Charles Manson Follower Leslie Van Houten Released From Prison After 53 Years
 

Charles Manson: Serial Killer and Hippie Cult Leader 'Hospitalised' in California

Mass murderer, 83, taken to Bakersfield infirmary


Independent UK, 16 Nov 2017


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Murderer Charles Manson in 1970 Getty Images


Charles Manson, the cult leader who sent followers known as the “Manson Family” out to commit gruesome murders, shattering the peace-and-love ethos of the 1960s hippie era in California, has been hospitalised, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Manson, 83, was in a Bakersfield, California hospital and his condition was unclear, The Los Angeles Times reported, citing Kern County Sheriff's lieutenant Bill Smallwood.

A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation declined to comment to the Los Angeles Times. She cited privacy laws that preclude the agency “from commenting on protected health information for any inmate in our custody,” the newspaper reported.

State and local officials were not immediately available for comment to Reuters.

Manson, who was serving a life term for orchestrating one of the most notorious crimes in US history, had been imprisoned for more than 45 years at California State Prison, Corcoran.

In the 1960s, Manson, an ex-convict, assembled a group of runaways and outcasts known as the “Manson Family.” In the summer of 1969, he directed his mostly young, female followers to murder seven people in what prosecutors said was part of a plan to incite a race war.

Among the victims was actress Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of filmmaker Roman Polanski. She was stabbed 16 times by cult members.

Manson was rushed to Mercy Hospital in Bakersfield in January for what authorities described only as a serious medical problem, The Los Angeles Times reported.

re: Charles Manson Follower Leslie Van Houten Released From Prison After 53 Years
 

Manson Follower Leslie Van Houten Released From Prison After 53 Years

Van Houten's lawyer, Nancy Tetreault, told the Associated Press that she left a women's prison in California early on Tuesday morning.

BBC NEWS 12 JUL 2023


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Leslie Van Houten, a former follower of notorious cult leader Charles Manson, has been released on parole after serving more than five decades of a life sentence for two brutal murders.

Van Houten, 73, was a 19-year old member of the "Manson family" when she took part in the murder of a Los Angeles grocer and his wife in 1969.

Five previous bids for her parole were blocked by California's governors. That decision was later reversed by a state appeals court.


A former homecoming queen, Van Houten was the youngest Manson follower to be convicted of murder for her role in the death of a California grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary.

During the killings - which took place just days after the murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others - Van Houten held down Rosemary LaBianca while someone else stabbed her. She later also admitted that she stabbed the woman after she was dead.

She is now likely to be on parole for three years and hopes to get a job soon, Ms Tetreault added.

Charles Manson, considered one of America's most notorious cult leaders, directed his followers to commit nine murders and hoped the killings would start a race war, called "Helter Skelter" after a famous song by the Beatles.

He died in prison in 2017.

Following her life sentence, Van Houten earned both a bachelors and masters degree while in prison, where she also worked as a tutor for other inmates.

After being denied parole dozens of times during her incarceration, Van Houten was finally recommended for parole in 2016. But the recommendations were rejected by California Governor Gavin Newsom and his predecessor, Jerry Brown.

The last time she was blocked from parole, in 2020, was ultimately overruled by a California appeals court.

On 8 July, however, Mr Newsom said that he would not block her parole this time, paving the way for her release on Tuesday.

In a statement last week, the governor said he remained disappointed at her release, which he said was unlikely to be heard by California's Supreme Court if the legal battle continued.

"More than 50 years after the Manson cult committed these brutal killings, the victims' families still feel the impact," the statement said.


Now out of prison, Van Houten is expected to spend about a year at a halfway house, where her lawyer said she would need to learn to navigate a reality much different to when she first was put behind bars.

"She has to learn to use the internet. She has to learn to buy things without cash," Ms Tetreault told the AP. "It's a very different world than when she went in."

In repeated parole hearings, Van Houten expressed regret for her role in the killings and involvement with Manson, later acknowledging that she had let him overpower her "individual thinking".

"I bought into it lock, stock and barrel," she said of his beliefs in a 2002 parole hearing. "I took it at face value".