Last month, the state of California released Leslie Van Houten after incarcerating her for 52 years. Van Houten was a follower of Charles Manson. She was convicted of two killings in 1969.
“She’s thrilled,” her attorney, Nancy Tetreault said. “She’s an elderly woman, and she’s really quite sweet.”
Van Houten had come before the parole board before, but her eligibility had always been contested by California’s executive. This time, Gov. Newsom did not attempt to block the appeals court ruling that made Van Houten eligible for parole. “The Governor is disappointed by the Court of Appeal’s decision to release Ms. Van Houten but will not pursue further action as efforts to further appeal are unlikely to succeed,” a formal statement from the governor’s office said.
Van Houten had been serving a life sentence for the 1969 killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in Los Angeles. The slayings were part of a string of violent murders perpetrated by Charles Manson and some of his followers.
Manson sought the company of emotionally insecure youth who he could likely manipulate. In 1967, Manson lived in Berkeley with eighteen women, including runaway teens. Thus began the seeds of the now-infamous Manson Family. Manson’s fixation on the idea of an apocalyptic race war became the foundational cult belief for his Family. Soon, Manson prophesied, Black people in America would awaken and kill their white oppressors. But the Black uprising would not harm members of the Family, who, after all, would be needed to lead them. Manson referred to the impending race war as “Helter Skelter,” coincidentally the title of a song from the 1968 double album, The Beatles.
Sometimes history needs a little push. Manson decided Helter Skelter required a little lift to get off the ground. After midnight on August 9, 1969, apparently on Manson’s instructions, Tex Watson and three members of the Family broke into a house in Benedict Canyon and brutally murdered Sharon Tate, who was 8-1/2 months pregnant, Jay Sebring, Wojchiech Frykowski, and Abigail Folger. The details are quite grim. The murderers wrote “pig” in Tate’s blood on the front door.
The next night, Manson, the Tate murderers, Clem Grogan, and Van Houten drove to a house in Los Feliz. The house belonged to the LaBiancas, a married couple in their forties.
Accounts differ as to whether Manson alone or Manson and Watson entered the home and bound the LaBiancas.
Watson alleges Manson scouted the property alone and returned to take him up to the house with him. Manson pointed out a sleeping man through a window, and the two entered through the unlocked back door. Manson roused the sleeping Mr. LaBianca from the couch at gunpoint and had Watson bind his hands with a leather thong. Mrs. LaBianca was brought into the living room from the bedroom, and Watson covered their heads with pillowcases looped with lamp cords. Mrs. LaBianca was returned to the bedroom, bound.
According to Van Houten, Manson came to her in the car parked outside. He directed Van Houten to enter the home and to follow Watson’s instructions. Watson sent her and the other Family members from the kitchen to the bedroom, where Rosemary LaBianca had been returned. Watson then went to the living room and stabbed Mr. LaBianca in the throat with a chrome-plated bayonet.
In the bedroom, Mrs. LaBianca was swinging a lamp to keep the other Family members at bay.
Van Houten admitted to stabbing Mrs. LaBianca approximately sixteen times in the back. Van Houten stated Mrs. LaBianca was already dead when she stabbed her. Evidence established many of the forty-one stab wounds had been inflicted post-mortem.
Someone wrote “Rise” and “Death to pigs” on the walls and “Healter [sic] Skelter” on the refrigerator door, all in Mrs. LaBianca’s blood. The bodies of both Mr. and Mrs. LaBianca were mutilated further.
After much publicity, investigation, and apprehension, the prosecution rested on November 16, 1970. The defense presented nothing other than standard dismissal motions. Van Houten and other Family members shouted their disapproval. They demanded their right to testify in their own defense. To some, it appeared obvious Manson had manipulated the other defendants to testify they had committed the crimes alone and that Manson himself had not actually been on the scene.
On January 25, 1971, the jury returned guilty verdicts. On March 29, 1971, the jury returned verdicts of death against all defendants. On April 19, 1971, the trial court sentenced Van Houten to death but that ruling was overturned.
Now, Van Houten is free.
