That and stabbing, shooting, and beating to death 7 people.... other than that they'd be out of jail.
Susan Atikins begs for release from prison
- Thread starter karrie
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That and stabbing, shooting, and beating to death 7 people.... other than that they'd be out of jail.
Follower: Manson threatened grisly death if she left cult
Brian Melley, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Thursday, August 31, 2017 09:57 PM EDT | Updated: Thursday, August 31, 2017 10:01 PM EDT
LOS ANGELES — A woman once under the spell of Charles Manson testified Thursday that the violent and manipulative cult leader threatened to have her die a painful death if she left the ranch where they lived.
Catherine Share told a Los Angeles Superior Court judge that Manson once severely beat her and got a male cult member to vow that if she ever fled the man would hunt her down and drag her back behind a car.
The unusual testimony nearly 50 years after Manson’s followers terrorized Los Angeles during two nights of bloody rampages that killed seven people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, was to support a parole bid by fellow “family” member Leslie Van Houten.
Van Houten’s lawyer wants to show a state parole board that his client was under the sway of the twisted leader and more likely to make bad choices at the age of 19.
“Some people could not leave. I was one of them that could not leave,” said Share, who said she later regretted enticing Van Houten to join the cult. “I don’t think (Van Houten) felt like she was free to leave.”
Share acknowledged in her testimony that she didn’t know for a fact that Van Houten had been prohibited from leaving the cult, or hadn’t actually left at some point. She also acknowledged that others had left the Manson clan without being harmed.
A recent change in California law enables those who committed crimes when they were younger than 23 to seek a hearing on the role their youth may have played. The issues can later be introduced at a parole hearing to evaluate whether a prisoner is fit for release.
“Everyone is confused about how could someone who grew up like she did end up there,” attorney Rich Pfeiffer said.
Van Houten, 68, and serving up to a life sentence for the deaths, did not attend the hearing in part because she recently broke her knee cap, Pfeiffer said.
Van Houten was 19 when she and fellow cult members stabbed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca to death in 1969. The killings took place a day after other so-called Manson family members murdered Tate, the wife of director Roman Polanski, and four others in crimes that shocked the world.
Share was not involved in the killings, but served prison time later for armed robberies. Police said she also was involved in a plot to break Manson and other family members out of prison, though Share denied that. She said the plan was to help a boyfriend’s brother get out of jail.
Last year, a parole panel recommended Van Houten be released after she had completed college degrees and been commended for her behaviour as a model prisoner. But Gov. Jerry Brown denied her parole, saying she failed to explain how she transformed from an upstanding teen to a killer.
Pfeiffer asked Judge William Ryan to compel prosecutors to turn over decades-old recordings of a conversation between former cult member Charles “Tex” Watson and his attorney in the hopes they may benefit Van Houten and help secure her release.
Prosecutors, who have vigorously fought Van Houten’s release, objected to giving up the tapes. The judge began reading some 300 pages of transcripts of the recordings to see if there was information relevant to Van Houten’s case.
Ryan said there were at least eight references to Van Houten in the 85 pages he had a chance to read before the hearing.
Authorities had once asserted the tapes included evidence of other killings and their release could jeopardize those investigations, Pfeiffer said. But Ryan said a detective acknowledged during a meeting in his chambers that there are no active investigations related to them at this time.
Van Houten was the youngest Manson follower to take part in the killings after joining the cult in the 1960s.
During her parole hearing last year, she said the murders were the start of what Manson believed was a coming race war that he dubbed “Helter Skelter,” after a Beatles song, and that he had the group prepare to fight and learn to can food so they could go underground and live in a hole in the desert.
Van Houten’s parole hearing is scheduled Wednesday. She was convicted in 1978 of two counts of murder and conspiracy after an earlier conviction was overturned on appeal.
Manson, 82, and other followers involved in the killings are still jailed. Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel have each been denied parole multiple times, while fellow defendant Susan Atkins died in prison in 2009.
