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Manson Follower Van Houten Denied Parole Again
The Mercury News Thirty five years after the notorious Tate-LaBianca murders, Leslie Van Houten, the youngest of the women convicted with Charles Manson, was denied parole for a 15th time Wednesday, a spokesman for the Board of Prison Terms said. "She was denied for an additional two years and the board ordered a new psychological evaluation for the next hearing," said spokesman Bill Sessa. Two nephews and a niece of the slain Rosemary and Leno LaBianca presented victim impact statements to the board, he said, and Van Houten, now 54 also spoke. "The board looks at a wide range of criteria including the fact that there were multiple crimes," said Sessa. "There was a rather exhaustive discussion." He said the hearing stretched over about four hours at the California Institution for Women. None of those convicted in the August 1969 slayings in Los Angeles has been released. Last month, the board denied parole for Patricia Krenwinkel, who was convicted along with Manson, Van Houten and Susan Atkins. The board has repeatedly cited the callousness, viciousness and calculation of the seven murders in denying parole for members of the so-called Manson Family. Actress Sharon Tate and four others were killed at her Benedict Canyon estate on Aug. 9, 1969, and the following night, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were stabbed to death at their Los Feliz home. Both crime scenes were marked by bloody scrawlings. Van Houten, then 19, and her co-defendants were sentenced to death, but the sentences were commuted to life when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty in 1972. It has since been reinstated. |
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