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In Memory of Susan Denise Atkins-Whitehouse

​Susan's New Home
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Susan tells us about her new home;

"The second huge steel door swung open.
There was death row.
It was a narrow corridor, thirty-three feet long.
Everything was the same color - cream.
My mind quickly counted the tiny cells.
It seemed there were five on each side,
but closer inspection showed one to be a shower room
and the opposite one a bare cubicle with a little table
in the middle of it - a visiting room obviously.
One cell was for the guards, known as 'staff' - 
​one man and one woman..."

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"...The woman staff led me down the corridor,
past the two girls,
who were sitting on their beds,
to the fourth and last cell on the right.
An empty cell separated me from..."

Susan arrives at her cell;
"I turned into the cell, nine feet by eleven,
and stared at the interior-
a metal-framed single bed bolted 
and cemented to the floor at the far end,
an open toilet with no seat,
and a small sink in the near corner.

I couldn't restrain a chuckle.
'It looks as bad as I do', I thought to myself.
I was a sorry sight, I was sure,
standing there in a gray, ankle-length strong-dress,
so named because of its strong resistance to tearing,
with a bald head​ and a still bloody X on my forehead.

The woman slammed a door behind me.
I turned around.
It was made of bars and a grill,
with an opening for passing things through.
An awesome steel door,
with an eight-inch-square window
at head height, was ajar..."
..."Ugh. I looked at the open john. Not even a cover..."

​"...And that was death row at CIW..."
​Susan's new home.

(all quotes are from
Child of Satan Child of God
by Susan Atkins
with Bob Slosser)

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