Family member Bruce Davis also was recommended for parole, but Brown blocked his release.
Debra Tate, the only surviving member of her family, attended the hearing as she’s done for decades at all Manson-related parole bids. Even though Van Houten’s case did not involve her sister’s killing, she said she was asked to also represent the LaBianca family.
She does not think Van Houten or any of the Manson cult should ever go free.
“It was particularly vicious,” Tate said outside court. “This was an act of domestic terrorism, in my opinion. And there was group collusion with a much larger agenda and for that reason I don’t think any of these people should be paroled.”
In this April 14, 2016 file photo, former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten is shown during a break from her hearing before the California Board of Parole Hearings at the California Institution for Women in Chino, Calif. VanHouten is expected to get a court hearing Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017, to evaluate the role of her young age in the killing of a California couple four decades ago. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
Follower: Manson threatened grisly death if she left cult | World | News | Toron
Brian Melley, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Thursday, August 31, 2017 09:57 PM EDT | Updated: Thursday, August 31, 2017 10:01 PM EDT
LOS ANGELES — A woman once under the spell of Charles Manson testified Thursday that the violent and manipulative cult leader threatened to have her die a painful death if she left the ranch where they lived.
Catherine Share told a Los Angeles Superior Court judge that Manson once severely beat her and got a male cult member to vow that if she ever fled the man would hunt her down and drag her back behind a car.
The unusual testimony nearly 50 years after Manson’s followers terrorized Los Angeles during two nights of bloody rampages that killed seven people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, was to support a parole bid by fellow “family” member Leslie Van Houten.
Van Houten’s lawyer wants to show a state parole board that his client was under the sway of the twisted leader and more likely to make bad choices at the age of 19.
“Some people could not leave. I was one of them that could not leave,” said Share, who said she later regretted enticing Van Houten to join the cult. “I don’t think (Van Houten) felt like she was free to leave.”
Share acknowledged in her testimony that she didn’t know for a fact that Van Houten had been prohibited from leaving the cult, or hadn’t actually left at some point. She also acknowledged that others had left the Manson clan without being harmed.
A recent change in California law enables those who committed crimes when they were younger than 23 to seek a hearing on the role their youth may have played. The issues can later be introduced at a parole hearing to evaluate whether a prisoner is fit for release.
“Everyone is confused about how could someone who grew up like she did end up there,” attorney Rich Pfeiffer said.
Van Houten, 68, and serving up to a life sentence for the deaths, did not attend the hearing in part because she recently broke her knee cap, Pfeiffer said.
Van Houten was 19 when she and fellow cult members stabbed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca to death in 1969. The killings took place a day after other so-called Manson family members murdered Tate, the wife of director Roman Polanski, and four others in crimes that shocked the world.
Share was not involved in the killings, but served prison time later for armed robberies. Police said she also was involved in a plot to break Manson and other family members out of prison, though Share denied that. She said the plan was to help a boyfriend’s brother get out of jail.
Last year, a parole panel recommended Van Houten be released after she had completed college degrees and been commended for her behaviour as a model prisoner. But Gov. Jerry Brown denied her parole, saying she failed to explain how she transformed from an upstanding teen to a killer.
Pfeiffer asked Judge William Ryan to compel prosecutors to turn over decades-old recordings of a conversation between former cult member Charles “Tex” Watson and his attorney in the hopes they may benefit Van Houten and help secure her release.
Prosecutors, who have vigorously fought Van Houten’s release, objected to giving up the tapes. The judge began reading some 300 pages of transcripts of the recordings to see if there was information relevant to Van Houten’s case.
Ryan said there were at least eight references to Van Houten in the 85 pages he had a chance to read before the hearing.
Authorities had once asserted the tapes included evidence of other killings and their release could jeopardize those investigations, Pfeiffer said. But Ryan said a detective acknowledged during a meeting in his chambers that there are no active investigations related to them at this time.
