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Leslie Van Houten: Sister Of Sharon Tate Furious Over ‘Manson Girl’s’ Possible Parole

By Leigh Egan

From the archive: published Apr 19, 2016, 10 years ago. Details may have changed since.

On Monday, during a frank interview with Good Morning America, Sharon Tate’s younger sister said former Manson follower Leslie Van Houten, who was recently recommended for parole, is a “monster” who will cause harm again.

ABC News reports that Debra Tate, 63, younger sister of the late actress Sharon Tate, spent five hours in Chino, California, listening to the hearing that ultimately let to a parole recommendation for Van Houten, 66. The “Manson girl” spent the past 45 years in prison for the August 10, 1969, murders of wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca and his spouse, Rosemary LaBianca.

Although parole isn’t yet guaranteed for Van Houten, Debra Tate said that should she make parole, Van Houten would end up doing the same things again.

“They are still sociopathic individuals and capable of great brutality. The heinous crimes that were committed in the past, in 1969, will repeat themselves again. I am quite sure.”

Van Houten wasn’t a part of the group of Manson “family” members that murdered Sharon Tate in Benedict Canyon California on August 9, 1969, but the sheer brutality of the LaBianca murders shocked the world. While other members of the “family” killed Leno LaBianca in the another room, Van Houten held a pillow over Rosemary LaBianca’s head and tied it with a lamp cord while someone else stabbed her. In 1994, Van Houten told ABC News that the ordeal didn’t happen as she imagined it would.

“The minute we walked in the [LaBiancas’] house, it became clear that this was not what I had imagined. You know, before that, it had always been an abstract kind of thing. And when it was the real thing, I was absolutely torn in half.”

Since the death of her sister, Debra Tate has attended every parole hearing of every Manson family member. When she heard that Van Houten could possibly be released from prison, she admitted that the memories of her sister’s brutal murder came flooding back.

“Your heart sinks between your knees. It’s absolutely mind-boggling what goes through your mind. All of the atrocities from the past, the brutalities all come flooding back.”

Debra Tate said her only hope is that Van Houten’s parole recommendation is overturned just as Manson follower Bruce Davis’ was in January. Van Houten’s freedom depends on the decision made during an administrative review, and finally, the approval of California Gov. Jerry Brown. Debra Tate said:

“That’s our only solace, that he will stop this parole in the case of Van Houten. This is a slippery slope and it’s going to be all of our problems because six months on parole and they’re free to go anywhere in the United States… It’s not just California’s problem. It’s the United States’ problem.”

In hopes of getting Gov. Brown to deny Van Houten’s parole recommendation, Debra Tate recently created a petition on Change.org, urging people to sign, to show that the horrific killings of the LaBiance family, as well as other victims of the Manson followers, will never be forgotten. According to the petition,

“Governor Jerry Brown must know that society cannot trust someone who committed such a heinous murder without showing any remorse for years.”

Leslie Van Houten was originally given a death sentence when she was just 17, making her the youngest female ever in California condemned to death. Her sentence was automatically commuted to life in prison in 1972, after California’s Proposition 17, based off of the The People of the State of California v. Robert Page Anderson case, outlawed capital punishment in the state.

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