Charles Manson Worshiper And Murder, Leslie Van Houten, Just Approved For Parole
By Dreamer
The summer of 1969 is best known as being the summer of love in the middle of the free love years. People were experimenting with drugs and challenging societal norms. While much of it was harmless, Charles Manson was able to use the drug of choice for that generation, LSD or acid, in order to brainwash a group of followers into committing murder for him.
The psychopathic mastermind convinced a number of vicious killers to leave his Spahn Ranch and go throughout California murdering innocents for his cause.
Manson created a death cult, that epitomized the theme of The Beatles’s song “Helter Skelter” and the race war in America terrorized not just California, but the entire country, because it was illogical and made no sense.
Because of his senseless killings, the Manson Family became a dark emblem of those otherwise bright years, and many of his murderers remain in prison to this day. But now, the youngest member of Charles Manson’s killing squad, Leslie Van Houten, who killed a married couple about 50 years ago and wrote messages on the wall in their blood, might be rejoining normal society because she has been approved for parole…
Van Houten heard the best news of her adult life after a five hour hearing when the panel reached the conclusion that Van Houten should be recommended for parole.
Although the double-murderer had been denied for parole 19 times, the panel at the California Institution for Women in Corona on Thursday finally approved parole for the 66-year-old convicted killer.
Van Houten admitted that the decision in her favor of giving her parole made her “numb”.
“I don’t let myself off the hook,” Van Houten told the parole panel, according to the Associated Press. “I don’t find parts in any of this that makes me feel the slightest bit good about myself.”
Unlike the 81-year-old mastermind himself, who is now 81-years old and still considers himself a “prisoner of the political system”, Van Houten has been the perfect inmate.
Richard Pfeiffer, Van Houten’s attorney, said that 18 psychiatrists have evaluated her over the last three decades and found her fit for parole.
“The opposition to parole has always been the name Manson,” Pfeiffer said. “A lot of people who oppose parole don’t know anything about Leslie’s conduct. Her role was bad. Everyone’s was. But they don’t know what she’s done since then and all of the good she’s done.”
Van Houten was 19 when she killed Rosemary and Leno La Bianca, a supermarket executive, in the name of the Manson family.
The 66-year-old inmate told the panel how she held Rosemary down with a pillow while Charles “Tex” Watson, another Manson family member, stabbed her with a knife. Then he passed the knife to Van Houten, who stabbed the victim 14 times. She then used her victims’ blood to smear messages on the walls of their California home.
Van Houten said of Manson: “I thought he was Jesus Christ.”
While in prison, Van Houten has reformed her ways. She has earned college degrees and hosted self-help groups for fellow female inmates.
Do you think this woman deserves parole? Or should she still be in prison?
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