Leslie Van Houten, follower of cult leader Charles Manson, released from California prison
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten walked out of a California prison Tuesday after serving more than 50 years of a life sentence for her participation in two infamous murders.
Van Houten “was released to parole supervision,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement.
She left the California Institution for Women in Corona, east of Los Angeles, in the early morning hours and was driven to transitional housing, her attorney Nancy Tetreault said.
“She’s still trying to get used to the idea that this real,” Tetreault told The Associated Press.
Days earlier Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would not fight a state appeals court ruling that Van Houten should be granted parole. He said it was unlikely the state Supreme Court would consider an appeal.
Van Houten, now in her 70s, was originally sentenced to death for helping Manson’s followers carry out the August 1969 killings of Leno LaBianca, a grocer in Los Angeles, and his wife, Rosemary. Her sentence was later commuted to life in prison when the California Supreme Court overturned the state’s death penalty law in 1972. Voters and state lawmakers eventually reinstated the death penalty, but it did not apply retroactively.
The LaBiancas were killed in their home, and their blood was smeared on the walls afterward. Van Houten later described holding Rosemary LaBianca down with a pillowcase over her head as others stabbed her. Then, ordered by Manson follower Charles “Tex” Watson to “do something,” Van Houten said, she picked up a knife and stabbed the woman more than a dozen times.
The slayings happened the day after Manson followers killed actress Sharon Tate and four others. Van Houten, who was 19 at the time, did not participate in the Tate killings.
Van Houten is expected to spend about a year at a halfway house, adjusting to a world changed immeasurably by technology in the past half-century.
Content retrieved from: https://news.yahoo.com/leslie-van-houten-follower-cult-195406899.html.
