Former Manson family member Leslie Van Houten released from California prison
I'm astonished considering the brutality of what they did. She should definitely die in prison.
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Leslie Van Houten, a former Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer, was released from a California prison on Tuesday, a prison spokesperson told CNN.
Van Houten was released to parole supervision, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson Mary Xjimenez said. Van Houten will have a three-year maximum parole term with a parole discharge review occurring after one year, Xjimenez said.
Van Houten, now in her 70s, was 19 when she met Manson and joined the murderous cult that came to be called the “Manson family.”
Prior to her release on Tuesday, she was serving concurrent sentences of seven years to life after she was convicted in 1971 for her role in the killings of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, at their Los Angeles home.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office on Friday announced it would not challenge a state appellate court’s panel ruling in May that opened the possibility of parole for Van Houten, clearing the path to her release.
“More than 50 years after the Manson cult committed these brutal offenses, the victims’ families still feel the impact, as do all Californians. Governor Newsom reversed Ms. Van Houten’s parole grant three times since taking office and defended against her challenges of those decisions in court,” Erin Mellon, a spokesperson for the governor, said Friday.
“The Governor is disappointed by the Court of Appeal’s decision to release Ms. Van Houten but will not pursue further action as efforts to further appeal are unlikely to succeed. The California Supreme Court accepts appeals in very few cases, and generally does not select cases based on this type of fact-specific determination,” Melton said.
A family member of celebrity hair stylist Jay Sebring, who was killed by the Manson cult in 1969, said he disagrees with the decision by the governor’s office to not challenge Van Houten’s parole.
“I certainly have respect for Governor Newsom and the attorney general,” Sebring’s nephew, Anthony DiMaria, told CNN’s Laura Coates on Tuesday night. “But our families strongly, vehemently, disagree with their decision not to file an appeal.”
DiMaria called Van Houten a “cold-blooded killer in one of the most notorious murder rampages in United States history,” and said her release sets a “dangerous, pernicious precedent.”
Van Houten’s attorney, Nancy Tetreault, told CNN’s John Berman Tuesday night that her client has “gone through courses to confront what she did – to take responsibility for what she did,” along with “40 years of psych evaluation” to gain parole.
Leslie Van Houten: Former Manson family member released from California prison, official says | CNN
