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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California Governor Gavin Newsom rescinded the parole board's decision to release Leslie Van Houten, Charles Manson's disciple, on Monday for the third time that a governor has stopped the release of the most young member of the deadly sect of Manson.
Newsom said that 69-year-old Van Houten still posed a threat, although she spent close to half a century behind bars and received reports of good behavior and testimonials on his rehabilitation.
"While congratulating Ms. Van Houten for her rehabilitation efforts and recognizing her youthfulness at the time of the crimes, I am concerned about her role in these killings and her potential for future violence," he wrote in his ruling. "Ms. Van Houten actively participated in the assassination of LaBiancas and played an important role."
Van Houten was 19 when she and other members of the sect stabbed to death, in August 1969, the wealthy grocer from Los Angeles, Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, who allegedly stripped Leno LaBianca's body and stained the blood of the couple on the walls.
The murders took place the day after the other Manson fans, not to mention Van Houten, pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people in a violence that sowed fear across Los Angeles and ravaged the nation.
No one who took part in the killings of Tate-LaBianca was released from prison. It was the first time Newsom had refused parole for Van Houten, while former Gov. Jerry Brown was refusing his release twice.
"Nobody wants to put her name on her release, but when they speak frankly or privately, everyone wants her to go home," said Van Houten's lawyer, Rich Pfeiffer.
Newsom "is going to have more political aspirations that go far beyond the state of California, and he does not want this marking to be behind him," he added. "It's not a surprise, I would have been shocked when he said 'Go home.'"
Earlier this year, Newsom canceled a parole recommendation to release Manson scholar Robert Beausoleil for a murder unrelated to him. Beausoleil was found guilty of murdering musician Gary Hinman.
Newsom's decision on Van Houten described her involvement in detail, noting that after the killings she had "drunk chocolate milk in the LaBiancas refrigerator" before fleeing.
"The atrocious crimes perpetrated by Ms. Van Houten and other members of the Manson family in an attempt to incite social chaos continue to inspire fear to this day," Newsom wrote.
Van Houten still understands her responsibility and Manson's "violent and controlling actions," she said, and she continues to misunderstand why she was involved.
Van Houten's lawyer said in January, following his latest release recommendation, that the parole board had concluded that she had assumed full responsibility for her role in the parole board. murders.
"She chose to go with Manson," Pfeiffer said. "She chose to listen to it, and she recognizes it."
Van Houten described a troubled childhood that led her to drug and hang out with outcasts. When she was 17, she and her boyfriend fled to San Francisco during the so-called 1967 Summer of Love.
She then met Manson during her trip to the coast. Manson was hiding with his "family" in an abandoned movie ranch in the suburbs of Los Angeles when he had launched a plan to unleash a race war by committing a series of random and terrifying murders.
Brown rejected Van Houten's parole in 2017 because he said she always blamed the cult leader too much for the murders. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge upheld Brown's decision last year, finding Van Houten "an unreasonable risk of harm to society".
A court of appeal will decide to maintain or reject this decision by the end of July.
"No governor will let her out," said Pfeiffer, Van Houten's lawyer, who is hoping with all his weight at the court of appeal. "They are required by law to enforce the law independently, they have to do it, whether the public is popular or not … and the law states that it should be released."
Manson and his supporters were sentenced to death in 1971, although the sentences were commuted to life imprisonment after the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972. The Van Houten case was overturned on appeal. life in prison.
Tate's sister, Debra Tate, has regularly appeared on parole and hearings to oppose the release of any Manson supporter. Although Van Houten did not take part in the murder of his sister, Tate stated that she did not deserve in any way to be released.
Van Houten's supporters said that she had been a model prisoner who had mentored dozens of inmates and helped them cope with their crimes.
Manson died in 2017 from natural causes in a California hospital while he was serving a life sentence.
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