Van Houten was the youngest Manson follower to take part in the killings after joining the cult in the 1960s.
During her parole hearing last year, she said the murders were the start of what Manson believed was a coming race war that he dubbed “Helter Skelter,” after a Beatles song, and that he had the group prepare to fight and learn to can food so they could go underground and live in a hole in the desert.
Van Houten’s parole hearing is scheduled Wednesday. She was convicted in 1978 of two counts of murder and conspiracy after an earlier conviction was overturned on appeal.
Manson, 82, and other followers involved in the killings are still jailed. Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel have each been denied parole multiple times, while fellow defendant Susan Atkins died in prison in 2009.
Family member Bruce Davis also was recommended for parole, but Brown blocked his release.
Debra Tate, the only surviving member of her family, attended the hearing as she’s done for decades at all Manson-related parole bids. Even though Van Houten’s case did not involve her sister’s killing, she said she was asked to also represent the LaBianca family.
She does not think Van Houten or any of the Manson cult should ever go free.
“It was particularly vicious,” Tate said outside court. “This was an act of domestic terrorism, in my opinion. And there was group collusion with a much larger agenda and for that reason I don’t think any of these people should be paroled.”
In this April 14, 2016 file photo, former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten is shown during a break from her hearing before the California Board of Parole Hearings at the California Institution for Women in Chino, Calif. VanHouten is expected to get a court hearing Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017, to evaluate the role of her young age in the killing of a California couple four decades ago. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
Follower: Manson threatened grisly death if she left cult | World | News | Toron
How much compassion did Susan Atkins have for her victims?
P.S. At this point in time it appears to be a moot issue!
Youngest Manson follower Leslie Van Houten recommended for parole
John Rogers, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Wednesday, September 06, 2017 08:34 AM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, September 06, 2017 11:20 PM EDT
CHINO, Calif. — Leslie Van Houten, the youngest of Charles Manson’s murderous followers, was recommended for parole Wednesday by a state panel that concluded she has radically changed her life during the more than 40 years she has been in prison for two brutal murders she helped commit 48 years ago and is no longer a threat to society.
The two-member panel’s ruling must still be approved by the state Parole Board and Gov, Jerry Brown, who reversed another panel’s ruling last year.
In blocking her release then, Brown said Van Houten had failed to adequately explain to the panel how a model teenager from a privileged Southern California family who had once been a homecoming princess could have turned into a ruthless killer by age 19.
On Wednesday, the panel grilled her for two hours on how she could address those concerns.
“I’ve had a lot of therapy trying to answer that question myself,” she said.
“To tell you the truth, the older I get the harder it is to deal with all of this, to know what I did, how it happened,” added Van Houten, now a frail-looking 68-year-old who appeared before the panel on crutches, her grey hair pulled back in a bun.
She went on to say that she was devastated when her parents divorced when she was 14. Soon after, she said, she began hanging out with her school’s outcast crowd in the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia. She started smoking marijuana and graduated to LSD at 15. When she was 17, she and her boyfriend ran away to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury District during San Francisco’s summer of love.
When they returned, she said, she discovered she was pregnant. When her mother found out, she ordered her to have an abortion and bury her fetus in their backyard.
Soon after, she was travelling up and down the California coast, trying to find peace within herself when acquaintances led her to Manson, who was holed up at an old abandoned movie ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles where he had recruited what he called a “family” to survive what he insisted would be a race war he would launch by committing a series of random, horrifying murders. His disaffected youthful followers became convinced that the small-time criminal and con man was actually a Christ-like figure and believed him.
As she did at her parole hearing last year, the soft-spoken Van Houten went on to candidly describe how she joined several other members of the “Manson Family” in killing Los Angeles grocer Leno La Bianca and his wife, Rosemary, in their home on Aug. 9, 1969, carving up La Bianca’s body and smearing the couple’s blood on the walls.
