Leslie Van Houten: Manson Follower Denied Parole By California Governor [Video]


A California parole board inexplicably recommended that Manson Family cult member and admitted murderer Leslie Van Houten be paroled from prison in April of this year. According to the parole board, Van Houten had transformed herself in prison and had an exemplary behavioral record during her time behind bars. Family members of her victims, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, begged the parole board to reconsider. When the board refused, the bereaved family members of Leslie Van Houten’s victims, killed in 1969, took their argument to California Governor Jerry Brown.

As Fox News reports, the family members of Leslie Van Houten’s victims did not argue against her parole in vain. Governor Brown has reportedly overturned the board’s decision to grant Van Houten’s parole. According to the governor, Van Houten has not explained what caused her to become a vicious killer in the first place, and as such, she poses a serious risk to society if she is allowed to walk freely among civilized Americans.

“Both her role in these extraordinarily brutal crimes and her inability to explain her willing participation in such horrific violence cannot be overlooked and lead me to believe she remains an unacceptable risk to society of released.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBJDPv5WKmg

Leslie Van Houten was the youngest of Charles Manson’s band of rabid followers. The Manson Family is famous for the horrific murder of a very pregnant Sharon Tate and her friends, but the group was also behind the grisly murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, a wealthy California couple.

Charles Manson, who led a group of devout and willing followers but who never actively killed anyone himself, is currently serving life without parole in California. He was originally sentenced to death for orchestrating a slew of vicious crimes, but changes to U.S. capital punishment laws resulted in his sentence being commuted.

The LaBianca and Tate murders happened more than 40 years ago, and Leslie Van Houten has spent most of the time between then and now incarcerated for her role in the murders. Van Houten was just 19-years-old when she joined up with the Manson Family and is now 66-years-old.

At her April parole hearing, Leslie Van Houten told the court (including members of victim’s families) in great detail how she participated in the gruesome slayings. Van Houten, at the hearing, tried to downplay her role in the slaughter, even 40 years after the fact. She described to the court using a lamp cord that she tied around the neck of victim Rosemary La Bianca in order to secure a pillowcase over her face.

Leslie Van Houten has claimed that she didn’t further engage in the murder of the LaBiancas, at least immediately. She says that she initially just looked away from the scene of the carnage. That is, until she was told by another member of the cult to “do something.” Van Houten responded to the demand by stabbing the victims repeatedly.

“I don’t let myself off the hook. I don’t find parts in any of this that makes me feel the slightest bit good about myself.”

Apparently, Governor Brown doesn’t feel good about Leslie Van Houten, either.

At the time of the Manson Family murders, The Beatles were among the hottest bands in the world, and Charles Manson based his planned race war on the group’s song “Helter Skelter.”

Charles Manson is currently 81-years-old. He and most of his followers, even some who didn’t actively participate in the slayings of Sharon Tate, her friends and the LaBiancas, are still incarcerated for their roles in one of the most notorious killing sprees in U.S. history.

The governor also denied the parole recommendation of Bruce Davis, who was part of the cult but, unlike Leslie Van Houten, not a participant in the murders carried out by the Manson Family.

Family members of Leslie Van Houten’s victims gathered almost 150,000 signatures from citizens who were vehemently against the idea of the admitted killer being released from custody.

Leslie Van Houten’s next parole hearing date has not yet been announced.

[Photo by Nick Ut/AP Photo]

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