Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten released from prison after 53 years

A former Charles Manson follower who helped carry out the shocking killings of a wealthy Los Angeles couple in 1969 has been released from a California prison after serving more than 50 years of a life sentence.

Leslie Van Houten, now 73, “was released to parole supervision,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement.

Van Houten was sentenced to death in 1971 for helping Manson’s group carry out the killings of Leno LaBianca, a grocer, 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.

The couple were killed in their home, and their blood was smeared on the walls. Van Houten later described holding Mrs 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 her repeatedly.

The murders happened the day after Manson followers killed actress Sharon Tate and four others, which Van Houten did not participate in.

She is the first Manson follower who took part in the cult’s killings to walk free.

After being released on Tuesday Van Houten was taken 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.

“She has to learn to use to use the internet. She has to learn to buy things without cash,” Tetreault said. “It’s a very different world than when she went in.”

At a parole hearing in 2016, Van Houten said the murders were the start of what Manson believed was a coming race war he called “Helter Skelter,” after the Beatles song. He had his followers prepare to fight and learn to can food so they could go underground and live in a hole in the desert, she added.

Van Houten was found suitable for parole after a July 2020 hearing, but her release was blocked by Governor Gavin Newsom, who said she was still a threat to society.

She filed an appeal with a trial court, which rejected it, and then turned to the appellate courts. The Second District Court of Appeal in May reversed Newsom’s rejection of her parole in a 2-1 ruling, writing that there was “no evidence to support the Governor’s conclusions” about Van Houten’s fitness for release.

“Van Houten has shown extraordinary rehabilitative efforts, insight, remorse, realistic parole plans, support from family and friends, favorable institutional reports, and, at the time of the Governor’s decision, had received four successive grants of parole,” the judges said. They also noted her “many years” of therapy and substance abuse counseling.

Newsom was disappointed by the appeals court decision, his office said.

“More than 50 years after the Manson cult committed these brutal killings, the victims’ families still feel the impact,” the governor’s office said in a statement on 7 July.

Cory LaBianca, Leno LaBianca’s daughter, said last week that her family was heartbroken by the possibility of her release.

Anthony DiMaria, whose uncle Jay Sebring was killed along with Tate, said her release was devastating to all the victims’ families, who “collectively suffer the pain and loss” caused by the Manson cult.

Charles Manson died in prison in 2017 of natural causes at age 83 after nearly half a century behind bars. Watson and fellow Manson follower Patricia Krenwinkel have each been denied parole multiple times. Another follower, Susan Atkins, died in prison in 2009.