She was not with Manson followers the night before when they killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others during a similar bloody rampage.
On the night of the second attack she said she held Rosemary La Bianca down with a pillowcase over her head as others stabbed her dozens of times. Then, ordered by Manson disciple Tex Watson to “do something,” she picked up a butcher knife and stabbed the woman more than a dozen times.
“I feel absolutely horrible about it, and I have spent most of my life trying to find ways to live with it,” she added quietly.
Relatives of the La Biancas didn’t believe her. They spoke emotionally as they pleaded with the commission to reject her parole bid.
“No member of the Manson family deserves parole, ever,” nephew Louis Smaldino said. “She is a total narcissist and only thinks of herself and not the damage she has done.”
The voice of the La Biancas’ oldest grandson, Tony LaMontagne, broke as he noted he’s about to turn 44, the same age his grandfather was when he was killed.
“Please see to it that this fight doesn’t have to happen every year for the rest of our lives,” he said of Van Houten’s nearly two dozen parole hearings.
Family members left before the panel announced its decision.
In reaching it, Parole Commissioner Brian Roberts and Deputy Commissioner Dale Pomantz said they took into account Van Houten’s entire time of incarceration. During those years she has earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in counselling, been certified as a counsellor and headed numerous programs to help inmates.
“You’ve been a facilitator, you’ve been a tutor and you’ve been giving back for quite a number of years,” Roberts said.
Still, he warned her that if she is released that living in society again will not be easy. He noted parole officials have heard from “tens of thousands” of people who don’t want her released. But others, he added, including many who have known her since childhood, spoke up for her, saying they’ve seen her mature in prison and become a different person.
“So with that we’d like to wish you good luck,” he said.
“Thank you very much, I really appreciate it,” replied Van Houten, who attended on crutches because of a knee injury suffered in a recent fall. She said her health is otherwise fine.
Afterward, her attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, said he believes Van Houten addressed the concerns the governor had when he denied her parole last year.
“My hope is he’s going to follow the law and let his commissioners do their job,” he said.
He added his client was relieved by Wednesday’s ruling, adding he believes she will be released eventually.
“I’m getting her out of here. That’s not an issue. The question is when,” he said.
No one who took part in the Tate-La Bianca murders has been released from prison so far.
———
AP reporters Don Thompson in Sacramento, California, and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
[youtube]n6CepHzjlJw[/youtube][youtube]wfyP6zgZ_vw[/youtube]
Youngest Manson follower Leslie Van Houten recommended for parole | World | News
John Rogers, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Wednesday, September 06, 2017 08:34 AM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, September 06, 2017 11:20 PM EDT
CHINO, Calif. — Leslie Van Houten, the youngest of Charles Manson’s murderous followers, was recommended for parole Wednesday by a state panel that concluded she has radically changed her life during the more than 40 years she has been in prison for two brutal murders she helped commit 48 years ago and is no longer a threat to society.
The two-member panel’s ruling must still be approved by the state Parole Board and Gov, Jerry Brown, who reversed another panel’s ruling last year.
In blocking her release then, Brown said Van Houten had failed to adequately explain to the panel how a model teenager from a privileged Southern California family who had once been a homecoming princess could have turned into a ruthless killer by age 19.
On Wednesday, the panel grilled her for two hours on how she could address those concerns.
“I’ve had a lot of therapy trying to answer that question myself,” she said.
“To tell you the truth, the older I get the harder it is to deal with all of this, to know what I did, how it happened,” added Van Houten, now a frail-looking 68-year-old who appeared before the panel on crutches, her grey hair pulled back in a bun.
She went on to say that she was devastated when her parents divorced when she was 14. Soon after, she said, she began hanging out with her school’s outcast crowd in the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia. She started smoking marijuana and graduated to LSD at 15. When she was 17, she and her boyfriend ran away to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury District during San Francisco’s summer of love.
