Leslie Van Houten, the Manson Family member who was convicted of the 1969 murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, has been denied parole for the 21st time.
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Leslie Van Houten was 19 when she held down one of her victims, Rosemary La Bianca, while someone else stabbed her. Van Houten later admitted she also took the knife and stabbed the woman after she was dead.
Van Houten was found guilty of the LaBianca murders in 1971 and sentenced to death but that conviction and sentence were overturned on appeal. 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.
Van Houten said she had looked away into the distance until another Manson follower told her to do something and she joined in the stabbing.
Lou Smaldino, nephew of the La Biancas said he was relieved with the outcome.
A state parole board had recommended in April that Van Houten, now 66, be paroled.
Manson became a figurehead of popular culture at the time of the trials and was even featured on the front cover over Rolling Stone magazine.
The murders were the start of what Manson believed was a coming race war that he dubbed “Helter Skelter” after a Beatles song.
Last year, it was revealed that a 26-year-old woman who sought to Wednesday the convicted murderer wanted to do so to claim profits by putting Manson’s corpse on display after he died.
Brown said Houten’s release “currently poses an unreasonable danger to society”. He’ll challenge the decision in Los Angeles Superior Court, which could result in another parole hearing within a year.
Van Houten, who has been incarcerated for 46 years, has “developed greater maturity, independence and responsibility” and has “led a pro-social lifestyle”, Brown noted in his decision. “I don’t find parts in any of this that makes me feel the slightest bit good about myself”, she told the panel. She was not involved in the Tate killings.
Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey and relatives of the victims last month handed in signatures of 140,000 people opposing Van Houten’s release.
That same month, Tate’s sister, Debra, delivered signatures to Brown’s office and has led the opposition against releasing Manson family members.
Charles “Tex” Watson – He, along with Van Houten, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel, murdered the LaBiancas.
In January, the governor rejected a state parole board panel’s August 2015 finding that another former Manson follower, Bruce Davis, was suitable for release.
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