FILE – Leslie Van Houten attends her parole hearing at the California Institution for Women Sept. 6, 2017 in Corona, Calif. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday, July 7, 2023, that he will not fight a state appeals court decision that Van Houten should be let out on parole. (Stan Lim/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten walked out of a California prison Tuesday after serving 53 years of a life sentence for her participation in two infamous murders.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Van Houten “was released to parole supervision.”
Her release comes days after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would not fight a state appeals court ruling that Van Houten should be granted parole.
Van Houten, now in her 70s, received a life sentence for helping Manson’s followers carry out the 1969 killings of Leno LaBianca, a grocer in Los Angeles, and his wife, Rosemary.
She was released from prison in the early morning hours and driven to transitional housing, her attorney Nancy Tetreault said.
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On August 9, 1969, Leslie Van Houten, Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Linda Kasabian, Susan Atkins, Clem Grogan and Charles Manson went to the house of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca. Manson entered the house with Watson, then left with Atkins, Grogan and Kasabian. Krenwinkel, Van Houten, and Watson then murdered the couple
On March 29, 1971, she was convicted of murder along with the other defendants. Van Houten was sentenced to be executed; she was the youngest woman ever condemned to death in California. No death row for female prisoners existed, and a special unit was built. The death sentences were automatically commuted to life in prison after the California Supreme Court’s People v. Anderson decision resulted in the invalidation of all death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972.