When they returned, she said, she discovered she was pregnant. When her mother found out, she ordered her to have an abortion and bury her fetus in their backyard.
Soon after, she was travelling up and down the California coast, trying to find peace within herself when acquaintances led her to Manson, who was holed up at an old abandoned movie ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles where he had recruited what he called a “family” to survive what he insisted would be a race war he would launch by committing a series of random, horrifying murders. His disaffected youthful followers became convinced that the small-time criminal and con man was actually a Christ-like figure and believed him.
As she did at her parole hearing last year, the soft-spoken Van Houten went on to candidly describe how she joined several other members of the “Manson Family” in killing Los Angeles grocer Leno La Bianca and his wife, Rosemary, in their home on Aug. 9, 1969, carving up La Bianca’s body and smearing the couple’s blood on the walls.
She was not with Manson followers the night before when they killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others during a similar bloody rampage.
On the night of the second attack she said she held Rosemary La Bianca down with a pillowcase over her head as others stabbed her dozens of times. Then, ordered by Manson disciple Tex Watson to “do something,” she picked up a butcher knife and stabbed the woman more than a dozen times.
“I feel absolutely horrible about it, and I have spent most of my life trying to find ways to live with it,” she added quietly.
Relatives of the La Biancas didn’t believe her. They spoke emotionally as they pleaded with the commission to reject her parole bid.
“No member of the Manson family deserves parole, ever,” nephew Louis Smaldino said. “She is a total narcissist and only thinks of herself and not the damage she has done.”
The voice of the La Biancas’ oldest grandson, Tony LaMontagne, broke as he noted he’s about to turn 44, the same age his grandfather was when he was killed.
“Please see to it that this fight doesn’t have to happen every year for the rest of our lives,” he said of Van Houten’s nearly two dozen parole hearings.
Family members left before the panel announced its decision.
In reaching it, Parole Commissioner Brian Roberts and Deputy Commissioner Dale Pomantz said they took into account Van Houten’s entire time of incarceration. During those years she has earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in counselling, been certified as a counsellor and headed numerous programs to help inmates.
“You’ve been a facilitator, you’ve been a tutor and you’ve been giving back for quite a number of years,” Roberts said.
Still, he warned her that if she is released that living in society again will not be easy. He noted parole officials have heard from “tens of thousands” of people who don’t want her released. But others, he added, including many who have known her since childhood, spoke up for her, saying they’ve seen her mature in prison and become a different person.
“So with that we’d like to wish you good luck,” he said.
“Thank you very much, I really appreciate it,” replied Van Houten, who attended on crutches because of a knee injury suffered in a recent fall. She said her health is otherwise fine.
Afterward, her attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, said he believes Van Houten addressed the concerns the governor had when he denied her parole last year.
“My hope is he’s going to follow the law and let his commissioners do their job,” he said.
He added his client was relieved by Wednesday’s ruling, adding he believes she will be released eventually.
“I’m getting her out of here. That’s not an issue. The question is when,” he said.
No one who took part in the Tate-La Bianca murders has been released from prison so far.
———
AP reporters Don Thompson in Sacramento, California, and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
[youtube]n6CepHzjlJw[/youtube][youtube]wfyP6zgZ_vw[/youtube]
Youngest Manson follower Leslie Van Houten recommended for parole | World | News
Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten denied parole again
Associated Press
More from Associated Press
Published:
January 20, 2018
Updated:
January 20, 2018 11:41 AM EST
In this Sept. 6, 2017, file photo, Leslie Van Houten attends her parole hearing at the California Institution for Women in Corona, Calif. (Stan Lim/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)AP
LOS ANGELES — The governor of California once again denied parole Friday for Leslie Van Houten, the youngest follower of murderous cult leader Charles Manson who blamed herself at her parole hearing for letting him control her life.
Gov. Jerry Brown said in his decision that Van Houten still lays too much of the blame on Manson, who died two months ago at 83.
