Post by JoannaL on Jul 25, 2020 13:09:12 GMT -5
Manson 'Girl' Leslie Van Houten Recommended for Parole
For the fourth time in five years, Leslie Van Houten – one of Charles Manson’s “girls” – has gone before California’s Board of Parole Hearings and again, she has been deemed suitable for release.
Van Houton, born August 23, 1949, in Los Angeles, grew up in a middle-class family, but after her parents divorced when she was 14, she began smoking marijuana and using LSD. She ran away from home at age 15, but returned and completed high school and took a year-long secretarial course. However, instead of looking for a job, she became a hippie and began living in a northern California commune. At 19, she met Charles Manson, after which she called her mother to say she would be “dropping out” and wouldn’t be contacting her family again. Later, Van Houten claimed she became “saturated in acid” and incapable of grasping reality.
Van Houten did not participate in the Sharon Tate murders, but on the following night when the “Family” entered the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianco, she stabbed Mrs. LaBianco 16 times.
Following a 120-day review process, release of the 70-year-old prisoner will be up to Governor Gavin Newsom. He denied her parole last year, which Rich Pfeiffer, Van Houten’s lawyer, said wasn’t surprising. “Nobody wants to put their name on her release,” he explained, “but when they’re speaking honestly or off the record, everyone wants her to go home.” Newsom, he added, is “going to have more political aspirations that go well beyond the state of California, and he doesn’t want this tagging behind him.”
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromm, who attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, was paroled in 2009.
Sources: Christopher Weber, The Associated Press, July 23, 2020; Madeleine Aggelier, The Cut, June 4, 2019; The Manson Family; and Two Infamous Murder Houses.
See also “Youngest Manson Follower Tries for Parole Again.”
