California: Governor Jerry Brown denied parole on Friday to Leslie Van Houten, who was convicted along with other members of Charles Manson’s cult in the 1969 killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
Brown said Van Houten, the youngest member of Manson’s “family,” posed “an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison”.
A two-member California review board had granted parole to Van Houten in April. Before that, Van Houten had been denied parole 19 times by the state parole board since being convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
After the two commissioners on the panel issued their decision at a hearing at the California Institution for Women in Chino, Van Houten said she felt “numb,” said her attorney, Richard Pfeiffer.
The board based its decision in part on Van Houten’s age, 19, at the time of the crime, her length of incarceration, lack of violent crime as an adult and because she has never been disciplined for serious misconduct in prison.
But Brown disagreed, saying in his five-page decision that all of these points were outweighed by other “negative factors that demonstrate she remains unsuitable for parole.”
He said the “shocking nature of the crimes left an indelible mark on society” and that the motive – to trigger a race war “by slaughtering innocent people chosen at random – is equally disturbing.”
“Even two years after the murders, when interviewed by a psychologist, Van Houten admitted that, although she had no present desire to kill anyone, she would have no difficult doing it again,” Brown said in his statement.
The youngest of Manson’s followers, Van Houten has been considered the least blameworthy member of the group and has been portrayed by supporters as a misguided teen under the influence of LSD on the night of the slayings.
A former homecoming queen from Monrovia, Van Houten did not join in the August 9, 1969, murders of Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski, and four others at the Benedict Canyon home that Tate was renting.
But the following day, Van Houten, was part of a group that stormed into the LaBiancas’ home. As Charles ‘Tex’ Watson stabbed Leno LaBianca, Van Houten and another woman held down Rosemary LaBianca.
After Watson stabbed Rosemary LaBianca with a bayonet, he handed a knife to Van Houten. She testified to stabbing Rosemary in the back at least 14 more times. The blood of the victims was used to scrawl messages on the walls, as had been done at the Benedict Canyon home.
Van Houten, Manson and three others were convicted and sentenced to death, but after the California Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, their sentences were commuted to life in prison.
An appellate court overturned Van Houten’s conviction in 1976, and a second trial the following year ended in a hung jury. She was convicted in her third trial in 1978 and sentenced to seven years to life in prison.Starting in 1979, Van Houten went before the parole board almost regularly.
In recent years, Van Houten’s attorneys characterized her as a model inmate, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees while running self-help groups for incarcerated women. At a 2002 parole board hearing, Van Houten said she was “deeply ashamed” of what she had done, adding: “I take very seriously not just the murders, but what made me make myself available to someone like Manson.”
In his statement, Brown said it remained unclear how Van Houten had transformed herself from a smart, driven young woman to “a member of one of the most notorious cults in history and an eager participant in the cold-blooded and gory murder of innocent victims.”
“Her willing participation in such horrific violence cannot be overlooked,” the governor wrote, “and lead me to believe she remains an unreasonable risk to society if released.”