Brown acknowledged that Van Houten’s youth at the time of the crime, her more than four decades as a model prisoner and her abuse at the hands of Manson make it worth considering her release.
“However,” he wrote in his decision “these factors are outweighed by negative factors that demonstrate she remains unsuitable for parole.”
In this 1969 file photo, Charles Manson is escorted to his arraignment on conspiracy-murder charges in connection with the Sharon Tate murder case. (AP Photo, File)
The 68-year-old Van Houten is serving life for the murders of wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, when Van Houten was 19. They were stabbed a day after other Manson followers killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people in Los Angeles.
Van Houten’s attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, said Brown’s decision shows an unprecedented and unlawful reliance to deny parole based on the circumstances of the crime, rather than the inmate’s fitness.
“We’re going to challenge this in court,” Pfeiffer said. “I expect the courts to uphold the law and allow her to be released.”
Pfeiffer added that he has “dozens of clients who have done much worse deeds than Leslie has done and they’re out leading productive lives.”
Van Houten has long been considered among the most likely candidates among Manson “family” members to be paroled, But Brown, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before him, has steadfastly refused to let anyone associated with Manson’s killings go free.
It’s the second time Brown has blocked parole for Van Houten after a state parole panel recommended that she be freed.
Brown wrote Friday that Van Houten “played a vital part in the LaBianca murders, one of the most notorious of the Manson family crimes. The devastation and loss experienced by the LaBianca family and all the victims’ families continues today.”
Although she said at her September parole hearing that she accepts full responsibility for her role, Van Houten “still shifted blame for her own actions onto Manson to some extent.”
Brown recalled Van Houten saying that she takes responsibility for “Manson being able to do what he did to all of us. I allowed it. I accept responsibility that I allowed him to conduct my life in that way.”
She appeared frail at the parole hearing with her silver hair pulled back in a bun, almost unrecognizable from the young woman who pledged her allegiance to Manson.
She said at the hearing that she was devastated when her parents divorced when she was 14. Soon after, she said, she began hanging out with her school’s outcast crowd and using drugs in the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia. When she was 17, she and her boyfriend ran away to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury District during the city’s summer of love.
She was travelling up and down the California coast when acquaintances led her to Manson, who was holed up at an abandoned movie ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles where he had recruited what he called a “family” to survive what he insisted would be a race war he would launch by committing a series of random, horrifying murders.
At her hearing, Van Houten candidly described how she joined several other members of the group in killing the LaBiancas, carving up Leno LaBianca’s body and smearing the couple’s blood on the walls.
No one who took part in the Tate-LaBianca murders has been released from prison.
Manson died of natural causes on Nov. 20 at a California hospital while serving a life sentence. A man who befriended him through letters and another who purports to be his grandson are fighting in court over his body and possessions.
Breaking: Parole for Manson follower from Waterloo blocked by Ca - KWWL - Eastern Iowa Breaking News, Weather, Closings
Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten denied parole again | Toronto Sun
Associated Press
More from Associated Press
Published:
January 20, 2018
Updated:
January 20, 2018 11:41 AM EST
In this Sept. 6, 2017, file photo, Leslie Van Houten attends her parole hearing at the California Institution for Women in Corona, Calif. (Stan Lim/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)AP
LOS ANGELES — The governor of California once again denied parole Friday for Leslie Van Houten, the youngest follower of murderous cult leader Charles Manson who blamed herself at her parole hearing for letting him control her life.
Gov. Jerry Brown said in his decision that Van Houten still lays too much of the blame on Manson, who died two months ago at 83.
Brown acknowledged that Van Houten’s youth at the time of the crime, her more than four decades as a model prisoner and her abuse at the hands of Manson make it worth considering her release.
“However,” he wrote in his decision “these factors are outweighed by negative factors that demonstrate she remains unsuitable for parole.”
