Board Rejects Parole for ‘Manson Family’ Slayer Van Houten

FRONTERA, Calif. —  Former “Manson family” member Leslie Van Houten suffered a crushing setback Thursday when a parole board unanimously rejected her request for freedom for a seventh time and told her not to reapply for another three years.

Van Houten, 37, convicted in the savage 1969 slayings of Rosemary and Leno La Bianca, had been told by state Board of Prison Terms panel Chairman Rudolph Castro at a hearing two years ago that she was “much closer than she might realize” to obtaining a release date.

But after a four-hour hearing Thursday--during which the one-time Monrovia High School homecoming princess was repeatedly complimented for being a model prisoner--Castro emphatically declared: “You would pose an unreasonable risk to the community. . . . The savagery displayed (in the crimes) is unequaled in California history and perhaps the nation.”

The three-member panel’s decision, after an hour of deliberation, thrilled Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Kay, who had asked the panel neither to release her, nor to continue holding annual parole hearings, as it has done for the last three years.

“This is beyond my wildest dreams. I’m ecstatic,” said the prosecutor of the Manson family after Thursday’s decision. “If she gets out by the turn of the century, she’ll be lucky.”

Kay, who said Van Houten was “one of the most notorious murderers in American history,” asked the board to reconsider its yearly hearings, because “we’re talking about the same stuff over and over.”

Van Houten, who had answered the panel’s inquiries in a calm, and sometimes upbeat manner, sat with a glum face as Castro announced the decision.

Kay said she appeared “visibly shaken” shortly afterward when she returned to the office of the state board’s parole representative at the California Institution for Women here, where she works as a clerk.

Thus far, no members of the Manson family directly involved in the random killings of the La Biancas and the Benedict Canyon slayings of actress Sharon Tate and four others has received a release date.

Manson’s Ramblings

Manson himself last had a parole hearing in February, 1986, when he was rejected for a sixth time after he gave a rambling statement in which he disclosed that, if freed, he intended to meet such world leaders as Iran’s Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini and Libya’s Col. Moammar Kadafi.

A significant portion of Thursday’s hearing at the San Bernardino County prison consisted of the panel grilling Van Houten about Manson and his bizarre plans to ignite a race war through the Tate-La Bianca killings, which would eventually lead to his control of the world.

Van Houten said she now believes Manson is “very ill” and that “I suppose there are times I hate him.” Asked if she thinks that Manson should ever be released, Van Houten initially replied that she does not believe she is in a position “to judge him.” But pressed further, she answered, “Personally, I wouldn’t want him out.”

Van Houten added that she blames herself and not Manson for her role in the slayings, since “I’m part of what made him a leader. If he didn’t have followers, he wouldn’t be a leader.”

While conceding that Van Houten has been a model prisoner, Kay forcefully concluded that “society is happy she’s doing well in prison. That’s a good place for her to stay.”

“Leslie Van Houten is unsuitable for parole. How can you parole anyone without a heart?” the prosecutor said.