Parole board recommends release of Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten for fifth time in five years

For the fifth time in as many years, a parole board recommended the release of Leslie Van Houten, a well-known member of Charles Mason’s murderous cult who is currently serving out a life sentence in California.

Van Houten said she met the notorious cult leader in the late 60s as she traveled along the California coast. She was just 19 years old when she helped the infamous Manson Family kill Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in August 1969. The slayings came the day after other Manson followers — without Van Houten — killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others.

In 1971, she was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the deadly grocery store stabbings and conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of Tate, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent and Jay Sebring. She was sentenced to death for her crimes, but the conviction and punishment were reversed on appeal and she was ultimately sentenced to life in prison.

Van Houten’s appearance before the parole panel on Tuesday marked her 24th attempt to secure her freedom, and the fifth time in recent years panelists have deemed her fit for release.

A two-person panel of parole commissioners initially recommended she be freed back in April 2016. Since then, her release has been repeatedly blocked, twice by then-Gov. Jerry Brown and twice by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who are both Democrats.

Newsom wrote last year he believed Van Houten posed “an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time.”

“Given the extreme nature of the crime in which she was involved, I do not believe she has sufficiently demonstrated that she has come to terms with the totality of the factors that led her to participate in the vicious Manson Family killings,” Newsome said.

Manson, who died in 2017 while serving a life sentence, organized a “family” of followers he believed would survive an impending race war. Part of his response to the impending, imaginary war was to embark on a series of random murders in the Los Angeles area.

With News Wire Services