In this 1969 file photo, Charles Manson is escorted to his arraignment on conspiracy-murder charges in connection with the Sharon Tate murder case. (AP Photo, File)
The 68-year-old Van Houten is serving life for the murders of wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, when Van Houten was 19. They were stabbed a day after other Manson followers killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people in Los Angeles.
Van Houten’s attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, said Brown’s decision shows an unprecedented and unlawful reliance to deny parole based on the circumstances of the crime, rather than the inmate’s fitness.
“We’re going to challenge this in court,” Pfeiffer said. “I expect the courts to uphold the law and allow her to be released.”
Pfeiffer added that he has “dozens of clients who have done much worse deeds than Leslie has done and they’re out leading productive lives.”
Van Houten has long been considered among the most likely candidates among Manson “family” members to be paroled, But Brown, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before him, has steadfastly refused to let anyone associated with Manson’s killings go free.
It’s the second time Brown has blocked parole for Van Houten after a state parole panel recommended that she be freed.
Brown wrote Friday that Van Houten “played a vital part in the LaBianca murders, one of the most notorious of the Manson family crimes. The devastation and loss experienced by the LaBianca family and all the victims’ families continues today.”
Although she said at her September parole hearing that she accepts full responsibility for her role, Van Houten “still shifted blame for her own actions onto Manson to some extent.”
Brown recalled Van Houten saying that she takes responsibility for “Manson being able to do what he did to all of us. I allowed it. I accept responsibility that I allowed him to conduct my life in that way.”
She appeared frail at the parole hearing with her silver hair pulled back in a bun, almost unrecognizable from the young woman who pledged her allegiance to Manson.
She said at the hearing that she was devastated when her parents divorced when she was 14. Soon after, she said, she began hanging out with her school’s outcast crowd and using drugs in the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia. When she was 17, she and her boyfriend ran away to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury District during the city’s summer of love.
She was travelling up and down the California coast when acquaintances led her to Manson, who was holed up at an abandoned movie ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles where he had recruited what he called a “family” to survive what he insisted would be a race war he would launch by committing a series of random, horrifying murders.
At her hearing, Van Houten candidly described how she joined several other members of the group in killing the LaBiancas, carving up Leno LaBianca’s body and smearing the couple’s blood on the walls.
No one who took part in the Tate-LaBianca murders has been released from prison.
Manson died of natural causes on Nov. 20 at a California hospital while serving a life sentence. A man who befriended him through letters and another who purports to be his grandson are fighting in court over his body and possessions.
Breaking: Parole for Manson follower from Waterloo blocked by Ca - KWWL - Eastern Iowa Breaking News, Weather, Closings
Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten denied parole again | Toronto Sun
Isn't she dead?
Probably not a bad idea although I might consider an exception be made for Lesley Van Houten as she was the youngest, possibly the least involved and probably the most repentant. I've read a little bit about her over the years.
Probably not a bad idea although I might consider an exception be made for Lesley Van Houten as she was the youngest, possibly the least involved and probably the most repentant. I've read a little bit about her over the years.
I guess there's a few ways of looking at it. The philosophy behind the U.S. penal system is a little different from that of the Canadian system. I'm sort of half way between the two. After 50 years I don't think there's any doubt that she's paid for her crime. So now it becomes a matter of is the public at large served better by her remaining in jail or can she serve the public better in the community? No use "cutting off your nose to spite your face" Can 50 years in durance vile be construed as going easy?
I'd say 3/4 of the people alive today have no recollection of the incident and for the rest of us it's like looking back through a long tunnel at a dim light. Since then there's been Gacy, Dahmer, Bundy, Olson, Homolka, Bernardo, Pickton, so it's very dim on anyone's "radar"! Turn her loose..............she's not a threat.
Was Lesley Van Houten involved in that incident? I don't recall her being so!
I thought it was more like 13 but who wants to quibble over a couple of years?