Global Courant
A teenage follower of Charles Manson, who was convicted of killing two people, will be a free woman at age 73 after five decades behind bars.
Leslie Van Houten, who was 19 when she joined the murderous cult and helped kill Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in 1969, will be paroled in the coming weeks, her attorney Nancy Tetreault said Friday.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who suppressed several previous attempts to get Houten released, said that while he is disappointed, he will not ask the state’s Supreme Court to block parole this year.
The governor’s office said it was unlikely the state’s Supreme Court would consider an appeal against a lower court ruling that Van Houten should be released.
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File photo of Leslie Van Houten attending her parole hearing at the California Institution for Women in Corona, California in 2017. (Stan Lim/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)
“More than 50 years after the Manson cult committed these brutal murders, the families of the victims are still feeling the impact,” Newsom said in the statement.
Newsom and former governor Jerry Brown have rejected five parole recommendations since 2016. The most recent was last February.
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But Van Houten’s luck turned on May 31, when the state’s appeals court ruled 2-1 in favor of her parole.
The court decision noted her “extraordinary rehabilitation efforts, insight, remorse, realistic plans for parole, support from family and friends” and favorable behavioral records while incarcerated.
“She’s excited and she’s overwhelmed,” Treteault said. “She’s just thankful that people are acknowledging that she’s not the same person she was when she committed the murders.”
Van Houten could be released in about two weeks, depending on how quickly the paperwork is filed, and then she will go to a shelter to learn basic skills, such as using a cell phone, computer and ATM, among other new technology, she said. her lawyer.
Meanwhile, her imminent release is once again traumatizing for the victims’ families.
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“My family and I are heartbroken as we are once again reminded of all the years we haven’t had my father and my stepmother with us,” Cory LaBianca, the daughter of Leno LaBianca, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday.
“My children and grandchildren never got a chance to get to know them, which has been a huge void for my family,” says Cory La Bianca, who is 75.
When Van Houten was 19, she and other Manson followers fatally stabbed the LaBiancas in their home and smeared their blood on the walls.
She later described holding Rosemary LaBianca with a pillowcase over her head as others stabbed her, before grabbing a knife and slashing her victim more than a dozen times.
Global Courant
Van Houten was convicted in 1971 and again after a retrial in 1978. She was sentenced to life in prison.
Manson, the man behind the cult that orchestrated the murders, died in prison in 2017 of natural causes at the age of 83.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Chris Eberhart is a crime and American news reporter for Fox News Digital. Email tips to [email protected] or on twitter @ChrisEberhart48
Leslie Van Houten, killer of the Manson family, is paroled after Newsom drops his challenge
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