A follower of US cult leader Charles Manson is entitled to parole, a California court has ruled. A commission of inquiry had previously concluded that 73-year-old Leslie Van Houten no longer poses “an unreasonable threat to public safety” and is remorseful of her crime. That writes the daily newspaper ‘The Los Angeles Times’.
Van Houten has been in prison since 1971 for her involvement in the 1969 murder of actress Sharon Tate and six others.
The Democratic Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, had rejected Van Houten’s early release despite the positive verdict of the investigative committee because of “inconsistencies between her recent statements and the statements she made during the summer 1969 murders,” the paper said. The court has now overturned that rejection. Newsom can again veto her release. It’s unclear if he will.
In the 1960s, Charles Manson gathered a crowd of mostly young female followers known as the ‘Manson Family’. In the summer of 1969, he incited them to raid the home of Tate and her husband, film director Roman Polanski. Polanski was not at home, but the pregnant Tate and four guests were gruesomely murdered. The following evening, the cult members raided another residence, where they killed two people.
Manson, Van Houten and two other young women were sentenced to death in 1971 for the murders. A year later, their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. Charles Manson died in prison in 2017 at the age of 83. He had wanted to start a race war with the murders.
LOOK. For example, actress Sharon Tate was murdered by supporters of Charles Manson
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