrying out Manson’s bloody directives.

I’d read reports of her conversion in prison, a story of transformation much like Charles’, and her request to be baptized privately.

I contacted Chaplain Ray, who visits most of the prisons, and he confirmed that she too had been born again, completely changed. Listen to this little excerpt from her letter to me: “Grace and peace to you both, from the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m writing to encourage you concerning your daughter in her illness. I want you both to know I’m praying for her often. Our Lord will meet her need.”

Are you suspicious? Does all this sound impossible?

Well, from a purely human standpoint, it might be. I really can’t credit the penal system, because at last report, old Charlie Manson is still one mixed-up dangerous dude.

But Susan and Charles Watson are different, changed from the inside out, through a supernatural process the Bible calls being “born again.”

And that’s good news!

“Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things are passed away; behold, new things have come.” II Corinthians 5:17

— PAT BOONE